se," he replied energetically. "And you'll stay away
for the plainest decency."

"We will go together," she proceeded calmly. "I want to see Jim married,
happy." She gazed at him with narrowed eyes.

"Mariana," he told her, "that's a shameful lie. It is cold, feminine
curiosity. It's worse--the only vulgar thing I can remember your
considering. I won't hear of it." He debated the wisdom of recounting
James Polder's last visit to Shadrach and decided in the negative. "Let
the young man depart with his Harriet in peace."

"It's sickening, isn't it?" she queried. "And yet it is so like Jim. He
had a very objectional idea of his dignity; he was sensitive in a way
that made me impatient. He couldn't forget himself, you see. That helped
to make it difficult for me; I wasn't used to it; his feelings were
always being damaged."

Howat Penny nodded. "You'll recall I emphasized that." Mariana looked
worn by her gaiety, he decided, white; for the first time in his memory
she seemed older than her actual years. Her friends, he knew, her
existence, bore the general appellation, fast; Howat had no share in the
condemnatory aspect of the term, but he realized that it had a literal
application. Their pace was feverish, and Mariana plainly showed its
effects. Her voice, already noted as more mature, had, he was sure,
hardened. She dabbled her lips thickly with a rouge stick. "Mariana," he
said querulously, "I wish, you'd stop this puppet dance you're leading.
I wish you would marry."

"I tried to," she coolly replied, "but you spoiled my young dream of
happiness."

"That isn't true," he asserted sharply, perturbed. "Anything that
happened, or didn't happen, was only the result of yourself, of what you
are. I am extremely anxious to have you settled, and your legs out of
the Sunday papers. I--I am opposed to your present existence; it's gone
on too long. I believe I'd rather see you orating on the streets, like
Eliza Provost. And, by thunder, I never thought I should come to that!
Champagne and those damnable syncopated tunes played by hysterical
niggers make a poor jig." He spoke impetuously, unconscious of any
reversal of previous judgments, opinions.

"You are so difficult to please, Howat," she said wearily; "you were
aghast at the thought of my marrying James, and now you are complaining
of the natural alternative. The truth is," she added brutally, "you are
old-fashioned; you think life goes on just as it did when the Acade