is hers." He leaned back against the window sill
and crossed his arms. "Anybody with all that voice and all that talent
and all that beauty, has her hour. Her hour," he went on deliberately,
"when she can say, 'there it is, at last, WIE IM TRAUM ICH. As in my
dream I dreamed it, as in my will it was.'"

He stood silent a moment, twisting the flower from his coat by the stem
and staring at the blank wall with haggard abstraction. "Even I can
say to-night, Archie," he brought out slowly, "'As in my dream I dreamed
it, as in my will it was.' Now, doctor, you may leave me. I'm beautifully
drunk, but not with anything that ever grew in France."

The doctor rose. Fred tossed his flower out of the window behind him and
came toward the door. "I say," he called, "have you a date with
anybody?"

The doctor paused, his hand on the knob. "With Thea, you mean? Yes. I'm
to go to her at four this afternoon--if you haven't paralyzed me."

"Well, you won't eat me, will you, if I break in and send up my card?
She'll probably turn me down cold, but that won't hurt my feelings. If
she ducks me, you tell her for me, that to spite me now she'd have to
cut off more than she can spare. Good-night, Archie."

VI

IT was late on the morning after the night she sang ELSA, when Thea
Kronborg stirred uneasily in her bed. The room was darkened by two sets
of window shades, and the day outside was thick and cloudy. She turned
and tried to recapture unconsciousness, knowing that she would not be
able to do so. She dreaded waking stale and disappointed after a great
effort. The first thing that came was always the sense of the futility
of such endeavor, and of the absurdity of trying too hard. Up to a
certain point, say eighty degrees, artistic endeavor could be fat and
comfortable, methodical and prudent. But if you went further than that,
if you drew yourself up toward ninety degrees, you parted with your
defenses and left yourself exposed to mischance. The legend was that in
those upper reaches you might be divine; but you were much likelier to
be ridiculous. Your public wanted just about eighty degrees; if you gave
it more it blew its nose and put a crimp in you. In the morning,
especially, it seemed to her very probable that whatever struggled above
the good average was not quite sound. Certainly very little of that
superfluous ardor, which cost so dear, ever got across the footlights.
These misgivings waited to pounce upon her when s