Anthony the Absolute

by Samuel Merwin

April 14, (continued).

CROCKER opened his door at my knock.

He was half dressed, with a quilted gown drawn about his big frame.

He gripped my hand. I permitted this, which was perhaps an odd thing to do; but it came about so easily and swiftly that I could not think how to prevent it without appearing merely childish.

Then I went on into the room, and stood, with some sense of inner tension, while he drew an easy chair to the table and with a paper cutter pried open a box of cigars.

He has changed, even in the fortnight since our parting in the railway station at Yokohama. He is putting on weight pretty rapidly, and his face distinctly exhibits the ravages of drink. It was pale this morning. His eyeballs were crisscrossed with red veins, and there was an incipient puffiness under them. His hands were unsteady, too; I noted that fact when he opened the cigars. And afterward, when he dropped on the sofa and settled back against the cushions, he extended his right hand as I had seen him do once or twice before, back at Yokohama, and make an unsuccessful effort to hold it still. Then he let it fall across his knee, and for a moment stared gloomily at the carpet.

I observed, too, that he was more nervous. He moved with a jerky abruptness. And when he glanced up at me, it was suddenly, with a perceptible start, as if I had spoken sharply, though in reality I had not spoken at all. It made me think of the torturing confusion of moods that was racking his nervous system, and of the merciless voices of unrest that were so evidently whispering every moment at his inner ear. A few days ago I would not have observed his condition with any sympathetic understanding; but now that I, too, have been torn between the exaltation of love and the degradation of jealousy, I can only shake my head in a sad sort of wonder at the mysterious strength of these forces that drive men and women together, and apart, and that linger even after a mismating and a subsequent separation to stir and bewilder the spirit.... Yes, I can, in a way, feel with Crocker now. To live with memories of magical hours passed with a woman one has since lost—elusive, poignant memories, that come in the still hours of night to triumph over the brutal facts of the day that is gone and the day that is to come—this is the stuff of tragedy.

My feelings soared far, as I sat there—all in a moment. I was thinking of strong passions and of elemental things. It came to me, oddly, that I had never really understood certain of the great poems and the greater music dramas. I told myself that I must seize the first opportunity to hear “Tristan” again. I would understand if now. Yes, surely... there was the surging, heartbreaking climax of the “Liebestod,” for example—it was surging in my feelings now, and in my brain. I could hear the swelling of the violins. And I knew all at once that it was not the mere heartbreak of Isolde and her Tristan that surged and swelled with them, I knew that it was the universal story of man and woman everywhere. Underneath the trivial vulgarity of the daily newspaper, with its commonplace recital of petty dramas and pettier tragedies, I suddenly knew, surge and swell the hopes and dreams and casual disasters of a million Tristans and a million Isoldes. It is men like Crocker and myself, I thought, and women like Heloise, who enact, all unconsciously, tossed helplessly about on great billows of feeling, the heroic drama of life.

It was the inner man that dwelt on these stirring things. The outer me was declining a cigar, and taking the easy chair, and for a moment letting my eyes w ander about the room. It was going to be pretty difficult to broach the subject. I could see that. Yet it had somehow to be done.

There was a bottle half full of whisky on the table, and glasses. Evidently the embargo had been raised. I could not help staring at that bottle for a moment. And, though he did not raise his eyes, I felt that Crocker knew what was in my thoughts.

His suit-case, with the cover thrown back, rested on a chair by the wall. The contents were rumpled about; but among them, right on top, I saw a knife-handle of Japanese lacquer and silver projecting from a lacquered sheath with a silver tip.

He caught me looking at it, sprang up—with an abruptness that made me jump—and slammed down the cover of the suit-case.

Then he came back to the sofa with a short laugh that was plainly designed to cover inner embarrassment, and poured out a good three fingers of the whisky. He drank it neat.

“Have some?” he said.

I shook my head.

“It settles my stomach,” he continued, with an air of apology. “I have n't been at all well lately.”

I watched him while he poured out another, and tossed it down.

He lighted a cigar.

“Where you stopping?” he asked. “Have n't seen you around here, have I?”

I shook my head.

“There's another hotel here, then?” said he. And his eyes narrowed craftily.

“Oh, yes,” I replied, “two or three.”

Then I hesitated. But after all, why evade the man? I had come to his room with precisely the opposite intent. So, with a nervous abruptness not unlike his own, I gave him the name of my hotel—and Heloise's. And at the same time I watched him closely to see if it conveyed anything to him.

Plainly it didn't. He merely blew out a long spear of smoke, followed it for a moment with his eyes, and then glanced down at the cigar that he was turning slowly round and round between his fingers.

But he could not sit quietly for any length of time. He got up again, with that same jerky abruptness, and, muttering something about the room being close, strode to the window and threw it open.

He knew that he was acting rather uncivilly, for he turned to me then and said, with a fairly good imitation of a casual manner—“Mind a little air?”

“Not at all,” I replied. It was depressing to be talking thus about nothing, knowing so well what was in his heart and what was in mine. But I only mumbled the stereotyped phrase, “Not at all.”

He took another drink—neat again. Then he drummed on the table with the fingers of one hand.

If there is one thing above another that I abominate, it is that kind of idle drumming. He made it worse by whistling softly between his teeth a crude song of the streets. I knew that I must keep myself in hand, but could not help fidgeting a little in my chair.

Nervously self-centered as he was, my discomfort quite escaped him, of course. What stopped his whistling and drumming appeared to be a sudden thought that came to him with the tune.

He looked down at me. His eyes narrowed again. He opened his mouth, then abruptly closed it on the words that were so close to utterance.

When he did speak, I felt certain that his question was not the one he had meant at first to ask.

“How's the phonograph business?” he said, and tried to smile.

“It's all right,” I replied shortly.

He sat down on the edge of the sofa, elbows on knees, and smoked fast.

“What sort of place is that hotel of yours?” he inquired, after a little.

“Middling. Not so good as this.”

“Near by?”

“Not far.”

“I suppose any rickshaw man would know the way,” he mused.

He fell silent again. Then, finally, he put the question that was on his mind, not looking at me, trying to speak casually; but his voice was not quite steady, and I could see the cigar shake in his hand:—

“Have you happened to see a woman over there—young, good looking, rather slender, blue eyes? Could n't say what name she'd be using.”

In a flash I knew that this was my opening. And on a great wave of relief—for we had to come to the issue—I leaned back in my chair and said, “There is such a woman there. She is using the name of Crocker.” Then I watched him.

I have never seen a man's face go so blank. His jaw dropped—literally. And his eyes were wide.

I found myself returning his gaze, and nodding rather emphatically. I kept on nodding.

Then I said, holding his eyes with mine—

“See here, Crocker, I know all about that. You told me yourself. Have you forgotten?” Slowly the recollection came to him. “Oh, yes,” he replied, “at Yokohama.”

“And you told Sir Robert at Nagasaki. Have you forgotten that?”

This seemed to sting him. “How do you know I did?” he asked sharply.

“He told me. We talked you over. I asked him about the legal possibility of placing you under some sort of restraint.”

Curiously, this didn't anger him. He merely looked puzzled. I wonder if I am doomed to remain ineffectual to the last—an odd, scientific little person, to be humored by the practical men of this rough-and-ready world, even in their least practical moments.

“I don't get you, Eckhart,” said he. “What have you to do with my affairs?”

“At this moment—everything,” I answered him, feeling suddenly very sad.

Sad, because it came to me that you can not talk intelligently with another human being without a common language. And this, I knew all at once, Crocker and I did not have. I had thought of many things that I should say to him; now I had lost confidence in all of them, for I realized that the word which means one thought to me would mean another and different thought to him. Each of us would have to interpret words and phrases in the light of his own mental images. And the mental images of each were outgrowths of his individual philosophy of life.

Yes, my arguments, that had, on the way over, seemed so potent, would not do now. In order to reach that mind of his, I must think in his terms and not in my own. And I tried, desperately, to piece together something like his code, as I sat there.... That man is a free and dominant creature, half god, half beast; that a small, sheltered section of womankind is of superior, almost divine stuff, designed to comfort and elevate man on his god side, to bear his children and, under his own general government, “keep his house,” while the other and greater section of this same womankind is mysteriously of poorer stuff, and is worthy only to do his rougher work at such a wage as can be wrung from him or (in a pitifully matter-of-fact way) to cater to the vices of his beast side—something like this was surely Crocker's sort of philosophy.

I tried to bring myself to realize what this meant. Holding so curious a faith, it was surely natural enough that he should have tried to force poor Heloise's life into his own hard mold of thought and habit. Nor is it unnatural that he should have been outraged when this lovely possession turned in despair from the atmosphere of suppression and inactivity in which he had been so determined to keep her and tried, blunderingly, all wrong, to find an outlet for the fine spirit stirring in the depths of her being.

For this was rebellion. And Crocker, I can see, hates rebellion. His sort always do. He is profoundly a conventional man, even in his vices.

I thought all this in a swift moment, as I sat there, wondering, wondering, how I could say the things that must somehow be said.

Crocker waited as long as he could for me to go on, keeping himself busy with his cigar. Once I thought I detected a furtive expression on his face, as if he dreaded what was to come.

The man was conscious of his own inner weakness, of course. He must have been. Perhaps he remembered telling me of his solemn resolution to give up liquor. Even as this thought occurred to me, he reached out and again tipped that convenient bottle. It seemed to me that there was an extra set to his chin as he did this, a slightly overemphasized casualness that bordered on bravado.

Then he sprang to his feet and moved about the room behind me.

As for myself, I was cool enough. And, once I could hit on the proper beginning to the talk, I felt pretty sure that I could handle the situation. It is evident to me now that the plan I arrived at last night, there in Heloise's room, had cleared the air for me. For I knew—deep, deep in my heart I knew—that I stood ready to give Heloise up. There is selfishness enough in me, God knows. There will be moments of weakness, when the touch of her hand, the blue of her eyes or the shadow of her long lashes on her skin—perhaps even the mention of her name by some common acquaintance—will stir that strange magic that has, in such different ways, torn Crocker's heart and mine. But I believe I shall never again forget that the woman I love, has a life to build, and that the finest duty I have is to help her build it.

I heard a rustling behind me. I turned. Crocker had thrown aside his lounging robe, and was getting into his street clothes. While I sat there watching him, he put on his waistcoat and coat. He put on his hat, pushing it back on his head. Then he busied himself transferring his pocketbook, a handful of small change, some papers and a key ring from the pockets of another suit that hung from a hook on the closet door.

I got right up and stood there, by the table.

“Tell you what, old man,” said he, rather apologetically. “I'm all out of sorts. Guess I need the outside air. You don't mind, do you?”

“Yes,” I replied, with a ring in my voice that was surprising even to myself. “I do mind. I've got something to say to you.”

“Don't talk about that,” said he, and walked to the open window, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

“But I will talk about it, Crocker. It is what I came here to talk about. And I propose to make you talk about it, also.”

He offered no reply; just stood there, staring out the window. I went on. I don't know now where the words were coming from that rushed so unexpectedly to my lips; but I knew, as I uttered them, that before either of us should leave that room he would be taking me seriously.

“There is a woman over yonder, in the Hôtel de Chine,” I said “From your own confession to me, you have followed her here to kill her. There is nobody but me to talk to you, but you are not going to dispose of me so easily. This thing is going to be settled. It is going to be settled to-day—and without any killing, We are not living in that sort of an age, Crocker. Not quite.”

“What do you mean—settled?” he muttered, without turning.

“Settled. Just that. And there won't be any murder. You and I are going to arrange terms of separation between Heloise and yourself. Then you are going home. You will leave this city before night. You may go either way—Tientsin or Hankow; it is the same to me. But you've got to go.... Will you please sit down here and try to discuss this thing like a rational man?”

Now he did turn.

“I suppose you think you can talk to me like this,” he said, with something of a sneer.

“I think just that,” I replied. “Sit down, please. We shall see if I can drive a little sense into that fuddled mind of yours.”

I stood there waiting. He did not move, except, it seemed to me, to square his shoulders. And there was the same set to his chin that I had noted a few moments earlier, when he was drinking.

“I'm standing a good deal from you, Eckhart,” he said. “But after all, I've got nothing against you. You can't be expected to understand these things.” This evidently struck him as a happy idea, and he repeated it: “You can't be expected to understand these things.”

Suddenly he frowned. “How'd you know her name was Heloise?” he asked.

“How did I know?” I repeated. “I will tell you how. I will tell you much that you yourself do not understand.” My voice was rising. I had to struggle to control myself. But I knew that I must, for it was not myself I was fighting for now. “We will not waste words, you and I. We are past that, Crocker—far past it, if you only knew. I have seen”—the words “your wife” had come to my tongue, but I could not say them; it was a profanation even to think of that fine woman as “his”—“I have seen Heloise. I have come to know her. I have seen how sad she is, and what a struggle she has been making to begin doing something with her life. For she has been alone, Crocker—”

“Alone?”

“Yes. She did not stay with that other man. She could not. And she has been struggling all alone.” I fought back the emotion that was breaking into my voice. “I know you both now, Crocker—pretty well. And knowing you both, I can see, oh, so clearly, that she could never, never be happy with a man like you. She has ability, she has spirit, she has what they call temperament. She is an artist. And do you not know, man, that the artist must always be struggling toward expression, that his whole life is nothing but that struggling? You can not make a domestic drudge of such a woman. Of some women—yes. But not of the artist. You tried to do just that. You chose the woman who was beautiful to your eyes, and whose spirit made her most desirable, and then you tried to crush that spirit. I have no doubt she tried to submit, that she fought her own finest qualities, for years, in the hopeless effort to make of herself what you demanded. And then she broke—all helpless, all dependent on you as she was—and risked everything to get away from you because it was worse than death to her to be with you. And now you hound her around the world like the savage beast that you are.... Good God, man, can't you see that she was right in leaving you! Can't you see that it was the finest, bravest thing she could have done!”

I stood, strung up, all blazing with the fire that was in me. I knew I had broken bounds. I thought that now, surely, he would turn on me and fight me; and I did not care. I even thought wildly of settling it all with him then and there, with blows, as men do. For I had the fire and the will within me; while he, with all his height and strength and native vigor, was palsied with that poison that eats away a man's will and leaves but a shell of bluster.

But instead of anger on his face, as I stared into it, I saw only bewilderment. He seemed to be groping after the ends of a new concept, with a mind that had lost something of its power to grasp new concepts.

