cook, is slim and slight, and her eyes glisten at the thought of doing the foxtrot with Seraphin, the valet de chambre. He, for his part, seems to be possessed of untold energy, for trunks fly up and down the stairs as though they too were celebrating. Fête it certainly is, and, unless one has seen it, it is impossible to realize with what whole-hearted joy and freedom the nation at large celebrates this day. All Paris is there, and each person on the streets in his or her own quartier.

Since we are near the Arc de Triomphe, it seems as though the Avenue felt it her duty to outdo herself. The rows of bunting, the Japanese or electric lanterns, the intertwined flags and the numerous orchestra-stands give one the feeling of an ancient and honorable dowager bedecking herself in her finest raiment for the one great social event of the year. It is worth it; for at night, when everything is ablaze, it is as if the very stars had fallen into each quartier; and there is a blare of trumpets and a rattle of drums before each café-full proof that les Parisiens are enjoying themselves to the uttermost. America plays no small part in this day of days, and here and there on the many bandstands an ebony-hued citizen of our country may be seen, and the music blurted and blown out is principally American jazz. The physical endurance of the musicians is nothing short of marvellous, and is only to be compared with that of the dancers, as they tirelessly trip it for three days and nights, literally without pause. The cafés are crowded to suffocation, of course, and there are so many Jacques trying to give their little Maries so many thirst-quenching drinks that the garçons de café simply run off their legs.

René and Madame have a wonderful array of flags, bunting, and electric lights, and they even have roped off a space in front of the café where tired revellers may come and rest. A splendid orchestra, led by "Freddy," a big Ethiopian, who

can make a drum almost sing, crashes forth airs in fearless competition with all comers. The results are so successful that the sidewalks, and even the middle of the street, are crowded with listeners and dancers, and behind the bar pandemonium reigns.

As I look down from my little window it seems as though the Avenue itself were bobbing up and down, nodding its approval. Marie-Louise and Seraphin are dancing with such élan that cafés au lait and trunks are things of another world, forgotten, forgotten; and Monsieur Raoul, completely oblivious of such a sordid fact that hotels exist, is waltzing in a most perfect and correct manner with Madame René. It would seem as if the energy given to the enjoyment and celebration of the historical event by the Parisians of to-day is as great as that expended by their forefathers in the taking of the Bastile.

When autumn comes, once more the old Avenue is crowded, and again the sounds of music are in the air. But now they are military bands, and there is the light shuffle of regiments marching on their way to the Arc de Triomphe. For to-day is Armistice Day, and all Paris is wending slowly to the Tombeau du Soldat Inconnu. Little bands of veterans of the war of 1870 pass, and here and there groups of schoolchildren bearing flags; but the most impressive sight of all are the masses of women in deep black, carrying flowers.

Eleven o'clock strikes, the guns boom forth, and for two solemn minutes the French nation stands at attention, heads uncovered and bowed. It is as though France herself heaves a great sigh of relief that the awfulness of war is over and done; but one senses a feeling of pride and glory in the deeds of her sons. And as long as the Arc de Triomphe stands, and the flame in the tomb burns in French hearts, as it does to-day, ils ne passeront pas.

ERIWETHER had always interested me. In the civilized, complicated, rather static world in which he moved, a world where the social life lay like thick cream above the churning of finance, he was an extraordinary figure. Very alien and apart, one felt a man who preserved the amenities of life with a sardonic impersonal care. We were rather close, and yet I, in common with his other friends, knew little of his youth. He had come down from Boston, and at thirty-six, four years ago, had been taken into the banking firm of Garrett, Randall and Company. That was a great deal. And then, as if by way of consummation, he had married Jessica Killian.

We were sitting together at one of the Montgomerys' evenings, Jessica between her husband and me. Reichantz was to play, and I suppose the Montgomerys

VOL. LXXVIII.-22

had invited at least a hundred people. Every one who was invited came. It was not often we could hear such good music in such delightful surroundings and among such pleasant people. In the suave white-and-gray room, amidst the attentive, composed, and slightly masked faces, the art of music became domestic, a little somnolent and catlike, as if it revealed its strength with a luxurious satisfaction.

