Gargoyles

by Ben Hecht

II.

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13

George Basine was going to see his sister Doris. In the nine years since she had left her mother's home she had become a strange woman to Basine. She had always been strange to him. But now it was as if she were entirely unhuman.

He could talk to her without shame of things that were shameful. But there was something more tangible in her presence than the joy of being able to confess things to her. She was practical in her ideas. She gave him hunches for his speeches sometimes and what she said about people and how to make an impression on them was always of value. She understood such things. How, he couldn't determine. It was probably an instinct with her.

Basine walked along in the spring afternoon. It was Sunday and he should have stayed home. Henrietta had been angry when he left. Sunday was his day for her and the two children. There were two children now—one a boy of seven, and a girl of five.

But he said, "I want to see Doris. She's been feeling rather off lately. And if you don't believe I'm going there, why just call up in an hour. And keep on calling every hour if you want to keep check on me."

He was always angry with his wife when he left her. She made him feel that he was doing wrong, although she seldom said anything. But to go away and leave her on Sunday was wrong. But not for the reasons she sometimes hinted at.

He knew that she suspected his frequent absences from the house. He accused her of hounding him with her jealousy, and the knowledge of his innocence—he had never been unfaithful during the eight years of their marriage—made him angry. The elation of righteous anger in which he indulged himself on all occasions involving Henrietta, was a ruse which obscured for both himself and his wife the actual reasons of his absences. She bored him to a point of fury. His children and their endless noises and questionings set his nerves on edge. He fled in order to escape his home. But Henrietta hinted that he left her for someone else. And he denied this hotly. And in the excitement which accusation and denial aroused both of them managed to avoid facing the fact that he stayed away for no other reason than to escape the boredom of her presence and discomfort of his home.

Basine was careful to avoid this fact. It was incompatable with his ideas. He had become a man of belligerent righteousness. He was slowly emerging as a public figure. As an assistant in the state's attorney's office his political activities were attracting more attention than his legal work. He was in demand as a campaign orator. And the candidates in whose behalf he addressed the public were men, he pointed out with an air of fearlessness, who believed first of all that the home was the cornerstone of civilization.

"He is a man worth while," he would declaim, "a capable administrator. But first of all our candidate is like you and me. His heart is centered in his home. The greatest rewards life holds for him are not the offices we are able to bestow on him but the love of his wife and children."

Since his marriage which from the first had irritated him and then set his teeth on edge, he had devoted himself seemingly to a public idealization of his own predicament.

Nine years had brought changes in Basine. He had grown leaner. His face had sharpened into hawk lines. There was about him at thirty-four, an aristocratic pugnaciousness. Fearlessness was a word which was gradually attaching itself to his name. He was fearless, people said. His lean body and unphysical air contributed to their decision.

When he appeared publicly people saw a wiry-bodied man past thirty with an amazing determination about him. His words snapped out, his eyes flashed as he talked. And his talk was usually alive with denunciations. He denounced enemies of the people and ideas that were enemies.

During the minor campaigns for aldermen, state's attorney and the judiciary elections in which he had been employed by his party leaders, he had created a slight newspaper stir. The public had quickly sensed in him an interesting character.

And then, although he was years working toward this end, he had suddenly leaped forward as a champion of their rights. He had become one of the select group of indomitable Davids striding fearlessly forth to do battle with the Goliaths that threatened. And there were always Goliaths threatening. Insidious Goliaths; shrewd, merciless Goliaths continually on the verge of opening their terrible maws and devouring the rights of the public.

Basine was coming forward as a champion consecrated to the slaying of Goliaths. Not only during campaigns, which, of course, was the open season for Goliath-slaying, but between campaigns, behind closed doors where nobody saw, in the bosom of his family. He never removed his armor or rather, never laid aside his holy slingshot. He was always locked in a death struggle with new and unsuspected Goliaths—this wiry, fearless man who was beginning to cry out in the newspapers ... "The enemies of the public must be overthrown. It matters not who they are or in what camp they are. The city must be cleaned up."

Following the failure of several private banks in the cosmopolitan district of the city, Basine had leaped forward against this new Goliath. This had been his first major offensive.

Private banks were threatening the peace of the public. He had made several speeches before business men's associations denouncing private banks and private bankers. He had declared with utter disregard of personal or political consequences that they were a menace—that they were sharks swimming in the waters of finance—and that he would not rest until the public had been made safe against their predatory, merciless jaws.

He was on this Sunday morning in the midst of the fight against private banks. The excitement had started with the failure of a small banking institution on the west side. The newspapers had carried the usual stories of weeping depositors and heartbroken working people whose life-time savings had been swept away in the crash. Basine had overlooked the stories in the papers. Doris had called them to his attention. He had been sitting in her studio.... Here was something worth while. Why didn't he start a campaign against private banks. There was always agitation, but as yet not a big campaign.

When he left her the thing had already matured in his mind. He wondered why she had laughed during the discussion of the possibilities of such a campaign. He remembered her saying with a sneer, "That's the sort of thing the crowd eats up. The trouble with you George, is that you haven't learned the trick of frightening the mob. You can't be a leader unless you frighten them first and then leap out to defend them. The menace of private banks is something to frighten them with. Start a crusade."

That was it—a crusade. Movements and reforms were all very well. But they were slow work. In order to advance one had to attach oneself to tidal waves. Doris was right about frightening them.

Within a week he had launched his attack. He had developed a technique in his public utterances which was becoming more and more unconscious and so more and more convincing. Once determined that a crusade against private banks would be a step in his upward climb, his cynicism in the matter vanished. He investigated the subject thoroughly, filling his mind with statistics. Events played into his hands. A second private bank collapsed at the end of the week and Basine knew that the ground was ready for his crusade.

He began not with an attack against the institution of private banks, but shelving the statistics he had carefully mastered, he concentrated upon creating a sense of terror in the public mind. In statements given out to the press and in speeches before business men's associations which were also reported in the newspapers, he pounded on the note of menace. They were a menace. They were something to be afraid of. They jeopardized stability. They were wildcat institutions.

It was his first crusade and he waited nervously for the response. The response came after a pause of a week like an answering shout. Down with private banks! A conflagration of headlines flared up. The people were against private banks. Editorials heralded the fact. The newspapers were against private banks. A week ago private banks had been the furthest topic from the public conversation. Now it became a matter of violent discussion. Citizens committees were being formed for the purpose of fighting private banks.

Feeling began to run high. Very high. A neighborhood Polish financier who for years had conducted a small banking institution was mobbed on his way to work and rescued from the violence of the crowd, which threatened his life by the arrival of police. This incident was reported by the newspapers as revealing the determination of the men seeking to wipe out the menace of the private bank and also as revealing the unscrupulous power of the men engaged in the private banking business.

The growing clamor against the institution resulted naturally in the collapse of two more small banks whose depositors, terrified by reports they themselves were circulating, rushed to withdraw their savings.

Basine contemplating the extent of the public indignation felt a pride and a misgiving. He glowed with the thought that he, Basine, had started the thing. His name had from the beginning figured prominently in connection with the growing crusade.... "Basine Denounces Private Banks...." had started it. And then a flood of headlines, "Banking Sharks Prey on poor, says Basine."... And then "Basine Flays Private Bankers at Mass Meeting...." "Private Bank Menace Growing...."

He had kept his head during the publicity and, unaccountably, his thought had turned to his sister as the crusade gathered momentum, as the "menace grew." Although alive with a powerful indignation against the enemy, Basine remained mentally aloof in contemplating the situation. His aloofness was not a cynicism but a guide.

He studied the fact that the clamor was in the main artificial. The menace of the private bank was a thing that touched less than one per-cent of the population. There were no more than thirty such minor institutions in the city and more than two-thirds of these were as sound as the banks under government supervision. His statistics had revealed this.

Nevertheless in some mysterious way the phrase "private bank" had become synonymous with ogre, villainy, menace, calamity. His original denunciations published rather casually by the press had been a species of newspaper feelers. The public had responded. Realizing then that the subject was a live one, the papers had cut loose. The idea of a trusted public institution being a danger and a menace to the community was quick in awaking a sense of alarm. A sense of fear inspired by no facts but by the reiterative rhetoric of the press swept the city.

Basine for several days sought futilely to understand the phenomenon of this fear. It seemed almost as if people were filled with constant though innate fear of the things they trusted. A man named Levine whom he had met at Doris' explained it that way. He had listened to the man talk: ... "The reason people turn on their trusted institutions with such fury is simple. When a platitude they have blindly upheld seems about to betray them they fall on it and tear it to pieces. This is because a platitude is kept alive blindly and it must be destroyed blindly. When a platitude commits the offense of becoming obviously, too obviously, a lie or an incipient danger, people are of course overcome with the horrible doubt that all platitudes are lies and dangers. This general suspicion which overcomes them, this wholesale fear or panic which sweeps over them, they let out, of course, on the one platitude. By viciously denouncing the one platitude they manage to assure themselves that all the others are all right. They sort of lose their general terror in an unnatural but specific hysteria. And they always turn themselves into an overfed elephant jumping furiously up and down and trumpeting terribly—at a mouse."

Basine carried this explanation away. He allowed it to linger in his mind without thinking of it. He knew that the fear was unwarranted and yet the excitement had taken on the proportions of a public uprising. The editorials of the press became couched more and more in grandiloquent languages, reminiscent of Biblical passages. In fact a religious fervor had entered the clamor. The overthrow of the private bank was a mission of righteousness—an integral part of the higher Christianity of the nation—to say nothing of the dreams of its forefathers.

With this growing and exalted anger, a new phenomenon struck Basine. It was the strange myth that had sprung up seemingly overnight of the power of the private banks. He knew from his study of the facts that the private bankers of the city were a handful of haphazard, third rate financiers without prestige in the courts or pull in the politics of the state. Their total holdings represented a slight fraction of the money tied up in the banking business of the city. They had no standing comparable with the standing of the supervised banks. The big interests including the men of power in the city were against them and they were, as a matter of fact, a puny by-product of the city's intricate finance.

Yet now they had become an insidiously entrenched monster. Public men of affairs vied with each other in revealing the mysterious power of the private bank. And Basine was left to marvel in silence over the fact that the wilder the public frenzy against private bankers became, the huger and more difficult to overthrow were the private bankers made out to be.

His pride as author of the crusade began however to be colored with misgivings. Others had risen to challenge him for the leadership of the movement. Stern, fearless men, as stern and fearless as himself, were offering to sacrifice themselves on the altars of freedom. The altars of freedom, the press explained, were the battleground of the fight against private banks.

The public's attention was being distracted from Basine. Men of greater prestige than he had hurled themselves into the death struggle. These great ones were more qualified than Basine for leadership. They were older and of deeper experience in the slaying of Goliaths. Now it seemed that perhaps one of them and not George Basine was the hero who would be able to overthrow this latest menace to the public weal.

Basine's misgivings took the form of an irritation. He sensed the fickleness of the public and understood that it could turn from him who had started the whole thing and give its adulation to some other leader who had jumped on the band-wagon and crowded Basine off the driver's seat. His cynicism returned as he read the denunciations his rivals were hurling at private banks.

"A pack of fools and fourflushers," he muttered to himself and their words—paraphrases of his original denunciations for the most part—nauseated him. The word "bunk" crept into his thought as he read their speeches and interviews. He would like to stop the whole thing, to stand up and say it was all a tempest in a teapot and that there was no menace or ogre or Goliath; that the whole thing was made out of whole cloth. Then the entire business would collapse and the men threatening him for the leadership would be left high and dry.

... Doris looked up as he entered. She was a silent-looking woman. Her face wore its pallor like a mask. She greeted her brother without expression. Her luxurious body seemed without life, her hands gesturing as if they were weighted. The sensuous outlines of her which brought to mind the odalisques of Titian found a startling contrast in the immobility of her manners. She was thirty and in the half-lighted room she seemed like a beautiful, burning-eyed paralytic.

"Tired?" her brother asked as he sat down.

This was of late his usual greeting. She looked tired always, and until she began to talk, she looked as if she were dumb or blind. But when she talked her eyes lighted.

She shook her head to his question. He had come filled with troubles and confessions but her black eyes, centered on him, disturbed him. He had become used to the sardonic weariness of her face. But there were times when he felt as if something were happening to her that he couldn't understand. Her eyes would burn and seem to shut him out as if she could look at him without seeing him.

Her complete inanimation startled him. He knew he could sit talking all night and she would never move nor ask a question. Long ago she had been a little like that. Never asking questions but sitting among others as if she were alone. But now it was more marked. There was something wrong with Doris. What she needed was to go out more. She was getting too self-centered, brooding too much.

Basine, as he sat studying the window and the profile of his sister, kept remembering how she used to be. That was years ago when they had all lived at home. And this poet Lindstrum whom everybody was talking about, used to call on her. She had been in love with him. But that was long ago—eight, nine, ten years ago. It couldn't be that. And it couldn't be that she was "in trouble," because she had been like this for years now. He remembered her youth. Her silence then had been different. It had been alive. And now she sat around like a corpse and if it wasn't for her eyes moving occasionally you might think her actually dead. Sometimes this thought did frighten him as he sat watching her. She was dead! He would restrain himself from jumping up to see and sit listening to hear her breathe.

He felt sorry for her. When he had married Henrietta she had been the only one who had understood. He could always remember what she had said at the wedding. It was the only thing he could recall of the event—what Doris had said to him....

"You'll never be a great man if you let yourself get trapped like this too often."

Surprising that she should know enough to say that. Because anyone who could say that to him must know him thoroughly and understand him thoroughly. It was what he had been saying to himself for months before the wedding.

He felt sorry for his sister. They were good friends in a way. A curious way because he felt she detested him somehow. Yet she understood him and could help him. And she liked him to come to see her. He wondered why. She had no love for him but there was something about him that appealed to her and interested her. He had noticed how she acted toward others. Their talk left her dead. Even when Levine talked she often remained unaware he was around. Her eyes never opened to people. Even her mother. And Fanny had said, "Doris is getting more and more of a pill. I think she's going crazy. She doesn't even look at a person anymore."

He watched her and thought, "Poor girl. Something wrong. I wish I could help her."

He kept remembering how beautiful and alive she had been and his heart felt an odd laceration as if something he loved were dying. Was he so fond of Doris, then? He said, "no." Yet he could never remember having felt such sympathy as this toward anyone. It was because she was an intimate. He felt toward her as he felt toward himself—forgiving, appreciative, and a sense of pity. Why had he thought that? Pity. Did he pity himself, he, George Basine, who was just beginning to ascend? Henrietta and the kids—that was it. A man had to accumulate troubles if he was to amount to anything.

The feeling of sympathy slipped from his thought. Doris had turned her eyes to him. Basine was aware of her coming to life. The symmetrical mask of her face became features and expressions.

"Will you stay for tea?" she asked.

He would. Doris stood up and regarded him with a malicious smile.

"The crusade seems to be running away from you," she said.

He nodded. The public-spirited leader in him did not relish the ironic tilt of her words. But he was able to assume a dual attitude toward her cynical intellectualism. He could frown on it with a sense of outrage. And he could listen to it with an appreciative shrewdness. He could despise her iconoclasm and still utilize its intelligence to aid him in his climb.

He had always understood that to his sister his aspirations were contemptible. And yet despite her sneering she seemed anxious to help him realize them. He understood, too, that in his sister's mind there was something queer about people. When she talked about people her eyes lighted. There was about her talk of people a clarity of idea that contrasted strangely with the passion one could feel behind her words.

Basine usually tried to dismiss the impression she made on him by thinking, "Oh, she's a fanatic on the subject, that's all." But a mystery worried him. Why should she be interested in his career? And why should she try to help him if she despised him and his type of ambition? And, moreover, despised people and politics in general?

It was a paradox and it made him uncomfortable. But he sought her out all the more for this. Because there was something practical about her fanaticism. Yes, and because she understood about him.

He had already told her secrets about himself, particularly about himself in relation to Henrietta. That formed a bond between them. He sometimes grew frightened at the thought of the things Doris knew about him—things she might tell to anyone and ruin him; wreck his home and his career. But always after worrying about such fears he would hurry to his sister and unburden himself still further. As if by feeding her further secrets he could make certain of her loyalty and reticence.

He watched her less openly as she poured tea. A bitterness filled him. If Henrietta were only a woman like this instead of a stick. If only he could sit home and talk things over with her, marriage would have some sense to it. He frowned. He did not like to think this way.

Doris began to talk smoothly, her dark eyes growing more alive. He listened nervously, wincing under the contempt of her phrases and fascinated by the startling interpretations they offered him of his own thoughts.

"If I were you," she said as she arranged the teacups, "I would let myself be squeezed out of the crusade. It's served its purpose for you. You've frightened about a million feeble-minded creatures into a fury against private banks. You've done quite well. That's the secret, you know. And you must always remember it. Create bogeymen to frighten people with. The more unreal the bogeymen, the more terrified the public. If you don't believe this figure out for yourself—of what are people the most afraid? God, of course. The greatest of the bogeymen. And remember too, George that people like to be terrified. There's a reason for that. People like to be preoccupied by false terrors in order not to have to face real frightening facts—facts such as death and age and their own souls."

She sat down and looked at Basine with a pitying smile.

"What a fool you are, George. You don't believe a word I say, do you?"

"What you say and how you say it are two different things," he answered. The thought was in his mind that Fanny was right. Doris was going crazy. Her talk had an edge to it as if her voice were being carefully repressed. He almost preferred her when she was silent, when her eyes slept. Because now there was a hidden wildness to her. She was suffering! The thought startled him. But that was it. The hate that filled her voice came from a suffering inside. He wanted to reach over and take her hand and whisper to her to be calm, but he continued to listen without moving. There were things in what she said that always held him. It was like learning secrets. She was still talking.

"Well, today they're shrieking and vomiting invective and you'd like nothing better than to be the heroic leader of this pack of filthy cowards. Would you? Well, it's not worth while this time. The whole thing'll blow over. In a few weeks people will have forgotten about private banks. And by the time you get the bill into the state legislature the papers will be ignoring the whole business. Do you see? There's nothing so tragic as the spectacle of a mob leader stranded high and dry with a yesterday's crusade. And his mob off in another direction. Remember, George, you're not dealing with people, with reasoning men and women. You always forget this and you'll never get ahead if you keep forgetting it. You're dealing with a single creature—the crowd. A huge bellowing savage."

"I know, I know," Basine muttered. She was crazy. Something queer in her head about people. "All people aren't like that, of course. But I understand."

"You don't," she interrupted angrily. "All people are like that. Alone people are one thing. They're alive and they reason a little. But when they come together to overthrow governments or defend governments or make laws or worship Gods, they vanish. A single creature takes their place. And this single creature is a mysterious savage who howls and spits and vomits and tears its hair and has orgasms of terror and befouls itself."

Her eyes glared at Basine. With an effort she controlled her voice. She continued in a passionate whisper.

"Don't you understand that yet? After all I've shown you. If you want to get ahead, I can make you anything. Do you hear that? Anything.... I can make you a leader ... a king. All you must learn is the way of turning people into swine...."

"Please Doris, you get too excited. Please...."

"Into swine and swine crusades. We'll find ways of bringing them together and the more swinish you can make people become, yes, the more you can make them spew and shriek, the holier will become the cause of this spewing and shrieking. These are elementals and you must trust me. Do you hear?"

Her fingers were cold. They had closed on his hand. He shuddered. Crazy ... poor Doris. Gone queer with something. Yet he found himself listening, her chill fingers startling his flesh. Out of her ravings there might issue at any minute the thing he was always looking for ... a way to get ahead.

"Little crusades like this," she went on, "are all right. But private banks are only a detail. And besides the idea is too concrete to terrify people and bring out the full hysteria of their cowardice. What we need is something vague—that has no facts to handicap it. Something you can lie about wildly and frighten them with so that their bowels weaken. Please, drop the thing now. You must...."

"Doris, you get too excited. Let's talk sense instead of getting excited like this."

He patted her hand and returned her stare uncomfortably. He wanted to ask her why she was interested in his getting ahead, in making him a leader. She had paused. Basine felt himself nauseated by the intensity of her words that continued to ring in his ears. Her anger and the viciousness of her phrases brought her too close to him. He could almost see something behind the glare of her dark eyes.

"Oh, you're not interested in progress and civilization," she resumed mockingly. Her words seemed more controlled. He noticed that she jerked her hand away. "Because if you were you would see that progress and civilization are the results of the terror of the mob. It's when they get frightened of something and throw themselves at it with their eyes shut and their hair on end, that institutions are born ... that new platitudes are set up in heaven. And the secret is this—the worse swine you can turn them into, the holier will be the things they do. Listen, I'll tell you.... You must do as I say.... You must believe me...."

She had risen. Her hand was on his shoulder and her eyes burned over him. He felt a bit fearful and impatient. To a point, her talk was interesting. But after that it became like raving.

"You've told me that before," he murmured. "Please calm down." An ecstatic light slowly left her.

"Oh yes. Sense," she whispered. "Well, the sense of it is for you to become a symbol of their holiness. Be a leader. Isn't that it. But the private bank crusade has fizzled. I've read the papers closely and outside of the two attacks on the private bankers last week, there've been no great gestures of righteousness. If they'd hamstrung a few hundred private bankers, cut off their heads and burned down their houses, I'd advise you to stick. That's sense isn't it?"

Basine, listening to the uncomfortable distortions of his sister, made up his mind. He translated her vicious suggestions into the less inconveniencing idea.... "The biggest part of the work in the fight against the banks has been done already, Doris. And the rest anybody can do."

"Yes," she smiled, "if you're going to be of service to the public you must be careful to devote yourself to worthwhile reforms. You always had a clearer way of putting things, George."

She despised him. He could feel it now. He looked at her and wondered again. She was beautiful. A complete change had come over her since he'd come in. She seemed warm with emotion, alive, human. But she smiled in an offensive way. He preferred her viciousness. That was impersonal—something queer in her head. This other was a condescension that angered him. He sat thinking; she was playing with him. It would be better if he never saw her.

"How is Henrietta?" she asked.

The question had long ago became an invitation to confession. He avoided her eyes.

"Fanny and Aubrey were over," he answered.

She interrupted. "Please don't talk about them."

"Oh, nothing in particular," he hastened. "Henrietta is the same as ever."

Doris laughed.

"An ideal wife for a future public hero," she exclaimed. Basine frowned.

"I'd rather you didn't make a joke about such things, Doris."

"I'm not joking. But to be a great leader a man must have only one love—the love of being a great leader."

"That's wrong," Basine blurted out. "A woman can help a man forward if he loves her and she's clever and loves him."

"She can't," Doris said softly. "Because she doesn't want to. If she loves him, she doesn't want him to be great. She may inspire him but just as soon as she sees his inspiration takes him away from her, she turns around and tries to ruin him. So she can have him to herself."

Basine listened impatiently. This was a child prattling. Doris was laughing. He looked at her questioningly. Her laughter continued and grew harsh.

"You fool," she sighed, controlling herself. "Oh you fool."

Basine shook his head. He was serious. There were hidden facts in his mind. He knew something about what a woman might do to help a man forward. These facts seemed to him allies—secret allies, as he contradicted his sister.

"I insist you're wrong," he said. He was determined to prove her wrong. But she went on, ignoring his intensity.

"Your wife is ideal, George. Colorless, stupid. Dead. Without desires or egoism. An ideal wife for a man of ambition. The kind that will let you alone."

"Nonsense. You're utterly wrong," he cried. He must prove to her how utterly wrong she was. There was Ruth.

"Men owe most of their success to the impulse the right woman can give them. Henrietta's all right. But she's so damn dead. She's interested in nothing. Just a child with a child's mind and outlook. And she gets more so every year. Good God, if I had somebody with life in her. Keen and ... who loved me. So that I wanted to be great in her eyes. It would be easier. Somebody ... like you, Doris."

He paused, confused. "I mean," he added, "your type. The intellectual and female combined."

He had long ago told her of his courtship, of the curious way he had tricked himself into matrimony and she had always laughed at his unhappiness and said this—only a fool tricked himself as he had done. Nevertheless his marriage was ideal.

"Men instinctively pick out what they need," she would say. "And a man like you needs a nonentity like Henrietta. You wait and see. Your happiness isn't coming from emotion inside but from emotion outside—the noise of praise the public will someday give you."

But there were facts now hidden in his head to disprove this. He started as Doris announced casually,

"Ruth Davis may drop in this afternoon."

They finished their tea. A knock on the door frightened him. The girl! No. Doris called, "Come in," and Levine entered. Basine nodded to him.

"I'll have to be going," he said as Levine sat down. He disliked the man. Doris nodded. She appeared to have lost interest in him and, her tea finished, she was sitting back in her chair with her eyes half shut and her hands listless in her lap. Levine was talking quietly.... "You look tired, Doris. Like to go hear Lindstrum lecture tonight? No? Very well. I just dropped in to see if you would. Come on."

"No," she frowned at him.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I think it would be better for you to...."

Her eyes shut him off. They were blazing.

"Please," she cried. Then with a sigh she turned toward the window.

Basine stood up. He pretended a leisureliness, opening a few books and staring with apparent interest at passages in them. Levine and his sister were a strange pair. Doris queer and moody and going into impossible tantrums. And this man with brown negro eyes and a loose-lipped mouth that reeked with sarcasms. There were secrets between them. Nothing wrong, but secrets. He remembered the girl was coming and grew frightened.

"Well, good-bye," he said aloud. "And calm down, Doris."

