Sinbad

A low gray-green fog had crept over New York: the houses stood like boulders in a stream. Two dim figures fled from the street, ran through a hall and up the stairs.

“Good evening, Mr. Drane, good evening, Mrs. Drane.” The fat and kind Polish janitress, with her dark, naïve eyes, smiled as she stood aside for them.

“Good evening,” Emily and Lester called back almost in a breath.

They unlocked a door and entered. Ghost-pieces of furniture with shadows perched on them, waves of city noise growling sullenly outside. Emily lighted candles. To keep out the dark.⁠… They smiled at each other. Emily slender, green-gray eyes, chestnut hair, Celtic and quick: Lester heavy, nearly swarthy, with blue eyes, deliberate and almost noble in gesture. They removed their wraps, raced to a couch and lighted cigarettes. Silence. Emily gazed dreamily through the smoke.

“Les!”

Lester answered affectionately.

“Yes, Em.”

“Isn’t it fun living with you! What were you like when you were a little boy?”

“Oh, moony.” He did not like to talk about himself. Emily did.

She smiled seriously.

“I’ll bet you were! Aren’t things funny, Les? When I was a little girl I used to think and think. People tried to keep things from me. I wrote something bad on my slate at school once, and the teacher sent me home. I tried to be in love when I was thirteen. Then soon I wanted so badly to be popular that I was positively ill from anxiety after every dance. And afterward, suffrage work: would you believe it of me now? It was my religion for two years. You know the family all laughed at my painting. I never should have been able to shake off things. But I’m actually—oh, Les, you’ve been so good to me—” There was a catch in her voice. She snuggled close to him and held him tight.

Lester kissed her hair but did not speak. His heart was tender toward her. She’s my child … hurt.⁠…

The fog crouched outside. The city was an enemy. Les is warmth, life. She laid her cheek to his.

“Les, do you love me?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

They sat in the silence. She felt warm and safe with him.

Strength. He knew himself. I may be a visionary, but I’m strong. Moonstruck! Dim and cool forest … spinning moon with her brood of frightened stars … hearts leap into the meshes of moonlight.⁠…

Emily spoke.

“Let’s go to bed, Les.”

A clear cool evening.

Emily Tyler and Lester Drane walked vigorously down the street. They were going to dinner with friends.

“Did they say Manzinetti’s, Les?” Emily smiled at Lester. Her eyes were very steady, except when she smiled—then they smiled too.

“Um-huh.” Lester paused to light a cigarette, shading the flaming match with his hands.

The pink glow through his small fingers was pretty, Emily thought. She put her arm through his.

“Are you tired tonight?”

“Not very.” Lester was not much taller than Emily, but his head was strongly set on his body and almost massive. “Like a bishop’s,” she had once said. He did not like being asked if he were tired. He was twenty years older than Emily.

Greenwich Avenue, Eighth Street, down MacDougal, past the Square, Bleecker Street, Little Italy, shops, holes, venders’ carts, stalls, queer lights, foreign sounds—

“Do we turn to the right or left here?”

Lester laughed.

“Here we are,” he said after a moment, squeezing her arm and then releasing it.

Emily preceded him into the dingy little Italian restaurant. At a long table, dim with light, half a dozen of their friends were waiting. Emily’s vivid face brightened at their noisy welcome. Her teeth flashed. Lester smiled slowly.

“Hello, Em! Hello, Les! Em’s going to sit between me and Toby—No, Em’s got to sit by me tonight—Les, you can sit between Jen and Blanche—I’ll sit here—Now that’s not fair, Stuart. Em sat by you last time—How are you kids, anyhow?—Where’s Michael?—Well, children, what shall we eat?” Lester beckoned to a favorite waiter and the group began to consult earnestly. “Antipasti—minestrone—spaghetti—maiale con peperoni—spumoni—”

“Let’s have some red ink,” suggested Stuart Perinchief, rapping gravely on the table for attention. He was always shabbily dressed, an air of dryness and fatigue about him.

“All right! Good! Let’s! Yours is a great mind, Stuart!”

Lester whispered to the swarthy handsome young waiter who had a sweet smile and angrily brilliant eyes.

“Si, signor.” Large teacups were quickly placed before the diners and three bottles skillfully whisked under Lester’s chair.

Conversation. Lester and Emily in coming to New York had innocently looked forward to finding individuals who would comprehend and sympathize with their aspirations. Thinking of themselves as misunderstood, wounded and disheartened in a callous provincial atmosphere, they had both unconsciously made the meeting of “fellow artists” a last symbol. They had been naïvely religious in this faith. To know people who can share and inspire instead of hinder and destroy! Lester smiled now as he thought of it. A few months among the jealousies, anemia and nerves of various hostile coteries had driven him and Emily to gather about them a small circle of their own. Not great, perhaps, but here at least is a little kindness, he thought. Tonight in the obscure restaurant, warmed and confident for the moment, all were talking at once, not brilliantly or profoundly, but harmlessly. Affectionate smiles were turned to Emily. Lester felt gentle toward these people. At last food came and the meal began.

“There’s Michael!” cried Emily, waving her fork at a tall youth with the head of a poet. “Aren’t you ’shamed of yourself?”

Michael Kennedy hurried toward them. He sank into a chair beside Lester.

“Awfully sorry to be late.”

Genevieve Strang shook her enormous pendent earrings at him from across the table.

“You always are, Michael,” she said in a rich low-pitched voice, almost too perfectly modulated, her enunciation theatrically distinct. Genevieve’s manner was well-bred to the point of discomfort.

Michael blushed and laughed self-consciously as he saluted the others. His greeting to Mark Leighter, who sat nearly opposite him, beside Genevieve, was especially warm. Leighter had the cadaverous exterior of a romantic backwoodsman. He answered Michael cordially. They were both in love with the same girl, and were being very noble.

On the other side of Lester was Blanche Dixon, a plump little person whose bobbed hair spread out fan-like as she whirled toward him and whispered in his ear, giggling as she talked. Her conversation was rambling and ceaseless, but Lester smiled.

Em, at the head of the table, opposite Perinchief, was between Toby Adams and Tit Miller. Small head held high, heavy hair; her face was a pure oval, almost perfect in profile. Translucent brown eyes with greenish lights, turning with sudden fearlessness from one person to another. There was a delicate distinction to her body. She could sit harmoniously on a chair. Toby leaned near her, seemed to glue his eyes to her face, and whispered.

“You dear thing!”

She smiled frankly and kindly.

“What’s the matter with me? Is my hat on crooked?”

“I’m tasting you with my eyes,” he responded soulfully. He had a trick of looking at women that was cultivated and at the same time unconscious—a narrowing of his lids and a relaxing of the focus of vision in a moist gaze of admiration. Em was used to him.

“Now, Toby, don’t get messy,” said Genevieve, in a very British-upper-middle-class manner. Her huge earrings were an incongruous yet somehow attractive accompaniment to her small broad face. Everything in Genevieve’s appearance pretended to languor and sophistication. In this agglomeration of characteristics there was nothing to explain the steady almost naïve sincerity of her long-lashed dark blue eyes.

Em gave Adams’ arm a sisterly pat.

“Yes, keep your technique for some new girl, Toby dear.”

Tit Miller, on Em’s other side, was a dancer whose constant affectation of esthetic attitudes had given him almost grotesquely feminine motions. He invited her attention with a circular gesture of his slim hand.

“And did you hear, Em, that when I danced unannounced last week at the Settlement a girl came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘Are you the great Fokine?’”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Stuart Perinchief with sudden violence from the foot of the table. “What happened then? Were you wearing anything but your—?”

“Stuart! Aren’t you dreadful!” exclaimed Blanche at his side.

“What did I say that was dreadful?” he demanded truculently.

“She knew what you might say and headed you off in time,” laughed Leighter. He was never malicious in his remarks, as he was jealous of his own sensitiveness and capacity to be hurt.

“Stuart makes me so angry!” said Tit mincingly to Em and Toby.

The large teacups had been filled and emptied several times, and the pile of bottles under Lester’s chair had grown. Michael began to hum a song. The words were not yet discernible, but all except Em and Perinchief looked worried. The tune Michael was humming was known to his friends—and also the words.

“Go on, Michael!” Stuart spoke solemnly, like a squire in his cups.

“Now, Stuart,” protested Genevieve.

Blanche giggled hysterically.

“Let Michael sing, Jen,” said Emily, her eyes sparkling wickedly.

Genevieve was firm.

“Why, Em, you know what he will—”

The conversation again became vague to Lester. He and Emily had many acquaintances, but these were their friends. He was still studying them. The hurly-burly of New York, its shadowy, grotesque, turgid, “artistic” atmosphere, had placed upon him and Em necessity for human contact. These chums had floated to them, clung to them. Blind in their search for release? Waifs from the Middle West and South huddling together in a city and drinking prohibition wine from teacups to get laughter. Old virtues with new morals, he thought. Difference in manners … very human and pathetic … they adore Em.⁠…

Les looked up. A tall hawk-faced young man, who had been eating alone at a table beyond, was passing on his way out. He smiled at Mark Leighter, who half rose and extended his hand.

“I want you to meet my friends,” said Mark in a persuasive tone. “Miss Tyler, this is Howard Story—the etcher.”

Em’s constant gaze wavered a little as she glanced up into Story’s thin keen face. The other introductions were made, and with an easy gesture he drew a chair from another table and seated himself between Tit and Em. There was a soft color in her cheeks. She now met Howard’s greenish-brown eyes with her usual steadfast look. At the advent of a stranger a slight constraint fell upon the intimate circle.

“Hooray!” shouted Michael incontinently.

Howard Story turned to him composedly.

“We’re tryin’ to abandon ourselves to the little we are,” hiccoughed Stuart.

Howard smiled. Em noticed his hard chiseled mouth. She admitted no faults in her friends. Her head was held a trifle higher.

“Don’t mind us, Mr. Story,” explained Genevieve haughtily. “We’re only a little—you know.”

Howard glanced at Em’s defiant head. He noted the brassy highlights in her autumn-leaf brown hair, the delicacy of her face, the sureness of her manner. He thought with irritation of what he had seen and heard of her pictures. Her exceedingly feminine appearance disconcerted him and stimulated his curiosity. He glided skillfully into the spirit of the moment.

“Couldn’t we have some more wine?” he suggested pleasantly, beckoning to the waiter as he spoke.

The laughter and chatter went round the table once more. Stuart and Michael devoted themselves especially to the additional wine, and thenceforth beamed on Howard as an initiate.

“What do your friends do?” asked Howard genially. He addressed Mark Leighter, but Tit replied.

“Why, Emily and Mr. Leighter—”

“Of course I know Miss Tyler’s work, and Mark’s stuff.”

“Well, you see.” Tit made an eurythmic gesture. “Mr. Perinchief writes under a pseudonym, Amos Boyd—”

“Oh, yes,” said Howard, concealing his boredom.

“And Toby is a research chemist, in his spare moments. Miss Strang writes and draws and—things. And Michael does poems and reviews, and Blanche—well, she’s a nice child. Of course I—”

“What are you, Mr. Drane?”

“Bank clerk,” said Lester. His clean-shaven cheeks and chin, with blue shadows, and his deep-set eyes seemed part of his quietness. He felt injured for his friends, in having them cruelly sorted out by what they had done. This man Story is a Greenwich Village esthete. Recognizes only people to fear … worse than the bourgeois crowd.⁠…

Howard turned to Em. There was subtle respect in his voice and mien.

“Miss Tyler, it’s a real pleasure and—”

Blanche, at Lester’s side, giggled, and he lost the rest of the words. He did see the interest in Em’s eyes. Howard had experienced intense artistic gratification in Em’s appearance; now he felt a thrill of satisfaction at the sound of her light-timbred vibrant contralto voice. He exerted himself to be his best.

Genevieve whispered to Mark.

“Your friend Mr. Story exudes charm all over the place.”

The conversation gradually dwindled to a duet between Howard and Em, and finally to a monologue by Howard. Les caught only some of the phrases.

“Cezanne—the human stereoscope—abolished sculpture—impressionists—prism convicts—Gauguin was the Pierre Loti of painters—emotional wall-paper—Degas—forerunner of posters—the ancestor of C. D. Gibson—”

Em laughed gleefully. There was admiration in her eyes. Howard knew he was being brilliant.

“El Greco—the Delsarte skeleton man—Matisse first saw the beauty of fetuses—vers librist of painting—baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa—” Les could not distinguish the words.

“What was that, Howard?” In Mark’s tone was a proprietary elation over the effect his friend was producing.

“I was saying that these damned futurists are painters of orations.”

Em’s usually mournful eyes were shining, her lips parted. Howard stole a quick glance at her and hurried on.

“Synchromists—daubers with the heart-burn—Kandinsky, menstruates in paint—neo-futurism is only—” The monologue across the table became indistinct to Les again.

There were signs of restiveness. Stuart and Michael were nodding drowsily. Les looked over to Genevieve. Loyal jealousy was written on her face. He tried to be detached. Howard Story was the type of Bohemian artist he detested. False art … no human values … surfaces … intellectual snobbishness.⁠… Les would not acknowledge a male apprehensiveness.

Em sensed the pitch of the scene and, glancing hastily at Les, rose to go. Howard sprang to assist her with her coat. A spot of color was in each cheek and his sharp aquiline face was almost attractive. The others rose, assumed their wraps, and the party filed out. Howard walked with Les, Em and Genevieve together. The rest followed, Stuart and Michael, with locked arms and uncertain step, bringing up the rear.

As the procession reached the corner Howard asked:

“Which way are you people going? How about walking through the Square?” He slightly straightened his long stooping body and looked at Em as he spoke. He had observed the beautiful manner of her walk and carriage.

“I suppose we’re going to our respective homes,” replied Genevieve icily. She glanced furtively at Stuart. She was going to stay by Em. Her tone was hostile for Les’s sake.

“I’m going this way,” said Blanche volubly. “You know, Les, John said to me, ‘If you’ll come down tonight,’ and I said, ‘What! down to your rooms—’” She rattled on serenely while the others consulted.

Toby looked at Em miserably.

“I have a date. I must hurry off.” He pointed in the direction Blanche had indicated. He was in the clutches of a new love affair.

“Serves you right!” whispered Em viciously. There was irrelevant elation in her voice.

Howard stood smiling.

“I’m going to take Stuart and Michael home and put them to bed,” announced Mark benevolently.

Genevieve glanced gratefully at him. Now she felt free.

“I should love to take a stroll.” Tit Miller made a graceful gesture with his arm as he spoke.

Howard glanced at him coldly.

Eagerness sat on Em. Les and Genevieve agreed politely, and the quintet moved down the street. The two girls fell behind again and the three men walked together. Les was combatively silent.

“I feel like dancing up Fifth Avenue!” announced Tit. His thick glasses gave him almost an appearance of blindness, but his tall girlish body was a nearly perfect object.

Howard turned ostentatiously to Les. Behind them Emily and Genevieve, arms about each other’s waists, were talking earnestly.

“Stuart is so discouraged,” said Genevieve. “His literary broker is always wanting him to cut out the good parts and tack happy endings to his stories.” She was cunningly trying to bring Em back to relations that were permanent.

Em was loyal interest at once.

“What Stuart should do is to write the things he wants to,” she declared decidedly.

“Bread and butter.” Genevieve sighed and her piquant little face looked older. “I wish I could—I’m glad he can get drunk occasionally, anyway.”

Em hugged her friend impulsively. Genevieve was the only woman she really trusted. Genevieve sighed with mingled hope and indecision. She was anxious about Stuart, too, but Em’s affection was assuring.

“Stuart’s a dear, Jen. And Les is sweet, and I wish I could—We both wish—don’t we?”

Faithful Genevieve was content. She could leave.

“I must go back,” she whispered.

“Please don’t, Jen.”

“I’ll see you soon. Hug Les for me.” Genevieve kissed Em and slipped away in the darkness.

Em hurried forward.

“Where’s Jen?” asked Les.

“She had to go,” said Em soberly.

