{"collection":"ritual-magic","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34825/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34825","id":"gutenberg_34825","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34825","summary":null,"tags":["Authors -- Fiction","Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Critics -- Fiction","Love stories","Occultism -- Fiction"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Kentuckiana Digital Library)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                         She Buildeth Her House\n\n                        By Will Levington Comfort\n\n                  Author of \"Routledge Rides Alone,\" etc\n\n\n    With a Frontispiece By\n    Martin Justice\n\n    Philadelphia & London\n    J. B. Lippincott Company\n    1911\n\n    COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY\n\n    Published May, 1911\n\n    PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY\n    AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS\n    PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.\n\n\n    A BOUGH BROUGHT WITH SINGING\n          TO THE FEET OF\n               HER\n    WHO CROSSED THE SANDS ALONE\n       IN ADORING PILGRIMAGE\n            FOR HER SON\n\n\n[Illustration: HE REACHED THE CURBING OF THE OLD WELL WITH HIS BURDEN]\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nFIRST CHAPTER. PAULA ENCOUNTERS THE REMARKABLE EYES OF HER FIRST GIANT,\nAND HEARKENS TO THE SECOND, THUNDERING AFAR-OFF\n\nSECOND CHAPTER. PAULA CONTEMPLATES THE WALL OF A HUNDRED WINDOWS, AND\nTHE MYSTERIOUS MADAME NESTOR CALLS AT THE ZOROASTER\n\nTHIRD CHAPTER. CERTAIN DEVELOPING INCIDENTS ARE CAUGHT INTO THE CURRENT\nOF NARRATIVE--ALSO A SUPPER WITH REIFFERSCHEID\n\nFOURTH CHAPTER. PAULA ENCOUNTERS HER ADVERSARY WHO TURNS PROPHET AND\nTELLS OF A STARRY CHILD SOON TO BE BORN\n\nFIFTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE FURIOUS HISTORY OF SELMA CROSS\nAND WRITES A LETTER TO QUENTIN CHARTER\n\nSIXTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS CALLED TO PARLOR \"F\" OF THE MAIDSTONE WHERE THE\nBEYOND-DEVIL AWAITS WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS\n\nSEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME\nNESTOR'S REVELATIONS, AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT\n\nEIGHTH CHAPTER. PAULA MAKES SEVERAL DISCOVERIES IN THE CHARTER\nHEART-COUNTRY, AND IS DELIGHTED BY HIS LETTERS TO THE SKYLARK\n\nNINTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS DRAWN INTO THE SELMA CROSS PAST AND IS BRAVELY\nWOOED THROUGH FURTHER MESSAGES FROM THE WEST\n\nTENTH CHAPTER. PAULA SEES SELMA CROSS IN TRAGEDY, AND IN HER OWN\nAPARTMENT NEXT MORNING IS GIVEN A REALITY TO PLAY\n\nELEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE\nHIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS\n\nTWELFTH CHAPTER. CERTAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARTER CRUCIBLE, AND HIS\nMOTHER'S PILGRIMAGE, ACROSS THE SANDS ALONE TO MECCA\n\nTHIRTEENTH CHAPTER. \"NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND\nSPOIL HIS GOODS, EXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN\"\n\nFOURTEENTH CHAPTER. THE SINGING OF THE SKYLARK CEASES ABRUPTLY; CHARTER\nHASTENS EAST TO FIND A QUEER MESSAGE AT THE GRANVILLE\n\nFIFTEENTH CHAPTER. QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW\nBATTLE-GROUND, EACH LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS\n\nSIXTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA, FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER\nCASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT INTO THE NIGHT\n\nSEVENTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA SAILS INTO THE SOUTH, SEEKING THE HOLY MAN OF\nSAINT PIERRE, WHERE LA MONTAGNE PELEE GIVES WARNING\n\nEIGHTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT\nPIERRE AND THE PANTHER CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL\n\nNINETEENTH CHAPTER. QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF\nPELEE, AND ENCOUNTERS A QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER\n\nTWENTIETH CHAPTER. CHARTER'S MIND BECOMES THE ARENA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN\nTHE WYNDAM WOMAN AND SKYLARK MEMORIES\n\nTWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER. CHARTER COMMUNES WITH THE WYNDAM WOMAN, AND\nCONFESSES THE GREAT TROUBLE OF HIS HEART TO FATHER FONTANEL\n\nTWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER. CHARTER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRATERS OF\nPELEE--ONE LAST DAY DEVOTED TO THE SPIRIT OF OLD LETTERS\n\nTWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER. CHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE\nIN THE NIGHT, AND THE WYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE PALMS\n\nTWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER. HAVING TO DO ESPECIALLY WITH THE MORNING OF THE\nASCENSION, WHEN THE MONSTER, PELEE, GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH\n\nTWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER. THE SARAGOSSA ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS\nFROM PELEE EIGHT MILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT ASHORE\n\nTWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER. PAULA AND CHARTER IN SEVERAL SETTINGS FEEL THE\nENERGY OF THE GREAT GOOD THAT DRIVES THE WORLD\n\nTWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE\nHEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE WORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY\n\n\n\n\nShe Buildeth Her House\n\n\n\n\nFIRST CHAPTER\n\nPAULA ENCOUNTERS THE REMARKABLE EYES OF HER FIRST GIANT, AND HEARKENS TO\nTHE SECOND, THUNDERING AFAR-OFF\n\n\nPaula Linster was twenty-seven when two invading giants entered the\ncountry of her heart. On the same day, these hosts, each unconscious of\nthe other, crossed opposite borders and verged toward the prepared\ncitadel between them.\n\nReifferscheid, though not one of the giants, found Paula a distraction\nin brown, when she entered his office before nine in the morning, during\nthe fall of 1901. He edited the rather distinguished weekly book-page of\n_The States_, and had come to rely upon her for a paper or two in each\nissue. There had been rain in the night. The mellow October sunlight was\nstrange with that same charm of maturity which adds a glow of attraction\nto motherhood. The wonderful autumn haze, which broods over our zone as\nthe spirit of ripening grains and tinting fruits, just perceptibly\nshaded the vivid sky. A sentence Paula had heard somewhere in a play,\n\"My God, how the sun does shine!\" appealed to her as particularly\nfitting for New York on such a morning. Then in the streets, so lately\nflooded, the brilliant new-washed air was sweet to breathe.\n\nPaula had felt the advisability the year before of adding somewhat to\nher income. Inventory brought out the truth that not one of her talents\nhad been specialized to the point of selling its product. She had the\nrare sense to distinguish, however, between a certain joyous inclination\nto write and a marked ability for producing literature; and to recognize\nher own sound and sharp appreciation of what was good in the stirring\ntide of books. Presenting herself to Reifferscheid, principally on\naccount of an especial liking for the book-page of _The States_, she never\nforgot how the big man looked at her that first time over his\nspectacles, as if turning her pages with a sort of psychometric faculty.\nHe found her possible and several months won her not a little\ndistinction in the work.\n\nReifferscheid was a fat, pondrous, heavy-spectacled devourer of work. He\ncompelled her real admiration--\"the American St. Beuve,\" she called him,\nbecause he was so tireless, and because he sniffed genius from afar.\nThere was something unreservedly charming to her, in his sense of\npersonal victory, upon discovering greatness in an unexpected source.\nThen he was so big, so common to look at; kind as only a bear of a man\ncan be; so wise, so deep, and with such a big smoky factory of a brain,\nfull of fascinating crypts. Subcutaneous laughter that rested her\ninternally for weeks lingered about certain of the large man's sayings.\nEven in the auditing of her account, she felt his kindness.\n\n\"Now here are some essays by Quentin Charter--a big man, a young man and\na slow worker,\" he said. \"Charter's first volume was a thunderer. We\ngreeted it with a whoop two years ago. Did you see it?\"\n\n\"No,\" Paula replied. \"I was too strong for literary trifles then.\"\n\n\"Anyway, look out for Charter. He didn't start to appear until he was an\nadult. He's been everywhere, read everything and has a punch like a\nprojectile. An effective chap, this Charter. He dropped in to see me a\nfew weeks after my review. He confessed the critics had made him very\nglad.... 'I am doing a second book,' he confided to me. 'Down on my\nknees to it. Work-shop stripped of encomiums; no more dinner-parties or\nany of that fatness. Say, it's a queer thing about making a book. You\nnever can tell whether it's to be a boy or a girl....'\"\n\nPaula smiled reservedly.\n\n\"I asked him what his second book was to be about,\" Reifferscheid went\non. \"'Women,' said he. 'How novel!' said I. He grinned genially.\n'Reifferscheid,' he declared, in his snappy way, 'women are interesting.\nThey're doing the thinking nowadays. They're getting there. One of these\nmornings, man will wake up to the fact that he's got to be born again to\nget in a class with his wife. Man is mixed up with altogether too much\nof this down-town madness. Women don't want votes, public office, or\nfirst-hand dollars. _They want men!_' ... I always remembered that\nlittle bit of stuff from Charter. He says the time will come when classy\ngirls will get their heads together and evolve this ultimatum, which\nwill be handed intact to adorers: 'No, boys, we can't marry you. We\nhaven't any illusions about celibacy. It isn't nice nor attractive, but\nit's better than being yoked with hucksters and peddlers who come\nup-town at night--mental cripples in empty wagons. Go away and learn\nwhat life means, what it means to be men--_what it means to us for you\nto be men_! Learn how to live--and oh, boys, hurry back!'\"\n\n\"Splendid!\" Paula exclaimed.\n\n\"Oh, yes, Charter is a full deck and a joker. He's lived. He makes you\nfeel him. His years are veritable campaigns. He has dangled in the\nvortices of human action and human passion--and seemed to come out\nwhole!...\" Reifferscheid chuckled at a memory. \"'Women are interesting,'\nCharter finished in his dry fashion. 'I just got to them lately. I wish\nI could know them all.'\"\n\n\"I love the book already,\" Paula said. Reifferscheid laughed inwardly at\nthe feminine way she held the volume in both hands, pressing it close.\n\n\"It's the only book on my table this morning that I'd like to read,\" he\nadded. \"Therefore I give it to you. There's no fun in giving something\nyou don't want.... Are you going to hear Bellingham to-night?\"\n\nShe was conscious of an unaccountable dislike at the name, a sense of\ninward chill. It was almost as reckonable as the pleasure she felt in\nthe work and personality of Quentin Charter.\n\n\"Who's Bellingham?\" Paula swallowed dryly after the first utterance of\nthe name.\n\n\"Mental magician. I only mentioned him, because you so seldom miss the\nunusual, and are so quick to hail a new cult or odd mental specimen.\"\n\n\"Magician--surely?\" she asked.\n\n\"He comes rather stoutly recommended as such,\" Reifferscheid replied,\n\"though personally mine is more than a healthy skepticism. There's a\nnotice this morning of his lectures. He recently hypnotized a man to\nwhom the medical profession was afraid to administer an\nanaesthetic--held him painless during a long and serious operation. Then\nBellingham is the last word in alchemy, feminine emotions, causes of\nhysteria, longevity, the proportions of male and female in each person;\nalso he renews the vital principle, advises unions, makes you beautiful,\nand has esoteric women's classes. A Godey's Ladies' man. Some provincial\nhusband will shoot him presently.\"\n\nPaula took the surface car home, because the day was so rare and the\ncrowd was still downward bent. The morning paper contained an\nannouncement of Quentin Charter's new book, and a sketch of the author.\nA strange, talented figure, new in letters, the article said. The\nparagraphs had that fresh glow of a publisher's perennial high hope.\nHere was the book of a man who had lived; who drew not only upon art,\nhistory, and philosophy for his prisms of thought, but who had roamed\nand worked and ridden with men, keeping a sensitive finger ever at the\npulse of nature; a man who had never in the most insignificant degree\nlowered the import or artificially raised the tension of his work to\nadjust it to the fancied needs of the public. In spite of the\nenthusiastic phrasing, everything about Charter fascinated her; even the\nmake-up of the unread book in her hand, and the sentences that gleamed\nfrom the quickly turned pages.\n\nShe had ridden many squares, when the name of Dr. Bellingham stood out\nbefore her eyes in the newspaper. The chill in her arteries was\nperceptible as before, when Reifferscheid spoke the name. It was as the\nlatter had said--the famous healer and telepathist was to start a series\nof classes for women.\n\nPaula lived alone in a small apartment at the _Zoroaster_, \"Top-side o'\nPark.\" Few friends, many books, within a car ride of the world's best\nfruition in plays, lectures, music, and painting--yet the reality of it\nall was the expansion of her mind in the days and nights alone. The\nsubtle relations of things encroached upon her intelligence with a\nsteady and certain trend. She never had to pass, like so many of cruder\nnature, through the horrid trials of materialism; nor to be painfully\nbruised in mind from buffeting between manhandled creeds and the pure\nethics of the Lord Christ. Hers was not an aggressive masculine\noriginality, but the complement of it--that inspiring, completing\nfeminine intelligence, elastic to a man's hard-won concepts and ready\nwith a crown for them.\n\nSomething of this type of woman, the big-brained brothers of men have\nwritten and chiselled, painted, sung and dreamed of, since human thought\nfirst lifted above the appetites. There must be a bright answer for each\nman's particular station of evolution in the world's dumfounding snarl\nof the sexes--one woman to lighten his travail and accelerate his\npassage to the Uplands. For we are but half-men, man and woman alike.\nThe whole is two, whose union forms One.... This is the key to Nature's\narcanum; this, the one articulate sentence from all the restless\nmurmuring out of the past; this, the stupendous Purpose weaving the\nmillion thrilling and truant activities of the present hour--the clean\ndesire for completion--the union of two which forms One.\n\nThe search for this completing woman is the secret of man's roving in\nthe gardens of sense. His frequent falls into abysmal depravity are but\nresults incidental to the occultations of his Guide Star. From reptiles\nin the foul smoke of chaos, to the lifted spines of manhood on a rising\nroad, Man has come; and by the interminable torture of the paths which\nsink behind, he has the other half of eternity to reach the Top.\n\nFrom a child whose fairies were only enchanted into books for day-time\nconvenience, darkness to Paula meant visions, indeed. Often now at\nnight, though she never spoke of it, the little apartment was peopled by\nthe spirits of her reading and her ideals--mystics, priests, prophets,\nteachers, ascetics. To the congenial dark they came--faces unlike any\nshe had ever seen, but quite unmistakable in her dreamings. Once when\nshe pampered a natural aversion to meat for several months, soft\nfoot-falls and low voices (which had nothing whatever to do with her\nneighbors across the hall, or the elevator-man in any passage) began to\nrouse her in the night. New York is no place for such refinements of\nsense, and she checked these manifestations through physical exercise\nand increased diet. She was seldom afraid, but there was a tension in\nall her imaginings, and she grew marvellously in this twenty-eighth\nyear--furnishing her mind more sumptuously than she knew. Reifferscheid\nsaw this in her eyes and in her work.\n\nThroughout the swiftly passing day, Paula realized that she would go to\nPrismatic Hall in West Sixty-seventh Street, where Dr. Bellingham was to\norganize his lecture-course that night. Against this foreknowledge was a\nwell-defined distaste for the man and his work. Between the two, the\nthought of the evening crowded frequently into mind until she became\nimpatient with herself at the importance it assumed. It was with a\ncertain feminine manipulation of conscience, so deft as almost to be\nunconscious, that she excused her own curiosity on the ground that her\ndisfavor for the doctor and his message would be strengthened by the\nfirst meeting, beyond the need of further experience.\n\nOne concession she made to her natural aversion--that of going late. She\nwas in a mood poignantly critical. The real Paula Linster, she fancied,\nwas at home, \"Top-side o' Park\"; here was just a sophisticated\nprofessional surface, such as reporters carry about. The Hall was packed\nwith women; the young and the jaded; faces of pup-innocence; faces\nbitten from terrible expeditions to the poles of sense; faces tired and\nthick from the tread of an orient of emotions; slow-roving eyes which\nsaid, \"I crave--I crave! I have lost the sense of reality, but seven\nsick and pampered organs crave within me!\"\n\nThe thought came to Paula--to be questioned afterward--that man's evil,\nafter all, is rudimentary compared to a worldly woman's; man's soul not\nso complicated, nor so irrevocably identified with his sensual organism.\nShe could not avoid pondering miserably upon woman's innate love for far\nventures into sensation, permitting these ventures to be called (if the\nworld would) searches for the holy grail. The inevitable attraction for\nwomen which specialists of the body possess, actually startled her.\nBellingham was one of these. On the surface of all his sayings, and all\ncomment about him, was the bland, deadly insinuation that the soul\nexpands in the pursuit of bodily health. About his name was the mystery\nof his age, whispers of his physical perfection, intimations of romantic\naffairs, the suggestion of his miraculous performances upon the\nemotions--the whole gamut of activities designed to make him the instant\naversion of any normal member of his own sex. Yet the flock of females\nhad settled about him, as they have settled about every black human\nplague--and glorious messiah--since the birth of days.\n\nThe thrilled, expectant look on several faces brought to Paula's mind\nthe type of her sisters who relish being shocked; whose exaltations are\npatently those of emotional contact; who call physical excitement the\nglorifying of their spirit, and cannot be persuaded to confess\notherwise. Woman as a negation for man to play upon never distressed her\nbefore with such direct and certain pressure. Here were women intent\nupon encountering a new sensation; women who devoutly breathed the name\nof Motherhood next to Godhood, and yet endured their pregnancy with\norganic rebellion and mental loathing; women who could not conceive of\nlove apart from the embrace of man, and who imagine a \"message\" in\ndeformed and salacious novels, making such books popular; women of\ngold-leaf culture whose modesty fastens with a bow--narrow temples of\ninfinite receptivity....\n\nWhy had they come? In the perfect feminine system of information, the\nwhisper had run: \"Bellingham is wonderful. Bellingham tells you how to\nlive forever. Bellingham teaches the renewal of self and has esoteric\nclasses--_for the few_!\" They had the sanction of one another. There was\nno scandal in being there openly, nor any instinct, apparently, to warn\nthem that secret classes to discover how to live forever, had upon the\nsurface no very tonic flavor. The digest of the whole matter was that\nrevelations sooner or later would be made to a certain few, and that\nthese revelations, which would be as fine oil upon the mental surfaces\nof many women near her, would act as acid upon the male mind generally.\n\nIn the sickening distaste for herself and for those who had to make no\nconcession to themselves for coming, inasmuch as society permitted; and\nwho would be heartfully disappointed in a lecture on hygiene that did\nnot discuss the more intimate matters of the senses, Paula did not\nappraise the opposite sex at any higher value. She merely reviewed\nmatters which had come to her vividly as some of the crowning frailties\nof her own kind. The centre of the whole affair, Dr. Bellingham, was now\nintroduced.\n\nHe looked like a Dane at first glance. His was the size, the dusty look\nand the big bone of a Dane; the deep, downy paleness of cheek, the\ntumbled, though not mussy hair. He was heavy without being adipose,\nlean, but big-boned; his face was lined with years, though miraculously\nyoung in the texture of skin. The lips of a rather small and feminine\nmouth were fresh and red as a girl's. In the softness of complexion and\nthe faintest possible undertone of color, it was impossible not to think\nof perfected circulation and human health brought to truest rhythm. The\ncostliest lotions cannot make such a skin. It is organic harmony.\nExterior decoration does not delude the seeing eye any more than a\npowder-magazine becomes an innocent cottage because its walls are\nvine-clad.... Directly behind her, Paula now heard a slow whisper:\n\n\"I knew him twenty-five years ago, and he is not a moment older to look\nat.\"\n\nShe seemed to have heard the voice before, and though the sentence\nsurged with a dark significance through her mind, she did not turn.\nBellingham's words were now caressing the intelligence of his audience.\nTo Paula, his soft mouth was indescribably odious with cultured passion,\nred with replenishment, fresh with that sinister satisfaction which\ninevitably brings to mind a second figure, fallen, drained. His presence\nset to quivering within her, fears engendered from the great occult\npast. Strange deviltries would always be shadowed about the Bellingham\nimage in her mind.... Here was a man who made a shrine of his body,\ninvested it with a heavy hungering God, and taught others--women--to bow\nand to serve.\n\nTo her the body was but a nunnery which enclosed for a time an eternal\nelement. This was basic, incontrovertible to her understanding. All that\nplacated the body and helped to make fleshly desires last long, was\nhostile to the eternal element. Not that the body should be abused or\nneglected, but kept as nearly as possible a clean vessel for the spirit,\nbrought to a fine automatic functioning. It was as clear to Paula\nLinster as the faces of the women about her, that the splendid sacrifice\nof Jesus was not that He had died upon the Cross, but that He put on\nflesh in the beginning for the good of infant-souled men.... To eat\nsparingly of that which is good; to sleep when weary; to require\ncleanliness and pure air--these were the physical laws which worked out\neasily for decent minds. Beyond such simple affairs, she did not allow\nthe body often to rule her brain. When, indeed, the potentialities of\nher sex stirred within, Paula felt that it was the down-pull of the old\nbrood-mother, Earth, and not the lifting of wings.\n\nBellingham's voice correlated itself, not with the eyes and brow, but\nwith the Lilith mouth--that strangely unpunished mouth. It was soft,\nsuave. There was in it the warmth of breath. The high white forehead and\nthe tousled brown hair, leonine in its masculinity--seemed foreign as\nanother man's. She hearkened to the voice of a doctor used to women; one\nwho knows women without illusion, whom you could imagine saying, \"Why\nbless you, women never say 'no.'\"\n\nThe eyes were blue-gray, but toned very darkly. The iris looked small in\ncontrast to the expanse of clear white. They were fixed like a bird's in\nexpression, incapable of warming or softening, yet one did not miss the\nimpression that they could brighten and harden, even to shining in the\ndark. Heavy blonde brows added a look of severity.\n\nPaula's spirit, as if recognizing an old and mortal enemy, gathered\nabout itself every human protecting emotion. Frankly hateful, she\nsurveyed the man, listening. He talked marvellously; even in her\nhostility, she had to grant that. The great sunning cat was in his\ntones, but the words were joined into clean-thought expression, rapid,\nvivid, unanswerable. He did not speak long; the first meeting was\nlargely formative. Paula knew he was studying his company, and watched\nhim peer into the faces of the women. His mouth occasionally softened in\nthe most winsome and engaging way, while his words ran on with the\nrefined wisdom of ages. And always to her, his eyes stood out cold,\nhard, deadly.\n\nFinally, she was conscious that they were roving near her; moving left\nto right, from face to face, as a collection-plate might have been\npassed. Her first thought was to leave; but fear never failed to arouse\nan impulse to face out the cause. The second thought was to keep her\neyes lowered. This she tried. His words came clearly now, as she stared\ndown into the shadow--the perfectly carved thoughts, bright and swift\nlike a company of soldiers moving in accord. As seconds passed, this\ndown-staring became insufferable as though some one were holding her\nhead. She could not breathe under repression. Always it had been so; the\nirresistible maddened the very centres of her reason--a locked room, a\nhand or a will stronger than her own.\n\nRaising her head with a gasp, as one coming to the surface from a great\ndepth of water, she met Bellingham's glance unerringly as a shaft of\nlight. He had waited for this instant. The eyes now boring into her own,\nseemed lifted apart from all material things, veritable essences of\nlight, as if they caught and held the full rays of every arc-lamp in the\nHall. Warmth and smiling were not in them; instead, the spirit of\nconquest aroused; incarnate preying-power, dead to pity and humor. Here\nwas Desire toothed, taloned, quick with every subtle art of nature.\nSomething at war with God, his eyes expressed to her. Failing to master\nGod, failing to foul the centres of creative purity, this Something\ndevoured the souls of women. Continually his voice sought to drug her\nbrain. The fine edge was gone from her perceptions; dulled, she was, to\nall but his sayings. There was a chill behind and above her eyes; it\nswept backward and seemed to converge in the coarser ganglia at the base\nof her brain. Once she had seen a bird hop and flutter lower and lower\namong the branches of a lilacbush. On the ground below was a cat with\nhead twisted upward--its vivid and implacable eyes distending. Paula\ncould understand now the crippling magnetism the bird felt.... Finally\nshe could hear only the words of Bellingham, and feel only his power.\nWhat he was saying now to her was truth, the unqualified truth of\nmore-than-man.\n\nWhen his eyes turned away, she felt ill, futile, immersed in an\nindescribable inner darkness. Her fingers pained cruelly, and she\nrealized she had been clutching with all her strength the book in her\nhand--Quentin Charter's book--which she had begun since morning. She\ncould not remember a single one of his sentences which had impressed\nher, for her brain was tired and ineffectual, as after a prolonged\nfever, but she held fast to the bracing effect of an optimistic\nphilosophy. Then finally out of the helplessness of one pitifully\nstricken, a tithe of her old vitality returned. She used it at once,\nrose from her seat to leave the Hall. Into the base of her brain again,\nas she neared the door, penetrated the protest of his eyes. Had she been\nunable to go on, she would have screamed. She felt the eyes of the\nwomen, too; the whole, a ghastly experience. Once outside, she wanted to\nrun.\n\nNot the least astonishing was the quick obliteration of it all. This was\nbecause her sensations were the result of an influence foreign to her\nown nature. In a few moments she felt quite well and normal again, and\nwas conscious of a tendency to make light of the whole proceeding. She\nreached home shortly after ten, angered at herself--inexplicable\nperversity--because she had taken Bellingham and the women so\nseriously.... That night she finished one of the big books of her\nlife--Quentin Charter's \"A Damsel Came to Peter.\" When the dawn stole\ninto the little flat, her eyes were stinging, and her temples felt\nstretched apart from the recent hours.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND CHAPTER\n\nPAULA CONTEMPLATES THE WALL OF A HUNDRED WINDOWS, AND THE MYSTERIOUS\nMADAME NESTOR CALLS AT THE _ZOROASTER_\n\n\nPaula had never felt such a consciousness of vitality as the next\nforenoon, after three or four hours' sleep. She was just _un_rested\nenough to be alive with tension. Her physical and mental capacities\nseemed expanded beyond all common bounds, and her thoughts tumbled about\nplayfully in full arenic light, as athletes awaiting the beginning of\nperformance. She plunged into a tub of cool water with such delight as\nthoroughly to souse her hair, so it became necessary to spend a\nhalf-hour in the sunlight by the open window, combing and fanning, her\nmind turning over wonderful things.\n\nIf you ever looked across a valley of oaks and maples and elms in the\nfull morning glow of mid-October, you can divine the glory of red and\nbrown and gold which was this fallen hair. One must meditate long to\nsuggest with words the eyes of Paula Linster; perhaps the best her\nchronicler can do is to offer a glimpse from time to time. Just now you\nare asked for the sake of her eyes to visualize that lustrous valley\nonce more--only in a dusk that enriches rather than dims. A memorably\nbeautiful young woman, sitting there by the open window--one of the\nelect would have said.\n\nThe difficulty in having to do with Linster attractions is to avoid\nrising into rhapsody. One thinks of stars and lakes, angels and autumn\nlands, because his heart is full as a country-boy's, and high\nclean-clipped thinking is choked. Certainly, once having known such a\nwoman, you will never fall under the spell of Weininger, or any other\nscale-eyed genius. There is an inspiring reach to that hard-handled\nword, Culture, when it is used about a woman like this. It means so pure\na fineness as neither to require nor to be capable of ostentation; and\nyet, a fineness that wears and gives and associates with heroisms. You\nthink of a lineage that for centuries has not been fouled by brutality\nor banality, and has preserved a glowing human warmth, too, to retain\nthe spirit of woman. When men rise to the real and the worthy, one by\none, each will find his Paula Linster, whom to make happy is happiness;\nwhose companionship inevitably calls forth his best; whom to be with\nconstantly means therefore that all within him, not of the best, must\nsurely die. Clearly when a man finds such a woman, all his roads are\nclosed, save one--to the Shining Heights! And who can say that his royal\nmate will not laughingly unfold wings for him, when they stand together\nin the radiant altitude?\n\nShe was thinking of Charter's book as she brushed her hair dry. His\nsentences played brightly in her mind, fastening themselves to comment\nof her own for the review. Deep was the appeal of the rapt, sunlit face,\nas she looked away across the rear-court. The colored hall-boy of her\nown house might have missed the exquisite lines of lip, eyelid, nostril,\nbrow, temple and chin, but his head uncovered in her presence, and the\nchoicest spirit of service sprang within him. In all about her,\nto an enlightened vision, was the unconscious repression of\nbeauty--art-stirring lines of mental and spiritual awakening; that look\nof deep inner freshness and health, the mere sight of which disgusts a\nman with all he has done to soil and sicken his body. Full and easily\nshe breathed, as one who relishes sweet air like the taste of pure\nwater. You could imagine Paula exclaiming with joy at the tonic delight\nof a wind from the sea, but not from the steaming aroma of a grill. It\nwas all an aesthetic attraction--not an over-rounded arc, not a tissue\nstretched shiny from uneven plumpness, not a drowsy sag or fold to\nsuggest the easy content of a mere feeding and breeding animal.\n\nThe rear-view of a great granite-ridge of rooming-houses across the\ncourt had often fascinated her with the thought of the mysteries within.\nOnce she had spoken to Reifferscheid about the splendid story of New\nYork yet to be written by someone who watched, as she often did, one of\nthese walls of a hundred windows.\n\n\"Yes,\" he had said. \"It's great to be poor. Best blood of New York is in\nthose back rooms. Everyone needs his poverty-stage of growth--about\nseven years will do. It teaches you simplicity. You step into your\nneighbor's room and find him washing his stockings with shaving-soap. He\nexplains that it is better than tooth-powder for textile fabrics. Also,\nhe intimates that he has done a very serious thing in wetting down these\nsmall garments, having looked in his bag since, and learned that he has\nnot another pair. However, he wrings them very tight and puts them on\nwith the remark that this is a certain way to prevent shrinkage.\"\n\nEven now, a man stood by his window in a sleeveless garment and a ruff\nof lather, shaving with a free hand, and a song between strokes. His was\na shining morning face, indeed.... A bare feminine arm leaped quickly\nforth from behind a tightened curtain nearby and adjusted a flower-pot\nbetter to the sunlight. From somewhere came a girlish voice in Wagner's\n_Walkure Call_. There was not a thought of effort in her carrying that\nlofty elaborate music--just a fine heart tuned to harmony on a rare\nmorning. The effect is not spoiled by the glimpse of a tortured feminine\nface igniting a cigarette over a gas-flame that has burned all night.\nThe vibrations of New York are too powerful for many, but there is more\nof health and hope than not.... A good mother cleanses a sauce-pan from\nher water-pitcher and showers with the rinsing a young heaven-tree far\nbelow. Then she lifts in a milk-bottle from the stone ledge--and blows\nthe dust from the top....\n\nOften at night when Paula awakened she could hear the drum of a\ntypewriter winging across the precipice--one of the night-shift helping\nto feed the insatiable maw of print. Had New York called him? Would the\nCity crush him into a trifler, with artificial emotions, or was this a\nDaniel come to interpret her evil dreams?... In a corner-room with two\nwindows, sat a lame young man before an easel. Almost always he was\nthere, when there was light. Heaven be with him, Paula thought, if his\npicture failed.... And in one of the least and darkest, an old man sat\nwriting. Day after day, he worked steadily through the hours. To what\ngod or devil had he sold his soul that he was thus condemned to eternal\nscrivening? This was the harrowing part. The back-floors of New York are\nnot for the old men. Back-rooms for the young men and maidens, still\nstrong in the flight of time and the fight of competition--back-rooms\nfor young New York. Nature loses interest in the old. Civilization\nshould be kinder.\n\nFrom an unseen somewhere a canary poured out a veritable fire-hose\ntorrent of melody; and along one of the lower window ledges opposite, an\nold gray cat was crouched, a picture of sinister listening. Here was a\ndragon, indeed, for small, warm birds.\n\nDirectly opposite a curtain was lifted, and a woman, no longer young,\nappeared to breathe the morning. Many New Yorkers knew this woman for\nher part in children's happiness. There was a whisper that she had once\nbeen an artist's model--and had loved the artist.... There was one woman\nlong ago--a woman with a box of alabaster--who was forgiven because she\nloved much.... The lady across the way loved children now, children of\nmost unhappy fortunes. To those who came, and there were many, she gave\nmusic lessons; often all day long helping grimy fingers to falter over\nthe keys. So she awakened poetry and planted truth-seedlings in shaded\nlittle hearts. To the children, though the lady was poor as any--in\nspite of her piano and a wall of books--she was Lady Bountiful,\nindeed.... Paula smiled. Two windows, strangely enough side by side,\nwere curtained with stockings out to dry. In one, there were\nmany--cerise and lavender, pink and baby blue. In the next there were\nbut two pair, demurely black. What a world of suggestion in the\ncontrast!... So it was always--her wall of a hundred windows, a changing\npanorama of folly, tragedy, toil that would not bow to hopelessness,\nvanity, art, sacrifice. Blend them all together above the traffic's\nroar--and you have the spirit of young New York.\n\nShe put on the brass kettle at length, crossing the room for an\noccasional glance into the mirror as she finished her hair.... The\nstrange numbing power she had felt the night before crept suddenly back\nfrom her eyes now to the base of her brain, striving to cripple her\nvolition. Bellingham was calling her.... The sunlight was gone. There\nwas a smell of hot metal in the air, as if some terrific energy had\nburned out the vitality. Her heart hurt her from holding her breath so\nlong. Beyond all expression she was shocked and shamed. The mirror\nshowed now a spectral Paula with crimson lips and haggard eyes.... An\nindescribable fertility stirred within her--almost mystic, like a\nwhisper from spiritland where little children play, waiting to be born.\nShe could have fallen in a strange and subtle thrall of redolent\nimaginings, except that thought of the source of it all, the\noccultist--was as acid in her veins.\n\nShe drank tea and crossed the street to the Park for an hour. The\nradiance of autumn impressed her rarely; not as the death of a year, but\nrather as a glorious pageant of evening, the great energies of nature\nall crowned with fruition and preparing for rest. Back in her room, she\nwrote the Charter critique, wrote as seldom before. The cool spirit of\nthe essayist seemed ignited with a lyric ardor. In her momentary power\nshe conceived a great literary possibility of the future--an effulgent\nBurns-vine blossoming forth upon the austere cliff of a Carlyle. She had\nfinished, and it was dusk when Madame Nestor called.\n\nFor several years, at various philosophical gatherings and brotherhoods,\nPaula, invariably stimulated by the unusual, had encountered this\nremarkable woman. Having very little to say as a rule, Madame Nestor was\na figure for comment and one not readily forgotten because of occasional\nmemorable utterances. In all the cults of New York, there was likely no\nindividual quite so out of alignment with ordinary life. Indefinitely,\nshe would be called fifty. Her forehead was broad, her mouth soft. The\nface as a whole was heavy and flour-white. There was a distention of\neyeballs and a pulpy shapelessness to her body which gave the impression\nof advanced physical deterioration--that peculiar kind of breaking down,\noften noticeable among psychics of long practice. Her absolute\nincapacity to keep anything of value was only one characteristic of\ninterest. Madame Nestor's record of apparently thoughtless generosity\nwas truly inspiriting.\n\n\"I had to see you to-day,\" she said, sinking down with a sigh of relief.\n\"I sat behind you last night in Prismatic Hall.\"\n\nThe younger woman recalled with a start--the whisper she had heard. She\nleaned forward and inquired quickly: \"So it was you, Madame Nestor, who\nknew--this Bellingham\"--she cleared her throat as she uttered the\nname--\"as he is now--a quarter of a century ago?\"\n\n\"Yes. How very strange that you should have heard what I said.... You\nwill join one of his classes, I presume?\"\n\n\"I can imagine doing no such thing.\"\n\n\"Dear Paula, do you think it will really turn out--that you are to have\nno relation with Bellingham?\"\n\nPaula repressed the instant impulse to answer sharply. The fact that she\nhad already felt Bellingham's power made the other's words a harsh\nirritation.\n\n\"What relation could I have? He is odious to me.\"\n\n\"I suppose I should have been a cinder long since, dear, if these were\ndays for burning witches,\" Madame Nestor said. \"When I saw Bellingham's\neyes settle upon you last night--it appeared to me that you are to know\nhim well. I came here to give you what strength I could--because he is\nthe chief of devils.\"\n\n\"I'm only one of the working neuters of the human hive,\" Paula managed\nto declare.\n\nThe elder woman said a strange thing: \"Ah, no. The everlasting feminine\nis alive in your every movement. A man like Bellingham would cross the\nworld for you. Some strong-souled woman sooner or later must encompass\nhis undoing, and last night it came to me in a way to force my\nconviction--that you are the woman.\"\n\nPaula bent toward her. Darkness covered the centres of her mind and she\nwas afraid. She could not laugh, for she had already met the magician's\nwill. \"But I loathe him,\" she whispered. \"About the very name when I\nfirst heard it yesterday was an atmosphere which aroused all my\nantagonism.\"\n\n\"Even that--he has overcome, but it may help you to endure.\"\n\n\"What does the man want?\"\n\n\"He wants life--life--floods of young, fine vitality to renew his own\nflesh. He wants to live on and on in the body which you have seen. It is\nall he has, for his soul is dead--or feeble as a frog's. He fears death,\nbecause he cannot come back. He renews his life from splendid sources of\nhuman magnetism--such as you possess. It is Bellingham's hell to know\nthat, once out of the flesh, he has not soul enough, if any, to command\na human body again. You see in him an empty thing, which has lived, God\nknows how many years, hugging the warmth of his blood--a creature who\nknows that to die means the swift disintegration of an evil principle.\"\n\n\"Do you realize, Madame Nestor,\" Paula asked excitedly, \"that you are\ntalking familiarly of things which may exist in books of ancient wisdom,\nbut that this is New York--New York packed about us? New York does not\nreckon with such things.\"\n\n\"The massed soul of this big city does not reckon with such things,\nPaula. That is true, but we are apart. Bellingham is apart. He is wiser\nthan the massed soul of New York.\"\n\n\"One might believe, even have such a religious conviction, but you speak\nof an actual person, the terrible inner mystery of a man, whom we have\nseen--a man who frightened me hideously last night--and to-day! You\nbring the thing home to a room in a New York apartment ... Can't you see\nhow hard to adjust, this is? I don't mean to stop or distract you, but\nthis has become--you are helping to keep it so--such an intimate,\ndreadful thing!\"\n\nMadame Nestor had been too long immersed in occultism to grasp the\nworld's judgment of her sayings. \"Listen, Paula, this that I tell you is\ninherent in every thinking man. You are bewildered by the personal\nnature it has assumed.... To every one of us shall come the terrible\nmoment of choice. Man is not conceived blindly to be driven. Imagine a\nman who is become a rapidly evolving mind. On the one side is the\nanimal-nature, curbed and obedient; on the other, his gathering\nsoul-force. The mind balances between these two--soul and body. The time\nhas come for him to choose between a lonely path to the Heights, or the\nbroad diverging highway, moving with pomp, dazzling with the glare of\nvain power, and brooded over by an arrogant materialism which slays the\nsoul.... The spirit of man says, 'Take the rising road alone.' The old\nworld-mother sings to him from the swaying throng, 'Come over and be my\nking. Look at my arts, my palaces, my valiant young men and my glorious\nwomen. I will put worship in the hearts of the strong--for you! I will\nput love in the hearts of the beautiful--for you! Come over and be my\nking! Later, when you are old and have drunk deep of power--you may take\nthe rising road alone.'\"\n\nPaula invariably qualified a dogmatic statement as a possibility in her\nown mind; but something of this--man reaching a moment of choice--had\nalways appealed to her as a fundamental verity. Man must conquer not\nonly his body, but his brain, with its subtle dreams of power, a more\nformidable conflict, before the soul assumes supremacy in the mind, and\nman's progress to the Uplands becomes a conscious and glorious ascent.\n\n\"You put it with wonderful clearness, Madame Nestor,\" she said.\n\n\"I am an old woman who has thought of these things until they are clear.\nThis is the real battle of man, beside which victory over mere appetites\nof the body is but a boyish triumph. The intellect hungers for power and\npossession; to hold the many inferior intellects in its own despotic\ndestiny. Against this glittering substance of attraction is the still\nintangible faith of the soul--an awful moment of suspense. God or\nMammon--choose ye!... Listen, Paula, to New York below--treading the\nempty mill of commerce----\"\n\n\"New York has not chosen yet?\"\n\n\"No, dear, but hundreds, thousands, are learning in preparation for that\nmoment of choice--the falseness and futility of material possessions.\"\n\n\"That is a good thought--an incorruptible kind of optimism!\" Paula\nexclaimed.... \"You think this Bellingham has made the evil choice?\"\n\n\"Yes. Long ago.\"\n\n\"Yet to have arisen to the moment of choosing, you say he must have\nconquered the flesh.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But you depict him--I find him--Desire Incarnate!\"\n\n\"Exactly, Paula, because he has reverted. _The animal controls his mind,\nnot the soul._ Bellingham is retracing his way back to chaos, with a\nhuman brain, all lit with magic! Out of the gathered knowledge of the\nages, he has drawn his forces, which to us are mystery. He uses these\nsecret forces of Nature to prolong his own life--which is all he has.\nThe mystic cord is severed within him. He is a body, nothing but a\nbody--hence the passion to endure. Out of the craft of the past, he has\nlearned--who knows how long ago?--to replenish his own vitality with\nthat of others. He gives nothing, but drains all. Ah, Paula, this I know\ntoo well. He is kin with those creatures of legend, the _loup-garou_,\nthe vampire. I tell you he is an insatiable sponge for human magnetism.\"\n\n\"Past all doubt, can't Bellingham turn back?\" Paula asked tensely. \"With\nall his worldly knowledge, and knowing his own doom, can he not turn\nback--far back, a lowly-organized soul, but on the human way?\"\nHopelessness, anywhere, was a blasting conception to her.\n\n\"No. I tell you he is a living coffin. There is nothing in him to\nenergize a pure motive. He might give a fortune to the poor, but it\nwould be for his own gain. He could not suffer for the poor, or love\nthem. Dead within, he is detached from the great centres of virtue and\npurity--from all that carries the race forward, and will save us at the\nlast. You see his frightful dependence upon this temporal physical\ninstrument, since all the records of the past and the unwritten pages of\nthe future are wiped out? Isn't it a sheer black horror, Paula,--to know\nthat from the great tide of hopeful humanity, one is set apart; to know\nthat the amazing force which has carried one from a cell in the ooze to\nthinking manhood must end with this red frightened heart; to be forced,\nfor the continuance of life, to feed upon the strength of one woman\nafter another--always fairer and finer----\" The look of hatred in the\nspeaker's face had become a banner of havoc.\n\n\"Can he not stop that kind of devouring?\" Paula exclaimed. \"Would there\nnot be hope--if he battled with that--put _that_ vampirism behind?\"\n\nMadame Nestor regarded the other steadily, until all distortion of\nfeature had given away to her accustomed mildness. Then she uttered an\nunforgettable question:\n\n\"_Can a tiger eat grains?_\"\n\nVast ranges of terrible understanding were suggested.\n\n\"It is my duty, if I ever had a duty,\" the caller went on, \"to make you\nknow Bellingham as I know him. You must have no pity.\"\n\n\"Is there really no fact by which his age can be determined?\"\n\n\"None that I know. Twenty-five years ago, when he left me hideously wise\nand pitifully drained, he looked as he does now.\"\n\n\"But why, oh why, do you always think of me with Bellingham?\" Paula\nasked hopelessly.\n\n\"I watched his face when he regarded you last night. I knew the look.\"\n\n\"What is to prevent me from never seeing him? He cannot force himself\nupon me here--in the flesh.... Certainly you would not tell him where I\nam, where I go--if I begged you not to!\"\n\nMadame Nestor shuddered. \"No, Paula. It is because you are frightened\nand tormented that such a thought comes. It is I who am showing you the\nreal Bellingham. He menaces my race. None but big-souled women are\nuseful to him now. He is drawn to them, as one hungry, as one always\nhungry. It is he first who is drawn. Then they begin to feel and respond\nto his occult attraction. The time might have come when you would\nworship him--had I not warned you. I did. I was quite his--until I\nlearned. A woman knows no laws in the midst of an attraction like this.\nNo other man suffices----\"\n\n\"But why--why do you prepare _me_? Do you think I cannot resist?\" Paula\nasked furiously. She felt the bonds about her already. The blood rose\nhot and rebellious at the thought of being bound. It was the old hideous\nfear of a locked room--the shut-in horror which meant suffocation.\n\n\"If I thought you could not resist, Paula,\" Madame Nestor said, \"I\nshould advise you to flee to the remotest country--this moment. I should\nimplore you never to allow from your side your best and strongest\nfriend. But I have studied your brain, your strength, your heart. I love\nyou for the thought that has come to me--that it is you, Paula Linster,\nwho is destined to free the race from this destroyer.\"\n\nOften in the last half-hour had come a great inward revolt against the\ntrend of her caller's words. It passed through Paula again, yet she\ninquired how she could thus be the means.\n\n\"By resisting him. Bellingham once told me--trust him, this was after I\nwas fully his--that if I had matched his force with a psychic resistance\nequally as strong--it would mortally have weakened him. So if he seeks\nto subvert your will and fails, this great one-pointed power of his,\ndeveloped who knows how long--will turn and rend itself. This is an\noccult law.\"\n\nPaula could understand this--the wild beast of physical desire rending\nitself at the last--but not the conception of hopelessness--Bellingham\ncut off from immortality. The woman divined her thoughts.\n\n\"Again I beg of you,\" she said in excitement, \"not to let a thought of\npity for him insinuate itself in your brain--not the finest point of it!\nThink of yourself, of the Great Good which must sustain you, of the\nbenefit to your race--think of the women less strong! Fail in this, and\nBellingham will absorb your splendid forces, and let you fall back into\nthe common as I did--to rise again, ah, so bitterly, so wearily!... But\nI cannot imagine you failing, you strong young queen, and the women like\nme, the legion of emptied shells he has left behind--we shall canonize\nyou, Paula, if you shatter the vampire's power.\"\n\nThoughts came too fast for speech now. They burned Paula's mind--a\ndestructive activity, because ineffectual. She wanted to speak of the\nshameful experience of the morning, but she could not bring the words to\nconfession.\n\n\"I had almost forgotten,\" she said lightly at length, \"that it is well\nfor one to eat and drink. Stay, won't you please, and share a bite of\nsupper with me, Madame Nestor? We'll talk of other things. I am deadly\ntired of Bellingham.\"\n\nA hungry man would have known no repletion from the entire offering\nwhich sufficed for these two, forgotten of appetite. Wafers of dark\nbread, a poached egg, pickles, a heart of lettuce and a divided melon,\ncake and tea--yet how fully they fared!... They were talking about\nchildren and fairy tales over the teacups, when Paula encountered again\nthat sinister mental seizure--the occultist's influence creeping back\nfrom her reason to that part of the brain man holds in common with\nanimals.... The lights of the room dimmed; her companion became\ninvisible. Bellingham was calling: \"Come to me--won't you come and help\nme in my excellent labors? Come to me, Paula. We can lift the world\ntogether--you and I. Wonderful are the things for me to show you--you\nwho are already so wise and so very beautiful. Paula Linster,--come to\nme!\"\n\nAgain and again the words were laid upon her intelligence, until she\nheard them only. All the rest was an anterior murmuring, as of wind and\nrivers. The words were pressed down upon the surfaces of her brain, like\nleaf after leaf of gold-beaters' film--and hammered and hammered\nthere.... He was in a great gray room, sitting at a desk, but staring at\nher, as if there were no walls or streets between--just a little bit of\nblackness.... She seemed to know just where to go. She felt the place\nfor her was there in the great gray room--a wonderful need for her\nthere.... But a door opened into the room where he sat--a door she had\nnot seen, for she had not taken her eyes from his face. A woman came in,\na pale woman, a shell of beauty. The huge tousled head at the desk\nturned from her to the woman who entered. Paula saw his profile alter\nhideously....\n\nHer own bright room filled her eyes again, and the ashen horror on the\ncountenance of Madame Nestor, who seemed vaguely to see it all.\n\n\"I think I should have gone to him,\" Paula murmured, in the slow, flat\ntone of one not yet quite normally conscious.\n\n\"There is but one way, you poor distressed child--to build about you a\nfortress of purity--which he cannot penetrate----\"\n\n\"I think I should have known the car to take--the place to enter,\" Paula\nwent on, unheeding, \"the elevator entrance--the door of the room----\"\n\nMadame Nestor continued to implore her to pray. Paula shivered finally,\nand stared at the other for a few seconds, as if recalling the words the\nvisitor had spoken, and the past she had lived with Bellingham. Her\nterrible rage toward herself spread and covered Madame Nestor. Did not\nthe latter still dip here, there, and everywhere in the occult and\nweird? Might she not have something to do with the projectiles of\nDesire?\n\n\"I think I'd better be alone now,\" she said hoarsely. \"One does not feel\nlike invoking the Pure Presence--when one is chosen for such\ndefilement.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD CHAPTER\n\nCERTAIN DEVELOPING INCIDENTS ARE CAUGHT INTO THE CURRENT OF\nNARRATIVE--ALSO A SUPPER WITH REIFFERSCHEID\n\n\nIn the week that followed, Paula's review of Quentin Charter's new book\nappeared. As a bit of luxury reading, she again went over \"A Damsel Came\nto Peter.\" It stood up true and strong under the second reading--the\ntest of a real book. The Western writer became a big figure in her mind.\nShe thought of him as a Soul; with a certain gladness to know that he\nwas Out There; that he refused to answer the call of New York; that he\nhad waited until he was an adult to make his name known, and could not\nnow be cramped and smothered and spoiled. There was a sterilized purity\nabout parts of his work--an uncompromising thunder against the fleshly\ntrends of living--to which she could only associate asceticism,\ncelibacy, and mystic power. He was altogether an abstraction, but she\nwas glad that he lived--in the West and in her brain.\n\nAlso her mind was called to lower explorations of life; moments in which\nit seemed as if every tissue within her had been carried from arctic\nrepressions to the springing verdures of the Indies. A sound, an odor, a\nman's step, the voice of a child, would start the spell, especially in\nmoments of receptivity or aimless pondering. Thoughts formed in a lively\nfascinating way, tingling dreamily over her intelligence, dilating her\nnostrils with indescribable fragrance, brushing her eyelids\nhalf-closed,--until she suddenly awoke to the fact that this was not\nherself, but Bellingham's thirst playing upon her. Beyond words dreadful\nthen, it was to realize this thing in her brain--to feel it spread\nhungrily through her veins and localize in her lips, her breast, and the\nhollow of her arms. Bellingham crushed the trained energies of his\nthought-force into her consciousness, rendering her helpless. Though he\nwas afterward banished, certain physical forces which he aroused did not\nfall asleep.... Frequently came that malignant efflorescence. Her name\nwas called; the way shown her. Once when she was summoned to the 'phone,\nshe knew that it was he, but could not at first resist. Reason came at\nthe sound of her own hoarse and frightened voice. Again one night,\nbetween nine and ten, when Bellingham was in power, she had reached the\nstreet and was hurrying toward the surface-car in Central Park West. Her\nname was jovially called by Reifferscheid. He accompanied her through\nthe Park and back to her door. He said he thought that she was working\ntoo hard, confessed himself skeptical about her eating enough.\n\nOne thought apart from these effects, Paula could not shake from her\nmind: Were there human beings with dead or dying souls? Did she pass on\nthe street men and women in whom the process of soul-starvation was\ncomplete or completing? Could there be human mind-cells detached from\nhope, holiness, charity, eternity, and every lovely conception; infected\nthroughout with earth's descending destructive principle? The thought\nterrorized her soul, so that she became almost afraid to glance into the\nface of strangers. To think of any man or woman without one hope! This\nwas insufferable. Compared with this, there is no tragedy, and the\nwildest physical suffering is an easy temporal thing. She felt like\ncrying from the housetops: \"Listen to pity; love the good; cultivate a\ntender conscience; be clean in body and humble in mind! Nothing matters\nbut the soul--do not let that die!\"\n\nThen she remembered that every master of the bright tools of art had\ndepicted this message in his own way; every musician heard it among the\nsplendid harmonies that winged across his heaven; every prophet stripped\nhimself of all else, save this message, and every mystic was ordered up\nto Nineveh to give it sound. Indeed, every great voice out of the\nmultitude was a cry of the soul. It came to her as never before, that\nall uplift is in the words, _Love One Another_. If only the world would\nsee and hear!\n\nAnd the world was so immovable--a locked room that resisted her\nstrength. This was her especial terror--a locked room or a locked\nwill.... Once when she was a little girl, she released a caged canary\nthat belonged to a neighbor, and during her punishment, she kept\nrepeating:\n\n\"_It has wings--wings!_\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLiberty, spaces of sky, shadowed running streams, unbroken woods where\nthe paths were so dim as not to disturb the dream of undiscovered\ndepths--in the midst of these, Paula had found, as a girl, a startling\nkind of happiness. She was tireless in the woods, and strangely slow to\nhunger. No gloomy stillness haunted her; the sudden scamper of a\nsquirrel or rabbit could not shake her nerves, nor even the degraded\nspiral of a serpent gliding to cover. Her eyelids narrowed in the midst\nof confinements. School tightened her lips; much of it, indeed, put a\nlook of hopeless toleration in her eyes, but the big, silent woods\nquickly healed her mind; in them she found the full life.\n\nAt one time, her father essayed to lock her in a closet. Paula told him\nshe would die if he did, and from the look upon the child's face, he\ncould not doubt.... He had directly punished her once, and for years\nafterward, she could not repress a shudder at his touch. She would serve\nhim in little things, bring him the choicest fruits and flowers; she\nanticipated his wants in the house and knew his habits as a caged thing\nlearns the movements of its keepers; invariably, she was respectful and\napt--until her will was challenged. Then her mother would weaken and her\nfather passed on with a smile. \"Paula does not permit me to forget that\nI have the honor to be her father,\" he once said.\n\nReading grew upon her unconsciously. There was a time when she could not\nread, another when she could. She did not remember the transition, but\none afternoon, when she was barely five, she sat for hours in the parlor\nstill as a mole, save for the turning leaves--sat upon a hassock with\nGrimm. It was _The Foster Brother_ which pioneered her mind. That\nafternoon endured as one of the most exquisite periods of her life. The\npleasure was so intense that she felt she must be doing wrong.\n\nGrimm explained the whole world, in proving the reality of fairies. The\nsoul of the child had always been awake to influences her associates\nmissed. Wonderful Grimm cleared many mysteries--the unseen activities of\nthe woods, the visitors of the dark in her room before she was quite\nasleep; the invisible weaving behind all events. Later, books inevitably\nbrought out the element of attraction between man and woman, but such\nwere the refinements of her home that nothing occurred to startle her\ncuriosity. It was left to the friendly woods to reveal a mystery and\ncertain ultimate meanings.... She was sick with the force of her\ndivining; the peace and purity of her mind shattered. The accruing\nrevelations of human origin were all that she could bear. She rebelled\nagainst the manner of coming into the world, a heaven-high rebellion.\nSomething of pity mingled with her reverence for her mother. For years,\nshe could not come to a belief that the Most High God had any interest\nin a creature of such primal defilement. Queerly enough, it was the\ngreat preparer, Darwin, who helped her at the last. Man having come up\nthrough dreadful centuries from an earth-bent mouth and nostril, to a\npitying heart and a lifted brow--has all the more hope of becoming an\nangel....\n\nThere was something of the nature of a birthmark in Paula's loathing for\nthe animal in man and woman. Her mother had been sheltered in girlhood\nto such an extent that the mention of a corsage-ribbon would have\noffended. Very early, she had married, and the first days of the\nrelation crushed illusions that were never restored. The birth of Paula\nended a period of inordinate sorrow, which brought all the fine threads\nof her life into wear, gave expression to the highest agony of which she\nwas capable, and ravelled out her emotions one by one. As a mother, she\nwas rather forceless; the excellent elements of her lineage seemed all\nexpended in the capacities of the child. Her limitations had not widened\nin the dark months, nor had her nature refined. It was as if the heart\nof the woman had lost all its color and ardor. The great sweep of\nPaula's emotions; her strangeness, her meditative mind and heart-hunger\nfor freedom; her love for open spaces, still groves and the prophylactic\ntrends of running water--all expressed, without a doubt, the mysterious\nexpiration of her mother's finer life. But something beyond heredity,\ndistances beyond the reach of human mind to explain, was the lofty\nquality of the child's soul. Very old it was, and wise; very strange and\nvery strong.\n\nPaula never failed afterward in a single opportunity to spare younger\ngirl-friends from the savagery of revelation, as it had come to her. The\nbare truth of origin, she made radiant with illimitable human\npossibilities.... Her dream beyond words was some time to give the world\na splendid man or woman. Loving, and loved by a strong-souled,\ndeep-thinking man; theirs the fruit of highest human concord; beautiful\ncommunions in the midst of life's nobilities, and the glory of these on\nthe brow of their child--such was her dream of womanhood, whitened\nthrough many vicissitudes.\n\nHer mother died when Paula was twenty. The call came in the night. In\nthe summons was that awful note which tells the end. Her mother was on\nthe border and crossing swiftly. Paula screamed.\n\nThere was no answer, but a faint ruffle on the brow that had been\nserene.\n\n\"Mother!... Mother!\" a last time--then the answer:\n\n\"Don't--call--me,--Paula! Oh, it--hurts--so--to be--called--back!\"\n\nAfter that, the dying was a matter of hours and great pain. Had she come\nto her in silence, the tired spirit would have lifted easily. So Paula\nlearned, by terrible experience, the inexpressible value of silence in a\nroom with death. She had been very close to the mystery. Holding her\nmother's hand and praying inaudibly at the last, she had felt the final\nwrench to the very core of her being.... Departure, indeed; Paula was\nnever conscious of her mother's spirit afterward. It is probably futile\nto inquire if a child of one's flesh is invariably one's spiritual\noffspring.... An ineffectual girl, the mother became a hopeless woman.\nIn the interval, out of the grinding of her forces, was produced a\nfervent heat.... Did blind negative suffering make her receptive to a\ngifted child, or did Paula's mother merely give, from her own lovely\nflesh, a garment for a spirit-alien from a far and shining country?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThree or four mornings after the Charter critique, Paula brought further\nwork down-town. Reifferscheid swung about in his chair and stared at her\nfully thirty seconds. Then he spoke brusquely, possibly to hide his\nembarrassment:\n\n\"Take these three books home, but don't bother with them to-day. I want\nyou back here at four o'clock. You are to go out to supper with me.\"\n\nThe idea was not exactly pleasant. She had seen Reifferscheid only a few\ntimes apart from his desk, where she liked him without reservation. She\nhad always pictured him as a club-man--a typically successful New\nYorker, with a glitter of satire and irreverent humor about all his\nsayings. The thought of a supper with Reifferscheid had a bit of supper\nheaviness about it. The club type she preferred to know from a sort of\nmiddle distance....\n\n\"Won't you, please?\"\n\nHis change of manner was effective. All brusqueness was gone. Paula saw\nhis real earnestness, and the boyish effort of its expression. There was\nno reason for her to refuse, and she hesitated no longer. Yet she\nwondered why he had asked her, and searched her mind to learn why she\ncould not see him at leisure, apart from a club-window's leather chair;\nat some particular table in a grill or buffet, or enlivening a game of\nbilliards with his inimitable characterizations. One of the finest and\nmost effective minds she had ever contacted belonged to this editor. His\ndesk was the symbol to her of concentrated and full-pressure\nstrenuousness; in his work was all that was sophisticated and\nworld-weathered, but she could neither explain nor overcome the\nconviction that his excellence was in spite of, rather than the result\nof his life outside.... She met him on the stroke of four in the\nentrance to _The States_ building, and he led the way at once to South\nFerry, where they took the Staten Island boat. She felt that he was not\nat ease in the crowds, but it was a fact, also, that he did not appear\nso huge and froggy in the street, as in the crowded office she knew so\nwell.\n\n\"Yes, I live over yonder,\" he said, drawing two stools to the extreme\nforward of the deck. \"I supposed you knew. The nearest way out of New\nYork, this is. Besides, you get full five cents' worth of sea voyage,\nand it's really another country across the bay. That's the main\nthing--not a better country, but different.\"\n\nLittle was said on the boat. It was enough to breathe the sea and\ncontemplate the distances. She scarcely noticed which of the\ntrolley-cars he helped her into at the terminal; but they were out of\ntown presently, where there were curving country roads, second-growth\nhills, and here and there a dim ravine to cool the eye. Then against the\nsky she discovered a black ribbon of woods. It was far and big to her\neyes, full of luring mysteries that called to her--her very own\ntemples.... Turning to Reifferscheid, she found that he had been\nregarding her raptly. He coughed and jerked his head the other way,\ndelightfully embarrassed.\n\n\"Guess you like it here,\" he said after a moment. \"I knew you would. I\nknew I ought to make you come, somehow. You see, you're a little too\nfit--drawn just a trifle too fine. It isn't that you're out of\ncondition; just the contrary. When one's drawn so fine as you are, one\nwears--just from living at joy speed.... We get off here.\"\n\n\"It's incredible that you should have a house all to yourself!\"\n\nThey were walking on the grass that edged the road. It had taken an hour\nand a half to come. Dusk was beginning to crowd into the distances.\nAhead on either side of the road were a few houses with land between.\n\n\"Whatever you call it,\" said Reifferscheid, \"it's all in one piece.\nThere it is yonder--'A wee cot, a cricket's chirr--Sister Annie and the\nglad face of her----'\"\n\n\"A little white house under big trees!