“Good Lord,” he said then, “you're talking as if you were in love with her yourself.”

I nodded at him, breathless and deeply solemn. “I am,” I said. “I love Heloise, and I shall love her with all my heart until I die.”

Perhaps I was guilty of a tactical blunder in giving him this information. He was so evidently not himself that he should have been handled with tact and not further confused. As it stood, I had laid the train of a profounder confusion than I could possibly have foreseen. But I had to say it.

He was still groping to comprehend this amazing thought.

“I don't get you,” he said. He was not looking at me now, and seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. “You have n't known her—it's only a few days—”

“It is nearly two weeks.”

“But you don't mean”—he fell to walking about the room, and I followed him with my eyes—“you don't mean to say—”

He stopped short, and pondered. Then he turned toward me; and it seemed to me he appeared more like his normal self than at any time since I had entered the room.

“So you 're talking for yourself,” he observed, coldly.

“No,” I replied, “I am not.”

“But you tell me you love her—”

“That does not stand in the way of my doing precisely what I insist that you shall do—give her up.”

“That's easy to say, Eckhart.”

“It is not easy to do, Crocker. But Heloise must go to Europe, and take up her study. Her gifts, her hopes, all lead her straight toward opera. Neither you nor I has the right to stop her. It is the instinct for expression, nothing else. You have followed that instinct freely in your own life and work. I have followed it freely in mine. Now let her do the same. Work—the sort of work that will give scope to his own peculiar sort of energy—is what every human being needs. It is, above all, what Heloise needs. It will be her salvation, if anything will. Can't you get that into your head? She doesn't need any application of the punitive frenzy that we men call justice. She does n't need the easy moralizing of men like you—and me. She needs work!... As regards my giving her up—she goes to Paris; I stay here in China for at least two years. If you can think of any way in which I can put more miles than that between us, tell me, and I'll promptly give up my own plans and do it.” And I snapped my finger.

Some of my phrases were over his head, I suppose. But he came back at me with a good deal of vigor, ignoring my intense mood:—

“You tell me you love her,” he said; “and you talk about giving her up. You don't mean to say that you think she is in love with you?”

This sobered me—suddenly. I felt my eyes drop, and the hot color coming back into my face.

The talk was turning on me in a way I had not precisely foreseen. But after all—it was only fair. Certainly I had shown no hesitation at exposing his hurt places. So I raised my eyes and looked squarely at him, knowing that, though it would be torture, I should tell him the truth as I had been coming to see it during these morning hours.

I shook my head.

“I should hope not!” he muttered.

I paid no heed to him. The thing now was to get the truth out and have it over with.

“There have been one or two moments when I dared think she was beginning to love me,” I went on. “But I was reasoning from my hopes. She was alone. She was destitute—desperate. There was no one she could turn to, except myself. She knew that I had come to love her. And hurt and crushed as she was—with all the gratitude that the biggest heart I have ever known could—But what is the good of this! What fault there has been, is mine. She is a buoyant, vital thing, an artist, all spirit and fire. Even in her suffering I can see that. There have been glimpses, when we were working and she could forget for a moment. I am a quiet man, a man of the study, a narrow man.”

“Yes, you are narrow,” he put in.

“She must have variety. She must have stirring moments, strong reactions. She could not possibly be happy with me. And as for you, Crocker—well, we know about that. You are quite impossible. You thought you could possess her. Finding that you couldn't, you would kill her.”

He winced. I was glad to see it. I must make him wince. I must show him that he was not only a brute, but an absurd one.

He went over to the bureau and rummaged nervously in the top drawer. I could see, in the mirror, that his face was working, in the way it has when he is deeply stirred. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he came back to the table, and with a fair assumption of an offhand manner reached for the whisky bottle.

I snatched it away from him, sprang to the window, and threw it out, hard. I heard it break on the pavement below.

Then I turned and faced him, wondering, with a swift uprush of excitement, what he would do. I had taken him quite by surprise, which was a point for me. His great strength had not enabled him to keep that bottle.

His first expression was a sort of hurt bewilderment. He took a step toward me, but without any particular evidence of anger—more as if he meant to protest.

Next he turned, slowly and heavily, in the direction of the bell. This was over by the hall door. I ran toward it. A chair stood in the way, and I remember throwing it over in my rush. I had my back against the bell before he had got to the middle of the room.

He just stood there, trying to think. Then, abruptly, he turned back, dropped on the sofa, and buried his face in his hands.

I came across the room, as far as the table, and stood over him until he lifted his head. He was evidently fighting to keep from going to pieces. And his pride was not yet wholly gone, for he said—

“See here, Eckhart, I'm not feeling well at all. Just let me ring for a drink, and I'll talk with you. I will. I 'll talk. This thing has driven me wild. But you're right enough, I suppose. Just push the bell, will you? The thing has got to be settled. We'll settle it, you and I. If you think there's really any show for her, on her own, I'll be reasonable. It's been the thought of that fellow—of other men—Oh, God!” His face dropped again on his hands.

It was at this point that I began to feel discouraged over the prospect of arriving at any real settlement of the business. The man could not be counted on to remain in the same state of mind for two consecutive hours. I told him, in good round language, that he could not have another drop of whisky; and he exhibited self-respect enough (for the moment) to stop his whining.

Then for a little while I just sat on the edge of the table and looked at him. This was Heloise's husband. My spirit revolted at the thought. Her husband! The crude law under which we live actually gives such a man “rights” over that fine woman. It was unthinkable. And it was so.

“Come out with it,” I heard him saying. “What's your proposition?”

I had to think quickly. For this, after all, was the opportunity I had been so desperately seeking. I must talk straight.

“You are to let her have a divorce. If I know her at all, she will not accept alimony—”

“Stuff!” said he. “Did you ever see anybody that would n't take money!”

They were as far apart as that, those two. I pushed right on—“but she will have to accept something. A lump sum, say, on the ground that you have held back her training and limited her immediate earning capacity. I think, if that point is made very clear to her, she will be reasonable about accepting enough to carry her through her two or three years of study and the getting up of a repertoire. I would not ask her to agree to more than that. Not from you.”

There, that was plain talk enough, surely, even for Crocker!

He took it pretty calmly. In fact, I am not sure that it wasn't something of a relief to his hard head to get down to what he would call “brass tacks”—meaning money, and the traffic in money.

“That's your proposition?” he said.

“That's my proposition.”

“And when do you want an answer?”

I must admit that he surprised me here. “Why,” I replied, “now. On the spot.”

He shook his head.

“No,” said he. “You are asking me to agree to a plan that would change my whole life.”

“For the better!” I interrupted eagerly.

“Perhaps,” said he. “Do you think I have traveled from New York to Peking for the purpose of changing my mind in one minute, because you ask me to?”

He had stiffened up, as he sat there, and was talking, all of a sudden, quite like a responsible business man. Whether this change was merely a momentary outcropping of self-respect, or whether there was man enough in him to bring that drink-fuddled brain so swiftly under control, I could not imagine.

“What else can you do?” I asked, as quietly and reasonably as I could manage. “At this moment you seem more like your real self, Crocker, than at any other time since I came in here—”

“I'm myself, all right,” he broke in gruffly. “Never you mind about that. Let me hear your arguments.”

“—and you can't sit here, and look me in the eye, and tell me that you seriously consider carrying out the insane purpose that brought you here. You can't, man!”

“Cut that talk out!” he cried angrily. “Stick to your own side of it.”

“There is no other side of it, Crocker. You're not going to kill her. She'll never go back to you. Your only possible course is to give her up. And my guess is that you'll show yourself a reasonably good sport.”

This touched him. At last I had hit on a phrase that he could understand, in all this ugly talk that I was driving so desperately at him.

“Never mind that, either,” he growled.

I stood up, and looked at him. It seemed to me that I had him. Certainly, he was avoiding my eyes.

He jerked out his watch, and stared at it, turning the stem around and around between his fingers.

“It's eleven-fifteen,” he said, then slowly let the watch drop back in his pocket.

He had smoked the last of his cigar. Now he lighted a fresh one.

“I'll give you my answer at two,” he added.

For a moment I did not know what to say to this.

“What's the matter,” he said, in that rough voice.

It was such a voice, I imagined, as he would employ with business subordinates. “What's the matter? Isn't that reasonable? You've stated your proposition. I'll think it over and give you my answer after lunch. If I accept it, I'll pack up and leave Peking on the first train.”

Still I hesitated. He just sat and smoked.

“You know what's the matter,” I replied, finally. I decided to stick to my policy of talking in his own blunt way. “How do I know that you will be sober at two?”

“I'll be sober,” said he. He thought this over, and added, “After all, Eckhart, I suppose you have a right to ask that question. I'll admit that I've been making a dam' fool of myself. I've been drunk ever since I got here.”

“Yes,” said I, “I know it.”

This disturbed him a little, but he went on—“I'm glad you threw that bottle out. It was what I needed to bring me to my senses. I'm all right now. You 'll see. Tell you what I 'll do—I'll take a cold bath. That always sets me up. Then I'll order up a lot of coffee with my lunch, and only a light wine.” He got up, and stood over me. “There's my assurance that you'll find me here, O. K., at two. I'm not a common drunkard, Eckhart. You're not a man of the world, and you don't see these things quite as they are. I've been stewed, that's all. I'm through. Now for the coldest bath they've got.” He began stripping off his clothing. “Come right in at two. Don't bother to send your name up.”

For a moment I could only look up at him. I must admit that he was convincing. What he said was quite true—disordered as he had been, through passion and drink, he was not yet a common drunkard. There was yet stuff in the man Besides if, as I was beginning to hope, he really meant to accept my plan, the less than three hours he asked for was a quite reasonable concession to his pride.

I had to make the decision. I did make it.

“All right,” I said, “I'll come at two.”

He looked straight at me, and held out his hand.

“You've helped me, I think,” he said, in a very decent spirit. Then he glanced down at his big hand, and added—“Better take it, Eckhart.”

I took it. Then, stirred by doubts and hopes so extreme and so confused that I hardly knew what I was thinking, I went out. The last I saw of him, then, he was throwing aside his under-wear, and exposing a deep chest, with big muscles curving down over the shoulders, and smaller ridges of muscle in rows on either side. And on his face was that set look.

I ran up the stairs (at the Hôtel de Chine) and burst into my own room. Then I stopped short, and took off my hat.

For there, by the window—in my room—stood Heloise. She wore a simple but very beautiful frock of her favorite color, blue. It made her look taller, and slimmer, and more exquisitely womanly.

The room itself was changed. She had picked it up, and given it what few cheerful touches she could. On the bureau, in the toothbrush holder from my washstand, stood a spray of white cherry or pear blossoms. I can't imagine where she got them; I did not think to ask, when we were together, for we had so much else on our minds.

On the bureau, also, in a neat little pile, were the pieces of my ten broken cylinders. She had gathered them all and put them there.

It was the first time she had ever tidied up my room like that. It touched me. I stood motionless for a moment, looking about.

“Did you see him?” she asked, very low.

“Yes,” said I, still looking about the room, “I saw him. It is going to be all right, Heloise—all right. We are to meet again at two.” Then I indicated the white blossoms. “You have made it seem almost like a home.”

“Oh—that?” she murmured. “It was hard to wait. I had to keep myself busy.” She said it very gently. And it thrilled me to realize that, whatever strange event might come to her and to me, we had at last arrived at a fine spirit of companionship.

Just to think that she could do this friendly act, feeling in her heart that I would not misinterpret it or in some crude masculine way take the advantage—I like that, even though I distinctly do not deserve it.

But she was speaking, still in that low voice, but breathlessly, I thought:—

“How will it be 'all right,' Anthony? What do you mean? What have you done?”

I felt that I must be very gentle. But with her, as with that man over yonder in the other hotel, it was the time for frank talk. For as I had insisted with Crocker, her life was her own to live; and I could not go on now without her approval.

I drew my one comfortable chair to the window for her. She took it. Then I explained to her, just as briefly as I could, that Crocker had agreed to consider setting her legally free, on condition that she go to Paris and work out her career independently of myself or any other man.

She heard me without a word, sitting there, her hands folded in her lap. I could not make out the expression of her face. It was grave, of course, but composed—with no sign of the hysteria that I had considered as a possibility. Indeed, I am not certain but what she was rather calmer than I.

When I had said it all, and had paused, looking anxiously at her, she asked:—

“How long have you known about him? Did he”—she indicated the room across the hall with a slight movement of her head—“tell you?”

I explained to her that I had been with Crocker on the ship and at Yokohama, and that he himself had talked to me of his difficulties.

This surprised her, I could see, but she made no comment regarding it. Her next question was uttered with hesitation:—

“Was he—did he seem—”

I caught her drift. “To-day, you mean?”

She nodded, with compressed lips.

“He has been pretty bad, but I really think he is sobering up. When I left him, he seemed to have himself under control. And he gave me his word that he would be sober at two, when I go back.”

She seemed to be musing, in a depressed fashion. Then she glanced up, met my eye, and tried to look brighter. “The trouble with him is,” she said, “you can never be sure.”

“I know,” I replied, “but I could n't refuse to give him three hours—less than three hours. You see, dear, there is no pressure I could bring upon him. I have n't even the advantage of physical strength. And, really, you know, when you come right down to it, my whole position was the weakest possible—I had absolutely no right to talk to him like that.”

We fell silent again. Finally she turned squarely around, and leaned against the casement, and gave me her hand. I saw then that there were tears in her eyes, and deep sorrow, but about her mouth there were evidences of a strong determination that explained why the tears did not come.

We looked at each other.

“Tell me,” she said, “what becomes of you in this arrangement?”

“Oh,” I replied, “I stay here and do my work. There is just one thing I am going to ask of you, Heloise—will you help me make the scales again?”

She looked surprised, I thought: and her mouth twisted 'nto the faintest of smiles. Then she nodded. “Yes,” she said, “we will make the scales.”

“Don't you see,” she went on, “that what you are trying to do brings us closer together than years of ordinary, selfish love-making?”

“Yes,” said I, “in a way.”

“In every way,” said she. “Are you blind, Anthony? Can't you see how you are making me love you?”

I tore my hands away from her. I could not stand it. But my brain was still dear, thank God!

“Heloise—dear!” I cried, “this only makes it harder. We must play fair. We must see it through. If he goes back to America, then you must go to Paris, and I must stay here.”

