Chapter I: Mirage

_“I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
‘It is futile,’ I said,
‘You can never--’
‘You lie,’ he cried,
And ran on.”_

STEPHEN CRANE--_“The Black Riders”_

1

A low gray-green fog had crept over New York: the houses stood like boulders in a stream. Two dim figures fled from the street, ran through a hall and up the stairs.

“Good evening, Mr. Drane, good evening, Mrs. Drane.” The fat and kind Polish janitress, with her dark, naïve eyes, smiled as she stood aside for them.

“Good evening,” Emily and Lester called back almost in a breath.

They unlocked a door and entered. Ghost-pieces of furniture with shadows perched on them, waves of city noise growling sullenly outside. Emily lighted candles. To keep out the dark.... They smiled at each other. Emily slender, green-gray eyes, chestnut hair, Celtic and quick: Lester heavy, nearly swarthy, with blue eyes, deliberate and almost noble in gesture. They removed their wraps, raced to a couch and lighted cigarettes. Silence. Emily gazed dreamily through the smoke.

“Les!”

Lester answered affectionately.

“Yes, Em.”

“Isn’t it fun living with you! What were you like when you were a little boy?”

“Oh, moony.” He did not like to talk about himself. Emily did.

She smiled seriously.

“I’ll bet you were! Aren’t things funny, Les? When I was a little girl I used to think and think. People tried to keep things from me. I wrote something bad on my slate at school once, and the teacher sent me home. I tried to be in love when I was thirteen. Then soon I wanted so badly to be popular that I was positively ill from anxiety after every dance. And afterward, suffrage work: would you believe it of me now? It was my religion for two years. You know the family all laughed at my painting. I never should have been able to shake off things. But I’m actually--oh, Les, you’ve been so good to me--” There was a catch in her voice. She snuggled close to him and held him tight.

Lester kissed her hair but did not speak. His heart was tender toward her. She’s my child ... hurt....

The fog crouched outside. The city was an enemy. Les is warmth, life. She laid her cheek to his.

“Les, do you love me?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

They sat in the silence. She felt warm and safe with him.

Strength. He knew himself. I may be a visionary, but I’m strong. Moonstruck! Dim and cool forest ... spinning moon with her brood of frightened stars ... hearts leap into the meshes of moonlight....

Emily spoke.

“Let’s go to bed, Les.”

2

A clear cool evening.

Emily Tyler and Lester Drane walked vigorously down the street. They were going to dinner with friends.

“Did they say Manzinetti’s, Les?” Emily smiled at Lester. Her eyes were very steady, except when she smiled--then they smiled too.

“Um-huh.” Lester paused to light a cigarette, shading the flaming match with his hands.

The pink glow through his small fingers was pretty, Emily thought. She put her arm through his.

“Are you tired tonight?”

“Not very.” Lester was not much taller than Emily, but his head was strongly set on his body and almost massive. “Like a bishop’s,” she had once said. He did not like being asked if he were tired. He was twenty years older than Emily.

Greenwich Avenue, Eighth Street, down MacDougal, past the Square, Bleecker Street, Little Italy, shops, holes, venders’ carts, stalls, queer lights, foreign sounds--

“Do we turn to the right or left here?”

Lester laughed.

“Here we are,” he said after a moment, squeezing her arm and then releasing it.

Emily preceded him into the dingy little Italian restaurant. At a long table, dim with light, half a dozen of their friends were waiting. Emily’s vivid face brightened at their noisy welcome. Her teeth flashed. Lester smiled slowly.

“Hello, Em! Hello, Les! Em’s going to sit between me and Toby--No, Em’s got to sit by me tonight--Les, you can sit between Jen and Blanche--I’ll sit here--Now that’s not fair, Stuart. Em sat by you last time--How are you kids, anyhow?--Where’s Michael?--Well, children, what shall we eat?” Lester beckoned to a favorite waiter and the group began to consult earnestly. _“Antipasti--minestrone--spaghetti--maiale con peperoni--spumoni--”_

“Let’s have some red ink,” suggested Stuart Perinchief, rapping gravely on the table for attention. He was always shabbily dressed, an air of dryness and fatigue about him.

“All right! Good! Let’s! Yours is a great mind, Stuart!”

Lester whispered to the swarthy handsome young waiter who had a sweet smile and angrily brilliant eyes.

_“Si, signor.”_ Large teacups were quickly placed before the diners and three bottles skillfully whisked under Lester’s chair.