Without comment Howard stepped back beside her while Les and Tit walked on before them, Tit talking vivaciously. When Howard left them he shook hands with Les and Em.

“It’s been an event to have met you,” he said, ignoring Tit. “I’m going to be guilty of a party Thursday night, at Algeria Westover’s studio. She’s in Europe, but her rooms are bigger than mine. I’d love to have you both come. You know the place, same building Mark lives in, next floor above.”

Genevieve had done all she dared. The impression she had striven for still lived. But Em existed by moments. Howard was waiting solicitously. She met his greenish-brown eyes happily.

“Thank you.”

Howard smiled again.

“Good-night.” He started away.

“I’m going your way. I’ll walk along,” called Tit, following him.

Em and Les went slowly toward home.

“I wish the boys wouldn’t drink so much,” she mused aloud. “But he’s interesting, isn’t he?”

“Who? Tit?” asked Les.

Em smiled.

“I’ve seen his etchings at the Contemporary Society’s.”

Les did not answer. I wonder.⁠…

“New York seems empty without Carl,” he said after a pause. Carl had been his one intimate.

“Our friends are a relief, aren’t they? Don’t you think they’re sweet nuts?” Em’s voice was affectionate. “Don’t you love ’em, Les?”

“At least they don’t spout shop every minute.”

“Well, they’re ours, anyway.” Emily hummed a little tune as she walked brightly at his side, her hand holding his tightly, within his overcoat pocket. “Mark’s friend is much more like us than like most of the crazy freaks we’ve run into.”

Les released her hand and fumbled for his keys.

“You seem impressed.” Nothing innate … how can she … feeling through others … an instrument.⁠…

Em followed him upstairs. He struck a match. Suddenly she blew it out and threw her arms about his neck.

“Oh, Les, Les, let’s never allow anything to come between us!”

He felt her tears on his cheek in the darkness. He was afraid. She is seeking. No joy … love is not enough … forever alone … wind on my face like a loved hand … darkened sea … the stars far off.⁠…

Yellow shriveled leaves fluttering through the red light of the slanting autumn sun.

Lester Drane always walked rapidly with body somewhat bent forward. His shoulders were more ape-like than bowed. He was very strong. He crossed the untidy square and turned down a little side street. Several small Italian children were playing near the steps of the house where he lived. His dark skin and thick brows seemed to make him one of them. The leader of the games, a ten-year-old girl with budding bosom, stumbled against him as he paused to take a bunch of keys from his pocket. She glanced up, a look of instinctive fear in her moist startled eyes. He smiled down at her. She paid him no further attention, and resumed her shouting sway over her playmates.

Lester ran quickly up the old stairs.

As he entered the living-room he whistled, one note rising sharply after the other, an old signal between him and Emily. Then his heart sank at the silence and the darkened windows. Three months before she had attempted suicide. Death as a playmate.⁠… None of their friends believed such things.

“Em!”

The habitual droop at the corners of his rather small straight mouth was emphasized. But he knew she was there.

He called again.

“Em!”

Em lay on the tobacco-brown rug in the bedroom, a pale blot in the darkness. He knelt beside her.

“What is it, darling?” Too-heavy brows—smudges on her dim face.

“Oh, Les—” she sobbed.

To Em all things were of equal importance if they were equally near to her. It made her an artist. It made him wary. Em had cried daily for four days. Even before that, ever since the meeting with Howard Story in the restaurant, she had been distraught. Damn that night at Manzinetti’s when Mark introduced him!

Four days. Howard Story’s party at Algeria Westover’s studio. Four days ago. Why did I go? Algeria Westover in Europe. Howard in her studio. Lovers.⁠… There flashed on Les the picture of Howard and Em at the party. Lazy blue smoke in the room. Candles … dull green and yellow mist … broad couch … Howard enthroned … giant heron on a nest.⁠… More talk. El Greco, Cezanne, Hodler—Em hanging on Howard’s words … defenseless eyes.⁠…

“What is it, dear?” Les asked again gently.

“Oh, I want to die—” she wailed with sudden harshness.

The first time he heard this cry a year ago he had thought it only words. Now. Belief always comes. My love of life has separated us forever.⁠…

“Tell me what it is, Em.”

She raised herself on one long narrow hand. The beautiful curve to her thin lips gone. Her face close to mine.⁠…

“You know, Les.”

His heavy eyelids twitched. Les feared Em’s concrete fleshliness because he knew it could ignore his idea of himself. He would not bear that anyone but himself should excite her. What he feared had come.

She rose to her knees and seized him fiercely in her arms.

“Les, do you hate living with me? Why didn’t you let me kill myself a year ago?”

Her tears burned his cheek. He shut his eyes. Eyelids of day closing … wide mantle of the moonlight … nothing clear or simple … sick joy … people like shadows … formless suffering … dogged by death … Sophocles.⁠… Em is right. More Jean Jacques Rousseau. Agh! Lights on still water … golden lilies with shining stems.⁠…

They had talked for an hour. They were tired. A candle burned on the mantel. Both were standing now. Les began to walk slowly to and fro. His small rigid hands clenched. His large brow wrinkled, eyes almost colorless in thought.

His voice trembled slightly.

“I am not possessive, Em. You can see whom you wish—do what you wish.”

“Oh, you intellectualize me so!” she cried. “It’s more subtle than that. A woman—Can’t you see? Oh no, you can’t—you can’t. You hate me—you hate me—” She hid her face in her hands.

“Don’t, Em. Please, Em.” No matter how subtle the reason is, the means of hurting me is just as horrible.

She heard nothing he said. She only felt that he was repudiating her.

“You hate me—” she moaned. The slender fingers with widened tips were trembling. Em gave an impression of delicacy and lack of physical stamina.

Lester could be only quietly eloquent.

“We cannot talk. You hear only those words of mine that serve your instinctive purpose to shatter our relation. You resent our relation because I built it and not you. You have always failed it and therefore you wish it away. It is not I who hate you, Em. You hate me when I fight for our life together. If you had made it you would defend it with your life blood. You would adore me because I was subject to what you had made. But now you would destroy with secret joy because you know the death-blow would be yours and not mine.” Stupid talk.⁠… I can’t. Professor. Schoolmaster … the god of pity.⁠…

His face was lined and his usually ruddy skin was gray. He always feared her response, fought for fixity in her desire.

Em looked up. She made a little movement toward him and then retreated. The tense droop to his mouth gave slightly as the muscles of his cheeks relaxed. She stared into his eyes with a tragic intensity that hypnotized herself. He returned her gaze unwillingly because he did not wish to lower his eyes. Irrelevantly he noted the faint down on her lip and cheeks.

Em’s heart expanded in a sudden and uncontrollable wave of compassion.

“Oh, my darling—” She convulsively strained his head to her breast. “My poor boy. Oh, Les, I love you—”

Strife made her amorous: peace made him amorous. His breath came quickly. Em, can’t you see, can’t you see you are killing me? Dumb. Why can’t I say what I feel? She believes in me only when I am weak.—Then she can pity me. I can’t think any more … a body that breaks … swinging on the bough of life … why.⁠…

The tears were running down her cheeks.

“Sweetheart—” she whispered.

They stood with their arms about each other.

“Em, I want you to see him whenever you care to.”

“But precious, I don’t want to see him—oh, I’ve hurt you—”

Lester was coming home again, this time early.

His clean-cut body, always swaying forward, moved neatly through the crowds. Always between me and mine. Sex. He mused as he walked. Love without life. Childhood … shadows on the wall like great bats … wicked children … little Hilda … drawers unbuttoned … music of tiny bells … millions of flowers bursting into bloom … white birds with shining wings … women … lustful kisses … Em. Her weakness cutting at the roots of life.

As he ascended the dingy stairs he knew Howard would be there.

Em was pouring tea.

“I asked Howard to come. I didn’t expect you so soon.” Em hated evasions. She hadn’t a particle of malice and she hadn’t a particle of mercy. What she did have was a straightforwardness that slew people.

Talk between them. Howard’s greenish eyes turned on Les.

“You’re a realist, Mr. Drane. A man of your scientific training appraises us intellectually with no emotional sharing.”

Sunshine was streaming through a window in the Dranes’ living-room. It threw saffron highlights on half of Lester’s large, almost four-square nose, and on one heavily lobed ear.

“I suppose so.” His voice was cool and kind.

Em’s directness was like a sword-thrust.

“Bosh! Les is the sweetest thing you ever saw, Mr. Story. You’re encouraging him in being a clam, that’s all.” Her Scotch-hazel eyes flashed and the reddish glow warmed in her thick brown hair as she moved nervously. They’re all alike—mythmakers, she thought. Lester hated her impatience of moderation. Even when they were at peace, he feared.

Howard crossed his long legs and bent over the table. He gazed like a huge bird at one of Em’s unfinished drawings.

“No, I’m not a mythmaker, Mrs. Drane.” Em started visibly and pulled her sagging green smock further up on her shoulder. “I knew you were thinking that,” Howard continued, smiling. “We artists—”

Their voices grew vague to Les. Always seeking, he thought as Em and Howard rattled on. Understands her soul. Every new person she meets is to give her something I cannot.

“I appeal to Drane.”

Howard’s voice came to Les as from a perfect stillness.

“I beg your pardon,” said Lester awkwardly.

Howard was sure Lester disliked him. Em felt that she was being reprimanded.

“These expressionists,” Howard turned formally to Lester. “Don’t you think they are trying to get the exact opposite of impressionism?”

“I’m not sure that—” Les’s deep blue eyes sought Em’s.

Howard interrupted.

“Well, at any rate—”

The conversation flowed on again without Lester. Em makes me helpless before my enemies. He feared flux, that which alone she trusted. He was always fighting for their sanity. She would throw all into the dust in a second. Pity has cut me off from her forever.⁠… Howard was rising. His gaunt length towered in the dim room.

He held out a bony hand.

“Well, Drane, I suppose we’ve bored you with this shop.”

“I’m not much of a conversationalist. You’ll have to get used to me.”

“Emily tells me you write. I’d love to see some of your stuff some time.”

“Thank you.” The man’s like a marionette—sodomy with art!

Em’s eyes were dark and inscrutable.

“I’ll show you down.” She seized a candle and lighted it. “The stairs are frightfully dark.”

“Thanks. Aren’t you nice?” smiled Howard. “Good-night, Drane.”

“Good-night.”

Dark. Darkness falling like rain … calm and peace … vain like acted scenes … dead and wordless pain … lips white in pain … shadow like a shapeless stain … the terror by night … glowing sparks of stars vanished altogether … sprinkle tears of pity over the dumb hearts of the earth.⁠…

Genevieve called Les on the telephone. He seized the receiver briskly. Hair well trimmed, clothes not new but carefully brushed, perfect linen, motions definite. He showed a confidence he never felt.

“Empire State Trust Company,” he said curtly.

“Hello, Les.”

“Hello,” he replied in another tone. Before him lay an orderly pile of papers. Brazier Smelting Company Incorporated Twenty-Year Sinking-Fund Convertible Gold Notes—Slater County Electric Transit Corporation First Equipment Mortgage—It seemed impossible that any of his life could come to him through the desk telephone in his hands.

“Are you and Em going to Manzinetti’s tonight?”

“No.” His end of the conversation must sound like a business call.

“Well, we’re not either. Come over to our place and I’ll cook dinner. Michael will be here.”

“All right, thank you.”

Les’s assistant, young Babbitt, was listening.

“Was that the Potter-Wright people?”

“No,” said Les.

“Their manager called me three times yesterday. Worried as hell. We won’t renew. They’ll get theirs all right all right.” Young Babbitt licked his lips.

Em was asleep when Les reached Jane Street.

“I was dreaming.” Her eyes were soft.

“What did you dream?”

Em’s eyes changed but she did not answer. When she arose and put on her hat and coat it was as though she were still in the dream.

On the street they were silent. They reached the narrow old-fashioned red brick house where Genevieve and Stuart lived, and Stuart himself opened the door to their ring. His small pale mouth was hard and in his eyes lay a look of unacknowledged frustration. Genevieve came out of the little kitchen. A large apron protected her severe dull-purple gown.

“Where did you get your new earrings?” asked Em listlessly.

“Eve sent them to me from Moscow. They’re from Samarkand.”

“What color of hair is she wearing now?” asked Les mischievously. Poor old joke! I wonder how I’ll get through this evening.

Genevieve made a face at him. She wouldn’t argue about her friend Eve. She wanted things to be gay to help Les and Em.

“We won’t wait for Michael. You children sit down and I’ll bring on the nourishment.” Her rich voice was the same, but at home she dropped her undue precision of speech.

“Good idea.” Les was almost dumb with pain. His pride made him speak naturally.

“Stuart’s father wired yesterday that he was coming down for the night, and so I had to go over and sleep with Blanche,” said Genevieve crossly as they began their soup. “And my mother is coming Wednesday, so Stuart will have to go over to Michael’s. One wonders when they’ll meet, or one of them open a bureau drawer. Sweet land of liberty—it’s as bad as being married!”

“Worse,” remarked Les.

“Well, I’m not, anyway, and nobody can alter that.”

“Nobody but yourself.”

“And I won’t be, either.”

A ring. Stuart opened the door and Michael hurried in.

“Hello, kids. So sorry to be late.” He seated himself hastily and pulled a large bottle from his coat pocket. Michael’s brown eyes gazed at people with a passionate yet abstracted intensity. It was only when one noted his thin wide mouth that he failed to resemble the portraits of Lord Byron.

“As it occurs so seldom, you’re forgiven this once,” said Genevieve ironically.

Michael flushed.

“I’ve brought some home-made Malaga as a peace offering,” he replied humbly.

Emily said hardly a word. Stuart was engulfed in gloom. Lester seldom talked much, and the meal was enlivened only by affectionate banter between Genevieve and Michael. It was not the success of her dinner that caused Genevieve’s anxious look. She glanced stealthily at Em from time to time. After he had eaten, Stuart promptly went to sleep on the couch. He had had a story rejected, and Genevieve was thinking of him, too. Michael called Em over to one side of the room to read her a poem, the writing of which had made him late to dinner. He laughingly refused to let the others hear it.

“You’re worried, Les,” said Genevieve sympathetically.

There was a reserved but intricate emotional understanding between the two. Her intellectual generalizations were usually crude and always on the safe side of pessimism, but she was capable of intense personal loyalty and her instinctive feeling was basically fine.

Les spoke in a low tone.

“I wish Carl were here.”

“Is it anything about you and Em?” she asked softly. She already knew.

“It probably is.” His face was immobile. Genevieve put her hand on his and her eyes were moist. “You’re good, Jen,” he said.

They were both embarrassed by their emotion. Les lowered his eyes and reached uneasily for his pipe. Genevieve moved across the room to a chair beside Emily. Michael, when he saw that Les was alone, rose, lighted a pipe also, and walked over and stood by the mantel. He stared down at his friend.

“What’s the matter with Em tonight, Les?” he asked in a low tone.

“Nothing,” replied Les impatiently. Kindness. They pity me. I shall go … healing in the spaces of the world.⁠…

Michael smoked in silence, a kind look in his remote eyes.

“What is it, dear?” Genevieve, screening herself from the others, kissed Em.

“Oh, Jen, I don’t know.” Em tried to conceal her agitation. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her lips quivered.

Genevieve stared at her sympathetically but a little severely.

“Les is a darling,” she said slowly at last.

“Oh, Jen, I know it.” Em gave a tiny sob.

“Is it—someone—when we all believed so in the relation between you and Les?”

Em was mute, condemned but rebellious. They don’t know. Never anything to touch. Something in me hates and fears the idealism Les loves. I want to be touched—I want it to be me. Just being an artist isn’t enough. I’m weak. I know it.

Les rose to go. “Hadn’t we better leave these people their sleep?” He could not prolong the evening. His face was gaunt. Genevieve, turning from Emily, made no comment. Stuart was roused from the couch, where he had been reposing with privileged rudeness, and shook hands with affectionate depression. Michael smiled evasively. They realized something was wrong, and their powerless sympathy left them constrained.

“Good-by.”

