r people. The
quality of his playing was exceedingly erratic, even though at times it
attained to a kind of subtlety, tenderness, awareness, and charm which
brought him some attention. As a rule, however, it reflected the
chaotic state of his own brain. He would play violently, feverishly,
with a wild passionateness of gesture which robbed him of all ability
to control his own technic.

"Oh, Harold!" Rita used to exclaim at first, ecstatically. Later she
was not so sure.

Life and character must really get somewhere to be admirable, and
Harold, really and truly, did not seem to be getting anywhere. He
taught, stormed, dreamed, wept; but he ate his three meals a day, Rita
noticed, and he took an excited interest at times in other women. To
be the be-all and end-all of some one man's life was the least that
Rita could conceive or concede as the worth of her personality, and so,
as the years went on and Harold began to be unfaithful, first in moods,
transports, then in deeds, her mood became dangerous. She counted them
up--a girl music pupil, then an art student, then the wife of a banker
at whose house Harold played socially. There followed strange, sullen
moods on the part of Rita, visits home, groveling repentances on the
part of Harold, tears, violent, passionate reunions, and then the same
thing over again. What would you?

Rita was not jealous of Harold any more; she had lost faith in his
ability as a musician. But she was disappointed that her charms were
not sufficient to blind him to all others. That was the fly in the
ointment. It was an affront to her beauty, and she was still
beautiful. She was unctuously full-bodied, not quite so tall as
Aileen, not really as large, but rounder and plumper, softer and more
seductive. Physically she was not well set up, so vigorous; but her
eyes and mouth and the roving character of her mind held a strange
lure. Mentally she was much more aware than Aileen, much more precise
in her knowledge of art, music, literature, and current events; and in
the field of romance she was much more vague and alluring. She knew
many things about flowers, precious stones, insects, birds, characters
in fiction, and poetic prose and verse generally.

At the time the Cowperwoods first met the Sohlbergs the latter still
had their studio in the New Arts Building, and all was seemingly as
serene as a May morning, only Harold was not getting along very well.
He was drifting. The mee