CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 
 1934 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3513.0591U5 
 
 Unclothed :a novel /bv Danie Carson Goo 
 
 3 1924 022 451 540 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022451540 
 
Unclothed 
 
UNCLOTHED 
 
 A Novel 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL CARSON GOODMAN 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 ) - MCMXII 
 
Copyright igz2 by 
 Mitchell Kennerley 
 
This story is told alternately by the two chief 
 
 characters, LAURENCE CreWDON 
 
 and CleODORE BlakE. 
 
UNCLOTHED 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDON] 
 
 She was leaning over the accordion-pleated lid of 
 her closed desk. " I thought that I had seen all 
 the writers in the world — but go ahead, anyway," 
 she said. 
 
 " That makes it hard," I replied quietly. " But 
 I suppose you do get tired of them." 
 
 iWhat was I to do? It was my fifth magazine 
 for the day; it was already late evening — "Do 
 you want to see the most remarkable story ever 
 written? " I said; half whimsically, but with some 
 conviction. 
 
 She folded a pair of glorious, soft, white hands, 
 looked at the clock, and then at me. 
 
 " Go ahead," she said. " It's my job." 
 
 " Well, that's all — most remarkable story ever 
 written, story about the real life, the destiny of - — " 
 
 " You know," she broke in, " everyone here 
 
2 UNCLOTHED 
 
 is gone but me, and I can't do shorthand, so 
 your well chosen explanations — " 
 
 I interrupted her. " Oh, I am sorry. I know 
 I haven't any business to keep you here at this late 
 hour. I'll come in the meming." 
 
 " You are very kind." 
 
 For a moment we sat in silence. I suppose it 
 meant dismissal for me, but I failed to recognise 
 the fact. 
 
 Through the narrow window back of her desk 
 I could look down upon the street below and see 
 the end of the day pour its little people, like 
 ants, upon the crowded streets. 
 
 An oiEce boy darted in, coat half on, his cap 
 stuck on his head slantwise. 
 
 " Good-night, Miss," he cried. 
 
 " Good-night, Tommy." 
 
 I had never listened to so kind a voice. 
 
 Then we heard his little fist pound against the 
 wire caging of the elevator, and an " Aw, cut it. 
 Kid I " gruffly from the automaton inside that ran 
 the thing. 
 
 I found my eyes on her again. She looked 
 tired, very tired, and she was so pretty; her mouth 
 
UNCLOTHED 3 
 
 was soft; the lips seemed to caress her in them- 
 selves; and she had blue eyes. 
 
 I looked at her, fascinated. I was walking into 
 tragedy that day and didn't know it. 
 
 " I'll bring the story in to-morrow," said I. 
 " If you would read it personally, I would be so 
 appreciative." 
 
 " You know I'm not the editor," said she. 
 " I'm only his assistant- But to-morrow will be 
 all right." 
 
 I was at the door nearly when she stopped me. 
 " You can stay a moment, if you will. Won't 
 you sit down?" She has told me since that she 
 thought she had treated me like a book agent, and 
 felt sorry. 
 
 " Why, now you're kind. I — " I really was 
 surprised. 
 
 " I am only asking you to stay on a bit, because 
 — I think that if you talk some you would amuse 
 me, and I am bored to death these days." I 
 thought I saw a mischievous smile on her face. 
 
 However I smiled with her. Beneath her 
 words I seemed to hear the plea of sincerity. At 
 least I know that I wanted to stay. She told me 
 
4 UNCLOTHED 
 
 afterwards that my seriousness really amused her, 
 but that I didn't attract her in the least. Women 
 are queer in their impulses at times. 
 
 " I guess that you do get sick of your work, 
 don't you?" I ventured. 
 
 My question seemed to make her restless. 
 
 " Oh, I like it all right. I have to — but tell 
 me—" 
 
 She looked at my card, repeating my name, 
 " Laurence Grewdon — Laurence Crewdon. I 
 can't quite place you," she said finally. 
 
 I had sold one story, a few months before, to 
 one of the big magazines, and got a hundred dol- 
 lars for it. It was all the encouragement I had 
 ever received, and sometimes I had thought to 
 myself that I would rather have had none than 
 so little. But now that I was asked the question 
 direct, I was glad of my one miserable little suc- 
 cess. 
 
 " That may be," I answered. " I haven't pub- 
 lished a great deal of my work." 
 
 She seemed to he running over my name in 
 her mind. " Why, yes," she said, apparently to 
 herself, and then, " I know who you are. You 
 
UNCLOTHED '5 
 
 wrote that little story about the shop girl, didn't 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes, I wrote that." 
 