\" Paula exclaimed joyously. \"And\nwhat's that big dug-out thing behind?\"\n\nReifferscheid chuckled. \"Dug-out is excellent. That's the aquarium and\nthe lily-lakes. I made those Sierras and clothed their titanic flanks\nwith forests of sod.\"\n\n\"Don't ask me to speak.... All this is too wonderful for words....\" To\nthink that she had imagined this man-mammoth sitting in a club-window.\nIn truth, she was somewhat perturbed for wronging him, though delighted\nwith the whole expedition. Sister Annie was startling, inasmuch as her\nface was as fresh and wholesome as a snow-apple, and yet she could not\nleave her invalid's chair unassisted. She was younger than\nReifferscheid.\n\n\"I'm so glad to have you come, Miss Linster,\" she said. \"Tim was really\nset upon it. He speaks of you so frequently that I wanted to meet you\nvery much. I can't get over to the city often.\"\n\n\"Tim.\" This was the name of names. Paula had known nothing beyond \"T.\nReifferscheid.\" One after another, little joys like this unfolded.\n\n\"It will be too dark after supper,\" the sister added. \"Tim won't be\ncontent until you see his system of ponds. You better go with him now.\"\n\nReifferscheid already filled the side-door. Evidently inspection was the\nfirst and only formality demanded of the guest at the cottage. Paula\nfollowed him up a tiny gravel path to the rim of the top pond--a saucer\nof cement, eighteen inches deep and seven or eight feet across. It was\nfilled with pond-weed and nelumbo foliage. Gold fish and stickle-backs\nplayed in the shadowed water.\n\n\"It isn't the time of year, you know,\" he said apologetically. \"The\nlilies are through blossoming, and in a week or two, I'll have to take\nmy fishes back to winter-quarters. You see my water supply comes from\nSilver Lake. The great main empties here.\" (Paula followed his finger to\nthe nozzle of a hose that hung over the rim of cement on the top pond.)\n\"The stream overflows in Montmorency Falls yonder,\"--(this, a trickle\ndown the gravel to the second pond)--\"from which, you can hear the roar\nof the cataracts into the lower lake, which waters the lands of plenty\nall about.\"\n\nHis look of surprise and disappointment at her laughter was\nirresistible.\n\n\"The saurians are all in the depths, but you can see some of my snails,\"\nhe went on. \"You'd be surprised how important my herd of snails is in\nthe economy of this whole lake country.\"\n\nHe picked up a pebble from the edge of the water, pointing out the green\nslime that covered it. \"These are spores of a very influential\nvegetable, called _algae_, which spreads like cholera and vegetates\nanywhere in water that is not of torrential temperament. Without my\nsnails, the whole system would be a thick green soup in a month. It's\ngetting a little dark to see the stickle-back nests. They domesticate\nvery curiously. Next year, I'll have a fountain.... The second-tank\ncontains a frail, northern variety of water-hyacinths, some rock bass,\nand a turtle or two. Below are the cattails and ferns and mosses. In the\nsummer, that lower pond is a jungle, but the lilies and lotuses up here\nare really choice when in blossom. The overflow of water rejoices the\nbugs and posies generally. Annie likes the yard-flowers.\"\n\nPaula would not have dared to say how enchantingly these toy-lakes and\nlily-beds had adjusted, in her mind, to the nature of the big man beside\nher, whose good word was valued by every sincere and important literary\nworker in the country. Tim Reifferscheid turning out his tremendous\ntasks in New York, would never be quite the same to her again, since she\nhad seen him playing with his hose in his own back yard, and heard him\ntalk about his snails and lilies, and the land posies that Sister Annie\nliked. Down-town, he had always stimulated her, but here with his\ntoy-engineering and playful watersheds, he was equally bracing and just\nas admirable.\n\nDarkness was covering them. \"I must see it all again,\" she said. \"I want\nto come when the lilies are blossoming. I could watch the fishes and\nthings--for hours. Really, I will never call it a dug-out again.\"\n\nShe saw him grinning in the dusk.\n\n\"Come in to supper,\" he said. \"You see, anything smaller than a Staten\nIsland back-yard would hardly do for me to play in. Then there's a\nstillness about here that I like. It makes your ears ache a little at\nfirst. You wake up in the middle of the night and think you're under the\nearth somewhere, or disembodied. Finally it comes to you that there's\nnothing to be afraid of except the silence. A man's head gets to need it\nafter a time. As a matter of fact, there's no place across the bay for a\nfat man after working hours.\"\n\n\"Miss Linster,\" called Sister Annie as they entered.\n\nPaula followed the voice into a speckless spare room.\n\n\"Supper will be served in a moment,\" the other said. \"I just wanted to\ntell you--Tim will take you back to the city to-night, grateful for the\nchance, but do you really have to go? This little room is yours, and you\ncan go over together in the morning. Then a night in this stillness will\ncalm you back into a little girl. Tim doesn't know I'm asking you.\nPlease do just as you want----\"\n\nPaula didn't have the heart to drag the big brother back to town.\n\n\"Why,\" she said laughingly, \"I'd much rather stay than not. Think how\ngood this all is to me! I didn't have an idea when he asked me, other\nthan a restaurant somewhere in New York.\"\n\n\"I am so glad.... Tim----\"\n\nHe tried not to look relieved at the announcement. \"Really, I didn't put\nAnnie up to this, but if you are content to stay, I think it will smooth\nyou out a bit.\"\n\nAfter supper the three sat out in the yard. There was a heavy richness\nin the air, a soft sea-wind flavored with wood-fires and finished\nfields. Reifferscheid smoked his pipe and did most of the talking.\n\n\"I glanced over Bertram Lintell's new book--out to-day,\" he said. \"It\nsort of hurts. Two or three months ago, I dropped in on him while he was\ndoing it.... I have always had a certain interest in Lintell because I\naccepted his first story seven or eight years ago, as a magazine\nreader.... You may not know that nine-tenths of the unsolicited fiction\nmaterial in a magazine's mail is a personal affront to intelligence at\nlarge. Nowhere does a man show the youth of his soul so pitifully as\nwhen first alone with white paper and an idea. He shakes down a crow's\nrookery and believes in his heart it's an eagle's nest. That there are\nmen in the world paid to open his package, inspect and return same\nrespectfully--and do it again--is an uncommercial peculiarity of a most\ncommercial age. Editors rely upon the more or less technically flawless\nproducts of the trained, the \"arrived\"; writers who have forgotten their\ndreams--rung the bell once or twice--and show a willingness to take\nmoney for the echoes.\n\n\"An expensive reading staff is not necessary for these contributors;\ntheir stuff goes to the heart of things at once. But what sorry caravans\nhalt in the outer courts of a magazine-office; what sick, empty,\nunwashed confusion is impounded there! Yet a company of men moves ever\nthrough and about, peering into the unsightly, unsavory packs--ever\nordering away, ever clearing the court, lest the mess rise to heaven....\nBut perfect pearls have been found in these restless, complaining\ntrash-heaps, and will be found again. Men are there to glance at all,\nbecause one of these pearls is worth a whole necklace of seconds.\nThere's no way out of it. To make lasting good in the literary game, one\nmust be steeled to reverses--long, ugly corroding reverses. This is the\nprice which a man pays for the adjustment of his brain and hand to the\nneeds of the time. As flesh needs bone, he needs these reverses. They\nclear the fat from the brain; increase the mental circuits, and lend to\nthe fibres that firm delicacy which alone can carry live hot emotions\nwithout blowing out, and big voltage ideas swift and true to their\nappointed brilliance of expression.\n\n\"I'm gabbing a lot, but I was going to tell you about Bertram Lintell. I\nwas first in the office to get his manuscript, and I raised the cry of\n'Pearl.' It was faulty, but full of the arrogance of unhurt youth. The\nface of Twenty-one with all its unlined audacity stared out from the\npages, and every page was an excursion. Here was a true subconscious\nebullition--a hang-over from a previous incarnation, like as not. It was\nhard, glassy, but the physical prowess of it stimulated. Frank, brutal\nboyishness--that was the attraction. I shouldn't have taken it.\"\n\n\"You what?\" Paula asked.\n\n\"It was a shame to take it,\" Reifferscheid mused, \"but someone else--the\nnext man, would have. You see, he needed buffeting--seven years at\nleast. I knew he didn't have the beam and displacement to stand making\ngood so young. It was doing him an evil turn, but we sent him the brass\ntag that shines like gold. Lintell was not adult enough to twig the\ncounterfeit, not mellowed enough to realize that nothing is so sordid,\nnothing labeled so securely to Failure, as conscious success. As I say,\nI saw him at work two or three months ago. He was a patch-haired, baby\nlion still, dictating stories first draft to a stenographer, supplying\ndemand like a huckster--the real treasure-house of his soul locked for\nlife and the key thrown away.... Even money turns the head of the\nmultitude, but money is small beer compared to the fiery potential wine\nof literary recognition. Long hammering, refining reverses, alone\nprepare a man for this. Quentin Charter said something of the kind: that\na young writer should live his lean years full length, and if he really\ncraters the mountain, he will praise every god in the Pantheon because\nhis achievements were slow.\n\n\"Lintell's present stuff is insufferable. The point is he may have had\nin the beginning no less a gift than Charter's. That's why the new book\nsickens me so.... By the way, I got a letter from Charter this\nafternoon. I meant to bring it along, but I'll pass it over to you in\nthe morning. It's yours, Miss Linster, though he did me the honor to\nthink that I had written his critique. He says you crawled right inside\nhis book. We don't usually answer letters of this kind. There are\nwriters, you know, glad to turn a review office into an Admiration\nExchange. But you'll want to write to Charter, I'm sure. He's different.\"\n\nPaula did not answer, but she was pleased and excited that her review\nhad been a joy to this thunderer of the West, and that he had answered\nher tidings of high hope for the future.\n\n\n\n\nFOURTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA ENCOUNTERS HER ADVERSARY WHO TURNS PROPHET AND TELLS OF A STARRY\nCHILD SOON TO BE BORN\n\n\nPaula went upstairs to the editorial rooms with Reifferscheid the\nfollowing morning for Charter's letter. This she carried into the\ncity-office to be alone. Forenoon is the dead time of a morning\nnewspaper. The place seemed still tired from the all-night struggle to\nspring a paper to the streets. She thrust up a window for fresh air and\nsat down in a reporter's chair to read.... The letter was big with\nboyish delight. \"When a man spends a couple of years growing and\ntrimming a pile of stuff into a sizable book,\" he had written, \"and the\nfirst of the important reviews comes in with such a message of\nenthusiasm, it is the heart's 'well-done' long waited for.\" Beyond this,\nthere was only a line or two about the book. It had been in the\npublisher's hands six months, and he was cold to it now. _The States_\nhad interested him, however, because there was an inclination in the\narticle to look at his work to come. In fact, some of the thoughts of\nthe reviewer, he wrote, were sympathetic with the subject-matter\nsimmering in his mind. Naturally, the coincidence had thrilled him.\nCharter, believing that Reifferscheid had done the work, wrote with\nutmost freedom. This attracted Paula, as it gave her a glimpse of a\ncertain fineness between men who admire each other. The issue was not\nclosed.... She wanted to answer the letter then and there at the\nreporter's desk, but Reifferscheid knew she had not gone. He might come\nin--and laugh at her precipitation.\n\nAfter a night of perfect rest, Paula's mind was animated with thoughts\nof work--until she reached the _Zoroaster_. Something of Bellingham's\ntormenting energy was heavy in the atmosphere of her rooms. When passing\nthe full-length mirror, she turned her face away in fear. Impatiently\nshe caught up one of the new books (and Charter's letter for a marker),\nand hurried across to the Park. The fall days were still flawless.\n\nIt was not yet ten in the morning, and few people were abroad. She sat\ndown upon one of the weathered knobs of Manhattan rock which had worn\nthrough the thin skin of soil, and allowed herself to think of the\nformidable affliction. To all intents, the magician had dispossessed her\nof the rooms, identified for years with her personality and no other.\nShe could not put away the truth that the full forces of her mind were\nat bay before the psychic advances of the dreadful stranger. This was\nnot long to be endured. Inasmuch that his power did not harmlessly\nglance from her, she felt that there must be great potentialities of\nevil within herself. This conviction made her frightened and desperate.\nShe should have known that it was her inner development, her\nsensitiveness which had made her so potent an attraction for Bellingham.\nThe substance of her whole terror was that there had been moments under\nhis spell, when she had not been at all the mistress of her own will.\n\nThe suggestions which he projected had seemed to her the good and proper\nactions. She knew it as a law--that every time her own divine right to\nthe rule of her faculties was thus usurped by an evil force, her\nresistance was weakened. Yet there was a shocking unfairness in the\nthought that she was not given a chance. In the throne-room of her mind,\nshe was not queen. All the sacred fortifications of self seemed broken,\neven the soul's integrity debased, when Bellingham crushed his way in\nand forced her to obey. This is the great psychological crime. When one\nhas broken into the sacred precincts, the door is left open for other\nmalignant, earth-bound entities foully to enter and betray....\n\nThere was no one in whom she could confide, but Madame Nestor. Almost\nany professional man, a physician especially, would have called her\nrevelations hysterical.... Her constant and growing fear was of the time\nwhen she should be called by Bellingham--and nothing would supervene to\nsave her. Some time the spell might not be broken. She became ill with\ntension and shame as this unspeakable possibility seethed through her\nmind.... Better death than to continue in being passion-ridden by this\ndefiler, in the presence of whom she became so loathsome in her own\nsight--that she dared not pray....\n\nSomewhere far off children were talking. Their voices warmed and\ncleansed her mind. There was a stimulating thud of hoofs on the\nturf-roads. She tried to read now. Her eyes travelled dutifully along\nthe lines of her book, without bringing forth even the phase of a\nthought from the page of print. A swift step drew her glance down the\nfoot-path. Bellingham was approaching. His shoulders were thrown back,\nhis long arms swinging so that every muscle was in play, striding\nforward at incredible speed. He filled his lungs with every cubic inch\nof morning air they could contain, and expelled the volume with gusto.\nShe had once seen a rugged Englishman take his exercise as seriously as\nthis, on the promenade of an Atlantic liner before the breakfast-gong.\nTo all appearances, Bellingham did not have a thought apart from his\nconstitutional.\n\nPaula sat very still on the rock. Her slightest movement now would\nattract his attention. It occurred to her afterwards that she had been\nlike a crippled squirrel huddled in the fork of a tree--the hunter and\nhis dog below....\n\nAt the point where the path was nearest her, he halted. The thing\nhappened exactly as she might have conceived it in a story. For a moment\nhe seemed to be searching his mind for the meaning of his impulse to\nstop. An unforgettable figure, this, as he stood there with lifted head,\nconcentrating upon the vagary which had brought him to a standstill....\nPaula may have been mistaken in her terror, but she never relinquished\nthe thought that her proximity was known to him--before his face turned\nunerringly to the rock and his bright gray eyes filled with her\npresence.\n\n\"You are Miss Linster?\" he asked, smiling agreeably.\n\nShe nodded, not trusting her voice.\n\n\"You attended the first of my Prismatic Hall lectures ten days ago?... I\nseldom forget a face, and I remember asking one of my committee your\nname.\"\n\nPaula found it rather a unique effort to hold in mind the truth that she\nhad never spoken to this man before. Then the whole trend of her mental\nactivity was suddenly complicated by the thought that all her past\nterrors might be groundless. Possibly Madame Nestor was insane on this\nsubject. \"It may be that her mad words and my stimulated imagination\nhave reared a monster that has no actuality.\"\n\nThe bracing voices of the children, the brilliance of mid-forenoon, the\nman's kingly figure, agreeable courtesy, and commanding health--indeed,\napart from the eyes in which she hardly dared to glance, there was\nnothing to connect him even vaguely with the sinister persecutions which\nbore his image. The whole world-mind was with him. What right had she to\nsay that the world-mind was in error and she normal--she and the\nunreckonable Madame Nestor?... Paula recalled the strange intensity of\nher mental life for years, and the largeness of her solitudes. The\nworld-mind would say she was beside herself from much study.... More\nthan all, no power was exerted upon her now. Who would believe that this\nBellingham, with miles of the metropolis between them, had repeatedly\nover-ridden her volition, when she felt no threatening influence at the\npresent moment, almost within his reach--only the innate repulsion and\nthe fear of her fears?\n\n\"I hope to see you again at the meetings, Miss Linster.\"\n\n\"They do not attract me.\"\n\n\"That is important, if unpleasant to learn,\" he remarked, as if\ngenuinely perturbed. \"I have been studying for a long time, and perhaps\nI have taken a roundabout road to discovery. It is quite possible that\nthe values of my instruction are over-estimated by many.... Do you mind\nif I sit down a moment? I have walked a hundred squares and will start\nback from here.\" From his manner it was impossible to imagine irony\ncovert in his humbleness.\n\n\"Certainly not, though I must return to my apartment in a moment.... I\ndid not like the atmosphere--the audience--that first night,\" Paula\nadded.\n\n\"Nor did I, altogether,\" he said quickly. \"But how can one choose the\nreal, if all are not admitted at first? With each lecture you will find\na more select company, and there will be very few when the actual\nmessage is unfolded.\"\n\nHe glanced away as if to determine the exact point through the trees\nfrom which the children's voices came. His profile was unquestionably\nthat of an aristocrat. The carriage of his head, the wonderful\ndevelopment of his figure, his voice and the gentle temper of his\nanswers, even the cut of his coat and the elegance of his shoes\nsuggested an unconscious and invariable refinement which controverted\nthe horror he had once seemed.\n\n\"It may be that I am not quite like other people,\" she said, \"but I\ncannot think of physical perfection as the first aim in life.\"\n\n\"Nor can I,\" he answered; \"still I think that after the elimination of\npoisons from the physical organism, one's mental and spiritual powers\nare quickened and freer to develop.\"\n\n\"Do you always shape your philosophy to meet the objections of your\ndisciples--so?\"\n\n\"You are stimulating, Miss Linster, but I have made no concession to\nadapt myself to your views. I only declared that I weed out my classes\nbefore real work begins, and that physical disease retards mental\ngrowth. I might add that I do not lecture for money.\"\n\n\"Why do you teach only women?\"\n\n\"There are several reasons,\" he replied readily enough. \"I have found\nthat a mixed audience is not receptive; there is a self-consciousness,\nsometimes worse, something of a scoffing spirit, which breaks the point\nof my appeal. Women are aroused to interest when a man appeals directly\nto them. They do not like to betray a profound interest in any subject\napart from the household--when their lords are present. Man\ninstinctively combats any source which tends toward mental emancipation\non the part of women. It is only a few decades ago that women were\nforced to abide entirely within their domestic circle. Instead of using\na superior physical strength now to keep her there, man's tendency is to\nridicule her outside interests. So I have found that women prefer to\nstudy alone.\"\n\nBellingham answered thus circuitously, but his manner suggested that he\nwas grateful for the inquiry, since it gave him an opportunity to\nexpress matters which had only been half-formed in his mind. Paula,\nwhose every question had come from an inclination to confound him, began\nto realize that the spirit was unworthy and partook of impertinence.\n\n\"I believe in automatic health,\" she said impatiently. \"It seems to me\nthat refinement means this: that in real fineness all such things are\nmanaged with a sort of unconscious art. For instance, I should not have\nhealth at the price of walking twice a hundred blocks in a forenoon----\"\n\n\"The point is eminently reasonable, Miss Linster,\" Bellingham remarked\nwith a smile. \"But what I find it well to do, I rarely advise for\nothers. I am from a stock of powerful physical men. My fathers were\nsailors and fishermen. They gave me an organism which weakens if I\nneglect exercise, and I seem to require about five times as much\nphysical activity as many men of the present generation. I have\nabsolutely no use for this tremendous muscular strength; in fact, I\nshould gladly be less strong if it could be accomplished without a\ngeneral deterioration. The point is, that a man with three or four\ngenerations of gentle-folk behind him, can keep in a state of glowing\nhealth at the expense of about one-fifth the physical energy that I\nburn--who come from rough men of mighty outdoor labors.\"\n\nThis was very reasonable, except that he seemed far removed in nature\nfrom the men of boats and beaches. She had dared to glance into his face\nas he spoke, and found an impression from the diamond hardness of his\neyes, entirely different from that which came through listening merely.\nBut for this glance, it never would have occurred to her, that her\nquestions had stretched his faculties to the slightest tension. She\nwould have arisen to go now, but he resumed:\n\n\"I cannot bear to have you think that my energies are directed entirely\nin the interests of lifting the standards of health, Miss Linster.\nReally, this is but a small part of preparation. It was only because I\nfelt you ready for the important truths--that I regretted your absence\nafter the first night. Do you know that we live in the time of a\nspiritual high-tide? It is clear to me that the whole race is lifting\nwith a wonderful inner animation. In the next quarter of a century great\nmystic voices shall be heard. And there shall be One above all.... I\ntell you people are breaking down under the tyranny of their material\npossessions. After desire--comes the burden of holding. We are\napproaching the great _ennui_ which Carlyle prophesied. There is no\nlonger a gospel of materialism. The great English and German teachers\nwhose work was regarded as supreme philosophy by the people ten years\nago, are shown to be pitiful failures in our colleges to-day--or at\nbest, specialists of one particular stage of evolution, who made the\nmistake of preaching that their little division in the great cosmic line\nwas the whole road. Materialism died out of Germany a few years\nago--with a great shock of suicide. The mystics are teaching her now. I\nassure you the dawn is breaking for a great spiritual day such as the\nworld has never seen. Soon a great light shall cover the nations and\nevil shall crawl into the holes of the earth where it is dark.... There\nis shortly to be born into the world--a glorious Child. While He is\ngrowing to celestial manhood--New Voices shall rise here and everywhere\npreparing the way. One of these New Voices--one of the very least of\nthese--is Bellingham to whom you listen so impatiently.\"\n\nEvery venture into the occult had whispered this Child-promise in\nPaula's ears. There was such a concerted understanding of this\nrevelation among the cults, that the thought had come to her that\nperhaps this was a delusion of every age. Yet she had seen a Hindu\nrecord dated a hundred years before, prophesying the birth of a Superman\nin the early years of the Twentieth Century. There was scarcely a\ndivision among the astrologers on this one point. She had even been\nconscious in the solitudes of her own life of a certain mystic\nconfidence of such a fulfillment.... She dared not look into\nBellingham's face at such a moment. The ghastly phase of the whole\nmatter was to hear this prophecy repeated by one to whom the illustrious\nprospect (if he were, as she had believed) could become only an awful\nillumination of the hell to which he was condemned. It was--only\nunspeakably worse--like hearing a parrot croak, \"Feed our souls with the\nbread of life!...\" Paula stirred in her seat, and Charter's letter\ndropped from the book in her lap. She seized it with a rush of grateful\nemotion. It was a stanchion in her mind now filled with turbulence.\n\n\"There never was a time when woman's intelligence was so eager and\nrational; never a time,\" Bellingham went on, \"when men were so tired of\nmetals and meals and miles. The groan for the Absolutely New, for the\nutmost in sense and the weirdest of sensations, for speed to cover\ndistances and to overcome every obstacle, even thin air--all these\nexpress the great weariness of the flesh and make clear to the prophetic\nunderstanding that man is nearing the end of his lessons in three\ndimensions and five senses. There is a stirring of the spirit-captive in\nthe worn mesh of the body.\"\n\nThe woman traced her name with her forefinger upon the cover of the book\nin her lap; again and again, \"Paula--Paula--Paula.\" It was a habit she\nhad not remembered for years. As a little girl when she fought against\nbeing persuaded contrary to her will, she would hold herself in hand\nthus, by wriggling \"Paula\" anywhere. All that Bellingham said was\nartfully calculated to inspire her with hope and joy in the world. So\nmarvelously were the words designed to carry her high in happiness, that\nthere was a corresponding tension of terror in remembering that\nBellingham uttered them. Yet she would have felt like a lump of clay had\nshe not told him:\n\n\"What you say is very wonderful to me.\"\n\n\"And it is the women who are most sensitive to the Light--women who are\nalready unfolding in the rays, yet so far-flung and dim.\" Bellingham's\nvoice was a quick emotionless monotone. \"Perhaps you have noted the\ngreat amalgamation of clubs and classes of women which each year turns\nits power to more direct effort and valuable study. Another thing, let\nthe word Genius be whispered about any child or youth, and he becomes at\nonce the darling of rich matrons. What does this mean--this desire of\nwoman to bring out the latent powers of a stranger's child? This veiled,\nbeautiful quality is the surest sign of all. It is the spirit of\nRebecca--which, even in the grief for her own dead babe, turns\nthrillingly to mother a wayfarer's Starry Child. Verily, when a woman\nbegins to dream about bringing prophets into the world--the giants of\nthose other days are close to her, crowding closer, eager to be born\nagain.\"\n\nPaula turned to him and arose. His face was not kindled. It was as if he\nwere an actor reading lines to memorize, not yet trying to simulate the\ncontained emotions. There is a glow of countenance where fine\nthought-force is in action, but Bellingham's face was not lit with the\nexpiration of mind-energy, though his eyes glittered with set, bird-like\nbrightness.\n\n\"I must hurry away now,\" she told him hastily. \"I must think upon what\nyou have said.\"\n\n\"I truly wish,\" he added softly, and with a kindness she felt, because\nher eyes were turned from him, \"that you would join one of my wiser\nclasses. You would be an inspiration. Besides, the little things that\nhave been given me to tell--should be known by the very few who have\nreached your degree of evolution.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she faltered. \"I must think.\"\n\n\"Good-by, Miss Linster.\"\n\nReaching the street in front of her apartment house, she turned just in\ntime to see him disappear among the trees. He strode forward as if this\nwere his world, and his days had been a continuous pageant of\nvictories.... Her rooms were all cleared of disorder, her mind refreshed\nand stimulated.... That night between eleven and twelve she was writing\nto Charter. There were a half dozen penned pages before her, and a smile\non her lips. She poured out a full heart to the big Western figure of\ncleanliness and strength--wrote to the man she wanted him to be.... The\nday had been strange and expanding. She had suffered no evil. The\nthoughts remaining with her from the talk in the Park were large with\nsignificance, and they had cleared slowly from the murkiness of their\nsource. These, and the ideal of manhood she was building out of\nCharter's book and letter and Reifferscheid's little sketch of him, had\nmade the hours rich with healing. She was tired but steady-nerved as she\nwrote.... There was a faint tapping at her hall-door.\n\n\n\n\nFIFTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE FURIOUS HISTORY OF SELMA CROSS AND WRITES A\nLETTER TO QUENTIN CHARTER\n\n\nPaula thrust the sheets of the letter in her desk drawer and admitted\nSelma Cross, an actress whose apartment was across the hall. These two\nhad chatted together many times, sometimes intimately. Each had found\nthe other interesting. Hints of a past that was almost classic in the\nfury of its struggle for publicity, had repeatedly come to Paula's ears,\nwith other matters she greatly would have preferred not to hear. Selma\nCross was huge to look upon, and at first thought without grace. There\nwas something uncanny in her face and movements, and an extraordinary\nbreadth between her yellow eyes which were wide-lidded, slow-moving and\never-changing. She was but little past thirty, yet the crowded traffic\nof her years was intricately marked.\n\n\"I saw the light under your door, and felt like coming in for a few\nminutes,\" she said. \"I must talk to some one and my maid, Dimity, is\nsnoring. You see, I'm celebrating for two reasons.\"\n\n\"Tell me, so I can help,\" Paula answered.\n\n\"Vhruebert has taken a play for me. You know, I've been begging him to\nfor months. The play was made for me--not that it was written with me in\nmind, but that I just suit it. Selma Cross is to be carved in light over\na theatre-entrance, twenty seconds from Broadway--next April. It will be\nat the _Herriot_--Vhruebert's theatre. We run through Hartford,\nSpringfield, Rochester and that string of second cities earlier in the\nSpring.\"\n\nPaula rose and gave both her hands.\n\n\"Oh, I'm so glad for you,\" she said. \"I know something about how you\nhave worked for this----\"\n\n\"Yes, and the play is _The Thing_. I am an ugly slaving drudge, but have\nall the emotions that the sweet _ingenue_ of the piece should have, and\nthe audience watches me deliver. Yes, I've waited long for this, and yet\nI'm not so glad as I thought I should be. I've been pretty sure of it\nfor the last year or two. I said I was celebrating for two things----\"\n\n\"Pray, what is the other?\"\n\n\"I forget that it might not interest you--though it certainly does me,\"\nSelma Cross said with a queer, low laugh.... \"He wasn't ugly about it,\nbut he has been exacting--ugh! The fact is, I have earned the privilege\nat last of sleeping in my own respectable apartment.\"\n\nPaula couldn't help shivering a bit. \"You mean you have left your----\"\n\n\"Oh, he wasn't my husband.... It's such a luxury to pay for your own\nthings--for your own house and clothes and dinners--to earn a dollar for\nevery need and one to put away.... You didn't think that I could get my\nname above the name of a play--without an angel?\"\n\n\"I didn't know,\" Paula said, \"I saw you with him often. It didn't\nexactly occur to me that he was your husband, because he didn't come\nhere. But do you mean that now when you don't need him any longer--you\ntold him to go away?\"\n\n\"Just that--except it isn't at all as it looks. You wouldn't pity old\nman Villiers. Living God, that's humorous--after what I have given.\nDon't look for wings on theatrical angels, dear.\"\n\nIt was plain that the woman was utterly tired. She regarded Paula with a\nqueer expression of embarrassment, and there was a look of harsh\nself-repression under the now-drooped eyelids.\n\n\"I don't apologize,\" she went on hastily. \"What I have done, I would do\nagain--only earlier in the game, but you're the sort of woman I don't\nlike to have look at me that--I mean look down upon me. I haven't many\nfriends. I think I must be half wild, but you make the grade that I\nhave--and you pay the price.... You've always looked attractive to\nme--so easy and finished and out of the ruck.\"\n\nThere was a real warming sincerity in the words. Paula divined on the\ninstant that she could forever check an intimacy--by a word which would\nbetray the depth of her abhorrence for such a concession to ambition,\nand for the life which seems to demand it. Selma Cross was sick for a\nfriend, sick from containing herself. On this night of achievement there\nwas something pitiful in the need of her heart.\n\n\"New York has turned rather too many pages of life before my eyes,\nSelma, for me to feel far above any one whose struggles I have not\nendured.\"\n\nThe other leaned forward eagerly, \"I liked you from the first moment,\nPaula,\" she said. \"You were so rounded--it seemed to me. I'm all\nstreaky, all one-sided. You're bred. I'm cattle.... Some time I'll tell\nyou how it all began. I said I would be the greatest living\ntragedienne--hurled this at a lot of cat-minds down in Kentucky fifteen\nyears ago. Of course, I shall. It does not mean so much to me as I\nthought, and it may be a bauble to you, but I wanted it. Its\nfar-awayness doesn't torture me as it once did, but one pays a ghastly\nprice. Yes, it's a climb, dear. You must have bone and blood and\nbrain--a sort of brain--and you should have a cheer from below; but I\ndidn't. I wonder if there ever was a fight that can match mine? If so,\nit would not be a good tale for children or grown-ups with delicate\nnerves. Little women always hated me. I remember, one restaurant cashier\non Eighth Avenue told me I was too unsightly to be a waitress. I have\ndone kitchen pot-boilers and scrubbed tenement-stairs. Then, because I\nrepeated parts of plays in those horrid halls--they said I was crazy....\nWhy, I have felt a perfect lust for suicide--felt my breast ache for a\ncool knife and my hand rise gladly. Once I played a freak part--that was\nmy greater degradation--debased my soul by making my body look worse\nthan it is. I went down to hell for that--and was forgiven. I have been\nso homesick, Paula, that I could have eaten the dirt in the road of that\nlittle Kentucky town.... Yes, I pressed against the steel until\nsomething broke--it was the steel, not me. Oh, I could tell you\nmuch!...\"\n\nShe paused but a moment.\n\n\"The thing so dreadful to overcome was that I have a body like a great\nDane. It would not have hurt a writer, a painter, even a singer, so\nmuch, but we of the drama are so dependent upon the shape of our bodies.\nThen, my face is like a dog or a horse or a cat--all these I have been\nlikened to. Then I was slow to learn repression. This is a part of\nculture, I guess--breeding. Mine is a lineage of Kentucky poor white\ntrash, who knows, but a speck of 'nigger'? I don't care now, only it\ngave me a temper of seven devils, if it was so. These are some of the\nthings I have contended with. I would go to a manager and he would laugh\nme along, trying to get rid of me gracefully, thinking that some of his\nfriends were playing a practical joke on him. Vhruebert thought that at\nfirst. Vhruebert calls me _The Thing_ now. I could have done better had\nI been a cripple; there are parts for a cripple. And you watch, Paula,\nnext January when I burn up things here, they'll say my success is\nlargely due to my figure and face!\"\n\nAs she looked and listened, Paula saw great meanings in the broad big\ncountenance, a sort of ruffian strength to carry this perfecting\ninstrument of emotion. The great body was needed to support such\ntalents, handicapped by the lack of beauty. Selma Cross fascinated her.\nPaula's heart went out to the great crude creature she had been--in pity\nfor this woman of furious history. The processes by which her brain and\nflesh had been refined would have slain the body and mind of an ordinary\nhuman. It came to Paula that here was one of Mother Nature's most\nenthralling experiments--the evolution of an effective instrument from\nthe coarsest and vaguest heredity.\n\n\"They are all brainless but Vhruebert. You see, unless one is a beauty,\nyou can't get the support of a big manager's name. I mean without\nmoney--there are managers who will lend their name to your stardom, if\nyou take the financial risk. Otherwise, you've got to attract them as a\npossible conquest. All men are like that. If you interest them\nsexually--they will hear what you have to say----\"\n\n\"Isn't that a reckless talk?\" Paula asked, pale from the repulsiveness\nof the thought. \"You say it without a single qualification----\"\n\nSelma Cross stared at her vacantly for a few seconds, then laughed\nsoftly. \"You don't actually believe--to the contrary?\"\n\n\"Let's pass it by. I should have to be changed--to believe that!\"\n\n\"I hope the time will never come when you need something terribly from a\nstrange man--one upon whom you have no hold but--yourself.... Ah, but\nyou--the brighter sort would give you what you asked. You----\"\n\n\"Please don't go on!\" Paula whispered. \"The other part is so\ninteresting.\"\n\nSelma Cross seemed to stir restlessly in her loose, softly-scented\ngarments. \"I suppose I'm too rough for you. In ninety-nine women out of\na hundred, I'd say your protest was a cheap affectation, but it isn't so\nwith you....\"\n\n\"It's your set, smothery pessimism that hurts so, Selma,\" Paula declared\nintensely. \"It hurts me most because you seem to have it so locked and\nimmovable inside.... You have been so big and wonderful to win against\ntremendous obstacles--not against ugliness--I can't grant that. You\nstartled me, when I saw you first. I think women have held you apart\nbecause you were uncommon. You show a strange power in your movements\nand expression. It's not ugliness----\"\n\n\"That's mighty rare of you. I haven't had the pleasure of being defied\nlike that before. But you are not like other people--not like other\nwomen.\"\n\n\"You will meet many real men and women--wiser and kinder than I am. I\nthink your pessimism cannot endure--when you look for the good in\npeople----\"\n\n\"The kind I have known would not let me. They're just as hateful now--I\nmean the stuffy dolls of the stage--just as hateful, calling me 'dear'\nand 'love' and saying, 'How tremendous you are, Selma Cross!....'\nListen, it is only a little while ago that the same women used to ask me\nto walk on Broadway with them--to use me as a foil for their baby faces!\nOh, women are horrible--dusty shavings inside--and men are of the same\nfamily.\"\n\n\"You poor, dear unfortunate--not to know the really wonderful kind! You\nare worn to the bone from winning your victory, but when you're rested,\nyou'll be able to see the beautiful--clearly.\"\n\n\"One only knows as far as one can see.\"\n\nThis sentence was a shock to Paula's intelligence. It was spoken without\nconsciousness of the meaning which drove so deep into the other's mind.\nIt suggested a mind dependent altogether upon physical eyes. Paula\nrefused to believe that this was the key to the whole matter.\n\n\"They have been so cruel to me--those female things which bloom a year,\"\nSelma Cross continued. \"Flesh-flowers! They harried me to martyrdom. I\nhad to hate them, because I was forced to be one with them--I, a big\nsavage, dreaming unutterable things. It's all so close yet, I haven't\ncome to pity them.... Maybe you can tell me what good they are--what\nthey mean in the world--the shallow, brainless things who make the stage\nfull! They are in factories, too, everywhere--daughters of the coolies\nand peasants of Europe--only worse over here because their fathers have\nlost their low fixed place in society, and are all mixed in their dim,\nbrute minds. They have no one to rule them. You will see a family of\ndirty, frightened, low-minded children--the eldest, say a girl of\nfifteen. A dog or a cat with a good home is rich beside them. Take this\neldest girl of a brood--with all the filth of foreign New York in and\nabout her. She is fifteen and ready for the streets. It is the year of\nher miracle. I've seen it a score of times. You miss her a few months\nand she appears again at work somewhere--her face decently clean, her\neyes clear, a bit of bright ribbon and a gown wrung somewhere from the\nbeds of torture. It is her brief bloom--so horrid to look at when you\nknow what it means. All the fifteen years of squalor, evil, and\nlow-mindedness for this one year--a bloom-girl out of the dirt! And the\nnext, she has fallen back, unwashed, high-voiced, hardening,\nstiffening,--a babe at her breast, dull hell in her heart. All her\nliving before and to come--for that one bloom year. Maybe you can tell\nme what the big purpose of it all is. Earth uses them quite as\nruthlessly as any weed or flower--gives them a year to bloom, not for\nbeauty, but that more crude seeds may be scattered. Perpetuate! Flowers\nbloom to catch a bug--such girls, to catch a man--perpetuate--oh God,\nwhat for? And these things have laughed at me in the chorus, called me\n'Crazy Sal,' because I spoke of things they never dreamed.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Paula said quickly, \"I've seen something like that. How you will\npity them when you are rested! It is hard for us to understand why such\nnumbers are sacrificed like a common kind of plants. Nietzsche calls\nthem 'the much-too-many.' But Nietzsche does not know quite so much as\nthe Energy that wills them to manifest. It is dreadful, it is pitiful.\nIt would seem, if God so loved the world--that He could not endure such\npity as would be His at the sight of this suffering and degradation....\nBut you have no right to despise them--you, of all women. You're\nblooming up, up, up,--farther and farther out of the common--your\nblooming has been for years because you have kindled your mind. You must\nbloom for years still--that's the only meaning of your strength--because\nyou will kindle your soul.... A woman with power like yours--has no\nright but to love the weak. Think what strength you have! There have\nbeen moments in the last half-hour that you have roused me to such a\npitch of thinking--that I have felt weak and ineffectual beside you. You\nmade me think sometimes of a great submarine--I don't know just\nwhy--flashing in the depths.\"\n\n\"I don't think you see me right,\" Selma Cross said wearily. \"Many times\nI have been lost in the dark. I have been wicked--hated the forces that\nmade me. I have so much in me of the peasant--that I abhor. There have\nbeen times when I would have been a prostitute for a clean house and\ndecent clothes to cover me, but men did not look at _The Thing_--only\nthe old man, and one other!\" Her eyes brightened, either at the memory\nor at the thought that she was free from the former.... \"Don't wince and\nI'll tell you about that angel. You will be wiser. I don't want you for\nmy friend, if I must keep something back. It was over three years ago,\nduring my first real success. I was rather startling as Sarah Blixton in\nHeber's _Caller Herrin_. It was in that that I learned repression. That\nwas my struggle--to repress.... Old man Villiers saw me, and was wise\nenough to see my future. 'Here's a girl,' I can imagine him saying, 'who\nis ugly enough to be square to one man, and she's a comer in spite of\nher face.' He showed where his check-book could be of unspeakable\nservice. It was all very clear to me. I felt I had struggled enough, and\nwent with him.... Villiers is that kind of New Yorker who feels that he\nhas nothing left to live for, when he ceases to desire women. In his\nvanity--they are always vain--he wanted to be seen with a woman\nmentioned on Broadway. It was his idea of being looked up to--and of\nmaking other men envious. You know his sort have no interest--save where\nthey can ruin.\n\n\"Then for two winter months, Villiers and I had a falling out. He went\nSouth, and I remained here to work. During this time I had my first real\nbrush with love--a young Westerner. It was terrific. He was a brilliant,\nbut turned out a rotten cad. I couldn't stand that in a young man....\nYou can pity an old man, much the worse for living, when he is brazenly\na cad--doesn't know anything else.... When Villiers came back from the\nSouth I was bought again. I put it all nakedly, Paula, but I was older\nthan you are now, when that sort of thing began with me. Remember that!\nStill, I mustn't take too much credit, because I didn't attract men....\nIf you don't abhor me now, you never will, little neighbor, because you\nhave the worst.... Sometime I'll tell you a real little love story--oh,\nI'm praying it's real! He's a hunch-back, Paula,--the author of _The\nThing_.... Nobody could possibly want a hunch-back but me--yet I'm not\ngood enough. He's so noble and so fine!... The past is so full of\nabominations, and I'm not a liar.... I don't think he'd want me--though\nI could be his nurse. I could _carry him_!... Then there is a long-ago\npromise.... Oh, I know I'm not fit for that kind of happiness!...\"\n\nThere was an inspiration in the last. It was strong enough to subvert\nPaula's mind from the road of dreary degradation over which she had been\nled. From rousing heights of admiration to black pits of shame, she had\nfallen, but here again was a tonic breath from clean altitudes. The\npicture in her mind of this great glowing creature tenderly mothering\nthe poor crippled genius of _The Thing_--was a thrilling conception.\n\n\"There is nothing which cannot be forgiven--save soul-death!\" Paula said\nardently. \"What you have told me is very hard to adjust, but I hope for\nyour new love. Oh, I am glad, Selma, that the other is all behind! I\ndon't know much of such things, but it has come to me that it is easier\nfor a man to separate himself from past degradations and be clean--than\na woman. This is because a man gives--_but the woman receives her sin_!\nThat which is given cannot continue to defile, but woman is the\nmatrix.... Still, you do not lie. Such things are so dreadful when\nmatted in lies. We all carry burdensome devils--but few uncover them, as\nyou have done for me. There is something noble in looking back into the\npast with a shudder, saying,--'I was sick and full of disease in those\ndays,' but when one hugs the corrosion, painting it white all\nover--there is an inner devouring that is never appeased.... All our\nsisters are in trouble. I think we live in a world of suffering\nsororities. You are big and powerful. Your greater life is to come.... I\nam glad for what you have put behind. You will progress farther and\nfarther from it. I am glad you are back across the hall--alone!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor many moments after Selma Cross had gone, Paula sat thinking under\nthe lamp. At last she drew the sheets of the letter to Charter from the\ndesk-drawer, and read them over. The same rapt smile came to her lips,\nas when she was writing. It was a letter to her Ideal--the big figure of\ncleanness and strength, she wanted this man to be. Even a line or two\nshe added. No one ever knew, but Paula.... At length, she began tearing\nthe sheets. Finer and finer became the squares under her tense\nfingers--a little pile of _confetti_ on the desk at last--and brushed\ninto a basket.... Then she wrote another letter, blithe, brief,\ngracious--about his book and her opinion. It was a letter such as he\nwould expect....\n\n\n\n\nSIXTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA IS CALLED TO PARLOR \"F\" OF THE _MAID-STONE_ WHERE THE BEYOND-DEVIL\nAWAITS WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS\n\n\nPaula felt singularly blessed the next morning wondering if ever there\nexisted another woman into whose life-channel poured such strange and\ntorrential tributaries. The current of her mind was broadening and\naccelerating. She was being prepared for some big expression, and there\nis true happiness in the thought. Reifferscheid, since her pilgrimage to\nStaten Island, had become a fixture of delight. Selma Cross had borne\nher down on mighty pinions to the lower revelations of the City, but had\nwinged her back again on a breeze of pure romance. Madame Nestor had\nparted the curtains, which shut from the world's eye, hell unqualified,\nyet her own life was a miracle of penitence. Not the least of her\ninspirations was this mild, brave woman of the solitudes. Then, there\nwas the commanding mystery of Bellingham, emerging in her mind now from\nthe chicaneries of the past ten days; rising, indeed, to his own\nvaluation--that of a New Voice. Finally, above and before all, was the\nstirring figure of her Ideal--her splendid secret source of\noptimism--Charter, less a man than a soul in her new dreams--a name to\nwhich she affixed, \"The Man-Who-Must-Be-Somewhere.\"\n\nJust once, the thought came to Paula that Bellingham had designed a\nmeeting such as took place in the Park to soften her aversion and clear\nfrom her mind any idea of his abnormality. She could not hold this\nsuspicion long. Attributing evil strategies to another was not easy for\nPaula. The simpler way now was to give him every benefit, even to regard\nthe recent dreadful adventures with an intangible devil--as an outburst\nof her neglected feminine prerogatives, coincident with the stress of\nher rather lonely intellectual life. As for Madame Nestor, might she not\nhave reached a more acute stage of a similar derangement? Paula was not\nunacquainted with the great potentialities of fine physical health, nor\ndid she miss the fact that Mother Nature seldom permits a woman of\nnormal development to reach the fourth cycle of her years, without\nreckoning with the ancient reason of her being.\n\nShe now regarded early events connected with Bellingham as one might\nlook back upon the beginning of a run of fever.... Could he be one of\nthe New Voices?\n\nPaula loved to think that Woman was to be the chief resource of the\nLifting Age. Everywhere among men she saw the furious hunger for\nspiritual refreshment. Words, which she heard by mere chance from\npassers-by, appalled her. It was so tragically clear to her how the life\nled by city men starves their better natures--that there were times when\nshe could hardly realize they did not see it. She wanted someone to make\nthe whole world understand--that just as there are hidden spaces between\nthe atoms of steel which made radioactivity possible, so in the human\nbody there is a permeating space, in which the soul of man is built day\nby day from every thought and act; and when the worn-out physical\nenvelope falls away--there it stands, a record to endure.... She wanted\nto believe that it was the office of woman to help man make this record\nbeautiful. Just as the old Anglo-Saxon for \"lady\" means \"giver of\nbread,\" so she loved to think that the spiritual loaf was in the keeping\nof woman also.\n\nPaula could not meditate without ecstasy upon the thought that a great\nspiritual tide was rising, soon to overflow every race and nation. The\nlifting of man from greedy senses to the pure happiness of brotherhood,\nwas her most intimate and lovely hope. Back of everything, this lived\nand lit her mind. There were transcendent moments--she hardly dared to\ndescribe or interpret them--when cosmic consciousness swept into her\nbrain. Swift was the visitation, nor did it leave any memorable\nimpression, but she divined that such lofty moments, different only in\ndegree, were responsible for the great utterances in books that are\ndeathless. The shield was torn from her soul, leaving it naked to every\nworld-anguish. The woman, Paula Linster, became an accumulation of all\nsuffering--desert thirsts, untold loves, birth and death parturitions,\nblind cruelties of battle, the carnal lust of Famine (that soft-treading\nspectre), welted flesh under the screaming lash, moaning from the\nWorld's Night everywhere--until the impassioned spirit within rushed\nforth to the very horizon's rim to shelter an agonizing people from an\nangry God. Such is the genius of race-motherhood--the ineffable spirit\nof mediation between Father and child.\n\nOne must regard with awe the reaction which follows such an outpouring.\n\nThese are the wilderness-wrestlings of the great-souled--the\nGethsemanes. Out of the dream, would appear the actual spectacle of the\nCity--human beings preying one upon the other, the wolf still frothing\nin man's breast--and then would crush down upon her with shattering pain\nthe realization of her own hopeless ineffectuality. To a mind thus\nstricken and desolated often, premonitions of madness come at\nlast--madness, the black brother of genius. There is safety alone in a\nbody strong and undefiled to receive again the expanded spirit. From how\nmany a lustrous youth--tarrying too long by the fetid margins of\nsense--has the glory winged away, never to return to a creature fallen\ninto hairy despoliation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPaula had returned from down-town about noon. Reifferscheid, who had a\nweakness for Herman Melville, and annually endeavored to spur the\nAmerican people into a more adequate appreciation of the old sea-lion,\nhad ordered her to rest her eyes for a few days in _Moby Dick_. With the\nfat, old fine-print novel under her arm, Paula let herself into her own\napartment and instantly encountered the occultist's power. She sank to\nthe floor and covered her face in the pillows of the couch. In the past\ntwenty-four hours she had come to believe that the enemy had been put\naway forever, yet here in her own room she was stricken, and so\nswiftly.... Though she did not realize it at once, many of the thoughts\nwhich gradually surged into her mind were not her own. She came to see\nBellingham as other women saw him--as a great and wise doctor. Her own\nconception battled against this, but vainly, vaguely. It was as if he\nheld the balance of power in her consciousness. Without attempting to\nlink them together, the processes of her mind quickly will be set into\nwords.\n\nHer first thought, before the tightening of Bellingham's control in her\nbrain, was to rush into his presence and fiercely arraign him for the\ntreachery he had committed. After blaming Madame Nestor and deforming\nher own faculties to clear him from evil, the devilishness of the\npresent visitation overwhelmed. And how infinitely more black and\nformidable now was his magic--after the utterances in the Park! This was\nher last real stand.... A cry of hopelessness escaped her lips, for the\nnumbness was already about her eyes, and creeping back like a pestilence\nalong the open highways of her mind.\n\n\"Come to me. The way is open. I am alone. I am near.... Come to me,\nPaula Linster, of plentiful treasures.... Do you not see the open\nway--how near I am? Oh, come--now--come to me now!\"\n\nAgain and again the little sentences fell upon her mind, until its\nsurface stirred against reiteration, as one, thoroughly understanding,\nresents repeated explanations.... It was right now for her to go. She\nhad been rebellious and headstrong to conjure such evils about the name\nof a famous physician. The world called him famous. Only she and Madame\nNestor had stood apart, clutching fast to their ideas of his deviltry.\nHe had taken the trouble to call her to him--to prove that he was good.\nThe degradation which she had felt at the first moment of his\nsummons--was all from her own perversity.... Clearly she saw the street\nbelow, Cathedral Way; a turn north, then across the Plaza to the brown\nornate entrance of _The Maidstone_.... There was no formality about the\ngoing. Her hat and coat had not been removed.... She was in the hall;\nthe elevator halted at her floor while the man pushed a letter and some\npapers under the door of the Selma Cross apartment.... In the street,\nshe turned across the Plaza from Cathedral Way to _The Maidstone_. The\nreal Paula Linster marshalled a hundred terrible protests, but her voice\nwas muffled, her strength ineffectual as Josephine's beating with white\nhands against the Emperor's iron door. Real volition was locked in the\npitiless will of the physician, to whom she hastened as one hoping to be\nsaved.\n\nShe inquired huskily of the man at the hotel-desk.\n\n\"The Doctor is waiting on the parlor-floor--in F,\" was the answer.\n\nPaula stepped from the elevator, and was directed to the last door on\nthe left.... The sense of her need, of her illness, hurried her forward\nthrough the long hall. Sometimes she seemed burdened with the body of a\nwoman, very tired and helpless, but quite obedient.... The figure \"F\" on\na silver shield filled her eyes. The door was ajar. Her entrance was not\nunlike that of a lioness goaded with irons through a barred passage into\nan arena. She did not open the door wider, but slipped through sideways,\ngathering her dress closely about her.... Bellingham was there. His face\nwas white, rigid from long concentration; yet he smiled and his arms\nwere opened to her.... The point here was that he so marvelously\nunderstood. His attitude to her seemed that of a physician of the soul.\nShe could not feel the fighting of the real woman.... Dazed and broken\nfor the moment, she encountered the soothing magnetism of his hands.\n\n\"How long I have waited!\" he quietly exclaimed. \"Hours, and it was\nbitter waiting--but you are a wreath for my waiting--how grateful you\nare to my weariness!... Paula Linster, Paula Linster--what deserts of\nburning sunshine I have crossed to find you--what dark jungles I have\nsearched for such fragrance!\"\n\nHis arms were light upon her, his voice low and lulling. He dared not\nyet touch his lips to her hair--though they were dry and twisted with\nhis awful thirst. Craft and patience altogether feline was in the art\nwith which he wound and wove about her mind thoughts of his own,\ndesigned to ignite the spark of responsive desire.... And how softly he\nfanned--(an incautious blast would have left him in darkness\naltogether)--until it caught.... Well, indeed, he knew the cunning of\nthe yet unbroken seals; and better still did he know the outraged forces\nhovering all about her, ready to defeat him for the slightest error--and\nleave him to burn in his own fires.\n\n\"This is peace,\" he whispered with indescribable repression. \"How soft a\nresting-place--and yet how strong!... Out of the past I have come for\nyou. Do you remember the rock in the desert on which you sat and waited\nlong ago? Your eyes were weary when I came--weary from the blazing light\nof noon and the endless waning of that long day. On a great rock in the\ndesert you sat--until I came, _until I came_. Then you laughed because I\nshut the feverish sun-glow from your strained eyes.... Remember, I came\nin the skin of a lion and shut the sunset from your aching eyes--my\nshoulders darkening the west--and we were alone--and the night came\non....\"\n\nClearly was transferred to hers, the picture in his own brain. One of\nthe ancient and mystic films of memory seemed brought after ages to the\nlight--the reddening sands, the city far behind, from which she had fled\nto meet her hero, deep in the desert--the glow of sunset on his\nshoulders and in his hair, tawny as the lion's skin he wore.... The\nheart quickened within her; the savage ardor of that long-ago woman grew\nhot in her breast. Strong as a lion he was, this youth of the Sun, and\nfleet the night fell to cover them. She ate the dried grapes he gave\nher, drank deep from his skin of wine, and laughed with him in the swift\ndescending night.... She felt his arms now, her face was upraised, her\neyelids tensely shut. Downward the blood rushed, leaving her lips icy\ncold. She felt the muscles of his arms in her tightening fingers, and\nher breast rose against him. This was no Twentieth Century magician who\nthralled her now, but a glorious hero out of the desert sunset;--and the\nwoman within her was as one consuming with ecstasy from a lover's last\nvisit....\n\nAnd now Bellingham changed the color and surface of his advances. It was\nhis thought to make such a marvellous sally, that when he retired and\nthe mistress once again commanded her own citadel, she would perceive\nthe field of his activities strewn, not with corpses, but with garlands,\nand in their fragrance she must yearn for the giant to come yet again.\nThe thing he now endeavored to do was beyond an ordinary human\nconception for devilishness; and yet, that it was not a momentary\nimpulse, but a well considered plan, was proven by the trend of his talk\nof the day before.... The flaw in his structure was his apparent\nforgetting that the woman in his arms breathing so ardently, in her own\nmind was clinging to a youth out of the sunset--a youth in the skin of a\nlion.\n\n\"Wisdom has been given to my eyes,\" Bellingham resumed with surpassing\ngentleness. \"For years a conception of wonderful womanhood has lived and\nbrightened in my mind, bringing with it a promise that in due time, such\na woman would be shown to me. The woman, the promise and the miracle of\nits later meaning, I perceived at last were not for my happiness, but\nfor the world's awful need. You are the fruits of my wonderful\nvision--you--Paula Linster. You are the quest of my long and weary\nsearching!\"\n\nHis utterance of her name strangely disturbed her night-rapture of the\ndesert. It was as if she heard afar-off--the calling of her people.\n\n\"On the night you entered the Hall,\" he said, and his face bent closer,\n\"I felt the sense of victory, before these physical eyes found you. My\nthoughts roved over a world, brightened by a new hope, fairer for your\npresence. And then, I saw your fine white brow, the ignited magic of\nyour hair and eyes, your frail exquisite shoulders.... It seemed as\nthough the lights perished from the place--when you left.\"\n\nThe word \"magic\" was a sudden spark around which the thoughts of the\nwoman now groped.... She had lost her desert lover, passion was drained\nfrom her, and there was a weight of great trouble pressing down ...\n\"Magic\"--she struggled for its meaning.... She was sitting upon a rock\nagain, but not in the desert--rather in a place of cooled sunlight,\nwhere there were turf roads and grand, old trees--a huge figure\napproaching with a powerful swinging stride--yesterday, Bellingham, the\nPark--the Talk!... Paula lifted her shoulders, felt the binding arms\naround them and heard the words uttered now in the meridian of human\npassion:\n\n\"Listen, Paula Linster, you have been chosen for the most exalted task\never offered to living woman. The Great Soul is not yet in the world,\nand He must come soon!... It is you who have inspired this--you, of\ntrained will; a mind of stirring evolution, every thought so essentially\nfeminine; you of virgin body and a soul lit with stars! You are brave.\nThe burden is easy to one of your courage, and I should keep you free\nfrom the world--free from the burns and the whips of this thinking\nanimal, the world. All that I have won from the world, her mysteries,\nher enchantments, I shall give you, all that is big and brave and wise\nin song and philosophy and nature, I shall bring to your feet, as a\nhunter with trophies to his beloved--all that a man, wise and tender,\ncan think and express to quicken the splendor of fertility----\"\n\nPaula was now fully conscious--her self restored to her. The Yesterday\nand the To-day rose before her mind in startling parallel. Her primary\ndread was that she might lose control again before Bellingham was put\naway. The super-devilishness of his plan--hiding a blasphemy in the\nwhite robe of a spiritual consecration--had changed him in her sight to\na ravening beast. The thing which he believed would cause her eagerly to\nbestow upon him the riches of her threefold life had lifted her farther\nout of his power that moment, than even she realized. Bellingham had\nover-reached. She was filled with inner nausea.... The idea of escape,\nthe thought of crippling the magician's power over her forever--in the\nstress of this, she grew cold.... She was nearest the door. It stood\najar, as when she had entered.\n\n\"Meditation--in the place I have prepared,\" he was whispering,\n\"meditation and the poetic life, rarest of fruits, purest of white\ngarments--cleansed with sunlight and starlight, you and I, Paula\nLinster,--the sources of creation which have been revealed to me--for\nyou! Wonderful woman--all the vitalities of heaven shall play upon you!\nWe shall bring the new god into the world----\"\n\nShe pushed back from his arms and faced him--white-lipped and loathing.\n\n\"You father a son of mine,\" she said, in the doorway. \"You--are\ndead--the man's soul is dead within you--you whited sepulchre!\"\n\nHis face altered like a white wall which an earthquake disorders at the\nbase. White rock turned to blown paper; the man-mask rubbed out; Havoc\nfeatured upon an erect thing, with arms pitifully outstretched.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPaula, alone in the long hall, ran to the marble stairs, hurried down\nand into the street--swiftly to her house. There, every thread of\nclothing she had worn was gathered into a pile for burning. Then she\nbathed and her strength returned.\n\n\n\n\nSEVENTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME NESTOR'S REVELATIONS,\nAND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT\n\n\nIn mid-afternoon Paula obeyed an impulse to call upon Madame Nestor. She\nwanted to talk with the only human being in New York who could quite\nunderstand. Madame's room was west of Eighth Avenue in Forty-fourth\nStreet--the servant's quarter in a squalid suite, four flights up. The\nsingle window opened upon a dim shaft, heavy with emanations from many\nkitchens. There was not even a closet. Madame's moulted plumage was hung\nupon the back of the outer and only door. Books were everywhere, on the\nfloor, in boxes, on the cot.\n\n\"My dear Paula, you felt the need of me?... I should have come to you.\nThis does very well for me, but I dislike my poverty to be known, dear.\nIt is not that I am the least proud, but the psychic effects of pity are\ndepressing.\"\n\n\"Please, Madame Nestor, don't think of me pitying anybody! I did feel\nthe need of you. The day has been horrible. But first, I want to tell\nyou that I am very sorry for what I said--when you were in my rooms the\nother day----\"\n\nThe elder woman leaned forward and kissed Paula's dress at the shoulder.\nThere was something sweet and mild and devotional in the action,\nsomething suggestive of a wise old working-bee pausing an instant to\ncaress its queen.\n\n\"You have been impelled to go to him, Paula?\"\n\n\"Yes. It came over me quite irresistibly. I could not have been\naltogether myself.... I think I shall leave the city!\"\n\nMadame Nestor asked several questions, bringing out all she cared to\nknow of Paula's experience that day. Her eyes became very bright as she\nsaid:\n\n\"I dare not advise you _not_ to go away. Still, don't you see it--how\nwonderful was your victory to-day?\"\n\n\"I can't always defeat him!\" Paula cried. \"His power comes over me and I\nmove toward him--just as reptiles must follow a blind impulse started\nfrom without. Each time I follow, I must be weaker.\"\n\n\"But, Paula, each time something happens to restore you to yourself,\nthwarting his purpose, his projections are weakened.\"\n\n\"But if I should go far away?\"\n\n\"He could only put it in your mind to return.\"\n\nWhen Paula remembered the accidents which had preserved her, even when\nin the same city with the Destroyer, she could not doubt the salvation\nin putting a big stretch of the planet's curve between her and this\ndynamo.... Certain unfinished thinking could only be cleared through a\nfriend like Madame Nestor.\n\n\"This physical consciousness which he has made me feel seems\nindescribably more sinister in erect human beings than the mating\ninstinct in animals and birds,\" Paula declared with hesitation. \"Can it\nbe that women in general encounter influences--of this kind?