Chapter VIII: Part 8

The unfortunate part of it seemed to be that, like his father's, his was a single-track heart. He'd never been in love, unless this was love. Anyway, Stephanie occupied the single track, and there seemed to be no switches, no sidings, nothing to clear that track.

He was exceedingly miserable at times.

However, his mind was equipped with a whole terminal full of tracks and every one was busy in the service of his profession.

For a month, now, he had been installed in his studio-apartment on the top floor. He picked up on Fourth and on Madison Avenues enough preciously rickety furniture to make him comfortable and drive friends to distraction when they ventured to trust themselves to chair or sofa.

But his writing table and corner-chair were solid and modern, and he had half a dozen things under construction--a novel, some short stories, some poems which he modestly mentioned as verses.

Except for the unexplored mazes in which first love had involved him he was happy--exceedingly happy. But, to a creative mind, happiness born of self-expression is a weird, uncanny, composite emotion, made up of ecstatic hope and dolorous despair and well peppered with dread and confidence, cowardice and courage, rage and tranquillity; and further seasoned with every devilish doubt and celestial satisfaction that the heart of a writer is heir to.

In the morning he was certain of himself. He was the captain of his destiny; he was the dictator of his inspiration, equipped with the technical mastery that his obedient thoughts dare not disobey.

By afternoon the demon Doubt had shaken his self-confidence, and Fear peered at him between every line of his manuscript, and it was a case of Childe Roland from that time on until the pencil fell from his unnerved fingers and he rose from his work satiated, half-stunned, not knowing whether he had done well or meanly. Vaguely he realized at such moments that, for such as he, a just appraisal of his own work would never be possible for him--that he himself would never know; and that what men said of it--if, indeed, they ever said anything about his work--would never wholly convince him, never entirely enlighten him as to its value or its worthlessness.

That is one of the penalties imposed upon the creative mind. It goes on producing because it must. Praise stimulates it, blame depresses; but it never knows the truth.

Toward the end of May, one afternoon, Stephanie came into his studio, seated herself calmly in his chair, and picked up his manuscript.

"It's no good," he said, throwing himself on an antique sofa which just endured the strain and no more.

She read for an hour, her grey eyes never leaving the written pages, her pretty brows bent inward with the strain of concentration.

He watched her, chin on hand, lying there on the sofa.

But the air was mild and languorous with the promise of the coming summer; sunshine fell across the wall; the boy dozed, presently, and after a while lay fast asleep.

She had been gone for some time when he awoke. As he sat up, blinking through the late afternoon sunshine, a pencilled sheet of yellow manuscript paper fluttered from his breast to the floor.

Jim, it is fine! I mean it! It is a splendid, virile, honest piece of work. And it is intensely interesting. I'm quite mad about it--quite thrilled that you can do such things. It's so masterly, so mature--and I don't know where you got your knowledge of that woman, because she is perfectly feminine and women think and do such things, and her motives are the motives that animate that sort of woman.

As you lie there asleep you look about eighteen--not much older than when I used to see you when you came home from school and lay on your sofa and read Kipling aloud to me. _Then_ I was awed; you were a grown man to me. _Now_ you are just a boy again, and I love you dearly, and I'm going to kiss your hair, very cautiously, before I go downstairs.

I've done it. I'm going now.

STEVE.

*CHAPTER XXII*

It happened one day late in May that Cleland, desiring local accuracy of detail in a chapter of his brand new novel, put on his hat and walked to Washington Square and across it, south, into the slums.

New leaves graced the trees in the park; spring flowers bloomed around the fountain, and the grass was rankly fragrant where it had just been mowed.

But he left the spring freshness behind him when he entered that sad, dingy, swarming region to the south, where the only clean creature seemed to be the occasional policeman in his new summer tunic, sauntering aloof amid the noise and wretchedness and the foul odours made fouler by the sunshine.

Cleland presently found the squalid street which he wished to describe in convincing detail, and stood there on the corner in the shelter of a tobacconist's awning making preliminary mental notes. Then, as he fished out note-book and pencil, intent on professional memoranda, he saw Grismer.

The man wore shabbier clothes than Cleland had ever before seen him wear; he was crossing the filthy street at his usual graceful and leisurely saunter, and he did not see Cleland under the awning.

There was a chop-suey restaurant opposite, a shabby, disreputable, odoriferous place, doubly repulsive in the pitiless sunshine. And into this sauntered Grismer and disappeared.

The slight shock of the episode remained to bother Cleland all the morning. He kept thinking of it while trying to work; he could not seem to put it from his mind and finally threw aside his manuscript, took his hat and stick, and went out with the intention of lunching.

It was nearly lunch time, but he did not walk toward the cream-coloured Hotel Rochambeau, with its green awnings and its French flag flying. He took the other way, scarcely realizing what he meant to do until he turned the corner into Bleecker Street.

He found the basement he was in search of presently; two steps down, an area gate and bell encrusted with rust, and a diseased and homeless cat dozing there in patient misery.

"You poor devil," he said, offering a cautious caress; but the gaunt creature struck at him and fled.

He rang. Jangling echoes resounded from within. Two negro wenches and a Chinaman surveyed him from adjoining houses. He could smell a sour stench from the beer saloon opposite, where a fat German beast was washing down the sidewalk with a mop.

"Hello, Cleland. This is very nice of you. Come in!" said a pleasant voice behind him, and, as he turned, Grismer, in shabby slippers and faded dressing-gown, opened the iron wicket.

"I hadn't called," said Cleland a little stiffly, "--so I thought I'd drop in for a moment and take you out somewhere to lunch."

