"That doesn't lessen my obligation," said she. And she thought she meant it, though, in fact, his generous and plausible statement of the case had immediately lessened not a little her sense of obligation.

On the whole, however, she was not sorry she had this chance to talk of obligation. Slowly, as they saw each other from time to time, often alone, Stanley had begun—perhaps in spite of himself and unconsciously—to show his feeling for her. Sometimes his hand accidentally touched hers, and he did not draw it away as quickly as he might. And she—it was impossible for her to make any gesture, much less say anything, that suggested sensitiveness on her part. It would put him in an awkward position, would humiliate him most unjustly. He fell into the habit of holding her hand longer than was necessary at greeting or parting, of touching her caressingly, of looking at her with the eyes of a lover instead of a friend. She did not like these things. For some mysterious reason—from sheer perversity, she thought—she had taken a strong physical dislike to him. Perfectly absurd, for there was nothing intrinsically repellent about this handsome, clean, most attractively dressed man, of the best type of American and New-Yorker. No, only perversity could explain such a silly notion. She was always afraid he would try to take advantage of her delicate position—always afraid she would have to yield something, some trifle; yet the idea of giving anything from a sense of obligation was galling to her. His very refraining made her more nervous, the more shrinking. If he would only commit some overt act—seize her, kiss her, make outrageous demands—but this refraining, these touches that might be accidental and again might be stealthy approach— She hated to have him shake hands with her, would have liked to draw away when his clothing chanced to brush against hers.

So she was glad of the talk about obligation. It set him at a distance, immediately. He ceased to look lovingly, to indulge in the nerve-rasping little caresses. He became carefully formal. He was evidently eager to prove the sincerity of his protestations—too eager perhaps, her perverse mind suggested. Still, sincere or not, he held to all the forms of sincerity.

Some friends of Mrs. Brindley's who were going abroad offered her their cottage on the New Jersey coast near Seabright, and a big new touring-car and chauffeur. She and Mildred at once gave up the plan for a summer in the Adirondacks, the more readily as several of the men and women they saw the most of lived within easy distance of them at Deal Beach and Elberon. When Mildred went shopping she was lured into buying a lot of summer things she would not have needed in the Adirondacks—a mere matter of two hundred and fifty dollars or thereabouts. A little additional economy in the fall would soon make up for such a trifle, and if there is one time more than another when a woman wishes to look well and must look well, that time is summer—especially by the sea.

When her monthly statement from the bank came on the first of July she found that five thousand dollars had been deposited to her credit. She was moved by this discovery to devote several hours—very depressed hours they were—to her finances. She had spent a great deal more money than she had thought; indeed, since March she had been living at the rate of fifteen thousand a year. She tried to account for this amazing extravagance. But she could recall no expenditure that was not really almost, if not quite, necessary. It took a frightful lot of money to live in New York. How DID people with small incomes manage to get along? Whatever would have become of her if she had not had the good luck to be able to borrow from Stanley? What would become of her if, before she was succeeding on the stage, Stanley should die or lose faith in her or interest in her? What would become of her! She had been living these last few months among people who had wide-open eyes and knew everything that was going on—and did some "going-on" themselves, as she was now more than suspecting. There were many women, thousands of them—among the attractive, costily dressed throngs she saw in the carriages and autos and cabs—who would not like to have it published how they contrived to live so luxuriously. No, they would not like to have it published, though they cared not a fig for its being whispered; New York too thoroughly understood how necessary luxurious living was, and was too completely divested of the follies of the old-fashioned, straight-laced morality, to mind little shabby details of queer conduct in striving to keep up with the procession. Even the married women, using their husbands—and letting their husbands use them—did not frown on the irregularities of their sisters less fortunately married or not able to find a permanent "leg to pull." As for the girls—Mildred had observed strange things in the lives of the girls she knew more or less well nowadays. In fact, all the women, of all classes and conditions, were engaged in the same mad struggle to get hold of money to spend upon fun and finery—a struggle matching in recklessness and resoluteness the struggle of the men down-town for money for the same purposes. It was curious, this double mania of the men and the women—the mania to get money, no matter how; the instantly succeeding mania to get rid of it, no matter how. Looking about her, Mildred felt that she was peculiar and apart from nearly all the women she knew. SHE got her money honorably. SHE did not degrade herself, did not sell herself, did not wheedle or cajole or pretend in the least degree. She had grown more liberal as her outlook on life had widened with contact with the New York mind—no, with the mind of the whole easy-going, luxury-mad, morality-scorning modern world. She still kept her standard for herself high, and believed in a purity for herself which she did not exact or expect in her friends. In this respect she and Cyrilla Brindley were sympathetically alike. No, Mildred was confident that in no circumstances, in NO circumstances, would she relax her ideas of what she personally could do and could not do. Not that she blamed, or judged at all, women who did as she would not; but she could not, simply could not, however hard she might be driven, do those things—though she could easily understand how other women did them in preference to sinking down into the working class or eking out a frowsy existence in some poor boarding-house. The temptation would be great. Thank Heaven, it was not teasing her. She would resist it, of course. But—

What if Stanley Baird should lose interest? What if, after he lost interest, she should find herself without money, worse of than she had been when she sold herself into slavery—highly moral and conventionally correct slavery, but still slavery—to the little general with the peaked pink-silk nightcap hiding the absence of the removed toupee—and with the wonderful pink-silk pajamas, gorgeously monogramed in violet—and the tiny feet and ugly hands—and those loathsome needle-pointed mustaches and the hideous habit of mumbling his tongue and smacking his lips? What if, moneyless, she should not be able to find another Stanley or a man of the class gentleman willing to help her generously even on ANY terms? What then?

She was looking out over the sea, her bank-book and statements and canceled checks in her lap. Their cottage was at the very edge of the strand; its veranda was often damp from spray after a storm. It was not storming as she sat there, "taking stock"; under a blue sky an almost tranquil sea was crooning softly in the sunlight, innocent and happy and playful as a child. She, dressed in a charming negligee and looking forward to a merry day in the auto, with lunch and dinner at attractive, luxurious places farther down the coast—she was stricken with a horrible sadness, with a terror that made her heart beat wildly.

"I must be crazy!" she said, half aloud. "I've never earned a dollar with my voice. And for two months it has been unreliable. I'm acting like a crazy person. What WILL become of me?"

Just then Stanley Baird came through the pretty little house, seeking her. "There you are!" he cried. "Do go get dressed."

Hastily she flung a scarf over the book and papers in her lap. She had intended to speak to him about that fresh deposit of five thousand dollars—to refuse it, to rebuke him. Now she did not dare.

"What's the matter?" he went on. "Headache?"

"It was the wine at dinner last night," explained she. "I ought never to touch red wine. It disagrees with me horribly."

"That was filthy stuff," said he. "You must take some champagne at lunch. That'll set you right."

She stealthily wound the scarf about the papers. When she felt that all were secure she rose. She was looking sweet and sad and peculiarly beautiful. There was an exquisite sheen on her skin. She had washed her hair that morning, and it was straying fascinatingly about her brow and ears and neck. Baird looked at her, lowered his eyes and colored.

"I'll not be long," she said hurriedly.

She had to pass him in the rather narrow doorway. From her garments shook a delicious perfume. He caught her in his arms. The blood had flushed into his face in a torrent, swelling out the veins, giving him a distorted and wild expression.

"Mildred!" he cried. "Say that you love me a little! I'm so lonely for you—so hungry for you!"

She grew cold with fear and with repulsion. She neither yielded to his embrace nor shook it off. She simply stood, her round smooth body hard though corsetless. He kissed her on the throat, kissed the lace over her bosom, crying out inarticulately. In the frenzy of his passion he did not for a while realize her lack of response. As he felt it, his arms relaxed, dropped away from her, fell at his side. He hung his head. He was breathing so heavily that she glanced into the house apprehensively, fearing someone else might hear.

"I beg pardon," he muttered. "You were too much for me this morning. It was your fault. You are maddening!"

She moved on into the house.

"Wait a minute!" he called after her.

She halted, hesitating.

"Come back," he said. "I've got something to say to you."

She turned and went back to the veranda, he retreating before her and his eyes sinking before the cold, clear blue of hers.

"You're going up, not to come down again," he said. "You think I've insulted you—think I've acted outrageously."

How glad she was that he had so misread her thoughts—had not discovered the fear, the weakness, the sudden collapse of all her boasted confidence in her strength of character.

"You'll never feel the same toward me again," he went fatuously on. "You think I'm a fraud. Well, I'll admit that I am in love with you—have been ever since the steamer—always was crazy about that mouth of yours—and your figure, and the sound of your voice. I'll admit I'm an utter fool about you—respect you and trust you as I never used to think any woman deserved to be respected and trusted. I'll even admit that I've been hoping—all sorts of things. I knew a woman like you wouldn't let a man help her unless she loved him."

At this her heart beat wildly and a blush of shame poured over her face and neck. He did not see. He had not the courage to look at her—to face that expression of the violated goddess he felt confident her face was wearing. In love, he reasoned and felt about her like an inexperienced boy, all his experience going for nothing. He went on:

"I understand we can never be anything to each other until you're on the stage and arrived. I'd not have it otherwise, if I could. For I want YOU, and I'd never believe I had you unless you were free."

The color was fading from her cheeks. At this it flushed deeper than before. She must speak. Not to speak was to lie, was to play the hypocrite. Yet speak she dared not. At least Stanley Baird was better than Siddall. Anyhow, who was she, that had been the wife of Siddall, to be so finicky?

"You don't believe me?" he said miserably. "You think I'll forget myself sometime again?"

"I hope not," she said gently. "I believe not. I trust you, Stanley."

And she went into the house. He looked after her, in admiration of the sweet and pure calm of this quiet rebuke. She tried to take the same exalted view of it herself, but she could not fool herself just then with the familiar "good woman" fake. She knew that she had struck the flag of self-respect. She knew what she would really have done had he been less delicate, less in love, and more "practical." And she found a small and poor consolation in reflecting, "I wonder how many women there are who take high ground because it costs nothing." We are prone to suspect everybody of any weakness we find in ourselves—and perhaps we are not so far wrong as are those who accept without question the noisy protestations of a world of self-deceivers.