He waited uncomfortably for her to say something. But she was silent. He looked at his watch and exclaimed in a surprised, matter-of-fact voice, "Oh my! It's almost four. Good-bye. I must run."

He hurried away as if some logical necessity were spurring him on. The make-believe had been unnecessary for Doris had paid no attention to the manner of his departure.

Outside he paused and looked up and down the street. He felt relieved. He had left in time. Crossing from an opposite corner was Ruth Davis. He would pretend he hadn't seen her and walk on in an opposite direction. He knew she was watching him as she approached. He was frightened. A sense of suffocation. He desired to run away.

She was young. Her eyes had a way of remaining in his thought. When he talked to people, her eyes came before him and looked at him. They asked questions.

The last time he had sat with her in his sister's studio he had gone away with a feeling of panic. He was used to women. Invariably he disliked them. They seemed to him variants of his wife. They reminded him of Henrietta and he was able to say to himself, "They look attractive and mysterious. But underneath, they're all alike."

He meant they were all like Henrietta. In this way his distaste for his wife had kept him faithful to her because his imagination balked at the idea of embracing another Henrietta.

But Ruth Davis after he had met her a few times, always in his sister's presence, had impressed him differently. Perhaps it was because he had always seen her with his sister. In many ways she reminded him of Doris. She was dark like Doris and had many of her mannerisms.

He had not thought of her as a variant of Henrietta. Rather as a variant of Doris. He had never tested his immunity to her by imagining an embrace. When he talked to her he grew eager to impress her. He wanted her to understand him, not quite as Doris understood him. She was cynical but not in the way Doris was. Her mind was kindlier.

Because he felt frightened now at her approach and a desire to run away without speaking to her, he held himself to the spot. He would get the better of this thing, he told himself quickly, by facing whatever it was and fighting it down. He would overcome the curious effect she had on him by confronting her. In this way, a very high-minded way, he persuaded himself to wait for her and to talk to her. Which was what he wanted to do above everything else.

She was pleased. They shook hands. The confusion left him. He was quite master of himself. Her dark eyes were not dangerous like his sister's. She was a bright, pretty girl.

"I'm sorry I can't visit with you and Doris," he said. "But I have an engagement."

"Oh." She seemed disappointed. Her eyes betrayed almost a hurt. This made him even more master of himself. He had been foolishly worried about the girl. Just a bright, pretty girl and a friend of his sister.

"By the way," he said, "you were saying the other day that you'd like a job in the state attorney's office. My secretary's quit. Would you like that?"

"Oh, Mr. Basine. That's awfully kind of you. But I ... I don't know shorthand and I suppose that...."

"That makes no difference," he smiled tolerantly. "I need somebody able to look after things in general. If you want the job, why come down and see me tomorrow morning about ten and we'll start work."

"I'd be delighted," she answered. She was about to say more but he grew curt.

"You'll excuse me, won't you. I have to run," he said. "See you at ten tomorrow, eh?" He wanted to make the thing certain because otherwise he would have to hire someone else. "At ten then," he repeated.

"If you really want me."

"I think you'll get along all right. And I need somebody at once."

He walked away with a feeling of mastery. He had overcome the confusion the sight of her had started in him. He was sincerely glad of that. He disliked the idea of entanglements. Politics was a glass house and entanglements were dangerous. Then besides, there was Henrietta.

His fidelity to his wife was a habit that had become almost an obsession. His distaste and frequent revulsion toward her made him concentrate excitedly upon the idea of fidelity.

By assuring himself of the nobility of faithfulness and of its necessity as a matter of high decency, he vindicated in a measure the fact that he seemed too cowardly to philander. He had felt this cowardliness and was continually trying to distort it into more self-ennobling emotions. This was what made him so excited a champion of domestic felicity, marital fidelity and kindred ideas. He was able to convert himself into a man whose ideals prevented him from succumbing to his lower instincts. Thus instead of feeling ashamed of the cowardliness which kept him from doing what he desired, he felt on the contrary, proud of his capacity for living up to his high ideals, which meant—of doing what he didn't want to do.

This cowardliness was an involved emotion. It was inspired by a fear of detection, if he philandered, a fear of physical and social consequences. But more than that and too curious for his thought to unravel, it was inspired by a fear of hurting Henrietta. This fear was the predominant factor in his life.

He sought at times to understand it but its understanding eluded him. He had been tempted at times to talk to Doris about it. But as yet it was a confession withheld.

The greater his distaste for his wife became and the more the thought of her grew obnoxious, the deeper did this fear of hurting her take form in him. Often when driven to anger by her increasing stupidity he would lie awake at night by her side thinking of her in accidents which might kill her. He would lie awake picturing her brought home dying—and going over in his fancy the details of her death scene.

And then as if the thing were too sweet to relinquish, he would go over in his mind the details of the funeral, picturing himself beside the grave weeping, picturing her father and the numerous mourners; giving them words to say and assigning them little parts in the drama of the burial. The thing would become a completely worked out scene—like a careful description in a novel.

Then he would picture himself returning home with his children. He would close his eyes and play with the fancy impersonally, as if he were dictating it for writing. Back from the grave with his children.... The house empty of Henrietta. The chair in which she always sat and sewed, empty. And she would never sit there again. The chair would always be empty.

At this point his fancy would grow sad. At first the sadness would be as if it were part of the make-believe—as if this fiction figure of himself were mourning the death of his wife. But gradually the sadness would change and become real. It would become a sadness inspired by the thought of her dying ... sometime. Someday she would be dead and he would be alone. And this idea would grow unbearable. Just as it had been deliciously desirable a few minutes before.

The sadness that came to him then was no more than a remorse he felt for having in his fancy planned and executed her death. A remorse inspired by his feeling of guilt. But to Basine it seemed a sadness inspired by some inner love for his wife. It would surprise him, that there was an inner love, and he would lie and think, "Oh, I don't want her dead. I love her. Poor, dear Henrietta." And he would reach over and caress her tenderly, tears filling his eyes.

It was at such moments while doing penance for the imaginative murder of his wife, that a physical passion for her would come to him. His caresses would grow warmer and in the possession of her which followed, he would be able to blot out of his memory the unbearable self-accusation aroused by his desire for her death. Thus his fear of hurting her, even of contradicting her in any way which would make her unhappy, was a device which guarded him against contemplating the impulse concealed in him—to get rid of her even by murdering her.

His fidelity to his wife, inspired more by this fear of hurting her than by the social cowardice which involved the idea of detection, had become a fetish with him. The less he desired her and the more repugnant she grew for him, the more desperately he defended to himself and to others the virtues of marital faithfulness.

He had advanced in eight years into an intolerant champion of morality. Even his political orations bristled with panegyrics on the sanctity of the home and the high duty men owed their wives. The thing repeated itself over and over in his day, haunted his night and filtered through all his public and private actions. It had formed the basis of a new Basine—the moral champion. It had colored his ambitions and determined his direction of thought. It hammered—a hidden psychological refrain through the fibers of his thought.... In order to reconcile himself to the distasteful role he had foisted upon himself by accidentally embracing Henrietta in his mother's kitchen nine years ago, he must eulogize his predicament and convince himself and others that all deviations were a vicious and dishonorable matter. Held by neither love nor desire to the side of a woman he had tricked himself into marrying, he managed to bind himself to her by the stern worship of a code which proclaimed fidelity the highest manifestation of the soul.

As he walked toward a street car he was proud of his self-conquest. He was thinking about the girl, Ruth. He had taken himself in hand and overcome the dangerous confusion that the sight of her started. His sense of honor preened itself on the victory. That was the way to handle oneself—always face the facts. It was better than hiding one's head in the sand. Look, it had happened this way. By being matter-of-fact, by converting the girl from a luring, enigmatic figure into an employee, he had established an immunity in himself. Was he certain of this? Yes, she would be merely another of the young women employed in his office. And he was in love with none of them. Or even interested. So their relation would be that of employee and employer. Which was harmless and honorable.

He walked along, piling up assurances. As he entered the car he was going over in his mind with an imaginative eagerness the details of the situation he had created. He would be very stern, aloof. He would acquaint her with his secret files and gradually educate her into an efficient assistant. She was a university girl. Of course her running around with freaks, the way she did—artists and talky women, was a handicap. But she would get over that and become entirely sensible.

It was a pleasant day dream that wiled away the tedium of the ride home. An unaccountable happiness played around the fancies in his mind. He gave himself to its warmth with a certain defiance—as if he were denying unbidden doubts underlying his dreams.

He had hired Ruth Davis in order that he might be near her. And underlying the enthusiastic assurances which he crowded into his mind as a stop gap for the elation this fact inspired, was the knowledge that, as his secretary, she would come to perceive what a great man he was. His files, his secret memoranda, his intricate activities all of which she would come to know as his private secretary—would be a boast.

Yes, his very curtness, sternness, preoccupation would all be part of this boast. She would see him as a man of importance, a man of rising power. He would have to ignore her in order to confer with well-known men-politicians, police officials, party leaders. And this ignoring of her would be a boast—all a boast of his prestige and of the fact that he was a man of fascinating activities and that these activities made it impossible for him to devote himself as other lesser men might, to paying her any attention.

Yes, the thought of her being in his office where he might look at her, but more especially where she might look at him—for he did not intend to pay any attention to her—thrilled him. And gradually the cause of his elation protruded and he was forced to face it. He alighted from the car thinking as he walked toward his apartment.

"I'll have to be careful though. I don't want her to fall in love. That would be embarassing. Girls are susceptible. I'll not encourage her in anything like that. Be businesslike and aloof. Treat her absolutely as a stranger."

This idea thrilled him further. It would be sweet to ignore her, even to be strict with her and carping at times, to scold for some error. Yes, that was the right way to handle the situation.

And he walked on with a childish smile over his face. He had determined upon a high-minded course which absolved him from all blame in anything that might happen. Aloofness, sternness. Now that they were going to be together every day, he already looked upon her position as his secretary as an inevitable predicament not brought on by any action of his; now that they were to be that close, he would rigorously observe all the conventions.

At the same time he was inwardly aware that such a course as he had mapped for himself would unquestionably have a certain effect upon the girl. It must. It would cause her to respect and admire him and finally to fall in love with him. Tremendously in love since there would be no outlet for her passion. Oh yes, that would certainly happen. But it wouldn't be his fault and nothing would come of it. Because he would remain sternly aloof.

The thought of being worshipped from afar, of being looked upon all day by eyes that adored him, brought an excitement into his step. And he ran up the stairs to his apartment. He was eager to enter his home and greet his wife. She had become suddenly a tolerable person, one whose presence he might even enjoy. He felt happy and he wanted her to share his happiness.

---

14

Fanny listened carelessly to her husband. After eight years, listening to what Aubrey had to say had become unnecessary. Because his talk never changed. What he said yesterday he would say tomorrow. He prided himself on this. He explained that it revealed him a man of unswerving principles. Fanny, who had become a rather sarcastic person, kept her answer to herself. A man of unswerving principles was a great asset to the community. But a terrible bore to his home.

She sat watching Henrietta sew. There was a placidity about Henrietta that always irritated her. Henrietta was still pretty although beginning to fade. Her eyes were colorless and her lips were getting thinner. But she seemed happy and Fanny wondered about this.

Mr. Mackay seemed very attentive to Henrietta. Of course, Mr. Mackay was Aubrey's partner and a friend of her brother, George. But it was odd to call on Henrietta unexpectedly and find her talking alone to a man in her library. Even to Mr. Mackay.

Fanny was suspicious about such things. She had been utterly faithful to Aubrey during their married life and this fidelity, somehow, had developed in her an attitude of chronic suspicion concerning the fidelity of other women. It was her habit when visiting her friends to sit and speculate upon their possible immoralities. She had frequently got herself into trouble by setting scandalous rumors afloat.

"Henry Thorpe and Gwendolyn see quite a great deal of each other," she would say. "More than we know, I think. I wonder what Mrs. Thorpe thinks about it. You know Gwendolyn, for all her pretenses, is an out and out sensual type."

No one was immune from Fanny's speculations. In fact the more incongruous the idea of any one's sinfulness seemed, the more enthusiastically Fanny embraced it.

She was more than half aware that thinking about others in immoral situations seemed to excite herself. She would endeavor to introduce a note of indignation into her speculations. But the note was too forced to deceive her, although it deceived others. And she finally abandoned herself to the thrill which thinking evilly of others stirred in her.

She would often allow her suspicions to become detailed. Merely to suspect a woman of being immoral was not as satisfying as to figure the manner of her sin, the play by play, word by word drama of her seduction. She relished such fancied details. Suspecting others of immorality enabled Fanny to enjoy vicariously situations which she had as a matter of course denied herself.

Her love for Aubrey had not changed. It had, in fact, grown or at least become inflated by habit. At the beginning of their union she had suspected him of being a hypocrite. She had immediately resented his virtue. Then for a short time she had figured out that he must be unfaithful to her, that this accounted for his virtue.

But her resentment had remained mute. The years had proved to her, as much as proof was possible, that Aubrey was no hypocrite and that his attitude toward such things was due to his being a high-minded, decent man. He loved her. But in his own way. He explained to her, "Most marriages are ruined because people are lead astray by sex. Sex is a duty. I don't think it's any more moral for married people to wallow in sex than it is for unmarried people. Sex has an object beyond itself which people ignore. It is a means to an end—children." And they had gone on for eight years living up to these standards. But they had no children. Fanny was willing to acquiesce in her husband's ideals, since she had to, in everything except about children. She didn't want any.

Fanny had accepted his version of the thing and lived by it. There were some rewards. She managed to derive a dubious satisfaction during their infrequent hours of passion from the knowledge that he was a famous man. She also found a source of secret excitement in his austerity and virtue. The fact that he was so high-minded and aloof from any thought of sex offered a piquant contrast to occasions when he condescended to be her lover. Such occasions were for Fanny far from austere and high-minded. She allowed the keen sensuality of her nature free reign. Aubrey's noble attitude served to inspire her with a sense of guilt, as if their relations were really as indecent and immoral as he contended sex to be. And the idea of their being indecent and immoral heightened her enjoyment of them.

She wondered at many things about Aubrey. Despite his aversion to sex, (she did not think of it as an aversion but as a high-mindedness,) he was yet very attentive to women. Not in the way that most men were attentive. But chivalrously. He had become during their married life a veritable Chesterfield and Sir Raleigh. It was not only his manner—his observation of little rules of conduct such as rising when a woman entered or helping her on with her wraps, or assisting her to pull up her chair at the table or opening doors or any of the thousand niceties—that marked his attitude toward women. It was also his ideas. He frequently discussed women and his point of view was more chivalrous than most men's. He said that he believed in the fineness of women. That a woman was a pure, beautiful soul. And he was quick to resent insults to women, even general insults which sought to reflect upon woman's purity as a whole or to make her out a scheming sexual animal.

Fanny was proud of his chivalrous tone. It distinguished him and she did not resent the fact that it interested women. She had never been jealous of Aubrey. And she had gradually accustomed herself to his high-mindedness. She would have liked abandoned caresses and embraces. But these had never been forthcoming, even on their honeymoon long ago. And she had given up dreaming of them—for herself. She dreamed about them now in connection with others and her mind, colored by unsatisfied desires, indulged itself in the luxurious and lascivious details of her suspicions of others.

She sat watching Henrietta as Mr. Mackay talked to her and despite an effort to control her thought, she began to wonder what they had been doing alone in the apartment before she and Aubrey came. He had probably taken her hand and pulled her to him, put his arms around her and Henrietta, overcome with a sudden passion, had probably flung her arms about his shoulders and given him her lips wildly. And just as they were standing deliriously embraced like that, the bell had probably rung and Henrietta had jumped away and grabbed her sewing. She had come to the door with her sewing in her hand and....

Fanny smiled at the colorless and unsuspecting Henrietta. Her sense of humor had done for her what her sense of justice had failed to do. It controlled her fancies. To imagine Henrietta giving her lips wildly to anybody, particularly the red-faced Mr. Mackay, was ludicrous. Poor Henrietta with her two noisy children and her interminable sewing. She didn't envy her the children. Thank Heaven, despite Aubrey's high-minded attitude toward sex as a distasteful mechanism through which the race continued itself, they had had no children.

There was something pitiful about Henrietta. She was so dumb. And even when she dressed up and powdered and frilled, she always seemed tired. A stranger might think she was an invalid just recovered from some serious illness.... Henrietta was probably like Aubrey about "those things". Very high-minded and aloof.

Mr. Mackay and Aubrey were talking about advertising now. They always did this soon or late. And they usually quarreled because Aubrey was inclined to insist that his end of the business—the preparation of copy and ad. material—was as important as Mr. Mackay's end. Mr. Mackay was in charge of the salesmen.

She hadn't wanted to call on her brother. But Aubrey insisted. There was a deal on. The city was going to do a lot of advertising and the firm of Mackay-Gilchrist wanted the job. Basine could help them pull wires.

The bell rang and interrupted their talk.

"That must be George," Henrietta exclaimed. She grew nervous and began to flutter. The maid was out for the afternoon and she went to the door herself. A strange voice came from the hall as the door opened.

"Oh, come right in. George isn't home but I expect him any minute," Henrietta greeted the arrival. Paul Schroder, one of the attorneys who worked in the mysterious place called the state attorney's office with her husband, entered.

He was younger than her husband and of a type she disliked. She didn't like George to have him as a friend. He was too brutal looking. And too noisy. Her submission to George had developed a keen set of prejudices in her. She liked only people who reminded her of her husband—normal-sized, thin men with aristocratic manners, and quick nervous eyes. And what she liked in such people was only the parts of them that seemed like George. All other kinds of men annoyed her. Particularly the kind Schroder was—rough, coarse and laughing too loudly always. She thought of him as a vulgar animal and once or twice hinted to George that she didn't like to have him visit the house.

Schroder entered, his blond, well shaped head tossing dramatically. The exuberance of his manner gave him the air of being larger than he was. Aubrey Gilchrist when he straightened up was taller than Schroder and Mr. Mackay's shoulders were broader. But somehow the blond-headed man dwarfed them both as he shook hands with them. He sat down next to Fanny.

"Well," he said to her, "how you been? Bright-eyed as ever." He laughed and Fanny smiled. "What's the matter with friend husband," he turned to Henrietta. "Can't you keep His Nobs home like a God-fearing man on Sundays?"

Henrietta winced.

"He went to see his sister who is ill," she said. "He'll be back any minute."

"Oh, that's all right;" Schroder answered, as if Henrietta had apologized and he was forgiving her. Then to Aubrey he added, "What are you two pirates after from Basine?"

Aubrey raised his eyebrows. He was subject to quick dislikes. Schroder was one of them. Schroder was the kind of person who had no respect for merit or his superiors. The world, unfortunately, was full of such people—boors lacking the intelligence to perceive their betters. Aubrey always felt ill at ease in their presence.

Although he had written no novels for five years, in his own mind he was still a literary figure of importance. He had gone into the advertising business, but not permanently. He had intended at first remaining in it only for a year and then returning to his writing. He wanted to do a different sort of writing and a vacation was necessary. He wanted to do something real. He had, as a matter of fact, lost interest in the business of turning out narratives. Worried at the time by this loss of interest in his work he had explained it as "an ambition for better things."

But five years had passed and he was still an advertising man. The firm of Mackay and Gilchrist had grown. He flattered himself that its success had been due to his personal prestige. People said, "Oh, that's Aubrey Gilchrist, the writer. Well, that's quite an asset for an advertising concern." And so they brought their business to Mackay-Gilchrist.

He disliked Schroder because on the few occasions they had met, the man had exuberantly ignored the fact he was Aubrey Gilchrist. Schroder was a man who had no interest in anything outside himself—a noisy, self-satisfied creature with no reason to be noisy or self-satisfied. He had never done anything.

"I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Schroder," Aubrey answered stiffly.

"Ho ho," Schroder exclaimed, "your husband is insulted, Mrs. Gilchrist. Well, I apologize. There's George, I'll lay you dollars to doughnuts."

The bell had rung. Basine entered. Aubrey looked significantly at his partner. The significance was due to the fact that Schroder seemed likely to ruin the visit. Aubrey announced aloud after the greetings:

"Thought we'd drop in for a private discussion, George."

Henrietta was smiling tenderly at her husband.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Well, I've got great news for you," Basine exclaimed. The company looked hopefully at him.

"What, dear?"

"Oh, I'll tell you tonight, little girl."

"If it's good news we'd all like to hear it," Fanny insisted.

Schroder regarded his friend askance. He suspected something. He had left Basine yesterday night and there had been no hint of anything happening. And today being Sunday.... He smiled to himself. "Covering up," he thought. "Husbands are comical." He decided not to press Basine. He had evidently been up to something ... "playing a matinee." He noticed that his friend was trying to change the subject.

"Is it something personal?" Henrietta asked with a frown. "You frighten me, George, when you don't tell me things."

Basine, sitting down, beamed with enthusiasm on the group, on his home.

"Where are the children?" he asked.

"Over at the Harveys," Henrietta answered.

"Well," said her husband with an explosive intonation, "I've made up my mind to go after the circuit court. There's a chance next April."

"Going to run for Judge, eh?" Schroder asked with interest.

"Yes sir," Basine laughed. "I just had a session with some of the boys this afternoon and we discussed it."

"Oh, I thought you were at Doris'," Henrietta interrupted.

"I did see her," Basine answered, "but only for a few seconds. I spent most of the afternoon in conference."

"Congratulations," Aubrey spoke. "Mac and I were going to...."

Schroder stood up.

"What do you say if we take a walk, Mrs. Gilchrist," he whispered loudly. "Your husband insists that I get out. And I won't unless you come along."

He laughed good-naturedly until Aubrey smiled, and nodded to his wife.

"If you wish, Fanny."

"It's awfully nice outside," Fanny agreed after a pause during which she looked carefully out of the window. Basine reached for his wife's hand and drew her toward his chair.

"You're looking very well," he smiled at her. A pleasant light came to her eyes. For a moment the youthfulness that people had once admired when they had called her "such an enthusiastic girl" returned to her manner.

"Oh now George!" she exclaimed. Basine felt a catch in his heart. A remorse, as if he had done something, came over him. He patted her hand tenderly. Henrietta repeated but in an almost colorless voice, "Oh, George."

Schroder followed Fanny down the steps. As the door of the Basine apartment closed behind them, his fingers clutched her elbow and he leaned against her in a straightforward, jovial manner.

Her experience as a married woman had brought a directness into Fanny's mind. She no longer found it necessary to conceal her thoughts from herself. She was still inclined to be publicly innocent but her mental life had taken on the proportions of an endless debauch. Marriage not only legalized sex but removed the barriers to thinking about it. She felt herself blushing childishly as Schroder, squeezing her arm, opened the door with a flourish.

---

15

The Gilchrist home on Lake Shore drive was crowded with friends and relatives. They had come to the funeral of William Gilchrist. Mr. Gilchrist lay in a coffin in the drawing room, a waxen-faced figure under a glass cover. Flowers filled the large room with a damp, sweet odor.

It was a spring morning. The air was colored with rain. A sulphurous glow lay on the pavements. It was chilly. Automobiles lined the curb outside the Gilchrist stone house. Polite, sober-faced people arrived in couples and groups and walked seriously up the stone steps of the residence, a swarm of mummers striving awkwardly to register grief.

Dignitaries from different strata were assembling. The Gilchrists were a family whose prestige was ramified by varied contacts. Celebrities of the society columns arrived—famous tea pourers, tiara wearers, charity patronesses. Professional men ranging from retired fuddy-duddies, applying their waning financial talents to the diversion of philanthropy, to corporation heads, prominent legal advisors and medical geniuses renowned for their taciturnity—these came for Mrs. Gilchrist. Bankers, merchants, industrial captains, hospital bigwigs—these came as husbands and also as contemporaries of Mr. Gilchrist.

The leaders of the city's arts—a sprinkling of painters aping the manners of dapper business men, of authors vastly superior to the Bohemian nature of their calling, of advertising Napoleons, opera followers, national advertisers—these came for Aubrey. Fanny, through her brother who had a month before been elected a judge, drew a formidable group of names—political factotums, powers behind thrones, mystic local Cromwells. Also the Younger Set. Added to these were relatives, business associates and finally the Press.

There was a dead man under a glass cover in the house and the distinguished company, crowding the large somber rooms of the Gilchrist home, eyed each other gravely and addressed each other in whispers. The dead man could not hear, yet they spoke in whispers. Even the most renowned of the dignitaries whose lives were a round of formalities almost as impressive as this, spoke in whispers and seemed ill at ease.

They drifted about like nervous butlers and took up positions against the walls, striking uncertain attitudes. They exchanged polite and sober greetings and felt slightly strengthened in spirit at the sight of people as distinguished as themselves. The camaraderie of prestige—the social caress which celebrities alone are able to bestow upon each other by basking in a mutual feeling of superiority—ran like an undercurrent through the scene.

Yet this camaraderie which usually heightened the poise of such gatherings was unable to remove the embarrassment of the company. They spoke in whispers and remained outsiders, as if the Gilchrists were a family of intimidating superiors in whose presence one didn't quite know what to do with one's arms or feet or what to say or just how to make one's features look.

The intimidating superiority was the body under the glass cover of the coffin. It would have been easier in a church. Funerals were much less of a strain in a church and there were several whispers to this effect. Why had Mrs. Gilchrist insisted upon a home funeral? Wasn't it rather old fashioned?

Here in a house death seemed uncomfortably personal. The stage was too small and the mourners were too near something. A curious sympathy that had nothing to do with Mr. Gilchrist took possession of them.

