LINDA CONDON 
 
THE WORKS OF 
 JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER 
 
 THE LAY ANTHONY 
 
 MOUNTAIN BLOOD 
 
 THE THREE BLACK PENNYS 
 
 GOLD AND IRON 
 
 JAVA HEAD 
 
 THE HAPPY END 
 
 LINDA CONDON 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 BY 
 JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 ALFRED A KNOPF 
 
 1919 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THB UNITKD STATKS OF AMKRICA 
 
To 
 CARL FAN FECHTEN 
 
 This, 
 
 Linda Condon s 
 
 Gravest 
 
 Bow. 
 
 2 ... 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
A BLACK bang was, but not ultimately, 
 the most notable feature of her uncom 
 mon personality straight and severe 
 and dense across her clear pale brow and eyes. 
 Her eyes were the last thing to remember and 
 wonder about; in shade blue, they had a velvet 
 richness, a poignant intensity of lovely color, that 
 surprised the heart. Aside from that she was 
 slim, perhaps ten years old, and graver than gay. 
 Her mother was gay for them both, and, there 
 fore, for the entire family. No father was in evi 
 dence; he was dead and never spoken of, and 
 Linda was the only child. Linda s dresses, those 
 significant trivialities, plainly showed two tend 
 encies the gaiety of her mother and her own al 
 ways formal gravity. If Linda appeared at din 
 ner, in the massive Renaissance materialism of the 
 hotel dining-room, with a preposterous magenta 
 hair-ribbon on her shapely head, her mother had 
 succeeded in expressing her sense of the appro 
 priately decorative; while if Linda wore an unor- 
 
 [9] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 namented but equally "unsuitable" frock of dark 
 velvet, she, in her turn, had been vindicated. 
 
 Again, but far more rarely, the child s selec 
 tion was evident on the woman. As a rule Mrs. 
 Condon garbed her flamboyant body in large and 
 expensive patterns or extremely tailored suits; 
 and of the two, the evening satins and powdered 
 arms barely retaining an admissible line, and the 
 suits, the latter were the most, well spectacular. 
 
 She was not dark in color but brightly golden; 
 a gold, it must be said in all honesty, her own, a 
 metallic gold crisply and solidly marcelled; with 
 hazel-brown eyes, and a mouth which, set against 
 her daughter s deep-blue gaze, was her particular 
 attraction. It was rouged to a nicety, the under 
 lip a little full and never quite against the upper. 
 If Linda s effect was cool and remote, Mrs. Con 
 don, thanks to her mouth, was reassuringly im 
 minent. She was, too, friendly; she talked to 
 women in her not overfrequent opportunities 
 in a rapid warm inaccurate confession of almost 
 everything they desired to hear. The women, of 
 course, were continually hampered by the unfor 
 tunate fact that the questions nearest their hearts, 
 or curiosity, were entirely inadmissible. 
 
 Viewed objectively, they all, with the exception 
 [10] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 of Linda, seemed alike ; but that might have been 
 due to their common impressive setting. The 
 Boscombe, in its way, was as lavish as Mrs. Con 
 don s dresses. The main place of congregation, 
 for instance, was a great space of white marble 
 columns, Turkey-red carpet and growing palms. 
 It was lighted at night indirectly by alabaster 
 bowls hanging on gilded chains a soft bright 
 flood of radiance falling on the seated or slowly 
 promenading women with bare shoulders. 
 
 Usually they were going with a restrained 
 sharp eagerness toward the dining-room or leav 
 ing it in a more languid flushed repletion. There 
 were, among them, men; but somehow the men 
 never seemed to be of the least account. It was 
 a women s paradise. The glow from above al 
 ways emphasized the gowns, the gowns like or 
 chids and tea-roses and the leaves of magnolias. 
 It sparkled in the red and green and crystal jewels 
 like exotic dew scattered over the exotic human 
 flowers. Very occasionally there was a compla 
 cent or irritable masculine utterance, and then it 
 was immediately lost in the dominant feminine 
 sibilance. 
 
 Other children than Linda sped in the manner 
 of brilliant fretful tops literally on the elaborate 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 outskirts of the throng ; but they were as different 
 from her as she was from the elders. Indeed 
 Linda resembled the latter, rather than her proper 
 age, remarkably. She had an air of responsibil 
 ity, sometimes expressed in a troubled frown, and 
 again by the way she hurried sedately through 
 drifting figures toward a definite purpose and 
 end. 
 
 Usually it was in the service of one of her 
 mother s small innumerable requests or neces 
 sities; if the latter were sitting with a gentleman 
 on the open hotel promenade that overlooked the 
 sea and needed a heavier wrap, Linda returned 
 immediately with a furred cloak on her arm; if 
 the elder, going out after dinner, had brought 
 down the wrong gloves, Linda knew the exact 
 wanted pair in the long perfumed box; while 
 countless trifles were needed from the convenient 
 drug-store. 
 
 The latter was a place of white mosaic floor 
 and glittering glass, with a marble counter 
 heaped with vivid fruit and silver-covered bowls 
 of sirups and creams with chopped nuts. Linda 
 often found time to stop here for a delectable glass 
 of assorted sweet compounds. She was on terms 
 of intimacy with the colored man in a crisp linen 
 
 [12] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 coat who presided over the refreshments, and he 
 invariably gave her an extra spoonful of the 
 marron paste she preferred. When at lunch, it 
 might be, she cared for very little, her mother 
 would complain absently: 
 
 "You must stop eating those sickening mix 
 tures. They d ruin any skin." At this she in 
 variably found the diminutive mirror in the bag on 
 her lap and glanced at her own slightly improved 
 color. The burden of the feminine conversa 
 tions in which Mrs. Condon was privileged to 
 join, Linda discovered, was directed toward these 
 overwhelming considerations of appearance. 
 And their importance, communicated to her, re 
 sulted in a struggle between the desire to preserve 
 her skin from ruin and the seductions of marron 
 paste and maple chocolates. 
 
 Now, with an uncomfortable sense of impend 
 ing disaster, she would hastily consume one or the 
 other; again, supported by a beginning self-im 
 posed inflexibility, she would turn steadily away 
 from temptation. In the end the latter tri 
 umphed; and her normal appetite, always mod 
 erate, was unimpaired. 
 
 This spirit of resolution, it sometimes hap 
 pened, was a cause of humorous dismay to her 
 
 [13] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 mother. "I declare, Linda," she would observe 
 with an air of helplessness, "you make me feel 
 like the giddy one and as if you were mama. It s 
 the way you look, so disapproving. I have to 
 remind myself you re only just how old are 
 you? I keep forgetting." Linda would inform 
 her exactly and the other sigh: 
 
 "The years slip around disgustingly. It seems 
 only yesterday I was at my first party." Usually, 
 in spite of Linda s eagerness to hear of that time 
 when her mother was a girl, the elder would 
 stop abruptly. On rare occasions solitary facts 
 emerged from the recalled existence of a small 
 town in the country. There were such details as 
 buggy-riding and prayer-meetings and excursions 
 to a Boiling Springs where the dancing-floor, open 
 among the trees, was splendid. At these mem 
 ories Mrs. Condon had been known to cry. 
 
 But she would recover shortly. Her emotions 
 were like that easily roused, highly colored and 
 soon forgotten. She forgot, Linda realized len 
 iently, a great deal. It wasn t safe to rely on her 
 promises. However, if she neglected a partic 
 ular desire of Linda s, she continually brought 
 back unexpected gifts of candy, boxes of silk 
 stockings, or lovely half-wilted flowers. 
 
 [14] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 The flowers, they discovered, although they 
 stayed fresh for a long while pinned to Linda s 
 slim waist, died almost at once if worn by her 
 mother. "It s my warm nature, I am certain," 
 the latter proclaimed to her daughter; "while you 
 are a little refrigerator. I must say it s wonder 
 ful how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as 
 a pin." Somehow, with this commendation, she 
 managed to include a slight uncomplimentary im 
 patience. Linda didn t specially want to resem 
 ble a pin, a disagreeable object with a sharp point. 
 She considered this in the long periods when, 
 partly by preference, she was alone. 
 
 Seated, perhaps, in the elaborate marble and 
 deep red of the Boscombe s reception-rooms, iso 
 lated in the brilliant expensive throng, she would 
 speculate over what passed in the light of her 
 own special problems. But nothing, really, came 
 out to her satisfaction. There was, notably, no 
 one she might ask. Her mother, approached se 
 riously, declared that Linda gave her the creeps; 
 while others made it plain that it was their duty 
 to repress the forwardness inevitable from the 
 scandalous neglect of her upbringing. 
 
 They, the women of the Boscombe, glancing 
 at their finger-nails stained and buffed to a shin- 
 
 [15] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ing pale vermilion, lightly rubbing their rings on 
 the dry palm of a hand, wondered pessimistically 
 within Linda s hearing what could come out of 
 such an association. That term, she vaguely 
 gathered, referred to her mother. The latter evi 
 dently interested them tremendously; because, she 
 explained, they had no affairs of their own to at 
 tend to. This was perfectly clear to Linda until 
 Mrs. Condon further characterized them as 
 "busy." 
 
 The women, stopped by conventions from 
 really satisfactory investigation at the source, 
 drew her on occasion into a laboriously light in 
 quisition. How long would Linda and her mama 
 stay at the Boscombe? Had they closed their 
 apartment? Where was it? Hadn t Mrs. Con 
 don mentioned Cleveland? Wasn t Linda lonely 
 with her mama out so much they even said late 
 in rolling chairs? Had she ever seen Mr. Jas 
 per before his arrival last week? 
 
 No, of course she hadn t. 
 
 Here they exchanged skeptical glances beneath 
 relentlessly pulled eyebrows. He was really very 
 nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact voice 
 replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold 
 piece. Mr. Jasper was very generous. But per- 
 
 [16] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 haps he had rewarded her for being a good little 
 girl and not not bothering or hanging about. 
 "Why should he? 7 was Linda s just perceptibly 
 impatient response. Then they told her to be 
 quiet because they wanted to listen to the music. 
 
 This consisted in studying, through suspended 
 glasses in chased platinum, a discreet programme. 
 At the end of a selection they either applauded 
 condescendingly or told each other that they 
 hadn t cared for that last really too peculiar. 
 Whichever happened, the leader of the small or 
 chestra, an extravagant Italian with a supple 
 waist, turned and bowed repeatedly with a grim 
 acing smile. The music, usually Viennese, was 
 muted and emotional; its strains blended per 
 fectly with the floating scents of the women and 
 the faintly perceptible pungent odors of dinner. 
 Every little while a specially insinuating melody 
 became, apparently, tangled in the women s 
 breathing, and their breasts, cunningly traced and 
 caressed in tulle, would be disturbed. 
 
 Mrs. Condon applauded more vigorously 
 than was sanctioned by the others necessity for 
 elegance; the frank clapping of her pink palms 
 never failed to betray a battery of affected and 
 significant surprise in eyes like- polished cold 
 
 [17] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 agates. Linda, seated beside her parent, could 
 be seen to lay a hand, narrow and blanched and 
 marked by an emerald, on the elder s knee. Her 
 pale fine lips moved rapidly with the shadow of 
 trouble beneath the intense black bang. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn t do it so loudly, mother," 
 was what she whispered. 
 
 [18] 
 
II 
 
 THE jealously guarded truth was that, by 
 her daughter at least, Mrs. Condon was 
 adored. Linda observed that she was not 
 like an ordinary mother, but more nearly resem 
 bled a youthful companion. Mrs. Condon s 
 gaiety was as genuine as her fair hair. Not kept 
 for formal occasion, it got out of bed with her, 
 remained through the considerable difficulties of 
 dressing with no maid but Linda, and if the other 
 were not asleep called a cheerful or funny good 
 night. 
 
 Their rooms were separated by a bath, but 
 Linda was scarcely ever in her own her moth 
 er s lovely things, acting like a magnet, con 
 stantly drew her to their arrangement in the 
 drawers. When the laundry came up, crisp and 
 fragile webs heaped on the bed, Linda laid it 
 away in a sort of ritual. Even with these pub 
 licly invisible garments a difference of choice ex 
 isted between the two: Mrs. Condon s preference 
 was for insertions, and Linda s for shadow em 
 broidery and fine shell edges. Mrs. Condon, 
 
 [19] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 shaking into position a foam of ribbon and lace, 
 would say with her gurgle of amusement, "I want 
 to be ready when I fall down; if I followed your 
 advice they d take me for a nun." 
 
 This brought out Linda s low clear laugh, the 
 expression of her extreme happiness. It sounded, 
 for an instant, like a chime of small silver bells; 
 then died away, leaving the faintest perceptible 
 flush on her healthy pallor. At other times her 
 mother s humor made her vaguely uncomfortable, 
 usually after wine or other drinks that left the 
 elder s breath thick and oppressive. Linda failed 
 completely to grasp the allusions of this wit but 
 a sharp uneasiness always responded like the 
 lingering stale memory of a bad dream. 
 
 Once, at the Boscombe, her mother had been 
 too silly for words : she had giggled and embraced 
 her sweet little girl, torn an expensive veil to 
 shreds and dropped a French model hat into the 
 tub. After a distressing sickness she had gone 
 to sleep fully dressed, and Linda, unable to move 
 or wake her, had sat long beyond dinner into 
 the night, fearful of the entrance of the chamber 
 maid. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Condon had been humble 
 with remorse. Men, she said, were too beastly 
 
 [20] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 for description. This was not an unusual opin 
 ion. Linda observed that she was always con 
 demning men in general and dressing for them 
 in particular. She offered Linda endless advice 
 in an abstracted manner: 
 
 "They re all liars, Lin, and stingy about 
 everything but their pleasure. Women are dif 
 ferent but men are all alike. You get sick to 
 death of them! Never bother them when they 
 are smoking a cigar; cigarettes don t matter. 
 Leave the cigarette-smokers alone, anyhow; 
 they re not as dependable as the others. A man 
 with a good cigar you must know the good from 
 the bad is usually discreet. I ought to bring 
 you up different, but, Lord, life s too short. Be 
 sides, you will learn more useful things right with 
 mama, whose eyes are open, than anywhere else. 
 
 "Powder my back, darling; I can t reach. If 
 I m a little late to-night go to sleep like a duck. 
 You think Mr. Jasper s nice, don t you? So does 
 mother. But you mustn t let him give you any 
 more money. It ll make him conceited." 
 
 Linda wondered what she meant by the last 
 phrase. How could it make Mr. Jasper con 
 ceited to give her a gold piece? However, she de 
 cided that she had better not ask. 
 
 [21] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 It was like that with a great many of her 
 mother s mysterious remarks Linda had an in 
 stinctive feeling of drawing away. The other 
 kissed her warmly and left a print of vivid red 
 on her cheek. 
 
 She examined the mark in the mirror when her 
 mother had gone; it was, she decided, the kiss 
 made visible. Then she laid away the things 
 scattered about the room by Mrs. Condon s hasty 
 dressing. Her own belongings were always in 
 precise order. 
 
 A sudden hesitation seized her at the thought 
 of going down to the crowd at the music. The 
 women made her uncomfortable. It wasn t what 
 they said, but the way they said it; and the 
 endless questions wearied her. She was, as 
 well, continually bothered by her inability to im 
 press upon them how splendid her mother was. 
 Some of them she was certain did not appreciate 
 her. Mrs. Condon at once admitted and was en 
 tertained by this, but it disturbed Linda. How 
 ever, she understood the reason when any nice 
 men came along they always liked her mother 
 best. This made the women mad. 
 
 The world, she gathered, was a place where 
 women played a game of men with each other. 
 
 [22] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 It was very difficult, she couldn t comprehend the 
 rules or reason; and Linda was afraid that she 
 would be unsuccessful and never have the per 
 fect time her mother wanted for her. In the first 
 place, she was too thin, and then she knew that 
 she could never talk like her dearest. Perhaps 
 when she had had some wine it would be different. 
 
 She decided, after all, to go down to the assem 
 blage; and, by one of the white marble pillars, 
 Mrs. Randall captured her. "Why, here s Linda- 
 all-alone," Mrs. Randall said. "Mama out 
 again?" Linda replied stoutly, "She has a 
 dreadful lot of invitations." 
 
 Mrs. Randall, who wore much brighter clothes 
 than her mother, was called by the latter an old 
 buzzard. She was very old, Linda could see, with 
 perfectly useless staring patches of paint on her 
 wrinkled cheeks, and eyes that look as though 
 they might come right out of her head. Her 
 frizzled hair supported a dead false twist with a 
 glittering diamond pin, and her soft cold hands 
 were loaded with jewels. She frightened Linda, 
 really, although she could not say why. Mrs. 
 Randall was a great deal like the witch in a fairy- 
 story, but that wasn t it. Linda hadn t the belief 
 in witches necessary for dread. It might be her 
 
 [23] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 scratching voice ; or the way she turned her head, 
 without any chin at all, like a turtle; or her 
 dresses, which led you to expect a person .very 
 different from an old buzzard. 
 
 "Of course she does," said Mrs. Randall, "any 
 number of invitations, and why shouldn t she? 
 Your mother is very pleasant, to be sure." She 
 nodded wisely to the woman beside her, Miss 
 Skillern. 
 
 Miss Skillern was short and broad and, in 
 the evening, always wore curled ostrich plumes 
 on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda 
 of a wadded chair. Mrs. Randall, after the 
 other s slight stiff assent, continued: 
 
 "Your mama would never be lonely, not she. 
 All I wonder is she doesn t get married again 
 with that blondine of hers. Wouldn t you rather 
 have one papa than, in a way of speaking, a dif 
 ferent one at every hotel?" 
 
 Linda, completely at a loss for answer, studied 
 Mrs. Randall with her direct deep blue gaze. 
 Miss Skillern again inclined her plumes. With 
 the rest of her immobile she was surprisingly like 
 one of those fat china figures with a nodding head. 
 Linda was assaulted by the familiar bewildered 
 feeling of not understanding what was said and, 
 
 [24] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 at the same time, passionately resenting it from an 
 inner sensitive recognition of something wrong. 
 
 "How could I have that?" she finally asked. 
 
 "How?" repeated Miss Skillern, breathing 
 loudly. 
 
 "Yes, how?" Mrs. Randall echoed. "You can 
 ask your mama. You really can. And you may 
 say that, as a matter of fact, the question came 
 from us," she included her companion. 
 
 "From you," Miss Skillern exactly corrected 
 her. 
 
 "Indeed," the other cried heatedly, "from me! 
 I think not. Didn t you ask? Answer me that, 
 if you please. I heard you with my own ears 
 say, How? While now, before my face, you 
 try to deny it." It was plain to Linda that Miss 
 Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge. 
 She moved her lorgnette up, gazing stolidly at 
 the musical programme. "From you," she said 
 again, after a little. Mrs. Randall suddenly re 
 gained her equilibrium. 
 
 "If the ladies of this hotel are afraid to face 
 that creature I I am not. I ll tell her in a 
 minute what a respectable person thinks of her 
 goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to 
 Mr. Rennert. Mr. Rennert/ I ll say, either she 
 
 [25] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 leaves or me. Choose as you will. The reputa 
 tion of your hotel " she spluttered and paused. 
 
 "Proof," Miss Skillern pronounced judicially; 
 "proof. We know, but that s not proof." 
 
 "He has a wife," Mrs. Randall replied in a 
 shrill whisper; "a wife who is an invalid. Mrs. 
 Zoock, she who had St. Vitus dance and left yes 
 terday, heard it direct. George A. Jasper, 
 woolen mills in Frankford, Pennsylvania. Mr. 
 Rennert would thank me for that information." 
 
 They had forgotten Linda. She stood rigid 
 and cold they were blaming her mother for go 
 ing out in a rolling chair with Mr. Jasper be 
 cause he was married. But her mother didn t 
 know that; probably Mr. Jasper had not given it 
 a thought. She was at the point of making this 
 clear, when it seemed to her that it might be better 
 to say that her mother knew everything there was 
 about Mr. Jasper s wife; she could even add that 
 they were all friends. 
 
 Linda would have to tell her mother the second 
 she came in, and then, of course, she d stop going 
 with Mr. Jasper. Men, she thought in the elder s 
 phrase, were too beastly for words. 
 
 "After all," Mrs. Randall was addressing her 
 [26] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 again, "you needn t say anything at all to your 
 mama. It might make her so cross that she d 
 spank you." 
 
 "Mother never spanks me," Linda replied with 
 dignity. 
 
 "If you were my little girl," said Miss Skillern, 
 with rolling lips, "I d put you over my knee with 
 your skirts up and paddle you." 
 
 Never, Linda thought, had she heard anything 
 worse; she was profoundly shocked. The vision 
 of Miss Skillern performing such an operation 
 as she had described cut its horror on her mind. 
 There was a sinking at her heart and a misty 
 threat of tears. 
 
 To avert this she walked slowly away. It was 
 hardly past nine o clock; her mother wouldn t be 
 back for a long while, and she was too restless 
 and unhappy to sit quietly above. Instead, she 
 continued down to the floor where there were 
 various games in the corridor leading to the bil 
 liard-room. The hall was dull, no one was click 
 ing the balls about the green tables, and a solitary 
 sick-looking man, with inky shadows under fixed 
 eyes, was smoking a cigarette in a chair across 
 from the cigar-stand. 
 
 [27] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 He looked over a thick magazine in a chocolate 
 cover, his gaze arrested by her irresolute passage. 
 "Hello, Bellina," he said. 
 
 She stopped. "Linda," she corrected him, 
 "Linda Condon." Obeying a sudden impulse, 
 she dropped, with a sigh, into a place beside him. 
 
 "You re bored," he went on, the magazine put 
 away. "So am I, but my term is short." 
 
 She wondered, principally, what he was doing, 
 among so many women, at the Boscombe. He 
 was different from Mr. Jasper, or the other men 
 with fat stomachs, the old men with dragging 
 feet. It embarrassed her to meet his gaze, it was 
 so so investigating. She guessed he was by the 
 sea because he felt as badly as he looked. He 
 asked surprisingly: 
 
 "Why are you here?" 
 
 "On the account of my mother," she explained. 
 "But it doesn t matter much where I am. Places 
 are all alike," she continued conversationally. 
 "We re mostly at hotels Florida in winter and 
 Lake George in summer. This is kind of be 
 tween." 
 
 "Oh!" he said; and she was sure, from that 
 short single exclamation, he understood every 
 thing. 
 
 [28] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "Like all true beauty," he added, "it s plain 
 that you are durable." 
 
 "I don t like the seashore," she went on easily; 
 "I d rather be in a garden with piles of flowers 
 and a big hedge." 
 
 "Have you ever lived in a garden-close?" 
 
 "No," she admitted; "it s just an idea. I told 
 mother but she laughed at me and said a roof- 
 garden was her choice." 
 
 "Some day you ll have the place you describe," 
 he assured her. "It is written all over you. I 
 would like to see you, Bellina, in a space of em 
 erald sod and geraniums." She decided to ac 
 cept without further protest his name for her. 
 "You are right, too, about the hedge the highest 
 and thickest in creation. I should recommend a 
 pseudo-classic house, Georgian, rather small, a 
 white facade against the grass. A Jacobean din 
 ing-room, dark certainly, the French windows 
 open on dipping candle flames. You d wear 
 white, with your hair low and the midnight bang 
 as it is now." 
 
 "That would be awfully nice," Linda replied 
 vaguely. She sighed. 
 
 "But a very light drawing-room!" he cried. 
 "White panels and arches and Canton-blue rugs 
 
 [29] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the brothers Adam. A fluted mantel, Mcln- 
 tires, and a brass hod. Curiously enough, I al 
 ways see you in the evening ... at the piano. 
 I m not so bored, now." Little flames of red 
 burned in either thin cheek. "What nonsense!" 
 Suddenly he was tired. "This is a practical and 
 earnest world," his voice grew thin and hurt her. 
 "Yet beauty is relentless. You ll have your gar 
 den, but I shouldn t be surprised at difficulties 
 first." 
 
 "It won t be so hard to get," she declared con 
 fidently. "I mean to choose the right man. 
 Mother says that s the answer. Women, she 
 says, won t use their senses." 
 
 "Ah." 
 
 Linda began to think this was a most unpleas 
 ant monosyllable. 
 
 "So that s the lay! Has she succeeded?" 
 
 "She has a splendid time. She s out tonight 
 with Mr. Jasper in a rolling chair, and he has 
 loads and loads of money. It makes all the other 
 
 women cross." 
 
 "Here you are, then, till she gets back?" 
 "There s no one else." 
 
 "But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to 
 the righteous," he murmured. "And you " 
 
 [30] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "I think mother s perfect," she answered 
 simply. 
 
 He shook his head. "You won t succeed at it, 
 though. Your mother, for example, isn t dark." 
 
 "The loveliest gold hair," she said ecstatically. 
 "She s much much prettier than I ll ever be." 
 
 "Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, 
 magical. You will stay for a lifetime in the 
 memory. The merest touch of you will be more 
 potent than any duty or fidelity. A man s only 
 salvation will be his blindness." 
 
 Although she didn t understand a word of this, 
 Linda liked to hear him; he was talking as 
 though she were grown up, and in response to the 
 flattery she was magnetic and eager. 
 
 "One time," he said, "very long ago, beauty was 
 worshiped. Men, you see, know better now. 
 They want their dollar s worth. The world was 
 absolutely different then there were deep ad 
 venturous forests with holy chapels in the green 
 combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Para 
 dise on the Te Deum Laudamus of the angels 
 and archangels. There were black castles and, in 
 the broad meadows, silk tents with ivory pegs and 
 poles of gold. 
 
 The enchantments were as thick as shadows 
 [31] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 under the trees: perhaps the loveliest of women 
 riding a snow-white mule, with a saddle cloth 
 of red samite, or, wrapped in her shining hair, 
 on a leopard with yellow eyes, lured you to a pa 
 vilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and 
 magical herbs, and a shameful end. Or a silver 
 doe would weep, begging you to pierce her with 
 your sword, and, when you did, there knelt the 
 daughter of the King of Wales. 
 
 "But I started to tell you about the worship of 
 beauty. Plato started it although Cardinal Pietro 
 Bembo was responsible for the creed. He lived 
 in Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed 
 mostly at Florence in the Platonic Academy of 
 Cosomo and Pico della Mirandola. Love was 
 the supreme force, and its greatest expression a 
 desire beyond the body." 
 
 He gazed at Linda with a quizzical light in his 
 eyes deep in shadow. 
 
 "Love," he said again, and then paused. 
 "One set of words will do as well as another. 
 You will understand, or not, with something far 
 different from intellectual comprehension. The 
 endless service of beauty. Of course, a woman 
 but never the animal; the spirit always. Born 
 in the spirit, served in the spirit, ending in the 
 
 [32] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 spirit. A direct contradiction, you see, to nat 
 and common sense, frugality and the sacred sym 
 bol of the dollar. 
 
 "It wouldn t please your Mr. Jasper, with his 
 heaps and heaps of money. Mr. Jasper would 
 consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very 
 long ago, understood. ... A dead girl more real 
 than all earth. You mustn t suppose it to be mere 
 mysticism." 
 
 Linda said, "Very well, I won t." 
 
 He nodded. "No one could call Michelangelo 
 hysterical. Sometime in the history of man, of 
 a salt solution, this divinity has touched them. 
 Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone 
 banished by the other destination. Or I can 
 comprehend nature killing it relentlessly, since it 
 didn t lead to propagation. Then, too, as much 
 as was useful was turned into a dogma for politics 
 and priests. 
 
 "You saw in the rushlight a woman against 
 the arras ; there was a humming of viola d amore 
 from the musicians balcony; she smiled at you, 
 lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of 
 brocade de Lyons on a sanded floor. Nothing 
 else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, in 
 your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; 
 
 [33] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the dim vision in stone street and coppice; a word, 
 a message, it might be, sent across the world of 
 steel at death. And then, in the last flicker of 
 vision, the arras and the clear insistent strings, the 
 whispering brocade de Lyons on the landing. 
 
 "The philosophy of it," he said in a different 
 tone, "is exact, even a scientific truth. But men 
 have been more concerned with turning lead into 
 gold; naturally the spirit has been neglected. 
 The science of love has been incredibly soiled : 
 
 "The old gesture toward the stars, the bridge 
 of perfection, the escape from the fatality of flesh. 
 Yet it was a service of the body made incredibly 
 lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. 
 Never to be won. It ought to be clear to you that 
 realized it would diminish into quite a different 
 thing 
 
 " La figlia delta sua mente, V amoroso, idea. 
 
 His voice grew so faint that Linda could 
 scarcely distinguish articulate sounds. All that 
 he said, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. 
 She was used to elder enigmas of speech ; her nor 
 mal response was instinctively emotional, and noth 
 ing detracted from the gravity of her attention. 
 
 "Not in pious men," he continued, more un 
 certain; "nor in seminaries of virtue. They 
 
 [34] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 have their reward. But in men whose bitterness 
 of longing grew out of hideous fault. The dis 
 tinction of beauty not a payment for prayers or 
 chastity. The distinction of love . . . above 
 chests of linen and a banker s talent and patents 
 of nobility . . . Divine need. Idiotic. But 
 what else, what better, offers ?" 
 
 He was, she saw, terribly sick. His hands 
 were clenched and his entire being strained and 
 rigid, as though he were trying to do something 
 tremendously difficult. At last, with infinite 
 pain, he succeeded. 
 
 "I must get away," he articulated. 
 
 Linda was surprised at the effort necessary for 
 this slight accomplishment when he had said the 
 most bewildering things with complete ease. 
 Well, the elevators were right in front of him. 
 He rose slowly, and, with Linda standing at his 
 side, dug a sharp hand into her shoulder. It 
 hurt, but instinctively she bore it and, moving 
 forward, partly supported him. She pressed the 
 bell that signaled for the elevator and it al 
 most immediately sank into view. "Hurry," he 
 said harshly to the colored operator in a green 
 uniform; and quite suddenly, leaving a sense of 
 profound mystery, he disappeared. 
 
 [35] 
 
Ill 
 
 LINDA decided that he had told her a 
 rather stupid fairy story. She was too 
 old for such ridiculous things as ladies 
 in their shining hair on a leopard. She remem 
 bered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoologi 
 cal garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would 
 care to ride on it. Her mother, she was certain, 
 knew more about love than any man. His words 
 faded quickly from her memory, but a confused 
 rich sense stirred her heart, a feeling such as she 
 experienced after an unusually happy day: white 
 gloves and music and Mr. Jasper displeased. 
 
 A clock chimed ten, and she proceeded to her 
 mother s room, where she must wait up with her 
 information about Mr. Jasper s wife. She was 
 furious at him for a carelessness that had brought 
 her mother such unfavorable criticism. Every 
 thing had been put away before going down, and 
 there was nothing for her to do. The time 
 dragged tediously. The hands of the traveling- 
 clock in purple leather on the dressing-table 
 
 [36] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 moved deliberately around to eleven. A ringing 
 of ice in one of the metal pitchers carried by the 
 bell boys sounded from the corridor. There was 
 the faint wail of a baby. 
 
 Suddenly and acutely Linda was lonely a 
 new kind of loneliness that had nothing to do 
 with the fact that she was by herself. It was a 
 strange cold unhappiness, pressing over her like 
 a cloud and, at the same time, it was nothing at 
 all. That is, there was no reason for it. The 
 room was brightly lighted and, anyhow, she 
 wasn t afraid of "things." She thought that at 
 any minute she must cry like that baby. After a 
 little she felt better; rather the unhappiness 
 changed to wanting. What she wanted was a 
 puzzle; but nothing else would satisfy her. It 
 might be a necklace of little pearls, but it wasn t. 
 It might be . Now it was twelve o clock. 
 Dear, dear, why didn t she come backl 
 
 Music, awfully faint, and a whisper, like a 
 dress, across the floor. Her emotion changed 
 again, to an extraordinary delight, a glow like 
 that which filled her at the expression of her 
 adoration for her mother, but infinitely greater. 
 She was seated, and she lifted her head with her 
 eyes closed and hands clasped. The clock 
 
 [37] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 pointed to one and her parent came into the room. 
 
 "Linda," she exclaimed crossly, "whatever are 
 you doing up? A bad little girl. I told you 
 to be asleep hours before this." 
 
 "There is something you had to know right 
 away," Linda informed her solemnly. "I only 
 just heard it from Mrs. Randall and Miss Skill- 
 ern." Her mother s flushed face hardened. 
 "Mr. Jasper is married," Linda said. 
 
 Mrs. Condon dropped with an angry flounce 
 into a chair. Her broad scarf of sealskin slipped 
 from one shoulder. Her hat was crooked and 
 her hair disarranged. "So that s it," she said 
 bitterly; "and they went to you. The dam old 
 foxes. They went to you, nothing more than a 
 child." 
 
 Linda put in, "They didn t mean to; it just 
 sort of came out. I knew you d stop as soon as 
 you heard. Wasn t it horrid of him?" 
 
 "And this," Mrs. Condon declared, "is what I 
 get for being, yes proper. 
 
 "I said to-night, George/ I said, go right 
 back home. It s the only thing. They have a 
 right to you. I told him that only to-night. 
 And, No, I must consider my little Linda. If 
 I had held up my finger," she held up a finger to 
 [38] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 show the smallness of the act necessary, "where 
 would we have all been? 
 
 "But this is what I get. You might think the 
 world would notice a woman s best efforts. No, 
 they all try to crowd her and see her slip. If 
 they don t watch out I ll skid, all right, and with 
 some one they least expect. I have opportuni 
 ties." 
 
 Linda realized with a sense of confusion that 
 her mother had known of Mr. Jasper s marriage 
 all the while. But she had nobly tried to save 
 him from something; just what Linda couldn t 
 make out. The other s breath was heavy with 
 drinking. 
 
 "You go to bed, Lin," she continued; "and 
 thank you for taking care of mama. I hope to 
 goodness you ll learn from all this pick out 
 what you want and make for it. Don t bother 
 with the antique frumps, the disappointed old 
 tabbies. Have your fun. There s nothing else. 
 If you like a man, be on the level with him give 
 and take. Men are not saints and we re better 
 for it; we don t live in a heaven. You ve got a 
 sweet little figure. Always remember mama 
 telling you that the most expensive corsets are the 
 cheapest in the end." 
 
 [39] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Linda undressed slowly and methodically, her 
 mother s words ringing in her head. Always re 
 member but of course she would have the nicest 
 things possible. ... A keepsake and faint music. 
 She thought, privately, that she was too thin; 
 she d rather be her mother, with shoulders like 
 bunches of smooth pink roses. In bed, just as 
 she was falling asleep, a sound disturbed her 
 from the corridor above the slow tramping of 
 heavy feet, like a number of men carefully bear 
 ing an awkward object. She listened with sus 
 pended breath while they passed. The footfalls 
 seemed to pound on her heart. Slowly slowly 
 they went, unnatural and measured. They were 
 gone now, but she still heard them. The crush 
 ing of her mother into bed followed with a 
 deep sigh. The long fall of a wave on the shore 
 was audible. Two things contended in her stilled 
 brain the mysterious feeling of desire and her 
 mother s advice. They were separate and 
 fought, yet they were strangely incomprehensibly 
 joined. 
 
 [40] 
 
IV 
 
 IN the morning Mrs. Condon, with a very 
 late breakfast-tray in bed, had regained her 
 usual cheerful manner. "The truth is," she 
 told Linda, "I m glad that Jasper man has gone. 
 He had no idea of discretion; tired of them any 
 how." Linda radiated happiness. This was 
 the mother she loved above all others. Her mind 
 turned a little to the man who had talked to her 
 the night before. She wondered if he were bet 
 ter. His thin blanched face, his eyes gleaming 
 uncomfortably in smudges, recurred to her. 
 Perhaps he d be down by the cigar-stand again. 
 She went, presently, to see, but the row of chairs 
 was empty. 
 
 However, the neglected thick brown-covered 
 magazine was still on the ledge by which he 
 had been sitting. There was a name on it, and 
 while, ordinarily, she couldn t read handwriting, 
 this was so clear and regular, but minutely small, 
 that she was able to spell it out Howard Welles. 
 
 It disappointed her not to find him; at lunch 
 she observed nearly every one present, but still he 
 
 [41] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 was lost. He wasn t listening to the music after 
 dinner, nor below. A deep sense of disappoint 
 ment grew within her. Linda wanted to see him, 
 hear him talk; at times a sharp hurt in the 
 shoulder he had grasped brought him back 
 vividly. The next day it was the same, and 
 finally, diffidently, she approached the hotel desk. 
 A clerk she knew, Mr. Fiske, was rapidly sorting 
 mail, and she waited politely until he had 
 finished. 
 
 "Well?" he asked. 
 
 "I found this down-stairs," she said, giving 
 him the magazine. "Perhaps he ll want it." 
 Mr. Fiske looked at the written name, and then 
 glanced sharply at her. "No," he told her 
 brusquely, "he won t want it." He turned away 
 with the magazine and left Linda standing ir 
 resolutely. She wanted to ask if Mr. Welles were 
 still at the Boscombe; if the latter didn t want 
 the magazine she d love to have it. Linda 
 couldn t tell why. But the clerk went into the 
 treasurer s office and she was forced to move 
 away. 
 
 Later, lingering inexplicably about the spot 
 where she had heard so many bewildering words, 
 a very different man spoke to her. He, Linda 
 
 [42] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 observed, was smoking a cigar, a good one, 
 she was certain. He was smallish and had a 
 short bristling mustache and head partly bald. 
 His shoes were very shiny and altogether he had 
 a look of prosperity. "Hello, cutie!" he cried, 
 capturing her arm. She responded listlessly. 
 The other produced a crisp dollar bill. "Do you 
 see the chocolates in that case?" he said, indicat 
 ing the cigar-stand. "Well, get the best. If 
 they cost more, let me know. Our financial 
 rating is number one." Linda answered that 
 she didn t think she cared for any. "All right," 
 the man agreed; "sink the note in the First Na 
 tional Ladies Bank, if you know where that is." 
 
 He engineered her unwillingly onto a knee. 
 "How s papa?" he demanded. "I suppose he 
 will be here Saturday to take his family through 
 the stores?" 
 
