! It was inconsiderate of Jerry to set me to squiring
middle-aged dames while he spooned with his Freudian miracle in the
conservatory. Strindberg indeed! Schnitzler, too, in all probability!
While I invented mid-Victorian platitudes for the prosaic, "not very
pretty" Miss Gore--Bore! Bore--Gore! Bah!

I gave the necessary orders and went in to my work. I merely sat and
stared at the half-written sheet of foolscap on the desk, unable to
concentrate my thoughts. I am a most moderate man, a philosopher, I
hope, and yet today I felt possessed, it seemed, of an insensate
desire to burst forth into profanity--a fine attitude of mind for a
contemplative morning! My whole world was turned suddenly upside down.

But out of chaos cosmos returned. I had given up the thought of work,
but at last found satisfaction in a quiet analysis of Jerry's
narration of the night before. What did one female or two or a dozen
matter if Jerry was fundamentally sound? Sophistry might shake,
blandishment bend, sex-affinity blight, but Jerry would stand like an
oak, its young leaves among the stars, its roots deep in mother earth.
Marcia Van Wyck, her black damask boudoirs, her tinted finger tips,
her Freud, Strindberg and all the rest of her modern trash--there
would come a day when Jerry would laugh at them!

I think I must have dozed in my chair, for I seemed to hear voices,
and, opening my eyes, beheld Jerry in my Soorway, a laughing group in
the hall behind him.

"'Even the worthy Homer sometimes nods,'" he was quoting gayly. "Wake
up, Roger. Visitors!"

I started to my feet in much embarrassment. "Miss Van Wyck, Miss
Gore--Mr. Canby," said Jerry, and I found myself bowing to a very
handsome young person, dressed in an outdoor suit of a vivid, cherry
color. I had no time to study her carefully at the moment, but took
the hand she thrust forward and muttered something.

"I feel very guilty," she was saying. "It's all my fault, Mr. Canby.
I've been simply wild for years to see what was inside the wall."

"I hope it will not disappoint you," I said urbanely.

"It's very wonderful. I don't wonder Jerry never wanted to leave. I
shouldn't have gone--ever. A wall around one's own particular
Paradise! Could anything be more rapturous?"

("Jerry!" They were progressing.)

The tone was thin, gentle and studiously sweet, and her face, I am
forced to admit, was comely. Its contour was oval, slightly accented
at the cheek bones, and its skin wa