\"\n\n\"It is man's fault that women have broken all seasons,\" the Madame said\nbitterly. \"Man has kept woman submerged since the beginning of time.\nAlways eager to serve; and blest--or cursed--with the changeless passion\nto be _all_ to one man--her most enduring hope to hold the exclusive\nlove of one man--woman has adapted herself eagerly to become the\nmonogamic answer to man's polygamic nature. Bellingham is but the\nembodiment of a desire which exists in greater or less degree in every\nman. This desire of man has disordered women. We have lost the true\nmeaning of ourselves--I mean, as a race of women--and have become merely\nphysical mates.\"\n\n\"I can hardly believe it--that even women of the streets should ever be\ndegraded by such a horrible force,\" Paula said desperately. \"And the\nsweet calm faces of some of the women we know----\"\n\n\"Behind the mask of innocence, often, is a woman's terrible secret,\nPaula. For most women obey. Even the growth of the maid is ruthlessly\nforced by hot breaths of passion, until motherhood--so often a domestic\ntragedy--leaves the imprint of shame in her arms. The man of unlit soul\nhas made this low play of passion his art. Woman as a race has fallen,\nbecause it is her way to please and obey. Man has taught us to believe\nthat when he comes to our arms, we are at our highest.... And, listen,\nPaula, certain men of to-day, a step higher in evolution, blame woman\nbecause she has not suddenly _unlearned_ her training of the\nages--lessons man has graven in the very bed-rock of her nature. In the\nnovelty of their new-found austerity, they exclaim: 'Avoid woman. She is\npassion rhythmic. It is she who draws us down from our lofty regions of\nendeavor.'\"\n\nTerrific energy of rebellion stirred Paula's mind. \"But the promise is\nthat woman's time shall come!\" she exclaimed. \"The Child, Jesus, said to\nhis Mother, 'Thy time is not yet come,' but it is promised that the heel\nof woman shall crush the head of the Serpent. We have always borne the\nsin, the agony, the degradation, but our time must be close at hand! I\nthink this is the age--and this the country--of the Rising Woman!\"\n\nMadame Nestor arose from the cot and stood before Paula, her eyes\nshining with emotion.\n\n\"Bless you, my beloved girl, my whole heart leaps to sanction that! I\nhave symbolized the whole struggle of our race in your personal\nstruggle--don't you see this, Paula?... Bellingham is the concentrate of\ndevourers--and you the evolved woman who overcomes him! My hope for the\nrace lies in you, and your victory to-day has filled my cup with\nhappiness!... You say you do not dare to pray. I tell you, child,--the\nGod of women gave you strength to-day. He is close to harken unto your\nneed--for you are among the first of the elect to bring in the glory of\nthe new day!... The animal in man has depleted the splendid energies of\nthe Spirit. Passions of the kind you defeated to-day are overpowering\nwomen everywhere at this hour--lesser passions of lesser Bellinghams.\nMan's course to God has been a crawl through millenniums, instead of a\nflight through decades, because woman has bowed--obeyed. God is patient,\nbut woman is aroused!... Above the din of wars, the world has heard the\nwailing of the women; out of the ghostly silence of famine and from\nbeneath the debris of fallen empires--always the world has heard her cry\nfor pity--her cry for pity now _become a Voice of Power_! All her\ntortured centuries have been for this--and the signs are upon us!\nWoman's demand for knowledge, her clamor for suffrage, her protest\nagainst eternally paying for man's lust with unblessed babes--all these\nare signs! But you, Paula Linster,--and what I know of this day--is the\nmost thrilling sign of all to me!... Ah, woman is evolving; she is\naroused! How shall she repay man for brutalizing her so long?\"\n\n\"By bringing him back to God!\" Paula answered.\n\nThey wept together and whispered, while the night fell about and covered\nthe squalid room.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was one of her emancipated nights. Paula's spirit poured out over the\ncity, for her mind was lit with thoughts of the ultimate redemption of\nher race. Bellingham could not have found her in his world that hour....\nEmerging from Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, at eight in the evening,\nshe passed under the hot brilliance of a famous hotel-entrance. As it\nnever would have occurred to her to do in a less exalted moment, Paula\nglanced at a little knot of men standing under the lights. The eyes of\none were roving like an unclean hand over her figure. Suddenly\nencountering her look, a bold, eager, challenge stretched itself upon\nhis face. In the momentary panic, her glance darted to the others\ninstinctively for protection--and found three smiling corpses.... Here\nwere little Bellinghams; here, the sexual drunkenness which has made\nMan's course \"a crawl through millenniums\" to God, instead of a flight\nthrough decades. What a pitiless revelation!... She clung to her big\nIdeal in the West. It came to her for a second like a last and single\nhope--that Charter was not like that.... \"God is patient and woman is\naroused!\" she whispered.\n\nAnd farther up, a little way into Forty-seventh, Paula found a Salvation\nArmy circle under the torch. A man with a pallid, shrunken face turned\nimploring eyes from one to another of the company, exclaiming: \"I tell\nyou, man's first work here below is to save his soul! I pray you--men\nand women, here to-night--to save your souls!\"\n\nPaula tossed her purse upon the big drum, as she passed swiftly. Luckily\nthere was carfare in her glove, for she had not thought of that. Never\nbefore had she felt in such fullness her relation to the race....\n\nA hansom-cab veered about the edge of the Salvation circle, swift enough\nto attract her eye. The horse had started before the driver was in the\nseat. The latter was fat and apoplectic. It was all he could do to\nregain his place, so that the reins still dangled. The possibility of a\ncab-horse becoming excited held only humor for the crowd, which parted\nto let the vehicle by. The horse, feeling his head, started to run just\nas the driver seized one of the lines and jerked his beast into the\ncurb. There was an inhuman scream. A strange, boneless effigy of a man\nwith twisted, waving arms--went down before the plunging horse, so\nsuddenly swerved.... A hush seemed to have fallen upon the noisy\nBroadway corner. Paula was not blind in the brief interval which\nfollowed, but the world seemed gray and still, like a spectral dawn, or\nthe unearthly setting of a dream.\n\n\"The shaft bored into him, and the horse struck him after he fell,\" a\nvoice explained.\n\nThey lifted him. There was particular dreadfulness in the quantity of\nfluid evenly sheeted on the pavement as from a pail carefully\noverturned. Startling effrontery attached to the thought of man's\nheaven-aspiring current swimming like this upon a degraded city road.\nThe horse, now held by the bit, snorted affrightedly at the odor. They\nhad carried the unfortunate to the sidewalk under the lights of a\ntobacco-shop window. The upper part of his head and face was indefinite\nlike a crushed tin of dark paint. But mouth and nose and chin of the\nupturned face left an imperishable imprint upon her mind. It was\nBellingham.... Paula fled, her lips opening in a sick fashion. It seemed\nhours before she could reach the sanctuary of her room, where she sobbed\nin the dark.\n\n\n\n\nEIGHTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA MAKES SEVERAL DISCOVERIES IN THE CHARTER HEART-COUNTRY, AND IS\nDELIGHTED BY HIS LETTERS TO THE SKYLARK\n\n\nThe morning paper stated that Dr. Bellingham had suffered a fracture of\nthe skull and internal injury, but might live. A note to Paula from\nMadame Nestor late the next day contained the following paragraph: \"I\ncalled at the hospital to inquire. A doctor told me that the case is\nlikely to become a classic one. Never in his experience, he stated, had\nhe witnessed a man put up such a fight for life. It will be long,\nhowever, before he is abroad again. He must have been following you\nquite madly, because there never was a man more careful in the midst of\ncity-dangers than Bellingham. Why, a scratched finger completely upset\nhim--in the earlier days. Inscrutable, but thrilling--isn't it, my dear\nPaula?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Did you follow _Moby Dick's_ whale tracks around the wet wastes of the\nworld?\" Reifferscheid asked several mornings later, as Paula entered.\n\nHer face was flushed. A further letter from Quentin Charter had just\nbeen tucked into her bag. \"Yes, and Mr. Melville over trans-continental\ndigressions,\" she answered. \"He surely is Neptune's own _confrere_.\"\n\n\"Did you get the leviathan alongside and study the bewildering chaos of\na ninety-foot nervous system?\" Reifferscheid went on with delight.\n\n\"Exactly, and colored miles of sea-water with the emptyings of his vast\nheart. Then, there was an extended process of fatty degeneration, which\nI believe they called--blubber-boiling.\"\n\nThey laughed together over the old whale-epic.\n\n\"They remember Melville up in Boston and Nantucket,\" he added, \"but he's\nabout as much alive as a honey-bee's pulse elsewhere. The trouble is,\nyou can't rectify this outrage by law. It isn't uxoricide or\nsheep-stealing--not to know Melville--but it's the deadly sin of\ningratitude. This is a raw age, we adorn--not to rock in the boat of\nthat man's soul. Why, he's worthy to stand with the angels on the point\nof the present.\"\n\nThe big editor always warmed her when he enthused. Here, in the midst of\nholiday books pouring in by scores, he had time to make a big personal\nand public protest against a fifty-year-old novel being forgotten.\n\n\"But isn't Melville acknowledged to be the headwaters of inspiration for\nall later sea-books?\" Paula asked.\n\n\"Yes, to the men who do them, he's the big laughing figure behind their\nwork, but the public doesn't seem to know.... Of course, Herman has\nfaults--Japan currents of faults--but they only warm him to a white\nman's heart. Do you know, I like to think of him in a wide, windy room,\ntearing off his story long-hand, upon yard square sheets, grinning like\nan ogre at the soul-play, the pages of copy settling ankle-deep upon the\nfloor. There's no taint of over-breeding in the unborn thing, no curse\nof compression, no aping Addison--nothing but Melville, just blown in\nwith the gale, reeking with a big story which must be shed, before he\nblows out again, with straining cordage booming in his ears. He\nharnesses Art. He man-handles Power, makes it grovel and play circus.\n'Here it is,' he seems to say at the end. 'Take it or leave it. I'm\nrotting here ashore.'\"\n\n\"You ought to dictate reviews like that, Mr. Reifferscheid,\" Paula could\nnot help saying, though she knew he would be disconcerted.\n\nHe colored, turned back to his work, directing her to take her choice\nfrom the shelf of fresh books.... On the car going back, Paula opened\nCharter's letter. Her fingers trembled, because she had been in a happy\nand daring mood five or six days before when she wrote the letter to\nwhich this was the reply.\n\n     ... Do you know, I really like to write to you? I feel\n     untrammelled--turned loose in the meadows. It seems when I\n     start an idea--that you've grasped it as soon as it is clear to\n     me. Piled sentences after that are unnecessary. It's a real joy\n     to write this way, as spirits commune. It wouldn't do at all\n     for the blessed multitude. You have to be a mineral and a\n     vegetable and an animal, all in a paragraph, to get the whole\n     market. But how generous the dear old multitude is--(if the\n     writer has suffered enough)--with its bed and board and\n     lamplight....\n\n     I have been scored and salted so many times that I heal like an\n     earth-worm. Tell me, can scar-tissue ever be so fine?\n     Fineness--that's the one excellent feature of being human!\n     There's no other reason for being--no other meaning or reason\n     for atomic affinity or star-hung space. True, the great\n     Conceiver of Refining Thought seems pleased to take all\n     eternity to play in....\n\n     You've made me think of you out of all proportion. I don't want\n     to help it. I'm very glad we hailed each other across the\n     distance. There's something so entirely blithe and wise and\n     finished about the personality I've builded from three little\n     letters and a critique--that I refresh myself very frequently\n     from them.... I think we must be old playmates. Perhaps we\n     plotted ghost-stories and pegged oranges at each other in\n     Atlantean orchards millenniums ago. I begin to feel as if I\n     deserve to have my playmate back.... Then, again, it is as\n     though these little letters brought to my garret window the\n     Skylark I have heard far and faintly so long in the higher\n     moments of dream. Just a note here and there used to come to me\n     from far-shining archipelagoes of cloud-land. I listen now and\n     clearly understand what you have sung so long in the\n     Heights.... You are winged--that's the word! Wing often to my\n     window--won't you? Life is peppering me with good things this\n     year, I could not be more grateful.\n\nLetters like these made Paula think of that memorable first afternoon\nwith Grimm; and like it, too, the joy was so intense as to hold the\nsuggestion that there must be something evil in it all. She laughed at\nthis. What law, human or divine, was disordered by two human grown-ups\nwith clean minds communing together intimately in letters? Quentin\nCharter might have been less imperious, or less precipitous, in writing\nsuch pleasing matters about herself, but had he not earned the boon of\nsaying what he felt? Still, Paula would not have been so entirely\nfeminine, had she not repressed somewhat. She even may have known that\nartful repression from without is stimulus to any man. Occasionally,\nCharter forgot his sense of humor, but the woman five years younger,\nnever. The inevitable thought that in the ordinary sequence of events,\nthey should meet face to face, harrowed somewhat with the thought that\nshe must keep his ideals down--or both were lost. What could a mind like\nhis _not_ build about months of communion (eyes and ears strained toward\nflashing skies) with a Skylark ideal?... She reminded Charter that\nskylarks are little, brown, tame-plumaged creatures that only sing when\nthey soar. She could not forbear to note that he was a bit sky-larky,\ntoo, in his letters, and observed that she had found it wise, mainly to\nkeep one's wings tightly folded in New York. She signed her next letter,\nnevertheless, with a small pen-picture of the name he had given\nher--full-throated and ascending. Also she put on her house address.\nSome of the paragraphs from letters which came in the following weeks,\nshe remembered without referring to the treasured file:\n\n     ... Bless the wings! May they never tire for long--since I\n     cannot be there when they are folded.... Often, explain it if\n     you can, I think of you as some one I have seen in Japan,\n     especially in Tokyo--hurrying through the dusk in the\n     Minimasakurna-cho, wandering through the tombs of the\n     Forty-seven Ronins. or sipping tea in the Kameido among the\n     wistaria blooms. Some time--who knows? I have made quite a\n     delightful romance about it.... Who is so wise as positively to\n     say, that we are not marvellously related from the youth of the\n     world? Who dares declare we have not climbed cliffs of Cathay\n     to stare across the sky-blue water, nor whispered together in\n     orient casements under constellations that swing more\n     perilously near than these?... We may be a pair of foolish\n     dreamers, but Asia must have a cup of tea for us--Asia, because\n     she is so far and so still. We shall _remember_ then....\n\n     And so you live alone? How strange, I have always thought of\n     you so? From the number, I think you must overlook the\n     Park--don't you?... It may strike you humorously, but I feel\n     like ordering you not to take too many meals alone. One is apt\n     to be neglectful, and women lose their appetites easier than\n     men. I used to be graceless toward the gift of health. Perhaps\n     I enjoy perfectly prepared food altogether too well for one of\n     inner aspirations. The bit of a soul in which you see such\n     glorious possibilities, packs rather an imperious animal this\n     trip, I fear. However, I don't let the animal carry _me_--any\n     more.\n\n     I see a wonderful sensitiveness in all that you write--that's\n     why I suggest especially that you should never forget fine food\n     and plentiful exercise. Psychic activity in America is attained\n     so often at the price of physical deterioration. This is an\n     empty failure, uncentering, deluding. Remember, I say in\n     America.... Pray, don't think I fail to worship\n     sensitiveness--those high, strange emotions, the sense of\n     oneness with all things that live, the vergings of the mind\n     toward the intangible, the light, refreshing sleep of\n     asceticism, subtle expandings of solitude and the mystical\n     launchings,--anything that gives spread of wing rather than\n     amplitude of girth--but I have seen these very pursuits carry\n     one entirely out of rhythm with the world. The multitudes\n     cannot follow us when there are stars in our eyes--they cannot\n     see.\n\n     A few years ago I had a strange period of deep-delving into\n     ancient wisdom. A lot of big, simple treasures unfolded, but I\n     discovered great dogmas as well--the steel shirts, iron\n     shields, mailed fists and other junk which lesser men seem\n     predestined to hammer about the gentle spirit of Truth. I\n     vegetarianed, lived inside, practiced meditate, and became a\n     sensitive, as it seems now, in rather a paltry, arrogant sense.\n     The point is I lost the little appeal I had to people through\n     writing. It came to me at length with grim finality that if a\n     man means to whip the world into line at all, he must keep a\n     certain brute strength. He must challenge the world at its own\n     games _and win_, before he can show the world that there are\n     finer games to play. You can't stand above the mists and call\n     the crowd to you, but many will _follow_ you up through\n     them.... I truly hope, if I am wrong in this, that you will see\n     it instantly, and not permit the edge and temper of your\n     fineness to be coarsened through me. You are so animate, so\n     delicately strong, and seem so spiritually unhurt, that it\n     occurs to me now that there may be finer laws for you, than are\n     vouchsafed to me. I interpreted my orders--to win according to\n     certain unalterable rules of the world. Balzac did that. I\n     think some Skylark sang to him at the last, when he did his\n     Seraphita....\n\n     I cannot help but tell you again of my gratitude. I am no\n     impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to\n     me.... Isn't this an excellent world when the finer moments\n     come; when we can think with gentleness of past failures of the\n     flesh and spirit, and with joy upon the achievements of others;\n     when we feel that we have preserved a certain relish for the\n     rich of all thought, and a pleasure in innocence; when out of\n     our errors and calamities we have won a philosophy which makes\n     serene our present voyaging and gives us keen eyes to discern\n     the coast-lights of the future?... With lifted brow--I harken\n     for your singing.\n\nPaula knew that Quentin Charter was crying out for his mate of fire. She\nremembered that she had strangely felt his strength before there were\nany letters, but she could not deny that it since had become a greater\nand more intimate thing--her tower, white and heroic, cutting clean\nthrough the films of distance, and suggesting a vast, invisible city at\nits base. That she was the bright answer in the East for such a tower\nwas incredible. She could send a song over on the wings of the\nmorning--make it shine like ivory into the eyes of the new day, but she\ndared not think of herself as a corresponding fixture. A man like\nCharter could form a higher woman out of dreams and letter-pages than\nthe world could mold for him from her finest clays. Always she said\nthis--and forgot that the man was clay. A pair of dreamers, truly, and\nyet there was a difference in their ideals. If Charter's vision of her\nlifted higher, it was also flexible to contain a human woman. As for\nhers--Paula had builded a tower. True, there were moments of flying fog\nin which she did not see it, but clean winds quickly brushed away the\nobscurations, and not a remnant clung. When seen at all, her tower was\npure white and undiminished.\n\nOf necessity there were reactions. His familiarity with the petty\nintensities of the average man often startled her. He seemed capable of\ndropping into the parlance of any company, not as one who had listened\nand memorized, but as an old familiar who had served time in all\nsocieties. In the new aspect of personal letters, his book revealed a\ncomprehension of women--that dismayed. Of course, his printed work was\nfilled with such stuff as her letters were made of, but between a book\nand a letter, there is the same difference of appeal as the lines read\nby an actor, however gifted, are cold compared to a friend's voice.\nThough she wondered at Charter giving his time to write such letters to\nher, this became very clear, if his inclination were anything like her\nown to answer them. All the thinking of her days formed itself into\ncompressed messages for him; and all the best of her sprang to her pen\nunder his address. The effort then became to repress, to keep her pages\nwithin bounds, and the ultimate effort was to wait several days before\nwriting again. His every sentence suggested pleasure in writing; and as\na matter of fact, he repressed very little.... Was it through letters\nlike hers in his leisure months that Charter amassed his tremendous\narray of poignant details; was it through such, that he reared his\nimposing ranges of feminine understanding? This was a question requiring\na worldlier woman than Paula long to hold in mind. In the man's writing,\nregarded from her critical training, there was no betrayal of the\nliterary clerk dependent upon data.\n\n\"I am no impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to\nme.\" There was something of seership in his thus irrevocably affixing\nhis ideal to the human woman who held the pen.... His photograph was\nfrequently enough in the press--a big browed, plain-faced young man with\na jaw less aggressive than she would have imagined, and a mouth rather\nfinely arched for a reformer who was to whip the world into line. And\nthen there was a discovery. In a magazine dated a decade before, she ran\nupon his picture among the advertising pages. Verses of his were\nannounced to appear during the year to come. He could not have been over\ntwenty for this picture, and to her it was completely charming--a boy\nout of the past calling blithely; a poetic face, too, reminding her of\nprints she had seen of an early drawing of Keats's head now in\nLondon--eager, sensitive, all untried!... It was not without resistance\nthat she acknowledged herself _closer to the boy_--that something of the\nman was beyond her. There was a mystery left upon the face by the\nintervening years, \"while the tireless soul etched on....\" Should she\never know? Or must there always be this dim, hurting thing? Was it all\nthe etching of the _soul_--that this later print revealed?... These were\nbut bits of shadow--ungrippable things which made her wings falter for a\nmoment and long for something sure to rest upon, but Reifferscheid's\nfirst talk about Charter, the latter's book, and the letters--out of\nthese were reconstructed her tower of shining purity.\n\nThere were times when Paula's heart, gathering all its tributary\nsympathies, poured out to the big figure in the West in a deep and\nrushing torrent. Her entire life was illuminated by these moments of\nardor. Here was a giving, in which the thought of actual possession had\nlittle or no part. Her finest elements were merged into one-pointed\nexpression. It is not strange that she was dismayed by the triumphant\nforce of the woman within her, nor that she recalled one of the first of\nMadame Nestor's utterances, \"Nonsense, Paula, the everlasting feminine\nis alive in every movement of you.\" Yet this outpouring was lofty, and\nnoon-sky clear. An emotion like this meant brightness to every life that\ncontacted it.... But ruthlessly she covered, hid away even from her own\nthoughts, illuminations such as these. Here was a point of tragic\nsignificance. Out of the past has come this great fear to strong\nwomen--the fear to let themselves love. This is one of the sorriest\nevolutions of the self-protecting instinct. So long have women met the\ntragic fact of fickleness and evasion in the men of their majestic\nconcentrations--that fear puts its weight against the doors that love\nwould open wide.\n\nAlmost unconsciously the personal tension of the correspondence\nincreased. Not infrequently after her letters were gone, Paula became\nafraid that this new, full-powered self of hers had crept into her\nwritten pages with betraying effulgence, rising high above the light\nlaughter of the lines. How she cried out for open honesty in the world\nand rebelled against the garments of falsity which society insists must\ncover the high as well as the low. Charter seemed to say what was in his\nheart; at least, he dared to write as the woman could not, as she dared\nnot even to think, lest he prove--against the exclaiming negatives of\nher soul--a literary craftsman of such furious zeal that he could tear\nthe heart out of a woman he had not seen, pin the quivering thing under\nhis lens, to describe, with his own responsive sensations.\n\nSo the weeks were truly emotional. Swiftly, beyond any realization of\nher own, Paula Linster became full-length a woman. Reifferscheid found\nit harder and harder to talk even bossily to her, but cleared his voice\nwhen she entered, vented a few booky generalities, and cleared his voice\nwhen she went away. Keen winter fell upon his system of emptied lakes;\ngusty winter harped the sound of a lonely ship in polar seas among the\nnaked branches of the big elms above his cottage; indeed, gray winter\nwould have roughed it--in the big chap's breast, had he not buckled his\nheart against it.... For years, Tim Reifferscheid had felt himself aloof\nfrom all such sentiment. Weakening, he had scrutinized his new assistant\nkeenly for the frailties with which her sex was identified in his mind.\nIn all their talks together, she had verified not one, so that he was\nforced to destroy the whole worthless edition. She was a discovery,\nthrillingly so, since he had long believed such a woman impossible. Now\nhe felt crude beside her, remembered everything that he had done amiss\n(volumes of material supposed to be out of print). Frankly, he was\nirritated with any one in the office who presumed to feel himself an\nequal with Miss Linster.... But all this was Reifferscheid's, and no\nother--as far from any expression of his, as thoughtless kisses or\nthundering heroics.\n\n\n\n\nNINTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA IS DRAWN DEEPER INTO THE SELMA CROSS PAST AND IS BRAVELY WOOED\nTHROUGH FURTHER MESSAGES FROM THE WEST\n\n\nSelma Cross frequently filled the little place of books across the hall\nwith her tremendous vibrations before the trial trip of her new play on\nthe road. Paula liked to have her come in, delighted in the great\ncreature's rapture over the hunch-back, Stephen Cabot, author of _The\nThing_. There was an indescribably brighter luster in the waxing and\nwaning of romantic tides, than the eyes of Paula had ever before\ndiscovered, so that the confidences of the other were of moment. Selma\nwas terrified by some promise she had made years before in Kentucky. It\nwas gradually driven deep into the listener's understanding that no\nmatter how harsh and dreadful the intervening years had been, here was a\nwoman to whom a promise meant a promise. Paula was moved almost to tears\nby the other's description of Stephen Cabot, and the first time she saw\nhim.\n\n\"I wonder if the long white face with the pain-lit eyes could ever mean\nto any one else what it does to me?\" Selma whispered raptly when they\ntalked together one Sunday night. \"Why, to see him sitting there before\nme at rehearsal--the finest, lowest head in all the chairs--steadies,\nexalts me! I hold fast to repression.... It It was Vhruebert who brought\nme to him, and the first words Stephen said were: 'Your manager is a\nwizard, Miss Cross, to get you for this. Why, you are the woman I wrote\nabout in _The Thing_!'\"\n\n\"Tell me more,\" Paula had whispered.\n\n\"We met in Vhruebert's office and forgot the manager entirely. I guess\ntwo hours passed, as we talked, and went over the play together that\nfirst time. Vhruebert sent in his office-boy finally to remind us that\nhe was still in the building. How we three laughed about it!... Then as\nwe started out for luncheon together, Stephen and I, Vhruebert took his\nplace at the door before us, and delivered himself of something like\nthis:\n\n\"'You two listen to the father of what you are to be,'\" Selma Cross went\non, roughening her voice and tightening her nasal passages, to imitate\nthe old Hebrew star-maker. \"'Listen to the soulless Vhruebert, who\nbrudalizes the great Amerigan stage. You two are Art. Very well, listen\nto Commerce. It took me twenty-five years to learn that there must be\nhumor in a blay. This _T'ing_ would not lift the lip of a ganary-bird.\nIt took me twenty-five years to learn there must be joy at the end of a\nblay--and wedding-bells. This _T'ing_ ends just about--over the hills to\nthe mad-house. Twenty-five years proved to me what I know the first\nday--that women of the stage must be beautiful. Miss Gross is not. I say\nno more. Here I have neither dramatist nor star. I could give the blay\nby Gabot to Ellen Terry--or to Miss Gross, if Ibsen write it. As it is,\nI have no name. There are five thousand people in this country writing\nblays with humor and habby endings. There are ten thousand beautiful\nwomen exbiring to spend it on the stage. Yet you two are the chosen of\nVhruebert. When you look into each other's eye and visper how\nvon-der-ful you are, with rising inflection; and say, \"To hell with\nGommerce and the Binhead Bublic!\" remember Vhruebert who advances the\nmoney!'\"\n\n\"And did you remember Vhruebert in that fairy luncheon together?\" Paula\nasked happily.\n\n\"No, I only saw the long white face of Stephen Cabot. I wanted to take\nhim in my arms and make him whole!\"\n\nFor ten weeks Bellingham lay in one of the New York hospitals. \"A woman\nattends him,\" Madame Nestor informed. \"She is young and has been very\nbeautiful. How well do I know her look of impotence and apathy--that\nlook of unresisting obedience.\" To Paula, the magician seemed back among\nthe dead ages, although Madame Nestor did not regard the present lull\nwithout foreboding. Paula could not feel that her real self had been\ndefiled. The dreadful visitations were all but erased, as pass the\nspectres of delirium. What was more real, and rocked the centres of her\nbeing, was the conception of this outcast's battle for life. She could\nnot forget that it was in pursuing her, that he had been injured. Facing\nnot only death, but extinction, this idolater of life had, as one\nphysician expressed it, held together his shattered vitality by sheer\nforce of will, until healing set in. The only thought comparable in\nterror to such a conflict, had to do with the solitudes and abject\nfrigidity of inter-stellar spaces.\n\nThe Skylark Letters, as she came to call them, were after all, the\neminent feature of the fall and winter weeks. There was a startling\nparagraph in one of the December series: \"I think it is fitting for you\nto know (though, believe me, I needed no word regarding you from\nwithout), that I am not entirely in the dark as to how you have\nimpressed another. I know nothing of the color of your hair or eyes,\nnothing of your size or appearance,--only just how you _impressed\nanother_. This information, it is needless to say, was unsolicited....\"\nJust that, and no further reference. It was as though he had felt it a\nduty to incorporate those lines. Portions of some of the later letters\nfollow:\n\n     Did you know, that without the upward spread of wings--there\n     can be no song from the Skylark? This, for me, has a fragrant\n     and delicate significance. It is true that the poor little\n     caged-birds sing, but how sorry they are, since they have to\n     flutter their wings to give forth sound, and cling with their\n     claws to the bars to hold themselves down!... I think you must\n     have been a little wing-weary when you wrote your last letter\n     to me. Perhaps the dusk was crowding into the Heights. No one\n     knows as I do how the Skylark has sung and sung!... You did\n     not say it, but I think you wanted the earth-sweet meadows. It\n     came to me like needed rain--straight to the heart of mine that\n     little plaint in the song. It made me feel how useless is the\n     strength of my arms.... You see, I manage pretty well to keep\n     you up There. I must. And because you are so wonderful, I\n     can.... An enthralling temperament rises to me from your\n     letters. I love to let it flood through my brain....\n\n     I do not feel at all sure that you know me truly. What a man's\n     soul appears to be, through the intimations of his higher\n     moments, is not the man altogether that humans must reckon\n     with. Nor must they reckon with the trampling violences of\n     one's past. I truly believe in the soul. I believe it is an\n     essence fundamentally fine; that great mothers brood it\n     beautifully into their babes; that it is nourished by the good\n     a man does and thinks. I believe in the ultimate victory of the\n     soul, against the tough, twisted fibres of flesh which rise to\n     demand a thousand sensations. I would have you think of me as\n     one _lifting_; happy in discoveries, the crown of which you\n     are; conscious of an integrating spirit; that sometimes in my\n     silences I answer your song as one glorified. But then, I\n     remember that you must not judge me by the brightest of my\n     work. Such are the trained, tense bursts of speed--the swift\n     expiration of the best. I think a man is about half as good as\n     his best work and half as bad as his most lamentable leisure.\n     Midway between his emotions and exaltations--is indicated his\n     valuation.... All men clinging to the sweep of the upward\n     cycle, must know the evil multitude at some time. Perhaps few\n     men have met and discarded so many personal devils as I, in a\n     single life. But I say to you as I write to-night, those devils\n     cast out seem far back among cannibal centuries. I worship the\n     fine, the pure,--thoughts and deeds which are expanded and\n     warmed by the soul's breath. And you are the anchorage of this\n     sweeter spirit which is upon me. Now, out of the logic which\n     life burns into the brain, comes this thought: (I set it down\n     only to fortify the citadel of truth in which our momentous\n     relation alone can prosper.) Are there fangs and hackles and\n     claws which I have not yet uncovered? Am I given the present\n     serenity as a resting-time before meeting a more subtle and\n     formidable enemy? Has my vitality miraculously been preserved\n     for some final battle with a champion of champions of the\n     flesh? Is it because the sting is gone from my scar-tissues\n     that I feel so strong and so white to-night? I cannot think\n     this, because I have heard--because I still hear--my Skylark\n     sing.\n\nThe personal element of the foregoing and the hint of years of \"wrath\nand wanderings,\" which she saw in his second photograph, correlated\nthemselves in Paula's mind. They frightened her cruelly, but did not put\nCharter farther away. Remembering the effect of the passion which\nBellingham had projected into her own brain, helped her vaguely to\nunderstand Charter's earlier years. His splendid emancipation from past\nevils lifted her soul. And when he asked, if his present serenity might\nnot be a preparation for a mightier struggle, the serious reflection\ncame--might she not ask the same question of herself? The old\nFlesh-Mother does not permit one to rest when one is full of\nstrength.... Paula perceived that Quentin Charter was bravely trying to\nget to some sort of rational adjustment her ideal of him and the blooded\nreality--and to preserve her from all hurt. Doubts could not exist in a\nmind besieged by such letters.... One of her communications must have\nreflected something of her terror at the vague forms of his past, which\nhe partially unveiled, for in answer he wrote:\n\n     Do not worry again about the Big Back Time. Perhaps I was over\n     assertive about the shadowed years. The main thing is that this\n     is the wonderful present--and you, my white ally of nobler\n     power and purpose. A gale of good things will come to\n     us--hopes, communions and inspirations. We shall know each\n     other--grow so fine together--that Mother Earth at last will\n     lose her down-pull upon us--as upon perfumes and sunbeams. You\n     have come with mystical brightening. You are the New Era. There\n     is healing in Gethsemanes since you have swept with grace and\n     imperiousness into possession of the Charter heart-country so\n     long undiscovered. The big area is lit, redeemed from chaos. It\n     is thrilling--since you are there. Never must you wing away....\n     Sometime you shall know with what strength and truth and\n     tenderness I regard you. The spirit of spring is in my veins.\n     It would turn to summer if we were together, but there could be\n     no reacting winter because you have evolved a mind and a\n     soul.... Body and mind and soul all evenly ignited--what a\n     conception of woman!\n\nPaula begged him not to try to fit such an ideal of the finished\nfeminine to a little brown tame-plumaged skylark. Since they might some\ntime meet, she wrote, it was nothing less than unfair for his mind,\ntrained to visualize its images so clearly, to turn its full energies\nupon an ideal, and expect a human stranger--a happening--in the workaday\nphysical vesture (such as is needed for New York activities) to\nsublimate the vision. She told him that he would certainly flee away\nfrom the reality, and that he would have no one but himself to blame.\nVisions, she added, do not review books nor write to authors whom they\nhave not met. All of which, she expressed very lightly, though she could\nnot but adore the spirit of ideality to which she had aroused his\nfaculties.\n\nAt this time Paula encountered one of the imperishable little books of\nthe world, bracing to her spirit as a day's camp among mountain-pines.\nNor could she refrain from telling Charter about \"The Practice of the\nPresence of God,\" as told in the conversations of Brother Lawrence, a\nbare-footed Carmelite of the Seventeenth Century. \"No wilderness\nwanderings seem to have intervened between the Red Sea and the Jordan of\nhis experience,\" she quoted from the preface, and told him how simple it\nwas for this unlearned man to be good--a mere \"footman and soldier\"\nwhose illumination was the result of seeing a dry and leafless tree in\nmid-winter, and the thought of the change that would come to it with the\nSpring. His whole life thereafter, largely spent in the monastery\nkitchen--\"a great awkward fellow, who broke everything\"--was conducted\nas if God were his constantly advising Companion. It was a life of\nsupernal happiness--and so simple to comprehend. Charter's reply to this\nletter proved largely influential in an important decision Paula was\ndestined to make.\n\n     Yes, I have communed with Brother Lawrence--carried the little\n     volume with me on many voyages. I commend a mind that is fine\n     enough to draw inspiration from a message so chaste and simple.\n     You will be interested to hear that I have known another\n     Brother Lawrence--a man whose holiness one might describe as\n     \"humble\" or \"lofty,\" with equal accuracy. This man is a\n     Catholic priest, Father Fontanel of Martinique. His parish is\n     in that amazing little port, Saint Pierre--where Africa and\n     France were long ago transplanted and have fused together so\n     enticingly. Lafcadio Hearn's country--you will say. I wonder\n     that this inscrutable master, Hearn, missed Father Fontanel in\n     his studies.... I was rough from the seas and a long stretch of\n     military campaigning, when my ship turned into that lovely\n     harbor of Saint Pierre. Finding Father Fontanel, I stayed over\n     several ships, and the healing of his companionship restores me\n     even now to remember.\n\n     We would walk together on the _Morne d'Orange_ in the evening.\n     His church was on the rise of the _morne_ at the foot of _Rue\n     Victor Hugo_. He loved to hear about my explorations in books,\n     especially about my studies among the religious enthusiasts. I\n     would tell him of the almost incredible austerities of certain\n     mystics to refine the body, and it was really a sensation to\n     hear him exclaim in his French way: \"Can it be possible? I am\n     very ignorant. All that I know is to worship the good God who\n     is always with me, and to love my dear children who have so\n     much to bear. I do not know why I should be so happy--unless it\n     is because I know so very little. Tell me why I live in a state\n     of continual transport....\" I can hear his gentle Latin tones\n     even now at night when I shut my eyes--see the lights of the\n     shipping from that cliff road, hear the creoles' moaning songs\n     from the cabins, and recall the old volcano, _La Montagne\n     Pelee_, outlined like a huge couchant beast against the low,\n     northern stars.\n\n     Father Fontanel has meant very much to me. In all my thinking\n     upon the ultimate happiness of the race, he stands out as the\n     bright achievement. At the time I knew him, there was not a\n     single moment of his life in which the physical of the man was\n     supreme. What his earlier years were I do not know, of course,\n     but I confess now I should like to know.... The presence of God\n     was so real to him, that Father Fontanel did not understand at\n     all his own great spiritual strength. Nor do his people quite\n     appreciate how great he is among the priests of men. He has\n     been in their midst so long that they seem accustomed to his\n     power. Only a stranger can realize what a pure, shining garment\n     his actual _flesh_ has become. To me there was healing in the\n     very approach of this man.\n\n     Dear Father Fontanel! All I had to do was to substitute \"Higher\n     Self\" for \"God\" and I had my religion--the Practice of the\n     Presence of the Higher Self. Does it not seem very clear to\n     you?... To me, God is always an abstraction--something of\n     vaster glory than the central sun, but one's Spiritual Body,\n     the real being, integrated through interminable lives, from the\n     finest materials of thought and action--this Higher Self is the\n     Presence I must keep always with me, and do I not deserve that\n     It should stand scornfully aloof, when, against my better\n     knowledge, I fall short in the performance?... I think it is\n     his Higher Self which is so lustrous in Father Fontanel, and\n     the enveloping purity which comes from you is the same. About\n     such purity there is nothing icy nor fibrous nor sterile....\n     You are singing in my heart, Skylark.\n\nThe picture Charter had drawn of Father Fontanel of Saint Pierre\nappealed strongly to Paula; and her mind's quick grasp of the Charter\nreligion--the Practice of the Presence of the Higher Self--became one of\nher moments of illumination. This was ground-down simplicity. True,\nevery idea of Charter's was based upon reincarnation. Indeed, this\nseemed so familiar to him, that he had not even undertaken to state it\nas one of his fundamentals. But had she cared, she could have discarded\neven that, from the present concept. So to live that the form of the\nbest within be not degraded; the days a constant cherishing of this\nInvisible Friend; the conduct of life constantly adjusted to please this\nCompanion of purity and wisdom--here was ethics which blew away every\ncloud impending upon her Heights. Years of such living could not but\nbring one to the Uplands. As to Charter, God had always been to her The\nIneffable--source of solar, aye, universal energy--the Unseen All.\n\"Walking with God,\" \"talking with God,\" \"a personal God,\" \"presence of\nGod,\"--these were forms of speech she could never use, but the Higher\nSelf--this white charioteer--the soul-body that rises when the clay\nfalls--here was a Personal God, indeed.\n\n\n\n\nTENTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA SEES SELMA CROSS IN TRAGEDY, AND IN HER OWN APARTMENT NEXT MORNING\nIS GIVEN A REALITY TO PLAY\n\n\nSelma Cross did not reach New York until the morning of the opening day\nat the _Herriot Theatre_. She was very tired from rehearsals and the\ntry-outs along the string of second cities. There had been a big\ndifference of opinion regarding _The Thing_, among what New Yorkers are\npleased to call the provincial critics. From the character of the first\nnotices, on the contrary, it was apparent that the townsmen were not a\nlittle afraid to trust such a startling play to New York. Mid-forenoon\nof an early April day, the actress rapped upon Paula's door.\n\n\"I have seen the boards,\" Paula exclaimed. \"'Selma Cross' in letters big\nas you are; and yesterday afternoon they were hanging the electric sign\nin front of the _Herriot_. Also I shall be there to-night--since I was\nwise enough to secure a ticket ten days ago. Isn't it glorious?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am quite happy about it,\" Selma Cross said, stretching out upon\nthe lounge. \"Of course, it's not over until we see the morning papers. I\nwas never afraid--even of the vitriol-throwers, before. You see, I have\nto think about success for Stephen Cabot, too.\"\n\n\"Is he well?\" Paula asked hastily.\n\n\"Oh yes, though I think sometimes he's a martyr. Oh, I have so much to\nsay----\"\n\n\"You said you would tell me some time how Vhruebert first decided to\ntake you on,\" Paula urged.\n\n\"Before I got to the gate where the star-stuff passes through?\" Selma\nCross answered laughingly. \"That was four years ago. I had been to him\nmany times before he let me in. His chair squeaked under him. He looked\nat me first as if he were afraid I would spring at him. I told him what\nI could do, and he kept repeating that he didn't know it and New York\ndidn't know it. I said I would show New York, but unfortunately I had to\nshow him first. He screwed up his face and stared at me, as if I were\nstartlingly original in my ugliness. I know he could hear my heart beat.\n\n\"'I can't do anything for you, Miss Gross,' he said impatiently, but in\nspite of himself, he added, 'Come to-morrow.' You see, I had made him\nthink, and that hurt. He knew something of my work all right, and\nwondered where he would put a big-mouthed, clear-skinned, yellow-eyed\namazon. The next day, he kept me waiting in the reception-room until I\ncould have screamed at the half-dressed women on the walls.\n\n\"'I don't know exactly why I asked you to come again,' was his greeting\nwhen the door finally opened to me. 'What was it, once more, that you\nmean to do?'\n\n\"'I mean to be the foremost tragedienne,' I said.\n\n\"'Sit down. Tragedy doesn't bay.'\n\n\"'I shall make it pay.'\n\n\"'Um-m. How do you know? Some brivate vire of yours?'\n\n\"'I can show you that I shall make it pay.'\n\n\"'My Gott, not here! We will go to the outskirts.'\n\n\"And he meant it, Paula. It was mid-winter. He took me to a little\nsummer-theatre up Lenox way. The place had not been open since\nThanksgiving. Vhruebert sat down in the centre of the frosty parquet,\nshivering in his great coat. You know he's a thin-lipped, smile-less\nlittle man, but not such a dead soul as he looks. He leaks out\noccasionally through the dollar-varnish. Can you imagine a colder\nreception? Vhruebert sat there blowing out his breath repeatedly,\nseemingly absorbed in the effect the steam made in a little bar of\nsunlight which slanted across the icy theatre. That was my try-out\nbefore Vhruebert. I gave him some of Sudermann, Boker, and Ibsen. He\nraised his hand finally, and when I halted, he called in a bartender\nfrom the establishment adjoining, and commanded me to give something\nfrom Camille and Sapho. I would have murdered him if he had been fooling\nme after that. The bartender shivered in the cold.\n\n\"'What do you think of that, Mr. Vite-Apron?' Vhruebert inquired at\nlength. He seemed to be warmer.\n\n\"'Hot stuff,' said the man. 'It makes your coppers sizzle.'\n\n\"The criticism delighted Vhruebert. 'Miss Gross, you make our goppers\nsizzle,' he exclaimed, and then ordered wine and told me to be at his\nstudio to-morrow at eleven. That was the real winning,\" Selma Cross\nconcluded. \"To-night I put the crown on it.\"\n\nPaula invariably felt the fling of emotions when Selma Cross was near.\nThe latter seemed now to have found her perfect dream; certainly there\nwas fresh coloring and poise in her words and actions. It was\ninspiriting for Paula to think of Selma Cross and Stephen Cabot having\nbeen accepted by the hard-headed Vhruebert--that such a pair could eat\nhis bread and drink his wine with merry hearts. It was more than\ninspiriting for her to think of this vibrant heart covering and\nmothering the physically unfortunate. Paula asked, as only a woman\ncould, the question uppermost in both minds.\n\n\"Love me?\" Selma whispered. \"I don't know, dear. I know we love to be\ntogether. I know that I love him. I know that he would not ask me to\ntake for a husband--a broken vessel----\"\n\n\"But you can make him know that--to you--he is not a broken vessel!...\nOh, that would mean so little to me!\"\n\n\"Yes, but I should have to tell him--of old Villiers--and the other!...\nOh, God, he is white fire! He is not the kind who could understand\nthat!... I thought I could do anything, I said, 'I am case-hardened.\nNothing can make me suffer!... I will go my way,--and no man, no power,\nearthly or occult, can make me alter that way,' but Stephen Cabot has\ndone it. I would rather win for him to-night, than be called the\nforemost living tragedienne.... I think he loves me, but there is the\nprice I paid--and I didn't need to pay it, for I had already risen out\nof the depths. That was vanity. I needed no angel. I didn't care until I\nmet Stephen Cabot!\"\n\n\"I think--I think, if I were Stephen Cabot, I could forgive that,\" Paula\nsaid slowly. She wondered at herself for these words when she was alone,\nand the little place of books was no longer energized by the other's\npresence.\n\nSelma started up from the lounge, stretched her great arm half across\nthe room and clutched Paula's hand. There was a soft grateful glow in\nthe big yellow eyes. \"Do you know that means something--from a woman\nlike you? Always I shall remember that--as a fine thing from my one fine\nwoman. Mostly, they have hated me--what you call--our sisters.\"\n\n\"You are a different woman--you're all brightened, since you met Stephen\nCabot. I feel this,\" Paula declared.\n\n\"Even if all smoothed out here, there is still the old covenant in\nKentucky,\" Selma said, after a moment, and sprang to her feet, shaking\nherself full-length.\n\n\"Won't you tell me about that, too?\"\n\n\"Yes, but not now. I must go down-town. There is a dress-maker--and _we_\nbreakfast together.... Root for me--for us, to-night--won't you, dear\ngirl?\"\n\n\"With all my heart.\"\n\nThey passed out through the hall together--just as the elevator-man\ntucked a letter under the door.... Alone, Paula read this Spring\ngreeting from Quentin Charter:\n\n     I look away this morning into the brilliant East. I think of\n     you there--as glory waits. I feel the strength of a giant to\n     battle through dragons of flesh and cataclysms of Nature....\n     Who knows what conflicts, what conflagrations, rage in the\n     glowing distance--between you and me? Not I, but that I have\n     strength--I do know.... By the golden glory of this wondrous\n     Spring morning which spreads before my eyes a world of work and\n     heroism blessed of the Most High God, I only ask to know that\n     you are there--_that you are there_.... While eternity is yet\n     young, we shall emerge out of time and distance; though it be\n     from a world altered by great cosmic shattering--yet shall we\n     emerge, serene man and woman.\n\n     You are there in the brilliant East. In good time I shall go to\n     you. Meanwhile I have your light and your song. The dull dim\n     brute is gone from me, forever. Even that black prince of the\n     blood, Passion, stands beyond the magnetic circle. With you\n     _there_, I feel a divine right kingship, and all the black\n     princes of the body are afar off, herding with the beasts. I\n     tell you, since I have heard the Skylark sing--there is no\n     death.\n\nThat day became a vivid memory. Charter reached the highest pinnacle of\nher mind--a man who could love and who could wait. The message from the\nWest exalted her. Here, indeed, was one of the New Voices. All through\nthe afternoon, out of the hushes of her mind, would rise this paean from\nthe West--sentence after sentence _for her_.... No, not for her alone.\nShe saw him always in the midst of his people, illustrious among his\npeople.... She saw him coming to her over mountains--again and again,\nshe caught a glimpse of him, configured among the peaks, and striding\ntoward her--yet between them was a valley torn with storm.... It came to\nher that there must be a prophecy in this message; that he would not be\nsuffered to come to her easily as his letters came. Yet, the strength he\nhad felt was hers, and those were hours of ecstasy--while the gray of\nthe Spring afternoon thickened into dark. Only _The Thing_ could have\ncalled her out that night; for once, when it was almost time to go, the\nstorm lifted from the valley between them. She saw his path to her, just\nfor an instant, and she longed to see it again....\n\nPaula entered the theatre a moment before the curtain rose, but in the\nremaining seconds of light, discovered in the fourth aisle far to the\nright--\"the finest, lowest head\" and the long white face of Stephen\nCabot. If a man's face may be called beautiful, his was--firm, delicate,\npoetic,--brilliant eyes, livid pallor. And the hand in which the thin\ncheek rested, while large and chalky-white, was slender as a girl's....\nIn the middle of the first act, a tall, elderly man shuffled down the\naisle and sank into the chair in front of Paula, where he sprawled,\npreparing to be bored. This was Felix Larch, one of the best known of\nthe metropolitan critics, notorious as a play-killer.\n\n\nThe first-night crowd can be counted on. It meant nothing to Vhruebert\nthat the house was packed. The venture was his up to the rise of the\ncurtain. Paula was absorbed by the first two acts of the play, but did\nnot feel herself fit to judge. She was too intensely interested in the\ncareer of Selma Cross; in the face of Stephen Cabot; in the attitudes of\nFelix Larch, who occasionally forgot to pose. It was all very big and\nintimate, but the bigger drama, up to the final curtain, was the battle\nfor success against the blase aspirations of the audience and the\nultra-critical enemy personified in the man before her.\n\nThe small and excellent company was balanced to a crumb. Adequate\nrehearsals had finished the work. Then the lines were rich, forceful and\nflowing--strange with a poetic quality that \"got across the footlights.\"\nPaula noted these exterior matters with relief. Unquestionably the\naudience forgot itself throughout the second act. Paula realized, with\ndistaste, that her own critical sense was bristling for trouble. She had\nhoped to be as receptive to emotional enjoyment as she imagined the\naverage play-goer to be. Though she failed signally in this, her\nsensibilities were in no way outraged, nor even irritated. On the\ncontrary, she began to rise to the valor of the work and its\nperformance. The acting of Selma Cross, though supreme in repression,\nwas haunting, unforgettable. Felix Larch had twice disturbed her by\ntaking his seat in the midst of the first and second acts. She had heard\nthat he rarely sat out a whole performance, and took it therefore as a\ngood omen when he returned, in quite a gentlemanly fashion, as the final\ncurtain rose.\n\nBy some new mastery of style, Selma Cross had managed, almost\nthroughout, to keep her profile to the audience. The last act was half\ngone, moreover, before the people realized that there were qualities in\nher voice, other than richness and flexibility. She had held them thus\nfar with the theme, charging the massed consciousness of her audience\nwith subtle passions. Now came the rising moments. Full into the light\nshe turned her face.... She was quite alone with her tragedy. A gesture\nof the great bare arm, as the stage darkened, and she turned loose upon\nthe men and women a perfect havoc of emptiness--in the shadows of which\nwas manifesting a huge unfinished human. She made the people see how a\nmighty passion, suddenly bereft of its object, turns to devour the brain\nthat held it. They saw the great, gray face of _The Thing_ slowly rubbed\nout--saw the mind behind it, soften and run away into chaos. There was a\nwhisper, horrible with exhaustion--a breast beaten in the gloom.\n\nFelix Larch swore softly.... _The Thing_ was laughing as the curtain\ncrawled down over her--an easy, wind-blown, chattering laugh....\n\nThe critic grasped the low shoulders of a bald, thin-lipped\nacquaintance, exclaiming:\n\n\"Where did you get that diadem, Lucky One?\"\n\nPaula heard a hoarse voice, but the words of the reply were lost.\n\n\"Come over across the street for a minute. I want a stimulant and a talk\nwith you,\" Felix Larch added, wriggling into his overcoat.\n\nThere was a low, husky laugh, and then plainly these words: \"She makes\nyour goppers sizzle--eh?... Wait until I tell her she has won and I'll\ngo with you,\" added the queer little man, whom Paula knew now to be\nVhruebert....\n\nThe latter passed along the emptied aisle toward Stephen Cabot, who had\nnot left his seat. Paula noted with a start that the playwright's head\nhad dropped forward in a queer way. Vhruebert glanced at him, and\ngrasped his shoulder. The old manager then cleared his throat--a sound\nwhich apparently had meaning for the nearest usher, who hurried forward\nto be dispatched for a doctor. It was very cleverly and quietly done....\nStephen Cabot, who could see more deeply than others into the art of the\nwoman and the power of his own lines, and possibly deeper into the big\nresult of this fine union of play and player--had fainted at the\nclimacteric moment.... A physician now breasted his way through the\ncrowd at the doors, and _The Thing_ suddenly appeared in the nearest box\nand darted forward like a rush of wind. She gathered the insensible one\nin her arms and repeated his name low and swiftly.\n\n\"Yes,\" he murmured, opening his eyes at last.\n\nThey seemed alone.... Presently Stephen Cabot laughingly protested that\nhe was quite well, and disappeared behind the scenes, assisted by the\nlong, bare arm that had so recently hurled havoc over the throng. Paula\nwaited for a few moments at the door until she was assured.\n\nDriving home through the Park, she felt that she could not endure\nanother emotion. For a long time she tossed restlessly in bed, too tired\nto sleep. A reacting depression had fallen upon her worn nerves. She\ncould not forget the big structure of the day's joy, but substance had\ndropped from it.... The cold air sweeping through her sleeping-room\nseemed to come from desolate mountains. Lost entirely was her gladness\nof victory in the Selma Cross achievement. She called herself spiteful,\nungrateful, and quite miserably at last sank into sleep....\n\nShe was conscious at length of the gray of morning, a stifling pressure\nin her lungs, and the effort to rouse herself. She felt the cold upon\nher face; yet the air seemed devitalized by some exhausting voltage, she\nhad known before. There was a horrid jangle in her brain, as of two\ngreat forces battling to complete the circuit there. A face imploring\nfrom a garret-window, a youth in a lion's skin, a rock in the desert and\na rock in the Park, the dim hotel parlor and the figure of yesterday\namong the mountain-peaks--so the images rushed past--until the tortured\nface of Bellingham (burning eyes in the midst of ghastly pallor), caught\nand held her mind still. From a room small as her own, and gray like her\nown with morning, he called to her: \"Come to me.... Come to me, Paula\nLinster.... I have lived for you--oh, come to me!\"\n\nShe sprang out of bed, and knelt. How long it was before she freed\nherself, Paula never knew. Indeed, she was not conscious of being\nactually awake, until she felt the bitter cold and hurried into the\nheated room beyond. She was physically wretched, but no longer\nobsessed.... She would not believe now that the beyond-devil had called\nagain. It was all a dream, she told herself again and again--this rush\nof images and the summons from the enemy. Yesterday, she had been too\nhappy; human bodies cannot endure so long such refining fire; to-day was\nthe reaction and to-morrow her old strength and poise would come again.\nQuite bravely, she assured herself that she was glad to pay the price\nfor the hours of yesterday. She called for the full series of morning\npapers, resolving to occupy her mind with the critical notices of the\nnew play.\n\nThese were quite remarkable in the unanimity of their praise. The\nCross-Cabot combination had won, indeed, but Paula could extract no\nbuoyancy from the fact, nor did black coffee dispel the vague\npremonitive shadows which thickened in the background of her mind. The\nrapping of Selma Cross upon her door was hours earlier than ever before.\nShe, too, had called for the morning papers. A first night is never\nfinished until these are out. Paula did not feel equal to expressing all\nthat the play had meant to her. It was with decided disinclination that\nshe admitted her neighbor.\n\nSelma Cross had not bathed, nor dressed her hair. She darted in\nnoiselessly in furry slippers--a yellow silk robe over her night-dress.\nVery silken and sensuous, the huge, laughing creature appeared as she\nsank upon the lounge and shaded her yellow eyes from the light. So\nperfect was her health, and so fresh her happiness, that an hour or two\nof sleep had not left her eyes heavy nor her skin pallid. There was an\nodor of sweet clover about her silks that Paula never sensed afterward\nwithout becoming violently ill. She knew she was wrong--that every fault\nwas hers--but she could not bear the way her neighbor cuddled this\nmorning in the fur of the couch-covering. Selma had brought in every\nmorning newspaper issued and a thick bundle of telegrams besides. Paula\ntold her, literally forcing the sentences, how splendidly the play and\nher own work had appealed to her. This task, which would have been a\npure delight at another time, was adequately accomplished only after\nmuch effort now. It appeared that the actress scarcely heard what she\nwas saying. The room was brightening and there was a grateful piping of\nsteam in the heaters of the apartment.\n\n\"So glad you liked it, dear,\" Selma said briefly. \"And isn't it great\nthe way the papers treated it? Not one of them panned the play nor my\nwork.... I say, it's queer when a thing you've dreamed of for years\ncomes true at last--it's different from the way you've seen it come to\nothers. I mean there's something unique and a fullness you never\nimagined. Oh, I don't know nor care what I'm drowning to say.... Please\ndo look over these telegrams--_from everybody_! There's over a hundred!\nI had to come in here. I'd have roused you out of bed--if you hadn't\nbeen up. The telephone will be seething a little later--and I wanted\nthis talk with you.\"\n\nBig theatrical names were attached to the yellow messages. It is a\ncustom for stages-folk to speed a new star through the first performance\nwith a line of courage--wired. You are supposed to count your real\nfriends in those who remember the formality. It is not well to be a day\nlate....\n\n\"And did you notice how Felix Larch uncoiled?\"\n\nPaula looked up from the telegrams to explain how this critic had been\nthe object of her contemplation the night before.\n\n\"He hasn't turned loose in that sort of praise this season,\" Selma Cross\nadded. \"His notice alone, dear, is enough to keep us running at the\n_Herriot_ until June--and we'll open there again in the fall, past\ndoubt.\"\n\nPaula felt wicked in that she must enthuse artificially. She forced\nherself to remember that ordinarily she could have sprung with a merry\nheart into the very centre of the other's happiness.\n\n\"Listen, love,\" Selma resumed, ecstactically hugging her pillow, \"I want\nto tell you things. I wanted to yesterday, but I had to hurry off.\nYou've got so much, that you must have the rest. Besides, it's in my\nmind this morning, because it was the beginning of last night----\"\n\n\"Yes, tell me,\" Paula said faintly, bringing her a cup of coffee.\n\n\"I was first smitten with the passion to act--a gawky girl of ten at a\nchild's party,\" Selma began. \"I was speaking a piece when the impulse\ncame to turn loose. It may have been because I was so homely and\nstraight-haired, or it may have been that I did the verses so\ndifferently from the ordinary routine of speaking pieces--anyway, a boy\nin the room laughed. Another boy immediately bored in upon the scoffer,\ndowned his enemy and was endeavoring hopefully to kill him with bare\nhands, when I interfered. My champion and I walked home together and\nleft a wailing and disordered company. That's the first brush.\n\n\"My home was Danube, Kentucky. They had a dramatic society there. Eight\nyears after the child's party, this dramatic society gave _A Tribute to\nArt_. Where the piece came from is forgotten. How it got its name never\nwas known outside of the sorry brain that thrust it, deformed but\npalpitating, upon the world. Mrs. Fiske couldn't have made other than a\nstick of the heroine. The hero was larger timber, though too dead for\nvine leaves. But, I think I told you about the Big Sister--put there in\nblindness or by budding genius. There were possibilities in that\ncharacter. Danube didn't know it, or it wouldn't have fallen to me.\nIndeed, I remember toward the end of the piece--a real moment of windy\ngloom and falling leaves, a black-windowed farmhouse on the left, the\nrest a desolate horizon--in such a moment the Big Sister plucks out her\nheart to show its running death.\n\n\"I had persisted in dramatic work, in and out of season, during those\neight years, but it really was because the Big Sister didn't need to be\nbeautiful that I got the part. I wove the lines tighter and sharpened\nthe thing in rehearsals, until the rest of the cast became afraid, not\nthat I would outshine them, but that I might disgrace the society on the\nnight o' nights. You see, I was only just tolerated. Poor father, he\nwasn't accounted much in Danube, and there was a raft of us. Poor, dear\nman!\n\n\"Danube wasn't big enough to attract real shows, so the visiting drama\ngave expression to limited trains, trap-doors, blank cartridges and\nfalling cliffs\"--Selma Cross chuckled expansively at the memory--\"and I\nplunged my fellow-townsmen into waters deeper and stormier than\n_Nobody's Claim_ or _Shadows of a Great City_. Wasn't it monstrous?\"\n\nPaula inclined her head, but was not given time to answer.\n\n\"A spring night in Kentucky--hot, damp, starlit--shall I ever forget\nthat terrible night of _A Tribute to Art_? All Danube somebodies were\nout to see the younger generation perpetuate the lofty culture of the\nplace. Grandmothers were there, who played _East Lynne_ on the same\nstage--before the raids of Wolfert and Morgan; and daddies who sat like\ndeans, eyes dim, but artistic, you know--watched the young idea progress\nupon familiar paths.... The heroine did the best she could. I was a\ncamel beside her--strode about her raging and caressing. You see how I\ncould have spoiled _The Thing_ last night--if I had let the passion\nflood through me like a torrent through a broken dam? That's what I did\nin Danube--and some full-throated baying as well. Oh, it is horrible to\nremember.\n\n\"The town felt itself brutalized, and justly. I had left a rampant thing\nupon every brain, and very naturally the impulse followed to squelch the\nperpetrator for all time. I don't blame Danube now. I had been bad; my\nlack of self-repression, scandalous. The part, as I had evolved it, was\nout of all proportion to the piece, to Danube, to amateur theatricals. I\ndon't know if I struck a false note, but certainly I piled on the\nfeeling.