f the artist;
Lucas the ease of the connoisseur of mundane spectacles; Laurencine the
sturdy, catholic, girlish innocence that nothing can corrupt. And the
sovereign was Lois. She straightened her shoulders; she leaned
languorously; she looked up, she looked down; she spoke softly and
loudly; she laughed and smiled. And in every movement and in every
gesture and tone she symbolized the ecstasy of life. She sought
pleasure, and she had found it, and she had no afterthought. She was
infectious; she was irresistible, and terrible too. For it was
dismaying, at any rate to George, to dwell on the fierceness of her
instinct and on the fierceness of its satisfaction. To George her
burning eyes were wistful, pathetic, in their simplicity. He felt a sort
of fearful pity for her. And he admired her--she was something
definite; she was something magnificently outright; she did live. Also
he liked her; the implications in her glance appealed to him. The
peculiar accents in which she referred to the enigma of Irene Wheeler
were extraordinarily attractive to that part of his nature which was
perverse and sophisticated. "At least she is not a simpleton," he
thought. "And she doesn't pretend to be. Some day I shall talk to her."

The orchestra resumed; the lights went out. Lois settled herself to
fresh enchantment as the curtain rolled up to disclose the bright halls
and staircases of a supper-club. The second act was an amplification and
inflammation of the themes of the first. As for the music, George
listened in vain for an original tune, even for a tune of which he could
not foretell the end from the beginning; the one or two engaging bits of
melody which enlivened the first act were employed again in the second.
The disdainful, lethargic chorus was the same; the same trio of
delicious wantons fondled and kissed the same red-nosed comedian, who
was still in the same state of inebriety, and the gay spark flitted
roysteringly through the same evolutions, in pursuit of the same simple
ideals. The jocularity pivoted unendingly on the same twin centres of
alcohol and concupiscence. Gradually the latter grew to more and more
importance, and the piece became a high and candid homage to the impulse
by force of which alone one generation succeeds another. No beautiful
and graceful young girl on the stage blenched before the salacious
witticisms of the tireless comedian; on the contrary he remained the
darling of the stage. And as he was the