ld write up big--I knew
just how! Or at a corner newsstand I would catch a glimpse of my name on
the cover of some magazine. Again I would be hurrying home, or into a
neighboring florist's or a theater ticket office, or diving into the
jolly whirl of the large Fifth Avenue toy shop in which I took an
unflagging delight. In my mind would be thoughts of a pillow fight or a
long evening with Eleanore, or we would be having friends to dine or
going out to dinner.

For Eleanore had been swift to use my success to broaden both our lives.
Young and adorably happy, eagerly alive, she did for me what she had
done for her father, filling my life with other lives. She was an artist
in living. It was a joy to see her make out a list of people to be asked
to dine. Her father, once watching the process, remarked to me in low,
solemn tones:

"She's a regular social chemist--who has never had an explosion."

He was often on the list, and through him and his many friends and the
ones I made through my writing, by degrees our circle widened. We met
all kinds of people, for Eleanore hated "sets" and "cliques." We met not
only successful men but (God help us sometimes) we also met their wives.
We met successful writers, artists and musicians, and a few people of
the stage. We met visitors from the West and from half the big cities of
Europe. We furbished up our French and German, our knowledge of books
and pictures and plays--_successful_ books and pictures and plays.

Through Eleanore's father and his work our minds were still held to the
past, to the harbor which had taken me, bruised and blind and petty, and
lifted me up and taught me to live, had given me my work, my home and my
new god. I was grateful, I was proud, I was in love and I felt strong.
And my view of the harbor in those days was of a glorious symbol of the
power of mind over matter, and of the mighty speeding up of a world of
civilization and peace, a successful world, strong, broad, tolerant,
sweeping on and bearing us with it.

So we adventured gaily, not deeper down, but higher and higher up into
life.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

We had been married four years.

At the end of a crisp November day I was just about starting home. I
remember how keenly alive I felt, how tingling with bodily health, and
above all how successful.

I had had such a successful day. I had written hard all morning and my
work had been going splendidly. I had lunched downtown with