ow! What a turning away from the light!
What a crime against the children!

"For their sake, Mr. Blacklock," she pleaded, her mother love wholly hiding
from her the features of the spectacle that for me shrieked like scarlet
against a white background.

"Your husband has deceived you about your fortune, Mrs. Langdon," I said
gently, for there is to me something pathetic in ignorance and I was not
blaming her for her folly and her crime against her children. "You can tell
him what I am about to say, or not, as you please. But my advice is that
you keep it to yourself. Even if the present situation develops as seems
probable, develops as Mr. Langdon fears, you will not be left without a
fortune--a very large fortune, most people would think. But Mr. Langdon
will have little or nothing--indeed, I think he is practically dependent
on you now."

"What I have is his," she said.

"That is generous," replied I, not especially impressed by a sentiment, the
very uttering of which raised a strong doubt of its truth. "But is it
prudent? You wish to keep him--securely. Don't tempt him by a generosity he
would only abuse."

She thought it over. "The idea of holding a man in that way is repellent to
me," said she, now obviously posing.

"If the man happens to be one that can be held in no other way," said I,
moving significantly toward the door, "one must overcome one's
repugnance--or be despoiled and abandoned."

"Thank you," she said, giving me her hand. "Thank you--more than I can
say." She had forgotten entirely that she came to plead for her husband.
"And I hope you will soon be as happy as I am." That last in New York's
funniest "great lady" style.

I bowed, and when there was the closed door between us, I laughed, not at
all pleasantly. "This New York!" I said aloud. "This New York that dabbles
its slime of sordidness and snobbishness on every flower in the garden of
human nature. New York that destroys pride and substitutes vanity for it.
New York with its petty, mischievous class-makers, the pattern for the
rich and the 'smarties' throughout the country. These 'cut-out' minds and
hearts, the best of them incapable of growth and calloused wherever the
scissors of conventionality have snipped."

I took from my pocket the picture of Anita I always carried. "Are
_you_ like that?" I demanded of it. And it seemed to answer: "Yes,--I
am." Did I tear the picture up? No. I kissed it as if it were the magnetic
reality. "I do