Thenceforth she and Stanley got on better than ever—apparently. But though she ignored it, she knew the truth—knew her new and deep content was due to her not having challenged his assertion that she loved him. He, believing her honest and high minded, assumed that the failure to challenge was a good woman's way of admitting. But with the day of reckoning—not only with him but also with her own self-respect—put off until that vague and remote time when she should be a successful prima donna, she gave herself up to enjoyment. That was a summer of rarely fine weather, particularly fine along the Jersey coast. They—always in gay parties—motored up and down the coast and inland. Several of the "musical" men—notably Richardson of Elberon—had plenty of money; Stanley, stopping with his cousins, the Frasers, on the Rumson Road, brought several of his friends, all rich and more or less free. As every moment of Mildred's day was full and as it was impossible not to sleep and sleep well in that ocean air, with the surf soothing the nerves as the lullaby of a nurse soothes a baby, she was able to put everything unpleasant out of mind. She was resting her voice, was building up her health; therefore the career was being steadily advanced and no time was being wasted. She felt sorry for those who had to do unpleasant or disagreeable things in making their careers. She told herself that she did not deserve her good fortune in being able to advance to a brilliant career not through hardship but over the most delightful road imaginable—amusing herself, wearing charming and satisfactory clothes, swimming and dancing, motoring and feasting. Without realizing it, she was strongly under the delusion that she was herself already rich—the inevitable delusion with a woman when she moves easily and freely and luxuriously about, never bothered for money, always in the company of rich people. The rich are fated to demoralize those around them. The stingy rich fill their satellites with envy and hatred. The generous rich fill them with the feeling that the light by which they shine and the heat with which they are warm are not reflected light and heat but their own.

Never had she been so happy. She even did not especially mind Donald Keith, a friend of Stanley's and of Mrs. Brindley's, who, much too often to suit her, made one of the party. She had tried in vain to discover what there was in Keith that inspired such intense liking in two people so widely different as expansive and emotional Stanley Baird and reserved and distinctly cold Cyrilla Brindley. Keith talked little, not only seemed not to listen well, but showed plainly, even in tete-a-tete conversations, that his thoughts had been elsewhere. He made no pretense of being other than he was—an indifferent man who came because it did not especially matter to him where he was. Sometimes his silence and his indifference annoyed Mildred; again—thanks to her profound and reckless contentment—she was able to forget that he was along. He seemed to be and probably was about forty years old. His head was beautifully shaped, the line of its profile—front, top, and back—being perfect in intellectuality, strength and symmetry. He was rather under the medium height, about the same height as Mildred herself. He was extremely thin and loosely built, and his clothes seemed to hang awry, giving him an air of slovenliness which became surprising when one noted how scrupulously neat and clean he was. His brown hair, considerably tinged with rusty gray, grew thinly upon that beautiful head. His skin was dry and smooth and dead white. This, taken with the classic regularity of his features, gave him an air of lifelessness, of one burnt out by the fire of too much living; but whether the living had been done by Keith himself or by his immediate ancestors appearances did not disclose. This look of passionless, motionless repose, like classic sculpture, was sharply and startlingly belied by a pair of really wonderful eyes—deeply and intensely blue, brilliant, all seeing, all comprehending, eyes that seemed never to sleep, seemed the ceaselessly industrious servants of a brain that busied itself without pause. The contrast between the dead white calm of his face, the listlessness of his relaxed figure, and these vivid eyes, so intensely alive, gave to Donald Keith's personality an uncanniness that was most disagreeable to Mildred.

"That's what fascinates me," said Cyrilla, when they were discussing him one day.

"Fascinates!" exclaimed Mildred. "He's tiresome—when he isn't rude."

"Rude?"

"Not actively rude but, worse still, passively rude."

"He is the only man I've ever seen with whom I could imagine myself falling in love," said Mrs. Brindley.

Mildred laughed in derision. "Why, he's a dead man!" cried she.

"You don't understand," said Cyrilla. "You've never lived with a man." She forgot completely, as did Mildred herself, so completely had Mrs. Siddall returned to the modes and thoughts of a girl. "At home—to live with—you want only reposeful things. That is why the Greeks, whose instincts were unerring, had so much reposeful statuary. One grows weary of agitating objects. They soon seem hysterical and shallow. The same thing's true of persons. For permanent love and friendship you want reposeful men—calm, strong, silent. The other kind either wear you out or wear themselves out with you."

"You forget his eyes," put in Stanley. "Did you ever see such eyes!"

"Yes, those eyes of his!" cried Mildred. "You certainly can't call them reposeful, Mrs. Brindley."

Mrs. Brindley did not seize the opportunity to convict her of inconsistency. Said she:

"I admit the eyes. They're the eyes of the kind of man a woman wants, or another man wants in his friend. When Keith looks at you, you feel that you are seeing the rarest being in the world—an absolutely reliable person. When I think of him I think of reliable, just as when you think of the sun you think of brightness."

"I had no idea it was so serious as this," teased Stanley.

"Nor had I," returned Cyrilla easily, "until I began to talk about him. Don't tell him, Mr. Baird, or he might take advantage of me."

The idea amused Stanley. "He doesn't care a rap about women," said he. "I hear he has let a few care about him from time to time, but he soon ceased to be good-natured. He hates to be bored."

As he came just then, they had to find another subject. Mildred observed him with more interest. She had learned to have respect for Mrs. Brindley's judgments. But she soon gave over watching him. That profound calm, those eyes concentrating all the life of the man like a burning glass— She had a disagreeable sense of being seen through, even to her secretest thought, of being understood and measured and weighed—and found wanting. It occurred to her for the first time that part of the reason for her not liking him was the best of reasons—that he did not like her.

The first time she was left alone with him, after this discovery, she happened to be in an audacious and talkative mood, and his lack of response finally goaded her into saying: "WHY don't you like me?" She cared nothing about it; she simply wished to hear what he would say—if he could be roused into saying anything. He was sitting on the steps leading from the veranda to the sea—was smoking a cigarette and gazing out over the waves like a graven image, as if he had always been posed there and always would be there, the embodiment of repose gazing in ineffable indifference upon the embodiment of its opposite. He made no answer.

"I asked you why you do not like me," said she. "Did you hear?"

"Yes," replied he.

She waited; nothing further from him. Said she:

"Well, give me one of your cigarettes."

He rose, extended his case, then a light. He was never remiss in those kinds of politeness. When she was smoking, he seated himself again and dropped into the former attitude. She eyed him, wondering how it could be possible that he had endured the incredible fatigues and hardships Stanley Baird had related of him—hunting and exploring expeditions into tropics and into frozen regions, mountain climbs, wild sea voyages in small boats, all with no sign of being able to stand anything, yet also with no sign of being any more disturbed than now in this seaside laziness. Stanley had showed them a picture of him taken twenty years and more ago when he was in college; he had looked almost the same then—perhaps a little older.

"Well, I am waiting," persisted she.

She thought he was about to look at her—a thing he had never done, to her knowledge, since they had known each other. She nerved herself to receive the shock, with a certain flutter of expectancy, of excitement even. But instead of looking, he settled himself in a slightly different position and fixed his gaze upon another point in the horizon. She noted that he had splendid hands—ideal hands for a man, with the same suggestion of intense vitality and aliveness that flashed from his eyes. She had not noted this before. Next she saw that he had good feet, and that his boots were his only article of apparel that fitted him, or rather, that looked as if made for him.

She tossed her cigarette over the rail to the sand. He startled her by speaking, in his unemotional way. He said:

"Now, I like you better."

"I don't understand," said she.

No answer from him. The cigarette depending listlessly from his lips seemed—as usual—uncertain whether it would stay or fall. She watched this uncertainty with a curious, nervous interest. She was always thinking that cigarette would fall, but it never did. Said she:

"Why did you say you liked me less?"

"Better," corrected he.

"We used to have a pump in our back yard at home," laughed she. "One toiled away at the handle, but nothing ever came. And it was a promising-looking pump, too."

He smiled—a slow, reluctant smile, but undeniably attractive. Said he:

"Because you threw away your cigarette."

"You object to women smoking?"

"No," said he. His tone made her feel how absurd it was to suspect him of such provincialism.

"You object to MY smoking?" suggested she; laughing, "Pump! Pump!"

"No," said he.

"Then your remark meant nothing at all?"

He was silent.

"You are rude," said she coldly, rising to go into the house.

He said something, what she did not hear, in her agitation. She paused and inquired:

"What did you say?"

"I said, I am not rude but kind," replied he.

"That is detestable!" cried she. "I have not liked you, but I have been polite to you because of Stanley and Mrs. Brindley. Why should you be insulting to me?"

"What have I done?" inquired he, unmoved. He had risen as she rose, but instead of facing her he was leaning against the post of the veranda, bent upon his seaward vigil.

"You have insinuated that your reasons for not liking me were a reflection on me."

"You insisted," said he.

"You mean that they are?" demanded she furiously. She was amazed at her wild, unaccountable rage.

He slowly turned his head and looked at her—a glance without any emotion whatever, simply a look that, like the beam of a powerful searchlight, seemed to thrust through fog and darkness and to light up everything in its path. Said he:

"Do you wish me to tell you why I don't like you?"

"No!" she cried hysterically. "Never mind—I don't know what I'm saying." And she went hastily into the house. A moment later, in her own room upstairs, she was wondering at herself. Why had she become confused? What did he mean? What had she seen—or half seen—in the darkness and fog within herself when he looked at her? In a passion she cried:

"If he would only stay away!"



VI

BUT he did not stay away. He owned and lived in a small house up on the Rumson Road. While the house was little more than a bungalow and had a simplicity that completely hid its rare good taste from the average observer, its grounds were the most spacious in that neighborhood of costly, showy houses set in grounds not much more extensive than a city building lot. The grounds had been cleared and drained to drive out and to keep out the obnoxious insect life, but had been left a forest, concealing the house from the roads. Stanley Baird was now stopping with Keith, and brought him along to the cottage by the sea every day.

