She had given little by little her life over to a problem; one that she hated, had avoided, and that even now racked her with its misery—but it absorbed her. Things cease to be bearable only when life is empty, and to Muriel her own sorrow, her own heart, had been filled and uplifted by full renunciative hours. Discontent and leisure walk hand in hand, wandering disconsolate over a world teeming with openings and opportunities for energy and power. Then it becomes necessary to invent new games, and religion runs to melancholia—or Christian science. “I don’t think Leslie Damores will ever marry me,” said Cynthia slowly. She looked suddenly older and more careworn. “I—I don’t think I will go with him this afternoon.” Muriel put on her things to go to the club. Before she went she threw her arms around Cynthia. “Dearest,” she said with glistening eyes, “I don’t know what I should do without you.” “Pray more,” said Cynthia shortly. Muriel shook her head. “If you knew what strength you give, and how bright this all seems to come back to!” “Don’t! don’t!” said Cynthia sharply. “For God’s sake go to the club and leave me alone!” Muriel went and understood; she knew that it had been necessary to say those words, and after they were said she could do no more. One can start a crisis, but one cannot guide it, and it is usually best to get out of the way. Cynthia sent Leslie Damores away that afternoon, and faced for the first time in her life the years that the locust had eaten. Her lover’s picture could not have been more realistic. CHAPTER XIX “Only for man; how bitter not to grave On his Soul’s palms one fair, good, wise thing Just as he grasped it.” —ROBERT BROWNING. LESLIE went back to the studio bewildered. She had sent him away without excuses. He wondered blankly what he was being punished for, and why she was denied him in the present; and as Kew Gardens, unless one is a naturalist, is not the place one goes to alone, he sat down before his picture and thought about her in the past. He was young and full of ideals when he first met her. He believed in the possibility of a Galahad, and that all women were exquisitely good, except a sad few who were picturesquely unfortunate. He had had a good mother, two beautiful sisters, and he had only seen Paris in a veil. He met Cynthia in the studios; her glorious red hair and the wonderful way she looked at him became the key to the universe. After that followed months of ideal companionship, and on his part at least unprecedented blindness. Perhaps she loved him for that most of all. Then she told him. He was horribly startled. He said surprised and terrible things, and then she looked at him—Oh that wonderful, broken, tragic look!—and went back to her brother. And he grew older, and wiser, and less surprised.