n fairly
fired his suspicious soul. He was nervous because he was dyspeptic, and
at one time of his career he mistook stomach trouble for a call to the
pulpit. And he was a millionnaire more times than he took the trouble to
count.

"Yes," he timidly replied, "I _did_ change my wavering mind--as you call
that deficient organ of mine--and so I returned. I hope I don't disturb
you!"

"No, not yet. I am sitting with my hands folded in my lap, like the
women of your class--_ladies_, you call them." She accented the title,
without bitterness. A cursory estimate of her appearance would have
placed her in the profession of a trained nurse, or perhaps in the
remotest analysis, a sewing woman of superior tastes. She was small,
wiry, her head too large for her body; but the abounding nervous
vitality, the harsh fire that burned in her large brown eyes, and the
firm mouth would have attracted the attention of the most careless. Her
mask, with its high Slavic cheek-bones and sharp Jewish nose, proclaimed
her a magnetic woman. In her quarter on the far East Side the children
called her "Aunt Yetta." She was a sister of charity in the guise of a
revolutionist.

"You sit but you think, and _my_ ladies never think," he answered, in
his boyish voice. He seemed proud to be so near this distinguished
creature. Had she not been sent to Siberia, driven out of France and
Germany, and arrested in New York for her incendiary speeches? She
possessed the most extraordinary power over an audience. Once, at Cooper
Union, Arthur had seen her control a crazy mob bent on destroying the
building because a few stupid police had interfered with the meeting.
Among her brethren Yetta Silverman was classed with Louise Michel,
Sophia Perowskaia, and Vera Zassoulitch, those valiant women, true
guardian angels, veritable martyrs to the cause. He thought of them as
he watched the delicate-looking young woman before him.

Arthur was too chilly of blood to fall in love with her; his admiration
was purely cerebral. He was unlucky enough to have had for a father a
shrewd, visionary man, that curious combination of merchant and dreamer
once to be found in New England. A follower of Fourier, a friend of
Emerson, the elder Wyartz had gone to Brook Farm and had left it in a
few months. Dollars, not dreams, was his true ambition. But he
registered his dissatisfaction with this futile attempt by christening
his only son, Arthur Schopenhauer; it was old Wyartz's way