in it, in all its forms."

"To give you STIMMUNG! I can't understand your love for the book,
Heinz. It's morbid."

"Everything's morbid that the ordinary mortal doesn't wish to be
reminded of. Some day--if I don't turn stoker or acrobat beforehand,
and give up peddling in the emotions--some day I shall write music to
it. That would be a melodrama worth making."

"Morbid, Heirtz, morbid!"

"All women are not of your opinion. I remember once hearing a woman
say, had the author still lived, she would have pilgrimaged barefoot to
see him."

"Oh, I dare say. There are women enough of that kind."

"Fools, of course?"

"Extravagant; unbalanced. The class of person that suffers from a
diseased temperament.--But men can make fools of themselves, too. There
are specimens enough here to start a museum with."

"Of which you, as NORMALMENSCH, could be showman."

Madeleine pushed her chair back towards the head of the sofa, so that
she came to sit out of the range of Krafft's eyes.

"Talking of fools," she said slowly, "have you seen anything of Maurice
Guest lately?"

Krafft lowered a spike of ash into the tray. "I have not."

"Yes; I heard he had got into a different hour," she said
disconnectedly. As, however, Krafft remained impassive, she took the
leap. "Is there--can nothing be done for him, Heinz?"

Here Krafft did just what she had expected him to do: rose on his
elbow, and turned to look at her. But her face was inscrutable.

"Explain," he said, dropping back into his former position.

"Oh, explain!" she echoed, firing up at once. "I suppose if a
fellow-mortal were on his way to the scaffold, you men would still ask
for explanations. Listen to me. You're the only man here Maurice was at
all friendly with--I shouldn't turn to you, you scoffer, you may be
sure of it, if I knew of anyone else. He liked you; and at one time,
what you said had a good deal of influence with him. It might still
have. Go to him, Heinz, and talk straight to him. Make him think of his
future, and of all the other things he has apparently forgotten.--You
needn't laugh! You could do it well enough if you chose--if you weren't
so hideously cynical.--Oh, don't laugh like that! You're loathsome when
you do. And there's nothing natural about it."

But Krafft enjoyed himself undisturbed. "Not natural? It ought to be,"
he said when he could speak again. "Oh, you English, you English!--was
there ever a people like you? Don't talk to me of m