The damp, sweet odor of the flowers, the glimpse of the black coffin, the sound of softly moving feet and whispering tongues were a distressing ensemble. The mourners drifted around and nodded nervously at each other as if they were doing all they could to make the best of a faux pas. Death was a faux pas. A reality without adjectives. A stark, mannerless lie. The family had done its best also. Flowers had been heaped, furniture arranged, the body dressed, a luxurious coffin purchased, great people invited. Nevertheless the waxen-faced one under the glass cover refused to yield its reality. It lay stark and mannerless in the large room—the immemorial skeleton at the feast—repeating the dreadful word "death" with an almost humorous persistency amid the heaped flowers, the carved furniture, the mourners with raised eyebrows. They stood about nervously.

Gilchrist had been a man alive, one of those whose names were known to the world. The name Gilchrist had meant a large building stored with rugs, period furniture, innumerable clerks, departments, delivery trucks, advertisements in newspapers and on fences. The man Gilchrist had been one with whom the dignitaries of the city had shared the intimacy of prestige.

They had said Gilchrist's was a fine store, Gilchrist's was marvelous furniture, Gilchrist was a highly successful business man. Gilchrist was this and that and the other. And here lay Gilchrist, waxen and unscrupulously silent, under a glass cover—a little man with pale sideburns that were now doubly useless, in a black suit and his hands folded over his chest. Here lay Gilchrist dead, and yet the things that had been called Gilchrist still lived. As if immortality was an artifice, superior to life. The furniture store, the furniture, the clerks, trucks, advertisements, the highly successful business—all these still lived. And this was an uncomfortable fact. It embarrassed the mourners. They drifted about with uncertainty.

Like Gilchrist they were men and women whose names were synonymous with great activities. Like Gilchrist, they were considered as the inspiration of these activities. In fact the activities were an artificial symbol of themselves—a sort of photograph of themselves. Yet like Gilchrist, all of them would lie under a glass cover some day and nothing would be changed. The activities that everybody called by their names would still live. As if they had had nothing to do with them. As if these symbols were the life of the city and not the men and women whom they symbolized. Yes, as if these activities which represented their prestige were independent individualities—masks which loaned themselves for a few years to them to wear. And which they took off when they lay stretched under a glass cover. Which they would take off and become anonymous.

For who was this waxen-faced man in the coffin? Nobody knew. They had called him Gilchrist. But Gilchrist was clerks, advertisements, furniture, and business. This man in the coffin was someone else, an irritating impostor that reminded them they were all impostors. Death was a confession everyone must make; an incongruous confession. An ending to something that had no ending. Life and its activities, even the activities that bore the name Gilchrist, went on. Yet Gilchrist had, mysteriously, come to an end. He lay in a coffin while his name in large letters talked to other names in the advertisements of the city.

The camaraderie of prestige was insufficient to remove this embarrassment. A dead man under a glass cover spoke to them slyly. Dinners, even very formal dinners with butlers; cliques, even powerful cliques wielding financial destinies; ambitions, board of directors' meetings, investments and reinvestments, hopes and successes—ah, these were deceptive little excitements that were not a part of life—but an artifice superior to life. For life ended and the little excitements went on. They were the surface immortality in which one conveniently forgot the underlying fact of death.

Alas, death. Alas, waxen-faced men lying silent and mannerless under glass covers. A distasteful faux pas, death. Yet some of the company must weep. Not friends who regretted the everlasting absence of William Gilchrist, but men and women bewildered for a moment by the memory of their own death. Death was a memory since it existed like a foregone conclusion. It was sad to think of all the people who had died, laughing ones, famous ones, adventurous ones whose laughter, fame and adventure seemed somehow a lie now that they were dead.

It was so easy to be dead. Death had come to all who had been, even to more dignified and celebrated ones than they. Alas, death. The sober men and women in the Gilchrist home drifted about nervously. They must weep because for the moment they lay in the coffin with Mr. Gilchrist and because for the moment they walked sadly about mourning visions of their own deaths. And for the moment their tears earned for themselves the regard of their fellow mourners as kind-hearted, sensitive, unselfish souls.

Yet there was something intimate among the company. Despite the embarrassment, a curious spirit of friendliness underlay the scene. Men and women who knew each other only as aloof symbols of prestige, stood together and talked in whispers as if they were talking out of character. Half strangers felt a familiarity toward each other.

Under the stamp of a common emotion and a common embarrassment, the company became for the time a collection of intimates, looking at one another and whispering among themselves as if the event were a truce. This was a funeral. Here was reality. And it was polite to lay aside for an hour the masks, the complexities of artifice by which they baffled and impressed each other.

The Reverend Henry Peyton had arrived and the mourners moved into the spacious library, grateful for a destination. The widow in black with her son and daughter-in-law appeared. The company surveyed them with a thrill of vicarious grief. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist, so strong and competent! It seemed almost impossible that she should lose anything, even something as mortal as a husband. She was so fixed and determined. Even now there was something sternly competent about her grief. It was hidden under a black veil. There was nothing to be seen of it but a black veil and a black dress and a pair of wrinkled little hands fumbling with themselves. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist. People had forgotten she was a woman. They felt slightly ashamed as they glanced at her now, as if they were intruding upon a secret. But she had invited them.

A suppressed "Ah!" of sympathy murmured through the room. The minister's words began and a determined hush followed.

Basine sitting in a corner of the room with his mother had spent an uncomfortable hour waiting for the services. He had looked at the body and come away depressed. His quick eyes had observed the company and noted with a concealed smile the manner in which lesser dignitaries were making hay while the tears poured. They were utilizing the camaraderie of prestige and the intimacy of a common emotion to impress themselves upon the greater dignitaries. Women of dubious social standing gravitated as if by general accident toward women of solid social standing and exchanged whispered condolences with them. Men of lesser financial ratings were edging toward leaders of finance and engaging them in dolorous conversations.

Under the depression and gentle bewilderment, the everlasting business of inferior pursuing superior and superior increasing his superiority by resisting pursuit, was going on. The death of poor Gilchrist seemed to Basine, for a few minutes, chiefly important as an opportunity by which lesser mourners were introducing themselves to the attention of greater mourners.

Basine's eyes noticed another undercurrent. He had himself influenced Fanny to prevail upon Mrs. Gilchrist to invite a number of politicians to the funeral. He had furnished the names carefully, telling Fanny that these were men high in power who had been friends of Mr. Gilchrist. The widow, through her secretary, had asked ten of the list to honor her husband's funeral with their presence. She had chosen ten names most familiar to her, among them men of wealth who were renowned as powers behind the various political thrones of the day. The invitations had served Basine to make a slight but important impression upon the political party leaders.

He had at first felt nervous over Mrs. Gilchrist's selections from his list. She had picked ten men, most of whom were engaged in tenacious political antagonisms. He watched now with surprise as the antagonists gravitated together forming, with a number of financiers, an amiable, dignified group.

"In the presence of death they feel inclined to bury the hatchet," he thought and the idea of large funerals as an asset for establishing political harmony developed in his mind.

He noticed a change in his own attitude toward Aubrey. He had felt for years a distaste for the man and although their relations had always been amicable, this distaste had increased to a point where Basine would have felt a relief at the man's death. He could never tell himself why he disliked Aubrey. But the aversion was of long standing. "I don't like his looks," he would grin to himself.

Now, watching him take his seat beside his mother, Aubrey became somehow human and Basine felt he understood the man for the first time. Beneath people whose looks you didn't like was always something human. People were all alike, no matter how they strutted or posed. Underneath was a loneliness—a little crippled likeness of themselves—that they carried about with them all the time. Basine would have liked to talk to him and say something like, "Sorry, old man. I didn't know. I'm sorry...."

The minister had begun. He stood beside the coffin that had been brought in. His opening words startled Basine. A prayer! There was something fantastic in the spectacle of this living man standing beside the dead man and talking aloud to someone who was not in the room. Talking solemnly, intensely to God. As if he had buttonholed Him.

Basine felt irritated by his own emotions. His face assumed a devout air but the emotions and the thoughts which rose from them persisted behind his determined piety. He wanted to immerse himself in the spirit of the man praying. But his eyes played truant. They wandered furtively and observed with uncomfortable precision the bowed head of Henrietta and the spring hat on her head and the heavy-jowled face of her father, belligerently reverent beside her.

The minister's voice shouted. "God, in Heaven ... his heavenly soul ... his heavenly reward...."

Phrases like these detached themselves and lingered in Basine's ears. He had heard them frequently in church. But for the moment they seemed preposterously new. He found himself listening in surprise. Religion had been always an accepted idea to him. Something you believed in as you believed in the necessity of neckties. But though he accepted it and felt a casual faith in an Episcopalian God, it remained an idea apart from reality. He had never given either thought or emotion to religion. Yet he had frequently expended a great deal of mental effort and emotion denouncing people whom he sensed or observed were opposed to religion.

It struck him now as a childish farce—an absurd hocus-pocus. Poor Gilchrist going to heaven and a long-faced man in a black coat speeding his soul heavenward from the Gilchrist library! If there was a God, for whom was all this necessary—the flowers, speeches, prayers? Not for God. But for the people in the room, of course. People crowded in a tiny room taking this opportunity to assure each other that the immensities over their heads, the clouds, stars and spaces were their property.

His iconoclasm increased as if inspired by the length of the minister's harangue. He grew angry with himself and thought of Doris and immediately transferred his anger to her. It was she who was deriding the solemnity of the scene. He had been paying too much attention to her almost insane chatter and things were somewhat undermined in his own soul. Her fault.

The prayer ended and four men came forward and began to sing. Their voices, raised in a hymn, annoyed him instantly. This was too much. What were they singing for? As if their songs would help poor Gilchrist mount from the library into heaven. The entire scene, the bowed heads, sad faces, elaborate coffin; the flowers, the worthy reverend and the singers came to his mind as something terribly unconvincing. Futile, that was it. Children making an unconvincing pretense.

He tried to blot out his thinking and fastened his will upon thoughts that might make him sad, properly sad and believing. What if Henrietta should die.... Henrietta dead. Henrietta gone forever. He seized the thought eagerly. It was not what he wanted but there was a relish in thinking it. Sad ... sad ... yes, if his mother should die or somebody dear to him. Who? Ruth. Ah, what if it were Ruth in the coffin. Instead of anybody else. He would feel differently then. Her beautiful face white as Gilchrist's and her arms still. Her fingers rigid. Ruth dead....

This made him sad but it took his mind entirely from the scene. He forgot for moments that Gilchrist was dead and this was a funeral. The reality returned, however, with an increased vividness to its absurdity. The music of the hymn rose with embarrassing frankness.... Poor little people gathered in a room going through a hocus-pocus to convince themselves that there was a heaven where they would live forever after the misfortune of death. Like children playing with dolls and pretending.... But how did he happen to be thinking like that? Did he believe there was no God, no heaven, no after life?

No, he believed in all that firmly. Of course, one must believe. The self-questioning had shocked him back into a state of grace. Yes, he believed firmly and bowed his head to the hymn that was ending.

During the rest of the services he was inwardly silent. The scene appeared to have slipped into focus again. The minister seemed no longer a symbol of some childish hocus-pocus but an ambassador of God—a stern man, closely in touch with the Mysteries. And there was something awesome in the room. There was something awesome about the coffin and the flowers and the voices of the singers trailing into an Amen. It was God. Yes, a great all powerful Being to whose hands mankind returned.

The discomfort of doubt left Basine and he felt himself again an integral part of something vaster than himself. His thought re-entered the idea of religion and a sense of peace filled him. He said Amen twice and looked with mute, believing eyes at the black coffin.

The mourners were following the six silk-hatted pall bearers into the street. A drizzle over the pavements. A long line of motors, chauffeurs waiting, looking as aloof and aristocratic in their servitude as their employers.

Basine found himself beside Milton Ware, one of the big traction officials of the city. A grey-haired man with a well-preserved face stamped with certainties and stern affabilities. Basine thought casually that Ware had seemed rather friendly. He had come over to exchange remarks several times while waiting for the services to begin. On the curb Basine looked around for Henrietta. Judge Smith had brought his machine and they were to drive to the cemetery together.

"Are you with anyone?" Ware asked quietly.

"Yes, I'm looking for my party," Basine answered. He spied the judge and Henrietta crowded into their car. Several others had entered with them. Ware followed his eye.

"That looks rather full," he suggested. "If you don't mind, would you take a place in my machine."

Basine nodded. "Thank you. I'll just talk to them a minute then."

He returned from his father-in-law's automobile and entered with Ware. The chauffeur started off and Basine leaned back in his seat. He wondered at Ware's hospitality. The man was one of the outstanding powers of the city, incredibly ramified through banks and corporations and public utilities. He wondered what his connection with Gilchrist had been. The traction baron—a title given him by the newspapers—sat in silence beside him as the procession got under way. Basine's curiosity began to answer itself. He found himself vaguely on his guard.

"I hadn't intended going to the cemetery," Ware announced after they had been riding a few minutes. "I don't believe much in such demonstrations."

"Neither do I," Basine answered. He was wondering if it were possible to escape his duty to the family. There was such a crowd he might not be missed at the grave.

"Would you mind if we turned out at one of these streets and drove to the club," Ware asked deferentially.

Basine hesitated. He had noticed the invitation in the remark. Ware, whom he had only met once before, was inviting him to the club. Why? A desire to attach himself to Ware abruptly edited his doubts concerning the propriety of his absence.

"I'd just as soon," he answered. The chauffeur was given directions. The remainder of the ride was passed in silence.

"I thought we might have lunch here," Ware explained as they seated themselves in front of a window overlooking the boulevard. It was raining. The empty street gleamed and darkened with rain.

"Most of the forenoon is gone anyway," Ware added. "Have you an engagement?"

"Thanks, I haven't," Basine answered. They sat sipping at highballs a servant had brought. Basine watched the rain and a figure scurrying past below the window. About this time they were lowering Gilchrist into the ground. No one would ever see his face again.

"Pretty sad about Gilchrist," Ware murmured as if aware of his thought.

Basine's attention returned to the traction baron. The man wanted something. Or why should he seek him out? An anger came into his mind. Who was this man Ware that he could pick him up and cart him to a club and buy him a highball—and expect to impress him, Basine? And for what reason? The man wanted something.

The idea had become a conviction. He sensed it now through the memories of the morning. Ware had led up to it dexterously. A nod at first. Later a few remarks about the weather. Finally an invitation to ride with him to the cemetery. Ware had never intended going there. That had been a ruse to—kidnap him. Basine frowned. Well, he was kidnapped. And he would find out why. Find out directly.

Ware was looking at him with a smile. Basine saw something in the smile that increased his anger. A sudden wave of emotion, as if he were going to strike the man, propelled his thoughts out of him. He heard himself talking in a precise, indignant voice and regretted it at once. But the words continued:

"You're a rather busy man, Mr. Ware. And so am I. What did you want to ask me?"

Ware nodded slowly and thrust out his lower lip.

"Exactly," he murmured. "I wanted to speak to you about something."

"Well...." He paused on the word but Ware remained silent. He would have liked to out-silence the traction official but after a pause, a nervousness possessed him. "Well, let's begin now," he said. "What is it you want?"

He felt the crudity of his question and winced inwardly. But ... the thing was said. He would fellow through in that tone, then. He tightened his features and leaned back in his chair, his eyes deliberately on the face of his host. He had embarrassed Ware. He could sense that through the man's poise. His poise was only a stall. Well and good. There was nothing for him, Basine, to be embarrassed about. He felt elated after all with the way he had handled the thing.

"I want to talk to you about a rather delicate matter," Ware began. Basine nodded. He held the trumps. He had only to sit back and this traction baron would begin to mumble, his celebrated poise would begin to disintegrate.

"I'll be as direct as you, Judge," he continued. "I see that you don't like beating around the bush. Neither do I. But I didn't know. As I said, the thing is a rather delicate matter and I want you to take my word for it, that whatever you say in way of reply will in no way change my opinion of you. It's a thing to be said and then forgotten, if necessary, by both of us. Do you agree?"

Basine nodded.

"It's about the Hill case," Ware lowered his voice.

"The Hill case?" Basine stared.

"On your calendar, Judge. The violinist suing for $50,000. Hurt by falling off a street car. I thought you knew the case."

"I remember it now, Mr. Ware."

"Well, the man hasn't a case at all. But it's a jury trial and, of course, juries sometimes think out things in an odd way. Now what I'm getting at is this. This particular suit doesn't disturb us much. But the anti-traction press is going to give it a great deal of publicity. And what we're interested in is the effect of the suit. You understand? The town is full of cranks and schemers always trying to get rich by suing some big utility corporation. And if this man Hill wins his case, why it'll mean another hundred cases all as preposterous as his on our hands. Do you follow me?"

Basine nodded.

"I told you it was a rather delicate subject," Ware smiled. "And I would never have thought of broaching it if I wasn't sure you would look at it in the light it's offered, you understand? I don't mean I'm asking a judge to do anything outside the facts or to go out of his way to hand us anything. That's dishonest and absurd. The thing is, as you'll see for yourself when the case starts, that this man Hill is an impostor trying to hold us up. We'll prove that to your entire satisfaction. What I'm getting at is that there's the jury and you know the attitude of juries these days toward corporations. They hold against us regardless of evidence. Now what I'm after is to see we get a fair trial and it lies in your province to help us."

Basine leaned forward and spoke with difficulty. His anger had grown in him.

"What is it you want me to do?" he asked.

Ware smiled disarmingly.

"Nothing at all, Judge, that you wouldn't have done of your own volition. I want you, if you are convinced such a course is a just one, to take the case from the jury and throw it out of court. Now, wait a minute. I see you're angry and, as I said, the matter in a way is rather delicate to talk about. But come, I'll say frankly, I'm interested in you. We need men like you. Quick, intelligent and able to see their way. The progress of the city depends upon such men. You know Jennings?"

"Your attorney."

"Yes, in full charge of our legal department. There's another case for you of an intelligent, quick-witted man, scrupulously honest but not an ass. Six years ago Jennings was a judge on the municipal bench. Wasted ... utterly wasted ... today—"

Basine interrupted, his voice harshened.

"An analogy. I see. Thanks."

He stood up. Ware reached out his hand.

"I don't think you quite understand me," he murmured.

"Perfectly," Basine answered. "And I've given my word that whatever I understood would be forgotten."

Words welled into Basine's mind. An almost uncontrollable impulse to confound his host with a violent denunciation struggled in him. He would tell this traction baron what manner of man he, Basine, was. And what the dignity of his position as judge was. He would throw the bribe back into the man's teeth. He would declaim. Virtue. Outrage. Creatures who sought to use their power to influence justice. Who thought themselves able to drag men of honor to their level by the promise of favors.

Basine remained silent. His eyes, grown lustrous, stared at Ware. Careful, he must be careful not to protest too violently. That would sound as if he were uncertain. No protest at all. A contemptuous silence. That was more effective. The sort of thing Ware would understand, too. And remember. With a deep breath that sent a tremor through his body, he nodded.

"Good day," he said and turning his back abruptly, walked out of the club. He frowned at the unctuous bell boys and doorman.

Still raining. Basine walked swiftly, unaware of destination. His mind was filled with emotions. Indignation grew in him. Ware had offered a bribe. There was something in the thing that slowly infuriated him. It was an affront, an attempt at domination. The man had said, "I'm better than you. I can bribe you to do what I want." His spirit revolted. So that was the way to power, eh? Listening to reason when the big wigs spoke? Well, they could go on speaking till doomsday. But they couldn't talk to him like that ... and get away with it.

The anger slipped from him. He had refused. An elation halted him. He was an honest man! The fact surprised him. He stared with pride at the street. The street held an honest man, a man able to say "no" to temptation.

A tardy appreciation of his righteousness overpowered him. He had something inside him now like a new strength. He could look at men anywhere, anytime, and let his eyes tell them who he was and what sort of man he was. Because he was sure of it himself. He was an honest man, and sure of it.

It was not only inside him, this certainty, but he felt it like a mantle over his shoulders. He walked on with a vigorous step. An unshaven face paused before him and a beggar mumbled for a coin. Basine stopped full. He stopped with deliberation and stared at the unshaven face, at the shifty eyes and dirty linen. The beggar repeated his furtive mumble.

"No," Basine answered clearly. His voice was sharp. The man appeared to wince. He slid away in the rain, his head down.

Basine walked on with an increased elation. He had never been able to do that before, say "no" decisively to a beggar. He had usually said "no", but hurriedly, furtively. That was because he was uncertain of himself. Now he could say "no" or "yes" to anyone with decision. He had refused a bribe and was an honest man and did not have to concern himself with what others might think of what he said, because of this conviction in him and because of this mantle in which he was wrapped.

He walked in the direction of the County Building. The rain felt fresh. It was a moral rain, a virtuous comrade.

The incident in the club had, in fact, given Basine a character. He had been unaware of his motives from the moment a sense of impending events had come to him in the traction official's automobile. He had, when the bribe came, acted as if following a lifelong code of ethics. Yet he had surprised himself. His anger, his violent emotion of righteousness had been inexplicable to him. He had never felt anything like that before.

Basine, in the car, had become aware vaguely of what awaited him. He had recalled and repressed the recollection instantly, the Hill case pending trial before him. And under the surface of his thought the entire drama of the bribe had enacted itself in advance. Ware would offer him something. Yes, and Ware was a man to know, one who could be of vital use in his climb. If Ware asked him to do something it would be wise to do it. He had been eager for the interview and a part of his eagerness had been a desire to grant the traction baron the favor he was going to ask.

But the incident had come during a curious crisis in Basine's life, a crisis that had piled up since his youth. A consciousness had been growing in him of his duplicity. He had been aware of it, but in a different way, during his youth and the early years of his marriage. It had not made him uncomfortable then. He had been able to lie with a clear conscience. Ruses by which he established himself in the eyes of others, not as he was but as he desired them to think him, had seemed to him then the product of a practical, superior nature.

Slowly, however, his poise in the face of his own duplicities had begun to crumble. He had begun to feel himself filled with the uncertainties of a man forced to conceal too many things from himself. Fitting his hypocricies and lies into worthy necessities had become too complex a business, demanding too much of his energies.

The inner situation in which Basine found himself as he matured had in no way changed his nature. He had gone ahead as always, stumbling finally into a climax of deceits in his relation with the young woman he had hired as his secretary.

In the five months she had worked for him he had been in love with her but had managed to withhold the fact from both of them. He had invented exhaustless explanations for his interest in her, for his desire to be near her, for the increased aversion that had grown in him toward Henrietta and his home.

The crisis had accumulated and reached a head during the services in the Gilchrist home. Here his pent-up self-repugnance, his growing impulse to expurgate the duplicities of his life, had found a minor outlet in the sudden religious faith that had possessed him after his half-hour of doubts. Ware's bribe had come opportunely. Basine's inexplicable anger on sensing the impending bribe, had been his self answer to the eager desire to comply that had struggled to assert itself in him.

And when the man had begun the actual words that meant bribe, he had seized on the situation as a vindication. Opportunity to rehabilitate himself, to wipe out with a single gesture the clutter of dishonesties which were beginning to inconvenience him. He had embraced it and emerged from the club a man, remade. No longer an inwardly shifty Basine able to rise to righteousness only by avoiding his memories. But a Basine with a platform inside him on which he might stand fearlessly. The platform—I am honest. I refused a bribe—had erected itself over the complex memories of himself. They were obliterated now.

He entered his chambers with a serious happiness in his heart. A miracle had happened and he had been given absolution—by himself.

---

16

Ruth Davis was at her desk. She looked up eagerly as he entered. Basine, hanging up his coat and hat, felt a businesslike desire to explain matters to her. He was an honest man, done with subterfuges.

He would explain to her that it was no longer possible for her to continue in his employ. Use correct but kindly words. He was an honest man. He wanted to impress himself and everybody else with this fact. Even Ruth. He had no thought of impressing it on Henrietta. Henrietta would only be surprised to hear he was an honest man. Because she had always believed it anyway.

But he would like to tell Ruth, because it would raise her opinion of him; fill her with a great pride. A sad pride, of course, since it meant their separation. But she would go away loving him even more because of his honesty that had put an end to his love for her.

The course, however, was impossible. It involved a ludicrous situation. Because he had never said he loved her and she had been as silent as he. And so telling her all these very fine things would make it necessary for him to say first, "I have loved you." And then to add, "But I don't love you any more. I can't."

It was two o'clock. Time for the Judge to take his place on the bench. Basine arose from behind his table with a sense of anti-climax. Nothing had happened. He was going back to his place on the bench again. Poor Gilchrist lay hidden forever and Ware had tried to bribe him and he had proven himself a man of astounding integrity. And he had overcome a growing infatuation for Ruth Davis. Yet nothing had happened.

"Shall I retype the Friday speech, Judge?" Ruth inquired as he hesitated before her desk. He looked at her as if it were difficult to focus his attention on her. He was preoccupied. A man of many preoccupations who found it hard to notice little things around him.

"Oh yes, the speech," he agreed. "Type it. And if there are any mistakes change them to suit yourself."

He walked out of chambers. Ruth turned to her typewriter and prepared to set to work. But as the door closed behind Basine she stopped. She removed a small mirror from a drawer and studied her face in it. She leaned back in her seat and sighed. She felt too restless to work.

With her white brows frowning, she sat looking at the keys of her machine. A miserable restlessness, this was, that never went away. At night she lay awake in the room she had chosen since becoming financially independent of her family. And a loneliness gnawed in her heart. It was because she loved him.

"Yes, I love him," she repeated to the keys of her machine.

