She was like a child, stopping her ears with her fingers and pleading, “Please don’t tell me any more ghost-stories.” He felt sorry for her; at such times she seemed so inexperienced and young. By her misplaced valuations, she was giving life such power to hurt her. Her sophistication seemed more apparent than real--a disguise for her lack of knowledge. He wanted to comfort her against old age. If one were loved, neither poverty nor growing old mattered. He thought of Dearie and the way she had married his father, with their joint affection and her high belief in him for their sole assets. There were times when Desire seemed to guess his problem. “I wish you’d do more work. Why don’t you leave me alone to-morrow? And you oughtn’t to keep on spending and spending. I’d be just as happy if you spent less.” The joy of her thoughtfulness gave him hope and made him the more reckless. Besides, it wasn’t possible to economize in her company. Her fear of the subway and her abhorrence of crowded surface-cars made taxis a continual necessity. Her shoes were so thin that a mile of walking tired her; her clothes were so stylish that she would have looked conspicuous in any but a fashionable setting. Her method of dress, in which he delighted, limited them both to costly environments. He had named her rightly years ago in calling her “Princess.” Vashti puzzled him. She seemed to avoid him. When he visited the apartment she was out, just going out or expected back shortly. He had fugitive glimpses of her hurrying off to concert engagements, or going on some pleasure jaunt with the unexplained Mr. Dak, similar to those which he and Desire enjoyed together. Mr. Kingston Dak was a little grasshopper of a man. He had lemon-colored hair, white teeth, extremely well-kept hands and was nearly forty. His littleness was evidently a sore point with him, for the heels of his shoes were built up like a woman’s. He held himself erectly and when others were seated he usually remained standing. He seemed to be always in search of something to lean against which would enable him to tiptoe unobtrusively and to add another inch to his stature. He was clean-shaven, and in appearance shy and boyish; he would have looked excellently well in clerical attire. By hobby he was an occultist; by profession a stockbroker. His chief topic of conversation was the superiority of Mohammedanism to Christianity. Desire called him “King” familiarly; Vashti referred to him as “My little broker.” Although in his early twenties he had been divorced and tattered by the thorns of a disastrous passion, neither of them seemed to regard him as dangerously masculine. They treated him as a maiden-aunt--as a pale person receiving affection in lieu of wages, expected to safeguard their comfort and to slip into a cupboard when he wasn’t wanted. “King’s quite nice,” Desire told Teddy; “he was most awfully fond of her. His troubles have made him so understanding.”