THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE
 
 
 ? Sands of 
 Pleasure 
 
 Author o< 
 
 The Happy Motorist," "Venus and Cupid, an Impression," 
 Ireland at the Crossroads," " Christopher Columbus," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE ST. BOTOLPH SOCIETY 
 53 Beacon Street
 
 Copyright, Nov. 23, 1905 
 E. GRANT RICHARDS AND FILSON YOUNG 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 ps 
 
 Co 0. K. 
 
 When in the pride of life our steps go down 
 And mingle lightly with the unresting throng 
 Of souls released from sense of right and wrong 
 To wear the fetters of our smile or frown. 
 How dusty with the dust of street and town 
 Grow then our garments, and how harsh the song 
 Of voices that once charmed us. when too strong 
 We hear the strains our laughter cannot drown I 
 Yet cwld we dwell beyond the whirl and moil 
 By some loud ocean shore or mountain steep, 
 And drink the wine of loneliness too deep 
 Ever to thirst again, we sonn should yield 
 To easy shimber, drugged by salt and soil, 
 And rest forgetful of the strenuous Jield.
 
 " Ne creator nb creatura mai 
 fusenza emore."
 
 PUBLISHER S NOTE 
 
 FOR the benefit of readers who may be puzzled 
 by certain references in this story the pub 
 lisher wishes to explain that the lighthouses, 
 lightships, and fog-signals around the British 
 Islands are under the control of a body known as 
 the Corporation of Trinity House. This corpo 
 ration, consisting of a certain number of Elder 
 Brethren and Younger Brethren, who are for the 
 most part retired sea-captains and naval officers, 
 collects certain dues from the merchant shipping 
 of Great Britain and Ireland, and applies them 
 to the erection and maintenance of lighthouses. 
 
 The publisher may also remind American read 
 ers that monastic communities still exist in Eng 
 land, among them several houses of the Cister 
 cian or Trappist Order.
 
 TO THE READER 
 
 TF a man s work be not its own apology he will 
 hardly mend or excuse it by more words. " I 
 had a story to tell; I have told it as well as I 
 knew how " that ought to be enough, and more 
 than enough, for me to say about this book. But 
 in this age good taste greatly busies itself about 
 matters of social morality; and has decreed, with 
 what wisdom I do not pretend to measure, that 
 this subject and that, very urgent though they 
 may be in the life of man, shall not be written 
 or read about in books designed merely for the 
 entertainment of his mind. I have disobeyed this 
 decree, and cast a great part of my tale in a 
 region held, under the rules of good taste, to be 
 out of bounds; and it is in justice to readers who 
 expect their authors to be subject to this rule that 
 I now advertise my breach and disregard of it. 
 The profession of Toni is a very ancient one, and 
 has been held honorable in other times than ours; 
 and although in spite of the determined idealism 
 of some people who write and speak of it in igno 
 rance it is in fact dishonorable and degraded, 
 its social influence is too great to be ignored. 
 xi
 
 xii TO THE READER 
 
 In obscure ways it impinges upon some of the 
 finest characters among mankind, takes its part 
 in their education, and through them makes its 
 mark on the whole world. But whether we regard 
 it as a social disorder, or as a social necessity, or 
 simply as an integral part of our civilization, to 
 be accepted as unavoidable and uncontrollable, 
 in whatever way we regard it, it remains impor 
 tant and worthy of all the intelligent and sympa 
 thetic study which the sociologist can bring to 
 bear on it. 
 
 What it is doing in a work of art, you may say, 
 is another question. But the business of literature 
 is with the whole of life; and my business, in 
 such contributions to literature as I may attempt 
 to make, is with all of the life of my time that 
 I can see and grasp. The life of man in this 
 moment of the world s history, and all that per 
 tains to or affects it that I believe to be the 
 raw material available for the writer of fiction 
 who is willing to risk failure in some better cause 
 than the manufacture of the novel of commerce. 
 Into my view and knowledge of the world imme 
 diately about me come Richards innumerable, and 
 Tonis not so many; and to the making of char 
 acter go not only the influences of the wise and 
 good in man, but also of the foolish and base. 
 The collision of influences, of the sane mind with 
 what is socially insane, produces daily results that 
 are surprising, but always instructive to men and
 
 TO THE READER xiii 
 
 women who are at all capable of finding interest 
 in humane matters at large; and no one can be 
 said to appreciate character in the modern world 
 who does not recognize the existence of this 
 among other social influences, and know at least 
 something of how it works. Not hysterically, or 
 with shudderings and averted eyes; that is not 
 recognition, nor are such attitudes becoming in 
 the student; but calmly and without dismay, dis 
 entangling the individual interest and merit from 
 the confused mass. It is obviously impossible that 
 every one should Jcnow the half-world at first 
 hand; but there is every reason why mature 
 people should read about it, not bitterly or un 
 pleasantly, but as pleasantly as possible, in the 
 mirror of a page written without moral preoccu 
 pations. For if there be a moral in this tale (and 
 I think there is) it comes assuredly from the inci 
 dents themselves, and not from my view of them. 
 My aim was simply to exhibit a character in one 
 of those moments of change and influence which 
 in some form or other come to us all and test the 
 ballast and steering-gear of our lives. 
 
 For the rest it is wholesome to study the fixed 
 amid the fluent, to trace what is (in our phrase) 
 eternal amid what changes with the ages. Rich 
 ard in Maxim s is a figure of our day, in a scene 
 highly typical of our day, and, in its details at 
 least, peculiar to it; but his ordeal there is a 
 part of man s unchanging trial in the world. If
 
 xiv TO THE READER 
 
 it 6e of interest to waicli the changing face of 
 nature, and to trace on some down or moorland 
 signs of the war and peace of a thousand years 
 ago, to see in imagination forests green and leafy 
 where now are only the heather and the wind; 
 of how much more interest is it to trace the secular 
 rings and mark our microscopic notches on that 
 other plant of time which, like the Life-tree 
 Igdrasil, " has its roots down in the kingdoms of 
 Hcla and Death, and whose boughs overspread 
 the Highest Heaven."
 
 BOOK 1 
 THE BUILDER 
 
 BOOK II 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 
 
 BOOK III 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK
 
 BOOK I 
 THE BUILDER
 
 THE SANDS OF 
 PLEASURE 
 
 afternoon was filled with sound and sun- 
 JL shine. About one of those grim promon 
 tories that are England s foothold in the Atlantic 
 the waves were rolling in, long and lazy, like 
 seaworn travellers too weary for anything but the 
 sudden rest of the shore. A mild breeze from 
 the south heralded them with airs redolent of the 
 freshness of their long voyage, and hovered above 
 the foam and commotion of their landfall. 
 
 The land there goes down to the sea, slowly and 
 majestically, without haste or abruptness. Ten 
 miles inland the world of railway and town ends, 
 and the preparation for this august meeting of 
 land and sea begins. The changing seasons cover 
 the vast expanse of moor with gorse or heather, 
 and in loneliness and the peace of salt fresh airs 
 earth makes ready to keep her tryst. An almost 
 savage solemnity envelops these rolling golden 
 
 19
 
 20 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 miles ; only the sea, like an impatient bridegroom, 
 sends scouts and heralds whose white wings and 
 wild voices hover above the gorse. A little farther, 
 and earth takes her farewell of man: a few 
 minute hamlets sheltering in the valleys that 
 begin to seam the promontory; a few scattered 
 farms, a few bleak churches where the voice of 
 prayer mingles with the strong winds; and then 
 from great scarps and bastions of rock, from 
 grass-covered cliffs and steeps of serpentine, she 
 goes down to receive the long kisses of the waves. 
 They are cold or passionate, those kisses, savage 
 or tender, according to the mood of the sea. In 
 this Cornish place and on this afternoon they 
 were warm and gentle and passionless, a great 
 and quiet tide of fluent life that swept up to and 
 enveloped the shore. The sound of them filled 
 the air with a continuous murmur of varying 
 harmonies that rose and fell along the sweeping 
 coast of the promontory. About its outer points, 
 where the rocks went down into deep water like 
 the teeth of a saw, the quiet waves frayed them 
 selves into fleece and foam, and divided with a 
 belt of moving white the gray old rock from the 
 hazy blue of the sea. A few sailing-ships leaned 
 to the breeze, standing in to take their last sight 
 of land for many a week and to make their num 
 bers to the signal-station on the hill; and here 
 and there, on the same broad pathway, the smoke 
 of steamers smudged the long level of the horizon.
 
 THE BUILDER 21 
 
 Yet in a large view nothing seemed alive and 
 moving but the waves; and even they only took 
 shape as they neared the shore and felt the check 
 of the land. In long straight lines of darker blue 
 the furrows rose from their bed of glittering 
 wrinkles; advanced and grew, showed green and 
 transparent as their feet trod the carpeting of 
 sand between the rocks; and then broke and 
 tripped, and spilled and poured and eddied, and 
 shot hissing tongues of snow among the sun- 
 warmed barricades of earth. 
 
 A young man was walking along the cart-road 
 that leads over the top of Poltesco Head to the 
 cliffs and rocks. His swinging walk was full of 
 energy and happiness, as though he were glad on 
 this golden afternoon to be a sharer in life and 
 the world. Above his head larks were singing, 
 and now and then the melancholy cry of a sea 
 gull interrupted that happy music ; but the domi 
 nating sound about him was the pervading voice 
 of the seashore that sent its rumor up to him 
 in a continuous and mellow murmur. As he 
 approached the seaward end of the promontory 
 this sound increased, so that the whole world 
 seemed to be filled with it. The young man s 
 step quickened, as though answering to a sum 
 mons; and suddenly a smile broke upon his sun 
 burned face as, coming toward the end of the 
 high cart-road, he paused and seemed to listen.
 
 22 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 From the rocks below him now rose another 
 murmur, higher in tone than that of the waves, 
 that mingled with their harmonies and yet re 
 mained clearly distinguished from them. A 
 metallic and ringing sound floated above the land, 
 a sound composed of single and intermittent notes 
 that yet formed a continuous and resonant tone. 
 Clinkings and hammerings, beatings of iron on 
 iron and stone on stone the sound of human 
 labor. Enclosed as though in the great eternal 
 shell of the sea s voices, it thus became a kind 
 of kernel of music in this lonely place, and ar 
 rested the attention by a rare and precious quality 
 of its own. Over a scene so glittering and grand, 
 so filled with the influence and dignity of large 
 spaces, so salted and sweetened by the fresh airs 
 of the sea, this echo of human activity hung like 
 a charm, and compelled attention to the work of 
 which it was an overtone. Yet so mighty are the 
 proportions of this rocky and broken extremity 
 of land that iny one sitting on the grassy summit 
 of the cliff and looking seaward along the low 
 point of the rocks might easily have failed to 
 notice immediately the signs of human activity 
 whence the ringing sounds rose. To Eichard 
 Grey, however, sound and scene were both familiar, 
 and his practised scrutiny at once recognized the 
 signs of human life and movement on the rocks: 
 men moving hither and thither like insects in 
 their crevices; the pigmy arms of cranes wav-
 
 THE BUILDER 23 
 
 ing and circling in the air; wooden sheds and 
 shanties, piles of stone, mortar, ironwork, sand; 
 the smoke of a forge; the busy movement of 
 picks and drills, the circle of hammers upon the 
 anvil. Men were fetching and carrying fresh 
 water from a sort of reservoir fed by pipes from 
 the cliff; other men were mixing mortar; others 
 were carrying it in small loads backwards and 
 forwards, scrambling over the rough rocks or 
 walking gingerly along slippery causeways. Com 
 pared with the immense march of the waves, the 
 wide and solemn movement of the clouds, the 
 remote drift of the ships along the distant hori 
 zon, this antlike activity seemed petty and fretful, 
 as though it had no part in order or usefulness. 
 But looked at more nearly, it arrested the at 
 tention and directed it to an obvious and central 
 purpose. On the outermost of the rocks, and not 
 far from where the green waves broke and foamed, 
 a snow-white shape, the perfection of grace and 
 simplicity, rose above the dark, seaworn platform. 
 It seemed to grow like the trunk of a tree out of 
 the rock, the circumference spreading out at the 
 base as though to hold and adapt itself to the 
 irregularities of the surface, and springing up 
 with a gradual contraction of girth that yet 
 seemed to gather into itself all the strength and 
 anchorage of the roots. The scaffoldings and 
 ladders that clung around it hardly obscured its 
 grace and whiteness, but seemed rather to envelop
 
 24 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 it tenderly in a caress of labor. And to it and 
 from it as a centre the whole movement of this 
 little colony of toiling men came and went. Its 
 tall presence explained everything, and made 
 clear the purpose of anvil, pick, and drill. The 
 sweeping conformation of the coast, the ceaseless 
 plying of ships to and fro on the world s great 
 pathway a few leagues off, the pull of the tides 
 and the setting of the prevalent winds made of 
 the Snail Eocks a snare and danger to men; and 
 the crowded graves in the little churchyard on 
 the cliff, as well as the whitening bones of ships 
 on some of the more sheltered ledges, were a 
 reminder of their past cruelties. The fair white 
 tower rising there, planted among their very 
 teeth, marked the end of their reign of terror, 
 and would presently ordain them ministers of 
 safety and guiding. 
 
 As Eichard Grey left the cart-road and began 
 to descend the rough path worn in the face of the 
 cliff, he came full in sight of the tower, and his 
 heart made a little movement of joy. Young as 
 he was, with all the pulses of life quick and 
 happy in his body, that cold white shape was 
 wife, child, mistress to him. To its building and 
 equipment all his life and training had been 
 directed; he knew no other ambition but that 
 of its creation and the establishment of the prin 
 ciples which its success should prove; he dreamed 
 of no greater pleasure than the assurance that
 
 THE BUILDER 25 
 
 it would stand and shine there long after his 
 own life was over, and be the monument of his 
 own and his father s scientific work. The son of 
 a famous engineer, he had been educated and 
 trained to work out certain principles of light 
 house construction at which his father had ar 
 rived late in life. With an aptness rare in sons 
 whose careers are thus predestined for them he 
 had applied himself with gusto to the necessary 
 studies; and his father before he died had the 
 joy of recognizing in his son a fellow craftsman 
 and enthusiast, and of descrying in his clear and 
 capable mind a promise of distinction greater 
 even than his own. No shadow had ever come 
 between them to disturb their happy relationship. 
 Richard s mother had died in his early boyhood, 
 leaving no other children; and the father and 
 son, thus thrown together, had devoted themselves 
 to each other and to their common work with a 
 singleness that had excluded from Richard s life 
 many of the interests incidental to youth. His 
 school holidays were spent in voyages with his 
 father in a Trinity yacht, or in expeditions to 
 some rock or headland where work was in prog 
 ress; and he thus acquired an impatience of con 
 finement and the life of cities, and a sense of 
 proprietorship in large and windy spaces and the 
 bright environment of the sea. And when, later, 
 he went abroad to spend the year of travel which 
 his father, with old-fashioned wisdom, deemed the
 
 26 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 proper bridge between academic and vital educa 
 tion, it was to far-away straits, and classic prom 
 ontories of the Old World, that his interests led 
 him ; and from a brief sojourn in some glittering 
 capital he would hurry to the coasts of Greece or 
 Egypt and the shores of half-forgotten seas, to 
 idle for weeks about the place of some old Pharos, 
 dreaming of the history of men, reconstructing in 
 imagination the maritime life of vanished nations, 
 and tracing the links between those dead times 
 and his own romantic profession. A strange 
 blend of the artist and the man of science, the 
 poet and the craftsman, he was normal and whole 
 some in the extremely simple view of life which 
 he thus acquired. It was a view that had many 
 blanks, and that inevitably left to the thirties and 
 forties many a discovery and painful struggle 
 that most of us encompass in the twenties; but 
 it included a large and human understanding of 
 things not actually experienced, along with the 
 inevitable tinge of Puritanism that stiffens a life 
 of strenuous labor and purpose. 
 
 Thus it was that until the age of thirty he knew 
 hardly any interests but those that arose out of 
 his work or lay in his reading. His father lived 
 long enough to see him launched on his career 
 as an engineer in the service of the Trinity Board, 
 and to have him working with him as his assistant 
 when he began to build the lighthouse on the 
 Snail Eocks; and his death, the first sorrow that
 
 THE BUILDER 27 
 
 Richard had known, served only to raise the son s 
 interest in their common work to an almost pas 
 sionate devotion. His own capacity and brilliancy 
 as an engineer combined with the influence of his 
 father s name to secure him ready appreciation in 
 the eyes of the Brethren of the Trinity, that 
 genial and rubicund company ; and at his father s 
 death it was decided to entrust to Richard the 
 completion of the Snail Rock lighthouse. There 
 were, it is true, head-shakings and pursings of 
 lips on the part of some old members of the 
 Board; but Richard was so reasonable and in 
 gratiating, and veiled his enthusiasm so cleverly 
 in the garb of a prudent conservatism, that he 
 won the hearts and heads of the genial corpora 
 tion. Moreover, he was regarded more or less 
 as a child of the Trinity, and was given his 
 chance. 
 
 For four years the work had absorbed him com 
 pletely, and now on this summer afternoon, a 
 man of thirty-one, he saw it nearing completion 
 at last. It was some sense of success being thus 
 within sight that stirred his heart as he paused 
 at the beginning of the cliff path and looked at 
 the fair virginal form of the lighthouse standing 
 so white and graceful against the blue of sea and 
 sky. In these four years it had become a very 
 real part of himself, and was invested with a 
 personality that dominated not only himself and 
 his colony of workmen, but the whole environ-
 
 28 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 ment of sea and land. As he had returned to it 
 after each winter and found it standing there, all 
 unshaken and undismayed by the tremendous 
 assault of the sea, his heart had warmed to it in 
 gratitude and love. Into every course had been 
 built something of his father; every joint and 
 dovetail of the carefully shaped stones had been 
 made on principles which they had evolved to 
 gether; and as it grew under his hand a belief 
 in his father s presence, a healing sense of im 
 mortality, and of the existence of a man s soul 
 in the fruit of his labor, grew with it. The old 
 gentleman, who was something of a bookworm, 
 had been of an epigrammatic turn, and a certain 
 quaint platitude of his, We are the sum of what 
 we do, came back to Eichard s mind as he gazed 
 on the unfinished lighthouse tower. He felt more 
 than ever that it was his father s bequest of labor 
 to him, and more than ever he felt pride and 
 elation in the thought that the work was well 
 and faithfully done. 
 
 As he hastened down the path to the scattered 
 sheds and benches where the masons were work 
 ing, a great bulky man, the foreman, rolled up 
 to him. John Macneil was a special ally of 
 Richard s; he had worked under his father, and 
 shared something of the Grey passion for light 
 house work; and wherever there was a dangerous 
 or difficult job in a particularly exposed place,
 
 THE BUILDER 29 
 
 MacneiFs huge frame could be seen, straddling 
 about slippery skerries, or clinging to the margin 
 of some precipitous cliff, or swinging on the hook 
 of a crane, his red honest face all puckered with 
 absorbed interest or anxiety in the work. It now 
 wore a grin of excitement, as the two men went 
 down to the boat that lay waiting to take them 
 off to the outer rocks. 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Eichard, sir ; that s a 
 grand evening. Man, but you should have been 
 here this afternoon wi your rod. The poddlies 
 were leppin all round the big rock, and it was 
 all I could do to keep the men to their work." 
 
 "Were they? I m sorry to have missed that; 
 perhaps they ll turn up again toward sunset. 
 How s the work gone ? " 
 
 Instantly the red laughing face took on a child s 
 seriousness. 
 
 " Oh, pairf ectly well, sir ; I m no complaining. 
 We ve finished the binding course, and I ve nar 
 rowed that ventilator to nine and a half inches, 
 as you said. Price was for giving it the full ten, 
 if I d permitted him. No but what I think he s 
 right; but you and me s not going to fall out 
 over half an inch, Mr. Eichard" and they 
 plunged into technical details. They landed on 
 the jagged, ugly rock on which the lighthouse 
 stood, and together inspected the works, the young 
 alert man and the elderly alert man, poring upon 
 measurements and weights, examining a case of
 
 30 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 bolts that had arrived that afternoon, discussing 
 the quality of iron like connoisseurs tasting wine; 
 testing cement, examining masons and carpenters 
 work, climbing the scaffold to the top course of 
 the tower and scrutinizing the wonderfully shaped 
 stones that fitted into each other like a Chinese 
 puzzle in a word, tasting to the full the joy 
 of craftsmen in their craft. 
 
 As the western sky reddened a whistle sounded, 
 and labor ceased. Tools were collected, coats 
 were put on, and the men crowded into the wait 
 ing boats, that presently floated in, rising and 
 falling on the clear green waves. Arrived at the 
 little landing-slip, they filed up the path to the 
 row of wooden barracks that crowned the great 
 black summit of Poltesco Head and were their 
 habitation for the working season. Lamps shone, 
 smoke rose from the cook s fire, the evening meal 
 was prepared and eaten, pipes were lit and 
 smoked as an accompaniment to newspapers and 
 talk. In his separate little shanty on the cliff 
 Eichard Grey produced his instruments after his 
 evening meal was finished, and sat late at his 
 drawing-desk; and it was not until the steady 
 snores of Macneil in the adjoining cabin had 
 firmly established themselves that he put away 
 his papers and prepared to seek his own camp- 
 bed. But before he did so he went down, as was 
 his habit, to take a last look at the works. The 
 tide and the moon had risen, and were flooding
 
 THE BUILDER 31 
 
 the rocks with light and foaming waves; to the 
 northeast the gleam of the searchlight on Pen- 
 dennis Castle shimmered at intervals in the sky; 
 and far out at sea twinkled the lights of a pass 
 ing liner, thundering westward to the open sea. 
 The waters were calm except where the swell 
 broke on the rocks, and their eternal voice rose 
 and fell in the silence. The white tower glim 
 mered ghostly in the moonlight; it stood there 
 proud and tranquil, like a thing that should en 
 dure forever. Eichard stood beside it looking into 
 the violet night until a wave spilling at his feet 
 sent him to seek the shelter of his cabin.
 
 II 
 
 tourist who on a summer s day adven- 
 JL tures as far as Poltesco Head sees only the 
 buildings of the lighthouse establishment, daz 
 zling in snowy whitewash; the keepers houses, 
 with their trim walls and gardens where the pop 
 pies shake in the breeze and the clothes lie bleach 
 ing on the hedges; and, over the deep blue- water 
 gap at the cliff s verge, the serrated ridges, the 
 shelves and skerries and ledges of the Snail 
 Eocks, with the lighthouse itself beyond. The 
 tower stands fair and white on the Outer Snail, 
 its lantern glittering in the sunshine, the birds 
 wheeling around the balcony, the green seas wash 
 ing about its base; but on tower and causeway, 
 dwellings and gardens, there rests now profound 
 peace and loneliness; the human repose which no 
 turmoil of the sea can ever break; the Sabbath 
 of accomplished labor. 
 
 But in the days when Richard Grey and John 
 Macneil and their little company of laborers and 
 artificers kept house in the wooden shanties on the 
 cliff-side the scene was very different. Many 
 sounds mingled in the clear air, and the ceaseless 
 
 32
 
 THE BUILDER 33 
 
 passage to and fro of the dust-colored figures of 
 the men kept the little settlement alive with that 
 air of bustle and absorption which is character 
 istic of such scenes of transitory labor. The 
 building of a rock lighthouse is a slow and diffi 
 cult task, carried on far from the busy haunts 
 of men, and attracting little of their attention; 
 and often it is only the round eyes of the sea-gulls 
 that watch and wonder at this clamorous invasion 
 of their sanctuaries. The lighthouse on the Snail 
 had its own special problems, for which its near 
 ness to the land and the quarries made some 
 compensation; but the very small surface of the 
 outer rock left uncovered at low water made the 
 first part of the building very slow indeed. The 
 first work of old Sir Everard Grey and his son, 
 after the triangulation and survey of the rocks, 
 and when the site and design of the lighthouse 
 had been determined, was the erection of some 
 temporary structure on which the smith s forge 
 could be erected above high-water mark, so that 
 the picks and boring tools could be kept sharp; 
 and the erection of the beacon had occupied half 
 of the first season s work. Then the excavation 
 of a shallow foundation pit had been begun, and 
 before the end of the season the first two courses 
 of masonry, all dovetailed and fitted and locked 
 together, had been successfully laid, and the work 
 left to the storms of winter. On resuming work 
 the next spring nothing was found to have been
 
 34 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 damaged; and in that season twenty-eight more 
 courses were laid, completing the solid part of 
 the tower and raising it some forty feet in height 
 and five and twenty feet above high-water mark. 
 But the following winter was one of disaster. 
 Sir Everard died after a short illness, and later, 
 in the heavy gales of February, the beacon was 
 washed away, damaging some of the upper courses 
 of the tower as it was hurled against them. 
 
 It was then that Kichard, who had been acting 
 as his father s assistant, applied for and, after 
 some difficulty, obtained permission to carry out 
 the work himself. In adopting a certain curve 
 the conchoidal for the sides of his tower, Sir 
 Everard had gone flat in the face of the sacred 
 precepts of Smeaton and Stevenson, and with but 
 little sympathy from his colleagues, who were all 
 wedded either to the parabolic or the hyperbolic 
 frustra. The curve up which the waves could 
 most easily lick, so to speak, and have their 
 strength diverted; the disposition of the super 
 incumbent weight of the tower so that it might 
 with the greatest advantage press immediately 
 over the stones of the lower courses, without im 
 parting to them a spreading tendency; the 
 weight to be opposed to the waves, and its decrease 
 upwards in proportion to the decrease of their 
 strength, these are the considerations on which 
 such a design depends; and as Sir Everard s 
 views upon them were new then, it followed that
 
 THE BUILDER 35 
 
 his design was also a little unorthodox. But 
 Kichard at any rate was a confident believer, and 
 when he took over the work on which the two 
 had so hopefully labored, although he did it with 
 a heavy heart, his confidence in the result was 
 unshakable. 
 
 That was two years ago years filled with hard 
 work and long hours of exposure on the rock and 
 about the workshops on Poltesco Head. Richard 
 had fallen .in love with his occupation surely 
 the happiest destiny that can befall any man; 
 and in the long hours spent in the fresh briny 
 air, cheered with the bright surrounding glitter of 
 the sea, wet with the soft rains, and blown upon by 
 the salt winds, he had found a contentment of 
 mind that excluded all desire for change or even 
 companionship. When he wanted to talk, he 
 talked to Macneil, who was always ready for ab 
 stract discussions, and who stood to Eichard in 
 the compound relation of instructor, nurse, bully, 
 right-hand man, and abject slave. But the effect 
 on the young engineer of so absorbing and respon 
 sible a work was almost to stupefy his social in 
 stincts; he found in it an outlet for the whole 
 of his energy, and when his day s work was over 
 he was glad to throw himself on his bed and sleep. 
 Thus day followed day with a succession of 
 minute interests each important and distin 
 guished from the rest, but all together producing 
 an effect of monotony that offered little opposi-
 
 36 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 tion to the passage of time, which slipped by 
 almost unheeded. There was the waking up in 
 the morning, and the first anxious look at the 
 weather ; the hasty cup of coffee if the tide 
 fell early and the careful embarkation of the 
 men in the two big flat-bottomed boats that fer 
 ried them from the cliff to the outer rocks; due 
 division and apportionment of labor, so that no 
 one department would be kept waiting for another 
 during the short tide s work; superintendence of 
 a dozen delicate operations, decisions on a dozen 
 matters a mistake in which might have meant 
 a week s delay; passionately interested witness- 
 ings of the landing and craning and laying of a 
 great stone; anxious watching of the returning 
 tide, so that the last moment of work might be 
 secured; blowing of whistles, and hasty collec 
 tion of tools and securing of the work; and last, 
 the hurried embarkation into the boats, while the 
 men often stood up to their middles in water and 
 the returning flood swept over the rock. Between 
 tides there would be the work ashore to superin 
 tend the cutting and preparing of stones, load 
 ing of boats, joinery, and endless iron work on 
 stanchions, bats, holdfasts, clamps, chains, and 
 so forth. Then back again with the first ebbing 
 of the tide from the rock, to repeat the same 
 minute, careful, and laborious round. Sometimes 
 the first tide s work would be done in the gray 
 summer dawn, while the sky reddened and burned,
 
 THE BUILDER 3? 
 
 and the sea-birds cried all about the rock as they 
 fished for their morning meal; sometimes the 
 second tide would occur in the evening, when the 
 boats would row off to the rock in a crimson sun 
 set, and the flares and torches and forge fires 
 would glare long into the night, and make on the 
 peaceful seascape a scene of lurid and infernal 
 activity. 
 
 The variety thus lay in the work itself, enclosed 
 in an outward shell of monotony. The making 
 of mortar, for example, does not seem to be a 
 promising matter of interest; but it was one of 
 Eichard s absorbing cares. He had met with 
 extreme difficulty in finding laborers who could 
 be induced to take sufficient care in the mixing 
 of the special kind of cement used in building 
 a sea-tower, and one after another had been dis 
 charged, until he had found an old local inhabit 
 ant, one Treleath, who took exactly the right 
 kind of conscientious pride in the humble but im 
 portant task, and who felt that the success of the 
 operations depended wholly on himself. And if 
 you had gone down to the works any day and 
 every day during the season, you would have seen 
 no change in the patient old figure, with his pale 
 face and blue Breton eyes, bending over the iron 
 tubs, mixing and pouring, and directing the 
 minion who worked under him. But in fact 
 every cask of sand that was opened, every barrel 
 of lime, every case of cement, had its possi-
 
 38 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 bilities of change and variety. The sand, perhaps, 
 would be a little dull and soft; Treleath would 
 thrust his arm into it, take out a pinch, crumble 
 it, taste it, as though it were some priceless com 
 estible. " Take et away," he would say ; " that 
 ain t no use to we; that never seen Mulford 
 Eiver ; " and then the next time Eichard hap 
 pened to pass : " I shall have to ask you to speak 
 about the sand again, Mr. Grey, zur; I can t put 
 that there stuff into the mortar; there bean t no 
 sharpness in it. They don t belong to send stuff 
 like that to we, and us paying a good price up to 
 Mulford, too." And the old man would shake 
 his head, and broach another cask, which he and 
 Eichard would examine together like fellow ex 
 perts. Although he never said anything very 
 interesting, the old man had a slow dignity of 
 speech and demeanor that delighted Eichard, who 
 often made occasions of consulting him for no 
 other purpose than to enjoy his deliberate con 
 versation. He valued his words, and always 
 looked around the horizon before he spoke, with 
 an air of having taken into consideration every 
 matter, earthly and celestial, that could possibly 
 qualify his opinion. He had a wife, a little fat 
 pillar of a woman as old as himself, who loved 
 him with a romantic worship, and addressed him 
 as " tender dear." She had interviewed Eichard 
 on the morning after her husband s appointment: 
 " And you ll let me sit on the cliffs near that
 
 THE BUILDER 39 
 
 tender dear, sir, where I can see him working, as 
 I ve always done in times past, wherever he he; 
 and thanking you kindly, sir, but tis cheer for 
 him through the long day to look up and see me 
 where I be, and can watch over him while knit 
 ting " so that the red shawl of Mrs. Treleath 
 on the cliff became a sort of ensign, to those ap 
 proaching from the land, that work was going 
 on ashore and that the men were off the rock. 
 
 The morning following Eichard s return to the 
 Eock began a typical day s work. The early sum 
 mer had seen the completion of the masonry of 
 the tower, with the exception of the projecting 
 cornice or capital which was to form the balcony 
 outside the lantern; there only remained the 
 pointing, the completion of the carpenter s work 
 on fittings inside, the erection of the lantern, the 
 completion of the light-keepers homes ashore, and 
 finally, the putting in of the lamp with its re 
 volving machinery. 
 
 On this day they were to land and set some 
 of the heavy stones for the cornice a delicate 
 and difficult task to which Eichard looked for 
 ward with particular interest and anxiety. The 
 tide served at about six o clock, and when Eichard 
 came out of his cabin at half-past five a glorious 
 summer morning, with a sea as calm as a mill- 
 pond, promised well for the success of the opera 
 tions. The Eock was then just showing above the
 
 40 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 water. The occasion being a special one, on 
 which the last course of the tower was to be built, 
 orders had been given that it was to be marked 
 in the usual way; and at this moment the men 
 were sitting about on the grass each holding a 
 cup or glass, into which the cook was pouring a 
 tot of rum. When all the vessels had been 
 charged, Macneil took his hat off and stood a 
 little apart and spoke up. It was his custom, as 
 a protest against the dissolute habits of the work 
 ing man, to attempt to invest such occasions with 
 as much solemnity and as little conviviality as 
 possible an attempt, to do him justice, in which 
 he was not generally successful. 
 
 " Now, men, as we ve arrived in the maircy o 
 Providence at the last coorse o the light, it s the 
 engineer s orders that a glass o rum should be 
 sairved to all hands no as a beverage, ye ll 
 understan , but as a mark o the guidness o Prov 
 idence. (Mr. Flanagan, mebbe ye ll leave over- 
 haulin yon fishin -tackle till we re through with 
 this.) As I was sayin , o the guidness o Provi 
 dence. The most of us has been here four years 
 now, and I ll leave ye to say who you ve to thank 
 that there s been no seeckness or loss o life among 
 us. So let s all be upstanding, and here s drink 
 ing Mr. Grey s guid health, and success to the 
 Snail Lighthouse ! " 
 
 Three rousing cheers followed, and then a con 
 vivial voice striking up " For he s a jolly good
 
 THE BUILDER 41 
 
 fellow," that immortal song was rendered with 
 gusto. The scene was in strange contrast to the 
 usual lamplit environment of a toast the little 
 group standing bareheaded on the verge of the 
 great frowning cliff, with the early morning sun 
 shine throwing its shadows long on the grass, and 
 the rough, rousing song mingling with the call 
 of the sea-gulls. Eichard stood somewhat sheep 
 ishly in the doorway of his cabin until they had 
 finished, and the cups and glasses had all been 
 up-ended. 
 
 " All right, men, that ll do. Very much obliged 
 to you, I m sure. We shall know more about it 
 by the time we ve finished this day s work. Off 
 with you now, and get your tools." 
 
 The men were quickly marshalled down to the 
 boats that stood waiting on the scrap of shingly 
 beach below the. cliff. Treleath was the first away, 
 in the small flat devoted to his use for ferrying 
 mortar to the rock; and two cargoes of stones, 
 which had been loaded into the lighters the night 
 before, were towed off by the boats. The short 
 voyage accomplished, and the men landed on the 
 rock, the lighters were brought round to a little 
 creek where a jib-crane hung over the water. All 
 the men were now sent to their stations. The 
 masons climbed the ladders and scaffolding to the 
 summit of the tower, where they began to prepare 
 the bed for the new stones; the smiths kindled 
 the forge-fires; men were stationed at the differ-
 
 42 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 ent guy-tackles, falls, and outhauls of the cranes; 
 while others manned the sling and cradle used for 
 sending up the mortar, or took their places at the 
 little iron railway that led from the landing-place 
 to the tower. 
 
 The elaborate modelling of these cornice-stones, 
 and the special shape by means of which they were 
 locked and fitted into their neighbors, made them 
 extremely precious and brittle to handle, as dam 
 age to any of their many edges would have meant 
 the cutting of a new stone and several days delay. 
 Therefore Eichard watched with anxious eyes 
 every movement, as the sequence of labor took 
 hold of these precious blocks and began to hoist 
 them toward their places. When all were ready 
 a great block of granite the first stone of 
 the ninety-eighth course marked xcvin-1, and 
 weighing nearly two tons, was craned up from the 
 deck of the lighter and deposited on an iron trol 
 ley on the railway. That was the first stage 
 simple enough in calm weather, but rendered 
 highly difficult and dangerous by the slightest 
 swell of the sea. Eichard allowed himself to light 
 a pipe while the stone was being slowly wheeled 
 along the railway and brought under the chains 
 that were to raise it to the tower. This was done 
 in three stages. A great oak beam, to the end of 
 which stout tackles were fitted, projecting hori 
 zontally from the lighthouse thirty feet above the 
 rock; thirty feet higher projected another beam,
 
 THE BUILDER 43 
 
 fitted in the same way; and at the top of the 
 tower rose the iron balance crane a T-shaped 
 structure supported on a pillar in the centre of 
 the building, from one end of which the stones 
 were raised, while along the other a heavy coun 
 terweight was moved in accordance with the posi 
 tion of the stone. 
 
 Slowly, carefully, laboriously, the great stone 
 was raised from the trolley and swung upwards 
 beside the wall of the tower. When it had been 
 raised as high as the first crane, two men came 
 swinging down from above on the tackle of the 
 second; and, standing on the block, they made 
 fast the grips of the second crane to it. " Haul ! " 
 The order was given, the tackle tightened, the 
 grips took hold, and the stone began to rise again, 
 while the two men, now perched on the project 
 ing beam of the first crane, cast off its tackle, 
 which was sent down again. Once more the stone 
 rose, swung high under the beam of the second 
 crane; there it was transferred to the grip of 
 the balance crane, which swung it up and up, 
 until it was higher than the lighthouse. Eichard, 
 who was standing below on the rock, could see 
 the arm of the crane with its precious burden 
 beginning to swing around and to point toward 
 its place on the tower. He could do nothing 
 more but watch; it was all out of his power; he 
 must depend on the men he had trained and the 
 machinery he had devised. Slowly the crane
 
 44 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 came round, and then stopped; gradually the 
 stone moved inwards as the gearing was worked 
 which moved the tackle along the arm; at last 
 it rested over its place. He could see the masons, 
 silhouetted against the bright sky, putting the 
 last touches to the bed of mortar. Then " Lower ! " 
 the sharp command floated down to him, and 
 the mass of granite rested on its new bed, hardly 
 less solid and immovable than its foundations in 
 the quarry ashore. Macneil, who was superin 
 tending the laying operations, suppressed a ten 
 dency to cheering. Richard ran to the ladders, 
 and in a few minutes was standing with a little 
 group on the staging at the summit of the tower. 
 There lay the great stone, faithfully copied from 
 the wooden pattern made under Sir Everard s 
 supervision, fitting exactly into its place as though 
 it had grown there; and it is difficult to convey 
 to the lay mind any idea of the emotion and satis 
 faction with which Richard regarded it. 
 
 Thereafter the work went on more quickly. 
 While the second stone was being laid, the third 
 was hanging ready from the upper crane; the 
 fourth was on the lower crane; the fifth was on 
 the railway; the sixth was being raised from the 
 boat. In perfect order and harmony, on this 
 little narrow sea-worn piece of rock, the various 
 squads of men worked together interdependently, 
 so that the work of their hands grew smoothly 
 and rapidly, and the cornice began to take shape
 
 THE BUILDER 45 
 
 round the summit of the tower. When the tide 
 overflowed the rock and covered the railway, the 
 water was still so smooth that they were able to 
 continue building by making fast the lighters 
 beside the tower itself under the first crane, so 
 that there were but three stages in the journey 
 of the stones from the boats to their places on the 
 tower, instead of five. They worked continuously 
 for thirteen hours, with only half an hour s in 
 terval for dinner; and when they rowed away in 
 the evening glow, tired but triumphant, the whole 
 of the outside ring of stones were in their places. 
 That, however, was hardly a typical day ; it was 
 indeed one of the longest and most successful days 
 of work in the whole history of the building. 
 There were other days on which no impression 
 seemed to be made on the slow and difficult task; 
 days when the breach of the sea on the rock made 
 landing there hazardous; when some piece of 
 clumsiness or carelessness on the part of a work 
 man resulted in the loss of a stone, the breaking 
 of a tackle, or the staving in of a boat; when, in 
 spite of all the efforts of Eichard Grey, and all the 
 activity of John Macneil, the men seemed stupid 
 and unhandy, and things went all awry ; when the 
 tools would not cut, nor the cement take bond, nor 
 the wedges jamb. And in all this long struggle 
 the one unresting enemy was the sea. It alone 
 never relaxed its efforts, never missed its oppor 
 tunity, never failed to take advantage of any neg-
 
 46 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 ligence or weakness of the builders. There was 
 the disastrous day when a lighter, discharging 
 stones at the end of a tide s work, and in a heavy 
 ground swell, was smashed against a rock and 
 capsized, throwing her heavy deck cargo about the 
 rock; when the sea rose in the night and washed 
 the stones, a ton weight each, about as though 
 they had been pebbles, and ground their fine 
 shapes and angles down to powder, and finally 
 threw them down to rest among the roots of the 
 deep-water seaweeds. However much absorbed he 
 might become in the work, Eichard learned never 
 to relax his watch on his restless enemy; he had 
 always one eye on the sea and sky, until he became 
 steeped in the sense of the sea s personality. Its 
 languid warm waves, its busy activity in the 
 summer breezes, its might and terrible anger in 
 stormy weather, its hollow, melancholy voice 
 whose echo hangs forever about that wild shore 
 these were to him but varying expressions of one 
 nature, the changing moods of one creature. He 
 came to know it for a blind thing, urged by pro 
 found passions far beyond its own control; feel 
 ing and fumbling for its victims, sly and treach 
 erous in its calmness, yet great even in its treach 
 ery. 
 
 And beautiful God, how beautiful, and how 
 he loved its beauty, even while he cursed and 
 fought against its strength! There were hot 
 summer days when its clear, cool, transparent
 
 THE BUILDER 4V 
 
 depths of peacock or emerald wooed him to go 
 down into them, and explore the magic carpets of 
 sand that they revealed; days of wind and sun, 
 when the whole vast expanse shimmered and twin 
 kled in a lyric ecstasy of laughter; other days, 
 haunted by cloud and wandering airs, when over 
 the calm surface swept invisible faery armies, 
 whose footprints were fleeting shadows of deeper 
 blue, and their passage marked by lines and net 
 works, smooth pathways, mysterious eddies, tracks, 
 and wakes as of invisible ships. In all these 
 moods he learned to know it and to watch it with 
 an untiring vigilance, and to feel, even in his 
 moments of triumph over it, that it suffered him 
 rather than obeyed him.
 
 Ill 
 
 EXCEPT for the tiny village in the valley 
 that runs up from Poltesco Bay, and a few 
 farms, headquarters of a rather profitless struggle 
 with thin soil and wild weather, there are few 
 human habitations in the vicinity of that bluff 
 seashore. Eichard Grey s nearest neighbor was 
 the tenant of a little cottage that stood on the 
 cliffs above Poltesco Bay a minute establish 
 ment to which Lady Killard was in the habit of 
 retreating for a month or two every year when 
 the fatigues of a London season and of her hus 
 band s legislative labors proved too much for her. 
 Eichard had seen little of her, but had liked what 
 he had seen ; she was young, attractive, Irish, and 
 friendly, and on the rare occasions when they met 
 she took trouble to let Eichard know that he would 
 always be welcome at the Hermitage. This sum 
 mer she had as her guests a brother and sister, 
 distant cousins of her husband s ; and having met 
 and found them in the course of one of his lonely 
 walks, Eichard had been much attracted by the 
 man, John Lauder. He was close upon forty 
 years of age, and had in his earlier youth attained 
 48
 
 THE BUILDER 49 
 
 gome distinction as a painter in Paris; but the 
 possession of sufficient private means had intro 
 duced distractions into his life. He had inevitably 
 become less of an artist and more of a man of 
 the world; yet the effect of his studio years re 
 mained with him, and gave to his easy life a 
 breadth and sincerity which it might otherwise 
 have lacked. 
 
 On the afternoon of a day of southeast squalls, 
 Richard Grey, attended by a faithful satellite in 
 the shape of his setter Rufus, was standing in the 
 lee of the unfinished light-keepers houses watch 
 ing some draining operations. There was a crash 
 ing run of sea on the rock, and it had been impos 
 sible to land upon it ; the wind continually brought 
 up heavy flaws of rain, that interfered with the 
 concreting of the garden walls; and work was 
 almost entirely confined to the joiners, who were 
 busy with flooring and fitting. There was noth 
 ing for Richard to do but to look on, and he wel 
 comed the sight of a stalwart figure wrapped in a 
 raincoat coming down over the cliff edge. It 
 proved to be John Lauder come to pay him a visit. 
 
 " How do you do ? " said Richard. " I m afraid 
 you ve chosen a bad day for your visit; there s no 
 going off to the rock to-day." 
 
 "I know; but I couldn t stay indoors any 
 more; and the direction of my walk suggested 
 looking you up. You all look pretty wet and 
 miserable here/ he added, surveying the little
 
 60 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 scattered groups of rain-soaked figures toiling 
 with wet tools and covered with mire and clay. 
 
 " I know ; it s beastly. Come into my den and 
 have a pipe; we can at least be dry there." 
 
 Eichard, whistling to the dog, led the way ; and 
 they went into the cabin, lined with pine boarding 
 fresh from the plane. It was divided by a parti 
 tion into an inner bedroom and a larger apart 
 ment furnished with chairs and a table, a draw 
 ing-desk, a couple of lounge chairs, a few trunks 
 and boxes, some guns and fishing-tackle, and sev 
 eral shelves filled with books. A few engineering 
 drawings and photographs were nailed on the 
 walls, and throughout the room were littered the 
 paraphernalia of the confirmed smoker. 
 
 " I think," said Eichard, " that a whiskey and 
 soda wouldn t be a bad idea ? " 
 
 Lauder having signified the doubtful acquies 
 cence which is part of the ritual of the bottle, 
 Eichard brought from a cupboard the necessary 
 ingredients. 
 
 " You see, I live in rather a piggish way here," 
 he said, setting on the table a tin of tobacco, a 
 bottle of whiskey, two thick glasses, and a siphon ; 
 "but it s wonderful how it simplifies life when 
 eating and drinking are merely the satisfying of 
 hunger and thirst." 
 
 "The mark of Schweppe," said Lauder, as the 
 soda foamed into the glass, " is a wonderful deco 
 ration to simplicity." He lit his pipe and sipped
 
 THE BUILDER 51 
 
 at his glass; and as a squall suddenly battered 
 upon the little house, and set the window stream 
 ing with rain, he took another thoughtful sip, 
 said, " Ah ! " leaned back in his chair, and emitted 
 a blue and fragrant cloud of tobacco smoke. 
 
 Another clap of wind shook the house, and on 
 the back of it, banging the door behind him, en 
 tered John Macneil, as though he had been blown 
 in. He shook the rain off his cap, and then caught 
 sight of Lauder. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Eichard; I didn t 
 know " 
 
 " It s only Mr. Lauder ; come in, Macneil. 
 Lauder, this is John Macneil, who looks after me 
 and runs the Trinity House." 
 
 " And I don t know which of the two of them 
 gives me the most trouble, sir," said Macneil. 
 " That s a terrible morning no work to be done 
 till the win changes." 
 
 " Sit down and light your pipe," said Eichard. 
 Macneil belonged to that rare class of subordinates 
 of whom an autocrat may make companions ; and 
 Eichard had grown into something like intimacy 
 with this man of many trades and nomad life. 
 Being Scotch, he was speculative and metaphysi 
 cal, and a lover of abstract discussions; and no 
 one who talked to him for long failed to be pleased 
 with his hearty simplicity and untutored outlook 
 upon life. 
 
 " We don t see many visitors here, sir," he said
 
 62 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 to Lander. " The last we had ll no come back, 
 I m thinking ; " and he began to laugh. 
 
 " Who was that ? " Kichard asked. 
 
 " The Methodist meenister that came last Sab 
 bath to preach to the men. Man, Mr. Kichard, 
 sir, I had an awfu time wi them. This kind of 
 a travelling preacher Mills, they call him 
 came down unexpected-like in the afternoon, and 
 asked would we like a sairvice. Ye should have 
 seen his face when he saw the place ! Where ll 
 we hold the sairvice ? says he. Wait a min 
 ute/ says I, I ll rig up a bit of a desk for you ; 
 and I made him a wee pulpit out of your chair 
 and some packing-cases. Where s the men, Mr. 
 Macneil ? says he. Never fear, sir, says I, 
 I ll fetch them in to you ; and I went off to the 
 big cabin where they were all sittin round the 
 fire at their beer. Come on, men, says I, 
 here s Mr. Mills come all the way from Trynack 
 to hold a sairvice to you. Not a bit of them 
 would come, and some o thae Cockney laborers 
 began grumbling. I didn t want any trouble, 
 y understan , so I just went in among them wi 
 my fists, and bowled over the fairst o them that 
 spoke. Just while I was in the thick of them, in 
 looks Mr. Mills at the door. Man, Mr. Mac 
 neil, says he, this is terrible work ! Away 
 ye go, Mr. Mills, says I, this is no place for 
 you ; away ye go, sir, and I ll have them all out to 
 you/ And sure enough out they came like a
 
 THE BUILDER 53 
 
 flock o sheep, and sat pairfectly quiet through the 
 preaching. Man, ye should ha seen yon meenis- 
 ter s face! But I mind the last word he said to 
 me when he was going away. He gave me a look, 
 an he gripped ma han , and Man, Mr. Macneil, 
 says he, you re as good an evangelist as St. Paul 
 was ! Ay, sir, says I, and p raps a wee bit 
 more effecshual ! : And the man s great frame 
 shook with laughter. 
 
 " I ve a note from London, Mr. Richard," he 
 said presently. "They want me to go to the 
 Saints as soon as I m through here, to see after 
 the repairs to the fog-signal." 
 
 " The Saints ? " said Lauder. " Let me see ; 
 that s south of the Scilly Isles, isn t it?" 
 
 " South of everywhere," said Eichard ; " the 
 loneliest place I was ever in. I call it the Saints 
 Everlasting Rest, because the wild weather there 
 delays the reliefs so long. They sent me there 
 on my first offshore job, to make some drawings 
 for the fog-signal. I was new to rock stations 
 then, and rock light-keepers; and I tell you, it 
 got on my nerves. There were only me and the 
 three keepers, the lighthouse, and about half an 
 acre of weedy rock to scramble about on at low 
 water ; at high water the sea is around the tower. 
 For the first week I liked it ; it was so fresh and 
 salt and lonely and bright, too ; but after that 
 my God, I can remember it now! The keepers 
 had all been off a long time, for they d had a bad
 
 64 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 winter and the reliefs were delayed; and they 
 were all in a state of nerves. Two of them 
 wouldn t speak to one another hadn t spoken 
 for six months; and the third was so queer and 
 sensitive through being alone so much that he 
 wasn t like an ordinary man. If I spoke a little 
 sharply to him or rather, if I didn t speak 
 with elaborate kindness he used to go away 
 by himself and cry yes, cry. I tell you, it was 
 no joke to be there on that scrap of rock, in the 
 bright sunshine, with nothing visible all around 
 you but sea and sky, in the midst of a deathly 
 silence of everything but the birds wailing about 
 the tower, and the tide swirling and growling past 
 the reef, and men who cried if you spoke to them ! 
 By the time I d been there a fortnight I could 
 have gone and cried myself." 
 
 "What on earth did they cry for?" asked 
 Lauder. 
 
 " Well, ye see, Mr. Lauder," said Macneil, 
 " light-keepers is no like other folks. They live 
 a kind of an unnatural life, at any rate on rock 
 stations, and they ve no enough to occupy their 
 minds. And when ye sit day after day, and week 
 after week, and month after month, opposite a 
 man at table in a room half the size of this, ye re 
 vera liable to take a kind of a dislike to the way 
 he eats his food, or the way he walks, or the way 
 he speaks; and then there s nothing to speak 
 about. Half the time they ve nothing to say, and
 
 THE BUILDER 55 
 
 the other half they ll no speak till one another. 
 And then, what the men on the rock don t do, the 
 wives ashore do for them. Jealousy, quarrelling, 
 spying, talebearing, takin offence at one thing 
 or another the principal keeper s wife jealous 
 o } the clothes the assistant s wife wears tut, 
 man, Mr. Lauder, sir, ye d be fair made seeck 
 with their ways. Women s either angels or deevils, 
 in my opinion, sir; just the one thing or the 
 other ! " 
 
 They all laughed. 
 
 " Well, you must hear some queer yarns on these 
 lonely lights," said Lauder. " I should think 
 there s a good deal of human nature sitting about 
 in light-rooms every night." 
 
 " Ye may say that, sir," said Macneil. " There s 
 no anything out o the way in the English lights, 
 though Mr. Richard ll maybe tell ye different; 
 but up in the north that s where the loneliness 
 comes in; and they supersteetious Highlanders 
 man, you d be surprised the things they 
 do!" 
 
 " What do they do ? " asked Lauder with inter 
 est. 
 
 " Well," said Macneil, " I mind when I was in 
 the Scotch sairvice, there was a man o the name 
 o Mackintosh a queer, red-bearded giant of a 
 man, who was assistant keeper on Muckle Flugga 
 light, right in the north o the Shetlands, with a 
 terrible wast o sea stretching away to the North
 
 56 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 Pole, or thereabouts. Presently the principal 
 keeper asked to have him removed somewhere else ; 
 and wouldn t give any reason* but that he .couldn t 
 bide there himsel if the man wasn t transferred. 
 Mackintosh was no unwilling; and they sent him 
 to Stroma, in the Pentland Firth; but he let the 
 light stand for an hour there one night when he 
 was on duty. God knows what he was doing; 
 but he was sent away to Cape Wrath, which, ye ll 
 understand, is a kind of a penitentiary in the 
 Scotch lighthouse sairvice. Well, he d been at 
 Cape Wrath six months when I went there to 
 put in some new bearings in the light; and the 
 principal keeper, Galbraith, takes me on one 
 side: 
 
 " * A word wi ye, Mr. Macneil, says he ; either 
 me or Mackintosh has got to go/ 
 
 " What s all this, Mr. Galbraith ? says I. 
 
 " e I ll no stand it any longer, says he. A 
 fool I can put up with/ says he, an I can stum- 
 mak a sumph; but an here he blazed out in 
 a temper yon greening, slobbering monkey qf 
 a creature I ll no have any dealings wi . 
 
 " * What s amiss wi him ? says I ; does he no 
 attend till his duties ? 
 
 " Ay, I ve no quarrel wi his wark. But see 
 here, Mr. Macneil, what sort o a man is it that 
 has never a word to throw till a dog, as the say 
 ing is, but spends all his time either leaning ower 
 the balcony-rail, and spittin on the rocks, like
 
 THE BUILDER 57 
 
 a street arab ower a brig, or else standin before 
 the reflectors makin faces at himsel ? Hour after 
 hour he ll start these ;^ if ye go up now ye ll find 
 him at it/ 
 
 " Well, Mr. Lauder, I kind of laughed at him, 
 but I went quietly up to the light-room all the 
 same; an I turned kind o seeck when I looked 
 in. There was Mackintosh, standing before the 
 outside reflector and ye know, or maybe ye don t 
 know, that a reflector distorts yer face like one 
 of yon meerors outside o a grocery shop. Well, 
 for maybe two minutes he stood pairfectly still, 
 starin intil his own eyes in the reflector; and 
 that was an ungodly sight enough, in yon lonely 
 place. But presently he began to tee-hee and 
 giggle to himsel in the glass; and then he give 
 his face a twist. Christ! sirs, it was an awfu 
 sight! I can t rightly describe the look o it; 
 it had a kind o a bestial look, something down 
 right wrong and bad, and in the reflectors it 
 seemed as though a the deevils in hell was lookin 
 out o his face. I m no a teemid man, Mr. 
 Lauder; but rather than yon monster should 
 have caught a sight o me, I d a louped right 
 through the glass o the lantern. I whipped down 
 stairs to Galbraith, and took a drink o spirits. 
 Mackintosh was sent away the next week, an he s 
 in Morningside Asylum now, they tell me. But 
 so much, ye ll obsairve, for settin Christian men 
 on the Muckle Flugga."
 
 58 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " It s not a pretty story," said Kichard ; " we 
 don t breed many of that sort in England, Mac- 
 neil." 
 
 " What about the Eddystone ? " said Lauder. 
 " Isn t that pretty lonely ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; it s like being on Southsea pier, with 
 excursion-steamers hanging around all day. No; 
 the Smalls, or the Wolf, or the Scilly Bishop, 
 or the Saints that s all the terrors we ve 
 got." 
 
 " Tets, sir, they re nothing at all," said Macneil. 
 " They re pleesure resorts compared wi Skerry- 
 vore, or Ehu Stoer, or Sule Skerry God, sirs, 
 yon s a wild place ! There s some places no 
 rightly fit for men to dwell in; and I think the 
 Sule Skerry s one o them." 
 
 " The names are what I like," said Lauder ; 
 "you could tell Sule Skerry wasn t a place fit 
 for a dog, by the very sound of it ! " 
 
 Eichard smiled and took down a lighthouse 
 directory. " If you take some of the Scotch lights 
 in their order at random," he said, " you ll get a 
 real poem, and a real series of pictures. Listen 
 to this; I ll read them out of the book in their 
 order, only I ll divide them into lines so that they 
 scan: 
 
 " Inchkeith, Fidra, Girdleness, Buchanness, 
 Covesea Skerries, Tarbet, Stroma Hell-yar-Holm! 
 Auskerry, Scadden, Scroo, Muckle Flugga, Sule Skerry, 
 Unst, Cape Wrath, Khu Stoer and Ushenish ! "
 
 THE BUILDER 59 
 
 " Gorgeous ! " said Lauder ; " it makes one feel 
 all tired and buffeted by storms to hear the names. 
 They are like Nature s oaths." 
 
 But Macneil was vastly amused. " Well, yon s 
 one way o makin poetry," he said ; " but it s no 
 vera respectful-like to the Board. Well, sirs, I 
 must be off and see what yon loafers are up to. 
 I ll maybe see you again, sir." 
 
 " I begin to envy you your profession, Grey, 
 and the people it makes. There s a type pro 
 duced by every occupation; and I like the light 
 house type." 
 
 " Oh, Macneil s an exception but he is of the 
 type, although at its best. Yes; it s not a bad 
 trade; the accessories are picturesque enough." 
 
 They sat and smoked for awhile in silence, lis 
 tening to the singing of the wind and the dash 
 ing of the rain. Presently Lauder s eyes wandered 
 to the book-shelves, and he became interested. 
 
 " Let me see what you ve got : R. M. Ballan- 
 tyne, Clark Eussell, Stevenson, Hardy, Hymns 
 Ancient and Modern, Arabian Nights, Taine, 
 Carlyle, Bernard Shaw, The Holy Bible, Peclet 
 Who s Peclet? I never heard of him" and 
 he got up and took the book down. " Ah, Traite" 
 de FEclairage de M. Peclet a charming title, 
 but not much in my line. I like M. Peclet, 
 though; he s got a good name." 
 
 "And he wrote a really good book, which is
 
 60 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 more to the point. It s shop, of course, but it s 
 as interesting as a novel. I see you looking at 
 old Kobert Stevenson s account of Bell Eock 
 Lighthouse: now, there s a book! His grandson 
 could write, I admit ( Treasure Island s on the 
 lower shelf but he never wrote anything better 
 than that. A great big quarto, consisting of a 
 minute account of every day s work for four years 
 
 what the weather was like, where the wind was 
 blowing from, what sort of sea there was, how 
 many fathoms cable they had out on the moorings 
 of the tender, how John this sprained his ankle, 
 or Jaimie that let go the guy-ropes of the crane 
 
 oh, it s awfully good. It s the classic of its 
 kind. And then his son Alan, who built the 
 Skerryvore, tried to do the same thing again ; but 
 his book isn t half so good. Of course the Skerry 
 vore is the swagger rock light, but they had the 
 experience of Smeaton and old Stevenson to go on 
 when they built it ; so there s a bit of second-hand 
 about Alan s book. He tried to make it just as 
 fat as his father s, and had it printed in very 
 big type, and padded it out all he knew and 
 even then he had to bind up his Notes on Il 
 lumination with it. He tried to work the same 
 attitude about the solemnity and danger, and 
 Almighty God, and all the rest of it, that had 
 come so naturally to his father; but it doesn t 
 somehow ring true. The first man was an artist 
 and a pioneer, and wrote like one; the son was
 
 THE BUILDER 61 
 
 just a clever engineer, and the romantic touch 
 didn t come off. All the same, those two quartos 
 ought to be in every library worth the name 
 if it was only for the sake of their connection with 
 a great family of craftsmen." 
 
 " There s something fascinating about families 
 that work consistently at one trade," said Lauder 
 " like the glass-blowers of Murano ; and what 
 a pity that Robert Louis Stevenson chucked the 
 family business! In that case he wouldn t have 
 poured out his soul in books and made the world 
 echo with his feelings," he added, grimly. 
 
 " Why, you don t mean to say you don t like 
 his books?" 
 
 " Well, I believe them to be good ; but they ve 
 been spoiled for me by this noise his friends make 
 about him and his woes and courage. If it is 
 fair to judge authors by the people who praise 
 them most, Stevenson comes off badly. He is 
 belauded too much by two classes : the people, his 
 inferiors, to whom he wrote occasional letters, 
 and who find themselves in the index of his books ; 
 and the people who, every time they bought his 
 books, felt that they were contributing toward his 
 travelling expenses to Samoa." 
 
