And, as Palla, recognising him, turned around, he shook his fists at her and at Ilse, promising that they should be attended to when the proper moment arrived.

Then he spat again, laughed a rather ghastly and distorted laugh, and backed into the doorway behind him.

They walked east—there being no taxi in sight. Ilse and Brisson led; Palla followed beside Jim.

"Well," said the latter, his voice not yet under complete control, "don't you think you'd better keep away from such places in the future?"

She was still very much excited: "It's abominable," she exclaimed, "that this country should permit such lies to be spread among the people and do nothing to counteract this campaign of falsehood! What is going to happen, Jim, unless educated people combine to educate the ignorant?"

"How?" he asked contemptuously.

"By example, first of all. By the purity and general decency of their own lives. I tell you, Jim, that the unscrupulous greed of the educated is as dangerous and vile as the murderous envy of the Bolsheviki. We've got to reform ourselves before we can educate others. And unless we begin by conforming to the Law of Love and Service, some day the Law of Hate and Violence will cut our throats for us."

"Palla," he said, "I never dreamed that you'd do such a thing as you did to-night."

"I was afraid," she said with a nervous tightening of her arm under his, "but I was still more afraid of being a coward."

"You didn't have to answer that crazy anarchist!"

"Somebody had to. He lied to those poor creatures. I—I couldn't stand it!—" Her voice broke a little. "And if there is truly a god in me, as I believe, then I should show Christ's courage ... lacking His wisdom," she added so low that he scarcely heard her.

Ilse, walking ahead with Brisson, looked back over her shoulder at Palla laughing.

"Didn't I tell you that there are some creatures you can't educate? What do you think of your object lesson, darling?"



CHAPTER XII

On a foggy afternoon, toward midwinter, John Estridge strolled into the new Overseas Club, which, still being in process of incubation, occupied temporary quarters on Madison Avenue.

Officers fresh from abroad and still in uniform predominated; tunics were gay with service and wound chevrons, citation cords, stars, crosses, strips of striped ribbon.

There was every sort of head-gear to be seen there, too, from the jaunty overseas bonnet de police, piped in various colours, to the corded campaign hat and leather-visored barrack-cap.

Few cavalry officers were in evidence, but there were plenty of spurs glittering everywhere—to keep their owners' heels from slipping off the desks, as the pleasantry of the moment had it.

* * * * *

Estridge went directly to a telephone booth, and presently got his connection.

"It's John Estridge, as usual," he said in a bantering tone. "How are you, Ilse?"

"John! I'm so glad you called me! Thank you so much for the roses! They're exquisite!—matchless!——"

"Not at all!"

"What?"

"If you think they're matchless, just hold one up beside your cheek and take a slant at your mirror."

"I thought you were not going to say such things to me!"

"I thought I wasn't."

"Are you alone?" She laughed happily. "Where are you, Jack?"

"At the Overseas Club. I stopped on my way from the hospital."

"Y—es."

A considerable pause, and then Ilse laughed again——a confused, happy laugh.

"Did you think you'd—come over?" she inquired.

"Shall I?"

"What do you think about it, Jack?"

"I suppose," he said in a humourous voice, "you're afraid of that tendency which you say I'm beginning to exhibit."

"The tendency to drift?"

"Yes;—toward those perilous rocks you warned me of."

"They are perilous!" she insisted.

"You ought to know," he rejoined; "you're sitting on top of 'em like a bally Lorelei!"

"If that's your opinion, hadn't you better steer for the open sea, John?"

"Certainly I'd better. But you look so sweet up there, with your classical golden hair, that I think I'll risk the rocks."

"Please don't! There's a deadly whirlpool under them. I'm looking down at it now."

"What do you see at the bottom, Ilse? Human bones?"

"I can't see the bottom. It's all surface, like a shining mirror."

"I'll come over and take a look at it with you."

"I think you'll only see our own faces reflected.... I think you'd better not come."

"I'll be there in about half an hour," he said gaily.

* * * * *

He sauntered out and on into the body of the club, exchanging with friends a few words here, a smiling handclasp there; and presently he seated himself near a window.

For a while he rested his chin on his clenched hand, staring into space, until a waiter arrived with his order.

He signed the check, drained his glass, and leaned forward again with both elbows on his knees, twirling his silver-headed stick between nervous hands.

"After all," he said under his breath, "it's too late, now.... I'm going to see this thing through."

* * * * *

As he rose to go he caught sight of Jim Shotwell, seated alone by another window and attempting to read an evening paper by the foggy light from outside. He walked over to him, fastening his overcoat on the way. Jim laid aside his paper and gave him a dull glance.

"How are things with you?" inquired Estridge, carelessly.

"All right. Are you walking up town?"

"No."

Jim's sombre eyes rested on the discarded paper, but he did not pick it up. "It's rotten weather," he said listlessly.

"Have you seen Palla lately?" inquired Estridge, looking down at him with a certain curiosity.

"No, not lately."

"She's a very busy girl, I hear."

"So I hear."

Estridge seated himself on the arm of a leather chair and began to pull on his gloves. He said:

"I understand Palla is doing Red Cross and canteen work, besides organising her celebrated club;—what is it she calls it?—Combat Club No. 1?"

"I believe so."

"And you haven't seen her lately?"

Shotwell glanced at the fog and shrugged his shoulders: "She's rather busy—as you say. No, I haven't seen her. Besides, I'm rather out of my element among the people one runs into at her house. So I simply don't go any more."

"Palla's parties are always amusing," ventured Estridge.

"Very," said the other, "but her guests keep you guessing."

Estridge smiled: "Because they don't conform to the established scheme of things?"

"Perhaps. The scheme of things, as it is, suits me."

"But it's interesting to hear other people's views."

"I'm fed up on queer views—and on queer people," said Jim, with sudden and irritable emphasis. "Why, hang it all, Jack, when a fellow goes out among apparently well bred, decent people he takes it for granted that ordinary, matter of course social conventions prevail. But nobody can guess what notions are seething in the bean of any girl you talk to at Palla's house!"

Estridge laughed: "What do you care, Jim?"

"Well, I wouldn't care if they all didn't seem so exactly like one's own sort. Why, to look at them, talk to them, you'd never suppose them queer! The young girl you take in to dinner usually looks as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. And the chances are that she's all for socialism, self-determination, trial marriages and free love!

"Hell's bells! I'm no prude. I like to overstep conventions, too. But this wholesale wrecking of the social structure would be ruinous for a girl like Palla."

"But Palla doesn't believe in free love."

"She hears it talked about by cracked illuminati."

"Rain on a duck's back, Jim!"

"Rain drowns young ducks."

"You mean all this spouting will end in a deluge?"

"I do. And then look for dead ducks."

"You're not very respectful toward modernism," remarked Estridge, smiling.

Then Jim broke loose:

"Modernism? You yourself said that all these crazy social notions—crazy notions in art, literature, music—arise from some sort of physical degeneration, or from the perversion or checking of normal physical functions."

"Usually they do——"

"Well," continued Shotwell, "it's mostly due to perversion, in my opinion. Women have had too much of a hell of a run for their money during this war. They've broken down all the fences and they're loose and running all over the world.

"If they'd only kept their fool heads! But no. Every germ in the wind lodged in their silly brains! Biff. They want sex equality and a pair of riding breeches! Bang! They kick over the cradle and wreck the pantry.

"Wifehood? Played out! Motherhood? In the discards! Domestic partnership?—each sex to its own sphere? Ha-ha! That was all very well yesterday. But woman as a human incubator and brooder is an obsolete machine. Why the devil should free and untramelled womanhood hatch out young?

"If they choose to, casually, all right. But it's purely a matter for self-determination. If a girl cares to take off her Sam Brown belt and her puttees long enough to nurse a baby, it's a matter that concerns her, not humanity at large. Because the social revolution has settled all such details as personal independence and the same standard for both sexes. So, a bas Madame Grundy! A la lanterne with the old regime! No—hang it all, I'm through!"

"Don't you like Palla any more?" inquired Estridge, still laughing.

Jim gave him a singular look: "Yes.... Do you like Ilse Westgard?"

Estridge said coolly: "I am accepting her as she is. I like her that much."

"Oh. Is that very much?" sneered the other.

"Enough to marry her if she'd have me," replied Estridge pleasantly.

"And she won't do that, I suppose?"

"Not so far."

Jim eyed him sullenly: "Well, I don't accept Palla as she is—or thinks she is."

"She's sincere."

"I understand that. But no girl can get away with such notions. Where is it all going to land her? What will she be?"

Estridge quoted: "'It hath not yet appeared what we shall be.'"

Shotwell rose impatiently, and picked up his overcoat: "All I know is that when two healthy people care for each other it's their business—their business, I repeat—to get together legally and do the decent thing by the human race."

"Breed?"

"Certainly! Breed legally the finest, healthiest, best of specimens;—and as many as they can feed and clothe! For if they don't—if we don't—I mean our own sort—the land will be crawling with the robust get of all these millions of foreigners, who already have nearly submerged us in America; and whose spawn will, one day, smother us to death.

"Hang it all, aren't they breeding like vermin now? All yellow dogs do—all the unfit produce big litters. That's the only thing they ever do—accumulate progeny.

"And what are we doing?—our sort, I mean? I'll tell you! Our sisters are having such a good time that they won't marry, if they can avoid it, until they're too mature to get the best results in children. Our wives, if they condescend to have any offspring at all, limit the output to one. Because more than one might damage their beauty. Hell! If the educated classes are going to practise race suicide and the Bolsheviki are going to breed like lice, you can figure out the answer for yourself."

They walked to the foggy street together. Shotwell said bitterly:

"I do care for Palla. I like Ilse. All the women one encounters at Palla's parties are gay, accomplished, clever, piquant. The men also are more or less amusing. The conversation is never dull. Everybody seems to be well bred, sincere, friendly and agreeable. But there's something lacking. One feels it even before one is enlightened concerning the ultra-modernism of these admittedly interesting people. And I'll tell you what it is. Actually, deep in their souls, they don't believe in themselves.