As Reichantz seated himself Jessica turned to me. "I heard him in New York," she whispered. "You'll enjoy him. He extracts the full measure of poetry and meaning from all that he touches. Very brilliant and subtle an essential performer, and yet thoroughly intellectualized. And his nuance is as it should be, an emanation, not mere feeling blown from the soul. You know what I mean?" Her eager eyes met mine, seemed to challenge me to exchange mysteries.

"Yes," I said, "I do, Jessica." Some

297

how, when she talked that way I felt uncomfortable, a little as if she'd pulled at my collar and tie. She was evidently waiting for more, when Meriwether put his hand on her arm. "He's going to play now, Jessica," he said.

The little man stared at an invisible point on the wall, and then began. It was Schumann's "Carnaval," and in a moment Jessica and her vaporings had floated away. Quite unconsciously I found myself wandering through sights and sounds too fleeting and evanescent to be put into words-sudden flashes of color and form that seemed to grow in the body and not the brain. Then something interfered; some outside influence kept drawing my attention off. I wondered vaguely what it was, until I realized it came from Meriwether, that his presence was drifting into my mind. It was as if some radiation from the man had become audible, and was weaving a pattern of inarticulate speech. I turned and glanced past Jessica at him, and as I did so the music

changed, swept into a little waltz, an unreal, haunting, and wistful air, bright with sorrow that gleamed through arabesques like the passing of a lovely face. It was over in a minute, and I looked at him again. His eyes were remote, and the worn brilliance of his face seemed nebulous and relaxed, as if, for the moment, he had become quite young.

The applause died away and a buzz of talk spread over the room. Meriwether was silent, listening to Jessica and Rufus Condon, the critic, who had come over to talk to her. I didn't like Condon-he was a voluble man, of rich talk and thin writing-one of those youngish middleaged men who carry about them an odor of fingered bloom.

"I think Firbank's like Ornstein," he was saying. "The same shrill inverted note, the ecstasy of metal against metal, and that last agony of sensation, the point where it sinks into dissolution.'

"I don't see Firbank that way," she replied, her hot exposed eyes very angry and hen-like. "To me his work is gold thread woven in obscene design on a scarlet background. The shrill muteness of it is decoration. That's why"-she crossed her slim pointed hands-"I enjoy it so much." I glanced at Meriwether. "What do you think?" I asked.

"Me?" He uncrossed his legs slowly, then shook his head. "I don't think."

"And you!" Jessica looked at me. "What do you?" "Well-I'm a lawyer," I laughed. "And a lawyer, you know, passeth understanding. Besides, I'm a spinal columnist, and that lets me out of art."

Reichantz seated himself at the piano, and we stopped talking. The next thing was Chopin-the "Third Ballade" and the "Valse Ut Dieze Mineur." I glanced at Condon sprawling limply in a chair beside me, looking rather like a benevolent ram with his great satisfied nose and his wispy head. I wondered what he would say about Chopin and Cesar Franck, who followed. And what Jessica would say. The thought was too much, and I rose as unobtrusively as I could and tiptoed across the

1

repeated quite unexpectedly in the vermilion moulding around the wall. "That's interesting," I said. "What?"

The air outside was cold and the snow lay in dirty piles at the curb. We walked down the street; Jessica had taken the car and the house was only a few blocks away. When we entered, he preceded me up-stairs to the library, a room I'd never seen before. "Sit down," he said cheerfully. Then he sent the man off for whiskey and stretched himself out in a big brocade chair by the table.

For a moment he was silent, with an easy comfortable silence as if he were by himself. I took a cigarette from the box and glanced about the pleasant, vaguely luminous room. The books stretched in wine-colored shadows below the pale gold of the ceiling and walls, and the blue-andgold rug shone in the light like a circle of silvery moss. I caught the flat gleam of Chinese red in a picture near the door,

"That picture." "Yes."