\n\n\"Can you imagine, Paula, that it was an instant of singular glory to\nme--that climax?... Poor Danube couldn't see that I was combustible\nfuel, freshly lit; that I was bound to burn with a steady flame when the\npockets of gas were exploded.... My dazed people did not leave the hall\nat once. It was as if they had taken strong medicine and wanted to study\nthe effect upon each other. I came out from behind at last, up the\naisle, sensing disorder where I had expected praise, and was joined by\nmy old champion, Calhoun Knox, who had whipped the scoffer at the\nchild's party. He pressed my hand. We had always been friends. Passing\naround the edge of the crowd, I heard this sentence:\n\n\"'Some one--the police, if necessary--must prevent Selma Cross from\nmaking another such shocking display of herself!'\n\n\"It was a woman who spoke, and the man at her side laughed. I had no\ntime nor thought to check Calhoun. He stepped up to the man beside the\nwoman. 'Laugh like that again,' he said coldly, 'and I'll kill you!'\n\n\"It seemed to me that all Danube turned upon us. My face must have been\nmist-gray. I know I felt like falling. The woman's words had knifed me.\n\n\"'_Oh, you cat-minds!_' I flung at them. Calhoun Knox drew me out into\nthe dark. I don't know how far out on the Lone Ridge Pike we walked,\nbefore it occurred to either of us to halt or speak,\" Selma Cross went\non very slowly. \"I think we walked nearly to the Knobs. The night had\ncleared. It was wonderfully still out there among the hemp-fields. I\nknew how he was pitying me, and told him I must go away.\n\n\"'I can't stand for you to go away, Selma,' Calhoun said. 'I want you to\nstay and be mine always. We always got along together. You are beautiful\nenough to me!'\n\n\"I guess it was hard for him to say it,\" the woman finished with a\nlaugh, \"I used to wish he hadn't put in that 'enough.' But that\nmoment--it was what I needed. There was always something big and simple\nabout Calhoun Knox. My hand darted to his shoulder and closed there like\na mountaineer's, 'You deserve more of a woman than I am, Calhoun,' I\nsaid impetuously, 'but you can have me when I come to marry--but, God,\nthat's far off. I like you, Calhoun. I'd fight for you to the death--as\nyou fought for me to-night and long ago. I think I'd hate any woman who\ngot you--but there's no wife in me to-night. I have failed to win\nDanube, Kentucky, but I'll win the world. I may be a burnt-out hag then,\nbut I'll come back--when I have won the world--and you can have me and\nit.... Listen, Calhoun Knox, if ever a man means _husband_ to me--you\nshall be the man, but to-night,' I ended with a flourish, and turned\nback home, 'I'm not a woman--just a devil at war with the world!'\"\n\n\"But haven't you heard from him?\" Paula asked, after a moment.\n\n\"Yes, he wrote and wrote. Calhoun Knox is the kind of stuff that\nremembers. The time came when I didn't have the heart to answer. I was\nafraid I'd ask him for money, or ask him to come to help me. Help out of\nDanube! I couldn't do that--better old Villiers.... But I mustn't lie to\nyou. I went through the really hard part alone.... So Calhoun's letters\nwere not answered, and maybe he has forgotten. Anyway, before I\nmarry--he shall have his chance. Oh, I'll make it hard for him. I\nwouldn't open any letter from Danube now--but he shall have his\nchance----\"\n\n\"What do you mean to do?\"\n\n\"Why, we'll finish the season here--and Vhruebert has promised us a\nlittle run in the West during June. We touch Cincinnati. From there I'll\ntake the Company down to Danube. I've got to win the world and Danube.\nAfter the play, I'll walk out on the Lone Ridge pike--among the\nhemp-fields--with Calhoun Knox----\"\n\n\"But he may have married----\"\n\n\"God, how I hope so! I shall wish him kingly happiness--and rush back to\nStephen Cabot.\"\n\nPaula could not be stirred by the story this morning. She missed, as\nnever before, some big reality behind the loves of Selma Cross. There\nwas too much of the sense of possession in her story--arm-possession. So\nreadily, could she be transformed into the earthy female, fighting tooth\nand claw for her own. Paula could hardly comprehend in her present\ndepression, what she had said yesterday about Stephen Cabot's capacity\nto forgive.... She was glad, when Selma Cross rose, yawned, stretched,\nand shook herself. The odor of sweet clover was heaviness in the\nroom.... The long, bare arm darted over the reading-table and plucked\nforth the book Paula loved. The volume had not been hidden; there was no\nreason why she should not have done this, yet the action hurt the other\nlike a drenching of icy water upon her naked heart.\n\n\"Ho-ho--Quentin Charter! So _A Damsel Came to Peter_?\"\n\n\"I think--I hear your telephone,--Selma!\" Paula managed to say, her\nvoice dry, as if the words were cut from paper.\n\n\"Yes, yes, I must go, but here's another story. A rotten cad--but how he\ncan write! I don't mean books--but letters!... He's the one I told you\nabout--the Westerner--while the old man was in the South!\"\n\nThe last was called from the hall. The heavy door slammed between them.\n\nPaula could not stand--could not keep her mouth from dropping open. Her\ntemples seemed to be cracking apart.... She saw herself in\nhalf-darkness--like _The Thing_ last night--beating her breast in the\ngloom. She felt as if she must laugh--in that same wind-blown, chattering\nway.\n\n\n\n\nELEVENTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES\nA QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS\n\n\nPaula wrote a short letter to Quentin Charter in the afternoon, and did\nnot begin to regret it until too late. It was not that she had said\nanything unwise or discordant--but that she had written at all.... Her\nheart felt dead. She had trusted her all to one--and her all was lost. A\nlittle white animal that had always been warm and petted, suddenly\nturned naked to face the reality of winter,--this was the first sense,\nand the paramount trouble was that she could not die quickly enough. The\nfull realization was slow to come. Indeed, it was not until the night\nand the next day that she learned the awful reaches of suffering of\nwhich a desolated human mind is capable. It was like one of those\nhistoric tides which rise easily to the highest landmarks of the\nshore-dweller, and not till then begin to show their real fury,\ndevastating vast fields heretofore virgin to the sea. Along many coasts\nand in many lives there is one, called The High Tide.... Paula felt that\nshe could have coped with her sorrow, had this been a personal blow, but\nher faith in the race of men, the inspiration of her work, her dream of\nservice--all were uprooted.\n\nShe did not pretend to deny that she had loved Quentin Charter--her\nfirst and loftiest dream of a mate, the heart's cry of all her\nwomanhood. True, as man and woman, they had made no covenant, but to her\n(and had he not expressed the same in a score of ways?), there had been\nenacted a more wonderful adjustment, than any words could bring about.\nThis was the havoc. She had lost more than a mere human lover. She dared\nnow to say it, because, in losing, she perceived how great it had\nbecome--the passion was gone from her soul. Her place in the world was\ndesolate; all her labors pointless. As a woman, she had needed his arms,\nless than an anchorage of faith in his nobility. And how her faith had\nrushed forth to that upper window across the States!\n\n_Words_--the very word was poison to her. Writing--an emptiness, a\ntreachery. Veritably, he had torn the pith out of all her loved\nbooks.... Bellingham had shown her what words meant--words that drew\nlight about themselves, attracting a brilliance that blinded her; words\nthat wrought devilishness in the cover of their white light--but\nBellingham had not assailed her faith. This was the work of a man who\nhad lifted her above the world, not one who called from beneath.\nBellingham could not have crippled her faith like this--and left it to\ndie.... Almost momentarily, came the thought of his letters--thoughts\n_from_ these letters. They left her in a dark--that was madness....\n\nAnd if they were false, what was the meaning of her exaltations? Night\nand morning she had looked into the West, sending him all the graces of\nher mind, all the secrets of her heart. He had told her of the strange\npower that had come to him, of the new happiness--how, as never before,\nhe had felt radiations of splendid strength. She had not hurried him to\nher, but had read with ecstasy, believing that a tithe of his new power\nwas her gift.... Words, desolate, damnable words.... \"And I had thought\nto heal and lift New York,\" she exclaimed mockingly, looking down into\nthe gray streets after the age-long night. \"New York holds fast to her\nrealities--the things she has found sure. It is well to be normal and\nlike New York!\"\n\nThe day after the door had shut upon Selma Cross, Paula was a betrayed\nspirit wandering alone in polar darkness. She had not slept, nor could\nshe touch food. Twice the actress had rapped; repeatedly the telephone\ncalled--these hardly roused her. Letters were thrust under her door and\nlay untouched in the hall. She was lying upon the lounge in the little\nroom of books, as the darkness swiftly gathered that second day. All the\nmeanings of her childhood, all the promises for fulfillment with the\nyears, were lost. The only passion she knew was for the quick end of\nlife--to be free from the world, and its Bellinghams.\n\n\"God, tell me,\" she murmured, and her voice sounded dry and strange in\nthe dark, \"what is this thing, Soul, which cries out for its\nIdeal--builds its mate from all things pure, from dreams that are\ncleansed in the sky; dreams that have not known the touch of any earthly\nthing--what is this Soul, that, now bereft, cries with Rachel, 'Death,\nlet me in!...' Oh, Death, put me to sleep--put me to sleep!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nVoices reached her from the hall:\n\n\"You can knock or ring, sir, if you like,\" the elevator-man was saying,\n\"but I tell you Miss Linster is not there. She has not answered the\n'phone, and there is one of the letters, sticking out from under the\ndoor, that I put there this morning, or yesterday afternoon.\"\n\n\"When did you see her last?\" The voice was Reifferscheid's.\n\n\"Day before yesterday she was in and out. Miss Cross, the lady who lives\nin this other apartment, said she called on Miss Linster yesterday\nmorning.\"\n\n\"The point is that she left no word--either with you or with us--before\ngoing away. We are very good friends of hers. I'll ring for luck----\"\n\nThe bell rang long and loudly. Paula imagined the thick thumb pressed\nagainst it, and the big troubled face. She wanted to answer--but facing\nReifferscheid was not in her that moment.... The elevator was called\nfrom below.\n\n\"No use,\" Reifferscheid said finally. \"Here's a coin for your trouble.\nI'll call up the first thing in the morning----\"\n\nShe heard the click of the elevator-door, and the quick whine of the\ncar, sinking in the shaft. She recalled that she had not been at _The\nStates_ for four or five days. She had intended going down-town\nyesterday.... She thought long of Reifferscheid's genuine and changeless\nkindness, of his constant praise for sincerity anywhere and his battling\nfor the preservation of ideals in all work. His faith in Charter\nrecurred to her--and his frequently unerring judgments of men and women\nshe had known. All about him was sturdy and wholesome--a substance,\nthis, to hold fast.... Reifferscheid had come in the crisis. Paula fell\nasleep, thinking of snails and stickle-backs, flowers and Sister Annie,\nbig trees and solid friends.\n\nShe awoke in a different world--at least, a world in which tea and toast\nand marmalade were reckonable. Her thoughts went bravely down into the\ndepression for salvage; and a mind that can do this is not without hope.\nIt was only eight. Reifferscheid had not yet 'phoned.... Charter would\nhave her letter now, or soon--that letter written seven eternities ago\nin the first hysteria, while she could yet weep. She could not have\nwritten in the ice-cold silence of yesterday. She wished that she had\nnot let him see that she could weep. When the tragedy had risen to\nhigh-tide in her soul--there had been no words for him. Would she ever\nwrite again?...\n\nHer mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma\nCross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men--and had\nasked less a few years ago--that to have her call one \"cad\" with an\nadjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known\nQuentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True,\nhe made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter\ndelvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was\nblack-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he\nwrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Thoreau\nto say, \"I have never met a worse man than myself.\" She believed that\nthe evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom\nthem without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted\nin his letters, was a song--bright as his open prairies, and pure as the\nbig lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended\nperiods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart\nanswered, but quickly, \"Yes, if they are forever nameless....\" \"Specific\nabandonments?\" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added\nsentence, \"Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to\nsay--and what Quentin Charter may add?...\"\n\nThe elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring,\nbecause it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an\naccumulation of mail upon the floor--two from _The States_; one from\nCharter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one\nof those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and\nshe usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had\nbeen written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony.\n\n     I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in\n     a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A\n     sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing\n     came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the\n     invisible connections between us were deranged--as if there had\n     been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when\n     the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours,\n     began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously\n     active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a\n     few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich\n     and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the\n     gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you--but this\n     last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please?\n\nShe was not given long to ponder upon this strange proof of his inner\nresponsiveness; yet the deep significance of it remained with her, and\ncould not but restore in part a certain impressive meaning of their\nrelation. Selma Cross called, and Reifferscheid 'phoned, as Paula was\njust leaving for down-town. It had been necessary, she explained, to the\nliterary editor in his office, for her to make a sorry little pilgrimage\nduring the past few days. She was very grateful it was over.\nReifferscheid said abruptly that pilgrimages were nefarious when they\nmade one look so white and trembly.\n\n\"The point is, you'd better make another to Staten Island,\" he added.\n\"Nice rough passage in a biting wind, barren fields, naked woods, and\nall that. Besides, you must see my system of base-burners----\"\n\n\"I'll just do that--when I catch up a little on my work,\" Paula said.\n\"I'm actually yearning for it, but there are so many loose ends to tie\nup, that I couldn't adequately enjoy myself for a day or two. Really,\nI'm not at all ill. You haven't enough respect for my endurance, which\nis of a very good sort.\"\n\n\"Don't be too sure about that,\" Reifferscheid said quickly. \"It's\naltogether too good to be hurt.... Do you realize you've never had your\nhat off in this office?\"\n\n\"I hadn't thought of it,\" she said, studying him. Plainly by his bravado\nhe wasn't quite sure of his ground.\n\n\"There ought to be legislation against people with hair the color of\nyours----\" Reifferscheid regarded her a moment before he added, \"wearing\nhats. You must come over to Staten--if for no other reason----\"\n\n\"Oh, I begin to see perfectly now,\" Paula observed. \"You want to add me\nto your system of base-burners.\"\n\nHe chuckled capaciously. \"Early next week, then?\"\n\n\"Yes, with delight\"\n\nHe did not tell her of being worried to the point of travelling far\nup-town to ring the bell of her apartment. She could not like him less\nfor this.... There was a telegram from Charter, when she reached home.\nIn the next two hours, a thought came to Paula and was banished a score\nof times; yet with each recurrence it was more integrate and compelling.\nThis was Saturday afternoon. Selma Cross returned from her matinee\nshortly before six and was alone. Paula met her in the hall, and\nfollowed into the other's apartment.\n\n\"I have just an hour, dear. Dimity has supper ready. Stay, won't you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Paula forced herself to say. \"I wanted to ask you about Quentin\nCharter. You were called away--just as you were speaking of him the\nother morning.... I have not met him, but his two recent books are very\nwonderful. I reviewed the second for _The States_. He thanked me in a\nletter which was open to answer.\"\n\nSelma Cross stretched out her arms and laughed mirthlessly. \"And so you\ntwo have been writing letters?\" she observed. \"I'm putting down a bet\nthat his are rich--if he's interested.\"\n\nPaula had steeled herself for this. There were matters which she must\nlearn before making a decision which his telegram called for. Her mind\nheld her inexorably to the work at hand, though her heart would have\nfaltered in the thick cloud of misgivings.\n\n\"Yes, there is much in his letters--so much that I can't quite adjust\nhim to the name you twice designated. Remember, you once before called\nhim that--when I didn't know that you were speaking of Quentin Charter.\"\n\n\"I'll swear this much also,\" Selma Cross said savagely, \"he has found\nyour letters worth while.\"\n\n\"Is that to the point?\"\n\n\"Why, yes Paula,\" the other replied, darting a queer look at her. \"If I\nam to be held to a point--it is--because, as a writer, he uses what is\nof value. He makes women mad about him, and then goes back to his\ngarret, and sobers up enough to write an essay or a story out of his\nrecent first-hand studies in passion.\"\n\n\"You say he was drinking--when you knew him?\"\n\n\"Enough to kill another man. It didn't seem to make his temperament play\nless magically. He was never silly or limp, either in mind or body, but\nhe must have been burned to a cinder inside. He intimated that he didn't\ndare to go on exhibition any day before mid-afternoon.\"\n\nPaula, very pale, bent forward and asked calmly as she could: \"I wish\nyou would tell me _just_ what Quentin Charter did to make you think of\nhim always--in connection with that name.\"\n\n\"On condition that you will recall occasionally that you have a plate\nbefore you--also supper, which won't stay hot.\" Selma Cross spoke with\nsome tension, for she felt that the other was boring rather pointedly,\nand it was not her time of day for confessions. Still, the quality of\nher admiration for Paula Linster involved large good nature.\n\".... Extraordinary, as it may seem, my dear, Charter made me believe\nthat he was passionately in love. I was playing Sarah Blixton in _Caller\nHerrin_,--my first success. It was a very effective minor part and an\nexceptionally good play. It took his eye--my work especially--and he\narranged to meet me. Felix Larch, by the way, took care of this\nformality for him. Incidentally, I didn't know Felix Larch, but my cue\nwas greatly to be honored. Charter told me that Larch said I was\npeculiar for an actress and worth watching, because I had a brain....\nThe man, Charter, was irresistible in a wine-room. I say in a wine-room,\nnot that his talk was of the sort you might expect there, but that he\nwas drinking--and was at home nowhere else. You see, he has a working\nknowledge of every port in the world, and to me it seemed--of every\nbook. Then, he has a sharp, swift, colorful way of expressing\nhimself.... I told you, Villiers was away. I couldn't realize that it\nwas merely a new type Charter found in me.... We were together when I\nwasn't at work. It was a wild and wonderful fortnight--to me. He used to\nsend notes in the forenoon--things he thought of, when he couldn't\nsleep, he said. I knew he was getting himself braced in those early\nhours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving\nfor the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way\nhome from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for\nme to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he\nsaid. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me\nbelieve he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since.\"\n\nPaula began to breathe a bit more freely. \"Didn't he write?\"\n\n\"Yes, at first, but I saw at once he was forcing. Then he dictated an\nanswer to one of mine--dictated a letter to me----\" Selma Cross halted.\nThe lids narrowed across her yellow eyes.\n\n\"He had said he loved you?\" Paula asked with effort.\n\n\"By the way,\" Selma Cross retorted, \"did you notice that word 'love' in\neither of his recent books--except as a generality?\"\n\n\"Since you speak of it, I do recall he markedly avoided it,\" Paula said\nwith consuming interest.\n\n\"No, he didn't use it to me. He said he never put it in a man's or\nwoman's mouth in a story. Ah, but there are other words,\" she went on\nsoftly. \"The man was a lover--beyond dreams--impassioned.\"\n\n\"About that dictated letter?\" Paula urged hastily.\n\n\"Yes, I told him I didn't want any more that way. Then Villiers was\nback, and beckoning again. The last word I received was from Charter's\nstenographer. She said he was ill. Oh, I did hear afterward--that he was\nin a sanatorium. God knows, he must have landed there--if he kept up the\npace he was going when I knew him.\"\n\nIn the moment of silence which followed, Paula was hoping with all her\nmight--that this was the end.\n\n\"Oh, I know what you're thinking!\" Selma said suddenly. \"He has\nfascinated you, and you can't see that he's a rotten cad--from what I've\nsaid so far. A woman can never see the meanness of a man from another\nwoman's experience with him. She forgives him for calling forth all\nanother woman has--and then shaking her loose like a soiled bath-robe\nwhen one's tub is ready. But it's different when she's the discarded\nwoman!... He was so deep, I can't believe he didn't know that episodes\nwere new to me. Likely, he's had so many around the world, that he can't\ntake them more seriously from the woman's angle--than from his own....\nQuentin Charter was the first man to arouse all my dreams. Can't you see\nhow it hurt when he turned out to be--well, that name you refuse to\nutter?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course, yes, but you suggest more, Selma!\"\n\n\"He used me for 'copy,' as they call it. His article on the 'acting of\nstage-folk after hours,' appeared in a magazine a few weeks later. He's\nalways a saint in his garret, you know. The article was filled with\ncutting cynicism about stage-matters, many of which he had discovered in\nthe two weeks with me--and laughed over with his wine. I could have\nforgiven that, only he made me believe that there was not a thought\napart from Selma Cross in his mind when we were together.... Oh, what's\nthe use of me lying? I could have forgiven that, anyway!\"\n\n\"What was it, you could not forgive?\" Paula's face was bloodless.\n\n\"He told it all about--how easy I had proved in his hands!\" the actress\nrevealed with suppressed fury.\n\nThe other shrank back.\n\n\"That's where the expression comes in, Paula--the expression you hate.\nDrunk or sober--cad's the word. What a woman gives to a _man_ is put in\nhis inner vault forever. What she gives to a _cad_--is passed on to his\nfriends.\"\n\nPaula arose, tortured as if branded within. Here was a defection of\ncharacter which an entire incarnation of purity could not make whole. It\nwas true that in her heart, she had not been mortally stricken before;\ntrue, as Selma Cross had so bitterly declared, that a woman is not\nstayed from mating with a man because a sister has suffered at his\nhands.\n\n\"I have nothing to say about the word, if that is true.\" Paula spoke\nwith difficulty, and in a hopeless tone.\n\n\"Please, eat some supper, dear----\"\n\nThere was heart-break in the answer: \"I cannot. I'm distressed, because\nI have spoiled yours.... You have answered everything readily--and it\nhas hurt you.... I--feel--as--if--I--must--tell--you--why--I--asked--or\nI wouldn't have dared to force questions upon you. His letters made me\nthink of him a great deal. When you picked up his book the other morning\nand said _that_--why, it was all I could stand for the time. His work is\nso high and brave--I can hardly understand how he could talk about a\nwoman whose only fault was that she gave him what he desired. Are you\nsure he cannot prove that false?\"\n\nSelma Cross left her seat at the table and took Paula in her arms.\n\n\"How can he?\" she whispered. \"The old man knew all about us. One of his\nfriends heard Charter talking about the easy virtue of stage women--that\nthere were scarcely no exceptions! Charter hinted in his article that\nacting is but refined prostitution. Villiers said because I had a name\nfor being square Charter had chosen to prove otherwise!... Then see how\nhe dropped me--not a word in three years from my memorable lover! And\nVilliers knew about us--first and last!... I could murder that sort--and\nto think that his devil's gift has been working upon you----\"\n\n\"You have told me quite enough, thank you.\" Paula interrupted in a\nlifeless voice. \"I shall not see him.\"\n\nSelma Cross held her off at arms' length to glance at her face. \"You\nwhat?\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"He is on the way to New York and will be at the _Granville_ to-morrow\nafternoon, where he hopes to find a note saying he may call here\nto-morrow night. There shall be no note from me----\"\n\n\"But did you write to him, Paula?\" the actress asked strangely excited.\n\n\"Yes--a little after you left me the other morning. It was silly of me.\nOh, but I did not tell him what I had heard--or who told me!... Finish\nyour supper--you must go.\"\n\n\"And how did you learn of his coming?\"\n\n\"He telegraphed me to-day. That's why I bothered you at your supper----\"\n\n\"What a dramatic situation--if you decided to see him!\" Selma Cross said\nintensely. \"And to think--that to-morrow is Sunday night and I don't\nwork!\"\n\nPaula felt brutalized by the change in the other's manner. \"I have\ndecided not to see him,\" she repeated, and left the apartment.\n\n\n\n\nTWELFTH CHAPTER\n\nCERTAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARTER CRUCIBLE, AND HIS MOTHER'S PILGRIMAGE\nACROSS THE SANDS ALONE TO MECCA\n\n\nCharter had come a long way very swiftly in his search for realities. If\nit is required of man, at a certain stage of evolution, to possess a\nworking knowledge of the majority of possible human experiences, in\norder to choose wisely between good and evil, Charter had, indeed,\ncovered much ground in his thirty-three years. As a matter of fact,\nthere were few degrees in the masonry of sensation, into which he had\nnot been initiated. His was the name of a race of wild, sensual,\nphysical types; a name still held high in old-world authority, and\nidentified with men of heavy hunting, heavy dining and drinking. The\nCharters had always been admired for high temper and fair women. True,\nthere was not a germ of the present Charter mental capacity in the whole\nrace of such men commonly mated, but Quentin's father had married a\nwoman with a marvellous endurance in prayer--that old, dull-looking\nformula for producing sons of strength. A silent woman, she was, a\nreverent woman, an angry woman, with the stuff of martyrdoms in her\nveins.\n\nIndeed, in her father, John Quentin, reformer, there were stirring\nmaterials for memory. His it was to ride and preach, to excoriate evil\nand depict the good, with the blessing of a living God shining bright\nand directly upon it. A bracing figure, this Grandfather Quentin, an\nethereal bloom at the top of a tough stalk of Irish peasantry. First, as\na soldier in the British army he was heard of, a stripling with a girl's\nwaist, a pigeon breast, and the soul's divinity breathing itself awake\nwithin. His was a poet's rapture at the sight of morning mists,\nwrestling with the daybreak over the mountains; and everywhere his\nregiment went, were left behind Quentin's songs--crude verses of a minor\nsinger, never seeking permanence more than Homer; and everywhere, he set\nabout to correct the degradations of men, absolutely unscared and\ngrandly improvident. A fighter for simple loving-kindness in the heart\nof man, a worshiper of the bright fragment of truth vouchsafed to his\neyes, a lover of children, a man who walked thrillingly with a personal\nGod, and was so glorified and ignited by the spirit that, every day, he\nstrode singing into battle. Such was John Quentin, and from him, a\nliving part of his own strong soul, sprang the woman who mothered\nQuentin Charter, sprang pure from his dreams and meditations, and\ndoubtless with his prayer for a great son, marked in the scroll of her\nsoul.... For to her, bringing a man into the world meant more than a\nbleak passage of misery begun with passion and ended with pain.\n\nHer single bearing of fruit was a solitary pilgrimage. From the hour of\nthe conception, she drew apart with her own ideals, held herself aloof\nfrom fleshly things, almost as one without a body. Charter, the\nstrongly-sexed, her merchant-husband, the laughing, scolding, joking\ngunner; admirable, even delightful, to Nineteenth Century men of hot\ndinners and stimulated nights--showed her all that a man must _not_ be.\nAlone, she crossed the burning sands; cleansed her body and brain in the\ncool of evenings, expanded her soul with dreams projected far into the\nglistening purple heavens and whispered the psalms and poems which had\nfed the lyric hunger of her father.\n\nIt glorified her temples to brood by an open window upon the night-sky;\nto conceive even the garment's hem of that Inspiring Source, to Whom\nsolar systems are but a glowworm swarm, and the soul of man mightier\nthan them all. Sometimes she carried the concept farther, until it\nseemed as if her heart must cease to beat: that this perfecting fruit of\nthe universe, the soul of man, must be imprisoned for a time in the womb\nof woman; that the Supreme seemed content with this humble mystery, nor\ncounted not aeons spent, nor burnt-out suns, nor wasting myriads that\ndevastate the habitable crusts--if only One smile back at Him at last;\nif only at last, on some chilling planet's rim, One Worthy Spirit lift\nHis lustrous pinions and ascend out of chaos to the Father.\n\nThe spirit of her own father was nearer to her in this wonderful\npilgrimage than her husband, to whom she was cold as Etruscan glasses in\nthe deep-delved earth (yet filled with what fiery potential wine!). He\ncalled her Mistress Ice, brought every art, lure, and expression in the\nCharter evolution to bear upon her; yet, farther and farther into\nheights he could not dream, she fled with her forming babe. Many\nmysteries were cleared for her during this exalted period--though\nclouded later by the pangs of parturition.... Once, in the night, she\nhad awakened with a sound in her room. At first she thought it was her\nhusband, but she heard his breathing from the next chamber. At length\nbefore her window, shadowed against the faint light of the sky, appeared\nthe head and shoulders of a man. He was less than ten feet from her, and\nshe heard the rustle of his fingers over the dresser. For an instant she\nendured a horrible, stifling, feminine fright, but it was superseded at\nonce by a fine assembling of faculties under the control of genuine\ncourage. The words she whispered were quite new to her.\n\n\"I don't want to have to kill you,\" she said softly. \"Put down what you\nhave and go away--hurry.\"\n\nThe burglar fled quietly down the front stairs, and she heard the door\nshut behind him. Out of her trembling was soon evolved the consciousness\nof some great triumph, the nature of which she did not yet know. It was\npure ecstasy that the realization brought. The courage which had\nsteadied her through the crisis was not her own, but from the man's soul\nshe bore! There was never any doubt after that, she was to bear a son.\n\nThere is a rather vital defect in her pursuing the way alone, even\nthough a great transport filled the days and nights. The complete\nalienation of her husband was a fact. This estranged the boy from his\nfather. Except as the sower, the latter had no part in the life-garden\nof Quentin Charter. The mother realized in later years that she might\nhave ignored less and explained more. The fear of a lack of sympathy had\ngiven her a separateness which her whole married life afterward\nreflected. She had disdained even the minor feminine prerogative of\nacting. Her husband had a quick, accurate physical brain which, while it\ncould not have accompanied nor supported in her sustained inspiration,\nmight still have comprehended and laughingly admired. Instead, she had\nbeen as wholly apart from him as a memory. Often, in the great weariness\nof continued contemplation, her spirit had cried out for the sustenance\nwhich only a real mate could bring, the gifts of a kindred soul. Many\ntimes she asked: \"Where is the undiscovered master of my heart?\"\n\nThere was no one to replenish within her the mighty forces she expended\nto nurture the spiritual elements of her child. A lover of changeless\nchivalry might have given her a prophet, instead of a genius, pitifully\nenmeshed in fleshly complications. In her developed the concept (and the\nmark of it lived afterward with glowing power in the mind of her\nson)--the thrilling possibility of a union, in the supreme sense of the\nword, a Union of Two to form One....\n\nCharter, the boy, inherited a sense of the importance of the \"I.\" In his\nearlier years all things moved about the ego. By the time of his first\nletter to Paula Linster, the world had tested the Charter quality, but\nto judge by the years previous, more specifically by the decade bounded\nby his twentieth and thirtieth birthdays, it would have appeared that\napart from endowing the young man with a fine and large brain-surface,\nthe Charter elements had triumphed over the mother's meditations. To a\nvery wise eye, acquainted with the psychic and material aspects of the\ncase, the fact would have become plain that the hot, raw blood of the\nCharters had to be cooled, aged, and refined, before the exalted spirit\nof the Quentins could manifest in this particular instrument. It would\nhave been a very fascinating natural experiment had it not been for the\nfear that the boy's body would be destroyed instead of refined.\n\nHis mother's abhorrence for the gross animalism of drink, as she\ndiscovered it in her husband (though the tolerant world did not call him\na drunkard), was by no means reflected intact in the boy's mind. A vast\nfield of surface-tissue, however, was receptive to the subject. Quentin\nwas early interested in the effects of alcohol, and entirely unafraid.\nHe had the perversity to believe that many of his inclinations must be\nworn-out, instead of controlled. As for his ability to control anything\nabout him, under the pressure of necessity, he had no doubt of this.\nDrink played upon him warmly. His young men and women associates found\nthe stimulated Charter an absolutely new order of human enchantment--a\nyoung man lit with humor and wisdom, girded with chivalry, and a delight\nto the emotions. Indeed, it was through these that the young man's\nspirit for a space lost the helm. It was less for his fine physical\nattractions than for the play of his emotions that his intimates loved\nhim. From his moods emanated what seemed to minds youthful as his own,\nall that was brave and true and tender. An evening of wine, and Charter\ndwelt in a house of dreams, to which came fine friendships, passionate\namours, the truest of verses and the sweetest songs. Often he came to\ndwell in this house, calling it life--and his mother wept her nights\naway. Her husband was long dead, but she felt that something, named\nCharter, was battling formidably for the soul of her boy. She was\ngrateful for his fine physique, grateful that his emotions were more\ndelicately attuned than any of his father's breed, but she had not\nprayed for these. She knew the ghastly mockeries which later come to\nhaunt these houses of dreams. Such was not her promise of fulfilment.\nShe had not crossed the deserts and mountains alone to Mecca for a\nverse-maker--a bit of proud flesh for women to adore.... Charter,\nimperious with his stimulus, wise in his imagined worldliness, thought\nhe laughed away his mother's fears.\n\n\"I am a clerk of the emotions,\" he once told her. \"To depict them, I\nmust feel them first.\"\n\nAnd the yellow devil who built for him his house of dreams coarsened his\ndesires as well, and wove a husk, fibrous, warm, and red, about his\nsoul. The old flesh-mother, Earth, concentred upon him her subtlest\ncurrents of gravity; showed him her women in garments of crushed lilies;\npromised him her mysteries out of Egypt--how he should change the base\nmetal of words into shining gold; sent unto him her flatterers calling\nhim great, years before his time; calling him Emotion's Own Master and\nAction's Apostle; and her sirens lured him to the vine-clad cliffs with\nsoft singing that caressed his senses. Because his splendid young body\nwas aglow, he called it harmony--this wind wailing from the barrens....\nAs if harmony could come out of hell.\n\nOld Mother Earth with her dead-souled moon--how she paints her devils\nwith glory for the eye of a big-souled boy; painting dawns above her\nmountains of dirt, and sunsets upon her drowning depths of sea; painting\nscarlet the lips of insatiable women, and roses in the heart of her\ndevouring wines--always painting! Look to Burns and Byron--who bravely\nsang her pictures--and sank.\n\nThere are vital matters of narrative in this decade of Charter's between\ntwenty and thirty. Elements of the world-old conflict between the animal\nand the soul are never without human interest; but this is a history of\na brighter conquest than any victory over the senses alone.... Even\nrestless years of wandering are only suggested. Yet one cannot show how\nfar into the heights Charter climbed, without lifting for a moment the\nshadow from the caverns, wherein he finally awoke, and wrestled with\ndemons towards the single point of light--on the rising road.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRTEENTH CHAPTER\n\n\"NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND SPOIL, HIS GOODS,\nEXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN\"\n\n\nCharter had always been able to stop drinking when thoroughly disgusted\nwith its effects, but his final abandonment, three years before the\nSkylark letters, had lasted long--up the Yangtse to the Gorges, back to\nShanghai, and around the Straits and Mediterranean to New York, where he\nhad met Selma Cross; indeed, for many weeks after he had reached his own\ncity in the Mid-West. He had now fallen into the condition in which work\nwas practically impossible. In the early stages, he had known brief but\nlightning passages of expression, when his hands moved with magical\nspeed upon his machine, and his thoughts even faster, breaking in upon\nachievement three or four times in a half-hour to snatch his stimulant.\nAlways in the midst of this sort of activity, he felt that his work was\nof the highest character. The swift running of his brain under the whip\nappeared record-breaking to the low vanity of a sot. It was with shame\nthat he regarded his posted time-card, after such a race. Yet he had\nthis to say of the whole work-drink matter: When at his brief best under\nstimulus, a condition of mind precarious to reach and never to be\ncounted upon, the product balanced well with the ordinary output, the\nstuff that came in quantities from honest, healthy faculties. In a word,\nan occasional flashy peak standing forth from a streaky, rime-washed\npile reckoned well with the easy levels of highway routine.\n\nDuring his first days at home he would occupy entire forenoons in the\nendeavor to rouse himself to a pitch of work. Not infrequently upon\nawakening, he swallowed a pint of whiskey in order to retain four or\nfive ounces. Toward mid-afternoon, still without having eaten, he would\ndraw up his chair before the type-mill to wait, and only a finished\ncurse would evolve from the burned and stricken surfaces of his brain.\nIf, indeed, passable copy did come at last, Charter invariably banished\nrestraint, drinking as frequently as the impulse came. Clumsiness of the\nfingers therefore frequently intervened just as his sluggish mind\nunfolded; and in the interval of calling his stenographer out of the\nregular hours, the poor brain babes, still-born, were fit only for\nburial.\n\nOften, again (for he could not live decently with himself without\nworking), he would spend the day in fussy preparation for a long,\nproductive evening. The room was at a proper temperature; the buffet\nadmirably stocked; pipes, cigars, and cigarettes at hand; his\nstenographer in her usual mood of delightful negation--when an\nirresistible impulse would seize his mind with the necessity of\nwitnessing a certain drama, absolutely essential to inspiration. Again,\nwith real work actually begun, his mind would bolt into the domains of\ncorrespondence, or some little lyric started a distracting hum far back\nin his mind. The neglected thing of importance would be lifted from the\nmachine, and the letters or the verses put under weigh. In the case of\nthe latter, he would often start brilliantly with a true subconscious\nebullition--and cast the thing aside, never to be finished, at the first\nhitch in the rhyme or obscurity in thought. Then he would find himself\napologizing slavishly for Asiatic fever to the woman who helped\nhim--whose unspoken pity he sensed, as hardened arteries feel the coming\nstorm. Alone, he would give way to furious hatred for himself and his\ndegradation, and by the startling perversity of the drunken, hurry into\na stupor to stifle remorse. Prospecting thus in the abysses, Charter\ndiscovered the outcroppings of dastardly little vanities and kindred\nnastiness which normally he could not have believed to exist in his\ncomposite or in the least worthy of his friends. A third trick drink\nplayed upon him when he was nicely prepared for a night of work. The\nsummons which he dared not disregard since it came now so\nirregularly--to dine--would sound imperiously in the midst of the first\ntorture-wrung page, probably for the first time since the night before.\nIn the actual illness, which followed partaking of the most delicate\nfood, work was, of course, out of the question.\n\nFinally, the horrors closed in upon his nights. The wreck that could not\nsleep was obsessed with passions, even perversions--how curiously untold\nare these abominations--until a place where the wreck lay seemed\npermeated with the foulest conceptions of the dark. What pirates board\nthe unhelmed mind of the drunken to writhe and lust and despoil the\nalien decks--wingless, crawling abdomens, which, even in the shades, are\nbut the ganglia of appetite!... A brand of realism, this, whose only\nexcuse is that it carries the red lamps of peril.\n\nAt the end of months of swift and dreadful dissipation, Charter\ndetermined abruptly to stop his self-poisoning on the morning of his\nThirtieth birthday. Coming to this decision within a week before the\ndate, so confident was he of strength, that instead of making the end\neasy by graduating the doses in the intervening days, he dropped the\nbars of conduct altogether, and was put to bed unconscious late in the\nafternoon of the last. He awoke in the night, and slowly out of physical\nagony and mental horror came the realization that the hour of\nfighting-it-out-alone was upon him. He shuddered and tried to sleep,\ncursed himself for losing consciousness so early in the day without\nhaving prepared his mind for the ordeal. Suddenly he leaped out of bed,\nturned on the lights, and found his watch. With a cry of joy, he\ndiscovered that it was seven minutes before twelve. In the next seven\nminutes, he prepared himself largely from a quart bottle, and lay down\nagain as the midnight-bells relayed over the city. Ordinarily, sleep\nwould have come to him after such an application in the midst of the\nnight, but the thought assumed dimensions that the bells _had_ struck.\nHe thought of his nights on the big, yellow river in China, and of the\nnearer nights in New York. There was a vague haunt about the latter--as\nof something neglected. He thought of the clean boy he had been, and of\nthe scarred mental cripple he must be from now on.... In all its\ncircling, his mind invariably paused at one station--the diminished\nquart bottle on the buffet. He arose at last, hot with irritation,\npoured the remaining liquor into the washbasin, and turned on the water\nto cleanse even the odor away. For a moment he felt easier, as if the\nMan stirred within him. Here he laughed at himself low and\nmockingly--for the Man was the whiskey he had drunk in the seven minutes\nbefore twelve.\n\nNow the thought evolved to hasten the work of systemic cleansing, begun\nwith denial. At the same time, he planned that this would occupy his\nmind until daylight. He prepared a hot tub, drinking hot water at the\nsame time--glass after glass until he was as sensitive within as only a\nfresh-washed sore can be. Internally, the difference between hot and\ncold water is just the difference between pouring the same upon a greasy\nplate. The charred flaccid passages in due time were flushed free from\nits sustaining alcohol; and every exterior pore cratered with hot water\nand livened to the quick with a rough towel. Long before he had\nfinished, the trembling was upon him, and he sweated with fear before\nthe reaction that he had so ruthlessly challenged in washing the spirit\nfrom his veins.\n\nCharter rubbed the steam from the bath-room window, shaded his eyes, and\nlooked for the daylight which was not there. Stars still shone clear in\nthe unwhitened distances. Why was he so eager for the dawn? It was the\ndrunkard in him--always frightened and restless, even in sleep, _while\nbuffets are closed_. This is so, even though a filled flask cools the\nfingers that grope under the pillow.... Any man who has ever walked the\nstreets during the two great cycles of time between three and five in\nthe morning, waiting for certain sinister doors to open, does not cease\nto shiver at the memory even in his finer years. It is not the\ndiscordant tyranny of nerves, nor the need of the body, pitiful and\nactual though it is, wherein the terror lies,--but living, walking with\nthe consciousness that the devil is in power; that you are the debauched\ninstrument of his lust, putting away the sweet fragrant dawn for a place\nof cuspidors, dormant flies, sticky woods, where bleared, saturated\nmesses of human flesh sneak in, even as you, to lick their love and\ntheir life.... That you have waited for this moment for hours--oh,\nGod!--while the fair new day comes winging over mountains and lakes,\nbringing, cleansed from inter-stellar spaces, the purity of lilies, new\nmysteries of love, the ruddy light of roses and heroic hopes for clean\nmen--that you should hide from this adoring light in a dim place of\nbrutes, a place covered with the psychic stains of lust; that you should\nrun from clean gutters to drink this hell-seepage.\n\nHe asked himself why he thirsted for light. If every door on his floor\nwere a saloon, he would not have entered the nearest. And yet a summer\ndawn was due. Hours must have passed since midnight. He glanced into the\nmedicine-case before turning off the lights in the bath-room. Alcohol\nwas the base in many of the bottles; this thought incited fever in his\nbrain.... He could hardly stand. A well-man would have been weakened by\nthe processes of cleansing he had endured. The blackness, pressing\nagainst the outer window, became the form of his great trouble. \"I wish\nthe day would come,\" he said aloud. His voice frightened him. It was\nlike a whimper from an insane ward. He hastened to escape from the\nplace, now hateful.\n\nThe chill of the hall, as he emerged, struck into his flesh, a polar\nblast. Like an animal he scurried to the bed and crawled under cover,\nshaking convulsively. His watch ticked upon the bed-post. Presently he\nwas burning--as if hot cloths were quickly being renewed upon his flesh.\nYet instantaneously upon lifting the cover, the chill would seize him\nagain. Finally he squirmed his head about until he could see his watch.\nTwo-fifteen, it said. Manifestly, this was a lie. He had not wound the\nthing the night before, though its ticking filled the room. He recalled\nthat when he was drinking, frequently he wound his watch a dozen times a\nday, or quite as frequently forgot it entirely. At all events, it was\nlying now. Thoughts of the whiskey he had poured out, of the drugs in\nthe medicine-case, controlled. He needed a drink, and nothing but\nalcohol would do. This is the terrible thing. Without endangering one's\nheart, it is impossible to take enough morphine to deaden a whiskey\nreaction. A little only horrifies one's dreams. There is no bromide. He\ncried out for the poison he had washed away from his veins. This would\nhave been a crutch for hours. In the normal course of bodily waste, he\nwould not have been brought to this state of need in twenty-four hours.\nHe felt the rapping of old familiar devils against his brain. He needed\na drink.\n\nThe lights were turned on full in his room. The watch hanging above his\nhead ticked incessant lies regarding the energy of passing time. He\ncould lose himself in black gorges of agony, grope his way back to find\nthat the minute hand had scarcely stirred.... He lay perfectly rigid\nuntil a wave, half of drowsiness, half of weakness, slowed-down the\nvibrations of his mind.... Somewhere in the underworld, he found a\nconsciousness--a dank smell, the dimness of a cave; the wash of fins\ngliding in lazy curves across the black, sluggish water; an _eye_,\ngreen, steadfast, ashine like phosphor which is concentrated decay,--the\neye of rapacity gorged. His nostrils filled with the foreign odor of\nmenageries and aquariums. A brief hiatus now, in which objects altered.\nA great weight pressed against his chest, not to hurt, but to fill his\nconsciousness with the thought of its cold crushing strength; the weight\nof a tree-trunk, the chill of stone, the soft texture of slimy flesh....\nFull against him upon the rock, in his half-submerged cavern, lay the\nterror of all his obsessions--the crocodile. Savage incarnations were\nshaken out of his soul as he regarded this beast, a terror so great that\nhis throat shut, his spine stiffened. Still as a dead tree, the creature\npressed against him, bulging stomach, the narrow, yellow-brown head,\nmoveless, raised from the rock. This was the armed abdomen he feared\nmost--cruelty, patience, repletion--and the dirty-white of nether\nparts!... He heard the scream within him--before it broke from his\nthroat.\n\nOut of one of these, Charter emerged with a cry, wet with sweat as the\ncavern-floor from which he came--to find that the minute-hand of his\nwatch had not traversed the distance between two Roman numerals. He\nseized the time-piece and flung it across the room, lived an age of\nregret before it struck the walnut edge of his dresser and crashed to\nthe floor.... The sounds of running-down fitted to words in his brain.\n\n\"_Tick--tick!... tick-tick-tick._\" A spring rattled a disordered plaint;\nthen after a silence: \"I served you--did my work well--very well--very\nwell!...\" Charter writhed, wordlessly imploring it to be still. It was\nnot the value, but the sentient complaining of a thing abused. Faithful,\nand he had crushed it. He felt at last in the silence that his heart\nwould stop if it ticked again; and as he waited, staring at it, his mind\nrushed off to a morning of boyhood and terrible cruelty.... He had been\nhunting at the edge of a half-cleared bit of timber. A fat gray squirrel\nraced across the dead leaves, fully sixty yards away--its mate following\nblithely. The leader gained the home-tree as Charter shot, crippling the\nsecond--the male. It was a long shot and a very good one, but the boy\nforgot that. The squirrel tried to climb the tree, but could not. It\ncrawled about, uncoupled, among the roots, and answered the muffled\nchattering from the hole above--this, as the boy came up, his breast\nfilling with the deadliest shame he had ever known. The squirrel told\nhim all, and answered his mate besides. It was not a chatter for mercy.\nThe little male was cross about it--bewildered, too, for its\nlife-business was so important. The tortured boy dropped the butt of his\ngun upon the creature's head.... Now the tone changed--the flattened\nhead would not die.... He had fled crying from the thing, which haunted\nhim almost to madness. He _begged_ now, as the old thoughts of that hour\nbegan to run about in the deep-worn groove of his mind....\n\nAndas he had treated the squirrel, the watch--so he was treating his own\nlife....\n\nAgain he was called to consciousness by some one uttering his name. He\nanswered. The apartment echoed with the flat, unnatural cry of his\nvoice; silence mocking him.... Then, in delusion, he would find himself\nhurrying across the yard, attracted by some psychic terror of warning.\nFinally, as he opened the stable-door, sounds of a panting struggle\nreached him from the box-stall where he kept his loved saddle-mare.\nLight showed him that she had broken through the flooring, and,\nfrenziedly struggling to get her legs clear from the wreck, had torn the\nskin and flesh behind, from hoof to hock. He saw the yellow tendons and\nthe gleaming white bone. She was half-up, half-down, the smoky look of\ntorture and accusation in her brown eyes....\n\nFinally came back his inexorable memories--one after another, his nights\nof degraded passion; the memory of brothels, where drunkenness had\ncarried him; songs, words, laughter he had heard; pictures on the walls;\ncombs, cards, cigarettes of the dressing-tables, low ceilings and\nnoisome lamps; that individual something about each woman, and her\nespecial perversion; peregrinations among the lusts of half the world's\nports, where a man never gets so low that he cannot fall into a woman's\narms. How they had clung to him and begged him to come back! His\nnostrils filled again with sickening perfumes that never could overpower\nthe burnt odor of harlot's hair. Down upon him these horrors poured,\nuntil he was driven to the floor from the very foulness of the place\nwherein he lay, but a chill struck his heart and forced him back into\nthe nest of sensual dreams....\n\nConstantly he felt that dry direct need for cigarette inhalation--that\nnervous craving which makes a man curse viciously at the break of a\nmatch or its missing fire--but his heart responded instantly to the mild\npoisoning, a direct and awful pounding like the effect of cocaine upon\nthe strong, and his sickness was intensified. So he would put the\ncigarette down, lest the aorta burst within him--only to light the pest\nagain a moment later.\n\nHe could feel his liver, a hot turgid weight; even, mark its huge\nboundary upon the surface of his body. Back of his teeth, began the\nburning insatiable passage, collapsing for alcohol in every inch of its\ncoiled length; its tissues forming an articulate appeal in his brain:\n\"You have filled us with burning for weeks and months, until we have\ncome to rely upon the false fire. Take this away suddenly now and we\nmust die. We cannot keep you warm, even alive, without more of the fuel\nwhich destroyed us. We do not want much--just enough to help us until we\nrebuild our own energy.\" And his brain reiterated a warning of its own.\n\"I, too, am charred and helpless. The devils run in and out and over. I\nhave no resistance. I shall open entirely to them--unless you strengthen\nme with fire. You are doing a very wicked and dangerous thing in\nstopping short like this. Deserted of me, you are destitute, indeed.\"\n\nCharter felt his unshaven mouth. It was soft and fallen like an\nimbecile's. A man in hell does not curse himself. He saw himself giving.\nHe felt that he was giving up life and its every hope, but the fear of\nmadness, or driveling idiocy, was worse than this. He would drink for\nnerve to kill himself decently. The abject powerlessness of his will was\nthe startling revelation. He had played with his will many times, used\nit to drink when its automatic action was to refrain. Always he had felt\nit to be unbreakable, until now. He was a yellow, cowering elemental,\nmore hideous and pitiable than prohibition-orator ever depicted in his\nmost dreadful scare-climax. There is no will when Nature turns loose her\ndogs of fear upon a sick and shattered spirit--no more will than in the\ncrisis of pneumonia or typhoid.\n\nHe wrapped the bed-clothes about him and staggered to the medicine-case.\nThere was no pure alcohol; no wood-alcohol luckily. However, a quart\nbottle of liver-tonic--turkey rhubarb, gum guaiac, and aloes, steeped in\nHolland gin. A teaspoonful before meals is the dose--for the spring of\nthe year. An old family remedy, this,--one of the bitterest and most\npotent concoctions ever shaken in a bottle, a gold-brown devil that\ngagged full-length. The inconceivable organic need for alcohol worked\nstrangely, since Charter's stomach retained a half-tumbler of this\nhorrible dosage. Possibly, it could not have held straight whiskey at\nonce. Internally cleansed, he, of course, responded immediately to the\nwarmth. Plans for whiskey instantly awoke in his brain. He touched the\nbutton which connected with his man in the stable; then waited by a rear\nwindow until the other appeared.\n\n\"Bob,\" he called down shakily, \"have you got any whiskey?\"\n\n\"The half of a half-pint, sir.\"\n\n\"Bring it up quickly. Here--watch close--I'm tossing down my latch-key.\"\n\nThe key left his hand badly. He could have embraced Bob for finding it\nin the dark as he did. Charter then sat down--still with the bed-clothes\nwrapped about him--to wait for the other's step. He felt close to death\nin the silence.... Bob poured and held the single drink to his lips.\nCharter sat still, swallowing for a moment. Part remained within him.\n\n\"Now, Bob,\" he said, \"run across the street to Dr. Whipple, and tell\nhim I need some whiskey. Tell him he needn't come over--unless he wants\nto. I'm ill, and I've got to get out of here. Hurry back.\"\n\nHe dared not return to bed now--fear of dreams. To draw on parts of his\nclothing was an heroic achievement, but he could not bend forward to put\non stockings or shoes without overturning his stomach, the lining of\nwhich was sore as a festering wound. His nostrils, with their continual\nsuggestions, now tortured him with a certain half-cooked odor of his own\ninner tissues. The consciousness of having lost his will--that he was\nthirty years old, and shortly to be drunk again--became the nucleus for\nevery flying storm-cloud in his brain. He knew what it would be now. He\nwould drink regularly, fatten, redden, and betray every remnant of good\nleft within him--more and more distended and brutalized--until his heart\nstopped or his liver hardened. And the great work? He tried to smile at\nthis. Those who had looked for big things from his maturity had chosen a\nmusty vessel. He would write of the loves of the flesh, and of physical\ninstincts--one of the common--with a spark of the old genius now and\nthen to light up the havoc--that he might writhe! Yes, he would never\nget past that--the instantaneous flash of his real self to lift him\nwhere he belonged--so he would not forget to suffer--_when he fell\nback_.... \"I'll break that little system,\" he muttered angrily, as to an\nenemy in the room, \"I'll drink my nerve back and shoot my head off....\"\nBut bigger, infinitely more important, than any of these thoughts, was\nthe straining of every sense for Bob's step in the hall--Bob with the\nwhiskey from his never-failing friend, Dr. Whipple.... Yes, he had\nchosen whiskey to drive out the God-stuff from his soul. What a dull,\ncheap beast he was!\n\nThe day was breaking--a sweet summer morning. He wrapped the bed-clothes\ncloser about him, and lifted the window higher. The nostrils that had\nbrought him so much of squalor and horror now expanded to the new life\nof the day--vitality that stirred flowers and foliage, grasses and skies\nto beauty; the blessed morning winds, lit with faint glory. The East was\na great, gray butterfly's wing, shot with quivering lines of mauve and\ngold. It shamed the hulk huddled at the window. Bob's foot on the stairs\nwas the price of his brutality.\n\n\"Great mornin' for a ride. Beth is fit as a circus. I'd better get her\nready, hadn't I, sir?\"\n\n\"God, no!\" Charter mumbled. \"Help me on with my boots, and pour out a\ndrink. Bring fresh water.... Did Doctor----\"\n\n\"Didn't question me, sir. Brought what you wanted, and said he'd drop\nover to see you to-day.\"\n\nCharter held his mouth for the proffered stimulant, and beckoned the\nother back.\n\n\"Let me sit still for a minute or two. Don't joggle about the room,\nBob.\"\n\nRevulsion quieted, the nausea passed. Bob finished dressing him, and\nCharter moved abroad. He took the flask with him, lest it be some\nforgotten holiday and the bars closed. A man who has had such a night as\nhis is slavish for days before the fear of being _without_. He was\npitifully weak, but the stimulus had lifted his mind out of the hells of\nobsession.\n\nThe morning wind had sweetened the streets. Lawns, hedges, vines, and\nall the greens seemed washed and preened to meet the sun. To one who has\nhived with demons, there is something so simple and sanative about the\nrestoring night--the rest of healing and health. He could have wept at\nthe virtue of simple goodness--so easy, so vainly sought amid the\ncomplications of vanity and desire. Well and clearly he saw now that\nmild good, undemonstrative, unaggressive good--seventy years of bovine\nplodding, sunning, grazing, drowsing--is a step toward the Top. What a\ntravesty is genius when it is arraigned by an august morning; men who\nsummon gods to their thinking, yet fail in the simple lessons that dogs\nand horses and cats have grasped! All the more foul and bestial are\nthose whom gods have touched within; charged with treason of manhood by\nevery good and perfect thing, when they cannot rise and meet the day\nwith clean hearts. Charter would have given all his evolution for the\nsimple decency of his man, Bob, or his mare, Beth.\n\nThe crowd of thoughts incensed him, so he hurried.... Dengler was\nsweeping out his bar. Screen-doors slammed open, and a volume of dust\nmet the early caller as he was about to enter. Dengler didn't drink, and\nhe was properly pleased with the morning. Lafe Schiel, who was scrubbing\ncuspidors for Dengler, drank. That's why he cleaned cuspidors. Dengler\ngreeted his honored patron effusively.\n\n\"Suppose you've been working all night, Mr. Charter. You look a little\nroughed and tired. You work while we sleep--eh? That's the way with you\nwriter-fellows. I've got a niece that writes. I told you about her.\nShe's ruined her eyes. She says she can get her best thoughts at night.\nYou're all alike.\"\n\n\"Have a little touch, Lafe?\" Charter asked, turning to the porter, who\nwiped his hands on his trousers and stepped forward gratefully.\n\nBottles were piled on the bar, still beer-stained from the night before.\nDengler put forward clean, dripping glasses from below, and stroked the\nbottle with his palm, giving Lafe water, and inquiring of Charter what\nhe would have \"for a wash....\" Dengler, so big-necked, healthy, and\nbusy, talking about his breakfast and not corrupting his body with the\nstuff others paid for; Lafe Schiel in his last years--nothing but\nwhiskey left--no thought, no compunction, no man, no soul, just a\ngalvanic desire--these three in a tawdry little up-town bar at five in\nthe morning--and he, Quentin Charter, with a splendid mare to ride, a\nmother to breakfast with, a world's work to do; he, Quentin Charter, in\nthis diseased growth upon the world's gutter, in this accumulation of\ncells which taints all society.\n\nCharter drank and glanced at the morning paper. The sheet still damp\nfrom the press reminded him of the night's toil in the office down-town\n(a veritable strife of work, while he had grovelled)--copy-makers,\ncopy-readers, compositors, form-makers, and pressmen--he knew many of\nthem--all fine fellows, decently resting now, deservedly resting. And\nthe healthy little boys, cutting their sleep short, to deliver from door\nto door, even to Dengler's, this worthy product for the helpful dollar!\nAh, God, the world was so sweet and pure in its worthier activities! God\nonly asked that--not genius, just slow-leisured decency would pass with\na blessing. God had eternity to build men, and genius which looked out\nupon a morning like this, from a warm tube of disease, was concentrated\nwaste! Charter cleared his throat. Thoughts were pressing down upon him\ntoo swiftly again. He ordered another drink, and Dengler winked\nprotestingly as he turned to call Lafe Schiel. The look said, \"Don't buy\nhim another, or I won't get my cuspidors cleaned.\"\n\nSo Charter felt that he was out of range and alignment everywhere, and\nthe drink betrayed him, as it always does when in power. Not even in\nLafe Scheil was the devil surer of his power this day. The whiskey did\nnot brighten, but stimulated thought-terrors upon the subject of his own\nshattering.... Dengler found him interesting--this man so strangely\nhonored by others; by certain others honored above politicians. He\nwondered now why the other so recklessly plied the whip.... The change\nthat came was inevitable.\n\n\"There now, old fellow,\" Dengler remonstrated familiarly, \"I don't like\nto turn you down, but you can't--honest, you can't--stand much more.\"\n\nThis was at seven-thirty. Charter straightened up, laughed, and started\nto say, \"This is the first----\"\n\nBut he reflected that once before this same thing had happened\nsomewhere: he had been deemed too drunk to drink--somewhere before....\nHe wabbled in the memory, and mumbled something wide to the point of\nwhat he had meant to say, and jerked out.... That buttoning of his coat\nabout his throat (on a brilliant summer morning); that walking out\nswiftly with set jaw and unseeing eyes, was but one of many landmarks to\nDengler--landmarks on the down-grade. He had seen them all in his twenty\nyears; seen the whole neighborhood change; seen clean boys redden,\nfatten, and thrive for a time; watched the abyss widen between young\nmarried pairs, his own liquors running in the bottom; seen men leave\ntheir best with him and take home their beast.... Dengler, yes, had seen\nmany things worth telling and remembering. They all owed him at the\nlast.... In some ways, this man, Charter, was different. He tried to\nremember who it was who first brought Charter in, and who that party of\nswell chaps were who, finding Charter there one day, had made a sort of\nhero out of him and tarried for hours.... The beer-man, in his leather\napron, entered to spoil this musing. He put up the old square-face\nbottle, and served for a \"chaser\" a tall shell of beer.... Even beer-men\ncould not last. Dengler had seen many who for a year or two \"chased\" gin\nwith beer at every call. There was Schultz, a year ago about this time.\nHe'd been driving a wagon for a couple of years. Schultz had made too\nmany stops before he reached Dengler's that day. A full half-barrel had\ncrushed him to the pavement just outside the door.\n\n\"Put two halves in the basement, and leave me a dozen cases of pints,\"\nDengler ordered.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCharter was met at the door by his mother. She had expected to find him\nsuffering from nerves, but clean. He had always kept his word, and she\nhad waited for this day. She did not need to look at him twice, but put\non her bonnet and left the house. She returned within an hour with three\nof Charter's men friends. Bob, whom she had left to take care of her\nson, reported that he had a terrible time. Charter, unable to find his\nsix-shooter, had overturned the house and talked of conspiracy and\nrobbery. He had fallen asleep within the last few minutes. Strange that\nthe mother had thought to hide the six-shooter....