“What if I should refuse to go to Paris?” said she, still looking at me.

“You will not do that,” I answered her. “For it is the condition on which he will set you free.”

“Then what is to prevent my waiting for you there—one year, two years?”

“You will be too busy to wait—you will be working, growing, changing—yes, you will change. You will not need me then. Your life must not stand still because of a man who loved you away out here in Peking,”—I said this as steadily as I could,—“it must go on, and on, and—”

“Oh,” said she, “you think I would do that. You think I would change.”

I nodded. “Life is change. And you are full of life. Sad as you have been, dear, I can see that. I am a narrow man. If you came to me, I would be weak enough to want you by me, in my home. I should want—children. I should want you to be my wife, my helpmate, my—”

“Well...” she breathed, with shining eyes.

“No, Heloise, whatever you may think now, I could never forget what I should be shutting you out from, and it would make me unhappy. Don't you see, dear? You must follow your own genius. That is what I am trying to help you do.” And I added sadly, “It is the only way out for you, anyway, because it is the only course that he will agree to—if he should agree to anything.”

“Oh, Anthony,” she said, “is all that true? Is it just the old conflict between one's own personal life and the career that one is drawn to? Don't you suppose I could give my life to helping you and be happy in it—so happy that it would make you happy too? Thinking of those days that we spent working together, it has seemed that way to me. Just to-day it has seemed so.”

I shook my head. “You have a great gift in your voice, Heloise. It must be used. It must grow greater. You are unsubmissive, a rebel; which is precisely what an artist must be. You have the spirit of a fine artist. You must cultivate and expand that spirit. There is nothing ahead of you, Heloise, but work—hard, hard work. And loneliness. That is the lot of the artist. But it will bring its compensations. And even the work itself is a great opportunity.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “I know that.”

“And you must not weaken, dear. You have headed that way—you must go straight on now. And I will live in your success.”

“Does it really come down to that, Anthony?”

“It comes down to that. You've got to do it, anyway—you have no choice. I am only bringing up these reasons now because they may help you to think it out.”

“Perhaps this is my real punishment,” she observed, “losing you just when I have found you.” And then the tears came to her eyes again.

“Perhaps,” said I. “Perhaps not. If so, it is a punishment for being alive, since, one way or another, every human being must face it. Every life has to be lived, you know, dear. It is hard to live a life—straight through to its end. It is still harder if one fails to live it.... And then, this applies to me, as to you. There is no more reason that you should give up the proper direction of your life than there is that I should give up mine and follow you.”

“Oh,” she said, with a little gasp, “I never thought of that!”

“It is so, Heloise. We are both positive natures. We have each a life to live. Let us try to live them honestly and thoroughly. Perhaps, in doing that, each will one day make the other happy and proud.”

We paused. And then Heloise, being a woman, turned swiftly back to the practical aspect of the problem.

“But, Anthony,” she broke out, “you don't for a minute suppose that I would let you undertake all that expense for me? You don't really think I would accept it?”

Now it had to come; the money business, that I had shrunk from mentioning when I told her of my talk with Crocker.

I hesitated, then blurted it out—

“He must pay you a reasonable sum to cover that expense.”

“Oh—Anthony!” Her eyes flashed fire. “I won't touch a cent of his money!”

“But—but—”

“Not one cent!”

Somehow I felt very sordidly masculine as I stood there trying to explain. I gave her the reasons, as I had thought them out—that it was mere justice to recompense her for the time he had forced her to lose.

But my voice began to falter, as I ran on with the jargon; for I saw that she was not listening. She had become very white. She leaned against the casement, all limp and sad, gazing out over the roofs. Her breath was coming more quickly. And I saw her draw her under lip in a little way between her teeth.

My voice trailed off into silence. For I suddenly knew that she was thinking of her own utter helplessness. And as the fact tortured her nne, free spirit, so also it tortured mine. I reached my hand toward hers; then, since she did not see, withdrew it. There could be no help for either of us in that contact—nothing but a deeper confusion. Then I turned and walked away across the room, and sat gloomily on the edge of the bed.

We must have remained silent for several minutes. It seemed an hour to me, as I sat there, brooding, and struggling against the tendency to brood.

Then I heard her step, and her voice; and looked up to find her standing over me. She was actually smiling—a resolute smile.

“Forgive me, Anthony,” she said. And then, before I could exclaim at this, she added, enthusiastically, like the girl she often seems—

“Let's make the new scales now!”

For a moment I could only look at her, wondering at her astonishing buoyancy of spirit. Then, as she was herself carrying my phonograph to the table and adjusting the horn, I got up—still heavy and a thought bewildered—and brought a box of cylinders.

While I was at this, she walked a few times to the window and back, swinging her arms freely, like a boy, and inhaling deep breaths. Her collar evidently confined her throat, for she tore it open with an unconscious vigor that displaced a hook and sent it flying against the window. She seemed not to notice this. She swung up on the balls of her feet and ran through a number of vocal exercises. It thrilled me to hear again that wonderful voice, with the firm resonance and the fine quality that always, to me, makes her seem something more than woman.

“It's a wonder I can bring the tones out at all,” she observed, half to herself. “I have n't sung a note for days.”

Next she began running scales; very carefully and precisely, her eyebrows puckered into an intent frown. And I watched her white throat, and round chin, and delicately curving mouth.

She caught me looking at her, and flashed a smile at me. Then, with her eyes on mine, took in a quick deep breath that filled her chest out solidly, and, full voice, broke into the old familiar waltz song from “Romeo and Juliet.”

I knew then that I had never really heard her sing before. She saw the surprise on my face, I know, for her eyes suddenly sparkled anti sprung away from mine and she flushed with pleasure; but she went right on with the song—sang it clear through, managing the lace-like coloratura work with perfect ease and precision, unconsciously throwing her whole body into the glorious, swaying rhythm of the waltz, and letting out a volume of tone—of sheer, luscious tone, without a particle of “wood” in it—that filled the room, that would have filled the greatest opera house in the world, that throbbed about my ears and set my emotions vibrating in harmony with it and with the mood of the singer that animated it.

When she had done, I stood motionless there. It seemed to me that echoes of that wonderful voice were still floating to my sense-consciousness from every quarter of the shabby little room. I know that I hail to look out for a moment at the sunlight on the roofs beyond the window, and myself take in a deep breath that, I fear, was half a sigh.

She was standing by me.

“We must get to work,” she said.

I put a cylinder on the machine. First I looked at her and tried to speak, but could not. I don't know what it could have been that I thought I wanted to say. Probably it was nothing more than the inarticulate emotions her singing had stirred, groping for some outward expression in words.

Her eyes were very bright. I motioned her to go ahead.

“You have n't wound it up,” she said, and chuckled softly. I can not account for her moods. But, for that matter, I think I chuckled with her.

We made twelve records. I believe they will prove to be even better, on the whole, than the ten I destroyed. So, whatever happens, I have again my close-interval scale; again I have the selfish gratification of knowing that I have been enabled to establish a basis of scientific interval comparison for the use of all students of primitive music. It is Heloise's last gift to me, done in a strange sort of joy that, even to-night, breaks triumphantly through the shadow that lies on her life and mine.

She watched me while I removed the last of the twelve cylinders, and carefully sealed it in its separate box, and wrote the label. Then she said:

“Oh, Anthony, it is so—worth while!”

All I could say in reply—so full was my heart—was:

“Yes, dear. Work is the answer.”

And so close were we now, that I knew she did not think my reply inept.

She looked at her watch, then soberly reflected. “It is half past one, Anthony,” she said. Conscious that I still found some difficulty in talking, she added: “Would it do any good for me to go—with you, or alone?”

“No,” said I, shaking my head. “Not now. It would only excite him. And that would help nobody.”

“I know,” said she. “I hate to be passive, this way. I feel as if I were shirking—”

“You are n't. It will take some courage to do what you must do.”

“I know,” she said again. “Be patient, keep steady; help you that way I know, Anthony.”

It had occurred to me, when I left Crocker in the morning, that, in the event of any actual physical encounter, there would be a quite unnecessary danger to me in wearing my glasses. I thought of this again, now; and going to the bureau I got my spectacle case and slipped it into my coat pocket.

Heloise watched me, but asked no questions. I put on my hat, and took my stick from the corner by the door.

“Good-by, Heloise,” I said. I knew that unless we parted swiftly my will would weaken and I should take her in my arms. So I only said good-by, and opened the door.

But she came right forward, and took my hand. Our eyes met. What I saw in hers reassured me. She seemed very steady and strong.

“Anthony,” she said, “I have been selfish, and weak. I have made it hard for you. But you can count on me now.”

I tried to murmur a protest to this, but she swept on: “I am going to do whatever you decide for me. I shan't make any more difficulties. Now go. God bless you, Anthony.”

She dropped my hand, and stepped back.

I stood there and fumbled the door knob. I felt that I was almost certainly going to draw her to me and kiss those wonderful eyes that are the light of my soul.

But she still looked strong.

“I wonder,” she said, musingly, “if there was ever, anywhere in the world, a man exactly like you.”

Then she turned away. “You'd better go,” she said, with a little gesture.

I went then.

Crocker was not in his room, at the Wagon-lits. I knocked several times; then, turning the knob and finding that the door was unlocked, walked in and looked around.

I was about to leave when the thought of that sheath knife came to me. It was an unpleasant thought; but once it had got into my mind I could not, it: seemed, get it out. I stood there in the middle of the room, thinking about it. The suitcase was still on the chair by the wall, closed.

I took a step toward it. Then another. Then, suddenly conscious of my weakness, I went over to it and threw back the cover.

The knife was not there. I rummaged through the garments and the odds and ends that filled the suit-case. But the knife was gone.

I rushed out of the room and ran the length of the corridor. I hurried down the stairs; looked about the office and lounge; went to the bar. There was no sign of him.

I was turning away from the barroom door, when I realized that a fat man was beckoning to me from a table by the opposite wall. He was sitting alone, an empty liqueur glass before him. Across the table was another empty glass.

He was beckoning violently, with his whole arm. I had seen that round face somewhere. Then I remembered. He was on the ship with us, crossing the Pacific—the vaudeville manager from Cincinnati—played fan-tan all the lime. I never did know his name. He wore a genial grin now. Perhaps he would have some information for me. At least, I could ask him. So I crossed over.

He wrung my hand. “How's little Mr. Music Master,” he cried. “Sit down. Oh, sure you can—sit right down there!”

I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes of two. I had said that I would be at Crocker's room at two. It was pretty important that I should keep my word. Why could n't I think more clearly? He might be somewhere about the hotel, of course. If only the knife hadn't disappeared! Suddenly I wanted to rush back upstairs and look through that suit-case again. The knife might have slipped down one side. Yes, he might have done that in getting something else cut of the suit-case.... Come to think of it, I had n't looked in the dining-room!

Then I heard what the fat vaudeville manager was saying:

“Remember the Port Watch? Big fellow—walked the deck so much—and kept a sort o' slow bun sizzling all the time? Well—”

“Have you seen him?” I asked quickly.

“Sure, right here. Not five minutes back. Had a couple of drinks with me. But say, I don't think he knew me. He acted funny—walked and sat very erect—looked solemn and did n't say much.”

“Which way did he go?” said I, trying to appear composed. But I felt him looking quizzically at me, as if saying to himself, “Well, here's another of 'em.”

“Did he have his hat?” said I, on the heels of my other question.

“No. I think he went up to get it. Funny thing. I did n't make out what was the matter until he pulled out a big knife—in a lacquered sheath, it was—and said—what was it he said?—Oh, yes—'They pretty near put it over on me, but I'm too smart for them.' That was it. He whispered it, real mysterious—'They pretty near put it over on me, but I'm too smart for them.' Do you know, he made me feel damn uncomfortable. I think the man ain't safe.”

I listened to all this, in a way. At least, I seem to recall it now, word for word. But I was trying to decide whether to go upstairs on the chance of heading him off there, or to hurry directly back to the Hôtel de Chine.

I decided on the latter course. I think the vaudeville man had just about uttered the last sentence recorded above when I turned and ran out of the room. He must have been puzzled.

Yes, I ran. One or two of the drinking crowd shouted after me, I think. I ran down the corridor, through the lounge, and out to the street. T remember that two Chinese hall boys stood gaping as I passed. And parties of tourists looked up from their after-tiffin coffee and their drinks—always the drinks.

I leaped into a rickshaw, and called—

“Two plecee coolie! Two piecee coolie!” And then, when one brown-legged ragamuffin had picked up the shafts and another had fallen in behind the seat, added, still in a shrill voice, “Hôtel de Chine—chop, chop!”

It was incongruous, that absurd pidgin-English at such a time.

But it was effective. I have never traveled so rapidly through the streets of Peking. I found two Mexican dollars in my pocket, and held them up, one in each hand.

“Chop, chop! Chop, chop!” I cried again. And the coolies put their heads down and ran with all the strength that was in them.

They pulled up in my shabby little street, with a jerk that nearly threw me out. I sprang down, threw the two dollars on the seat, and ran into the hotel.

Then I stopped short.

For standing by the clerk's desk, looking over the board that hung there with our names—Hel-oise's and mine—in plain view, stood Crocker. He was peering closely from line to line down the first column of names, guiding his eye with an unsteady forefinger. He stood up very straight, with feet placed a little way apart. From the side pocket of his coat projected the silver tip of the knife handle, beneath which I could see a half-inch of black lacquer.

I drew my spectacle case from my pocket, took off my glasses, and carefully put them away.

He was intent on the list of names and room numbers. Behind the counter stood the little French manager, leaning forward and watching him rather coldly. But Crocker was oblivious to all but the one idea; his finger wobbled slowly downward from name to name.

My first impulse was to go directly up to him. But what then? What could I say or do? He was past reason, surely; but not past the use of his physical strength. He had been every bit as drunk as this when he knocked the waiter down in the hotel at Yokohama. What if he were to knock me down in the same way—with that sudden, short swing of his fist to the chin? I would of course drop as the waiter had dropped, and, like him, would lie inert, leaving Crocker free to rove at will.

My eyes turned to the stairway, up and down which I have walked or run so many times during this eventful week.

That was the place. I would at least be above him there... if I could pass him and reach it safely.

I stepped forward, cautiously

The manager was watching me as well, now, with knit brows. But this was no time to consider him.

Crocker was having some difficulty in reading the list of names. His finger went back to the top of the board, and again began wobbling slowly down from line to line.