 She replied with dignity, "There is only my 
 mother and me." 
 
 At this information he exclaimed "Ah!" and 
 touched his mustache with a diminutive gold- 
 backed brush from a leather case. "That s more 
 than I have," he confided to her; "there is only 
 myself. Isn t that sad? You must be sorry for 
 the lonely old boy." 
 
 [43] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 She wasn t. Probably he, too, had a wife 
 somewhere; men were beastly. "I guess your 
 mother wants a little company at times herself?" 
 
 Linda, straining away from him, replied, "Oh, 
 dear, no ; there are just packs of gentlemen when 
 ever she likes. But she is tired of them all." 
 She escaped and he settled his waistcoat. 
 
 "You mustn t run away," he admonished her; 
 "nice children don t. Your mother didn t bring 
 you up like that, I m sure. She wouldn t like 
 it." 
 
 Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact 
 that, if she were to wait, he would have to say 
 something really important. 
 
 "Just you two," he deliberated; "Miss and 
 Mrs. Jones." 
 
 "Not at all," Linda asserted shortly; "our 
 name is Condon." 
 
 "I wonder if you d tell her this," he went on: 
 "a gentleman s here by himself named Bard- 
 well, who has seen her and admires her a whole 
 lot. Tell her he s no young sprig but he likes a 
 good time all the better. Dependable, too. Re 
 member that, cutie. And he wouldn t presume if 
 he had a short pocket. He knows class when he 
 
 sees it." 
 
 [44] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "It won t do any good/ Linda assured him in 
 her gravest manner. "She said only this morn 
 ing she was sick of them." 
 
 "That was before dinner," he replied cheer 
 fully. "Things look different later in the day. 
 You do what I tell you." 
 
 All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother 
 was at the dressing-table, rubbing cream into her 
 cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection 
 in the mirror. "He was smoking a big cigar," 
 Linda added. The other laughed. "What a 
 sharp little thing you are!" she exclaimed. "A 
 body ought to be careful what they tell you." 
 She wiped off the cream and rubbed a soft pinkish 
 powder into her skin. 
 
 "He saw me, did he?" she apparently ad 
 dressed the glass. "Admired me a whole lot. 
 Was he nice, Linda?" she turned. "Were his 
 clothes right? You must point him out to me 
 to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one 
 should notice. Your mother isn t on the shelf 
 yet; she can hold her own, even in the Boscombe, 
 against the whole barnyard." 
 
 Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, 
 whispered, "There he is." But immediately Mr. 
 Bard well was smiling and speaking to them. 
 
 [45] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "I had a delightful conversation with your little 
 girl to-day," he told Mrs. Condon; "such a pretty 
 child and well brought up." 
 
 "And good, too," her mother replied; "not a 
 minute s trouble. The common sense of the 
 grown ; you d never believe it." 
 
 "Why shouldn t I?" he protested gallantly. 
 "Every reason to." Mrs. Condon blushed be 
 comingly. 
 
 "She had to make up for a lot," she sighed. 
 
 An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall 
 stopped Linda in the hall beyond the music. 
 "Mama out?" she inquired brightly. "I thought 
 Mr. Jasper left this morning?" 
 
 Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she 
 added nothing else. 
 
 "I must look at the register," Mrs. Randall 
 continued; "I really must." 
 
 Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half 
 cried, "I d like to see you riding on a leopard!" 
 A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried 
 up to the silence of her mother s deserted room. 
 
 [46] 
 
IT was on her fourteenth birthday that Linda 
 noticed a decided change in her mother; a 
 change, unfortunately, that most of all af 
 fected the celebrated good humors. In the first 
 place Mrs. Condon spent an increasingly large 
 part of the day before the mirror of her dressing- 
 table, but without any proportionate pleasure; or, 
 if there was a proportion kept, it exhibited the 
 negative result of a growing annoyance. "God 
 knows why they all show at once," she exclaimed 
 discontentedly, seated as customary before the 
 eminently truthful reflection of a newly discovered 
 set of lines. "I m not old enough to begin to 
 look like a hag." 
 
 "Oh, mother," Linda protested, shocked, "you 
 mustn t say such horrid things about yourself. 
 Why, you re perfectly lovely, and you don t seem 
 a speck older than you did years ago." 
 
 The other, biting her full underlip at the un 
 welcome fact in turn biting a full lower lip back 
 at her, made no reply. Linda lingered for a 
 
 [47] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 moment at her mother s ruffled pink shoulders; 
 then, with a sigh, she turned to the reception-room 
 of their small suite at the Hotel Gontram. It 
 was a somber chamber furnished in red plush, 
 with a complication of shades and gray-white 
 net curtains at long windows and a deep green 
 carpet. There was a fireplace, with a grate, sup 
 ported by varnished oak pillars and elaborate 
 mantel and glass, a glittering reddish center-table 
 with a great many small odd shelves below, a 
 desk with sheaves of hotel writing paper and the 
 telephone. 
 
 The Gontram was entirely different from the 
 hotels at the lakes or seashore or in the South. 
 It was a solid part of a short block west of Fifth 
 Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry s filled 
 a corner with its massive stone bulk and glimpses 
 of dining-rooms with glittering chandeliers and 
 solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide 
 entrances under heavy glass and metal, tall por 
 ters in splendid livery, succeeded each other to the 
 Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder of the ele 
 vated trains beyond. 
 
 The revolving door, through which Linda se 
 dately permitted herself to be moved, opened into 
 a high space of numerous columns and benches, 
 
 [48] 
 
 .. 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 writing-desks and palms. At the back was the 
 white room where, usually alone, she had break 
 fast, while the dining-room, discreetly lighted, 
 was at the left. It was more interesting here 
 than, for example, at the Boscombe; people were 
 always coming in or going, and there were quan 
 tities of men. She watched them arriving with 
 shoals of leather bags in the brisk care of the 
 bellboys, disappear into the elevator, and, if it 
 was evening, come down in dinner coats with 
 vivid silk scarfs folded over their white shirts. 
 
 The women were perpetually in street clothes 
 pr muffled in satin wraps; Linda only regarded 
 them when they were exceptional. Usually she 
 was intent on the men. It often happened that 
 they returned her frank gaze with a smile, or 
 stopped to converse with her. Sometimes it was 
 an actor with a face dryly pink like a woman s 
 from make-up; they were familiar and pinched 
 her cheeks, calling her endearing names in con 
 scious echoing voices as if they were quite hollow 
 within. Then there were simply business men, 
 who never appeared to take off their derby hats, 
 and spoke to her of their little girls at home. She 
 was entirely at ease with the latter so many of 
 her mother s friends were similar and critically 
 
 [49] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 valued the details of their dress, the cigar-cases 
 with or without gold corners, the watch-chains 
 with jeweled insignia, the cuff-links and em 
 broidered handkerchiefs. 
 
 If her mother approached while Linda was so 
 engaged the elder would linger with a faint smile, 
 at which, now, the girl was conscious of a growing 
 impatience. She d rise with dignity and, if pos 
 sible, escape with her parent from florid cour 
 tesies. This sense of annoyance oppressed her, 
 too, in the dining-room, where her mother, a cock 
 tail in her hand, would engage in long cheerful 
 discussions with the captains or waiters. Other 
 women, Linda observed, spoke with complete in 
 difference and their attention on the carte de jour. 
 Of course it was much more friendly to be in 
 terested in the servants affairs they told her 
 mother about their wives and the number of their 
 children, the difficulties of bringing both ends to 
 gether, and served her with the promptest care; 
 but instinctively Linda avoided any but the most 
 formal contact. 
 
 She had to insist, as well, on paying the tips; 
 for Mrs. Condon, her sympathies engaged, was 
 quite apt to leave on the table a five-dollar bill 
 or an indiscriminate heap of silver. "You are a 
 
 [50] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 regular little Jew," she would reply lightly to 
 Linda s protests. This, the latter thought, was 
 unfair; for the only Jew she knew, Mr. Moses 
 Feldt, an acquaintance of their present period in 
 New York, was quite the most generous person 
 she knew. " Certainly you don t take after your 
 
 mama." 
 
 After she said this she always paused with 
 tight lips. It was charged with the assumption 
 that, while Linda didn t resemble her, she did 
 very much a mysterious and unfavorably re 
 garded personage. Her father, probably. More 
 and more Linda wondered about him. He was 
 dead, she knew, but that, she began to see, was 
 no reason for the positive prohibition to mention 
 him at all. Perhaps he had done something 
 dreadful, with money, and had disgraced them 
 all. Yet she was convinced that this was not so. 
 
 She had heard a great many uncomplimentary 
 words applied to husbands, most of which she 
 had been unable to comprehend; and she specu 
 lated blankly on them in her mother s connection. 
 On the whole the women agreed that they were 
 remarkably stupid and transparent, they protested 
 that they understood and guided every move hus 
 bands made; and this surely gave her father no 
 
 [51] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 opportunity for independent crime. She was 
 held from questioning not so much by her 
 mother s command at times she calmly and suc 
 cessfully ignored that as from its unfortunate 
 effect on the elder. 
 
 Mrs. Condon would burn with a generalized 
 anger that sank to a despondency fortified by the 
 brandy flask. Straining embraces and tears, 
 painful to support, would follow, or more un 
 bearable silliness. The old difficulties with 
 giggling or sympathetic chambermaids Linda 
 couldn t decide which was worse then con 
 fronted her with the necessity for rigid lies, mis 
 ery, and the procuring of sums of money from 
 the bag in the top drawer. Altogether, and spe 
 cially with the fresh difficulties of her mother s 
 unaccountable irritation and apprehensions, 
 things were frightfully complicated. 
 
 It was late afternoon in November, and the 
 electric lights were on; however, they were lighted 
 when they rose, whenever they were in the rooms, 
 for it was always gloomy if not positively dark; 
 the bedroom looked into a deep exterior well and 
 the windows of the other chamber opened on an 
 uncompromising blank wall. Yet Linda, now 
 widely learned in such settings, rather liked her 
 
 [52] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 present situation. They had occupied the same 
 suite before, for one thing; and going back into 
 it had given her a sense of familiarity in so much 
 that always shifted. 
 
 Linda, personally, had changed very little; she 
 was taller than four years before, but not a great 
 deal; she was, perhaps, more graceful her 
 movements had become less sudden more as 
 sured, the rapidly maturing qualities of her mind 
 made visible; and she had gained a surprising 
 repose. 
 
 Now, for example, she sat in a huge chair 
 cushioned with black leather and thought, with 
 a frowning brow, of her mother. It was clear 
 that the latter was obviously worried about to 
 put it frankly her face. Her figure, she re 
 peatedly asserted, could be reasoned with; she 
 had always been reconciled to a certain jolly 
 stoutness, but her face, the lines that appeared 
 about her eyes overnight, fairly drove her to hot 
 indiscreet tears. She had been to see about it, 
 Linda knew ; and returned from numerous beauty- 
 parlors marvelously rejuvenated for the eve 
 ning. 
 
 She had been painted, enameled,, vibrated, 
 massaged; she had had electric treatment, rays 
 
 [53] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 and tissue builders ; and once she had been baked. 
 To-day the toilet table would be loaded with 
 milkweed, cerates and vanishing cream; tomor 
 row they would all be swept away, given to de 
 lighted chambermaids, while Mrs. Condon de 
 clared that, when all was said, cold water and a 
 rough towel was nature s way. 
 
 This afternoon, apparently everything, includ 
 ing hope, had failed. She was as cross as cross. 
 From the manner in which she spoke it might 
 have been Linda s fault. The worst of it was 
 that even the latter saw that nothing could be 
 done. Her mother was growing well, a little 
 tired in appearance. Swift tears gathered in 
 Linda s eyes. She hadn t been quite truthful in 
 that reassuring speech of hers. She set herself 
 to the examination of various older women with 
 whom she had more or less lately come in contact. 
 How had they regarded and met the loss of what 
 ever good looks they had possessed? 
 
 It was terribly mixed up, but, as she thought 
 about it, it seemed to her that the world of women 
 was divided into two entirely different groups, 
 the ones men liked, and who had such splendid 
 parties; and the ones who sat together and gos 
 siped in sharp lowered voices. She hoped pas- 
 
 [54] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 sionately that her mother would not become one 
 of the latter for a long long while. But even 
 tually it seemed that there was no escape from the 
 circle of brilliantly dressed creatures with ruined 
 faces who congregated in the hotels and whis 
 pered and nodded in company until they went 
 severally to bed. 
 
 The great difference between one and the other, 
 of course, was the favor of men. Their world 
 revolved about that overwhelming fact. Her 
 mother had informed her of this on a hundred 
 occasions and in countless ways ; but more by her 
 actions, her present wretchedness, than by speech. 
 It was perfectly clear to Linda that nothing else 
 mattered. She was even beginning, in a vague 
 way, to think of it in connection with herself; 
 but still most of her preoccupation was in her 
 mother. She decided gravely that a great deal, 
 yet, could be done. For instance, lunch to-day: 
 
 Her mother had given her a birthday celebra 
 tion at Henri s, the famous confectioner but a 
 door or two from their hotel; and at the end, 
 when a plate of the most amazing and delightful 
 little cakes had been set on the table, the elder 
 had eaten more than half. Afterwards she had 
 sworn ruefully at her lack of character, begging 
 
 [55] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Linda in a momentary return of former happy 
 companionship never to let her make such a 
 silly pig of herself again. Then she got so tired, 
 Linda continued her mental deliberations; if she 
 could only rest, go away from cities and resorts 
 for a number of months, the lines in turn would 
 soon vanish. 
 
 The elder moved impatiently, with a fretful ex 
 clamation, in the inner room; from outside came 
 the subdued dull ceaseless clamor of New York. 
 Formerly it had frightened Linda ; but her dread 
 had become a wordless excitement at the thought 
 of so much just beyond the windows; her hands 
 grew cold and her heart suddenly pounded, de 
 stroying the vicarious image of her mother. 
 
 [56] 
 
I 
 
 VI 
 
 "T" WISH now I d been different," Mrs. 
 Condon said, standing in the door. Her 
 dress was not yet on, but her underthings 
 were fully as elaborate and shimmering as any 
 gown could hope to be. "And above everything 
 else, I am sorry for the kind of mother you ve 
 had." This was so unexpected, the other s voice 
 was so unhappy, that Linda was startled. She 
 hurried across the room and laid a slim palm on 
 her mother s full bare arm. "Don t say that," 
 Linda begged, distressed; "you ve been the best in 
 the world." 
 
 "You know nothing about it," the elder re 
 turned, momentarily seated, her hands clasped on 
 her full silken lap. "But perhaps it s not too 
 late. You ought to go to a good school, where 
 you d learn everything, but principally what a 
 bad thoughtless mama you have." 
 
 "I shouldn t stay a second in a place where 
 they said that," Linda declared. A new appre 
 hension touched her. "You re not really think- 
 
 [57] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ing of sending me away!" she cried. "Why, 
 you simply could not get along. You know you 
 couldn t! The maids never do up your dresses 
 right; and you d be so lonely in the mornings you 
 would nearly die." 
 
 "That s true," Mrs. Condon admitted wearily. 
 "I would expire; but I was thinking of you 
 you re only beginning life; and the start you ll 
 get with me is all wrong. Or, anyway, most 
 people think so." 
 
 "They are only jealous." 
 
 "Will you go into the closet, darling, and pour 
 out a teeny little sip from my flask; mama feels 
 a thousand years old this evening." 
 
 Returning with the silver cup of the flask 
 half full of pale pungent brandy Linda could 
 scarcely keep the tears from spilling over her 
 cheeks. She had never before felt so sad. Her 
 mother hastily drank, the stinging odor was trans 
 ferred to her lips; and there was a palpable re 
 covery of her customary spirit. 
 
 "I don t know what gets over me," she asserted. 
 "I m certain, from what I ve heard of them, that 
 you wouldn t be a bit better off in one of those 
 fashionable schools for girls. Women, young 
 and older, were never meant to be a lot together 
 
 [58] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 in one place. It s unnatural. They don t like 
 each other, ever, and it s all hypocritical and 
 nasty. You will get more from life, yes, and 
 me. I m honest, too honest for my own good, if 
 the truth was known." 
 
 She rose and unconsciously strayed to the mir 
 ror over the mantel where she examined her coun 
 tenance in absorbed detail. 
 
 "My skin is getting soft like putty," she re 
 marked aloud to herself. "The thing is, I ve had 
 my time and don t want to pay for it. Blondes 
 go quicker than dark women; you ought to last 
 a long while, Linda." Mrs. Condon had turned, 
 and her tone was again almost complaining, al 
 most ill-natured. Linda considered this infor 
 mation with a troubled face. It was quite clear 
 that it made her mother cross. "I ve seen men 
 stop and look at you right now, too, and you 
 nothing more than a slip fourteen years old. Of 
 course, when I was fifteen I had a proposal; but 
 I was very forward; and somehow you re differ 
 ent so dam serious." 
 
 She couldn t help it, Linda thought, if she 
 was serious; she really had a great deal to think 
 about, their income among other things. If she 
 didn t watch it, pay the bills every three months 
 
 [59] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 when it arrived, her mother would never have a 
 dollar in the gold mesh bag. Then, lately, the 
 dresses the elder threatened to buy were often im 
 possible; Linda learned this from the comments 
 she heard after the wearing of evening affairs 
 sent home against her earnest protests. They 
 were, other women more discreetly gowned had 
 agreed, ridiculous. 
 
 Linda calmly realized that in this her judg 
 ment was superior to her mother s. In other 
 ways, too, she felt she was really the elder; and 
 her dismay at the possibility of going away to 
 school had been mostly made up of the realization 
 of how much her mother s well-being was de 
 pendent on her. 
 
 Mrs. Condon, finishing her dressing in the 
 bedroom, at times called out various injunctions, 
 general or immediate. "Tell them to have a taxi 
 at the door for seven sharp. Have you talked to 
 that little girl in the black velvet?" Linda hadn t 
 and made a mental note to avoid her more point 
 edly in the future. "Get out mother s carriage 
 boots from the hall closet; no, the others you 
 know I don t wear the black with coral stockings. 
 They come off and the fur sticks to my legs. It 
 will be very gay to-night; I hope to heaven 
 
 [60] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Ross doesn t take too much again." Linda well 
 remembered that the last time Ross had taken 
 too much her mother s Directoire wrap had been 
 completely torn in half. "There, it is all non 
 sense about my fading; I look as well as I ever 
 did." 
 
 Mrs. Condon stood before her daughter like a 
 large flame-pink tulle flower. Her bright gold 
 hair was constrained by black gauze knotted 
 behind, her bare shoulders were like powdered 
 rosy marble and the floating skirts gathered in 
 a hand showed marvelously small satin-tied car 
 riage boots. Indeed Linda s exclamation of de 
 light was entirely frank. She had never seen her 
 mother more radiant. The cunningly applied 
 rouge, the enhanced brilliancy of her long-lashed 
 eyes, had perfectly the illusion of unspent beauty. 
 
 "Do stay down-stairs after dinner and play," 
 the elder begged. "And if you want to go to the 
 theatre, ask Mr. Bendix, at the desk, to send you 
 with that chauffeur we have had so much. I 
 positively forbid your leaving the hotel else. 
 It s a comfort after all, that you are serious. 
 Kiss mama " 
 
 However, she descended with her mother in 
 the elevator; there was a more public caress; and 
 
 [61] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed 
 Linda at a small table against the wall. There 
 she had clams she adored iced clams creamed 
 shrimps and oysters with potatoes bordure, 
 alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte 
 cream with black walnuts. After this she se 
 dately instructed the captain what to sign on the 
 back of the dinner check Linda Condon, room 
 five hundred and seven placed thirty-five cents 
 beside the finger-bowl for the waiter, and made 
 her way out to the news stand and the talkative 
 girl who had it in charge. Exhausting the pos 
 sibilities of gossip, and deciding not to go out to 
 the theatre in spite of the news girl s exciting 
 description of a play called "The New Sin" she 
 was walking irresolutely through the high gilded 
 and marble assemblage space when, unfortu 
 nately, she was captured by Mr. Moses Feldt. 
 
 [62] 
 
VII 
 
 HE led her to a high-backed lounge 
 against the wall, where, seated on its 
 extreme edge, he gazed silently at her 
 with an expression of sentimental concern. Mr. 
 Moses Feldt was a short round man, bald but 
 for a fluffy rim of pale hair, and with the palest 
 imaginable eyes in a countenance perpetually 
 flushed by the physical necessity of accommodat 
 ing his rotundity to awkward edges and condi 
 tions. As usual he was dressed with the nicest 
 care a band of white linen laid in the opening 
 of his waistcoat, his scarf ornamented by a pear- 
 shaped pearl on a diamond finished stem; his 
 cloth-topped varnished black shoes glistened, 
 while his short fat fingers clasped a prodigious 
 unlighted cigar. At last, in a tone exactly suited 
 to his gaze, he exclaimed: 
 
 "So that naughty mama has gone out again 
 and deserted Moses and her little Linda!" In 
 what way her mother had deserted Mr. Feldt she 
 failed to understand. Of course he wanted to 
 
 [63] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 marry them the comprehensive phrase was his 
 own but that didn t include him in whatever 
 they did. Principally it made a joke for their 
 private entertainment. Mrs. Condon would 
 mimic his eager manner, "Stella, let me take you 
 both home where you ll have the best in the land," 
 And, "Ladies like you ought to have a loving pro 
 tection." Linda would laugh in her cool bell- 
 like manner, and her mother add a satirical com 
 ment on the chance any Moses Feldt had of mar 
 rying her. 
 
 Linda at once found him ridiculous and a be 
 ing who forced a slighting warmth of liking. 
 His appearance was preposterous, the ready 
 emotion often too foolish for words; but under 
 neath there was a a goodness, a mysterious 
 quality that stirred her heart to recognition. 
 Certain rare things in life and experience affected 
 her like that memory of an old happiness. She 
 could never say what they might be, they came 
 at the oddest times and by the most extraordinary 
 means; but at their occurrence she would thrill 
 for a moment as if in response to a sound of 
 music. 
 
 It was, for example, absurd that Mr. Moses 
 Feldt, who was a Jew, should make her feel like 
 
 [64] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 that, but he did. And all the while that she was 
 disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his 
 back, she was as uncomfortable and "horrid" as 
 possible. While this fact, of course, only served 
 to make her horrider still. At present she 
 adopted the manner of a patience that nothing 
 could quite exhaust; she was polite and formal, 
 relentlessly correct in position. 
 
 Mr. Moses Feldt, the cigar in his grasp, pressed 
 a hand to the probable region of his heart. "You 
 don t know how I think of you," he protested, 
 tears in his eyes; "just the idea of you exposed 
 to anything at all in hotels keeps me awake 
 nights. Now it s a drunk, or a fresh feller on the 
 elevator, or " 
 
 "It s nice of you," Linda said, "but you 
 needn t worry. No one would dare to bother us. 
 No one ever has." 
 
 "You wouldn t know it if they did," he replied 
 despondently, "at your age. And then your 
 mother is so trustful and pleasant. Take those 
 parties where she is so much roof frolics and 
 cocoanut groves and submarine cafes; they don t 
 come to any good. Rowdy." Linda studied 
 him coldly; if he criticized them further she 
 would leave. He mopped a shining brow with 
 
 [65] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 a large colorful silk handkerchief. "It throws 
 me into a sweat," he admitted. 
 
 "Really, Mr. Feldt, you mustn t bother," she 
 told him in one of her few impulses of friend 
 liness. "You see, we are very experienced." 
 He nodded without visible happiness at this 
 truth. "I m a jackass! " he cried. "Judith tells 
 me that all the time. If you could only see my 
 daughters," he continued with a new vigor; "such 
 lovely girls as they are. One dark like you and 
 the other fair as a daisy. Judith and Pansy. 
 And my home that darling mama made before 
 she died." The handkerchief was again in evi 
 dence. 
 
 "Women and girls are funny. I can t get you 
 there and not for nothing will Judith make a 
 step. It may be pride but it seems to me such 
 nonsense. I guess I m old-fashioned and love s 
 old-fashioned. Homes have gone out of style 
 with the rest. It s all these restaurants and roofs 
 now, yes, and studios. I tell the girls to stay 
 away from them and from artists and so on. I 
 don t encourage them at the apartment a big 
 lump of a feller with platinum bracelets on his 
 wrists. What kind of a man would that be! 
 I d like to know who d buy goods from him. 
 
 [66] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "Sometimes, I m sorry I got a lot of money, 
 but it made mama happy. When she laid there 
 at the last sick and couldn t live, I said, Oh, if 
 you only won t leave me I ll give you gold to 
 eat. " He was so moved, his face so red, that 
 Linda grew acutely embarrassed. People were 
 looking at them. She rose stiffly but, in spite of 
 her effort to escape him, he caught both her hands 
 in his : 
 
 "You say I m an old idiot like Judith," he 
 begged. This Linda declined to do. And, "Ask 
 your mother if you won t come to dinner with the 
 girls and me, cozy and at home just once." 
 
 "I m afraid it will do no good," she admitted; 
 "but I ll try." She realized that he was about 
 to kiss her and moved quickly back. "I am al 
 most afraid of you," he told her; "you re so dis 
 tant and elegant. Judith and Pansy would get 
 on with you first rate. I ll telephone tomorrow, 
 in the afternoon. If the last flowers I sent you 
 came I never heard of it." 
 
 She thanked him appropriately for the roses 
 and stood, erect and impersonal, as a man in the 
 hotel livery helped him into a coat. Mr. Moses 
 Feldt waved the still unlighted cigar at her and 
 disappeared through the rotating door to the street. 
 
 [67] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 She gave a half-affected sigh of relief. Couldn t 
 he see that her mother would never marry him. 
 At the same time the strange thrill touched her; 
 the sense of his absurdity vanished and she no 
 longer remembered him perched like a painted 
 rubber ball on the edge of the lounge. 
 
 In the somber red plush and varnished wood 
 of the reception-room of their suite he seemed 
 again charming. Perhaps it was because he, 
 too, adored her mother. That wasn t the reason. 
 The familiar rare joy lingered. It seemed now 
 as though she were to capture and understand it 
 . . . there was the vibration of music; and then, 
 as always, she felt at once sad and brave. But, in 
 spite of her old effort to the contrary, the feeling 
 died away. Some day it would be clear to her; 
 in the meanwhile Mr. Moses Feldt became once 
 more only ridiculous. 
 
 [68] 
 
VIII 
 
 IN the morning she was dressed and had 
 returned from breakfast before her mother 
 stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought 
 an arm up over her head, and swore. It was a 
 long while before she got up or spoke again, and 
 Linda never remembered her in a worse temper. 
 When, finally, she came into the room where the 
 breakfast-tray was laid, Linda was inexpressibly 
 shocked all that her mother had dreaded about 
 her appearance had come disastrously true. Her 
 face was hung with shadows like smudges of dirt 
 and her eyes were netted with lines. 
 
 Examining the dishes with distaste she told 
 Linda that positively she could slap her for let 
 ting them bring up orange- juice. "How often 
 must I explain to you that it freezes my fingers." 
 Linda replied that she had repeated this in the 
 breakfast-room and perhaps they had the wrong 
 order. Neither her mother nor she said anything 
 more until Mrs. Condon had finished her coffee 
 and started a second cigarette. Then Linda re 
 lated something of Mr. Moses Feldt s call on the 
 
 [69] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 evening before. "He cried right into his hand 
 kerchief," she said, "until I thought I should 
 sink." 
 
 Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. 
 "Now if you were only four years older/ she de 
 clared, "it would be a good thing. He was 
 simply born to be a husband." Horror filled 
 Linda at the other s implication. "Yes," the 
 elder insisted; "you couldn t do better; except, 
 perhaps, for those girls of his. But then you d 
 have no trouble making them miserable. It s 
 time to talk to you seriously about marriage." 
 The smoke from the cigarette eddied in a gray 
 veil across her unrefreshed face. 
 
 "You re old for your age, Linda; your life has 
 made you that; and, like I said last night, it is 
 rather better than not. Well, for you marriage, 
 and soon as possible, is the proper thing. Mind, 
 I have never said a word against it; only what 
 suits one doesn t suit another. Where it wouldn t 
 be anything more than an old ladies home to me 
 you need it early and plenty. You are too in 
 tense. That doesn t go in the world/ Men don t 
 like it. They want their pleasure and comfort 
 without strings tied to them; the intensity has to 
 be theirs. 
 
 [70] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "What you must get through your head is that 
 love whatever it is and marriage are two dif 
 ferent things, and if you are going to be success 
 ful they must be kept separated) You can t do 
 anything with a man if you love him; but then 
 you can t do anything with him if he doesn t love 
 you. That s the whole thing in a breath. I am 
 not crying down love, either; only I don t want 
 you to think it is the bread and butter while it s 
 nothing more than those little sweet cakes at 
 Henri s. 
 
 "Now any girl who marries a poor man or for 
 love they are the same thing is a fool and de 
 serves what she gets. No one thanks her for it, 
 him least of all; because if she does love him it 
 is only to make them miserable. She s always at 
 him where did he go and why did he stay so 
 long, and no matter what he says she knows it s 
 a lie. More times than not she s right, too. I 
 can t tell you too often men don t want to be 
 loved, they like to be flattered and flattered and 
 then flattered again. You d never believe how 
 childish they are. 
 
 "Make them think they re it and don t give too 
 much that s the secret. Above all else don t be 
 easy on them. Don t say all right, darling, next 
 
 [71] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 spring will do as well for a new suit/ Get it 
 then and let him worry about paying for it, if 
 worry he must. If they don t give it to you some 
 one smarter will wear it. But I started to talk 
 about getting married. 
 
 " Choose a Moses Feldt, who will always be 
 grateful to you, and keep him at it. They are so 
 easy to land it s a kind of shame, too. Perhaps I 
 am telling you this too soon, but I don t want 
 any mistakes. Well, pick out your Moses and 
 mama will help you there and suddenly, at the 
 right time, show him that you can be affectionate ; 
 surprise him with it and you so staid and par 
 ticular generally. Don t overdo it, promise more 
 than you ever give 
 
 "In the closet, dearie, just a little. That s a 
 good girl. Mama s so dry." She rose, the silver 
 cup of the flask in her hand, and moved inevitably 
 to the mirror. "My hair s a sight," she re 
 marked; "all strings. I believe I ll get a per 
 manent wave. They say it lasts for six months or 
 more, till the ends grow out. Makes a lot of 
 it, too, and holds the front together. If you ve 
 ever had dye in your hair, I hear, it will break 
 off like grass." 
 
 Linda pondered over what she had been told 
 [72] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 of love and marriage ; on the whole the exposition 
 had been unsatisfactory. The latter she was 
 able to grasp, but her mother had admitted an 
 inability exactly to fix love. (One fact, appar 
 ently, was clear it was a nuisance and a hin 
 drance to happiness, or rather to success. Love 
 upset things.) Still she had the strongest objec 
 tion possible to living forever with a man like 
 Mr. Moses Feldt. At once all that she had hoped 
 for from life grew flat and uninteresting. She 
 had no doubt of her mother s correctness and wis 
 dom; the world was like that; she must make the 
 best of it. 
 
 There was some telephoning, inquiries, and 
 she heard the elder make an appointment with a 
 hair-dresser for three that afternoon. She won 
 dered what it would be like to have your hair 
 permanently waved and hoped that she would 
 see it done. This, too, she realized, was a part 
 of the necessity of always considering men they 
 liked your hair to be wavy. Hers was as straight 
 and stupid as possible. She, in turn, examined 
 herself in a mirror : the black bang fell exactly to 
 her eyebrows, her face had no color other than 
 the carnation of her lips and her deep blue 
 eyes. She moved away and critically studied her 
 
 [73] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 figure; inches and inches too thin, she decided. 
 Undoubtedly her mother was right, and she must 
 marry at the first opportunity if she could find 
 a man, a rich man, who was willing. 
 
 Her thoughts returned vaguely to the mystery, 
 the nuisance, of love. Surely she had heard 
 something before, immensely important, about it, 
 and totally different from all her mother had said. 
 Her mind was filled with the fantastic image of a 
 forest, of dangers, and a fat china figure with 
 curled plumes, a nodding head, that brushed her 
 with fear and disgust. A shuddering panic took 
 possession of her, flashes burned before her eyes, 
 and she ran gasping to the perfumed soft reassur 
 ances of her mother. 
 
 [74] 
 
IX 
 
 N a recurrence of her surprising concern of 
 the day before Mrs. Condon declined to 
 leave her dearest Linda alone; and, their 
 arms caught together in a surging affection, they 
 walked down Fifth Avenue toward the hair 
 dresser s. There was a diffused gray sparkle of 
 sunlight it was early for the throngs through 
 which they passed rapidly to the accompaniment 
 of a rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a deep 
 smooth camel s hair cape, over which her intense 
 black hair poured like ink, and her face was 
 shaded by a dipping green velvet hat. Her 
 mother, in one of the tightly cut suits she affected, 
 had never been more like a perfect companion. 
 
 They saw, in the window of a store for men, a 
 set of violent purple wool underwear, and barely 
 escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr. Moses 
 Feldt in such a garb. They giggled idiotically 
 at the spectacle of a countryman fearfully making 
 the sharp descent from the top of a lurching omni 
 bus. And then, when they had reached the place 
 
 [75] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 of Mrs. Condon s appointment, stopped at the 
 show of elaborately waved hair on wax heads and 
 chose which, probably, would resemble the elder 
 and which, in a very short while now, Linda. 
 
 There was an impressive interior, furnished in 
 gray panels and silvery wood; and the young 
 woman at the desk was more surprisingly waved 
 than anything they had yet seen. M. Joseph 
 would be ready almost immediately; and in the 
 meanwhile Mrs. Condon could lay aside her 
 things in preparation for the hair to be washed. 
 She did this while Linda followed every move 
 ment with the deepest interest. 
 
 At the back of the long room was a succession 
 of small alcoves, each with an important-looking 
 chair and mirror and shelves, a white basin, 
 water-taps and rubber tubes. Settled in com 
 fort, Mrs. Condon s hair was spread out in a 
 bright metal tray fastened to the back of the chair, 
 and the attendant, a moist tired girl in a care 
 less waist, sprayed the short thick gold-colored 
 strands. 
 
 "My," she observed, "what some wouldn t give 
 for your shade ! Never been touched, I can see, 
 either. A lady comes in with real Titian, but 
 yours is more select. It positively is. Lillian 
 
 [76] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Russell." While she talked her hands sped with 
 incredible rapidity and skill. "The gentlemen 
 don t notice it ; of course not; oh, no ! There was 
 a girl here, a true blonde, but she didn t stay long 
 her own car, yes, indeed. Married her right 
 out of the establishment. There wasn t any 
 nonsense to her. 
 
 "So this is your little girl! I d never have be 
 lieved it. Not that she hasn t a great deal of 
 style, a great deal almost, you might say, like 
 an Egyptian. In the movies last night; her all 
 over. It s a type that will need studying. 
 Bertha Kalich. But for me" 
 
 Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation 
 was done. The girl wheeled into position a case 
 that had a fan and ring of blue flickering flames, 
 and a cupped tube through which hot air was 
 poured over her mother s head. M. Joseph 
 strutted in, a small carefully dressed man with 
 a diminutive pointed gray beard and formal 
 curled mustache. He spoke with what Linda 
 supposed was a French accent, and his manners, 
 at least to them, were beautiful. But because the 
 girl had not put out the blue flames quickly 
 enough he turned to her with a voice of quivering 
 rage. 
 
 [77] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bow 
 ing and smooth assurances, that Linda was 
 startled, and had to think about him all over. 
 The result of this was a surprising dislike; she 
 hated, even, to see him touch her mother, as he 
 unnecessarily did in directing them into the en 
 closure for the permanent wave. 
 
 The place itself filled her with the faint horror 
 of instruments and the unknown. Above the 
 chair where Mrs. Condon now sat there was a 
 circle in the ceiling like the base of a chandelier 
 and hanging down from it on twisted green wires 
 were a great number of the strangest things 
 imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but 
 round, longer and hollow, white china inside and 
 covered with brown wrapping. The wires of 
 each, she discovered, led over a little wheel and 
 down again to a swinging clock-like weight. In 
 addition to this there were strange depressing 
 handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling 
 needle and clearly marked numbers. 
 
 The skill of the girl who had washed her 
 mother s hair, however, was slight compared with 
 M. Joseph s dexterity. The comb flashed in his 
 white narrow hands ; in no time at all every knot 
 was urged out into a shining smoothness. "Just 
 
 [78] 
 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the front?" he inquired. Not waiting for Mrs. 
 Condon s reply, he detached >a strand from the 
 mass over her brow, impaled it on a hairpin, while 
 he picked up what might have been a thick steel 
 knitting-needle with one end fastened in the mid 
 dle of a silver quarter. The latter, it developed, 
 had a hole in it, through which he drew the strand 
 of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tight 
 ness about the long projection. 
 
 At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and 
 moist, appeared, took a hank of white threads 
 from a dressing-table, and tied that separate lock 
 firmly. This, Linda counted, was repeated 
 fifteen times; and when it was accomplished she 
 was unable to repress a nervous laughter. 
 Really, her mother looked too queer for words: 
 the long rigid projections stood out all over her 
 head like like a huge pincushion; no, it was a 
 porcupine. Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain 
 recognition of her daughter s mirth. 
 
 Then Linda s attention followed M. Joseph to 
 a table against a partition, where he secured a 
 white cotton strip from a film of them soaking in 
 a shallow tray, took up some white powder on the 
 blade of a dessert knife and transferred it to the 
 strip. This he wrapped and wrapped about the 
 
 [79] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 hair fastened on a spindle, tied it in turn, and 
 dragged down one of the brown objects on wires, 
 which, to Linda s great astonishment, fitted pre 
 cisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, fifteen 
 times, M. Joseph did this, fastening each con 
 nection with the turn of a screw. When so much 
 was accomplished her mother s hair, it seemed, 
 had grown fast to the ceiling in a tangle of green 
 ends. It was the most terrifying spectacle Linda 
 had ever witnessed. Obscure thoughts of tor 
 ture, of criminals executed by electricity, froze her 
 in a set apprehension. 
 