Grismer smiled his curious, non-committal smile and ushered him into a big, whitewashed basement, with a screen barring the further end and quite bare except for a few bits of furniture, some plaster casts, and half a dozen revolving tables on which stood unfinished studies in clay and wax.

Cleland involuntarily glanced about him, then went over and politely examined the studies in clay.

"I've a back yard, too," said Grismer, "where I work in good weather. The light in here isn't particularly good."

For the wretchedness of his quarters he made no further apology; he spoke in his easy, amiable way and entirely without embarrassment, standing beside Cleland and moving with him from one study to another.

"They're just as clever as they can be," said Cleland, "--infernally clever, Grismer. Are they commissions?"

"I'm sorry to say they are not," replied Grismer with a smile.

"But a man who can do this work ought never to want for commissions," insisted Cleland.

"I'm exceedingly glad you like my work," returned Grismer pleasantly, "but as for orders----" he shrugged--"when I didn't need them they came to me. But, Cleland, when the world learns that a man needs anything it suddenly discovers that it doesn't need him! Isn't it funny," he added good-humouredly, "that prosperous talent is always in demand, always turning down work which it has no time to do; but the same talent on its uppers is universally under deep suspicion?"

He spoke lightly, impersonally, and without the slightest trace of bitterness. "Sit down and light one of your own cigarettes," he said. "I've only pipe-tobacco, and you probably wouldn't care for it."

Cleland seated himself in the depths of a big, threadbare arm-chair.

Grismer said with a smile:

"No use informing you that I'm obliged to live economically. Models are expensive; so is material. Therefore, I live where I can afford both, and a roof to cover them.... And do you know, Cleland, that after all it doesn't matter much where one sleeps----" he made a slight gesture toward the screen at the end of the room. "I used to think it did until I had to give up a place of my own full of expensive and beautiful things.

"But it really doesn't matter. The main idea is to be free--free of debt, free of expensive impedimenta which cause one anxiety, free from the importunities and restrictions of one's friends." He laughed and dropped one long leg over the other.

"I've niggers and Chinamen for neighbours. They cause me no inconvenience. It's rather agreeable than otherwise to sit here and work, or lounge about and smoke, wondering whether a commission is already on its way or whether it has not yet even taken shape in the brain of some person unknown who is destined by fate some day to exchange his money for my bronze or marble.... It's an amusing game, Cleland, isn't it?--the whole affair of living, I mean.... Not too unpleasant, not too agreeable.... But if one's heart-action were not involuntary and automatic, do you know, if it lay with me I'd not bother to keep my heart ticking--I'd be too lazy to wind it up."

He stretched himself out in his chair gracefully, good-humoured, serenely amused at his own ideas.

"Did you have a good time abroad?" he inquired.

"Yes.... When you get on your feet you ought to go to Paris, Grismer."

"Yes, I know." He looked humorously at his well-shaped feet stretched out before him in shabby slippers. "Yes; it's up to my feet, Cleland. But they're a wandering, indifferent couple, inclined to indolence, I fear.... Is your work getting on?"

"I'm busy.... Yes, I think it's taking shape."

He looked up at Grismer hesitatingly, frankly troubled. "Grismer, we were school-mates.... I wouldn't wish you to think me impertinent----"

"Go ahead, Cleland."

"Are you quite sure?"

"I'm sure of _you_," returned Grismer, with a singular smile. "I know you pretty well, Cleland. I knew you in school, in college.... We fought in school. You were civil to me at Harvard." He laughed. "I've always liked you, Cleland--which is more than you can say about me."

Cleland reddened, and Grismer laughed again, lightly and without effort:

"It's that way sometimes. I think that you are about the only man I have ever really liked. You didn't know that, did you?"

"No."

"Well, don't let it worry you," added Grismer, smiling. "Go on and say what you were about to say."

"It was--I was merely wondering--whether you'd take it all right if----" He began again from another angle: "I've a country place--up in the Berkshires--my father's old place. And I thought that a fountain--if you'd care to design one----"

Grismer had been watching him with that indefinable smile in his golden eyes, which perplexed men and interested women, but now he rose suddenly and walked to the barred windows and stood there with his back turned, gazing out into the area. After an interval he pivoted on his heels, sauntered back and seated himself, relighting his pipe.

"All right," he said very quietly. "I'll do your fountain."

Cleland drew a breath of relief. "If you like," he said, "come up with me to Runner's Rest in June and look over the garden. There ought to be a pool there; there are plenty of springs on the mountain to feed a fountain by gravity. I think it would be fine to have a pool and a fountain in the old garden. Is it understood that you'll do it for me?"

"Yes.... I don't wish to be paid."

"Good Lord! You and I are professionals, Grismer, not beastly amateurs. Do you think I'd write for anybody unless I'm paid for it?"

Grismer's eyes held a curious expression as they rested on him. Then his features changed and he smiled and nodded carelessly:

"I'll do your fountain on your own terms. Tell me when you are ready."

Cleland rose:

"Won't you change your mind and lunch with me somewhere?"

"Thanks, no." Grismer also had risen, and the two men confronted each other for a moment in silence.

Then Grismer said:

"Cleland, I think you're the only man in the world for whom I have any real consideration. I haven't much use for men--no delusions. But it always has been different about you--even when we fought in school--even when I used to sneer at you sometimes.... And I want, somehow, to make you understand that I wish you well; that if it lay with me you should attain _whatever_ you wish in life; that if attainment depended upon my stepping aside I'd do it.... That's all I can say. Think it over and try to understand."

Cleland, astonished, looked at him with unconcealed embarrassment.

"You're very kind," he said, "to feel so generously interested in my success. I wish you success, too."