He was not like other men. There was something intimidating about him. He had never spoken to her in a friendly tone. His eyes had never become intimate.

During the five months she had been his secretary he had kept aloof. A strange, unbending man consumed with ambition. His ambition was an awesome thing. There was a directness to it. He worked day and night, always planning for something. His engagements crowded each other. She hardly knew the man. She knew only an ambition that kept pushing tirelessly forward.

There had been no talk between them except business talk. And yet, somehow he had given himself to her. Despite his aloofness and the sternness of his manner, she had felt herself coming close to him, closer than to anybody else she had ever known. And men were no exciting novelty to her. They had held her hand and fumbled around with ambiguous words. They talked art, politics, women, not because they were interested in these things but because they wanted you to be interested in what they thought of them. She had kept her virginity without difficulty. The half-world of art and jobs enthused her. But it did not stampede. A practical side of her remained dubious about the groping ones she met in the studios. It was hard to pick out the real ones from the fourflushers. She had discovered this. Because the real ones didn't know they were real. Any more than the fourflushers knew they were spurious. They all gabbled and wrote, painted and gabbled, and there was no difference to them.

About the men she had noticed one thing. Their egoism was the egoism of ideas. They were better than others, they thought, because of the ideas in their heads. They were excitedly snobbish about these ideas as people are snobbish about clothes. But they weren't better than others because they were they. They were always leaning on things to make them feel superior. Radicalism was a series of ideas that they picked up because they felt a superior intellectualism in them.

Ruth had started thinking in this direction after listening to Levine, Doris' friend. She had felt something of the sort before. But Levine, with his almost oily pessimism, who talked always as if he were selling something, had made it clear.

"The women who go in for revolt," Levine had said, "Hm, that's another story. They're not interested in egoism. Because as yet there isn't a highly developed caste system among women. They still kind of herd together as a sex and they try to impress each other only with their superior artificialities—as to who has the most doting husband, the nicest times, the most accomplished servants.

"But men—there you have something else, don't you think? And the men we know—the hangers-on around here, comical, eh? You can almost see them bargain hunting for ideas. They don't stand up on their own feet and let out yaps. They keep crawling inside of new ideas. They keep using ideas as megaphones to proclaim their own superiorities. Little men playing hide and seek inside of big ideas. Using ideas about art and life as kids use pumpkin heads on Hallowe'en. To frighten and impress the neighbors. Another simile—borrowed finery, eh? Ah, they're all fools. It's hard to be much interested in people unless you're a poet. If you're a poet then what you do is ignore people and go down like a deep-sea diver to the bottoms of life. Down there it's interesting. Yes, growths like on the ocean floor."

As a contrast to these men, gabbling in her ear and fumbling with her hands, Basine had interested her at once. At first she had accepted the way he ignored her as a natural attitude. Later, he would become friendly and she looked forward to his friendship. It would be interesting to know what an egoist like Basine thought about things. His ideas were obviously rather stupid, but then—there was something else. Strength, determination. He wasn't like the intellectuals, continually losing themselves in new ideas and parading around like kids in their big brothers' pants. She disliked that kind of men. The longer you knew them the more unreal they became. Until finally, when you knew them through and through it was like knowing an inferior edition of an encyclopedia through and through. Everything was inside but it made no sense. It had no direction. A jumble of ideas and informations—but they formed no plot, no man. They weren't really egoists—the intellectuals. Men like Basine were.

But his aloofness seemed to increase with time. There had been no natural evolution of friendship. She thought then, "He acts artificially toward me. It's because he doesn't want anything to sidetrack him. Not even friendships. He isn't quite human. He's like a machine that's wound up. And he must run till he breaks down."

This image of Basine fascinated her. A man without heart, a cool will feeling its way tirelessly toward power, a thirst for power that increased rather than stated itself with success. When he'd been elected judge, he had surprised her by asking, "Would you like to come along with me to the County Building? The office doesn't include a secretary, but I need one on my own account."

During the months she had gained an almost embarrassing insight into the activities engulfing Basine. The man himself remained hidden, non-existent. But the world in which he had obliterated himself became vividly outlined for her. The intrigues, counter intrigues, the complexities of his climb, these were open secrets to her. He seemed shameless about them. Often when she watched him furtively as he wrote out political speeches should would think, "Is there a man there?"

It seemed to her there was not. Only an ambition tirelessly at work. An ambition with a keen, nervous face, sharp eyes, thin hands and an eloquent voice. But something more. A man who didn't hide inside ideas but who remained outside them, giving himself to nothing except his consuming desire to utilize ideas for his own end. He remained outside manipulating. He manipulated life. All for what?

Fascinated, she fell in love. When he came in where she was, her heart jumped. When he talked to her, something contracted in her throat, and frightened her. She had her day dreams. As the spring opened sunny mornings over the streets, she would sit gazing out of the tall windows and think of Basine. Her thoughts took an odd turn. They built up scenes in which Basine lay defeated. Accidents had maimed him. Political reversals had taken the heart out of him. He was ruined, poor, without employment. She pictured such situations with relish. In them she appeared as an understanding one. She would fancy herself coming to him and shaking her head sadly and saying, "Poor man. I'm so sorry. But you see ... you see where it all led? to this."

And she would fancy him smiling back with a romantic tiredness and reaching for her hand and answering as if he were an actor with a speech:

"Yes, my dear? I've been wrong. Ambition is wrong. I'm ruined. And it is only proof that I was wrong."

And then, in her fancies, he would look at her tenderly and raising her hand to his lips murmur, "Forgive me, Ruth."

The door of the chambers opened and Ruth looked up, startled. Paul Schroder strode in. He looked jaunty. She smiled. He was one of Basine's friends, and she liked him for that. He had been of the hard-working loyal ones during Basine's campaign.

"Oh, nothing in particular," he said. "Thought I'd just drop in for a smoke. How's his Honor, these days?"

"He's very fine," Ruth answered. Schroder shook his head.

"I'm afraid he's drying up," he grinned. "That's the trouble with men of his type. Get their noses down to a grindstone and never have time to look up."

Ruth blushed. That didn't sound like a loyal speech. She saw Schroder smiling broadly at her.

"You're quite a champion of his," he was saying. "Well, well. Maybe his Honor isn't as slow as I've been giving him credit for being."

From anyone else this would have been offensive, she thought. But there was something pleasing in the accusation. She hesitated and then returned his smile.

"You know as well as I, what kind of a man Judge Basine is," she answered. "He's the kind every woman respects at first sight."

"Loves, you mean," said Schroder.

"Oh no, I don't think a woman could really love Mr. Basine," she smiled. "He's too much wrapped up in himself."

"Well, I don't know then," said Schroder, "his wife puts up a pretty good bluff then."

Ruth's smile left her.

"Oh," she said, "of course."

Schroder laughed.

"Well, well," he went on, "so you'd forgotten he had a wife. That's a sweet kettle of fish. Such memory lapses are dangerous. Watch your step, young lady. Look out."

He stood up and approached her and wagged a finger mockingly. In a way Schroder annoyed her. He always made her feel juvenile. She could never use any of her sophisticated phrases on him. Because he laughed too loudly and if you retorted cleverly he always guffawed as if he had trapped you into having to be clever. His manner always seemed to say, "You can't put it over me. I know. I know...."

Ruth turned with relief at the sound of a door opening. Basine. This was one of his habits, to appear suddenly and for no reason at all and walk up and down the large room as if immersed in grave thought. She had often wondered why he did this. She thought it was because the work on the bench made him too nervous or because there were so many things weighing on his mind that he needed a few minutes now and then to straighten himself out.

But while thinking this she had always felt that his sudden appearances had something to do with her. It was perhaps only a part of her vanity, she mused, but she always had this impression—that despite his indifference and sternness he was curiously attentive. No matter how busy he was he never absented himself long. He was always returning and walking up and down. It was odd, but she felt at times that he walked up and down for her, to be near her.

"Hello Paul," Basine's eyes slanted up at him, his head slightly lowered. A pose which gave him a pugnaciously concentrated air such as a schoolmaster looking over the top of his glasses at an erring pupil might achieve. "What do you want?" A disconcerting directness he reserved for the embarrassment of his friends. He asked straightforward questions, point-blank questions. His questions always had the air of troops unafraid, wheeling in manœuver to face the enemy.

"Nothing much, Judge. But your office is kind of restful."

Schroder rolled a kittenish eye toward Ruth.

"Oh!" Basine stiffened. "Hm."

Schroder winked at the girl. He came forward, and added, "All the comforts of home, eh?" And dropped into a chair beside her.

He had the faculty of boyishness, a talent for intimacies. His trick was a conscious thrust beneath the guard of women. He chose to ignore the delicate fol de rols of pursuit, the pretense of formality. He refused to recognize the barriers of dignity, strangeness, social poise—but stepped through them with an easy laugh as if perfectly aware of what lay beyond, and seated himself beside his quarry in the guise of a mischievous boy asking to be congratulated for his boldness.

Women succumbed to this gesture, disarmed by its frankness, its pretense to innocent juvenility. In this manner Schroder achieved within an hour intimacies which came to other men only after months of laborious toil. He threw a noise of laughter over the bantering innuendoes of his talk, disguising boldness in its own obviousness. His sallies seemed to say, "You have nothing to fear from us since we are not secretive. We are cards on the table."

Women thought of him, "He's lots of fun. You don't have to pretend with him. You can play and talk without feeling he's laying traps for you."

But despite the straightforwardness of the man they soon located the overtone in his conversation. It lay in his eyes. His eyes never gave themselves to his laughter. They seemed to watch avidly from behind something. It was as if they were independent of his characterization as a frankly mischievous overgrown boy. They were able to ask amazingly indecent questions in the midst of his frankest outbursts. Women invariably grew embarrassed under their stare. There was no defense against the inquisitive impudence with which they announced the male's concentration. Their gleam was like an unmistakable whisper—an invitation.

Basine admired the man. But he remained oblivious to this side of him. Schroder's female conquests had never interested the Judge. He had heard of them and forgotten immediately. Now, however, memories returned. Schroder was an unscrupulous animal. Basine looked at him with a hopeless misgiving.

He noticed as Schroder and Ruth talked that he seemed on far more intimate terms with her than he. There was an esprit between the two as if they were comrades of long standing. His friend's familiarity was a shock—as if he had caught him undressed, unexpectedly. Basine listened to his talk with an aloof frown, as if he were unable to focus his attention on the scene. He was thinking of something else—far-away things, vast preoccupations.

"Loafing is an art. Don't you think so, Ruth?"

"I've never had time to find out."

"Hm. I'm teacher. Want me to be teacher?"

"Why yes, if you have time in your loafing."

"Time for you always, my dear." A contemplative stare at the girl. "What would you say, Judge, if I fall in love with your charming secretary." He laughed. Basine cleared his throat. He felt miserably out of this sort of thing. He was shocked to hear Ruth giggle.

"Yes sir," Schroder continued. "And what are you doing this evening?"

"Nothing, Mr. Schroder."

"Well, why waste time? How about dinner and a show?"

"Really?" She glanced at Basine as if to declare him in on this give and take. He was preoccupied, hardly observing what was happening. She pouted.

"Cross my heart," said Schroder.

"Thanks very much. A very generous, if general invitation."

"Discovered!" Schroder laughed. "All right then. Six o'clock at the Auditorium. Woman's entrance. I'll wear a red rose in my ear. Can't miss me."

Ruth nodded.

"There you are, George," Schroder cried. "All done in a minute. And tomorrow we'll be in love with each other. What'll you marry us for, your Honor? Remember I helped elect you." A boisterous laugh that seemed to mock the boastfulness and prophecies of the man and say of itself, "I'm joshing all of you including me...."

Basine left them. His heart was heavy, uncomfortable. He sat on the bench frowning at the scene. Eager lawyers whispering; a woman in a green hat holding a handkerchief to her eyes; a bald-headed man on the other side of the long mahogany table; faces for a background. A divorce case. The woman weeping was a wife. The bald-headed one with the air of a board of directors' meeting about him ogled his accusers with dignity. He was a husband. The jury sat dolorously inattentive in the box. A witness was testifying.

Other people's troubles. An interminable jawing back and forth—lawyers, defendants, witnesses and more lawyers. Basine frowned. Other people's troubles—and he had his own. This thing before him was an intrusion. At best he had no sympathy for the interminable jawing that went on under his eyes. He had grown passionately interested in what he called the people. But when he thought of the people he thought of them as a force, a group, an army standing with faces raised repeating certain slogans—a vision that Doris had bequeathed him. The interminable jawing, weeping, accusation and denial before him from day to day had nothing to do with the people. About these individuals he was cynical. And more, he was not interested.

The witness was testifying. The intimidating air of the judge seemed to confuse her. Her confusion irritated Basine. He turned indignantly and faced her with a bullying frown.

"What is it you're trying to say, madam? Did you see this man beat her?"

"Yes, your honor.... I.... I ... that is...."

Basine controlled his temper and grimaced humorously at the jurors whose faces at once lighted with an appreciative smile. A fearless man, Judge Basine, who couldn't tolerate the mumble mumble of legal technicalities and who struck at the roots of things when he took charge of a witness.

... They were in the room behind him. Alone. An intolerable thought. But, impossible to keep his thought away. His imagination like a merciless flagellate, belabored him with fancies. Paul would teach her. Lean over and kiss her. And she would kiss in return and whisper, "Paul...." He was unmarried and good looking. Perhaps she was heartbroken, too. He, Basine, had never spoken despite the light he had recognized of late in her eyes. She was in love with him and filled with despair because her love was useless. So now she would turn to Schroder in desperation. She would try to forget him, Basine. It was logical. Women forgot hurts in that way—by giving themselves to someone else.

The heaviness grew unbearable. Another man was touching Ruth. This was unbearable. He couldn't stand it. But why? What difference? He couldn't.... She was so beautiful. Another man's hands were desecration.

A weakness came to him. His heart darkened. What if she did, with Schroder? They were probably kissing now. It had been hard to imagine himself kissing her. To him she somehow seemed aloof, beyond possession. But it was easy to imagine Schroder. Men and women put their arms around each other and that was an end to aloofness.

He made an effort to pull himself together. Voices were droning around him—other people's troubles. Faces thrust themselves tactlessly at his eyes. He grew nauseated. He had never felt like this before. As if he must do something despite his will. His will said, "Sit there. Don't move. It's none of your business." But this other thing was pulling him out of his seat and moving his body for him.

He clenched his teeth and muttered to himself, "She's no good. Wasting my time on her!"

"That will be all for today," Basine muttered. He placed his hand wearily over his forehead. This would make them think he was ill. His clerk came forward.

"Anything wrong, Judge?" he asked with concern.

Basine shook his head with Spartan indifference to the mythical disease consuming him.

"No," he said, belying his answer in its tone, "court is adjourned until ten o'clock tomorrow."

He nodded briefly at the faces. The solicitous regard in the eyes of attorneys and jurors reassured him. He was ill, very ill—that was it. Of course, that was it. The eyes of the attorneys and jurors said, "You are working too hard. You must be careful of a nervous breakdown. In your prime too. Be careful."

He walked off the bench, his step unsteady. He was acting. But the fact that his step was not authenticly unsteady was an accident—and illogical. He felt it logical to walk unsteadily since everyone thought him ill and on the verge of a breakdown.

"You'd better go home, Judge."

Basine nodded gratefully to his clerk. He opened the door to his chambers. The sight of Schroder bewildered him. Schroder was still there. He had his hat in his hand, though. Basine stared at his friend. His heart contracted and his breath fluttered in his throat.

"What's wrong, George?"

"Nothing. Headache. Knocked off for the day."

Words were hard to speak. His eyes turned to Ruth. She was watching him. Frightenedly, he thought. Had she done something? Kissed? They looked guilty. He tried to find answers to the questions by staring at her. Was she the same as she had been? Or had she given her lips? A vital question. They were going out tonight together. Basine controlled himself. He sat down at his desk and ran his hand wearily over his head.

"Well, so long," Schroder spoke. "Hope you feel better, George." A pause. "See you later, Ruth."

See her later! They had no sympathy for his illness. They would go out and laugh, hold hands, make love—despite his trouble. He sat brooding over the cruelty of women. "Cruel. No finer feelings," he mumbled to himself.

They were alone. Was he ill? What was it that had lifted him off the bench? Nothing definite. A dark disorder in his mind, a heaviness in his heart that had seemed part of the room. He wanted to moan. Yes, he was sick.

"Can I do anything, Judge?"

He hated her. Her voice with its hypocritical concern. As if she cared for him. After what had happened between her and Schroder ... see you later ... and he called her Ruth.

"No, Miss Davis."

This was unbearable. He would insult her. There was relief in insulting her, making her suffer for something, too. But she might go away if he did. He couldn't go on with his work any more. Work was impossible. A disease was active in him sending out dark clouds that choked his thought and swelled his heart with pain. She might leave for good. Then what could he do? Nothing. But why all this make-believe? He would tell her he loved her. Simple. That would drain him of his pain. He stood up and paced. She was at her desk, he noticed, eyes large and excited.

But he could do nothing, say nothing. He was impotent. Good God! he must. How? No way he could think of. The thing was smothering him. Before—days and weeks before—he had kept it down. But now it had slid from underneath and was in his head. There was no outlet. He dared not talk.

No thoughts were in his mind. Henrietta, his children, home, morality, marriage, none of these was in his mind. But there was a restriction, a wall he could not pass. There were things holding him with merciless hands. They gripped at his body and thrust themselves like gags into his mouth.

She had risen and was standing near the window. If he kept to his pacing he must come near her. It was her fault. He was just pacing. She was in his path. If he walked straight to the end of the room she would be in his path. Why should he turn out for her?

He paused beside her. He must say nothing. It was talk that was impossible. He stood looking at her until his eyes grew bewildered. There was a moment in which he seemed to vanish from himself, as if he had stepped bodily out of himself. His thought paralyzed with a curious terror, he saw nothing. The moment of unconsciousness passed and he was still alive and still on his feet. His voice lay under control in his throat and the memory of his name sat like a perpetual visitor in his thought.

But there was a change. A miraculous thing had happened. He was no longer Basine. He was a stranger in a strange world. He was holding her in his arms. An impossible sensation was in him. This was something he couldn't believe. He wanted to look at himself. He had his arms around her. But there was no woman in the circle of his arms. He was holding something that let his delirium escape. Torments were emptying themselves in the embrace. The miseries that had accumulated under the surface of his months of resistance, were leaving him, flying from him. His heart was growing unbearably light.

"Oh!" he murmured. Her arms had tightened and he saw her eyes approach him. They were rapturous.

She was warm, intimate, close to him. Her lips, still piquantly strange, were offering themselves. She was unlike everything he knew. A startling vigor, as if he had been changed into a rampaging giant, swept him as they kissed. He was great, strong. He could walk over the heads of the world. He had no need for further embrace. He stepped away, his face radiant.

Ruth looked at him in confusion. This was a new Basine. He frightened. The mask was gone, the frown of preoccupation. She grew dizzy in the light of his eyes. He was a stranger. What should she call him? But he was talking to her in a voice that he seemed to have kept secret.... "I love you, Ruth. I love you."

He laughed. She smiled uncertainly and felt that her face looked awkward. She could see the lines of her cheeks bulging as she lowered her eyes. This confused her and made her feel stiff. There had been something of this sort a few minutes ago in Paul Schroder when he had tried to take her hand. But now the thing she had noted calmly in Schroder seemed a puny imitation. Here it was real. He was laughing, softly, joyously. He was like a boy. Her heart filled with panic. She put her arms quickly around his neck and pressed herself close to him. The panic went out of her deliciously.

"George, I love you. I'm so happy."

They sat looking at each other, an excited smile in Basine's eyes. His body was tingling. A new sense had come. It lived in his fingers. He was holding her hand. His fingers were charged with an amazing energy. They seemed to have become part of a different person. He was able to enjoy the ecstasy that confused his fingers as if it were an external emotion. The rest of him was clear, almost tranquil.

"Well," he said. It was still hard to talk. He was aware of incongruities. He was not Basine talking, not the new Basine, not the one whose fingers danced and throbbed. His voice belonged to other Basines—other characterizations whose awkward ghosts fluttered nervously in his thought. He would discuss this phenomenon. It was easy, after all. Be honest. She was one with whom he could be astonishingly honest. They were isolated. The world was a futility. There was an end to make-believe now. It was all honest, tranquil, joyous. He began again:

"Well, isn't it strange. I can hardly talk to you. I'm not used to us yet. This way. I've loved you since I first saw you. But I've told so many lies about that to both of us...." He paused to smile at her as if asking her not to believe him a liar, or if she must—a liar in a high cause—"that the things I want to say now seem like ... like the contradictions of something. Of old lies ... in a way."

She nodded.

"Oh, I know," she whispered. A preposterous admiration of her intelligence overcame him. Of course she understood! It was unnecessary to talk to her. She had kissed and embraced him. She had felt the same things he had. And now, their thoughts were alike. They were like one person, having shared something that filled them. It was unnecessary to talk. Because if he remained silent she knew he was thinking of her. A charming sense of comradeship came to him.

"I feel," he said, "as if we were too intimate for words."

She nodded again and smiled.

"We'll make a holiday," he added. "Come, we'll go for a drive."

They embraced. This time he thought of Henrietta. Ruth was different from his wife. Her shoulder blades felt different under his fingers. It was impossible to think they were both women. His arms around Henrietta meant nothing. His arms around Ruth now—he closed his eyes in order to closet himself with indefinable sensations.

They emerged from the traffic of the loop. Basine at the wheel of his newly purchased roadster dropped a hand on hers.

"I feel better like this," he said.

"Isn't it wonderful," she whispered.

He would have liked to tell her they were floating over buildings. But he kept silent. Words were still self-conscious interlopers. The houses moved away. A spring wind was in their faces. They were silent. The pavements ended. Basine brought the car to a stop.

"I don't know what to do," he said. "I'm so happy."

He placed his arms around her. The touch of her body through his clothes was a reminder of something. He gave it no words. They sat embraced, their faces together and an unspoken laugh in their hearts. The sun was high overhead. Basine tried to remember himself ... Henrietta, his home, his position. Ah, banalities. He was proud. He was above remorse, regret; above himself. There was nothing in the world as beautiful as the moment he commanded.

Ruth leaned avidly against him as if seeking refuge in his arms. He sat thinking. "It is right. Everything right. I've done nothing. No compromise. Nothing. I'm happy. There's nothing to frighten me."

He felt released.

---

17

Summer lay like a Mandarin coat over the city. It was June. Warm, sun-awninged streets glistened with ornamental colors. Women in gaudy fabrics, men in violent hat bands, straws, panamas, striped shirts, sun parasols like huge discs of confetti, freshly painted red and green street cars, pastel tinted automobiles—all these tumbled like a swarm of sprightly incoherent adjectives along the foot of the buildings.

The store windows like deaf and dumb hawkers grimaced at the crowds. Ice creams, silks, swimming suits, and sport paraphernalia; jaunty frocks, white trousers, candies, festive haberdashery, drugs, leather goods, wicker furniture and assortments of lingerie like the symbols of fastidious sins—all these grimaced behind plate glass.

The city was in bloom. People, perspiring and lightly dressed, sauntered by the plate glass orchards. Summer filled the city with reminiscent smells. Sky, water, grass scampered like merry ghosts through the carnival of the shopping center. Warm, sun-awninged streets; ornamental men and women—summer spread itself through the crowds, warmed the bargain hunters, loiterers, clerks, stenographers, business men and housewives into a half sleep.

They peered lazily at each other. Their mysterious preoccupations seemed to have subsided. The sun made holiday in the streets and the high, fluttering windows showered endless tiny suns on the air. The morning held the unreal soul of some forgotten picnic.

Ten o'clock. Fanny Gilchrist turned with an inward sigh and walked out of the crowded business street. This was LaSalle street and, concealed in the buildings around her, were people who knew her and might see her. Accidentally bump into her.

The crowds grew thinner and less familiar types of faces drifted by. This was better. She wasn't exactly afraid. But what if someone did bump into her accidentally? Then she would have to say where she was going and, if she lied, perhaps they would insist upon coming along and discover it. But that was foolishness. One never met people in streets like that.

Men looked at her with casual interest, with insignificant enthusiasm, as she walked by them. A bright-haired, shining-eyed young woman with a body undulating softly under a grey and green trimmed dress; she seemed to light up the dingy pavements. Other women passed lighting them up also. Each new female illuminant was welcomed with thankful, greedy eyes.

Her red sailor jauntily tilted and the silken gleam of her face were like part of a luscious mask. She was a woman hurrying somewhere and men, bored with other women, looked at her enthusiastically. She was one of the many enigmatic ones, one of the many gaudy colored masks behind which sex paraded its mystery through the sun-awninged streets. Eyes ennuied with the memory of sex lighted eagerly in the presence of its masks. The flash of ankles and the swell of thighs under pretty fabrics were diversions even for moralists.

Schroder waiting patiently on a street corner watched the warm crowd. She wouldn't come. Yes, she would. Well, another five minutes would tell.

He saw her and his excitement changed. A leisurely smile came to his face. His body relaxed. He was a connoisseur in rendezvous and his enjoyment of the moment which witnessed her approach was deliberate. Women in themselves did not interest him so much. Their bodies—pleasant, yes. But after all—a finale. And one does not applaud finales.