Em and Les went down the stairs. They walked a little apart, Em glancing at him now and then with a furtive and apologetic anxiousness. She felt helpless.

Lester had been a university professor and dean, a naturalist of international fame, organizer of a dozen scientific expeditions. Tropical lands, great laboratories, students flocking, presidencies of learned societies, degrees, dinners, speeches—We have with us tonight … researches that have shed undying luster.⁠…

Undying poppycock. He had given up everything when he met Em. Scandal. Em, from a small Southern town, had run away with him. Distinguished colleagues cut him. He knew that to those who needed less than he did the absoluteness of his gesture seemed false. Artist. Write. Having Em, he wanted to write. He had always wanted to write. Grandiose. He still had verses written when he was twelve years old. His Ballad of the Mayden Bride written at sixteen. Les could repeat it to himself to this day.

Come lithe ye then kind gentlemen
And harken to this verse,
So alle may learn that love wyl spurn
And break cruell Dethe’s curse.

A noble knyght wyth armour bright
There rode from his demesne,
Who kist wyth pride his ladye bride
That ne’er his wyf had been.

Proud to bee sent on quest urgént
Yf on his marriage morn,
He rode away the somer’s day
From his dere love forlorn.

Who to him sayde, “Ye have I wed
And even shulde I dey
E’er me ye wive, I shal yet lyeve
To kiss ye tenderly.”

How his boy’s heart had thrilled to have written it!

Ten years were fled ere returnéd
Alle gaunt and pale the knyght:
His errand made, his steed a jade,
At the postern he did lyght.

He walked silént and then sone went
Into the busy court
Wher his folk stode talking not loud,
And the children laughed at sport.

When he cam there they eche did stare
And fell round and kneeléd;
“Dere Lorde,” they cried, “our Ladye died
Last even in her bed.”

Have I really outgrown this?

He sayde no reply and went straightly
Up to the chamber above
Thyder was layd his wyf yet a maide
Whom his bolde herte did love.

He kneeled to rest his hede on her breast
And clipt her his arms around:
Wyth gentle syghs she oped her ees
As coming fro a swound.

Her pale cheek did flush wyth love’s swete blush
And she kist his lips anoon;
Then he lift his hede for she was agayne dead,
And he rose and stode allone.

Les decided that he liked it, even yet.

He past the court through and his people trewe,
And no wordis did they saye
Till that the knyght in the fading lyght
Rode once agayne away.

In India, Africa and the islands of the sea he had tried to write. Un Byron de nos jours. When he was through with it, it all seemed flaunting. There was something—so he discovered—he hadn’t yet realized about himself. Sonnets on Fate—

O impotent Philosophy! What sage
Hath e’er devis’d a meaning of our birth
Or death—the reason of the stars, this earth?
As well the gibber of some ancient mage
As the blind wilderings of mine own age,
Or God, created in man’s piteous dearth
Of alternate, to build with hideous mirth
The universe to be our mad souls’ cage.

Sophist avaunt! What good to know or learn
These meaningless inventions of the mind?
O fool, what boots to bind thy soul ’neath stern
Discipline’s rod, who hastest as the wind
From nothing—hurl’d through fancied life and fate—
To endless nothing of the ultimate?

Cosmic. Bah! He smiled at this, but his bitterness even now made such a gesture. Sometimes he seemed to himself the only actuality in an unreal world. To write this! To write. The itch was still in him. More than ever, perhaps. But he knew better now. Novels. He had written and burned half a dozen. Had shown them to no one, had learned from his despair. He must snare significances more subtly. Grasp the shimmering inexpressibilities.⁠…

He saw in each failure how he might say the hitherto impossible. He felt he had at last come to strive for the evocation of the simple. It was a deep personal necessity for him to articulate himself. None of them understood—never would. He was an artist. He knew it. The last novel at least—half-finished and now in his desk—showed it: in it he longed to imprison forever the poignance of trifles, to record for all time for beautiful souls the grave mystery of the body. Alone, he had never deeply distrusted himself; but Em’s hungry specificness made him doubt his pale wide solutions of inner tragedies. He poured senseless oblation before her momentary color, but he was afraid of it. The logic of the ideal: the fallacy of the flesh! Where was the way? He only knew he must go on.

His name was not Lester Drane. Em’s name was not Emily Tyler. Also they were not married, though all but their most trusted friends supposed they were. She loved passion for itself. He had destroyed his background at one blow. To be free. To write. Chimera. No, it was not fantastic. He believed. He had known that he must feel the inner sympathy of another artist. Emily was an artist. Someone in Europe once said she was and so America had found it out. She was one who did the things other women threaten to do. Her hair was glorious.

They had lived together now for nearly two years. It had taken a year of the time for the scandal to blow away and leave them in peace. They were in Greenwich Village. Why they could not tell. Living among the blackmailers of art, he thought. He longed for the wilderness. Sentimentalists. At first they had accepted the extravaganza. It was new. Babes in the wood. Em had been smothered in a traditional home. They needed background. Untrammeled! The lion’s den. Les ceased to think.

Les deceived himself, but not about Em’s interest in Howard.

It was no ordinary affair. Em had had such. Howard was a symbol—because he seemed to have no reservations. Hawk face with pleading lips. Color of temperament … red beads … green and yellow … a string of beads without the string.⁠… Latin.⁠… Preserving his emotional integrity by capitulation. Em believed in no feeling that did not go out in emotional language.

Howard was fluid—not fixed with shame.

Les knew that if he could weep Em would be all tenderness to him, too. I cannot.⁠… I cannot.⁠… She resented that in him which she didn’t touch—but he felt she shouldn’t want to touch it. Thus she kept hurting herself to hurt him. Intimacy without tenderness. What does she want now? Never forgiving strength … she strong and I weak … repelled by my subjection.⁠… Em, Em, Em … not perfect but what all other women lack she has … they seem dingy … never passive in anything … piercing like a white flame … body like … love me.⁠…

He slept badly. Too much thinking.

Tonight Em sat up in bed, her slim body tightening, her small breasts rising beautifully behind the yoke of her nightgown.

“Les, why don’t you like Howard Story?”

Talk till morning. It was trying to grasp smoke. At first they had been able, when things came between, to release themselves by talking. Em still could strike through the mist with ruthless words. Drawing fire to warm.⁠… But he had not been able to bear it. He had taken refuge.

“You won’t face the simple fact that you’re a jealous husband, Les.”

Les sprang out of bed and opened the window. His heavy features were quiet. The arclight guilty before the dawn … rose and pearl … floating on the blue pool of heaven … peace like warm snow … street gleaming like a reptile … night soaring … dead of light.⁠…

Em looked at him scornfully.

“My God, but you’re romantic, Les!”

Les was romantic—no doubt of it.

He was walking in the park but he did not see the park.

Sand … drifted and white to the horizon … camels rocking like ships … sun of blood plunging over night’s verge … mother-of-pearl fields … sleep.⁠…

Snaky caravans winding … groined forests … church … jungles with leaden leaves … snuffling beasts in the dark … thatched kraals … haystacks … naked women … bronze statues … drums in the moonlight, tum, tum, tum, tum, tum, tum.⁠…

Palms beckoning in the still night … coral beach … faint white sickle of shore … moon like the Holy Ghost … hidden eyes … breasts like eyes in the pale radiance … flower in her hair.⁠…

Peons … lean faces in Rembrandt shadows … knife flash … life blood spurting down … fireflies worn for jewels … lace bobbins, tap, tap … lips on her jonquil skin … stars … a thousand golden throats singing … Algol sang loudest of all.⁠…

Crashing colors in a blinding glare … wise giants crawling … red and gold howdahs on their backs … tinkle, tinkle, tinkle … smells … thousands of smells … rubies … bracelets rubies … rubies set in beautiful noses … maddening bodies hidden under swaying cloth … dust … gray dust … blue dust … soldiers … pah!…

He rarely spoke of fifteen years spent at the ends of the earth.

Home again! Liberty drowning in the harbor, Manhattan mushrooms sprouting in the haze (lower Broadway dividing them like a gash), murky snakes of water curling round the low island—the big ship slouches up to the pier. Tiny tugs and thin hawsers tease her into the slip, and gently and imperceptibly she is captured, bound helpless to the land. High above, on the upper deck, Howard and Em silently watched the waiting crowd on the dock. No familiar face. Em shivered slightly.

“Cold? Suppose we go on shore here.” Howard’s tone was careless. He did not look at her.

Bustle, luggage, customs inspector, porters.

“Get me a taxi.”

“Here you are, sir.”

Streets of New York. Clanging cars, autos, whish! trucks thundering, screaming fire-engine, scattering people, black crowds, all dead, tramp, tramp, thud, thud, something steady and awful. Over all, this giant rhythm. A dark face in the mass on the sidewalk, Dhas Mitra, “Elephants!” Through Em’s mind stride the lines of a young New York poet.

“With huge diaphanous feet,
March the leaden velvet elephants,
Pressing the bodies back into the earth.”

And the sky overhead was dull, the buildings stood stiffly, remote and unfriendly amid the impudent din. The throbbing beat grew dim again. To Em the city seemed vague. It belonged to Les. She and Howard did not speak until the taxi drew up before Howard’s apartment.

“We’ll stop here, for the present at least,” he said. Dead gray walls, Matisse etching, two priceless Japanese prints, conspiring degradation and fear. Em was dumb. Did I ever belong here? Howard pointed to a door. “Take off your things in there.”

Em entered the bedroom and looked with wretched interest in the mirror. Her chin seemed more pointed, her cheek-bones accentuated. She had almost no color.

Em and Howard at Esther’s. Dingy cellar restaurant, flaring orange curtains, tables with rickets, spineless chairs, green candles, bad drawings by habitués. Skimpy table-of-the-host dinners, demi-celebrities. The place now favored by emotional dilettantes.

Conversation nine feet high!

“Dada is a snort—junge Kunst, pooh!—all art is music—Kokoscha—instead of giving you people gives the feeling people give him—” Howard seldom tried his brilliance on Em now. She ate laxly, almost without hearing him. But others were listening. His voice was raised a little. “Matthias Grünewald—de Sade with a brush—necrophiles—wax tears on a coffin—beauty is digestion—Renoirism—tra, la, la, la, la, la—don’t you think so, Em?”

“What did you say, Howard?”

“Why don’t you listen? Might learn something.” His voice, keyed lower, was hard. Something ached in her. The smell of Greenwich Village revolted her. Chicago. I wonder if I loved everything he did, she was helplessly musing. Not like Howard’s contemptuous understanding. “Indépendants—André Lhote—sugar teats—refusés—” The monologue across the little table became indistinct to her again. “Intransigents—communards—painting with a broom—blague—” Howard’s voice had become saw-like. “Why in hell don’t you pay some attention to what I say, Em?”

“I’m sorry, Howard.”

His face cleared at her unpassionate tone. Howard was just back from Europe.

“Cezanne—form and color have no—” he resumed complacently.

“You’ve said that before, Howard. I don’t care about the pathos of the artist’s expression, or impression. I can’t paint now.” Cezanne again! She longed for the liquid darkness outside. Les would—

“It’s because you’re losing your interest in it. Good thing. Art’s a perversion in women, anyway.” Howard laughed. Em bit her lips. He offered her a cigarette but she shook her head without looking at him. He was ashamed for her recent failures. When she did well, something in him hurt in resentment, but he boasted of her to others. He despised the blatant conceit of other men in sex. He wanted a woman who did him more subtle credit. “You ought to etch. Give you outline. You need it.” He lighted his own cigarette contentedly. “What did you think of what I said about Kokoscha?”

Her voice had stiffened.

“The same thing I thought the last time you said it. I can’t understand your idea that color and form are different things. I don’t care whether Kokoscha gives you people or the feeling people give him—you give me neither.”

Howard flushed.

“I’ll take back what I just said. What you need is a new man.”

“I need something besides what I get from you,” she flamed.

“Ditto,” said Howard viciously. He was a little frightened at his own words.

Life was more concrete to Em. She was glad of pain. It was definite and familiar.

Two days later they ran into a large group of Howard’s friends uptown. Too late to evade them.

“Of course you know Miss Tyler. She was nice enough to lunch with me today.” No implication that it was not a casual occurrence.

Em remembered that twice recently when the door-bell rang Howard had refused to answer. She wondered how many people he had written to about their relationship while they were abroad. She greeted his acquaintances distantly. Howard’s eyes menacing.

“Come right with us!” invited Carmen Stubbs raucously. Whorey-aired goodsoul, she was a perpetual virgin, yet kind. “It’s Celia’s twentieth birthday. We were just going into Boutelle’s here. We can get hooch. They know me. Just got paid for a bum story and I’m going to spend some of it on the dear child.” Pale delicate-featured Celia St. John did not even smile.

“All right,” acquiesced Howard without glancing at Em.

The party filed into the restaurant. Two tables in an alcove were pushed together.

“Me at the head of the board for once,” announced Carmen huskily. She patted the chair at her right. “And the blessed damozel must sit here.” Celia seated herself composedly. “Come up here, you.” Carmen beckoned to the Great Modern Critic, who had again honored the occasion with his presence. He glanced apprehensively around, visibly relieved at the absence of the Hungry Soul. The Critic seats himself at Carmen’s left.

Howard is next to Celia, Em between him and Jobson, the novelist. Mitra, at Jobson’s side, produces an olive-colored crumpled cloth from his coat pocket and calmly winds it about his head as a turban.

“And I go to the foot of the class for once.” The rafters ring with bullofbashan little Stieg’s proclamation. He seats himself impressively opposite Carmen. None of the others notice him. A passionate poetess, very fat and with hairy upper lip, is at Stieg’s right. Next her is Tanaka, smiling and silent. Les’s girl acquaintance sits between the Jap and the sculptor, Pierre Gouvain. She has candid eyes. There is considerable chatter and laughing as the party settles round the tables. Gouvain turns to the Critic.

“It wass you who haf said zat my weemen are fat, eh?” He rumples his black hair reproachfully.

The Critic (more impressive than when he spent the evening of Howard’s party in the clutches of the Hungry Soul) turns his blue fish-eyes on Gouvain, but his reply is inaudible in the general prefatory discussion of food. The ancient ascetic waiter, in full keeping with the faded hangings and shabby dignified furnishings, is bending discreetly over Howard and Em. Howard has ordered liberally. She shakes her head.

“Madame cares for nossing?”

Howard answers shortly.

“You bring the food and we’ll decide who’s to eat it.”

Synthetic cocktails, eagerly gulped by all save Em, the two Orientals and the Critic. Stieg breaks out (stentorian tones).

“All modern fiction can be traced to the influence of three men—my next book on Stendhal, Dostoievsky and—” (The Great Critic is beginning to speak and the company frowns resentfully at Stieg. Carmen says, “Sh‑h‑h.” Stieg, evidently overawed for the time, subsides.)

Carmen.—(Smiling to her left.) Shoot again, please.

Critic.—(Speaks quietly and insolently. His first words are heard only by those near him, but the others soon listen in silence.) The revolt against naturalism, through the neo-Stendhalians, such as, for example, Bourget, while a psychologic throw-back to Stendhal, still clings to the pseudo-scientific manner of Zola. The revolt is, of course, wider than this, and may be seen, too, in the—(The company grows restive. Whispering at the other end of the tables.)

Passionate Poetess.—(Known to her friends as P. P. Is heard audibly repeating her last verses to Tanaka.)

All his desire
Lisped in his yearning blood,
His hungry hands upon her gleaming thighs—

Celia.—(Laughs musically, her face like a Botticelli angel.) How much farther did he go? (The P. P. glowers. Tanaka stops smiling for the first time during the meal.)

Howard.—(Smiles at Celia, replies to something the Critic has said during the confusion.) Sternheim! Pooh! The expressionists belch instead of write!

(Em, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stares steadfastly at her plate.)