"Take Palla. She says there is no God—no divinity except in herself. And I tell you she may think she believes it, but she doesn't.

"And her school-girl creed—Love and Service! Fine. Only there's a prior law—self-preservation; and another—race preservation! By God, how are you going to love and serve if girls stop having babies?

"And as for this silly condemnation of the marriage ceremony, merely because some sanctified Uncle Foozle once inserted the word 'obey' in it—just because, under the marriage laws, tyranny and cruelty have been practised—what callow rot!

"Laws can be changed; divorce made simple and non-scandalous as it should be; all rights safeguarded for the woman; and still have something legal and recognised by one of those necessary conventions which make civilisation possible.

"But this irresponsible idea of procedure through mere inclination—this sauntering through life under no law to safeguard and govern, except the law of personal preference—that's anarchy! That code spells demoralisation, degeneracy and disaster!... And the whole damned thing to begin again—a slow development of the human race, once more, out of the chaos of utter barbarism."

Estridge, standing there on the sidewalk in the fog, smiled:

"You're very eloquent, Jim. Why don't you say all this to Palla?"

"I did. I told her, too, that the root of the whole thing was selfishness. And it is. It's a refusal to play the game according to rule. There are only two sexes and one of 'em is fashioned to bear young, and the other is fashioned to hustle for mother and kid. You can't alter that, whether it's fair or not. It's the game as we found it. The rules were already provided for playing it. The legal father and mother are supposed to look out for their own legal progeny. And any alteration of this rule, with a view to irresponsible mating and turning the offspring over to the community to take care of, would create an unhuman race, unconscious of the highest form of love—the love for parents.

"A fine lot we'd be as an incubated race!"

Estridge laughed: "I've got to go," he said, "And, if you care for Palla as you say you do, you oughtn't to leave her entirely alone with her circle of modernist friends. Stick around! It may make you mad, but if she likes you, at least she won't commit an indiscretion with anybody else."

"I wish I could find my own sort as amusing," said Jim, naively. "I've been going about recently—dances, dinners, theatres—but I can't seem to keep my mind off Palla."

Estridge said: "If you'd give your sense of humour half a chance you'd be all right. You take yourself too solemnly. You let Palla scare you. That's not the way. The thing to do is to have a jolly time with her, with them all. Accept her as she thinks she is. There's no damage done yet. Time enough to throw fits if she takes the bit and bolts——"

He extended his hand, cordially but impatiently:

"You remember I once said that girl ought to be married and have children? If you do the marrying part she's likely to do the rest very handsomely. And it will be the making of her."

Jim held on to his hand:

"Tell me what to do, Jack. She isn't in love with me. And she wouldn't submit to a legal ceremony if she were. You invoke my sense of humour. I'm willing to give it an airing, only I can't see anything funny in this business."

"It is funny! Palla's funny, but doesn't know it. You're funny! They're all funny—unintentionally. But their motives are tragically immaculate. So stick around and have a good time with Palla until there's really something to scare you."

"And then?"

"How the devil do I know? It's up to you, of course, what you do about it."

He laughed and strode away through the fog.

* * * * *

It had seemed to Jim a long time since he had seen Palla. It wasn't very long. And in all that interminable time he had not once called her up on the telephone—had not even written her a single line. Nor had she written to him.

He had gone about his social business in his own circle, much to his mother's content. He had seen quite a good deal of Elorn Sharrow; was comfortably back on the old, agreeable footing; tried desperately to enjoy it; pretended that he did.

But the days were long in the office; the evenings longer, wherever he happened to be; and the nights, alas! were becoming interminable, now, because he slept badly, and the grey winter daylight found him unrefreshed.

Which, recently, had given him a slightly battered appearance, commented on jestingly by young rakes and old sports at the Patroon's Club, and also observed by his mother with gentle concern.

"Don't overdo it, Jim," she cautioned him, meaning dances that ended with breakfasts and that sort of thing. But her real concern was vaguer than that—deeper, perhaps. And sometimes she remembered the girl in black.

Lately, however, that anxiety had been almost entirely allayed. And her comparative peace of mind had come about in an unexpected manner.

For, one morning, entering the local Red Cross quarters, where for several hours she was accustomed to sew, she encountered Mrs. Speedwell and her lively daughter, Connie—her gossiping informants concerning her son's appearance at Delmonico's with the mysterious girl in black.

"Well, what do you suppose, Helen?" said Mrs. Speedwell, mischievously. "Jim's pretty mystery in black is here!"

"Here?" repeated Mrs. Shotwell, flushing and looking around her at the rows of prophylactic ladies, all sewing madly side by side.

"Yes, and she's prettier even than I thought her in Delmonico's," remarked Connie. "Her name is Palla Dumont, and she's a friend of Leila Vance."

* * * * *

During the morning, Mrs. Shotwell found it convenient to speak to Leila Vance; and they exchanged a pleasant word or two—merely the amiable civilities of two women who recognise each other socially as well as personally.

And it happened in that way, a few days later, that Helen Shotwell met this pretty friend of Leila Vance—Palla Dumont—the girl in black.

And Palla had looked up from her work with her engaging smile, saying: "I know your son, Mrs. Shotwell. Is he quite well? I haven't seen him for such a long time."

And instantly the invisible antennae of these two women became busy exploring, probing, searching, and recognising in each other all that remains forever incomprehensible to man.

For Palla somehow understood that Jim had never spoken of her to his mother; and yet that his mother had heard of her friendship with her son.

And Helen knew that Palla was quietly aware of this, and that the girl's equanimity remained undisturbed.

Only people quite sure of themselves preserved serenity under the merciless exploration of the invisible feminine antennae. And it was evident that the girl in black had nothing to conceal from her in regard to her only son—whatever that same son might think he ought to make an effort to conceal from his mother.

To herself Helen thought: "Jim has had his wings singed, and has fled the candle."

To Palla she said: "Mrs. Vance tells me such interesting stories of your experiences in Russia. Really, it's like a charming romance—your friendship for the poor little Grand Duchess."

"A tragic one," said Palla in a voice so even that Helen presently lifted her eyes from her sewing to read in her expression something more than the mere words that this young girl had uttered. And saw a still, pale face, sensitive and very lovely; and the needle flying over a bandage no whiter than the hand that held it.

"It was a great shock to you—her death," said Helen.

"Yes."

"And—you were there at the time! How dreadful!"

Palla lifted her brown eyes: "I can't talk about it yet," she said so simply that Helen's sixth sense, always alert for information from the busy, invisible antennae, suddenly became convinced that there were no more hidden depths to explore—no motives to suspect, no pretense to expose.

Day after day she chose to seat herself between Palla and Leila Vance; and the girl began to fascinate her.

There was no effort to please on Palla's part, other than that natural one born of sweet-tempered consideration for everybody. There seemed to be no pretence, no pose.

Such untroubled frankness, such unconscious candour were rather difficult to believe in, yet Helen was now convinced that in Palla these phenomena were quite genuine. And she began to understand more clearly, as the week wore on, why her son might have had a hard time of it with Palla Dumont before he returned to more familiar pastures, where camouflage and not candour was the rule in the gay and endless game of blind-man's buff.

"This girl," thought Helen Shotwell to herself, "could easily have taken Jim away from Elorn Sharrow had she chosen to do so. There is no doubt about her charm and her goodness. She certainly is a most unusual girl."

But she did not say this to her only son. She did not even tell him that she had met his girl in black. And Palla had not informed him; she knew that; because the girl herself had told her that she had not seen Jim for "a long, long time." It really was not nearly as long as Palla seemed to consider it.

Helen lunched with Leila Vance one day. The former spoke pleasantly of Palla.

"She's such a darling," said Mrs. Vance, "but the child worries me."

"Why?"

"Well, she's absorbed some ultra-modern Russian notions—socialistic ones—rather shockingly radical. Can you imagine it in a girl who began her novitiate as a Carmelite nun?"

Helen said: "She does not seem to have a tendency toward extremes."

"She has. That awful affair in Russia seemed to shock her from one extreme to another. It's a long way from the cloister to the radical rostrum."

"She spoke of this new Combat Club."

"She organised it," said Leila. "They have a hall where they invite public discussion of social questions three nights a week. The other three nights, a rival and very red club rents the hall and howls for anarchy and blood."

"Isn't it strange?" said Helen. "One can not imagine such a girl devoting herself to radical propaganda."

"Too radical," said Leila. "I'm keeping an uneasy eye on that very wilful and wrong-headed child. Why, my dear, she has the most fastidious, the sweetest, the most chaste mind, and yet the things she calmly discusses would make your hair curl."

"For example?" inquired Helen, astonished.

"Well, for example, they've all concluded that it's time to strip poor old civilisation of her tinsel customs, thread-worn conventions, polite legends, and pleasant falsehoods.

"All laws are silly. Everybody is to do as they please, conforming only to the universal law of Love and Service. Do you see where that would lead some of those pretty hot-heads?"

"Good heavens, I should think so!"

"Of course. But they can't seem to understand that the unscrupulous are certain to exploit them—that the most honest motives—the purest—invite that certain disaster consequent on social irregularities.

"Palla, so far, is all hot-headed enthusiast—hot-hearted theorist. But I remember that she did take the white veil once. And, as I tell you, I shall try to keep her within range of my uneasy vision. Because," she added, "she's really a perfect darling."

"She is a most attractive girl," said Helen slowly; "but I think she'd be more attractive still if she were happily married."

"And had children."

Their eyes met, unsmilingly, yet in silent accord.

* * * * *

Their respective cars awaited them at the Ritz and took them in different directions. But all the afternoon Helen Shotwell's mind was occupied with what she now knew of Palla Dumont. And she realised that she wished the girl were back in Russia in spite of all her charm and fascination—yes, on account of it.