 "lYou know — I liked that. What else have 
 you published? " 
 
 I started an evasive reply, and then suddenly 
 I found I could not lie to her. " Nothing," 
 said I. 
 
 She got up and went to the window. " I think 
 it's rather of an accomplishment to be truthful 
 about one's own work. I don't suppose I'd be." 
 
 " Well," I went on, " I have written a great 
 deal even if I haven't published much. I've 
 been writing day and night for years." 
 
 " Why, you're only a boy," she said back ban- 
 teringly. " But I guess you have worked hard." 
 It seemed that she was noticing me now, for the 
 first time. She had an odd way of answering me 
 with her eyes on her desk or glancing out of the 
 window. 
 
 As we talked on, I noticed again how tired and 
 worn she looked. Her voice was wistful, sad, 
 even. And then I became more Impertinent. 
 
 " A young woman with your looks, as intelli- 
 
6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 gent as you must be, with the understanding that 
 you must have — I'll bet you get sick of every- 
 thing, and blue, and disconsolate." I did not 
 lack effrontery that day. " But I suppose you are 
 happier than I am." 
 
 " It doesn't take you long to talk personalities, 
 does it," she said by way of reply. 
 
 " Not when I'm interested," I answered. 
 
 " I thank you," she laughed. At last there 
 was cheeriness in her voice. To myself I said 
 that I was in luck to find such a glorious creature 
 on my literary tramp. 
 
 I went on. " But you haven't answered me. 
 You ought to be fairly happy, doing what you love 
 to do." 
 
 " Well, I am not — happy," she said. " Can't 
 you see that? " 
 
 " Life is too short to be unhappy." 
 
 " It is only too short, if you are happy." 
 
 She spoke unconsciously, I thought, for as she 
 realised her words and looked up to find me lis- 
 tening intently, I saw her catch the edge of her 
 under lip between her teeth until they left a nar- 
 row reddened imprint. 
 
UNCLOTHED 7 
 
 "Please pardon me, won't you?" I begged. 
 
 Then she recovered from her momentary be- 
 wilderment and smiled gently. " It's hard, isn't 
 It, to be artificial and brave all the time, when one 
 wants just to lie down and die? But you'd best 
 go!" 
 
 Apparently she had not wanted to be so easily 
 confiding, I noticed a flush spread to her cheeks, 
 and her hand touched restlessly one or another 
 of the papers on her desk. It's difficult to be 
 clever with a clever woman. And I did the 
 wrong thing. I have often wondered since what 
 possessed me. I leaned over and grasped her 
 hand. I suppose that I meant it to be an expres- 
 sion of sympathy. 
 
 She drew back quickly. " Why — how strange 
 you — " she started to say several things. I pre- 
 tended not to notice when I saw her shrink back. 
 At last I' perceived that she had passed over the 
 situation with leniency. 
 
 " If you will let me, I believe I can tell what 
 is the trouble with you," I said, before I realised 
 how ridiculous was my statement. " It's prob- 
 ably because you are trying to live a real living 
 
8 UNCLOTHED 
 
 life. That's just it. I discovered a long time 
 ago that most of us are living dead lives, where 
 there is no feeling, remorse or regret, even. Only 
 irksome monotony, where the morrow casts its 
 shadow on the day before." 
 
 She hesitated for a moment as if to decide 
 whether to answer or be angry. "Your 
 sentiment is not so bad," she then remarked. 
 " But you'll give up some day. Perhaps I will 
 too. And then we'll both be happy." 
 
 " But I am not going to give up," I declared. 
 
 With some satisfaction I saw that I had pulled 
 myself out of my foolish blunder. " May I stop 
 in to-morrow with the manuscript? " I asked as I 
 took my cane and hat. 
 
 " Yes, please do," she answered. 
 
 I found myself back on the street a few min- 
 utes later. I hardly knew how I got there. It 
 seemed that I only vaguely remembered that she 
 had promised to read one of my stories. The 
 big thing was that I had met her. As I walked 
 on I realised that I had been talking to someone 
 who really understood. 
 
 It was hard to keep from thinking of her that 
 
UNCLOTHED 9 
 
 night. Was she tall, and good looking — was 
 she dark or fair? I couldn't remember, though 
 I recalled her words, nearly all of them. It was 
 her physical self that had escaped me. All but 
 her eyes — and these I could never forget. They 
 flashed so intensely full of life, in startling con- 
 trast to the pallid, worn face under them. 
 
