h both ears spread wide for stray echoes of
Salome; its sculptors, stupefied by Rodin, achieved sections of human
anatomy protruding from lumps of clay and marble; its dramatists,
drugged by Mallarme and Maeterlinck, dabbled in dullness, platitude and
mediocre psychology; its writers wrote as bloodily, as squalidly, and as
immodestly as they dared; its poets blubbered with Verlaine, spat with
Aristide Bruant, or leered with the alcoholic muses of the Dead Rat.

They were all young, all in deadly earnest, all imperfectly educated,
all hard workers, brave workers, blind, incapable workers sweating and
twisting and hammering in their impotence against the changeless laws of
truth and beauty. With them it was not a case of a loose screw; all
screws had been tightened so brutally that the machinery became
deadlocked. They were neither lazy, languid, nor precious; they only
thought they knew how and they didn't. All their vigour was sterile; all
their courage vain.

Several attractive women exquisitely gowned were receiving; there was
just a little something unusual in their prettiness, in their toilets;
and also a little something lacking; and its absence was as noticeable
in them as it was in the majority of arriving or departing guests.

It could not have been self-possession and breeding which an outsider
missed. For the slim Countess d'Enver possessed both, inherited from
her Pittsburgh parents; and Mrs. Hind-Willet was born to a social
security indisputable; and Latimer Varyck had been in the diplomatic
service before he wrote "Unclothed," and the handsome, dark-eyed Mrs.
Atherstane divided social Manhattan with a blonder and lovelier rival.

Valerie entering with Neville, slender, self-possessed, a hint of
inquiry in her level eyes, heard the man at the door announce them, and
was conscious of many people turning as they passed into the big
reception room. A woman near her murmured, "What a beauty!" Another
added, "How intelligently gowned!" The slim Countess Helene d'Enver, nee
Nellie Jackson, held out a perfectly gloved hand and nodded amiably to
Neville. Then, smiling fixedly at Valerie:

"My dear, how nice of you," she said. "And you, too, Louis; it is very
amusing of you to come. Jose Querida has just departed. He gave us such
a delightful five-minute talk on modernity. Quoting Huneker, he spoke of
it as a 'quality'--and 'that nervous, naked vibration'--"

She ended with a capricious gesture which might have