The parties narrowed to the same four persons. Mrs. Brindley seemed never to tire of talking to Keith—or to tire of talking about him when the two men had left, late each night. As for Stanley, he referred everything to Keith—the weather prospects, where they should go for the day, what should be eaten and drunk, any point about politics or fashion, life or literature or what not, that happened to be discussed. And he looked upon Donald's monosyllabic reply to his inquiry as a final judgment, ending all possibility of argument. Mildred held out long. Then, in spite of herself, she began to yield, ceased to dislike him, found a kind of pleasure—or, perhaps, fascinated interest—in the nervousness his silent and indifferent presence caused her. She liked to watch that immobile, perfect profile, neither young nor old, indeed not suggesting age in any degree, but only experience and knowledge—and an infinite capacity for emotion, for passion even. The dead-white color declared it had already been lived; the brilliant, usually averted or veiled eyes asserted present vitality, pulsing under a calm surface.

One day when Stanley, in the manner of one who wishes a thing settled and settled right, said he would ask Donald Keith about it, Mildred, a little piqued, a little amused, retorted:

"And what will he answer? Why, simply yes or no."

"That's all," assented Stanley. "And that's quite enough, isn't it?"

"But how do you know he's as wise as he pretends?"

"He doesn't pretend to be anything or to know anything. That's precisely it."

Mildred suddenly began to like Keith. She had never thought of this before. Yes, it was true, he did not pretend. Not in the least, not about anything. When you saw him, you saw at once the worst there was to see. It was afterward that you discovered he was not slovenly, but clean and neat, not badly but well dressed, not homely but handsome, not sickly but soundly well, not physically weak but strong, not dull but vividly alive, not a tiresome void but an unfathomable mystery.

"What does he do?" she asked Mrs. Brindley.

Cyrilla's usually positive gray eyes looked vague. She smiled. "I never asked," said she. "I've known him nearly three years, and it never occurred to me to ask, or to wonder. Isn't that strange? Usually about the first inquiry we make is what a man does."

"I'll ask Stanley," said Mildred. And she did about an hour later, when they were in the surf together, with the other two out of earshot. Said Stanley:

"He's a lawyer, of course. Also, he's written a novel or two and a book of poems. I've never read them. Somehow, I never get around to reading."

"Oh, he's a lawyer? That's the way he makes his living."

"A queer kind of lawyer. He never goes to court, and his clients are almost all other lawyers. They go to him to get him to tell them what to do, and what not to do. He's got a big reputation among lawyers, Fred Norman tells me, but makes comparatively little, as he either can't or won't charge what he ought. I told him what Norman said, and he only smiled in that queer way he has. I said: 'You make twenty or thirty thousand a year. You ought to make ten times that.'"

"And what did he answer?" asked Mildred. "Nothing?"

"He said: 'I make all I want. If I took in more, I'd be bothered getting rid of it or investing it. I can always make all I'll want—unless I go crazy. And what could a crazy man do with money? It doesn't cost anything to live in a lunatic asylum.'"

Several items of interest to add to those she had collected. He could talk brilliantly, but he preferred silence. He could make himself attractive to women and to men, but he preferred to be detached. He could be a great lawyer, but he preferred the quiet of obscurity. He could be a rich man, but he preferred to be comparatively poor.

Said Mildred: "I suppose some woman—some disappointment in love—has killed ambition, and everything like that."

"I don't think so," replied Baird. "The men who knew him as a boy say he was always as he is now. He lived in the Arabian desert for two years."

"Why didn't he stay?" laughed Mildred. "That life would exactly suit him."

"It did," said Stanley. "But his father died, and he had to come home and support his mother—until she died. That's the way his whole life has been. He drifts in the current of circumstances. He might let himself be blown away to-morrow to the other end of the earth and stay away years—or never come back."

"But how would he live?"

"On his wits. And as well or as poorly as he cared. He's the sort of man everyone instinctively asks advice of—me, you, his valet, the farmer who meets him at a boundary fence, the fellow who sits nest him in a train—anyone."

Mildred did not merely cease to dislike him; she went farther, and rapidly. She began to like him, to circle round that tantalizing, indolent mystery as a deer about a queer bit of brush in the undergrowth. She liked to watch him. She was alternately afraid to talk before him and recklessly confidential—all with no response or sign of interest from him. If she was silent, when they were alone together, he was silent, too. If she talked, still he was silent. What WAS he thinking about? What did he think of her?—that especially.

"What ARE you thinking?" she interrupted herself to say one afternoon as they sat together on the strand under a big sunshade. She had been talking on and on about her career—talking conceitedly, as her subject intoxicated her—telling him what triumphs awaited her as soon as she should be ready to debut. As he did not answer, she repeated her question, adding:

"I knew you weren't listening to me, or I shouldn't have had the courage to say the foolish things I did."

"No, I wasn't," admitted he.

"Why not?"

"For the reason you gave."

"That what I said was—just talk?"

"Yes."

"You don't believe I'll do those things?"

"Do you?"

"I've GOT to believe it," said she. "If I didn't—" She came to a full stop.

"If you didn't, then what?" It was the first time he had ever flattered her with interest enough to ask her a question about herself.

"If I didn't believe I was going to succeed—and succeed big—" she began. After a pause, she added, "I'd not dare say it."

"Or think it," said he.

She colored. "What do you mean?" she asked.

He did not reply.

"What do you mean, Mr. Keith?" she urged.

"You are always asking me questions to which you already know the answer," said he.

"You're referring to a week or so ago, when I asked you why you disliked me?"

No answer. No sign of having heard. No outward sign of interest in anything, even in the cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth.

"Wasn't that it?" she insisted.

"You are always asking me questions to which you already know the answer," repeated he.

"I am annoying you?"

No answer.

She laughed. "Do you want me to go away and leave you in peace with that—law case—or whatever it is?"

"I don't like to be alone."

"But anyone would do?—a dog?"

No reply.

"You mean, a dog would be better because it doesn't ask questions to which it knows the answer."

No reply.

"Well, I have a pleasant-sounding voice. As I'm saying nothing, it may be soothing—like the sound of the waves. I've learned to take you as you are. I rather like your pose."

No reply. No sign that he was even tempted to rise to this bait and protest.

"But you don't like mine," she went on. "Yes, it is a pose. But I've got to keep it up, and to pretend to myself that it isn't. And it isn't altogether. I shall be a successful singer."

"When?" said he. Actually he was listening!

She answered: "In—about two years, I think."

No comment.

"You don't believe it?"

"Do you?" A pause. "Why ask these questions you've already answered yourself?"

"I'll tell you why," replied she, her face suddenly flushed with earnestness. "Because I want you to help me. You help everyone else. Why not me?"

"You never asked me," said he.

"I didn't know I wanted it until just now—as I said it. But YOU must have known, because you are so much more experienced than I—and understand people—what's going on in their minds, deeper than they can see." Her tone became indignant, reproachful. "Yes, you must have known I needed your help. And you ought to have helped me, even if you did dislike me. You've no right to dislike anyone as young as I."

He was looking at her now, the intensely alive blue eyes sympathetic, penetrating, understanding. It was frightful to be so thoroughly understood—all one's weaknesses laid bare—yet it was a relief and a joy, too—like the cruel healing knife of the surgeon. Said he:

"I do not like kept women."

She gasped, grew ghastly. It was a frightful insult, one for which she was wholly unprepared. "You—believe—that?" she said slowly.

"Another of those questions," he said. And he looked calmly away, out over the sea, as if his interest in the conversation were at an end.

What should she say? How deny—how convince him? For convince him she must, and then go away and never permit him to speak to her again until he had apologized. She said quietly: "Mr. Keith, you have insulted me."

"I do not like kept women, either with or without a license," said he in the same even, indifferent way. "When you ceased to be a kept woman, I would help you, if I could. But no one can help a kept woman."

There was nothing to do but to rise and go away. She rose and went toward the house. At the veranda she paused. He had not moved. She returned. He was still inspecting the horizon, the cigarette depending from his lips—how DID he keep it alight? She said:

"Mr. Keith, I am sure you did not mean to insult me. What did you mean?"

"Another of those questions," said he.

"Honestly, I do not understand."

"Then think. And when you have thought, you will understand."

"But I have thought. I do not understand."

"Then it would be useless to explain," said he. "That is one of those vital things which, if one cannot understand them for oneself, one is hopeless—is beyond helping."

"You mean I am not in earnest about my career?"

"Another of those questions. If you had not seen clearly what I meant, you would have been really offended. You'd have gone away and not come back."

She saw that this was true. And, seeing, she wondered how she could have been so stupid as not to have seen it at once. She had yet to learn that overlooking the obvious is a universal human failing and that seeing the obvious is the talent and the use of the superior of earth—the few who dominate and determine the race.

"You reproach me for not having helped you," he went on. "How does it happen that you are uneasy in mind—so uneasy that you are quarreling at me?"

A light broke upon her. "You have been drawing me on, from the beginning," she cried. "You have been helping me—making me see that I needed help."

"No," said he. "I've been waiting to see whether you would rouse from your dream of grandeur."

"YOU have been rousing me."

"No," he said. "You've roused yourself. So you may be worth helping or, rather, worth encouraging, for no one can HELP you but yourself."

She looked at him pathetically. "But what shall I do?" she asked. "I've got no money, no experience, no sense. I'm a vain, luxury-loving fool, cursed with a—with a—is it a conscience?"

"I hope it's something more substantial. I hope it's common sense."

"But I have been working—honestly I have."

"Don't begin lying to yourself again."

"Don't be harsh with me."

He drew in his legs, in preparation for rising—no doubt to go away.

"I don't mean that," she cried testily. "You are not harsh with me. It's the truth that's harsh—the truth I'm beginning to see—and feel. I am afraid—afraid. I haven't the courage to face it."

"Why whine?" said he. "There's nothing in that."

"Do you think there's any hope for me?"

"That depends," said he.

"On what?"

"On what you want."