But now, watching her lithe figure hurrying toward him was a diversion to be sipped at, contemplated in all its emotional detail, and enjoyed. Later it would be this moment he remembered, if he remembered anything—which was uncertain. For his memories which had in his younger days glistened in his thought like a mosaic of eroticism, had of late blurred to a monotone. He could remember women, liaisons, passion phrases and great enthusiasms but, curiously, they seemed all identical. To recall how one woman had sighed in his arms was to recall the whole pack of them. As if the souls of his paramours and the manner of their surrenders were contained completely in the recollection of any one detail.

But despite his ennui, this moment of approach still delighted him. The woman hurrying to his side was not yet a woman. She was still a mystery whose inevitable and never varying sensualism was masked for a final instant behind unfamiliar fabrics. There was a piquant unreality, a diverting strangeness, as she smiled at him. She was somebody he did not know. He was authentically bored with women. But for the moment it was not a woman approaching—rather a new color of cloth, a new combination of dress, a new species of social poise and gesture were presenting themselves for ravishment. In these unfamiliar surfaces lay a tenuous mystery as if it were these externals he was about to embrace. And in the contemplation of this mystery, his interest revived itself. He sighed. It was a mystery which would vanish shortly.

"Hello, dearest."

He greeted her softly, with regret. A quixotic impulse to turn and walk away before she spoke had died in him.

Fanny was staring expectantly. He was familiar with the expression. Not in her, but in others. This took away its charms. Married women were nearly all alike. Full of distressing short cuts, with an irritating and incongruous professionalism behind their bewilderment. What dolts husbands must be to blunt women like that.

As he took her hand and felt her fingers clutch excitedly around his palm he remembered in an instant the predecessors of her type. Full of distressing short cuts. When they gave their hands they withheld nothing. They denuded themselves with a look, with a handclasp. And the subtlety of skirmishing seemed entirely foreign to them. When they embraced it was with an appalling directness. Yes, in intrigue they were all alike—all like precocious children; vague, bewildered children mimicking the precisions of their elders and exclaiming with distressful incongruity:

"Tut, tut. Let's come to the point. Let's get down to brass tacks and stop beating around the bush."

Well, here she was and the scene was on.

"Am I late?"

"No, dearest. I was just a little early so as to enjoy the impatience of waiting for you."

The nuance was lost upon her. Amorous women were a cold audience for technique.

"I'm so upset. Do you mind?"

"Not at all, Fanny. Of course you're upset. But it only adds to your charm."

He had long ago abandoned love-making tactics, sensing that women who came to him were not particularly interested in tender pretenses. They desired flattery, but direct and practical variants. This one was like the others, flushed, eager, frightened and gay. He felt an exhilaration as they walked toward the entrance of the unpretentious hotel around the corner. A sense of conquest. It was nothing to be enjoyed in itself. But if people knew, which they never could, alas, they would be awed by the ease with which he accomplished such things. One, two, three meetings and—here they were again. Paul Schroder entering a hotel with a woman at his side.

"This isn't a bad place," he whispered. "I've already registered. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Johnson. It's better if you know your name, of course."

Fanny stood tremblingly in front of the elevator cage as he walked to the desk. She noticed his carelessness, the unselfconscious way in which he smiled at the clerk and paused to buy some cigars. The fear that had grown in her since she left her home appeared to be reaching a climax. Her knees shivered under her dress and a catch in her throat made breathing difficult.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," she repeated silently to herself, and tried to understand the cause of her trembling. Even if there were consequences—there was Aubrey. She smiled nervously. It was his fault. He was a fool.

They entered the elevator. A sleepy boy shut the cage door after them. Schroder gripped her arm and his fingers caressed the soft flesh. She turned to him and smiled. She was no longer afraid. A shameless, exultant light kindled in her eyes. She leaned against him with a shiver as the elevator lifted slowly.

---

... They had decided to check out in time for her to return home for dinner.

"I don't have to go up to the desk with you, do I?" she asked.

Schroder smiled tiredly.

"Oh no," he said, "you wait at the entrance with the property suit case. Then we'll both take a cab and drive a few blocks. I'll get out with the bag and you drive on home. It's simple."

Nevertheless the fear she had experienced in the morning returned as she watched him go to the desk. In another minute it would be all over and everything would be all right. But now—what if someone saw them? Bumped into her accidentally. The lassitude which had filled her when she locked the tumbled hotel room behind her, gave way to a curious panic. Her tired nerves became unhappily alive.

"Why—hello, Mrs. Gilchrist."

She was unable to see the man for an instant. Her mind had darkened. "I mustn't faint," she murmured to herself. She was looking at an unshaven, dissipated face that smiled. As she looked her world seemed to be falling down. Everything gone—ruined. Because a face was smiling. Tom Ramsey. The man's name popped into her thought.

"Hello," she muttered.

Schroder approached and frowned. He took her arm and led her away. She began to cry in the cab.

"He saw us. He knows. He'll tell everybody. Oh my God! Why did you come up when you saw him? If you'd only realized. Oh, why did I do it? Now everything's ruined. I'm lost."

She wept, knowing the futility of tears. An accident that seemed provokingly unreal and soothingly unimportant—Tom Ramsey. Yet the name was like a guillotine block on which her head lay stretched.

Schroder, annoyed, tried to console her.

"Who was it? Listen, pull yourself together. People always imagine themselves guiltier looking than they are. He probably thought nothing wrong."

"Tom Ramsey. Didn't you see how he looked at me? Oh, God, I'm sick."

"Who is he?"

"He used to be my mother's friend. But he went to the dogs. He's just a tramp now. He isn't a gentleman."

Schroder sighed.

"Oh well," he said, "there's no use worrying. Come, put it out of your head."

"I can't. Oh, I can't. Why did I do it. I'll kill myself if ... if anything happens. Aubrey will.... Oh Paul, I feel sick."

He stared glumly at the back of the chauffeur's head. A nuisance. A damned nuisance. His mind played with contrasts. A few hours ago she had been shameless. Now she sat weeping. He thought of her as ungrateful and grew angry.

"I'll step out now," he whispered. "Call me up tomorrow at the office, will you? Nothing will happen. Please, be calm. It's all imagination."

He halted the cab and stepped out with the suitcase. She would feel better, he knew, as soon as he disappeared. She would be able to convince herself then that nothing had happened—that she was coming home from a shopping tour.

"Good-bye. Call me up, dearest."

Fanny sat weeping as the cab moved away. Ramsey had seen her. A misery too heavy for thought brought another burst of tears. She hated Schroder. And herself, too. But most of all the ragged looking, unshaven Ramsey in the lobby. Why had he come at just that moment? If they had left the room ten minutes earlier. It was Paul's fault. He insisted on combing his hair, and reading a story in the newspaper. If he hadn't sent down for the newspaper in the middle of the afternoon. He didn't love her or he wouldn't have thought of sending for it. She had laughed at the time but it was an insult. He was a brute. If he had loved her he wouldn't have wanted to read a newspaper and they wouldn't have met Ramsey. She sat conjuring up dozens of trifling incidents which, had they occurred, would have prevented the fatal meeting with Ramsey.

Then she smiled convulsively through her tears. It was about the story. They had laughed at it in the room. "Judge Basine Launches Vice Quiz. State to Investigate Problem of Immorality Among Women Wage Earners...."

"Why girls go wrong ... why girls go wrong," rumbled through her head now and she laughed hysterically. Oh, that tramp of a Ramsey had spoiled it all. Otherwise it would have been wonderful. And next week, too. But perhaps he hadn't noticed anything. Of course he hadn't. Paul was right.

She dried her tears and looked into the twilighted streets. She had planned her homecoming days ago. She would be ill, overcome by the heat and excuse herself from the dinner table. A final chill shot through her heart as the cab stopped.

She found herself entering her home with complete poise. It was almost as if nothing had happened. Here were the familiar things of life. Her home, Aubrey, the rows of books, the walnut library table. Nothing had happened. For a moment she was amazed at the complete unconsciousness of the day. Then smiling delightedly at her husband in a chair, a familiar husband in a familiar chair, she removed her hat and approached him.

Leaning over the back of his chair she kissed him tenderly on the cheek. He was her protector. Good old Aubrey, so familiar, so placid and unchanged. If it only hadn't been for Ramsey everything would be so nice now. But anyway, it wasn't so bad. She had been a bit hysterical.

"Where've you been, Fanny?"

She felt no twinge at the question. Instead an enthusiasm for the situation filled her.

"To the matinee," she laughed. "Oh, I saw the nicest show."

She leaned forward and took his hand. Aubrey regarded her with a petulant stare. Despite their years of marriage, she was still an animal, gross and irritating.

"And I'm just starved," she exclaimed. "I was never so hungry in my life."

She laughed, overjoyed at the truth of the statement and hurried upstairs to prepare for dinner.

---

18

The manuscript had been found in the drawer where William Gilchrist kept his collars. It lay underneath a number of loose collars.

With the death of his father a curious love for the man had come to Aubrey. He remembered from day to day things his father had said, or seemed to say. A sad, elderly man who lived secretly in his thoughts. That was his father.

Like him, Aubrey now had a secret life that he lived only in his thoughts, and this was slowly making him kin to the man who had died. In Aubrey's thoughts dwelt a dramatic, startling figure—a gleaming, hawk-faced thunderer; a lean Isaiah of burning phrases with an eagle-winged soul beating its way toward God. This was Aubrey Gilchrist. Not the Aubrey whom life had mysteriously deformed into an advertising man, but an Aubrey triumphant who had risen above the petty turns of Fate and burst upon a world—a voice crying forth astounding phrases against the evil of man's ways.

The inner characterization in which Aubrey was gradually immersing himself remained a vague though warm generality. He was able to visualize the Thunderer and able to enjoy the results of his genius. In his day dreams he pictured this inner one bringing the world to his feet. Books were being written about him, magazines and newspapers were filled with his praises and interpretations, and men and women everywhere discussed his ascent in awe. He was a conqueror—a bloodless Napoleon and a martyrless Jesus. A prophet whose genius was lifting men out of the mire.

What the message was which this inner Aubrey was spreading through the world, what the phrases were that ignited the souls of men, were not contained in his imaginings. He approached them from a critical and not creative angle—his fancies presenting him with descriptive self praises. He composed rambling articles in his mind celebrating his triumphs. This inner Aubrey was eloquent, electrifying, unassailable; men and women wept over his writings and repented; cities reared statues to him, and all places sang his glories. The whole thing had begun as a game, deliberately invented to occupy the leisure of his mind. But he had elaborated on it and it had grown almost by itself. Now it preoccupied him to an alarming degree.

The manuscript in his father's collar drawer had given him a shock. He had kept it from his mother, assuring himself that such a course was for the best. It was an odd document for his father to leave behind.

As he sat in his study a week after the funeral reading it for the first time, Aubrey grew frightened. It seemed to him that he was looking at his father—for the first time, that the man who had till now been a half enigmatic figure to him, stood at last in the room, strong and alive. The thing was a primitive type of novel—discoursive, gentle, Rabelaisian. It recounted the mental and physical adventures of an Elizabethan philosopher in a succession of unrelated episodes. There was a caress in the sentences, a simplicity in the narrative that translated itself into cunning realism.

When he had finished the reading, Aubrey stared at his father's portrait hanging over one of the book cases. The reality of the manuscript held him. He felt bewildered. It had for some three hours lifted him out of the present and immersed him in scenes and amid a company of naive ancients, starkly alive. A dormant literary sense awakened in him. The thing was a work of art, as moving, as authentic as Apuleius or Cervantes. But he would put it away. He hid it in a private drawer.

Its memory, however, grew in his mind. During his day at work the thought of the thing his father had written came to haunt him, as if it demanded something. He felt closer to it than he had ever felt to his father. There was something distasteful, though, about the intimacy.

"That was his soul," he would explain over to himself. "He lived that way inside. It was like writing a biography of secret dreams for him. It's strange. We're all like that. Even I. There was something odd in father. Funny we never guessed. It must have been written a paragraph at a time over years and years. It was a sort of diary."

And he would recall excerpts from the book—gentle skepticisms, childish animalisms. But the tone of the thing which he could never put into words was what haunted him most. Over the naive acrobatics of plot and lively preenings of idea, an unwritten smile spread itself, a pensive tolerance that seemed to say, "Yes, yes, life has been. This tale is a curious jest. An epitaph over an empty grave. Yesterday is unreal and today is even less real. Yet here are fancies, the ghosts of sad and happy folk who never lived. And among these ghosts I once found life...."

The idea of publishing the manuscript came to Aubrey one evening when his wife returned from the theater in a curious mood. She was late for dinner and this irritated him. But her manner was even more irritating. She was strident, flushed, gross. Her laugh as they ate made his mother frown, he observed. He said little. When they left the table an indignation toward Fanny had come to him.

He retired to his study. Fanny insisted on following him. She hovered about his chair as he tried to read, caressing him in a curious way, as if he were a child with whom she was amused. It occurred to him that she thought him a failure, that there was something condescending in her manner.

"Oh, leave me alone, please, Fanny."

"Hm! We're peevish. Dear me. Poor old Aubrey's working too hard."

"Please."

"But I want to talk to you. I want to tell you about the matinee."

"I'm not interested, Fanny. You know how I hate vaudeville."

"I love it."

"That's your privilege."

"Don't be sarcastic, Aubrey."

"I'm not. I'm just tired."

"Tired? What have you been doing?"

Despite herself she accented the you. The memory of Schroder and their day together had left her. It persisted, however, as a curious elation. The ambiguity of words exhilarated her. She felt a sense of mastery. She wanted also to be tender toward Aubrey, to please and charm him. It was necessary to do this in order to disarm him. But he had no suspicions. She was certain of that. Nevertheless it was necessary to make sure he had none. There were many paradoxical things necessary and most curious of them all was the necessity of showing Aubrey that she loved him. Her heart warmed toward him as it hadn't for years. She felt unaccountably grateful to Aubrey. She would have liked to sit at his side whispering love names and caressing his hair.

"Well, for one thing, I've been writing."

He looked at her calmly.

"Writing? You mean books? Why, I didn't know!"

Aubrey smiled, recovering a superiority toward her. But his heart grew heavy almost simultaneously. She had thrown her arms about him and was exclaiming, "Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're writing again, Aubrey darling. I've wanted you to so much."

He pushed her away slowly. She stood pouting.

"Now I can see where I take a back seat," she sighed. "Yes sir, you won't have time for me at all. But I don't care. As long as you're happy, darling, I'm delighted. I want you to be happy and I know it makes you happy to write."

When she left the room Aubrey remained frowning after her. He would surprise her. He would surprise them all. He would publish the manuscript under his own name. It would create a sensation. It would bring him back in the public eye more glorified than he had been in his literary heyday.

In a few days the idea had grown to obliterating proportions. For a time he abandoned the contemplation of the inner Aubrey—the gleaming-eyed Thunderer. This other was nearer reality—an Aubrey hymned as a rejuvenated literary figure. But he hesitated. His indecision resulted in a predicament. He had been boasting cautiously of his new work, letting out hints as to its character. There was Cressy, a literary critic and a member of the club where he lunched. He had talked to him about it.

"I'm surprised myself," he explained. "I was rather uncertain whether I could come back. But the rest was evidently just what I needed. The book isn't at all in my old style. More direct, sincere and entirely simple. You'll like it."

Cressy became important in Aubrey's predicament. Cressy was a man whom Aubrey identified as "the more discriminating public." He yearned for the approval of this public. And as his decision to have his father's manuscript printed under his own name grew, Aubrey sought the critic out. It was pleasant to boast to Cressy, to feel oneself part of the superior literary world Cressy inhabited.

Cressy had left the university with the determination to write. He had, however, developed into a scholar, using a knowledge of Greek and Latin to acquire a baggage of classical erudition. For ten years he had been contributing literary essays to magazines and newspapers. In these he wagged his head sorrowfully over the decline of letters. He presented an impregnable front to all new writers. The names of new novelists in the book lists irritated him precisely as the names of new celebrities in the society columns had once irritated Mrs. Basine. He resented them as intruders and focused a pedantic wrath on them.

In his own mind he pictured himself as being in a continual state of revolt against the inferiority of modern literature. His attacks, however, were entirely a defensive gesture. His literary point of view was inspired by a heroic desire to annihilate contemporary literature. Contemporary books were an insult and a barrier to his egoism. He battled against them. His struggle was the quixotic effort to assert the superiority of his erudition. New novels, new poetries, new philosophies were a conspiracy to minimize him and he went after them with the zeal of one engaged in tracking criminals to their lair.

At forty-five he was a stern-faced man with a greying mustache, heavy glasses behind which gleamed indignant eyes. He was impressive looking. People who never read his fulminations still felt a high regard for his scholarship. He was fearless in the pronunciation of French, Latin and Greek names and invariably functioned as arbiter in all disputes concerning classical quotations and allusions.

His friendship with Aubrey was based chiefly on the certainty he felt that Aubrey was an inferior writer. He was not part of the conspiracy aimed at the minimization of Cressy, the scholar.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, Aubrey," he congratulated his friend. "Very glad. Writing is a delight few people understand these days."

"I know. And I think you'll be interested particularly, John, because the story is of Elizabethan England. I've modeled the technique on Apuleius and the other later Roman tale-tellers."

"Indeed!" Cressy bristled. "That should be interesting."

"I'd like to have your opinion of it, John. I've always valued what you say, but this time more than ever. Because I feel I've entered your field and you're guarding the fences and all that."

Cressy's face relaxed. Quite right. His field. And if the book was any good he could leap forward as its authentic champion and through it denounce the base modernism of the day. But how did Aubrey who was a superficial dabbler come by Elizabethan England?

Aubrey promised to produce the manuscript within a few days and left the club. A July sun hammered at the streets. The heat added to his inward discomfort. It was too hot to think. Yet it was necessary to think. Something was piling up and unless he thought it out clearly, it would fall on him.

He had made up his mind to publish his father's manuscript as his own. But in the weeks that had passed he had become aware that he was not going to carry out his intention. There were things that kept him from it. A morbid sense that his father was watching him had grown in his mind. He was afraid. At night in bed he conducted himself with a scrupulous politeness toward his wife, certain that his every action was being observed by his father.

There was another restriction. The appearance of the manuscript with his name to it would be a distasteful anti-climax. He had lost himself so long and so ardently in the creation of an inner Aubrey—the hawk-faced Isaiah redeeming men—that the prospect of a frankly sensual volume signed by Aubrey Gilchrist made him uncomfortable.

In the face of the realities that would ensue—the praise for instance, of the healthy animalism of the book—he would have to abandon the secret characterization that had grown almost an essential of his life. He could not go ahead redeeming men and lifting them toward a life of asceticism while people were talking and writing about the fact that Aubrey Gilchrist was a sensual realist. And finally there was a feeling of dishonesty, inseparable from his fear of his father, but adding its weight to the restrictions.

As the feeling that he would never dare to publish the manuscript approached a certainty, Aubrey sought to force his own hand by telling his friends of the book, boasting of it and promising its early appearance. In this way he dimly hoped to make it socially necessary for him to produce the volume and that finally the social necessity of living up to his announcements would overpower the inner restraints. He was desperately throwing up bridges in the hope of being driven across them.

The dilemma slipped out of his mind as he walked toward his home. It was distasteful. The finding of the manuscript had, in fact, upset him more than anything which had ever happened. As he neared his residence a wilted sensation came into his thought. He had been trying eagerly to recover the full image of the inner Aubrey and derive a few hours of surcease in the easy contemplation of that great hero's triumphs. But now it occurred to him that Judge Smith and John Mackay, his partner, Fanny and her relatives and all his world were buzzing with gossip about his return to literature. The dilemma crawled wearily back into his mind.

Yes, they talked about it whenever they came together. There was Basine, the judge. He had seized Aubrey's hand and pumped it heartily when he heard of the book.

"That's the stuff. I like a man who can come back. Go to it, Aubrey."

Basine was a bounder. The way Fanny and the rest of them idolized him was disgusting. His mother-in-law—"Oh, the judge told me the most fascinating things about the situation in Washington." And then for an hour, an idiotic mumble about what the judge did, what he said, what he thought, what he hoped. Nobody ever mentioned Henrietta or the children. As if their existence was not only unimportant but dubious. Basine was an entity. He needed no background.

Aubrey wondered why his thought turned to his brother-in-law. Whenever he felt uncomfortable, or found himself in a distressing situation, his mind usually busied itself with comment on Basine. Anything distressful that happened, no matter how remote from the judge, always seemed to remind Aubrey of the man and recall to him the fact that he was a bounder and an ass and entirely unlikeable.

He entered his home in a dejected mood. Voices attracted him. Fanny was talking to a man. He paused before the opened door.

"Oh, hello Aubrey," Fanny greeted him. She stood up. Aubrey noticed she looked pale. Her eyes seemed to follow his observation.

"Isn't it hot though? I'm almost dead. I'm awfully glad you came home. You remember Mr. Ramsey, don't you?"

"How do you do," said Aubrey. "Yes, I think—"

"At mother's. Long ago. I'm sure you met him. He's an old friend of the family."

"How do you do, sir," Ramsey echoed, rising. The men shook hands. Aubrey stared at the dapper, high-strung figure with its flushed face and cool attire and tried to remember the man.

"If you'll pardon me," he smiled.

"Certainly, Aubrey."

"See you again, I hope," said Aubrey. Ramsey assented with a curious enthusiasm, accenting the situation uncomfortably. Fanny frowned and watched her husband walk to the stairs. As his steps died the two returned to their chairs.

"Oh it's hot," Fanny murmured. "Can't you go away till next month. I'm almost beside myself."

Her voice was low. Ramsey listened with disdain.

"And besides," she continued in a whisper, "I've given you all I can get. I haven't any more money."

"Money!" Ramsey snorted. "I'm not talking about money. I'm not asking for any." He stood up and frowned indignantly at her.

"I know, but—"

"I just dropped in for a talk."

He said this with a meaning smile and lighted a cigarette. He was very casual. She watched him helplessly.

"Oh, why beat around the bush. I'm sick of it. I can't stand it. How much do you want? I've given you three thousand. Surely that's...."

"I don't want any, thank you," he answered with mysterious sarcasm. "Not a nickle."

"Then what do you want?" Her voice was rising despite her fear of being heard. "This is the fourth time you've ... you've hounded me."

"Oh, I hound you?" Again the mysterious sarcasm.

"If you'd only tell me what you want."

He smiled with the air of a man phenomenally at ease and returned to his chair.

"Nothing. Not a thing. I just dropped in for a chat, that's all."

His eyes regarded her triumphantly. Fanny returned their gaze. He was crazy. There was something crazy about him. He had called her on the telephone the day after seeing her in the hotel with Schroder. She had gone downtown to meet him. The whole business seemed like an impossible dream in retrospect. He had whined and begged for money. He was down and out, living from hand to mouth, his friends gone, his clothes in rags. He had known her father. She could save him. And he had never once referred to the incident in the hotel lobby. Neither had she. The conversation had been purely a needy friend and a philanthropically inclined woman. She had asked him how much he needed and he answered $1,500 would start him. A week later he came to her completely rehabilitated—an elderly looking fop swinging a cane and bristling with enthusiasms.

Another $1,500 had increased his enthusiasm. He came a third time to report that he had found employment. She barely listened. Something had happened to Ramsey.

Now as he sat smiling sarcasms at her she realized what it was. Her knowledge of the man was casual but the thing that had happened was unmistakable. He no longer wanted money from her. He was blackmailing her merely because it gave him a sense of power. They had never mentioned Schroder or the lobby incident.

She regarded him in silence and the understanding of the man slowly nauseated her. His polite and affable smiling, his cockiness and his suavity—all these were part of a pose. He called merely to see her wince and because her wincing filled him with this sense of power. And he would go on like that. But she dared not challenge him. He knew about the day with Schroder. He had never mentioned it and now he tried to pretend this his dominance over her had nothing to do with blackmail or Schroder. He tried to pretend it was because of something else—something involved and mysterious.

"Are you going to stay forever," she murmured.

"Perhaps for dinner," he answered. Fanny sighed. There was her mother-in-law—a stone faced woman with gimlet eyes. Old, ferreting eyes. She would sense something. And if they found out. She shuddered. Her eyes implored.

"Please, Tom," she whispered. "You ... you're torturing me."

"Oh no, not at all," he answered with an idiotic cheerfulness, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips in surprise. He was like a farce actor. She stood up and came to his side. Her hands rested on his shoulder.

"Won't you leave me alone?" she whispered again. "I feel ill."

He looked at her with concern.

"Indeed," he said. "I'm awfully sorry."

He would go on like this forever. It would always grow worse. He wanted to make a victim of her. He was like a crazy man with an obsession. His suavity and politeness almost made her scream. She covered her face and wept.

"There, there," he consoled her. She had dropped into a chair and he was patting her back. "It must be the heat. The heat, don't you think? Oh well, I'll go way now. Are you going to be home Tuesday evening?"

She made no answer. Ramsey stood watching her, a smile in his eyes. As she continued to weep he appeared to grow more and more elated. A sternness entered his voice.

"Come now," he ordered her, "sit up."

She obeyed.

"It's ridiculous," he continued. She nodded helplessly. "I'll see you Tuesday evening," he added. There was a pause. Then, "There's something I'd like to discuss with you. Very important. Don't forget. Tuesday evening."

He walked out. Fanny watched him to the door. A rage came to her. He was play-acting. He was making fun of her, of her fear of exposure. Because he was crazy. He didn't want money. He wanted to bulldoze and torture her. He wanted her to think he was somebody—that's why he did it.

