“And I must take it lying down! I, who vowed I’d get him and let nothing stand in my way. I wish to God I’d killed you!” she burst out passionately, although the words ended on a sob. “I’d gladly have been hanged or electrocuted or whatever they do to you in this state. And now I can’t go at it again. I feel as limp as a young corpse inside. Can’t even try to scratch your eyes out. Am the well-brought-up Miss Pleyden once more! Well—thank God I was something else for five minutes. I’ll cherish that memory through a long and prosaic life. Poor things, we moderns. Well, I’m off.” She hesitated, then went forward and held out her hand. “I don’t ask you to forgive me; but we may as well be sports.” Gita shook the cold hand. “Good-by, Polly. I’m sorry. Wish it could be wiped out. I’ll miss you.” Miss Pleyden shrugged her shoulders. “Chapters have to end sometime. You’ve made one quite interesting for me! I’ll light a cigarette if you don’t mind.” She performed this rite, nodded to Gita and Elsie and swung lightly down the hall. A moment later they heard her car traveling at a reasonable pace. Gita turned to Elsie. “_Vale_, Polly. But you don’t go. Not yet. You stay here until Eustace is able to leave. That’s final.” “I feel lost and deserted myself!” exclaimed Elsie. “I wish I’d never laid eyes on you. You are a terrible devastating force, Gita. What will you do to my brother!” And then she stared at Gita’s radiant face. “Oh, don’t worry! Don’t worry! It won’t be as bad as you think.” “Oh, when people are in love!” Elsie’s voice was more sarcastic than her mood. Gita swung on her heel and stared out into the moonlight. “Better go to bed,” she said coldly. “Nothing more to say, is there?” . . . She felt herself moving forward, felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to run out into that moonlight . . . recapture that mood so strangely compounded of exaltation and dismay, triumph and disappointment, poignant sweetness and futile resentment at the remorseless incompleteness of life. . . . She whirled upon Elsie and, although her words tumbled out fiercely, a curious quaver of helplessness ran through them. “Oh, you both have your revenge! I should think life altogether wonderful tonight and I almost hate it. It was bad enough to have to break off—to miss—to have to wait—oh, damn honor! Damn noblesse oblige! I wish we’d been born in a different class—like some of your sophisticates—that never heard of such things—no, I don’t! I only wish things could have been different—that life didn’t always laugh at you—that life wasn’t always trying to get the best of art and generally succeeding——Life could be so wonderful and it’s just a mean chromo of art and delights in the fact and in taunting our anticipations—those lovely works of art we create and hang in the blessed spaces of the mind—taunting and shattering——