Grismer smiled:

"You _don't_ understand me after all," he said pleasantly. "I was afraid you wouldn't."

"You are offering me your friendship, as I take it," said Cleland awkwardly. "Isn't that what you meant?"

"Yes. And other things...."

He laughed with a slight touch of malice in his mirth:

"There's such a lot yet left unsaid between you and me, which you and I must say to each other some day. But there's plenty of time, Cleland.... And I shall be very glad to design and execute a fountain for your garden."

He offered his hand; Cleland took it, the embarrassed flush still staining his face.

"Yes," he said, "there is a matter that I wish to talk over with you some day, Grismer."

"I know.... But I think we had better wait a while.... Because I wish to answer everything you ask; and for the present I had rather not."

They walked slowly to the area gate and Grismer unlocked it.

"I'm glad you came," he said. "It's a bit lonely sometimes.... I have no friends."

"When you feel that way," said Cleland, "drop in on me."

"Thanks."

And that was all. Cleland went away through the ill-smelling streets, crossed the sunny square, and walked thoughtfully back to his own studio.

"He's a strange man," he mused, "--he was a strange boy, and he's grown into a curious sort of man.... Poor devil.... It's as though something inside him is lacking--or has been killed.... But why in God's name did Steve marry him unless she was in love with him? ... It must be.... And his pride won't let him take her until he can stand on his own feet.... When I dig that pool I'll dig a pit for my feet.... A grave for a fool...."

He unlocked his studio and went in.

"I'm done with love," he said aloud to himself.

The jingle of the telephone bell echoed his words and he walked slowly over to the table and detached the receiver.

"Jim?"

"Is it you, Steve?"

"Yes. Would you like some tea about five?"

"All right. I've had no lunch and I'll be hungry."

"You know, Jim, I'm not going to provide a banquet for you. Why don't you go out and take lunch?"

"I forgot it. I don't feel like work. Shall I come down and talk to you now?"

"I'm going out to take a dancing lesson in a few moments. I'll talk to you while I'm putting on my hat."

He said "All right," took his hat and stick and went downstairs again.

She opened the door for him, offering him her cool, slim hand, then she opened a hat-box and lifted from it a hat.

"I believe I'll join the Russian ballet," she said. "I do dance very nicely. You should hear what the ballet master says. And Miss Duncan and Miss St. Denis watched me yesterday, and they were very complimentary and polite."

"Nonsense. It's good exercise, but it would be a dog's life for you to lead, Steve. Where is Helen?"

"Out hunting a model for her Pegasus. She asked me to pose for the mounted figure, but I haven't time. I can fancy myself, in a complete state of nature, scrambling onto some rickety old livery hack----" She threw back her head and laughed, then inspected her new hat, and, facing the studio mirror, pinned it to her chestnut hair.

"Do you like it, Jim?"

"Fine. You make all hats look well."

"Such a nice, polite boy! So well brought up! But unfortunately I heard you say the same thing to Helen.... Where have you been, Jim? I called you up an hour ago."

"I went to see Grismer," he said, coolly ignoring her perverse and tormenting humour.

"You did? Bless your dear, generous heart!" cried the girl. "Do you know that if it were in me to be sentimental over you, what you did would start me? Continue to behave like a real man, dear friend, and I'll be head over heels in love before I know it!"

"Why?" he asked, conscious again of her gaily derisive mood and not caring for it.

"Because," she said, "you have acted like a man in calling on Oswald, and not like a spoiled boy. You resented Oswald's marrying me. You have been sullen and suspicious and aloof with him since you came back. I know Oswald better than you do. I know that he has felt your attitude keenly, though he never admitted it even to me.

"He is a man of few friends, admired but not well liked; he is wretchedly poor, fiercely proud, sensitive----"

"What!"

"Did you think he wasn't?" she asked. "He is painfully sensitive; pitiably so. I think women divine it, and it attracts them."

"He hasn't the reputation of being very thin-skinned," remarked Cleland drily.

"The average man who is sensitive would die to conceal it. You ought to know that, Jim; it's your business to dissect people, isn't it?"

She thrust a second pin through the crown of her hat and adjusted it deftly.

"Anyway," she said, "you are a nice, polite boy to go to see him, and you have made me very happy. Good-bye! I must run----"

"Have you lunched?"

"No, but I'm going to."

"With whom?" he asked incautiously.

"A man."

"You're usually just going out to lunch or dine with some man," he said sullenly.

"I like men," she said, smiling at him.

"What you probably mean is that you like admiration."

"I do. It's agreeable; it's sanitary; it's soothing. It invigorates one's self-confidence and self-respect. And it doesn't disarrange one's hair and rumple one's gown. Therefore, I prefer the undemonstrative admiration of a man to the indiscreet demonstrations of a boy."

"Do you mean me?" he asked, furious.

But she ignored the question:

"Boys _are_ funny," she said, swinging her velvet reticule in circles. "Any girl can upset their equilibrium. All a girl has to do is to look at a boy sideways--the way Lady Button-eyes looked at you yesterday afternoon----"

"What!"

"At the Rochambeau. And you got up and went over and renewed your friendship with her. Helen and I saw you."

"I was merely civil," he said.

"So was she. She fished out a card and wrote on it. _I_ don't know what she wrote."

"She wrote her telephone call. There isn't the slightest chance of my using it."

Stephanie laughed:

"He certainly is the nicest, politest boy in all Manhattan, and sister is very, very proud of him. _Good_-bye, James----"

She offered her lips to him audaciously, bending forward on tip-toe, both hands clasped behind her. But her grey eyes were bright with malice.

"Nice, polite boy," she repeated. "Kiss little sister."

