erself "all things to all men," she loses her own
individuality, and becomes no more than a harp which any passing hand
may strike to quick response. To one man she is a sage, to another an
incarnate temptation, to another a sensible, business-like person, to
another a frothy bit of frivolity. To one man she is the guardian of his
ideals, as Elaine in her high tower kept Launcelot's shield bright for
him, to another she is what he very vaguely terms "a good fellow," with
a discriminating taste in cigarettes and champagne.

Let Man ask what he will and Woman will give it, praying only that
somewhere she will come upon Love. She adapts herself to him as water
adapts itself to the shape of the vessel in which it is placed. She
dare not assert herself or be herself, lest, in some way, she should
lose her tentative grasp upon the counterfeit which largely takes the
place of love. If he prefers it, she will expatiate upon her fondness
for vaudeville and musical comedy until she herself begins to believe
that she likes it. With tears in her eyes and her throat raw, she will
choke upon the assertion that she likes the smell of smoke; she will
assume passion when his slightest touch makes her shudder and turn cold.

[Sidenote: Her Estimate of Women]

And, most pitiful of all, when blinded by her own senses, she will
surrender the last citadel of her womanhood to him who comes a-wooing,
undismayed by the weeping women around her whose sacred altars have been
profaned and left bare. They may have told her that if it is love, the
man will protect her even against himself, but why should she take
account of the experience of others? Has not he himself just told her
that she is different from all other women? Hugging this sophistry to
her breast, and still searching for love, she believes him until the day
of realisation dawns upon her--old and broken and bitter-hearted, with
scarcely a friend left in the world, and not even the compensating coin
thriftily demanded by her sister of the streets.

Under her countless masques and behind her multitudinous phases, lurks
the old hunger, the old appeal. Man, too, though more rarely, guessing
that the imperishable beauty of the soul is above the fog of sense and
not in it, searches hopefully at first, then despairingly, and finally
offers the counterfeit to the living Lie who is waiting for it with
eager, outstretched hands.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Clo