-.'k. 
 
 A NOVEL OF NEW YORK LIFE
 
 A NOVEL OF NEW YORK LIFE 
 
 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 PREDESTINED 
 
 A NOVEL OF NEW YORK LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 Stephen French Whitman 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK 
 
 Published by Arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published February, 191* 
 
 Reprinted in March, April, September, 
 
 November, 1910
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 MM 
 
 EILEEN i 
 
 PART TWO 
 MARIE 113 
 
 PART THREE 
 EMMA 229 
 
 PART FOUR 
 NINA 347 
 
 2133739
 
 PART ONE 
 EILEEN
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT was said that Felix Piers inherited his good 
 looks and attractive manners from his mother, who 
 had died in his childhood. The son had at home 
 an old, faded photograph of her, by aid of which he 
 made himself believe that he remembered her. She 
 was portrayed in a beaded zouave-jacket and a vo- 
 luminous skirt, wearing a chignon, leaning over a 
 flower stand, before a fringed curtain looped up with 
 heavy tassels. Despite her clumsy-looking dress she 
 appeared charming, and in her face was beauty of so 
 peculiar a quality that one was puzzled by it. What 
 sort of woman had she been? The boy, noting her 
 dark eyes and crinkling black hair, had always felt 
 tender satisfaction at the thought that he resembled 
 her. 
 
 On the other hand, none could perceive what at- 
 tributes Felix had obtained from the husband who 
 survived her. 
 
 This gentleman, Sheridan Piers, was bony, sallow, 
 " plain-looking," his eyes pale blue, his mouth hidden 
 by a gray mustache, his face which had been short- 
 ened by false teeth wearing invariably a saturnine 
 expression. He attracted none of his acquaintances 
 to intimacy. Even when young, for the most part 
 he had shunned companionable customs.
 
 4 PREDESTINED 
 
 Shy and retiring as a boy, by disposition always 
 solemn and austere, he had experienced in his life 
 but one great happiness an idealistic passion for the 
 brilliant, ardent woman he had married. At her 
 death, which occurred when she still possessed all 
 her powers of fascination, he thought himself de- 
 spoiled of everything that made his life worth liv- 
 ing. When told that his intense grief would wear 
 away in time, he repulsed his comforters with the 
 fury of a priest before a shrine to which some one 
 has offered sacrilege. He was determined never to 
 mourn her less intensely. 
 
 He was rich; he had no business; he lived a life 
 of leisure. His mind was not adapted to profitable 
 intellectual pursuits. His time was taken up with 
 petty occupations. He was one of those persons for 
 whom living has been made easy through inheritance, 
 who never feel any positive incentive to achievement, 
 who are content to spend a lifetime aimlessly, from 
 time to time wondering at their ennui and discontent. 
 Growing old, he fell into the melancholy ways of 
 solitaries. 
 
 He travelled ; he made elaborate collections of curi- 
 osities that might, perhaps, have been of use in mu- 
 seums ; he accumulated rare books wherein the pages 
 all remained uncut; he lined his walls with gloomy 
 paintings that would have been appropriate in the 
 chapels of cathedrals. But when he was on his 
 travels the beauties and the gayeties about him roused 
 in him no response. With a sombre countenance he 
 looked at sunsets on Italian lakes, Swiss mountain
 
 EILEEN 5 
 
 peaks at dawn, the Paris boulevards in the golden 
 dusk, Norwegian fjords by moonlight. Before each 
 exquisite scene he forced himself to think: "If she 
 were here!" In New York, amid his books and 
 pictures, during the long evenings his thoughts were 
 all introspective and regretful. Reviewing his un- 
 profitable, lonely life, he told himself that its poor 
 quality was traceable entirely to fate, which had 
 deprived him of his wife. "If she had lived!" He 
 asked himself unanswerable riddles: Why must we 
 have sorrow ? Why do we survive for years to mourn 
 a loved one? Why do we attain happiness just for 
 a moment just long enough to realize its worth? 
 Sometimes he exclaimed proudly: "Have I for- 
 gotten her? Have I ceased to mourn her? Am 
 I like those people who get over grief?" His wife 
 had furnished his life's one romance; and faithfully 
 he kept fresh his sorrow at the loss of it, as if by so 
 doing he were paying back in part a great debt that 
 he owed her. 
 
 Monotony and solitary living made him, at last, 
 morose, hypochondriacal, "peculiar." He found the 
 world a poor place; he began to look forward curi- 
 ously toward a future life, and wondered: "Shall I 
 meet her there? How shall I find her?" He was 
 drawn to investigate doctrines of immortality, was 
 excited at the thought of "spiritistic phenomena," 
 and finally fell into the hands of trance-mediums 
 and those adroit magicians who, in a darkened room, 
 seem to materialize the dead. His name, his secret 
 thoughts and habits, the intimate details of his family
 
 6 PREDESTINED 
 
 history were drawn from him by clever charlatans, 
 and passed about through that profession which 
 preys on the grief of the bereaved. In "private 
 seances" he seemed to see, emerging from the shad- 
 ows of a cabinet, the vague simulacrum of his wife; 
 sometimes he heard her speak ; sometimes he touched 
 her, kissed her, and then his normal senses over- 
 whelmed by emotion believed that he recognized 
 her face. She told him she was "waiting for him." 
 At last he shut himself up the more; his world was 
 a world of shadows a place thronged with invisible 
 presences; and when he went abroad he looked with 
 impatience on the activities of healthy life, with which 
 he no longer had anything in common. He had be- 
 come an eccentric. His former associates told one 
 another that his mind was diseased. 
 
 But all admitted that he had acted the part of a 
 good father. He had given Felix "every advantage." 
 
 In childhood, Felix was a quiet boy, dreamy, full 
 of imagination, fond of looking by the hour at pict- 
 ures in old books, attracted by gentle scenes and 
 beautiful ladies, responsive to affection, easily moved 
 in respect of his emotions. As soon as he learned to 
 read, into juvenile literature he plunged headlong. 
 New worlds were revealed to him. In fancy he 
 floated through nebulae which took the uncertain, 
 gorgeous forms of other lands and epochs. His soli- 
 tary musings were then all of ancient Britons, of 
 Carthaginians, of Aztecs, of peoples tattooed, painted, 
 crowned with feathers, clothed in shaggy skins, en- 
 cased in armor, following faithfully his own small
 
 EILEEN 7 
 
 figure through the fog of wild enterprises. Walking 
 home from school, swinging his strapful of books, 
 perhaps he was the King of the Incas, covered with 
 gold ornamentSj crested majestically with green 
 plumes, passing judgment in a hall of skulls on 
 some arch-enemy. "Away with him, to the tor- 
 mentors!" Felix bumped into people on the street. 
 
 When he was fourteen years old he was sent to a 
 big boarding-school in the country. 
 
 That was a rolling region. There patches of 
 woodland, dim purple in the distance, were spread 
 on the declivities of hills; there, in the valleys, were 
 laid out fields of yellow, of rich green, of white, of 
 terra-cotta color after ploughing time. The school 
 buildings all of red brick with blue slate roofs and 
 gables stood round a great grass circle. In the 
 evening, when all the trees were motionless and 
 seemed enveloped each in a separate, gauze-like haze, 
 the sky would slowly turn from dusky blue to yellow. 
 Down by the still lake, which lay beyond the foot-ball 
 field, at that hour the swallows would come out, sail- 
 ing and skimming here and there, low down, while 
 uttering shrill cries which rang as if the sky were a 
 hard dome of veritable amber. Sometimes the boys, 
 returning from the tennis-courts, managed to strike 
 down and kill a swallow or two with their racquets. 
 
 This placid lakeside was a favorite of Felix's. His 
 dreams at that time, affected by his text-books, were 
 based on models purely classical. In the flash of a 
 window-pane on a remote hill-top, struck by the last 
 rays of the sun, he saw the bright shields of the
 
 8 PREDESTINED 
 
 Lacedemonians. At the rumbling of thunder he 
 thought of Attic shepherds falling on their knees in 
 fear of the sonorous voice of Jove. Gray brushwood 
 smoke adrift above the valleys brought up before him 
 scenes of ancient warfare the pillage and the ruin 
 of old cities. He was in the Wooden Horse when it 
 was trundled into Troy; he led the sack; he was 
 prodigious in a brass helmet crested with red horse- 
 hair. And "Fair-cheeked Chryseis!" Now, in the 
 background of every such sally of imagination hov- 
 ered some fair-cheeked maiden observing all his feats 
 of valor fondly. 
 
 Taunted by his school-mates for his dreaminess, in 
 self-defence he plunged into their gay activities. The 
 habit of excitement grew on him. He became of all 
 the school the most ingenious in devising spectacular 
 and humorous escapades. He furnished gayety for 
 every one, and so became popular. 
 
 By his instructors he was thought precocious, tal- 
 ented, and promising. But he grew restless under 
 continuous restraint, erratic in his moods, subject to 
 all wandering impulses that took his fancy, apt to 
 forget completely, in an access of nervous gayety, his 
 duties. He learned, at length, barely enough to 
 "scrape through" into college. 
 
 He went to live on a college campus a tranquil 
 place, full of great elms, of rambling white stone 
 buildings, of winding flag-stone walks where under- 
 graduates in odd head-gear strolled, pipe smoke above 
 them, their arms over one another's shoulders. Every 
 hour there was thrust through the silence the sound
 
 EILEEN 9 
 
 of a clear bell calling to lectures. In the evening 
 the voices of young men, singing with a harmony of 
 many parts, stole from afar across the grassy stretches 
 with a clarity as if across still water. Later, one 
 heard the confused, uneven songs of revellers re- 
 turning home to bed. 
 
 One day a Freshman friend of Felix's proposed to 
 him in the street: 
 
 " Let's have a drink." 
 
 They entered a cafe in the town. Felix concealed 
 his curiosity, ashamed that he had never before been 
 in such a place. 
 
 Along one side of the cafe ran a bar, behind which 
 three pyramids of glasses were reflected in large mir- 
 rors. A man in his shirt-sleeves stood there talking 
 to a rough-looking fellow who leaned across the rail, 
 a glass of beer in his dirty hand. On the other side 
 of the room one saw a row of wooden tables, their 
 round tops marked with gummy spots and rings. 
 There was sawdust on the floor. Against the plaster 
 walls hung a pair of sun-bleached lithographs en- 
 titled "The Birth of Venus" and "Diana's Bath." 
 The two Freshmen seated themselves at a table. 
 A negro in a stained apron, wiping sweat from his 
 brow, came shuffling to take their orders. 
 
 Felix resented the vulgarity of his surroundings. 
 Why was it that the first step in certain new experi- 
 ences brought disillusionment, dissatisfaction, and 
 disgust ? 
 
 "What will you have?" 
 
 The boy glanced furtively at the lounger by the bar.
 
 10 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Beer," he said, with a careless air. 
 
 He raised his glass, buried his lips in foam, and 
 took a long drink. He had an instant of intense 
 surprise. Setting down his glass empty, he looked 
 round thoughtfully. 
 
 "By George! You must be thirsty!" 
 
 Felix stared seriously at the other, without replying. 
 
 Some students passing by noticed the two emerge 
 from the saloon. Departing arm in arm with his 
 companion, Felix gave them a proud glance. 
 
 Neither youth confessed to the other that he had 
 just learned something new. 
 
 Felix soon found his friends, the sons of rich par- 
 ents, jolly, full of spirit, eager to try their wings. 
 They lived in expensive style, drove automobiles 
 breakneck along the country roads, went walking 
 with a swarm of dogs about them, kept polo ponies, 
 had liquor cases in their "studies" and actresses' 
 pictures on their dressing-tables. Their evenings 
 when other, earnest-faced young men were making 
 play with eye-shades and lexicons in private they 
 spent round smoky tables, where the crash of Rabe- 
 laisian choruses was emphasized by the clinking of 
 pipe-stems on steins. Becoming sophisticated, fi- 
 nally they believed that they had little more to learn 
 of "life." They grew to detest their work; and, 
 with delightful feelings of irresponsibility and free- 
 dom, evaded, day after day, the tedious routine of 
 lecture-rooms. 
 
 In the June of his fourth year, shortly before ex- 
 amination time, suddenly Felix realized that all
 
 EILEEN II 
 
 through his college course he had learned nothing 
 well. Sitting up every night till morning with his 
 books, he tried to do in two weeks the work of four 
 years. In the still hours, while he bent beneath the 
 lamp, all his past heedlessness its charms grown 
 stale recurred to him, amazed him, filled him with 
 remorse. Then recollecting himself, scanning his 
 text-books afresh, he was aghast at his inability to 
 grasp the meaning of whole chapters. He was 
 thrown into a panic. He went to his examination 
 hopeless. The examiners refused him a degree. 
 
 "Well, I've learned my lesson," Felix said to him- 
 self. He made resolutions. He came back the fol- 
 lowing fall, did all his last year's work again, and 
 finally was graduated among the young men whom, 
 in Sophomore year, he had "hazed." 
 
 One evening they sang their last song together, 
 sitting on the grass beneath tall elms, the shadowy 
 foliage of which was splashed here and there with 
 the soft light of Chinese lanterns. A silver loving- 
 cup went round; each, as he received it, stood up 
 and drank from it, while the rest sang to him. Tears 
 ran down their faces. 
 
 It was all finished. Felix went back to his rooms 
 and found them stripped : the walls bare, the pictures 
 in piles, the chairs full of ornaments and souvenirs, 
 in the midst of the litter a servant packing trunks. 
 What desolation! Returning to the campus, he wan- 
 dered off to find some friends, dragging his feet, his 
 eyes wet. He had never felt so before. It seemed 
 to him that he was full of grief and experience.
 
 12 PREDESTINED 
 
 Presently he found roaming about another sad 
 young man a poor student who had worked his 
 way through college, who had never found time to 
 make friends or to hunt pleasure, who had spent his 
 four years in a small room with a bed, a wash-stand, 
 a table, a coal-scuttle, a lamp, and a pile of second- 
 hand books. In a cafe, where there was a dejected 
 gathering of his friends, Felix presented himself with 
 his arm across this young man's shoulder. He felt 
 that to be a fine gesture; he was touched by the 
 thought: " Sorrow, shared in common, levels all 
 barriers." 
 
 Felix was sent round the world. He saw strange 
 seas and lands. On shipboard he awoke, sometimes, 
 to find blowing through the open port-holes air as 
 extraordinarily flavored as if enveloping another 
 world. He perceived across water for the first time, 
 yet with the inexplicable thrill of an old traveller 
 returning after many years, minarets, pagodas, a 
 Chinese junk, spider-like Malay catamarans. He 
 became enamoured of strange perfumes, antipodal 
 music, women so fantastically charming that they 
 seemed unreal. 
 
 In those surroundings precious thoughts came to 
 him, lingered just long enough to enchant him, and 
 then were crowded out of his brain by more. He 
 longed to save them all, to perpetuate them, to move 
 others with them. Beside old ruins amid the deso- 
 late alleyways of Pompeii, in the red trenches of 
 buried Carthage, before the colossi on the Nile at that 
 fleeting moment when the setting sun, touching the
 
 EILEEN 13 
 
 desert hills, turns green he was tormented because 
 his ecstasies were inexpressible. Closing his eyes, 
 he felt the past renewed about him. Pompeii was 
 alive again, full of white togas and bright shawls: 
 the ivory spokes of chariots flashed in the lanes; the 
 gladiators showed their huge bodies and brutal heads 
 along the promenades ; delicate, black-haired women, 
 with ear-rings dangling to their shoulders, went un- 
 dulating under scarlet parasols; and at the street 
 corners little, thin Greek girls blew plaintive tunes 
 on flutes. He saw the tall pitch-covered palaces of 
 Carthage risen afresh: the streets were full of camels, 
 wild soldiers, and women in black robes with painted 
 eyes ; the images of gods, moving in procession, glit- 
 tered above the heads of the barbaric crowd. The 
 monuments beside the Nile were new and unscarred 
 again, and in and out between the pillars of the tem- 
 ples stole the lean Egyptian priests, with flowers in 
 their hands, the last of the sunlight flashing on their 
 brown, shaven heads. Ah, to have such thoughts 
 which Felix considered very fine and to be unable 
 to disseminate them, to create with them in countless 
 minds amazement, admiration, and respect! At last, 
 on shipboard, he began struggling with pen and 
 paper. But nothing looked the same on paper! 
 
 He was away a year, and came home "greatly 
 broadened." He had received his education. What 
 should now be done with him? 
 
 Sheridan Piers, rousing himself to interest, pon- 
 dered this problem with Felix. They talked of a 
 career in finance : it would be easy for the young man
 
 I 4 PREDESTINED 
 
 to obtain, through friends, an excellent position in 
 Wall Street, with every chance of quick advancement. 
 They discussed the advantages of law and of the 
 diplomatic service. 
 
 "You see, you should do something, Felix," the 
 old man said vaguely, winking his washed-out eyes in 
 his perplexity. "Most everybody does. I haven't; 
 but then they say that I'm ' peculiar.' And you 
 know you don't take much after me." 
 
 They were, in fact, so far apart in temperament, 
 that they had never possessed in common an import- 
 ant interest or understood each other. Sheridan 
 Piers's uncongeniality and sadness chilled the boy 
 and had their effect inevitably on the home. The 
 house was characteristic of the man who lived shut 
 up in it: a place furnished, with faded richness, 
 in an unaesthetic fashion obsolete for two decades, 
 filled with the souvenirs of a departing generation, 
 exhaling the odors of old things, dim, chilly, full of 
 echoes, lonely. Felix had seen so many bright and 
 joyous regions that he was unable to have affection 
 for his home or a desire to inhabit it. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said, "I'd do well in the diplo- 
 matic service." And he pictured himself in some 
 foreign capital: at brilliant garden parties, balls, and 
 state dinners, surrounded by beautiful and gracious 
 women, courtly soldiers in fine uniforms, grave 
 diplomatists expert in repartee and cynicism in a 
 world out of story-books, where everything was ex- 
 hilarating, gay, sumptuous, remote from gloom. 
 
 They decided that he was to "take his time and
 
 EILEEN 15 
 
 think it over." Felix, while doing so, enjoyed him- 
 self laughed, played, spent money, fell in love, got 
 over that, glanced every day at some lesson of the 
 sort not taught in books. Sheridan Piers, for his 
 part, went on dreaming, regretting, thinking of his 
 wife. Beginning to grow feeble, he imagined that 
 he had all sorts of ailments. He complained of ver- 
 tigo, tremors, and roaring in the ears. He thought, 
 now and then, that he heard a voice calling him by 
 name. He commenced to read the Bible. 
 
 One day Joseph, an old servant who had been 
 with the family for thirty years, brought to his master 
 a little, rusty, tin box, which he had found while 
 rummaging an attic room. Sheridan Piers pried the 
 box open. It contained a heap of tarnished trinkets, 
 faded ribbons, dilapidated dance favors, newspaper 
 clippings, a sheaf of yellow letters. It was a collec- 
 tion of his wife's mementos. 
 
 A mist rose before the old man's eyes; at first he 
 could not bring himself to touch those objects which, 
 long ago, she had used, cherished, and packed away 
 with her own hands. After a while he drew from 
 the box a coral necklace and a crumbling flower. 
 Upon the brown leaf splashed a tear. Once she had 
 ^held that blossom in her fingers; that necklace had 
 been clasped about her throat. He remembered it, 
 and how she had looked while wearing it. His 
 memory of her was of a beautiful young woman, 
 fresh, radiant, redolent with a delicious sweetness. 
 
 Trembling with emotion, he began to read the 
 letters.
 
 1 6 PREDESTINED 
 
 He did not know the handwriting. Each letter 
 was signed simply with a "P." All were dated 
 "Paris," where he and his wife had lived for several 
 winters, where, at the death of his father in America, 
 he had been forced to leave her for a few months. 
 He remembered that year perfectly; it was the year 
 of Felix's birth. 
 
 But whom were these letters from ? 
 
 He read some sentences. Written in French, 
 they were exquisitely worded. They spoke of love. 
 He realized that he was reading the love-letters of 
 some other man, addressed to her. 
 
 He stared before him, without breathing, his face 
 disfigured by apprehension. For a minute his hands 
 trembled so that he could not continue reading. 
 
 Presently, rousing himself to action, he arranged 
 all the letters in order, according to their dates. The 
 correspondence had extended over a period of two 
 years! 
 
 He commenced with the first letter. Cold all over, 
 he read deliberately page after page. He was ter- 
 rified by the elegance, the charm of each succeeding 
 period. He had a sensation of faintness at seeing 
 here expressed for her, with passionate fluency, such 
 thoughts as even he had never had. 
 
 The letters began with protestations, entreaties, 
 accusations of "cruelty." But soon the anxious 
 note in them gave place to an accent of assurance. 
 Each page brought him nearer to the discovery he 
 dreaded. Should he go on? 
 
 Soon he was reading of passed notes, kisses behind
 
 EILEEN 17 
 
 curtains and in carriages, subtle machinations and 
 deceits, finally clandestine meetings. After all the 
 years, her feminine reluctance to destroy those senti- 
 mental treasures, her woman's yearning to keep by 
 her all her dearest trophies had betrayed her. 
 
 He came to the letters that had been written while 
 he was away. A terrible suspicion seized him. 
 
 Suffocating, he got up to raise a window. Sud- 
 denly he fell flat upon the floor, as if struck down 
 with a club. Old Joseph found him there, lying 
 amid the scattered letters. 
 
 To Sheridan Piers's bedside came quickly two dig- 
 nified physicians. With the impassive countenances 
 of those who see, every day, tortured bodies struggling 
 between life and death, attentively they watched the 
 patient. Lying on his back, unconscious, with half- 
 opened eyes, slowly puffing out his cheeks, he ex- 
 pelled his breath. They raised his eyelids, listened 
 to the beating of his heart, felt his arteries with their 
 long, flexible fingers, tapped his knee-caps, lifted one 
 by one his arms and legs and let them fall. They put 
 their heads together and decided that he had suffered 
 a stroke of apoplexy. 
 
 "Well, Doctor, what would you say?" 
 
 "A hemorrhage of the interior capsule, Doctor, but 
 not a fatal one. We have this time merely a paralysis 
 of the left arm, extending to and including the pec- 
 toralis major. We can, I think, at a conservative 
 estimate, give him a month for a partial recovery. 
 We shall have then considerable debility, feebleness 
 of the affected parts, and perhaps remembering the
 
 1 8 PREDESTINED 
 
 patient's well-known past oddity of conduct an in- 
 creased eccentricity. As for the second shock, when 
 it comes, he may survive it. But of course a third 
 would finish him." 
 
 They did everything necessary and departed. 
 
 When he recovered the use of his body, every one in 
 the house observed that he was greatly changed. He 
 would not see Felix; he spoke to none save Joseph; 
 he sat alone in his room, huddled before the fireplace, 
 staring at the flames. Every day he became more 
 debilitated. The foundations of his existence had 
 been struck from beneath him ; he was crumbling to 
 pieces. 
 
 He could not keep his hands off the letters. He 
 reread them, crushed them, tore them, hurled them 
 from him. Then, gathering them up, he smoothed 
 them out and pieced them carefully together. Poring 
 over them, with bated breath, he thought of his be- 
 trayal by the woman who had been for him a divinity, 
 imagined the secrets of her life, pictured to himself 
 all that she had lived through without his knowledge 
 with another. It was as if it had just happened, 
 for he had just discovered it. 
 
 He perused the clippings that he had found with 
 the letters. They revealed the history of the man; 
 all his public activity was reported in them. Of 
 everything he had done in those days she had treas- 
 ured these accounts. How she must have loved him 
 this stranger! 
 
 At last, in a frenzy of hatred, he hurled the tin box 
 and its contents into the fire. The letters and the
 
 EILEEN 19 
 
 clippings burst into flames; the trinkets glowed and 
 melted among the coals; the tin box crackled and 
 twisted on a bed of ashes. When all was consumed, 
 how he desired to have it back again! 
 
 Sometimes he called out her name, over and over, 
 in reproach, till old Joseph came running to him. 
 Then he was apt to believe that she was living, that 
 they were in Paris, that she was planning with her 
 lover to deceive him. "Where are they to-night, 
 Joseph ? You must hunt for them. Let me tell you : 
 you'll find them at a ball, in an alcove, behind some 
 palms; or in the back of a box at the opera; or, if 
 you hide on a street corner, you'll see them coming 
 home in a closed carriage with the horses walking. 
 You're to go up to the carriage window and whisper: 
 'Mr. Piers wants to speak to you.' That'll surprise 
 them; don't you believe so? You know they think 
 I'm very stupid." 
 
 Finally he got the idea that Felix was involved in 
 their deceit and that he must outwit the three of 
 them. How could he do it ? He sat plotting by the 
 hour, looking cautiously about him. He hit upon a 
 plan. 
 
 He sent for a young broker who had been involved 
 in some "shady" business in the past and of whom 
 persons of integrity knew nothing edifying. Sheridan 
 Piers received this man with a calm and plausible 
 demeanor. He had attained the cunning of the 
 demented. 
 
 "You see, Mr. Noon, I'm afraid I haven't long to 
 live, and before I die I want to make considerable
 
 20 PREDESTINED 
 
 changes in the disposition of my property. If you 
 undertake my affair, you'll find it a large one. But 
 I shall have my work done very quietly. No gossip- 
 ing. There are some, you know, who think a man 
 has no right to do what he wants with his own 
 money." 
 
 The broker, looking down, smiled deprecatingly. 
 
 Sheridan Piers sold all his outlying real estate. 
 He disposed of all his stocks. He borrowed, quietly, 
 as much money as would equal the value of his house, 
 his stable, and their contents. Little by little, with- 
 drawing his deposits from the banks, he accumulated 
 his whole fortune in his house without any one know- 
 ing that he had it there. One evening he had a hot 
 fire kindled in his room. He locked himself in and 
 paid no attention when the whole household besought 
 him to come out. 
 
 At midnight Felix sent for a physician. 
 
 They broke into the room. They found the old 
 man standing, with a blank face, beside the fireplace, 
 which was choked with ashes. He could not recog- 
 nize anybody, and took his physician for the man 
 who, twenty-five years before, had wronged him. 
 At this hallucination he had another "stroke." 
 
 He died in a few hours. Before the end, to Felix, 
 who bent over him, he whispered significantly: 
 
 " You're to look to them hereafter, d'you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 He had destroyed his fortune, leaving nothing. 
 
 Felix, in distraction, rushed off to the family's 
 lawyer.
 
 EILEEN 21 
 
 When that gentleman appreciated the disaster, at 
 once he took thought for his reputation. Malicious 
 persons would say that he was to blame for not hav- 
 ing long since deprived his client of power to transact 
 his business. Looking at Felix thoughtfully, he asked 
 the miserable young man: 
 
 "Who knows about this destruction of the prop- 
 erty besides you?" 
 
 "Joseph." 
 
 "Ah, we can depend on him! Now, of course, it 
 must go no farther it's too shocking. We can't 
 make the family name notorious with such an ex- 
 traordinary tale. I'm your father's executor, and 
 in his last will everything is left to you. You and I 
 will appear to go over the estate together. We shall 
 find that it was 'greatly overestimated' you under- 
 stand me? That will do for the present. A year 
 from now there will be no public interest. That's 
 the way to fix it!" 
 
 The lawyer, though not troubled ordinarily by con- 
 science, felt some responsibility in this affair. He 
 was just then on the point of setting out for a vacation 
 in the woods. It occurred to him that it would be a 
 generous act to take Felix along with him. Before 
 he went he saw the house and its contents sold, to pay 
 the debts that Sheridan Piers had contracted. When 
 he and the boy set out, Felix had nothing left but 
 fifteen hundred dollars, his balance at the bank. 
 
 In a fishing camp at the edge of a great forest, 
 where the clear air was sweet with the odor of spruce- 
 trees, where loons laughed in mid-lake and deer
 
 22 PREDESTINED 
 
 came down to drink and the cool nights were made 
 beautiful by northern lights, finally the boy conquered 
 his dismay. Plied with encouragement and good 
 advice, he became almost philosophical. At twenty- 
 five the greatest sorrows are not poignant for long, 
 the greatest losses soon cease to seem irreparable. 
 Youth, instead of repining, looks always forward. 
 Felix turned his eyes toward the future. 
 
 He had decided what he was going to do. It 
 seemed to him now that all through his life every 
 inclination and predilection of his had been urging 
 him toward one vocation. With feelings of calmness 
 and of assurance, as if he had solved at last the mean- 
 ing of all his spiritual cravings and emotions, he con- 
 templated his career. He intended to become "a 
 famous writer." 
 
 Late in the evening, when, on the luminous waters 
 of the lake, islands and peninsulas seemed like mys- 
 terious, long shadows suspended in mid-air, Felix, 
 looking with awe into the spangled sky, felt in him- 
 self illimitable possibilities. The solitude, the hush, 
 the swimming vagueness of the lake, the solemnity 
 of the bright heavens ennobled him. It was as if 
 a strange soul, finer than his own, possessed him. 
 For the moment, so ethereal were all his sensations 
 that no heights seemed unattainable. Exalted by 
 superb aspirations, he dreamed of the future, which 
 appeared before him like a bright mist, glittering 
 resplendently.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was toward the end of June when Felix got back 
 to New York. 
 
 He found the place greatly changed. The streets 
 that he had known from childhood all appeared 
 strange to him ; the faces of the people seemed selfish 
 and unfriendly; his own city wore a cold, hostile 
 aspect. 
 
 He felt at once great need of sympathy. The 
 bluff encouragement, the slap on the back that he 
 might expect from his friend the lawyer, and from 
 other men, would be of no use to him. He pictured 
 to himself the solace of a gentle woman's compre- 
 hension: the soft hand resting on his hair, the eyes 
 so quick to fill with tears, the tender heart so ready 
 to share sorrow. He might, he thought, unload much 
 of his sadness upon some fond woman. 
 
 At his club to which he went at once, with the 
 intention of staying there till he contrived some defi- 
 nite scheme of living he found waiting for him a 
 letter. It was from a widow of sixty, a Mrs. Ferrol, 
 who had gone to school with- his mother and who had 
 always been his friend. 
 
 Writing from her summer home in the country, she 
 told Felix that she wanted him to come and visit her. 
 "I can think of no better place than this for you to 
 
 23
 
 24 PREDESTINED 
 
 spend the next month or two; you need, just now, 
 what we have here. The country is beautiful; the 
 sun shines every day; and you will find here two 
 women who are very fond of you." 
 
 She alluded to her daughter Nina, twenty-three 
 years old, whom Felix had known all his life, and for 
 whom he had, whenever he thought of her, the affec- 
 tion of a good brother. 
 
 He was touched by the letter. It offered him 
 what he had just been longing for. He thought of 
 how he would appear before them, changed by mis- 
 fortune, rather a pathetic figure, and of how they 
 would indulge him, divert him, humor with a thou- 
 sand little tender wiles his gloominess. Two gentle 
 women to console him, in beautiful surroundings! 
 
 He telegraphed to them that he was coming, and 
 the same afternoon set out. 
 
 The Ferrol farm was in Westchester County. 
 Felix rode for an hour on the railway; and Nina, 
 bareheaded and tanned, met him at the station with a 
 cart. 
 
 She was a brown-haired girl with a plump, vigor- 
 ous shape. Her skin was fine; her cheeks were 
 pink; her blue eyes were wide open, showing a good 
 deal of the whites, which gave them an alert, frank 
 expression. Her upper lip was lifted to a little point. 
 She looked competent and self-reliant. 
 
 "Dear old boy!" she exclaimed in a full voice. 
 
 "This is very kind of you, Nina." 
 
 "Is it? Jump in. I want to show you this 
 horse."
 
 EILEEN 25 
 
 She drove swiftly through the village and out into 
 a country road. The hills on either side were emer- 
 ald green. The soft, blue sky was flecked with little, 
 brilliant clouds. A breeze, perfumed with verdure 
 and wild flowers, blew in their faces. 
 
 Giving him a quick glance, she remarked: 
 
 " You're looking fairly well." 
 
 He sighed. Apparently she did not hear. She said: 
 
 "I'll let him out here." 
 
 The horse leaped forward. Between his collar and 
 her hands the taut reins quivered. The wind 
 whistled past. Her loose hair, coming undone, blew 
 round her forehead and out behind her neck. Her 
 face was calm ; she wore a look of satisfaction. 
 
 In the fields farmers straightened themselves and 
 stared. A boy on a plough-seat held himself motion- 
 less, his whip half raised. All along the road, behind 
 the cart, a fog of saffron-colored dust hung trembling 
 in the air. 
 
 Ahead, on the top of a hill, appeared the house sur- 
 rounded by tall trees, with terraces before it covered 
 with the white, purple, pink, and yellow bloom of 
 hardy shrubs. Above tiers of flowering spiraea, lilacs, 
 azaleas, and jasmine bushes rose a long, solid- 
 looking building of three stories, flat-roofed, of red 
 brick trimmed with white stone in the Georgian 
 style. Beyond it, to the right, showed through trees 
 the top of a windmill and the roofs of stables and 
 farm buildings. A sound of many dogs barking 
 suddenly came down the breeze. 
 
 As the cart climbed the hill, in the mellow sunshine
 
 26 PREDESTINED 
 
 of late afternoon the terraces displayed hues almost 
 unnaturally gorgeous, the trees seemed powdered 
 thick with ruddy gold-dust, the brick walls of the 
 house were rose-colored; from the windows flashed 
 a blinding, flame-like radiance. Above, the fleecy 
 clouds, all motionless, were turning pink. And Felix 
 saw, standing between the stone pillars of the door- 
 way, shading her eyes with one hand, Nina's mother. 
 
 He thought: " It's almost like coming home. " In 
 fact, he reflected, it was better, for he had never 
 come home to two kind women. 
 
 On the hill-top Felix began a tranquil, indolent 
 existence. He told himself he was there taking leave 
 of leisure, and he wished to enjoy that farewell lin- 
 geringly. Every morning when he awoke, leaning 
 from his window he looked forth lazily, replete with 
 placid satisfaction. 
 
 The house stood high. Below it, on all sides 
 stretched out undulating vistas, vivid in sunlight, 
 bluish in great spots beneath eclipsing clouds, fading 
 at middle distance into a haze of old-gold summits 
 and vague valleys touched with shades of golden 
 green. Through that region, winding roads lay like 
 yellow threads cast down at random; among the 
 hills church spires of distant hamlets stuck up like 
 needle points; and on the horizon sparkled the 
 water of Long Island Sound, as tenuous and keen 
 as a thin edge of steel. 
 
 The air of a new day drifted through the long, open 
 windows of the breakfast-room. On the table the 
 silver and the glassware glittered in the clear light;
 
 EILEEN 27 
 
 a blue flame flickered underneath the coffee-pot ; the 
 flagrant red and yellow of nasturtiums in a crystal 
 bowl epitomized, for Felix, the vigorous beauty of 
 the morning. Seated at breakfast between the 
 mother and the daughter, he had sensations of do- 
 mesticity that softened him. 
 
 When, after breakfast, he made the rounds of the 
 farm with Nina, the whole world seemed so freshly 
 washed, so pure, that all his thoughts were simple, 
 guileless, and immaculate. He felt full of kindly, 
 innocent impulses. Looking about him at the sun- 
 light on the hills, the sky, the birds in flight he 
 thought, with a thrill of exaltation: "How beautiful 
 the world is!" He appreciated everything. He 
 shared with Nina all her enthusiasms. 
 
 In the stables, which smelled of clean straw and 
 ammonia, he caught her affection for the horses, her 
 pride in their fineness, her anxiety when any one of 
 them fell ill. In the barn-yard he counted eggs with 
 her; they drove a brood of fledglings to and fro, to see 
 them scamper; they laughed together at the haughty 
 airs of old roosters. In the kennels, where white bull- 
 terriers came rushing forth with yelps and whines of 
 welcome, he was pleased at the fondness that so many 
 dumb things showed for him. Nina gave him a 
 five months' old puppy, whose parents had both 
 won ribbons at "bench shows." Felix named the 
 dog Pat, and taught him to fetch, lie down, go home, 
 and heel. The little, shambling beast followed his 
 new master everywhere, howled outside closed win- 
 dows, scratched the sills, brought in dead birds that
 
 28 PREDESTINED 
 
 he had found in the fields, frisked through the 
 flowers, hid bones among the roses, had to be cuffed 
 every hour. 
 
 In the garden enclosed by trellises, its plats defined 
 by narrow gravel paths, Felix lounged on a bench 
 with a book while Nina tended rows of blossoms. 
 The rose-stems drooped with the weight of full-blown 
 petals, on the smooth surfaces of which lay little drops 
 like tears, as Felix thought, on satiny cheeks. The 
 daisies made him think of simplicity of young girls 
 in white dresses. Mignonette exhaled a dainty, 
 languorous redolence; he imagined, while smelling 
 it, moonlit balconies covered with pale flowers to 
 which dark chamber windows opened. But the 
 forced tuberoses, with their excessive, almost cor- 
 poreal sweetness, suggested, to his amazement, the 
 intoxication of a long embrace. He looked at Nina. 
 She was stooping, with scissors and a wicker basket, 
 before the flower borders. Her back was toward 
 him. The thin stuff of her dull-blue dress was 
 stretched across her shoulders; about her, on the 
 gravel, her full skirt belled out. Felix, watching her, 
 was lost in curiosity. Had she, too, sometime be- 
 lieved herself in love ? What sentimental experiences 
 did she remember? These questions Felix found 
 peculiarly engrossing. 
 
 She had a fine figure, but feared that she was grow- 
 ing stout. To avoid that she had got made an India- 
 rubber coat, skin-tight, which she put on underneath 
 her clothes when she went riding. She weighed her- 
 self every morning, examined her shape in mirrors
 
 EILEEN 29 
 
 with anxiety, and was in the habit of asking Felix over 
 her shoulder, while smoothing down her skirt about 
 her hips: 
 
 "Do you think I've taken any off to-day?" 
 
 Every day they rode abroad through the country 
 lanes, searching out unfrequented ways where sumac 
 bushes hung in wild tangles over the edges of the 
 gullies and the road-bed was soft for galloping. 
 
 She rode astride, in a gray skirt and a white waist, 
 with stained gloves on her hands, bareheaded, ruddy, 
 alert. 
 
 "Come on, Felix!" 
 
 They went at full speed to a swift thudding of 
 hoofs and a patter of flying pebbles. Protruding 
 twigs tore at their shoulders; they lowered their 
 heads sharply to escape branches of outgrowing sap- 
 lings; knee to knee in the narrow road, each strove to 
 pass the other. They forgot everything but the rush- 
 ing of the wind, the cadence of the gallop, the spas- 
 modic plunges of the beasts beneath them. At sharp 
 corners, seized suddenly with apprehension when it 
 was too late to pull up, they shouted frantically: 
 
 "Look out ahead!" 
 
 Sometimes, after a long ride, they would walk their 
 horses all the way home. They talked of themselves, 
 of their ideas, perhaps of their impressions got from 
 the books which they had read the night before, of 
 what they liked and disliked, of the things that 
 affected them the most. And their conversations 
 would be interrupted, now and then, by such excla- 
 mations as : "Has that occurred to you, too ? " " You
 
 30 PREDESTINED 
 
 feel that way also?" "Imagine your having thought 
 of that!" 'Then you can understand me when I 
 say . . ." Finishing their discussions, riding on in 
 silence, they would feel a peculiar contentment, 
 tinctured with surprise, at being able to express their 
 thoughts so clearly to each other. 
 
 Where old stone boundary walls beside the road 
 were masked with honeysuckle they heard the wild 
 bees droning. Where, at the entrances of little 
 woods, the tree tops came together overhead, passing 
 into spaces of cool shadows, they smelled moist moss 
 and loam, and listened, with upturned faces, to the 
 unexpected, capricious melody of birds. Occasion- 
 ally, while climbing their own hill, they were sur- 
 prised to discover high in the fading blue the pallid 
 outline of the moon, almost invisible. They turned, 
 on the ascent, to gaze back at the purple shadows 
 lying in the valleys, the obscuration of the east, the 
 first lamplight twinkling in some cottage window. 
 For them there was a subtle charm in coming safely 
 home at nightfall. 
 
 One evening when, tired, happy, full of tranquillity, 
 they reached the summit of the hill, they saw stand- 
 ing before the house an automobile. A visitor had 
 arrived! They found him sitting with Mrs. Ferrol in 
 the dusky library. He rose a tall, thin shape 
 and took a step forward. A quiet voice said: 
 
 "Nina?" 
 
 She gave a start. 
 
 It was an old admirer of Nina's who had been 
 travelling in Europe for his health. Landing un-
 
 EILEEN 31 
 
 expectedly that morning in New York, he had just 
 got back to his father's summer home, which lay some 
 fifteen miles away across the hills. 
 
 His name was Denis Droyt. He was a sedate 
 young man, rather old for his age, of steady habits, 
 always full of that serene assurance which comes from 
 contemplation of such assets as a secure place in good 
 society and an impregnable fortune. When in New 
 York, he occupied a position in his father's bank. 
 By matrons he was called a "very sensible young 
 man" ; young girls, with vague expressions, admitted 
 that "one must respect him," and brothers described 
 him to marriageable sisters as a "good risk." 
 
 In the library the lamps were lighted: the new- 
 comer was revealed. His narrow skull was becoming 
 prematurely bald on top; the scalp showed slightly 
 through short yellow hair as downy as a baby's. He 
 had small gray eyes, an aquiline nose, a long chin. 
 His features were expressionless. Pale and thin, he 
 seemed far from robust, though he assured his friends 
 that he had entirely recovered from the nervousness 
 on account of which he had been travelling. 
 
 He was sitting in what Nina reminded him was 
 "his old chair." Mrs. Ferrol, while making him a 
 cup of tea, remembered that he liked two lumps of 
 sugar. Nina, getting him cigarettes, asked him if he 
 still smoked that kind. Felix sat staring at him with 
 a feeling of resentment. The fellow certainly looked 
 Very much at home! 
 
 Nina and her mother expressed delight at seeing 
 him. So he was going to live for a while in the
 
 32 PREDESTINED 
 
 country right across the way, if one considered 
 automobiles! They would be neighbors again. How 
 pleasant, especially for Felix, who "must be getting 
 tired of women." The eyes of the two young men 
 met; and Denis Droyt murmured a sympathetic 
 phrase regarding Felix's bereavement. 
 
 "A friend of ours wrote me about it, and said you 
 had come out here. By a lucky chance I happened 
 to get the letter just before I left the other side." 
 
 He stayed for dinner. Sitting in the place that 
 Felix usually occupied, he entertained the ladies with 
 stories of his journeyings. Warmed by their flatter- 
 ing attention and enthusiasm, little by little he ex- 
 panded in his manner; he blossomed into the tradi- 
 tional voyager from afar, the spinner of tales, the 
 weaver of enchantments. To Felix he seemed like 
 that "universal witness" who is always on hand 
 when anything sensational occurs. Had they read 
 in the papers a certain bit of foreign news ? He was 
 there; he had the right of it. At the German yacht 
 races he had seen a royal sloop in collision; he had 
 watched a mob burn the betting booths at Long- 
 champs; he had happened to be on hand when 'a 
 poor, ruined gambler at Monte Carlo jumped from 
 a bridge and dashed himself to pieces on the rocks.. 
 
 "Weren't you horrified?" ejaculated Nina, gazing 
 at him fascinated. Looking very cool and brave, he 
 answered: 
 
 "Why, not at all. Perhaps it was the moon, the 
 strange scenery, and everything that made it seem 
 quite like a play."
 
 EILEEN 33 
 
 Felix could hardly repress a gesture of irritation. 
 What tales he could have related of China, of India, 
 of Arabia! He felt a great contempt for people who 
 retail with gusto the same old stories that every 
 excursionist has told. He said, indifferently: 
 
 "Some one kills himself at Monte Carlo every 
 day." 
 
 In the morning, when he awoke, Felix asked him- 
 self at once: "What unpleasant thing has hap- 
 pened?" And he remembered Denis Droyt. Why 
 the devil had he turned up here? Now he would 
 be hanging round all the time : everything would be 
 different. The farm already seemed less homelike. 
 
 In fact, that was the beginning of a new order of 
 living on the hill. 
 
 Every day, if Droyt did not appear in the morning, 
 at least he telephoned to make plans for the afternoon. 
 Sometimes a note from him awaited Nina at the 
 breakfast-table. A groom rode over from his house 
 with fruit grown under glass, and orchids. He 
 sent her a Virginia hunter to try one could not 
 enter the stable without seeing the beast's bony head 
 sticking over the top of a box-stall. Candy from 
 Droyt always lay on the library table. And every 
 morning, when she awoke in her white bed, Nina's 
 eyes fell on a writing set of silver that he had bought 
 for her in Paris. When he was absent, by a thousand 
 such artifices he recalled constantly to her the thought 
 of him. His intentions were obvious to every one. 
 Immediately on his home-coming he had plunged into 
 courtship with tremendous energy.
 
 34 PREDESTINED 
 
 As for Nina, her eyes grew brighter, her demeanor 
 more alert; she even looked at Felix with a sort of 
 suppressed curiosity and eagerness she was, as one 
 might say, "on edge." It seemed that in person she 
 expanded delicately, took on beauty, became radiant 
 with swifter blood. She was like a rose unfolding. 
 Felix, perceiving the change in her, said to himself at 
 last, in amazement: "She is in love with him!" 
 
 At once he felt like an outsider, an intruder. That 
 night, after dinner, he told Nina he was going back 
 to town. 
 
 They were standing together at an open French 
 window in the library, looking across the terraces and 
 out into the darkness. She had on a low-neck dress, 
 sky blue in color, fastened over her shoulders with 
 two narrow bands of blue velvet. Her hair was 
 wound round her head in thick braids, like a fillet. 
 She wore a turquoise necklace and some finger rings. 
 Droyt was expected for the evening; in fact, Nina 
 and Felix, while standing at the window, were listen- 
 ing for the sound of his automobile. 
 
 For a moment she made no reply to Felix's an- 
 nouncement. She drummed with her fingers on the 
 wood- work; then she said: 
 
 "Let's walk outside." 
 
 They went out on the terrace. Turning the corner 
 of the house, they were enveloped in the shadows. 
 
 TJie world seemed swimming in obscurity; the 
 stars, as if all withdrawn to the very limits of the 
 firmament, were hardly visible. From the damp 
 earth rose a delicious exhalation that cool, sweet
 
 EILEEN 35 
 
 breath of night in summer which rouses in the heart 
 tremulous emotions too delicate for comprehension; 
 a longing for unknown ecstasies, desires that one can 
 give no name to. 
 
 She slipped her arm through his, "in order not to 
 stumble"; leaning against him gently, she kept pace 
 with him. As they strolled slowly through the dark- 
 ness, stopping now and then to look round them, 
 the warmth of her bare shoulder penetrated the thin 
 cloth of his sleeve, and from her hair and skin ema- 
 nated an odor of powder and sachet. This intimate 
 fragrance, this contact in the gloom, caused him to 
 think: "If I were only walking so with some one 
 whom I loved who loved me!" What profit would 
 he not find, then, in this beautiful night, mute, veiled, 
 mysterious, made for lovers! He felt lonely, neg- 
 lected, isolated. A profound melancholy descended 
 upon him. 
 
 She, for her part, appeared changed: her natural 
 exuberance was subdued, all her habitual vigor had 
 melted into tender weakness she had become cling- 
 ing, meek, entirely feminine. It seemed that every- 
 thing which she perceived to-night was fraught for 
 her with romantic meaning. She could turn no 
 phrase, about the stars, the obscurity, the enfolding 
 hush, without a sentimental intonation. Looking at 
 the sky, she quoted, with a sigh: 
 
 " There we heard the breath among the grasses . . . 
 Well contented with the spacious starlight, 
 The cool wind's touch, and the deep blue distance, 
 Till the dawn came in with golden sandals. "
 
 36 PREDESTINED 
 
 "She is thinking of him," he thought. And per- 
 ceiving something indelicate in that revealment, he 
 was half angry with her. He imagined that, leaning 
 against him with closed eyes, she was trying to make 
 herself believe he was the other. He said, shortly: 
 
 "I don't know much about sandals for this sort of 
 wear, but if you stand round in the grass in those 
 blue slippers you'll get your feet wet." 
 
 She withdrew her arm. Returning to the path, 
 they found themselves before the trellises which 
 formed the boundaries of the garden. They entered 
 there; she wanted to sit down among the flowers. 
 Felix wiped a bench dry with his handkerchief. 
 Leaning back on it, side by side, they smelled the 
 tuberoses. She remarked, dreamily: 
 
 "How sweet they are!" 
 
 Again their heavy fragrance, rising about him, 
 made Felix think of the intoxication of a long em- 
 brace. He lighted a cigarette, and the aroma of wet 
 blossoms was adulterated with tobacco smoke. 
 
 The burning tip of the cigarette cast over Nina 
 a vague glow. Her necklace, all its gold settings 
 twinkling, gave her an unusual air of dainty artificial- 
 ity. Her blue dress, with its smooth silk shimmering, 
 made her look unnaturally slender, sleek, and elegant. 
 And the arrangement of her hair which to-night was 
 dressed with exceptional fastidiousness seemed to 
 complete the enrichment of her whole appearance. 
 As he looked at her, Felix felt a growing astonish- 
 ment and a new respect for her. She was almost' like 
 a beautiful stranger whom he saw now for the first
 
 EILEEN 37 
 
 time. He was amazed that he had never before 
 realized her worth. He was like a person who, every 
 day through a lifetime, has passed by some familiar 
 object without noticing its charm, and who may be 
 roused to appreciation only by a combination of ex- 
 traordinary influences. 
 
 She had said something, but he had not heard her; 
 and she was forced to repeat: 
 
 "Felix, I tell you I want your advice." 
 
 "Ah. Very well." 
 
 "Shall I marry Denis?" 
 
 He was silent. At last he retorted: 
 
 "Why should you ask me that?" 
 
 "Because I'm not in love with him." 
 
 He was amazed then, of a sudden, elated. He 
 exclaimed, in a hearty tone: 
 
 "Well, then, don't marry him!" 
 
 "But I must marry some one." 
 
 "Marry a man you're in love with." 
 
 She drew a long breath, clasped her hands in her 
 lap, and asked: 
 
 "Will you marry me?" 
 
 With his cigarette half-way to his mouth, he sat 
 as if thunderstruck. She continued, in a voice that 
 trembled slightly: 
 
 "I know how that must sound. But I don't care. 
 I won't let you go back to town without hearing it. 
 I wish you could have said it. But you didn't; so J 
 have to. 
 
 "You're not in love with me, but at least I know 
 you're fond of me. I'd be satisfied with that. I'd
 
 38 PREDESTINED 
 
 be happy if I could be sure of having, all my life, 
 just your sort of affection, full of sympathy. 
 
 "We know each other so well that I believe we'd 
 never have to fear any disillusionment. Just as you 
 know all my faults now, I know all yours; but I 
 know all your virtues and possibilities as well. I 
 think I know your possibilities better than you do 
 yourself. I'm so afraid, sometimes, that you won't 
 realize them fully. To think what you could do and 
 might miss doing! I want to see you famous some 
 day a great man, honored and respected every- 
 where for what you've done. Oh, my dear, if I could 
 be with you then, and know that I had helped you! 
 No one would ever be able to say to me that a woman 
 can do nothing." 
 
 And as she expressed that thought her eyes shone 
 through the gloom with the intense desire of an 
 aspiring nature to break the chains of a subjective 
 sex, to take part in great performances to be in some 
 degree responsible for them. 
 
 He was dazed; he could not believe it. She loved 
 him ; she wanted to marry him ; she offered herself to 
 him! She, in whom just this evening he had discov- 
 ered a personal seductiveness, was pleading to be- 
 come his wife ! And in imagining the worth of all she 
 tendered him in proffering herself, he was unable to 
 avoid thinking also of the fortune that went with 
 her. 
 
 He saw himself, in a future transformed and en- 
 riched, living without apprehension, assured of every- 
 thing. Some day the farm would be his, and the
 
 EILEEN 39 
 
 house in town, and a fine income a larger income 
 than he would have possessed if he had not lost his 
 inheritance. Nothing was impossible. They would 
 live at home in any way they pleased; tiring of that, 
 they would travel; no corner of the earth would be 
 too remote for them; he even thought of a great 
 yacht sailing into every sea. A part of each year 
 they might spend abroad, occupying in gay capi- 
 tals their own hotel, the sort of hotel he knew of a 
 historic mansion full of splendid memories, built of 
 gray stone carved like lace-work, with gables and 
 tourelles and noble chimneys, and a great entrance 
 doorway where a servant, in white stockings and a 
 laced coat, leaned against the jamb. Or they might 
 have a villa somewhere beside the blue sea, but no 
 ordinary villa. He had seen one, rose-colored, like 
 a little castle, smothered in orange-trees and ilex- 
 trees, enclosed in labyrinthine gardens; he thought 
 that he could work there. For, relieved of all anx- 
 iety, how he would work! Every one would marvel 
 at him a rich man gaining so brilliant a name, 
 rising so high, when he might have done nothing but 
 enjoy himself. People passing by his house would 
 look up at the windows. They would point him out 
 in public places where, modestly ignoring the atten- 
 tion he excited, he would shine, despite himself, with 
 the combined lustre of genius and of wealth. He sat 
 motionless, dazzled by his thoughts. 
 
 But suddenly his dreams disintegrated. An ap- 
 prehension seized him; was he, indeed, only dream- 
 ing ? He dropped his cigarette, which had gone out.
 
 40 PREDESTINED 
 
 He peered through the darkness at Nina. She 
 seemed so nearly impalpable that, reaching out his 
 hand, he touched her arm. 
 
 "Is it so hard to decide?" 
 
 She spoke as timidly as if she were offering him 
 nothing. 
 
 "How much she must care for me!" 
 
 The thought touched him to the heart. He prom- 
 ised himself that he would do everything for her. 
 For all that she would bring to him he would repay 
 her by making her proud of him. 
 
 When he kissed her he had a soft shock of sur- 
 prise; the novelty of that embrace set him to trem- 
 bling. In the shadows, among the tuberoses, she 
 had suddenly become desirable to him for many 
 reasons. He had no difficulty in repeating, over and 
 over, with an accent of passion: 
 
 "I love you! I love you!" 
 
 " Oh, do you, Felix ?" And, putting her head upon 
 his shoulder, she sobbed as if broken-hearted in her 
 gratitude. 
 
 It was the clatter of Denis Droyt's automobile that 
 recalled them to reality. Returning to the house they 
 met the visitor before the door. 
 
 When Nina informed him that she was going to 
 marry Felix he turned pale. A ghastly smile of 
 politeness appeared upon his face. He shook hands 
 with both of them, re-entered his automobile, and de- 
 parted. He had not uttered a word. 
 
 "Poor Denis!" exclaimed Nina. Felix made no 
 reply; he was occupied with something more im-
 
 EILEEN 41 
 
 portant than commiseration. What was Mrs. Ferrol 
 going to say? 
 
 They found Mrs. Ferrol in the library. Dressed 
 in black, she was sitting beside a shaded reading- 
 lamp, which illumined with a soft glow her small, 
 pale face and her gray hair, arranged in precise 
 waves upon her temples. Putting down her book, 
 she looked at the two young people with a gentle 
 smile. She said: 
 
 "I was hoping so. I'm very glad, my dears. Ah, 
 if your mother were here now, Felix!" 
 
 His eyes filled with tears. How everything came 
 to him all of a sudden: good fortune, love, and the 
 affection of a mother! What had he ever done to 
 deserve such kindness and benevolence? 
 
 "How can I thank you?" he stammered. 
 
 "By making Nina happy," she replied, and dried 
 her eyes. 
 
 That night Felix could not sleep. He rose from 
 his bed, went to the window, and gazed out. The 
 world, he thought, had never looked so beauti- 
 ful. 
 
 The moon had risen, the color of the heavens had 
 changed no longer black, it was that serious, noble 
 blue which lies in the depths of sapphires. Across 
 the sky were spread long, trailing clouds, scarf-like, 
 and sewn with pallid stars. In that radiance the 
 garden underneath the windows was revealed, its 
 gravel pathways gleaming white, its flower beds 
 furnished with unnatural, vague hues. The tall 
 trees roundabout seemed to be wrapped in silver
 
 42 PREDESTINED 
 
 veils; beyond them the hill-tops were repeated like 
 the majestic, moonlit billows of some ocean of 
 enchantment, until they were lost, on the horizon, 
 in the shimmering waters of the sound. All 
 things appeared strange, unstable, mystic as if 
 drawing, down the moonbeams, beauty from some 
 lovelier world. Flowers blossom in sunshine, hearts 
 in moonlight. It was the hour for transports of the 
 soul. 
 
 The limpid rays shone down into his eyes; the 
 breeze, approaching from afar to a pervasive sighing 
 sound, caressed his body. It seemed to him that 
 Nature touched him with tender, reassuring hands. 
 A great peace filled his heart : he had never known a 
 like emotion that all was well with him; that a 
 supreme power, the same which held the stars in 
 place, had taken care and would thereafter, if he 
 chose, take care of him. Looking up at the heavens, 
 he was possessed with the confidence of such as, 
 gazing in the night toward those vast, ordered spaces, 
 come to imagine clearly a divine benevolence in whose 
 existence and persistence they can trust. 
 
 Presently he felt tears rolling down his cheeks. 
 How good, how valuable life was; how dazzling its 
 promises; how sure, at that moment, its triumphant 
 consummation! He would have liked to formulate a 
 prayer of gratitude. 
 
 But, since the impulses of youth are rarely devo- 
 tional, the desire for prayer, when it comes at last, 
 finds one awkward as if one were struggling to 
 speak in a strange tongue.
 
 EILEEN 43 
 
 Finally, however, he achieved, at least : 
 "I'll pay it back!" 
 
 And he pictured his lifetime nobly spent in that 
 requital.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 As soon as his engagement to Nina was made 
 public, Felix felt that he could bear no more idleness ; 
 he wanted to prove at once, to every one, that he was 
 worthy of his good fortune. So he said good-by 
 to Nina and her mother, full of ambition and op- 
 timism, like a young knight about to plunge forth 
 into the unknown to find the Holy Grail. He was 
 going back to the city, to begin, to make his way, to 
 become famous. 
 
 As for the two women, looking at his bright eyes 
 and inspirited countenance, observing the new assur- 
 ance of his presence, they considered fame as good as 
 in his grasp. For them, in that moment, he was the 
 young adventurer of all the ages, the hero setting 
 out from among idolizing women to win the world. 
 
 Nina drove him to the railway station. She shed 
 a few tears on the way, but when, as the train was 
 beginning to glide forward, Felix leaned out through 
 the open window of the car, her upturned, earnest 
 eyes shone clearly. 
 
 " You'll telephone to me every morning, Felix?" 
 
 "Every morning; and write, too. Good-by, 
 dear." 
 
 "Not good-by, Felix!" 
 
 "No, no; that's right. Not good-by." 
 
 44
 
 EILEEN 45 
 
 The train rushed toward New York. 
 
 The fields, blond with ripening grain, flowed past. 
 Acres of cabbages appeared, dull green, their long 
 rows, swiftly changing in perspective, suggestive of 
 rotating spokes in some vast wheel. Strips of wood- 
 land burst out upon the landscape, closed in against 
 the track, tired the eye with a fluttering repetition of 
 tree trunks, then vanished suddenly, exposing open 
 country. Rail fences straggled by as if alive ; a herd 
 of dark-red cows were grazing in a pasture which 
 appeared to be revolving slowly under them ; a dust- 
 colored man was tramping toward a dilapidated barn 
 that had the look of moving forward at him. A town 
 presented itself in an instant, then melted into a blur 
 of brick sheds. The earth fell away; the train rat- 
 tled over trestles ; far below one glimpsed a peaceful 
 stream, undulating among willow-trees, upon its 
 banks a group of naked little boys who, while they 
 stood up and waved their arms, were whisked out of 
 sight. Into large meadows came sailing lines of 
 boarding covered with gaudy advertisements. The 
 sky-line faded from soft green to drab; smoke ob- 
 scured the horizon, and beneath it spires, towers, 
 chimneys, and high walls showed themselves above 
 a confusion of vague roofs. The fields melted; 
 houses were clustered everywhere ; one saw a row of 
 dwellings all made from the same pattern then a 
 dozen rows, and paved streets with lamp-posts. The 
 buildings were transformed from wood to brick ; flat- 
 houses fled by close beside the train; between them 
 white mists, of drying undergarments, flashed for a
 
 46 PREDESTINED 
 
 second. The interiors of shabby homes were re- 
 vealed as if in a blaze of lightning, and one remem- 
 bered, when far past, the woman above her stove, 
 the children at a table, the man in a red undershirt, 
 the tousled bed. Factories loomed up ; behind their 
 windows men were moving to and fro amid ma- 
 chinery; girls were sitting in long rows, their hands 
 all fluttering; steam was escaping over the roofs; 
 drays were crowding the streets. The successive 
 vistas, compressed, confused, bewildering because 
 of the variety of activities they revealed, seemed re- 
 duced, finally, to one long blur in monotone epito- 
 mizing work. 
 
 While the train sped forward into New York, Felix 
 felt closing round him an atmosphere surcharged with 
 energy. He was affected by it. He felt so strong, so 
 capable, so sure of himself, that already he could see 
 the great city offering him homage. 
 
 He went at once to the office of the lawyer who had 
 taken him into the woods. Entering a "sky-scraper" 
 in Broad Street, he ascended in an elevator to the 
 thirteenth floor. In an antechamber, carpeted with 
 green Wilton, a youth disappeared with his card 
 behind a door, on the ground-glass panel of which 
 was painted: "Mr. Wickit." The door burst open, 
 disclosing a room full of mahogany office furniture, 
 law-books bound in yellow leather, black tin boxes; 
 out strode Felix's friend, lean, gray-haired, sharp- 
 featured, smiling, both hands extended. 
 
 "My dear boy, my congratulations." And when 
 they were in the private office Mr. Wickit added, with
 
 EILEEN 47 
 
 a knowing and admiring expression: "To think that 
 I'd lost patience with you for wasting time out there ! " 
 
 They sat down for a chat. Felix resented Mr. 
 Wickit's attitude; from it one would have thought 
 that they enjoyed a secret understanding. The law- 
 yer apparently believed that Felix had deliberately 
 gone out fortune-hunting and brought down a fine 
 prize. And Felix, with a sinking sensation at his 
 heart, reflected: "Just now it would be impossible 
 to convince him, or any one else, otherwise. How 
 maliciously unfair people are!" He was filled with 
 righteous indignation at that thought. He said, 
 somewhat stiffly : 
 
 "I came to ask you for some advice before setting 
 in to work." 
 
 "Certainly," returned the lawyer, smoothing his 
 face into an expression of concern. "You're more 
 determined than ever now, I suppose; you don't in- 
 tend to occupy an equivocal position, eh ? Of course 
 not. That does you credit; but I knew it would 
 occur to you. Well, what did you think of doing?" 
 
 "I'm going to write." 
 
 "You persist in that idea?" 
 
 Mr. Wickit looked serious. Finally he said: 
 
 "Recently I met Oliver Corquill, the novelist. I 
 talked to him about you and the intentions you had 
 when we were in the woods. He told me some things 
 you ought to know before you rush into that profes- 
 sion. We'll lunch with him to-day, if you're at 
 liberty." 
 
 "At liberty to meet Oliver Corquill?"
 
 48 PREDESTINED 
 
 To make that acquaintance Felix would have been 
 at liberty if he had contracted a conflicting engage- 
 ment even with Nina. 
 
 Oliver Corquill, still spoken of as a young man, 
 was one of those fortunate writers who are able to 
 produce, every year or so, a novel of the sort called, 
 in publishers' parlance, a "best seller." So accu- 
 rately had he gauged the appetite of the reading 
 public, that for the mental refreshment he provided 
 there was a continual demand. And so adroitly did 
 he conceal beneath the surface in his tales an ad- 
 mirable art, that professional critics united in ac- 
 claiming him. In consequence he enjoyed both 
 fame and fortune. 
 
 Felix and Mr. Wickit, dashing uptown in an elec- 
 tric hansom, met him in a club-house near Fifth 
 Avenue. The novelist was a quiet-looking man at 
 whom Felix ordinarily would not have glanced twice. 
 His smooth-shaven face was prosaic and illegible; 
 his clothes were unobtrusive ; his hair was very short ; 
 his whole aspect suggested that he had just stepped 
 out of a business office. Nevertheless, for Felix 
 everything about him possessed a peculiar distinction. 
 The young man thought the face of the celebrity 
 remarkable, was impressed by his manner, wondered 
 what romance was connected with the scarab pin in 
 his cravat, noticed that his collar had pointed tips 
 instead of round, and, when Corquill opened his 
 mouth, listened with feelings of respect and modesty. 
 He could not help looking round the club restaurant 
 to see if others observed the company that he was in.
 
 EILEEN 49 
 
 At the table, Mr. Wickit, with a genial grin, said: 
 
 "This is the young man, Mr. Corquill, who wants 
 to be a writer. I wish you 'd discourage him for me." 
 
 "I almost wish I could," answered Corquill, gazing 
 at Felix with a kindly smile that changed his face as 
 if a mellow light had suddenly been thrown upon it. 
 Then, in reply to the look that expressed Felix's 
 amazement, he explained: 
 
 "I say that because I'm afraid you'd go into this 
 business with the popular idea of it. 
 
 "Nearly every one with a good education and 
 some imagination has thought that he could scratch 
 off at least a story. Very many persons are seduced 
 by this belief into contemplating a career in literature. 
 Men who have failed in other professions, lonely 
 ladies, young girls brimming over with indefinite 
 cravings, young men who desire to entrance every 
 one with the thoughts that seem to them entrancing, 
 all say to themselves: 'At least, I can write a book.' 
 How do they set about it ? They sit down at a desk, 
 prepare some paper, take up a pen, and begin." 
 
 "Of course," thought Felix. 
 
 Corquill continued, with increasing animation: 
 > "They have begun with the popular idea: that 
 literature is, of all the arts, the one in which any 
 novice can surpass at once. Does a young girl, after 
 walking through the Metropolitan Gallery, go home 
 and set up a great canvas, expecting to paint a 
 picture in the style of Rosa Bonheur ? Does a young 
 man, on finishing an inspection of the Elgin Marbles, 
 rush off and buy a block of stone, convinced that he
 
 50 PREDESTINED 
 
 can carve a Theseus in the manner of Phidias? I 
 think not. But the tyro, who sits down at his desk 
 and says: 'Now I shall write a book,' expects to 
 astound every one immediately with his genius. 
 
 "What is the result with him? Confusion, irrita- 
 tion, anguish at his impotence he's lucky if he doesn't 
 think of suicide. Ah, my dear young man, what 
 agonies and incoherent, vain hopes are wrapped up in 
 the first manuscripts of these poor people! It's true 
 that now and then such things get printed; but just 
 as we have enough chromos in the world already, and 
 enough papier-mache statuary, so we have already 
 enough books made by the misguided souls who are 
 not writing, but merely practising at writing. 
 
 "Now, if a young man came to me and said: 'I 
 want to become a writer,' I should reply to him: 
 ' I presuppose that you have thoughts worth recount- 
 ing, so I pass that point by. But are you very pa- 
 tient? Are you very industrious? Can you bear 
 disappointments, discouragements, defeats? Have 
 you an inflexible determination? Then, if you are 
 so equipped, this is w r hat I should advise you to do: 
 Study every day text-books of literature and the works 
 of great writers. Shut yourself in; write; tear up; 
 write; tear up; keep nothing everything you do is 
 worthless. Get a position on the best newspaper in 
 the country say, The Sphere and when you have 
 had a million words of yours printed in its columns, 
 then write your first book, bring it to me, and I'll tell 
 you whether you will ever amount to anything.' ' 
 
 Felix sat silent.
 
 EILEEN 51 
 
 Oliver Corquill, watching him, concluded with a 
 frank laugh: 
 
 "This discourse is intended for a serious young 
 man with high ideals." 
 
 Felix drew a long breath. 
 
 "Thank you," he said, in a low voice. 
 
 The novelist, with a polite gesture, promptly ban- 
 ished the animation from his face, resumed his illeg- 
 ible expression, and went on eating without another 
 word. 
 
 After luncheon, when Felix and Mr. Wickit, in the 
 lobby of the club-house, had said good-by to Cor- 
 quill, the lawyer asked his young friend: 
 
 "Are you still determined?" 
 
 "Perhaps more so. Now I'm going down to the 
 editor of The Spltere to ask him for a job. If he'll 
 let me, I'll begin to-morrow morning." As he said 
 that, Felix could not help feeling proud of himself. 
 
 Mr. Wickit, after a moment's thought, shrugged 
 his shoulders. With a quizzical expression he re- 
 turned : 
 
 "After all, what's the difference? In a year's 
 time By the way, is this engagement of yours 
 and Miss Ferrol's going to be a long one? If I 
 remember, you have less than fifteen hundred dollars 
 in the bank?" 
 
 Mr. Wickit closed his eyes, tapped his teeth, then 
 sat down at a writing-desk near by. In a moment 
 he held out to Felix a freshly blotted check. It was 
 for one thousand dollars. 
 
 "Pay it back later." And the lawyer, smiling
 
 52 PREDESTINED 
 
 shrewdly at the boy, looked, with his lean, yellow face 
 wrinkled round the mouth, somewhat like a benevo- 
 lent old bandit. 
 
 Felix was overwhelmed. "How I've misjudged 
 him," he thought remorsefully. He was unable to 
 express his thanks to Mr. Wickit all of whose cynical 
 insinuations were excused instantly in whom Felix, 
 at this princely generosity, could perceive only the 
 most praiseworthy qualities. A thousand dollars! 
 That sum, which a few months before would not have 
 seemed at all remarkable to Felix, appeared now like 
 a little fortune. When he set out for the office of 
 The Sphere, from time to time he patted the wallet 
 in his breast pocket, to assure himself that it was 
 safe. When he touched it he was fortified; that 
 contact with money imparted even to his body an 
 exceptional vigor; and he approached his destina- 
 tion with the independent bearing of a man who, 
 instead of asking favors anxiously, demands them. 
 
 The Sphere, a daily newspaper noted for its literary 
 brilliancy, was published in a little, old building of 
 discolored brick, which, shabby and insignificant 
 amid modern "sky-scrapers," faced westward on 
 the City Hall Park. Delivery wagons and trucks 
 laden with great rolls of paper blocked the street 
 before it; about its doors swarmed newsboys; and 
 on the narrow pavement pedestrians hurried by, 
 jostling, in two interminable streams. 
 
 Felix entered the office on the ground-floor, where, 
 behind a long counter opposite the door, young men 
 were folding newspapers.
 
 EILEEN 53 
 
 "Where can I find the editor?" 
 
 "Two flights!" The youth whom Felix ques- 
 tioned jerked his head toward a wooden staircase on 
 the left. 
 
 From the second story, where he saw nothing but 
 rough partitions and closed doors, Felix mounted by 
 a flight of spiral iron steps that ran up through a 
 gloomy shaft. He smelled dust, steam, hot metal. 
 A persistent, heavy rumbling seemed to make the 
 whole building tremble. Suddenly, close beside him, 
 downward dropped a freight elevator laden with men 
 in grimy undershirts. He was next startled by the 
 shrill scream of a circular saw, and, looking below, 
 through the interstices of the staircase he perceived, 
 as if at the bottom of a well, a confusion of machinery, 
 fires, caldrons of molten metal, half-naked figures 
 glistening with sweat. People began to climb be- 
 hind him; he pressed on. A boy with a handful of 
 papers, clattering down the steps, collided with him. 
 Three men, descending, waited impatiently for him 
 to pass. Finally, he emerged into a large room 
 floored with iron plates. Youths in leather aprons 
 were rolling ponderous, table-like objects back and 
 forth or running about with steaming mats of felt. 
 Beyond these a swarm of men were engaged in vari- 
 ous peculiar performances. To the left, some, with 
 armfuls of metal spools, were walking between lines 
 of small, racketing machines. To the right, others, 
 wearing eye-shades, were standing before type-cases. 
 Ahead, some distance off, among a huddle of desks, 
 in a fog of tobacco smoke, reporters in their- shut-
 
 54 PREDESTINED 
 
 sleeves were writing, calling out to one another, wav- 
 ing above their heads large sheets of paper, which 
 boys snatched from their hands and scurried off with. 
 
 Felix, approaching the reporters' desks, stared 
 about him blankly. Nothing was as he had ex- 
 pected. He was bewildered by the strangeness of 
 everything he saw, and the confusion. With a mo- 
 mentary sensation of timidity, he wondered if, in 
 coming there, he had not made a mistake. He felt 
 that he was doing something exceedingly fantastic. 
 
 He attracted the attention of a young man who 
 seemed to be unoccupied. This person had his 
 shirt-sleeves rolled up, wore on the back of his head 
 a black felt hat, and was puffing at a disreputable- 
 looking corn-cob pipe. 
 
 "I'd like to see the editor," ventured Felix. 
 
 "You'd better wait; an edition is going to press 
 now." 
 
 "In the afternoon?" Felix exclaimed. 
 
 "Ah, I think you've made a mistake. This is 
 The Evening Sphere office. The Morning Sphere 
 is on the floor below. The two staffs are quite inde- 
 pendent of each other." 
 
 "What's the difference between them?" 
 
 "They publish at midnight; we publish four times 
 during the day. Their hours are from noon till 
 almost any time; ours are from eight in the morning 
 until four." 
 
 "Indeed," said Felix, with a more nearly satisfied 
 expression. "Then this is the editor I'm after!" 
 
 He found the editor of The Evening Sphere in a
 
 EILEEN 55 
 
 box-like compartment somewhat larger than a cup- 
 board, at a disordered desk, knee-deep in crumpled 
 papers, in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a cigar. The 
 journalist was small and delicate, with a gentle face 
 and a cautious manner. 
 ! "Mr. Piers?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Take a seat if you can." 
 
 When Felix had explained his wishes which he 
 did a little as a church-goer repeats a creed the worth 
 of which he is beginning to doubt at once the editor 
 looked sad and tired. The newspaper's staff was 
 complete; besides, there was a long "waiting list"; 
 the managers even thought of getting rid of a reporter 
 or two they had so many ; and so on. Felix, rising, 
 without feeling much downcast, prepared to take 
 prompt leave. 
 
 "Wait a minute. I've not finished," the editor 
 said, staring at him. 
 
 Beginners were a speculation, pure and simple. 
 After careful training they might be of some use- 
 again, they might not. At any rate, Felix was to 
 understand, they were not worth much to a news- 
 paper. "A beginner," gently remarked the editor, 
 "would surely not be worth more than fifteen dollars 
 a week." And he glanced speculatively at Felix, 
 who happened to be wearing a suit of dark-gray 
 English flannel, silk shirt and stockings, chamois- 
 skin gloves, and a fine pearl in his cravat. 
 
 Felix, for his part, had conflicting thoughts. While 
 fifteen dollars a week did not at once seem to him
 
 56 PREDESTINED 
 
 small earnings, since he had never earned a penny, 
 he felt an impulse to appear indifferent on that point. 
 He took out a cigarette, in order to exhibit as if 
 casually his gold cigarette-case; he even wished that 
 in some apparently accidental way he could manage, 
 to display the thousand-dollar check. 
 
 The editor inquired, abruptly: 
 
 "Mr. Piers, are you doing this on a bet or for a 
 whim?" 
 
 "I'm doing it because I want to learn to write 
 good English." 
 
 "That's your object? Well, I will give you fif- 
 teen dollars a week. Can you begin at once?" 
 
 "Why, thank you, yes." 
 
 "Go outside, sir, and sit down." 
 
 Felix was a reporter. It did not occur to him to 
 be elated or surprised at the ease with which he had 
 secured that position. With a wry smile, he asked 
 himself: "What will Nina say and everybody 
 else?" 
 
 That was the beginning, for Felix, of a new epoch. 
 He found himself one of those young men who hurry 
 forth throughout the city at the first hint of unusual 
 happenings, who pry into everything sensational, who 
 are present at all curious episodes, all tragedies, and 
 all disasters. Doors opened at his knock, and, half- 
 unwillingly, yet fascinated, he peered in at the secret 
 lives of strangers. He contemplated degradation; 
 he intruded on anguish; in awe he looked down at 
 the mysterious masks of suicides and murdered men. 
 He made the old remark of all beginners in that
 
 EILEEN 57 
 
 business who are sensitive: he had discovered the 
 "Human Comedy" the comedy of human hearts, 
 absurd, grotesque, repulsive, terrible. 
 
 In these first days, while hurrying back to the 
 newspaper office, Felix would see, as if they were 
 before him still, the eyes of the abandoned wife; 
 the waxen face of the girl searching for her lover in 
 the Morgue; the little children in the squalid flat 
 peeping into the parlor at the coffin; the dead man 
 sprawling on the ground, his rival's weapon lying 
 near him. Thrilled by his bit of " Human Comedy," 
 Felix would write in a fine frenzy, then hover near 
 the copy-readers while they slashed at his pages with 
 blue pencils; finally, with a feeling of suffocation, 
 snatch the warm newspapers and scan them for his 
 story the story he had made, that fifty thousand 
 eyes would see, but which, in its deflated form, he 
 could hardly recognize as his. " They've cut the 
 best part out!" Still, no blue pencil could undo 
 the great fact that he was in print. When, riding 
 uptown in the trolley-car from work, he saw men 
 glancing at a certain column in The Evening Sphere, 
 his heart went out to those readers: they were his 
 brothers; he had an almost uncontrollable desire to 
 seize their arms, to make them look at him, to say .to 
 them: "I wrote that!" He cut out everything that 
 he got printed and, at night, pasted all his clippings 
 in a scrap-book. 
 
 Answering an advertisement in the newspapers, he 
 had rented an apartment, furnished, on a top floor in 
 West Thirty-second Street. He had there a studio
 
 58 PREDESTINED 
 
 with a skylight, a bedroom, and a bath. The place 
 which belonged to a young artist with weak lungs, 
 exiled in the Adirondack Mountains was full of 
 imitation "antique" furniture and trivial curiosities. 
 Rejected paintings lined the walls; a model's throne 
 stood in one corner; a wooden mannikin leaned 
 against the mantel-piece in the feeble attitude of a 
 drunken man; and all the useless paraphernalia of 
 an " artistic ' ' studio was strewn about. The stomach 
 of a terra-cotta statuette was scratched with matches ; 
 the top of a tabouret was marked with rings made 
 by wet glasses ; the chair-arms had been burned by 
 cigarettes. Felix, with ingenuous admiration for this 
 Bohemian environment, considered himself lucky in 
 obtaining such a scene for his performances. 
 
 At night he worked there faithfully, studying liter- 
 ature, thinking always of Corquill and the heights 
 which that celebrity inhabited. Such was his en- 
 thusiasm and determination that he took pleasure 
 in seeing little of his old friends in taking the pose 
 of a recluse for art's sake. When lonely he re- 
 peated: "All great men live in themselves while they 
 are cultivating fame." 
 
 Every morning, before he left the studio, he tele- 
 phoned to Nina. 
 
 "Good-morning, dear." 
 
 " Good-morning, sweetheart. Ten minutes late to- 
 day!" 
 
 "Really? How are you this morning?" 
 
 "Very well; and how are you?" 
 
 Then there would be a pause what should he say
 
 EILEEN 59 
 
 next? Could it be possible that he had exhausted 
 every topic interesting at long distance? 
 
 He spent his Sundays on the farm. Nina always 
 met him at the station. When they reached the first 
 stretch of deserted road he kissed her. It was always 
 at the same spot; and always in just the same way 
 she held in the spirited horse, and leaned down tow- 
 ard him from her higher seat, her breast pressing 
 against his shoulder, her long eyelashes lowered on 
 her cheeks, her soft lips slightly pouting. And she 
 always wore the same perfume, simple, clean-smell- 
 ing. In time, Felix ceased to notice it. 
 
 It was autumn. The countryside was touched 
 with that beauty, slightly melancholy, which nature 
 has in its final, all but languishing, exuberance. 
 Spring, with its soft breezes capable of thrilling 
 hearts with strange delights, was now a memory; 
 and the presentiment of fall was almost like a pre- 
 sentiment of loss. Where was that first ethereal 
 elation that novelty of love among the budding 
 flowers? In autumn the foliage on the hills, the 
 blossoming of which one greeted with delight, has 
 grown familiar. 
 
 All Felix's first amazement at his good fortune had 
 given way to complacency. Nina's love, Mrs. Fer- 
 rol's affection, the luxurious home in which, every 
 week, he took his place he came to regard finally 
 as a matter of course. When, on Monday morning, 
 he returned to the newspaper office, from the anxious, 
 struggling reporters he was distinguished by such an 
 air of independence as comes with a conviction of
 
 60 PREDESTINED 
 
 security. He was assured of everything. What had 
 he to fear from any one ? 
 
 One day, when he was passing on some errand 
 into the vestibule of the Supreme Court House, he 
 came face to face with a tall, earnest-looking young 
 man in a brown cutaway coat, who exclaimed joy- 
 ously : 
 
 " Felix Piers! What are you doing here?" 
 
 This young man's name was Gregory Tambor- 
 layne. He was a lawyer who had been taken into a 
 rich firm that safeguarded various large corporations 
 in the courts. He was an old friend of Felix's, but 
 for some time, separated by divergent interests, they 
 had seen nothing of each other. 
 
 They had an enthusiastic reunion. Each related 
 his experiences. 
 