Conversation. Lester and Emily in coming to New York had innocently looked forward to finding individuals who would comprehend and sympathize with their aspirations. Thinking of themselves as misunderstood, wounded and disheartened in a callous provincial atmosphere, they had both unconsciously made the meeting of “fellow artists” a last symbol. They had been naïvely religious in this faith. To know people who can share and inspire instead of hinder and destroy! Lester smiled now as he thought of it. A few months among the jealousies, anemia and nerves of various hostile coteries had driven him and Emily to gather about them a small circle of their own. Not great, perhaps, but here at least is a little kindness, he thought. Tonight in the obscure restaurant, warmed and confident for the moment, all were talking at once, not brilliantly or profoundly, but harmlessly. Affectionate smiles were turned to Emily. Lester felt gentle toward these people. At last food came and the meal began.

“There’s Michael!” cried Emily, waving her fork at a tall youth with the head of a poet. “Aren’t you ’shamed of yourself?”

Michael Kennedy hurried toward them. He sank into a chair beside Lester.

“Awfully sorry to be late.”

Genevieve Strang shook her enormous pendent earrings at him from across the table.

“You always are, Michael,” she said in a rich low-pitched voice, almost too perfectly modulated, her enunciation theatrically distinct. Genevieve’s manner was well-bred to the point of discomfort.

Michael blushed and laughed self-consciously as he saluted the others. His greeting to Mark Leighter, who sat nearly opposite him, beside Genevieve, was especially warm. Leighter had the cadaverous exterior of a romantic backwoodsman. He answered Michael cordially. They were both in love with the same girl, and were being very noble.

On the other side of Lester was Blanche Dixon, a plump little person whose bobbed hair spread out fan-like as she whirled toward him and whispered in his ear, giggling as she talked. Her conversation was rambling and ceaseless, but Lester smiled.

Em, at the head of the table, opposite Perinchief, was between Toby Adams and Tit Miller. Small head held high, heavy hair; her face was a pure oval, almost perfect in profile. Translucent brown eyes with greenish lights, turning with sudden fearlessness from one person to another. There was a delicate distinction to her body. She could sit harmoniously on a chair. Toby leaned near her, seemed to glue his eyes to her face, and whispered.

“You _dear_ thing!”

She smiled frankly and kindly.

“What’s the matter with me? Is my hat on crooked?”

“I’m tasting you with my eyes,” he responded soulfully. He had a trick of looking at women that was cultivated and at the same time unconscious--a narrowing of his lids and a relaxing of the focus of vision in a moist gaze of admiration. Em was used to him.

“Now, Toby, don’t get messy,” said Genevieve, in a very British-upper-middle-class manner. Her huge earrings were an incongruous yet somehow attractive accompaniment to her small broad face. Everything in Genevieve’s appearance pretended to languor and sophistication. In this agglomeration of characteristics there was nothing to explain the steady almost naïve sincerity of her long-lashed dark blue eyes.

Em gave Adams’ arm a sisterly pat.

“Yes, keep your technique for some new girl, Toby dear.”

Tit Miller, on Em’s other side, was a dancer whose constant affectation of esthetic attitudes had given him almost grotesquely feminine motions. He invited her attention with a circular gesture of his slim hand.

“And did you hear, Em, that when I danced unannounced last week at the Settlement a girl came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘Are you the great Fokine?’”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Stuart Perinchief with sudden violence from the foot of the table. “What happened then? Were you wearing anything but your--?”

“Stuart! Aren’t you dreadful!” exclaimed Blanche at his side.

“What did I say that was dreadful?” he demanded truculently.

“She knew what you might say and headed you off in time,” laughed Leighter. He was never malicious in his remarks, as he was jealous of his own sensitiveness and capacity to be hurt.

“Stuart makes me _so_ angry!” said Tit mincingly to Em and Toby.

The large teacups had been filled and emptied several times, and the pile of bottles under Lester’s chair had grown. Michael began to hum a song. The words were not yet discernible, but all except Em and Perinchief looked worried. The tune Michael was humming was known to his friends--and also the words.

“Go on, Michael!” Stuart spoke solemnly, like a squire in his cups.

“Now, Stuart,” protested Genevieve.

Blanche giggled hysterically.

“Let Michael sing, Jen,” said Emily, her eyes sparkling wickedly.

Genevieve was firm.

“Why, Em, you _know_ what he will--”

The conversation again became vague to Lester. He and Emily had many acquaintances, but these were their friends. He was still studying them. The hurly-burly of New York, its shadowy, grotesque, turgid, “artistic” atmosphere, had placed upon him and Em necessity for human contact. These chums had floated to them, clung to them. Blind in their search for release? Waifs from the Middle West and South huddling together in a city and drinking prohibition wine from teacups to get laughter. Old virtues with new morals, he thought. Difference in manners ... very human and pathetic ... they adore Em....

