“But the fact of your having married Bertha this afternoon will prevent your making any one else your wife in the future. Supposing I had a child by _you_—not by Kreisler—it would be impossible to legitimatize him. The thing is of no importance in itself. But you have given Kreisler’s child what you should have kept for your own! What’s the good of giving your sex over into the hands of a swanky expert, as you describe it, if you continue to act on your own initiative? I throw up my job. _Garçon, l’addition!_” But a move to the café opposite satisfied her as a demonstration. Tarr was sure of her, and remained passive. She extorted a promise from him: to conduct no more obscure diplomacies in the future. * * * * * Bertha and Tarr took a flat in the Boulevard Port Royal, not far from the Jardin des Plantes. They gave a party to which Fräulein Lipmann and a good many other people came. He maintained the rule of four to seven, roughly, for Bertha, with the utmost punctiliousness. Anastasya and Bertha did not meet. Bertha’s child came, and absorbed her energies for upwards of a year. It bore some resemblance to Tarr. Tarr’s afternoon visits became less frequent. He lived now publicly with his illicit and splendid bride. Two years after the birth of the child, Bertha divorced Tarr. She then married an eye-doctor, and lived with a brooding severity in his company and that of her only child. Tarr and Anastasya did not marry. They had no children. Tarr, however, had three children by a lady of the name of Rose Fawcett, who consoled him eventually for the splendours of his “perfect woman.” But yet beyond the dim though solid figure of Rose Fawcett, another rises. This one represents the swing-back of the pendulum once more to the swagger side. The cheerless and stodgy absurdity of Rose Fawcett required the painted, fine and inquiring face of Prism Dirkes. THE END EPILOGUE The artists of this country make the following plain and pressing appeal to their fellow-citizens. I have heard them in the places where they meet. (1) That in these tragic days when the forces of the nation, of intellect, of character, are being tested, they should grant more freedom to the artists and thinkers to develop their visions and ideas. That they should make an effort of sympathy. That the maudlin and the self-defensive Grin should be dropped. (2) That the Englishman should become ashamed of his Grin as he is at present ashamed of solemnity. That he should cease to be ashamed of his “feelings”: then he would automatically become less proud of his Grin. (3) That he should remember that seriousness and unsentimentality are quite compatible. Whereas a Grin usually accompanies loose emotionality. (4) That in “facing the facts of existence” as he is at present compelled to do, he should allow artists to economize time in not having to circumvent and get round those facts, but to use them simply and directly.