 Tamborlayne had been married for two years; his 
 wedding had taken place while Felix was going 
 round the world. His wife, after a summer spent 
 in Europe, had just returned to him. Felix must 
 meet her; he must dine with them in fact, why 
 not that night ? 
 
 Why not, indeed? The lonely evenings in the 
 studio were becoming slightly irksome. 
 
 At eight o'clock that night Felix presented him- 
 self at Tamborlayne's house in East Seventy-ninth 
 Street. 
 
 The drawing-room in which he found himself 
 was rose-colored. Into the walls were set tall panels 
 of rose-colored silk covered with a design of little 
 garlands. On the waxed parquetry stood chairs
 
 EILEEN 61 
 
 and sofas fashioned in the style of Louis XVI, 
 their rose-colored upholstery embroidered with 
 slight, curving sprays of flowers, their light wood- 
 work embossed, fluted, and gilded. Opposite the 
 doorway was a fireplace of white marble with a pink 
 silk fire screen, in a gilt frame, before it. On the 
 mantel-piece stood a round clock supported by six 
 marble columns. This ornament was flanked by 
 large urns of French china, like the furniture sug- 
 gestive of the eighteenth century, with an oval panel 
 in the front of each on which was painted a "Mar- 
 quise," with bold eyes and demure mouth, after the 
 manner of Watteau. A mirror, extending from the 
 mantel to the ceiling, reflected the massive, globular 
 pendants of a crystal chandelier. At the rear of the 
 apartment there glimmered in the gloom a beautiful 
 harp and a grand-piano, in the same style as the 
 furniture gilded and of chaste outline. The whole 
 room, as if reflecting the intimate personality of some 
 individual, suggested daintiness, fragility, discretion 
 a discretion that seemed almost to veil an inclina- 
 tion toward delicately sensuous extravagances. 
 
 There was a light step in the hall. Here, undoubt- 
 edly, was Tamborlayne's wife. Felix, who had never 
 met her, thought: "Now we shall see what he's done 
 for himself!" 
 
 At that moment she appeared in the doorway. 
 
 She was nearly as tall as Felix, slender, pale, with 
 black hair. Felix did not think her good-looking, 
 but he could not help admitting that she had elegance 
 and was exquisitely dressed.
 
 62 PREDESTINED 
 
 She wore a low-neck, trailing gown of black lace 
 laid on silver tissue, which accentuated the smallness 
 of her waist and the slightness of her hips. As she ad- 
 vanced with softly rustling skirts, her hair very dark, 
 her skin very white, her eyes intently fixed on his, it 
 seemed to Felix as if something extraordinary was 
 approaching him. Then she smiled slowly. 
 
 "How do you do, Felix ? as Gregory always says." 
 
 His feeling of strangeness vanished; they were 
 friends at once. 
 
 Her voice was low and calm, her gestures all were 
 leisurely and graceful; everything about her ex- 
 pressed tranquillity and self-confidence. Felix ad- 
 mired her behavior, the arrangement of her hair, her 
 neck, in which, despite her slimness, were no hollows. 
 Her clear, smooth skin contained a smothered lustre. 
 She was, he thought, an excellent example of what, 
 sometimes, he chose to call, with the manner of a 
 connoisseur, "the hot-house type" a type in which 
 he took small interest. He had often said emphat- 
 ically to other young men: "I can't bear thin, dead- 
 white women." 
 
 Tamborlayne came in with a hearty greeting. 
 Putting an arm round Felix's neck, he said to his 
 wife, whom he called "Eileen": 
 
 "Now that I've found him again I'm going to 
 hang on to him. What a pity that people lose track 
 of each other so easily in New York! Here I've 
 missed three years at least of this old fellow's friend- 
 ship. Well, we'll make up for it now eh, Felix? 
 We'll revive old times. D'you remember the school-
 
 EILEEN 63 
 
 days? the scrapes we used to get into? We'll go 
 over it all after dinner. " 
 
 The young lawyer, somewhat serious ordinarily, 
 looked as eager and cheerful as if, in coming across 
 Felix, he had done himself a valuable service. 
 
 The dinner-table was decorated with white roses 
 and pearl-colored candle-shades. The silver, of 
 which there was a large quantity, made a brilliant 
 show. There was Venetian glassware beside the 
 place-plates, which were covered with gold etched in 
 an intricate Persian design. Two English-looking 
 man-servants waited on the table. 
 
 Felix remembered that the Tamborlayne family 
 had a good deal of money. And he pictured to him- 
 self how, when he was married, he would entertain 
 his friends no less agreeably. "Just wait!" he 
 said to himself. 
 
 It was a pleasant dinner. The wine that Felix 
 drank aroused his eloquence and he described wittily, 
 with a pretence of whimsical astonishment, his ex- 
 ploits in the newspaper office. His becoming a re- 
 porter appeared like a mad prank. Tamborlayne, 
 laughing enthusiastically, looked like a boy on a 
 holiday; but she, gazing steadily at Felix while he, 
 talked, flattered him more by her slow, compre- 
 hending smile. 
 
 Soon after dinner Tamborlayne took Felix off to his 
 " den, " on the top floor of the house. There, smoking 
 pipes, laughing, talking of old times, they managed 
 between them to empty a decanter of Scotch whis- 
 key. When, finally, Felix rose, it was midnight.
 
 64 PREDESTINED 
 
 While he was passing through the second floor on 
 his way downstairs with Tamborlayne, she came out 
 of a brightly illuminated, yellow room to say good- 
 night to him. He was vaguely surprised that she had 
 not yet gone to bed. 
 
 "Nearly every afternoon I'm in by five o'clock," 
 she said, in a pleasant, matter-of-fact tone; then 
 added: "And Gregory is usually home by six." 
 
 When she gave him her cool hand he noticed at 
 once that she had taken off her rings. 
 
 And as he left the house he imagined her in a 
 yellow boudoir, before the mirror of a dressing-table 
 covered with silver brushes, vials, and jars, drawing 
 her bracelets from her arms, putting on some clinging 
 robe of silk, and letting down her thick, black hair.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FALL had come to the city. The restricted land- 
 scapes of the public squares assumed that gray- 
 brown, naked aspect which, at twilight, when win- 
 dows brighten in tall buildings roundabout, suggests 
 to the beholder sombre reveries. The evening air 
 grew chilly ; pedestrians moved homeward briskly be- 
 neath foggy street lights, and on Fifth Avenue, as 
 dusk, like a dun veil of gossamer, was slowly settling 
 over everything, an endless procession of fine car- 
 riages restored to the thoroughfare a patrician qual- 
 ity that it had lacked all summer. The winter sea- 
 son the time of dinners, balls, and operas was 
 approaching. 
 
 Nina and her mother had returned to town. They 
 lived, when in New York, on lower Fifth Avenue, 
 just north of Washington Square, in one of those 
 old brick houses of massive, plain exterior, with Ionic 
 pillars of marble and a fanlight at the arched en- 
 trance, that preserve unobtrusively, in the midst 
 of a city which is being constantly rebuilt, the pure 
 beauty of colonial dwellings. 
 
 The place was an heirloom of the Ferrols that had 
 been proudly kept for generations in its pristine state. 
 Mrs. Ferrol, from being at first but mildly interested 
 in this tradition of her late husband's family, had 
 
 6s
 
 66 PREDESTINED 
 
 come finally to regard the house as a sort of ancestral 
 monument and herself as its curator. 
 
 The walls were covered with faded silk or with 
 "landscape paper." From the ceilings were sus- 
 pended slender chandeliers on which dangled fringe 
 upon fringe of long glass prisms. Beside the door- 
 ways, branching candelabra were affixed to oval, 
 gilded frames of misty mirrors. The furniture was 
 all from the period of Heppel white. And above 
 marble mantel-pieces, as mellow as if filled with oil, 
 hung large likenesses of simpering ladies and sedate 
 gentlemen, in quaint dress and uniform, with obso- 
 lete-looking faces. Throughout the house, in short, 
 the same "antique" effect prevailed. The expen- 
 sive modern dwellings of the Ferrols' friends, situ- 
 ated further uptown, seemed almost like architect- 
 ural parvenus when compared with this place, the 
 chaste, faded fineness of which was like that of an 
 honorable old aristocrat. 
 
 This formal environment was not, however, of the 
 sort in which young men are most pleased to spend 
 their time. Felix, who dined nearly every evening 
 at the Ferrol house, began to think, on recovering 
 from his first enthusiasm, that comfort had there been 
 somewhat unreasonably sacrificed to the hobby of 
 the family. It was almost impossible to take lazy 
 attitudes on the Heppelwhite furniture: the sofas 
 were too narrow, the chair-backs too straight. And 
 in nearly every room there was a portrait of some 
 stiff old gentleman who seemed to follow all one's 
 actions with the forbidding eyes of an arbiter of eti-
 
 EILEEN 67 
 
 quette. Felix at last found these surroundings irk- 
 some; and he resented secretly the " ancestor- wor- 
 ship" that he held responsible for his discomfort. 
 
 Perhaps, while sitting in the drawing-room with 
 Nina after dinner, he would murmur solemnly: 
 "This is the chair that George Washington had to sit 
 in as a punishment for chopping down the cherry- 
 tree"; or: "This sofa was used in the Spanish 
 Inquisition. The question was put to the unhappy 
 prisoner; if he refused to answer, he was stretched 
 at full length upon this instrument." He had 
 names for all the ancestors portrayed there, which he 
 told Nina in private: one, whose face was nearly 
 covered with black whiskers, was "The Man in the 
 Iron Mask"; another, in Continental uniform, stout 
 and rosy, was "The Little Lost Dauphin"; and a 
 figure in a large wig, which had almost disappeared 
 beneath a brownish murk, Felix called "Adam, the 
 Founder." One evening, when he had been spend- 
 ing a couple of hours with some friends in a hotel cafe, 
 he stopped on his way to the dining-room before this 
 portrait, which he saluted, while asking whether 
 "the dinosaurs were still breaking into the garden 
 and getting at the fig-trees." 
 
 Nina, taking him aside after dinner, reproached 
 him with having had "a little too much to drink." 
 
 They were drawn into an argument, in which 
 Felix found himself asserting that one must be agree- 
 able with one's friends, while Nina, growing impa- 
 tient, declared that she had no sympathy with such 
 a point of view. She liked to think of Felix as dif-
 
 68 PREDESTINED 
 
 ferent from other young men. "For her part, she 
 was not like those girls who pretend to admire dis- 
 sipation." 
 
 "Dissipation!" 
 
 Felix said something hotly about feminine exagger- 
 ation. They were both exasperated. They looked 
 at each other indignantly. It was their first quarrel. 
 
 Presently, without kissing her good-by, he left her 
 standing motionless in the centre of the drawing-room. 
 He did not intend to slam the front door; and when 
 it came shut behind him with a bang, for an instant 
 he was frightened. Departing in a dull rage, he 
 knew that he was at fault; and he was on that ac- 
 count all the more angry with her. The next after- 
 noon, when he returned, she came to him quickly, 
 put her arms round him, and sobbed on his shoulder. 
 It was she who appeared mutely to implore forgive- 
 ness. His self-respect was restored. Subsequently, 
 he felt more assurance than before. 
 
 Nina and Felix, who had agreed not to be married 
 until spring, spent many hours planning how they 
 should live together. But every week their schemes 
 were altered as new ideas came to them ; and finally, 
 of all the pleasant modes of life at their disposal, they 
 were uncertain which to choose. Their future, in 
 which as yet they could discern distinctly no details, 
 they contemplated with trustful satisfaction. 
 
 All days were sunny now for Felix; it seemed as 
 if the current of good fortune, once having begun to 
 flow in his direction, was growing ever fuller. When 
 he went about, those who before had given him but
 
 EILEEN 69 
 
 vague bows greeted him with kind smiles, stopped 
 him on the pavement for a moment's cordial con- 
 versation, called him to the steps of carriages in order 
 to shake hands with him. The women of that circle 
 in which Mrs. Ferrol lived now turned toward him, 
 whenever he encountered them, eyes full of friendly 
 interest ; and Felix who but a few months since had 
 felt himself in danger of slipping gradually from the 
 gentle world to which he had been born understood 
 that in this feminine attention, concerted and de- 
 liberate, lay the assurance of his social future. 
 
 As for Mrs. Ferrol, no one could have been more 
 amiable. She sent useful articles to the studio. She 
 remembered Felix's birthday and, that night, had 
 on the dinner-table a frosted cake with candles. 
 Once, for a week, she dropped mysterious hints, and 
 then, when he arrived one evening, the front door 
 was opened by a bent, white-haired, withered old 
 fellow in sober livery, who quavered: 
 
 "Master Felix!" 
 
 It was Joseph, Sheridan Piers's old retainer! After 
 the disaster, Mr. Wickit had got him a good position; 
 but he had been restless "those strangers didn't 
 understand his ways" and at last Mrs. Ferrol, 
 learning of his discontent, had taken him into her 
 service. When he saw his young master again, tears 
 filled his reddened eyes; he patted Felix on the arm 
 and hovered round him with long, rattling sniffs. 
 He had seen the boy grow up from childhood, had 
 made him his first wooden whistle, had taught him 
 how to fold newspapers into cocked hats. They
 
 70 PREDESTINED 
 
 were both touched by that meeting; for Felix, at 
 sight of the old man, remembered, with a flood of 
 longing, the lost home. 
 
 He sat down beside the faithful fellow on the hall 
 bench. 
 
 "And so you're a-goin' to marry Miss Nina? 
 Look at that, now! I remember her no higher than 
 this, drivin' her little basket cart in the park, as smart 
 as ye please. An' d'ye still keep up your ridin', 
 Master Felix ? Faith, I 'd love to see ye on a horse 
 again. Remember, 'twas ould Joseph put ye on 
 your first pony." 
 
 "And I've got the riding-whip you gave me once, 
 Joseph." 
 
 "No, ye don't mean it! You're foolin' an ould 
 man!" 
 
 "I'll bring it here next time I go riding with Miss 
 Nina." 
 
 And next day, when Felix did so, Joseph cried 
 out in his gratitude: 
 
 "Ah, God bless ye, now. To think ye kep' it all 
 this while!" 
 
 In Central Park, where Nina and Felix often rode 
 toward nightfall, moist, gray snow, riddled with drip- 
 pings from the trees, mantled the undulating ground 
 to the edges of the bridle-path, on which the earth- 
 colored slush was fetlock-deep, and covered with 
 small pools each the shape of a horse's hoof. Twi- 
 light enfolded the cold landscape ; mists lay like long 
 scarfs amid the black brushwood of the hollows, and 
 through the naked tree tops shone yellow lights, re-
 
 EILEEN 71 
 
 mote and faint. Horsemen went splashing by like 
 mounted ghosts, each face a pallid blank. Where 
 the bridle-path ran under bridges, one saw, leaning 
 over the parapets above, indistinct, solitary figures, 
 motionless, mysterious. An inexpressible loneliness 
 enveloped everything, and even thrust itself between 
 the two young riders. Saddened by their bleak sur- 
 roundings, they remembered with regret the summer- 
 time, their gallops through green lanes the hot sun- 
 shine, the sweet, soft breeze, the sounds of birds and 
 bees, and farmers calling in the fields. They were 
 unable to reproduce the pleasure of those delicious 
 days. 
 
 In the evening, sometimes they went to a dinner 
 or a theatre party or the opera. In the darkened 
 opera-house there glittered vaguely overhead five 
 golden balconies, each full of shadowy spectators 
 who, in the topmost gallery, rising in tiers to a height 
 that one observed with dizziness, looked like innu- 
 merable tiny caryatids supporting the vast golden 
 roof. Before the lower edge of the bright proscenium 
 appeared the agitated head and arms of the con- 
 ductor; and from below him rose the music of the 
 orchestra a pervasive, ceaseless harmony blending 
 with the occasional utterances of the singers ; a har- 
 mony now delicate and winsome, now swelling, at 
 the union of all instruments, to extraordinary maj- 
 esty. And, on the stage, the lovers, as if exalted 
 by the sensuous music that played round them, were 
 swept through their sublimated tragedy, wherein, for 
 Felix, love had that remote grandeur with which, in
 
 72 PREDESTINED 
 
 his young dreams, he had invested it. Wistfulness 
 stole over him, as if he were contemplating some 
 unattainable splendor. Then the curtain fell; the 
 lights sprang up; people began to talk and move 
 about ; he saw the conductor blowing his nose ; and 
 Nina's familiar face recalled him to reality. 
 
 Now and then, from the opera or the play, they 
 went to a dance in those days they were always 
 invited out together; or perhaps Felix was always 
 invited then on her account. In large, brilliantly 
 illuminated ballrooms, embellished with gilding, fes- 
 tooned with hot-house flowers, the music, with an 
 arpeggio of muted strings, glided into the languorous 
 melodies of waltzes. Here and there upon the pol- 
 ished floor appeared in motion two joined figures, 
 one in black, one pale and shining. The dancers 
 grew more numerous; the floor was filled with them; 
 the colors of the women's dresses formed a gorgeous 
 haze. One felt upon the face, in little gusts, warm 
 air laden with perfume. One caught glimpses mo- 
 mentarily of beautiful women whirling by with half- 
 closed eyes, of smooth bosoms powdered white, of 
 bare, dimpled backs, of the nape of a neck with a 
 loosened curl trembling on it. The strains of the 
 violins, the rustling of swirling skirts, and the sound 
 of countless shoe-soles turning on wax united in an 
 intoxicating rhythm. The music ceased; the dan- 
 cers, with the staring expressions of persons emerging 
 from a dream, walked slowly toward the gilded 
 chairs arranged in rows along the walls. Some men 
 made off toward the smoking-room, their long, black
 
 EILEEN 73 
 
 legs and coat-tails giving them a grotesque, bird-like 
 appearance as they departed. More remained, stand- 
 ing in groups, with bent shoulders, before women 
 who, sitting with their luminous trains spread out 
 beside them, smiled vivaciously over their flutter- 
 ing fans. Around the edges of the ballroom ex- 
 tended a row of black backs, like a broken hedge; 
 and through the intervals between these could be 
 seen snowy shoulders, diamonds, roses, twinkling 
 dresses. A babble of voices, like the sound of little 
 waves breaking on a beach, rose to the frescoed 
 cupids floating in panels on the ceiling. 
 
 Such scenes fresh in mind, Felix returned in the 
 morning to the shabby newspaper office with some- 
 what the sensations of a man who leads a double 
 life. He felt that he was superior to that place; he 
 longed to finish his apprenticeship there. 
 
 But he discovered presently that his hours of even- 
 ing study were being slighted for diversions. When, 
 in the small hours of the morning, he returned to the 
 studio from some entertainment, he was troubled by 
 the sight of his neglected writing-table. Then he 
 had a touch of fear at the thought that he was ac- 
 complishing nothing of importance. He was filled 
 again with virtuous and serious inclinations; and all 
 those careless, laughing people in whose company he 
 had amused himself seemed like so many wastrels. 
 He had no patience with them! He told Nina ener- 
 getically that he was going, thereafter, to work every 
 night; she would have to do without his company 
 at such times. To his surprise, she was greatly
 
 74 PREDESTINED 
 
 pleased. She looked as if her mind had been re- 
 lieved of some apprehension. 
 
 Every evening, then, he shut himself in the studio. 
 The clock ticked; the fire crackled; and on the divan 
 the white bull-terrier puppy that Nina had given 
 Felix sniffed in his sleep and twitched his legs. 
 Felix stared at the little beast, at the pictures on the 
 walls, at all the trivial bric-a-brac. With a sigh, 
 reluctantly he resumed his reading. "It was not all 
 beer and skittles, this studying literature!" The 
 sleet lashed the skylight ; the wind howled round the 
 cornices. Felix helped himself to a drink of whiskey. 
 
 At his occupation of the studio he had found on a 
 buffet an array of dusty glasses and dry bottles. He 
 had promptly bought a stock of cigars, liquors, and 
 seltzer water for the regalement of visitors. These 
 decorations, he thought, added to the room a cosey 
 and hospitable touch. Moreover, he found the buffet 
 a convenience. He used to "take something" in the 
 evening if he was in low spirits, or before going to 
 bed, or in the morning, if he felt lethargic. After 
 some trouble he had, like most of his young 
 friends, at last got so that he could finish a drink 
 of whiskey without a grimace. 
 
 When his book wearied him he would walk round 
 the room, hands in pockets, always stopping before 
 a little, rickety bookcase to stare with an air of dis- 
 satisfaction at the volumes on the shelves. He had 
 read them all, worse luck! But one night he found, 
 behind the rest, another novel, covered with dust. 
 It was a historical romance of the middle ages that
 
 EILEEN 75 
 
 he had never read. What a relief! He bore the 
 novel quickly to his writing-table, sent his text-books 
 whirling out of the way, and read of knights, monks, 
 damsels, and troubadours till two o'clock in the 
 morning. It was a good story but how much better 
 he could have done it! Well, then, why not better 
 it ? Remembering Oliver Corquill's admonitions, he 
 snapped his fingers scornfully. The next night he 
 prepared excitedly to write a short story dealing with 
 the middle ages. 
 
 He could see, as if they stood before him, those old 
 fellows in their scalloped coats and armor, those 
 ladies with head-dresses, towering like steeples, the 
 quaint, mediaeval faces, the eccentric actions of a 
 people long since done with. Certainly, no one had 
 ever perceived such things so clearly! Sure of him- 
 self, he knew how he would make every point effec- 
 tive. The phrases took place in his brain as the 
 crystals of a kaleidoscope slide swiftly into symmetri- 
 cal designs. He was astonished at his capability. 
 He believed himself to be inspired. 
 
 As he wrote, his delight increased, his pride rose. 
 He threw down the pen, sprang up, and strode about, 
 smiling, happy, confident. He talked to the dog, 
 who, alert on the divan, watched him with cocked 
 ears and open jaws. "Hey, Pat, we've begun! 
 We're on the way! We're going to be famous! Sa- 
 lute, you little devil; salute the illustrious author!" 
 Pat, springing to the floor, bounded round his master 
 with sharp yelps of joy. Felix took a drink, lighted 
 a cigarette, and again attacked his work.
 
 76 PREDESTINED 
 
 He sent the manuscript to an important monthly 
 magazine. One morning, standing by the hall door 
 in his pajamas, he tore open an envelope; a check 
 fell out ; it was for two hundred dollars. The story 
 had been accepted. 
 
 Despite his previous confidence, for a moment he 
 was stupefied. Then he tingled with exultation. 
 Fame lay before him! That morning, in the street, 
 passers-by turned to look again at his radiant face. 
 
 The story was published with handsome illustra- 
 tions. Nina read it five times. Mr. Wickit, tele- 
 phoning to Felix, expressed astonishment and con- 
 gratulated him effusively. Gregory Tamborlayne, 
 putting both hands on Felix's shoulders, said, with a 
 smile that made him good-looking: 
 
 "Old boy, you don't know how glad I am!" 
 
 Of all Felix's friends, Tamborlayne had become 
 the closest. He took an intense interest in Felix's 
 progress, talked flatteringly of him everywhere, pre- 
 dicted for him a fine future, told people that "there 
 was a young man who was going to write the great 
 American novel." They were seen everywhere to- 
 gether, arm in arm, swinging their canes, smiling, 
 chatting with animation. They confided to each 
 other their affairs, and Felix became, for the Tam- 
 borlaynes, a "friend of the family." 
 
 At the close of winter afternoons, when the streets 
 grew gloomy and lights, surrounded by foggy nim- 
 buses, made deep reflections on the wet pavements, 
 Felix liked to enter the Tamborlaynes' house, warm, 
 fragrant with flowers, illumined by the glow of lamps
 
 EILEEN 77 
 
 in shades of favrile glass. In the library, lined with 
 Japanese leather, full of glistening books and com- 
 fortable furniture, he sat, in the attitude of a man en- 
 tirely at ease, beside the tea-table with Eileen Tam- 
 borlayne, while waiting for her husband to come 
 home. 
 
 He took pleasure in talking to her about himself 
 "she was so sympathetic." She said little; but 
 sitting in a deep chair, with a cigarette between her 
 slender fingers, she looked at him intently, all the 
 while he was speaking, with the serious gaze of a 
 person who is listening to something of importance. 
 When he chose to be humorous, immediately her 
 quiet, appreciative smile appeared to flatter him. 
 When, after refreshing himself with the Scotch and 
 soda that he preferred to tea, he unveiled a little the 
 longings of his heart, so difficult to describe in speech, 
 in some way she made him feel just by the expression 
 of her face that she understood him perfectly. How 
 rare that ability for exact comprehension! He told 
 himself that she was an unusually intelligent woman. 
 
 When he had become thoroughly familiar with 
 her appearance it no longer occurred to him that 
 she was "too slender" and "too pale," that her 
 fingers were too long, that her feet, in thin house 
 slippers were so narrow as to have seemed to him 
 at first almost abnormal. 
 
 Sometimes, in answer to his confidences, she made 
 little confessions of her own. She, too, had found 
 this or that to be the case; and with an air almost 
 meek, as if she considered her affairs of small in-
 
 78 PREDESTINED 
 
 terest, she would cite as an example some past ex- 
 perience of hers. In that way he got to know some- 
 thing of her life. 
 
 She had lived in Washington until her marriage; 
 Gregory had met her there. She spoke of her former 
 home in the capital; it was on such and such a street. 
 Her father had been a well-known lawyer had 
 Felix ever heard of him? Felix thought he had. 
 She had gone to school at a certain convent. When 
 only seventeen, she had nearly married a young man 
 who had subsequently turned out badly. And so on. 
 Felix listened attentively to these disclosures; but 
 afterward, while reflecting on them, he discovered 
 invariably, with vague surprise, that he knew no 
 more of her real self than he had known before. 
 One afternoon, however, she admitted with a sigh: 
 
 "But, you see, I'm twenty-nine years old!" 
 
 Felix would not have suspected it. He was then 
 twenty-six. From that moment she obtained, by 
 reason of her superior age, a subtile prestige. 
 
 In the midst of their conversations Gregory would 
 come in rubbing his cold hands, beaming. 
 
 "Well, here we are again! What's the good wprd 
 to-day, Felix?" 
 
 And, bending over his wife, he would give her a 
 long kiss. Then, throwing himself into a big chair, 
 with a tender look at her he would say: 
 
 "How good this is! D'you know, Felix, I rather 
 like this old girl." 
 
 In fact, he was still madly infatuated with her. He 
 could not keep away from her; he patted her hand,
 
 EILEEN 79 
 
 or put his arm round her, or drew her into a corner 
 to kiss her. When he contemplated her his eyes 
 brightened, his serious, plain face wore a look of 
 devotion. She received his caresses gracefully, with 
 a pretty humility, keeping her eyes cast down for a 
 moment after he had embraced her. 
 
 While Felix was generously permitted to be the 
 witness of these tender passages, Gregory was less 
 demonstrative when other guests were present. 
 
 Occasionally Felix met at the Tamborlaynes' 
 house a thin, stoop-shouldered young man, with a 
 weak, " clever" face, eyes that were pale and watery, 
 lank, black hair precisely brushed, finger nails cut to 
 a point, and dainty manners. This young man's 
 name was Mortimer Fray. In lieu of any serious 
 occupation, he was an amateur of all the arts a 
 dilettante. Smoking one cigarette after the -other, 
 wearing all the while that expression which is called 
 "soulful," he talked volubly, in an excessively re- 
 fined voice, of painting, sculpture, literature, music, 
 and the drama. His conversation was ornamented 
 with such terms as "atmosphere," "nuance," "chi- 
 aroscuro," "tonal quality," "the unities," "French 
 feeling." Gregory thought him "an interesting chap, 
 though a bit effeminate." 
 
 He had been introduced to the Tamborlaynes 
 at an exhibition of paintings. In a moment's con- 
 versation he had recommended to Eileen Tambor- 
 layne a new book. A few days later he had tele- 
 phoned to ask if he might call and learn her opinion 
 of the author. He brought with him a portfolio of
 
 8q PREDESTINED 
 
 etchings, which Mrs. Tamborlayne admired. Fray 
 thereupon immediately bestowed them on her. He 
 remarked the music on the piano. Mrs. Tambor- 
 layne was the musician ? How pleasant ! For his part 
 he played the violin a little. One afternoon he ap- 
 peared with the instrument perhaps they might 
 run over a piece or two ? He forgot to take his violin 
 away with him it had been covered with sheet 
 music and he had to return for it next day. After 
 that there was no telling when he was going to drop in. 
 
 One day he appeared at the Tamborlaynes' house, 
 bursting with pride. He had just made the acquaint- 
 ance of Paul Pavin, a famous French portrait-painter, 
 who was then in New York executing some commis- 
 sions. Fray had managed to lunch with this 
 personage, had walked up Fifth Avenue with him, 
 discussing art at every step, and on arriving at the 
 Velasquez Building, in which Pavin occupied a 
 studio, had received an invitation to -call "some 
 day." Beside himself with satisfaction, he began 
 practising on Eileen Tamborlayne and Felix with a 
 host of artistic aphorisms, each beginning with: 
 
 "Paul Pavin said to me." 
 
 When he had left the house Eileen Tamborlayne 
 looked vexed. Staring at Felix absent-mindedly, she 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "I wonder if Pavin would let him see " 
 
 "See what?" asked Felix, in surprise. 
 
 Finally, with a smile, she said: 
 
 "I'll tell you something, if you'll promise to keep 
 k to yourself." And she confessed that she was
 
 EILEEN 8l 
 
 secretly having her portrait painted by this Pavin, 
 as a surprise for Gregory. 
 
 Felix was amazed and delighted. How pleased 
 Gregory would be ! 
 
 "Tell me about it," he besought her, eager to take 
 part in this amiable deception. How had she come 
 to think of it ? How had she gone about it ? 
 
 It was very simple. During the summer she had 
 met Pavin in Paris. He had been enthusiastic; he 
 had said at once that she was a woman of whom he 
 could paint a fine portrait. It was evident that this 
 suggestion, implanted in her mind, had grown to a 
 strong desire; in her thoughts she had undoubtedly 
 perceived her likeness, done by this celebrated artist, 
 hanging in an art gallery on exhibition, surrounded 
 by admiring critics, talked of everywhere. On 
 Pavin's arrival in New York at once she had given 
 him his commission. She had a sitting nearly every 
 afternoon. The portrait was beginning to take its 
 final shape. 
 
 "If only I could see it!" ejaculated Felix. 
 
 Well, why not, since he was in the secret now? 
 It was arranged that he should call for her the next 
 afternoon at Pavin's studio, to meet the artist and 
 look at the picture. 
 
 When he presented himself the spacious studio 
 was already dusky; at the far end of it a "north 
 light " formed a great square, luminously gray, against 
 which some heavy furniture appeared in silhouette 
 with blurred outlines. But just as Felix entered 
 lights burst forth.
 
 82 PREDESTINED 
 
 The bare, high walls were covered with faded 
 burlap that had once been gilded. Worn Turkish 
 rugs lay underfoot. There were some divans, up- 
 holstered with gray cloth, and a dusty grand-piano 
 in one corner. Here and there were heavy chairs of 
 carved wood. An easel, bearing a large canvas, was 
 turned to the wall. Other canvases were piled up 
 between two doors, at which hung curtains of gray 
 velveteen. There were no ornaments; everything 
 was practical ; this studio was a workshop. 
 
 .Felix saw Eileen standing by the "north light," 
 wearing her hat and fur coat, pulling on her long 
 gloves. A tall, broad-shouldered man advanced with 
 out-stretched hand. 
 
 The Frenchman was about fifty years old, still 
 blond, ruddy, with a great yellow beard trimmed 
 square across the bottom. His eyes were shrewd 
 and humorous. His hands were the heavy, working 
 hands inherited from peasant ancestors; for he was 
 not a Parisian born, but a native of the farm country 
 of Touraine. In his youth, urged by those whisper- 
 ing voices which call some souls from the dullest, 
 most unpromising surroundings into electric regions 
 where fame may be met, he had set out for Paris. 
 There he had lived in a garret, struggling, starving, 
 watching a poor sweetheart die for lack of proper 
 care, contemplating suicide, cursing the city that was 
 cruel to him. Finally, in a frenzy of determination, 
 he had plunged through all obstacles he had got 
 fame by the throat. Nowadays he was wealthy, 
 renowned, and welcomed everywhere this son of a
 
 EILEEN 83 
 
 Touraine farmer who, as a boy, had tramped cow 
 pastures in wooden shoes and, as a student, had de- 
 voured stale bread on benches in the public parks. 
 
 Felix took the artist's hand respectfully. He was 
 charmed at once by the Frenchman's cordiality, his 
 precise English, his graceful manners learned through 
 long contact with fashionable people, his way of 
 implying constantly: "You and I, as men of the 
 world, can understand." Felix's satisfaction knew 
 no bounds till they went to inspect the portrait. 
 
 The portrait was life-sized. Eileen Tamborlayne 
 was pictured standing in a black ball dress covered 
 with black spangles and with jet. Enveloped in 
 shadows, with her back half turned, she was looking 
 over her shoulder at the observer, while parting with 
 one hand some indistinct curtains in the background. 
 Her slimness and pallor seemed to have been exag- 
 gerated by the artist; her lithe grace was nearly 
 caricatured. The face, which still appeared in flat, 
 unfinished tones, wore a look which Felix thought 
 unnatural. He considered the portrait exceedingly 
 bizarre. He was sure that Gregory would not like it. 
 
 But, reflecting that he might betray ignorance by 
 any adverse criticism, he said nothing, when he and 
 she left the studio, except that the picture was "very 
 odd quite striking." With a pleased expression, 
 she agreed with him. 
 
 The thought of sharing the secret of the portrait 
 fascinated Felix. Whenever he passed the Velasquez 
 Building he looked up at the windows intelligently. 
 One afternoon, unable to withstand his curiosity, he
 
 84 PREDESTINED 
 
 returned to Pavin's studio. She was there, and had 
 just finished her pose. While smoking and talking 
 with the artist, he heard her, behind the gray cur- 
 tains, in another room, changing her dress. Silk 
 rustled; silver clicked against silver; presently she 
 emerged ready for the street, with a tranquil, demure 
 air and a business-like word to Pavin regarding her 
 next visit. Felix could not help finding in the whole 
 affair something adventurous and daring. He won- 
 dered whether Gregory, if he had known, would have 
 appreciated all this exertion for his sake. 
 
 Half assured of a welcome by the Frenchman's 
 cordiality, Felix began timidly to visit Pavin. The 
 artist was pleased; he seemed to have taken a fancy 
 to the boy. He said : 
 
 "When the light holds good, I work; the door is 
 locked. When the light goes, I have an hour to lie 
 about and smoke. Come then. I like you, Mon- 
 sieur Felix. You have something that attracts me. 
 You refresh me. I remember the time when I, too, 
 was young. I have a souvenir. Of myself? Of 
 some one else? Who knows? But I seem to see 
 Paris thirty years ago, the Paris that is gone, that 
 we oldish fellows sigh for. Come always at dusk. 
 I shall enjoy it." 
 
 Felix was overwhelmed with pleasure at this 
 condescension. His manner was more dignified for 
 days; he could call himself the friend of a great 
 artist ! 
 
 Sitting together in the twilight, they talked, as if 
 almost of an age, of Paris, of beautiful things every-
 
 EILEEN 8$ 
 
 where, of life, and finally, as was inevitable, of women. 
 Of women Paul Pavin had his own ideas. 
 
 "They have their place, a charming place yes; 
 but it is not in art. They are a distraction. And 
 what is a distraction ? A detriment not so ? Sup- 
 pose I am alone in life ? I work with all my brains 
 and energies. Suppose a woman enters and be- 
 comes indispensable ? All is confusion. When there 
 is a woman, of what are you thinking ? Your work ? 
 Not possible. Your work is her rival, her enemy. 
 So, she is my enemy. When my work is done, yes, 
 then perhaps I meet the enemy; but I recognize her 
 for what she is ; I am on guard ; she makes no wound ; 
 she does not occupy my castle." 
 
 "But," Felix ventured, thinking of Nina, "I have 
 always thought that the inspiration of one good wom- 
 an, the companionship of a lifetime " 
 
 "One for a lifetime? Believe me, mon ami, as 
 I have found it, human beings are not like that!" 
 
 Felix was impressed. But sometimes, when there 
 was a light knock on the door, he could not help 
 exclaiming, with a laugh: 
 
 "The enemy!" 
 
 For women came frequently, late in the afternoon, 
 to Pavin's studio. 
 
 They were all attractive and well dressed, their 
 hats laden with trailing feathers, soft furs wrapped 
 round their necks, the fingers of their tight gloves 
 swollen with rings. They brought in with them 
 faint odors of perfume, dropped their gold purses 
 anywhere, and seated themselves in the carved chairs
 
 86 PREDESTINED 
 
 with exaggerated primness. They all seemed to 
 regard Pavin with respect, and to consider it a privi- 
 lege that they were permitted to visit him. 
 
 Of these casual visitors, . Felix remembered two 
 particularly. One, called Miss Sinjon, was a slight, 
 red-haired girl, with a square chin, rather prominent 
 cheek-bones, and a translucent skin. The other, 
 named Miss Llanelly, was tall, red-cheeked, with a 
 vivid appearance of healthiness. These two always 
 came together. Felix gathered from their conversa- 
 tion that they were, from time to time, "on the 
 stage." He had never heard of them before; but 
 their faces seemed familiar to him. 
 
 Pavin treated all these fair guests with the good- 
 natured tolerance of an old bachelor on whom a lot 
 of spoiled children are imposing. But there was one 
 visitor who, as it happened, never met the rest 
 for whom there was invariably a hearty greeting, a 
 chair proffered instantly, a bustling hunt for the 
 coffee-pot. This visitor was Mme. Regne Lodbrok, 
 a noted dramatic soprano, engaged for the winter 
 season at the Metropolitan Opera House. 
 
 She was a beautiful Scandinavian, about forty-five 
 years old, with pale-yellow hair and a majestic figure. 
 Gay, abrupt, frank, she had the good spirits and the 
 direct manners of a big boy. When she laughed, she 
 threw back her head and opened her large mouth, 
 disclosing all her fine teeth. As Felix said to him- 
 self, she "filled a chair comfortably." Sitting beside 
 the lamp, drinking cup after cup of coffee, she talked 
 to Pavin as one man talks to another. They had
 
 EILEEN 87 
 
 known each other for years in Europe ; each respected 
 the other; they were good friends. 
 
 She liked Felix at once. Whenever, on entering, 
 she saw him there, she called out to him, in a jolly 
 voice : " Hello ! " Sometimes, instead of shaking hands 
 with him, she pinched his cheek. Once she called 
 him " liebchen " then laughed heartily at his embar- 
 rassment. She had a wholesome, motherly way of 
 smiling at him, which made him feel very young. 
 He admired her, and was proud of knowing her. 
 This contact with artistic celebrities made him feel 
 important. 
 
 One afternoon Mme. Lodbrok was sitting at the 
 piano with her fur hat on and her gloves rolled over 
 her wrists. She was about to hurry off to an early 
 dinner; that night she was going to sing Venus in 
 "Tannhauser." As her strong fingers touched the 
 piano keys at random, she gazed round the studio. 
 Her eyes fell on the easel. 
 
 "Tell me, Pavin, that portrait of the pale lady; 
 when will it be finished?" 
 
 Pavin rolled the easel out from the wall. 
 
 "It was finished yesterday." 
 
 They all stared at the picture Pavin thoughtfully, 
 | Mme. Lodbrok intently, Felix with secret disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 He had been right, he thought: it was nearly odd 
 enough to suggest caricature. Yet the pose was ex- 
 ceedingly graceful ; the very attenuation of the figure 
 did no more than emphasize Eileen Tamborlayne's 
 peculiar, lithe elegance; and the general effect, as the
 
 88 PREDESTINED 
 
 white skin and shimmering jet showed through swim- 
 ming shadows, was of richness and distinction. Af- 
 ter all, it was the face with which Felix found himself 
 dissatisfied; for he seemed to see there her habit- 
 ual expression of placidity and meekness subtly 
 caricatured. 
 
 Mme. Lodbrok exclaimed emphatically : 
 "It is wonderful! How did you ever catch it?" 
 And, after a pause: 
 
 "What didshesay, this lady, when it was finished ?" 
 
 "Well," answered Pavin, with a smile, "she said 
 
 yes, that it was beautiful, but that she was afraid her 
 
 husband, who was not artistic, would tell her: 'I do 
 
 not know this woman.' ' 
 
 Mme. Lodbrok, while staring at the portrait, was 
 playing softly, on the treble keys, the Venusberg 
 music. She opened her mouth, closed it then, with 
 a shrug, remarked : 
 
 "So? Well, then, that much the worse for him!" 
 And in the ensuing silence slowly striking three 
 chords, she sang in a rich, vibrant voice, which filled 
 the room, the first utterance of Wagner's Venus: 
 
 " Gdiebter, sag', wo weilt dein Sinn" . .
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ONE afternoon, at dusk, Felix met Eileen Tambor- 
 layne on Fifth Avenue. She had been shopping; she 
 was tired and thirsty; and she wanted a cup of tea. 
 They entered a hotel near by, and in a tea-room full 
 of potted plants, where one was likely to meet any- 
 body, sat down at a table. 
 
 It was the first time since his engagement that 
 Felix had appeared in a public place with any woman 
 except Nina. Ill at ease, he kept looking at the door- 
 way, where new-comers were continually appearing. 
 He expected every moment to see Nina standing there 
 and staring at him. 
 
 He was exasperated at the leisurely manner in 
 which Eileen Tamborlayne sipped her tea and nibbled 
 cakes. When she had finished, he thought she would 
 never get her gloves buttoned and her veil arranged. 
 She mislaid her purse ; they looked for it everywhere ; 
 the waiter moved several fern pots and crawled under 
 the table on his hands and knees. At last she found 
 the purse in her muff. Felix rose quickly, with a 
 sensation of intense relief. But where was her pack- 
 age ; she was sure she had brought in a little package. 
 Felix was sure she had not. The waiter agreed with 
 
 him. Finally, she started toward the door. 
 
 8 9
 
 90 PREDESTINED 
 
 In the doorway Felix came face to face with Miss 
 Llanelly, the tall, red-cheeked girl he had met in 
 Pavin's studio. As soon as Eileen Tamborlayne was 
 past her, Miss Llanelly smiled and nodded. 
 
 This, also, irritated Felix. He thought: "If Nina 
 were with me, she would do just the same!" And 
 suddenly he was afraid of her, and of all the other 
 women he had met and chatted with in Pavin's 
 studio and not only of them, but of Eileen Tam- 
 borlayne as well, whom, through some instinctive 
 reticence which he could not explain, he had never 
 spoken of to Nina. His eyes were opened; he had 
 been treading on dangerous ground; he had been 
 risking a great deal for nothing. What incompre- 
 hensible rashness had he not been guilty of! 
 
 A sudden apprehension is an excellent incentive to 
 good resolutions of a sweeping character. He re- 
 solved not to go back to the Tamborlaynes' house or 
 to Pavin's studio; he determined to avoid Eileen 
 Tamborlayne thereafter; and as for the Miss Lla- 
 nellys, whenever they got in his way he would look 
 straight through them ! He had obtained all at once, 
 through trepidation, some high ideas of the obliga- 
 tions of an engaged young man. 
 
 When he set out that evening for the Ferrol house, 
 he had a refreshing sensation of honesty, as if, at his 
 resolution, all his past faults had been obliterated. 
 When, on entering the old-fashioned drawing-room, 
 he saw Nina waiting for him, he was touched with 
 remorse at the sight of her clear, trustful eyes, and 
 he embraced her with a tenderness so unusual that
 
 EILEEN 91 
 
 she was surprised. His quiet evening with her de- 
 lighted him. He had no thoughts but sincere and 
 simple ones no wish but to repay her for her con- 
 stant faith in him. Then, rediscovering her beauty, 
 he recovered a good deal of his old ardor. As he 
 was leaving her, she put her arms round his neck, 
 gazed up at him with shining eyes, and whispered: 
 "What a dear boy you are to-night!" 
 The next day Felix began to devote all his leisure 
 hours to Nina. They rode in the park; they took 
 long walks, with Felix's puppy trotting at their heels; 
 they strolled through streets full of furniture shops, 
 looking into the show windows at draperies of crimson 
 damask and brocade, at carved Italian chests, at tall 
 chairs fashioned like the thrones of cardinals, at 
 tables the heavy legs of which were carved with post- 
 uring cupids, at four-post bedsteads, with wood- 
 work fluted and gilded in an antique style, large 
 enough to conceal a family behind their curtains. 
 They planned the decoration of a dwelling of their 
 own. Alert, with ruddy cheeks, they returned to the 
 Ferrol house for dinner. Old Joseph, opening the 
 door for them, was wreathed in smiles. 
 
 Felix now found a novel pleasure in perfecting his 
 behavior. He seemed to have experienced an inten- 
 sification of conscience; and, somewhat like a con- 
 vert to religion who, in his burst of zeal, will be con- 
 tent with nothing less than asceticism, Felix, day by 
 day the more enamoured of his pose of rectitude, was 
 always hunting for fine resolutions to make. He even 
 drank nothing, for a while, but a bottle of light beer
 
 92 PREDESTINED 
 
 with his luncheon ; for a week he kept down his allow- 
 ance of tobacco to "three smokes a day." In such 
 mortifications he discovered a subtle voluptuousness : 
 when his appetites presented themselves to him he 
 enjoyed anticipation. As he reflected that there was 
 nothing in his conduct with which anybody could find 
 fault, feelings of calmness and superiority pervaded 
 him. While walking through the streets he gazed 
 on passers-by with the gentle tolerance of an exem- 
 plary character. 
 
 He worked hard. At the newspaper office his 
 salary had been raised to twenty-five dollars a week; 
 at home he had begun to write a novel. 
 After perusing several books of Tolstoy's, he had 
 decided to write a Russian story in the "realistic 
 style." Having been in Russia, he was sure of his 
 ability to concoct the "atmosphere." He had visions 
 of tall, bearded gentlemen with close-clipped hair, in 
 uniform, smoking cigarettes ; of pale ladies with pen- 
 dent ear-rings, sitting in overheated rooms ; of frowsy 
 peasants in boots and quilted coats; of mobs, cos- 
 sacks, three-horse troikas driven breakneck through 
 snow, lonely steppes all white in moonlight a string 
 of political prisoners tramping in the middle distance. 
 He had begun to write with energy, inscribing at the 
 top of the first page, with a flourish, "Chapter I," 
 and immediately introducing his hero with the words : 
 
 "TchernaiefT drew rein and listened. He thought 
 he had heard, coming across the snow-covered 
 steppes, a faint cry of distress." 
 
 Unfortunately, while composing this tale he read,
 
 EILEEN 93 
 
 by way of recreation, some novels of Alexandre 
 Dumas. When he had scribbled thirty thousand 
 words Felix discovered, on glancing over a " Critical 
 Study of French Authors," that he had been writing, 
 not in the realistic style, but in the romantic ! Imme- 
 diately he tore up his work and began again. But 
 the realistic style was elusive, as he was then perusing, 
 for amusement, a story of Nero by Sienkiewicz. The 
 Russian steppes began to seem to Felix artificial, like 
 scenery in a theatre ; and whenever he contemplated 
 his Slavonic hero, he had difficulty in not picturing 
 him in a toga mrilis. Perhaps, after all, he would 
 have done better with a tale of Rome! And he 
 remembered his thrills of imagination in the Forum, 
 the Roman museums, and Pompeii. He saw the 
 ancient streets, narrow, precipitous, dirty, and, mov- 
 ing through them, the triumph of some returning 
 general the brown crowd leaning out from roofs 
 and windows, the soldiers marching in brass and 
 leather, the golden eagles, the rising incense smoke, 
 the dropping flowers, and, against a background of 
 innumerable helmets, all glittering, as if in one of 
 those radiant mists which enveloped so one reads 
 the presences of pagan deities, the conqueror in his 
 chariot, robed, crowned with laurel, his face covered 
 with vermilion, splendid and terrible, like a god 
 showing himself to men. The harsh trumpet blasts, 
 the rumbling "Alala!" of the Roman legionaries, 
 filled Felix's ears. 
 
 Late one afternoon, while sitting at his writing- 
 table, staring disconsolately at the manuscript in
 
 94 PREDESTINED 
 
 which he had lost interest, he heard a murmur of 
 voices in the hall, a rustle of skirts, then a knock 
 on the door. The puppy rushed forward, barking 
 frantically. It was Eileen Tamborlayne with two 
 woman friends whom Felix did not know. 
 
 They had been passing through Thirty-second 
 Street; Eileen Tamborlayne had remembered his 
 address, and, seeing the studio windows illuminated, 
 she had brought the others upstairs "for a lark." 
 Smiling as if she had last seen Felix the day before, 
 she explained: 
 
 "There were so many of us, we thought our visit 
 could hardly be improper." 
 
 In fact, the three women seemed to fill the studio. 
 One sat on the divan, another on the model throne; 
 Eileen took his chair before the writing-table. Their 
 elaborate hats and dresses, their glossy furs and 
 shining purses, enriched the room. When they all 
 jumped up together to examine some object, their 
 skirts swished about their slim figures, their perfumes 
 sweetened the air, the feathers on their hats com- 
 mingled; and Felix, despite his vexation, could not 
 help feeling a certain complacency. He noticed that 
 neither of Eileen's companions was as attractive as 
 she. 
 
 They thought the place "delightful so Bohe- 
 mian!" They petted the dog, laughed at the man- 
 nikin, stared at the skylight, the buffet, the bedroom 
 door. They wanted to know if they were intrud- 
 ing; they implored Felix to be frank; was he ex- 
 pecting any one ? He was not expecting any one.
 
 EILEEN 95 
 
 He brought out the teapot and telephoned for some 
 cakes. 
 
 As they were leaving, Eileen said to Felix, gently: 
 
 "We miss you uptown at tea-time nowadays." 
 
 "I'm working very hard." 
 
 "So Gregory tells me. But you need some recrea- 
 tion. You'd better drop in now and then and save 
 me from Mortimer." 
 
 "Fray, you mean? He's there often?" 
 
 She made a grimace of weariness. 
 
 "And the portrait?" 
 
 "It came home last night Gregory's birthday." 
 
 "And Monsieur Pavin?" 
 
 "He was asking after you." 
 
 As the women descended the stairs with back- 
 ward glances and laughter, Felix, leaning over the 
 balustrade, smiled politely. When they were out of 
 the house he slammed the studio door. 
 
 "Good riddance!" he ejaculated, with every ex- 
 ternal evidence of satisfaction because that, he felt, 
 was what he ought to say. But he did not deceive 
 himself. He sat down thoughtfully. 
 
 So she had not forgotten him ; she had missed him 
 all these afternoons ! Indeed, she had liked him well 
 enough to hunt him up. He recalled the hours he 
 had spent in the Tamborlaynes' dim library; he re- 
 membered the silences, broken only now and then by 
 speech, as he sat with her at the tea-table, waiting 
 for Gregory to come home and sometimes wishing 
 that he might be late. And he was sad, feeling that 
 something unique amid the experiences of life
 
 96 PREDESTINED 
 
 receded from him, or as if he were walking slowly, 
 with backward looks, away from an undiscovered 
 country upon whose borders he had hovered, nearly 
 tentatively, for a little while. 
 
 "Ah, it's just as well I left off going there. In 
 the end, I might have made myself unhappy who 
 knows?" He said this without surprise, or any con- 
 demnation of himself. For there had stolen over 
 him such sweet melancholy as, while softening the 
 heart, renders the mind defenceless before all wander- 
 ing thoughts. Sitting in the chair that she had occu- 
 pied, he looked about him at the room, which seemed 
 in some way changed; and the faint perfume that 
 lingered in the air was somewhat like a seductive, 
 incorporeal inhabitant. 
 
 The clock struck; it was time to dress for dinner. 
 He rose, went to a mirror, and contemplated his 
 reflection. He discovered on his face an expression 
 of profound ennui. "How monotonous life is! . . ." 
 
 She returned, in a few days, alone. 
 
 She made no excuse for her intrusion. Dropping 
 her furs beside his manuscript, she sat down in his 
 chair with the declaration: 
 
 "I've been standing in a dressmaker's shop all 
 day. I'm just worn out! Can you let me make 
 some tea and give me a cigarette?" 
 
 She looked so tired, pale, and meek that Felix 
 felt his uneasiness slipping from him. He found 
 himself making solicitous remarks. With a shrug, 
 she answered, in the tone of a martyr: 
 
 "A woman has to wear clothes."
 
 EILEEN 97 
 
 As usual, she was dressed in black. Everything 
 about her was exquisite; and the precise undula- 
 tions of her thick, black hair, together with the large 
 pearls which she wore in the full lobes of her ears, 
 seemed to be trying to counteract, with an effect of 
 dainty sophistication, her habitual demureness. Felix 
 thought that she was better looking than formerly. 
 
 She talked of Gregory: he did not seem well; he 
 was becoming nervous and despondent. "They're 
 working him too hard. A young man in a big law 
 firm never has a moment's rest, it seems. And as 
 for you, I think you're overdoing it, too." She 
 glanced at his writing-table with an expression of 
 dissatisfaction. 
 
 Then, after a pause, she asked: 
 
 "Did you mind my bringing those two women up 
 here? You wouldn't if you knew what they said 
 afterward. I wonder if I ought to tell you? " 
 
 She pretended to think better of it, insisting that 
 their remarks would make him vain. He urged her 
 to go on. At last, laughing, she said: 
 
 "They thought you were the sort of young man 
 that a woman could fall desperately in love with." 
 
 "What nonsense!" he exclaimed, much flattered, 
 nevertheless. And his reserve slowly melted in the 
 glow of gratification that stole over him. 
 
 Presently they found themselves talking quite as 
 formerly; the familiar silences of those other evenings 
 sealed each fragment of discussion with the mark of 
 intimacy. The window-panes grew black; the lamp- 
 light made amber patches on the glass; and in the
 
 98 PREDESTINED 
 
 quiet, she sat motionless, with eyes pensively down- 
 cast, her pale face and slender figure forming within 
 the wings of the deep, crimson chair a charming 
 picture of repose. Upon the skylight rain began to 
 patter; and at that sound Felix, in the warm, cosey 
 room, had a sudden pang, half sad and half delight- 
 ful. His voice took on, for one moment, a fuller and 
 more tender intonation which surprised him. Her 
 lowered eyelashes fluttered ; a faint color stole across 
 her cheeks; her whole person seemed to stir, though 
 almost imperceptibly, as a flower stirs at the slightest 
 breath of a caressing breeze. 
 
 They had begun by talking about Gregory. But 
 finally, progressing in their conversation through the 
 subjects of marriage and of married life, they found 
 themselves discussing love. 
 
 "Why is it," she was saying, "that love is almost 
 always described to us in such flattering terms, as if it 
 were a state of perfect happiness? For my part, I 
 think there is little happiness in it, if happiness is the 
 same thing as contentment. In love we are forever 
 longing for something that can never be attained. 
 We reach out for what we desire, we seem to seize it, 
 for a moment we think we have it safe; but we find 
 that we haven't that it has escaped us." 
 
 Felix, scarcely understanding her, expostulated 
 gently: 
 
 " But how can any one say that, who is as happily 
 married as you are?" 
 
 "Am I?" she returned, raising her eyes to his. 
 
 He made a gesture of astonishment.
 
 EILEEN 99 
 
 "I could hardly imagine a more nearly ideal home 
 than yours. Gregory is devoted to you absolutely." 
 
 "Oh, yes," she assented indifferently, and added, 
 with a little bitterness: "His devotion is complete, 
 and consequently it is always the same. It would 
 never occur to him to be impatient with me to show 
 jealousy or anger or brutality. In his treatment of 
 me he is perfect. Perfection! Is there anything so 
 monotonous?" 
 
 Leaning back, she closed her eyes wearily. Her 
 pale eyelids looked transparent. 
 
 "If he would only fly into a rage at me some day! 
 If he would only hate me for an hour! I have even 
 said, if he would only strike me! Then I would 
 know that he, too, had somewhere in him violent, 
 irresponsible impulses that he was no better than I." 
 
 Felix uttered, sharply, an incredulous laugh. 
 Amazed, secretly agitated, he stared at her face, 
 which he had come to think of as a living symbol 
 of tranquillity. 
 
 "Violent, irresponsible impulses in you? I have 
 never seen you moved by anything," he said. 
 
 Her eyes opened. Looking at him intently, she 
 retorted, in an even voice: 
 
 "And yet, merely at the chance touch of another 
 man, I have felt weak all over." 
 
 Silence fell, a silence more dangerous than speech, 
 in which Felix sat incapable of motion or of utterance, 
 like one of those neurotic unfortunates before whom 
 in a flash a suicidal thought presents itself, and who 
 become immediately like birds fluttering before a
 
 ioo PREDESTINED 
 
 serpent, fascinated by the very peril contained in 
 their imaginings. 
 
 The clock struck; it was half -past six. 
 
 "I shall be late," she said quietly. And after a 
 while she rose. 
 
 He helped her to put on her coat. 
 
 "Tuck in my sleeves." 
 
 Her eyelashes dropped; she bit her lower lip. 
 Then at last she gazed straight at him with humid, 
 misty eyes, her mouth relaxed in a weak, tremulous 
 smile. 
 
 He took her in his arms. She turned her face away. 
 He kissed her ear, her hot cheek, her eyelid wet with 
 a tear, her lips. At once she became limp and clung 
 to him. And all the while, as if in a dream, he kept 
 repeating to himself: "This is terrible! This is 
 terrible!" 
 
 He was caught. From that evening, amid his 
 most poignant desires for recovery, he felt in the bot- 
 tom of his heart a subtle sense of hypocrisy. Like a 
 man who, while passionately reiterating a desire to be 
 rid of some habit which is ruining him, cannot help 
 remembering the enticements of that habit, so Felix, 
 crying out to himself, "If only I could return to where 
 I was before!" found himself in the same moment 
 thinking, with rapt attention, of that from which he 
 told himself he wanted to be free. He seemed to 
 see, opening before his eyes, such a region as was 
 revealed at a talismanic utterance to those advent- 
 urers of the Arabian Nights: a strange region unut- 
 terably alluring, wrapped in rich shadows and in
 
 EILEEN 101 
 
 tinted mists through which glittered heaped-up treas- 
 ures, guarded by motionless, armed images that 
 might, and might not, stir into life at the foot-fall 
 of the explorer. 
 
 Sometimes, in a sudden access of strength, he bound 
 himself with resolutions, and for an hour or two 
 perhaps a day felt safe. But then, when he un- 
 locked the studio door, he found lying on the floor 
 a note from her; or the bell of his telephone com- 
 menced to ring; or he heard a foot-fall on the stairs. 
 At these sights and sounds, invariably he was startled. 
 As for his condition when she herself appeared, it 
 came to pass, at length, that she could not cross the 
 threshold of the studio without his good resolutions 
 beginning to slip from him. 
 
 Now she would enter with wide eyes and parted 
 lips, perfectly pale, with the look, almost tragic, of a 
 person before whom all obstacles are ineffective. 
 Again she would arrive melting, tremulous, ready 
 to burst into tears, half incoherent, swearing that 
 this was the last time she would ever see him. What- 
 ever guise she came in was sufficient; he could not 
 resist her; she dominated him. He was filled with 
 an amazement always fresh at the sight of this ele- 
 gant woman so tranquil, so cold, apparently so 
 unapproachable, before the world exhibiting just 
 for him these uncontrolled emotions. 
 
 The studio became a place of memories one of 
 those spots impregnated with the essential personality 
 of an absent one, into which it is impossible to pene- 
 trate without succumbing to a flood of reminiscent
 
 102 PREDESTINED 
 
 reveries. When he entered in the twilight the very 
 air of the room recalled her to him; and when he 
 turned up the lights all the objects about him were, 
 at first glance, nothing but souvenirs of her. In the 
 crimson chair he seemed to see her sitting, head 
 pressed against the wing, a strand of her thick hair 
 caught and spread out against the rough-woven 
 fabric. On the old couch by the window where 
 she reclined occasionally, while he sat beside her on 
 the ottoman shadows contrived now and then amid 
 the tumbled cushions the vague simulacrum of a 
 slender figure clothed in black. Even the ticking of 
 the clock reminded him of her exclamations of dismay 
 and petulance, when it was time to go. She called 
 the clock "our enemy," and, like an adroit enemy, 
 it always caught her unawares. "Six-thirty? Good 
 Heavens, it was only a moment ago that I came in 
 that door!" She noted the passage of those hours 
 with the qualms of a miser who is forced to spend his 
 gold. 
 
 When she was departing, all his contrition would 
 return to him at her stereotyped cry: "How can I go 
 back?" For, perceiving from the first how much, 
 at such times, he took his frailty to heart, she, too, 
 was lavish with evidences of remorse. Accurately 
 her self-reproach kept pace with his, so that he be- 
 lieved she paid, in after-thoughts, as heavily as he. 
 Together they marvelled gloomily at their condition ; 
 they said to each other: "If only we had never met! 
 It must have been fate!" Between them they man- 
 aged to weave, in time, that fabric of excuse with
 
 EILEEN 103 
 
 which persons in their position try to veil their fault ; 
 some influence more powerful than their wills had 
 done this; they were not responsible rather, they 
 were to be pitied. 
 
 There were days when he felt that he could bear 
 no more duplicity. He confessed his inability to 
 leave her, but declared that he should no longer face 
 the trustful eyes of those he was deceiving. Excited 
 to a state in which nothing seemed extravagant, he 
 cried : 
 
 "We can go away, anywhere, to the end of the 
 world! They will never forgive us; we shall always 
 be hated; but what difference does it make? We 
 shall have each other!" 
 
 And in thinking of a life in some remote country 
 with this woman whom now he could not do without, 
 the familiar city receded to the horizon of his con- 
 sciousness became impalpable, like a mirage and 
 in the faces of Nina and of Gregory, as they appeared 
 before him in diminished form, he could not recognize 
 the features. 
 
 But at such outbursts invariably her eyes widened, 
 a look of reserve and caution flickered in her face, and, 
 without stirring, she seemed in some way to retreat 
 from him. Then, comfortingly, nearly as if talking 
 to a child, she whispered: 
 
 "Calm yourself. Have patience. Wait." 
 
 She was far-seeing. 
 
 He became accomplished in evasions, skilful in 
 lies, which accumulated till his whole existence was 
 enmeshed in falsehood. Deception seemed to him,
 
 104 PREDESTINED 
 
 after all, an art learned very easily; and he went on 
 mastering it with increasing confidence, sometimes 
 lost in astonishment at the facility with which he 
 hoodwinked every one. 
 
 As he acquired dexterity in imposition, he lost the 
 extreme caution which had guided him at first. At 
 length, quite confidently he took risks that one time 
 would have turned him cold with fear. One after- 
 noon Gregory entered the studio not five minutes 
 after Eileen had left it. Smiling, contented, pleased 
 at having half an hour with Felix, he sat down in a 
 chair whereon the cushion still retained an impression 
 of her head. In the Tamborlaynes' house, where 
 Felix had resumed his visits, the thickness of a single 
 curtain was screen enough for a quick embrace. 
 Gregory's momentary absence from the room fur- 
 nished the opportunity for a murmured word, a 
 pressure of the hand, a hurried kiss. In fact, he had 
 only to turn his back and a swift glance flashed 
 between the two. But Gregory Tamborlayne per- 
 ceived nothing; one would have thought that he was 
 blind and deaf and, maybe, dull-witted also. For 
 not even when he had almost surprised them in each 
 other's arms did he notice that phenomenon which 
 affects fine sensibilities so often: a "void in the air," 
 so to speak, at the sudden suspension of two guilty 
 impulses. 
 
 Gregory, whenever he came near Eileen, continued 
 to make Felix the witness of his affectionate demon- 
 strations. With askance eyes, Felix would watch 
 him bend over her and kiss her. "Poor fellow!"
 
 EILEEN 105 
 
 he thought. He was sorry for Gregory. And this 
 pity made him, at times, assume involuntarily such 
 gentleness that Gregory was drawn toward him the 
 more. They managed to maintain that intimate ae 
 cord which had begun in honest friendship; and it 
 came to pass, at last, that Felix could spend an hour 
 in Gregory's company enjoyably without remorse. 
 "What a situation!" Sometimes it seemed to him 
 that he was existing in a grotesque dream. 
 
 But, never easy for long, he had moments of acute 
 apprehension. Now and then an innocent remark, 
 like a chance shot finding a fatal billet, drove into 
 his heart a terrible fear of discovery. When he 
 saw a mere friend, Felix was apt to scrutinize him 
 carefully. If he was unusually nervous on a day 
 when he met Gregory, he had one breathless moment 
 till the "poor fellow's" face brightened with kind- 
 liness. And almost always when he greeted Nina 
 he watched her intently for an instant then felt a 
 general relaxation as he told himself: "She knows 
 nothing." 
 
 And what was to be the end of it? He did not 
 know. He drifted from the swift current into the 
 rapids and through the rapids toward the cataract. 
 
 One afternoon he met on the street Gregory and 
 Mortimer Fray. They were going to an auction of 
 old Japanese prints concerning which Fray was en- 
 thusiastic. The names "Hiroshige," "Outomaru," 
 "Kiyonaga," "Hokusai" bubbled from the young 
 dilettante's lips; he went into raptures over "a 
 beautiful demonstration of the Chinese feeling of a
 
 io6 PREDESTINED 
 
 Yamato picture a mountain and some fir-trees"; 
 joining thumb and second finger, he made a dainty 
 gesture in the air as he described "six 'joro' of 
 the Ukio-ye school." He could not have been 
 more glib if he had just finished reading a treatise 
 on Japanese art. He had his check-book in his 
 pocket ; he expected to bring away some bargains. 
 
 "I'll show you what I get, Piers that is, if 
 you're interested in such things." 
 
 "Very much," said Felix. He had so thoroughly 
 acquired the habit of deception that he would have 
 avowed instantly an intense interest in something he 
 had never heard of; and undoubtedly he would have 
 found some way to prove his affirmation. 
 
 "You'd better come along," urged Gregory, affec- 
 tionately linking arms with Felix. 
 
 "I have some work to do." 
 
 "Always the industrious apprentice! How does 
 the book get on?" 
 
 "Very slowly." 
 
 "The best work always does," remarked Fray, 
 with a flattering smile. 
 
 Felix, believing that he saw on the dilettante's face 
 the shadow of a sneer, wondered "what the man 
 could have against him." Perhaps, he considered, 
 it was partly his own fault: he had instinctively 
 disliked Fray from the first. 
 
 While walking home he thought of his work, which 
 they had recalled to his mind. He reflected dismally 
 that he had not been able to write an original sentence 
 in a month.
 
 EILEEN 107 
 
 "What am I coining to ? What is going to happen 
 to me?" 
 
 Pedestrians passed him with indifferent glances. 
 He began to look absent-mindedly at the faces of 
 these strangers. After a while it seemed to him that 
 they all wore the same expression an expression 
 of sanity and health. And suddenly he felt like one 
 who, nursing within him some consuming, hidden 
 malady, walks bashfully among independent, strong 
 men his superiors. 
 
 It was toward the end of March. The winds were 
 keen, but flavored with an essence vivifying, fresh, 
 and new an exhalation of the moistened earth, borne 
 to the stony city from afar, presaging spring. Mem- 
 ory returned to Felix. He thought of that other 
 spring amid the roses, of the sun-steeped country- 
 side, of his old sensations of simplicity and innocence. 
 How far away, those days ! He had been happy then. 
 And he realized that he had not been happy since. 
 
 Contentment, self-respect, honesty, everything 
 worth keeping, he had thrown away. Crime after 
 crime against the hearts of others and against his 
 own heart he had committed ; and for what ? The 
 image of Eileen appeared before him; he contem- 
 plated it with heavy eyes, all his curiosity appeased, 
 all his cupidity dispelled. Nearly every sentimental 
 feeling grows feeble some day, and the more violent 
 emotions are worn out the sooner. The enchant- 
 ment that had held him helpless was dissolving. 
 
 And hope began to stir. Each year, he thought, 
 the land grows cold and dark; the winds are blight-
 
 io8 PREDESTINED 
 
 ing; all the tender, growing things are frozen and die, 
 till one who did not know would say, "This is the 
 end." But a day comes when the earth stirs be- 
 neath its shrivelled surface, when a breath of new 
 life plays about it when sap starts in the trees and 
 buds appear and grasses thrust through the soil. 
 Presently the hillsides bloom again, bright-feathered 
 birds come warbling, flowers nod everywhere, warm 
 sunshine floods the ravishing vistas, and the world 
 is reborn. 
 
 While Felix walked a fine rain fell. But in the 
 midst of the drizzle there was a sudden illumination, 
 somewhat as if a great gas-jet had been lighted over- 
 head. Looking up at the leaden clouds, he saw them 
 breaking. Behind them appeared a white film, mov- 
 ing, suffused with brilliancy. Then, through this 
 parting veil, down streamed the sunlight, transfigur- 
 ing everything, glinting in mid-air upon the falling 
 rain-drops, brightening the streets, the house fronts, 
 the faces of the people. It seemed to Felix that this 
 radiance flowed into his heart that something im- 
 palpable had released itself from his body and was 
 mounting upward through the golden mist. His eyes 
 quivered. Gazing a-sky, he walked with parted 
 lips. 
 
 When, finally, he reached the studio, he found her 
 waiting for him. She was sitting in the crimson 
 chair, facing the door, expectant. Without moving 
 she said, coldly: 
 
 "How late you are!" 
 
 "I've been walking miles."
 
 EILEEN 109 
 
 " Alone?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And I here!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He did not approach her. She stared at him un- 
 easily. 
 
 "What's the matter with you to-day?" 
 
 "I'm about to say good-by to you." 
 
 She rose, went hurriedly to him, and seized him by 
 the shoulders. 
 
 "Felix!" 
 
 "That's quite useless, I assure you." 
 
 "Felix, Felix, look at me!" 
 
 ."I'm looking at you." 
 
 She drew a long, quivering breath. Tightening 
 her hold on him, she cried, hysterically: 
 
 "And you mean to tell me you can look at me 
 and tell me that it's all over?" 
 
 She hid her face against his breast. 
 
 The latch clicked. Gregory and Fray were stand- 
 ing in the open doorway. 
 
 Fray was in front, with a portfolio under his arm; 
 it was he who had opened the door quickly, without 
 knocking. On his weak face appeared a bitter and 
 malignant smile, containing no surprise. Making a 
 slight bow, he turned, pushed past Gregory, and 
 descended the staircase. Gregory entered the room 
 with the vacant countenance of a somnambulist. 
 
 She went, with dragging feet, to the crimson chair, 
 sat down, and turned away her face. Perfectly 
 pale, her husband gazed at her alone. His mouth
 
 HO PREDESTINED 
 
 trembled; tears appeared in his eyes and rolled 
 down his twitching cheeks. 
 
 At last, in a low voice, he said: 
 
 "Come." 
 
 And as she did not move, after clearing his throat 
 he repeated, softly: 
 
 "Come, Eileen." 
 
 She rose. With fixed eyes, her gloved hands 
 pressed against her temples, swiftly she passed out 
 of the room. Gregory followed her. He closed the 
 door behind him carefully. 
 
 For twenty-four hours Felix remained shut up in 
 the studio, smoking, pacing the floor, lying in bed 
 tormented by oppressive dreams, waking with a 
 start to tell himself: "Yes, it has happened at last!" 
 He had so often, in painful moments of imagination, 
 pictured to himself just this catastrophe that at its 
 occurrence he felt no great shock of surprise. "But 
 what have they said to each other? What are they 
 doing now? What will their future be? I have 
 ruined two lives!" Still, he found these thoughts 
 negligible; his sympathy and self-reproach were 
 numb as he speculated on his own future. 
 
 At first it seemed to him that every one must 
 know, and hour after hour he waited for Nina's 
 renunciation of him. But he began to reason: 
 "Why should she know? Those two would never 
 reveal it; whatever Gregory does will be done very 
 quietly. But Fray was there! And yet, why should 
 Fray betray us all?" 
 
 Then he thought it very strange that Nina had not
 
 EILEEN in 
 
 telephoned to ascertain if he was ill. It was the first 
 time she had neglected him so long; her silence ter- 
 rified him. "That's it; she knows everything!" 
 But, again, who would fell her ? 
 
 At last, unable to bear uncertainty any longer, he 
 set out, toward evening, for the Ferrol house. 
 
 The streets were clean and bright; the sun was 
 setting; the upper stories of the white stone "sky- 
 scrapers " glowed with an orange-colored light against 
 a sky deep blue, in which the little clouds, by means 
 of their transparency and tender contour, called to 
 mind thoughts of spring. On lower Fifth Avenue 
 people were walking buoyantly, with cheerful faces; 
 working girls, passing by in groups, emitted shrill 
 laughter; two young men, with overcoats thrown 
 open, strode along swinging their canes and smiling 
 genially. So, many an afternoon, he had walked 
 with Gregory! 
 
 Carriages passed at a brisk trot, the horses throw- 
 ing out daintily their slender legs. The boyish 
 driver of a dray, wearing an apron of burlap, a 
 round badge stuck in the side of his cloth cap, 
 imitated, with puckered lips, the trilling of a bird. 
 Ah, the countryside; the lilac bushes; the path 
 through the woods, its coolness delicious after the 
 hot sunshine; the cadenzas of the birds amid 
 the glossy leaves! Spring was coming again, bear- 
 ing all its fresh and pure charms but not for him. 
 
 He neared the Ferrol house. A carriage stopped 
 before the door; he saw that it was Mrs. FerroFs 
 brougham. His courage turned to water; he stood
 
 H2 PREDESTINED 
 
 still; he was about to make his escape. But Mrs. 
 Ferrol stepped out of the carriage, turned, and saw 
 him. Automatically he approached, suffocated by 
 the beating of his heart, with everything dancing up 
 and down before his eyes, like a man walking toward 
 the scaffold. He removed his hat and tried to smile. 
 
 Her small, white face, with its thin features and 
 precise frame of gray hair, seemed to him curiously 
 unfamiliar. Looking at him steadily, she said: 
 
 "You were coming to my house? My house is 
 not open to you, sir." 
 
 And she went in, through the old-fashioned door- 
 way. 
 
 Returning to the studio, he found a note ffom 
 Nina. It contained the words: 
 
 "I shall never lay eyes on you again." 
 
 Two weeks later, he read in the newspaper that 
 Nina and her mother had embarked for Europe.
 
 PART TWO 
 MARIE
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 As the weeks passed, and, even in the stone-bound 
 city, the promises of April, vaguely sweet, were re- 
 iterated with more emphasis by May, Felix, of even- 
 ings brooding in the studio, realized how much he 
 had owed to Nina's love, and while losing that 
 how much else he had lost. Every door leading 
 into the rich and pleasant regions which, but a little 
 while before, he had thought to frequent for life, 
 was closed against him now. His isolation seemed 
 perfect. 
 
 After reflection, there remained with him invari- 
 ably a dull amazement it had been he, erstwhile full 
 of good impulses and honest aspirations, that had so 
 used those who cared most for him! Such amaze- 
 ment always ended with the exclamation: 
 
 "I was mad!" 
 
 And of this, at least, he was sure: since, in his cold 
 retrospection, that period, its allure now incompre- 
 hensible, its pleasures proved empty, appeared before 
 him all hazy and turbulent, with details confused as if 
 each episode had been but half appreciated at the 
 time of its occurrence like something that happens 
 in a delirium, and the remembrance of which is but a 
 jumble of feverish extravagances. 
 
 "5
 
 n6 PREDESTINED 
 
 So he would fall to wondering what power outside 
 himself, what evil genius, had driven him headlong 
 to disaster or, as he said, to ruin. 
 
 "That's it," he would repeat, "I've ruined my 
 life!" Thereupon, he would consider the prospect 
 of his changed future with feelings of loneliness and 
 helplessness so profound, that a great lassitude would 
 steal through his body, and he would sit with eyes 
 fixed, with chin sunk on breast, with limbs heavy as 
 if wrapped in lead, incapable of putting forth suffi- 
 cient strength to raise his hand. 
 
 Indeed, this lassitude from dejection did not en- 
 tirely leave him at any hour. In the morning, he 
 awoke weary, downcast even before he had his wits 
 about him. While getting out of bed, he remem- 
 bered with disgust the office of The Evening Sphere. 
 Sometimes, half-clothed, unable to make up his mind 
 to finish dressing, he would stand for a long while 
 behind the window curtains, thinking of nothing, 
 gazing out on the brightest sunshine gloomily, his 
 whole being permeated with a vague bitterness to- 
 ward everything. Then, people hurrying by re- 
 minded him that he must get to work. 
 
 His work in the newspaper office, from which all 
 the charm of strange adventure had departed, he 
 approached with a heavy heart ; necessity had trans- 
 formed a pastime into drudgery. 
 
 Every morning, on entering The Sphere building, 
 he breathed in the odors of fresh newspapers and lin- 
 oleum with an enervating sensation of ennui. Climb- 
 ing the spiral staircase, emerging into the office of The
 
 MARIE 117 
 
 Evening Sphere, to be enveloped invariably by the 
 same pandemonium, he felt as if he were slipping 
 into one of those confused dreams full of intermi- 
 nable, distasteful labors. 
 
 Round him machines clattered, steam hissed, iron 
 clanged. At a shout and a rumble, he dodged men 
 who, in their undershirts, with black smears across 
 their faces, rolled form-tables at full speed over the 
 metal-covered floor. Near-sighted proof-readers, pat- 
 tering about with hands full of paper, bumped into 
 him. At every step, he was jostled by "copy boys," 
 young fellows in inky aprons carrying galleys of type, 
 impatient foremen, bewildered visitors, reporters 
 scampering out for news. Then, escaping all these, 
 approaching a fog of pipe smoke, he stopped in an 
 attitude of resignation amid the reporters' desks. 
 These, dilapidated and dusty, covered with old news- 
 papers, shreds of tobacco, mucilage pots, and dirty 
 plates left from breakfasts brought in to the "early 
 shift," surrounded the square desk of the city editor, 
 and were themselves hemmed in by telegraphers' 
 tables, all the instruments clicking, by typesetters' 
 cases over which, as if over barricades, appeared the 
 bald heads of old men, and by pneumatic tubes and 
 hoists for manuscript, running to the typographers' 
 room on the floor above, and always rattling and 
 banging. 
 
 Here, when he had a few minutes' leisure, Felix 
 would sit oblivious to the uproar round him, staring 
 out at the little blossoming park and the City Hall, 
 but seeing nothing, his mind, in a sort of stupor,
 
 n8 PREDESTINED 
 
 always groping toward recollections that induced 
 remorse, melancholy, and bodily languor. "Yes, 
 yes, I've ruined my life," he would repeat to himself. 
 All his thoughts were repinings for the past ; he could 
 see no future. 
 
 Perhaps, when he had come back to the newspaper 
 office fresh from looking down at the calm, inscrutable 
 features of some suicide, he would wonder: 
 "Was he as bad as I? Is he better off now?" 
 But then, with a great gush of self-pity: 
 "If I were in his place, who would be sorry?" 
 It seemed to his nature an indispensable concomi- 
 tant to such an act, that one should be sure before- 
 hand of some one's being sorry, of some one's remem- 
 bering with at least a little tenderness. 
 
 As for Felix, he had no one! Tears would fill his 
 eyes, till he had to screen his face with his hand, 
 while the park, the tall buildings round about, and 
 the bright sky, all swam together into a sparkling 
 mist. He believed there was not anywhere such 
 loneliness as his. Occasionally, he had an intense 
 longing to journey to his mother's grave, and there, 
 throwing himself down, embracing the moist mound, 
 cover the budding flowers with his tears, while cry- 
 ing out : 
 
 "You loved me, I am sure! You would under- 
 stand!" 
 
 But his mother's grave was in the cemetery of 
 Pere-Lachaise, in Paris, where, at the last, she had 
 begged to be buried, in order that "she might remain 
 in the place she had cared most for."
 
 MARIE 119 
 
 He dreamed of other lands, remote and wild, not 
 furnished with conventionalities, where, possibly, 
 with no one knowing anything about him, he might 
 begin his life all over, and make a fortune and a name 
 for himself. But where, and how? Those visions 
 of his were of the haziest: he saw nothing but hot 
 landscapes filled with sunbeams, vivid flowers, and 
 palms, through which he drifted at random, and 
 which faded, all at once, like a mirage. 
 
 One day he read in a " society journal" that Denis 
 Droyt was in Europe. Though he felt immediately 
 a chill, this news did not surprise him. "It's his 
 chance," Felix admitted. He imagined that serene, 
 indefatigable young man following Nina everywhere, 
 persistently exhibiting before her all the admirable 
 qualities that he had lacked, dissipating her disgust 
 for men, rousing in her gradually a new trust, and, 
 finally, winning her. They would be married, and 
 all the delightful plans that Nina and Felix had once 
 made they would carry out the voyages afar, the 
 sojourns in beautiful and tranquil places, the rose- 
 colored, random adventures of the fortunate. So it 
 was Droyt, after all, who was going to possess her! 
 Yet Felix grieved more over the loss of what went 
 with her than over losing her. 
 
 Had he ever really loved her ? What, after all, was 
 love ? Felix had an idea that it was something superb 
 and transfiguring, a divine flaming of the heart, a 
 soaring to a higher plane of sense else all the world's 
 great lovers were impostors. Would he ever experi- 
 ence that exaltation ? Or would he die having known
 
 120 PREDESTINED 
 
 no nearer approach to it than his frail, pallid affection 
 for Nina, or his febrile and unhappy madness for 
 Eileen ? 
 
