She met Charles-Norton at the door when he returned in the evening. He was somewhat limp after a day of _mea culpas_! and she, a quarter of an hour before the time for his reappearance, had powdered her nose--which, she knew, gave her an expression half amusing, half piteous, just like that of the clown who is playing his tricks at the circus while his little daughter is dying at home. "Hello, Goosie," she said breathlessly (also she had rubbed a trace of rouge under her eyes); "hello, just in time for dinner! Made a fine chocolate cake. Poor dear, you look so tired!" And after supper, which in spite of Dolly's very ostensible effort at exuberance, was rather silent, for Charles-Norton, with a man's detestation of "scenes," still felt somewhat embarrassed at the happenings of the morning, she drew up the Morris chair to the lamp, sat Charles-Norton in it, and filled his pipe for him. When thus "fixed up comfy," he felt a soft breath upon his neck, and two little hands at his neck-tie. Off came tie and collar, and then the coat, and then the shirt, and then--zip-zip. "Say, Dolly," he remonstrated mildly; "couldn't you wait till morning?" "There," she said; "it's almost all done. Just a wee bit more here. There! Now here is a kiss! It didn't hurt, Goosie, did it?" And Charles-Norton had to concede that it did not hurt. How could he have explained the subtle feeling within him, that sort of swooping descent of his inwards that came with, and the dullness of all things which followed always his shearings? "No, it didn't hurt," he repeated. But a vague dissatisfaction like a yeast stirred within him, and a flicker,--beaten down immediately, it is true, trampled, smothered,--of revolt. Calmly, coolly, efficiently, though, Dolly had taken the upper hand. The next morning she sent him sheared to the office; she sent him sheared the same night to bed. And thus day after day for many days. Every morning Charles-Norton went out to his work full of emptiness (if that phrase is permissible), empty of heart, empty of mind, without a desire, without an anger. The warm June days had come; he had changed his underwear. He felt the season only as a discomfort. The emerald explosions visible at the end of each street as the L train passed along Central Park did not stir him; the tepid airs drifting lazily from the sea, the fragrant whiffs from the depths of the germinating land, passed over him as though he were made of asbestos. An insulation was about him, removing him from all things that thrill, all things that distend; there was no color, no vibration in the world; iridescences had ceased; the chamber of his soul had been painted a dull drab.