 The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on 
 the wall, and, with a sharp comprehensive glance 
 at his apparatus, moved a handle as far as it 
 would go. Nothing immediately happened, and 
 Linda gave a relaxing sigh of relief. M. Joseph, 
 however, became full of a painful attention. 
 
 [80] 
 
HE brought into view an unsuspected 
 tube, with a cone of paper at its end, 
 and bent over her mother, directing a 
 stream of cold air against her head. "How do 
 you feel?" he asked, with, Linda noticed, a star 
 tling loss of his first accent. Mrs. Condon so far 
 felt well enough. Then, before Linda s startled 
 gaze, every single one of the fifteen imprisoning 
 tubes began to steam with an extraordinary vigor ; 
 not only did they steam, like teapots, but drops 
 of water formed and slowly slid over her mother s 
 face. If the process appeared weird at the be 
 ginning, now it was utterly fantastic. 
 
 The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. 
 Condon s dripping countenance; they increased 
 rather than diminished; actually it resembled a 
 wrecked locomotive she had once seen. "How 
 are you?" M. Joseph demanded nervously. "Is 
 it hot anywhere?" With a sudden gesture she 
 replied in a shaking voice, "Here." 
 
 Instantly he was holding the paper cone with 
 [81] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 its cold air against her scalp, and the heat was 
 subdued. He glanced nervously at his watch, 
 and Mrs. Condon managed to ask, "How long?" 
 
 "Twenty minutes." 
 
 Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed 
 nothing really happened, and Linda s fears grad 
 ually faded into a mere curiosity and interest. 
 A curtain hung across the door to the rest of the 
 establishment, but it had been brushed partly 
 aside; and she could see, in the compartment they 
 had vacated, another man bending with waving 
 irons over the liberated mass of a woman s hair. 
 He was very much like M. Joseph, but he was 
 younger and had only a dark scrap of mustache. 
 As he caught up the hair with a quick double 
 twist he leaned very close to the woman s face, 
 whispering with an expression that never 
 changed, an expression like that of the wax heads 
 in the show-case. He bent so low that Linda was 
 certain their cheeks had touched. She pondered 
 at length over this, gazing now at the man beyond 
 and now at M. Joseph flitting with the cold-air 
 tube about her mother; wondering if, when she 
 grew older, she would like a hair-dresser s cheek 
 against hers. Linda decided not. The idea 
 didn t shock her, the woman in the other space 
 
 [82] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 plainly liked it; still she decided she wouldn t 
 A different kind of man, she told herself, would 
 be nicer. 
 
 Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, un 
 pleasant odor the odor of scorched hair ; and she 
 was absolutely rigid with horror at an agonized 
 cry from her mother. 
 
 "It s burning me terribly," the latter cried. 
 "Oh, I can t stand it. Stop! Stop!" 
 
 M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the 
 wall and reversed the handle, and Mrs. Condon 
 started from the chair, her face now streaming 
 with actual tears ; but before she could escape the 
 man threw himself on her shoulders. 
 
 "You mustn t move," he whispered desperately, 
 "you ll tear your hair out. I tell you no harm s 
 been done. Everything is all right. Please 
 please don t cry like that. It will ruin my busi 
 ness. There are others in the establishment. 
 Stop!" he shook her viciously. 
 
 Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, 
 with waving plucking hands, was sobbing an ap 
 peal to be released. "My head, my head," she 
 repeated. "I assure you" the man motioned to 
 a pallid girl to hold her in the chair. With a 
 towel to protect his hand he undid a screw, lifted 
 
 [83] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 off the cap and untwisted the cotton from a bound 
 lock of hair; releasing it, in turn, from the spindle 
 it fell forward in a complete corkscrew over Mrs. 
 Condon s face. 
 
 "Do you see!" he demanded. "Perfect. I 
 give you my word they ll all be like that. The 
 cursed heat ran up on me," he added in a swift 
 aside to his assistant. "Has Mrs. Bellows gone? 
 Who s still in the place? Here, loose that bind 
 ing . . . thank God, that one is all right, too." 
 
 Together they unfastened most of the connec 
 tions, and a growing fringe of long remarkable 
 curls marked Mrs. Condon s pain-drawn and 
 dabbled face. Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but 
 perhaps, after all, nothing frightful had hap 
 pened. Her poor mother! Then fear again 
 tightened about her heart at the perturbed ex 
 pression that overtook the hair-dresser. He was 
 trying in vain to remove one of the caps. She 
 caught enigmatic words "the borax, crystallized 
 . . . solid. It would take a plumber . . . have 
 to go." 
 
 The connection was immovable. Even in her 
 suffering Mrs. Condon implored M. Joseph to 
 save her hair. Nothing, however, could be done; 
 he admitted it with pale lips. The thing might 
 
 [84] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 be chiseled off; in the end he tried to force a re 
 lease and the strand, with a renewal of Mrs. Con 
 don s agony now, in the interest of her appear 
 ance, heroically withstood snapped short in the 
 container. 
 
 Rapidly recovering her vigor, she launched on 
 a tirade against M. Joseph and his permanent 
 waving establishment Linda had never before 
 heard her mother talk in such a loud brutal man 
 ner, nor use such heated unpleasant words, and 
 the girl was flooded with a wretched shame. 
 Still another lock, it was revealed, had been 
 ruined, and crumbled to mere dust in its owner s 
 fingers. 
 
 "The law will provide for you," she promised. 
 
 "Your hair was dyed," the proprietor returned 
 vindictively. "The girl who washed it will 
 testify. Every one is warned against the perma 
 nent if their hair has been colored. So it was at 
 your own risk." 
 
 "My head s never been touched with dye," Mrs. 
 Condon shrilly answered. "You lying little ape. 
 And well does that young woman know it. She 
 complimented me herself on a true blonde." The 
 girl had, too, right before Linda. 
 
 "You ought to be thrashed out of the city." 
 [85] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "Your money will be given back to you," M. 
 Joseph told her. 
 
 Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to 
 their hotel. Above, Mrs. Condon removed her 
 hat; and, before the uncompromising mirror, 
 studied her wrecked hair a frizzled vacancy was 
 directly over her left brow and haggard face. 
 When she finally turned to Linda, her manner, 
 her words, were solemn. 
 
 "I m middle-aged," she said. 
 
 A dreary silence enveloped them sitting in the 
 dark reception-room while Mrs. Condon rest 
 lessly shredded unlighted cigarettes on the floor. 
 She had made no effort to repair the damages to 
 her appearance, and when the telephone bell 
 sharply sounded, she reached out in a slovenly 
 negligence of manner. Linda could hear a 
 blurred articulation and her mother answering 
 listlessly. The latter at last said: "Very well, at 
 seven then; you ll stop for us." She hung up the 
 receiver, stared blankly at Linda, and then went 
 off into a harsh mirth. "Oh, my God!" she 
 cried; "the old ladies home!" 
 
 [86] 
 
XI 
 
 WTH her mother away on a wedding- 
 trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda 
 was suddenly projected into the com 
 panionship of his two daughters. One, as he 
 had said, was light, but a different fairness from 
 Mrs. Condon s richly thick, like honey; while 
 Judith, the elder, who must have been twenty, 
 was dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, 
 which were a contrasting ashen-violet. She 
 spoke at once of Linda s flawless whiteness : 
 
 "A magnolia," she said, in a deliberate dark 
 voice; "you are quite a gorgeous child. Do you 
 mind my saying that your clothes are rather 
 quaint? They aren t inevitable, and yours ought 
 to be that." 
 
 They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, 
 an interior of heavy ornately carved black wood, 
 panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial yellow, 
 and a neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with 
 glittering iridescent pyramids of glass, massive 
 frosted repousse silver, burnished gold-plate and 
 
 [87] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 a wide table decoration of orchids and fern, 
 was tropical and intense. It was evident to 
 Linda that the Feldts were very rich indeed. 
 
 The entire apartment resembled the dining- 
 room, while the building itself filled a whole city 
 block, with a garden and fountains like an elabo 
 rate public square. Linda, however, wasn t par 
 ticularly impressed by such show; she saw that 
 Judith and Pansy had expected that of her; but 
 she was determined not to exhibit a surprise 
 that would imply any changes in her mother s 
 and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly 
 took such surroundings for granted. Her pri 
 mary conception of possible existence was ele 
 gance; its necessity had so entered into her being 
 that it had departed from her consciousness. 
 
 "I must take you to Lorice," Judith continued; 
 "she will know better than any one else what you 
 ought to have. You seem terribly pure at first. 
 But you re not a snowdrop; oh, no something 
 very rare in a conservatory. Much better style 
 than your mother." 
 
 "I hope you won t mind Judith," Pansy put 
 in; "she s always like that." A silence followed 
 in which they industriously dipped the leaves of 
 mammoth artichokes into a buttery sauce. 
 
 [88] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Linda, as customary, said very little, she listened 
 with patient care to the others and endeavored to 
 arrive at conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was 
 as warm and simple as her father. Judith was 
 harder to understand. She was absorbed in color 
 and music, and declared that ugliness gave her a 
 headache at once. Altogether, Linda decided, she 
 was rather silly, especially about men; and at 
 times her emotions would rise beyond control until 
 she wept in a thin hysterical gasping. 
 
 The room where, mostly, they sat was small, 
 but with a high ceiling, and hung in black, with 
 pagoda-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the 
 evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in 
 extremely clinging vivid dresses, the former s hair 
 piled high in an amber mass and Judith s drawn 
 severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda 
 thought of the tropical butterflies of the river 
 Amazon, of orchids like those always on the din 
 ing-room table. A miniature grand piano stood 
 against the drapery, and Judith often played. 
 Linda learned to recognize some of the composers. 
 Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith in 
 sisted that Richard Strauss was incomparable ; but 
 Linda developed an overwhelming preference for 
 Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an 
 
 [89] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 affectation; for a while she tried to confuse 
 Linda s knowledge; but finally, playing the airs 
 of "Orpheus and Eurydice," she admitted that the 
 latter was sincere. 
 
 "They sound so cool," Linda said in a clear 
 and decided manner. 
 
 There was a man with them, and he shook his 
 head in a mock sadness. "So young and yet so 
 formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith s tem 
 perament, you would be the most irresistible crea 
 ture alive. For see, my dear child, as it is you 
 stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are remote 
 and perfect, and faintly wistful. I can t imagine 
 being human or even comfortable with you about. 
 Then, too, you have too much wisdom." 
 
 "She is frightful," Pansy agreed; "she s never 
 upset nor her hair a sight; and, above all else, 
 Linda won t tell you a thing." 
 
 "Some day," Judith informed them from the 
 rippling whisper of the piano, "she will be mag 
 nificently loved." 
 
 "Certainly," the man continued; "but what 
 will Linda, Linda Condon, give in return?" 
 
 ^It s a mistake to give much," Linda said 
 evenly. 
 
 [90] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "No, no, no!" Judith cried. "Give every 
 thing; spend every feeling, every nerve." 
 
 "You are remarkable, of course; almost no 
 women have the courage of their emotions." His 
 name was Reynold Chase, a long thin grave 
 young man in a dinner coat, who wrote brilliant 
 and successful comedies. "Yet Linda isn t par 
 simonious." He turned to her. "Just what are 
 you? What do you think of love?" 
 
 "I haven t thought about it much," she replied 
 slowly. "I m not sure that I know what it 
 means. At least it hasn t anything to do with 
 marriage " 
 
 "Ah!" he interrupted her. 
 
 Her usually orderly mind grew confused; it 
 eddied as though with the sound of the piano. 
 "It is not marriage," she vaguely repeated her 
 mother s instruction. Reynold Chase supported 
 her. 
 
 "That destroys it," he asserted. "This love 
 is as different as possible from the ignominious 
 impulse eternally tying the young into knots. 
 It s anti-social." 
 
 "How stupid you are, Reynold," Pansy pro 
 tested. "If you want to use those complicated 
 
 [91] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 words take Judith into the drawing-room. I m 
 sure Linda is dizzy, too." 
 
 The latter s mental confusion lingered ; she had 
 a strong sense of having heard Reynold Chase 
 say these strange things long before. Judith left 
 the piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed 
 her. A new dislike of Judith Feldt deepened in 
 Linda s being. She had no reason for it, but 
 suddenly she felt absolutely opposed to her. The 
 manner in which Judith rested against the man 
 by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda 
 inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity 
 of distance from all contact with men and life. 
 
 She didn t even want to make one of those mar 
 riages that had nothing to do with love, but was 
 only a sensible arrangement for the securing of 
 gowns and velvet hangings and the luxury of en 
 closed automobiles. Suddenly she felt lonely, 
 and hoped that her mother would come back 
 soon. 
 
 [92] 
 
XII 
 
 BUT when her mother, now Mrs. Moses 
 Feldt, did return, Linda was conscious of 
 a keen disappointment. Somehow she 
 never actually came back. It wasn t only that, 
 after so many years together, she occupied a room 
 with another than Linda, but her manner was 
 changed; it had lost all freedom of heart and 
 speech. The new Mrs. Feldt was heavily polite 
 to her husband s daughters; Linda saw that she 
 liked Pansy, but Judith made her uncomfortable. 
 She expressed this in an isolated return of the 
 old confidences: 
 
 "That girl," she said sharply, "likes petting. 
 She can talk all night about her soul and beauty, 
 and play the piano till her fingers drop off, but I 
 I know. You can t fool me where they are 
 concerned. I can recognize an unhealthy sign. 
 I never believed in going to all those concerts 
 and kidding yourself into a fever. I may have 
 shown myself a time, but you mark my word I 
 was honest compared to Judith Feldt. Don t you 
 
 [93] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 be impressed with all her art talk and the books 
 she reads. I was looking into one yesterday, and 
 it made me blush; you can believe it or not, it 
 takes some book for that! " 
 
 At the same time she treated Judith with a 
 studious sweetness. Mr. Moses Feldt Linda 
 always thought of him as that was a miracle of 
 kindly cheerfulness. He made his wife and her 
 daughter, and his own girls, an unbroken succes 
 sion of elaborate and costly presents. "What s 
 it for if not to spend on those you love?" he would 
 remark, bringing a small jeweler s box wrapped 
 in creamy-pink paper from his pocket. "You 
 can t take it with you. I wasn t born with it 
 mama and I were as poor as any you ll forgive 
 me, Stella, I know, for speaking of her. I got 
 enough heart to love you both. Oh, mama! I 
 said, and she dying, if you only won t go, I ll 
 give you gold to eat. " 
 
 Curiously, as Linda grew older, the conscious 
 ness of her stepfather as an absurd fat little man 
 dwindled ; she lost all sense of his actual person ; 
 and, as the influence of her mother slipped from 
 her life, the mental conception of Mr. Moses Feldt 
 deepened. She thought about him a great deal 
 and very seriously; the things he said, the warm 
 
 [94] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 impact of his being, vibrated in her memory. 
 He had the effect on her of the music of Christo 
 pher Gluck the effect of a pure fine chord. 
 
 Pansy she now thought of with a faint con 
 tempt : she was rapidly growing thick- waisted and 
 heavy, and she was engaged to a dull young man 
 not rich enough to be interesting. They sat about 
 in frank embraces and indulged in a sentimental 
 speech that united Judith and Linda in common 
 oppression. 
 
 There were, not infrequently, gatherings of the 
 Feldts at dinner, a noisy good-tempered uproar of 
 a great many voices speaking at once; extraordi 
 nary quantities of superlative jewels and dresses 
 of superfine textures; but the latter, Linda 
 thought, were too vivid in pattern or color for the 
 short full maternal figures they often adorned. 
 But no one, it seemed, considered himself ageing 
 or even, in spite of the most positive indications, 
 aged. The wives with faded but fashionable 
 hair and animated eyes in spent faces talked with 
 vigorous raillery about the "boys," who, it might 
 have happened, had gone in a small masculine 
 company to a fervid musical show the evening 
 before. While they, in their turn, thick like 
 their brother or cousin Moses, with time-wasted 
 
 [95] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 hair and countenances marked with the shrewd 
 ness in the service of which the greater part of 
 their lives had vanished, had their little jokes 
 about the "girls" and the younger and handsomer 
 beaux who threatened their happiness. 
 
 At times the topic of business crept into the 
 lighter discussion, and, in an instant, the gaiety 
 evaporated and left expressionless men and quick 
 sharp sentences steely with decision, or indirect 
 and imperturbably blank. A memorandum book 
 and a gold pencil would appear for an enigmatic 
 note, after which the cheerfulness slowly revived. 
 
 The daughters resembled Judith or the slower 
 placidity of Pansy; while there was still another 
 sort, more vigorous in being, who consciously dis 
 cussed riding academies, the bridle-paths of Cen 
 tral Park, and the international tennis. Their 
 dress held a greater restraint than the elders; 
 though Linda recognized that it was no less lav 
 ish; and their feminine trifles, the morocco 
 beauty-cases and powder-boxes, the shoulder- 
 pins, their slipper and garter buckles were ex 
 travagant in exquisite metals and workings. 
 
 They arrived in limousines with dove-colored 
 upholstery and crystal vases of maidenhair fern 
 and moss-roses; and often, in such a car, Linda 
 
 [96] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 went to the theatre with Judith or Pansy and 
 some cousins. Usually it was a matinee, where 
 their seats were the best procurable, directly at 
 the stage; and they sat in a sleek expensive row 
 eating black chocolates from painted boxes 
 ruffled in rose silk. The audience, composed 
 mostly of their own world, followed the exotic 
 fortunes of the plays with a complete discrimi 
 nation in every possible emotional display and 
 crisis. 
 
 Lithe actresses in a revealing severity of attire, 
 like spoiled nuns with carmine lips, suffering in 
 ingenuous problems of the passions, agonized in 
 shuddering tones; or else they went to concerts 
 to hear young violinists, slender, with intense 
 faces and dramatic hair, play concertos that irri 
 tated Linda with little shivers of delight. 
 
 Sometimes they had lunch in a restaurant of 
 Circassian walnut and velvet carpets, with cock 
 tails, and eggs -elaborate with truffles and French 
 pastry. Then, afterward, they would stop at a 
 confectioner s, or at a cafe where there was danc 
 ing, for tea. They all danced in a perfection of 
 slow graceful abandon, with youths who, it 
 seemed to Linda, did nothing else. 
 
 She accepted her part in this existence as in- 
 [97] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 evitable, yet she was persistently aware of a feel 
 ing of strangeness, of essential difference from it. 
 She was unable to lose a sense of looking on, as 
 if morning, noon and night she were at another 
 long play. Linda regarded it as she did so 
 much else with neither enthusiasm nor marked 
 annoyance. Probably it would continue without 
 change through her entire life. All that was 
 necessary, and easily obtained, was a sufficient 
 amount of money. 
 
 Her manner, Pansy specially complained, was 
 not intimate and inviting; in her room Linda 
 usually closed the door; the frank community of 
 the sisters was distasteful to her. She demanded 
 an extraordinary amount of personal privacy. 
 Linda never consulted Judith s opinion about her 
 clothes, nor exchanged the more significant as 
 pects of feeling. Alone in a bed-chamber fur 
 nished in silvery Hungarian ash, her bed a pale 
 quilted luxury with Madeira linen crusted in 
 monograms, without head or foot boards, and a 
 dressing-table noticeably bare, she would deliber 
 ately and delicately prepare for the night. 
 
 While Judith s morning bath steamed with the 
 softness and odor of lavender crystals, Linda 
 
 [98] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 slipped into water almost cold. This, with her 
 clear muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her 
 narrow unornamented slippers, represented the 
 perfection of niceness. 
 
 There were others than Pansy, however, who 
 commented on what they called her superiority 
 the young men who appeared in the evening. A 
 number of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner 
 parties or more casual, tried to engage her sym 
 pathies in their persons and prospects. It was a 
 society of early maturity. But, without apparent 
 effort, she discouraged them, principally by her 
 serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental 
 part of her understanding of things that younger 
 men were unprofitable; she liked far better the 
 contemporaries of Moses Feldt. 
 
 Reynold Chase had ceased his visits, but his 
 place had been taken by another and still an 
 other emotionally gifted man. The present one 
 was dark and imperturbable: they knew little of 
 him beyond the facts that he had been a long 
 while in the Orient, that his manner and French 
 were unsurpassed, and that practically every con 
 siderable creative talent in New York was en 
 tertained in his rooms. 
 
 [99] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Judith had been to one of his parties ; and, the 
 following morning in bed, she told Pansy and 
 Linda the most remarkable things. 
 
 "It would never do for Pansy," she concluded; 
 "but I must get Markue to ask you sometime, 
 Linda. How old are you now? Well, that s 
 practically sixteen, and you are very grown up. 
 You would be quite sensational, in one of your 
 plain white frocks, in his apartment. You d 
 have to promise not to tell your mother, though. 
 She thinks I m leading you astray now the old 
 dear. Does she think I am blind. I met a man 
 last week, a friend of father s, who used to know 
 her. Of course he wouldn t say anything, men 
 are such idiots about that like ostriches with 
 their pasts buried and all the feathers sticking 
 out but there was a champagne expression in 
 his smile." 
 
 Linda wondered, later, if she d care to go to a 
 party of Markue s. There was a great deal of 
 drinking at such affairs; and though she rather 
 liked cordials, creme de the and Grand Marnier, 
 even stronger things flavored with limes and an 
 occasional frigid cocktail, she disliked from a 
 slight experience men affected by drink. 
 Judith had called her a constitutional prude; 
 [100] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 this, she understood, was a term of reproach; 
 and she wondered if, applied to her, it were just. 
 
 Usually it meant a religious person or one 
 fussy about the edge of her skirt; neither of 
 which she ever considered. She didn t like to 
 sit in a corner and be hugged even that she 
 could now assert with a degree of knowledge 
 but it wasn t because she was shocked. Nothing, 
 she told herself gravely, shocked her; only cer 
 tain acts and moments annoyed her excessively. 
 It was as if her mind were a crisp dress with rib 
 bons which she hated to have mussed or disar 
 ranged. 
 
 Linda didn t take the trouble to explain this. 
 Now that her mother had withdrawn from her 
 into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness 
 she confided in no one. She would have been at 
 a loss to put her complicated sensations and 
 thoughts into words. Mr. Moses Feldt, the only 
 one to whom she could possibly talk intimately, 
 would be upset by her feelings. He would give 
 her a hug and the next day bring up a new pres 
 ent from his pocket. 
 
 Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, 
 were all delicate in fabric, mostly white with 
 black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She detested 
 [101] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith s un 
 dergarments were made and the colored embroid 
 ery of Pansy s; while she ignored scented toilet- 
 waters and extracts. Markue, in finally asking 
 her to a party at his rooms, said that there she 
 would resemble an Athenian marble, of the un- 
 painted epoch, in the ballet of Scheherazade. 
 
 [102] 
 
XIII 
 
 4 4 FTT1 HERE S nothing special to say about 
 I Markue s parties," Judith, dressing, 
 JL told Linda. "You will simply have to 
 take what comes your way. There is always 
 some one serious at them, if you insist, as usual, 
 on dignity." She stood slim and seductive, like 
 a perverse pierrot, before the oppressive depths of 
 a black mirror. Linda had finished her prepa 
 rations for the evening. There was no departure 
 from her customary blanched exactness. She 
 studied her reflection across Judith s shoulder; 
 her intense blue eyes, under the level blot of 
 her bang, were grave on the delicate pallor of 
 her face. 
 
 In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda 
 was conscious of a slight unusual disturbance of 
 her indifference. This had nothing to do with 
 whether or not she d be a success ; her own social 
 demands were so small that any considerable 
 recognition of her was unimportant. Her pres 
 ent feeling came from the fact that to-night, prac- 
 [103] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 tically, she was making her first grown-up ap 
 pearance in the world, the world from which she 
 must select the materials of her happiness and 
 success. To-night she would have an opportu 
 nity to put into being all that no matter how 
 firmly held until now had been but convictions. 
 
 Her interest was not in whom or what she might 
 meet, but in herself. Judith, smoking a cig 
 arette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly excited. 
 "I like Markue awfully," she admitted. 
 
 "Does he care for you?" Linda asked. 
 
 "That," said Judith, "I can t make out if he 
 likes me or if it s just anonymous woman. I 
 wish it were the first, Linda." Her voice was 
 shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and 
 exhilaration, she seemed haggard and spent. 
 Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny. Pri 
 vately she decided that the other was a fool she 
 didn t watch her complexion at all. 
 
 The motor turned west in the low Forties and 
 stopped before a high narrow stone facade with 
 a massive griffon-guarded door. Judith led the 
 way directly into the elevator and designated 
 Markue s floor. It was at the top of the build 
 ing, where he met them with his impenetrable cour 
 tesy and took them into a bare room evidently 
 [104] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 planned for a studio. There were an empty easel, 
 the high blank dusty expanse of the skylight, and 
 chairs with the somber hats and coats of men and 
 women s wraps like the glistening shed skins of 
 brilliant snakes. 
 
 They turned through the hall to an interior 
 more remarkable than anything Linda could have 
 imagined; it seemed to her very high, without 
 windows and peaked like a tent. Draperies of 
 intricate Eastern color hung in long folds. 
 There were no chairs, but low broad divans 
 about the walls, a thick carpet with inlaid stands 
 in the center laden with boxes of cigarettes, 
 sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It 
 was so dim and full of thick scent, the shut effect 
 was so complete, that for a moment Linda felt 
 painfully oppressed ; it seemed impossible to 
 breathe in the wavering bluish atmosphere. 
 
 Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar 
 outside, now had a strange portentous air; the 
 gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky tone 
 of his cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. 
 New York was utterly removed : the taxi that had 
 brought Judith and her, the swirling traffic of 
 Columbus Circle and smooth undulations of 
 Fifth Avenue, were lost with a different life. She 
 [105] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 saw, however, the open door to another room full 
 of clear light, and her self-possession rapidly re 
 turned. Judith as she had threatened at once 
 deserted her; and Linda found an inconspicuous 
 corner of a divan. 
 
 There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two 
 rooms, and each one engaged her attention. A 
 coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, 
 clad in loose red draperies to which were sewed 
 shining patterns of what she thought was gold. 
 Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated 
 figure smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful 
 teeth and the supple gesture of a raised brown 
 palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she 
 shook hands. Two dark-skinned men, one in 
 conventional evening dress, were with her; they 
 had small fine features and hair like carved ebony. 
 
 Linda had never before been at an affair with 
 what she was forced to call colored people; in 
 stinctively she was antagonistic and superior. 
 She turned to a solemn masculine presence with 
 a ruffled shirt and high black stock; he was talk 
 ing in a resonant voice and with dramatic ges 
 tures to a woman with a white face and low- 
 drawn hair. Linda was fascinated by the lat 
 ter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet. It 
 [106] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 wasn t her clothes, although they were remark 
 able, that held her attention, but the woman s 
 mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a 
 little band of crimson rubber, or a ring of vivid 
 flame, it shifted and changed in the oddest 
 shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made 
 her think of pain; but perhaps not so much that 
 as hunger . . . not for food, Linda was certain. 
 What did she want ? 
 
 There was a light appealing laugh from an 
 other seated on the floor in a floating black 
 dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Span 
 ish lace stockings; her head was thrown back 
 for the whisper of a heavy man with ashen hair, 
 a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass. 
 
 Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as 
 white as her own, as white but more sloping. 
 The other s hair, though, was the loveliest red 
 possible. The entire woman, relaxed and 
 laughing in the perfumery and swimming 
 shadows, was irresistible. A man with a huge 
 nose and blank eyes, his hands disfigured with 
 extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her. 
 Then, at the moment when she saw an inviting 
 and correctly conventional youth, he crossed and 
 sat at her side. 
 
 [107] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "Quite a show," he said in the manner she had 
 expected and approved. The glow of his cig 
 arette wavered over firmly cut lips. "We ve just 
 come to New York," he continued. "I don t 
 know any one here but Markue, do you?" Linda 
 explained her own limitations. "The Victory s 
 fine and familiar." 
 
 She followed his gaze to where a winged statue 
 with flying drapery was set on a stand. She had 
 seen it before, but without interest. Now it held 
 her attention. It wasn t a large cast, not over 
 three feet high, but suddenly Linda thought that 
 it was the biggest thing in the room; it seemed to 
 expand as she watched it. 
 
 Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an en 
 closed concealed light, was a statue, greenish gray, 
 a few inches tall, with a sneering placidity of ex 
 pression as notable as the sweep of the other 
 white fragment. "That s Chinese," her com 
 panion decided; "it looks as old as lust." There 
 was the stir of new arrivals a towering heavy 
 man with a slight woman in emerald satin. 
 "There s Pleydon, the sculptor," the youth told 
 her animatedly. "I ve seen him at the exhi 
 bitions. It must be Susanna Noda, the Russian 
 singer, with him. He s a tremendous swell." 
 [108] 
 
XIV 
 
 LINDA watched Pleydon as he met 
 Markue in the middle of the room. He 
 was dressed carelessly, improperly for 
 the evening; but she forgave that as the result of 
 indifference. The informal flannels and soft 
 collar, too, suited the largeness of his being and 
 gestures. There was a murmur of meeting, 
 Susanna Noda smiled appealingly; and then, as 
 Pleydon found a place on a divan, she at once 
 contentedly sat on his lap. Watching her, Linda 
 thought of a brilliant parrot; but that was only 
 the effect of her color; for her face, with a tilted 
 nose and wide golden eyes, generous warm lips, 
 was charming. She lighted a cigarette, turned 
 her graceful back on the room and company, and 
 chatted in French to the composed sculptor. 
 
 Linda divined that he was the most impressive 
 figure she had encountered; the quality of his in 
 difference was beautiful and could only have 
 come in the security of being a "tremendous 
 swell." That phrase described all for which she 
 [109] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 had cared most. It included everything that her 
 mother had indicated as desirable and a lot that 
 she, Linda, had added. Money, certainly, was 
 an absolute necessity; but there were other things 
 now that vaguely she desired. She tried to de 
 cide what they were. 
 
 Only the old inner confusion resulted, the 
 emotion that might have been born in music; 
 however, it was sharper than usual, and bred a 
 new dissatisfaction with the easier accomplish 
 ments. Really it was very disturbing, for the 
 pressure of her entire experience, all she had been 
 told, could be exactly weighed and held. The 
 term luxury, too, was revealing; it covered every 
 thing except her present unformed longing. 
 
 There were still newcomers, and Linda was 
 aware of a sudden constraint. A woman volubly 
 French had appeared with a long pinkish-white 
 dog in a blanket, and the three Arabians 
 she had learned that much had risen with a con 
 certed expression of surprise and displeasure. 
 Their anxiety, though, was no more dramatic than 
 that of the dog s proprietor. The gesture of her 
 hands and lifted eyebrows were keenly expressive 
 of her impatience with any one who couldn t ac 
 cept, with her, her dog. 
 
 [110] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "Markue ought to have it out," some one mur 
 mured. "Dogs, to high caste Mohammedans, are 
 unclean animals." Another added, "Worse than 
 that, if it should touch them, they would have to 
 make the pilgrimage to Mecca." 
 
 Without any knowledge of the situation of 
 Mecca, Linda yet realized that it must be a very 
 long journey to result from the mere touch of a 
 dog. She didn t wonder at the restrained ex 
 citement of the "colored" people. The situation 
 was reduced to a sub-acid argument between the 
 Frenchwoman and the Begum; Madame couldn t 
 exist without her "p tit." The Oriental lady 
 could not breathe a common air with the beast. 
 The former managed a qualified triumph the 
 "p tit" was caged with a chair in a corner, and the 
 episode, for the moment, dropped. 
 
 Soon, however, Linda saw that the dog had 
 wriggled out of captivity. It made a cautious 
 progress to where the candy stood on a low stand 
 and ran an appreciative tongue over the exposed 
 sweet surfaces. Rapidly a sugared fig was 
 snapped up. Linda held her breath; no one had 
 noticed the animal yet perhaps it would reach 
 one of the objectors and she would have the thrill 
 of witnessing the departure for Mecca. 
 
 [mi 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 But, as always, nothing so romantic occurred; 
 the dog was discovered, and the Mohammedans, 
 with a hurried politeness, made their salaams. 
 Instead, a man with a quizzical scrutiny through 
 glasses that made him resemble an owl, stopped 
 before her. 
 
 " Here we go round the mulberry-bush/ " he 
 chanted. "Hello, Kate Greenaway. Have you 
 had a drink?" 
 
 "Yes, thank you," she replied sedately. 
 
 "Certified milk?" 
 
 "It was something with gin," she particular 
 ized, "and too sweet." He took the place beside 
 her and solemnly recited a great many nursery 
 rhymes. On the whole she liked him, deciding 
 that he was very wicked. Soon he was holding 
 her hand in both of his. "I know you re not 
 real," he proceeded. "Verlaine wrote you 
 Les I n genus : 
 
 " From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed 
 Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming. 
 
 "What if I d kiss you?" 
 "Nothing," she returned coldly. 
 "You re remarkable!" he exclaimed with en 
 thusiasm. "If you are not already one of the 
 [112] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 celebrated beauties you re about to be. As cool 
 as a fish! Look Pleydon is going to rise and 
 spill little Russia. Have you heard her sing 
 Scriabine?" Linda ignored him in a sharp re 
 turn of her interest in the big carelessly-dressed 
 man. He put Susanna Noda aside and moved 
 to the dim middle of the room. His features, 
 Linda saw, were rugged and pronounced; he was 
 very strong. 
 
 For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged 
 Victory, his brow gathered into a frown, while he 
 made a caressing gesture with his whole hand. 
 Then he swung about and, from the heavy 
 shadows of his face, he looked down at her. He 
 was still for a disconcerting length of time, but 
 through which Linda steadily met his interroga 
 tion. Then he bent over and seriously removed 
 the man beside her. 
 
 "Adieu, Louis," he said. 
 
 The weight of Pleydon s body depressed the 
 entire divan. "An ordinary man," he told her, 
 "would ask how the devil you got here. Then 
 he would take you to your home with some care 
 fully chosen words for whatever parents you had. 
 But I can see that all this is needless. You are 
 an extremely immaculate person. 
 [113] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "That isn t necessarily admirable," he added. 
 
 "I don t believe I am admirable at all," Linda 
 replied. 
 
 "How old are you?" he demanded abruptly. 
 
 She told him. 
 
 "Age doesn t exist for some women, they are 
 eternal," he continued. "You see, I call you a 
 woman, but you are not, and neither are you a 
 child. You are Art Art the deathless," his 
 gaze strayed back to the Victory. 
 
 As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda 
 that the cast filled all the room with a swirl of 
 great white wings and heroic robes. In an in 
 stant the incense and the dark colors, the un 
 certain pallid faces and bare shoulders, were 
 swept away into a space through which she was 
 dizzily borne. The illusion was so overpowering 
 that involuntarily she caught at the heavy arm 
 by her. 
 
 [114] 
 
XV 
 
 "^ IT THY did you do that?" he asked 
 % /%/ quickly, with a frowning regard. 
 V V Linda replied easily and directly. 
 "It seemed as if it were carrying me with it," she 
 specified; "on and on and on, without ever stop 
 ping. I felt as if I were up among the stars." 
 She paused, leaning forward, and gazed at the 
 statue. Even now she was certain that she saw 
 a slight flutter of its draperies. "It is beautiful, 
 isn t it? I think it s the first thing I ever no 
 ticed like that. You know what I mean the 
 first thing that hadn t a real use." 
 
 "But it has," he returned. "Do you think it 
 is nothing to be swept into heaven? I suppose 
 by real you mean oatmeal and scented soap. 
 Women usually do. But no one, it appears, has 
 any conception of the practical side of great art. 
 You might try to remember that it is simply per 
 manence given to beauty. It s like an amber in 
 which beautiful and fragile things are kept for- 
 [115] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is 
 enough. 
 
 "When I said that you were Art I didn t mean 
 that you were skilfully painted and dressed, but 
 that there was a quality in you which recalled all 
 the charming women who had ever lived to draw 
 men out of the mud something, probably, of 
 which you are entirely unconscious, and certainly 
 beyond your control. You have it in a remark 
 able degree. It doesn t belong to husbands but 
 to those who create Homer s children. 
 
 "That s a dark saying of Plato s, and it means 
 that the Alcestis is greater than any momentary 
 offspring of the flesh." 
 
 Linda admitted seriously, "Of course, I don t 
 understand, yet it seems quite familiar " 
 
 "Don t, for Heaven s sake, repeat the old cant 
 about reincarnation;" he interrupted, "and sitting 
 together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of 
 Babylon." 
 
 She hadn t intended to, she assured him. 
 "Tell me about yourself," he directed. It was as 
 natural to talk with him as it was, with others, to 
 keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, 
 supported by the realization of his attention. 
 
 "There really isn t much, besides hotels, all 
 [116] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 different; but you d be surprised how alike they 
 were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the 
 people. I never realized how tired I was of them 
 until mother married Mr. Moses Feldt. The 
 children were simply dreadful, the children and 
 the women; the men weren t much better." She 
 said this in a tone of surprise, and he nodded. 
 "I can see now I am supposed to be too old for 
 my age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great 
 deal." 
 
 "Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?" 
 
 "Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend 
 to marry a man just like him. Or, at least, he 
 was the second kind I decided on: the first only 
 had money, then I chose one with money who 
 was kind, but now I don t know. It s very 
 funny: kindness makes me impatient. I m per 
 fectly sure I ll never care for babies, they are so 
 mussy. I don t read, and I can t stand being 
 well, loved. 
 
 "Mother went to a great many parties; every 
 one liked her and she liked every one back; so it 
 was easy for her. I used to long for the time 
 when I d wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little 
 shut motor with a man with pearls; but now 
 that s gone. They want to kiss you so much. I 
 [117] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 wish that satisfied me. Why doesn t it? Is 
 there anything the matter with me, do you think? 
 I ve been told that I haven t any heart." 
 
 As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly 
 small a cigarette seemed in his broad powerful 
 hand. "What has happened to you is this," he 
 explained: "a combination of special circum 
 stances has helped you in every way to be what, 
 individually, you were. As a rule, children are 
 brought up in a house of lies, like taking a fine 
 naked body and binding it into hideous rigid 
 clothes. You escaped the damnation of cheap 
 ready-cut morals and education. Your mother 
 ought to have a superb monument the perfect 
 parent. Of course you haven t a heart. From 
 the standpoint of nature and society you re as 
 depraved as possible. You are worse than 
 any one else here than all of them rolled 
 together." 
 
 Curiously, she thought, this didn t disturb 
 her, which proved at once that he was right. 
 Linda regarded herself with interest as a su 
 premely reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. 
 The latter, though, was a rather stout woman who, 
 dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches 
 with her arms caught about the neck of a man 
 [118] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 bending over her. Every detail of this was dis 
 tasteful. 
 
 What was she? 
 
 Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese 
 god in the glass case. It was clear that he hadn t 
 stirred for ages. A difficult thought partly 
 formed in her mind the Chinese was the god of 
 this room, of Markue s party, of the women 
 seated in the dim light on the floor and the di 
 vans ; the low gurgle of their laughter, the dusky 
 whiteness of their shoulders in the upcoiling in 
 cense, the smothered gleams of their hair, with 
 the whispering men, were the world of the gray 
 ish-green image. 
 
 She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who 
 listened with a flattering interest. "I expect 
 you re laughing at me inside," she ended im- 
 potently. "And the other, the Greek Victory," 
 he added, "is the goddess of the other world, of 
 the spirit. It s quaint a heathen woman should 
 be that." 
 
 Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enor 
 mously. She continued daringly that he might be 
 the sort of man she wanted to marry. But he 
 wouldn t be easy to manage; probably he could 
 not be managed at all. Her mother had always 
 [119] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 insisted upon the presence of that possibility in 
 any candidate for matrimony. And, until now, 
 Linda s philosophy had been in accord with her. 
 But suddenly she entertained the idea of losing 
 herself completely in in love. 
 
 A struggle was set up within her: on one hand 
 was everything that she had been, all her ex 
 perience, all advice, and her innate detachment; 
 on the other an obscure delicious thrill. Per 
 haps this was what she now wanted. Linda 
 wondered if she could try it just a little, let her 
 self go experimentally. She glanced swiftly at 
 Pleydon, and his bulk, his heavy features, the 
 sullen mouth, appalled her. 
 
 Men usually filled her with an unaccountable 
 shrinking into her remotest self. Pleydon was 
 different; her liking for him had destroyed a 
 large part of her reserve; but a surety of instinct 
 told her that she couldn t experiment there. It 
 was characteristic that a lesser challenge left her 
 cold. She had better marry as she had planned. 
 
 Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in 
 a brilliant graceful swirl at his feet. Her golden 
 eyes, half shut, studied Linda intently. 
 
 [120] 
 
XVI 
 
 i4< TT AM fatigued," she complained; "you 
 i know how weary I get when you ignore 
 
 JL me." He gazed down at her untouched. 
 "I have left Lao-tze for Greece," he replied. She 
 found this stupid and said so. "Has he been no 
 more amusing than this?" she asked Linda. 
 "But then, you are a child, it all intrigues you. 
 You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes and 
 mouth, both open." 
 
 "Don t be rude, Susanna," Pleydon com 
 manded. "You are so feminine that you are 
 foolish. I m not the stupid one look again at 
 our child. Tell me what you see." 
 
 "I see Siberia," she said finally. "I see the 
 snow that seems so pure while it is as blank and 
 cold as death. You are right, Dodge. I was the 
 dull one. This girl will be immensely loved; 
 perhaps by you. A calamity, I promise you. 
 Men are pigs," she turned again to Linda; "no 
 imbeciles, for only idiots destroy the beauty that 
 is given to them. They take your reputation 
 [121] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 with a smile, they take your heart with iron 
 fingers; your beauty they waste like a drunken 
 Russian with gold." 
 
 "Susanna, like all spendthrifts, is amazed by 
 poverty." 
 
 Even in the gloom Linda could see the pallor 
 spreading over the other s face ; she was glad that 
 Susanna Noda spoke in Russian. However, 
 with a violent effort, she subdued her bitterness. 
 "Go into your Siberia!" she cried. "I always 
 thought you were capable of the last folly of 
 marriage. If you do it will spoil everything. 
 You are not great, you know, not really great, 
 not in the first rank. YouVe only the slightest 
 chance of that, too much money. You were never 
 in the gutter as I was " 
 
 "Chateaubriand," he interrupted, "Dante, 
 Velasquez." 
 
 "No, not spiritually!" she cried again. 
 "What do you know of the inferno! Married, 
 you will get fat." Pleydon turned lightly to 
 Linda: 
 
 "As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, 
 marry me." 
 
 This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. 
 However, she gravely promised. The Russian 
 [122] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene again. 
 Linda said, "Fatness is awful, isn t it?" 
 
 Pleydon replied, "Death should be the penalty. 
 If women aren t lovely " he waved away every 
 other consideration. 
 
 "And if men have fingers like carrots " 
 Susanna mimicked him. Judith, flushed, her 
 hair loosened, approached. "Linda," she de 
 manded, "do you remember when we ordered the 
 taxi? Was it two or three?" Markue, at her 
 shoulder, begged her not to consider home. 
 
 "I m going almost immediately," Pleydon 
 said, "and taking your Linda." His height and 
 determined manner scattered all objections. 
 
 Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found 
 to her great surprise in place of the motor she 
 had expected a small graceful single-horse vic 
 toria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. 
 Deep in furs, beside Pleydon, she was remarkably 
 comfortable, and she was soothed by the rhythmic 
 beat of the hoofs, the even progress through the 
 crystal night of Fifth Avenue. 
 
 Her companion flooded his being with the 
 
 frozen air. They had, it seemed, lost all desire 
 
 to talk. The memory of Markue s party lingered 
 
 like the last vanishing odor of his incense; there 
 
 [123] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 was a confused vision of the murmurous room 
 against the lighted exterior where the drinks 
 sparkled on a table. Linda made up her mind 
 that she would not go to another. Then she 
 wondered if she d see Pleydon again. The Rus 
 sian singer had been too silly for words. 
 
 It suddenly occurred to her that the man now 
 with her had taken Susanna Noda, and that he 
 had left her planted. He had preferred driving 
 her, Linda Condon, home. He wasn t very en 
 thusiastic about it, though; his face was gloomy. 
 
 "The truth is," he remarked at last, "that 
 Susanna is right I am not in the first rank. But 
 that was all nonsense about the necessity of the 
 gutter sentimental lies." 
 
 Linda was not interested in this, but it left her 
 free to explore her own emotions. The night had 
 been eventful because it had shaken all the foun 
 dation of what she intended. That single mo 
 mentary delicious thrill had been enough to 
 threaten the entire rest. At the same time her 
 native contempt of the other women, of Judith 
 with her tumbled hair, persisted. Was there no 
 other way to capture such happiness? Was it 
 all hopelessly messy with drinks and unpleasant 
 familiarity? 
 
 [124] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 What did Pleydon mean by spirit? Surely 
 there must be more kinds of love than one he 
 had intimated that. She gathered that "Homer s 
 children," those airs of Gluck that she liked so 
 well, were works of art, sculpture, such as he did. 
 Yet she had never thought of them as important, 
 important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made 
 up her mind to ask him about it, when she saw 
 that they had reached the Eighties; she was al 
 most home. 
 
 "I am going away to-morrow," he told her, 
 "for the winter, to South America. When I come 
 back we ll see each other. If you should change 
 address send me a line to the Harvard Club." 
 The carriage had stopped before the great arched 
 entrance to the apartment-house, towering in its 
 entire block. He got out and lifted her to the 
 pavement as if she had been no more than a flower 
 in his hands. Then he walked with her into the 
 darkness of the garden. 
 
 The fountains were cased in boards ; the hedged 
 borders, the bushes and grass, were dead. High 
 above them on the dark wall a window was 
 bright. Linda s heart began to pound loudly, 
 she was trembling . . . from the cold. There 
 was a faint sound in the air the elevated trains, 
 [125] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 or stirring wings? It was nothing, then, to be 
 lifted into heaven. There was the door to the 
 hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge 
 Pleydon for all his goodness to her, when he lifted 
 her was it toward heaven? and kissed her 
 mouth. 
 
 She was still in his arms, with her eyes closed. 
 "Linda Condon?" he said, in a tone of inquiry. 
 
 At the same breath in which she realized a 
 kiss was of no importance a sharp icy pain cut 
 at her heart. It hurt her so that she gasped. 
 Then, and this was strange, she realized that 
 as a kiss it hadn t annoyed her. Suddenly she 
 felt that it wasn t just that, but something far 
 more, a part of all her inner longing. He had 
 put her down and was looking away, a face in 
 shadow with an ugly protruding lip. 
 
 She saw him that way in her dreams in the 
 court under the massive somber walls, with a 
 troubled frown over his eyes. It seemed to her 
 that, reaching up, she smoothed it away as they 
 stood together in a darkness with the fountains, 
 the hedges, dead, the world with never a sound 
 sleeping in the prison of winter. 
 
 [126] 
 
XVII 
 
 LINDA thought about Dodge Pleydon on 
 a warm evening of the following May. 
 At four o clock, in a hotel, Pansy had 
 been married ; and the entire Feldt connection had 
 risen to a greater height of clamorous cheer than 
 ever before. Extravagant unseasonable dishes, 
 wines and banked flowers were lavishly mingled 
 with sentimental speeches, healths and tears. 
 Linda had been acutely restless, impatient of all 
 the loud good humor and stupid compliments. 
 The sense of her isolation from their life was un 
 bearably keen. She would have a very different 
 wedding with a man in no particular like Pansy s. 
 After dinner an occasion, with Pansy absent, 
 where Mr. Moses Feldt s tears persisted in flow 
 ing she had strayed into the formal chamber 
 across from the dining-room and leaned out of a 
 window, gazing into the darkening court. Di 
 rectly below was where Pleydon had kissed her. 
 She often re-examined her feelings about that; 
 but only to find that they had dissolved into an 
 [127] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 indefinite sense of the inevitable. Not alone had 
 it failed to shock her she hadn t even been sur 
 prised. Linda thought still further about kiss 
 ing, with the discovery that if, while it was hap 
 pening, she was conscious of the kiss, it was a 
 failure; successful, it carried her as far as pos 
 sible from the actuality. 
 
 Pleydon, of course, had not written to her; he 
 had intimated nothing to the contrary, only ask 
 ing her to let him know, at the Harvard Club, if 
 she changed address. That wasn t necessary, 
 and now, probably, he was back from South 
 America. Where, except by accident, might she 
 see him? Markue, with his parties, had dropped 
 from Judith s world, his place taken by a serious 
 older dealer in Dutch masters with an impressive 
 gallery just off Fifth Avenue. 
 
 That she would see him Linda was convinced; 
 this feeling absorbed any desire; it was no good 
 wanting it or not wanting it; consequently she 
 was undisturbed. She considered him gravely 
 and in detail. Had there been any more 
 Susanna Nodas in his stay south? She had 
 heard somewhere that the women of Argentine 
 were irresistible. Her life had taught her noth 
 ing if not the fact that a number of women figured 
 [128] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 in every man s history. It was deplorable but 
 couldn t be avoided; and whether or not it con 
 tinued after marriage depended on the cunning 
 of any wife. 
 
 Now, however, Linda felt weary already at 
 the prospect of a married life that rested on the 
 constant play of her ingenuity. A great many 
 things that, but a little before, she had willingly 
 accepted, seemed to her probably not less neces 
 sary but distinctly tiresome. Linda began to 
 think that she couldn t really bother; the results 
 weren t sufficiently important. 
 
 Dodge Pleydon. 
 
 She slept in a composed order until the sun 
 was well up. It was warmer than yesterday; 
 and, going to an afternoon concert with Judith, 
 she decided to walk. Linda strolled, in a short 
 severe jacket and skirt, a black straw hat turned 
 back with a cockade and a crisp flushed mass 
 of sweet peas at her waist. The occasion, as it 
 sometimes happened, found her in no mood for 
 music. The warmth of the sunlight, the open 
 city windows and beginning sounds of summer, 
 had enveloped her in a mood in which the 
 jangling sentimentality of a street organ was more 
 potent than the legato of banked violins. 
 [129] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 She was relieved when the concert was over, 
 but lingered at her seat until the crowd had 
 surged by; it made Linda furious to be shoved or 
 indiscriminately touched. Judith had gone 
 ahead, when Linda was conscious of the scrutiny 
 of a pale well-dressed woman of middle age. It 
 became evident that the other was debating 
 whether or not to speak; clearly such an action 
 was distasteful to her; and Linda had turned 
 away before a restrained voice addressed her : 
 
 "You will have to forgive me if I ask your 
 name . . . because of a certain resemblance. 
 Seeing you I I couldn t let you go." 
 
 "Linda Condon," she replied. 
 
 The elder, Linda saw, grew even paler. She 
 put out a gloved hand. "Then I was right," she 
 said in a slightly unsteady voice. "But perhaps, 
 when I explain, you will think it even stranger, 
 inexcusable. My dear child, I am your father s 
 sister." 
 
 Linda was invaded by a surprise equally made 
 up of interest and resentment. The first was 
 her own and the second largely borrowed from 
 her mother. Besides, why had her father s fam 
 ily never made the slightest effort to see her. 
 [130J 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 This evidently had simultaneously occurred to 
 the other. 
 
 "Of course/ she added, quite properly, "we 
 can t undertake family questions here. I 
 shouldn t blame you a bit, either, if you went di 
 rectly away. I had to speak, to risk that, be 
 cause you were so unmistakably a Lowrie. It is 
 not a common appearance. We I " she 
 floundered for a painful moment; then she gath 
 ered herself with a considerable dignity. "See 
 ing you has affected me tremendously, changed 
 everything. I have nothing to say in our de 
 fense, you must understand that. I am certain, 
 too, that my sister will feel the same we live to 
 gether in Philadelphia. I hope you will give me 
 your address and let us write to you. Elouise 
 will join with me absolutely." 
 
 Linda told her evenly where she lived, and 
 then allowed Miss Lowrie to precede her toward 
 the entrance. She said nothing of this to Judith, 
 nor, momentarily, to her mother. She wanted to 
 consider it undisturbed by a flood of talk and 
 blame. It was evident to her that the Lowries 
 had behaved very badly, but just how she couldn t 
 make out. She recalled her father s sister her 
 [131] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 aunt minutely, forced to the realization that 
 she was a person of entire superiority. Here, 
 she suddenly saw, had been the cause of all 
 their difficulties the Lowries hadn t approved of 
 the marriage, they had objected to her mother. 
 
 Five years ago she would have been incensed 
 at this ; but now, essentially, she was without per 
 sonal indignation. She wanted, for herself, to 
 discover as much as possible about her father and 
 his family. A need independent of maternal in 
 fluences stirred her. Linda was reassured by 
 the fact that her father had been gently born; 
 while she realized that she had always taken this 
 for granted. Her mother must know nothing 
 about the meeting with Miss Lowrie until the 
 latter had written. 
 
 That was Friday and the letter came the fol 
 lowing Tuesday. Linda, alone at the breakfast- 
 table, instantly aware of the source of the square 
 envelope addressed in a delicate regular writing, 
 opened it and read in an unusual mental disturb 
 ance: 
 
 "My dear Linda, 
 
 I hope you will not consider it peculiar for me to call 
 
 you this, for nothing else seems possible. Meeting you 
 
 in that abrupt manner upset me, as you must have noticed. 
 
 Of course I knew of you, and even now I can not go into 
 
 [132] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 our long unhappy affair, but until I saw you, and so re 
 markably like the Lowries, I did not realize how wicked 
 Elouise and I had been. But I am obliged to add only 
 where you were concerned. We have no desire to be am 
 biguous in that. 
 
 However, I am writing to say that we should love to 
 have you visit us here. It is possible under the circum 
 stances that your mother will not wish you to come. Yet 
 I know the Lowries, a very independent and decided fam 
 ily, and although it is my last intention to be the cause of 
 difficulty with your mother, still I hope it may be ar 
 ranged. 
 
 In closing I must add how happy I was at the evidence 
 of your blood. But that, I now see, was a certainty. 
 You will have to forgive us for a large measure of blind 
 ness. Affectionately, 
 
 AMELIA VIGNE LOWRIE." 
 
 Almost instantaneously Linda was aware that 
 she would visit the Lowries. She liked the letter 
 extremely, as well as all that she remembered of 
 its sender. At the same time she prepared for a 
 scene with her mother, different from those of 
 the past with the recourse to the brandy flask 
 but no less unpleasant. They had very little to 
 say to each other now; and, when she went into 
 her mother s room with an evident definite pur 
 pose, the latter showed a constrained surprise, a 
 palpable annoyance that her daughter had found 
 her at the daily renovation of her worn face. 
 [133] 
 
XVIII 
 
 LINDA said directly, "I met Miss Lowrie, 
 father s sister, at a concert last week, and 
 this morning I had a letter asking me to 
 stay with them in Philadelphia." 
 
 Mrs. Feldt s face suddenly had no need for the 
 color she held poised on a cloth. Her voice, 
 sharp at the beginning, rose to a shrill unre 
 strained wrath. 
 
 "I wonder at the brass of her speaking to you 
 at all let alone writing here. Just you give me 
 the letter and I ll shut her up. The idea! I 
 hope you were cool to her, the way they treated 
 us. Stay with them I guess not!" 
 
 "But I thought of going," Linda replied. "It s 
 only natural. After all, you must see that he 
 was my father." 
 
 "A pretty father he was, too good for the girl 
 he married. It s my fault I didn t tell you long 
 ago, but I just couldn t abide the mention of him. 
 He deserted me, no, us, cold, without a word 
 walked out of the door one noon, taking his hat 
 [134] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 as quiet as natural, and never came back. I 
 never saw him again nor heard except through 
 lawyers. That was the kind of heart he had, 
 and his sisters are worse. I hadn t a decent 
 speech of any kind out of them. The Lowries," 
 she managed to inject a surprising amount of 
 contempt into her pronouncement of that name. 
 "What it was all about you nor any sensible per 
 son would never believe: 
 
 "The house smelled a little of boiled cabbage. 
 That s why he left me, and you expected in a 
 matter of a few months. He said in his dam 
 frigid way that it had become quite impossible 
 and took down his hat." 
 
 "There must have been more," Linda pro 
 tested, suppressing a mad desire to laugh. 
 
 "Not an inch," her mother asserted. "Noth 
 ing, after a little, suited him. He d sit up like a 
 poker, just as I ve seen you, with his lips tight 
 together in the Lowrie manner. It didn t please 
 him no matter what you d do. He wouldn t blow 
 out at you like a Christian and I never knew 
 where I was at. I d come down in a matinee, 
 the prettiest I could buy, and then see he didn t 
 like it. He would expect you to be dressed in 
 the morning like it was afternoon and you going 
 [135] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 out. And as for loosening your corsets for a 
 little comfort about the house, you might as well 
 have slapped him direct. 
 
 "That wasn t the worst, though; but his going 
 away without as much as a flicker of his hand; 
 and with me like I was. Nobody on eai*th but 
 would blame him for that. I only got what was 
 allowed me after we had changed back to my old 
 name, me and you. He never asked one single 
 question about you nor tried to see or serve you 
 a scrap. For all he knew, at a place called Santa 
 Margharita in Italy, you might have been born 
 dead." 
 
 She was unable, Linda recognized, to defend 
 him in any way; he had acted frightfully. She 
 acknowledged this logically with her power of 
 reason, but somehow it didn t touch her as it had 
 her mother, and as, evidently, the latter expected. 
 She was absorbed in the vision of her father 
 sitting, in the Lowrie manner, rigid as a poker; 
 she saw him quietly take up his hat and go away 
 forever. Linda understood his process com 
 pletely; she was capable of doing precisely the 
 same thing. Whatever was the matter with her 
 in the heartlessness so often laid to her account 
 had been equally true of her father. 
 [136] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "You ought to know what to say to them," Mrs. 
 Moses Feldt cried, "or I ll do it for you! If only 
 I had seen her she would have heard a thing or 
 two not easy forgotten." 
 
 Linda s determination to go to Philadelphia 
 had not been shaken, and she made a vain effort 
 to explain her attitude. "Of course, it was horrid 
 for you," she said. "I can understand how 
 you d never never forgive him. But I am dif 
 ferent, and, I expect, not at all nice. It s very 
 possible, since he was my father, that we are 
 alike. I wish you had told me this before it 
 explains so much and would have made things 
 easier for me. I am afraid I must see them." 
 
 She was aware of the bitterness and enmity 
 that stiffened her mother into an unaccustomed 
 adequate scorn: 
 
 "I might have expected nothing better of you, 
 and me watching it coming all these years. You 
 can go or stay. I had my life in spite of the both 
 of you, as gay as I pleased and a good husband 
 just the same. I don t care if I never see you 
 again, and if it wasn t for the fuss it would make 
 I d take care I didn t. You ll have your father s 
 money now I m married; I wonder you stay 
 around here at all with your airs of being better 
 [137] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 than the rest. God s truth is you ain t near as 
 good, even if I did bring you into the world." 
 
 "I am willing to agree with you," Linda an 
 swered. "No one could be sweeter than the 
 Feldts. I sha n t do nearly as well. But that 
 isn t it, really. People don t choose themselves; 
 I m certain father didn t at that lonely Italian 
 place. If you weren t happy laced in the morn 
 ing it wasn t your fault. You see, I am trying 
 to excuse myself, and that isn t any good, either." 
 
 "Unnatural," Mrs. Moses Feldt pronounced. 
 And Linda, weary and depressed, allowed her 
 the last word. 
 
 [138] 
 
XIX 
 
 NOTHING further during the subsequent 
 brief exchange of notes between Miss 
 Lowrie and Linda was said of the lat- 
 ter s intention to visit her father s family. Mrs. 
 Feldt, however, whose attitude toward Linda had 
 been negatively polite, now displayed an ani 
 mosity carefully hidden from her husband but 
 evident to the two girls. The elder never neg 
 lected an opportunity to emphasize Linda s sel 
 fishness or make her personality seem ridiculous. 
 But this Linda ignored from her wide sense of 
 the inconsequence of most things. 
 
 Yet she was relieved when, finally, she had 
 actually left New York. She looked forward 
 with an unusual hopeful curiosity to the Lowries. 
 To her surprise their house miles, it appeared, 
 from the center of the city was directly on a 
 paved street with electric cars, unpretentious stores 
 and very humble dwellings nearby. Back from 
 the thoroughfare, however, there were spacious 
 green lawns. The street itself, she saw at once, 
 [139] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 was old a highway of gray stone with low aged 
 stone facades, steep eaves and blackened chim 
 ney-pots reaching, dusty with years, into the 
 farther hilly country. 
 
 A gable of the Lowrie house, with a dignified 
 white door, a fanlight of faintly iridescent glass 
 and polished brasses, faced the brick sidewalk, 
 while to the left there was a high board fence and 
 an entrance with a small grille open on a somber 
 reach of garden. A maid in a stiff white cap an 
 swered the fall of the knocker; she took Linda s 
 bag ; and, in a hall that impressed her by its bare 
 ness, Linda was greeted by the Miss Lowrie she 
 had seen. 
 
 Her aunt was composed, but there was a per 
 ceptible flush on her cheeks, and she said in a 
 rapid voice, after a conventional welcome, "You 
 must meet Elouise at once, before you go up to 
 your room." 
 
 Elouise Lowrie was older than Amelia, but she, 
 too, was slender and erect, with black hair star 
 tling in its density on her wasted countenance. 
 Linda noticed a fine ruby on a crooked finger and 
 beautiful rose point lace. "It was good of you," 
 the elder proceeded, "to come and see two old 
 women. I don t know whether we have more to 
 [140] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 say or to keep still about. But I, for one, am 
 going to avoid explanations. You are here, a 
 fool could see that you were Bartram s girl, and 
 that is enough for a Lowrie." 
 
 The room was nearly as bare as the hall: in 
 place of the deep carpets of the Feldts the floor, 
 of dark uneven oak boards, was merely waxed and 
 covered by a rough-looking oval rug. The walls 
 were paneled in white, with white ruffled curtains 
 at small windows ; and the furniture, the dull ma 
 hogany ranged against the immaculate paint, the 
 rocking-chairs of high slatted walnut and rush 
 bottoms, the slender formality of tables with 
 fluted legs, was dignified but austere. There 
 were some portraits in heavy old gijt men with 
 florid faces and tied hair, and the delicate rep 
 licas of high-breasted women in brocades. 
 
 There was, plainly, an air of the exceptional 
 in Amelia Lowrie s conduction of Linda to her 
 room. She waited at the door while the other 
 moved forward to the center of a chamber empty 
 of all the luxury Linda had grown to demand. 
 There was a bed with tall graceful posts support 
 ing a canopy like a frosting of sugar, a solemn 
 set of drawers with a diminutive framed mirror 
 in which she could barely see her shoulders, a 
 [141] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 small unenclosed brass clock with long exposed 
 weights, and two uninviting painted wooden 
 chairs. This was not, although very nearly, all. 
 Linda s attention was attracted by a framed and 
 long-faded photograph of a young man, bare 
 headed, with a loosely knotted scarf, a striped 
 blazer and white flannels. His face was thin and 
 sensitive, his lips level, and his eyes gazed with 
 a steady questioning at the observer. 
 
 "That was Bartram," Amelia Lowrie told her; 
 "your father. This was his room." 
 
 She went down almost immediately and left 
 Linda, in a maze of dim emotions, seated on 
 one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. Her 
 father! This was his room; nothing, she real 
 ized, had been disturbed. The mirror had held 
 the vaguely unsteady reflection of his face; he 
 had slept under the arched canopy of the bed. 
 She rose and went to a window from which he, 
 too, had looked. 
 
 Below her was the garden shut in on its front 
 by the high fence. There was a magnolia-tree, 
 now covered with thick smooth white flowers, and, 
 at the back, low-massed rhododendron with fra 
 gile lavender blossoms on a dark glossy foliage. 
 But the space was mainly green and shadowed 
 [142] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 in tone; while beyond were other gardens, other 
 emerald lawns and magnolia-trees, an ordered 
 succession of tranquillity with separate brick or 
 stone or white dwellings in the lengthening after 
 noon shadows of vivid maples. 
 
 It was as different as possible from all that 
 Linda had known, from the elaborate hotels and 
 gigantic apartment houses, the tropical interiors, 
 of her New York life. She unpacked her bag, 
 putting her gold toilet things on the chest of 
 drawers, precisely arranging in a shullow closet 
 what clothes she had brought, and then, changing, 
 went down to the Lowries. 
 
 They surveyed her with eminent approval at 
 a dinner-table lighted only with candles, beside 
 long windows open on a dusk with a glimmer of 
 fireflies. Suddenly Linda felt amazingly at 
 ease; it seemed to her that she had sat here be 
 fore, with the night flowing gently in over the 
 candle-flames. The conversation, she discov 
 ered, never strayed far from the concerns and 
 importance of the Lowrie blood. "My grand 
 mother, Natalie Vigne," Elouise informed her, 
 "came with her father to Philadelphia from 
 France, in eighteen hundred and one, at the in 
 vitation of Stephen Girard, who was French as 
 [143] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 well. She married Hallet Lowrie whose mother 
 was a Bartram. 
 
 "That, my dear, explains our black hair and 
 good figgers. There never was a lumpy Lowrie. 
 Well, Hallet built this house, or rather enlarged 
 it, for his wife; and it has never been out of the 
 family. Our nephew, Arnaud Hallet Arnaud 
 was old Vigne s name owns it now. Isaac Hal- 
 let, you may recall, was suspected of being a 
 Tory; at any rate his brother s descendants, 
 Fanny Rodwell is the only one left, won t speak." 
 
 The placid conversation ran on unchanged 
 throughout dinner and the evening. Linda was 
 relieved by the absence of any questioning ; indeed 
 nothing contemporary, she realized, was held to 
 be significant. "I thought Arnaud would be in 
 to-night," Elouise Lowrie said; "he knew Linda 
 was expected." No one, however, appeared; 
 and Linda went up early to her room. There, 
 too, were only candles, a pale wavering illumina 
 tion in which the past, her father, were extraor 
 dinarily nearby. A sense of pride was com 
 municated to her by so much that time had been 
 unable to shake. The bed was steeped in the 
 magic of serene traditions. 
 
 [144] 
 
XX 
 
 ARNAUD HALLET appeared for dinner 
 the evening after Linda s arrival; a 
 quiet man with his youth lost, slightly 
 stooped shoulders, crumpled shoes and a green 
 cloth bag. But he had a memorable voice and 
 an easy distinction of manner; in addition to 
 these she discovered, at the table, a lighter amus 
 ing sense of the absurd. She watched him as 
 he poured the sherry from a decanter with a 
 silver label hung on a chain with a feeling of 
 mild approbation. On the whole he was nice but 
 uninteresting. What a different man from 
 Pleydon! 
 
 The days passed in a pleasant deliberation, 
 with Arnaud Hallet constantly about the house 
 or garden, while Linda s thoughts continually re 
 turned to the sculptor. He was clearer than the 
 actuality of her mother and the Feldts or the 
 recreated image of her father. At times she was 
 thrilled by the familiar obscure sense of music, 
 of longing slowly translated into happiness. 
 [145] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Then more actual problems would envelop her in 
 doubt. Mostly she was confused in her cool 
 material necessity for understanding by the 
 temper of her feeling for Dodge Pleydon. Linda 
 wondered if this were love. Perhaps, when she 
 saw him again, she d be able to decide. Then 
 she remembered promising to let him know if she 
 changed her address. It was possible that al 
 ready he had called at the Feldts , or written, 
 and that her mother had refused to inform him 
 where she had gone. 
 
 Linda had been at the Lowries two weeks now, 
 but they were acutely distressed when she sug 
 gested that her visit was unreasonably prolonged. 
 "My dear," they protested together, "we hoped 
 you d stay the summer. Bartram s girl! Un 
 less, of course, it is dull with us. Something 
 brighter must be arranged. No doubt we have 
 only thought of our own pleasure in having you." 
 
 Linda replied honestly that she enjoyed being 
 with them extremely. Her mother s dislike, the 
 heavy luxury of the Feldt apartment, held little 
 attraction for her. Then, too, losing the sense 
 of the bareness of the house Hallet Lowrie had 
 built for his French wife, she began to find it 
 surprisingly appealing. 
 
 [146] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Her mind returned to her promise to Pleydon. 
 She told herself that probably he had forgotten 
 her existence, but she had a strong unreasoning 
 conviction that this was not so. It seemed the 
 most natural thing in the world to write him and, 
 almost before she was aware of the intention, she 
 had put "Dear Mr. Pleydon" at the head of a 
 sheet of note-paper. 
 
 I promised to let you know in the spring when you came 
 back from South America where I was. I did not think I 
 would have to do it, but here I am in Philadelphia with 
 my father s sisters. I do not know just how long for, but 
 a month anyhow. It is very quiet, but charming. I have 
 the room that was my father s when he was young, and 
 look out of the window like he must have. If you should 
 come to Philadelphia my aunts ask me to say that they 
 would be glad to have you for dinner. This is how you 
 get here. . . . 
 
 Very sincerely, 
 
 LINDA CONDON. 
 
 She walked to a street crossing, where she 
 dropped the envelope into a letter-box on a lamp 
 post, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting 
 for her. He said: 
 
 "Everyone agrees I m serious, but actually you 
 are worse than the Assembly." They went 
 [147] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 through the dining-room to the garden, and sat 
 on the stone step of a deep window. It was quite 
 late, perhaps eleven o clock, and the fireflies, 
 slowly rising into the night, had vanished. 
 Linda was cool and remote and grave, silently 
 repeating and weighing the phrases of her letter 
 to Pleydon. 
 
 She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to 
 like her a very great deal; but she gave this only 
 the slightest attention. She liked him, really, 
 and that dismissed him from serious consider 
 ation. Anyhow, in spite of the perfection of his 
 manner, Arnaud s careless dress displeased her: 
 his shoes and the shoulders of his coat were per 
 petually dusty, and his hair, growing scant, 
 was always ruffled. Linda understood that he 
 was highly intellectual, and frequently con 
 tributed historical and genealogical papers to so 
 cieties and bulletins, but compared with Dodge 
 Pleydon s brilliant personality and reputation, 
 Pleydon surrounded by the Susanna Nodas of 
 life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes. 
 
 She wondered idly when the latter would ac 
 tually try to love her. He was holding her hand 
 and it might well be to-night. Linda decided 
 that he would do it delicately; and when, almost 
 [148] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 immediately, he kissed her, she was undisturbed. 
 No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He 
 hadn t mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a 
 particle. In addition he did not at once become 
 impossible and urgently sentimental; there was 
 even a shade of amusement on his heavy face. 
 
 "You appear to take a lot for granted," he 
 complained. 
 
 "I d been wondering when it would happen," 
 she admitted coolly. 
 
 "It always does, then?" 
 
 "Usually I stop it," she continued. "I don t 
 believe I ll ever like being kissed. Can you tell 
 me why? No one ever has; they all think they 
 can bring me around to it." 
 
 "And to them," he added. 
 
 "But they end by being furious at me. I ve 
 been sworn at -and called dreadful names. 
 Sometimes they re only silly. One cried; I 
 hated that the most." 
 
 "Do you mean that you were sorry for him?" 
 
 "Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He 
 looked so odious all smeared with tears." 
 
 Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: "Linda, 
 you re a little beast." To counteract his rude 
 speech he kissed her again. "This," he said with 
 [149] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 less security, "threatens to become a habit. I 
 thought, at forty-five, that I was safely by the 
 island of sirens, but I ll be on the rocks before I 
 know it." 
 
 She laughed with the cool remoteness of run 
 ning water. 
 
 "I wonder you haven t been murdered," he 
 proceeded, "in a moonless garden by an elderly 
 lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day 
 when, preceded by a flock of bridesmaids and 
 other flowery pagan truck, you ll meet justice?" 
 
 "Marriage?" she asked. "But of course. I 
 have everything perfectly planned " 
 
 "Then, my dear Linda, describe him." 
 
 "Very straight," she said, "with beautiful 
 polished shoes and brushed hair." 
 
 "You ought to have no trouble finding that. 
 Any number of my friends have one to open 
 the door and take your things. I might arrange 
 a very satisfactory introduction for everybody 
 concerned a steady man well on his way to pre 
 side over the pantry and table." 
 
 "You re not as funny as usual," Linda decided 
 critically. "That, too, disturbs me," he replied. 
 "It looks even more unpromising for the near 
 future." 
 
 [150] 
 
XXI 
 
 IN her room Linda thought, momentarily, 
 of Arnaud Hallet; whatever might have 
 been serious in her attitude toward him dis 
 solved by the lightness of his speech. Dodge 
 Pleydon appealed irresistibly to her deepest feel 
 ings. Now her mental confusion was at least 
 clear in that she knew what troubled her. It 
 was not new, it extended even to times before 
 Pleydon had entered her life the difficulties 
 presented by the term "love." 
 
 In her mind it was divided into two or three 
 widely different aspects, phases which she was un 
 able to reconcile. Her mother, in the beginning, 
 had informed her that love was a nuisance. To 
 be happy, a man must love you without any cor 
 responding return; this was necessary to his 
 complete management, the securing of the great 
 est possible amount of new clothes. It was as 
 far as love should be allowed to enter marriage. 
 But that reality, with a complete expression in 
 shopping, was distant from the immaterial and 
 [151] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 delicate emotions that in her responded to Pley- 
 don. 
 
 Linda had been familiar with the materials, 
 the processes, of what, she had been assured, 
 was veritable love since early childhood. Her 
 mother s dressing, the irritable hours of fittings 
 and at her mirror, the paint she put on her 
 cheeks, the crimping of her hair were for the 
 favor of men. These struggles had absorbed 
 the elder, all the women Linda had encountered, 
 to the exclusion of everything else. This, it 
 seemed, must, from its overwhelming predomi 
 nance, be the greatest thing in life. 
 
 There was nothing mysterious about it. You 
 did certain things intelligently, if you had the 
 figure to do them with, for a practical end. The 
 latter, carefully controlled, like an essence of 
 which a drop was delightful and more positively 
 stifling, was as real as the methods of approach. 
 Oatmeal or scented soap ! The force of example 
 and association combined to bathe such develop 
 ments in the sanest light possible, and Linda had 
 every intention of the successful grasping of an 
 easy and necessary luxury. She had, until 
 vaguely now, been entirely willing to accept the 
 unescapable conditions of love used as a means 
 [152] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 or the element of pleasure at parties. Now, how 
 ever, the unexpected element of Dodge Pleydon 
 disturbed her philosophy. 
 
 Suddenly all the lacing and painting and 
 crimping, the pretense and lies and carefully 
 planned accidental effects, filled her with revolt. 
 The insinuations of women, the bareness of their 
 revelations, her mother returning unsteady and 
 mussed from a dinner, were unutterably disgust 
 ing. Even to think of them hurt her funda 
 mentally: so much of what she was, of what she 
 had determined, had been destroyed by an 
 emotion apparently as slight as echoed music. 
 
 Here was the real mystery and for which noth 
 ing in her experience had prepared her. She be 
 gan to see why it was called a nuisance if this 
 were love and wondered if she had better not 
 suppress it at once. It wouldn t be suppressed. 
 Her thoughts continually came back to Pleydon, 
 and the warmth, the disturbing thrill, always re 
 sulted. It led her away from herself, from 
 Linda Condon; a sufficiently strange accomplish 
 ment. A concern for Dodge Pleydon, little 
 schemes for his happiness and well-being, put 
 aside her clothes and complexion and her future. 
 
 Until the present her acts had been the result 
 [153] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 of deliberation. She had been impressed by the 
 necessity for planning with care; but, in the cool 
 gloom of the covered bed, a sharp joy held her at 
 the possibility of flinging caution away. Yet 
 she couldn t quite, no matter how much she de 
 sired it, lose herself. Linda was glad that 
 Pleydon was rich; and there were, she remem 
 bered, moments for surrender. 
 