Critic.—(With hauteur, raising his voice slightly.) In order intelligently to understand a movement one cannot overlook its genesis. The wave of naturalism that routed the Goethe-Heine romantic lyricism split up, as I see it, under three principal influences: Whitman, Nietzsche and the Russians—

Stieg.—(Eager, voice like a hallo.) A new book of mine, three—

Carmen.—(Hoarsely.) Be still, Stieg. (Adds briskly with cajoling cheerfulness.) Why won’t you kids listen?

(Em has not touched the food Howard has insisted on placing before her. Her face suggests vicious despair. The novelist, his mouth full, addresses her.)

Jobson.—(Enigmatically.) Good royalties! (This is his sole remark during the whole course of the meal. Em glares at him without reply. Jobson bends obliviously over his plate again. His Hindoo neighbor adjusts turban and exclaims explosively.)

Mitra.—Elephants! (Then, leaning behind the busy Jobson, he whispers caressingly to Em.) Little tiger! (Em does not appear to hear.)

Critic.—(Resuming Johnsonian sway with practiced hand.) All Russian literature is pre- or post-Pushkin. When he, with Gogol and Lermontov, brought—

Stieg.—(Almost screaming.) The three—

Half a Dozen Voices.—Shut up! Down, Fido! Chloroform! etc.

Gouvain.—(Clasping his head wildly.) What ze hell! I shall go—how you say?—dement.

(During the mêlée, the girl with candid eyes leans over the table and speaks to Em. Howard is intent on a whispered conversation with Celia, and does not hear.)

“How is Mr. Drane? I haven’t seen him for weeks.”

Em was very pale.

“He’s in Chicago.”

Stieg’s feelings were evidently hurt, because the P. P. was cautiously consoling him with more verse. The Critic held the floor again.

“In Italy the reaction away from the grandiose gestures of Carducci, D’Annunzio and Pascoli—” (Stieg trembled at the mention of a trinity, but the P. P. soothed him) “the spiritual voracity of Papini and the fanatical ethicism of Croce—”

Em ceased to hear the cadenced tones. Brrh! Not their equal in sophistication, not Howard’s equal! He trying to reduce me as an artist! Never himself except in jest. This is their Bohemia! Bloodless. Cynical. Ugly and false life. Death of art. I’m more than all of them. I’m honest—not—I’m—I’m—I wonder how well Les knows that girl with nice eyes. Les. He’s the only one good—A burning wave flooded her. Les! Where are you—She breathed quickly and her eyes were suffused with unshed tears. Mad—better to die—The people and sounds all grew dim. Howard still whispering to Celia—Em rose unsteadily from the table.

“I’m going, Howard,” she said in a hysterical undertone.

The Critic paused in the middle of a word and looked peevish.

“Why dearie—” Carmen expostulated breathily.

Howard turned.

“You can’t go now.” He spoke rapidly in a low voice and tried to pull her down. Her face was pale and she jerked her arm from Howard’s grasp. Pierre Gouvain’s beautiful eyes sent her a look that made her grateful. “You win,” said Howard with slow malice. He turned away from her and resumed his talk, trying not to acknowledge his confusion even to himself. She could humiliate him.

Mitra shot Howard a glance of feline hate, but was immediately again impassive. Trembling, Em adjusted a fur scarf about her neck. She tried to keep from seeing the eyes turned upon her, especially the eyes of Les’s girl friend, who looked frank and sympathetic.

“Are you ill? Shall I go with you?”

“No!” Em’s mouth quivered and she almost whimpered as she hastily left the table.

The P. P. was holding Stieg’s hand.

“I hope you—” Celia’s cool saint-eyes lingered on Howard’s.

“I’m not going,” he said shortly.

Carmen beckoned to the waiter.

“More wine, son,” she whispered shrilly.

As Em moved between the other tables toward the door, the group she had left relaxed into attitudes of relief. The Critic settled himself with dignity and resumed his oration.

“The rejection by the younger Scandinavian writers of the realistic formula—”

Em rushed rapidly, almost running, along the slate-colored side street. The cold wind flapped her dark skirt against her knees. She carried her gloves in one hand, her bare fingers felt like ice. The sky was unendurable, a gray that had no blue or pink in it, gray like a dead dilution of lampblack. The whole world was terror.

No happiness or unhappiness, only pain, nothing strong and beautiful. I am an artist. Oh, I need—Where shall I seek? These people. The froth of life. This Howard with no mercy. Oh, Les—he servant of peace, dead in calm—Em was crying but she did not wipe away her tears.

She stopped short. I wonder if Howard and Celia went—She can’t be hurt. Em hugged her own power of being hurt. She had to convince herself of life. I can get peace alone. I don’t want—The sky is dead.

Oh, I won’t die, she said to herself. It was almost as if she had spoken the words aloud.

Several children paused in their play to look solemnly at her. Em turned and started for Howard’s apartment.

The thin sunshine thrust through the overhanging haze and waved its broad smoky-silver fans of light at all the strange pale windows of the city. In Howard’s apartment the small clock ticked garrulously to the secretive walls and to the something of silence that filled the rooms.

Celia’s birthday had been too symbolic.

Em and Howard both hurt for days. This morning after breakfast she sits wordless by a window. Medium height and slim, feet under her, body curved nicely into a chair. Lilac smock, flood of hair, too heavy brows, too thin nose, too narrow long chin, all lovely in profile. Les is right. Tongues in cheeks. No art. Life without conduct. The way to death. She was using Les’s thoughts unknowingly. Howard sulks, coarse wiry hair untidy, avian head thrust forward, walking back and forth with graceless steps. Wish she were never anything but profile! Em disenchanted! Rot! What pretentiousness! He felt he had been uselessly humiliated. Not enough, Em thought. Savagely helpless.

The clock ticked blithely and shamelessly.

“How long is this going to last?” he jerked out finally, pausing to light a cigarette.

“I don’t care how long it lasts, Howard.” Em did not look up. She was seeking for his weapons. “I’m perfectly satisfied.”

“You look it,” said Howard with a sarcasm that he knew to be feeble.

Em could be grim. Howard’s vanity needed that their relation should mean more to her than to him. I must be like them, she told herself.

“Well, I am. I never expected too much. You’re only an experience, young Mr. Story—I knew that when I took you—and you’ve been one.”

It seemed sinister that Em should be flippant. Always so direct. I’m the one—Besides, he was suffering from silence. Howard was not coldly, but temperamentally superficial. He could be brilliant only when he was in the ascendant. He knew that Em had cried alone in the night, and now he looked at her with mingled curiosity and fear.

“What are you talking about, Em?”

“Women are cut off from different experiences. I don’t mean to be. You’ve taught me something. Not much. You play one tune, but it’s in different keys, you know. So my time’s not entirely wasted, is it?” Her face was hard. Oh, how can I, she groaned soundlessly. No real words to reach anyone. To feel only through hatred. To test life by its pain—She was tired of it.

Howard was silent. Tinkle of the door-bell. Em rose. A telegram. Howard received the envelope and handed it to her. She opened it.

“Oh, Howard!” She burst into tears.

“What is it?” he asked with nervous impatience.

“My pictures, my pictures!”

“Those we left in Paris with Lepelletier? What’s happened to them?”

“Yes! He got three hung at the Munich show, and one received honorable mention! You remember the one, the purply-orange thing? Dear old Lepelletier! He always believed in me.”

“Well, what are you crying for?” Howard was not gracious.

“For delight,” she wept.

“You seem delighted,” he remarked cuttingly.

Em was oblivious to his vexation.

“I am! Oh, I am, I am!” She laughed hysterically, tears still in her eyes and running down her cheeks. “Oh, Howard, I’m so happy!” She seized him in a bear’s hug and danced him unwillingly around the room. Em felt vindicated. This was the answer to her doubts. I can work now, she thought joyously. She was already far away from all pettiness. Life was resolved once more. Now her pride was untainted with artifice. She felt, without suffering. She loved Howard. The world was real again. I wish Les knew—“Isn’t it gorgeous?” She released Howard and dived contentedly among the feathery cushions on a couch, Her cheeks had a thin color and her eyes were softly brilliant. She lighted a cigarette and began to smoke briskly and with gusto.

Howard’s sex vanity had always, half-consciously, kept him from showing Em his reluctant admiration of her superiority as an artist. His etchings were not fine. They were workmanlike. That his temperament was for life and not for art hurt him. He felt maimed, and like a cripple he wanted to torture something for it. His appreciations were keen enough to see that Em’s passionate particularness in feeling was real art, and that his intellectual mood-stuff was formula. This added to the bitterness of his half-acknowledged jealousy that tried to destroy her, that his own art—which he secretly despised—might live. Now he was chafed by the addition of European tribute coming so soon after the light words she had used about his importance as a lover. His mightiness was raw, and he chose words with deliberation.

“Not surprising,” he said carelessly. “You’re in style. Women can adapt. I admit you’re clever, but of course this fad you excel in won’t last.”

Her beautiful teeth still showed in a happy smile. His jealousy was too obvious to take seriously. She almost loved him for it.

“Howard’s mad,
And I’m glad,
And I know what to p‑l‑e‑a‑s‑e him,” she sang impudently. Something in her again wanted her life with him. She wanted it simple. Howard never was. He had always to be playing to an audience in himself. He was afraid of his own self-criticism. He did not smile.

“Emotional language without meaning, a Rodin technique applied to nothing—”

“You’re very kind, Mr. National Arts Clubber!” Em tossed her head with lofty sarcasm.

“Kindness is an attempt to focus attention on oneself. I forego that to point out that being mentioned by a small bunch of esthetic quacks in Germany isn’t immortality.” Howard’s green-brown eyes sparkled and his mouth recovered its curve. He was tearing now, not being torn.

Em pointed a teasing finger at him.

“Sour grapes! Sour grapes! You formulated old etcher. You’re jealous. Booh!”

“I wish I were,” he retorted cruelly.

She flinched, but continued to smile.

“Well, let’s go out to lunch and celebrate, anyway. You might have thought of that, and not I.”

Em’s elation was broken but not dead. She still hoped, but belief was tainted. He didn’t mean it, she insisted to herself. I hadn’t been very nice to him. I don’t think he meant it. But she could no longer whole-heartedly delight in her good fortune.

Howard felt absurd. The blatancy of his outburst made him ridiculous to himself, and vicious toward Em. To be justified he had to discover the falseness of her art. He began to study her work with a warped bitterness of criticism. Complacency is the beginning of the end, he thought. At least I’m decently dissatisfied with myself.

Em did not find herself able to achieve a single canvas that pleased her. Day after day slipping away, winter skies, bare trees brushing them, cloud-dust flying. I feel like a housekeeper. Intellectually she still believed in herself, but Howard was shaking her confidence in her work.

“You’d better take my work-room at the back,” Howard had offered. More than once, trying to paint, she heard voices in the front rooms. I wonder why he doesn’t call me. “I must get on with my plates, Em.” Whole days away from her. “I’m working over at Algeria’s studio.”

Once Em walked by Algeria’s place. Howard—a key in his hand—on the steps with Celia, Carmen and Mitra. Em almost slunk along the opposite sidewalk. Mitra saw me. I wonder—She unconsciously avoided that street afterwards.

Dinner at Esther’s again. Green candles still, and orange glow. People, strange to Em, bowing to Howard. After the meal, as she preceded him from the room, he lingered to speak to several at one of the tables. One girl pretty. Friendly voices, pleasant laughter. He did not call Em back. Why doesn’t he introduce me?

Em’s ponderings were not obvious. She was too well established as a painter. She had fed too long on Les’s pride in her as a woman. Once a little warmth in her heart. Howard wants to be with me—But his fear of touching—his absences. She was not subtle in rationalizing her instinct. She became remote, avenging wall. Howard kept her in as much precariousness as she had kept Les. No fire to warm, even to hurt: not even pain to grasp at. Significant that Em, of all people in the world, said nothing.

Again Howard yawned at dinner. Frankness, even in boredom, never repelled her like uncertainty.

“Why can’t we take some of your friends to dinner next time?” she suggested. Em looked frail as she removed her gloves and threw back the fur collar of her cloak.

“Can’t afford it. We can have Celia and Mitra in tomorrow night, though, if you like.”

“All right,” listlessly. I’m producing nothing. (Her little fund realized on occasional former pictures was gone.) I wish I could—Can’t live on honorable mention by ultra-modern nuts or praise from esoteric radicals. Having no money irked Em. You buy self-respect. Stuff! I mustn’t be petty.

Mitra and Celia came. A yellow turban was rolled this time. Celia Burns-Jonesy in gray against the gray walls. Cigarettes and Howard’s Jumping artyart talk, what jewjaw! Celia crept closer to him on the couch. Mitra rose from the other side of Howard and stood near Em. His bronze eyes were fixed on one of the Japanese prints.

“That was a wild party you gave us Saturday night, Howard.” Celia’s cool languid voice reached well. “I don’t remember all of what Tod Smith did to me. It must have cost you—” I suppose he nudged her, thought Em, glancing furtively at Mitra’s face.

“I’m trying to work these days. My last things—” Howard’s voice was too loud. Mitra whispered intensely to Em under the cover of it.

“Celia very ’fraid of me, won’t gabble about you, Jewelstar, tiger love tiger, don’t talk—” His beautiful swarthy hand touched her hair as he pointed to the Japanese print.

And Em did not talk. Howard and Celia were murmuring, she fingering his coat-sleeve. The clock ticked stolidly. Mitra, a half-smile on his purple lips, drew a chair before Em, seated himself, and joined her silence.

Howard and Celia pause uneasily, and she drawls:

“You two aren’t very boisterous!”

Mitra rises, unwinds his turban, takes up his hat and coat without a word. Em rises also. Celia pouts.

“You surely aren’t going so soon?”

He nods.

“Well, you can just go on then. I’m not coming till I get good and ready.”

Em walked into the hall with Mitra, and from there to her room. She did not return.

Rain. Gray threads of rain tangling the clouds to the earth. Streets and buildings enameled with a thin drab film. Shut in together. Howard was peevish, irritation of the tricked. Em’s restraint was ominous.

“Em, why in the devil do you pull off stunts like last night?”

Em’s eyes half-closed. I have vanity without pride, she thought, with an inner sob.

“Why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”

“Last night is a good reason for not introducing you to any more of them.”

“Why don’t you tell them we’re living together?” Quibbling, why doesn’t he fight? Suffering and anger.

“They both know it.”

“How many more know it?” Babyish lying by implication.

Howard hesitated almost imperceptibly.

“I suppose a lot of people.”

“How many have you told?” Em clenched her teeth. Concealing it! Wants to keep from making the affair irrevocable. I loathe him!

Howard blustered.

“Em, you make me sick! What in the world’s the use—”

“Whom are you ashamed of, yourself or me?” she demanded hotly.

He winced.

“Who said I was ashamed of either of us?”

“You say it with every breath—sneaking and hiding like a pickpocket!”

He lighted a cigarette nervously.

“Will you listen—”

“Don’t worry any more. I’ll never go where I’m likely to meet any of your friends again.” Her tone was like a knife.

Howard was not a master of cuttlefish psychology. He knew he was safer in attack than in defense.

“What about Drane?” he demanded suddenly. “Do you suppose he is yearning for everybody in New York to know you left him for me?”

Em realized that it was a trick, but she was grateful to hear Les’s name on his lips. She even ignored the conscious crudeness of the words. She felt that Howard had despised her for her own frankness about Les. Any directness was priceless, and the half-truth served now. The vision of Les’s taciturn vanity supplied the rest.

“No, Howard,” she answered more quietly.

He studied her before continuing.

“Don’t you think a person like him would be hurt by a thing like that?”

“Yes.” Her face cleared.

“Then what are you ragging me for?” Injured voice. “It’s just possible I was considering what you would want, if you ever thought about it, as well as myself.”

Em distrusted kindness in Howard, but his irritated tone reassured her. She never resisted confession.

“Howard, I’m sorry I acted the way I did.” She went to him.

Triumph always made him amorous. He kissed her roughly. Her lips hurt. She felt she was living. Em did not always love friction, but she always feared evasions.

“I believe in being frank about expenses,” Howard said frequently. “Money’s the last convention to go. When you want anything, say so.”

