ed Buscarlet. "Nobody knows, but I have heard
she retired upon religion."

Their talk dwindled a little then. O'Neill found himself dwelling in
thought upon that long-ago marriage of the great artist with Lola,
the dancer. To him she was but a name; her sun had set in his
boyhood, and there remained only the spoken fame of her wonderful
dancing and a tale here and there of the fervor with which she had
lived. It was an old chronicle of passion and undiscipline, of a
vehement personality naming through the capitals of Europe, its trail
marked by scandals and violences, ending in the quick oblivion which
comes to compensate for such lives. On the whole, he thought, such a
marriage was what one would have looked for in Regnault; as Buscarlet
said, one might almost have guessed. He, with his genius and his
restlessness, his great fame and his infamy, the high achievement of
his art and the baseness of his relaxations, he was just such another
as Lola.

Friendship, or even the mere forms of friendship, are the touchstone
of a man. O'Neill was credited in his world with the friendship of
Regnault. It had even been to him a matter of some social profit;
there were many who deferred willingly to the great man's intimate.
O'Neill saw no reason to set them right, but he knew himself that he
had come by a loss in his close acquaintance with the Master. To know
him at a distance, to be sure of just enough to interpret his work by
the clue of his personality, was a thing to be glad of. But if one
went further, incurred a part of his confidence, and ascertained his
real flavor, then, as O'Neill once said, it was like visiting one's
kitchen; it killed one's appetite.

While he pondered, he was none the less watchful; he saw the change
on the still face as soon as it showed. With a quick exclamation he
crossed to the bed. Regnault's jaw had set; his eyes were wide and
rigid. On the instant his forehead shone with sweat. Deftly and
swiftly O'Neill laid his hands on a capsule, crushed it in his palm,
and held it to the sick man's face. The volatile drug performed its
due miracle.

The face that had been a livid shell slackened again; the fixed glare
sank down; and Regnault shuddered and sighed. Buscarlet, trembling
but officious, wiped his brow and babbled commiserations.

"Ah!" said Regnault, putting up a thin hand to stop him. "It takes
one by the throat, this affair."

Though he spoke quietly, his voice had yet the conscious f