"No," he said gloomily, "I'm fed up on sisterly kisses----"

"You insulting wretch! Do you mean you _won't_? Then you _shall_----!"

She started toward him, wrath in her eyes, but he caught her wrists and held her.

"You're altogether too well satisfied with yourself," he said. "You've no emotions inside your very lovely person except discreet ones. Otherwise, you've got the devil inside you and it's getting on my nerves."

"Jim! You beast!"

"Yes, I am. What of it? Beasts have emotions. Yours have either been cultivated out of you or you were born without any. I'm glad I am part beast. I'm glad you know it. The rest of me is human; and the combination isn't a very serious menace to civilization. But the sort of expurgated girl you are is!"

"Don't you think I'm capable of any deep emotions?" she asked. The smile had died on her lips.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Who should, if you don't?"

He shrugged:

"Your husband, perhaps."

"Jim! I told you not to call him that!"

"Well, a spade is a spade----"

"Do you mean to be offensive?"

"How can that offend you?"

She released her wrists and shot a curious, inexplicable look at him.

"I don't understand you," she said. "You can be so generous and high-minded and you can be so unkind and insolent to me."

"Insolent?"

"Yes. You meant it insolently when you spoke of Oswald as my husband. You've done it before, too. Why do you? Do you really want to hurt me? Because you know he isn't my husband except by title. He may never be."

"All right," he said. "I'm sorry I was offensive. I'm just tired of this mystery, I suppose. It's a hopeless sort of affair for me. I can't make you love me; you're married, besides. It's too much for me--I can't cope with it, Steve.... So I won't ever bother you again with importunities. I'll go my own way."

"Very well," she said in an even voice.

She nodded to him and went out, saying as she passed:

"There'll be tea at five, if you care for any." And left him planted.

Which presently enraged him, and he began to pace the studio, pondering on the cruelty, insensibility and injustice of that devilish sex which had created man as a convenience.

"The thing to do," he said savagely to himself, "is to exterminate the last trace of love for her, tear it out, uproot it, trample on it without remorse----"

The studio bell rang. He walked to the door and opened it. A bewilderingly pretty girl stood there.

"Miss Davis?" she inquired sweetly. "I have an appointment."

"Come in," said Cleland, the flush of wrath still on his countenance.

The girl entered; he offered her a chair.

"Miss Davis happens to be out at the moment," he said, "but I don't believe she'll be very long."

"Do you mind my waiting?" asked the pretty girl.

"No, I don't," he said, welcoming diversion. "Do you mind my being here? Or are you going to put me out?"

She looked surprised, then she laughed very delightfully:

"Of course not. Miss Davis and I have known each other for a long while, and I owe her a great deal and I am devoted to her. Do you think I'd be likely to banish a friend of hers? Besides, I'm only one of her models."

"A model?" he repeated. "How delightful! I also am a model--of good behaviour."

They both laughed.

"Does it pay?" she inquired mischievously.

"No, it doesn't. I wish I had another job."

"Why not take the one I've just left?"

"What was it?"

"I was dancing at the Follies."

"All right. Will you try me out?"

"With pleasure."

"I'll turn on that music-box."

The girl laughed her enchanting little laugh, appraised him at a glance, then turned her pretty head and critically surveyed the studio.

"I believe," she said, "I'm to pose for Miss Davis seated on a winged horse. Isn't that exciting?"

"You'd be delightful on a winged horse," he said.

"Do you think so?"

"I suspect it. What did you do in the Follies?"

"Nothing very interesting. Have you seen the Follies?"

"You ought to know I haven't," he said reproachfully. "Do you suppose I could have forgotten you?"

She rose and dropped him a Florodora curtsey. They were getting on very well. She glanced demurely at the music box. He jumped up and turned it on. The battered disc croaked out a tango.

"Shall I take up those rugs?" he inquired.

"What on earth would Miss Davis say if she found us dancing?"

"She isn't here to say anything. _Shall_ I?"

"Very well.... I'll help you."

They dragged the rugs aside.

The studio was all golden with the sun, now, and the brilliant rays bathed them as she laid her gloved hand in his and his arm encircled her waist.

She was a wonderful dancer; her supple grace and professional perfection enchanted him.

From time to time he left her to crank up the music-box; neither of them tired. Occasionally she glanced at her jewelled wrist-watch and ventured to voice her doubts as to the propriety of continuing in the imminence of Miss Davis's return.

"Then let's come up to my studio," he said. "I've a music-phone of sorts. We can dance there until you're tired, and then you can come down and see Miss Davis."

She demurred: the music-box ran down with a squawk.

"Shall we take one more chance here?" he asked.

"No, it's too risky.... Shall I run up to your place for just one little dance?"

"Come on!" he said, taking her hand.

They went out and he closed the door. Then, hand-in-hand, laughing like a pair of children, they sped up the stairs and arrived breathless before his door, which he unlocked. And in another minute they were dancing again while a scratched record croaked out a fox-trot.

"I _must_ go," she said, resting one gloved hand on his arm. "I'd love to stay but I mustn't."

"First," he said, "we'll have tea."

"No!"

But presently they were seated on his desk, a plate of sweet biscuits between them, their glasses of sherry touching.

"Unknown but fascinating girl," he said gaily, "I drink to your health and fortune. Never shall I forget our dance together; never shall I forget the charming stranger who took tea with me!"

"Nor shall I forget you!--you very nice boy," she said, looking at him with smiling intentness.

"Would it spoil if we saw each other again?"

"You know that such delightful encounters never bear repetition," she answered. "Now I'm going. Farewell!"

She laughed at him, touched her glass with her lips, set it aside, and slipped to the floor.