She stood up and watched him from the window as he walked down the street. A dapper, good-natured figure smiling with mysterious condescension upon the houses he passed. She rushed to her room and locked the door. Something would have to happen. She had not talked to Schroder about Ramsey since he left her in the cab that first day. She would ask him what to do. No, that would make it worse. He might be like Ramsey. She lay dry-eyed and pondering. The thought slowly grew in her—she would tell her brother. George would be able to figure out some way to rid her of this blackmailer. She would tell him everything and explain to him how she couldn't stand it any longer.

She lay quietly improvising her conversation with her brother. This brought a relief and she closed her eyes with a sigh.

---

19

The ballroom of the Hotel LaSalle had been carefully prepared for the opening of the Vice Investigating Commission's sessions. A corps of janitors had been active for two days introducing folding chairs, cuspidors, tables and wastebaskets. Chairs of varying degrees of importance had been assembled for the witnesses, attorneys, distinguished visitors and members of the press.

The Vice Investigating Commission had been appointed by the governor of the state. It was comprised of ten members including its chairman, Judge Basine. The press with its instinctive dramaturgy had centered its comment around the single figure of Basine. The nine state senators who, as a result of political wire pulling, had wormed their way into the Commission found themselves lost in the shadow of Basine.

It was the Basine Commission. As the time for its sessions approached, the press, having by its own headline reiteration of the man's name impressed itself with the prestige and popularity of Basine, abandoned itself without further scruples to its convenient mania of simplifications. Thus the preliminary deliberations of the Commission were headlined, "Basine to Summon Department Store Heads." "Basine to Plumb Vice Causes." "Basine Charges Dance Hall Evil."

The statements elaborately prepared by the nine senators were invariably attributed in the newspaper columns to Basine. The hopes, plans, fears, threats of the Vice Commission were blazoned to the world as the mingled emotions of Basine. Photographs of Basine, his wife, children, and home, illumined the papers and within a week the name Basine had, in the public mind, become innately synonymous with an immemorial crusade against vice.

The crusade itself remained as yet a vague but promising morsel in the city's thought. The newspapers, enabled by the event to indulge themselves more legitimately than usual in discussing the ever fascinating problem of sex from the unimpeachable standpoint of reform, leaped greedily to the bait.

Photographs of young women boarding street cars and revealing stretches of leg were printed under the caption, "Indecent Way to Board Car, Says Basine." Alongside were photographs, less interesting, but vital to the moral of the layout, showing women boarding street cars without revealing their legs. The caption over them read, "Correct Way to Board Car, Says Basine." The text explained that the carelessness and immodesty of young girls, according to Basine, frequently were the devil's ally and that the Basine Commission called upon all young women who had the welfare of the race at heart to board street cars in the correct way.

Photographs of young women in Indecent Bathing Costumes appeared accompanied by denunciations from prominent clergymen and contrasted, with editorial indignation, to photographs of Decent Bathing Costumes recommended by prominent clergymen. Photographs of abandoned young women who effected garter purses, slit skirts; who crossed their legs when they sat down were offered. These were accompanied by outraged pronouncements against such immodesties from prominent statesmen and clergymen.

A private auxiliary crusade started by another enterprising newspaper resulted in a series of photographs of nude paintings to be seen in the shop windows of the loop and Michigan avenue, and called for immediate legislation designed to remove this source of moral danger.

Photographs of the deplorably scanty costumes worn by musical comedy, choruses and dancers in general; photographs pointing out with mute alarm the decline of modesty as instanced in the comparison of the fashions of yesteryear with the fashions of today; photographs of dance-hall scenes showing couples amorously embraced, cheeks together, bodies riveted to each other—these and others too numerous to tabulate cried for the reader's indignant attention out of the newspaper columns.

Every conceivable variant of denunciation which might be legitimately accompanied by a photograph of a woman or a group of women, received publication in interviews with pious divines, alarmed statesmen and serious-minded welfare workers. The newspapers, convinced by the twenty and thirty per cent increases in their week's circulation figures that the crusade was a vital part of the awakened moral sense of the city, devoted themselves with heroic disregard of party politics to acclaiming the Basine commission.

Basine found himself troubled by his sky-rocketing prestige. He went to bed the first night as a "judicial inquirer into the causes of vice." He arose in the morning confronted with the fact that he was a "fearless Galahad on Moral Quest." Before retiring again he found himself a "Vice Solon Attacking Civic Corruption." And on the following morning he was "Basine, Undaunted, Flays Vice Ring."

On the day before the opening session he occupied his chambers and tried to dictate his way through a mass of correspondence that had accumulated. There were thousands of letters from determined church-goers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, all teeming with excited advice, prayers for success and redundant congratulations. Ruth waited with her pencil on her note book, her knee pressed warmly against his thigh and her eyes looking pensively out of the window at the summer day.

Basine had obtained a three weeks' vacation in order to devote himself to the work of the commission. His words came unevenly as he dictated. Newspaper headlines glared at him from the desk—"Modern Lincoln to Free Vice Slaves." "Basine to Determine Why Girls Go Wrong." "Basine Threatens Fearless Quiz Into Resorts."

His mind was alive with other headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city was throbbing with his name. He had managed to maintain a skepticism for several days. Doris had kept his mind distressingly clear with her comments. And her friend, Levine. Her words had continued in his thought ... "marvelous, George. The public is wallowing in an orgy of morbidity. I confess, it's beyond my pleasantest expectations...."

He had protested. She was wrong. Indignation was being stirred. People were realizing the menace of underpaid working girls and unlicensed dance halls. His sister smiled wearily. "Don't be an ass, or you'll spoil it all. Keep your head clear. Follow the newspapers and outwit them in cynicism."

And then Levine. He recalled the man's words and edited them into a rebuking essay—"The public is revelling in the salaciousness of nude photographs, raw statements and your anti-vice propaganda. They're utilizing virtue as a cloak for the sensually tantalizing discussion of immorality. Their indignation is an excuse by which they apologize for their individual erotic thrills by denouncing evil in others. Yes, the mysterious others identified as vice rings, white slavers and immorality in general. The whole business is a cunning debauch offered newspaper readers, a debauch which enables them to appear to themselves and to each other not as debauchees but as high crusaders behind the banners of Basine. And the good clergymen and the statesmen and the welfare workers rushing into print with revelations of immorality are inspired, by nothing more intricate than a desire for publicity and an ambition to pose before the public in the guise of fellow crusaders and civic benefactors. Their benefactions, you see, consist of offering the public lurid sex statistics over which it may gloat in secret. And in the meantime, over these benefactions, over these exciting sex statistics and sexy photos and over the people who discuss them and roll them over on their tongue is thrown a protective fog of indignation."

Basine had derived from these talks in his sister's studio an uncomfortable vision. But the vision had gradually dissolved in his mind. On the day he had awakened to find himself a "Moral Champion Promises Vice Clean-up" the dignity and high responsibility of his task had overcome him. What appeared to him an authentic fervor mounted in his veins. Hypnotized by the adulatory excitement surrounding his name, he acquired forthwith the characterization foisted on him by the headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city throbbed with his name. The hope of a great moral rejuvenation was centered upon him. Another St. Patrick was to drive the snakes of evil out of the community. Another Lincoln was to do something—something equally ennobling to himself and his fellowmen.

The change effected his relations with Ruth. For a month he had been engaged in a species of sinless amour. Long walks, long talks, long embraces behind the locked doors of his chambers had resulted in nothing more tangible than a series of headaches and sleepless nights or unusual tenderness towards his piquantly startled wife.

He had excused his infidelity to Ruth while embracing Henrietta—he regarded his exaggerated interest in his wife as a betrayal of the girl—by assuring himself that it was for Ruth's own good. It lessened his desire for her and thus decreased the moral danger into which their love was leading her. In addition to this it was, of course, a convenient substitute for the emotions Ruth's embraces aroused in him and for the sense of guilt which invariably accompanied these embraces.

When he became a crusader Basine felt a further confusion in his attitude toward Ruth. He sat now attempting to dictate letters. Despite the amiable blur which fame had introduced into his thought and which for the past two weeks had obscured the details of his day, he found himself studying the situation before him. The situation was Ruth. He would have preferred ignoring it. The scent which came from her summery shirt waist and the coils of her black hair, thrilled him. Her clear youthful face, the contours of her figure, the familiarity of her eyes—all this was pleasing and satisfying.

But the new Basine—the crusader, felt ill at ease. He must explain something to Ruth, explain to her that their love was no more than an ennobling comradeship and must never be more than that, a comradeship which would bring them together in this great cause of moral rejuvenation. He didn't want it put that crudely. But the idea kept repeating itself in his head. He kept thinking of what Doris and her friend Levine would say if they ever found out that in the midst of the Vice Investigation, its chairman had been carrying on with his secretary. It was distasteful and needed immediate attention.

He took her hand and Ruth laid down her pencil. She smiled expectantly at him. Since she had first kissed Basine a month ago she had been trying to understand the situation. The thought of him preoccupied her and this made her certain she loved him. His caresses aroused her senses and left her wondering what was going to happen.

At times she reasoned coolly with herself. She was in love with a married man and the most she could hope for was to become his mistress and end up by making a fool of herself. Or perhaps of both of them. She was, in a measure, grateful for the manner in which he respected her virtue. But, with his arms around her and his keen face alive with passion and his lips on hers, his reserve struck her as uncomplimentary and illogical.

She resented the semi-abandonment of his senses because of the unfulfillment—a physical and spiritual unfulfillment which left her distracted. It appeared to her later, when the distraction ebbed, as an affront to her vanity. She was uncertain when thinking of it coolly whether she would give herself to him. But somehow the affair seemed unreal, at times even a little like some school-girl flirtation, because he failed to ask her. She had always prided herself upon her honesty and spent hours now debating with herself just how much she loved him and if she loved him at all and why she loved him. The idea of leaving his employ, however, never occurred to her. The cautious sensualisms of which she had become an excited victim, held her. There was in these incompleted manœuverings behind the locked doors a curious fascination.

"What is it, George?"

He smiled and shook his head.

"Whew, I'm snowed under." His hands pushed the correspondence from him.

"You mustn't tire yourself, dear."

He nodded and his face assumed a serious air.

"I would like to talk over the work."

"The Commission?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I think it's going to be a wonderful success, George?"

"And you can help me."

He squeezed her hand. This was the note he had been searching for in his mind. He hesitated a moment, nevertheless, feeling an irritating incongruity in what he desired to say. But the headlines glaring at him strengthened him. He was Basine the Moral Champion. The city was throbbing with his name. A hope centered about his name.

"The work is going to be hard," he began. "I intend to go to the bottom of the thing. The Commission after its hearings will be able to recommend legislation that will ... that will...."

"Yes, I know George."

"Wipe out, or at least go a long way toward wiping out...."

His mind seemed to balk at the sentence. The word "immorality" withheld itself from his lips.

"I'll be glad to help where I can, as you know, dear," she whispered.

"I've subpœnaed all the department store heads to bring their books into court, I mean to the hearing, and reveal exactly what the wage scale for shop girls is. I'm convinced it's impossible for a girl to keep decent on $6 and $7 a week."

He thought of the fact that Ruth was receiving $30 a week and grew confused.

"You can help me a lot, dear," he added hurriedly.

Ruth stood up. This standing up had become a habit between them. When they were sitting holding hands, if she stood up, he would draw her to him and she would lower herself into his lap. They had developed a series of similar ruses to which they both adapted themselves like well rehearsed actors and which had for their object the bringing them into positions convenient for kisses and embraces.

As she sat down in his lap the unhappy thought crossed Basine's mind that he was chairman of a commission sworn to wipe out just such incidents as this from the city's life. He winced and her arm around his neck felt uncomfortable. But he remembered that both doors were locked and the image of himself as a crusader partially vanished. They kissed and his hand slipped down to her side and toyed with the hem of her skirt.

"Do you love me, George? Tell me."

"Yes. Why do you ask that?"

"Oh because. Sometimes I think you're so busy that you haven't time to love."

He was pleased by this. Flattered, he answered: "I have time for nothing else. Everything else is sort of part of it. My work, the commission—it's all you, dearest."

His hand was on her, caressingly. He endeavored to remove the significance of the gesture by patting her knee as one might pat the head of a little child, and whispering with an involved frankness:

"You're so nice, darling."

They had sat like this before, sometimes for an hour, whispering to each other. Their whispering would go on for a time, even their kisses. This time, however, she murmured unexpectedly:

"Don't, George."

He was surprised.

"Why not?"

"Because, we mustn't."

"But why?"

"Oh please ... don't!"

Her objection seemed to inspire him in a way her previous silences had failed to do. He grew indignant.

"Please, don't!"

"But why, dearest? I love you."

She paused and he looked at her, aloof arguments in his eyes as if he were pleading not in his own behalf but in behalf of—a somebody else, a client. His knees were trembling under her weight. The crusade had disappeared. A memory of it lingered but in an amusing way. He caught a glimpse of the headlines on his desk and grinned. There was something maliciously unreal about life that one could enjoy.

Suddenly he felt her soften. Her lips brushed against his ear and her arm tightened convulsively around him.

"Please no," she murmured.

Her alarm delighted him. It was a final barrier, this alarm. It enabled him to enjoy the new conquest without having to be logical, without having to go on. Her alarm now was a barrier to be played with for a moment and then utilized. He would stop in a moment but now he could play with her fear, as if he were intent upon overcoming it.

"Please," she whispered, "don't ... it's no use."

The final words irritated him. No use! He felt offended, as if he had been trickily defeated in an argument. What was no use? What did she mean?

"George, please, listen to me. Oh please...."

That was better. But it had come just in time. He could retreat now with honor. For an instant a panic had filled him. Impossible to retreat on the explanation "it's no use." Because—well, because the words were a challenge, not an attack. But now it was easy. He stiffened in his chair. Ruth slipped from his lap and stood up, flushed. She straightened her hair and looked away. Basine felt annoyed with her. She had almost taken him by surprise. She had almost surrendered when the tactics of the game called for her to protest and thus cover his retreat by making it the result of her protests. And not of his—well, of his determination not to forget his position.

But he would restore the tactic she had momentarily abandoned.

"Excuse me," he muttered, a plea in his voice, "I didn't realize. I didn't realize what I was doing. Forgive me, dearest."

He recovered his sense of self respect that, oddly enough, had deserted him, in making this apology. The apology meant that he had ceased only because she had protested too violently. And not because he had been afraid.

Ruth listened with a faint smile on her moist lips. She wanted to laugh.

"I didn't mean anything—really," he was saying. "You must forgive me. Come here—please." An air of soothing innocence rose from his voice and manner. He was reassuring her that he wasn't dangerous, that he wouldn't repeat these intimacies. The desire to laugh continued in her. Excuse him! For what? The laugh almost left her throat. She had given herself to him ... and he had solemnly retreated for no reason at all.

She continued to smile. For the first time the distraction his caresses inspired in her was absent. Instead she felt quite normal. She was becoming indignant but normal. And there was amusement in her anger. She sat down and picked up her pencil. She was amused. She looked at a man who had become almost a stranger and nodded—forgiveness.

"Of course, George," she said. "I know you didn't mean anything, but...."

He frowned. Her tone angered him. She was mocking.

"Hadn't you better answer some of these?" she asked. Basine pursed up his lips importantly.

"You will be a great help, dear," he answered. "Some day I want to talk about something with you. But ... but matters are too rushed now. I'm almost snowed under, I swear." This was putting it all on a different basis. He was a busy man. That's why he had retreated. He was needed for other things of vital interest to the community. He felt uncomfortable, despite the dignity of his frown. She was regarding him with placid eyes. He turned to one of the newspapers whose headlines were proclaiming the plans, and threats of Basine. There was the real Basine—in the headline. This other one, the one who had fumbled and messed things up with a girl—he ended his thought with annoyance. He despised himself. For a moment he glowered at her. He would stand up and seize her. She would realize, then, what his forebearance for her sake had been. His anger continued in his voice as he resumed the tedious dictation:

"Dear Governor:

"Everything is prepared for the opening next Monday. I have arranged special seats for any of your friends who may desire to attend. We are ready to launch an efficient and systematic inquiry into the causes of the vice conditions in our city as well as state. Please...."

---

20

The excitedly heralded Vice Investigation which, after several thousand centuries of criminal neglect, was to take up the question of immorality, discover its causes, determine its remedies and put an end to this blot upon civilization, opened to a crowded house. The folding chairs introduced into the ball room by the corps of janitors were occupied. But they were insufficient. The corps of janitors had underestimated the extent of the public enthusiasm.

Men and women aflame with the ardor of crusade battled for place within hearing distance of the witnesses who were to recount, under careful examination, just why girls went wrong. The ball room was capable of seating a thousand. Another thousand pried their ways through the doors and stood six and seven deep against the ornamental walls. The somewhat mythical portraits of French noblemen, Cupids, Watteau ladies of leisure smiled urbanely out of the blue and white panels over their heads. The corridor outside the large room was thronged with still a third thousand pushing, prying, squeezing, and perspiring all in vain. The police had been summoned.

The press in its first pen picture of the stirring scene drew a significant distinction. Those within the ball room who had successfully stormed the doors and clawed their way into the weltering pulp of figures were identified as "a distinguished audience of society women, welfare workers, civic leaders and citizens come to lend their moral support to the great crusade."

Those who had failed in their efforts to gain entrance and who clung with patient heroism to the corridor, the lobby downstairs and even the boiling pavements outside, were dismissed scornfully as "a crowd of the morbidly curious, hungry for the sensational details promised by the investigators."

At ten o'clock the Commission itself arrived. The perspiring police opened a passage through the throng and the commission filed to its place at the table waiting at the end of the room. Newspaper photographers immediately leaped into concerted action. The boom and smoke of flashlights arose.

Delays and preliminaries followed. The room grew terrifically hot. Collars began to wilt, faces to turn red, feet to burn. But the delays continued. It was impossible to find out why there was delay. The crowd grew impatient. A racket of voices stuffed the room. Something had gone wrong ... why didn't they start ... they weren't doing anything ... what were they waiting for ... the public was grumbling.

As a matter of fact the commissioners were playing for time. A species of stage fright had overcome them. Each of them had arrived filled with a sense of high purpose and benign power. They were men upon whom the burden of lifting an age-old blot from the face of civilization had fallen. They had felt no hesitancy in the matter. They were going to tackle the situation like Americans—red-blooded Americans in whose heart burned the unfaltering light of idealism. There was going to be no shilly-shallying, no highfalutin theorizings. They were going to the bottom of this matter without fear or favor. They were going to find out just why girls went wrong and, having found this out, they were going to remove the cause, or causes if there were more than one, and thus put an end to immorality—at least in the great commonwealth of Illinois.

They were ten undaunted crusaders inspired with the unfaltering consciousness of their country's power and rectitude. In fact, it was not the Basine Commission which pushed through the throng but the Tradition of the United States, the Revered Memory of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Nathan Hale, the Army that had never been licked, the Government of the People, by the People and for the People, that was better than any other government on the face of the earth. These walked behind the policemen through the throng.

But there was a human undertone to this Tradition about to grapple with the problem of Vice. Like Basine, each of the nine had at the beginning felt a slight discomfort. Their own pasts and even presents had risen in their thought to deride them. They were, alas, not without sin themselves. The dramatic coincidence was even possible that one of the witnesses called might point to a commissioner as the author of her ruin. This, in an oblique way, disturbed them. It lay like an indigestible fear upon the stomach of incarnated Tradition. But as the patriotic fervor mounted in them, they were able somewhat to master this selfish fear. Debating the matter vaguely in the silence of their own bedrooms they had achieved an identical triumph.

Yes, they were after all only men. They had sinned, were sinning regularly in fact. But they would be fearless. They would strike out with no reserve and if Vice turned an accusing forefinger upon them, they would sacrifice themselves. The chances were, however, that this would not happen. They experienced the inner elation which comes with non-inconveniencing confession. Regardless of what they were in secret, they would be able to reveal themselves publicly as men sitting in judgment upon Vice, as executioners of Vice. In this manner their material lives became unimportant accidents. They were able within two weeks to enter the public concept of themselves. Their actual selves became, in their own eyes, inferior and irrelevant. They had achieved an idealization.

There was also another change. Once established in their own eyes as Virgins, like Basine they were soon under the hypnosis of headlines. As they walked to the hotel this morning they had entirely rid themselves of their normal individualities. They were no longer even ordinary virgins, embarked upon a vaguely scientific or social enterprise. They were, above that, the spokesmen of an aroused public, the dignified containers of the power of the People.

None of the ten with the exception of Basine had given the actual work before him any thought. They had not prepared themselves for the task by study. All of them were serenely, in fact belligerently, ignorant of the scientific thought of the world on the subject. The involved disclosures of psychologists, philosophers, economists and other specialists in race ethics were part of a childish abracadabra beneath their consideration. For they were the incarnated power of Tradition and of Public Opinion—two grave forces which needed no guilding light from such sources.

This power buoyed them and brought a stern light into their eyes. They believed in the People, and therefore in themselves as Spokesmen. Ten shrewd, wire-pulling politicians whose careers were identically darkened with chicanery and crude cynicism, they were able by the magic of faith to rise above themselves. They were able to feel the nobility of the phrases which they had so often utilized as cloaks for their private greeds and private spites. These were the phrases of Democracy which proclaimed to an awed populace that it, the populace, was Master and that its will was a holy and unassailable force for progress and piety.

As spokesmen of the people these commissioners were concerned with furthering the great idealization of themselves which the people worshipped as their god. Reason was at war with this idealization. Reason was the species of morbid and inverted vanity which inspired man to disembowel himself as proof of his stupidity. It grappled with his illusions, crawled through his soul, hamstringing his complacency. It raised insidious voices around him, wooing him. To denude himself of hope, faith and charity—in short to become intolerable to himself.

The commissioners, as spokesmen, turned their back upon it. There was a happier outlet for the energies of man than the repudiation of himself as the glory of God. There was the unreasoning struggle for idealization—the miracle by which man, seizing hold of his boot straps, hoisted himself into Heaven. This struggle, arousing the guffaws and sneers of reason, was its own reward. It was the virtue that rewarded itself.

The perspiring little scene in the hotel ball room was a startling visualization of this happier struggle. Regardless of their sins, their greeds, hypocrisies, idiocies, the people desired to see themselves as incarnations of an ideal. This ideal had been carefully elaborated. Of late it had taken on a life of its own. It had grown like a fungus feeding upon itself. Man staring at the heaven he had created was becoming awed by its magnificence and extent. More than that this heaven was threatening to escape him, to become incongruous by its very vastness. There was danger that his idealization, fattening upon a logic of its own, would become a bit too preposterous even for worship. Already this idealization proclaimed him as an apostle of virtue, as a moralist first and a biological product afterward; as believing in the credo of right over might, in the equality of blacks, whites, poor and rich; as a sort of animated sermon from the triple pen of a martyr president, martyr husband and martyr Messiah. Lost in a difficult admiration of this heaven, the people struggled in the double task of keeping the idealization of themselves from becoming too preposterous and of persuasively identifying themselves with their image.

The result of this struggle was apparent in the puritanizatron of idea becoming popular in the country. A spirit of martyrdom was prevalent. Men and women were enthusiastically martyring themselves—passing laws and formulating conventions in opposition to their appetites and desires—in an excited effort to overtake this idealization of themselves. Righteousness was becoming a panic. The Christ image of the crowd was slowly obliterating its reality. His halo was running away with man. Overcome with the necessity of keeping pace with the artificial virtues he had created as his God, he was converting himself, to the best of his talents, into an outwardly epicene, eye-rolling symbol of purity. There was this mirror alive with his own God-like image. And he must now be careful not to give the lie to the idealization of himself created partly by him and partly by the activity of logic.

The members of the Vice Investigating Commission entered the crowded room serene in the knowledge that reason was their enemy and that God—that mysterious cross between public opinion and yesterday's errors—would vouchsafe them the power and keenness to cope with the problem before them.

They were innocent of intelligence but they had faith in the principles of their country and the principles of their country were founded upon the great truth that what the people willed must come to pass. Today the people of the commonwealth of Illinois willed that vice and immorality be abolished from their midst. Therefore it must come to pass that the ten citizens lowering themselves into the seats behind the table were ten irresistible instruments animated by the strength of public opinion.

For several minutes after they had seated themselves the commissioners remained staring with dignity at the throng. A vague and pleasant delirium occupied their minds. The Vice Investigating Commission had assembled and the business of removing the blot from the face of civilization would begin at once. The commissioners sat, pompously inanimate, waiting for it to begin.

The spectacle before them, the thousands of eyes focussed upon their little group at the long table, slowly awakened an uncomfortable disillusion in the commissioners. In fact, a little panic swept their minds. They had, of course, discussed the issues, passed resolutions and laid plans for grappling with the situation. But all these efforts had been part of the curious hypnosis which had overcome them. The sense of their power hypnotized them into fancying that their star chamber babblings were in themselves thunderblots. The sweeping promises, the all-embracing statements and resolutions passed and issued for publication had filled them with an exalted sense of success. They had entered the ballroom under the naive conviction that the whole business had been already successfully consummated. They were taking their seats at the table not to launch upon a task but to receive the plaudits of the public for great work already accomplished; in fact to reap reward for the noble utterances attributed to them by the press.

But now with the pads of paper, the sharpened pencils, the businesslike cuspidors at their feet, the ominous wastepaper baskets under their hands, the commissioners faced the ghastly fact that the blot was still on the face of civilization, untouched by their thunderbolts. And some millions of people whose delegates were staring at them were waiting excitedly for it to be removed.