I tiptoed past him. He did not turn.

I went on up the stairs, but not quite to the top. T hank God, Heloise did not know—not yet.

From this point I could not see him. I waited.

Finally—it seemed a long time, but I suppose it was not more than two or three minutes, really—he appeared at the foot of the stairs. He was swaying a very little. On his face was the crafty expression I had seen there once or twice during our talk in the morning; his eyes had narrowed down to slits. Curiously enough, he was still pale, not red, as I should naturally expect in the case of a man as drunk as he. If he saw me at all, waiting there a little way from the top of the stairway, the sight of me meant nothing to his disordered mind.

He placed one foot on the bottom step, stopped and put his hand to his mouth (standing motionless, as if trying to think), then brought out his knife. He drew it from the sheath. It had a wicked blade—designed for desperate, primitive uses, I should say. The sheath he returned to his pocket.

Then, with a curiously set, almost businesslike expression on his face, he came running up the stairs.

I blocked the way, holding out both arms.

He brushed me aside. But I clung to his arm.

He made an effort to jerk away from me. I said something to him; I don't know now what it was, but I remember that I was very careful not to raise my voice. I think he didn't reply at all; just kept on pulling away from me.

But I clung. I did n't know what on earth I could do. There could be no agreement, no arrangement, with this wild man. Everything had gone to pieces. All my hopes for Heloise had been snuffed out in a moment. And the thought that my grip on his arm was the only thing intervening between her and a fate that I can not even bring myself to think about, almost stops my heart, right now. Then, of course, there was no time to consider even that; I just clung to him.

I think he must have caught hold of the rail at first with his right hand, to steady himself as he silently tugged and jerked; for it was a moment later that he struck me. I had swung around partly behind him, fortunately, and the blow glanced off my head. It made me feel giddy for a moment, but it was not effective. We tottered, and I think he caught again at the rail to keep from falling.

I hung desperately to his thrashing arm, pillowing my head behind it to keep out of his reach.

Then, looking down, I saw his feet, the left a step below the right. I hooked my right foot around his left ankle, and, with all my strength, pulled it toward me. I felt his leg give. I pulled harder; made one great convulsive effort.

He tottered, and fell slowly backward, carrying me a little way with him. Then I found myself sitting jammed against the wall, with a dazed, aching head, while he slid clear to the ground floor and lay there, on his back, his left leg doubled under him in a curiously unnatural way. The manager, I remember, stood over him, very white, pulling with rapid little jabs at his mustache, and saying nothing at all.

It was an oddly silent affair, from beginning to end. I remember looking anxiously upward in the fear that Heloise had heard and run out. I dreaded the look of anguish that would surely be on her face. But she was not there.

I drew myself to my feet. A few steps below me lay the knife. I picked it up, then went on down.

Some China boys were bringing a cot. They lifted Crocker, very carefully, and laid him on it, then carried him into the office. He must have been suffering intense pain; but he only set his teeth hard, and once or twice drew in a quick, hissing breath.

I followed them in, and stood over him. After a moment he rolled his head around and looked at me. I could see that he was puzzled.

“Where am I, Eckhart?” he asked.

“At the Hôtel de Chine.”

“The Hôtel de—That's where—”

“It is where I am stopping,” said I.

He whitened, and winced; whether in physical or mental pain I am unable to say.

“My leg is broken,” he observed, a little later.

I nodded.

“Who did it?”

“I did.”

He knit his brows. Then he saw the knife in my hand, and bit his lip. It did not occur to me, then, to put the knife away.

We were silent again. Then—“Take me to the Wagon-lits,” he said.

“Oh, no,” I cried, “we will take care of you here,”

He shook his head, and again bit his lip. “I want to go to the Wagon-lits,” he repeated.

“In one moment, sir.” It was the manager, talking over my shoulder. I stared; for I had not heard him approach. “In a moment, sir. The automobile, it will be here.”

After all, it was better so, if he could stand it. And doubtless he could.

He was looking again at the knife in my hand. I held it up and stared at it. There was a little blood on it, near the point. He reached out, and I gave it to him. It was his property, not mine Very deliberately he drew the sheath from his pocket, put the knife into it, and thrust it into his side pocket. But he thought differently of this; for a moment later, when he thought I was not looking, he transferred it to his inside breast pocket. I wondered a little at this. Then it occurred to me that he feared it might be observed by others, there in the side pocket.

An automobile drew up before the building.

“I have telephone for the doctor,” said the manager. “It is that he will await us at the Wagon-lits.”

Then we carried Crocker out on his cot—the manager, three Chinamen, and I. He was very heavy. And they took him away. He did not look at me again, or speak to me. And I, of course, said nothing.

I hesitated outside the door of my room, trying to think out what I should say to Heloise. But I could not think very clearly. Neither could I stand there indefinitely.

I went in, opening the door very softly, and closing it softly behind me. My principal thought, at the moment, was of getting across to my bureau and brushing my hair and straightening my tie before Heloise should see me. I could not bear to think of coming before her with these visible evidences of the struggle upon me.

But I could not get beyond the bed. I sank down on it, leaning against the footboard. I was sitting this way when Heloise came in.

She came swiftly toward me, a hundred questions in her eyes. She never before looked so lovely to me as standing there before me, blue of gown and eye—all blue, it seemed to me—something flushed with excitement, her under lip drawn in a little way between her teeth.

“Oh, Anthony,” she said, low and breathless, “you are hurt!”

I shook my head. But she was staring down at my left hand, that lay on my knee. My gaze followed hers. There was blood on my wrist. It must have run down my arm.

She helped me take off my coat, and with a small pair of scissors that she got from her room cut off my shirt sleeve at the shoulder. It was wet and stained with red.

There was a gash in my upper arm.

She held up the arm and looked closely at it. I liked the direct, practical way she went about it.

“It is n't an artery,” she mused, studying the wound. “Not a big one, anyway.” And she washed it, and drew it together with plaster from my emergency kit, and bandaged it very neatly. Then she helped me to lie down—brought pillows from her own room to place behind my head.

She did not ask one question; just worked to make me comfortable. Finally she sat on the edge of the bed, and critically looked me over.

“You'll be all right,” she said thoughtfully. “I know one thing that is the matter. We both forgot all about luncheon.”

I had not thought of it.

“Well,” she went on, “I feel a little faint myself. I couldn't think what on earth was the matter until it came over me all at once that I've eaten nothing to-day but one very small breakfast.”

I let her ring for the waiter and order food. During this space of time I lay still, trying to think how I should tell her. Every moment it grew harder. But at last I caught her hand, when she was passing the bed, and drew her down beside me. She knew well enough what was on my mind, but she only stroked my forehead with her soft, cool fingers.

In this time, so pregnant for her, and so painful, she was thinking how she might spare me!

I told her exactly what had taken place; clumsily enough but, at least, clearly.

She had been there in her room all the time, and had not heard a single unusual sound.

She did not say much, beyond a thoughtful question or two. The tray came, and she arranged the little meal as attractively as she could, there on the edge of the bed. But we both grew more and more sober as the moments went by. The thought of poor Crocker in acute physical pain, that once splendid body of his crippled and useless, disturbed us both. I was glad to see that there were tears in Heloise's eyes.

After the belated luncheon I felt distinctly better. At four o'clock I got up. Heloise, who was doing her best to keep busy about her own room, came to the door and suggested a walk.

“It won't hurt either of us,” she added, with a wan smile.

So we went out and strolled over to that great thoroughfare, the Hata High Street, where the yellow people swarm, and the uniformed police direct the traffic with an almost Occidental sense of order, and the long brown camel trains from Mongolia and Kansu pad softly over the very modern pavement and under the electric street lights.

We stayed out until nearly six. But our spirits did not rise as we had hoped. For whatever way our thoughts turned, they found no light. We did not have to talk about this; now and then our eyes met, and that was enough. Heloise was strangely, almost completely passive. Even in such trivial matters as picking our way through the traffic—where, I know, it would be natural for her to look out for herself in that brisk, self-reliant way that young American women have—she would turn to me for guidance, and press against my arm. She watched me a good deal, too, to make sure that I was not becoming tired.

At last we came back to the hotel. As we ascended the stairs I slipped my arm through hers. She looked up at my touch, and tried to smile; and her eyes seemed to cling to mine for a moment. In the dim light I could feel them as well as I could see them.

I opened my door, and stepped aside to let her pass in. Then we both stopped and looked down at a white envelope that lay on the sill. I picked it up, then entered and closed the door while she switched on the light.

I turned the envelope over and over in my hand. She watched me for a fleeting second, almost timidly, then went into her own room to take off her hat.

The envelope bore the imprint of the hotel. I opened it, and read the following:

“It is with regret that the management begs to inform you of a previous engagement of rooms 16 and 18 for the 15th instant, necessitating that the rooms be vacated by that date.”

Heloise came to the door, and stood there observing me. She was tucking back a rebellious strand of hair; and she looked very slim and girlish, standing that way with both arms raised.

I went over to the casement window, and threw it open. Then I sat down by it, on one of the chairs of bent iron.

She came toward me, disturbed but hesitant.

I handed her the paper. She read it, standing very st ill. Then she looked up. Her face twisted a little.

“Why, Anthony,” she said, with a catch in her voice, “we 're put out of the hotel!”

The sentence ended in an odd, explosive little laugh. Then, abruptly, she slipped to the floor beside me, threw her arms across my knees, hid her face on them, and sobbed.

There was nothing I could say, of course. The matter was absurdly unimportant compared with the grimmer uncertainties before us. Yet it had hit me with almost the same force.

I laid my hand on her shoulder. I stroked her head. After a little she groped for my hand with one of hers and, when she found it, clung tightly to it.

And all the time I was thinking how like a child she seemed. I believe that is the supreme quality of the artist—childlikeness. It is a quality that carries the adult worker through hells of suffering and heavens of unearthly joy; and it is a quality for which small allowance is made in this particular world.

---

It will soon be dawn. I have written almost all night. Probably now I had better try to get some sleep.

She came to the door—hours ago. There was on her face that new passive quality; I can not define it exactly, even in my own thinking.

“Anthony,” she said, with choirs of suppressed music in her low voice, “would it be better, tomorrow you know, for us to...” She had to begin again. “Do you wish me to go away from you? You must tell me—not what you want, but what you believe is best.”

I could only look at her for a moment. I could n't think at all.

“Heloise dear,” I said finally, “I don't know what is best. But I know I can't let you go. Not yet. Not with everything uncertain, like this. We'll look up another hotel in the morning.”

She pursed her lips. Then, with a look of sober relief that she could not altogether control she slipped back into her own room. And I closed the shrunken door behind her, and hung my raincoat over the narrow opening that was left.

---

April 15th, 11 A. M.

WE are in another dingy little hotel—off to the eastward of the Legation Quarter, opposite the German wall. We packed our trunks last night. It is forlorn business, of course. But Heloise has not seemed greatly depressed. I suppose that any activity is a relief to her spirits after the strain.

She is out now; and I am a little worried. The situation has switched about rather oddly, it appears, within the hours, and it is I who must play the passive rôle.

Directly after breakfast we rode over with our band luggage and engaged these rooms. I left Heloise here, and myself went back for the trunks. It took me some little time.

When I returned, I found a note in my room. Heloise had suspended it by a string from my chandelier, where I could not miss it.

There were only a few sentences, penciled in haste. She feels that she must see Crocker herself. And now that he, poor fellow, has lost the advantage of his greater physical strength, they can meet as equals, in a sense.

This is natural, I think—and right. There would have to be a meeting; I can see that now. But it is not so easy to sit quietly here. I can do nothing, except to go on writing until she....

They are calling in the hall. I think they want me at the telephone.

It was Heloise.

I am still to wait. She asks it; and I will. And she is right. It is the only thing to do. This is her task, not mine.

But what a task for her slender hands—alone there in the great hotel where men drink and bargain, where tourists swarm, where women parade!

I wish I could know something of the details, and of what is to be done. If I could only help!

“Anthony,” she said. “He is gone.”

“Gone!” I repeated stupidly.

“He died this morning, Anthony. He was not alive when the automobile arrived here.”

“But,” I blundered on, “I don't understand—it was a bad fall, but—”

“It was not the fall,” she said. Then, “Wait there, I shall need you.”

I heard the click that cut me off, but for a moment I just stood there with the receiver still pressed to my ear.

It was I myself who had let him have the knife.

---

April 15th. Night.

HELOISE called me over to the big hotel this noon, and we had a little talk. I was glad to find her completely mistress of herself. She was very grave, but she had a direct, practical way about her that, I could see, had instantly commanded respect among these strangers. One thought that had worried me not a little during the hours of her absence was that she might have difficulty in identifying herself as Crocker's widow. But it was evident that no such question had arisen.

She told me that there was some uncertainty as to whether the American Minister or the Consul-General at Tientsin should be brought into the matter, and asked me to speak with the manager.

I was down in the main corridor, near the office, waiting for an opportunity to do this, when I encountered the Cincinnati man. He rose from a table, in the lounge, and crooked his finger at me. I joined him.

He glanced about to make sure that no one was within earshot, then said, talking around his cigar: “I saw them bring him in. Is he dead?”

I nodded.

“Looked like it. Too bad.” He lowered his cigar and pursed his lips.

“Do the job himself?”

I nodded again.

“Thought so. The idiots brought him right through here, with the knife lying on top of the robe. Pure luck that it happened to be morning, and nobody much around. I've been looking him up. It's awkward—awkward as hell. I saw his wife. You want to keep her out of the publicity, I take it.”

The man was not unkind. He was studying me with shrewd eyes,—I knew that,—but he was so physically big and solid, and so plainly a man of affairs in that rough, practical world that Crocker himself had inhabited, that I found myself leaning on him. He could help. And, as I returned his quiet gaze, I knew that I could trust him. I realized, all at once, that the code has its good side as well as its bad.

“Has there got to be publicity?” I asked.

He squinted his eyes, took a thoughtful pull at his cigar, and nodded. “Rather,” he replied. “Everybody knows the Crocker family. And this fellow himself has been on the front page now and then. Publicity? Good God, man, stop and think a minute! He's dead. And death is one thing you can't hush up so easily. I know our newspaper boys—and I know that.... Look here, suppose I take hold with you. Glad to do what I can.”

I nodded at this, and said—“I wish you would.”