\n\nThe men lifted him to a closed carriage. Charter was driven to a\nsanatorium. One of the friends undertook to stay with him for a day or\ntwo. Charter did not rightly realize where he was until evening. He\nappeared to take the news very quietly. Whiskey was allowed him when it\nwas needed. Other patients in various states of convalescence offered\nassistance in many ways. That night, when the friend finally fell asleep\nin the chair at the bedside, Charter arose softly, went into a hall,\n_where a light was burning_, and plunged down into the dark--twenty-two\nbrass-covered steps. His head broke the panel of the front door at the\nfoot. His idea was the same which had made him hunt for his six-shooter\nthe morning before. Besides the door, he broke his nose, his arm, and\ncovered himself with bruises, but fell short, years yet unnumbered, from\nhis intent. Under the care of experts after that, he was watched\nconstantly, and given stimulus at gradually lengthening intervals--until\nhe refused it himself on the seventh day. Three weeks later, still, he\nleft the place, a man again, with one hundred and twenty needle\npunctures in the flesh of his unbroken arm.\n\n\n\n\nFOURTEENTH CHAPTER\n\nTHE SINGING OF THE SKYLARK CEASES ABRUPTLY; CHARTER HASTENS EAST TO FIND\nA QUEER MESSAGE AT _THE GRANVILLE_\n\n\nCharter, three years after the foregoing descent into realism, was\nconfessedly as happy a man as the Mid-West held. He accepted his\nserenity with a full knowledge of its excellence, and according to his\npresent health and habits would not have been excited to find himself\nstill among those present, had the curtain been lifted thirty or forty\nyears away. In the year that followed the sanatorium experience, Charter\nin reality found himself. There were a few months in which work came\nslowly and was uncertain in quality. In his entire conception, nothing\nworse could happen than an abatement of mental activity, but he did not\nwrithe, knowing that he richly deserved the perfect punishment. So\nslowly and deeply did physical care and spiritual awakening restore the\nforces of mind, however, that he did not realize an expansion of power\nuntil his first long work had received critical and popular acclaim, and\nhe could see it, himself, in perspective. So he put off the last and\ntoughest shackle of King Fear--the living death.\n\nAs for drinking, that had beaten him. He had no thought to re-challenge\nthe champion. In learning that he could become abject, a creature of\nparalyzed will, he had no further curiosity. This much, however, he had\nrequired to be shown, and what a tender heart he had ever afterward for\nthe Lafe Schiels of this world. There were other vivid animals, strong\nand agile, in his quiver of physical passions, but he discovered that\nthese could not become red and rending without alcohol. Such were\nclubbed into submission accordingly. With alcohol, Charter could travel\nany one of seven sorry routes to the gutter; without it, none. This was\nhis constant source of thankfulness--that he had refined his elements\nwithout abating their dynamics. The forces that might have proved so\ndeadly in mastery, furnished a fine vitality under the lash.\n\nAll was sanative and open about him. Charter knew the ultimate dozen of\nthe hundred and forty-four thousand rules for health--and made these his\nhabit. The garret, so often spoken of, was the third-floor of his\nmother's mansion. Since he slept under the sky, his sleeping-room was\nalso a solarium. There was a long, thickly-carpeted hall where he paced\nand smoked meditatively; a trophy-room and his study and library.\nThrough books and lands, he had travelled as few men of his years, and\nalways with an exploring mind. In far countries, his was an eye of quick\nfamiliarity; always he had been intensely a part of his present environ,\nwhether Typee or Tibet. Then, the God-taught philosophers of Asia and\nEurope, and our own rousing young continent, were the well-beloved of\nhis brain, so that he saw many things with eyes lit by their prophecies.\nAs for money, he was wealthy, as Channing commends, rather than rich,\nand for this competence of late, he had made not a single concession, or\nsubverted the least of his ideals, selling only the best of his\nthoughts, the expression of which polished the product and increased the\ncapacity. He fitted nothing to the fancied needs of marketing. His\nmother began truly to live now, and her external nature manifested below\nin fine grains and finished services. Between the two, the old Charter\nformalities were observed. She was royal steel--this white-haired\nmother--and a cottage would have become baronial about her. Where she\nwas, there lived order and silence and poise.\n\nAfter this enumeration of felicitous details, one will conclude that\nthis has to deal with a selfish man; yet his gruelling punishments must\nnot be forgotten, nor the Quentin spirit. It is true that he had emerged\nmiraculously unhurt from many dark explorations; but his appreciation of\nthe innate treachery and perversion of events was sound and keen. By no\nmeans did he challenge any complication which might strip him to\nquivering nakedness again. Rather his whole life breathed gratitude for\nthe goodly days as they came, and glided into untormented nights. Next\nin importance to the discovery that his will could be beaten was this\nwhich the drinking temperament so hesitatingly grants--that there are\nthrilling hearts, brilliant minds, memorable conversations, and lovely\nimpulses among men and women who will not tarry long over the wine.\nSimple as this seems, it was hard for a Charter to learn.... As he\ncontemplated the full promise of his maturity, the thought often\ncame--indeed, he expressed it in one of the Skylark letters--that this\nwas but a period of rest and healing in which he was storing power for\nsterner and more subtle trials.\n\nSuch is an intimation of the mental and moral state of Quentin Charter\nin his thirty-fourth year, when he began to open the Skylark letters\nwith more than curiosity.... He knew Reifferscheid, and admired him with\nthe familiar enthusiasm of one who has read the editor's work\nintermittently for years. Charter, of course, was delighted with the\nreview of his second book. It did not occur to him that it could have\nbeen written by other than the editor himself. Reifferscheid's reply to\nCharter's letter of thanks for the critique proved the key to the whole\nmatter, since it gave the Westerner both focus and dimension for his\nvisioning.\n\n     I haven't read your book yet, old friend, but I'm going to\n     shortly. Your fine letter has been turned over to Miss Paula\n     Linster, a young woman who has been doing some reviews for me,\n     of late; some of the most important, in which lot your book, of\n     course, fell. The review which pleased you is only one of a\n     hundred that has pleased me. Miss Linster is the last word--for\n     fineness of mind. Incidentally, she is an illumination to look\n     at, and I haven't the slightest doubt but that she sings and\n     paints and plays quite as well as she writes book notices. If\n     she liked a work of mine as well as she likes yours, I should\n     start on a year's tramp, careless of returns from States yet to\n     be heard from. The point that interests me is that you could do\n     a great book about women, away off there in the Provinces--_and\n     without knowing her_.\n\n     You may wonder at this ebullition. Truth is, I'm backing down,\n     firmly, forcefully, an inclination to do an essay on the\n     subject. This is the first chance I ever had to express matters\n     which have come forth from the Miraculous in the past year. All\n     that she does has the ultimate feminine touch,--but I'll stop\n     before I get my sleeves up again about this new order of being.\n     Perhaps you deserve to know Miss Linster. You'd never be the\n     same afterwards, so I'm not so sure whether I'd better\n     negotiate it or not. I'm glad to see your book has left the\n     post so perfectly. Always come to see me when in town. Yours\n     solid, Reifferscheid.\n\nAnd so she became the Skylark to Quentin Charter, because she was lost\nin the heights over by the seaboard, and only her singing came out of\nthe blue.... There were fine feminine flashes in the letters Charter\nreceived, rare exquisite matters which can be given to the world, only\nthrough the one who inspires their warm delicacy and charm. The circuit\nwas complete, and the voltage grew mightier and mightier.\n\nThere was a royal fall night, in which Charter's work came ill, because\nthoughts of her monopolized. Life seemed warm and splendid within him.\nHe turned off the electric bulb above his head, and the moonlight burst\nin--a hunting moon, full and red as Mars. There was thrilling glory in\nthe purple south, and a sense of the ineffable majesty of stellar\nmanagement. He banished the night panorama with the electric button\nagain, and wrote to the Skylark. This particular letter proved the kind\nwhich annihilates all sense of separateness, save the animal heaviness\nof miles, and makes this last, extra carking and pitiless for the time.\nIt may have been that Charter would have hesitated to send this letter,\nhad he read it over again in the cool of morning, but it happened that\nhe yearned for a walk that night--and passed a mail-box, while the\nwitchery of the night still enchanted.\n\nHe felt dry, a bit burned the next morning, and saddled for a couple of\nhours, transferring the slight strain of nerves to his muscles. There\nwas a note from the Skylark. She had found an old picture of his in a\nmagazine and commented on it deliciously.... \"I wonder if you think of\nme as I am--plain, _plain_?\" she had asked.... No, he did not. Nor was\nit Reifferscheid's words to the contrary that prevented him. It is not\nin man to correlate plainness with a mystic attraction. She had never\nappeared to him as beautiful exactly, but fine, vivid, electric--a\nmanifestation of eyes, lips, mind. All the poundage part of a human\nbeing was utterly vague in his concept of the Skylark.... Charter\nnaturally lost his perspective and penetration in dealing with his own\ninterlacing emotions.\n\nThe present letter thralled him. It was blithe in intent, but\nintuitively deep and keen. In a former letter, he had asked if there\nwere not a strain of Irish in her lineage, so mercurial did her\ntemperament play in all that she wrote. \"No Irish,\" she had answered.\n\"Dutch--straight Dutch. Always New York--always Dutch. I praise\nProvidence for this 'monkey-wrench to hang upon my safety valve.'\"\n\nThe \"red moon\" letter seemed to have caught her on the wing--at her\nhighest and happiest--for she answered it in fine faith and lightness.\nThough it had carried her up and up; and though the singing came back\nfrom golden azure, yet she had not forgotten her humor. There was a\nsuggestion of world-wisdom here, or was it world-wear?\n\nFor hours at a time, Charter was now stripped of his capacity for work.\nThis is fine torment. Mostly there was a sheet in his type-mill, but his\nfingers only fluttered the space-bar. Let him begin a letter to the\nSkylark, however, and inspiration came, indeed. His thoughts marshalled\nlike a perfect army then, and passed out from under his hand in flashing\nreview.... He ate little, slept little, but his vitality was prodigious.\nA miracle matured in his breast. Had he not been more than usually\nstubborn, he would have granted long before, that he loved a woman for\nthe first time in his life--and this a woman he had never seen.\n\nBy New Year's there was no dissembling. No day passed now in which he\ndid not battle down an impulse to take a train for New York. This was\nreal living. The destiny which had ruled him through so many dark\nwanderings, had waited until his soul was roused to dominance, before he\nwas permitted to enter earth's true treasury. It was now that he\nremembered his past, and many a mile and many an hour he paced the dim\nhall--wrestling to be clean of it. This was a Soul which called. He did\nnot dare to answer while a vestige of the old taints lingered.... He was\nseldom troubled that she might prove less inspiring than he pictured. He\nstaked every reliance in that he had lived thirty-three years and\nencountered nothing comparable with this before. Passions, fascinations,\ninfatuations, were long put behind; these were classed now in his mind\nbeneath decent and frictionless partnerships between men and women.\n\nThe vision which inspired his romantic loneliness was all that\nReifferscheid had suggested, and infinitely more which his own dreamings\nhad supplied. She was an adult frankly challenged by the mysteries of\ncreation; often shocked by its revelations, never above pity nor beneath\nhumor, wonderful in her reality of culture, and wise above men with a\nwoman's divination. But particularly, her ultimate meaning was for\n_him_; his quest, she was; his crown, to be. The world had preserved her\nsinging, until he was ready; and though singing, she must ever feel the\npoverty of unfulfilment in her own breast, until he came. This was the\nstately form of the whole enchantment.\n\nThat there existed in creation a _completing_ feminine for all his\nlonely and divided forces; that there lived one woman who could evenly\nignite his body, brain, and spirit; that there was hidden in the\nsplendid plan of things, a Union of Two to form One; all this which had\nbeen drifting star-stuff before, became sparks now for new and terrific\nenergies of mind; energies, however, which could be trained and directed\nonly in her presence.\n\nMan cannot live altogether in the altitudes. There were brief periods\nwherein Charter remembered the mad, drink-tainted trifler with lyrics\nand women. It had been a past, surely, filled with soul-murdering\nillusions. Those who had known him then, would have had to see him now\nto find faith. There had been letters about his recent books from men\nand women who had known him in the darker, less-spacious days. Failing\nto adjust this new and lusty spirit with the man they had known, they\nhad tried to bring a laugh from him and answers to futile questions.\n\nCharter could not forget that there come to the desk of a review-editor\nmany personal notices concerning one whose work is being talked about.\nIndeed, such are handled as a matter of routine. The Skylark could not\nbe expected always to wing aloof from these. All that was vague and\nindefinite did not matter; such might even be accounted as admirable\nspecializations in life, but his acquaintance had been prodigious, and\nmany clippings came home to him which he was not pleased to read....\nStill, in the main, he relied upon Paula's solid sense of justice; and\nevery fresh letter lifted him higher and higher. In his own letters, he\ndid not fail to incorporate a buffer against indefinite revelations.\nMoreover, he had never ceased to call it wonderful--this capacity, of\neven the purest women, to lock the doors against the ugliest\ngeneralities of a man's past, and to reckon only with specific\ninstances. It is here that the mother looks out through the eyes of a\nmaid.\n\nOne April morning, he encountered a depression more formidable in\nvitality than ever before. Beth had just had her shoes set, and Charter\ntried to ride off the blue devil. He steadied his mount out of town,\nuntil she struck the ringing country road. The instant she felt her\ncalks bite into the frosty turf, the mare flirted her head, took the\nbit, and became a veritable glowing battery of beautiful energy. Twelve\nmiles he gave her, but the blue devil rode equally well and sat down\nagain with Charter in his study. It was like a desert-island loneliness,\nthis which beset him, as if his ship were sinking into the horizon; only\nit was a more poignant than physical agony--a sense of spiritual\nisolation.\n\nThis study had become to him the place of his dearest revelations of\nlife. Here, of late especially, he had found refuge from every discord,\nand here invariably were opened the letters from the Skylark. The place\nof a man's work becomes a grand, quiet solace as he grows older, but\ncalm and poise were wrested from the room to-day. He fought the\ndepression with every trained faculty, but was whipped by it. Color and\nsunlight were gone from within; the zeal from future work, the warmth\nfrom every promise, the changing lustre from words, and the excellent\nenergy of thought which impels their weaving. Twilight in mid-afternoon.\nHe turned on the lights impatiently. Meaning and beauty were bereft from\nall his possessions, as buoyancy was gone from his own breast. There was\nsomething pitifully boyish in the trophies he had treasured--so much of\nthe college cub, and the youth who refuses to permit his travels to be\nforgotten. He regarded his past work, as one grown out of it, regretting\nthat it had ever attracted the materials of permanence. Smugness in his\nteachings; cold intellectuality brazen in all his attainments;\neverything about him suddenly become sinister from the old life!... He\nlooked into the East--his country of singing, of roses, cedars, and\nfountains--but the gray-black twilight was a damnable intervention....\nIt was in this spirit, or lack of it, that he wrote the letter which\nrevealed to Paula his inner responsiveness, as she was tossed in The\nHigh Tide.\n\nThe letter which she had written almost at the same time, reached him on\nthe second morning thereafter; and his suffering in the interval he\ncould only liken to one of the old sieges of reaction after dissipation.\nThe fine, angular writing, which he never regarded without a sense of\nthe darting swiftness of her hand; the thin, tough sheets that crinkled,\ncame like bounty to the starving; yet he was deathly afraid.\n\n     Something of the long ago has just come to me--to my very\n     rooms. It would not have been believed, had I sought it. I\n     might have endured it, if _you_ had told me. It is dreadful to\n     play with illusions. Oh, why must we keep our gods so far\n     away--lest we lose them? Had I waited longer, I could not have\n     written. It seems now that you have a right to know--before my\n     pride dries up all expression. You are not to blame--except\n     that you were very reckless in adding happinesses one upon the\n     other. It was all quite ridiculous. I trusted my\n     intuition--allowed myself to think of a table spread in the\n     wilderness of the world with you. My intuitions! I used to be\n     so proud of them. I see now that sometimes they're quite as\n     fallible as plain thinking, after all.\n\n     I always felt you alone. I seemed to know your voice after\n     centuries. Yes, I am sure it was that which affected me so\n     deeply in your work and made me answer your letters with such\n     faith. _I knew your voice._ I thought of you alone--your spirit\n     hungry.... It makes one feel so common, when one's intuitions\n     betray this way. The heart for writing further is cold and\n     heavy. Once, down the wind, came a fragrant pollen, but the\n     blowing summer is gone from my garden....\n\nNo signature.\n\nShe had not penned a skylark with a folded or broken wing. Charter sat\nthinking for several moments, but only because he knew there was ample\ntime to catch the noon-train for New York. That he should do this had\nformed in mind before he had read five lines of the letter. This thought\nof action steadied him; and the proof that he had sensed her agony and\nreflected it throughout the past forty-eight hours made the call of the\nEast instant and irresistible. It did not come to him at first that he\nwas now entering the greater conflict, for which Nature had trained him\nin tranquillity and fed his soul unto replenishment during three\nyears.... His first quick thought came out of old habits of mind: _An\nhour with her, and her heart will be healed!_ Here was the old trifler.\nHe suffered for this instant faltering of the brighter manhood. Man's\nfineness is not accentuated by the fact that a woman sacrifices her\npower within him, when she falls to pleading a little. Charter could\nhave torn out the old mental fibres upon which played the thought of her\nswiftly renewed happiness by his presence.\n\nThe reality of her suffering slowly penetrated his mind. He perceived\nthat she could not express the actuality; that her thoughts had winged\nineffectually about the immovable disorder--like bees over the clumsy\ncorpse of a rodent in the hive. It was not to be lifted, and the\ninspiration hermetically to seal the monster and resume activities as\nwell as possible, had not yet come.... \"I might have endured it, if\n_you_ had told me!\"\n\nHe wasted no energy trying to think exactly what had happened. It was\nall he could bear to grasp the full meaning that this inspiring creature\nwho had soared and sung so long, was crushed and cold. Every sentence in\nher letter revealed the bruise of her heart, the absence of\nspontaneity.... She was as different from other women he had known--the\nwomen who had been healed by his word or his caress--as he was different\nin this attraction. He telegraphed that he was coming, begged that she\nwould see him the following evening, and instructed her to leave word\nfor him at the _Granville_. Then he packed his bag and told his mother.\nShe laughed quietly.\n\n\"On the spur of the moment as usual, Quentin.... It will be good for\nyou. You've been home a long time. Are you going--beyond New York?\"\n\n\"I haven't a thought now of going farther, Mother,\" he answered....\n\nAgain twilight in mid-afternoon--as he crossed the river from Jersey. It\nhad been a day and night to age the soul--with its inexorable stretch of\nmaterial miles. New York had a different look, a different atmosphere,\nthan ever before. Huge and full of horrible grinding; sick with work and\nsick with damp--but above this, the magic of her presence was over all.\nIt was only four in the afternoon, and he had not asked to see her until\nseven. Might she not have watched for him or be near him now? She would\nknow him from his pictures, and observe him as a stranger, but he had\nonly his visions.\n\nOn the Cross-town to the _Granville_, emotions played upon him of a kind\nthat he could not have understood in another man a few months before.\nMoreover, he felt himself giving way before the vibrations of the big\ncity. Harried and shrunken, he was, like a youth from the fields; and\nthe voice he had raised so valiantly from afar against this tremendous\nmassed soul, seemed now but the clamor of a boy in the safety of his own\ndoor. To and fro along his inflamed nerves crept the direct need of a\ndrink and a cigarette--old wolves forever on the watch for the spent and\nthe wounded.... Actually terrorized, he was, at the thought she might\nnot see him; that there might be no note for him at the _Granville_.\nWhat a voyage in the dark.\n\nFor the time, his excellent moral balance had deserted shamelessly. An\nadequate perception of his own position and attitude in the eyes of high\nwomanhood had unhelmed him, quite properly. Nature had finally found a\nhot retort which just fitted his case--and in he went.... No purely\nphysical ardor could have called Quentin Charter out of his study and\nfar across the continent. Lesser loves than this have plunged nations\ninto war, and broken the main trend of history into pregnant\ndigressions. The more penetratingly one regards the man in his present\nconsuming, the more formidable becomes the conviction that the human\ncosmos in the beginning was cleft in twain: one to grope to the light, a\nmale; the other to suffer the way, her burden, the curse of Eve. When\nthese mates of fire fulfil their divided destinies and sweep into the\nzone of mutual attraction, woe to the satellites and asteroids in the\ninevitable cataclysm which follows.... Yet it is out of such solar\nthroes that gods and prophets are born.... He gave his bag to a boy at\nthe _Granville_ entrance, and stepped forward to the desk, clearing his\nthroat and repeating his question.... The clerk rushed through the\nletters in \"C.\"\n\n\"No, Mr. Charter,--not a letter, but wait just a moment; there was a\ntelephone-call.\"\n\nA chill had swept through him as the man spoke. It had not occurred to\nhim that the word would come in other than her handwriting. This was an\nunsigned note, written by the telephone-girl:\n\n     Mr. Quentin Charter: A lady who says you will understand,\n     'phoned that she will be home at seven to-night--if you think\n     it wise and kind to come to her.\n\nThe message was dated at two P. M. Both chill and burning were in the\nwords. It was strangely unlike her; yet in passing through the\noperator's mind, it might have become routine. The word \"kind\" was a\ntorturing curb. It placed him on ugly quaking ground. How weak, how\nancient and commonplace, is the human lord after all, when in doubt\nregarding his lady's reception of him! Where is his valor now, his\ntaking of cities, his smiling deaths for honor? Most of all times, he is\nman, the male; not man, the soul. Half-way out on the surface-car, he\ndiscovered one of the big \"Selma Cross\" bill-boards. It was intimate,\nstartling, an evil omen--great black letters out of the deathless\npast.... He stood on the fourth floor of the _Zoroaster_. The\nelevator-man had shown him a certain door which was slightly ajar. He\nwas ill, breathless, and his heart sank strangely with the lights in the\nshaft from the descending car.... He tapped on the designated door, and\na deep melodious voice, instantly identified with ancient abandonments,\ncalled gently:\n\n\"Come in!\"\n\n\n\n\nFIFTEENTH CHAPTER\n\nQUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW BATTLE-GROUND, EACH\nLEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS\n\n\nCharter was seized with vertigo. It was his sorry thought that the old\nscar-tissues, however bravely they sufficed in the days of easy-going,\ncould not endure a crux like this. But he was wrong. It was the shock to\nhis spirit, which made of Selma Cross a giantess of vague outlines in a\nroom filled with swimming objects. Need for the woman of his visions had\nculminated in the outer hall. In the substitution there was an inner\nwrench, which to one of Charter's intense concentration was like a\nstroke; and then, too, the horrible outburst of energy in adjusting the\nSkylark spirit to the eminent flesh of this old plaything of his, left\nhim drained. He steadied himself into the music-room, and sank into a\ndeep chair, where his heart pumped furiously, but light and empty, as if\nit could not grip the blood locked in his veins.\n\nHe sat in a sort of trance, glimpses of many thoughts running through\nhis brain. He deserved punishment. That was all very well, but something\nwas wrong here. The premonition became a reality in his consciousness\nthat he had entered upon a great desert; that he was to endure again one\nof his terrible thirsts; not a throat-thirst alone, but a soul-thirst.\nIn the atmosphere of the woman, in the very odor of the room, he felt\nthe old impassioned lyric-maker crush back into the dominance of his\nmind with all the impish exultation of that lower self. Pride asserted\nitself now. What an idiot passage in the career of a rising writer! He\nshould always remember with shame this coming to New York--a youthful\nMarius in whose veins was injected mid-summer madness--coming to this\ncity (where dollar-work is king and plumaged-woman queen) with an\nabortive conception from garret dreams.... A strong white light fell\nupon the leather cover of her reading-table, but their faces were in\nshadow, like the hundred actor faces in photograph upon the wall and\nmantel. Selma Cross was studying him keenly. The emptiness of it all was\nso pervading--as his blood began to move again--that he laughed aloud.\n\n\"Do you know,\" Selma Cross said softly, \"I thought at first you had been\ndrinking too much. I hardly knew you otherwise, remember. Shall I tell\nyou what added thought came to me, as you crossed the floor so\nunsteadily--looking so white?\"\n\n\"Locomotor ataxia, I suppose. I hear it is getting quite the thing for\nmiddle-generation New Yorkers.... I expected to see you a little later\nin your new play, but not here--to-night----\"\n\n\"That is what I thought--that incurable thing. You seem floored. I\ndidn't know a woman could do that. In the old days, you were\nadaptable--if nothing else.\"\n\nHis collar felt tight, and he stretched it out, needing more air in his\nlungs and more blood in his brain. It was clear enough to him now how\nSkylark had been stricken. The real devastation was that she belonged to\nthis sort of thing at all; that she could consent to this trick, this\ntrap. It was all so different from the consummate fineness, the\npervading delicacy, of all Skylark thoughts. Having consented to the\ntrick, _might she not be listening_?... He did not mind her hearing;\nindeed, he might say things which were needful for her to know--but that\nshe should listen! He writhed. This was not his Skylark at all.... It\nwas hardly Charter's way now to plunge into the centre of things. There\nwas a feline elegance in the manner and movement of Selma Cross; she\nseemed so delightfully at ease, that he was willing to make it a bit\nharder for her.\n\n\"I suppose I was more adaptable formerly,\" he said slowly. \"It is\nsomething, however, suddenly to encounter an old friend who has made\ngood so fearfully and tremendously in the past week. Of course, I had\nread all about it. Still, I repeat it was an experience to encounter\nyour stardom actually on the boards; and more of an experience to find\nyou here. I'm really very glad that you secured the one great vehicle.\nAs for your work--few know its quality better than I.\"\n\nShe studied him long, her eyes glowing behind the narrowed lids. \"As for\nthat, you've been biting the flaky top-crust, too,\" she said finally. \"I\nnever doubted what you could do in your game, but I confess I feared\nthat whiskey would beat you to it.... Do you know you are wonderfully\nchanged--so white, so lean? Your work has come to me since you went\naway; what else have you been doing?--I mean, to change you so finely.\"\n\n\"Garret.\"\n\nHer brow clouded at the word. It was as if she had expected to laugh at\nhim long before this. \"Did any woman ever tell you that you're rather a\nmean sort, Quentin Charter?\"\n\n\"Doubtless I have deserved it,\" he answered. \"What are you thinking?\"\n\n\"I was thinking of your garret--where you gather your victims for\nvivisection.\"\n\n\"That's put very clearly.\"\n\n\"Do you think this is big-man stuff?\"\n\n\"My case is rather an ugly one to look back upon, truly,\" Charter\ngranted. \"For a long time, it appeared to me that I must learn things at\nfirst-hand. With first-water talents, perhaps this is not necessary.\"\n\n\"A woman finally brings a man face to face,\" she said with sudden scorn,\n\"and he becomes limp, agrees with everything she says.... 'Yes, it is\nquite true, I was an awful beast. What else, dear?'--ugh!\"\n\nCharter smiled. She was very swift and deft in supplying a man's evil\nmotives. It is a terrible feminine misfortune--this gift of\nimputing--and happy women do not possess it. Few men, incidentally, are\ndeep enough to avail themselves of all the crafts and cunnings with\nwhich they may be accredited.\n\n\"I have no intention of destroying the slightest gratification you may\ndraw, Selma, from questioning me,\" he said. \"If I appear limp, please\nremember that I'm a bit in the dark as yet. I came to this floor on a\ndifferent errand. I had this errand in mind--not self-examination.\nHowever, I'll attend now in all sincerity. You were speaking of my\nvictims for vivisection in the garret.\"\n\nShe appeared not to trust him in the least. \"I've always wanted\nto know if you believed--what an apprentice I really was in\nlove--give-and-take--when you came?\"\n\n\"That was easily believed, Selma----\"\n\n\"Then you grant I wasn't acting--when I gave myself to you?\"\n\n\"I didn't think you were acting----\"\n\n\"Then _you_ were acting, because when the time came--you dropped me\nquite as easily as you would drop a street-cur you had been pleased to\nfeed.\"\n\n\"Just there you are a bit in error. I was furiously interested, and\ncertainly not acting altogether, until----\"\n\n\"Enter--the wine,\" she said with a sneer.\n\n\"Yes, if you will.\" He was irritated for a second, having meant to say\nsomething entirely different.\n\n\"A woman so loves to hear that a man's passion for her depends upon his\ndrinking!\"\n\n\"I have always been very fond of and grateful to you. It was the whole\nlife that the drinking carried me into--that I had such horror for when,\nwhen I became well.\"\n\n\"You got well very suddenly after you left me,\" she told him. Her huge\nface was livid, and her lips dry.\n\n\"On the contrary, I was a long time ill.\" Her temper chilled his\nattempts at sincerity.\n\n\"It looked so from those first few--letters, is rather a dignified\nword.\"\n\n\"I say it with shame, I was practically unable to write. I was burnt out\nwhen I left here. I had been to Asia--gone from home seven months--and\nthe returning fool permitted the bars to welcome him----\"\n\n\"You seized a moment to dictate a letter----\"\n\n\"Silence would have been far better,\" he said. \"I see that now. My only\nidea was to let you hear. Writing myself was out of the question by that\ntime.\"\n\n\"You wrote an article about stage people--with all the loftiness of an\nanaemic priest.\"\n\n\"That was written before I left here--written and delivered----\"\n\n\"All the worse, that you could write such an article--while you were\nspending so much time with me.\"\n\n\"I have never belittled what you gave me, Selma. I could praise you,\nwithout admiring the stage. You are amazingly different. I think that's\nwhy New York is talking about you to-night. I had made many trips to New\nYork and knew many stage people, before I met you. If you had belonged\nto the type familiar to me, I should have needed a stronger stimulus\nthan drink to force an interest. Had there been others like you--had I\neven encountered 'five holy ones in the city'--I should not have written\nthat stage article, or others before it.\"\n\n\"You were one with the Broadway Glowworms, Quentin Charter. Few of them\ndrank so steadily as you.\"\n\n\"I have already told you that for a long time I was an unutterable fool.\nUntil three years ago, I did not begin to know--the breath of life.\"\n\nSelma Cross arose and paced the room, stretching out her great arms from\ntime to time as she walked. \"You're getting back your glibness,\" she\nexclaimed, \"your quick little sentences which fit in so nicely! Ah, I\nknow them well, as other women are learning them. But I have things\nwhich you cannot answer so easily--you of the garret penances.... You\nfind a starved woman of thirty--play with her for a fortnight, showing\nher everything that she can desire, and seeming to have no thought, but\nof her. I discover that there was not a moment in which you were so\nardent that you forgot to be an analyst. I forgive that, as you might\nforgive things in my day's work. You put on your gray garret-garb, and\nforget the hearts of my people, to uncover their weaknesses before the\nworld--you, so recently one of us, and none more drunk or drained with\nthe dawn--than you! Such preaching is not good to the nostrils, but I\nforgive that. You are sick, and even the drink won't warm you, so you\nleave me at a moment's notice----\"\n\n\"There was another reason.\"\n\n\"Hear me out, first,\" she commanded.... \"To you, it is just, 'Adios, my\ndear'; to me, it is an uprooting--oh, I don't mind telling you. I was\noverturned in that furrow, left naked for the long burning day, but I\nremembered my work--the work you despise! I, who had reason to know how\nnoble your pen can be, forgave even those first paltry letters, filled\nwith excuses such as a cheap clerk might write. I forgave the dictation,\nbecause it said you were ill--forgave the silences.... But when you came\nto New York six months afterwards, and did not so much as 'phone or send\nme a card of greeting--Selma called in her silly tears.\"\n\n\"It was vile ingratitude,\" he said earnestly. \"That's where my big fault\nlay. I wonder if you would try to understand the only palliation. You\nwere strangely generous and wonderful in your ways. I did not cease to\nthink of that. Personally, you are far above the things I came to abhor.\nNo one understands but the victim, what alcohol does to a man when it\ngets him down. I tried to kill myself. I became convalescent literally\nby force. Slowly approaching the normal again, I was glad enough to\nlive, but the horrors never leave the mind entirely. Everything\nconnected with the old life filled me with shuddering fear. I tell you\nno one hates alcohol like a drunkard fresh in his reform.\"\n\n\"But I did not make you drink,\" she said impatiently. \"I'm not a\ndrink-loving woman.\"\n\nCharter's face flushed. The interview was becoming a farce. It had been\nagony for him to make this confession. She would not see that he\nrealized his ingratitude; that it was his derangement caused by\nindulging low propensities which made him identify her with the days of\nevil.\n\n\"I know that very well, Selma Cross,\" he said wearily, \"but the stage is\na part of that old life, that sick night-life that runs eternally around\nthe belt-line.\"\n\nShe hated him for reverting to this point. Holding fast to what she\nstill had to say, the actress picked up a broken thread. \"You said there\nwas another reason why you left New York so suddenly.\"\n\nCharter expected now to learn if any one were listening. He was cold\nwith the thought of the interview being weighed in the balances of a\nthird mind.\n\n\"You've made a big point of my going away,\" he essayed. \"The other\nreason is not a pretty matter, and doubtless you will call any\nrepugnance of mine an affectation----\"\n\n\"Repugnance--what do you mean?\" she asked savagely, yet she was afraid,\nafraid of his cool tongue. \"I never lied to you.\"\n\n\"That may be true. I'm not curious for evidence to the contrary. The day\nbefore I left for the West, a friend told me that you and I were being\nwatched; that all our movements were known. I didn't believe it; could\nnot see the sense--until it was proved that same night by the devious\nwalk we took.... You doubtless remember the face of that young\nnight-bird whom we once laughed about. We thought it just one of those\ncoincidences which frequently occur--a certain face bobbing up\neverywhere for a number of days. I assured myself that night that you\nknew nothing of this remarkable outside interest in our affairs.\"\n\nSelma Cross, with swift stealth, disappeared into the apartment-hall and\nclosed the outer door; then returned, facing him. Her yellow eyes were\nwide open, filled with a misty, tortured look. To Charter the place and\nthe woman had become haggard with emptiness. He missed the occasional\nclick of the elevator in the outer-hall, for it had seemed to keep him\nin touch with the world's activities. The old carnal magnetism of Selma\nCross stirred not a tissue in him now; the odor of her garments which\nonce roused him, was forbidding. He had not the strength to believe that\nthe door had been shut for any other reason than to prevent Skylark from\nhearing. The actress had not minded how their voices carried, so long as\n_he_ was being arraigned.... The air was devitalized. It was as if they\nwere dying of heart-break--without a sound.... It had been so\nwonderful--this thought of finding his mate after the aeons, his\ncompletion--a woman beautiful with soul-age and spiritual light....\n\nSelma Cross was speaking. Charter stirred from his great trouble. She\nwas changed, no longer the clever mistress of a dramatic hour.... Each\nwas so burdened with a personal tragedy that pity for the other was slow\nto warm between them.\n\n\"Do you mean that old Villiers paid the night-bird to watch us--to learn\nwhere we went, and possibly what we said?\" she was saying hoarsely.\nSelma Cross felt already that her cad was exploded.\n\n\"Yes, and that was unpleasant,\" Charter told her. \"I didn't like the\nfeel of that procurer's eyes, but what revolted me was Villiers himself.\nI took pains to learn his name the next day--that last day. There isn't\na more unclean human package in New York.... It was so unlike you. I\ncouldn't adjust the two. I couldn't be where he had been. I was sick\nwith my own degradation. I went back to my garret.\"\n\nSelma Cross was crippled; she saw there was no lie in this. At what a\nprice had been bought the restoration of faith for Paula Linster!... She\nhad heard after their compact about Villiers' early days. There had been\ntimes when her fingers itched to tighten upon his scrawny throat. To\nhave Quentin Charter hear this record was fire in her veins; it embraced\nthe added horror that Stephen Cabot might also hear.... There was\nnothing further with which to charge the man before her. She nursed her\nwrath to keep from crying out.\n\n\"Was it a man's way to give me no chance to explain?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Broadway knew Villiers.\"\n\n\"I did not!\"\n\n\"Anyway, I couldn't get it straight in my mind, then,\" Charter said\nhastily. \"You're no vulgar woman, mad after colors and dollars. You love\nyour work too much to be one of those insatiable deserts of passion. Nor\nare you a creature of black evolution who prefers the soul, to the body\nof man, for a plaything.... You were all that was generous and normally\nfervent with me.... Let's cut the subject. It does not excuse me for not\ncalling when I came to New York. You were nothing if not good to me.\"\n\n\"Then Villiers paid to find out things about us,\" she said slowly. \"He\nsaid you bragged about such matters to your friends.\"\n\nCharter shivered. \"I fail to see how you troubled about a man not\nwriting--if you could believe that about him.\"\n\n\"I didn't see how he could know our places of meeting--any other way. I\nshould never have seen him again, if he hadn't made me believe this of\nyou.\"\n\nCharter scarcely heard her. The thought was inevitable now that the\nactress might have represented him to Skylark as one with the loathed\nhabit of talking about women to his friends. The quick inclination to\ninquire could not overcome his distaste for mentioning a dear name in\nthis room. The radiant, flashing spirit behind the letters did not\nbelong here.... His brain ached with emptiness; he wondered continually\nhow he could ever fill the spaces expanded by the Skylark's singing....\n\nIn the brain of Selma Cross a furious struggle was joined. Never before\nhad she been given to see so clearly her own limitations--and this in\nthe high light of her great dramatic triumph. Her womanhood contained\nthat mighty quality of worshiping intellect. This, she had loved in\nCharter long ago; in Stephen Cabot now. The inner key to her greatness\nwas her capacity to forget the animal in man--if he proved a brain.\nThere is only one higher reverence--that of forgetting brain to worship\nsoul. Perceiving the attitude of Quentin Charter to her old life, it was\nmade clear to her that she must preserve a lie in her relation with\nStephen Cabot; if, indeed, the playwright did not learn outside, as\nCharter had done. It was plain that he did not know yet, since he had\nnot run from her--to a garret somewhere. What a hideous mockery was this\nnight--begun in pride! Distantly she was grateful that Paula Linster was\nat hand to be restored, but her own mind was whipped and cowed by its\nthoughts--so there was little energy for another's romance.... Charter\nhad made no comment on her last remark. She realized now that his\nthoughts were bearing him close to the truth.\n\n\"You say they forced you to cast out your enemy,\" she declared hoarsely.\n\"I cast out mine of my own accord. If there is palliation for you, there\nshould be for a woman in her first experience. You asked me to stretch\nmy imagination about a drink-reaction making you avoid me. I ask you,\nhow is a woman, for the first time alone with a man--to know that he is\ndifferent from other men? Add to this, a woman who has come up from the\ndregs--for years in the midst of the slum-blooms of the chorus? What I\nheard from them of their nights--would have taxed the versatility of\neven Villiers--to make me see him lower than I expected! I ask you--how\ndid I know he was an exception--rather than the rule among the\nGlowworms?\"\n\n\"I'm rather glad you said that,\" Charter declared quickly. \"It's a point\nof view I'm grateful for. Do you wonder that the life from which you\nhave risen to one of the regnant queens has become inseparable in my\nmind with shuddering aversion?\"\n\nIn the extremity of her suffering, her mind had reverted, as an artist's\nalways does when desperately pressed, to thoughts of work--work, the\nhealer, the refuge where devils truly are cast out. Even in her work she\nnow encountered the lash, since Charter despised it. Literally, she was\nat bay before him.\n\n\"Always that!\" she cried. \"It is detestable in you always to blame my\nwork. I broke training. I should have won without the damned angel. You\ndegraded yourself for years in your work, but I don't hear you blaming\nart for your debaucheries! You have sat alone so long that you think all\nmen outside are foul. You sit high in your attic, so that all men look\nlike bugs below!\"\n\n\"There is something in what you say,\" he answered, aroused by her\nbigness and strength. \"Yet in my garret, I do not deal with rootless\nabstractions. Everything has its foundation in actual observation. I\nmoved long among the play-managers, and found them men of\nhuckster-minds--brainless money-bags, dependent upon every passing wind\nof criticism. I tell you, when one talked to them or to their\noffice-apes--one felt himself, his inner-self, rushing forth as if to\nfill something bottomless----\"\n\n\"You do not know Vhruebert----\"\n\n\"Eliminate him. I am not speaking of any particular man. I do not mean\nall playwrights when I say that I found playwrights as a class, not\nliterary workers--but literary tricksters. I am not speaking of _The\nThing_, nor of its author, of whom I have heard excellent word--when I\nsay that plays are not written, but rewritten by elementals, who,\nthrough their sheer coarseness, sense the slow vibrations of the mob,\nand feculate the original lines to suit.\"\n\n\"Bah--an idea from one of your nights, when you tried to drown the blue\ndevils! It broods over all your thinking! You forget the great army,\nthat silent army, which is continually lifting itself artistically by\nwriting one after another--impossible plays. You forget the great hearts\nof the players--men and women who pull together for big results.\"\n\n\"I am not speaking of the vast library of manuscript failures, but of a\nsmall proportion which get into the sinister glare of Broadway----\"\n\n\"My God, Broadway is not New York!\"\n\n\"For which I am powerfully glad,\" he answered with energy. \"As for warm\nhuman hearts--there is warmth and loyalty, genuine tears and decent\nhopes in every brothel and bar--yet the black trends of their existence\ncourse on. This was so hard for me to learn, that I have it very\nclearly.... I remember the opening night of Martha Boardman as a\nstar--telegrams pouring in, critics besieging her dressing-room. Even\nher manager didn't know what he had, until the critics told him the play\nwould stay in New York a year--yet his name was on the boards above the\nstar and bigger than the author's. I watched the bleak, painted faces of\nthe women and heard their false voices acclaiming the new star. What\nthey had in their hearts was not praise, but envy. Their words were\nsham, indecency and lying. Eternally simulating--that's the stage life.\nPity the women--poor Maachas, if you will--but their work is damnable,\nnevertheless. It is from such unhappy creatures evading motherhood that\nyouths get the abominable notion that real manhood lies in the loins.\"\n\n\"Poor youths--go on! When you have finished I shall tell you something.\"\n\n\"Don't misunderstand me, Selma Cross. No one knows better than I--how\nthe sexes prey upon each other--how they drag each other to the ground.\nOnly I was thinking of the poor things in ties, canes, cigarettes and\ncoatings--out catching!... I saw the whole horrid, empty game of the\nstage. You have come wonderfully and differently into the glare, but let\nme ask where is Martha Boardman to-night--a few short years later?\"\n\n\"Yes, she was tired, her energy burned out, when she finally arrived.\nIt's a stiff grade,\" Selma Cross said gently.\n\n\"I would explain it, that she was prostituted from _excessive\nsimulation_--season after season of simulation--emotion after emotion\nfalse to herself! The Law says, 'Live your own life.' The Stage says,\n'Act mine,'--so pitiably often a poor playwright's abortive sensations!\nWhat can happen to a body that continually makes of itself a lying\ninstrument? Like the queen-bee whose whole life is made up of\negg-laying--the brain of this poor purveyor of emotions becomes a waxy\npulp. As for her soul--it is in God's hands--let us hope.\"\n\n\"It is good to laugh at you, Quentin Charter. You have another appetite.\nYou wanted alcohol when I knew you first--now you thirst after purists\nand winged women. I have a lover now who can live among men, soar just\nas high as you do, work with just as much greatness and strength,\nwithout ever having degraded himself or believed all human creatures\nvile. The stage has its shams, its mockeries, but its glories, too. It\nis not all deranged by money-bags. The most brilliant of your writers\ngive us our lines--the most wonderful of your mystics. It is true we\nsimulate; true that ours is a constant giving; but call in your\ngarret-high logic now, Sir Prophet: Look at the tired empty faces of my\ncompany, look at mine, after we have finished _The Thing_; then look at\nthe strengthened grip on life and the lifted hopes which, each night,\nthe multitude takes from out our breasts--and call ours a prostitution,\nif you can!\"\n\nCharter arose and extended his hand, which she took gracelessly, but was\ninstantly sorry that she had misjudged his intent.\n\n\"Can't you see, Selma Cross, that you and I have no difference, no point\nfor argument, if the general run of plays were like _The Thing_--as you\nmake me see it? We had eliminated this from the discussion, but I have\nnothing but praise for Vhruebert, nothing but enthusiasm for Mr. Cabot\nand for you--if the combination gives the people an expansion of hope\nand a lifted ideal. Do that, and you need not reckon with critics.\"\n\nInstantly she changed her point of view again, so that he was both\nchilled and puzzled. \"I should have been glad to come out in any\nsuccessful play,\" she said wearily. \"_The Thing_ just happens to have an\nuplift----\"\n\n\"So much is accomplished for you, then. You will never be content again\nwith a play that has not. Oh, I don't mean ostensible good,\nmelodramatically contrasted with obvious bad, but the subtle inspiration\nof real artists--that marvellous flexibility of line and largeness of\nmeaning that fits about every life! Just as you can draw fresh strength\nagain and again from a great poem; so, in performing a great play--one\ndoes not act, but lives!\"\n\n\"Are you going?\" she questioned absently.\n\n\"Yes, I confess I haven't been so consumed in years----\"\n\nShe drew close to him.... \"It has been dramatic, if not literary, hasn't\nit?\" Her nostrils dilated and her lower lip was drawn back between her\nteeth.\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\"I feel burnt out, too,\" she went on softly. \"It has been strange\nto be with you again--almost like--those early mornings.... Did you\never hear me calling you--'way off there in the West? I used to lie\nawake, all feverish after you went away, calling in a whisper,\n'Quentin--Quentin!...' It seemed you must come, if you were alive. There\nwere times after you went away, that I would have given this week's\nvictory, which I saw from afar,--to have you rush in for just one\nhour!... In God's name,\" she cried suddenly, \"is there really this sort\nof honor in living man--is it because you hate me--or do you have to\ndrink to take a woman in your arms? You, who used to be--singing\nflames?\"\n\nCharter was not unattracted, but his self-command was strangely\nimperious. There was magnetism now in the old passion--but a flutter of\nwings broke the attraction.... Darkness covered the wings, and the song\nwas stilled; yet in that faint rustling, was enchantment which changed\nto brute matter--these open arms and the rising breast.\n\n\"I'm afraid it is as you said--about the anaemic priest,\" he muttered\nlaughingly.... And then it occurred to him that there might have been a\ntrick to her tempting.... From this point he was sexless and could pity\nher, though his nerves were raw from her verbal punishments. It was\naltogether new in his experience--this word-whipping; and though he had\nnot sharpened a sentence in retaliation, he could not but see the\nghastly way in which a woman is betrayed by her temper, which checks a\nman's passion like a sudden fright. Between a woman given to rages and\nher lover--lies a naked sword. Consummate, in truth, is the siren who\nhas mastered the art of silence.... Selma Cross sank back into a chair.\nThe world's wear was on her brow and under her eyes, as she laughed\nbitterly.\n\n\"You always had a way of making me sick of life,\" she said strangely. \"I\nwonder if ever there was a humiliation so artistically complete as\nmine?\"\n\nThis was another facet to the prism of the woman. Charter could not be\nquite certain as to her present intent, so frequently alternating had\nbeen the currents of her emotion during the interview. Typically an\nactress, she had run through her whole range of effects. He was not\nprepared yet to say which was trick, which reality; which was the woman,\nSelma Cross, or the tragedienne. He did not miss the thought that his\ntheory was amazingly strengthened here--the theory that moral\nderangement results from excessive simulation.\n\n\"You--would--not--kiss--me,\" she repeated. \"For my own sake, I'd like to\nbelieve--that you're trying to be true to some one,--but it's all rot\nthat there are men like that! It's because I no longer tempt you--you\nspook!\"\n\n\"You said you had a lover----\"\n\nShe shivered. \"You left me unfinished.\" There was a tragic plaint in her\ntone, and she added hastily, \"There was a reason for my trying you.... I\nthink the most corroding of the knives you have left in me to-night, is\nthat you have refused to ask why I brought you here--refused even to\nutter the name--of the woman you expected to see--_in my presence_....\nYou may be a man; you may be a cad; you may be a new appetite, or a God\nresurrected out of a Glowworm. I either hate or love you--or both--to\nthe point of death! Either way--remember this--I'll be square as a\ndie--to you and to my friend. You'll begin to see what I\nmean--to-morrow, I think....\"\n\nHe was at the door. \"Good-night,\" he said and touched the signal for the\nelevator.\n\nShe called him back, \"Come and see me--at my best--at the\n_Herriot_--won't you?\"\n\n\"Yes----\"\n\n\"But tell me what performance--and where your seat is----\"\n\n\"... Good-night.\"\n\nThe car stopped at the floor.\n\n\n\n\nSIXTEENTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT\nINTO THE NIGHT\n\n\nIt was after eight that Sunday night, when Paula emerged from the\nelevator in the upper-hall of the _Zoroaster_, and noted that the door\nof the Selma Cross apartment was ajar.... The interval since she had\nparted from the actress the evening before had been abundant with\nmisery. Almost, she had crossed the bay to visit the Reifferscheids;\nwould have done so, indeed, had she been able to 'phone her coming. Her\nrooms had become a dismal oppression; Bellingham haunted her\nconsciousness; there were moments when she was actually afraid there\nalone.\n\nAll Saturday night she had sleeplessly tossed, knowing that Quentin\nCharter was speeding eastward, and dreading the moment when he should\narrive in the city and find no welcoming note from her. She dared not be\nin her rooms after he was due to reach the _Granville_, lest he call her\nby telephone or messenger--and her purpose of not seeing him be\ndestroyed by some swift and salient appeal. She had waited until after\nthe hour in which he had asked to call, to be sure that this time he\nwould have given up all hope of seeing her. The prospect now of entering\nher apartment and remaining there throughout the night, challenged every\nounce of will-force she possessed....\n\nBattling with loneliness and bereavement, as she had been for hours,\nPaula was grateful to note, by the open door, that the actress was at\nhome, even though she had left her the evening before, hurt and\ndisappointed by the other's swift change of manner upon learning that\nQuentin Charter was to be in New York to-day.... It was with a startling\nbut indefinable emotion that she heard the man's voice now through the\nopen door. Stephen Cabot was there, she thought, as she softly let\nherself in to the place of ordeals, which her own flat had become.\n\nIn the dark and silence of the inner hall, the old enemy swept into her\nconsciousness--again the awful localizations of the preying force! The\nusual powers of mind scattered, as in war the pith of a capital's\ngarrisons rush forth to distant borders. By habit, her hand was upon the\nbutton, but she did not turn on light. Instead, she drew back, steeling\nher will to remember her name, her place in the world, her friends.\nHarshly driven, yet Paula repressed a cry, and fought her way out into\nthe main hall--as from the coiling suction of a maelstrom. Even in her\nterror, she could not but repress a swift sense of victory, in that she\nhad escaped from the vortex of attraction--her own rooms.\n\nThe man's voice reached her again, filled her mind with amazing\nresistance--so that the point of the occultist's will was broken.\nSuddenly, she remembered that she had once heard Stephen Cabot,\nprotesting that he was quite well--at the end of the first New York\nperformance of _The Thing_, and that his tones were inseparably\nidentified with his misfortune. The voice she heard now thrilled her\nlike an ancient, but instantly familiar, harmony. It was not Stephen\nCabot's. She stood at the open door, when the vehemence of Selma Cross,\nwho was now speaking, caused her to refrain from making her presence\nknown. The unspeakable possibility, suddenly upreared in her mind,\nbanished every formality. The full energies of her life formed in a\nprayer that she might be wrong, as Paula peered through the inner hall,\nand for the first time in the flesh glimpsed Quentin Charter.\n\nShe was standing before the elevator-shaft and had signaled for the car\neternities ago. Selma Cross was moving up and down the room within, but\nher words though faintly audible, had no meaning to the woman without.\nPaula's mind seemed so filled with sayings from the actress that there\nwas no room for the interpretation of a syllable further. One sentence\nof Charter's startled her with deadly pain.... She could wait no longer,\nand started to walk down. Half-way to the main-floor, the elevator sped\nupward to answer her bell.... She was very weak, and temptation was\nfiercely operative to return to her rooms, when she heard a slow, firm\nstep ascending the flight below. She turned from the stairs on the\nsecond floor, just as the huge, lean shoulders of Bellingham appeared on\nthe opposite side of the elevator-shaft.\n\nThe two faced without words. His countenance was livid, wasted, but his\neyes were of fire. Paula lost herself in their power. She knew only that\nshe must return with him. There was no place to go; indeed, to return\nwith him now seemed normal, rational--until the brightly-lit car rushed\ndown and stopped before them.\n\n\"Excuse me for keeping you waiting, Miss Linster,\" the elevator-man\nsaid, \"but I had to carry a message to the rear.\"\n\nIn the instantaneous break of Bellingham's concentration, Paula\nrecovered herself sufficiently to dart into the car.\n\n\"Down, if you please,\" she said hoarsely. \"The gentleman is going up.\"\n\nBellingham, who had started to follow, was stopped by the sliding-door.\nThe conductor called that he would be back directly, as his car slid\ndown.... In the untellable disorganization of mind, Paula knew for the\nmoment only this: she must reach the outer darkness instantly or expire.\nIn that swift drop to the main floor, and in the brief interval required\nto stop the car and slide the door, she endured all the agony of\ntightened fingers upon her throat. There was an ease in racing limbs, as\nshe sped across the tiles to the entrance, as a frightened child rushes\nfrom a dark room. She would die if the great door resisted--pictured it\nall before her hand touched the knob. She would turn, scream, and fall\nfrom suffocation. Her scream would call about her the horror that she\nfeared.\n\nThe big door answered, as it seemed, with a sort of leisurely dignity to\nher spasm of strength--and out under the rain-blurred lamps, she ran,\nready to faint if any one called, and continually horrified lest\nsomething pluck at her skirts--thus to Central Park West. An Eighth\nAvenue car was approaching, half a square above. To stand and wait, in\nthe fear lest Bellingham reach the corner in time for the car, assailed\nthe last of her vitality. It was not until she had boarded it, and was\nbeyond reach of a pedestrian on Cathedral Way, that she breathed as one\nwho has touched shore after the Rapids. Still, every south-bound cab\nrenewed her panic. She could have made time to South Ferry by changing\nto the Elevated, but fear of encountering the Destroyer prevented this.\nFully three-quarters of an hour was used in reaching the waiting-room,\nwhere she was fortunate in catching a Staten Island boat without delay.\nEvery figure that crossed the bridge after her, until the big ferry put\noff, Paula scrutinized; then sank nearly fainting into a seat.\n\nBellingham's plot was clear to her mind, as well as certain elements of\nhis craft to obviate every possibility of failure. He had doubtless seen\nher enter the house, and timed his control to dethrone her volition as\nshe reached her rooms. Since the elevator-man would not have taken him\nup, without word from her, Bellingham had hastened in and started up the\nstairs when the car was called from the main floor. His shock at finding\nher in the second-hall was extraordinary, since he was doubtless\nstruggling with the entire force of his concentration, to hold her in\nthe higher apartment and to prepare her mind for his own reception. It\nwas that moment that the elevator-man had saved her; yet, she could not\nforget how the voice of Quentin Charter had broken the magician's power\na moment before; and it occurred to her now how wonderfully throughout\nher whole Bellingham experience, something of the Westerner's spirit had\nsustained her in the crises--Quentin Charter's book that first night in\nPrismatic Hall; Quentin Charter's letter to which she had clung during\nthe dreadful interview in the Park....\n\nAs for Quentin Charter rushing immediately to the woman of lawless\nattractions, because he had not received the hoped-for note at the\n_Granville_--in this appeared a wantonness almost beyond belief. Wearily\nshe tried to put the man and his base action entirely out of mind. And\nSelma Cross, whose animation had been so noticeable when informed of\nCharter's coming, had fallen beneath the reach of Paula's emotions....\nShe could pity--with what a torrential outpouring--could she pity \"that\nfinest, lowest head!\"\n\nShe stepped out on deck. The April night was inky-black. All day there\nhad been a misty rain from which the chill of winter was gone. The\ndampness was sweet to breathe and fresh upon her face. The smell of\nocean brought up from the subconscious, a thought already in tangible\nformation there. The round clock in the cabin forward had indicated\nnine-forty-five. It seemed more like another day, than only an hour and\na half ago, that she had caught the Eighth Avenue car at Cathedral Way.\nThe ferry was nearing the Staten slip. In a half-hour more, she would\nreach Reifferscheid's house. Her heart warmed with gratitude for a\nfriend to whom she could say as little or as much as she pleased, yet\nfind him, heart and home, at her service. One must be terrified and know\nthe need of a refuge in the night to test such values. A few hours\nbefore, she had rejected the thought of going, because a slight\nformality had not been attended to. Hard pressed now, she was seeking\nhim in the midst of the night.... At the mention of the big man's name,\nthe conductor on the Silver Lake car took her in charge, helped her off\nat the right road, and pointed out the Reifferscheid light. Thus she\nfelt her friend's kindness long before she heard the big elms whispering\nover his cottage. The front-window was frankly uncurtained, and the\neditor sat within, soft-shirted and eminently comfortable beside a\ngreen-shaded reading-lamp. She even saw him drop his book at her step\nupon the walk. A moment later, she blinked at him laughingly, as he\nstood in the light of the wide open doorway.\n\n\"Properly 'Driven From Home,' I suppose I should be tear-stained and in\nshawl and apron,\" she began.\n\nHe laughed delightedly, and exclaimed: \"How could Father be so\nobdurate--alas, a-a-las! Lemme see, this is a fisherman's hut on the\nmoors, or a gardener's lodge on the shore. Anyway, it's good to have you\nhere.... Annie!\"\n\nHe took her hat and raincoat, wriggling meanwhile into a coat of his\nown, arranged a big chair before the grate, then removed her rubbers.\nNot a question did he ask, and Sister Annie's greeting presently, from\nher chair, was quite the same--as if the visit and the hour were exactly\nin order.\n\n\"You'll stay a day or two, won't you?\" he asked. \"Honestly, I don't like\nthe way they treat you up there beyond the Park.... It will be fine\nto-morrow. This soft rain will make Mother Earth turn over and take an\neye-opener----\"\n\n\"The truth is, I want to stay until there's a ship for the Antilles,\"\nshe told him, \"and I don't know when the first one goes.\"\n\n\"I hope it's a week at least,\" he said briskly. \"The morning papers are\nhere with all the sailings. A sea-voyage will do you a world of good,\nand Europe doesn't compare with a trip to the Caribbean.\"\n\n\"Just you two--and one other--are to know,\" Paula added nervously.\n\nReifferscheid had gathered up a bundle of papers, and was turning pages\nswiftly. \"There isn't a reason in the world why everybody should know,\"\nhe remarked lightly, \"only you'd better be Lottie or Daisy\nWhats-her-name, as the cabin lists of all outgoing ships are available\nto any one who looks.\"\n\n\"Tim will be delighted to make everything easy for you,\" Sister Annie\nput in.\n\nThus mountains dissolved. The soulful accord and the instant sympathy\nwhich sprang to meet her every word, and the valor behind it all, so\nsolid as to need no explanation--were more than Paula could bear....\nReifferscheid looked up from his papers, finding that she did not speak,\nstarted with embarrassment, and darted to the buffet. A moment later he\nhad given her a glass of wine and vanished from the room with an armful\nof newspapers. The door had no sooner closed upon him than Paula\ndiscovered the outstretched arms of Sister Annie. In the several moments\nwhich followed her heart was healed and soothed through a half-forgotten\nluxury....\n\n\"The twin-screw liner, _Fruitlands_,--do you really want the first?\"\nReifferscheid interrupted himself, when he was permitted to enter later.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, it sails in forty-eight hours, or a little less--Savannah,\nSantiago de Cuba, San Juan de Porto Rico--and down to the little\nAntilles--Tuesday night at ten o'clock at the foot of Manhattan.\"\n\n\"That will do very well,\" Paula said, \"and I'd like to go straight to\nthe ship from here--if you'll----\"\n\n\"Berth--transportation--trunks--and sub-let your flat, if you like,\"\nReifferscheid said as gleefully as a boy invited for a week's hunt.\n\"Why, Miss Linster, I am the original arrangement committee.\"\n\n\"You have always been wonderful to me,\" Paula could not help saying,\nthough it shattered his ease. \"This one other who must know is Madame\nNestor. She'll take care of my flat and pack things for me--if you'll\nget a message to her in the morning when you go over. I don't expect to\nbe gone so long that it will be advisable to sub-let.\"\n\n\"Which is emphatically glad tidings,\" Reifferscheid remarked hastily.\n\n\"You'll want all your summer clothes,\" said Sister Annie. \"Tim will see\nto your trunks.\"\n\n\"Sometime, I'll make it all plain,\" Paula tried to say steadily. \"It's\njust been life to me--this coming here--and knowing that I could come\nhere----\"\n\n\"Miss Linster,\" Reifferscheid broke in, \"I don't want to have to\ndisappear again. The little things you need done, I'd do for any one in\nthe office. Please bear in mind that Sister Annie and I would be\nhurt--if you didn't let us do them. Why, we belong--in a case like this.