ice
of writs, at the instance of his wife, for alimony--would invariably
bring down the house upon this sentiment. Every night, listening to the
applause, I would shudder, recalling how I had written it with burning
cheeks.

There was a character in the piece, a vicious old man, that from the
beginning Vane had wanted me to play. I had disliked the part and
had refused, choosing instead to act a high-souled countryman, in the
portrayal of whose irreproachable emotions I had taken pleasure. Vane
now renewed his arguments, and my power of resistance seeming to have
departed from me, I accepted the exchange. Certainly the old gentleman's
scenes went with more snap, but at a cost of further degradation to
myself. Upon an older actor the effect might have been harmless, but the
growing tree springs back less surely; I found myself taking pleasure
in the coarse laughter that rewarded my suggestive leers, calling up all
the evil in my nature to help me in the development of fresh "business."
Vane was enthusiastic in his praises, generous with his assistance.
Under his tuition I succeeded in making the part as unpleasant as we
dared. I had genius, so Vane told me; I understood so much of human
nature. One proof of the moral deterioration creeping over me was that I
was beginning to like Vane.

Looking back at the man as I see him plainly now, a very ordinary scamp,
his pretension not even amusing, I find it difficult to present him as
he appeared to my boyish eyes. He was well educated and well read. He
gave himself the airs of a superior being by freak of fate compelled to
abide in a world of inferior creatures. To live among them in comfort it
was necessary for him to outwardly conform to their conventions but to
respect their reasoning would have been beneath him. To accept
their laws as binding on one's own conscience was, using the common
expression, to give oneself away, to confess oneself commonplace. Every
decent instinct a man might own to was proof in Vane's eyes of his being
"suburban," "bourgeois"--everything that was unintellectual. It was the
first time I had heard this sort of talk. Vane was one of the pioneers
of the movement, which has since become somewhat tiresome. To laugh at
it is easy to a man of the world; boys are impressed by it. From him
I first heard the now familiar advocacy of pure Hedonism. Pan, enticed
from his dark groves, was to sit upon Olympus.

My lower nature rose within me to proclaim th