Because this lovely, burning asteroid might easily cross the narrow orbit through which her own social world spun peacefully in its orderly progress amid that metropolitan galaxy called Society.

Leila Vance was part of that galaxy. So was her own and only son. Wandering meteors that burnt so prettily might yet do damage.

For Helen, having known this girl, found it not any too easy to believe that her son could have relinquished her completely in so disturbingly brief a time.

Had she been a young man she knew that she would not have done so. And, knowing it, she was troubled.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, her only son was troubled, too, as he walked slowly homeward through the winter fog.

And by the time he was climbing his front steps he had concluded to accept this girl as she was—or thought she was—to pull no more long faces or sour faces, but to go back to her, resolutely determined to enjoy her friendship and her friends too; and give his long incarcerated sense of humour an airing, even if he suffered acutely while it revelled.



CHAPTER XIII

Palla's activities seemed to exhilarate her physically and mentally. Body and brain were now fully occupied; and, if the profit to her soul were dubious, nevertheless the restless spirit of the girl now had an outlet; and at home and in the Combat Club she planned and discussed and investigated the world's woes to her ardent heart's content.

Physically, too, Red Cross and canteen work gave her much needed occupation; and she went everywhere on foot, never using bus, tram or taxicab. The result was, in spite of late and sometimes festive hours, that Palla had become something more than an unusually pretty girl, for there was much of real beauty in her full and charming face and in her enchantingly rounded yet lithe and lissome figure.

About the girl, also, there seemed to be a new freshness like fragrance—a virginal sweetness—that indefinable perfume of something young and vigorous that is already in bud.

* * * * *

That morning she went over to the dingy row of buildings to sign the lease of the hall for three evenings a week, as quarters for Combat Club No. 1.

The stuffy place where the Red Flag Club had met the night before was still reeking with stale smoke and the effluvia of the unwashed; but the windows were open and a negro was sweeping up a litter of defunct cigars.

"Yaas'm, Mr. Puma's office is next do'," he replied to Palla's inquiry; "—Sooperfillum Co'poration. Yaas'm."

Next door had been a stable and auction ring, and odours characteristic still remained, although now the ring had been partitioned, boarded over and floored, and Mr. Hewitt's glass rods full of blinding light were suspended above the studio ceilings of the Super-Picture Corporation.

Palla entered the brick archway. An office on the right bore the name of Angelo Puma; and that large, richly coloured gentleman hastily got out of his desk chair and flashed a pair of magnificent as well as astonished eyes upon Palla as she opened the door and walked in.

When she had seated herself and stated her business, Puma, with a single gesture, swept from the office several men and a stenographer, and turned to Palla.

"Is it you, then, who are this Combat Club which would rent from me the hall next door!" he exclaimed, showing every faultless tooth in his head.

Palla smiled: "I am empowered by the club to sign a lease."

"That is sufficient!" exclaimed Puma, with a superb gesture. "So! It is signed! Your desire is enough. The matter is accomplished when you express the wish!"

Palla blushed a little but smilingly affixed her signature to the papers elaborately presented by Angelo Puma.

"A lease?" he remarked, with a flourish of his large, sanguine, and jewelled hand. "A detail merely for your security, Miss Dumont. For me, I require only the expression of your slightest wish. That, to me, is a command more binding than the seal of the notary!"

And he flashed his dazzling smile on Palla, who was tucking her copy of the agreement into her muff.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Puma," she said, almost inclined to laugh at his extravagances. And she laid down a certified check to cover the first month's rental.

Mr. Puma bowed; his large, heavily lashed black eyes were very brilliant; his mouth much too red under the silky black moustache.

"For me," he said impulsively, "art alone matters. What is money? What is rent? What are all the annoying details of commerce? Interruptions to the soul-flow! Checks to the fountain jet of inspiration! Art only is important. Have you ever seen a cinema studio, Miss Dumont?"

Palla never had.

"Would it interest you, perhaps?"

"Thank you—some time——"

"It is but a step! They are working. A peep will take but a moment—if you please—a thousand excuses that I proceed to show you the way!——"

She stepped through a door. From a narrow anteroom she saw the set-scene in a ghastly light, where men in soiled shirt-sleeves dragged batteries of electric lights about, each underbred face as livid as the visage of a corpse too long unburied.

There were women there, too, looking a little more human in their makeups under the horrible bluish glare. Camera men were busy; a cadaverous and profane director, with his shabby coat-collar turned up, was talking loudly in a Broadway voice and jargon to a bewildered girl wearing a ball gown.

As Puma led Palla through the corridor from partition to partition, disclosing each set with its own scene and people—the whole studio full of blatant noise and ghastly faces or painted ones, Palla thought she had never before beheld such a concentration of every type of commonness in her entire existence. Faces, shapes, voices, language, all were essentially the properties of congenital vulgarity. The language, too, had to be sharply rebuked by Puma once or twice amid the wrangling of director, camera man and petty subordinates.

"So intense are the emotions evoked by a fanatic devotion to art," he explained to Palla, "that, at moments, the old, direct and vigorous Anglo-Saxon tongue is heard here, unashamed. What will you? It is art! It is the fervour that forgets itself in blind devotion—in rapturous self-dedication to the god of Truth and Beauty!"

As she turned away, she heard from a neighbouring partition the hoarse expostulations of one of Art's blind acolytes: "Say, f'r Christ's sake, Delmour, what the hell's loose in your bean! Yeh done it wrong an' yeh know damn well yeh done it wrong——"

Puma opened another door: "One of our projection rooms, Miss Dumont. If it is your pleasure to see a few reels run off——"

"Thank you, but I really must go——"

The office door stood open and she went out that way. Mr. Puma confronted her, moistly brilliant of eye:

"For me, Miss Dumont, I am frank like there never was a child in arms! Yes. I am all art; all heart. For me, beauty is God!—" he kissed his fat fingers and wafted the caress toward the dirty ceiling.

"Please excuse," he said with his powerful smile, "but have you ever, perhaps, thought, Miss Dumont, of the screen as a career?"

"I?" asked Palla, surprised and amused. "No, Mr. Puma, I haven't."

"A test! Possibly, in you, latent, sleeps the exquisite apotheosis of Art incarnate! Who can tell? You have youth, beauty, a mind! Yes. Who knows if, also, happily, genius slumbers within? Yes?"

"I'm very sure it doesn't," replied Palla, laughing.

"Ah! Who can be sure of anything—even of heaven!" cried Puma.

"Very true," said Palla, trying to speak seriously, "But the career of a moving picture actress does not attract me."

"The emoluments are enormous!"

"Thank you, no——"

"A test! We try! It would be amusing for you to see yourself upon the screen as you are, Miss Dumont? As you are—young, beautiful, vivacious——"

He still blocked her way, so she said, laying her gloved hand on the knob:

"Thank you very much. Some day, perhaps. But I really must go——"

He immediately bowed, opened the glass door, and went with her to the brick arch.

"I do not think you know," he said, "that I have entered partnership with a friend of yours?"

"A friend of mine?"

"Mr. Elmer Skidder."

"Oh," she exclaimed, smilingly, "I hope the partnership will be a fortunate one. Will you kindly inform Mr. Skidder of my congratulations and best wishes for his prosperity? And you may say that I shall be glad to hear from him about his new enterprise."

To Mr. Puma's elaborate leave-taking she vouchsafed a quick, amused nod, then hurried away eastward to keep her appointment at the Canteen.

* * * * *

About five o'clock she experienced a healthy inclination for tea and wavered between the Plaza and home. Ilse and Marya were with her, but an indefinable something caused her to hesitate, and finally to let them go to the Plaza without her.

What might be the reason of this sudden whim for an unpremeditated cup of tea at home she scarcely took the trouble to analyse. Yet, she was becoming conscious of a subtle and increasing exhilaration as she approached her house and mounted the steps.

Suddenly, as she fitted the latch-key, her heart leaped and she knew why she had come home.

For a moment her fast pulse almost suffocated her. Was she mad to return here on the wildest chance that Jim might have come—might be inside, waiting? And what in the world made her suppose so?—for she had neither seen him nor heard from him in many days.

"I'm certainly a little crazy," she thought as she opened the door. At the same moment her eyes fell on his overcoat and hat and stick.

Her skirt was rather tight, but her limbs were supple and her feet light, and she ran upstairs to the living room.

As he rose from an armchair she flung her arms out with a joyous little cry and wrapped them tightly around his neck, muff, reticule and all.

"You darling," he was saying over and over in a happy but rather stupid voice, and crushing her narrow hands between his; "—you adorable child, you wonderful girl——"

"Oh, I'm so glad, Jim! Shall we have tea?... You dear fellow! I'm so very happy that you came! Wait a moment—" she leaned wide from him and touched an electric bell. "Now you'll have to behave properly," she said with delightful malice.

He released her; she spoke to the maid and then went over with him to the sofa, flinging muff, stole and purse on a chair.

"Pure premonition," she explained, stripping the gloves from her hands. "Ilse and Marya were all for the Plaza, but something sent me homeward! Isn't it really very strange, Jim? Why, I almost had an inclination to run when I turned into our street—not even knowing why, of course——"

"You're so sweet and generous!" he blurted out. "Why don't you raise hell with me?"

"You know," she said demurely, "I don't raise hell, dear."

"But I've behaved so rottenly——"

"It really wasn't friendly to neglect me so entirely."

He looked down—laid one hand on hers in silence.

"I understand, Jim," she said sweetly. "Is it all right now?"

"It's all right.... Of course I haven't changed."

"Oh."

"But it's all right."

"Really?"

"Yes.... What is there for me to do but to accept things as they are?"