Em’s vanity had chafed under the daily pointing up of his independence. The impression of sincerity in his continued remarks had at first disarmed her, but notwithstanding her intellectualizations she had become unwillingly sensitive. With Les—their food and common possessions had seemed unobtrusive and kindly.

She and Howard were in a cozy old neighborhood restaurant, not extensively patronized, but faithfully clung to by the knowing. Em was in good spirits. Her eyes were calmer. A canvas had balked all morning and then suddenly started well: she had worked up to dinnertime. She was in a mood to enjoy the cheerful little tables, the low buzz of talk, the friendly clatter of plates and cutlery that came to them as they went in. It had been raining outside: and the window beside them was silver with mist and darkness.

“What are you taking, Howard?” she asked gayly as they seated themselves.

“Mutton.”

“I want guinea-hen and mushrooms. They cook it beautifully here. Don’t you like it?”

“Yes,” said Howard.

“Then why don’t you have it, too?” Em’s smile tonight lighted her face that had grown somewhat thinner.

“Too expensive,” he answered shortly.

That’s because I haven’t been working, thought Em in a surge of wrath. No money! She remembered her home as a girl. Conventional men! They’re all the same. The proprietress came to their table. She was stout and motherly with mournful affectionate eyes. Her husband cooked and she acted as waitress.

“What is you would like for your dinner?” she asked solicitously. “Papa has made very nice the guinea-fowl tonight.”

“Roast mutton,” replied Howard, not looking up.

Em studied the card.

“I’ll have some toast and a glass of milk.”

“What! So little yet!” The woman smiled at her sadly and demurely.

“I thought you wanted guinea-hen.” Howard’s voice was irritated.

“Toast and milk,” Em repeated, smiling determinedly at the proprietress.

“The luxury of martyrdom added to the virtue of economy,” he sneered as soon as they were alone again.

Em tried to think. Why can’t I be detached—No use, I don’t want—It must come out, I suppose it’s because we’re all wrong about everything.

“I can’t see you pay too much for your privileges as a lover, Howard.”

“Oh, I expected that!” he retorted viciously.

Her heart bounded at the prospect of contest. Howard’s indifference chilled her, his cruelty never. Her courage rose to life. It is life. Anything but negation. Pain is life if intense, anything, only not stasis. I do pay too much! thought Howard with deep vexation. Why these domestic topics! Money was a nuisance. She knew he was poor just at this time. He gave her what he had. Why demand a heroic gesture to accompany it? Her face was startling in its unyielding, his was ugly with anger.

“Why, hello, Em! When did you get back? You’re a nice one not to let your friends know where you are! Why don’t you write a fellah when you go away? How come you do like you do! Where’s Les? Good evening, Mr. Story.”

Em and Howard had been too intent on their animosities to notice the approach of Tit Miller. He made a round graceful gesture with his hat as he reached their table.

Toby was with him.

Em was obviously discomposed.

“Les is in Chicago,” she said evasively.

“Hello, dear thing.” Toby smiled amorously and his eyes misted. “Mr. Story.” He nodded slowly to Howard. “Can we horn in on your tête-à-tête?”

Tit had already seated himself without waiting for an invitation. Both glanced curiously at Em and Howard, whose attitude of domestic altercation had convicted them of intimacy far more unanswerably than a blatant love-passage could possibly have done. Em smiled recklessly.

“Why, of course, children. Come and join our happy family party!”

Howard forced a wry smile. He despised Em’s friends. She will encourage anything, if enough adulation goes with it, he thought contemptuously.

When Tit Miller’s weak fear of those stronger than himself was sufficiently disarmed, he could be a charming unintellectual companion, full of nonsense and quaint antics which had little relation to the esthetic solemnity that annoyed and disgusted strangers. But he was inclined to malicious revenge where his vanity was hurt. And Em’s mood of heedlessness welcomed the signs of antagonism which Howard now showed toward him. She secretly did not care if Tit told. She hoped he would. Howard should acknowledge her. I don’t care for anything.

“You two people look rather glum,” remarked Toby. He was sensitive as to himself, but his intellectualizations about others were just crude enough to miss the fine points of every situation.

“We were just in the midst of a friendly argument.” Howard’s voice was faultlessly careless.

“A friendly quarrel, you mean!” exclaimed Em defiantly. She did not despise diplomacy, she was afraid of it. Anything clean-cut—even a wound. They’re my friends, anyway.

“Maybe Mr. Story’s jealous of your honorable mention,” Tit suggested elaborately.

“That’s it. You’re clever, Mr. Miller.” Howard’s amusement was sinister.

“I am!” Tit replied, with a rather blank flourish of his tasteful hand.

“You ought to have honorable mention for just being, dear girl,” said Toby unctuously, touching her arm with his childish fingers.

“If you will all excuse me, I must go.” Howard spoke insolently, warning in his green eyes.

Em could have let him go, had he been bored. But his malignity called to something in her. A natural delight in hating was alive. She rose uninvited.

“Well, good-by, kittens.” She smiled with bravado and anticipation.

“Where are you living now?” Toby asked fervidly.

Em laughed nervously and glanced at Howard, who was paying their bill.

“We—” she began and stopped. “I’ll look you both up.” She left her toast and milk untouched and followed Howard out of the restaurant. “What is the matter with you?” she asked rashly as she fell into step with him along the dim pavement where the light seemed to dissolve here and there and make glowing stains on the purple night.

“I don’t intend to discuss it in the street.”

Her face was flushed and exultant. She must feel that she was alive, even by pressure and strain.

“Isn’t Tit cute and ridiculous?”

“Very! Charming lyric note!” Howard’s sarcasm was vindictive.

Em was preparing her resources. There was wisdom in forcing Howard to defend himself. Isn’t it childish? But ignoring things is dying while you’re alive. If only big things were alive too—Her stride showed something like exaltation as she walked beside him.

“And Toby is a dear.”

“He’s an erotic fish,” said Howard savagely.

They had reached the apartment. Em lifted her head gallantly as they entered the door. What do I want with her? Howard thought. He could not cope with her! It depressed him that he needed anyone. It was unpleasant to feel that her presence helped him to believe in himself.

A friendly morning. Howard’s apartment looked its warmest in the copious diffused light that flowed all around and through the quiet rooms. The over-restraint was less emphasized in the soft intimate radiance that seemed specially made for human use and comfort. In the living-room the subdued exquisite colors of the two Japanese prints glowed gently against the gray that was no longer somber but silvery and alive, and the beautiful simplified exaggerations of the figure in the Matisse etching were more familiar and believable.

Howard, in a dark dressing-gown, moved silently about the flat. Without warning he opened the door to Em’s room and thrust in his head. Em was awake. He came and sat on the edge of her bed. She lay prone, her slender arms above the bed-clothes, her thick gleaming hair spread out over the pillow like a rich tapestry. Her high small breasts stood hard and round under the covers.

She did not resist the reality of his approach. A soft pink tinged her cheeks, grateful for his seeking. Clutching at life, loving surprise, her eyes sought his and her lips parted. He bent over her and covered her mouth with his own. She forgot that his belief was only in self-expression. He had come. Joy in being needed. She wanted to be destroyed for his need. She gave, obliterated in being.

Howard always left her psychically unappeased. The opposition of his egotism summoned her, only to retreat within itself. Now he raised himself on his elbow and scanned her face. She was yet breathing rapidly from emotion and her eyes were wide and still. He avoided her drinking eyes.

“Em, you’re a beautiful object when you’re aroused,” he said reflectively. His thin features and light green-brown eyes glowed with esthetic satisfaction. “Love is an artistic discovery.” He tried to think of her only as this. He wanted to escape what seemed to him the moral distortion of life.

At times she felt that his gaze saw through her clothes, and at such times she became happy for a moment; but now his obliviousness to the personal element in their experience degraded her to herself.

“Don’t look at me without seeing me,” she whispered.

Howard frowned. He wished her desire fixed on him, resented her private emotions and responses. When she spoke like this she seemed less beautiful to him. He could not bear any ugliness in others. Their defects made him think of his own inadequacies. As a man who was primarily an artist, he refused to be responsible for himself.

“I’m analyzing love.” His detachment prevailed. “Men and women should come together for a perfect moment and then part forever. That would be the only poetical love affair.”

“Howard!” Em frowned also.

“The memory might endure. The love won’t—that’s an illusion. Only something completed is beautiful.”

Em drew slightly away from him and he sat up.

“Nothing completed is ever beautiful. It’s dead,” she said quickly. “You’re afraid of everything that’s alive.” Her cheeks glowed.

Howard studied her unmoved. He tried to convince himself that Em was too much the woman ever to achieve the artist’s detachment. He enjoyed his implacableness toward her, the severity of his moral contempt for himself. Em was alone. When I feel, he’s only curious, she thought bitterly.

“Cowardice is admirable in the lover,” he returned slowly. “Moral courage becomes the solitary. Your artistic perceptions all go into painting, Em.”

“I don’t see how you can simplify life like that, Howard.” Emotionally formulated, she thought, just as Les is intellectually. “Physical intimacy is too big. It’s weakness—so it’s moral. It’s by touching that we exist.”

Howard hated Em’s concrete personalness because it intruded into his own type of sensual mood. He needed her for a chorus to his own sensations, not to be occupied at the same time with her excitement. He had never allowed himself to face any conception of human obligations. Life aside from art was distasteful to him. When Em was most the woman he despised her, but there was a hardness and courage in her painting that he envied. He attempted to disassociate her personality from her work. It left him confused. He rose and lighted a cigarette.

“Both of us care only for ourselves,” he returned irritably. “Why blur things? That’s the trouble with you moderns, even in art.”

Em was sitting up in bed now, her chin in her hands. Her hair fell in a cloud about her.

“There’s something more—” she began earnestly.

“Pooh! Romantic twaddle—woman a burnt offering on the altar of man’s lust!”

Em’s eyes flashed.

“Howard, you’re unjust—”

His hawk face hardened.

“It’s a crime to be just to you,” he said. I don’t count, she thought, sick and angry. Always showing desire for me, and then this—Les at least—“You’ve been spoiled by Drane’s incense-burning,” Howard added mercilessly.

Howard was away two days. Em had now no money of her own, and ate insufficiently. She was nervous. Intellectually she did not blame him, but something deep down in her did. About seven o’clock in the evening the latch clicked and he let himself into the apartment. Em was sitting silent in the soft dusk. Amid the imperfect obscurity of the twilight objects were vague and unsubstantial. Howard’s movements were rapid and decisive.

“Hello, disembodied spirit! What about dinner?” He wanted to forget the tensions and unpleasantnesses which had separated them.

“I’ve had something,” she replied.

“You look like a picture by Bonnard.” Howard approached and seized her in his arms. There was about him an air of aliveness and satisfaction that compelled. His unmoved artistic analyses of Em’s states of suffering or pleasure never extended to himself. When he was undergoing pain he was oblivious to everybody, enwrapped in an emotional preoccupation that admitted no possibility of examination. When his desire was aroused Em’s impulses were unnoticed. Now she was far away. He kissed her passionately and unknowingly. When she allowed him, he experienced her as an impersonal beauty, and his eyes were dim and bright with an almost religious intensity. “What were you thinking about, Em?”

“You.”

Howard felt concretely, but was carried by generalities. At this moment he was lost in himself. His hands were upon her.

“You’d better think about me!”

She shrank from his breath on her face. I’m forgotten, she thought. A shiver ran through her body.

“Don’t, Howard.” She pushed him away. In the deepening darkness she could distinguish the greenish glitter of his eyes, the bitterness of his lips. Her unwillingness aroused him. He crushed her in his arms. Her flesh hurt. I will not be snatched. She thrust out with all her strength and struggled free. They stood up, facing each other in the gloom.

“You’re becoming very sophisticated, Em,” he protested, vexation in his tone. “You would delight a voluptuary.”

The appraisal humiliated her more than his disregard. She stood erect, voice opposing.

“I’m human at least.”

Howard’s raptness had passed.

“I’d rather be sophisticated,” he gibed.

“Sophistication is like breeding,” she said coldly. “You’ve got to forget it to have it.”

He always felt that her emotional nakedness was vulnerable, but her infrequent mental flashes put him on the defensive. He shrank where he could not invade.

“And so I haven’t any?”

“You can see others cruelly enough, Howard, but you never see yourself.”

“Are you going to dinner?”

“No,” she rejoined. She turned on the light and picked up a book.

He took up his hat and stick and went out.

Howard returned almost at once. Em looked up in surprise as he unlocked and swung the door open. He was manifestly changed in mien, and she gazed at him curiously. In his hand was a letter with a Paris postmark.

“I forgot a portfolio I want,” he said defensively. He stood more upright than usual but turned his hat over and over in his hands, and his glance was placating.

Em was disarmed by his awkwardness. The fact of his coming back meant something to her. He looks like a little boy!

“Is it this one?” She held up a leather case.

He stretched out a hand without looking.

“Thank you.” Their eyes met. “I found a letter from Algeria in the mail-box.”

“Yes?” Em smiled slightly.

“She says that—”

“What does she say?” Em asked with frank interest.

Howard drew a long breath.

“Well, that—I might as well read it, I suppose—” His hat fell unnoticed from his hand.

“Please do,” said Em excitedly.

Howard sank into a chair and drew the letter from its envelope. Em drew her own chair nearer and leaned her elbows on the table between them.

“‘O Dearestie—’ You know she talks like that,” Howard interpolated glibly. “‘I’ve just had a tea (for artists and others) and Félicien Le Gros brought Wiegand (!) and of course I showed him your etchings, and he said quite spontaneously that they were not only MASTERLY (définitif) as to technique but showed CHARMING mood as well. So now go and crow over unfriendly New York. I hope to—’ That’s all about me—my things.” He looked up quickly at Em, his eyes exultant and his pale cheeks slightly flushed.

The pathos in his elation over a word of praise made Em warm. His poor etchings! That’s what makes him so cruel. Any little scrap of commendation from Europe. This was really nothing. She thought of her own elation over Lepelletier’s telegram. She looked at Howard almost compassionately.

“Won’t you take me to dinner after all, Howard?”

“Sure,” he agreed comfortably.

On the way to a familiar restaurant they met Pierre Gouvain. Howard greeted him warmly.

“Won’t you go to dinner with us?”

“Wiz plaisir.” Gouvain’s eyes drank Em’s profile. She turned to him as Howard led the way into the restaurant.

“Who is Wiegand?” she asked.

Gouvain smiled charmingly.

“Oh, he iss one French etcher, fery good of ze sécond rang, and much amateur, of weemen.”

A cheerful waiter bustled forward. Their favorite table was empty. Howard was gay during dinner.

“I heard from Algeria today, Gouvain.”

“You haf? What does she do?”

“Why, she seems to spend her time boring people with my stuff.”

“Read what she says, Howard,” begged Em kindly.

“Oh—”

“I am fery interest,” vowed Gouvain earnestly. Howard read the extract. “It iss verité, ze etchings of technique are wonder, and haf ze mood,” agreed Gouvain generously.

Howard smiled contentedly. He did not notice Gouvain’s ardent eyes seeking Em’s. Neither did Em. I understand him, she thought. He’s only an artist, and he can’t be one. She felt that Howard had been made little and dear to her again. At the restaurant door they said a cordial good-by to Gouvain.

Howard looked down at Em.

“Shall we go back to the apartment?”

“Yes,” she whispered, putting her arm through his.

Her look of longing revived his contempt. He was in the mood which his timidity seldom allowed him, and believed in himself. For the instant he was the great artist and Em, primarily woman, was outside his life. He encouraged the profoundness of his momentary illusion, knowing unadmittedly that it could not last. He wanted the sweetness of condescending to Em. His gentleness did not spare her. She was one of many. Em felt something vaguely unpleasant in his amorousness. She had come no nearer success with Howard—not so near as with Les. I must have someone, she thought. Em was discouraged. I’m frightened.

