"if I say anything more it would
concern you. And what you saw.... For what you saw was alive, and
real--as truly living as you and I are. It is nothing to wonder at,
nothing to trouble or perplex you, to see clearly--anybody--you have
ever--_loved_."

He looked up at her in a silence so strained, so longing, so intense,
that she felt the terrific tension.

"Yes," she said, "you saw clearly and truly when you saw--her."

"Who? in God's name!"

"Need I tell you, Dr. Westland?"

No, she had no need to tell him. His wife was dead. But it was not his
wife he had seen so often in his latter years.

No, she had no need to tell him.

* * * * *

Athalie had never been inclined to care for companions of her own sex.
As a child she had played with boys, preferring them. Few women
appealed to her as qualified for her friendship--only one or two here
and there and at rare intervals seemed to her sufficiently interesting
to cultivate. And to the girl's sensitive and shy advances, here and
there, some woman responded.

Thus she came to know and to exchange occasional social amenities with
Adele Millis, a youthful actress, with Rosalie Faithorn, a handsome
girl born to a formal social environment, but sufficiently independent
to explore outside of it and snap her fingers at the opinions of those
peeping over the bulwarks to see what she was doing.

Also there was Peggy Brooks, a fascinating, breezy, capable young
creature who was Dr. Brooks to many, and Peggy to very few. And there
were one or two others, like Nina Grey and Jeanne Delauny and Anne
Randolph.

But of men there would have been no limit and no end had Athalie not
learned very early in the game how to check them gently but firmly;
how to test, pick, discriminate, sift, winnow, and choose those to be
admitted to her rooms after the hours of business had ended.

Of these the standards differed, so that she herself scarcely knew why
such and such a one had been chosen--men, for instance, like Cecil
Reeve and Arthur Ensart--perhaps even such a man as James Allys, 3rd.
Captain Dane, of course, had been a foregone conclusion, and John
Lyndhurst was logical enough; also W. Grismer, and the jaunty, obese
Mr. Welter, known in sporting circles as Helter Skelter Welter, and
more briefly and profanely as Hel. His running mate, Harry Ferris had
been included. And there was a number of others privileged to drift
into the rooms of Athalie G