"You mean, 'accept me as I am!' Oh, Jim, it's so dear of you. And you know well enough that I care for no other man as I do for you——"

The waitress with the tea-tray cut short that sort of conversation. Palla's appetite was a healthy one. She unpinned her hat and flung it on the piano. Then she nestled down sideways on the sofa, one leg tucked under the other knee, her hair in enough disorder to worry any other girl—and began to tuck away tea and cakes. Sometimes, in animated conversation, she gesticulated with a buttered bun—once she waved her cup to emphasise her point:

"The main idea, of course, is to teach the eternal law of Love and Service," she explained. "But, Jim, I have become recently, and in a measure, militant."

"You're going to love the unwashed with a club?"

"You very impudent boy! We're going to combat this new and terrible menace—this sinister flood that threatens the world—the crimson tide of anarchy!"

"Good work, darling! I enlist for a machine gun uni——"

"Listen! The battle is to be entirely verbal. Our Combat Club No. 1, the first to be established—is open to anybody and everybody. All are at liberty to enter into the discussions. We who believe in the Law of Love and Service shall have our say every evening that the club is open——"

"The Reds may come and take a crack at you."

"The Reds are welcome. We wish to face them across the rostrum, not across a barricade!"

"Well, you dear girl, I can't see how any Red is going to resist you. And if any does, I'll knock his bally block off——"

"Oh, Jim, you're so vernacularly inclined! And you're very flippant, too——"

"I'm not really," he said in a lower voice. "Whatever you care about could not fail to appeal to me."

She gave him a quick, sweet glance, then searched the tea-tray to reward him.

As she gave him another triangle of cinnamon toast, she remembered something else. It was on the tip of her tongue, now; and she checked herself.

He had not spoken of it. Had his mother mentioned meeting her at the Red Cross? If not—was it merely a natural forgetfulness on his mother's part? Was her silence significant?

Nibbling pensively at her cinnamon toast, Palla pondered this. But the girl's mind worked too directly for concealment to come easy.

"I'm wondering," she said, "whether your mother mentioned our meeting at the Red Cross." And she knew immediately by his expression that he heard it for the first time.

"I was introduced at our headquarters by Leila Vance," said Palla, in her even voice; "and your mother and she are acquaintances. That is how it happened, Jim."

He was still somewhat flushed but he forced a smile: "Did you find my mother agreeable, Palla?"

"Yes. And she is so beautiful with her young face and pretty white hair. She always sits between Leila and me while we sew."

"Did you say you knew me?"

"Yes, of course."

"Of course," he repeated, reddening again.

No man ever has successfully divined any motive which any woman desires to conceal.

Why his mother had not spoken of Palla to him he did not know. He was aware, of course, that nobody within the circle into which he had been born would tolerate Palla's social convictions. Had she casually and candidly revealed a few of them to his mother in the course of the morning's conversation over their sewing?

He gave Palla a quick look, encountered her slightly amused eyes, and turned redder than ever.

"You dear boy," she said, smiling, "I don't think your very charming mother would be interested in knowing me. The informality of ultra-modern people could not appeal to her generation."

"Did you—talk to her about——"

"No. But it might happen. You know, Jim, I have nothing to conceal."

The old troubled look had come back into his face. She noticed it and led the conversation to lighter themes.

"We danced last night after dinner," she said. "There were some amusing people here for dinner. Then we went to see such a charming play—Tea for Three—and then we had supper at the Biltmore and danced.... Will you dine with me to-morrow?"

"Of course."

"Do you think you'd enjoy it?—a lot of people who entertain the same shocking beliefs that I do?"

"All right!" he said with emphasis. "I'm through playing the role of death's-head at the feast. I told you that I'm going to take you as you are and enjoy you and our friends—and quit making an ass of myself——"

"Dear, you never did!"

"Oh, yes, I did. And maybe I'm a predestined ass. But every ass has a pair of heels and I'm going to flourish mine very gaily from now on!"

She protested laughingly at his self-characterisation, and bent toward him a little, caressing his sleeve in appeal, or shaking it in protest as he denounced himself and promised to take the world more gaily in the future.

"You'll see," he remarked, rising to take his leave: "I may even call the bluff of some of your fluffy ultra-modern friends and try a few trial marriages with each of 'em——"

"Oh, Jim, you're absolutely horrid! As if my friends believed in such disgusting ideas!"

"They do—some of 'em."

"They don't!"

"Well, then, I do!" he announced so gravely that she had to look at him closely in the rather dim lamplight to see whether he was jesting.

She walked to the top of the staircase with him; let him take her into his arms; submitted to his kiss. Always a little confused by his demonstrations, nevertheless her hand retained his for a second longer, as though shyly reluctant to let him go.

"I am so glad you came," she said. "Don't neglect me any more."

And so he went his way.

* * * * *

His mother discovered him in the library, dressed for dinner. Something, as he rose—his manner of looking at her, perhaps—warned her that they were not perfectly en rapport. Then the subtle, invisible antennae, exploring caressingly what is so palpable in the heart of man, told her that once more she was to deal with the girl in black.

When his mother was seated, he said: "I didn't know you had met Palla Dumont, mother."

Helen hesitated: "Mrs. Vance's friend? Oh, yes; she comes to the Red Cross with Leila Vance."

"Do you like her?"

In her son's eyes she was aware of that subtle and unconscious appeal which all mothers of boys are, some day, fated to see and understand.

Sometimes the appeal is disguised, sometimes it is so subtle that only mothers are able to perceive it.

But what to do about it is the perennial problem. For between lack of sympathy and response there are many nuances; and opposition is always to be avoided.

Helen said, pleasantly, that the girl appeared to be amiable and interesting.

"I know her merely in that way," she continued. "We sit there sewing slings, pads, compresses, and bandages, and we gossip at random with our neighbours."

"I like her very much," said Jim.

"She does seem to be an attractive girl," said his mother carelessly.... "Are you going to Yama Farms for the week end?"

"No."

"Oh, I'm sorry. The Speedwells' party is likely to be such a jolly affair, and I hear there's lots of snow up there."

"I haven't met Mrs. Vance," said her son. "Is she nice?"

"Leila Vance? Why, of course."

"Who is she?"

"She married an embassy attache, Captain Vance. He was in the old army—killed at Mons four years ago."

"She and Palla are intimate?"

"I believe they are good friends," remarked his mother, deciding not to attempt to turn the current of conversation for the moment.

"Mother?"

"Yes, dear."

"I am quite sure I never met a girl I like as well."

Helen laughed: "That is a trifle extravagant, isn't it?"

"No.... I asked her to marry me."

Helen's heart stood still, then a bright flush stained her face.

"She refused me," said the boy.

His mother said very quietly: "Of course this is news to us, Jim."

"Yes, I didn't tell you. I couldn't, somehow. But I've told you now."

"Dearest," she said, dropping her hand over his, "don't think me unsympathetic if I say that it really is better that she refused you."

"I understand, mother."

"I hope you do."

"Oh, yes. But I don't think you do. Because I am still in love with her."

"You poor dear!"

"It's rotten luck, isn't it?"

"Time heals—" She checked herself, turned and kissed him.

"After all," she said, "a soldier learns how to take things."

And presently: "I do wish you'd go up to Yama Farms."

"That," he said, "would be the obvious thing to do. Anything to keep going and keep your mind ticking away until you're safely wound up again.... But I'm not going, dear."

Helen looked at him in silence, not wondering what he might be going to do with his week-end instead, because she already guessed.

Before she said anything more his father came in; and a moment later dinner was announced.

* * * * *

Jim slept soundly for the first night in a long time. His mother scarcely closed her eyes at all.



CHAPTER XIV

There had been a row at the Red Flag Club—a matter of differing opinions between members—nothing sufficient to attract the police, but enough to break several heads, benches and windows. And it was evident that some gentleman's damaged nose had bled all over the linoleum in the lobby.

Elmer Skidder, arriving at the studio next morning in his brand new limousine, heard about the shindy and went into the club to inspect the wreckage. Then, mad all through, he started out to find Puma. But a Sister Art had got the best of Angelo Puma in a questionable cabaret the night before, and he had not yet arrived at the studio of the Super-Picture Corporation.

Skidder, thrifty by every instinct, and now smarting under his wrongs at the hands—and feet—of the Red Flag Club, went away in his gorgeous limousine to find Sondheim, who paid the rental and who lived in the Bronx.

It was a long way; every mile and every gallon of gasoline made Skidder madder; and when at length he arrived at the brand new, jerry-built apartment house inhabited by Max Sondheim, he had concluded that the Red Flag Club was an undesirable tenant and that it must be summarily kicked out.

Sondheim was still in bed, but a short-haired and pallid young woman, with assorted spots on her complexion, bade Skidder enter, and opened the chamber door for him.

The bedroom, which smelled of sour fish, was very cold, very dirty, and very blue with cigar smoke. The remains of a delicatessen breakfast stood on a table near the only window, which was tightly shut, and under the sill of which a radiator emitted explosive symptoms of steam to come.

Sondheim sprawled under the bed-covers, smoking; two other men sat on the edge of the bed—Karl Kastner and Nathan Bromberg. Both were smoking porcelain pipes. Three slopping quarts of beer decorated the wash stand.

Skidder, who had halted in the doorway as the full aroma of the place smote him, now entered at the curt suggestion of Sondheim, but refused a chair.

"Say, Sondheim," he began, "I been to the club this morning, and I've seen what you've done to the place."

"Well?" demanded Sondheim, in a growling voice, "what haf we done?"

"Oh, nothing;—smashed the furniture f'r instance. That's all. But it don't go with me. See?"

Kastner got up and gave him a sinister, near-sighted look: "If ve done damach ve pay," he remarked.

"Sure you'll pay!" blustered Skidder. "And that's all right, too. But no more for yours truly. I'm through. Here's where your bunch quits the hall for keeps. Get me?"

"Please?" inquired Kastner, turning a brick red.

"I say I'm through!" blustered Skidder. "You gotta get other quarters. It don't pay us to keep on buying benches and mending windows, even if you cough up for 'em. It don't pay us to rent the hall to your club and get all this here notoriety, what with your red flags and the po-lice hanging around and nosin' into everything——"

"Ach wass!" snapped Kastner, "of vat are you speaking? Iss it for you to concern yourself mit our club und vat iss it ve do?"

