d Darrie over the telephone, and soon she was with us, giving us
the latest news of the uproar.

The papers were at us pro and con, mostly con.

Dorothy Dix had written a nasty attack on me, saying that I was climbing
to fame over a woman's prostrate body ... that, in my own West, instead
of a judge and a divorce court, a shotgun Would have presided in my
case....

The _Globe_ was running a forum, suddenly stopped, as to whether people
of genius and artistic temperament should be allowed more latitude than
ordinary folk....

As Hildreth and I rode down Broadway together, side by side,
unrecognised, on a street car, we saw plastered everywhere, "Stop That
Affinity Hunt," a play of that name to be shown at Maxime Elliott's
Theatre....

I must admit that I was pleased with the sudden notoriety that had come
to me ... years of writing poetry had made my name known but moderately,
here and there ... but having run away with a famous man's wife, my name
was cabled everywhere ... even appeared in Japanese, Russian, and
Chinese newspapers....

* * * * *

But this was not what I wanted of the papers ... I must use this space
offered me to propagandise my ideas of free love....

So I arranged to meet Penton privately in the lobby of the Martinique.

* * * * *

Hildreth and I were there, waiting, before Penton came the next day.
Appearing, he wore the old, bland, childlike smile, and he shook hands
with us as if nothing untoward had ever taken place.

Someone had tipped off the reporters and they were on time, too,
crowding about us eagerly. One young fellow from the _Sun_, looking like
a graduate from a school of divinity, asked a special interview of me
alone, which I gave ... afterward ... in a corner.

That _Sun_ reporter gave me the fairest deal I ever received. He talked
with me over an hour, without ever setting pencil to paper ... the other
interviews were long over, Penton had left, Hildreth sat chafing....

"Come over and join us, Hildreth."

She sat listening in silence while I continued rehearsing all my ideas
on marriage, love, divorce ... how love should be all ... how there
should, ideally, be no marriage ceremony ... but if any at all, only
after the first child had been born ... how the state should have
nothing to do with the private love-relations of the individual....

The reporter from the _Sun_ shook hands good-bye.

"But you ha