 The Tamborlaynes were gone from New York; 
 their house in East Seventy-ninth Street was closed 
 and boarded tight. Where were they? Had they 
 separated? How would they patch out their shat- 
 tered lives ? 
 
 And where was Mortimer Fray? 
 
 When there floated before him a vision of the young 
 dilettante's face, sharp and clever, with its lurking 
 smile half ingratiating and half spiteful, Felix felt a 
 hot thrill at the pit of his stomach ; his hands clenched, 
 he had a spasmodic desire for violence. If only he 
 could meet the wretch face to face! 
 
 But Felix never met him, and knew nothing of his 
 friends or haunts. It occurred to him, though, that 
 Paul Pavin might know; and that, at any rate, here 
 was one person who, thoroughly " continental," with 
 experiences of wide latitude, and social opinions of 
 unusual generosity, should be the same to him as 
 ever. But the artist had left America for France; 
 his studio was possessed by a stranger, and he was 
 not expected to return to New York until mid-winter. 
 
 So that chance of friendship was denied Felix. 
 
 His evenings he spent in the most aimless ways. 
 He lounged in his rooms, his puppy, subdued and 
 silent, gazing at him mournfully. When he could 
 bear the ticking of the clock no longer, he went out 
 and wandered through the city, looking at the lights, 
 the moving crowds, the brilliant hurly-burly of amuse-
 
 MARIE 121 
 
 ment districts, as if from a great distance. His 
 despondency attracted to his notice all sorts of de- 
 pressing sights; a profound pessimism made him 
 see in everything the saddest, the meanest, and the 
 most contemptible elements; his comments were all 
 sneers, he meditated on the fatuity and baseness of 
 humanity. 
 
 Wickit, the lawyer, sent him three typewritten 
 notes asking him to call. Each note Felix tore up 
 with a savage laugh. 
 
 "So he's finally heard about it, has he? And now 
 he wants his thousand dollars back in his pocket!" 
 
 One night, as he was returning home, a bent, 
 familiar figure issued upon the pavement from his 
 doorway; it was Joseph! Felix, concealing himself 
 in a shadow, watched the aged servant shuffle away. 
 The young man was disturbed by obscure forebodings. 
 
 "Now why should that old devil be sneaking round 
 after me ? " He could see nothing but a menace even 
 in Joseph's visit. Why not? "All the world was 
 against him." 
 
 He was more and more attracted by the relief from 
 monotony and mental tension that alcohol effects. 
 In intoxication he found a means by which he could, 
 for the hour, become, as it were, another being, indif- 
 ferent to misfortune, as much superior to regrets as to 
 anxieties, contemptuous of Fate, replete with gran- 
 diose, chimerical intentions that he was going to trans- 
 late into deeds "beginning to-morrow." During the 
 day, he looked forward to the evening, when such 
 temperamental transformation would be possible.
 
 122 PREDESTINED 
 
 Since shame, and fear of rebuffs, now kept him 
 from showing himself at his club from which, in- 
 deed, owing to his neglect to pay his dues, he had been 
 suspended he frequented the gay hotel cafes along 
 Broadway. There, sitting at a small table with a 
 glass of whiskey and soda before him, he became a 
 familiar figure. The cashiers, crouching on high 
 stools behind their little grilles, bowed to him as he 
 entered; the bartenders smirked at him patroniz- 
 ingly; the waiters, hovering about him with napkins 
 rolled up under their left arms, assumed the easy and 
 confidential manners which such servants exhibit to- 
 ward old customers. He came to have a sort of 
 affection for these places, because at his appearance, 
 smiles greeted him. He liked always to sit at the 
 same table. Now and then, he held long, serious 
 conversations with his waiter banal discussions full 
 of trivialities, but which, since he was drinking while 
 engaging in them, seemed to him at the moment of 
 great interest and importance. 
 
 Then, often, in the midst of this recreation he real- 
 ized the puerility of it, the pitiable quality of his satis- 
 faction, the difference between the present and the past. 
 
 Occasionally, Felix did what he had never thought 
 of doing in the time of his prosperity: he spent the 
 evening with some associate from the newspaper 
 office. To one, a reporter called "Johnny" Livy, 
 Felix was particularly agreeable, perhaps because 
 it was Livy who had given him his first informa- 
 tion the day he had sought employment of The 
 Evening Sphere.
 
 MARIE 123 
 
 This reporter was a lean, nervous, anxious-looking 
 young man who did everything in jerks, with yellow 
 stains on his fingers, and distinguished by a "Bo- 
 hemian " nonchalance of dress. Between fitful bursts 
 of self-assertion, he exhibited unconsciously all sorts 
 of apprehensions fear of his inability, of his em- 
 ployer, of the future, of everything. A precocious 
 hypochondriac, he was fascinated by medical jour- 
 nals. While dining, he could not help asserting that 
 oysters caused typhoid fever, soup indigestion, meat 
 skin diseases, tomatoes rheumatism, cheese cancer, 
 and so on, not failing to ask the waiter apprehen- 
 sively: "Is this water filtered?" At other times, 
 announcing that he was, at heart, a Christian Scien- 
 tist, that nothing save fear harmed any one, he de- 
 voured course after course voraciously, with a defiant 
 manner. 
 
 Felix, starving for companionship, dragged this 
 young man, with his broken collar and shiny right 
 elbow, into Broadway restaurants, which the re- 
 porter entered rubbing his chin, and where he ap- 
 peared ill at ease till he had tossed off a couple of 
 cocktails. When they had finished disparaging their 
 superiors in the office, they discussed journalism, and, 
 finally, literature. As Felix, slightly intoxicated, be- 
 came eloquent, uttered great names, talked of 
 "schools" and "movements," dived into history 
 and emerged scattering quotations, a cloud passed 
 over the face of his companion, who sat listening 
 with an air of reluctance. Truth is, this young 
 reporter's wings were too feeble for him to accom-
 
 124 PREDESTINED 
 
 pany Felix in those flights. Besides, always noting 
 a thousand minute differences between his and Felix's 
 clothing, person, voice, manner, and instincts, he was 
 unable to meet friendliness half-way. Removed from 
 the democratic air of the newspaper office, each dis- 
 cerned the social and constitutional differences in the 
 other. Their evenings together ended. So passed 
 that hope of friendship. 
 
 For a time Felix patronized the theatre assidu- 
 ously. But to the tragedies enacted on the stage he 
 compared his own tragedy, and in the gayety of the 
 comedies he found something false and depressing. 
 Then, as June ended, one by one the theatres closed, 
 till there were left running only a few musical reviews. 
 When he had endured the illogical uproar of each of 
 these half a dozen times, he gave up play-going in 
 disgust. 
 
 He took long walks with his puppy Pat, nursing 
 his melancholy through empty streets and amid the 
 deep shadows of the park. Looking up at the stars, 
 he pondered the insignificance of individuals and 
 their travail, the occult object of life, the riddle of the 
 beyond, the possibility of there being something su- 
 preme. 
 
 His sense of loneliness did not diminish when he 
 tried to imagine the propinquity of a God. He could 
 not convince himself that anything, human or super- 
 natural, had a care for him. 
 
 He read Nietzsche and Hegel, Marcus Aurelius 
 and Renan, Loyola and Luther. So many great 
 minds in conflict ! Which to believe, when all seemed
 
 MARIE 125 
 
 scuffling together crying, "No, no, God is like this! 
 Not so, this only is man's proper attitude! Nay, 
 here alone is peace ! " Rumpling the leaves of " New 
 Thought" volumes, he essayed to find therein some 
 credible gospel. His eyes alone perused the pages. 
 Those bland, charitable authors, with all the man- 
 nerisms of congenital saints, were just then so far 
 removed from him in texture of the soul that he could 
 not understand the tongue in which they wrote. 
 
 In the bookshops he saw on all sides placards 
 advertising Oliver Corquill's latest novel, "The Rain- 
 bow." Felix read this book with amazement. Its 
 pervasive optimism persuaded the young man that 
 Corquill's was, after all, a surface intellect, without 
 deep experience, of the sort that takes everything for 
 granted. As he reached "Finis," his idol fell to 
 pieces. The book was actually calculated to enamour 
 one of life! 
 
 Felix, for his part, dreamed of writing a great 
 novel crushing in its bitterness and cruel truth, that 
 should reveal life "as it was" a mad mask of 
 stupidities and agonies. 
 
 So, sitting down at his work-table, he lighted a 
 cigar, took up his pen, and waited for the thrill of 
 inspiration. 
 
 But soon, in the silence, his thoughts turned in- 
 ward. And he would remain for a long while in one 
 attitude, dreaming of a different sort of life, eating 
 out his heart for the responsive touch of another's 
 hand, for the brightening of another's eye, for one 
 vocal intonation of affection.
 
 126 PREDESTINED 
 
 Such evenings often ended in hard drinking. And 
 now, through the stupor so induced, the melancholy 
 note still faintly struck, like the distant, lugubrious 
 tolling of a bell, seeming to make the sound: "Alone 
 . . . Alone. . . ." 
 
 There were times when he sprang up, crying aloud, 
 in an incredulous voice: 
 
 "Somewhere people are happy!" 
 
 Then, with the thought, "Happiness! In God's 
 name, where is it to be found?" he would rush out 
 into the darkness and roam everywhere. 
 
 One such evening, early in September, when he had 
 tramped the streets till footsore, as midnight struck 
 Felix found himself before a large hotel in Times 
 Square. Seeing men and women descending from 
 automobiles and entering there, he believed that he, 
 too, was hungry; he thought that he would enjoy 
 something dainty to eat and a pint bottle of cham- 
 pagne. He entered the hotel restaurant. 
 
 This apartment, illuminated from its lofty roof of 
 glass with a green radiance imitating moonlight, was 
 fashioned to resemble the approach of an Italian 
 garden buff stone terraces, with staircases, balus- 
 trades, and urns containing scarlet flowers, rising at 
 the rear against a background of scenery painted with 
 a nocturnal landscape full of poplars, and embel- 
 lished by an artificial moon. The white tables in the 
 body of the restaurant, scattered under trellises, were 
 nearly all occupied; a monotonous ripple of conver 
 sation was punctuated occasionally by a thin clask 
 of silverware ; before the terraces a fountain tinkled ;
 
 MARIE 127 
 
 beneath the moon, violins and flutes were uttering 
 waltz music. 
 
 Many persons looked attentively at Felix. Sud- 
 denly he saw, some distance off, at a table beside a 
 stone pillar, a familiar face then another. Miss 
 Llanelly and Miss Sinjon, whom he had met in Paul 
 Pavin's studio, were staring at him. A man, seated 
 with them, presented a broad back. 
 
 The head waiter attempted to lead Felix past their 
 table. Miss Llanelly put out her hand. 
 
 "You in town?" she exclaimed, with a rich, Irish 
 smile, her ingenuous astonishment at once subtly 
 flattering him. Her skin contained contrasts of red 
 and white no less dazzling than ever; she fluttered 
 her eyelashes, which were long and heavy, in a co- 
 quettish manner. Her large figure, full below the 
 shoulders, at the hips adroitly constricted to a re- 
 semblance of slimness, was encased in a tight dress 
 of taffy-colored Tussur silk. A wide-brimmed hat, 
 tilted off her forehead, let some "willow" plumes 
 trail half-way down her back. 
 
 Felix eagerly shook hands with both young women. 
 A glow of pleasure stole through him; unwilling to 
 pass on immediately, he uttered some remarks at 
 random he complained of the hot weather, regretted 
 the invigorating days of winter, and began to recall 
 Pavin. Miss Llanelly interrupted, quickly: 
 
 "But pardon me! Mr. Piers Mr. Noon." 
 
 The man with them got upon his feet. 
 
 This was a burly fellow, clad in blue flannel, with 
 a superb Persian opal, cut like a scarab, in his cravat.
 
 128 PREDESTINED 
 
 Prematurely gray at the temples, his heavy, dark 
 cheeks smooth-shaven, his expression at once shrewd 
 and self-indulgent, he seemed to belong to that class 
 of young New York men which spends the day 
 feverishly clutching at money in order to pass the 
 night gayly letting go of it. He was withdrawing 
 his large, soft hand from Felix's when, at a sudden 
 thought, he inquired abruptly: 
 
 "What Mr. Piers, may I ask?" 
 
 And as Felix answered, a flush slowly invaded the 
 dusky countenance of this stranger. 
 
 "You're all alone? What a pity!" said Miss 
 Llanelly. By dint of looking fixedly at Mr. Noon, 
 she caused that gentleman to mumble: 
 
 "Why not join us? We're just beginning." 
 
 "Fine!" cried Miss Llanelly, vigorously. "We've 
 ordered all kinds of things." Her lips, a vivid red, 
 puckered greedily; she had, she announced, "one 
 grand appetite." 
 
 Felix glanced at Miss Sinjon. She continued 
 silent, calmly and disinterestedly regarding him with 
 her green eyes, the lids of which seemed somewhat 
 reddened. He felt himself blushing; he hesitated, 
 then sat down stiffly. He was not used to indiffer- 
 ence from women. 
 
 This one was less obtrusively attired than her 
 friend, in linen dress and hat of russet a hue har- 
 monizing with her hair of reddish-brown, and lending 
 to her translucent skin, touched round the eyes with 
 the faintest possible coloring, a delicate warmth. 
 Her irises, clear as the brooch of green beryls that
 
 MARIE 129 
 
 she wore, lost effect because of the lightness of her 
 eyelashes; her cheek-bones, without actually pro- 
 truding, still seemed prominent ; her white chin was 
 square to a degree unusual in young women. She 
 was eclipsed, as it were, by her handsome and ex- 
 uberant companion. Her self-possession, however, 
 was perfect. 
 
 When Felix ventured, with an accent of regret, that 
 it was a long while since he had seen her, observing 
 him serenely she answered, in a quiet voice: 
 
 "Do you count the times you have looked at me 
 without bowing?" 
 
 Her reply was like an unexpected blow in the face. 
 
 "I? Never!" he ejaculated. 
 
 But in the most indifferent tones she recalled that 
 behavior of his exactly to his mind ; it had occurred 
 in midwinter once at Twenty-third Street and 
 Broadway, again before a hotel in Fifth Avenue. 
 Greatly embarrassed, he stammered that there was 
 some mistake, that he had not recognized her. A 
 sarcastic smile barely touched her lips; and her 
 perspicacious gaze, as if penetrating to the depths of 
 his brain, seemed to assure him: "I am not easily 
 taken in." Then, at last releasing him from that 
 look, leaning back and scrutinizing the whole res- 
 taurant, she uttered: 
 
 "I don't seem to see any one I know here to-night, 
 do you?" 
 
 Felix was first dumfounded, then angered. What 
 impertinence! From her manner one might think 
 she deserved everything due to a person in the most
 
 130 PREDESTINED 
 
 impregnable position in society! As a matter of 
 fact, however, what was her exact position? 
 
 Miss Llanelly, after an awkard pause plunging into 
 distracted conversation, speedily informed him. 
 
 That evening a musical extravaganza, called "The 
 Lost Venus," had commenced at the Trocadero The- 
 atre; Miss Sinjon and Miss Llanelly were engaged 
 in it. According to the latter, the "first-night" had 
 gone with such a dash, and even the newspaper 
 critics had been so well pleased, that the piece was 
 bound to remain in New York all winter. The 
 music was "the kind you like to whistle"; there was 
 a "square laugh in every line"; the manner of pro- 
 duction was superb; no expense had been spared; 
 it was "in Montmorrissy's best style." "And you 
 know his shows, Mr. Piers. You missed it? Isn't 
 that miserable ! Well, you must rush to it to-morrow 
 night, for sure; Marie and I are on at a quarter to 
 nine, with the Six Daughters of the Due des 
 Champs-Ely sees. Such swell gowns! Where is that 
 waiter?" And to Noon, in a voice of authority: 
 "Billy, Mr. Piers's glass is empty." She pro- 
 nounced Felix's name as if it were something un- 
 usual. 
 
 The waiter arrived with another quart of cham- 
 pagne. He removed the oyster-plates and served 
 minced crabs a la cardinal. 
 
 The encircling babble of voices was penetrated by 
 several deep 'cello tones, then by a sweet violin 
 phrase, scarcely audible, and the rhythmic rippling 
 of flute notes.
 
 MARIE 131 
 
 "Anitra's Dance!" exclaimed Felix, forgetting all 
 else, wishing only that he could hear distinctly. 
 
 "From the Peer Gynt suite, by Grieg," assented 
 Mr. Noon, in a rich bass voice, profoundly nodding. 
 He gulped down another glass of champagne; then, 
 turning his moist eyes on Felix, apparently apropos 
 of nothing he declared: 
 
 "The Philistine element in life is not the failure to 
 understand art." He frowned in perplexity. Sud- 
 denly he added, with an air of heavy satisfaction: 
 
 " Oscar Wilde said that. Now, Oscar Wilde " 
 
 Miss Llanelly broke in: 
 
 "If you're fond of real good music, Mr. Piers, 
 that's another reason why you must hear 'The Lost 
 Venus' right away." 
 
 "I am fond of all good things," said Felix. "Or 
 perhaps I should say, of all beautiful things, all 
 sense-stirring things of everything that can lift one 
 emotionally out of monotony." He had no sooner 
 finished speaking than moisture filled his eyes, so 
 deeply did his whole being thrill at that profession 
 as if, with a few words, he had made by accident a 
 revelation exquisitely true, as if he had never so clearly 
 interpreted for himself the supreme instinct of the 
 soul within him. 
 
 The emotional stimuli in life, the divine exaltations 
 that, transfiguring the nature, at the same time trans- 
 form the world how he longed to experience all of 
 them to the full! To enjoy, and in enjoying to for- 
 get, when there was so much to forget, and it seemed 
 after all so much to enjoy! Wine in the blood,
 
 132 PREDESTINED 
 
 throbbing music, odors of flowers and perfumes, 
 visions of red lips and humid eyes, combined to 
 evoke indeterminate and lovely promises earnests 
 of such oblivion, of such effacement of the common- 
 place and sad, as may have come in premonition to 
 those worn mariners out of the drear and vacant sea, 
 trembling even to sniff the fumes of Circe's cup. 
 Ah, to be young in every fibre, to search out and seize 
 the treasures that the world should hold for youth! 
 And before his mind's eye the horizon of existence 
 seemed to widen, to recede immeasurably ; fogs blew 
 away; sunlight poured down; he saw, far off, a 
 myriad transports prepared. The joy of the dis- 
 coverer of a new paradise flowed through him; he 
 quivered from anticipation of great happiness; he 
 recognized his youth and its potentialities as a god 
 might recognize his divinity. And what, indeed, was 
 contact with divinity if not this exaltation? He 
 would have liked to raise his glass and cry to the 
 whole world: 
 
 "I give you the senses, in enrapturing which we 
 soar free from all chains toward the sublime!" 
 
 The music palpitated in more ravishing tones ; the 
 soft green scene took on a dreamlike aspect; the 
 faces of the women were invested with all sorts of 
 beauties hitherto unsuspected. Miss Llanelly's cheeks 
 and mouth called up the thought of full-blown roses ; 
 but in the pale face of Marie Sinjon Felix discovered 
 a delicate allure, such as exists in a bizarre, exotic 
 flower. His heart beat heavily. A mist passed be- 
 fore his eyes.
 
 MARIE 133 
 
 " Why do you dislike me ? " he whispered in her ear. 
 
 "I do not dislike you," she replied, looking at him 
 calmly. 
 
 He thought, "She means she neither dislikes me 
 nor likes me." And while Noon, leaning forward 
 with cigar smoke curling round his massive face, was 
 telling a long anecdote which threatened to conclude 
 equivocally, Felix watched intently the unusual 
 squareness and the whiteness of her chin. 
 
 The music ended; the musicians, packing away 
 their instruments, departed. In corners of the res- 
 taurant attendants were putting out lights and piling 
 up chairs. A few feet away, a waiter stood contem- 
 plating Mr. Noon reproachfully. 
 
 "What time is it?" 
 
 "Two o'clock!" 
 
 "You don't mean it!" 
 
 As they issued from the hotel, they saw, all along 
 Broadway, an army of dirty laborers strung out be- 
 side the car tracks, tearing up the street by the light 
 of gasoline torches, which roared overhead while 
 shooting forth horizontally blinding yellow flames. 
 A tepid breeze wavered through the unwashed town, 
 bearing with it odors of gasoline fumes, soft asphalt, 
 and sewer gas. Shredded rubbish glided along the 
 pavement. Even the black sky looked dusty. 
 
 Mr. Noon, choosing an electric cab from the line 
 drawn up in front of the hotel, opened the low door. 
 Miss Llanelly jumped in. 
 
 "Shall we give you a lift home, dear?" she in- 
 quired sweetly of Miss Sinjon.
 
 134 PREDESTINED 
 
 "You know that it's only a step, for me." 
 
 "If you will allow me," proposed Felix. 
 
 Miss Llanelly sank back on the cushions with a 
 bright smile. 
 
 "Good-night, then," she called, gayly. "Good- 
 night, Mr. Piers! So glad! To-morrow evening, 
 remember!" 
 
 Mr. Noon ponderously waved his hand. The cab 
 disappeared. Felix and Miss Sinjon remained to- 
 gether on the sidewalk. He signalled the nearest 
 chauffeur. 
 
 "But it's only a step." 
 
 "Never mind." 
 
 They entered the vehicle; she gave an address in 
 Forty-eighth Street. They were whirled northward 
 through the stale night air. 
 
 Street lights one after another shone upon her face; 
 her eyes were fixed ahead, her lips composed; even 
 while in contact with him how far removed she was, 
 apparently, in thought! 
 
 "What are you thinking of ?" he asked her, gently. 
 
 "I am thinking of this abominable city." 
 
 "Let us escape it for a little while." And as she 
 made no reply, he called to the chauffeur: 
 
 "Drive through the park." 
 
 The automobile passed Forty-eighth Street, rushed 
 on along the empty thoroughfare, and, finally, plunged 
 in amid the trees. 
 
 Sweet and pure air blew round them, soft as a 
 tender breath upon the cheek, redolent of dewy 
 blades and leaves. Beyond the roadway the bushes
 
 MARIE 135 
 
 rose in blue-black masses; then, here and there, a 
 solitary gas-light was surrounded by a wide aureole 
 of foliage, the raw green of which was like no hue 
 in nature. As they penetrated the odorous recesses 
 of the park, their progress was, for Felix, like an 
 abandonment of the known universe, a passage into 
 absolute phantasma, promising who knew what rapt- 
 urous revelations? 
 
 Two funnels of light appeared far ahead, ap- 
 proached swiftly, dazzled, and flashed past. In the 
 deep tonneau of that automobile, a man and a woman, 
 arms round each other, were united in a kiss. 
 
 Farther on, they met a hansom cab, flitting through 
 shadows, drawn by an old, ambling horse. Their 
 lanterns illumined for an instant two figures close 
 together. And Felix imagined all the dim roadways 
 of that place, all the secret by-paths, all the perfumed, 
 silent coverts, thus peopled, full of love. When he 
 kissed her, the quality of her submission seemed to 
 tell him that she had expected this conclusion from 
 the first, and did not care one way or the other. 
 
 Soon, turning her green eyes full on him, she said, 
 with a stiff smile: 
 
 "You see, one doesn't escape the city by coming 
 into the park."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FELIX made haste to attend "The Lost Venus" at 
 the Trocadero Theatre. There, sitting in the first 
 row, he saw, amid the grouping and melting of 
 tableaux on the brilliant stage, Marie Sinjon, all her 
 charms enhanced, wearing in the first act an extrava- 
 gant hat and dress the color of autumnal leaves, and 
 in the second act a spangled, low-neck gown of 
 black and green, with a train extraordinarily long, 
 and a tiara of paste brilliants. 
 
 When he remembered his evening with her, his 
 heart beat heavily: the glamour of the footlights in- 
 formed that intimacy with a new value. At last, 
 she looked down and recognized him. It was he 
 who blushed. 
 
 She, like her friend Miss Llanelly, was a "show 
 girl" one of those actresses whose roles consisted 
 in little more than standing round and looking hand- 
 some, who were distinguished from their harder-work- 
 ing sisters of the chorus by their beauty, their costly 
 costumes, their simulation of an elegant languor, 
 their air of conferring a favor on audiences merely 
 by their mute appearance. Stories remembered of 
 a few of them concerning jewels, automobiles, jour- 
 neys to Europe, winnings in Wall Street, and suits 
 for breach of promise, invested them all with a per- 
 verse dignity. 
 
 136
 
 MARIE 137 
 
 In the sphere which they inhabited, if anywhere, 
 thought Felix, was to be found gayety and distraction. 
 The young man was grateful to the chance that had 
 offered, at a moment of profound depression, this 
 opportunity. He lost no time in returning to West 
 Forty-eighth Street, where, on the ninth floor of an 
 apartment hotel, Marie Sinjon occupied two small 
 rooms the "parlor," lined with crimson cartridge- 
 paper, crowded with frail cherry furniture, band- 
 boxes, and theatrical trunks, looking out over the 
 back yards. 
 
 She received him in negligee with unconcern. Their 
 discussion of "The Lost Venus" was interrupted by 
 a woman hairdresser: Marie Sinjon, in a wadded 
 kimono of gray silk, sat down before a cheval-glass 
 and, without any coquetry, submitted to this person's 
 ministrations. 
 
 The hairdresser, squat and shapeless, her lips dis- 
 creetly clamped upon a bristle of hairpins, kept shoot- 
 ing at Felix, by means of the mirror, stealthy glances 
 out of her small, black eyes, which were set in a face 
 of indeterminable age. Finally, she mumbled, in an 
 innocent tone: 
 
 "Didn't you wish to pay to-day?" 
 
 A faint flush stained Marie Sinjon's cheek-bones. 
 She answered, rather sharply: 
 
 "You know I always pay on Saturday." 
 
 The hairdresser raised her eyebrows, shrugged her 
 shoulders, and compressed her lips the more, as if she 
 had been rebuffed while offering to do her customer 
 a service. Packing her brushes and curling-irons into
 
 138 PREDESTINED 
 
 a black satchel, she cast a last look at the young 
 woman's head a monument of tawny curls and un- 
 dulations. Then, with another stare at Felix, she 
 took herself off. 
 
 He understood that little comedy. "This girl is 
 at least not mercenary," he considered. And, in his 
 self-satisfaction at having made so shrewd a judg- 
 ment, he invited her to dinner. 
 
 But, with a sudden gleam of eye, she shook her 
 head. 
 
 "Some other time." 
 
 Then, seeing that he was really disappointed, she 
 became curious. 
 
 "Why do you ask me that? I thought " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 She looked at him in a nearly spiteful way, then 
 flashed forth: 
 
 "You might meet some one, perhaps!" 
 
 Moving to the window, she turned her back on 
 him. Dusk had fallen upon a rainy day; through a 
 thin mist, the back yards and rear walls of the houses 
 opposite appeared unutterably shabby, gloomy, and 
 forlorn. She continued gazing on this scene. 
 
 He joined her. He was flattered by her speech, 
 which seemed to him almost born of jealousy ; he was 
 delighted by the atmosphere of intimacy that she had 
 evoked so swiftly, all without intention, he believed. 
 The prospect of entering forthwith into a sentimental 
 part exhilarated him. He was quite careless what 
 he said so long as it was tender. His voice fell in- 
 stinctively into the most melting tones.
 
 MARIE 139 
 
 "How you have misjudged me! As if I could feel 
 that way toward you ! It would mean that I did not 
 understand you, that I did not recognize you in- 
 stantly for what you are utterly different, a nat- 
 ure superior to all this, misplaced just for the mo- 
 ment" 
 
 He hesitated ; should he have employed more deli- 
 cacy? But she, to his amazement, laying her arm 
 across the window-sash, leaning her forehead on her 
 hand, began to sob. 
 
 "Life is so unfair!" she gasped. 
 
 In stifled accents, she stammered an incoherent 
 synopsis of her sorrows the isolation of her heart 
 amid the wastes into which fate had forced her, the 
 meanness of every one's intentions toward her, the 
 struggle against continual disgrace, the cruelty of the 
 world's judgment, the injustice of protected women: 
 in fine, she exposed a whole gallery of pathetic views 
 of life. Why she was telling all this to him, she said, 
 she did not know. Perhaps it was because something 
 in his face promised that comprehension, that sort of 
 friendship, she had sometimes dreamed of. 
 
 "What am I saying!" she cried suddenly, showing 
 him her green eyes full of what seemed consternation, 
 and her translucent cheeks smeared with tears. "I 
 am crazy, to talk this way! What is there about you 
 you had better go quickly, and not come back. 
 That's it, go, go!" Her voice had hysterical intona- 
 tions. She tried to push him from her. Her arm, 
 protruding white as marble from the sleeve of her 
 kimono, was peculiarly strong.
 
 140 PREDESTINED 
 
 But he, at first bewildered by this outburst, was in 
 a moment greatly touched. He saw her just as she 
 had portrayed herself in the paroxysm of self-pity that 
 one gentle word of his had caused. Poor little girl, 
 so lonely, so helpless, and so put upon! In compas- 
 sion, his frivolity of purpose disappeared. 
 
 He took her hand, which was neither cold nor hot, 
 but cool ; he put his arm round her shoulder with the 
 gesture of a brother. In a low voice all the while 
 thinking that he was acting rather finely he spoke 
 of the impermanency of misfortune to the brave, of 
 "a divine something that takes care of all of us in the 
 end." Many a scrap of comforting philosophy he 
 murmured that he had read but, in respect of his own 
 case, had been unable to believe. He exhorted her 
 to hope for better times, for truer friends, and, 
 as one of these, he offered himself, with a sweet 
 courtesy, "for so long as she should need him." She 
 grew calmer, drew a quivering breath or two, used 
 his handkerchief, and softly thanked him. And he, 
 who had come with the most selfish of designs, was 
 vaguely conscious that he had stayed to incur, just 
 how he did not know, some subtle kind of obligation. 
 
 This obligation, without trying to analyze it, he 
 accepted carelessly, while marching home that even- 
 ing in the highest spirits. His heart was expanded 
 by delectable anticipations: he was going to escape 
 solitude, to know excitement, to have companions of 
 some sort. 
 
 Night after night he attended the Trocadero The- 
 atre, sitting always in the first row, on the right-hand
 
 MARIE 141 
 
 side of the auditorium, near the drums. It was not 
 long before he had all the music and lines of "The 
 Lost Venus" by heart. He knew each cue for the 
 entrance of the "show girls"; and when they ap- 
 peared six in number, undulating in their beautiful 
 dresses, gazing out over the orchestra almost arro- 
 gantly he would wait without moving until Marie 
 Sinjon, coming to a stop near by, should recognize 
 him. Finally, losing all interest in the performance 
 when she was not on the stage, Felix would watch 
 the drummer. 
 
 This fellow had a broad, ugly face, ornamented 
 with dyed "mutton-chop" whiskers that merged into 
 his mustache, splotched across the nose from alco- 
 holic poisoning, and farther distinguished by the 
 watery eyes and tremulous, lugubrious mouth of one 
 of those neurasthenic persons always ready to burst 
 into tears. He beat his drum as a virtuoso plays the 
 piano, with the most exquisite attention to the score 
 and the conductor's baton, rolling up his eyes and 
 throwing his head about in an artistic ecstasy. His 
 behavior diverted Felix, who wondered what sort of 
 life the man led outside the playhouse. 
 
 Felix became known by sight to the chorus girls 
 and the comedians, to the ushers and the ticket sell- 
 ers, and even to the owner of the play, Montmor- 
 rissy, a short, obese, debilitated-looking individual 
 with a large nose and a black mustache, who some- 
 times, in evening dress, stood in the lobby of the 
 theatre, smoking a cigar, exhibiting his diamond 
 rings, and chatting with acquaintances. Those em-
 
 I 4 2 PREDESTINED 
 
 ployed about the place commenced to nod to Felix 
 and, perhaps, to smile behind his back. The keeper 
 of the stage entrance an old ruffian with a growl 
 for every one so far unbent as to accept his mes- 
 sages and tips. 
 
 He grew used to waiting in the shadows of West 
 Thirty-sixth Street, by a dingy door from which, soon 
 after eleven o'clock at night, issued the chorus girls, 
 their faces pale from fatigue and scrubbing with cold 
 cream, their clothing and demeanor in acute con- 
 trast to their dainty costumes and sprightly manners 
 on the stage. He saw, in the gloom of that side 
 street, the reverse, as it were, of the theatrical medal 
 the butterflies of the footlights changed into drab, 
 serious working people. The dancers were reduced 
 to the appearance of shop-girls; the comedians 
 emerged from their false noses and ridiculous wigs 
 as aging, harassed-looking men ; the tenor just now 
 how fascinating, devil-may-care a rascal, in his azure 
 uniform of the Hussars! was pounced upon by a 
 resolute wife and hustled home; the very prima 
 donna queen of a glittering kingdom, half an hour 
 since appeared fresh from wiping off her girlish- 
 ness and animation with her rouge, to wrangle, 
 maybe, with some shabby pedler of lace under- 
 wear who, bill in hand, had managed to waylay her. 
 It seemed that of all the company there was but one 
 set which did not lose, on contact with the open air, 
 whatever distinction the lights of the proscenium 
 had shed. This group was made up of the "show 
 girls."
 
 MARIE 143 
 
 Frequently, late in the afternoon, when Felix was 
 calling on Marie Sinjon, these young women ran 
 in for half an hour's gossip. For him, there was 
 fascination in that intercourse through which, all the 
 while, ran a faint undertone of obliquity. Yet some- 
 times, while sitting in the little crimson parlor, where 
 the shades were drawn against the dusk, where the 
 saturnine hairdresser Miriam was silently at work, 
 where two or three girls, as well off for fine feathers 
 as so many peacocks, were chattering " shop-talk" 
 at once, Felix would feel a mental confusion, an 
 enervation of will power, a moral suffocation that 
 at the same time shamed and thrilled him as if 
 his manhood were being smothered in so much fla- 
 grant femininity. 
 
 When these visitors had gone, Marie Sinjon would 
 usually give him in some way to understand that they 
 distressed her by their conversation, that she wished 
 they would not come to see her. "But in the pro- 
 fession," she would say, " it's a bad thing to make ene- 
 mies. One has to own to nearly every sort of friend! " 
 
 There was one "show girl" whom Felix found 
 different from the rest. This was a gentle-faced, 
 quiet girl named Miss Qewan. Her soft voice, with 
 its intimation of self-restraint, her modest conduct, 
 and her charitable views caused Felix to wonder why 
 Marie Sinjon had not recognized in her a kindred 
 soul and chosen her for an intimate instead of Miss 
 Llanelly. 
 
 The latter, exuberantly blooming, bursting with 
 rude vitality and high spirits, reminded Felix of a
 
 I 4 4 PREDESTINED 
 
 splendid peasant whose metropolitan veneer is no 
 disguise. She was one of those daughters of the 
 people who, amid the meanest surroundings, had 
 expanded into a majestic and disquieting beauty, 
 her vivid allure becoming finally too superb for its 
 environment, and making escape from the monoto- 
 nous and drudging life of her own kind too easy. 
 With a great appetite for fine clothes, rich food, 
 scenes of excitement, and the homage of men, she 
 had "risen," as she would have said, from some 
 shabby home that now, no doubt, she could scarcely 
 see in its exact proportions, while looking back 
 through all the vicissitudes that must have intervened. 
 
 It was "Nora Llanelly's good heart," Felix was 
 informed, that had first attracted Marie to her. 
 
 "A kind heart! I thought myself so lucky in 
 finding such a thing that I was glad to take every- 
 thing else with it. You don't know, perhaps, how 
 rare good hearts are, in some situations, and how 
 terribly one can long for them." 
 
 "Poor little girl, as if I didn't!" Whereupon he 
 assured Marie that he understood her, in that case 
 as in all others, perfectly. 
 
 And yet, he reflected, how inaccurate an impres- 
 sion of her he had got at first! 
 
 On that first night, ill at ease before her cold scru- 
 tiny, angry at her deliberate rudeness, baffled, finally, 
 by her indifferent surrender to his kisses, he had 
 believed her to be everything that she, by all her 
 subsequent utterances and actions, had convinced 
 him she was struggling not to become. For no sooner
 
 MARIE jgfc 145 
 
 had he shown her his impressible disposition than she 
 had seemed, in a burst of trustfulness, determined to 
 reveal to him, at least, her true self. Little by little, 
 with touching confidences murmured in the dusk, 
 with long clear looks disclosing untold yearnings, 
 with low sighs at the thought of other sorts of lives, 
 she wove about herself a fine, transfiguring fabric 
 a veil tinged with the wan hues of moral beauty 
 smothered by mischance, a veil through which, as 
 the glamour of it thickened, she appeared to the 
 young man ever the more remote, in instincts, from 
 those round her, ever a rarer and more estimable 
 personality, ever worthier of pity, of comforting ser- 
 vices, and of respect. 
 
 Many a time, indeed, he told her how much he 
 respected her. "For did he not know the golden 
 heart within her, that had been forced to suffer so 
 much, yet still retained, as if by a miracle, its first 
 fresh beauty, longing for the heights it ought to 
 occupy by right, and if there was justice in the 
 universe was going to gain some day? " 
 
 "You are good," she would reply, gently laying 
 her cool hand on his. " How you help me : how you 
 give me hope! What if I had never met you?" 
 
 And, wrapped in a secret reverie, she would gaze 
 at him for a long while, her green eyes seeming not 
 only to take in all his visible features, but also to 
 explore his nature to its depths. 
 
 He was, no doubt, more valuable to her than he 
 suspected, with his good looks, with his air of good 
 breeding, with his conversation from which there was
 
 146 PREDESTINED 
 
 always something to be learned, and with that sug- 
 gestion, which he continually disseminated, of aristo- 
 cratic antecedents and good fortune. There are 
 some persons of whom it is thought instantly: "He 
 cannot possibly be ill-born, or poor, or uncertain of 
 his future." It is toward such individuals, with their 
 indescribable, yet convincing, promise of great things 
 to come, that those turn their eyes who have every- 
 thing to gain, and who can gain nothing save through 
 attachment to another. 
 
 Marie, by spinning pretty tales about her girl- 
 hood wherein she appeared a quaint, delightful 
 little innocent encouraged Felix to talk about him- 
 self, to tell her something of his life, his work, and 
 his ambitions. 
 
 Quite naturally he contrived for her a history of 
 himself half true, half false : he related all that was 
 flattering in his career anecdotes of his family, his 
 luxurious early years, his travels, the wealthy friends 
 one would have thought his boon companions still ; he 
 avoided mentioning his loss of fortune and his social 
 downfall. "His work in the newspaper office an 
 uncongenial apprenticeship, perhaps was going to 
 be of great value to him some day: he would not 
 regret it." Like many another of a disposition easily 
 affected, he was apt to enter into a role so thoroughly 
 that, for the moment, it took on the aspect of reality. 
 So, often, while uttering some such rhodomontade 
 about his journalistic business, for an instant he 
 would see himself again in his old guise a hero, 
 making great sacrifices for the sake of literature.
 
 MARIE 147 
 
 With so much ability for self-delusion, it was not 
 strange that he should manage to delude another. 
 Crossing their wits, they played a well-matched game 
 of fence, he as dexterous in feint of reminiscences as 
 she, and, no doubt, giving her just as much accurate 
 information as she returned. All these lunges and 
 parries may have ended by somewhat dazzling the 
 eyes of both. For just as he failed to perceive that 
 in her story there were hiatuses to spare between 
 her "life at home" and her present situation, so, 
 probably, she did not see that none of his fashion- 
 able adventures were in actual progress. 
 
 The part which his pride had urged upon him 
 proved an expensive one to play. 
 
 Fall passed, and winter came: the languishing and 
 sombre nuances of these seasons, erstwhile fraught 
 with explicit charm, were this year but vaguely felt 
 by Felix. He who had been wont to draw keen 
 pleasure from innumerable tenuous sources, found 
 his old interests all turning stale, his old visions 
 losing their beauty, then suffering eclipse. Finally, 
 he threw overboard everything except his idol of the 
 moment, Pleasure. So, without ballast, like an an- 
 tique voyager lured on by siren songs, he steered 
 a plunging course into uncharted, mist-filled seas, 
 where, on all sides, through vapors crawling sinu- 
 ously along the hollows of wine-colored waves, 
 appeared white, glistening shapes, leaning forward 
 with fair arms outstretched, and uttering cries of 
 provocation. 
 
 At such a pass, there is no rationalizing force so
 
 148 PREDESTINED 
 
 swift in effect as an awakening to poverty. One 
 afternoon, while sitting alone in a cafe, Felix made 
 some reckonings, laboriously, with growing conster- 
 nation. He stared at the result in horror. He was 
 at the end of his resources, and in debt. 
 
 Dismally looking up, at last, from his empty glass, 
 he saw, approaching amid the cafe tables, Mr. Noon, 
 in a fawn-colored overcoat the lapel of which was 
 decorated with a white carnation. 
 
 The new-comer and Felix, because of their senti- 
 mental projects, were continually being thrown to- 
 gether. On scores of evenings spent in each other's 
 company, they had enjoyed to the full that disinte- 
 gration of reserve which alcohol induces. It was on 
 the rambling discussions of those hours, the involun- 
 tary confessions, the maudlin protestations of esteem, 
 that their friendship had been built. 
 
 Recognizing the young man, Noon smiled, rumbled 
 a facetious greeting, sat down, and smote the bell on 
 the table a hearty blow. But he stopped in the 
 midst of a remark to stare at Felix's face. 
 
 "What's wrong?" he asked. 
 
 Then, glancing down, he saw, on the table, two or 
 three envelopes with figures scribbled over them. 
 Felix made haste to pick these up. 
 
 "I feel a little blue this afternoon," he answered. 
 "It may be the weather." And he looked out of 
 the window at the dusk, powdered with snow-flakes, 
 which was bringing to an end a cheerless day. 
 
 Noon gulped his highball, lighted a long cigar, 
 inhaled the smoke, and rolled his eyes toward the
 
 MARIE 149 
 
 gilded ceiling, all the while wearing furtively an ex- 
 pression of discomfort. Twice he opened his mouth 
 to speak, and twice checked himself with a forced 
 cough. 
 
 Felix, meanwhile, regarded him enviously. For 
 from the hands of this burly fellow, this sybarite and 
 Wall Street speculator who burned the candle night 
 and day, there perpetually rained money. Up and 
 down Broadway, wherever lights shone brilliantly by 
 night, he was referred to as "a prince." At first- 
 nights in the theatres, at midnight supper parties in 
 the restaurants, at "stag" dinners where actors and 
 their managers congregated with a hilarious swarm 
 of artists, hotel proprietors, playwrights and politi- 
 cians, he was a familiar figure. Men greeted him 
 jovially; women stared at him. With his dark eyes, 
 gray temples, heavy jowl, big shoulders, and resplen- 
 dent clothes, he was what girls of Miss Llanelly's 
 way of thinking called "a handsome dog." 
 
 Amid his amusements, he had an air of ponderous 
 vigor, of somewhat taurine formidableness. With 
 his devotion to elaborate menus, .strong cigars, and 
 potent alcoholic drinks, he revealed on all occasions 
 his unbridled and unappeasable appetency. But 
 whenever he had drunk a good deal, there rose from 
 the depths of this heavy roisterer's nature just as 
 strange, unsuspected objects rise sometimes from the 
 bottom of a stirred up pool an asstheticism curi- 
 ously delicate, a pleasure in sensuous, brilliant, and 
 decadent forms of art. He delighted in the erotic 
 dissonance of the "Salome" of Strauss; he knew by
 
 150 PREDESTINED 
 
 book the " Fleurs du Mai " of Baudelaire ; he was en- 
 raptured by the "Sataniques" of the etcher Rops. 
 Invariably, genius, if, instead of soaring, it clung to 
 earth, found the way straight to his heart. All gifted 
 men who had conspicuous vices fascinated him 
 "they were so human." 
 
 He had evidently grown fond of Felix. On relin- 
 quishing his first attitude toward the young man 
 which, in a less stalwart person, would have seemed 
 like disquiet he had assumed an eager amity, a 
 kindliness beyond his wont, nearly such solicitude as 
 that by which one may strive to neutralize a hidden 
 remorse. If he had one day unwittingly done Felix 
 an injury in secret, he could not more pains-takingly 
 have tried to make amends. 
 
 When his gaze had thoroughly explored the gilded 
 ceiling of the cafe, Noon uttered, in an artificial 
 voice : 
 
 "Have you seen the ticker to-day? It was fierce 
 downtown. I'm nearly used up, what with the cus- 
 tomers and my own little affairs we stock-brokers, 
 you know, Mr. Author, wouldn't make much if we 
 depended on our commissions. But wait till to- 
 morrow; there's going to be a massacre. I've got a 
 tomahawk up my sleeve, myself. It's the chance of 
 the year, for a man who has some spare cash." 
 
 Then, as if at a chance thought : 
 
 "Why, look here, Piers! I could put it in your way, 
 if you happened to have a fair balance at the bank!" 
 
 A bitter laugh escaped Felix. Then, recollecting 
 himself, with averted eyes he answered:
 
 MARIE 
 
 "That's kind of you. But the fact is, I'm already 
 over my quarterly income. The old wretch who 
 handles the estate won't ever advance a penny." 
 
 "Ah, what a shame! And such an opportunity. 
 Hold on, I'll tell you what!" 
 
 And, slapping a check-book upon the table, Noon 
 scribbled a check, in Felix's favor, for ten thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 " To-morrow morning put this check into your 
 bank. Then send me immediately, by messenger, 
 another, made out to my firm, for the same amount. 
 I'll put it through my office as an order from you, 
 for a certain stock, never mind which, on margin. 
 Your bother ends there; the rest is up to me. No 
 risk to you, d'you see, and you're on hand when the 
 melon is cut." 
 
 "But why," faltered Felix, with dry lips, "should 
 you do this for me?" 
 
 "Nonsense!" growled Noon, while banging the 
 table bell. 
 
 Five days later, Felix received, from the brokerage 
 firm of which Noon was a member, a check for three 
 thousand two hundred and eighty-three dollars and 
 fifty cents. 
 
 In his wild outburst of thankfulness, Felix swore 
 that he had learned his lesson, that he would impose 
 no more upon the providence which, with awesome 
 regularity, was manifest in his dark hours. Here 
 was the chance for a fresh start ; these talents, falling 
 out of the blue into his lap, how faithfully he would 
 husband and augment them! Old dreams grew
 
 152 PREDESTINED 
 
 bright; optimism and a sense of power returned to 
 him. He felt able to perform Herculean feats of 
 strength, to work with the titanic energy and fecun- 
 dity of another Balzac, to achieve fame at a bound, 
 to become, while still in his twenties, a colossal figure 
 a Jiterary Napoleon. Ah, what a career he was 
 now free to enter on! 
 
 And all this thanks to Noon! 
 
 Before Felix's incoherent thanks, the speculator 
 seemed to flinch a little. Then, fixing the other with 
 his eyes, he answered, while making a secretive 
 gesture : 
 
 "We'll forget it now. It was just between you and 
 me, you understand." 
 
 "As you say." Felix drew a long breath of relief. 
 So Marie need not know how close he had come to a 
 smash-up ! 
 
 His elation demanded outlet ; his prosperity tempted 
 him into extravagances. It was Christmas week ; he 
 would give in his studio a Christmas eve party of the 
 gayest sort. A graceful excuse would be a recent 
 triumph of Marie's. On the withdrawal of an ac- 
 tress of small importance from "The Lost Venus," 
 she had, by the greatest luck, obtained a part in 
 which she spoke a dozen lines. 
 
 Felix turned his rooms upside down, bought new 
 hangings, consulted the caterer whose employees had 
 waited on him at balls in other days, ordered flowers 
 and holly, ran in and out of jewelry shops in search 
 of supper gifts, then, standing under the skylight, 
 with his dog barking round him, viewed the arrival
 
 MARIE 153 
 
 of many hampers. For this business he had plenty 
 of time. He had resigned from The Evening Sphere. 
 He was too much occupied by great plans, now, to 
 " think of writing murder stones." 
 
 He invited a dozen guests, glowing with pleasure at 
 the thought of having again so many friends. Had 
 he forgotten any ? On Christmas eve, at dusk, while 
 passing the Metropolitan Opera House, he saw 
 stretched across the billboards Mme. Regne Lod- 
 brok's name. 
 
 Paul Pavin ! Surely he had returned by this time ? 
 Felix hurried to the portrait-painter's old studio. 
 
 "Yes, he had returned; he was even in the build- 
 ing, on the top floor west." 
 
 It was the Frenchman's hour for relaxation. He 
 was at home, alone, stretched out on one of the faded 
 couches like a huge Viking, ruddy as ever, his spread- 
 ing, golden beard aglimmer. 
 
 He rose slowly to his feet, with a bewildered look. 
 
 "Who is it?" he cried, in French. Then he low- 
 ered his eyebrows and, with a great laugh, strode 
 forward. 
 
 "Mon Dieu, it is that Felix! What a strange 
 thing! For a moment, while you stood in the 
 shadows, I thought I don't know what. At least, 
 the present seemed to melt away. But what you 
 reminded me of, I cannot just put the finger on. 
 How curious!" 
 
 He scrutinized Felix in perplexity. Soon he 
 shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and clapped his 
 heavy hands upon the other's arms.
 
 154 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Why did you disappear, answer me that, sir! 
 It was unkind of you: those smoky twilights were 
 beginning to make me young again. But there, 
 I forgive you. You come back in a good hour. 
 Noel rings you in." 
 
 What a kind heart was here! thought Felix. 
 
 They sat down together. Without asking a single 
 disconcerting question, Pavin talked about his own 
 life of the last six months. He had been in Paris, 
 Vienna, and St. Petersburg; he was going soon to 
 Washington to portray the President; he had done 
 several pictures, and had sold one to the French 
 government. Near his chair, there was a large 
 canvas, on an easel, turned to the wall. 
 
 Felix remembered the portrait of Eileen Tambor- 
 layne, her sittings in Pavin's studio, the evenings 
 when he had called there for her, to find her, some- 
 times, scarcely ready to set out with him, though 
 daylight had long since faded. 
 
 Now, able to view that whole epoch in perspective, 
 he interpreted with startling clearness many minute 
 circumstances lost on him before. 
 
 "How soft I was!" 
 
 He looked at Pavin intently, full of conjectures, 
 but without resentment. One could not, at this late 
 day, hold such feelings toward a splendid celebrity 
 who permitted an obscure young man to call him 
 friend. Felix carried away the Frenchman's promise 
 to "look in round midnight" as if it were a priceless 
 boon. His supper-party was going to be distin- 
 guished as well as gay.
 
 MARIE 155 
 
 Returning home, he found everything in readiness. 
 The florist had gone; the caterer's men had made 
 their preparations; the caretaker was sweeping the 
 hallway. 
 
 The studio had been stripped of nearly all its 
 furniture. The four walls were banked to the sky- 
 light with box-trees and holly-bushes. All the glossy 
 foliage was powdered with fine tinsel. The circular 
 table, with twelve chairs ranged round it, laden with 
 china and wine-glasses, nearly hidden by masses of 
 mistletoe and deep-red roses, seemed laid in the hol- 
 low of some little glen where snow had just fallen. 
 
 Felix turned on all the lights. Producing some 
 chopped ice from a waiter, he mixed himself a couple 
 of cocktails. Then he lighted a cigarette, picked up 
 The Evening Sphere and, with a sigh of satisfaction, 
 sat down beside the refulgent table, to kill time. 
 
 On the second page of the newspaper he read : 
 
 "Paris, December 24. Mrs. James Corrochie 
 Ferrol, of New York, died suddenly to-day, at the 
 Hotel Ritz, of heart failure. ..." 
 
 Felix sat motionless, intent on this catastrophe. He 
 imagined the scene which was doubtless being en- 
 acted at the moment, thousands of miles away: in an 
 alcove heavy with shadows, the daughter sitting beside 
 the body of the mother, while, throughout the French 
 city, church bells were uttering Christmas chimes. 
 
 But he was unable to feel the poignancy of that 
 picture. He groped in his heart for the appropriate 
 emotions. He could not find them. They had been 
 obliterated ?
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HALF of Felix's guests, with a nonchalance engen- 
 dered of long dinners and hours spent in cafes, 
 brought with them to the supper-party their com- 
 panions of the earlier evening. In the studio, amid a 
 confusion of large coiffures and close-trimmed heads, 
 appeared on all sides unfamiliar faces. "Show 
 girls," radiant in light-colored dresses, coolly intro- 
 duced strange young men who apologized unsteadily 
 for intruding. Some one dragged in the tenor of 
 "The Lost Venus," who had managed to give his 
 wife the slip at the stage door. Noon produced no 
 less a personage than Montmorrissy, the theatrical 
 manager; and, as if this were not enough, Pavin 
 arrived with another unexpected celebrity Oliver 
 Corquill, the novelist. These two had been dining 
 at the same house on Fifth Avenue, and Corquill, 
 remembering Felix perfectly, had consented out of 
 curiosity, perhaps to "look in for a moment." 
 
 Felix soon perceived that the writer's eye was on 
 him constantly. If he had played the complaisant 
 host well enough before, forthwith he surpassed him- 
 self. He gave confidence to dismayed waiters, made 
 persons whom he had never seen before laugh out- 
 right at the whimsical good nature of his greetings, 
 
 and drank a cocktail with nearly every group of new 
 
 156
 
 MARIE 157 
 
 arrivals. Twenty-one persons wedged themselves 
 round the table, to which a dozen had been invited, 
 in such good fellowship that several young women 
 agreed to share their plates with total strangers. 
 For a time it was thought that Montmorrissy would 
 have to take Marie's quiet friend, Miss Qewan, on ' 
 his knee. 
 
 With the appearance of the champagne, the assem- 
 bly, for the most part already stimulated, became 
 hilarious as if the mere sight of those large bottles 
 wrapped in napkins were exhilarating. The con- 
 tinuous vocal din, pierced by shrill laughter, Felix 
 presently imagined to be like the babble of some 
 loose, pagan ritual of antiquity; and in the solemn 
 countenances of the waiters, moving to and fro above 
 the beaming faces of the guests, the young man 
 found, to his diversion, something sacerdotal, as if 
 there were ministering here a bizarre priesthood of 
 the vine. 
 
 "So, surely, the creatures of Dionysos in secret 
 glens," he thought. "Why, for that matter, does 
 not time turn back to-night: have we not here the 
 most charming maenads, and as many aegipans, and 
 no doubt a satyr or two the whole rout besides 
 the proper woodland setting? Beat, drums; blow,, 
 pipes; we'll swing the leopard skins again! What 
 is it blotches the recesses of the forest with red fires ? 
 The god's afoot; the green eyes of his lynxes come 
 flickering through bracken; the torchlight wavers 
 nearer over the convolutions of great branches 
 louder the corybantes' drums; frenzy bursts round
 
 i$8 PREDESTINED 
 
 about : the world's aflame, and writhing in a fanatical 
 ecstasy. Join in! Who knows the ancient cry? 
 Evoe! Sabo'i!" And, shivering with delight at the 
 pictures of primeval orgies which those words evoked, 
 he repeated, under his breath: 
 
 "Evoe! Saboi!" 
 
 "Felix, what are you muttering?" exclaimed 
 Marie, who, in a new dress of old-rose silk, her tawny 
 hair bound with a fillet of black velvet, sat beside 
 him. 
 
 He raised his head. As he gazed round at his 
 friends, with the sensations of one returning from 
 afar, loneliness chilled his heart. Three times a 
 waiter had to whisper to him that "a party wished 
 to see him in the hallway." 
 
 At the end of the hallway, Felix found a sad-faced 
 little woman, plainly dressed, standing in a diffident 
 attitude, and staring at him with large, lustrous eyes. 
 
 She was evidently taken aback by this apparition 
 of a fine, flushed young man in evening dress, with 
 valuable pearls in the embroidered bosom of his 
 shirt, and a gold fob glittering on his hip. Protesting 
 timidly that "he was not the gentleman she had 
 expected to see," she inquired for the consumptive 
 artist from whom Felix had rented the studio. 
 
 "But he has not lived in New York for over a 
 year!" the young man informed her. 
 
 Her small, pale face, the face of a woman of thirty, 
 slowly expressed weariness and despair. 
 
 "Thank you very much, sir," she said, listlessly- 
 then turned toward the staircase.
 
 MARIE 
 
 Through the half-open doorway of the studio came 
 voices of women raised in a waltz-song from "The 
 Lost Venus." Half-way down the first flight of steps, 
 the stranger paused to listen, her white face upturned 
 and seeming to float mysteriously midst the shadows 
 of the staircase well, wherein her sombrely clothed 
 shape was blotted out. Presently, at the outer cor- 
 ners of her lustrous eyes appeared two tears, ready 
 to roll down her cheeks. 
 
 Felix, distressed, leaned over the balustrade. 
 
 "You are in trouble. Surely I can help you in 
 some way? At least, let me try to find your friend'* 
 address." 
 
 She shook her head, and the two tears slid quickly, 
 glistening, down her face. Then, like a child that 
 knows whom to confide in: 
 
 "He was my husband's friend. I thought perhaps 
 he could tell me where my husband is. He's left 
 me again, this month past, on one of his lovely sprees. 
 But I thought Christmas eve might bring him home, 
 or that I might find him!" 
 
 Leaning against the rail, hiding her face, she 
 sobbed : 
 
 "Oh, if I hadn't come here to-night, and heard 
 people having a good time!" 
 
 Suddenly, the stranger flashed at Felix a horror- 
 stricken look, cried, in an agitated voice: "What can 
 you think of me!" and ran down the stairs. 
 
 "Stop!" he called after her. He started in pur- 
 suit. But he had not reached the second floor, when 
 he heard the street door slam.
 
 160 PREDESTINED 
 
 As he re-entered the studio, every one stopped 
 talking to look at him. Marie's green eyes seemed 
 to plunge into his brain. 
 
 When he had recounted his experience to her, she 
 whispered, in a voice trembling with anger: 
 
 "I should think, my dear, that you could manage 
 a little more cleverly at least so that twenty people 
 couldn't have the laugh on me!" 
 
 He protested in bewilderment. As two or three 
 girls were, indeed, watching them with sweet, mali- 
 cious smiles, Marie turned to Noon, who sat the other 
 side of her. 
 
 The speculator, his massive face shining, had 
 reached the aesthetic stage of his intoxication. With 
 half -shut eyes, he was muttering: 
 
 "The most subtle epicureanism consists in chaste 
 pursuits in the midst of frenzy." And, amid the 
 uproar of advanced revelry, he began to intone, in 
 his bull's voice, an old Latin hymn in which the first 
 syllable of every line resembled a note of the musical 
 scale. At a remark of Marie's, he was good enough 
 to leave off shouting. And presently Felix, to his 
 amazement, heard the two discussing she as intel- 
 ligently, it appeared, as Noon the principles of the 
 Gregorian chant. 
 
 Good heavens, the curious scraps of knowledge 
 that every little while he was discovering in her! 
 For the hundredth time, he pictured for himself a 
 scene that many an indefinite " confession" of hers 
 had helped him to construct: an old, placid home- 
 stead somewhere, in which, part of a gentle family
 
 MARIE 161 
 
 circle how pitiful, the loss of it she had been culti- 
 vated for far different ends. 
 
 Nora Llanelly, on his other hand, leaning against 
 his shoulder, was laughing softly at what had just 
 amazed him. Her exuberant form was laced into 
 a light -green dress; her cheeks were bright with 
 pulsing blood; her lips glowed vividly; her eyes 
 shone with unusual brilliancy. She was a disturb- 
 ing beauty at close quarters. 
 
 But she seemed moved by no feeling save generous 
 admiration for Marie, who was meeting Noon's jargon 
 so nearly on an equal footing. 
 
 "Listen to her," whispered Nora, somewhat un- 
 steadily. " Isn't she the wonderful kid ? Would you 
 ever think she started life as she did faith, as both of 
 us did? We grew up in the same block, you know." 
 
 "You and she! I thought you had known each 
 other only a little while!" 
 
 "That's a good one!" She laughed in his face. 
 "Why, I've known her all my life." 
 
 Carried away, Felix thought, by something analo- 
 gous to the pride of a "self-made man" recounting 
 circumstances of his humble origin, she began, gig- 
 gling, to relate what she called "comical" reminis- 
 cences of her early youth, in which Marie had a 
 part. And there rose before the young man views 
 of mean city streets on summer nights, lined with 
 flat-houses all open windows and rusty fire-escapes, 
 swarming with slattern figures lightly clad views 
 midst which two immature girls of the people, untidy 
 in cheap clothes, thin from malnutrition, but full of
 
 1 62 PREDESTINED 
 
 the feverish energy of curiosity, moved seeking their 
 first taste of puerile romance, mischief, consterna- 
 tion, deception, and distorted ambition. 
 
 A bolt from the blue that disclosure! 
 
 When, in the smoky studio, revelry had reached its 
 height and failed from sheer exhaustion; when the 
 blue glimmer of the Christmas dawn, creeping through 
 the skylight, had sent all the jaded roisterers dragging 
 off to rest; when, for Felix, a heavy sleep had given 
 place to all the aches and nauseas of resuscitation, 
 there contested for the young man's notice, with his 
 bodily pain, an agonizing query. This girl of faint 
 flushes and translucent tissues, this creature of ob- 
 scure, ingratiating charms, so adroit in simulation of 
 refinement where had she acquired the qualities 
 that made her seem superior to her surroundings? 
 In what long-attended schools, from what deeply 
 interested teachers, at whose patient, fondling hands? 
 He had now, for the first time, visions of predecessors 
 more cultivated, brilliant, and amiable, than he. 
 Such thoughts were scarcely to be borne. 
 
 All the while, she must have been laughing at him 
 for his gullibility. To the devil with such deceit! 
 
 Ah, but the long, perfumed hours! 
 
 It needed no more than this to show him how 
 closely the coils of tender habit had enwrapped him. 
 In that play which he had begun, for diversion's sake, 
 with tongue in cheek, he could now pull a tragic 
 enough grimace. Forthwith, he began to suffer all 
 the anguishes inevitable in a passion fashioned on 
 such a pattern and of such materials.
 
 MARIE 163 
 
 The first explosion immediately followed their next 
 meeting; it was she, with an angry reference to his 
 "mysterious" visitor of the supper-party, who un- 
 wittingly fired the train. 
 
 "I can guess who it was, too! I should have 
 thought, if words mean anything, you would have 
 given that up." 
 
 "I don't understand you." 
 
 "Ah," she retorted, "you think I haven't heard! 
 About you and a woman with black hair oh, a very 
 fashionable-looking woman whom you used to be 
 seen with everywhere. Deny it if you can!" 
 
 "That belongs to the past," he answered, wincing. 
 Then, in a gust of rage: 
 
 "And your past! Have I ever taunted you with 
 it?" And his volley of recriminations, brutally ac- 
 curate, thanks to Nora Llanelly, made her give back 
 as if he had showered her with so many blows. 
 
 She sank upon the couch, and buried her face amid 
 the pillows. Finally, there came to his ears, between 
 sobs, in muffled tones, her self-justification: 
 
 "What wonder if a loving woman should strive to 
 appear worthier than she was ? And the more recent 
 past how she hated it, how she had hoped to forget 
 it now! But no: women were never forgiven, even 
 when, in their own souls, they felt themselves clarified 
 by love. Fond, foolish, pitiable dreams of one who 
 had never loved before! She had thought to find in 
 him a unique nobility, a nature rising above the 
 heartless judgment of the world!" 
 
 Thus, in effect, her plaint. Attacked at his most
 
 1 64 PREDESTINED 
 
 vulnerable points, seized, at sight of so much agita- 
 tion, with an overpowering physical excitement, he 
 threw himself down beside the couch, and took her 
 in his arms. That was a bitter-sweet, incoherent 
 quarter of an hour, wherein sobs gradually ceased, 
 and tears were kissed away, and one, at least, groping 
 with his senses instead of with his logic, had no clear 
 understanding how all had been ostensibly made 
 right once more. In such exhaustion as ensues from 
 self-abandonment, they drew themselves slowly back 
 toward sanity by feeble and pathetic discourse. 
 She faltered: 
 
 "If you only knew the dreams I've had! To 
 escape all this, and all that's past, with you never 
 to see it, or think of it, again! A place far away 
 in the country, so quiet, so peaceful, where I could 
 be happy with you, where you could do those great 
 things you are planning, and have dogs, and horses, 
 and old friends round you." 
 
 This tableau abruptly gave him pause: it was ar- 
 ranged decidedly in an atmosphere of domesticity. 
 A host of wistful ambiguities which she had uttered 
 in the past seemed now made plain. 
 
 Still, with her arms round him and her breath upon 
 his cheek, he could not see, in the vague portents that 
 were gathering, sufficient incongruity to alarm him. 
 All sorts of extravagance, if contemplated from a 
 sentimental view-point, presently grow reasonable. 
 
 From that scene Felix emerged, to his subsequent 
 surprise, as poor in information as before: Marie, it 
 appeared, while admitting everything he had taxed
 
 MARIE 165 
 
 her with, had neglected to offer further particulars. 
 Moreover, he had promised "never to bring up the 
 hateful past again." 
 
 What, then, had he accomplished? He had been 
 the means of breaking the friendship between Marie 
 and Nora Llanelly, who, after a violent quarrel, had 
 parted company "forever." 
 
 This was the easier since Nora who had first met 
 Noon while rehearsing for "The Lost Venus" be- 
 gan the year by informing every one, while waving 
 plump hands which glittered with some new rings, 
 that she was "tired of acting." She abandoned the 
 stage. Undecided whether to make a little journey 
 of recuperation to Monte Carlo or to Bermuda, she 
 favored Monte Carlo, since Paris, with its dress- 
 makers, was, she understood, on the way. However, 
 she remained in New York, never far from the racket 
 of theatres and night restaurants, and regularly every 
 fair Sunday afternoon appeared on the East Drive in 
 Central Park, reclining in a hired victoria, elabo- 
 rately dressed, brilliant of complexion, but very prim 
 in mien, and with an unhappy eye on the coachman 
 when his hat was cocked too far over his ear. 
 
 Marie could presently afford to smile at Nora in 
 her elegant leisure. 
 
 Since other of her unconfessed ambitions were not 
 easy of immediate fulfilment, Marie, who appeared 
 to favor the maxim that inaction equalled retro- 
 gression, set all her energies to the feat of climbing 
 the theatrical ladder. 
 
 One night in February, favored by that cool au-
 
 1 66 PREDESTINED 
 
 dacity which Felix had observed in her at the first, 
 without warning she played her trifling role at the 
 Trocadero Theatre in mimicry of a well-known tragic 
 actress. The audience, at once relishing the mali- 
 cious travesty, stirred in amusement, burst into laugh- 
 ter, and, as she trailed her skirts toward the wings, 
 sent after her a clatter of applause. In the second 
 act, when, from the auditorium, a general chuckle 
 greeted her reappearance, her effrontery was par- 
 doned by Montmorrissy. Within a week, that shrewd 
 personage was himself drilling her in an amplified 
 version of her part ; in March he permitted her to try 
 her voice in an eccentric trio ; and in April he prom- 
 ised her the soubrette's role in his forthcoming sum- 
 mer review, "The Silly Season." By his confession, 
 he was nearly as much astonished at Marie's per- 
 formance as was Felix. 
 
 The latter, from wavering between pride and an 
 intuitive uneasiness, ended by wishing that she had 
 never "made her hit." 
 
 Everything about Marie was now in process of 
 change. 
 
 She moved from West Forty-eighth Street to a 
 larger hotel on Lincoln Square, where, in three rooms, 
 she supplemented the furniture, with a hired piano, 
 some "Turkish" chairs, a davenport, and fresh por- 
 tieres of pale-green velours. Her door was opened 
 by a small, lax-mouthed mulatto woman, Mattie by 
 name, whom she had taken as maid. 
 
 Amid her altering surroundings, Marie herself 
 sometimes presented to Felix, when he chanced on
 
 MARIE 167 
 
 her unexpectedly, a new presence. Her figure in 
 dresses of the prevailing, so-called "Empire," style- 
 attained so extraordinary a slimness that it resembled 
 the attenuated models in fashion journals. One 
 could not now, however, any more than formerly, 
 find a detail in her appearance that was in bad taste. 
 "Refinement" was evidently more than ever the 
 shibboleth with her; and she did not even neglect to 
 note every week, while poring over the "society" 
 photographs in The Sunday Era, how the coiffures of 
 rich women of distinction were arranged. Her own 
 hair appeared to have turned a darker auburn; her 
 eyebrows and lashes, which, on account of their light 
 hue, had made her eyes too pale, no longer seemed 
 at fault. 
 
 Perhaps it was for this reason that her charms 
 gained emphasis. She was more often stared at on 
 the street. Men followed her about. 
 
 Then, too, in restaurants, at every other table 
 there now seemed to be some old friend that had 
 found his memory, moved by that amiability felt 
 toward persons who, by their successes, make even 
 mere acquaintance with them valuable. Felix was 
 disgusted and angered by the polite grins of strange 
 men who saluted her. Into many of these faces he 
 looked with sickening conjectures. 
 
 Her time was now much occupied. She had re- 
 hearsals to attend, appointments to keep at cos- 
 turner's and shoemaker's; her dresses required 
 interminable fittings; the stupidity of wig-makers 
 necessitated unexpected absences from home; Mont-
 
 1 68 PREDESTINED 
 
 morrissy " wanted to see her about her new part." 
 Felix's afternoon hour with Marie had frequently to 
 be abandoned. 
 
 The young man accepted everything in silence, 
 with a heavy heart. She seemed, as she became 
 more valuable in all ways, to be slipping gradually 
 from him. 
 
 Sometimes Marie, showering his gloomy face with 
 kisses, would beseech him to be reasonable. One 
 evening, coming home in the twilight to find him 
 waiting at a front window, she inquired, out of 
 patience : 
 
 "Where is Mattie? Why do you stare at me that 
 way? No doubt you think I've been enjoying my- 
 self, rehearsing the same song fifty times in a dirty 
 hall! Is it my fault if I'm always busy now?" 
 Then her eyes softened; she embraced him, and 
 murmured : 
 
 "Some day, perhaps, it won't be so?" 
 
 He had told her long since, when driven into a 
 corner by her gentle inquiries, that "his family estate 
 was to be turned over to him when he was thirty." 
 
 Unresponsive to her caress, he demanded, sud- 
 denly : 
 
 "Who brought you home in the hansom?" 
 
 While slowly lifting her large hat off her curls, she 
 mumbled indifferently, through a sheaf of hat -pins: 
 
 "Billy Noon. I met him on the street; he was 
 kind enough to give me a lift." 
 
 "Your quarrel with Nora doesn't include him, 
 then?"
 
 MARIE 169 
 
 "Why should it?" 
 
 As always when irritated, Felix had recourse to a 
 cigarette. Marie also took one from his gold case. 
 She was trying to inure herself to smoking, since it 
 had become so fashionable an accomplishment. 
 
 "Noon isn't well," she remarked. "You've seen 
 him lately? He's got a nervous habit of twitching 
 back his head." 
 
 Felix shrugged his shoulders. Whenever, now- 
 adays, he met the speculator who invariably had 
 something flattering to say about Marie it irked 
 him to maintain the warm manner imposed upon 
 him by his debt of gratitude. 
 
 "His condition isn't remarkable," Felix answered, 
 shortly. "His father died of locomotor ataxia. Noon 
 had St. Vitus's dance when a boy. He may expect 
 nearly anything before he's through." This thought 
 almost pleased the young man. 
 
 "Do you believe that sort of stuff? His trouble is 
 just that he leads too irregular a life. Do you know, 
 dear, I think you might almost take a little warning 
 from him?" 
 
 Indeed, during the past half year Felix had been 
 following closely in Noon's footsteps. 
 
 His new environment, with all its provocations of 
 opportunity and example, was constituted as if for 
 the very purpose of unbalancing a nature not able to 
 resist the call of pleasure. Felix, always immoderate 
 in exhilarative pursuits, soon reached a stage where 
 excitement was his common habit. He was finally 
 at a pass where artificial stimulation had become
 
 170 PREDESTINED 
 
 so large a feature of his existence that he was lost 
 without it. 
 
 Occasionally, he recalled with surprise times not 
 long past when, though living in all satisfaction, he 
 had not smoked incessantly, or felt at sight of liquors 
 an almost automatic impulse to sample them. Scru- 
 tinizing certain men, he would marvel at their uncon- 
 scious continence. One cigar, one drink these fin- 
 ished, they seemed to desire no more! With him, 
 one cigar, one drink, were but the incitement. 
 
 In return for his debility of mornings, he experi' 
 enced at night so long as his potations did not 
 stupefy him a superb deliverance from all restraint 
 the sloughing, as it were, of a cumbrous mental 
 envelope. What ravishing emotional expansions did 
 he not then enjoy ! What delicate perceptions did he 
 not then attain! How prodigally the world revealed 
 its treasuries of opportunity! How richly life was 
 englamoured with romance! 
 
 At those moments, his relations with Marie were 
 clothed in exquisite refinements. Now and then, 
 returning toward morning to his rooms, he sat down 
 at his writing-table his dog Pat, freshly awakened, 
 yawning against his knee and poured out to her on 
 paper such gossamer fancies as a troubadour, all 
 spiritual love, might dedicate to some white queen. 
 He could never tease Marie into telling him where 
 she kept his letters. 
 
 But perhaps, while wandering home in the small 
 hours, he found his intoxication waning on the way. 
 Then, in empty streets full of the freshness that fills
 
 MARIE 171 
 
 a city before dawn, he gloomed upon a time when 
 contact with immaculate nature had engendered no 
 remorse. 
 
 Late one night, his feet brought him before the Fer- 
 rol house. Doors and windows were boarded over. 
 A sign proclaimed the place for sale. From the attic 
 shone a light; old Joseph was still there, perhaps? 
 
 Ah, the sunny days of boyhood, the clarity of early 
 youth, the countryside, and friends in whose lives 
 there was no fault ! 
 
 Was he forgotten? No, surely not forgotten, but 
 remembered with contempt. 
 
 Rage surged through him rage at himself, at 
 everything, at Nina. Making a threatening gesture, 
 he ejaculated: 
 
 "I'll show her, yet!" 
 
 Some day, in contemplating his fame she would be 
 forced, to his revenge, into unreasoning regret! 
 
 He had continually a conviction of great years to 
 ensue. A nebular theory of his wherein he found 
 no small excuse for present laxity was that there 
 would rise, at last, from the ferment of his emotional 
 and physical excesses, an invaluable essence of ex- 
 perience. "A great artist," he had read somewhere, 
 in effect, "must himself have known everything that 
 he transcribes." Felix- who had also read Schopen- 
 hauer considered that he showed at least one in- 
 stinct of genius in this aspiration : to express, finally, 
 not what he had accumulated in his brain of the ex- 
 periences of others, but the countless conceptions of 
 that unique personality he felt himself, in all deep
 
 172 PREDESTINED 
 
 moments, to be. To add to the world's recorded 
 knowledge of humanity something unprecedented, 
 and not only to the world of his time, but also- 
 working with an art so sound as to defy the years 
 to the world of some remote posterity! Undying 
 fame ! He thrilled at the thought of thus conquering 
 ordinary human limitations, of not perishing at 
 death, of stamping an almost ineradicable signet of 
 his brain upon the sphere he lived in. 
 
 With such motives developing, he gathered energy 
 to work, despite the violence of his pastimes, at a 
 furious rate. Indeed, for the moment the very, ex- 
 cessive stimulation of his nerves assisted him to 
 performances of unnatural merit. The same means 
 that released him, nightly, from the commonplace 
 in thought, freed him, daily, from all natural mental 
 inhibitions. 
 
 It came to pass that his brain was stagnant when 
 he was not agitating it with tobacco or alcohol. He 
 worked best, he asserted, with a pipe in his mouth 
 and a decanter near at hand. 
 
 His short stories found ready .market with the 
 magazines; a novel, the very motive of which he 
 contemplated with exultation, was roughly taking 
 shape. Editors began to write to him in flattering 
 and inquiring terms. Oliver Corquill, meeting Felix 
 on the street, was quick with compliments. He 
 declared that the young man had surprised him. 
 
 But the novelist still had a good deal of advice to 
 offer. He concluded a technical dissertation by say- 
 ing, in a kindly voice:
 
 MARIE 173 
 
 "If you will pardon me, Piers, I think that at 
 present you are too much an actor, not enough of a 
 spectator, to appreciate the drama accurately." 
 
 "But," protested Felix, with a blush, remember- 
 ing his aphorism, " can one describe without having 
 felt?" 
 
 "I will say this, at least," Corquill replied. "One 
 cannot describe clearly what he is experiencing. In 
 the midst of stress, one sees everything with partial 
 eyes. Judgment, such as is necessary for intelligent 
 work of our kind, contains no emotional prejudices. 
 He records life precisely who views it from without, 
 just as it is an alien historian, not a soldier in the 
 heat of battle, who records the true complexion of a 
 war. So it is that you will not begin to attain your 
 ends till you detach yourself from the hurly-burly of 
 experience. The difficulty is, in many cases, finally 
 to detach oneself. To take a violent example : some- 
 times the soldier is so seriously crippled on the field 
 that he never comes to write his memoirs." 
 
 Paul Pavin, too, preached his sermon, and more 
 emphatically. 
 
 "It is well to be young, my Felix, and to learn life; 
 but, mon Dieu, even youth, if it is to develop into 
 something, should contain a grain of moderation. 
 You go too far: one of these days you will find your- 
 self beyond your depth, and the swim back too long. 
 Put down that whiskey and soda ; you are not drink- 
 ing it because you are thirsty. Suppose, now, I 
 painted portraits with my stomach full of cham- 
 pagne? Or with my head full of some woman?
 
 174 PREDESTINED 
 
 Art is its own stimulus, and foreign stimulation has 
 wrecked it many a time. Mme. Lodbrok is going to 
 look in here presently: I will get her to tell you a 
 story." 
 
 The singer, having supplemented her season's 
 work in opera with a profitable concert tour through 
 the Middle West, was about to sail for Europe. 
 Indeed, she came that afternoon to Pavin's studio to 
 say good-by. As majestic of port, fair, and good- 
 humored as ever, she greeted Felix heartily, and, in 
 passing to her deep chair beside the copper coffee- 
 pot, could not forego the pleasure of pinching his 
 cheek. 
 
 "What is there about him, Pavin, to make me 
 do that? He will go far, I think this boy!" 
 
 "I have just been telling him that he will go too 
 far, unless he takes care," returned the artist, as 
 flatly as if Felix were not present. "I am reminded 
 of a certain old history that we both know too well. 
 Chere amie, are you willing to relate it?" 
 
 Mme. Lodbrok set down her coffee-cup. Her face 
 clouded. 
 
 "You wish me to tell him about Buron?" 
 
 For a while she looked out, through the great 
 "north light," at the tender sky. High in the blue 
 lay motionless a few transparent little clouds, all 
 trailing shreds, slowly reddening in the sunshine of 
 the late afternoon. It was early May. A light 
 breeze, drifting through open sections of the "rorth 
 light," dispelled the tobacco smoke and scattered 
 faint, fresh odors.
 
 MARIE 175 
 
 Mme. Lodbrok woke. 
 
 "Thirty years! Figure to yourself, Paul, that it is 
 thirty years!" 
 
 Then, to Felix: 
 
 "Did you ever hear of Pierre Buron?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "Well, that is natural. 'My vision reaches too 
 far ahead,' he used to say. ' It is not my own period, 
 even in my own country, that will appreciate me.' 
 But when you speak of the three little, thin books of 
 Pierre Buron to the very few in Paris who know, 
 . they will answer ' There is the quintessence of 
 literature. It will rise again.' 
 
 "He was handsomer than you, liebchen, and with 
 such eyes!" 
 
 Pavin, nodding his big beard, interjected: 
 
 "I used to pass him on the street, when I was a 
 poverty-stricken young devil of a student. Eh, how 
 those eyes of his held me! Without knowing him, 
 I loved him. Then, one day, in the Luxembourg 
 Gardens, he sat down beside me. From that time, 
 he permitted me to be his friend." 
 
 "Yes," assented Mme. Lodbrok, "he had a great 
 charm for men, and, faith, a charm for women! For 
 my part, I considered him a god. I was eighteen, 
 fresh from Sweden, a student in the Conservatory, 
 when he married me. 
 
 "What prospects! He had youth, elegance, the 
 prestige of an old family, a sufficient fortune, and 
 talents that put his head among the clouds. He was 
 a person absolutely different, enjoying a what is
 
 1 76 PREDESTINED 
 
 that phrase 'divine release from the common ways 
 of men.' 
 
 "When his first book appeared, the marvellous life 
 that was expected of him! 
 
 "Then he took to drink, deliberately, as he took to 
 all dissipations, in order to feel every human thrill. 
 What a curiosity about life he had! Before it was 
 appeased, he found himself caught. 
 
 "We know how much more quickly a delicate 
 mechanism is ruined than a coarse one. Bit by 
 bit, all that beautiful fabric of genius was strained to 
 pieces. In time everything admirable in his nature 
 was destroyed. His brilliancy, his good name, and 
 his fortune gone, he sank, through all sorts of shame- 
 ful vicissitudes, from sight. And there remained only 
 those three little books, that had been thought the 
 forerunners of how splendid a career!" 
 
