an be our luxury.'

"'But, Rod, if you are in harmony you can earn our living so much more
easily. You must get above this notion of material necessities. There
are no such things.'

"'I don't believe it,' he interrupted coldly. 'There are material
necessities. You are one of them. The most necessary in the world.
You may be harmonious, but you are material, too. That is why I love
you. I couldn't be crazy about a melodious breath of air ghosting
around the back yard. And I am not strong for disembodied minds,
either. They make me nervous. They sound like skulls and cross-bones,
and whitening skeletons to me. I love you, your arms, your face, all
of you. It may not be proper to talk about it, but I love it. Can you
imagine our minds embracing each other, thrilling at the contact,--oh,
it's tommyrot. A fool--'

"'It may be tommyrot to you, Rod,' said Emily haughtily. 'But the
inspiration of the matchless minds of the mystic men of the Orient--'

"'Inspiration of idiocy. What do mystic men of the Orient know about
warm-blooded Americans, dead in love? I might kiss the air until I was
blue in the face,--nothing to it,--but let me kiss you, and we are both
aquiver, and--'

"'Rodney Carter, don't you dare say such things,' she cried furiously.
'It is insulting. Besides it has nothing to do with it. It isn't so
anyhow. And what is more--'

"'There's nothing mysterious about us. Let the old Chinesers pad
around in their bare feet and naked souls if they want to. We are
children of light, we are, creatures of earth, earthly. We're--'

"'Oh, I can't argue with you, Rod,' she began confusedly.

"'I don't want you to. Kiss me. One kiss, Emily mine, will confound
the whole united order of Maudlin Mystics. I am willing to risk all
the anathemas contained in an inharmonious sphere for one touch of your
lips. Go ahead with your sacred doctrine of universal and spiritual
imbecility, but soften its harshness with worldly, physical,
sin-suggesting kisses, and I am in tune with the infinite.'

"Then Emily broke the engagement, and Rodney, after relieving himself
of more heretical opinions of spiritual simplicity and mystic madness,
stalked unmelodiously away, slamming her door, and his own after it.

"What I didn't hear of it myself, Emily told me afterward, for we are
very confidential.

"The whole house was intensely interested in the denouement. Rodney
sat stolidly at his table, crunching his fo