Clara put her hands to her eyes as though to shut out the scene in the room. “If I could have been with Kate this evening I could have come to a man believing in the possible sweetness of marriage,” she thought.[40] In the end, however, her marriage proves no worse than the average in understanding and happiness. There have been few such sympathetic and unexaggerated pictures of a variant woman in our literature; and none of the others was written by a man. The year’s total balance of sentiment was evened by James Gibbons Huneker’s _Painted Veils_. This picture of musical and literary New York was so continental in its cynical frankness that it was first issued privately, though it soon found regular publication and is now available in paper covers. As its epilogue states, its hero Ulick is a young man whose favorite authors are Thomas à Kempis and Petronius, and whose experience reflects this duality of taste. Heroine of the Petronian chapters is a dynamic girl, Easter, who rises by her own efforts—in more fields than one—to the status of world-famed prima donna. Early in her career she considers sources of revenue for European study. To accept support from her lover would give the man too much claim upon her. So her thoughts turn to a fellow student of voice, a dilettante with whom already “an intimacy had developed.” She began thinking of Allie Wentworth and her set. Allie was an heiress ... a masculine creature who affected a mannish cut of clothes. She wore her hair closely cut and sported a walking stick. Her stride and bearing intrigued [Easter], who had never seen that sort before.... Allie was always hugging her when alone.[41] Although Allie makes relatively few appearances, it is clear that she financed and accompanied Easter for a number of years. It is also implied that the cause of Easter’s duel with Mary Garden in Paris was not, as the newspapers claimed, a man. “When Allie Wentworth, who was Easter’s second, read this in _Le Soir_ she burst into laughter.” (When the book appeared, gossip claimed that Mary Garden was the model for Easter, and that this duel naming her as opposite was inserted for camouflage.) Upon Easter’s return to New York she says to Ulick, who is jealous of Allie: That girl helped me over some rough places in Europe. I shall never give her up, never.... I love sumptuous characters. That’s why I love to read _Mlle Maupin_. Also about that perverse puss Satin in _Nana_. She reminds me of Allie and her pranks—simply adorable, I tell you! Toujours fidèle.[42] Later, Easter, now the pursuer because Ulick has turned cool, follows him to the apartment of his current mistress, a vulgar little creature who is transported at