\nIncidentally, you are doing a bully thing--to take a sail down past that\ntoy-archipelago. They say you can hear the parakeets screeching out from\nthe palm-trees on the shore, and each island has a different smell of\nspice. It will be great for you--rig you out with a new set of wings.\nYou must take Hearn along. I've got his volume here on the West Indies.\nHe'll tell you the color of the water your ship churns. Each day farther\nsouth it's a different blue----\"\n\nSo he jockeyed her into laughing, and she slept long and dreamlessly\nthat night, as she had done once before in the same room.... The second\nnight following, Reifferscheid put her aboard the _Fruitlands_.\n\n\"It's good you thought of taking your cabin under a borrowed name,\nMiss--er--Wyndam--Miss Laura Wyndam,\" he said in a low voice, for the\npassengers were moving about. \"I'll write you all about it. You have\nfamous friends. Selma Cross, who is playing at the _Herriot_, wanted to\nknow where you were. I thought for a minute she was going to throw me\ndown and take it away from me. Quentin Charter, by the way, is in town\nand asked about you. Seemed depressed when I told him you were out of\ntown, and hadn't sent your address to me yet. I told him and Miss Cross\nthat mail for you sent to _The States_ would get to you eventually. Both\nsaid they would write--so you'll hear from them on the ship that follows\nthis.\" He glanced at her queerly for a second, and added, \"Good-by, and\na blessed voyage to you, Tired Lady. Write us how the isles bewitch you,\nand I'll send you a package of books every ship or two----\"\n\n\"Good-by--my first of friends!\"\n\nTwo hours afterward Paula took a last turn on deck. The spray swept in\ngusts over the _Fruitlands's_ dipping prow. The bare masts, tipped with\nlights, swung with a giant sweep from port to starboard and back to port\nagain, fingering the black heavens for the blown-out stars. She was\nlonely, but not altogether miserable, out there on the tossing floor of\nthe Atlantic....\n\n\n\n\nSEVENTEENTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA SAILS INTO THE SOUTH, SEEKING THE HOLY MAN OF SAINT PIERRE, WHERE\n_LA MONTAGNE PELEE_ GIVES WARNING\n\n\nWonderfully strengthened, she was, by the voyage. Sorrow had destroyed\nlarge fields of verdure, and turned barren the future, but its devouring\nwas finished. Quentin Charter was adjusted in her mind to a duality with\nwhich Paula Linster could have no concern. Only to one mistress could he\nbe faithful; indeed, it was only in the presence of this mistress that\nhe became the tower of visions to another; in the midst of the work he\nworshipped, Quentin Charter had heard the Skylark sing. Paula did not\nwant to see him again, nor Selma Cross. To avoid these two, as well as\nthe place where the Destroyer had learned so well to penetrate, she had\nmanaged not to return to her apartment during the two days before\nsailing.... There would never be another master-romance--never again so\nrich a giving, nor so pure an ideal. Before this tragic reality, the\ninner glory of her womanhood became meaningless. It was this that made\nthe future a crossing of sterile tundras,--yet she would keep her\nfriends, and love her work, and try to hold her faith....\n\nBellingham did not call her at sea, but he had frightened her too\nprofoundly to be far from mind. The face she had seen in the hall-way\nwas drawn and disordered by the dreadful tortures of nether-planes; and\nawful in the eyes, was that feline vacancy of soul. Once in a dream, she\nsaw him--a pale reptile-monster upreared from a salty sea, voiceless in\nthat oceanic isolation, a shameful secret of the depths. The ghastly\nbulk had risen with a mute protest to the sky against dissolution and\ncreeping decay--and sounded again....\n\nTo her, Bellingham was living death, the triumph of desire which rends\nitself, the very essence of tragedy. She gladly would have died to make\nher race see the awfulness of _just flesh_--as she saw it now.... His\npower seemed ended; she felt with the Reifferscheids and Madame Nestor,\nthat her secret was hermetic, and there was a goodly sense of security\nin the intervening sea....\n\nAnd now there was a new island each day; each morning a fresh garden\narose from the Caribbean--sun-wooed, rain-softened isles with colorful\nlittle ports.... There was one tropic city--she could not recall the\nname--which from the offing had looked like the flower-strewn gateway to\nan amphitheatre of mountains.\n\nThe _Fruitlands_ had lain for a day in the hot, sharky harbor of\nSantiago; had run into a real cloudburst off the Silver Reefs of Santo\nDomingo, and breathed on the radiant next morning before the stately and\nancient city of San Juan de Porto Rico--shining white as a dream-castle\nof old Spain, and adrift in an azure world of sky and sea. She spent a\nday and an evening in this isle of ripe fruits and riper amours; and\ntook away materials for a memory composite of interminable siestas,\nrestless radiant nights, towering cliffs, incomparable courtesy, and\nsoft-voiced maidens with wondrous Spanish eyes that laugh and turn away.\n\nThen for two days they had steamed down past the saintly\narchipelago--St. Thomas, St. Martin, St. Kitts; then Montserrat,\nGuadeloupe, Dominica, and a legion of littler isles--truncated peaks\njutting forth from fragrant, tinted water. There were afternoons when\nshe did not care to lift her voice or move about. Fruit-juices and the\nsimplest salads, a flexible cane chair under the awnings, a book to rest\nthe eyes from the gorgeous sea and enchanted shores, somnolence rather\nthan sleep--these are enough for the approach to perfection in the\nCaribbean, with the Lesser Antilles on the lee.... Then at last in late\nafternoon, the great hulking shape of Pelee loomed watery green against\nthe sky; in the swift-speeding twilight, the volcano seemed to swell and\nblacken until it was like the shadow of a continent, and the lights of\nSaint Pierre pricked off the edge of the land.\n\nAt last late at night, queerly restless, she sat alone on deck in the\nwindless roadstead and regarded the illumined terraces of Saint Pierre.\nThey had told her that the breath from Martinique was like the heavy\nmoist sweetness of a horticultural garden, but the island must have been\nsick with fever this night, for a mile at sea the land-breeze was dry,\ndevitalized, irritating the throat and nostrils.\n\nThere was no moon, and the stars were so faint in the north that the\nmass of Pelee was scarcely shaped against the sky. The higher lights of\nthe city had a reddish uncertain glow, as if a thin film of fog hung\nbetween them and the eye; but to the south the night cleared into pure\npurple and unsullied tropic stars. The harbor was weirdly hot.\n\nBefore her was the city which held the quest of her voyaging--Father\nFontanel, the holy man of Saint Pierre.... _Only a stranger can realize\nwhat a pure shining garment his actual flesh has become. To me there was\nhealing in the very approach of the man...._ This was the enduring\nfragment from the Charter letters; and in that dreadful Sunday night\nwhen she began her flight from Bellingham, already deep within her mind\nFather Fontanel was the goal.... Paula set out for shore early the next\nmorning. The second-officer of the _Fruitlands_ sat beside her in the\nlaunch. She spoke of the intense sultriness.\n\n\"Yes, Saint Pierre is glowing like a brazier,\" he said. \"I was ashore\nlast night for awhile. The people blame the mountain. Old Pelee has been\nacting up--showering the town with ash every little while lately. It's\nthe taint of sulphur that spoils the air.\"\n\nShe turned apprehensively toward the volcano. _La Montague Pelee_, over\nthe red-tiled roofs of Saint Pierre, looked huge like an Emperor of the\nRomans. Paled in the intense morning light, he wore a delicate ruching\nof white cloud about his crown. They stepped ashore on the Sugar Landing\nwhere Paula found a carriage to take her to the _Hotel des Palms_, a\nrare old plantation-house on the _Morne d'Orange_, recently converted\nfor public use.\n\nThe ponies were ascending the rise in _Rue Victor Hugo_, at the southern\nend of the city, when Paula discovered the little Catholic church she\nhad imaged for so many weeks, _Notre Dame des Lourdes_, niched away in\nthe crowded streets with a Quebec-like quaintness, and all the holier\nfrom its close association with the lowly shops. From these walls had\nrisen the spiritual house of Father Fontanel--her far bright beacon....\nThe _porteuses_, said to be the lithest, hardiest women of the occident,\nwore a pitiable look of fatigue, as they came down from the hill-trails,\nsteadying the baskets upon their heads. The pressure of the heat, and\nthe dispiriting atmosphere revealed their effects in the distended\neyelids and colorless, twisted lips of the burden-bearers.\n\nThe ponies at length gained the eminence of the _Morne d'Orange_, and\nahead she saw the broad, white plantation-house--_Hotel des Palms_. To\nthe right was the dazzling, turquoise sea where the _Fruitlands_ lay\nlarge among the shipping, and near her a private sea-going yacht, nearly\nas long and angelically white. The broad verandas of the hotel were\nalluring with palms; the walls and portcullises were cooled with\nembroidering vines. Gardens flamed with poinsettias and roses, and a\nshaded grove of mango and India trees at the end of the lawn, was edged\nwith moon flowerets and oleanders. Back of the plantation-house waved\nthe sloping seas of cane; in front, the Caribbean. On the south rose the\npeaks of Carbet; on the north, the Monster.\n\nPaula had hardly left the veranda of magnificent vistas two hours later,\nwhen the friendly captain of the _Fruitlands_ approached with an elderly\nAmerican, of distinguished appearance, whom he presented--Mr. Peter\nStock, of Pittsburg.\n\n\"Since you are to leave us here, Miss Wyndam,\" the captain added, \"I\nthought you would be glad to know Mr. Stock, who makes an annual cruise\naround these Islands--and knows them better than any American I've\nencountered yet. Yonder is his yacht--that clipper-built beauty just a\nbit in from the liner.\"\n\n\"I've already been admiring the yacht,\" Paula said, \"and wondering her\nname. There's something Venetian about her dazzling whiteness in the\nsoft, deep blue.\"\n\n\"I get it exactly, Miss Wyndam--that 'mirage of marble' in the Italian\nsky.... My craft is the _Saragossa_.\" His eyelids were tightened against\nthe light, and the voice was sharp and brisk. His face, tropically\ntanned, contrasted effectively with the close-cropped hair and mustache,\nlustrous-white as his ship.... Paula having found the captain's courtesy\nand good sense invariable during the voyage, gladly accepted his friend,\nwho proved most interesting on the matter of Pelee.\n\n\"I've stayed here in Saint Pierre longer now than usual,\" he told her,\npointing toward the mountain, \"to study the old man yonder. Pelee, you\nknow, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of\nJosephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present\ndisorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. Hell--I use the word to\nsignify a geological stratum--is very close to the surface down here.\nAll these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great\nsubterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time\nunder the Caribbean--and rub out our very pretty panorama.\"\n\n\"You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?\" Paula asked.\n\nThe vaguest sort of a smile passed over his eyes and touched his lips.\n\"Pelee and I are very old friends. I spoke of the volcanic origin of\nthese islands in the way of suggesting that any seismic activity in the\narchipelago--Pelee's present internal complaint, for instance,--should\nbe taken significantly. Saint Pierre would have been white this\nmorning--except for the heavy rain before dawn.\"\n\n\"You mean volcanic ash?\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"That explains the white scum I saw in the gutters, driving through the\ncity.... But it isn't altogether a novelty, is it, for the mountain to\nbehave this way?\"\n\n\"From time to time in the past ten days, Miss Wyndam, Pelee has had a\nsession of grumbling.\"\n\n\"I mean as a usual thing----\"\n\nHe turned to her abruptly and inquired, \"Didn't you know that there\nhasn't been a sound from Pelee for twenty years before the month of\nApril now ending?\"\n\nThis gave intimacy to the disorder. Mr. Stock was called away just now,\nbut after dinner that night he joined Paula again on the great veranda.\n\n\"Ever been in Pittsburg?\" he asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I've only to shut my eyes in this second-hand air--to think I'm back\namong the steel mills of the lower Monongahela.\"\n\n\"The moon looks like beaten egg,\" Paula said with a slight shiver. \"They\nmust be suffering down in the city. You're the expert on Pelee, Mr.\nStock, please tell me more about him.\"\n\nHe had been regarding the new moon, low and to the left of the Carbet\npeaks. It had none of the sharpness of outline peculiar to the tropics,\nbut was blurred and of an orange hue, instead of silvery. \"It's the\nash-fog in the air which has the effect of a fine wire screen,\" he\nexplained. \"We'll have a white world to-morrow, if it doesn't rain.\"\n\nThey turned to the north where a low rumbling was heard. It was like\ndistant thunder, but the horizon beyond Pelee was unscathed by\nlightning.\n\n\"Are you really worried, Mr. Stock?\"\n\n\"Why, it's as I said. The fact that Pelee is acting out of the ordinary\nis quite enough to make any one skeptical regarding his intentions.\"\n\nHe discussed familiarly certain of the man-eaters among the mountains of\nthe world--Krakatoa, Bandaisan, Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, AEtna, calling them\nchronic old ruffians, whom Time doesn't tame.\n\n\"A thousand years is nothing to them,\" he added. \"They wait, still as\ncrocodiles, until seers have built their temples in the high rifts and\ncities have formed on their flanks. They have tasted blood, you see, and\nthe madness comes back. Twenty years is only a siesta. Pelee is a\nsuspect.\"\n\n\"I think I should prefer to hear you tell the treachery of volcanoes\noutside of the fire-zone,\" she declared. \"It's like listening to ghost\nstories in a haunted house.\"\n\nPelee rumbled again, and Paula's fingers involuntarily started toward\nhis sleeve. The heavy wooden shutters of the great house rattled in the\nwindless night; the ground upon which they stood seemed to wince at the\nMonster's pain. She was conscious of the fragrance of roses and magnolia\nblooms above the acrid taint of the air. Some strange freak of the\natmosphere exerted a pressure upon the flowers, forcing a sudden\nexpulsion of perfume. The young moon was a formless blotch now in the\nfouled sky. A sigh like the whimpering of many sick children was audible\nfrom the servants' cabins behind the hotel.... Later, from her own room,\nshe saw the double chain of lights out in the harbor--the _Saragossa_\npulling at her moorings among the lesser craft, like a bright empress in\nthe midst of dusky maid-servants; and in the north was Vulcan struggling\nto contain the fury of his fluids. She was a little afraid of Pelee.\n\nVery early abroad, Paula set out on her first pilgrimage to _Notre Dame\ndes Lourdes_. Rain had not fallen in the night, and she regarded a white\nworld, as Stock had promised, and the source of the phenomenon with the\npastelle tints of early morning upon his huge eastern slope. She had\nslept little and with her face turned to the north. A cortege had passed\nbefore her in dream--all the destroyers of history, each with a vivid\nindividuality, like the types of faces of all nations--the story of each\nand the desolation it had made among men and the works of men.\n\nMost of them had given warning. Pelee was warning now. His warning was\nwritten upon the veins of every leaf, painted upon the curve of every\nblade of grass, sheeted evenly-white upon the red tiles of every roof.\nGray dust blown by steam from the bursting quarries of the mountain\nclogged the gutters of the city and the throats of men. It was a moving,\nwhite cloud in the river, a chalky shading that marked the highest reach\nof the harbor tide. It settled in the hair of the children, and\ncomplicated the toil of bees in the nectar-cups. With league-long\ncerements, and with a voice that caused to tremble his dwarfed\ncompanions, the hills and _mornes_, great Pelee had proclaimed his\nwarning in the night.\n\n\n\n\nEIGHTEENTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT PIERRE AND _THE\nPANTHER_ CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL\n\n\nFather Fontanel was out in the parish somewhere. One of the washer-women\ntold her this, at the door of the church. There were many sick in the\ncity from the great heat and the burned air--many little children sick.\nFather Fontanel always sought the sick in body; those who were sick in\nsoul, sought him.... So the woman of the river-banks, in her simple way,\naugmented the story of the priest's love for his people. Paula rested\nfor a few moments in the dim transept. Natives moved in and out for a\nbreath of coolness, some pausing to kneel upon the worn tiles of the\nnave. Later she walked among the lower streets of the suffering city,\nher heart filled with pity for the throngs housed on the low breathless\nwater-front. Except when the wind was straight from the volcano, the\nhotel on the _Morne d'Orange_ was made livable by the cool Trades.\n\nThe clock in the _Hopital l'Militaire_ struck the hour of nine. Paula\nhad just hired a carriage at the Sugar Landing, when her eye was\nattracted by a small crowd gathering near the water's edge. The black\ncassock of a priest in the midst drew her hurrying forward. A young man,\nshe thought at first, from the frail shoulders and the slender waist....\nA negress had fallen from the heat. Her burdens lay together upon the\nshore--a tray of cakes from her head, and a naked babe from her arms....\nA glimpse at the priest's profile, and she needed not to be told that\nthis was the holy man of Saint Pierre.\n\nHappiness lived in the face above the deep pity of the moment. It was an\nattraction of light, like the brow of Mary in Murillo's _Immaculate\nConception_; or like that instant ethereal radiance which shines from\nthe face of a little child passing away without pain. The years had put\nan exquisite nobility upon the plain countenance, and the inner life had\nadded the gleam of adoration--\"the rapture-light of holy vigils kept.\"\n\nPaula rubbed her eyes, afraid lest it were not true; afraid for a moment\nthat it was her own meditations that had wrought this miracle in clay.\nLingering, she ceased to doubt the soul's transfiguration.... Father\nFontanel beckoned a huge negro from a lighter laden with\nmolasses-casks--a man of strength, bare to the waist.\n\n\"Take the little mother to my house,\" he said.\n\nA young woman standing by was given charge of the child.... \"Lift her\ngently, Strong Man. The woman will show you the way to the door.\" Then\nraising his voice to the crowd, the priest added, \"You who are\nwell--tell others that it is yet cool in the church. Carry the ailing\nones there, and the little children. Father Pelee will soon be silent\nagain.... Does any one happen to know who owns the beautiful ship in the\nharbor?\"\n\nHis French sentences seemed lifted above a pervasive hush upon the\nshore. The native faces wore a curious look of adulation; and Paula\nmarvelled in that they seemed unconscious of this. She was not a\nCatholic; yet she uttered his name with a thrilling rapture, and with a\nmeaning she had never known before:\n\n\"Father Fontanel----\"\n\nHe turned, instantly divining her inspiration.\n\n\"Mr. Stock, who owns the ship yonder, is staying at the _Hotel des\nPalms_,\" she said quickly. \"I have a carriage here. I was thinking that\nthe sick woman and her child might be taken to your house in that.\nAfterward, when she is cared for, you might wish to ride with me to the\nHotel--where I also live.\"\n\n\"Why, yes, Child--who are you?\"\n\n\"Just a visitor in Saint Pierre--a woman from the States.\"\n\nHer arrangement was followed, and the negro went back to his work.\nFather Fontanel joined her behind the carriage.\n\n\"But you speak French so well,\" he observed.\n\n\"Not a few Americans do. I was grateful that it came back to me here.\"\n\n\"Yes, for I do not speak a word of English,\" he said humbly.\n\nThey walked for a moment in silence, his head bowed in thought. Paula,\nglancing at him from time to time, studied the lines of pity and\ntenderness which shadowed the eyes. His mouth was wonderful to her,\nquite as virgin to the iron of self-repression as to the soft fullness\nof physical desire. This was the marvel of the face--it was above\nbattle. Here were eyes that had seen the Glory and retained an unearthly\nhappiness--a face that moved among the lowly, loved, pitied, abode with\nthem; yet was beautiful with the spiritual poise of Overman.\n\n\"It was strange that you did not meet Lafcadio Hearn when he was here,\"\nshe said at length.\n\nHe shook his head, asked the name again and the man's work.\n\n\"A writer who tarried here; a mystic, too, strange and strong.\"\n\n\"I know no writer by that name--but how did you know that I did not meet\nhim, Child?\"\n\n\"I was thinking he would write about you in his book of Martinique\nsketches--had he known.\"\n\nHe accepted the explanation innocently. \"There was a writer here--a\nyoung man very dear to me--of whom you reminded me at once----\"\n\n\"Of whom I reminded you, Father?\" she repeated excitedly. \"You mean\nbecause I spoke of another writer?\"\n\n\"No, I saw a resemblance--rather some relationship of yours to my\nwonderful young friend.... He said he would come again to me.\"\n\nShe had spoken of Hearn in the hope that Father Fontanel would be\nreminded of another writer whose name she did not care to mention. His\nidea of relationship startled her to the heart; yet when she asked\nfurther, the good man could not explain. It had merely been his first\nthought, he said,--as if she had _come_ from his friend.\n\n\"You thought much of him then, Father Fontanel?\"\n\nHe spoke with power now. \"A character of terrible thirsts, Child,--such\nthirsts as I have never known. Some moments as he walked beside me, I\nhave felt him--like a giant with wolves pulling at his thighs, and\nangels lifting his arms. Great strength of mind, his presence endowed\nme, so that I would have seen more of him, and more,--but he will come\nback! And I know that the wolves shall have been slain, when he comes\nagain----\"\n\n\"And the angels, Father?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Such are the companions of the Lifted, my daughter.... It is when I\nmeet one of great conflicts that I am suffused with the spirit of\nworship in that I am spared. God makes my way so easy that I must wonder\nif I am not one of His very weak. It must be so, for my mornings and\nevenings are made lovely by the Presence. My people hearken unto my\nprayers for them; they love me and bring their little children for my\nblessing--until I am so happy that I cry aloud for some great work to do\nthat I may strive heroically to show my gratitude to God--and lo, the\ndoors of my work are opened, but there are no lions in the way!\"\n\nShe knew now all that Charter had meant. In her breast was a silent\nmystic stirring--akin to that endearing miracle enacted in a\nconservatory of flowers, when the morning sun first floods down upon the\nglass.... The initial doubt of her own valor in suffering Selma Cross to\nshatter her Tower, sprang into being now. Father Fontanel loved him, and\nhad looked within.\n\nThat the priest had perceived a \"relationship\" swept into the woman's\nsoul. Low logic wrought from the physical contacts of Selma Cross\ntrembled before the other immaterial suggestion--that Quentin Charter\nwould come back to Saint Pierre triumphantly companioned, his wolves\nslain.... She forgot nothing of the actress's point of view; nor that\nthe Westerner did not reach her floor in the _Zoroaster_ and encounter\nan old attraction by accident. He was not one to force his way there, if\nthe man at the elevator told him Miss Linster was not in. All of these\nthings which had driven her to action were still inexplicable, but final\ncondemnation was gone from the evidence--as the stone rolled away.\n\nBellingham?... The mystery now, as she stood within this radiant aura,\nwas that any point of his desire could ever have found lodgment within.\nHer sense of protection at this moment was absolute. She had done well\nto come here.... Again swept into mind, Quentin Charter's silent part in\nsaving her from the Destroyer--the book, the letter, the voice; even to\nthis sanctuary she had come through a sentence from him. For a moment\nthe old master-romance shone glorious again--like a lone, valiant star\nglimpsed in the rift of storm-hurled clouds.\n\nThey had reached the low street door of Father Fontanel's house, a wing\nof the church. A native doctor had been summoned and helped to carry the\nwoman in. She was revived presently.\n\n\"Father,\" Paula said, remembering the words of the washer-woman, as they\nemerged into the street, \"when one is sick of soul--does one knock\nhere?\"\n\n\"One does not knock, but enters straightway,\" he answered. \"The door is\nnever locked.... But you look very happy, my daughter.\"\n\n\"I am happy,\" she answered.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey drove together to the _Hotel des Palms_. Paula did not ask, though\nshe had something of an idea regarding the priest's purpose in asking\nfor Peter Stock. Though she had formed a very high opinion of the\nAmerican, it occurred to her that he would hardly approve of any one\ndirecting arteries of philanthropy to his hand. He had been one of those\nruffian giants of the elder school of finance who began with the axe and\nthe plow; whose health, character and ethics had been wrought upon the\nanvil of privation; whose culture began in middle life, and, being\nhard-earned, was eminent in the foreground of mind--austere and\ninelastic, this culture, yet solidly founded. Stock was rich and loved\nto give, but was rather ashamed of it. Paula could imagine him saying,\n\"I hate the whining of the strong.\" For twenty years since his\nretirement, he had voyaged about the world, learning to love beautiful\nthings, and giving possibly many small fortunes away; yet he much would\nhave preferred to acknowledge that he had knocked down a brute than\nendowed an asylum. Mr. Stock was firm in opinion, dutiful in\nappreciation for the fine. His sayings were strongly savored, reliant\nwith facts; his every thought was the result of a direct physical\nprocess of mind,--a mind athletic to grip the tangible, but which had\nnot yet contracted for its spiritual endowment. In a word a splendid\ntype of American with which to blend an ardently artistic\ntemperament.... Paula, holding something of this conception of the\ncapitalist, became eager to see what adjustment could follow a meeting\nwith his complement in characteristic qualities--her revered mystic. Mr.\nStock was pacing up and down the mango grove. Leaving Father Fontanel on\nthe veranda, she joined the American.\n\n\"I found a holy man down on the water-front, mildly inquiring who owned\nthe _Saragossa_,\" she said laughingly, \"and asked him to share my\ncarriage. He has not told me what he wants, but he's a very wonderful\npriest.\"\n\nShe noted the instant contraction of his brows, and shrank inwardly at\nthe hard, rapid tone, with which he darted the question:\n\n\"Are you a Catholic?\"\n\n\"No, Mr. Stock.\"\n\n\"Yes. I'll see him.\" It was as if he were talking to his secretary, but\nPaula liked him too well to mind. They drew near the veranda.\n\n\"... Well, sir, what is it?\" he spoke brusquely, and in French, studying\nthe priest's upturned face. Mr. Stock believed he knew faces. Except for\nthe years and the calling, he would have decided that Father Fontanel\nwas rather too meek and feminine--at first glance.\n\n\"What I wished to ask depends upon your being here for a day or two,\"\nthe priest said readily. \"Father Pelee's hot breath is killing our\nchildren in the lower quarters of the city, and many of the poor women\nare suffering. The ship out in the harbor looked to me like a good angel\nwith folded wings, as I walked the water-front this morning. I thought\nyou would be glad to let me send some mothers and babies--to breathe the\ngood air of the offing. A day, or a night and a day, may save lives.\"\n\nPaula had felt a proprietary interest in Father Fontanel's mission, no\nmatter what it proved to be. She was pleased beyond measure to find that\nhe was entirely incapable of awe or cringing, before a man of stern and\ndistinguished mien and of such commanding dignity. Moreover, he stated\nthe favor quite as if it were an advantage which the American had not\nthought of for himself. So interested was she in the priest's utterance,\nthat when her eyes turned from his face to Stock's--the alteration there\namazed her. And like the natives of the water-front, the American did\nnot seem to be _aware_ of the benign influence. He had followed the\nFrench sentences intently at first, but caught the whole idea before the\npriest was finished.\n\n\"Did you know I wasn't a Catholic?\" he asked. The question apparently\nhad been in his mind before he felt himself responding to the appeal.\n\n\"No,\" Father Fontanel answered sincerely. \"The truth is, it didn't occur\nto me whether you were or not.\"\n\n\"Quite right,\" Mr. Stock said quickly. \"It has no place, whatever, so\nlong as you don't think so. You've got a good idea. I'll be here for a\nday or two. You'll need money to hire boats; then my first officer will\nhave to be informed. My launch is at the Sugar Landing.... On second\nthought, I'll go back down-town with you.... Miss Wyndam--later in the\nday--a chat with you?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nFather Fontanel turned, thanking her with a smile. \"And the name is\n'Wyndam,'\" he added. \"I had not heard it before.\"\n\nPaula watched them walking down the driveway to the carriage which she\nhad retained for Father Fontanel. The inclination was full-formed to\nseek the solitude of her room and there review the whole delightful\nmatter.... She was glad that the priest had not asked her name, for\nunder his eyes--she could not have answered \"Wyndam.\"\n\nIt was not until the following evening, after a day of actual physical\nsuffering from Pelee and the heat, even on the _Morne_, that she had the\npromised talk with Peter Stock.\n\n\"I like your priest,\" he said, \"He works like a man, and he hasn't got a\ncrook in his back. What he wants he seems to get. I have sent over a\nhundred natives out yonder on the _Saragossa_, negotiated for the town's\nwhole available supply of fresh milk, and Laird, my chief officer, is\ngiving the party a little cruise to-night----\"\n\n\"Do you know--I think it is splendid?\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The work--your ship filled with gasping unfortunates from the city!\"\n\n\"Do you happen to know of any reason why an idle ship should not be used\nfor some such purpose?\"\n\n\"None, whatever,\" she said demurely, quite willing that he should adjust\nthe matter to suit himself. His touchiness upon the subject of his own\nbenefactions remanded her pleasurably of Reifferscheid. Her inward joy\nwas to study in Peter Stock the unacknowledged influence of Father\nFontanel--or was it an unconscious influence? The American's further\nactivities unfolded:\n\n\"By the way, have you been reading the French paper here--_Les\nColonies_?\"\n\nPaula had not.\n\n\"The editor, M. Mondet, is the smug authority for a statement yesterday\nthat Saint Pierre is in absolutely no danger from the mountain. Now, of\ncourse, this may be true, but he doesn't know it--unless he should have\nthe Dealer in Destiny on the wire. There is always a big enough\npercentage of foolish virgins in a city, so it peeved me to find one in\nthe sole editorial capacity. My first impulse was to calk up the throat\nof M. Mondet with several sheets of his abominable assurances. This I\nrestrained, but nevertheless I called upon him to-day. His next issue\nappears day after to-morrow, and my idea is for him to print a vigorous\nwarning against Pelee. Why, he could clear the town of ten thousand\npeople for a few days--until the weather settles. Incidentally, if the\nmountain took on a sudden destroying streak--just see what he would have\ndone! Some glory in saving lives on that scale.\"\n\n\"Vine leaves, indeed,\" said Paula, \"Did M. Mondet tell you he would\nprint this warning?\"\n\n\"Not exactly. He pointed out the cost of detaching a third of the city's\ninhabitants. I told him how this cost could be brought down within\nreason, and showed myself not unwilling to back the exodus. I'm a\npractical man, Miss Wyndam, and these things look bigger than they\nreally are. But you never can tell what a tubby little Frenchman will\ndo. It's atrocious for a man in his position to say that a volcano won't\nvolcane--sorely tempting to old Father Pelee--a sort of challenge. It\nwould be bad enough to play Pilate and wash his hands of the city's\ndanger--but to be a white-lipped, kissing Judas at the last supper of\nSaint Pierre----\"\n\n\"Did you tell him that?\" Paula asked hastily.\n\n\"Not in those words, Miss Wyndam, but he seemed to be a bit afraid of\nme--kept watching my hands and pulling at his cravat. When he finally\nshowed me to the door, his was the delicacy of one who handles dynamite.\nAt all events, I'm waiting for his next issue to see if my call 'took!'\nI really do wish that a lot of these people would forget their clothes,\nchickens, coals, coins, and all such, for a few days and camp somewhere\nbetween here and Fort de France.\"\n\nPaula was thrilled by the American's zeal. He was not content, now that\nhe had begun, to deal with boatloads, but wanted to stir the city. She\nwould have given much to know the exact part of Father Fontanel in this\nrousing ardor of her new friend. \"And you really think Pelee may not\nhold out?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm not a monomaniac--at least, not yet,\" he replied, and his voice\nsuggested a certain pent savagery in his brain. \"Call it an experiment\nthat I'm sufficiently interested in to finance. The ways of volcanoes\nare past the previsions of men. I'd like to get a lot of folks out of\nthe fire-zone, until Pelee is cool--or a billion tons lighter. This\nordered-up-to-Nineveh business is out of my line, but it's absorbing. I\ndon't say that Pelee will blow his head off this week or this\nmillennium, but I do say that there are vaults of explosives in that\nmonster, the smallest of which could make this city look like a leper's\ncorpse upon the beach. I say that the internal fires are burning high;\nthat they're already playing about the vital cap; that Pelee has already\nsprung several leaks, and that the same force which lifted this cheerful\narchipelago from the depths of the sea is pressing against the craters\nat this moment. I say that Vesuvius warned before he broke; that\nKrakatoa warned and then struck; that down the ages these safety valves\nscattered over the face of the earth have mercifully joggled before\ngiving way; that Pelee is joggling now.\"\n\n\"If M. Mondet would write just that,\" Paula said softly, \"I think you\nwould have your exodus.\"\n\nShe sought her room shortly afterward. Pelee's moods had been variable\nthat day. The north had been obscured by a fresh fog in the afternoon.\nThe ash and sulphur fumes, cruel to the lungs on the breezy _Morne_, six\nmiles from the craters, gave her an intimation of the anguish of the\npeople in the intervening depression where the city lay. The twilight\nhad brought ease again and a ten-minute shower, so there was real\nfreshness in the early evening. Rippling waves of merriment reached her\nfrom the darky quarters, as the young men from the fields came forth to\nbathe in the sea. Never before was the volatile tropic soul so strongly\nevidenced for her understanding, as in that glad hour of\nreaction--simple hearts to glow at little things, whose swift tragedies\ncome and go like blighting winds which, though they may slay, leave no\nwound; instant to gladden in the groves of serenity, when a black cloud\nhas blown by.\n\nHer mind was sleepless.... Once, long after midnight, when she fell into\na doze, it was only to be awakened by a dream of a garrote upon her\nthroat. The ash had thickened again, and the air was acrid. The hours\nseemed to fall asleep in passing. From her balcony she peered into the\ndead-black of the North where Pelee rumbled at intervals. Back in the\nsouth, the blurred moon impended with an evil light. A faint wailing of\nchildren reached her from the servants' cabins. The sense of isolation\nwas dreadful for a moment. It seemed to rest entirely with her that time\npassed at all; that she must grapple with each moment and fight it back\ninto the past....\n\nThe _Panther_, a fast ship with New York mail, was due to call at Saint\nPierre within forty-eight hours. Paula, to hasten the passing of time,\ndetermined to take the little steamer over to Fort de France for a day,\nif morning ever came. She must have slept an hour after this decision,\nfor she was unconscious of the transition from darkness to the parched\nand brilliant dawn which roused her tired eyes. The glass showed her a\npallid face, darkly-lined.\n\nThe blinding light from the East changed the dew to steam before it\ntouched the ground. The more delicate blossoms in the gardens withered\nin that hectic burning before the sun was an hour high. Driving down\nthrough the city to the Landing she found the _Rue Victor Hugo_ almost\ndeserted. The _porteuses_ were gone from the highway; all doors were\ntightly shut, strangely marring the tropical effect; broken window-panes\nwere stuffed with cloths to keep out the vitiated air. The tough little\nisland mules (many in their panniers with no one leading), scarcely\nmoved, and hugged the east walls for shade. From the by-ways she\nimagined the smell of death.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Hottest morning Saint Pierre has known for years,\" the captain said, as\nshe boarded the little steamer which hurriedly put off.... Night had\nfallen (and there had been little to break the misery of Saint Pierre\nthat day), when she reached the Hotel once more. She retired immediately\nafter dinner to take advantage of a fresh, south wind which came with\nthe dark and promised to make sleep possible.... Rumblings from the\nvolcano awoke her just before dawn. Glancing out over the harbor, she\nperceived the lights of a big liner lying near the _Saragossa_. There\nwas no sleep after this discovery, since she felt this must be the\n_Panther_ with letters from New York. According to her schedule, the\nsteamer had cleared from Manhattan a full week after the _Fruitlands_.\nPaula breakfasted early, and inquired at the desk how soon the mails\nwould be distributed.\n\n\"Did you arrange at the post-office to have your mail sent care of the\nHotel?\" the clerk inquired.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"The bags should be here very shortly, Miss Wyndam. The _Panther_\nanchored at two this morning.\"\n\n\"Please send any letters for me to my room at once,\" she told him, and\nwent there to wait, so that she might be alone to read.... Madame\nNestor's writing was upon one envelope, and Reifferscheid's upon\nanother, a large one, which contained mail sent to Paula Linster in his\ncare to be forwarded to Laura Wyndam, among them letters from Selma\nCross and Quentin Charter, as well as a note from the editor himself.\n\nThe latter she read first, since the pages were loose in the big\nenvelope. It was a joyous, cheery message, containing a humorous account\nof those who called to inquire about her, a bit of the gospel of work\nand a hope for her health--the whole, brief, fine and tonic--like her\nfriend.... Tearing open the Charter letter, she fell into a vortex of\nemotions:\n\n     This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have\n     ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten\n     you that I searched, but because I think if you understood\n     entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had\n     better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she\n     has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her\n     those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the\n     truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter.\n     I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I\n     had the heart yet to see _The Thing_. Reifferscheid tells me\n     that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I\n     counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now\n     with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for\n     one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and\n     subtly terrifying--this ordeal for which I have been prepared.\n     I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What\n     I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you\n     suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you\n     to-night--sweet gift of the world to me.\n\n     Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy\n     complications--and you will bring back a splendid store of\n     energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written\n     so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me\n     drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity--but I\n     have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and\n     it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning.\n\n     I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without\n     you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go\n     away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary--when I\n     decide upon it--at the _Granville_. Some time soon I shall hear\n     from you. All shall be restored--even serenity to your\n     beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business\n     of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through\n     and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to\n     make you wiser, happier,--to keep you _winged_. This, as I know\n     the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you....\n\n     My window at the _Granville_ faces the East--the East to which\n     I have come--yet from the old ways, I still look to the East\n     for you. New York has found her Spring--a warm, almost vernal\n     night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths\n     are fluttering at the glass--softly, eagerly to get at the\n     light--as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for\n     the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the\n     electric bulb. The analogy is inevitable ... but _you_ would\n     not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the\n     light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt,\n     but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame....\n\n     One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table\n     like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way\n     in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance....\n\n     Bless your warm heart that brims with singing--singing which I\n     must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease\n     to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless--as\n     I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the\n     heart of Quentin Charter.\n\nShe was unconscious of passing time, until her eye was attracted by the\nheavy handwriting of Selma Cross upon a _Herriot Theatre_ envelope. This\ncommunication was an attempt to clear herself with Paula, whose\nintrinsic clarity had always attracted truth from the actress; also it\nseemed to contain a struggle to adjust herself, when once she began to\nwrite, to the garment of nettles she had woven from mixed motives.\n\n     I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the\n     hall _that night_, because I saw your hat as you started to\n     walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made\n     me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him\n     come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been\n     hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home\n     that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I\n     sent a telephone-message to the _Granville_ for him to call.\n     He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would\n     not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night,\n     he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man\n     at the _Zoroaster_ had orders from me to show a gentleman\n     inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment.\n\n     My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in\n     what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that\n     night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall--to hear at\n     once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap that\n     _we_ had arranged--that you were somewhere in the apartment\n     listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words--there is so much,\n     and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The\n     woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat\n     so helplessly against a wall.\n\n     But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations.\n     Villiers had a spy watching all our movements--and was thus\n     informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter\n     had talked to men--all the things that his spy had learned. He\n     did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth.\n     Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is\n     not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he\n     would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that\n     if it is not you--some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart\n     and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic\n     possibility of calling him to the _Zoroaster_ blinded my\n     judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have\n     the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old\n     neighbor--who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the\n     world, but who meant to be square with you.\n\nPaula felt that she could go down into the tortured city at this moment\nwith healing for every woe. She paced the room, and with outstretched\narms, poured forth an ecstasy of gratitude for his sake; for the\nrestoration of her Tower; for this new and glorious meaning of her\nwomanhood. The thought of returning to New York by the first boat\noccurred; and the advisability of cabling Quentin Charter for his ease\nof mind.... At all events, the time of the next steamer's leaving for\nNew York must be ascertained at once. She was putting on her hat, when\nMadame Nestor's unopened letter checked her precipitation. The first\nline brought back old fears:\n\n     I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard\n     that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two\n     hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang\n     and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes\n     and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,--the\n     desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he\n     had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost\n     instantly, I succumbed to the old mastery.... When his control\n     was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was\n     gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have passed\n     by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was\n     gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will\n     help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the\n     interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your\n     place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost\n     unbearable that I should be forced to tell him--when I love you\n     so--if, indeed, that has come to pass.... He has altered\n     terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his\n     powers--that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not\n     formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into\n     mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to\n     be the victory. He is breaking up or he would not _come to\n     you_....\n\nFor a moment or two Paula was conscious of Pelee, and the gray menace\nthat charged the burnt-out air.\n\nThen came the thought of Father Fontanel and the door that was never\nlocked; and presently her new joy returned with ever-rising\nvibration--until the long-abated powers of her life were fully vitalized\nagain.... She was wondering, as she stepped into the hall and turned the\nkey in her door, if she would be considered rather tumultuous in cabling\nCharter.... At the stairway, she halted, fearing at first some new\nmental seizure; then every faculty furiously-nerved, she listened at the\nbalustrade for the repetition of a voice that an instant before had\nthrilled her to the soul.... There had only been a sentence or two from\nthe Voice. Peter Stock was now replying:\n\n\"He's a man-servant of the devil, this pudgy editor,\" he said striding\nup and down the lower hall in his rage. \"A few days ago I called upon\nhim, and in sweet modesty and limping French explained the proper policy\nfor him to take about this volcano. To-day he devotes a half-column of\ninsufferable humor to my force of character and alarmist views. Oh, the\nflakiness of the French mind! M. Mondet certainly fascinates me. I shall\nhave to call upon him again.\"\n\nPaula heard the low laugh of the other and the words:\n\n\"Let's sit down, Mr. Stock. I want to hear all about the editor and the\nmountain. I was getting to sea somewhere, when the New York papers ran a\nline about Pelee's activity. It started luring memories, and I berthed\nat once for Saint Pierre. It was mighty good to see the _Saragossa_\nlying familiarly in the roadstead----\"\n\nTrailing her fingers along the wall to steady herself, Paula made her\nway back to the door of her room, which she fumblingly unlocked.\n\n\n\n\nNINETEENTH CHAPTER\n\nQUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF _PELEE_, AND ENCOUNTERS A\nQUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER\n\n\nCharter did not find Paula Linster in the week of New York that followed\nhis call at the _Zoroaster_, but he found Quentin Charter. The first\nthree or four days were rather intense in a psychological way. The old\nvibrations of New York invariably contained for him a destructive\nprinciple, as Paris held for Dr. Duprez. The furious consumption of\nnerve-tissue during the first evening after his arrival; a renewal of\ndesires operating subconsciously, and in no small part through the\npassion of Selma Cross; his last struggle, both subtle and furious, with\nhis own stimulus-craving temperament, and the desolation of the true\nromance--combined, among other things, worthily to test the growth of\nhis spirit.... The thought that Skylark had fallen into the hands of\nSelma Cross, and had been given that ugly estimate of him which the\nactress held before his call, as he expressed it in his letter, \"drove\nstraight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity.\" Over this, was a\nghastly, whimpering thing that would not be immured--the effect of\nwhich, of all assailants to rising hope, was most scarifying: That Paula\nLinster had suffered herself to listen to those old horrors, and had\npermitted him to be called to the bar before Selma Cross. No matter how\nhe handled this, it held a fundamental lesion in the Skylark-fineness.\n\nCharter whipped his wastrel tendencies one by one until on the fifth day\nhis resistance hardened, and the brute within him was crippled from\nbeating against it. His letter to Paula Linster was a triumph of\nrepression. Probably one out of six of the thoughts that came to him\nwere given expression. He felt that he had made of Selma Cross an\nimplacable enemy, and was pursued by the haunting dread (if, indeed, the\nconversation had not been overheard), that she might think better about\n\"squaring\" him. It was on this fifth day that for a moment the mystic\nattraction returned to his consciousness, and he heard the old singing.\nThis was the first reward for a chastened spirit. Again and\nagain--though never consciously to be lured or forced--the vision,\nunhurt, undiminished, returned for just an instant with a veiled, but\nexquisite refinement.\n\nThe newspaper account of Pelee's overflowing wrath immediately\nmaterialized all his vague thought of voyaging. His quest had vanished\nfrom New York. Had Selma Cross been true to her word; at least, had any\npart of their interview been empowered to restore something of the faith\nof Paula Linster--there had been ample time for him to hear it. He was\nafraid that, in itself, his old intimacy with the actress had been\nenough to startle the Skylark into uttermost flight. Reifferscheid's\nfrigidity had required only one test to become a deep trouble. His hint\nthat Miss Linster would be away two or three months rendered New York\nand a return to his own home equally impossible. Father Fontanel held a\nbright, substantial warmth for his isolated spirit--and the _Panther_\nwas among the imminent sailings.\n\nHe bought his berth and passage on the morning of the sailing date, and\nthere was a matinee of _The Thing_ in the meantime. Charter did not\nnotify Selma Cross of his coming, but he liked the play unreservedly,\nand was amazed by the perfection of her work. He wrote her a line to\nthis effect; and also a note of congratulation and greeting to Stephen\nCabot.... It was not without a pang that he looked back at Manhattan\nfrom The Narrows that night.\n\nFor several mornings he had studied the gaunt, striding figure of a\nfellow-passenger, who appeared to be religious in the matter of his\nconstitutional; or, as a sailor softly remarked as he glanced up at\nCharter from his holy-stoning, \"He seems to feel the need av walkin' off\nsivin or eight divils before answerin' the breakfast-gong....\" In\nbehalf of this stranger also, Charter happened to overhear the\nchief-steward encouraging one of the waiters to extra-diligence in\nservice, Queerly, in the steward's mind, the interest seemed of a deeper\nsort than even an unusual fee could exact--as if he recognized in the\nstranger a man exalted in some mysterious masonry. And Charter noticed\nthat the haggard giant enforced a sort of willing slavery throughout the\nship--from the hands, but through the heads. This strange potentiality\nwas decidedly interesting; as was the figure in itself, which seemed\npossessed of the strength of vikings, in spite of an impression,\ninevitable to Charter when he drew near--of one enduring a sort of\nPromethean dissolution. Charter reflected upon the man's eyes, which had\nthe startling look of having penetrated beyond the formality of\nDeath--into shadows where inquisition-hells were limned. It was not\nuntil he heard the steward address the other as \"Doctor Bellingham,\"\nthat the fanciful attraction weakened. His recollection crowded\ninstantly with newspaper paragraphs regarding the Bellingham activities.\nCharter was rather normal in his masculine hatred for hypnotic artists\nand itinerary confessionals for women.\n\nThe _Panther_ ran into a gale in that storm-crucible off Hatteras.\nCharter smiled at the thought, as the striding Bellingham passed, doing\nhis mileage on the rocking deck, that the roar of the wind in the\nfunnels aloft was fierce energy in the draughts of this human furnace.\nWhile his own interest waned, the other, curiously enough, began to\nrespond to his unspoken overtures of a few days before. The _Panther_\nwas a day out from San Juan, steaming past the far-flung coral shoals\noff Santo Domingo, when Charter was beckoned forward where Bellingham\nsat.\n\n\"This soft air would call a Saint Francis down from his spiritual\nmeditations,\" the Doctor observed.\n\nThe voice put Charter on edge, and the manner affected him with inward\nhumor. It was as if the other thought, \"Why, there's that pleasant-faced\nyoung man again. Perhaps it would be just as well to speak with him.\" As\nhe drew up his chair, however, Charter was conscious of an abrupt change\nin his mental attitude--an inclination to combat, verbally to rush in,\nseize and destroy every false utterance. His initial idea was to compel\nthis man who spoke so glibly of meditations to explain what the word\nmeant to him. This tense, nervous impatience to disqualify all the other\nmight say became dominant enough to be reckoned with, but when Charter\nbegan to repress his irritation, a surprising inner resistance was\nencountered. His sensation was that of one being demagnetized. Thoughts\nand words came quickly with the outgoing energy of the current.\nAltogether he was extraordinarily affected.\n\n\"These Islands are not particularly adapted for one who pursues the\nausterities,\" he replied.\n\n\"Yet where can you find such temperamental happiness?\" Bellingham\ninquired, plainly testing the other. His manner of speech was flippant,\nas if it were quite the same to him if his acquaintance preferred\nanother subject.\n\n\"Anywhere among the less-evolved nations, when the people are warm and\nfed.\"\n\nThe Doctor smiled. \"You will soon see the long, lithe coppery bodies of\nthe Islanders, as they plunge into the sea from the Antillean cliffs.\nYou will hear the soft laughter of the women, and then you will forget\nto deny their perfection.\" Sensuality exhaled from the utterance.\n\n\"You speak of the few brief zenith years which lie at the end of youth,\"\nCharter said. \"This sort of perfection exists anywhere. In the Antilles\nit certainly is not because the natives have learned how to preserve\nlife.\"\n\n\"That's just the point,\" said Bellingham, \"Add to their natural gifts of\nbeautiful young bodies--the knowledge of preservation.\"\n\n\"Take a poor, unread Island boy and inform him how to live forever,\"\nCharter observed. \"Of course, he'll grasp the process instantly. But\nwouldn't it be rather severe on the other boys and girls, if the usual\nformula of perpetuating self is used? I mean, would he not have to\nrestore his vitality from the others?\"\n\nBellingham stared at him. Charter faced it out, but not without cost,\nfor the livid countenance before him grew more and more ghastly and\ntenuous, until it had the effect of becoming altogether unsubstantial;\nand out of this wraith shone the eyes of the serpent. The clash of wills\nwas quickly passed.\n\n\"You have encountered a different fountain of youth from mine,\" the\nDoctor said gently.\n\n\"Rather I have encountered a disgust for any serious consideration of\nimmortality in the body.\"\n\n\"Interesting, but our good Saint Paul says that those who are in the\nbody when the last call sounds, will be caught up--without disturbing\nthe sleep of the dead.\"\n\n\"It would be rather hard on such bodies--if the chariots were of fire,\"\nCharter suggested.\n\nHe was inwardly groping for his poise. He could think well enough, but\nit disturbed him to feel the need to avoid the other's eyes. He liked\nthe shaping of the conversation and knew that Bellingham felt himself\nunknown. Charter realized, too, that he would strike fire if he hammered\nlong enough, but there was malevolence in the swift expenditure of\nenergy demanded.\n\nBellingham smiled again. \"Then you think it is inevitable that the end\nof man is--the clouds?\"\n\n\"The aspiration of the spirit, I should say, is to be relieved of feet\nof clay.... Immortality in the body--that's an unbreakable paradox to\nme. I'm laminated, Harveyized against anything except making a fine\ntentative instrument of the body.\"\n\n\"You think, then, that the spirit grows as the body wastes?\"\n\n\"Orientals have encountered starvation with astonishing results to\nphilosophy,\" Charter remarked. \"But I was thinking only of a body firmly\nhelmed by a clean mind. The best I have within me declares that the\nfleshly wrapping becomes at the end but a cumbering cerement; that\nthrough life, it is a spirit-vault. When I pamper the body, following\nits fitful and imperious appetites, I surely stiffen the seals of the\nvault. In my hours in which the senses are dominant the spirit shrinks\nin abhorrence; just as it thrills, warms and expands in rarer moments of\nnobility.\"\n\n\"Then the old martyrs and saints who macerated themselves wove great\nfolds of spirit?\"\n\nThe inconsequential manner of the question urged Charter to greater\neffort to detach, if possible, for a moment at least, the other's Ego.\n\"In ideal,\" he went on, \"I should be as careless of food as Thoreau, as\ncareless of physical pain as Suso. As for the reproductive devil\nincarnated in man--it, and all its ramifications, since the most\ndelicate and delightful of these so often betray--I should encase in the\ncoldest steel of repression----\"\n\n\"You say, in ideal,\" Bellingham ventured quietly. \"... But are not these\ngreat forces splendid fuel for the mind? Prodigious mental workers have\nsaid so.\"\n\n\"A common view,\" said Charter, who regarded the remark as\ncharacteristic. \"Certain mental workers are fond of expressing this. You\nhear it everywhere with a sort of 'Eureka.' Strength of the loins is but\na coarse inflammation to the mind. A man may use such excess strength,\nearned by continence, in the production of exotics, feverish lyrics, and\nin depicting summer passions, but the truth is, that so long as that\nforce is not censored, shriven and sterilized--it is the same jungle\npestilence, and will color the mind with impurity. It is much better\nwhere it belongs--than in the mind.\"\n\n\"You do not believe in the wild torrents, the forked lightnings, and the\nshocking thunders of the poets?\"\n\n\"I like the calm, conquering voices of the prophets better....\nImmortality of the body?... There can be no immortality in a substance\nwhich earth attracts. We have vast and violent lessons to learn in the\nflesh; lessons which can be learned only in the flesh, because it is a\nmatrix for the integration of spirit. It appears to me that, in due\ntime, man reaches a period when he balances in the attractions--between\nthe weight of the body and the lifting of the soul. This is the result\nof a slow, refining process that has endured through all time.\nReincarnation is the best theory I know for the process. That there is\nan upward tendency driving the universe, seems to be the only cause and\njustification for Creating. Devolution cannot be at the centre of such a\nsystem.... The body becomes more and more a spotless garment for the\nsoul; soul-light more and more electrifies it; the elimination of\ncarnality in thought may even render the body delicate and transparent,\nbut it is a matrix still, and falls away--when one's full-formed wings\nno longer need the weight of a thorax----\"\n\n\"What an expression!\" Bellingham observed abruptly. He had been staring\naway toward a low, cloudy film of land in the south. One would have\nthought that he had heard only the sentence which aroused his comment.\nCharter was filling with violence. The man's vanity was chained to him\nlike a corpse. This experience of pouring out energy to no purpose\naroused in Charter all the forces which had combined to force the public\nto his work. The thought came that Bellingham was so accustomed to\ndirect the speech and thought of others, mainly women, that he had lost\nthe listening faculty.\n\n\"Let me express it, then,\" Charter declared with his stoutest\nrepression, \"that this beautiful surviving element, having finished with\nthe flesh, knows only the attraction of Light. It is the perfect flower\nof ages of earth-culture, exquisite and inimitable from the weathering\ncenturies, and is radiant for a higher destiny than a cooling planet's\ncrust----\"\n\n\"My dear young man, you speak very clearly, prettily, and not without\nforce, I may say,--a purely Platonistic gospel.\"\n\nCharter's mental current was turned off for a second. True or false, the\nremark was eminently effective. A great man might have said it, or a\ndilettante.\n\n\"In which case, I have a firm foundation.\"\n\n\"But I am essentially of the moderns,\" said Bellingham.\n\n\"Perhaps I should have known that from your first remark--about the\nbrown bodies of the Islanders, rejoicing in the sunlight and bathing in\nthese jewelled seas.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes----\" The softening of Bellingham's mouth, as he recalled his\nown words, injected fresh stimulant into the animus of the other. As\nCharter feared the eyes, so he had come to loathe the mouth, though he\nwas not pleased with the intensity of his feelings.\n\n\"Do you honestly believe that--that which feels the attraction of earth,\nand becomes a part of earth after death--is the stuff of immortality?\"\nhe demanded.\n\n\"By marvellous processes of prolongation and refinement--and barring\naccident--yes.\"\n\n\"Processes which these poor Islanders could understand?\"\n\n\"We are moving in a circle,\" Bellingham said hastily.\n\nFor the first moment, Charter felt the whip-hand over his own faculties.\n\n\"I've noted the great, modern tendency to preach _body_,\" he said,\ninhaling a big breath of the fragrant air, \"to make a religion of bodily\nhealth--to look for elemental truth in alimentary canals; to mix prayer\nwith carnal subterfuge and heaven with health resorts. Better Phallicism\nbare-faced.... I read a tract recently written by one of these\nbody-worshippers--the smug, black devil. It made me feel just as I did\nwhen I found a doctor book in the attic once, at the age of ten....\nWhatever I may be, have done, may feel, dream or think below the\ndiaphragm--hasn't anything to do with my religion. I believe in health,\nas in a good horse or a good typewriter, but my body's health is not\ngoing to rule my day.\"\n\n\"You are young--to have become chilled by such polar blasts,\" Bellingham\nsaid uneasily, for he now found the other's eyes but without result.\n\n\"I came into the world with a full quiver of red passions,\" Charter said\nwearily, yet strangely glad. \"The quiver is not empty. I do not say that\nI wish it were, but I have this to declare: I do not relish being told\nhow to play with the barbs; how to polish and point and delight in them;\nhow to put them back more deadly poisoned. I think there are big\nblankets of mercy for a natural voluptuary--for the things done when\ntissues are aflame--but for the man who deliberately studies to recreate\nthem without cost, and tells others of his experiments--frankly, I\nbelieve in hell for such men-maggots. Oblivion is too sweet. The essence\nof my hatred for these Bodyists is because of the poison they infuse\ninto the minds of youths and maidens, whose character-skeletons are\nstill rubbery.... But let such teachers purr, wriggle, and dilate--for\nthey're going back right speedily to the vipers!\"\n\nBellingham's eyes had been lost in the South. He turned, arose, and\nafter a pause said lightly, \"Your talk is strong meat, young man....\nI--I suffered a serious accident some months ago and cannot stay too\nlong in one place. We shall talk again. How far do you go with the\n_Panther_?\"\n\n\"Saint Pierre.\"\n\nCharter already felt the first pangs of reaction. His vehemence, the\nburn of temper for himself, in that he had allowed the other's\npersonality to prey upon him, and the unwonted aggressiveness of his\ntalk--all assumed an evil aspect now as he perceived the occultist's\nghastly face. In rising, Bellingham seemed to have stirred within\nhimself centres of unutterable torture. His look suggested one who has\nbeen drilled in dreadful arcanums of pain, unapproached by ordinary men.\n\n\"I think I must have been pent a long time,\" Charter said in his\ntrouble. \"Perhaps, I'm a little afraid of myself and was rehearsing a\nwarning for the strength of my own bridle-arm--since we're swinging down\ninto these Isles of Seduction.\"\n\n\"You'll find a more comfortable coolness with the years, I think, and\ncease to abhor your bounding physical vitality. Remember, 'Jesus came\neating and drinking----'\"\n\nCharter started under the touch of the old iron. \"But 'wisdom is\njustified of all her children,'\" he responded quickly.\n\nThey were at the door of Bellingham's cabin, which was forward on the\npromenade. The doctor laughed harshly as he turned the key. \"I see you\nhave your Scriptures, too,\" he said. \"We must talk again.\"\n\n\"How far do you go with the _Panther_?\" Charter asked, drawing away. His\neyes had filled for a second, as the door swung open, with the\nphotograph of a strangely charming young woman within the cabin.\n\n\"I have not decided--possibly on to South America.