"He didn't want to accept it," said Peter, "but I forced a thousand francs on him for clothes and things, you know.' "Mon Dieu," exclaimed the myopic aunt, "a thousand francs! That is more than I have won on the red in four weeks." "But," continued Peter, "there is no doubt this time he had absolute proofs; and he told me all about himself before I hinted that I was looking for him." "What did he tell you?" asked Marthe, still unconvinced.

"That he was writing a great epic poem; that he had been living away from the world for a long time; and then he talked a lot about those pagan gods of his, you know. Oh, he is genuine, right enough." "Well," said Marthe, with a sigh, "I hope so, since this is the last day of the year. If he is not found to-day all that money is yours, Peter dear; that is, if you can make up your mind to marry me."

"Such a shame," said the myopic aunt; "but then, we will hope he is only another impostor.

"I hope no such thing," retorted Peter sturdily, "and I am sure he is not."

"How truly generous of you," sighed the myopic aunt. "And now I think that I shall leave you for a while. I feel that red is winning. How soon do you expect this person? In an hour? Well, I may be back."

"Bonne chance," said Marthe.

"It's that awful zero- -" said the myopic aunt, shaking her head; and she collected her sack and her gloves and her parasol, and headed for the siren wheel.

"And now, Marthe," said Peter; "now that your brother is found, we are free. I am very glad; do you know how glad, Marthe?

"Yes," said Marthe, playing nervously with the straws in her glass. "Yes, I know."

"If we had not found him," Peter went on, "it would have been horrible. As it is, I dare to tell you once more how much I love you, Marthe, and I can ask you to marry me with a clear conscience. Marthe, will you be my wife?"

"Peter," said Marthe slowly, "I would be your wife if your conscience were as black as the ace of spades. But you must not think that I do not appreciate how unselfish you have been. And Peter, dear,

I think that father perhaps knew bestperhaps he was testing you. If he was you have won your degree summa cum laude," and she gave him her hand across the table.

"God bless you," said Peter, kissing her finger-tips. An interested waiter, counting his gains, forgot his figures and was forced to begin again. No one else noticed them.

As the afternoon advanced the tables about them filled rapidly with tea-drinking English and beer-drinking Germans; a red-coated orchestra appeared, to drown at intervals the babel of tongues; laughter mixed merrily with the tinkle of glasses; waiters sprang into life with flying napkins, and the air rose warm from the ground, sweet with the scent of the neighboring flower-beds. Slowly the sun moved down the sky toward the west and the red roofs of Monaco. And still no Taillandy.

Peter glanced nervously at his watch. Half past four.

"He is late," he said.

"Yes, dear," said Marthe; "it takes time to spend a thousand francs. But, doubtless, when he comes he will be very beautiful.'

At five o'clock, like them of Darien, they gazed at each other with a wild surmise. In vain did Marthe strive to keep her laughter down. It rang free and unashamed; and soon Peter joined her rather hollowly.

"Never mind, Peter," said Marthe; "it is only another Taillandy unmasked. And it is the last impostor we shall meet."

"Yes," replied Peter grimly; "the last one."

"And Peter, dear, it is not going to change anything between you and me. I will not allow it to. Tell me that that conscience of yours is quiet. You did your best, Peter."

"Yes," said Peter; "I did my best." "And you deserve to win," she said. "I think," said Peter softly, "that I have won a saint."

"You have," said Marthe; "but your saint is filled with a very earthly love for this beautiful world and for you.'

Down the steps of the Casino and across the sun-swept plaza came the myopic aunt.

"Well," she demanded, peering about her, "where is he?"

"He did not come," said Marthe. The myopic aunt reached her chair with a sigh. "He did not come, hein? Well, neither did red."

VI

A SHORT half-hour later, about half past five, when the long, wavering shadows were merged into the neutral tint of dusk and the bronze sun had died behind Monaco, the impostor stepped cautiously along the terrace where Peter had taken leave of him last. He was dressed as before-no better; but now he carried over his shoulder a roll of blankets and a knapsack was strapped to his back. He was accoutred like a French soldier on the march.

He paused by the terrace railing to glance at the quiet harbor below. Already, behind him, the lights were lit in the Casino, and in the Café de Paris the orchestra was playing to the last loitering guests. It was the hour of transition; the lull between the gayety of the afternoon and that of the evening, when good, fever-fearing people seek four walls and a roof.