"Say, who d'yeh think you're talkin' to?" retorted Skidder, his eyes snapping furiously. "Grab this from me, old scout?—I'm half owner of that hall and I'm telling you to get out! Is that plain?"

"So?" Kastner sneered at him and nudged Sondheim, who immediately sat up in bed and levelled an unwashed hand at Skidder.

"You think you fire us?" he shouted, his eyes inflamed and his dirty fingers crisping to a talon. "You go home and tell Puma what you say to us. Then you learn something maybe, what you don't know already!"

"I'll learn you something!" retorted Skidder. "Just wait till I show Puma the wreckage——"

"Let him look at it and be damned!" roared Bromberg. "Go home and show it to him! And see if he talks about firing us!"

"Say," demanded Skidder, astonished, "do you fellows think you got any drag with Angy Puma?"

"Go back and ask him!" growled Bromberg. "And don't try to come around here and get fresh again. Listen! You go buy what benches you say we broke and send the bill to me, and keep your mouth shut and mind your fool business!"

"I'll mind my own and yours too!" screamed Skidder, seized by an ungovernable access of fury. "Say, you poor nut!—you sick mink!—you stale hunk of cheese!—if you come down my way again I'll kick your shirttail for you! Get that?" And he slammed the door and strode out in a flaming rage.

But when, still furiously excited, he arrived once more at the office,—and when Puma, who had just entered, had listened in sullen consternation to his story, he received another amazing and most unpleasant shock. For Puma told him flatly that the tenancy of the Red Flag Club suited him; that no lease could be broken, except by mutual consent of partners; and that he, Skidder, had had no business to go to Sondheim with any such threat of eviction unless he had first consulted his partner's wishes.

"Well, what—what—" stammered Skidder—"what the hell drag have those guys got with you?"

"Why is it you talk foolish?" retorted Puma sharply. "Drag? Did Sondheim say——"

"No! I say it. I ask you what have those crazy nuts got on you that you stand for all this rumpus?"

Puma's lustrous eyes, battered but still magnificent, fixed themselves on Skidder.

"Go out," he said briefly to his stenographer. Then, when the girl had gone, and the glass door closed behind her, he turned heavily and gazed at Skidder some more. And, after a few moments' silence: "Go on," he said. "What did Sondheim say about me?"

Skidder's small, shifty eyes were blinking furiously and his essentially suspicious mind was also operating at full speed. When he had calculated what to say he took the chance, and said:

"Sondheim gave me to understand that he's got such a hell of a pull with you that I can't kick him out of my property. What do you know about that, Angelo?"

"Go on," said Puma impatiently, "what else did he say about me?"

"Ain't I telling you?"

"Tell more."

Skidder had no more to tell, so he manufactured more.

"Well," he continued craftily, "I didn't exactly get what that kike said." But his grin and his manner gave his words the lie, as he intended they should. "Something about your being in dutch—" He checked himself as Puma's black eyes lighted with a momentary glare.

"What? He tells you I am in with Germans!"

"Naw;—in dutch!"

Puma's sanguinary skin reddened; his puffy fingers fished for a cigar in the pocket of his fancy waistcoat; he found one and lighted it, not looking at his partner. Then he picked up the morning paper.

Skidder shrugged; stood up, pretending to yawn; started to open the door.

"Elmer?"

"Yeh? What y'want?"

"I want to know exactly what Max Sondheim said to you about me."

"Well, you better go ask Sondheim."

"No. I ask you—my friend—my associate in business——"

"A fine associate!—when I can't kick in when I want to kick out a bunch of nuts that's wrecking the hall, just because they got a drag with you——"

"Listen. I am frank like there never was a——"

"Sure. Go on!"

"I say it! Yes! I am frank like hell. From my friend and partner I conceal nothing——"

"Not even the books," grinned Skidder.

"Elmer. You pain me. I who am all heart! Elmer, I ask it of you if you will so kindly tell me what it is that Sondheim has said to you about this 'drag.'"

"He said," replied the other viciously, "that he had you cinched. He said you'd hand me the ha-ha when I saw you. And you've done it."

"Pardon. I did not say to you a ha-ha, Elmer. I was surprised when you have told me how you have gone to Sondheim so roughly, without one word to me——"

"You was soused to the gills last night. I didn't know when you'd show up at the studio——"

"It was not just to me that you go to Sondheim in this so surprising manner, without informing me." He looked at his cigar; the wrapper was broken and he licked the place with a fat tongue. "Elmer?"

"That's me," replied the other, who had been slyly watching him. "Spit it out, Angy. What's on your mind?"

"I tell you, Elmer!"

Puma's face became suddenly wreathed in guileless smiles: "Me, I am frank like there never—but no matter," he added; "listen attentively to what I shall say to you secretly, that I also desire to be rid of this Red Flag Club."

"Well, then——"

"A moment! I am embarrass. Yes. You ask why? I shall tell you. It is this. Formerly I have reside in Mexico. My business has been in Mexico City. I have there a little cinema theatre. In 1913 I arrive in New York. You ask me why I came? And I am frank like—" his full smile burst on Skidder—"like a heaven angel! But it is God's truth I came here to make of the cinema a monument to Art."

"And make your little pile too, eh, Angy?"

"As you please. But this I affirm to you, Elmer; of politics I am innocent like there never was a cherubim! Yes! And yet your Government has question me. Why? you ask so naturally. My God! I know no one in New York. I arrive. I repair to a recommended hotel. I make acquaintance—unhappily—with people who are under a suspicion of German sympathy!"

"What the devil did you do that for?" demanded Skidder.

Puma spread his jewelled fingers helplessly.

"How am I to know? I encounter people. I seek capital for my art. Me, I am all heart: I suspect nobody. I say: 'Gentlemen, my art is my life. Without it I cease to exist. I desire capital; I desire sympathy; I desire intelligent recognition and practical aid.' Yes. In time some gentlemen evince confidence. I am offered funds. I produce, with joy, my first picture. Ha! The success is extravagant! But—alas!"

"What tripped you?"

"Alas," repeated Puma, "your Government arrests some gentlemen who have lend to me much funds. Why? Imagine my grief, my mortification! They are suspect of German propaganda! Oh, my God!"

"How is it they didn't pinch you?" asked Skidder coldly, and beginning to feel very uneasy.

"Me? No! They investigate. They discover only Art!"

Skidder squinted at him nervously. If he had heard anything of that sort in connection with Puma he never would have flirted with him financially.

"Well, then, what's this drag they got with you?—Sondheim and the other nuts?"

"I tell you. Letters quite innocent but polite they have in possession——"

"Blackmail, by heck!"

"I must be considerate of Sondheim."

"Or he'll squeal on you. Is that it?"

Puma's black eyes were flaring up again; the heavy colour stained his face.

"Me, I am——"

"All right. Sondheim's got something on you, then. Has he?"

"It is nothing. Yet, it has embarrass me——"

"That ratty kike! I get you, Angy. You were played. Or maybe you did some playing too. Aw! wait!"—as Puma protested—"I'm getting you, by gobs. Sure. And you're rich, now, and business is pretty good, and you wish Sondheim would let you alone."

"Yes, surely."

"How much hush-cash d'yeh pay him?"

"I?"

"Yaas, you! Come on, now, Angy. What does he stick you up for per month?"

Puma's face became empurpled: "He is a scoundrel," he said thickly. "Me—I wish to God and Jesus Christ I saw the last of him!" He got up, and his step was lithe as a leopard's as he paced the room, ranging the four walls as though caged. And, for the first time, then Skidder realised that this velvet-eyed, velvet-footed man might possibly be rather dangerous—dangerous to antagonise, dangerous to be associated with in business.

"Say," he blurted out, "what else did you let me in for when I put my money into your business? Think I'm going to be held up by any game like that? Think I'm going to stand for any shake-down from that gang? Watch me."

Puma stopped and looked at him stealthily: "What is it you would do, Elmer?"

But Skidder offered no suggestion. He remained, however, extremely uneasy. For it was plain enough that Puma had been involved in dealings sufficiently suspicious to warrant Government surveillance.

All Skidder's money and real estate were now invested in Super-Pictures. No wonder he was anxious. No wonder Puma, also, seemed worried.

For, whatever he might have done in the past of a shady nature, now he had become prosperous and financially respectable and, if let alone, would doubtless continue to make a great deal of money for Skidder as well as for himself. And Skidder, profoundly troubled, wondered whether his partner had ever been guiltily involved in German propaganda, and had escaped Government detection only to fall a victim, in his dawning prosperity, to blackmailing associates of earlier days.

"That mutt Sondheim looks like a bad one to me, and the other guy—Kastner," he observed gloomily.

"It is better that we should not offend them."

"Just as you say, brother."

"I say it. Yes. We shall be wise to turn to them a pleasing face."

"Sure. The best thing to do for a while is to stall along," nodded Skidder, "—but always be ready for a chance to hand it to them. That's safest; wait till we get the goods on them. Then slam it to 'em plenty!"

"If they annoy me too much," purred Puma, displaying every dazzling tooth, "it may not be so agreeable for them. I am bad man to crowd.... Meanwhile——"

"Sure; we'll stall along, Angy!"

They opened the glass door and went out into the studio. And Puma began again on his favourite theme, the acquiring of Broadway property and the erection of a cinema theatre. And Skidder, with his limited imagination of a cross-roads storekeeper, listened cautiously, yet always conscious of agreeable thrills whenever the subject was mentioned.

And, although he knew that capital was shy and that conditions were not favourable, his thoughts always reverted to a man he might be willing to go into such a scheme with—the president of the Shadow Hill Trust Company, Alonzo Pawling.

* * * * *

At that very moment, too, it chanced that Mr. Pawling's business had brought him to New York—in fact, his business was partly with Palla Dumont, and they were now lunching together at the Ritz.