"Good-bye!" she said. He caught her at the door, and she turned and looked up gravely.

"Don't spoil it," she whispered, disengaging herself.

So he released her, and she stretched out her hand, smiled at him, and stepped out. The music-phone continued to play gaily.

A girl who was coming upstairs saw her as she left Cleland's studio; and, as the pretty visitor sped lightly past her, the girl who was mounting turned and watched her. Then she resumed her ascent, came slowly to Cleland's open door, stood there resting a moment as though out of breath.

Cleland, replacing the rugs, glanced up and caught sight of Stephanie; and the quick blood burnt his face.

She came in as though still a trifle weary from the ascent. Neither spoke. She glanced down at the two empty wine glasses on his desk, saw the decanter, the biscuits and cigarettes. The music-phone was expiring raucously.

"Who is that girl?" she asked in an even, colourless voice.

"A girl I met."

"Do you mind telling me her name?"

"I--don't know it," he said, getting redder.

"Oh. Shall I enlighten you?"

"Thank you."

"She's Mary Cliff, of the Follies. I've seen her dance."

"Really," he said carelessly.

Stephanie leaned against the desk, resting one hand on it. An odd sense of mental fatigue possessed her; things were not clear in her mind; she was not very sure of what she was saying:

"I came up to say--that I'm sorry we quarrelled.... I'm sorry now that I came. I'm going in a moment.... You've already had tea, I see. So you won't care for any more."

After a flushed silence, he said:

"Did you have a successful lesson, Steve?"

"I've had two--lessons. Yes, they were quite--successful."

"You seem tired."

"No." She turned and walked to the door. He opened it for her in silence.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night."

*CHAPTER XXIII*

Cleland's unhappy interpretation of the episode was masculine and therefore erroneous--the interpretation of a very young man whose reverence for the restless sex might require revision some day or other unless he died exceedingly young. For he concluded, now, that he had thoroughly disgusted Stephanie Quest; first by his vulgar flirtation with Lady Button-eyes, then by losing his temper and admitting to her his own odious materialism; and, furthermore and flagrantly, by his hideous behaviour with a pretty girl whose name even he had not known when he entertained her at his impromptu the-dansant.

He saw himself quite ruined in the unemotional grey eyes of a girl who, herself, was so coldly aloof from the ignoble emotions lurking ever and furtively in the masculine animal.

He had had little enough chance with Stephanie, even when his conduct had been exemplary. Now he was dreadfully certain that his chances were less than none at all; that he had done himself in. What had he to hope of her now?

To this unconventional yet proud, pure-hearted girl had been offered the very horrid spectacle of his own bad temper and reprehensible behaviour. And, although there had been no actual harm in it, _she_ could never, never understand or forgive it. Never!

Her virginal ears had been insulted by the cynical avowal of his own masculine materialism. Of the earth, earthy, he had vaunted himself in his momentary exasperation--"of humanity, a shamelessly human example."

With her own incredulous, uncontaminated eyes she had seen him pocket Lady Button-eye's telephone number. Her shrinking ears had heard the mutilated record in his music-phone dying out in a tipsy two-step; her outraged gaze had beheld a perfectly strange young girl's gaily informal exit from his own bachelor apartment, where sherry still stood in both glasses and the rugs lay scattered in disorder against the wall. Elimination was naturally the portion he had to expect. And he gloomily schooled himself to endure annihilation.

According to his philosophy there was nothing else on earth to do about it. Doubtless she'd ultimately forgive him, but her respect he couldn't hope for at present; and as for any deeper sentiment, if ever there had been any hope in his heart that he might one day awaken it, now he knew it was wriggling in its death-throes, making him, by turns, either frightfully unhappy or resentfully reckless.

The hopeless part of it was that, unlike weaker men, he had no desire to drown sorrow in any irregular and unworthy fashion.

Many men of many minds turn to many things seeking the anodyne in one form or another--the nepenthe of forgetfulness, rarer than the philosopher's stone.

Neither wine nor the dreary quest for heart-ease among frailer companions ever appeals to any but weak minds. And the boy, not knowing what to do, turned to his work with a renewed energy resembling desperation.

It is the only hope for ultimate anesthesia.

Also, he took to prowling by night, being too unhappy to remain in his studio so near to Stephanie.

He prowled about Broadway and Long Acre with Badger Spink, whose restless cleverness and self-absorption ended by wearying him; he prowled with Clarence Verne one night, encountering that strange sphinx by accident, and strolling with him at hazard through the purlieus of Chelsea. Both men seemed deeply preoccupied with problems of their own, and though they knew each other only slightly they maintained the reticence of intimacy--an odd assumption, as Cleland thought afterward. Yet, one of them was very sick for love, and the other very sick of it; and, besides, there roved with them a third and unseen companion, through the crooked, lamp-lit streets, whose shrouded arm was linked in Verne's. And perhaps that accounted for the sombre silence which brooded between these men in trouble.

Verne said at parting--and gazing absently at nothing while he spoke:

"The tragedy of civilization--of what the world calls civilization!--that is the most terrible of all, Cleland. That is the real and only hell. Not the ruthless eruptions of barbarism; not the momentary resurgence of atavistic violence--of red-blooded rapine and lust--but the ordered, lawful, stealthy, subtle horrors of civilization: they slay men's souls."

"I don't get you, Verne."

"No, Cleland. But somebody else will--somebody else will get me--very soon, now.... Good-bye."

A few days later Cleland prowled with Harry Belter, intent upon supper somewhere in the outer marches of the town.

For an episode had occurred that shook them both with the most sobering and distressing jar that youth experiences in fullest mental and physical vigour.