 As I fell asleep that night I was less conscious 
 than usual of my impoverished surroundings. It 
 had rained the day before, and a big wet spot 
 marked a leak in the roof, over my head. The 
 night previous I had spent mostly in wondering 
 what should happen if the plaster fell during my 
 slumbers. 
 
 Now I saw a pretty, dark face, so soft and 
 strange in its lines, and a wonderful pair of sad 
 blue eyes. 
 
 And I kept wondering what she thought of me. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 I WENT home happy the day that Laurence 
 Crewdon called on me. It was for the first time 
 in months. 
 
 Things were changed indeed since the time 
 when my father used to tell me I was the hap- 
 piest creature he had ever known. 
 
 " It's unearthly, little 'un," I remember his say- 
 ing anxiously one day. " I am afraid for you." 
 
 I wondered what he meant by that. 
 
 " I mean that you are not one who is happy as 
 an animal is. You're not a cow. You have a 
 mind, but now you're happy from vitality and 
 from lack of understanding. When your vital- 
 ity slacks — it's bound to — when your under- 
 standing grows — Ah, I am afraid you'll be 
 very unhappy one day, Cleodore ! " 
 
 I do not suppose I gave much thought to what 
 he said. And, if I did, it was to picture myself 
 miserable in a dramatic way which would be 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 1 
 
 nearly as much fun as had been my previous hap- 
 piness. If some tragic thing happened to me, I 
 used to think, I would stand it as long as I could 
 and then if life grew too terrible, I would finish 
 it. One could always do that. 
 
 I did not understand. 
 
 I did not realise that the thing that's hard to 
 bear is not the big tragedy, but the dull, grey, 
 hopeless monotony of boredom. No affliction is 
 so great as this — to have no single thing in life 
 that is interesting, to have no single thing to look 
 forward to, and each day to feel that one is grow- 
 ing older. 
 
 For the first time in my life, I felt " grown-up." 
 My father would have called it by another name, 
 I suppose, would have said it was as he had 
 prophesied. 
 
 I rallied from his death very quickly, which 
 surprised me. One reason was that I had many 
 preoccupations. I found myself compelled to 
 earn my own living. The novelty of It stunned 
 me. 
 
 By the time I had worked into the new routine, 
 my father was six months dead. 
 
1 2 UNCLOTHED 
 
 My courage- was gone ; I felt old. I was quite 
 sincere about it too, although I was at that time 
 barely twenty-three. After all I suppose youth 
 is not an affair of numbers. 
 
 The strangeness of being a useful person in- 
 stead of a decorative person tortured me. One 
 day I nearly sobbed in the open street, as the con- 
 viction came upon me that before long I might 
 really grow to tolerate the hideous bareness of 
 my life; that I might even become resigned to the 
 ugliness about me. 
 
 I suppose I was silly and affected, but anyway I 
 did feel myself in those days a Vere-de-Vere 
 amongst Mugginses, and I used to think I would 
 rather remain a miserable, lonely Vere-de-Vere all 
 my days than gradually to turn into a cheerful 
 Muggins. And I was so afraid that I should. 
 
 I used to go to my office, hoping there might be 
 a huge pile of manuscript waiting for me and 
 much work to anaesthetise my mind. 
 
 I was not sure why I was so intensely, so gro- 
 tesquely depressed. It may have been the fa- 
 tigue of a pampered woman unaccustomed to 
 work. It may have been grief and loneliness. 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 3 
 
 Or perhaps it was the strangeness and foreign- 
 ness of my surroundings that robbed my life of 
 its colour. 
 
 I was absurdly un-American and had sufficient 
 sense of humour to realise how ridiculous it was 
 that I, born in New Jersey and brought up there 
 through most of my childhood, should talk with 
 a foreign accent, should dress in a foreign fash- 
 ion, and should feel myself a stranger in my own 
 country. 
 
 The few people I met regarded all this as an 
 affectation. Perhaps it was, more or less. Poses 
 are the only protection that unhappy people and 
 lonely people can find for themselves. And if 
 I assumed the manner of the first civilised vis- 
 itor to the Hottentots, it was not altogether from 
 arrogance. 
 
 It was Crewdon's quick understanding of all 
 this that caught my fancy that day when we first 
 talked together. It was that sympathy that made 
 him stand out so clearly from the first moment. 
 It was sjrmpathy that caught my fancy far more 
 than any thing like love-at-first-sight -^ that psy- 
 chological phenomenon that Larry has described 
 
14 UNCLOTHED 
 
 with care but little conviction in one of his stories. 
 