“All right. But tell me first, is Mrs. Crocker all right? The correspondents are sure to get at her, you know. Can she meet them, and keep cool?”

“Yes,” said I, “she can do that.”

His gaze lingered a moment on my face.

“I thought so,” he replied. “She looks like the right kind.”

For a little time he sat back in his chair, smoking and meditating. Then he said:

“I'll get the Consul-General on the wire and ask him to come over himself. We'll have to tell him everything, but I think we can satisfy him—I can bear witness that he was drunk and making threats. So can you. The little Frenchman from the other hotel must have seen the thing. He sputtered around like a crazy man.”

“Yes,” said I, “Crocker was alive when they started over here in the automobile.”

“I gathered that. Well, we can give a pretty complete story, among us all. I don't know just how much you can tell, of course, but I advise you to come out with everything you know. Then, when we are all together, we can agree on what we'll give to the press. The managers of both hotels will be glad to keep it quiet. And the Consul-General's all right—he'll help us out to that extent, I think. You see, there's no public interest to consider, nothing to hide but news. It's the lady being involved, you know.”

He smoked a moment longer, then concluded:

“I think we can swing it. You go up now and advise the lady to keep very quiet and follow instructions, while I'm getting Tientsin on the wire. Then meet me here.”

When I came down, twenty minutes later, he met me with a cheerful sort of steadiness and led the way to a corner of the lounge.

“The old boy's coming himself,” he said, as we dropped into chairs. “I'm dam' glad. This is no job for student interpreters.”

For a few moments we talked along in a desultory way. We had to wait for a few hours—no escaping that. I could see that the Cincinnati man had assumed the task of keeping me occupied, and I liked him for it.

He gave me his card, by the way. His name is

Hindmann. He has large interests in vaudeville theaters through the Middle West.

As we chatted, my share in this strange drama of Crocker's life and death seemed to be clearing itself up in my mind and taking form as a narrative. Hindmann had advised me to tell everything to the Consul-General. I was wondering how I could ever do it. For one moment I even thought of handing him my journal and asking him to read it. The next moment, of course, I realized how impossible it would be to do that—for this most intimately personal of my belongings is no longer mine; it is more than a part Heloise's. And the story I tell the Consul-General must be only my story.

Not an easy thing to do—disentangle my share in the tragic business from Heloise's and my joint share, and tell only that much while still telling the truth! It is a little out of my line, this lawyer-like sort of thinking.

I must have appeared rather distrait to Hindmann. But if I did, he ignored it. He just sat and smoked—a comfortably fat, round-faced man with shrewd, steady eyes—and talked along in an easy manner. He told me a good deal about his vaudeville business, I remember, and the curious problems that are constantly arising out of the invasion of the entertainment field by the moving pictures. I think I expressed some interest, now and then, even asked an intelligent question or two; but all the time that story was arranging and rearranging itself in the back of my head.

Finally I found myself beginning to tell bits of it to him. After all, why not? He would hear most of it anyway, before night. Then, after a little, it all came rushing out; and I realized that I was making a confidant of this fat man. It had to be, I think. Surely every human being, at certain intense moments of his life, needs a confidant. And I suppose there is never any telling, in a given case, what sort of individual will be chosen for the trust. Crocker chose me—and Sir Robert! I chose Mr. Hindmann, of Cincinnati... sitting there in a corner of the lounge of the Hôtel Wagon-lits, talking in a low voice in order that the little groups of American and British folk and Germans might not hear the details of the love that has so very nearly' torn my life to pieces. The usual row of Chinese merchants were over against the wall, I remember, with their glorious display of embroidered silk coats and skirts and scarves and squares hung higher than their heads. Once a great Mandarin walked by and bowed impersonally to us, attended by a dozen or more of lesser Mandarins who bowed in their turn; and they all wore stiff-fitting frock coats, and American shoes, and silk hats that came down almost to the tops of their ears!

Hindmann said very little—just listened, and smoked. Then, when I had finished, he turned away, looked rather steadily out the window, and muttered something about its being a queer world.

Later on, when it was about time for the Consul-General to arrive, he advised me to tell only of my earlier acquaintance with Crocker, of his drinking and his declared intent to do murder, of my happening to be on the stairway in the Hôtel de Chine when he came running up with a knife in his hand—and the rest in full.

“But,” I protested, “the Consul-General will suspect. There are too many coincidences in that story.”

“Of course there are,” said Hindmann. “And of course he'll see through them. He was n't born yesterday. But he won't say anything about that. Neither will you. And there you are.”

The Consul-General, with his secretary, arrived at four o'clock. He took possession at once of Crocker's effects, locked them in his room and put a seal on the door. Then he called all of us before him in the manager's private office—the two hotel men, Hindmann and myself—and in the course of an hour's steady questioning drew out the story.

After which I and the hotel men withdrew, leaving him with Hindmann for another hour. I don't know what was said; Hindmann has not referred to it since. But a messenger was sent to the Legation and I know that the Consul-General himself did some telephoning.

One curious fact came out during the examination in the manager's office. Before the automobile had got out of the little Chinese street on the way from the Hôtel de Chine, Crocker borrowed a pencil and wrote a few hasty sentences on the back of an envelope. The Consul-General asked for the paper; but no one had thought to look for it. It proved not to be in Crocker's pockets. The automobile was called; and there, sure enough, it was, on the floor of the tonneau, just where he had dropped it.

He had written—“Don't send me home. Bury me in China.” It was dated, and signed. The Consul-General thought this over and finally suggested a temporary interment at Tientsin, unless Mrs. Crocker should have other plans. He said that the matter of a lot could easily be arranged.

Hindmann told me at dinner that the Consul-General is perplexed over Heloise's standing in the matter. While outwardly he is considerate to a fault, he explained privately to Hindmann that he can not recognize her in any official way. He is going to send Crocker's effects home under seal, for the courts to dispose of as they may decide. He suggests that Heloise employ counsel to look after her interest in his property. There is, of course, no hurry about this; it will be a year, or two, or three, before the estate can be wound up.

Hindmann was right about the newspaper correspondents. It seems that several of the largest American papers have their own men here. The great news agencies are represented, of course. And all these men got at us to-day.

I find this experience perhaps the most disturbing of all. They are very insistent, these reporters. They make me curiously uncomfortable. Underlying all their questions is a morbid eagerness to uncover a sensation, to make their “stories” as thrilling as possible. Several of them, I think, firmly believe that Crocker was murdered. They have picked up something of his recent history. They know that he was pursuing Heloise, and that he was drinking. Fortunately, none of them appears to connect me with the story in any intimate way. They are all on the trail of that other man, the man with whom she came to China. I realized to-day the curious fact that I do not so much as know the name of that man I am glad I don't.

But they will have to accept our version, I believe—the simple fact that Crocker took his own life in a fit of despondency. There are only seven persons alive who know further details, and only four who know the whole story.

Two of the reporters forced their way to Heloise this evening. It was just after eight. I was in the lounge, waiting for Hindmann. I could n't bear to think of dinner, but was trying to drink some coffee and eat a little toast. The usual evening crowd was swarming about me, talking every language under the sun. A China boy brought a chit. It was just a line asking me if I could come upstairs, signed “H.”

I went up instantly.

The management had given her the use of a small suite on the second floor. The door to her parlor was ajar, and I heard voices. I knocked, and she called to me to come in.

There were the two reporters, hats in hand. Heloise was standing by the table. She was pale, but very erect and composed. She had put on a black tailored suit. It was this, perhaps, that emphasized the ivory whiteness of her skin, and subdued the blue in her eyes.

I think she saw on my face indications that I was about to speak indiscreetly. For I was. The sight of the reporters in that room, trying to pin Heloise down to the details of this dreadful story, angered me. But before I could utter a word she took command of the situation.

“Forgive me for calling you in this peremptory way, Mr. Eckhart,” she said, “but I cannot talk to these men. You were good enough to offer to help, and, since I am alone here, I am forced to take you at your word.” Then she turned to the reporters, adding, “Mr. Eckhart knew my husband. You will please talk with him.”

Her voice was steady; but my quick eye caught a familiar, listless gesture of her left hand as she finished.

“But, Mrs. Crocker,” persisted the older man, “it has been said that—”

I threw the door wide, and sprang directly in front of Heloise, facing the reporter.

“Get out!” I said.

He frowned, but backed toward the door, as I advanced on him. Thus I got them out into the corridor. I was all ablaze. But at the door I turned for one brief glance at Heloise. Her lips were compressed. She gave me a swift look of warning. This steadied me. I closed the door, and walked down the corridor after the reporters.

“Come downstairs,” I said, “and ask your questions of me.”

So I myself came nearer to an outbreak than have any of the others. But I shall not lose my head again. And after one or two days, Hind-mann tells me, the news value of the episode will have flattened out, and they will let us alone.

---

April 16th. Morning,

WE are going down to Tientsin on the forenoon train for the funeral. Then back here before night.

Heloise herself has seen to all the little necessary arrangements. She had me get what few flowers I could last night. And I believe we can get more in Tientsin. She wants to do everything she can for his memory in these last hours.

I think she is very fine about it. She exhibits no weakness. She shirks neither from what she regards as her duty in this tragic time nor from the results of her own acts. It has all come back to her, of course, in a thousand memory-shapes. It must have. But she does not speak of that.

The Minister sent over a large bunch of lilac blossoms last night, cut from the bushes in the Legation compound.

---

April 17th.

WE came back to Peking on the late afternoon train—Heloise, Hindmann and I. But Hindmann stayed in the smoking car most of the way.

Heloise and I sat in our compartment without saying much of anything. The sober spell of the funeral service was on us both. I bought some magazines at Tientsin, and laid them on the seat close to her hand. She picked one up, and turned the pages, but without much interest. In a few moments she laid it aside. Most of the way she rested her head back in the corner of the seat and watched the little brick stations flit by, and the Chinese farms with their mud-walled compounds.

After a time I went forward and joined Hindmann. I thought Heloise would be glad of a little solitude. Then there was a chance that she might sleep a little. But I don't believe she did, for when I looked in on her, half an hour later, she was sitting forward, chin on hand, studying the flat brown countryside with its occasional squares of green millet-spears.

She gave me a faint smile.

“Don't go away again,” she said, her eyes back on the brown and green fields and the dingy gray compounds.

And since she was not looking at me, and seemed not to expect a reply, I just dropped down opposite her and myself gazed out the window.

After a little she spoke again, with some uncertainty in her voice.

“I'll move my things back to our little hotel—first, Anthony.”

I must have shaken my head, for she added, more resolutely—

“I must, Anthony.”

“It would be trying for you to stay on at the Wagon-lits, of course,” I began.

“It isn't only that,” said she; then stopped.

It was not only that, of course. The poor child was, is, penniless. But this was something I could not talk about. For the first time in many days there was an awkwardness between us. Certainly I felt it, and I think she did. We could n't quite think out what to say. We had been in the presence of death, and love seemed a petty, selfish thing. And back of this, something had happened that I don't quite understand now. We have no longer the poignantly intimate sense of apartness from the world that we had during those strange, wonderful days at the Hôtel de Chine. The world has thrust itself between us. I can see now that we were a million miles away from actual life, over there in our two little rooms with the shrunken door between. We did not know it then; but we were. We have become self-conscious. Many things flitted into my mind to say, but I could not say them. They were all unpleasantly flavored with Consuls-General, and big, noisy hotels, and newspapers, and legal disputes. It was depressing to think that we could no longer slip unnoticed about the quaint, barbaric old city. We are known now; conspicuous, even.

And woven through all these thoughts, deep in our common consciousness, hovered that brooding mystery of death.

“All right, Heloise,” said I, “we will get your bags back to-night. The first thing. And we won't hurry about straightening out our plans. Wait a few days, until you feel more like facing things. What you need now, I think, is some rest.”

She shook her head. “I don't need rest, Anthony. Goodness knows I have strength enough for six women. I can face things. No, let's plan now. What do you want me to do?”

I sat there for several long moments, trying to think how to say it. I remember that I rubbed my forefinger back and forth along the windowsill, through the dust, and followed it intently with my eyes.

Finally she asked, still gazing out the window—

“Do you think I ought to go to Paris, Anthony?”

I nodded. Then, as she was not looking at me, said—“Yes, I do.”

“But how, Anthony? How on earth can I? Everything is mixed now.”

“I know,” said I. “But I've been thinking that out. We can do it.”

“Yes,” said she; “but don't you see—”

It was not becoming easier. So I broke out with my conclusions:

“In its essentials, dear, our plan is not changed at all.”

“That's absurd, Anthony!”

“No. What has happened has merely deferred the payment of that money. Ultimately it will have to come to you. Something, surely. I will advance it.” She moved restlessly. I hurried on. “You will give me your note and an assignment of your claim on the estate. I—I will charge you interest, Heloise. It will be perfectly businesslike. These things are done every day. Really.”

It was no good talking on. She had turned her face away, and, under pretext of resting it on her hand, was hiding it from me. I forgot what she had said about not leaving her again, and stumbled out of the compartment and went back to Hindmann.

I did not return until he told me that we were approaching the outskirts of Peking.

She smiled, as she had before. Then I helped her on with her coat, and gathered up the magazines. We stood there, awkwardly.

Finally I said—“Well, we are n't quite there yet. We may as well sit again.”

Then the train slowed down, and dallied along by jerky stages.

“Anthony,” said she. “I've been thinking, you never saw him in his younger days. He was a very likeable man, dear. He got on with people. And he was a good business man. Big and bluff, you know, and strong. I— I've been thinking—we should n't have married, he and I. That was a mistake. I was too young to know what marriage means. And he was very positive. But I can't help wishing you had seen him—before. I really think you would have liked him, Anthony. Strong men always did.... You don't think it strange of me?”

“Heloise, dear,” said I, “I've been thinking the same strange thoughts. I did like him. He never really knew what he was doing. Even after what happened—what he tried to do—I have n't been able to feel any hatred. No, not even anger. Nothing but a queer sort of sorrow.”

“Oh, Anthony,” she breathed, her eyes shining. “Do you feel that way?”

Then she said—“I've wanted to ask you.... It's difficult... did he know about—us, Anthony?”

I could n't say much now. But I nodded.

Her eyes were on mine; her lips were parted. “You told him, Anthony?”

I nodded again.

“Oh,” she cried softly—with immense relief on her dear face—“oh, Anthony, I'm so glad. Because he never could have felt in that terrible way toward you. He did n't, Anthony, did he?”