 " Really ? But how many of his books have you 
 read?" 
 
 " I ve read two, I think the two best," an 
 swered Lauder. 
 
 "Well, then," said Richard, "you re talking
 
 62 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 without knowledge. Stevenson is the one author 
 I know of whom it is true to say that until you 
 have read the last word of the last book he ever 
 wrote, you can t judge him; because the man 
 himself is only to be found in the bulk of his 
 work. As for his friends we won t fall out 
 about them/ 
 
 " I see that you re one of them," said Lauder 
 with a wry face. 
 
 " Of course I am," answered Eichard with 
 spirit, " and so would you be, if you weren t prej 
 udiced by something that has nothing to do with 
 his work. Why should you, a stranger, demand 
 that an author s friends as well as his books should 
 all be delightful to you ? Anyhow," he added with 
 a smile, " remember that I m only one of the 
 people who know him; not one of the people 
 that knew him!" 
 
 " Honestly, Grey, I believe that s where the dif 
 ference lies. I knew Stevenson, you know, is a 
 conversational opening I have learned to dread." 
 
 " Well, anyhow, you re clearly one of the people 
 who don t know him ; so you d better lie low until 
 you ve read some more." 
 
 The two men sat and smoked for a little while 
 in silence, hearkening to the gusts of wind and 
 the rain dashing on the window, Eichard smart 
 ing a little under the sense of helplessness to 
 prove the case of his favorite author, Lauder a 
 little surprised at this display of book enthusiasm
 
 THE BUILDER 63 
 
 on the part of the out-of-door man. His curiosity 
 was aroused. The choice of books on the shelves 
 hardly interested him they were the common 
 place choice of a lonely young man of Eichard s 
 generation and circumstances; but his enthusi 
 asm for them seemed to be of a rather unusual 
 and non-literary kind : he seemed to see the books 
 rather as living expressions of personality than 
 as performances of art. 
 
 " I like quarrelling about books," resumed 
 Eichard ; " it heightens one s appreciation of a 
 thing to defend it. From the way your eye roves 
 over my modest bookcase I should think there s 
 a good chance of my liking all my books better 
 before you go away." He rose and walked to the 
 bookcase, took down a volume, and put it on the 
 table. " Now then ; we ll have a Day of Judg 
 ment, and make two heaps the sheep and the 
 goats. Man and Superman ? ; 
 
 " With the goats ! " said Lauder ; " as you love 
 your sheep, put that fellow with the goats ! " 
 
 Eichard, taken by surprise, looked first aston 
 ished, and then amused, as he laid the book down. 
 
 " Man and Superman ? " said Lauder, derisively ; 
 " mischief and supermischief ! Clever, if you like ; 
 as clever as it can be, but futile with the futility 
 of a busy ape. It s all destructive: he takes the 
 machinery of life to pieces, litters the floor with 
 it, dances on it, and shouts to the harmless, neces 
 sary burgess, Look, I have unmade the world ! "
 
 64 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " Giving him a horrid shock, of course," said 
 Kichard. " And that is just what he means to 
 do." 
 
 " And what would he achieve ? Who is going to 
 put the machinery together again ? " 
 
 " Bernard Shaw, of course." 
 
 " Exactly. And do you want to live in a Jaeger 
 world? No, my dear Grey, don t, I beseech you, 
 be deceived by the passion for subversion. I ve 
 read every word the man has published, and been 
 charmed and absorbed and fascinated ; but I can t 
 find words to tell you how untrue the essence of it 
 is. It is outside life and humanity. He s the 
 serpent in the tangled garden of this world, and 
 would like to have us all out into the wilderness 
 of intellectual perfection. He offers you the apple ; 
 but don t tell me that you take it ! " 
 
 " The apple s all right, Lauder ; it s your diges 
 tion, I m afraid, that s not quite strong enough 
 for it. I don t know, of course, if you hold con 
 ventional views about life; I should be very much 
 surprised to learn that you did; but when you 
 look around you on our social ruin and disorder, 
 can you honestly deny what he says ? It is because 
 he is really clear-headed and clear-sighted, and 
 sees things as they are, that the whole world,, 
 which is bilious and squint-eyed, thinks him 
 wrong." 
 
 " I d rather be wrong with the world than right 
 with Bernard Shaw," said Lauder.
 
 THE BUILDER 65 
 
 " That, of course, is a matter of taste ; but it 
 is, if I may say so, also unsound and cheap. It s 
 bad policy, too; for it s the kind of attack that 
 brings the world to your enemy s side. I have no 
 sympathy with your aggression; on the contrary. 
 I can t overestimate the value to my generation of 
 a man who will get up and say unpalatable truths 
 with so much courage and clearness. But I quite 
 recognize Bernard Shaw s practical impossibility, 
 because he is only a single voice, and a voice not 
 tuned to the same pitch as the chorus he is trying 
 to lead. A law of injustice has always governed 
 the world, and if we could get enough Bernard 
 Shaws if that cry could be kept up long enough 
 we might conceivably get a chance. But because 
 a man may fail from lack of supporters is no 
 reason why he shouldn t try/ 
 
 " But the fact that a doctor has discovered a 
 cure for blindness doesn t justify his forcing it 
 on every one whose sight is imperfect. The world 
 doesn t want Doctor Shaw." 
 
 " That s the world s attitude to every one who 
 has ever tried to help it, from Isaiah and Ezekiel 
 to Mr. Chamberlain and General Booth." 
 
 " Yes, but my point is that Doctor Shaw won t 
 help the world. He is more interested in the dis 
 secting-room than in the convalescent ward. His 
 treatment is merely to replace the sanatorium with 
 the cemetery." 
 
 "Prejudice again," said Eichard; "it s just
 
 66 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 that attitude of yours that makes it so hard for 
 an Englishman to do anything without self-con 
 sciousness." His eyes fell on the green volume, 
 which he considered for a moment. " If Man 
 and Superman had been called Le Dieu Mortel, 
 or something like that, and bound in airy yellow 
 paper covers, you d have hailed it as a gospel. But 
 because it hasn t the French ephemeral affectation, 
 and has the English affectation of permanence, 
 you are put off. When a Frenchman has written 
 a book he tosses it into the air, while the English 
 man laboriously dumps his on the library-table; 
 one has an eye to the lady s boudoir, the other to 
 the British Museum. However, we ll leave Man 
 and Superman among the goats, and go on. I m 
 enjoying this." 
 
 They agreed about Hardy, Marryat, and Dumas, 
 who all went among the sheep; but over Henley, 
 who came next, a difference of opinion arose. 
 Eichard was for putting him, unchallenged, on 
 the right of the whiskey bottle, among the sheep; 
 but Lauder protested. 
 
 " No," he said ; " I m sorry. I read my Henley, 
 and I don t forget he wrote gather me the 
 rose, the rose ; all the same, that bloody but 
 unbowed attitude is impossible and can t be al 
 lowed. It s not decent," 
 
 " A little truculent, perhaps ; but after all, how 
 virile!" 
 
 " Truculent bluster. A man has no right to
 
 THE BUILDER 67 
 
 make poetry while his head is bloody; it gets on 
 the page." 
 
 "But hang it! That s just what we want in 
 this kid-glove, pro-Boer age. We are getting to 
 be afraid of the very mention of anything as real 
 and red as blood, and Henley is to be thanked 
 for having said Elizabethan things in Victorian 
 verse." 
 
 " You mean, for having said rude things in 
 polite verse. There s such a thing as sitting self 
 consciously between Victoria and Elizabeth hold 
 ing a hand of each; but can you in that case 
 blame Fate for its bludgeonings ? " 
 
 " But that s just what he didn t do ! He didn t 
 complain; he bared his head." 
 
 " Woes and courage again ! The bared fore 
 head indoors! But, joking apart, Henley was a 
 man who mattered; I admit that. He stood for 
 fresh air and the bloody shovel to a generation 
 of people fed up with the stuffy drawing-rooms 
 and silver commemoration spades of the Albert 
 period. But now and then his inspiring march 
 became a goose-step." 
 
 Lauder relit his pipe, which had grown impa 
 tient of his eloquence, and resumed his chair. 
 Eichard was searching in one of the volumes before 
 him for some clinching quotation, and the elder 
 man had time to admire the clean-cut features, 
 clear serene brow, dark eyes, and sallow tanned 
 skin of the engineer. Presently Richard put the
 
 68 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 book down. " I think we will put Henley among 
 the sheep, if you please," he said. " In all the 
 real battles he was on the right side. I should 
 feel myself much the poorer without him." 
 
 " Well, I give in about Henley," said Lauder ; 
 " one can do that in his case without being blind 
 to his faults. But, gad, what odd things books 
 are ! Sometimes they seem to be the only possible 
 companions, and sometimes they seem like a kind 
 of intellectual fungus or disease. And the people 
 who write them! They are the most self-con 
 scious performers in the world of art, don t you 
 think? In fact, it is not art with most of them; 
 they are artisans instead of artists. Journalists 
 are the only real artists in letters the best of 
 them, I mean. They work gaily with the spirit 
 of their own time." 
 
 " Well, they may be clever," said Richard ; " but 
 after all, their work isn t big enough. They are 
 only amusing or instructing, and surely there s 
 never enough of the man himself in their work to 
 make it permanently valuable. I sometimes think 
 that the most interesting things in books are 
 what get there by accident the author s view 
 of life, and that sort of thing. After all, a man 
 of genius is only a man whose sight is clearer 
 than the average, and who has a knowledge of the 
 relative values of things, and a sense of perspec 
 tive. We can t all have the up-stairs view of life, 
 and if we had, we shouldn t realize that, although
 
 THE BUILDER 69 
 
 a thing a long way off looks small, it may really 
 be big and important. That seems to me the real 
 value of books a sort of perspective glass for 
 the majority." 
 
 " You ought to talk to my sister about books ; 
 you and she would agree. She is always pitching 
 into me for my frivolous opinions. And that re 
 minds me," Lauder added, rising, " Lady Killard 
 told me to ask you to come to tea on Sunday." 
 
 " Thanks, I shall be delighted," said Eichard. 
 " It s no good going yet ; the rain ll be over in a 
 minute; sit down and finish off the sheep and 
 goats." 
 
 Lauder, only half-reluctant, returned to the 
 table; and together the two men fell spiritedly 
 upon one another s theories; Richard entrenching 
 himself behind solid opinions and serene confi 
 dences, rather purposely tempting Lauder to an 
 extreme of destructive criticism; and Lauder wil 
 fully exaggerating his often shrewd and often 
 superficial estimates for the sake of the solid front 
 of opposition he raised in Richard s mind. He 
 was intolerant of the unconscious insincerity of 
 which he accused so many of the authors, and 
 deprecated their attempts to make a corner in 
 their particular intellectual wares "a little 
 booth-holder in a fair" was his name for one 
 propagandist admired by Richard. 
 
 As they talked, however, and exchanged their 
 half-serious views in the little wind-beaten cabin,
 
 70 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 something other than opinion grew out of their 
 conversation. Kichard Grey, unused of late to 
 friendship, found himself warming toward this 
 man of the world, so well equipped with curiosity 
 and mind; while Lauder on his part was de 
 lighted with the combination of simplicity and 
 subtlety that distinguished the mind of the engi 
 neer. He led Kiehard on to speak of his work, 
 which he did with sense and enthusiasm; plied 
 him with questions, and rejoiced in the human, 
 virile, and picturesque glamour in which he pre 
 sented the scientific details of his labor; and, 
 before he left, found himself unusually attracted 
 by Eichard Grey s personality. The builder of 
 lighthouses, on the other hand, liked Lauder for 
 his essentially clear mind, and for a certain wise 
 acre air with which he invested his charming 
 cynicism. In a word, that strange emanation 
 which we call friendship began to emerge from 
 their conversation; there was on both sides a 
 deliberate cultivation of the rare gift of intimacy. 
 
 They were too deeply absorbed in their talk to 
 notice that the rain-squalls had ceased; and were 
 recalled from some remote region of metaphysics 
 by a knock at the door and the entrance of a 
 seaman. 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir," he said to Eichard, "but 
 Mr. Macneil says the sea s gone down a bit, and 
 he d like to try to get off to the rock." 
 
 " All right," said the engineer, rising, and turn-
 
 THE BUILDER 71 
 
 ing to Lander, "you ll excuse me, but time and 
 tide, you know " 
 
 Lauder noticed the sudden change that came 
 over Kichard Grey at this interruption. At one 
 stroke the reader of books, the solitary, vanished; 
 and in his place appeared the workman, eager, 
 alert, competent. As he hurried into his sea-boots 
 the dog Eufus jumped up with a whine and stood 
 at the door wagging his tail. Lauder watched 
 approvingly Richard s quick movements, his care 
 ful eye that took in from the open door every 
 movement of the men down at the boats, his gen 
 eral air of mastery of the situation. 
 
 " You ll come and see Lady Killard some after 
 noon ? " he said, as Richard turned to go. 
 
 " With pleasure," he answered, " the first after 
 noon I can get away. So long ! " And whistling 
 to the dog, he hurried away down the path. 
 
 Lauder watched the two figures, the hurrying 
 man and the eager dog, scrambling down the cliff 
 path. The sun had come out, and shone the more 
 brightly for the recent showers. Rain-drops edged 
 everything and glittered in its bright rays. He 
 watched the boats lurching over the swell to where 
 the sea broke white against the rocks, and saw 
 them make a successful landing on the inner 
 creek. And as he turned away the chink of tools 
 rose up, a bright chiming sound that seemed to 
 belong to the sunshine, the breaking iridescent 
 spray, and the glittering rain-drops.
 
 IV 
 
 IN the garden of the little cottage perched on 
 the cliffs of Poltesco Bay Lady Killard and 
 her two guests were sitting out the heat of a 
 summer afternoon. The sky was cloudless, the 
 sea, for once, dead calm, shining and motionless; 
 and there came a deep vague harmony from invis 
 ible hosts of bees that hung about the garden. 
 Lauder was lying on his back, looking up at the 
 sky through a hole in the brim of his straw hat; 
 his sister Margaret had gathered her long slim 
 limbs into a silk hammock, and lay apparently 
 absorbed in a book; Lady Killard was sitting 
 in a garden chair eating green apples, and pre 
 tending to be discontented with life. 
 
 The two women made a happy contrast: Mar 
 garet Lauder tall, lissom, dark, rather grave of 
 face, and clear-browed under the mass of her 
 brown hair; Lady Killard informed throughout, 
 from her toes to her fair hair, with a kind of 
 youthful crumpled prettiness that was crowned 
 and distinguished and redeemed from insignif 
 icance by her pale Irish eyes. 
 
 " This sudden irruption of full summer is ab- 
 72
 
 THE BUILDER 73 
 
 surd," she said. " Here we are, after days of 
 cold east wind, suddenly roasted almost to death. 
 And of course the garden isn t ready," she com 
 plained, her eye wandering over the somewhat 
 unruly little domain. " It annoys me to see every 
 thing busy with a lot of silly green buds, but all 
 behindhand. A day like this makes buds look 
 foolish. And look at the waste of it ! Think how 
 nice this lawn would be if the bulbs would only 
 come up instead of self-consciously saving them 
 selves for next winter. Why can t we have hya 
 cinths in June ? " 
 
 Lauder spoke lazily. " Nature s nothing if not 
 commercial. It s all barter and exchange a bud 
 for a shower, a flower for a day s sunshine." 
 
 " That s not commerce, John, it s encourage 
 ment," said Margaret, putting her book down. 
 " I like things to be rewarded ; besides, it gives 
 point to a cloud to connect it with a flower." 
 
 " Clouds are the only things that make a sky 
 interesting, and that s what they re for you 
 can t paint a cloudless sky. This brazen blue 
 thing isn t a sky at all." 
 
 His voice tailed off into a sigh as he succumbed 
 to the heat. The air danced and shimmered, 
 even the butterflies seemed to faint in the golden 
 atmosphere ; the sea slumbered at the foot of the 
 cliffs, so that there was for awhile no sound to 
 mingle with the unending song of the bees sweet 
 labor.
 
 74 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 Lady Killard broke the charmed silence. 
 " Thank God for green apples ! " she said ; " they 
 keep me alive." 
 
 Lauder looked at her appreciatively as she 
 picked up another one, set her small teeth, pearly 
 and even like a puppy s, into its pale rind, and 
 bit sharply into it. " They ll probably give you 
 pains," he said ; " but I know now why they were 
 invented. To see you bite them helps me to believe 
 in another world." 
 
 Lady Killard took no notice, but looked rov- 
 ingly over the garden, and again became discon 
 tented. " Green may be restful," she said, " but 
 a garden as green as this is absurd. Where are 
 the flowers ? I thought I d massed great banks of 
 color all over the place, and where are they? 
 Nothing but a forest of green stalks and leaves." 
 
 " Gardening seems to me a most inexact 
 science," said Margaret Lauder. " How much 
 nicer it would be if you could make the colors 
 come in an orderly way a blue month, a green 
 month, a red month, a yellow month, and so on." 
 
 " All your enjoyment in six pictures ! " 
 
 " Ah ! and that s the vice of your orderly 
 mind," put in her brother. " You would even 
 bring about a worse vice the vice of mood in 
 a garden. Give me rather a month of wild riot, 
 everything coming out together a thing like a 
 Dutch picture, with a tulip in the same plot as
 
 THE BUILDER 75 
 
 a larkspur, and sweet peas and snowdrops crowded 
 into one border ! " 
 
 " That would be like your improvidence." 
 
 " Well, providence is a great mistake. I ve 
 worked hard enough in this ungrateful soil, and, 
 if Jane will let me, I ll now let the whole thing 
 go on its own sweet way. I d like to come in 
 spring with a basketful of mixed seeds, sow them 
 broadcast, and see what happens." 
 
 " Some would fall on stony ground, some among 
 tares, and the birds of the air would get the rest," 
 laughed Lady Killard. 
 
 " What are tares ? " asked Margaret. " I ve 
 always wanted to know. I think it would be nice 
 to have a bed of tares, and rob that foolish parable 
 once and for all of its terrors." 
 
 " Go and look at the ranunculus bed," said Lady 
 Killard, " and you will see what tares are ; or 
 ask John " 
 
 " That is ungrateful of you ; I have spent many 
 back-breaking hours over that bed. Besides, as a 
 practical gardener, I object on principle to a bed 
 of tares. I spend my days trying to keep order 
 in this garden, and it has quite enough tendency 
 as it is to lose its presence of mind." 
 
 " A garden s a light-headed thing at the best," 
 said Lady Killard, throwing away the core of her 
 last apple, and opening her sunshade. " It loses 
 its head over the bees and butterflies, doesn t it, 
 Margaret ? "
 
 76 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " The really sad thing is that your butterfly s 
 an uncritical fop. He doesn t choose the best 
 flowers, he only stumbles on them by accident." 
 
 "Anyhow, he has the power to turn a whole 
 garden hysterical." 
 
 " It would make any one hysterical to have only 
 one thing with which to accomplish your purpose. 
 Think of it ! no mind, no movement only being 
 beautiful so intensely that it goes to your head, 
 and gives you hysteria." 
 
 " I don t know why you are talking about hys 
 teria," murmured Lauder, whom the word had 
 apparently roused from slumber, " except that it 
 has a sort of garden sound. But it s a perfectly 
 horrible word, and a perfectly horrible idea a 
 hideous practical joke only fit to be played on 
 pigs." 
 
 "As it was once, if I remember right, with 
 great success," said Lady Killard " on the 
 Gadarene swine." 
 
 " So it was," sitting up and pushing back his 
 hat ; " the only case on record in which pigs have 
 cut a really heroical figure. I think I can see it 
 that mad swoop into the sea ! It would have 
 been unfair on any other animal; but the pig 
 conceive it ! the pig, gross and sluggish, but moved 
 for once by an impulse ignoble and ridiculous, but 
 still heroic, takes a rollicking plunge into fame! 
 It was the apotheosis of hysteria ! " 
 
 A prim maid, who had been waiting in the back-
 
 THE BUILDER 77 
 
 ground until this outburst should have come to 
 an end, now advanced amid the laughter that fol 
 lowed it, with pursed lips and averted head, to 
 prepare the tea-table. With the self-conscious 
 gravity of the servant whose mind in the presence 
 of her superiors is fixed beyond wonder or amuse 
 ment, she set forth the cloth and tea-things with 
 a religious and assiduous air, like an acolyte serv 
 ing the holy table. 
 
 " I should look after that girl," said Lauder, 
 as she went away ; " she seems sensitive on the 
 point of the Gadarene swine." 
 
 Lady Killard interrupted him. " Thank good 
 ness here s tea, and I hope nobody will come." 
 
 " No one likely to, except Grey you know I 
 told him you would like him to come some after 
 noon." 
 
 " Oh, yes. I like Mr. Grey he s got those 
 nice brown understanding eyes, and the ways of 
 an ingratiating child. Margaret dear, you d like 
 him; I hope he ll come." 
 
 " He s the engineer-man down at the lighthouse 
 works, isn t he ? He ought to be nice if he always 
 lives on rocks and makes such magnificent things 
 as lighthouses." 
 
 "As a matter of fact," said Lauder, "he s an 
 uncommonly pleasant and intelligent fellow. I 
 told you, Jane, I took quite a fancy to him the 
 other day when I went to see him. He s as grave 
 as a judge about anything he takes seriously."
 
 78 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " What does he take seriously ? " asked Mar 
 garet. 
 
 " Oh, books and his work I can t make out 
 which he s keenest on. If you see him talking 
 about Henley or Dumas you d think he cared for 
 nothing but stuffing in a library; but over his 
 drawings and instruments, and stone lighters and 
 balance cranes, he s another creature. And he 
 admires Robert Louis Stevenson ! " 
 
 " Well, naturally, if he s as sensible as you make 
 him out," said his sister. 
 
 " I knew that would draw you ! Well, you ll 
 find he has many of your heresies. Do my eyes 
 deceive me, or are those caviare sandwiches ? " 
 
 Lauder, who could always talk himself into a 
 genial humor, and who loved arguing with his 
 sister, or indeed with any worthy opponent, was 
 now quite alert and lively, and the meal went mer 
 rily. Their talk was the perishable nonsense that 
 may nevertheless be so vital and entertaining in 
 its own moment. They were in the full flight 
 of some extravagant conversational scena when the 
 click of the garden gate drew their attention, and 
 Richard, followed by a deprecating Rufus, made 
 his appearance. 
 
 He was made welcome, a garden seat provided 
 for him, and the unwonted luxuries of feminine 
 tea set before him. Out of his working environ 
 ment he seemed to Lauder both a little more ordi 
 nary, and, oddly enough, a little more himself.
 
 THE BUILDER 79 
 
 The anxious,, intent look which he generally 
 wore in the neighborhood of the rock had van 
 ished ; and in its place appeared the serene expres 
 sion of one who finds himself at home in the world. 
 
 " This is really nice of you, Mr. Grey," said 
 Lady Killard, " to tear yourself away from those 
 wonderful instruments and drawings of yours. 
 Mr. Lauder has been telling us all about them." 
 
 " And about the lighthouse," said Margaret. 
 " I am half in love with your white tower already. 
 Do tell me what you do when you build a light 
 house." 
 
 "Well," said Richard, turning to her with the 
 engaging, deprecating air with which he generally 
 spoke of his work, " there s really not much to tell 
 about it. You d much better come and see it 
 some day. We begin on the lantern to-morrow, 
 so the building is practically finished. You know 
 we had an awful tussle with the Trinity people 
 they wanted to put it on Poltesco Head, where the 
 light would have been three hundred feet above 
 the sea. Much too high, of course ; but they have 
 an idea in their heads that you can t be too high. 
 And they hate rock lights I don t mind telling 
 you, because they don t always build them right: 
 the Scotch people are the fellows for rock lights. 
 You see, it s all a matter of weight and resist 
 ance, and they don t always work out the thrust 
 of the waves properly." 
 
 " It certainly must need more than mere science
 
 80 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 to meet the thrust of the waves," Margaret said, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Oh, no," he answered, " there s nothing that 
 science can t do, if only you know enough. That 
 dealing with the thrust of the waves is merely a 
 matter of observation, and an infinite number of 
 experiments; but chiefly patience and observa 
 tion." 
 
 " And how much have the waves allowed you to 
 learn about them, Mr. Grey ? " asked Lady Killard, 
 gravely. 
 
 " Oh, practically everything ; because, you see, 
 I ve got my father s instruments. Down at the 
 Snail Eocks last winter the mean thrust as indi 
 cated by his machine was six thousand and fifty 
 for the six winter months, and for the six summer 
 months it was less than two thousand. So of 
 course I had to build for about triple the weight 
 of the maximum record." 
 
 There was a pause. She looked out across the 
 gorse to where the great blue plain lay flecked 
 and wrinkled with its ripples. " I wonder if they 
 have any idea what you re about," she said. " I 
 wonder if they let you live out of mercy or igno 
 rance." 
 
 He followed her gaze to where the foam was 
 curling about the Snail Kocks. 
 
 " Oh, we ve had lots of tussles," he replied, 
 " and pretty bad ones. You remember the storm 
 three winters ago, when the beacon was smashed?
 
 THE BUILDER 81 
 
 But the tower is there still, standing where we 
 put it and it s going to stay there, too," he 
 added. 
 
 " But the beacon was smashed," she murmured, 
 looking at him. 
 
 " The beacon was smashed," he repeated, return 
 ing her look with an assured smile; "but then 
 its purpose had been served. It wasn t meant to 
 last." 
 
 " It must be a discouraging thing to know one 
 isn t meant to last," said Margaret. " I hope the 
 stones of your tower know that they are immortal. 
 I like to think that there are some human achieve 
 ments that aren t afraid of time, and waves, and 
 the forces that break things up." 
 
 Lander s voice broke in. " With all due respect 
 to your building, Grey, I think its immortality 
 can be measured. I should put it at about six 
 hundred years." 
 
 " About that, I suppose," assented Kichard. 
 "After all, I dare say it s a weakness to try to 
 set up immortal things." 
 
 " Nothing that lasts can be immortal," said 
 Lauder. " Even stones and rocks go down at 
 last before things as soft as waves and wind. If 
 I want any part in immortality and I m not 
 sure that I do I shall look for it in flimsier 
 things than rocks." 
 
 "I wonder," said Kichard. "You see. I ve
 
 82 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 never worked with anything much flimsier than 
 rock and steel." 
 
 " Or against anything much flimsier than 
 waves/ put in Lady Killard. 
 
 " Or with anything more durable than gran 
 ite?" asked Margaret. 
 
 Eichard laughed. " Well, but what are these 
 immortal things? You re all pitching into me, 
 but I don t seem to have come across them much. 
 You make me feel as if I d been wasting my time. 
 Do you mean " and he spoke rather more 
 gravely " forces of the intellect, and passions, 
 and that sort of thing ? " 
 
 " You may call it by what name you like," re 
 plied Lauder with a gravity that he had not 
 hitherto displayed ; " but there s a force that has 
 swept through the world since the beginning of 
 time. You feel it everywhere in the world of 
 men, pulling at your heart, gorgeous exaltations 
 at its flood, and death at its ebb. You may never 
 have heard it roaring, Grey, you ve been so busy 
 wave-measuring that perhaps you ve never lis 
 tened; but when you do, I think you will never 
 get its sound out of your ears. It s all a matter 
 of human masses; it whispers to you in a village 
 and deafens you in big cities. It s the vital force 
 of the world. My God, and what don t people do 
 to stop their ears ! They shut themselves up from 
 it, and their hand loses its cunning; they build 
 churches, and it comes in at the door; they starve
 
 THE BUILDER 83 
 
 their flesh and their spirit, and only find that 
 they have made sounding-boards of themselves. 
 No, there s no escape, nothing for it but to take 
 one s share." 
 
 There was a moment s silence. " Well, I ve no 
 doubt I shall come across it in time," said Eich- 
 ard ; " but at present I ve time for nothing more 
 serious than granite." And he looked smiling 
 at Miss Lauder. 
 
 "That s not fair," she said. "I haven t too 
 much faith in John s theory of the human cur 
 rent: it doesn t always bear investigation. But 
 to build a lighthouse " she smiled and looked 
 toward Poltesco Head " that is work." 
 
 " Tell me, Mr. Grey, aren t you some relation to 
 old Sir Peter Grey in Eaton Square ? " asked Lady 
 Killard, who thought that the conversation was in 
 danger of becoming too serious for a hot day. 
 
 Richard laughed disrespectfully. " His nephew, 
 unfortunately. It s rather hard that my only 
 living relations should be Uncle Peter and Aunt 
 Anne ! " 
 
 "But why? I always thought the general was 
 such an old dear." 
 
 " Well, perhaps he is ; but not to me. He don t 
 like and don t approve of me. I go to Harle Court 
 dutifully every autumn, and we endure each other 
 for a month; but honestly, I can t get on with 
 the Early Victorians I m too near them, I sup-
 
 84 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 pose. Talk of granite ! " and he turned again to 
 Miss Lauder, " I d rather deal with serpentine ! " 
 
 " But you know/ she smiled at him, " I rather 
 like the pork-pie hat and rakish feather in old 
 ladies." 
 
 "Well then, you d like my aunt," he laughed. 
 " You d find the rakish feather, a sort of emblem 
 of a desperate past, incongruously crowning the 
 pork-pie hat; and she pats her hair as if it were 
 still in a chenille net, and is always putting her 
 hand to the bosom of her dress to arrange lockets 
 and trinkets that are no longer there. She s 
 picturesque in her way; but Uncle Peter! I m 
 sure he was an inefficient general ; and he spends 
 his days now, having commanded men unsuccess 
 fully all his life, drilling the servants, who are 
 paid to obey, and who snigger behind his back at 
 his Brigade Orders and Fire Drill; and trying 
 to general the flowers in the garden forming 
 them up in quarter column and firing volleys of 
 water at them ! " 
 
 " Of course, it s the period you object to," said 
 Lauder, who had been becoming restive. 
 
 " Now we are really in for it," said his sister. 
 " Mr. Grey, how tiresome you are ! You have 
 started John on one of his most deadly theories, 
 The Period ! " 
 
 " But what period ? " asked Eichard, puzzled. 
 
 "Why, the Albert Period, of course," said 
 Lauder. He got up from his chair and stood con-
 
 THE BUILDER 85 
 
 fronting his audience. " The period of South 
 Kensington, the Crystal Palace, the Albert Memo 
 rial; the streaming whisker and flying coat-tail 
 period; the deadly period of English prosperity 
 and happiness. A good man unfortunately gave 
 his name to a whole age of silliness Albertism. 
 It wasn t his fault; but the name sticks." 
 
 " Of course you always exaggerate, John ; that 
 period was the nursery of all sorts of good things. 
 It was the golden age of the English home, for 
 one thing." 
 
 " The gilded age of the Family Picture ! " 
 
 " Let him rip, Jane," murmured Margaret. 
 
 "It was the age of shams and symbols," he 
 went on with genial wrath. " People had no 
 opinions; they had beliefs. They didn t think; 
 they were thoughtful. They had good noses and 
 vacant eyes, noble brows and weak button mouths ; 
 there was no youth or age the two charming 
 periods only maturity ; children were sup 
 pressed, and the makers of children glorified. 
 Their minds were sombre and upholstered, stuffed 
 with facts, and covered with an intellectual rep 
 which was pompousness. Look at their works, 
 their tastes ! Frith, Landseer, Mendelssohn, Cow- 
 per, and South Kensington! A long age of 
 vaporish meditation results in the Crystal Pal 
 ace. Alas that limitations of space should make 
 it impossible that the Albert Memorial should ever 
 fall down and crush the Crystal Palace! Taste!
 
 86 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 It was the period of the birth of self-conscious 
 taste ; the age of the stuffed-leather binding, 
 padded and scented; the age of the panorama, 
 of views " 
 
 " The age, remember, when people stopped 
 building houses in the middle of a town, and put 
 them where they could have a horizon," put in 
 Margaret. 
 
 "Let him rip, Margaret," said Lady Killard, 
 mischievously. 
 
 Lauder began to pace up and down the lawn in 
 front of them. " The Albert man was a terror ; 
 a terror," he repeated, with a smile which was 
 meant to be sardonic. " See him flying, be- 
 whiskered, be-coat-tailed, be-collared, and be-cuffed 
 (it was the age of the detachable cuff), an un 
 happy, suppressed child on each arm, to hear an 
 oratorio at the Crystal Palace! See him in the 
 Home, pasting rubbish into a scrap-book, or turn 
 ing the handle of a stereoscope, and looking at 
 views! See him in public life, dull, vain, pom 
 pous, and timid, a bully and a snob ! See him in 
 science a Lubbock or a Darwin self-con 
 sciously looking at a piece of cheese through a 
 microscope, and thinking he sees the wonders of 
 nature; being thrilled by the daring of the im 
 pudent and preposterous bogey of Evolution, 
 preaching sermons from the articulation of a flea s 
 hind leg! See him as posterity will see him, 
 standing in a public garden, thrilled to his very
 
 THE BUILDER 87 
 
 whiskers by the sight of a sky-rocket, entangled 
 and tripped up by his own coat-tails, simpering 
 in an age of commemorations and rewards, memo 
 rials, fireworks, and detonations ! " Lauder sat 
 down and began to fill a pipe, and there was peace 
 for a moment. 
 
 " What do you think of John in his latest part, 
 Mr. Grey ? " asked Margaret. 
 
 " I enjoy it beyond words : it s enchanting," 
 said Eichard. 
 
 " A pity it s mostly rubbish, John, dear," said 
 Margaret. " It seems a shame to prick your 
 bubbles, but " 
 
 " It s not rubbish," said John, seriously for the 
 first time. " Go back a little ; how different the 
 Regency days were ! " 
 
 " The Eegency days were only a period of ban 
 queting: and what you call the Albert period 
 was a period of digestion." 
 
 " Or indigestion," put in Eichard, mischie 
 vously. 
 
 " You have hit it in one word, Grey," said 
 Lauder. " The Albert man was always taking 
 intellectual powders and dosing himself with 
 syrups." 
 
 " Well, he was physically healthy, thank good 
 ness ! " said Lady Killard. 
 
 " I m sorry, Jane, but that s just what he 
 wasn t. In actual fact he glorified the dentist,
 
 88 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 whose social rise he witnessed, and he substituted 
 the doctor for the leech." 
 
 " Dear John ! " said Lady Killard, " you are 
 charming. Go on again." 
 
 " Oh, there s nothing to be said to scoffers/ 
 laughed Lauder, " except that the Albert Period 
 was the age of the volunteer, the sentimental 
 Highlander, Euston Station, and the invention 
 of Scotland; the age of the whatnot, the occa 
 sional table, and the scrap-book all for the ac 
 cumulation and preservation of perishable rub 
 bish ! " 
 
 " And to heighten the tragedy, some really good 
 things found their way into the scrap-books," said 
 Margaret. 
 
 They talked a little longer in a pleasant desul 
 tory fashion. As the heat of the day now declined, 
 Lauder lounged off in the direction of watering- 
 cans, and the two women, with the attractive skill 
 of their sex, led Eichard to talk of himself and 
 his work, until he felt as though he had known 
 them for a lifetime. Accustomed as he was to 
 a solitary and roving life, this little echo of the 
 polite world that sounded about the cottage gar 
 den attracted and pleased him. He had a natural 
 inclination, never indulged, for the society of 
 women, and he wooed them unconsciously with his 
 frank admiration, his undisguised pleasure in 
 their company, and his desire that they should
 
 THE BUILDER . 89 
 
 like him. He never doubted their interest in his 
 affairs, and consequently he interested them deeply 
 with his talk of harbor building, voyages of inspec 
 tion, battles with tides and storms, and descrip 
 tions of holophotal and condensing, catoptric and 
 dioptric, fixed, revolving, and group-flashing 
 lights. He had a profound veneration and affec 
 tion for the Corporation of the Trinity, and a 
 keen appreciation of its picturesque business. The 
 two women were interested each in her own way. 
 Lady Killard listened with the quick capability 
 of the woman of the world to grasp a smattering 
 of facts as to a great national undertaking; Mar 
 garet Lauder delighted in the contrast of in 
 tensely arduous and practical labor with the 
 dreamy poetry and romance of those unsleeping 
 eyes that open and keep watch nightly with the 
 failing of the sun. 
 
 " The worst of my work," said Eichard, " is that 
 it cuts me off from the world and friends. I 
 might as well be in New Zealand half the time 
 as in England. Of course I m always running up 
 to London, but only for a few days at a time, and 
 I assure you I hardly know the faces at my own 
 club. Now you, I suppose " he looked at Mar 
 garet " live surrounded by friends, and are 
 always either in a whirl of London gaiety or else 
 adorning pleasant country parties ? " 
 
 She frowned ever so slightly, and arranged the 
 lock of her gold bangle before she spoke, screwing
 
 90 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 her mouth up with a severe, business-like air as 
 the clasp snapped home. 
 
 " No, I don t think I m specially gay. One sees 
 people in London, of course, because the people 
 one finds there are its sole attraction. As for 
 country-houses, they are difficult to adorn. I go 
 to Ireland in the early spring because I like hunt 
 ing, but otherwise I am no great prop of country- 
 houses." 
 
 "And yet," said Lady Killard, "they are the 
 only places where one has a chance of really know 
 ing one s friends. London s a drag-net, I admit; 
 but the haul wants sifting and sorting continu 
 ally." 
 
 "Well, I envy you both," sighed Eichard. 
 " You seem to be able to make an occupation of 
 your friendships." 
 
 " They are all the business of life, Mr. Grey " 
 and Margaret looked at him now with a smile. 
 
 "Well, I ve neglected my business," said Eich 
 ard, " and I d better attend to it at once. Do you 
 recommend the cultivation of country-house invi 
 tations?" 
 
 " No, indeed, I don t. My real grievance against 
 the country-house atmosphere is that it makes you 
 think more of your acquaintances than of your 
 friends." She paused and seemed to follow at 
 tentively with her eyes the smoke of a steamer 
 far away on the blue horizon; and from it her 
 gaze went on to the white tower of the lighthouse.
 
 THE BUILDER 91 
 
 Then she turned to him again with a sudden 
 friendly smile. " Besides, you have your work ! 
 I think I envy you that. I think if one had work 
 like that to do it would leave no time for friend 
 ships, and hardly any need for them." 
 
 " Work s a jealous mistress," said Eichard, " but 
 it s only a mistress, after all." He flushed a little 
 at the turn his words had taken. " I mean, it 
 leaves gaps," he added quickly " intellectual 
 gaps, and that sort of thing. But still, as you 
 say, I don t think I d change my work for any 
 thing. I can honestly say that I love it." 
 
 " It must be a great joy to devote oneself to 
 something so impassive and cold as that," she 
 said, looking again at the lighthouse "a great 
 joy. I begin to suspect that you are like me 
 you love things that don t love you in return. It s 
 a real bore to have one s affection returned to one 
 over the counter, so to speak; it turns life into 
 a kind of cash stores, where they give no credit." 
 
 " Ah, take the cash and let the credit go/" 
 quoted Eichard, laughing. 
 
 " By all means, if we are to be governed by 
 Omarisms," she said, more gravely; "but our 
 philosophy has surely got a little beyond that 
 point." 
 
 When Eichard walked away a little later 
 through a path of purple foxgloves that the orange 
 light of the sunset turned to blood-scarlet, he car-
 
 92 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 ried with him a new and grateful interest. He 
 liked these three people; he liked the friendly 
 and intimate atmosphere that surrounded them; 
 he liked the sense of intellectual peerage with 
 them, the absence of sentiment. He realized that 
 the social side of him was a little starved; in 
 fact he realized almost for the first time that his 
 nature had such a side, and wondered rather 
 vaguely if he had any more discoveries to make 
 about himself. On the whole he thought not; 
 and thought so gladly, for he liked to feel him 
 self full-grown and mature in the world, master 
 of himself, and able to devote himself to the work 
 that absorbed him. 
 
 And yet, when he reached his cabin and lit the 
 lamp, and saw his plain and lonely meal spread 
 for him, a vague sense of incompleteness, a timid 
 discontent, stirred within him. He had forgotten 
 it an hour later, when he sat absorbed over his 
 drawing-desk intent on the working out of a new 
 system of reflection, his mind involved in intricate 
 problems, his soul drawn deep into the wells of 
 pure mathematics.
 
 THE sea is the great disturber. Nothing 
 human can endure for long unchanged in 
 its presence; no work of man s hands, or of his 
 thoughts, or even of his character and qualities, 
 but must ultimately go down before its eternal 
 force; nothing of himself, flesh or spirit, but 
 must thrill and change with the pulses of its 
 unquiet heart. Its vastness is confounding, and 
 towers over us, dwindling us to pin-points of un 
 importance ; beside its movements, calm and punc 
 tual, laid out in cycles of the everlasting, the most 
 majestic of our actions seem as petty as the fret 
 ting trill of an insect s wing; <--its storms hush 
 our wars and revolutions; our deepest silences 
 are audible in its profound calms; and within its 
 age the twinkling moments of our life pass and 
 disappear unheeded into the murk of eternity. 
 Small wonder if the embodiment of world-with- 
 out-end should prove no encourager of man s hap 
 piness or contentment! It is an alien to all our 
 hopes and fears, a stranger to our warm little 
 efforts and impulses, forever unmoved by us and 
 our troubled consciousness; and only they who 
 93
 
 94 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 go down into its cold heart and drown and die 
 there can ever conquer its indifference or compel 
 its attention. 
 
 Lauder, walking one Sunday afternoon in June 
 on the coast-guard path thai skirts Poltesco Bay, 
 found Eichard Grey sitting in a grassy niche of 
 the cliffs poring, with eyes that saw but hardly 
 observed, upon the runes and lines that the sub 
 marine drifts were drawing on the sea s smooth 
 face. On Eichard, as on all who dwell within its 
 influence, the great disturber was at work, loosen 
 ing his mind from the anchorage of contentment 
 that it had found in labor, and setting free 
 thought and wonder to float on the wandering 
 currents of speculation. As the summer went on 
 and the lighthouse grew toward completion it 
 ceased to occupy his mind, and he was conscious 
 of a slow disturbance taking place in the very 
 roots of his mental habit. He did not know what 
 he wanted; but his long talks with Lauder and 
 his pleasant friendship with the two ladies at 
 the Hermitage had sown in him a restlessness and 
 discontent of mind that was very strange to him. 
 He used to sit much by the sea in these less busy 
 days; its slow movements, its traffic of stealthy 
 tides and flowing waves seemed in tune with a 
 mood in which he was vaguely conscious of the 
 transiency and instability of material life. As 
 he sat and watched the moving water he had an 
 idle longing to explore its spiritual secrets, to
 
 THE BUILDER 95 
 
 force from it some vital disclosure, and to grasp 
 and examine some of those dream-like, elusive 
 mysteries on which the fluent sea seemed to be 
 brooding. With his nearer knowledge of the 
 Lauders and Lady Killard a tinge of depression, 
 for which he found it hard to account, often 
 clouded the hours of solitude which he had 
 formerly found so delightful; and from the cal 
 culation of weights and strains he would find his 
 mind, as on this afternoon, turning to speculation 
 on greater and more humane problems. The 
 larger curiosity about life, delayed so long, was 
 stirring in him now; and though he knew that 
 life did not consist of one world more than an 
 other, and was just as real on his storm-beaten 
 rock as in London or Paris and the worlds of 
 which Lauder was fond of speaking, he began to 
 feel that it held secrets which could and ought 
 to be given up to him. 
 
 He was glad to see Lauder, for their friendship 
 had grown during the past weeks, and they had 
 walked and talked much together. They sat down 
 together on the grass, and spoke, as they so often 
 did, of the lighthouse, whose tower dominated the 
 view of grim dark cliffs and breeze-ruffled sea of 
 pure cobalt. 
 
 " I remember one of my father s sayings, writ 
 ten on the fly-leaf of the lighthouse directory," 
 said Eichard. " When Commerce takes her cleans 
 ing plunge into the sea, we raise of the dust she
 
 96 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 sliaikes from her soiled locks towers to mark her 
 path in the purer element." 
 
 " Yes, lighthouses are of the romantic family," 
 said Lander " children of beauty and utility." 
 
 " They re practical enough, too man s last 
 outposts on the frontiers of his dominion," Eich- 
 ard said ; " the last help we land creatures can 
 give to our fellows who take to the uncertain sea ; 
 the first welcoming guides when they come back. 
 They re so essentially earthly, too, for all we plant 
 them in the sea ! Stone from inland quarries, 
 oak and pine from the forest, metal from depths 
 where sound or smell of the sea has never reached 
 it seems almost impudent to plant things like 
 that in the very midst of waves." 
 
 Lander leaned back and looked at the white 
 tower with half-closed eyes. " I like to think of 
 this new neighbor of yours, joining the great 
 company of lights this youngster of the Trinity, 
 a baby yet, his stone sides hardly out of their 
 swaddling of scaffold ! I went down at low water 
 this morning and sat alone in the lantern; and 
 from his crystal eye, vacant still though it is, 
 and blind as an uncut gem, I looked out across 
 the blue floor of the Atlantic and tried to read 
 his destiny. All this summer is his childhood, 
 you and Macneil and the others who reared him 
 still hovering anxiously about him, perfecting his 
 equipment, and watching his resistance to the 
 weather while as yet he performs no service. He
 
 THE BUILDER 97 
 
 was whistling a little tune in the wind, and in the 
 strong sunshine storing up energy, I told myself, 
 for the long dark nights he will have to keep watch 
 when his nurses are all dead and buried. Well 
 for him, when he comes to wrestle with the winter 
 gales, that neither toil nor time were grudged in 
 his making ! " 
 
 " I see you think of him as I do/ said Eichard, 
 " as a person ; indeed I m tempted to be senti 
 mental about him sometimes. But oh, I have at 
 odd moments a longing for him to be immortal! 
 I can t think that tower will ever perish while the 
 rock lasts." 
 
 " You builders are all the same," said Lauder. 
 " Look at that fortress wall ; " and he pointed to a 
 ruined castle not far from the edge of the cliff, 
 said to have been the house of a Cornish king, 
 " twenty-five feet thick, ruined half a dozen times, 
 and continually rebuilt by the mason, eternally 
 undaunted by the ruins of masonry! Somewhere 
 in a distant century I seem to see another archi 
 tect at work on his plans, or standing on that 
 very rampart directing the masons. My work 
 will last, he says. And then a little falling 
 of the rain, a little blowing of the wind, a little 
 lapse of years and centuries, and another crafts 
 man, looking at the rampart, purses his lips and 
 speaks of the heavy cost of strengthening old 
 rotten walls. A little disturbance of soil, and down 
 comes the whole thing like a child s rickle of
 
 98 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 bricks; and man, with the patience of an ant, 
 turns to and builds it again! And like his an 
 cestor he says, This time it will last. " 
 
 " It s just possible," said Eichard, smiling, 
 " we may have learned the secret. It wouldn t 
 be human to believe otherwise ; and anyway, what 
 does it matter ? It is more to the point that men 
 should have been working with their hands for 
 the common benefit on that wave-beaten fragment 
 of rock more to the point that the work should 
 be of that patient, simple kind laying one stone 
 on another and placing courses of masonry on a 
 true and level bed that calls for all the most 
 honest qualities of human labor. Day in, day out, 
 through the months and years that tower has 
 been in building, there has been just the one 
 kind of patient labor ; nothing complex or subtle ; 
 everything depending on sheer honesty at every 
 stage. The man who mixes the mortar, the man 
 who lays the granite, the man who saws, digs, 
 hews, or harles upon each and all of them the 
 honesty of the work depends. As the dad used 
 to say: You may He in your throat, and no one 
 be the worse of it; to lie with the hands is to 
 add a stone to the fabric of the world s dis 
 grace" 
 
 They talked a little longer of the work, and 
 then turned to making plans for the immediate 
 future. Eichard had to go to Paris, where the 
 lamp and lenses were being made, to see them
 
 THE BUILDER 99 
 
 before they were shipped off to the lighthouse. 
 Lauder learned from him that he did not know 
 Paris well; and they agreed to go together, and 
 spend a few days after Richard s business was 
 finished. They expected to start almost imme 
 diately, and to be away about a week. 
 
 " The light is to be exhibited in October, I 
 hear," said Richard, as they walked slowly toward 
 the Hermitage. "After that what, I wonder? 
 Another job for me, I hope, although it ll be too 
 much to hope for a rock light. But I d love to 
 build a Skerryvore or a Wolf ! " 
 
 " If you were a monk, Richard, you d be a Fran 
 ciscan. What have I done? will be your death 
 bed preoccupation." 
 
 "Not a bad one, provided one has an answer! 
 You d be a Trappist, I suppose, and say: What 
 have I been, and how have I made my soul? 
 And yet the gift of preaching is certainly yours 
 rather than mine ! " 
 
 " I preach to myself," said Lauder, smiling, as 
 they turned in at the gate. 
 
 They had promised to walk with the ladies to 
 Strade church why, no one exactly knew, unless 
 it were for the sake of the walk back in the sunset ; 
 and Lady Killard had an idea that it was neces 
 sary to keep the vicar in countenance at least 
 once during her residence. 
 
 " It will be rather interesting," said Richard to
 
 100 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 Margaret, as they set off in front of the others 
 across the fields. " I haven t been to church for 
 years." 
 
 " Four unbelievers ! I suppose we are a typical 
 company of churchgoers/ she said; "and John 
 the only convinced unbeliever of us all ! " 
 
 " What am I ? " asked Eichard, laughing. 
 
 " I should call you a regretful unbeliever," she 
 replied ; " and Jane oh, Jane is a timid un 
 believer." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I m only a temporary unbeliever, I think. I 
 can t help an uncomfortable feeling that there 
 may be something in it all the time ! " 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Eichard, serenely, " but it s 
 a mistake. There is nothing in it but a depress 
 ing and rather pathetic demonstration of human 
 weakness and cowardice and of the results of 
 unhappiness, I suppose. It would be bad enough 
 if people really believed in it all; but they don t. 
 Its externals seem to have a fatal attraction for 
 discontented women ; but that s only because part 
 of it is human and emotional." 
 
 "Well, that s surely a good thing, Mr. Grey? 
 I begin to believe in emotion; it s like rain on 
 the soil, that keeps it soft and ready." 
 
 Eichard, who was not on the lookout for emo 
 tional leads, continued a purely academic discus 
 sion. " Of course, as a preparation emotion is 
 invaluable provided it s the real thing, and not
 
 THE BUILDER 101 
 
 an artificial substitute ! And one must have some 
 thing to prepare for; you can t be eternally get 
 ting ready. And then the ordinary English par 
 son is not exactly an inspirer of religion. I won 
 der why one dislikes them as a class." 
 
 "Do you? I don t think I do. I find them 
 often quite sound. Look at Mr. Brereton here; 
 no one can help liking him." 
 
 " I know that," said Eichard ; " but it s an 
 impossible profession all the same. They are sell 
 ing at second-hand what every one ought to 
 possess new for himself and selling it at a 
 profit ! " 
 
 " Now you re talking like John," said Margaret, 
 smiling; "and do you know, I think I like your 
 own talk much better." 
 
 Their walk was along the cliffs, through the 
 little hamlet, and across meadow paths to where 
 the church stood huddled together on the rolling 
 land, like a small gray snail. All around them the 
 air was as salt as on a ship, and across ploughed 
 fields or meadows there were everywhere little 
 vistas closed by the bright sea. Margaret Lauder 
 was enveloped in the wonderful charm of a well- 
 dressed woman a creature of beauty and mys 
 tery, remote now in Richard s eyes, with her laces 
 and daintinesses, her drooping black hat, her 
 charming hands and feet perfectly attired. Her 
 eyes seemed brighter, her skin finer, herself trans 
 figured, body and soul, by the simple process of
 
 102 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 taking off one set of clothes and putting on an 
 other. As she walked beside him, dispensing her 
 grave smiles and kindnesses of speech, Richard 
 realized that he liked her very much, and won 
 dered, and perhaps regretted, that he did not like 
 her more. They spoke of his departure in the 
 coming week; to him it seemed a long way to 
 Paris from this world of sea labor and garden rest. 
 Margaret said she was glad John was going with 
 him. " You won t feel the separation from your 
 dear lighthouse so much/ she added, laughing. 
 
 Eichard s next remark seemed to have no con 
 nection with their conversation. " Will you be 
 here until October ? " he asked. " I should like 
 you to be here when the light is shown for the 
 first time." 
 
 " I hope so," she answered. " Indeed, Mr. Grey, 
 I should hate to miss it ; I feel as if we had some 
 thing to do with the lighthouse ; we almost regard 
 it as one of our Hermitage family. Tell me," she 
 added, " will you be glad when it s finished ? " 
 
 " Do you know, I think I will, although I never 
 thought I should be. But somehow I want to 
 leave work on one side for a little. I m a little 
 jealous of it. While I m at it, it must come first, 
 and must be uppermost; and yet I want to do 
 other things perhaps to build other things. 
 After all, one has one s life to build." 
 
 " I shouldn t throw up your work for that rea 
 son. Do you think one is ever building oneself
 
 THE BUILDER 103 
 
 so much as when one is building something else? 
 Ah," she went on, shaking her head and smiling, 
 "John has been talking to you! I know John s 
 attractive fallacies, but I don t approve of them. 
 He doesn t build anything, I m afraid; he s al 
 ways making corner-stones for a house that will 
 never be built at all ! " 
 
 " Perhaps they are only pierres perdues," said 
 Eichard, smiling, and yet conscious that their con 
 versation was taking an attractively symbolic turn, 
 and that their words had a double message. " You 
 know, the stones I told you about that we sink 
 down into the sea when we are going to build a 
 groin or a pier. One must have a foundation, 
 you see; and who knows what a splendid edifice 
 may not rise on John s foundations? Personally, 
 I feel I owe him a great deal. We all have to 
 build; and I suppose it rests with ourselves 
 whether we build a house of cards or a castle." 
 
 Margaret looked at him, and then before her at 
 the setting sun. " And apart from what one 
 builds, it matters whether one builds on sand or 
 rock, doesn t it ? " she said. 
 
 " That s where John comes in with his solid 
 foundations," Eichard said, and they both laughed, 
 and then fell silent. They did not speak again 
 until they were joined at the church door by 
 Lauder and Lady Killard; and then Margaret 
 put her hand on her brother s arm.
 
 104 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " You dear quarrier of pierres perdues," she 
 said; and neither she nor Kichard would explain 
 the allusion. Kichard was not sure that he under 
 stood it himself.
 
 VI 
 
 passed into the gloom of the little 
 JL church just as the service was beginning; 
 and as they stood during the Exhortation they 
 had a full view of the small congregation. A 
 sprinkling of girls gave it youth; the rest of the 
 fifty people were principally middle-aged, sad- 
 faced women, with a few bent and gnarled old 
 people, and a few youths and maidens in the pride 
 of life. The surroundings were unusual to Eich- 
 ard, and, in his sensitive condition, touched him 
 strangely. The rough old Norman church, so 
 long beaten upon by the shaking gales of that 
 wild place, seemed well suited with its congrega 
 tion of simple, hard-living villagers in an isolated 
 country; and the hearty singing, the good manly 
 voice of the parson, the sense of companionship, 
 the cross and flowers on the altar, the pervading 
 tones of the organ, and the glimpse afforded 
 through the open door of glass-covered graves, and 
 the blue sea beyond them, built up an effect that al 
 most startled Eichard by its power to interest him. 
 The beautiful words of the evening office came 
 back to him with a new charm and hypnotism. 
 106
 
 106 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 The moment he tried to think of their meaning 
 applied definitely and literally to the people there 
 in the church, the situation seemed grotesque and 
 absurd; but when he ceased to listen in detail, 
 but let the large sound of the whole drift in upon 
 his ears, it suddenly became all clear and reason 
 able. The two rows of little boys in the chancel, 
 singing breathlessly at a psalm chopped into very 
 short lengths by a chant too high for their voices, 
 were not inspiring ministers of praise; yet it was 
 enough to catch but one verse When Thou hid- 
 est Thy face they are troubled: when Thou takest 
 away their breath they die, and are turned again 
 to their dust for all color and music and mean 
 ing to leap back into the picture. 
 
 As the service went on Eichard became conscious 
 of two influences pervading the little church. One 
 was a sort of human current that seemed to be 
 established by the presence of so many people near 
 each other. Standing up during the hymns Eich 
 ard was thus acutely conscious of all the people 
 around him, and especially of Margaret Lauder, 
 whose charm was presented in a new light of de 
 votional gravity. But more definite even than this 
 atmosphere of solemn conviviality was another in 
 fluence, purely feminine, that suddenly became 
 embodied for Eichard in the person of a woman 
 seated a few pews in front of him. She was not 
 very young, and as he only had a back view of 
 her he had no idea of what her face was like ; but
 
 THE BUILDER 107 
 
 something in the shape of her hat, in the incli 
 nation of her head, in the fall of her hair on her 
 neck, in the rather graceful and slow movements 
 of her slim figure, expressed a personality that 
 seemed to be the embodiment of this Sunday eve 
 ning emotion. She was both demure and devout, 
 and her inclinations and genuflexions proclaimed 
 her a leader rather than a follower of ritual. 
 Eichard found himself watching her at any ap 
 proach of the Holy Name, and taking a strange 
 delight in the slow fal] and rise of her figure. 
 He did not wish to see her face: his interest in 
 her was impersonal; but it was profound out of 
 all proportion to the circumstances. He observed, 
 moreover, that he was not alone in his sensations. 
 As the sermon began the congregation settled down 
 as comfortably as possible in the hard pews, and 
 seemed deliberately to divide its attention. One- 
 half was given to the tanned, capable face and 
 honest brown eyes of the parson as he made his 
 simple proposals for the conduct of life, and his 
 earnest exhortations to honesty and piety, in order 
 that all might meet in heaven at last; the other 
 half was obviously devoted to human speculation. 
 Young men fixed their eyes, each on some young 
 woman; girls drew together with arms interlaced 
 and their thoughts floating in the poetic romance 
 of virgin friendships; children exchanged sweets, 
 or snuggled up against their mothers arms; and 
 here and there a husband and wife put out a hand
 
 108 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 to one another, and shared wordless anxieties or 
 memories. The monotone of the exhorting voice, 
 the mellow dying sunshine that flooded the build 
 ing, the hard wholesome Cornish faces, the Sunday 
 dresses and hats with their bits of bravery, the 
 flowers, jessamine, carnations, or roses, taken from 
 under the hot walls of cottage gardens how elo 
 quent they all were, with a pathetic and heart 
 breaking eloquence, of the smallness, the helpless 
 ness, the profound melancholy of human destiny ! 
 Like cattle huddling together in a storm, these 
 toilers gathered together thus at sundown, nomi 
 nally to praise God, but really to hearten them 
 selves with company, to say a few incantations, to 
 receive a little human comfort against the coming 
 night, and the longer night of death of which our 
 solar night is the eternal monitor. . . . 
 
 The voice of the parson broke in on Eichard s 
 hearing. " And lastly, God gives us all a promise 
 of rest when this life is over. We all know what 
 it is to have had a hard day, with the nets per 
 haps or ploughing a stiff bit of land; well, what 
 is it that helps us to get through that day? Isn t 
 it the knowledge that it can only last a certain 
 time, and that at the end of it we are going to 
 food at the fireside, and comfort and sleep? If 
 there were to be no sleep we couldn t go on; if 
 our toil were never to come to an end we shouldn t 
 be able to do anything. But God means us to 
 work, and He means us to live; and so Christ
 
 THE BUILDER 109 
 
 gave to His people this promise, I go to prepare 
 a place for you ; and that, with the other prom 
 ise, There remaineth a rest for the people of 
 God, is an assurance that God will not ask of us 
 more than we can do, and that when our work 
 is over He will give us rest. But it is to His own 
 people only that He promises that rest. Surely, 
 then, we should try to earn it, by serving Him 
 and loving Him and obeying Him; surely we 
 should try to do His work on earth, if we would 
 earn His reward in heaven; so that when all our 
 toils and sorrows are over we may be with Him in 
 that rest, and serve Him in everlasting joy here 
 after." 
 
 Of course ! It was all so kindly, so dead simple, 
 such a pretty dream, such a gross unreality ! The 
 lulling hypnotism of such words acted like a sweet 
 drug on the congregation, soothing and comfort 
 ing their hearts. God only knows, thought Rich 
 ard, perhaps they need drugs ! 
 
 But it was the last hymn, sung under shadow 
 of the imminent night, that completed the anni 
 hilation of his cold and detached criticism of 
 other people s religion. Rested by the sermon, 
 pleased with a familiar tune, the little congre 
 gation rolled out the first verse: 
 
 " Fight the good fight with all thy might, 
 Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right; 
 Lay hold on life, and it shall be 
 Thy joy and crown eternally."
 
