The Washington times., 1923-11-21

Uttered gods eternally to dwell
alone and never yet had been trick
ed beyond the moment of nervous
exaltation into the belief that it
had fused into it's mate. Life
itself was futile enough, but
that dream of the perfect love
between two beings immemorially
paired was the most futile and
ravaging Of all the dreams civil
lization had imposed upon man.
kind. The curse of Imagination.
Only the savages and the ig-
norart masses understood "love"
for the transitory functional
thing it was and were undis-
turbed by spiritual unrest by
dreams mad longings. -.
No one had ever surrendered
to the illusion more completely
than she. No one had ever hunt
ed with a more passionate de-
termination for that correIative
soul that would submerge, lexalt,
and complete her own aspiring
soul. And what had she found?
Men. Merely men. Safety or
disaster. WEAKNESS and disgust.
She had not an Illusion left. She
had put all that behind her long
since.
Immune.
It seemed to her as she sat
there staring into the last flicker
ings Of the charred log that it
had been countless years since
any man had had the power to
send thrill along her nerves, to
stir even the ghost Of those old
fierce desires. No woman had
ever had more cause to feel
immune. Too contemptuous of
life and the spurious illusions man
had created for himself, while
destroying the even balance be-
tween matter and mind, even to
be rebellious, she had felt a pro-
found gratitude for her complete
freedom from the thral1 of sex
when she had realized that with
her gifts of mind and fortune
she still had a work to do in
the world that would resign her
to the supreme boredom Of liv-
ing. During the war man had
been but broken thing to be
mended or eased out Of life; and
she knew that there was no bet
ter nurse in Europe; it had al
ways been her pride to do nothing
by halves: and before that she
had come to look upon men with
a certain passive liberation when
their minds were responsive to
her own. Whatever sex charm
they possessed might better have
been wasted on the Venus in the
| Louvre.
And tonight she had realized
that this young man, SO unlike
any she had ever known in her
! European experience, had been
more or less in her thoughts
since the night he had followed
her out of the theater and stood
covertly observing her as she
waited for her car. She had
been conscious during subsequent
nights at the play of his power
full gaze as he sat watching for
a turn Of the head that would
give him glimpse of something
more than the back of her neck;
or as she had passed him on her
way to her seat. She had been
even more acutely conscious Of
him as he left his own seat
while the lights were still down
and followed her up the aisle.
But she had felt merely amuse-
ment at the time, possibly thrill
of gratified vanity. accustomed as
she was to admiration and hon.
age.
But on the night when he had
fastened up to her in the deserted
/ street and offered his assistance,
standing with his hat in his hand
| and looking at her with boyish
and diffident gallantry in amusing
contrast with his stern and cynf-
cal countenance, and she had
realized that he had impulsively
| followed her, something had
STIRRED within her that she had
attributed to a superficial recru-
descence Of her old love of ad-
venture, of her keen desire for
novelty at any cost. Amused at
both herself and him. she had
suddenly decided, while he was
effecting an entrance, to her house,
to invite him into the library
and take advantage Of this break
in the monotonous life she had
decreed should be her portion
while she remained in New York.
| A Gentleman.
She had found him more per-
sonally attractive than she had
expected. Judge Trent, whom
she had deftly drawn out, had
told her that he was a young
man of whom, according to Din
widdie, great things were expected
in the literary world; his news.
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