"I want to be a singer, a great singer."

"No, there's no hope."

She grew cold with despair. He had a way of saying a thing that gave it the full weight of a verdict from which there was no appeal.

"Now, if you wanted to make a living," he went on, "and if you were determined to learn to sing as well as you could, with the idea that you might be able to make a living—why, then there might be hope."

"You think I can sing?"

"I never heard you. Can you?"

"They say I can."

"What do YOU say?"

"I don't know," she confessed. "I've never been able to judge. Sometimes I think I'm singing well, and I find out afterward that I've sung badly. Again, it's the other way."

"Then, obviously, what's the first thing to do?"

"To learn to judge myself," said she. "I never thought of it before—how important that is. Do you know Jennings—Eugene Jennings?"

"The singing teacher? No."

"Is he a good teacher?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because he has not taught you that you will never sing until you are your own teacher. Because he has not taught you that singing is a small and minor part of a career as a singer."

"But it isn't," protested she.

A long silence. Looking at him, she felt that he had dismissed her and her affairs from his mind.

"Is it?" she said, to bring him back.

"What?" asked he vaguely.

"You said that a singer didn't have to be able to sing."

"Did I?" He glanced down the shore toward the house. "It feels like lunch-time." He rose.

"What did you mean by what you said?"

"When you have thought about your case a while longer, we'll talk of it again—if you wish. But until you've thought, talking is a waste of time."

She rose, stood staring out to sea. He was observing her, a faint smile about his lips. He said:

"Why bother about a career? After all, kept woman is a thoroughly respectable occupation—or can be made so by any preacher or justice of the peace. It's followed by many of our best women—those who pride themselves on their high characters—and on their pride."

"I could not belong to a man unless I cared for him," said she. "I tried it once. I shall never do it again."

"That sounds fine," said he. "Let's go to lunch."

"You don't believe me?"

"Do you?"

She sank down upon the sand and burst into a wild passion of sobs and tears. When her fight for self-control was over and she looked up to apologize for her pitiful exhibition of weakness—and to note whether she had made an impression upon his sympathies—she saw him just entering the house, a quarter of a mile away. To anger succeeded a mood of desperate forlornness. She fell upon herself with gloomy ferocity. She could not sing. She had no brains. She was taking money—a disgracefully large amount of money—from Stanley Baird under false pretenses. How could she hope to sing when her voice could not be relied upon? Was not her throat at that very moment slightly sore? Was it not always going queer? She—sing! Absurd. Did Stanley Baird suspect? Was he waiting for the time when she would gladly accept what she must have from him, on his own terms? No, not on his terms, but on the terms she herself would arrange—the only terms she could make. No, Stanley believed in her absolutely—believed in her career. When he discovered the truth, he would lose interest in her, would regard her as a poor, worthless creature, would be eager to rid himself of her. Instead of returning to the house, she went in the opposite direction, made a circuit and buried herself in the woods beyond the Shrewsbury. She was mad to get away from her own company; but the only company she could fly to was more depressing than the solitude and the taunt and sneer and lash of her own thoughts. It was late in the afternoon before she nerved herself to go home. She hoped the others would have gone off somewhere; but they were waiting for her, Stanley anxious and Cyrilla Brindley irritated. Her eyes sought Keith. He was, as usual, the indifferent spectator.

"Where have you been?" cried Stanley.

"Making up my mind," said she in the tone that forewarns of a storm.

A brief pause. She struggled in vain against an impulse to look at Keith. When her eyes turned in his direction he, not looking at her, moved in his listless way toward the door. Said he:

"The auto's waiting. Come on."

She vacillated, yielded, began to put on the wraps Stanley was collecting for her. It was a big touring-car, and they sat two and two, with the chauffeur alone. Keith was beside Mildred. When they were under way, she said:

"Why did you stop me? Perhaps I'll never have the courage again."

"Courage for what?" asked he.

"To take your advice, and break off."

"MY advice?"

"Yes, your advice."

"You have to clutch at and cling to somebody, don't you? You can't bear the idea of standing up by your own strength."

"You think I'm trying to fasten to you?" she said, with an angry laugh.

"I know it. You admitted it. You are not satisfied with the way things are going. You have doubts about your career. You shrink from your only comfortable alternative, if the career winks out. You ask me my opinion about yourself and about careers. I give it. Now, I find you asked only that you might have someone to lean on, to accuse of having got you into a mess, if doing what you think you ought to do turns out as badly as you fear."

It was the longest speech she had heard him make. She had no inclination to dispute his analysis of her motives. "I did not realize it," said she, "but that is probably so. But—remember how I was brought up."

"There's only one thing for you to do."

"Go back to my husband? You know—about me—don't you?"

"Yes"

"I can't go back to him."

"No."

"Then—what?" she asked.

"Go on, as now," replied he.

"You despise me, don't you?"

"No."

"But you said you did."

"Dislike and despise are not at all the same."

"You admit that you dislike me," cried she triumphantly. He did not answer.

"You think me a weak, clinging creature, not able to do anything but make pretenses."

No answer.

"Don't you?" she persisted.

"Probably I have about the same opinion of you that you have of yourself."

"What WILL become of me?" she said. Her face lighted up with an expression of reckless beauty. "If I could only get started I'd go to the devil, laughing and dancing—and taking a train with me."

"You ARE started," said he, with an amiable smile. "Keep on. But I doubt if you'll be so well amused as you may imagine. Going to the devil isn't as it's painted in novels by homely old maids and by men too timid to go out of nights. A few steps farther, and your disillusionment will begin. But there'll be no turning back. Already, you are almost too old to make a career."

"I'm only twenty-four. I flattered myself I looked still younger."

"It's worse than I thought," said he. "Most of the singers, even the second-rate ones, began at fifteen—began seriously. And you haven't begun yet."

"That's unjust," she protested. "I've done a little. Many great people would think it a great deal."

"You haven't begun yet," repeated he calmly. "You have spent a lot of money, and have done a lot of dreaming and talking and listening to compliments, and have taken a lot of lessons of an expensive charlatan. But what have those things to do with a career?"

"You've never heard me sing."

"I do not care for singing."

"Oh!" said she in a tone of relief. "Then you know nothing about all this."

"On the contrary, I know everything about a career. And we were talking of careers, not of singing."

"You mean that my voice is worthless because I haven't the other elements?"

"What else could I have meant?" said he. "You haven't the strength. You haven't the health."

She laughed as she straightened herself. "Do I look weak and sickly?" cried she.

"For the purposes of a career as a female you are strong and well," said he. "For the purpose of a career as a singer—" He smiled and shook his head. "A singer must have muscles like wire ropes, like a blacksmith or a washerwoman. The other day we were climbing a hill—a not very steep hill. You stopped five times for breath, and twice you sat down to rest."

She was literally hanging her head with shame. "I wasn't very well that day," she murmured.

"Don't deceive yourself," said he. "Don't indulge in the fatal folly of self-excuse."

"Go on," she said humbly. "I want to hear it all."

"Is your throat sore to-day?" pursued he.

She colored. "It's better," she murmured.

"A singer with sore throat!" mocked he. "You've had a slight fogginess of the voice all summer."

"It's this sea air," she eagerly protested. "It affects everyone."

"No self-excuse, please," interrupted he. "Cigarettes, champagne, all kinds of foolish food, an impaired digestion—that's the truth, and you know it."

"I've got splendid digestion! I can eat anything!" she cried. "Oh, you don't know the first thing about singing. You don't know about temperament, about art, about all the things that singing really means."

"We were talking of careers," said he. "A career means a person who can be relied upon to do what is demanded of him. A singer's career means a powerful body, perfect health, a sound digestion. Without them, the voice will not be reliable. What you need is not singing teachers, but teachers of athletics and of hygiene. To hear you talk about a career is like listening to a child. You think you can become a professional singer by paying money to a teacher. There are lawyers and doctors and business men in all lines who think that way about their professions—that learning a little routine of technical knowledge makes a lawyer or a doctor or a merchant or a financier."

"Tell me—WHAT ought I to learn?"

"Learn to think—and to persist. Learn to concentrate. Learn to make sacrifices. Learn to handle yourself as a great painter handles his brush and colors. Then perhaps you'll make a career as a singer. If not, it'll be a career as something or other."

She was watching him with a wistful, puzzled expression. "Could I ever do all that?"

"Anyone could, by working away at it every day. If you gain only one inch a day, in a year you'll have gained three hundred and sixty-five inches. And if you gain an inch a day for a while and hold it, you soon begin to gain a foot a day. But there's no need to worry about that." He was gazing at her now with an expression of animation that showed how feverishly alive he was behind that mask of calmness. "The day's work—that's the story of success. Do the day's work persistently, thoroughly, intelligently. Never mind about to-morrow. Thinking of it means dreaming or despairing—both futilities. Just the day's work."

"I begin to understand," she said thoughtfully. "You are right. I've done nothing. Oh, I've been a fool—more foolish even than I thought."

A long silence, then she said, somewhat embarrassed and in a low voice, though there was no danger of those in front of them hearing:

"I want you to know that there has been nothing wrong—between Stanley and me."

"Do you wish me to put that to your credit or to your discredit?" inquired he.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, you've just told me that you haven't given Stanley anything at all for his money—that you've cheated him outright. The thing itself is discreditable, but your tone suggests that you think I'll admire you for it."

"Do you mean to say that you'd think more highly of me if I were—what most women would be in the same circumstances?"

"I mean to say that I think the whole business is discreditable to both of you—to his intelligence, to your character."

"You are frank," said she, trying to hide her anger.

"I am frank," replied he, undisturbed. He looked at her. "Why should I not be?"

"You know that I need you, that I don't dare resent," said she. "So isn't it—a little cowardly?"

"Why do you need me? Not for money, for you know you'll not get that."

"I don't want it," cried she, agitated. "I never thought of it."

"Yes, you've probably thought of it," replied he coolly. "But you will not get it."

"Well, that's settled—I'll not get it."

"Then why do you need me? Of what use can I be to you? Only one use in the world. To tell you the truth—the exact truth. Is not that so?"