But the shabby impostor, evidently fearless, rested his lean arms on the balustrade and breathed long and deep of the soft, sweet air, borne to him on the breeze from the sea's scented islands. Far beneath him lights flashed out by the harborside and, vaguely, he could trace the silvery lines of a yacht riding smoothly to the ground swell.

"Monte Carlo," he said aloud, "you are a beautiful dream city; you are the devil's gilded wonderland. Here men with lustful hands have built a temple to the god called Gold, and here daily they come to worship. I, too, might have knelt in those aisles and bowed my head beneath the gilded dome. Sing, O muse, of Ferdinand Taillandy's sacrifice! And yet was it a sacrifice worthy the singing? They tried to tempt me with their gold. 'Twelve

million francs,' they cried, and waited for me to dress myself appropriately to receive it. Twelve million francs! Bah! Twelve million burdens-twelve million fetters to bind me to their world. Ferdinand, you did well to escape them and you are richer than they; for have you not the sky and the sea and the hills and the sun upon them, and twelve million stars to light your way by night?”

He turned his back to the sea to face the mountains shining snow-crowned against the unquiet sky. On the path to La Turbie a few lights dimmed and glowed small as fireflies. The hush of evening hung about him like a heavy perfume, allpervading, compelling.

Of a sudden, through the dusk, came a figure in white. It was the myopic aunt, feeling her way along the terrace path. She was wringing her hands and making great lamentation, for she had lost much gold. As she drew near, distress resolved itself into words, and, heedless of who might hear, she complained to the stars.

The shabby poet turned with a quiet smile on his lips. Placing his knapsack on the balustrade, he ran his lean fingers swiftly through his pockets and drew out a thousand-franc note. He presented it with a low bow.

"My poor, good woman," he said, “it is plain that you are in distress. You have lost everything. I give you this the more freely because I, on the contrary, have all of this wonderful world. May it buy for you the happiness of a moment, for by renouncing it I shall gain the happiness of the years."

He thrust the note into her hand. She stopped, groped for her lorgnon, desisted, and mechanically closed her fingers on the piece of paper. Before she could speak he left her.

He turned and, slinging his sack once more across his shoulders, stretched out his arms as though reaching for his freedom.

"I will be true to the gods," he said, and went up toward the hills where they were meeting the night.

W

HEN Rhoda Glave came down into the library, she found that her husband had gone out. It seemed odd, until she remembered that Haysthorpe, their guest, had an inordinate appetite for midnight air. Evidently he had persuaded Roland to join him, and they would be strolling, Heaven knew how far, in the dusk and chill of the deserted elm-shaded streets. Mrs. Glave gathered her pale draperies about her with a little disgusted gesture, as if to leave the room that had disappointed her. The smooth silk, worn to limpness, still at its latter end hung gracefully. Rhoda Glave always wore a dress forever, until it seemed to be a kind of uniform. Once in five years, when she appeared in something new, you felt as if the leopard had changed his spots. Then you got used to her in that-e da capo.

Roland Glave's library, in which his wife now stood, was in its quality not unlike his wife's dress. It looked much worn, used to the last shred; but in the composition of its elements a high standard had prevailed. Evidently the Glaves couldn't put up with bad things; they would go without, or they would wear their possessions to bits, but they wouldn't compromise beyond the bounds of decency. Nothing was patched, but everything was very, very thin. A similar record was written on Rhoda Glave's face for any one to read-all in noble phrases of resignation and mirth. She had had her day-like the frock, like the room-but she had lasted better. The play of her features was not over. Her chestnut hair sprang vividly up from her forehead; the hand that held her short silken train was firm and white. She held her head highwould always hold it high, one would have surmised. She had the look of a woman who has prepaid the importunate piper.

Rhoda Glave's gesture of disgust was only incipient. She let her soft, shabby draperies fall, and stood for an instant be

fore a faded chair into which presently she sank. Her firm fingers rested on a book, but she did not take it up. Instead, she arranged herself slowly in a comfortable position, then clasped her hands behind her head and stared before her into the half-dead fire. Relaxed, but poised—a typical attitude-she began to think..

