ly his mind
was in a whirl of icebergs, Maupassant, and trichinosis.

But there was a surcease and a recourse; there was Bohemia. He would
seek distraction there; and, let's see--he would call by for Mary
Adrian.

Half an hour later he threaded his way like a Brazilian orchid-hunter
through the palm forest in the tiled entrance hall of the "Idealia"
apartment-house. One day the christeners of apartment-houses and the
cognominators of sleeping-cars will meet, and there will be some
jealous and sanguinary knifing.

The clerk breathed Grainger's name so languidly into the house
telephone that it seemed it must surely drop, from sheer inertia,
down to the janitor's regions. But, at length, it soared dilatorily
up to Miss Adrian's ear. Certainly, Mr. Grainger was to come up
immediately.

A colored maid with an Eliza-crossing-the-ice expression opened
the door of the apartment for him. Grainger walked sideways down
the narrow hall. A bunch of burnt umber hair and a sea-green eye
appeared in the crack of a door. A long, white, undraped arm came
out, barring the way.

"So glad you came, Ricky, instead of any of the others," said
the eye. "Light a cigarette and give it to me. Going to take me
to dinner? Fine. Go into the front room till I finish dressing.
But don't sit in your usual chair. There's pie in it--Meringue.
Kappelman threw it at Reeves last evening while he was reciting.
Sophy has just come to straighten up. Is it lit? Thanks. There's
Scotch on the mantel--oh, no, it isn't,--that's chartreuse. Ask
Sophy to find you some. I won't be long."

Grainger escaped the meringue. As he waited his spirits sank still
lower. The atmosphere of the room was as vapid as a zephyr wandering
over a Vesuvian lava-bed. Relics of some feast lay about the room,
scattered in places where even a prowling cat would have been
surprised to find them. A straggling cluster of deep red roses in
a marmalade jar bowed their heads over tobacco ashes and unwashed
goblets. A chafing-dish stood on the piano; a leaf of sheet music
supported a stack of sandwiches in a chair.

Mary came in, dressed and radiant. Her gown was of that thin, black
fabric whose name through the change of a single vowel seems to
summon visions ranging between the extremes of man's experience.
Spelled with an "e" it belongs to Gallic witchery and diaphanous
dreams; with an "a" it drapes lamentation and woe.

That evening they went to the Cafe Andre. And, as people woul