Sleet and snow made Em feel apart and cheerless. She rose late and put on her oldest clothes, garments she had worn before she knew Howard. Without yet saying it to herself she knew she was going to talk to her friends whom she had so long neglected. She prepared, and sat down alone to her coffee and toast: ate with her hat on, her cloak on a chair near her. She felt cold, unreal—alien. She did not quite understand the instinct that had kept her away from her own. It was not that, even before the incident with Tit Miller and Toby in the restaurant, Howard had refused to have anything to do with Em’s circle.

“Your dancer friend moves like a blind snake,” he had said spitefully.

“But he’s not the only friend I have, Howard.”

“And the technique of seduction your Toby person employs would nauseate a prostitute.”

“They’re all sincere and lovable dears!” she had declared with unreasoning emotion.

“I don’t care for a retinue of lovable nonentities. You require them because they adore docilely and don’t compete or criticize. A few honest peers would be good for you.”

Hostile silence had ensued. Em had cut herself off from his friends, and now hers were passing. He wants me to lose them, she thought this morning, go back to them after he’s through with me! I won’t drive them away. Putting it into words had not quite revealed her need to herself, but she finished her breakfast and went out into the storm.

Genevieve still lived on the third floor of the ancient tenement, and Em rang the door-bell three times. A window was opened above her and Stuart peered out.

“Why, hello, Em!” he called in surprise. The window closed with a bang and he ran down and admitted her. He preceded her up the stairs. “Where have you been keeping yourself?” He turned his pale regular profile, with its prominent chin, toward her as he spoke, but his kind bored eyes did not meet hers.

“I’ve come to see you,” she replied fervently.

“I see you have!”

Stuart was in the habit of lounging when at rest, and now he walked before her with a stoop. He opened a door. Genevieve was working at a commercial drawing. Mark Leighter slouched his ungainly length on the couch. There was Blanche Dixon. Also a plump young Jewess with shining black hair and faint dark down on her upper lip.

“Hello,” said Em, rather timidly now.

“Hello!” Blanche heartily and Mark with gentle kindness. Blanche rose and kissed Em boisterously.

Genevieve did not move.

“We heard from Tit and Toby that you had been in town some time.” Genevieve’s voice and phrasing were as precise as she alone could make them.

“Do you know, Mark, that John said to me last night. ‘Where is your friend Miss Tyler?’ and I said—” Blanche seated herself beside Mark and, while he smoked successive cigarettes, continued a soliloquy that was both audible and confidential. Mark, with his negative submission, was her especial outlet. She only asked not to be repulsed.

The Jewish girl had remained unnoticed.

“Emily, this is Cicely Frank,” Stuart said rather awkwardly at last.

Em responded to the introduction and then slowly approached Genevieve’s chair.

“I’ve come to tell you something, Jen.” She seated herself on the floor beside her friend. “I’m living with Howard Story.” Genevieve glanced nervously at Cicely and murmured to Em, but Em would not be deterred. “I’m not going to sneak any longer, Jen. Anybody can know it who wants to.” She looked around defiantly.

The surprise had not died out of Genevieve’s eyes. She bent over Em. Her lips trembled a little.

“But what about Les?” she whispered.

Em did not lower her voice.

“I’m not married to Les!” There was silence. Stuart frowned gloomily. Mark smiled affectionately at Em. Even Blanche was speechless. Cicely Frank looked steadfastly at her own hands. Em was saying to herself, They’re mine again! I’m glad I have—But beneath her thoughts was a deep relief in confessing Howard—a lust for release. She had forgotten that it would hurt Les. I won’t be alone. I won’t. Her fear of being isolated from her associations, her resentment of Howard’s caution! All were looking at her kindly again. The surprise and affront of her going away without telling them, her avoidance of them since her return—all was forgotten. I love them! “I’m going to tell everybody Howard and I were in Europe together.” She did not realize that her vanity was healed by the feeling that she was betraying both Howard and herself. I’m with them again, she said to herself.

Genevieve’s voice had almost its old affectionate note.

“We thought you were in Chicago with Les,” she said quietly but a little stiffly, smoothing Em’s hair with her hand. “We wondered why neither of you wrote. And when Tit and Toby saw you—”

“Yes, Em, I said to John only last week, ‘John, not a soul has heard a word from Em Tyler and Les Drane and we all—’” No one in desperation ever insulted Blanche, her good intentions were so much in evidence and her benevolence so obviously genuine.

Mark’s eyes brimmed with tears, but he continued to smile.

“We understand, Em,” he said in a trembling voice.

“I’m going to make coffee for everybody.” Stuart rose suddenly and stalked unsteadily toward the little kitchen. As he passed Em she seized his hand and kissed it. Stuart had been emotional, for him.

It seemed like old times. The past devoted intimacy returned. Em’s thin face grew tranquil. There’s somebody, even if Howard doesn’t—At last she rose to go.

“I’m so glad to know you. I admire your work so much,” said Cicely rather timidly.

Em was smiling like her former self.

“Good-by, dears!” She kissed her fingers to them.

As the door closed after her, Genevieve, with the emptied coffee cups, followed Stuart into the kitchen.

“I’m worried about Les,” she said gravely. “I hate women! I’m fond of Em, but in some ways she’s just like all the others—myself included of course.”

Resenting Howard’s secrecy more and more, Em developed a passion for confessing their relation. All kinds of people, people not interested. I wonder what there is in me that does it. Am I wrong somewhere in me? She hunted up Tit and Toby. They were eating chop suey that Toby had made in his room—a big garret crowded with laboratory apparatus. A tumbled bed was in one corner. A fine piano laden with dust and scattered sheets of music. They admitted her enthusiastically, and Em sat down on a rachitic chair while Toby laid out an extra plate.

Tit had a mind adapted to ingenious subtleties, but incapable of any simple fundamental impression. When he was at his worst he was deliberately obnoxious. After they had drawn up to the table again, he bent his flat almost negroid head toward her, eyes peering through thick glasses, an oblivious smile on his curved beautifully red lips.

“I no more liking that Howard gent you introduced us to, Em,” he joked, snickering at her inanely. “See! The finger of scorn!” He pointed a long narrow finger close to her face.

She sprang from her chair.

“If you have no more insight than a Hottentot I wish you’d go,” she flared, her eyes blazing.

Tit was perturbed but he was also extremely egotistical, and obstinate. He had always resented Les, and took a secret pleasure in the unfaithfulness Em had never confessed to him.

“I may have quite as much insight as some of your more wooden-minded friends, Em,” he retorted sullenly, his near-sighted eyes spiteful. “What you allowed us to infer the other night at the restaurant was that the whole thing was a light affair. You spoke about it lightly enough. Nobody made you leave Les. You followed your own taste in the matter. If you wanted a cosmic pathos to envelop the circumstance you might have indicated it. As a matter of fact there’s been nasty gossip about you and I’m the one who tried to put a stop to it. I—”

Em was implacable.

“If you don’t go, I shall.”

With an evil sweeping gesture, his eyes filled with tears, Tit seized his hat and went.

Toby’s eyes rested on Em with moist sympathy. He had never dared aspire to her before, but the feeling that she had thrown herself away on Howard made him stealthily avid in his attentions. Em regarded Toby affectionately, but with complete understanding. He leaned toward her.

“Dear girl, you know that I—” A loud knock sounded on the door. Toby drew back and his mouth was petulant. “Damn!” he ejaculated with genuine zeal.

Reluctantly he opened the door and his irritated peering gaze discovered Michael, who stepped buoyantly into the room. Michael was devoted to a conception of democracy which was contradicted by everything in his temperament and appearance.

“Why, hello, Em!” he exclaimed in a pleased voice. “Jen told me you were in town. Where are you staying?”

“With Howard Story. I’ve just been telling Toby and Tit.”

“I hoped—” Michael’s eyes were passionately commiserating. “It’s your own business, Em. We all love you and Les both—no matter—what—” He dragged out the last words with a painful effort, and immediately changed the subject.

It was late. Michael’s appearance had made a formal friendly group of three and they had chatted kindly. Dusk came before they realized it. Michael looked at his watch.

“Let’s go to Esther’s for dinner.”

“All right.” Em agreed instantly. Unnoticed in her lay a silent hope that she would see some of Howard’s friends.

Toby acquiesced wearily. “I’ll go, but I can’t eat anything.”

At Esther’s Em without hesitation approached a table occupied by Carmen Stubbs and her group.

“Hello, dearie,” called Carmen’s husky dissipated voice.

Em paused intrepidly while Michael and Toby went forward and seated themselves in a distant corner of the room, Gouvain turned his fine dark eyes to her. Little Stieg caressed his mustache and imperial preparatory to violent speech. The Hungry Soul shifted her raptorial glance from one man to another, deciding on her prey. Tanaka smiled obscurely. Mitra’s eyes bent on his plate. Pale little Celia St. John’s open-eyed demureness was impartial to all. There was a shower of greetings. Then Carmen spoke indulgently.

“I suppose you don’t know where Howard is these days? I haven’t seen him for a week.”

“I presume he’s at home,” replied Em quietly.

“Whose home?” asked Celia caressingly.

“Ours,” said Em. “You know we’re living together now.”

Mitra let slip a poisonous glance at Celia’s innocent face. Tanaka’s smile did not change. A wounded look in Gouvain’s eyes. The others stared at Em with frank curiosity. Even little Stieg said nothing.

“We knew you were, child,” Carmen returned with throaty casualness.

“Well, good-by,” said Em valiantly. “I mustn’t leave my friends any longer.”

“Bye-bye, dearie,” answered Carmen, speaking for all with raucous benevolence.

During dinner (in the intervals of Stieg’s volleys of ex cathedra pronouncements, and the probings of the Hungry Soul’s psychoanalytic vocal tentacles, which floated to her) Em was steadied by noting the whispered colloquies at Carmen’s table. Em was defiant and strong. I have declared. I’m not ashamed—even of leaving Les. I’m not ashamed!

“We’ll take you home, Em,” Michael proposed when they had finished coffee and cigarettes.

“Fine!” Em was rehabilitating herself. Michael’s offer was a symbol. I can live unconcealed. She felt clean. She was almost gay as she led the way out of the small food-smelling room into the cold bright darkness of the animate street.

Michael and Toby left her at her door. As she slowly climbed to the apartment Howard ran up the stairs and overtook her.

“Hello! Where have you been? I was here most of the afternoon.”

“I’ve been out with friends,” Em answered abstractedly.

The janitress was in the hall, a parcel in her hand. She did not observe Howard ascending behind Em.

“Here’s a package for your husband,” the woman began. “Oh, here he is—”

“He’s not my husband,” Em almost snapped.

The janitress gasped.

Howard’s eyes were furious as Em unlocked the door and preceded him into the flat. If he could only bring himself to use some brutal word to destroy her! But something withdrew him from the impulse. Fine sense of proportion! Female. This kind of martyrdom—Ennobles our relation to confess it to an Irish janitress! We’ll be evicted next.

“My God, there’s nothing more holy than a sense of humor, Em!” he grated.

Em would not answer. Damn the girl, anyway!

The shriveled and grimy park, dead and still under the winter sunlight. Branches of trees stiffened and distorted with the cold, twigs like upturned rootlets. The bright sky belonged to another land.

Howard and Em were walking in the park.

Em in a coarse woven red-brown cape and tam-o’-shanter, hair shading into her cap. Her eyes saw without looking. The old scene brought her an unworded pain. Les seemed part of the park. The dead tree and the pool. Together, so long ago—She had never gone back to Jane Street. When her clothes and easel were moved to Howard’s she had sent Les the key—with no letter. The park had remained. Their path, hers and Les’s. Howard was walking beside her, hunched like a crane in his long heavy coat with its big collar, narrow face under golf cap. Les had unity of body. Les was—

Howard’s voice startled her.

“Has Drane settled in Chicago?”

“I don’t know.” Em glanced keenly at Howard. Did he see my thoughts?

“Don’t you ever communicate with him?”

“No.” What has kept me? Why? Will this go on—Then anger came. “Is a report expected on all I do or don’t do?”

Howard frowned slightly.

“No, but I wondered. He may turn up here in New York some of these days.”

“What if he does?” She spoke with coldness.

“Well, it wouldn’t be very—”

Em broke in almost harshly.

“I don’t see how you are concerned, whether he does or doesn’t.”

Howard’s lips tightened.

“I beg pardon for presuming to mention him. I didn’t know that his name was interdicted.”

An undefined perception checked Em in her unrecognized desire for enmity between the two men.

“Why shouldn’t he come if he wants to, Howard?” Her voice was reasonable, almost beseeching. Half-acknowledged determinations.

“I stand aside,” Howard replied bitterly.

Em’s restraint dissipated.

“I should love to see him!” she cried impetuously, her face working. “Why shouldn’t I? He’s a lovely person, unselfish and—”

“Unselfishness is trading services,” Howard interrupted cuttingly.

She scarcely heard him.

“And strong and—” Her breathing was agitated.

“It isn’t possible to be strong in a relation,” he said carefully. “But I congratulate you on your ex-ideal. I had no notion of how much he still obsessed you.” Howard wanted to be indifferent to Em’s reverence for Les. Anyone who inspired reverence—faugh!

Each striving to conquer the other. Em stopped on the path and looked fixedly at Howard. Is he jealous? The thought solaced her. I’ve hurt them both. She felt kinder toward them both, almost maternal.

“Howard, why should you feel this way? Les always spoke so generously of you—”

“I don’t thank him for an unsolicited condescension,” Howard rejoined testily. “But I suppose he enjoyed the grand gesture.”

Em’s cheeks flushed.

“Well, you might thank him!” she burst out. “He’s big enough. Les isn’t complacent.”

“You should have stayed with him.” Howard’s voice trembled. He became obvious when attacked. He was brilliant only when tearing down.

Em turned on him with suppressed enmity.

“I know I should,” she said passionately.

Howard had begun to realize that he might lose Em, but he could not forbear to dare her.

“It’s not too late to go back to him,” he taunted coolly. He almost wanted her to leave him. He could be sure of his superiority only when they were apart.

Turning suddenly he left her alone on the path.

Howard had begun to avoid his friends.

None of them except Celia had spoken to him of Em’s indiscretion, but he could not endure their smiles. It was not enough that he was not ashamed of Em, not ashamed of himself. He could bear to see no one but Celia. Celia’s eyes were naked against his, like a body touching his body. Celia had no shame. Still he kept away even from her, began to stay at home, locked in his apartment. Em was not always there. But several whom he ran into unavoidably had lightly hinted that he was growing uxorious. Howard feared only light things. Em is banal in her intensity, he told himself. Yet he would not go out more. His vanity was inverting: he wished to defy himself.

A dreary afternoon. The gray walls were grayer. Em was in her bedroom. She never worked any more. One partly finished canvas had lasted for a month. Her body was growing gaunt, her face narrower. She came out, started as she saw Howard, cheek in hand, seated idly by the table.

“What’s the matter, Howard?”

He did not raise his eyes.

“How should I know? It’s hard enough to decide what’s the matter with other people, let alone myself.”

Em drew near and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Can’t you tell me what it is?”

The touch of her hand made him respond. He wanted to strike her. Since he could not he relaxed to her sympathy.

“I suppose it’s because I’m not a strong character.” Howard’s pride was never fixed on virility.

Em’s tenderness was drawn by submission. She bent over him and laid her cheek to his.

“I’m not a strong character either, Howard.”

He feared to succumb.

“You don’t need to be, Em.” He tried to blame her for her artistic success.

“Neither do you, dear.” He started to reply and she placed her fingers over his lips. “Let’s just be, Howard, and not talk about things.” Her voice was wistful.

He could not bear any more of this. He wished blindly to destroy his recognition of his human dependence.

“I haven’t made you the effigy of a class.”

Em straightened up.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Howard.”

“You substitute me for everyone who hurts you.”

She walked to the other side of the table and sat down.

“No more than you, Howard. That’s the kind of people we are: that’s the way our emotions work. The trouble is you won’t admit it.”

“We’re not the same kind of people,” he said impatiently. “You think you’re noble because you’re remorseless in things that kill others, and you despise me because I’m selfish in matters that hurt no one. All your instincts are infallible and all mine perverse!”

