rself. Fear for the death of an
ideal, a fear caused by her misinterpretation of his intent with the
pistol. It had not been real, it had not been real. He was as other
men, the men of her world and all the world was alike and life not
worth living. With a finesse he had not suspected he possessed, he
laid the pistol on a pile of legal papers on a table at the bed's
head, a pile whose sheets a suddenly entering breeze was whirling
about the room. How obvious it was he had brought the pistol for a
paper weight. Once more the girl was smiling as he drew the clothes
over her, all dressed as she was, and kissing shut her drowsy eyes, he
left her in her virginal couch.

On the mat before the door in the hallway without, he disposed himself
as comfortably as he could. With due regard for the romantic
proprieties, he tried to keep within the bounds of the mat. But it was
too short, his curled up position too uncomfortable, and so he
overflowed it and could scarcely be said to be sleeping on the mat. It
was too late to arouse the landlady and although he was there by
choice, it could not have been otherwise.

After snatches of broken sleep, after dreams waking and dreams
sleeping, which were all alike and of one thing and indistinguishable,
he was at length fully awake at a little before six and aware of an
odor of tobacco smoke. Applying his nose to the crack of the door, he
finally became convinced that it came from his room. Wondering what it
could possibly mean, and accordingly opening the door, opening it so
slowly and gradually that the odalisque could have ample time to seek
the cover of the bed clothes, he stepped in.

There sat the odalisque on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, puffing
away at his big meerschaum, blowing clouds that filled the room. On
the table lay an empty cigarette box that had been full the night
before. This had not belonged to Mr. Middleton, who was not a
cigarette smoker and despised the practice, but had been forgotten by
Chauncy Stackelberg on a recent visit. The fingers of her right hand
were stained yellow, not by the cigarettes of that one box, but the
unnumbered cigarettes of years. Mr. Middleton had not noticed these
fingers the night before, but had been absorbed by her face, and this
as beautiful, as piquant, as bewitching as before, looked up at him,
the lips puckered, waiting, longing.

He stood there, stock-still, stern, troubled, dismayed.

She moved over, where she sat on t