t we can of it.

Mrs. Ascher let her arms fall suddenly to her sides, folded herself up
and sat down, or rather crouched, on the floor. From that position she
looked up at me with the greatest possible intensity of eye.

"I know what you're thinking," she said. "You're thinking of my husband.
But he hates money just as much as I do. All he wants to escape, to have
done with it, to live peaceably with me, somewhere far away, far, far
away from everywhere."

Her eyes softened as she spoke. They even filled with water, tears, I
suppose. But she seemed to me to be talking nonsense. Ascher was making
money, piling it up. He could stop if he liked. So I thought. So any
sensible man must think. And as for living somewhere far, far away, what
did the woman want to get away from? Every possible place of residence
on the earth's surface is near some other place. You cannot get far, far
away from everywhere. The thing is a physical impossibility. I made an
effort to get back to common sense.

"About Tim Gorman's cash register?" I said. "What would you suggest?"

"You mustn't let them do that hateful thing," she said. "You can stop
them if you will."

"I don't believe I can," I said. "I'm extraordinarily feeble and
ineffectual in every way. In business matters I'm a mere babe."

"Mr. Gorman will listen to you," she said. "He will understand if you
explain to him. He is a writer, an artist. He must understand."

I shook my head. Gorman can write. I admit that. His writing is a great
deal better than Mrs. Ascher's modelling, though she did do that head
of Tim. I do not hail Gorman's novels or his plays as great literature,
though they are good. But some of his criticism is the finest thing of
its kind that has been published in our time. But Gorman does not look
at these matters as Mrs. Ascher does. I do not believe he ever wrote a
line in his life without expecting to be paid for it. He would not write
at all if he could find any easier and pleasanter way of making money.
There was no use saying that to Mrs. Ascher. All I could do when she
asked me to appeal to Gorman's artistic soul was to shake my head. I
shook it as decisively as I could.

"And my husband will listen to you," she said.

"My dear lady! wouldn't he be much more likely to listen to you?"

"But we never talk about such things," she said. "Never, never. Our life
together is sacred, hallowed, a thing apart,

"'Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot