her side of the perfect oval of her face, and had the sad and
yearning gaze of the unforgiven Magdalen, and she had written two
novels dealing with the domesticities of the lower middle class,
treating with a clinical wealth of detail the irritable monotonies of
the nuptial couch and the artless intimacies of the nursery. She
smoked incessantly, could walk ten miles at a stretch, and was as
passionless as a clam. Gerald Scores, who wore a short pointed beard
and looked the complete artist, was one of the chief hopes of the
intellectual drama cunningly commercialized; and as capable as
Clavering of shutting up his genius in a water-tight compartment, and
enjoying himself in the woods. He was mildly flirtatious, but looked
upon emotional intensity in the personal life of the artist as a
criminal waste of force. Halifax Bolton, who claimed to be the
discoverer of the Younger Generation (in fiction) and was just
twenty-eight himself, was a critic of formidable severity and the
author of at least five claques. The intense concentration of writing
routed his sense of humor, but he had as many droll stories in his
repertoire as Todd. His wife, the famous "Alberta Jones," fierce Lucy
Stoner, was the editor, at a phenomenal salary, of one of the "Woman's
Magazines," and wrote short stories of impeccable style and indifferent
content for the _Century_ and the _Dial_.

They were all intimate friends and argued incessantly and amiably. And
they were all devoted to Mr. Dinwiddie, whom they addressed as
Excellence, without accent.

[Illustration: At Dinwiddie's mountain lodge Clavering (Conway Tearle)
pleaded with Madame Zattiany (Corrine Griffith) to marry him. (_Screen
version of "The Black Oxen."_)]

When Mary and Clavering arrived at the camp in response to the dinner
bell, Eva Darling, who wore very pretty pink silk bloomers under her
sport skirt, was turning hand-springs down the living-room, while the
rest of the party applauded vociferously, and Mrs. Larsing, who was
entering with the fried chicken, nearly dropped the platter.

"Just in time, Madame Zattiany," cried Minor. "This is the sixth round
and she is panting----"

But she interrupted him. "'Mary'--from this time on. I insist. You
make me feel an outsider. I won't be addressed in that formal manner
nor answer to that foreign name again."

"Mary! Mary! Mary!" shouted the party with one accord, and Clavering
drew a long breath. He had wondered how