"I _don't_ see how a man can kill himself," said Cleland. "I don't see why he can't go somewhere else and cure himself of his unhappiness. Travel, change, new faces----"

"Perhaps he wants to be rid of faces," muttered Belter.

"There are wonderful wildernesses."

"Perhaps he's too tired to admire 'em. Perhaps he's half dead for sleep."

"You talk as though you sympathized and understood, Harry."

"I do."

"_You_! The indefatigable optimist! You, the ever-welcome, the gay consoler, the irrepressible spirit among us!"

"If I didn't play that role I'd do what Clarence Verne did!"

"_What!_"

"Long ago," added Belter.

"For God's sake, why? I never dreamed----"

"You were away, three years, having a good time abroad, weren't you? How should you know what happened to others?"

"Did something happen to you, Harry?"

"It did. If you wish to know exactly what, I'll tell you what happened to me was a woman. Now you know something that nobody else knows--except that demon and myself."

"But such things----"

"No. Such things destroy, ultimately. I'll die of her, one day."

"Nonsense!"

But Belter, the jester, laughed a terrifying laugh and sauntered into the open door of the restaurant which they had walked a mile or two to find.

"It's a low pub," he remarked, "and suitable to my mind." They seated themselves at a cherry table. One or two newspaper men nodded to Belter. A confidence man, whispering to a painted mulatto girl, turned to scrutinize him; a ruffianly bar-keeper saluted him cordially.

There was a grill glowing beyond the bar. A waiter, chewing a tooth-pick, came up and stood leaning on their table with both hairy hands spread flat on the polished top.

"Well, gents, what is it?" he asked hoarsely.

They gave their order. Then Belter, leaning forward and planting both elbows on the table, said in a low voice:

"They call me a caricaturist, but, by God, Cleland, I'm a realist! I've learned more about women by caricaturing them than I ever read in their smooth countenances. They _are_ caricatures, in their secret souls--every one of them; and when I exaggerate a weak point and ignore everything but the essential character lines and contours, by jingo, Cleland, I've discovered 'em--exposed 'em as they really are!--distorted caricatures of human beings."

Cleland disagreed with him, gloomily, amazed at his bitterness.

"No," said Belter, "if you tell the mere truth about them they're a nuisance! We don't understand 'em. Why? There's very little to understand and that's all on the surface as plain as the nose on your face!--too plain for us to notice. And you writers explore and dissect 'em, seeking deeps where there are shallows, mysteries where there are facts, subtleties where everything is obvious. They haven't much mind, they have few traits because they have precious little character. They are not like humans; they resemble Fabre's insects--strange, incomprehensible Martians, doing things not from intelligence, not from reason, impulse, desire, but merely from an inherited instinct that apes intelligence, that parodies passion."

"What _have_ they done to you, Harry?"

"Nothing, in years.... Because I won't let 'em. But the spectacle of the world suddenly crawling with women, all swarming restlessly over the face of the globe, not knowing why or whither--it appalls me, Jim. And we men continue flinging at them everything we can think of to stop them, quiet them, and keep them still--personal liberty, franchise, political opportunity, professional and industrial chances--and still they twist and wriggle and squirm and swarm over everything restlessly, slowly becoming denatured, unsexed, more sterile, more selfish, insolent, intolerable every day. They are the universal nuisance of the age; they are slowly smothering us as shifting dunes threaten the fertile plain----"

"For heaven's sake----"

"There's the unvarnished truth about woman," insisted Belter. "She's got the provocative calinerie of a cat; the casual insouciance of a sparrow; the nesting and hatching instinct of the hen; the mindless jealousy of a Pekingese.

"The creative mind that marries one of 'em is doomed either to sterility or to anguish. Their jealousy and malice stultify and slay the male brain; there is no arguing with them because they have no real mind to appeal to, no logic, no reason. Like the horrible praying Mantis they suffer the embrace of the male and immediately begin to eat him, commencing with the head----"

Cleland began to laugh. His mirth, unrestrained, did not disturb Belter, who continued to eat his club sandwich and wash it down with huge draughts of Pilsner.

"Do you think I'd marry one of 'em?" he demanded scornfully. "Do you know what really happened to Clarence Verne?"

"No."

"Well, he married a dainty little thing and expected to continue earning two thousand dollars for every magazine cover he designed. And do you know what happened?"

"No, I don't."

"I'll tell you. The dainty little thing turned jealous, hired a shyster who hired detectives to follow Verne about and report to her what he did inside and outside his studio. She doped his food when she thought he had a rendezvous; she had his letters stolen. In his own world, any woman he found agreeable was cut out by his wife; if, in the jolly and unconventional fellowship of Bohemia, he ever stopped on the street to chat with a pretty girl or took one, harmlessly, to lunch or supper, or offered any of 'em tea in his studio, her detectives reported it to her and she raised hell.

"It killed spontaneity, any gaiety of heart, any incentive in Verne. It embittered him, aged him, strangled him. Look at his work to-day! Nothing remains except the mechanical technique. Look at the man. Dead in his bathroom. Don't talk to me about women."

"Why didn't he divorce her if he knew of all this she was doing?"

"He had a little girl to think of. After all, Verne had lived his life. Better snuff it out that way and leave the child in decent ignorance of family dissension.... And that was the matter with Clarence Verne, Cleland. And I tell you that into the heart of every man who has been fool enough to marry, some canker is eating its way. There is not one woman in a million with mind enough and humanity enough to keep her husband's love--not one who knows enough to

'Let him alone
And he'll come home--'

Not one with the brains, mental resource, wisdom, to mate without becoming a parasite. And still, all over the world the asses are solemnly asking each other, 'Is marriage a failure?' Bah! The world makes me very sick!"

