lked the porters came and took away the statuette of Mrs.
Fairfax, and Potowski said--

"It was like seeing _they_ carry away my wife." And, when they had gone,
Antony lighted the candles and Potowski rose and cried, as though the
idea had just come to him: "Guerrea! My friends, I am alone to-night. My
wife has gone to sing in Brussels. I implore you to come out to dinner
with me--I know not where." He glanced at the sculptor and playwright,
as they stood in the candle light. He had only seen Fairfax a
well-dressed visitor at Mrs. Faversham's entertainments. On him now a
different light fell. In his working clothes, there was nothing
poverty-stricken about him, but the marks of need were unmistakably in
the environment. He spoke to Dearborn, but he looked at Fairfax. "I have
grown very fond of him. I love to speak my thoughts at him. We don't
always agree, but we are always good for each other. I have not seen him
for some time. I thought he go away."

Dearborn smiled. "He _was_ just going to Monte Carlo," he murmured.

Potowski, who did not hear, went on: "We will go and eat in some
restaurant on this side of the river. I am tired of the Cafe de Paris.
We will see a play afterwards. There is 'La Dame aux Camelias' with the
divine Sarah. We laugh at dinner and we shall go and sob at La Dame aux
Camelias. I like a happy weeping now and then." He swam toward them
affably and appealingly. "I don't dress. I go as I am."

Dearborn grasped one of the yellow-gloved hands and shook it.

"Hang it all! I'm going, Tony. There are two pair of boots, anyhow. I
haven't been to a play," he laughed excitedly, "since I was a child.
Hustle, Tony, we will toss up for the best suit of clothes."

The drama of Dumas gave Antony a beautiful escape from reality. La Dame
aux Camelias disenchanted him from his own problems for the time. In the
Count's box he sat in the background and fed his eyes and his ears with
the romantic and ardent art of the Second Empire. He found the piece
great, mobile, and palpitating, and he was not ashamed. The divine Sarah
and Marguerite Gautier died before his eyes, and out of the ashes
womanhood arose and called to him, as the Venus de Milo had called to
him down the long gallery, and distractions he had known seemed soulless
and unreal shapes. He worshipped Dumas in his creation.

"Rainsford," whispered Potowski, laying his hand on Antony's knee, "what
do you t'ink, my friend?" The tears were raining down