 After a long pause Felix, clearing his throat, 
 asked, timidly: 
 
 "He is still alive, then?" 
 
 Mme. Lodbrok produced a handkerchief, and 
 blew her nose. She replied: 
 
 "If he were dead, I am certain, I should feel it. 
 Yes, poor creature, surely, somewhere or other, he is 
 still dragging round his chains."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 FELIX considered the philosophy of Paul Pavin. 
 
 That Frenchman, worldly-wise, cynical, irreverent, 
 assuredly no social moralist in either theory or prac- 
 tice, still had his deity, in naming which he became 
 grave on the instant, and to preserve the perfect 
 image of which he would undoubtedly have turned 
 ruthless as a fanatic throttling habits at the moment 
 of their first encroachment, bludgeoning friendships 
 proved cumbrous, and stabbing hearts grown over- 
 fond. 
 
 Such devotion to art the young man found mag- 
 nificent. In viewing that career, it was as if he were 
 gazing on a great cliff of coral rock, dashed by the 
 waves, yet never shaken, amid all lashing tempests 
 teeming with a creative energy that built the summit, 
 year by year, to proportions ever nobler. 
 
 The echoes of Pavin's admonition continued to 
 strike on his ears clear, sane notes piercing a con- 
 fusion of futile sounds. Not Mme. Lodbrok's story 
 since he could not, in vigor, feel prescience of 
 disaster any more than of death but Pavin's words, 
 "Art is its own stimulus," decided him to try, at 
 least, another way of living. 
 
 Felix swore off drinking, then limited himself, as 
 
 once before, to three cigars a day, and finally, feeling 
 
 177
 
 178 PREDESTINED 
 
 a spiritual exhilaration as he contemplated absolute 
 sobriety, made so many good resolutions that, if he 
 had proved able to fulfil them all, his life would have 
 been scarcely less hedged about with decorous restric- 
 tions than an anchorite's. 
 
 Then came a morning distinguished by sensations 
 of superiority, when he seemed to be looking down 
 from a great height on a misguided humankind a 
 swarm of groundlings scrambling about, their noses 
 to the earth, in silly, unprofitable, and perverse 
 pursuits. 
 
 He quickly found opportunity to make all his 
 friends aware, as if by chance, that "he was not 
 drinking any more," that "he smoked very little 
 now," and so on. He insisted on discussing dissipa- 
 tion, which, he asserted, "had never yet been good 
 for any one, and was particularly bad for those who 
 worked with their brains." In short, he declaimed 
 in public, rather than considered in private, his half- 
 formed reasonings. 
 
 But his tone of voice was so authoritative, and his 
 continent demeanor so imposing, that he gave his 
 auditors an impression of strength. Maybe it was 
 the memory of old resolves, old struggles, old re- 
 lapses, rousing a secret envy in the region of the 
 conscience, that so clouded the faces of those listening 
 friends of Felix's. Marie herself, since he seemed to 
 have taken her advice, had a thoughtful manner as 
 of one who has found, unexpectedly, a strange ele- 
 ment to cope with. 
 
 And now, declared Felix, for work in earnest!
 
 MARIE 179 
 
 But his work did not proceed. 
 
 The stimulus that had driven him for months 
 withdrawn, that "stimulus of art," which was to 
 replace it, failed to appear. For art itself had a 
 depreciated aspect now, and all the conceptions per- 
 taining to it lost their lustre. Just as one emerging 
 from a dream full of agreeable illusions is saddened 
 to find enclosing him again a dreary and monoto- 
 nous reality, so Felix, all his induced enthusiasms 
 waning, looked mournfully on an altered world, 
 wherein only prosaic features were obtruded. 
 
 He sat by the hour at his writing-table, listless, 
 at gaze, thinking not of literature, but of abjured 
 pleasures. All that he had regarded as unprofitable, 
 in his burst of zeal, took on again insidiously, in this 
 retrospection, its allurements. The arguments which 
 he had thrown into the faces of his friends were logi- 
 cal no longer. 
 
 What a fool he had been, to run about publish- 
 ing his fine intentions! Already he was furtively 
 arranging the excuses he might offer, should / he 
 reappear clothed in his old habits. 
 
 It was the first of June a mild, sun-drenched 
 afternoon made for all sorts of joyous dilatations. 
 The air that blew through Felix's open windows in 
 West Thirty-second Street was a draught as intoxi- 
 cating as champagne. 
 
 Drab thoughts, long faces, forbidding gestures, 
 continence that shrivelled the heart what had they 
 to do with youth in Spring ? They belonged to age, 
 sitting cold and cramped beside the empty hearth,
 
 i8o PREDESTINED 
 
 shaking its old head dismally, hypocritically, over 
 what it could enjoy no longer. 
 
 Pavin himself a nice pattern for a preacher, even 
 now! And in his youth? Little likelihood that he 
 had put on so much as a shred of crape till curiosity 
 had been jigged to death! 
 
 "That for his fine maxims!" cried Felix, snapping 
 his fingers at the writing-table. "Not a line scratched 
 off that's what they're worth! He works best who 
 acts like 'a man of this world'; I can see that, 
 clearly ! " Old ways lay bathed in roseate light ; just 
 the determination to speed back to them made him 
 himself again. The dog, Pat, bounded round his 
 .master, barking. 
 
 So ended that experiment. 
 
 Pavin, at least, was not a witness of Felix's relapse. 
 The portrait -painter, his commissions finished, gave 
 up his studio in the Velasquez Building and em- 
 barked for France. He left with Felix the informa- 
 tion that he had recently renewed acquaintance, in 
 some fashionable gathering, with "a Mr. Fray," who, 
 on inheriting a fortune from a distant relative, had 
 managed with a thousand ingenuities and urbanities 
 to work his way up, through various social strata, 
 into the most admirable company. Indeed, he was 
 even then all but engaged to be married to a girl 
 of distinguished family. 
 
 Felix's hatred of the young dilettante was fanned 
 to a more furious flame than ever. That miserable 
 shallow-pate, all self-conceit, duplicity, and spite 
 that weak Judas, with his eyes of a sick kitten!
 
 MARIE 181 
 
 Again Felix longed to get his hands on Mortimer 
 Fray's thin neck. 
 
 He over whose very shoulders, as it seemed, the 
 fellow had wriggled into wealth and place, saw him- 
 self hardly better off for money than for social status. 
 
 Convinced by Noon's benevolence that luck would 
 extricate him in the nick of time from any quandary, 
 he had been extravagant as ever. In six months, to 
 be sure, he had banked eighteen hundred dollars, 
 earned from the magazines; but who could live 
 agreeably, along Broadway, at that rate? 
 
 Noon, on the other hand, having served in the 
 beginning to set the pace, was now able to acceler- 
 ate it. 
 
 The speculator, sensing financial reverses near 
 their origin, as a seafarer senses remotely-gathering 
 storms, played the game of stocks so shrewdly that 
 his occasional large losses were far exceeded by his 
 profits. A born gambler, confident of the ultimate 
 success of his luck, judgment, and audacity, he no 
 more revealed despondency at a disastrous day than 
 triumph at a rich coup. A ponderous air of mastery 
 was developing in him at the expense of genial traits. 
 His smiles were less amiable, his features in repose 
 more grim. His very dissipations though exceeding 
 in prodigality all previous limits now had in them, 
 Felix thought, something reserved and calculating. 
 
 Whenever Noon met the young man, he com- 
 plained of "those two girls, with their silly quarrel, 
 ending so much good sport." Surely, he hinted, it 
 was Marie's fault; for Nora had never in her easy-
 
 182 PREDESTINED 
 
 going life been known to nurse a grudge. At last, 
 after jerking his head involuntarily half a dozes 
 times, Noon would rumble: 
 
 "Felix, why don't you reason with Marie?" 
 
 But Felix's ideas in respect of that had changed. 
 He saw enough of the speculator as it was. Besides, 
 his instinct no longer recognized in Noon, for all the 
 latter's slaps on the back, whispered anecdotes, and 
 grins, the eager friendliness of other days. 
 
 The reconciliation was, however, effected without 
 Felix's aid. 
 
 Marie, with compunction for an excuse, donned 
 her newest hat and dress, and went to call on Nora. 
 Noon, opportunely strolling in toward dinner-time, 
 found the two young women together. They had 
 "made up"; everything was to be just as formerly! 
 The three, driving to Marie's rooms, burst in upon 
 Felix, laughing, bustling, demanding that he snatch 
 his hat and come to dinner. His gloom, acquired 
 from waiting long alone, was not much abated by 
 that tableau. 
 
 So it was that those four found themselves again 
 in close association. But for all Nora Llanelly's 
 charms, it was now Marie's personality that pre- 
 vailed. The beauty of the one had been eclipsed, 
 in the last few months, by the other's various devel- 
 oping talents. 
 
 No one could well have mistaken Nora's origin, 
 what with her loud laughter, elementary vocabulary, 
 ready amazement, and ignorance of everything not 
 duplicated in the life of Broadway. But even Felix
 
 MARIE 183 
 
 had been imposed on by Marie's conversation and 
 behavior. 
 
 And these she was continually improving. 
 
 In public, nothing escaped her : from the slightest 
 interplay of manners in which cultivated persons took 
 part she got instruction. Moreover, no lesson had to 
 be repeated to her. 
 
 Then, in private, whenever Felix touched on a 
 topic unfamiliar to her, without betraying lack of 
 knowledge, she succeeded in enlightening herself. 
 Frequently Felix learned, from her reference to some 
 minor usage of polite society, from an opinion recently 
 relieved of bourgeois quality, or just from the cor- 
 rected pronunciation of a word, that he had taught 
 her something. 
 
 Her discourse, always confined to well-learned 
 topics, appreciating common subjects from a superior 
 riew-point, was delivered in a voice free from any 
 plebeian accent, well modulated, never loud. It was 
 her habit to drink but one glass of champagne: so, 
 unlike many of her woman friends, she had no 
 lapses from good taste, made no false moves, re- 
 vealed no ignorance. She was at pains to show, in 
 all situations, that she could "do the right thing." 
 Although she needed no foil now, it was when Nora 
 was with her that she shone most brilliantly. 
 
 "That girl," Felix was assured by Noon, "is going 
 to get there." 
 
 Indeed, she was already "getting there" in several 
 ways. Toward the middle of July, she had a nota- 
 ble success in her profession.
 
 1 84 PREDESTINED 
 
 "The Silly Season," Montmorrissy's new summer 
 review, was produced on the roof of the Trocadero 
 Theatre. There, beneath the stars, amid clustered 
 lamps, palms, grottoes tinkling with cascades, painted 
 precipices overhung with growing flowers, an audi- 
 ence in summer dress waxed hilarious while gaping 
 up at the bright little stage. 
 
 It was a burlesque of the chief happenings of the 
 year: in it the affairs of crowned heads, politicians, 
 actresses, and a host of persons locally notorious or 
 celebrated, were extravagantly travestied. 
 
 From the first moment the action struck a furious 
 gait. Scene melted into scene: horse-play was 
 swallowed up in exaggerated sentiment, which, in 
 turn, was annihilated by a broad joke. The stage 
 was one instant full of marching amazons, next 
 empty save for the tenor and the prima donna 
 gyrating in a swift dance, then, in a flash, filled for 
 no particular reason with small girls in the extremity 
 of dishabille, who fell to kicking in a way that bade 
 fair to disjoint them. Comedians, all plaids and 
 grease-paint, bounced through the rout with howls 
 in the dialect of the "Tenderloin." "Show girls" 
 came strolling forth in costumes that amazed the 
 audience. A dancer, whose further appearance the 
 police were expected to prohibit, exercised herself 
 till her powder disappeared beneath a flood of 
 perspiration. Lights rose and died as the scenery 
 dissolved and took new form on scurrying choruses 
 that glistened half bare skin, half spangles ; sunshine, 
 moonlight, and all the rich rays of the spectrum,
 
 MARIE 185 
 
 played on the painted eyes of singers scattering know- 
 ing winks, on broad hands passing over whitened 
 shoulders, on comely faces placid at the embraces of 
 buffoons as inhuman-looking, in their "make-up," as 
 gorillas. 
 
 With the progress of that spectacle, in which there 
 appeared to be no place for any rational thought, 
 a sort of vertiginous enthusiasm was communicated 
 to the audience. Applause grew wild; laughter be- 
 came hysterical;, men's eyes expressed their natures; 
 women forgot to look askance; in nearly all faces 
 there was something rakish. 
 
 But Felix sat gazing at the stage without a 
 smile. 
 
 He saw Marie, slim as a wood-sprite, wrapped 
 apparently in nothing but a rose-colored scarf be- 
 strewn with golden flowers. The corsage of this 
 costume was immoderately low in front and wholly 
 lacking behind ; the skirts clung to the young woman 
 as if wet; the fringes, a foot in length, swung from 
 her knees. 
 
 She had complained of this attire, of certain lines 
 in her part, of the general effect that she would have 
 to produce. Her ideas, it appeared, had been all for 
 a role in which one could preserve some vestiges of 
 propriety. She had even gone so far as to tell Felix, 
 after the dress rehearsal, that "she had a good mind 
 to walk out." Yet once on the stage, nothing could 
 have been more nearly perfect than her serenity. 
 She also knew, no doubt, that she had never looked 
 so prepossessing.
 
 1 86 PREDESTINED 
 
 Her wig, elaborately puffed, set with three golden 
 bands, was auburn of the darkest shade. Amid that 
 emphatic aureole her face gleamed like a cameo, all 
 its decisive lines of cheek and chin but adding to 
 the clear-cut beauty of the whole. Her eyes, never 
 previously fine, were strangely elongated and lang- 
 uishing; her lips, by nature thin, had gained, from 
 some new trick with carmine paint, a voluptuous 
 contour plausible even at close quarters. To add 
 final accent to her air of delicate artificiality, pendent 
 ear-rings of coral, carved, like threaded rose-buds, 
 were permitted to graze her shoulders. 
 
 She uttered a song with seemingly capricious 
 changes from parlando to clear musical tones; she 
 filled a dance, in waltz time, with a hundred unex- 
 pected, dainty gestures. Made perfect in every note 
 and posture by innumerable rehearsals, exhibiting 
 with a sure touch all Montmorrissy's devices as her 
 own, she surprised friends and roused the admiration 
 of strangers. 
 
 Men searched the programme for her identity, 
 bandied her name about, stared at her with critical 
 and impudent expressions. And it seemed to Felix 
 that all those glances rested on her with a material 
 contact. He was like one who sees some belonging, 
 of the most intimate associations, exposed, handled, 
 and appraised by cynical auctioneers. 
 
 That night, he began to hate Marie's environ- 
 ment. 
 
 But nowadays it seemed as if the only air he could 
 breathe was that of the theatre. It filled Broadway,
 
 MARIE 187 
 
 permeated all the resorts in which he passed his time, 
 penetrated Marie's apartment, where there seemed 
 to cling to the very hangings something of the close, 
 cosmetic-laden atmosphere of dressing-rooms. 
 
 There the flatly scandalous note was struck by 
 .Mattie, the lax-mouthed mulatto maid who now 
 costumed Marie at the theatre and was hand in glove 
 with all the other servants and by Miriam, the 
 saturnine hairdresser. From this functionary's black 
 satchel, worn shiny on her questionable rounds, 
 seemed to issue with the curling-irons and the 
 brushes, as if from a Pandora's box, all sorts of 
 greasy calumnies. The hairdresser was, perhaps, as 
 much an unexpurgated gazette as a constructor of 
 coiffures. 
 
 There, also, were aired by visiting young women 
 attired in their best, the politics of the stage the 
 machinations for advancement, the combinations 
 made by spite against popularity, the disparagements 
 of talent. Felix grew weary listening to tales of 
 the jealousies of actresses, the vanities of actors, the 
 despotism of Montmorrissy to such phrases as, 
 "She didn't get a hand to-night," "He queered her 
 turn with a lot of comic business on the side," 
 "That couple ought to be playing the tank towns," 
 "He always manages somehow to sneak upstage 
 and steal the scene," "She's had her two weeks' 
 notice from Monty." Little Felix cared that the 
 ugly drummer, whose behavior had once diverted 
 him, was discharged for habitual drunkenness, or 
 that the young tenor whose name was Mackeron
 
 1 88 PREDESTINED 
 
 had finally got his wife to divorce him. But Miss 
 Qewan, Marie's gentle friend, was for some obscure 
 reason dismissed from the company without warn- 
 ing. Marie expressed her indignation to Felix. 
 
 "All those weeks of rehearsing without pay, and 
 part of her own wardrobe to buy! Did that matter 
 to Monty?" And, with a fixed stare, Marie vehe- 
 mently exclaimed: 
 
 "The beast!" 
 
 She hastened to add that every one said the same ; 
 for Miss Qewan, "as good a girl as ever stepped," 
 was trying to bring up an eight -year-old sister. 
 
 Felix thought less than ever of Marie's instructor. 
 
 Whenever he met the manager, he found it hard to 
 look politely into that flaccid countenance, cunning, 
 self-sufficient, quizzical and reserved by flashes. For 
 some reason, Felix always seemed to afford Mont- 
 morrissy amusement. Possibly it was the young 
 man's ingenuousness, not yet altogether destroyed by 
 the buffets of experience, that entertained the other. 
 
 Then, too, it irked Felix more and more to be 
 agreeable in Noon's company. 
 
 Every day he had to watch the speculator cut a 
 fine figure with his inexhaustible wallet. That burly, 
 deep-voiced fellow, shaved to the blood, odorous of 
 toilet-water, always "dressed to kill," flashing a great 
 ruby and diamond finger-ring every time he raised 
 his hand, was surely the most blatant, vulgar creat- 
 ure drawing breath. Felix was disgusted with his 
 stories of successful gambling, his disregard of money, 
 his reckless proposals, his "cock-sure," masterful
 
 MARIE 189 
 
 demeanor in fine, with each act of his beyond 
 emulation. 
 
 It was Noon who took the lead in all excursions 
 who telephoned for the table in the restaurant, 
 ordered the automobile, harangued the head waiter, 
 accepted the courses with a nod, mixed the salad- 
 dressing, sent word to the chef, so that "the rascal 
 should know whom he was cooking for." Familiar 
 with the city to its farthest outskirts, famous in all 
 places of amusement for his generosity, he was, as 
 Marie argued, "a comfortable person to have along." 
 
 Perhaps he conducted them through the night 
 to some road-house, surrounded by shrubbery, its 
 broad porch, full of dinner tables, encircling it with 
 a shining zone, violin tones issuing from its open 
 windows to mingle with the songs of crickets and 
 katydids. There the proprietor skipped down the 
 steps to greet him; waiters recalled his name and 
 hovered round him to suggest his favorite dishes; 
 orchestra leaders bowed while beating time; ser- 
 vility and eagerness filled every face. His departure 
 was like the exit of a grand duke incognito. 
 
 The two young women confessed, just by the 
 flashing of their eyes, at such parade of respect, how 
 inspiriting they, at least, found Noon's companion- 
 ship. 
 
 Every fair Sunday now saw them speeding far 
 afield in his red automobile. 
 
 On country roads, they were caressed by the sweet, 
 tepid breezes of midsummer. Homesteads nestling 
 amid apple-trees, with sheds, bee-hives, the dairy-
 
 190 PREDESTINED 
 
 house, the rustic pump, scattered round about, 
 evoked from Marie and Nora exclamations of delight. 
 They had to pause where lines of willows leaned 
 toward a brook, where glassy ponds reflected sky 
 and clouds, where water-grass was stirred by zephyrs 
 into ripples. Nora wanted to take off her shoes and 
 stockings and go in wading, to uproot lily-pads, to 
 find a nest with fledglings in it, to ask some farmer 
 for a drink of fresh, warm milk. She displayed, in 
 those rural regions, the artlessness and excitement of 
 a city urchin on his first country outing. She 
 scrambled through underbrush regardless of lace 
 petticoats then reappeared with dishevelled tresses, 
 with flushed face moist, her skirts studded with burrs, 
 her arms laden with coarse, yellow daisies. Marie 
 was content to pick a couple of wild rose blossoms 
 by the roadside, with which she decorated the lapels 
 of Noon's and Felix's coats. Sometimes, espying on 
 an eminence a charming bit of landscape, she would 
 press the young man's arm, and murmur: 
 
 "Our house ought to be built in such a place?" 
 She had grown frank in that respect. 
 At dusk, from the pavilions of casinos by the sea, 
 they watched remote lights steal across the water 
 over a maze of wavering reflections. Stars filled the 
 heavens in great patches, like a glittering spawn. 
 With ejaculations of triumph, they discovered the 
 Great Dipper, the Bear, the ruddy twinkle of the 
 planet Mars. Then a realization of the immensity 
 of space, of the illimitable field of worlds, of the 
 earth's insignificance, subdued them. They sat
 
 MARIE 191 
 
 silent, looking over the water with wistful, vacuous 
 expressions. 
 
 In the cool depths of midnight returning at full 
 speed, they were lulled to lethargy by the reiteration 
 of long, narrow vistas, leafy, streaming, leaping from 
 blackness into brilliancy at the flash of their acety- 
 lene lamps. Then, midst the obscurity aloft, there 
 grew before their tired eyes a .tremulous, far-stretch- 
 ing radiance the city's nimbus. Finally, they 
 reached the littered streets, roused themselves at the 
 noises of humanity, and, a little sad, penetrated 
 the constricted places they called home. 
 
 Through the open windows of Marie's parlor 
 entered the nocturnal racket of Lincoln Square. 
 Brakes and gongs of trolley-cars, automobile horns, 
 horses' hoofs, shrill voices, filled the street with 
 echoes of that clarity which seems peculiar to Sunday. 
 Hot, malodorous exhalations rose from the pave- 
 ment, which was covered with broad, sticky-looking 
 stains. 
 
 Felix, his various elations worn away, his head 
 throbbing painfully, stood by the window. Remem- 
 bering the savor of the sea, the perfume of meadows, 
 the wafted smells, at nightfall, of invisible wet earth 
 and flowers, he suffered as if from a spiritual retro- 
 gression. Thus he was invariably drawn back by 
 destiny from the serene, pure reaches of the woods 
 and fields to sickly turmoil, from something that 
 approached contentment of the heart to feverish 
 desires in gratifying which there was more pain than 
 pleasure !
 
 192 PREDESTINED 
 
 Was he, indeed, himself in this great, stone-bound 
 prison of a city, or did he but step in time with 
 countless others? Was it his own will that drove 
 him through the vortex, or the mingled impulses of 
 a million other minds? How to be one's own mas- 
 ter, how to stand isolate in spirit, unshaken by any 
 impact the cliff with summit high above the surge ? 
 Perhaps, far away, buried in the fastnesses of forests, 
 or on a mountain side above the clouds, one might, 
 like those Brahmin mystics who sit on the peaks 
 before the Himalayas, find oneself? He recalled a 
 passage from a Persian poem: "There is safety in 
 solitude." And for a moment he glimpsed the wis- 
 dom that belongs to age : he wondered if happiness, 
 so violently sought, did not consist in peace. 
 
 "For heaven's sake, Felix, what are you dreaming 
 about!" 
 
 With a start, he turned from the window. 
 
 A shaded lamp, of yellow porcelain, made the 
 centre table bright, but left the walls in shadow. 
 The lower portions alone of the green portieres 
 were revealed distinctly; the claw-like feet of chairs 
 showed little patches of light; the pattern of the 
 rug was emphasized: an intricate design of flowers, 
 yellow, green, and blue. Beyond an open door 
 appeared, in a dim sleeping-room, a dressing-table. 
 The mirror, tilted forward, reflected jars of cold- 
 cream, flasks of essence, powder-boxes, crumpled 
 handkerchiefs, hat -pins, and combs of tortoise-shell. 
 
 And the odors of benzoine and "peau d'Espagne," 
 emanating from that inner chamber, drove out of
 
 MARIE 193 
 
 Felix's brain the last souvenirs of unsophisticated 
 country air. 
 
 Those rooms were now the centre-point of his 
 existence: to them his thoughts continually turned; 
 thither his feet were always leading him; therein 
 were forged for him chains of irresolution, pliancy, 
 and subservience, which he dragged everywhere, to 
 the exhaustion of his individuality. 
 
 He trod the path that led to her with an invariable 
 agitation. This nervous disturbance, less pleasur- 
 able than discomfortable, increased as he entered 
 the hotel, mounted in the elevator to her floor, and 
 pressed the bell-button at her threshold. 
 
 The door swung open; Mattie, the maid, with 
 lowered eyes, mumbled: "Good evening, Mr. 
 Felix" then shrank into the shadows. Felix trav- 
 ersed the short private hallway, knocked on the 
 parlor door, parted the green velours curtains, saw 
 her again. 
 
 Maybe she was sitting by the window, in a loose 
 gown, reading attentively the story of some such 
 enterprising person as Mme. du Barry. Without 
 laying down her book, calmly smiling, she stretched 
 her neck slightly for his kiss. At such moments, her 
 self-possession dissatisfied him. 
 
 "My dear boy, don't you see that my hair is 
 dressed for the evening? Did you stop to give the 
 photographer a blowing-up, and to get the sheet 
 music I wanted? I'll wager you forgot those Rus- 
 sian cigarettes!" 
 
 He did errands for her, was at her beck and call,
 
 IQ4 PREDESTINED 
 
 deferred to her in all things, suited his hours to her 
 convenience, made every sacrifice to please her. In 
 short, with his innumerable concessions he crushed 
 from his consciousness all sense of freedom. She 
 dominated him completely. 
 
 Yet he had none of his old illusions in regard to 
 her. He made no more fine speeches concerning 
 "her misfortunes," "the injustice of fate," "a day 
 when she would attain the place that she deserved." 
 Nor was she now at pains to play that part. 
 
 It was no longer necessary. 
 
 Amid his present surroundings wherein the mar- 
 ket-place of the affections largely throve on traffic in 
 damaged goods Felix soon found it reasonable to 
 cherish what was not apparently excelled about him. 
 In Rome, as it were, he did after the fashion of the 
 Romans ; and, without much surprise at the deterio- 
 ration of his sentiments, he learned that he could 
 expend no less extravagant an ardor on the tawny, 
 speckled lily at hand than if it were the rare, white 
 flower of his early dreams. 
 
 But he had to pay, in consequence, the penalty of 
 jealousy. 
 
 The enigma of Marie's past tormented him: he 
 tried to solve it by all sorts of devices. He became 
 adept in leading a conversation deviously to perilous 
 ground, where Marie might, by some slip, reveal a 
 little of her secret. He grew shrewd in deciphering 
 the looks, gestures, silences, which followed his innu- 
 endoes, in comparing present with past utterances, in 
 putting two and two together. His mind was a
 
 MARIE 195 
 
 repository for scraps of information dropped by her 
 at random, from which he hoped to piece out some 
 day a coherent history of her career. 
 
 He wondered if he might not have learned a good 
 deal about her from Pavin, in whose studio he had 
 met her. But this seemed unlikely : the Frenchman 
 had never shown enough interest in her to discuss 
 her willingly. At any rate, Felix might question 
 women unfriendly to her; then, too, Nora Llanelly 
 was "such a fool it would not be hard to pump her"; 
 while Mattie, who had "worked for Miss Sinjon 
 before," could probably be bribed. 
 
 Nevertheless, he neglected these opportunities, less 
 from shame than from a conviction that Marie would 
 find him out. 
 
 Occasionally, he seemed on the point of learning 
 something definite. She had said so-and-so; at a 
 remark of his she had looked thus; at a certain 
 query she had shown agitation, had risen from one 
 chair to take another farther from him, while exclaim- 
 ing angrily, "You promised me once that you would 
 let all that sort of thing alone!" Such actions surely 
 meant that he was on the right track. 
 
 She had undoubtedly known some one with such 
 and such qualities, with an appearance of this and 
 that sort. A certain man in her life, for instance, 
 had been an inordinate consumer of cigarettes, fastid- 
 ious in his apparel, of excellent manners, well-read, 
 fond of the arts, indeed, a dilettante and a collector 
 yes, a collector of fine prints! To such details did 
 Felix's ingenuity assist him.
 
 196 PREDESTINED 
 
 The conjecture of one day became next morning 
 a certainty: nothing was too extravagant for belief 
 after it had aged a night. Now and then, when 
 intoxicated, Felix looked at Marie craftily, with half- 
 shut eyelids, thinking: "I know a great deal more 
 about you than you imagine." In his opinion, it was 
 a kind of struggle between them. 
 
 But for what guerdon ? 
 
 From his machinations Felix got nothing but 
 unhappiness. No sooner had he discovered in her 
 past, as he believed, some new detail to her detri- 
 ment, than he was pierced with anguish. While 
 lying awake at night when his ingenuity seemed at 
 its best a fresh conviction, flashing forth at the 
 plausible union of half a dozen surmises, frightened 
 him as much as if a cold hand had reached out of 
 the darkness and clutched him by the throat. 
 
 "Yes, yes, whoever that fellow was, she must have 
 been in love with him! At least, he had surely been 
 in love with her!" And Felix's relations with her 
 could be nothing but a repetition who knew but an 
 inferior repetition! No doubt he was suffering all 
 the while by comparison. 
 
 It was not to be expected that the young man's 
 jealousy should fail to invade the present. 
 
 Every breath of gossip that reached him bore hint 
 of trust betrayed in the lives round about. He noted 
 the gullibility of infatuated men, the security of 
 secrets known by all save one. He remembered 
 Gregory Tamborlayne. 
 
 Thereupon he became preternaturally alert. His
 
 MARIE 197 
 
 eyes were on Marie whenever she spoke to any one. 
 He even visited her at unexpected moments. A 
 cloud of cigarette smoke in her rooms seemed por- 
 tentous, but it was only "Nora and some other girls 
 who had just left." An afternoon newspaper of 
 sedate tendency, lying on the centre table, made his 
 heart beat fast: she had never bought it; who had 
 left it there? 
 
 " They 're always sending up the wrong newspaper 
 from the office. What's the matter with you? I 
 never saw such a face! Why, one might think " 
 
 "I was just wondering if you had changed your 
 brand of news." 
 
 "That's not the truth! I can read you like a 
 book. And let me tell you, people never have such 
 thoughts unless they give good cause for the same 
 kind!" 
 
 While looking at him steadily, her green eyes 
 became vacant. Her lips gradually parted in a 
 smile. Her rapt expression was new to him. After 
 some moments, she inquired, absent-mindedly: 
 
 "What would you do if you found some one?" 
 
 For an instant he could not believe his ears. Was 
 it she who had said such a thing? 
 
 At last, his lips quivering, he answered, in a low 
 voice full of sarcasm: 
 
 "Nothing, of course!" 
 
 Her eyes seemed to wake, her smile disappeared. 
 She made haste to slip her arms round him. 
 
 "Oh, you poor boy, I'm so sorry! You take every- 
 thing the wrong way ! I was only joking; the idea of
 
 198 PREDESTINED 
 
 such a thing seemed so ridiculous. If you only knew 
 how foolish you are to have such thoughts!" 
 
 But from that day he had a definite apprehen- 
 sion. 
 
 He even went so far as to consider what role it 
 would be proper for him to take in such a scene. 
 He scanned the ground carefully, like a man about 
 to fight a duel. In the top drawer of her dressing- 
 table, under a pile of handkerchiefs, she kept an extra 
 key to her hall door. Felix abstracted it. 
 
 One afternoon, a craftiness developed by numer- 
 ous cocktails urged him to use this key. Just as he 
 slipped into the private hallway, he heard her clear 
 voice raised beyond the curtains: 
 
 "Do you think I keep papers of that sort about me ? 
 They're in my safe-deposit box. And rest assured, 
 they'll come out only when you've made up your 
 mind about them." 
 
 Felix tore the green portieres apart. She turned, 
 perceived him, and, with a gesture that at least 
 seemed deliberate, hung up the telephone receiver. 
 Her eyes did not relinquish his. 
 
 "You? How did you get in?" 
 
 "The door was unlatched." 
 
 "That careless Mattie again!" 
 
 "So, you have a safe-deposit box with papers in 
 it? What papers? Who was that telephoning?" 
 
 She smiled pityingly, shrugged her shoulders, and 
 turned away, the ruffles of her dove-colored dressing- 
 gown slowly tumbling after her. 
 
 "Well, my dear, it was Montmorrissy telephoning,
 
 MARIE 199 
 
 and 'the papers' are my contract. I should hate to 
 have your disposition!" 
 
 She soon took to parrying such attacks with insinu- 
 ations of her own then, forcing the fighting, always 
 managed to get in the first thrust. Felix, on the 
 defensive, had to free himself from the most extraor- 
 dinary accusations. He was compelled to account 
 for every hour of his time to tell her whom he had 
 met, where he had lunched, what streets he had 
 passed through. She declared that he flirted with 
 every girl in sight; she harped on "that black-haired 
 
 woman, that old flame of his," whom she "knew all 
 
 / 
 
 about." Their squabbles invariably ended with 
 the cry: 
 
 "I'm sure you're dying to go straight back to your 
 black-haired friend! Very well, run on! I suppose 
 I shall survive it." 
 
 She knew, no doubt, that he never dared to leave 
 her presence without patching up their quarrel. 
 
 At the coming of autumn, he remembered the 
 September of the previous year. 
 
 How bright had seemed the promise of regions 
 then unexplored, to-day attained! Had he not told 
 himself that happiness lay on the horizon ? He had 
 covered the ground, had reached the place of his 
 desires, to find the horizon as far away as ever. 
 
 Pleasures, it seemed, grew vague at his approach; 
 at his embrace they melted into nothingness, as 
 nymphs one is told were wont to do when in 
 archaic woods surprised at twilight. No moment of 
 gratification was as he had pictured it.
 
 200 PREDESTINED 
 
 When had he been really happy? 
 
 One dull October day, he entered Washington 
 Square, sat down upon a bench, looked northward 
 toward Fifth Avenue and the Ferrol house. 
 
 Clouds of pulverized plaster enveloped the familiar 
 dwelling. Through that pall loomed dump-carts, 
 scaffolds, laborers in canvas overalls. The upper 
 story was gone; the house was being torn down. 
 
 He walked slowly away. Round his feet flut- 
 tered withered leaves, such as old men near by, in 
 faded blue, were feebly raking into little heaps. 
 
 He saw, on another path, a woman looking at him, 
 hesitating timidly. Her large, lustrous eyes woke 
 memories. Was it she who had interrupted his 
 supper-party on Christmas eve ? The woman made 
 up her mind to bow. Yes, it was she. He raised 
 his hat, passed on, and soon forgot her. 
 
 Considerably before his usual hour, Felix reached 
 the hotel in Lincoln Square. Passing through the 
 lobby, he entered an elevator one of two that ran 
 up and down in the same shaft. The cars passed 
 each other in mid-air. Felix caught a glimpse of a 
 thin-shouldered, pale young man in brown, weighing 
 in one hand a bulky packet of letters at which he 
 was gazing with a sneer. 
 
 It was Mortimer Fray. 
 
 A gush of blood blinded Felix and almost raised 
 him off his feet. 
 
 "Stop the car! Take me down again." 
 
 He stepped out into the lobby, glared round, 
 gained the street entrance, confronted the carriage-
 
 MARIE 201 
 
 starter. "Yes, a strange gentleman in a brown suit 
 had left, this very moment, in a hansom." 
 
 The fellow, his weather-beaten face exhibiting 
 solicitude, made bold to add: 
 
 "You don't look well, sir. Begging your pardon, 
 you'd best have a little something for it." 
 
 Felix turned away. In the lobby, people were 
 moving quietly to and fro on their sane affairs. They 
 recalled him to himself. What had he thought to do 
 in such a place? 
 
 The reaction to common-sense exhausted him. 
 With an effort, he made his way upstairs and appeared 
 before Marie. 
 
 She, turning from the window, stared at him 
 aghast. 
 
 "What is it? What has happened?" 
 
 If he told her anything of Fray, he would be drained 
 forthwith of every secret in his life the stories of 
 Eileen, of Nina, worst of all, of his ruined prospects. 
 Throwing himself into a chair, he answered: 
 
 "Just an old enemy I've run across. What of 
 that? The world is full of enemies." 
 
 She approached him slowly, hesitated, then knelt 
 beside him. She looked away. She uttered, as if 
 suffocating: 
 
 "Not here, Felix." 
 
 His heart was touched. 
 
 "No, not here, Marie." 
 
 Presently he clasped her close. Something crackled 
 in the bosom of her dress.
 
 202 PREDESTINED 
 
 "What was that?" he asked, listlessly. 
 She closed her eyes. 
 
 ' ' That ? I don't know. It must be my last week's 
 salajy."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN the bleak transparency of public parks and the 
 early dusk pierced by a thousand lofty window lights, 
 in the quickened activity of amusement districts and 
 the return of elegance to finer thoroughfares, Felix 
 saw only uneventful repetition. At last, even amid 
 excess he had discovered monotony. 
 
 Sometimes he was tormented by unconscionable 
 desires. 
 
 He dreamed of environments remote in place and 
 time, freed from all the restraints of modern, civilized, 
 or even rational, society, in which abandonment to 
 pleasure had reached transcendence. His mind's eye 
 perceived such pictures as took shape round banquet 
 tables in the Golden House of Nero, where, on a dais 
 rising like an island from a sea of revellers, the im- 
 perial purple was smothered beneath rose-petals, 
 ivory-white arms, and gold dust shaken from di- 
 shevelled locks. Or else his fancy conjured up the 
 Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in which the dawn, 
 as if stealing over a field where had been waged to 
 the death some appalling combat of the senses, struck 
 through a reek of incense fumes upon an acre of 
 spilled wine, torn garlands, fallen diadems, prone 
 bodies laden with barbaric jewels and gleaming 
 
 under silvery meshes and nets of threaded pearls. 
 
 203
 
 204 PREDESTINED 
 
 How tremendous, yet how exquisitely embellished, 
 the debaucheries of those pagan times! Again, and 
 now for a new reason, the young man was rendered 
 melancholy by thought of epochs ended so many 
 centuries too soon. A longing for irrevocable days 
 made his eyes swim with tears. 
 
 By persistent excitation of his nerves, Felix had 
 increased his emotional instability till trifling thoughts 
 were able to rouse in him not only ardors, but also 
 irritation, anger, fear, despondency. Since his equi- 
 librium was now so easily upset, any sudden crisis in 
 which he had especial need of calmness was sure to 
 catch him at a disadvantage. Marie, armed cap-a- 
 pie with self-possession, had the best of him in every 
 clash. 
 
 Their altercations increased in frequency and vio- 
 lence. For Felix's jealousy grew with Marie's popu- 
 larity. 
 
 As he observed the development of public interest 
 in her, it seemed to him that he was already sharing 
 something of her with a host of others. When he 
 considered those who now made a point of greet- 
 ing her courteously everywhere men of affairs, of 
 money, of accomplished deeds he was consumed 
 with fear: if it came to the worst, what rivalry could 
 he oppose to them? In hours when the green por- 
 tieres had been drawn against the world, his appre- 
 hensions wrung from him the cry: 
 
 "Swear that you love me and no one else!" 
 
 "Foolish, foolish boy! Must I still swear to that? 
 Will you never be sure ? Why do you look at me so ? "
 
 MARIE 205 
 
 What was more nearly Sphynx-like than the face of 
 the beloved, when seen through the film of jealousy? 
 What was behind those eyes that stared straight into 
 his, while the lips, barely moving, uttered reassuring 
 words? Those eyes, were they false? Those lips, 
 did they lie? How could he be sure of her so close 
 to him, yet because speech and visage can hide 
 everything so remote? 
 
 Frequently, unable to contain himself on feeling 
 conjecture turning to conviction, he charged her 
 incoherently with all the infamies of his imagination. 
 His fury distorted her before his eyes: she, whose 
 every feature he had but a little while before adored, 
 took on the appearance of a perfidious enemy. He 
 could almost have throttled this woman just released 
 from his arms. 
 
 Marie, leaning back, turning up her eyes des- 
 pairingly, would utter, in shocked accents: 
 
 "Good heavens, what a wicked heart he has! 
 What insanity!" 
 
 "I won't afflict you with it any longer!" 
 
 "No doubt that's the best thing." 
 
 "Good-by!" 
 
 But within the hour he had returned, exhausted, 
 crushed, to save the fragments of his pride mumbling 
 something about "his promise, made long ago, not 
 to leave her alone." 
 
 Disregarding that rigmarole, turning from him 
 with a hopeless gesture, she retorted: 
 
 "And your insults, that you forget? What have I 
 done to deserve them?"
 
 206 PREDESTINED 
 
 "It was my love for you that made me, as you say, 
 insane. Surely you'll forgive me on that account?" 
 
 But she held him off with her white arms, the 
 strength of which invariably surprised him. Her 
 resolute face was like the countenance of an outraged 
 divinity. 
 
 "You were wrong? You were wicked?" 
 
 "Yes, yes! I was wrong. I treated you ter- 
 ribly!" 
 
 "More terribly than you suspect. Such words 
 leave scars. Afterward, it's never quite the same." 
 
 "Ah," he cried, in acute distress, "don't say that, 
 Marie!" 
 
 So each reconciliation left her stronger, him 
 weaker. 
 
 It was he who now harped on "a little place, far 
 away, amid trees and roses, just for two." All his 
 instinctive scruples had succumbed to passion; he 
 was ready to pay the price implied for surcease of 
 anxiety. As one lost in the desert gazes toward the 
 flowering mirage, so Felix, in the city, contemplated 
 the thought of some remote, verdant region where 
 the haze of evening, gemmed with infrequent, mellow 
 twinklings, might wrap him gradually in peace. Who 
 knew but that in such a spot two hearts might be 
 renewed two natures, beneath the solemn spread 
 of stars, together turn to simple and immaculate 
 desires? An end, then, at any rate, to the theatre 
 and its publicity, to Broadway and its provocations 
 no more thereafter of associates such as Nora 
 Llanelly and Noon!
 
 MARIE 207 
 
 Marie had come to share at least a part of his 
 antipathy. She was beginning to dislike Nora. 
 
 When alone with Felix, she mimicked maliciously 
 her old-time friend's coquettish airs, impetuous table 
 manners, unconscious illiteracy, satisfaction in con- 
 spicuous attire. If Nora presented herself in a par- 
 ticularly striking costume, Marie, scrutinizing her 
 every appurtenance in a single glance, would exclaim, 
 "My dear, isn't that the hat you wore in 'The Lost 
 Venus'?" or, "Oh, my dear, you must really put 
 those violets out!" Miss Llanelly received such 
 thrusts in bewilderment. If she chanced to take 
 offence, it was only for a moment ; with her, flushes 
 of mortification were succeeded by good-humored 
 smiles as quickly as in children's faces. She appeared 
 to have no place in her broad bosom for rancor; she 
 had even forgiven Marie her professional success. 
 One evening, she informed Felix confidentially that 
 Marie was "getting cranky on account of overwork." 
 The girl should have left "The Silly Season" for a 
 little vacation when cold weather forced the review 
 from the Trocadero roof down into the auditorium. 
 
 Marie's disfavor did not as yet extend to Noon. 
 She had discreet smiles for all his anecdotes, intelli- 
 gent attention for his discursions in aesthetics, keen 
 interest in his reports of speculation. He obtained 
 her ear especially when, leaning well across a table 
 with cigar smoke curling round his jowls, he described 
 to her, between involuntary twitchings of his head, 
 the career she might have on the stage, did theatrical 
 managers but realize her capabilities.
 
 208 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Any one ought to see what you could do if you 
 had a proper chance. I'm continually talking about 
 it to Montmorrissy." 
 
 That personage was planning to produce in mid- 
 winter, at the Castle Theatre, a new musical extrav- 
 aganza called "The Queen of Hearts." This being 
 a side venture, in which he was experimenting with 
 some unknown authors and musical composers, he 
 wanted to fill the stage with inexpensive, if unnoted, 
 actors. One day, Noon burst in upon Marie and 
 Felix, flourishing cane and gloves, his cigar point 
 threatening his eyebrows, his long coat-tails in com- 
 motion. He had just left Montmorrissy! The parts 
 in "The Queen of Hearts" were all assigned! The 
 prima donna's role was Marie's! 
 
 Noon's grin seemed to add for him, "Thanks 
 chiefly to me." Felix wished that the fellow had 
 dropped dead with his tidings in his throat. There, 
 as he watched the light of ambition blaze up in 
 Marie's eyes, his dreams of escape into the country- 
 side disintegrated. He saw himself, in future as in 
 present, the prisoner, the victim, of the city. 
 
 And the city, as he* now knew it, was already taking 
 heavy tribute of him. 
 
 His excesses were depriving him of an accurate 
 conception of propriety, in regard not only to his 
 conduct, but also to his literary efforts. 
 
 It befell that a girl friend of Marie's suddenly died. 
 Into the chamber of death, banked with flowers sent 
 by contrite women, came hurrying half a dozen 
 saddened men, all well-to-do, strangers each to each,
 
 MARIE 269 
 
 who, meeting in the fragrant gloom, stared at one 
 another, at first indignantly, then suspiciously, finally 
 sheepishly. The secrets that the fair deceased had 
 kept in life were there revealed. 
 
 "What a tale!" thought Felix. "How full of the 
 irony of existence, how human, how beautiful!" He 
 rushed off to the studio, seized pen and paper, and 
 commenced what he believed was going to be the 
 most wonderful short story in the world. But when 
 he had written half a dozen pages, there came to him 
 the query: 
 
 "What magazine in this country would print it?" 
 
 And gloomily he remembered a great public whose 
 sense of moral proportions he had once shared, but 
 now had nearly lost. 
 
 Yet he was long in realizing that the cynicism 
 developed by his mode of living was affecting his 
 work. The ideas, not extraordinary so far as he 
 could see, which now moved him to exercise his 
 talents, proved to be such as editors of magazines 
 regarded with distrust. His stories came back to 
 him; from the envelopes that he tore apart fluttered 
 letters of regret, instead of checks. 
 
 By such rebuffs Felix was plunged into despond- 
 ency. Could he have been mistaken in himself? 
 Were all his dreams of eminence to result in nothing ? 
 His energy failed; his writing-table grew dusty; his 
 balance at the bank was near exhaustion. 
 
 The studio in West Thirty-second Street became a 
 place of dying aspirations. Through tedious, gray 
 days, when snow in its descent made wavering
 
 210 PREDESTINED 
 
 shrouds about the windows, Felix bade good-by 
 forever, as he thought, to his most precious hopes. 
 Stretched on a divan, he seemed to see passing in the 
 twilight all the pageantry of literary genius's crea- 
 tions. There, in the midst of apparitions still more 
 vague, showed the flame-licked robes of Dante and 
 of Virgil, Don Quixote's basin-helm and cuirass, the 
 little breast of Juliet, Salammbo's jewelled forehead, 
 the ardent eyes of Lucien de Rubempre, whose desire 
 it was "to be famous, to be loved." Felix, who had 
 so vehemently desired love and fame, watched these 
 phantoms the children of great brains glide on 
 athwart the shadows, their gaze fixed straight ahead, 
 their pace unhesitating, their ranks already full. No 
 place among them for another; no vigor or wit to 
 force a place! He turned his face to the wall, and, 
 as if life had ended there, surrendered to despair. 
 The white bull-terrier thrust a cold nose against his 
 cheek. 
 
 Felix could no longer bear to spend an hour 
 unnecessarily in the studio. While Marie was per- 
 forming in "The Silly Season," he wandered on 
 Broadway. Under arc lamps, he watched crowds 
 entering theatres. From automobiles stepped young 
 girls, bareheaded, slight, trailing fur-lined cloaks light 
 blue and pink, looking round with the eager eyes 
 of innocence. Felix paused to contemplate them, 
 then roused himself, passed on, and entered a cafe". 
 
 Every night, he sought systematically, and ob- 
 tained, a counterfeit of satisfaction, a false jaunti- 
 ness, such insensibility as bordered on oblivion.
 
 MARIE 211 
 
 Sometimes, he moved in a light-shot mist that, clear- 
 ing now and then, revealed the supper-table before 
 him, the shirt bosoms of waiters, Marie's white, 
 square chin and wandering eyes, men rising and 
 bowing, women with red lips slightly curled in envy 
 whispering behind their glittering fingers. Between 
 such lucid intervals, Felix had little accurate knowl- 
 edge of his conduct, which, however, would seem to 
 have contained itself automatically within decorous 
 bounds. Occasionally, his whole recollection of an 
 evening was composed of insignificant vignettes, such 
 as a moment's conversation with a stranger, a dis- 
 pute incited by Marie about a supper-bill, the 
 joke of a cab-driver, the pinched face of a child from 
 whom, just before dawn, he had bought a Sunday 
 newspaper. 
 
 Or perhaps he was late in reaching the theatre. 
 
 The surly keeper of the stage door, before darken- 
 ing the hallway and locking up, was taking a last look 
 in a cracked mirror at a wart-like protuberance on 
 the end of his nose. Enraged at being discovered in 
 this vanity, the fellow growled that "she had gone, 
 with Mr. Noon or some one else." 
 
 Felix had a sudden faintness, a contraction near 
 the solar plexus, a touch of nausea. He hailed a 
 hansom cab. Hurried from one restaurant to an- 
 other, he calmed himself with an effort before ques- 
 tioning imperturbable head waiters. 
 
 "Miss Sinjon left here half an hour ago with Miss 
 Llanelly and Mr. Noon." 
 
 He breathed again.
 
 212 PREDESTINED 
 
 At times, he pondered his condition well-nigh 
 impersonally. "These frail, pale creatures, indeed! 
 To think how one of them, whom we met one day 
 long ago without any premonition, can become at 
 last a terrible tyrant, from whose tyranny there is no 
 escape!" 
 
 In the loneliest recesses of Central Park, sur- 
 rounded by melting snow, naked underbrush full of 
 evening vapors, gaunt tree-tops fading to a blur 
 against the dusk, Felix asked himself again the pur- 
 poses of human sojourn. In withered grasses and 
 dead leaves he found an answer sufficiently pessi- 
 mistic for his mood; it was always from quickly- 
 perishing, apparently vain aspects of Nature that 
 he now drew material wherewith to construct his 
 theories. 
 
 Darkness drove back, from distant thickets, the 
 dog, Pat, muddy and scratched, weary after foolish 
 quests, yet with wagging tail and eager tongue dis- 
 playing his certainty of Felix's caress. The master 
 envied the dumb beast. 
 
 He longed for a sympathetic confidant. If Paul 
 Pavin, at whose solicitude he had snapped his fingers, 
 were only near ! But the Frenchman was not coming 
 to America that winter. 
 
 To Oliver Corquill, whom he met by chance at the 
 entrance of the park, the young man was impelled to 
 relate something of his literary reverses and his dis- 
 may. When he had concluded with a wholesale 
 complaint so rambling as to be hardly intelligible 
 even to him, the novelist said, kindly:
 
 MARIE 213 
 
 "Why not come away with me for a month's 
 shooting in Maine?" 
 
 The forest fastnesses! Then, remembering Marie, 
 he answered that he could not afford it. Corquill 
 offered to lend him a couple of hundred dollars. 
 
 A thrill passed through Felix's body. He stam- 
 mered his thanks. 
 
 " Then you'll come?" 
 
 "Why, the fact is, if your offer held good anyhow, 
 I could work here now, I think." 
 
 The light in Corquill's eyes was extinguished. 
 
 "As you choose." 
 
 That was a narrow escape: the balance at the 
 bank was overdrawn! But what was two hundred 
 dollars? Felix, with the effrontery of desperation, 
 penetrated Broad Street and called on Mr. Wickit. 
 
 He was admitted into the office carpeted with green 
 Wilton, full of black tin boxes and volumes bound in 
 yellow leather. The gray-haired lawyer, without 
 rising, pointed to a mahogany chair. His angular, 
 sallow face did not relax; his sharp eyes examined 
 rapidly the visitor's physiognomy and clothing. 
 Felix, once in the presence of this glum-visaged cred- 
 itor, wondered what madness had impelled him 
 thither. He had difficulty in beginning his prelim- 
 inary speech, which, as he uttered it, appeared to 
 him absurd. 
 
 "Perhaps, by this time, it had been found that 
 there was at least a little money due him? He 
 seemed to remember that Mr. Wickit had written 
 him some sort of note, which he had been prevented
 
 214 PREDESTINED 
 
 from answering by various misfortunes. Could the 
 lawyer have communicated with him on account of 
 good news ? Felix sincerely hoped so : a young man 
 did not find money growing on bushes in a big city." 
 
 Mr. Wickit, assuming a smile of commiseration, 
 explained : 
 
 "My dear sir, there is nothing new in regard to 
 your poor father's estate. The three letters that I 
 wrote to you, over a year ago, were about quite 
 another matter." 
 
 Felix, with burning cheeks, plunged into his next 
 manoeuvre. 
 
 "Then it was about the thousand dollars? You 
 shall have it, at the earliest possible moment. I've 
 not done so well as I expected. Indeed, I'm wonder- 
 ing where my current expenses are to come from. 
 But when I get a start 
 
 "I understand. However, you can hardly expect 
 me to do anything further in that line?" 
 
 Felix, rising, his spirits in his boots, made haste 
 to murmur denial of such a thought. The lawyer's 
 last comment, dryly delivered, was: 
 
 "What a pity you threw away your chance with 
 Mrs. Droyt." 
 
 "With whom?" 
 
 "Mrs. Denis Droyt, of course. Miss Ferrol that 
 was." 
 
 Felix, toiling home through the falling snow, had in 
 payment for his pains this new chagrin. 
 
 And he, who had practically thrown them into 
 each other's arms, who was responsible for the amal-
 
 MARIE 215 
 
 gamation of their two fortunes, remained at his wits' 
 end for money ! He even requested a loan of Noon. 
 
 The speculator reluctantly produced from his fat 
 wallet fifty dollars. But on a second occasion, clear- 
 ing his throat deliberately, looking fixedly at some 
 distant object, he rumbled: 
 
 "I haven't got it on me." 
 
 Felix went to a pawnshop on Sixth Avenue. 
 
 When within sight of the three gilt balls suspended 
 over the doorway, he slackened his pace, and began 
 to look intently into shop windows. Arriving before 
 the pawnbroker's showcases, he stopped, simulated 
 interest, put on a whimsical smile at last, as if seized 
 with a playful desire for exploration, marched boldly 
 in. When the dejected-looking customers had all 
 departed, he produced, with a sensation of shame, a 
 pair of valuable cuff-links. The niggardly estimate 
 of the usurer amazed him. 
 
 His watch and fob, pearl shirt-buttons, rings, 
 cravat-pins, and gold cigarette-case, were one by one 
 relinquished in the little, cluttered shop, where the 
 air, as it seemed to Felix, was charged with hostility 
 generated through years of heartless bargaining and 
 sullen acquiescence. He told Marie that his watch 
 was being repaired, or that Noon's parade of precious 
 stones had disgusted him with jewelry. 
 
 Marie compressed her lips. 
 
 If he could only confess to her his long-continued 
 fraud, implore forgiveness, patience, temporary fru- 
 gality, enlist such compassionate support as ought to 
 issue from true love ! But the many cynical concep-
 
 2i6 PREDESTINED 
 
 tions engendered by his jealousy had so affected him, 
 that now he was never sure enough of her attachment 
 to put so great a strain upon it. To reveal to her, 
 who had already learned his every temperamental 
 shortcoming, all his material inadequacies as well, 
 would, he felt, have been to strip himself of his last 
 worldly value. Constantly dreading formidable ri- 
 valry, he continued his deceit : he went on regretting 
 glibly that "his family estate was not yet in his 
 hands," or that "his quarterly income was used up 
 too soon." While adding invention to invention, he 
 trusted that Providence would shower him in the 
 nick of time, as formerly, with some miraculous 
 windfall. 
 
 Once, in the midst of his distraction, he asked him- 
 self, was he not greatly like some antique devotee of 
 Moloch, who, before a towering, brazen image of the 
 divinity, hurled into the flames his treasure, his birth- 
 right, his very offspring, while adoring, half in terror, 
 half in aberrant ecstasy, the impassive idol which 
 was to pay him for his sacrifice in currency of ruin 
 and blighted hopes? 
 
 But from the full measure of his sacrifice Felix 
 coilld see no way of escape. Before his idol, his heart 
 was burning. Long practice of excess had driven 
 from his mind the contemplative and comparative 
 forms of thought by aid of which the temperate 
 protect themselves. With all the irrationality of the 
 nervous sufferer clinging ever the more desperately 
 to that which threatens his destruction, Felix saw, in 
 a world full of distorted images, nothing so precious
 
 MARIE 217 
 
 as the pellucid skin, the fragrant hair, the red mouth 
 of the beloved. 
 
 On her return home tired from a day's rehearsing, 
 she occupied the couch, while Felix, sitting beside 
 her, gazed into her face. Her quivering lashes, her 
 pulsing throat, the almost imperceptible flush that 
 gathered round her cheek-bones, were for him ex- 
 traordinary manifestations. A mist obscured his 
 sight; in a choked voice he uttered: 
 
 "Don't move! How beautiful you are now!" 
 
 And, afflicted with faintness, hypnotized, as it were, 
 by her glimmering face, he stammered that she was 
 like a lily drooping from its own sweetness that the 
 room was filled with an indefinable, perilous emana- 
 tion of her beauty. 
 
 At this flattery, gently she shook her head, then, 
 opening her eyes, gave him a prolonged, humid look. 
 A beam of light gradually bisected the shadows of 
 the ceiling; the door swung open; Mattie, the maid, 
 tiptoed in to light the lamp and arrange her mistress's 
 coiffure. Becoming proficient at this office, she had 
 finally replaced Miriam. The hairdresser had re- 
 ceived her discharge with resentment. 
 
 Window-shades were drawn; the dressing-table 
 was illumined ; odors of heated hair and brilliantine 
 were spread about. While at work, the mulatto, 
 shrugging her shoulders, recounted in scornful tones 
 whatever she had gleaned from other servants con- 
 cerning the spite of actresses to whom Marie had 
 been preferred. The mistress, with an inscrutable 
 smile, remarked:
 
 218 PREDESTINED 
 
 "It seems I'm finding out my friends, through 
 'The Queen of Hearts.'" 
 
 Preparations for that extravaganza proceeded 
 rapidly. On Marie's dressing-table, amid the silver 
 and the perfumes, were now always scattered the 
 typewritten pages of her part; her songs, roughly 
 scored by hand, trailed over the piano. She spent 
 hours reiterating musical phrases or repeating lines; 
 she always paused before her mirror to try a gesture 
 or to practise a smile. Sometimes, Felix entered her 
 parlor to find her, with skirts pinned up, posturing 
 before the cheval-glass. Noticing him only by a 
 contraction of her brows, she would, perhaps, press 
 her hands against her breast, and, looking upward 
 with a sweet, wondering expression of innocence, 
 exclaim, in a clear voice: 
 
 "Is it a dream? Can there be anything so lovely 
 ir the world?" 
 
 She was to represent a sort of Cinderella, a found- 
 ling discovered, one morning after a terrific storm, 
 before the hut of an old witch in a forest. Brought 
 up a drudge, wearing rags which could not hide her 
 charms, whenever her taskmistress was elsewhere 
 astride a broomstick she hugged the hearth, dreamed 
 of the unknown, contrived games of "make-believe" 
 by aid of a pack of tattered playing-cards. One 
 evening, as she was falling asleep, the strewn cards 
 began to move, to grow, to change into strange, living 
 creatures. They thronged round her: would she 
 come with them? She assented; the hut dissolved, 
 and, in its stead, appeared a dazzling realm called
 
 j 
 
 MARIE 219 
 
 "Cardland," where rose palaces of pasteboard and 
 minarets of poker chips. But this place, where all 
 should have been gay, was gloomy: years before, a 
 great storm, while blowing down the palaces, had 
 whisked from her cradle and carried off the new-born 
 daughter of the King of Hearts. The King being 
 forced into retirement by his grief, the pack was 
 thenceforth incomplete, and all the games of "Card- 
 land" had to be abandoned. However, on the lost 
 infant there had been hidden beneath swaddling- 
 clothes a heart-shaped birthmark ; and presently, on 
 the fair visitor from the forest this birthmark was, in 
 an interesting way, discovered. Forthwith, the King 
 recovered, and the deck again entire, all ended with 
 a ballet in which, amid a rain of golden coins, vari- 
 ous combinations of poker and bridge whist were 
 formed by the evolutions of the card folk. 
 
 Montmorrissy did not know how his public would 
 receive so innocent a conceit. He was tempted to 
 interpolate, by way of precaution, a few local, 
 "up-to-date," indecorous incidents. Occasionally 
 appearing at rehearsals, he watched the action as 
 narrowly as if it were a conspiracy against his pocket- 
 book. 
 
 All day long they rehearsed "The Queen of 
 Hearts" in an old hall on Sixth Avenue, up two 
 flights of stairs, using a loft with discolored walls, a 
 low ceiling stained by leaks, and a bare, splintery 
 floor. Whenever the pianist, hired for the rehearsals, 
 stopped his exertions, one could hear trains rum- 
 bling on the elevated railway. At the passage of
 
 220 PREDESTINED 
 
 expresses, violent concussions shook the building; 
 all voices were drowned; the players closed their 
 mouths, dropped their arms, and waited. 
 
 Felix wondered how any merit could be evolved 
 from such confusion and incertitude as were there 
 displayed. The diminutive dancing-girls called "po- 
 nies," in their blouses and short skirts, the "show 
 girls" with their furs, feathers, and gilt purses, the 
 chorus men in their wasp-waisted coats slashed with 
 diagonal pockets according to a Broadway style, the 
 fat comedian, the slender tenor, the soubrette, and 
 Marie, turned helpless eyes toward the stage man- 
 ager. This despot seemed to contain all the zeal 
 and intelligence in the assembly. With his coat 
 off, his collar wilted, his bald head shining, he fell 
 back in scrutiny, rushed forward in reproof, with a 
 word corrected erroneous ideas, with a gesture con- 
 jured up imagination. He lumbered round the room 
 in ironical imitation of some clumsy "show girl," 
 listened with a sarcastic smile to the enunciation of 
 choruses, snatched individuals from corners where 
 they were practising dance-steps, herded the com- 
 pany together, ordered the whole act begun again. 
 When the ordeal was ended, he declared, to Felix's 
 amazement, that "the thing was taking shape." 
 
 As the crowd disintegrated, girls lingered to read, 
 from a bulletin tacked on the door, the names and 
 prices of hotels in Boston. The extravaganza was 
 going to that city for a week before beginning in 
 New York. 
 
 Rehearsals were transferred to the Castle Theatre.
 
 MARIE 221 
 
 On the stage stripped of scenery, with oblong frames 
 of canvas piled against the brick wall at the rear, 
 the performers, used to rehearsing in a hall, had 
 difficulty in manoeuvring toward the centre of the 
 footlights. All the concerted pieces were thrown 
 into confusion, and forty young women, huddled 
 together awkwardly, listened with vacuous smiles to 
 the rasping voice of Montmorrissy denouncing them 
 from the obscurity of the auditorium. 
 
 As the first-night approached, disquieting rumors 
 flew about. A rival manager, from whose ranks 
 Montmorrissy had wheedled some attractive "show 
 girls," was going to retaliate by stealing the best 
 "business" of "The Queen of Hearts." Moreover, 
 at the last moment the comedian did not seem suffi- 
 ciently comic, while the young tenor, Mackeron, who 
 was having trouble with his throat, could not bring 
 himself to give up cigarettes. In the wings, a boyish 
 physician, employed to look after the "ponies" when 
 they fainted from their exertions, was always spray- 
 ing the tenor's larynx with an atomizer. 
 
 The dress-rehearsal, with full orchestra, began at 
 midnight on Saturday and continued without inter- 
 ruption till late Sunday afternoon. Marie returned 
 home white as death, with purple streaks beneath 
 her eyes, scarcely able to talk. "No one liked the 
 show. Every one was blue. Monty had never left 
 off growling. So, according to the superstition, it 
 should be a success." 
 
 On Monday morning, the company was entrained 
 for Boston.
 
 22 PREDESTINED 
 
 In the resounding railway station, Felix said good- 
 by to Marie. She had the more easily dissuaded him 
 from accompanying her, as he could not find any- 
 where funds sufficient for a week's extravagance. 
 
 Her last embraces had been perfunctory ; her fare- 
 well seemed absent-minded. Evidently, her every 
 thought reached toward the future. As the train 
 rolled forth, she was busy reminding Montmorrissy 
 of "her right to the best dressing-room." 
 
 Felix walked downtown in dejection. 
 
 How empty the city seemed! Seven days of lone- 
 liness! And then? 
 
 Terror seized him. He was utterly cleaned out, 
 heavily in debt, even threatened by his landlord with 
 eviction. Now, indeed, Marie seemed on the point 
 of slipping from him. Clenching his fists, he re- 
 peated, desperately: 
 
 "I must have money! I must have money!" 
 
 That morning he resumed his writing. But so 
 pressing was his need, and so great his fear of failure, 
 that his labors resulted only in puerilities. He spent 
 those days scribbling feverishly, tearing up pages, 
 groaning at his impotence. Every hour he wondered 
 why Marie had written him but one short note, why 
 he could not reach her by the long-distance telephone, 
 why the most urgent telegrams failed to elicit a 
 response. Perhaps she had broken down from over- 
 work! Should he go to her? Or maybe Mont- 
 morrissy was slashing the play to pieces, and she was 
 too busy to think of him ? He wrote to the manager 
 and to Mackeron for news.
 
 MARIE 223 
 
 Late on the night before "The Queen of Hearts" 
 was expected in New York, the door of the studio 
 burst open: Nora Llanelly entered. 
 
 She had come in a cab, bareheaded, wearing 
 slippers, with a long blue burnoose thrown over a 
 dressing-gown. Her eyelids were swollen; her nose 
 was red; her whole face was blowsy from some 
 tempestuous grief. She leaned against the door- 
 jamb, dishevelled, wide-eyed, breathless, a large 
 apparition at once imposing and alarming. 
 
 Felix's heart stopped beating. He cried out: 
 
 "What has happened to her!" 
 
 Nora, exposing her full throat, laughed bitterly. 
 
 "To her? Nothing! It's to me and you that it's 
 happened!" 
 
 He did not understand. Exasperated, she leaned 
 forward and shrilled at him, with breaking voice: 
 
 "For God's sake, get next to yourself! And you 
 with a reputation for smartness! Why, I can see it, 
 now, from the beginning every bit, every bit!" 
 And sinking into a chair, she informed him that 
 Noon, whom she had believed to be in Philadelphia 
 on business, was in Boston. The thing was not even 
 surreptitious; and Miriam, the hairdresser, to whom 
 all scandalous rumors flew like homing pigeons, had 
 just decided that it was "a duty" to enlighten Miss 
 Llanelly. 
 
 "And some one I've known all my life that I 
 done everything for when she was up against it!" 
 While fumbling for a handkerchief, the ex-" show 
 girl" squeezed her inflamed eyelids together in order
 
 224 PREDESTINED 
 
 to keep back the tears. Her face slowly faded from 
 Felix's sight ; her voice reached him from afar. 
 
 When he had finally got rid of her, he gazed about 
 him in curiosity. He was surprised at the inexpli- 
 cable oddity of his surroundings. He peered in a 
 mirror, and did not recognize his face. 
 
 Through the night, he suffered very little. His 
 brain seemed anaesthetized. 
 
 Toward dawn, the aspect of trivial objects, during 
 the night examined many times, began to frighten 
 him. He could not bear to look steadily at anything. 
 Was he losing his mind ? He drank whiskey, and, at 
 last, stumbling off to bed, found relief in stupor. 
 
 At dusk, he awoke. Mechanically he bathed and 
 dressed himself; blindly he walked out; and pres- 
 ently he found himself at Marie's door. The mulatto 
 maid admitted him, and disappeared. He parted 
 the green portieres. 
 
 Shadows veiled walls and ceiling; but from the 
 middle of the room, level rays of light reached out 
 and dazzled him. She was there, alone, seated be- 
 yond the bright centre-table. The lamp of yellow 
 porcelain gleamed between them. 
 
 Rising to her feet, she held herself motionless. 
 The lamplight illumined her slender figure from the 
 hips upward, and the lower part of her face. He 
 saw clearly her parted lips. But her eyes, her brow, 
 her hair, remained indistinct. 
 
 She wore a new dress of violet-colored silk, the cor- 
 sage decked with fringes of jet beads. Behind her, a 
 large hat, to match this costume, lay on the top of
 
 MARIE 225 
 
 the piano. Over all the furniture were scattered 
 garments of white lace, recently unpacked. The 
 warm air was redolent of benzoine and "peau 
 d'Espagne." 
 
 In that familiar atmosphere, evoking with its 
 fragrance innumerable memories, there stole into his 
 heart a poignant, inappropriate longing. He saw 
 her as if after a separation of years; her every beauty 
 was rediscovered; and her attire, strange to him, 
 seemed to invest her well-remembered person with 
 an additional fascination with a seductive novelty. 
 He had an impulse, almost uncontrollable, to ignore 
 the past, if only for a moment. But, perceiving in 
 the lobes of her ears two large black pearls, he 
 remained as before, while a great lassitude invaded 
 his limbs. 
 
 At last, a sob escaped him, and the words: 
 
 "What a wretch you are!" 
 
 In low tones, she retorted: 
 
 "And what about you? What about your deceits 
 your stories of money and prospects ? Ah, but you 
 got round me! And, like a fool, I believed every- 
 thing about you that Llanelly and others told me. 
 Little they knew! But I know now, thanks to him. 
 He couldn't keep it in any longer. And he had the 
 right of it. Yes, I find that he was your father's 
 confidential business man. The world's a small 
 place!" 
 
 He stared at her with open mouth, incredulous. 
 Harshly, he laughed: 
 
 "That rounder?"
 
 226 PREDESTINED 
 
 Then, as her eyes flashed at him through the 
 shadows, he realized that there was no possibility of 
 further and more shameful weakness on his part. It 
 was, indeed, finished. 
 
 An infinite reproach thrilled his utterance: 
 
 "You never loved me!" 
 
 "No, no; don't go thinking that I have no heart at 
 all. I got very fond of you, Felix. This has been 
 hard for me. But there are things in the world that 
 I've never had, that other women have, that I've al- 
 ways craved, that I must get. And life's short. And 
 I've thrown the last fifteen months away. And now I 
 must begin again nearly where I was when I met you." 
 
 Her head sank backward : she seemed to be staring 
 fixedly at something above, visible to her alone. The 
 darkness had invaded her whole face, which took on 
 an unreal, an awesome, look. For Felix, there was 
 in her countenance something terrible. The shadows 
 round her eye-sockets, her mouth, her cheek-bones, 
 were like an insidiously gathering decay. She re- 
 sembled Venus in dissolution. 
 
 He found the door. The latch clicked behind him. 
 He had fled a tomb. 
 
 Near street lamps, moisture glittered like sus- 
 pended folds of gauze. Fog was closing round 
 illuminated shop-windows, to blur and enlarge the 
 radiance thereof. At a distance, before spaces trem- 
 ulously luminous and all reflected in the wet pave- 
 ment, pedestrians, indistinct, outlined by yellow 
 aureoles, appeared like ghosts floating across deep 
 pools of light.
 
 MARIE 227 
 
 Felix turned toward the park. 
 
 The trees, in the mist more nebulous than the 
 heavens, were gradually pervaded by a threnody of 
 falling rain. From the earth rose a continuous sibila- 
 tion, and ripplings which suggested mournful voices. 
 
 It was eight o'clock when he emerged from the 
 darkness at Columbus Circle. Within the park gates 
 stood a small pavilion, open on all sides, furnished 
 with benches. Felix, dripping, shivering, worn out, 
 entered this shelter and sank into a seat. 
 
 Before him, in the centre of a broad stretch of 
 asphalt, loomed the statue of Columbus on its tall, 
 granite column. Round this monument, outside a 
 ring of green lanterns set out for the regulation of 
 traffic, glided an interminable flood of automobiles. 
 Beyond, rose a semicircle of buildings gay with 
 lights, their roofs crowned with electric signs the 
 party-colored globes of which seemed to give off 
 fumes into the lurid sky. At the right of this semi- 
 circle blazed the facade of the Castle Theatre. 
 
 An illuminated device two stories high, heart- 
 shaped, blood-red, proclaimed Montmorrissy's ex- 
 travaganza. Underneath, in a pale sheen blotted 
 from time to time by the silhouettes of automobiles, 
 surged a confusion of umbrellas, silk hats, and 
 women's cloaks. It was the audience assembling 
 for the first-night. 
 
 Gradually the crowd penetrated the theatre. The 
 bright vestibule stood empty. A clock dial on the cor- 
 ner of Fifty-ninth Street marked half-past eight. She 
 was on the stage, singing, smiling across the footlights.
 
 228 PREDESTINED 
 
 The young man, his chin sunk forward on his 
 breast, turned to retrospection. There came to him 
 a remembrance of numberless abasements, losses, 
 sacrifices. What anguish had he not suffered ; what 
 inestimable treasures had he not thrown away; to 
 what straits had he not brought himself! Twisting 
 his mouth into a bitter grimace, he pronounced, 
 slowly : 
 
 "And all for nothing!" 
 
 It was the epitaph of that period.
 
 PART THREE 
 EMMA
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 His sentimental convalescence was retarded by 
 chagrin. It was not easy to recover from the thought 
 that he, though all aflame, had never warmed her 
 heart. 
 
 He recalled that career of his in gullibility, and 
 imagined the ironical applause that must secretly 
 have greeted it. He came to hate the scenes of his ' 
 humiliation, each remembrance of which was dis- 
 torted by a savage prejudice. 
 
 There took shape before him a nocturnal thorough- 
 fare, disguising its shabbiness with a glitter of colored 
 lights, where automobiles, bearing women flagrantly 
 perilous yet immeasurably ignoble beneath their 
 finery, drove decency into the gutters, where the 
 pavements disappeared under a surge of neurasthenic 
 men penetrating cafes amid the flicker of bold eyes, 
 where the apertures of the side streets were filled with 
 shadows of a predacious restlessness, while, beneath 
 the aura of the "Tenderloin" a thin radiance quiv- 
 ering as if set in agitation by innumerable spasms of 
 sick nerves was disseminated an atmosphere, which 
 all thereabouts were forced to breathe, like some 
 vast, enveloping, enigmatically perverse temptation. 
 
 Felix, in revulsion, longed for his old contentment 
 in immaculate and simple things, for the tonic reac- 
 
 231
 
 232 PREDESTINED 
 
 tions from intentions Wholly pure, for such com- 
 panionship as should be but a commingling of sub- 
 lime tendernesses. And he seemed to see a billowy 
 landscape, wooded, immersed in sunshine, swallows 
 skimming over lawns at the approach of evening, 
 then, emerging from a fading sky, the round, diaph- 
 anous moon. 
 
 But in the midst of fine resolutions he realized that 
 none of his experiences could be obliterated that 
 thenceforth he would have to go through life, however 
 edifying his course, with something of the past dis- 
 figuring him. 
 
 Meanwhile, he had yet to make the first retrieving 
 step. His pockets were empty; he had pawned all 
 his valuable possessions ; there was none left of whom 
 he dared ask assistance. His landlord, despairing 
 of six months' back rent, dispossessed him. 
 
 When the hour came for him to leave the studio 
 forever, standing beneath the skylight he gazed round 
 as if to impress upon his memory each trivial object. 
 The worn furniture seemed suddenly replete with 
 sentimental value. A flood of reminiscences en- 
 gulfed him: he pronounced, slowly and gently, three 
 names, "Nina, Eileen, Marie!" They had all 
 entered there ; something of their diverse sweetnesses 
 remained clinging, as it were, to the hangings like 
 faint, mingling perfumes; and all their physical and 
 moral variations were confused, at that blending of 
 many memories into one memory diffuse and limit- 
 less, to him more exquisite, mysterious, and fragrant 
 than a garden full of lilies in moonlight. "Good-
 
 EMMA 233 
 
 by, old room!" He felt that he was shutting in 
 there something of himself an essence which would 
 mingle forever with an impalpable part of them, that 
 they had not been able to take away. "No; what 
 the heart gives, it cannot wholly get back. From 
 love, no one escapes entire. There is no utter rupt- 
 ure, no absolute separation." He issued into Thirty- 
 second Street. Pat, the white bull-terrier, leaped 
 and barked to find himself in the open. 
 
 On Washington Square South, Felix found a small 
 hotel, square, flat-roofed, built of green brick, six 
 stories high, the narrow entrance trimmed with ex- 
 ceedingly thin slabs of greenish marble, the office 
 furnished with four chairs and two brass cuspidors, 
 the elevator somewhat larger than a bird-cage. 
 There, on the fifth floor, he obtained, for nine dollars 
 a week, a bedroom and a bath, with windows open- 
 ing on the square. Beyond a rectilinear expanse of 
 trees their nakedness disclosing asphalt paths, some 
 wooden shelters, and a circular fountain past the 
 gray bulk of the Washington Arch a monument of 
 Roman contour, strong and martial midway of a 
 row of three-story brick dwellings with white win- 
 dow frames and porticos, appeared the beginning of 
 Fifth Avenue: a vista, stretching northward, where 
 the prim roofs of conservative gentlefolk soon gave 
 place to the "sky-scrapers" of trade, and at the right 
 of which, a mile away, above a crenellation of massive 
 cornices, was thrust into the air a marble tower. 
 
 From his bedroom window Felix could see the 
 site of the Ferrol house, where was rising against
 
 234 PREDESTINED 
 
 clouds a black steel framework. In that effacement, 
 he took a mournful satisfaction. He was relieved of 
 one hitherto persistent, mute reproach. 
 
 Old scenes seemed fated to enclose him. He was 
 forced back to The Evening Sphere. 
 
 The vestibule retained its odors of linoleum and 
 printer's ink; the spiral staircase trembled at sub- 
 terranean rumblings; one end of the fourth floor 
 was foggy with tobacco smoke, where five unwashed 
 windows admitted over a swarm of profiles a diluted 
 light. An edition of The Evening Sphere was going 
 to press. Mechanics, bare-armed, tweaked mats of 
 felt from metal slabs; "copy boys" scampered to 
 pneumatic tubes ; groups huddled round form-tables ; 
 young reporters sat at desks, their foreheads sinking 
 toward their speedy pencils. On all sides rose famil- 
 iar faces: Johnny Livy was there, waving a page of 
 manuscript and bellowing to be relieved of it. None 
 had time to notice Felix. 
 
 But the editor, in his cupboard of an office, his 
 coat off, his knees hidden beneath newspapers, care- 
 fully laid down his cigar, and went so far as to 
 extend a slender hand. In his delicate face a sly 
 pleasure seemed to struggle with reserve. He did 
 not refrain from asking: 
 
 "The prodigal's return?" 
 
 "If you'll have me, sir." 
 
 The editor seemed on the point of some compli- 
 mentary utterance. However, he recovered just in 
 time his customary caution. 
 
 "What salary were you getting?"
 
 EMMA 235 
 
 "Twenty-five dollars." 
 
 "So much? Well all right. Report to the city 
 desk." 
 
 In a week, it was as if Felix had never left The 
 Evening Sphere. He resumed a hundred old habits 
 of obedience and work. A sense of retrogression 
 wore away ; he discovered many amiable qualities in 
 his co-workers, from whom he had once thought 
 himself remote in everything. 
 
 He smoked a pipe, drank beer, and often lunched 
 with Livy, the reporter, in a cafe on Fulton Street, 
 where the bill came to half a dollar. These two found 
 themselves much more congenial than formerly. 
 
 The lean, jerky, young journalist was at last even 
 tempted to confessions. He aspired to be a city 
 editor, "his finger marking the pulse-beat of New 
 York"; he wanted to marry, to live in a suburban 
 cottage, with a baby-carriage on the porch, dogs on 
 the step, and chickens in the yard. But many turned 
 their eyes toward the city editor's desk, and Livy had 
 few opportunities to meet "nice" girls. However, 
 he expounded a theory that one got what he set his 
 mind on. There was only one thing to beware of, 
 namely, liquor. And, while returning officeward 
 with Felix from the cafe, he would point out some 
 elderly waif, drifting beneath the bulletin-boards of 
 the newspaper offices, gray-headed, ragged, half tipsy, 
 who had once been a "star reporter." Felix felt 
 deep in his breast a thrill of fear. 
 . Innumerable past satiations, remorses, and dis- 
 gusts, had united finally to effect in him, as he be-
 
 236 PREDESTINED 
 
 lieved, a permanent repugnance, an utter disillusion- 
 ment, an epochal upheaval of the conscience. His 
 old arguments in favor of self-denial had recurred to 
 him. He even thought himself, at last, in sympathy 
 with those ascetics whose philosophies had once an- 
 noyed him. There emerged from the phantasma- 
 goria of history, as if to tempt his emulation, a sort 
 of cenobitic pageant of the ages, wherein appeared 
 the multitudes of the world's exalted souls, wherein 
 swam together countless faces illumined by renunci- 
 ation, wherein myriads of hands fluttered to make 
 every manner of devotional sign, while on all sides 
 the emblems of abnegatory cults rose and drooped in 
 time to an air-shaking diapason of resolute voices. 
 