 The knowledge that I had found someone who 
 understood, who neither laughed, nor looked 
 down his nose when I told him that my native land, 
 as I saw it revisited, seemed to me less homelike 
 than the conventional idea of hell, thrilled me. 
 
 I walked down Broadway afterwards briskly. 
 I wouldn't wonder if I hummed the " Habenera." 
 
 It was late afternoon when the boy brought in 
 his card. The name " Laurence Crewdon " 
 suggested nothing. 
 
 " He asked for me personally? " 
 
 The boy said no, that he had asked for the 
 editor, who had gone home. 
 
 " He is not a life insurance agent, or a man to 
 sell something? " 
 
 The boy thought not. " I guess he's an 
 author," he said. 
 
 When the man came in, I noticed something 
 ostentatiously normal about him. He was pos- 
 ing too, I felt sure. 
 
 His personality was a striking one. There 
 was an expressiveness about him, he used his 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 5 
 
 hands in an odd way, picking up one thing after 
 another — looking at it earnestly as he talked, 
 even losing the thread of his sentences in the ap- 
 parent interest of examining a penholder or a pa- 
 per-weight. 
 
 I liked to watch him, and, perceiving that his 
 business was of no great importance, I did not pay 
 much heed to what he said, but amused myself 
 by looking at him while he talked. 
 
 Gradually I began to listen. He was telling 
 about his literary experiences. He mentioned the 
 titles of several short stories, and the number of 
 words each contained. He even brought in the 
 names of several distinguished editors, together 
 with some quotations from their critical remarks- 
 He said very little, however, about stories ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 As his talk went on I, used to the gentle fash- 
 ion with which authors are wont to slither over 
 the lack of editorial appreciation, realised how 
 things were with him, pitied the pathos of it, and 
 wondered what the reason was. For the crea- 
 ture seemed of the stuff from which a writer 
 
I 
 
 1 6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 might be made. There was a wit about him, a 
 certain feeling for words; and a Heaven-sent 
 shrinking from the obvious. 
 
 After a time he stopped talking about himself 
 and eyed me curiously. 
 
 " Pardon me," he blurted out, " you don't look 
 happy. Are you ? " 
 
 I was appalled at his familiarity and looked at 
 him severely, but he was caressing the paper- 
 weight and didn't notice. Then I realised from 
 his pose, his voice, the expression of his face that 
 he meant no harm. I saw there was a shrinking 
 awkwardness about him, and felt he was saying 
 in pure kindness what from someone else would 
 only have been impertinent. 
 
 " Are you? " he repeated. 
 
 I told him quite simply that I was not. I ex- 
 pect I talked to him with much greater freedom 
 than I could have allowed myself had he been a 
 person of more social subtlety. 
 
 As soon as he got started talking, his gaucherie 
 dropped away and he showed himself a man of 
 extraordinary understanding. 
 
 After ht had finally left I discovered that it was 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 7 
 
 past my usual closing time and that the rest of 
 the office folk had gone. 
 
 At home that night I felt gay for the first time 
 in months. Clementine noticed. 
 
 " Why, Mademoiselle," said she, " how well 
 you look to-night. You have almost the air of 
 being your old self again." 
 
 We had a very good dinner that night ; Clem- 
 entine had really picked up cooking extremely 
 easily, considering she had never done any but 
 maid's work. I remember how good was the bot- 
 tle of California wine I drank. California wine 
 varies so, but in those days it was all I could run 
 to, and a dinner with even the harshest bottle of 
 them all is better than one bedewed with only 
 water. 
 
 I suppose I shall never get over thinking these 
 small things important. After all it is something 
 if one still drinks from a glass with a stem, wears 
 silk stockings in the house, and breakfasts in one's 
 bed like a denizen of civilisation. 
 
 I had a return that night of light-heartedness 
 for a few minutes and it brought me nearer to my 
 former life in sunny beautiful Rome, than I had 
 
1 8 UNCLOTHED 
 
 been for months. To think that it took no more 
 than the visit of a wild-eyed, strange, bashful man 
 who sympathised, to alter the face of the universe 
 for mel 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDON] 
 
 She read my stories. She was kind about them, 
 but I do not suppose she greatly cared for them, 
 and indeed, since I came across them among some 
 old papers the other day and reread them, I don't 
 wonder. 
 
