APTER I

THE WORLD AND THE FLESH

"A beautiful woman is intended to create a heaven on earth and she has
no business wasting herself making imaginary excursions into any future
paradise. The present is her time for action; and again, Charlotte, I
ask you to name the day upon which you intend to marry me," said Nickols
Powers, as he stood lounging in the broad window of Aunt Clara's music
room and gazing down into the subdued traffic of upper Madison Avenue.

"I wish you had never taken me across that ferry and into that room
crowded with redolent humanity to hear an absurd little man string
together vivid, gross words about religion, words that made me tingle
all over," I answered as I threw my coat on a chair, lifted my hat from
my head and sat down on the seat before the dark old piano. "I think
religion is the most awful thing in the world and I am as afraid of it
as I am of--of death. I'm going home to my father."

"Oh, don't be afraid of it. Religion is the most potent form of
intoxication known to the human race. That's why I took you over to hear
the little baseball player. I wanted you to get a sip. But don't let it
go to your head." And Nickols mocked me with soft tenderness in his
smile.

"Well, it frightened me, and I don't like it. I'm going home to my
father and forget it," I reiterated with a kind of numbness upon me, the
like of which I had never before experienced.

"I'll protect you from any religious danger just as effectively as Judge
Powers. I'm younger--slightly--than he, but I know just as many of the
wiles of the world and the flesh as he does and maybe a few more,"
Nickols assured me, with a flash in his dark eyes that was both wicked
and humorous, as well as very delightful.

"And the devil, too! But you don't understand. I must go home to my
father," I answered still again.

"You don't understand yourself," returned Nickols. "There are strange
hieroglyphics imprinted on every woman's heart and a man can read only
an unconnected word here and there when he can get his flashlight thrown
into the depths--if he dares adventure into her life at all. I feel that
I take my own life in my hands when I allow you to talk to me as I am
allowing you to-night."

"How do you know that those hieroglyphics might not mean the salvation
of the world if she could spell them out herself, or some great and good
person took a steady lamp and went down into her heart and--"

"It takes a very wicked man