QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW BATTLE-GROUND, EACH LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS Charter was seized with . It was his sorry thought that the old scar-tissues, however bravely they sufficed in the days of easy-going, could not endure a like this. But he was wrong. It was the shock to his spirit, which made of Selma Cross a giantess of vague outlines in a room filled with swimming objects. Need for the woman of his visions had in the outer hall. In the substitution there was an inner , which to one of Charter's intense concentration was like a stroke; and then, too, the horrible outburst of energy in adjusting the Skylark spirit to the flesh of this old plaything of his, left him drained. He steadied himself into the music-room, and sank into a deep chair, where his heart pumped furiously, but light and empty, as if it could not grip the blood locked in his .
 
He sat in a sort of trance, glimpses of many thoughts running through his brain. He deserved punishment. That was all very well, but something was wrong here. The premonition became a reality in his consciousness that he had entered upon a great desert; that he was to endure again one of his terrible thirsts; not a throat-thirst alone, but a soul-thirst. In the atmosphere of the woman, in the very odor of the room, he felt the old impassioned lyric-maker crush back into the dominance of his mind with all the impish of that lower self. Pride asserted itself now. What an idiot passage in the career of a rising writer! He should always remember with shame this coming to New York—a youthful Marius in whose veins was injected mid-summer madness—coming to this city (where dollar-work is king and plumaged-woman queen) with an conception from garret dreams.... A strong white light fell upon the leather cover of her reading-table, but their faces were in shadow, like the hundred actor faces in photograph upon the wall and mantel. Selma Cross was studying him keenly. The emptiness of it all was so —as his blood began to move again—that he laughed aloud.
 
"Do you know," Selma Cross said softly, "I thought at first you had been drinking too much. I hardly knew you otherwise, remember. Shall I tell you what added thought came to me, as you crossed the floor so unsteadily—looking so white?"
 
"Locomotor ataxia, I suppose. I hear it is getting quite the thing for middle-generation New Yorkers.... I expected to see you a little later in your new play, but not here—to-night——"
 
"That is what I thought—that thing. You seem floored. I didn't know a woman could do that. In the old days, you were —if nothing else."
 
His collar felt tight, and he stretched it out, needing more air in his lungs and more blood in his brain. It was clear enough to him now how Skylark had been stricken. The real was that she belonged to this sort of thing at all; that she could consent to this trick, this trap. It was all so different from the fineness, the pervading , of all Skylark thoughts. Having consented to the trick, might she not be listening?... He did not mind her hearing; indeed, he might say things which were needful for her to know—but that she should listen! He . This was not his Skylark at all.... It was hardly Charter's way now to into the centre of things. There was a in the manner and movement of Selma Cross; she seemed so at ease, that he was willing to make it a bit harder for her.
 
"I suppose I was more adaptable formerly," he said slowly. "It is something, however, suddenly to encounter an old friend who has made good so fearfully and tremendously in the past week. Of course, I had read all about it. Still, I repeat it was an experience to encounter your stardom actually on the boards; and more of an experience to find you here. I'm really very glad that you secured the one great vehicle. As for your work—few know its quality better than I."
 
She studied him long, her eyes glowing behind the narrowed lids. "As for that, you've been biting the flaky top-crust, too," she said finally. "I never doubted what you could do in your game, but I confess I feared that whiskey would beat you to it.... Do you know you are wonderfully changed—so white, so lean? Your work has come to me since you went away; what else have you been doing?—I mean, to change you so finely."
 
"Garret."
 
Her brow clouded at the word. It was as if she had expected to laugh at him long before this. "Did any woman ever tell you that you're rather a mean sort, Quentin Charter?"
 
"Doubtless I have deserved it," he answered. "What are you thinking?"
 
"I was thinking of your garret—where you gather your victims for vivisection."
 
"That's put very clearly."
 
"Do you think this is big-man stuff?"
 
"My case is rather an ugly one to look back upon, truly," Charter granted. "For a long time, it appeared to me that I must learn things at first-hand. With first-water talents, perhaps this is not necessary."
 
"A woman finally brings a man face to face," she said with sudden scorn, "and he becomes limp, agrees with everything she says.... 'Yes, it is quite true, I was an awful beast. What else, dear?'—ugh!"
 
Charter smiled. She was very swift and in supplying a man's evil . It is a terrible feminine misfortune—this gift of imputing—and happy women do not possess it. Few men, incidentally, are deep enough to avail themselves of all the crafts and cunnings with which they may be .
 
"I have no intention of destroying the slightest gratification you may draw, Selma, from questioning me," he said. "If I appear limp, please remember that I'm a bit in the dark as yet. I came to this floor on a different errand. I had this errand in mind—not self-examination. However, I'll attend now in all . You were speaking of my victims for vivisection in the garret."
 
She appeared not to trust him in the least. "I've always wanted to know if you believed—what an I really was in love—give-and-take—when you came?"
 
"That was easily believed, Selma——"
 
"Then you grant I wasn't —when I gave myself to you?"
 
"I didn't think you were acting——"
 
"Then you were acting, because when the time came—you dropped me quite as easily as you would drop a street-cur you had been pleased to feed."
 
"Just there you are a bit in error. I was furiously interested, and certainly not acting altogether, until——"
 
"Enter—the wine," she said with a .
 
"Yes, if you will." He was irritated for a second, having meant to say something different.
 
"A woman so loves to hear that a man's passion for her depends upon his drinking!"
 
"I have always been very fond of and grateful to you. It was the whole life that the drinking carried me into—that I had such horror for when, when I became well."
 
"You got well very suddenly after you left me," she told him. Her huge face was livid, and her lips dry.
 
"On the contrary, I was a long time ill." Her temper chilled his attempts at sincerity.
 
"It looked so from those first few—letters, is rather a word."
 
