h. She knew that Heinrich ought not to give a dinner on
Heine's birthday, when the laundress had not been paid for a month and
when he frequently had to ask his mother for carfare. Certainly Caroline
had served her apprenticeship to idealism and to all the embarrassing
inconsistencies which it sometimes entails, and she decided to deny
herself this diffuse, ineffectual answer to the sharp questions of life.

When she came into the control of herself and the house she refused
to proceed any further with her musical education. Her father, who had
intended to make a concert pianist of her, set this down as another
item in his long list of disappointments and his grievances against
the world. She was young and pretty, and she had worn turned gowns and
soiled gloves and improvised hats all her life. She wanted the luxury of
being like other people, of being honest from her hat to her boots, of
having nothing to hide, not even in the matter of stockings, and she was
willing to work for it. She rented a little studio away from that house
of misfortune and began to give lessons. She managed well and was the
sort of girl people liked to help. The bills were paid and Auguste went
on composing, growing indignant only when she refused to insist that
her pupils should study his compositions for the piano. She began to
get engagements in New York to play accompaniments at song recitals.
She dressed well, made herself agreeable, and gave herself a chance.
She never permitted herself to look further than a step ahead, and set
herself with all the strength of her will to see things as they are and
meet them squarely in the broad day. There were two things she feared
even more than poverty: the part of one that sets up an idol and the
part of one that bows down and worships it.

When Caroline was twenty-four she married Howard Noble, then a widower
of forty, who had been for ten years a power in Wall Street. Then, for
the first time, she had paused to take breath. It took a substantialness
as unquestionable as his; his money, his position, his energy, the big
vigor of his robust person, to satisfy her that she was entirely safe.
Then she relaxed a little, feeling that there was a barrier to be
counted upon between her and that world of visions and quagmires and
failure.

Caroline had been married for six years when Raymond d'Esquerre came
to stay with them. He came chiefly because Caroline was what she was;
because he, too, felt occasi