 110 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 Even John Lauder was singing by the third 
 line. He did not know what particular good 
 fight he had to fight, but the sentiment was a 
 sound one ; and " lay hold on life " was simply 
 magnificent, if they had only meant it ! The fine 
 processional tread of the tune caught up even un 
 wonted voices to join in it. The first verse thus 
 whipped in the congregational stragglers, and at 
 tracted the very young, who are ashamed to sing 
 in church, to raise a sheepish note. 
 
 " Run the straight race through God s good grace, 
 Lift up thine eyes, and seek His face ; 
 Life with its way before us lies, 
 Christ is the path and Christ the prize." 
 
 The second verse established the odd collection 
 of voices as a coherent whole, and the tune 
 marched proudly along. Margaret was singing, 
 and Lady Killard also, in a tender soprano that 
 made the devotional words like a caress; the par 
 son was singing, and looking around his little 
 flock in a sort of mothering way, to see who was 
 there and who was absent. 
 
 " Cast care aside, lean on thy Guide ; 
 His boundless mercy will provide ; 
 Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove 
 Christ is its life and Christ its love." 
 
 Eichard found himself drawn into the sweeping 
 flood of sound; he felt the whole building thrill 
 ing with that disturbance, part sensuous, part
 
 THE BUILDER 111 
 
 poetic, part of that hunger of the mind and heart 
 for things which shall symbolize the eternal, which 
 is often called religion. The congregation gath 
 ered itself together for the last verse; the organ 
 ist drew out all the stops on his little instrument ; 
 every one sang his heartiest; and, supported on 
 the deep bass of the pedal pipes, the flood of emo 
 tional sound swept through the church, through 
 the nerves of every singer, through the open door 
 into the sunset fields. 
 
 " Faint not nor fear, His arms are near, 
 He changeth not, and thou art dear ; 
 Only believe, and thou shall see 
 That Christ is all in all to thee." 
 
 In the prayers and silences that followed, and 
 in their quiet walk home afterward, Eichard 
 found these words echoing in his mind, " He 
 changeth not ! " What was there in the mere 
 sound of the words that caught at his heart? He 
 had been conscious when singing that line of a 
 vague desire to apply it humanly; and he had 
 caught Lander s glance quite unconsciously rest 
 ing on Lady Killard at the words " and thou art 
 dear," and had wished that he had some one with 
 whom he could share his emotion. . . . The 
 whole thing disturbed him strangely; it left him 
 very silent, but made him hover about his friends 
 as though he were never going to see them again. 
 He was reluctant to leave them; and when he
 
 112 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 said good night there was a weight upon his 
 heart, although he could not have told why. He 
 had had no special conversation with Margaret 
 since they came out of church; it seemed as if 
 she wished to keep with the others. 
 
 Lady Killard watched his figure disappearing 
 in the darkness and turned to Lauder. 
 
 " You must take care of him, dear John," she 
 said. " I don t know what there is about him, but 
 he makes one very fond of him and sorry at the 
 same time. I m glad he s going with you to 
 Paris."
 
 BOOK II 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS
 
 RICHAED S knowledge of Paris was that of 
 the ordinary passenger; it consisted for 
 him. of an hotel, a railway station, the Champs 
 Elysees, the Eue de Eivoli, the Louvre, the Lux 
 embourg, and an occasional meal amid the ama 
 teur Bohemianism of the Latin Quarter. Lauder s 
 Parisian knowledge surprised you at first by its 
 blanks; he knew none of the sights, he had never 
 been to Versailles, he hated the Eue de Eivoli and 
 all its works with an enthusiasm of hatred that 
 was only equalled by his passionate love for Mont- 
 inartre that Montmartre which the English or 
 American visitor does not know and is seldom 
 shown; but the two Parisian worlds of art and 
 pleasure, studios, galleries, and restaurants, he 
 knew with the intimate knowledge of the painter 
 who has turned man of the world. In both these 
 scenes of life his interest was equally real; but 
 whereas he was a practitioner in painting, and 
 had the craftsman s serious and intolerant stand 
 ard, he was an amateur of pleasure. He loved 
 to look upon that hurrying tide, so often muddy, 
 and sometimes surprisingly bright, that flows 
 115
 
 116 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 through the European capitals; loved to study 
 with an absorbed fascination the struggle, the 
 labor, the painful toil of men to purchase joy in 
 those gay markets; he loved most of all to be 
 intimate with the sources and changes of the 
 river of pleasure, and to trace in its deep and 
 intricate channels those human tides that con 
 nect it with our common life and keep it, in spite 
 of its terrible burden of moral sewerage, harmless 
 to the sound of head and heart. And in the great 
 exchanges of vice and folly, it was the sellers far 
 more than the buyers that interested him. The 
 buyers, whether they were gambling at Monte 
 Carlo, stuffing themselves in expensive restau 
 rants, or lavishing their money on momentary 
 and unsatisfactory love, were as a rule more gro 
 tesque than pathetic in his eyes; he had no pity 
 for their folly and no mercy on their stupidity. 
 But the other side the world of sad-faced crou 
 piers,, of sedulous mattres d Jiotel, of demi-mon- 
 daines and actresses he loved it whole-heartedly. 
 He was known in that world throughout Europe; 
 and although he was neither rich nor extravagant 
 but merely generous, he was welcomed with open 
 arms and honest affection in many a place where 
 a welcome would not be thought highly of by the 
 orderly world. He had a touch that opened all 
 doors of a certain kind to him; upon his entry 
 into famous restaurants waiters would be sent 
 flying, the best table prepared, the choicest flowers
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 117 
 
 produced, the secrets of the cellar revealed, the 
 chef advised, and the whole costly machinery 
 given an extra spin in order that he might have 
 his cutlet, while the American millionaire was 
 kept waiting to order his nine courses. The patron 
 always had a word for him, the chef s compli 
 ments would be sent up, and while he smoked a 
 cigarette the exquisite and debonair chief of the 
 maitres d Tiotel would be in deep converse with 
 him not as to the year of the Gorton, but as 
 to his difficulties with his family and his hopes 
 for the little farm he meant tft QUy when he 
 retired. 
 
 And so also in the great shifting banquet of 
 beauty and pleasure he was known and liked and 
 respected, if not loved; for the true coin of love 
 is in that world of counters held far more dearly 
 than we hold it, and its liking is worth having. 
 Lauder had far too clear a brain and too much 
 intellectual fearlessness to be shocked or dismayed 
 by the simple fact that such a world and such 
 a profession existed: he had, on the contrary, an 
 Alexandrian respect for it, when.it was cleanly 
 and decently conducted; and he liked to watch 
 the eternal struggle between it and society. He 
 looked upon it as a fair fight. He knew that the 
 social attitude toward so-called vice was the right 
 and only possible one, and if society could stamp 
 it out, that it would be right to stamp it out. But 
 he also recognized in it a grim fact of life, which
 
 118 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 society dare not recognize, but which nevertheless 
 sought for and held its footing in the world. As 
 for the women of the demi-monde, he made no 
 secret of the fact that he liked them, those at any 
 rate who had a genius for their calling and a 
 sense of dignity and behavior in it; and he es 
 teemed them far more highly than actresses who 
 took their art seriously. The moral actress, he 
 used to say, was the most pitiable and indecent 
 figure in the world. Richard Grey and he had 
 a long argument on this subject, in which the 
 fight was for an ideal of decency. They were 
 walking the deck of the Calais boat, and the sub 
 ject had been started by the sight of a rather 
 well-known actress established on deck-chairs with 
 her husband and three children. 
 
 " It s all very well, Lauder," said Richard, " I 
 haven t any false ideas about virtue and vice 
 being anything to do with celibacy or monogamy; 
 but I don t see how a woman can be less decent 
 because she sticks to her husband." 
 
 " It s not indecent that she should stick to her 
 husband; but it is improper that she should 
 parade a quality that has nothing to do with her 
 profession. Besides, if she is a good mother and 
 a true wife, she s no good as an actress; and of 
 course she isn t." 
 
 " Oh, of course," said Richard ; " this is the 
 old cry that no actress can be a pure woman ! " 
 
 " It isn t that an actress can t be a pure woman ;
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 119 
 
 it is that she has no business to be ; or if she has 
 a weak tendency toward moral virtue, she ought 
 to conceal it like a vice. Her acting ought to 
 come to her rescue; and if it doesn t she ought 
 to choose another profession." 
 
 "That s all right/ said Eichard; "but an 
 actress is only a channel, an agent. I hate all 
 their talk about actors creating characters. 
 They don t they purvey them. Therefore, when 
 they aren t being galvanized into action, they 
 ought to be allowed to relapse if they like even 
 if their amusement take the form of domestic 
 virtue." 
 
 " Oh, well, if you re going to allow domestic 
 virtue to become the relaxation of actresses, you 
 will not only spoil the pleasures of a great many 
 worthy, respectable people, but you ll make Do 
 mestic Virtue take the place of the domestic vir 
 tues, which other people cultivate with some 
 knowledge and finesse." 
 
 " I see," replied Eichard, " what you are worry 
 ing about is not that they are domestic, but that 
 they are actresses, and therefore the property of 
 the public; and that with their beastly instinct 
 for publicity they foist on the public photographs 
 of themselves and their children. And of course 
 no one is interested in their children, because one 
 has no reasonable grounds for supposing that 
 their children will be better actors than they are
 
 120 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 which, I suppose, is the only reason why they 
 should be allowed to marry." 
 
 Cape Grisnez loomed out on the horizon, a gray 
 blur between sea and sky. Lauder knitted his 
 brows and smiled as he gazed at the spreading 
 shores of France. 
 
 " Ah, that s the country where they don t per 
 mit any bungling of that sort. Pleasure is the 
 one thing that the French take seriously; and 
 their machinery for the flattering of the five senses 
 is as perfect as their clever brains can make it. 
 They recognize that the stage is like the Church; 
 and therefore their actors are nominally celibate, 
 and have to attend to business all the time. You 
 don t catch a French actress, any more than a 
 French abbe, parading a family. They take them 
 selves seriously." 
 
 " Well," said Eichard, " perhaps you re right ; 
 but what has all that to do with an ideal of 
 decency ? " 
 
 "Well, we re getting on; we re getting toward 
 it. We have established anyhow that decency, like 
 truth, is not an absolute but a relative thing." 
 
 " But the truthful man doesn t habitually 
 lie." 
 
 " No, and a decent woman doesn t habitually 
 act, although all women act when they can, and 
 most men tell lies when they must. It is the 
 professional actor and the habitual liar who ought 
 not to pretend to decency. Don t you think that
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 121 
 
 the art of decency ought to be cultivated by people 
 who are intellectually fit for it ? " 
 
 Kichard smiled. " I admit it is a delicate and 
 patient art." 
 
 " Exactly, dear Eichard ; and how can it be 
 rightly practised by people who habitually ramp 
 across a lighted stage, and try to cram the whole 
 of life into three hours, with music in between? 
 Why, even nature rebuffs them ; look there ! " 
 
 A wave broke over the steamer s shoulder, and 
 cast a glittering cascade of spray over the gaudily 
 dressed family collected so conspicuously on deck. 
 They emerged draggled, and giving vent to 
 plaintive exaggerated cries. 
 
 " Nature s always coming to the rescue of your 
 arguments," said Eichard, as the two men turned 
 away to hide their smiles. The sight of the Calais 
 breakwater reminded him suddenly of his tall 
 white tower standing immovable in the spray and 
 sunshine of the seashore far away; and he re 
 flected with gratitude that the things he loved 
 best could never be made ridiculous. 
 
 There was a good deal of temperament mixed 
 up with Lauder s theories of life. An intimate 
 friend of his had once described him as " the 
 Puritan rake ; " and it really described him, in so 
 far as such paradoxes are descriptive. He was 
 far from bloodless, but he was no lover of indis 
 criminate pleasures, and in his contemplation of 
 them was doubtless mingled some satisfaction in
 
 122 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 his own attitude of aloofness, and some Puritan 
 sense of superiority in the thought that, although 
 they might be good enough for other people, they 
 were not good enough for him, and that he was 
 elected to a greater destiny. It is a strange thing, 
 this sombre and gloomy strain that still persists 
 in the English after so many generations have 
 come and gone; for lofty, austere, and admirable 
 as it is, and invaluable as an influence of stiffen 
 ing and enduring qualities, it remains incapable 
 of mingling with the fabric of a more highly 
 colored life; and in the fabric of Lauder s life 
 it was twisted up with, but hopelessly distinct 
 from, the golden thread of an almost Greek wor 
 ship of youthful and sensuous pleasure. 
 
 And it was a strange chance that made him 
 Richard s Grey s guide to the pleasures of Paris. 
 For if Lauder was a Puritan rake, Eichard was 
 by nature an ascetic amorist. The very same 
 qualities that made him whole-heartedly devoted 
 to his work turned him, when the time came, to 
 an equally whole-hearted devotion to pleasure. 
 He was always full front to life ; he never turned 
 one way, and looked over his shoulder another; 
 one thing at a time held all of him. Lauder 
 peered closely into things, examined them with a 
 microscope, saw too much, and recoiled from their 
 touch; Eichard saw only what was visible at one 
 focus, and waded in breast-high if what he saw 
 attracted him.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 123 
 
 Paris welcomed them with a glow of evening 
 sunshine and a full-blooded tide of life in her 
 broad streets. Upon Eichard, fresh from his long 
 and solitary sojourn by the seashore, the quick 
 and sounding tide of humanity acted as a power 
 ful tonic; and the lights and spacious dignity 
 of the streets, the continual brisk passage of 
 carriages and automobiles, the great evening 
 preparations for pleasure in cafes, restaurants, 
 and theatres, excited him like wine. They 
 dined at the Cafe de la Paix, and Eichard 
 tasted his first caneton a la presse a great 
 moment, by the due and quick appreciation of 
 which he won Lauder s heart. They loitered over 
 their cigars, and sauntered in the boulevards until 
 eleven o clock. What a throng of searchers for 
 the hidden treasure of joy were there! The 
 balmy summer night, the brightly lighted avenues 
 of chestnuts, the lines of cafes with their crowded 
 open-air seats, the hurrying waiters, the moving 
 crowd of passengers on the pavement, the families 
 sitting together over a consommation, the clerks 
 and shop assistants drinking beer and eying every 
 woman that passed, made a scene of life and ani 
 mation that sent the blood a little faster through 
 even the most jaded and weary veins. The two 
 men sat outside a cafe, and allowed the crowd to 
 hypnotize them by its endless flowing. Solitary 
 women .by the dozen passed across their view; 
 their stereotyped air of invitation skirt held up
 
 124 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 with one hand, the other arm swinging, the hat 
 tipped down over the face, the head held rigidly 
 straight, the oblique glance of the eyes, the sudden 
 glittering smile, the admirable acceptance of re 
 fusal or rebuff interesting though it is for a 
 moment, became nauseating immediately. 
 
 " That s what I call vice," said Lauder ; " it 
 shocks and frightens me. It is so hideous and 
 cruel, there is so little happiness in it for any 
 body; there is only courage and the keeping up 
 of appearances. And yet I suppose even these 
 women find some way of making life tolerable 
 but how they hate their work ! " 
 
 Eichard sat with his eyes drawn along by the 
 moving crowd, as the passing landscape of a rail 
 way draws and detains the eye of the passenger. 
 
 " Cruel, ugly, shocking yes ; but how inter 
 esting ! " 
 
 " Well, this is vice and immorality ; I will show 
 you pleasure and immorality presently, and you 
 will see the difference. It is when I sit in a place 
 like this that I suddenly see Paris as the most 
 ridiculous and grotesque place in the world. Paris 
 thinks of only one thing, exists for only one thing. 
 All day it toils and earns money, and builds 
 houses, and prepares food, in order that at night 
 it may devote itself to its one interest. It gets 
 on my nerves. All those fine, dignified buildings, 
 all its interest in clothes, what are they but the 
 expression of an infinite respect for this ridiculous
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 125 
 
 occupation, and a desire that it should be con 
 ducted in suitable surroundings? Paris has the 
 most perfect system of passenger transit in Eu 
 rope in order that Jacques may get to Marie 
 as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Paris in 
 vented the petit bleu in order that for twopence 
 Marie might tell Jacques not to come, as her hus 
 band had returned. Paris discovered absinthe as 
 a national drink in order that Jacques s nerves 
 might be pulled together. Look at the shop win 
 dows; look at the picture-galleries; look at the 
 literature, at the drama, at the music what is 
 it that absorbs and interests everybody? God! 
 the whole place is like a Phallic temple." He 
 smiled. " It s funny, Eichard ; it s damned 
 funny ; but it s something else as well : it s fright 
 ful ! " 
 
 " You mean because it s artificial ? " 
 " Because it is so truly indecent. I don t care 
 twopence about its immorality, morality is only 
 an underbred substitute for decency, but it s so 
 shamelessly indecent ! It is this businesslike pur 
 suit on the part of the French of something that 
 ought to be private and accidental; it s like 
 trawling for butterflies out of a thousand-horse 
 power airship." 
 
 " My sensation about the whole thing is a curi 
 ous one," said Eichard. " I can t say it offends 
 me : I m much too interested to be offended ; but 
 I feel somehow out of it, as if I were another
 
 126 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 kind of animal, as if I d no business to be here. 
 It s not the thing itself, but my presence, that is 
 indecent. I have the same feeling that I have 
 always had when I have looked in at a glass- 
 fronted beehive a feeling of profound imper 
 tinence." 
 
 " I know what you mean, but you ll get over 
 that. Keep your air of detachment as long as 
 you can you ll see more. I got to know this 
 particular world too gradually, and got used to it ; 
 one should come upon it suddenly, as you are 
 doing. And now for your first glimpse of Mont- 
 martre." 
 
 They sauntered through the warm streets, past 
 the hurrying crowds, until they came to the slope 
 of the hill and into the quietness of the Eue 
 Pigalle, that steep starlit alley where on the hot 
 test night there is always some coolness and fresh 
 ness in the air. The streets about Montmartre 
 are always quiet at night, for its life concentrates 
 itself within-doors ; and when they turned into 
 the Bal Tabarin the sudden noise and light and 
 heat bewildered them. Eichard saw before him a 
 great room, with a gallery running around it, 
 a bar along one side, and little tables everywhere 
 under the gallery; a band was playing at one 
 end, and the whole place was thronged with men 
 and women. The floor was crowded with dancers; 
 the tables were crowded; the long bar was 
 crowded. The men came in from out-of-doors
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 127 
 
 just as they were, in hats and overcoats, in which 
 they danced; and all the women wore hats and 
 ordinary walking-dresses. A gay sound of talk 
 and laughter rose above the persistent rhythm 
 of the band; and the building seemed to tremble 
 with the energy and vivacity of the dancers. It 
 was a scene of real festivity. 
 
 " Heavens ! what a difference ! " said Eichard, 
 as he and Lauder stood in a corner regarding the 
 good-tempered commotion. " How different from 
 that sombre business in the boulevards and yet 
 the same thing ! " 
 
 " Not quite the same," said Lauder. " That 
 was trade ; this is pleasure. It s only the absence 
 of morality that you see in common. You must 
 get that idea of morality out of your head, because 
 it doesn t exist in this world and what s more 
 important, the consciousness of its absence doesn t 
 exist. That is what makes this kind of thing so 
 utterly impossible in England. The consciousness 
 of doing something wrong would make it ugly. 
 Here there is no such consciousness, and everybody 
 is happy." 
 
 They sat down at a table and watched the eddies 
 of a waltz swinging round and round the room. 
 It was a festival of the people; there was no 
 evidence of money there; the small shopkeepers, 
 clerks, artisans among the men were matched by 
 the small shopkeepers, assistants, typewriters, and 
 theatre employees amongst the women. There
 
 128 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 was no distinctive class of cocottes indicated either 
 by dress or behavior; every woman seemed a 
 possible cocotte, or else an entirely virtuous and 
 domestic creature; it depended, you felt, on cir 
 cumstances. There was a happy air of freedom, 
 moreover, that was the reverse of commercial; 
 and every now and then a man would go up to 
 a woman, ask her to dance, circle a few times 
 around the great arena, and then deposit her again 
 in her seat with a smile and a bow. There was 
 a much greater proportion of women than of 
 men; but dancing seemed to be a much more 
 real interest than flirtation, and half the couples 
 were made up of women dancing together. 
 
 The two men let their eyes rest on the revolving 
 mass, until they were attracted by some particular 
 face, which they would follow around for a few 
 turns until they were attracted to another. It is 
 an endlessly amusing game, this play of face upon 
 face; endless the curiosity and interest of dis 
 covering, amid a throng of strangers, the faces 
 in which we find signals of kindness and beauty; 
 endless the occupation, when once we have dis 
 covered the law of nature on which the varied 
 attraction is founded, in looking for the charac 
 teristics that are the complements of our own, and 
 recognizing them as they appear successively in 
 each new face to which we are drawn. 
 
 " There s the prettiest woman in the room," 
 said Lauder, thinking it time to live up to his
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 129 
 
 reputation as a connoisseur. He pointed out a 
 dark,, pretty girl in a well-made blue cloth cos 
 tume and a black hat with red cherries in it. She 
 saw their admiring glances, left the girl she was 
 dancing with, and came over to them. She had 
 charming eyes that sparkled with merriment and 
 good humor. She put an arm around each of 
 them and said: 
 
 "II fait chaud f mes enfants. Allans boire un 
 coup ! " 
 
 They went over to the bar, ordered the orange 
 ade, and listened to her interesting prattle. Bich- 
 ard, devoured with curiosity, plied her with ques 
 tions about herself, which she answered with an 
 amused and charming frankness. She was evi 
 dently rather a queen in the local world of pleas 
 ure that had its headquarters in the Bal Tabarin. 
 A true fille de joie, she took no thought for the 
 morrow, lived from day to day, and enjoyed her 
 self. " I have several good friends," she said ; 
 " one of them pays the rent of my apartment. 
 Oh! but you must see my apartment; it is so 
 neat and elegant ires chic, tres bien" She was 
 to be found at the Bal Tabarin nearly every night ; 
 she dined at the Rat Mort down-stairs, where the 
 dinner, vin compris, cost two francs fifty; she 
 supped where any one was kind enough to 
 invite her. 
 
 " We ll take her out to supper if you like, Rich 
 ard," said Lauder ; " but explain that the invita-
 
 130 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 tion has nothing to do with business, and that if 
 she has anything else to do we won t take her 
 time up." 
 
 Richard explained a little too plainly per 
 haps, for she looked almost offended. She quite 
 understood: it was pour le bon motif. Then rose 
 the question of where they were to go. Richard 
 ignorantly suggested the Cafe de Paris, Lauder 
 Maxim s, but she would hear of neither, and sug 
 gested a small cafe in the Boulevard Montmartre. 
 Lauder protested that it was not smart enough; 
 that they wished to take so charming a lady some 
 where more worthy of her. 
 
 She shook her head. " Moi, je suis Montmar- 
 troise" she said; "let us not go to the Grands 
 Boulevards." She indicated her plain, prettily 
 made day dress her one garment of cere 
 mony, probably and said : " Here I am chic, 
 every one admires me; there I should be dull, 
 triste, no one would look at me." And with bril 
 liant wisdom she insisted on the environment in 
 which she knew she could shine. 
 
 They went to the Rabelais, and in its rather 
 dusty and shabby firmament Marthe, with her two 
 good-looking companions in evening dress, seated 
 before the most expensive supper the place could 
 produce, was a triumphant and glittering star. 
 She knew every other woman in the place, and 
 although her behavior was propriety itself (except 
 when she put her arm around Richard s neck to
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 131 
 
 feed him with strawberries), she obviously re 
 joiced, in a good-humored and dignified way, at 
 her success and the envy she was exciting. She 
 laid herself out to entertain her entertainers; she 
 charmed them with her accounts of her life, and 
 with her sound judgment of the world; but most 
 of all she charmed them, herself all unconscious, 
 by an essential goodness and kindness of heart, 
 a radiance and wholesomeness of character that 
 shone upon and brightened the whole of her per 
 sonality. They sat long over supper, enchanted 
 by her conversation, and then drove her home to 
 her little flat in the Eue Blanche. She would 
 have been hurt if they had not come in and seen 
 it. The place was like a doll s house: a little 
 bedroom, a smaller anteroom, and a little box 
 of a pantry with a stove in it, and all her pots 
 and pans scoured and scrubbed and shining on 
 the walls. It was all as clean as a new pin. They 
 smoked a cigarette with her, and then departed 
 with an affectionate kiss each, and a promise that 
 she would show them Montmartre on the Sunday 
 afternoon. " I feel as if I d known her all my 
 life," said Eichard, as they came out into the 
 street, and met the cold clean air that the Seine 
 sends up in the small hours to renew the wasted 
 atmosphere of Paris. 
 
 " That s Montmartre," said Lauder ; " I don t 
 know where else in the world that extraordinary 
 atmosphere of intimacy exists. The sentimental
 
 132 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 books that people used to write about the Latin 
 Quarter tried to represent it; but that was a 
 nasty domestic intimacy,, all mixed up with cook 
 ing, and wearing each other s clothes, and getting 
 drunk. They observe charming proprieties in 
 Montmartre." 
 
 " Well, I don t feel a bit tired," said Eichard. 
 " Where shall we go now ? " 
 
 " It s rather late for Maxim s, but I think we 
 might get in. The contrast is one you shouldn t 
 miss." They hailed a cab, and were soon rattling 
 down toward the boulevards. " Gad, it s a long 
 time since I indulged in this sort of dissipation; 
 but if one is young and healthy enough to stand 
 the late hours, and interested enough in one s 
 fellow men, I don t know anything better worth 
 doing in Paris." 
 
 " And do you mean to tell me, Lauder, that you 
 live in this sort of world, and know it so well, 
 without well, is your interest always that of a 
 mere spectator ? " 
 
 " Good heavens, yes ; it would bore me to go 
 too deep. That kind of promiscuous amusement 
 is all right for boys and old men, but it has no 
 interest for me." 
 
 " I ve always felt the same," said Kichard, " but 
 I thought I must be abnormal." 
 
 " I don t think so. It is one of the many super 
 stitions of the polite world that promiscuous vice 
 has a fatal attraction for young men, and that the
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 133 
 
 only chance is to keep the sight of it away from 
 them. My experience is just the contrary. It is 
 the life that is so interesting, and the people. If 
 you look at the men who really support this world, 
 you see they are all of one type and a type that 
 would be rotten in the most virtuous surround 
 ings. I don t count Frenchmen, of course; it s 
 the business of their lives." 
 
 The carriage turned into the Hue Eoyale. " I 
 warn you, you won t like Maxim s, Kichard. It s 
 the most sordid place in the world the last note 
 of ugliness in an ugly civilization of money. I 
 hate the place; but you ought to see it." 
 
 They drew up at the door of the famous cafe. 
 For some reason it was open specially late that 
 night, and people were still being admitted, al 
 though as a rule the entrance is closed hours 
 before the place itself is empty. While Lauder 
 was looking for change with which to pay the 
 cabman, Eichard stood by the great wheeling door, 
 and watched, with a kind of awe, the double tide 
 that streamed in and out through the great glass 
 leaves. It was like a turbine, kept in ceaseless 
 motion by the human current that sets toward 
 pleasure. Money and youth and beauty flowed 
 in; money and youth and beauty flowed out; 
 and where there was neither youth nor beauty 
 there were the imitations and symbols of both. 
 As the two men passed out from the cool night 
 air within the door they felt as though they were
 
 134 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 being stifled. The place glowed with rosy light 
 from hundreds of shaded lamps, which shone 
 upon the gleaming table-cloths, upon glass and 
 silver dishes; but shone most effectively iipon the 
 rows and rows of fashionably dressed men and 
 women who sat at the tables, packed together like 
 children at a school feast. Between the tables 
 there was so little room that the waiters could 
 hardly pass; yet the greed for places was such 
 that the waiters were crowded and pressed upon, 
 and had to push and burrow their way through 
 the gay, glittering throng. Two men coming in 
 alone attracted the attention of all the women; 
 and Lauder was twice greeted by acquaintances as 
 they passed down the long room looking for a seat. 
 Eichard had been caught in the crowd, and was 
 separated for a moment from his friend, who was 
 still searching for places ; and as he was standing, 
 unable to move, he felt his arm gently touched. 
 A charming-looking woman, with sad dark eyes, 
 exquisitely dressed, who was sitting at one of the 
 tables, was looking at him with a smile so friendly, 
 so recognizing, that he felt as though she must 
 know him, and he was for a moment embarrassed. 
 " Will monsieur sit down here ? " she said ; " I 
 think I can find room for him." Eichard felt 
 himself in danger of blushing; he had never been 
 rude to a woman in his life, and it seemed to him 
 appalling to appear unappreciative of so much 
 friendly charm expressed with so much refinement
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 135 
 
 and breeding. The easy rebuff of the streets 
 seemed impossible here ; and the exquisitely man 
 icured and jewelled hand that rested so lightly on 
 his arm was like the appeal of a whole sex for 
 consideration and protection. Raising his hat he 
 stammered : " Thank you, madame, but I am 
 looking for I am with my friend/ She smiled 
 with the same charming courtesy, and turned 
 away, leaving poor Eichard feeling as though he 
 had refused shelter to an angel. Just then, how 
 ever, he was hailed by Lauder, who had found 
 two seats in a sort of alcove with a raised floor 
 at the far end of the room; and he hurried away 
 to join him. 
 
 They sat down and ordered champagne, which 
 they did not drink, and Vittel, which they did; 
 and Eichard noticed that every one in the place 
 was drinking champagne, and that before every 
 unattended woman who came into the place the 
 waiters immediately placed a pint of that wine 
 in an ice-bucket, which, if she discovered no en 
 tertainer, she had to pay for herself. It was the 
 toll levied on all who came. Nearly every woman 
 was smoking; there was a clatter of conversation 
 which came near to drowning the band ; and above 
 the tables, what with the heat and the noise and 
 the smoke, the atmosphere shimmered and shook 
 as though it were on fire with passionate excite 
 ment. The women s hats, many of them admi 
 rable and expensive creations of the most famous
 
 136 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 milliners in Europe, made a kind of bed of flow 
 ers hanging in the haze of the smoke; their 
 gleaming necks and shoulders, dark-lidded glow 
 ing eyes, the many lovely faces, and pale, delicate, 
 low-cut dresses of lace and chiffon and other 
 flimsy fabrics, transformed the place into a garden 
 of passions and pleasures a garden of human 
 flowers, on which diamonds twinkled and glit 
 tered like dew. In a cleared space below the al 
 cove a few girls, the better to display themselves, 
 were waltzing together. 
 
 " The Venusburg," said Lauder ; " and rather 
 a depressing place, don t you think?" 
 
 " I wonder if depressing is the word," answered 
 Eichard. " There seems to be something poison 
 ous about it I don t know exactly what." 
 
 " It s the winishness the money and cham 
 pagne that offends one. There is only one stand 
 ard here, and that s money. And look at the 
 men!" 
 
 They were a curious crowd chiefly English 
 and American, all pretty much of one class the 
 monied class. Most of them had a sort of des 
 perate demeanor, a defiant air of enjoyment, an 
 artificial recklessness that mingled ill with their 
 obvious determination to get value for their 
 money. Most of them had arrived at that stage 
 of the night when they had drunk too much cham 
 pagne and smoked too many cigarettes; many of 
 them appeared to suffer from headache; not one,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 137 
 
 in that garden of the pleasures, looked happy or 
 contented. Only the women admirable, cour 
 ageous dissemblers ! looked alert and interested, 
 charmed and charming, and their smiles and 
 laughter made a rippling mask of happiness that 
 concealed the essential grimace of the place. 
 
 Suddenly Lauder s attention was attracted by 
 a clear girlish voice quite near him. 
 
 " Hello ! How d you do ? I never saw you till 
 this minute, I give you my vord ! " And a slight 
 figure, wonderfully clad in palest pink voile, ap 
 peared before the two men. 
 
 " Hullo, Toni, my child," said Lauder, " how 
 are you? And what are you doing here, after all 
 the good advice I gave you two years ago at Aix- 
 les-Bains?" 
 
 " Oh, don t be foolish, my dear ; I m not a 
 fool. Here, I come and sit beside you my 
 friend won t mind. I tell you I had in Aix-les- 
 Bains, oil, such a good time ! I never haf so good 
 a time in all my life! And lots, lots of money! 
 Oh, money, my dear, how I lof it ! " And she 
 launched out into an account of some friend who 
 was known both to her and Lauder. 
 
 Her first appearance gave Eichard a shock of 
 pleasure she was so utterly unlike every other 
 woman in the place. A kind of aura of youth 
 and charm shone about her. She was small and 
 slight, exquisitely made and moulded, with a 
 small head poised over shoulders that a Greek
 
 138 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 might have worshipped, and surmounted by a 
 mass of tawny golden hair crushed with an ap 
 pearance of carelessness under the roses of her 
 hat. Her only bad feature was her mouth, and it, 
 though bad, was fascinating. It was restless and 
 tormented; the teeth were a little too prominent, 
 the lips a little too red and moist. But Eichard 
 was able to look at nothing but her eyes when 
 once he had met their gaze. It was her eyes that 
 decided him, after he had noticed her mouth, that 
 in spite of it she was not only pretty but beauti 
 ful. They were of that color that for want of 
 a more exact term one calls golden; they were 
 sombre and grave, like a wondering child s; but 
 in their depths there slumbered a dull smoulder 
 ing fire that held in it the inscrutable mystery 
 of ages. Her face was seldom in repose, and the 
 eyes shifted and danced about as she nodded and 
 laughed; but in any moment of gravity they 
 became earnest and scrutinizing, and the smoul 
 dering fire in them seemed to stir and leap up 
 into a golden flame. She was perfectly aware of 
 Eichard s scrutiny, and presently turned and in 
 cluded him in her prattling conversation. 
 
 " How long you been in Paris ? Only just 
 come? I been here von week. Oh, no, my dear, 
 of course, I m not here on business. He is stupid 
 to talk like that. I come for a little fun, I been 
 very tired. Vhat you think, I come here to 
 Maxim s like dies other vomens? No, my dear,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 139 
 
 you do not know me if you say that. I come over 
 from London with two other girls. We go on to 
 Rat Mort now. You come too?" 
 
 " No, not to-night," said Lauder. " We re 
 sleepy; we ve been travelling all day. Another 
 night." 
 
 " All right. You come Maxim s again to-mor 
 row? Then I see you. Auf wiedersehen ! " And 
 she floated back to the rather angry-looking man 
 who was waiting for her at her table. 
 
 " Who is she ? " asked Eichard, as, having paid 
 their bill and various tolls to vestiaires and door 
 porters, they gratefully escaped into the cool morn 
 ing twilight and walked toward their hotel. 
 
 "Ah, she s one of the aristocrats. Her name 
 is Toni something or other, I forget what, 
 she s a German Pole. I met her at Aix-les-Bains 
 two years ago. She was kept by a Eussian prince, 
 who thought the world of her; but he must have 
 turned her down, or she wouldn t be here. I can t 
 think in any case what she s doing in Maxim s: 
 it s not her world, or ought not to be. There s a 
 certain waywardness and perversity about her 
 that s rather charming." 
 
 " She a wonderfully beautiful woman," said 
 Eichard. " How old is she ? " 
 
 " About twenty-four, I should say. But beauti 
 ful ? I don t know that I call her beautiful, with 
 that bad mouth." He yawned. " God, how 
 sleepy I am ! "
 
 140 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " I m grateful to you for to-night," said Kich- 
 ard. " I won t forget it easily. We ll go to Mont- 
 martre again, but I shouldn t wonder if I never 
 saw Maxim s any more. I ve had enough of that 
 to last me a lifetime. It s a shocking place. I 
 don t like to think of your pretty friend Toni 
 there." 
 
 " Silly little fool ! " said Lauder. " Fancy that 
 being her idea of fun and a holiday! It s worse 
 than the bus-driver who spends his day off riding 
 on the other buses. But thank God we re home. 
 Look at that!" 
 
 They stood for a moment before the hotel door 
 to watch the rosy dawn flushing the sky behind 
 the Louvre. Men were busy flooding the streets 
 with clear sparkling water, cold and cleansing 
 draughts of air were pouring through the arteries 
 of the great city, the buildings shone white with 
 sharp outlines against the sky, and the birds were 
 chirping and singing in the Tuileries gardens. 
 It was a wonderful scene of morning and renewal, 
 of the lonely coming of the unsoiled summer day 
 that has none but sleepy revellers to welcome it. 
 Eichard s last waking thoughts mingled it with 
 dim memories of the happy irresponsible gaiety 
 of Montmartre, and of Marthe s kind camaraderie; 
 and with a clearer vision of lights and colors and 
 jewels, the flower-like faces of women, and golden 
 eyes smouldering under a tawny crown of hair.
 
 II 
 
 THE Bois de Boulogne on a summer morning 
 where else can you observe to so much 
 ach r antage the comic efforts of an overcivilized 
 world to untie its knots and smooth itself out ? It 
 represents the stage in perversion when fresh air 
 and sunshine are taken as a whet, a liqueur ; when 
 all the heated, scented life of indoors has passed, 
 and pleasure must be exposed to a different atmos 
 phere in order that its lost flavor may be restored. 
 The trim, watered roads, the groves of small 
 orderly trees that make so pretty a feature in the 
 landscape garden of Paris; the moving proces 
 sion of men and women that drive round and 
 round or walk up and down to exhibit themselves; 
 the stationary mass of those who come to look 
 at the show in these simple circumstances you 
 may see poor Hygeia, stifled and bleached by dark 
 ness, smothered under eider-downs and pillows, 
 groping and feeling and thrusting blindly toward 
 the sunshine and daylight that are her element. 
 
 Lauder and Eichard were seated on a couple 
 of chairs near the top of the Alice de Long- 
 champs watching the fluent crowds on foot, on 
 141
 
 142 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 horseback, and in carriages. Lander was absorbed 
 in the hypnotizing sight, but Richard s mind was 
 a little in arrear, and in spite of the sunshine, 
 the clear cool air, and the sense of health and 
 vitality in his veins, the company of his thoughts 
 was not all collected. Some of them tarried in 
 the lighted restaurants and starlit streets of the 
 night before. 
 
 " This is a different Paris," he said aloud, 
 emerging into speech at the end of a long medi 
 tation. 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; the same Paris. I know you 
 think I have a bee in my bonnet on this subject, 
 but look at them ? You know the Irish saying 
 if you see a pig, hit him, because if he s not going 
 into mischief he s just coming out of it? Well, 
 that s your Frenchman. If he s not going to his 
 lady-love of the moment, he s just coming from 
 her or else he s thinking about her or some 
 other woman. It s the flat truth; and it s so 
 simple and grotesque that polite English people 
 won t believe you they say you re exaggerat- 
 ing." 
 
 " Keally, Lauder, I shall begin to think you are 
 a Frenchman yourself. You ve talked about 
 nothing else since we arrived." 
 
 " And pray what else is there to talk about in 
 Paris ? I never think about it elsewhere, we 
 never talked about it in Cornwall, but here it 
 is in the air you breathe. Even the dogs have
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 143 
 
 a sly, preoccupied expression. Besides, my dear 
 Eichard, for Heaven s sake, don t be prudish, or 
 you ll scare me. I want you to get out of your 
 mind that it s morbid or beastly, it s only in 
 odd moments that it is, I want you to see how 
 really funny it is. If the whole of France is 
 shaking with the antics of Venus, the whole 
 heavens are shaking with laughter." And Lauder 
 laughed himself until he infected Eichard. 
 
 " Look at them. Look at the men, peacocking 
 about on horses they can t ride. All for madame, 
 when she drives by." 
 
 " I m trying to think," said Eichard, " what 
 their riding reminds me of . ... I know : it s the 
 way they eat boiled eggs. They do both with an 
 air of bravado, as if they were doing something 
 devilish fine, and make an infinite fuss over both. 
 I suppose you would say it was a kind of cock 
 crow." 
 
 " Dear, charming people ! And they call them 
 frivolous the most serious people in the world. 
 Look at their intent faces. The men so busy, lest 
 they should pass a pretty woman unnoticed; the 
 women so delightfully assured, so happily secure 
 of their meed of attention ! The plainest woman 
 takes trouble with her appearance, because she 
 knows that every man she meets will take her in 
 from top to toe in one just, appraising glance. 
 He will notice that she has an ugly face, but a 
 good figure; he will notice that she has an ugly
 
 144 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 face, a bad complexion, a poor figure, but that 
 she has good hands and feet; he will notice any 
 single good point she has, if it is only the way 
 she carries her parasol. And it is the French 
 man s spider-like attention to what is the business 
 of life in all its details that keeps the women 
 in such a good temper and constantly occupied. 
 The young girls are wondering how long it will 
 be before their turn comes, and the old women 
 are only sorry that their time is over. Isn t it 
 funny?" 
 
 A family party passed in front of them the 
 father, black-whiskered, with the chest thrown 
 out, swaggering; the mother, full-outlined, 
 acutely conscious of her white costume and the 
 tight, high-heeled boots that prevented her from 
 walking properly; a little boy and little girl, 
 grotesquely attired like dolls, their legs tightly 
 buttoned up in leather breeches, their small 
 wizened faces eloquent of pampered peevishness. 
 
 " Anyhow," said Richard, looking rather dis 
 tastefully at the little people, " there are children 
 here, and they, thank goodness, represent another 
 point of view." 
 
 " Another point of view ? You amaze me, 
 Richard. Can you look at those two little brats 
 and tell me they are anything but accidents? 
 French children of a certain class are all either 
 accidents, or they are brought into the world so 
 that their mammas may have something else to
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 145 
 
 dress up. They then take the place of the 
 poodles." 
 
 " Anyhow," said Kichard, the more stoutly as 
 he felt his conviction giving way, " they stand 
 for marriage." 
 
 " The Parisian marriage ? A toll-gate on the 
 route nationale of indulgence? You pay your 
 penny, and on you go ! " 
 
 Eichard laughed his surrender. " It s too fins 
 a day to argue," he said ; " but beware of half- 
 truths ! They lead to epigrams." 
 
 They stayed there for perhaps an hour, absorbed 
 in the crowd of fashion that streamed past them 
 in the sunshine, and exchanging comments on 
 the units of that endless procession. Famous 
 actresses and dancers, wives of ministers, leaders 
 of fashion, great ladies of the world and of the 
 half-world, vied with one another in presenting 
 the perfection of modern summer attire, and in 
 filling the avenue between the green trees with 
 life and color and movement as they flashed by 
 in their carriages. The whir and rasp of automo 
 biles filled the air with droning sound that made 
 a background to the nearer chatter and laughter 
 of those who strolled on the sidewalk. Of the 
 thousands who walked and drove there, not one 
 but had taken trouble to look his or her best; 
 thousands of pairs of white gloves, so carefully 
 put on; thousands of coiffures, that had cost so 
 much time and thought and money ; thou-
 
 146 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 sands of skirts, held in just the same way, thou 
 sands of parasols at the same tilt, thousands of 
 wafts of perfume shaken out by the rustling dra 
 peries to sit there while they streamed past 
 was to feel as though a huge scented billow of 
 foam and cloud and gossamer were forever roll 
 ing by. 
 
 But in this world of appetites, to get one s 
 head above the billow was to get hungry. Richard 
 and Lauder strolled up the avenue to the Etoile, 
 and drove to the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, 
 where, in order that Eichard might see a bour 
 geois crowd, they lunched among a healthy and 
 hungry Sunday throng at Marguery s. Hors 
 d ceuvre, eggs, fish, fowl, salad, pastry, cheese, 
 dessert, coffee, cognac " How they eat ! " said 
 Eichard, who was not doing badly himself. 
 
 " Of course," said Lauder, grimly. " Nat 
 urally " 
 
 " Oh, give it a rest, Lauder," laughed Eichard. 
 " Not at meal-times, please." 
 
 " All right," said Lauder, solemnly ; " but the 
 Frenchman never gives it a rest, not even at his 
 meals. He doesn t live to eat ; he eats to live 
 and to live in his own particular way; it is his 
 own saying. That s why he eats so well it s 
 an inducement." 
 
 " I wonder why, if all you say of them is true, 
 the French are such charming people."
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 147 
 
 " Charming because they live entirely on the 
 surface." 
 
 " But they re intellectual." 
 
 " Intelligent, you mean." 
 
 " Creative, at any rate ? " 
 
 " Imaginative, rather." 
 
 " Well, they re alive, alert, vital." 
 
 " That is quite true. They have all the surface 
 virtues, intelligence, imagination, alertness, vi 
 vacity. Animation, in the true sense, they have 
 not. Their lives are not informed with mind or 
 soul at all." 
 
 Eichard blew a cloud from his cigarette. 
 
 " You know, Lauder, I sometimes think you d 
 be all the better for a dash of French in you. 
 You don t keep on the surface enough. Here am 
 I, not wanting to talk seriously at all, and skim 
 ming about on the ice. You keep breaking 
 through into the green depths. It s not fair; it s 
 not playing the conversational game. We are 
 either skating or diving we can t do both at 
 once." 
 
 " Why not ? " said Lauder, feebly. " The same 
 element serves for both." 
 
 "Yes, but the equipment isn t the same for 
 both." 
 
 "Weights on your feet in both cases, my dear 
 Eichard." Lauder still smilingly struggled to 
 justify himself. 
 
 " And your head enclosed for diving, so that
 
 148 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 you can t hear! Now let us go, before you say 
 anything else." 
 
 They walked into the Boulevard des Italiens 
 until they came to the Eue Lafitte, that curious 
 fissure in the mass of Paris at the end of which 
 the Sacre Cceur can be seen white and imposing 
 against the blue sky, crowning the heights of 
 Montmartre. They walked on through the streets 
 of shuttered business-houses, into the region of 
 small dwellings, shops, and studios, arriving at 
 last, rather hot and weary, at the Eue Blanche. 
 
 They were received at the door of Marthe s 
 apartment by a demure and capable-looking young 
 woman, with large melancholy eyes, who assured 
 them that Marthe would be ready in a few min 
 utes, and invited them to wait in the tiny ante 
 room. Presently Marthe herself came in, in a 
 very becoming wrapper; she was in the middle 
 of her toilet, she explained, and her friend Gabie 
 was helping her. The two men were presented 
 to Gabie, who divided her time between enter 
 taining them with amiable and decorous conver 
 sation, and assisting Marthe in various crises of 
 hair-dressing and robing. There was a great run 
 ning about between the two rooms, and a great 
 air of privacy and propriety maintained, which 
 was continually stultified by Marthe s running 
 in in a half-dressed condition, her dark eyes all 
 glowing with mischief and merriment, to pat 
 Lauder on the cheek or see that Eichard was
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 149 
 
 comfortable. Gabie, with an infinite and good- 
 humored unselfishness, kept herself carefully in 
 the background, and acted merely as lady-in- 
 waiting: now sewing on a button, now compli 
 menting Marthe as she stood before the mirror 
 with a serious mien, now running out to buy a 
 veil, now keeping the visitors in a good humor, 
 deflecting interest from herself toward her friend, 
 and generally exhibiting a perfection of good man 
 ners that Richard found himself regarding with 
 surprise in a courtezan and one of a somewhat 
 humble class. 
 
 " I feel like an unmannerly fool," he said to 
 Lauder once, while they were alone for a moment; 
 " I find myself regarding every evidence of good 
 taste or good feeling with a kind of priggish 
 astonishment." 
 
 " I know," Lauder answered, " I feel the same 
 thing myself. Of course I don t believe you d 
 find the dignity and wholesomeness of life that 
 you see here anywhere but in Montmartre, in 
 women of this class; and we ve struck a particu 
 larly good example." 
 
 The two girls came back at this moment, Marthe 
 in her blue dress and hat with cherries in it, 
 Gabie in her plain black dress and a straw hat; 
 but both dressed with an admirable precision and 
 restraint as to detail. The pretty domesticity 
 of the scene and Gabie s charming disinterested 
 friendship had pleased them so much that they
 
 150 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 begged her to join them in their walk. No: she 
 would not think of deranging them; she had 
 engagements. But when Marthe added her en 
 treaties she consented, obviously with pleasure 
 only tempered by an extreme desire not to be 
 in the way; and the four set off through the 
 sunny streets to climb the hill to the Sacre Coeur. 
 
 It was a merry little excursion, full of high 
 spirits and a gaiety which, if it was a little child 
 ish, was as wholesome and innocent as the sum 
 mer s day. Everybody chattered incessantly; the 
 girls showed them their little world of Mont- 
 martre, the cafes where they breakfasted and 
 dined, the shops where they bought their dresses, 
 or where a hat was to be had for twenty francs 
 that looked equal to one costing a hundred on 
 the Grands Boulevards. Richard walked behind 
 with Marthe, and amused himself by teaching her 
 fragments of English and watching her purse up 
 her pretty mouth in vain attempts to pronounce 
 them. " Dites a John," he would say, indicating 
 Lauder, " I love you very much ; " and Marthe s 
 voice would immediately ring out across the pave 
 ment: 
 
 " Jeannee ! Jeannee ! Ai loaf you verree 
 meutch ! " 
 
 Another pastime which seemed to afford them 
 endless amusement, and for some mysterious 
 reason endless difficulty, was the pronunciation of 
 the name of a famous American circus which was
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 151 
 
 placarded on the walls. Marthe begged to be 
 taught how to say it, and Eichard would carefully 
 enunciate " Buffalo Bill s Wild West/ to be 
 answered slowly and painfully by: 
 
 "Beuflow Beelsa wal wets!" "West" 
 seemed impossible; it always came out "wets/ 
 or at the best "wests" or "zwet;" and they had 
 tired of the game long before the lesson had been 
 learned. 
 
 They went to a cafe, and the girls, to mark the 
 occasion English, drank afternoon tea of a weird 
 hue and flavor. Eichard, from a similar sense 
 of environment, drank absinthe, which Marthe 
 insisted on preparing for him, teaching him how 
 to pour the water drop by drop through the sugar 
 on the perforated spoon. 
 
 Then they went out again into the hot streets, 
 now beginning to swarm with the idle Sunday 
 crowd, and climbed again. They crossed the 
 bridge over the cemetery. " There is Gautier," 
 said Marthe to Eichard, pointing to one side, 
 " and there are Berlioz, Delaroche, Greuze, Offen 
 bach oh, so many," pointing to another ; " and 
 there are my father and mother; I also shall be 
 here when my time comes." She spoke in an 
 extremely matter-of-fact way, but perhaps it 
 was the absinthe the idea of death suddenly 
 struck Eichard as being intolerable on that bright 
 summer afternoon. Yet he could not help think 
 ing how different the reality was from the popular
 
 152 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 idea of the courtezan s death the Hogarthian 
 idea with which every circumstance of sordid- 
 ness and disgrace was supposed to be associated. 
 Marthe at any rate would be sincerely mourned 
 by good friends when she went to rejoin her 
 father and mother. . . . Richard, pursuing a 
 somewhat morbid fancy, asked her to take him to 
 Gautier s grave; not really because he had any 
 particular curiosity to see it, but because he 
 thought it would be a strange and interesting 
 sensation to walk through a cemetery with this 
 little fille de joie; but she showed herself much 
 more wholesome in this respect than he. Her 
 distaste for cemeteries was the reverse of morbid; 
 it was perfectly healthy. 
 
 " No, no," she said, laughing at him, " one does 
 not go to such places unless one is obliged to." 
 
 It was not until after he had left her that 
 Richard had time to wonder at her interest in, 
 or even knowledge of, such names as Delaroche 
 and Berlioz; and he considered how long one 
 might hunt in London for a cocotte of the humble 
 class who, passing Westminster Abbey, would be 
 interested or able to take one in and point out the 
 monuments of Addison and Handel. But of 
 course, as Lauder had said, Marthe and her 
 friends were of a species unknown and impossible 
 in England. 
 
 They arrived at last at the Moulin de la Galette, 
 walked through its toy gardens to the great hall
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 153 
 
 where the band was playing, and sat down at a 
 table. They ordered the inevitable consommation 
 and looked on fascinated at the picture before 
 them. The whole place trembled to the tread 
 and measure of thousands of dancing feet; the 
 scene circled and swam before their eyes as thou 
 sands of couples made a revolving circuit of the 
 great building, or eddied in smaller circles about 
 one part of it. There was no sound but the per 
 sistent rhythm of the band, with the soaring 
 melodies and languishing cadences of the waltz, 
 the heavy dull beat of all the feet on the ground, 
 the prolonged swish and whisper of the women s 
 dresses. A slight dust rose from the floor, and 
 there was a faint odor of warm human bodies and 
 raiment. It was a scene of communal, almost 
 of domestic pleasure; the sunshine streaming 
 through the high windows in the roof lit up the 
 gay dresses of the people of Montmartre, their 
 husbands, fathers, sisters, lovers, mothers, sweet 
 hearts; family groups made holiday together; 
 mamma danced with little Pierre, while papa, 
 dressed in his best, dandled the baby; husbands 
 and wives danced together, with a serious eager 
 ness, as of people who intended to make the most 
 of their holiday. Yet through the whole scene 
 there went a wave of the gaiety without which no 
 Parisian entertainment is complete; and the 
 brighter dresses of the cocottes scattered here and 
 there among the vast crowd wove into its sombre
 
 154 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 fabric a symbolic thread of joy. It moved and 
 changed, now appeared, now was lost; in one 
 vietf you would see nothing but the black coats 
 and hats of the men, the dark skirts of the 
 mothers and sisters; and suddenly, as though a 
 breeze had stirred the human surface, you would 
 get another view, and the whole assembly would 
 appear in a shimmer of love, shot with the many- 
 colored draperies of pleasure. The movement of 
 the whole threw a garment over its many gro 
 tesque elements men dancing in black tail-coats 
 and billycock hats are not beautiful objects and 
 invested it with a quality that fascinated the on 
 lookers. The swaying and circling tide that 
 flowed around the room, the pretty heads floating 
 above the maze of turning bodies, the faces flushed 
 with pleasure and exertion, the half-parted lips 
 and sparkling eyes, the drooping and soaring of 
 the continuous music these all made for beauty ; 
 and the intent and absorbed air of the dancers 
 added a touch of something like solemnity. While 
 the music lasted, it was as though a charm hung 
 over the room that set heads nodding and feet 
 twinkling to the happy fleeting measure; as 
 though a magic invisible piper were throwing a 
 spell over the great miscellaneous throng and bind 
 ing their feet to his dropping notes. And when 
 the music stopped the spell snapped, the charm 
 broke, and the rhythmic mass became a jostling 
 crowd again, laughing, chattering, quarrelling,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 155 
 
 shouting, bantering, pushing toward the tables or 
 making for the cool breeze on the terraces. 
 
 The party from the Eue Blanche had not 
 danced. The girls had been quite happy in ex 
 hibiting themselves to their acquaintance in the 
 company of two undeniable gentlemen, while 
 Eichard and Lauder were absorbed in the unique 
 charm of the spectacle, at which they could have 
 remained gazing for hours. But at the end of 
 a dance they too went out-of-doors into a cooler 
 atmosphere, and they sat down on a bench over 
 looking the ramparts of the sham mill. Paris 
 lay spread out below them like a bird s-eye map, 
 its roofs shining in the afternoon sun, its towers 
 and spires dotted about the great area of human 
 habitation; and far to the south the Seine shone 
 and twisted through it, like a silver snake. 
 
 Eichard talked to Marthe, for whom he was 
 beginning to have a feeling of affection and com 
 radeship that he was not unwilling to mistake for 
 something else; but he was by nature an epicure 
 a Puritan epicure and he wished to be delib 
 erate. He had but one article of morality in such 
 a matter that realization should be a tribute 
 paid to affection, and never a false prophet of it; 
 he was, moreover, secretly a little ashamed of aban 
 doning the fine philosophic enjoyment of the situ 
 ation, which he shared with Lauder, for a more 
 commonplace pleasure. In all these ways he was 
 younger than his years. Lauder, on his part,
 
 156 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 was entirely happy in a serious impersonal conver 
 sation with Gabie as to her occupations and man 
 ner of life. She was an inconspicuous dancer at 
 the Folies Bergeres, where she earned thirty francs 
 a week; she added to this meagre income as 
 opportunity served, but she did not profess to 
 like her supplementary profession. Domesticity, 
 Lauder could see, was the ideal of her life. Self- 
 respecting and capable as she was, she took a 
 philosophic view of the situation. " I do not like 
 it," she said with a smile, " but neither do I like 
 starving; it is hard enough nowadays for a girl 
 who respects herself to earn a living, and one 
 must not complain." Her satellite affection for 
 Marthe, whom she regarded as a gay and beautiful 
 creature for whom the highest gifts of Fortune 
 were hardly good enough, was charming in its 
 singleness and simplicity. "Ah, but she has a 
 good heart," she said; "we are the greatest 
 friends." And indeed Marthe was no less de 
 voted; she looked around often to see that Gabie 
 was being entertained, and evidently wished for 
 nothing that could not be shared with her; in 
 a word, it was as pretty a picture of mutual kind 
 ness and comradeship as you could wish to see. 
 
 " Marthe is charming," said Lauder, as the two 
 men walked away after taking leave of the girls 
 at their door, "but my heart aches for that poor 
 brave child Gabie. Not a ruffle on her counte-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 157 
 
 nance, you notice nothing but smiles and a 
 brave face; but I have reason to believe that she 
 has sometimes not enough to eat. Thank God 
 she has a friend ! " 
 
 They had parted in the greatest friendliness 
 and affection. Marthe had taken them to her 
 heart merely as comrades, and projected all sorts 
 of innocent excursions. " The worst of it is," 
 said Lauder, " we can t waste their time." 
 
 " That s rather a ghastly thought," said Rich 
 ard; "you mean they can t afford innocent 
 friendship ? " 
 
 " Innocent be hanged : they can t afford to 
 spend their time with people who don t pay for 
 it. You saw how they treated us : it would have 
 been a serious offence if we had proposed presents 
 in any shape or form." 
 
 " That s what comes of your philosophic atti 
 tude, Lauder; I don t think it s quite fair." 
 
 " It s all right if we don t overdo it. But I 
 think I heard you making an appointment for 
 Tuesday ? " Richard grew red. " Well, it s your 
 own lookout, but I think it s always a mistake to 
 push these things too far. You ve skimmed the 
 cream, as far as Marthe is concerned; you ll 
 never be so happy with her as you were pottering 
 about the streets this afternoon. Why not leave 
 it at that?" 
 
 " Oh, I ve no patience with your damned cold 
 blooded cynicism ! I don t think it s quite whole-
 
 158 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 some. If Marthe is worth knowing at all (and 
 personally I think she is), she s worth knowing 
 well, and treated as a human being, and not as 
 a specimen. I suppose you ll lay her out in your 
 mental museum of demi-mondaines, label her 
 Marthe, Montmartroise : Summer, 1902, and 
 forget all about her ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I shall be able to tell you 
 all about her when you say a month hence: 
 Marthe ? Let me see, who was Marthe ? But 
 don t let me interfere with your romance ; Heaven 
 forbid ! I only envy you your thoroughness." 
 
 " The worst of the philosophic mind is that it 
 sometimes forgets to be human," said Kichard, 
 as they were crossing the Boulevard des Italiens. 
 
 But it was Lauder who, when he got back to his 
 room in the hotel, slipped two hundred-franc 
 notes into an envelope, and addressed them to 
 Gabie, at the little flat in the Eue Blanche. And 
 all he wrote within the envelope was : " A ma 
 brave petite atriie."
 
 Ill 
 
 RICHAED spent the next day immersed in 
 professional affairs at the offices of the en 
 gineers who were constructing the Snail lighting 
 apparatus; Lauder was revisiting some studio 
 haunts in the neighborhood of St. Germain des 
 Pres; and the two men did not meet until eve 
 ning, when they sallied forth together in search 
 of dinner. 
 
 " Now, where shall we go ? " asked Lauder. 
 " Cafe de Paris, Durand s, Paillard s ? All excel 
 lent and gay." 
 
 " Let s go to a quiet place," said Kichard, on 
 whom the day s occupation had had its effect; 
 " I m a little bit tired of the gilded world. Let s 
 go where we won t see any cocottes." 
 
 " Let me see, then." Lauder stood meditating. 
 " Voisin s no, we ll go to Noel Peters, and dine 
 in peace and quietness." 
 
 They walked up the Boulevard des Italiens, then 
 beginning to stir with the evening traffic of diners 
 and pleasure-seekers, and were soon discussing an 
 excellent dinner light, brief, but full of distinc 
 tion and character such as Lauder knew well 
 159
 
 160 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 how to order. The service, deft and sober, melted 
 one course into another imperceptibly ; the Saint- 
 Marceaux, dry, crisp, and of a famous year, tingled 
 pleasantly on the palate; the Sauce Bercy was 
 memorable; and by the time the two friends had 
 lit their long thin cigars, and had taken their 
 first sip of a fragrant old brandy, the mellowing 
 influences of good wine and good cooking, of the 
 evening hour, of distant footfalls and voices in 
 the street, of the flowers and lights within, and 
 of that sober and sacramental sense which friend 
 ship takes on in these golden and congenial mo 
 ments, had wiped softly away from the tablets 
 of Richard s mind all professional interests, and 
 had once more warmed him into the appetite for 
 more human studies. 
 
