nder if we, holding the views we
hold, are justified in keeping Amber."

"Ah, dear, we took him in our individualistic days. We cannot
repudiate him now. It wouldn't be fair. Besides, you see, he isn't
here on a basis of mere charity. He's not a parasite, but an artist.
He gives us of his art."

"Yes, dear, I know. But you remember our doubts about the position of
artists in the community--whether the State ought to sanction them at
all."

"True. But we cannot visit those doubts on our old friend yonder, can
we, dear? At the same time, I admit that when--when--Jacynth, if
ever anything happens to Amber, we shall perhaps not be justified in
keeping another bird."

"Don't, please don't talk of such things." She moved to the window.
Snow, a delicate white powder, was falling on the coverlet of snow.

Outside, on the sill, the importunate robin lay supine, his little
heart beating no more behind the shabby finery of his breast, but
his glazing eyes half-open as though even in death he were still
questioning. Above him and all around him brooded the genius of
infinity, dispassionate, inscrutable, grey.

Jacynth turned and mutely beckoned her husband to the window.

They stood there, these two, gazing silently down.

Presently Jacynth said: "Adrian, are you sure that we, you and I, for
all our theories, and all our efforts, aren't futile?"

"No, dear. Sometimes I am not sure. But--there's a certain comfort in
not being sure. To die for what one knows to be true, as many saints
have done--that is well. But to live, as many of us do nowadays, in
service of what may, for aught we know, be only a half-truth or not
true at all--this seems to me nobler still."

"Because it takes more out of us?"

"Because it takes more out of us."

Standing between the live bird and the dead, they gazed across
the river, over the snow-covered wharves, over the dim, slender
chimneys from which no smoke came, into the grey-black veil of the
distance. And it seemed to them that the genius of infinity did not
know--perhaps did not even care--whether they were futile or not,
nor how much and to what purpose, if to any purpose, they must go
on striving.

CHRISTMAS

_By_

G.S. STR**T

One likes it or not. This said, there is plaguey little else to say of
Christmas, and I (though I doubt my sentiments touch you not at all)
would rather leave that little unsaid. Did I confess a distaste for
Christmas, I should incur your enmity.