 Yet Felix soon gazed on this vision, as he had 
 gazed on that of the lost pagan frenzies of the flesh, 
 in a preoccupation intrinsically all sensuousness. 
 He considered less the renouncers of the world than 
 what they had renounced; and the pleasures spurned 
 by them were so gilded over with the romance per- 
 taining to old things as to bear no visible relation 
 to their modern counterparts. Felix, who now ex- 
 pressed abhorrence of debauchery in his own place 
 and time, dreamed of cities anathematized by antique 
 saints, over which Astarte, like the chimera of a 
 colossal courtesan her brow diademmed with stars, 
 her pallor looming under veils of smoky indigo that 
 filled the night spread on the evening winds the 
 aphrodisiacal perfume of her sigh, to pervade all 
 mortals with her madness. In short, Felix would 
 have liked just then to be Paphnutius praying in his
 
 EMMA 237 
 
 cell, but would have wished to think, while praying, 
 of Thai's dropping her mantle in the Alexandrian 
 theatre. 
 
 So it was with backward looks that the young man 
 bade farewell to all his faults. 
 
 But presently, there succeeded his first satisfaction 
 feelings of solitude. Tremendous spaces, as in track- 
 less seas, encompassed him; doubts obscured, like 
 leaden clouds, the horizon where he had thought to 
 find his haven: land was not there; he had thrown 
 overboard all the palliatives of an earthly voyage; 
 and, his brain reeling in a hurricane of longings, he 
 anticipated shipwreck for that venture. 
 
 "Perhaps his sacrifices had been made too vio- 
 lently?" 
 
 At this gust, he capsized. 
 
 With robust and reckless independence, he 
 marched into a cafe. Next morning, he was unable 
 to appear at the newspaper office. 
 
 Felix then got the idea that by very gradually 
 reducing his indulgences he could, without discom- 
 fort, bring them to the vanishing-point. This sys- 
 tem never seemed so plausible as when, alone in some 
 obscure cafe, a long cigar between his teeth, a glass of 
 whiskey and soda in his hand, he saw his surroundings 
 develop values previously unsuspected. Once more 
 life was ephemerally embellished; aspirations came 
 thronging, and, at the utter dissolution of the common- 
 place, he seemed to glimpse the magnificent, unde- 
 cipherable object of all human yearning. Those were 
 rare hours, such as he could not frequently afford.
 
 238 PREDESTINED 
 
 Little by little, the workaday present obscured the 
 romantic past. At length, he found it impossible to 
 recall distinctly Marie's face. He was conscious of 
 no more than a fair aureole, indefinitely representing 
 perfidy wrapped up in passion, evoking a bitterness 
 inextricable from a lurking sweetness. 
 
 Felix was always remembering, however, his in- 
 debtedness to Noon, at thought of whom he could 
 summon no certain feeling save of humiliation. 
 
 He examined his half-finished novel, begun a year 
 before. It dealt with a girl of lowly origin, pursuing, 
 through a gloomy region of abysses, the ignis fatuus 
 of honest love. Felix destroyed that manuscript. 
 "He could have written no more with conviction." 
 
 But one evening he met on the street Miss Qewan, 
 who had been discharged from "The Silly Season" 
 by Montmorrissy. Felix's sympathetic inquiries un- 
 locked her lips; she related her struggles frankly. 
 
 She had left the stage, to try manicuring, hair- 
 dressing, peddling sets of books, and office work. 
 But the manager of a barber's shop and a French 
 hairdresser had both found her lacking in complai- 
 sance; then her book-selling had drawn her into 
 equivocal situations, and finally she had engaged to 
 work for a promoter of financial schemes "who got 
 too gay." She thought of accepting employment in 
 a telephone exchange a great, bustling place where 
 the individual, no doubt, was lost to view. 
 
 "But, my dear girl, such wages!" 
 
 "Yes," she admitted, "sometimes when I look 
 round, I think I'm foolish. The world, as I come
 
 EMMA 239 
 
 in contact with it, seems to think so, too! But then, 
 it's not just myself." 
 
 "I know," said Felix, remembering some tale of 
 an eight-year-old sister. 
 
 As she looked up at him, surprised, the bright 
 blood flooded her cheeks. 
 
 Formerly pale and slender, she was now well-nigh 
 ethereal, and her face, under dark hair arranged in 
 unobtrusive folds, revealed a luminosity seen at 
 times in countenances of women devoted to religion, 
 or to some other elevated, fixed resolve. Felix, 
 homeward bound, asked himself: 
 
 "Suppose it had been one of that sort, instead?" 
 
 A breeze wafted through Washington Square an 
 earthy odor that was like a hint of spring. He 
 thought of his solitary evenings, and wondered where 
 she lived. 
 
 At night, in his hotel bedroom, he scribbled list- 
 lessly and tore up synopses of illogical tales. His 
 literary failures of the past year had deprived him of 
 motive force. It was only when disqualified from 
 work by stimulants that he felt able to write master- 
 pieces. 
 
 Smoking incessantly, he paced from wall to wall, 
 sneered at the dingy room, peered at the clock with- 
 out knowing why he wanted time to pass, halted 
 before the mantel-shelf, where stood his mother's 
 photograph. Sometimes he strove, from a sense of 
 obligation, to discover a filial tenderness for the 
 beautiful young woman, in obsolete attire, whom he 
 had never known.
 
 240 PREDESTINED 
 
 Lives, pleasures, opportunities, ever touching, pass- 
 ing, vanishing away! But there always remained to 
 him the luxury of self-pity. Now and then, when 
 Felix was staring at his reflection in the mirror, Pat, 
 curled up on a chair, would quickly raise his head. 
 
 The white bull-terrier had grown to weigh forty 
 pounds. His lengthy skull tapered to a sharp nose; 
 his deep-set eyes, three-cornered and black-rimmed, 
 lay slantwise under a flat brow; his trimmed ears, 
 lined with pink, stood permanently erect ; he had the 
 flexible neck, long, narrow body, slight quarters, and 
 sinewy legs of the agile fighting brute. His brass- 
 bound collar was dented with many a tooth mark. 
 
 He had spent hours without number listening be- 
 hind locked doors for the unique footfall, or enduring 
 morosely, in furnace rooms and basement kitchens, 
 the guardianship of servants. Felix, a remorseful 
 jailer, at least discovered a place where he could 
 dine with Pat underneath the table. 
 
 On the north side of Eighth Street, close to Wash- 
 ington Square, an old, white dwelling-house had been 
 converted into an Italian restaurant, called "Bene- 
 detto's," where a table d'hote dinner was served for 
 sixty cents. Some brown-stone steps, flanked by a 
 pair of iron lanterns, gave entrance to a narrow 
 corridor. There, to the right, immediately appeared 
 the dining-room, extending through the house lino- 
 leum underfoot, hat-racks and buffets of oak aligned 
 against the brownish walls, and, everywhere, little 
 tables, each covered with a scanty cloth, set dose 
 together.
 
 EMMA 241 
 
 Felix, at the most inconspicuous table, consumed 
 a soup redeemed from tastelessness by grated par- 
 mesan, a sliver of fish and four slices of cucumber, 
 spaghetti, a chicken leg, two cubic inches of ice- 
 cream, a fragment of roquefort cheese, and coffee in 
 a small, evidently indestructible cup. Then, through 
 tobacco smoke, he watched the patrons round him, 
 their feet twisted behind chair-legs, their elbows on 
 the table, all arguing with gesticulations. Some- 
 times, there floated to him such phrases as: "bad 
 color scheme!" "sophomoric treatment!" "miser- 
 able drawing!" "no atmosphere!" Benedetto's was 
 a Bohemian resort. 
 
 One night, Felix made the acquaintance there of a 
 little man with bright, shallow eyes and eager lips, 
 wearing a low collar and a large black bow, who 
 introduced himself. 
 
 "My name is Lute. We live in the same hotel, 
 and, I understand, pursue the same profession. So, 
 naturally, neither of us is to be fettered by absurd 
 conventions. May I sit down ? Mercy, what's this 
 a dog! Will he bite? Good fellow! Guiseppe! 
 The regular table d'hote. Mr. Piers, have you read 
 'A Sunrise,' Oliver CorquilFs latest?" 
 
 "Not yet. I must, though, or he'll be asking me 
 if I liked it." 
 
 Mr. Lute's eyes opened wide. 
 
 "A friend of Oliver Corquill's? How interesting!" 
 And, hitching his chair forward, he beamed on the 
 young man. Felix wondered how he could manage 
 to display also his friendship with Paul Pavin.
 
 242 PREDESTINED 
 
 "And you, Mr. Piers, may I ask what you are 
 publishing just now?" 
 
 "Nothing, at present." 
 
 The intruder's face brightened all the more. 
 
 "Same with me. Put out nothing that's not per- 
 fect, eh? I go very carefully. Would you believe 
 that in the last three months I've released only one 
 thing, a quatrain, appearing in the current number 
 of The Mauve Monthly, at the bottom of the ninety- 
 ninth page?" 
 
 "You are a poet, then?" asked Felix, raising his 
 second glass of Scotch and soda. 
 
 "Specifically, but my muse is catholic. I've writ- 
 ten a novel, that I shall revise to my liking some day. 
 I've done a play it was going to be produced last 
 year in collaboration. You must know of Miss 
 Nedra Jennings Nuncheon?" 
 
 "I haven't the pleasure." 
 
 "You surprise me! A remarkable girl! I must 
 introduce you." 
 
 Next night, Felix was presented to Miss Nuncheon. 
 
 She was tall and thin, with a mop of orange-colored 
 hair the ends of which trailed down. In a blue dress 
 of many folds, the neck cut low, the sleeves covering 
 her knuckles, she seemed to Felix trying to imper- 
 sonate some lank damosel in a Preraphaelite paint- 
 ing. She spoke impulsively, in the uncertain, reedy 
 voice of a person hysterically inclined, and frequently, 
 with the vehemence of her nods, shook loose a yellow 
 celluloid hairpin. 
 
 It appeared that she wrote short stories about " the
 
 EMMA 243 
 
 smart set," a society existing far off amid the glamour 
 of opera-boxes, conservatories full of orchids, yachts 
 like ocean steamships, mansions with marble stair- 
 ways, Paris dresses by the gross, and hatfuls of dia- 
 monds, where the women were always discovered in 
 boudoirs with a French maid named Fanchette in 
 attendance, receiving bunches of long-stemmed roses 
 from potential corespondents, while the men, all 
 very tall and dark, possessed of interesting pasts, 
 were introduced before fireplaces in sumptuous 
 bachelor apartments, the veins knotted on their 
 temples, and their strong yet aristocratic fingers 
 clutching a photograph or a scented note. Miss 
 Nuncheon enjoyed the admiration of a numerous 
 class of readers. 
 
 Nevertheless, she lived in a boarding-house near 
 Washington Square, where she shared apartments 
 with a stout, faded, pretty woman named Mrs. Bab- 
 bage, who usually accompanied her to Benedetto's. 
 Mrs. Babbage was interested in occult philosophies, 
 and wrote articles for an esoteric magazine. She 
 was so calm as to seem almost somnolent ; she only 
 put on a beatific smile when an Italian waiter spilled 
 salad-dressing down her back, and when she lost the 
 blue pebble from her cabalistic finger-ring. Accord- 
 ing to Mr. Lute, if it were not for Mrs. Babbage's 
 sedative influence, there was no telling what agonies 
 Miss Nuncheon might endure on account of her 
 intense artistic temperament. 
 
 Felix soon wearied of the "shop talk" that he 
 heard at Benedetto's. There great names were
 
 244 PREDESTINED 
 
 ignored, or else uneasily disparaged, while New York 
 authors so obscure as to be unknown to Felix were 
 vehemently extolled. Mr. Lute, the symbolic qua- 
 train writer, had not heard of the Parnassians ; Miss 
 Nuncheon, always talking of the "psychological 
 novel," did not know who Stendhal was; Mrs. Bab- 
 bage, who could dash off columns about "the mystic 
 ideals of the East," showed a blank face at references 
 to Neoplatonism. Finding his own company less 
 exasperating, Felix took to dining late, and, in the 
 deserted restaurant, while Pat crunched bones be- 
 neath the table, progressed at leisure, without inter- 
 ruption, from cheap red wine to high-balls, to liqueur 
 brandy, to inspiring dreams. The same swarthy 
 waiter always helped him into his overcoat, and, 
 from the corridor, called after him: 
 
 "Mind da step, signore!" 
 
 Once, when he had just ordered dinner, he saw, 
 at the other end of the room, a pair of eyes, large 
 and luminous under arched black brows, staring at 
 him. Surely that was the woman who, in search of 
 her husband, had interrupted his studio party on 
 Christmas eve, a year and more ago ! She bowed to 
 him discreetly. 
 
 He rose, and approached her. She bolted a 
 mouthful of food, pressed a napkin to her lips, and 
 got up from her chair. This movement surprised 
 him. He noticed her unfashionable hat, and her 
 neat, black dress, which looked home-made. 
 
 "How do you do?" 
 
 "Very well, thanks. And you?"
 
 EMMA 245 
 
 "I, too." 
 
 And they stood gazing at each other without smil- 
 ing. 
 
 A small woman, evidently past thirty, she was in 
 danger of becoming stout. Her face was fuller than 
 when Felix had last seen her, and beneath her soft 
 chin had appeared an infinitesimal crease. Her 
 skin was a clear white, her hair, blue-black and sim- 
 ply dressed; her blue eyes, extraordinarily lambent 
 which, from a distance, Felix had thought black 
 formed her one beauty. Across her out jutting nose 
 ran a slight scar. She had a little, pale, thin-lipped 
 mouth disclosing; when she spoke, small, glistening 
 teeth. In a soft voice, she said, hesitatingly: 
 
 "How strange to meet you here!" 
 
 "Oh, I find it amusing, sometimes, this sort of 
 thing, as I suppose you do. Besides, I live near by." 
 
 "Why, I thought- 
 
 "No, up there they began to tear down the build- 
 ings round me; it got rather disagreeable, and I left. 
 But you?" 
 
 "I live round the corner." 
 
 "Is it possible! Then you come here often?" 
 
 "For a change. I board. I'm still alone. This 
 time, he never came back." 
 
 After a pause, she added, timidly : 
 
 "Won't you sit down, Mr. " 
 
 Felix pronounced his name. She was Mrs. Meers. 
 
 They dined together. 
 
 She had short, plump hands, well kept, which she 
 used at table very warily, as if apprehensive of her
 
 246 PREDESTINED 
 
 manners. Indeed, she was obviously ill at ease, 
 scarcely touched her dinner, could not be persuaded 
 to take champagne, answered in monosyllables, and, 
 throughout the meal, seemed in a sort of trance. 
 Felix, divining her sensations, exercised his ingenuity 
 to impress her further. His vanity was touched, at 
 the belief that this little bourgeoise stood in awe of 
 him. It was not often, nowadays, that he enjoyed 
 the pleasures of superiority. 
 
 When he had paid the bill, he rallied her, gayly: 
 
 "Come, now: what were you thinking of while 
 you sat there all through dinner like a little mouse?" 
 
 With head slightly lowered, with lips together, 
 she looked at him as if frightened, and, though she 
 made no movement, seemed to stir throughout. 
 
 "I was thinking how strange it was to be dining 
 here with any one." Then, by way of explanation: 
 
 "I'm so much alone, you see." 
 
 It had been drizzling: the pavements, beaded with 
 rain, showed, under mistily irradiating street lamps, 
 humid footprints. From the juncture of Mac- 
 dougal Street and Waverley Place, the trees of Wash- 
 ington Square spread out a mass of gray-black 
 shadows underlaid with the horizontal, pearly lustre 
 of wet asphalt paths. Here and there, a yellow shaft 
 of light, enlarged in the damp air, streamed past the 
 tree-trunks, and, beyond upper branches, illuminated 
 window-panes shone peacefully, their mellow squares 
 etched over, as it were, by delicate traceries of twigs. 
 Clouds were disintegrating straight overhead. Into 
 a radiant space came floating a frail, shining crescent.
 
 EMMA 247 
 
 "Oh, the new moon!" cried Felix's companion, 
 with an accent of emotion. "I must make a wish!" 
 She stood still, her lustrous eyes upturned, her small 
 face solemn from superstition. For the moment, she 
 resembled a young girl. 
 
 On Waverley Place, near Sixth Avenue, she halted 
 before a house with old window-shutters and a 
 brown-stone portico crumbling at the pediment. 
 Beside the door, a sign announced "furnished rooms 
 and table board." 
 
 "I live here," she confessed. 
 
 Felix, homeward bound through Washington 
 Square, felt in himself something of the mysterious 
 release of nature that was taking place about him. 
 "This cool air, moist and sweet, is breathing news 
 of spring!" He gazed up at the stars, lips parted, 
 in unaccountable expectancy. 
 
 Within the week, curious to know her story 
 "which might give him some ideas" he called on 
 her. 
 
 In the boarding-house on Waverley Place there was 
 no parlor: she had to receive him in her room, up 
 two flights of stairs, overlooking the back yards. A 
 folding bed, adorned with a blotched mirror, con- 
 fronted a white mantel-piece. Some old brocade 
 chairs, the relics of more nearly elegant environments, 
 exhibited their threadbare arms and split edges. 
 Between the windows stood a yellow bureau, bearing 
 pin-cushions, brushes, combs, and scissors, laid out 
 precisely. The room, despite its shabbiness, was 
 neat ; a work-basket on a stand provided a domestic
 
 248 PREDESTINED 
 
 touch; and, when Felix entered, she was preparing 
 to hang on the walls a dozen framed photographs 
 that she had washed. He suggested helping her; she, 
 at such condescension, excitedly refused assistance; 
 in his most urbane manner, he insisted. Over this 
 mutual labor, they progressed to laughter. He dis- 
 covered that she could appreciate his attempts at 
 humor. A smile changed her face surprisingly. 
 
 All the photographs were of her. She was por- 
 trayed in a lace dress, in a light opera cloak and 
 train, in a large hat with plumes, always, in these 
 costumes which looked at once expensive and pro- 
 vincial, standing stiffly, with immobile face, like a 
 wax figure in a show-window. Felix wondered if 
 vanity had urged her to this exhibition. He ventured : 
 
 "What pretty dresses! And how well you look in 
 them!" 
 
 "I used to have things," she responded, heaving a 
 deep sigh. 
 
 Perhaps, then, these were souvenirs by means of 
 which she kept active a melancholy retrospection ? 
 
 Lonely, bursting with suppressed complaints, evi- 
 dently a w T oman to make a confidant of the first sym- 
 pathetic-looking person, she needed no temptation to 
 discuss her history. "I feel everything so deeply! 
 And few women have had such troubles as I," she 
 declared, with an air of mournful satisfaction. 
 
 Born and brought up in a Connecticut town, from 
 which she had migrated as a bride, she had married, 
 for love, the superintendent of a beef-packing house 
 in Long Island City. According to her, this husband
 
 EMMA 249 
 
 was a fellow inexpressibly handsome and robust, rosy 
 from inhabiting cold-storage vaults, resplendent in 
 his white apron amid his rows of carcasses, and, no 
 doubt, deriving from the exhalations of so much raw 
 flesh a brutal lustihood. He had "a good salary"; 
 they fitted out a cottage in Long Island City that she 
 "would not have exchanged for the best house on 
 Fifth Avenue." There she was happy. 
 
 But "Lew" had taken to drink, had neglected her, 
 had proved unfaithful. While referring to her hus- 
 band's many gallantries, she could not help show- 
 ing something like admiration. She had possessed, 
 or shared, at least, a Don Juan! 
 
 Her parents were dead; her woman friends had 
 failed her; men had not been willing to remain dis- 
 interested. With nowhere to turn, she had condoned 
 her husband's various offences. She explained, 
 "Then, too, Mr. Piers, you don't know what the 
 name 'wife' means to a woman." 
 
 Lew lost his position and could retain no other, 
 dissipated his savings and whatever money of his 
 wife's he could secure, sold the cottage, changed 
 lodgings every month, haunted race-tracks, dis- 
 appeared for weeks on drinking bouts, finally van- 
 ished. She was now spending the last of her inheri- 
 tance : when that was gone, what should she do ? 
 
 "He may come to his senses yet," was Felix's 
 suggestion. 
 
 She became greatly agitated. 
 
 "That's finished! It took me eight years to wean 
 myself away from him. But now I hate his very
 
 250 PREDESTINED 
 
 name! And I shall never love again oh, never, 
 never again." 
 
 Felix repressed a smile. She was diverting, this 
 little, naive, earnest woman of a class new to him. 
 He thought, "I could write a novel round her." 
 Indeed, he fell to contemplating such a book a 
 monotone of misfortunes, beginning obscurely, mov- 
 ing through commonplace adventures that his art 
 would make prodigious, then slowly drawing to an 
 undistinguished, yet exquisitely pathetic, close. So 
 he took to calling on her regularly. 
 
 He had his chair, the deepest and most comfortable. 
 She bought a metal ash-tray, which she placed near 
 him, diffidently; the receptacle first used by him a 
 pasteboard box-lid was not good enough, it seemed. 
 
 She was long in abandoning her timidity before this 
 young man with a distinguished air and a nice com- 
 mand of language, this "gentleman," who gave ex- 
 travagant supper-parties in a studio, confessed him- 
 self hand in glove with celebrities, and every evening 
 might undoubtedly have dazzled the town in the 
 most brilliant company. If only she could have 
 received him "properly"! She lamented the loss of 
 her cottage. What good little dinners she had once 
 contrived for persons unworthy of them, the straw- 
 berry shortcake a product of her own hands, the table 
 laden, thanks to Lew, with the choicest meats and 
 game ! Her very ingenuousness roused his pity. 
 
 She had spent part of her girlhood in a convent. 
 While darning stockings, she related anecdotes: 
 
 "I had a little room with a white bed, and a shiny,
 
 EMMA 251 
 
 shiny floor, and one chair. But no mirror! I never 
 saw myself! When I got home, I sat all day before a 
 mirror, rocking and rocking. 
 
 "In recreation hour, we made clothes for tiny little 
 orphans. Sometimes I would be sewing in the grape 
 arbor, and a great bunch of grapes would fall right 
 into my lap. How my mouth watered! But the 
 Sister always said, 'Be firm, Emma!' 
 
 "I used to pray at night, 'If only I could die this 
 minute : I'm so good, I would go straight to heaven ! ' ' 
 
 These speeches, accompanied by shy, bird-like 
 poses of the head, all ending in a whisper like a little 
 girl's, bestowed on her a dainty charm, and made 
 her seem younger than she was. She confessed to 
 twenty-nine years. 
 
 One evening, when he was bidding her good-by, 
 their hands grew cold at contact, their glances clung 
 together. She, with a look of consternation, slowly 
 leaned her weight against the door- jamb. 
 
 At once, he recalled the past, and all its miseries. 
 He went downstairs quickly. He swore never to 
 enter there again. 
 
 It was spring at last; the windows of his room 
 were open ; the breeze blew in. And from the dark- 
 ness something invisible, impalpable, yet almost per- 
 sonal, something soft, languorous, and immense, 
 related to the stars, to flowers, to evening winds, 
 seemed stealing toward him. 
 
 He was frightened. Recoiling, he whispered: 
 
 "No more! This time, I want to escape!"
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FELIX avoided Benedetto's restaurant, stopped 
 wandering in Washington Square at night, made de- 
 tours round Waver! ey Place, even thought of chang- 
 ing his abode. But in a week he asked himself why 
 his apprehension had been so intense. He had, it 
 seemed, been afraid of an obscure little woman no 
 longer youthful, neither pretty nor talented, who 
 should have excited in him only pity and amusement ! 
 Had he not learned his lesson, through much suffer- 
 ing, at the hands of those with whom, in point of 
 charms, she was not to be compared? 
 
 Sometimes, however, he imagined her sitting in her 
 room, the metal ash-tray empty on her bureau, with 
 her dozen photographs, suggestive of "better days," 
 for company. This picture seemed indirectly to 
 reproach him. 
 
 He became angry. Deserted and lonely? So 
 were a hundred thousand other women in the city; 
 he hoped he was not under obligations to them all! 
 "My worst trouble is that I am naturally a senti- 
 mental ass!" 
 
 Well, he would make an end of that with his other 
 weaknesses. Recalling to mind great historic fig- 
 ures, he told himself that those who hardened their 
 
 hearts and rode rough-shod over humanity attained 
 
 252
 
 EMMA 253 
 
 the highest eminences. With the intention of emula- 
 ting such characters, he assumed an air of energy and 
 sternness, was unnaturally curt in all his intercourse, 
 and, in the street, regarded passers-by to their evi- 
 dent surprise with a set, inimical face. In this 
 mood, as in all others, he was swept quickly to excess. 
 
 These enforcements of vigor proved only so many 
 additional incentives to inebriety. For just as he 
 could no longer feel depression without the desire to 
 relieve it by familiar means, so he could not experi- 
 ence exhilaration without the impulse to appease in 
 like manner a nervous appetency that accompanied 
 it. His recent ideas of abstinence faded in a moral 
 obscuration continually renewed. Nearly every night 
 he reached his bed half stupefied by his potations. 
 At the newspaper office, he welcomed eagerly an 
 ''outdoor job," as promising the opportunity to 
 snatch some highballs on the way. 
 
 Now and then, when Felix, at a battered desk, was 
 scribbling of defaulters, homicides, and politicians, 
 the editor, on the threshold of his compartment, a 
 newspaper clipping in his hand, gazed at the young 
 man as if absent-mindedly. If he had in prospect a 
 delicate commission, which threatened libel suits, he 
 beckoned Johnny Livy. 
 
 This reporter managed to get himself affianced to a 
 modest girl who lived with her parents in a suburb. 
 Immediately, he left off drinking, discarded his black 
 felt hat and corncob pipe, strove to be at once better 
 dressed and more economical, worked desperately to 
 attract the favorable notice of his superiors, had no
 
 254 PREDESTINED 
 
 small talk that was not about "the cost of living." 
 Felix, his frequent confidant, disguised commiserat- 
 ing smiles, like one who sees others striving for such 
 fruits as have withered at his touch. 
 
 But one brilliant afternoon in May, when all the 
 trees of Washington Square were stippled with a 
 tender green, there came to him a sadness not to be 
 dispelled by sunshine; and he paused, in the door- 
 way of his hotel, to look again at a young couple 
 promenading, slowly and silently, beside the red and 
 yellow tulip beds, beneath the budding leaves, to the 
 twittering of mating birds. 
 
 When he went upstairs, he found on the door-sill 
 of his room an envelope addressed in an unknown, 
 childish hand. It was from Emma Meers. 
 
 She had been wondering how she could have 
 offended him. The thought of losing, by some inad- 
 vertence, a kind friend if she might call him so 
 with friends so scarce, had nearly "brought her down 
 ill." "Your calls were something to look foreward 
 to; they made me feel like I wasent all together 
 alone. I know it was a great kindness of you to 
 bother with me, being so busy, and haveing so inter- 
 esting people to take up your leisure, but if you could 
 find it conveniant only to drop in sometimes when 
 you are not engaged, and cheer me up like you used, 
 is the wish of yours very gratefully" . . . 
 
 Poor little woman, this letter, with all its errors so 
 painstakingly engrossed, had been a troublesome task 
 for her! Her face, timid and beseeching, appeared 
 before him no less clearly than on those evenings
 
 EMMA 255 
 
 when they had forgotten in company their loneliness. 
 He wondered how he could have been apprehensive 
 of a personality so submissive, so helpless, so easy 
 if the utmost befell to leave behind. 
 
 For was there not to be read, between the lines of 
 that laborious script, a meaning more wistful than 
 she dared express; did he not perceive, with an 
 intuition sharpened to discern every sentimental ap- 
 proach, that something was seeking him which he 
 had never yet been able to withstand? He gazed, 
 in fact, toward a new horizon, where hovered the 
 promise of a passion the more piquant for its humble 
 and almost domestic setting. At the revival of his 
 ineradicable curiosity, all his determinations were 
 forgotten. 
 
 He returned to Waverley Place. 
 
 She rose from a chair ; her hand flew to her breast ; 
 she stood motionless, staring at him. 
 
 "Oh, how you frightened me!" 
 
 "I wasn't expected?" 
 
 "No. Yes. That is, I hardly hoped. So you got 
 my poor letter?" 
 
 "A charming letter." 
 
 "Ah, you say that!" 
 
 She was within his reach, her small, upturned face 
 assuredly betraying the secret he had expected to 
 discover. But suddenly, remembering their short 
 acquaintance, he became incredulous. What if he 
 were on the verge of a humiliating v mistake? He 
 hesitated, lost his chance, and sat down in "his 
 chair." She placed the metal ash-tray at his elbow.
 
 256 PREDESTINED 
 
 "And what have you been doing, all these three 
 weeks?" 
 
 "Working every minute. And you?" 
 
 "Trying to forget my troubles." 
 
 So they began again. After all his anticipations, 
 such an anticlimax! 
 
 Yet whose fault was it, if not his? That evening, 
 while returning home, he denounced his vacillation; 
 he vowed that their next meeting should be different. 
 As always, when once tempted to tamper with his 
 resolutions, he was to be satisfied with nothing less 
 than the annihilation of them. 
 
 Such dexterity in love-making as he now possessed 
 was not needed in the slightest. His first change of 
 voice from commonplace to tender agitated her; at 
 his near approach she fixed him with a dewy gaze 
 through which her soul seemed to flow toward him; 
 at his touch, she closed her eyes, swayed forward, 
 inarticulate, and fell into his arms. 
 
 He was less elated than vexed ; by this point-blank 
 surrender he had been cheated of innumerable tenu- 
 ous pleasures such as, in his opinion, should have 
 composed their amorous progress. Clumsy haste! 
 His aesthetic sense was outraged, and, in his heart of 
 hearts, he blamed her for his disappointment. 
 
 Nevertheless, he could not help being flattered by 
 the confession she gasped out while clinging to him 
 with averted face. She had intended never to love 
 any one again; she had not believed it possible for 
 her to do so; yet from that first night in Benedetto's 
 she had suspected that it was "all up with her."
 
 EMMA 257 
 
 " But I fought against it ! I never meant to love you, 
 either! Oh, why, why, did you make me? Why did 
 you come back? Something terrible will happen to 
 us a judgment from Heaven! Don't try to com- 
 fort me ; I know it, I know it ! Oh, if the Sisters in 
 the convent heard; if my mother could look down!" 
 She sobbed violently, struggled to escape his arms, 
 collapsed in a sort of swoon, her head thrown back, 
 her large eyes glassy and motionless in their sockets. 
 Presently, from her pallor and immobility, one might 
 have believed her dead, save that tears continually 
 welled up in the outer corners of her eyes, and, un- 
 expectedly, ran down her cheeks. "This woman 
 frightens me," thought Felix. Her outburst took on 
 for him an ominous aspect: without knowing what 
 he feared, he wished himself far away. When he 
 strove to withdraw his hand from hers, she held him 
 fast with unexpected alacrity. He remained still, an 
 uncomfortable prisoner. 
 
 Thus, as if with subtle portents, their intimacy was 
 inaugurated. 
 
 It soon became necessary for him to visit her every 
 evening, if he was to escape lugubrious sighs, pathetic 
 references to "lonely hours," such parade of melan- 
 choly looks as would have been an appropriate re- 
 proach for a desertion covering a period of years. 
 
 She had not been long in rallying from her first 
 remorse, in denying her scruples, in discovering ex- 
 cuses for her weakness. "Lew had abandoned her, 
 so she was no longer under obligations to him; as 
 that life was finished, she had the right to begin
 
 258 PREDESTINED 
 
 another. Who knew but that Felix's coming had 
 been intended as a recompense for so much unhap- 
 piness?" 
 
 Her idea, unconsciously disclosed, that relations of 
 a permanent nature were commencing, caused Felix 
 to open wide his eyes. The devil! Here was a 
 woman who made up for lack of other qualities with 
 a fine abundance of impetuosity! "I see that I must 
 think well of Lew, for I suspect him to be the chap 
 who is going to save me some day from a warm situ- 
 ation!" Indeed, it occurred to Felix that the wisest 
 plan would be to disappear at once. But there was 
 a charm in Emma Meers's society that he could not 
 deny. 
 
 She showed him nothing but gratitude, naive ad- 
 miration, and humility. Such behavior gave him an 
 excellent opinion of himself, and caused him to 
 assume toward her a manner affectionately con- 
 descending. 
 
 On summer nights, in her darkened room when 
 the warm breeze, swelling the window-curtains of 
 white scrim, brought across the back yards sounds of 
 piano-playing, of voices warbling scales, of cats in 
 combat Felix, "worn out by a hard day's work," 
 reclined in his chair, while Emma knelt beside him 
 in a pose that she protested was quite comfortable. 
 A faint light, from other back windows, penetrated 
 the curtains; her face, pale and indistinct, showed a 
 beauty so ambiguous as to make him wonder whether 
 it was she indeed, or some amorous incarnation from 
 his dreams. Then her shadowy eyes, full of solem-
 
 EMMA 259 
 
 nity, approached; he felt her breath on his lips; he 
 recognized her. 
 
 In intimacy, he soon lost his earliest impression of 
 her looks just as, by seeing any object every day, we 
 come to forget our first appraisal of it. She seemed 
 younger to him than formerly. Perhaps that was 
 owing to her manner of a little girl, habitual in 
 moments of tenderness? 
 
 "Make love to her," she would whisper, childishly. 
 
 Caresses sometimes recalled to her other scenes: 
 in the hushed voice that sentimentalists reserve for 
 tales of old romances the charm of which survives all 
 disillusion, she spoke of her honeymoon, of her early 
 married life, of her cottage, where so much sweetness 
 was once imprisoned. That had been a home! 
 Suffering from the suppression of her strong domestic 
 instinct, she longed for a field, however narrow, where 
 she might play the housewife. 
 
 Then, unable to deny herself the pleasures of rr?el- 
 ancholy, she dwelt on her misfortunes. An almost 
 chronic emof.ionalism caused her to dilate and con- 
 fuse all stories of past happenings and sensations, so 
 that overstatements of Lew's cruelty got mixed up 
 with extravagant reports concerning his good looks 
 and dissolute accomplishments. Felix made a gest- 
 ure of annoyance. 
 
 "You're fond of him yet, I think!" 
 
 "Never! Never! Would I be in love with you?" 
 
 After a silence, she mused: 
 
 "But I'll tell you this, that since him I've never 
 met any one but you that I could love."
 
 200 PREDESTINED 
 
 Had she, then, been looking round for some one ? 
 If Felix had not come along, would she not, finding 
 isolation of the heart intolerable, have succumbed to 
 another? The young man was not much flattered 
 by this idea. From that night, he exerted himself to 
 convince her that his merits were supereminent ; and, 
 on account of the earnestness with which he entered 
 upon this task, he began to lose his pose of superiority. 
 
 Reflecting that he could hardly be damaged, now, 
 by any indiscretion, he frequently appeared with her 
 in public. The most frugal excursions seemed to 
 delight her. 
 
 They rode by trolley-car to Coney Island, where, 
 in pleasure-grounds full of grotesque buildings made 
 of staff and tinsel, with rococo bridges arching across 
 lagoons and minarets rising on all sides, they sat at 
 table on a balcony above the crowds, Felix drink- 
 ing highballs, and Emma, in a broad-brimmed sailor 
 hat and a white linen dress too tight for her, laugh- 
 ing at the merrymakers below. She was quick to ap- 
 preciate humorous incidents, and occasionally aston- 
 ished Felix with a flash of wit. 
 
 "Yes," she cooed, in a tone of infantile compla- 
 cency, "sometimes she can say funny things. But 
 not often when you're round." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Emma shook her head, mysteriously. 
 
 "'Cause she's afraid." 
 
 At dusk, when electric lamps outlining the fan- 
 tastic edifices all glowed forth, they set out through 
 the crowd toward an open-air restaurant near by,
 
 EMMA 261 
 
 where a band of Tyrolese sang under trees festooned 
 with yellow lanterns. 
 
 On the way, the spectacle of countless faces stream- 
 ing past him gradually bewildered Felix. His eye- 
 lids drooped; he caught his toe in something. She 
 tightened her grasp on his arm. 
 
 "I beg your pardon! Do you know, I was just 
 wondering what would happen if we met your Lew ?" 
 
 She compressed her lips; her eyes flashed fire; 
 abruptly, she looked her age. In a high, metallic 
 voice, she replied: 
 
 "I'd soon settle him! I'd say, 'Why, what have 
 you to do with me ? I was divorced from you months 
 ago in South Dakota, and this is my husband now!'" 
 
 While he considered this reply an amusing one, 
 Felix could not help wishing that another had 
 occurred to her. 
 
 At dinner, he became more intoxicated. Lanterns 
 among the trees, each lending to an enveloping mass 
 of leaves a hue violently green, appeared to him like 
 fruits in an enchanted garden; the voices of the 
 Tyrolese women, wafted from a distance, barely sur- 
 viving the continuous rattle of dishes, were like the 
 staccato cries of sirens rising above the plashing of 
 a surf; while Emma's face, at once mature and 
 girlish, expectant and demure, slowly turned beau- 
 tiful before him. He leaned forward, his temples 
 throbbing, some wild, lover's eloquence rising to his 
 lips. But a phrase in the Tyrolese women's song 
 reminded him of "The Lost Venus," and, as he 
 looked away, he saw a profile that brought his
 
 262 PREDESTINED 
 
 heart into his mouth. Great heavens, how like Nina 
 Ferrol! 
 
 "Felix, what is the matter?" 
 
 He turned his eyes toward Emma. 
 
 "Nothing. But we'll go home, if you don't mind. 
 My dog's back there, shut up in a room, alone. The 
 poor brute, I've had him since he was a puppy, and 
 this is the way I treat him." 
 
 And, as they rode cityward, he thought: 
 
 "If only I could begin my life all over!" 
 
 But one night he took Emma to a theatre, where 
 they watched just such a review as Montmorrissy 
 habitually produce^. The lively music, the brilliant 
 stage thronged with smiling girls audaciously attired, 
 the atmosphere of reckless gayety that floated out 
 across the footlights, affected Felix with a species of 
 nostalgia. He recalled many hours that had been 
 fraught with pain, but in which he now discovered 
 the charm that frequently enriches the most unhappy 
 episodes, at retrospection. No, he would not have 
 omitted that portion of his life! 
 
 In the crowded lobby of the theatre, Felix came 
 face to face with Oliver Corquill. The young man 
 had an impulse to draw back : he owed this celebrity 
 two hundred dollars. 
 
 But the latter, advancing with a smile, grasped 
 Felix by the hand. 
 
 "What an elusive fellow you are! I called at your 
 old rooms, to find you vanished." 
 
 "I meant to send you word. Don't think I'd for- 
 gotten you."
 
 EMMA 263 
 
 And, uncomfortably conscious of Emma's home- 
 made hat, he introduced the novelist. She received, 
 along with a courtly bow, one of those looks that 
 seem no more than amiable, but which, while cover- 
 ing in a flash the entire person, plunge, as it were, 
 into the heart. Emma promptly conceived an antip- 
 athy against Corquill, and could not help complain- 
 ing of him to Felix before they reached Waverley 
 Place. Excitedly, she burst forth: 
 
 "I mistrust him! Besides, he doesn't like me. 
 Oh, I could see it, in spite of his smiles! He'll call 
 on you, now, and talk to you about me. Yes, he'll 
 show you all my faults; he'll persuade you to leave 
 me!" 
 
 "What rot!" ejaculated Felix, with the first accent 
 of irritation that she had heard from him. 
 
 Stopping short beside a lamp-post, she stared at 
 him with eyes dilated, as much aghast as if he had 
 struck her. And, to his consternation, her lament 
 rang through the silent street : 
 
 "You see! You're changed already! Oh, I knew 
 it! I felt it!" 
 
 It took him half an hour to make her "listen to 
 reason." 
 
 However, as she had predicted, Oliver Corquill 
 lost no time in calling at Felix's hotel. 
 
 In his gray flannel suit and dove-colored cravat 
 pierced with a coral pin, he still suggested the busi- 
 ness office far more than the study. Apparently 
 without even glancing round the hotel bedroom, he 
 made himself at home, and spoke of Paul Pavin.
 
 264 PREDESTINED 
 
 The Frenchman had been in Corfu painting a por- 
 trait of the German emperor's daughter; thence he 
 had gone for a jaunt among Scandinavian fjords; he 
 might come to New York within the year, but mean- 
 while wished especially to be remembered to Felix. 
 
 The young man was moved by the persistent 
 friendliness of so fine a personage. Corquill con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "Yes, I'm sure he feels a sincere regard for you. 
 But then, beneath all his irreverence, he has a heart 
 of gold. Also, a past eventful enough to make his 
 advice worth taking." 
 
 Felix was blushing. He blurted out: 
 
 "Why not say at once that I'd better profit by it ?" 
 
 "Well, I know how much more profitable than 
 good advice experience is. All the same, if you'll 
 pardon me, one oughtn't to need an annual repetition 
 of experience. To be frank, while I was glad to hear 
 that 'The Queen of Hearts' had gone on the road, 
 I was as sorry as if it hadn't, when I met you in the 
 theatre the other night." 
 
 Felix, his lips trembling from indignation, stam- 
 mered: 
 
 "A rather hasty deduction!" 
 
 The novelist, with a gentle smile, shook his head. 
 
 "You'd be surprised how many people of all sorts 
 I know, how much I hear, how frequently insignifi- 
 cant episodes have unseen witnesses, how often a 
 man believes that he lives in secret when his whole 
 activity is talked about." 
 
 Felix was dumbfounded. At last:
 
 EMMA 265 
 
 "If I may be so personal, in my turn, what busi- 
 ness is this of yours?" 
 
 Mr. Corquill was not at all embarrassed. 
 
 "My dear boy, I have as much solicitude for talents 
 as you have, probably, for human life. If you saw a 
 foolish fellow putting a rope round his neck, what 
 would you do?" 
 
 The other stared before him. 
 
 "I think I'd wish him good luck." 
 
 The novelist stood up. 
 
 "Dine with me to-night." 
 
 "I I have an engagement." 
 
 "We'll break it," Corquill announced, and 
 marched Felix off to the restaurant of a quiet hotel 
 on Fifth Avenue. 
 
 They seated themselves by an open window in a 
 spacious room panelled with mahogany grown dull 
 from age, where the brass chandeliers were old- 
 fashioned, the thick Turkish carpet faded, the buf- 
 fets antiquated, the grey-headed waiters of that 
 placid and paternal mien which results from long 
 service in an environment sedately rich. Few per- 
 sons were dining there: some elderly gentlemen, 
 their hair neatly parted down the back, sat erect at 
 small tables; in a corner was to be seen a family 
 party the father, the mother, and three little girls 
 in white eating ices with the lax, contented looks of 
 well-bred children. Felix gazed round him with a 
 sensation of shame. Memories of his own childhood 
 came to him, and, sick at heart, he inquired of his 
 companion:
 
 266 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Why dJd you choose this place?" 
 
 "On a hot night, I like quiet and elbow-room," 
 was the innocent response. 
 
 The novelist, who had never before seemed capa- 
 ble of boastfulness, talked of his past successes, the 
 royalties earned from his books, an estate that he 
 had just bought in the country, his dogs, his roses, 
 and his polo-ponies. Felix commented, bitterly: 
 
 "Yes, you are to be envied." 
 
 The celebrity shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Oh, when I was your age, I couldn't write such 
 good stuff as you've turned out." 
 
 In CorquilFs opinion, to attain success one had to 
 expend his entire force in pursuit of the desired 
 object. Only disaster was foreshadowed by Felix's 
 belief that one should experience ail he intended to 
 portray. The artist, to describe destruction, did not 
 need to destroy himself. He was informed with an 
 intuitive comprehension of life, developing, as Felix 
 would find out, more fully year by year. As the 
 paleontologist reconstructed from one fossil bone the 
 whole skeleton of a prehistoric animal, so the adept 
 in literature, prepared by long and intense scrutiny 
 of human hearts, found in a phrase caught at ran- 
 dom, in a look surprised on a strange face, the clue 
 to a character, to a life. In fine, the great novel 
 resulted from perception, intuition, and logic. And 
 Corquill cited a quotation, to the effect that Balzac 
 who had avoided nearly every material diversion in 
 order that his mentality might be the clearer de- 
 picted his characters so marvellously as to make one
 
 EMMA 267 
 
 think he must have been, at some time, a janitor, a 
 spinster, a swashbuckler, a demirep, a priest. Even 
 in his youth, that speech of Strindberg's could never 
 have been applied to him: he had never been the 
 artist "yearning for the pinnacle of ambition, with- 
 out being willing to pay the price required of those 
 who are to reach it." 
 
 Felix, to whom the last theory always seemed the 
 most admirable, was greatly impressed. 
 
 That night, the young man assured himself that a 
 new life should begin for him at once. He had never 
 so clearly perceived his folly. He marvelled at the 
 stupidity which had brought him to such a pass. He 
 would escape all his detriments, Emma included. 
 
 This last project, however, required thought. 
 
 Meanwhile, for three days he drank nothing, and, 
 since this mood demanded of him, as usual, the 
 strictest behavior that could be imagined, did not 
 smoke so much as a cigarette. 
 
 Then, his pleased amazement that such continence 
 had been latent, all the while, in him gave place to 
 depression. He fell to gazing dismally at strangers 
 wreathed in tobacco smoke, and at jolly fellows, 
 glimpsed through the doorways of cafes, pouring 
 whiskey down their throats with gusto. He consid- 
 ered that he suffered much more from strict behavior 
 than from reckless. 
 
 Thereupon, without any sense of repetition, he 
 began an old farce. 
 
 He decided that he had been wheedled into a state 
 no less absurd than dolorous. Why should he tor-
 
 268 PREDESTINED 
 
 ment himself by renouncing pleasures that the world 
 enjoyed? Besides, CorquilPs homilies would have 
 been more suitably lavished on a middle-aged man 
 who had frittered away his life. Felix, for his part, 
 was still young enough to feel that he had eternity 
 at his disposal. His exalted determinations in re- 
 spect of work went by the board ; he had no thought 
 for anything save his immediate desires. 
 
 But no sooner had he broken his every resolution, 
 than, with satiety, his scruples all returned. Cor- 
 quill's reproofs again seemed portentous. Fear of 
 the future once more assailed the young man, who 
 remembered suddenly that this was not the first time 
 he had failed in such a struggle. 
 
 And there began for him a period of alternating 
 renunciations and relapses. His solitary hours were 
 passed in such shamefaced vacillation as precedes 
 the final weakness, or in such gloomy self-reproach 
 as follows it. So many discomfitures ended by crip- 
 pling his self-confidence: he came to make fresh 
 resolutions mechanically, without conviction; his 
 struggles grew weaker, and, finally, ended. All his 
 old habits were again in daily practice. 
 
 He tried to excuse his frailty by argument. Was 
 the world fashioned for the avowal of life, or the 
 denial of it? Were not morality and right conduct 
 dependent solely on contemporary opinion? Who 
 knew but that asceticism was not more abnormal 
 than licentiousness? If continence reacted on the 
 modern conscience in the form of a spiritual reward, 
 suppose there had been no inheritance of a modern
 
 EMMA 269 
 
 conscience? The pagans, expansive, appetent, un- 
 moral, happy in their pursuit of every earthly pleas- 
 ure, lucky in their ignorance of Christianity and its 
 renunciations, gained, perhaps, a .satisfaction far 
 more intense than did the saints ? Ah, to plunge into 
 pagan ecstasies, unhampered by the heavy chains of 
 Christian remorse! But, alas, such possibilities had 
 been done for almost with the hamadryads; the set- 
 ting of purple and azure undulations was obliterated; 
 the very air of the earth was changed in savor since 
 young men in hyacinth and gold had ceased wander- 
 ing, at nightfall, free from all disabling compunction, 
 toward the Bacchic rendezvous, or the grove of 
 Venus Callipyge. The drab present, aswarm with 
 elongated, hypocritical faces, blotted out the sheen 
 of a remote age, sensual and care-free. 
 
 So Felix, full of classic cravings, had to content 
 himself with Washington Square, Coney Island, and 
 the table d'hote at Benedetto's. 
 
 On nights of intense heat, resonant in that neigh- 
 borhood with an ignoble clatter, when, in the Italian 
 restaurant, the whirling wooden fans seemed to churn 
 to a more stifling consistency the vitiated air, he still 
 heard, occasionally, through a meal of wilted, stale, 
 and melting food, the literary aphorisms of Mr. Lute, 
 Miss Nuncheon, and Mrs. Babbage. Their constant 
 avidity for "shop talk," their excitement in trivial 
 debate, their relish for revealing superficial knowl- 
 edge, all that exuberance which has been entitled 
 "the enthusiasm of the artistic parvenu" caused 
 Felix to curse the luck which made it necessary for
 
 270 PREDESTINED 
 
 him to listen to "such trash." From sheer spite, 
 masking his sneers with the benignity of an attending 
 physician, he prescribed for Mr. Lute the "History 
 of Criticism," by Saintsbury, for Miss Nuncheon 
 some fifteen volumes of essays by Sainte-Beuve, for 
 Mrs. Babbage all the works of Kant and Spinoza. 
 Truth is, besides indulging in covert ironies, he made 
 the mistake of exhibiting his information and talents ; 
 and no doubt his acquaintances, like humble travel- 
 lers at an inn who find themselves dining with a 
 stranger rigged out in jewels and fine clothes, would 
 soon have preferred, for their greater self-satisfaction, 
 a separate room. 
 
 But Mrs. Babbage was producing esoteric pam- 
 phlets that sold everywhere for a half dollar a copy ; 
 Miss Nuncheon had got a publisher for a book of 
 her short stories about "the smart set" ; Mr. Lute had 
 joined the staff of The Mauve Monthly, and from the 
 office of that magazine he sent Felix a patronizing 
 letter asking for "a glance at some of his latest 
 efforts." What mortification! While those three 
 were guarding bravely and letting shine their little 
 flames, he, burning with great visions, suffered at 
 the mere sight of his writing-table an extinguishment 
 of all his fire! 
 
 His melancholy, his savage pessimism, his in- 
 creasing irritability, bewildered Emma. Finally, 
 she convinced herself that he had met "some one 
 else." 
 
 Her fits of despair came on whenever he kissed 
 her carelessly, avoided a caress, or remained pre-
 
 EMMA 271 
 
 occupied at her plea, always uttered in the same 
 childish tones, "Now he must make love to her." 
 
 "Yes, yes, it's true: his kisses aren't the same; 
 his thoughts are always wandering ; he is often cross 
 with me, now! Ah, I knew this would happen I 
 was too happy ; it's my punishment ! There's some 
 other woman, some silly little thing, some actress 
 that's it, some old friend! Oh, didn't I see them 
 that night, in his studio, through the crack of the 
 door a lot of gay, cruel-hearted, mercenary creat- 
 ures? But could they love him as I do? Never! 
 Never! No one could ever love him like me!" She 
 became limp in her chair ; her blue-black hair, pressed 
 out against the cushion, accentuated her pallor; her 
 white throat shook with sobs; and, her pupils dis- 
 appearing beneath her heavy eyelids, she seemed to 
 be fainting. At such moments, her condition was apt 
 to frighten him. He seized her cold hands, called 
 her name, ran for a glass of water or a flask of 
 cologne. 
 
 "Emma! Speak to me!" 
 
 At length, her pupils still invisible, she whispered: 
 
 "My heart! I feel as if it was going to burst." 
 And, in a thin wail: 
 
 "Who would care?" 
 
 Pity seized him: he cast himself down beside her 
 chair, put his arms round her, mingled with reassur- 
 ing words a hundred kisses of a convincing warmth. 
 Under this treatment, she revived, clung to him 
 weakly, between long, quivering sighs made demands 
 that stirred his memory.
 
 272 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Swear that you love me, and no one else!" 
 
 He vowed eloquently that she was all the world 
 to him. 
 
 But for Felix the novelty of that attachment was al- 
 ready gone : he had found, beneath Emma's innumer- 
 able caresses, protestations, and excesses of emotion, 
 the monotony of a passion long since thoroughly 
 explored, lacking, this time, the ornament that wealth 
 and beauty, beauty and notoriety, had lent it for- 
 merly. Still, from timorousness, from want of in- 
 genuity, from lassitude of will, he continued with 
 her, in the midst of his most ardent avowals thinking: 
 
 "What a fool I was! Now how shall I get rid of 
 her?"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ON a night of early autumn, Felix received a letter 
 and a package, postmarked in Paris, from Pavin. 
 The letter announced that the portrait-painter was 
 going to spend another winter in New York. The 
 package contained an old volume of French prose 
 the third and last work of Pierre Buron, once Pavin's 
 friend, and Mme. Lodbrok's husband. 
 
 Seating himself by his writing-table for the evening, 
 Felix began to read this book. 
 
 Passages at once exact and gorgeous, like clusters 
 of strange gems reflecting multi-colored rays, filled 
 the young man with wonder. Very soon he knew 
 that he had in hand one of those masterpieces which 
 can only be "a communion of thought between a 
 magical writer and an ideal reader," since the author, 
 by ignoring the predilections of the many, by regard- 
 ing solely the sensitiveness of the few, has made to 
 pride the sacrifice of contemporary fame. 
 
 One was borne away to regions obscured as if by 
 a perpetual twilight, where men and women, ren- 
 dered well-nigh indistinguishable by the subtlety of 
 their emotions, appeared to move through ancient 
 groves aglimmer with decaying shrines, monuments 
 to obsolete ardors. These wanderers, wraithlike in 
 the constant dusk, seemed ever to gaze round them 
 
 273
 
 274 PREDESTINED 
 
 with the uncertain gestures of the lost, to pause by 
 crumbling columns, to heave a sigh at finding only 
 ruins, to utter tentatively the first measures of a song 
 composed for an archaic use, to droop on hearing 
 that melody die away without an echo, while setting 
 forth again, to chance, perhaps, on relics underfoot: 
 broken sword-blades, little shattered idols, corroded 
 diadems, rotted treasure, all burdens cast aside, in 
 other ages, by weary predecessors. The whole work, 
 indeed, typified a labyrinth, where solitary figures 
 moved in and out, tossed up their arms, and sobbed, 
 "I have not found it!" The last page left this im- 
 pression of unsatisfied desire intact ; and the thought 
 remained that through an eternity the same gloom 
 would cover the same intricacies, while the same 
 phantoms stumbled on in the same vain search. 
 
 It was as if Felix were gazing on a landscape never 
 previously seen in life, with that thought, which 
 makes the scalp tingle, "Have I not always dwelt 
 here?" It seemed to him that his soul for the first 
 time mingled with another, the soul of an unknown, 
 to whom he could have cried, "Surely, in some world 
 you and I have been as one!" 
 
 He fell to thinking about Pierre Buron. "Did he, 
 like those spectral creatures of his brain, still move 
 through shadows, or had he given up his quest ? 
 
 Well to have lost one's self in such a labyrinth, if 
 one could leave on its outskirts so beautiful a relic! 
 And Felix was chilled with fear, at the thought that 
 he, when ultimately vanishing, might leave behind 
 him nothing half so precious.
 
 EMMA 275 
 
 He sprang up, and approached the window. 
 Already the mature foliage of Washington Square 
 was covered with a bluish light. 
 
 How quickly the days succeeded one another, 
 and melted into years! He was twenty-nine. Who 
 could foretell the duration of this gift of life ? 
 
 To die in an hour, to be obliterated, never to be 
 recalled, to have lived in vain! 
 
 Cool breezes, bearing from afar a simple frag- 
 rance, set to vibrating gently in his heart chords 
 long untouched. Then the dawn, like a golden fluid, 
 descended upon distant towers; and, as the city thrust 
 its innumerable transfigured roofs out of the shad- 
 ows, there seemed to unroll "the kingdoms of the 
 world, and all the glory of them." Should he not 
 wring therefrom all that he had missed ? Looking up 
 at the vivid sky, entranced by that spreading symbol 
 of renewal, he felt in himself the strength, the purity, 
 the splendor, of a new day. From before him the 
 vapors of irresolution shredded quite away, so that 
 he discerned once more, in an immaculate zenith, 
 the radiant pattern of a great life, promising immortal 
 consequences. 
 
 That day, he plunged again into work. Every 
 evening, as soon as he could escape from Emma, he 
 hurried home, cleared his writing-table, strove to 
 reduce to black and white the thoughts with which 
 he hoped to earn quickly an enduring fame. 
 
 But these thoughts proved to be too large for 
 expression by such terms as he could master. The 
 moment he set pen to paper, he experienced the con-
 
 276 PREDESTINED 
 
 fusion, the impotence, the despair, of those who 
 dream that splendid edifices can be constructed with 
 a few unseasoned tools. 
 
 He recalled the first homily he had ever heard from 
 Corquill, about the preparation of the prospective 
 author. He returned to the study of the technique 
 of writing. 
 
 Then he favored successively a score of masters, 
 pursued each theory of exposition a little way, imi- 
 tated and abandoned every mannerism ; in his anxiety 
 to employ all artifices at once, accomplished nothing. 
 In literature, just as in life, he was seduced by every 
 whisper into excursions far afield, till, lost amid 
 strange scenes, in a daze he halted, dejectedly to 
 retrace his steps. At last, glimpsing on all sides 
 vistas that he would have needed a dozen lifetimes 
 to explore thoroughly, he understood the magnitude 
 of his enterprise. For him, there could be no sudden 
 composition of masterpieces; the waiting would be 
 tedious and fraught witlvtravail ; only a whole exist- 
 ence devoted to labor could bring him such honors 
 as he had in mind. 
 
 Nevertheless, he determined to press on; for he 
 felt that he was made for this attempt or none ; and 
 at the thought of turning to some other career, he be- 
 came dizzy, as if on the point of slipping into a void. 
 
 "Is it not curious," he reflected, "that I alone, of a 
 family for generations notoriously unimaginative, 
 should feel this impulse?" Inspecting his mother's 
 photograph, he wondered whether that young face, 
 beautiful, and strange with smothered fire, contained
 
 EMMA 277 
 
 the answer to his question. "Yes," he concluded, 
 " no doubt I owe my sensibilities to her." He poured 
 out a drink of whiskey, lighted his pipe, and set to 
 work again. 
 
 The clock ticked off the hours ; the pen scratched 
 over the paper; Pat, stretched on the bed-quilt, 
 woke from time to time, feebly wagged his tail, and 
 went to sleep again. Silence crept upon the city. 
 A bell, far off, struck two. Felix rose, and Pat 
 scrambled briskly from the bed. The dog knew well 
 what movement of his master's presaged their nightly 
 promenade together. 
 
 They traversed empty thoroughfares, where 
 shadows on either side projected masses apparently 
 material, where converging rows of lights gave off 
 scintillations like small, white-hot ingots, where, 
 midway of each perspective, the sky let down into 
 the street its veils of solemn blue. Felix found the 
 side door of a cafe ajar. The bartender, who was 
 putting on his hat, consented to remain till his cus- 
 tomer had gulped down some highballs. 
 
 They turned homeward, the dog pattering ahead, 
 the young man loitering to enjoy his exaltation. 
 While passing the blank front of Benedetto's res- 
 taurant, he smiled pityingly at thought of Miss 
 Nuncheon, Mr. Lute, and Mrs. Babbage. While 
 pausing to look down Waverley Place, he shrugged 
 his shoulders at recollection of Emma. Nowadays, 
 with her most passionate speeches ringing in his ears, 
 he was like a man listening to a hard-working but 
 inferior actress in a play heard too often
 
 278 PREDESTINED 
 
 But Emma, like the tobacco he smoked to excess 
 without awaiting any craving for it, like the liquor 
 he continued to drink just because it remained at 
 hand, had become for him a habit. Well, presently 
 he would leave her, too, behind! 
 
 There was still some whiskey in the decanter on his 
 mantel-shelf. He finished it, and went to bed. 
 
 In the morning, no matter how great his lethargy, 
 he had to rush downtown to The Sphere building. 
 
 On rising, he "pulled himself together" with a 
 cocktail, which was brought to his room on a tray, 
 by a bell-boy with dirty thumbs. On descending 
 from the elevated railway station at Chambers 
 Street, he took another drink in a saloon. This 
 stimulus was usually sufficient until lunch-time, even 
 if he was not sent out, meanwhile, to gather news. 
 
 But Felix now rarely escaped the newspaper office. 
 
 From many such excursions he had returned in a 
 state of mind more suitable for highly imaginative 
 writing than for veracious. At length, the editor, 
 with a smile of mysterious benignity, had assigned 
 Felix to the "copy desk" a table six feet square in 
 the midst of the office pandemonium where the 
 young man sat all day, in the company of three 
 mature journalists, correcting, reducing, and entitling 
 the manuscripts of reporters. Felix took pleasure in 
 slashing with a blue pencil the work of Johnny Livy 
 a married man at last, with two instalments paid 
 on a frame cottage in the Bronx, where he had a fine 
 expanse of vacant lots on every side, a garden, the 
 size of a counterpane, bristling with stakes for peas
 
 EMMA 279 
 
 and lima beans to twine on, a street lamp directly 
 before his porch, and an heir in prospect. More- 
 over, Livy was now referred to by "copy-boys" as 
 "the star reporter." In fact, his modest dreams 
 were all in process of fulfilment. 
 
 He was moved, one day, to acquaint Felix with the 
 reason for this. It was very simple : he had become 
 a Christian Scientist. 
 
 "An elementary soul," thought Felix, his lip 
 curling. "A mind without metaphysical sense, with- 
 out ability for introspection and observance, for great 
 doubts or great sins. A man who can deny that pain 
 and ruin exist, who always sees the world as does 
 a child on a clear day. What immense regions of 
 experience are closed to him! Better to suffer, than 
 to be half alive, like that!" And, as Livy marched 
 jauntily from the office on a fresh hunt for news, 
 Felix returned to his copy-reading, which he detested. 
 
 He missed the excitement of the chase throughout 
 the city, the swiftly alternating contact with comedy 
 and tragedy, the variety of excessive scenes unveiled 
 to the reporter, who enjoyed continually the nervous 
 gratification felt by those witnessing, in safety, a rescue 
 of life, a ruinous conflagration, the death of a criminal, 
 the room where a murder had just been committed. 
 The editor, with whose professional phlegm a consti- 
 tutional kindliness often struggled for expression, had 
 deprived Felix of two "stimulants" instead of one. 
 
 As a result, every afternoon, when the last edition 
 of The Evening Sphere had gone to press, his pent-up 
 appetite for excitement demanded satisfaction. After
 
 280 PREDESTINED 
 
 lingering in cafes on the way uptown, he reached 
 Washington Square with the feeling of defenceless- 
 ness as if at the weakening of delicate protective 
 qualities which invariably prefaced his inebriety. 
 
 Once, when in such a state, he approached his 
 hotel to see, before the entrance, a familiar-looking 
 figure in blue serge. It was Corquill, who had called 
 for the purpose of asking Felix out to dinner. 
 
 This invitation irritated the young man : it seemed 
 to him that the novelist, trading, perhaps, on the two- 
 hundred-dollar loan, was subjecting him to a sort of 
 espionage. Planting himself firmly on his heels, he 
 enunciated, carefully: 
 
 "Many thanks. But it's impossible this evening." 
 
 The celebrity, at that rebuff, only nodded gravely. 
 
 "Well, then, some other time." 
 
 As Corquill turned away, Felix, ashamed of him- 
 self, suggested that they walk a short distance up 
 Fifth Avenue together. They set out northward 
 through Washington Square. 
 
 In the light of the sunset, beneath masses of 
 autumnal leafage, some vagabonds, occupying 
 wooden benches, rested unshaven chins on soiled 
 shirt-bosoms, or let large, red hands hang down in 
 front of threadbare knees. One fellow, small and 
 frail, his broken shoes stretched out, his beard up- 
 tilted, a felt hat covering his face, gave vent to a suc- 
 cession of rattling snores. 
 
 "The reward of his desires," was Corquill's com- 
 ment. 
 
 Felix, in low, unsteady tones, retorted:
 
 EMMA 281 
 
 "Perhaps he, too, in the only way he knows, is a 
 seeker after the ideal." 
 
 A poor way, according to Corquill, if his business 
 were the reproduction of his findings. But, for that 
 matter, it was the same in any work: temperance 
 and achievement went hand in hand, as did excess 
 and failure. All tales of genius accentuated by 
 drugs and drink were absurd. To Poe, De Quincey, 
 Coleridge, even Baudelaire and Verlaine, common 
 sense had given, at last, the credit for their achieve- 
 ments. It was in the sober hour that a man produced 
 work acceptable to others. 
 
 But Felix was staring at a distant clock with an air 
 of stupefaction. 
 
 "Is it possible! An hour later than I thought! 
 Will you pardon me?" 
 
 And he took himself off, consumed with chagrin 
 and rage. 
 
 So he had come to the pass where his friends be- 
 lieved they had to bombard him, at every meeting, 
 with remonstrances! That settled it; he would show 
 them, now, one and all! 
 
 When in his sober senses, he discovered that each 
 good determination was weakened by the memory 
 of countless similar pledges, made only to be broken. 
 The piled-up failures of his will had become a 
 crushing incubus, under which he struggled ever the 
 more feebly. 
 
 But late at night, when his desires were satiated, 
 when he was flushed with self-confidence, he made 
 vows apparently so easy of accomplishment that he
 
 282 PREDESTINED 
 
 went to bed convinced that the morrow would usher 
 in a different sort of life. In the morning, waking to 
 find his cravings once more active, he relapsed, with 
 scarcely a thought of his midnight resolutions. 
 
 Nevertheless, a cancerous remorse robbed every 
 aberrant act of pleasure. At the bottom of each 
 draught lay bitter dregs. 
 
 Therefore, his hours were punctuated with little 
 struggles and defeats. When he had smoked till he 
 felt premonitions of nausea, when he had drunk till 
 mental clarity was slipping from him, he threw away 
 his tobacco, or emptied his decanter down the waste- 
 pipe. This necessitated his buying more cigars and 
 whiskey an expensive process for a young man liv- 
 ing on twenty-five dollars a week. 
 
 Such conflicts gradually filled his life, engrossed 
 his thoughts, nearly drove from his consciousness all 
 appreciation of the outer world. In the newspaper 
 office, his work was insufficient; at home, his writing 
 came to a standstill. This paralysis of energy in- 
 creased his wretchedness. 
 
 If only he could escape the neighborhood of his 
 temptations! Oh, for some Arcadian spot far be- 
 yond the zone of provocation, some remote, un- 
 sullied isle, where, in a tropic silence, in a solitude 
 that was not loneliness, one might live caressed by 
 pure winds and pellucid waves, thrilled by the savor 
 of the sea and the aroma of flowers, the heart expand- 
 ing to perfection beneath friendly stars! But such 
 regions existed only in imagination, or in another 
 world than his. The prisoner of his environment, he
 
 EMMA 283 
 
 could not escape one of its detriments not even 
 Emma. 
 
 As for her, maybe she accepted his weakness 
 despite her belief that it rendered him susceptible to 
 "every pretty face" as something which made asso- 
 ciation with him possible. Resting her small, soft 
 hands on his shoulders in an almost insidious caress, 
 she would murmur: 
 
 "Why do you torment yourself by fighting against 
 your nature ? If you changed, you would be some one 
 else not yourself. No, no; she wants him as he is!" 
 Watching her gloomily, Felix asked: 
 "Did you give that advice to your husband?" 
 When she had comprehended this question, she 
 replied, in haste: 
 
 "It was different with him. I should have known 
 what was going to happen : the weakness was in his 
 family. But with you, it's just that you're young. 
 All young men are so; and, when they're like you, 
 they get over it naturally, as you will." 
 "How do you know that I'll get over it?" 
 She crept closer, and gazed at him in adoration. 
 "Ah, because of something about you, I don't 
 know what, that makes me sure! Just to look at 
 you one can tell you've got great things before you. 
 It shines in your eyes; it makes me feel small, and 
 frightened, and jealous. Sometimes, I say to my- 
 self, 'How I wish he didn't have it!' But all the 
 while, I know that on account of it I worship you." 
 And, clinging to him, she began to tremble, and to 
 sob:
 
 284 PREDESTINED 
 
 " You'll never leave me ? You'll never leave me ? " 
 
 Then, suddenly, her fingers sank into his shoulders; 
 her lips parted on her teeth ; in her white face her eyes 
 blazed as if through a tragic mask. Wildly, she 
 declared: 
 
 "If you did, it would mean that all my suspicions 
 were true, that there were others! All right; take 
 warning; it would be your last act on earth ! Should 
 I care what I did, then?" 
 
 Doubtless they became frightened simultaneously; 
 for she threw herself on his neck, besought pardon, 
 protested, in broken accents, that "she didn't mean 
 it." Felix sent forth a silent prayer for Lew's 
 return. 
 
 If he but knew the fellow's whereabouts! "There 
 must be some way of forcing a man to live with 
 an inoffensive wife." But Lew had vanished, as it 
 seemed, forever, in that maze of barrooms which 
 Felix now penetrated nightly. 
 
 "His work" was his excuse to leave Emma early 
 in the evening. From Waverley Place he set out 
 with the words, which no longer deluded him, "For 
 the last time." 
 
 Leaning against a bar, in the company of garrulous 
 strangers, he passed, sometimes, from an ostensible 
 stimulation of brain and body to a reactionary torpor, 
 and, on rare occasions of protracted drinking, to an 
 extinguishment of all conscious faculties. In this 
 plight, he rambled blindly at large, engaged in 
 unknown adventures, next morning woke in his bed 
 without remembrance of arriving home. But wher-
 
 EMMA 285 
 
 ever he went, Pat was at his heels, peering upward 
 with the bewildered look of a dog that misses intui- 
 tively in his master the intelligence which guides 
 their intercourse. 
 
 Once Felix came to his senses bolt upright in an 
 alley thick with lamp-posts, where fire-escapes 
 dangled in mid-air, and, in the shabby doorways 
 of invisible houses, black visages seemed hovering 
 without bodies underneath. Negroes were pressing 
 round him; his ears buzzed with whispers of a 
 sinister intonation ; a hand began to feel his pockets. 
 
 He jerked himself loose, and swung his fists at 
 random. The snarl of a dog was followed by a 
 scream of pain. 
 
 Felix struggled desperately to regain his vision. 
 The scene cleared; he saw a swarm of aboriginal 
 faces closing in. But another howl resounded. 
 
 "Kill the dog! Don't shoot toward the cobbles! 
 Get'a club!" 
 
 A husky voice, at Felix's elbow, bellowed, in reply: 
 
 "That'll do, now! Any more out of the bunch 
 of yez, and I'll call the reserves to break every head 
 in the block." 
 
 And, in the ensuing hush, a fat Irishman, wearing 
 a sack suit and a derby hat, escorted Felix from the 
 alley. 
 
 They walked, as Felix thought, for miles. They 
 rode in a trolley-car, where a conductor protested 
 against admitting the bull-terrier till Felix's pro- 
 tector drew from his trousers pocket, along with a 
 handful of small change, a nickel badge. Presently,
 
 286 PREDESTINED 
 
 trees surrounded them: they were in Washington 
 Square. And Felix reached his room in the hotel 
 before realizing that he had not once observed the 
 features of the detective, or obtained his name, or 
 thanked him for his services. 
 
 Next day, the young man was smitten with horror 
 and disgust. But was this horror salutary, would 
 this disgust be permanent? He feared that there 
 was no strength for good left in him. Yet were not 
 some men able to draw strength from God ? 
 
 That night, he went to church. 
 
 It was a breathless evening in September an 
 evening of mysterious streets, of blue stars, of purple 
 skies into which the upper stories of tall buildings 
 melted, so that high-set, golden window lights sug- 
 gested the casements of an imminent heaven. On 
 Fifth Avenue, at Fiftieth Street, there rose above a 
 gray bulk the twin spires of the Roman Catholic 
 cathedral. 
 
 Within, all was vague, cool, and subtly scented 
 with stale incense fumes: one breathed a redolence 
 like the exhalation from a tomb where something 
 imperial and ancient lies embalmed in fragrant 
 spices. 
 
 Lengthwise of the cathedral, on either side of the 
 centre aisle, six massive columns, pale below, grow- 
 ing dusky in mid-air, towered to an indistinct region 
 of groined arches. Behind each colonnade, under 
 sombrous expanses of stained glass, appeared some 
 lateral chapels, unilluminated, furnished with effigies 
 or pictures. But far ahead, beyond the perspective
 
 EMMA 287 
 
 of the columns, beyond parallel pew-backs seemingly 
 as innumerable as the ripples of the sea, beyond pul- 
 pit, chancel rail, and rising steps, a refulgence, as of 
 a sun, dispelled the shadows, and, in its core, the 
 white reredos, rich with sculptured ornament, floated 
 upward from behind the sparkling altar. 
 
 Felix entered the last pew, sat down, and gazed at 
 the remote splendor of the sanctuary. Here, surely, 
 one should be able to feel the presence of a deity. 
 Should he pray? In what words, with what assur- 
 ance of an auditor? 
 
 Men, after all, had evolved with their own hands 
 the grandeur of this place had raised the altar, had 
 composed the reredos, had lighted the candles, had 
 produced the whole effect, ^sthetically, it was sat- 
 isfying; but who knew if a god was satisfied to call 
 this his especial abode ? 
 
 Something within him answered, "God is wher- 
 ever hearts are laid bare in supplication." 
 
 "Why, then he must be here." 
 
 A few heads showed above the pew backs; to the 
 right, before the nearest lateral chapel, a woman was 
 kneeling; occasionally a worshipper entered from 
 the street, dipped finger in a marble basin, crossed 
 himself, bowed toward the altar, noiselessly glided 
 down the aisle. 
 
 Lowered faces, timid attitudes, and sinking knees ; 
 the life-long repetition of historic gestures of humility; 
 awe and fear unshaken by the eternal silence. Not 
 the part of these to cry out, "Whence, why, and 
 whither?" or to send forth the plaint, "How do I
 
 
 288 PREDESTINED 
 
 know that there are ears to listen?" For them, the 
 path worn broad by myriads of feet; but for Felix, 
 the labyrinth. 
 
 He rose, and turned his back on the altar. The 
 woman kneeling before the chapel attracted his atten- 
 tion. He approached her. It was Miss Qewan. 
 Her eyes remained fixed on a statuette of the Virgin ; 
 the beads of a rosary slipped through her fingers; 
 her lips were moving. 
 
 "Well for her," thought Felix, and went away. 
 
 Yet, if there was no omnipresent Ideal, whence this 
 universal instinct for self -betterment ? Every hour, 
 it struggled for foothold in his heart, warred with 
 his frailty, and suffered agonies at defeat. Like the 
 Mahomet of Victor Hugo, FelLx could have said.. "I 
 am the vile field of sublime combats." 
 
 His conscience, from so much friction, became 
 raw: he reached that state of nervousness, border- 
 ing on hysteria, which is full of morbid scruples con- 
 cerning even the slightest misdemeanors. His every 
 act appeared despicable to him; and in this moral 
 revulsion was included the thought of his behavior 
 toward Emma. Without even the excuse of love, he 
 had involved that pliant, defenceless creature in his 
 transgressions ! 
 
 Emma, however, still ignorant of his nocturnal 
 drinking-bouts, aware only of an intemperance which, 
 in comparison with Lew's, seemed moderate, could 
 not have understood Felix's low spirits. She ascribed 
 them, no doubt, when her suspicions of his disloyalty 
 were not active, to that incomprehensible attribute,
 
 EMMA 289 
 
 an "artistic temperament." She had picked up 
 somewhere the idea that genius was to be measured 
 by eccentricity; in consequence, the more peculiar 
 Felix's behavior, the surer Emma felt that he was 
 developing into a prodigy. In fact, her belief in his 
 talents and prospects was so firm, that when speaking 
 of his future she became excited, as if in thought she 
 were sharing the fame and fortune she predicted for 
 him. Then her face clouded, and she remained 
 staring at him with lips aquiver, beseechingly. 
 Sometimes, she would end a long silence with an out- 
 burst of sobs, in which expressions of fear for her 
 own future were mingled with wishes that she had 
 never seen him. "It had been her undoing." 
 
 Such statements completed, so to speak, the lacera- 
 tion of his conscience. Seized with a pity as de- 
 moralizing as love, he strove to comfort Emma by 
 adding his compunction to hers, by mingling with 
 her tears his own, by stammering that he was, indeed, 
 a villain. 
 
 At this cue, she was quick to enter on a new part. 
 She began systematically to weave herself into his 
 remorses. 
 
 She recalled her childhood, her convent days, her 
 maidenhood, with a wealth of anecdotes, touching in 
 their simplicity, to show how devoutly and inno- 
 cently she had begun, how admirable had been her 
 fitting for an edifying life. She recurred to her years 
 of matrimony, throughout which one gathered 
 she had remained submissive to misfortune, faithful 
 to her unfaithful husband, confident in her darkest
 
 290 PREDESTINED 
 
 hours of the near presence of God. "But now! 
 It's all changed: I can never go back to the convent; 
 I can never find heart to enter a church, or make con- 
 fession, or pray to the Virgin! Oh, do you know 
 you've brought me to a terrible pass?" 
 
 These lamentations, appearing logical enough to 
 his distracted mind, were of a quality to give the 
 screw its last turn. He had, it seemed, deprived her 
 wantonly of the very spiritual support that he was 
 groping for. Thenceforth, it was Felix who be- 
 sought indulgence, and Emma who condescended to 
 lenity. He discovered that a tortured conscience 
 could engender a sense of obligation no less strong 
 than if produced by passion. 
 
 How should he expiate this offence? By leaving 
 her? Too late! Besides, even if he could have 
 gathered sufficient power of will to do so, she would 
 undoubtedly have pursued him, with who knew what 
 consequences. He had for one moment seen her 
 face, habitually weak and tender, transformed by the 
 insane rage of jealousy. There was another woman 
 concealed in her, of whom he was afraid: when he 
 scrutinized her lowered eyelashes, lax mouth, and 
 listless hands, he was like a voyager gazing on a 
 placid flood, with the realization that beneath its 
 calm lie hidden the elements of fatal storms. 
 
 His sick nerves no longer had resiliency enough for 
 any contest ; he suffered at once from lassitude, con- 
 trition, mental incoherency, and foreboding. Again 
 he asked himself helplessly the old question, "What 
 will the outcome be?" Nothing had been heard of
 
 EMMA 291 
 
 Lew for nearly a year: every day the chance of his 
 return seemed slighter. 
 
 Emma talked of applying for a divorce. No 
 court in the State could well refuse her a favorable 
 decree; and then at least she would be legally at 
 liberty. "Suppose," she asked Felix, sighing, "you 
 had met me when we were younger, and I was 
 free?" 
 
 It chanced, one night, when she was seated in her 
 chair, sewing, that he discovered on the bureau a 
 scrap of paper, scribbled over in her handwriting 
 with the name, "Emma Piers." She started, made 
 as if to rise, and put out a detaining hand. Then she 
 subsided; a wave of red swept across her cheeks; 
 and, while stitching rapidly, she ventured: 
 
 "Have you ever noticed how like our two names 
 are?" 
 
 But their eyes met, and neither was deceived when 
 he returned, in a strange voice: 
 
 "Why yes, it's almost a coincidence. What are 
 you working at so hard?" 
 
 "Something of yours." 
 
 She darned his stockings, mended his shirts, tight- 
 ened loose buttons on his coats. Articles of his apparel 
 were always lying near her work-basket; his books 
 decorated her mantel-shelf; his cigars were in her 
 bureau drawer. He had to confess that her room 
 had come to seem more homelike to him than his 
 own. 
 
 Then, too, she now took care of the bull-terrier 
 while Felix was downtown at work: it was from her
 
 2Q 2 PREDESTINED 
 
 doorway that Pat sprang upon his master, every even- 
 ing, in ecstatic welcome. But Emma's domination 
 did not yet include the dog. 
 
 "Look at him, Felix! When you're here, he won't 
 come if I call, he won't even glance at me. And 
 all I do for him: all the petting he gets when we're 
 alone, all the chicken-bones! A grateful animal, I 
 must say! You bad dog, come here, sir! Felix, 
 send him to me." 
 
 "Pat, go to your mistress." 
 
 At that last word, her eyes glowed, and she 
 smothered the reluctant brute with kisses. 
 
 One night in October, Felix entered to find her 
 huddled in a chair, her arms hanging limply toward 
 the carpet, her face swollen from weeping, her mouth 
 a thin, crooked line telling of poignant grief sup- 
 pressed. He stood still, oblivious to Pat's onslaught 
 sickened by a premonition of calamity. 
 
 "Something has happened? What is it?" 
 
 Fixing him with a look of unutterable woe, she 
 held out a telegram. 
 
 "Read that," she gasped. 
 
 He could not have grown fainter if the^telegram had 
 been his death-warrant. It was from the superin- 
 tendent of a public hospital in Chicago, and an- 
 nounced "the decease of Lewis Meers, from serous 
 meningitis." 
 
 After a while, his lips formed the words: 
 
 "It seems to affect you deeply." 
 
 Indignantly, she cried out: 
 
 "Oh, have I a heart of stone? Can I forget the
 
 EMMA 293 
 
 past all the happy days when I was in love for the 
 first time ? Yes, yes, he made me happy once ! And 
 now, he's dead; he'll never come back; he'll be 
 buried way off there my own husband, who took 
 me home from the altar!" 
 
 She rose, galvanized, as it were, by a new thought. 
 She approached Felix, and wound her arms deliber- 
 ately about him. Her head sank back and from 
 beneath her dishevelled hair two blinding flames 
 leaped forth. In a breathless voice, she uttered 
 what, to his whirling senses, was no mere statement, 
 but a command: 
 
 "Now I have no one in the world but you!" 
 
 In this form, then, his expiation descended on 
 him? 
 
