the right or left as
she crossed the sidewalk to her cab. Had she lifted her eyes an instant
and glanced out through her white scarf, she must have seen the only man
in the crowd who had removed his hat when she emerged, and who stood
with it crushed up in his hand. And she would have known him, changed as
he was. His lustrous black hair was full of gray, and his face was a
good deal worn by the EXTASI, so that it seemed to have shrunk away from
his shining eyes and teeth and left them too prominent. But she would
have known him. She passed so near that he could have touched her, and
he did not put on his hat until her taxi had snorted away. Then he
walked down Broadway with his hands in his overcoat pockets, wearing a
smile which embraced all the stream of life that passed him and the
lighted towers that rose into the limpid blue of the evening sky. If the
singer, going home exhausted in her cab, was wondering what was the good
of it all, that smile, could she have seen it, would have answered her.
It is the only commensurate answer.

Here we must leave Thea Kronborg. From this time on the story of her
life is the story of her achievement. The growth of an artist is an
intellectual and spiritual development which can scarcely be followed in
a personal narrative. This story attempts to deal only with the simple
and concrete beginnings which color and accent an artist's work, and to
give some account of how a Moonstone girl found her way out of a vague,
easy-going world into a life of disciplined endeavor. Any account of the
loyalty of young hearts to some exalted ideal, and the passion with
which they strive, will always, in some of us, rekindle generous
emotions.

EPILOGUE

MOONSTONE again, in the year 1909. The Methodists are giving an
ice-cream sociable in the grove about the new court-house. It is a warm
summer night of full moon. The paper lanterns which hang among the trees
are foolish toys, only dimming, in little lurid circles, the great
softness of the lunar light that floods the blue heavens and the high
plateau. To the east the sand hills shine white as of old, but the
empire of the sand is gradually diminishing. The grass grows thicker
over the dunes than it used to, and the streets of the town are harder
and firmer than they were twenty-five years ago. The old inhabitants
will tell you that sandstorms are infrequent now, that the wind blows
less persistently in the spring and plays a milder tune