How like my talks with Les, thought Em. But at least we feel each other. Poor Howard’s vanity. She felt sad for him. Yet the weaker he showed himself the more certain she, in her pity for him, became.

“Let’s not tear each other,” she replied gently. “If we can’t have affection—” I’m talking like Les now. I wonder if—

“Affection is feeding on someone else,” Howard interrupted bitterly. “But you’re not even affectionate.”

Her face flushed.

“I am!” she cried. “I am!”

“You’re not. All you want is to bait me whenever you need crisis, and then clear it up with a little drama.”

Em rose angrily.

“And all you want is—”

“Somebody to be half human,” he broke in vindictively. “I’m not in Drane’s class as a strong man.”

Em paced her room in the darkness.

I want to live. I must know I’m alive. How can I live alone? I must touch something!

She sobbed. She moved her hands wildly.

Keep death away from me! Life is so little! All I want—all I want—

She sank to the floor. She lay weeping without tears. That was the end of everything—just this dullness. She fancied with horror that it made no difference to her how things went on.

Howard was trying to be gentler. Em’s almost ill look made him talk sociably. Since his letter from Algeria he had referred to her several times. To Em it seemed that he was always invoking Algeria. Why does she bother me?

“I think Algeria will be back in New York before long,” he said suddenly one night after they had gone to bed.

When Howard had first begun to live with Em he had written Algeria a letter which seemed to end the phase of his intimacy with her. But he was allowing it to revive. Algeria was not the effacing kind. Howard himself was never true to any relationship. He never admitted for himself the necessity of selection.

“I don’t care.” Em yawned as she replied. She felt that Howard should be interested in her.

“You’ll like Algeria, Em.”

“I shan’t like her.”

“How do you know? You’ve never seen her.” Howard wished he had not spoken of Algeria, but he would not desist.

“I’ve heard enough.” We didn’t come to bed to talk about Miss Westover. Howard’s party—He’s worked over there ever since I came.

“She’s a remarkable woman.” Did he wish to hurt Em with Algeria? He knew that in the beginning he had desired to hurt Algeria with Em.

“She must be. Do all the rest of your friends lie awake nights raving about her?”

“I believe you’re jealous of her.” Howard laughed as he took Em in his arms. She pushed him from her. She could not bear to have him with her while he was thinking of Algeria. Why did Algeria mean anything? Let him go to her! Em rose and put on her slippers and kimono. “Where are you going, Em?” said Howard angrily.

“To sleep in the other room.”

“Do!” he retorted. There was a veiled threat in his tone but he felt a novel guiltiness he could not explain.

Em paused at the doorway.

“I don’t want to disturb your thoughts.”

He did not reply. When she awoke next morning he was gone.

All the negativeness of Howard’s personal egotism was becoming positive on the artistic side.

He rather enjoyed self-contempt, dismissing himself on the plane of human relations. His frank lack of moral pride relieved his vanity from ethical obligation. It allowed him not only to do what he liked, but also eased him from the inner necessity to make it up to himself. Nevertheless he was really unhappy. This unhappiness, while chiefly with himself, was not merely a vague disappointment and dissatisfaction. He needed for Em to worship him more, not as an individual, for he had a genuine pleasure in confessing his faults, but as an artist. He longed for it. Her own artistic achievement was unanswerable, and therefore some reversal of her attitude became requisite. She did not condemn but ignored his art. So, still thirsting for her recognition, he unconsciously shifted his hope to the more equal field of the personal emulations that he despised.

Howard’s increasing absences at night bothered Em. It was not a conventional grievance. Freedom was her god. Her philosophy of conduct did not permit her to object to any philandering he might see fit to practice. One of her hostilities toward Les had grown from the feeling that he forced himself to ignore all other relations except his relation to her. Sacrifice oppressed her. But Howard had come gradually to neglect her unbearably. Since her rush of confession to her friends and his, she saw almost no one. Something in her needed contact. There was panic in the world.

Darkness. It was nearly midnight. The bell rang. Em had sat for hours almost motionless in a big chair. She sprang up with unconcealed eagerness and opened the door. Her thin face hectic. It was Mitra. He entered silently. He looked first at her and then around the apartment. She was alone. He exclaimed with cheerless delight.

“Elephants!” Em smiled. It was good that someone had come. “I came to walk.” Needless words always seemed to hurt him.

“With me?”

Mitra nodded. To Em after her evening alone it was a challenge. My trouble is that I’m daunted. She put on her hat and coat and they went down to the street.

“Good!” His voice was secret and remote.

They walked slowly. Em conversed uneasily to her mute companion. It was only when they were passing Algeria’s studio that she realized why. After a few turns in the Square they came back by Algeria’s studio. Howard and Celia were at the door. He was fitting his key in the lock: but Celia saw Mitra and Em.

“It’s after one,” Em said quietly, glancing at her watch. She was holding herself. Mitra’s being with her helped her. “I think I shall go to bed.”

Mitra tried to see her face. He paced silently at her side until they reached the apartment.

“May I come up?”

“No,” said Em kindly.

His dark eyes were lustrous.

“I love you, little white tiger.” He stood motionless before her.

“Don’t, please.” She was still gentle.

“He has—for a long time.”

“That makes no difference.” She held out her hand with an affectionate gesture. Mitra’s silent dramatic complacency was disconcerting to her Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness. She smiled. “Let’s be friends.”

Almost before she spoke he was gone.

Em decided against seclusion. She went to lunch at Esther’s the next day. She wore one of her most becoming costumes, a brown hand-woven wool skirt and smock, hat covered with the same material. Her slightly hollowed cheeks were carefully rouged, her eyes alight and unswerving. Howard, Celia and Gouvain were seated at a table that was directly before her as she entered.

Gouvain sprang to his feet and pulled back the vacant chair.

“Zis wass reserve for you!” he exclaimed with his warming smile. His seeking eyes rested happily on hers.

Em returned his smile with decision.

“Hello,” she said in a natural tone to Howard and Celia.

Constraint was reduced to a minimum. The new manners do not yet admit breaches of good form in public. However, Gouvain’s glowing eyes perplexed Em slightly. His eyes no longer considered Howard. She felt surprisingly uncertain. When sex is no longer connected with a beloved person there is no stopping-place. Celia, Mitra and Gouvain seemed a welter of sex. But she was glad Howard was free. I’m enduring for him what Les endured for me. Em was almost happy to be made to feel something about it.

Gouvain talked to her with an air of intimacy. Howard and Celia flippantly discussed art. Celia’s silken indolent voice came to Em.

“A woman with a body like mine doesn’t need to be an artist.”

Em was astonished at the close of the meal when Howard turned to Gouvain.

“Will you take Celia home, Pierre? I’m going to walk along with Em.”

Celia never showed wonder. Gouvain glanced docilely at Em.

“I am enchant.”

On the way to the apartment neither Em nor Howard spoke.

Howard and Em could still talk things out, still fight to release, so she clung to him.

From the beginning of their relation he had always been faithful to the secrets of all the women with whom he had had affairs, including a schoolgirl sweetheart of his college days. Thus he possessed a psychic harem from which Em felt he was excluding her. Now they sat down to debate the present situation. Howard had invited this by coming home with Em. He could not convince himself that he was ready to risk losing her, but also he could not desist in his attempt to punish her through Celia. Em’s calmness mystified him. She seemed stronger. Her delicate form seemed more definite and steady. She began the discussion.

“Don’t you feel that we should be frank about things, Howard?”

“By which I suppose you mean for me to be frank.”

“I mean both of us,” she said patiently.

“You’re very frank about Gouvain,” he responded coldly.

“I’m perfectly willing to tell you everything about him and me.”

“And about Mitra,” he added with more heat.

Em crimsoned.

“I can tell you every word I’ve ever said to Mitra.”

“What about the things he’s said to you?” Em was silent. “Hasn’t he made love to you?”

“Yes,” she answered honestly.

“Well, if you let men make love to you without my knowledge, why should I report to you everything I do?” Under the pretext of sharing I’m allowed only the aspects of sex she enjoys!

“I didn’t let him!” exclaimed Em indignantly.

Howard was intoxicated in the thought of her retreat before him. His green eyes shone, his curling lip quivered.

“I presume Drane reported on all the time he spent out of your sight.”

“I never asked—” she began in a choking voice. Her body swayed and she clenched her hands.

“How much has he told you about this girl with the ‘candied’ eyes you fancied so?” Howard was instinctively sowing doubt.

“I know he never—I don’t believe—” Em burst into tears. This suggestion inflicted far more pain than her jealousy of Howard aroused.

Howard was pitiless. He wanted to hold her and yet not relinquish his goad. I’ll use her bombastic idea of duty!

“What you and I need is a little good taste in our relations, Em,” he said with cynical tolerance. “Now Algeria and I, she’s like me in such matters, we never—” He hesitated involuntarily before the sudden anger in Em’s eyes.

He realized that he had made a false step. Em seemed most desirable when she was aroused, but he felt unable to end what he had begun. Before he could continue she burst into a storm of irate words.

“Don’t talk to me! I hate you—you and your Algeria—and that little baby-faced whore—all of you—go away—leave me—” Em stopped for breath. She was frightened at herself, but relieved by her own violence. Her lips still quivered but her gaze disowned him.

Howard’s tone altered.

“Listen, Em—”

“Get away from me!” she cried hoarsely, her eyes dark with bitter abhorrence.

“I shall,” he snarled, striding from the room and slamming the door after him.

As he passed down the stairs he felt ill with depression. He had no regret for Em, but he felt lost. There seemed nothing for him to look forward to. Some great artist to acknowledge his personality! He did not admit greatness in Em, but at least something real—without her, nothing. He recalled bitterly and without gratitude the men and women who admired him: he despised them, with hatred, for the insult of their too easy tribute.

Left alone. Em sank into a chair by the table and buried her face in her arms. Rough sobs grated in her throat, her shoulders heaved jerkily, the muscles of her neck twitched. The gathering darkness at last hid her shivering form.

Em and Les were pathetically glad to be together again. Their first night together they had both wept, Les silently and Em hysterically. The remembered rooms, the familiar things about them, well-known and dear surroundings. Les was timid. Em waived sex. I don’t care about our bodies. I’m at home with him. They feel that all is well at last.

They had so much in common! Les was a congenital artist who by the atmosphere of a commercial land had been railroaded into concrete activity. She was a congenital artist who was a rebel. Why should they not comfort each other? Their friends gathered closer around them. Genevieve and Stuart. Dinners together again. Toby and Tit Miller dropped in. Em forgave Tit at first sight.

“Very much good say!” He whirled her about the studio until she was breathless.

“Don’t, Tit!” she begged, dizzy and laughing. His nonsense made her feel all the world simple—no need for defense. What she called reality. He described a sweeping arc with his hat and bowed low to Les, the hat clutched theatrically to his heart. Em loved his boyish relaxation.

Toby helped her to a chair and drew another close to hers. In the penurious surroundings of his big dusty attic he experimented in chemical syntheses, and now he carefully produced from his pockets some tiny vials containing perfumes made by himself, which he solemnly bestowed on Em.

“To enable you to keep your husband’s love,” he said unctuously. Em ignored his language and thanked him effusively. “Don’t I even get a kiss?” he complained sadly. She laughed again and kissed him lightly, jumping up to escape his lingering embrace. She loved him, too. He loves me—even if I don’t let him.

“I’ll make us all some chocolate.” She tripped back and forth gayly, the cups and spoons tinkling pleasantly in her hands. Toby’s damp eyes followed her avidly. Poor Toby! He was boundlessly promiscuous in his search for the grand amour that would be the culmination of his life. Toby was a flower—a flower on a dung-hill. Em loved him for the virtues in him which he himself despised. She smiled affectionately first at him and then at Tit. When the chocolate was ready she went over and kissed Les. They all gathered contentedly around a low table. Candle-light drew them together in its vagueness. “Look out, it’s hot,” she warned solicitously.

Before they could drink, the bell rang. Em ran to the door. It was Mark and Blanche. Blanche burst excitedly into the room, giggling and patting Em and Les, oblivious of them in her own agitation. Her perfect satisfaction with herself was disarming.

“You lovely children, do you know, Mark, that I said to John just the night before Jen told me—” Without stopping for breath she was off on her endless soliloquy. All, in spite of themselves, conspired toward the perfection of her illusions.

Mark shambled in after her. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Gulping violently he kissed Em and seized Les’s hand in a spasmodic quivering grip.

“What’s the use of trying to say anything?” he said, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose shamelessly. Unheeding of Blanche’s unbroken chatter in his ear, he carelessly handed a little package to Em. She untied it and drew out a beautiful Chinese carving.

“Oh, Mark!” she expostulated, “you shouldn’t. You need the money yourself.”

“Money’s no good, you can’t buy anything with it,” he replied quaintly. Mark was utterly irresponsible as regards finances. His rent was overdue and Em’s carving had been bought with the landlord’s money. He told himself that he refused to take life seriously, and his stories concerned themselves with morbid and whimsical conceptions of annihilation, a mixture of decadence and transcendentalism, mirroring his easy yet terrible philosophy. Now, among his friends, he was giving himself simply and completely to the voluptuous feeling of affection without responsibility. “It’s good to see you together again,” he whispered to Em.

More chocolate was set forth and boisterous conversation made the rooms live.

“I have a poem here,” Les drew a paper from his desk, “new style, written to someone unknown to me. I’ll read it to you if you’ll give me your opinions on it.”

“Go on! Sure! Fine! Let’s have it.”

Les read gravely.

“To J. V.

Dickens and Balzac
Were said to have constantly
Mingled their fictions
With their real experiences.
Every one must have known
Some specimen of our mortal dust
So intoxicated
With the thought of his own person
And the sound of his own voice
As never to be able
Even to think the truth
When his own autobiography was in question.
Amiable, harmless, radiant J. V.!
Mayst thou never Wake
To the difference between thy real
And thy fondly-imagined self!”

“A fine thing, but a shade too intellectual,” said Tit oracularly as Les finished.

“I don’t call it a poem,” declared Em brusquely.

“I can’t get it at all,” Blanche admitted blithely.

Toby deigned no comment on an effusion that contained nothing erotic. Mark was lost in rapt self-communion and had heard nothing.

“You’re primarily a painter, Em, and don’t sense the subtleties of words,” argued Tit. “I seldom find myself at fault on such things. The author of that thing is a real artist, but inexperienced. Where did you get it, Les?”

“James’s Principles of Psychology, volume one, page 374.”

“Get out!” Tit looked frightened.

Les handed him a book.

“Word for word. The page is turned down.”

Tit involuntarily joined in the laughter.

“Well, this proves what I’ve always maintained, that William James was the artist and Henry the psychologist,” he retorted adroitly with an impish gesture.

They felt happy in each other’s warmth. It was late when the group broke up.

“If Stuart and Jen had only been here it would have been perfect,” gushed Blanche as good-nights were said.

“See you soon,” they each called as they filed down the stairs.

“Aren’t they imperfect dears?” demanded Em as the lower hall-door slammed after them. “And isn’t it lovely to be here together again?”

Les kissed her.

“Yes,” he said.

New days of life. Some of them were beautiful. Then the old tentacles feeling their way again. Tiny spun threads of doubt. Em was too careful. Deep in herself she realized this was her last chance with Les, her last chance with life. She had to rebel against the need for hiding her sharp undeviated edges of personality. Life, forcing her to restraint, made her the more unpremeditated. The world was growing dim again. Outside horrible people, living unreally according to conventional types. She tried in vain to work seriously. The promising picture had not precipitated into distinction: at the instant of hope it was gone, some paint upon a canvas. I can’t get it. Maybe it’s because I’m happy again. Am I happy—

Les, the silent Les, began to talk. Something unknown drove him. He was sitting at his desk in the waning afternoon light, his strong nose etched against the curtain behind him, his wide chin emphasized by the dark furrows at either side of his mouth. Em watched him. Her tenderness for him ached in her.

“Em.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Has your picture come out right?”

“Not yet.” She willed hope into her voice.