Les looked up. A tall hawk-faced young man, who had been eating alone at a table beyond, was passing on his way out. He smiled at Mark Leighter, who half rose and extended his hand.

“I want you to meet my friends,” said Mark in a persuasive tone. “Miss Tyler, this is Howard Story--the etcher.”

Em’s constant gaze wavered a little as she glanced up into Story’s thin keen face. The other introductions were made, and with an easy gesture he drew a chair from another table and seated himself between Tit and Em. There was a soft color in her cheeks. She now met Howard’s greenish-brown eyes with her usual steadfast look. At the advent of a stranger a slight constraint fell upon the intimate circle.

“Hooray!” shouted Michael incontinently.

Howard Story turned to him composedly.

“We’re tryin’ to abandon ourselves to the little we are,” hiccoughed Stuart.

Howard smiled. Em noticed his hard chiseled mouth. She admitted no faults in her friends. Her head was held a trifle higher.

“Don’t mind us, Mr. Story,” explained Genevieve haughtily. “We’re only a little--_you_ know.”

Howard glanced at Em’s defiant head. He noted the brassy highlights in her autumn-leaf brown hair, the delicacy of her face, the sureness of her manner. He thought with irritation of what he had seen and heard of her pictures. Her exceedingly feminine appearance disconcerted him and stimulated his curiosity. He glided skillfully into the spirit of the moment.

“Couldn’t we have some more wine?” he suggested pleasantly, beckoning to the waiter as he spoke.

3

The laughter and chatter went round the table once more. Stuart and Michael devoted themselves especially to the additional wine, and thenceforth beamed on Howard as an initiate.

“What do your friends do?” asked Howard genially. He addressed Mark Leighter, but Tit replied.

“Why, Emily and Mr. Leighter--”

“Of course I know Miss Tyler’s work, and Mark’s stuff.”

“Well, you see.” Tit made an eurythmic gesture. “Mr. Perinchief writes under a pseudonym, Amos Boyd--”

“Oh, yes,” said Howard, concealing his boredom.

“And Toby is a research chemist, in his spare moments. Miss Strang writes and draws and--things. And Michael does poems and reviews, and Blanche--well, she’s a nice child. Of course I--”

“What are you, Mr. Drane?”

“Bank clerk,” said Lester. His clean-shaven cheeks and chin, with blue shadows, and his deep-set eyes seemed part of his quietness. He felt injured for his friends, in having them cruelly sorted out by what they had done. This man Story is a Greenwich Village esthete. Recognizes only people to fear ... worse than the bourgeois crowd....

Howard turned to Em. There was subtle respect in his voice and mien.

“Miss Tyler, it’s a real pleasure and--”

Blanche, at Lester’s side, giggled, and he lost the rest of the words. He did see the interest in Em’s eyes. Howard had experienced intense artistic gratification in Em’s appearance; now he felt a thrill of satisfaction at the sound of her light-timbred vibrant contralto voice. He exerted himself to be his best.

Genevieve whispered to Mark.

“Your friend Mr. Story exudes charm all over the place.”

The conversation gradually dwindled to a duet between Howard and Em, and finally to a monologue by Howard. Les caught only some of the phrases.

“Cezanne--the human stereoscope--abolished sculpture--impressionists--prism convicts--Gauguin was the Pierre Loti of painters--emotional wall-paper--Degas--forerunner of posters--the ancestor of C. D. Gibson--”

Em laughed gleefully. There was admiration in her eyes. Howard knew he was being brilliant.

“El Greco--the Delsarte skeleton man--Matisse first saw the beauty of fetuses--vers librist of painting--baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa--” Les could not distinguish the words.

“What was that, Howard?” In Mark’s tone was a proprietary elation over the effect his friend was producing.

“I was saying that these damned futurists are painters of orations.”

Em’s usually mournful eyes were shining, her lips parted. Howard stole a quick glance at her and hurried on.

“Synchromists--daubers with the heart-burn--Kandinsky, menstruates in paint--neo-futurism is only--” The monologue across the table became indistinct to Les again.

There were signs of restiveness. Stuart and Michael were nodding drowsily. Les looked over to Genevieve. Loyal jealousy was written on her face. He tried to be detached. Howard Story was the type of Bohemian artist he detested. False art ... no human values ... surfaces ... intellectual snobbishness.... Les would not acknowledge a male apprehensiveness.

Em sensed the pitch of the scene and, glancing hastily at Les, rose to go. Howard sprang to assist her with her coat. A spot of color was in each cheek and his sharp aquiline face was almost attractive. The others rose, assumed their wraps, and the party filed out. Howard walked with Les, Em and Genevieve together. The rest followed, Stuart and Michael, with locked arms and uncertain step, bringing up the rear.

