ched. To be beautiful, to wish that she
were beautiful! Why? Her hair was lovely; her neck and arms were lovely;
but her nose wasn't right, her mouth was too large, and her eyes missed
being either blue or hazel. Why did she wish to be beautiful?

Always to be poor, to be hanging on the edge of things, never enough of
this or that--genteel poverty. She had inherited the condition, as had her
mother before her--gentlefolk who had to count the pennies. Her two
sisters--really handsome girls--had married fairly well; but one lived in
St. Louis and the other in Seattle, so she never saw them any more.

Tired. That was it. Tired of the war for existence; tired of the following
odours of antiseptics; tired of the white walls of hospitals, the sight of
pain. On top of all, the level dullness of the past, the leaden horror of
these months in Siberia. She laughed brokenly. Gardens scattered all over
the world, and she couldn't find one--the gardens of imagination! Romance
everywhere, and she never could touch any of it!

Marriage. Outside of books, what was it save a legal contract to cook and
bear children in exchange for food and clothes? The humdrum! She flung out
her arms with a gesture of rage. She had been cheated, as always. She had
come to this side of the world expecting colour, movement, adventure. The
Orient of the novels she had read--where was it? Drab skies, drab people,
drab work! And now to return to America, to exchange one drab job for
another! Nadir, always nadir, never any zenith!

Her bitter cogitations were interrupted by a knock on the door. She threw
on her kimono and answered. A yellow hand thrust a bottle toward her. It
would be the wash for the jade. She emptied the soap dish, cleaned it,
poured in the germicide, and dropped the jade necklace into the liquid.
She left it there while she dressed.

Dennison Cleigh, returning to the States to look for a job! Nothing she
had ever read seemed quite so fantastic. She paused in her dressing to
stare at some inner thought which she projected upon the starred curtain
of the night beyond her window. Supposing they had wanted to fling
themselves into each other's arms and hadn't known how? She had had a
glimpse or two of Dennison's fierce pride. Naturally he had inherited it
from his father. Supposing they were just stupid rather than vengeful?
Poor, foolish human beings!

She proceeded with her toilet. Finishing that, she cleansed the jade
necklace with soa