You won't object to hearing a man rave a little, Covington? If you do, you can tear up this right here. But I know I can't say anything good about Marjory that you won't agree with. Maybe, however, you'd call my present condition abnormal. Perhaps it is; but I wonder if it is n't part of every normal man's life to be abnormal to this extent at least once—to see, for once, this staid old world through the eyes of a prince of the ancient city of Bagdad; to thrill with the magic and gorgeous beauty of it? It shows what might always be, if one were poet enough to sustain the mood.

Here am I, a plugging lawyer of the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, State of New York—which is just about as far away from the city of Bagdad as you can get. I'm concerned mainly with certain details of corporation law—the structure of soulless business institutions which were never heard of in Bagdad. My daily path takes me from certain uptown bachelor quarters through the subway to a certain niche in a downtown cave dwelling. Then—presto, she comes. I pass over all that intervened, because it is no longer important, but—presto again, I find myself here a prince in some royal castle of Bagdad, counting the moments until another day breaks and I can feel the touch of my princess's hand. Even my dull eyes count for me, because so I can fancy myself, if I choose, in some royal apartment, surrounded by hanging curtains of silk, priceless marbles, and ornaments of gold and silver, with many silent eunuchs awaiting my commands. From my windows I'm at liberty to imagine towers and minarets and domes of copper.

Always she, my princess, is somewhere in the background, when she is not actually by my side. When I saw her before, Covington, I marveled at her eyes—those deep, wonderful eyes that told you so little and made you dream so much. I saw her hair too, and her straight nose, and her beautiful lips. Those things I see now as I saw them then. I must wait a little while really to see them again. In their place, however, I have now her voice and the sound of her footsteps. To hear her coming, just to hear the light fall of her feet upon the ground, is like music.

But when she speaks, Covington, then all other sounds cease, and she speaks alone to me in a world grown silent to listen. There is some quality in that voice that gets into me—that reaches and vibrates certain hidden strings I did not know were there. So sweet is the music that I can hardly give enough attention to make out the meaning of her words. What she says does not so much matter as that she should be speaking to me—to my ears alone.

And these things are merely the superficialities of her. There still remains the princess herself below these wonderful externals. There still remains the woman herself. Woman, any woman, is marvelous enough, Covington. When you think of all they stand for, the fineness of them compared with our man grossness, that wonderful power of creation in them, their exquisite delicacy, combined with the big-souled capacity for sacrifice and suffering that dwarfs any of our petty burdens into insignificance—God knows, a man should bow his knee before the least of them. But when to all those general attributes of the sex you add that something more born in a woman like Marjory—what in the world can a man do big enough to deserve the charge of such a soul? In the midst of all my princely emotions, that thought makes me humble, Covington.

I fear I have rambled a good deal, old man. I can't read over what I have been scribbling here, so I must let it go as it is. But I wanted to tell you some of these things that are rushing through my head all the time, because I knew you would be glad for me and glad for her. Or does my own joy result in such supreme selfishness that I am tempted to intrude it upon others? I don't believe so, because there is no one else in the world to whom I would venture to write as I 've written to you.

I'm not asking you to answer, because what I should want to hear from you I would n't allow any one else to read. So tear this up and forget it if you want. Some day I shall meet you again and see you. Then I can talk to you face to face.

Yours,
PETER J. NOYES.

Sitting alone in his room at the Normandie, Monte read this through. Then his hands dropped to his side and the letter fell from them to the floor.

"Oh, my God!" he said. "Oh, my God!"