It occurred as if for the first time to the commissioners that something would have to be done about it. Their expressions underwent a change. A pensiveness crept into their heavy faces. A bewilderment dulled the dignity of their stares. The room was unbearably hot. It was impossible to do any work in such a crowd. One could hardly hear oneself think above the noise. The commissioners frowned and whispered among themselves. Gradually a nervous jocularity came into their manner.

"Well, here we are. All set."

"Hm, I think we'd better call some witnesses."

"That's right. Call some witnesses. Where's Judge Basine?"

"Talking over there."

"Huh, why don't he do something?"

Yes, why didn't Judge Basine take charge of his flock. It was his commission. The papers all said it was the Basine Commission. Then why didn't he start something. Instead of gabbing around with reporters.

"Good God! What a heat! Hasn't the management provided any fans?"

"Where's a bellboy? We'll send him after some fans. Think a dozen'll be enough?"

"Nothing doing. Three or four dozen at least. I'll wear out a dozen myself before this day's over, believe me."

"Say, ain't that right!"

"Oh Judge ... Judge...."

"Yes, what is it, Senator?"

"What about the witnesses? Are we going to have any witnesses?"

"Of course. I'm just getting things ready."

"That's right. There's no rush. Open that window, won't you Jim?"

"God, what a mob. Well, we'd better do something, don't you think?"

"Leave it to Basine. Got a knife, Harry? This pencil's full of bum lead."

The whisperings and delays continued. Basine, however, began to recover himself. The eager, focussed eyes of the room were slowly electrifying him. His gestures were becoming more dignified. His manner acquired a definiteness.

The eyes regarding him saw a man with sharp features and an imperious expression moving with what seemed significant deliberation, examining papers, studying papers, opening papers, extracting papers, returning papers. Instinctively they felt that here, centered in this cautiously dynamic figure, was the celebrated Vice Investigation.

Basine arose, a gavel in his hand, and pounded the table. The noises subsided as if a presence were being expelled from the room. The hush served to illumine the figure of Basine. The eyes waited. His voice arose, definite, impelling.

"Fellow Citizens, the Vice Investigating Commission appointed by the State of Illinois to determine if possible the causes of immorality and to remove, wherever possible, such causes, is now in session. The purposes of this commission need no further explanation. We are assembled here in the name of the people of this state to do all in our power to grapple with the problem of vice and its many auxiliary problems.

"This problem is today the outstanding menace to the welfare of our community. Its dangers touch us all. The immoral man and the immoral woman, the factors which contribute to their immorality, are our responsibility. This is no sentimental outburst, no vague uprising but an organized, official investigation with full powers to uncover facts. We are not here to dabble in theories, but to deal with facts. And for that purpose, and that purpose only, we are assembled under the laws of our state and the constitution of our country. The first witness called will be Mr. Arthur Core."

Applause thundered. Basine, flushed, sat down. The commissioners on each side of him breathed with relief. Something had been started. To their intense surprise Mr. Arthur Core actually arose from one of the witness chairs and came forward. Mr. Core was head of the largest department store in the city. Basine with an instinct in which he placed implicit reliance had summoned him first, thus abandoning the plans the commission had decided upon in star chamber. It had been decided upon to save up the big guns for a climax. Basine's instinct warned him as he stood on his feet talking, that a climax was necessary immediately—a gesture which would at once reveal the power and fearlessness of the commission.

Mr. Core was the medium for such a gesture. Venerated as one of the wealthiest men of the city, the head of its most widely advertized and magnificent retail establishment, to hail him before the commission and belabor him with queries would be to capture the confidence of the public forthwith.

As Mr. Core, accompanied by two lawyers and a secretary laden with ledgers, advanced toward the table a sudden misgiving struck Basine. How much would the newspapers dare print about Mr. Core, particularly if the cross examination placed him and his establishment in an unfavorable light? Mr. Core meant upwards of $3,000,000 a year in advertising revenue. Perhaps he had made a mistake in calling him. The press would turn and fly from the commission as from a plague. There would be no headlines and the public would fall away.

Basine stood up as Mr. Core approached. He was a smartly dressed man with a cream-colored handkerchief protruding against a smoothly pressed blue coat; an affable, reserved face that reminded Basine of Milton Ware and the Michigan Avenue Club. Poise, suavity, courtesy exuded from Mr. Core.

"How do you do, Judge," he said with a bow, "and Gentlemen of the Commission."

Basine extended his hand and promptly regretted the action. He had caught the emotion of the crowd. He realized that his instinct had not betrayed him.

Mr. Core was one of the most venerated citizens in the community, venerated for his power, his success and his aloofness from his venerators. The summoning of Mr. Core to take his place and be cross-examined by the Commission had sent a thrill through the crowd. They felt the elation of a pack of beagle dogs with a magnificent stag brought to earth under their little jaws.

Mr. Core was rich, powerful, brilliant. But they, the people, were greater than he. There he stood obedient to their delegated spokesman, the fearless Basine, and gratitude filled them as they noted Basine was a head taller than the great Mr. Core, and that the great Basine was not at all confused by the presence of this famed personage.

Basine as he felt the emotion of the crowd knew simultaneously that the newspapers, caught between their two vital functions—that of insuring their revenue by respectful treatment of its source, the advertising plutocracy,—and of insuring their popularity by the fearless advocacy of any current crowd hysteria, must follow the less dangerous course. And the less dangerous course now, as always, was with the beagle dogs who had brought a stag to earth.

After the handshake Basine looked severely about him. He was pleased to observe that his colleagues were non-existent. They sat coughing, sharpening pencils and gazing with vacuous aplomb at objects about them. He smiled with inward contempt. Little puppets under his hands. And the crowd before him—a smear of little puppets. Even the all-powerful newspapers, even the mighty Mr. Arthur Core—he could manipulate them because there was something in him that was not in other people. A sense of drama, perhaps. But more than that, an understanding—a vision that enabled him to see clearly over the heads of people into the future. He could tell in advance which way people were going to turn and he could hurry forward and be there waiting for them—a leader waiting for them when they caught up.

A curious question slipped into his mind. "Why am I like that?" And then another question, "Why am I able to do things?"

The questions pleased him and as he followed Mr. Core into his chair he knew that the crowd had noticed that Judge Basine was a man unimpressed by the greatness of Mr. Core, that the eyes focussed on him had thrilled with the knowledge that he, Basine, was dressed as well as Mr. Core and that his own dignity and sternness were more impressive than the poise of Mr. Core. The great Mr. Core was second fiddle in the show. Basine was first fiddle and the crowd was thrilled by that. Because Basine was their man, their leader. And Mr. Core, venerated to this moment, was now their enemy. Basine was a man in whom the dignity of the people shone out more powerfully than the prestige of any enviable individual. These things whirled through Basine's thought as he turned to the witness.

"Mr. Stenographer," he announced, "you will please make accurate transcription of all questions and answers that follow."

A naive pride filled the attentive commissioners. The Investigation was after all a success. Regardless of what happened the mere fact that Arthur Core was to be interrogated on the subject of immorality among working girls, constituted an overwhelming success. The conviction which now delighted them was shared by the thousands in the room and by the newspaper men scribbling at an adjoining table. All present felt certain that so dramatic a situation as the cross-examination of Mr. Arthur Core by the chairman of the Vice Investigating Commission was bound to result somehow in the instant removal of the blot from the face of civilization. Basine, clearing his throat, began the questioning.

"Your name?"

"Arthur Core."

"Your position?"

"President of Core-Plain and Company."

"That is the retail merchandise establishment in this city?"

"It is."

A full five minutes was consumed in the exchange of profound introductions. This concluded, Mr. Core was informed what the purposes of the Vice Investigation Commission were. The information failed to impress him. Whereupon he was informed that he, as an employer of thousands of girls, had been called to throw light on a vital question. First, what wages did his employes' receive. Mr. Core, raising his eyebrows and looking aggrieved as if he had been asked a very crude and tactless question, replied that the average wage was $10 a week for the young women in his employ.

Did he think a young woman could keep virtuous on $10 a week? Alas, he had never given that phase of the economic system any thought. But if his opinion as an individual was worth anything, he would offer the philosophical observation that wages had nothing to do with immorality.

A cynical observation. The crowd frowned. It didn't, eh? Lot he knew about it. And on what did he base this cold-blooded point of view? Well, on nothing in particular except his common sense. Indeed! His common sense! Well, well. So he thought that a normal young woman could live on $10 a week, feed, clothe and house herself on $10 a week and never feel tempted to earn more money by sacrificing her virtue? Alas, he had not thought of it in that way. He had merely thought that good young women were good and bad young women were bad. And wages had nothing to do with it. It was human nature. What! Human nature to be bad! Mr. Arthur Core was inclined to a cynicism which, fortunately, the great minds of the nation did not share. Had he ever sought to determine how many good girls there were in his employ? No, but he presumed they were all good. If they weren't he was sorry for them, but it was their own fault.

Thus the see-saw continued while the room grew hotter, while people packed against each other listened with distended eyes and opened mouths. Thus the commissioners, recovering from their panic, began to frown with importances. And Basine, still following the instinct in him—the sense of contact he felt with the crowd and situation, played another trump card. The afternoon newspapers were blazoning the news of Mr. Arthur Core. The morning papers would need an equally dramatic morsel. Basine adjourned the session to reconvene at 3 o'clock. The crowd remained. The heat increased. The session reconvened. It was businesslike now. It was running like a machine. No more delays and indecisions.

"Call Miss Winona Johnson."

Basine sat amid heaps of documents, ledgers and commissioners, in charge. It was he who asked the questions, whose face was the battle-front of the People versus Vice.

Your name? Winona Johnson. Your occupation? A pause. And then in a lowered voice, a prostitute. What was that?—from Mr. Stenographer. A prostitute, from Basine clearly and indignantly. Sensation. She was a prostitute, this yellow-haired, gaudy creature in the witness chair. She had her nerve. How long have you been a prostitute, Winona Johnson? Well, two years, I guess. She guessed. As if she didn't know. And before that what were you? She was a clerk. Where were you employed as a clerk, Winona? Where? Oh, I worked for Core-Plain and Company. There it was—the sort of thing that made climaxes. A new lead for the morning papers—a new thrill for the tired breakfasters. "Tells Tragic Story of Moral Downfall." And then in smaller headlines, "Former State Street Clerk Uncovers Snares, Pitfalls of City." And then photographs; comparisons between Mr. Core's statements and Miss Johnson's statements. Mr. Core's picture and Miss Johnson's picture side by side so that one might almost think, unless one read carefully (and who did that?) that the venerated Mr. Arthur Core had been exposed by the all powerful Basine Commission as the seducer of the pathetic Miss Winona Johnson.

Through the weltering afternoon the great investigation progressed, Basine, unaided, carrying the fight. A Champion, an Undaunted One, his voice growing hoarse, his eyes flashing tirelessly, his questions never failing; incisive, compelling questions that seemed for all the world as if they were slowly, tenaciously coming to grips with the Devil.

A great day for the commonwealth of Illinois. A day surfeited with climaxes. Winona Johnson wept and the courteous voice of Basine pressed for facts. Here was a mine of facts, here a witness who could reveal something.... And she did....

That will be all, thank you, from Basine. Winona arose. Eyes devoured her. A terrible curiosity played over her face and body. Civilization had been stunned. Everyone knew, of course, that prostitutes sold themselves to men. But to so many!!! Horrible! A revelation to make thinking men think, thinking women, too.

If there had been any doubt in the public mind concerning the sincerity of the Commission, this day had removed it. Two welfare workers and a second department store owner concluded the bill. The newspapers spread the questions and answers through the city. A determined light came into the eyes of the millions who read. The commonwealth was at grips with evil. Facts had been exhumed in a single session that were intolerable to a civilized community. A hue and cry would be raised. Things would be done. The millions reading felt this. Something would have to be done. Resolutions would be passed. Thunderbolts would be hurled by civic bodies, lodges, clubs. The thing called for action, action and more action. But wait and see what the morning papers would have to say. There would be remedies in the morning papers. Things would be done overnight by the morning papers to put an end to this iniquity—prostitution!!!! And there could be no question but that underpaid workers were driven to lives of shame. And the dance halls, they hadn't gotten around to them yet. And factories and hotels—wait till it came their turn. They would all be grilled, quizzed, flayed.

Basine made his way slowly through the throng. Tomorrow's session would begin at eleven o'clock. He was tired. The work had exhausted him. But his head felt clear. Without raising his eyes he understood the admiration of the crowds through which he was moving. They were repeating his name among themselves saying, there he goes ... that's him.... He had understood things in this manner all day, without giving them words.

He felt at peace. He had gone through a test. Now he knew he was a leader. The thing of which he had been afraid had turned out to be easy. He smiled, remembering his colleagues. Simple, blundering men who had floundered around trying to horn in. But this wasn't the private banks crusade, not by a long shot. Ah, that was playing a long shot—calling Core like that. But it had worked. Newsies were yelling around him. Extra—all about! About Basine, of course. About him. Yes, there was leadership in him. He was a man who could sweep people along with him.

The crowds were going home. All these people belonged to him. Constituents. He smiled pleasantly at the hurrying figures. It was hot and they were perspiring. Their eyes were filmed with preoccupations. But what would happen if they were told suddenly that Judge Basine was passing them, rubbing shoulders with them? Their eyes would brighten. They would forget about the things that were worrying them. They would look up and smile. Perhaps cheer.

Day dreams lifted his thought out of the present. This thing was only a beginning. He would go on. There was a kinship in him with people. The memory of the day lay like a love in his heart. He was still young. Years ahead of him and he would end—where? High up.

He looked around and noticed he was walking toward Doris' studio. Odd, he hadn't been aware where he was going. But he might as well. He frowned. She would ridicule what had happened. Well, that was all right. Her hatred of such things couldn't wipe out what was in his heart now. He became practical. Think of tomorrow's session. But why? The details were annoying. He had had enough details for one day. He would take care of things when the proper time came. This was a sort of reward, to walk and dream. As for the blot on the face of civilization, yes that would all be taken care of at the proper time. But the important thing, the most important thing was Basine—high up.

---

21

Schroder looked at his watch. Late, perhaps she wouldn't come. Intellectual women were always the most uncertain. It was twilight. Summer bloomed incongruously in the small city park.

"She probably didn't mean it, anyway," he thought.

Ruth appeared walking calmly down the broad pavement. He watched her. She had come, but the business was still uncertain. Amorous affairs were one thing. Seduction was another. He liked her, of course. But what if she had notions about things? Love, fidelity, virtue, marriage, decency. Oh well, he could always step away and say good-bye, I'm sorry.

"Hello," he said aloud. "You're late."

"I wasn't coming."

"I didn't think so, either."

She was one of the kind who made a pretense of frankness. If you let her she would talk about sex till the cows came home, as if it were a problem in algebra. He knew the kind. Full of theories....

"Where shall we go, Paul?"

"Let's sit here a while. How's his Honor."

"I don't know. I resigned last week."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, after the Commission adjourned for the summer."

The memory of the commission made him smile.

"Goofy," he said.

She nodded. "But Judge Basine is made, don't you think?"

He took her hand.

"So you left him," he smiled. They sat in silence. He would wait for her to take the lead. She began talking as the park grew darker.

"I didn't intend coming," she said, "because I ... I know what you want."

Her voice quivered and her fingers tightened over his hand.

"But I came to tell you ... I can't. I'm not being foolish or anything. But—it isn't worth it."

He looked at her and wondered. The invitation was clear. He must begin pleading now and making love. He hesitated because she had started crying. Tears were on her cheeks.

She was remembering Basine.

"Don't," he whispered. "I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that. We've talked, of course. But that was just talk. Ruth, I love you."

"But love doesn't mean anything to you," she answered.

And the answer to that was marriage. He hesitated. Tears always stirred him. Now it was dark. He placed an arm around her. The stiffening of her body decided him.

"We'll get married," he said.

The assurance did not delight her. Marriage was something foreign. But she stood up when he asked her to and followed him. She walked along thinking of herself as if there were two Ruths. One was walking with a man—where? The other was thinking about things. But there was little to think about. If it had been Basine instead of this other, it would have been nicer. Basine was someone she knew. Paul was a stranger. But Basine had played with her. He had said nothing when she went away. Merely looked at her and nodded. His success had gone to his head. He didn't want her, even to flirt with anymore. He was too busy....

She put her arms around the stranger and wept.

It was minor tragedy. There was nothing to weep about. Nobody cared what happened to her. If there had been somebody who cared she would never have met him.

Schroder watched her and sighed.

"If you don't love me," he said.

"It's not that," she answered. She was forgetting about her tears. Her close presence to him was slowly preoccupying her. He loved her. And they would be married. It didn't matter much. But the idea made it a little easier. She kissed him, timidly at first. And then with passion.

Schroder grimaced inwardly. It was dark and she couldn't see his eyes. They were worried. He had been in love for a few minutes in the park. He would have liked to remain in love. He sat before the window thinking, Why did women insist on climaxes. Their arguments made it necessary for men to plead. The culmination was a sort of logical gesture.

He walked toward her. He would take her hand and make love. He felt sad and making love out of sadness was always an interesting diversion.

"Ruth," he whispered, "do you love me?"

She answered by embracing him.

"Always the same," he murmured to himself, "it's no use."

---

22

The children were asleep and Henrietta was reading. Basine in his slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him. He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows.

He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder.

The information had cured him. He had been despising himself for letting her go. Now he was able to pretend that he had been forced by her virtue to relinquish her. It would have been a dastardly thing to do—ruin her and prevent her from marrying and living a decent life. Her marrying vindicated his own virtue. He was able to think that he had done the right thing. Not only that, but he had done the only thing possible. She had fled from him because he was a married man. Then, too, she probably didn't love Schroder. Not as she had loved him. She was marrying him broken-heartedly. He sometimes played with this notion. It pleased him. His sadness at the thought of her in another man's arms was mitigated by the two-fold thought that her heart was broken and that she was in reality embracing marriage and not a man.

He no longer desired her. He was too busy for one thing. Still, things were different. She had been an inspiration. Now he went on with his plans and his climb without feeling the excitement that had filled him during their year together. There was no one in front of whom to pose. This made posing a rather thankless business. And he became practical in his thoughts, less dramatic in his lies.

Henrietta had put aside her paper and was looking at him.

"Are you tired?" she asked.

He shook his head. He began to think about her. What did she do all day? Since Ruth had left, his desire to leave his wife had vanished. He paused, confused. She was weeping.

"What's the matter?" he asked. She lowered her head.

"Nothing," she said.

A vivid memory hurt him. He remembered kissing her for a first time in his mother's kitchen years ago. It seemed now that she had been alive and beautiful that evening. That was gone.

"Has anything happened," he asked softly.

Her head shook. He came to her side and looked at her. He felt helpless. What was there to make her cry?

"I don't know, George," she said as if answering his silent question. "Please forgive me. I just started to cry for nothing."

"Worried about something?" he pressed. He felt guilty. She was crying because of the things he had done. But what had he done? Nothing wrong. He had put the wrong things out of his life. And for her sake. Why should she weep about that, then? He was the one to weep. And she had her children. Her father was alive. He remained silent, recounting what he tried to consider anti-weeping reasons.

"Nothing, George," she answered. "I'm ... I'm just getting old."

He frowned and turned away.

Later when they lay in bed he took her in his arms. She had apparently forgotten about her tears and their curious explanation. But he began to talk to her.

"Old," he whispered, "you're not getting old. Don't be silly. At least no more than I am. I'm older than you."

He held her close to him and his mind embraced a memory. This was not his wife he held, but someone else. A vivacious, happy girl ten years ago. No, more than that. Almost fourteen years ago. He lay remembering another Henrietta—a charming, delightful child. He had never been in love with her. This he knew. But the knowledge had slowly died. When he embraced her at night a dream obscured his memory. The dream was that he had once loved her, that she had once been beautiful, that his heart had once sung with desire for her.

He played with this dream. It was a make-believe that saddened him. Yet it made the moment more tolerable. Sometimes it even brought a curious happiness. His dream would pretend that the scrawny figure he was holding had once filled him with ecstasies. His dream would whisper to him that he had once idolized her and that once ... once. He would lie editing his sterile memories of her into glowing once-upon-a-times. And when his kisses sought her cold lips it would be to this dream-Henrietta they gave themselves, a Henrietta who had never been. It was sad to pretend in this way that his great love had died and that his beautiful one had faded. But it was not as sad as to remember when he kissed her that there had never been anything.

He felt tired when he left the house the next morning. The business of preening for the senatorial race annoyed him. The goal lured but the details to be managed were aggravating.

He started as he opened the door of his chambers. Ruth! He stood looking at her without words. She was pale and there was something curious about her. She didn't look the same.

"You look surprised," she smiled. He noticed how spiritless she was. "But ... you don't mind my coming here, do you. I've been trying to get you."

She turned her eyes away. He had finally discovered the change, a physical one.

"Well," he exclaimed, "I hadn't heard the good news. How's Paul."

So she was married. And had kept it secret. He smiled. He remembered other scenes in the room. The doors locked. Her arms around him. All that was over now. Before her motherhood, even the memory of it seemed less certain.

"There is no good news," she was saying. "I've come to see if you can help me."

They sat down. Basine nodded. Money. Poor girl. Schroder was always an ass about things.

"He's gone away," she went on. "And ... and I'd like to locate him."

"Who?"

"Paul."

She covered her face. So he had deserted her. And she had come back to him. A momentary excitement entered his thought. But he frowned immediately. It was distasteful to think of what might have been if ... not for this.

An amazement came into his eyes. He stared at her as she talked. She had been ruined by Schroder and he had never married her. And when she had refused medical interference he had calmly left the city. He listened blankly and could think of nothing to say.

"Oh George, you must help me."

Help her! He must help her! After she had lived with this man for months, giving herself to him! He stood up and walked down the room. It was like he used to do, pace up and down in front of her.

He wanted to talk but he found it hard. A rage was coming into his mind that obscured his words. The rage continued. Pausing in the center of the room Basine began to swear. His voice had grown high pitched.

"Damn!" he shouted at her, "and you come to me. Me! You bring your filthy sins to me! Damn his dirty soul! Yes, you're fine, you are! Leaving me to go with that chippy-chaser. I thought ... I thought you were somebody."

He stopped, his fist in the air. She was walking away.

"Ruth," he called after her, "listen, wait a minute."

The door closed after her. Basine stood watching the door. She would open it and come back. But the door remained shut. He seated himself at his desk. Moments passed and he was surprised to wake up and hear himself mumbling. "The dirty skunk! I'll wring his neck!"

She had given herself to Schroder! Not married him.... The part he had played in her ruin forced itself with a nauseating insistency into Basine's mind. His memories seized him. He struggled, but the things he knew leaped out of hiding-places and assaulted him. She had loved him. And he had loved her. Life had seemed marvelous with her close to him. His career, his day, its simplest detail, had been colored with delicious excitement. But he had been afraid to reach out and take what he wanted. It would have meant success, happiness and something else—the word beauty withheld itself—it would have meant these things. But he had feared possession. He had let her go away after kissing her and telling her that he loved her. So she had gone walking in the street and fallen into the arms of the first man she met. It was plain.

Basine writhed under triumphant accusations. A torment filled him. He must escape from the accusations He pried himself away from his thoughts and took his place on the bench. Other people's troubles again. Disputes, wrangles, testimonies—his ears listened mechanically. Lawyers were pleading with him. Witnesses were stammering. He sat with a scowl and hunched forward in his chair. His lean face thrust itself at the courtroom.

Thoughts too intolerable for his attention whirled sickeningly in a background. Pictures of Ruth in the man's arms, of her surrender, of the intimacies of their illicit affair forced themselves upon him. He loved her. "Oh, damn him," sang itself darkly through his heart.

There was one mocking intruder that raised a vociferous head. "You might have had her. Not he. She might have been yours if you hadn't been afraid." It was this that nauseated most. Not Schroder's villainy, but his own cowardice. He had lost through cowardice.

The day dragged itself along. He had recovered in part the rage which protected him from the intolerable memories. When he left the courtroom it was with a viciousness in his step. His feet stamped down as he walked, as if they were attacking the pavements. He entered a saloon several blocks from the City Hall.

The place was almost deserted. A few businesslike looking men were grouped before the long bar. They were laughing. Basine passed them and a voice called his name. He turned and saw a familiar face in one of the small booths against the wall. It was Levine, the newspaperman.

"Hello, Judge. Come on over and sit down."

Basine narrowed his eyes. The man was partially drunk. His drawn face, usually pale, was flushed and his sneering black eyes were bloodshot. He sat down opposite Levine with a greeting. A waiter brought drinks.

"What's up, Judge, you seem rather low," Levine laughed quietly. "The world been falling on your nose? Ha, have another. Here, waiter...."

They sat drinking, the newspaperman lost in a mysterious excitement that gathered in his voice. The excitement soothed Basine. The drinks brought a haze into his mind. He became aware that the man was talking about his sister. He was leaning forward, a black forelock over his bloodshot eye, his arm thrown out on the table, and talking in a languorous voice about Doris.

"Drowning my troubles, judge," he was saying. "It's easier to drink yourself into forgetfulness than to lie yourself into forgetfulness, eh? And besides you grow sick of lying, eh. Nobody lies more than me, and I know, I know. But it ain't my fault—she's gone mad about him. You know him—Lindstrum, the poet. Been mad about him for years. And it gets worse ... that's all that's the matter with her. He ran away years ago and she's gotten a phobia about people. Because he's the people's poet. Ha, she's told me about you, George. Got an idea of making this man Lindstrum sick by showing him how rotten people are. And using you. See? But where do I come in? Nowhere ... nowhere. Just gabbing for years and I don't come in nowhere.... Get me? This damn newspaper drool has eaten into me.... She's the only one I wanted. But I don't come in, see? She's mad ... gone mad...."