4

As the procession reached the corner Howard asked:

“Which way are you people going? How about walking through the Square?” He slightly straightened his long stooping body and looked at Em as he spoke. He had observed the beautiful manner of her walk and carriage.

“I suppose we’re going to our respective homes,” replied Genevieve icily. She glanced furtively at Stuart. She was going to stay by Em. Her tone was hostile for Les’s sake.

“I’m going this way,” said Blanche volubly. “You know, Les, John said to me, ‘If you’ll come down tonight,’ and I said, ‘What! down to your rooms--’” She rattled on serenely while the others consulted.

Toby looked at Em miserably.

“I have a date. I must hurry off.” He pointed in the direction Blanche had indicated. He was in the clutches of a new love affair.

“Serves you right!” whispered Em viciously. There was irrelevant elation in her voice.

Howard stood smiling.

“I’m going to take Stuart and Michael home and put them to bed,” announced Mark benevolently.

Genevieve glanced gratefully at him. Now she felt free.

“I should love to take a stroll.” Tit Miller made a graceful gesture with his arm as he spoke.

Howard glanced at him coldly.

Eagerness sat on Em. Les and Genevieve agreed politely, and the quintet moved down the street. The two girls fell behind again and the three men walked together. Les was combatively silent.

“I feel like dancing up Fifth Avenue!” announced Tit. His thick glasses gave him almost an appearance of blindness, but his tall girlish body was a nearly perfect object.

Howard turned ostentatiously to Les. Behind them Emily and Genevieve, arms about each other’s waists, were talking earnestly.

“Stuart is so discouraged,” said Genevieve. “His literary broker is always wanting him to cut out the good parts and tack happy endings to his stories.” She was cunningly trying to bring Em back to relations that were permanent.

Em was loyal interest at once.

“What Stuart should do is to write the things he wants to,” she declared decidedly.

“Bread and butter.” Genevieve sighed and her piquant little face looked older. “I wish I could--I’m glad he can get drunk occasionally, anyway.”

Em hugged her friend impulsively. Genevieve was the only woman she really trusted. Genevieve sighed with mingled hope and indecision. She was anxious about Stuart, too, but Em’s affection was assuring.

“Stuart’s a dear, Jen. And Les is sweet, and I wish I could--We both wish--don’t we?”

Faithful Genevieve was content. She could leave.

“I must go back,” she whispered.

“Please don’t, Jen.”

“I’ll see you soon. Hug Les for me.” Genevieve kissed Em and slipped away in the darkness.

Em hurried forward.

“Where’s Jen?” asked Les.

“She had to go,” said Em soberly.

Without comment Howard stepped back beside her while Les and Tit walked on before them, Tit talking vivaciously. When Howard left them he shook hands with Les and Em.

“It’s been an event to have met you,” he said, ignoring Tit. “I’m going to be guilty of a party Thursday night, at Algeria Westover’s studio. She’s in Europe, but her rooms are bigger than mine. I’d love to have you both come. You know the place, same building Mark lives in, next floor above.”

Genevieve had done all she dared. The impression she had striven for still lived. But Em existed by moments. Howard was waiting solicitously. She met his greenish-brown eyes happily.

“Thank you.”

Howard smiled again.

“Good-night.” He started away.

“I’m going your way. I’ll walk along,” called Tit, following him.

5

Em and Les went slowly toward home.

“I wish the boys wouldn’t drink so much,” she mused aloud. “But he’s interesting, isn’t he?”

“Who? Tit?” asked Les.

Em smiled.

“I’ve seen his etchings at the Contemporary Society’s.”

Les did not answer. I wonder....

“New York seems empty without Carl,” he said after a pause. Carl had been his one intimate.

“Our friends are a relief, aren’t they? Don’t you think they’re sweet nuts?” Em’s voice was affectionate. “Don’t you love ’em, Les?”

“At least they don’t spout shop every minute.”

“Well, they’re ours, anyway.” Emily hummed a little tune as she walked brightly at his side, her hand holding his tightly, within his overcoat pocket. “Mark’s friend is much more like us than like most of the crazy freaks we’ve run into.”

Les released her hand and fumbled for his keys.

“You seem impressed.” Nothing innate ... how can she ... feeling through others ... an instrument....

Em followed him upstairs. He struck a match. Suddenly she blew it out and threw her arms about his neck.

“Oh, Les, Les, let’s never allow anything to come between us!”

He felt her tears on his cheek in the darkness. He was afraid. She is seeking. No joy ... love is not enough ... forever alone ... wind on my face like a loved hand ... darkened sea ... the stars far off....