I shook my head.

The train rolled into the station-shadows, and stopped.

“Because,” she was saying in my ear, as we moved slowly out into the corridor, “hard as he was sometimes, and positive, and all shaken and tortured, even he knew the real things when he found them, Anthony. It would have hurt him, but he would have been fair—once he could really get it clear.” And she whispered, right there in the corridor of the car, with passengers crowding behind us and before—“I'm so glad he knew it was you!”

Hindmann tells me that we passed Sir Robert to-day in the railway station at Tientsin. It seems that that old man and I actually brushed sleeves.

I did n't know this. Did n't see him at all, in fact. But Hindmann says he looked straight at me, without the slightest sign of recognition—first at Heloise and then at me.

He had a young woman with him; a rather good-looking girlish person, very thin, but “with a way about her.” Hindmann has seen her before. He thinks she ran a gambling club in Macao when he was last on the Coast.

Sir Robert himself impressed him as looking extremely old and not a little feeble, with a slight paralysis that has twisted his face up curiously on the left side.

I am glad I did not see him. I hope I never shall.

---

Grand Hôtel des Wagon-lits. April 17th. Later.

I HELPED Heloise get her things back to our little hotel last night. Then I packed a bag and came over here and took a room.

She did n't say anything when I told her I was going to do this. But I am sure she realizes that it is the only thing to do. It disturbs me to think of her alone over there. But now that she is known to half the white people in Peking, I will not permit myself to stay there with her. I will not have her talked about on any new grounds. And now that I am beginning to understand her, I see clearly enough that I must protect her. Lately it has seemed to me that none of the more artificial restraints that society accepts as necessary details of a working code mean much to her.

I begin to think that in certain fine ways women are more primitive than men. In the sense, I mean, that their deeper emotional nature lies closer to the roots of life than ours does. They are more elementally natural, harder to sophisticate. They feel more swiftly and surely, without the elaborate intellectual machinery that men find it necessary to call into use in order to arrive at conclusions. In certain respects they are deeper and bigger than we are.

I have read all this in the books, of course—years ago—but never before believed it in the sense that belief implies personal experience and understanding.

---

April 18th. Morning. (At the Wagon-lits).

YES, I was right in moving over here. Heloise admitted it to-day. I asked her if she did n't agree with me, and she said she had come to think that my judgment is better than hers in these matters. God knows, I am unworldly enough—sometimes I feel that she and I are nothing but a couple of babes in the woods of life—but at least I am a bit more worldly than she.

And I was right in insisting that we go right on with our plan, as if nothing had happened. I have forced myself to go over the whole difficult business, thinking it out step by step; and I was right.

It is a difficult business. Sometimes, at night, when my imagination slips out of control and dream-pictures come of a home of my own, it is almost more than I can bear. Last night I had to switch on the lights and work until daylight over the notes for Volume Six. (That is to be the section devoted to “True Intervals and Natural Song.”)

I am driving myself to think constantly of the other side of the picture—to realize how beautiful Heloise is, what a person she is and what a voice she has. No home that I could conceivably offer her would be large enough to contain her life. And when I construct in my mind the years during which she would have to fight her own inclinations, deliberately confine her activities and build barriers against the growth of her own soul, my resolution strengthens. If it is hard to give her up now, it would be impossible then. I know myself well enough to know what I should be and do, then. I would be jealous of her very bigness. I would, likely as not, come to hate her beauty, her voice, her capacity for work. I would fight to make a Hausfrau of her, with babies, and meals to get—meals for me!—and sweeping and dusting to look after. And then, should I succeed in that miserable purpose; should I have to realize, every day and every night, with her beauty fading and with that wonderful edge on her voice becoming blunted and the tones growing uneven and foggy, that I had shut her out of the chance for growth that God gave her—this, after she had already taken one desperate, tragic step toward freedom—should I find myself forced to live, day after day, year after year, with any such realization as that, I think the time would come when I would want to kill myself.

The man who deliberately stops a woman's growth—no matter what his traditions and beliefs; no matter what his fears for her—is doing a monstrous thing, a thing for which he must some day answer to the God of all life.

As civilization stands now, the woman who marries shuts herself out from the possibility of a career. Not in every instance, of course; but certainly in such an average, modest marriage as mine would have to be. I have some means, of course; but not nearly enough. And it is not likely that I shall ever “make” money in any large way.

No, I really don't believe the thing can be done. Not yet. I like to hope that some day the world will become more nearly civilized as regards marriage. But first we must make it less a matter of land and houses and goods, and of woman as property along with these. And I think we shall probably come to some system of paying woman directly for the great service of child-bearing and rearing. Yes, we men must give up the last shreds of our thought of woman as a personal possession. We are farther from that, still, than we realize, I think. I myself am far, far from it. Where Hel-oise is concerned, I know perfectly well that I am not to be trusted. God only knows what I would do, what I would come to think and believe. For the magic that is always between us would be confused in a thousand subtle ways with the heritage, of deep-lying racial habits that are in me as in every other man.

But at least, I have come to see it. For this I am thankful.

---

Late Afternoon. (still the 18th.)

HELOISE understands now. And she agrees that I am right. She will accept the loan I suggested. And she will go to Paris.

She called up this afternoon—while I was writing.

“Anthony,” she said, “take me for a walk. It is stuffy here. I want some air.”

So she started out, and I met her near the eastern end of Legation Street.

“Just a little walk, Anthony,” she said. “I'm not getting any exercise these days. I don't seem to want to go out alone any more.... Up on the wall, Anthony, where we can feel the wind. And there won't be so much dust.”

So we climbed the ramp, and walked from the Hatamen to the Chienmen and back—two miles. South of us extended the Chinese city, that lies outside the historic stronghold of the Manchus. Northward, as far as we could see, stretched the Tartar capital, now all fresh green foliage with bits of curving tile roofs peeping out in gray-brown patches. For Peking is a city of trees.

We could see the brick walls of the Imperial City, and, within that, of the Forbidden City itself; with its acres of glazed yellow roofs.

The Tartar wall is all of fifty feet high, and nearly as broad on the top. Grass grows there; and there are parapets, and the casual ruins of stone barricades where men have fought.

I told Heloise, while we walked, that I had worked it all out. I told her, too, of a curious coincidence of this very morning. I picked up a magazine in the hotel lounge, and, turning the pages, found my attention arrested by an interview with some great singers. In that paper the three finest living operatic sopranos agreed that marriage, home, domesticity, could play no part in their lives.

I felt it my duty to tell her about this. We simply have got to face these facts. And I must help keep up her courage with my own. Once she finds herself established at Paris, her work going on, the stimulus of new acquaintances and of fine music and of the stir and rush of the Western World all about her, it will not be so hard, I think. At present, the loneliness, the sense of distance from her own kind, and the perplexing reactions of the tragedy that we have both had to pass through, combine to bring her deep emotional self closer to the surface than normal.

Then, of course, she is quite dependent on me. We do not speak of this; but I know well enough that it is every moment in her thoughts.

We did not stay out long. It is most difficult when we are together. I am going to start my own work at once. It is the only way to keep steady—I can see that. I have letters to the American Minister. I shall present them tomorrow.

We lingered at the door of her hotel. Neither of us wanted to say good-by. We stood there for several moments without speaking. Then she said:

“Will you come in?”

I shook my head.

She took a few slow steps into the doorway; then stopped.

“I shall not change, Anthony—in Paris!” she said, and hurried in without looking back.

---

I have succeeded in getting reservations for her on the Trans-Siberian, leaving Harbin on the 23rd. That means starting from Peking on the 21st—in three days.

She says that she will not mind the long journey alone. I wish I knew of some American or English family that is going through to Moscow on that train. But I feel pretty sure that she will make the acquaintance of some fairly congenial group of tourists.

Sometimes I think of troubles that may come to her in case she should meet with no such good fortune; and then my head becomes hot and I have to clench my hands and walk out in the air. There will be men of course—and ten long days of that train! Certain ugly phrases of Sir Robert's float to the surface of my thoughts and stay there to irritate me. I can't help dwelling a little on the sinister code of the white men who travel in the East.

But it is no good thinking of these things. Heloise says they are only the chances of life, and that we have to take those. “And Anthony,” she added to-day, “they can annoy me, but they can't hurt me—they can't make any difference.”

---

April 19th. Noon.

I SENT one of my letters of introduction to the American Minister to-day, by coolie.

He replied at once, with a cordial chit asking me to tea this afternoon.

I find that Hindmann knows him. and has spoken of me to him. It turns out that the Minister regards himself as something of an amateur in Chinese music. He knew my name.

“He showed me a big book,” said Hindmann, in telling me about it, last night. “Had a lot of queer music scales in it, and pictures of instruments. He said it was the standard authority on the subject.”

“What book?” I asked him.

“Don't remember the title,” said he.

“But think, man! Think! Who wrote it?”

“Did n't notice that, either. Some German, though.”

“That can not be,” said I, with some excitement, I will admit. “Neither Boag nor von Stumbostel is within five years of publishing the results of his researches. I am nearer it than they.

“My first volume, 'The Origins of Musical Sound,' stands now in galley proof and will be published within two years. No, no, no! There is no German work that is the authority on primitive music. There is, as yet, no authoritative work. Van Haalst, Elton, Père Avard, and twenty others, merely pointed the way. All of them pointed the way wrong in certain important respects. No, if there is an authority, it is myself. I am the standard authority. The Minister does not know what he is talking about.”

Hindmann grinned.

“Seems to me,” he observed, “it was published at Bonn.”

“At Bonn!” I shouted at him—“At Bonn!”

“Yes—I'm sure it was Bonn.”

“It was not the book of von Westfall?”

“That's it,” said he, nodding. “That's the guy—von Westfall.”

So the influence of that scoundrel has penetrated to Peking! He has actually got himself regarded as an “authority”! I did n't know what to say or think. But Hindmann calmed me down a good deal. He has a steadying influence on me, anyway.

“You needn't sputter at me,” he said. “I did n't write it.”

“I know,” said I. “But I was not thinking of you. I do not know what to do. I was to have had tea with the Minister to-day.”

“Well,” remarked Hindmann, around his cigar, “why not?”

“Why not?” I repeated. “It is impossible. This man will wish to talk my subject—my subject!—with the work of that charlatan at his elbow. No, I will not talk with him. I can not. Don't you see?”

“No,” said Hindmann, “not exactly.”

“I am at once placed in competition with one that I know to be an absolute impostor. The Minister will take seriously what he regards as his own views. But they will not be his own—they will be the views of von Westfall. Don't you see? I can't go!”

Hindmann sat for a little while, smoking and thinking. He has a very comfortable way of settling his plump person into a big arm-chair.

“Look here,” he said. “You want to go over there. It's worth doing.”

I'm afraid I sniffed at this.

“But it is,” he went on. “So what you want to do is to go right ahead with it. Don't be licked by a book.”

He did n't quite understand me there. I was not “licked” at all, and I told him so.

“Prove it by going, then.” he said.

“But I'm afraid I shall insult him. I shall have to say what I believe.”

“Go ahead and insult him, then,” said he; and he took out his cigar and grinned cheerfully.

---

Same date.

I GOT Hindmann to help me out with the notes and the assignment of her interest in the estate.

He knows all about these things. He got blank note forms from the manager of the hotel. And he himself dictated the assignment paper to a Japanese stenographer. It was astonishing to me to hear him do this; on matters of legal phraseology, and where precise statement of fact is required, he is very clear-headed. But then, I suppose that my peculiar faculties would be equally surprising and interesting to him.

The document worried me a good deal. It is quite long; and it makes over to me, in the most unequivocal language, Heloise's entire interest in the property. It is worded harshly and sharply. Just reading it, I had the unpleasant feeling that I was forcing her to sign away to me everything she may possess in the world as security for a paltry loan.

“What's the matter with it?” asked Hindmann, watching my face.

“It has such a horribly ironclad look,” said I. “Then why make her sign it?”

“Because she'd never in the world accept the money, any other way.”

“Oh,” said he, very thoughtful.

“Look here,” I suggested, “could n't you modify it a little? Make it not quite so strong?”

He shook his head. “It's the regular legal form, Eckhart. I've had to do this sort of thing half a dozen times.” He smoked a little. “I suppose you know it is n't worth a hang.”

“Not worth anything?”

“Poorest security in the world. It won't be even partly binding until the executor of the estate has pledged himself to you to execute the agreement, and to accept personal responsibility in the matter. Full of holes, that thing is.”

I did n't dare let him know how my heart jumped at this. I am glad it is n't binding. I only wish it did n't look so ugly. I can't bear to think of watching her face when she reads it. I fear it will depress her. And she will have to struggle to conceal her depression.

I have figured it out that I can spare a thousand dollars from my letter of credit now. So that all she will have to do is to sign that document and one note for a thousand dollars. Then when I send her the next draft I need only enclose a new note for her signature. At Hindmann's suggestion I am going to draw each note to run a relatively short time—a year, say. Then I can look after the renewing of them myself, from time to time.

The thousand dollars that I let her have now will of course have to come out of my research money, which is really not mine at all. But at the same time that I write Harbury, of the Foundation, to sell my real estate bonds and the two railway bonds that are at the Trust Company, I shall ask him to notify the Committee that I have diverted this amount for personal use and request him to hold back an equal amount from this money of my own that he will be sending me, against the draft on my letter of credit. Hindmann has drawn up just the paper for me to send Harbury, giving him complete power to dispose of the properties for me. Really, I don't know what I should have done in all these financial complications without that fat man.

One thing I am very glad of. It is n't going to pinch me at all to do this for Heloise. My salary will go right on, of course; and the research fund will be there as before. I shan't even have to skimp on hotels and small purchases. To tell the truth, I was worried, a little, when I made that offer to her the other day. I did n't realize, at the moment, how much money I have, and how easy it is to get at. This way, I can look right into her eyes and tell her that I shall not be the less comfortable for one single hour; and I can tell her with such conviction that she will know it for the truth. It won't be nearly so hard for her.

---

Same date.

I CAN'T take those papers over. I just can't. I'm going to send them by messenger.

I'm sending the money too—in gold—in a bag. A thousand dollars. The messenger will have instructions to remain with her, and carry the money to the Hongkong bank for her in order that she may convert the greater part of it into traveler's checks or a letter of credit. It will be best for me not to appear in this transaction, of course.

