ment to the words that were spoken by the
famous novelist with such pathetic regret and stinging self-accusation.
Not knowing how to reply, he said casually, "You are working here, Mr.
Lagrange?"

"Working! Me? I don't _work_ anywhere. I am a literary scavenger. I haunt
the intellectual slaughter pens, and live by the putrid offal that
self-respecting writers reject. I glean the stinking materials for my
stories from the sewers and cesspools of life. For the dollars they pay, I
furnish my readers with those thrills that public decency forbids them to
experience at first hand. I am a procurer for the purposes of mental
prostitution. My books breed moral pestilence and spiritual disease. The
unholy filth I write fouls the minds and pollutes the imaginations of my
readers. I am an instigator of degrading immorality and unmentionable
crimes. _Work_! No, young man, I don't work. Just now, I'm doing penance
in this damned town. My rotten imaginings have proven too much--even for
me--and the doctors sent me West to recuperate,"

The artist could find no words that would answer. In silence, the two men
turned away from the mountains, and started back along the avenue by which
they had come.

When they had walked some little distance, the young man said, "This is
your first visit to Fairlands, Mr. Lagrange?"

"I was here last year"--answered the other--"here and in the hills yonder.
Have _you_ been much in the mountains?"

"Not in California. This is my first trip to the West. I have seen
something of the mountains, though, at tourist resorts--abroad."

"Which means," commented the other, "that you have never seen them at
all."

Aaron King laughed. "I dare say you are right."

"And you--?" asked the novelist, abruptly, eyeing his companion. "What
brought you to this community that thinks so much more of its millionaires
than it does of its mountains? Have _you_ come to Fairlands to work?"

"I hope to," answered the artist. "There are--there are reasons why I do
not care to work, for the present, in the East. I confess it was because I
understood that Fairlands offered exceptional opportunities for a portrait
painter that I came here. To succeed in my work, you know, one must come
in touch with people of influence. It is sometimes easier to interest them
when they are away from their homes--in some place like this--where their
social duties and business cares are not so pressing."

"There is no question of the material