Alonzo Pawling stood well over six feet. He still had all his hair—which was dyed black—and also an inky pair of old-fashioned side whiskers. For the beauty of his remaining features less could be said, because his eyes were a melancholy and faded blue, his nose very large and red, and his small, loose mouth seemed inclined to sag, as though saturated with moisture.

Many years a widower he had, when convenient opportunity presented itself, never failed to offer marriage to Palla Dumont. And when, as always, she refused him in her frank, amused fashion, they returned without embarrassment to their amiable footing of many years—she as child of his old friend and neighbour, Judge Dumont, he as her financial adviser, and banker.

As usual, Mr. Pawling had offered Palla his large, knotty hand in wedlock that morning. And now that this inevitable preliminary was safely over, they were approaching the end of a business luncheon on entirely amiable terms with each other.

Financial questions had been argued, investments decided upon, news of the town discussed, and Palla was now telling him about Elmer Skidder and his new and apparently prosperous venture into moving pictures.

"He came to see me last evening," she said, smiling at the recollection, "and he arrived in a handsome limousine with an extra man on the front—oh, very gorgeous, Mr. Pawling!—and we had tea and he told me how prosperous he had become in the moving picture business."

"I guess," said Mr. Pawling, "that there's a lot of money in moving pictures. But nobody ever seems to get any of it except the officials of the corporation and their favourite stars."

"It seems to be an exceedingly unattractive business," said Palla, recollecting her unpleasant impressions at the Super-Picture studios.

"The right end of it," said Mr. Pawling, "is to own a big theatre."

She smiled: "You wouldn't advise me to make such an investment, would you?"

Mr. Pawling's watery eyes rested on her reflectively and he sucked in his lower lips as though trying to extract the omnipresent moisture.

"I dunno," he said absently.

"Mr. Skidder told me that he would double his invested capital in a year," she said.

"I guess he was bragging."

"Perhaps," she rejoined, laughing, "but I should not care to make such an investment."

"Did he ask you?"

"No. But it seemed to me that he hinted at something of that nature. And I was not at all interested because I am contented with my little investments and my income as it is. I don't really need much money."

Mr. Pawling's pendulous lip, released, sagged wetly and his jet-black eyebrows were lifted in a surprised arch.

"You're the first person I ever heard say they had enough money," he remarked.

"But I have!" she insisted gaily.

Mr. Pawling's sad horse-face regarded her with faded surprise. He passed for a rich man in Shadow Hill.

"Where is Elmer's place of business?" he inquired finally, producing a worn note-book and a gold pencil. And he wrote down the address.

There was in all the world only one thing that seriously worried Mr. Pawling, and that was this worn note-book. Almost every day of his life he concluded to burn it. He lived in a vague and daily fear that it might be found on him if he died suddenly. Such things could happen—automobile or railroad accidents—any one of numberless mischances.

And still he carried it, and had carried it for years—always in a sort of terror while the recent Mrs. Pawling was still alive—and in dull but perpetual anxiety ever since.

There were in it pages devoted to figures. There were, also, memoranda of stock transactions. There were many addresses, too, mostly feminine.

Now he replaced it in the breast pocket of his frock-coat, and took out a large wallet strapped with a rubber band.

While he was paying the check, Palla drew on her gloves; and, at the Madison Avenue door, stood chatting with him a moment longer before leaving for the canteen.

Then, smilingly declining his taxi and offering her slender hand in adieu, she went westward on foot as usual. And Mr. Pawling's directions to the chauffeur were whispered ones as though he did not care to have the world at large share in his knowledge of his own occult destination.

* * * * *

Palla's duty at the canteen lasted until six o'clock that afternoon, and she hurried on her way home because people were dining there at seven-thirty.

With the happy recollection that Jim, also, was dining with her, she ran lightly up the steps and into the house; examined the flowers which stood in jars of water in the pantry, called for vases, arranged a centre-piece for the table, and carried other clusters of blossoms into the little drawing-room, and others still upstairs.

Then she returned to criticise the table and arrange the name-cards. And, this accomplished, she ran upstairs again to her own room, where her maid was waiting.

Two or three times in a year—not oftener—Palla yielded to a rare inclination which assailed her only when unusually excited and happy. That inclination was to whistle.

She whistled, now, while preparing for the bath; whistled like a blackbird as she stood before the pier-glass before the maid hooked her into a filmy, rosy evening gown—her first touch of colour since assuming mourning.

The bell rang, and the waitress brought an elaborate florist's box. There were pink orchids in it and Jim's card;—perfection.

How could he have known! She wondered rapturously, realising all the while that they'd have gone quite as well with her usual black.

Would he come early? She had forgotten to ask it. Would he? For, in that event—and considering his inclination to take her into his arms—she decided to leave off the orchids until the more strenuous rites of friendship had been accomplished.

She was carrying the orchids and the long pin attached, in her left hand, when the sound of the doorbell filled her with abrupt and delightful premonitions. She ventured a glance over the banisters, then returned hastily to the living room, where he discovered her and did exactly what she had feared.

Her left hand, full of orchids, rested on his shoulder; her cool, fresh lips rested on his. Then she retreated, inviting inspection of the rosy dinner gown; and fastened her orchids while he was admiring it.

Her guests began to arrive before either was quite ready, so engrossed were they in happy gossip. And Palla looked up in blank surprise that almost amounted to vexation when the bell announced that their tete-a-tete was ended.

Shotwell had met the majority of Palla's dinner guests. Seated on her right, he received from his hostess information concerning some of those he did not know.

"That rather talkative boy with red hair is Larry Rideout," she said in a low voice. "He edits a weekly called The Coming Race. The Post Office authorities have refused to pass it through the mails. It's rather advanced, you know."

"Who is the girl on his right—the one with the chalky map?"

"Questa Terrett. Don't you think her pallor is fascinating?"

"No. What particular stunt does she perform?"

"Don't be flippant. She writes."

"Ads?"

"Jim! She writes poems. Haven't you seen any of them?"

"I don't think so."

"They're rather modern poems. The lines don't rhyme and there's no metrical form," explained Palla.

"Are they any good?"

"They're a little difficult to understand. She leaves out so many verbs and nouns——"

"I know. It's a part of her disease——"

"Jim, please be careful. She is taken seriously——"

"Taken seriously ill? There, dear, I won't guy your guests. What an absolutely deathly face she has!"

"She is considered beautiful."

"She has the profile of an Egyptian. She's as dead-white as an Egyptian leper——"

"Hush!"

"Hush it is, sweetness! Who's the good-looking chap over by Ilse?"

"Stanley Wardner."

"And his star trick?"

"He's a secessionist sculptor."

"What's that?"

"He is one of the ultra-modern men who has seceded from the Society of American Sculptors to form, with a few others, a new group."

"Is he any good?"

"Well, Jim, I don't know," she said candidly. "I don't think I am quite in sympathy with his work."

"What sort is it?"

"If I understand him, he is what is termed, I believe, a concentrationist. For instance, in a nude figure which he is exhibiting in his studio, it's all a rough block of marble except, in the middle of the upper part, there is a nose."

"A nose!"

"Really, it is beautifully sculptured," insisted Palla.

"But—good heavens!—isn't there any other anatomical feature to that block of marble?"

"I explained that he is a concentrationist. His school believes in concentrating on a single feature only, and in rendering that feature as minutely and perfectly as possible."

Jim said: "He looks as sane as a broker, too. You never can tell, can you, sweetness?"

He glanced at several other people whose features were not familiar, but Palla's explanations of her friends had slightly discouraged him and he made no further inquiries.

Vanya Tchernov was there, dreamy and sweet-mannered; Estridge sat by Ilse, looking a trifle careworn, as though hospital work were taking it out of him. Marya Lanois was there, too, with her slightly slanting green eyes and her tiger-red hair—attracting from him a curious sort of stealthy admiration, inexplicable to him because he knew he was so entirely in love with Palla.

A woman of forty sat on his right—he promptly forgot her name each time he heard it—who ate fastidiously and chose birth-control as the subject for conversation. And he dodged it in vain, for her conversation had become a monologue, and he sat fiddling with his food, very red, while the silky voice, so agreeable in pitch and intonation, slid smoothly on.

Afterward Palla explained that she was a celebrated sociologist, but Jim remained shy of her.

Other people came in after dinner. Vanya seated himself at the piano and played from one of his unpublished scores. Ilse sang two Scandinavian songs in her fresh, wholesome, melodious voice—the song called Ygdrasil, and the Song of Thokk. Wardner had brought a violin, and he and Vanya accompanied Marya's Asiatic songs, but with some difficulty on the sculptor's part, as modern instruments are scarcely adapted to the sort of Russian music she chose to sing.

Marya had a way, when singing, which appeared almost insolent. Seated, or carelessly erect, her supple figure fell into lines of indolently provocative grace; and the warm, golden notes welling from her throat seemed to be flung broadcast and indifferently to her listeners, as alms are often flung, without interest, toward abstract poverty and not to the poor breathing thing at one's elbow.

She sang, in her preoccupied way, one of her savage, pentatonic songs, more Mongol than Cossack; then she sang an impudent burlatskiya lazily defiant of her listeners; then a so-called "dancing song," in which there was little restraint in word or air.

The subtly infernal enchantment of girl and music was felt by everybody; but several among the illuminati and the fair ultra-modernettes had now reached their limit of breadth and tolerance, and were becoming bored and self-conscious, when abruptly Marya's figure straightened to a lovely severity, her mouth opened sweetly as a cherub's, and, looking up like a little, ruddy bird, she sang one of the ancient Kolyadki, Vanya alone understanding as his long, thin fingers wandered instinctively into an improvised accompaniment:

I

"Young tears Your fears disguise; He is not coming! Sweet lips Let slip no sighs; Cease, heart, your drumming! He is not coming, [A]Lada! He is not coming. Lada oy Lada!