 As usual these problems, multiplying toward 
 night, were fewer in the bright flood of morning. 
 She laughed at the memory of Arnaud Hallefs 
 humor; and then, it was late afternoon, the maid 
 told her that Pleydon was in the drawing room. 
 Her appearance satisfactory she was able to see 
 him at once. To her great pleasure neither Pley 
 don nor his clothes had changed. He was dressed 
 in light-gray flannels; a big easy man with a 
 crushing palm, large features and an expression 
 of intolerance. 
 
 "Linda," he said, "what a splendid place to 
 find you. So much better than Markue s." He 
 was, she realized, very glad to see her, and 
 dropped at once, as if they had been uninter 
 ruptedly together, into intimate talk. "My work 
 has been going badly," he proceeded; "or rather 
 not at all. I made a rather decent fountain at 
 [154] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Newport; but remember what Susanna said? 
 it s not in the first rank. A happy balance and 
 strong enough conception; yet it is like a Cellini 
 ewer done in granite. The truth is, too much in 
 terests me; an artist ought to be the victim of 
 a monomania. I m a normal animal." He 
 studied her contentedly: 
 
 "How lovely you are. I came over in an 
 automobile at last because I was certain you 
 couldn t exist as I remembered you. But you 
 could and do. Lovely Linda! And what a 
 gem of a letter. It might have been copied from 
 The Perfect Correspondent for Young Females. 7 
 You re not going to lose me again. When I was 
 a little boy I had a passion for sherbets." 
 
 She smiled at him with half-closed eyes and 
 the conviction that, with Pleydon, she could easily 
 be different. He leaned forward and his voice 
 startled her with the impression that he had read 
 her mind : 
 
 "If you could care for any one a lifetime 
 would be short to get you. Look, you have never 
 been out of my thoughts or within my reach. It 
 seems a myth that I kissed you; impossible . . . 
 Linda." 
 
 "But you did," she told him, gaining happi- 
 [155] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ness from the mere assurance. They were alone 
 in the drawing-room, and he rose, sweeping her 
 up into his arms. Yet the expected joy evaded 
 her desire and the sudden determination to lose 
 utterly her reserve. It was evident that he as well 
 was conscious of this, for he released her and 
 stood frowning, his protruding lower lip uglier 
 than ever. 
 
 "A lifetime would be nothing," he said again; 
 "or it might be everything wasted. Which are 
 you all soul and spirit, or none?" 
 
 "I don t know," she replied, in her bitter dis 
 appointment, her heart pinched by the sharpest 
 pain she remembered. There was the stir of 
 skirts at the door; Linda turned with a sense of 
 relief to Amelia Lowrie. However, dinner pro 
 gressed very well indeed. "Then your aunt," 
 Elouise said to Pleydon, "was Carrie Dodge. I 
 recall her perfectly." That established, the 
 Lowrie women talked with a gracious freedom, 
 exploring the furthermost infiltrations of blood 
 and marriages. 
 
 Linda was again serene. She watched Pley 
 don with an extraordinary formless conviction 
 each of them was a part of the other s life; while 
 in some way marriage and love were now hope- 
 [156] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 lessly confused. It was beyond effort or plan 
 ning. That was all she could grasp, but she was 
 contented. Sometimes when he talked he made 
 the familiar descriptive gesture with his hand, as 
 if he were shaping the form of his speech : a sculp 
 tor s gesture, Linda realized. 
 
 Later they wandered into the garden, a dark 
 enclosure with the long ivy-covered fagade of the 
 house broken by the lighted spaces of windows. 
 Beyond the fence at regular intervals an electric 
 car passed with an increasing and diminishing 
 clangor. The white petals of the magnolia-tree 
 had fallen and been wheeled away; the blossoms 
 of the rhododendron were dead on their stems. 
 It was, Linda felt, a very old garden that had 
 known many momentary emotions and lives. 
 
 Dodge Pleydon, standing before her, put his 
 hands on her shoulders. "Would I have any suc 
 cess?" he asked. "Do you think you d care for 
 me?" 
 
 She smiled confidently up at his intent face. 
 "Oh, yes." Yet she hoped that he would not 
 kiss her just then. The delicacy of her longing 
 and need were far removed from material expres 
 sions. This, of course, meant marriage; but 
 marriage was money, comfort, the cold thing her 
 [157] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 mother had impressed on her. Love, her love, 
 was a mistake here. But in a little it would all 
 come straight and she would understand. She no 
 longer had confidence in her mother s wisdom. 
 
 In spite of her shrinking, of a half articulate 
 appeal, he crushed her against his face. What 
 ever that had filled her with hope, she thought, was 
 being torn from her. A sickening aversion over 
 which she had no control made her stark in his 
 arms. The memories of the painted coarse sa 
 tiety of women and the sly hard men for which 
 they schemed, the loose discussions of calculated 
 advances and sordid surrenders, flooded her with 
 a loathing for what she passionately needed to be 
 beautiful. 
 
 Yet deep within her, surprising in its vitality, a 
 fragile ardor persisted. If she could explain, 
 not only might he understand, but be able to 
 make her own longing clear and secure. But 
 all she managed to say was, "If you kiss me 
 again I think it will kill me." Even that failed 
 to stop him. "You were never alive," he as 
 serted. "I ll put some feeling into you. It has 
 been done before with marble." 
 
 Linda, unresponsive, suffered inordinately. 
 
 Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was 
 158] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 angry, his face grim. He seemed changed, 
 threatening and unfamiliar; it was exactly as if, 
 in place of Dodge Pleydon, a secretive imper 
 sonal ugliness stood disclosed before her. He 
 said harshly: 
 
 "When will you marry me?" 
 
 It was what, above all else, she had wanted; 
 and Linda realized that to marry him was still the 
 crown of whatever happiness she could imagine. 
 But her horror of the past recreated by his beating 
 down of her gossamer-like aspiration, the vision 
 of him flushed and ruthless, an image of indis 
 criminate nameless man, made it impossible for 
 her to reply. An abandon of shrinking fear 
 numbed her heart and lips. 
 
 "You won t get rid of me as you do the others 
 about you," he continued. "This time you made 
 a mistake. I haven t any pride that you can in 
 sult; but I have all that you with your char 
 acter require. I have more money even than 
 you can want." She cried despairingly: 
 
 "It isn t that now! I had forgotten everything 
 to do with money and depended on you to take 
 me away from it always." 
 
 "When will you marry me?" 
 
 In a flash of blinding perception, leaving her 
 [159] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 as dazed as though it had been a physical ac 
 tuality, she realized that marrying him had be 
 come an impossibility. At the barest thought of 
 it the dread again closed about her like ice. She 
 tried, with all the force of old valuations, with 
 even an effort to summon back the vanquished 
 thrill, to give herself to him. But a quality over 
 powering and instinctive, the response of her in 
 calculable injury, made any contact with him 
 hateful. It was utterly beyond her power to ex 
 plain. A greater mystery still partly unfolded 
 whatever she had hoped from Pleydon belonged 
 to the special emotion that had possessed her 
 since earliest childhood. 
 
 In the immediate tragedy of her helplessness, 
 with Dodge Pleydon impatient for an assurance, 
 she paused involuntarily to wonder about that 
 hidden imperative sense. There was a broken 
 mental fantasy of of a leopard bearing a 
 woman in shining hair. This was succeeded by 
 a bright thrust of happiness and, all about her, 
 a surging like the imagined beat of the wings of 
 the Victory in Markue s room. Almost Pleydon 
 had explained everything, almost he was every 
 thing ; and then the other, putting him aside, had 
 [160] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 swept her back into the misery of doubt and lone 
 liness. 
 
 "I can t marry you," she said in a flat and 
 dragged voice. He demanded abruptly: 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I don t know." She recognized his utter 
 right to the temper that mastered him. For a 
 moment Linda thought Pleydon would shake her. 
 "You feel that way now," he declared; "and 
 perhaps next month; but you will change; in the 
 end I ll have you." 
 
 "No," she told him, with a certainty from a 
 source outside her consciousness. "It has been 
 spoiled." 
 
 He replied, "Time will discover which of us is 
 right. I m almost willing to stay away till you 
 send for me. But that would only make you 
 more stubborn. What a strong little devil you 
 are, Linda. I have no doubt I d do better to 
 marry a human being. Then I think we both 
 forget how young you are you can t pretend to 
 be definite yet." 
 
 He captured her hands; too exhausted for 
 any resentment or feeling she made no effort to 
 evade him. "I ll never say good-bye to you." 
 [161] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 His voice had the absolute quality of her own 
 conviction. To her amazement her cheeks were 
 suddenly wet with tears. "I want to go now," 
 she said unsteadily; "and and thank you." 
 
 His old easy formality returned as he made 
 his departure. In reply to Pleydon s demand 
 she told him listlessly that she would be here for, 
 perhaps, a week longer. Then he d see her, he 
 continued, in New York, at the Feldts . 
 
 In her room all emotion faded. Pleydon had 
 said that she was still young ; but she was sure she 
 could never, in experience or feeling, be older. 
 She became sorry for herself; or rather for the 
 illusions, the Linda, of a few hours ago. She 
 examined her features in the limited uncertain 
 mirror strong sensations, she knew, were a 
 charge on the appearance but she was unable 
 to find any difference in her regular pallor. 
 Then, mechanically conducting her careful prep 
 arations for the night, her propitiation of the only 
 omnipotence she knew, she put out the candles of 
 her May. 
 
 [162] 
 
XXII 
 
 IT "IT THAT welcome Linda met in New 
 %/%/ York came from Mr. Moses Feldt, 
 
 T T who embraced her warmly enough, 
 but with an air slightly ill at ease. He begged 
 her to kiss her mama, who was sometimes hurt 
 by Linda s coldness. She made no reply, and 
 found the same influence and evidence of the 
 power of suggestion in Judith. "We thought 
 maybe you wouldn t care to come back here," the 
 latter said pointedly, over her shoulder, while she 
 was directing the packing of a trunk. The Feldts 
 were preparing for their summer stay at the sea. 
 
 Her mother s room resembled one of the sales 
 of obvious and expensive attire conducted in the 
 lower salons of pleasure hotels. There were airy 
 piles of chiffon and satin, inappropriate hats and 
 the inevitable confections of silk and lace. "It s 
 not necessary to ask if you were right at home 
 with your father s family," Mrs. Condon ob 
 served with an assumed casual inattention. "I 
 can see you sitting with those old women as dry 
 [163] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 and false as any. No one saved me in the clack 
 ing, I m sure." 
 
 "We didn t speak of you," Linda replied. She 
 studied, unsparing, the loose flesh of the elder s 
 ravaged countenance. Her mother, she recog 
 nized, hated her, both because she was like Bart- 
 ram Lowrie and still young, with everything un 
 spent that the other valued and had lost. In 
 support of herself Mrs. Feldt asserted again that 
 she had "lived," with stacks of friends and flow 
 ers, lavish parties and devoted attendance. 
 
 "You may be smarter than I was," she went 
 on, "but what good it does you who can say? 
 And if you expect to get something for nothing 
 you re fooled before you start." She shook out 
 the airy breadths of a vivid echo of past dar 
 ing. "From the way you act a person might 
 think you were pretty, but you are too thin and 
 pulled out. I ve heard your looks called pe 
 culiar, and that was, in a manner of speaking, 
 polite. You re not even stylish any more the 
 line is full again and not suitable for bony shoul 
 ders and no bust." She still cherished a com 
 placency in her amplitude. 
 
 Linda turned away unmoved. Of all the 
 world, she thought, only Dodge Pleydon had the 
 [164] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 power actually to hurt her. She knew that she 
 would see him soon again and that again he would 
 ask her to marry him. She considered, momen 
 tarily, the possibility of saying yes ; and instantly 
 the dread born with him in the Lowrie garden 
 swept over her. Linda told herself that he was 
 the only man for whom she could ever deeply care ; 
 that for every conceivable reason such a mar 
 riage was perfect. But the shrinking from its im 
 plications grew too painful for support. 
 
 Her mother s bitterness increased hourly; she 
 no longer hid her feelings from her husband and 
 Judith; and dinner, accompanied by her elab 
 orate sarcasm, was a difficult period in which, 
 plainly, Mr. Moses Feldt suffered most and Linda 
 was the least concerned. This condition, she ad 
 mitted silently, couldn t go on indefinitely; it 
 was too vulgar if for no other reason. And she 
 determined to ask the Lowries for another and 
 more extended invitation. 
 
 Pleydon came, as she had expected, and they 
 sat in the small reception-room with the high 
 ceiling and dark velvet hangings, the piano at 
 which, long ago it now seemed, Judith had played 
 the airs of Gluck for her. He said little, but re 
 mained for a long while spread over the divan 
 [165] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 and watching her in a formal chair discon 
 tentedly. He rose suddenly and stood above her, 
 a domineering bulk obliterating nearly everything 
 else. In response to his demand she said, pale 
 and composed, that she was not "reasonable"; 
 she omitted the "yet" included in his question. 
 Pleydon frowned. However, then, he insisted no 
 further. 
 
 When he had gone Linda was as spent as 
 though there had been a fresh brutal scene; and 
 the following day she was enveloped in an un 
 relieved depression. Her mother mocked her 
 silence as another evidence of ridiculous preten 
 tiousness. Mr. Moses Feldt regarded her with 
 a furtive concerned kindliness; while Judith fol 
 lowed her with countless small irritating com 
 plaints. It was the last day at the apartment 
 before their departure for the summer. Linda 
 was insuperably tired. She had gone to her 
 room almost directly after dinner, and when a 
 maid came to her door with a card, she exclaimed, 
 before looking at it, that she was not in. It 
 was, however, Arnaud Hallet; and, with a sur 
 prise tempered by a faint interest, she told the 
 servant that she would see him. 
 [166] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 There was, Linda observed at once, absolutely 
 no difference in Arnaud s clothing, no effort to 
 make himself presentable for New York or her. 
 In a way, it amused her it was so characteristic 
 of his forgetfulness, and it made him seem 
 doubly familiar. He waved a hand toward the 
 luxury of the interior. "This," he declared, "is 
 downright impressive, and lifted, I m sure, out of 
 a novel of Ouida s. 
 
 "You will remember," he continued, "com 
 plaining about my sense of humor one evening; 
 and that, at the time, I warned you it might grow 
 worse. It has. I am afraid, where you are con 
 cerned, that it has absolutely vanished. My 
 dear, you ll recognize this as a proposal. I 
 thought my mind was made up, after forty, not 
 to marry; and I specially tried not to bring you 
 into it. You were too young, I felt. I doubted 
 if I could make you happy, and did everything 
 possible, exhausted all the arguments, but it was 
 no good. 
 
 "Linda, dear, I adore you." 
 
 She was glad, without the slightest answering 
 emotion, that Arnaud, well liked her. At the 
 same time all her wisdom declared that she 
 [167] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 couldn t marry him; and, with the unsparing 
 frankness of youth and her individual detach 
 ment, she told him exactly why. 
 
 "I need a great deal of money," she proceeded, 
 "because I am frightfully extravagant. All I 
 have is expensive; I hate cheap things even 
 what satisfies most rich girls. Why, just my satin 
 slippers cost hundreds of dollars and I ll pay un 
 limited amounts for a little fulling of lace or 
 some rare flowers. You d call it wicked, but I 
 can t help it it s me. 
 
 "I ve always intended to marry a man with a 
 hundred thousand dollars a year. Of course, 
 that s a lot do you hate me for telling you? 
 but I wouldn t think of any one with less than 
 fifty" 
 
 Arnaud Hallet interrupted quietly, "I have 
 that." 
 
 Linda gazed incredulously at his neglected 
 shoes, the wrinkles of his inconsiderable coat and 
 unstudied scarf. She saw that, actually, he had 
 spoken apologetically of his possessions; and a 
 stinging shame spread through her at the possi 
 bility that she had seemed common to an infinitely 
 finer delicacy than hers. 
 
 [168] 
 
XXIII 
 
 MOST of these circumstances Linda Hal- 
 let quietly recalled sitting with her 
 husband in the house that had been oc 
 cupied by the Lowries . A letter from Pleydon 
 had taken her into a past seven years gone by; 
 while ordinarily her memory was indistinct; or 
 dinarily she was fully occupied by the difficulties, 
 or rather compromises, of the present. But, in the 
 tranquil open glow of a Franklin stove and the 
 withdrawn intentness of Arnaud reading, her 
 mind had returned to the distressed period of her 
 wedding. 
 
 Elouise Lowrie Amelia was dead sunk in a 
 stupor of extreme old age, her bloodless hands 
 folded in an irreproachable black surah silk lap, 
 sat beyond the stove; and Lowrie, Linda s elder 
 child, five and a half, together with his sister 
 Vigne, had been long asleep above. Linda was 
 privately relieved by this: her children presented 
 enormous obligations. The boy, already at a 
 model school, appalled her inadequate prepara- 
 [169] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 tions by his flashes of perceptive intelligence; 
 while she was frankly abashed at the delicate 
 rosy perfection of her daughter. 
 
 The present letter was the third she had re 
 ceived from Dodge Pleydon, whom she had not 
 seen since her marriage. At first he had been en 
 raged at the wrong, he had every reason to feel, 
 she had done him. Then his anger had dis 
 solved into a meager correspondence of outward 
 and obvious facts. There was so much that she 
 had been unable to explain. He had always 
 been impatient, even contemptuous, of the emo 
 tion that made her surrender to him unthinkable 
 Linda realized now that it had been the strong 
 est impulse of her life and, of course, she had 
 never accounted for the practically unbalanced 
 enmity of her mother. 
 
 The latter had deepened to an incredible de 
 gree, so much so that Mr. Moses Feldt, though 
 he had never taken an actual part in it such 
 bitterness was entirely outside his generous senti 
 mentality had become acutely uncomfortable in 
 his own home, imploring Linda, with ready tears, 
 to be kinder to her mama. Judith, too, had 
 grown cutting, jealous of Linda s serenity of 
 youth, as her appearance showed the effect of her 
 [170] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 wasting emotions. Things quite extraordinary 
 had happened : once Linda s skin had been almost 
 seriously affected by an irritation that immedi 
 ately followed the trace of her powder-puff; and 
 at several times she had had clumsily composed 
 anonymous notes of a most distressing nature. 
 
 She had wondered, calmly enough, which of the 
 two bitter women were responsible, and decided 
 that it was her mother. At this the situation at 
 the Feldts , increasingly strained, had become an 
 impossibility. Arnaud Hallet, after his first visit, 
 had soon returned. There was no more mention 
 of his money ; but every time he saw her he asked 
 her again, in his special manner a formality 
 flavored by a slight diffident humor to marry 
 him. Arnaud s proposals had alternated with 
 Pley don s utterly different demand. 
 
 Linda remembered agonized evenings when, in 
 a return of his brutal manner of the unforgettable 
 night in the Lowrie garden, he tried to force a 
 recognition of his passion. It had left her cold, 
 exhausted, the victim of a mingled disappoint 
 ment at her failure to respond with a hatred of 
 all essential existence. At last, on a particularly 
 trying occasion, she had desperately agreed to 
 marry him. 
 
 [171] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 The aversion of her mother, becoming really 
 dangerous, had finally appalled her; and a head 
 ache weighed on her with a leaden pain. Dodge, 
 too, had been unusually considerate; he talked 
 about the future tied up, he asserted, in her of 
 his work; and suddenly, at the signal of her rare 
 tears, Linda agreed to a wedding. 
 
 In the middle of the night she had wakened 
 oppressed by a dread resulting in an uncontrol 
 lable chill. She thought first that her mother was 
 bending a malignant face over her; and then 
 realized that her feeling was caused by her promise 
 to Dodge Pleydon. It had grown worse instead 
 of vanishing, waves of nameless shrinking swept 
 over her; and in the morning, further harrowed 
 by the actualities of being, she had sent a telegram 
 to Arnaud Hallet to Arnaud s kindness and af 
 fection, his detachment not unlike her own. 
 
 They were married immediately; and through 
 the ceremony and the succeeding days she 
 had been almost entirely absorbed in a sensa 
 tion of escape. At the death of Amelia Lowrie, 
 soon after, Arnaud had suggested a temporary 
 period in the house she remembered with pleas 
 ure; and, making small alterations with the 
 [172] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 months and years, they had tacitly agreed to re 
 main. 
 
 Linda often wondered, walking about the 
 lower floor, why it seemed so familiar to her: 
 she would stand in the dining-room, with its 
 ceiling of darkened beams, and gaze absent- 
 minded through the long windows at the close- 
 cut walled greenery without. The formal draw 
 ing-room, at the right of the street entrance, 
 equally held her a cool interior with slatted 
 wooden blinds, a white mantelpiece with deli 
 cately reeded supports and a bas-relief of Mi 
 nerva on the center panel, a polished brass scuttle 
 for cannel-coal and chairs with wide severely 
 fretted backs upholstered in old pale damask. 
 
 The house seemed familiar, but she could 
 never grow accustomed to the undeniable facts of 
 her husband, the children and her completely 
 changed atmosphere. She admitted to herself 
 that her principal feeling in connection with 
 Lowrie and Vigne was embarrassment. Here she 
 always condemned herself as an indifferent, per 
 haps unnatural, mother. She couldn t help it. 
 In the same sense she must be an unsatisfactory 
 wife. Linda was unable to shake off the con- 
 [173] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 viction that it was like a play in which she had 
 no more than a spectator s part. 
 
 This was her old disability, the result of her 
 habit of sitting, as a child, apart from the con 
 cerns and stir of living. She made every possible 
 effort to overcome it, to surrender to her new con 
 ditions; but, if nothing else, an instinctive shy 
 ness prevented. It went back further, even, she 
 thought, than her own experience, and she re 
 called all she had heard and reconstructed of her 
 father a man shut in on himself who had, one 
 day, without a word walked out of the door and 
 left his wife, never to return. These realizations, 
 however, did little to clarify her vision; she was 
 continually trying to adjust her being to circum 
 stances that persistently remained a little distant 
 and blurred. 
 
 In appearance, anyhow, Linda told herself 
 with a measure of reassurance, she was practi 
 cally unchanged. She still, with the support of 
 Arnaud, disregarding current fashion, wore her 
 hair in a straight bang across her brow and blue 
 gaze. She was as slender as formerly, but more 
 gracefully round, in spite of the faint character 
 istic stiffness that was the result of her mental 
 hesitation. Her clothes, too, had hardly varied 
 [174] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 she wore, whenever possible, white lawns ruffled 
 about the throat and hem, with broad soft black 
 sashes, while her more formal dresses were sheaths 
 of dull unornamented satin extravagant in the 
 perfection of their simplicity. 
 
 [175] 
 
XXIV 
 
 ARNAUD HALLET stirred, sharply 
 closing his book. He had changed 
 except for a palpable settling down of 
 grayness as little as Linda. For a while she 
 had tried to bring about an improvement in his 
 appearance, and he had met her expressed wish 
 whenever he remembered it; but this was not 
 often. In the morning a servant polished his 
 shoes, brushed and ironed his suits; yet by eve 
 ning, somehow, he managed to look as though he 
 hadn t been attended to for days. She would 
 have liked him to change for dinner; other men 
 of his connection did, it was a part of his inher 
 itance. Arnaud, however, in his slight scoffing 
 disparagement, declined individually to annoy 
 himself. He was, she learned, enormously ab 
 sorbed in his historical studies and papers. 
 
 "Did you enjoy it?" she asked politely of his 
 reading. "Extremely," he replied. "The Amer 
 ican Impressions of Tyrone Power, the Eng 
 lish actor, through eighteen thirty-three and four. 
 [176] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 His account of a European packet with its hand 
 bells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch- 
 cock is inimitable. I d like to have sat at Cato s 
 then, with a julep or hail-storm, and watched the 
 trotting races." 
 
 Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with 
 dozing; but almost immediately she gathered her 
 self into a relentless propriety and a formal good 
 night. 
 
 "What has been running through that mys 
 terious mind of yours?" 
 
 "I had a letter from Dodge," she told him 
 simply; "and I was thinking a little about the 
 past." He exhibited the nice unstrained interest 
 of his admirable personality. "Is he still in 
 France?" he queried. "Pleydon should be a 
 strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of 
 a little disappointment in him." She said: "I ll 
 read you his letter, it s on the table. 
 
 " You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved 
 from the Rue de Penthievre, although I have given up the 
 place at Etretat, and I am not going to renew the lease 
 here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with him, 
 that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude 
 here toward art, how impossible that word has been made, 
 is charming. And you will be glad to know that I have 
 [177] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 had some success in the French good opinion. A marble, 
 Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought 
 for the Luxembourg. 
 
 " I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is 
 very representative of me now. I am tired of mythological 
 naiads in a constant state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell 
 you something about Mather. What a somber flame! I 
 have a part Puritan ancestry, as any Lowrie will inform 
 you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very serious, 
 and a politician a sculptor has to be that if he means to 
 land any public monuments in America. 
 
 " I hope to see you. " 
 
 The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, 
 "Pleydon." 
 
 "Are you happy, Linda?" Arnaud Hallet asked 
 unexpectedly after a short silence. So abruptly 
 interrogated she was unable to respond. "What 
 I mean is," he explained, "do you think you 
 would have been happier married to him? I 
 knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible 
 thing between us." Now, however, she was able 
 to satisfy him: 
 
 "I couldn t marry Dodge." 
 
 "Is it possible to tell me why?" 
 
 "He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry 
 him, I tried to forget it, but it was useless. I was 
 dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways " 
 [178] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "So you sent for me," he put in as she paused 
 reflectively. "I didn t hurt you, at any rate." 
 It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed. 
 "You have never hurt me, Arnaud," she assured 
 him, conscious of the inadequacy of her words. 
 "You were everything I wanted." 
 
 "Except for my hats," he said in a brief flash 
 of his saving humor. "It would be better for 
 me, perhaps, if I could hurt you. That ability 
 comes dangerously close to a constant of love. 
 You mustn t think I am complaining. I haven t 
 the slightest reason in the face of your devastating 
 honesty. I didn t distress you and I had the 
 necessary minimum the fifty thousand." His 
 manner was so even, so devoid of sting, that she 
 could smile at the expression of her material am 
 bitions. "I realize exactly your feeling for my 
 self, but what puzzles me is your attitude toward 
 the children." 
 
 "I don t understand it either," she admitted, 
 "except that I am quite afraid of them. They 
 are so different from all my own childhood; often 
 they are too much for me. Then I dread the time 
 when they will discover how stupid and unedu 
 cated I am at bottom. I m sure you already 
 ask questions before them to amuse yourself at 
 [179] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 my doubt. What shall I do, Arnaud, when they 
 are really at school and bring home their books?" 
 
 "Retreat behind your dignity as a parent/ he 
 advised. "They are certain to display their 
 knowledge and ask you to bound things or name 
 the capital of Louisiana." She cried, "Oh, but 
 I know that, it s New Orleans!" She saw at 
 once, from his entertained expression, that she 
 was wrong again, and became conscious of a faint 
 flush of annoyance. "It will be even worse," 
 she continued, "when Vigne looks to me for ad 
 vice; I mean when she is older and has lovers." 
 
 "She won t seriously; they never do. She ll 
 tell you when it s all over. Lowrie will depend 
 more on you. I may have my fun about the 
 capital of Louisiana, Linda, but I have the great 
 est confidence in your wisdom. God knows what 
 an unhappy experience your childhood was, but 
 it has given you a superb worldly balance." 
 
 "I suppose you re saying that I am cold," she 
 told him. "It must be true, because it is repeated 
 by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be very 
 different you d never imagine what a romantic 
 thrill or strange ideas were inside of me. Like 
 a memory of a deep woods, and and the love 
 liest adventure. Often I would hear music as 
 [180] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 clearly as possible, and it made me want I don t 
 know what terrifically." 
 
 "An early experience, " he replied. Suddenly 
 she saw that he was tired, his face was lined and 
 dejected. "You read too much," Linda declared. 
 He said: "But only out of the printed book." 
 She wondered vainly what he meant. As he 
 stood before the glimmering coals, in the room 
 saturated in repose, she wished that she might 
 give him more; she wanted to spend herself in a 
 riot of feeling on Arnaud and their children. 
 What a detestable character she had! Her de 
 sire, her efforts, were wasted. 
 
 He went about putting up the windows and 
 closing the outside shutters, a confirmed habit. 
 Linda rose with her invariable sense of separa 
 tion, the feeling that, bound on a journey with a 
 hidden destination, she was only temporarily in a 
 place of little importance. It was like being al 
 ways in her hat and jacket. Arnaud shook down 
 the grate; then he gazed over the room; it was all, 
 she was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it 
 should be all except herself. 
 
 [181] 
 
XXV 
 
 "V "J^ET her marriage had realized in almost 
 ^y every particular what she had so much 
 JL younger planned. The early sugges 
 tion, becoming through constant reiteration a part 
 of her knowledge, had been followed and accom 
 plished; and, as well, her later needs were served. 
 Linda told herself that, in a world where a very 
 great deal was muddled, she had been unusually 
 fortunate. And this made her angry at her per 
 vading lack of interest in whatever she had ob 
 tained. 
 
 Other women, she observed, obviously less 
 fortunate than she, were volubly and warmly ab 
 sorbed in any number of engagements and pleas 
 ures; she continually heard them, Arnaud s con 
 nections the whole superior society, eternally 
 and vigorously discussing servants and bridge, 
 family and cotillions, indiscretions and chari 
 ties. These seemed enough for them; their 
 lives were filled, satisfied, extraordinarily busy. 
 Linda, for the most part, had but little to do. 
 [182] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Her servants, managed with remote exactness, 
 gave no trouble; she had an excellent woman for 
 the children; her dress presented no new points 
 of anxiety nor departure . . . she was, in short, 
 Arnaud admitted, perfectly efficient. She dis 
 posed of such details mechanically, almost im 
 patiently, and was contemptuous, no envious, of 
 the women whose demands they contented. 
 
 At the dinners, the balls, to which Arnaud s 
 sense of obligation both to family and her took 
 them against his inclination, it was the same 
 everyone, it appeared to Linda, was flushed with 
 an intentness she could not share. Men, she 
 found, some of them extremely pleasant, still 
 made adroit and reassuring efforts for her favor; 
 the air here, she discovered, was even freer than 
 the bravado of her earlier surroundings. This 
 love-making didn t disturb her it was, ulti 
 mately, the men who were fretted indeed, she 
 had rather hoped that it would bring her the re 
 lief she lacked. 
 
 But again the observations and speculation of 
 her mature childhood, what she had heard re 
 vealed in the most skillful feminine dissections, 
 had cleared her understanding to a point that 
 made the advances of hopeful men quite enter- 
 [183] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 tainingly obvious. Their method was appall 
 ingly similar and monotonous. She liked, rather 
 than not, the younger ones, whose confidence that 
 their passion was something new on earth at 
 times refreshed her; but the navigated material 
 ism of greater experience finally became distaste 
 ful. She discussed this sharply with Arnaud: 
 
 "You simply can t help believing that most 
 women are complete idiots." 
 
 "You haven t said much more for men." 
 
 "The whole thing is too silly! Why is it, 
 Arnaud? It ought to be impressive and sweep 
 you off your feet, up " 
 
 "Instead of merely behind some rented palms," 
 he added. "But I must say, Linda, that you are 
 not a very highly qualified judge of sentiment." 
 He pronounced this equably, but she was con 
 scious of the presence of an injury in his voice. 
 She was a little weary at being eternally con 
 demned for what she couldn t help. Any failure 
 was as much Arnaud Hallet s as hers; he had had 
 his opportunity, all that for which he had im 
 plored her. Her thoughts returned to Dodge 
 Pleydon. April was well advanced, and he had 
 written that he d be back and see them in the 
 spring. Linda listened to her heart but it was 
 [184] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 unhastened by a beat. She would be very glad to 
 have him at hand, in her life again, of course. 
 
 Then the direction of her mind veered what 
 did he still think of her? Probably he had al 
 together recovered from his love for her. It had 
 been a warm day, and Arnaud had opened a 
 window; but now she was aware of a cold air on 
 her shoulder and she asked him abruptly to lower 
 the sash. Linda remembered, with a lingering 
 sense of triumph, the Susanna Noda whom 
 Dodge had left at a party for her. There had 
 been a great many Susannas in his life; the rea 
 son for this was the absence of any overwhelming 
 single influence. It might be that now he had 
 written of the change in the subjects of his work 
 such a guide had come into his existence. She 
 hoped she had. Yet, in view of the announced 
 silliness of women, she didn t want him to be 
 cheaply deluded. 
 
 He was an extremely human man. 
 
 But she, Linda, it seemed, was an inhuman 
 woman. The days ran into weeks that added 
 another month to spring; a June advanced sultry 
 with heat; and, suddenly as usual, a maid at the 
 door of her room announced Pleydon. It was 
 five o clock in the afternoon, she had to dress, 
 [185] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 and she sent him a message that he mustn t ex 
 pect her in a hurry. She paused in her deliber 
 ate preparations for a long thoughtful gaze into 
 a mirror; there was not yet a shadow on her face, 
 the trace of a line at her eyes. The sharp smooth 
 turning and absolute whiteness of her bare shoul 
 ders were flawless. 
 
 At first it appeared to Linda that he, too, had 
 not changed. They were in the library opening 
 into the dining-room, a space shut against the 
 sun by the Venetian blinds, and faintly scented 
 by a bowl of early tea roses. He appeared 
 the same large and informally clad in gray 
 flannels, with aggressive features and sensi 
 tive strong hands. He was quiet but plainly 
 happy to be with her again and sat leaning for 
 ward on his knees, watching her intently as she 
 chose a seat. 
 
 Then it slowly dawned on her that he had 
 changed, yes tragically. Pleydon, in every 
 way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, 
 had new depths of questioning, his mouth was 
 more repressed, his face notably sparer of flesh. 
 He was immediately aware of the result of her 
 scrutiny. "I have been working like a fool," 
 he explained. "A breath of sickness, too, four 
 [186] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 years ago in Soochow. One of the damnable 
 Asiatic fevers that a European is supposed to be 
 immune from. You are a miracle, Linda. How 
 long has it been nearly eight years; you have 
 two children and Arnaud Hallet and yet you are 
 the girl I met at Markue s. I wanted to see you 
 different, just a little, a trace of something that 
 should have happened to you. It hasn t. 
 You re the most remarkable mother alive." 
 
 "If I am/ she returned, "it is not as a success, 
 or at least for me. Lowrie and Vigne are 
 healthy, and happy enough; but I can t lose my 
 self in them, Dodge; I can t lose myself at all." 
 
 He was quiet at this, the smoke of his 
 cigarette climbing bluely in a space with the 
 aqueous stillness of a lake s depths. "The 
 same," he went on after a long pause; "nothing 
 has touched you. I ought to be relieved but, 
 do you know, it frightens me. You are relent 
 less. You have no right, at the same time, to be 
 beautiful. I have seen a great many celebrated 
 women at their best moments, but you are lovelier 
 than any. It isn t a simple affair of proportion 
 and features I wish I could hold it in a phrase, 
 the turn of a chisel. I can t. It s deathless 
 romance in a bang cut blackly across heavenly 
 [187] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 blue." He was silent again, and Linda glad 
 that he still found her attractive. She discov 
 ered that the misery his presence once caused her 
 had entirely vanished, its place taken by an eager 
 interest in his affairs, a lightness of spirit at the 
 realization that, while his love for her might have 
 grown calm, no other woman possessed it. 
 
 [188] 
 
XXVI 
 
 AT the dinner-table she listened cool 
 and fresh, Arnaud complained, in spite 
 of the heat to the talk of the two men. 
 By her side Elouise Lowrie occasionally repeated, 
 in a voice like the faint jangle of an old thin 
 piano, the facts of a family connection or a com 
 mendation of the Dodges. Arnaud really knew 
 a surprising lot, and his conversation with Pley- 
 don was strung with terms completely unintel 
 ligible to her. It developed, finally, into an 
 argument over the treatment of the acanthus mo 
 tive in rococo ornament. France was summoned 
 against Spain; the architectural degrading of 
 Italy deplored. ... It amazed her that any one 
 could remember so much. 
 
 Linda without a conscious reason suddenly 
 stopped the investigation of her feeling for Pley- 
 don. Even in the privacy of her thoughts 
 an added obscurity kept her from the customary 
 clear reasoning. After dinner, out in the close 
 gloom of the garden, she watched the flicker of 
 the cigarettes. There was thunder, so distant 
 [189] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 and vague that for a long while Linda thought 
 she was deceived. She had a keen rushing sen 
 sation of the strangeness of her situation here 
 Linda Hallet. The night was like a dream from 
 which she would stir, sigh, to find herself back 
 again in the past waiting for the return of her 
 mother from one of her late parties. 
 
 But it was Arnaud who moved and, accom 
 panying Elouise Lowrie, went into the house for 
 his interminable reading. Pleydon s voice be 
 gan in a low remembering tone: 
 
 "What a fantastic place the Feldt apartment 
 was, with that smothered room where you said 
 you would marry me. You must have got hold 
 of Hallet in the devil of a hurry. I ve often 
 tried to understand what happened; why, all the 
 time, you were upset why, why, why?" 
 
 "In a way it was because a ridiculous hair 
 dresser burned out some of my mother s front 
 wave," she explained. 
 
 "Of course," he replied derisively, "nothing 
 could be plainer." 
 
 She agreed calmly. "It was very plain. If 
 you want me to try to tell you don t interrupt. It 
 isn t a happy memory, and I am only doing it 
 because I was so rotten to you. 
 [190] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "Yes, I can see now that it was the hairdresser 
 and a hundred other things exactly the same. 
 My mother, all the women we knew, did nothing 
 but lace and paint and frizzle for men. I used 
 to think it was a game they played and wonder 
 where the fun was. There were even hints about 
 that and later they particularized and it made 
 me as sick as possible. The men, too, were 
 odious; mostly fat and bald; and after a while, 
 when they pinched or kissed me, I wanted to die. 
 
 "That was all I knew about love, I had never 
 heard of any other men away from their fam 
 ilies for what they called a good time and women 
 plotting and planning to give it to them or not 
 give it to them. Then mother, after her looks 
 were spoiled, married Mr. Moses Feldt, and I 
 met Judith, who only existed for men and men s 
 rooms and told me worse things, I m sure, than 
 mother ever dreamed; and, on top of that, I met 
 you and you kissed me. 
 