 The same week, they were married.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ONE driven by violent passions upon a field of 
 honor, and there brought low, grows sane enough in 
 his extremity to utter from the heart, "So all my 
 great dreams are wrecked by the hallucinations of an 
 hour!" Thus Felix, seeing on Emma's finger the 
 new wedding ring. 
 
 It was as if she had resumed before his eyes all the 
 faults he had discerned in her at their first acquaint- 
 ance. Her physical and mental deficiencies, her 
 social and educational shortcomings, in fine, her every 7 
 imperfection, reinvested her, like a depreciating 
 dowry, to reduce to a chap-fallen state that young 
 man who, his life long, had sighed so windily for a 
 perfect sentimental union. And to this relationship, 
 of which he had already wearied, he was bound, it 
 seemed, till death. "Well, the catastrophe was of a 
 piece with his whole career. Fate was in it the 
 workings of an unknown power malevolently dis- 
 posed." 
 
 As for Emma, a few words read by a stranger from 
 a prayer-book, a circlet of gold to wear, an engrossed 
 certificate to cherish, and she was as happy as if 
 assured of ten thousand cloudless days. Now for 
 the home of her pent-up desires, wherein her joy 
 
 might come to its full flower! 
 
 294
 
 EMMA 295 
 
 After rummaging half the city without any evi- 
 dence of fatigue, she informed Felix excitedly that 
 the ideal place was found. For thirty-five dollars 
 a month one could rent four rooms and a bath in 
 a flat-house on Second Avenue below Fourteenth 
 Street. 
 
 "Second Avenue!" he ejaculated, in dismay. 
 
 "But, my darling, you don't know the district. A 
 beautiful, broad street with trolley-cars, old-fash- 
 ioned, brown-stone boarding-houses opposite, with 
 high steps, and trees in real front yards, scarcely a 
 shop in sight, and Stuyvesant Square only two short 
 blocks to the north. I admit the rooms aren't big; 
 but then, think of the price for such a genteel 
 location!" 
 
 "Genteel, with the Bowery practically beginning 
 one block westward?" 
 
 But he should be able to hide his declension well in 
 such a spot ? 
 
 The flat was on the third floor of a yellow brick 
 building with two fire-escapes suspended from top to 
 bottom of the facade. In the entry, one observed a 
 double row of metal letter-boxes, name-plates, and 
 bell-buttons. The front door was opened from the 
 various apartments by means of an automatic latch. 
 Darkness enshrouded the steep staircases; at each 
 landing appeared four doors with frosted glass panels 
 upon which, as one passed, were stamped occasion- 
 ally, in silhouette, sharp, female profiles with frowsy 
 hair, in listening attitudes. Entering the flat, one 
 stood in a "parlor," its area about twelve feet by ten,
 
 296 PREDESTINED 
 
 its walls papered in a pattern of flamboyant poppies, 
 its mantel-piece, an exceptional specimen of jig-saw 
 work, painted white and then daubed with ara- 
 besques of gilt. This nook gave upon the bed- 
 chamber, still smaller, and ventilated by an air-shaft. 
 Thence one had access, through the bathroom, to- 
 the dining-room, of the same size as the parlor, though 
 not so well off for decorations. The kitchen ended 
 the suite, with a gas stove, a wash-tub, a cupboard, 
 and a sink, encroaching on the floor space. 
 
 Emma, however, was enthusiastic, and, as Felix 
 put on the air of a man who no longer cares what 
 happens, they rented the flat. 
 
 She got out of storage the relics of her former 
 matrimonial venture. Some Brussels carpet, by 
 dint of dexterous patching, was made to cover the 
 floors. A marble-topped table and three chairs of 
 Flemish oak the chair-backs ornamented with hand- 
 painted dogs' heads furnished the parlor. A brass 
 bedstead and a bureau filled the sleeping-chamber, 
 while the dining-room was rendered nearly imprac- 
 ticable by a plethora of walnut chairs. Besides these 
 articles, Emma had saved not only her best china- 
 ware, table linen, and blankets, but also some knick- 
 knacks that caused Felix to marvel at the effrontery 
 of their manufacturers. All the same, one had 
 Emma to thank and, indeed, Lew as well for a 
 considerable saving of expense. 
 
 She unearthed a crayon portrait of the defunct 
 benefactor; and Felix inspected, in silence, the like- 
 ness of a robust-looking fellow with staring eyes and a
 
 EMMA 297 
 
 romantic mustache. He thought his predecessor 
 ridiculous. 
 
 By tacit agreement, the crayon portrait was shoved 
 behind the bureau. When the mirror had been 
 slightly tilted, Felix was sometimes startled to see 
 Lew's eyes peering at him through the crack. 
 
 Emma, with these souvenirs round her, was moved 
 frequently to reverie. She recalled, with solemn face, 
 the day when she had selected the Brussels carpet, 
 when her late mother-in-law had presented her with 
 the steel engraving of " Queen Victoria and the Prince 
 Consort," when her first husband, while still a bride- 
 groom, had brought home the bisque statuette of an 
 infant crawling on all fours a gift intended to ap- 
 pease her dissatisfaction at not yet having a baby of 
 her own. Through empty years, she had come to 
 regard this image with a melancholy tenderness: it 
 embellished the parlor mamel-piece, and the dusting 
 of it was a ceremony. 
 
 They employed no servant: Emma declared she 
 would not willingly have had one anyway, just then. 
 She was free again to bustle in a kitchen of her own, 
 there to concoct, every afternoon, dainties for some 
 one she loved. Felix was apt to find her at the 
 bread-board, her plump forearms covered with flour, 
 a checkered apron drawn tight across her breast, her 
 face made girlish by a smile at once mysterious and 
 doting. 
 
 " Guess what I've got for my boy's dinner to-night ! " 
 
 "Poor little Emma," thought Felix, and, despite 
 her apparent conviction that here a demigod was
 
 298 PREDESTINED 
 
 stooping, he insisted on learning how to dry the 
 dinner dishes. Straightening herself before the dish- 
 pan, she would say, with dewy eyes: 
 
 "Some time, we'll look back at these first days and 
 .laugh." 
 
 But how could she fit herself for companionship 
 with him in that apotheosis? She tried furtively to 
 understand his books, to improve her chirography and 
 spelling, to learn the French language from a primer 
 bought at the corner news-stand. 
 
 Felix, however, made small progress toward fame 
 and affluence. His "inspirations" rarer than ever 
 in this unaesthetic spot were smothered, as it were, 
 at their incipience by kitchen vapors. Soaring fan- 
 cies descended with a crash at the rattle of dishes 
 and the clacking of dumb-waiter ropes; the pen 
 slipped from his fingers; he sat contemplating the 
 gilded mantel-piece and the hand-painted chair-backs 
 with a sensation of being lost far from his own. Fre- 
 quently, he was oppressed by such despair as one 
 feels in a nightmare the motive of which is some vast, 
 irremediable misfortune. Finally, his irritability, at 
 the slightest gusts of disagreeable occurrences blazed 
 into rage; and the brunt of all his outbursts had to 
 be borne by Emma. He considered, indeed, that she 
 was responsible "for everything." 
 
 He chafed at her grammatical errors, her bour- 
 geois tastes, her interminable tales of Lew, her trite 
 caresses. He rediscovered the little horizontal scar 
 across her nose; and the sound of her small teeth 
 crunching celery exasperated him. The dozen pho-
 
 EMMA 299 
 
 tographs of her, all hanging against the parlor walls, 
 seemed to multiply, to an extent almost unbearable, 
 her personality. 
 
 Sometimes, he came home half tipsy, could not 
 endure the thought of spending an entire evening in 
 the flat, escaped the house on false errands, returned 
 toward midnight, dizzy and sullen. Her amazement 
 at discovering the full extent of his indulgences in- 
 creased his choler. Violent scenes ensued. 
 
 "Oh, that I should have all this to go through 
 again! When you come home so, my old life rushes 
 back to me, and I could almost die!" 
 
 "If I don't suit you, why were you so keen on 
 catching me?" 
 
 "Ah, to reproach me with my love! But did I 
 ever suspect that you were going to remind me so 
 much of the other?" 
 
 "The other! That's all I hear. A devilish pity 
 he kicked the bucket!" 
 
 She rolled up her large eyes, fell back against the 
 wall, clapped both hands to her bosom. 
 
 "My heart! It'll break some day yes, and you'll 
 be glad." 
 
 Perhaps, at such a moment, he looked curiously 
 at her face, small and white, dazed by the calamity 
 of their quarrel; and, in a return to rationality, he 
 understood that it was no stranger, but his own wife, 
 whom he was harrying. His immediate remorse 
 drew poignancy not alone from her wild eyes and 
 tragic pose, but from every trivial appurtenance to 
 that scene as well her home-made dress, her rough-
 
 3 oo PREDESTINED 
 
 ened finger-tips, the garish parlor ornaments, her 
 treasures, epitomizing all too pathetically the limita- 
 tions of her nature, her past, and her indubitable 
 destiny. He heard her voice wailing, " Whenever I 
 love you most, whenever I give myself to you utterly, 
 then I'm about to suffer the worst. Last night I 
 loved you insanely, more than God; and I think 
 He's punishing me for it now." 
 
 "Emma, Emma, let me hear you say that you for- 
 give me." 
 
 " Oh, I must ; for I have only you ! " 
 
 Kind words and kisses were, in fact, so potent an 
 anodyne for her despair that, after such episodes, 
 she could fall asleep with phrases of endearment, ren- 
 dered half incoherent by drowsiness, lingering on her 
 lips. 
 
 In the morning, he woke to see, in the gloom of the 
 bedroom, her thick braids of black hair spread upon 
 the pillow, her eyelids nearly lost in shadows, and all 
 her maturity smoothed out by sleep or softened by 
 the dusk. Then, at his prolonged scrutiny, her eyes 
 opened; and her first, vague impulse was to detain 
 him. 
 
 In the evening, after dinner, they sat by the win- 
 dow, looking out on Second Avenue. Winter had 
 reached the city: in the small, oblong yards of board- 
 ing-houses across the street, some trees thrust forth 
 bare limbs, etiolated by the pale lavender glimmer of 
 an arc lamp. Their shadows covered the brown- 
 stone walls with a semblance of great, intersecting 
 fissures. Occasionally, on the illuminated window-
 
 EMMA 301 
 
 shades, there moved prefigurations monstrous and 
 indefinite. 
 
 After the middle of December, one could glimpse, 
 beyond the corner of Fourteenth Street, many per- 
 sons moving to and fro before bright shop-windows. 
 
 In Christmas week, Felix remembered that his 
 credit was still unimpaired in a jewelry shop on Fifth 
 Avenue. There he selected, and had charged to his 
 account, a gold bracelet set with small turquoises. 
 But when, on Christmas morning, he slipped this 
 trinket upon Emma's wrist, she, with an excited 
 laugh, produced a diamond finger-ring worth at 
 least two hundred dollars. She had spent on this 
 gift a fourth of her remaining patrimony. 
 
 Covering his frowns with her hands, she explained, 
 anxiously : 
 
 "I wanted so much to get you a fur-lined overcoat, 
 but I was afraid you wouldn't care for anything but 
 sable." 
 
 All the tastes that she ascribed to him were of the 
 most "aristocratic" sort. Though he had grown too 
 cautious intentionally to acquaint this jealous creat- 
 ure with many details of his past, she was convinced 
 that Felix, a in sowing his wild oats," had squandered 
 a rich inheritance. That was the reason why he now 
 avoided all the fashionable and brilliant friends he 
 must have had? So much the better for her! 
 
 At their Christmas dinner, holly decked the table, 
 cider brimmed the goblets, jellies trembled in bowls, 
 nuts, raisins, and candies ran over on the cloth, and 
 the turkey, flanked by tall clumps of celery, with a
 
 302 PREDESTINED 
 
 small American flag stuck in its "wishbone," was, as 
 Emma said, "a whopper." While they were dining, 
 sleet lashed the panes, and the wind moaned in the 
 air-shaft. Emma shivered with delight. 
 
 "Just you and I, safe inside! Do you remember, 
 it was on a Christmas eve we met?" 
 
 He was thinking of that night, but, at the same time, 
 of another woman, green-eyed, with auburn hair. 
 
 Ah, the laughter and the lights, the odors of per- 
 fumes and champagne, the roses not so ruddy as the 
 lips above them, the glances that united in an imma- 
 terial embrace! He fell to wondering whom she 
 was deluding, this Christmas night. 
 
 Chance brought him, soon afterward, a partial 
 satisfaction of that curiosity. 
 
 He had begun to patronize a saloon conveniently 
 situated on Fourteenth Street, near Third Avenue. 
 Midway of a row of catchpenny arcades, pawn-shops, 
 and ten-cent concert-halls, two show-windows dis- 
 playing against wooden screens some dusty "mag- 
 nums" shut in a swinging door with cut-glass 
 panels. Inside, sawdust covered the floor. To the 
 left, from front to rear of a long room, extended the 
 bar, backed by mirrors against which pyramids of 
 glasses rose just high enough to prevent an inebriated 
 patron from glimpsing his reflection. To the right, 
 were aligned a cashier's desk, a cigar-stand, and a 
 buffet, the last covered with dishes of salt herring, 
 pickles, sliced Italian sausage, pretzels, and other 
 generators of thirst. From the ceiling hung down 
 at intervals chandeliers wrapped round with tin-foil;
 
 EMMA 303 
 
 and on the walls were lithographs portraying race- 
 horses and pugilists. At the back, a partition con- 
 cealed a small, unventilated retreat, reached from 
 the pavement by a narrow corridor, where feminine 
 customers were served. 
 
 Felix was at first ashamed of himself whenever he 
 entered there. In time, however, he got over such 
 fastidiousness. 
 
 One afternoon, the cut-glass panels swung inward 
 with a crash; two unprepossessing figures were seen 
 struggling on the threshold; and a short fellow, half 
 out of his overcoat, plunged headlong into the 
 saloon. Rising from the sawdust, he swayed for- 
 ward against the bar, at the same time shouting 
 thickly over his shoulder: 
 
 "I'll have all I want whenever I want it, and don't 
 you never take it on yourself to interfere with my 
 amusements, Mr. Mackeron!" 
 
 Felix turned to the individual thus addressed. It 
 was the tenor of "The Lost Venus." 
 
 This young actor, formerly the admiration of 
 "matinee girls," had grown sallow and emaciated. 
 Moreover, the physiognomy that, on the stage of the 
 Trocadero Theatre, had expressed many evanescent 
 emotions, was now almost vacuous, while the man's 
 pupils, even in the reduced light of the saloon, re- 
 mained at pin-point size. 
 
 Mackeron had no sooner shaken hands with Felix 
 than he began eagerly to relate his troubles. 
 
 On account of his cigarette-smoking, his singing 
 voice had temporarily "gone back on him." Mont-
 
 304 PREDESTINED 
 
 morrissy had refused him work, and "a conspiracy 
 of all the prominent theatrical managers in New 
 York" had kept him off the boards. Of late, he 
 had been employed in a moving-picture manufactory 
 where, before a kinetoscopic camera, he took part 
 in short, serio-comic pantomimes. But the proprie- 
 tor of this establishment "a pitiful ass" had 
 declared that Mackeron, "an artist noted through- 
 out the country for the mobility of his mask," could 
 no longer inject into his face a sufficient evidence 
 of feeling. "I tell you, Piers, the whole profession 
 hates me for my successes, and is out to down me. 
 One man can't fight them all. What I shall do, 
 heaven only knows. Do you happen to have five 
 dollars to spare till early to-morrow morning?" 
 
 "I'm sorry, no." 
 
 Mackeron's pin-point eyes grew duller. 
 
 "No offence taken," he muttered, his glance run- 
 ning over Felix's clothes. And, after a moment's 
 hesitation : 
 
 "I suppose you know about Marie Sinjon's new 
 part?" 
 
 Felix set down his highball. To hear, after so 
 long a silence, that well-remembered name, made 
 his heart beat fast. 
 
 Montmorrissy had provided her with a new ex- 
 travaganza called "Poor Pierrette," of which an 
 elaborate production was soon going to have its 
 first-night at the Trocadero Theatre. 
 
 So she was in town! 
 
 "Yes, and Noon too, by George, better off than 
 ever!"
 
 EMMA 305 
 
 Felix wondered whether he ought not to take 
 umbrage at that speech. But the other continued : 
 
 "You remember Noon's nervous trouble the way 
 he used to twitch his head? Not so long ago, I 
 watched him through I saw him in a restaurant, 
 dining, and at first I thought he wasn't going to be 
 able to feed himself!" 
 
 Felix closed his eyes, the better to enjoy this pict- 
 ure. Then, to prevent himself from smiling, he 
 inquired, hastily: 
 
 "And Nora Llanelly?" 
 
 "There was a decent sort of girl! I don't know. 
 She's vanished." 
 
 Further conversation was prevented by the saloon- 
 keeper, who demanded that Mackeron remove "his 
 friend." They turned to look at the short drunkard 
 in the sawdust-covered overcoat, who, clinging to 
 the bar, was weeping because he had been refused 
 more whiskey. In his broad face, splotched across 
 the nose from alcoholic poisoning, his large lugu- 
 brious mouth, his dyed "mutton-chop" whiskers 
 and mustache, his inflamed, vacant eyes running 
 over with tears, Felix discovered something half 
 familiar. Was not this the ex-drummer of the orches- 
 tra at the Trocadero Theatre ? Mackeron assented. 
 
 "No friend of mine, you understand. But his 
 wife's a good soul, and home to her he's going!" 
 
 So the actor dragged the musician forth into the 
 street. 
 
 The saloonkeeper's comment was: 
 
 "There's the sort that gives this business a bad
 
 306 PREDESTINED 
 
 He was a middle-aged Irishman, the speaker, seri- 
 ous-looking, sandy-haired, smooth-shaven, display- 
 ing over his left cheek-bone a deep cicatrice, where 
 an unruly customer had once struck him with "brass 
 knuckles." In his boyhood, a barefoot immigrant 
 from "the old country" dumped into the slums, he 
 had quickly learned to endure all privations, to 
 return blows, to run from policemen, to avoid liquor, 
 and to doff his cap to priests. Ward politicians had 
 soon found in him, at election time, a youth at once 
 shrewd, devoted, and eager for profitable combat 
 at the polls. From the captaincy of voters he had 
 worked his way, through various kindred offices, to 
 a position of influence in Tammany Hall, the head- 
 quarters of the Democratic political machine in New 
 York. Now, at forty-nine, he was the proprietor of 
 many ballots in his district, the owner of a lucra- 
 tive business which he considered no less reputable 
 than any merchant's, a widower with two small 
 children, a total abstainer, and an occasional wor- 
 shipper at mass. His chief desire was to rear his 
 daughters in "good style"; and he had casually 
 inquired of Felix, to whom he made himself agree- 
 able, "if they'd be apt to think much of pedigrees 
 in them young ladies' finishing schools uptown?" 
 All the same, Mr. Quilty's remote ancestors had, it 
 seemed, "worn crowns in Ireland." 
 
 Despite this, he thought nothing of taking off his 
 coat, when trade was brisk, and serving drinks across 
 the bar. 
 
 Then the lights of the foil-wrapped chandeliers
 
 EMMA 307 
 
 struck through a blue zone of tobacco smoke upon 
 a phalanx of tilted derby hats. The customers, 
 crowded one against another, with difficulty accom- 
 plished the large gestures called for by their un- 
 natural exuberance; but, on the other hand, their 
 proximity made easier those unpremeditated confi- 
 dences, those secret promises of favor, those touching 
 avowals of regard, which signalize such moments. 
 On all sides, mouths opened to emit unbridled 
 laughter, or snapped shut in counterfeit decision; 
 eyes winked and looked unutterable wisdom; faces 
 were wreathed in rapturous grins, contracted inor- 
 dinately with cunning, relaxed in doleful reverie. 
 Late at night, some imbibed, apparently, elixirs of 
 transfiguring properties: old men grew young in 
 mien and impulse, young men decrepit in attitude 
 and spirit, while the timid turned fierce, and the 
 turbulent propitiable. 
 
 In these scenes, Felix now regularly took his place. 
 
 Presently, it was as if, from rubbing against so 
 many shabby costumes, an indefinite suggestion of 
 shabbiness had been transferred to him. One day, 
 he realized that cab-drivers, as he passed them on 
 the street, no longer solicited his patronage. 
 
 He could not spare the money to renew his cloth- 
 ing, which, after long service, seemed suddenly 
 impaired at every point. Indeed, Johnny Livy, 
 whose Bohemian habiliments had once made his 
 company in Broadway restaurants a questionable 
 satisfaction, was now generally as well-dressed as 
 Felix. The latter did not hesitate to ask the "star
 
 3 o8 PREDESTINED 
 
 reporter" for loans, or to approach, on the same 
 business, friends in the newspaper office whom he 
 caught wearing optimistic smiles. At last, on seeing 
 such expressions fade away the moment he grew 
 confidential, Felix plucked up courage, marched into 
 the editorial cubbyhole, and demanded an increase 
 of salary. The editor regretted to inform him that 
 his work, instead of gaining value, had depreciated. 
 
 "With us, you see, efficiency is what counts 
 never sentimental inclination, though sometimes we 
 would like to make that do so. But here, unfortu- 
 nately, we are all parts of a machine. When a part 
 fails " 
 
 The journalist gazed into space, slowly shook his 
 fragile-looking head, and turned to his desk. Felix 
 went home with a heavy heart. 
 
 The money that he gave Emma every Saturday 
 for housekeeping expenses represented for him just 
 so many cigars and highballs missed; as the week 
 drew to a close, and his empty pockets necessitated 
 abstinence, he could not help blaming her for his 
 consequent discomfort. At such times, a sullen ani- 
 mosity invaded him. The dinners which she had 
 racked her brain to make at once tempting and inex- 
 pensive, he ate with lowered brow, in silence; while 
 she was trying to interest him in cheerful topics, he 
 was pondering schemes for the replenishment of his 
 wallet. "What a pity that all his jewelry was in 
 pawn! His books, then? He could not bear to 
 part with one of them. Of his clothing, there was 
 not a suit worth a decent price." Such was his
 
 EMMA 309 
 
 desperation, that he examined all the forks and 
 spoons for sterling marks. Then, with a start, he 
 recoiled from his intention, as much aghast as a 
 somnambulist waking to find himself on the threshold 
 of a crime. 
 
 Nevertheless, he often appraised the diamond 
 finger-ring his Christmas present from Emma. 
 But, of course, she would remark its absence from 
 his hand. 
 
 "Just so: it was she who balked him, in some 
 way, at every point!" 
 
 And, when the struggle against his craving, or the 
 desire to indulge it, had stretched his nerves to a 
 tension almost intolerable, any trivial annoyance 
 caused him to turn on Emma in a fury. His voice 
 high and unsteady, he would exclaim : 
 
 "Will you be so good as to stop that endless 
 humming? My God, I should like a little peace, 
 now and then, in my own house!" 
 
 The light died in her large eyes; her face seemed 
 to wither; and her pale lips barely formed the words: 
 
 "Don't you swear at me, Felix!" 
 
 At such temerity, a red mist obscured his sight. 
 
 "One of these days you'll drive me crazy. Then 
 look out!" 
 
 She sucked in her lips, while her eyes, never 
 leaving his, slowly overflowed. And a thin wail 
 rang out: 
 
 "Yes, strike me! It's nothing new. There's the 
 mark for you: the scar across my nose that Lew 
 put there!"
 
 PREDESTINED 
 
 His heart, so to speak, turned over. 
 
 "Oh, Emma! Oh, my poor little girl! Never in 
 the worM, from me!" 
 
 "You say that now. But you're getting more and 
 more like him. It's a rep'tition, yes, a dreadful 
 rep'tition, and this is my life!" 
 
 Still, when a similar quarrel had prostrated her, 
 when a physician had been summoned to relieve her 
 headache and the palpitations of her heart, Felix 
 had only to kneel beside the bed, cover her cheek 
 with kisses, and lay some flowers in her languid 
 hands. 
 
 "Violets, from my bad boy! Ah, now I want to 
 get well this minute, and wear them somewhere." 
 
 Reconciled, they walked out, on frosty nights, 
 over pavements slippery with ice, past ridges of 
 dirty snow extending alongside the curbs, toward 
 other parts of town than theirs. Thoroughfares 
 vivid with the electric signs of "dime museums" and 
 saloons gave place to the dim upsweep of office 
 buildings; soon a vista with unobstructed altitudes 
 appeared, where sombre zones of interwoven 
 branches hovered over stretches of unsullied snow; 
 then blocks of fashionable shops displayed monoto- 
 nously their blind window-panes and iron shutters; 
 and, eventually, where unessential trade gave way 
 to its sustainers, one was surrounded by massive 
 dwelling-houses with gables, tourelles and marble 
 vestibules, their shadowy prospect broken, maybe, 
 at a distance, by a church spire outlined with stars, 
 or by the refulgence of a towerlike hotel ablaze from
 
 EMMA 311 
 
 portico to cornices with lights. Closed automo- 
 biles continually glided past: the twin lamps rushed 
 forward; the rectangular window framed pale 
 dresses and shirt-bosoms; the varnished panels 
 flashed by; the red tail-light dwindled like a dying 
 coal. Emma stared at that flood of equipages bear- 
 ing away, to unknown pleasures, the people of an 
 alien world. She wanted to halt before a house 
 when some woman, cloaked and bareheaded, ran up 
 the steps, while a footman in white silk stockings 
 held open the door. Through the large windows 
 of restaurants she perceived, by the light of candles 
 glowing under beaded shades, bare arms, white 
 cravats, orchids, jewels, raised champagne glasses. 
 Then, all at once, she confessed that she was tired. 
 They turned homeward. The mansions were left 
 behind, the shops ended at the little park, the office 
 buildings gave place to Union Square and Fourteenth 
 Street, Second Avenue opened out, and the fire- 
 escapes of the flathouse came into view. Among 
 the hand-painted chairs, they removed their wraps 
 in silence. 
 
 Once they went to the Metropolitan Opera House, 
 where they sat in the topmost gallery, close to the 
 gilded rafters and the large cupids of the fresco. 
 Below, hung four other galleries, the attire of their 
 occupants gaining festive quality at each descent, 
 till, in the two lowest tiers, fitted out with boxes, 
 shimmering decollete dresses, decked with strands of 
 pearls or sewn with diamonds, clung to the narrow 
 hips of women smaller, apparently, than mariom-
 
 3 i2 PREDESTINED 
 
 ettes. The house grew dark. Before the audience, 
 in a broad trench where screened electric globes shed 
 rays on many music-racks, the bows of violins lay 
 all aslant, the flutes and horns were raised, two 
 drummers cautiously felt the membranes of their 
 kettle-drums. The baton fell; a sonorous harmony 
 swept upward. 
 
 "Venusberg's" foliage was disclosed; Tann- 
 hauser sat repining by the couch of Venus she in a 
 shining girdle and transparent robes. To notes 
 vertiginously passional, bacchantes entered; cries 
 burst forth; white limbs were tossed about in reck- 
 less measures. But weariness seized upon the 
 dancers: they fell back into a gathering mist, and 
 disappeared. Then the mellow voice of Venus stole 
 forth, to fill the auditorium: 
 
 "Geliebter, sag\ wo weilt dein Sinn?" 
 
 "Where stray thy thoughts?" To the past, to a 
 time when, in an artist's dusky studio, those same 
 tones quivered on the air, to youth tentative and 
 yet still uncompromised, to an epoch of boundless 
 promise, to the clear, trustful eyes of a young girl. 
 
 Emma, having consulted the programme, whis- 
 pered: 
 
 "That is Mme. Regne Lodbrok." 
 
 "Yes, I ought to know. I used to be a friend of 
 hers." 
 
 His wife leaned forward to devour with her eyes 
 the radiant figure on the stage. She did not smile 
 again that evening. 
 
 Her jealousy returned, and in a form so tern-
 
 EMMA 313 
 
 pestuous that she could not help disclosing all the 
 ramifications of her fears. "What chance had 
 she" in effect "to hold for long a young man 
 who had lived amid the allurements of a sumptuous 
 environment, who had been at home in the boudoirs 
 of famous singers and in the dressing-rooms of 
 actresses, who, besides, must have left back there, 
 in the region of opera-boxes, closed automobiles, 
 and ball-rooms, some elegant, cultivated, beautiful 
 young woman ? Indeed, perhaps he had not broken 
 all of those old ties ? Why was it that he disappeared 
 for hours, to return morose and quarrelsome, without 
 excuses for his absence ? Was she to discover, some 
 day, that even in faithlessness he resembled Lew?" 
 
 In the morning, she consulted a paper-covered, 
 dog-eared volume entitled, "Napoleon's Dream- 
 Book" ; at night, she "told her fortune" with a pack 
 of playing-cards. As she laid upon the marble- 
 topped table card after card, Emma muttered, 
 "Trouble in the house, disagreeable feelings, an 
 absence, a light woman between him and me." 
 She looked at Felix strangely. , 
 
 "No matter how I shuffle the deck, there's always 
 a light woman between him and me!" 
 
 When, by pretence of the most tender sympathy, 
 she had inveigled him into relating anecdotes of 
 his more prosperous years, suddenly her dark eyes 
 struck fire, and she cried: 
 
 "How carefully you avoid the love-affairs! That 
 shows me all the plainer: if you had finished with 
 them, you wouldn't be so wary. But I don't need
 
 314 PREDESTINED 
 
 your confessions; I'm sure without them! Dont 
 I feel it here, in my breast an awful sinking, that 
 comes on sometimes when you're out, and I'm alone ? 
 Ah, don't think a woman can't tell!" 
 
 "My dear Emma, this is perfectly absurd." 
 
 Baffled by his smile, she glared at him. Then 
 approaching her face to his, gritting her teeth, and 
 rapidly shaking her head, 
 
 "Felix, I could kill you!" 
 
 To hide his uneasiness, he snatched up hat and 
 overcoat. 
 
 "I'll walk about in the open till you come to your 
 senses." 
 
 She screamed after him: 
 
 "Yes, leave your wife! That's all us wives are 
 for!" 
 
 And she collapsed into a chair, with eyeballs fixed, 
 and twitching hands. The deuce! One could not 
 leave his wife in that predicament ! 
 
 He helped her to bed. There she lay motionless, 
 groaning. "She was choking, her brain felt queer, 
 her heart was running away." Then her teeth 
 commenced to chatter. Felix brought whiskey, which 
 she pushed aside; he wrapped her in blankets; he 
 ran to a neighboring apothecary's for a headache 
 remedy. She swallowed one powder, and fell asleep. 
 
 He slipped out with his dog, into the cold. "What 
 a life! How long would it continue so? Till 
 death?" He stopped in the street, struck his palms 
 together, and ejaculated, "It can't go on! I was 
 not born for this. Presently, I shall awake."
 
 EMMA 315 
 
 Pedestrians halted, some distance off, to watch him. 
 Felix entered a saloon. 
 
 Now and then, when his hand touched the swing- 
 ing doors, he hesitated, drew back, escaped. From 
 victories no greater, he derived extravagant hopes. 
 
 But still there came to him at every contempla- 
 tion of gayety the same longing, at every sight of 
 physical beauty the ineradicable trepidation, at 
 every approach to centres of prodigality and license 
 the thought, "Alas, I am missing that!" The 
 ghosts of old temptations returned to haunt him; 
 and one, in the twilight of a February day, took 
 corporeal shape. 
 
 On a residential street, a slender woman, wearing 
 a long coat of black, smooth fur and a black "Rus- 
 sian toque," drew near to Felix. They were on the 
 point of passing each other without recognition. 
 But the bull-terrier was fawning round her skirts. 
 
 "Eileen!" 
 
 "You!" 
 
 And they both trembled. 
 
 The rim of her black fur toque pressed down on 
 all sides the precise undulations of her coiffure; 
 from the full lobes of her ears jet pendants dangled; 
 a frill of white lace clung round her chin. That 
 unobtrusive exquisiteness of dress, that clear pallor 
 and facial delicacy of the "hot-house type" of 
 beauty, that very subtle hint of secret ardors, in 
 Eileen Tamborlayne remained unimpaired. Even 
 the familiar composure almost instantly flowed 
 back into her face: she cast a glance up and down
 
 316 PREDESTINED 
 
 the dusky street; her eyes cleared of apprehension; 
 her lips parted in a mournful smile. 
 
 "My poor Felix, to think we should have this 
 painful meeting!" 
 
 Her speech, and her quick recovery of equanimity, 
 mortified the young man. With a bitter laugh, he 
 returned : 
 
 "Painful, I take it, because of the catastrophe that 
 it recalls?" 
 
 Giving him a reproachful look, she started to walk 
 on, though in such a way that he committed no 
 obtrusion by keeping pace with her. He controlled 
 his agitation. He tried to speak indifferently. 
 
 "Is it odd that I should feel some curiosity? For 
 three years I've been in ignorance of your where- 
 abouts and fortunes. That seems a long time, per- 
 haps? And yet, I'm still interested in what I was 
 partially to blame for." He hesitated, then blurted 
 out: 
 
 "Gregory?" 
 
 "He's fairly well. Travelling seems to suit him 
 best. We seldom get back to New York, these 
 days." 
 
 "You and he are together!" 
 
 She made no immediate reply. At length, with a 
 sigh, she allowed the enigmatic phrase to escape her: 
 
 "Sometimes qualities that irk us serve us best in 
 the end." 
 
 When he had considered this carefully, Felix vent- 
 ured: 
 
 "Does he ever speak of me?"
 
 EMMA 317 
 
 "Ah, my dear, that's different!" 
 
 He understood everything. She, in some in- 
 genious way, had avoided practically all the conse- 
 quences; he, while scarcely so guilty, was blamed 
 by Gregory Tamborlayne for everything. He 
 sneered: 
 
 "In our case, the usual retributions seem to have 
 been reversed. I'm the one, apparently, who has 
 lost everything of importance." 
 
 She looked at him askance. 
 
 "Have you been so unfortunate?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "I hadn't your talents. You see, I was an ama- 
 teur." 
 
 Eileen stood still. Her eyes became humid, her 
 lips parted, and her face expressed perfectly the 
 resignation of a meek woman misunderstood. She 
 faltered : 
 
 "We had best part here." 
 
 Besides, a lamp-lighter was illuminating the street ; 
 and two strangers were approaching. She made 
 haste with her farewell. 
 
 "You think harshly of me. You ascribe nothing 
 to fatality, to your unconsciously exerted influence 
 on others, to your own impulses. You don't remem- 
 ber tenderly, as I often do, a season of delicious 
 terrors, of sweet miseries. You forget that we 
 loved each other." 
 
 Her chin rose; a well-known, tremulous smile 
 appeared ; she seemed to be swaying toward him. A 
 tremor passed through his body. He seized her hand.
 
 318 PREDESTINED 
 
 "I remember it all!" he uttered, in choked accents. 
 
 Intense satisfaction shone in her eyes. 
 
 "I want you never to forget it! Be careful: 
 people are coming; our moment is over. But we 
 cheated fate of one more thrill, didn't we?" 
 
 Without lowering his hand, Felix watched her 
 depart. And not till she had disappeared did he 
 remember his humiliating discoveries concerning 
 her, or realize that Eileen, moved by the dominant 
 impulse of her nature, had again played upon his 
 sensibility. He was forced to confess: 
 
 "I don't seem able to hold my own in any situ- 
 ation." 
 
 It was on the following day that these words were 
 more unhappily verified. 
 
 The last edition of The Evening Sphere had gone 
 to press, when the editor called Felix into the pri- 
 vate office. "It was not a prosperous year; the 
 proprietor of the newspaper had ordered a general 
 retrenchment; a number of employe's would have 
 to be laid off for the time being." In short, after 
 much circumlocution, Felix was told that his ser- 
 vices were no longer needed. "But, my dear fellow, 
 you must be sure to leave me your address. I have 
 great hopes of sending for you, when we feel 
 wealthier, and you have refreshed yourself with a 
 vacation." The editor smiled gently. "You must 
 begin soon to live up to my expectations of you," 
 was his valedictory. 
 
 The flat was redolent of hot lard. In the kitchen, 
 Emma, wearing her checkered apron, was cooking
 
 EMMA 319 
 
 dinner. She regarded Felix with astonishment and 
 pleasure. 
 
 "Home so early?" 
 "I've lost my job." 
 She displayed a frightened smile 
 "That's not a pretty joke, sweetheart." 
 "It's the truth. I've been discharged." 
 Emma turned to the gas stove, with quivering 
 chin. He wondered why his news affected her so 
 deeply. From her accounts, this was not by any 
 means the first time she had heard those words.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE day after his dismissal from The Evening 
 Sphere, Felix remembered that he had never yet 
 derived material benefit from the good-will of Paul 
 Pavin. Forthwith, he hastened to the Velasquez 
 Building. In the lobby, a clerk informed him: 
 
 "Monsieur Pavin has his old studio for the 
 winter; but just now he is on a visit in West- 
 chester County. However, he is expected back with- 
 in the week." 
 
 "I'll call again." 
 
 But it seemed an age before Felix parted the 
 velveteen curtains, saw a burly pair of shoulders rise 
 against the fading "north light," and felt his arms 
 grasped by two strong hands. 
 
 "Rascal! I have been in your city seven weeks." 
 
 Felix began apologies which Pavin cut short. 
 
 "No, I am wrong. We oldish fellows sometimes 
 ask too much. In all ways, my faith! Yes, on a 
 gray day we discover that age must bait its hook." 
 And he turned on the lights before Felix had re- 
 covered from his blushes. 
 
 They sat down for an "old-fashioned talk," which 
 proved to be a gay monologue by the Frenchman 
 concerning adventures, in Corfu, Brittany, and Nor- 
 way, that could hardly have befallen a decrepit 
 
 320
 
 EMMA 321 
 
 man. But when Felix refilled his glass with whiskey 
 and soda, Pavin's mind seemed to wander. At last, 
 he said, abruptly: 
 
 "My friend, you are not looking well. Have you 
 been ill?" 
 
 Felix ceased to smile. His answer was: 
 
 "Bad luck seems to have been my principal ail- 
 ment!" 
 
 The artist smoothed his thick, blond beard re- 
 flectively. 
 
 "No fatal malady, that, for youth. I say it who 
 know. Mine was, for a while, an open-air hospital : 
 trees overhead, iron chairs for beds, a light diet of 
 bread, with cheese on feast-days, and much walking 
 in thin-soled shoes as part of the discipline. My 
 best tonic was observance of the cured." 
 
 "Your disease had no complications." 
 
 "And you think that in consequence I have no 
 ability to prescribe for your especial case. But why 
 does a physician, who flounders through all sorts of 
 storms without mishap, say to some one, 'I warn 
 you to keep your feet dry'? Because, while not 
 susceptible to colds himself, he knows that for cer- 
 tain others there is only one way to avoid a danger- 
 ous illness. A man must shun the elements that 
 don't agree with him." 
 
 "Exactly. That's the plan of this world. All the 
 immunity for one, and all the susceptibility for an- 
 other! And again, after every act that is not formal, 
 the same unfairness in assignment of emotions. For 
 you, doubtless, impenitence; but for me, remorse."
 
 322 PREDESTINED 
 
 There, according to Pavin, Felix had discredited 
 his own grievance. Life as the Frenchman saw it 
 was made up of the happiness and the unhappiness 
 that followed different sorts of conduct. The result 
 depended on the degree to which the individual's 
 higher senses had been developed. An undeveloped 
 nature would not suffer from the worst acts any 
 great contrition; but a nature with fine moral judg- 
 ment would get, at each divergence from its ideal of 
 conduct, an unhappy reaction. "I for my part," 
 Pavin confessed, "have lived without many scruples 
 and, consequently, with few unhappy reactions. In 
 that speech, however, I admit a deficiency, a coarse- 
 ness of spiritual fibre, a lack of what you have. I 
 possess the 'quality' necessary for good painting, 
 but you own a finer quality the capacity for deli- 
 cate remorse. A cerebral man is tormented with 
 countless scruples incomprehensible to the peasant. 
 Thus, with his very pains, he buys access to rare 
 fields of consciousness, in the far reaches of which 
 move the mystics, the delineators of subtle agonies, 
 those who have gained their 'victories over the in- 
 visible.' You have read a book by one of these. 
 But as for him, between his remorses and his will, 
 the latter was the more delicate." 
 
 Then, looking at Felix with half -shut eyes, he 
 concluded, in the tone of one surprised by a chance 
 thought : 
 
 "We must make your resemblance to him end 
 short of that." 
 
 Felix took this opportunity to relate how Buron's
 
 EMMA 323 
 
 book had changed his literary designs, how its perusal 
 had been followed by the most exalted aspirations, 
 how, for his resultant labors, he had slighted daily 
 tasks, to the depletion of his funds, and the refusal 
 of his further journalistic services. "Then, close ap- 
 plication to work had impaired his health; next, while 
 suffering from nervous instability, he had even been 
 drawn into an unfortunate marriage ; finally, his ac- 
 cumulated troubles had bound him to a habit such as 
 one did not easily escape." In fact, one might have 
 thought that all Felix's woes had begun with Pavin's 
 gift of a volume of French prose. But, during this 
 plaint, the portrait-painter seemed almost inattentive. 
 
 "I have bored you with my troubles," said Felix, 
 stifHy. 
 
 "No, I heard everything you said, and with great 
 regret, though all the time I was thinking of Buron. 
 Do you know, a curious thing has happened, in that 
 connection." And he explained that Mme. Lod- 
 brok had seen recently, on Broadway, an ex-dancer, 
 half French and half Algerian, once the talk of 
 Paris, but now grown ugly, fat, and shabby, who, 
 many years before, had disappeared with Pierre 
 Buron. This woman, while the opera-singer's cab 
 was turning round, had vanished in the crowd. 
 "What a pity," Pavin commented. "Perhaps she 
 could have furnished some illuminating reminis- 
 cences of his death, or the location of his grave?" 
 
 Felix made no reply, being more concerned with 
 the thought that his elaborate preliminaries to a 
 request for money had been wasted.
 
 324 PREDESTINED 
 
 But this was not the case. When the young man 
 rose to go, Pavin pressed into his hand a roll of 
 banknotes, with the speech: 
 
 "You need two remedies for your bad luck: one, 
 a temporary loan if you will permit me the other, 
 a journey with a friend. In two weeks, I am off 
 for Havre. Come and see me to-morrow; we will 
 conspire against all obstacles. Mind the tall box 
 in the vestibule." 
 
 There was, indeed, wedged behind the door, a 
 flat wooden case some six feet high, with express 
 labels pasted on it. Felix, uttering an unsteady 
 laugh, inquired: 
 
 "A fresh masterpiece for the Luxembourg Gal- 
 lery?" 
 
 "Unfortunately, no. A portrait I have been 
 doing in the country." 
 
 Round the turn of the corridor, he snatched from 
 his pocket the roll of banknotes. It amounted to a 
 hundred and fifteen dollars. He went downtown 
 as if walking on air. 
 
 Besides, Pavin's last words kept ringing in his 
 ears. "A journey!" 
 
 An escape! Another land! The beginning of a 
 new life! It had come, then, at last the golden 
 opportunity. And, without troubling himself about 
 the details of that transition, he was whirled away 
 into the jewelled haze of Paris boulevards at night- 
 fall, into the districts of cafes made famous by their 
 patrons, where celebrities of all sorts congregated 
 on plush-covered settees with their backs against a
 
 EMMA 325 
 
 wainscoting of mirrors, into the region of studios 
 where, when the "working light" was gone, geniuses, 
 of whom posterity was destined to be proud, fore- 
 gathered to display their nimble wit, their cynicism, 
 their exceptional fervors. Then the sphere of Con- 
 tinental drawing-rooms opened to his gaze: he 
 recognized his youthfulness, believed again in his 
 charm and talents, saw himself ultimately made 
 free, through his accomplishments, of the society 
 of elegant " blue-stockings," statesmen, diplomatists, 
 and princesses. A cloud of unknown faces gathered 
 on the margins of his dreams. He perceived, as it 
 were, marble stairways lined with bowing servants, 
 expanses of glistening parquetry over which rose- 
 colored dresses floated, wide doorways filled with 
 palms that masked musicians, conservatories where 
 beautiful women, additionally distinguished by their 
 love-affairs with the illustrious, leaned toward him 
 amid masses of exotic flowers. Or else, he glimpsed 
 lagoons in moonlight and a gondola gliding past the 
 steps of an old palace, carved balconies hanging 
 over an enchanted sea, a villa blushing, in sunset, 
 amid trees that rose against an amber-colored sky, 
 to burst, high overhead, into autumnal opulence, as 
 does the foliage in a design by Fragonard. Those 
 were all scenes of plenty, love, and fame, of unprec- 
 edented adventures, of intermingling exaltations 
 and languors, replete with the delights that fortune 
 may secure for the character at once voluptuous and 
 intellectual. And why should those visions not 
 assume material shapes? Did not the whole world,
 
 326 PREDESTINED 
 
 after all, lie stretched out before youth made aware 
 of its potentialities? 
 
 Still, Emma's face seemed to float constantly 
 before him. He was enraged by the persistence of 
 that apparition; and, as he had reached Fourteenth 
 Street, to drown his scruples he entered Quilty's 
 saloon. 
 
 But the floor covered with sawdust, the foil- 
 wrapped chandeliers, the bar slopped over with 
 beer, roused his disgust. He wondered how he 
 could have spent so many hours in such a place. 
 
 Nevertheless, he remained at the bar, drinking 
 highballs, grumbling to himself at the quality of the 
 whiskey, condescending, finally, with an inscrutable 
 smile, to answer Quilty and an habitue of the resort, 
 named Pandle a rather obtrusively attired, dried-up, 
 pessimistic-looking fellow apparently of unlimited 
 leisure, who wore an auburn wig, and, since he 
 was totally bereft of hair, affected two streaks of 
 brown cosmetic in imitation of eyebrows. "What 
 associates!" thought Felix. "What a den!" From 
 that environment he could not, in contemplation, 
 extricate the flat, or even Emma. All would have 
 to be left behind. 
 
 "As for her, did she expect to fasten herself for 
 life to a man of his endowments? If he gave her 
 the slip, she would not be a whit worse off than 
 when he met her. It was the destiny of some to 
 suffer in whatever situations they contrived. And 
 did not the conqueror invariably have to drive his 
 chariot to victory over prostrate bodies?"
 
 EMMA 327 
 
 On his way home, however, he modified his arro- 
 gance. Dissimulation was imperative. 
 
 Emma, who had been pressing her cheek against 
 the window-pane, came forward with haggard eyes. 
 
 "Your dinner's spoiled hours ago. Where have 
 you been?" 
 
 "Collecting an old debt," he answered, and threw 
 fifty dollars upon the table. When she embraced 
 him, her face radiant with relief and thankfulness, 
 Felix grew sick at heart. Could he do this 
 deed? 
 
 Notwithstanding such thoughts, next day he went 
 back to the Velasquez Building. "Monsieur Pavin 
 was out." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 He had given vent to an ejaculation of relief. It 
 was a reaction. 
 
 And a new struggle began. 
 
 He haunted the flat, followed Emma from one 
 room to another, watched her at household tasks- 
 striving to stamp upon his mind, so that he might 
 not for one moment forget, the picture of her docile 
 servitude. Sometimes, remaining perfectly still, he 
 tried to imagine the place as it would be without him. 
 Empty rooms, a vacant chair, the lonely bed, silence. 
 But could he not hear, in imagination, her sobs, and 
 the footfalls of furniture-movers? Her gaze rose to 
 meet his; a look of wonder and inquiry trembled in 
 her face; his eyes fell. He had the sensation of a 
 man who, as his intended victim unexpectedly turns 
 round, conceals a knife behind his back.
 
 328 PREDESTINED 
 
 It occurred to him that if he could feel a modicum 
 of passion for her, his designs would never be accom- 
 plished. So he urged himself to unprecedented 
 exhibitions of tenderness: he made love to her, 
 talked nonsense, kissed her eyelids, chin, and blue- 
 black hair. In his anxiety to reproduce old ardors, 
 he imitated all the blandishments that he had 
 lavished on the others. He cried aloud, "I love 
 you!" his heart crying, meanwhile, "If only I could 
 be content to do so!" For when his lips met hers, 
 he dreamed of princesses; and when he closed his 
 eyes, he pondered "all that might be," but for his 
 conscience. He felt at the same time resentment 
 toward Emma and an intense desire to be satisfied 
 with her. He wished that he might be able willingly 
 to sacrifice himself for her, and that she might then 
 somehow set him free. 
 
 To this sentimental pretence of Felix's she made 
 immediate response. Her large eyes once more 
 grew lambent, her doting smiles returned, she re- 
 gained her girlish airs. "It was like old times," or 
 else, "He had never been so nice." When he was 
 going out, she clung round his neck, or lured him 
 back for another kiss. She could not let him leave 
 her for an hour without participation in the most 
 tender scene. On other occasions, her eyes chang- 
 ing color in an instant, her amorous whispers ending 
 in a catch, she barred his exit till he had sworn to 
 his most trifling intention. He was going, usually, 
 "to negotiate with certain publishers about a pros- 
 pective book."
 
 EMMA 329 
 
 After he had left the house, her words lingered in 
 his ears, her dilated eyes seemed still to shine before 
 him, and passing women who bore a vague resem- 
 blance to her intruded on each guilty thought of 
 his. 
 
 Every day, he went half-way to Pavin's studio, 
 halted, and turned back. And it was as if he were 
 relinquishing, in that retreat, a kingdom full of 
 treasure. 
 
 He came to the conclusion that before he could 
 find a plausible excuse for leaving her, she would 
 have to be drawn into a violent quarrel. "Insults 
 cannot be forgotten; contempt in one will counter- 
 act pity in the other; the irrevocable phrase, let 
 slip in anger, may prove to be the passport to 
 liberty." But his attempts in that respect were all 
 rendered half-hearted by his self-reproach. Besides, 
 who could push an altercation with a woman dis- 
 solved in tears? 
 
 Fool that he had been, to forget her transforma- 
 tion in jealousy! He had only to blurt out an 
 allusion to some imaginary woman, create a false 
 impression, excite Emma till she threatened him 
 ferociously, or, still better, attacked him. In the 
 letter left behind him, this sentence would appear, 
 "From what has just occurred, you, too, can measure 
 not only the unhappiness, but also the danger, of 
 our companionship." 
 
 Thirteen days had passed since Pavin's proposal, 
 when Felix, ready for anything, appeared again at 
 the Velasquez Building.
 
 330 
 
 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Monsieur Pavin? Why, sir, he sailed yesterday 
 for Europe." 
 
 Gone, before the appointed day, without a word! 
 
 The mirage vanished; the desert stretched to the 
 horizon its monotonous and barren undulations. 
 
 He settled down to write short stories "such as 
 magazine editors want." Humbly he rummaged 
 current periodicals for models. On some of those 
 pages, Miss Nuncheon displayed her theories about 
 "the smart set," and in every number of The Mauve 
 Monthly Mr. Lute voiced no less glibly in sonnets 
 than in quatrains some enigmatical and pallid yearn- 
 ings. Felix, for all his sneers, could not string 
 together half a dozen satisfactory paragraphs. 
 
 He went downtown to hunt a job among the 
 newspaper offices. The first refusal disheartened 
 him. As he was leaving that vicinity, Johnny Livy 
 passed, whistling, almost stout in a new plaid ulster. 
 
 Felix finished Pavin's loan, and sold his old pawn- 
 tickets. Emma was using her patrimony. Bill- 
 collectors called daily. 
 
 Every night, he stayed late at Quilty's bar. Fre- 
 quently, in the morning he had no recollection of 
 coming home. On rising, he was good for nothing 
 till he had swallowed a drink of brandy. 
 
 It was his "one refuge," that state of inebriety, 
 in which all his regrets and anxieties melted quite 
 away; in which a conviction of absolute well-being 
 came to him ; in which, as he advanced to an oblitera- 
 tion of all objective consciousness, veil after veil was 
 lifted from his subjective mind, until, like a mystic
 
 EMMA 331 
 
 seemingly on the verge of discovering the undiscover- 
 able, he was stirred, so to speak, by revelations, 
 vaguely splendid, concerning a government whose 
 province was the illimitable field of stars. His 
 soul, taking flight, reached spaces where the mun- 
 dane and temporal was lost in the celestial and 
 eternal, where the human sojourn became trivial, 
 where the air trembled with a harmony of promises 
 to be fulfilled in perpetuity. It was, indeed, at 
 such moments that his spirit, escaping from the 
 flesh, soared to its only presumption of a God. 
 But at his every return to sobriety the sense of truth 
 departed from those phantasms, the veils descended, 
 as if his ethereal part, having mingled with infinitude, 
 had to be deprived of its discoveries at re-entry into 
 the body. Moreover, there were no terms whereby 
 he could have described intelligibly his fragmentary 
 reminiscences. 
 
 Yet he now found those periods the only desir- 
 able ones in life. Without any more self-condemna- 
 tion, he clung to his habit, because indulgence of it 
 made him oblivious to its consequences. 
 
 His constant intemperance, his relapse since 
 Pavin's departure into his former sullenness, his 
 failure to renew by any remunerative deed Emma's 
 faith in him, evidently forced his wife, at last, to the 
 conclusion that the future held more clouds than 
 sunshine. She no longer had the courage to talk of 
 celebrity and wealth to come. Her attitudes of 
 adoration ceased before the reiterated spectacle of a 
 man made unsteady and fatuous by drink. And, in
 
 332 PREDESTINED 
 
 her apprehensions, every day expressed with greater 
 freedom were mixed up reproaches about "poverty," 
 bald comparisons of Felix's debauchery to Lew's, 
 dire predictions, wails of self-pity, and accusations 
 that he was deliberately going downhill "because he 
 and some girl uptown had fallen out." 
 
 Nightly he had to hear her, in a voice monoto- 
 nously shrill, rehearse her wrongs. The list of his 
 offences was apparently limitless: he wondered, 
 occasionally, if she kept a memorandum-book in 
 which to note the most trifling reprehensible act of 
 his. Even Pat, who crept to his master's side while 
 these diatribes were in progress, drooped his head 
 and yawned. When she had finished, Felix was apt 
 to say: 
 
 "After all, your precious Lew was a sensible 
 man, who knew what he was about." 
 
 Once, she retorted: 
 
 "No doubt you'd like to be rid of me, too! Or 
 even see me die!" 
 
 He made no response. But he sent at her, from 
 beneath his lowered eyelids, a furtive look of hatred. 
 
 Emma, though apparently engaged in dusting the 
 bisque statuette of an infant, was watching Felix in 
 the mirror above the mantel-shelf. She planted 
 herself before him, with arms akimbo. 
 
 "You'll never get off so easy!" 
 
 But, unexpectedly, a look of hopelessness ap- 
 peared upon her face. Her eyes rolled in their 
 sockets. Her mouth was slowly distorted, as are 
 children's mouths just before a fit of grief. She left
 
 EMMA 333 
 
 the room, and threw herself face-downward upon 
 the bed. Her lamentations filled the house. Fi- 
 nally, she was prostrated, without sufficient strength 
 to reach for the headache powders in the bureau 
 drawer. 
 
 One evening, Felix was leaving the flathouse when 
 a mail-carrier, in his gray uniform and with his bag 
 of tan sole-leather slung over one shoulder, slipped 
 into the metal letter-box an envelope of unusual ap- 
 pearance. It was from France from Paul Pavin. 
 A sneer curled the young man's lip; he thrust the 
 missive unopened into his pocket. 
 
 "So he recalled the fact that there was a little 
 something to explain?" 
 
 When, in Quilty's saloon, he had fortified himself 
 with a drink of whiskey, Felix tore open the en- 
 velope. The words caught his eye: 
 
 "I first wrote to you in care of The Evening 
 Sphere. Then, as there was no time to lose, I tele- 
 phoned to the editor for your address. I sent a 
 note, by special delivery, to your house, and, at 
 the last moment, another, by messenger. Both 
 were evidently accepted. . . ." 
 
 It was Emma who had intercepted them! Then 
 she knew everything? But that was impossible. 
 All the same, there was no other explanation. His 
 hands shook so violently that the note-paper rattled. 
 
 "This fills my score against her!" 
 
 And he prepared for his arraignment of her by 
 getting thoroughly drunk. Toward nine o'clock, 
 he forgot that he had a wife.
 
 334 PREDESTINED 
 
 Presently, he became aware that some one was 
 talking to him. Directly before his face, an incom- 
 plete countenance was resolved out of a mist: he 
 recognized Quilty by the scar across his cheek-bone. 
 
 "A lady in the back room wants a word with you." 
 
 "A lady?" 
 
 With a vacant laugh, Felix entered the compart- 
 ment at the rear of the saloon. 
 
 Some women, of a foreign appearance, their hats 
 ornamented with draggled plumes, their large, flat 
 hand-bags laid on bare table-tops among half-empty 
 glasses, sat here and there in the relaxed attitudes of 
 tired pedestrians. All were staring, with expres- 
 sions of antagonism, at a tense figure posted, bolt 
 upright, by the corridor door. It was Emma. 
 
 "You! In this place!" 
 
 Without replying, her face colorless, her eyes 
 enormous, her lips compressed as if to keep in a 
 cry, she pounced upon him and dragged him, through 
 the corridor, into the street. 
 
 There, he struggled to release himself. But she, 
 panting, clung to him with both hands. 
 
 "What are you trying to do!" 
 
 "You're coming home with me." 
 
 "I, after the way you've just humiliated me?" 
 
 "Humiliated you! Oh! Oh!" 
 
 He jerked himself loose, and reeled against the 
 wall. But immediately, she fastened on him again. 
 He was as much taken aback by her strength as by 
 her courage. She seemed strange to him. 
 
 "Will you come home?"
 
 EMMA 335 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "But you will! You will, do you hear? You 
 don't know me yet! I'll follow you everywhere/ 
 I'll cry out to every one how you treat me!" 
 
 Under the electric signs, a ring of faces swiftly 
 took shape round them. Before the saloon door- 
 way appeared Mr. Pandle, jauntily bewigged, his 
 imitation eyebrows raised. And, all the while, 
 Emma's voice, pitched in a strident key, proclaimed 
 that she was Felix's wife, upbraided him for his 
 neglect of her, paraded before the throng of spec- 
 tators the secrets of his life. In short, there gushed 
 from her lips pell-mell, like a torrent from a broken 
 dam, all her accumulated grievances. 
 
 But she stopped short, and stared, aghast, at the 
 hand with which he was distractedly straightening 
 his cravat. 
 
 "The diamond ring! My ring!" 
 
 As a matter of fact, he had pawned it that very 
 evening. 
 
 Propelled by shame, he thrust the spectators aside, 
 and set out rapidly toward Second Avenue. She ran 
 after him, again seized upon his arm, and, suiting 
 her steps to his long strides, let him feel the full 
 weight of her unavoidable person. From time to 
 time, she uttered an incoherent gasp of menace. 
 
 The parlor of the flat enclosed him. His counter- 
 action began: 
 
 "I might have expected it. Inborn vulgarity 
 can't be concealed for long!" 
 
 Wait, did he not have a better attack than that
 
 336 PREDESTINED 
 
 "up his sleeve"? Ah, Pavin's letter! Snatching 
 it from his pocket, he shook it under her nose. 
 
 "Kindly explain what became of the three mes- 
 sages from my friend ? Thanks to this one, which 
 you weren't able to intercept, I know everything." 
 
 "Then you need no explanations." 
 
 "What," he shouted, "you confess to taking 
 them?" 
 
 "And if I did? I felt in my bones that something 
 was going on. Then those letters, written in French 
 so much caution! Oh, a woman can tell! Why, 
 they seemed to burn my ringers! Yes, I kept them! 
 And if they spoiled any of your wicked tricks, I'm 
 doubly glad!" 
 
 He experienced, simultaneously with a hot thrill 
 in the solar plexus, the necessity of destroying 
 something. He was on the point of springing at 
 her, when the bisque infant, crawling on the mantel- 
 shelf, attracted his attention. He whirled the orna- 
 ment above his head, then dashed it into a thousand 
 pieces at her feet. 
 
 A scream reverberated. She precipitated herself 
 upon the fragments of that symbol. 
 
 "Oh, you devil! I hate you! I hate you!" 
 
 "That is what I have been waiting to hear you 
 say," he answered. And, with his dog, he went out, 
 expecting never to return. 
 
 Thanks to the diamond ring, he had more than a 
 hundred dollars in his pocket. At Union Square, 
 he threw himself into a public automobile, with the 
 command, "Drive up Broadway." Soon the glitter
 
 EMMA 337 
 
 ing fronts of theatres and night restaurants were 
 streaming past him. 
 
 With Pat at his heels, he entered cafes decorated 
 in gilt and scarlet, where marble columns ended in 
 Corinthian capitals, and, behind expanses of ma- 
 hogany, were displayed mural decorations of his- 
 toric and allegorical import. The round tables 
 with carved legs, the waiters in their long aprons, 
 the men in evening dress who crowded through the 
 doorways during the intermissions of theatrical 
 performances going on near by, were, for Felix, like 
 fragments in a vision of the past. He wondered if he 
 was going to be confronted by Noon. But after he 
 had made the rounds of half a dozen cafes, he gave 
 up trying to distinguish the faces of his neighbors. 
 
 An incessant restlessness urged him from one spot 
 to another. No sooner had he comprehended a 
 group of strangers admiring the bull-terrier, than 
 he was elsewhere, conversing with a bartender who, 
 to his extreme self-complacency, remembered his 
 name. "But I must go." "Without finishing your 
 drink?" "That's so!"' He gulped down his high- 
 ball with the air of one who has committed an 
 almost unpardonable offence. 
 
 What was this place? A gloomy side street, a 
 baroque facade, a familiar doorway. It was the 
 stage entrance of the Trocadero Theatre. 
 
 Inside, the doorkeeper, before darkening the vesti- 
 bule, was taking a last look at his features in a 
 cracked mirror. He turned round. The protuber- 
 ance on his nose had grown to the size of a walnut.
 
 338 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Well, what do you want!" 
 
 "Miss Sinjon?" Felix inquired, mechanically. 
 
 "She left here half an hour ago." 
 
 He had a spasm of alarm. Where was she? He 
 hailed a hansom cab: then, with his foot on the 
 cab step, he paused. 
 
 "Why, for the moment time had turned back, on 
 its course, a year and more!" 
 
 He stumbled off toward Broadway, pursued by 
 the sarcasms of the cab-driver. 
 
 And the lights, enlarged, melting together, form- 
 ing on all sides an uninterrupted radiance, engulfed 
 him, like a shining sea. He was borne hither and 
 thither by chance contacts. Doors yawned before 
 him: he drifted into places where electric globes 
 rotated overhead, and the floors seemed furnished 
 with inequalities. He rested his elbows on tables 
 that he did not see, gazed at the necks of champagne 
 bottles, received on his back the slaps of invisible 
 persons, and in his ears the monotonous assurance 
 that he was "a good fellow." Strains of music stole 
 upon his senses; he burst into tears. He had an 
 altercation with a man concerning the bull-terrier; 
 when he tried to catch his opponent by the throat, 
 a score of intermediaries suddenly swarmed round 
 him. On a lonely street corner, he discovered that 
 he had lost his overcoat. He walked straight ahead, 
 but the same buildings appeared to follow him every- 
 where. Their foundations were shadowy, their up- 
 per stories were gray. It was the dawn. 
 
 Late that afternoon, an excruciating headache
 
 EMMA 339 
 
 roused Felix from a troubled sleep. He was lying, 
 fully dressed, on the counterpane in a wretched 
 hotel bedroom. Pat, perched on the edge of a 
 washstand, was whining at the dry faucets. 
 
 Felix, however, knew better than to slake his own 
 thirst with water. Dragging himself to the tele- 
 phone, he ordered brandy, and victuals for the dog. 
 On paying the waiter, he found that he had three 
 dollars left. 
 
 But nausea seized him. He lay down quickly, 
 and strove to collect his thoughts. What had hap- 
 pened ? 
 
 At full recollection of the previous night's events, 
 remorse completed his distress. He shrank back 
 as if from the tacit condemnation of a multitude of 
 unseen witnesses. 
 
 What if her despair had resulted in a dangerous 
 illness? What if she had done herself some harm? 
 Such thoughts brought him to his feet. 
 
 While trying to arrange his clothes, he was forced 
 to pause, from time to time, with both hands on 
 the bedpost, until his qualms had passed. His 
 linen was soiled, his trousers were wrinkled, his 
 shoes were covered with mud; but he had to go 
 out thus disordered, unshaven, with drawn and 
 yellowish visage. 
 
 It was already evening. Flurries of snow ap- 
 peared above a confusion of glistening umbrellas. 
 
 The pavement, wet and black, seemed so nearly 
 liquid that he hesitated to set one foot before the 
 other. He kept close to the walls for fear that
 
 340 PREDESTINED 
 
 passing trolley-cars "might run up on the sidewalk." 
 He took fright midway of street crossings, dodged 
 at a sound of hoofs, and, with perspiration "rolling 
 down his cheeks, wished at the same instant to run 
 forward and to lie down. He got into a cab, but 
 the jolting of that vehicle over car tracks was intol- 
 erable. He pressed on afoot. The street lights 
 danced before him; and the roofs of tall buildings, 
 indistinct above a whirl of snowflakes, seemed to be 
 gradually toppling forward. 
 
 At Union Square, he hesitated. What was he 
 going to find at home? When he proceeded, it was 
 by a devious way, so that he might avoid as long 
 as possible a fulfillment of his premonitions. 
 
 Finally, he traversed Thirteenth Street. Between 
 Third and Second Avenues, where some shabby- 
 genteel lodging-houses displayed, behind the falling 
 snow, their crumbling stonework and cast-iron bal- 
 conies made frail by rust, two women were con- 
 versing on a doorstep. One was a bareheaded, un- 
 symmetrical creature arrayed in a wrapper, with an 
 aureole of dishevelled hair. The other was Miss 
 Qewan. 
 
 Felix, in the attitude of a malefactor threatened with 
 detection, slipped past the ex-chorus girl unseen. 
 
 Second Avenue opened out before him. Yes, the 
 flathouse stood there still, unchanged in any part. 
 Almost reassured, he crossed the street. 
 
 At the head of the staircase, a white-robed figure 
 was awaiting him. Emma stretched out her hands. 
 He caught her to his breast.
 
 EMMA 341 
 
 "Oh, you've come back!" 
 
 And, for that magnanimity, she forgave him every- 
 thing. 
 
 In the parlor, she sank into a chair: he knelt 
 beside her. They gazed at each other with the 
 blank looks of persons who have passed through a 
 prolonged mutual agony. He observed all the 
 ravages of grief in her white face. In a night, she 
 had aged ten years. 
 
 Clad in a dressing-sack and a petticoat, she had 
 remained, since dawn, at the front windows. 
 
 "And you, too, have been punished," she faltered, 
 passing her fingers timidly through his hair. "But 
 I? Oh, how cruel you were! How you've made 
 me suffer!" Letting her head fall back, staring, 
 wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the ceiling, she 
 recalled that suffering of hers she described, with 
 painful exactitude, her every pang. 
 
 Sobs issued from his throat. 
 
 "May I be struck dead if I ever speak an unkind 
 word to you again! A new life begins for us to- 
 night. Will you believe that, Emma?" 
 
 "Yes, yes; I'll try to believe you now." 
 
 But, of a sudden, she grew faint, and pressed 
 her palms against her brow. "Her headache was 
 more than she could bear." 
 
 "Have you taken anything for it?" 
 
 "It did no good. But get me a powder, any- 
 way." 
 
 He put her to bed. Lying on her back, she 
 moved her head from side to side. When a half
 
 342 PREDESTINED 
 
 hour had elapsed, she asked, in querulous, thin 
 tones, for another headache powder. This she 
 took, and, presently, was still. Felix, stretched 
 beside her, fell asleep. 
 
 He was awakened by the clink of a glass tumbler. 
 
 "Emma?" 
 
 "I can't stand this pain." 
 
 "You mustn't take so much of that stuff. It's a 
 dangerous depressant." 
 
 "I know." 
 
 Again he drifted into slumber. 
 
 But some one was calling him from a great dis- 
 tance. He sat up in bed, just as the clock struck 
 two. 
 
 "Felix! Felix!" 
 
 It was Emma's voice, hardly audible. 
 
 He sprang up, lighted the gas, and bent over her. 
 Her head was thrown back; her face and mouth 
 had a bluish tinge; her skin was glazed with moist- 
 ure. From between her parted lips came short, 
 quick gasps. 
 
 "I feel so queer, so weak my heart- 
 Felix groped her pulse, which was small, soft, 
 and nearly imperceptible. Her eyes the pupils 
 extraordinarily dilated rolling very slowly toward 
 him, denoted terror. 
 
 "Do something! Help me!" 
 
 He ran into the dining-room, returned with a 
 bottle of brandy, held half a glassful to her lips. 
 But the liquor ran down her chin, as she turned 
 away her face, moaning, "Not that!"
 
 EMMA 343 
 
 He rushed into the public hallway, shouted, got no 
 response. He dashed to a front window. The cold 
 air blew into the parlor. 
 
 Second Avenue was white with snow; the atmos- 
 phere, however, was clear; and a pale lavender 
 diffusion from the arc lamps on their tall metal 
 poles was more serene and pure than moonlight. 
 A man in a thin jacket was standing on the oppo- 
 site corner. 
 
 "Get me a doctor, quick!" 
 
 The fellow looked up, hesitated, then set off, at 
 full speed, toward Fourteenth Street. Felix re- 
 turned to Emma. 
 
 The bluish hue had deepened in her face ; her lips 
 were violet-colored; the eyes, never before so large 
 and black-looking, stared straight upward. Every 
 moment, her head left the pillow, and her mouth, at 
 the same time reaching out for air, imitated the 
 spasmodic respiratory efforts of a fish drawn from 
 its element. 
 
 Through the crack below the tilted mirror of the 
 bureau, Lew watched this struggle. 
 
 Felix gathered her into his arms. So much to ask 
 pardon for, so much to expiate, and no words pro- 
 ducible except the hoarse protest: 
 
 "No! No! No!" 
 
 A look of recognition flickered into her eyes. 
 With difficulty she achieved the speech: 
 
 "I've been a good wife the sisters a priest : 
 
 She tried to gain back the breath that she had lost. 
 She grew limp; the pupils disappeared beneath her
 
 344 PREDESTINED 
 
 lashes; after each gasp her mouth remained the 
 longer open. But the almost inapprehensible utter- 
 ance stole forth: 
 
 "You'll go back, now" . . 
 
 Later, in a murmur so tenuous that it seemed 
 less like a vocal expression than a thought intui- 
 tively understood: 
 
 "You'll be famous. . . . You'll love other 
 women" .... 
 
 Her mouth did not close again. He touched her 
 wrist, and could not feel a pulse. 
 
 And he was invaded by a vast incredulity. 
 
 Two days after, on the thirtieth of March, she 
 was buried in a Brooklyn cemetery. The last of her 
 patrimony paid for a plot of ground of minimum 
 size for the undertaker's services, and for the 
 mass, that she would have desired, in a Roman 
 Catholic church near by. 
 
 From the church door, the hearse was followed 
 by one carriage, containing Felix and Pat. At the 
 cemetery gate, the undertaker got down nimbly 
 from beside the driver of the hearse, and, with 
 three assistants all in suits of rusty black, bore the 
 coffin, covered with white roses, its six silver-plated 
 handles flashing, to the grave. There, it was en- 
 closed in a pine box, and lowered, by means of ropes, 
 into the pit. Two rough-looking fellows, armed 
 with spades, turned sheepishly to Felix. 
 
 His lips trembled; he designated the undertaker. 
 
 "Go to work, boys," that functionary ordered, 
 softly, with an apologetic cough.
 
 EMMA 345 
 
 A rhythmic rattling began. The grave was filled 
 with earth. 
 
 Felix walked back heavily amid mounds and 
 tombstones. In the distance, men and women 
 were moving slowly, sometimes stooping, with a 
 lingering gesture, to lay a blossom on a grave, some- 
 times standing, in lax attitudes of melancholy con- 
 templation, before a sculptured monument. The 
 ground, covered with last year's grass, bore patches 
 of melting snow. Here and there, appeared wreaths 
 and memorial devices, shrivelled and sodden, the 
 rusty wires of their frameworks protruding through 
 discolored rubbish. Brilliant sunlight shone on this 
 deterioration and decay of things which had been 
 fresh, blooming, and alive. 
 
 The same sunlight, penetrating the flat in Second 
 Avenue, glinted on the backs of the hand-painted 
 chairs, on the dozen photographs of Emma in her 
 finery of other days, on the foot of the brass bed- 
 stead. 
 
 There Felix stood motionless, listening. But no 
 sound reached him from the kitchen. 
 
 He fell upon his knees. 
 
 "Oh, Pat, that poor little thing! That poor little 
 thing!"
 
 PART FOUR 
 
 NINA
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ANXIOUS to escape at once from that environment* 
 he sent for an auctioneer, who asked : 
 
 "Do you want a public sale?" 
 
 Felix recoiled from the thought of strangers 
 tramping through her home. The auctioneer, ac- 
 cordingly, explored the rooms, appraised each arti- 
 cle, and, after letting fall some words about "hard 
 times" and "the scarcity of cash," offered the young 
 man seventy-five dollars down for everything. Felix 
 made a gesture of resignation. The other, looking 
 surprised and discomfited, went off for his porters. 
 
 They stripped the flat. The bare aspect of the 
 parlor recalled to Felix the day when he and she 
 had come house-hunting. Just so others would 
 come now. It seemed to him that the little, garish 
 room ought to express, somehow, in perpetuity, the 
 tragedy it had enclosed. And yet, the next tenants 
 would never see, as he did whenever he turned 
 round, a chimera dissolving in the shadows. 
 
 Now it took shape beyond a succession of open 
 doors, in the kitchen; again, from the kitchen he 
 saw it float before a parlor window. Lacking out- 
 line and substance, vaguer than any apparition of 
 conventional report, less like a wraith, indeed, than 
 a mere fall of shade at the passage of a cloud before 
 
 349
 
 350 PREDESTINED 
 
 the sun, it was, for Felix, indefinitely suggestive of 
 her person as if one had there some unfathomable 
 analogy to the echo, lingering after the voice has 
 died away. But when, taking his departure in the 
 twilight, he laid hand upon the door-knob, did she 
 not stand there, barring his exit in a well-remembered 
 pose, her large eyes peering up at him, as who 
 should say, in apprehension, "Where to?" 
 
 The snow had melted from the streets; the breeze 
 was temperate: Spring seemed to have drawn near 
 under cover of recent storms, now, with her immi- 
 nence, to surprise the city weary of its winter. Soon, 
 in the parks, the trees would weave their pale green 
 webs above the tulip beds, bright song-birds would 
 sail down adventuring, and the fragrance of mag- 
 nolia and hawthorn blooms would cause the eyes of 
 lovers to turn wistfully toward incompletely foliated 
 bowers. Felix recalled a speech of Emma's, "When 
 spring comes, I want to fly away, to some place far 
 off, where I have never been." 
 
 Returning to the cemetery, he saw the marble 
 headstone set in place, and strewed fresh blossoms 
 on the grave. But, despite his previous materialistic 
 theories, he felt she was not there. Such cares soon 
 appeared as futile, as those of a devotee who tends a 
 spot sanetified merely by tradition, where nothing 
 has ever happened, or will happen. So, presently, 
 he found himself thinking of her as translated to 
 some region beyond the sunset or amid the stars; 
 and the offerings that he made to her thereafter were 
 of contrition and belated tenderness. He pored
 
 NINA 351 
 
 over the dozen photographs of Emma, prim in her 
 various provincial-looking gala costumes: and the 
 details in each portrait which, once on a time, had 
 amused him, at last brought moisture to his eyes. 
 He packed those souvenirs away; he could not bear 
 them round him in his new lodgings. 
 
 Miss Qewan, meeting him one day in Union 
 Square, had made bold to recommend the boarding- 
 house where she was living. Situated on Thirteenth 
 Street, between Second and Third Avenues, it was 
 the dwelling where he had seen her standing on the 
 doorstep. 
 
 The brown-stone front, four stories high, was 
 scaling off in patches; the shutters, all askew, were 
 losing their green paint. Draggled lace curtains 
 hung in the lower windows; and the weather was 
 not yet warm enough for the upper sills to lack their 
 rows of milk bottles. The front door, raised three 
 steps above the pavement, in a small vestibule, and 
 surmounted by a rickety iron balcony, was so nar- 
 row as to make one wonder how the landlady, loom- 
 ing in the hallway, got out and in. 
 
 Mrs. Snatt was a worried-looking woman, clad in a 
 loose wrapper, thin in the face but elsewhere corpu- 
 lent, with a mop of almost colorless hair, and indis- 
 tinct eyes and lips. Formerly a theatrical costumer, 
 she had married, "when old enough to know better," 
 a musician. Her husband running through her 
 savings and confronting her with the necessity of 
 bringing up some children, Mrs. Snatt had opened 
 a house of board and lodging for "the profession."
 
 352 PREDESTINED 
 
 Still, as she informed Felix in her most elegant 
 manner, on seeing him she knew of no reason for 
 drawing the line at the footlights. 
 
 By a "singular coincidence," the "second floor 
 back" was unoccupied. Felix contemplated apa- 
 thetically a square apartment, with a faded ingrain 
 carpet considerably stained round the washstand, a 
 folding-bed that imitated by day a chest of drawers, 
 a bureau with initials scratched on the mirror, and 
 some spring-seated chairs from which the padding 
 was nearly gone. A what-not of ebony, originally 
 supported by three legs, leaned in a corner, and bore 
 on its top shelf the tinted clay figure of a matador 
 who lacked a nose. The pallid walls, with some 
 vertical, brownish streaks on them, were set off by 
 two or three oil paintings that Mrs. Snatt had seen, 
 with her own eyes, done "by hand," in the window 
 of a shop where soap wrappers were exchanged for 
 premiums. 
 
 The apartment overlooked the rear walls of 
 buildings fronting on Fourteenth Street. Below, 
 the yards, their board fences crumbling from the 
 top, displayed their kitchen entries, garbage pails, 
 and rubbish heaps. In some, old mattresses lay 
 doubled up in puddles ; the relics of chairs and sofas 
 were sinking to the ground, battered bird-cages, 
 stoves without feet, and broken bottles were piled 
 up in masses, while here and there, over the debris, 
 some fathoms of rusty wire spread large, erratic 
 coils and angles, like the flamboyant signature 
 of ruin. Along the fences, cats, flat as lathes, their
 
 NINA 353 
 
 shoulder bones accentuated, paced with a suave and 
 furtive gait. 
 
 A bath adjoined the apartment; and if one de- 
 sired only a light breakfast served in the room, 
 the price would be six dollars a week. 
 
 Felix shrugged his shoulders. It would do till 
 he "got upon his feet." 
 
 He removed the oil paintings and the clay matador, 
 unpacked his books, set his mother's photograph 
 upon the bureau. He repented having disposed of 
 all Emma's furnishings. His dissatisfaction was 
 not reduced when he found in the closet an old 
 copy of The Open Air Magazine. It contained a 
 picture of "Mr. Mortimer Fray's new country 
 house" an excellent specimen of Tudor archi- 
 tecture in brick, with lawns, some groups of clipped 
 box-trees, a fish-pond lined with stone, and, in the 
 foreground, a Russian wolfhound couchant beside 
 a sun-dial. 
 
 But, to his surprise, he could not conjure up his 
 old rage against the man. Other humiliations had 
 intervened; and animosity against a single object 
 had given place to a general rancor, because of its 
 diffusion at once vaguer and more bitter. He 
 wished nothing, now, of Fray except that the latter 
 should never learn of this deterioration. 
 
 It was a house of slamming doors, of shrill out- 
 cries, of shaking chandeliers, and a monotonous 
 booming of bass voices engaged, apparently, in his- 
 trionic declamation. Strong odors of fried bacon, 
 of onions, and of cabbage were wafted up the nar-
 
 354 PREDESTINED 
 
 row staircase; and one could not issue into the 
 corridors without smelling cigarette smoke and 
 cologne. 
 
 At night, he sometimes woke with a start, under 
 the impression that the ceiling was coming down. 
 This rumpus, he learned, was created by some 
 acrobats who roomed above him, and whose artistic 
 fervor drove them out of bed, apparently, from 
 time to time perhaps to practise feats which had 
 occurred to them at that moment, between waking 
 and sleeping, when so many seemingly brilliant 
 thoughts flash through the brain. 
 
 Every morning, before Felix was ready to arise, a 
 clatter of pianos began up and down the block. 
 Then one heard "the latest popular airs" repeated 
 a hundred times, the interminable scales of aspirants 
 for concert honors, the shout of hopeful barytones, 
 and the guffaw that punctuated the low comedian's 
 song. It became a competition, that uproar. Felix, 
 with an oath, got up and rang the bell. 
 
 His breakfast was brought upstairs by the ser- 
 vant, an angular drudge named Delia, with big 
 feet in broken shoes, and displaying, under frowzy 
 hair, a pair of dull eyes and a patient smile. 
 
 She stood at the foot of the bed, twisting up a 
 spotted apron in hands that appeared already to 
 have sifted tons of ashes, scrubbed acres of floors , 
 and washed a myriad greasy pans: and with one 
 foot advanced toward the door, and her body half 
 turned, she seemed continually ready to take flight. 
 When she had recovered somewhat from her em-
 
 NINA 355 
 
 barrassment before "so fine a gentleman," Delia 
 enlightened Mr. Piers about his neighbors. 
 