"Gaze not in wonder,— Yonder no rider comes; Hark how the kettle-drums Mock his hoofs' thunder; Hark to their thudding, Pretty breasts budding,— Setting the Buddhist bells Clanking and banging,— Wheels at the hidden wells Clinking and clanging! (Lada oy Lada!) Plough the flower under; Tear it asunder!

"Young eyes In swift surprise, What terror veils you? Clear eyes, Who gallops here? What wolf assails you? What horseman hails you, Lada! What pleasure pales you? Lada oy Lada!

"Knight who rides boldly, May Erlik impale you,— Your mother bewail you, If you use her coldly! Health to the wedding! Joy to the bedding! Set all the Christian bells Swinging and ringing— Monks in their stony cells Chanting and singing (Lada oy Lada!) Bud of the rose, Gently unclose!"

Marya, her gemmed fingers bracketed on her hips, the last sensuous note still afloat on her lips, turned her head so that her rounded chin rested on her bare shoulder; and looked at Shotwell. He rose, applauding with the others, and found a chair for her.

But when she seated herself, she addressed Ilse on the other side of him, leaning so near that he felt the warmth of her hair.

"Who was it wrestled with Loki? Was it Hel, goddess of death? Or was it Thor who wrestled with that toothless hag, Thokk?"

Ilse explained.

The conversation became general, vaguely accompanied by Vanya's drifting improvisations, where he still sat at the piano, his lost gaze on Marya.

Bits of the chatter around him came vaguely to Shotwell—the birth-control lady's placid inclination toward obstetrics; Wardner on concentration, with Palla listening, bending forward, brown eyes wide and curious and snowy hands framing her face; Ilse partly turned where she was seated, alert, flushed, half smiling at what John Estridge, behind her shoulder, was saying to her,—some improvised nonsense, of which Jim caught a fragment:

"If he who dwells in Midgard With cunning can not floor her, What hope that Mistress Westgard Will melt if I implore her?

"And yet I've come to Asgard, And hope I shall not bore her If I tell Mistress Westgard How deeply I adore her——"

Through the hum of conversation and capricious laughter, Vanya's vague music drifted like wind-blown thistle-down, and his absent regard never left Marya, where she rested among the cushions in low-voiced dialogue with Jim.

"I had hoped," she smiled, "that you had perhaps remembered me—enough to stop for a word or two some day at tea-time."

He had had no intention of going; but he said that he had meant to and would surely do so,—the while she was leisurely recognising the lie as it politely uncoiled.

"Why won't you come?" she asked under her breath.

"I shall certainly——"

"No; you won't come." She seemed amused: "Tell me, are you too a concentrationist?" And her beryl-green eyes barely flickered toward Palla. Then she smiled and laid her hand lightly on her breast: "I, on the contrary, am a Diffusionist. It's merely a matter of how God grinds the lens. But prisms colour one's dull white life so gaily!"

"And split it up," he said, smiling.

"And disintegrate it," she nodded, "—so exquisitely."

"Into rainbows."

"You do not believe that there is hidden gold there?" And, looking at him, she let one hand rest lightly against her hair.

"Yes. I believe it," he said, laughing at her enchanting effrontery. "But, Marya, when the rainbow goes a-glimmering, the same old grey world is there again. It's always there——"

"Awaiting another rainbow!"

"But storms come first."

"Is another rainbow not worth the storm?"

"Is it?" he demanded.

"Shall we try?" she asked carelessly.

He did not answer. But presently he looked across at Vanya.

"Who is there who would not love him?" said Marya serenely.

"I was wondering."

"No need. All love Vanya. I, also."

"I thought so."

"Think so. For it is quite true.... Will you come to tea alone with me some afternoon?"

He looked at her; reddened. Marya turned her head leisurely, to hear what Palla was saying to her. At the sound of her voice, Jim turned also, and saw Palla bending near his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she was saying to Marya, "but Questa Terrett desires to know Jim——"

"Is it any wonder," said Marya, "that women should desire to know him? Alas!—" She laughed and turned to Ilse, who seated herself as Jim stood up.

Palla, her finger-tips resting lightly on his arm, said laughingly: "Our youthful and tawny enchantress seemed unusually busy with you this evening. Has she turned you into anything very disturbing?"

"Would you care?"

"Of course."

"Enough to come to earth and interfere?"

"Good heavens, has it gone as far as that!" she whispered in gay consternation. "And could I really arrive in time, though breathless?"

He laughed: "You don't need to stir from your niche, sweetness. I swept your altar once. I'll keep the fire clean."

"You adorable thing—" He felt the faintest pressure of her fingers; then he heard himself being presented to Questa Terrett.

The frail and somewhat mortuary beauty of this slim poetess, with her full-lipped profile of an Egyptian temple-girl and her pale, still eyes, left him guessing—rather guiltily—recollecting his recent but meaningless disrespect.

"I don't know," she said, "just why you are here. Soldiers are no novelty. Is somebody in love with you?"

It was a toss-up whether he'd wither or laugh, but the demon of gaiety won out.

She also smiled.

"I asked you," she added, "because you seem to be quite featureless."

"Oh, I've a few eyes and noses and that sort——"

"I mean psychologically accentless."

"Just plain man?"

"Yes. That is all you are, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid it is," he admitted, quite as much amused as she appeared to be.

"I see. Some crazy girl here is enamoured of you. Otherwise, you scarcely belong among modern intellectuals, you know."

At that he laughed outright.

She said: "You really are delightful. You're just a plain, fighting male, aren't you?"

"Well, I haven't done much fighting——"

"Unimaginative, too! You could have led yourself to believe you had done a lot," she pointed out. "And maybe you could have interested me."

"I'm sorry. But suppose you try to interest me?"

"Don't I? I've tried."

"Do your best," he encouraged her cheerfully. "You never can be sure I'm not listening."

At that she laughed: "You nice youth," she said, "if you'd talk that way to your sweetheart she'd sit up and listen.... Which I'm afraid she doesn't, so far."

He felt himself flushing, but he refused to wince under her amused analysis.

"You've simply got to have imagination, you know," she insisted. "Otherwise, you don't get anywhere at all. Have you read my smears?"

"Smears?"

"Bacteriologists take a smear of something on a glass slide and slip it under a microscope. My poems are like that. The words are the bacteria. Few can identify them."

"Are you serious?"

"Entirely."

He maintained his gravity: "Would you be kind enough to take a smear and let me look?" he inquired politely.

"Certainly: the experiment is called 'Unpremeditation.'"

She dropped one thin and silken knee over the other and crossed her hands on it as she recited her poem.

"UNPREMEDITATION."

"In the tube. Several, With intonation. Red, red, red. A square fabric Once white With intention. Soiled, soiled, soiled. Six hundred hundred million Swarm like vermin, Without intention. Redder. Redder. Drip, drip, drip. A goes west, B goes east, C goes north, Pink, pink, pink. Two white squares. And a coat-sleeve. Without intention, Intonations. Pinker. Redder. Six hundred hundred million. Billions. Trillions. A week. Two weeks. Otherwise? Eternity."

Jim's features had become a trifle glassy. "You do skip a few words," he said, "don't you?"

"Words are animalculae. Some skip, some gyrate, some sub-divide."

He put a brave face on the matter: "If you're not really guying me," he ventured, "would you tell me a little about your poem?"

"Why, yes," she replied amiably. "To put it redundantly, then, I have sketched in my poem a man in the subway, with influenza, which infects others in his vicinity."

She rose, smiled, and sauntered off, leaving him utterly unable to determine whether or not he had been outrageously imposed upon. Palla rescued him, and he went with her, a little wild-eyed, downstairs to the nearly empty and carpetless drawing-room, where a music box was playing and people were already dancing.

Toward midnight, Marya, passing Jim on her way to the front door, leaned wide from Vanya's arm:

"Let us at least discuss my rainbow theory," she said, laughing, and her face a shade too close to his; and continued on, still clinging to the sleeve of Vanya's fur-lined coat.

Ilse was the last to leave, with Estridge waiting behind her to hold her wrap.

She came up to Palla, took both her hands in an odd, subdued, wistful way.

After a moment she kissed her, and, close to her ear: "Wait, darling."

Palla did not understand.

Ilse said: "I mean—wait before you ever take any step to—to prove any theory—or belief."

Still Palla did not comprehend.

"With—Jim," said Ilse in a low voice.

"Oh. Why, of course. But—it could never happen."

"Why?"

Palla said honestly: "One reason is because he wouldn't anyway."

"You must not be certain."

"I am. I'm absolutely certain."

Ilse gazed at her, then laughed and pressed her hand. "Are you cold?" asked Palla.

"No."

"I thought I felt you shiver, dearest."

Ilse flushed and held out her arms for the sleeves of her fur coat, which Estridge was holding.

They went away together, leaving Palla alone with Shotwell, among the fading flowers.

[A] The ancient Slavonic Venus.



CHAPTER XV

"So," said Puma, "you are quite convinced he has much wealth. Yes?"

"You betcha," replied Elmer Skidder. "That pious guy has got all kinds of it. Why, Alonzo D. Pawling can buy you and me like we were two subway tickets and then forget which pocket he put us in."

"He also is a sport? Yes?"

"On the quiet. Oh, I got his number some years ago. Ran into him once in New York, where you used to knock three times and ring twice before they slid the panel on you."

"A bank president?"

"Did you ever know one that didn't?" grinned Skidder, inserting pearl studs in his shirt.

"It is very bad—for a shake-down," mused Puma, smoothing his glossy top hat with one of Skidder's silk mufflers.

"Aw, you can't scare Alonzo D. Pawling. Say, Angy, what dames have you commandeered?"

"I ask Barclay and West. Also, they got another—Vanna Brown."

"Pictures?"

"No, she has a friend."

Skidder continued to attire himself in an over-braided evening dress; Puma, seated behind him, gazed absently at his partner's features reflected in the looking glass.