"Yes," she said. "That is what I want from you—what I can't get from anyone else. No one else knows the truth—not even Mrs. Brindley, though she's intelligent. I take back what I said about your being cowardly. Oh, you do stab my vanity so! You mustn't mind my crying out. I can't help it—at least, not till I get used to you."

"Cry out," said he. "It does no harm."

"How wonderfully you understand me!" exclaimed she. "That's why I let you say to me anything you please."

He was smiling peculiarly—a smile that somehow made her feel uncomfortable. She nerved herself for some still deeper stab into her vanity. He said, his gaze upon her and ironical:

"I'm sorry I can't return the compliment."

"What compliment?" asked she.

"Can't say that you understand me. Why do you think I am doing this?"

She colored. "Oh, no indeed, Mr. Keith," she protested, "I don't think you are in love with me—or anything of that sort. Indeed, I do not. I know you better than that."

"Really?" said he, amused. "Then you are not human."

"How can you think me so vain?" she protested.

"Because you are so," replied he. "You are as vain—no more so, but just as much so—as the average pretty and attractive woman brought up as you have been. You are not obsessed by the notion that your physical charms are all-powerful, and in that fact there is hope for you. But you attach entirely too much importance to them. You will find them a hindrance for a long time before they begin to be a help to you in your career. And they will always be a temptation to you to take the easy, stupid way of making a living—the only way open to most women that is not positively repulsive."

"I think it is the most repulsive," said Mildred.

"Don't cant," replied he, unimpressed. "It's not so repulsive to your sort of woman as manual labor—or as any kind of work that means no leisure, no luxury and small pay."

"I wonder," said Mildred. "I—I'm afraid you're right. But I WON'T admit it. I don't dare."

"That's the finest, truest thing I've ever heard you say," said Keith.

Mildred was pleased out of all proportion to the compliment. Said she with frank eagerness, "Then I'm not altogether hopeless?"

"As a character, no indeed," replied he. "But as a career— I was about to say, you may set your mind at rest. I shall never try to collect for my services. I am doing all this solely out of obstinacy."

"Obstinacy?" asked the puzzled girl.

"The impossible attracts me. That's why I've never been interested to make a career in law or politics or those things. I care only for the thing that can't be done. When I saw you and studied you, as I study every new thing, I decided that you could not possibly make a career."

"Why have you changed your mind?" she interrupted eagerly.

"I haven't," replied he. "If I had, I should have lost interest in you. Just as soon as you show signs of making a career, I shall lose interest in you. I have a friend, a doctor, who will take only cases where cure is impossible. Looking at you, it occurred to me that here was a chance to make an experiment more interesting than any of his. And as I have no other impossible task inviting me at present, I decided to undertake you—if you were willing."

"Why do you tell me this?" she asked. "To discourage me?"

"No. Your vanity will prevent that."

"Then why?"

"To clear myself of all responsibility for you. You understand—I bind myself to nothing. I am free to stop or to go on at any time."

"And I?" said Mildred.

"You must do exactly as I tell you."

"But that is not fair," cried she.

"Why not?" inquired he. "Without me you have no hope—none whatever."

"I don't believe that," declared she. "It is not true."

"Very well. Then we'll drop the business," said he tranquilly. "If the time comes when you see that I'm your only hope, and if then I'm in my present humor, we will go on."

And he lapsed into silence from which she soon gave over trying to rouse him. She thought of what he had said, studied him, but could make nothing of it. She let four days go by, days of increasing unrest and unhappiness. She could not account for herself. Donald Keith seemed to have cast a spell over her—an evil spell. Her throat gave her more and more trouble. She tried her voice, found that it had vanished. She examined herself in the glass, and saw or fancied that her looks were going—not so that others would note it, but in the subtle ways that give the first alarm to a woman who has beauty worth taking care of and thinks about it intelligently. She thought Mrs. Brindley was beginning to doubt her, suspected a covert uneasiness in Stanley. Her foundations, such as they were, seemed tottering and ready to disintegrate. She saw her own past with clear vision for the first time—saw how futile she had been, and why Keith believed there was no hope for her. She made desperate efforts to stop thinking about past and future, to absorb herself in present comfort and luxury and opportunities for enjoyment. But Keith was always there—and to see him was to lose all capacity for enjoyment. She was curt, almost rude to him—had some vague idea of forcing him to stay away. Yet every time she lost sight of him, she was in terror until she saw him again.

She was alone on the small veranda facing the high-road. She happened to glance toward the station; her gaze became fixed, her body rigid, for, coming leisurely and pompously toward the house, was General Siddall, in the full panoply of his wonderful tailoring and haberdashery. She thought of flight, but instantly knew that flight was useless; the little general was not there by accident. She waited, her rigidity giving her a deceptive seeming of calm and even ease. He entered the little yard, taking off his glossy hat and exposing the rampant toupee. He smiled at her so slightly that the angle of the needle-pointed mustaches and imperial was not changed. The cold, expressionless, fishy eyes simply looked at her.

"A delightful little house," said he, with a patronizing glance around. "May I sit down?"

She inclined her head.

"And you are looking well, charming," he went on, and he seated himself and carefully planted his neat boots side by side. "For the summer there's nothing equal to the seashore. You are surprised to see me?"

"I thought you were abroad," said Mildred.

"So I was—until yesterday. I came back because my men had found you. And I'm here because I venture to hope that you have had enough of this foolish escapade. I hope we can come to an understanding. I've lost my taste for wandering about. I wish to settle down—to have a home and to stay in it. By that I mean, of course, two or three—or possibly four—houses, according to the season." Mildred sent her glance darting about. The little general saw and began to talk more rapidly. "I've given considerable thought to our—our misunderstanding. I feel that I gave too much importance to your—your— I did not take your youth and inexperience of the world and of married life sufficiently into account. Also the first Mrs. Siddall was not a lady—nor the second. A lady, a young lady, was a new experience to me. I am a generous man. So I say frankly that I ought to have been more patient."

"You said you would never see me again until I came to you," said Mildred. As he was not looking at her, she watched his face. She now saw a change—behind the mask. But he went on in an unchanged voice:

"Were you aware that Mrs. Baird is about to sue her husband for a separation—not for a divorce but for a separation—and name you?"

Mildred dropped limply back in her chair.

"That means scandal," continued Siddall, "scandal touching my name—my honor. I may say, I do not believe what Mrs. Baird charges. My men have had you under observation for several weeks. Also, Mrs. Brindley is, I learn, a woman of the highest character. But the thing looks bad—you hiding from your husband, living under an assumed name, receiving the visits of a former admirer."

"You are mistaken," said Mildred. "Mrs. Baird would not bring such a false, wicked charge."

"You are innocent, my dear," said the general.

"You don't realize how your conduct looks. She intends to charge that her husband has been supporting you."

Mildred, quivering, started up, sank weakly back again.

"But," he went on, "you will easily prove that your money is your inheritance from your father. I assured myself of that before I consented to come here."

"Consented?" said Mildred. "At whose request?"

"That of my own generosity," replied he. "But my honor had to be reassured. When I was satisfied that you were innocent, and simply flighty and foolish, I came. If there had been any taint upon you, of course I could not have taken you back. As it is, I am willing—I may say, more than willing. Mrs. Baird can be bought off and frightened off. When she finds you have me to protect you, she will move very cautiously, you may be sure."

As the little man talked, Mildred saw and felt behind the mask the thoughts, the longings of his physical infatuation for her coiling and uncoiling and reaching tremulously out toward her like unclean, horrible tentacles. She was drawn as far as could be back into her chair, and her soul was shrinking within her body.

"I am willing to make you a proper allowance, and to give you all proper freedom," he went on. He showed his sharp white teeth in a gracious smile. "I realize I must concede something of my old-fashioned ideas to the modern spirit. I never thought I would, but I didn't appreciate how fond I was of you, my dear." He mumbled his tongue and noiselessly smacked his thin lips. "Yes, you are worth concessions and sacrifices."

"I am not going back," said Mildred. "Nothing you could offer me would make any difference." She felt suddenly calm and strong. She stood. "Please consider this final."

"But, my dear," said the general softly, though there was a wicked gleam behind the mask, "you forget the scandal—"

"I forget nothing," interrupted she. "I shall not go back."

Before he could attempt further to detain her she opened the screen door and entered. It closed on the spring and on the spring lock.

Donald Keith, coming in from the sea-front veranda, was just in time to save her from falling. She pushed him fiercely away and sank down on the sofa just within the pretty little drawing-room. She said:

"Thank you. I didn't mean to be rude. I was only angry with myself. I'm getting to be one of those absurd females who blubber and keel over."

"You're white and limp," said he. "What's the matter?"

"General Siddall is out there."

"Um—he's come back, has he?" said Keith.

"And I am afraid of him—horribly afraid of him."

"In some places and circumstances he would be a dangerous proposition," said Keith. "But not here in the East—and not to you."

"He would do ANYTHING. I don't know what he can do, but I am sure it will be frightful—will destroy me."

"You are going with him?"

She laughed. "I loathe him. I thought I left him through fear and anger. I was mistaken. It was loathing. And my fear of him—it's loathing, too."

"You mean that?" said Keith, observing her intently. "You wish to be rid of him?"

"What a poor opinion you have of me," said she. "Really, I don't deserve quite that."

"Then come with me."

The look of terror and shrinking returned. "Where? To see him?"

"For the last time," said Keith. "There'll be no scene."

It was the supreme test of her confidence in him. Without hesitation, she rose, preceded him into the hall, and advanced firmly toward the screen door through which the little general could be seen. He was standing at the top step, his back to them. At the sound of the opening door he turned.

"This is Mr. Donald Keith," said Mildred. "He wishes to speak to you."

The general bowed; Keith bent his head. They eyed each other with the measuring glance. Keith said in his dry, terse way: "I asked Miss Gower to come with me because I wish her to hear what I have to say to you."

"You mean my wife," said the general with a gracious smile.

"I mean Miss Gower," returned Keith. "As you know, she is not your wife."