"I say it with shame, I was practically unable to write. I was burnt out when I left here. I had been to Asia—gone from home seven months—and the returning fool permitted the bars to welcome him——"
 
"You seized a moment to a letter——"
 
"Silence would have been far better," he said. "I see that now. My only idea was to let you hear. Writing myself was out of the question by that time."
 
"You wrote an article about stage people—with all the loftiness of an anæmic priest."
 
"That was written before I left here—written and delivered——"
 
"All the worse, that you could write such an article—while you were spending so much time with me."
 
"I have never what you gave me, Selma. I could praise you, without admiring the stage. You are amazingly different. I think that's why New York is talking about you to-night. I had made many trips to New York and knew many stage people, before I met you. If you had belonged to the type familiar to me, I should have needed a stronger than drink to force an interest. Had there been others like you—had I even encountered 'five holy ones in the city'—I should not have written that stage article, or others before it."
 
"You were one with the Broadway Glowworms, Quentin Charter. Few of them drank so as you."
 
"I have already told you that for a long time I was an unutterable fool. Until three years ago, I did not begin to know—the breath of life."
 
Selma Cross arose and paced the room, stretching out her great arms from time to time as she walked. "You're getting back your glibness," she exclaimed, "your quick little sentences which fit in so nicely! Ah, I know them well, as other women are learning them. But I have things which you cannot answer so easily—you of the garret .... You find a starved woman of thirty—play with her for a fortnight, showing her everything that she can desire, and seeming to have no thought, but of her. I discover that there was not a moment in which you were so that you forgot to be an . I forgive that, as you might forgive things in my day's work. You put on your gray garret-garb, and forget the hearts of my people, to uncover their weaknesses before the world—you, so recently one of us, and none more drunk or drained with the dawn—than you! Such preaching is not good to the , but I forgive that. You are sick, and even the drink won't warm you, so you leave me at a moment's notice——"
 
"There was another reason."
 
"Hear me out, first," she commanded.... "To you, it is just, 'Adios, my dear'; to me, it is an uprooting—oh, I don't mind telling you. I was overturned in that , left naked for the long burning day, but I remembered my work—the work you despise! I, who had reason to know how noble your pen can be, forgave even those first letters, filled with excuses such as a cheap clerk might write. I forgave the dictation, because it said you were ill—forgave the silences.... But when you came to New York six months afterwards, and did not so much as 'phone or send me a card of greeting—Selma called in her silly tears."
 
"It was ," he said earnestly. "That's where my big fault lay. I wonder if you would try to understand the only palliation. You were strangely generous and wonderful in your ways. I did not cease to think of that. Personally, you are far above the things I came to . No one understands but the victim, what alcohol does to a man when it gets him down. I tried to kill myself. I became convalescent by force. Slowly approaching the normal again, I was glad enough to live, but the horrors never leave the mind entirely. Everything connected with the old life filled me with fear. I tell you no one hates alcohol like a drunkard fresh in his reform."
 
"But I did not make you drink," she said impatiently. "I'm not a drink-loving woman."
 
Charter's face flushed. The interview was becoming a . It had been agony for him to make this . She would not see that he realized his ingratitude; that it was his caused by indulging low which made him identify her with the days of evil.
 
"I know that very well, Selma Cross," he said wearily, "but the stage is a part of that old life, that sick night-life that runs eternally around the belt-line."
 
She hated him for to this point. Holding fast to what she still had to say, the actress picked up a broken thread. "You said there was another reason why you left New York so suddenly."
 
Charter expected now to learn if any one were listening. He was cold with the thought of the interview being weighed in the balances of a third mind.
 
"You've made a big point of my going away," he essayed. "The other reason is not a pretty matter, and doubtless you will call any of mine an affectation——"
 
"Repugnance—what do you mean?" she asked , yet she was afraid, afraid of his cool tongue. "I never lied to you."
 
"That may be true. I'm not curious for evidence to the contrary. The day before I left for the West, a friend told me that you and I were being watched; that all our movements were known. I didn't believe it; could not see the sense—until it was proved that same night by the walk we took.... You doubtless remember the face of that young night-bird whom we once laughed about. We thought it just one of those coincidences which frequently occur—a certain face bobbing up everywhere for a number of days. I assured myself that night that you knew nothing of this outside interest in our affairs."
 
Selma Cross, with swift stealth, disappeared into the apartment-hall and closed the outer door; then returned, facing him. Her yellow eyes were wide open, filled with a , tortured look. To Charter the place and the woman had become haggard with emptiness. He missed the occasional click of the elevator in the outer-hall, for it had seemed to keep him in touch with the world's activities. The old carnal of Selma Cross stirred not a tissue in him now; the odor of her garments which once roused him, was forbidding. He had not the strength to believe that the door had been shut for any other reason than to prevent Skylark from hearing. The actress had not minded how their voices carried, so long as he was being .... The air was devitalized. It was as if they were dying of heart-break—without a sound.... It had been so wonderful—this thought of finding his mate after the æons, his completion—a woman beautiful with soul-age and spiritual light....
 
Selma Cross was speaking. Charter stirred from his great trouble. She was changed, no longer the clever mistress of a dramatic hour.... Each was so burdened with a personal tragedy that pity for the other was slow to warm between them.
 
"Do you mean that old Villiers paid the night-bird to watch us—to learn where we went, and possibly what we said?" she was saying . Selma Cross felt already that her cad was exploded.
 
"Yes, and that was unpleasant," Charter told her. "I didn't like the feel of that procurer's eyes, but what revolted me was Villiers himself. I took pains to learn his name the next day—that last day. There isn't a more unclean human package in New York.... It was so unlike you. I couldn't adjust the two. I couldn't be where he had been. I was sick with my own . I went back ............