 Toward ten o clock they strolled out into the 
 cool streets, and, without discussion or word 
 spoken, turned their steps northward. They were 
 both in a mellow, meditative, and philosophic 
 mood, a little fastidious of the world, and inclined 
 to be revolted by too close contact with it. Phi 
 losophy such as theirs, however, mellow gale 
 though it be, must have something to blow against 
 if it is to be savored; and they turned into the 
 Boite a Fursy, that strange little theatre in the 
 Rue Pigalle, whose walls once sheltered the fa 
 mous Chat Noir. 
 
 The stuffy little room was crowded, the uncom 
 fortable benches thronged with a. mixed crowd that
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 161 
 
 listened with rapt attention to the impassive ut 
 terances of an elderly man with a pale, dyspeptic 
 face, who, without voice, eloquence, gesture, or 
 facial intelligence, was singing a comic song. He 
 stood alone on the little stage, accompanied by an 
 invisible pianist; and his melancholy, impassive 
 visage added to the delight of the audience in the 
 really funny conceits of his song. Je ne sais pas, 
 je ne sais pas, went the eternal jog-trot of the 
 refrain; but the art of the invisible pianist em 
 broidered the dreary plain-song with harmonic 
 graces that fell startlingly on Eichard s ear. He 
 was a musician by nature, and something of a 
 pianist; he would walk ten miles any day to hear 
 Siloti or Busoni; but this improvised accompani 
 ment to a music-hall song had a quality of genius 
 that was entirely new to him. He forgot the 
 singer, the words; he heard only that wonderful 
 rippling rush of harmonies, the pearly counter 
 points strung around the ignoble air, the pauses, 
 hesitations, shakes, imitations, cadences with 
 which the invisible accompanist made tolerable to 
 himself his mean task. What fallen genius, Kich- 
 ard wondered, was there immured, like a captive 
 bird in a cage, and singing to himself in his cap 
 tivity? And yet he remembered to have heard 
 tales of men who had so fallen in love with the 
 life of this strange quarter that they had gladly 
 forsaken the world, buried themselves in Mont- 
 martre, and, like monks that take a vow, dedicated
 
 162 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 their lives to the service of its intimate pleasures; 
 and he wondered if the great harmonist, the 
 splendid dreamy improvisateur behind the curtain 
 were indeed some such happy, wine-sodden vestige 
 of a man. 
 
 When the pale-faced singer had finished Fursy 
 himself appeared (looking very like the German 
 emperor in his turned-up moustache), and en 
 chanted the audience with a string of his political 
 songs. Through them all the accompanist kept 
 up his ripple of inexhaustible melodic invention, 
 modulating between the songs like a cathedral 
 organist, gracing them with a wealth of ornament, 
 of shy, fugitive counter-themes and graces, such 
 as made a poem in tone of the meanest of them. 
 Then the curtain descended and every one ad 
 journed for beer and cigarettes to an adjoining 
 grotto a sordid place only redeemed by the 
 gracious presence of Fursy, who shone in it like 
 a good deed in a naughty world, and distributed 
 smiles and recognitions like a prince. 
 
 " Let s get out of this monkey-house atmos 
 phere," said Lauder, who had been less amused 
 than Eichard by the political songs. They walked 
 slowly up to the Place Pigalle, passing on the way 
 an open, lighted doorway leading to some base 
 ment premises, and surmounted by an occulting 
 sign which displayed, in alternate red and white 
 lights, the words " Nox Bar." 
 
 " What s a Nox Bar ? " asked Richard,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 163 
 
 "I haven t an idea; you d better go and see." 
 
 There was a porter standing at the door, al 
 though no one was coming out or in; and the 
 empty, luminous oblong of the doorway had a 
 sinister appearance. They passed the porter, who 
 smiled curiousty, and (they thought) a little de 
 risively, and went down a very steep, narrow, and 
 somewhat ill-sinelling staircase. Richard s nos 
 trils took alarm. " I don t like this hullo ! 
 another turning/ as the steep, winding stairway 
 gave place to a long narrow passage turning 
 sharply to the right. Richard sniffed. 
 
 "This doesn t amuse me, Lauder; the atmos 
 phere takes me by the throat. Now is our time. 
 Shall we turn this corner, eat of the tree of 
 knowledge, and discover the sinister mystery of 
 the Nox Bar; or shall we turn tail, and breathe 
 the air of heaven again unburdened by its se 
 crets?" 
 
 " I ve a very shrewd idea now what its secret 
 is and it s pretty ordinary and sordid. Let us 
 return in innocence." And they turned tail and 
 ascended the stairs again, passing the porter (who 
 now openly laughed) and emerging into the cool 
 dark air of the street, where Richard breathed 
 deeply. 
 
 "Nothing would induce me," he said, looking 
 at the blank lighted doorway, "to reenter that 
 place; it is delightful to have a mystery unex 
 plored. But," he continued, standing in the
 
 164 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 middle of the street and looking up at the sign, 
 " I like their group-flashing light ; I must in 
 clude it in the book of sailing directions for Paris 
 which I am compiling. Mariners proceeding on 
 a north-going tide through the Eue Pigalle 
 should, especially if a sheet in the wind s eye, 
 keep the Nox Bar light well on the starboard hand 
 to clear the Taberin eddies and the Fursy shoals. 
 The Nox Bar two points on the starboard bow 
 leads clear of all dangers into the Place Pigalle, 
 where there is abundance of water and good an 
 chorage at the Eat Mort. The red sector of the 
 Nox Bar light shows foul ground to the north 
 ward, and the narrow channel of the Eue Houdon 
 should on no account be attempted at night with 
 out a pilot. Vessels going southward, even if 
 deeply laden, may stand in to the Nox Bar light, 
 as the ebb-tide will carry them clear of all dan 
 gers. It is high- water at the Eue Pigalle, full 
 and change, at three hours forty minutes, after 
 which the ebb sets southward into Paris. How s 
 that?" 
 
 "Excellent," laughed Lauder. "I think your 
 nautical survey of Paris would be welcomed by 
 many a jaded reveller, if you could guide him by 
 lights. You d better send in at once a Proposal 
 for the Erection of Lighthouses on the Principal 
 Dangers of Paris. It would, at any rate, have a 
 success as a moral tract. Where are we going 
 now? It s too early for the Eat Mort."
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 165 
 
 " Let us look in at the Tabarin," said Kichard. 
 " We shall probably see Marthe there, and Gabie, 
 perhaps; and I see there s a Gala Ball on." 
 
 The great hall had to-night an appearance quite 
 unlike the Bohemian gaiety which it wore on their 
 former visit. It was now packed with a crowd 
 of dancers in fancy dress, while the gallery was 
 thronged with people sitting at tables, or throw 
 ing streamers of colored paper down into the 
 arena. From every side a network of these flimsy 
 ribbons floated down, were entangled in the dan 
 cers, broke, and added to the sea of paper already 
 on the floor, a sea which steadily rose about the 
 feet of the dancers in spite of the labors of the 
 attendants with brushes. Nearly all the men 
 were smoking; and, if it had been a church 
 bazar instead of the Bal Tabarin, the very 
 thought of the lighted match dropped on that 
 acre of paper and chiffon would in itself have 
 been enough to create a panic. But in this light- 
 hearted, light-headed, absorbed company there 
 were no fears and no precautions; and God or 
 the devil (which you will) looked after his 
 own. 
 
 The two men wormed and elbowed their way 
 through the crowd toward a corner of the bar 
 where there was a little free space. In the centre 
 of the hall dancing was impossible, so tightly 
 packed was the throng, and the band fiddled and 
 drummed in vain. The room was merely a shell
 
 166 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 packed like a shrapnel with human fragments, 
 and in the heat and glare, and stifling, oppressive 
 atmosphere, it seemed amazing that the very walls 
 were not rent asunder and the roof lifted off by 
 the expansive forces of the crowd. 
 
 " I begin to be a little disgusted," said Lauder; 
 and indeed to a detached observer the hectic, arti 
 ficial gaiety of the place could hardly fail to be 
 repellent. The silliness of the paper streamers, 
 and the yells of those who threw them, had a kind 
 of lunatic horror for a mind not loosened into 
 sympathy; and the cheap and tawdry costumes 
 of girls hired by the place to behave with as much 
 madness and shamelessness as the crowd might 
 desire looked only dreary and sordid amid the 
 dust and heat and odors of the place. Richard 
 turned wearily away from the crowd, and caught 
 sight of two very pretty, refined-looking girls sit 
 ting together before the bar. It was part of his 
 attraction that he could always interest himself 
 immediately and whole-heartedly in whatever 
 pleased him; and as he had an insatiable curi 
 osity for the human side of this world in which 
 he found himself, he was no sooner pleased by 
 the sight of these faces than he decided to explore 
 what lay behind them. It is not the least charm 
 of the world of pleasure that, although it has its 
 etiquette, it has no merely vexatious restrictions; 
 and in two minutes Eichard was engaged in a 
 polite conversation with these ladies, who were
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 167 
 
 good enough to refresh themselves with orangeade 
 and cigarettes at his expense. 
 
 Charming as they were to look upon, however, 
 their conversation was disappointing, or Eichard 
 was not fortunate in leading it into productive 
 channels. He lacked, as he complained to Lauut^, 
 that particular kind of conversational effrontery, 
 that exact shade of brusqueness, which is under 
 stood to be successful with barmaids; and the 
 mortification of seeing his refined courtesies neg 
 lected in favor of some gross and hearty pleasan 
 try was not unfamiliar to him. He made the 
 mistake of treating all women alike, and had not 
 learned that a barmaid is far from flattered at 
 being treated like a countess. In this case, the 
 conversation, polite and highly decorous as it 
 was, flagged; the ladies appeared, in some mys 
 terious way, to be on the defensive; and the one 
 to whom Eichard more particularly addressed 
 himself scrutinized him from time to time with 
 a puzzled air. She was a singularly beautiful 
 girl, tall and slim and fair, with fine aristocratic 
 features and cold gray eyes; she was of an Eng 
 lish or Irish rather than a French type, although 
 she spoke nothing but French, and that in the 
 manner of the Belgians. Eichard was beginning 
 to look anxiously at the level of the orangeade in 
 the glasses, and to seek for a graceful means of 
 withdrawal, when he felt a warm little hand on 
 his arm.
 
 168 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 He turned around. " Ah, Marthe ! " he said, 
 delightedly, for he was honestly glad to see her 
 again ; " we thought we d lost you." And, Lauder 
 joining them, they fell into conversation about 
 the ball, Eichard now and then turning around 
 and exchanging a remark with his fair friend. 
 Marthe hung upon his arm, and looked up into 
 his eyes, with a devotion pleasantly embarrassing. 
 She seemed to Eichard, indeed, to be making an 
 undue demonstration of ownership ; but it was far 
 from being displeasing to him. Amid all the dust 
 and noise and confusion of the great room she 
 seemed to create a little corner of warmth and 
 friendship, she was so familiar and pretty and 
 domestic. 
 
 Presently Eichard, turning to address the fair 
 Belgian in some agreeable commonplace, found 
 himself received with a cold stare. He thought 
 she had not heard him, and repeated his remark; 
 but the cold gray eyes, now lit with a rather 
 wicked glitter, regarded him blankly. He was 
 puzzled and embarrassed, and, after explaining 
 to Lauder in English what had happened, turned 
 again to the lady and asked her most politely 
 if he had had the misfortune to offend her. He 
 said it with his most ingratiating smile, and 
 thinking she might have resented his conversation 
 with Marthe, explained that the Montmartroise 
 was an old acquaintance. The girl made an in 
 dignant and angry exclamation, said something
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 169 
 
 to her friend, moved away a little, and continued 
 to regard Eichard with anger. He shrugged his 
 shoulders and turned to speak to Marthe; but 
 what was his amazement to find her pretty face 
 now transfigured with wrath, and her dark eyes 
 directed flashingly on the Belgian. 
 
 " In the name of God," he said, " what is the 
 matter ? Are you all bewitched ? " 
 
 " You were speaking to that woman there ! " 
 said Marthe, indignantly. 
 
 " But is it not permitted to offer a civility ? " 
 asked Eichard, amazed. " Lauder," he continued 
 in English, "come here and get me out of this; 
 I have offended every one, and I m as innocent 
 as a baby/ 
 
 Lauder began to laugh ; and as he saw the look 
 of rising hatred and anger on the faces of the 
 two women, and the look of increasing alarm on 
 Eichard s countenance, he laughed the more. 
 
 "It s all very well to laugh," said Eichard, 
 "but I don t want to be involved in a French 
 row ; " and the travelling Briton suddenly looked 
 forth from his face. He got up and moved a few 
 yards away. Immediately Marthe followed him, 
 stood beside him and took his arm, like a lioness 
 defending her cub or her prey; and immedi 
 ately the fair Belgian followed them also, and 
 resumed her watchful and belligerent attitude. 
 
 Lauder now, still laughing, began to talk to 
 the fair Belgian s friend. " You and I," he said,
 
 170 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 "are people of the world, and can conduct our 
 affairs with propriety. What are these children 
 quarrelling about ? " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. " He ought not 
 to have addressed that woman when he was with 
 us." 
 
 " But she is a vieille camarade" said Lander; 
 "besides, it was only for the good motive. My 
 friend is virtuous and inquisitive; he is also gen 
 erous and of an amiable disposition; he did not 
 wish to occupy this lady s time, but merely to 
 offer her a civility." 
 
 The woman laughed. " They must settle it 
 among themselves," she said. " But I warn you, 
 Claire has a temper of her own." 
 
 Eichard was now thoroughly alarmed and mis 
 erable. He sat between the two glowering women, 
 neither of whom would speak to him, although 
 Marthe had her arm through his in an attitude 
 of affection which was, under the circumstances, 
 ironical. If he offered a remark, neither deigned 
 to notice it, but they fixed each other with their 
 eyes across him in a highly alarming manner; 
 while Lander s unrestrained laughter in the back 
 ground seemed to him both foolish and dangerous. 
 Presently he saw the fair Belgian make a move 
 ment with one of her hands, and perceived with 
 dismay that she held in her clenched fist a pair of 
 scissors. The movement was instantly answered 
 by Marthe, whom he also saw to be clasping some
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 171 
 
 instrument. The perspiration broke out on his 
 forehead, and signalling to Lauder, he acquainted 
 him with this formidable development. He still 
 laughed, much to Eichard s anger. 
 
 " It s no use, my dear Eichard, I can t help it ; 
 you look so funny and miserable sitting between 
 these two spitfires. This is what comes of being 
 virtuous. Dangerous? Of course it s dangerous, 
 but we won t make it any better by looking 
 frightened. I ve said all I can to the other 
 woman; but you ve evidently offended one of the 
 canons. Try to get Marthe away, and I will try 
 to divert madame s attention." 
 
 It was not easy, for the two women stared at 
 each other, motionless and with fixed eyes, like 
 cats about to fight; but presently Lauder ad 
 dressed the Belgian, and said he desired to offer 
 an explanation. She moved off with him a little 
 way; and immediately the unhappy Eichard drew 
 Marthe away into the crowd, where her deadly 
 attitude relaxed, and she smiled upon him once 
 more. " The knife was only for fun," she said, 
 producing a small open penknife; but Eichard 
 persuaded her to confide it to his keeping, nor did 
 he breathe freely until it was safe in his pocket. 
 He took Marthe to the "Village Fair" in the 
 basement, where they sat in a quiet corner, and he 
 bought her flowers, and had her fortune told, and 
 lavished boxes of sweetmeats upon her; and she 
 nestled up beside him and became the familiar
 
 172 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 delightful comrade of the former day. He wanted 
 not to leave her; but she had an appointment 
 which she was obliged to keep. Otherwise Eich- 
 ard s destiny might have been different; as it 
 was, he saw her go with genuine disappointment, 
 and could not even then help admiring the un 
 relenting worldly wisdom with which she went 
 to keep an engagement distasteful to her. 
 
 He made an appointment with her and said 
 good-by in the belief that they would meet soon; 
 but as it fell out, he was destined not to see her 
 again. Through the mazes of the ball she passed 
 out of his life as lightly as she had entered it, 
 like a leaf, blown by the wind through the open 
 window, that circles around you for a moment 
 and then floats out again. Yet she left a lasting 
 impression on his mind, entirely sweet and un 
 spoiled. 
 
 He met Lauder, who had also disentangled him 
 self. 
 
 " Now for Heaven s sake let us get out of this," 
 said Eichard. " No more New Arabian Nights 
 for me. The Adventure of the Fair Belgian 
 is quite enough. Besides, I m sick of this sordid 
 place aren t you?" 
 
 " I m quite ready to go," said Lauder, " and 
 rather hungry after this excitement; let us go 
 and have supper at the Eat Mort." 
 
 It was but a few steps up the street, and they
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 173 
 
 were soon sitting at a corner table of the restau 
 rant on the first floor, dividing their attention 
 between supper and the other occupants of the 
 room, which was L-shaped, and had a small bar 
 at the end of the arm nearest the door. The place 
 was not crowded, but was gradually filling up with 
 couples in evening dress obviously not of the 
 local world. Around one of the pillars near the 
 door was grouped the red-coated band, playing 
 from memory the inevitable music of popular 
 dances. 
 
 " This is one of the most curious restaurants 
 in the world," said Lauder ; " it is different things 
 at different hours of the day and night. You 
 can dine in this room, almost alone, and most 
 excellently; you have the attentions of the chef 
 and the chief maitre d hotel almost exclusively to 
 yourself. Down-stairs, the world of Montmartre 
 dines liberally but indifferently for 2 fr. 50; up 
 stairs, from eleven till two, the gay Parisienne 
 and her cavalier drop in to supper; you see they 
 are beginning to drop out now. After two, the 
 Eat Mort becomes quite a different place. A cer 
 tain few distinguished cocottes distinguished 
 in many different ways and their friends come 
 on here, and the restaurant resolves itself into an 
 informal club. You ll see presently. They are 
 beginning to arrive from Maxim s now." 
 
 A change was gradually taking place at the 
 tables. The nondescript and miscellaneous were
 
 174 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 melting away, and being replaced by guests more 
 expensively dressed, more distinguished, better- 
 looking. The shy couples who had been sitting 
 looking into one another s eyes, or holding one 
 another s hands under the tables, gave place to 
 gay and pretty women, who came in with an air of 
 proprietorship, sent their wraps away to the cloak 
 room, and settled down in all the glory of dia 
 monds and charming costumes, as though they 
 did not intend to move for some hours. These 
 girls were attended by men of the cosmopolitan 
 stamp that Eichard had noticed at Maxim s 
 good-looking, rich, and well-groomed, but nearly 
 all weary and dissipated. With this hour the 
 hour that in the world of nature under the calm 
 skies is heralded by such sweet and tender changes 
 and stirrings a change also came upon this 
 scene of subverted life and pleasure. The golden 
 tide of money, impalpable, invisible, swept into 
 the room; in the very atmosphere, in the air 
 Eichard breathed, he was aware of a change, knew 
 that he drew a deeper inspiration of this spark 
 ling and dangerous element; and as the tide 
 rose higher it loosened a little the conventions of 
 the place, and raised to a higher level the limits, 
 never very severe, of restraint and formality. 
 And yet a kind of false decorum, a travesty of 
 the social rule, reigned over this company of 
 social outlaws; hosts and guests, though essen 
 tially buyers and sellers, fell into the usages of
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 175 
 
 hospitality, and the one subject tabooed in con 
 versation was the origin and purpose of their 
 presence there. 
 
 The dark-eyed, smiling musicians played their 
 valses and mazurkas, the waiters hurried hither 
 and thither, the champagne corks flew, the flowers 
 and jewels shone in the soft red light, and lovely 
 eyes sparkled in fair, tired faces ; and as the ciga 
 rette smoke began to coil into the air the pitch 
 of conversation rose a little. Greetings and bad 
 inage were shouted across the room; now a girl 
 would get up and cross to another table, and sit 
 down for a moment on some one s knee; now 
 some woman who had been sitting quietly and 
 decorously with her friend would get up in all her 
 formal paraphernalia of grande toilette, picture 
 hat, gloves, and jingling handful of gold purses 
 and chains and toys, and, lifting high her costly 
 skirts, float and pirouette for a minute or two 
 down the centre of the room. A girl whom 
 Lauder had pointed out to Eichard at Maxim s 
 as the principal model of a famous dead artist 
 sat at a table between two men, an arm around 
 the neck of each. She was altogether devoid of 
 formal beauty, for her features (with the excep 
 tion of her lovely eyes) were insignificant and 
 irregular; but she was exquisitely made, and the 
 pose of her small head, and the alluring inclina 
 tion with which it floated above her shoulders,
 
 176 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 gave her a charm and distinction peculiar to her 
 self. 
 
 Suddenly she leaned over one of the men beside 
 her, and, with a languorous and abandoned ges 
 ture, laid her lips on his. In a moment the other 
 man had leaped up, overturned the table, which, 
 with its load of glass, china, plate, food, and wine, 
 went crashing to the floor, and stood over her in 
 an ugly, threatening attitude, trembling and shak 
 ing with passion, and livid with rage. For a 
 second the movement of the room crystallized into 
 rest ; for a second Eichard saw it, paralyzed, petri 
 fied, as though some angel of destruction had 
 turned all those painted figures into stone. The 
 glasses hung midway between table and lips, the 
 knives and forks rested in the air, the bows of 
 the fiddlers lay motionless on the strings in the 
 middle of a bar, the feet of the dancers hung in 
 the air; for a second the whole room, tables, 
 guests, waiters, bandsmen, were like the dead 
 effigies in an exhibition. As quick as thought the 
 girl went up to the man where he stood shaking 
 with passion, put her hands on his shoulders, and, 
 with exactly the same languorous grace, closed 
 her heavy-lidded eyes, and laid her lips on his. 
 The spell was broken, and his face relaxed into 
 foolish surrender. Instantly sound and movement 
 broke forth again in the room, the band resumed 
 its playing in the midst of the interrupted bar, 
 the clatter of knives and forks, of talk and laugh-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 177 
 
 ter, was resumed ; and the smiling and unshocked 
 waiters removed the debris. The incident had 
 happened and passed in the space of a few sec 
 onds; it was absolutely disregarded by the com 
 pany; and Richard realized, with something like 
 terror, the brutality and shocking suddenness of 
 the affair, and the ignoble part played by the man 
 who had caused it. 
 
 " Things are waking up," said Lauder, cheer 
 fully ; " but that is not a usual incident here. 
 The man is evidently not an habitue." 
 
 Just at that moment Richard caught sight of 
 a daintily clad figure on the other side of the 
 room, and of a face, under a broad hat of roses 
 and lace, that seemed familiar. She was at a 
 table facing him, on the other side of the room, 
 and she was jumping up and down in her seat and 
 clapping her hands like a child at a feast. As 
 he looked at her she met his eye and recognized 
 him; and in another minute she had run across 
 the room and given a hand each to Richard and 
 Lauder. 
 
 " Oh, here you are ! I been looking for you 
 oh, so long ! We have had, oh, such a good time ! 
 My dear, I give you my vord, I never laugh so 
 much in all my life! But look here, don t sit 
 over here come over to my table do come/ 
 
 "But look here, Toni," said Lauder, "you 
 have a man with you; we can t come to your 
 table."
 
 178 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " Oh, don t be silly, my dear he s nobody ! 
 He was sitting there when I come in, and he want 
 me to have supper with him, but really I am quite 
 alone. Listen, I tell you somesing," and her eyes 
 sparkled as she leaned over them : " He say to 
 me, My dear, I love you very much ; if you will 
 come and see me I give you fife, ten pounds. I 
 look very grave and I say : Sank you veree 
 much/ I say, ( but I never see so much monies at 
 vonce in all. my life ; it is too much for me, my 
 dear. I could not think of taking it. But how 
 I laugh ! Poor boy, vhen I tell him I refuse tree 
 thousand francs only last night, he nearly go off 
 in fits. But come along, and we will sit and 
 amuse ourselves." 
 
 "Let us go," said Eichard; and they trans 
 ferred themselves to the other side of the room, 
 near the band, where the headquarters of gaiety 
 were situated. Toni s companion, a shy, dull- 
 looking Scotsman, moved off of his own accord, 
 with a gay greeting from her, and the bill for 
 her supper and his own. The meal was only half- 
 finished; but it was instantly cleared away, and 
 Toni proceeded to order another. 
 
 "" ficrevisses Oh, my dear, I love ecrevisses," 
 she exclaimed, like a greedy child. " And then a 
 Poulet Cocotte Mascotte oh, so good ! And 
 look here, my dear," she turned to Lauder, " don t 
 let us drink this stuff I do not like it," point 
 ing to the Tisane provided by the thrifty Scot
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 179 
 
 which had just been opened ; " let us have some 
 Katinka, 1884 oh, lovely, I give you my vord ! " 
 They were soon eating again, or pretending to, 
 Toni keeping up a rattling conversation with 
 Lauder as to her recent doings. Eichard sat 
 opposite listening to every word. Her English, 
 in spite of its German-Polish disguise, was pretty 
 and dainty, and she made it infinitely expressive. 
 Her face had the quality of childish clarity and 
 life that he had noticed at first : it was childishly 
 eager, or childishly grave ; only the eyes, as before, 
 contradicted its innocence with their deep golden 
 fire, and the little red mouth, alluring and repel 
 ling in its perversity, reminded him of a childish 
 vampire childishly greedy, childishly cruel. She 
 was beautifully and expensively dressed, though 
 obviously without anxiety; she possessed a con 
 fidence and certainty in her charm that dared to 
 be careless in details; her jewelry was negligently 
 worn, the safety of her dress disregarded in any 
 moment of excitement. She had not that perma 
 nent preoccupation about her clothes and appear 
 ance that oppresses so many women of her class; 
 herself and her enjoyment of the moment always 
 came first, her clothes second. Even her tawny, 
 red-gold hair was not, like the head-dress of the 
 Frenchwomen around her, elaborately curled and 
 coiffured; it was coiled upon her forehead, and 
 taken up from her little white neck, with an ap 
 pearance of carelessness that was very charming.
 
 180 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 She was entirely without patience; if she did not 
 hear what was said to her, she rattled out " Vhat ? 
 vhat ? vhat ? " and was off to some other subject 
 before Lauder had time to reply; she spoke with 
 intelligence, but listened, apparently, with none; 
 and she wrinkled her forehead and moved her 
 head with quick kittenish movements that sug 
 gested a tireless and alert vitality. Eichard felt 
 the atmosphere around her to be more bracing 
 and vital than elsewhere; he listened to every 
 word she said, watched every quick movement of 
 her head, with an absorbed interest and fascina 
 tion. She was not fidgety; she had her moments 
 of repose, when the slumbering light in her eyes 
 would leap into a flame that seemed to resolve and 
 decompose the very elements of what she was 
 looking at; and it was this rapid alternation of 
 profound gravity and rippling liveliness that gave 
 to her beauty so unique an attraction. She was 
 not, like most of the women there, seductive in a 
 merely animal or fleshly way ; on the contrary, in 
 that sexual environment she appeared almost sex 
 less ; some nobler mystery, some subtle emanation 
 of the soul, informed her with its alluring spirit. 
 Eichard was completely charmed and fascinated 
 by her. She hardly seemed to notice him, although 
 she was of course perfectly aware of his interest 
 in her; and it was not until she was smoking 
 a cigarette and sipping a glass of Grand Marnier 
 that she turned to him again.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 181 
 
 " You like this place better than Maxim s ? 
 Yes? Oh, Maxim s, my dear, it is all right, of 
 course; you see every one there, but it is mixed, 
 my dear, very mixed too many sales femmes 
 there. Here you may do as you like, and there 
 are only friends." She looked at him with a 
 friendly glance that was half for his eyes, and 
 half for his shirt-studs and the cut of his clothes 
 
 the deadly, perceptive, unconsciously apprais 
 ing glance of the born cocotte. 
 
 " You like my dress, vhat ? " she rattled on, 
 inconsequently ; " oh, it is nothing, nothing, my 
 dear. Paquin can t make this kind of dress it 
 is too simple for him. You should see another 
 
 the same color that Doucet make me last 
 year oh, a dream, I tell you, my dear, beauti 
 ful ! Vy you not drinking ? Vhat ? Drink some 
 champagne, my dear, don t be silly. Your friend 
 he not drink, either ? Oh, go on ! Tell me, vhere 
 you staying ? Eitz Elysee Palace vhat ? Oh, 
 I tell you somesings funny oh, so funny ! I 
 never laugh so much in all my life ! An old man 
 I see at Folies Bergeres last night oh, a very 
 chic old man, I give you my vord, but ugly, dread 
 ful, my dear ; he say to me, Toni/ he say, I 
 like to call on you ; vhere you staying ? I say, 
 Oh, I am living very quietly, I am not going 
 out/ He say, *I like to send you some flowers. 
 I say, Sank you very much/ I say. Send them 
 to Kitz s, to Madame Toni. Oh, how I laugh, my
 
 182 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 dear ! Of course, I am not staying at Ritz at all ! 
 I tell you, I never laugh so much in all my life ! " 
 And she rattled on without waiting for any com 
 ment or interrogation, nodding her pretty, brilliant 
 little head energetically until the flowers in her 
 hat shook again. 
 
 A Spanish dancer, engaged by the proprietor to 
 amuse his guests, now tripped out to the clatter 
 of castanets and began to dance. She was a short, 
 dark creature, with a handsome face, raven hair, 
 and a beautiful costume of shot colors. Richard 
 glanced at her, and then became absorbed in Toni s 
 sudden regard of her. It was not merely that her 
 attention was caught; she was watching her with 
 the courtezan s respect and curiosity for a woman 
 who can do something which she herself cannot 
 do. Her conversation stopped, the cigarette 
 smoked unheeded in her fingers; two faint verti 
 cal lines appeared in her forehead, and she fol 
 lowed every antic of the brave, gay dance with 
 intent eyes, head and eyes moving to follow the 
 dancer s movement as a kitten follows the flight 
 of a bird. When the dance was over she clapped 
 her hands. "Very good, my dear," she said to 
 Lauder, and, calling the dancer to the table, with 
 the vicarious generosity of her* kind, made Lauder 
 give her a louis. 
 
 Presently a charming-looking girl, conspicuous 
 for her English look of health and honesty, and
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 183 
 
 for her admirable (and very un-English) toilet, 
 came up and sat down at the table with them. 
 
 " Let me come and sit here, Toni," she said 
 with a frown ; " I want to get away from that 
 man. Vulgar beast ! " she muttered, tapping the 
 ground with her foot. 
 
 " What s the matter with him ? " asked Lauder, 
 offering her a cigarette. " He looks all right." 
 
 " Cheek ! " she said, indignantly. " He wanted 
 to come home with me ! I don t know what some 
 of these people are made of. I told him I wouldn t 
 let him come home with me for a thousand 
 pounds/ And she went on speaking with genuine 
 indignation to Lauder on the subject of people s 
 rudeness. 
 
 Richard began to be a little puzzled. He had 
 always dimly pictured cocottes as a species of 
 harpy, continually preying upon men; here were 
 two, perhaps the prettiest women in the room, 
 whose one preoccupation seemed to be to get rid 
 of people, and to be allowed to enjoy life in their 
 own way. With the quickness of their kind, the 
 two women had recognized that Lauder and Rich 
 ard were for the moment mere spectators in the 
 great game; and they therefore drew to them 
 with flattering friendliness. But why ? What did 
 they want, if not money? Richard could not 
 quite make it out; but at this moment his atten 
 tion was diverted by peals of laughter from some 
 adjoining table. A short, stoutish Englishwoman
 
 184 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 of about five and thirty, carefully dressed in a 
 tight-fitting white silk frock and a clever hat, had 
 come out into the cleared space, and was affecting 
 to dance, with movements purposely uncouth and 
 grotesque. She was excited by wine, and pre 
 tended to be more excited than she was ; and she 
 flung herself about with all the cock-sure abandon 
 ment of an old music-hall favorite. In spite of 
 the inevitable and even (to a sober mind) painful 
 disadvantage of her condition, there was some 
 thing hearty, humorous, and not unwholesome in 
 her appearance that disarmed offence. Her bold 
 black eyes roved around the room with a Kabe- 
 laisian fearlessness ; she had the confidence of one 
 who knows human nature in and out, and is 
 prepared to deal with any emergency which her 
 conduct may create; and she walked up confi 
 dently to a pretty French girl, and, taking up a 
 liqueur-glass out of which she was about to drink, 
 emptied it at a draught. 
 
 " Don t mention it," she said in a somewhat 
 husky voice. " My fault entirely. I was so 
 thirsty I couldn t wait. Keska-say-ka-sah? Oh, 
 I m a divvle at Frinch. Here waiter, garsong, ici, 
 comprenney? Fill madame s glass, and mind you 
 don t spill any. Keska-say-ka-sah?" And she 
 went on to another table, where she fixed an 
 elderly American, who was looking on at her 
 vagaries with rather a depressed countenance, with 
 a stony stare.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 185 
 
 " What s your trouble ? " she asked, seriously. 
 " You ought to take something for it, you know. 
 I wouldn t let it run on it might injure you." 
 And she continued to bombard him with absurd 
 remarks until he began to laugh in spite of him 
 self. 
 
 " There now, you ll feel better now. Never 
 hold it back. You ve got to get better before you 
 feel worse no, I mean I don t know what I 
 mean ! keska-say-ka-sah ? " She began to dance 
 in an ungainly fashion about the tables, going 
 from one to another, picking out some guest and 
 apostrophizing him, but contriving not to offend 
 anybody seriously, and, in her way, to amuse every 
 one. There was such a complete good nature, 
 such an abandonment to playing the fool and look 
 ing ridiculous for the benefit of the majority, that 
 it was difficult not to respond, and impossible to 
 be offended. 
 
 Presently she came to the table where Lauder 
 and Eichard were sitting. Toni, who evidently 
 knew her, addressed her by the name of Matilda, 
 and told her to sit down; and she immediately 
 fastened on Lauder. 
 
 " Hullo, I ve seen that boy before," she said. 
 " I know ; at the old Alsatians, in London." And 
 she shook hands with him effusively. " Oh, I 
 never forget a face. That must be ten years ago 
 at least keska-say-ka-sah ? " Eichard was rather 
 alarmed lest she should direct her attention to
 
 186 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 him, and so make him unpleasantly conspicuous; 
 but she talked to Lauder in a vein of reminiscence, 
 and left Kichard free to pursue a fragmentary but 
 somewhat one-sided conversation with Toni, whose 
 attention and glances wandered all around the 
 room. The English girl Blsa sat silent, or only 
 spoke rarely to Lauder and Matilda, the irre 
 pressible, in quiet and conventional tones. 
 
 The hours passed on imperceptibly in that gay, 
 lighted company, winged by music and laughter 
 and fugitive humors that would have no meaning 
 or color outside its hothouse atmosphere. The 
 little English-speaking group drew together, and 
 were pleased with each other; and though Rich 
 ard could never tell afterward how the hours 
 passed, he remembered that he must have been 
 absorbed indeed not to notice their passage. Toni 
 occupied his attention wholly, and as much of 
 Lander s as could be spared from the humors of 
 Matilda and polite conversation with Elsa. No 
 one was sleepy; the fun kept up noisily around 
 them, the dancing went on, like the music, untir 
 ingly; and it was with a shock of surprise that 
 Richard suddenly saw through a window from 
 which the curtain had been withdrawn the ghostly 
 blue of daylight slanting in upon the yellow glare. 
 Long afterward, indeed, he remembered that mo 
 ment, and the scene in which it found him: the 
 lights, the flowers, the pretty, unsubstantial 
 dresses, the pale charming faces, the jewels; and,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 187 
 
 most striking of all, the picture of the Spanish 
 dancer, with her beautiful tired face, and her dress 
 of blended colors, blue, gold, orange, red, pur 
 ple, illuminated by the daylit window, and, 
 although surrounded still by the red glow of elec 
 tric lamps, touched by the cold finger of dawn. 
 
 " Here, boys," said Matilda, seriously, to Eich- 
 ard and Lauder, " what s the matter with coming 
 home to our place, and having a cigarette and talk 
 ing things over? It s only half -past four." 
 
 " Let s move, at any rate," said Lauder ; and 
 calling for the bills, which mounted in the aggre 
 gate to a handsome figure, he paid them and 
 followed the little group out of the room. It 
 was daylight, cool and fresh and pure, in the 
 Place Pigalle ; and while the chasseur was calling 
 a carriage they stood on the pavement in their 
 gay evening dresses in the silent morning, like 
 creatures derelict, who had drifted into a new day. 
 Elsa and Lauder went off first in an open car 
 riage, while the other three squeezed into a coupe, 
 and drove down into Paris, still talking volubly 
 and laughing. They had not been driving long 
 before a diversion was proposed by Toni, whom 
 nothing that was new, and that was not the thing 
 of the moment, seemed able to tire. 
 
 " Oh, don t let us go home yet," she pleaded. 
 " We go to the Cafe Americam such fun. Do 
 come, there s a good boy ; " and she turned to 
 Eichard, who felt strangely pleased and flattered
 
 188 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 by the direct appeal to him. Matilda, however, 
 was adamant for once; and though Kichard was 
 in the mood to follow willingly wherever Toni 
 might lead, he added his dissuasions on the ground 
 of not splitting up the party. He was amazed to 
 notice how quickly Toni acquiesced; she seemed 
 to have forgotten her proposal as soon as it was 
 made. She chattered merrily until the carriage 
 drew up at a hotel in the Eue de Calais. 
 
 Eichard seemed to himself to have been sud 
 denly caught in a tide which swept him along 
 irrespective of his own wish or effort. The easy 
 friendliness of Matilda, who treated him as an 
 "old pal," and his subtle appropriation by the 
 wayward and beautiful Toni, made him accept 
 everything that happened as a matter of course 
 even the fact that he was walking up the stairs 
 of a Paris hotel at five o clock in the morning 
 with two ladies whose acquaintance he had made 
 since midnight. The hotel was a shy, quiet place ; 
 one of those accommodating French hostelries in 
 which surprise is an unknown emotion, and where 
 the habit of asking no questions is practised as 
 a high art. They stole quietly up-stairs to the 
 first floor, and entered the room to the left. The 
 curtains were closely drawn so as to exclude the 
 daylight, and the electric lights were turned on; 
 Lander was sitting in his overcoat in an armchair 
 smoking a cigarette, and Elsa was sitting on a 
 table, also smoking, and talking gaily to him.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 189 
 
 " Here, let s sit down," said Matilda ; " make 
 yourselves at home, boys, and have a drink. No? 
 Well, you re two of the rummiest boys I ever 
 struck. No drink, no anything; I don t know 
 what you left home for. Now, you with the 
 keska-say-ka-sah face " to Bichard " give me 
 cigarette, and cheer up. This is what I call 
 friendly and pleasant." 
 
 The talk became general and somehow amusing. 
 No one seemed tired or sleepy ; there was nothing 
 in the conversation either improper or interesting; 
 it was essentially empty; but a healthy human 
 curiosity in and attraction to each other provided 
 the members of the party with interest enough. 
 It was a strange little group: Matilda, frankly 
 vulgar, on the spree, and yet with a wholesome 
 simplicity of mind and character; Elsa, with the 
 manners of a gentlewoman, brilliant and charm 
 ing, and with all kinds of little unspoiled feminine 
 graces and unselfishness; Toni, young, cosmopoli 
 tan, spoiled child, with her wayward beauty, vi 
 vacity, intelligence; Lauder blandly interested in 
 every one, and quite sufficiently amused; Richard 
 curious, occupied with the novelty of his situation, 
 profoundly interested in Toni. 
 
 As they talked she suddenly came and sat down 
 on his knee, for there was a scarcity of chairs. 
 At her touch his blood leaped with a thrill that 
 astonished his mind no less than his body; he 
 realized suddenly how he had been longing to
 
 190 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 touch her. There was no special meaning in her 
 coming, except that she wanted somewhere to sit; 
 she rested on his knee as lightly as a bird, and 
 talked animatedly in German to Matilda, about 
 some refractory maid; but her nearness to him 
 was exquisite, and made him happy in a breathless 
 and almost timid way. He put his arm around 
 her, very gently and lightly, as though he feared 
 to frighten her away; he felt the warmth of her 
 limbs through the filmy dress she wore, and trem 
 bled at the sensation. She took no notice of him 
 whatever used him simply as a chair ; yet he 
 felt unreasonably happy and dignified by her pres 
 ence. 
 
 They spoke in low tones, out of regard for the 
 slumbering inhabitants of the hotel. The conver 
 sation was carried on chiefly by Lauder and Toni, 
 who discussed the whereabouts of acquaintances 
 in the shifting world of pleasure; but Eichard 
 hardly heard the conversation. He was conscious 
 only of Toni, listened only to her; and he could 
 have wished the conversation to last for hours if 
 only she would stay where she was, seemingly un 
 conscious of his shy caresses. It was Matilda who 
 put an end to it by getting up and yawning, and 
 announcing her intention of going to bed, which 
 she proceeded immediately to do. The others went 
 out laughing on to the landing. 
 
 While Lauder was saying good night to Elsa 
 on the stairs, Richard followed Toni into the room
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 191 
 
 on the other side of the first floor. They passed 
 through a small bedroom, in which Toni s German 
 servant half -nurse, half-maid was sleeping, 
 and into a larger room, much more elegant in its 
 appointments than Matilda s. It had plenty of 
 window space, there was no luggage in it, and it 
 was full of costly and pretty toys and trifles of 
 toilet gear. Toni yawned and took off her hat, 
 revealing a tumbled crown of tawny hair; then 
 she went to a side-table and took from a little 
 white bottle a couple of tabloids, which she swal 
 lowed with a glass of water. Richard picked up 
 the bottle, which was labelled " sulphonal." " To 
 make me sleep, my dear," she explained. She 
 treated his presence with complete unconscious 
 ness, as though he had been her maid or a child. 
 
 Suddenly he caught her in his arms, and kissed 
 her, holding his face a long while close to hers. 
 
 " Naughty boy, you are ! " she said, releasing 
 herself and looking at him with a scrutinizing 
 smile. " But I like you oh, I like you very 
 much, or else you wouldn t be here, my dear." 
 Her voice was stifled as he caught her again in 
 his strong arms, and pressed her lithe young body 
 close to his own, kissing her again and again on 
 the lips. 
 
 She drew away from him, and looked at him 
 again with that grave, intent scrutiny, as of a 
 child who has discovered a new animal in a garden, 
 and waits to see what it will do.
 
 192 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " Tell me," she said. " Vy you like me so 
 much ? " 
 
 He was trembling, and his voice was husky. " I 
 think I love you," he whispered. 
 
 " Oh, don t be silly," she said, laughing. " If 
 you ever love any one, my dear, you know it comes 
 not so easy as that. But I like you you are a 
 nice boy." 
 
 " Toni ! " he whispered, and strained her in 
 his arms again. 
 
 She yawned. " Not to-night, my dear ; some 
 other time. I see you in the Eat Mort, and knew 
 you wanted me oh, so badly. But not now, my 
 dear. Listen; I tell you somesing. Some day 
 you and I shall spend a night together, and we 
 shall be oh, so happy! Good night, my dear. 
 Don t make a noise." 
 
 He thrilled at her words, held her close to him 
 again while she put up her face for his kisses, 
 and went out, hardly seeing where he went. 
 Lauder was waiting for him, and together they 
 walked out into the early morning sunshine. 
 Eichard felt suddenly tired; his mind was filled 
 with whirling thoughts.
 
 IV 
 
 THEEE was a cool freshness in the air as they 
 walked through the sunny morning streets, 
 clean and pure from the floods of water that had 
 been poured on them in the early hours. 
 
 " I have an idea, Richard/ said Lauder, stop 
 ping in his walk as they neared the hotel. " It s 
 after six o clock. What do you say to having a 
 bath, changing, and going out into the country 
 
 Fontainebleau, I suggest instead of going to 
 bed?" 
 
 " It s an idea, certainly. I feel as if I wanted 
 my head cleared after all these hours in restau 
 rants. But how long should we be away? 
 Frankly, Lauder, I want to see some more of our 
 friends." 
 
 " There s no reason why we shouldn t ; we need 
 only stay away for twenty-four hours. Why," 
 Lauder added with a grim smile, " there s no 
 reason why you shouldn t invite them out to Fon 
 tainebleau ! " 
 
 " They wouldn t come," said Richard ; " besides 
 
 well, let us have some fresh air anyway. Why 
 
 193
 
 194 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 
 
 shouldn t we revisit your old haunts, and go to 
 Barbizon?" 
 
 " A good idea. If we hurry we can catch the 
 first train." 
 
 They went back to their hotel; bathed, packed, 
 and caught the train with a minute to spare. 
 Soon they were flying through the suburbs of 
 Paris, with their toylike houses and trim little 
 market-gardens. Lauder was busy with a minute 
 system of accounts which, as he had constituted 
 himself paymaster for both, he felt bound to keep ; 
 Eichard looked out at the flying landscape, and 
 thought with some bewilderment of the strange 
 hours through which he had passed. He was a 
 little jaded, naturally ; but in his heart there was 
 a kind of unreasonable joy, as of one who has 
 found a perishable treasure. The touch of Toni s 
 lips was on his yet, unfaded; he wanted to talk 
 about her to Lauder, but a certain shyness and 
 shame withheld him. He wanted still more to 
 realize within himself what exactly his sudden 
 interest in her might mean. He was too frank 
 and too fastidious not to realize that there may 
 be a fascination of the flesh that is entirely with 
 out relation to the mind or the soul; it was an 
 idea from which he had always somehow recoiled; 
 yet here was a woman of whose mind or soul all 
 he definitely knew was that she had reconciled 
 herself to the trade of her body, and yet who woke 
 in him a longing, a sympathy, such as no other
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 195 
 
 woman had ever inspired. What did it mean? 
 Was it the flesh alone that thus drew him like a 
 magnet? Or was it the spirit that slumbered in 
 those mysterious eyes of hers, that called to his 
 as deep calls unto deep ? He was by nature averse 
 from sentimental self-delusion; he loved to call 
 things by their true names, and to douche himself 
 with the cold aspersion of facts; he tried to say 
 to himself : " You may give the thing a finer 
 name, but your sensuality has merely been awak 
 ened by a woman whose business and trade it is 
 to make such awakenings; desire her if you will, 
 but do not sentimentalize about her, or deceive 
 yourself that ideal love, that rare flower that 
 blooms in the soil of physical passion, has any 
 thing to do with it." Yet his reason and his 
 heart, speaking in a rare unison, gave the lie to 
 this simple, trivial explanation. The love of the 
 flesh yes; he recognized that he was involved 
 in the love of the flesh, set free from conventional 
 and moral preoccupations; he saw, as in a vision, 
 the brief beauty and glory that might be possible 
 for such love, and saw also, but more dimly, its 
 inevitable limitations. Love! He recognized, 
 almost with amusement, that he was reckoning at 
 last with that ancient bogey of the sentimentalists, 
 as he had often thought it; and it had come to 
 him at last in a pure, crude form. He looked out 
 of the window at the fleeting landscape, but saw 
 nothing of it; he saw Toni s face, now amid the
 
 196 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 lights and flowers of the Rat Mort; now averted 
 and indifferent to him, in the hotel in the Rue 
 de Calais while she sat on his knee; now with 
 that sudden and curious scrutiny of her grave 
 eyes after he had kissed her. 
 
 And yet again perhaps it was nothing ; only 
 a fever of the blood, brought on by new scenes, 
 late hours, tired nerves, the unwonted propinquity 
 of a pretty woman ; the fresh country air and rest 
 would soothe and banish it. But did he wish it to 
 be banished? No, oh, no! It was a new posses 
 sion, a new current in his life, he prized it; and 
 dangerous, difficult as he knew it to be, he knew 
 also that he wished to prolong and extend it, to 
 drink of the cup that chance had put near his lips 
 to drain it even to the dregs. 
 
 Lauder put away his pocketbook. " You owe 
 me, so far, friend Richard, exactly thirty-two 
 pounds ten shillings and cheap at the money, I 
 think. Heavens ! how dissipated you look ! Late 
 hours don t agree with you." 
 
 " Lauder ; tell me, what do you know about 
 Toni?" 
 
 " Toni ? Not much more than I told you 
 you ought to know more yourself by now. What 
 I do know is that there is something wrong with 
 her; either she is a fool, or she has had some 
 trouble. If she knew her business, she could have 
 the pick of Europe at her feet, with her beauty, 
 temperament, and intelligence. But I know she
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 197 
 
 had a row with Prince Kralowski at Aix-les-Bains ; 
 and what she s doing with those other people (who 
 aren t her class at all) I don t know. She ought 
 to have money put away; I know Kralowski al 
 lowed her five thousand francs a week. She s a 
 perverse little devil, but very, very intelligent, 
 I should think." 
 
 Eichard would have liked to talk more, but the 
 train at that moment drew into Melun, where they 
 got out, and took the light railway along the road 
 through the forest to Barbizon. It was a lovely, 
 cloudless day, with a breeze blowing fresh from 
 the fragrant acreage of the forest; they felt a 
 purity and nimbleness in the air that made a 
 luxury of each inspiration. Jaded as they were, 
 they enjoyed every minute of the journey along 
 the outskirts of the forest, past sleepy Chailly, by 
 the Angelus plain of Millet, and, turning a sudden 
 corner, into the single long street of Barbizon. 
 
 For Lauder the place was full of ghosts. " Dear 
 me ! " he said ; and " dear me ! " again and again, 
 as they walked among his old familiar haunts. 
 Like a school or college revisited after an absence 
 of years, the place seemed to him to have unac 
 countably dwindled, to look a little small and 
 shabby, and to be inhabited by a meaner and less 
 noble race. The artistic glory had certainly de 
 parted; and where, in these alien painters of 
 another generation, was there material for the 
 witty and light-hearted gatherings, the heady in-
 
 198 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 vigoration of youthful and artistic communities 
 that had glorified his earlier days? Gone, he told 
 himself with a complacent wag of the head; for 
 one must still be in the midstream of life to say 
 " Elieu, fugaces " with the requisite smack of 
 appreciation. 
 
 But if its human glories had departed, the 
 the crowning glory of Barbizon, its wonderful 
 sparkling air, was still to be enjoyed ; and Lauder 
 breathed it again with a familiar gladness. To 
 Eichard the whole place was new and wonderful; 
 the amazing brightness and whiteness of the vil 
 lage street in the hot sunshine, the glimpses 
 through gateways into little courtyards, smothered 
 with flowers and greenery, the long shuttered 
 plainness of Millet s house; the silence and re 
 moteness, the world-forgetting atmosphere of the 
 place, its contrast with the life of curtained rooms 
 and shaded lights which they had just quitted, 
 filled his mind to the brim with unwonted pleas 
 ures. They chose their rooms in one of the de 
 tached pavilions of the Hotel de Foret, where was 
 no bustle of hotel life, but only windows opening 
 wide on the soaring trees, and plunging you at a 
 step into the deep sea of the forest. They un 
 packed, lunched in the open air, and strolled out. 
 From the world of the village to the world of the 
 forest was but a step; one moment they were 
 under the open sky in the hot sunshine of the vil 
 lage street, where the tramway engine hissed and
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 199 
 
 bubbled ; the next, the forest had swallowed them 
 up, and they trod an enchanted floor, sunk in a 
 cool submarine twilight, with the wind and the 
 sunshine a hundred feet above their heads. 
 
 The magic of forests, and of this forest in par 
 ticular, is a theme well- worn; but like so many 
 things familiarized in language it remains ever 
 new and strange in fact. Like so many others 
 before them these two wandered off over the 
 sparkling sand, beneath the network of the pines, 
 and found their worldly interests hushed and 
 themselves solemnized, like revellers who should 
 have strayed into a cathedral. And now fatigue, 
 pleasant fatigue of mind and body, began to 
 fall upon them; nature put in her plea for the 
 repayment of the advances they had been drawing ; 
 and on a slope of sand carpeted with pine-needles 
 they lay down to sleep in the noontide quiet. The 
 forest rolled away in dim distances about them. 
 The few rays that filtered down through the leafy 
 roof trod softly on the moss, as though they feared 
 to awake some hidden life with their sun-kiss. 
 Shy and sweet in these twilit recesses teemed the 
 forest life, in silence only broken by a rustle of 
 underwood or by a single startled note from a bird 
 that had dived below the tree-top surface, where, 
 far above him, the song of his mates mingled with 
 the surflike murmur of branches. Distant voices 
 echoed and answered one another through the 
 green aisles, or sounded in laughter that seemed
 
 200 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 to hover and ring in the air like the stroke of a 
 bell. These elfish noises grew dimmer and more 
 mingled together in Richard s ears as the curtain 
 of sleep dropped slowly down about him; they 
 set fairy thoughts loose in his mind, while the 
 forest cast its spell upon him. Be not afraid, the 
 isle is full of voices, he murmured to himself, 
 half-awake, half-dreaming, with his last conscious 
 effort; and then he fell into deep sleep. Lauder 
 had dropped off before him ; and while they slept 
 the busy invisible army of nature s workmen in 
 that place took possession of their bodies, sweep 
 ing out the dross of cities, extracting from their 
 blood the poverties and impurities of the crowded 
 world, and pouring into their veins piire and vig 
 orous life from the inexhaustible reservoirs of the 
 forest air. Sweet alchemy of sleep and of leafy 
 places! How many tired bodies have not been 
 rested and refreshed beneath the magic shades of 
 Fontainebleau ; how many tired and soiled minds 
 have not found, in the vastness of that vigorous 
 solitude, a tonic and renewing influence! Slum 
 ber beneath roofs may repose the flesh; if we 
 would restore the spirit there must be some space 
 of oblivion under stars and trees, where in mys 
 tery and absence from the body the soul may take 
 her rest and refreshment. 
 
 Lauder was the first to awake. He came to him 
 self in mid-afternoon, all trace of fatigue gone,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 201 
 
 and yet with a pleasant drowsiness still lingering 
 in his blood. Richard slept on, soundly but 
 lightly; and as Lauder did not wish to wake him 
 he drew a note-book from his pocket, and began 
 to sharpen his pencil. The old habit of the place 
 was upon him; in his sleep it had returned, so 
 that there now lay upon his mind some shadow 
 of the old torment of creation. He looked about 
 him for a subject; considered, and obviously re 
 jected, the sleeping Richard; and then settled 
 down with an abstracted look, his pencil working 
 uncertainly at first, and then, as his hand remem 
 bered its craft, more boldly and surely. The 
 sketch finished, he sat for awhile in thought; and 
 then, turning a page, began to write. 
 
 When Richard awoke the afternoon was far 
 through. He lay quiet for awhile after he had 
 opened his eyes, collecting his thoughts, and tast 
 ing the sense of renewal and refreshment with 
 which his sleep had endowed him. Presently he 
 stretched himself and, turning to Lauder, became 
 aware of his occupation. 
 
 " What have you got there ? I thought you 
 were still asleep." 
 
 " Something for you. Wait a minute. I ve 
 nearly finished Scaffolding of death that 
 will do, although it s a bit cruel. Now tell me if 
 I haven t been drawing your dreams ? " 
 
 Richard took the book and flushed as he looked
 
 202 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 on its open page. For there was the face of his 
 thoughts Toni s face, happily commemorated in 
 pencil. The sketch had the success of such things 
 done in haste and confidence; it had the clever 
 reticence of the hand that knows how far it can 
 trust itself to be explicit, and how far it must 
 merely suggest; Lauder would not have been 
 ashamed to sign it in his Paris days. It was Toni 
 thoughtful; leaning her chin on her hand, her 
 brow wrinkled a little under the great drooping 
 hat, her eyes absorbed in scrutiny; a memorable 
 and arresting face a face to love and weep for. 
 Lauder watched Eichard narrowly as he gazed 
 on it, his lips parted, his breath held. " Now look 
 over the page/ he said. 
 
 He had written there a translation into words 
 of his portrait an almost equally successful 
 sketch, although in a medium less familiar to 
 him. Eichard turned the page and read: 
 
 " Radiant " would be your first word on seeing 
 her seated in the Rat Mart at four o clock in the 
 morning., in her Doucet gown and her Lewis hat, 
 and her tawny hair smouldering in the feverish 
 light of the lamps. Gay, too, with a childish 
 gaiety and pleasure in the lights and the wine, the 
 dances, the food, and the music pleasure as of 
 a child who claps hands at sight of a feast spread 
 in her honor. Yet for all her youthful gaiety, you 
 will often wonder if she is more than pretty.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 203 
 
 Warm is her vital animation, wonderful are her 
 golden oblique eyes, fair is her skin; but she has 
 a bad, vampire mouth, and the little tongue shoots 
 out to moisten the scarlet lips too often. Yet if 
 you catch one of her rare moments of repose, the 
 cloud of gravity and thoughtfulness that some 
 times hovers for an instant on her brow, you will 
 know that she is beautiful, with a rare and rather 
 a tragic beauty. In thought and desire she is 
 always ahead of the moment, as in talk she is 
 always behind it; the present has no attraction 
 for her, and she is on that account exasperating 
 and unsatisfactory to fugitive lovers. But for 
 those who study her and attain her with patience 
 she has doubtless her own strange rewards. Way 
 wardness and perversity play about her like sum 
 mer lightning, that flower of inaudible thunder. 
 She will and she won t. She loves the atmosphere, 
 the trappings, the tubes and palettes of her art; 
 its practice hardly interests her at all, except in 
 rare moments that suggest a morbidity better left 
 unexplored. She lies passionately about noth 
 ing at all, and is on such bad terms with the 
 truth that she and it do not recognize each 
 other. 
 
 Yet you come back to her crown of youth, her 
 animate harmony with the fountain-song of life, 
 the lithe felinity of her body, the grace of her 
 wild, swift movements, the vital glory that smoul 
 ders in her eyes; and the touch of her skin, silk
 
 204 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 and velvet of the rose-petal, will cling to your lips 
 long after the memory of her cruel mouth has 
 faded. 
 
 Laugh, my little Toni, and dance yet while your 
 sun shines! The three black ravens hover over 
 your happiness; and ah! how close behind your 
 face, fair with the fairness of love and the flesh, 
 lies the dusty scaffolding of death. 
 
 Lauder saw him smile a little, and wince a little, 
 as he read; when he had finished he turned back 
 to the pencil sketch, and looked for some time 
 at it. 
 
 " Wonderfully good," he said, quietly. " Won 
 derfully good. But how do you know so much 
 about her?" 
 
 " Know ? I know nothing except what any one 
 can see who spends some hours in her company. 
 She is your discovery, Eichard; I m afraid I 
 never took much notice of her until I saw her 
 through your eyes. But she improves on acquaint 
 ance. There s a certain lithe grace " 
 
 " How did you know about the touch of her 
 skin ? " said Eichard, still looking at the sketch. 
 
 " Guesswork, my dear boy ; and I m glad to 
 see it was such a good guess. My dear Eichard, 
 how delightfully young you are I believe you 
 are blushing ! " 
 
 " Nonsense," said Eichard with a smile. " But, 
 joking apart, Lauder, I do not in the least mind
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 205 
 
 telling you that I am profoundly interested in 
 the creature; I can t get her out of my head. I 
 think her quite one of the most attractive and 
 remarkable women I have ever seen. I know noth 
 ing about her life, and I don t think I want to. 
 She s not an ordinary well, I mean, she doesn t 
 she s not like " 
 
 " She is certainly not promiscuous ; and she is 
 not to be confounded with all those amiable ladies 
 at Maxim s. At the same time, there s something 
 of the gamine about her; she is ready to sacrifice 
 appearances and dignity for amusement at any 
 moment. If you really want to be kind to her, 
 give her a lecture; tell her to leave those people, 
 and go and take rooms at Eitz s, or some first-rate 
 place, and never be seen without a companion. 
 She is much too young to be on her own, and too 
 clever and successful to mistrust herself. Tell 
 her " 
 
 " I don t think I should much care to talk to 
 her about it." 
 
 Lauder shrugged his shoulders. " No use blink 
 ing facts, old chap. It s not nice, I admit; it 
 would be intolerable in connection with any one 
 you cared about. That s why I always keep to 
 mere acquaintance and surface friendships with 
 such people." He looked narrowly at Richard. 
 " I know what you want ; you want me to advise 
 you to take her as your mistress. Wait a minute," 
 he went on, as Richard began to speak. " In the
 
 206 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 first place, you couldn t afford it; in the second, 
 neither of you would be happy you d want to 
 marry her, or some damned nonsense of that sort ; 
 in the third, I don t quite see how she would work 
 in with pierres perdues, balance cranes, and the 
 Holy Blessed Trinity. I think the old sea-dogs 
 at Deptford would have something to say." 
 
 Eichard was looking far away through a blue- 
 green glade of the forest. " If she loved " he 
 began; and then stopped, looking grave. 
 