\"\n\nCharter felt as he walked alone that he had shown his youth, even a\npertness of youth. He recalled that he had done almost all the talking;\nthat he had felt the combativeness of a boy who scents a rival from\nanother school--quite ridiculous. Moreover, he was weary, as if one of\nhis furious seasons of work had just ended--that rare and excellent kind\nof work which gathers about itself an elemental force to drive the mind\nas with fire until the course is run.... He did not encounter Bellingham\nduring the rest of the voyage.\n\nLong before dawn the _Panther_ gained the harbor before Saint Pierre,\nand Charter awoke to the consciousness of a disorder in the air. Alone\non deck, while the night was being driven back over the rising land, he\nwas delighted to pick out the writhing letters of gold, \"_Saragossa_,\"\nthrough the smoky gray, a few furlongs to the south. Peter Stock, an\nacquaintance from a former call at Saint Pierre, had become a solid and\nfruitful memory....\n\nFather Fontanel was found early, where the suffering was greatest in the\ncity. The old eyes lit with gladness as he caught Charter with both\nhands, and murmured something as his gaze sank into the eyes of the\nyounger man--something which Charter did not exactly understand, about\nwolves being slain.\n\n\"What have you been doing with Old Man Pelee, Father? We heard him\ngroaning in the night, and the town is fetid with his sickness.\"\n\n\"Ah, my son, I am afraid!\"\n\nHad all the seismologists of civilization gathered in Saint Pierre, and\nuttered a verdict that the volcano was an imminent menace, Charter would\nnot have turned a more serious look at Pelee than he did that moment....\nAt the _Palms_, he found Peter Stock and a joyous welcome. They arranged\nfor luncheon together, and the Capitalist hurried down into the city....\nThat proved a memorable luncheon, since Peter Stock at the last moment\npersuaded Miss Wyndam to join them.\n\nCharter was disturbed with the thought that he had seen her before; and\namazed that he could have forgotten where. He could only put it far back\namong the phantasmagoria of drinking days. Certainly the sane, restored\nCharter had never met this woman and forgotten. His veins were dilated\nas by a miraculous wine.\n\n\"The name is new to me, but I seem to have seen you somewhere, Miss\nWyndam,\" he declared.\n\n\"That's the second time you've said that, young man,\" Mr. Stock\nremarked. \"Don't your sentences register?\"\n\n\"It's always bewildering--I know how Mr. Charter feels,\" Paula managed\nto say. \"I'm quite sure we were never introduced, though I know Mr.\nCharter's work.\"\n\n\"That's good of you, indeed,\" he said. \"I don't mean--to know my\nwork--but to help me out with Friend Stock. It is bewildering that I\nhave forgotten. I feel like a boy in an enchanted forest. Pelee has been\nworking wonders all day.\"\n\n\"I can't follow you,\" the Capitalist sighed. \"Your sentences are\npuckered.\"\n\nThey hardly heard him. Paula, holding fast with all her strength to the\npart she had planned to play, sensed Charter's blind emotion, distinct\nfrom her own series of shocks. To her it was that furious moment of\nadjustment, when a man and his ideal meet for the first time in a\nwoman's heart. As for this heart, she feared they would hear its\nbeating. Instantly, she knew that he had not come to Saint Pierre\nexpecting to find her; knew that she was flooding into his\nsubconsciousness--that he felt _worlds_ and could not understand. She\nfound the boy in his eyes--the boy of his old picture--and the deep\nlines and the white skin of a man who has lived clean, and the brow of a\nman who has thought many clean things. He was thinking of the Skylark,\nand \"Wyndam\" disturbed him.... Always when he hesitated in his speech,\nthe right word sprang to her lips to help him. She caught the very\nprocesses of his thinking; his remoteness from the thought of food, was\nher own.... For hours, since she had heard his voice below, Paula had\npaced the floor of her room, planning to keep her secret long. She would\nplay and watch his struggle to remember the Skylark; she would weigh the\nforces of the conflict, stimulate it; study him among men, in the\npresence of suffering, and in the dread of the mountain. All this she\nhad planned, but now her whole heart went out to the boy in his\neyes--the boy that smiled. All the doubts which at best she had hoped\nfor the coming days to banish were erased in a moment; she even believed\nin its fullness the letter from Selma Cross--because he was embarrassed,\nbrimming with emotions he could not understand, quite as the boy of her\ndreams would be. She lived full-length in his silences, hardly dared to\nlook at him now, for she felt his constant gaze. She knew that she was\ncolorless, but that her eyes were filled with light.... Presently she\nrealized that they were talking of Father Fontanel.\n\n\"He's a good old man,\" said Peter Stock. \"He works day and night--and\nrefuses to call it work. Just think of having a servant with a God like\nFather Fontanel's to make work easy!\"\n\n\"He's even a little bit sorry for Pelee,\" Charter said. \"I'm never quite\nthe same in Saint Pierre. Many times up in the States, I ask myself, if\nit isn't largely in my mind about Father Fontanel's spirit and his\neffect upon me. It isn't. Stronger than ever it came to me this morning.\nYou know him?\" He turned the last to the woman.\n\n\"Yes, I found him down on the water-front----\"\n\n\"And brought him to me,\" said Mr. Stock, and added: \"You know what\nbothered me about priests so long--they seem to have it all settled\nbetween them that theirs is the only true Air-line Limited to God.\nFontanel's down in the lowlands, where life is pent and cruel, where\nthere are weak sisters and little ones who have to be helped over hard\nways--that's what gets Peter Stock.\"\n\n\"You don't know how good that is to hear,\" Paula said softly. \"I have\nthought it, too, about some men in holy orders--black figures moving\nalong in a 'grim, unfraternal' Indian file, with their eyes so occupied\nin keeping their feet from breaking fresh ground--that it seems they\nmust sometimes lose the Summit.\"\n\nCharter looked from one to the other. Peter Stock regarded their plates.\nPaula made a quick pretense of eating, and was grateful when Charter\nbroke the silence: \"Yes, Father Fontanel has found one of the trails to\nthe Top--one of the happy ones. Sometimes I think there are just as many\ntrails, as an ant could find to the top of an apple. Wayfarers go\na-singing on Father Fontanel's trail--eyes warm with soft skies and\nuntellable dreams. It's a way of fineness and loving-kindness----\"\n\nMr. Stock had risen from the table and moved to a window which faced the\nNorth. All was vague about them. Paula had been carried by Charter's\nvoice toward far-shining mountains.... In the silence, she met the\nstrange, steady eyes of _the boy_, and looked away to find that the room\nhad darkened.\n\n\"It is getting dark,\" he said.\n\nShe would have said it, if he hadn't.\n\nThe mountain rumbled.\n\n\"The North is a mass of swirling grays and blacks,\" Peter Stock\nannounced from the window. \"It isn't a thunderstorm----\"\n\nA sharp detonation cleaved the darkening air, and from the rear of the\nhouse the answer issued--quavering cries of children, sharp calling of\nmothers, and the sullen undertone of men. A subdued drumming came from\nthe North now, completing the tossing currents of sound about the house.\nThe dismal bellowing of cattle and the stamping of ponies was heard from\nthe barns. All this was wiped out by a series of terrific crashes, and\nthe floor stirred as if intaking a deep breath. The dining-room filled\nwith a crying, crouching gray-lipped throng of servants. A deluge of ash\ncomplicated the half-night outside, and the curse of sulphur pressed\ndown.\n\nPaula arose. Charter had taken his place close beside her, but spoke no\nword.\n\n\n\n\nTWENTIETH CHAPTER\n\nCHARTER'S MIND BECOMES THE ARENA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN THE WYNDAM WOMAN\nAND SKYLARK MEMORIES\n\n\nIn the _Rue Rivoli_ there was a little stone wine-shop. The street was\nshort, narrow, crooked, and ill-paved--a cleft in Saint Pierre's\nterrace-work. Just across from the vault-like entrance to the shop, the\nwhite, scarred cliff arose to another flight of the city. Between the\nshop and the living-rooms behind there was a little court, shaded by\nmango-trees. Dwarfed banana-shrubs flourished in the shade of the\nmangoes, and singing-birds were caged in the lower foliage. Since the\nsun could find no entrance, the wine-shop was dark as a cave, and as\ncool. One window, if an aperture like the clean wound of a thirteen-inch\ngun could be called a window, opened to the north; and from it, by the\ngrace of a crook in the _Rue Rivoli_, might be seen the mighty-calibred\ncone of Pelee.\n\nPere Rabeaut's wine was very good, and some of it was very cheap. The\nservice was much as you made it, for if you were known you were\npermitted to help yourself. In this world there was no one of station\ntoo lofty to go to Pere Rabeaut's; and since those of no station\nwhatsoever drank rum, instead of wine, you would meet no one there to\nwhom it was not a privilege to say \"_Bon jour_.\"\n\n\"Come and see my birds,\" the crafty Rabeaut would say if he approved of\nyou.\n\n\"Where do you live?\" you might ask, being a stranger.\n\n\"In the coolest hovel of Saint Pierre,\" was his invariable answer.\n\nAnd presently, if you were truly alive, you would find yourself in the\nlittle stone wine-shop, listening to the birds and looking over the\nstalled casks, demijohns, and bottles, filled with more or less\nconcentrated soil and sun. In due course, Soronia would appear in the\nshadowy doorway (it would seem that the bird-songs were hushed as she\ncrossed the court), and she would show you a vintage of especially long\nago. After that, though you became a missionary in Shantung, or a\nremittance-man in Tahiti, you would never forget the bouquet of the\nRabeaut wines, the cantatas of the canaries, nor the witchery of\nSoronia's eyes.... If the little stone wine-shop were transplanted in\nNew York, artists would find it, and you would be forced to fetch your\nown goblet and have difficulty in getting in and out for the crowd o'\nnights.\n\nThither Charter went the next morning and sat down in the cherished\ncoolness. Peter Stock had reminded him of their former talks there, over\na particular wine of Epernay, and had arranged to meet him this\nmorning.... In the foreground of Charter's mind a gritty depression had\nsettled, but throughout the finer, farther consciousness, where\nrealities abide, there hung a mystic constellation, which every little\nwhile (and with a shock of ecstasy, so wonderful that his _mere_ brain\nwas alarmed and called it scandalous), fused together into a great,\nglowing ardent Star of Bethlehem....\n\nAgain, the _mere_ brain said: \"What have you done with your three years?\nThe actress knew you better than you knew yourself. All your letters,\nand the spirit of your letters, have fallen into ruin before the first\nwoman you meet down here in a dreamy, tropic isle. How can you--you, who\nhave lived truly for a little while, and seemed to have felt the love\nthat lifts--sink into the fragrant meshes of romance, through the\nbeautiful eyes of a stranger to your world and to your ways? And what of\nSkylark, the lovely, the winged?...\" And the soul of the man riding at\nits moorings in the bright calm of wisdom's anchorage, made laughing\nanswer: \"This is the Skylark--ah, not that Wyndam is Linster,--but this\nis the veiled queen who has waited so long for the House of Charter to\nbe ready. This is the forever-fairy that puzzled the nights and mornings\nof the long-ago Charter boy. It was her wing that held the last dart of\nlight in the gardens of boyhood before the frowning thunders came. It\nwas her songs that made the youth's mind magic with lyrics, certain ones\nso very clear that they fitted into words. It was to find her dazzling\nbrow that lured him to prodigious wanderings, until he fell fainting in\nthe dust of other women's chariots. It was the rustling of her wings\nthat he heard from without, when he lay in the Caverns of Devouring,\nwhere the twain, Flesh and Death, hold ghastly carnival; the flash of\nher wings again that lifted his eyes to the Rising Road. It was her\nspirit in the splendid East whose miracles of singing and shining made\nglorious, with creative touch, his hours by the garret window.... It was\nshe of exquisite shoulder and starry eyes and radiant sympathies--before\nwhom the boy, the man and the spirit, bowed in thankfulness\nyesterday....\"\n\nAnd so he sat there thinking, thinking,--glimpsing the errant centuries\nin the same high light of memory that this very morning recurred--an\nhour or two ago, when he had walked with her through the mango-grove in\nthe coolness following a dawn-shower that had washed the white weight of\nPelee's ash-winter from the trees.... \"What a chaos I must be,\" he\nmurmured in dull anguish, \"with the finest of my life plighted to a\nvision that is lost--while I linger desolate in the presence of wondrous\nreality!\" ... Some one was moving and whispering in the little room\nacross the court of the song-birds.... Peter Stock entered, his white\nhair and mustache dulled with ash; his eyes red and angry.\n\n\"Well, I think I've got Father Fontanel frightened,\" he said, sinking\ndown across the little round table. \"He's telling the people to shut up\ntheir houses and go to Fort de France. Sixty or seventy have started,\nand many more have gone up to Morne Rouge and Ajoupa Boullion, where it\nhappens to be cool, though they're just as close to the craters.\nFontanel has come into a very proper spirit of respect for Pelee's\ndestructive capacity. By the way, did you hear what happened yesterday,\nduring the darkness and racket while we were at dinner?\"\n\n\"Not definitely. Tell me,\" Charter urged.\n\n\"The extreme northern end of the city, or part of it, was flooded out\nlike an ant-hill under a kettle boiling over. The River _Blanche_\noverflowed her banks, and ran with boiling mud from the volcano. Thirty\npeople were killed and the Usine Guerin destroyed.\"\n\n\"I didn't think it was so bad as that.\"\n\n\"I hope I'm wrong, but the Guerin disaster may be only a preliminary\ndemonstration--like the operator experimenting to find if it is dark\nenough to start the main fireworks. Nobody can complain to Saint Peter\nthat Pelee hasn't warned.\"\n\n\"There's another way to look at it,\" Charter said. \"The volcano's\noverflow into the River _Blanche_ might have eased the pressure upon the\ncraters. I wonder if there is any authority or precedent for such a\nhope?\"\n\n\"If Pelee's fuse is burning shorter and shorter toward a Krakatoan\ncataclysm,\" Peter Stock declared moodily, \"it's not for man to say what\nspark will shake the world.... I tried to see Mondet this morning--but\ncouldn't get in. You wouldn't think one white, small person could\ncontain so much poison. I am haunted with the desire to commit physical\ndepredations.\"\n\n\"I think I'll take a little journey up toward the craters to-morrow,\"\nCharter confided, after a moment. \"They say that the weather is quiet\nand clean to the north of the mountain. One might ride up and try to\nreason with _Pere Pelee_----\"\n\nAt this juncture Soronia entered the wine-shop from the little court, to\nfill the eyes and the goblets of the Americans. A dark, ardent, alluring\nface; flesh like dull gold, made wonderful by the faintest tints of ripe\nfruit; eyes that could melt and burn and laugh; a fragile figure, but\nradiantly abloom, and as worthily draped as a young palm in a richly\nblossoming vine. She made one think of a strange, regal flower, an\nexperiment of Nature, wrought in the most sumptuous shadow of a tropic\ngarden.... She was gone. Charter laughed at the drained look in Peter\nStock's face.\n\n\"An orchid----\" the latter began.\n\n\"Or a sunlit cathedral window.\"\n\n\"Will the visitation be repeated? Do I wake or sleep?\"\n\n\"The years have dealt artistically in the little wine-shop,\"\nsaid Charter. \"They say old Pere Rabeaut married a _fille de\ncouleur_--daughter of a former Governor-General of Martinique.\"\n\n\"Some Daphne of the Islands, she must have been, since Pere Rabeaut does\nnot seem designed to father a sunset.... It's my first glimpse of\nSoronia this voyage. She was beautiful in a girlish way last year....\nShe's in love, or she couldn't glow like that. I met Pere Rabeaut down\nin the city----\"\n\nCharter arose. \"Perhaps the lover is across the court. I heard a\nwhispering through the bird-songs--and one could not fail to note how\nshe hurried back.... I must go on. The water is no better here than\nelsewhere.\"\n\n\"But the wine is,\" said Peter Stock. \"Wait luncheon for me at the\n_Palms_.... By the way, how'd you like to take a little cruise--feel the\n_Saragossa_ under you, running like a scared deer to hitch herself to\nthe solid old Horn, built of rock and sealed with icebergs----\"\n\n\"A clean thought, in this air--but the eventualities here attract. When\nFather Fontanel grows afraid for the city, well, it may not be\nscientific, but it's ominous.... I wanted to ask if it ever occurred to\nyou that even the _Morne d'Orange_ might fall into the sweeping range of\nPelee's guns?\"\n\n\"In other words--if the mountain won't recede from Miss Wyndam, we'd\nbetter snatch up Miss Wyndam and make a getaway from the mountain?\"\n\nFrom far within a \"Yea\" was acclaimed, yet there was a sullen Charter\nintegrity which had given its word to Skylark, and feared the test of\nbeing shut on the same ship with a woman who endowed him with such power\nthat he felt potent to go to the craters and remonstrate with the\nMonster.\n\n\"It might be well to ask her,\" Charter replied gloomily, \"but I'm rather\nabsorbed in the action here and Father Fontanel's work. I want to look\nat the craters from behind----\"\n\n\"Twice you've said that,\" said Peter Stock, \"and each time it reminds me\nthat I'm old, yet there's a lure about it. I'm thinking----\"\n\nTheir heads were together at the little round window for the mountain\nhad rumbled again, and they stared beyond the city into the ashen\nshroud.\n\n\"Grand old martyr,\" Charter muttered, \"hang on, hang on!... The flag of\ntruce still flies.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPaula at the _Palms_ reflected the Charter conflict that morning. She\nhad seen it in his eyes and felt it in his heart, as they had walked\ntogether in the mock-winter of the mango-grove before breakfast. Away\nfrom him now, however, she could not be sure that \"Wyndam,\" representing\nthe woman, altogether satisfied his vision of Skylark. Very strange, he\nwas, in his struggling, and it became harder, and a more delicate thing\nthan she had believed, to say, \"I am Paula Linster.\" She had felt this\ngreat restlessness of his spirit vaguely in the early letters--a stormy,\nbattling spirit which his brain constantly labored to interpret. She had\nseen his moments of calm, too, when the eyes and smile of the boy\nrendered his attractions so intimate to her, that she could have told\nhim anything--but these calms did not endure even in her presence. She\ndid not want the woman, Wyndam, despised, nor yet the Skylark put from\nhim. It became a reality, that out of his struggle Truth would rise;\nmeanwhile, though not with the entire sanction of a certain inner voice,\nshe withheld her secret, remaining silent and watchful in the midst of\nthe greatest drama the world could bring to her understanding....\n\nPaula did not fail to note that Peter Stock was somewhat surprised when\nshe refused for the present his invitation to spend the nights at least\nout in the cool Caribbean. She saw, moreover, that Quentin Charter was\nbeginning to fear the mountain, because she remained at the _Palms_.\nIndeed, it was hard for all to remember that in form, at least, they\nwere mere acquaintances, so familiar had they become to each other in\nthe pressure of Pelee. Above all this, she was almost continually\nconscious of Bellingham since the receipt of Madame Nestor's letter. It\nwas not that his power was formidable enough to disorder the unfolding\nof the drama, but she felt his nearness, his strategies--all the more\nstrange, as there had been no sign of him since the arrival of the\n_Panther_. If for no other reason, she would have found it difficult to\ndisclose her real name to Quentin Charter, while her mind was even\ndistantly the prey of the black giant.\n\nThese were tremendous hours--when but a word from her withheld two\nhearts from bursting into anthems. Bravely, she gloried in these last\ngreat refinings--longings, fears, exaltations, but never was she without\nthe loftiest hope of her life. The man who had come was so much that\n_the man_ should be. She saw his former years as the wobblings of a top\nthat has not yet gained its momentum. Only at its highest speed does the\ntop sing its peace with God.... Had not the finest glow of his powers\nbeen reserved until her coming?...\n\nIn such moments as these, she could look back upon her own agonies with\ngratitude. She had needed a Bellingham. Should she not be thankful that\na beyond-devil had been required to test her soul? In the splendid\nrenewals of her spirit, Paula felt that she could look into the\nmagician's eyes now and command him from her. She was even grateful that\nshe had been swept in the fury of The High Tide, nor would she have had\nthat supreme night of trial when she fled from the _Zoroaster_, stricken\nfrom her past. Just as Quentin Charter, of the terrible thirsts, had\nrequired his years of wrath and wandering, so her soul had needed the\ntest of a woman's revelations and man's sublimated passion. Deep within\nlived a majestic happiness--earned.\n\nAt one o'clock, as she was going below for luncheon, the sun gave up\ntrying to shine through the ash-fog, but volumes of dreadful heat found\nthe earth. The _Saragossa_ was invisible in the roadstead; there was no\nline dividing shore and sea, nor sea and sky. It was all an illimitable\nmask, whose fabric was the dust which for centuries had lain upon the\ndynamos of Pelee.\n\n\n\n\nTWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER\n\nCHARTER COMMUNES WITH THE WYNDAM WOMAN, AND CONFESSES THE GREAT TROUBLE\nOF HIS HEART TO FATHER FONTANEL\n\n\n\"Do you know what I discovered this morning?\" Peter Stock asked, after\nthe three had found a table together. \"M. Mondet is trying to keep the\npeople in town for political reasons. It appears that there is to be an\nelection in a few days. All my efforts, and, by non-parishioners, the\nefforts of Father Fontanel, are regarded as a political\ncounter-stroke--to rush a certain element of the suffrage out of the\ntown.... This is certainly Ash-Wednesday, isn't it?\"\n\nCharter laughed. \"My theory that the Guerin disaster might relieve the\ncraters and give surcease to Saint Pierre--doesn't seem to work out. The\nair is getting thicker, even.\"\n\n\"It isn't really ash, you know,\" explained Mr. Stock, \"but rock, ground\nfine as neat in the hell-mills under the mountain and shot out by steam\nthrough Pelee's valves----\"\n\n\"Intensely graphic,\" said Paula.\n\n\"It has been rather a graphic morning,\" Charter remarked. \"Friend Stock\nis virile from his activities with Father Fontanel.\"\n\n\"Well, I didn't make a covenant with the mountain--as you did this\nmorning in the wine-shop. You should have seen him, Miss Wyndam, staring\naway at the volcano and, muttering, 'Hang on, old chap, hang on!....' My\ndear young woman, doesn't a ride on the ocean sound good for this\nafternoon? You can sit on deck and hold the little black babies. The\n_Saragossa_ takes another load to Fort de France in two or three hours.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Not just yet. You don't realize how wonderful the\ndrama is to me--you and Father Fontanel, playing Cassandra down in the\ncity--the groaning mountain, and the pity of it all. I confess a little\ninconvenience of the weather isn't enough to drive me out. It isn't very\noften given to a woman to watch the operations of a destiny so big as\nthis.\"\n\nThe capitalist turned to Charter. \"You know Empress Josephine was born\nin Martinique and has become a sort of patron saint for the Island. A\nbeautiful statue of her stands in the square at Fort de France where our\nrefugees are encamped. I was only thinking that the map of Europe and\nthe history of France might have been altered greatly if our beloved\nJosephine had been gifted with a will like this--of Miss Wyndam's.\"\n\nHer pale, searching face regarded Charter for a second, and his eyes\nsaid plainly as words, \"Don't you think you'd better consider this more\nseriously?\"\n\n\"Maybe you'll like the idea better for the evening, when the _Saragossa_\nis back in the roadstead again, comparatively empty,\" Peter Stock added\npresently. \"Father Fontanel and I have a lot to do in the meantime. Can\nyou imagine our first parents occupying themselves when the first\ntornado was swooping down--our dear initial mother, surpassingly\nwind-blown, driving the geese to shelter, propping up the orchards,\ngetting out the rain-barrels, and tightening tent-pins?\"\n\n\"Vividly,\" said Paula.\n\n\"That's just how busy we are--Father Fontanel and I.\"\n\nIt was to be expected that a sophomoric pointlessness should\ncharacterize the sayings of the two in the midst of Peter Stock's\nmasculinity and the thrilling magnitude of the marvel each was to the\nother.... They were left together presently, and the search for treasure\nbegan at once:\n\n\"... The present is a time of readjustment between men and women,\" he\nwas saying. \"It seems to me that the great mistake people make--men and\nwomen alike--is that each sex tries to raise itself by lowering\nthe other. It hardly could be any other way just now, and at\nfirst--with woman filled with the turmoil of emerging from ages of\noppression--fighting back the old and fitting to the new. But in man and\nwoman--not in either alone--lies completion. If the two do not quite\ncomplete each other, a Third often springs from them with an increased\nspiritual development.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered, leaning forward, her chin fitted to her palms. \"The\n_I-am_ and the _You-are-not_ will soon be put away. I like to think of\nit--that man and woman are together in the complete human. There is a\nglorious, an arch-feminine ideal in the nature of the Christ----\"\n\n\"Even in the ineffable courage,\" he added softly. \"That is woman's--the\nfiner courage that never loses its tenderness.... His Figure sometimes,\nas now, becomes an intimate passion to me----\"\n\n\"As if He were near?\"\n\n\"As if He were near--still loving, still mediating--all earth's struggle\nand anguish passing through Him and becoming glorified with His pity and\ntenderness--before it reaches the eyes of the Father.... There is no\nother way. Man and woman must be One in Two--before Two in One. They\nmust not war upon each other. Woman is receptive; man the origin. Woman\nis a planet cooled to support life; man, still an incandescent sun,\ngenerates the life.\"\n\n\"That is clear and inspiring,\" she said. \"I have always wanted it said\njust like that--that one is as important as the other in the evolution\nof the Individual----\"\n\n\"And for that Individual are swung the solar systems.... Look at\nJob--denuded of all but the Spirit. There is an Individual, and his\nstory is the history of an Initiation.... We are coming to a time when\nMind will operate in man and woman _conscious_ of the Soul. When that\ntime comes true, how the progress to God will be cleared and speeded! It\nwill be a flight----\"\n\n\"Instead of a crawl,\" she finished.\n\nThey were alone in the big dining-room. Their voices could not have\nreached the nearest empty table. It was like a communion--their first\ncommunion.\n\n\"I have felt it,\" she went on in a strange, low tone, \"and heard the New\nVoices--Preparers of the Way. Sometimes it came to me in New York--the\nstirring of a great, new spiritual life. I have felt the hunger--that\nawful hollowness in the breasts of men and women, who turn to each other\nin mute agony, who turn to a thousand foolish sensations--because they\ndo not realize what they hunger for. Their breasts cry out to be\nfilled----\"\n\n\"And the Spirit cries out to flood in.\"\n\n\"Yes, and the Spirit asks only for Earth-people to listen to their inner\nvoices and love one another,\" she completed. \"It demands no macerations,\nno fetters, no fearful austerities--only fineness and loving kindness.\"\n\n\"How wonderfully they have come to me, too--those radiant moments--as I\nsat by my study window, facing the East,\" he whispered, not knowing what\nthe last words meant to her. \"How clear it is that all great and good\nthings come with this soul-age--this soul-consciousness. I have seen in\nthose lovely moments that Mother Earth is but one of many of God's\ngardens; that human life is but a day in a glorious culture-scheme which\ninvolves many brighter and brighter transplantings; that the radiance of\nthe Christ, our Exemplar, but shows us the loveliness which shall be\nours when we approach that lofty maturity of bloom----\"\n\nA waiter entered with the word that a man from the city, Pere Rabeaut,\ndesired to see Mr. Charter. Each felt the dreadfulness of returning so\nabruptly to sordid exterior consciousness--each felt the gray ghost of\nPelee.\n\n\"I shall go and see what is wanted, Miss Wyndam, and hurry back--if I\nmay?\" he said in a dull, tired tone.\n\nIt was the first time he had said \"Wyndam,\" and it hurt cruelly at this\nmoment.... \"No, no,\" she said rising hastily. \"It would spoil it to come\nback. We could not forget ourselves like that--so soon again. It always\nspoils--oh, what am I saying? I think our talk must have interested me\nvery much.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" he said gently. \"But we shall talk again--and for this\nlittle hour, my whole heart rises to thank you.\"\n\nPere Rabeaut was waiting upon the veranda. Peculiarly, at this moment he\nseemed attached to the crook of wine-shop servitude, which Charter had\nnever noticed with such evidence among the familiar casks. Moreover,\ndisorder was written upon the gray face.\n\n\"_Mon Dieu_, what a day, M. Charter!--a day of judgment! Soronia's\nlittle birds are dying!\"\n\nCharter regarded the sharp, black eyes, which darted over his own face,\nbut would not be held in any gaze.\n\n\"I heard from my daughter that you are going to the craters of the\nmountain,\" the old man said. \"'He will need a guide,' said I at once.\n'And guides are scarce just now, for the people are afraid of Pelee.\nStill, he's an old patron,' I said to Soronia. 'He cannot go to the\nmountain without a guide, so I shall do this little thing for him. He\nmust have our Jacques.'\"\n\nCharter drew him away. He did not care to have it known at the _Palms_\nthat he was projecting a trip to the summit. Perhaps the inscrutable\nPere Rabeaut was conferring a considerable favor. It was arranged that\nif he decided to make the journey, the American should call at the\nwine-shop for Jacques early the following morning. Pere Rabeaut left him\nnone the poorer for his queer errand.\n\nCharter avoided Miss Wyndam for the rest of the day. Beyond all the\nwords of their little talk, had come to him a fullness of womanhood\nquite beyond the dreamer. As he remembered the lustrous face, the\ncompletion of his sentences, the mutual sustaining of their thoughts,\ntheir steady, tireless ascent beyond the need of words; as he remembered\nher calms, and the glimpses of cosmic consciousness, her grasp, her\nexpression, her silences, the exquisite refinement of her face, and the\nlingering adoration in her eyes--the ideal of the Skylark was so clearly\nand marvellously personified that for moments at a time the vision was\nlost in the living woman. And for this, Quentin Charter proposed to\nsuffer--and to suffer alone.\n\nSo he supped down-town, and waited for Father Fontanel at the\nparish-house. The priest came in during the evening and Charter saw at\nonce, what the other never could have admitted, that the last few days\nhad borne the good man to the uttermost edges of his frail vitality.\nUnder the lamp, the beautiful old face had the whiteness of that virgin\nwax of Italian hives in which the young queens lie until the hour of\nawakening. The tired, smiling eyes, deeply shadowed under a brow that\nwas blest, gazed upon the young man with a light in his eyes not\nreflected from the lamp, but from his great love--in that pure\nfatherhood of celibacy....\n\n\"Ah, no, I'm not weary, my son. We must have our walks and talks\ntogether on the _Morne_ again.... When old Father Pelee rests once more\nfrom his travail, and the people are happy again, you and I shall walk\nunder the stars, and you shall tell me of those glorious saints, who\nfelt in the presence of God that they must put such violent constraint\nupon themselves.... When I think of my suffering people--it comes to me\nthat the white ship was sent like a good angel--and how I thank that\nnoble lady for taking me at once to this great rock of an American, who\nbluffs me about so cheerily and grants all things before they are asked.\nWhat wonderful people you are from America! But it is always so--always\nthese good things come to me. Indeed, I am very grateful....\nWeary?--what a poor old man I should be to fall weary in the midst of\nsuch helpers....\"\n\nCharter sat down beside him under the lamp and told him what an arena\nhis mind had become for conflict between a woman and a vision. Even with\nthe writer's trained designing, the tale drew out with an oriental\npatience of weaving and coloring. Charter had felt a woman's need for\nthe ease of disclosure, and indeed there was no other man whom he would\nhave told. He had a thought, too, that if by any chance Pelee should\nintervene--both the woman and the Skylark might learn. He did not tell\nof his plan to go to the mountain--lest he be dissuaded. In his mind the\nfollowing day was set apart--as a sort of pilgrimage sacred to Skylark.\n\n\"Old Pelee has shadowed my mind,\" Father Fontanel said, when the story\nwas done. \"I see him before and between all things, but I shall meditate\nand tell you what seems best in my sight. Only this, my son, you may\nknow, that when first the noble lady filled my eyes--I felt you near\nher--as if she had come to me from you, whom I always loved to\nremember.\"\n\nCharter bowed and went his way, troubled by the shadow of Pelee in the\nholy man's mind; and yet glad, too, that the priest had felt him near\nwhen he first saw Miss Wyndam. It was late when he reached the _Palms_\nyet sleeplessness ranged through his mind, and he did not soon go to his\nroom. The house and grounds were all his own. He paced the veranda, the\ngarden paths and drives; crossed the shadowy lawns, brooded upon the\nrumbling mountain and the foggy moon high in the south.... At the side\nof the great house to the north, there was a trellis heavily burdened\nwith lianas. Within, he found the orifice of an old cistern, partially\ncovered by unfixed planking. A startling thought caused him to wonder\nwhy he had not explored the place before. The moonlight, faint at best,\ngave but ghostly light through the foliage, yet he kicked away a board\nand lit a match. A heavy wooden bar crossed the rim and was set stoutly\nin the masonry. His mind keenly grasped each detail at the exterior. A\nrusty chain depended from the thick cross-piece. He dropped several\nignited matches into the chamber. Slabs of stone from the side-walls had\nfallen into the cistern, which seemed to contain little or no water....\nFrom one of the native cabins came the sound of a dog barking. A shutter\nclicked in one of the upper windows of the plantation-house.\n\n\n\n\nTWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER\n\nCHARTER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRATERS OF _PELEE_--ONE LAST DAY\nDEVOTED TO THE SPIRIT OF OLD LETTERS\n\n\nCharter left the _Palms_ early to join his guide at the wine-shop. He\nhad kept apart from Peter Stock for two reasons. The old capitalist\neasily could have been tempted to accompany him. Personally, Charter did\nnot consider a strong element of danger, and a glimpse into the\nvolcano's mouth would give him a grasp and handling of the throes of a\nsick world, around which all natural phenomena would assume thereafter\nan admirable repression. To Peter Stock it would be an adventure,\nmerely. More than all this, he wanted to go to the mountain alone. It\nwas the Skylark's day; and for this reason, he hurried out of the\n_Palms_ and down to the city without breakfast.... A last look from the\n_Morne_, as it dipped into the _Rue Victor Hugo_--at a certain upper\nwindow of the plantation-house, where it seemed he was leaving all the\nbright valiant prodigies of the future. He turned resolutely toward\nPelee--but the Skylark's song grew fainter _behind_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPere Rabeaut's interest in the venture continued to delight him.\nProcuring a companion was no common favor, since inquiries in the town\nproved that the regular guides were in abject dread of approaching the\nMonster now. Soronia, Pere Rabeaut, and his new servant awaited him in\nthe _Rue Rivoli_. The latter was a huge Creole, of gloomy visage. They\nwould not find any one to accompany them in the lower part of the city,\nhe said, as the fear there was greater than ever since the Guerin\ndisaster. In Morne Rouge, however, they would doubtless be able to\nprocure mules, food, and other servants if necessary, for a day's trip\nto the craters. All of which appeared reasonable to Charter, though he\nwondered again at the vital interest of Pere Rabeaut, and the general\ntension of the starting.\n\nThe two passed down through the city, and into the crowd of the\nmarket-place, where a blithesome little drama unfolded. Peter Stock had\napparently been talking to the people about their volcano, urging them,\nno doubt, to take the advice of Father Fontanel and flee to Fort de\nFrance, when he had perceived M. Mondet passing in his carriage. Charter\nsaw his friend dart quickly from the crowd and seize the bridle. Despite\nthe protestations of the driver, the capitalist drew the vehicle into\nview of all. His face was red with the heat and ashine with laughter and\nperspiration. Alarm and merriment mingled in the native throng. All eyes\nfollowed the towering figure of the American who now swung open the door\nof the carriage and bowed low to M. Mondet.\n\n\"This, dear friends,\" Peter Stock announced, as one would produce a\nrabbit from a silk hat,--\"this, you all perceive, is your little editor\nof _Les Colonies_. Is he not bright and clean and pretty? He is very\nfond of American humor. See how the little editor laughs!\"\n\nM. Mondet's smile was yellowish-gray and of sickly contour. His article\nrelative to the American appealed to him now entirely stripped of the\nhumor with which it was fraught a few days before, as he had composed it\nin the inner of inner-offices. This demon of crackling French and\nrestless hands would stop at nothing. M. Mondet pictured himself being\npicked up for dead presently. As the blow did not fall on the instant,\nthe sorry thought tried him that he was to be played with before being\ndispatched.\n\n\"This is the man who tells you that Saint Pierre is in no danger--who\nscoffs at those who have already gone--who inquires in his paper, 'Where\non the Island could a more secure place than Saint Pierre be found in\nthe event of an earthquake visitation?' M. Mondet advises us to flee\nwith all dispatch to the live craters of a volcano to escape his\nhypothetical earthquake.\" Peter Stock was now holding up the Frenchman's\narm, as a referee upraises the whip of a winning fighter. \"He says\nthere's no more peril from Pelee than from an old man shaking ashes out\nof his pipe. I proposed to wager my ship against M. Mondet's rolled-top\ndesk that he was wrong, but there was a difficulty in the way. Do you\nnot see, my friends of Saint Pierre, that, if I won the wager, I should\nnot be able to distinguish between M. Mondet's rolled-top desk and M.\nMondet's cigarette case in the ruins of the city----\"\n\nThere had been a steady growling from the mountain.\n\n\"Ah!\" Stock exclaimed after a pause, \"Pelee speaks again! 'I will\nrepay--verily, I will repay!' growls the Monster. Let it be so, then,\nfriends of mine. I will turn over my little account to the big\nfire-eater yonder who will collect all debts. I tell you, we who tarry\ntoo long will be buying political extras and last editions in hell from\nthis bit of a newspaper man!\"\n\nCharter laughingly turned away to avoid being seen, just as M. Mondet\nwas chucked like a large, soft bundle into the seat of his carriage and\nthe door slammed forcibly, corking whatever wrath appertained. In any of\nthe red-blooded zones, a foreigner who performed such antics at the\nexpense of a portly and respected citizen would have encountered a\nquietus quick and blasting, but the people of Martinique are not swift\nto anger nor forward in reprisal.\n\nCharter's physical energy was imperious, but the numbness of his scalp\nwas a pregnant warning against the perils of heat. There were moments in\nwhich his mind moved in a light, irresponsible fashion, as if obsessed\nat quick intervals, one after another, by mad kings who dared anything,\nand whom no one dared refuse. Somehow his brain contrived with striking\nartifices to keep the Wyndam-Skylark conflict in the background; yet, as\noften as he became aware of old Vulcan muttering his agonies ahead, just\nso often did the reality rise that the meaning and direction of his life\nwas gone, if he was not to see again the woman at the _Palms_.\n\nJacques, his guide, followed in sullen silence. They crossed the\nRoxelane, and presently were ascending toward Morne Rouge. Saint Pierre\nwas just still enough now to act like a vast sounding-board. Remote\nvoices reached them, even from the harbor-front to the left, and from\nshut shops everywhere.... It was nearly mid-day, when he rode out from\nMorne Rouge, with three more companions.\n\nThe ash-hung valley was far behind, and Charter drank deeply of the\nclean, east wind from the Atlantic. There was a rush of bitterness, too,\nbecause the woman was not there to share these priceless volumes of\nsunlit vitality. All the impetus of enterprise was needed now to turn\nthe point of conflict, and force it into the background again.... They\npushed through Ajoupa Boullion to the gorge of the Falaise, the\nnorthward bank of which marked the trail which Jacques chose to the\nsummit.\n\nAnd now they moved upward in the midst of the old glory of Martinique.\nThe brisk Trades blowing evenly in the heights, wiped the eastern slope\nof the mountain clear of stone-dust and whipped the blasts of sulphur\ndown into the valley toward the shore. Green lakes of cane filled the\nvalleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palms, so distant and so orderly\nthat they looked like a city garden set with hen and chickens....\nNorthward, through the rifts, glistened the sea, steel-blue and cool.\nBefore them rose the vast, green-clad mass of the mountain, its corona\ndim with smoke and lashed by storm. Down in the southwest lay the\nghastly pall, the hidden, tortured city, tranced under the cobra-head of\nthe volcano and already laved in its poison.\n\nThe trail became very steep at two thousand feet, and this fact,\ntogether with the back-thresh of the summit disturbance, forced Charter\nto abandon the animals. It transpired that two of the three later guides\nfelt it their duty, at this point, to stay behind with the mules. A\nlittle later, when the growling from the prone, upturned face of the\nMonster suddenly arose to a roar that twisted the flesh and outraged the\nsenses of man, Charter looked back and found that only one native was\nfaltering behind, instead of two. And this one was Jacques, of the\nsavage eyes. Pere Rabeaut was praised again.\n\nFascination for the dying Thing took hold of him now and drew him on.\nCharter was little conscious of fear for his life, but of a fixed terror\nlest he should be unable to go on. He found himself tearing up a\nhandkerchief and stuffing the shreds in his ears to deaden the hideous\nvibrations. With the linen remaining, he filled his mouth, shutting his\njaws together upon it, as the wheels of a wagon are blocked on an\nincline.\n\nThe titanic disorder placated his own. He became unconscious of passing\ntime. From the contour of the slope, remembered from a past visit, he\nwas aware of nearing the _Lac des Palmists_, which marked the\nsummit-level. Yet changes, violent changes, were everywhere evidenced.\nThe shoulder of the mountain was smeared with a crust of ash and seamed\nwith fresh scars. The crust was made by the dry, whirling winds playing\nupon the paste formed of stone-dust and condensed steam. The clicking\nwhir, like a clap of wings, heard at intervals, accounted for the scars.\nBombs of rock were being hurled from the great tubes. Here he shouted to\nJacques to stay behind; that he would be back in a few moments. There\nwas a nod of assent from the evil head.\n\nThat he was in the range of a raking volcano-fire impressed with a sort\nof laughing awe this ant clinging to the beard of a giant. Up, knees and\nhands, now, he crawled--up over the throbbing chin, to the black,\npounded lip of the Monster. Out of the old lake coiled the furious tower\nof steam and rock-dust which mushroomed in high heaven, like a primal\nnebula from which worlds are made. It was this which fell upon the city.\nPockets of gas exploded in the heights, rending the periphery, as the\nveil of the temple was rent. Only this horrible torrent spreading over\nSaint Pierre to witness, but sounds not meant for the ear of man, sounds\nwhich seemed to saw his skull in twain--the thundering engines of a\nplanet.\n\nThe rocky rim of the lake was hot to his hands and knees, but a moment\nmore he lingered. A thought in his brain held him there with thrilling\nbands. It was only a plaything of mind--a vagary of altitude and\nimmensity. \"Did ever the body of a man clog the crater of a live\nvolcano?\" was his irreverent query. \"Did ever suicidal genius conceive\nof corrupting such majesty of force with his pygmy purpose?\"\n\nThere he lay, sprawled at the edge of the universal mystery, at the\nsecret-entrance to the chamber of earth's dynamos. The edge of the pit\nshook with the frightful work going on below, yet he was not slain. The\ntorrent burst past and upward with a southward inclination, clean as a\nmissing bullet. The bombs of rock canted out from sheer weight and fell\nbehind. That which he comprehended--although his eyes saw only the gray,\nthundering cataclysm--was never before imagined in the mind of man.\n\nThe gray blackened. The roar dwindled, and his senses reeled. With a\nrush of saliva, the linen dropped from his open mouth. Charter was sure\nthere was a gaping cleft in his skull, for he could feel the air blowing\nin and out, cold and colder. He tried to lift his hands to cover the\nsensitive wound, but they groped in vain for his head. With the icy\ndraughts of air, he seemed to hear faintly his name falling upon bare\nganglia. For a second he feared that the lower part of his body would\nnot respond; that he was uncoupled like a beast whose spine is\nbroken.... It was only a momentary overcoming of the gas, or altitude,\nor the dreadful disorder, or all three. Yet he knew how he must turn\nback if he lived.... His name was called again. He thought it was the\nReaper, calling forth his ghost.\n\n\"Quentin Charter! Quentin Charter!\"\n\nThen he saw the Wyndam woman on the veranda of the _Palms_, her face\nwhite with agony, her eyes straining toward him.... Turning hastily--he\nmissed death in a savage, sordid reality. Jacques had crept upon him, a\nmaniac in his eyes, dog's slaver on his lips. A rock twice as large as\nhis head was upraised in both arms. With a muscular spasm one knows in a\ndream, Charter's whole body united in a spring to the side--escaping the\nrock. Jacques turned and fled like a goat, leaping from level to level.\n\nCharter managed to follow. He felt weak and ill for the time, as though\nPelee had punished him for peering into matters which Nature does not\nthank man for endeavoring to understand.... The three natives pressed\nabout him far down on the slope. Jacques had vanished. The sun was\nsinking seaward. Charter mounted his mule, turning the recent incident\nover in his mind for the manieth time. His first thought had been that\nthe indescribable gripping of the mountain had turned mad a decent\nservant, but this did not stand when he recalled how Pere Rabeaut had\nimportuned him to accept Jacques, and how the latter had fled from his\n_failure_. Yet, so far as he could see, there was no reason in the world\nwhy a conspiracy to murder him should have origin in the little\nwine-shop of _Rue Rivoli_. It was all baffling even at first, that a\nrock had been chosen, when a knife or a pistol would have been\neffective. This latter, he explained presently. There was a possibility\nof his body being found; a smashed head would fall to the blame of _Pere\nPelee_, who was casting bombs of rock upon the slopes; while a knife or\na bullet-wound on his body would start the hounds indeed.\n\nHe rode down the winding trail apart from the guides. Darkness was\nbeginning, and the lights of Ajoupa Boullion showed ahead. The mountain\ncarried on a frightful drumming behind. Coiling masses of volcanic\nspume, miles above the craters, generated their own fire; and lit in the\nflashes, looked like billows of boiling steel. Charter rode upon sheer\nnerve--nerve at which men had often wondered. At length a full-rigged\nthought sprang into his mind, which had known but the passing of\nhopeless derelicts since the first moment of descent. It was she who had\ncalled to save him. The woman of flesh had become a vision indeed. The\nlittle Island mule felt the heel that moment.... Charter turned back to\nthe red moiled sky--a rolling, roaring Hades in the North.\n\n\"I can't help it, Skylark,\" he murmured, \"if you _will_ merge into this\nwoman. She may never know that a man fled from her to the mountain\nto-day, and is hurrying back--as to the source of all beauty!...\nCharter, Charter, your thoughts are boiling over----\"\n\nHe rode into the streets of Morne Rouge, so over-crowded now with the\nfrightened from the lower city, that many were huddled upon the highway\nwhere they would be forced to sleep. Here he paid the three guides, but\nretained his mule.... On the down trail again, he re-entered the bank of\nfalling ash and the sulphurous desolation. Evil as it was, the taint\nbrought a sense of proximity to the _Morne_ and the _Palms_. Saint\nPierre was dark and harrowingly still under the throbbing volcano. The\nhoof-beats of the mule were muffled in ash, as if he pounded along a\nsandy beach. Often a rousing fetor reached the nostrils of the rider,\nabove the drying, cutting vapor from Pelee, and the little beast shied\nand snorted at untoward humps on the highway. War and pestilence,\nseemingly, had stalked through Saint Pierre that day and a winter storm\nhad tried to cover the aftermath.... He passed through _Rue Rivoli_, but\nwas far too eager to reach the _Palms_ to stop at the wine-shop. The\nugly mystery there could be penetrated afterward. Downward, he turned\ntoward the next terrace, where the solitary figure of a woman confronted\nhim.\n\n\"Mr. Charter!\" she cried. \"And--you are able to ride?\"\n\n\"Why, what do you mean, Miss Wyndam?\" he said, swiftly dismounting.\n\"What are you doing 'way up here alone--in this dreadful suffocation?\"\n\n\"I was looking for a little stone wine-shop----\" She checked herself, a\nscroll of horrors spreading open in her brain.\n\n\"It's just a little way back,\" he said, in a repressed tone. \"I have an\nerrand there, too. Shall I show you?\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered shuddering. \"I'll walk with you back to the _Palms_.\nI must think.... Oh, let us hurry!\"\n\nHe lifted her to the saddle, and took the bridle-rein.\n\n\n\n\nTWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER\n\nCHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE IN THE NIGHT, AND THE\nWYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE _PALMS_\n\n\nPeter Stock was abroad in the _Palms_ shortly after Charter left for the\nwine-shop to join Jacques, for the day's trip. The absence of the\nyounger man reminded him of the project Charter had twice mentioned in\nthe wine-shop.\n\n\"I can't quite understand it,\" he said to Miss Wyndam as he started for\nthe city, \"if he really has gone to the craters. He had me thinking it\nover--about going along. Why should he rush off alone? I tell you, it's\nnot like him. The boy's troubled--got some of the groan-stuff of Pelee\nin his vitals.\"\n\nThe day began badly for Paula. Her mind assumed the old dread\nreceptivity which the occultist had found to his advantage; terrors\nflocked in as the hours drew on. One pays for being responsive to the\nfiner textures of life. Under the stimulus of heat, good steel becomes\nradiant with an activity destructive to itself, but quite as marvellous\nin its way as the starry heavens. What a superior and admirable\nendowment, this, though it consumes, compared to the dead\nasbestos-fabric which will not warm. Paula felt the city in her breast\nthat day--the restless, fevered cries of children and the answering\nmaternal anguish, the terror everywhere, even in bird-cries and limping\nanimals--that cosmic sympathy.\n\nShe knew that Charter would not have rushed away to the mountain without\na \"good morning\" for her, had she told him yesterday. She saw him turn\nupon the _Morne_, look steadily at her window, almost as if he saw the\noutline of her figure there--as the call went to him from her inner\nheart.... She had reconstructed his last week in New York, from the\nletter of Selma Cross and his own; and in her sight he had achieved a\nfiner thing than any warrior who ever broadened the borders of his\nqueen. Not a word from her; encountering a mysterious suspicion from\nReifferscheid; avoiding Selma Cross by his word and her own;\nvanquishing, who may know how many devils of his own past; and then\nsummoning the courage and gentleness to write such a letter as she had\nreceived--a letter sent out into the dark--this was loyalty and courage\nto woo the soul. With such a spirit, she could tramp the world's highway\nwith bruised feet, but a singing heart.... And only such a spirit could\nbe true to Skylark; for she knew as \"Wyndam\" she had quickened him for\nall time, though he ran from her--to commune with Pelee. She felt his\nstrength--strength of man such as maidens dream of, and, maturing, put\ntheir dreams away.\n\n\"... as I sat by my study window, facing the East!\" Well she knew those\nwords from his letters; and they came to her now, from the talk of\nyesterday in the high light of an angelic visitation. Always in memory\nthe dining-room at the _Palms_ would have an occult fragrance, for\nshe saw his great love for Skylark there, as he spoke of \"facing the\nEast.\" How soon could she have told him after that, but for the evil old\nFrench face that drew him away.... \"You deserve to suffer, Paula\nLinster,\" she whispered. \"You let him go away,--without a tithe of your\nsecret, or a morsel of your mercy.\"\n\nInevitable before such a conception of manhood--Paula feared her\nunworthiness. She saw herself back in New York, faltering under the\npower of Bellingham; swayed by those specialists, Reifferscheid in\nbooks, Madame Nestor in occultism; and, above all blame-worthily, by\nSelma Cross of the passions. She seemed always to have been listening.\nSelma Cross had been strong enough to destroy her Tower; and this, when\nthe actress herself had been so little sure of her statements that she\nmust needs call Charter to prove them. Nothing that she had done seemed\nto carry the stamina of decision.... So the self-arraignment thickened\nand tightened about her, until she cried out:\n\n\"But I would have told him yesterday--had not that old man called him\naway!\"\n\nPeter Stock returned at noon, imploring her to go out to the ship, for\neven on the _Morne_, Pelee had become a plague. He pointed out that she\nwas practically alone in the _Palms_; that nearly all of Father\nFontanel's parishioners had taken his word and left for Fort de France\nor Morne Rouge, at least; that he, Peter Stock, was a very old man who\nhad earned the right to be fond of whom he pleased, and that it\nseriously injured an old man's health when he couldn't have his way.\n\n\"There are big reasons for me to stay here to-day--big only to me,\" she\ntold him. \"If I had known you for years, I couldn't be more assured of\nyour kindness, nor more willing to avail myself of it, but please trust\nme to know best to-day. Possibly to-morrow.\"\n\nSo the American left her, complaining that she was quite as inscrutable\nas Charter.... An hour or more later, as she was watching the mountain\nfrom her room, a little black carriage stopped before the gate of the\n_Palms_, and Father Fontanel stepped slowly out. She hurried\ndownstairs, met him at the door, and saw the rare old face in its great\nweariness.\n\n\"You have given too much strength to your work, Father,\" she said,\nputting her arm about him and helping him toward the sitting-room.\n\n\"I am quite well,\" he panted. \"I was among my people in the city, when\nour amazing friend suddenly appeared with a carriage, bustled me in and\nsent me here, saying there were enough people in Saint Pierre who\nrefused to obey him, and that he didn't propose that I should be one.\"\n\n\"I think he did very well,\" she answered, laughing. \"What must it be\ndown in the city--when we suffer so here? We cannot do without you----\"\n\n\"But there is great work for me--the great work I have always asked for.\nBelieve me, I do not suffer.\"\n\n\"One must not labor until he falls and dies, Father.\"\n\n\"If it be the will of the good God, I ask nothing fairer than to fall in\nHis service. Death is only terrible from afar off in youth, my dear\nchild. When we are old and perceive the glories of the Reality, we are\nprone to forget the illusion here. In remembering immortality, we forget\nthe cares and ills of flesh.... I am only troubled for my people,\nstifling in the gray curse of the city, and for my brave young friend.\nMy mind was clouded when he asked me certain questions last night; and\nto-day, they say he has gone to the craters of the mountain.\"\n\n\"What for?\" she whispered quickly.\n\n\"Ah, how should I know? But he tells me of people who make pilgrimages\nof sanctification to strange cities of the East--to Mecca and\nBenares----\"\n\n\"But they go to Benares to die, Father!\"\n\n\"I did not know, my daughter,\" he assured her, drawing his hand across\nhis brow in a troubled fashion. \"He has not gone to the mountain for\nthat, though I see storms gathering about him, storms of the mountain\nand hatreds of men. But I see you with him afterward--as I saw him with\nyou--when you first spoke to me.\"\n\nShe told him all, and found healing in the old man's smile.\n\n\"It is well, and it is wonderful,\" he whispered at last. \"Much that my\nlife has misunderstood is made clear to me--by this love of yours and\nhis----\"\n\n\"'And his,' Father?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThere was silence. She would not ask if Quentin Charter had also told\nhis story. Father Fontanel arose and said he must go back, but he took\nthe girl's hands, looked deeply into her eyes, saying with memorable\ngentleness:\n\n\"Listen, child,--the man who cannot forget a vision that is lost, will\nbe a brave mate for the envisioned reality that he finds.\"\n\nAt intervals all that afternoon she felt the influence of Bellingham. It\nwas not desire. Dull and impersonal, it appealed, as one might hear a\nchild in another house repeatedly calling to its mother. Within her\nthere was no response, save that of loathing for a spectre that rises\nuntimely from a past long since expiated. She did not ask herself\nwhether she was lifted beyond him, or whether he was debased and\nweakened, or if he really called with the old intensity. Glimpses of the\nstrange place in which he lodged occasionally flashed before her inner\nmind, but it was all far and indefinite, easily to be banished. To her,\nhe had become inextricable from the reptiles. There was so much of\nliving fear and greater glory in her mind that afternoon, that these\nwere but evil shadows of slight account.\n\nThe torturing hours crawled by, until the day turned to a deeper gray,\nand the North was reddened by Pelee's cone which the thick vapor dimmed\nand blurred. Paula was suffered to fight out her battle alone. She could\nnot have asked more than this. A thousand times she paced across her\nroom; again and again straining her eyes northward, along the road, over\nthe city into the darkness, and the end of all things--the mountain....\nThere was a moment in the half-light before the day was spent, in which\nshe seemed to see Quentin Charter, as Father Fontanel had told her,\nhemmed in by all the storms and hates of the world. Over the surface of\nher brain was a vivid track for flying futile agonies.\n\nThe rumbling that had been incessant was punctuated at intervals now by\nan awesome and deeper vibration. Altogether, the sound was like a steady\nstream of vehicles, certain ones heavier and moving more swiftly than\nothers, pounding over a wooden bridge. To her, there was a pang in each\nphase of the volcano's activity, since Quentin Charter had gone up into\nthat red roar.... She did not go down for dinner. When it was eight by\nher watch, she felt that she could not live, if he did not return before\nanother hour. Several minutes had passed when there was a tapping at her\ndoor, and Paula answering, was confronted by a sumptuous figure of\nnative womanhood. It was Soronia.\n\n\"Mr. Charter is at the wine-shop of Pere Rabeaut in _Rue Rivoli_,\" she\nsaid swiftly, hatefully, as though she had been forced to carry the\nmessage, and would not utter a word more than necessary. \"He has been\nhurt--we do not think seriously--but he wants you to come to him at\nonce.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I will go to him at once,\" Paula said, turning to get her\nhat. \"Pere Rabeaut's wine-shop in the _Rue Rivoli_?... You say he is not\nseriously hurt----\"\n\nShe had not turned five seconds from the door, but the woman was gone.\nThere was much that was strange in this; many thoughts occurred apart\nfrom the central idea of glad obedience, and the fullness of gratitude\nin that Pelee had not murdered him.... The _Rue Rivoli_ was a street of\nthe terraces, she ascertained on the lower floor; also that it would be\nimpossible to procure a carriage. Mr. Stock had been forced to buy one\noutright, her informer added, and to use one of his sailors for a\ndriver.... So she set out alone and on foot, hurrying along the sea-road\ntoward the slope where _Rue Victor Hugo_ began. The strangeness of it\nall persistently imposed upon her mind, but was unreckonable, compared\nto the thought that Quentin Charter would not have called for her, had\nhe been able to come. From this, the fear of a more serious wound than\nthe woman had said, was inevitable.\n\nPaula had suffered enough from doubting; none should mar her performance\nnow. Unerringly, the processes of mind throughout the day had borne her\nto such an action. She would have gone to any red-lit door of the torrid\ncity.... Vivid terrors of some dreadful crippling accident hurried her\nsteps into running....\n\nPelee, a baleful changing jewel in the black North, reminded her that\nCharter would not have gone up to that sink of chaos, had she spoken the\nword yesterday. The thought of that wonderful hour brought back the\nbrooding romance in tints almost ethereal. Higher in her heart than he\nhad reached in any moment of the day's fluctuations, the image of\nCharter wounded, was upraised now and sustained, as she turned from _Rue\nVictor Hugo_ into the smothering climb to the terraces. All she could\nfeel was a prayer that he might live; all the trials and conflicts and\nhopes of the past six months hovered afar from this, like navies\ncrippled in the roadstead....\n\nShe must be near the _Rue Rivoli_, she thought, suddenly facing an empty\ncliff. It was at this moment that she heard the soft foot-falls of a\nlittle native mule, and encountered Quentin Charter....\n\nQuickly out of the great gladness of the meeting arose the frightful\npossibilities from which she had just escaped. They were still too\nimminent to be banished from mind at once. Again Charter had saved her\nfrom the Destroyer. She would have wept, had she ventured to speak as he\nlifted her into the saddle. Charter was silent, too, for the time,\ntrying to adjust and measure and proportion.\n\nConstantly she kept her eyes upon him as he walked slightly ahead, for\nshe needed this steady assurance that he was there and well. She felt\nher arms where his stiffened fingers had been, as he lifted her so\neasily upon the mule. She wanted to reach forward and touch his helmet.\nThey had descended almost to _Rue Victor Hugo_, when he said:\n\n\"As I looked down the fiery throat of that dragon up there to-day,\neverything grew black and still for a minute, like a vacuum.... Will you\nplease tell me if I came back all right, or are we 'two hurrying shapes\nin twilight land--in no man's land?'\"\n\nHis amusing appeal righted her. \"I have not heard of donkey shapes in\ntwilight-land,\" she answered.... And then in the new silence she tried\nto bring her thoughts to the point of revelation, but she needed light\nfor that--light in which to watch his face. Moreover, revelations\ncontained Bellingham, and she was not quite ready to speak of this. It\nwas dreadful to be forced to think of the occultist, when her heart\ncried out for another moment such as that of yesterday, in which she\ncould watch his eyes and whisper, \"I am very proud to be the Skylark you\ntreasure so....\"\n\n\"Do you think it kind to frighten your friends?\" she asked finally.\n\"When they told me you had gone to the craters--it seemed such a\nreckless thing to do----\"\n\n\"You see, I rode around behind the mountain. It's very different to\napproach from the north. I wished you were there with me in the clean\nair. Pelee's muzzle is turned toward the city----\"\n\n\"I sent you many cheers and high hopes--did they come?\"\n\n\"Yes, more than you know----\" He checked himself, not wishing to\nfrighten her further with the story of Jacques, \"You said you were\nlooking for the little wine-shop. Did some one send for you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Some one you know?\"\n\n\"They told me you were there--hurt. That's why I came, Mr. Charter.\"\n\nHe drew up the mule and faced her. \"I was there this morning, but not\nsince.... There's something black about this. Pere Rabeaut was rather\nofficious in furnishing a guide for me. I'd better find out----\"\n\n\"I don't want you to go back there to-night!\" she said intensely. \"I\nthink we are both half-dead. I don't feel coherent at all. It has been a\nlife--this day.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to have made it harder for you. Certainly I shall not add to\nyour worry to-night. I was thinking, though, it's rather a serious thing\nto call you out alone at this hour, through a city disordered like\nthis--in my name.\"\n\n\"There's much need of a talk. We shall soon understand it all.... That\nmust be Mr. Stock coming. He has the only carriage moving in Saint\nPierre, they say.\"\n\nCharter pulled the mule up on the walk to let the vehicle pass, but the\ncapitalist saw them and called to his driver to stop.\n\n\"Well,\" he said gratefully, \"I'm glad to get down to earth again. You\ntwo have had me soaring.... Charter, you don't mean to tell me you\ncalled Miss Wyndam to meet you in the wine-shop?\"\n\n\"No. There's a little matter there which must be probed later. I had the\ngood fortune to meet Miss Wyndam before she reached there.\"\n\nPaula watched Charter as he spoke. Light from the carriage-lamp fell\nupon him. His white clothing was stained from the saddle, his hair and\neyebrows whitened with dust. His eyes shone in a face haggard unto\nghastliness.\n\n\"I'd go there now,\" Stock declared, after asking one or two questions\nfurther, \"but I have to report with sorrow that Father Fontanel is in a\nvery weak condition and has asked for you. I just came from the _Palms_,\nhoping that you had returned, and learned that Miss Wyndam was\nmysteriously abroad. My idea is to make the good old man go out to the\nship to-night. That's his only chance. He just shakes his head and\nsmiles at me, when I start in to boss him, but I think he'll go for you.\nThe little parish-house is like a shut-oven--literally smells of the\nburning.... The fact is, I'm getting panicky as an old brood-biddy,\namong all you wilful chicks.... Miss Wyndam has promised for to-morrow,\nhowever.\"\n\nHer heart went out to the substantial friend he had proved to every one,\nthough it was all but unthinkable to have Quentin Charter taken from the\n_Palms_ that night.\n\n\"I'll go with you at once, but we must see Miss Wyndam safely back....\nShe'll be more comfortable in the carriage with you, and we can hurry,\"\nCharter declared.\n\nHe held his arms to her and lifted her down.