Good old Haysthorpe! He had been a classmate of Roland's, and his half-melancholy, half-cynical presence, his slight limp, his comfortable, safe income that he had never tried to increase, though with his relations it would have been so easy, had been familiar facts of all her married life. He had loyally taken her over, as she had loyally taken him. He wasn't there very often-he was usually wandering about the earth-but whenever he was she found him welcome. Veils dropped away when he came. when he came. Oh, she liked Haysthorpe. He gave them both the requickened sense of their own brilliant beginning. Whatever else he was cynical about, he was never cynical about them. He took their romance delicately for granted; and admitted that, peerless though Roland might be among men, he had been well mated in his bride. Oh, for Haysthorpe, Rhoda reflected, they might have been a constellation! It was something to be fixed for one pair of eyes in the vivid firmament. Yes, Haysthorpe had been wonderful; and he might walk Roland as far as he liked-she would not complain; though this wife of fifteen years' standing, the mother of four children, still found no use for her fine eyes comparable with that of resting on her husband's face. She didn't grudge anything to Haysthorpe, but it wasn't to be expected that she should prefer having her rare lateevening moments bereft of their luminary. She wanted Roland in-she always wanted him in. A roof existed, to her mind, to shelter him, and a roof not thus occupied hadn't much dignity. By the way, the actual roof of the kitchen had leaked in yesterday's rain-they must

see the plumber. Rhoda smiled to herself at the imagery life imposed. Plumbers and constellations!

Why didn't they come back? This prolonged stroll-slow, of course, to humor Haysthorpe's limp-was like the old lavish days before the children came, when time, if it was money, was at least golden and not mere slippery change. Roland had been pot-boiling even then, but boiling the pot wasn't so bad if only you didn't have to boil it all the time-and stir, stir, stir, as it boiled, until your arm ached. Of course, Roland hadn't it in him to do anything without a cachet of its own; but the fact remained that he reviewed other men's books, passed judgment on other men's policies, worked at other men's behests for whatever they decided to give him. His reputation was, in its way, unique; but he had never had time to stamp his impression home on the world at large-the world that pays. He was a genius, poor darling, but a genius-of-allwork. The thing he did best was the thing for which he got no pay at all: he talked superlatively.

After college Roland Glave had flung all his tiny inheritance into a traveller's purse, and had gone round the world. He had gone with modern speed and comfort; yet he seemed to have swung out to the horizon in a glorious galleon, to have searched the seas to the sound of music, and to have brought home rich argosies of anecdote and fable. Rhoda remembered the vivid months after his return, when they had fallen in love with each other. His talk was in the grand manner, voilà tout; and if he was as poor as he was adored, what did it matter? There was no fatal fleck of egotism on his brilliance. He had done whatever dignified, ill-paying thing came to hand, done it faithfully, cheerfully, and a little whimsically. They hadn't been able to pluck the flowers of his talent, because they had always needed the fruit; but they had never been sordid, and they had never consented for a moment to believe that the glittering material chance mightn't come. If it hadn't been for the children-Rhoda caught her breath as the last log fell down to ashes well, if it hadn't been for their children, they would have enough to renew the cup of adventure, to keep it always brimming

and bubbling at their lips. They were well off for two. They weren't well off for six; and if anything connected with their marriage could have been sordid-it couldn't!-it would have been the fees for specialists and the absurdly monotonous way in which each child managed to combine its parents' poorest features. They had been too much in love not to want children; for each of them not privately and passionately to desire increase from that other fairest creature. No, there had never-Rhoda reiterated vehemently to herself-since the world began been but one way. Even poor, dull, little stammering Stanton-their only boywas in the antique tradition. It was certainly very much in the antique tradition (Rhoda was apt to frame her sentiment in irony: apples of gold in pictures of silver) that your children should reproduce their ancestors rather than their parents. Poor little Stanton! How they had hovered over his cradle, and how resolutely, during the years, had each refused to put into words the wonder that daily grew! How could Stanton be Roland's boy? How could he be Rhoda's son? The doctors all shook their heads over him-felt his back, looked in his throat, did all the things that cost so much. And still Stanton peered and stammered, and reacted to life with a simplicity that had in it nothing idyllic. Just a dear, pathetically dull, and mysteriously ailing child. . . . And the little girls: they were wellmannered-of course! but they might have been anybody's children. No one, Rhoda thought as she sat waiting for the two men, would ever have taken them for Roland Glave's. Chin in hand, for a change, she reflected on the odd usury of romance. "It's worth everything," she said silently; "and that is probably why it charges you a hundred per cent.

