heir mire.

I was bad and mean enough, but the conception of a single poem in my
brain, till it found birth on paper, was, I swore, bigger and finer
than all this world-mess at its best. Also there was in me somewhat the
thwarted, sinister hatred of the celibate....

* * * * *

"You mustn't bother your father now," little Mrs. Jenkins interposed, as
I started in, "you must let him rest for awhile, and not wake him."

Through the door, half open, I caught a glimpse of a hollow, wax-white
face ... he looked as if all the blood had been let out of his body,
little by little. The little, pretty, dark woman looked like a crafty
animal ... there was a beady shine of triumph, which she could not
conceal, in her eyes, as she opposed my entering. I smelt the pungent
smell of her physical womanhood. There was a plumpness about her body, a
ruddiness to her lips, that gave me the phantasy that, perhaps, the
moment before, she had drunk of my father's blood, and that she was
preventing me from going in to where he lay till a certain tiny, red
puncture over his jugular vein had closed.

"You forget, Mrs. Jenkins, that he is my father."

"You shan't go in ... please, Johnnie ... let him sleep just a little
longer ... as soon as he wakes he asks for another drink!"

"And who put him in this state?" I charged directly, vividly remembering
what Hartman had said....

"What, you don't mean to insinuate?"--she gasped.

"I mean nothing, only that I have come home to take care of my father,
till his lodge takes charge of him, and that, for the present, I want
you to please leave me alone with him."

Her small, black pupils dilated angrily. But she did not press the point
of her staying. She had put her hand on my arm cajolingly, but I had
shook it off with such evident disgust--founded partly and secretly on a
horror of physical attraction for her--that drew my morbid, starved
nature--

"Very well!... but I'll be back this afternoon, early. When he wakes up
and asks for a drink of whiskey ... starts out to get one ... draw him a
glass of water from the faucet, and take your oath that it's whiskey ...
he'll believe you and drink it!"

And she departed, an odor of strong perfume in her wake.

* * * * *

Had this planet of earth been populated from without?... there were
evidently two races on it--the race of men--the race of women--men had
voyaged in from some other