the
pomp and glitter of life that youth loves.

There were other no less genuinely happy occasions spent with Dick
Carson, way up near the roof in the theaters and opera house or in queer,
fascinating out-of-the-way foreign restaurants. The two had the jolliest
kind of time together, always like two children at a picnic. Tony was
very nice to Dick these days. He kept her from being too homesick for the
Hill and anyway she felt a wee bit sorry for him because he did not know
about Alan and those long letters which came so frequently from the
retreat in the mountains where the latter was sketching. She knew she
ought to tell Dick how far things had gone but somehow she couldn't quite
drive herself to do it. She didn't want to hurt him. And she did not want
to banish him from her life. She wanted him, needed him just where he
was, at her feet, and never bothering her with any inconvenient demands
or love-making. It was selfish but it was true. And in any case it would
be soon enough to worry Dick when Alan came back to town.

And then without warning he was back, very much back. And with his return
the pleasant nicely balanced, casual scheme of things which she had been
following so contentedly was knocked sky high. She had to adjust herself
to a new heaven and a new earth with Alan Massey the center of both. In
her delight and intoxication at having her lover near her again, more
fascinating and lover-like than ever, Tony lost her head a little,
neglected her work, snubbed her friends, refused invitations from Dick
and Cousin Felice, and indeed from everybody except Alan. She went
everywhere with him, almost nowhere without him, spent her days and more
of her nights than was at all prudent or proper in his absorbing society,
had, in short, what she afterward described to Carlotta as a "perfect
orgy of Alan."

At the end of ten days she called a halt, sat down and took honest
account of herself and her proceedings and found that this sort of thing
would not do. Alan was too expensive every way. She could not afford so
much of him. Accordingly with her usual decision and frankness she
explained the situation to him as she saw it and announced that
henceforth she would see him only twice a week and not as often if she
were especially busy.

To this ultimatum she kept rigidly in spite of her lover's protests and
pleas and threats. She was inexorable. If Alan wanted to see her at all
he must do it on her terms. He yielded