“I feel—I blame myself—for your not having done more. I sometimes think—I was to blame—for things—” The reason for my failure is that I’m too reasonable. The virtue of a little insanity!

Em went to him and smoothed his hair.

“It will come, Les. It’s all right.” Shadows lay under her eyes and ran down from the bridge of her delicate nose toward the edges of her mouth.

He drew a long breath. Conquering a lifetime secrecy, he fought on.

“My hardness persecuted you till you—” If I can talk I won’t feel this hindrance between us.

She placed her fingers on his lips.

“You’re not hard. I won’t have you abusing yourself. I was the one who—Let’s not talk, Les. Let’s just love each other.” She bent and laid her lips against his forehead. She feared his conscience. “I love you, Les. Don’t you know I love you?”

“I wonder if any woman can love me.” Nobody can love one who arouses contempt, as I do in Em. How had she ever left him if this perfection were not an illusion? Once before it was like this and I believed. He could not bear to risk another awakening.

“Oh, Les—” Pain. Tim was the one who wanted peace now!

He took her hand and held it to his cheek.

“I’m afraid my vanity is too crippled ever to recover, Em.” Howard Story. That Algeria woman. They were what Em went to. The kind of people she—Don’t you see I don’t dare to believe in us?

Em withdrew her hand and seated herself in a chair near the desk. Her sloping shoulders drooped, already she was tired.

“Les, you mustn’t let things grow that were never there. We must be happy now.” She was stubbornly giving.

“I’m very much older than you, Em,” he said irrelevantly. She needs something I couldn’t give, that I’ll never be able to give.

“Bosh! What’s that got to do with us? Les, you’re as morbid as—”

“I wonder if it’s the place,” he continued, perplexed. Greenwich Village. We must get away. Then maybe we—“Em, I saved quite a lot while I was alone in Chicago with my salary and expenses, let’s go somewhere together.”

“All right, sir!” She jumped from her chair and flung her arms around him. “Won’t it be dear?” she whispered.

As she released him he lighted a gas lamp and took up his papers.

“I’ve got to finish my blurb on this damned book before dinner.”

“And I’ll make a charcoal sketch for an arrangement I thought of last night.” She walked toward her work-room. “Let’s get Jen and Stuart and go to Manzinetti’s for dinner tonight. The bunch will probably all be there.”

“All right.”

They felt better.

Genevieve came often, usually with Stuart. Genevieve was too timidly glad, too conscious of them, did not take enough for granted. Jen is afraid for us—Em and Les had been talking again. Talk about Howard, Algeria, not about Cicely, talk.

Michael had been in, full of talk about an old connoisseur who wanted to adopt him, leave him money, or Ming vases, in his will. Michael had ostentatiously steered away from personal matters. Now Genevieve, exhibiting too much delicacy. Em’s talk with Les had unfitted her to bear Genevieve’s anxiety. Les had explained that he felt he was emotionally lacking. Otherwise Em would not have gone to Howard, he thought. She had thought, I’m too much for him.

Cicely! He loved Cicely because she needed none of his strength. Can I trust myself? Will I ever be what Les wants? If he’ll only wait! If he’ll let me grow old. Les might die. She couldn’t bear that. Better die first. Cicely had disappeared. Gouvain had told her. Les would not speak of it.

Genevieve sat in the studio and chatted almost as loquaciously as Blanche could. If Genevieve would let them see her heart. But she only talked frantically.

“Good-by, dears.” She was going. She kissed Em and held Les’s hand in both hers. Her faithful eyes were worried as she walked slowly downstairs. Is it my fault? Afraid to blame Em, she blamed Les for her doubts. I suppose I’m a damn fool, she said to herself.

As Genevieve’s footsteps died away in the hall Em lighted a cigarette and sat down to think.

“Les, do you love me?” she asked suddenly. Genevieve had said something to disturb her. Something is still wrong between Les and me, what is it?

“Of course I do, Em.”

Em thought and felt incidentally. No amount of devotion could convince her of love. In most ways she accepted from Les a responsibility for her that was absurd, yet she exercised over him a minute psychical tyranny of which he was but half aware.

“That’s a queer way to express it, Les.” I can’t take things as a matter of course.

“What do you mean, dear?” He came to her.

“You only talk about love.” He has no curiosity, she thought bitterly. Just drift—

“There’s no answer to that, Em.” His voice was tired and hurt, the lines in his face deepened. Every emotion dictated. No place to retreat into myself while I’m with her. Strength all for defense—

Em drew away from him.

“Of course not. It’s true. There’s never any answer to the truth. What you want is answers.”

He felt confused and wronged. His suspicion of himself already seemed confirmed. The change of keying was sudden and inevitable, but he could not put his finger on the subtlety beneath it. Crown of thorns. Blood on His gown … the cross … sleep flying down … He should have taken her in his arms and broken her on his heart, but he only talked hopelessly. Fevered striving for recognition. The world cold, Em needed a touch to heal her, and he offered her words.

“Because I act differently you feel that I—”

He pities himself, she thought pitilessly.

“If I only knew you felt at all!”

Les began to walk back and forth.

“I said just before Jen came in that I lacked something, Em.” Les acknowledging inferiority! The sin of being forgiven—Had they both forgotten that they were determined that life together should not be impossible?

Em rose.

“You expend just as much emotion on anybody or anything else as you have for me.”

Les’s eyes darkened, he felt numb. It’s she who shares with anybody. I don’t count. No appreciation of individuality. Invades my personality. Ignores my desire. Achievement … my novel … graves lying still … I wish Carl—Fear of losing her still ruled him.

“I don’t dare now to say what I think any more.” She always lustful for revenge, and I always frightened. Impulses, outgoings—all swallowed up in fear!

They looked at each other baffled. The trip they were to take together away from grief was forgotten.

The fact of Howard’s rather prompt desertion of Algeria had sowed poison in Em’s relation with Les. She did not realize this, I knew Howard couldn’t stand her. Did our relation really mean something to him? Em was desperate at not being able to work. She would not admit that the new Les had disappointed her unalterably.

Les had found Cicely, had met her accidentally in downtown New York. Cicely was seeking work. He had tried to be friends with her, had offered to take her to the Empire State Trust Company, to ask Mr. Sutton to employ her as young Babbitt’s assistant. Cicely had not reproached him, but had refused help, had refused to be friends. Les told it all to Em.

“Why should she hate you, Les?”

“She doesn’t. It’s the same kind of pride I should have.”

Em had hoped he would condemn Cicely. She admired him for not doing so, but she despaired.

“You must find some way to help her, Les.” A frozen hand caught Em by the throat. She knew that she would always have to share Les with Cicely, whether Cicely was there or not. I’m not big enough—

Les worked early and late. Freelancing was a hopeless campaign. He said nothing, but he was too tired to make love. Em often left him and went out. He’s happier when I’m away, she told herself. She saw Howard frequently. Greenwich Village is a neighborhood. Once he was in a restaurant with Cicely. That worried her. She felt a conspiracy of understanding from which she was excluded. Once Howard overtook Em on the street.

“Shall we have some tea?” He looked young and artless, smiling at her, a suggestion of pain hidden in his eyes. Em was sentimentally conscience-stricken that she had broken so brutally with Howard.

“I don’t mind.” She was so pleased that she was surprised at herself. It was relief to be with Howard again. He understands my inadequacies, how inevitable they are.

Unconsciously she drifted into trying to hold to Les and yet get Howard back. She explained it to herself, that a human relation had survived between them all. Em was honest, but intellectually blind. Her emotions were subtle. She was frightened that she wanted Howard again, but their past mutual cruelties in the gray of her present apathy seemed life. She inarticulately felt that Les and Howard combined would be complete. She tried to argue herself into a justification of such a situation.

Deep in Em’s unconscious self Cicely stood. Cicely was Em’s audience. Em was pathetically trying to wring, first from Les and then from Howard, some sign that she, too, was physically compelling. After Algeria, Howard could not put Em out of his mind. He wanted Em, for vanity’s sake. He needed to leave on her some mark of his power. She wanted him for stimulus. After Howard, she could not endure alone the lack of stress with Les. She would not conceal her actions.

“Les, should you mind if Howard came here occasionally?”

Les’s large brow wrinkled. His hair, swept backward over his head, was becoming streaked with gray. He thought a moment, his small powerful hands clenched. The passenger rocked the boat! Ha! Ha! Ha! Am I going insane? Yes, it’s true—

“Why do you want him, Em?” No security. Failure. Love is defenselessness before one person. Its pathos arises chiefly from the fallacy that it will be a source of comfort in a hostile world. Bah! What good thinking? He was betrayed. I am old.⁠…

“Do you think there is any reason why we should act conventionally, Les?” Em at the moment really believed what she said. She did not notice something impelling her.

“Why risk our happiness again, Em?” He felt degraded by pleading.

“Why fear risks?” she asked valiantly. “Why not prove our happiness? That Les cared exhilarated her. Was he happy? Child of the moment, she had forgotten Howard, though they were discussing him.

“Are you sure you aren’t beginning to care for him again?” Must I be defiled by jealousy? “You think if you take risks emotionally enough they aren’t risks.”

Em was repulsed.

“Of course on your theory of the emotions that’s the obvious explanation.” She caught at anything to defend herself. I can’t tell the truth either. How like my talks with Howard!

Les felt that he knew his fatal handicap. I’m constructive. Em and Howard were both destructive. I realize I have lost.

“Why must you have him? Love can’t exist without fortitude, Em.” She won’t use will power—

Now he’s preaching to me, she thought resentfully.

“Why shouldn’t I?” she demanded. “I’m not in love with him.”

Les bowed his head. Dividing soul and body. Degrading both. Secret smiles … speak no word.⁠…

“I make no objection,” he said.

Howard came. There was almost a flourish in his mien. He would never love Em again, he thought. She belongs with Lester.

“How are you, Drane?”

Les took his hand without reply. Em’s small beautiful head above her slender neck. Em’s delicacy and distinction of body, wistful boy-girl body with its hard pointing breasts. Her bravado and pathos. I can’t bear for him to see her as I see her. Damn the Village! Place where you share your money and the body of your woman—slime!

Em had put flowers on the table. She had arranged her marvelous hair carefully, wore a becoming gown Les had never seen. Howard imitated himself, displayed his social skill, charm. He was playing to Les more than to Em. He retailed a clever risqué story. Em laughed lightly.

“What poison-minded people!”

Howard flashed.

“People’s imaginations are like necessary evils in society.”

A string of neat phrases. Les appeared surly and clownish. He knew it. His smile was a dead man’s smile. Em and Howard striking fire from each other! Flowers. Hair. Gown. I will not! Anguish. Cold hollow of her breast … beauty grown foul.⁠… He rose and grasped his hat and coat.

“You must excuse me.”

Les stumbled as he walked down the stairs, his hand on the rail.

When Les returned Em was alone. She lay on the bed, her thin body contorted in an agony of weeping.

Les could not speak. Will the end come? What do I want? The night outside. The moon … still pool … white arms enfold me.⁠…

He seated himself in a chair. Morning. He was still there.

Em had gone to sleep.

Em again gave up Howard. She could not bear Les’s hurt. Howard’s coarseness of misunderstanding had defiled her. She was convinced that she was physically incompetent. Les was withdrawn, Em was away from the studio a great deal. It humiliated her now to see Howard. She saw him several times, never with Algeria. Les at home alone, what am I running after? One day Howard overtook her again.

“Em, why are you avoiding me?”

“I want to be alone.”

“Let’s go to the park and walk.” He hailed a taxi.

“I don’t want to, Howard.” The cab-driver turned away, incensed.

“When can I come to see you again?”

“Don’t come any more.”

Hatred struggled in Howard’s eyes. The malice of women!

“Then why did you ask me at all?” His mouth twitched a little.

Em was compassionate. She was cruel to everything but helplessness.

“I’m sorry, Howard.” Her voice was soft.

He sprang to the hope of control. He was always at his best when winning. He straightened his loose shoulders.

“You can’t treat people like this, Em. You should at least allow a day or two for the holes to heal before stabbing again. No wonder you’re finding yourself isolated.”

His words reached home, she cringed under them.

“There’s no need for you to risk anything by trying to rescue the outcast,” she said sullenly.

He went on ruthlessly.

“Men run from you because you insult them without letting them sleep with you.” Howard was as unsatisfied as she or Les with the ugly lack of criteria of self-respect around them. But he was compelled to make her realize him.

“I don’t want to sleep with anybody!” she exclaimed in angry pain, tears starting to her eyes.

“Pooh! Marriage has destroyed women’s fastidiousness. A woman who sleeps with one man she detests will sleep with any man once convention is relaxed.” No one is decent any more. Why deny life as it is? Unmorality. Dirt! Can’t possess one’s own person. No form to life. I hate it, too, but I must have her back or blot her out. She’s ruined me. “You hang to Drane from fear.”

“I don’t!” she cried, helpless in her confusion and wrath.

“You’re both afraid. Every lover lives in fear. And you’ve lectured me about courage!” Howard laughed scornfully. He was riding to victory.

Em did not realize that it was her own despair that was subduing her.

“Why is it any longer your business even if it’s so?” she jerked out like a vexed schoolgirl.

Howard shrugged his shoulders. She would not come to him, but she was humbled. He could not live beneath her.

“It isn’t. Why should I worry? When you can’t get all you want, you destroy all you have. Well, it’s up to you. I’m through.”

Brawling on the street! What made her listen? The fear of not being hurt? Em shivered. She lifted her head.

“Let’s not repeat this, please. I’m glad you understand. I don’t want you or anyone else. I only want to work. Good-by.”

Howard laughed again, malicious exulting in his laugh.

“Work? It is to laugh! You won’t work. Your things get worse and worse. Instead of rhythms you’re producing ringlets!”

Em’s mouth opened and she paled as if he had struck her in the face. He walked away. Conquered! He felt happy. He was not afraid of Em any longer.

She had planned to dismiss Howard!

Em went home wounded and sore. Les was sitting alone in the studio. She walked by his chair, laid her hand upon his head.

“My dear!” She needed to be near him, longed for a bodily presence, a presence to touch and comfort.

His mouth trembled.

“Em, I need help. Life frightens me. I’m not up to your standard.” His voice was bitter and tired. “I wish I were a woman.”

She turned away from him. She had no excess of life to give any more. I’m weak, too.

“It’s easy to be a woman, Les. You only need to be useless.” Her painting was feeble, she knew it now, even her first best things. Nothing in the world, not even herself. The waste of suffering! She was glad he was weak and small before her. She could reach him. The man where there is no child. She turned to him again. “Les, Howard is gone.”

Les’s hands clutched his chair. Dare to think—The tree of life … angels like butterflies … a lamp held high.⁠…

“Gone?”

“He won’t come any more.” She approached.

“Em—” Les’s shoulders heaved, but Em could hear no sound. She knelt and stroked one of his tense hands.

“Yes, darling.” Her throat ached.

“Em, we will go away.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“We’ll go away. While I was alone I saved enough. We’ll go to some far warm place—and be.” Rose-colored dreams. Minarets … closed blooms of lotus flowers … cry like a silver bird … eyes behind a veil … golden breasts.⁠…

“Yes, Les.”

“Where there is no more struggling.” Seas with no tide … island belted with gold sand … crooning of the sea … listening shore … peace.⁠…

“Yes, Les.” She snuggled to him. Life cannot be felt. Go from life, leave pain. It makes no difference to live. I will, she resolved, I will!

He bent and put his arms around her, his face on her shoulder, his cheek to hers. They sat clutching each other in the failing light. Les’s hour had come. She was beaten. He was already on the sea. Saffron ship … night like black hair … white fires of spume … birds in the painted sky … lonely cries in the dark … dim land … palms like harmless madmen.⁠…

“Oh Em! You will love me!”

She clung to him.

“There’s no one but us, Les.”

Les’s world had become a holy place. Church of the sea … pale lilies of foam … chant of storms … rosaries of spray … Em’s pictures of heaven … my book, the Sacred Book … candles of God in the sky … the star of hope, star made of a lily.⁠…

Em shuddered.

“Kiss me, Les.”