es from that state of mental madness which is produced by love."

"Huh?" said Stibo.

"Anything that produces a mental obsession, _une idee fixe_, is a form
of madness," said Quinny, rapidly. "A person in love sees only one face,
hears only one voice; at the base of the brain only one thought is
constantly drumming. Physically such a condition is a narcotic; mentally
it is a form of madness that in the beneficent state is powerfully
hypnotic."

At this deft disentanglement of a complicated idea, Rankin, who, like
the professional juryman, wagged his head in agreement with each speaker
and was convinced by the most violent, gazed upon Quinny with absolute
adoration.

"We were speaking of woman," said Towsey, gruffly, who pronounced the
sex with a peculiar staccato sound.

"This little ABC introduction," said Quinny, pleasantly, "is necessary
to understand the relation a woman plays to the artist. It is not the
woman he seeks, but the hypnotic influence which the woman can exert on
his faculties if she is able to inspire him with a passion."

"Precisely why he marries," said De Gollyer.

"Precisely," said Quinny, who, having seized the argument by chance, was
pleasantly surprised to find that he was going to convince himself. "But
here is the great distinction: to be an inspiration, a woman should
always represent to the artist a form of the unattainable. It is the
search for something beyond him that makes him challenge the stars, and
all that sort of rot, you know."

"The tragedy of life," said Rankin, sententiously, "is that one woman
cannot mean all things to one man all the time."

It was a phrase which he had heard the night before, and which he flung
off casually with an air of spontaneity, twisting the old Spanish ring
on his bony, white fingers, which he held invariably in front of his
long, sliding nose.

"Thank you, I said that about the year 1907," said Quinny, while
Steingall gasped and nudged Towsey. "That is the tragedy of life, not
the tragedy of art, two very different things. An artist has need of
ten, fifteen, twenty women, according to the multiplicity of his ideas.
He should be always violently in love or violently reacting."

"And the wife?" said De Gollyer. "Has she any influence?"

"My dear fellow, the greatest. Without a wife, an artist falls a prey to
the inspiration of the moment--condemned to it; and as he is not an
analyst, he ends by imagining he really is in love. Take
portrai