 "But it was different from any other; it didn t 
 shock me, and it brought back a thrill I have 
 always had. I wanted, then, to love you, and 
 have you ask me to marry you, more than any 
 thing else in the world. I was sure, if you would 
 only be patient, that I could change what had 
 [191] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 hurt me into a beautiful feeling. I couldn t tell 
 you because I didn t understand myself." She 
 stopped, and Pleydon repeated, bitterly and 
 slow: 
 
 "Fat old bald men; and I was one with them 
 destroying your exquisite hope." She heard the 
 creak of the basket chair as he leaned forward, 
 his face masked in darkness. "Perhaps you 
 think I haven t paid. 
 
 "You will never know what love is unless I 
 can manage somehow to make you understand 
 how much I love you. Hallet will have to en 
 dure your hearing it. This doesn t belong to 
 him; it has not touched the earth. Every one, 
 more or less, talks about love; but not one in a 
 thousand, not one in a million, has such an ex 
 perience. If they did it would tear the world 
 into shreds. It would tear them as it has me. 
 I realize the other, the common thing who ex 
 perimented more! This has nothing to do with 
 it. A boy lost in the idealism of his first wor 
 ship has a faint reflection. Listen: 
 
 "I can always, with a wish, see you standing 
 
 before me. You yourself the folds of your 
 
 sash, the sharp narrow print of your slippers on 
 
 the pavement or the matting or the rug, the ruffles 
 
 [192] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 about your hands. I have the feeling of you 
 near me with your breathing disturbing the 
 delicacy of your breast. There is the odor and 
 shimmer of your hair . . . your lips move . . . 
 but without a sound. 
 
 "This vision is more real than reality, than 
 an opera-house full of people or the Place Ven- 
 dome; and it, you, is all I care for, all I think 
 about, all I want. I find quiet places and stay 
 there for hours, with you; or, if that isn t pos 
 sible, I turn into a blind man, a dead man warm 
 again at the bare thought of your face. Listen: 
 
 "I ve been in shining heaven with you. I have 
 been melted to nothing and made over again, in 
 you, good. We have been walking together in a 
 new world with rapture instead of air to breathe. 
 A slow walk through dark trees God knows 
 why like pines. And every time I think of 
 you it is exactly as though I could never die, as 
 though you had burned all the corruption out 
 of me and I was made of silver fire. And listen : 
 
 "Nothing else is of any importance, now or 
 afterward, you are now and the hereafter. I see 
 people and people and hear words and words, 
 and I forget them the moment they have gone, the 
 second they are still. But I haven t lost an in- 
 [193] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 flection of your voice. When I work in clay or 
 stone I model and cut you into every surface and 
 fold. I see you looking back at me out of marble 
 and bronze. And here, in this garden, you tried 
 to give me more " 
 
 The infinitely removed thunder was like the 
 continued echo of his voice. There was a stir 
 ring of the leaves above her head ; and the light 
 that had shone against the house in Elouise Low- 
 rie s window was suddenly extinguished. All 
 that she felt was weariness and a confused de 
 jection, the weight of an insuperable disappoint 
 ment. She could say nothing. Words, even 
 Pleydon s, seemed to her vain. The solid fact of 
 Arnaud, of what Dodge, more than seven years 
 before, had robbed her, put everything else aside, 
 crushed it. 
 
 She realized that she would never get from life 
 what supremely repaid the suffering of other 
 women, made up for them the failure of prac 
 tically every vision. She was sorry for herself, 
 yes, and for Dodge Pleydon. Yet he had his 
 figures in metal and stone; his sense of the im 
 portance of his work had increased enormously; 
 and, well, there were Lowrie and Vigne; it would 
 be difficult, every one agreed, to find better or 
 [194] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 handsomer children. But they seemed no more 
 than shadows or colored mist. This terrified her 
 what a hopelessly deficient woman she must be ! 
 But even in the profundity of her depression the 
 old vibration of nameless joy reached her heart. 
 
 [195] 
 
XXVII 
 
 IN the morning there was a telegram from 
 Judith Feldt, saying that her mother was 
 dangerously sick, and she had lunch on the 
 train for New York. The apartment seemed 
 stuffy; there was a trace of dinginess, neglect, 
 about the black velvet rugs and hangings. Her 
 mother, she found, had pneumonia; there was 
 practically no chance of her recovering. Linda 
 sat for a short while by the elder s bed, intent 
 upon a totally strange woman, darkly flushed 
 and ravished in an agonizing difficulty of breath 
 ing. Linda had a remembered vision of her 
 gold-haired and gay in floating chiffons, and sud 
 denly life seemed shockingly brief. A serious- 
 visaged clergyman entered the room as she left 
 and she heard the rich soothing murmur of a 
 confident phrase. 
 
 The Stella Condon who had become Mrs. 
 
 Moses Feldt had had little time for the support 
 
 of the church; although Linda recalled that she 
 
 had uniformly spoken well of its offices. To 
 
 [196] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 condemn Christianity, she had asserted, was to 
 invite bad luck. She treated this in exactly the 
 way she regarded walking under ladders or 
 spilling salt or putting on a stocking wrong. 
 Linda, however, had disregarded these possibili 
 ties of disaster and, with them, religion. 
 
 A great many people, she noticed, talked at 
 length about it; women in their best wraps 
 and with expensive little prayer books left the 
 hotels for various Sunday morning services, and 
 ministers came in later for tea. All this, she 
 understood, was in preparation for heaven, where 
 everybody, who was not in hell, was to be for 
 ever the same and yet radiantly different. It 
 seemed very vague and far away to Linda, and, 
 since there was such a number of immediate 
 problems for her to consider, she had easily 
 ignored the future. When now, with her mother 
 dying, it was thrust most uncomfortably before 
 her. 
 
 She half remembered sentences, admonitions, 
 of the godly a woman had once told her that 
 dancing and low gowns were hateful in the sight 
 of God, some one else that playing-cards were an 
 instrument of the devil. Pleasure, she had gath 
 ered, was considered wrong, and she instinctively 
 [197] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 put these opinions, together with a great deal else, 
 aside as envious. 
 
 That expressed her whole experience. She had 
 never keenly associated the thought of death with 
 herself before, and she was unutterably revolted 
 by the impending destruction of her fine body, 
 the delicate care of which formed her main pre 
 occupation in life. Age was supremely distaste 
 ful, but this other . . . she shuddered. 
 
 Linda wanted desperately to preserve the 
 whiteness of her skin, the flexible black distinc 
 tion of her hair, yes her beauty. Here, again, 
 with other women the vicarious immortality of 
 children would be sufficient. But not for her. 
 She was in the room that had been hers before 
 marriage, with her infinite preparations for the 
 night at an end; and, her hair loose across the 
 blanched severity of her attire, her delicately full 
 arms bare, she clasped her cold hands in stabbing 
 apprehension. 
 
 She would do anything, anything, to escape 
 that repulsive fatality to her lavished care. It 
 was only to be accomplished by being good; and 
 goodness was in the charge of the minister. She 
 saw clearly and at once her difficulty how could 
 [198] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 she go to a solemn man in a clerical vest and ad 
 mit that she was solely concerned by the impend 
 ing loss of her beauty. The promised splendor of 
 heaven, in itself, failed to move her it threatened 
 to be monotonous ; and she was honest in her rec 
 ognition that charity, the ugliness of poverty, re 
 pelled her. Linda was certain that she could 
 never change in these particulars; she could only 
 pretend. 
 
 A surprising multiplication of such pretense 
 occurred to her in people regarded as impres 
 sively religious. She had seen men like that 
 she vaguely thought of the name Jasper going 
 off with her mother in cabs to dinners that must 
 have been "godless." She wondered if this mere 
 attitude, the public show, were enough. And an 
 instinctive response told her that it was not. If 
 all she had been informed about the future were 
 true she decided that her mother s chance was no 
 worse than that of any false display of virtue. 
 
 She, Linda, could do nothing. 
 
 The funeral ceremony with its set form so 
 
 inappropriate to her mother s qualities was 
 
 even more remote from Linda s sympathies than 
 
 was common in her encounters. But Mr. Moses 
 
 [199] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Feldt s grief appeared to her actual and affecting. 
 He invested every one with the purity of his own 
 spirit. 
 
 She left New York at the first possible mo 
 ment with the feeling that she was definitely 
 older. The realization, she discovered, hap 
 pened in that way ordinarily giving the flight 
 of time no consideration it was brought back to 
 her at intervals of varying length. As she aged 
 they would grow shorter. 
 
 The result of this experience was an added 
 sense of failure; she tried more than ever to 
 overcome her indifference, get a greater hap 
 piness from her surroundings and activity. 
 Linda cultivated an attention to Lowrie and 
 Vigne. They responded charmingly but her shy 
 ness with them persisted in the face of her inalien 
 able right to their full possession. She insisted, 
 too, on going about vigorously in spite of 
 Arnaud s humorous groans and protests. She 
 forced herself to talk more to the men attracted 
 to her, and assumed, with disconcerting ease, an 
 air of sympathetic interest. But, unfortunately, 
 this brought on her a rapid increase of the love- 
 making that she found so fatiguing. 
 
 She studied her husband thoughtfully through 
 [200] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the evenings at home, before the Franklin stove, 
 or, in summer, in the secluded garden. Abso 
 lutely nothing was wrong with him ; he had, after 
 several deaths, inherited even more money; and, 
 in his deprecating manner where it was con 
 cerned, devoted it to her wishes. Except for 
 books, and the clothes she was forced to remind 
 him to get, he had no personal expenses. In ad 
 dition to the money he never offended her, his 
 relationships and manner were conducted with 
 an inborn nice formality that preserved her high 
 est self-opinion. 
 
 Yet^she was never able to escape from the limi 
 tations of a calm admiration; she couldn t lose 
 herself, disregard herself in a flood of generous 
 emotion. When, desperately, she tried, he, too, 
 was perceptibly ill at ease. Usually he was un 
 disturbed, but once, when she stood beside him 
 with her coffee cup at dinner, he disastrously lost 
 his equanimity. Tensely putting the cup away 
 he caught her with straining hands. 
 
 "Oh, Linda," he cried, "is it true that you love 
 me! Do you really belong to us to Vigne and 
 Lowrie and me? I can t stand it if you won t 
 . . . some day." 
 
 She backed away into the opening of a win- 
 [201] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 dow, against the night, from the justice of his 
 desire; and she was cold with self-detestation 
 as her fingers touched the glass. Linda tried to 
 speak, to lie; but, miserably still, she was unable 
 to deceive him. The animation, the fervor of 
 his longing, swiftly perished. His arms dropped 
 to his side. An unbearable constraint deepened 
 with the silence in the room, and later he lightly 
 said: 
 
 "You mustn t trifle with my ancient heart, 
 Linda, folly and age " 
 
 [202] 
 
XXVIII 
 
 THE only other quantity in her life was 
 Dodge Pleydon. He wrote her again, 
 perhaps three months after the explana 
 tion of his love ; but his letter was devoted wholly 
 to his work, and so technical that she had to ask 
 Arnaud to interpret it. He added: 
 
 "That is the mind of an impressive man. He 
 has developed enormously curious, so late in 
 life. Pleydon must be fully as old as myself. 
 It s clear that he has dropped his women. I saw 
 a photograph of the Cotton Mather reproduced 
 in a weekly, and it was as gaunt as a Puritan 
 Sunday. Brimmed with power. Why don t we 
 see him oftener? Write and say I d like to con 
 tradict him again about the Eastlake period." 
 
 He made no further reference to Pleydon then, 
 and Linda failed to write as Arnaud suggested. 
 Though she wasn t disturbed at the possibility 
 of a continuation of his admissions of love 
 she was weary of the thought of its useless- 
 ness. Linda was, she told herself, damned by 
 [203] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 practicability. Her husband used the familiar 
 term of reproach, material. She didn t in the 
 least want to be. Circumstance, she had a feel 
 ing, had forced it upon her. 
 
 Arnaud, however, who had met Dodge Pleydon 
 in Philadelphia, brought him home. Linda saw 
 with a strange constriction of the heart that Pley- 
 don s hair was definitely gray. He had had a 
 recurrence of the fever contracted in Soochow. 
 The men at once entered on another discussion 
 which she was unable to follow; but it was clear 
 that her husband now listened with an increasing 
 surrender of opinion to the sculptor. Pleydon, 
 it was true, was correspondingly more impatient 
 with minds that disagreed with his. He was at 
 once thinner and bigger, his face deeply lined; 
 but his eyes had a steady vital intensity difficult to 
 encounter. 
 
 She considered him in detail as the talk 
 left dinner, the glasses and candles spent. He 
 drank, from a tall tumbler with a single piece 
 of ice, the special whisky Arnaud kept. He 
 had been neglecting himself, too there were 
 traces of clay about his finger-nails, and he ate 
 hurriedly and insufficiently. When she had an 
 opportunity, Linda decided, she would speak to 
 [204] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 him about these necessary trifles. Then, she had 
 no chance; and it was not until the following 
 winter, at a Thursday afternoon concert during 
 the yearly exhibition of the Academy of Fine 
 Arts, that she could gently complain. 
 
 It was gloomy, with a promise of snow out 
 side; and the great space of the stairway to the 
 galleries was rilled with shadow and the strains 
 of Armide echoing from the orchestra playing 
 at the railing above the entrance. Pleydon, to 
 gether with a great many others, had spread an 
 overcoat on the masonry of the steps, and they 
 were seated in the obscurity of the balustrade. 
 
 "You look as though you hadn t had enough 
 to eat," she observed. "You used to be almost 
 thick but now you are a thing of terrifying grim- 
 ness. You look like a monk. I wonder why 
 you re like a monk, Dodge ?" 
 
 "Linda Condon," he replied. 
 
 "That can t be it now; I haven t been Linda 
 Condon for years, but Mrs. Arnaud Hallet. It s 
 very pretty, of course, and I d like to think you 
 could keep a young love alive so long. Expe 
 rience makes me doubt anything of the sort; but 
 then I was always skeptical." 
 
 "You have never been anyone else," he as- 
 [205] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 serted positively. "You were born Linda Con 
 don and you ll die that, except for some extraor 
 dinary accident. I can t imagine what it would 
 be a miracle like quaker-ladies in the Ant 
 arctic." 
 
 "It sounds uncomplimentary, and I m sick of 
 being compared with polar places. What are 
 quaker-ladies?" 
 
 "Fragile little flowers in the spring meadows." 
 "I d rather listen to the music than you." 
 "That is why loving you is so eternal, why it 
 doesn t fluctuate like a human emotion. You 
 can t exhaust it and rest before a new tide sweeps 
 back; the timeless ecstasy of a worship of God 
 . . . breeding madness." 
 
 She failed to understand and turned a troubled 
 gaze to his bitter repression. "I don t like to 
 make you unhappy, Dodge," she said in a low 
 tone. "What can I do? I am a horrid disap 
 pointment to all of you, but most to myself. I 
 can t go over it again." 
 
 "Beauty has nothing to do with happiness," he 
 declared harshly. He rose, without consulting 
 her wishes; and Linda followed him as he pro 
 ceeded above, irresistibly drawn to the bronze he 
 was showing in the Rotunda. 
 [206] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 It was the head and part of the shoulders of a 
 very old woman, infinitely worn, starved by want 
 and spent in brutal labor. There was a thin 
 wisp of hair pinned in a meager knot on her skull ; 
 her bones were mercilessly indicated, barely cov 
 ered with drum-like skin; her mouth was stamped 
 with timid humility; while her eyes peered weakly 
 from their sunken depths. 
 
 "Well?" he demanded, interrogating her in the 
 interest of his work. 
 
 "I I suppose it s perfectly done," she re 
 plied, at a loss for a satisfactory appreciation. 
 "It s true, certainly. But isn t it more unpleasant 
 than necessary?" Pleydon smiled patiently. 
 "Beauty," he said, with his mobile gesture. 
 "Pity, Katharsis the wringing out of all dross." 
 
 The helpless feeling of her overwhelming igno 
 rance returned. She was like a woman held be 
 yond the closed door of treasure. "Come over 
 here." He unceremoniously led her to the model 
 ing of a ruffled grouse, faithful in every diversi 
 fied feather. Linda thought it admirable, really 
 amazing; but he dismissed it with a passionate 
 energy. "The dull figuriste!" he exclaimed. 
 "Daguerre. Once I could have done that, yes, 
 and been entertained by its adroitness and in- 
 [207] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 science before you made me. Do you suppose 
 I was able then to understand the sheer tragic 
 fortitude to live of a scrubwoman! The head 
 you thought unpleasant haven t you seen her 
 going home in the March slush of a city? Did 
 you notice the gaps in her shoes, the ragged shawl 
 about a body twisted with forty, fifty, sixty years 
 of wet stone floors and steps? Did you wonder 
 what she had for supper?" 
 
 "No, Dodge, I didn t. They always make me 
 wretched." 
 
 "Well, to realize all that, to feel the degrada 
 tion of her nature, to lie, sick with exhaustion, on 
 the broken slats of her bed under a ravelled- 
 out travesty of a quilt, and get up morning after 
 morning in an iron winter dark to experience 
 that in your spirit and put it into durable metal, 
 hard stone is to hold beauty in your hands." 
 
 Her interest in his speech was mingled with 
 the knowledge that, in order to dress comfortably 
 for dinner, she must leave immediately. Pleydon 
 helped her into the Hallet open motor landaulet. 
 Linda demanded quantities of air. He was, he 
 told her at the door, leaving in an hour for New 
 York. "I wish you could be happier," she in 
 sisted. He reminded her that he had had the 
 [208] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 afternoon with her. It was so little, she thought, 
 carried rapidly over a smooth wide street. His 
 love for her increased rather than lessened. How 
 wonderful it was. . . . The woman outside that 
 barred door of treasure. 
 
 [209] 
 
XXIX 
 
 LINDA thought frequently about Dodge 
 and his feeling for her; memories of his 
 words, his appearance, speculations, 
 spread through her tranquil daily affairs like the 
 rich subdued pattern of a fine carpet on the bare 
 floor of her life. She was puzzled by the depth 
 of a passion that, apparently, made no demands 
 other than the occasional necessity to be with her 
 and the knowledge that she existed. If she had 
 been a very intelligent woman, and, of course, not 
 quite bad-looking, she might have understood 
 both Pleydon and Arnaud, the latter a man whose 
 mind was practically absorbed in the pages of 
 books. There could be no doubt, no question, of 
 their love for her. 
 
 Then there had always been the others the 
 men at the parties, in her garden, through the old 
 days of her childhood in hotels. It was very 
 stupid, very annoying, but at the same time she 
 became- interested in what, with her candid in 
 difference, affected them. She had never, really, 
 [210] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 even when she desired, succeeded in giving them 
 anything, anything conscious or for which they 
 moved. Judith Feldt, on the contrary, had been 
 prodigal. And, while certainly numbers of men 
 had been attracted to her, they all tired of her 
 with marked rapidity. Men met Judith, Linda 
 recalled, with eagerness, they came immediately 
 and often to see her ... for, perhaps, a month. 
 Then, temporarily deserted, she was submerged 
 in depression and nervous tears. 
 
 But, while it was obviously impossible for all 
 lovers to be constant, two extraordinary and su 
 perior men would be faithful to her as long as 
 she lived, no as long as they lived. This was 
 beyond doubt. One was celebrated she watched 
 with a quiet pride Pleydon s fame penetrate the 
 country and the other, her husband, a person 
 of the most exacting delicacy of habits, intellect 
 and wit. 
 
 What was it, she wondered, that made the su 
 preme importance of women to men worth con 
 sideration. Linda was thinking of this now in 
 connection with her daughter. Vigne was four 
 teen; a larger girl than she had ever been, with 
 her father s fine abundant cinnamon-brown hair, 
 a shapely sensitive mouth, and a wide brown gaze 
 [211] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 with a habit of straying, at inappropriate mo 
 ments, from things seen to the invisible. She 
 was, Linda realized thankfully, transparently 
 honest; her only affectation was the slight super 
 cilious manner of her associations ; and she read, 
 ridiculously like her father, with increasing 
 pleasure. 
 
 However, what engaged Linda most was the 
 fact that Vigne already liked men; she had been 
 at the fringe, as it were, of young dances, with a 
 sparkling satisfaction to herself and the securely 
 nice youths who "cut in" at her brief appear 
 ances. 
 
 The truth was that Linda saw that more than a 
 trace of Stella Condon s warm generosity of 
 emotion had been brought by herself to Arnaud s 
 daughter. The faults of every life, every circum 
 stance, were endlessly multiplied through all exist 
 ence. At fourteen, it was Linda s frowning im 
 pression, her mother had very fully instructed her 
 in the wiles and structure of admirable marriage, 
 and she had never completely lost some hard 
 pearls of the elder s wisdom. Should she, in 
 turn, communicate them to Vigne? 
 
 The moment, the anxiety, she dreaded was ar 
 riving, and it found her no freer of doubt than 
 [212] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 had the other aspects of her own responses. Yet 
 here she was possessed by the keenest need for 
 absolute rectitude; and perhaps this, she thought, 
 with an unusual pleasure, was an evidence of the 
 affection she had seemed to lack. But in the end 
 she said nothing. 
 
 She was still unable to disentangle the flesh 
 from the spirit, love the love that so amazingly 
 illuminated Dodge Pleydon from comfort. 
 Dodge had disturbed all her sense of values, 
 even to the point of unsettling her allegiance to 
 the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had 
 worked this without giving her anything definite, 
 that she could explain to Vigne, in return. Linda 
 preserved her demand for the actual. If she 
 could only comprehend the force animating 
 Dodge she felt life would be clear. 
 
 She was tempted to experiment when had such 
 a possibility occurred to her before? and dis 
 cover just how far in several directions Pleydon s 
 devotion went. This would be easy now, she was 
 unrestrained by the fact of Arnaud, and the old 
 shrinking from the sculptor happily vanished. 
 Yet with him before her, on one of his infrequent 
 visits to their house, she realized that her courage 
 was insufficient. Was it that or something 
 [213] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 deeper a reluctance to turn herself like a knife 
 in the source of the profoundest compliment a 
 woman could be paid. Linda thought too highly 
 of his love for that; the texture of the carpet had 
 become too gratifying. 
 
 They were all three in the library, as cus 
 tomary; and Linda, restless, saw her reflection 
 in a closed long window. She was wearing yel 
 low, the color of the jonquils on a candle-stand; 
 but with her familiar sash tied and the ends fall 
 ing to the hem of her skirt. The pointed oval 
 of her face was unchanged, her pallor, the 
 straight line of her black bang, the blueness of 
 her eyes, were as they had been a surprisingly 
 long while ago. Arnaud, with a disconcerting 
 comprehension, demanded, "Well, are you satis 
 fied?" She replied coolly, "Entirely." Pleydon, 
 seated for over an hour without moving, or even 
 the trivial relief of a cigarette, followed her with 
 his luminous uncomfortable gaze, his disem 
 bodied passion. 
 
 [214] 
 
XXX 
 
 LINDA heard Vigne s laugh, the expres 
 sion of a sheer lightness of heart, follow 
 ing a low eager murmur of voices in her 
 daughter s room, and she was startled by its re 
 semblance to the gay pitch of Mrs. Moses Feldt s 
 old merriment. Three of Vigne s friends were 
 with her, all approximately eighteen, talking, 
 Linda knew, men and it was autumn antici 
 pating the excitements of their bow to formal so 
 ciety that winter. They had, she silently added, 
 little enough to learn about the latter. Through 
 the year past they had been to a dancing-class 
 identical, except for an earlier hour and age, with 
 mature affairs; but before that they had been 
 practically introduced to the pleasures of their in 
 heritance. 
 
 The men were really boys at the university, 
 past the first year, receptacles of unlimited 
 worldly knowledge and experience. They be 
 longed to exclusive university societies and eating 
 [215] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 clubs, and Linda found their stiff similarity of 
 correct bigoted pattern highly entertaining. She 
 had no illusions about what might be called their 
 morals ; they were midway in the period of youth 
 ful unrestraint; but she recognized as well that 
 their attitude toward, for example, Vigne was 
 irreproachable. Such boys affected to disdain 
 the girls of their associated families ... or 
 imagined themselves incurably in love. 
 
 The girls, for their part, while insisting that 
 forty was the ideal age for a lover the terms 
 changed with the seasons, last year "suitor" had 
 been the common phrase were occasionally 
 swept in young company into a high irrational 
 passion. Mostly, through skillful adult pressure 
 or firm negation, such affairs came to nothing; 
 but even these were sometimes overcome. And, 
 when Linda had been disturbed by the echo of 
 old days in her daughter s tones, she was consid 
 ering exactly such a state. 
 
 One of the nicest youths imaginable, Bailey 
 Sandby, had lost all trace of superior aloofness 
 in a devotion to Vigne. He was short, squarely 
 built, with clear pink cheeks, steady light blue 
 eyes and crisp very fair hair. This was his last 
 seasou of academic instruction, after which a 
 [216] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 number of years, at an absurdly low payment, 
 awaited him in his father s bond brokerage con 
 cern. However, he was, Linda gathered, im 
 perious in his urgent need for Vigne s favor. 
 
 Ridiculous, she thought, at the same time 
 illogically rehearsing the resemblances of Vigne 
 to her grandmother. She had no doubt that the 
 parties Vigne shared on the terraces and wide 
 lawns, in the informal dancing at country houses, 
 were sufficiently sophisticated; there was on oc 
 casion champagne, and for the masculine ele 
 ment anyhow cocktails. The aroma of wine, 
 lightly clinging to her young daughter s breath, 
 filled her with an old instinctive sickness. 
 
 She had spoken to Arnaud who, in turn, se- 
 rerely addressed Vigne; but during this Linda 
 had been oppressed by the familiar feeling of im 
 potence. The girl, of course, had properly heard 
 them; but she gave her mother the effect of slip 
 ping easily beyond their grasp. When she had 
 gone to bed Arnaud repeated a story brought to 
 him by the juvenile Lowrie, under the influence 
 of a temporary indignation at his sister s unwar 
 ranted imposition of superiority. Arnaud went 
 on: 
 
 "Actually they had this kissing contest, it was 
 [217] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 at Chestnut Hill, with a watch held; and Vigne, 
 or so Lowrie insisted, won the prize for length of 
 time something like a minute. Now, when I 
 was young " 
 
 Submerged in apprehensive memory Linda lost 
 most of his account of the Eden-like youth of his 
 earlier day. When, at last, his assertions pierced 
 her abstraction, it was only to bring her to the 
 realization of how pathetically little he knew of 
 either Vigne or her. She weighed the question of 
 utter frankness here -the quality enhanced by 
 universal obscurity but she was obliged to check 
 her desire for perfect understanding. A purely 
 feminine need to hide, even from Arnaud, any 
 detracting facts about women shut her into a 
 diplomatic silence. In reality he could offer 
 them no help ; their problems in a world created 
 more objectively by the hand of man than God 
 were singular to themselves. Women were quite 
 like spoiled captives to foreign princes, mask 
 ing, in their apparent complacency, a necessarily 
 secret but insidiously tyrannical control. It 
 wouldn t do, in view of this, to expose too much. 
 
 The following morning it was Arnaud, rather 
 than herself, who had a letter from Pleydon. 
 "He wants us to come over to New York and his 
 [218] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 studio," the former explained. "He has some 
 commission or other from a city in the Middle 
 West, and a study to show us. I d like it very 
 much; we haven t seen this place, and his sur 
 roundings are not to be overlooked." 
 
 Pleydon s rooms were directly off Central Park 
 West, in an apartment house obviously designed 
 for prosperous creative arts, with a hall frescoed 
 in the tones of Puvis de Chavannes and an ele 
 vator cage beautifully patterned in iron grilling. 
 Dodge Pleydon met them in his narrow entry and 
 conducted them into a pleasant reception-room. 
 "It s a duplex," he explained of his quarters; 
 "the dining-room you see and the kitchen s be 
 yond, while the baths and all that are over our 
 heads; the studio fills both floors." 
 
 There were low book cases with their con 
 tinuous top used as a shelf for a hundred various 
 objects, deep long chairs of caressing ease and 
 chairs of coffee-colored wicker with amazingly 
 high backs woven with designs of polished shells 
 into the semblance of spread peacocks tails. 
 The yellow silk curtains at the windows, the rug 
 with the intricate coloring of a cashmere shawl, 
 the Russian tea service, were in a perfection of 
 order; and Linda almost resentfully acknowl- 
 [219] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 edged the skilful efficiency of his maid. It was 
 surprising that, without a wife, a man could man 
 age such a degree of comfort! 
 
 Over tea far better than hers, in china of an 
 infinitely finer fragility, she studied Pleydon 
 thoughtfully. He looked still again perceptibly 
 older, his face continued to grow sparer of flesh, 
 emphasizing the aggressively bony structure of 
 his head. When he shut his mouth after a de 
 cided statement she could see the projection of 
 the jaw and the knotted sinews at the base of his 
 cheeks. No, Dodge didn t seem well. She 
 asked if there had been any return of the fever 
 and he nodded in an impatient affirmative, re 
 turning at once to the temporarily suspended con 
 versation with Arnaud. There was a vast dif 
 ference, too, in the way in which he talked. 
 
 His attitude was as assertive as ever, but it 
 had less expression in words; unaccountable 
 periods of silence, almost ill-natured, overtook 
 him, spaces of abstraction when it was plain that 
 he had forgotten the presence of whoever might 
 be by. Even direct questions sometimes failed 
 to pierce immediately his consciousness. Dodge, 
 Linda told herself, lived entirely too much 
 alone. Then she said this aloud, thoughtlessly, 
 [220] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 and she was startled by the sudden intolerable 
 flash of his gaze. An awkward pause followed, 
 broken by the uprearing of Pleydon s consider 
 able length. 
 
 "I must take you into the studio before it is 
 too dark," he proceeded. "Every creative spirit 
 knows when its great moment has come. Well, 
 mine is here." The men stood aside as Linda, 
 her head positively ringing with the thrill that 
 was like a strain of Gluck, the happy sadness, 
 entered the bare high spaciousness of Dodge 
 Pleydon s workroom. 
 
 [221] 
 
XXXI 
 
 EVERYTHING she saw, the stripped 
 floor, the white walls bare but for some 
 casts like the dismembered fragments of 
 flawless blanched bodies, the inclined plane of 
 the wide skylight, bore an impalpable white dust 
 of dried clay. In a corner, enclosed in low 
 boards, a stooped individual with wood-soled 
 shoes and a shovel was working a mass of clay 
 over which at intervals he sprinkled water, and 
 at intervals halted to make pliable lumps of a 
 uniform size which he added to a pile wrapped 
 in damp cloths. There were a number of model 
 ing stands with twisted wires grotesquely re 
 sembling a child s line drawing of a human be 
 ing; while a stand with some modeling tools on 
 its edge bore an upright figure shapeless in its 
 swathing of dampened cloths. 
 
 "The great moment," Pleydon said again, in 
 
 a vibrant tone. "But you know nothing of all 
 
 this," he directly addressed Linda. "Neither, 
 
 probably, will you have heard of Simon Down- 
 
 [222] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ige. He was born at Cottarsport, in Massachu 
 setts, about eighteen forty ; and, after in the sup 
 port of his hatred of any slavery he fought 
 through the Civil War, he came home and found 
 that his town stifled him. He didn t marry at 
 once, as so many returning soldiers did; instead 
 he was wedded to a vision of freedom, freedom 
 of opinion, of spirit, worship any kind of 
 spaciousness whatever. And, in the pursuit of 
 that, he went West. 
 
 "He told them that he was going to find but 
 found was the word a place where men could 
 live together in a purity of motives and air. No 
 more, you understand; he hadn t a personal 
 fanatical belief to exploit and attract the hysteria 
 of women and insufficient men. He was not a 
 pathological messiah; but only Simon Downige, 
 an individual who couldn t comfortably breathe 
 the lies and injustice and hypocrisy of the or 
 dinary community. No doubt he was unbal 
 anced his sensitiveness to a universal condition 
 would prove that. Normally people remain un 
 disturbed by such trivialities. If they didn t an 
 end would come to one or the other, the lies or the 
 world. 
 
 "He traveled part way in a Conestoga wagon 
 [223] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 a flight out of Egypt; they were common then, 
 slow canvas-covered processions with entire fam 
 ilies drawn by the mysterious magnetism of the 
 West. Then, leaving even such wayfarers, he 
 walked, alone, until he came on a meadow by a 
 little river and a grove of trees, probably cotton- 
 woods. . . . That was Simon Downige, and 
 that, too, was Hesperia. Yes, he was unbal 
 anced the old Greek name for beautiful lands. 
 It is a city now, successful and corruptly ad 
 ministered what always happens to such visions. 
 
 "It is necessary, Linda, as I ve always told 
 you, to understand the whole motive behind a 
 creation in permanent form. A son of Simon s 
 yes, he finally married a unique and very rich 
 character, wife dead and no children, commis 
 sioned a monument to the founder of Hesperia, in 
 Ohio, and of his fortune. 
 
 "They even have a civic body for the control 
 of public building; and they came East to ap 
 prove my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. 
 They were very solemn, and one, himself a 
 sculptor, a graduate of the Beaux Arts, ran a 
 suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible 
 damage. But, after a great deal of hesitation, 
 and a description from the sculptor of what he 
 [224] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 thought excellently appropriate for such mag 
 nificence, they accepted my study. The present 
 Downige, really though I understand there is 
 another pretentious branch in Hesperia bullied 
 them into it. He cursed the Beaux-Arts gradu 
 ate with the most brutal and satisfactory free 
 dom the tyranny of his money; the crown, you 
 see, of Simon s hope." 
 
 He unwrapped one by one the wet cloths ; and 
 Linda, in an eagerness sharp like anxiety, finally 
 saw the statue, under life-size, of a seated man 
 with a rough stick and bundle at his feet. A 
 limp hat was in his hand, and, beneath a brow to 
 which the hair was plastered by sweat, his eyes 
 gazed fixed and aspiring into a hidden dream 
 perfectly created by his desire. Here, she rea 
 lized at last, she had a glimmer of the beauty, 
 the creative force, that animated Dodge Pleydon. 
 Simon Downige s shoes were clogged with mud, 
 his entire body, she felt, ached with weariness; 
 but his gaze nothing Linda discovered but 
 shadows over two depressions was far away in 
 the attainment of his place of justice and truth. 
 
 She found a stool and, careless of the film of 
 dust, sat absorbed in the figure. Pleydon again 
 had lost all consciousness of their presence; he 
 [225] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly ad 
 vanced, looking at his work from under drawn 
 brows. Arnaud spoke first: 
 
 "It s impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. 
 You know what you ve done better than any one 
 else could. You have all our admiration." 
 Linda watched the tenderness with which the other 
 covered Simon Downige s vision in clay. Later, 
 returning home after dinner, Arnaud specu 
 lated about Pleydon s remarkable increase in 
 power. "I had given him up," he went on; "I 
 thought he was lost in those notorious debauches 
 of esthetic emotions. Does he still speak of 
 loving you?" 
 
 "Yes," Linda replied. "Are you annoyed by 
 it?" He answered, "What good if I were?" 
 She considered him, turned in his chair to face 
 her, thoughtfully. "I haven t the slightest doubt 
 of its quality, however all in that Hesperia of 
 old Downige s. To love you, my dear Linda, 
 has certain well-defined resemblances to a calam 
 ity. If you ask me if I object to what you do 
 give him, my answer must shock the gods of art. 
 I would rather you didn t." 
 
 "What is it, Arnaud?" she demanded. "I 
 haven t the slightest idea. I wish I had." 
 [226] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "Platonic," he told her shortly. "The term 
 has been hopelessly ruined, yet the sense, the 
 ^ruth, I am forced to believe, remains." 
 
 "But you know how stupid I am and that I 
 can t understand you." 
 
 "The woman in whom a man sees God," he 
 proceeded irritably: 
 
 " La figlia della sua mente, I amorosa idea. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, wrung with a sharp obscure 
 hurt. "I know that, I ve heard it before." Her 
 excitement faded at her absolute inability to 
 place the circumstances of her memory. The 
 sound of the words vanished, leaving no more 
 than the familiar deep trouble, the disappoint 
 ing sensation of almost grasping Linda was un 
 able to think what. 
 
 "After all, you are my wife." He had recov 
 ered his normal shy humor. "I can prove it. 
 You are the irreproachable mother of our unsur 
 passed children. You have a hopeless vision 
 like this Simon s of seeing me polished and de 
 cently pressed; and I insist on your continuing 
 with the whole show." 
 
 Her mind arbitrarily shifted to the thought 
 of her father, who had walked out of his house, 
 left yes his family, without any intimation. 
 [227] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Then, erratically, it turned to Vigne, to Vigne 
 and young Sandby with his fresh cheeks and im 
 pending penniless years acquiring a comprehen 
 sion of the bond market. She said, "I wonder 
 if she really likes Bailey?" Arnaud s energy 
 of dismay was laughable, "What criminal folly! 
 They haven t finished Mother Goose yet." 
 
 [228] 
 
XXXII 
 
 LINDA, who expected to see Pleydon s 
 statue of Simon Downige finished im 
 mediately in a national recognition of its 
 splendor, was disappointed by his explanation 
 that, probably, it would not be ready for casting 
 within two years. He intended to model it again, 
 life-size, before he was ready for the heroic. 
 April, the vivifying, had returned; and, as al 
 ways in the spring, Linda was mainly conscious 
 of the mingled assuaging sounds of life newly 
 admitted through open windows. A single 
 shaded lamp was lighted by a far table, where 
 Arnaud sat cutting the pages of The Living Age 
 with an ivory blade; Dodge was blurred in the 
 semi-obscurity. 
 