I rose and walked over, then stood back so I could see it clearly. It was small, in a wide gold frame, of a girl, wrapped in red, her arms at her side. She was very young, and the bands of cloth about her straight body gave it a graceful angularity that set off the upright pose of her head. She had a serious face, with a wide forehead beneath dark hair, and gray eyes that seemed to appraise the world with untroubled expectancy.

"Very nice," I remarked.

"Yes." Meriwether leaned forward and knocked his ash in the tray. "Do you know," he exclaimed, "I enjoyed that music to-night! But I get awful

ly fed up, don't you, with all that art stuff?"

"I most certainly do," I agreed. "I don't know much about it. But the few men and women I've known who were any good didn't blow off steam the way Condon does. They couldn't because❞— I hesitated for the thought-"I suppose their minds and emotions weren't separate the way his are. You see, Meriwether, the two things have to go together, and if you separate them"-I warmed up "they both die, like Siamese twins."

"Yes, I think so. At least when it comes to such things as music and poetry. Music's queer," he added slowly. "I know a little about that. The musicians dry up at least the women-when they've no emotional life.”

"How about the bankers and lawyers?" I looked at him stretched out so comfortably in his chair.

"Oh, they're artists too, only they do the work of the world. And, besides, the love of power is as great an emotion as any other, don't you think?"

"The greatest," I said emphatically. "And we, at least you, indulge ourselves there. We've the satisfaction, emotion really, of sustaining the social structure, of creating wealth where none was before."

"Yes. That's important." He nodded his head. "For a man it's the most important. And he has to make every sacrifice for it. Without form and order we go back-" He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what we go back to. That man Lawrence-he tries to show us. He may like what he shows, but as I read him he's damned well afraid of it. At least he's afraid of something. Oh, hell!" He sat up in his chair. "If you could only blend the two! And you can, if you have any luck."

"How?"

"Well," he stared down, then smiled at me with a little gleam in his eye. "Either one for all, or a lot in a row. And for some of us it has to be one for all. We sons of order," he laughed sardonically, "that carry the weight of the world! We're mystics, you see, romantic idealists that want to create new worlds and new wealth, as you say, where none was be

fore. So being romantics, we're like Dante with unconscious leanings toward Casanova. Only Dante prevails. A dull devil!" He sighed. "And just as obsessed as any American business man. Have another drink." He pushed the decanter across the table.

"No more." I rose. "I'm in court tomorrow morning, sustaining the weight of the world." I yawned and stretched out my arms. "And what are we going to do about it, Meriwether?"

"Nothing," he said, getting up from his chair. "It's all been done for us before we were born. It takes rarer and less useful spirits than we to escape. Spirits like Condon-men whose souls issue from their mouths as they do in the old pictures of the saints. Or else Lawrence heroes who gird their loins, or some one else's loins, in the dark. It sounds amusing, but I don't think it is. No." He patted me on the shoulder as we descended the stair. "No hope for us. By the way"— he paused as if the idea had just struck him-"I may send some one in to see you, professionally, one of these days. Good night," he said, holding open the door. "Glad you came around."

II

WHEN I next heard of Meriwether he had gone to Rumania on an oil deal. It seemed quite appropriate, I thought, when Satterthwaite told me. Meriwether would be at home in an oil deal-there was an elusiveness about him, an iridescence, that sprang from some deep-seated source. He was earthy and romantic, an unusual combination, in my experience. On the street he was considered far-seeing and courageous, but I'd wondered, since our talk, whether he wasn't a good deal more than that. I didn't speak of it to Satterthwaite; he'd have thought I was crazy, or addled from reading too much fiction. And, besides, it wasn't important, and I was probably wrong, and when Satterthwaite left he took all thought of Meriwether out of the office with him.

A few minutes later Miss Leisenring came to the door. "A Mrs. Fearon to see you," she said.

"Who?" I never can understand Miss Leisenring when she interrupts me.