ine a vapeur_, the _vapore_, the fire, the agitation
behind. For perhaps a single second her quick flame-like mind played
about the incomprehensible enigmas of mechanism. She, for whom unknown
men in distant countries were to scheme and toil, that they might send
her yachts and automobiles, music-machines and costly fabrics, jewels
and intricate contrivances for her comfort and pleasure, had the
conceptions of a domestic animal concerning the origins of their
virtues. For her the effortless flight of a high-powered car ascending a
mountain road was as natural and spontaneous as the vulture hanging
motionless above her or the leaf flying before her in an autumn wind.
Her gracile mentality made no distinction in these things, and the
problems of cost never tarnished the shining mirror of her content. Upon
her had never intruded those mean and unlovely preoccupations which
distract the victim of western civilization from the elementary joys and
sorrows. She had always been fed and cared for and she had no shadow of
doubt upon her mind that nourishment and care would ever cease. Her
notion of evil was clear and sharp. It implied, not vague economic
forces, but individual personalities whom she called enemies. Any one
announcing himself as an enemy would be met in a primitive way. She
would back into a corner, spitting and biting. If she had a weapon, and
she always had, she would use it with cool precision. She lay in her
bunk now without a care in the world because she possessed the power of
animating men to bear those cares for her. She could inspire passion and
she could evoke admiration and remorse.

She saw the sun going down, saw him disappear as into a glowing brazier
among the mountains, and the coming of darkness. Evanthia hated
darkness. One of the whims she indulged in later days was the craving
for a shadowless blaze of light. She moved in her bed place and turning
on her elbow stared at the door, listening. Someone came down the
stairs. A door was unlocked, slammed, and locked again. She became
rigid. Her eyes glowed. Who was that? She got up and sought for matches
to light the lamp. But she had left it burning the night before and the
oil was exhausted. And her watch had stopped. She put on her black dress
and did her hair as well as she could before the dark reflection in the
mirror. She had very little of that self-consciousness which reveals
itself in a fanatical absorption in minute attentions to one's
app