 " And if she did, would it be quite fair, do you 
 think? The point of honor is naturally an un 
 familiar one, but it s there all the same. Kemem- 
 ber you are dealing with a topsyturvy world, 
 where every social rule is inverted. Honorable 
 intentions in a case like this don t mean love, or 
 hearts, or a life s devotion, or any emotional stuff 
 of that sort ; they mean money. Here is a woman 
 
 not of the class that sells herself promiscuously 
 or strikes bargains beforehand, but who is willing 
 
 well, let us say to take a liberal view of conduct 
 in the case of any one she likes, the condition 
 being that he shall support her in that state of 
 luxury and extravagance to which it has pleased 
 God to call her. Where does the lover come in? 
 
 the lover, moreover, who doesn t intend even 
 marriage and remember that she would despise 
 marriage where does he come in, with his idylls 
 and heart s devotion? Believe me, there is no 
 room for him."
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 207 
 
 " Damn it, Lauder, your knowingness wearies 
 me sometimes. Because a woman has adopted 
 that way of life, do you pretend she has no 
 heart?" 
 
 " It s you who weary me, Eichard, mixing up 
 facts with sentiment. Don t you see that she 
 mustn t indulge her heart at the expense of her 
 profession? Don t you see that it is the one lux 
 ury that she can t afford, because it is the one 
 luxury that no one will pay for ? A girl like Toni 
 has deliberately chosen to take her love, or what 
 stands for it, into the market; and she is far too 
 sensible not to see that she can t have it both ways ; 
 or, if she didn t see it, a man who should try to 
 make her believe that it was possible would be, 
 to say the least of it, damned unfriendly." 
 
 " I think in any case, my dear Lauder, we re 
 getting a little far from the facts. There s no 
 question of Toni s falling in love or of mine 
 either," he added with a touch of bravado ; " and," 
 he added, turning to Lauder with a smile, "you 
 and I aren t even going to pretend to fall out on 
 any question of the sort. I bow absolutely to your 
 experience and discretion. But now I ll tell you 
 what I propose. I like Toni she interests us 
 both; we like Elsa too; I m sorry for those poor 
 girls stuffing in Paris this hot weather; and I 
 propose to telephone or wire to them, and ask 
 them out here to spend the day. We can natter 
 them with a gorgeous lunch, the fresh air will
 
 208 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 do them a lot of good, and I think it would be 
 amusing to study them in this environment." 
 
 " Anything you like/ said Lauder, genially. 
 " They won t come, but that s a detail. And it 
 amuses me greatly to observe how quickly you 
 have tired of sylvan solitude ! " 
 
 " Oh, rubbish ! I can get that any time ; be 
 sides, those three are too nice and wholesome to 
 damage the atmosphere. Come along." 
 
 They walked back through the cool twilight of 
 the forest, and out again into the bright street. 
 The hotel in the Kue de Calais was not 011 the 
 telephone, they discovered ; so a wire was carefully 
 drawn up and despatched. There was no small 
 difficulty in getting off so long a wire in English 
 from the little post-office. Lauder regarded the 
 whole thing as an empty and unproductive jest; 
 but Eichard was determined, and arranged all 
 details. 
 
 " I bet you a sovereign they won t come," was 
 Lander s confident verdict. " They may say they 
 will to-night; but when it comes to getting up at 
 nine to-morrow it ll be another story. They won t 
 have gone to bed until five; and when they call 
 her Toni will say : Oh, no, my dear, I am 
 too tired, really. I nevex vas so tired in all my 
 life ! " 
 
 " Well, it ll be a test," said Eichard, smiling at 
 the probability of the picture. " No harm if they 
 don t come; we shall still enjoy ourselves. And
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 209 
 
 now that that s settled, let us dine; that sleep in 
 the forest air has made me devilish hungry." 
 
 They dined, for the sake of Lauder s associa 
 tions, in the long room at Siron s, still decorated 
 with the daubs of the colony, but vastly changed 
 since his day. The clatter still went on, but it 
 seemed to have a less significant note; there was 
 less of wit in the talk, less mirth in the laughter. 
 After dinner the piano, as of yore, was punished 
 by one of the number, and songs came forth with 
 the pipes and the villainous brandy; but they 
 were even less tolerable as music, and less con 
 siderable as humor, than they had been ten years 
 ago. At least, so Lauder assured himself; but 
 when we call up scenes of youth or past enjoyment 
 we summon a ghost who walks in a glory, and in 
 whose footprints the flowers stand uncrushed. 
 
 They walked back through a night black and 
 starless; but presently the moon rose, and sent 
 slender and ghostly fingers parting the foliage in 
 the forest. They walked for a little while in the 
 great leafy arcades, silenced by the charm of the 
 hour, drugged by the inimitable scent and fra 
 grance of the nocturnal woodland. They went 
 early to their rooms in the airy pavilion under the 
 trees ; and Eichard, after he had gone to bed and 
 put out his candle, lay for a long time looking 
 out of the open window. Above him the black 
 masses of the trees were blocked out against the 
 silvery background; the village had gone to bed;
 
 210 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 it was peaceful with a quietness that was far more 
 than absence of sound, and had a positive quality 
 of its own. Presently, with a clear, passionate 
 thrill that floated on the silence as the white 
 moonbeams floated on the velvet darkness, a 
 nightingale began to sing. At first in low piping 
 notes that dropped singly into the night; then 
 in broken melodic phrases; at last a welling 
 fountain of tone, endless, effortless, like the love- 
 laughter of angels. The song held him spellbound 
 with its utterance of rich unearthly sweetness; 
 it woke in him a sense of vague longing, vague 
 sadness; it wreathed him, as he fell asleep, in 
 charms and dreams that were like ripples spread 
 ing on the eternal sea of silence.
 
 LAUDER was awakened the next morning 
 from a sound sleep by Richard, who stood 
 over his bed with an open telegram in his hand. 
 " Read that," he said, with a note of triumph in 
 his voice. 
 
 It was dated the night before, and contained 
 these words : " All coming by ten train. Toni." 
 Lauder sat up, broad awake. " Heavens ! I didn t 
 expect this," he said. He looked at the telegram 
 again. " All coming/ Who, in Heaven s name, 
 are all ? Are we to have an inundation from 
 Maxim s? Because, if so, I m going to sneak off 
 by the next train, and leave you to cope with 
 them." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " laughed Richard, who was in 
 high spirits. "It only means Matilda and Els& 
 and Toni. You know how they all stick together. 
 I can imagine the scene last night : I ll come 
 if you come; I won t go unless you go/ and so on." 
 
 "Yes, and I know what ll happen. They ll 
 change their minds, or miss the train this morn 
 ing; or the other two will catch it, and Toni 
 won t get up," he added, mischievously. 
 211
 
 212 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 Kichard looked crestfallen for a moment. 
 " Well," he said, " I ll bet you a sovereign they all 
 three come. Anyhow, you ve got to get up and 
 order a luncheon worthy of the occasion; and of 
 course we must go in to Melun to meet them." 
 
 At the appointed time they were pacing the 
 platform, Kichard pretending confidence, although 
 with genuine misgiving; Lauder rehearsing all 
 kinds of imaginary scenes between the three 
 women, and drawing vivid pictures of them, after 
 a late night at the Eat Mort, arriving cross and 
 peevish, and scornful of the rustic entertainment 
 at Barbizon. Eichard hardly realized how eagerly 
 he looked for Toni s coming until he saw the train 
 heading for the long platform, and felt his heart 
 leap. It drew in and stopped a long train. A 
 great many carriage-doors opened and discharged 
 a great variety of passengers; but among them, 
 alas ! was no gay trio. The two men walked 
 hurriedly along the train, peering into the car 
 riages. " They may be asleep, or quarrelling," 
 said Lauder, " and not have noticed the name of 
 the station." But there was no friendly face in 
 the whole length of the train, and Eichard watched 
 it depart with a feeling of bitter disappointment. 
 
 " And now I ll tell you something to cheer you 
 up," said Lauder, taking his arm. " There s an 
 other train in ten minutes. They are sure to have 
 missed the first by about a minute, as none of 
 them speak French, and it starts from a remote
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 213 
 
 corner of the station; but if they are coming at 
 all (which I still doubt) they ll be in the second. 
 There are the signals." 
 
 Lauder proved to be right in his supposition, 
 and wrong in his doubt. As the train drew up, 
 a little hand was seen waving from a distant car 
 riage-window, and Toni s face, all smiles and 
 eagerness, looked out along the platform. 
 
 " Now we are in for it," muttered Lauder. " I 
 owe you a sovereign, Kichard." 
 
 They hurried down to the carriage, from which 
 they elicited in turn Toni, Elsa, and Matilda, all 
 looking as fresh as possible, quietly dressed, for 
 a wonder, in garments more or less suitable for 
 a country expedition, not a suggestion of paint 
 or jewelry, and all talking and laughing at the 
 same time. Matilda looked quite matronly, and 
 entirely respectable and domestic; and the un 
 wonted early hours and shaking-up in the express 
 had not in the least disturbed her boisterous good 
 humor. 
 
 " Well, here we are, boys my, I am out of 
 breath and I ll bet you didn t expect us and 
 you wouldn t have seen us if it had been left to 
 those two. I thought I should never get them 
 up ; but I said, Look here, girls, it isn t every 
 day we get two such nice boys to ask us out just 
 out of good-fellowship, and I m not going to miss 
 it. Matilda s going out to drink milk and pick 
 what-d ye-call-ums in the country before she s a
 
 214 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 day older/ I said. And I bundled them out, and 
 we told the coshey to drive like the devil, and we 
 missed the first train, and caught the second, or 
 missed the second and caught the first I was 
 so mixed I couldn t tell which and here we are. 
 My word, I said, it isn t every day we get two 
 such nice what d ye call this place? Melon? 
 Can we get any melons here ? I love melons, with 
 the insides scooped out; the worst of them is 
 they make your face so wet; and I say, boys, 
 what time do we have lunch ? Where s the place ? 
 I could do with a bit of something after that 
 journey." 
 
 " And oh, I tell you, my dear," broke in Toni, 
 " I never thought I should get up ! I never vas 
 so tired in all my life. But Matilda, she say all 
 the time, it vas not every day she have the chance 
 to go out with two such nice boys ; and I not like 
 to disappoint her," she added mischievously to 
 Eichard. 
 
 They were walking out of the station. " So 
 that was the only reason you came?" he said, 
 looking down on her, pleasure at seeing her again 
 sparkling in his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, don t be silly, my dear. I come because 
 I vant to, and I sink you like to see me again, 
 vhat?" 
 
 " It was really I who brought them both," said 
 Elsa. " They d never have got up if I hadn t 
 brought them home and got them to bed early
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 215 
 
 only two o clock; and I put a paper on my door 
 telling them to call me at eight. And I hope 
 you re glad to see us/ she laughed to Lauder, 
 "because I m jolly glad to be here, out of that 
 stuffy hotel." 
 
 Indeed, they all seemed genuinely delighted, 
 and in the highest spirits. Lauder in his capacity 
 of general courier had chartered two open car 
 riages, so that they could drive back instead of 
 waiting for the steam-tram; and into the first of 
 these he handed Elsa, having stipulated before 
 hand that he was not to be given over to a tete-a- 
 tete with Matilda. It had been decided that the 
 buxom dame was to be treated with every deference 
 and respect, as the distinguished chaperon of the 
 party; she was duly hoisted into the second car 
 riage, Eichard and Toni following her, and the 
 cavalcade set off in a great deal of happiness and 
 good humor. While they were still within the 
 boundaries of Melun a due decorum was observed ; 
 but once beyond the octroi and out on the country 
 road there was a certain relaxation of this effort. 
 Matilda took off her gloves and her veil, to mark 
 the informality of the occasion; and Toni, nes 
 tling back into the cushions, put up two little 
 daintily shod feet on Eichard s knee (he sat oppo 
 site to her) and reclined luxuriously. All the ab 
 straction, dissipation of mind, and lack of atten 
 tion that had characterized her in her Paris sur 
 roundings dropped from her; she actually looked
 
 216 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 at Kichard for more than two seconds together, 
 as though she were now for the first time able 
 to recognize his existence. Pie realized now that 
 this was what he had been wanting. In Paris 
 he had been only an accessory, a furniture of the 
 scenes in which she was set; here at last he was 
 the principal person, and he noticed with delight 
 that she evidently regarded carriage, landscape, 
 sunshine, and living breezes as mere accessories 
 and appurtenances of her cavalier. Matilda rat 
 tled on in breathless reminiscence of the journey 
 and their preparations for it; for over minds like 
 hers, alive only in and for the moment, the sponge 
 of oblivion seems to be continually passing, and 
 the events of the past twenty-four hours receive 
 all the concentrated mental attention which with 
 most of us has to serve as many years. Toni, who 
 did everything thoroughly, was too busy taking 
 in her new environment, and enjoying it, to talk 
 much; and Eichard was too happy in looking at 
 her to do more than throw in a word now and 
 then enough to keep the stream of eloquence 
 flowing. She lay back against the cushions, the 
 brim of her hat shading her eyes, the sunshine 
 striking through her veil and flecking he"r face; 
 and whenever her eyes met Eichard s they smiled 
 upon him with a new and growing kindness, and 
 with an interest and approval that set the blood 
 singing in his veins. He seemed to himself to be 
 living in some kind of miraculous dream, where
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 217 
 
 events moved with a magic suddenness unknown 
 in our waking lives; in which to desire was to 
 possess, and to wish was to be transported into 
 fairy worlds of flowers and love and sunshine. 
 No words had been spoken ; and yet here was the 
 woman of his dreams smiling on him, and the two 
 of them carried as though by some kind Arabian 
 genius out of the world into a garden of pleasures. 
 
 As the horses were walking up a slight hill, 
 Elsa got out of her carriage and came running 
 back along the road. Some pretty laughing quar 
 rel had taken place between her and Lauder; she 
 refused to drive with him and got into the second 
 carriage beside Kichard. Lauder came back with 
 rueful entreaties; but as he got into the carriage 
 at one side she got out on the other, and the 
 vehicle became a kind of thoroughfare for the 
 playing of this game. The example was too much 
 for Toni, who got out also; and presently they 
 were all four chasing about the road like butter 
 flies in the bright sunshine. Elsa found some 
 wild flowers in the field bordering the road, and 
 entangled Lauder in an effort to identify them; 
 and nothing would serve Toni but she must be 
 lifted up on the bank to gather more. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " pretty, my dear, pretty ! I 
 find flowers just like this at my home in Posen. 
 How I love flowers! See, my dear, I make you 
 buttonhole one, zwei, three, four come here, 
 Eeechard, I put them in for you. There! Vhat
 
 218 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 you say? Happee? Oh, yes, my dear, I love the 
 country. It reminds me of my home, vhere we 
 have, oh, such a nice garten. I am so glad we 
 came. Vhat? Come here, I gif you somesing 
 else." And she pulled his face down, and planted 
 a kiss on the tip of his chin, and then ran off to 
 Matilda with a bunch of flowers. The flowers 
 were the commonest kind dandelions and butter 
 cups and clover ; and if pathos had been a possible 
 note, there might have been something of the 
 pathetic in that eager gathering of weeds, because 
 they were gay and green and yellow, and grew in 
 the sunshine and the open air. But there was a 
 vigor and simplicity and gusto in the happiness of 
 these wicked women that snuffed out the pathetic ; 
 they were in the world on their own terms, and 
 finding it a good place; respect them if you will, 
 but do not pity them. There are many excellent 
 and moral persons who might exchange all their 
 knowledge of botany for a little of Toni s pleasure 
 in a dandelion, with a deal of advantage to the 
 world at large. 
 
 Laughter and nonsense, and running to and fro 
 between the carriages, and sorties into the wood to 
 discover new flowers, made the journey seem short ; 
 the ladies were infinitely delighted with the ap 
 pearance of Barbizon, which they declared to be 
 like a stage village; and when at length they 
 stood on the little balcony overlooking the forest, 
 they were charmed almost into silence by the spell
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 219 
 
 of wonder which it threw upon them. For a 
 moment they enjoyed the picture of that dim 
 green solitude with all their might : even Matilda, 
 whom nothing could charm quite into silence, was 
 moved to artistic reminiscence. 
 
 " I say/ she said, " it s too pretty, you know. 
 I wouldn t have missed this for the world. Look 
 here, John " (for so it was she addressed Lauder), 
 " that bit in there, with the trees and that little 
 hollow, it s just like what you see in a picture." 
 
 He told her it had been often painted. 
 
 " There now ! I knew I d seen it somewhere. 
 Why, it s every bit as pretty as a picture. My 
 word, I am glad I came. We ll go in there, and 
 sit down under those trees, won t we? But look 
 here, boys, what pries lunch ? And then after that 
 we ll go into the forest." 
 
 Lauder had retained the principal chamber in 
 the pavilion to serve as a dressing-room for them, 
 and thither they now repaired. It was a noble 
 apartment, with a fine polished floor, a ceiling 
 painted and inlaid with rare woods, excellent tap 
 estry on the walls, a great open car^-d chimney, 
 and a magnificent state bed, wonderfully carved 
 and inlaid, with a panel over it bearing a famous 
 signature. This room was another surprise and 
 pleasure; but its effect on Matilda was start 
 ling. 
 
 She drew a long breath as they came in through 
 the orjen F/ench windows. " Look here," she
 
 220 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 said, "this is a bit of all right." She appeared 
 to meditate for a moment, and then added, in a 
 hard, business-like voice : " I m going to stop 
 here. I m going to sleep in that bed, if I die for 
 it. Matilda lying in state! What do you say, 
 girls? We can manage for one night, can t we, 
 and all go back together to-morrow? I don t 
 leave here until I ve slept in that bed, anyway. 
 Keska-say-ka-sah ? " 
 
 And so it was eventually arranged. Two more 
 rooms, one in an adjoining pavilion, were secured ; 
 and the party went to lunch with the appetites 
 and spirits of children on a pleasure excursion. 
 The meal was a complete success. Every one 
 talked at once, every one declared that food had 
 never tasted so good, or wine so refreshing. 
 Eichard and Lauder had no opportunities for pri 
 vate conversation, but they exchanged glances of 
 amused intelligence at each development of this 
 rapid adventure. There was no awkwardness 
 about the party thanks, principally, to the good 
 nature of Matilda. It was understood that Rich 
 ard was Toni s special property, and that Lauder 
 devoted himself especially to Elsa, with whom he 
 held long and confidential conversations; but 
 Matilda never for one moment allowed herself to 
 appear unprovided for. This crude creature, on a 
 holiday from a life that to the normal mind must 
 seem even at its best one of dismal unpleasantness, 
 shone with kind and unselfish virtues. She ex-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 221 
 
 pected no attentions, and was flattered by the 
 respect and consideration shown to her by her 
 hosts; she played admirably in her new and un 
 accustomed role of grande dame; and she neither 
 permitted herself to interfere, nor appeared to 
 hold pointedly aloof from her companions. In 
 a word, the little festival, which in other hands 
 might have been so differently conducted, was a 
 model of propriety and success; and the effect 
 upon the three women was marked. They seemed 
 determined not to fall short of the position which 
 was, for the moment, offered them; they gained, 
 with every hour of this unwonted consideration, 
 in a refined self-respect which, although it was 
 often overlaid by the gaudier manners of their 
 class, was yet obviously native and inherent; and 
 their accession of naturalness involved no loss of 
 charm or gaiety. A visit was paid to the village 
 shop in quest of soap, brushes, sponges, and other 
 matters consolatory to pretty women parted from 
 luggage and maids; and it was a very light- 
 hearted company that went off wandering and 
 laughing into the forest. Matilda did not accom 
 pany them ; she had, in her own phrase, " done 
 herself tip-top ; " she panted for the reposeful 
 dignities of the state chamber; and there, within 
 drawn curtains, the quartette left her. 
 
 The forest threw upon each of them a different 
 spell. Lauder and Elsa lingered near the medal 
 lions of Eousseau and Millet. The English girl
 
 222 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 was the least happy of the party ; the semi-social 
 atmosphere in which she found herself had pain 
 ful reminders for her of a forfeited place in the 
 world, and Lauder s friendly companionship set 
 her longing for things lost. As they sat and 
 talked, a sense of the tragic mess we make of 
 some women s lives was brought home to him with 
 unwonted force. He was not really cynical; he 
 had a human heart of pity, big for the world at 
 large, although he generally held individuals at 
 arm s length; and this pretty girl who talked 
 to him so quietly under the forest-trees, whose 
 acquaintance he had so lightly made and would 
 so lightly drop, began to be shown to him in the 
 lights and scenes of a tragedy. They passed from 
 light conversational play to the you and I of real 
 earnest; he led her to talk of herself, and a little 
 of her present life. 
 
 " Oh, I hate it ! I hate it ! " she said, passion 
 ately. " I hardly ever let myself think about it, 
 for when I do I send people avraj, and then I 
 have no money. I must have money I have 
 people dependent on me; and what can I do? I 
 have tried to get situations as a secretary, but I 
 don t know enough ; I could be a nursery govern 
 ess, but who would let me come near their chil 
 dren ? At the places I went to, some of them said 
 odious things to me, and the kindest said I was 
 too good-looking ! " Her sweet dark eyes brimmed 
 for a moment, but she dashed the tears away.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 223 
 
 * Some women seem to manage better ; if I could 
 meet some one I liked, who would keep me and 
 be good to me, it wouldn t be bad; but somehow 
 I seem to make a mess of things; and if I liked 
 any one, the bare mention of money would make 
 me ill. You gave us a long lecture the other night 
 about how we ought never to be seen at places 
 like Maxim s, but keep to the smartest places, and 
 wear wonderful clothes, and have a companion, 
 and be exclusive; but you want a cold business 
 head for that and then, if you only knew the 
 sort of men who pay those prices! Here and 
 there you come across a gentleman, like Toni s 
 prince; but there aren t so many of them, and 
 look what a mess she made of that! And then 
 when it comes to the point, one sometimes feels 
 one would rather starve. I was having tea the 
 other day at the Elysee Palace, and I got a note 
 from a man who offered me five hundred pounds 
 if I d stay a week with him. I wanted money, 
 and it looked like a good chance but when I 
 saw him ! I simply couldn t ; so you see I m no 
 use at all, and have to manage just the best way 
 I can." 
 
 Lauder said nothing. His philosophies melted 
 away before the problem of this life; he realized 
 that Elsa was what she was by accident, and not 
 by nature; that she was perhaps the very model 
 of a woman formed by nature for motherhood 
 and domestic happiness, but cast with what
 
 224 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 cruel irony beyond the pale of these kindly 
 shelters. In the quiet forest beneath the far-away 
 rumor of the tree-tops, in the noontide hush 
 among the filtered sunlight, Terror and Pity 
 came and sat beside him terror of those grind 
 ing wheels of life that go on and on forever, 
 crushing indiscriminately the true and the false 
 that happen to come within their path, pity for 
 the warm, healthy creature beside him, young 
 and vital and firm-hearted, suddenly thrown aside 
 from the track of life. He could only hold 
 out his own hand and take hers in a friendly 
 grasp. 
 
 " Tell me about it," he said. 
 
 She began at the beginning, and told the story 
 of her life without reserve or affectations. As 
 she talked, Lauder seemed to see a tragedy pass 
 before his eyes in a scroll of pictures. The little 
 child playing in her Irish home by the seashore, 
 much petted, a little spoiled by the doctor, her 
 father, but growing up on the whole happily ; the 
 clever, pretty girl coming home from school in 
 England, and turning the heads of all the young 
 men in the neighborhood; motherless now, and 
 managing her father s home with a gay capacity 
 that made her sought for as the crown of many 
 homes; the bride, setting out in a flutter of hope 
 and romance to begin life in her new home; the 
 young wife, battling with disillusion, enduring in 
 silence and secrecy the brutal cruelty of her
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 225 
 
 drunken husband and then a curtain covering 
 that fiendish blow of his, and the destruction of 
 her unborn child. And then (her father being 
 dead) the hand of help and the whisper of prom 
 ise coming in that black hour; the brave step, 
 the year of peace and afterward the cruel mo 
 ment of abandonment, the desperate struggle to 
 live, and the final acceptance of the only possible 
 terms. The only possible terms! Yes, Lauder 
 realized that ugly fact that for any one so 
 young, so pretty, so friendless, so unfitted for any 
 skilled occupation, our social order has no recog 
 nition. She must not sit at the feast of polite 
 ness, nor eat at the table of social life; the world 
 of her time and country has no place for her, and 
 refuses her bread on any terms but those which 
 it deems disgraceful. Impossible even to help 
 her but on the same bitter terms! Yet with a 
 kind of awe Lauder realized, as she sat all dappled 
 over with the shy sunbeams, so brave and radiant, 
 so sad and blooming, that the evil inflicted by the 
 world of men stops short at the armor of a soul in 
 possession of itself. Through all her miseries, 
 Elsa had at least arrived at that spiritual anchor 
 age ; she knew something of the worst and best of 
 life, and still she could smile and be happy. Well 
 for her that there is an appeal from the social 
 law; that even without the pale, apart from the 
 envied company at the feast, there are places 
 where nature and not man rules, and where such
 
 226 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 as she, eating their bread of bitterness, may taste 
 with it a new salt of truth, and find a new peace 
 in its savor. 
 
 As Lauder listened to her story, and as he 
 looked at her beside him, he found it in his heart 
 to wish that he was capable of some of those rash, 
 brave impulses that may carry us to starry heights 
 so far beyond the blinder prudence of the worldly 
 wise; to wish that he could hold out a hand to 
 this clean-souled woman, and save her life with 
 his! The chances were that she would make a 
 good comrade in marriage, for all her genius was 
 for that difficult partnership; the mother, too, 
 of happy children, although his social world 
 would be closed both to her and to them. In a 
 corner of his mind he saw those clear possibilities; 
 with the rest of his intelligence he was aware the 
 thing would never be done, knew it to be against 
 all his instincts and habits, saw himself unfit for 
 it, and fell to wondering on all the wreckage that 
 floats past us on the tides, of life, all the chances, 
 some within reach, some needing a brave push to 
 sea in our cockle-shell if we are to bring them 
 safe to -shore, that set toward and away from us 
 with the drift of time. . . . He was roused by her 
 voice, speaking in a lighter tone. 
 
 " It s too bad of me to spoil this nice day by 
 talking of such dismal things; let us forget 
 them/ she said. "Now tell me about Rousseau 
 and Millet."
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 227 
 
 Eichard and Toni had walked on through the 
 forest, which kept opening its green arms before 
 and closing up behind them. Her talk rippled on, 
 heedless of his silence; impersonal talk, more the 
 expression of the effect produced on her mind by 
 all she saw, and immediately coined into speech, 
 than conversation addressed to any human being. 
 Eichard for a time delighted in her unconscious 
 ness of himself, which left him free to observe 
 her. The transitions of her mind were as quick 
 and flashing as the play of sunbeams across her 
 face; she stepped lightly, like a wild animal at 
 home there, across the deep carpet of sand and 
 pine-needles; she vibrated with life and with the 
 quick precision of her senses. The sudden scared 
 swoop of a bird across their path would startle 
 her into a pleasure she must express by the clap 
 ping of hands; anything more beautiful than her 
 gusto and delight in the forest world Richard 
 thought he had never seen. She was at no time an 
 affected or artificial creature, but every shred of 
 acquired manner that she possessed had dropped 
 from her like a garment, and left her as free and 
 natural and as full of savage graces as a child. 
 Again Eichard felt, as he had felt before, an 
 almost uncanny sense of being in the presence 
 of a creature of another planet, who lived at a 
 higher power and breathed a more vital air than 
 ours. She was like one who had been plunged 
 in the very waters of youth, to emerge shining
 
 228 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 with the dews and fires of the eternal fountain, 
 a thing of the morning, of morning s mystery and 
 brightness when she steals shy and golden from 
 the edge of clouds to race with their shadows 
 across the meadows. 
 
 Presently she was tired and must sit down. As 
 abruptly as the change from her dancing, tripping 
 movements to the stillness of repose, she turned 
 the battery of her woman s nature full on Eichard, 
 leaning back and looking at him through her long 
 golden eyelashes. He faced her, looking eagerly 
 and gravely at her lovely and inscrutable face. 
 
 "Vhat you thinking about?" she said. They 
 had tried speaking in her native tongue, but Eich 
 ard had found his scientific German a hopeless 
 messenger of his thoughts, and as unintelligible 
 to her as her border inflections were to him; so 
 they had returned to English, of which Toni could 
 speak rather more than she understood. 
 
 " I am thinking," said Eichard, " that you are 
 the most wonderful little person I have ever seen/ 
 
 She nodded her head gravely several times, like 
 one who hears again a familiar but important 
 truth. "You think I am pretty truly?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Pretty ! You are the loveliest thing in the 
 world," said Eichard, smiling. 
 
 " No, my dear, you make me angry really 
 if you say that. I am pretty, my dear, but beauti 
 ful ! no. Ah, you should see my little sister.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 229 
 
 She is beautiful,, lovely, my dear; I never see 
 anything so lovely in all my life. Oh, no," she 
 continued, as Richard protested, " I think nothing 
 of pretend. If a thing is so, I know it, my dear, 
 and if it is not so, I always rather know vhat is 
 true than pretend somesing nicer. Vhat? Vy 
 you say silly things to me, if you like me?" She 
 shook her head. " I am afraid you do not like 
 me, my dear, or else you say not those silly 
 things ! " 
 
 Eichard came eagerly beside her, took her hand 
 and held it to his lips for a long time. " Toni, 
 don t you know I love you ? " His voice shook a 
 little. 
 
 She let her hand rest in his, and looked at him, 
 apparently quite unmoved by his emotion, even 
 smiling a little at it. " You think so ? " she said. 
 " I know better, my dear," and then she broke 
 into a rippling laugh. " Poor, poor fellow ; he is 
 in love with Toni oh, so madly in love ! " 
 
 " Why, you dear little devil," said Eichard, 
 joining in the laugh, "you make me wonder my 
 self! Anyhow, you ve bewitched me; and yet 
 dear pretty one, let us be happy ! " And he looked 
 into her deep eyes with a grave and very appeal 
 ing eagerness. 
 
 She looked upwards, far away through the 
 spaces of the trees, to the blue deeps of the sky. 
 Then she turned to him. 
 
 " Listen," she said. " No, sit over there, vhere
 
 230 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 I see your face. Now " she spoke slowly and 
 carefully at first "I tink you say not quite 
 truly that you love me. I am not a fool, my dear, 
 and I am not blind either. I have watch you 
 when you think I do not see you. All the time 
 I watch you, and I say: This boy thinks he 
 wants me, oh, very badly. You like me because 
 I am not stupid, like all these other girls; and 
 often vhen you say things, none of them under 
 stand you you and your friend but I under 
 stand. Also I understand that you are not vhat 
 you call it? quick, fast; you do not go about 
 with vomens. And I say to myself : I like this 
 boy; he is chic, smart, but he is nice; he is 
 vhat you say ? good comrade, he would be a 
 good friend, if he not fall in love with you ! 
 And then you think you fall in love with me 
 straight off ! I tell you, my dear, it is not. You 
 are too nice to fall in love with me ; you are 
 vhat ? in love with some one of your own world, 
 is it not? No? . . . Oh, you silly boy, I like you 
 more than I tell you; it is not good for yon or 
 me; but if you knew my life, you would know 
 love not to come so easily, my dear; love is not 
 so easy or pleasant. It is hard and cruel ach, 
 Gott ! How cruel ! " She was speaking faster 
 now, and with a new vibrating note of emotion in 
 her voice. " Once I thought I love, my dear, and 
 I give my silly heart, and all people was hard, 
 bitter, cruel to me! Now I give nothings, and
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 231 
 
 pretend, and all people pet me and give me dia 
 monds and money, and say, like you : Toni, 
 we are madly in love with you ! And then/ she 
 continued, as though she were trying to convince 
 herself with arguments, " one loves not the out 
 side, my dear, but, That you call it? inside, 
 spirits; you know my outsides, but vhat you know 
 of my insides? Love is not of a face." 
 Richard spoke as though in a dream. " I love 
 your body, my dear pretty one, because it is beau 
 tiful, and I don t believe anything so beautiful 
 can be anything but adorable insides/ as you call 
 it. Little girl, look at me : I love you, I long for 
 you." 
 
 She shook her head, yet smiling tenderly as she 
 looked at him. " silly one," she said, " I am 
 not always like this. This place remind me of 
 my home, vhere I was, oh, so happy ! " Her eyes 
 brightened, and she suddenly put her head close 
 to his and spoke in a low voice, with a delicious 
 smile on her face. " Listen," she said, " I tell 
 you a game. For this time, while we are here, 
 we pretend, if you like we pretend that you are 
 in love with me, and that I am, oh, madly in love 
 with you ! " and the merry laugh pealed again. 
 "Vhat? Yes? We shall? Very well, my dear, 
 I love you, oh, ever so much ! " She looked at 
 him mockingly for a minute, then dropped her 
 eyes, and let her head fall on his shoulder, where 
 his lips found her warm lips and clung to them
 
 232 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 with a passion in which there was indeed little of 
 make-believe. The forest sighed and spoke to 
 them in its thousand voices, the birds fluttered 
 and piped far above, distant voices laughed and 
 echoed through the green vaults ; and for Eichard 
 Grey there was a full cup of that pagan joy at 
 which the forest had hinted. His heart and his 
 blood sang together as he held Toni s dear yielding 
 form in his arms ; he had a sense of gratitude, of 
 love for the eternal capricious beneficence that 
 he felt was busy in this moment of his life; and 
 he could have found it in his heart to build an 
 altar and offer a sacrifice, and pour out a libation 
 to the shy gods of happiness that seemed to be 
 lurking in the leafy depths. 
 
 From that moment the spell was upon them. 
 Toni became as absorbed in him as he was in her; 
 asked him questions about himself, and inter 
 rupted his answers to tell him of her childhood. 
 She was a child again ; her gravity had gone, and 
 with it her independence; she held his hand in 
 hers as they rambled off again, now climbing some 
 hill whence there was a view across the tree-top 
 ocean, now plunging into depths of deepest green 
 twilight. She dragged him hither and thither 
 gathering flowers, which she was obliged to throw 
 away to make room for new ones; she sat down 
 to make a daisy chain for Matilda, and spent quite 
 a quarter of an hour on it. A daisy chain for 
 Matilda ! It was an odd decoration for the dame,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 233 
 
 he thought; and then, like the pang of a knife- 
 thrust, went through him another thought that 
 the weaving of daisies was an odd occupation for 
 Toni s slender fingers ! He strangled it as a dis 
 loyalty, as unclean sentimentality, and told him 
 self that purity was not a technical thing, and 
 that she had more in common with the daisies 
 than many a technically pure woman; and he 
 stooped down and kissed her as she sat over her 
 task with puckered brows, and had the reward of 
 seeing her face break into a heavenly smile of ten 
 derness for him. On their way home they stopped 
 at the Hotel des Charmettes, and sat down in the 
 pebbled courtyard to drink orangeade; and while 
 they were waiting Toni picked up a dozen pebbles 
 from the ground and showed him a German child s 
 game of throwing them up and catching them, 
 in which she became as absorbed as in anything 
 else. 
 
 " Vhat you do ? " she asked him suddenly, while 
 they were sitting and enjoying the pleasant shade 
 of the trees after their walk in the long street. 
 " Vhat you do all the time in England ? " 
 
 " I m an engineer," said Eichard. 
 
 " Vhat ? Engineer ? Vhat s engineer ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I make harbors and lighthouses," he answered, 
 smiling. 
 
 She hardly understood, and did not waste any 
 time in trying.
 
 234 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " How much you make by that in a year ? " she 
 asked; and, when Bichard had told her, ex 
 claimed, laying her hand on his arm, " my 
 poor boy, my poor, poor boy ! And I have been 
 letting you pay for all of us here ! " 
 
 Eichard, who had hitherto regarded himself as 
 rather well off, did not know whether to be amused 
 or offended at this tribute of unaffected sympathy ; 
 but he soon found it impossible to make her un 
 derstand that the value of money was in any way 
 relative to one s needs. She thought in thousands 
 where he thought in tens. 
 
 " Vhat clubs do you belong to ? " was her next 
 question; and this time she was satisfied with 
 his answer, the names and standing of the two 
 clubs he mentioned being familiar to her for rea 
 sons which Eichard tried not to understand. 
 
 " And you belong to those clubs and have only 
 that much money? Yhat? my poor boy! 
 Look here, my dear; I am rich oh, I have lots 
 of money, my dear. I give you some I lend 
 you a thousand, you see. Vhat ? " And when he 
 had laughingly explained the impossibility of any 
 such benevolent arrangement, she abandoned that 
 subject in its turn with her usual alacrity. 
 
 For the rest, their talk was delightful and inti 
 mate. She spoke much of her childhood and girl 
 hood, of the man who had started her as a dancer 
 in Vienna, of her success there, of the prince with 
 whom she had gone to live in Eussia, and the
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 235 
 
 house and estates over which she had been mis 
 tress; but of her nearer past not a word was 
 spoken, nor of the future. All that was blotted 
 out from her mind, it became unreal in the forest 
 atmosphere. And they talked much of each other 
 the talk of lovers. Of the nature and degree 
 of their love, who shall be wise enough to speak? 
 Other than enduring things are true, and the ban 
 ners of life and love are carried forward inde 
 pendently of our moral standards. But in Rich 
 ard s mind there was rooted and growing the veri 
 table tree on which blooms the fatal fruit; and 
 into his heart at any rate we may have some 
 glimpse. The pride of the eye and the lust of 
 the flesh were his brave portion, boldly embraced 
 for the sweetness they cradled. The cloudy and 
 fiery pillar of his destiny that had so long seemed 
 to pause was moving now; and he followed it 
 without consideration and without misgiving. Of 
 Toni s life he refused to think in those golden 
 hours ; for where love inhabits he sends a messen 
 ger before his face to sweep out the lodging, to 
 perfume it with the costly spikenard of devotion, 
 to garnish it with the images he would find there, 
 and to prepare it, with a voice of tears and warn 
 ing, for the kingdom that is at hand. 
 
 But the obscure depths of Toni s heart hold 
 their mystery against all our imaginative light. 
 The pleasures of blindness and illusion were not 
 for her ; she was condemned to a clear knowledge
 
 236 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 of the facts, and to an experience of men s minds 
 under the domination of the flesh such as sages 
 may envy, and no one but unhappy women achieve. 
 We cannot wholly separate the body from the 
 spirit, except in corporeal death; to offend with 
 the body is to offend in some measure with the 
 soul; and for damage or indignity offered to the 
 body there is doubtless some obscure tribute ex 
 acted from its radiant and intangible shadow. 
 No use to pretend, then, that although this girl 
 had sold her body, the spirit so intimately linked 
 with it remained inviolably her own. Some blunt 
 ing and degrading of that bright metal had been 
 the inevitable result ; some dimming of the mirror 
 in which we see the images of things loved. And 
 yet the flesh was there, unsoiled by its betrayals, 
 flying nature s tender signals; the heart to beat, 
 the pulses to quicken, the eyes to melt, the skin 
 to telegraph its ecstatic messages; and they who 
 would question the security of love s foundations 
 must first be sure in what element of our transient 
 being he sits enthroned. Enough, surely, that 
 these two were happy, and at their best; that 
 they wandered through the little village as though 
 they walked an enchanted land; that they tasted 
 a rapture that is the birthright of all human 
 beings, and were quickened with that forerunner 
 of the creative impulse which passes like a wind 
 to and fro in the universe. 
 
 They all met at dinner on the lamplit balcony,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 237 
 
 Matilda full of the praises of sleep and the simple 
 life; Toni and Eichard at first subject to a little 
 gentle chaff from Lauder, and a mild sympathy 
 from Elsa, who looked incredulously at the sub 
 dued Toni. They all sat talking for some time 
 afterward, the best of friends; and presently, the 
 long day in the open air beginning to tell upon 
 them, the three guests decided for bed. Matilda 
 was escorted, with candles and much laughter, to 
 her lying in state in the painted chamber, where 
 Lauder and Eichard, obeying a very happy im 
 pulse of flattery and consideration, gallantly 
 saluted her before leaving. Lauder took Elsa 
 across the garden to her room in another pavilion, 
 and saw that she had everything she wanted. She 
 fidgeted about for a few minutes, and then, as he 
 was turning away, she spoke. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " I want to tell you 
 
 we ve all enjoyed everything so much to-day 
 it s been a thing quite outside our ordinary lives 
 
 and you ve made me so happy by your kind 
 ness you don t know what it means I " 
 
 " Oh, nonsense," said Lauder from the steps ; 
 "it was very good of you to come, and to put 
 up with this country picnicking. We ve enjoyed 
 having you here no end. And as for our friends 
 across there well, they seem quite happy, don t 
 they?" 
 
 She looked rather wistfully across to where the 
 light from Toni s bedroom shone through the
 
 238 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 trees. Then she looked at Lauder. " I wish/ she 
 said, and then stopped. "If there was any 
 thing " she stopped again. " Oh, I wish there 
 was some way I could show you how grateful I 
 am. But I ve nothing to offer that I should 
 care to offer you," she added. 
 
 She looked so sweet, standing there framed in 
 the door, the candle in her hand lighting up the 
 wistful face under its shadow of dark hair, her 
 pale green dress falling in long, sweeping lines. 
 Lauder hesitated for the fraction of a second, and 
 then spoke in his ordinary tone. " Will you offer 
 me a kiss ? " he said ; " or would you rather I 
 asked for it ? " 
 
 Her eyes brimmed with tears; she understood; 
 and bending down she took his chin between her 
 fingers, and printed one light kiss on his mouth. 
 " Good night," she said ; and the door closed 
 behind her.
 
 SOME kindly mist falls upon the eyes of all 
 whom love visits. The miraculous conversa 
 tion of the flesh is beyond our words and symbols, 
 and far beyond our moralities; the heart may 
 listen, the mind may watch, but it is the body, 
 and the soul of nature that is within the body, 
 that utters its voice in these rapt hours. Love 
 unhallowed, love unsanctified by our laws, is love 
 still; the song is still a song, although we follow 
 it to shipwreck; but he who loves wholly and 
 bravely cleanses the thing he loves, and takes it 
 within his heart inviolable and undefiled. The 
 half-hearted may halt and quaver, and calculate 
 the cost, and hold themselves back on the evidence 
 of eyes that take the world s view; they have 
 their reward. They escape some of the fires and 
 punishments with which our wandering destinies 
 are beset; they stay without the ring of barbed 
 sorrows that are planted about the gardens where 
 grows the eternal fruit. They march with the 
 wise and prudent, that good company who keep 
 the standards of life flying; but they forego the 
 knowledge of things that are revealed to babes- 
 239
 
 240 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 Nature s children ! They are of the whole-minded, 
 the hot-hearted; they stumble along a difficult 
 path, not seldom a lonely one, often a dim track 
 that promises nothing but the fruit of going on, 
 and denies them the ease and company on the 
 broad road worn by many feet. Yet they too have 
 their reward. 
 
 Ho thought of hesitation was in Kichard s mind 
 that night; no scruple, or souring, jealous whis 
 per of a past that was not his, and that was 
 nameless in the presence of his love, withheld him 
 from the joy offered him by. the Pates; he did 
 not even consider the terms on which it was 
 offered, but received it with the gratitude of his 
 whole heart. All day long he had been conscious 
 of the pagan spirit that seemed to be native in 
 the forest; all day long, as Toni had drawn to 
 him, and begun to look with tenderness into his 
 eyes, he had felt the heavenly certainty of happi 
 ness within him. The gravity and quietness that 
 had fallen upon her, the starry lights that visited 
 in her eyes, the little involuntary shivers of her 
 body when he had touched her, all spoke of the 
 influence of the same great spirit that had thrown 
 its charm over them. 
 
 He opened his window softly, and stepped out 
 on the dewy grass. Black lay the garden under 
 the great sombre trees, and silent; for the night 
 ingales hushed their song even at the light sound 
 of his footstep. Softly he walked across the fra-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 241 
 
 grant darkness to where a light glimmered in the 
 pavilion, and tapped at Toni s window. In a 
 moment she was there, opened it, and stood with- 
 a smile of welcome on her face, her finger on her 
 lips enjoining silence. He stole in and folded her 
 in his arms, and felt her body thrill like a fiddle- 
 string to the touch of the bow. She lifted her 
 head from his shoulder, and looked out into the 
 night. 
 
 " Oh, my dear," she whispered, " it is sweet in 
 the garden ! " 
 
 " Come," he said, and wrapped her in an over 
 coat he had lent her to serve as a dressing-gown. 
 
 They stole out again into the darkness, and sat 
 down on a wooden step beside the lawn. " Now 
 listen," he said. The silence was complete; they 
 could hear each other breathing. Not a leaf 
 stirred, not a sigh sounded in the blackness. 
 
 Then, a few low sweet notes first, and a trial 
 trill or two, began the song of the nightingale. 
 Louder and louder, fuller and sweeter, the invis 
 ible bird of passion unrolled his endless silver 
 banner of song that flowed out upon the silence 
 and darkness, and seemed to fall in festoons about 
 them. He paused in the full tide of music; 
 another voice from another tree answered him; 
 and so singing, so answering, the unearthly anti- 
 phon went on. On the fleeting river of the hours 
 its music fell like the lapse of rain-drops on a 
 stream; it bore them away into the silence and
 
 242 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 darkness; and still the melodious sobbings and 
 chucklings, those unrecordable turns and trills, 
 kept dropping into the night, as though all the 
 kisses of happy dead lovers since the world began 
 were falling back into the world in song. 
 
 A small, awed voice spoke into Bichard s. ear. 
 " Ah, how beautiful ! They call one to another ! " 
 He could not see her ; the witchery of the moment 
 held him even from words; but his lips sought 
 hers, and clung to them while the rapturous birds 
 fluted their endless song. 
 
 Once in the night she whispered in his ear: 
 " Why, oh, why do you love me so much ? " And 
 when his lips sought her cheek to answer her with 
 a kiss, he found it wet with tears. 
 
 " little Toni," he whispered, passionately, 
 " my love, my dear sweet one, why do you cry ? 
 We love each other, we love each other, we are 
 happy ! " 
 
 " Vhat ? " questioned the tremulous voice. 
 " Happy, my dear ? Oh, happy is not for me ! 
 Only a little while to forget, my dear, dear boy; 
 only a little while to forget, while your love is 
 so good to me ! " 
 
 And together they forgot. To Richard at any 
 rate there was all the world, earth and heaven, 
 now and hereafter, in the sweet responding woman 
 whose heart beat against his. So sweet she looked 
 in the faint beams of the night light! So fair
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 243 
 
 and young and tender the face that blushed under 
 his kisses, so pure the perfect breast of snow that 
 rose and fell so gently when she slept in his arms ! 
 A little while to forget: perhaps Toni said the 
 last word on passionate love in that cry of a mis 
 used heart. A little while to lose oneself, a little 
 while to steep the soul in forgetfulness of itself, 
 and to drown it in the sea of kindness that ebbs 
 and flows between two hearts. A little while, at 
 any rate, of the best we can know or imagine; a 
 little while, before we drink of the dark river, and 
 forget once and for all. Pure, happy women, be 
 a little kind to her in your hearts.
 
 VII 
 
 IN a private room of a small restaurant in the 
 Eue d Antin a party of six were seated at 
 dinner. The four ladies were dressed with an 
 elaborateness evidently designed for more public 
 scenes; but they carried their gaiety with them 
 wherever they went, and the little room resounded 
 with chatter and laughter. A dominating voice 
 rose above the commotion. 
 
 " Here, garsong ! Vennay ! Apportay moi some 
 more of that keska-say-ka-sah ! That twirly stuff 
 with the sauce. I m a divvle at French ! Com- 
 prenay? What? Oh, you go home to mother. 
 Here, John, tell him what I want, there s a good 
 boy. My visit to the seaside s given me an appe 
 tite, or else it s the state bedroom. I say, girls, 
 what ll the others say when I tell them I ve been 
 lying in state, eh ? Keska-say-ka-sah ? " 
 
 Matilda, returned from pastoral scenes, and 
 somewhat rejuvenated by the ministrations of her 
 hair-dresser in the afternoon, was presiding over 
 what was intended to be a farewell gathering of 
 the Barbizon party. Although they had only been 
 there for twenty-four hours, the visit had gone off 
 244
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 245 
 
 with such eclat that it had already been rubricated 
 in the calendar of their lives, and had made old 
 friends of them all. They had come back together 
 after an early lunch, and Eichard and Lauder had 
 then left their three guests at their hotel for pur 
 poses of repose and decoration while they them 
 selves went off to the Tuileries gardens, to sit 
 among the chirping sparrows, and talk. Since 
 they had met the train at Melun the day before, 
 they had hardly been alone together for a moment ; 
 yet so much seemed to have happened that they 
 eyed each other a little doubtfully perhaps for 
 the first time in their acquaintance. The spell 
 was broken by Lauder taking a sovereign out of 
 his pocket and handing it solemnly to Eichard. 
 They looked at one another and laughed. 
 
 " This is all very well, Eichard," said Lauder, 
 "but it can t go on indefinitely. I must protest. 
 I can well believe that you intend to saddle your 
 self with Toni for the rest of your life, and I m 
 quite willing to be agreeable to Elsa for as long 
 as you please; but I will not carry Matilda about 
 with me ! " 
 
 " You impose upon me no longer, Lauder. You 
 are full of wise counsels, I admit, but it is you 
 all the time who keep things going. Who sug 
 gested Barbizon ? Who said, ( Why not ask them 
 down? Who offered Matilda the hospitality of 
 the whole village? And who suggested a dinner 
 party to-night? As for Matilda, I think her won-
 
 246 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 derful and inimitable. What would our party 
 have been without her?" 
 
 " Perhaps you are right ; we are certainly lucky 
 in our friends. Isn t it odd that we should have 
 found three such exceptions, who nevertheless 
 make up among them everything that is repre 
 sentative of their life? They are none of them 
 French, and don t even live in France; yet one 
 has to come to France to meet them. It is ex 
 traordinarily interesting, and since we are inter 
 ested for the moment in this particular world, I m 
 glad we met them. But " 
 
 "Well, but what?" 
 
 " Well, take care ; that s all. You re young, and 
 learning is a delightful pastime; but the things 
 one learns in youth are apt to go to one s heart." 
 
 " And the things one learns in age go to one s 
 head, I suppose?" 
 
 " Very well ; I m always delighted to laugh. 
 And a propos of your studies, let us pursue them 
 by all means to-night ; and I think, if we mean to 
 do this thing artistically, we ll go back to London 
 as we intended to-morrow morning ? " 
 
 " I dare say we shall have had enough by then," 
 said Eichard ; " anyhow we can see when the time 
 comes." And in the rest of their talk, which was 
 concerned with that retrospective analysis which 
 forms part of any pleasure shared by those who 
 are really friends, there was much discussion of 
 Matilda, and of Elsa, and of the party as a whole;
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 247 
 
 but Toni was not very often mentioned. Eichard 
 was so full of her that, whatever the subject, his 
 talk was really of her; but when he spoke of her 
 directly he was not natural, and affected a critical 
 detachment of mind which was highly illuminat 
 ing to his friend. Lauder was far too much a 
 man of the world to feel either responsibility or 
 anxiety as to the actions of other people; and 
 he was more interested than worried by Eichard s 
 headlong plunge into what, with a nature so 
 thorough as his, might cause a serious disturbance 
 and schism of his life. On the other hand, he 
 knew the quality of his friend s character, and 
 that nothing from without could ultimately do 
 him any real damage. But as they separated and 
 he went to his room to dress, he felt, almost for 
 the first time in his life, a little old; and the 
 thought that he was beyond, or had outgrown, 
 anything under the sun, seized him with a mo 
 mentary panic. 
 
 "... And I tell you, my dear, I enjoy it 
 oh, ever so much ! If only I had had some things 
 with me, we could have stayed a little longer 
 you and I alone, my dear. Vhat? Listen; we 
 could have sent the others away, and we should 
 have gone off into the forest and listened to the 
 birds all alone, you and I, my dear; and then 
 we should have come back, and had dinner in the 
 garden all alone, you and I ! And whisper
 
 248 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 . . . oh, how naughty we should have been, and 
 how happy ! " 
 
 They were sitting hand in hand at one end of 
 the table, a little drawn apart from the others, 
 the cigarette smoke wreathing about them, the 
 white cloth bare but for the coffee-cups and flasks 
 of liqueur. For her two days of plain dress Toni 
 had this evening indemnified herself by a toilet 
 of perfect daintiness and butterfly unreality. To 
 Richard, intoxicated by her presence and her 
 touch, she appeared in an indefinite cloud of the 
 palest, flimsiest cobweb gray. Dusted with dia 
 mond star points, warmed by the lustre of her 
 burnished skin, and crowned by the low sweep of 
 tawny hair between forehead and drooping hat, 
 she was as lovely as a flower whose petals the sea- 
 wind tosses, and whose lithe stem yields to and 
 springs back from his salt strength. For Eichard 
 she had the added and transcendent charm of a 
 loved woman possessed; her beauty had golden 
 memories as well as promises for him. 
 
 Lauder from his end of the table where he 
 sat enveloped in the conversation of Matilda and 
 Elsa, and of another girl whom, with characteristic 
 thoughtlessness and kindness they had brought 
 with them "because she was staying with us in 
 the hotel, and we didn t like to leave her alone " 
 glanced now and then at Eichard and Toni 
 through the veil of cigarette smoke. Eichard was 
 perfectly absorbed. His rather sallow face, with
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 249 
 
 its strong lean jaw and dark glowing eyes, made 
 a perfect contrast to Toni s vital, vibrating charm ; 
 there was even something proper and inevitable 
 in the conjunction of these two creatures, both so 
 young at heart, so full of curiosity about each 
 other, and yet both presumably old enough to 
 accept their pleasure in each other on its true 
 terms. But Lauder had not much time or atten 
 tion to spare for them. He was kept busy by the 
 strident and yet somewhat tolerable vulgarities of 
 Matilda; and he was absorbed by a change that 
 had come over Elsa, who seemed to have put on 
 with her elaborate gown and jewelry a nature dif 
 ferent from the directness and simple-heartedness 
 she had shown to him at Barbizon. There was a 
 note of recklessness and exaggeration in her gaiety 
 which did not suit well with her kind, tender eyes. 
 She surrounded Lauder with a hundred gracious 
 attentions; built up around him a little fabric of 
 kindness, and then knocked it to pieces by some 
 random or reckless expression. Upon Matilda, 
 whose mind still dwelt in state chambers, uttering 
 some appreciation of Barbizon, she broke in: 
 
 " Oh, Barbizon is all very well, but it s a little 
 too dull for me. One gets enough dismal and 
 quiet days in London, Heaven knows! The Cafe 
 de Paris, or the Eat Mort that s what I like; 
 lots of fun and music and lights and excitement ! " 
 
 " You didn t seem to miss them yesterday," said 
 Lauder.
 
 250 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " Well, of course not, you silly ; I was very 
 happy. But after all, this is the real thing, isn t 
 it ? " and she looked at him with a flashing 
 smile that puzzled even the astute Lauder. All 
 he knew was that she was a woman tormented by 
 all her circumstances; and yet when he saw how 
 patiently and with how little apparent discomfort 
 she listened to Matilda s gross nonsense, and how 
 calmly she heard the interminable bubbling prattle 
 of Toni, he marvelled not a little that she should 
 be capable of so much acquiescence. 
 
 The sixth member of the party was one Marie, 
 a French girl, a regular frequenter of the smart 
 cafes, a stereotyped edition of the Parisian cocotte. 
 She spoke English, in deference to the company, 
 and spoke it very ill; her chief topic of conversa 
 tion being her " mudder," whom she had either 
 seen the day before, or was going to see the next 
 day no one could make out which. Dull, 
 phlegmatic, animal, she was in her hours of ease 
 a far from interesting person; yet she too had a 
 social merit most surprising to the ordinary ex 
 pectation the merit of self-effacement, of a 
 modest gratitude at being entertained where she 
 had so little claim, and was so obviously an out 
 sider. She ate and drank everything that was 
 given her; smiled benignly on every one; and, 
 except when regaling the company with anecdotes 
 of her "mudder," kept an amiable silence. 
 
 But beneath the social veneer of this odd dinner-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 251 
 
 party lay the savage grain of the half-world. In 
 a pause of the conversation at his own end of the 
 table, Lander turned to Eichard and Toni, and 
 found that they were evidently talking of him. 
 Toni smiled and nodded her little head at him 
 till the flowers in her hat danced. 
 
 " I like you, John, my dear," she said ; " we 
 both say we like you very much. Only this silly 
 boy say I must not like you too much. I think 
 I give him a lesson: come here and give me a 
 kiss." 
 
 They all three laughed; but Elsa, with an up 
 ward jerk of her chin, said to Lauder: 
 
 " If you kiss her I ll walk right out of the 
 room." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense," said Lauder, sharply. He re 
 sented the threat, and its tone; it was, he felt, 
 unseemly ; it was not in the spirit of the evening ; 
 it put too serious a color on the butterfly hues of 
 their friendship. "Why, my dear Toni, that s 
 very nice of you," he said, turning to her laugh 
 ingly ; " I think you owe me something, you know ; 
 you hardly speak a word to me." She got up, 
 leaned over him, and kissed him on the cheek, still 
 laughing. In a flash Elsa got up, took her opera- 
 cloak from the chair where it was lying, and 
 rustled out of the room. Eichard looked after her, 
 puzzled ; Lauder did not move ; Toni burst into a 
 merry peal of laughter. 
 
 " Silly ! " she said; " she s only in fun."
 
 252 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 But the watchful Matilda, anxious above all 
 things for peace and conviviality, was of another 
 mind. 
 
 " You don t know her," she said to Lauder ; 
 " she s always up to some nonsense. Live and let 
 live, I say. Of course you did it in fun, but what s 
 the good of spoiling your dinner because of a 
 kiss? / don t go about kissing every one, do I? 
 And yet I m as fond of it as any one," added the 
 dame, ruefully. " You go after her and make it 
 up." 
 
 " Oh, dear, no," said Lauder ; " I never do that. 
 If she wants to come back she ll come ; if not, I d 
 rather she would go where she wants to go." 
 
 Marie, who was Elsa s friend, got up and said: 
 " I go for her, I bring her back." 
 
 "Oh, don t be silly," said Toni; "she ll come 
 back herself. Why is she such a fool as to go, 
 my dear ? Leave her alone ! " 
 
 Marie turned upon her a face of sudden ani 
 mosity. " If it had been me," she said, " I would 
 not haf gone, I would have scratch your face ! I 
 go for her ! " 
 
 Toni smiled, eying Marie, however, with no 
 friendly regard. " They are all fools," she said, 
 turning to Kichard, who was beginning to feel 
 wretched at the prospect of a row. " My dear, I 
 always do vhat I like; if other peoples not like 
 it they vhat you say ? lump it ! " And he 
 felt that what she said was true. There was about
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 253 
 
 her a magnificent, spoilt impudence that did not 
 fear to offend or mortify any one. She went to 
 a piano that was in a corner of the room, and 
 began to play and sing a little song, in the 
 midst of which Marie returned with Elsa, who 
 walked up to Lauder, made a feint of boxing his 
 ears, and sat down again as if the whole thing 
 had been a joke which was finished. And she 
 joined in the applause when Toni had finished 
 her song. The whole incident, which was for 
 gotten at once by those chiefly concerned, made 
 a lasting impression on Eichard, giving him a 
 sense of discomfort and even of insecurity in his 
 new-found happiness. To be plunged thus sud 
 denly out of friendship and conviviality into 
 strife and discord, and the moment after to see 
 complete harmony restored, was to realize how 
 unstable are the foundations of the anti-social 
 life how incoherent its elements, how apt for 
 disintegration. He remembered the scene of the 
 overturned table in the Eat Mort, and the scissors 
 in the Bal Tabarin; and he seemed to see the 
 whole of this world of pleasure minuetting upon a 
 treacherous floor of false polish and pretence. 
 The sea of life upon which civilization keeps afloat 
 in the iron and oak of its conventions is here 
 frozen thinly over for the dance on its surface; 
 a pause in the dance, a too intimate congregation 
 of the dancers, too much weight on the flimsy 
 surface, and, crack! down you go for a souse in
 
 254 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 cold realities, with no social craft to save. To 
 keep skating, thought Richard, is the only chance 
 a thing pleasant enough as a pastime, and 
 before it has become a life sentence. 
 
 The dinner was a great success, however; every 
 one admitted that; and as the ladies knew noth 
 ing of Paris except a few milliners shops and 
 raffish cafes, it was decided to show them a little 
 of Montmartre. The Cabaret des Neants, in par 
 ticular, appealed to their imagination, and they 
 sallied out in high expectation. It was a lovely, 
 warm night, and Lauder proposed that they should 
 walk. As Toni and Elsa, the autocrats of the 
 party, both agreed, the thing was carried in spite 
 of Matilda s mild protests; and they set out two 
 by two Richard and Toni in front, Lauder with 
 Elsa, and Matilda with Marie. 
 