 He came over to see them more frequently now, 
 through what he called the great moment so 
 tiresomely extended of his life. Pleydon came 
 oftener but he said infinitely less. It was his 
 custom to arrive for dinner and suddenly depart 
 early or late in the evening. At times she went 
 [229] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 up to her room and left the two almost morosely 
 silent men to their own thoughts or pages; at 
 others she complained no other woman alive 
 would stay with such uninteresting and thor 
 oughly selfish creatures. They never made the 
 pretense of an effort to consider or amuse her. 
 At this Arnaud would put aside his book and be 
 gin an absurd social conversation in the man 
 ner of Vigne s associates. Pleydon, however, 
 wouldn t speak; nothing broke the somberness 
 of his passionate absorption in invisible tyran 
 nies. She gave up, finally, a persistent effort to 
 lighten his moods. Annoyed she told him that 
 if he did not change he d be sick, and then where 
 would everything be. 
 
 All at once, through the open window, she 
 heard Stella, her mother, laughing; the carelessly 
 gay sound overwhelmed her with an instinctive 
 unreasoning dread. Linda rose with a half 
 gasp but of course it was Vigne in the garden 
 with Bailey Sandby. 
 
 She sank back angry because she had been 
 startled; but her irritation perished in disturbing 
 thought. It wasn t, she told herself, Vigne s ac 
 tions that made her fear the future so much as 
 her, Linda s, knowledge of the possibilities of the 
 [230] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 past. Her undying hatred of that existence 
 choked in her throat; the chance of its least 
 breath touching Vigne, Arnaud s daughter, 
 roused her to any embittered hazard. 
 
 The girl, she was certain, returned a part at 
 least of Bailey s feeling. Linda expected no con 
 fidences what had she done to have them? 
 and Arnaud was right, affairs of the heart were 
 never revealed until consummated. Her conclu 
 sion had been reached by indirect quiet deduc 
 tions. Vigne, lately, was different; her attitude 
 toward her mother had changed to the subtle re 
 serve of feminine maturity. Her appearance, 
 overnight, it seemed, had improved; her color 
 was deeper, a delicate flush burned at any sur 
 prise in her cheeks, and the miracle of her body 
 was perfected. 
 
 It wasn t, Linda continued silently, that Vigne 
 could ever follow the example of Stella Condon 
 through the hotels and lives of men partly bald, 
 prodigal, and with distant families. Whatever 
 happened to her would be in excellent surround 
 ings and taste; but the result the sordid havoc, 
 inside and out, the satiety alternating with the 
 points of brilliancy, and finally, inexorably, 
 sweeping over them in a leaden tide would be 
 [231] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 identical. She wondered a little at the strength 
 of her detestation for such living; it wasn t 
 moral in any sense with which she was familiar; 
 in fact it appeared to have a vague connection 
 with her own revolt from the destruction of death. 
 She wanted Vigne as well to escape that catas 
 trophe, to hold inviolate the beauty of her youth, 
 her fineness and courage. 
 
 She was convinced, too, that if she loved 
 Bailey, and was disappointed, some of the harm 
 would be done immediately; Linda saw, in imagi 
 nation, the pure flame of Vigne s passion fanned 
 and then arbitrarily extinguished. She saw the 
 resemblance of the dead woman, all those other 
 painted shades, made stronger. A sentence 
 formed so vividly in her mind that she looked up 
 apprehensively, certain that she had spoken it 
 aloud : 
 
 If Vigne does come to care for him they must 
 marry. 
 
 Her thoughts left the girl for Arnaud he 
 would absolutely oppose her there, and she specu 
 lated about the probable length his opposition 
 would reach. What would he say to her? It 
 couldn t be helped, in particular it couldn t be 
 explained, neither to him nor to the friendly cor- 
 [232] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 rectness of Bailey Sandby s mother. She, alone, 
 must accept any responsibility, all blame. 
 
 The threatened situation developed more 
 quickly than she had anticipated. Linda met 
 Bailey, obviously disturbed, in the portico, leav 
 ing their house; his manner, mechanically, was 
 good ; and then, with an irrepressible boyish rush 
 of feeling, he stopped her: 
 
 "Vigne and I love each other and Mr. Hallet 
 won t hear of it. He insulted us with the verse 
 about the old woman who went to the cupboard to 
 get a bone, and if he hadn t been her father " 
 he breathed a portentous and difficult self-repres 
 sion. "Then he took a cowardly advantage of 
 my having no money, just now; right after I 
 explained how I was going to make wads with 
 Vigne." 
 
 An indefinable excitement possessed Linda, ac 
 companied by a sudden acute fear of what Arnaud 
 might say. She wanted more than anything else 
 in life to go quickly, inattentively, past Bailey 
 Sandby and up to her room. Nothing could be 
 easier, more obvious, than her disapproval of a 
 moneyless boy. She made a step forward with 
 an assumed resolute ignoring of his disturbed 
 presence. It was useless. A dread greater than 
 [233] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 her fright at Arnaud held her in the portico, her 
 hand lifted to the polished knob of the inner door. 
 Linda turned slowly, cold and white, "Wait," 
 she said to his shoulder in an admirable coat; 
 then she gazed steadily into his frank pained 
 eyes. 
 
 "How do you know that you love Vigne?" she 
 demanded. "You are so young to be certain it 
 will last always. And Vigne " 
 
 "How does any one know?" he replied. "How 
 did you? Married people always forget their 
 own experiences, the happy way things went with 
 them. From all I see money hasn t much to do 
 with loving each other. But, of course, I m not 
 going to be poor, not with Vigne. Nobody 
 could. She d inspire them. Mr. Hallet knows 
 all about me, too; and he s the oldest kind of a 
 friend of the family. I suppose when he sees 
 father at the Rittenhouse Club they ll have a 
 laugh a laugh at Vigne and me. 7 His hand, 
 holding the brim of a soft brown hat, clenched 
 tensely. 
 
 "No," Linda told him, "they won t do that." 
 Her obscure excitement was communicated to 
 him. "Why not?" he demanded. 
 
 "Because," she paused to steady her voice, "be- 
 [234] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 cause I am going to take a very great responsi 
 bility. If it fails, if you let it fail, you ll ruin 
 ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will 
 consent to your marrying Vigne." She escaped 
 at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude. 
 Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in 
 the hall, busy with the loosening of her veil. 
 Perhaps it would be better to speak to him after 
 dinner; she ought to question Vigne first; but, as 
 she stood debating, her daughter passed her tem 
 pestuously, blurred with crying, and Arnaud 
 angrily demanded her presence. 
 
 [235] 
 
XXXIII 
 
 44 "^T yOU were quite right," he cried; "this 
 ^^ young idiot Sandby has been telling 
 JL Vigne that he loves her; and now 
 Vigne assures me, with tears, that she likes it! 
 They want to get married next week, tomor 
 row, this evening." Linda stood by the window; 
 soon the magnolia-tree would be again laden with 
 flowers. She gathered her courage into a de 
 termined composure of tone. "I saw Bailey out 
 side," she admitted. "He told me. It seems 
 excellent to me." 
 
 Arnaud Hallet incredulously challenged her. 
 "What do you mean that you gave him a trace 
 of encouragement!" Linda replied: 
 
 "I said that I was certain you would con 
 sent." She halted his exasperated gesture. 
 "You think Vigne is nothing but a child, and yet 
 she is as old as I was at our wedding. My 
 mother was no older when Bartram Lowrie mar- 1 
 ried her. I think Vigne is very fortunate, 
 [236] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Bailey is as nice as possible; and, as he said, it 
 isn t as if you knew nothing of the Sandbys; 
 they are as dignified as the Lowries." 
 
 An expression she had never before seen hard 
 ened his countenance into a sarcasm that trav 
 estied his customary humor. "You realize, of 
 course, that except for what his father gives him 
 young Sandby is wretchedly poor. He s nice 
 enough but what has that to do with it? And, in 
 particular, how does it touch you, Linda Condon? 
 Do you suppose I can ever forget your answer 
 that time I first asked you to marry me? You 
 wouldn t consider a poor man; you were worth, 
 really, a hundred thousand a year; but, if noth 
 ing better came along, you might sacrifice your 
 self for fifty." 
 
 "I remember very well," she answered; "and, 
 curiously enough, I am not ashamed. I was 
 very sensible then, in a horrible position with 
 extravagant habits. They were me. I couldn t 
 change myself. Without money I should have 
 made you, any man, entirely miserable. Arnaud, 
 f I hadn t I haven t now the ability to see every- 
 g important through the affections, like so 
 many many women. You often told me that; 
 who hasn t? I have always admitted it wasn t 
 [237] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 pleasant nor praiseworthy. But how, to use your 
 own words, does all that affect Vigne? She isn t 
 cold but very warm-hearted; and, instead of my 
 experience, she has her own so much better feel- 
 ing." 
 
 "I absolutely refuse to allow anything of the 
 sort," he declared sharply. "I won t even dis 
 cuss it for three years. Tell this Sandby in 
 fant, if you like, to come back then." 
 
 "In three years, or in one year, Vigne may be 
 quite different, yes less lovable. Happiness, 
 too, is queer, Arnaud; there isn t a great deal of 
 it. Not an overwhelming amount. If it ap 
 pears for an instant it must be held as tightly 
 as possible. It doesn t come back, you know. 
 Don t turn to your book yet you can t get rid of 
 us, of Vigne and me, like that; and then it s 
 rude ; the first time, I believe, you have ever been 
 impolite to me." 
 
 " Forgive me," he spoke formally. "You seem 
 to think that I am as indifferent as yourself. 
 You might be asking the day of the week to judge 
 from your calm appearance. The emotion of a 
 father, or even of a mother, perhaps, you hav 
 never explored. On the whole you are fortunate. 
 [238] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 And you are always protected by your celebrated 
 honesty." She said: 
 
 "I promised Bailey your consent." 
 
 "Why bother about that? It isn t necessary 
 for your new romantic mood. An elopement, 
 with you to steady the ladder, would be more ap 
 propriate." 
 
 She repeated the fact of her engagement. 
 Her dread for him had vanished, its place 
 now taken by a distrust of what, in her merged 
 detachment and suffering, she might blunder 
 ingly do. At the back of this she realized 
 that his case, his position, was hopeless. With 
 out warning, keen and undimmed, his love for 
 her flashed through his resentful misery. There 
 was no spoken acknowledgement of surrender; 
 he sank into his chair dejected and pitiable, in 
 finitely gray. His shoes, on the brightness of 
 the hooked rug, were dingy, his coat drawn and 
 wrinkled. 
 
 Linda saw herself on her knees before him, be 
 fore his patience and generosity, sobbing her con 
 trition into his forgiving hands. She longed with 
 Jkevery nerve as she had so often before to lose 
 herself in passionate emotion. She had never 
 [239] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 been more erect or withdrawn, never essentially 
 less touched. After a little, waiting for him to 
 speak, she saw that he, too, had retreated into the 
 profound depths of his own illusions and de 
 spairs. 
 
 [240] 
 
XXXIV 
 
 FOR a surprising while even in the face 
 of Vigne s radiance Arnaud was as still 
 and shadowed as the inert surface of a 
 dammed stream. Then slowly, the slenderest 
 trickle at first, his wit revived his spirit; and he 
 opened an unending mock-solemn attack on 
 Bailey Sandby s eminently serious acceptance of 
 the responsibilities of his allowed love. 
 
 The boy had left the university, and his father 
 a striking replica of Arnaud s prejudices, im 
 patience and fundamental kindness exchanged 
 with Vigne s male parent the most dismal proph 
 ecies together with concrete plans for their chil 
 dren s future security. This, inevitably, re 
 sulted in Vigne s marriage; a ceremony unat 
 tended by Pleydon except by the presence of a 
 very liberal check. 
 
 The life-size version of his Simon Downige 
 
 was again under way it had been torn down, 
 
 Linda knew, more than once and he was in a 
 
 fever of composition. Nor was this, she de- 
 
 [241] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 cided with Arnaud, his only oppression: the 
 Asiatic fever clung to him with disquieting per 
 sistence. Pleydon himself admitted he had a de 
 gree or two in the evening. 
 
 Linda was seated in his studio near Central 
 Park West, perhaps a year later, and she observed 
 aloud that so much wet clay around was bad for 
 him. He laughed : nothing now could happen to 
 him, he was forever beyond accident, sickness, 
 death his statue for the monument in Hesperia 
 was finished. It stood revealed before them, 
 practically as Linda had first seen it, but en 
 larged, towering, as if the vision it portrayed had 
 grown, would continue to grow eternally, because 
 of the dignity of its hope, the necessity of its 
 realization. 
 
 "Now," she said, "it will go to the foundry and 
 be cast." He corrected her. "You will go to the 
 foundry and be cast ... in bronze." A distinct 
 graceful happiness possessed her at the knowledge 
 that his love for her was as constant as though 
 it, too, were metal. Not flesh but bronze, spirit, 
 he insisted. 
 
 The multiplying years made that no more com 
 prehensible than when, a child, she had thrilled 
 in a waking dream. Love, spirit, death. Three 
 [242] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 mysteries. But only one, she thought, was in 
 evitably hers, the last. To be loved was not 
 love itself, but only the edge of its cloak; re 
 sponse was an indivisible part of realization. 
 No, sterility was the measure of its absence. 
 And she was, Linda felt, in spite of Vigne and 
 Lowrie, the latter a specially vigorous contradic 
 tion, the most sterile woman alive. There were 
 always Dodge s assurances, but clay, stone, metal, 
 were cold for a belief to embrace. And she was, 
 she knew, lovelier now than she had ever been be 
 fore, than she would ever be again. 
 
 [243] 
 
XXXV 
 
 THE faint ringing of the bell from outside 
 that probably announced Arnaud sounded 
 unreal, futile, to Linda. He came into 
 the studio, and at once a discussion began be 
 tween the two men of the difference in the surfaces 
 of clay and bronze. The talk then shifted to the 
 pictorial sources of the heroic Simon Downige be 
 fore them, and Linda declared, "Dodge, you have 
 never made a head of me. How very unflatter 
 ing!" 
 
 "You re an affair for a painter," he replied; 
 "Goya or Alfred Stevens. No one but Goya 
 could have found a white for you, with the quality 
 of flower petals; and Stevens would have fixed 
 you in an immortality of delicate color, sur 
 rounded by your Philadelphia garden." He 
 stood quite close to her, with his jacket dragged 
 forward by hands thrust into its pockets, and he 
 added at the end of a somber interrogation, "But 
 if you would really like to know why " 
 
 In a moment more, she recognized, Dodge 
 [244] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 would explain his feeling for her to Arnaud, to 
 any one who might be present. The gleam in 
 his eyes, his remoteness from earthly concern, 
 were definitely not normal. Pleydon, his love, 
 terrified her. "No," she said with an assumed 
 hurried lightness, "don t try to explain. I must 
 manage to survive the injury to my vanity." 
 
 They left New York almost immediately, Pley 
 don suddenly determining to go with them; and 
 later were scattered through the Hallet household. 
 Vigne and her husband were temporarily living 
 there; with their heads close together they were 
 making endless computations, numerous floor 
 plans and elevations. Linda, at the piano in the 
 drawing-room, could hear them through the hall. 
 Pleydon was lounging in a chair beyond her. 
 She couldn t play but she was able, slowly, to 
 pick out the notes of simple and familiar airs 
 echoes of Gluck and blurred motives of Scar 
 latti. It was for herself, she explained; the 
 sounds, however crude and disconnected, brought 
 things back to her. What things, she replied to 
 Pleydon s query, she didn t in the least know; but 
 pleasant. 
 
 The fact that she understood so little depressed 
 her with increasing frequency. It was well 
 [245] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 enough to be ignorant as a girl, or even as a 
 young woman newly married; but she had left 
 all that behind; she had lost her youth without 
 any compensating gain of knowledge. Linda 
 could not assure herself that life was clearer 
 than it had been to her serious childhood. It 
 had always been easily measured on the surface; 
 she had had a very complete grasp of its material 
 aspects almost at once, accomplishing exactly 
 what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; 
 and her trouble an evidence of weakness ^the in 
 decision, she saw with contempt, that kept so 
 many people in a constant agitation of disap 
 pointment. 
 
 Perhaps this was enough; more than the ma 
 jority had or accomplished. She made, again, 
 a resolute effort to be contented, at rest. Her 
 straying fingers clumsily wrought a fragmentary 
 refrain that mocked her determination. It 
 wasn t new, this this dissatisfaction; but it had 
 grown sharper. As she was older her restlessness 
 increased at the realization that life, opportunity, 
 were slipping from her. Soon she would be 
 forty. 
 
 The conviction seized her that most lives re 
 flected hers in that their questioning was never 
 [246] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 answered. The fortunate, then, were the in 
 curious and the hearts undisturbed by a madden 
 ing thrill. She said aloud, "The ones who never 
 heard music." Pleydon was without a sign that 
 she had spoken. Her emotions were very deli 
 cate, very fragile, and enormously difficult to per 
 ceive. They were like plants in stony ground. 
 Where had she heard that out of the Bible? 
 Then she thought of her failure to get anything 
 from religion a part of her inability to drink at 
 the springs which others declared so refreshing. 
 Linda pressed her hands more sharply on the keys 
 and the answering discord had the effect of 
 waking her to reality. 
 
 Pleydon remained uritil the following after 
 noon, and then was lost in the foundry casting 
 his statue for six months. Arnaud went over 
 to view the completion of the bronze and re 
 turned filled with enthusiasm. "Its simplicity 
 is the surprising part," he told her. "The barest 
 statement possible. But Pleydon himself is in a 
 disturbing condition ; I can t decide if it is mental 
 or physical. The fever of course; yet that doesn t 
 account for his distance from ordinary living. 
 The truth is, I suppose, that men weren t designed 
 for great arts, and nature, like the jealous God of 
 [247] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the Hebrews, retaliates. It is absurd, but Pley- 
 don reminds me of you; you re totally different, 
 I suppose it s because of the detachment you have 
 in common." He veered to a detail of Lowrie s 
 first year at a university, and exhibited, against a 
 decent endeavor to the contrary, his boundless 
 pride in their son. 
 
 The boy was, Linda acknowledged, more than 
 commonly dependable and able. He was heavy, 
 like his father, and so diffident that he almost 
 stuttered; but his mental processes flashed in 
 quick intuitive perceptions. Lowrie was an easy 
 and brilliant student; and, perhaps because of 
 this, of his mental certainty, he was not intimate 
 with her as Arnaud had hoped and predicted. It 
 seemed to Linda that he instinctively penetrated 
 her inner doubt and regarded it without sym 
 pathy. In this he was her son. Lowrie was a 
 confident and unsympathetic critic of humanity. 
 
 Even now, so soon, there was no question of 
 his success in the law his fitness had elected. 
 The springs of his being were purely intellectual, 
 reasoning. In him Linda saw magnified her 
 own coldness; and, turned on herself, she viewed 
 it with an arbitrary feminine resentment. He 
 was actually courteous to her; but under all their 
 [248] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 intercourse there was a perceptible impatience. 
 His scorn of other women, girls, however, was 
 openly expressed and honest; it had no trace of 
 the mere affectation of pessimism natural to his 
 age. Arnaud, less thoughtful than she, was 
 vastly entertained by this, and drew Lowrie out 
 in countless sly sallies and contradictions. 
 
 Yes, he would succeed, but, after all, what 
 would his success be worth placed, that was, 
 against Vigne s radiant happiness, Bailey Sand- 
 by s quiet eyes and the quality of his return home 
 each evening? 
 
 Her thoughts came back to Pleydon she had 
 before her a New York paper describing the cere 
 mony of unveiling his Simon Downige at Hes- 
 peria. There was a long learned article praising 
 its beauty and emphasizing Pleydon s eminence. 
 He was, it proceeded, an anomaly in an age of 
 momentary experimental talents a humanized 
 Greek force. He didn t belong to to-day but to 
 yesterday and to-morrow. This gave her an un^ 
 comfortable vision of Dodge in space, with no 
 warm points of contact. She, too, was suspended 
 in that vague emptiness. Linda had the sensa 
 tion of grasping at streamers, forms, of sparkling 
 mist. A strange position in view of her unde- 
 [249] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 niable common sense, the solid foundations of 
 her temperament and experience. She saw from 
 the paper, further, that the Downige who had 
 commissioned the monument was dead. 
 
 [250] 
 
XXXVI 
 
 IN the middle of the festive period that con 
 nected Christmas with the new year Arnaud 
 turned animatedly from his breakfast scan 
 ning of the news. "It seems," he told her, "that 
 a big rumpus has developed in Hesperia over the 
 Pleydon statue the present Downige omnipo 
 tence, never friendly with our old gentleman, has 
 condemned its bronze founder. You know what 
 I mean. It s an insult to their pride, their money 
 and position, to see him perpetuated as a tramp. 
 On the contrary he was a very respectable indi 
 vidual from a prominent family and town. 
 
 "They have been moving the local heavens, 
 ever since the monument was placed, to have it 
 set aside. I suppose they would have succeeded, 
 too, if a large amount given to the city were not 
 contingent on its preservation. But then they 
 can always donate more money in the cause of 
 their sacred respectability." 
 
 Linda had never, she exclaimed, heard of any 
 thing more disgusting. It was plain that Hes- 
 [251] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 peria knew nothing of art. "Every one," she ran 
 on in the heat of her resentment, "every one, that 
 is, who should decide, agrees it s magnificent. 
 They were frightfully lucky to get it Dodge s 
 finest work." She wrote at once to Pleydon com 
 manding his presence and expressing her con 
 tempt of such depravity of opinion. To her sur 
 prise he was undisturbed, apparently, by the con 
 demnation of his monument. 
 
 He even laughed at her energy of scorn. She 
 was hurt, perceptibly silenced, with a feeling of 
 having been misunderstood or rather under 
 valued. Her disturbance at any blame attached 
 to the statue of Simon Downige was extremely 
 acute. But, she thought, if it failed to worry 
 Dodge why should she bother. She did, in spite 
 of this philosophy; Simon was tremendously im 
 portant to her. 
 
 He stood for things: she had watched his evo 
 lution from the clay sketch, and in Pleydon s 
 mind, to the final heroic proportions; and she 
 had taken for granted that a grateful world would 
 see him in her light. A woman, she decided, had 
 made the trouble; and she hated her with a per 
 sonal vigor. Pleydon said: 
 
 "I told you that old Simon was unbalanced; 
 [252] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 now you can see it by his reception in a success 
 ful city. The sculptor do you remember him, 
 a Beaux-Arts graduate? admits that he had al 
 ways opposed it, but that political motives over 
 bore his pure protest. There is a scheme now to 
 build a pavilion, for babies, and shut out the 
 monument from open view. They may do that 
 but time will sweep away their walls. If I had 
 modeled Simon Downige, yes, he would go; but 
 I modeled his vision, his aspiration the hope of 
 all men for release and purity. 
 
 "Downige and the individual babies are un 
 important compared to a vision of perfection, of 
 escape. As long as men live, if they live, they ll 
 reach up; and that gesture in itself is heaven. 
 Not accomplishment. The spirit dragging the 
 flesh higher; but spirit alone empty balloons. 
 A dream in bronze, harder even than men s heads, 
 more durable than their prejudices, so permanent 
 that it will wear out their ignorance; and in the 
 end always in the end they ll bring their 
 wreath. 
 
 "A replica has gone to Cottarsport, from me; 
 and you ought to see it there, on a block of New 
 England granite. It s in the Common, a wind 
 swept reach with low houses and a white steeple 
 [253] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 and the sea. It might have been there from the 
 beginning, rising on rock against the pale salt 
 day. They can go to hell in Hesperia." 
 
 Still Linda s hurt persisted; she saw the un 
 fortunate occurrence as a direct blow at her pride. 
 Arnaud, too, failed her; he was splendid in his 
 assault upon such rapacious stupidity ; but it was 
 only an impersonal concern. His manner ex 
 pressed the conviction that it might have been ex 
 pected. He was blind to her special enthusiasm, 
 her long intimate connection with the statue. 
 Exasperated she almost told him that it was more 
 real to her than their house, than Vigne and 
 Lowrie, than he. She was stopped, fortunately, 
 by the perception that, amazingly, the statue was 
 more actual than Dodge Pleydon. It touched the 
 center of her life more nearly. 
 
 Why, she didn t know. 
 
 If her mental confusion increased by as much 
 as a feeling, Linda thought, she would be close 
 to madness. It was unbearable at practically 
 forty. 
 
 Lowrie said, at the worst possible moment, 
 that he found the entire episode ridiculously over 
 emphasized. A statue more or less was of small 
 [254] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 importance. If the Downige family were upset 
 why didn t they employ an able lawyer to dis 
 pose of it? There were many ways for such a 
 proceeding 
 
 "I have no desire to hear them," she interrupted. 
 "You seem to know a tremendous lot, but what 
 good it will do you in the end who can say! 
 And, with all your cleverness, you haven t an 
 ounce of appreciation for art. Besides, I hate to 
 see any one as young as you so sure of himself. 
 Often I suspect you are patronizing your father 
 and me. It s not pretty nor polite." 
 
 Lowrie was obviously embarrassed by her at 
 tack, and managed the abrupt semblance of an 
 apology. Arnaud, who had put down his eternal 
 book, said nothing until the boy had vanished. 
 "Wasn t that rather sharp?" he asked mildly. 
 "Perhaps," she replied in a tone without warmth 
 or regret. "Somehow I am never comfortable 
 with Lowrie." 
 
 "You are too much alike," he shrewdly ob 
 served. "It is laughable at times. Did you 
 expect your children to be fountains of senti 
 ment? And, look here if I can get along in 
 comfort with you for life you in particular ought 
 [255] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 to put up peacefully with Lowrie. He is a 
 damned sight more human than, at bottom, you 
 are; a woman of alabaster." 
 
 "I loathe quarrels," she admitted; "they are so 
 vulgar. You know that they are not like me and 
 just said so. Oh, Arnaud, why does life get 
 harder instead of easier?" 
 
 He put his book aside completely and gazed at 
 her in patient thought. "Linda," he said finally, 
 "I have never heard anything that stirred me so 
 much; not what you said, my dear, but the recog 
 nition in your voice." A wistfulness of love for 
 her enveloped him ; an ineffable desire as vain as 
 the passion she struggled to give him in return. 
 She smiled in an unhappiness of apology. 
 
 "Perhaps " he stopped, waiting any assur 
 ance whatever, his face eager like a dusty lamp 
 in which the light had been turned sharply up. 
 She was unable to stir, to move her gaze from his 
 hopeful eyes, to mitigate by a breath her slender 
 white aloofness. A smile different from hers, 
 tender with remission, lingered in his fading ir 
 radiation. The dusk was gathering, adding its 
 melancholy to his age sixty-five now. Why 
 that was an old man! Her sympathy vanished 
 in her shrinking from 1 the twilight that was, as 
 [256] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 well, slowly, inevitably, deepening about her. 
 / It was laughable that, as she approached an 
 age whose only resource was tranquillity, she 
 grew more restless. Her present vague agitation 
 belonged ridiculously to youth. The philosophy 
 of the evident that had supported her so firmly 
 was breaking at the most inopportune time, j And 
 it was, she told herself, too late for anything new ; 
 the years for that had been spent insensibly with 
 Arnaud. Linda was very angry with herself, for, 
 in all her shifting state of mind, she preserved 
 an inner necessity for the quality of exactness ex 
 pressed in her clothes. There were literally no 
 neglected spaces in her conscious living. 
 
 Her thoughts finally centered about the statue 
 in Hesperia it presented an actual mark for her 
 fleeting resentments. She wondered why it so 
 largely occupied her thoughts, moved her so per 
 sonally. She watched the papers for the scat 
 tered reports of the progress of the contention it 
 had roused, some ill-natured, others supposedly 
 humorous, and nearly all uninformed. She be 
 came, Arnaud said, the champion of the esthetic 
 against Dagon. He elaborated this picture until 
 she was forced to smile against her inclination, 
 her profound seriousness. Linda had the feel- 
 [257] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ing that she, too, was on the pedestal that held 
 the bronze effigy of Simon Downige challenging 
 the fog that obscured men. Its fate was hers. 
 She didn t pretend to explain how. 
 
 As time passed it seemed to her that it took her 
 longer and longer to dress in the morning, while 
 her preparations couldn t be simpler; her habit 
 of deliberation had become nearly a vice, the 
 precision of her ruffles, her hair, a tyranny. She 
 never quite lost the satisfaction of her mirror s 
 faultless reflection; and stopped, now, for a mo 
 ment s calm interrogation of the being hardly 
 more silvery cool than the reality before her. 
 
 Arnaud was at the table, and the gaze with 
 which he met her was troubled. The morning 
 paper, she saw, was, against custom, at her place, 
 and she picked it up with an instinctive sense 
 of calamity. The blackly printed sensational 
 headline that immediately established her fear 
 sank vivid and entire into her brain: an anony 
 mous inflamed mob in Hesperia had pulled down 
 and destroyed Pleydon s statue. Their act was 
 described as a tribute to the liberality of the 
 present Downige family in the light of its objec 
 tion to the monument. 
 
 As if in the development of her feeling Linda 
 [258] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 had a sensation of crashing with a sickening vio 
 lence from a pedestal to the ground. Actually, it 
 seemed, the catastrophe had happened to her. 
 She heard, with a sense of inutility, Arnaud de 
 nouncing the outrage ; he had a pencil in his hand 
 for the composition of a telegram to Dodge. He 
 paid but perhaps only naturally no attention 
 to her, suffering dully from her fall. She shud 
 dered before the recreated lawless approaching 
 voice of the mob; the naked ugly violence froze 
 her with terror; she felt the gross hurried hands 
 winding ropes about her, the rending brutality 
 of force 
 
 She sat and automatically took a small carved 
 glass of orange-juice from a bed of ice, and her 
 chilled fingers recalled a dim image of her mother. 
 Arnaud was speaking, "I m afraid this will cut 
 through Pleydon s security, it was such a wanton 
 destruction of his unique power. You see, he 
 worked lovingly over the cast with little files 
 and countless finite improvements. The mold, I 
 think, was broken. What a piece of luck the 
 thing s at Cottarsport." He paused, obviously 
 expecting her to comment; but suddenly phrases 
 failed her. 
 
 In place of herself she should be considering 
 [259] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Dodge; her sympathy even for him was sub 
 merged in her own extraordinary injury. How 
 ever, she recovered from her first gasping shock, 
 and made an utterly commonplace remark. 
 Never had her sense of isolation been stronger. 
 "I must admit/ her husband continued, "that 
 I looked for some small display of concern. I 
 give you my word there are moments when I 
 think Pleydon himself cut you out of stone. He 
 isn t great enough for that, though; in the way 
 of perfection you successfully gild the lily. A 
 thing held to be impossible." 
 
 Linda told him with amazing inanity that his 
 opinion of her was unreliable; and, contented, 
 he lightly pursued his admiration of what he 
 called her boreal charm. At intervals she re 
 sponded appropriately and proceeded with break 
 fast. She had entered a region of dispassionate 
 consideration, her characteristic detachment, she 
 thought, regained. She mentally, calmly, recon 
 structed the motives and events that had led to the 
 destruction of the statue; they, at least, were evi 
 dent to her. She reaffirmed silently her convic 
 tion that it had resulted from the stupidity, the 
 vanity, of a woman. The limitations of men, 
 fully as narrow, operated in other directions. 
 [260] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Then, with an incredulous surprise, she was 
 aware that the clear space of her reason was 
 filling with anger. Never before had such a 
 flood of emotion possessed her; and she sur 
 rendered herself, in an enormous relief, to the 
 novelty of its obliterating tide. It deepened im 
 measurably, sweeping her far from the security 
 of old positions of indifference and critical self- 
 possession. Linda became enraged at a world 
 that had concentrated all its degraded vulgarity in 
 one unspeakable act. 
 
 [261] 
 
XXXVII 
 
 IT was fall, October, and the day was a 
 space of pale gold foliage wreathed in blue 
 garlands of mist. The gardener was busy 
 with a wooden rake and wheelbarrow in which he 
 carted away dead leaves for burning. The fire 
 was back of the low fence, in the rear, and Linda, 
 at the dining-room window, could hear the fierce 
 small crackle of flames; the drifting pungent 
 smoke was like a faint breath of ammonia. 
 Arnaud had left for the day, Lowrie was at the 
 university, while Vigne and her husband mov 
 ing toward their ultimate colonial threshold had 
 taken a small house. She was alone. 
 
 As usual. 
 
 However, in her present state her solitude had 
 lost its inevitability; she failed to see why it must 
 continue until the end of time. She could no 
 longer discover a sufficient reason for her limit 
 less endurance, her placid acceptance of all that 
 chance, or any inconsiderable person, happened 
 to dictate. She wasn t like that in the least. 
 [262] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Her temper had solidified as though it were ice, 
 taking everywhere the form in which it was held. 
 It was a reality. She determined, as well, that 
 her feeling should not melt back into the familiar 
 acceptance of a routine that had led her blind 
 folded across such an extent of life. 
 
 She understood now, in a large part, her dis 
 turbance at the indignity to Dodge s monument 
 he had assured her that she was its inspiration; 
 except for her it would never have been realized, 
 he would have kept on modeling those Newport 
 fountains, continued with the Susanna Nodas, 
 spending himself, ignobly. He loved her, and 
 that love had resulted in a statue the world of 
 art, of taste, honored. But it was she all the 
 while they were approving, discussing, writing 
 about, Linda Condon. 
 
 She had always been that, Pleydon had in 
 formed her, never Linda Hallet in spite of 
 Arnaud and their children. It sounded like 
 nonsense; but, at the bottom, it was truth. Of 
 course it couldn t be explained, for example, to 
 the man who had every right, every evidence, to 
 consider himself her husband. Nothing was 
 susceptible of explanation. Absolutely nothing! 
 There was the earth, which appeared to be every- 
 [263] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 thing, the houses you entered, the streets you 
 passed over, the people among whom you lived, 
 yet that wasn t all. Heavens, no! It was quite 
 unimportant compared with with other facts 
 latent in the mind and blood. 
 
 Dodge Pleydon s love was one of those other 
 facts; it was simply impossible to deny its ex 
 istence, its power. Dodge had been totally 
 changed by it, born over again. But she, who 
 had been the source, had had no good from it, 
 nothing except the thrill that had always been 
 hers. No one knew of it, counted it as her 
 achievement, paid the slightest attention to her. 
 Arnaud smiled indulgently, Lowrie scoffed. 
 When the statue had been thrown down they 
 thought of it merely as a deplorable part of the 
 day s news. They hadn t seen that she, Linda 
 Condon, was unspeakably insulted. 
 
 She doubted if she could bring them to com 
 prehend what had happened to her. Or if 
 Arnaud understood, if she made it plain, what 
 good would be done! That wouldn t save her, 
 put her back again on the pedestal. The latter 
 was necessary. Linda recognized that a great 
 deal of her feeling was based on pride; but it 
 was a pride entirely justified. She had no in- 
 [264] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 tention of submitting to the coarse hands and 
 ropes of public affront. Throughout her life she 
 had rebelled against any profanation of her per 
 son, she had hated to be touched. 
 
 Every instinct, she found, every delicate self- 
 opinion, was bound into Pleydon s success; the 
 latter had kept her alive. Without it existence 
 would have been intolerable. It was unbearable 
 now. 
 
 She discharged the small daily duties of her 
 efficient housekeeping with a contemptuous ex 
 actness; for years she had accomplished, in her 
 self, nothing more. But at last a break had 
 come. Linda recognized this without any 
 knowledge of what reparation it would find. She 
 wasn t concerned with that, a small detail. It 
 would be apparent. Arnaud was silent through 
 dinner; tired, it seemed. She saw him as if at 
 the distant end of a dull corridor as she looked 
 back. There was no change in her liking for 
 him. Mechanically she noticed the disorder of 
 his scant hair and rumpled sleeves. 
 
 Not until, waking sharply, in the middle of 
 
 the night, did she have a glimpse of a possible 
 
 course she might live with Dodge and perfectly 
 
 express both her retaliation and her accomplish- 
 
 [265] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ment. In that way she would reestablish herself 
 beside him and place their vision in bronze on an 
 elevation beyond the spite of the envious and the 
 blind. 
 
 It was so directly simple that she was surprised 
 it hadn t occurred to her before. The possibility 
 had always been a part, unsuspected and valuable, 
 of her special being; the largely condemned faults 
 of her character and experience had at least 
 brought her this a not inconsiderable freedom 
 in a world everywhere barred by the necessity for 
 upholding a hypocritical show of superiority to 
 honest desire. The detachment that deprived 
 her of life s conventional joys released her from 
 its common obligations. That conviction, how 
 ever, was too intimately connected with all her 
 inheritance to bring her any conscious dramatic 
 sense of rebellion or high feeling of justified in 
 dignation. 
 
 Sleep had deserted her, and she waited for the 
 dawn in the windows that would bring her es 
 cape. It was very slow coming; the blackness 
 took on a grayer tone, like ink with added faint 
 infusions of water. Slowly the blackness dis 
 solved and she heard the stir of the sparrows 
 in the ivy. There was the passing rumble of 
 [266] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 an early electric car on the paved aged street, 
 the blurred hurried shuffle of a workman s clumsy 
 shoes. The brightening morning was cool with 
 a premonitory touch of frost; at the window she 
 saw a vanishing silver sheen on the lawn and 
 board fence. 
 
 A sensation of youth pervaded her; and while, 
 perhaps, it was out of keeping with her years, 
 she had still her vitality unspent ; she was without 
 a trace of the momentary frost on the grass. She 
 was tranquil, leisurely; her heart evenly sent its 
 life through her unflushed body. Piece by piece 
 she put on her web-like garments, black and 
 white; brushing the heavy stream of her hair 
 and tying the inevitable sash about her supple 
 waist. 
 
 Below she met Arnaud with an unpleasant 
 shock she hadn t given him a thought. Her 
 feeling now was hardly more than annoyance at 
 her forgetfulness. He would be terribly dis 
 tressed at her going, and she was genuinely sorry 
 for this, poised at the edge of an explanation of 
 her purpose. Arnaud was putting butter and 
 salt into his egg-cup, after that he would grind 
 the pepper from a French mill pure spices were 
 a precision of his and she waited until the op 
 eration was completed. 
 