 At any rate, however, she recognised their ec- 
 centricities. The psychological experience of my 
 life has been such as to make my writing peculiar. 
 
 Starting out to the career of a doctor, I soon 
 gave it up for writing. I had put my soul into 
 doctoring at the beginning, and, for a time, the 
 medicine attracted me. The unfolding of the many 
 things involved around the function of living was 
 interesting, provocative of further study. Dur- 
 ing the preliminary years In- the university when 
 I began to gain something of man in me, it almost 
 seemed that this was really the goal of my de- 
 sires; my days became filled with an eagerness to 
 
 19 
 
20 UNCLOTHED 
 
 delve further, to know why I breathed, slept, 
 felt. I became a being sentient with expectancy. 
 
 And then, one day came the severance of 
 my understanding of medicine from my love 
 of it. It all came from my odd appreciation of 
 life. I found I was expected to turn this art of 
 mine into a profession and make a living from it. 
 
 A quarrel with my father brought the end more 
 quickly. 
 
 " Look here, boy," he said, " don't you real- 
 ise that you are dabbling away precious time? 
 Surely you can't expect me to go on supporting a 
 man of twenty-four 1 " 
 
 " Yes, father," I answered, " I know that. 
 And I too hate to think of it." 
 
 " Then why don't you change? " 
 
 " How can I change? " I answered. " I don't 
 see why I should. I didn't ask to come here." 
 
 After this I woke to practical things — I 
 had to. 
 
 I found that others were doing the same thing 
 that had seemed such an or^e of impossibility to 
 me. Others were being friendly and kind and 
 hypocritical that they might gather a livelihood. 
 
UNCLOTHED 21 
 
 I took an office on upper Broadway, a few 
 blocks from my home. There I shared a recep- 
 tion room with a doctor whom I knew, so that 
 the expenses were not so large at the beginning. 
 
 One day — I remember it very clearly, because 
 my success as a physician dated from it — I was 
 called in to attend a new patient. 
 
 I found her a woman who at first glance 
 showed very little physical charm, being under- 
 sized and thinly skinned. She talked well, how- 
 ever, and I fancied that she must have appealed 
 more to the mental sense of her husband than to 
 the physical. One way and another I gathered that 
 immediately after she was married she forgot the 
 mental influence which had attracted her husband, 
 and plunged into the abandon of a simple passion- 
 ate love. The husband then, finding that the 
 only attraction was gone from his wife, grew to 
 comparing her with the other women of his ac- 
 quaintance, upon whose plane she had so ig- 
 norantly placed herself. He found she had no 
 further charm for him after this. He saw her 
 wrinkles, the drooping, care-trodden face, eyes 
 that went begging for love and devotion, and he 
 
22 UNCLOTHED 
 
 grew tired and uninterested. Presently he 
 plunged into a life of morose dissipation, with the 
 almost inevitable result to himself and to his wife. 
 
 As I viewed the poor woman and listened to as 
 much of this as she herself understood, I couldn't 
 help deploring the bestial rottenness of the hus- 
 band's makeup. 
 
 The story was not an unusual one, at any rate 
 to a physician, though the condition that con- 
 fronted me was perplexing. Could I tell the hus- 
 band that it was only through his excesses that 
 his wife was suffering? Or should I keep both 
 of them in ignorance? The problem troubled 
 me. I found that I dared not tell the truth; it 
 would disrupt his family, kill the poor wife's love 
 and belief in her husband, and do no good what- 
 ever. 
 
 It was obvious that I had to lie. 
 
 I really traced my entire practice to the man- 
 ner in which I handled this case, for I both cured 
 her and kept my mouth shut. The wife sent me 
 patients because she was cured. And the husband 
 sent me patients too. I built up a good little 
 practice in a very short time. 
 
UNCLOTHED 23 
 
 And then I began to think, and think hard. 
 Instinctively, I plied myself with questions, and 
 the paramount one never lost its haunting inter- 
 rogation. It was this: What would have hap- 
 pened had I not lied? I began to upbraid my- 
 self for my insincerity, and because I understood 
 neither life nor myself, I was indeed a very 
 foolish youngster. One day I caught sight of my- 
 self in a mirror, and it appeared to me that al- 
 ready my insincerity was reflected upon my face. 
 I seemed to see odd weak lines that frightened 
 me. "What am I developing into?" I asked 
 myself. I found that I was at war with my own 
 life. I hated the absurdity of everything about 
 me; and then, gradually and slowly I fell lower 
 and lower down the scale of human resistance. 
 Just before I gave up my career as a doctor, I 
 felt that my moral self was quite as low as any 
 mucker on the streets. 
 