 This disposition was unfortunate, for it cut off 
 Matilda from the centre of interest, and gave her 
 time to consider that to be made to walk was an 
 indignity for her. The quartette in front were far 
 too deeply absorbed to think of her, and they 
 crossed the boulevards and took the hill at a fair 
 pace. The result was that when they arrived at 
 the Place Pigalle and waited under the trees, it 
 was a ruffled and distempered dame who greeted 
 them. 
 
 " Here, steady on ! " she panted, " are we out 
 for a pleasant evening, or are we on a race-course ? 
 Because I m not entered for any more events. Oh,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 255 
 
 it s all very well," she continued when they laugh 
 ingly attempted to soothe her ; " but I m hot, and 
 out of breath, and I ve got corns, and all this 
 romantic under-the-moon business doesn t amuse 
 me. Not for Jo ! I m not doing any turtle-dove 
 business," she said, eying Toni and Elsa con 
 temptuously ; " and if it amuses you, it doesn t 
 me, that s all. I was just feeling nice and com 
 fortable after dinner, and now I m all anyhow ! " 
 
 " Come, Matilda, you mustn t spoil our happy 
 party," said Eichard ; " we want to show you the 
 corpses. Keska-say-ka-sah ? " 
 
 " Oh, you go on ! " said the dame, a little mol 
 lified; "you re daft, you are. Well, come on, 
 then; I suppose we can get a drink at this place 
 of worship ? " 
 
 They crossed the road and entered the Cabaret 
 des Neants that sordid little place so well 
 known to travelling Americans and to the natives 
 of Montmartre, but comparatively little known to 
 Englishmen and ordinary Parisians. The place 
 was dimly lit by tapers, and revealed perhaps half 
 a dozen coffins of polished wood supported on 
 trestles, tapers stuck in the lids, a bench on either 
 side for the accommodation of guests. Their en 
 trance was greeted by a dismal intoning on the 
 part of two or three of the half-dozen waiters 
 dressed in the black livery of mutes, who began 
 to chant the De Profundis. Out of the lighted 
 street, busy with its evening traffic of pleasure,
 
 256 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 into this ghastly and funereal parody was but a 
 step; yet it was enough to shock the whole of 
 the party into a momentary unpleasant silence. 
 They took their places, not without superstitious 
 shudderings, around a vacant coffin, and one of 
 the waiters came to receive their orders. The 
 place was filling up, and as each new arrival was 
 ushered in by the porter, the mutes had to break 
 off their traffic in beer and money to take up the 
 plain chant. 
 
 " Un franc le verre, m sieu," one of them was 
 saying to Lauder; "" six francs cinquante merci, 
 m sieu;" and then, as the door opened, raising 
 his voice to a nasal whine, " voici-les-morts 
 De pro-fund-is Dom-in-e clam Void, m sieu, 
 asseyez-vous la, s il vous plait!" and on again 
 with the counting of change and serving of beer. 
 
 Suddenly Elsa jumped up. " I can t stand it/ 
 she said ; " I m going out." She had turned 
 rather white; and indeed there was a musty at 
 mosphere about the place that was unpleasantly 
 appropriate. " I ll go with you," said Lauder ; 
 " we ll wait on a seat under the trees for the 
 others." Matilda glowered for a moment at this 
 defection; but the interest of her own sensations 
 became too much for her, and she was soon busy 
 listening and looking. When the dismal little 
 room was full, the door was shut and the first part 
 of the entertainment began. The dim light of the 
 tapers on the coffins was obscure enough to assist
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 257 
 
 the cheap optical illusion by which the pictures 
 were seen to fade and change from life to death. 
 Skulls glimmered from corners of the ceiling; 
 and in one oil-painting on the walls a man and 
 a girl seated together at a supper-table turned, 
 when the lights were manipulated behind them, 
 into grinning skeletons. It was memento mori 
 written with a bibulous tremor; and Eichard, 
 who had often enough heard of the place, was 
 appalled by the triteness and vulgarity of the spec 
 tacle. The waiter-mutes, with their play-acting 
 chant, the coffins and trestles, the whole game 
 played with the properties of an undertaker s 
 shop, and with the sexual undercurrent which ia 
 inseparable from any Paris entertainment, was 
 like some nasty sport of vicious and overgrown 
 children. Matilda was quite unimpressed; she 
 kept up a running commentary, more or less per 
 tinent, and more or less within the border-line of 
 Montmartre propriety. Toni sat by Richard s 
 side perfectly quiet, extremely interested, and ob 
 serving the performance with that merciless, at> 
 tentive scrutiny which she turned on anything 
 new. It was impossible for Richard to guess 
 whether she was pleased or not; only when they 
 had crowded through the musty narrow passages 
 that led to the vault in the rear of the building, 
 and were at last seated in the damp, ill-smelling, 
 and gloomy cavern, listening to the strain of Dies 
 Irce wheezed out on an old harmonium, she slipped
 
 258 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 her hand into his and pressed close to him. She 
 gathered her dainty skirts off the ground, and by 
 the dim light Richard saw her looking up into 
 his face with a dismayed and almost tearful ex 
 pression in her eyes. 
 
 " What is it, little one ? " he whispered. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, it is so sad, solemn ; br-r-r-r, 
 it makes me so shudder ! And oh, my dear, do you 
 think there are beetles?" 
 
 She was only half-reassured by his laughing 
 reply; but fortunately her attention was at this 
 moment attracted to the little stage, with its open 
 coffin standing on end, into which the usual young 
 man from the audience was presently induced to 
 mount. There was a day when the ghastly illu 
 sion by which the features of the person standing 
 there are seen to melt and dissolve, his body fade 
 and become blurred, and the figure of laughing 
 and dissipated youth slowly turn into a skeleton, 
 was novel enough to strike terror into the breasts 
 of the audience; but every one is familiar with 
 such optical trickery now, and the sight was 
 merely ugly, and not at all disturbing except to 
 the friends of the young man. Then came a 
 series of more illusions, practical jokes played on 
 members of the audience who were foolish enough 
 to go on to the platform, on which, themselves 
 unconsciously seated on a chair and wondering 
 when the joke was going to begin, they appeared 
 to the audience to be undressing, or going through
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 259 
 
 other evolutions some of them cruelly indecent. 
 At these last Matilda clapped her hands and 
 laughed until the tears came and endangered her 
 complexion; but Toni was unconsciously taking 
 on Eichard s color, and was a little revolted. 
 
 " No, my dear," she said, as they crowded out 
 again through the dark passages, " I do not like 
 it. Things funny I like, and things naughty I 
 like, and things pretty I like, but that no, my 
 dear, it make me want to hold my nose. Ugly! 
 Oh, how I hat e ugly things ! " But she had been 
 sobered and impressed more than she realized; 
 and she charmed Eichard by showing a kind of 
 submissive fondness for him, a desire to touch 
 his hand and keep close to him that was very 
 foreign to her usual impersonal detachment and 
 independence. 
 
 They found Lauder and Elsa seated under the 
 trees outside; and as Matilda s good humor was 
 now quite restored the party resumed its friendly 
 and harmonious atmosphere. Marie met a friend 
 outside the Cafe Cyrano, and disappeared from 
 their ken ; the others wandered along through the 
 summer night looking in, now at a cafe to satisfy 
 some momentary whim of appetite, now at a cab 
 aret crowded with a motley, staring throng of 
 Montmartre sightseers. Thus they visited the 
 Cabarets de VEnfer and du del, the heaven and 
 hell of childhood, with their devils and red fire, 
 angels and gold paint, blue heaven or smoking
 
 260 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 pit-mouth. Thus they visited the cabaret of Aris- 
 tide Bruant, and were received upon their en 
 trance with somewhat threadbare witticisms, and 
 listened for a few minutes to the monologue of 
 the perspiring entertainer, who was wearing, with 
 a far from happy grace, the mantle of the witty 
 Aristide. The night, as Richard looked back upon 
 it, was a blurred remembrance of pleasant, desul 
 tory strolling through streets where the lamplight 
 shone on the chestnut leaves, of occasional dives 
 into the monkey-house atmosphere of a cabaret, 
 and joyful returning to breathe the balmy night 
 air; of the continual ordering of Bocks which 
 nobody drank, and paying admission fees for 
 sights which nobody looked at; of a thread of 
 laughter upon which were strung brilliant, unre- 
 membered witticisms; of a golden atmosphere of 
 youthful happiness, good nature, and the joy of 
 life in which these five appeared as the most 
 wonderful people that had ever lived, who said 
 and did things far more interesting than the rest 
 of the world. 
 
 Two hours later Lauder and Elsa, Richard and 
 Toni, were driving homewards. They had all gone 
 for supper to the Rat Mort, where the arrival of 
 some famous cocotte from some German watering- 
 place had provided the evening s sensation of in 
 terest for the curious community that frequents 
 the restaurant on the hill. Matilda, however, had
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 261 
 
 been struck with sudden misgivings lest she should 
 be behaving too respectably, and so damaging her 
 reputation; and she had indulged in so much 
 Kirsch, and had gambolled in the Rat Mort with 
 so much vivacity, that the others had been glad 
 to comply with her wish and leave her there, the 
 centre of an area of explosive laughter. Even in 
 that moment she was not intolerable; as Lauder 
 had once said of her, " she was never the worse for 
 drink, but often the better." Her last word had 
 been, as she balanced herself at the top of the 
 stairs " Well, so long, boys ! Look me up in 
 London. The old address, you know. Bucking 
 ham Palace ll always find me. Keska-say-ka- 
 sah?" 
 
 But although they left early, chiefly out of con 
 sideration for Lauder, who pleaded his early start 
 for London next day, the atmosphere of the Rat 
 Mort had had its effect upon Toni. She was her 
 self again; she shone and sparkled and rattled 
 with an energetic frivolity that drew many admir 
 ing eyes on her. She had not been entirely pleased 
 at leaving the Rat Mort while the noise there was 
 still at its height; and now, as they drew near 
 to the Opera, she made one of her sudden de 
 mands. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, clapping her hands, " let us 
 go to the Cafe Americain ! It s only three o clock, 
 my dear ; don t let us go home yet ! It s so stupid. 
 I tell you vhat; we all four go to the Americain
 
 262 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 such fun, and such clever dancing they have 
 there. Come along/ she pouted. 
 
 "Why not?" said Elsa to Lauder. "It s our 
 last night what does half an hour matter ? " So 
 the driver was redirected, and in a few minutes they 
 were seated in a corner of the Cafe Americain, 
 amid plush and mirrors, looking down the long 
 room and listening to the dance music of the inev 
 itable red-coated band. Toni immediately felt 
 hungry, and chose an expensive dish from the 
 menu; a watchful attendant came and offered 
 the men two huge bouquets of flowers, which of 
 course had to be bought not because any one 
 really wanted them, but because they were expen 
 sive. So they sat for a little looking down that 
 strange first-floor room, with its strange, silent 
 couples sitting at the many tables, until a sudden 
 unpleasant sense of its sombreness struck Eichard. 
 It was the first time that, in any of the many 
 places devoted to folly and dissipation which they 
 had visited, he had been aware of any impression 
 of evil; but here, where there was apparently 
 nothing to suggest it, it came suddenly home to 
 him. A few tables, perhaps a score of people 
 having supper quietly at them; every one very 
 well dressed and very well behaved; the whole 
 flooded with light from well-shaded, scarlet lamps, 
 and music from the scarlet band what was the 
 matter with it, and whence came its sinister im 
 pression? There was the usual entertainment
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 263 
 
 in the form of dances provided by two Spaniards 
 very ordinary Spanish dances and very well 
 danced; there was not the smallest suggestion 
 of impropriety in the place that night, from the 
 bland and episcopal assiduity of the head waiter 
 to the last eyelash of the most expensively dressed 
 woman there; and yet, in its very quietness and 
 decorum, in the statuesque, immobile faces of the 
 women, with their oblique, unflinching eyes, their 
 polished hair, their drooping hats and gems drip 
 ping fire, there lurked the very essence of evil. 
 Suddenly Eichard remembered that it was day 
 in the world outside; that somewhere the birds 
 were waking and beginning to sing, or flying to 
 dip and flutter their plumes in the sky-reflecting 
 water ; that somewhere the sun-shadows were lying 
 long on dewy lawns, somewhere the sea-foam was 
 breaking pink and gold in the early shine. And 
 here the close-shut curtains, the crimson light, the 
 white satin and jewelry, the coiling smoke, the 
 shining, sphinxlike eyes, the unending glint and 
 bubble of wine ! A man sitting alone at a neigh 
 boring table caught Eichard s eye, and smiled at 
 him with a silly, hateful smile; and with that 
 detestable greeting there went through his frame 
 a shudder of revolt. He- turned to Toni, and 
 suddenly his impression changed, and he saw a 
 meaning in the whole elaborate scene. She was 
 leaning forward with her elbows on the table, 
 her eyes shining and dancing with interest, her
 
 264 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 pretty hair, in its loose unstudied coils looping 
 loose over her forehead eagerness, youth, vital 
 ity, beauty in every feature. The room became 
 merely a setting for her, the people there lay 
 figures and dummies; and while his eyes rested 
 on her Richard knew that he wished to be nowhere 
 else. And suddenly she turned and met his gaze; 
 smiled first, and then continued to look at him 
 with a beautiful ardor that set his senses swim 
 ming. A mist seemed to veil his eyes; she threw 
 her cigarette down, put her hand in his, and whis 
 pered, " Let us go home/ 
 
 Lauder stood at Elsa s door and held out his 
 hand. 
 
 " Good-by, Elsa," he said ; " you have been 
 charming to me." He spoke without emotion, and 
 with a polite smile on his rather tired face. She 
 looked haggard and beautiful, and carried off 
 easily the effect of her extravagant dragging land 
 scape gown and picture hat. She looked down 
 now, breathing quickly. Lauder, who dreaded 
 emotion as one fears infection, had overdone his 
 reserve, and brought about the very result he had 
 hoped to avoid. 
 
 " Have you nothing more to say ? " the girl 
 broke out, suddenly throwing up her head and look 
 ing at him from under her long lashes. " I don t 
 think it s very nice of you to leave me like this, 
 after all we ve said to one another." She opened
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 265 
 
 her door. " Come in here," she said with an im 
 perious gesture; and then, as Lauder hesitated 
 " oh, don t be ridiculous ; I won t eat you ! " 
 
 Lauder flushed a little, pricked by the element 
 of absurdity in his reluctance, and followed her. 
 She shut the door, sank into a chair, and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 For once he felt rather helpless, being now in 
 a highly false position; and he did not improve 
 matters by putting out his hand and stroking 
 her cheek in a frigid and paternal attitude. At 
 his touch she sprang out of the chair and stood 
 confronting him with flashing eyes. 
 
 " Don t dare to touch me ! " she cried, dashing 
 her tears from her eyes. " I hate you ! Oh, how 
 I hate you, with your damned, cold, heartless face ! 
 You can have everything you want, you can come 
 and make friends with me, and then go away; 
 you haven t to turn from this to take up a life 
 you loathe and detest. Why did you ever make 
 friends with me? Why did you ever talk to me, 
 and remind me of things I ve lost and can never 
 find again? Why didn t you leave me as you 
 found me, or else " and she stopped and looked 
 at him with a new regard. " I wonder what your 
 friendship is made of," she resumed. "Am I 
 ugly? God, that I should have lived to tell a 
 man that I loved him, and to be driven off as 
 though I were infected ! Have you no feelings 
 at all?" Her voice broke again, tears swam in
 
 266 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 her eyes, and she held out her arms. " Oh, I don t 
 know what I m saying ! " she cried. " I only know 
 that I m lonely when you aren t there ! " 
 
 " Listen/ said Lauder, taking her hands in his 
 and looking into her eyes. " Don t misunderstand 
 me. You re worth six of me, and if I could help 
 you I would. You say I ve no feelings : my God, 
 do you know what you re saying? But it s my 
 curse that I ve got more than feelings, as you have 
 too. Do you think it s been easy for me to seem 
 like a bear, and an ungrateful bear at that? Do 
 you think I haven t Look here," he broke off : 
 " there s only one thing I could do with you, and 
 that s rnarry you. If I were ten years younger 
 and a fool I d do it, and we d both be miserable. 
 Well, I ve just got pluck enough not to marry 
 you do you understand that ? And I haven t 
 got pluck enough to have you on any other terms 
 do you understand that ? And so there s noth 
 ing left for you to do but say good-by to a cow 
 ardly friend, who s not even enough of a cow 
 ard!" 
 
 But she only smiled through her tears and put 
 her arms around his neck. " Come, coward ! " she 
 whispered. 
 
 He put his hands over hers where they were 
 clasped on his neck. " ISTo, no, no ! " he said with 
 a shaking voice; "you will at least have one 
 friend who thought that much of you." 
 
 She broke away from him, and suddenly flung
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 267 
 
 herself on the bed weeping. He stood irresolute 
 for a moment, and then went to the bed, knelt 
 beside it, and put his arms about her. Her lovely 
 head fell on his shoulder, and he kissed her face 
 and comforted her with whatever words came to 
 him. As her sobs became quieter he sought to 
 disengage his arms, but she clung to him as though 
 he were some rock of refuge which she dare not 
 let go. " Only a little while," she whispered ; 
 " let me hold you like this for a little, and then 
 go ! " So they remained, their .two cheeks wet 
 by her tears, both their bodies shaken by her 
 shuddering sobs. Presently she became quieter. 
 " Now," she said, and sought his lips with hers. 
 She pressed one long kiss on them, and then, 
 quickly disengaging herself, turned on her other 
 side and buried her head in the pillow. He 
 pressed and kissed the hand that hung over the 
 bedside, and went out into the twilight of the 
 landing. Toni s rippling laugh floated up to him 
 from the floor beneath. 
 
 He found Eichard in the little sitting-room, 
 waiting with a happy face until Toni should 
 summon him. 
 
 " Hullo, old chap," said Eichard, " you look 
 tired out. Late hours don t agree with you as 
 well as with me." 
 
 " If you ve got a few minutes to spare," said 
 Lauder, "you might walk around to the hotel
 
 268 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 with me. I don t suppose we shall see each other 
 again." 
 
 " Are you really going by the 9.45 ? " said 
 Kichard, ignoring Lauder s assumption that he 
 intended to remain. They were once more in the 
 silent streets lit with the pearly light of a summer 
 morning. 
 
 " Yes, I must be in London to-morrow evening. 
 How long do you intend to stay ? " 
 
 " I don t know," said Eichard ; " a day or two 
 at the outside." He was puzzled by Lauder s 
 silence and reticence, and a little resentful that 
 his own affairs were not referred to. He wanted 
 Lauder to advise him either to go home that morn 
 ing or to stay; he did not at all like the detach 
 ment of Lauder s manner. They walked rapidly 
 to the hotel door, and there Lauder paused and 
 held out his hand. 
 
 " You ll let me know when you are coming 
 back? We can meet in town and talk over our 
 reminiscences. I dare say I shall be in Cornwall 
 again later." 
 
 " Hang it, Lauder, I hardly seem to have spoken 
 to you for days we ve been so much occupied. 
 I wish you wouldn t hurry away like this. Can t 
 you really stay for a day or two ? " 
 
 " No, I must be back ; you remember, to-mor 
 row was the day we intended to return all along. 
 And I don t know that I particularly want to
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 269 
 
 stay/ he added, smiling. " You know my theory 
 about anti-climaxes ! " 
 
 " I don t know what I m going to do without 
 you," said Eichard, rather weakly. " There s no 
 time to talk now, but " 
 
 " No, of course there isn t; and, besides, there s 
 nothing really very pressing to talk about, is there, 
 friend Eichard? I imagine that you will find no 
 difficulty in amusing yourself for a few days. 
 And now I won t keep you. Give my love to Toni 
 when she wakes up, and tell her that she will 
 find my farewell on her dressing-table." 
 
 " Look here ; don t make any mistake about 
 Toni. It s not well, it s not what you might 
 think it was. It s deadly serious on both sides 
 perhaps the best thing of its kind I shall ever 
 know ; and I can assure you that to devote myself 
 to her seems to me the thing absolutely most 
 worth doing in the world at this moment" 
 
 He spoke earnestly, even solemnly. Lauder put 
 his hand on his arm and looked into his face with 
 a friendly smile. 
 
 " Of course it s serious do you think you need 
 tell me that when I see you flying to her arms at 
 five o clock in the morning ? Off you go, and God 
 prosper you. And don t you, on your part, make 
 any mistake about me, dear Eichard. From the 
 bottom of my heart I envy you." 
 
 They parted there, Lauder turning into his 
 hotel, Eichard hurrying back to the Eue de Calais.
 
 270 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 His brisk footsteps echoed along the quiet, empty 
 street, until they were lost in its silence and 
 merged in the gathering rumor of life that was 
 sounding in the neighboring thoroughfares. The 
 mellow sunshine came down more golden and 
 warm, flooding unheeded past the rows and rows 
 of closed houses and shuttered windows, where 
 indoor people, prudent and foolish, virtuous and 
 vicious, just and unjust, were asleep. But under 
 the blue summer sky with its cool wisps of fleecy 
 white cloud the whole outdoor world was awake; 
 and everywhere converging on Paris, in creaking 
 cart, behind clattering hoof, in tram-car and 
 railway-train and gliding boat, or stirring the dust 
 with brave footsteps^ came in that salt tide of 
 life that streams forever past the sands and shoals 
 of pleasure, and echoes upon the rocky shores of 
 Time. Man was going forth to his work and to 
 his labor.
 
 VIII 
 
 IN" the days that followed Richard Grey tasted 
 to the full that happiness of the senses which 
 is the free portion of all those who can abandon 
 themselves to a passion without misgiving or re 
 serve. The world slipped away from him, and 
 left him alone with Toni in a glittering and en 
 chanted pavilion of pleasure, where a silent but 
 mighty machinery served and invisible hosts min 
 istered to them, while their ears were filled with 
 the music of flutes and harps. All this golden 
 unreal fabric of joy sprang into being with his 
 love for Toni, which grew with every hour he 
 spent with her, until he wondered, sometimes with 
 a shudder, what was left in the world, or what life 
 consisted of, but her. All the force and concen 
 tration of his strong nature was bent upon her, 
 so that even she was swept off her feet and carried 
 along with him in the tide of passion. It was 
 a wonderful time; and something in his heart 
 (or was it his head?) told Richard to enjoy it 
 while he could; that it was of its very nature 
 transient and fleeting; that the abiding things 
 of life were of grayer, sterner, more sombre 
 271
 
 2?2 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 fabric, and that no one could weave of this gold 
 and gossamer a garment able to stand the wear 
 and fret of real life. Perhaps he recognized that; 
 perhaps not; at any rate he threw himself with 
 ardor into the cultivation and enjoyment of this 
 new and strange gift of destiny. 
 
 How they passed the days, how many days there 
 were of passionate unclouded happiness he could 
 never remember; all he knew was that the hours 
 went to a dance, that he sunned himself in her 
 smile, delighted in and feasted on her beauty, and 
 that every trite and commonplace saying of the 
 poets was brought to pass in him. She on her 
 part, as he swept her out of herself by the sheer 
 strength of his devotion, grew more charming and 
 more happy. The little white bottle was no more 
 touched; she began to look healthier and even 
 more brilliant, and she became less feverish in her 
 pursuit of pleasure. Quieter things, shared with 
 him, interested her; and though every night was 
 as a matter of course spent at one of the smart 
 cafes which are the home or club of such as they, 
 the afternoons were spent much out-of-doors, 
 and in places where something else than vice was 
 thought of. They visited Versailles, and spent 
 a long sunny afternoon wandering in its empty 
 painted chambers, or in the stillness and dignity 
 of its great garden vistas ; they visited Chantilly, 
 St. Cloud all the outdoor expeditions within 
 reach of Paris. Somehow they kept to Paris,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 27 3 
 
 which seemed like a home to them; its great 
 bright fagades, its wide thoroughfares and busy, 
 expensive, heartless life seemed not heartless to 
 them, but kind and beneficent. Everything was 
 done as a matter of course, extravagantly; car 
 riages and motor-cars were in commission for 
 them all afternoon and half the night; and Kieh- 
 ard soon recognized, and accepted with easy acqui 
 escence, the fact that Toni was never really happy 
 unless money was being spent on her. In the 
 retrospect of these days he seemed to himself to 
 be continually paying for something, to be con 
 tinually calling mattres d liotel to bring him bills, 
 and paying them with hundred-franc notes, the 
 change out of which was too inconsiderable to be 
 taken. He even caught from Toni the trick of 
 appraising the desirability of things entirely by 
 their price in money, and of ordering by instinct 
 the most expensive. In four days he was amazed 
 to find that he had spent nearly a hundred pounds 
 how, he had no idea. After her one expression 
 of pity for what she regarded as his penurious 
 circumstances, Toni had no mercy on him or 
 rather, it never occurred to her that mercy under 
 the circumstances was a possible idea; gold was 
 as necessary to her existence as air, and must be 
 as easily forthcoming. Richard was not embar 
 rassed by his extravagance, for in his ordinary 
 quiet life he never spent any money at all, and 
 his salary went to swell a quite respectable balance
 
 274 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 at the bank; nor had it any wasting or loosening 
 effect upon him, as it might have had on some 
 men. He was much too thorough and compre 
 hensive in his ideas to give the thing a thought, 
 once he had realized that it was expected of him; 
 and though he took no great pleasure himself in 
 his new environment of highly artificial and 
 merely symbolic luxury, it was a point of honor 
 with him to provide it. He was even interested 
 and amused to see how easily money could be 
 spent, and how little there was to show for it. 
 His absorption in Toni was the crowning de 
 light and very real worth of these golden days. 
 Her strange, obscure, wonderfully fashioned, toid 
 badly flawed personality, so storm-tossed on the 
 frothy waves of pleasure, seemed for the time to 
 have came to an anchor in the calm shelter of 
 Kichard s love, like some pretty, rakish pirate 
 ship that, after long and adventurous voyages on 
 the high seas, engagements with rich merchant 
 men, capturing of dyes and silks and treasure, 
 and trafficking with spice islands, now careens in 
 the sunny quiet of some landlocked harbor. She 
 opened to him like a flower, and disclosed strange 
 treasures of brain and character, that made him 
 love her the more, and filled him at the same time 
 with a kind of passionate pity. Just as her ex 
 quisite beauty was flawed by the mouth of vampire 
 redness and cruelty, so everything in her, every 
 thought, impulse, desire, and passion she had,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 275 
 
 seemed to be flawed also. She was like some 
 fragile casket of gems, shocked or jarred by a 
 seismic disturbance, of which the rare contents 
 are found when it is opened to have suffered a 
 similar jar or damage from the shock. At first 
 Eichard was hardly conscious of the flaws he 
 was too much taken up with the discovery of 
 the treasures themselves. Her quickness of mind, 
 her absolute cleverness, were almost uncanny; for 
 some things, for basenesses, doubtful motives, any 
 thing that threatened herself or anything belong 
 ing to her, her perception was of a like quickness, 
 precise and unfailing; but for more noble quali 
 ties she had no instinct. Nevertheless she be 
 longed essentially to that intellectual minority 
 that exists like a scattered brotherhood throughout 
 the world ; she was one of those who understand ; 
 " she belongs," as Eichard had said to Lauder 
 after his first long talk with her. The wittiest 
 and profoundest man in the world would have 
 found her a delightful and fascinating companion ; 
 the most cruel would, in some of her moods, have 
 recoiled from her terrible heartlessness and raven 
 ing selfishness. Yet she was not without a heart 
 to love and be loved, and in her moments of 
 melting she was the more adorable for her former 
 coldness and detachment. When she was cold she 
 was unapproachable; when she was kind she was 
 irresistible, and she whirled Eichard continually 
 between the frigid pole of abstinence and the very
 
 276 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 equator of passion. When they came home to 
 gether she would sometimes torment him by 
 coldness and aloofness, telling him that she was 
 tired and must be left alone, and so dismiss him; 
 only to come into his room half an hour afterward 
 and yield herself to him with the sweetest gener 
 osity and kindness. She was never immodest, 
 where modesty is a virtue; in circumstances 
 where it can be dispensed with she knew how to 
 substitute for it an abandonment so charming 
 that her lover had no difficulty in reconciling him 
 self to the change. In a word, she had the art 
 of love at her finger-tips, and knew when not to 
 practise it. No wonder if Eichard went into 
 bondage to her fascinating, changing personality; 
 no wonder if, like so many conquerors, he fell 
 into slavery to that which he had captured. But 
 so long as she was pleased and happy there was 
 no shadow on his love. 
 
 The first symptom of a change came one day 
 when, having almost exhausted his ideas of enter 
 tainment for her, Eichard thought of taking her 
 to dine at the Tour d Argent, and getting Frederic 
 to improvise a dish for her. Anything famous, 
 or that was the right thing to do, always appealed 
 to her; and as they were going to a performance 
 of "Tannhauser" (which Toni had never heard) 
 at the Opera afterward, they set out early to drive
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 277 
 
 along the riverside to the little cafe near Notre 
 Dame. 
 
 " This is nice," she said, as they drove along 
 the Quai Voltaire. " I have not been here before. 
 Vhat are all those little boats doing? Vhat? 
 Oh, I love to go in a boat, Richard, my dear; let 
 us get a boat and sail on the river, vhat? Not 
 for sail. Well, then, we go somewhere to-mor 
 row where we sail. Oh, how hungry I am ! Do 
 I look nice? Vhat, you like my frock? Good 
 boy, you are beginning to learn something. You 
 teach me many things; I teach you somesings 
 too; I teach you not to admire cheap frocks or 
 bad style Vhat ? I make you laugh at your 
 English ladies with all their lace and colors and 
 bad finish to everysings." 
 
 " Why, you vain little peacock, you think nobody 
 knows how to look nice but yourself ! " 
 
 " You are nearer right than you think, my 
 dear. You say exactly the right word. Lots of 
 womens is nice; lots of womens can look nice; 
 not so many know how to look nice ! But vhere 
 are we going? This is a vhat you say? low 
 neighborhood, slum, shabby. I thought this cafe 
 was a famous place, vhat ? " 
 
 "Yes, so it is; all the Americans go there; 
 they " 
 
 " Oh, my dear," broke in Toni, going off at a 
 tangent ; " I tell you somesings so funny. The 
 Americans how they make me laugh. An
 
 278 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 American I meet once at Biarritz, he say to me, 
 Toni, he say, I give " 
 
 " Toni ! " 
 
 "Vhat?" 
 
 " Don t talk of such things ; you promised not 
 to. I hate to be reminded of them/ 
 
 " Silly boy ! You are, vhat you say ? senti 
 mental. Poor boy ! " she continued with diabolical 
 intention, "he like to pretend he is the only 
 person Toni has ever spoken to. And all the time 
 
 oh, you make me laugh ! " And she did 
 laugh, her clear, ringing, rather heartless laugh. 
 
 Richard s brow darkened. " Hang it, Toni, 
 there are decencies, anyhow. You might have the 
 grace not to mention the others to me. One would 
 think you were proud of them." 
 
 He spoke with the intention of making her 
 ashamed, forgetting, for the moment, the perfect 
 justice of her views on such matters. 
 
 " Proud ? I don t understand, my dear. Vhy 
 should I be proud, or not proud? It has nothing 
 to do with proud. It is my business, my dear, as 
 you very well know. That is my business, and 
 you are, well, you are my vhat? my play 
 time ! No one is proud of his business, but I " 
 
 she slipped her hand into his and looked side 
 ways at him with a conciliating smile "I am, 
 oil, so proud of my playtime. I love my play 
 time !" 
 
 " Toni, dearest, don t say it s only play. Tell
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 279 
 
 me it s earnest, dead earnest; tell me you love 
 me in earnest." 
 
 " Silly boy ! I tell you no such nonsense. You 
 speak too seriously, when you ought to speak 
 how you say? on surface. The surface is a good 
 place for talking before dinner, my dear; some 
 other time I go underneath and show you in 
 stead of tell you. Vhat?" 
 
 The cloud passed, but Toni returned to the sub 
 ject of their riverside drive, of which she ceased 
 to approve. As they approached Notre Dame the 
 picturesqueness of the neighborhood lost its charm 
 for her, and she began to criticize it from the 
 point of view of fashion. 
 
 " Look here, my dear, I tell you, no chic people 
 will come here. Vhat? I don t believe it, my 
 dear. Look, there are no carriages, no anything. 
 Don t let us go here; let us turn and go to Cafe 
 de Paris ! " 
 
 " No, of course not : when we ve come all this 
 way I m not going to let you turn back and miss 
 it. Why, don t you want to say you ve had a 
 special dish invented and called after you by one 
 of the most famous chefs in Paris ? " 
 
 " All right, my dear," said Toni, somewhat mol 
 lified but looking ruefully at her delicate pink 
 gown; "but I am quite, quite sure it is not a 
 smart place truly ! " 
 
 They went through the little outer hall into a 
 small square room where so many wonderful
 
 280 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 dishes have been eaten. It was certainly a shabby 
 place compared with the gilded luxury of the 
 fashionable cafes. An uncarpeted floor, and ab 
 sence of flowers and decoration, a rather greasy 
 air of gluttony, a sprinkling of unfashionably 
 dressed French and American diners, with the 
 great Frederic himself, living up to his reputation 
 of looking like Ibsen, busy over his hot table and 
 presses, aided by two untidy and perspiring wait 
 ers. There was a general air of heat and untidi 
 ness in the room, and Toni looked unhappy, and 
 held her dainty garments well off the floor as she 
 tripped across to the table that had been reserved 
 for them. They were the only people in evening 
 dress a fact which seemed to shock her; and 
 they attracted some little notice from the silent, 
 gormandizing groups at the tables around the 
 walls. But the flattering attentions of the great 
 impressionist chef made a diversion; and when 
 the " sole Toni " arrived in its wonderful culinary 
 toilet she was enchanted, and forgot the dingy 
 surroundings. The interest, moreover, of seeing 
 Frederic making innumerable dishes of caneton 
 a la presse was so prolonged that it furnished 
 entertainment throughout the rest of the meal. 
 The deft way in which, as one duck after another 
 was brought to him all brown and hissing, he laid 
 his knife under the flesh and with a few masterly 
 strokes removed all the meat; the crushing of 
 the carcass beneath the hand-press, and the spout
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 281 
 
 of blood and essence or juice of duck from the 
 little tap; the making of this juice into a won 
 derful sauce that kept simmering and bubbling 
 over the spirit-lamps, and was gradually ladled 
 over the whole savory dish these were fascinat 
 ing sights, and absorbed the attention of every 
 one in the room. The greedy feasters kept their 
 eyes fastened on Frederic, and became intoxicated 
 by the sight of the succession of ducks coming 
 hot from the kitchen; and as each party was 
 served, the one next in order sighed and licked 
 its lips, and wondered whether its duck would be 
 just such another juicy one as that which was now 
 swum, in sauce of its own substance and providing, 
 down the throats of the fortunate ones. 
 
 They had been sitting some time in silence re 
 garding this drama of the stomach when Eichard 
 noticed that Toni s eyes were fixed in a gloomy 
 and unfamiliar expression. 
 
 "Anything the matter, little girl?" he asked 
 her, at the same time putting out his hand to hers 
 under the table. She drew her hand away from 
 his touch, and continued to look darkly away, 
 without speaking. 
 
 " Toni, dear, what is it ? " he asked again. 
 " Has anything gone wrong ? " 
 
 She turned her eyes slowly upon him; and in 
 them now there shone an angry light. 
 
 " I tell you, I am offended, very much offended, 
 that you bring me to this place. It may be all
 
 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 you say, but why are there no smart people here? 
 Look at these low people ! I believe it is a com 
 mon eating-house ! I like not such places ! " 
 
 He was at first too much surprised to say any 
 thing; afterward he was too much revolted and 
 offended by her base suspicion that he had taken 
 her to a cheap place and pretended it was dis 
 tinguished to try to explain. They sat looking 
 at each other, these two, across a chasm that had 
 suddenly opened between them. Toni had lost 
 her hold on Eichard s comradeship and congenial 
 ity; she merely saw herself as one who had been 
 inveigled out of her proper environment, an alien 
 in a strange country which she did not know, 
 and in which her professional language was not 
 spoken; and a sense of antagonism, which had 
 only been dormant under the fascination of 
 Richard s personality, woke up in her now. Every 
 fibre of her being resisted and rebelled against 
 the set of ideas that brought her to such a place ; 
 she felt a nostalgia for the scenes of glitter and 
 gaiety to which she belonged, for the sight of her 
 own kind, and the sound of their voices; she 
 hated the superiority, the arrogance, whether of 
 intellect or taste, that in a place like this set itself 
 up against the dominion of mere money and 
 vicious convention; and she felt that she almost 
 hated Richard, as the representative of it. He 
 for his part was mortified by her gross discontent, 
 and thoroughly shocked by her revolt. He had
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 283 
 
 deliberately shut his eyes to her tastes and pro 
 clivities, and he resented her forcing them open 
 to see her as she was. Of course he had set up 
 an image of her in his mind to worship, and of 
 course he hated the reality which was suddenly 
 substituted for it. Silently he called for the bill 
 (which was not entirely despicable in its amount) 
 and put Toni into the waiting carriage. 
 
 In that blank and paralyzed silence which fol 
 lows an apparition of reality to people living in 
 illusion they drove along the lighted quais to the 
 Opera. Once Eichard stole a side look at Toni. 
 She was sitting up very straight beside him, defi 
 ance in the poise of her head and in the cold, alert 
 shining of her eyes. Her brow was slightly 
 knitted, and he wondered, with a kind of bitter 
 longing, what was going on in that mysterious 
 mind of hers; and when he saw how hard she 
 looked, and how capable of resolve, he fell into 
 a kind of panic for his happiness. To chase that 
 terrible, cold, merciless look from her face became 
 an absolute necessity for him ; yet he found noth 
 ing to say, and realized that of all the thoughts 
 which were surging in his brain not one could be 
 communicated to the woman at his side. She 
 would not understand; for when a woman who 
 has melted to us freezes again, there seems to be 
 no fire or steel in us able to penetrate her veil of 
 coldness. 
 
 They were a little late at the Opera, and took
 
 284 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 their seats just as the curtain was rising on the 
 Venusberg and on that moment when Tann- 
 hauser awakens and begins to look about him 
 an eternal situation. Both sensitive to the power 
 of music and drama, the beauty of this music- 
 drama gripped and held them both from the very 
 beginning. Gradually Kichard forgot his troubles, 
 and was absorbed in the struggle between the 
 charms of Venus and Tannhauser s growing dis 
 content. Toni was absorbed too partly by the 
 essential interest of the drama, partly by a semi- 
 professional interest in Venus and her berg, not 
 unmingled with contempt for an affair so lament 
 ably mishandled by the lady. But as the music 
 flowed on, and one maze of dances followed 
 another, and as the scene began to work up to 
 its climax, Eichard and Toni began to enjoy it 
 too much to remain at enmity; as their unex 
 pressed sense of companionship in enjoyment 
 grew, their sense of animosity died away; and 
 when at the name of Mary the whole Venusberg 
 vanished in a clap and the spring meadows ap 
 peared in its place, Toni turned and put her hand 
 in Richard s, looked at him with shining eyes, 
 and whispered, " My dear, how beautiful ! " He 
 thrilled to her touch, and forgave her in one look 
 of tenderness, and together they watched the mists 
 rising from the valley, and that exquisite early 
 morning scene, fresh and sweet and fragrant after 
 the nightmare of the Venusberg, unfolding itself
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 285 
 
 to quiet music that is like a dream of dew and 
 spring flowers. 
 
 Thereafter the atmosphere was bright and sunny 
 again, as though that mock convulsion of the stage 
 had indeed broken up and chased away the clouds 
 that had darkened their happiness. Toni s hand 
 rested in Richard s, both of them happy with a 
 new happiness that was partly the enjoyment of 
 music and drama, and partly a sense of relief and 
 healing at the safe passing of the cloud that had 
 threatened them. Together in mind and spirit, 
 more than they had ever been since their first 
 meeting, they watched the play unrolling itself 
 like a painted banner; together thrilled at the 
 swelling song of the pilgrims as they passed bow 
 ing before the Virgin s shrine; together watched 
 Tannhauser set forth happily on his journey. 
 Between the acts their tongues were loosened, and 
 Eichard was delighted to find Toni s curious 
 searching intelligence bent in criticism of a thing 
 of the mind. She had her views about Tann 
 hauser. " I have seen, oh, so many like him, 
 Richard, my dear ! He is a nice boy, but no good. 
 He doesn t know vhat he wants; now he want 
 Venus, and when he is with Venus, he want, oh, 
 he long for that beautiful Elisabeth with the 
 golden hair! And when he has Elisabeth he 
 thinks he is, oh, so happy; but all the time he 
 think of Venus, and want to go back to her." 
 Later she said : " They all sing too much. Venus,
 
 286 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 she sings, and is so busy with her top note that 
 she does not see how vhat you say ? bored 
 Tannhauser is, and she loses him. Then Tann 
 hauser sings instead of going home and marrying 
 that pretty girl, and the other people come when 
 he is singing. Then they all sing, and Tann 
 hauser gets so bored he sings something naughty 
 and shocks them ; and then the pilgrims sing, and 
 he goes off with them anywhere, my dear, to 
 get away from that pretty Elisabeth and her aunts 
 and uncles ! Then his uncle vhat you say ? that 
 old man with the beard and harp he could have 
 put things right; but instead all the time he 
 sings, and poor Elisabeth catches cold listening 
 to him. And vhen Tannhauser does come back, 
 and they ought to have put him to bed, they let 
 him sing until he dies. All dead of singing, my 
 dear ! " 
 
 They were very happy, and in that softened 
 frame of mind, the pretty delusion of lovers, in 
 which all that they see and hear is applied to 
 themselves. It was they who were separated, in 
 sorrow and penitence, amid the littered splendors 
 of the Hall of Song from which Tannhauser s 
 indiscretions had banished the scandalized court; 
 it was their love that touched the sad autumn 
 wayside, with its shrine and evening light, with a 
 -memorable glory; it was for them that Wolfram, 
 mock-harp, tow-beard, paraphernalia of German 
 romantic pseudo-mediaeval costume and all, sang
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 287 
 
 to the evening star, and Elisabeth scanned with 
 anxious, tearful eyes the wayworn company of re 
 turning pilgrims. 
 
 They are fortunate who first know a great work 
 of art when they are under the empire of an emo 
 tion no matter what. Some such preparation 
 is necessary to weld together and stamp with truth 
 what long ago was the heavy labor of him who 
 created it ; just as the glow and ebullition of their 
 own lives made for these two a great and moving 
 thing of what Richard Wagner long ago in Paris, 
 poor and struggling, and distracted by a thousand 
 anxieties, toiled at with pen and keyboard and 
 brain. The great theatre was for them filled with 
 a golden atmosphere through which the beautiful 
 illusion shone upon them kindly. 
 
 The quarrel was not referred to in words. They 
 had supper quietly at Voisin s, and went home 
 early, but Toni s eyes shone kindly on Richard, 
 and she gave him one of her rare expressions of 
 herself. He was sitting in a chair, and she was 
 standing and looking down on him with her hands 
 on his shoulders. Something in his face, the ap 
 peal of the love that she saw there, perhaps awed 
 even her armored heart. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, why do you love me so much ? 
 You make me say vhat I am ashamed of." 
 
 "What ia it, dear one? " he whispered. 
 
 " Richard, I tell you that I love you oh, more 
 than a little!"
 
 288 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 He folded her in his arms and they forgot the 
 terrible cloud of antagonism that had hovered 
 over them. Foolish hearts ! Like careless travel 
 lers who escape from the threatening storm-cloud 
 and walk on under a starry sky, they forgot that 
 it is not only what lies before us that is to be 
 feared, but what lies behind, in seed-furrow, per 
 haps to come to its deadly harvest, or in that same 
 calm sky in which no clouds threaten, but which 
 holds and renders again whatever it has drawn to 
 itself.
 
 IX 
 
 IN the sleep of the intelligence and the wakeful 
 pleasures of the senses that were his life with 
 Toni Richard became conscious of a change. At 
 first it was only when he was with her that he was 
 perfectly happy; away from her he was conscious 
 of a criticism, too slight to be called a revolt, that 
 seemed to examine with doubt the worth of his 
 happiness. But as day after day glided past in 
 the now familiar round of luxurious pleasures 
 this disposition was reversed. The antagonism 
 that had shown itself at the Tour d Argent, and 
 which they had suppressed so successfully at the 
 Opera, showed itself again and repeatedly, and 
 each time with more assurance, as a more definite 
 thing and one less easily to be smothered. The 
 effect of it was that there were continual differ 
 ences of opinion between the two, at first upon 
 little things, and afterward upon any matter ad 
 mitting of opinion that cropped up; so that the 
 hours they spent together began to be darkened 
 by little bitternesses, silences, woundings of one 
 another s feelings, and all the miserable fruits of 
 dissension. Yet when he had left her Richard 
 289
 
 290 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 would be filled with remorse, take himself to task 
 for his lack of patience, his selfishness even. Had 
 not he everything he wanted in the world? And 
 was not her life, whatever the luxury of its ex 
 ternals, hard and unpleasant enough without his 
 marring this season of holiday that had come 
 into it? Thus when he was away from her he 
 saw her only as some one to be loved and cher 
 ished with every tenderness and patience; he saw 
 her virtues, her warm living personality, and for 
 got the black pit of selfishness that lay beneath; 
 and he longed to return to her, so that he might 
 show her how much he loved her. Yet as soon 
 as they were together the same root of bitterness 
 would spring up. Each was trying, unconsciously, 
 to mould the real into the likeness of the ideal; 
 each was striving to graft upon what of the other 
 was apprehended and loved a finished creature 
 of his or her own sort. Eichard loved Toni for 
 her gaiety, her charm, her beauty of form and 
 proportion, her intelligence; and these he tried 
 to take and enjoy and to ignore the rest of her, 
 which was just as real and as much alive, although 
 it did not minister to his happiness. She loved 
 the courage and enterprise, the manly whole- 
 heartedness of Eichard; what he wanted, she 
 thought, was a little more gaiety and a little less 
 reserve. On her stock of adventuress and cocotte 
 he would have grafted, if he could, all the domestic 
 virtues, a nunlike fastidiousness, and God knows
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 291 
 
 what of emotional and intellectual paradox; of 
 him, still retaining his subtle simplicity and his 
 firm hold on life, she would have made a man- 
 about-town, raffish and prone to occasional alco 
 holic excess. And as each pulled the harder in 
 one direction, the other resisted the more firmly, 
 and began to pull the opposite way; so that the 
 cord of affection that bound them became stretched 
 very tight, and in danger of breaking under the 
 strain. 
 
 In all intimacy there is education, and we can 
 not love without learning. It is hard to say 
 which of these two learned the more from their 
 union Eichard who sought, or Toni, who re 
 sisted, its lessons. In all her life hitherto of 
 adventure and social privateering she had been 
 treated as a beautiful, costly toy, a thing of price, 
 indeed, but of no value; and she had learned to 
 keep herself and her heart hidden and to use coun 
 terfeits, just as she kept her pearls and diamonds 
 at the bank and wore paste imitations of them. 
 Pearls and diamonds, however, do not corrupt nor 
 waste away; though in darkness the pearls may 
 grow dim, use will soon restore their lustre again. 
 But the soul is perishable and dies of neglect 
 a poor thing, when we take it out of its dark 
 wrappings and let the unwonted daylight shine 
 on it ! Toni found it hard work to be herself, 
 or rather to be the self she might once have been, 
 and the effort was only possible to her so long as
 
 292 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 she found it necessary to her happiness with 
 Kichard. She had played so many parts in her 
 short life that she was quite accomplished enough 
 to take the role of herself; the only point was, 
 did she want to? She soon found that she did 
 not; that after so long an experience of postur 
 ing, it was fatiguing to be natural, and, worse 
 still, it was dull. The profound suspicion of 
 everything and everybody which is characteristic 
 of the cocotte turns to a swift antagonism when 
 the suspicion seems to have been justified; and 
 Toni soon became aware of Eichard s persistent 
 pull on her. It was instinctive on his part; un 
 consciously he dragged her from her anchorage 
 on the shoals of pleasure, and tried to moor her 
 out in his own philosophic deeps. But poor Toni 
 had not cable enough to hold her there, or she 
 was not constructed to ride easily in these waters; 
 as a seaman might say, she was " not bluff enough 
 in the bows, she had too much run aft ; " and she 
 had shipped several seas of discomfort and dis 
 pleasure before she slipped her moorings and 
 drifted in again to better holding-ground. When 
 they spoke of conduct, for example, Eichard was 
 often charmed by the justice and clearness of her 
 views ; but let her pursue the subject long enough, 
 and she would reveal a perfect heartlessness and 
 cruelty. Once they were speaking of her maid, 
 an elderly German woman, who had been Toni s 
 nurse, and who had followed and served her faith-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 293 
 
 fully through all her changing life. Richard was 
 quite fond of her, and heard with surprise that 
 Toni intended to send her away. 
 
 " What," he said, " send her away after all these 
 years? What on earth for?" 
 
 " Oh, my dear, she becomes too much a good 
 thing. She stay too long with me already, I 
 think; she begins to command me. Vhat you 
 think ? She say to-day, Madame, I cannot allow 
 that you wear that pink silk dress again, so I have 
 put it away ! I tell you I was angry, oh, my 
 dear, I never was so angry in all my life ! " 
 
 " Well, but you don t get an honest woman like 
 that every day. Besides, think of all the years she 
 has looked after you, dear. I should hate to think 
 of you going about without old Anna to look after 
 you. You know she adores you, and would die 
 for you." 
 
 "Rubbish, my dear. I get lots of people to 
 adore me for thirty pounds a year. When any 
 one is with you for so many years it is time to 
 send them away. You get fond of them, or they 
 grow ill, and then you have to keep them. No, 
 my dear, Anna has just gone a little too far with 
 me; I send her away, and get a smart French 
 maid in her place. I tell you they know some 
 thing, those girls ! " 
 
 The combination of worldly wisdom and utter 
 heartlessness of this decision was significant of 
 her whole attitude ; and the tears of her old serv-
 
 294 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 ant, at which she laughed contemptuously, availed 
 nothing. It was no business of Eichard s, but he 
 could not help a rather sharp remonstrance with 
 her for what he regarded as flagrant ingratitude. 
 
 " Gratitude, my dear ? you make me laugh. 
 Vhat is this always that you say of duty and grat 
 itude? I do not know them, my dear; I ask not 
 gratitude from any one, and I ask not vhat you 
 call kindness ; and duties I do not know them. 
 They are for servants." 
 
 Before a front of such callous assurance, what 
 could he do but abandon remonstrances founded 
 on a set of ideas which she was incapable of under 
 standing? So he gave ground, or seemed to give 
 it; but in the secret ledger account which we all 
 keep with our friends, and in which we uncon 
 sciously enter every incident of human relation 
 ship, Kichard posted such capitulations to Toni s 
 debit. True love, we are told, keeps no such 
 reckoning; but it is probably more just to say 
 that while love exists they are never cast up, and 
 the balance is never struck. But the items lie 
 there, indelibly entered upon the pages of mem 
 ory; and woe to the lover who adds up the sum 
 of his love and finds it wasted and himself in 
 solvent because of the greater sum of drawings 
 on his happiness ! 
 
 Toward this unhappy day of reckoning was 
 Eichard now hurrying. In the meantime he paid, 
 and paid handsomely. It was he who always gave
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 295 
 
 in, he who accommodated himself to Toni s whims 
 and fancies, he who made the necessary sacrifices 
 when they disagreed. He made them deliberately 
 and with his eyes wide open. He loved Toni so 
 much that he allowed nothing that he could con 
 trol to obscure or interfere with his love. When 
 she was exigent or selfish, he remembered how 
 the idea of foregoing anything or of making any 
 concession had never entered her thought or life. 
 When she was unkind, he remembered how unkind 
 the world was ready to be to her the moment 
 she ceased to minister to its pleasures; when she 
 was greedy or impatient, he remembered her hand- 
 to-mouth existence, that she was laying up no 
 treasures of happiness for herself, nor any cumu 
 lative result in life, and that to snatch at what 
 she could get while she could get it represented 
 the only possible wisdom of her existence. Thus 
 he excused her, and applied the varnish of his love 
 to the cracks and flaws in her character, so that 
 if they could not be mended they should at least 
 be hidden from him. And as he thus became less 
 selfish, and as he continually asked less and gave 
 more, his love for her broadened and deepened, 
 seeming to grow but the stronger, as love will, 
 on a discipline of fasting and sacrifice. 
 
 The last time he saw her at her best, when she 
 was the Toni of the Barbizon holiday, was the 
 afternoon when he took her to the Salon. With
 
 296 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 a genuine consideration for him she had dressed 
 very quietly in a black dress and a big black hat 
 with pale roses crushed between the brim and her 
 hair. 
 
 " I must not disgrace you/ she said ; " no 
 one shall know what I am; only they will turn 
 and say, Oh, look at the Englishman and his 
 pretty wife no, his French cousin ! 
 
 And certainly more than one admiring glance 
 was cast on the beautiful girl who walked so 
 sedately with him through the crowded galleries. 
 Her playing of the part was perfect, and not in 
 the least overdone; indeed she was almost her 
 natural self in these gay and beautiful surround 
 ings, and Eichard had never so much admired 
 or delighted in her. Her eyes were everywhere; 
 on the pictures, on the fashionable Parisian 
 women, on the foreigners, on Eichard, to see if he 
 approved of her behavior. She walked slowly 
 about, slim and small, and yet imposing in her 
 rich and sober dress; she took in the pictures 
 with a directness of criticism and intelligence 
 which was in delightful contrast to the dull regard 
 of the ordinary eye-wearied frequenter of exhibi 
 tions. What did not interest her she had the art 
 of not looking at, even of not seeing; what she 
 liked she recognized at once, and various indeed 
 were the reasons of her likes and dislikes. The 
 blue-purple landscapes of Eaffaelle, the Parisian 
 impressionism of Veber, Willette, and Gruillaume
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 297 
 
 (whose pictures seemed unaccountably familiar to 
 her) ; Caro-Delvaille s portrait of Mme. Edmond 
 Rostand, in which she traced a faint resemblance 
 to herself ; Sargent s " Duchess of Sutherland " 
 these all seized her attention and provoked her 
 criticism, which, if it was more concerned with 
 humanity than with technique, was not the less 
 piquant and interesting for that. But two tilings 
 that held and mesmerized her were above all the 
 rest. De la Gandara s portrait of Mile. Polaire 
 caught her eye as she entered the gallery in which 
 it was hung, and she walked straight up to it 
 and stood confronting it. Richard could not help 
 noticing and delighting in the contrast the ex 
 quisitely poised figure of the danseuse with her 
 gown of filmy heliotrope, her olive skin and long, 
 passionate eyes, and the fair-skinned, black- 
 gowned, gold-crowned Toni standing motionless 
 before the canvas, her face composed in a pro 
 found calm of contemplation, and looking as 
 though she too had walked out of a picture. 
 
 But Zuloaga s " Mes Cousines " had an even 
 more arresting effect on her. They were idly 
 sauntering along in front of the pictures when 
 Richard heard something like a little cry, and 
 found her gazing at the Spaniard s dark canvas, 
 her lips parted, her breath coming quickly. The 
 dense and yet luminous color, the dreamlike qual 
 ity of the landscape in the background, as clear 
 and definite as a thing seen, as unreal as a thing
 
 298 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 only remembered, the three tall, dark women with 
 their black shining eyes and bright yet melan 
 choly attire, all the vitality of sunshine in the 
 attitudes that were nevertheless like sudden and 
 alert movement struck into the stillness of death; 
 before this masterly and bizarre creation she stood 
 entranced. Eichard spoke to her, but she did not 
 hear him; and, indeed, upon him too the three 
 bold, dark women were throwing their spell. They 
 stood there in silence for a long time; but even 
 when they moved away Toni s eyes remained on 
 the picture as though they were fastened to it. 
 She walked through the galleries in a dream, and 
 presentl} r Eichard, who had turned to look at a 
 small water-color, missed her from his side, and 
 saw her disappearing through the door leading 
 to the room in which the Zuloaga was hung. It 
 was though the thing had really hypnotized her. 
 She stood again before it, her eyes travelling again 
 and again over every inch of the canvas, as though 
 she were trying to commit it to memory; and 
 when at last they turned to leave the room she 
 went back once more, as one turns to take fare 
 well of the dead. Her eyes were shining. 
 
 " I shall never see it again," she said. " I know 
 I shall not; but oh, my Eichard, how I love that 
 I have seen it! Once things like that happen, 
 but not twice never twice." 
 
 As they were walking down the staircase, she 
 suddenly stopped and said:
 
 THE HOUSE ONTHE SANDS 299 
 
 " They are like this -And this and one like 
 this " making threeP s ^ ures in rapid succes 
 sion, in which the ii/ividuality of each of the 
 three women in the /ctures was wonderfully re 
 produced. It was dpe so lightly that it attracted 
 no attention the People around them merely 
 thought she was Baking to Eichard; but with 
 the slightest inclinaion of the head and ohlique 
 direction of the eye the three poses were per 
 fectly mimicked. Echard tried to get her to do 
 it again, but she wruld not; in fact, as soon as 
 they were outside the building she seemed to have 
 forgatten about it, and to be interested only in 
 tea. 
 
 He had hoped that her quiet, grave charm of 
 the afternoon was a sign of the return of her 
 old sell and of reawakening interest in things of 
 some dignity; but in this he was disappointed. 
 As though the repression of her other self during 
 the afternoon had been too heavy a strain upon 
 her, sle went in the eveaing to the other extreme ; 
 chatted incessantly about nothing at all through 
 out dinner; and that night at the Eat Mort so 
 distinguished herself by her noisy brilliancy as 
 to attract a great deal more attention than Eich 
 ard liked. She spoke to several men she knew, 
 and even danced the " cake-walk" with one of 
 them in the small hours after the general public 
 had gone and the restaurant was left to the occu-
 
 V 
 
 300 THE SANDSyp PLEASURE 
 
 pation of the kind of ^formal demi-mondaine 
 club which had its heao ua rters there. Richard 
 was torn between wounde pride, shame, aid the 
 basest kind of primitive jilousy; he couli not 
 help watching and admirin^ Toni as she floited 
 about between the ugly pardes of the so-ca led 
 dance; but to see her in tit close embrace of 
 another man sickened him. Nevertheless he said 
 not a word of reproach; W was determined :o 
 accept the conditions of the Tsorld he was in ; aid 
 he knew that Toni thought aothing of such in 
 act, although some of her mre discreet friends 
 were watching Eichard to see how he would lake 
 it. He gave no sign, however; sat calmly smok 
 ing his cigarette, and, when she had frashed, 
 smiled and applauded witt the rest. And le had 
 his reward in the knowleige that Toni knev per 
 fectly well what he had leen feeling, and admired 
 him for his forbearance with what was a purely 
 mischievous caprice; an I she made it up to him 
 by a very attractive devotion afterward. Never 
 theless Eichard had suffered, in spite of his un 
 troubled countenance, hellish tortures of sensual 
 jealousy; and he realized that such scenes could 
 not be repeated with safety to their happiness. 
 He could see that the close companionship, the 
 fact that they were never separated for more than 
 an hour or two, was telling on her nerves; and 
 he resolved, not without misgivings, to try a dif 
 ferent plan. When he left her that morning he
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 301 
 
 told her that he would leave her to herself for 
 the day, as she had some shopping to do, and that 
 he would call for her in the evening and take 
 her to dine at Paillard s, where he promised that 
 she would be among the smartest of smart people. 
 
 He felt a little lonely without her, wondered 
 longingly what she was doing, and counted the 
 hours until he could join her again. He spent 
 the afternoon ransacking the shops of collectors 
 on the south side of the river in order to get a 
 present that should be worthy of her beauty and 
 his love. Even in this matter of a present, how 
 ever, his fundamental opposition to her was re 
 vealed. He knew very well that some showy orna 
 ment of diamonds or pearls was what would please 
 her best, and yet he rebelled against the thought 
 of diamonds and pearls. She had a good many 
 already, and he did not allow himself to think of 
 where they had come from; at any rate he was 
 determined that his gift should not be made in 
 that glittering but dismal currency. Generous 
 and easy-going in matters of this kind as he was 
 by nature, he was for once less concerned that his 
 gift should be what she liked best than that it 
 should represent his ideas of what he would like 
 her to like; it was not Toni, but the creature of 
 his imagination bearing her name whom he sought 
 to please and adorn. Therefore he searched long 
 and critically, rejecting many beautiful things as
 
 302 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 not beautiful enough, until he discovered a won 
 derful old necklace of paste and uncut emeralds 
 in an intricate cobweb setting of the thinnest 
 silver. It was an exquisite ornament, designed 
 in the days of patient lavishness, and had not im 
 probably been displayed, and perhaps not in vain, 
 for the eye of Napoleon himself. It was worth 
 nearly as much as Richard paid for it, and that 
 was a sum which would have purchased many dia 
 monds and pearls. But this had none of the com 
 monplace glitter of the jewelry of commerce; it 
 could never be mistaken, he thought, for the price 
 of fugitive pleasures; it looked like what it was 
 a love-gift, designed with art, wrought with 
 skill, sought for and chosen with anxious care. 
 He thought of how it would rest on the fair satin 
 of her neck, and he realized, not without satis 
 faction, that its beauty was of a kind that must 
 reign alone, and could not be blended with exam 
 ples of a baser art. 
 
