hat they could sit there in the
merciless glare of an unshaded kerosene lamp and defy one with their
flawless and amiable personalities. And while I sat there and talked to
them and ate their bizarre and appetizing provender, I became aware of
something even more astonishing than their failure to use the
immeasurable advantages of existence in a Brooklyn apartment, where the
breath of life, warmed beyond endurance, came up out of mysterious grids
in the walls and dried all the vitality out of them. It wasn't only
that, it transpired. These women, with their quality of hard, practical
devotion to a concrete bodily well-being, conveyed something beyond all
that. For when I suggested that Artemisia's way of life must place her
beyond their sympathies, they registered emphatic dissent. For why? They
were unable to understand. They looked at each other.

"'That's American,' said Mrs. Sarafov, distinctly.

"'Not entirely,' I protested. 'It has a certain vogue in England also, I
assure you. And personally,' I added, 'I am bound to say it makes a
difference. I regret it.'

"'But,' said Mrs. Sarafov, and she turned her eyes upon her younger
daughter, who was going out with some dishes, 'But she must have a man
to look after her.' She regarded me attentively. 'I suppose you know
that she is very fond of you. She is always talking about how kind you
were to her on the ship. And in London. She says you liked her at
first. And I can't see,' she went on, 'why, if you regret it, as you
say, you didn't look after her yourself. She would have gone.'

"'And you think that would have made any difference?' I demanded. I was
very much disturbed at this sudden turn of things. I seemed to be
getting away from my cherished position as a super in the play. And it
was the emotion educed from this conversation that revealed to me how
these women had abandoned their life in America without regret. I had a
vision of it suddenly as I looked at the other daughter's face. She was
regarding me with a sort of raptness. The exquisite features glowed and
the bright, bronze-coloured eyes burned above purple shadows like lamps
above dark pools. Yes, I had a vision of it suddenly, and it was what we
call, lightly, cynically, disapprovingly, Romance. It was simply
this--that to them, what we deem a dangerous and useless appendage of
our spiritual life is a tremendous and vital need. So tremendous and so
vital that the external moral aspect of it was a matt