\n\n\"How I pity you!\" she whispered. \"You are weary unto death, but I am so\nglad--so glad you are safely back from the mountain.\"\n\n\"Thank you.... You, too, are trembling with weariness. It would not do,\nnot to go to Father Fontanel--would it?\"\n\n\"No, no!\"\n\nAt the hotel, Charter took a few moments to put on fresh clothing. Paula\nwaited with Peter Stock on the lower floor until he appeared. The\ncapitalist did not fail to see that they wanted a word together, and\nclattered forth to see the \"pilot of his deep-sea hack.\"\n\n\"You'd better go aboard to-morrow morning,\" Charter said.\n\n\"Yes, to-morrow, possibly,--we shall know then. You will be here in the\nmorning--the first thing in the morning?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" There was a wonder-world of emotion in his word.\n\n\"And you will not go to the wine-shop, before you see me--in the\nmorning?\"\n\nHe shook his head. His inner life was facing the East, listening to a\nSkylark song.\n\n\"There is much to hear and say,\" she whispered unsteadily. \"But go to\nFather Fontanel--or I--or you will not be in time! He must not die\nwithout seeing you--and take my love and reverence----\"\n\nThey were looking into each other's eyes--without words.... Peter Stock\nreturned from the veranda. Charter shivered slightly with the return to\ncommon consciousness, clenched his empty left hand where hers had been.\n\n\"The times are running close here,\" he whispered huskily. \"Sometimes I\nforget that we've only just met. Father Fontanel alone could call me\nfrom here to-night. Somehow, I dread to leave you. You'll have to\nforgive me for saying it.\"\n\n\"Yes.... But in the morning--oh, come quickly.... Good-night.\"\n\nShe turned hastily to the staircase, and Charter's remarks as he rode\ntownward with the other, were shirred, indeed....\n\n\n\n\nTWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER\n\nHAVING TO DO ESPECIALLY WITH THE MORNING OF THE ASCENSION, WHEN THE\nMONSTER, _PELEE_, GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH\n\n\nThe old servant met them at the door with uplifted finger. Father\nFontanel was sleeping. They did not wish to disturb him but sat down to\nwait in the anteroom, which seemed to breathe of little tragedies of\nSaint Pierre. On one side of the room was the door that was never\nlocked; on the other, the entrance to the sleeping-room of the priest.\nThus he kept his ear to the city's pulse. Peter Stock drowsed in the\nsuffocating air. Charter's mind slowly revolved and fitted to the great\nconcept.... The woman was drawn to him, and there had been no need of\nwords.... Each moment she was more wonderful and radiant. There had not\nbeen a glance, a word, a movement, a moment, a breath, an aspiration, a\nlift of brow or shoulder or thought, that had not more dearly charmed\nhis conception of her triune beauty.\n\nThe day had left in his brain a crowd of unassimilated actions, and into\nthis formless company came the thrilling mystery of his last moment with\nher--a shining cord of happiness for the labyrinth of the late days....\nThere had been so much _beyond words_ between them--an overtone of\nsinging. He had seen in her eyes all the eager treasure of brimming\nwomanhood, rising to burst the bonds of repression for the first time.\nDawn was a far voyage, but he settled himself to wait with the will of a\nweathered voyager whose heart feels the hungry arms upon the waiting\nshore.\n\nThe volcano lost its monstrous rhythm again, and was ripping forth\nirregular crashes. Father Fontanel awoke and the _Rue Victor Hugo_\nbecame alive with voices, aroused by the rattling in the throat of the\nmountain. Charter went into the room where the priest lay.\n\n\"Come, Father,\" he said, \"We have waited long for you. I want you to go\nout to the ship for the rest of the night. You must breathe true air for\nan hour. Do this for me.\"\n\n\"Ah, my son!\" the old man murmured, drawing Charter's head down to his\nbreast. \"My mind was clouded, and I could not see you clearly in the\ntravail of yesterday.\"\n\n\"Many of your people are in Fort de France, Father,\" the young man\nadded. \"They will be glad to see you. Then you may come back here--even\nto-morrow, if you are stronger. Besides, the stalwart friend who has\ndone so much for your people, wants you one night on his ship.\"\n\n\"Yes, my son.... I was waiting for you. I shall be glad to breathe the\ndawn at sea.\"\n\nPeter Stock pressed Charter's hand as they led Father Fontanel forth.\nThe mountain was quieter again. The bells of Saint Pierre rang the hour\nof two.... The three reached the Sugar Landing where the _Saragossa's_\nlaunch lay.\n\n\"Hello, Ernst,\" Stock called to his man. \"I've kept you waiting long,\nbut top-speed to the ship--deep water and ocean air!\"\n\nThe launch sped across the smoky harbor, riding down little isles of\nflotsam, dead birds from the sky and nameless mysteries from the roiled\nbed of the harbor. The wind was hot in their faces, like a stoke-hold\nblast. Often they heard a hissing in the water, like the sound of a wet\nfinger touching hot iron. A burning cinder fell upon Charter's hand, a\nmessenger from Pelee. He could not feel fire that night.... He was\nliving over that last moment with her--gazing into her eyes as one who\nseeks to penetrate the mystery of creation, as if it were any clearer in\na woman's eyes than in a Nile night, a Venetian song, or in the flow of\ngasolene to the spark, which filled the contemplation of Ernst.... He\nremembered the swift intaking of her breath at the last, and knew that\nshe was close to tears.\n\nThe launch was swinging around to the _Saragossa's_ ladder. Father\nFontanel had not spoken. Wherever the ship-lights fell, the sheeting of\nash could be seen--upon mast and railing and plates. They helped the\ngood man up the ladder, and Stock ordered Laird, his first officer, to\nsteam out of the blizzard, a dozen miles if necessary. The anchor chain\nbegan to grind at once, and three minutes later, the _Saragossa's_\nscrews were kicking the ugly harbor tide. Charter watched, strangely\ndisconcerted, until only the dull red of Pelee pierced the thick veil\nbehind. A star, and another, pricked the blue vault ahead, and the air\nblew in fragrant as wine from the rolling Caribbean, but each moment was\nan arraignment now.... He wanted none of the clean sea; and the mere\nfact that he would not rouse her before daylight, even if he were at the\n_Palms_, did not lessen the savage pressure of the time.... Father\nFontanel would not sleep, but moved among his people on deck. The\nnatives refused to stay below, now that the defiled harbor was behind.\nThere was a humming of old French lullabies to the little ones. Cool air\nhad brought back the songs of peace and summer to the lowly hearts. It\nwas an hour before dawn, and the _Saragossa_ was already putting back\ntoward the roadstead, when Father Fontanel called Charter suddenly.\n\n\"Make haste and go to the woman, my son,\" he said strangely.\n\nCharter could not answer. The priest had spoken little more than this,\nsince they led him from the parish-house. The _Saragossa_ crept into the\nedge of the smoke. The gray ghost of morning was stealing into the\nhateful haze. They found anchorage. The launch was in readiness below.\nIt was not yet six. Ernst was off duty, and another sailor,--one whose\nroom was prepared in the dim pavilion--waited at the tiller. Charter\nwaved at the pale mute face of the priest, leaning overside, and the fog\nrushed in between.\n\nThe launch gained the inner harbor, and the white ships at anchor were\nvague as phantoms in the vapor--French steamers, Italian barques, and\nthe smaller West Indian craft--all with their work to do and their way\nto win. Charter heard one officer shout to another a whimsical\ninquiry--if Saint Pierre were in her usual place or had switched sites\nwith hell. The day was clearing rapidly, however, and before the launch\nreached shore, the haze so lifted that Pelee could be seen, floating a\npennant of black out to sea. In the city, a large frame warehouse was\nablaze. The tinder-dry structure was being destroyed with almost\nexplosive speed.\n\nA blistering heat rushed down from the expiring building to the edge of\nthe land. Crowds watched the destruction. Many of the people were in\nholiday attire. This was the Day of Ascension, and Saint Pierre would\nshortly pray and praise at the cathedral; and at _Notre Dame des\nLourdes_, where Father Fontanel would be missed quite the same as if\nthey had taken the figure of Saint Anne from the altar.... Even now the\ncathedral bells were calling, and there was low laughter from a group of\nCreole maidens. Was it not good to live, since the sun was trying to\nshine again and the mountain did not answer the ringing of the bells? It\nwas true that Pelee poured forth a black streamer with lightning in its\nfolds; true that the people trod upon the hot, gray dust of the\nvolcano's waste; that the heat was such as no man had ever felt before,\nand many sat in misery upon the ground; true, indeed, that voices of\nhysteria came from the hovels, and the weaker were dying too swiftly for\nthe priests to attend them all--but the gala-spirit was not dead. The\nbells were calling, the mountain was still, bright dresses were\nabroad--for the torrid children of France must laugh.\n\nA carriage was not procurable, so Charter fell in with the procession on\nthe way to the cathedral. Many of the natives nodded to him; and may\nhave wondered at the color in his skin, the fire in his eyes, and the\nglad ring of his voice. Standing for a moment before the church, he\nhurled over the little gathering the germ of flight; told them of the\nfood and shelter in Fort de France, begged them laughingly to take their\nwomen and children out of this killing air.... It was nearly\neight--eight on the morning of Ascension Day.... She would be ready. He\nhoped to find a carriage at the hotel.... At nine they would be in the\nlaunch again, speeding out toward the _Saragossa_.\n\nTwenty times a minute she recurred to him as he walked. There was no\nwaning nor wearing--save a wearing brighter, perhaps--of the images she\nhad put in his mind. Palaces, gardens, treasure-houses--with the turn of\nevery thought, new riches of possibility identified with her, were\nrevealed. Thoughts of her, winged in and out his mind like bright birds\nthat had a cote within--until he was lifted to heights of gladness which\nseemed to shatter the dome of human limitations--and leave him crown and\nshoulders emerged into illimitable ether.\n\nThe road up the _Morne_ stretched blinding white before him. The sun was\nbraver. Panting and spent not a little, he strode upward through the\nvicious pressure of heat, holding his helmet free from his head, that\nair might circulate under the rim. Upon the crest of the _Morne_, he\nperceived the gables of the old plantation-house, above the palms and\nmangoes, strangely yellowed in the ashen haze.\n\nPelee roared. Sullen and dreadful out of the silence voiced the Monster\nroused to his labor afresh. Charter darted a glance back at the\ndarkening North, and began to run.... The crisis was not past; the\nholiday darkened. The ship would fill with refugees now, and the road to\nFort de France turn black with flight. These were his thoughts as he\nran.\n\nThe lights of the day burned out one by one. The crust of the earth\nstretched to a cracking tension. The air was beetling with strange\nconcussions. In the clutch of realization, Charter turned one shining\nlook toward the woman hurrying forward on the veranda of the _Palms_....\nDetonations accumulated into the crash of a thousand navies.\n\nShe halted, her eyes fascinated, lost in the North. He caught her up\nlike a child. Across the lawn, through the roaring black, he bore her,\nbrushing her fingers and her fallen hair from his eyes. He reached the\ncurbing of the old well with his burden, crawled over and caught the\nrusty chain. Incandescent tongues lapped the cistern's raised coping.\nThere was a scream as from the souls of Night and Storm and Chaos\ntriumphant--a mighty planetary madness--shocking magnitudes from the\nvery core of sound! Air was sucked from the vault, from their ears and\nlungs by the shrieking vacuums, burned through the cushion of atmosphere\nby the league-long lanes of electric fire.... Running streams of red\ndust filtered down.\n\nIt was eight on the morning of Ascension Day. _La Montagne Pelee_ was\ngiving birth to death.\n\n\n\n\nTWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER\n\nTHE _SARAGOSSA_ ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS FROM _PELEE_ EIGHT\nMILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT ASHORE\n\n\nPeter Stock stared long into the faint film of smoke, until the launch\nbearing Charter ashore was lost in the shipping. The pale, winding sheet\nwas unwrapped from the beauty of morning. There was an edging of rose\nand gold on the far dim hills. His eyes smarted from weariness, but his\nmind, like an automatic thing, swept around the great circle--from the\nship to the city, to the plantation-house on the _Morne_ and back to the\nship again. He was sick of the shore, disgusted with people who would\nlisten to M. Mondet and not to him. Miss Wyndam had refused him so\noften, that he was half afraid Charter would not be successful, but he\nwas willing to wait two hours longer, for he liked the young woman\nimmensely, liked her breeding and her brain.... He joined Laird, his\nfirst officer, on the bridge. The latter was scrutinizing through the\nglass a blotch of smoke on the city-front.\n\n\"What do you make of it, sir?\" Laird asked.\n\nThe lenses brought to the owner a nucleus of red in the black bank. The\nrest of Saint Pierre was a gray, doll-settlement, set in the shelter of\nlittle gray hills. He could see the riven and castellated crest of Pelee\nweaving his black ribbon. It was all small, silent, and unearthly.\n\n\"That's a fire on the water-front,\" he said.\n\n\"That's what I made of it, sir,\" Laird responded.\n\nShortly afterward the trumpetings of the Monster began. The harbor grew\nyellowish-black. The shore crawled deeper into the shroud, and was lost\naltogether. The water took on a foul look, as if the bed of the sea were\nchurned with some beastly passion. The anchor-chain grew taught,\nmysteriously strained, and banged a tattoo against its steel-bound eye.\nBlue Peter drooping at the foremast, livened suddenly into a spasm of\nwrithing, like a hooked lizard. The black, quivering columns of smoke\nfrom the funnels were fanned down upon the deck, adding soot to the\nwhite smear from the volcano.\n\n\"Better get the natives below--squall coming!\" Peter Stock said, in a\nlow tone to Laird, and noted upon the quiet, serious face of this\nofficer, as he obeyed, an expression quite new. It was the look of a man\nwho sees the end, and does not wince.\n\nThe women wailed, as the sailors hurried them below and sealed the ways\nafter them. A deep-sea language passed over the ship. There were running\nfeet, bells below, muffled cries from the native-women, quick oaths from\nthe sailors; and then, Peter Stock felt the iron-fingers of fear about\nhis heart--not for himself and his ship eight miles at sea, but for his\ngood young friend and for the woman who had refused to come.\n\nA hot, fetid breath charged the air. The ship rose and settled like a\nfeather in a breeze; in a queer light way, as though its element were\nheavily charged with air, the water danced, alive with the yeast of\nworlds. The disordered sky intoned violence. Pelee had set the\nfoundations to trembling. A step upon the bridge-ladder caused the\nAmerican to turn with a start. Father Fontanel was coming up.\n\n\"Oh, this won't do at all,\" Peter Stock cried in French. \"We're going to\ncatch hell up here, and you don't belong.\"\n\nHe dashed down the ladder, and led the old man swiftly back to the\ncabin, where he rushed to the ports and screwed them tight with\nlightning fingers, led the priest to a chair and locked it in its\nsocket. Father Fontanel spoke for the first time.\n\n\"It's very good of you,\" he said dully, \"but what of my people?\"\n\nStock did not answer, but rushed forth. Six feet from the cabin-door, he\nmet the fiery van of the cataclysm, and found strength to battle his way\nback into the cabin.... From out the shoreward darkness thundered\nvibrations which rendered soundless all that had passed before. Comets\nflashed by the port-holes. The _Saragossa_ shuddered and fell to her\nstarboard side.\n\nEight bells had just sounded when the great thunder rocked over the\ngray-black harbor, and the molten vitals of the Monster, wrapped in a\nblack cloud, filled the heavens, gathered and plunged down upon the city\nand the sea. As for the ship, eight miles from the shore and twelve\nmiles from the craters, she seemed to have fallen from a habitable\nplanet into the firemist of an unfinished world. She heeled over like a\nbiscuit-tin, dipping her bridge and gunwales. She was deluged by blasts\nof steam and molten stone. Her anchor-chain gave way, and, burning in a\ndozen places, she was sucked inshore.\n\nLaird was on the bridge. Plass, the second officer, on his way to the\nbridge, to relieve or assist Laird as the bell struck, was felled at the\ndoor of the chart-room. A sailor trying to drag the body of Plass to\nshelter, was overpowered by the blizzard of steam, gas, and molten\nstone, falling across the body of his officer. The ship was rolling like\na runaway-buoy.\n\nPeter Stock had been hurled across the cabin, but clutched the chair in\nwhich the priest was sitting, and clung to an arm of it, pinning the\nother to his seat. Several moments may have passed before he regained\nhis feet. Though badly burned, he felt pain only in his throat and\nlungs, from that awful, outer breath as he regained the cabin.\nFirebrands still screamed into the sea outside, but the _Saragossa_ was\nsteadying a trifle, and vague day returned. Stock was first to reach the\ndeck, the woodwork of which was burning everywhere. He tried to shout,\nbut his throat was closed by the hot dust. The body of a man was hanging\nover the railing of the bridge. It was Laird, with his face burned away.\nThere were others fallen.\n\nThe shock of his burns and the terrible outer heat was beginning to\noverpower the commander when Pugh, the third officer, untouched by fire,\nappeared from below. In a horrid, tongueless way, Stock fired the other\nto act, and staggered back into the cabin. Pugh shrieked up the hands,\nand set to the fires and the ship's course. Out of two officers and\nthree sailors on deck when Pelee struck, none had lived. Peter Stock\nowed his life to the mute and momentary appearance of Father Fontanel.\n\nThe screaming of the native-women reached his ears from the hold. Father\nFontanel stared at him with the most pitiful eyes ever seen in child or\nwoman. Black clouds were rolling out to sea. Deep thunder of a righteous\nsource answered Pelee's lamentations. The sailors were fighting fire and\ncarrying the dead. The thin shaken voice of Pugh came from the bridge.\nThe engines were throbbing. Macready, Stock's personal servant, entered\nwith a blast of heat.\n\n\"Thank God, you're alive, sir!\" he said, with the little roll of Ireland\non his tongue. \"I was below, where better men were not.... Eight miles\nat sea--the long-armed divil av a mountain--what must the infightin'\nhave been!\"\n\nPeter Stock beckoned him close and called huskily for lint and oils.\nMacready was back in a moment from the store-room, removed the cracked\nand twisted boots; cleansed the ashes from the face and ears of his\nchief; administered stimulant and talked incessantly.\n\n\"It's rainin' evenchooalities out.... Ha, thim burns is not so bad,\nthough your shoes were pretty thin, an' the deck's smeared with red-hot\npaste. It's no bit of a geyser in a dirt-pile, sure, can tell Misther\nStock whin to come and whin to go.\"\n\nThe cabin filled with the odor of burnt flesh as he stripped the coat\nfrom Stock's shoulder, where an incandescent pebble had fallen and\nburned through the cloth. Ointments and bandages were applied before the\nowner said:\n\n\"We must be getting pretty close in the harbor?\"\n\nThis corked Macready's effervescence. Pugh had been putting the\n_Saragossa_ out to sea, since he assumed control. It hadn't occurred to\nthe little Irishman that Mr. Stock would put back into the harbor of an\nisland freshly-exploded.\n\n\"I dunno, sir. It's hard to see for the rain.\"\n\n\"Go to the door and find out\".\n\nThe rain fell in sheets. Big seas were driving past, and the steady beat\nof the engines was audible. There was no smoke, no familiar shadow of\nhills, but a leaden tumult of sky, and the rollers of open sea beaten by\na cloudburst. The commander did not need to be told. It all came back to\nhim--Laird's body hanging over the railing of the bridge; Plass down;\nPugh, a new man, in command.\n\n\"Up to the bridge, Macready, and tell Pugh for me not to be in such a\ndamned hurry--running away from a stricken town. Tell him to put back in\nthe roadstead where we belong.\"\n\nMacready was gone several moments, and reported, \"Pugh says we're\nshort-handed; that the ship's badly-charred, but worth savin'; in short,\nsir, that he's not takin' orders from no valet--meanin' me.\"\n\nNature was righting herself in the brain of the American, but the\nproblems of time and space still were mountains to him. Macready saw the\ngray eye harden, and knew what the next words would be before they were\nspoken.\n\n\"Bring Pugh here!\"\n\nIt was rather a sweet duty for Macready, whose colors had been lowered\nby the untried officer. The latter was in a funk, if ever a seaman had\nsuch a seizure. Pugh gave an order to the man at the wheel and followed\nthe Irishman below, where he encountered the gray eye, and felt Macready\nbehind him at the door.\n\n\"Turn back to harbor at once--full speed!\"\n\nPugh hesitated, his small black eyes burning with terror.\n\n\"Turn back, I say! Get to hell out of here!\"\n\n\"But a firefly couldn't live in there, sir----\"\n\n\"Call two sailors, Macready!\" Stock commanded, and when they came,\nadded, \"Put him in irons, you men!... Macready, help me to the bridge.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was after eleven when the _Saragossa_ regained the harbor. The\nterrific cloudburst had spent itself. Out from the land rolled an\nunctuous smudge, which bore suggestions of the heinous impartiality of a\ngreat conflagration. The harbor was cluttered with wreckage, a doom\npicture for the eyes of the seaman. Dimly, fitfully, through the pall,\nthey began to see the ghosts of the shipping--black hulls without helm\nor hope. The _Saragossa_ vented a deep-toned roar, but no answer was\nreturned, save a wailing echo--not a voice from the wreckage, not even\nthe scream of a gull. A sailor heaved the lead, and the scathed steamer\nbore into the rising heat.\n\nAhead was emptiness. Peter Stock, reclining upon the bridge, and\nsuffering martyrdoms from his burns, gave up his last hope that the guns\nof Pelee had been turned straight seaward, sparing the city or a portion\nof it. Rough winds tunnelling through the smoke revealed a hint of hills\nshorn of Saint Pierre. A cry was wrung from the American's breast, and\nMacready hastened to his side with a glass of spirits.\n\n\"I want a boat made ready--food, medicines, bandages, two or three\nhundred pounds of ice covered with blankets and a tarpaulin,\" Stock\nsaid. \"You are to take a couple of men and get in there. Get the steward\nstarted fitting the boat, and see that the natives are kept a bit\nquieter. Make 'em see the other side--if they hadn't come aboard.\"\n\n\"Mother av God,\" Macready muttered as he went about these affairs. \"I\ncould bake a potatie here, sure, in the holla av my hand. What, thin,\nmust it be in that pit of destruction?\" He feared Pelee less, however,\nthan the gray eye, and the fate of Pugh.\n\nThe launch had not returned from taking Charter ashore, so one of the\nlife-boats was put into commission. The German, Ernst, and another\nsailor of Macready's choice, were shortly ready to set out.\n\n\"You know why I'm not with you, men,\" the commander told them at the\nlast moment. \"It isn't that I couldn't stand it in the boat, but there's\na trip ashore for you to make, and there's no walking for me on these\npuff-balls for weeks to come. Macready, you know Mr. Charter. He had\ntime to reach the _Palms_ before hell broke loose. I want you to go\nthere and bring him back alive--and a woman who'll be with him! Also\nreport to me regarding conditions in the city. That's all. Lower away.\"\n\nA half-hour later, the little boat was forced to return to the ship. The\nsailor was whimpering at the oars; the lips of Ernst were twisted in\nagony; while Macready was silent, sign enough of his failing endurance.\nHuman vitality could not withstand the withering draughts of heat. At\nnoon, another amazing downpour of rain came to the aid of Peter Stock\nwho, granting that the little party had encountered conditions which\nflesh could not conquer, had, nevertheless, been chafing furiously. At\ntwo in the afternoon, a second start was made.\n\nDeeper and deeper in toward the gray low beach the little boat was\npulled, its occupants the first to look upon the heaped and over-running\nmeasure of Saint Pierre's destruction. The three took turns at the oars.\nFear and suffering brought out a strange feminine quality in the sailor,\nnot of cowardice; rather he seemed beset by visionary terrors. Rare\nrunning-mates were Macready and Ernst, odd as two white men can be, but\nmatched to a hair in courage. The German bent to his work, a grim stolid\nmechanism. Macready jerked at the oars, and found breath and energy\nremaining to assail the world, the flesh and the devil, which was Pugh,\nwith his barbed and invariably glib tongue. How many times the blue eyes\nof the German rolled back under the lids, and his grip relaxed upon the\noars; how many times the whipping tongue of Macready mumbled, forgetting\nits object, while his senses reeled against the burning walls of his\nbrain; how many times the sailor hoarsely commanded them to look through\nthe fog for figures which alone he saw--only God and these knew. But the\nlittle boat held its prow to the desolate shore.\n\nThey gained the Sugar Landing at last, or the place where it had been,\nand strange sounds came from the lips of Ernst, as he pointed to the\nhulk of the _Saragossa's_ launch, burned to the water-line. It had been\nin his care steadily until its last trip. Gray-covered heaps were\nsprawled upon the shore, some half-covered by the incoming tide, others\nentirely awash. Pelee had brought down the city; and the fire-tiger had\nrushed in at the kill. He was hissing and crunching still, under the\nruins. The sailor moaned and covered his face.\n\n\"There's nothing alive!\" he repeated with dreadful stress.\n\n\"What else would you look for--here at the very fut av the mountain?\"\nMacready demanded. \"Wait till we get over the hill, and you'll hear the\nbirds singin' an' the naygurs laughin' in the fields an' wonderin' why\nthe milkman don't come.\"\n\nThe market-place near the shore was filled with the stones from the\nsurrounding buildings, hurled there as dice from a box. Smoke and steam\noozed from every ruin. The silence was awful as the sight of death. The\nstreets of the city were effaced. Saint Pierre had been felled and\naltered, as the Sioux women once altered the corpses of the slain\nwhites. There was no discernible way up the _Morne_. Breathing piles of\ndebris barred every passage. Under one of these, a clock suddenly struck\nthree--an irreverent survival carrying on its shocking business beneath\nthe collapsed walls of a burned and beaten city, frightening them\nhideously. It would have been impossible to traverse _Rue Victor Hugo_\nhad the way been clear, since a hundred feet from the shore or less,\nthey encountered a zone of unendurable heat.\n\n\"I could die happy holdin' Pugh here,\" Macready gasped. \"Do you think\nhell is worse than this, Ernst, barrin' the effrontery of the question?\nHa--don't step there!\"\n\nHe yanked the German away from a puddle of uncongealed stuff, hot as\nrunning metal.... The sailor screamed. He had stepped upon what seemed\nto be an ash-covered stone. It was soft, springy, and vented a wheezy\nsigh. Rain and rock-dust had smeared all things alike in this gray\nroasting shambles.\n\n\"Won't somebody say something?\" the sailor cried in a momentary silence.\n\n\"It looks like rain, ma'm,\" Macready offered.\n\nThey had been forced back into the boat, and were skirting the shore\naround by the _Morne_. Saint Pierre had rushed to the sea--at the last.\nThe volcano had found the women with the children, as all manner of\nvisitations find them--and the men a little apart. Pelee had not\nfaltered. There was nothing to do by the way, no lips to moisten, no\nvoice of pain to hush, no dying thing to ease. There was not an\ninsect-murmur in the air, nor a crawling thing upon the beach, not a\nmoving wing in the hot, gray sky--a necropolis, shore of death absolute.\n\nThey climbed the cliffs to the north of the _Palms_, glanced down\nthrough the smoke at the city--sunken like a toothless mouth. Even the\n_Morne_ was a husk divested of its fruit. Pelee had cut the cane-fields,\nsucked the juices and left the blasted stalks in his paste. The old\nplantation-house pushed forth no shadow of an outline. It might be\nfelled or lost in the smoky distance. The nearer landmarks were\ngone--homes that had brightened the heights in their day, whose windows\nhad flashed the rays of the afternoon sun as it rode down\noversea--levelled like the fields of cane. Pelee had swept far and left\nonly his shroud, and the heaps upon the way, to show that the old\nsea-road, so white, so beautiful, had been the haunt of man. The mangoes\nhad lost their vesture; the palms were gnarled and naked fingers\npointing to the pitiless sky.\n\nMacready had known this highway in the mornings, when joy was not dead,\nwhen the songs of the toilers and the laughter of children glorified the\nfields; in the white moonlight, when the sea-winds met and mingled with\nthe spice from tropic hills, and the fragrance from the jasmine and\nrose-gardens.... He stared ahead now, wetting his puffed and tortured\nlips. They had passed the radius of terrific heat, but he was thinking\nof the waiting gray eye, when he returned without the man and the woman.\n\n\"It'll be back to the bunkers for Dinny,\" he muttered.... \"Ernst, ye\ngoat, you're intertainin', you're loquenchus.\"\n\nThey stepped forward swiftly now. There was not a hope that the mountain\nhad shown mercy at the journey's end.... They would find whom they\nsought down like the others, and the great house about them. Still,\nthere was a vague God to whom Macready had prayed once or twice in his\nlife--a God who had the power to strike blasphemers dead, to still\ntempests, light volcanic fuses and fell Babylons. To this God he\nmuttered a prayer now....\n\nThe ruins of the plantation house wavered forth from the fog. The sailor\nplucked at Macready's sleeve, and Ernst mumbled thickly that they might\nas well get back aboard.... But the Irishman stood forth from them; and\nin that smoky gloom, desolate as the first day, before Light was turned\nupon the Formless Void, bayed the names of Charter and the woman.\n\nThen the answer:\n\n\"_In the cistern--in the old cistern!_\"\n\nMacready made a mental appointment with his God, and yelled presently:\n\"Didn't I tell you 'twould take more than the sphit of a mountain to\nsinge the hair of him?... Are you hurted, sir?\"\n\n\n\n\nTWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA AND CHARTER IN SEVERAL SETTINGS FEEL THE ENERGY OF THE GREAT GOOD\nTHAT DRIVES THE WORLD\n\n\nCharter roused, after an unknown time, to the realization that the woman\nwas in his arms; later, that he was sitting upon a slimy stone in a\nsubterranean cell filled with steam. The slab of stone held him free\nfrom the four or five inches of almost scalding water on the floor of\nthe cistern. The vault was square, and luckily much larger than its\ncircular orifice; so that back in the corner they were free from the\nvolcanic discharge which had showered down through the mouth of the\npit--the cause of the heated water and the released vapors. An\nearthquake years before had loosened the stone-lining of the vault. With\nevery shudder of the earth now, under the wrath of Pelee, the walls,\nstill upstanding, trembled.\n\nCharter was given much time to observe these matters; and to reckon with\nmere surface disorders, such as a bleeding right hand, lacerated from\nthe rusty chain; a torn shoulder, and a variety of burns which he\npromptly decided must be inconsequential, since they stung so in the hot\nvapor. Then, someone with a powerful arm was knocking out three-cushion\ncaroms in his brain-pan. This spoiled good thinking results. It is true,\nhe did not grasp the points of the position, with the remotest trace of\nthe sequence in which they are put down. Indeed, his mind, emerging from\nthe depths into which the shock of eruption had felled it, held alone\nwith any persistence the all-enfolding miracle that the woman was in his\narms....\n\nPresently, his brain began to sort the side-issues. Her head had lain,\nupon his shoulder during that precipitous plunge, and her hair had\nfallen when he first caught her up. He remembered it blowing and\ncovering his eyes in a manner of playful endearment quite impossible for\nan outsider to conceive. Meanwhile, the blast from Pelee was upon the\ncity; traversing the six miles from the crater to the _Morne_, faster\nthan its own sound; six miles in little more than the time it had taken\nhim to cross the lawn from the veranda to the cistern. A second or two\nhad saved them.\n\nThe fire had touched her hair.... Her bare arm brushed his cheek, and\nhis whole nature suddenly crawled with the fear that she might not wake.\nHis head dropped to her breast, and he heard her heart, light and\nsteadily on its way. His eyes were straining through the darkness into\nher face, but he could not be sure it was without burns. There was\ncumulative harshness in the fear that her face, so fragile, of purest\nline, should meet the coarse element, burning dirt. His hands were not\nfree, but he touched her eyes, and knew that they were whole.... She\nsighed, stirred and winced a little--breath of consciousness returning.\nThen he heard:\n\n\"What is this dripping darkness?\"\n\nThe words were slowly uttered, and the tones soft and vague, as from one\ndreaming, or very close to the Gates.... In a great dark room somewhere,\nin a past life, perhaps, he had heard such a voice from someone lying in\nthe shadows.\n\n\"We are in the old cistern--you and I----\"\n\n\"I--knew--you--would--come--for--me.\"\n\nIt was murmured as from someone very weary, very happy--as a child\nfalling asleep after a dream, murmurs with a little contented nestle\nunder the mother-wing.\n\n\"But how could you know?\" he whispered quickly. \"My heart was too\nfull--to take a mere mountain seriously--until the last minute----\"\n\n\"_Skylarks--always--know!_\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTorrents of rain were descending. Pelee roared with the after-pangs.\nThough cooled and replenished by floods of black rain, the rising water\nin the cistern was still hot.\n\n\"It was always hard for me to call you Wyndam----\"\n\n\"Harder to hear, Quentin Charter....\"\n\n\"But are you sure you are not badly burned?\" he asked for the tenth\ntime.\n\n\"I don't feel badly burned.... I was watching for you from the window in\nmy room. I didn't like the way my hair looked, and was changing it when\nI saw you coming--and the Black behind you. I tried to fasten it with\none pin, as I ran downstairs.... It fell. It is very thick and kept the\nfire from me----\"\n\n\"From us.\" He would have preferred his share of the red dust.\n\nShe shivered contentedly. \"What little is burned will grow again. Red\nmops invariably do.\"\n\n\" ... And to think I should have found the old cistern in the night!...\nOne night when I could not sleep, I walked out here and explored. The\nidea came then----\"\n\n\"I watched you from the upper window.... The shutter wiggled as you went\naway. It was the next day that the 'fraids got me. You rushed off to the\nmountain.\"\n\nOften they verged like this beyond the borders of rational quotation.\nOne hears only the voices, not the words often, from Rapture's Roadway.\n\n\"Just as I begin to think of something Pelee erupts all over again in my\nskull----\"\n\n\"I didn't know men understood headache matters.... Don't you\nthink--don't you really think--I might be allowed to stand a little\nbit?\"\n\n\"Water's still too hot,\" he replied briefly.\n\nThe cavern was not so utterly dark. The circle of the orifice was\nsharply lit with gray.... They lost track of the hours; for moments at a\ntime forgot physical distress, since they had known only mystic journeys\nbefore.... They whispered the fate of Saint Pierre--a city's soul torn\nfrom the shrieking flesh; shadows lifted from the mystery of the little\nwine-shop; clearly they saw how the occultist, his magnetism crippled,\nhad used Jacques and Soronia; and Charter recalled now where he had seen\nthe face of Paula before--the photograph in the Bellingham-cabin on the\n_Panther_.... A second cloudburst cooled and eased them, though they\nstood in water.... It seemed that Peter Stock should have made an effort\nto reach them by this time. Save that the gray was unchangeable in the\nroof the world, Charter could not have believed that this was all one\nday. The power which had devastated the city, and with unspent violence\nswept the _Morne_, might have reached three leagues at sea!... Above all\nthese probabilities arose their happiness.\n\n\"It seems that I've become a little boy,\" he said, \"on one of those\nperfect Christmas mornings. Don't you remember, the greatest moment of\nall--coming downstairs, partly dressed, into the room _They_ had made\nready? That moment, before you actually see--just as you enter the\nmingled dawn and fire-light and catch the first glisten of the tree?...\nI'm afraid, Paula Linster, you have found----\"\n\n\"A boy,\" she whispered. Her face was very close in the gray.... \"The\nloved dream-boy. The boy went away to meet sternness and suffering and\nmazes of misdirection--had to compromise with the world to fit at all.\nAh, I have waited long, and the man has come back to me--a boy.\"\n\n\"_La Montagne Pelee_ is artistic.\"\n\n\"It may be in this marvellous world, where men carry on their wars and\ntheir wooings,\" she went on strangely, \"some pursuing their little ways\nof darkness, some bursting into blooms of valor and tenderness;--it may\nbe that two of Earth's people, after a dreadful passage through agony\nand terror, have been restored to each other--as we are. It may be that\nin the roll of Earth's tableaux, another such film is curled away from\nanother age and another cataclysm.\"\n\n\"Paula,\" he declared, after a moment, \"I have found a Living Truth in\nthis happiness--the Great Good that Drives the World! I think I shall\nnot lose it again. Glimpses of it came to me facing the East--as I wrote\nand thought of you. One glimpse was so clear that I expressed it in a\nletter, 'I tell you there is no death, since I have heard the Skylark\nsing....' I lost the bright fragment, for a few days in New\nYork--battled for the prize again both in New York and yesterday at the\nmountain. To-day has brought it to me--always to keep. It is this: Were\nyou to die, I should love you and know you were near. This is love above\nFlesh and Death--the old mystifying Interchangeables. This happiness is\nthe triumph over death. It is a revelation, a mighty adoring--not a mere\nwoman in my arms, but an ineffable issue of eternity. A woman, but\nmore--Love and Labor and Life and the Great Good that Drives the World!\nThis is the happiness I have and hold to-day: Though you died, I should\nknow that you lived and were mine.\"\n\n\"I see it--it is the triumph over death--but, Quentin Charter--I want\n_you_ still!\"\n\n\"Don't you see, it is the strength you give me!--that girds me to say\nsuch things?\"\n\nSo they had their flights into silence, while the eternal gray lived in\ntheir round summit of sky--until the voices of the rescuers and their\nown grateful answers.... The sailor was sent back to the boat for rope,\nwhile Macready cheered them with a fine and soothing Gaelic oil.... They\nlifted Paula, who steadied and helped herself by the chain; then sent\nthe noose down for Charter.\n\n\"Have you the strent', sir, to do the overhand up the chain?\" Macready\nquestioned, and added in a ghost's whisper, \"with the fairest of tin\nthousand waitin' at the top?\"\n\nCharter laughed. To lift his right arm was thrashing pain, but he made\nit easy as he could for them; and in the gray light faced the woman.\n\nShe saw his lacerated hand, the mire, fire-blisters upon his face, the\nblood upon his clothing, swollen veins of throat and temples, and the\nglowing adoration in his eyes.... She had bound her hair, and there was\nmuch still to bind. No mortal hurt was visible. Behind her was the\nfalling sea. On her right hand the smoking ruin of the _Palms_; to the\nleft, Pelee and his tens of thousands slain; above, the hot, leaden,\nhurrying clouds.... Ernst, Macready and the sailor moved discreetly\naway. Backs turned, they watched the puffs of smoke and steam that rose\nlike gray-white birds from the valley of the dead city.\n\n\"Ernst, lad,\" said Macready, \"the boss and the leadin' lady are havin'\nan intellekchool repast in the cinter av the stage by the old well. Bear\nin mind you're a chorus girl and conduct yourself in accord. Have you a\ndrop left in the heel av the flask, Adele, dear?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey were nearing the _Saragossa_ in the dusk, and their call had been\nanswered with a rousing cheer from the ship....\n\n\"Please, sir, you said you would take me sailing,\" Paula called, as she\nreadied the head of the ladder.\n\nThough he could not stand, Peter Stock had an arm for each; and they\nwere only released to fall into the embrace of Father Fontanel. They saw\nit now in the ship's light: Pelee had stricken the old priest, but not\nwith fire.... The two were together shortly afterward at supper, in\nclean dry make-shifts, very ludicrous.\n\n\"I came to you empty-handed, and soiled from the travail of the\njourney,\" she whispered. \"All but myself was in a certain room that\nfaced the North.\"\n\n\"There are booties, flounces and ribands in the shops of Fort de\nFrance,\" Charter replied with delight. \"Peter Stock shall be allowed\ncertain privileges, but not to make any such purchases. I carry circular\nnotes--and insist on straightening them out.\"\n\n\"Haven't you discovered that Skylarks are not of the insisting\nkind--even when they need new plumage? Anything that looks like\ninsistence nearly scares the life out of them. Isn't it a dear world?\"\n\nAll this was smoothly coherent to him.... Alone that night, they drew\ndeck-chairs close together forward; and snugly wrapped, would have\nnothing whatever to do with Peter Stock's sumptuous cabins. They needed\nfloods of rest, but were too happy, save just to take little sips of\nsleep between talk.\n\n\"You must have been afraid at first,\" she said, \"of turning a foolish\nperson's head with all that beauty of praise in your letters.... I think\nyou were writing to some image you wanted to believe lived somewhere,\nbut had little hope ever really to find. I could not take it all home to\nme at first.... I felt that you were writing to a lovely, shadowy sister\nwho was safely put away in a kind of twilight faery--a little figure by\na well of magical waters. Sometimes I could go to her, reach the well,\nbut I could not drink at first--only listen to the music of the water,\nwatch it bubble and flash in the moon.\"\n\n\"I love your mind, Paula Linster,\" he said suddenly, \"--every phase of\nit. By the way--_love's_ a word I never used before to-day--not even in\nmy work, save as an abstraction.\"\n\nShe remembered that Selma Cross had said this of him--that he never used\nthat word.\n\n\"You could not have said that to 'Wyndam'----\"\n\n\"Yes--for Skylark was singing more and more about her. I soon should\nhave had to say it to 'Wyndam.'\"\n\n\"I loved your fidelity to Skylark,\" she told him softly.\n\nDust of Pelee would fall upon the archipelago for weeks, but this of\nstarless dark was their supreme night. \"Feel the sting of the spray,\" he\ncommanded. \"Hear the bows sing!... It's all for us--the loveliest of\nearth's distances and the sky afterward----\"\n\n\"But behind,\" she whispered pitifully.\n\n\"Yes--Pelee 'splashed at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's\nhair.'\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next night had fallen, and the two were through with the shops of\nFort de France. Paula's dress was white and lustrous, a strange native\nfabric which the man regarded with seriousness and awe. He was in white,\ntoo. His right hand was swathed for repairs, the arm slung, and a\nthickness of lint was fitted under his collar. About his eyes and mouth\nwas a slight look of strain still, which could not live another day\nbefore the force of recuperative happiness.... Up through the streets of\nthe Capital, they made their way. Casements were open to the night and\nthe sea, but the people were dulled with grief. Martinique had lost her\nfirst born, and Fort de France, the gentle sister of Saint Pierre, was\nbowed with the spirit of weeping. They had loved and leaned on each\nother, this boy and girl of the Mother Island.\n\nThrough the silent crowds, Charter and Paula walked, a part of the\nsilence, passing the groves and towers, where the laws of France are\nborn again for the little aliens; treading streets of darkness and\nmoaning. A field of fire-lights shone ahead--red glow shining upon new\ncanvas. This was the little colony of Father Fontanel, sustained by his\nAmerican friend,--brands plucked from the burning of Saint Pierre. They\npassed the edge of the bivouac. A woman sat nursing her babe, fire-light\nupon her face and breast, drowsy little ones about her. Coffee and\nnight-air and quavering lullabies; above all, ardent Josephine in\nmarble, smiling and dreaming of Europe among the stars.... It was a\npowerful moment to Quentin Charter. Great joy and thrilling tragedy\nbreathed upon his heart. He saw a tear upon Paula's cheek, and heard the\nlow voice of Father Fontanel--like an echo across a stream. He saw them\nand hastened forward, more than white in the radiance.\n\n\"It is the moment of ten thousand years!\" he exclaimed, grasping their\nhands.\n\nPaula started, and turned to Charter whose gaze sank into her brain....\nAnd so it came about unexpectedly; in the fire-light among the priest's\nbeloved, under the Seven Palms and the ardent mystic smile of the\nEmpress....\n\n_Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry\nheart; for God hath already accepted thy works.... Let thy garments be\nalways white; and let not thy head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the\nwife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life._\n\nThe words rang in their ears, when they were alone in the city's\ndarkness, and the fire-lights far behind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the third day following, they stood together on the _Morne\nd'Orange_--the three. Father Fontanel had been in feverish haste to gaze\nonce more upon his city; while Charter and Paula had a mission among the\nruins.... The _Saragossa_ was sitting for a new complexion in the harbor\nof Fort de France, so they had been driven over from the Capital, along\nthe old sea-road. The wind was still; the sun shone through silent\ntowers of smoke, and it was noon. Sunlight bathed the stripped fields of\ncane, and, seemingly inseparable from the stillness, brooded upon the\nblue Caribbean. The wreck of the old plantation-house was hunched closer\nto the ground.\n\nThey left Father Fontanel in the carriage, and approached the cistern.\nCharter halted suddenly at the edge of the stricken lianas, grasping\nPaula's arm. The well-curbing was broken away, and the earth, for yards\nsurrounding, had caved into the vault. They stood there without speaking\nfor a moment or two, and then he led her back to the carriage.... Father\nFontanel did not seem aware of their coming or going, but smiled when\nthey spoke. His eyes, charmed with sunlight, were lost oversea.\n\nAt last they stood, the priest between them, at the very edge of the\n_Morne_ overlooking the shadowed _Rue Victor Hugo_--a collapsed artery\nof the whited sepulchre.... The priest caught his breath; his hands\nlifted from their shoulders and stretched out over the necropolis. His\nface was upraised.\n\n\"God, love the World!\" he breathed, and the flesh sank from him.... Much\ndeath had dulled their emotions, but this was translation. For an\ninstant they were lifted, exalted, as by the rushing winds of a chariot.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey did not enter the city that day, but came again, the fourth day\nafter the cataclysm. Out of the heat from the prone city, arose a\nforbidding breath, so that Paula was prevailed upon to stay behind on\nthe _Morne_.... Sickened and terrified by the actualities, dreadful\nbeyond any imaging, Charter made his way up the cluttered road into _Rue\nRivoli_. Saint Pierre, a smoky pestilential charnel, was only alive now\nthrough the lamentations of those who had come down from the hills for\ntheir dead.\n\nThe wine-shop had partly fallen in front. The stone-arch remained, but\nthe wooden-door had been levelled and was partially devoured by fire. A\nbreath of coolness still lingered in the dark place, and the fruity odor\nof spilled wine mingled revoltingly with the heaviness of death. The\nash-covered floor was packed hard, and still wet from the gusts of rain\nthat had swept in through the open door and the broken-backed roof;\nstained, too, from the leakage of the casks. Charter's boot touched an\nempty bottle, and it wheeled and careened across the stones--until he\nthought it would never stop.... Steady as a ticking clock, came the\n\"drip-drip\" of liquor, escaping through a sprung seam from somewhere\namong the merciful shadows, where the old soldier of France had fallen\nfrom his chair.\n\nHe climbed over the heap of stones, which had been the rear-door, and\nentered the little court from which the song-birds had flown. Across the\ndrifts of ash, he forced his steps--into the semi-dark of the\nliving-room behind.\n\nThe great head that he had come to find, was rigidly erect, as if the\nmuscles were locked, and faced the aperture through which he had\nentered. It seemed to be done in iron, and was covered with white\ndust--Pelee's dust, fresh-wrought from the fire in which the stars were\nforged. The first impression was that of calm, but Charter's soul\nchilled with terror, before his eyes fathomed the reality of that look.\nUnder the thick dust, there suddenly appeared upon the features, as if\ninvisible demons tugged at the muscles with hideous art, a reflection\nfrom the depths.... Bellingham was sitting beside a table. He had seen\nDeath in the open door. The colossal energies of his life had risen to\nvanquish the Foe, yet again. His mind had realized their failure, and\nwhat failure meant, before the End. Out of the havoc of nether-planes,\nwhere Abominations are born, had come a last call for him. That glimpse\nof hell was mirrored in the staring dustless eyes.... Around his\nshoulders, like a golden vine, and lying across his knees, clung the\ntrophy of defeat--Soronia. Denied the lily--he had taken the\ntiger-lily.... Under the unset stones of the floor, a lizard croaked.\n\nCharter, who had fallen of old into the Caverns of Devouring, backed out\ninto the court of the song-birds, in agony for clean light, for he had\nseen old hells again, in the luminous decay of those staring eyes.... He\nrecalled the end of Father Fontanel and this--with reverent awe, as one\non the edge of the mystery. Through the ends of these two, had some\nessential balance of power been preserved in the world?\n\n\n\n\nTWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER\n\nPAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE HEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE\nWORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY\n\n\nPeter Stock had cabled to New York for officers and men to make up a\nship's company. The _Saragossa_ was overhauled, meanwhile, in the harbor\nof Fort de France, and the owner expressed his intention of finishing\nhis healing at sea. On the same ship, which brought his seamen from New\nYork, arrived in Fort de France a corps of newspaper correspondents, who\nwere not slow to discover that in the bandaged capitalist lay one of the\ngreat stones of the eruption from the American point of view. This\nliterally unseated Peter Stock from his chair on the veranda of the\nhotel at the Capital. With his guests, he put to sea within thirty-six\nhours after the arrival of the steamer from New York; indeed, before the\n_Saragossa's_ paint was dry. His vitality was not abated, but the great\nfigures of Pelee and Fontanel, enriched by M. Mondet as a sort of\nclown-attendant, had strangely softened and strengthened this\nrarely-flavored personality. As for his two guests, that month of\nvoyaging in the Caribbean and below, is particularly their own. The\nthree were on deck as the _Saragossa_ plied past Saint Pierre, five or\nsix miles deep in the roadstead, a last time. The brute, Pelee, lay\nasleep in the sun before the gate of the whited sepulchre.\n\n\"Did I ever tell you about my last interview with M. Mondet?\" Peter\nStock inquired.\n\nCharter had witnessed it, on his way to the craters that morning, but he\ndid not say so, and was regaled with the story. \"Bear witness,\" Peter\nStock finished, pointing toward the city, \"that I forgive M. Mondet.\nDoubtless he was writing a paragraph on the staunchness of Pelee--when\nhis desk was closed for him.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey reached New York the first week in July. No sooner had Peter Stock\nberthed the _Saragossa_ and breathed the big city, than he discovered\nhow dearly he loved Pittsburg.... Paula went alone to the little\napartment Top-side o' Park, where Madame Nestor absolved her strong\nyoung queen; alone also first to _The States_, though there was a table\nset for four over in Staten Island the following day....\n\nCharter and Reifferscheid regarded each other a trifle nervously in the\nlatter's office, before they left for the ferry. Each, however, found in\nthe eyes of the other a sudden grip on finer matters than obvious\nexplanations, so that no adjustment of past affairs was required. To\nCharter, this moment of meeting with the editor became a singularly\nbright memory, like certain moments with Father Fontanel. Reifferscheid\nhad put away all the flowerings of romance, and could not know that\ntheir imperishable lustre was in his eyes--for the deeper-seeing eyes of\nthe woman. He was big enough to praise her happiness, big enough to\nburst into singing. It had been a hard moment for her, but he sprang\nhigh among the nobilities of her heart, and was sustained.... What if it\nwere just a throat-singing? There was no discordant note. These are the\nmen and the moments to clinch one's faith in the Great Good that Drives\nthe World.\n\nSelma Cross had left the _Zoroaster_, and, with Stephen Cabot, was\nhappily on the wing, between the city, shores and mountains. _The Thing_\nwas to open again in September at the _Herriot_, and the initial venture\ninto the West was over. Had she wished, Paula was not given a chance to\ndo without the old friendship.... The story of taking the Company down\ninto Kentucky from Cincinnati and fulfilling the old promise to Calhoun\nKnox proved rare listening:\n\n\"I won't soon forget that night in Cincinnati, when I parted from\nStephen Cabot,\" she said, falling with the same old readiness into her\ndisclosures. \"'Stephen,' I told him, 'I am taking the Company down into\nDanube to play to-morrow night in my home. I don't want you to go....'\nI had seen the real man shine out through physical pain many times. It\nwas so now, and he looked the master in the deeper hurt. He's a\nself-fighter--the champion. He asked me if I meant to stay long, as I\ntook his cool, slim hand. I told him that I hoped not, but if it\ntranspired that I must stay for a while, I should come back to\nCincinnati--for one day--to tell him.... I saw he was the stronger. I\nwas all woman that moment, all human, wanting nothing that crowds or art\ncould give. I think my talk became a little flighty, as I watched his\nface, so brave and so white.\n\n\"I knew his heart, knew that his thoughts that moment would have burned\nto the brute husk, coarser stuff than he was made of.... Here's a\nStephen who could smile up from the ground as--as they stoned.... So I\nleft him, standing by the window, in the upper-room of the hotel,\nwatching the moving river-lights down on the Ohio.\n\n\"Late the next afternoon I reached Danube, and was driven directly to\nthe theatre--which was new. There was a pang in this. The town seemed\njust the same; the streets and buildings, the sounds and smells, even\nthe sunset patch at the head of Main Street--all were just as they\nshould be, except the theatre. You see, all the dreams of greatness of\nthat savage, homely girl, had found their source and culmination in the\nold house of melodrama, parts of which, they told me, now were made over\ninto darkey shanties down by the river. I felt that my success was\nqualified a little in that it had not come in the life of the old house.\n\n\"I joined the Company at the theatre, without seeing any of the Danube\nfolk. The audience was already gathering. Through an eyelet of the\ncurtain, I saw Calhoun Knox enter alone, and take a seat in the centre,\nfive rows from the orchestra. He seemed smaller. The good brown tan was\ngone. There was a twitch about his mouth that twitched mine. Other faces\nwere the same--even the lips that had spoken my doom so long ago. I had\nno hate for them now....\n\n\"I looked at Calhoun Knox again, looked for the charm of clean\nsimplicity, and kept putting Stephen Cabot out of my heart and brain....\nThis man before me had fought for me twice, when I had needed a\nchampion.... They pulled me away from the eyelet, and _The Thing_ was\non.\n\n\"I could feel the town's group-soul that night--responded to its every\nthought, as if a nerve-system of my own was installed in every mind.\nThey were listening to the woman who had startled New York. I felt their\nawe. It was not sweet, as I had dreamed the moment would be. After all,\nthese were my people.\n\n\"I wanted their love, not their adulation. There had been nights back in\nthe East, when I had felt my audience, and turned loose _The Thing_ with\nutmost daring, knowing that enough of the throng could follow me. But\nthis night I played slowly, played down, so that all could get it. This\nwas not a concession to the public, but a reconciliation. And at the\nlast, I moved and spoke pityingly, lest I hurt them; played to the\nworking face of Calhoun Knox with all its limitations--as you would tell\na story to a child, and hasten the happy ending to steady the quivering\nlip.... And then it came to me slowly, after the last curtain had\nfallen, that Danube was calling for its own, and I stepped out from\nbehind.\n\n\"'Once in the days of tumult and misunderstanding,' I told them, 'I was\nangry because you did not love me. Now I know that I was not lovable.\nAnd now I feel your goodness and your forgiveness. I pray you not to\nthank me any more, lest I break down under too much joy....' Then I\nwent down among them. A woman kissed me, but the moment was so big and\nmy eyes so clouded that I did not remember the face.... Presently the\nreal consciousness came. Danube had dropped back to the doors. My hand\nwas in the hand of Calhoun Knox.\n\n\"Far out the Lone Ridge pike, we walked, to the foot of the Knobs. I was\nbreathing the smell of my old mountains. You can rely, that I had kept\nmy voice bright. 'I have come back to you, Calhoun,' I said.\n\n\"'I shouldn't be here,' he stammered in real panic. 'You didn't write,\nand I married----'\n\n\"I could have hugged him in a way that would not have disturbed his\nwife, but I said reproachfully, 'And you let me come 'way out here alone\nwith you, wicked Married Man?...' I started back for town, and then\nthought better of it--waited for him to come up, and took his hand.\n\n\"'Calhoun,' I said, 'I found you a solid friend when I needed one\npitifully. Selma Cross never forgets. You have always been my Kentucky\nGentleman. God bless your big bright heart. I wish you kingly\nhappiness!'\n\n\"And then I did rush back. We separated at the edge of the town. I\nwanted to run and cry aloud. The joy was so new and so vast that I could\nscarcely hold it. Miles away, I heard the night-train whistle. My\nbaggage was at the hotel, but I didn't care for that, and reached the\ndepot-platform in time. The Company was there, but they had reserved a\nPullman. I went into the day-coach, because I wanted to be alone--sat\nrigidly in the thin-backed seat. There were snoring, sprawling folks on\nevery hand.... After a long time, some one stirred in his seat and\nmuttered, 'High Bridge.' The brakeman came through at age-long\nintervals, calling stations that had once seemed to me the far country.\nThen across the aisle, a babe awoke and wailed. The mother had others--a\nsweet sort of woman sick with weariness. I took the little one, and it\nliked the fresh arms and fell asleep. It fitted right in--the soft\nhelpless warm little thing--and felt good to me. Dawn dimmed the old\nmeadows before I gave it up to be fed--and begged it back again.\n\n\"And then Cincinnati from the river--brown river below and brown\nsmoke-clouds above. It seemed as if I had been gone ages, instead of\nonly since yesterday. Unhampered by baggage, I sped out of the\nday-coach, far ahead of the Company in the Pullman, but the carriage to\nthe hotel was insufferably slow; the elevator dragged.... It was only\neight in the morning, but I knew his ways--how little he slept.... His\ndoor was partly open, and I heard the crinkle of his paper, as he\nanswered my tap.\n\n\"'Aren't you pretty near ready for breakfast, Stephen?' I asked.... He\nstood in the doorway--his head just to my breast. His face was\nhallowed, but his body seemed to weaken. I crossed the threshold to help\nhim, and we--we're to be married before the new season opens.\"\n\nPaula loved the story.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd at length Paula and Charter reached the house of his mother, whose\nglory was about her, as she stood in the doorway. Before he kissed her,\nthe mother-eyes had searched his heart.... Then she turned to his\ngarland of victory.\n\n\"I am so glad you have brought me a daughter.\"\n\nThe women faced each other--the strangest moment in three lives.... All\nthe ages passed between the eyes of the maid and the mother; and wisdoms\nfiner than words, as when two suns, sweeping past in their great cycle,\nshine across the darkness of the infinite deep; ages of gleaning,\nadoring, suffering, bearing, praying; ages of listening to little\nchildren and building dreams out of pain; the weathered lustre of Naomi\nand the fresh radiance of Ruth; but over all, that look which passed\nbetween the women shone the secret of the meaning of men--God-taught\nMotherhood.\n\nTo Charter, standing afar-off, came the simple but tremendous\nrevelation, just a glimpse into that lovely arcanum which mere man may\nnever know in full.... He saw that these two were closer than prophets\nto the Lifting Heart of Things; that such are the handmaidens of the\nSpirit, to whom are intrusted God's avatars; that no prophet is greater\nthan his mother.\n\nTo the man, it was new as the dream which nestled in Paula's heart; to\nthe women, it was old as the flocks on the mountain-sides of Lebanon.\nThey turned to him smiling. And when he could speak, he said to Paula:\n\n\"I thought you would like to see the garret, and the window that faces\nthe East.\"\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nAbout Will Levington Comfort\n\n_Author of \"She Buildeth Her House\" and \"Routledge Rides Alone\"_\n\n(_Eight Editions_)\n\n\nWell-known as one of the most successful short-story contributors to\nAmerican magazines, Will Levington Comfort awoke one morning a little\nover a year ago to find himself famous as a long-story writer. Seldom\nhas the first novel of an author been accorded the very essence of\npraise from the conservative critics as was Mr. Comfort's \"Routledge\nRides Alone,\" acknowledged to be the best book of 1910.\n\nWhile young in years, Mr. Comfort, who is thirty-three, is old in\nexperience. In 1898 he enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry, and\nsaw Cuban service in the Spanish-American War. The following year he\nrode as a war correspondent in the Philippines a rise which resulted\nfrom vivid letters written to newspapers from the battlefields and\nprisons.\n\nStricken with fever, wearied of service and thinking of Home, he was\nnext ordered by cable up into China to watch the lid lifted from the\nLegations at Peking. Here he saw General Liscum killed on the Tientsin\nWall and got his earliest glance of the Japanese in war. Another attack\nof fever completely prostrated him and he was sent home on the hospital\nship \"Relief.\"\n\nIn the interval between the Boxer Uprising and the Russo-Japanese War,\nMr. Comfort began to dwell upon the great fundamental facts of\nworld-politics. But the call of smoke and battle was too strong, and,\nsecuring a berth as war-correspondent for a leading midwestern\nnewspaper, he returned to the far East and the scenes of the\nRusso-Japanese conflict in 1904. He was present at the battle of\nLiaoyang his description of which in \"Routledge Rides Alone\" fairly\noverwhelms the reader.\n\nFew novels of recent years have aroused the same enthusiasm as was\nevoked by this story of \"Routledge.\" Book reviewers both in this country\nand in Europe have suggested that the book should win for its author the\nPeace prize because it is one of the greatest and most effective\narguments against warfare that has ever been presented.\n\n\n\n\nBy WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT\n\n\nROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE\n\nCOLORED FRONTISPIECE BY MARTIN JUSTICE\n\nHere is a tale indeed--big and forceful, palpitating with interest, and\nwritten with the sureness of touch and the breadth of a man who is\nmaster of his art. Mr. Comfort has drawn upon two practically new\nstory-places in the world of fiction to furnish the scenes for his\nnarrative--India and Manchuria at the time of the Russo-Japanese War.\nWhile the novel is distinguished by its clear and vigorous war scenes,\nthe fine and sweet romance of the love of the hero, Routledge--a brave,\nstrange, and talented American--for the \"most beautiful woman in London\"\nrivals these in interest.\n\nThe story opens in London, sweeps up and down Asia, and reaches its most\nrousing pitch on the ghastly field of Liaoyang, in Manchuria. The\none-hundred-mile race from the field to a free cable outside the war\nzone, between Routledge and an English war correspondent, is as exciting\nand enthralling as anything that has appeared in fiction in recent\nyears.\n\n     \"A big, vital, forceful story that towers giant-high--a romance\n     to lure the hours away in tense interest--a book with a message\n     for all mankind.\"--_Detroit Free Press._\n\n     \"Three such magnificent figures as Routledge, Noreen, and\n     Rawder never before have appeared together in fiction. Take it\n     all in all, 'Routledge Rides Alone' is a great novel, full of\n     sublime conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders\n     from heaven to earth.\"--_San Francisco Argonaut._\n\n     \"The story unfolds a vast and vivid panorama of life. The first\n     chapters remind one strongly of the descriptive Kipling we once\n     knew. We commend the book for its untamed interest. We\n     recommend it for its descriptive power.\"--_Boston Evening\n     Transcript._\n\n     \"Here is one of the strongest novels of the year; a happy\n     blending of romance and realism, vivid, imaginative, dramatic,\n     and, above all, a well told story with a purpose. It is a\n     red-blooded story of war and love, with a touch of the\n     mysticism of India, some world politics, love of country, and\n     hate of oppression--a tale of clean and expert workmanship,\n     powerful and personal.\"--_Pittsburg Dispatch._\n\n     \"Three such magnificent figures (Routledge, Noreen, and Rawder)\n     have seldom before appeared together in fiction. For knowledge,\n     energy, artistic conception, and literary skill, it is easily\n     the book of the day--A GREAT NOVEL, full of a sublime\n     conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders from\n     heaven to earth.\"--_San Francisco Argonaut._\n\n     \"EASILY THE BOOK OF THE DAY\"--_San Francisco Argonaut._\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"She Buildeth Her House","tradition":"ritual-magic","translated_text":null,"word_count":94874}