“If they do in me, that's enough, isn't it?” he demanded. “You're partly wrong, at any rate--Cytherea is the originator and I'm the paté. But where, certainly, you are right is that she is only a representation; and it is what she may represent which holds me. Cytherea, if she would, could answer the most important question of my life.” “How tragic that she can't speak.” “Yet that isn't necessary; she might be a guide, like a pointing finger-post. I met a woman lately, as charming as possible, who resembled her; and I'm sure that if I had them together--” he left the end of his sentence in air. Then he began again, “But that could not be managed; not much can, with advantage, in this world.” From beyond the hall, to the accompaniment of the piano, came the words, “She might have been a mother if she hadn't looped the loop.” Lee made a disdainful gesture. “That is the tone of the present--anything is acceptable if it is trivial; you may kiss wherever you like if you mean nothing by it. But if it's important, say like--like sympathy, it's made impossible for you.” “If you were someone else,” Mrs. Craddock observed, “I'd think you were in love. You have a great many of the symptoms--the wandering eye and wild speech.” “I am, with Fanny,” he declaimed, struggling out of the bench corner. No one should discover the memory he carried everywhere with him. The lights had been switched off in the living-room, but the piano continued, and glowing cigarettes, like red and erratically waving signals, were visible. Returning, going into the dining-room, he saw that the whiskey had been plentifully spilled over the table. In the morning the varnish would be marred by white stains. The stairs were occupied, the angle in the hall behind which a door gave to the cellar steps, was filled; a sound, not culinary, came from the kitchen pantry. Even Fanny, with her hair in disorder, was dancing an eccentric step with Borden Rodman. All this vibrating emotion created in him, sudden and piercing, a desire for Savina.