 When he called for her at eight o clock she was 
 not ready, and Eichard was surprised to hear from 
 Anna that she had only got up an hour before. 
 Madame had been asleep all day : no, she was not 
 unwell, only she was very tired, and (to judge by 
 the traces of tears on Anna s face) had been more 
 than usually exigent in the matter of dressing. 
 If Heir Eichard, as she called him, would sit 
 down in the drawing-room and smoke a cigarette,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 303 
 
 madame would not keep him long. Eicliard sat 
 down and lit the cigarette, wondering what in the 
 world could have kept the restless Toni in bed all 
 day. She had been complaining of all the things 
 she had to do, and all the shops she had to visit; 
 and yet she had not been out of her room all day. 
 A sudden thought flashed in his mind; surely the 
 little white bottle had not been in use again ? He 
 thought it unlikely, for she had lately seemed quite 
 free from the nervous indisposition which had 
 driven her to it in the first place; yet the idea 
 was definite enough in his mind to prevent him 
 saying anything about her not having been out. 
 The case containing the necklace was ready in his 
 pocket; but there was not time to give it her 
 now; he did not want to present it in a moment 
 of hurry; and he decided to keep it until later 
 when they would be alone together and he could 
 tell her something of what he wanted it to mean 
 to her. 
 
 She came at last, all in a flutter and flurry, and 
 jingle of chains and glitter of jewelry; she was 
 dressed all in white, with a big white hat; and 
 although she looked tired and had, contrary to 
 her usual custom, applied a touch of color to her 
 cheeks, Eichard thought she had never looked 
 more bewitching. 
 
 " My poor boy," she said, as she kissed him, " I 
 have kept you waiting so long ! but, my dear, you 
 haf no idea how tired I was ; I never was so tired
 
 304 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 in all my life really. Now we go along to 
 Paillard s and be happy. I am, oh, so hungry ! " 
 And she gave a long account of how she had meant 
 to get up, but had felt so sleepy that she didn t, 
 and how she had slept until the afternoon, and 
 then had a headache and thought it better not to 
 get up at all until it was time to dress, that lasted 
 until they were seated at a corner table which the 
 polite but anxious-looking Claude had decorated 
 for them with his own hands. The dinner had 
 been very carefully chosen; the desir de roi was 
 worthy of the house, and was greatly appreciated 
 by Toni, especially when she heard its name; the 
 Romance Conti was in perfect condition, and the 
 old Tuileries brandy was worth nearly what it 
 cost which was just about its weight in gold. 
 Yet the dinner was not a success; it was in fact 
 a failure from the very start; and no amount 
 of make-believe could keep Richard from admit 
 ting it to himself. He did his best to amuse Toni, 
 but she would not be amused; she talked very 
 little, was more than usually occupied with her 
 appearance, and when she did listen or speak to 
 her companion, she listened and spoke as one 
 whose thoughts are elsewhere, and who does not 
 even take the trouble to hide the fact. She looked 
 about her a great deal and was interested in the 
 toilets of the other fair diners; but the little 
 room does not hold many people, and she had soon 
 exhausted that interest. The quietness of the
 
 TJ.^ JUSE ON THE SANDS 305 
 
 place opp^d her after the noisiness of the cafes 
 she genery- frequented ; she was less at her ease 
 than usua and when the dark-eyed chef d or- 
 chestre dea^ed from the little alcove, and began 
 to play t&Q T) s he so far forgot herself as to 
 smile boldl^ck a t his ogling glances. Eichard 
 paid him ardent him away, at which she scolded 
 him with ai in pi easan t gleam in her eye that 
 made him ra\ r hopeless of the farce he was try 
 ing to play ough. Matters came to a head 
 when, follGwi the frequent direction of her eyes, 
 he saw that e was looking at an elderly, fat, 
 and extremeljepulsive man who was dining with 
 a Mend at aear table. He was staring imper 
 tinently at heencouraged no doubt by the inter 
 est she seeme^o take in him. 
 
 "What a deous old beast," said Eichard. 
 Don t look ; him, dear; don t you see he s 
 saring at you Damn his eyes ! " 
 
 " Oh, don t 3 so vhat you say ? fidgety. 
 "Vhy should heiot look at Toni ? I tell you, my 
 dew I think hes in love with me ! " She laughed 
 gaily, and bega to talk animatedly to Eichard 
 aboutiothing a all, her instinct to be attractive 
 in theryes of ay one whom she thought impor 
 tant emgh reaserting itself. He could see that 
 it wasll done fc the benefit of the stranger, who 
 contird to stai>; and jealousy took possession 
 of hii jealousy none the less bitter because the 
 occasi of it was so absurd. He felt it to be
 
 306 THE SANDS OF 
 
 trivial, but he felt it also to be outra^ 118 ? and it 
 drove him, in spite of himself, int a mood of 
 sarcasm which he knew Toni resen* more than 
 anything. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said, " look at hii J J all means, 
 if you find him attractive ; I do? admire your 
 taste, that s all." 
 
 " Silly ! " she said, " I tell you,/ dear, he may 
 not be handsome, but he is smar^ic , I bet you 
 he is rich also; I never make 1 stakes; some 
 thing tells me, and I always kncwheli a man is 
 rich." 
 
 Richard laughed bitterly. E hope for the 
 success of the evening had quiterme. He knew 
 that while Toni remained in tte surroundings 
 she would be more interested in tm than in bin, 
 and he wanted to get done wi the necessarr 
 round, so that he could have heio himself. Sh 
 seldom failed to be charming /hen they wea 
 quite alone; but he was beginng to learn tht 
 variety, miscellaneous triviality any chance in 
 terests or objects, came between m and her alen- 
 tion. It was all part of her IE, of course part 
 also, as he realized, of her char; ; she was /ways 
 so perfectly alive to the preset that it tid all 
 her thoughts; and as she tookin the who of a 
 scene with her eyes, and neve called upisions 
 of things absent, so all her thcight and atition 
 were absorbed by what was jrtmediatelyefore 
 her, and no part of them vas available ab-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 307 
 
 stract ideas, or for anything not absolutely pres 
 ent. 
 
 They did not stay long in Paillard s after din 
 ner. Much to Eichard s relief, instead of the 
 dreaded Maxim s, she suggested a theatre, and he 
 looked forward to some such pleasure as they had 
 enjoyed together at the opera. But the theatre 
 resolved itself into the Folies Bergeres; and when 
 they arrived there she would not allow him to take 
 stalls, but walked instead into the foyer, which 
 was filled with a noisy throng of disreputable 
 women and dissipated men. The performance 
 was not even thought of; there was no interest 
 here but a very sordid and dismal traffic in vice. 
 Eichard turned sick at the sight, and the presence 
 of Toni added to his misery. She was quite a 
 different sort of woman from any of the others 
 there; she was so startlingly out of place (as he 
 was also) that they attracted the notice of the 
 whole crowd; the women staring at her beautiful 
 clothes, the men nudging each other as she passed, 
 trying to catch her eye, and making confidential 
 remarks to one another about Eichard. Toni was 
 not at all embarrassed; she even seemed to like 
 the admiration and envy of these disreputables; 
 and she led Eichard up to the bar, where she de 
 manded orangeade. A vicious-looking American 
 youth in a tweed suit and a pot-hat, who looked 
 like a clerk, recognized her, and, ignoring Eich 
 ard s presence, greeted her effusively.
 
 308 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 "Wai, I never! if it ain t Toni? Where have 
 you been all this time? Say, that s a first-grade 
 rig-out and no mistake. Have a drink?" 
 
 Without any hesitation she held out her hand 
 and said, " Hello, my dear ! I never thought I 
 should see you here. Vhat you doing in Paris ? " 
 She accepted his offer of a drink, although one 
 had already been ordered for her, and turning to 
 Eichard with " Excuse me one little minute, my 
 dear, I vant to speak to this boy," she entered 
 into animated conversation with him. 
 
 Eichard felt that a crisis had arrived. His 
 position was utterly false, and was in danger of 
 becoming ridiculous. All his fastidiousness rose 
 in revolt against the circumstances in which he 
 was placed; his one anxiety was to get out of the 
 place, and to avoid a row. He was white with 
 anger, and struggling to conceal it. Toni was 
 chatting merrily away to the seedy youth. It was 
 an innocent acquaintance enough, so far as that 
 went; she was far beyond the youth s attainment 
 as a mistress, and he was merely one of the innu 
 merable people that knew her as a comrade of 
 rowdy hours. It was strange that this last situ 
 ation should have been brought about by one of 
 her conspicuous merits; yet so it was. For ex 
 clusive as she was in her choice of lovers, she 
 knew no barriers of wealth or class to govern her 
 random comradeship, and she never forgot a face. 
 So that any one who had ever come across her in
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 309 
 
 a company of merrymakers was sure thereafter 
 of recognition from her; and she was never 
 ashamed of her friends. In this action of hers, 
 in the cordial recognition of the seedy pot-hat, 
 were thus united expressions of her two most dis 
 tinguishing qualities; the touch of the gamine in 
 her, that brought her into contact with all sorts 
 of disreputable and detrimental people, and the 
 true human grace that made her never afraid or 
 ashamed to greet them, in whatever company she 
 might be. 
 
 Eichard was hardly in a position, however, to 
 appreciate the virtue in her act; and the fact 
 that the youth was merely a comrade did not alter 
 the impossibility of the situation. It was brought 
 to a crisis by the band in the foyer beginning a 
 waltz, and by the young man, who was something 
 the worse for drink, but had evidently desirable 
 qualities as a dancer, asking Toni to dance with 
 him. She nodded her head, and then saying, 
 " Wait a minute/ crossed over to where Richard 
 was standing in the attitude of one awaiting ex 
 planations. 
 
 " Look here, my dear, you don t mind, do you ? 
 Just one round with this boy. I haven t seen him 
 for ever so long, and he " 
 
 The contained and concentrated expression on 
 Richard s face stopped her short. He was white 
 with anger and revolt, and he spoke in a low, in 
 tense voice.
 
 310 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " Look here ; if you speak to that fellow again, 
 or to* any other man here, I ll walk out of the 
 place." 
 
 The light flashed into her eyes. An ultimatum 
 to the spoiled darling! She stood facing him, 
 quivering with temper, the red anger in her eyes 
 meeting the steely regard of his. All the pro 
 found antagonism between the two temperaments 
 blazed forth in that look, and battle was given 
 and taken. It lasted for just three seconds. At 
 the end of that time Toni dropped her eyes, gave 
 a nervous little laugh, and said: 
 
 " My dear, I think you are mad. Vhat harm is 
 there if I do speak to him ? Walk out of the 
 place ! " she tried to mimic him, but broke 
 down. " Oh, come along," she said, putting her 
 arm through his ; " I don t mind. Let us go 
 home." 
 
 The bugle had sounded for the assault, and 
 Richard had carried the first encounter. But there 
 is no fruit so bitter to the taste as the fruit of 
 victory over some one we love. 
 
 It was not until they were nearly at their hotel 
 that Richard remembered his gift. His anger had 
 all gone, and left his love more than anxious to 
 heal up the wound. He had taken her hand in 
 the carriage, and she had let it lie there; but 
 she had hardly spoken. She was inwardly raging 
 r,t having been vanquished, and his tone of com-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 311 
 
 mand echoed jarringly in her ears. Yet she 
 seemed to accept his caresses and to assume, as 
 he did, that the quarrel was made up. He was 
 glad when he remembered his gift, and thought 
 it would come as a pretty atonement for his anger 
 with her. 
 
 He followed her into her room. She sat down 
 on a sofa, and he came beside her, put his arm 
 around her and kissed her. She did not turn her 
 head away, but neither did she respond to the 
 caress. She was passive, inert, as though her 
 mind was elsewhere. 
 
 " Look, little one," he cried ; " while you were 
 asleep to-day I was busy. I was a long time look 
 ing for it, but I found it at last." He took the 
 case out of his pocket, and Toni turned her head 
 and became alert, like a dog who hears the word 
 "biscuits." He put his arm around her again 
 and drew her head close to his shoulder; she 
 acquiesced in these movements, but kept her eyes 
 on the box. 
 
 " Listen," he said. " I don t know that I shall 
 ever be able to tell you or show you how much 
 I love you, or how happy you make me. I love 
 you so dearly that I would like to take you in 
 my arms and carry you right away from all this 
 beastly world. Some day perhaps I will, and then 
 we ll be happy together, as we were at Barbizon. 
 But until then, dear flower, we shall often be 
 separated, with nothing of each other to hold but
 
 312 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 the memory of all our happy hours. And I want 
 you to have something that you can wear, some 
 thing of mine that will remind you of me; so 
 that, wherever you are, and whatever you are 
 doing," his voice trembled a little, " you can 
 just put up your hand and touch this, and say, 
 He gave it to me, and he loves me/ 
 
 She looked up at him for a moment with kind 
 eyes, and then began to undo the parcel. Her 
 quick nervous fingers tore at the string and the 
 wrappings impatiently; she threw everything on 
 one side, flung the wooden box away, and opened 
 the case. The necklace fell out and lay extended 
 on the white fabric of her dress, the dull old silver, 
 the flashing semicircle of the paste, and the dark 
 rough lumps of the emeralds. Its beauty was so 
 quaint and unlike anything she had expected that 
 she caught her breath, and turned to Eichard a 
 face flushed with pleasure. 
 
 " my dear, how sweet ! " she said ; kissed 
 him warmly, and then returned to her toy. Eich 
 ard was picking up the scattered wrappings and 
 the box, and did not observe her for a moment; 
 when he did he saw that she was examining the 
 necklace closely. 
 
 " It is very pale for gold, isn t it ? " she asked. 
 
 He told her that it was silver, and explained 
 why they had used silver for the sake of the set 
 ting and the white color. She went on examin 
 ing it.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 313 
 
 " It is not new, is it ? " was her next question ; 
 and when he had told her that it was an Empire 
 ornament, she said, " Of course, my dear, how 
 stupid of me. It is beautiful, very beautiful ! " 
 She held it up to the light. " How they sparkle ! 
 they are a very good color, too. I am afraid my 
 naughty boy has been vhat you say ? extrav 
 agant." She had turned it over, and was looking 
 at the back. 
 
 " But how funny," she went on. " I never see 
 this setting before. It is to make it safer, vhat? 
 How beautiful they are ! But it is funny that I 
 never see diamonds set like this. They are gen 
 erally open, and " 
 
 " Why, you little goose, it s not diamonds ; if s 
 paste, old paste, strass they call it." 
 
 She looked up suddenly. " Not real diamonds ? 
 I see." 
 
 He went on to explain to her the difference 
 between the old paste and the modern rubbish, 
 repeating a vast deal of information which he had 
 only learned that afternoon from the dealer who 
 had sold him the necklace. Toni still sat turning 
 it over and over in her hands; she was looking 
 down at it, and he could not see her face. 
 
 Presently she looked up at him, her eyes blaz 
 ing with passion, and immediately looked away 
 again. She spoke in short, nervous sentences, 
 keeping her eyes downcast. 
 
 " I tell you something, Richard. I am offended,
 
 314 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 very much offended, that you give me imitation 
 diamonds. I do not understand; I ask you not 
 ever for anything! but you give me this! How 
 dare you ? " she blazed out, and suddenly flung 
 the necklace away from her. It flashed, a drip 
 ping line of fire, across the room, and fell with 
 a rattle in the far corner. She rose to her feet 
 and stood confronting him, anger, indignation, 
 and something like hatred burning in her eyes. 
 
 Richard was turned to stone. The suddenness 
 of the assault, the loathly meanness of point of 
 view which could attribute to him the desire to 
 palm off imitation jewels on her, the utterly hope 
 less and cruel misunderstanding which turned his 
 loving gift into a coin, and a counterfeit one at 
 that, stunned and paralyzed him. He seemed to 
 have been hurled from a height and to have fallen 
 like a stone into an abyss from which he could 
 never rise. In a second he realized that this was 
 the end ; that the thickness of a world lay between 
 them; that he who had spent that happy after 
 noon searching for a gift that could not be mis 
 taken for payment, and paying more for it that 
 it should not wear its value like an advertisement, 
 and she who had thus received it, were strangers 
 who spoke in unknown tongues. 
 
 So for perhaps a minute they remained, he 
 standing like one dazed, looking at her with 
 bemused eyes that saw only a void of darkness, 
 che heaving and trembling with hateful indigna-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE SANDS 315 
 
 tion. The silence was broken by the snap of his 
 opera-hat as he opened it. He bowed ceremoni 
 ously to her, as though he were still in a dream. 
 
 " Good night," he said. 
 
 " Good-by," she said.
 
 BOOK III 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK
 
 waves were flowing and following one 
 JL another up the little coarse beach, trying to 
 climb its steep slope, but after every effort falling 
 back a little more as the ebb-tide in the channel 
 three miles out drew them away from their desire. 
 Eichard Grey sat on a rock waiting until the tide 
 should have ebbed far enough for him to walk 
 dry-shod to the lighthouse; and in the meantime 
 he watched, with dull absorption, the hypnotizing 
 sequence of rise and fall. In this calm weather 
 only the smallest of waves lisped against the 
 stones, but even in them was expressed something 
 of the vast personality of the ocean to whose 
 shores he had returned. To-day the calm seemed 
 to him only a physical repose of the waters, which 
 veiled a restless preoccupation of their spirit, as 
 though the melancholy omniscient sea had con 
 descended to curiosity, and was interrogating the 
 shore. Up and up came the quiet waves, feeling 
 among the stones, turning the pebbles over and 
 over as though in search of something, falling 
 back a little to a clear crystal edge, as though in 
 319
 
 320 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 meditation; and then, as if struck by some new 
 thought, advancing again to their patient scru 
 tiny, raking among the round pebbles with fingers 
 of snow, and sinking back again with a long 
 sigh that rippled away with its message of dis 
 appointment. The wild cliffs, heather-browed 
 and capped with the softly rolling green of the 
 downs, towered behind him in the sunshine, their 
 precipices wet with drippings from the springs 
 above. Something in their attitude, bowed down 
 with the weight of ages, yet recoiling from the 
 insidious whisper of the waves, struck him with 
 a sense of the misery that is written on this face 
 of Earth which she turns to the sea; dark, noble, 
 time-worn old face, patient beneath its load of 
 springs and autumns, staunch against unending 
 assault, yet with tears trickling down it for pain 
 of a knowledge that finds no utterance, and can 
 give back no answer to the profound, eternal ques 
 tionings of the sea! 
 
 As Eichard sat there a kind of stupor possessed 
 his mind. He had returned from Paris hoping 
 to find in work and amid familiar scenes some 
 narcotic for the gnawing misery and loneliness of 
 his heart; but work had failed him; the work 
 men were all gone ; and the lonely companionship 
 of land and sea only intensified his condition of 
 malady. He could not clearly think out his situ 
 ation and reason himself, as he had hoped to do, 
 into acceptance of it; his heart was still a rebel,
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 321 
 
 and fought and fretted against its starvation. He 
 was fighting, as all have to fight, the eternal battle 
 between the mind of man and the facts and des 
 tinies of life. He told himself that he was suf 
 fering from an untimely green sickness, that he 
 was in love, and that his indisposition was even, 
 in the eyes of experience, a laughable one; but 
 he told himself so in vain. What happens harm 
 lessly to the youth of twenty, springing up and 
 withering quickly in the thin soil of his charac 
 ter, happens fatefully to the man of thirty. His 
 love for Toni was no light growth, but had rooted 
 itself, for good or ill, deep in his nature; and 
 since it had been an independent enterprise of the 
 heart, and had never been really reconciled with 
 his mind, it was in vain that he now summoned 
 his mind to extricate him from the unhappiness 
 it had brought him. He was adrift, rudderless 
 for the moment, on the dark waters of misery, 
 and knew not where to turn for help or cure. 
 Often he was not conscious of thought, but sat, 
 as he sat now, staring out over the moving sea, 
 letting its salt breath drift in upon him, and its 
 plangent voice speak to him in vague and mighty 
 messages. All the summer was sad about him; 
 the corn in upland fields stood tall and golden, 
 waiting in the hot sunshine for the day of the 
 sickle and of harvest. All that passionate promise 
 of the spring and early summer which he had 
 felt when he was busy with his work was over
 
 322 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 now; the gorse had gone; the May had followed 
 it; the red army of the foxgloves had marched 
 forth, occupied the hedgerows, and vanished in 
 their day; the honeysuckle and the wild rose had 
 come and gone; there remained only the sheets 
 of gold in the fields, the blush of heather on the 
 downs, to bring the great cycle of accomplish 
 ment to its end. So still and silent it was that 
 the very summer, like the inquisitive sea, seemed 
 to be waiting and watching him ; his own accom 
 plished work stood fair and deserted on the outer 
 rocks; the world seemed empty of labor or prom 
 ise. 
 
 When the tide had ebbed sufficiently, Eichard 
 rowed himself across the little gap of deep water 
 between Poltesco Head and the Snail Kocks, and 
 walked over the causeway that led along the reef 
 to its seaward extremity where the tower stood. 
 As he climbed the iron ladder and opened the 
 door at the base of the tower, he was struck with 
 a sense of the desolation and emptiness of fin 
 ished buildings before they have been occupied 
 and used. The clean stone, the smell of new wood 
 and paint, the echo of his steps on the stone stair 
 way, the humming of the air through the ven 
 tilating shaft, all reminded him that his work 
 was done, or practically done, and only waited 
 to be invaded and occupied by those who were 
 to keep watch there. His father, who in public
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 323 
 
 works was not innocent of a taste for the solemn 
 flourishes of the Albert period, would have thought 
 his designs incomplete if they had lacked the dig 
 nity of inscriptions; and now, in letters cut into 
 the stones of the tower itself, his pious intention 
 stood fulfilled. Around the circumference of the 
 inside walls in the bottom story were carved the 
 words : 
 
 NISI DOMINU8 .EDIFICAVERIT DOM0M IN VANUM 
 LABORAVERUNT QUI ^EDIFICANT EAM 
 
 and high up in the light-room, where the keeper 
 ^a duty would sit, the corresponding verse: 
 
 NISI DOMINUS CUSTODIERIT CIVITATEM FRUSTRA 
 VIGILAT QUI CUSTODIT EAM 
 
 As the letters caught his eye, he thought grimly 
 of their obvious application to his edifice of hap 
 piness, which had been so suddenly destroyed; 
 and thought also bitterly and resentfully of the 
 conventional Dominus who had neglected to be its 
 architect. How gladly at that moment would he 
 have had the whole tower swept away, if he could 
 but have secured and completed that Babel-tower 
 of his joy, which stood desolate because the two 
 builders could not understand each other! A 
 kind of hatred of the work of his hands, a jealousy 
 of its stability, took hold of him. Was it only 
 with his hands that he could build? He had
 
 324 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 loved the lighthouse in the building; but how 
 much more had he not loved her into the fabric 
 of whose life he had built his heart ! Yet she was 
 lost to him, and his love come to shipwreck, while 
 this thing of stone and mortar stood there in the 
 sunshine, unshaken by wave or weather. . . . He 
 went up through the two lower stories, in which 
 were to be kept the stores necessary for the lamp 
 and its keepers. Above it was the kitchen, a 
 bright homely room with its cosy cooking-range 
 and dresser, its new chairs and presses and cup 
 boards; above that again were two sleeping- 
 rooms, and higher still, a hundred and thirty 
 feet above the waves, the light-room with its 
 trellised walls of glass and gun-metal, and, in the 
 centre, shrouded in dust-sheets, the lamp with 
 its mirrors and lenses and condensers. The fitters 
 had left it only the day before, and a few days 
 later would return to put the finishing touches 
 to its adjustment and set the clockwork machin 
 ery, by means of which it was made to revolve and 
 show its punctual flashes all around the horizon. 
 Eichard sat down and looked about him. Here 
 it was, all finished; and he did not care! He 
 remembered how he had longed for and dreamed 
 of its completion, how he had watched over every 
 inch of its growth, how his life and thought, and 
 his father s life and thought before him, had been 
 built into it. Yet it interested him no longer, 
 his pride in it was gone; and gone also was that
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 325 
 
 sense, on which he had counted so certainly, of 
 security and satisfaction in labor accomplished. 
 What he had done seemed to him after all a thing 
 outside him, no possession of his; what he had 
 been, what he had felt that seemed in these 
 despairing moments the only reality. A thousand 
 times he cursed himself for his haste in leaving 
 Toni; a thousand times he almost decided to go 
 back, and at any cost and by any means make his 
 peace with her, yet was always held back by some 
 inherent strength in his character, some wakeful 
 intellectual monitor who warned him that it 
 would be hopeless. So he sat, an alien within 
 the walls of his own building, homesick on his 
 own ground, all his soul longing for the woman 
 he had loved, and the scenes amid which he had 
 loved and possessed her. 
 
 That was one day, typical of many on which he 
 would try to occupy himself with the lighthouse, 
 and to force himself into an interest in his work. 
 But there were other days in which the nostalgia 
 for what he had left behind him in Paris made 
 the very sight of the lighthouse and the works 
 hateful to him; when he would turn his back on 
 them, and, much to the delight of Eufus, who 
 did not at all approve of people who sat on one 
 rock for hours at a time, take long walks about 
 the bare promontory, over downs and along the 
 cliffs, and try to find in fatigue of the body some
 
 326 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 antidote to the torture of his mind. For the un- 
 happiness caused by the loss of his love was com 
 plicated by hideous doubts and jealousies. What 
 was she doing? How much did she care for him? 
 How long would his memory be her only com 
 panion? He thought of writing to her, but the 
 same hateful doubts prevented him. Who would 
 read his letters ? How, and in what circumstances, 
 would she receive them ? He dared not think ; the 
 doubt, alas! was hardly a doubt at all; and to 
 the agony of longing for her, and the torture of 
 believing her denied, was added the misery of 
 realizing that he could still love and long for a 
 creature whose life might not bear thinking about. 
 . . . These were savage moods, agonies of the 
 flesh and spirit into which we dare not enter; 
 but there were saner moments in which he was 
 able to think more calmly and tenderly of her 
 and more justly of himself, when the sentimental 
 ist that has his day in every tragedy of the heart 
 gave place a little to the robuster man.
 
 II 
 
 LADY KILLAED looked out of the window 
 of the little drawing-room of the Hermitage, 
 her pretty forehead wrinkled into a frown of dis 
 content. Eain had blown up from the southwest; 
 and she and Margaret Lauder had been driven 
 from their work in the garden to find occupation 
 indoors. 
 
 " I wonder why Mr. Grey hasn t been to see us ? 
 If he had any imagination he d come on a day 
 like this and cheer us up. I know he s been back 
 some time." 
 
 " He intended to come back a month ago, didn t 
 he ? " said Margaret, looking up from some lace 
 work. " I wonder what kept him ? " 
 
 " He evidently found some great attraction in 
 Paris," said Lady Killard a little maliciously. 
 
 There was a pause, during which the younger 
 woman continued to work at her fine and elab 
 orate fabric of lace, and Lady Killard turned from 
 the window and stood in the middle of the room 
 rapt in thought, her eyes straying from rafter to 
 cornice, and from door to window. She was en 
 gaged in her favorite autumn occupation of plan 
 ning alterations to the cottage, and had spent 
 327
 
 328 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 most of the morning in demonstrating to Mar 
 garet how by taking away a staircase she could 
 add a dining-room, and showing that the wall 
 only needed to be moved a few inches for many 
 feet to be added to the length of the little hall. 
 
 " I m sure those beams could be cut away a 
 little there," she said, emerging into speech ; " if 
 only Mr. Grey were here I could ask him; he 
 knows all about those things." 
 
 " John s cynicisms seem to sink rather deep 
 into Mr. Grey," said Margaret, also bringing the 
 end of her train of thought to the light. 
 
 " And quite right, too ; he s not an old man or 
 a clergyman. He d be a horribly dull old man 
 if he went on as he s begun." 
 
 Margaret looked up with a smile. " Then when 
 he grew older you d have to drop his acquaintance, 
 as he wouldn t fit ! " 
 
 Lady Killard nodded her head sagaciously. 
 " I ve great hopes that he is going to fit ; but he 
 will probably be unbearable for a little while. 
 People ought to get the measles over when they 
 are younger." 
 
 " It always interests me," said Margaret, " why 
 every one supposes the measles are necessary. If 
 you re a healthy child it seems to me you shouldn t 
 have them especially as they are epidemic, and 
 generally caught from some one else John, I 
 suppose, in this case." 
 
 " Oh, you re always down on poor John ! "
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 329 
 
 "Well, on your own showing, Jane, he seems 
 to have deserted Mr. Grey at a critical moment. 
 Perhaps he found him too apt a pupil." 
 
 " My dear Margaret ! what do you know of such 
 things?" 
 
 Margaret s clear eyes looked up from her work. 
 "Well, then, I don t know, I suppose; and I cer 
 tainly don t want to. But there seems to be a 
 convention about Paris." 
 
 Lady Killard laughed merrily. " Why, my dear 
 Margaret, you remind me of those dear old ladies 
 who still think Paris is another name for wicked 
 ness, and who, if one says one is going over to 
 buy some clothes, shake their fingers and say, 
 * Oh, naughty thing ! They used to shiver in 
 their last year s muslin frocks crossing the Chan 
 nel, I believe, the idea being that everything got 
 ruined." 
 
 " The Albert Period again ! " 
 
 " Oh, bother the Albert Period," said Lady Kil 
 lard, ringing for tea. She went to the open door 
 and looked out over the doubtful landscape. 
 " Why, it s clearing up ; there s the sun. And, 
 what do you think, Margaret ? Talk of the devil ! 
 There s Mr. Grey coming up through the lower 
 gate. This is most exciting ! " 
 
 The arrival of any friend was welcome on such 
 a day, but Eichard s coming was an event of gen 
 uine interest to both women. They had felt a 
 little disappointed that he should have seemed
 
 330 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 to avoid them after his return, but it was for 
 gotten in the pleasure with which the three friends 
 met. 
 
 " The return of the Prodigal, Mr. Grey ! " said 
 Lady Killard. " We ve become quite wasted, sit 
 ting at the window watching for you for weeks 
 past. Now you must be cross-examined and give 
 an account of yourself." 
 
 Eichard laughed and made his excuses, and for 
 some time their talk was of commonplaces. The 
 two women, each in her own way, were charming 
 in their welcome; and, as so often happens when 
 friends are congenial, the three met as old and 
 intimate friends after this absence following their 
 first brief acquaintance. Eichard was unaffectedly 
 glad to see them again, but he was a little embar 
 rassed in his manner, and he felt that unless he 
 could talk to them about Toni their intercourse 
 could not be quite satisfying to him. Yet the 
 moment he came into their presence, he realized 
 that between the woman that he loved, and the two 
 women that he liked, there was a gulf wide and 
 unfathomable which no effort or desire of his 
 could ever span. The thought made him jealous 
 and a little resentful on behalf of the absent Toni. 
 If only these people knew what she was really like ! 
 They couldn t help liking her, and forgiving her 
 her trespasses, he thought. 
 
 " Please be useful, Mr. Grey, and tell me what 
 people are wearing in Paris." It was Lady Kil-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 331 
 
 lard who spoke, hardly breaking in on Kichard s 
 abstracted thought. 
 
 "Low-necked gray dresses and big hats with 
 roses," he murmured, almost to himself, and 
 looking out of the window. 
 
 Margaret Lauder looked up from her work. 
 "What, all of them?" 
 
 " Well, I saw them everywhere I went," said 
 Eichard with a note of amiable defiance in his 
 voice. 
 
 " Where did you go in Paris, Mr. Grey ? " asked 
 Lady Killard. " John tells us nothing, you 
 know." 
 
 " I really don t remember," said Eichard. " All 
 I know is that we were going all the time. I 
 think we ve been everywhere." 
 
 " There s no doubt that John is a wonderful 
 cicerone," said Margaret. 
 
 Eichard laughed. " Oh, John ! he s a broken 
 reed. He forsook me early " 
 
 " I suppose as soon as he thought you were 
 fledged?" said Lady Killard. But she felt that 
 the conversation was becoming a little awkward, 
 and led it back to dresses, as safer ground. 
 
 " Low necks and hats are rather a novelty, 
 aren t they ? " she asked, innocently. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Eichard ; " the fashion came 
 in two years ago on Thursday evenings at the 
 Rallye Club." 
 
 Margaret Lauder laid down her lace in her lap
 
 332 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 and broke into unrestrained laughter, her eyes 
 dancing with amusement. " But this is really 
 very serious, Mr. Grey ! " 
 
 Lady Killard and Kichard were rather taken 
 aback with her laughter. " One wouldn t think 
 it was serious, Margaret, to hear you laugh- 
 ing!" 
 
 " I m so sorry, Jane, but I couldn t help it. It 
 is quite too amusing ! " 
 
 "What are you laughing at?" asked Eichard. 
 
 "At you," replied Margaret, looking at him 
 with the laughter still in her eyes. 
 
 Eichard began to laugh too. He thought it a 
 more wholesome attitude than Lady Killard s 
 somewhat strained shirking of the subject. 
 
 On second thoughts, however, he began to 
 wonder whether he might not in some way have 
 betrayed himself; whether the instinct of the 
 virtuous woman for evidences of social anarchy 
 had not revealed something or other of his con 
 dition to these two clever, clear-headed women 
 of the world. He thought that otherwise they 
 would surely have quizzed him a little more 
 openly; there was on Lady Killard s part a very 
 distinct caution that was suspicious. It was his 
 own fault, of course, for carrying Toni so clearly 
 in his mind even while he was talking to them; 
 he was like a moth that tries to avoid the candle- 
 flame, but keeps blundering into it; and he 
 became self-conscious.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 333 
 
 It was Margaret who came to the rescue this 
 time with a change of subject. 
 
 " Don t you think I m clever ? " she asked. 
 " I ve done all that since this morning." And 
 she showed him the creamy fabric of lace, growing 
 by single stitches into its intricate and involved 
 patterns. How pretty she was, with her dark 
 wavy hair, her warm coloring, her calm brow 
 and clear-cut face, her wise, kind eyes! As he 
 looked at her he felt again what he had felt walk 
 ing to church that evening such ages ago ! 
 how much he liked her, and how much more he 
 could like her if he stopped short if he did 
 not love some one else. He had felt, vaguely 
 enough, that there was a barrier of some kind 
 between him and Margaret Lauder; and he knew 
 that if Toni had not come into his life that bar 
 rier might not have existed now. But what a 
 different thing this mild, orderly, respectable 
 love would have been ! As soon as he realized that 
 Toni was a barrier between them his resentment 
 and jealousy returned; he seemed to be talking 
 with strangers. Of course the two women noticed 
 his embarrassment, and although they had no 
 very clear idea of its origin, instinct told them 
 to respect it; and in their anxiety to avoid add 
 ing to it the conversation became artificial again. 
 They spoke of the cottage, of Lady Killard s 
 building plans, of the garden, of the lighthouse 
 and the coming inauguration of the light; but
 
 334 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 they did not talk of Paris any more. Bichard was 
 therefore rather dull; his lassitude and weariness 
 of spirit, which had been dispelled a little by the 
 meeting with these two friends again, returned 
 upon him. He became irritated, too, by Lady 
 Killard s careful handling of their trivial conver 
 sation; she kept it strictly within the circle of 
 their joint interests, and diverted it from Eichard 
 himself. She knew too much, he thought; but 
 from the height of his passionate experience he 
 looked down almost with contempt on her almost 
 certain misconception of the case. For Margaret 
 he had no resentment; she knew less, he felt, and 
 understood more. He could imagine Lady Kil- 
 lard being slightly jealous, with that impersonal 
 jealousy felt by a class against those who prey 
 upon its property; but jealousy or resentment 
 seemed alike impossible for Margaret Lauder. 
 There was no curiosity either in her attitude, 
 which was simply one of remoteness, a distant 
 friendliness. Yet in some odd way he had been 
 able to realize, in the course of this short visit, 
 that there could be no advance in his friendship 
 with her while Toni was involved in his life. 
 
 The weather had quite cleared before Eichard 
 went away, leaving an evening of slanting sun 
 shine and sweet, warm air. He felt disinclined 
 to go home to his empty house, and struck inland 
 instead for a walk. The paths he followed brought
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 335 
 
 him to Erissey Major,, a place consisting of a little 
 ancient church and a farmhouse set in a clump 
 of noble old trees, and isolated together on the 
 downs. He walked fast, his thoughts revolving 
 in their now habitual circle, from memories of 
 pleasure to memories of pain; and he was glad 
 to go in and rest for a little in the shade of the 
 churchyard. 
 
 The noise of Paris had been in his ears while 
 he walked; the silence fell suddenly about him 
 as he awoke to the present; and he thought, as 
 he sat down and leaned against a gravestone, that 
 he had never been in so quiet a place. There was 
 a soft piping from the birds in the tall elms that 
 crowded so thickly about the church, and a faint 
 sound of bees hung upon the air, but no other 
 noise found its way into the precinct. Eichard 
 was no frequenter of graveyards, and the com 
 monplace thoughts suggested by the presence of 
 so many faded memorials of people long dead and 
 forgotten were new to him. The solemn gray 
 tower, the tumbled heaps of the graves, the tangle 
 and riot of all the green life, the great, bending 
 bushes of fuchsia and veronica, the shrubs that 
 through generations of neglect had grown into 
 trees, all added to the sense of human death and 
 oblivion that the place inspired; and yet to Eich 
 ard, tortured and wearied though he was, the 
 common sentimental illusion made no appeal. He 
 realized, as he sat there with his dog blinking at
 
 336 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 his feet, that the peace of the graveyard was for 
 the living; that to taste it one must have the 
 blood of life in one s veins, the burdens and pains 
 of life at one s heart; and that the oblivious 
 company beneath the grass had no part or benefit 
 in it. Thus he escaped self-pity, that dangerous 
 miasma of the graveyard; and he found in it 
 the soothing and mellowing influence that it has 
 held for the healthy mind of every age. They 
 who bring their sorrows to the garden of the dead 
 bring them to a good place where they can hurt 
 no one, and where the pretence that they are end 
 less or unbearable fades before so many reminders 
 of mortality. 
 
 His glance, wandering around the huddled slabs 
 and monuments, fell on a verse cut into a granite 
 headpiece: They shall be mine, saith the Lord of 
 Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. 
 As he read them he found himself unconsciously 
 smiling with pleasure at the words beautiful 
 jargon of the great unfading dream of humanity. 
 They seemed so gay and kind and reasonable, 
 like a thing said to comfort a child and help him 
 to be good through a difficult day. The protecting 
 care of the promise was tempting, making him 
 long to be one of that gay company who were to 
 be gathered together in a diadem. He thought of 
 the people he knew, and wondered what sort of 
 jewels they would make; he thought of Margaret 
 and then he thought of Toni, outside all
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 337 
 
 dreams and promises " My poor little girl, they 
 wouldn t have her ! " the old poisonous wound 
 of sentiment broke out afresh. 
 
 Eichard got up and walked out of the grave 
 yard, threshing at the nettles with his stick. 
 " Oh/ he said to himself, " these are all dead 
 things, fables; the people who said them are dead, 
 the people they are said about are dead; but she s 
 alive and I m alive ! What does all the rest mat 
 ter ? " Yet the next moment he remembered that 
 she was dead to him, dead of her own act and 
 his ; and that if he cherished her still in his heart 
 he cherished a dead thing, more dead than if she 
 lay there sleeping beneath the grass. His mind 
 groped and groped amid the cravings and contra 
 dictions that possessed it. What was the unend 
 ing ache in his heart? he asked himself; and 
 sickened at the word love, with its thousand 
 meanings and abuses, that was all the answer he 
 could find. Like so many others, he thought of 
 it as a thing outside life, or at most incidental 
 to it; not as the life in little which they who live 
 through its fires learn it to be. By its touch we 
 are tried, and learn whether we are to march with 
 the stalwarts or tarry with the weaklings; it will 
 lead us to the stars, or scorch us in hell s flames; 
 and through it we must pass to the possession of 
 ourselves, as through the gate of death to what 
 ever may lie beyond our horizon. The love of 
 brave mature hearts is no summer s play of sun
 
 338 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 and shadow; it is Nature s impulse, the match 
 she sets to our lives, that shall send them either 
 zigzagging to burst and scatter their purposes, or 
 soaring to rocket heights where they may blossom 
 into flowers of fire. Domestic love, man s doubt 
 ful tame creature, may serve man s purposes; 
 passionate love serves Nature s, and makes us 
 priests and ministers to God. And not, Eich- 
 ard, by broodings and indulgences any more than 
 by the whips and hot irons of civil law is that true 
 passionate love tamed; but in the heart only, in 
 the fires of its own ordeal, when passion has 
 learned to put service before craving.
 
 Ill 
 
 OlsT a morning toward the end of September 
 Eichard received a package addressed in 
 John Lander s handwriting, and a letter dated 
 from the house of a relative in Scotland where 
 he was staying. The letter was as follows: 
 
 " DEAB RICHARD : How are you ? I meant to 
 send this before, but have been running about so 
 much that I haven t had time to finish it. The 
 likeness might be better, I think, but the general 
 idea is there. We are having vile weather here, 
 and the birds are as wild as my fellow guests are 
 tame; but I have only another week to put in, 
 and then I m off to Italy. Why don t you come 
 with me ? I hear you are practically finished with 
 Cornwall. 
 
 "By the way, I was in Paris ten days ago 
 God! what a desert and I heard that your 
 friend, the original of my daub, is still there. 
 She never went away at all, it seems, and has been 
 there all through the slack season which is odd, 
 to say the least of it. I didn t see her, or any of 
 our friends, but from what I hear, she seems to 
 339
 
 340 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 have been ill; in other words, I expect that the 
 little bottle you told me of has been refilled. But 
 she seems to have contrived to keep Maxim s alive 
 through the dull weeks. Yours ever, 
 
 "JOHN LAUDER." 
 
 Richard read and re-read the letter, and sat 
 looking at the written sheets for a long time. 
 Then he opened the parcel, and found that it con 
 tained a painting of Toni done from the Barbizon 
 sketch. Like all Lauder s finished work, it did 
 not quite fulfil the promise of the hasty sketch; 
 it lacked the certainty of touch, the freedom and 
 sureness of handling which had given distinction 
 to the pencil drawing; but still it was unmis 
 takably Toni, and spoke eloquently to Richard s 
 hungry senses. As he looked at it, all the longing 
 that he had been trying to stifle through these 
 dreary weeks broke from its feeble restraints and 
 demanded to be satisfied. The news in the letter 
 also filled him with a new tumult of doubts. Had 
 she cared more than he thought? Had he driven 
 her back into the nervous disorganization from 
 which he had rescued her? A voice within, 
 prompted by his longings, told him that he had, 
 and that it was his clear duty to go and seek her 
 out again, and save her from herself. Yet still in 
 the upper seats of the intelligence, where sits the 
 incorruptible jury that we call common sense, 
 he found no answering decision; the thing had
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 341 
 
 been tried, and had been found wanting; it had 
 ended disastrously, and would so end again. 
 
 One thing, however, was made startlingly clear 
 to him by the effect of the letter and picture: he 
 saw, as in a dream, the image of the man he had 
 been in these recent weeks useless, idle, brood 
 ing, miserable, unable to work, unable to read or 
 be interested in anything or anybody, tormented 
 by memory, indecision, vain regrets, and desires 
 and life, the life he so proved, with which he 
 had hoped to do so much, slipping by him unused. 
 His old philosophy of doing what had become 
 of it ? A kind of panic seized him ; a terror of the 
 passing day and the coming night, in which no 
 work could be done or joy savored; fragments 
 of philosophies, things read and half-forgotten, 
 floated on the commotion of his mind. His eye 
 fell on the book-shelves ; what would Carlyle have 
 said of him, that bitter, wise old man whose teach 
 ing had always appealed to him, and with whom, 
 in spite of his bitterness and hysteria, he had so 
 often found himself in sympathy? He remem 
 bered some verses of Goethe translated by Carlyle, 
 which he used to read over and over again; he 
 could not remember them clearly; only vague 
 phrases came back to him, admonishing, advising. 
 Hastily he took down the book, and turned the 
 leaves until he came to the place; and with the 
 portrait of Toni on the table beside the book he 
 read the verses.
 
 342 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " The Future hides in it 
 Gladness and sorrow ; 
 We press still thorow, 
 Naught that abides in it 
 Daunting us onward. 
 
 " And solemn before us, 
 Veiled, the dark Portal ; 
 Goal of all mortal : 
 Stars silent rest o er us, 
 Graves under us silent ! 
 
 " While earnest thou gazest 
 Comes boding of terror, 
 Comes phantasm and error ; 
 Perplexes the bravest 
 With doubt and misgiving. 
 
 " But heard are the Voices, 
 Heard are the Sages, 
 The Worlds and the Ages : 
 
 Choose well ; your choice is 
 Brief, and yet endless. " 
 
 He looked from one to the other from the 
 face into which he read so much that others 
 could never see in it, with which was associated 
 so much passionate happiness (for he had already 
 forgotten what was not happy), to the solemn, 
 earnest admonition of the poet; and he felt that 
 he had come to cross-roads, that he could no 
 longer live aa he had been living through these 
 weeks, that a choice must be made "brief, and 
 yet endless." He must either cure himself of
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 343 
 
 his fever of unrest and craving, and take up his 
 work again in the belief that there was no common 
 ground on which he and Toni could meet; or he 
 must go to her help. His image of her, now that 
 he was no longer with her, was no more true to 
 reality than it had been when they were together, 
 or else he could hardly have entertained the sec 
 ond alternative seriously; his heart, determined 
 idealist that it was, told him that love like his 
 could remove all barriers and dissolve all diffi 
 culties. Well, then, he must choose; but how to 
 choose? Suddenly he resolved to take a day to 
 think over it, to go for a long walk, and see if a 
 day of exercise and changing scenes would not 
 help him to a decision. He realized that, as he 
 could not have considered his choice dispassion 
 ately if Toni had been there, neither could he do 
 so amid the scenes of his work, in sight of the 
 lighthouse that had come to appear in his eyes 
 as her jealous rival. He felt that he must be 
 away from both, on some neutral ground where 
 he could be insulated from the magnetism of 
 both forces. He picked up his stick, called his 
 dog, locked the door of his house, and set forth 
 across the downs. 
 
 His direction lay northward and westward along 
 tracks leading over the rolling carpet of heather 
 and dwarf gorse. Heather purple, red, and white, 
 and gorse that was beginning to be golden again
 
 344 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 they mingled together in a fabric of tender 
 hues that extended to the horizon on every side. 
 The day was threatening, but there were intervals 
 of bright sunshine, and the air was soft and fra 
 grant. The dog ran busily about, nosing into 
 rabbit-holes, or looking back at Eichard for ap 
 proval, pricking intelligent ears and slanting a 
 lively tail; and but for the rabbits, a few piping 
 birds, and now and then a sea-gull that flew cry 
 ing overhead, they seemed to have the world to 
 themselves. Eichard found thought not so easy, 
 after all; he was pleasantly conscious of his sur 
 roundings, and found his attention absorbed by 
 the things immediately about him, by the color of 
 a flower, a clump of late blackberries on a hedge, 
 the direction of a path, the flight of a rabbit. As 
 he walked on, mile after mile and hour after hour, 
 he seemed to become drugged by the sweet air, 
 soothed by the exercise, and hypnotized by the act 
 of putting down one foot after another, until he 
 seemed to be walking out of the present into some 
 country of sleep. There was nothing in his sur 
 roundings to suggest modern England. Eather 
 there were signs of almost ever} r age but the pres 
 ent: British barrows, cromlechs, Saxon fortifica 
 tions, Eoman encampments, Norman and mediae 
 val churches, when he came to one of the scattered 
 hamlets that lay on his course. Such industry 
 as there were signs of was but the patient tilling 
 of the earth; he was walking backwards into
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 345 
 
 Time, away from his frets and difficulties. And 
 as he walked, they seemed to dwindle in the dis 
 tance, to be not so cruel and insoluble after all; 
 something, he felt sure, would occur to him as a 
 decision; in the meantime the great thing was to 
 walk. He rested at an inn in the middle of the 
 day and ate a meal of bread and cheese ; and then 
 walked on again in a direction that he thought 
 would lead him back to the coast. But in this 
 he was mistaken; he found himself once more on 
 downs, with no very clear knowledge of his where 
 abouts; and as it was getting on toward evening, 
 and the sky was looking threatening, he began to 
 be anxious, and catching sight of a lonely cottage 
 on the downs, went there to ask his way. To his 
 astonishment he found that he was twenty miles 
 from home, and three from the nearest village 
 where he could hope to get a bed for the night; 
 so there was nothing for it but to strike across 
 in the direction indicated. 
 
 He had not gone more than a mile, however, 
 before the storm broke in earnest, and in a few 
 minutes he was drenched to the skin. It was 
 beginning to be dark, moreover; and he awoke 
 from his melancholy reveries to realize that a night 
 spent wandering about the soaking downs would 
 be far from pleasant. At this moment he saw 
 through the gloom a building or group of build 
 ings half a mile to his left, and he struck across 
 at a run to seek shelter from the rain that was
 
 346 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 now driving solidly down. As he drew nearer 
 he saw lights shining from one of the buildings; 
 a cross on the gate of a neighboring field suggested 
 religion; and he then remembered to have heard 
 of a Trappist monastery somewhere in this neigh 
 borhood. This was evidently the place, and if so, 
 would probably afford him shelter. Eichard knew 
 very little about monasteries, and had never been 
 in one; and he was conscious of a somewhat eery 
 feeling as he approached the great cross-sur 
 mounted gates and heard the sound of singing 
 coming from the lighted chapel. But the rain 
 hastened his steps, and he was presently ringing 
 the bell of the only door which was open to public 
 approach. 
 
 He was received by a monk in brown, a lay 
 brother, who led him along a passage into a bare 
 waiting-room. The convent were singing the 
 office of Vespers, it appeared, and the guest- 
 master was in the chapel; he would come out 
 presently and attend to the visitor. The lay 
 brother disappeared, and left Eichard to his own 
 meditations, which were much concerned with the 
 strange environment in which he found himself. 
 He had only been alone a few minutes, however, 
 when he heard a clatter of feet along the stone 
 corridor outside; the monks had evidently come 
 out of the chapel. A few moments later the door 
 was opened by an elderly, gray-bearded man, who
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 347 
 
 introduced himself as Father David, the guest- 
 master. 
 
 " Dear me, sir, you are wet," he said ; " you 
 must come and get dry." And he led Eichard 
 without more ado to a great kitchen, where half 
 a dozen lay brothers were busy with pots and 
 pans before a roaring fire. While Eichard was 
 being attended to, Eufus was led off to an out 
 house in a mood somewhat suspicious of the re 
 ligious order; but everything was done in silence 
 and by signs, the father himself using as few 
 words as possible to Eichard while they were in 
 the kitchen. 
 
 When he had been dried, however, and his wet 
 coat left to the lay brothers, Father David led him 
 away to the reception-room, and there asked him 
 what they could do for him. 
 
 " You have already done more than I have any 
 right to accept," said Eichard. " I only wanted 
 a few minutes shelter, and directions to the near 
 est village where I can get a bed ; " and he ex 
 plained how he had been caught in the storm. 
 
 "You won t get a bed anywhere near here," 
 said Father David; "you had much better stay 
 with us. Hospitality to strangers is a rule with 
 us as well as a privilege," he added, kindly. 
 
 " But I am not a Catholic," said Eichard, 
 awkwardly. 
 
 "Well, that s the more pity," said the good- 
 natured monk; "but that is no reason why we
 
 348 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 should allow you to get wet." He treated him 
 like an unpractical child. " Why/ he said, " you 
 look not at all well. I am afraid you are not 
 very happy about something? Well, don t think 
 me inquisitive or impertinent, but if we can do 
 anything for you if you would like to talk to 
 a priest, I will speak to the prior." 
 
 Richard found himself ready to babble like a 
 child, and with difficulty restrained himself, ab 
 surd as the impulse was, from pouring out his 
 whole story into the ears of this shrewd, kindly 
 old man in the white flannel robe. 
 
 " I could not think of troubling you," he said ; 
 " I must keep my troubles to myself. And I don t 
 know how to thank you for your offer of hospi 
 tality." 
 
 " Why, that is what we are here for," said the 
 monk with great simplicity. " Now we will come 
 and see your room. There is an hour before sup 
 per, and I can show you over part of the monas 
 tery, if you like." 
 
 Eichard gladly accepted, and together they 
 made a tour of the buildings not actually occupied 
 by the monks. As they passed through the clois 
 ters they met a dozen or so of the fathers taking 
 their evening exercise and meditation, walking 
 briskly to and fro over the wooden floor, wrapped 
 in the eternal silence of their order, and averting 
 their eyes from Richard as he passed. He saw the 
 refectory, the sacristy, the chapter-house, the li-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 349 
 
 brary, the farm-buildings where some lay brothers 
 were busy milking the cows; and as they went 
 Father David explained to him something of their 
 austere life how they rose at two in the morn 
 ing and went to bed after compline at eight, sleep 
 ing on hard boards and wooden pillows in their 
 day-clothes, and covered only by a single blanket; 
 how with the exception of those who looked 
 after the guests and did business with neighbor 
 ing farmers they never spoke, and practised a 
 thousand austerities; how they lived and worked 
 hard on two meals a day, never touching meat or 
 wine from year s end to year s end. Eichard 
 looked wonderingly. " And do you never want 
 to go away ? " He asked the inevitable question 
 of the outsider. 
 
 " Dear me, no," said Father David, smiling 
 indulgently. " Why should we want to go away ? 
 That would be a strange idea, when we are so 
 happy here together ! We have so many things 
 to do, the day seems to slip by far too fast. And 
 then there are the offices but you will hardly 
 understand that," he added ; " only, you see, we 
 could not be happy if we were not serving and 
 praising God." 
 
 They talked a good deal, the monk displaying 
 a lively interest in the outside world at large and 
 in Eichard s work in particular, Eichard on his 
 part being equally inquisitive as to the life of 
 these recluses, with its austere restrictions and
 
 350 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 minute organization. To him it all seemed part 
 of the unreality of the day, and of the excursion 
 into the part that his walk had taken; after his 
 progress through British, Saxon, and Norman 
 England, it seemed only natural to finish the day 
 in a monastery of the middle ages. And it seemed 
 hardly less real when he was seated at the bare 
 supper-table with the half-dozen other guests a 
 couple of seminarists, a priest, and three laymen 
 in retreat eating a rough but plentiful meal of 
 fish, bread, and tea, and listening to the monoto 
 nous voice of a father who came in and read 
 aloud a dry theological treatise while they were 
 eating. There was no conversation then or after 
 ward; as soon as they had finished, the priest 
 rapped on the table, the father s reading abruptly 
 ceased, grace was said, and they separated to va 
 rious religious duties. Eichard remained in the 
 reception-room looking at the religious volumes 
 there until the beating of the chapel bell sum 
 moned the whole convent to compline, and Father 
 David came to show him his place in the chapel. 
 It was a long, narrow building, furnished with 
 images, altars, pictures, and an organ. There was 
 a transept for the guests ; and from where Eichard 
 sat he could see the two long rows of plain stalls 
 furnished with heavy breviaries and missals. Pres 
 ently the monks began to arrive ; the lay brothers 
 first, who congregated together in another tran 
 sept; and afterward, one by one, and by com-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 351 
 
 panies of twos and threes, the fathers themselves. 
 They strode awkwardly with bowed heads, their 
 white habits swinging behind them, their rough 
 shoes echoing on the wooden floor forty or 
 fifty of them, men middle-aged and old, with faces 
 of varying intelligence and refinement, but all, 
 oddly enough, bearing the marks of perfect health. 
 They turned around and saluted the altar as they 
 passed, bowing awkwardly from the waist, with 
 a sweep of the white robe, and taking their places 
 in order in the stalls. Last of all came the abbot, 
 a tall, gaunt, ungainly man of middle age, with 
 a rough gray beard and a kindling eye, in dress 
 only distinguished from the rest by the ring on his 
 finger and the simple cross that hung from a chain 
 around his neck. As he strode to his place the 
 bell and the sound of footfalls ceased, and there 
 was a moment s silence in the chapel, broken by 
 the voice of the reader beginning the office 
 Jul^e, Domne, Benedicere with the drop to a 
 low note on the last two syllables. Some one had 
 given Eichard a book, and he was able to follow 
 the prayers and blessings, psalms and antiphons, 
 of which the office is composed. The continual 
 petitions for a quiet night, safe from evil and 
 dreams, struck him as beautiful but a little child 
 ish; but the chanting of the psalms, sung by all 
 those rough voices to a single Gregorian tone, 
 seemed to him most austere and solemn. Out of 
 the many noble verses, one struck him especially
 
 352 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 and remained in his memory: Heu miJii, quid 
 incolatus meus prolongatus est; habitavi cum 
 habitantibus Cedar. He did not exactly know 
 what or where Kedar was, but he felt that he 
 understood the psalmist; that he too had dwelt 
 too long in Kedar, and that "Heu mihi! " was 
 perhaps the only possible comment to make upon 
 the fact. 
 
 The unfamiliar scene in the chapel, coming at 
 the end of a day of such varied and searching 
 emotions, impressed him more than he realized. 
 He had always thought of monks either as un 
 natural and probably vicious persons, or as poor, 
 emaciated creatures who had no resemblance to 
 men; and he was not a little astonished at this 
 community of robust, hard-working monks, with 
 their eighteen-hours day, their two vegetarian 
 meals, their rough, strong voices, their wholesome 
 faces, their silence and mortification. Luxury, 
 freedom, the joys of love, were things unknown 
 to them; yet they looked contented, and were 
 even, if Father David was to be believed, happy ! 
 During the progress of the office with its prayers 
 and chantings, its pauses and silences, its flicker 
 ing lights and row of bowed heads, he thought of 
 these things. The scene was so unfamiliar and for 
 eign, and yet so English a bit of old England 
 of the happy days before men troubled their heads 
 about theology. Eichard found himself envying 
 the monks their harsh, happy life of labor and
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 353 
 
 praise ; they, of all men, seemed to have the right 
 to praise with their lips, who praised so bravely 
 with the toil of their hands! 
 
 He passed out with the rest before the abbot, 
 who sprinkled each one with holy water, and 
 brought the day to an end with his blessing. He 
 went straight to bed, for he was tired, but he did 
 not immediately go to sleep. The strange bed and 
 stranger environment kept him awake, still puz 
 zling over his choice; but gradually a light seemed 
 to break on him. Mortification ! that was a means 
 he had not tried; perhaps it was the right way, 
 after all. If these poor monks could mortify 
 themselves for nothing but an idea, surely he 
 could do it in a greater interest. He began to 
 realize that he had always shirked the facts of 
 Toni s life, and that there lay the whole difficulty 
 of his choice. If he could see it as it was, he 
 would see, perhaps, that it was impossible he 
 should have any part in it; at any rate he could 
 try; he could subject himself to the trial of see 
 ing her as she was, without any knowledge of his 
 presence. Thus, he felt, he might cure himself 
 of the poison that was destroying his life; he 
 could force himself to face the bitter truth, at 
 any cost of pain or loss. Before he fell asleep, 
 with the compline psalms ringing in his ears, he 
 had resolved to confront himself with the cruel 
 facts of Toni s life; and he fell asleep more hap 
 pily for the decision, although he knew it would
 
 354 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 cost him an agony more sharp than any he had 
 yet known. . . . He was awakened in the small 
 hours by sounds of organ and voices from the 
 chapel, where the monks were singing matins and 
 lauds; and the music, floating to him on the 
 dark vacancy of night, mingled with his dreams 
 and turned them to prayers. 
 
 He left regretfully the next morning, although 
 the place seemed not the same by daylight; it 
 seemed a hundred years since he had walked up 
 to it in the dark and storm, and since the rows 
 of monks had chanted in the lighted chapel. He 
 thanked Father David, who looked at him a little 
 wistfully. 
 
 " It s a pity you are not a Catholic," he said, 
 shaking his head, " you would understand so many 
 things! We haven t all got the same vocation," 
 he added with a sigh ; " some of us can only save 
 our souls by leaving the world, and some only by 
 living and working in it. Well, you have a great 
 vocation; it s a great work that you are doing, 
 my son. God bless you in it; some day who 
 knows ? perhaps you will come to the Church ; 
 I will always prey for you." 
 
