alyzed with
cramp and helplessness.

Certainly it was long after noon-time before Barton actually rallied
his aching bones, his dizzy head, his refractory inclinations, to meet
the fluctuant sympathy and chaff that awaited him down-stairs in every
nook and corner of the great, idle-minded hotel.

Conscientiously, but without enthusiasm, from the temporary retreat of
the men's writing-room, he sent up his card at last to Mr. Edgarton,
and was duly informed that that gentleman and his daughter were
mountain-climbing. In an absurd flare of disappointment then, he edged
his way out through the prattling piazza groups to the shouting tennis
players, and on from the shouting tennis players to the teasing
golfers, and back from the teasing golfers to the peaceful
writing-room, where in a great, lazy chair by the open window he
settled down once more with unwonted morbidness to brood over the
grimly bizarre happenings of the previous night.

In a soft blur of sound and sense the names of other people came
wafting to him from time to time, and once or twice at least the word
"Barton" shrilled out at him with astonishing poignancy. Still like a
man half drugged he dozed again--and woke in a vague, sweating
terror--and dozed again--and dreamed again--and roused himself at last
with the one violent determination to hook his slipping consciousness,
whether or no, into the nearest conversation that he could reach.

The conversation going on at the moment just outside his window was
not a particularly interesting one to hook one's attention into, but
at least it was fairly distinct. In blissfully rational human voices
two unknown men were discussing the non-domesticity of the modern
woman. It was not an erudite discussion, but just a mere personal
complaint.

"I had a house," wailed one, "the nicest, coziest house you ever saw.
We were two years building it. And there was a garden--a real
jim-dandy flower and vegetable garden--and there were twenty-seven
fruit-trees. But my wife--" the wail deepened--"my wife--she just
would live in a hotel! Couldn't stand the 'strain,' she said, of
'planning food three times a day'! Not--'couldn't stand the strain of
earning meals three times a day'--you understand," the wailing voice
added significantly, "but couldn't stand the strain of ordering 'em.
People all around you, you know, starving to death for just--bread;
but she couldn't stand the strain of having to decide between squab
and ten