being a part of him. It moved entirely outside his will;
indeed, when certain possibilities came into his shocked mind, it moved
in opposition to his most desperate determination.

A struggle began between McGeorge in a sweating effort to open his
fingers and drop the razor to the floor, and the will imposing a deep,
hard gesture across his throat. He was twisted, he said, into the most
grotesque positions; the hand would move up, and he would force it back
perhaps an inch at a time. During this the familiar, mucid feel closed
about him.

I asked how the force was applied to his arm, but he admitted that his
fright was so intense that he had no clear impression of the details.
McGeorge, however, did try to convince me that his wrist was darkly
bruised afterward. He was, he was certain, lost, his resistance
virtually at an end when, as if from a great distance, he heard the
faint ring of the steel on the bath-room linoleum.

That, he told himself, had cured him; the Meekers, and Ena in
particular, could have their precious Wallace Esselmann. This happened
on Friday, and Sunday evening he was back at the Meeker door. The frenzy
of desire! Love is the usual, more exalted term. Perhaps. It depends on
the point of view, the position adopted in the attack on the dark enigma
of existence. Mine is unpresumptuous.

They were obviously surprised to see him,--or, rather, all were but
Ena,--and his reception was less crabbed than usual. McGeorge, with what
almost approached a flash of humor, said that it was evident they had
expected him to come from the realm of spirits. In view of their
professed belief in the endless time for junketing at their command,
they clung with amazing energy to the importance of the present faulty
scheme.

Ena was wonderfully tender, and promised to marry him whenever he had a
corner ready for her. McGeorge, a reporter, lived with the utmost
informality with regard to hours and rooms. He stayed that night almost
as long as he wished, planning, at intervals, the future. Sometime
during the evening it developed that Jannie was in disfavor; the
sittings had suddenly become unsatisfactory. One the night before had
been specially disastrous.

Stepan, in place of satisfying the very private curiosity of a
well-known and munificent politician, had described another party that
had made a wide ripple of comment and envious criticism among the
shades. It had been planned by a swell of old Rome, faithful i