“Mirage,” I daresay, is already forgotten, though it was published only in 1924. In substance, it is the story of Skeeters Kirby’s quest for the Wonder Woman that all sentimentalists seek, and that none of them finds until drink has brought him to his deathbed, and he sees the fat, affable nurse through a purple haze. Skeeters comes from the town of Mitch Miller, and when we first encounter him he is a lawyer in Chicago. Already the search for the Perfect Doll has begun to leave scars upon his psyche. First there was the sweet one who died before he could get her to the altar; then there was the naughty Alicia, his lawful wife, but, as he would say himself, a lemon. As the story opens, Alicia, divorcing him, had just blackmailed him out of $70,000, almost his whole fortune, as the price of her silence about Mrs. Becky Morris. Becky is the widow of a rich old man, and now enjoys the usufruct of his tenements and hereditaments. She has red hair and a charming manner, and is a great liar. She falsely pretends to have read Schopenhauer’s “The World as Will and Idea,” and passes in her circle as an intellectual on the strength of it. She tells Skeeters that she is virtuous, or, rather, that she _has_ been virtuous, and all the while she is carrying on with one Delaher, a handsome frequenter of the Hotel Ritzdorf in New York. A saucy and poisonous baggage, this Becky, but Skeeters falls violently in love with her, and gladly pays Alicia the $70,000 in order to protect her from scandal. But then she leaves him, writes him a letter of farewell, and refuses flatly to marry him, and when he pursues her to New York, confronts her with her adulteries, and throws up to her the fact that he has gone broke for her, she requites him only with a dreadful slanging. I quote the exact text: Kirby took a drink of brandy from the flask and came to her, taking her in his arms. “Tell, me, dear, what shall we do? Are we engaged?” Becky shook her head. “What do you wish? Shall I treat you as my bride-to-be, or shall we go on as we are now?” “Go on as we are now!” “You know I am free now--and it cost me, too, to be free.” “How much?” “Seventy thousand dollars.” “That’s not much.” “It’s practically all I have.” “Well, _Alicia won’t have such a large income out of it_.” “And I paid it for you.” Becky opened her eyes. Her face became a bonfire of rage. Her red hair bristled like a wild animal’s. “You’re just a liar to say that! And you can’t say such things in my room. This is my room; _I pay for it_. And _you can be respectful to me here, or you can go_.” Kirby did not betray his anger. He concentrated it and went on: “_I beg your pardon._” In a voice as soft as oil he asked: “Did you see Delaher?” “Yes, I did, and he’s a rough-neck.” “Well?” “None of your business!” “None of my business, eh?” Kirby said, with a bitter intonation. “Leave my room,” Becky said. “No, I’ll not leave your room.”