d blood can stand it no
longer, till I drop in my tracks. I realise that somehow I must make
her pity me, must awake in her that guardian angel which exists in every
woman. Only in that way can I break down the barrier of her pride and
arouse the love latent in her heart.

There are half a dozen girls in the box, a bevy of beauties, and I buy a
case of wine for each, over a thousand dollars' worth. Screaming with
laughter they toss it in bottles down to their friends in the audience.
It is a scene of riotous excitement. The audience roars, the girls
shriek, the orchestra tries to make itself heard. Madder and madder
grows the merriment. The fierce fever of it scorches in my veins. I am
mad to spend, to throw away money, to outdo all others in bitter,
reckless prodigality. I fling twenty-dollar gold pieces to the singers.
I open bottle after bottle of wine. The girls are spraying the crowd
with it, the floor of the box swims with it. I drop my pencil signing a
tab, and when I look down it is floating in a pool of champagne.

Then comes the last. The dance has begun. Men in fur caps, mackinaw
coats and mucklucks are waltzing with women clad in Paris gowns and
sparkling with jewels. The floor is thronged. I have a large,
hundred-ounce poke of dust, and I unloose the thong. Suddenly with a mad
shout I scatter its contents round the hall. Like a shower of golden
rain it falls on men and women alike. See how they grovel for it, the
brutes, the vampires! How they fight and grab and sprawl over it! How
they shriek and howl and curse! It is like an arena of wild beasts; it
is pandemonium. Oh, how I despise them! My gorge rises, but--to the end,
to the end. I must play my part.

* * * * *

Always amid that lurid carnival of sin floats the figure of Blossom,
Blossom with her child-face of dazzling fairness, her china-blue eyes,
her round, smooth cheeks. How different from the pinched pallid face of
Berna! Poor, poor Berna! I never see her, but amid all the saturnalia
she haunts me. The thought of her is agony, agony. I cannot bear to
think of her. I know she watches me. If she would only stoop and save me
now! Or have I not fallen low enough? What a faith I have in that deep
mother-love of hers that will redeem me in the end. I must go deeper
yet. Faster and faster must I swirl into the vortex.

Oh, these women, how in my heart I loathe them! I laugh with them, I
quaff with them, I let them rob