[Cover Illustration] By GERTRUDE ATHERTON Author of “Black Oxen,” “The Avalanche,” “Sisters-in-Law,” “Sleeping Fires,” etc. [Illustration] Into a crystal cup the dusky wine I pour, and, musing at so rich a shrine, I watch the star that haunts its ruddy gloom. —George Sterling A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with Boni & Liveright Printed in U. S. A. _Copyright, 1925, by_ Boni & Liveright, Inc. * * * * * _Printed in the United States of America_ PART I THE CRYSTAL CUP CHAPTER I “Old age will be served,” said Mrs. Carteret grimly. “But I suppose you think I am a long time dying.” Gita made a face in the heavy shade of the bed-hangings, but replied politely: “I am glad to be here, grandmother, and when it’s my turn to die I’ll take all the time I choose.” She had a crisp clear voice and a staccato delivery, which she made no attempt to modify in the sick-room, and the old lady frowned. “I never cared for your mother, but she had a soft low voice, ‘an excellent thing in woman.’ Why did you not model your own upon it? And you do all you can to distort and destroy the Carteret beauty in your attempt to look like a boy. The Carteret women were all dashing brunettes, but feminine. Otherwise they never would have had men crawling at their feet, generation after generation.” “If men crawled at my feet—which they don’t do these days, anyhow—I’d kick them out of the way. And if I were a man myself—and I wish to God I were—I’d see women to the devil before I’d make a fool of myself——” “I don’t like your language. I don’t like your voice. I don’t like your bobbed hair——” “My hair is not bobbed.” “Bad enough whatever it is. I don’t like your ‘brooding brows,’ to quote an expression I read in a silly novel. I don’t like your boyish defiant bearing; it is not ladylike. I don’t like your ugly tailored suits—I’ve never seen you with a single feminine adornment——” “You never will. Haven’t I told you I hate—loathe—being a female?” “Fiddlesticks. I don’t pretend to know what bee you’ve got in your bonnet, but if you’ll take my advice you’ll pluck it out before it’s too late——” “It’s not in my bonnet. It’s inside my skull.”