“If her husband suddenly returns and finds me with her he’ll want to kill me,” he said to himself once, as though he welcomed the idea. “He’ll feel that only my death could heal his injured vanity--vermilion medicine!--but, of course, instead of admitting that to himself he’ll find an accommodating phrase to hide the actual motive, such as ‘avenging his honor,’ ‘killing a treacherous hound,’ ‘defending the family,’ etc. The newspapers are full of such charming episodes, well fortified by words, for without words to obliterate his motives man would perish in a day. Melodrama is the only real sincerity that life holds--the one surprising directness in a world of false and prearranged contortions. Perhaps I could ravish my fears and welcome it. I don’t know, and no one can until it actually arrives.” But the two weeks died without the blundering interruption of drama, and Lucy and Carl parted on the last morning with a chuckling stoicism--tears and the syllables of laughter are always similar--the madcap protest of a last kiss--lips and tongues intent upon a future compensation--and a final flitting of hands. They had slapped in the face a violent shadow known as life and now it would take a fancifully piercing revenge. They had attained a quality known as bravery--a quality that is only fear rising to a moment and effectively sneering at itself. CHAPTER XII. Carl returned to the minor, suavely gesturing groups of hypocrites in the city in which he lived, and in going back to this “art and literary world” he had the feeling of one who had deserted a strong valley of desire to enter a stilted room filled with imitation orchids, valiantly empty words, and malice dressed in clumsy, velvet costumes. This reaction was still dominating him as he sat, one afternoon, in the office of a magazine called “Art and Life,” perched upon a window-sill and looking down at the black and dwarfed confusion of a street.