Feminine companionship was certainly corrupting to earnestness, if not to morals. By the end of this week he felt cloyed with too much trifle. He sighed for a man and a cigar, for a seat in a club, for a glass of brandy, for anything else masculine, for a little of man's plain language and strong thinking. Yet these girls were no fools: they read Prosper Mérimée's Letters, for example. They were emancipated enough. But they also read Lucile. He understood why women were not let into ancient religions, Freemasonry and the Egyptian mysteries. They belittled the imagination. _Per contra_, they were essential to the Eleusinian. Their only truly great rôle was the Mœnad. And yet, he thought, these sentiments of his would have shocked these girls. Vane's thoughts came and went nervously. He was driving in a buggy alone, or, at least, only Miss Morse was with him. He was ashamed of himself; he was ashamed of his thinking; he was ashamed, thinking as he did, of his inconsistency in driving with Miss Morse in a buggy. _Postiche, postiche_, it was all _postiche_, or was it frankness? Was it the troubled dream, the low beginning of the new conditions? Was his disapproval a bit of feudal prejudice? Vane was troubled, excited, disgusted, confused. Miss Morse noticed all this, but thought he was in love with her. The only green spots in the man's memory were Rennes, and Monserrat, and Carcassonne; yes, and the littered desk in the down-town office in New York--the scene of his only labors and his one success. And that success was no longer necessary; it no longer profited any one but himself. Vane had never formulated his position with such precision before. The last person of his own family was dead; he had claims upon no one, no one had any claim upon him; he had no further ambitions upon Mammon. Given this problem, what solution could the world offer--the New York world, that is? Somebody says life is made up of labor, art, love, and worship. New York had given him labor, which he had performed. And of the others? Had it given him love, even? Was he a barbarian, better fitted for a struggle with crude nature than New York, not up to the refinements of modern civilization? Should he leave these places? Now, that day Miss Thomas was to come, and he must decide. He thirsted for happiness; how was he best to find it? These thoughts, perhaps, seemed selfish, cold-blooded, practical, but there was a sadness in them for Vane. So thinking, as he drove his buggy along the road, they passed Miss Thomas, walking gracefully, and the rich, slow color burned through her face and fell away at her temples as she bowed. Vane drove on the faster, flicking his horse with the whip, and considered what he would do now that she had returned. He would treat her like Miss Westerhouse and Miss Gibbs of Philadelphia. He would not have his own movements disturbed by her coming and going. He would stay his intended fortnight out and then go. XXIII.