 [267] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Then it occurred to her that all she could hope 
 to accomplish by admitting her intention was 
 the ruin of his last hour alone with her. He was 
 happier, gayer, than usual. But his age was 
 evident in his voice, his gestures. Linda 
 marveled at her coldness, her ruthless disregard 
 of Arnaud s claim on her, of his affection as deep 
 as Pleydon s, perhaps no less fine but not so 
 imperative. Yet Arnaud had had over twenty 
 years of her life, the best; and she had never de 
 ceived him about the quality of her gift. It was 
 right, now, for Dodge to have the remainder. 
 But whether it were right or wrong, there was no 
 failure of her determination to go to Pleydon in 
 the vindication of her existence. 
 
 She delayed speaking to Arnaud until, sud 
 denly, breakfast was over. He seldom went to 
 the law office where he had been a partner, but 
 stayed about the lower floor of his house, in the 
 library or directing small outside undertakings. 
 Either that or he left, late, for the Historical So 
 ciety, with which his connection and interest 
 were uninterrupted. As Linda passed him in the 
 hall he was fumbling in the green bag that ac 
 companied all his journeyings into the city; and 
 she gathered that he intended to make one of his 
 [268] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 occasional sallies. She proceeded above, to her 
 room, where with steady hands she pinned on her 
 hat. It would be impossible to take any addi 
 tional clothes, and she d have to content herself 
 with something ready-made until she could order 
 others in the establishment of her living with 
 Dodge. Her close-fitting jacket, gloves, and a 
 short cape of sables were collected; she gazed 
 finally, thoughtfully, about the room, and then, 
 with a subdued whisper of skirts, descended the 
 stair. Arnaud was in the library, bending over 
 the table that bore his accumulation of papers and 
 serious journals. A lingering impulse to speak 
 was overborne by the memory of what, lately, she 
 had endured she saw him at the dusty end of 
 that long corridor through which she had monoto 
 nously journeyed, denied of her one triumph, 
 lost in inconsequential shadows and she con 
 tinued firmly to the door which closed behind her 
 with a normal mute smoothness, an inanimate 
 silence. 
 
 [269] 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 THE maid who admitted Linda to Pley- 
 don s apartment, first replying, "Yes, 
 Mrs. Hallet. No, Mrs. Hallet," to her 
 questions, continued in fuller sentences express 
 ing a triumph of sympathy over mere correctness. 
 She lingered at the door of the informal drawing- 
 room, imparting the information that Mr. Pley- 
 don had become very irregular indeed about his 
 meals, and that his return for lunch was uncertain. 
 Something, however, would be prepared for her. 
 Linda acknowledged this briefly. Often, with 
 Mr. Pleydon at home, he wouldn t so much as 
 look at his dinner. Times, too, it seemed as 
 though he had been in the studio all night. He 
 went out but seldom now, and rarely remained 
 away for more than an hour or two. Linda heard 
 this without an indication of responsive interest, 
 and the servant, returning abruptly from the ex 
 cursion into humanity, disappeared. 
 
 She was glad to have this opportunity alone to 
 accustom herself to a novel position. But she 
 [270] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 was once more annoyingly calm. Annoyingly, 
 she reiterated; the fervor of her anger, which at 
 the same time had been bitterly cold, had lessened. 
 She was practically normal. She regarded this, 
 the loss of her unprecedented emotion, in the 
 light of a fraud on her sanguine decision. Linda 
 had counted on its support, its generous irre 
 sistible tide, to carry her through the remainder 
 of her life with the exhilaration she had so largely 
 missed. 
 
 Here in Dodge s room she was as placid, al 
 most, as though she were in the library at home. 
 That customary term took its place in her thoughts 
 before she recognized that, with her, it had shifted. 
 However, it was unimportant home had never 
 been a magical word to her; it belonged in the 
 vast category which, of such universal weight, 
 left her unstirred. She resembled those Eastern 
 people restlessly and perpetually moving across 
 sandy deserts as they exhausted, one after an 
 other, widely separated scanty oases. 
 
 She studied the objects around her with the 
 pleased recognition that they were unique, val 
 uable, and in faultless taste. Then she fell to 
 wondering at the difference had Dodge been poor: 
 she would have come to him, Linda knew, just 
 [271] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the same. But, she admitted frankly, it would 
 have been uncomfortable. Perhaps that actual 
 poverty, actual deprivation was what her char 
 acter needed. A popular sentiment upheld such 
 a view; she decided it was without foundation. 
 There was no reason why beauty, finely appro 
 priate surroundings, should damage the spirit. 
 
 Her mind turned to an examination of her 
 desertion of Arnaud, but she could find no trace 
 of conventional regret; of what, she felt, her sen 
 sation ought to be. The instinctive revolt from 
 oblivion was an infinitely stronger reality than 
 any allegiance to abstract duty. She was con 
 sumed by the passionate need to preserve the in 
 tegrity of being herself. The word selfish oc 
 curred to her but to be met unabashed by the 
 query, why not? Selfishness was a reproach ap 
 plied by those who failed to get what they wanted 
 to all who succeeded. Linda wasn t afraid of 
 public opinion, censure; she didn t shrink even 
 from the injury to her husband. What Dodge 
 would think, however, was hidden from her. 
 
 She had no doubt of his complete acceptance 
 of all she offered; ordinary obligations to so 
 ciety bound him as little as they held her. It 
 would be enough that she wanted to come to him. 
 [272] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 She would bother him, change his habit of living, 
 very little. Long years of loneliness had taught 
 her to be self-sufficient. Linda would be too wise 
 to insist on distasteful regularity in the interest 
 of a comparatively unimportant well-being. In 
 short, she wouldn t bother him. That must be 
 made clear at once. 
 
 More than anything else he would be inex 
 pressibly delighted to have her with him, to find 
 at last his love. Little intimacies of satin 
 mules, glimpses, charming to an artist! He d 
 be faultless, too, in the relationships where Arnaud 
 as well had never for a moment deviated from 
 beautiful consideration. Two remarkable men. 
 While her deficiency in humor was admitted, she 
 saw a glimmer of the absurd in her attitude and 
 present situation. The combination, at least, 
 was uncommon. There had been no change in 
 her feeling for either Arnaud or Dodge, their 
 places in her being were undisturbed; she liked 
 her husband no less, Dodge no better. 
 
 Lunch was announced, a small ceremony of 
 covered silver dishes, heavy crystal, Nankin 
 china, and flowers. The linen, which was old, 
 bore a monogram unfamiliar to her that of 
 Dodge s mother, probably. When she had 
 [273] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 finished, but was still lingering at the narrow 
 refectory table, she heard Pleydon enter the hall 
 and the explanatory voice of the servant. An 
 unexpected embarrassment pervaded her, but she 
 overcame it by the realization that there was no 
 need for an immediate announcement of her pur 
 pose. Dodge would naturally suppose that she 
 was in New York shopping. 
 
 He did, to her intense relief, with a moving 
 pleasure that she had lunched with him. "It s 
 seldom," he went on, "that you are so sensible. 
 I hope you haven t any plans or concerts to drag 
 you away immediately. I owe you a million 
 strawberries; but, aside from that, I d like you to 
 stay as long as possible." 
 
 "Very well," she replied quietly; "I will." 
 
 She hadn t seen him since the statue at Hes- 
 peria had been destroyed, and she tried faintly 
 to tell him how much that outrage had hurt her. 
 It had injured him too, she realized; just as 
 Arnaud predicted. He showed his age more 
 gauntly, more absolutely, than the other. His 
 skin was dry as though the vitality of his coun 
 tenance had been burned out by the flame visible 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "The drunken fools! " he exclaimed of the mob 
 [274] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 that had torn Simon Downige from his eminence; 
 "they came by way of all the saloons in the city. 
 Free drinks ! That is the disturbing thing about 
 what the optimistic call civilization the fact that 
 it is always at the mercy of the ignorant and the 
 brutal. There is no security; none, that is, ex 
 cept in the individual spirit. And they, mostly, 
 are the victims of a singular insane resentment 
 Savonarola and there were greater. 
 
 "But you mustn t think, you mustn t suppose, 
 that I mean it s hopeless. How could I? Who 
 has had more from living? Love and complete 
 self-expression. That exhausts every possibility. 
 Three words. Remember Cottarsport. But the 
 love ah," he smiled, but not directly at her. 
 Linda was at once reassured and disturbed; and 
 she rose, proceeding into the drawing-room. 
 
 There she sat gracefully composed and with 
 still hands; she never embroidered or employed 
 her leisure with trivial useful tasks. Pleydon 
 was extended on a chair, his fingers caught be 
 yond his head and his long legs thrust out and 
 crossed at the ankles. His gaze was fixed on her 
 unwaveringly; and yet, when she tried to meet 
 its focus, it went behind her as though it pierced 
 the solidity of her body and the walls in the con- 
 [275] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 templation of a far-removed shining image. Her 
 disturbance grew to the inclusion of a degree of 
 fretfulness at his unbroken silence, his apparent 
 absorption in whatever his meditation projected 
 or found. 
 
 [276] 
 
XXXIX 
 
 NOW, she decided, was the moment for her 
 revelation; or rather, it couldn t very 
 well be further deferred, for it promised 
 to be halting. But, with her lips forming the 
 words, he abruptly spoke: 
 
 "I have lived so long with your spirit, it 
 has become so familiar I mean the ability of 
 completely making you out of my heart that 
 when you are here the difference isn t staggering. 
 You see, you are never away. I have that ability; 
 it came out of the other wreck. But you know 
 about it from years back. Time has only man 
 aged a greater power. Lately, and I have noth 
 ing to do with it, I have been seeing you again 
 as a girl; as young as at Markue s party; 
 younger. Not more than ten. I don t mean that 
 there is anything isn t the present fashion 
 able word subliminal? esoteric. God forbid. 
 You ll remember my hatred of that brutal decep 
 tion. 
 
 [277] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 "No, it s only a part of my ability to create the 
 shape of feeling, of Simon s hope. I see things 
 as realities capable of exact statement; and, 
 naturally, more than all the rest, you come to 
 me that way. But as a child who knows why?" 
 he relinquished the answer with an opened palm. 
 "And young like that, perhaps ten, I love you 
 more sharply, more unutterably, than at any other 
 age. What is it I love? Not your adorable 
 plastic body, not that. It isn t necessary to 
 understand. 
 
 "You have, as a child, a quality of blinding 
 loveliness in a world I absolutely distrust. An 
 Elysian flower. Is it possible, do you suppose, 
 to worship an abstract idea? It s not important 
 to insist on my sanity." 
 
 The question of that had occurred independ 
 ently to Linda; his hurried voice and lost gaze 
 filled her with apprehension. A dull reddish 
 patch, she saw, burned in either thin cheek; and 
 she told herself that the fever had revived in him. 
 Pleyd-on continued: 
 
 "Yet it is a timeless vision, because you never 
 
 get old. I see Hallet failing year by year, and 
 
 your children, only yesterday dabs of soft flesh, 
 
 grow up and pass through college and marry. I 
 
 [278] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 hear myself in the studio with an old man s 
 cough ; the chisels slip under the mall and I can t 
 move the clay about without help all fading, 
 decaying, but you. Candles burn out, hundreds 
 of them, while your whiteness, your flame 
 
 "Strange, too, how you light a world, a sky, 
 eternity. A word we have no business with; a 
 high-sounding word for a penny purpose. Look, 
 we try to keep alive because it s necessary to 
 life, to nature; and the effort, the struggle, 
 breeds the dream. You can understand that. 
 Men who ought to know say that love is nothing 
 more." He rose and stood over her, towering 
 and portentous against the curtained light. "I 
 don t pretend to guess. I m a creative artist 
 Simon Downige at Cottarsport I have you. If 
 it s God so much the better." 
 
 What principally swept over Linda was the 
 knowledge that his possession of her must keep 
 them always apart. The reality, all realities, 
 were veils to Pleydon. Her momentary vision of 
 things beyond brick and earth was magnified in 
 him until everything else was obliterated. The 
 fever! Oh, yes, that and his passion for work 
 merged in his passion for her. She could bring 
 him nothing; and she had a curious picture of 
 [279] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 two Lindas visible to him here the Linda that 
 was actual and the other, the child. And of them 
 it was the latter he cared most for, recreated out 
 of his desire to defraud his loneliness, to repay 
 the damage to his spirit realized in bronze. 
 
 She was, suddenly, too weary to stir or lift her 
 hand; a depression as absolute as her flare of 
 rage enveloped her. Now the reason for her 
 coming seemed inexplicable, as if, for the while, 
 her mind had failed. She repressed a shudder 
 at the thought of being, through the long nights 
 of his restlessness and wandering voice, alone 
 with Pleydon. She hadn t, Linda discovered, any 
 of the transmuting feeling for him which alone 
 made surrender possible. She calculated men 
 tally how long it would take her to reach the sta 
 tion, what train would be available. 
 
 Linda accepted dumbly the fatality to her own 
 hope; for a few hours she had thought it possible 
 to break out of the prison of circumstance, to walk 
 free from all hindrance; but it had been vain. 
 She gazed at Dodge Pleydon intensely a com 
 prehensive view of the man she had so nearly mar 
 ried, and who, more than any other force, domi 
 nated her being. It was already too late for 
 anything but memory; she saw filled with pity 
 [280] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 for them both hardly more than a strange old 
 man with deadened hair and a yellow parchment- 
 like skin. His suit of loose gray flannel gave her 
 a feeling that it had been borrowed from some 
 one she lovingly knew. The gesture of his 
 hand, too, had been copied from a brilliant per 
 sonage with a consuming impatience at all impo 
 tence. 
 
 "Remember me to Arnaud," he said, holding 
 her gloves and the short fur cape. "Wait!" 
 he cried sharply, turning to the bookcase against 
 the wall. Pleydon fumbled in a box of lacquered 
 gilt with a silk cord and produced a glove once 
 white but now brown and fragile with age. 
 "You never missed it," he proceeded in a gleeful 
 triumph; "but then you had so many pairs. 
 Once I sent you nine dozen together from Gre 
 noble. They were nothing, but this you had 
 worn. For a long while it kept the shape of your 
 hand." 
 
 "Dodge," she tried without success to steady 
 her voice, "it stayed with you anyhow, my my 
 hand." 
 
 "But yes," he answered impatiently. He re 
 turned the glove to its box, carefully tying the 
 tasselled cord. Then, after clumsily helping her 
 [281] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 with the cape, he accompanied her to the elevator. 
 "There were other things," he told her. "Did 
 you see the letters about the Hesperia affair? 
 Heaps of them. Rodin. . . . But what can 
 you expect in a world where there is no safety " 
 The stopping cage cut off his remark. She held 
 out the hand that was less real to him than the 
 dream. 
 
 "Good-by, Dodge." 
 
 "Yes, Linda. But watch that door, your 
 skirt might easily be caught in it." He fussed 
 over her safety until, abruptly, he seemed to rise 
 in space, shut out from her by the limitations of 
 her faith. 
 
 The evening overshadowed her in the train, as 
 though she were whirling in the swiftest passage 
 possible, through an indeterminate grayness, from 
 day to night. The latter descended on her as she 
 reached the steps of her home. It was still that; 
 now it would continue to be until death. Noth 
 ing could ever again offer her change, release, 
 vindication; nothing, that was, which might give 
 her, for a day, what even her mother had plenti 
 fully experienced the igniting exultation of the 
 body. 
 
 It was inevitable, she thought, for Arnaud to be 
 [282] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 in the library. He rose unsteadily as she stood 
 in the doorway. "Linda," he articulated with 
 difficulty. A book had rested open on the table 
 beside him and, closing it, he put it back in its 
 place. His arm trembled so that it took a pain 
 fully long while. Then he moved fonvard, still 
 confused. 
 
 "What a confounded time you were gone. I 
 had the most idiotic fancy. You see, it was so 
 unlike you; none more exact in habit. All day. 
 I didn t get to the Historical Society, it seemed 
 so devilish far off. I d never blame you for 
 leaving an old man without any gumption." He 
 must never think that again, she replied. Wasn t 
 she, too, middle-aged? 
 
 [283] 
 
XL 
 
 LINDA admitted, definitely, the loss of her 
 youth; and yet a stubborn inner convic 
 tion remained that she was unchanged. 
 In this she had for support her appearance; 
 practically she was as freshly and gracefully pale 
 as the girl who had married Arnaud Hallet. 
 Even Vigne, with indelible traces of her mother 
 hood, had faint lines absent from Linda s flawless 
 countenance. Her children, and Arnaud, were 
 immensely proud of her beauty; it had become a 
 part in the form of her ridiculously young air 
 of the family conversational resources. She was 
 increasingly aware of its supreme significance to 
 her. 
 
 One of her few certainties had been the discov 
 ery that, while small truths might be had from 
 others, all that intimately and deeply concerned 
 her was beyond questioning and advice. The 
 importance of her attractiveness, for example, 
 which seemed the base of her entire being, was 
 completely out of accord with the accepted stand- 
 [284] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 ard of values for middle-aged women. Other 
 things, called moral and spiritual, she inferred, 
 should take up her days and thoughts. There 
 was a course of discipline exactly like exercises 
 in the morning for the preparation of the will 
 ingness to die. 
 
 But such an attitude was eternally beyond her ; 
 she repudiated it with a revolt stringing every 
 nerve indignantly tense. She had had, on the 
 whole, singularly little from life but her fine 
 body; it had always been the temple and altar of 
 her service, and no mere wordy reassurance could 
 now repay her for its swift or gradual destruc 
 tion. The latter, except for accident, would be 
 her fate; she was remarkably sound. In her 
 social adventures, the balls to which, without 
 Arnaud, she occasionally went, she was morbid 
 in her sensitive dread of discovering, through a 
 waning admiration, that she was faded. 
 
 It would be impossible to spend more care on 
 her person than she had in the past ; but that was 
 unrelenting. Linda was inexorable in her de 
 mands on the establishments that made her suits 
 and dresses. The slightest imperfection of fit 
 exasperated her; and she regarded the endless 
 change of fashions with contempt. This same 
 [285] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 shifting, she observed, occurred not only in wom 
 en s clothes but in the women themselves. 
 
 Linda remembered her mother, eternal in 
 gaiety, but very obviously different from her in 
 states of mind affecting her appearance, She 
 was unable to define the change; but it was un 
 mistakable Stella Condon seemed a little old- 
 fashioned. When now, to Lowrie s wife, Linda 
 was unmistakably out-of-date. Lowrie, fast ac 
 complishing all that had been predicted for him, 
 had married a girl incomprehensible to his 
 mother. Observing this later feminine develop 
 ment she had the baffled feeling of inspecting a 
 creature of a new order. 
 
 To Linda, Jean Tynedale, now a Hallet, seemed 
 harder than ever her own famous coldness had 
 succeeded in being. This came mostly from 
 Jean s imposing education; there had been, in 
 addition to the politest of finishing schools, col 
 lege a woman s concern, Bryn Mawr and then 
 post-graduate honors in a noteworthy university. 
 She was entirely addressed, in a concrete way, to 
 the abstract problems of social progress and hy 
 giene; and, under thirty, the animating spirit, as 
 well as financial support, of an incredible number 
 of Settlements and allied undertakings. She 
 [286] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 spoke crisply before civic and other clubs; even, 
 in the interest of suffrage, addressing nonde 
 script audiences from a box on the street. 
 
 But it was her unperturbed dissection of the 
 motives of sex, the denouncement of a criminal 
 mysterious ignorance, that most daunted Linda. 
 She listened to Jean with a series of distinct 
 shocks to her sense of propriety. What she had 
 agreed to consider a nameless attribute of women, 
 or, if anything more exact, the power of their 
 charm over men, the other defined in unequivocal 
 scientific terms. She understood every impulse 
 veiled for Linda in a reticence absolutely needful 
 to its appeal. 
 
 This, of course, the elder distrusted; just as 
 she had no approval for Jean s public activities. 
 Linda didn t like public women; her every in 
 stinct cried for a fine seclusion, fine in the mean 
 ing of an appropriate setting for feminine distinc 
 tion, the magic of dress and cut roses. Her pri 
 vate inelegant word for Lowrie s wife was "bold;" 
 indeed, describing to herself the younger woman s 
 patronage of her bearing, she descended to her 
 mother s colloquialism "brass." 
 
 She thought this sitting at a dinner-table which 
 held Vigne and her husband and Lowrie and Jean 
 [287] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Hallet./Arnaud, drawing life from the vitality 
 of an atmosphere charged with youth, jvas un 
 flagging in splendid spirits and his valorous wit. 
 Jean would never inspire the affection Arnaud 
 had given her; nor the passion that, in Pleydon, 
 had burned unfed even by hope. 
 
 Her thoughts slipped away from the present to 
 the sculptor. Three years had vanished since 
 she had gone with an intention of finality to his 
 apartment, and in that time he had neither been 
 in their house nor written. Linda had expected 
 this; she was without the desire to see or hear 
 from him. Dodge Pleydon was finished for her ; 
 as a man, a potentiality, he had departed from 
 her life. He was a piece with her memories, the 
 triumphs of her young days. Without an actual 
 knowledge of the moment of its accomplishment 
 she had passed over the border of that land, leav 
 ing it complete and fair and radiant for her linger 
 ing view. Whether or not she had been happy 
 was now of no importance ; the magic of its light 
 showed only a garden and a girl in white with a 
 black bang against her blue eyes. 
 
 The bang, the blueness of gaze, were still hers; 
 but, only this morning, brush in hand, the former 
 had offered less resistance in its arrangement; it 
 [288] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 was thinner, and the color perceptibly not so 
 dense. At this, with a chill edge of fear, she 
 had determined to go at once to her hairdresser; 
 no one, neither Arnaud, who loved its luster, nor 
 an unsympathetic bold scrutiny, a scrutiny of 
 brass, should see that she was getting gray. 
 There was no fault about her figure; she had that 
 for her satisfaction; she was more graceful than 
 Jean s square thinness, more slim than Vigne s 
 maternal presence. 
 
 Linda had the feeling that she was engaged in 
 a struggle with time, a ruthless antagonist whom 
 she viewed with a personal enmity. Time must, 
 would, of course, triumph in the end; but there 
 would be no sign of her surrender in the mean 
 while; she wouldn t bend an inch, relinquish by 
 a fraction the pride and delicacy of her person. 
 The skilful dyeing of her hair to its old absolute 
 blackness, as natural and becoming in appear 
 ance as ever, was a symbol of her determination 
 to cheat an intolerable tyranny. 
 
 The process, dismaying her soul, she bore with 
 a rigid fortitude; as she endured the coldness of a 
 morning bath from which, often, she was slow to 
 react. This, to her, was widely different from 
 the futile efforts of her mother, those women of 
 [289] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 the past, to preserve for practical ends their 
 flushes of youth and exhilaration. She felt ob 
 scurely that she was serving a deeper reality 
 created by the hands of Pleydon, Arnaud s faith 
 and pure pleasure, all that countless men had 
 seen in her for admiration, solace and power, 
 
 But it was inevitable, she told herself bitterly, 
 that she should hear the first intimation of her 
 decline from Jean Hallet. Rather, she overheard 
 it, the discussion of her, from the loiterers at 
 breakfast as she moved about the communicating 
 library. Jean s emphatic slightly rough-textured 
 voice arrested her in the arrangement of a bowl of 
 zinnias: 
 
 """"You can t say just where she has failed, but 
 it s evident. Perhaps a general dryness. Per 
 fectly natural. Thoroughly silly to fight against 
 it-5" Vigne interrupted her. "I think mother s 
 wonderful. I can t remember any other woman 
 nearly her age who looks so enchanting in the 
 evening." 
 
 Linda quietly left the flowers as they were and 
 went up to the room that had been her father s. It 
 was now used as a spare bedroom; and she had 
 turned into it, in place of her own chamber, in 
 stinctively, without reason. She had kept it ex- 
 [290] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 actly as it had been when Amelia Lowrie first 
 conducted her there, as it was when her father, a 
 boy, slept under the white canopy. 
 
 Linda advanced to the mirror; and, her hands 
 so tightly clenched that the finger-nails dug into 
 the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily at the 
 wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there 
 had been a malicious magic in Jean s detraction; 
 for immediately, as (though the harm had been 
 wrought by the girl s voice, she saw that her clear 
 freshness had gone. Her face had a wax-like 
 quality, the violet shadows under her eyes were 
 brown. Who had once called her a gardenia? 
 Now she was wilting how many gardenias had 
 she seen droop, turn brown Her heart beat with 
 a disturbing echo in her ears, and, with a slight 
 gasp that resembled a sob, she sank on one of the 
 uncomfortable painted chairs. 
 
 What, above every other sensation, oppressed 
 her was a feeling of terrific loneliness the fa 
 miliar isolation magnified until it was past bear 
 ing. Yet, there was Arnaud, infallible in his 
 tender comprehension, she ought to go to him at 
 once and find support. But it was impossible; 
 all that he could give her was, to her special neces 
 sity, useless. She had never been able to estab- 
 [291] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 lish herself in his sympathy; the reason for that 
 lay in the fact that she could bring nothing similar 
 in return. 
 
 The room except for the timed clangor of the 
 electric cars, like the measure of lost minutes 
 was quiet. The photograph of Bartram Hallet 
 in cricketing clothes had faded until it was almost 
 indistinguishable. Soon the faint figure would 
 disappear entirely, as though the picture were 
 amenable to the relentless principle operating in 
 her. 
 
 The peace about her finally lessened her acute 
 suffering, stilled her heart. She told herself with 
 a show of vigor that she was a coward, a charge 
 that roused an unexpected activity of denial. She 
 discovered that cowardice was intolerable to her. 
 What had happened, too, was so far out of her 
 hands that a trace of philosophical acceptance, 
 recognition, came to her support. /The loveliest 
 woman alive must do the same, meet in a looking- 
 glass that eternal accompanying sibyl her dis 
 aster. She rose, her lips firmly set, composed 
 and pale, and returned to the neglected flowers in 
 the library. 
 
 Vigne entered and put an affectionate arm 
 about her shoulders, repeating unconscious that 
 [292] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 Linda had heard the discussion which had given it 
 being the conviction that her mother was won 
 derful, specially in the black dinner dress with 
 the girdle of jet. With no facility of expression 
 she gave her daughter s arm a quick light pressure. 
 
 From then she watched the slow progress of age 
 with a new realization, but an unabated distaste 
 and, wherever it was possible, a determined arti 
 fice. ) Arnaud had failed swiftly in the past 
 months; and, while she was inspecting the im 
 paired supports of an arbor in the garden, he 
 came to her with an unopened telegram. "I 
 abhor these things," he declared fretfully; "they 
 are so sudden. Why don t people write decent 
 letters any more! It s like the telephone. . . . 
 Good manners have been ruined." 
 
 She tore open the envelope, read the brief line 
 within, and, a hand suddenly put out to the arbor, 
 sank on its bench. There had been rain, but a 
 late sun was again pouring over the sparkling 
 grass, and robins were singing with a lyrical clear 
 ness. "What is it?" Arnaud demanded anx 
 iously, tremulous in the unsparing sunlight. She 
 replied : 
 
 "Dodge died this morning." 
 
 His concern was as much for her as for Pley- 
 [293] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 don s death. "I m sorry, Linda," his hand was 
 on her shoulder. "It is a shock to you. A fine 
 man, a genius none stronger in our day. When 
 you were young and for so long after. ... I was 
 lucky, Linda, to get you ; have you all this while. 
 Nothing in Pleydon s life, not even his success, 
 could have made up for your loss." 
 
 She wondered dully if Dodge had missed her, 
 if Arnaud Hallet had ever had her in his posses 
 sion. The robins filled the immaculate air with 
 song. It was impossible that Dodge, who was so 
 imperious in his certainty that he would never say 
 good-by to her, was dead. 
 
 [294] 
 
XLI 
 
 THERE was a revival of public interest in 
 the destruction of Pleydon s statue at 
 Hesperia, the papers again printed ac 
 counts colored by a variety of attitudes unembar 
 rassed by fact; and the serious journals united in 
 a dignity of eminently safe praise. At first Linda 
 made an effort to preserve these; but soon their 
 similarity, her inability to find, among sonorous 
 periods, any trace of Dodge s spirit in reality 
 she knew so blindingly much more than the most 
 penetrating critical intellect caused her to leave 
 the reviews unread. No one else living had 
 understood Pleydon ; and when descriptions of his 
 life spoke of the austerity in his later years, his 
 fanatical aversion to women, Linda thought of the 
 brittle glove in the gilt-lacquer box. 
 
 Her own emotion, it seemed to her, was the 
 most confused of all the unintelligible pressures 
 that had converted her life into an enigma. She 
 had a distinct sense of overwhelming loss of 
 something, Linda was obliged to add, she had 
 [295] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 never owned. However, she realized that dur 
 ing Pleydon s life she had dimly expected a happy 
 accident of explanation; until almost the last, 
 yes after she had returned from that ultimate 
 journey, she had been conscious of the presence of 
 hope. The hope had been for herself, created out 
 of her constant baffled dissatisfaction. 
 
 But now the man in whom solely she had been 
 expressed, the only possible reason for her obsti 
 nate pride, had left her in a world that, but for 
 Arnaud s fondness, looked on her without re 
 mark. The loss of her distinction had been 
 finally evident at balls, in the dresses in which 
 Vigne had thought her so wonderful, and she 
 dropped them. Here, she repeated, was when 
 affection, generously radiated through life, should 
 have reflected over her a tranquil and contented 
 joy. She had never given it, and she was with 
 out the ability to receive. She admitted to her 
 self, with a little annoyed laugh, that her old 
 desire for inviolable charm, for the integrity of a 
 memorable slimness, was unimpaired. It was, 
 she thought, too ridiculously inappropriate for 
 words. 
 
 Yet it had changed slightly into the recognition 
 that what so often had been called her beauty was 
 [296] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 all she now had for sustenance, all she had ever 
 had. Her mind returned continually to Pleydon, 
 and deep in the mystery of his passion she 
 was suddenly invaded by an insistent desire to see 
 the monument at Cottarsport. She spoke to Ar- 
 naud at once about this; and alone, through his 
 delicacy of perception, Linda went to Boston the 
 following day. 
 
 The further ride to Cottarsport followed the 
 sea a brilliant serene blue, fretted on the land 
 ward side by innumerable bare promontories, 
 hideous towns and factories, but bowed in a far 
 unbroken arc at the immaculate horizon. She left 
 the train for a hilly cluster of houses, gray and 
 low like the rock everywhere apparent, dropping 
 to a harbor that bore a company of motionless 
 boats with half-spread drying sails. 
 
 The day was at noon, and the sky, blue like the 
 sea, held, still as the anchored schooners, faint, 
 chalky symmetrical clouds. Linda found the 
 Common without guidance; and at once saw, on 
 its immovable base of rugged granite, the bronze 
 statue of Simon Downige. It stood well in ad 
 vance of what, evidently, was the court-house, the 
 white steeple Dodge had described. She found 
 a bench by a path in the thin grass ; and there, her 
 [297] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 gloved hands folded, at rest in her lap, her gaze 
 and longing were lifted to the fixed aspiration. 
 
 From where she sat the seated figure was pro 
 jected against the sky; Simon s face was turned 
 toward the west; the West that, for him, was the 
 future, but which for Linda represented all the 
 past. This conviction flooded her with unutter 
 able sadness. A sense of failure weighed on her, 
 no less heavy for the fact that it was perpetually 
 vague. Her thoughts gathered about Dodge him 
 self; and she recalled the curious vividness of his 
 vision of her as a child, perhaps ten. She, too, 
 tried to remember that time and age. It was al 
 most in her grasp, but her realization was spoiled 
 by absurd mental fragments the familiar illu 
 sion of a leopard and a rider with bright hair, a 
 forest with the ascending voices of angels, and an 
 ominous squat figure with a slowly nodding 
 plumed head. 
 
 The vista of a hotel returned, a fleet recollection 
 of marble columns and a wide red carpet . . . the 
 white gleam and carbolized smell of a drug-store 
 ... a thick magazine in a brown cover. These, 
 changed into emotions of mingled joy and pain, 
 shifted in bright or dim colors and sensations. 
 There was a slow heavy plodding of feet, now 
 [298] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 above her head, the passage of a carried weight; 
 and, in a flash of perception, she knew it was a 
 coffin. She raised her clasped hands to her 
 breast, crying into the sunny silence, to the figure 
 of Simon Downige lost in dream: 
 
 "He died that night, at the Boscombe, after he 
 had told me about the meadows with silk tents " 
 
 Her memory, thrilling with the echoed miracu 
 lous chord of the child of ten, sitting gravely, 
 alone, among the shrill satins and caustic voices 
 of a feminine throng, was complete. She saw 
 herself, Linda Condon, as objectively as Pleydon s 
 described vision: there was a large bow on her 
 straight black hair, and, from under the bang, her 
 gaze was clear and wondering. How marvelously 
 young she was! The vindictive curiosity of the 
 questioning women, intent on their rings, brought 
 out her eager defense of her mother, the effort to 
 explain away the ugly fact that that Mr. Jasper 
 was married. 
 
 She saw Linda descending the marble stairs to 
 the lower floor where the games were kept in a 
 somber corridor, and heard a voice halting her 
 irresolute passage: 
 
 "Hello, Bellina." 
 
 That wasn t her name, and she corrected him, 
 [299] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 waiting afterward to listen to a strange fairy-like 
 tale. The solitary, sick-looking man, with inky 
 shadows under fixed eyes, was so actual that she 
 recaptured the pungent drift of his burning ciga 
 rette. He talked about love in a bitter intensity 
 that hurt her. Yet, at first, he had said that she 
 was lovely, a touch of her . . . forever in the 
 memory. Mostly, however, he spoke of a beauti 
 ful passion. It had largely vanished, his expla 
 nation continued ; men had come to worship other 
 things. Plato started it. 
 
 She recalled Plato, as well, in connection with 
 Dodge ; now, it appeared to her, that remote name 
 had always been at the back of her consciousness. 
 There were other names, other men, of an age long 
 ago in Italy. Their ideal, religion, was contained 
 in the adoration of a woman, but not her body 
 it was a love of her spirit, the spirit their purity 
 of need recognized, perhaps helped to create. It 
 was a passion as different as possible in essence 
 from all she had observed about her. It was 
 useless for common purposes, withheld from 
 Arnaud Hallet. 
 
 The man, seriously addressing the serious un 
 comprehending interest of ten, proceeded with a 
 description of violins but she had heard them 
 [300] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 through all her life and a parting that left only 
 a white glove for remembrance. Then he had 
 repeated that line, in Italian, which, not long 
 back, her husband had recalled. The old gesture 
 toward the stars, the need to escape fatality 
 how she had suffered from that ! 
 
 Yet it was a service of the body, a faith spiritual 
 because, here, it was never to be won, never to be 
 realized in warm embrace. It had no recognition 
 in flesh, and it was the reward of no prayer or hu 
 mility or righteousness. Only beauty knew and 
 possessed it. His image grew dim like the blur 
 ring of his voice by pain and the shadow of death. 
 Linda s thoughts and longing turned again to 
 Dodge; it seemed to her that he no more than took 
 up the recital where the other was silent. 
 
 Pleydon was it at Markue s party or later? 
 talking about "Homer s children" had meant 
 the creations of great artists, in sound or color 
 or words or form, through that supreme love 
 unrealized in other life. The statue of Simon 
 Downige, towering before her against the sky and 
 above the sea, held in immutable bronze his con 
 viction. The meager bundle and crude stick rested 
 by shoes clogged with mud; Simon s body was 
 crushed with weariness; but under the sweat-plas- 
 [301] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 tered brow his gaze pierced indomitable and un 
 dismayed to the vision of a place of truth. 
 
 She was choked by a sharp rush of joy at 
 Dodge s accomplishment, an entire understanding 
 of the beauty he had vainly explained, the death 
 less communication of old splendid courage, an 
 unshaken divine need, to succeeding men and 
 hope. This had been hers. She had always felt 
 her presence in his success ; but, until now, it had 
 belonged exclusively to him. Dodge had, in his 
 love, absorbed her, and that resulted in the statues 
 the world applauded. She, Linda thought, had 
 been an element easily dismissed. It had hurt 
 her pride almost beyond endurance, the pride that 
 took the form of an inner necessity for the survival 
 of her grace all she had. 
 
 She had even asked him, in a passing resent 
 ment, why he had never directly modeled her, 
 kept, with his recording genius, the shape of her 
 features. She had gone to him in a blinder vanity 
 for the purpose of stamping her participation in 
 his triumph on the stupid insensibility of their 
 world. How incredible! But at last she could 
 see that he had preserved her spirit, her secret self, 
 from destruction. He had cheated death of her 
 fineness. The delicate perfection of her youth 
 [302] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 would never perish, never be dulled by old age or 
 corrupted in death. It had inspired and entered 
 into Pleydon s being, and he had lifted it on the 
 pedestal rising between the sea and sky. 
 
 She was in the Luxembourg, in that statue of 
 Cotton Mather, the somber flame, about which he 
 had written with a comment on the changing sub 
 jects of his creations. From the moment when he 
 sat beside her on the divan in that room stifling 
 with incense, with the naked glimmer of women s 
 shoulders,, she had been the source of his power. 
 She had been his power. Linda smiled quietly, 
 in retrospect, at her years of uncertainty, the feel 
 ing of waste, that had robbed her of peace. How 
 complete her mystification had been! And, all 
 the while, she had had the thrill of delight, of 
 premonition, born in her through the forgotten 
 hour with the man who had died. 
 
 The sun, moving in celestial space, shifted the 
 shadow about the base of Simon Downige s monu 
 ment. The afternoon was advancing. She rose 
 and turned, looking out over the sea to the horizon 
 as brightly sharp as a curved sword. The life of 
 Cottarsport, below her, proceeded in detached 
 figures, an occasional unhurried passage. The 
 boats in the harbor were slumberous. It was time 
 [303] 
 
LINDA CONDON 
 
 to go. She gazed again, for a last view, at the 
 bronze seated figure ; and a word of Pleydon s, but 
 rather it was Greek, wove its significance in the 
 placid texture of her thoughts. Its exact shape 
 evaded her, a difficult word to recall Kaiharsis, 
 the purging of the heart. About her was the 
 beating of the white wings of a Victory sweeping 
 her^ a faded slender woman in immaculate gloves 
 and a small matchless hat into a region without 
 despair. 
 
 THE END 
 
 [304] 
 

 
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