 In the "ground floor front," a female, seldom 
 seen, sat all day in a darkened room, behind a 
 crystal ball, professing to bring back sweethearts 
 grown indifferent, to restore lost articles, and to 
 disclose the name of "the other woman." The rear 
 was occupied by Mrs. Snatt and her three small 
 children, of whose presence below Felix needed no 
 announcement, since he heard them, at all hours, 
 whining, bawling, and being spanked. Occasion- 
 ally, he saw them in the back yard, wandering over 
 an oblong plat of barren earth, beneath a net-work 
 of clothes lines. The boy was a stupid-looking 
 child with too large a head and spasmodic gestures. 
 The little girl, pale and languid, walked unsteadily. 
 Mrs. Snatt's third offspring, a babe in arms, of 
 indeterminable sex, seemed, on the contrary, to 
 judge from the redness of its face and the power of 
 its lungs, excessively robust. Mr. Snatt was not at 
 home. One gathered, from Delia, that the only 
 time he gave his family this treat was when his 
 wife had more than "cleared expenses." 
 
 On the second floor, directly in front of Felix's 
 apartment, dwelt a theatrical couple somewhat ad- 
 vanced in years, known to the public as "The 
 Delaclaires, King and Queen of Polite Vaudeville." 
 Their son a youth who, according to Delia, "wasn't 
 much" slept in the adjacent hall bedroom. 
 
 The upper regions were inhabited by various 
 actors and actresses. Sometimes Felix encountered
 
 3$6 PREDESTINED 
 
 on the stairs a short, thin-faced damsel, always 
 attired in the most girlish hats and dresses, a psyche- 
 knot of straw-colored hair protruding backward 
 six inches from her neck. She left behind her a trail 
 of perfume of that sort which causes persons in 
 the street to stop and look round in astonishment. 
 
 Miss Qewan also lived overhead; and Felix, one 
 day meeting her in the vestibule, was curious to 
 know why she had chosen this abode. 
 
 She assured him that when he knew the habits and 
 ambitions of the other lodgers, he would change his 
 mind about them. 
 
 "And yet you've not gone back to the chorus?" 
 
 "That's different." 
 
 She was now cashier in a restaurant on lower 
 Broadway. This position she had obtained through 
 the friendly offices of the "right sort of man" a 
 disinterested benefactor. 
 
 "He's a saloon keeper. But not what you'd 
 expect." 
 
 "I know some excellent saloon keepers," Felix 
 made haste to assure her. But she gave him a sad 
 look that put him out of countenance. 
 
 "And you, I suppose, are writing?" 
 
 He responded, with a mirthless laugh : 
 
 "As you can see, I've found literature a poor crutch." 
 
 Nevertheless, next day he had a stroke of luck. 
 He was accepted provisionally as a reporter on The 
 Torch, an evening newspaper of revolutionary ten- 
 dencies and a large circulation, published on Park 
 Row. His salary was fixed at twenty dollars a week
 
 NINA 357 
 
 He breathed again the air smelling of printer's ink, 
 paper, pipe smoke, and dusty floors; he was sur- 
 rounded by a familiar clatter; he experienced the 
 ennui that had beset him in the office of The Evening 
 Sphere. But the two newspapers were intrinsically 
 dissimilar. 
 
 In the pages of The Torch, accuracy was a neg- 
 ligible quality; mendacity which produced a thrill 
 was an accomplishment; trivial facts were inflated 
 recklessly by fancy in order that headlines a foot 
 deep might shock the general eye; and, to excite 
 the emotionalism of the masses, the part of criminals 
 was taken in murder trials, the rich were crudely 
 caricatured for their wealth and, at the same time, 
 remarked obsequiously for their expensive entertain- 
 ments, while the editorial articles, reduced to the 
 simplest terms, bristled with praises of "the common 
 people," and abuse of "moneyed tyrants." The 
 reporters held their breath when the great man who 
 wrote these essays, on a salary of thirty thousand 
 dollars a year, stalked, with impassive visage, to his 
 automobile. 
 
 After work, the young man stopped at the board- 
 ing-house for the bull-terrier, which the servant, from 
 admiration of Felix, had been stuffing with scraps 
 of food all day. In a restaurant on West Four- 
 teenth Street he dined for a half dollar. After- 
 ward, he entered Quilty's saloon. 
 
 For a while, he had remained away from this 
 resort through delicacy. But other places in that 
 neighborhood were not the same: and he had
 
 3 $8 PREDESTINED 
 
 argued that, after all, the living were exculpated for 
 indulging even in bereavement their habitual appe- 
 tites. It was invariably with a faint tremor of 
 anticipation that he glimpsed the bar, the mirrors, 
 the pyramids of glasses which the bartender was 
 < always polishing and rearranging a task never 
 finished. 
 
 There, business was good. Situated on a thor- 
 oughfare where many cheap concert halls lured from 
 surrounding districts crowds of humble pleasure- 
 seekers, the dram shop caught every day new cus' 
 tomers, youthful, vigorous, settled in employment, 
 promising protracted patronage. As a result, Mr. 
 Quilty was not troubled by the bugbear of saloon 
 keepers operating in less populous regions by the 
 apprehension, namely, that incipient drinkers would 
 not, sufficiently for continued profit, replace the 
 worn out and bankrupt. 
 
 Clean shaven, carefully dressed, showing a gold 
 watch chain and the emblem of a benevolent society, 
 he received graciously, in his place between the 
 cashier's desk and the cigar stand, the respectful 
 salutations of the immature, and the trite flippancy 
 of the middle-aged. Sometimes, closing the back 
 room to feminine trade, he retired with corpulent, 
 ruddy Irishmen in fancy waistcoats, to concoct 
 stratagems, against constrictive legislation, of which 
 mere customers could only guess the brilliancy. 
 But despite Ijis political importance, Mr. Quilty 
 never failed to pass the time of day with Felix, 
 whom he approached with an air at once propitiating
 
 NINA 359 
 
 and self-conscious. At times, he referred to his 
 daughters. They ought to learn French and music ? 
 He understood that there was a school in Connecti- 
 cut where young ladies were taught everything 
 fashionable even the proper way to enter a car- 
 riage. His apparent idea was to remove his children 
 ultimately from all associations that could readily 
 recall their origin. Meanwhile, they ought to have 
 some one in the position of a mother. And the saloon 
 keeper, after looking at Felix vacantly, remarked : 
 
 "I hear you're boarding at Mrs. Snatt's?" A 
 lady had told him so. 
 
 "Miss Qewan," ejaculated Felix. "Why, then 
 you must be 
 
 A blush brought into prominence Mr. Quilty's 
 scar. He made haste to explain that friendship. 
 
 He had seen her grow up on the "East Side," the 
 reputable daughter of a policeman. Left an orphan 
 while in her teens, she had suffered, as a result of 
 too much -trustfulness, in a familiar manner. From 
 that time, life had been an uphill road for her. 
 Quilty, meeting her recently, had obtained for her 
 the position in a Broadway restaurant. 
 
 "And, mind ye, as good a woman as you ; ll find 
 anywheres!" 
 
 "Moreover, deserving of something better," Felix 
 assented, heartily. 
 
 Quilty rubbed his chin, and looked uncomfortable. 
 
 He was relieved by the appearance of a fat, good- 
 natured fellow of forty-five, in a baggy sack suit, 
 with a large mustache, and slightly protruding eyes.
 
 360 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Mr. Piers, shake hands with my brother-in-law, 
 Mr. Connla." 
 
 The stranger stared intently at Felix, suppressed 
 a grin, and inquired of his relative, in a gruff voice: 
 
 "Where's Pandle?" 
 
 The bewigged habitue", of mysterious occupation, 
 was not there. Quilty, with an expression of dis- 
 gust, exclaimed: 
 
 "Has he been working again!" 
 
 "That's a question. I'll hunt him; but you 
 warn him meantime, d'ye see, for I've nothing 
 against him personally." Then, turning to the 
 young man, with a twinkling eye, 
 
 "You'll not remember me?" 
 
 He identified himself as the detective who had 
 rescued Felix, one night, from some negroes. 
 
 "And that was a good bull-terrier, too! Have you 
 got him yet?" 
 
 Felix whistled to Pat, who was standing on his 
 hind legs before the "free lunch" buffet. The 
 detective, squatting down, made friends with the 
 dog at once. 
 
 But he declared that the beast was too fat, that 
 he was "losing his lines." Felix had to admit the 
 justice of this criticism. Pat got too much food 
 and not enough exercise; so that his neck and body 
 were becoming heavy, while his white head, covered 
 with the pink scars of many battles, was taking on 
 that swollen, battered look noticeable in good dogs 
 permitted to "run to seed." 
 
 "He's been neglected, that terrier," was the
 
 NINA 361 
 
 detective's blunt comment. "He's done too much 
 time loafing in kitchens and looking at ugly people. 
 Faith, it's the truth a dog gets to look like the 
 place he's in, as a man does, too. He needs, now, 
 exercise, and handsome faces round him. Leave 
 me have him on Sundays : I'll take him for a twelve 
 mile walk into the counthry, and he'll get both his 
 requirements at once." 
 
 On several occasions, the detective returned to 
 the saloon. Pandle, he confessed, had proved him- 
 self to be " temporarily an honest man." Felix 
 found Mr. Connla an entertaining person. 
 
 Of a sanguine and impulsive disposition, he was 
 better known for bravery than for such subtle talents 
 as inform the traditional secret agent. He had, 
 however, learned, from long contact with human 
 nature in its crises, to be astonished at nothing, to 
 regard without indignation the utmost depravity, 
 to find in every delinquent, whether devoted to 
 petty villainy or to great, something perhaps not 
 alien to himself. In fine, he was a philosopher: 
 and to stand beside him, on summer evenings, in 
 front of Quilty's windows, while with one racy 
 phrase he tore the mask, so to speak, from the 
 visages of passers-by, was, in Felix's opinion, a 
 "liberal education." Once, Mackeron, formerly 
 the tenor of ''The Lost Venus," now shabbier, sal- 
 lower, and more nearly expressionless than ever, 
 passed with a nod. Connla genially inquired of 
 Felix : 
 
 "Who's your friend the dope fiend?"
 
 362 PREDESTINED 
 
 
 
 "You can't mean that man!" 
 
 "Why, me boy, look at the wooden face of him, 
 and them little points of eyes. It's cocaine or mor- 
 phine, and, for my choice, cocaine. Ask him some 
 day in his ear for a pinch o' the white stuff. I'll go 
 bail that he'll projuice it." 
 
 Felix did not re-enter the saloon that night. 
 
 Was there not even a sinister similarity between 
 his case and Mackeron's? Once more he woke to 
 full realization of his predicament, like a wayfarer, 
 wandering in the darkness, who, at a lightning flash, 
 finds himself surrounded by the most appalling 
 perils. 
 
 He sat down to discover the secret of this weak- 
 ness, apparently unalterable. 
 
 He reviewed his innumerable revulsions from de- 
 bauchery, his momentary states of continence, his 
 relapses. He marvelled at the swiftness with which, 
 In him, intense repentance had ever been followed 
 by impatience of restraint. He tried to understand 
 the rapid change from disgust to fresh desire, wherein, 
 invariably, a host of arguments, ingeniously evolved, 
 to prove his vices detrimental, had with well-nigh 
 inconceivable rapidity lost all value. He asked him- 
 self "Why he was not like other men," who could 
 restrain themselves from ruinous excesses. 
 
 But he remained without an answer to his query. 
 
 Thereupon, he attempted to alarm himself with 
 the direst of forebodings. He followed vagabonds 
 reeling along the curb, to impress upon his mind 
 the picture of their degradation. He got his asso-
 
 NINA 363 
 
 ciates to recount stories of lives wrecked by drink. 
 He listened to evangelists preaching temperance on 
 street corners, and, departing, with homely exhorta- 
 tions ringing in his ears, swore that he had stood 
 for the last time at a bar. Also, he repudiated 
 tobacco, which seemed to increase his thirst for 
 liquor. For an hour or two, he would observe men 
 streaming in and out of cafes and tobacco shops 
 with feelings of commiseration. 
 
 Or perhaps, walking at night, beneath the moon, 
 in parts of town where no such temptations were to 
 be met, he experienced, all unexpectedly, a belief, 
 in the beginning faint and tremulous, that he had 
 finally left his frailty behind. From the wide-spread 
 fulguration of the clouds, on the path of the moon- 
 light, through the breathless ether, serenity flowed 
 down into his heart; and an exaltation that drew 
 value from the beauty, the immensity, and the 
 purity of space, raised his whole body toward those 
 heights which the soul instinctively informs with an 
 eternal holiness. Then a presence, impalpable and 
 yet undeniable, was closer to him than the nearest 
 human being: and it needed apparently but a short 
 continuation of this ecstasy to disembody forever 
 the spirit already half released. His gazed roamed 
 the heavens; his lips parted; the words broke from 
 him, "Yes, I feel it now! I have been wrong. You 
 are there ! You have been there all the while ! You 
 will be there forever!" And stretching out his arms, 
 he pleaded: 
 
 "Save me now!"
 
 364 PREDESTINED 
 
 Could one sink again, after soaring to such alti- 
 tudes? He went home sure that his nature had 
 been altered to its depths. 
 
 But afterward, he could not avoid wondering at 
 the simplicity of his release. He asked himself, "Is 
 it not strange, that I feel none of my old desires?" 
 His condition soon seemed to him almost too good 
 to last : he was expecting, at every sight of swinging 
 doors and tobacconists' effigies, other sensations, as 
 one expects, at the tridiurnal sight of a dining-room, 
 a recurrence of hunger. 
 
 "They will return, no doubt, those cravings. 
 Well, I must be on the watch, and, at their approach, 
 spring to arms." 
 
 Then, while wondering at their delay in laying 
 siege to him, he felt their onslaught. At once, his 
 contemplated manoeuvres all forgotten, he was like 
 a warrior, enfeebled by the remembrance of innu- 
 merable defeats, who sees at hand the crest of an 
 enemy that has always worsted him. 
 
 "How weak I am!" And each confession of 
 weakness made his next overthrow the easier. 
 
 Sometimes, pausing in a deserted street at mid- 
 night, he raised his burning eyes toward the stars. 
 "What a fool I was! Of all living things, only man 
 is so fatuous, so conceited, as to believe himself 
 worthy of immortality and the attentions of a god. 
 A god, indeed! Well, supposing that there is one, 
 a pretty world he has made, this time!" 
 
 With distorted face, he shouted, ironically: 
 
 "I say, up there! This is a sorry mess, this par-
 
 NINA 365 
 
 ticular job! May a tenant, who didn't seek his 
 accommodations, presume to enter a complaint?" 
 
 Silence fell. A chill ran down his back. 
 
 Everything in life irritated him the commonplace 
 remarks of strangers, the stupid conduct of persons 
 with whom he had nothing to do, the injustice of 
 acts which harmonized with public opinion. When 
 he read the newspapers, he growled at "the imbecility 
 and vulgarity of humanity at large." An obstruc- 
 tion of traffic enraged him. A, collar that did not 
 button easily he tore into shreds. 
 
 The disgust that he felt for everything connected 
 with the boarding-house resulted in unprecedented 
 outbursts. He would have liked to wring the necks 
 of Mrs. Snatt's children screeching at one another 
 in the back yard; the noises that re-echoed nightly 
 through the corridors excited in him an intense 
 longing to "cut the throats of the whole gang." 
 
 But such violent moments were all solitary; his 
 savagery, from cowardice, died out at the first word 
 of ordinary intercourse: and none would have sus- 
 pected, from his conversation, that he was often 
 shaken, in secret, by a homicidal frenzy. 
 
 It must have been generally observed, however, 
 toward the middle of summer, that he was growing 
 eccentric. 
 
 While talking with an acquaintance, he became 
 absent-minded, gazed into space, finally uttered an 
 inappropriate comment. At Quilty's, he would 
 leave a gathering of revellers without excuses or 
 farewells; and, at times, in the midst of a silence,
 
 366 PREDESTINED 
 
 he would raise his head abruptly, as if some one had 
 called him. Truth is, he was frequently obsessed 
 by this belief, particularly on a day following an 
 exceptional drinking bout. He heard his name 
 pronounced behind his back, but, on turning round, 
 found no one near him. These voices usually re- 
 sembled those of his companions of the previous 
 evening. Once, though, he was frightened to hear 
 a treble intonation like Emma's. 
 
 "Am I losing my mind?" 
 
 Connla, to whom he confessed, in guarded 
 language, this delusion, assured him, with a hearty 
 laugh, that it was a natural concomitant of "the 
 morning after." Then, putting on a look of concern 
 and approaching his protruding eyes to Felix's, the 
 detective added: 
 
 "As a matter of fact, if you'll excuse the liberty, 
 you'd do best by letting up a bit on Quilty's stuff, 
 relation of mine though he may be. Take a run 
 into the counthry. It'd do that terrier a world o' 
 good, besides. Or, at least, get some business 
 that'll occipy all your time." 
 
 This was what Felix was attempting to do; for he 
 had just been discharged summarily from The Torch. 
 
 He visited the editors of Sunday newspapers, with 
 "special stories," of a kind that could be illustrated 
 by sensational pen-pictures reproduced over tints. 
 These were tales of half-forgotten "soldiers of for- 
 tune," tragical histories of famous jewels, romances 
 of old ships, anecdotes of Revolutionary landmarks. 
 For such work, he received eight dollars a column;
 
 NINA 367 
 
 but the demand was limited, and "one did not think 
 of a new theme every day." He still had too much 
 spare time on his hands. 
 
 If only he could gather energy and wit enough to 
 begin "that masterpiece!" He picked up Pierre 
 Buron's book. "Oh, fortunate wanderer in the laby- 
 rinth, who did not lose himself before leaving behind 
 his relic!" 
 
 When he took pen in hand, an excruciating rest- 
 lessness possessed him. He rose to pace the floor; 
 he saw his hat lying on a chair; on approaching the 
 door, he could not restrain himself from dashing out. 
 
 Through byways in the district where he lived, he 
 pursued, with the same wistfulness as in the past, 
 the mirage of pleasure, now exceedingly dilute. 
 And yet, just before his every disillusionment, when 
 he seemed on the point of holding fast that which 
 he was attempting to embrace, he discovered in the 
 most uninspiring material something winsome the 
 tenuous charm that may lurk, for the inordinately 
 desirous soul, beneath the meanest of superficies. 
 
 Again, in desperation, reduced to a state of flac- 
 cidity that shamed him, he frequented vaudeville 
 shows, "smoking concerts," and dime museums 
 where, in the midst of languid men, he stood before 
 the lecturer's platform, listening to pompous absurdi- 
 ties with a feeling that he was already wasted, 
 finished, thrown away. 
 
 At last, the monotony of familiar places became 
 almost unbearable. Since the days were growing 
 shorter, he walked, for a change, uptown.
 
 368 PREDESTINED 
 
 One evening, at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth 
 Street, his notice was attracted by a sign in the 
 window of an art dealer's shop, which read, "View 
 of M. Paul Pavin's 'Portrait of Lady and Child.'" 
 
 Passing through an exhibition gallery, where the 
 walls were crowded with many oil paintings in 
 gilt frames, he entered a room hung with curtains 
 of maroon velvet, and containing but one picture, 
 revealed, straight ahead, beneath a flood of yellow 
 light. A woman in a Nile green, iridescent evening 
 dress was leaning forward, with a fluid movement, 
 toward a cradle which occupied the foreground. 
 
 It was Nina. 
 
 The automobile was at the door; some scene of 
 gayety a dinner party, or, maybe, a dance was 
 waiting; and now, before setting out, the mother 
 had entered the nursery to bid her child good-night. 
 Bending over the cradle, with hands half unclasped 
 before her breast, she was portrayed as her attitude 
 of caution melted into a movement preliminary to a 
 caress. For the baby, its small, round head half 
 hidden by the swelling of the pillow, had opened its 
 eyes; and on its face was displayed an expression 
 of rapt wonder, at sight of the vision, exquisitely 
 shining, that hovered over it. 
 
 She had changed, perhaps. Her face had taken 
 on the aspect of completion which sometimes, with 
 motherhood, enriches intricately a beauty previously 
 simple. And, thanks to a painter better known for 
 cynicism than tenderness, there was exhaled from 
 the canvas, notwithstanding the glamour of the ball
 
 NINA 369 
 
 dress, something of the atmosphere that pervades, 
 in cathedrals, certain pictures of maternity. 
 
 Felix let his hands fall to his sides. 
 
 This, then, was what he had lost!
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 DID her child content her? Did her husband 
 please her? Where was she now? What was the 
 tenor of her life ? 
 
 He seemed to see her, clad in a dress of dull-blue 
 silk, stooping to tend, with curling fingers, the 
 flowers in a garden border. Or, ruddy and with 
 wind-blown locks, she sat her horse in a gray skirt 
 and a white linen waist, while from the hand encased 
 in a stained glove there dangled a riding-whip. 
 Again, her neck was bare, and decked with tur- 
 quoises ; her hair pressed down about her brows in a 
 thick braid, like a fillet; and nothing could have 
 been more vivid than his visualization of her face 
 the alert eyes that searched his countenance, the 
 upper lip lifted to a point as if inviting kisses, the 
 softness and the candor of a look that he, on a night 
 of smothered stars and perfumed foliage, had finally 
 understood. 
 
 "It is true: once upon a time, she offered herself 
 to me!" 
 
 That thought amazed him. 
 
 For she inhabited a gentle and luxuriously fur- 
 nished world, to which rumors of ignobility and of 
 shabbiness penetrated no more distinctly than the 
 whine of a mendicant's accordeon filtering through 
 the window draperies of a ball room. 
 
 37
 
 NINA 371 
 
 He fell to pondering the various stages of his with- 
 drawal from that sphere. 
 
 Eileen, Marie, Emma! In each of these he 
 should have perceived, before the irrevocable step, 
 an instrument formed as if expressly for his deteriora- 
 tion. And yet, toward the last as toward the first, 
 he had been impelled by a longing both subtle and 
 irresistible. 
 
 To love, to be loved, not tranquilly, but intensely, 
 not once, but often! Perhaps this desire was not to 
 be separated from his other craving ? No doubt the 
 two, symptomatic of an unquenchable appetency for 
 inordinate emotions, went hand in hand ? 
 
 Still, if the gratification of his sentimental yearn- 
 ings had been painful, the reminiscences that lingered 
 held a tenuous charm. Often, in moments of relaxa- 
 tion, he had a quick thrill of memory: he recalled a 
 period now strangely sweet to think of, but in ex- 
 periencing which he had known only mental con- 
 fusion and distress. Whenever he lamented, "If 
 only I could begin again, and escape my follies!" 
 the remonstrance was intruded, "But, in that case, 
 what reveries I should miss!" 
 
 Now, however, his life again lacked a romantic 
 object. And thoughts of Nina began to occupy his 
 mind. 
 
 She, though possibly even in the same city, was as 
 far removed from him as are the princesses of 
 children's fairy tales in their palaces fashioned out 
 of one mammoth pearl; and her very inaccessibility 
 soon evoked an interest enriched by pathos, of a
 
 372 PREDESTINED 
 
 bewitching novelty because necessarily idealistic, 
 absorbing, finally, all Felix's habitual considerations 
 of the horizon that could not be approached, the 
 mirage visible only from afar, the dream one never 
 attained. 
 
 Had she forgotten him? Surely, at times, a 
 chance word, a sound of long-familiar music, the 
 tint of a sunset from a hilltop, or the odor of tube- 
 roses, made her pause and think of Felix. And who 
 could say but that into such reveries intruded some 
 regrets? When familiar presences lost their attrac- 
 tiveness, when repetition induced sensations of 
 monotony, did she never send conjectures winging 
 forth into the unknown, with the query, "What if it 
 could have been otherwise?" 
 
 Then there was a bond between them still ! 
 
 Besides, the white bull-terrier was a gift of hers. 
 Putting his arm round the dog's neck, Felix whis- 
 pered into an ear made ragged by the teeth of many 
 a four-footed enemy : 
 
 "I must take better care of this old fellow!" 
 
 He forbade Delia, the housemaid, to feed Pat. He 
 laid in a store of dog biscuits, bathed the brute every 
 morning, and kept the brass-bound collar polished. 
 On Sundays, he frequently relinquished his pet to 
 the detective, for a run through the fields, along the 
 New Jersey Palisades. 
 
 Connla on his "day off" an enthusiastic pedes- 
 trian inveigled Felix, once or twice, on autumn 
 afternoons, into a ten-mile tramp to the north of the 
 city. But the young man came back from such
 
 NINA 373 
 
 jaunts exhausted, with the appearance of a person 
 who, in the detective's phrase, had been "chased by 
 the Indians." In fact, the degeneration of his 
 muscles, the disability of his lungs, and the irregu- 
 lar action of his heart, prevented Felix from con- 
 tinuing those excursions. His wanderings rarely 
 extended far from Fourteenth Street. 
 
 There the signs of penny arcades, shooting gal- 
 leries, and "medical museums" were spread out 
 above bemirrored doorways; dirty awnings every- 
 where let down their scalloped edges; the thorough- 
 fare was obstructed by cubical showcases containing 
 nickel-plated toilet sets, false teeth, flimsy waistcoats, 
 and roughly printed post-cards; while shop-keepers 
 in slack trousers stood on their thresholds, the 
 "pullers in" of clothing merchants paced back and 
 forth with predacious eyes, the door-keeper of a con- 
 cert hall, armed with a club, drove ragamuffins from 
 before the bill-boards, and, amid the crowd, women 
 of various ages, with bobbing plumes and switch- 
 ing skirts, exhibited their complaisant faces, their 
 draggled petticoats, and their shoes run down at the 
 heels. 
 
 The October rains came to wash this avenue: 
 then winter reached town; and, an hour after every 
 fall of snow, brown slush, churned into mud by a 
 multitude of feet, covered the pavements. The 
 street where stood Mrs. Snatt's boarding-house was, 
 apparently, of too little importance often to be 
 cleared. Heaps of snow, accumulating along the 
 gutters, were buried under dirt and rubbish; grocers'
 
 374 PREDESTINED 
 
 wagons, drawing up in front of doorways, sank to 
 their hubs; and, whenever thaws set in, L chilly 
 dampness was exhaled on the night air. Old men, 
 with their hands pressed against their throats, went 
 along coughing. Mrs. Snatt's two eldest 4'tmdren 
 fell ill. 
 
 For that matter, she was usually worried about 
 both of them. 
 
 The boy, six years old, suffered from nervous 
 irritability, and slight, involuntary muscular con- 
 tractions. He would sit for hours with his large 
 head lowered, his mouth open, his eyes vacant ; then, 
 abruptly looking upward, he would give vent to a 
 prolonged howl. Talking a jargon comprehensible 
 only to his mother, he could not be made to study 
 his primer, and, indeed, seemed incapable of learn- 
 ing anything. When crossed, Willie went into fits 
 of rage, threw himself upon the floor, beat his face 
 with his hands, and screamed. Besides, he was 
 almost as badly off as Job for boils. 
 
 The four-year-old girl did not enjoy the chubbi- 
 ness usual in children of her age. With wan eyes 
 and a fixed, listless smile, she dragged her spindling 
 legs along; and the hairless doll that she fondled 
 was scarcely less responsive than Jennie to surprises. 
 Her face brightened, however, when Pat appeared 
 before her with grinning jaws ; and once, when Felix 
 brought home a new doll with taffy-colored curls, he 
 was rewarded by a slowly gathering expression of 
 beatitude. 
 
 But the baby, its cheeks round and rosy, its tiny
 
 NINA 375 
 
 mouth continually blowing bubbles of saliva, crowed, 
 winked, and beat its short arms against its bib from 
 lustihood. 
 
 "By George," Felix complimented Mrs. Snatt, 
 "this little chap is vigorous enough." 
 
 "Oh, yes," the landlady assented, with an uneasy 
 look. 
 
 She was harassed, in addition, by business cares. 
 Her tenants, for the most part transient, sometimes 
 disappeared leaving behind a battered trunk full of 
 newspapers and bricks. The clairvoyant, in the 
 ground floor front, a specialty of whose it was to 
 direct patrons toward the road to wealth, contem- 
 plated the abandonment of her profession. This 
 soothsayer, it appeared, was eaten up with chagrin 
 because she did not have "the luck of some people" 
 of a woman, for instance, who, with great profit, 
 was establishing a fashionable trade uptown, "an 
 interloper" in fine "that called herself Mme. 
 Babbage." 
 
 Then, too, "The King and Queen of Polite 
 Vaudeville" were likely, at any time, to receive 
 the most flattering offers in respect of a long tour. 
 
 Mr. Delaclaire, a short, bow-legged, bull-necked 
 person of fifty, with the lineaments of a Roman 
 Emperor in hard luck, had made his neighbor's 
 acquaintance by the simple expedient of "borrow- 
 ing" a match. An introduction to his wife was 
 inevitable; so Felix made his bow before a stout, 
 domestic-looking woman of middle age, whose hair 
 had nearly all reassumed its original brown, and
 
 376 PREDESTINED 
 
 whose shape, in corsets that sank inward just below 
 the breast, recalled the fashion plates of other 
 days. 
 
 When young, Mrs. Delaclaire had carried a 
 spear in theatrical productions full of good and 
 wicked sprites, of transformation scenes, of dis- 
 appearing demons, and of red fire. In her hours 
 of relaxation she had met the Thespian, who, at 
 that time, by the aid of thickened shoe-soles, had 
 even played such roles as The Ghost of Hamlet's 
 Father, and An Old Fellow Set Up to Personate 
 Vincentio. Though they earned their living, nowa- 
 days, by performing farces in cheap vaudeville 
 theatres, he had not entirely abandoned his belief 
 that he was a pattern for a Shakespearian actor; 
 and, occasionally, carried away by glimpses of old 
 visions, he threw himself into an attitude, humped 
 his back, put on a distracted look, and bellowed, 
 in a way to shake the window-panes : 
 
 "I think there be six Richmonds in the field; 
 Five have I slain to-day, instead of him: 
 A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" 
 
 Of mornings, when he heard Felix moving about, 
 Mr. Delaclaire frequently shouted through the par- 
 tition for "a loan" of the newspaper. Then the 
 young man found the Thespian still in bed, with 
 his bristly dewlaps resting on the upper hem of the 
 counterpane. 
 
 "Aha! Salutations! Is it cold to-day? Goodl 
 Then I can wear my fur coat!"
 
 NINA 377 
 
 He had, indeed, such a garment, between brown 
 and green, cut in at the back, boasting a wealth of 
 ravelled frogs; while the pelt with which it was 
 lined of some yellowish animal unknown to Felix 
 had not given out before furnishing a pair of cuffs. 
 
 The couple cooked late breakfasts in a saucepan, 
 over the gas jet, kept bottles of beer on the outer 
 window-sill, sent two shirts and a petticoat to the 
 laundry every week, maintained a high state of 
 neglig so long as they remained indoors, sailed out 
 arm in arm, with all their finery on their backs, lived 
 from day to day, were fond of each other. 
 
 Their offspring was named Edwin Booth Dela- 
 claire. Felix sometimes saw a lean youth of seven- 
 teen, pale, loutish, with elusive eyes, who spent his 
 time consuming cigarettes before saloons, in the 
 company of hoodlums wearing lavender stockings 
 and green glass cravat pins. As a child, the son had 
 assisted his parents on the stage, disguised in vel- 
 veteen suits, lace collars, and angelic wigs: he had 
 thrilled audiences by reconciling husband and wife 
 about to part, by awakening with his innocent prattle 
 the conscience of a burglar, by expiring with a long 
 speech advising his father to be a better man. But 
 now, too old to be spanked into submission, he 
 rebelled against that occupation, refused, moreover, 
 to work at anything, drank cocktails, kept question- 
 able company, seldom came home except to sleep 
 or to demand money from his parents, of whom he 
 was obviously ashamed. Mr. Delaclaire confessed to 
 Felix that "Eddie" was a source of worriment to him.
 
 378 PREDESTINED 
 
 " The career we expected of that child ! The news- 
 paper clippings I can show you! The talents he 
 ought to have inherited!" 
 
 And Delaclaire launched into family history. 
 
 His own father, long a member of the theatrical 
 company of Edwin Booth, had been the most fiery 
 Tybalt, the fiercest Laertes, of his day. "Not to 
 mention that he was a wild one off the boards, as 
 well as on them. The whiskey he could get away 
 with! To tell the truth, if it hadn't been for that, 
 he might have played Romeo yes, or Hamlet, under 
 Booth's very nose." 
 
 "Such a heritage of talent should be valuable," 
 was Felix's polite comment. 
 
 "And yet," mused Mr. Delaclaire, "others man- 
 age without it. Look at Miss Vinnie Vatelle, up- 
 stairs. She does song and dance, with three changes, 
 in the vaudeville circuit: her act goes big; and yet 
 her father was quite an ordinary feller a plumber, 
 I think." 
 
 Miss Vinnie Vatelle was the thin-faced damsel 
 with the straw-colored psyche-knot. Felix made 
 her acquaintance through Mrs. Delaclaire, who 
 professed that "the poor girl was dying to meet 
 him." 
 
 Though her cheeks were rouged, she appeared 
 tired; and the rice powder which she had rubbed 
 under her light blue eyes had settled at the roots 
 of her lashes. 
 
 Looking up at Felix coyly, she inquired, in a flat 
 voice :
 
 NINA 379 
 
 "You don't eat in the house, I notice, Mr. Piers?" 
 
 He explained that his affairs took him too much 
 abroad. . 
 
 "I don't blame you. The food's nothing extra, 
 and all my instincts goes against basement dining- 
 rooms. They're so I don't know so " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders in an imitation of pa- 
 trician haughtiness. 
 
 Nearly every night, thereafter, he met her on the 
 stairs. She hesitated ; he paused in his ascent ; they 
 leaned against the balustrade to talk. If he was 
 sober enough, they sat down on the landing, their 
 feet stretched across the second step below them. 
 Her shoes, with fawn-colored cloth tops considerably 
 soiled, and crumpled toes of patent leather, were 
 short and broad. The perfume that she wore was 
 of so flagrant an aroma as to make Felix dizzy. 
 While conversing, Miss Vatelle munched chewing 
 gum. 
 
 She was always ready to talk about "her art," 
 her struggles, and her early life. She gave him to 
 understand that she had been married when "very, 
 very young." That relationship had soon ended on 
 account of incompatibility of temper. He was a 
 clerk in a provincial hotel: she had met him while 
 travelling the vaudeville circuit. Soon she was go- 
 ing to start off again on tour; and one evening, 
 her departure being imminent, when Felix met her 
 in the corridor, she burst into tears. 
 
 At first, she would give no explanation of this grief. 
 Finally, however, she stammered:
 
 380 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Hasn't a woman always got the right to 07 
 about a wedding?" 
 
 "A wedding!" 
 
 Miss Qewan, he was informed, had just been 
 married quietly to her benefactor. They had gone, 
 for their honeymoon, to Niagara Falls. 
 
 That night, in Quilty's saloon, champagne was 
 served to the habitues. The merry-making was 
 marred by only one incident: Mr. Pandle, relaxing 
 his pessimistic visage to essay some seasonable quip, 
 had his wig knocked off his head by the bar- 
 tender. 
 
 When Quilty returned, the young man was among 
 the quickest to offer him congratulations. 
 
 "And Mrs. Quilty's little sister, who is away at 
 school?" 
 
 The bartender, after scrutinizing Felix for a 
 moment, responded, briefly: 
 
 "She'll live with us." 
 
 But Mrs. Snatt now had another room unoccupied. 
 Besides, her husband unexpectedly returned. 
 
 At nightfall, Delia, wringing her grimy hands, 
 brought the news upstairs. One knew what to 
 expect thenceforth! Bills would be run up at wine- 
 shops; money paid out by tenants would pass into 
 the prodigal's pocket ; the landlady would economize 
 still further; the boarders would rail against the 
 food; and, in the midst of threats, altercations, de- 
 partures, tears, infantile wails, and general frenzy, 
 the author of these misfortunes would continue to 
 indulge an insatiable thirst.
 
 NINA 381 
 
 "But why doesn't she throw him into the street?" 
 inquired Felix. 
 
 "Ah, sir, that's not so aisy, either, the way things 
 is in this house. Bad cess to him! Would you 
 just listen to that?" 
 
 A shout rose from the back yard. 
 
 "Delia! You come downstairs this minute and 
 run my errand! Am I the master here, or ain't I?" 
 
 In the failing light, beneath the stretched clothes- 
 lines, a squat figure oscillated clumsily. A broad 
 face was upturned, with dyed side whiskers running 
 into a mustache, a face on which Felix thought to 
 perceive a narrow mask, dull red, extending across 
 the nose. But this proved to be an eruption from 
 alcoholic poisoning. 
 
 Mr. Snatt was the ex-drummer of the Trocadero 
 Theatre. 
 
 He soon fulfilled the various predictions made of 
 him. And, not unlike Nero, plucking at a harp 
 while Rome burned down, the inebriate, with his 
 wife's venture tottering about his ears, occasionally 
 got out his snare-drum and a tattered score of 
 "Poet and Peasant," the drummer's part of which 
 opera he rehearsed from overture to finale, rocking 
 in his chair, compressing his large lips, rolling his 
 eyes in their inflamed sockets, and, no matter how 
 far gone in liquor, not omitting so much as a flourish. 
 At last, Mrs. Snatt overcame her delicacy and asked 
 Felix for eighteen dollars due her. 
 
 He was nearly beside himself for lack of money. 
 
 So slowly did his brain evolve ideas, that it took
 
 382 PREDESTINED 
 
 him a week to write a "special story" for the Sunday 
 newspapers. Then, too, his time for such perform- 
 ances was limited: the middle of the day was gen- 
 erally the only period when he could set pen to 
 paper with profitable effect. 
 
 But in Quilty's saloon, he met the proprietor of 
 an establishment where moving pictures were de- 
 vised. This person needed the services of a writer 
 endowed with sufficient imagination and dramatic 
 instinct to construct brief scenarios appropriate for 
 performance, in dumb show, before the camera. 
 Fifteen dollars was the price paid for the average 
 manuscript. 
 
 It was, at least, a chance. 
 
 Felix, reflecting that the patrons of Fourteenth 
 Street theatres rarely paid an admission fee of more 
 than ten cents, recollected melodramas the crude 
 "situations" of which had formerly filled him with 
 pity for their authors. He dismissed from his mind 
 his last aspirations toward subtlety, poetry, and 
 technical excellence in exposition; he invited, in- 
 stead, those motives of inordinate heroism, villainy, 
 and self-sacrifice attaining the excessive climaxes 
 so satisfactory to the leaders of dull lives, who, 
 untroubled by an access of logic, glimpse, in the 
 feverish adventures of protagonists exquisitely valiant 
 and magnanimous, something of their own secret 
 longings. 
 
 So, in Felix's scenarios, the heads of convicts were 
 surrounded by halos of nobility, the hero stopped 
 the heroine's runaway horse, "the papers" were dis-
 
 NINA 383 
 
 covered in the nick of time, the villain was hand- 
 cuffed by half a dozen policemen, the lovers fell into 
 each other's arms, and, in the midst of large gestures, 
 revolver shots, and disguises thrown off instan- 
 taneously, virtue triumphed, and vice grovelled in 
 dismay. The young man was able to pay Mrs. 
 Snatt, to buy new shoes and an overcoat, to see 
 more money disappear into Mr. Quilty's till. 
 
 His expenditures in the saloon had resulted in a 
 trifling economy elsewhere. He was no longer under 
 the necessity of paying for breakfast, as he could 
 swallow no food till mid-day. 
 
 It had become for him a matter of course to 
 relapse after good resolutions. His hours of con- 
 tinence, grown shorter, now, than ever, were fraught 
 with apprehensions. 
 
 The sight of bars, of cafe signs, even of advertise- 
 ments, in the trolley-cars and the newspapers, lauding 
 an especial brand of whiskey, were to him all sym- 
 bols of the power that had mastery over him. He 
 would have tried to flee them; he averted his eyes; 
 but they, unavoidable, like a hydra in a nightmare, 
 multiplied about him at his every turn: on dead 
 walls, in glittering windows, overhead at night in 
 brilliant signs that vanished but to spring forth 
 immediately against the stars, or above doorways 
 illumined by a warm radiance, the portals of which 
 seemed to give inward, on their well-oiled hinges, at 
 the slightest pressure, as do the mechanisms of pitfalls. 
 
 Still, in the depths of his heart, there languished 
 part of the aspiration of his early youth, which
 
 384 PREDESTINED 
 
 inebriety resuscitated. His surroundings rendered 
 vague, his decline forgotten, he reproduced, to some 
 extent, old ardors, dreamed of recovery, found the 
 thought of quick reform not unreasonable. Raising 
 his head, to cast round him a look both wavering 
 and proud, he bade farewell to the scenes that he 
 was enduring "for the last time." Next morning, 
 however, that self-confidence had failed. 
 
 When he went out, a threnody as if of super- 
 natural voices dominated the noises of the street, 
 while familiar sounds seemed to reach him from 
 a great distance. Pedestrians floated past like 
 shadows; and all faces, appearing to him through 
 a sort of haze, assumed an unnatural aspect. Was 
 it a real world through which he took his way, or 
 was his the only actual personality extant? At 
 times, the countenance of Emma, now difficult to 
 recall in its entirety, was not more ambiguous than 
 the visages that loomed round him. 
 
 His depression relieved by his morning drinks of 
 brandy, he thought, perhaps, of a hilltop spread with 
 flowers, where he had bade farewell to happiness. 
 
 Did she still spend part of her summers there? 
 Then the garden at night, the hillside at sunset, the 
 narrow roadway through the woods at noon, re- 
 called to her a dead romance. Did she travel? 
 Then, in Swiss valleys and before antiquated French 
 chateaux, she missed the response of an enthusiasm 
 once quick to complete her own. Was she in town ? 
 Then she found sadness inextricable from some ball, 
 and, at the opera, listened to familiar arias with a pang.
 
 NINA 385 
 
 One day, while reading a newspaper, in a list of 
 guests at a fashionable assembly he found her name. 
 She was in New York! 
 
 Frequently, thereafter, when similar entertain- 
 ments, scheduled in the newspapers, took place 
 uptown, Felix was standing in a vestibule near by. 
 
 A striped canopy extended from the lintel to the 
 curb, where a tall footman reached out to open the 
 doors of automobiles as they glided to a standstill. 
 Beneath the arch of canvas many women, cloaked to 
 the ears, showing white satin boots, with diamonds 
 flashing in their coiffures, appeared, and immediately 
 vanished. If she was there, he did not recognize 
 her. When all had entered, he turned homeward. 
 Rain began to fall; and the dog, pattering ahead, 
 seemed at each step to pierce, with elongated legs, 
 the glistening pavement. 
 
 Mrs. Snatt, announcing that "a gentleman had 
 called to see him," produced a visiting card with a 
 dirty thumb mark on it. 
 
 "Oliver Corquill. So he has run me down!" 
 
 Next afternoon, the novelist appeared at the 
 boarding-house. 
 
 He made no remarks about Felix's behavior at 
 their last meeting, the young man's disappearance 
 from Washington Square, or the means by which 
 this last pursuit had been consummated. But, after 
 glancing round the bedroom, he remarked: 
 
 "A very snug, secluded little nook, I should 
 imagine, for literary work." 
 
 Felix's cheeks began to burn. He stared, with a
 
 386 PREDESTINED 
 
 feeling of animosity, at the celebrity, who wore 
 underneath an overcoat lined with sealskin a suit of 
 dark brown cheviot, who displayed, above patent 
 leather shoes, stockings of brown ribbed silk, and 
 who had in the buttonhole of his left lapel a white 
 carnation. 
 
 "Spare me your sarcasm!" 
 
 Corquill assumed an expression of surprise. 
 
 "Why, my dear fellow, I thought that I was falling 
 in with your ideas! Isn't this retreat your deliber- 
 ate choice? What else can one suppose, when you 
 conceal yourself from friends who have other plans 
 for you, when you refuse, indeed, the most excep- 
 tional opportunities to effect a change?" He had 
 received a letter from Pavin, who was travelling in 
 Algeria. 
 
 Felix lowered his head. 
 
 "It's true: I must cut a miserable figure before 
 both of you! But it wasn't altogether my fault." 
 
 "Well, then, I must remind you that I have never 
 yet enjoyed your confidence." 
 
 "What use would it serve to recount a history of 
 errors?" 
 
 "When two become allies, both must know the 
 characteristics of an enemy, to attack him with 
 success." 
 
 An ally! Was it, indeed, in such a guise that 
 Corquill, his sealskin coat-tails flapping, his white 
 carnation an oriflamme, sallied into an all but 
 stricken field? 
 
 They dined together, in a restaurant near Union
 
 NINA 387 
 
 Square. Corquill made no objection to a bottle of 
 champagne, or to entering, afterward, a cafe in the 
 neighborhood. The young man, his reserve abol- 
 ished, finally, by his potations, talked of himself. 
 
 Once started, Felix did not find it difficult to re- 
 late his troubles. He felt, indeed, in his parade of 
 past experiences, a sensation that had something in 
 common with the relief of a wrong-doer, too weak 
 to rectify his misdemeanors alone, who whispers 
 through the grille of a confessional. Some of the 
 blame seemed to fall from his offences, when two 
 minds shared the knowledge of them. 
 
 The other, turning his glass continually between 
 his fingers, listened with impassive face. His first 
 comment was: 
 
 "It's a puzzle!" 
 
 And, after a minute's thought, 
 
 "Our friend Wickit, the lawyer, was thoroughly 
 conversant with your family's affairs?" 
 
 "Of course. What then?" 
 
 Apparently, Corquill did not hear that question. 
 At last, staring at the table-top, he pronounced: 
 
 "There is an answer to everything." 
 
 They left the cafe. In Union Square, lamps shed 
 their yellow rays upon expanses of white snow, 
 which were transected by black, asphalt paths. 
 Near a circular fountain, on a wooden bench, a man 
 in mean clothes was leaning forward, his head lower 
 than his body, one hand resting on the ground to 
 keep him from toppling over, while, with a little 
 piece of ice, he traced in unsteady fashion upon
 
 388 PREDESTINED 
 
 the asphalt some disconnected numerals. The two 
 pedestrians stopped. The stranger slowly raised his 
 head. 
 
 His thin, white face was covered with a straggling 
 beard, half black, half gray; from either side of his 
 delicate nose the flesh had fallen away; and, beneath 
 brows abnormally projecting, eyes sunken and veiled 
 in shadows regarded, with a sort of mournful blank- 
 ness, the two witnesses. In his effort to straighten 
 himself, he recoiled violently against the bench back: 
 his hat fell off; and one saw a bald skull shining, 
 covered with protuberances. 
 
 He gazed at Corquill. His eyes wandered to 
 Felix. The young man and the derelict regarded 
 each other solemnly. At last, both smiled. 
 
 "What are you making there?" asked Felix, in 
 low tones. 
 
 "Pardon? 11 
 
 And Felix, staring down at him in surprise, re- 
 peated his inquiry in French. 
 
 The stranger answered naturally, though some- 
 what thickly: 
 
 "I am writing figures of 5, that look like wolves 
 at bay in the forest, and figures of 2, that make 
 me think of the smile of Aphrodite, and figures of 
 4, that resemble knights in German armor riding to 
 a tourney." 
 
 Abruptly standing up, he reeled. The young man 
 caught him by the arm. 
 
 "Where do you live?" 
 
 The other fixed his shadowy eyes on Felix.
 
 NINA 389 
 
 "You could never find the way." 
 
 "On the contrary, I can find it easily." 
 
 "Twenty-seventh Street, then, beyond Sixth 
 Avenue. Is it far?" 
 
 They set out northward, the young man and the 
 derelict proceeding slowly, arm in arm, Corquill 
 pacing beside them silently. 
 
 On Twenty-seventh Street, beyond Sixth Avenue, 
 they entered a French quarter. The windows of 
 little shops were inscribed with the legends: "Coif- 
 feur Fran$ais" "Pharmacie Franqaise" "Manu- 
 facture de Tabac." They halted before a four-story 
 brown-stone house that looked as if it were sinking 
 into the ground. A plumber's shop occupied the 
 basement; all the windows contained old shades of 
 dull blue cloth; a flight of thirteen steps ascended 
 to the doorway, which was sheltered by a little porch 
 of rusty metal-work. 
 
 "It is here, is it not?" 
 
 But the Frenchman, rocking on the young man's 
 arm, was peering down the street, westward, toward 
 a bright, low-hanging star. 
 
 "A beacon that, for its lustre, might surmount 
 the Pharos, guiding in the painted sails, making 
 clear, on the long jetty, the wilted wreaths of revellers 
 returning home, and the faces of Greek women 
 loitering in robes of painted gauze. A beacon that 
 might surmount, for us, to-night, the Pharos! But, 
 alas, no Alexandria underneath!" His face sank 
 forward. Tears, issuing from the shadows in which 
 lurked his eyes, dripped upon the ragged beard.
 
 390 PREDESTINED 
 
 The door above them opened. In the hallway, 
 loomed a female figure, of formidable proportions, 
 wearing a species of dressing gown in front con- 
 siderably shorter than in back. A hoarse, contralto 
 voice called out, with a menacing accent: 
 
 "Is it you, at last?" 
 
 The derelict, developing a nimbleness that sur- 
 prised his escort, scrambled up the thirteen steps. 
 The hallway engulfed him : the door was immediately 
 slammed shut. 
 
 "One might pray," said Corquill, "never to know 
 the state of that poor devil." 
 
 Felix, the blood rushing to his head, turned upon 
 the novelist, with curling lip. 
 
 "Save your pity! As for you, rest assured that 
 you will never become like him. One does not 
 exceed his own mental limitations!" 
 
 Corquill stood motionless. Then, his face pale, he 
 made the other a bow, presented his back, departed.
 
 CHAPTER XVIH 
 
 ONE afternoon in March, Felix found himself 
 ascending the thirteen steps of the dwelling house in 
 West Twenty-seventh Street. The door its small 
 pane of ground glass covered with an iron grating 
 was opened grudgingly by the virago who, at the 
 time of Felix's previous expedition thither, had 
 received the intoxicated Frenchman. 
 
 Unkempt, extraordinarily fat, with a neck of sev- 
 eral folds, a dingy face, and black mustaches, she 
 had, nevertheless, a pair of brilliant eyes, provocative 
 of conjectures, like a hint of bygone splendor dis- 
 covered amid ruins. 
 
 After scrutinizing the young man from head to 
 foot, she assumed a promising look. 
 
 Felix, asking himself what excuse he had for that 
 intrusion, was inclined to run down the steps. 
 However, he blurted out: 
 
 "The gentleman with whom I came here the other 
 night is he in?" 
 
 Her features immediately expressed truculence. 
 
 "What gentleman?" 
 
 Felix attempted to recall the occasion to her. 
 Perhaps she would remember the dog ? He pointed 
 to Pat, who, seated on the topmost step, was looking 
 up at her without sympathy. 
 
 391
 
 392 PREDESTINED 
 
 "I know of no such person, Monsieur. You went 
 somewhere else." 
 
 He was leaving, when she detained him. 
 
 "Who sent you here?" she inquired, violently. 
 
 Disconcerted, Felix fell back upon the truth. He 
 had been actuated by interest in a stranger who, 
 during the brief moments of a chance meeting, had 
 said "some remarkable things." He had to con- 
 fess an anxiety to renew that acquaintance no 
 doubt a presumptuous inclination. "My excuse, 
 Madame, is the allure of intellect. But that, I fear, 
 is scarcely an excuse to offer others; indeed, it no 
 longer seems plausible to me." 
 
 Then, reflecting that there could hardly be need 
 of further apologies to this slattern, he straightened 
 his back, raised his hat, and again turned away. 
 
 Her face softened. 
 
 "So he can still play the spendthrift? Eh, that is 
 a Fortunatus's purse he carries, the old incorrigible! 
 There, pardon me, Monsieur: we all have our buga- 
 boos. He is across the street, in the cafe"." 
 
 Directly opposite, a small dram shop, painted 
 yellow, seemed, with its squat bay-windows bulging 
 outward, to be succumbing gradually beneath the 
 weight of a four-story building. A plate-glass pane 
 displayed, in letters of white enamel, the informa- 
 tion, "Cafe de la Patrie." 
 
 The cafe ceiling, long and narrow, covered with 
 sheets of stamped metal, hung low: owing to this, 
 and to the dull hue of the walls, the place was 
 shadowy. On the right, extended a row of tables-
 
 NINA 393 
 
 on the left, the bar presented its worn woodwork 
 and perforated brass beer tray. No customers were 
 visible. 
 
 "Monsieur desires " 
 
 It was the bartender, or, rather, the proprietor. 
 A plump little fellow, with white hair parted in the 
 middle, and gaining jauntiness from a dyed and 
 waxed mustache, he looked as if some one had just 
 told him a questionable anecdote. This was his 
 habitual expression. 
 
 He directed Felix to the rear of the cafe". 
 
 There, two pool tables, one behind the other, 
 announced their past popularity by the raggedness 
 of their pockets, and the amount of sticking plaster 
 on their green cloths. Beyond them, a diffuse 
 light entered between iron bars through which one 
 saw a yard replete with empty bottles and pene- 
 trated an alcove to the right, there to make poly- 
 chromatic a goblet half full of absinthe and water, 
 to touch a hand as narrow and of nearly as cadaver- 
 ous an exility as the hand of an Egyptian mummy, 
 and to set shining a bald head, large and lumpy, 
 raised above a copy of the Messager des Etats-Unis. 
 The newspaper sank from before the pale counte- 
 nance, the straggling beard, and the sunken eyes 
 surrounded by wide circles, that had remained in 
 Felix's thoughts. 
 
 Again he was inclined to make his escape. But, 
 while saying to himself, "What a ridiculous proceed- 
 ing," he advanced. 
 
 "Monsieur has forgotten me? We returned to-
 
 394 PREDESTINED 
 
 gether to his house, one evening not long ago. The 
 Pharos was illuminated." 
 
 The stranger, after taking thought, smiled apa- 
 thetically. 
 
 "I do not remember. So the Pharos was illu- 
 minated?" 
 
 His voice, high and unsteady, drifted into a half 
 hysteric laugh. Then, apparently in an access of 
 curiosity, peering at the other, he said, nervously: 
 
 "Sit down, Monsieur." 
 
 They drank, that afternoon, half a dozen glasses 
 of absinthe together; and, since Felix then had his 
 first experience with tobacco of Algerian manufact- 
 ure, they consumed between them as many packets 
 of cigarettes. 
 
 The other, it seemed, was a Parisian. They 
 talked of Paris of the boulevards, the buildings, and 
 that indefinable "soul" which distinguishes a city no 
 less than a human being, and which, at recollection, 
 brings to the wanderer a nostalgia not unlike a long- 
 ing to perceive again the charms of a once beloved 
 individual. But Felix's companion, to whom few 
 corners of the earth were unfamiliar, had not seen 
 Paris for many years. Spots named by him stirred 
 no memories in the mind of the young man, who, 
 for his part, alluded frequently to resorts and insti- 
 tutions that had sprung up since the Frenchman's 
 day. So, from time to time, they fell silent, both 
 touched, no doubt, by the sadness which the disap- 
 pearance of old landmarks causes to those who re- 
 member them, and to those who have not known them.
 
 NINA 395 
 
 The elder, however, disclosed some compensating 
 reminiscences. 
 
 He led the way, as it were, out of the dram shop 
 in West Twenty-seventh Street where twilight was 
 creeping through the window bars and into a region 
 of constricted, tortuous alleys, of old, rickety houses 
 with mansard roofs and many chimney pots, of oriels, 
 carved by workmen of the seventeenth century, , that 
 adjoined blank walls made bright with frivolous bill 
 boards advertising public balls at the "Mabille," 
 of mediaeval dormer windows overlooking butcher 
 shops where grisettes in their dressing sacks came 
 yawning to buy a chicken wing in short, to that 
 traditional district seething, once upon a time, from 
 cobble-stones to attics, with artistic ardors, icon- 
 oclastic frenzies, licentiousness, and momentary pro- 
 digality, in recalling which old men say sadly, "The 
 Latin Quarter is no more." 
 
 And the cafes! Their doors opened: straightway 
 appeared the long mirrors, the white-topped tables, 
 the garnet-colored plush of their settees; and, 
 through a mist, one saw characters with unconven- 
 tional beards and flowing bows, the pioneers of 
 asstheticisms once new, but now discarded, leaning 
 forward in all the febrile poses deemed necessary 
 for the synthesis of artificial lives. 
 
 But Felix was not used to drinking absinthe in 
 such quantities, and his expectance of a singular 
 result from it induced intoxication rapidly. The 
 pictures conjured up by his companion gradually 
 faded; the sound of a high-pitched monologue
 
 396 PREDESTINED 
 
 reached him but at intervals; and he woke, next 
 day, in his own bed, ignorant of the episodes which 
 had terminated the adventure. 
 
 Relishing this taste of congenial history decanted 
 at first hand, he returned to the Cafe de la Patrie 
 for a deeper draught. 
 
 The proprietor informed him that the Parisian 
 had not yet arrived. "It took an old fellow of his 
 sort some time, every day, to find his legs." 
 
 He was called Monsieur Pierre. For two years 
 in fact, ever since the virago's appearance in Twenty- 
 seventh Street he had been "a fixture" across the 
 way. It was the general impression that he got his 
 spending money from this Mme. Wargla, whose 
 name, the proprietor admitted, was, at least, not 
 French. She took in lodgers; but such was her tem- 
 per that she often deluged with abuse a stranger 
 who rang her door-bell. 
 
 "And yet, he is a highly educated man? He has 
 seen the world. He has known interesting per- 
 sons." 
 
 The cafe keeper shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Who knows? He has been somebody, maybe?" 
 
 Nowadays, however, it was an "off night" for him 
 if he got up the thirteen steps without assistance. 
 
 The clock struck four. They fell silent. A 
 hand, narrow and fleshless, trembled against the 
 door; and Monsieur Pierre, his eyes blank of all 
 expression, feebly entered the cafe. He had come 
 for his "resuscitation." 
 
 Felix had, at first, some difficulty in identifying
 
 NINA 397 
 
 himself. But a gleam of intelligence appeared in 
 the absinthe drinker's wandering orbs. 
 
 "Ah! ah! It is you? You have come back, then? 
 In the alcove, eh? We shall be very comfortable. 
 More comfortable than in my house, where there 
 happens to be no room." 
 
 The proprietor accentuated his habitual expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Felix became familiar with the shadowy resort, 
 with the street full of foreign signs and faces, even 
 with the establishment of Mme. Wargla, whither he 
 sometimes went when the "diverting old type" did 
 not appear on time in the cafe. 
 
 In this house, the staircases and the floors of 
 gloomy corridors were covered with oilcloth; doors 
 creaked on their hinges; steps resounded on the 
 landings; then there brushed past a man with a 
 smooth-shaven, oily face and the aspect of a waiter 
 off duty, or a woman with a fringe of hair, dark 
 and heavy, falling over her brow beneath headgear 
 of singular style. Monsieur Pierre issued, at an 
 infirm gait, into the hallway, hid his bald scalp 
 beneath a black felt hat, and straightway accom- 
 panied his visitor across the street. 
 
 Between these two grew up, presently, a species of 
 regard in the younger engendered by a feeling 
 that here, beneath depravation, existed a congenial 
 spirit, in the elder roused, possibly, by the realiza- 
 tion that he had, at last, company in his intellectual 
 ramblings. It was when Felix succeeded in follow- 
 ing him, one night, into the half-discovered country
 
 398 PREDESTINED 
 
 of Greek criticism, that Monsieur Pierre made no 
 bones of embracing the other in French fashion, with 
 the words: 
 
 "My dear Pierce! There is an oasis in every 
 desert, after all!" 
 
 That was his pronunciation of the young man's 
 name. 
 
 They had their own corner the alcove near the 
 back window. Many patrons of the cafe, inured to 
 that Anglo-Saxon mode of drinking devised as if for 
 a greater benefit to liquor sellers, stood at the bar, 
 their attitudes conducive to a restlessness which 
 bore fruit in orders more frequent than if suggested 
 by a natural desire. Others, in their shirt sleeves, 
 played pool upon the lacerated baize. In a corner, 
 usually, sat an octogenarian with a fringe of fluffy, 
 white whiskers round his chin, his glass of absinthe 
 at hand, and, at his feet, a brown, mongrel dog so old, 
 and of a mien so wretched, that Pat was evidently 
 ashamed to bite him. After finishing his drink, the 
 ancient folded his hands, let his head sink forward, 
 and took a nap. A shaft of ruddy light crept up his 
 neck and seemed to set fire to his whiskers : the sun- 
 set, in fact, had even thrust a little of its glory into 
 the back yard. There, above the piles of empty bot- 
 tles, a small ailantus tree, its pinnated leaves anod, 
 heralded, with a rank odor, the advent of spring. 
 
 They talked of spring in Paris. But Felix would 
 say, presently: 
 
 "Let us talk, rather, of the Cafe" Francois Premier." 
 
 It was there that the artists and the men of let-
 
 NINA 399 
 
 ters had gathered, three decades before. Monsieur 
 Pierre could recall their faces, their mannerisms, 
 their discussions the combats of the impressionists 
 and the conservatives, the wars of stippled paint 
 against square brush strokes, the derision in which 
 the realistic novel writers held the naturalists, then 
 the manias for symbolism, for diabolism, for ghastli- 
 ness, for anything that could shock by its novelty 
 that democracy which, in art, "is always reaction- 
 ary." Or one was transported to studios of a bizarre 
 complexion, where painters, poets, and women whose 
 faces reappeared, thereafter, on the walls of the 
 Luxembourg, sat listening to the sighing of a violon- 
 cello played by a musician whose work no public 
 would accept. And, afterward, "What colors did 
 the sounds of different musical instruments call to 
 mind? What hue had the vowels? Was Friday 
 violet, and Sunday yellow?" 
 
 "And among all these, Monsieur Pierre, you, too, 
 played your part?" 
 
 "My part was quickly played," the other re- 
 sponded with his hysterical laugh. 
 
 But he had known, among that assembly of 
 Parisians, Afro-French, and Belgians, Villiers de 
 PIsle Adam, and Mallarme, the wistful and evasive 
 symbolist, Catulle Mende*s, and De Banville, who 
 sang just because he loved the sound of limpid voca- 
 bles, Leconte de Lisle, and that reincarnation of 
 Franyois Villon, Verlaine. 
 
 Drinking off his absinthe, Monsieur Pierre burst 
 forth, with a wild manner, into some poem by
 
 400 PREDESTINED 
 
 He*re"dia; and his listener gazed on a brazen world, 
 on caravans splashed with ochre, seen through 
 quivering air, on a mirage of crumbling mosques, 
 and on green moonlight drained through palm 
 leaves into a pool. 
 
 "Buron should have been among these," thought 
 Felix, and asked his companion if he knew that 
 writer. The other set down his glass. 
 
 "You know him? You have read him ?" 
 
 And, after a pause, smoothing his beard with 
 trembling fingers, he replied, in his cracked voice: 
 
 "No! About that fellow, I have nothing to say! 
 He played me many a dirty trick. In truth, he was 
 an enemy of mine." 
 
 If he could not be brought to criticise that one, 
 he was quick enough, when his intelligence had been 
 sufficiently revived by liquor, to bestow praise or 
 blame on others. 
 
 "Baudelaire? Yes, always sitting alone, at mid- 
 night, with a theatric sneer on his face, methodically 
 dropping into an ice-cold crystal cup a venom that 
 is going to poison no one. Gautier and Zola, the 
 two extremities of human endeavor the Mona Lisa 
 and an old, dirty woman by a copyist, in imitation of 
 Franz Hals. Coppee? Why, one night he seduced 
 Romance up to the Butte Montmartre and there 
 stabbed her in an alley. Hugo! He reminds me 
 of a well-trained Russian artisan who has set him- 
 self the task of covering, with every color, in every 
 formal combination, the walls of a building a hun- 
 dred times the size of St. Basil's Church in Moscow."
 
 NINA 401 
 
 Then he would stop, his head would droop for- 
 ward, and his beard would rest on the soiled frill of 
 his shirt. He would mutter: 
 
 "After all, what difference? We are all sitting 
 together in a dark room, blindfolded, waiting, and, 
 while waiting, stringing chaplets. Suddenly we fear 
 these are not pearls that we are stringing, but beads I 
 We have a moment of anguish; to reassure our- 
 selves, we snatch at the string. The string breaks, 
 the beads patter upon the ground. But we grovel 
 for them; we bruise our fingers searching for them: 
 among them there may be a pearl!' This one? Ah, 
 to see, to make sure! But a hand falls upon our 
 shoulder. It is that for which we have been waiting. 
 One must rise quickly, at that touch. 'Drop your 
 chaplet. Follow me.' And we follow. Whither? 
 Who knows ? As we go, we hear the rest moving in 
 the dark, and the industrious clicking of chaplets, 
 and voices saying proudly, 'Mine are pearls,' and 
 other voices moaning, 'Mine are beads.'" 
 
 He would fall silent, with his cadaverous hands 
 spread out on the table-top. 
 
 At other times, when in the act of losing contact 
 with objective things, he showed more spirit. 
 
 To the hallucinations gathering round him he 
 stretched out his arms, with a smile at once vacant 
 and cunning, as if he were escaping, at the cost 
 of reason, an unsatisfactory world. Sometimes, at 
 night, finding himself in such a condition, he insisted 
 upon a promenade. 
 
 Resting his pointed shoulder against Felix, he
 
 402 PREDESTINED 
 
 swayed through dark streets, in plebeian parts of 
 town, which were, for him, the purlieus of regions 
 antipodal and ancient. "It is not far, now, to the 
 gardens of Naucratis," or, "We are nearly there: 
 one can catch the sound of Phrygian flutes, and 
 smell incense, ambergris, and camphor." 
 
 Felix, on hearing such speeches, all delivered with 
 an accent of conviction, felt a thrill throughout his 
 body; and, focusing his swimming senses on those 
 thoughts, himself was able to respond in the same 
 vein. For had not the commonplace and the monot- 
 onous been swept away, so that desires previously 
 grievous because no longer satiable seemed more 
 imminent than reality? 
 
 "Yes, we are nearly there. Courage; we will 
 reach that place together!" 
 
 And, arm in arm, they wandered at random 
 through the darkness, striving to find the unattain- 
 able. 
 
 But the awakening was different. 
 
 From the depths, Felix raised his eyes, to see far 
 above him, as it were, a goddess of the heavens, a 
 Madonna. Her unalterable aloofness clothed her in 
 some of that vague splendor which is divinity's chief 
 allure for the imaginative worshipper. Indeed, he 
 found it impossible, finally, to think of her as being 
 like other women: his association with her had been 
 too nearly idyllic to facilitate comparisons; and so 
 far had the whole period receded, that he was moved, 
 occasionally, when more distraught than usual, to 
 question its reality.
 
 NINA 403 
 
 But, not infrequently, at thought of her his fever 
 was abated, his agitation ceased, he held himself 
 motionless, saying, "I will put away all this stress, 
 and sit down to the thought, 'She has loved me." 
 He was soothed immediately, and went on contem- 
 plating, in tranquil happiness, the attachment of a 
 bygone time, which now had for him a charm so 
 tender. 
 
 This satisfaction was often able to pierce his most 
 profound melancholy. 
 
 Still, in those hours, now rare, when his brain 
 resumed exercises wholly rational, a cynicism, ex- 
 haled like an acrid vapor from all the sentimental 
 ferment that he had endured, threatened to corrode 
 his idol. In his career, contact had always prefaced 
 disillusionment. What if her well-nigh ethereal 
 singularity were visible only from afar, as is the 
 remote, half phantasmal vista of a landscape which, 
 at one's approach, resolves itself into a scene resem- 
 bling many others? 
 
 He tried to drive this thought away; but, in the 
 manner of every thought that he endeavored to ex- 
 clude, it returned to pain him. And his heart 
 cried out, "Must I lose my last ideal?" 
 
 One evening, when he came home with such feel- 
 ings, he met, in the vestibule, Mr. Quilty's new wife, 
 tastefully dressed. She had called, as it transpired 
 afterward, to tell Mrs. Snatt some news that would 
 have gained in detail by a delay. 
 
 They scrutinized each other. Felix reflected: 
 
 "So you have found the happy ending!"
 
 404 PREDESTINED 
 
 He made an effort to compliment her. 
 
 "You look very young to-night. Your little step- 
 daughters will have in you an elder sister. They 
 must adore you already. How is Quilty, by the 
 way?" 
 
 "That's so: he mentioned the fact that you rarely 
 go there now." She added, in a whisper, "How 
 glad I was to hear it!" And, looking down, she 
 confessed : 
 
 "I think I shall end by persuading him to sell his 
 business." 
 
 "Do you know," said Felix, "that I divined your 
 nature long ago, up there? Every time I saw you 
 in those surroundings I felt surprise. My intuition 
 didn't play me false in your case, at any rate." 
 
 They were silent, both thinking, no doubt, of the 
 same woman. 
 
 Presently, he ventured: 
 
 "Do you ever hear of her?" 
 
 "Now and then." 
 
 Montmorrissy's extravaganza, "Poor Pierrette," 
 had been a failure at the Trocadero Theatre: Marie 
 Sinjon, in the opinion of the critics, was not "up to" 
 the Broadway standard. She had retired from the 
 stage. Noon had married her; and, as he was in a 
 serious way from nervous debility, they were travel- 
 ling, by automobile, through northern Europe. 
 
 "She, too, has her desire!" 
 
 He entered the boarding-house. A sound of 
 angry voices reached him from the "ground floor 
 rear." Through an open doorway, he saw Mrs.
 
 NINA 405 
 
 Snatt and her husband engaged in one of their 
 altercations. 
 
 Felix paused on the staircase, to contemplate this 
 picture. 
 
 The drummer, with his dyed side whiskers and 
 inflamed face, looking not unlike an undersized 
 Spanish brigand in a red mask, sat rolling up his 
 eyes in an attempt to draw from his wife's purse by 
 pathos the money that he would demand, when 
 drunker, with artificial sternness. She, towering in 
 a wrapper, with curl papers sticking out round her 
 brow, compressed her indistinct lips and bade her 
 spouse defiance, In a corner, Jennie, hugging the 
 doll with taffy-colored curls, sat apathetically at 
 gaze; by the window, the boy, his large head bent, 
 was examining his fingers as if he had never pre- 
 viously seen them; the baby, in a short dress, was 
 crawling with a jolly air over a carpet full of large 
 green and crimson flowers. 
 
 Mr. Snatt, attempting to gulp down his grief, 
 stammered : 
 
 "Nothing but cruelty and harshness ... a man 
 ain't never understood by his wife . . . what a 
 curse, this artistic temperament!" 
 
 Fixing her with his watery eyes, he sighed: 
 
 "It won't be long, now! You'll feel sorry, maybe, 
 when they fish me out of the river, to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 "Oh, no such luck!" was the retort. 
 
 He relapsed into silence. A baneful expression 
 appeared, presently, on his splotched visage. When 
 the baby crawled toward his feet, he shouted:
 
 406 PREDESTINED 
 
 "Take that brat away! I have nothing to do 
 with him, d'you hear?" 
 
 Mrs. Snatt turned, with twitching face, to look at 
 her other offspring. The words burst from her : 
 
 " That's why he's healthy!" 
 
 And, her bosom heaving, she came forward to 
 close the door. 
 
 Next day, she asked Felix "if he could conven- 
 iently pay up his back rent." 
 
 His scenarios for the kinetoscope were no longer 
 accepted with enthusiasm. He had exhausted all the 
 conventional situations. Besides, the manufacturer 
 of moving pictures now wanted "comic skits jaw- 
 breakers." But Felix was in no state of mind to 
 invent laughable episodes. 
 
 Though desperate for a more lucrative employ- 
 ment, he was incapable of working steadily. With 
 the utmost travail, he finished a page or two of 
 writing, then considered that he had earned a rest. 
 Finding his room a prison, and every necessary act 
 a burden, he did not touch his pen till confronted by 
 the most pressing need of money. Still, the twilight 
 of day deliberately wasted was a melancholy hour! 
 
 Perhaps he might be able to write a new sketch 
 for the Delaclaires? 
 
 The Thespian regarded this idea favorably. He 
 and his wife had dragged their old farce across the 
 boards of vaudeville theatres so long, that generally, 
 when they appeared, the audience, recognizing them 
 with a hum of resignation, settled back to doze. 
 There were even managers "so dead to art" as to
 
 NINA 407 
 
 refuse the couple further booking until they had 
 "freshened up their act." 
 
 Felix sat through several performances in a Four- 
 teenth Street theatre, for the purpose of studying 
 their requirements. 
 
 Into a rococo boudoir or whatever other interior 
 "set" came handy Mrs. Delaclaire precipitated 
 her large person, wearing a low-neck dress that caved 
 in just below the bosom. 
 
 She announced that "she didn't know what to do!" 
 A gentleman whom she had engaged as "leading 
 man in her new tragedy" had failed to appear. 
 Meanwhile, she would, at least, rehearse a song or 
 two. "A song or two" was the cue for the piano- 
 player, lolling in the orchestra pit. 
 
 Encouraged by him, Mrs. Delaclaire essayed a 
 ballad about "colleens," "the gate below the 
 meadows" and "the Irish moon," concluding with 
 the ear-piercing asseveration, "He will come back!" 
 
 Thereupon, a crash of glass was heard, and Mr. 
 Delaclaire entered, looking behind him, in the 
 costume of a messenger boy. 
 
 When he had explained facetiously that he was in 
 the wrong house, he espied a piano in a corner. 
 /"Would she play a jig for him?" "What, was he a 
 disciple of Terpsichore?" "Hold on! The lady had 
 no right to call him names!" "But if he could 
 dance, possibly he could act?" "Acting was his 
 greatest pleasure." "How fortunate! What a coin- 
 cidence!" He took his place, and they gave a 
 parody of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Then, when Mrs.
 
 4 o8 PREDESTINED 
 
 Delaclaire had performed the sleep-walking scene 
 from "Macbeth," and Mr. Delaclaire had moaned 
 forth a recitation entitled, "The Old Actor," they 
 finished in front of a drop curtain, with a lively song 
 and dance, to disappear glistening with perspiration. 
 
 The Thespian suggested that Felix "dash off" a 
 more serious composition a piece in which he 
 could wear evening dress, create an atmosphere of 
 wealth, say something about "other days," and 
 recover the affections of a lady who had the fashion- 
 able world fawning at her feet. "You ought to be 
 able to do that sort of stuff," was Delaclaire's con- 
 clusion, with a sidelong glance. Then, rubbing his 
 bristly chin reflectively, he exclaimed: 
 
 "I'll tell you the style! Have you seen a sketch 
 called, 'His Past'? It's made no end of money on 
 the vaudeville circuit. A dame named Nuncheon 
 wrote it about a lot of swells." 
 
 Sometimes, arrayed in rumpled pajamas, he 
 entered Felix's room before the young man was 
 awake: in the night he had "thought up an inci- 
 dent that ought to go into that sketch." His mind 
 relieved of those lucubrations, the Thespian filled 
 the other's pipe, sat down on the counterpane, and 
 spoke of Eddie, his son. The boy had not come 
 home to sleep. Moreover, though nothing was 
 missing from the Delaclaires' apartments, he had 
 been seen by Miss Vinnie Vatelle going into a pawn- 
 shop. 
 
 The soubrette had returned to town with the 
 spring flowers. She was playing a short engage*
 
 NINA 409 
 
 ment in the Bon Ton Music Hall, on Eighth Avenue. 
 Applause clattered round her when, in a pink dress 
 reaching to the knees, pink stockings, and gilt 
 dancing shoes, she uttered the refrain: 
 
 "I don't care if she has yellow hair 
 
 Or hair of darkest black; 
 I'll take it red, piled upon her head, 
 
 Or hanging down her back; 
 I can be true to eyes of blue, 
 
 Or eyes of gray or brown: 
 I'm not hard to suit, you see, 
 For it's all the same to me 
 
 If she just hails from New York town." 
 
 Her room in the boarding-house was overflowing 
 with souvenirs of her successes. The walls were 
 covered with photographs of Miss Vatelle in every 
 variety of coiffure, in every sort of costume ranging 
 between the poles of children's dresses and tights. 
 Bright-colored post-cards, scrawled over by waggish 
 Correspondents with all sorts of pleasantries, filled 
 wire racks ; the mirror had a border of visiting cards, 
 newspaper clippings, and envelopes bearing curious 
 addresses; on the bureau top, amid rouge brushes, 
 powder boxes, pots of cold cream, false curls, hair- 
 pins, soiled handkerchiefs, and broken combs, two 
 elderly faces, one male, the other female, surveyed, 
 with a look of bovine self-complacency, their environ- 
 ment. It was a portrait of the soubrette's parents. 
 
 To the young man, there was an interesting art- 
 lessness about her. Living for the most part in a 
 sphere of thin dressing-room walls, sleeping cars,
 
 410 PREDESTINED 
 
 and hotel accommodations sometimes verging, neces- 
 sarily, on promiscuity, she had forgotten many of the 
 strictures set upon conversation in circles more con- 
 ventional. Her confidences were, occasionally, as 
 generous as if Felix had been an intimate relative: 
 her facial expression, however, so neutralized her 
 words that one could not easily find in the latter 
 anything immoderate. On concluding tales of the 
 provincial hotel clerk, "the baby that died," and 
 "the hard luck that a poor girl is born to," she 
 looked at him mournfully from under her pow- 
 dered lashes, with her mouth relaxed, and a few 
 brown freckles showing through the "make-up" on 
 her short, thick nose. He got used to her perfume, 
 no longer remarked her soiled shoe tops, and more 
 than once forgot entirely his earlier impression of her. 
 
 There was little to choose between his mental and 
 his physical deterioration. He ate at irregular hours, 
 without ever feeling hunger. Now and then, on 
 approaching a mirror, he did not immediately recog- 
 nize his face. He had continually a nervous agita- 
 tion near the solar plexus; sudden noises made him 
 start; his eyelids twitched by the hour; and it was 
 not unusual for him to make his bed upon the floor, 
 because of a horror, that seized him as he fell asleep, 
 of falling into an abyss. 
 
 His distress was accentuated whenever he "went 
 broke." He understood, finally, the impulse which 
 drives footpads to their business. 
 
 Mr. Pandle, meeting him in Union Square, on 
 such a night, listened attentively to a rambling plaint.
 
 NINA 411 
 
 Then, raising one of his imitation eyebrows signifi- 
 cantly, he inquired if Felix would care "to take a 
 car ride." 
 
 "What for? Besides, I have the dog with me." 
 
 "All the better. We get on; the conductor ob- 
 jects to him; we get off again. There's the Twenty- 
 third Street crosstown line, for instance. It catches 
 a good transfer crowd at Broadway theatre-goers 
 from the suburbs." 
 
 Felix turned cold. He had an impulse to dash his 
 fist into the other's face. But, after all, he did no 
 more than turn on his heel. 
 
 Nevertheless, a few nights later, when he saw a 
 stranger drop something in a deserted street, Felix 
 halted, then stealthily advanced, picked up a wallet, 
 made his escape. In his room, breathlessly he ex- 
 amined his find. It was worn out, and empty. 
 
 One afternoon, while he was sitting at home, 
 racking his brains for some way to get money, a 
 knock sounded on the door. It was Monsieur 
 Pierre, who, wondering at the young man's recent 
 neglect of him, had made the journey from West 
 Twenty-seventh Street. He fell into a chair, ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 "You see," he gasped, passing a handkerchief 
 over his lumpy brow, on which the veins stood out 
 in knots, "thus we must gratify the habits we ac- 
 quire. It is lonely over there, these days, in the 
 Cafe de la Patrie." 
 
 He soon rose, and began to move round the 
 room.
 
 412 PREDESTINED 
 
 "So you live here, eh?" he inquired, with an 
 almost foolish chuckle. "Not bad, not bad! Have 
 you cigarettes?" 
 
 Standing by the bureau, he picked up, with his 
 shaking fingers, the photograph of Felix's mother. 
 
 "Who is this?" 
 
 When he had gazed long and earnestly at that 
 portrait, he laid it gently in its place. Smoothing 
 his beard, he wandered from before the bureau. 
 
 "How do you spell your name?" he enunciated 
 carefully. 
 
 Felix, with a smile, informed him. 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 The Frenchman, having reached the door, stood 
 still, as if in a daze. 
 
 "How old are you?" 
 
 "Thirty." 
 
 "Where were you born?" 
 
 "In Paris." 
 
 An expression of fright was stamped upon the ab- 
 sinthe drinker's face. He stumbled out into the 
 corridor. 
 
 "What an original! No doubt he is going to ex- 
 plore the house!" 
 
 But when Felix went to look for him, the corridor 
 was empty, and the street door stood open. 
 
 "Gone! This is evidently one of his bad days." 
 
 The same evening, Felix, while rummaging a 
 bureau drawer in search of a collar not broken at 
 the edges, found a cardboard box half full of head- 
 ache powders.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 FELIX, on his next visit to West Twenty-seventh 
 Street, did not see Monsieur Pierre. The cafe* 
 keeper shrugged his shoulders. Mme. Wargla, how- 
 ever, invited the young man into the hallway. There, 
 holding her dressing-gown together at the neck with 
 a plump, dingy hand, she scrutinized the caller 
 earnestly. 
 
 "He is not able to receive his friends." 
 
