In the heart of a man there are many chambers. Some of these chambers have locked doors and behind them the world may not penetrate. Dusty, discarded shrines are there with the idols chipped and broken; coffers rotted with money may lie scattered about; brittle bouquets of faded flowers; a coffin plate or two, or perhaps the more grisly husks of dead romances that arise during slumber and break out wailing, haunting the long, barren corridors of the subconscious mind and only laid by sunlight. But among these chambers somewhere is one sweet, clandestine room only unlocked with a golden key on a diamond ring, where warm and ruddy light floods out when the door is opened. Luxury awaits him within, but greater than luxury: the mistress of his soul, soft-armed, starry-eyed, radiant with love. Back over far years or few, when that mistress entered that heart-chamber and consented to remain imprisoned there forever, then was Everyman’s Amethyst Moment. Man, like the caliphs of old, may possess a thousand wives. But his heart has one mistress only—forever. There is another phase of this narrative which it is expedient to begin in order to make long preparation for Nathan’s Amethyst Moment. It starts in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, on a September afternoon twenty years in the past. Upon an iron settee at the edge of a Forest Park lily pond a woman sank to rest and to watch a group of shrieking children playing with the swans. She was a middle-aged woman, tall, comely, deep-chested, one of those well-favored, high-caste matrons vaguely associated with sweeping, trailing, draping house gowns, with strings of jet and jade licking against her knees and an exotic perfume clinging about her personality like old rose or lavender. This afternoon she was clothed in black, black walking dress, large black hat, black fur neckpiece, smooth black gloves. She was the widow of a high army officer, killed seven months before in the Philippines. Her name was Gracia Theddon and she lived—somehow—on the income from half a million dollars. This woman’s face grew wistful as she watched the children. She wanted to call them about her. Then she realized that seven of the ten were clothed alike. The types were too varied to make them brothers and sisters. She was puzzled. As she watched, one of the smallest youngsters poised on the edge of the water and almost fell forward. In that instant a little girl flashed from a near-by summer house and pulled the baby back from danger. The child whose watchful eye and quick coördination of mind and body had effected this tiny rescue seized and held Gracia Theddon’s attention. She was slender and dark, the most delicately wrought little girl that had ever moved into Mrs. Theddon’s scheme of things. Her features were cut with the clearness of a cameo. She had strangely calm eyes, extraordinary eyes, even for a child. The woman finally summoned a youngster, a precocious youngster of few illusions.