Mildred uttered a cry; but the two men continued to look each at the other, with impassive countenances.

"Your only wife is the woman who has been in the private insane asylum of Doctor Rivers at Pueblo, Colorado, for the past eleven years. For about twenty years before that she was in the Delavan private asylum near Denver. You could not divorce her under the laws of Colorado. The divorce you got in Nevada was fraudulent."

"That's a lie," said the general coldly.

Keith went on, as if he had not heard: "You will not annoy this lady again. And you will stop bribing Stanley Baird's wife to make a fool of herself. And you will stop buying houses in the blocks where Baird owns real estate, and moving colored families into them."

"I tell you that about my divorce is a lie," replied Siddall.

"I can prove it," said Keith. "And I can prove that you knew it before you married your second wife."

For the first time Siddall betrayed at the surface a hint of how hard he was hit. His skin grew bright yellow; wrinkles round his eyes and round the base of his nose sprang into sudden prominence.

"I see you know what I mean—that attempt to falsify the record at Carson City," said Keith. He opened the screen door for Mildred to pass in. He followed her, and the door closed behind them. They went into the drawing-room. He dropped into an easy chair, crossed his legs, leaned his head back indolently—a favorite attitude of his.

"How long have you known?" said she. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement.

"Oh, a good many years," replied he. "It was one of those accidental bits of information a man runs across in knocking about. As soon as Baird told me about you, I had the thing looked up, quietly. I was going up to see him to-morrow—about the negroes and Mrs. Baird's suit."

"Does Stanley know?" inquired she.

"No," said Keith. "Not necessary. Never will be. If you like, you can have the marriage annulled without notoriety. But that's not necessary, either."

After a long silence, she said: "What does this make out of me?"

"You mean, what would be thought of you, if it were known?" inquired he. "Well, it probably wouldn't improve your social position."

"I am disgraced," said she, curiously rather than emotionally.

"Would be, if it were known," corrected he, "and if you are nothing but a woman without money looking for a husband. If you happened to be a singer or an actress, it would add to your reputation—make you more talked about."

"But I am not an actress or a singer."

"On the other hand, I should say you didn't amount to much socially. Except in Hanging Rock, of course—if there is still a Hanging Rock. Don't worry about your reputation. Fussing and fretting about your social position doesn't help toward a career."

"Naturally, you take it coolly. But you can hardly expect me to," cried she.

"You are taking it coolly," said he. "Then why try to work yourself up into a fit of hysterics? The thing is of no importance—except that you're free now—will never be bothered by Siddall again. You ought to thank me, and forget it. Don't be one of the little people who are forever agitating about trifles."

Trifles! To speak of such things as trifles! And yet— Well, what did they actually amount to in her life? "Yes, I AM free," she said thoughtfully. "I've got what I wanted—got it in the easiest way possible."

"That's better," said he approvingly.

"And I've burnt my bridges behind me," pursued she. "There's nothing for me now but to go ahead."

"Which road?" inquired he carelessly.

"The career," cried she. "There's no other for me. Of course I COULD marry Stanley, when he's free, as he would be before very long, if I suggested it. Yes, I could marry him."

"Could you?" observed he.

"Doesn't he love me?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then why do you say he would not marry me?" demanded she.

"Did I say that?"

"You insinuated it. You suggested that there was a doubt."

"Then, there is no doubt?"

"Yes, there is," she cried angrily. "You won't let me enjoy the least bit of a delusion. He might marry me if I were famous. But as I am now— He's an inbred snob. He can't help it. He simply couldn't marry a woman in my position. But you're overlooking one thing—that I would not marry HIM."

"That's unimportant, if true," said Keith.

"You don't believe it?"

"I don't care anything about it, my dear lady," said Keith. "Have you got time to waste in thinking about how much I am in love with you? What a womanly woman you are, to be sure. Your true woman, you know, never thinks of anything but love—not how much she loves, but how much she is loved."

"Be careful!" she warned. "Some day you'll go too far in saying outrageous things to me."

"And then?" said he smilingly.

"You care nothing for our friendship?"

"The experiment is the only interest I have in you," replied he.

"That is not true," said she. "You have always liked me. That's why you looked up my hus— General Siddall and got ready for him. That's why you saved me to-day. You are a very tender-hearted and generous man—and you hide it as you do everything else about yourself."

He was looking off into space from the depths of the easy chair, a mocking smile on his classical, impassive face.

"What puzzles me," she went on, "is why you interest yourself in as vain and shallow and vacillating a woman as I am. You don't care for my looks—and that's all there is to me."

"Don't pause to be contradicted," said he.

She was in a fine humor now. "You might at least have said I was up to the female average, for I am. What have they got to offer a man but their looks? Do you know why I despise men?"

"Do you?"

"I do. And it's because they put up with women as much as they do—spend so much money on them, listen to their chatter, admire their ridiculous clothes. Oh, I understand why. I've learned that. And I can imagine myself putting up with anything in some one man I happened to fancy strongly. But men are foolish about the whole sex—or all of them that have a shadow of a claim to good looks."

"Yes, the men make fools of themselves," admitted he. "But I notice that the men manage somehow to make the careers, and hold on to the money and the power, while the women have to wheedle and fawn and submit in order to get what they want from the men. There's nothing to be said for your sex. It's been hopelessly corrupted by mine. For all the talk about the influence of woman, what impression has your sex made upon mine? And your sex—it has been made by mine into exactly what we wished it to be. Take my advice, get out of your sex. Abandon it, and make a career."

After a while she recalled with a start the events of less than an hour ago—events that ought to have seemed wildly exciting, arousing the deepest and strongest emotions. Yet they had made no impression upon her. Absolutely none. She had no horror in the thought that she had been the victim of a bigamist; she had no elation over her release into freedom and safety. She wondered whether this arose from utter frivolousness or from indifference to the trifles of conventional joys, sorrows, agitations, excitements which are the whole life of most people—that indifference which is the cause of the general opinion that men and women who make careers are usually hardened in the process.

As she lay awake that night—she had got a very bad habit of lying awake hour after hour—she suddenly came to a decision. But she did not tell Keith for several days. She did it in this way:

"Don't you think I'm looking better?" she asked.

"You're sleeping again," said he.

"Do you know why? Because my mind's at rest. I've decided to accept your offer."

"And my terms?" said he, apparently not interested by her announcement.

"And your terms," assented she. "You are free to stop whenever the whim strikes you; I must do exactly as you bid. What do you wish me to do?"

"Nothing at present," replied he. "I will let you know."

She was disappointed. She had assumed that something—something new and interesting, probably irritating, perhaps enraging, would occur at once. His indifference, his putting off to a future time, which his manner made seem most hazily indefinite, gave her the foolish and collapsing sense of having broken through an open door.



VII

THE first of September they went up to town. Stanley left at once for his annual shooting trip; Donald Keith disappeared, saying—as was his habit—neither what he was about nor when he would be seen again. Mrs. Brindley summoned her pupils and her musical friends. Mildred resumed the lessons with Jennings. There was no doubt about it, she had astonishingly improved during the summer. There had come—or, rather, had come back—into her voice the birdlike quality, free, joyous, spontaneous, that had not been there since her father's death and the family's downfall. She was glad that her arrangement with Donald Keith was of such a nature that she was really not bound to go on with it—if he should ever come back and remind her of what she had said. Now that Jennings was enthusiastic—giving just and deserved praise, as her own ear and Mrs. Brindley assured her, she was angry at herself for having tolerated Keith's frankness, his insolence, his insulting and contemptuous denials of her ability. She was impatient to see him, that she might put him down. She said to Jennings:

"You think I can make a career?"

"There isn't a doubt in my mind now," replied he. "You ought to be one of the few great lyric sopranos within five years."

"A man, this summer—a really unusual man in some ways—told me there was no hope for me."

"A singing teacher?"

"No, a lawyer. A Mr. Keith—Donald Keith."

"I've heard of him," said Jennings. "His mother was Rivi, the famous coloratura of twenty years ago."

Mildred was astounded. "He must know something about music."

"Probably," replied Jennings. "He lived with her in Italy, I believe, until he was almost grown. Then she died. You sang for him?"

"No," Mildred said it hesitatingly.

"Oh!" said Jennings, and his expression—interested, disturbed, puzzled—made Mildred understand why she had been so reluctant to confess. Jennings did not pursue the subject, but abruptly began the lesson. That day and several days thereafter he put her to tests he had never used before. She saw that he was searching for something—for the flaw implied in the adverse verdict of the son of Lucia Rivi. She was enormously relieved when he gave over the search without having found the flaw. She felt that Donald Keith's verdict had been proved false or at least faulty. Yet she was not wholly reassured, and from time to time she suspected that Jennings had not been, either.

Soon the gayety of the preceding winter and spring was in full swing again. Keith did not return, did not write, and Cyrilla Brindley inquired and telephoned in vain. Mildred worked with enthusiasm, with hope, presently with confidence. She hoped every day that Keith would come; she would make him listen to her, force him to admit. She caught a slight cold, neglected it, tried to sing it away. Her voice left her abruptly. She went to Jennings as usual the day she found herself able to do nothing more musical than squeak. She told him her plight. Said he:

"Begin! Let's hear."

She made a few dismal attempts, stopped short, and, half laughing, half ashamed, faced him for the lecture she knew would be forthcoming. Now, it so happened that Jennings was in a frightful humor that day—one of those humors in which the most prudent lose their self-control. He had been listening to a succession of new pupils—women with money and no voice, women who screeched and screamed and thoroughly enjoyed themselves and angled confidently for compliments. As Jennings had an acute musical ear, his sufferings had been frightful. He was used to these torments, had the habit of turning the fury into which they put him into excellent financial or disciplinary account. But on this particular day his nerves went to pieces, and it was with Mildred that the explosion came. When she looked at him, she was horrified to see a face distorted and discolored by sheer rage.

"You fool!" he shouted, storming up and down. "You fool! You can't sing! Keith was right. You wouldn't do even for a church choir. You can't be relied on. There's nothing behind your voice—no strength, no endurance, no brains. No brains! Do you hear?—no brains, I say!"

