"Ulick, darling man, my darling husband," she muttered, and opened her arms as if to embrace him. The champagne is telling the truth—at last, he thought, and lost no time in lying beside her and taking her in his arms. "Yes, you poor, dear Easter. How glad I am to be near you, I love you so"—he did love her as he felt her splendid body close to him. He kissed her on the mouth, but the champagne odor was repugnant. Easter, her eyes closed, returned his ardent hug. Suddenly she burst into hysterical laughter. Ulick relaxed his hold thinking it was the effects of the champagne. He became alarmed. Someone might hear this maniacal laughter. Sitting up he placed his hand over her mouth. She gasped and struggled pointing all the while at something. He looked in the open bath-room door. Nothing. Her laughter was become uncontrollable. Cursing his luck, for he had almost achieved felicity, Ulick dashed to the washstand and drew a glass of water. That would revive her and stop the damnable noise. She waved him away, chuckling: "Ulick, Ulick, look at yourself in the glass. Jewel, you've been making love to me all this time with your hat on. Oh! Jewel, I'll die over this joke"—fresh peals ensued. Chagrined, he touched his head. His silk hat was jammed over his ears. In his excitement he hadn't noticed it. With an oath he dropped the glass and turning to the bed was about to warn her that if she didn't stop he would turn her out. For the moment he hated her. What a sight he must have been. But too his consternation she was again in deep slumber. To hell with her! he exclaimed and went into the music-room where he turned on the lights and seated himself on a comfortable couch. He could not sleep. She snored on.... Stiff, in the dull morning, he found himself in the same spot. He tip-toed into the bedroom. Easter had gone. Mechanically he gazed into the mirror. The hat was still on his head....
VI
On East 58th Street there once stood Peter Buckel's brewery. Opposite was, still is, Terrace Garden. A theatre now occupies the old brewery ground. Young people who preferred serious converse to the glitter and bang of the big Garden across the street went to Buckel's. A wooden terrace with a roof was pleasant to sit upon when the weather was warm. A huge tree grew in the middle of this esplanade and the owner had artfully made it serve as a decoration. Under its spreading foliage people supped and smoked. The town was then younger, less crowded by "undesirable citizens"—the phrase is of Theodore Roosevelt's making—and life more mellow, because less puritanical. An evening in middle May saw a group around the tree-table as it was called; the most coveted spot on the terrace. There were Ulick Invern and Alfred Stone. Next to him sat a tall thin young man addressed by his companions as Milton. He did not wear a clerical garb but the cut of him was unquestionably priestly. His harmonious features, extremely blond hair, prominent eye-balls, gray in color, denoted refinement of mind and body. He was not in the least priggish and gave himself no sacerdotal airs. If he had done so he would soon have been lonely. Ulick and Alfred were too easy-going to endure superior pretensions in anyone; besides, they had known Milton before he went to the Jesuits, and Ulick sincerely sorrowed when ill-health fostered by strenuous study had sent his friend temporarily back into the world he despised. He recognized that Milton had a genuine vocation.
"That was a nice hot picnic," ejaculated Stone, mopping his brow as he dipped his nose into a long beaker of beer. "Never again," chimed in Ulick. Milton became nervous. "Where have you chaps been this hot afternoon?" "You wouldn't call this hot after Hoboken," cut in Stone. "Hotter than the hinges of hell," added Ulick as he emptied his lemonade glass. "I feel like a regular tosspot this evening," he continued. "We must have swilled a bathtub of liquid this afternoon over at Meyer's in Hoboken, eh, Alfred?" "You didn't, old herring-gut," was the rather surly retort;—"but I did. Why people of reputed sanity cross the Hudson on a sweltering day to wave handkerchiefs at their friends on out-bound steamers has always puzzled me. Now, why should we have given ourselves the bother to say farewell to Easter Brandès on a crowded dock, when we could just as well have wished her bon-voyage the night before at the Maison Felicé"—"Has Miss Brandès sailed to Europe?" inquired Milton, not without interest in his voice. "Yes, she goes to Berlin, to Lilli Lehmann, thence to emerge a full-fledged prima-donna and Wagner interpreter, et patiti et patita! I can't for the life of me see why she didn't stay under Madame Ash's wing a couple of seasons more. Mind you, I grant her talent. She is positively brilliant, but she needs steadying. Her voice, her delivery, her extraordinary memory—she already has fifteen rôles completely memorized, mastered—these are but a hint of what the future may bring forth; nevertheless, she is too young for Lehmann and—Oh, what's the use? Women don't think with their heads, they think with their matrix. They are too damned emotional. They are the sexual sex.... Putting an idea in their heads is like placing a razor in the hands of a child...."
"And men, I presume, think with their cortex," interposed the cool voice of Ulick. Milton deprecatingly lifted a white hand. "I can't say I admire the turn our talk is taking. Alfred is too literal, too fond of physiological details. I want to hear more of the art of Miss Brandès...." "And less about her coda—there's a musical term for you," cried Stone. All three young men laughed. At times Alfred could be amusingly immodest. "Well, she has gone to Germany despite your advice," declared Ulick. "She is a stubborn creature and I'm quite sure she has done the right thing. That young woman has a head of her own and instinct prompts her in the right direction. She may not always think with her head, yet she has managed to land on both feet. Think of it boys, Easter has only been here about six months. Behold! she goes to Berlin where she will be under the protection of the greatest living Wagner singer. How did she do it? Magnetism? Beauty? Talent? All three I fancy. And she is penniless. She told me so. Yet she dresses well, and someone must be putting up for her expenses while she is abroad".... "Oh Ulick! Thou art an ass," sang Stone in his most derisive manner. "Has she a banker? Yes, she is lucky, she has two. Paul Godard is one—" "It's a lie!" shouted Ulick, who was at once in a fighting mood. "And the other," continued Stone, unmoved, "is the young woman who is to play chaperone to her innocence while she remains abroad. I know, Frida Ash told me everything, and between you and me and this fat old tree, I think Madame Frida is glad to lose both of her pupils. They sat rather heavily on her betimes."
"Allie Wentworth is all right," returned the mollified Invern, "but I fail to see where Master Godard comes in. He is rich, to be sure, but as mean as sour-owl dirt...." "The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung." Stone sneeringly quoted. Silence ensued. Then Milton spoke with his gentlest intonations: "I wonder why it is that so soon as a young woman sings or goes on the stage, mud-slinging is in order?" After that query the party broke up. Stone, as usual, was bored. Ulick felt that too much had been said of the girl he bade adieu a few hours before, radiant with happiness on the upper deck of the steamship, her arms holding a perfect sheaf of blush-roses. She had been cordial. She had kissed him on the cheek, whispering, "You dear old Jewel," and then Allie plucked at her sleeve, the whistle roared and that was the last he saw of Easter Brandès. He shook hands with Milton. Stone, as he languidly sauntered away said as a parting shot, over his shoulder: "I suppose you know the rumour 'round town that Paul Godard has been her banker? His name is on the passenger-list too. Gay bird, Paul. Ta! Ta!" Ulick went home in a sad humour.
THE FOURTH GATE
At the fourth gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the jewels that adorn her breast....