nyone lifts the veil and reveals the revolting horror of
it, you run away screaming, with your hands before your eyes. Why do you
want truth to be pretty? Why can't you look its ghastliness bravely in the
face? How can you expect to learn anything if you don't? How can you expect
to form judgments on men and things? How can you expect to get to the
meaning of life on which you were so keen a year ago?"

"I want beauty, and not disgustfulness," said Zora.

"Should it happen, for the sake of argument, that I wanted two dear
friends to marry, it is only because I know how happy they would be
together. The ulterior motive you suggest is repulsive."

"But it's true," said Rattenden. "I wish I could talk to you more. I could
teach you a great deal. At any rate I know that you'll think about what
I've said to-day."

"I won't," she declared.

"You will," said he. And then he dropped a very buttery piece of buttered
toast on the carpet and, picking it up, said "damn" under his breath; and
then they both laughed, and Zora found him human.

"Why are you so bent on educating me?" she asked.

"Because," said he, "I am one of the few men of your acquaintance who
doesn't want to marry you."

"Indeed?" said Zora sarcastically, yet hating herself for feeling a little
pang of displeasure. "May I ask why?"

"Because," said he, "I've a wife and five children already."

* * * * *

On the top of her matchmaking and her reflections on Truth in the guise of
the Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, came Clem Sypher to take possession of his
new house. Since Zora had seen him in Monte Carlo he had been to New York,
Chicago, and San Francisco, fighting the Jebusa Jones dragon in its lair.
He had written Zora stout dispatches during the campaign. Here a victory.
There a defeat. Everywhere a Napoleonic will to conquer--but everywhere
also an implied admission of the almost invulnerable strength of his enemy.

"I'm physically tired," said he, on the first day of his arrival, spreading
his large frame luxuriously among the cushions of Mrs. Oldrieve's
chintz-covered Chesterfield. "I'm tired for the only time in my life. I
wanted you," he added, with one of his quick, piercing looks. "It's a
curious thing, but I've kept saying to myself for the last month, 'If I
could only come into Zora Middlemist's presence and drink in some of her
vitality, I should be a new man.' I've never wanted a human being before.
It's strang