Basine's thought avoided the man's words. He sat with a blissful vacuity. They drank till it grew night. Basine, as if recalling himself, walked out. The newspaperman lay across the table, his head asleep on his arm.

The night was cool. A curious impulse to let go came to Basine. He would go somewhere and find women and noise. He walked along thinking about this. When he had walked for an hour the impulse was gone. The haze was slipping from him. He recalled things Levine had said. Something about Lindstrum, the poet. His mind played with Lindstrum. He had seen him—where? Oh yes, long ago. That was before he'd become famous. Now he was a great poet. Hell with everything.... Get the senatorship and let things slide.

He walked along toward his home. Henrietta would be asleep. He sighed. The night was cool. Everything all right in the morning. Now, everything all wrong. But in the morning—

His stride quickened. He felt half asleep and as he moved over the deserted pavement he began mumbling, "I love you, George, I love you...."

---

23

Doris was ill. The doctor had telephoned her mother and Mrs. Basine was sitting beside the bed holding Doris' hand. A man she remembered vaguely was standing in a corner of the room smoking. It was the poet, Lindstrum, who was once a friend of Doris. He had been there when she arrived, standing by the window and smoking while the doctor was fixing an ice pack on Doris' head.

The doctor had been unable to make a diagnosis. She had a fever but they would have to wait for more definite symptoms.

As the twilight filled the studio, Mrs. Basine grew frightened. She thought at moments Doris was dead, she lay so still. She watched the half-closed eyes anxiously. Perhaps Doris would die. And George was in Washington. She had telegraphed but he couldn't arrive till the next day. She sat wondering about her daughter. She remembered her as a child, then as a girl.

"Changes, changes," she sighed. Changes that excited one, but all they did was bring one nearer to this. She was thinking of death.

"How do you feel now, Doris?"

No answer. The burning eyes continued to stare, the hand she held remained limp and dry in her fingers. Perhaps it was nothing serious. Merely a fever. She sat nodding her head at her thoughts. She thought of how her children had grown up and gone away. Fanny, George, Doris, Aubrey, Henrietta, Mrs. Gilchrist, Judge Smith and the grandchildren. These were the names of her family. They were part of her. Yet while the rest of the world grew more and more familiar they grew more and more strange.

"Does it pain you anywhere, Doris?"

No answer. Poor little Doris. She stroked her face. Life had used her differently. She felt this. She knew nothing of what Doris had done or dreamed, but the staring eyes frightened her and she understood.

George frequently called her queer. Yet George was, in a way, proud of her. He used to seek Doris out. And many people had talked of her as a very unusual young woman. But life had used her curiously, not like other girls. Perhaps it was a man. She turned toward the figure in the corner. He was standing holding a pipe to his mouth. What if it was a man? Scandal. Mrs. Basine sighed. What was scandal? It was only a way of looking at facts. She would take her home with her. Poor little Doris living alone in this place and sitting here night after night dreaming of things. That was sad.

"Listen dear, do you want something?"

No answer. The doctor said he would be back after dinner and bring a nurse. She would ask him if Doris could be moved and then take her home. It was growing darker in the room. Someone was knocking. She opened the door. It was another man. He came in and then paused.

"Is Doris ill?" he asked.

Mrs. Basine nodded.

"I am her mother," she said.

Levine looked at her and introduced himself.

"You know Mr. Lindstrum," she added. Levine stared at the poet in the shadows and said, "Yes, I know him."

"How do you do," said Lindstrum slowly.

Doris reached her hand up as Levine approached the bed. He took it and she whispered, "Don't go away." She tried to rise.

"You mustn't dear," her mother cautioned.

"Oh yes," Doris voice appeared to be growing stronger. "I want to sit up. Help me, Max." He arranged the pillows. The ice-pack fell from her head. She smiled.

"You haven't eaten anything, mother," she added. "Please, there's a restaurant around the corner."

Mrs. Basine stood up. It might be better to go away for a while. Despite her daughter's momentary recovery her fears had increased. She felt something curious about Doris. But perhaps it was just the fever. She left the room with a final glance at the flushed face. Doris had always been strange, but there was something disturbing about her now. Her daughter's eyes watching her opening the door, chilled her heart suddenly. She held herself from rushing to her side and taking her in her arms. She didn't know why, but she was certain there was something strange about Doris. She walked into the hall. Yes, she was certain something terrible was going to happen.

When the door closed Doris sat against the pillows, her white face turned toward Lindstrum in the shadows.

"Did you hear we were going to war, Lief?" she asked. Behind his pipe in the shadows the grey faced figure of Lindstrum nodded.

"George is a Senator," she added. "He's going to declare war, Lief. You remember my brother George."

"Doris, you mustn't," Levine whispered. "Lie back, please."

She covered her face and her body shuddered.

"The filthy ones are going to war. Come closer, Lief. I want to see you."

Lindstrum approached the bed. Doris turned to Levine.

"The pack is going to war. Did you see their eyes shining in the street, and their mouths gloating? A new terror, eh?"

She threw her hands into her hair and her eyes centered suddenly on Lindstrum. He was standing over her. Doris began to laugh and to climb out of bed. She stood up barefooted in her night gown, her black hair down and pointed out of the window.

"Don't." Levine took her hand. "You'll catch cold."

Her eyes were lustrous. Lindstrum caught her in his arms. She had leaned toward him as if she were falling. Her body was vividly hot. He held her and she began to laugh.

"Better lie down," he whispered.

The laugh grew louder. Her hand with its fingers extended and pointing, wavered toward the window. She tried to talk but the laughter in her throat prevented. She hung loosely in his arms, laughing and waving her hands.

"The window," she gasped, "look out and see!"

"We had better get her into bed," Levine whispered. Lindstrum nodded. But Doris pulled herself from his hold. She stumbled and fell to her knees before the window. The room was dark and the street lights threw a faint glare over her face. She knelt with her hands to her neck and her eyes swinging.

"Look out!" cried Levine. Doris screamed.

"The beast ... the beast!"

She had thrown herself forward with the shriek but Lindstrum's hands had caught her. The window glass broke.

The two men carried her into the bed. Her head fell back on the pillow. She lay with her eyes open. Lindstrum sat leaning over her.

"Doris," he whispered. Her eyes regarded him without recognition.

"It's happened," muttered Levine. Lindstrum's hand passed over her forehead and slipped down the loose hair.

"The fever's gone," he said softly. "Yes," he repeated, "the fever's gone now."

Mrs. Basine returned. Doris, her eyes open, was lying as if dead. Her mother rushed to the bed crying her name. She was breathing. The fever was gone. Her body was almost cool.

"She was out of her head for a while," Lindstrum whispered.

"Talk to me please, dearest."

Doris sighed and looked around. They made no move as she sat up.

She left the bed and returned from a closet with a wrap over her nightgown. They watched her until her eyes turned toward them—expressionless, dead eyes. Mrs. Basine clasped her hands together and trembled.

"We must call the doctor at once," she whispered. She went to the telephone. Doris sat down in a chair near the window. Her head sank and she gazed out. The expressionless eyes grew clouded. Tears were coming out. She sat weeping without sound while her mother telephoned.

"Something has happened to Doris," Mrs. Basine whispered into the telephone, "please hurry, something has happened to her...."

"Good-bye, Doris," Lindstrum spoke.

The white face of the girl remained without movement. She was staring out the window, a lifeless figure, weeping. He approached her and watched her tears.

Outside, he walked with his head down, through the streets.

"She knew it was going to happen," he murmured to himself, "and she wanted to see me again before it did." His heart felt heavy. Doris with her dead eyes weeping. Ah, a long sigh. Hard to remember things that had been.

"Knock 'em over," he whispered aloud. "Make something ... make something." Deep inside him were hands that pantomimed despair. People in the streets. War was coming to them. "Huh," he said slowly, "they tore her heart out." Everybody knew him. Everybody knew the name Lindstrum. It was the name of a great poet. When he was dead Lindstrum would stay alive. "Huh," he whispered, "I don't know.... Sing to them. Yes...."

His teeth bit into the pipe stem. Tears came from his eyes. He walked along in the night snarling with his lips parted, and weeping.

---

24

The war was a noisy guest. People shook hands with it. It sat down in their little rooms. It's voice was a brass band that drowned their troubles. Basine found a curious friend in the war.

Changes had come to him in the days that followed the scene with Ruth. He grew cold. His heart was indifferent. His victory in the election had sent him to bed without joy.

There was no longer an inner Basine and an outer Basine. He had fought his way into the current of events and he was content to let them move him. They made him Senator. They moved him to Washington, provided new scenes for him, new faces. He heard of his sister's collapse without sorrow. She had become crazy. To be expected, of course, to be expected, he said to himself one evening as he sat writing a letter of sympathy to his mother.

The thing that had happened to Basine had been the result of a confusion. He found himself at forty robbed of life. Despair, hatred, disgust—these things were left. He turned his back on them. They were a company of emotions too difficult to play with. It was no longer possible to lie. Ruth, Schroder, Henrietta, love, hope, intrigue grew mixed up. He emerged from himself and walked away from himself like an aggrieved and dignified guest.

He sometimes remembered himself—a distant Basine. A keen-faced one with the feel of leadership in his heart. A mind that was alive behind its words. He had done and thought many things. But now he had gone away. He was silent. The day was no longer a challenge. The change carried its reward. It seemed to bring him closer to people. At least he found a certain charm in talking and listening that had not existed before.

He gave himself no thought. He was successful and that was enough. At times he sat in his new quarters in Washington reading stray items in the newspapers and reciting to himself his achievements. He found pleasing identification in the honors he had achieved.

His political friends talked among themselves. They recalled that Basine had once been a man of promise, a man alive with energies. And now he was like the others in the party—an amiable fuddy-duddy. They recalled the sensational figure he had made a few years ago in the Vice Investigation. This seemed to have been the climax of Basine.

But the war arrived and the new Senator began to emerge. The country became filled with mediocrities struggling to utilize the war as a pedestal. The call had gone out for heroes and the elocutionists rushed forward.

The psychology of the day, however, was a bit too involved for these aspirants. The body politic of the nation found itself betrayed by its own platitudes. A moral frenzy began to animate the horizon. But it was the frenzy of an idea that had escaped control; an idea grown too huge and luminous to direct any longer. The idealization of itself before which the crowd had worshipped became now a Frankenstein. The virtues of America had gone to war. And the nation looked on, aghast and uncomprehending. The flattering and grandiose image of itself that the bête populaire had been creating in its law books, text books, and hymnals had suddenly stepped from its complicated mirror and was marching like a Mad Hatter to the front. A swarm of guides and interpreters had leaped to its side. They danced around it chanting its nobilities, proclaiming its grandeur. The spirit of Democracy, the Rights of Man, the One and Only God—the Golden Rule, the Thou Shalt Nots, the Seven Virtues, the Mann Act, the Hatred for All Variants of Evil,—the mythical incarnation of these and kindred illusions—the Idealization—was off for the front.

The confusion arose when the nation found itself attached as if by some gruesome umbilical cord to this crazed Idealization, off with a Tin Sword on its shoulder. And it must follow this Virtue-snorting monster. It must lie down in trenches in behalf of a Fairy Tale with which it had been shrewdly deceiving itself for a century.

But while the elocutionists fumbling for pedestals were exhorting the nation to hoist itself by its boot-straps, to become overnight a belligerent hierarchy around its God, there were others whose spirit raised an authentic battle shout. One of these was Basine.

He appeared to return to himself. The Basine he had walked away from raised itself amid the disgusts and hatreds in which it had lain abandoned. A rage gathered in his voice. Eloquence and flashing eyes were his. The amiable fuddy-duddy playing little politics in Washington became a gentleman of war.

The horizon bristled with gentlemen of war. But the terrified crowd casting about for leaders, as the draft shovelled it toward the trenches, eyed them with suspicion. There must be authentic gentlemen of war—men above suspicion. Men maddened with a desire to fight and destroy were wanted. Basine was one of these. His tirades against the enemy left nothing in doubt. They were not concerned with idealisms. The enemy must be destroyed, he began to cry, or else it would destroy civilization.

Huns, he cried, vandals and scoundrels. Gorillas, demons, soulless monsters. His phrases drew frightful caricatures of the enemy. His orations were among the few that stirred terror. The Germans were not enemies of an ideal—not a rabble of Nietzsches at theological grips with a rabble of Christs. They were Huns, said Basine, barbarians, fiends, hacking children to pieces, pillaging, raping, destroying.

This was a language the nation understood. It contained in it the inspiration to heroism and sacrifice. Out of it arose the grisly cartoon which awakened fear. Terrified by the possibilities of Hun domination and massacres, the crowd patriotically bared its bosom to the lesser horror—war. It marched forth behind its idiot Idealization not to defend that absurdity but to save itself from the clutches of massacring savages.

The energies which came to life abruptly in Basine focused into a strange passion against the Germans. He was vicious, intolerant, unscrupulous in his denunciations. This established him instantly as a leader.

The crowd, casting about for leaders, seized upon men more terrified than themselves. And upon these abject ones who raved and howled from the pulpit, stage and press, they heaped rewards and canonizations.

There was one phase of Basine's hatred that offered a curious explanation. From the beginning he devoted himself to describing the hideous immorality of the Huns. He loaned himself passionately to all rumors celebrating the wholesale rape of women committed by the invaders of Belgium. Deportations, well-poisonings, child-murders figured extensively in his eloquence. But gradually he appeared to concentrate upon what he called the ultimate horror—"fair Europe overrun by this horde of seducers and immoral blackguards." Schroder was a German.

The war rehabilitated Basine. It enabled him to destroy Schroder. The complicated underworld of hate, disgust, disillusion which his ludicrous renunciation of Ruth and her subsequent betrayal by Schroder had created in him, was the arsenal from which he armed himself for war.

He had lapsed into a sterile and amiable Basine in order to escape from emotions become too intolerable and too dangerous to utilize. The murder of Schroder would not have restored him. The return of the woman he still loved would have been equally futile. Life had become too intolerable for Basine to face and adjust. He had permitted himself convenient burial.

On the night he had gotten drunk with the newspaperman, Basine saw himself as he was—a creature misshapen and humorous—and he had buried the vision and fled from it. To sit contemplating an inner self become a grotesque cripple was intolerable. He sought for a brief space to transfer his self-loathing to Schroder but Schroder, the man, was too small to contain it. Schroder, the war, however, was another matter.

Basine unlocked himself, exhumed himself, and came forth with a yell in his throat. The German army was five million Schroders. He hurled himself at them. He was happy in his rage. A sincerity hypnotized him.

The Germans were not only five million Schroders. They were also the incarnated nauseas and despairs of Basine. Schroder, the man, had become for him, illogically but soothingly, the cause of everything that had become misshapen and humorous inside him. Schroder, the man, was the sand in which Basine, the ostrich, buried his head. Now Schroder, the Germans, Schroder, the World War, Schroder, the rape of Belgium, the devastation of France, offered a more hospitable grave for the misshapen and humorous image of himself. To destroy the Germans became for Basine synonymous with destroying the things inside himself from which he had fled helplessly. The destruction of these things consisted of giving them outlet, of giving them voice. His hatreds, despairs and disillusions arose and spat themselves upon the Germans. The process cleansed and invigorated him and launched him before the public as a leader to be trusted, a hero to venerate during its dark hour.

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25

The company assembled in his mother's home greeted Basine with excitement. He had stopped over during a tour in behalf of the Liberty Loan. Mrs. Basine had persuaded him to attend a function in his honor. He was late. They were waiting dinner for him.

When he entered, a sense of great affairs, of world disturbances came into the room with him. At the table the talk centered around him. He was the superior patriot. Questions were fired at him—when would the war end, what was the real secret of this and that and did he know what was behind the latest note from the President, and when was the German offensive due? He answered ambiguously, offering no information and exciting his audience by his reticence.

Aubrey Gilchrist, who had held the floor before the Senator's arrival, listened eagerly to his brother-in-law. Aubrey's patriotism was a bond between them. But it was of a different quality. Aubrey's patriotism was founded on the fact that America was the most virtuous nation in the world. He devoted himself to a campaign among his friends and had even spoken publicly a number of times. In his talk he grew eloquent over the moral grandeur of his country and hailed the altruism and honesty of his countrymen as a light that illumined the world.

Aubrey had overcome his impulse to publish his father's manuscript under his own name. His fears had finally triumphed. He had utilized his decision in a curious way. For months after determining not to commit the imposture he had discussed the decision among his friends.

"I worked a number of years on it," he explained simply, "but on reading it over I feel that it's not the thing to be given the public. It's a bit too Rabelaisian and unrestrained. Among gentlemen, yes. But when one thinks of young men and women reading such things one hesitates. I feel too that I can do better. Perhaps in another year or so I'll finish something more worthy."

This explanation had given him a pleasurable emotion. It had coincided with the inner Aubrey—the Isaiah who thundered in secret. He had gone about elated with the knowledge of his honesty—not only the honesty of refraining from the imposture but the honesty of sparing the public a work likely to undermine its morals. With the advent of the war Aubrey's elation had expanded miraculously. The nation became a collection of Aubrey Gilchrists. He found an outlet for his self admiration in boasting tirelessly of the virtues of his countrymen. His interest in the Germans was faint. He was chiefly concerned with having the moral grandeur of his nation recognized and triumphant.

Seated opposite him was Fanny. She smiled when he looked at her. The war had brought Fanny happiness. It had released her from the tormenting of Ramsey. She turned occasionally toward Ramsey a few seats removed at the table and spoke to him. He had changed. He sat flushed and elated and took his turn at denouncing the enemy, at avowing vengeance and prophesying terrible victories over the Hun. His anger rivalled Basine's. The curious game he had played with Fanny had lost its interest. He had emerged like Basine. Fanny was no longer necessary to his desire for a sense of power—a power which convinced him of his manliness and concealed from him the secret of his inferiority. He had transferred his game from Fanny to the Germans. He was now tormenting the Germans. The news of their defeats, the hope of their annihilation inflated him. In addition, his belligerent air, his gory threats enabled him to establish himself in his eyes and in the eyes of others as a thorough man.

There were others in the company—Judge Smith, red-faced and glowering; Aubrey's mother engaged in excommunicating the Germans as socially unfit and outside the pale of her sympathy or support; a number of prominent social and political lights. They discussed the war with animation, fired questions at the senator and ate heartily.

Dishes clattered. Servants appeared and disappeared. Mrs. Basine, sitting beside her son listened to him proudly and grew sad. Her son's prestige pleased her. But the war saddened her. She noticed that Mrs. Gilchrist was growing old—too old to share the enthusiasms of the day. Yet there was a comradeship in the room that stirred Mrs. Basine. She disliked most of the individuals around her. But when they came together there was something charming in the way they talked and smiled and exchanged confidences.

Mrs. Basine had secretly allied herself with a pacifist group of women who labelled their minor timidity as intellectualism and argued with violence against the major timidity identified as patriotism. She had a horror of war, her imagination seeing herself continually suffering with the soldiers of both sides. A similar sensitiveness had converted her into a vague socialist. The misery of what she called the masses was a mirror in which she saw a possible image of herself. She subscribed with enthusiasm to doctrines which promised to establish justice and tranquility in the world.

But now among the people in her home Mrs. Basine noticed an enviable optimism. Some of them were old friends, others new friends. But all of them were alike in one way. All of them seemed wonderfully excited over the fact that this war was going to put an end to all wars. She would have liked to share this optimism. But her intelligence deprived her of the solace. Yet she was able to feel kindly toward the ideals she sensed were false. They were somehow like her own ideals—inspired by similar things.

The camaraderie in the room heightened. This was a war that was going to put an end to all wars and everyone felt happy. They talked and laughed. Their manner seemed to hint that the war was not only going to put an end to all wars but to all troubles. Yes, the Germans vanquished, victory achieved, and the world would be beautifully straightened out.

They identified themselves avidly with the world—these old and new friends. The enemy who had dogged their monotonous little footsteps through the years—the veiled Nemesis who had harassed them and filled them with helpless, futile hatreds, tripped them up and robbed them at every turn—this enemy was at last unmasked. He was identified now. He was their troubles—their defeats. And they had him out in the open now where they could shout battle cries and leap upon him. He was the Germans.

Mrs. Basine, groping for an understanding of the elation among her guests and desiring to share it, thought of her grandchildren. She remembered George when he was no older than his son. This memory seemed to give the lie to the excitement in the room. She wondered why. She remembered Fanny when she was a girl. And Henrietta long ago. Henrietta was smiling quietly at her husband—a faded matron, scrawny, silent. And Doris was upstairs, weeping perhaps. She had taken Doris out of the sanitarium to care for her at home. The doctor said melancholia. She might be cured if something could be found to interest her. But there was nothing. She sat wide-eyed and morose through the day, her hands listless and waited till night came and sleep. Her skin was yellow and there were little glints in her eyes as if they were peering out of the dark.

Senator Basine laughed at the sally of a pretty woman. The table joined his laughter. The senator was an inspiration. His manner was forceful, his words direct. When he listened his head remained flung back. When he talked he lowered his head and raised his eyes. There was an anger in him that awed. It played behind his words.

"You're right, George." Aubrey answered a remark Basine had made. "I agree with you entirely. But after all, the purposes of this war are more than victory over an enemy. The victory over ourselves—"

Aubrey's words were lost in the racket of rising diners. The eating was over. The guests filed into the library. Henrietta slipped her hand through her husband's arm. She remembered vaguely the afternoon in the Basine library when George Basine had asked her to marry him. No,—it was in the kitchen. She would have liked to talk about it. But this was no time to mention such things. She sat down and listened to the excited remarks of the guests. There was an interruption. Aubrey, at the window, raised his voice.

"Look here," he exclaimed, "soldiers."

The company crowded to the front of the room. Men in civilian clothes carrying small bundles over their shoulders were marching four abreast down the center of the street.

"Entraining for war, by God!" said Ramsey.

They watched in silence. Soldiers going to war! There was something incongruous about that. A vague feeling of surprise and discomfort held the watchers. Men who would in a short time be lying in trenches, shooting with guns, killing other men. And they felt curiously out of touch with the marchers, as if the enemy they had been denouncing at the table and vilifying throughout their day were someone not so far away as France. As if these marching men in the street were being sent to the wrong address.

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26

Basine hurried in the dark street. His mother and Henrietta stood in the doorway watching him. He carried a suitcase and had promised to write frequently. The Liberty Loan tour had cut short his visit. He was walking to catch his train at the neighborhood station a few blocks away.

As he turned the corner, Basine paused. Someone had called his name. He looked around and saw a man standing under the street lamp.

"Hello George. How are you?"

The man held out his hand and Basine, taking it, studied him for a moment. Keegan. Poor old Hugh Keegan. Basine smiled.

"Well, well," he exclaimed. "What are you doing around here, Hugh?"

They stood shaking hands. Basine noticed the furtive, shabby air of his old friend. He hadn't seen or heard of Keegan or thought of him for years. It was strange to meet him like this, walking in a street.

"I live down the street a ways," Keegan answered. An almost womanish shyness was in his manner. "Been hearing and reading a lot about you, George." He lowered his voice. "You sure made good."

Basine smiled deprecatingly.

"Walking my way, Hugh?" he inquired. "Going to the train." He felt nervous. Keegan was like meeting yesterdays.

"Yes," said Keegan.

They walked along. Basine felt his exhuberance leaving him. A curious desire to apologize to Keegan took hold of him. But for what? Because Keegan looked shabby. Keegan acted frightened and ashamed of something.

"We used to have some good times together, George."

The man was impossibly wistful. Like a beggar asking something—demanding something.

"Yes," said Basine. This Keegan ... this Keegan. He looked at him out of the corners of his eyes. Shabby, furtive, blond-faced, tired.

"What have you been doing, Hugh?" he asked.

"Oh, didn't you hear," Keegan answered. His voice grew more deferential. He began to talk in an apologetic murmur.

"My wife died," he apologized. "I got married, you know, four years ago. Four years this coming November. We went to a picnic last June and Helen ate something."

Keegan's voice sank to a confidential and still apologetic whisper.

"About two nights after," he added, "she died."

Basine looked at him and saw tears in his eyes. Keegan had married somebody and she had died. This had happened to Keegan. Basine grew nervous.

"Awf'ly glad to have seen you again, Hugh," he said after a pause. "Am sorry to hear about it. We must get together sometime. I think I'll have to run."

They shook hands and Basine hurried on. He was aware of Keegan looking after him. A vacuous-faced Keegan with tears in his eyes. A Keegan who had found something and lost it. What kind of a woman could have loved Keegan? What kind ... what kind ... poor Hugh. He had been young once. Now it was all over. Basine sighed. Keegan saddened. Keegan was like yesterdays. He started to walk faster. He began to run, the suitcase thumping against his leg.

"I'll miss the train," he assured himself furtively and ran.

But there was plenty of time for the train. Another fifteen minutes. He was running for something else. Yes, he was running away from Keegan—from the vacuous, shabby figure of Keegan that stood weeping behind him. An oath throbbed in his mind.

"Damn...." he muttered. The word stopped him. He walked the rest of the way to the station. A sadness darkened him. He was sad, impossibly sad, as if his heart were breaking. Because Keegan had found something and lost it. Because his old friend Hugh had started to cry.... "Poor Hughie," he murmured.