I am sending it to-day because surely she will have little purchases to make, and I know how irritating it is to a person of spirit to be dependent on another for small sums of money.

I did not foresee how deeply it would stir me to do this little thing. It has roused unfamiliar, haunting thoughts and feelings and day dreams. I have been thinking of children, and of the wonderful pleasure of doing for them and making them happy....

This will not do.

I am going over to the Legation now for tea.

I got out my black cutaway coat and had it pressed, And the China boy has smoothed down my silk hat, after a fashion. I shall carry the gold-headed cane that was given me by my seminar students six years ago, lacking two months. It was a curious thing for them to do. But pleasing. Hindmann had the right idea, as usual.

I will not be licked by a book.

And I shall say exactly what I know to be true. Not in a quarrelsome spirit, of course; but straight out. It is nothing to me that he is the American Minister.

---

Still the 19th. Very late.

I HAVE been greatly surprised.

When I was shown into the drawing-room at the Legation residence, the Minister himself greeted me. He is a not unattractive man—past middle life, rather stout, with many of the familiar mannerisms of the prosperous man of business who has reached a point in life where he feels he can afford to indulge and, perhaps, educate the gentler side of his nature.

I suppose his present position is a reward for generous contributions to the expenses of his party. Though I should personally regard it as a punishment.

He and his lady (a person of some real charm) have surrounded themselves with attractive objects of Oriental art. The large rug in the drawing-room is as fine an example of Chinese blue and white weaving as I remember having seen. I had an opportunity—when the Minister stepped out of the room for a moment, and before the ladies came in—of turning back a corner and counting the threads. They ran twenty and twenty-one to the inch, using my thumb-joint as a rough measurement; which is pretty close weaving, especially when you consider that the rug is at least sixteen feet by twenty-four in size.

The chairs and tables were all of carved blackwood and teak stained black, very elaborate, and pleasing in an ornate way. One nest of tables, in the corner, was far and away the finest example of Chinese carving I have seen, barring small objects of ivory and such, where the work is all on a minute scale and therefore more delicate in design and workmanship. There were two exquisitely carved wooden screens, and a great number of small vases, each on its wooden stand. The most beautiful objects in the room were two immense blue and white vases, standing all of seven to eight feet high on their pedestals. The Minister says they are of the Ming period. And while he did not exactly speak of them in terms of money value, as we Americans are prone to do, he did refer casually to another pair, similar to these except that the glaze was distinctly inferior, that sold in New York for sixteen thousand dollars.

I mean to give more time to the study of Chinese porcelains later on, when settled down in my work, as well as to the history of their painting and draw ing. The early musical forms of a people are so inextricably linked with all their other folk-habits that one must understand something of all of them in order to arrive at a really thorough knowledge of any one. Otherwise one would be a mere narrow-rut scientist, like an oculist who git es no thought to the general health of a patient or the stomach specialist who has no regard for the condition of the teeth.

I fear I was a little stiff at first, even severe, when tea was served. The talk was general. But I could not forget that somewhere on that nan's shelves stood von Westfall's work. Of course though, the Minister is the merest dilettante. I saw that right away. The sort of man who uses his money to build up an atmosphere of understanding and refinement about himself, without being altogether successful at it.

Some other outsiders had come in, ladies from the hotel, and officers of the Legation Guard; and when these rose to go, and of course I with them, the Minister asked me to stay. He led me to his office, seated me comfortably, and gave me a cigar—the best cigar, in fact, I have smoked since landing at Yokohama. Out here, it is impossible to get much besides the rather rank Manila article that comes wrapped in tinfoil. This was a real Havana, however, carefully preserved in a humidor. Then he said:

“I have known for some time of the work your Foundation is doing in the study of primitive music, Dr. Eckhart. And it is, I may say, a subject that greatly interests me.”

I would not speak what was in my mind. Not yet—for he had not yet thrown that book at my head. It was not yet the time to insult him. It would be distinctly unreasonable to insult him at this stage. So I inclined my head, and waited.

“I have read some of the older works on the subject of Chinese music—Van Haalst, Elton, Avard, Pegrew, and so on—and have looked forward rather eagerly to the more complete results of modern research. A book was recommended to me when I was home last year—a book by von Westfall, of Bonn.”

I smoked hard and fast. He went on:

“It was recommended as an authoritative work. But I find it, in certain respects, quite unsatisfactory.”

I sat right up in my chair and stared at him. He continued, rather apologetically—

“Of course, I am an utter amateur in these matters, Dr. Eckhart. But it is disturbing to me to find this supposed authority referring to the twelve liis as giving the twelve equal semitones of the octave. Why, that is Van Haalst's old error. I know better than that myself. I have sounded the liis in the Confucian temple, and they give out very uneven intervals, ranging over an octave and a half, at least.”

I jumped to my feet and waved my cigar at him. And my voice rang out shrilly. I could n't help this; my surprise was so sudden and so complete.

“An octave and three quarters, very nearly,” I cried. “From about our a to the f of the second octave above.” And I added, “von Westfall is a faker—a cheap scoundrel masquerading in the robes of the scholar—a man who rushes his guesses into print before the honestly prepared work can be completed. He is not an authority. He never was. It is I who am the authority. I, and perhaps von Stumbostel, of Berlin. Ask Boag! Ask Ramel, Fourmont, de Musseau! Ask Sir Frederick Rhodes, of Cambridge!” And I laughed.

The Minister was impressed. I will say that for him. He got up too, and seized my hand.

“I am delighted,” he said. “You confirm my own rough conclusions. Come with me. I have something here that will interest you. At least, I should be glad to have your opinion of it.”

He led the way into a small room across the hall, unlocking the door with a key from his pocket. I followed him in. He raised the window shades, then turned with a gesture.

There, against the wall, stood an object the precise like of which I had never expected to see outside of the Imperial palace and possibly a temple or two at Peking or Nanking.

It was one of the old stone chimes. The very first glance assured me that it was authentic. The stones were all of the same size, shaped roughly like the letter L. They hung in a double row, in a carved frame of wood, each separate stone suspended by a metal ring—gold, I think—that pierced the stone at the angle. They were all the same size, of course, for the difference of pitch is accounted for by the varying thickness of the stones. I counted them; there were sixteen—the notes of the twelve liis, and the first four notes of the grave series.

And each of these large stones was a perfect piece of green, translucent jade!

“The Pien Ch'ing!” I cried.

He bowed.

I stepped forward and examined the stones. They were very old; hard as jade is, the corners and edges were worn down here and there. I tapped them softly. I simply could not believe my eyes.

The Minister handed me the little wooden mallet that lay at the base. This too was very old, though of course a thing of this week as compared with the stones. My mind was racing back into dim periods of Chinese history. It would be interesting to know where those jade stones have been—in what old royal palaces of Peking, Nanking, Hangchau, Sian-fu—through what wars they have lain buried or have passed from one conquering hand to another—in what stately caravans they may have been transported across a swarming, prostrate land. From their appearance they must have been in existence long before the destructive hand of the old Emperor Che Huang-ti was raised against every book and every instrument of art or music in the land.

I struck the stones, slowly, one after the other But first I said—

“The intervals will not be perfect.”

“No,” said he, “for the stones are worn.”

I struck that old sixteen-note scale again and again. I tested the close intervals of the middle section. I listened with my delicate aural nerves strained to the uttermost.

We talked excitedly. I fear it was I who said the most. But that was natural enough. For I know my subject, and he does not. I told him the legend that thousands of years ago a perfect stone chime was found in a pool, and that it has since been used to give the correct pitch to all Chinese instruments. The known history of the twelve liis gives the lie to this, of course; but the legend is quaint. I think I must have given him also a rough history of the liis, and of their semimythical origin in the life of the prehistoric king who measured off a length of bamboo tube with millet grains and produced a tone by sucking air through it, and then got his complete scale by cutting other tubes of half the size, a quarter the size, and so on. I remember giving him a minute explanation of the relation of our piano octave and of the Chinese octave to the fixed acoustic laws; and I told him why the Chinese octave is flat.... It got dark while we stood there.

Finally we returned to his study.

He got this Pien Ch'ing, it appears, from a Mandarin shortly after the revolution of 1912. He did not give me the details, and of course I did not press him; though it would mean a good deal to me to know from what palace they were taken, and as much as could be discovered of their history. And, for a wonder, he gave me no idea at all of their cost to him. Quite apart from their historical value, the jade alone—sixteen very large pieces, of an even green color without a streak or flaw that my eye could detect—is worth a fortune in any market from Peking to London.

It must have been his dinner-time.

He said:

“I am exceedingly glad, Dr. Eckhart, that you approve of my purchase. I had to use my own judgment, you see. Now let me ask you—Is not your Foundation establishing a museum of ancient musical instruments?”

“Decidedly we are!” I cried.

My pulse was racing like mad; and I know my forehead was sweating, for every few minutes, it seems to me, I was wiping my spectacles. Indeed, my handkerchief became quite useless for the purpose, and I had to borrow his.

All the possibilities of this most unexpected situation were dancing in my mind at once. What if he should give this treasure to the Foundation... a perfect specimen of the basic musical scale of the Eastern World! I could not be insensible to the fact that some credit would attach to me, should he make the benefaction through me. For this sort of activity is precisely the sort that financial directors are peculiarly fitted to understand. Scholarship and research worry them a little; they are eager for what they call “results.” And if any man in the entire field of musical research has ever produced so tangible and valuable a “result” as this ancient and perfect Pien Ch'ing, I have yet to learn of it.

And I was thinking of flattering ways in which his name could be identified with the gift. For we men of science may be what is called “impractical,” but we early learn the proper methods of managing our benefactors.

He went on, studying me with his eyes:

“You think, Dr. Eckhart, that the Foundation would regard these stones as an acceptable gift?”

“So acceptable,” said I, “that I should consider it one of the great opportunities of my life to act as their representative in the transaction.”

“Suppose then,” he concluded, “you write me a letter embodying a request for the gift, and suggesting the best method of arranging the matter.”

I meant to return to the hotel. But it proved quite impossible. I was altogether too excited for that. Instead, I hailed a rickshaw and drove straight for the little hotel near the German glacis. I rushed up to Heloise's room, and knocked.

She was within, eating a solitary dinner off a tray.

I told her of my find. I did n't feel like sitting down, but walked about the room as I talked. I described the stones to her. I imitated, as nearly as I could with my strident voice, the sound of the stones—singing the scale for her, “Poom!—poom!—poom!—poom-m-m!”

Heloise sipped her coffee, and followed me with her eyes. She did n't smile very much. To be quite candid, I don't believe she is much interested in Pien Ch'ings. Though I realize now that I did break in on her abruptly, all full of my triumph, without a thought as to what her mood might be.

Come to think of it, I did n't even ask her if she got her traveler's checks all right.

I went away rather crestfallen. She suggested that I sit, but I did n't. I could n't adjust myself, for some reason. All my life I have dreamed of seeing even an incomplete Pien Ch'ing. It was one of my goals in this journey. And I don't believe I am altogether to be blamed if the sight of a perfect one, the opportunity to tap it with these very hands—coupled with the thought that I am to be the means of bringing it to America and placing it within the walls of the institution to which I am devoting these best years of my life—

I am not to be blamed if this experience has stirred me into some excitement. It does n't mean that I have forgotten any of the other things.

Why, von Stumbostel himself may have to come to New York to see it!

But to-night I am upset. God knows I don't want to disturb Heloise! God knows I don't want to give her a moment's extra unhappiness! I would gladly bear all her sorrows, if I could.

---

Hindmann is helping me draft the letter.

When I told him about it, he just sat back in his chair and grinned, and grinned, and grinned.

I think he knew about the Pien Ch'ing, all the time.

---

April 20th.

HER train leaves to-morrow morning.

This morning, before my breakfast, I went into the booth to call her up, and found that she was at the telephone trying to get me.

She said:

“I was n't very nice about your work, yesterday, Anthony. But I didn't quite understand at the moment. And you rushed off before I could think.”

I protested. I told her how I have been blaming myself for that.

“But you are wrong, dear,” she said. “I'm proud and happy for you. I shall be expecting a great deal of you, Anthony, when I am away off there in Paris.”

“I shall expect more of you,” I replied doggedly. Then I broke out—“I want to see you.”

“I know,” she breathed.

“But we must n't, Heloise. It's only one day more. Fortunately, we shall both be busy.”

She did n't reply at once. I thought the central operator had cut us off. I called, “Hello,” two or three times, and was about to ring for central when her voice floated again to my ear—

“Yes, Anthony, I'm here. It is fortunate, of course.... You'll come—at least—in the morning to help me get away?”

“Yes,” said I, “I'll come in the morning.” That was all. We said good-by then.

I have sent over a Japanese maid to help with her packing.

For myself, I have followed up the business of the stones all day. I feel that I should like to settle this affair before she goes. I want her to know that my work is starting so wonderfully well. And doubtless I shall hear from the Minister in the morning, the first thing. He has no reason to delay. The suggestion came from him, not from me.

I am proposing to call the Pien Ch'ing by his name. There are a few other perfect or nearly perfect specimens in existence, and a special name is desirable. His will do as well as any for the purpose of identifying ours.

I am very nervous to-night. Hindmann observed it before I was fully aware of it myself. He tried to make me drink some whisky. But I don't see what good that would do.

These last few days, as I look back on them, seem quite unreal. I walk about. I eat. I even sleep. I talk with Hindmann about one thing and another, naturally enough. I laugh, I become heated, angry. I even think intently of many workaday things. Why, to-day after tiffin, when Hindmann made his curious proposal that Heloise and I go into vaudeville under his management, I discussed the thing quite rationally before declining—particularly as to the possibility of making her gift of close-interval singing intelligible to the ordinary audience.... And yet, nothing is really so. Back of it all there is a nervous pressure, a tension....

Well, it is all over, this strange drama. It has changed me vitally. I shall never again be the self-centered—no, not self-centered, either—work-centered recluse that I have been. Life has seized upon me and whirled me into its main current. I have felt passion and jealousy. I have loved. I have hated. I have fought. I have held in my arms—close, close—the one woman whose eyes have the magic power to unlock my heart and flood it with the radiant music of love.

And now we go our ways—because it is life. I had her large trunk conveyed to the station this afternoon. To-morrow morning I shall call for her. We shall step into our separate rickshaws; quiet-seeming folk; I a thin man in spectacles and an overcoat and a soft hat; she a slim, graceful woman, wearing a simple black suit, slightly pale for want of the outdoor air, and with a touch of perplexity and mystery in her shadowy blue eyes.