They went to Verne's funeral a few days later. The widow was very pretty in her deep mourning. Her little girl was with her.

But the affair was not even a nine-days' gossip in the artists' world. Verne had stalked wistfully among them for a few years, but had never been of them since his marriage: he had lived at home in one of the fashionable quarters, although his studio--and his heart--were in Chelsea.

So his well-known magazine covers were missed more than he was, and people soon ceased discussing him and his fate; and in a month nobody remembered whether it had been done with a razor or a revolver. And very few cared.

As for Cleland, he had never known Verne well, and the damnation of his taking off affected him only superficially. Besides, busy men have little time to bother about death; and Cleland was now extremely busy with his novel, which began to take definite shape and proportion under unremitting labour.

He now saw Stephanie much as usual; and the girl did not seem seriously changed toward him in behaviour. Her spirits appeared to be high always; she seemed to be always doing something interesting and delightful, dining out, going to theatres--though the choice was now limited, as many were already closed for the summer--motoring out to the country, taking her dancing and dramatic lessons, entertaining in the studio.

It is true that he seldom or never saw Stephanie alone now, but that seemed accidental, because he really had been absorbed in his work and she was usually out somewhere or other during the day. But she appeared to be cordial to him--just as full of gay malice and light banter as ever--full of undisguised interest in the progress of his work and delighted with his promise to let her read the manuscript when it was typed and before he submitted it to any publisher.

So all seemed to go serenely between them; he resolutely told himself that he had given her up; she did not appear to be aware of anything altered or subdued in his cordiality toward her--apparently missed nothing in his attitude that might once have been to her significant of any deeper feeling.

Yet, once or twice, when a gay company filled her studio, amid the chatter and music and movement of dancers, he became aware of her level, grey eyes gravely intent on him--but always the gravity he surprised in them turned to a quick, frank smile when his gaze encountered hers, and she always made him some pretty signal of recognition across the animated scene.

As for Helen, he always got on delightfully with that charming and capable girl. There was something very engaging about her, she was so wholesome, so energetic, so busy, so agreeable to look at.

He had acquired a habit of dropping in on his way out to lunch to watch her working on the sketches and studies for "Aspiration;" but one day she forgot to warn him and he blundered into the courtyard where, on a white circus-horse, a lovely, slender, but rather startling figure hid its face in its hands and desperately attempted to make a garment of its loosened hair, while an elderly female holding the horse's head cried "Shoo!" and Helen hustled him out, a little perturbed and intensely amused.

"I ought to have told you," she said. "I wouldn't mind, but even professional models object to anybody except, occasionally, another artist."

"I'm sorry," he said. "Please tell little Miss Eve that I didn't mean to scare her."

They chatted for a few minutes, then Helen smilingly excused herself and went back to her work, and Cleland continued on his way to lunch, chagrined at his stupidity.

"I wonder," he thought, "if that was my little unknown dancing partner? Now, she will think I've 'spoiled it all.'"

He was in masculine error again. Disconcerted beauty has the consolation that it is beautiful. Otherwise, it remains merely outraged modesty; and bitterness abides in its soul.

Helen, laughingly mentioning the affair to Stephanie, still immensely amused at Cleland's distress and apologetic blushes, added that the model, Marie Cliff, had been sensible enough to appreciate the humour of it, too.

"You mean," said Stephanie, coldly, "that she didn't care." And, not smiling, went on with her sewing.

"She's rather a refined type," said Helen, looking curiously at the girl who, bent over her mending, was plying her needle furiously.

Stephanie shrugged.

"Don't you think so, Steve?"

"No. I think her typically common."

"How odd! She's quite young, and she's really very nice and modest--not the type of person you seem to imagine----"

"I don't _like_ her," interrupted Stephanie calmly. But her slender fingers were flying, and she had set her teeth in her under lip, which had trembled a little.

Helen, chancing to mention Cleland that night as they were preparing for bed, was astonished at Stephanie's impatient comment:

"Oh, Jim's quite spoiled. I'm rapidly losing interest in that young man."

"Why?" asked Helen, surprised.

"Because he runs about with queer people. No man can do that and not show it in his own manner."

"What people, Steve?"

"Well, with Lady Button-eyes for one. With your modest and bashful little model, for another."

"Does he?" Then she began to laugh. "I'm glad he displays good taste, anyway! The little Cliff girl is charming."

"Isn't that rather a horrid and cynical thing to say?" demanded Stephanie, flushing brightly.

"Why? I think she's quite all right. Let them play together if they like. It's none of my business. Are you, the high-priestess of tolerance, becoming intolerant?" she added laughingly.

"No. I don't care what he does. But I should think he'd prefer to frivol with one of his own class."

"It's a matter of chance," remarked Helen, brushing out her curly brown hair. "The beggar-maid or Vere-de-Vere--it's all the same to a man if the girl is sufficiently attractive and amusing."

"Amusing?" repeated Stephanie. "That is a humiliating role--to amuse a man."

"If a girl doesn't, men soon neglect her. Men go where they are amused. Everybody does. You do. I do. Why not?"

Stephanie, still hotly flushed, shook out her beautiful chestnut hair and began to comb it viciously.

"I don't see how a common person can amuse a well-born man," she said.

"It's a reflection on us if we give them the opportunity," retorted Helen, laughing. "But if we're not clever enough to hold the men of our own caste, then they'll certainly go elsewhere for their amusement."

"And good riddance!"

"But who's to replace them?"

"I can get along perfectly without men."