"A theatre on Broadway," he mused. "You say he has seemed interested, Elmer?"

"He didn't run away screaming."

"How did he behave?"

"Well, it's hard to size up Alonzo D. Pawling. He's a fly guy, Angy. What a man says at a little supper for four, with a peach pulling his Depews and a good looker sticking gardenias in his buttonhole, ain't what he's likely to say next day in your office."

"You have accompany him to Broadway and you have shown him the parcel?"

"I sure did."

"You explain how we can not lose out? You mention the option?"

Skidder cast aside his white tie and tried another, constructed on the butterfly plan.

"I put the whole thing up to him," he said. "No use stalling with Alonzo D. Pawling. I know him too well. So I let out straight from the shoulder, and he knows the scheme we've got in mind and he knows we want his money in it. That's how it stands to-night."

Puma nodded and softly joined his over-manicured finger-tips:

"We give him a good time," he said. "We give him a little dinner like there never was in New York. Yes?"

"You betcha."

"Barclay is a devil. You think she please him?"

"Alonzo D. Pawling is some bird himself," remarked Skidder, picking up his hat and turning to Puma, who rose with lithe briskness, put on his hat, and began to pull at his white gloves.

They went down to the street, where Puma's car was waiting.

"I stop at the office a moment," he said, as they entered the limousine. "You need not get out, Elmer."

At the studio he descended, saying to Skidder that he'd be back in a moment.

But it was very evident when he entered his office that he had not expected to find Max Sondheim there; and he hesitated on the threshold, his white-gloved hand still on the door-knob.

"Come in, Puma; I want to see you," growled Sondheim, retaining his seat but pocketing The Call, which he had been reading.

"To-morrow," said Puma coolly; "I have no time——"

"No, now!" interrupted Sondheim.

They eyed each other for a moment in silence, then Puma shrugged:

"Very well," he said. "But be quick, if you please——"

"Look here," interrupted the other in a menacing voice, "you're getting too damned independent, telling me to be quick! I had a date with you here at five o'clock. You thought you wouldn't keep it and you left at four-thirty. But I stuck around till you 'phoned in that you'd stop here to get some money. It's seven o'clock now, and I've waited for you. And I guess you've got enough time to hear what I'm going to say."

Puma looked at him without any expression at all on his sanguine features. "Go on," he said.

"What I got to say to you is this," began Sondheim. "There's a kind of a club that uses our hall on off nights. It's run by women."

Puma waited.

"They meet this evening at eight in our hall,—your hall, if you choose."

Puma nodded carelessly.

"All right. Put them out."

"What?"

"Put 'em out!" growled Sondheim. "We don't want them there to-night or any other night."

"You ask me to evict respectable people who pay me rent?"

"I don't ask you; I tell you."

Puma turned a deep red: "And whose hall do you think it is?" he demanded in a silky voice.

"Yours. That's why I tell you to get rid of that bunch and their Combat Club."

"Why have you ask me such a——"

"Because they're fighting us and you know it. That's a good enough reason."

"I shall not do so," said Puma, moistening his lips with his tongue.

"Oh, I guess you will when you think it over," sneered Sondheim, getting up from his chair and stuffing his newspaper into his overcoat pocket. He crossed the floor and shot an ugly glance at Puma en passant. Then he jerked open the door and went out briskly.

Puma walked into the inner waiting room, where a telephone operator sat reading a book.

"Where's McCabe?" he asked.

"Here he comes now, Governor."

The office manager sauntered up, eating a slice of apple pie, and Puma stepped forward to meet him.

"For what reason have you permit Mr. Sondheim to wait in my office?" he demanded.

"He said you told him to go in and wait there."

"He is a liar! Hereafter he shall wait out here. You understand, McCabe?"

"Yes, sir. You're always out when he calls, ain't you?"

Puma meditated a few moments: "No. When he calls you shall let me know. Then I decide. But he shall not wait in my office."

"Very good, sir." And, as Puma turned to go: "The police was here again this evening, sir."

"Why?"

"They heard of the row in the hall last night."

"What did you tell them?"

"Oh, the muss was all swept up—windows fixed and the busted benches in the furnace, so I said there had been no row as far as I knew, and I let 'em go in and nose around."

"Next time," said Puma, "you shall say to them that there was a very bad riot."

"Sir?"

"A big fight," continued Puma. "And if there is only a little damage you shall make more. And you shall show it to the police."

"I get you, Governor. I'll stage it right; don't worry."

"Yes, you shall stage it like there never was in all of France any ruins like my hall! And afterward," he said, half to himself, "we shall see what we shall see."

He went back to his office, took a packet of hundred dollar bills from the safe, and walked slowly out to where the limousine awaited him.

"Say, what the hell—" began Skidder impatiently; but Puma leaped lightly to his seat and pulled the fur robe over his knees.

"Now," he said, in excellent humour, "we pick up Mr. Pawling at the Astor."

"Where are the ladies?"

"They join us, Hotel Rajah. It will be, I trust, an amusing evening."

* * * * *

About midnight, dinner merged noisily into supper in the private dining room reserved by Mr. Puma for himself and guests at the new Hotel Rajah.

There had been intermittent dancing during the dinner, but now the negro jazz specialists had been dismissed with emoluments, and a music-box substituted; and supper promised to become even a more lively repetition of the earlier banquet.

Puma was superb—a large, heavy man, he danced as lightly as any ballerina; and he and Tessa Barclay did a Paraguayan dance together, with a leisurely and agile perfection of execution that elicited uproarious demonstrations from the others.

Not a whit winded, Puma resumed his seat at table, laughing as Mr. Pawling insisted on shaking hands with him.

"You are far too kind to my poor accomplishments," he said in deprecation. "It was not at all difficult, that Paraguayan dance."

"It was art!" insisted Mr. Pawling, his watery eyes brimming with emotion. And he pressed the pretty waist of Tessa Barclay.

"Art," rejoined Puma, laying a jewelled hand on his shirt-front, "is an ecstatic outburst from within, like the song of the bird. Art is simple; art is not difficult. Where effort begins, art ends. Where self-expression becomes a labour, art already has perished!"

He thumped his shirt-front with an impassioned and highly-coloured fist.

"What is art?" he cried, "if it be not pleasure? And pleasure ceases where effort begins. For me, I am all heart, all art, like there never was in all the history of the Renaissance. As expresses itself the little innocent bird in song, so in my pictures I express myself. It is no effort. It is in me. It is born. Behold! Art has given birth to Beauty!"

"And the result," added Skidder, "is a ne plus ultra par excellence which gathers in the popular coin every time. And say, if we had a Broadway theatre to run our stuff, and Angelo Puma to soopervise the combine—oh boy!—" He smote Mr. Pawling upon his bony back and dug him in the ribs with his thumb.

Mr. Pawling's mouth sagged and his melancholy eyes shifted around him from Tessa Barclay—who was now attempting to balance a bon-bon on her nose and catch it between her lips—to Vanna Brown, teaching Miss West to turn cart-wheels on one hand.

Evidently Art had its consolations; and the single track genius who lived for art alone got a bonus, too. Also, what General Sherman once said about Art seemed to be only too obvious.

A detail, however, worried Mr. Pawling. Financially, he had always been afraid of Jews. And the nose of Angelo Puma made him uneasy every time he looked at it.

But an inch is a mile on a man's nose; and his own was bigger, yet entirely Yankee; so he had about concluded that there was no racial occasion for financial alarm.

What he should have known was that no Jew can compete with a Connecticut Yankee; but that any half-cast Armenian is master of both. Especially when born in Mexico of a Levantine father.

Now, in spite of Angelo Puma's agile gaiety and exotic exuberances, his brain remained entirely occupied with two matters. One of these concerned the possibility of interesting Mr. Pawling in a plot of ground on Broadway, now defaced by several taxpayers.

The other matter which fitfully preoccupied him was his unpleasant and unintentional interview with Sondheim.

For it had come to a point, now, that the perpetual bullying of former associates was worrying Mr. Puma a great deal in his steadily increasing prosperity.

The war was over. Besides, long ago he had prudently broken both his pledged word and his dangerous connections in Mexico, and had started what he believed to be a safe and legitimate career in New York, entirely free from perilous affiliations.

Government had investigated his activities; Government had found nothing for which to order his internment as an enemy alien.

It had been a close call. Puma realised that. But he had also realised that there was no law in Mexico ten miles outside of Mexico City;—no longer any German power there, either;—when he severed all connections with those who had sent him into the United States camouflaged as a cinema promoter, and under instruction to do all the damage he could to everything American.

But he had not counted on renewing his acquaintance with Karl Kastner and Max Sondheim in New York. Nor did they reveal themselves to him until he had become too prosperous to denounce them and risk investigation and internment under the counter-accusations with which they coolly threatened him.

So, from the early days of his prosperity in New York, it had been necessary for him to come to an agreement with Sondheim and Kastner. And the more his prosperity increased the less he dared to resent their petty tyranny and blackmail, because, whether or not they might suffer under his public accusations, it was very certain that internment, if not imprisonment for a term of years, would be the fate reserved for himself. And that, of course, meant ruin.

So, although Puma ate and drank and danced with apparent abandon, and flashed his dazzling smile over everybody and everything, his mind, when not occupied by Alonzo D. Pawling, was bothered by surmises concerning Sondheim. And also, at intervals, he thought of Palla Dumont and the Combat Club, and he wondered uneasily whether Sondheim's agents had attempted to make any trouble at the meeting in his hall that evening.

* * * * *

There had been some trouble. The meeting being a public one, under municipal permission, Kastner had sent a number of his Bolshevik followers there, instructed to make what mischief they could. They were recruited from all sects of the Reds, including the American Bolsheviki, known commonly as the I. W. W. Also, among them were scattered a few pacifists, hun-sympathisers, conscientious objectors and other birds of analogous plumage, quite ready for interruptions and debate.