“Alas, and alas,”--mournfully murmured the mystic. “It is as I was warned by the Director of our division. You have not as yet cognized your higher self, hence have not perceived ME. You have not as yet sensed this fair fleshly veil as but the vehicle of your higher principles and quite separate from your ultimate ego. All the same, you’re mine. I will not repudiate you. You are the feminine principle co-ordinating with myself, and though you may ignore this only opportunity, yet I will bide your awakening and your renunciation of error. Though you may defeat your own illumination by renouncing ME, yet will I continue to walk the fifty-seven Paths-of-Self and wait. It rests with you, girl, to fix the happy day now, or to postpone it through tedious incarnations. It is for you to say now whether you will fly with me to India and share with me in the coming centuries in the ecstatic contemplation of the One-Horned-Hair of the Sacred-Rabbit. Are you ready to aspire for aeons? Are you prepared to meditate for cycles upon the oneness of substance and the Be-Ness of Being; attaining thereby to the ultimate exaltation of Nirvanic vacuity? Speak, bright one, sweet spirit of Chicago, say,--I WILL. Delay not. Your consent I implore. Miss Sheets, Imogene, what is your answer?” “R--a--a--t--,” but the maiden checked herself with a little scream, for unheard and unperceived came Nemesis. Bill Vanderhook stood face to face with the importunate Mystic and the ruffled Typewriter. And the druggist, fresh, rosy and sleek, from the best of barbers and haberdashers, loomed up handsomely by contrast with the now weary, wilted and woebegone Lonnie. “Imogene Sheets”--and the words cut the air like a whip cracker,--“and I also say that the day and the hour is now. There’s to be no more fooling. Business is business. Here’s where we change the score. Here’s where we decide who’s captain of this game. I’m up to all sorts of games, and I’m going to know now which of us rooters is IT. I’m a kicker and a catcher and a shortstop and a batter all in one.” Miss Sheets turned deadly pale as Bill continued: “Now, which is it, the Yogy cave with him in India, or the two-story--basement--brown stone--swell front--modern conveniences and mansard roof with Bill Vanderhook in Kankakee? Speak, girl.” “The--the--man--sar-r-d roof.” The words came faintly from the trembling lips of the agitated girl. But the rivals caught the import. Had they been inaudible the rejected lover would have sensed the thought and perceived her answer. But he made no protest. Philosophers never do. He did not speak. He did not even cast upon her a reproachful look, nor one of anger upon his rival. He only made one little moan with a faint far-offness in the vibration, and then for the second time the unhappy Mystic lay as one dead at the feet of his affinity.