We shall ride to the East Station. I will see that she is comfortably settled on the train; and wish her a not too unpleasant journey, and stand there in the station until the train shall have disappeared beyond the end of the Chinese city wall.

That will be the end.

---

April 21st. Early.

THE letter is here from the Minister. He gives us the Pien Ch'ing outright. It is to bear his name, and to be kept where it will be always accessible to scholars and to the public. He very courteously suggests that the stones be packed under my personal supervision.

I am going down to breakfast now. Then I shall cable Harbury, advising him of the benefaction. Then for Heloise, and the train....

---

Same date. Night.

I CALLED for Heloise at a quarter past nine this morning, and sent up my card.

It was returned to me in a few minutes. Heloise had written on it—“Come up.”

Her door was ajar. I stepped in. Her steamer trunk and hand bags were piled there, ready to go.

“Be ready in a moment, Anthony,” she said. Then, “You were coming up, weren't you?”

She was busy doing a last bit of sewing on her coat, and spoke without looking up.

“No,” said I, “I was n't.”

She worked on in silence for a moment. Then she said—“Do we have to go right on, up to the last minute, Anthony, being so dreadfully casual?” I hardly knew how to answer this. It had seemed to me that we had to do precisely that. I dropped into a chair by the bare center table, and held my hat in my two hands.

“Oh. don't worry, Anthony,” she went on. I had never heard her speak in just that tone. It disturbed me. “Don't worry. I'm going. To Harbin—and Moscow—and Paris. In less than an hour I shall be gone. But it did seem to me that we could say good-by up here.”

She went right on sewing until the little task was done. Then she bent over and bit off the thread with a jerk of her head. She put the needle in her shopping bag; then pursed her lips and studied the little gold watch on her wrist.

Finally she looked up, and our eyes met.

“Anthony,” she said, very quietly, “what if I should n't go?”

I got up and walked back and forth between the table and the door.

“Oh, Heloise,” I broke out, “why do you say this now?”

“Why not?” said she.

“Can't you see that our judgment is worth nothing now—nothing at all. We've made our plans.”

“Do you want me to go?” she persisted, her eyes half hidden behind drooping lashes, but on me every instant.

“Do I want you to go?” I almost mimicked her. My voice was rising, and she got up and slipped swiftly past me, closing the door and leaning back against it, still watching me. “Do I want to give up the most wonderful thing in my life, and turn back, all alone to my work?” I choked. “You know better than to ask such a question. It is foolish. You must not say such things to me. I can not bear it.”

“Then,” said she, “why on earth are we doing it?”

She came to the chair on the other side of the table and sank into it, still watching me.

“You are afraid of happiness,” she said.

“No, no—I am not! It is not that!”

“But Anthony, I can't believe that you are afraid of unhappiness. I know you too well.”

“I am not. I am choosing unhappiness.”

She knit her brows. “Probably,” she said slowly and thoughtfully, “it is something of both.”

“No,” I answered, “you are wrong. You know well enough what it is. It is your freedom. That is the one thing I will not, can not take.”

“My what?” she queried, with a curious, faint smile.

“Your freedom!” I cried, standing over her, with clenched hands.

“But Anthony, I am not free. There never was a woman less free—than I am—now—this minute!”

“That is absurd, Heloise.”

“It is not absurd. Oh, Anthony, Anthony, will you ever come down out of the clouds! Do you really suppose that I will be free just because you say so—off there in Paris, knowing every moment of the day and night that nothing on earth but your generosity keeps me alive—that every step of my growth will be due to you—that—”

“Stop, dear! You must not—”

“—that I am not even paying my way? Oh, Anthony, bless your dear heart, sometimes, in thinking about you, I laugh—and sometimes I cry. Can't you see that I shall not move a mile toward Paris of my own desire, that I go only because you tell me to—yes, because you order me to? Can't you see that this has been your idea all along, not mine—that you have made every decision, down to the minutest detail of my poor life.... Freedom? Why, Anthony dear, I'm a million miles from freedom and traveling the other way! I don't want that kind of freedom. I want to work with you—right by your side. I want to earn some real freedom, the right kind. I want to—yes, to make good with you, Anthony.... Oh, I've tried to be good. I've tried to accept your judgment in everything. My life is yours anyway, so there was no harm in that. I love you as I never knew a woman could love a man. I worship you.... You must not stop me, Anthony!—Even so, I would give you up.

“If it was best for you. That is all I have asked myself—What would be best for you? And then you've ordered me about so, Anthony, and what on earth could I say. I had to plan as you told me to plan. I ought not to be saying this now. I ought to be going away, very quietly, saying—'Yes, Anthony. I will go, Anthony.' But now you tell me that in your heart you want me to stay. And I can see that it is true. I know you want me.... And yet, Anthony, you have the hardihood, you assume the wisdom, to decide for us both—squarely against the dictates of both our hearts. You assume not only to decide for us now—you are deciding what the future would be if we should stay together. And that is—why, that is silly, Anthony. There never was a man and woman who needed each other more than you and I need each other.” Her voice dropped, and softened. “I don't think a man and woman ever loved more wonderfully, Anthony. We are n't children. We have suffered. And I think we know.... You see, dear, I have come to distrust your judgment about some very human things. Every marriage is a risk. People seldom marry who know each other as you and I do, who have tested each other.... Oh, I've tried so hard to accept your judgment. I kept waking up last night, and it all raced through and through my head; and still I felt I must do as you say.”

My world was falling about me.

“But your work, child,” I cried. “All that stands just as it stood before, when we—well, when I—made the plans. The problem is still there. We can't escape that, not even by the easy process of following our hearts.”

She had dropped her eyes. She was smiling.

“There is n't any problem, Anthony,” she said.

“Oh, come, Heloise—”

“There is n't, dear. If I spend these next two years just in learning by heart the operas that I've got to know, they will be years very well invested. I could do that out here as well as in Paris.”

“But you are begging the question, dear. It is n't just that. You know it is n't just that.”

“What is just that?” she asked, still smiling.

It was hard to answer this directly. But I had to. I dropped on my knees beside her. I gripped her shoulders. I tried to make her look at me. For it would not do for us to go all to pieces—we must face this thing.

“Heloise, dear—you are making me say it, but you knew the problem is there. You have not forgotten what those three great singers said?”

“No,” she murmured, “I remember well enough.” But still she would not look up.

“You know what they said... the art of the opera singer is the most exacting thing in the world. There is no place in it for a husband, a home... and children, dear. For these things are exacting, too. It was the three greatest sopranos in the world who said that.”

“Oh, I know all that, Anthony,”—I could not make her lift her eyes,—“but people are so different. There is n't any problem, really. There are only different persons. That's all, Anthony. I could tell you of three other great singers that have husbands, homes and splendid families.... Only one thing bothers me—they all happen to be contraltos. Do you suppose there is any such difference as that between contraltos and sopranos, Anthony?”

Now she looked up. That smile was still hovering about her eyes and the corners of her mouth. But when I drew her dear head against my shoulder and pressed my lips to her forehead, it faded.

I kissed her eyes, slowly, one after the other.

Then her hand slid hesitatingly upon my shoulder, as it had once before. Her head nestled back in the hollow of my arm. I bent close. Our lips met.

We said many things. It hardly matters now what they were.

Excepting this. She held my face in her two hands and looked into my eyes.

“Dear, dear boy,” she said, “you have lived all your life with theories. Don't you think it is time you lived with a fact. For I'm afraid that's what I am—a fact. And facts are stubborn things, Anthony.”

But then she worried a little. “You must n't let me sweep you off your feet, Anthony. We must sit up and think. We must decide this thing.”

So she sat up straight. And I leaned back, still kneeling beside her.

For a little space we were very sober. Then she said—

“Anthony! what are you smiling at? What makes you look like that?”

It was a moment before I could compose my features. She had folded her hands in her lap. Her eyes followed mine to the watch on her wrist as I said—

“Your train left the East Station sixteen minutes ago.”

She drew her under lip in a little way between her teeth, as I had seen her do so many times when she was startled. Then, “Oh, Anthony!” she said, laughing a little—“the big trunk has gone with it.”

---

We shall get the trunk back all right. It was just a matter of telegraphing Tientsin. The baggage master here attended to it for me.

The refunding of Heloise's ticket money proves to be a more complicated matter. There is no Public-Service Commission to direct the Trans-Siberian in such matters—nothing but the Russian and Chinese Governments. Hindmann thinks that they may be willing to give back half of it. He says that is a common rule among the big steamship companies. Half the railway fare, that is; there will be no refunding of what was paid for the berth, of course. Anyway, Hindmann has taken the ticket and says he can probably get something done within the week.

For myself, I find it difficult to take this matter seriously. I could cheerfully let the money go. But Heloise, I can see, is a little disturbed over it.

We discussed the question of a marriage, this afternoon, she and I. We both want some sort of ceremony. Mainly, I suppose, for the effect on ourselves. And since we are here, with nothing to do but go ahead with our work and our lives, neither Heloise nor I can see any sound reason for delaying. If we were back home, or if she were among friends, it might be well to wait. Though I doubt even that. It would be merely a conventional observance, and would serve no healthy purpose. No, our job now is to go straight ahead with the life that we are to share. And we may as well be about it. So we shall be married, quietly and soberly, sometime within the next few days.

I had thought of the Consulate. But some telephoning on the part of Hindmann drew out the information that our consular and diplomatic officials are not permitted to solemnize marriages, nor to advise regarding the legality of the arrangements. The Consul-General is willing to witness the ceremony officially, but we should have to go down to Tientsin for that, and we both want to be married here in Peking if it is possible.

The peculiar complication is, of course, that China, as an Oriental, non-Christian country, does not solemnize marriages in any way that is recognized in the West. If we were in a European country now, all that would be necessary would be to conform to local customs. But international observances, as among Western peoples, do not hold where China is concerned.

Finally Hindmann said,

“What's the matter with a missionary brother?”

“Why, of course!” replied Heloise. “Aren't we stupid? They are ministers. And I don't think it matters what particular place they happen to be in when they say the words.”

Hindmann is inclined to think that we had best go down after all to the Tientsin Consulate and be married there, either by a missionary or by a minister of one of the Settlements. “There's several thousand white folks there,” said he. “Pretty sure to be some preachers among 'em. Then, you see, the Consul-General will give you each a certificate, and besides he'll have the marriage put on record at the State Department at Washington. That way, it 'll hold all right, I guess.”

Heloise and I covertly exchanged glances. We know what is in our hearts Certificates!...

---

On the Steamer, “Hsing Mien,”, Yangtze River. May 1st.

I FOUND this volume of my journal to-day at the bottom of my trunk. I do not understand why I wrote it. My life is so astonishingly different now. Yet for many years I rarely missed a day. In the earlier volumes—left in my tin trunk, at Peking, with my other books and papers—each little step of the laborious, day-by-day work that has so slowly brought me to my present mastery of my subject, is carefully noted down. I rarely noted mere moods, conversations, personal interests, until this journey to the East. I am amazed, in turning the leaves of this latest and (I think) last volume, to observe that it is almost wholly personal. But I suppose this is natural, considering the extraordinarily personal nature of the events in which I have played so curious and, in the outcome, so wonderful a part.

I don't think I shall make any effort to keep it up. It was the companion of my solitary years. There is no longer the inclination—or even the time. I have a better companion. Why, I hardly realized, until this afternoon, that it has been all but forgotten for ten days. Since my eighteenth birthday, when I began my series of journals in earnest, I have never before neglected this work for a greater space than three days. Excepting, of course, when I was operated upon, four years ago.

As regards my working notes, Heloise insists on keeping those herself. She has discarded the journal method as cumbersome and difficult to index. She has ordered a series of loose-leaf blank books from Kelly and Walsh, at Shanghai. Meantime she is keeping all my memoranda on cards.

It is rather a surprise to me that I can permit her to rearrange my habits of work in this fashion. But I do permit it. I am even forced to admit that she is already an invaluable assistant.

She says that she wants to help all she can in my work now, while it is possible. Later there will be complications of one sort or the other. She is right at her own work, too; but that, she says, is fun. And she practices every day. I observe her, from hour to hour and day to day, in a curious sort of wonder. It will be some time, I see, before I shall really grow to accept it all as fact. I am living in a miracle.

This steamer is a large, modern affair, with electric lights and a very fair table. We are going down to Nanking—three days from Hankow. We came to Hankow by rail from Peking; an interesting journey, and not uncomfortable, barring the dust.

Nanking has been recommended to me as a center of much of the traditional musical culture of China. And as the Yangtze Valley, they say, becomes unbearably hot in the summer-time, we thought it advisable to spend a few weeks there before the worst of the heat sets in. Also, there is some talk that another revolution may break out there, later on. From there we go on to Shanghai for a period of study; then, doubtless, back to Peking and Tientsin.

The great Yangtze proves rather disappointing, scenically. So far, the banks have been flat and muddy most of the way. And the water is yellow when it is not a muddy gray.

But the junks are interesting, with their high timbered sterns and the brown sails with bamboo ribs. Too, I rather like the water buffalo that stand knee deep near the banks and sullenly watch us as we plow majestically by. And the river ports, of course, are quite fascinating. The water beggars paddle out in sampans and large round tubs, and bold up baskets on the ends of bamboo poles in which we of the regal upper deck are supposed to deposit brass cash and small silver.

I have been writing this on the long table in the room that is at once social hall and dining-room for the first cabin passengers. Chinese “boys” slip about in their soft shoes. At the farther end of the table the second engineer—a Scotchman, of course—is playing Sousa records on the talking machine that is his chiefest treasure in this lonely land. He is entertaining a bearded English globe-trotter and an American military man. I can't recall the name of this latter, though we met at the Legation in Peking. We always bow.

Heloise has just come from our stateroom. She has taken the seat opposite, and is watching me as I write. She is smiling a little. I know this, though I will not look up. Not until I finish. For once my eyes rest on hers, my pen will stop.

I know what she wants. It is near the sunset hour. She likes me to be out on deck with her then, and at moonrise. She feels these wonders in some deep corner of her nature. She always becomes very silent, and presses close against my arm.

I can feel her eyes on me. I shall not be able to hold out much longer. I want to laugh, and you can not write to any purpose when you are laughing....

I think I shall not write any more.