I haven't seen the old painter again--I call him painter simply because he wore that long robe. And I haven't seen the young guy again. But I see Lutetia all the time. She comes and goes. Sometimes when I enter the living-room, I find her already there.... Sometimes when I leave it, I know she enters by another door.... We spend long evenings together.... I can't write when she's about; but curiously enough I can sometimes read; that is to say, I can read Lutetia. I try to read because moments come when I realize that she prefers me not to look at her. It's when she's exhausted from trying to give me her message. Or when she's girding herself up for another go. At those moments, the room is full of a frightful struggle; a gigantic spiritual concentration. It seems to me I could not look even if she wanted me. Oh, how she tries, Spink! It wrings my heart. She's so helpless, so hopeless--so gentle, so tender, so lovely! It's all my own stupidity. The iron-wall stupidity of flesh and blood. Perhaps, if I were to kill myself--and I think I could do that for her.... Only she doesn't want me to do that.... But what does she want me to do? If I could only.... * * * * * Lindsay had written steadily the whole evening; written at a violent speed and with a fierce intensity. Now his speed died down. His hands dropped from the typewriter. That mental intensity evaporated. He became aware.... He was not alone. The long living-room was doubly cheerful that night. The inevitable tracks of living had begun to humanize it. A big old bean-pot full of purple iris sat on one end of the refectory table. Lindsay's books and notebooks; his paper and envelopes; his pens and pencils sprawled over the length of table between him and the iris. That the night was a little cool, Lindsay had seized as pretext to build a huge fire. The high, jagged flames conspired with the steady glow of the big lamp to rout the shadows from everywhere but the extreme corners. No more than--after her coming--he was alone was Lutetia alone. It was, Lindsay reflected, a picture almost as posed as for a camera. Lutetia sat; and leaning against her, close to her knee, stood a pigtailed little girl. She might have been listening to a story; for her little ear was cocked in Lutetia's direction. That attitude brought to Lindsay's observation a delicious, snub-nosed child profile. She gazed unseeingly over her shoulder to a far corner. And Lutetia gazed straight over the child's head at Lindsay-- They sat for a long time--a long long time--thus. The little girl's vague eyes still fixed themselves on the shadows as on magic realms that were being constantly unrolled to her. Lutetia's eyes still sought Lindsay's. And Lindsay's eyes remained on Lutetia's; held there by the agony of her effort and the exquisite torture of his own bewilderment.