 "Then he's ill?" 
 
 "He is always ill. Besides, at times he has curi- 
 ous notions. -One does not live that life you under- 
 stand. We pay, hein? As the saying goes, 'each 
 pleasure costs a thousand pains." 1 
 
 "You quote Francois Villon, Madame?" cried 
 Felix, in astonishment. 
 
 Her face lost some of its churlishness, as she 
 replied : 
 
 "Eh, like all the young and well-favored, you 
 think the old and ugly have always been so. When 
 one has been smothered in gold dust by the improvi- 
 dent, a grain or two may stick long afterward." 
 
 But a bell jangled, and she went to hold parley 
 at the front door. 
 
 "Oui, oui, ouil Entrez." 
 
 There entered a delicate-looking youth with an 
 
 413
 
 414 
 
 PREDESTINED 
 
 incipient mustache and the trace of a bifurcated 
 chin beard. On seeing another, he hesitated; then, 
 affecting a bold air, he leaped up the staircase. 
 Mme. Wargla resumed her scrutiny of Felix. 
 
 "How comes it that you speak French so well, 
 Monsieur?" 
 
 "That language has always interested me." 
 
 A sound of creaking boards reached them from 
 the rear end of the corridor. 
 
 "Well, as I have told you once, he is able to see 
 no one ! What more can I say ? Are you satisfied ? 
 Good-by, Monsieur!" 
 
 And she slammed the front door. 
 
 A week later, returning to West Twenty-seventh 
 Street at an unusual hour, Felix discovered him in 
 the alcove of the' Cafe de la Patrie. Monsieur 
 Pierre set down his half-empty goblet, as the other 
 exclaimed: 
 
 "My dear friend, how glad I am to see you 
 recovered! Maybe it was partly selfish, that con- 
 cern of mine ? I have missed our expeditions to the 
 Latin Quarter, our evenings in the Cafe Francois 
 Premier, not to mention our association with Xenoph- 
 anes and Empedocles." 
 
 "I, too," was the low response. 
 
 "But we shall resume those hours?" 
 
 The Parisian raised timidly his large, vague eyes, 
 which seemed about to overflow into their encir- 
 cling rings of reddish brown. 
 
 "Yes, yes; why not? By all means. We shall 
 not deprive ourselves of that!"
 
 NINA , 415 
 
 "Two absinthes," called Felix, to the cafe* keeper. 
 
 So their companionship was resumed. 
 
 Those were days of early summer, when the first 
 intense heat brought forth, simultaneously with the 
 geraniums in public parks, light-colored, filmy 
 dresses, bright parasols, palm-leaf fans, and straw 
 hats which an army of punctilious toilers had not 
 presumed to wear until the day appointed by some 
 forgotten arbiter of style. In fashionable parts of 
 town the doorways of dwelling houses were boarded 
 over; in the principal thoroughfares, trenches 
 swarmed with Italian laborers; everywhere dirt, 
 pulverized by the sunshine, whirled toward the cor- 
 nices in clouds; and the fumes of sewer gas mingled 
 with street smells accentuated by the humidity. 
 Then, round the Cafe de la Patrie, fat foreigners 
 appeared without coats, in wilted collars, bareheaded 
 women wheeled perambulators wherein babies rest- 
 lessly kicked up their naked legs, garbage buckets 
 remained too long at the curb, while few windows 
 thereabouts lacked their tableaux of dishabille that 
 bordered on indiscretion. In the rear of the cafe, 
 an intermittent breeze wafted through the barred 
 window odors of sour wine lees from the mass of 
 empty bottles in the yard; and the ailantus tree 
 dipped its long leaves above a scabrous wooden 
 fence which radiated too effectively the prevailing 
 warmth. 
 
 They sat in the alcove, smoking cigarettes, and 
 staring at the two goblets. The sunlight, stealing 
 across the table top, finally pierced the absinthe, to
 
 4i6 PREDESTINED 
 
 wake in that fluid a soft, nacreous splendor. There, 
 straightway, was a cup glowing with fires of a subtle 
 and unearthly beauty a chalice brimming with 
 enchantment. Their fingers embraced the glass 
 with a tenderness almost voluptuous; the bland 
 concoction trickled down their throats: and, pres- 
 ently, the lustre of that essence seemed shed on the 
 surroundings as a refulgence from the Grail, so 
 one is told, transfigured the dark walls of its hiding 
 place. 
 
 But the complexion of their intercourse had un- 
 dergone a change. 
 
 The young man missed that sense of spiritual 
 intimacy which had first attracted him to the 
 Parisian. He had become less the listener, and 
 more the talker; his revelations of temperament 
 were now met by silence more often than by con- 
 currence; and occasionally, when he had finished 
 some rambling speech about "the only means 
 whereby the inadequacy of the actual world might 
 be evaded," a silence fell between them, as depress- 
 ing as if freighted with an enormous sadness. The 
 elder, passing a tremulous hand before his eyes, 
 would stammer: 
 
 "Let us not stay here any longer." 
 
 Thereupon, to Felix's dissatisfaction, they would 
 go out, to walk the dusky streets. 
 
 Soon, however, Monsieur Pierre, who had been 
 wont on other evenings so swiftly to traverse space, 
 was forced to a standstill by exhaustion. Under an 
 arc lamp, slowly he removed his black felt hat.
 
 NINA 417 
 
 Large drops of perspiration trickled down his 
 temples, over a vermiculate network of distended 
 veins. 
 
 "Lend me your shoulder, Fe*lix. Let us turn 
 back." 
 
 And, at the foot of Mme. Wargla's steps, he bade 
 the young man good-night. 
 
 "You are going home now?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 "Good, very good. Home and to bed. That is 
 the best. I, too. Au revoir." 
 
 "He is changed since his illness," thought Felix. 
 
 But once, after making a pretence of departure, the 
 young man stepped into a doorway. He was re- 
 warded by seeing the absinthe drinker descend the 
 thirteen steps, cross the street, and re-enter the cafe. 
 
 "So it's a trick! He is tired of my company?" 
 
 He determined never again to set foot in the Caf6 
 de la Patrie. 
 
 But five days later, the Frenchman accomplished 
 the journey to Felix's abode. 
 
 "What!" he ejaculated, while holding fast to the 
 door jamb, in order to catch his breath. "You are 
 up and about; you are as well as ever! Then it is 
 because you no longer find anything of interest over 
 there." 
 
 "On the contrary, because I thought that you 
 preferred it so." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Felix, unwilling to confess his espionage, replied: 
 
 "An impression cannot always be expressed."
 
 4l8 PREDESTINED 
 
 At these words, delivered in a chilly manner, an 
 agitation seized upon the Parisian. Sitting down in 
 the nearest chair, he mopped his head distractedly 
 with a handkerchief. 
 
 " M on Dieu I Are we going to quarrel, you and I ? " 
 
 By that speech the young man's heart was imme- 
 diately touched. 
 
 " Forgive me! I ask nothing better than to con- 
 tinue a relationship unique, for me, in this that it 
 is perfectly congenial." 
 
 ' ' Embrassons nous I ' ' 
 
 And Monsieur Pierre would not be denied the 
 satisfaction of saluting Felix with a kiss on either 
 cheek. 
 
 Thereafter, he returned frequently to the boarding- 
 house in Thirteenth Street. 
 
 He insisted on examining every article that the 
 other had got published. Displaying a sort of 
 trepidation, he received into his arms the books of 
 clippings, the sheaves of manuscript, all the literary 
 souvenirs of a period signalized by self-confidence. 
 With a pile of torn magazines balanced on his knees, 
 he deciphered, word by word, the English prose. 
 Occasionally he paused, with a look as if he himself 
 had accomplished something admirable. 
 
 "Ah! Ah! There is a thought, charmingly ex- 
 pressed, that I have not met before!" 
 
 "Let me see it .... Did I write so well?" 
 
 "It is not for a young man to say such things!" 
 
 The Frenchman approached the window. There, 
 standing beside the bureau, with his thin shoulders
 
 NINA 419 
 
 bent forward, he gazed out, apparently, on the back 
 yards. 
 
 He haunted Felix, did this old wreck with the 
 crapulous body and the head of a mystic who has 
 lain desiccating for centuries in Roman catacombs. 
 Invariably, his mournful eyes brightened at sight 
 of the young man ; he reached out a hand to pat the 
 other's arm; he assumed, in fact, an air that was a 
 caricature of the paternal. And, in the paternal man- 
 ner, he commenced to bestow on Felix good advice. 
 
 But the words "resolution," "continence," and 
 "emancipation" fell inaptly from his lips; a salu- 
 tary philosophy, which he, erstwhile so eloquent in 
 cynical discourse, developed as if expressly for his 
 companion's benefit, had all the speciousness of a 
 creed promulgated by an unbeliever; a quotation 
 to the effect that "the object of life was, after all, 
 the education of the will," obtained, because he 
 uttered it, the flavor of a sorry jest. The result 
 of all the Frenchman's feeble homilies was Felix's 
 thought, "If he is, indeed, sincere in this, if, thanks 
 to growing intimacy, one has finally perceived the 
 secret yearnings of his soul, what a mockery is 
 human aspiration!" 
 
 Nevertheless, Monsieur Pierre continued to harp 
 on that tune, but with variations somewhat more 
 practical. 
 
 While visiting the young man, he ignored all sug- 
 gestions that they sally forth to "have a drink"; in 
 the Cafe de la Patrie, he made anything a pretext to 
 "take the air." They had arguments, in tenor
 
 420 PREDESTINED 
 
 verging on acerbity, before swinging doors of glass; 
 Felix was drawn by the arm past many a saloon; 
 when a cafe sign appeared ahead, Monsieur Pierre, 
 with a quivering forefinger, designated some inter- 
 esting object across the way. But, at every ap 
 proach to dram shops, the feet of both began to lag ; 
 two pairs of eyes turned furtively askance; and the 
 appetent expression of the one was mirrored in the 
 visage of the other. Thus walking the streets 
 from which, because of these pedestrians' sobriety, 
 all interest had been withdrawn each found, no 
 doubt, the other's company a burden. Felix, for 
 his part, was bored, exasperated, and disgusted, so 
 that the Parisian had to endure not only the discom- 
 fort of desires unappeased, but also the ill-nature of a 
 cherished comrade. 
 
 Indeed, excursions of this sort reduced him to 
 a pitiable state. Worn out by unwonted exercise, 
 beside himself from lack of customary stimulation, 
 rendered, moreover, half imbecile by the depression 
 of his mind, he gave in, finally, with a groan. They 
 retraced their steps to West Twenty-seventh Street. 
 On the threshold of Mme. Wargla's house Felix 
 went through the stale burlesque of seeing his com- 
 panion safe indoors. 
 
 "And you, Felix?" 
 
 "Oh, I, like you, am for bed." 
 
 The absinthe drinker, rallying for a last effort his 
 expiring will, made his appeal in broken accents: 
 
 "Come, while I believe you, something might 
 happen; so let us make sure. Let us swear a little
 
 NINA 421 
 
 oath together, eh? Even by our hope of heaven, 
 by all saintly intercessors, by the Virgin ? No, one 
 breaks such oaths too easily. By what? Tiens, 
 you will swear to me by the memory of Madame 
 your mother?" 
 
 "My poor friend, I have no memory of my 
 mother." 
 
 Then, as Monsieur Pierre continued to stare at 
 him, he added, with a return of gentleness: 
 
 "Rest assured, I shall go straight home." 
 
 He no longer waited in a near-by doorway, so con- 
 fident was he that, when his back was turned, the 
 Parisian would scramble down the steps and make 
 for the Cafe de la Patrie. 
 
 "He means well enough: it is, of course, a proof 
 that he is fond of me. But as if such f hocus pocus 
 could effect what I have tried so desperately to 
 accomplish!" 
 
 One night, after such a departure, having got 
 himself thoroughly intoxicated elsewhere, he wan- 
 dered back to West Twenty-seventh Street. In the 
 alcove of the cafe, he found Monsieur Pierre enjoy- 
 ing a condition at least no less elevated than his own. 
 
 When the Frenchman had succeeded in focusing 
 his gaze upon the new arrival, he gave vent to a 
 vacant laugh. 
 
 "You are late! Where have you been, all day? 
 Have you ever seen the treasure house of the Sas- 
 sanian kings, in the heart of an unknown jungle, 
 split open to the moon? There rubies and em- 
 eralds speak to one another of the secret sins of
 
 422 PREDESTINED 
 
 long-dead begums; square sapphires that have 
 mirrored the eyes of monarchs devour with their 
 scintillations, still thus infected, the white skins of 
 pearls that peris wore; the topaz and the chrys- 
 oprase, the diamond and the chalcedony, once 
 learned, through many centuries, in marble pavilions 
 inlaid with arabesques of pietra dura, a variant of 
 royal procreation: their spawn is a blended miracle 
 of light but, over all, there hovers to this day a 
 mist of blood." While speaking, he was looking 
 out through the window, to where moonshine, pass- 
 ing between the leaves of the ailantus tree, glinted 
 on the heaps of empty bottles. 
 
 From materials apparently as slight they could 
 construct, at such moments, the fabric of their most 
 entrancing dreams. A street, a building, a figure, a 
 chain of arc lamps, or a fall of shadows, suggested, 
 then, a picture wholly strange and, in suggesting it, 
 produced it. As each visionary, moreover, sure of 
 comprehension, immediately related his perceptions 
 to the other, in nearly every scene developed by the 
 overtaxed imagination of either they were able to 
 participate. 
 
 That night, under cover of an opalescent haze, 
 places familiar to them turned extraordinary; forms 
 took mysterious shapes about them; the air of other 
 worlds caressed their faces. The street lights 
 changed readily to flaming cressets; the windows 
 one and all unrolled long draperies of cloth of gold; 
 and over pavements deep with flowers moved capar- 
 isoned chargers, heralds blowing fanfares, and, after
 
 NINA 423 
 
 them, pell-mell, a river of damask, steel, precious 
 stones, chiselled ivory, and velvet banners, amid 
 which, in a white hand heavy with ecclesiastical 
 finger rings, quivered the Golden Rose. The pair 
 doffed their hats, with mocking smiles, to a caval- 
 cade of work-horses, bound for sale, rope halters 
 round their jaws, and ragged stable boys astride 
 their backs. 
 
 So it was Rome: the Borgias' palace blazed with 
 light; robes rushed across bridges; blonde damsels 
 with jewelled foreheads leaned insidiously from case- 
 ments, and an odor of musk was stirred into the soft 
 air at the swift passage of cardinals tricked out, like 
 revellers, in violet-colored masks. The two, rais- 
 ing their voices, implored the casement dwellers: 
 "Maddalena! Angelica! Pomona! Drop down, if 
 not the key, at least a kiss!" They moved on, how- 
 ever, when threatened with an appeal to the police. 
 
 It was Corinth: the salt waves lapped the prows 
 of Punic galleys; a faint murmur issued from the 
 Temple of Venus Pandemos; and, on the windy 
 quay, one wept to see an old drunken woman turn 
 up a face which had belonged, when fair, to Lai's. 
 " Where was her statue, fashioned by Myron," they 
 asked her, grinning through their tears. "What 
 had become of Diogenes and Aristippus?" Nor 
 did they cease till flooded with scurrility in a dia- 
 lect at least not Corinthian. 
 
 It was Troy: and Helen was in yonder "topless 
 tower," gazing out, with who could tell what reveries, 
 toward the camp fires of the Greeks.
 
 424 PREDESTINED 
 
 But as Papal Rome shredded into the common- 
 place, and the salt breeze swept away the classic 
 glamour from warehouses and moored schooners, so 
 Helen's tower, when approached too closely, became 
 a "sky-scraper." Perhaps the night air somewhat 
 cleared, at last, the absinthe drinker's brain. He 
 muttered : 
 
 "Reality is hanging the very sky in mourning 
 weeds, against the burial of Romance. Let me, too, 
 be buried, as a figment no more substantial." And 
 presently, quoting from Empedocles: 
 
 "'Men, wrestling through a little space of life that 
 is no life, whirled off like a vapor by a quick fate, 
 flit away.' " 
 
 Then, turning up his eyes: 
 
 "Yet in my time, I have lived a hundred lives, to 
 discover the especial thrill of each. I have soared 
 ah, and I have fallen! But I was wrong to think 
 that I had sounded every depth." 
 
 At the Frenchman's door, Mme. Wargla, roused from 
 slumber, turned on Felix with the ferocity of a tigress. 
 
 "So, the cafe is not enough: when that is closed, 
 you must drag him through the streets! Look at 
 him, now, asleep against the jamb! Belle affaire! 
 His clothes: cristi, what a mess! And he who was 
 so spick and span no Bohemian, but a gentleman 
 of the grand world. There, poor old boy, come 
 in. Didst thou find out who cared most for thee, 
 in the end? Thou wilt be ill enough to-morrow. 
 As for you, Monsieur, cut your stick!" 
 
 Felix found his way home.
 
 NINA 425 
 
 It was not thought that Mrs. Snatt's boarding- 
 house could last much longer. Half the rooms were 
 empty, while most of the lodgers now preferred to 
 eat their meals elsewhere. But often, in the even- 
 ing, Mr. Snatt's snare-drum could be heard rattling 
 downstairs. He was remaining, this time, evi- 
 dently, to play the dirge. 
 
 One morning, Delia, the housemaid, appeared 
 before Felix with a frightened look. After rubbing 
 her broken shoes together in embarrassment, she 
 managed to get out the information that her mistress 
 had an opportunity, which she could not afford to 
 lose, to rent the room. As he owed, at that time, 
 for five weeks' board, the young man's consternation 
 was quickly followed by relief. 
 
 The Delaclaires insisted on giving him a "send- 
 off." A delicatessen shop furnished the collation, 
 which was composed of sardines, Italian sausage, 
 rye bread, pickled pigs' feet, Swiss cheese, and 
 beer. From this beverage, Mrs. Delaclaire obtained 
 a certain sentimentality: her bosom heaved above 
 her caved-in corsets; she spoke, in moving tones, of 
 "ties made but to be broken," and "auld lang syne." 
 The Thespian, not to be outdone, recollected a few 
 appropriate quotations; and, at the last, summon- 
 ing to his assistance a melancholy and decrepit look, 
 declaimed, with that intonation called a dying fall: 
 
 " Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come. 
 While I remain above the ground, you shall 
 Hear from me still; and never of me aught 
 But what is like me formerly."
 
 426 PREDESTINED 
 
 Miss Vinnie Vatelle was unable to be present at 
 that ceremony. The soubrette was confined to her 
 room by a "sick headache." 
 
 Next morning, Mrs. Snatt came out of the "ground 
 floor rear" to bid him good-by. Blushing, she 
 fixed him with appealing eyes. Apparently, in her 
 belief, not he, but she, had cause to plead excuses. 
 
 Felix declared that he would not forget her. 
 
 "At the earliest possible moment, you shall have 
 your thirty dollars." 
 
 "It's not that. But we can't always do as we 
 would like. I'm sorry. You sort o' gave the house 
 a tone." 
 
 Jennie even insisted on a kiss. The baby, a 
 marvel of intelligence for his age, achieved the 
 words "Da da!" and "Doggie!" Willie, his large 
 head cocked, stared at these demonstrations as if 
 some mysterious perfidy were going on. 
 
 From the end of the street, Felix, looking back, 
 saw Delia on the doorstep. Her hair was in wild 
 confusion; one hand shaded her eyes; an angular 
 elbow glinted in the sunlight. 
 
 He went to a hotel in Houston Street a nine- 
 story, white-brick structure with a projecting roof 
 which an altruist had built for the decent and cheap 
 accommodation of men. 
 
 Marble staircases and floors, walls of white tiling, 
 elevators, and an administration bureau fitted out in 
 oak, gave the young man, at his first glance, encour- 
 agement. But the bedchambers, each furnished 
 with a narrow cot, a chair, a locker, and a strip of
 
 NINA 427 
 
 rug, were small as cells; the dining-room had long 
 tables like those used in public institutions; and 
 the shower baths were all situated downstairs. A 
 night's lodging, however, could be obtained for 
 thirty cents; and a meal was elaborate which cost 
 more than a quarter of a dollar. On the other hand, 
 one was forbidden to occupy his room from nine 
 in the morning until five in the afternoon, dogs were 
 excluded, and no liquor was dispensed. 
 
 Felix, confiding Pat, every night, to an attendant 
 in the basement, remained there for some weeks: 
 it was a place to sleep. In courts, nine stories high, 
 white and glistening, roofed with glass, old men of 
 boundless leisure, seated at square tables, played 
 checkers interminably; in the library on the second 
 floor, others turned languidly the pages of "Ivan- 
 hoe" or "Lorna Doone"; and Felix, when entering 
 the lavatory for his morning bath, often saw honest- 
 looking fellows rinsing undershirts and handker- 
 chiefs at stationary washtubs provided for that 
 purpose. 
 
 In time, the restrictions which obtained in the 
 hotel, his loneliness, at night, for Pat, and the long 
 faces that greeted him when he came home intoxi- 
 cated, drove Felix to seek other quarters. He in- 
 habited hostelries over cafes, where the carpets 
 were covered with spots, the window-curtains torn, 
 and the beds dirty; he made the rounds of lodging- 
 houses "catering to a transient trade"; he dealt 
 with hotel proprietors and landladies who surrounded 
 their untidy persons with an atmosphere of mystery.
 
 428 PREDESTINED 
 
 Those were domiciles full of battered furniture, 
 broken washstands, door-knobs quick to turn in the 
 hands of strangers who had " mistaken the number." 
 His homeward road lay through streets by day alive 
 with Jewish clothing makers, fruit-laden push carts, 
 Italian brats, " kosher" restaurants at night de- 
 serted .save, perhaps, for some one lurking in the 
 shadow of an entry, a policeman on his beat, or a 
 drab skirt disappearing over puddles. He had 
 come into a place where factories squeezed between 
 their walls the ramshackle dwellings of an earlier 
 period, where street lamps seemed to burn less 
 brightly than elsewhere and the windows to give 
 forth a sheen more wan, where, high over excava- 
 tions, there remained large squares of wall-paper, 
 pallid in moonlight the blanched backgrounds of 
 forgotten scenes enacted in the rooms of houses 
 finally razed. 
 
 His address was known to Monsieur Pierre, who 
 sometimes, smoothing his beard in agitation, stam- 
 mered : 
 
 "I do not ask you to live in my house." 
 
 But he now insisted on loaning the other small 
 amounts of money. 
 
 Such transactions, at first made difficult by a 
 squeamishness which neither wanted to exhibit, soon 
 became easy. It was, in fact, the Parisian at 
 what cost to his self-indulgence Felix did not vent- 
 ure to surmise who kept the young man's head 
 above water. 
 
 To others whom he chanced to meet, Felix
 
 NINA 429 
 
 answered that he was "living with some friends 
 uptown." 
 
 On Fourteenth Street, one afternoon in October, 
 at a stentorious halloo he turned to see the Thespian, 
 posing beside a poster, of late overlooked by the bill- 
 stickers, that portrayed him. They shook hands. 
 Mr. Delaclaire remarked that Felix looked very bad. 
 
 Mrs. Snatt, it seemed, was now "on her last legs." 
 But there was no chance of the ex-drummer dying: 
 "he was too thoroughly pickled." "Such fortunate 
 situations, my dear boy, only happen on the stage." 
 
 As for the Delaclaires, they were, just for the 
 moment, "at liberty." And lowering his jowls in a 
 regretful manner upon a frayed cravat, the actor 
 said: 
 
 "By the way, we never done that sketch!" 
 
 "That's true." 
 
 Felix changed the subject. 
 
 "What of Vinnie?" 
 
 "On the road again. Always working! A nice 
 little thing, don't you think ? She used to talk a lot 
 about you, after you left." 
 
 "And Edwin Booth Delaclaire?" 
 
 Gloom pervaded the Thespian's Neronic counte- 
 nance. 
 
 "That boy will be the death of me!" 
 
 He had even been arrested, on the charge of 
 throwing a brick through a jeweller's window as a 
 preliminary to stealing some gold-plated watches. 
 Though the blame had been fastened on his com- 
 panions, the youth had not escaped without leaving
 
 430 PREDESTINED 
 
 his picture in the "Rogues' Gallery" at Police Head- 
 quarters. 
 
 "You understand? It makes him a marked man 
 for life. If only there was a way to get it out!" 
 
 Felix promised to petition "a friend of his on the 
 force." 
 
 With this in mind, he took the trouble to wait in 
 Quilty's saloon for the detective. The saloon keeper 
 had become the father of a son. He asked Felix 
 what college was the best. 
 
 Connla came in. Pat's condition put him, at 
 once, in a bad humor: "He had never seen a good 
 bull-terrier so run down!" When Felix broached 
 the object of his visit, the detective answered: 
 
 "Better leave that boy alone: you'll only dirty 
 your fingers. One of these days, he'll be wheeling 
 a barrow full of rocks, like Pandle." 
 
 Then, sucking his teeth reflectively, he added: 
 
 "Yestiday, I seen your friend the dope fiend go- 
 ing into Chinatown. Faith, I could read fine print 
 through him! He'll not see the winter out, and 
 that's the truth." 
 
 "So near the end of his rope," thought Felix. 
 "And what of me?" 
 
 Every day, he advanced farther into an opacity 
 which hid, as it were, the simultaneous approach 
 of something terrible. A feeling of material un- 
 reality had so increased in him that he gazed some- 
 times at his hands to find them strange, while his 
 voice often sounded in his ears as if issuing from 
 another's lips. The city had become a place of half
 
 NINA 431 
 
 a dozen familiar points: these, shrouded. continually 
 in a sort of mist, no longer represented anything 
 important. His capacity for feeling, when in his 
 sober senses, delicate or deep emotions, seemed 
 dead; he could no longer call forth either violent or 
 gentle impulses; his thoughts of Nina were dis- 
 tinguished only by sadness, as fleeting as the 
 shadow of great wings, because he had lost, in that 
 respect, the power to evoke a sweet regret. It was 
 as if an inner intelligence had crumbled there, leav- 
 ing no more than a fragile shell. This, scarcely able 
 to bear the most trivial frictions, was liable, at any 
 hour, to disintegrate. 
 
 One afternoon, early in November, he set out, by 
 way of Sixth Avenue, for the Cafe de la Patrie. 
 
 It was a day of lowering clouds, of cold winds, of 
 livid window-panes and dejected faces. The en- 
 compassing depression of nature penetrated his 
 heart: how desolate the world, for all the footfalls 
 round him! 
 
 Those footfalls accompanied his own; they in- 
 truded on his dejection; when he listened to them, 
 they became the tread of a multitude, amid which 
 he was lost, and by which he was being borne along 
 to an unknown destination. 
 
 He raised his eyes to the housetops. 
 
 Tall, dull against the gloomy sky, slowly they 
 changed their altitudes before his gaze: those in 
 front were seen to rise, and those behind to sink 
 gradually from view. It was a descent. The mul- 
 titude was flowing, like a stream, down hill.
 
 432 PREDESTINED 
 
 It flowed past columns black and straight, all 
 alike, interminably reiterated. From time to time, 
 a sound as of thunder burst forth overhead, at which 
 the columns seemed to shake, as do tree trunks at 
 the breaking of a storm. Were they not, indeed, 
 tree trunks? They had that aspect. They were 
 innumerable tree trunks gathering on the outskirts 
 of a forest as tenebrous as oblivion. 
 
 Between them the human stream continued to 
 flow downward. 
 
 He examined his company. 
 
 There pressed round him countless wayfarers with 
 eyes fixed straight ahead. Save for their rapt ex- 
 pressions, they displayed a bewildering dissimi- 
 larity. 
 
 Some showed through tatters their emaciated 
 flanks; to the shoulders of others hung strips of 
 rotten mail; the rags of sacerdotal fillets dangled 
 over the transparent temples of a few; and amid 
 naked bodies, both tender and withered, all frail 
 and covered with old scars, appeared, here and 
 there, the muddy remnant of a purple robe. Senile 
 old men in grave clothes, wearing a wreck of laurel 
 leaves, rested their weight on youths whose lips were 
 covered with a green froth of poison. Blind women, 
 from whose necks were slipping sacred amulets, sup- 
 ported girls with bleeding breasts, their cheeks well 
 nigh washed clear of paint by tears. Fathers, trans- 
 fixed by rusty swords, still dragged along their life- 
 less children; and one who had been, perhaps, a 
 king stumbled onward, though decapitated, hugging
 
 NINA 433 
 
 against his breast a head that wore a crown bereft 
 of all its jewels. 
 
 Melancholy murmurs, sobs, moans, and snuffling 
 rose from this host, to blend in a diapason like the 
 sea's. He knew, at last, the source of those super- 
 natural voices which had long haunted him. 
 
 But the shadows deepened; the tree trunks were 
 multiplied; the stream had penetrated the forest. 
 And, forthwith, all that company, with brandished 
 arms and heads thrown back, melted, by a hundred 
 paths, into the darkness. 
 
 Running forward, he cried: 
 
 "Must I stay here?" 
 
 A hand dragged him back. He was in the grasp 
 of a tall spectre, decked with plates of silver, but 
 beneath the visor of whose helmet no face appeared. 
 
 "They have all left me here alone!" 
 
 "I'll take you to where there's lots of them," 
 was the reply. 
 
 He fell upon this guardian's neck with tears of 
 gratitude. 
 
 His trust was not ill bestowed: for presently the 
 threnody of mournful voices fell again upon his ears. 
 
 He listened to tales related by invisible mourners 
 of marriage beds covered with a pall, of treasure 
 trove grasped finally by the dying, of love that 
 stood smiling beyond an abyss perceived too late, 
 of diadems from which the fangs of snakes whipped 
 forth. As he heard these various accounts of baffled 
 lives, he set them all down, word by word, upon 
 an endless scroll.
 
 434 PREDESTINED 
 
 Once, a voice reached him: 
 
 "This is an interesting case." 
 
 And, when he paused in his labor, he was asked: 
 
 "Why do you move your forefinger, day and 
 night, as if you were writing?" 
 
 He replied: 
 
 "I am copying everything I hear: all the grief 
 of the world shall be in my pages. Then I shall burn 
 the book at the foot of a great altar; and the words 
 shall fly up like little flames, to warm the heart of an 
 angelic figure that sits overhead. But if I am sly 
 enough to slip my own grief in among the others, it 
 shall fly aloft like the rest, mingled with them; and 
 the angelic presence, confused by so many flames, 
 may feel for me also." 
 
 His questioner laughed gently. 
 
 "An educated man is sometimes able to get up a 
 very picturesque D. T." 
 
 One morning, when he had been at his task "for 
 centuries," he saw above him a ceiling of stamped 
 metal that recalled the Cafe de la Patrie. He 
 turned his head on a pillow. He was in a hospital. 
 
 In a long room were aligned against white walls 
 a score of iron beds, all occupied by men. The 
 rough chins of these invalids were upturned; their 
 ignoble faces were flooded by the sunshine, and 
 the same stupor seemed to dull every pair of eyes. 
 Here and there moved orderlies, in white jackets 
 and black trousers. By the door, a physician a 
 bland youth, clad in a suit of duck, with yellow 
 hair and spectacles was pressing the point of a
 
 NINA 435 
 
 hypodermic syringe into the shoulder of an old, 
 idiotic-looking waif who leaned forward, on his 
 mattress, in a sitting posture. 
 
 The physician, when he had finished the opera- 
 tion, came over to Felix. Seating himself on the 
 bed, he inquired, with an amiable grin: 
 
 "How do you find yourself?" 
 
 "Where am I?" 
 
 "Well, if you must know, in the alcoholic ward." 
 
 Felix lowered his eyelids, to escape the other's smile. 
 
 "How long have I been here?" 
 
 "Three days. My dear fellow, I have to tell you 
 that you've had a serious time. You are full to the 
 neck with bromides and ergot so, of course, you 
 feel depressed. All the same, I take this opportu- 
 nity to read you a lecture. One man has died in 
 this room since you came into it. Perhaps you 
 would not have got off so easily without special care. 
 We did our best for you. To be frank, patients of 
 your class don't come in here often." 
 
 "Many thanks," said Felix, with an effort. "But 
 when shall I get out?" 
 
 1 ' To-morrow , probably. ? ' 
 
 All day, he lay abed, watching his neighbors. 
 
 Their large, rough hands, spread out on the 
 coverlets, twitched from time to time; their heavy 
 eyes rolled slowly in discolored sockets; some dis- 
 played on their foreheads the violet-colored marks 
 of blows, and a negro had his face so thoroughly 
 bandaged that only his nose and mouth appeared. 
 From between their restless lips, they puffed out,
 
 436 PREDESTINED 
 
 occasionally, low exclamations, incomprehensible 
 phrases, fragments of querulous complaints. Or 
 else, peering intently at the ceiling, those most re- 
 cently arrived cried out in fear; and one, whose 
 arms and legs were bound to his bedstead, expressed 
 continually a belief that he was going to have his 
 throat cut. He shrank back, with the look of an 
 animal at bay, whenever an orderly approached 
 him carrying a hypodermic syringe. 
 
 At nightfall, their condition grew worse. 
 
 From one corner rose a sound of weeping; else- 
 where an unnatural chuckle was repeated at inter- 
 vals; sharp ejaculations resounded: "Officer, stop 
 that man ! ' ' "That's how they killed him ! " "Your 
 honor, it wasn't me!" "When it sticks its head 
 out, shoot quick!" "I am in hell," thought Felix, 
 and himself began to sob. The young physician 
 injected morphine into his arm. He fell asleep. 
 
 Next afternoon, he was "discharged as cured." 
 
 On legs that bent under him at every step, he 
 issued into the sunlight. A large rectangle of gray 
 buildings surrounded him: in this enclosure stood 
 some leafless trees; and, beyond these, on iron 
 galleries rising in tiers against stone walls, one saw 
 convalescents sitting in bed gowns of faded blue. 
 To the right, a gate appeared. He was let out, by 
 a watchman, into the street. 
 
 A white bull-terrier sprang at him with a whine, 
 and Monsieur Pierre came hurrying forward. 
 
 The Parisian did nothing save wipe his eyes and 
 press the young man's arm.
 
 NINA 437 
 
 "But," faltered Felix, trying to collect his senses, 
 "how did you find me?" 
 
 That had been due to Pat. Monsieur Pierre, 
 searching everywhere for Felix, making, finally, the 
 rounds of all the hospitals, had found the dog at 
 this gate. Grimy, half starved, and fierce, Pat had 
 attempted, whenever any one passed in or out, to 
 penetrate the enclosure. He had been pelted with 
 stones; and when the Frenchman arrived, the gate- 
 keeper was consulting with a policeman as to the 
 advisability of putting a bullet into the brute's head. 
 
 "I took him home. It was not easy: I got a bite 
 or two. But he was fed yes, indeed, on the best. 
 And ever since, we have come here, twice a day, to 
 wait." 
 
 He added, in beseeching tones, 
 
 "It is all over now, is it not? It is the end of 
 all that?" 
 
 "Yes; I have learned my lesson." 
 
 "Let us pray to that effect." 
 
 The hospital was situated near the East River. 
 They turned westward, and, at a slow pace, passed 
 between tenements. But where were they going? 
 
 Not to the cafe, or to Mme. Wargla's house; not 
 to Quilty's saloon, or to Felix's mean room! 
 
 "Monsieur Pierre, I am grateful for your solici- 
 tude and your kindness to the dog. But there are 
 times when one should be alone. Maybe I shall 
 feel better in Central Park." 
 
 The other, looking down, at last nodded. 
 
 "You are right, no doubt."
 
 438 PREDESTINED 
 
 Before departing, he slipped ten dollars into the 
 young man's hand. 
 
 "Let us say that this money shall now come to 
 good uses." 
 
 And he shuffled away, with his hands clasped 
 behind him, and his black felt hat tipped forward. 
 
 Felix found himself too weak to walk uptown. 
 His dog, however, would not be permitted in a 
 trolley-car. He hailed a hansom cab. 
 
 The cab driver, leaning down from his perch, 
 inquired : 
 
 "And who's to pay for the trip?" 
 
 Without animosity, Felix displayed the banknotes. 
 
 At Central Park West and Seventy-ninth Street 
 he left the cab. An entrance to the park was there. 
 He went in. 
 
 The day was clear and cold. The sunshine had 
 never been more brilliant.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 AT this entrance to the park, a path, taking up 
 its eastward course, crossed a bridge with granite 
 parapets. Beneath the arch thus formed, some 
 thirty feet below, meandered north and south a 
 bridle path. Felix paused by the northern parapet 
 to look down at the equestrians. 
 
 Now and then, they appeared unexpectedly below, 
 on bay horses: rising clear of their saddles, they 
 departed rapidly up the incline of the perspective. 
 
 A hundred yards ahead, the gray flow of the 
 bridle path was cut in twain by an islet, so to speak, 
 of twiggy trees. Behind, extended a skyline, pur- 
 plish and undulating, of commingled branches. 
 
 The riders, turning to the right, skirted the islet, 
 to vanish amid bare thickets. But, on the left, 
 others came swiftly into sight, approached at a trot, 
 grew larger. Their white stocks, and the bits of 
 their steeds, became discernible; their faces were 
 soon hidden by their hats; the horses' backs were 
 elongated; the cropped tails disappeared beneath 
 the bridge. 
 
 He recalled the period when he had ridden so 
 with Nina. 
 
 For the first time in many months the tremor of 
 his nerves and the confusion of his mind had ceased: 
 as he gazed through air that seemed more limpid 
 
 439
 
 440 PREDESTINED 
 
 than a celestial ether, he seemed to be sinking into 
 absolute serenity. Round him a horizon of soft 
 tree tops supported the edges of a flawless sky: the 
 earth commingled with the heavens, and part of the 
 golden brilliancy shed upon the ground floated 
 upward immediately to its source. How beautiful 
 this world, of which he was a part! Languidly he 
 closed his eyes, the better to appreciate the purity 
 of nature's exhalation. He was a boy again the 
 memory of past transgressions blurred, so that there 
 remained to him only a vague wonder at the mystery 
 of the sun, of the whispering grasses, and of the 
 answering heart. 
 
 Ah, to have such feelings always, always to have 
 had them! He remembered well the spot where he 
 had parted from them. 
 
 It was not hard, perhaps, to keep the heart bright 
 on hilltops where sweet breezes blew, and flowers 
 blossomed, and sunlit vistas stretched far away to 
 meet the sea? 
 
 But for youth, alas, the immaculateness of hill- 
 tops did not suffice. From such eminences did one 
 not glimpse, at a twilight that was like all other 
 twilights thereabouts, a distant flash, a beacon 
 burning who knew where, a flame "that might sur- 
 mount for one the Pharos?" So down from the 
 summit, in the gathering darkness, to adventure far, 
 with beating heart through fields and cities, past 
 palaces and hovels, till, at last, lost and fainting in 
 black alley-ways, one said: "What I sought was 
 never here; but it was always there."
 
 NINA 441 
 
 He felt, however, no acute regret. His melan- 
 choly was so calm as to seem to him, after his long 
 turbulence, pleasant. It was enough for him that 
 he had regained, from abstinence without desire, 
 from sedative medicines, or otherwise, the power of 
 extracting enjoyment from the slightest materials. 
 He could have shed tears, in weak happiness, at the 
 aspect of the distant skyline. As he turned from 
 the parapet, he paused to gaze tenderly at the 
 withered petals of a bush. 
 
 He descended the path which led into the park. 
 
 A broad driveway appeared before him; beyond, 
 was spread out a lake. The water, of a leaden hue 
 close by, soon changed to a steel blue that joined, 
 at length, in soft encroachments overlaid with scin- 
 tillations, the olive-green reflection of a distant shore. 
 There saplings, which began to rise directly from 
 the water's edge, were gilded by the declining sun: 
 in their upper branches was caught a fulvous haze; 
 and between them one could see bare earth in 
 color a rich and luminous brown where not transected 
 by long shadows sloping upward till it vanished 
 reluctantly behind the lowest horizontal limbs. 
 Overhead, the eastern sky, too mellow to be blue, 
 too azure to be yellow, trembled as if at contempla- 
 tion of the radiant west. 
 
 Crossing the driveway, he walked north until he 
 saw, on the right, a wooden bridge that spanned a 
 little inlet from the lake. 
 
 The banks descended abruptly ; smooth bowlders, 
 half immersed, were each bound round, where they
 
 442 PREDESTINED 
 
 entered the water, with a ribbon of moisture; amid 
 ripples, some swans continued to turn phlegmatically 
 in circles, and to plunge their bills toward the bot- 
 tom. Two or three men, leaning over the rail, were 
 watching these manoeuvres. A large, dark blue auto- 
 mobile, furnished with a "limousine," stopped 
 abruptly in the driveway. 
 
 But the bull-terrier, at sight of so many large and 
 obviously succulent fowls, became excited. Felix 
 called him on, to a path beyond the bridge. It 
 wound up a hillside, past steep rocks, and toward a 
 thickly wooded region. 
 
 To the right, overhead, roots projected from the 
 summits of crags; to the left, the tops of trees were 
 thrust up from a diminutive valley. Across the 
 path, Australian firs let down their clumps of russet 
 needles; a birch, perhaps, sent up a waving white 
 column, and the way was lined with rhododendron 
 bushes, all their long leaves adroop. These, in fact, 
 continuing ahead, at every withdrawal of the cliff 
 spread out in masses, then reappeared above, and, 
 at a turn of the path, filled the middle distance with 
 sun-drenched undulations. Farther on, where many 
 trees swam together into a background at once con- 
 fused and bright, here and there an oak or a beech 
 had retained some remnant of its leafage, to disturb, 
 with flecks of ochre and burnt umber, a fuscous 
 monotone. 
 
 Felix, however, discovered, to the left, a sloping 
 lawn on which a few magnolias showed their pale 
 trunks in incipient convolutions. He turned aside;
 
 NINA 443 
 
 though nearly exhausted, he began to climb among 
 the rocks, by a path which at least should lead to 
 solitude. Through a screen of rhododendron leaves, 
 he saw a blue dress also moving upward, though by 
 another way. The bowlders rose on either side of 
 him, to form a rugged pass. 
 
 They were seal-colored and glossy, but overlaid 
 with patches in the most evasive shades of green and 
 mauve; they were dull as iron, and full of infinitesi- 
 mal corrugations, like old lava; or, all at once, 
 becoming rough, they were covered with a sheen of 
 mica. They composed not only the walls of this 
 ascent, but the footpath also: the irregular steps 
 resembled the worn bed of an old torrent. And it 
 was steep, this acclivity between rocks so high that 
 sunlight no more than touched their tops. But 
 above the shadows, straight ahead, trees, towering 
 in an amber mist, marked a splendid summit. 
 
 Felix, gasping for breath, with failing limbs, was 
 actuated by an irrational determination to win that 
 goal. The crags fell away on either hand; a tim- 
 bered landscape spread out below; directly before 
 him, a woman clad in blue cloth and gray fur awaited 
 his approach. 
 
 His heart leaped into his throat. 
 
 Inarticulate, he sank down upon a wooden bench 
 half hidden by some laurel shrubs. Nina, advancing 
 slowly, seated herself likewise. With gloved hands 
 clasped in her lap, she regarded him. 
 
 She said: 
 
 "How you have changed!"
 
 444 PREDESTINED 
 
 He succeeded in replying: 
 
 "And you, too." 
 
 She seemed to him an elder, fairer, consummate 
 sister of her former self. The virginal charms which 
 formerly had bestowed on her a somewhat tenuous 
 allure, in this wife and mother had attained luxuriant 
 development. Her beauty, indeed, appeared to him 
 more complex and superb than that of a marble 
 image clothed in gems: a thousand solved mysteries 
 trembled in her gaze; and the familiar perfume 
 which she still wore was more moving than a curtain 
 of frankincense rising before a sanctuary. 
 
 But he saw her again; she had approached him 
 of her free will; he heard her voice! What fate 
 was to be thanked for this encounter ? 
 
 Passing in her automobile, she had glimpsed him 
 watching the swans. She had got out at once, had 
 sent the automobile home, and, following him up 
 the hillside, had deliberately contrived their meeting. 
 "So much time had passed; one should not hold 
 animosity forever; besides, even from a distance she 
 had noted an unhappy alteration in him." 
 
 He thought it would do no harm to say: 
 
 "As for that, I have just left the hospital." 
 
 He was rewarded by a look of pity. 
 
 "Tell me about it." 
 
 "It is not worth relating. But do you tell me 
 about yourself, if you are willing." He was aware, 
 he added, of her marriage, and that she had a child; 
 he had even seen her portrait by Pavin, whom he knew 
 well. She showed no surprise at this announcement.
 
 NINA 445 
 
 They still kept the farm in Westchester County. 
 Denis Droyt's town house lay just east of Central 
 Park. They had often travelled, until the birth of 
 the baby. It was a boy, who resembled his father. 
 When he was older, no doubt they would start off 
 again, returning to New York for part of every 
 winter season. 
 
 "In short," Felix ventured, frightened at his 
 audacity, "much the sort of life that you and I 
 once planned." 
 
 She looked down at her clasped hands. A pause 
 ensued. 
 
 "Tell me," he asked, finally, "who was it that 
 brought you word of me, that time ? A man named 
 Fray?" 
 
 "Mr. Tamborlayne wrote a letter to my mother." 
 
 He felt dizzy, at this sudden upheaval of an old 
 conviction. 
 
 "How little we know, of the past and of the 
 future!" 
 
 "That's true," she assented in a low voice, her 
 glance flashing over him from head to foot. Then 
 the dog attracted her attention. 
 
 He came to her readily. His jaws wide open, his 
 small, triangular eyes beaming with good-nature, he 
 wagged his tail, made a wriggling motion, and sud- 
 denly put his forepaws on her lap. She did not 
 repulse him. 
 
 "It is Pat; do you remember? You gave him, 
 to me." 
 
 "Is it he? I should not have known him."
 
 446 PREDESTINED 
 
 And leaning forward, passing her hands over the 
 bull-terrier's ragged ears, she murmured, with a 
 tremulous smile: 
 
 "So many scars!" 
 
 Felix watched her while she continued those 
 caresses, with fingers deft, as he remembered well, 
 to soothe and pet dumb brutes. 
 
 Her blue cloth dress was plainly made; a simple 
 toque of blue velvet did not conceal her thick brown 
 hair; round her neck, and brushing her ear lobes, 
 was a gray fur scarf. But each part of her attire 
 was informed with an ineffable importance; a holy 
 mantle could not have been more significant than 
 the fabrics clothing her: her slightest movement 
 swelled, as it were, the costume of a divinity. 
 
 Looking up, she surprised an expression of won- 
 der on his face. 
 
 "What are your thoughts?" she inquired. 
 
 "I am trying to convince myself that it is you. 
 This is the sort of meeting that one experiences in 
 dreams a scene in which the impossible becomes 
 natural, a situation never to be expected in reality. 
 Then, too, I find in you a marvellous change. Or 
 perhaps an accumulation of past thoughts of mine 
 has given you a different aspect?" 
 
 Once more it was the inevitable duo but this 
 time in a form how rare, how plaintive, how well 
 attuned to variations in a minor key! 
 
 "When we had our falling out, you thought, I 
 suppose, that we could never be farther removed 
 from each other? But ever since, I have been
 
 NINA 447 
 
 widening the gulf between us. You stayed on the 
 heights, and I descended, step by step, into the 
 depths. Your world remained the same, but mine, 
 always changing for the worse, became, at last, a 
 place such as you could not imagine. So, when 
 you meet me here, of your own accord, I recall the 
 angel that visited the pool." 
 
 Perceiving moisture in her eyes, he was filled 
 with a profound satisfaction. He felt acutely the 
 dramatic difference between them; he appreciated 
 the ideal quality of their surroundings; he saw 
 in himself the classic prodigal laying bare his soul 
 before some exquisite personification of compassion. 
 However, the poignant touch that should complete 
 the episode was lacking. He furnished it. 
 
 "Yet I have always struggled! An intuition, per- 
 haps of moral origin, warned me of every pitfall: 
 I hung back; but an irresistible force invariably 
 drove me forward. And if that first transgression 
 brought me, from the beginning, only misery, so it 
 has been with all the rest. Still, I could gain nothing 
 from experience. While yearning for the best, I 
 had to choose the worst. I was like a man who 
 staggers out of a fire only to be thrust back into 
 the flames by an invisible hand. It was fate, that 
 predestined for me a life of failure." 
 
 She replied, softly: 
 
 "Some time ago I ceased to blame you." 
 
 Presently, she went on: 
 
 " Do you remember old Joseph ? He is still with 
 me, very feeble, and sometimes childish. But he
 
 448 PREDESTINED 
 
 talks of you; and, when he grows garrulous, he 
 relates tales that he would keep to himself, if his 
 mind were stronger. Then, too, it was Paul Pavin 
 who painted my portrait." 
 
 "I suppose you mean that Joseph told you of my 
 loss of patrimony, and that Pavin had something to 
 say about my subsequent life?" 
 
 For a moment she looked at him searchingly. 
 Then a flush covered her face, as she replied : 
 
 "That's it." 
 
 All the same, he found it difficult to understand 
 how such information constituted an excuse for his 
 career. 
 
 They remained silent, gazing over the laurel 
 shrubs. 
 
 The sunshine had nearly left the tree trunks; but 
 it lingered, in an accentuated effulgence, amid the 
 branches. The firs spread out their countless soft 
 tufts of needles as if for a final and more thorough 
 blazoning, the oaks showed a few leaves like scraps 
 of beaten gold, while the whole wide-spread mesh of 
 limbs and twigs seemed ready to dissolve its myriad 
 intricacies and pervade the still air, in a shimmering 
 vapor. 
 
 "What time is it, Felix?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 She cast round her an uneasy glance which 
 reached the farthest haze of tree tops. There, to 
 the east and to the south, towered the "sky-scrap- 
 ers" of the city. So their solitude had limits! She 
 exclaimed:
 
 NINA 
 
 449 
 
 "It will be twilight soon. It is growing colder. 
 And you have no overcoat!" 
 
 Reaching forward, she felt the thickness of his 
 clothing. Tears brimmed her eyes. He caught her 
 retiring hand in his. 
 
 "Don't take your hand away. Something passes 
 through your glove straight to my heart. All sorts 
 of forgotten images reappear before me. The blind 
 who were made to see must have had such sensations." 
 
 When he had bent down to kiss her fingers, he 
 continued : 
 
 "I went on and on; I believed I had lost myself 
 in the shadows: but no you were always there, far 
 overhead. When spring came, I remembered the 
 lilac bushes through the woods. When it was winter, 
 I saw your face across a glow of candles. Or else I 
 heard leaves rustling in the summer breeze, at night, 
 and dreamed of the garden." 
 
 She closed her eyes. 
 
 "Maybe you were not alone in such thoughts." 
 
 "All my aspirations were, in the end, attempts to 
 win your secret praise; and your mute reproach 
 seemed to intensify all my remorses. There were 
 even moments when it seemed to me that you were 
 present, if not in person, at least in spirit." 
 
 "Perhaps there was cause for that belief." 
 
 She turned away her head; but he could see, 
 above the gray fur scarf, her trembling chin. Then, 
 facing him, she let her eyes rain tears. 
 
 "We have been very unhappy!" 
 
 He had never been happier than then.
 
 450 PREDESTINED 
 
 "No, this repays me for everything! What does 
 the rest matter, now?" 
 
 And he added, with the thrill which comes to one 
 who unexpectedly interprets, in a phrase, a prin- 
 ciple of his life : 
 
 "If it had turned out as we anticipated, the joy of 
 our happiness might not have equalled the joy of our 
 distress." 
 
 While she understood this speech, she did not 
 assent to it. 
 
 "On the contrary," she protested, "to have been 
 promised so much, and to have lost it all! To have 
 had this meeting, and to part!" 
 
 "Yes," he agreed, gloomily, "I suppose that is 
 what we must do." 
 
 In fact, she was already looking eastward appre- 
 hensively. 
 
 "And what about you?" she asked, while pressing 
 a handkerchief against her cheeks. 
 
 "It will be different with me, henceforth." 
 
 "Ah, Felix, if you will make that promise good! 
 Perhaps it was not for nothing that I used to think 
 of you as standing on a wonderful threshold. I have 
 read somewhere, 'To become a saint, one must have 
 been a sinner.' It is true, no doubt at least, I 
 know that I could find in a man who had fought his 
 infirmities and conquered them a hundred times the 
 worth of another, born to security." 
 
 Did she not have in mind her husband? A 
 keener thrill pervaded him. 
 
 ' ' You shall see ! " he cried. ' ' And afterward ? ' '
 
 NINA 451 
 
 She hesitated. But finally, with the look of a 
 woman brought, despite herself, for the first time 
 in her life to the commission of a subtle treason, she 
 whispered, with averted eyes: 
 
 "Who knows?" 
 
 Then she rose quickly. He was shocked to find 
 their parting imminent. 
 
 "But the sun has not set!" 
 
 "And yet we've said too much!" 
 
 She put out her hand. 
 
 "I have your promise, Felix." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 F6* a while they looked at each other through a 
 mist. 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 She departed. 
 
 He watched her descend the hillside by a narrow 
 path that wound eastward between rhododendron 
 bushes. Her blue dress vanished behind tree trunks; 
 it reappeared farther on, diminished. A shaft of 
 sunlight illumined her for an instant. She flitted 
 through deep shadows. He could see her no longer. 
 She had not looked back. 
 
 The white bull-terrier peered up at Felix in- 
 quiringly. 
 
 The latter cast his eyes toward the confines of the 
 park. 
 
 And he felt that the horizontal sunbeams were 
 bathing him in a sublime lustre. The earth was 
 merged into the sky; the light, like an unalterable
 
 452 PREDESTINED 
 
 assurance smiling from afar, impartially benefited 
 all it touched; and every substance in the universe, 
 whether volatile or solid, growing or inert, revealed 
 to him its meaning, its destiny, its harmony with all 
 other substances and with the eternal. Was not he 
 himself included in this synthesis? He seemed to 
 share the will for evolution that pervaded everything 
 existent; and he thought to recognize, deep in his 
 nature, something of the inflexible determination 
 which holds in place the firmament. 
 
 He faced the west. The sunset seemed to be 
 consuming all the cornices: the city that had been 
 his prison was in process of dissolution. He gazed 
 to the south-east. The windows of tall buildings, 
 flashing forth great rays, were like the trophies of a 
 conquered host suspended on the walls of temples. 
 
 Finally, he went down the path by which he had 
 ascended between the rocks, past the rhododen- 
 drons, beneath the firs, across the wooden bridge, 
 the driveway, and the arch above the bridle path. 
 He was no longer exhausted. As if in a trance, he 
 set out, walking southward. 
 
 On his right, roofs turned red: on his left, beyond 
 a boundary wall, lamps showed among the branches 
 points of clear yellow. Gradually, a whiteness filled 
 the eastern sky, invaded the zenith, and descended 
 toward the west. There, far beyond every cross 
 street, was to be seen for a while, low lying, a thin 
 strip of evanescent rose. 
 
 Twilight gathered in the busy thoroughfares. He 
 reached Union Square.
 
 NINA 453 
 
 The traffic threaded its way through a dusk 
 studded with a confusion of lights. Close at hand, 
 acetylene lamps blazed forth abruptly; trolley-cars 
 rumbled past; horns and gongs sounded on all 
 sides; and those afoot rushed forward, at intervals, 
 between motormen straining at their brakes and 
 automobiles halted with a wrench. Felix woke, so 
 to speak, to find himself hemmed in by swiftly 
 moving vehicles. 
 
 A shout reached his ears. He turned to look 
 for Pat. The dog, scampering toward him, disap- 
 peared beneath an automobile. 
 
 Felix jumped forward with a cry. The auto- 
 mobile struck him, knocked him down, and, gather- 
 ing speed, made off. 
 
 But immediately he was on his feet. 
 
 A crowd had already assembled in a ring, through 
 which Felix pushed his way. In the midst, the 
 white bull-terrier lay on his side, covered with dirt, 
 his legs stretched out, his mouth closed. He did 
 not move. 
 
 Felix lifted the body, and held it to his breast. 
 He stared round him blankly. Each face expressed 
 commiseration. A man in a battered hat began to 
 curse the rich. Another, his cheeks swelling with K 
 fury, demanded "a law for the regulation of speed 
 maniacs." One asked the rest if the automobile 
 number had been taken. All turned to cast impo- 
 tent glances into the dusk. Three policemen ap- 
 peared simultaneously. Their spokesman, wearing 
 a belted overcoat and a flat cap of blue cloth with
 
 454 PREDESTINED 
 
 an enamelled visor, lifted the dog's chin. After 
 scrutinizing the small, three-cornered eyes already 
 glazed, he pronounced: 
 
 "He's kilt, all right." 
 
 Then, laying his palm on Felix's shoulder, 
 
 "Will you be wanting to dispose of him yourself?" 
 
 Felix nodded. 
 
 "All right, then. I'm sorry. I've got a dog of 
 me own." 
 
 And, turning on the crowd, the policeman shouted, 
 violently : 
 
 "Now then, get out of here, the whole of yez! 
 What do yez think this is a show?" 
 
 The spectators, however, reassembling on the 
 pavement, were not to be denied the excitement of 
 following Felix eastward along Fourteenth Street. 
 The van of this procession with difficulty escaped 
 treading on his heels; the line was continually 
 re-enforced, and ragged youngsters ran ahead to 
 look back at the body slipping from his arms. 
 Dizzy and faint, Felix no longer knew where he 
 was going. Debility seized on him again; his 
 limbs seemed ready to resign their offices; he ex- 
 pected every moment to plunge forward on his face. 
 
 But there rose before him a round, familiar visage, 
 like the countenance of a dumfounded Vitellius. 
 It was Delaclaire sent, by chance, to the rescue. 
 
 "Your dog! But not hurt?" 
 
 "Run over. Dead." 
 
 "Great heavens, what news to take home! I feel 
 that I'm going to be a touching messenger to-night!"
 
 NINA 455 
 
 Felix, once having come to a stop, was on the 
 point of sinking with his burden to the ground. 
 
 "I am just out of a hospital. This has nearly 
 finished me. I must get somewhere at once." 
 
 "My dear boy! Forgive me. I know what you 
 need." 
 
 And the Thespian drew Felix to the door of 
 Quilty's saloon. 
 
 The younger man shrank back. 
 
 "No, no!" 
 
 Delaclaire wore the look of a benevolent old phy- 
 sician whose patient exhibits a deplorable ignorance 
 of his requirements. 
 
 "Nonsense! You are in my hands." 
 
 He saw the foil-wrapped chandeliers, the mirrors, 
 the pyramids of glasses. Quilty's scar attracted his 
 attention. The Thespian, while supporting Felix with 
 one arm, was pouring out to the saloon keeper, with 
 a wealth of florid gesticulations, "the tragic story." 
 Moreover, Connla was taking the dog's body from him. 
 
 The group entered the back room. There, the 
 detective laid Pat upon a table. Confronting Felix, 
 he inquired, angrily: 
 
 "How did it happen?" 
 
 The other, sinking into a chair, buried his face in 
 his hands. 
 
 Delaclaire embellished his tale, this time, with 
 several dramatic and entirely fictitious incidents. 
 
 "The mob stormed the automobile! They threat- 
 ened the chauffeur! But my friend, mastering his 
 sorrow, restrained them . . . ."
 
 456 PREDESTINED 
 
 In short, facts no longer mattered to the actor. 
 He was carried away by his imagination. Possibly 
 he even "saw himself in the part." 
 
 Connla patted Felix on the back. 
 
 "It's just one of them things that can't be helped, 
 that hits us when we least expect it. It's what we 
 have to get used to." 
 
 Felix, raising his head, with difficulty got out the 
 words : 
 
 "He never left me. He never deceived me. He 
 was never ashamed of me. I think he understood, 
 all the while, what I wanted to do." 
 
 He collapsed in a paroxysm of grief. 
 
 Delaclaire, who had darted out to the bar, re- 
 turned, from caution more bow-legged than ever, 
 bearing a small glass overflowing with whiskey. Dis- 
 tributing between the detective and the saloon keeper 
 a sapient look, he addressed the young man in 
 coaxing accents. 
 
 "You'll feel better when you've had some of this." 
 
 The liquor was beneath his nose ; the fumes pene- 
 trated his brain. He took the glass, and emptied it 
 down his throat. Soon, he experienced a delicious 
 relaxation. 
 
 Another glassful intoxicated him. 
 
 The Thespian, his anxiety relieved by the obvious 
 effect of his prescription, was relating to Connla and 
 to Quilty, in a mournful manner, an appropriate 
 anecdote. 
 
 "It's not as if I couldn't feel for him! I've had 
 my own experience. Mine was a French poodle,
 
 NINA 457 
 
 Gyp the most intelligent animal! We put her in 
 an act that was a knockout from end to end of the 
 country: just before the curtain, she tore open a 
 sofa pillow and discovered the missing will. But 
 one day, she et a piece of bacon rind covered with 
 rat poison." 
 
 Connla, paying scanty attention to this chronicle, 
 stroked the bull-terrier's head. At last, clearing his 
 throat, he said: 
 
 "I remember well the first night I ever seen him. 
 How he stuck his teeth into them niggers' ankles! 
 But, at that, I think it kind of went against the 
 grain. He was a thoroughbred!" 
 
 "A man gets attached to a dog," was Quilty's 
 contribution. Moved, perhaps, by a variation of 
 that impulse which results in " wakes," he ordered 
 the bartender to bring in another "round of drinks." 
 The saloon keeper's own choice of beverage proved 
 to be, as always, "a little lithia water." 
 
 Felix no longer shed tears. His bereavement had 
 blended into a cloud of rapidly escaping thoughts. 
 Leaning forward, with his hands dangling between 
 his knees, he listened to the remote voice of the 
 detective, who assured him that the dog should have 
 a decent burial. There was a man uptown, it 
 seemed, who made a business of the interment of 
 pets. "And, as he's broke the health laws once or 
 twice, we'll make him do the job for nothing. I'll 
 see to it." 
 
 "You are too good. You are one and all too 
 good."
 
 458 PREDESTINED 
 
 Was it not fortunate that he should be solaced by 
 three friends so considerate and so sympathetic ? 
 
 Later, he was bewildered to find eight dollars in 
 his pocket. 
 
 He parted from Quilty, Delaclaire, and Connla. 
 The detective suggested seeing him home. They 
 'stood in the open; the stars were thick; a cold wind 
 was blowing. 
 
 "It's not worth while. I live close by." 
 
 "But where?" 
 
 "In this neighborhood." 
 
 "Well, just as you say. We'll meet at Quilty's, 
 then, to-morrow morning." 
 
 "To-morrow morning." 
 
 He wandered through the streets. Whenever he 
 saw i.he illuminated windows of a saloon , he pushed 
 back the swinging doors. For the benefit of many 
 strangers whom he met at bars, he began a sad 
 monologue, which he was unable to finish; while 
 trying to remember its conclusion, he sent a waver- 
 ing glance round the floor, beneath the tables, into 
 corners. 
 
 But the stars drew near, to give him news of all 
 that they had ever seen; the trailing clouds held 
 pictures of steel-covered armies, like mirages linger- 
 ing long after the ancient battles which they seemed 
 to have reflected; and the earth whispered to him 
 of all that it contained, deep down, where man had 
 not been. Then the shapes of women moved before 
 him, lighter than thistledown, and fairer than the 
 moon. Their red lips parted; their tresses fluttered
 
 NINA 459 
 
 back; enlaced, they darted upward; their laughter 
 fell in showers ; they shredded away. 
 
 He woke with his head on a table, in the back 
 
 room of a dram shop near the river a resort for 
 
 longshoremen. The sun shone through a dusty 
 
 /window. A shabby fellow was preparing to sweep 
 
 the floor. 
 
 Resting on his broom, the stranger favored Felix 
 with a wink. 
 
 "There you are! A night's lodging, and no 
 charge." 
 
 "What time is it?" 
 
 "Six o'clock, and a fine, crisp day." 
 
 Felix explored his pockets feebly, then pressed his 
 hands against his head. 
 
 "I feel very ill." 
 
 "Indeed, you look so! And no money? Well, 
 now, suppose I take a chance, and stake vou to a 
 drink?" 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 When he had swallowed some fiery brandy, he 
 found himself able to start homeward. 
 
 He was living in a four-story "hotel" that sur- 
 mounted a cafe, on Fourth Avenue below Fourteenth 
 Street. His week's rent was overdue; and, as he 
 had not been home for four days, it occurred to him 
 that he must have been evicted. He found his 
 room, however, as he had left it. 
 
 An iron bedstead leaned against the wall opposite 
 a wooden mantelpiece, painted to resemble oak. 
 The washstand, its varnish nearly obliterated by
 
 460 PREDESTINED 
 
 many splashings, supported a basin and a pitcher. 
 A small bureau by the window, and a straight-back 
 chair, completed the furniture. His trunk stood 
 behind the door. 
 
 When he had closed and locked the door, he in- 
 spected his surroundings carefully. An alarm clock 
 on the mantle-shelf attracted him. He began to 
 wind it. Soon, a smile crossed his face, and he set 
 down the clock but partly wound. 
 
 In the bureau drawer, he found a box half full of 
 headache powders. There were six "doses" left. 
 He unfolded the papers, one by one, and emptied 
 them into a glass tumbler. 
 
 But he stopped short. Some one was knocking 
 at the door. 
 
 He held his -breath. The knock was repeated, 
 the door-knob rattled, and a voice called: 
 
 "Felix?" 
 
 Presently he heard Monsieur Pierre shuffle down 
 the corridor. 
 
 The contents of the six papers made in the bottom 
 of the tumbler a little mound of powder. He added 
 water from the pitcher on the washstand. Then he 
 drank the mixture off. As he set down the tumbler, 
 he asked himself: 
 
 "What have I done?" 
 
 With a feeling of scepticism, he approached the 
 window. Through soiled Nottingham curtains, he 
 saw the sun shining as brightly as before, the drays 
 full of bales and boxes, the people hurrying to work.
 
 NINA 461 
 
 These passers-by were talking, laughing, full of life. 
 He could not convince himself that he was on the 
 point of leaving them. 
 
 Suddenly, he perceived Monsieur Pierre c-n the 
 opposite corner, in front of a saloon. 
 
 The Parisian's clothes were too large for him. 
 With his knees bent, his shoulders stooped, his arms 
 dangling, he turned his piebald beard repeatedly 
 from north to south. Even at a distance, his anxiety 
 was perceptible. He was awaiting Felix. 
 
 After he had peered into several hundred faces, he 
 removed his black felt hat with a gesture of hope- 
 lessness. His bald head flashed. His shadowy eyes 
 were raised to Felix's window. But the Notting- 
 ham curtain prevented a discovery. 
 
 When he had again looked up and down the 
 street though this time more furtively than ex- 
 pectantly the Frenchman edged toward the saloon 
 behind him. He put out his fleshless hand. The 
 doors swung ajar. Monsieur Pierre, with surprising 
 agility, slipped between them. 
 
 "Poor old rascal!" thought Felix. 
 
 His headache was gone. The serenity of the day 
 before had returned to him. Leaning against the 
 sash, he continued to look out, listlessly, at the 
 pedestrians. 
 
 They made haste, as if matters of great moment 
 awaited them. All their faces showed a matutinal 
 animation. It was the beginning of a fresh day for 
 them. It was the world that hurried by.
 
 4<52 PREDESTINED 
 
 So it would be to-morrow, next year, a century 
 hence, a thousand years from now! He found the 
 thought wellnigh incredible, that everything would 
 go on the same as ever. 
 
 And she, too, would remain! 
 
 He saw her with children coming to adolescence 
 round her; in the fulness of her maturity, in the 
 rich autumn of her life, in an exquisite old age. 
 "Her charms can never fail; they can no more than 
 change. She will attain, at last, that fineness of the 
 aged who have been fair. She will appear in lace 
 and silk and white hair. She will sit on a hill-top, 
 her gaze roaming far away, while the leaves flutter 
 down upon her hands. She will be lost in dreams." 
 
 Oh, to have been, before departure, the close wit- 
 ness of such a progress to have reached, with one 
 so dear, such a culmination! Others were des- 
 tined to those delights, but he must miss them. 
 
 Surely, if he desired another chance, there was 
 still time? 
 
 A determination, strong beyond his previous ex- 
 perience, kept him motionless by the window. 
 
 "That illusion shall not cheat me again. Life is 
 a struggle that I am not fitted for." 
 
 Weakness descended on him. He turned to *the 
 bed. The floor moved beneath his feet. His skin 
 was bathed in a cold moisture. Weighed down by 
 an immense lassitude, he had difficulty in stretching 
 himself upon the counterpane. 
 
 "Then I was not deceived. It is here!"
 
 NINA 463 
 
 And after a pause, 
 
 "Why am I not afraid?" 
 
 He lay still, breathing with difficulty, curious to 
 find the room so bright, and listening to the ticking 
 of the clock. 
 
 Confused images trembled in mid-air. 
 
 He saw, at the same time, the Delaclaires gobbling 
 sandwiches in their room, Pavin by the "north 
 light," old Joseph fashioning paper hats, Emma 
 rolling up her large eyes, Marie posturing on the 
 stage of the Trocadero Theatre, Eileen entering his 
 room with parted lips. Mr. Snatt seemed to exhibit 
 his nose in the dismantled chambers of a college 
 student; while Noon showed his dusky visage in a 
 parlor hung with the Ferrol family's portraits. 
 Then the Parisian's bald head bent forward, and a 
 pair of shadowy eyes pored over a pile of tattered 
 magazines. 
 
 All these figments were in some way related to 
 one another: they were like portions of a tapestry 
 which, read aright, should form an intelligible whole. 
 But for him that decipherment was a task too ar- 
 duous. A labor more important engaged his every 
 faculty. 
 
 He was at great pains to catch his breath. 
 
 "How one's instincts persist!" 
 
 Was not this effort to breathe as futile as his 
 countless past endeavors? 
 
 "Yet if one might only be sure of achieving, 
 elsewhere, the ideal . . . ."
 
 464 PREDESTINED 
 
 The ideal! He could not recollect in what it 
 had consisted. It was as if a guiding beacon had 
 gone out. 
 
 At nine that night, the clock on the mantel-shelf 
 stopped ticking.
 
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 THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated 
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 been taken u England, but spurns conventional life for the sake 
 of the untamed West and a girl's pretty face. 
 
 JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable, 
 
 A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. 
 As fragrant in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as fall of 
 mystery and racial troubles as any romance of "after the war" 
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 MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E. W. Hornung. 
 
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 FORTY MINUTES LATE. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated 
 
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 THE HUSBAND'S STORY. By David Graham Phillips. 
 
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 THE TRAIL OF NINETY- EIGHT. By Robert W. Service*. 
 Illustrated by Maynard Dixon. 
 
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 ' by W. W. Fawcett. Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four 
 colors and gold. 
 
 An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in 
 a wealthy New Vork family involving the happiness of a 
 beautiful young girl. 
 
 TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. 
 Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. 
 
 An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New 
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 a great sacrifice for love. 
 
 FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller 
 White. 
 Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws. 
 
 Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful chil- 
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 A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and 
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 her efforts to work her way out. 
 
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 A romance both daring and delightful, involving an Amer- 
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 Will Grefe. 
 
 A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love 
 of an Englishman of title. Developments of a startling character 
 and a clever untangling of affairs hold the reader's iuterest 
 
 THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field. 
 Illustrated in colors; marginal illustrations. 
 
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 HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated. 
 
 A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is vio- 
 lently made love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique 
 situation complicates the romance. 
 
 THE GAMbLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow. 
 Illustrated by C. E. Chambers. 
 
 A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men 
 play for big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits or 
 repudiate the methods. 
 
 CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illus- 
 trated by Florence Scovel Shinn and others. 
 
 A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans 
 at home and abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of 
 relaxation. 
 
 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 
 
 Clever, original presentations of present day social problems 
 and the best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman 
 should possess. 
 
 THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. 
 Illustrated. Handsomely colored wrapper. 
 
 A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to 
 aid him during the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction 
 by the lovely eyes of a Frenchwoman. 
 
 THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by 
 Harold Matthews Brett. 
 
 A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and willi 
 make women realize the part that politics play even in their' 
 romances, 
 
 Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
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 A CERTAIN RICH MAN. By William Allen White. 
 
 A vivid, startling portrayal of one man's financial greed, its 
 mde spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on 
 the three women most intimately in his life. A splendid, enter- 
 taining American novel. 
 
 IN OUR TOWN. By William Allen White. Illustrated by F. 
 R. Gruger and W. Glackens. 
 
 Made up of the observations of a keen newspaper editor, 
 involving the town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the 
 bohemian set, and many others. All humorously related and sure 
 to hold the attention. 
 
 NATHAN BURKE. By Mary S. Watts. 
 
 The story of an ambitious, backwoods Ohio boy who rose 
 to prominence. Everyday humor of American rustic life per- 
 meates the book. 
 
 THE HIGH HAND. By Jacques Futrelle. Illustrated by Will 
 Grefe. 
 
 A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the 
 soil on the one side, and a "kid glove" politician on the other. 
 A pretty girl, interested in both men, is the chief figure. 
 
 THE BACKWOODSMEN. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated. 
 Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage 
 beauty of the wilderness. Human nature at its best and worst 
 is well protrayed. 
 
 YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS. By Herbert Quick. 
 
 A jolly company of six artists, writers and other clever 
 folks take a trip through the National Park, and tell stories around 
 camp fire at night. Brilliantly clever and original. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY. By Wells Hastings and 
 Brian Hooker. Illustrated by Hanson Booth. 
 
 A young college professor, missing his steamer for Europe, 
 has a. romantic meeting with a pretty girl, escorts her home, and 
 b enveloped in a big mystery. 
 
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 May be had wheravar books art sold. Ask for Grosset ft Dunlap's list 
 
 fHE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nich- 
 olson. Illustrated by C. Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch. 
 
 Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful 
 girl, and she subjects them to a test that is fnll of mystery, magic 
 and sheer amusement. 
 
 ?HE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence 
 F. Underwood. 
 
 The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty 
 girls on a yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names 
 of the girls. 
 
 THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham. 
 A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success 
 instead of love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the 
 heart is stronger than worldly success. 
 
 SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated 
 by Harold M. Brett. 
 
 A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented 
 with a Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures 
 of her pet lead the young mistress into another romance. 
 
 SHEILA VEDDER. By Amelia E. Ban. Frontispiece by Harri- 
 son Fisher. 
 
 A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a 
 handsome, strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as 
 heroine. A sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife." 
 
 JOHN WARD. PREACHER. By Margaret Deland. 
 
 The first big success of this much loved American novelist. 
 It is a powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his 
 beautiful wife to his own narrow creed. 
 
 I-HE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. 
 Illustrated by Maynard Dixon. 
 
 One of the best stories of "Vagabondia " ever written, and 
 ne of the most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold ' 
 seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative 
 is strikingly original, 
 
 Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
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 TITLES SELECTED FROM 
 
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 THE GARDEN OF FATE. By Roy Norton. Illustrated 
 
 by Joseph Clement Coll. 
 
 The colorful romance of an American girl in Morocco, and 
 of a beautiful garden, whose beauty and traditions of strange 
 subtle happenings were closed to the world by a Sultan's seal. 
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP. By Henry Russell Miller. 
 
 Full page vignette illustrations by M. Leone Bracket. 
 
 The story of a tenement waif who rose by his own ingenuity 
 
 io the office of mayor of his native city. His experiences 
 
 while "climbing," make a most interesting example of the 
 
 possibilities of humat. nature to rise above circumstances. 
 
 THE KEY TO YESTERDAY. By Charles Neville 
 
 Buck. Illustrated by R. Schabelitz. 
 
 Robert Saxon, a prominent artist, has an accident, while in 
 
 Paris, which obliterates his memory, and the only clue he has 
 
 to his former life is a rusty key. What door in Paris will it 
 
 unlock? He must know that before he woos the girl he loves. 
 
 THE DANGER TRAIL. By James Oliver Curwood. 
 
 Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull. 
 The danger trail is over the snow-smothered North. A 
 
 gung Chicago engineer, who is building a road through the 
 ud&on Bay region, is involved in mystery, and is led into 
 ambush by a young woman. 
 
 THE GAY LORD WARING. By Houghton Townley_ 
 
 Illustrated by Will Grefe. 
 
 A story of the smart hunting set in England. A gay young 
 lord wins in love against his selfish and cowardly brother ana 
 apparently against fate itself. 
 
 BY INHERITANCE. By Octave Thanet. Illustrated 
 
 by Thomas Fogarty. Elaborate wrapper in colors. 
 
 A wealthy New England spinster with the most elaborate 
 
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 in Arkansas, where she learns the needs of the colored race 
 
 first hand and begins to lose her theories. 
 
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 WHEN A MAN MARRIES. By Mary Roberts Rinehart 
 Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker. 
 
 A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds thai 
 a visit is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas' 
 about things quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her' 
 nephew is a shining light. The way in which matters are tempo- 
 rarily adjusted forms the motif of the story. 
 
 A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days" 
 
 THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA 
 , CRAIG. By David Graham Phillips. Illustrated. 
 A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in 
 political and social life in Washington. He attains power in poli- 
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 dertaking hi' education in social amenities. 
 
 M DOC." G ORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illus- 
 trated >y Frank T. Merrill. 
 
 Against tue familiar background of American town life, the 
 author portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery. 
 "Doc." Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his 
 assistant, a beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter 
 are all involved in the plot A novel of great interest. 
 
 HOLY ORDERS. By Marie Corelli. 
 
 A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with 
 society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful finan- 
 ciers and others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in 
 holy orders" problems thatweare now struggling with in America. 
 
 KATRINE. By Elinor Macartney Lane. With frontispiece. 
 
 Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly 
 birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice. 
 
 The narrative is based on the facts of an actual Bulger's career, 
 and the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one. 
 
 THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell. 
 
 Illustrated by T. de Thulstrup. 
 
 A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi, 
 a glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third 
 rate Parisian theatre. A story as dainty as a Watteau painting. 
 
 SHE THAT HESITATES. By Harris Dickson. Illus- 
 trated by C. W. Relyea. 
 
 The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. 
 Petersburg in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans. 
 
 The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who 
 hesitates but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates 
 may be lost and yet saved. 
 
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 Original, sincere and courageous often amusing the 
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 MADAME X. By Alexandre Bisson and J. W. McCon- 
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 A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her hus- 
 band would not forgive an error of her youth. Her love for 
 her son is the great final influence in her career. A tremen- 
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 THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens. 
 
 An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable 
 stranger meet and love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged 
 this season with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties. 
 
 THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace. 
 
 A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting 
 with extraordinary power the siege of Constantinople, and 
 lighting its tragedy with the warm underglow of an Oriental 
 romance. As a play it is a great dramatic spectacle. 
 
 TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace 
 Miller White. Illust. by Howard Chandler Christy. 
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 YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph 
 Chester. Illust. by F. R. Gruger and Henry Raleigh. 
 
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 house. Illustrations by Will Grefe. 
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 GRAUSTARK. 
 
 A story of love behind a throne, telling how a young 
 American met a lovely girl and followed her to a new and 
 strange country. A thrilling, dashing narrative. 
 BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. 
 
 Beverly is a bewitching American girl who has gone to 
 ihat stirring little principality Graustark to visit her friend 
 the princess, and there has a romantic affair of her own. 
 BREWSTER'S MILLIONS. 
 
 A young man is required to spend one million dollars in 
 one year in order to inherit seven. How he does it forms the 
 basis of a lively story. 
 CASTLE CRANEYCROW. 
 
 The story i evolves round the abduction of a young Amer- 
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 COWARDICE COURT. 
 
 An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an 
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 THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S. 
 
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 amusing situations and exciting adventures. 
 NEDRA. 
 
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 THE SHERRODS. 
 
 The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man 
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 Full of the real atmosphere of American home life. 
 
 THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN. With a double* 
 
 page frontispiece. 
 
 The son of a wash-woman begins re-making himself 
 socially and imparts his system to his numerous friends. A 
 story of rural New York with an appreciation of American 
 types only possible from the pen of a humor loving American, 
 
 PARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES. With illustra- 
 tions by Arthur I. Keller. 
 
 A tale of the North Country. In Darrel, the clock tinker, 
 wit, philosopher and man of mystery, is portrayed a force held 
 in fetters and covered with obscurity, yet strong *x> make its 
 way, and widely felt. 
 
 D'RI AND I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War 
 
 with the British. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 
 " D'ri " was a mighty hunter, quaint, rugged, wise, truth- 
 ful. He fights magnificently on the Lawrence, and is a strik- 
 ing figure in this enthusiastic romance of early America, 
 
 EBEN HOLDEN: A Tale of the North Country. 
 
 A story of the hardy wood-choppers of Vermont, who 
 founded their homes in the Adirondack wilderness. " Eben," 
 the hero, is a bachelor with an imagination that is a very 
 wilderness of oddities. 
 
 SILAS STRONG: Emperor of the Woods. 
 
 A simple account of one summer life, as it was lived in a 
 part of the Ad. rondacks. Silas Strong is a woodland philos- 
 opher, and his camp is the scene of an impressive little love 
 story. 
 
 VERGILIUS: A Tale of the Coming of Christ 
 
 A thrilling and beautiful story of two young Roman 
 Patricians whose great and perilous love in the reign of 
 Augustus leads them through the momentous, exciting events 
 that marked the year just preceding the birth of Christ. 
 
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