 " Good-by, father, and thank you again a 
 thousand times. You have done more for me than 
 you know." 
 
 They shook hands warmly, and the monk stood 
 looking through the gate as Richard walked off 
 with Eufus frisking about him, glad of his escape
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 355 
 
 even from the friendly lay brothers. Richard 
 looked back and waved his hand; and the gate 
 clashed before the white-robed figure, and hid him 
 from view. Richard felt as though he had left 
 a load as well as a friend behind him in the mon 
 astery; and though he guessed something of the 
 torture of what lay before him, he felt that he 
 would have strength to endure it. His long walk 
 back across the downs was not unhappy, and he 
 slept soundly in his own bed that night. The next 
 day was spent in making some final arrangements 
 for the installation of the keepers and the inau 
 guration of the light, in case he should not be 
 back in time to see it lit for the first time; and 
 that evening, with a courage that began to waver 
 a little, he started for London.
 
 RICHAED arrived in Paris in the evening, 
 dressed, dined alone and miserably, and went 
 to the theatre to pass the hours that divide the 
 Parisian evening from the night. From the 
 moment of his arrival at the railway station, the 
 whole of his former sensations had returned to 
 him in a flood of memories and associations; he 
 felt like an exile come home. The fact that a 
 fortnight represented the whole of his life there 
 was contradicted at every turn by the ghosts 
 that haunted him as he drove through the streets 
 and boulevards; and he realized what most of us 
 realize clearly at least once in our lives that 
 time, as we commonly reckon it, is but an illusion, 
 a convenient symbol, and that the intensity with 
 which we live is alone the measure of our exist 
 ence. As he walked through Paris on that 
 autumn evening, all the rest of his life seemed 
 to fall away from him like a perished husk, and 
 to become a thing of dream and vapor. His long 
 and strenuous education, his happy comradeship 
 in work with his father, his pride in the light 
 house, the labors in which he had thought to find 
 a sober and immortal joy these now appeared, 
 356
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 357 
 
 but as an episode in a dim past; and the lights 
 and sounds of evening Paris, its white dignity, 
 its luxurious glitter, represented the real and 
 central meaning of existence. 
 
 It added something to his misery that he should 
 thus, returning to tear from his heart the beloved 
 thing that preyed upon it, find his whole soul 
 going out in longing, and borne away on the shin 
 ing river of pleasures that forever fleets through 
 Paris. He had come determined to see the ugL 
 ness which he believed to underlie the whole ban 
 quet of pleasure; he found it more beautiful, 
 more alluring, more compelling than ever. He 
 had come determined to realize that Toni belonged 
 to that world and not to his; that she came of a 
 different race, breathed a different atmosphere 
 from his; that she, in her single-hearted service 
 of pleasure, was a creature of nature, and he of 
 civilization; that she was primitive and eternal, 
 while he was of time and evolution. Some such 
 assurance he had arrived at in his absence; but 
 now that he was back in Paris the human in 
 fluence of their union seized upon him again, 
 and gave the lie to his pretences. The very at 
 mosphere of Paris on this scented September 
 evening was warm and redolent of her, and clung 
 about his senses like the scent of her hair and the 
 touch of her skin; and as the evening throngs 
 began to surge in the boulevards, and the tide of 
 pleasure to rise and flow around him, he found
 
 358 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 himself hastening as though to a loving tryst, 
 instead of to the crucifixion on which he had de 
 termined. 
 
 He stayed no more than half an hour in the 
 theatre : he could listen or attend to nothing but 
 the rows of men and women in the audience, so 
 many of them happy to be together, and untrou 
 bled by such tortures and difficulties as his. He 
 wandered out again; and now he found himself 
 regarding every well-dressed man he saw with 
 bitterness and hatred, and with the suspicion 
 that he was a buyer in the terrible markets of 
 pleasure. Yet his mind was not overwhelmed by 
 his emotions ; he knew what he had come for, and 
 meant to do it. It was only when sights and 
 sounds set trains of associated ideas on fire in his 
 mind that his step quickened and he walked aa 
 though in an eager dream ; till suddenly he would 
 remember, with a sickening shudder, what he had 
 come for, and would arrest his hurrying steps. 
 He found himself in the Place de la Madeleine, 
 that quiet backwater where the tides of night do 
 not flow, but whence can be heard their uproar 
 as they go by on the adjoining boulevard; and 
 outside a cafe there, under the shadow of the 
 great church, he sat down to collect and pull him 
 self together for the ordeal that was before him. 
 
 The street, so busy by day, so quiet by night, 
 was almost empty; and as he looked up at the 
 great colonnade of the Madeleine ranked against
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 359 
 
 the star-dusted sky, something of the peace that 
 resides in things of stone and marble rested for 
 a moment on his feverish mind. That for which 
 the building stood made no definite appeal to him, 
 and there was for him nothing in common between 
 the wind-beaten Cornish monastery and this fash 
 ionable theatre of religion the Catholic opera 
 as Lauder had called it. But its beauty is a pagan 
 beauty, and externally at least it remains a Greek 
 temple; and its wonderful mass and proportion, 
 floating as it were in the violet sky, pleased and 
 soothed Eichard s jangled nerves. Until mid 
 night he sat beneath its shadow; then he got up 
 and walked quickly toward Maixim s. 
 
 As on the night of his first visit there, the tide 
 of money and beauty, pleasure, folly, vice, and 
 love, was flowing in at the door. The four wheel 
 ing panels revolved unceasingly; carriages drove 
 up at every moment, and dainty figures clad in 
 lace and chiffon hurried across the strip of pave 
 ment, plunged through the turning door, and 
 waited to be joined by their black-garbed partners. 
 There was a constant sound of carriage doors being 
 slammed, and of horses feet striking the polished 
 roadway. Whenever the door revolved a snatch 
 of music made itself heard, and a stream of light 
 shot across the pavement, as though the place were 
 literally overflowing with light and life and sound. 
 
 As he passed the door the porter touched his
 
 360 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 hat to Eichard an incident the essential irony 
 of which was not lost upon him. He, recognized 
 as a patron! The hot air of the place rushed 
 upon him like a vicious caress, redolent of wine, 
 and food, and flowers, and tobacco smoke. The 
 restaurant was, as usual, crowded; the long tables 
 were packed with the same throng Eichard 
 could have said, almost the same faces, for places 
 have a way of lending expression to the counte 
 nances of those who frequent them. In the rows 
 of well-dressed men there Eichard recognized what 
 he had come to know as the " Maxim face " 
 an expression jaded and jangled by the heat and 
 the noise, excited by champagne, and greedy with 
 sensual hunger. He pulled his hat down over his 
 forehead, and made his way rapidly to a corner, 
 where room was made for him between two ladies 
 who were without partners, and who with one 
 comprehending look appraised him as a person 
 who was not for the moment a buyer. The in 
 stinct of the demi-mondaine in such matters is 
 seldom at fault, nor is her recognition of friendly 
 generosity. One of them, a tired-looking English 
 girl with beautiful eyes, put her hand on Eichard s 
 arm. 
 
 " Order me some champagne, will you, dear ? " 
 she said. " I ve got no money, and if I don t 
 order something they won t let me stop." 
 
 Eichard was already experienced enough to rec 
 ognize, in the rather shabby forty-guinea lace
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 361 
 
 frock, the beautiful hat no longer fresh, the well- 
 designed imitation jewels, and the cleaned white 
 kid gloves, signs of a struggle, a gamble with 
 heavy stakes. He had learned also that directness 
 and definiteness of intention are never in that 
 world regarded as an insult. 
 
 " All right," he said, " with pleasure ; only I m 
 not here for amusement. I ve come to look for 
 somebody." 
 
 " You re a kind boy," she said. " Now I m 
 going to sit at another table. Good night, and 
 thank you." And, when he had given the order 
 for her, she went off, with a sympathetic tact 
 which is one of the many virtues of her world. 
 Eichard ordered the inevitable champagne for 
 himself and a box of cigarettes, which he began 
 feverishly to smoke as from his corner he care 
 fully scrutinized the sea of faces at the tables 
 beyond. 
 
 But before his anxious gaze had travelled very- 
 far he was thrilled by the sound of a well-known 
 voice, rising clear above all the hubbub and babel. 
 
 " my Gott, I never laugh so much in all my 
 life! I give you my vord " and a ripple of 
 laughter, as musical as a child s, flowed out across 
 the room. 
 
 For a moment the scene went dark before Rich 
 ard s eyes; it was only for a moment, and imme 
 diately it was there before him again, with its 
 glowing lights, white tables, flowers, gay dresses,
 
 362 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 jewels, faces; but in that moment of eclipse it 
 had changed. It was no longer a miscellaneous 
 collection of strangers; it had become trans 
 formed into a setting for one face, one voice, one 
 figure. She was sitting quite near him, but half- 
 turned away from him, and obviously she had not 
 seen him. She was looking more radiant than 
 ever; that auriferous quality in her hair and eyes 
 and skin that had always dazzled and delighted 
 him shone all about her, and made of her a sun 
 among the stars and constellations around her. 
 His eyes were held to her helplessly for a moment, 
 and he felt his soul flowing out of them to her; 
 and it was with a great physical effort that he 
 turned away from her and looked at her partner. 
 They were seated alone at a table bearing the 
 remains of a luxurious and extravagant dinner. 
 The table was covered with rare orchids; one or 
 two boxes of impossible fruit impossibly out of 
 season were lying about; a glittering edifice 
 of ice was melting away in the heat on an adjoin 
 ing table; and unfinished bottles of champagne, 
 a decanter of port, a flask of liqueur, and half a 
 dozen boxes of different kinds of cigarettes com 
 pleted the luxurious furniture of the meal, which 
 had evidently protracted itself throughout the 
 whole of the evening. The centre of the table was 
 occupied by a dwarf cherry-tree in a pot, on whose 
 unnatural little branches the full-sized crimson 
 fruit was growing. While Eichard was still look-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 363 
 
 ing at her, Toni pulled off a cherry, put the end 
 of the stalk between her teeth, and leaned over 
 until her lips almost touched those of the man 
 opposite to her. 
 
 It was then that Eichard forced his eyes away 
 from her to the man; and as he looked a wave of 
 bitter sickness and nausea flowed over him. Sit 
 ting at the table with Toni, and visibly gloating 
 over her, sat a big man with a hard, coarse, brutal 
 face. His beady eyes shone with lust and desire; 
 his leathery skin hung in puffs and pouches about 
 his broad face ; and his gross mouth trembled and 
 twitched as he leaned forward and closed his lips 
 over Toni s cherry. She dropped her eyelids in 
 an affectation of languorous rapture that set the 
 creature opposite to her agog with excited amuse 
 ment. He gurgled and shook with laughter ; then 
 suddenly he stopped; a hard, almost painful look 
 of seriousness and greed came into his eyes, and 
 he leaned over and whispered in Toni s ear. 
 
 The petulant pucker that Richard knew so well 
 came into her forehead. 
 
 " Oh, no, my dear, I am so tired. I never was 
 so tired in all my life. True really ; " and she 
 nodded her head briskly till the flowers in her 
 hat shook, and her gaze wandered abstractedly 
 around the room. The man shrugged his shoul 
 ders and sat back, lighting another cigarette, and 
 eying her through the smoke. 
 
 After his first qualm of sickness and horror,
 
 364 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 Eichard steeled himself to look and listen, al 
 though his limbs trembled and his brown face was 
 mottled and ashy with the agony he was suffer 
 ing. Although he sat immovable in a kind of 
 trance, he was vividly conscious of the scene before 
 him; and he noticed again that strange clarity 
 of sound in this heated room, so that one seemed 
 to hear quite clearly fifty conversations going on 
 at once. Their aggregate noise never seemed to 
 obscure or obliterate the individual voices. He 
 had heard quite clearly every word spoken by 
 Toni and the man; and he knew that while he 
 sat there he must still listen, and drink to the 
 dregs the bitter cup that he had brewed for him 
 self. 
 
 And as he thus sat in the gay market of passion 
 and beauty, amid the clamor of laughter and 
 talk, the clink of dishes and glasses, and the pas 
 sionate melodies of the orchestra, he knew that 
 he loved her with all his heart and soul with 
 everything but his judgment. He bravely faced 
 the facts; he wondered, indeed, if the love in 
 which judgment can share could be love at all, 
 and whether the very essence of love did not con 
 sist in abandonment to forces to which the mind 
 is an eternal subordinate ; but as he looked at her 
 he remembered, and knew that there was nothing 
 base or shameful in his love. Toni was looking 
 around the room, as though searching for some 
 one; and one of her rare moments of repose had
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 365 
 
 fallen on her. How lovely her fair, small face was 
 now, with its smouldering golden eyes under the 
 tawny hair. God ! how grave and beautiful, with 
 the gravity and beauty of a wondering child ! Yet 
 in the eyes there hovered an ageless, inscrutable 
 mystery; they seemed again to Eichard to draw 
 him down into their depths, as into bottomless 
 wells of time. Suddenly he realized quite clearly 
 that she was a thousand years, a thousand miles, 
 away from him; that a barrier as impassable as 
 that of death had arisen between them; that he 
 was now looking at a heavenly picture, an effigy, 
 of some one who was lost to him. 
 
 From a corner table, where a distinguished- 
 looking man and an exceedingly refined and beau 
 tiful woman had been sitting quietly, with a rapt 
 and happy expression on their faces, a maltre 
 d liotel brought a note to the leader of the orches 
 tra. He bowed and smiled, spoke to his instru 
 mentalists, brought his fiddle over to the corner 
 table, and, fixing his eyes on the woman there, 
 began the first solemn, sonorous notes of Wolf 
 ram s song in " Tannhauser." The trembling 
 string almost articulated the sombre words, 
 
 " Wie Todesahnung, Damm rung deckt die Lande," - 
 
 and as the gloomy phrase, in such sharp con 
 trast to the waltzes and riotous rhythms that 
 had preceded it, fell upon the conversational
 
 366 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 clamor, there was a sudden hush, and then a 
 murmur of impatient disapproval. A woman 
 sitting near the band shouted: " Oil, la, la! 
 Dis-donc, c est pas un enterrement?" but a 
 dozen voices said " Sh-sh ! " and the incident was 
 over. Wagner is generally triumphant in propor 
 tion to the humanity of his audience; and in this 
 very human crowd the exotic sentimentality of 
 du mein holder Abendstern, innocently sung by 
 the respectable \Yolfram, but really a strain from 
 the Venusberg if ever music was, had its due and 
 impressive effect. 
 
 But with its very first notes came to Eichard an 
 almost intolerable stab of pain and association. 
 It took him back to that long day of happiness 
 that had ended with " Tannhauser " at the Opera, 
 when Toni s delight in it, and his own delight 
 in her sensitive and changing impressions, had 
 made it a new thing for him. He remembered 
 how, in the dark hours of the night, he had whis 
 pered to her : " die ndcht ge Damm rung theilt 
 dein lieber Strahl!" and the little tremor of un 
 derstanding with which she had responded. Now, 
 as this echo of that evening sounded across the 
 crowded Bacchanalian scene, he dared not look at 
 Toni; the music brought back with far too acute 
 and aching a reality the creature that he and the 
 unwonted surroundings had made of her in those 
 happy days. He listened to every note of the 
 melodious recitative that floated about as though
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 367 
 
 on a shimmer of clouds and starlight, and after 
 ward to the voluptuous song; and then he heard 
 an exclamation from her, and looked up. 
 
 She was staring into her partner s face, her 
 eyes glittering with tears which she kept brushing 
 away, and which reappeared as fast as she dried 
 them. The man was questioning her, evidently 
 puzzled and put out; and then suddenly she lost 
 all control of herself, and, burying her face in her 
 hands, burst into sobs. 
 
 " What s the matter, my dear ? Tell me what s 
 the matter," reiterated the man, somewhat em 
 barrassed by an occurrence that in any other place 
 would have made them both ridiculous. Here 
 where intoxication and revelry, tears and laughter, 
 fury and amiability, all bubbled together in the 
 cauldron of pleasure, no one took any notice ex 
 cept the people at the adjoining tables; and even 
 they were merely politely interested, with the in 
 terest of people who have themselves understood 
 and suffered much, and who know life too well 
 to be capable of astonishment. And so far was 
 Toni from misunderstanding or resenting their 
 interest that she took them into her audience, 
 and included them in her explanation. 
 
 " my Gott, what a fool a fool I am ! I 
 never was such a fool in my life. But I tell you, 
 that music, it reminds me you see? of some 
 von a man I love once my Gott, how I love 
 that man ! We were so happy together I never
 
 368 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 was so happy in all my life ; he was such a smart 
 man really, I tell you, a smart man, and he was 
 mad oh, madly in love with me. But he got 
 no money, my dear ; he was no use no money ; 
 I tell you, I was a damn fool to fall in love with 
 him. And yet but we quarrel ; once we quarrel, 
 and then twice no good ! And this music you 
 see Tannhauser we hear it together once; 
 and it remind me of him. my Gott ! " And 
 her tears flowed afresh. 
 
 Eichard heard it all with a strange mixture of 
 emotion. Her tears he had never seen her eyes 
 shining with tears before scalded his heart, as 
 her momentary unhappiness, which he was power 
 less to assuage, harrowed his whole being; yet 
 he was not unconscious of the element of comedy 
 in the whole thing; indeed, he was perfectly con 
 scious of it, and he was not sure that it did not 
 add a further element of misery to the situation. 
 But she cared for him; she remembered that she 
 had been happy with him! Out of the tumbling 
 ruin that surrounded him he caught at that, and 
 held to it. It seemed to redeem so much, and 
 somehow to make the inevitable end less bitter. 
 That she should place it all as an incident in the 
 remote past was the instinct of her class for water 
 tight compartments, for separating the different 
 and necessarily hostile elements of life from dis 
 astrous collision; that she should cry it aloud to 
 the surrounding world was characteristic of her
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 369 
 
 primitive elemental outlook on life an outlook 
 which did not include shame of what one does or 
 suffers. 
 
 Yet Eichard felt that the situation was becom 
 ing unbearable. He had come to this place for 
 the express purpose of suffering and seeing things 
 clearly; he had undergone, was acutely undergo 
 ing, the suffering; and he was wise enough to 
 desire also to accomplish the real end for which 
 he had deliberately exposed himself to these tor 
 tures. If Toni should by any chance discover 
 him here the consequences might be disastrous; 
 he was longing now to go away and escape from 
 the intolerable strain; yet this tearful episode 
 had disturbed him, and interrupted the process of 
 mortification that had been going on in his heart. 
 He must drink the cup to its dregs. 
 
 A little space had been cleared at the end of 
 the room, and half a dozen couples were dancing 
 to the gay strains that had succeeded the violin 
 solo. Suddenly the tune of La Mascisce was struck 
 up; and to its first notes Toni dried her eyes, 
 broke into smiles again (much to the satisfaction 
 of her host), and clapped her hands with delight. 
 
 " Yes, my dear," she reassured him, " I m all 
 right quite right now. I was a fool, my dear, 
 a fool. Oh, there s Germaine, I must go and 
 dance with her." And without a word she ran 
 off, joined the dancers, and in a moment was 
 perfectly happily engaged in the performance of
 
 370 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 the somewhat ugly and indecent dance of the 
 moment. Her lightning changes bewildered Rich 
 ard, yet they helped him to realize the shifting 
 nature of the emotional sands on which he had 
 tried to build his happiness. The building was 
 there, but the foundations would not hold it up; 
 it was destined to fall; and as, well screened 
 behind other spectators, he watched Toni floating 
 happily around the dancing-place, he uncon 
 sciously took his farewell of her beauty, drinking 
 it in for the last time. The pain that he suffered 
 was less the pain of a wound than that of a death ; 
 something he felt was dying within him, and it 
 was a cold, long-drawn, and terrifying experi 
 ence. 
 
 Something now occurred, however, that helped 
 to bring his self-inflicted torture to an end. Toni 
 suddenly caught sight of a good-looking youth 
 whom she knew, ran over to him, and led him out 
 to dance with her. It was, of course, against all 
 the etiquette of her profession, while she was the 
 guest of some one else; but it was thoroughly 
 characteristic of her waywardness and perversity 
 and impatience of restraint; it was a habit from 
 which he himself had suffered, and it explained 
 probably why she was there at all, and not the 
 permanent mistress of some brilliant hotel in the 
 Champs Elysees. Richard instinctively turned to 
 look at the hard man who was still sitting alone 
 at the table ; and he saw his coarse face turn sour
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 371 
 
 and scowling. Jealousy is always an ugly pas 
 sion; but the kind of jealousy felt by this poor 
 creature, who was so repulsive that he could only 
 at the best look for pleasures bought, and bought 
 at a high price, shone upon his face and trans 
 figured it in a perfect ecstasy of ugliness. The 
 exaggerated and shameless intimacy of the dance 
 added to his tortures; and for a moment Eichard 
 had an unreasonable pang of hope that he would 
 be so disgusted with Toni as to leave the place. 
 
 But her acute instinct taught her just how far 
 she could go; and it was not unlikely that the 
 whole thing had been deliberately done to add the 
 final whet of jealousy to the man s desire. She 
 only danced a few turns with her friend, said 
 good night to him, and returned, radiant and 
 sparkling, to the table. Eichard with a shudder 
 saw her stoop down and give the hard man a kiss. 
 Then she sat down opposite to him, while he 
 leaned forward and began to speak earnestly in 
 a low voice. 
 
 What he said Eichard could not hear, although 
 he knew only too well. Toni s replies he heard 
 quite distinctly. 
 
 " No, my dear ; I don t do that sort of thing. 
 It s not good enough. I m not that sort of per 
 son." 
 
 The man spoke again. 
 
 "Ah, that s another thing. Where you say? 
 Ritz s? You want me to come and stay at Ritz s
 
 372 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 with you for a fortnight? I don t think I want 
 to. I m very tired, and I want to go to Vienna. 
 No, my dear, another time I stay with you." 
 
 Again the man spoke, this time with a shocking 
 and repulsive intensity. 
 
 " How much ? " The clear young voice put the 
 question with just a tremor of well-disguised 
 anxiety. The world has admiration for stock 
 brokers who have a cool head and a sure touch 
 in the financial dealings by which they live; it 
 has none for a girl of three and twenty who, 
 against society, with no protection of law or social 
 machinery, has also to transact all alone the diffi 
 cult and delicate negotiations by means of which 
 the rent of her flat and the price of her motor-car 
 are paid. 
 
 Richard heard her, saw her; he heard the 
 price, saw the whole hideous bargain struck ; knew 
 that the unlovely creature opposite had a lease of 
 the youth and fairness, the heavenly summer 
 beauty that for him had been a passport to para 
 dise. . . . He could bear no more. The scene 
 swam before him while he called the mailre d hotel 
 and paid his bill. He stumbled out to the door 
 way, and the great swinging panels revolved 
 behind him. Of a sudden the music faded from 
 his ears, the lights and flowers from his sight; 
 and with them, in one awful wrench, were torn 
 from his heart, broken and bleeding, the nerves 
 and roots of his love. For the moment the world
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 373 
 
 was blotted out in loathing and horror of him 
 self and of her. . . . 
 
 And yet if we could but understand, if we 
 could climb to those heights where there is no 
 forgiveness because there is no need for it! Mo 
 ments of storm may tempt us to injustice, but 
 beyond storms there is a serene region of the mind 
 to which in happier moments we may attain, 
 where we may learn that the wise and prudent 
 have no monopoly of eternal pity and love.
 
 V 
 
 In Salutem Omnium 
 
 IT was nearly thirty-six hours later when Kich- 
 ard sank back with a sigh of relief on the 
 cushions of his seat in the Cornish express and 
 watched the riverside towns sliding past the win 
 dow. The interval since that moment when the 
 door of Maxim s had closed behind him seemed 
 filled with a life of nightmare. He had walked 
 and walked, not knowing or caring whither, 
 through the empty streets of Paris, until the 
 broadening sunshine had put his evening dress to 
 shame and sent him back to his hotel. There, 
 when he had bathed and changed, he found a tele 
 gram summoning him to a meeting of the Trinity 
 Board the same afternoon, which he could just 
 attend by catching the early express to London. 
 But during his tormented walk in the small hours, 
 a desire had gradually taken shape in his mind 
 had, indeed, come to the rescue of his tortured 
 endurance the desire to be present at the Snail 
 when the lighthouse was first lighted. That was 
 to be on Friday at sunset; and the telegram, 
 874
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 375 
 
 which suggested the possibility of some interfer 
 ence with this plan, only strengthened his desire. 
 In a kind of numb dream he had hurried to Lon 
 don, where he arrived on the Thursday afternoon. 
 An early autumn gale was brewing in the Chan 
 nel, and during the rough passage he had taken 
 a delight in remaining on deck when every one 
 else sought shelter, and getting drenched with the 
 spray that continually broke over the ship s side. 
 He had just had time to change, and to attend 
 the meeting of the Board, at which his final ac 
 counts were passed and he received the congratu 
 lations of the Brethren. 
 
 " But all work and no play, you know, Mr. 
 Grey" one kindly old gentleman had said 
 " it won t do. You ve been working too hard, and 
 you re looking quite knocked up. You must take 
 a holiday. We can t afford to have you laid up." 
 And he had patted him kindly on the back, and 
 been a little hurt when Eichard moved abruptly 
 away; for his nerves were in such a state that a 
 friendly human voice and touch brought him to 
 the verge of breakdown. Moreover, the Board had 
 asked for some detailed plans to be prepared at 
 once; and this had upset him, for it meant that 
 he could not catch the night train, and would 
 probably miss the first lighting of the tower, on 
 which he found his mind had been set. But at 
 any rate it occupied him, and kept up the rush 
 that had lasted ever since the early morning; and
 
 376 
 
 he worked far into the night and had only finished 
 at two o clock, when he threw himself exhausted 
 upon his bed and slept dreamlessly until nine. He 
 had been awakened by squalls of rain that, even in 
 the sheltered London street, rattled and streamed 
 against his window; and he had been obliged to 
 hurry through official occupations without a mo 
 ment to think of his own affairs, until he had 
 just caught the 10.50 express at Paddington with 
 out a minute to spare. 
 
 And even now, as he felt the train gathering 
 speed for its long journey to the west, he had 
 scarcely time to think of what hovered like a 
 shadow in the back of his mind. He had come to 
 desire passionately to sit in the lighthouse on that 
 night of its first illumination. He had reconciled 
 himself to being late, as he could not reach 
 Helston until after seven, and it was nearly two 
 hours drive to Poltesco Head; and his only pre 
 occupation was whether he could reach the light 
 house at all. The wind, which was from the 
 southeast, had every appearance of rising to a 
 gale, and would in any case mean a heavy sea on 
 the Snail, and it would probably be out of the 
 question to attempt it in a boat. His only chance 
 was if he could reach the rock at low water, and 
 make use of the sling and cradle that bridged the 
 channel between the mainland and the rocks. He 
 had no almanac with him, and he spent half an 
 hour in calculations on a piece of paper as to the
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 377 
 
 time of low water. The result showed dead low 
 water at half-past eight, which suited so nearly 
 with his needs that he doubted the accuracy of 
 his calculations, or of his memory of the tides, 
 and went all over them again. At last he realized 
 that he must trust to luck, and that all his figur 
 ing would not alter the tides by an inch. He threw 
 the paper away, and leaned back against the 
 cushions. 
 
 The train roared through Chippenham, and 
 sped out again into the stormy country, where 
 the trees were tossing in the wind and shedding 
 their leaves fast before it. A squall of rain 
 struck against the windows, and drowned the land 
 scape in streaming tears. Eichard s thoughts, 
 that had been clinging desperately to whatever 
 eyes could see, now turned inwards, to feed upon 
 themselves. Gingerly, like one who treads un 
 willingly a path that he knows leads to horror, 
 he retraced the events of the past thirty-six 
 hours. His hurry to catch the train, his awaken 
 ing in the London bedroom, his night of hard 
 work, the meeting of the Board, the stormy jour 
 ney from France, the telegram at his hotel in 
 Paris, his early morning wandering in the streets ; 
 his thoughts stopped there, like a shying horse 
 that refuses to cross a dark bridge. Twice he 
 went back, and led himself up to that moment, 
 and twice shirked it, fled from it. In a sort of 
 panic he opened his suit-case to find a book; as
 
 378 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 he did so he displaced a hair-brush a soft one 
 which he was not in the habit of using. He was 
 putting it into its place when he caught a waft 
 of perfume; he took out the brush again and 
 smelled it. 
 
 Instantly, without effort or terror, his thoughts 
 turned like a flight of birds back to the summer 
 of his happiness. He was with Toni again; this 
 was the brush that she had used on that laughing 
 morning at Barbizon, oh, so many years ago ! 
 and still held a faint memory of the perfume 
 she used. He saw her, not as on that last terrible 
 night, but as she had been when awakened to him 
 and to the flash of pagan life which they had en 
 joyed together. He closed his eyes, and the roar 
 of the train and the swish of the wind sank into 
 quietness. It was dark, a summer-scented dark 
 ness and silence, out of which thrilled the two 
 voices of the nightingales. Their song bubbled 
 and swelled, thrilled, chuckled, languished, silver 
 threads against the black velvet of night. A soft, 
 tender figure wrapped in his coat snuggled close 
 beside him; a quiet voice, awed, ravished by the 
 music, whispered, " They call one to another ! " 
 . . . That seemed the real Toni, although she 
 seemed dead to him now, and far away ; the other, 
 upon whom his thoughts now dwelt without dis 
 may, seemed unreal and shadowy. The night in 
 Maxim s was like a bad dream; it was not true. 
 He was thinking of it quite clearly, when suddenly
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 379 
 
 he thought, " What is she doing at this moment ? " 
 and with a wave of sickening weakness he realized 
 that she was not dead, but living. This thought 
 also he faced, but was surprised to find how unreal 
 it was to him. An old saying of Sir Thomas 
 Browne s came into his head " Afflictions induce 
 callosities." The flying wheels of the train took 
 up the word: callosities, callosities, callosities, 
 until he lost the sense of it, and the whole sentence 
 sounded like gibberish. 
 
 A glimpse of white and angry sea brought him 
 back to himself and his destination. The gale 
 was increasing, and he often heard it above the 
 roaring of the train, like the soft brushing of 
 wings against the roof of the carriage. The sun, 
 travelling westward with them, now shone brightly 
 from a sky almost empty of clouds, and Eichard 
 began to find an exhilarating correspondence be 
 tween its anger and his own stormy thoughts, in 
 the centre of which, as in a calm, he seemed to 
 live in a dream. He went into the luncheon-car 
 and ate mechanically, watching the dull, stolid 
 people hungrily following the waiters about with 
 their eyes, and bolting with ill-concealed greed 
 their portions of the badly cooked food. At other 
 times it would have amused him; now he saw 
 them merely as grotesque and shadowy actors in 
 the drama of life which, in spite of his disincli 
 nation for it, persisted before his eyes. 
 
 When he returned to his carriage he found that
 
 380 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 some one had left a West of England newspaper; 
 and there on the front page his eye caught an 
 advertisement, to the appearing of which he had 
 often looked forward: 
 
 " NOTICE TO MARINERS. The Elder Brethren 
 of the Trinity hereby give notice that a Light 
 house has been erected on the Outer Snail Eock, 
 Poltesco Head, Cornwall, and that a Light will 
 be exhibited there on the night of October 1 next, 
 and every night thereafter from Sunset to Sunrise 
 until further notice. The light will be visible 
 from E. by N. % X. to SYv r . % W. Southerly, and 
 will be known to Mariners as a Eevolving Light, 
 appearing as a Bright Flash, every 10 seconds, 
 the duration of the Flash being 1 second, and of 
 Eclipse 9 seconds. To a near observer in favor 
 able circumstances the Light will not wholly dis 
 appear between the Flashes. The Light is situ 
 ated 120 feet above H. W. spring tides, and is 
 visible in clear weather at a distance of seventeen 
 ISTautic miles. It is situated in Lat. 50 15", 
 and Long. 5 6 10", and bears from the Eddy- 
 stone Eock W. y 8 S. 341/2 miles, and from Ushant 
 K by E. % E. 921/2 miles. It is High Water at 
 the Outer Snail Eock at Full and Change of the 
 Moon, 5 hrs. 11 m." 
 
 And every night thereafter! That was a bold 
 statement, but there was something grand in its
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 381 
 
 calm confidence. He read the notice with a curi 
 ous feeling of detachment, almost as a stranger 
 might read it, and the nautical details, so utterly 
 without interest to the landsman, presented it to 
 him from a new aspect. He had always thought 
 of the tower from his own point of view, and had 
 always seen it from the rocks or from the coast: 
 now he saw it as the mariner saw it, a low bright 
 star far away on a horizon of tumbling sea, 
 beckoning toward home and safety. But his 
 thoughts came back to the words "and every 
 night thereafter, from Sunset to Sunrise." Had 
 he really had a hand in a work so permanent? 
 Had he really lighted a star whose shining and 
 eclipsing was determined by things so everlasting 
 and punctual as sunset and sunrise? To be thus 
 involved with the rising and the setting of the 
 sun, to have geared up to that great machinery 
 a thing which, however unconsciously, it would 
 be compelled to work, pleased his fancy for a 
 moment and gave him a sense of partnership in 
 eternal concerns. . . . And then his thoughts 
 swung around again to Toni, and clung to her; 
 it was heavenly rest to forget everything, to make 
 no struggle, but to shut his eyes and believe that 
 she was close to him. Without her he felt that 
 nothing else was of interest or mattered to him at 
 all. He thought with bitterness that it was only 
 necessary for the lighthouse to be thrown down 
 by the gale for the whole of his life to crumble
 
 382 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 away in failure; yet his sense of the additional 
 disaster that the ruin of the lighthouse would be 
 did not help him to see how much really remained 
 in his life. And as the train hurried and swung 
 along he was thus being preyed upon by his mind 
 and his heart, his mind telling him practical and 
 unlovely truths, his heart yearning for her whom 
 he had lost. The very sight of the trees tossing 
 in the wind, and every suggestion of natural 
 beauty in the passing landscape, filled him with 
 that nostalgia of joy which is one of the death- 
 struggles of youth, and marks the passage of our 
 life into a grayer region. Yet all he felt, he felt 
 as one in a fever, in a dream. He was conscious 
 only of an intense desire to press forward, to do 
 the next thing; he felt as though he were waiting 
 for some striking and significant event. 
 
 As the afternoon wore on, the wind continued 
 to rise. At Saltash only had it seemed calm; 
 over those deep-sheltered arms of the sea, where 
 the old warships lie dreaming at their landlocked 
 moorings, no wind seems ever to blow, and the 
 deep green water was scarcely ruffled. But out at 
 Dawlish the sea was white with foam, and was 
 breaking angrily over the warm red Devon earth, 
 bursting on the sea-wall and showering spray 
 over the windows and roofs of the carriages as 
 they tore past. The rain had ceased, and as they 
 wound through Cornwall it had hardened into a 
 strong, dry gale from the southeast. Whenever
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 383 
 
 the train stopped at some wayside station on that 
 wild line, it was shaken and buffeted by the gusts. 
 At Lostwithiel a tree had been blown down outside 
 the station ; at Truro the train was half an hour 
 late, and an extra engine had to be put on. When 
 at last Eichard changed at Gwinear Eoad, the sun 
 was setting amid a wrack of flying clouds that 
 promised more rather than less wind. The gale 
 howled around the desolate little station where he 
 had to wait, while apparently endless shunting 
 evolutions were performed by the Helston train; 
 but at last they were off, and running through the 
 more sheltered valleys that traverse the neck of 
 the great promontory. 
 
 At Helston a carriage with two good horses was 
 waiting for him, and he set off, well wrapped up, 
 in the gathering dusk along the bleak road toward 
 the Lizard. The leaves, many-colored still in the 
 fading light, were scattering before the wind. The 
 storm meant havoc in gardens, and an end of 
 summer; when it passed it would leave autumn 
 where summer had been. The likeness to his own 
 life was too obvious to be missed by Eichard, who 
 felt storm and autumn together in his heart, but 
 did not at the moment realize that great winds 
 may sweep away more than dying flowers and 
 leaves, and that autumn is the foundation of 
 spring as well as the ruins of summer. Darkness 
 fell before they had half-covered the thirteen 
 miles a gross starless darkness, in which the
 
 384 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 carriage lamps made moving fields of light where 
 the shadows of trees and hedges tossed. 
 
 At last, across the wildest part of the downs, 
 the ground began gradually to fall, and Eichard 
 began to watch. For some time he saw nothing; 
 but at a turn of the road he suddenly caught a 
 white glow in the sky. It disappeared instantly, 
 and came again; and then, as the carriage turned 
 into the road toward Poltesco Head, he had a full 
 view of what he had come so far to see. From a 
 distant point in the black night a white star 
 shone out, wheeled in a forty-mile spoke across 
 the sky, and disappeared. Some horses in a field 
 began to whinny and stampede; and whenever 
 the light flashed around again it showed a fright 
 ened crowd of cattle huddled together in a corner, 
 lowing and blowing with wonder. 
 
 " The stock don t seem to like it much, sir," said 
 the driver with an air of uttering the last word 
 of wisdom, as he whipped up his own shying 
 horses. " It don t belong to make so much blazin 
 over the land. But it do look pretty enough, sure, 
 so long as it do no harm to the stock." 
 
 " Oh, drive on ! " said Eichard, who was far too 
 excited to notice what the man said. " Hurry up, 
 or I won t be in time." And the two specks of 
 light from the lamps went on through the wild 
 night, under the great wheeling rays in the sky. 
 As the carriage passed a dip in the downs Eichard 
 caught a glimpse of lights twinkling in the Her-
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 385 
 
 mitage. The sight of them gave him a momen 
 tary sense of pleasure and warmth at the heart. 
 They represented, he felt sure, a friendship the 
 thought of which was curiously grateful to him. 
 
 Under the lee of the storehouse on Poltesco 
 Head a little group of men, including several 
 members of the life-boat crew, was sheltering, 
 occasionally darting out into the wind to take 
 another look at the light, which looked from this 
 near point like a great revolving chrysalis of glass 
 and silver, and hurrying back with an impression 
 or an opinion. Only old Treleath, his back bent 
 to the gale, remained exposed, his eyes fixed on 
 the ghostly tower with its capital of light that 
 shone across the yeasty foam. As one employed 
 on the works his utterances were received with 
 more than usual respect. 
 
 " Well, souls," he shouted, slowly, " there he be, 
 established for good an all, thanks to we. Once 
 every ten seconds, till kingdom do come, Amen." 
 
 " Ay, so et be, so et be," said Johns the Post 
 master, feeling that some comment was required 
 of an educated man. 
 
 " I call to mind," continued Treleath, " the last 
 measure of mortar I mixed for en. I run short 
 of Pozzylanny, 1 and I sez to myself, Shall I fill 
 en up with lime? Twould be a great saving o 
 labor/ But I sez, No/ sez I, * Mr. Macneil, he 
 1 (Sic) Pozzolano earth.
 
 386 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 sez, " One measure of lime, one o sand, and one o 
 Pozzylanny, Treleath, or you ll bring the tower 
 down." So up I goes and fetches the Pozzylanny, 
 and mixes all true and just, or/ sez I, I could 
 never sleep in my bed o windy nights. So true 
 and just I mixed en, and there e do stand, to be 
 sure," pointing to the result of his integrity. 
 
 "Ay, to be sure e do," said an acquiescent 
 voice, " fair and square, to be sure." 
 
 Joseph Gilbert, the coxswain of the life-boat, 
 now spoke, knocking the ashes from his pipe and 
 watching the sparks streaming away on the wind. 
 
 " Well, boys," he said, " what about we ? There 
 won t be so many jobs for we, I reckon." 
 
 " No, nor so many pickin s in the cove," said an 
 old man. " Time was when every gale brought 
 ets wreck; but what with they life-boats, and 
 lighthouses, and Macaroni poles, we don t seem to 
 make use of nothen now. Tis changed times to 
 Poltesco for we ancient ones." 
 
 "Ay, but gov nment must have ets turn, 
 Willum," said another, evidently regarding the 
 lighthouse as a kind of rival wrecking organiza 
 tion. " Let all have a turn." 
 
 " That s but just and fair, friends," assented 
 Johns, who having drawn government money for 
 twelve years felt he was called upon to acknowl 
 edge this tribute. "But tis strange that Mr. 
 Grey bean t down to Poltesco to see the light lit." 
 
 " Mr. Grey s a-comen all right," said Treleath.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 387 
 
 " Harry have taken the carriage to Helston for 
 en. They belong to be here soon now." 
 
 There was silence for awhile except for the 
 howling of the wind and the roar of the surf. 
 The men all huddled under the wall with the ex 
 ception of Treleath, who stayed out where he could 
 see the lighthouse. The bright revolving rays, 
 striking on him every ten seconds, lit up his pale 
 face and blue watery eyes directed toward the 
 tower, which he gazed at in ecstasy, heedless of 
 the spray that tingled in his face. He was mur 
 muring to himself over and over again in a kind 
 of chant, " I made he to be so stout as he be ! I 
 made he to be so stout as he be ! " 
 
 Presently the sound of wheels was heard grating 
 over the rough road, and lamps shone in the dark 
 ness. The carriage drew up, and discharged, first, 
 a large bundle swathed in shawls, the partial un 
 winding of which disclosed Mrs. Treleath. She 
 immediately rushed toward the bent old man, her 
 high voice mingling with the wind. 
 
 " There he be, that tender dear, all in the storm 
 and wetness, and his supper set for him at home, 
 and his warm bed a-waiten; and never should 1 
 have prevailed with the wind but for Mr. Grey 
 a-taking mercy on me, and me riden in the car 
 riage with he, for all the world to see ! Come out 
 of the light, my lovey, and don t get struck by the 
 fluid." She drew him tenderly aside toward the 
 shelter, humoring his reluctance. " Ay, beautiful
 
 388 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 it do look, to be sure, tender dear, and a lovely 
 ornament to the coast it do make. To think that 
 such should be ! " 
 
 Richard had meanwhile got out his portman 
 teau, and had gone over to the lightkeepers 
 houses. He stood for a moment in the flood of 
 light from the open door, talking to the men. A 
 glance had shown him that the tide had only just 
 turned, and that the outer rocks were bare but 
 for a fleece of foam that swept over them, while 
 over the angry chasm of deep water that separated 
 the nearest rock from the cliff the wire rope of 
 the travelling cradle stretched out into the dark 
 ness. 
 
 " Come along, boys, and sling me out," he 
 shouted. " I must go out to the light. Treleath, 
 you be off home to bed. The carriage will take 
 you and your wife home. There s nothing more 
 to see." 
 
 The men, timid on his account, remonstrated, 
 but he brushed aside their fears, and was soon 
 suspended in the cradle, sliding down toward the 
 bare black rocks and the swirling foam beyond. 
 Safely landed, he shouted back to the cliff reas 
 suringly, and began the really difficult part of his 
 task. The rocks were never uncovered for more 
 than a moment, as the breakers that were split 
 up and divided by the outer reef met again in 
 foam over them; but he knew every foothold, 
 though he was often up to his knees in water. He
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 389 
 
 was partly sheltered from the full force of the 
 wind, which was in any case moderating, although 
 sometimes it caught him in sudden claps that 
 threatened to knock him down. The real danger, 
 as he clambered farther and farther out, lay in 
 the waves, which now and then broke solid on the 
 rocks, and swept green water right over them. 
 The iron hand-rail that guarded the causeway 
 was in this case his only hope, and it, little as it 
 opposed the weight of the waves, vibrated with 
 every breaking of a billow. If he had not known 
 exactly the nature of every level and shelf of rock 
 on which he was walking, his situation would have 
 been terrifying, for though the rocks were nomi 
 nally bare at low water, the high wind and heavy 
 sea covered them now with three feet of tortured 
 and frothing spume. As it was, it was daunting 
 enough to be thus walking apparently on a stormy 
 sea; and the heaving rollers, as they came up 
 towering and glimmering out of the black night, 
 and thundering into spray, seemed every time as 
 though they would overwhelm him. The rays 
 from the tower were too high above his head to 
 illuminate his path, and he walked in a gross 
 darkness that was only relieved by the ghostly 
 glimmer of the foam. Twice he was drenched in 
 green water from head to foot, and had to cling 
 for his life to the hand-rail; but when he at last 
 got on to the Outer Snail, the higher level of the 
 rock, and the shelter it afforded, made his path
 
 390 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 easier, so that he arrived safely, although 
 drenched, and a little bruised and exhausted, 
 under the lee of the tower. He climbed the iron 
 ladder, opened the heavy oak door, and thankfully 
 shook himself free from some of the salt water. 
 
 He climbed through the tank-room and store 
 room, and opened the kitchen door. A flood of 
 light and warmth greeted him. Outside the gale 
 was howling, and the seas bursting on the seaward 
 side of the tower; but here all was warmth and 
 peace, a bright fire glowing, a kettle singing on 
 the range, pots and pans shining on the dresser, 
 and an open book under the lamp on the table, 
 where some one had evidently been reading. How 
 peaceful and sheltered it was! A lump rose in 
 Kichard s throat, and his eyes became misty as 
 this sudden lamp-lit picture of simple, innocent 
 life succeeded the anger and commotion of the 
 stormy night outside. It was like a modulation 
 in music, as when a quiet, tender melody emerges 
 from the sudden hush that follows a tempest of 
 the orchestra. And it was he who had raised that 
 home in the air amid the spray and the breaking 
 waves ! 
 
 Eeluctantly he left the kitchen, and climbed 
 another story into the keepers bedrooms, where 
 he nearly frightened the assistant keeper off 
 duty and arranging his wardrobe in the cupboards 
 out of his wits. Here he had a rub down, 
 changed, and, clad in the assistant keeper s best
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 391 
 
 uniform, climbed up again through the second 
 sleeping berth and the oil store into the light- 
 room. He paused for a moment at the top of the 
 ladder, with his head just above the floor, and 
 stood looking up into the room. 
 
 On its metal stage in the middle of the room, 
 floating in a bath of mercury, the great glittering 
 lens revolved noiselessly about the lamp. The 
 toothed brass wheels of the clock that moved it 
 turned, regularly, slowly, noiselessly also; there 
 was no sound but the humming of the wind around 
 the glass lantern, the roar of the hot air from the 
 lamp, and the occasional dull boom of a breaking 
 wave beneath. Around and around, like a great 
 jewel, went the fairy structure of crystal bars and 
 segments and lenses, collecting every ray of light, 
 and shooting them out in long parallel beams into 
 the night. And within the magic cage, reverberat 
 ing with the very essence of life, holy and invio 
 lable, hovered the soul of the lighthouse in its 
 sheet of pure white flame. In every surface of 
 the circling mirrors it took its centre, like the 
 point of fire that lurks behind every facet of a 
 diamond: a thousand fires within one fire; a 
 thousand lights, and yet but one light. A foun 
 tain of flame welled from the invisible centre, 
 overflowing and dripping with light; yet every 
 drop of it, every straying sliver of liquid fire, was 
 caught up and saved by the carefully angled mir 
 rors, and poured forth in long raying beams to
 
 392 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 the far-away horizon, where the ships were driving 
 and plunging through the storm. Beside it sat 
 the slave of the lamp, its minister and guardian; 
 now pumping from the immense oil reservoirs 
 below fresh streams of vitality to its passionate 
 heart, now winding up with a winch the mys 
 terious creature of cog-wheels and springs that 
 kept it in circling motion and timed the flashes 
 of its unsleeping eye; now sitting quietly beside 
 it, observant of its wheeling rays against the 
 darkness. 
 
 A sense of solemnity, sudden and profound, held 
 Richard s feet upon the threshold, as before the 
 steps of a shrine. He seemed to be in the pres 
 ence of a spirit, silent and all-seeing. What had 
 he done ? What creature had he called into being, 
 that thus seemed to search into his soul, and sol 
 emnly to interrogate him with a gaze that included 
 the whole visible heaven and earth? For a few 
 minutes he stood there spellbound, hypnotized 
 as it were by the spirit of his work. Then he 
 reminded himself of how many lighthouses he had 
 been in, and shaking himself free of his preoccu 
 pation, came up and greeted the lightkeeper. 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Evans ; well, how s she 
 doing?" 
 
 " God s sake, Mr. Grey, I thought you were a 
 ghost ! " quavered the man, on whose nerves many 
 years service on rock lights had had their effect. 
 " How in the world did you come off, sir ? "
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 393 
 
 Richard described his journey, and then re 
 peated his question about the light. 
 
 " Everything s very good indeed, sir, couldn t be 
 better. The timing s a little irregular now and 
 then, once in half an hour, perhaps, she drops 
 a second, but that s only the governor; we ll 
 put that right in the morning." 
 
 " Do you notice any shaking ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing, sir. This afternoon, at high 
 water, there was a little vibration when a heavy 
 sea struck her, and we may feel it again toward 
 morning when the wind falls and the swell gets 
 up ; but it s nothing to the Smalls or the Bishop, 
 sir ! " 
 
 " Well, you ll have a chance of finding that out 
 in winter. There s no weight in this gale. I m 
 going out on the balcony." 
 
 The heavy gun-metal door on the shoreward 
 side of the lantern was opened, and Richard 
 stepped out once more into the shouting night. 
 With difficulty he made his way around to the sea 
 ward side of the balcony, and stood full in the 
 gale. Even above the roaring it made in his ears 
 he could hear it howling and humming against 
 the metal ventilator and crying, with wild, lost 
 cries, around the flagstaff and the slatting cords. 
 Behind him, his mysterious creature circled and 
 shone like a sun; before him lay the storm and 
 the night, with the long pencils of light pointing 
 and wheeling across it. At his feet the glimmer
 
 394 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 of the foam showed up the angry sea, forever 
 advancing its great dark waves up to the rock, 
 crashing and thundering upon it, and licking 
 hungrily up the white shapely side of the tower. 
 Steadily and powerfully as they marched in, a 
 new one rising where another fell; eternal and 
 infinite as was the force that led their endless 
 ranks to the assault, though they struck, em 
 braced, hurled themselves in solid ranks, shot hiss 
 ing tongues to destroy, bellowed and foamed in 
 their grand and melancholy rage, yet they crum 
 bled harmlessly against the tower s smooth sides, 
 and sank back exhausted before its serene immo 
 bility. As Eichard leaned against the balcony-rail 
 looking upon this grand and dark scene, a sense 
 of healing and peace began to inhabit his soul. 
 He stood motionless, entranced, not counting 
 time, unconscious almost of space, alone in the 
 dark firmament with the splendid sun of his 
 kindling. 
 
 The wind, now beginning sensibly to diminish 
 in force, poured over him a stream of freshness, 
 soft and mellow for all its weight, and without 
 sting or bitterness. And as it blew, it seemed to 
 blow through and through him, in deep cleans 
 ing and renewing draughts. He bared himself to 
 its influence, bared even his secret wound to it, 
 and felt the passion and the poison passing from 
 his heart. He thought deliberately of Toni, and, 
 although he was so far away, in circumstances so
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 395 
 
 utterly different from hers, he felt nearer to her 
 than he had ever felt before. He watched the ray 
 ing beams of light as in their travel around the 
 horizon they pointed toward France; and even 
 across the wild chasm of night and miles that lay 
 between them, he felt that they flung a bridge, 
 impassable by mortal feet, over which his spirit 
 and hers might pass, and meet in an understand 
 ing of truths beyond regret and beyond illusion. 
 He thought now of her loss without bitterness, 
 and saw how inevitable it had always been ; yet he 
 still thought of the finding of her, even for so 
 short a time, as great gain. Some part of her, 
 the best of her perhaps, he knew that he had made 
 his own, still possessed, and held forever inde 
 pendently of any action of hers ; he felt, too, that 
 she had made something of him that was not 
 there before, something new in him that was her 
 own, and that he could not destroy or take away 
 even if he would. Things that last ! He realized 
 how he had always, all through his life, had a 
 passion for them; and he remembered how Mar 
 garet Lauder had accused him of caring most for 
 things that " did not love him back again." Was 
 it true? He hardly knew, and yet his work, the 
 things he made with his brain, they did not love 
 him in return; and this Toni of his imagination, 
 she did not any longer love him in return, either ; 
 yet he possessed her more completely than when 
 she had loved him. He felt that the sundering
 
 396 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 of himself from her in the flesh, from the body 
 that he had worshipped with his own, was but 
 the shedding and stripping away of the beautiful 
 leaves and petals, so that the seed, the imperish 
 able heart, might find its place in the soil. 
 
 So also, as the dark hours passed, and the light 
 continued to burn and shine like a sun in the 
 stormy sky, he became conscious of an ever-grow 
 ing kindness for it and for the tower, a feeling 
 of strength rooted in the labor of his hands. 
 Sometimes he went into the light-room and sat 
 for awhile with the keeper, watching the regular 
 working of the clockwork, timing the revolving 
 flashes, rejoicing in the pure steady flame within 
 the lens; and sometimes he would go down and 
 stand at the open door, and watch the waves 
 foaming and raging helplessly against the smooth 
 walls of the tower. As the small hours passed 
 away the storm sank and waned, moaning itself 
 away in sobs as its passion exhausted itself. But 
 with the falling of the wind the sea rose, and as 
 the tide rose also about the tower, it was struck 
 repeatedly by heavy seas with a noise like the 
 explosion of artillery. A faint tremor passed 
 through it at the heaviest of these assaults, but 
 it was the tremor of elastic strength, that can 
 bend a little to resist an attack. And whenever 
 Richard looked seaward toward the murk and 
 tumult and waste of desolate sea, he rejoiced in 
 the strong clear beam sweeping over the waters.
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK 397 
 
 Its regular passage soothed and heartened him 
 infinitely. Once or twice he saw the lights of 
 passing ships twinkling in the darkness, and once 
 a glare, followed by a succession of fiery stars, 
 red, green, and white, showed a steamer mak 
 ing her signal to Lloyd s. He knew what the 
 lighthouse meant to them and to all who used that 
 stormy highway, and he felt himself invested 
 with something of the dignity of its simple use 
 fulness. 
 
 Just before dawn he went out again to the bal 
 cony, and watched the gray daylight filter and 
 spread through the darkness. As it increased, 
 the rays from the light fell shorter and fainter, 
 helpless to prevail, for all their power, against the 
 light that was coming. Out of the gloom rose 
 the coasts and the land, and with the falling of 
 the wind and the absence of its salt odors, the 
 smell from the earth came off, rich and fragrant 
 in the morning air. The waves, unf retted by the 
 wind, rolled in deep and heavy, at first a dull 
 gray, and then, as the light increased, a furrowed 
 sea of deepest indigo. The eastern horizon was 
 banked with clouds, above which the reflection 
 of the hidden fires of dawn began to wash the 
 sky with opalescent tints, and to kindle a glow 
 of saffron on the crests of the breaking waves. 
 Suddenly behind him Eichard heard a click; the 
 glare ceased, and the roar of the ventilator died 
 away.
 
 398 THE SANDS OF PLEASURE 
 
 " Sunrise, sir," said the lightkeeper, with his 
 watch in his hand ; and together they looked east 
 ward, where an edge of gold was eating into the 
 banked clouds on the horizon. Overhead and 
 behind them the sky was still dark and gloomy; 
 but before them the eastern banks were breaking 
 up and leaving the sky clear for the morning that 
 welled, ever warmer and more golden, behind the 
 torn veil of the storm. 
 
 EUAN MINOR, October, 1905. 
 
 THE 2ND.
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE ST. BOTOLPH SOCIETY 
 
 53 BEACON STREET BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 THE FAMOUS SEA STORIES OF 
 
 HERMAN MELVILLE 
 
 MOBY DICK; Or, The White Whale. 
 TYPEE. A Real Romance of the South Sea. 
 OMOO. A Narrative of Adventures in the 
 
 South Seas ; a sequel to TYPEE. 
 WHITE JACKET; Or, The World on a Man- 
 
 of-War. 
 
 Each one volume, cloth decorative, 
 I2mo, illustrated $1.90 
 
 * I A HE recent centenary of Herman Melville 
 JL created renewed interest in his famous 
 sea stories. 
 
 Melville s power of describing and investing 
 with romance, scenes and incidents witnessed 
 and participated in by himself was unequalled. 
 These stories, though written more than fifty 
 years ago, are more attractive than ever, and 
 are daily growing in popularity. 
 
 "Melville wove human element and natural 
 setting into recitals which aroused the enthu 
 siasm of critics and sent a thrill of delight 
 through the reading public when first pub 
 lished, and which both for form and matter 
 have ever since held rank as classics in the 
 literature of travel." Boston Herald.
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE ST. BOTOLPH SOCIETY 
 
 53 BEACON STREET BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 The Sands of Pleasure 
 
 By FILSON YOUNG 
 
 Author of "The Happy Motorist" "Venus and Cupid, an 
 
 Impression" etc. 
 Cloth decorative, ismo, illustrated, $1.65 
 
 i < T*HE consciousness of doing something wrong would 
 
 A make it ugly." 
 "Morality is only an underbred substitute for decency." 
 
 These two quotations from THE SANDS OF PLEA 
 SURE are indicative of this unusual story and the more 
 unusual point of view. "I had a story to tell," wrote the 
 author. "I have told it as well as I knew how that 
 ought to be enough, and more than enough, for me to say 
 about this book. But some have decreed, with what 
 wisdom I do not pretend to measure, that this subject and 
 that, very urgent though they may be in the life of man, 
 shall not be written or read about in books designed 
 merely for the entertainment of his mind. I have disobeyed 
 this decree, and cast a great part of my tale in a region held 
 to be out of bounds Bohemia." 
 
 It is a story of Bohemia, but written with the healthy 
 enthusiasm of youth for all there is in life. Much of the 
 greatest the world has produced in art and literature has 
 been born of the Montmarte and the Quartier Latin, but 
 little of worth has been written about them. Murger s 
 "La Vie de Boheme" was a great romance. Here is a fine, 
 realistic novel. "Nb creator nk creatura mai fu senza 
 amore." 
 
 "It is tense, strong, narrative, and descriptive writing 
 of a sort that is wholly admirable." London Graphic. 
 
 "Mr. Young blends the artistic with the realistic and 
 conjures up scenes which can never be forgotten by the 
 reader, and no greater praise than that could be given to 
 a writer." Western Morning News, Plymouth, England.
 
 fir 
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE ST. BOTOLPH SOCIETY 
 
 53 BEACON STREET BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 The Making sf a Saint 
 
 By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM 
 
 Author of 
 
 "The Moon and Sixpence," "Of Human Bondage" etc. 
 Cloth decorative, I2tno, illustrated, 
 
 SOMERSET MAUGHAM has attained literary fame 
 ^ and popularity with the reading public equalled by 
 few English writers. His plays are drawing audiences in 
 every city; his books are always among the best sellers; so 
 that the St. Botolph Society shows excellent judgment 
 in selecting his THE MAKING OF A SAINT for the 
 first publication to carry the new imprint. 
 
 "THE MAKING OF A SAINT is a romance of medi- 
 seval Italy. None can resent the frankness and apparent 
 brutality of the scenes through which the hero and his 
 companions of both sexes are made to pass, and many will 
 yield ungrudging praise to the author s vital handling of 
 the truth." Boston Herald. 
 
 "An exceedingly strong story of original motive and 
 design. . . . The scenes are imbued with a spirit of 
 frankness . . . and in addition there is a strong dramatic 
 flavor." Philadelphia Press. 
 
 "A sprightly tale abounding in adventures, and redolent 
 with the spirit of mediaeval Italy." Brooklyn Times.
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE ST. BOTOLPH SOCIETY 
 
 53 BEACON STREET BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 Edward Barry 
 
 A ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 By LOUIS BECKE 
 
 Cloth decorative, IS mo, illustrated, $1.65. 
 
 THE rediscovery of Herman Melville, mariner and mys 
 tic, together with the marked popularity of South Sea 
 Island travel and fiction at the present time, makes it 
 timely to call attention to another writer of sea tales, of 
 almost equal merit, Louis Becke. 
 
 George Louis Becke, born in New South Wales, was a 
 trader in the South Sea Islands from 1870 to 1893. When 
 he turned to writing his fame was instantaneous. He still 
 remains the brightest figure in Australian letters. His style 
 is that of Stevenson, and his narratives, many of which 
 have the intensity of autobiography, and the authoritative- 
 ness of personal experience, are as vivid as Conrad s. His 
 books are born of the South Seas they represent. 
 
 EDWARD BARRY is the story of a young man, mate 
 of a small brig, engaged in the pearl fisheries. Strong and 
 even tragic, as is the novel in the main, the love and devo 
 tion of a woman is portrayed with delicate feeling. Nowhere 
 does drama and romance flourish as in the South Seas, and 
 Louis Becke is one of its most appealing writers. 
 
 " For a rousing, absorbing and withal a truthful tale 
 of the South Seas, commend me to Louis Becke. 
 EDWARD BARRY is one of the best, and the love 
 romance that runs through it will be appreciated by 
 every one." Pliiladelphia Nonk American. 
 
 TfL ,
 
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