of quiet remembrance before they go hence and are no more seen.

A child will take a fly and introduce him to the sugar-basin. He will
then pull off his wings in order to see what he will do without them.
The fly wanders round beneath the sugar-basin, his small mind absorbed
in a somewhat justifiable surprise, and then the child loses all
interest in him. Thus the gods--with men.

Cartoner was beginning to experience this numb surprise. His life, set
down as a series of events, would have made what the world considers
good reading nowadays. It would have illustrated to perfection; for
it had been full of incidents, and Cartoner had acted in these
incidents--as the hero of the serial sensational novel plays his monthly
part--with a mechanical energy calling into activity only one-half
of his being. He had always known what he wanted, and had usually
accomplished his desires with the subtraction of that discount which is
necessary to the accomplishment of all human wishes. The gods had not
helped him; but they had left him alone, which is quite as good, and
often better. And in human aid this applies as well, which that domestic
goddess, the managing female of the family, would do well to remember.

The gods had hitherto not been interested in Cartoner, and, like the fly
on the nursery window that has escaped notice, he had been allowed to
crawl about and make his own small life, with the result that he had
never found the sugar-basin and had retained his wings. But now, without
apparent reason, that which is called fate had suddenly accorded him
that gracious and inconsequent attention which has forever decided the
sex of this arbiter of human story.

Cartoner still knew what he wanted, and avoided the common error of
wanting too much. For the present he was content with the desire to
avoid the Princess Wanda Bukaty. And this he was not allowed to do. Two
days after the meeting at the Mokotow--the morning following the visit
paid by Wanda to the Hotel de l'Europe--Cartoner was early astir. He
drove to the railway station in time to catch the half-past eight train,
and knowing the ways of the country, he took care to arrive at
ten minutes past eight. He took his ticket amid a crowd of
peasants--wild-looking men in long coats and high boots, rough women in
gay shades of red, in short skirts and top-boots, like their husbands.

This was not a fashionable train, nor a through train to one of the
capitals. A religious fet