Mildred was terrified. She had seen him in tantrums before, but always there had been a judicious reserving of part of the truth. Instead of resenting, instead of flashing eye or quivering lips, Mildred sat down and with white face and dazed eyes stared straight before her. Jennings raved and roared himself out. As he came to his senses from this debauch of truth-telling his first thought was how expensive it might be. Thus, long before there was any outward sign that the storm had passed, the ravings, the insults were shrewdly tempered with qualifyings. If she kept on catching these colds, if she did not obey his instructions, she might put off her debut for years—for three years, for two years at least. And she would always be rowing with managers and irritating the public—and so on and on. But the mischief had been done. The girl did not rouse.

"No use to go on to-day," he said gruffly—the pretense at last rumblings of an expiring storm.

"Nor any other day," said Mildred.

She stood and straightened herself. Her face was beautiful rather than lovely. Its pallor, its strong lines, the melancholy intensity of the eyes, made her seem more the woman fully developed, less, far less, the maturing girl.

"Nonsense!" scolded Jennings. "But no more colds like that. They impair the quality of the voice."

"I have no voice," said the girl. "I see the truth."

Jennings was inwardly cursing his insane temper. In about the kindliest tone he had ever used with her, he said: "My dear Miss Stevens, you are in no condition to judge to-day. Come back to-morrow. Do something for that cold to-night. Clear out the throat—and come back to-morrow. You will see."

"Yes, I know those tricks," said she, with a sad little smile. "You can make a crow seem to sing. But you told me the truth."

"To-morrow," he cried pleasantly, giving her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. He knew the folly of talking too much, the danger of confirming her fears by pretending to make light of them. "A good sleep, and to-morrow things will look brighter."

He did not like her expression. It was not the one he was used to seeing in those vain, "temperamental" pupils of his—the downcast vanity that will be up again in a few hours. It was rather the expression of one who has been finally and forever disillusioned.

On her way home she stopped to send Keith a telegram: "I must see you at once."

There were several at the apartment for tea, among them Cullan, an amateur violinist and critic on music whom she especially liked. For, instead of the dreamy, romantic character his large brown eyes and sensitive features suggested, he revealed in talk and actions a boyish gayety—free, be it said, from boyish silliness—that was most infectious. His was one of those souls that put us in the mood to laugh at all seriousness, to forget all else in the supreme fact of the reality of existence. He made her forget that day—forget until Keith's answering telegram interrupted: "Next Monday afternoon."

A week less a day away! She shrank and trembled at the prospect of relying upon herself alone for six long days. Every prop had been taken away from her. Even the dubious prop of the strange, unsatisfactory Keith. For had he not failed her? She had said, "must" and "at once"; and he had responded with three words of curt refusal.

After dinner Stanley unexpectedly appeared. He hardly waited for the necessary formalities of the greeting before he said to Mrs. Brindley: "I want to see Mildred alone. I know you won't mind, Mrs. Brindley. It's very important." He laughed nervously but cheerfully. "And in a few minutes I'll call you in. I think I'll have something interesting to tell you."

Mrs. Brindley laughed. With her cigarette in one hand and her cup of after-dinner coffee in the other, she moved toward the door, saying gayly to Mildred:

"I'll be in the next room. If you scream I shall hear. So don't be alarmed."

Stanley closed the door, turned beaming upon Mildred. Said he: "Here's my news. My missus has got her divorce."

Mildred started up.

"Yes, the real thing," he assured her. "Of course I knew what was doing. But I kept mum—didn't want to say anything to you till I could say everything. Mildred, I'm free. We can be married to-morrow, if you will."

"Then you know about me?" said she, confused.

"On the way I stopped in to see Keith. He told me about that skunk—told me you were free, too."

Mildred slowly sat down. Her elbows rested upon the table. There was her bare forearm, slender and round, and her long, graceful fingers lay against her cheek. The light from above reflected charmingly from the soft waves and curves of her hair. "You're lovely—simply lovely!" cried Stanley. "Mildred—darling—you WILL marry me, won't you? You can go right on with the career, if you like. In fact, I'd rather you would, for I'm frightfully proud of your voice. And I've changed a lot since I became sincerely interested in you. The other sort of life and people don't amuse me any more. Mildred, say you'll marry me. I'll make you as happy as the days are long."

She moved slightly. Her hand dropped to the table.

"I guess I came down on you too suddenly," said he. "You look a bit dazed."

"No, I'm not dazed," replied she.

"I'll call Mrs. Brindley in, and we'll all three talk it over."

"Please don't," said she. "I've got to think it out for myself."

"I know there isn't anyone else," he went on. "So, I'm sure—dead sure, Mildred, that I can teach you to love me."

She looked at him pleadingly. "I don't have to answer right away?"

"Certainly not," laughed he. "But why shouldn't you? What is there against our getting married? Nothing. And everything for it. Our marriage will straighten out all the—the little difficulties, and you can go ahead with the singing and not bother about money, or what people might say, or any of those things."

"I—I've got to think about it, Stanley," she said gently. "I want to do the decent thing by you and by myself."

"You're afraid I'll interfere in the career—won't want you to go on? Mildred, I swear I'm—"

"It isn't that," she interrupted, her color high. "The truth is—" she faltered, came to a full stop—cried, "Oh, I can't talk about it to-night."

"To-morrow?" he suggested.

"I—don't know," she stammered. "Perhaps to-morrow. But it may be two or three days."

Stanley looked crestfallen. "That hurts, Mildred," he said. "I was SO full of it, so anxious to be entirely happy, and I thought you'd fall right in with it. Something to do with money? You're horribly sensitive about money, dear. I like that in you, of course. Not many women would have been as square, would have taken as little—and worked hard—and thought and cared about nothing but making good— By Jove, it's no wonder I'm stark crazy about YOU!"

She was flushed and trembling. "Don't," she pleaded. "You're beating me down into the dust. I—I'm—" She started up. "I can't talk to-night. I might say things I'd be— I can't talk about it. I must—"

She pressed her lips together and fled through the hall to her own room, to shut and lock herself in. He stared in amazement. When he heard the distant sound of the turning key he dropped to a chair again and laughed. Certainly women were queer creatures—always doing what one didn't expect. Still, in the end—well, a sensible woman knew a good chance to marry and took it. There was no doubt a good deal of pretense in Mildred's delicacy as to money matters—but a devilish creditable sort of pretense. He liked the ladylike, "nice" pretenses, of women of the right sort—liked them when they fooled him, liked them when they only half fooled him.

Presently he knocked on the door of the little library, opened it when permission came in Cyrilla's voice. She was reading the evening paper—he did not see the glasses she hastily thrust into a drawer. In that soft light she looked a scant thirty, handsome, but for his taste too intellectual of type to be attractive—except as a friend.

"Well," said he, as he lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the big copper ash-bowl, "I'll bet you can't guess what I've been up to."

"Making love to Miss Stevens," replied she. "And very foolish it is of you. She's got a steady head in that way."

"You're mighty right," said he heartily. "And I admire her for that more than for anything else. I'd trust her anywhere."

"You're paying yourself a high compliment," laughed Cyrilla.

"How's that?" inquired he. "You're too subtle for me. I'm a bit slow."

Mrs. Brindley decided against explaining. It was not wise to risk raising an unjust doubt in the mind of a man who fancied that a woman who resisted him would be adamant to every other man. "Then I've got to guess again?" said she.

"I've been asking her to marry me," said Stanley, who could contain it no longer. "Mrs. B. was released from me to-day by the court in Providence."

"But SHE'S not free," said Cyrilla, a little severely.

Stanley looked confused, finally said: "Yes, she is. It's a queer story. Don't say anything. I can't explain. I know I can trust you to keep a close mouth."

"Minding my own business is my one supreme talent," said Cyrilla.

"She hasn't accepted me—in so many words," pursued Baird, "but I've hopes that it'll come out all right."

"Naturally," commented Cyrilla dryly.

"I know I'm not—not objectionable to her. And how I do love her!" He settled himself at his ease. "I can't believe it's really me. I never thought I'd marry—just for love. Did you?"

"You're very self-indulgent," said Cyrilla.

"You mean I'm marrying her because I can't get her any other way. There's where you're wrong, Mrs. Brindley. I'm marrying her because I don't want her any other way. That's why I know it's love. I didn't think I was capable of it. Of course, I've been rather strong after the ladies all my life. You know how it is with men."

"I do," said Mrs. Brindley.

"No, you don't either," retorted he. "You're one of those cold, stand-me-off women who can't comprehend the nature of man."

"As you please," said she. In her eyes there was a gleam that more than suggested a possibility of some man—some man she might fancy—seeing an amazingly different Cyrilla Brindley.

"I may say I was daft about pretty women," continued Baird. "I never read an item about a pretty woman in the papers, or saw a picture of a pretty woman that I didn't wish I knew her—well. Can you imagine that?" laughed he.

"Commonplace," said Cyrilla. "All men are so. That's why the papers always describe the woman as pretty and why the pictures are published."

"Really? Yes, I suppose so." Baird looked chagrined. "Anyhow, here I am, all for one woman. And why? I can't explain it to myself. She's pretty, lovely, entrancing sometimes. She has charm, grace, sweetness. She dresses well and carries herself with a kind of sweet haughtiness. She looks as if she knew a lot—and nothing bad. Do you know, I can't imagine her having been married to that beast! I've tried to imagine it. I simply can't."

"I shouldn't try if I were you," said Mrs. Brindley.

"But I was talking about why I love her. Does this bore you?"

"A little," laughed Cyrilla. "I'd rather hear some man talking about MY charms. But go on. You are amusing, in a way."

"I'll wager I am. You never thought I'd be caught? I believed I was immune—vaccinated against it. I thought I knew all the tricks and turns of the sex. Yet here I am!"

"What do you think caught you?"

"That's the mystery. It's simply that I can't do without her. Everything she looks and says and does interests me more than anything else in the world. And when I'm not with her I'm wishing I were and wondering how she's looking or what she's saying or doing. You don't think she'll refuse me?" This last with real anxiety.

