ns like a set of scenery pushed on and off as the
order of the play demanded. Oh, the misery of it all! He, Monross, poet,
lover, egoist, husband, to be confronted by this damnable defiance, this
early-born hate! What had he done! And in the brain cells of the man
there awakened a processional fleet of pictures: Rhoda wooed; Rhoda
dazzled; Rhoda won; Rhoda smiling before the altar; Rhoda resigned upon
that other altar; Rhoda, wife, mother; and Rhoda--dead!

But Rhoda loved--again he looked at the face. The brow was virginally
placid, the drooping, bitter mouth alone telling the unhappy husband a
story he had never before suspected. Rhoda! Was it possible this tiny
exquisite creature had harboured rancour in her soul for the man who had
adored her because she had adored him? Rhoda! The shell of his egoism
fell away from him. He saw the implacable resentment of this tender girl
who, her married life long, had loathed the captain that had invaded the
citadel of her soul, and conqueror-like had filched her virgin zone. The
woman seemingly stared at the man through lids closed in death--the
woman, the sex that ages ago had feared the barbarian who dragged her to
his cave, where he subdued her, making her bake his bread and bear his
children.

In a wide heaven of surmise Monross read the confirmation of his
suspicions--of the eternal duel between the man and the woman; knew
that Rhoda hated him most when most she trembled at his master bidding.
And now Rhoda lay dead in her lyre-shaped coffin, saying these ironic
things to her husband, when it was too late for repentance, too early
for eternity.

IX

THE ENCHANTED YODLER

A MARIENBAD ELEGY

I

The remorseless rain had washed anew the face of the dark blue sky that
domed Marienbad and its curved chain of hills. Hugh Krayne threw open
his window and, leaning out, exclaimed, as he eagerly inhaled the soft
air of an early May morning:--

"At last! And high time!" For nine days he had waded through the wet
streets, heavily leaping the raging gutters and stopping before the door
of every optician to scrutinize the barometer. And there are many in
this pretty Bohemian health resort, where bad weather means bad temper,
with enforced confinement in dismal lodgings or stuffy _restaurations_,
or--last resort of the bored--the promenade under the colonnade, while
the band plays as human beings shuffle ponderously over the cold stones
and stare at each other in sullen d