"Steve, you're talking like a child! What happens to be the matter with you? Has anything gone wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing----" She turned sharply; her comb caught in her hair and she jerked it free. Perhaps that accounted for the sudden glint of tears in her grey eyes.

Helen slipped her arm around her, but the girl's rigid body did not yield and she kept her head obstinately averted.

"Are you getting tired of your idiotic bargain with Oswald?" asked Helen, gently.

"No, I am not! _He_ never bothers me--never gets on my nerves--never is unjust--unkind----"

"Who is?"

"I don't know.... Men in general--annoy me--men in--general."

"None in particular?"

"No.... It isn't very agreeable to know that one's brother goes about with a shameless dancer from the Follies."

"Are you sure he does?"

"Perfectly. He gives her a party in his studio, too, sometimes."

"But there's no harm in----"

"A party for _two_! They drink--together."

"Oh."

"They drink and dance and eat, all by themselves! They take up the rugs and turn on the music and--and I don't know what they do!--I--d-don't know--I don't--I don't----!"

Her head fell into her hands; she stood rigid, her body shaken by emotions too unhappy, too new, too vague for her youthful analysis.

"I--I can't bear to think of him that way----" she stammered, "--he was so straight and clean--so clean----"

"Some men drift a little--sometimes----"

"They say so.... I don't know. I am too miserable about him--too unhappy----"

She choked back a sob, and the slender hands that covered her eyes slowly clenched.

Helen looked at her in consternation. Girls don't usually betray so much emotion over some casual irregularity of a brother.

Stephanie pressed her clenched hands mutely against her lids for a while, then, her lips still quivering, she reached for her brush and began to groom her splendid hair again.

And Helen, watching her without a word, thought to self:

"She behaves as though she were falling in love with him.... She'd certainly better be careful. The boy is already in love with her, no matter how he acts.... If she isn't very, very careful she'll get into trouble with him."

Aloud she said cheerfully:

"Steve, dear, I really think I'm clever enough to have taken the measure of your very delightful brother. And I honestly don't believe it is in him to play fast and loose with any woman ever born."

"He _is_ doing it!"

"With whom?"

"That--Dancing girl----"

"Nonsense! If it's an ephemeral romance, which I don't believe, it's a gay and harmless one. Don't worry your pretty head about it, Steve."

After Stephanie was in bed she kissed her lightly, smiled reassuringly, switched off the light and went to her own room, slowly.

Very gravely she braided her hair before the mirror, looking at her pale, reflected face.

Yet, though pale, it was still a fresh, wholesome, beautiful face. But the brown eyes stared sadly at their twin brown images, and the girl shook her head.

For the nearest that Helen Davis had ever come to falling in love was when Cleland first walked into her studio. She could have fallen in love with him then--within the minute--out of a clear sky. She realized it after he had gone--not too deeply astonished--she, who had never before been in love, recognized its possibility all in a moment.

But she had learned to hold herself in check since that first, abrupt and clear-minded recognition of such a possibility.

Never by a word or glance had she ever betrayed herself; yet his very nearness to her, at times, set her heart beating, set a faint thrill stealing through her. Yet her eyes always met his pleasantly, frankly, steadily; her hand lay calm and cool in his when she welcomed him or bade him good-bye. Always she schooled herself to withstand what threatened her, gave it no food for reflection, no sustenance, no status, no consideration.

Love came as no friend to her. She soon realized that. And she quietly faced him and bade him keep his distance.

She looked at herself again in the glass. Her brown eyes were very, very serious. Then the smile glimmered.

"Quand meme," she murmured gaily, and switched off the light.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

It was a warm day in early June and Cleland, working in trousers and undershirt, and driven by thirst to his tin ice-box, discovered it to be empty.

"Confound it," he muttered, and rang up Stephanie's studio. A maid answered, saying that Miss Quest had gone motoring and Miss Davis had not yet returned from shopping.

"I want to borrow a lump of ice," explained Cleland. "I'll come down for it."

So he concealed his lack of apparel under a gay silk dressing gown, picked up a pan, and went down, not expecting to encounter anybody.

In the kitchenette, in the rear, the obliging maid gave him a lump of ice. Carrying it in one hand, aloft, as an expert waiter carries a towering tray of dishes, and whistling a gay air with great content--for his work upstairs had gone very well that morning--he sauntered out of the culinary regions, along the alley-like passageway, into the studio.

And as he started for the door which he had left ajar, a figure opened it from without and entered hurriedly--a scared, breathless little figure, bare-footed, swathed in a kimono and a shock of hair.

They stared at each other, astonished. Both blushed furiously.

"I simply can't help it," said the girl. "I was sitting on that horse waiting for Miss Davis, when a bee or a horsefly or something stung him and he began to rear and kick all around the court, and I slid off him and ran."

They both laughed. Cleland, clutching his pan of ice, said:

"I seem doomed to run into you when I shouldn't. I'm terribly sorry."

She blushed again and carefully swathed her waist in the obi.

"You didn't mean to," she said. "It was rather startling, though."

"It was, indeed. And now we're having another unconventional party. Shall I leave this ice here and go out and quiet the nag?"

"He'll surely kick you."

"I'll take a chance----" He set the pan of ice on a table, girded up his dressing-gown, and went out into the court. The horse stood quietly enough now. But Cleland soon discovered a green-eyed horsefly squatting on the wall and rubbing its forelegs together in devilish exultation.

"I'll fix you," he muttered, picking up a lump of wet clay and approaching with infinite caution. He was a good shot; he buried the bloodthirsty little demon under a spatter of clay. Then he went back for his ice.

"The deed is done," he said cheerily. "It was a horsefly, as you said.... Good-bye.... When are we going to have another dance?"