And then she heard Haysthorpe's uneven step and her husband's voice. Nearly two; what had they been talking of? She rose to greet them. No time to-night to put the problem of Stanton. Roland would be tired, and she knew as well as he what a pile of books had to be got through with on the morrow. But Haysthorpe was not to be blamed ever; and the new problem about Stanton could wait. Strange, pitiful little Stanton!

"Rhoda!" Glave's fine Roman features (small wonder that Haysthorpe mocked him with "Petronius Arbiter"!) grew gravely bright. "Did you stay up for us? I thought you would have been asleep long since."

"I finished Peggy's dress for the birthday party, and you know what a duffer I am at sewing. Then I came down for conversation, and waited up for sheer curiosity to see what Geoffrey had done. with you. Even to Haysthorpe she couldn't, just then, mention Stanton as a problem.

"The most extraordinary things!" Glave exclaimed. "Haven't you, Haysthorpe?"

"Apparently." Haysthorpe stood by the fire; but neither its warmth nor exercise in the night air brought any tinge into his colorless face. His pallor was natural-the pallor almost of alabaster, beneath his smooth fair hair. He had, too, save for his intimates, a marble manner; so that, altogether, a world given to stupid epithets could not be much blamed for calling him cold. "Apparently, Rhoda. I've startled him, at all events, into tremendous form."

"Form! You startled me into sheer delirium. I must have been a spectacle! Rhoda, dear, why did you stay away all the evening?"

"I waited as long as I could, and when Rhoda didn't come "Haysthorpe began apologetically.

"It was really my last minute for Peggy's dress," sighed Rhoda. She knew from Roland's look that he had genuinely missed her; that whatever Haysthorpe had imparted was something he hadn't wanted to taste alone. She didn't like missing Roland himself "in tremendous form." He was so good; no one could know so well as she how good he was. He would talk you into the midst of the Pleiades, whisk you up to the verge of Saturn. She knew. Fifteen years of marriage-marriage which is happiness in the form of the fugue!-had taught her patience but had whetted her appetite. Peggy's dress seemed like the finger of Fate. The children (bless them!) took so much time-wasted so much, if it came to that. Whatever they did, they seemed to do with a happy eye on eternity.

"I must go to bed now," said Rhoda; "but you might tell me in three words." "Oh, three words!" protested Haysthorpe. "Look how long it's taken me. But... how would 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' do?"

"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,' repeated. "Oh, if it's just another epigram you've been polishing on Roland-"

"Let it go at 'Liberty,' sang out Glave. "Geoffrey has chartered a yacht for the Hesperides, and puts us in command with the kiddies for cargo. He's off to Cimmeria himself.”

Haysthorpe left the fire, limped across to Rhoda, and took her hands in his.

"It's only that it's been my luck, my dear, to put him and adventure together in a phrase that told. The Great Person liked the phrase, and has always been in private moments a serious admirer of Roland's. Why not make one of the private moments public? I suggested it. He caught on like wildfire. I answered for our boy up to the hilt. . . . You see, I do sometimes dine out with my relatives. And now you two have really only to decide."

"What is it?" Her cleverness seemed all to have deserted her. She beat wildly in a bright fog of conjecture.

"A perfectly good, though naturally very small, diplomatic post. Minister to Something-or-other with a lovely climate, where you can afford twenty servants and pick your food, in courses, off the trees. Not a thing for Glave to do, really, but produce masterpieces, and now and then practise his impeccable Spanish on dignitaries. What price that, madame l'ambassadrice?" He smiled at her impassive face; then, as he bent to kiss her hand, whispered, "Look at him.”

She did look at Glave, and caught her breath. Never but once before had she seen that light in his eyes—the eyes of a man who stands face to face with Fortune, breasting her smile. Fifteen years before she had caught her breath in the same way. All these years she had thought of it as a light that passes with youth. But

even Haysthorpe's colorless face reflected it now with a faint lunar glow.

She could not speak, yet every instant that she delayed, she knew, would make her reply, when it came, more inadequate.