"I haven't an idea," replied Mrs. Brindley. "She's—peculiar. In some moods she would. In others, she couldn't. And I've never been able to settle to my satisfaction which kind of mood was the real Mary Stevens."

"She IS queer, isn't she?" said Stanley thoughtfully. "But I've told her she'd be free to go on with the career. Fact is, I want her to do it."

Mrs. Brindley's eyes twinkled. "You think it would justify you to your set in marrying her, if she made a great hit?"

Stanley blushed ingenuously. "I'll not deny that has something to do with it," he admitted. "And why not?"

"Why not, indeed?" said she. "But, after she had made the hit, you'd want her to quit the stage and take her place in society. Isn't that so?"

"You ARE a keen one," exclaimed he admiringly. "But I didn't say that to her. And you won't, will you?"

"It's hardly necessary to ask that," said Mrs. Brindley. "Now, suppose— You don't mind my talking about this?"

"What I want," replied he. "I can't talk or think anything but her."

"Now, suppose she shouldn't make a hit. Suppose she should fail—should not develop reliable voice enough?"

Stanley looked frightened. "But she can't fail," he cried with over-energy. "There's no question about her voice."

"I understand," Mrs. Brindley hastened to say. "I was simply making conversation with her as the subject."

"Oh, I see." Stanley settled back.

"Suppose she should prove not to be a great artist—what then?" persisted Cyrilla, who was deeply interested in the intricate obscure problem of what people really thought as distinguished from what they professed and also from what they imagined they thought.

"The fact that she's a great artist—that's part of her," said Baird. "If she weren't a great singer, she wouldn't be she—don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with an ironic sadness which she indulged openly because there was no danger of his understanding.

"I don't exactly love her because she amounts to a lot—or is sure to," pursued he, vaguely dissatisfied with himself. "It's just as she doesn't care for me because I've got the means to take care of her right, yet that's part of me—and she'd not be able to marry me if I hadn't. Don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with more irony and less sadness. "There's always SOME reason beside love."

"I'd say there's always some reason FOR love," said Baird, and he felt that he had said something brilliant—as is the habit of people of sluggish mentality when they say a thing they do not themselves understand. "You don't doubt that I love her?" he went on. "Why should I ask her to marry me if I didn't?"

"I suppose that settles it," said Cyrilla.

"Of course it does," declared he.

For an hour he sat there, talking on, most of it a pretty dull kind of drivel. Mrs. Brindley listened patiently, because she liked him and because she had nothing else to do until bedtime. At last he rose with a long sigh and said:

"I guess I might as well be going."

"She'll not come in to-night again," said Cyrilla slyly.

He laughed. "You are a good one. I'll own up, I've been staying on partly in the hope that she'd come back. But it's been a great joy to talk to you about her. I know you love her, too."

"Yes, I'm extremely fond of her," said she. "I've not known many women—many people without petty mean tricks. She's one."

"Isn't she, though?" exclaimed he.

"I don't mean she's perfect," said Mrs. Brindley. "I don't even mean that she's as angelic as you think her. I'd not like her, if she were. But she's a superior kind of human."

She was tired of him now, and got him out speedily. As she closed the front door upon him, Mildred's door, down the hall, opened. Her head appeared, an inquiring look upon her face. Mrs. Brindley nodded. Mildred, her hair done close to her head, a dressing-robe over her nightgown and her bare feet in little slippers, came down the hall. She coiled herself up in a big chair in the library and lit a cigarette. She looked like a handsome young boy.

"He told you?" she said to Mrs. Brindley.

"Yes," replied Cyrilla.

Silence. In all their intimate acquaintance there had never been an approach to the confidential on either side. It was Cyrilla's notion that confidences were a mistake, and that the more closely people were thrown together the more resolutely they ought to keep certain barriers between them. She and Mildred got on too admirably, liked each other too well, for there to be any trifling with their relations—and over-intimacy inevitably led to trifling. Mildred had restrained herself because Mrs. Brindley had compelled it by rigid example. Often she had longed to talk things over, to ask advice; but she had never ventured further than generalities, and Mrs. Brindley had never proffered advice, had never accepted opportunities to give it except in the vaguest way. She had taught Mildred a great deal, but always by example, by doing, never by saying what ought or ought not to be done. Thus, such development of Mildred's character as there had been was natural and permanent.

"He has put me in a peculiar position," said Mildred. "Or, rather, I have let myself drift into a peculiar position. For I think you're right in saying that oneself is always to blame. Won't you let me talk about it to you, please? I know you hate confidences. But I've got to—to talk. I'd like you to advise me, if you can. But even if you don't, it'll do me good to say things aloud."

"Often one sees more clearly," was Cyrilla's reply—noncommittal, yet not discouraging.

"I'm free to marry him," Mildred went on. "That is, I'm not married. I'd rather not explain—"

"Don't," said Mrs. Brindley. "It's unnecessary."

"You know that it's Stanley who has been lending me the money to live on while I study. Well, from the beginning I've been afraid I'd find myself in a difficult position."

"Naturally," said Mrs. Brindley, as she paused.

"But I've always expected it to come in another way—not about marriage, but—"

"I understand," said Mrs. Brindley. "You feared you'd be called on to pay in the way women usually pay debts to men."

Mildred nodded. "But this is worse than I expected—much worse."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Cyrilla. "Yes, you're right. If he had hinted the other thing, you could have pretended not to understand. If he had suggested it, you could have made him feel cheap and mean."

"I did," said Mildred. "He has been—really wonderful—better than almost any man would have been—more considerate than I deserved. And I took advantage of it."

"A woman has to," said Cyrilla. "The fight between men and women is so unequal."

"I took advantage of him," repeated Mildred. "And he apologized, and I—I went on taking the money. I didn't know what else to do. Isn't that dreadful?"

"Nothing to be proud of," said Cyrilla. "But a very usual transaction."

"And then," pursued Mildred, "I discovered that I—that I'd not be able to make a career. But still I kept on, though I've been trying to force myself to—to show some pride and self-respect. I discovered it only a short time ago, and it wasn't really until to-day that I was absolutely sure."

"You ARE sure?"

"There's hardly a doubt," replied Mildred. "But never mind that now. I've got to make a living at something, and while I'm learning whatever it is, I've got to have money to live on. And I can get it only from him. Now, he asks me to marry him. He wouldn't ask me if he didn't think I was going to be a great singer. He doesn't know it, but I do."

Mrs. Brindley smiled sweetly.

"And he thinks that I love him, also. If I accept him, it will be under doubly false pretenses. If I refuse him I've got to stop taking the money."

A long silence; then Mrs. Brindley said: "Women—the good ones, too—often feel that they've a right to treat men as men treat them. I think almost any woman would feel justified in putting off the crisis."

"You mean, I might tell him I'd give him my answer when I was independent and had paid back."

Cyrilla nodded. Mildred relit her cigarette, which she had let go out. "I had thought of that," said she. "But—I doubt if he'd tolerate it. Also"—she laughed with the peculiar intonation that accompanies the lifting of the veil over a deeply and carefully hidden corner of one's secret self—"I am afraid. If I don't marry him, in a few weeks, or months at most, he'll probably find out that I shall never be a great singer, and then I'd not be able to marry him if I wished to."

"He IS a temptation," said Cyrilla. "That is, his money is—and he personally is very nice."

"I married a man I didn't care for," pursued Mildred. "I don't want ever to do that again. It is—even in the best circumstances—not agreeable, not as simple as it looks to the inexperienced girls who are always doing it."

"Still, a woman can endure that sort of thing," said Mrs. Brindley, "unless she happens to be in love with another man." She was observing the unconscious Mildred narrowly, a state of inward tension and excitement hinted in her face, but not in her voice.

"That's just it?" said Mildred, her face carefully averted. "I—I happen to be in love with another man."

A spasm of pain crossed Cyrilla's face.

"A man who cares nothing about me—and never will. He's just a friend—so much the friend that he couldn't possibly think of me as—as a woman, needing him and wanting him"—her eyes were on fire now, and a soft glow had come into her cheeks—"and never daring to show it because if I did he would fly and never let me see him again."

Cyrilla Brindley's face was tragic as she looked at the beautiful girl, so gracefully adjusted to the big chair. She sighed covertly. "You are lovely," she said, "and young—above all, young."

"This man is peculiar," replied Mildred forlornly. "Anyhow, he doesn't want ME. He knows me for the futile, weak, worthless creature I am. He saw through my bluff, even before I saw through it myself. If it weren't for him, I could go ahead—do the sensible thing—do as women usually do. But—" She came to a full stop.

"Love is a woman's sense of honor," said Cyrilla softly. "We're merciless and unscrupulous—anything—everything—where we don't love. But where we do love, we'll go farther for honor than the most honorable man. That's why we're both worse and better than men—and seem to be so contradictory and puzzling."

"I'd do anything for him," said Mildred. She smiled drearily. "And he wants nothing."

She had nothing more to say. She had talked herself out about Stanley, and her mind was now filled with thoughts that could not be spoken. As she rose to go to bed, she looked appealingly at Cyrilla. Then, with a sudden and shy rush she flung her arms round her and kissed her. "Thank you—so much," she said. "You've done me a world of good. Saying it all out loud before YOU has made me see. I know my own mind, now."

She did not note the pathetic tenderness of Cyrilla's face as she said, "Good night, Mildred." But she did note the use of her first name—and her own right first name—for the first time since they had known each other. She embraced and kissed her again. "Good night, Cyrilla," she said gratefully.

As she entered Jennings's studio the next day he looked at her; and when Jennings looked, he saw—as must anyone who lives well by playing upon human nature. He did not like her expression. She did not habitually smile; her light-heartedness, her optimism, did not show themselves in that inane way. But this seriousness of hers was of a new kind, of the kind that bespeaks sobriety and saneness of soul. And that kind of seriousness—the deep, inward gravity of a person whose days of trifling with themselves and with the facts of life, and of being trifled with, are over—would have impressed Jennings equally had she come in laughing, had her every word been a jest.