e?"

"Certainly. He is one of the first men among the moderns. That is to say,
among the very moderns. He is always coming up with something different.
He often exhibits in Paris, you must have seen--"

"No, I tell you I don't go to exhibitions. Has he had great success? That
is what I want to know."

M. Jules pulled at his short grey moustache. "But, Madame, there are many
kinds of success," he began cautiously.

Madame gave a dry laugh. "Yes, so he used to say. We once quarrelled on
that issue. And how would you define his particular kind?"

M. Jules grew thoughtful. "He is a great name with all the young men, and
he is decidedly an influence in art. But one can't definitely place a man
who is original, erratic, and who is changing all the time."

She cut him short. "Is he much talked about at home? In Paris, I mean?
Thanks. That's all I want to know." She rose and began buttoning her
coat. "One doesn't like to have been an utter fool, even at twenty."

"_Mais, non_!" M. Jules handed her her muff with a quick, sympathetic
glance. He followed her out through the carpeted show-room, now closed to
the public and draped in cheesecloth, and put her into her car with words
appreciative of the honour she had done him in calling.

Leaning back in the cushions, Eden Bower closed her eyes, and her face,
as the street lamps flashed their ugly orange light upon it, became
hard and settled, like a plaster cast; so a sail, that has been filled by
a strong breeze, behaves when the wind suddenly dies. Tomorrow night the
wind would blow again, and this mask would be the golden face of
Aphrodite. But a "big" career takes its toll, even with the best of luck.

The Diamond Mine

I

I first became aware that Cressida Garnet was on board when I saw young
men with cameras going up to the boat deck. In that exposed spot she was
good-naturedly posing for them--amid fluttering lavender scarfs--wearing
a most unseaworthy hat, her broad, vigorous face wreathed in smiles. She
was too much an American not to believe in publicity. All advertising
was good. If it was good for breakfast foods, it was good for prime
donna,--especially for a prima donna who would never be any younger and
who had just announced her intention of marrying a fourth time.

Only a few days before, when I was lunching with some friends at
Sherry's, I had seen Jerome Brown come in with several younger men,
looking so pleased and prosperous that I excla