hown their daughters, urging them to do likewise. But it really
begins to be interesting at this very point since it is not the
dramatic closing of the door that is so vital, but the pitfalls and
adventures on the long road that Nora and her sisters have seen fit to
travel.

Beatrice was deprived of even this chance, even the falling by the
wayside and admitting a new sort of defeat, or travelling the road in
cold, supreme fashion and ending with selfish victory and impersonal
theories warranted to upset the most domestic and content of her
stay-at-home sisters. But she, like all Gorgeous Girls, must be
content to stand peering through the luxurious gates of her father's
house, watching Steve go down the long road, then glancing back at her
lovely habitation, where no one except tradesmen really took her
seriously, and where all that was expected of her, or really
permitted, was to have a good time.

Steve shrugged his shoulders. He felt a great weariness concerning the
situation, nonchalant scorn of what happened in the future of this
woman. As for Mary Faithful--that was a different matter, but he could
not think about Mary Faithful while standing in the salon of the Villa
Rosa with the Gorgeous Girl as mentor.

"Suppose we do not try to talk any more just now?" he suggested. "We
are neither one fit to do so. Wait until morning and then come to an
agreement." He spoke as impersonally as if a stranger asking aid
interrupted his busiest time.

Beatrice recognized the tone and what it implied. "I am agreed," she
said, after a second's hesitation. "Do not fancy my father and I will
come on our knees to you."

She swept from the room in a dignified manner. Steve waited until he
heard the door of Constantine's room bang. He knew his wife had rushed
to tell her father her side of the matter--to receive the eternal
heart's ease in the form of a check so she could go and play and
forget all about Stevuns the brute.

He walked unsteadily through the rooms of the lower floor, out on to
the main balcony, and back again. He could not think in these rooms;
he could not think in any corner of the whole tinsel house. It seemed
a consolation prize to those who have been forbidden to think.

He went to his own ornate and impossible room, which should have
belonged to an actor desiring publicity, or some such puppet as Gay.
He tried to sleep, but that too was impossible. He kept pacing back
and forth and back and forth, playing