appealed
to her, and she foresaw new impulses to creation. "The American
Scene," conceivably, might grow monotonous with time; and with these
daily recruits bent upon describing its minutiae with the relentless
efficiency of the camera. And with all her soul she loved beauty.
With the possible exception of Bavaria she knew Austria to be the
darling of nature.

Once more she chose to believe this woman would manage Clavering to his
own good, and to the satisfaction of his friends, who, as she well
knew, were alarmed and alert. They were too polite to show it, but
much of their enthusiasm for Madame Zattiany had dimmed with the
knowledge that she was a scientific phenomenon. Fundamentally the
brilliant creative mind is quite as conservative as the worldly, or the
inarticulate millions between, for they have common ancestors and
common traditions. They feared not only to lose him, moreover, but had
begun to ask one another if his career would not be wrecked.

Miss Dwight concluded that such an uncommon and romantic marriage might
be a spur to Clavering's genius, which might weaken in a conventional
marital drama set in the city of New York.

She rose and for the first time kissed Madame Zattiany. "It will be
too perfect!" she said. "Let me visit you in summer when he is
rehearsing. He can arrange to have his first-nights in September, and
then write his next play in Austria, filling his time while you are
absorbed in politics. Heavens, what a theme! Some day I'll use it.
Perfectly disguised, of course."

"And I'll give you points," said Mary, laughing. She returned the
other's embrace; but when she was alone she sighed and sank back in her
chair, without picking up her book. Miss Gora Dwight had given her
something to think of! The last thing she wanted was a serial
honeymoon. She wanted this man's companionship and his help. But she
had slowly been forced to the conclusion that Clavering's was a mind
whose enthusiasms could only be inspired by some form of creative art;
politics would never appeal to it. In her comparative ignorance of the
denaturalized brain, she had believed that a brilliant gifted mind
could concentrate itself upon any object with equal fertility and
power, but she had seen too much of the Sophisticates of late, and
studied Clavering in too many of his moods to cherish the illusion any
longer. Playwrighting seemed to her a contemptible pastime compared
with the hideous facts of L