 I took to drinking. If I had enough stimu- 
 lant down me, I found that I became soothed, 
 and so, quite philosophically, I kept up a fair 
 pace. When I went to my room at night, the 
 few ounces of whisky gave me peace and rest. 
 
24 UNCLOTHED 
 
 My intoxication each night became rather glori- 
 ous ; like a soft anaesthesia, but with the added ad- 
 vantage of certain awakening. 
 
 In this state of morbid unrest, a fixed purpose 
 became impregnated within me, and the purpose 
 grew until it became a part of me. 
 
 I had thought of writing as a vocation long be- 
 fore, and had worked in a desultory way at a 
 book which, though practically a work of fiction, 
 contented me most because it gave me opportu- 
 nity to express my ideas. These thoughts of writ- 
 ing came back to me very forcibly at this time, 
 and, after many weeks of hesitation, I one day 
 stored away the office furniture and turned over 
 what practice was still remaining to my associate. 
 
 I moved my few personal belongings and my 
 typewriter to a boarding house I knew on Lex- 
 ington Ave. It would have been much better if, 
 at this moment, I could have had a home to go 
 to, and I thought, as I settled myself in this new 
 place, of how different it would have been, had 
 my mother lived. 
 
 My father was furious at my sudden decision 
 and literally turned me out of his home, telling 
 
UNCLOTHED 25 
 
 me that he was entirely disgusted with me, and 
 never wanted to see me again. I left the house 
 like a banished black sheep. And all the time 
 I was nearly effeminately good. That was my 
 weakness, and he thought it simple badness. 
 
 Not much of those first weeks remain in my 
 memory. I stayed in my room and wrote along 
 at the book, but it was slow work. I knew noth- 
 ing of how to write, and destroyed many pages. 
 It was only by chance that I was able to write 
 what I wanted to say. I had sometimes to write 
 out half a dozen times what I was trying to ex- 
 press before I came anywhere near my meaning. 
 
 I had no conception of what the practical side 
 of writing was, and I was actually foolish enough 
 to imagine that before the two hundred dollars 
 which I had saved up from my practice was spent, 
 I should be making a living out of my new pro- 
 fession. I really thought this, when the only 
 piece of writing I had ever done (barring Indeed 
 several hundred scraps and sketches which I had 
 turned out since my boyhood) was only half com- 
 pleted and that, In the roughest form. 
 
 Here was I, a man of nearly thirty, unprac- 
 
26 UNCLOTHED 
 
 tical enough to fancy that Inside of a few weeks 
 I should have finished this book, should have got 
 It accepted by a publisher, and should be In a po- 
 sition to live off the proceeds. 
 
 It was laughable that a man who had been tak- 
 ing upon himself to control human suffering, and 
 had not done it so badly after all, should have 
 been so childish. But I knew nothing about 
 writing and writers. I do not believe I had ever 
 even met an author in my life except once when 
 I was In Baden-Baden with my parents and was 
 Introduced to a very popular author from Eng- 
 land, who used to speak frequently in an offhand 
 way of the large sums she recovered from the 
 work of her pen. 
 
 I suppose I may have said to myself, when 
 this Idea of giving up medicine for the profes- 
 sion of writing came seriously into my mind, 
 "Why! if this silly woman, who does not even 
 know enough to paint her face properly, can make 
 big sums by writing, a man like me is safe enough 
 to go Into It with a few hundred to keep him go- 
 ing while he gets a start." 
 
 My book was about three-quarters completed 
 
UNCLOTHED 27 
 
 when I realised It would take me a good deal 
 longer than I had bargained for, to finish it. 
 This upset me particularly because I discovered 
 that my money would be gone before the work was 
 done. 
 
 So I decided I would make a litde ready money 
 by writing a few short stories. I had studied the 
 stories that were in the magazines, and I thought 
 that I could write more intelligently than the ma- 
 jority of them. 
 
 The part that struck me most was the constant 
 introduction of love. At this time that appeared 
 to me artificial and almost ridiculous. I seemed 
 always to have an aversion to women and love- 
 making, and thought that the petty love episodes, 
 on which so much emphasis was laid, were unnec- 
 essary. It may have been because I, although I 
 had vaguely expected a great love affair some day, 
 had never had one, or hardly any companionship 
 with a woman, for whom I cared. 
 
 I was a weird young person, and had no under- 
 standing of the natural order of things. When 
 in the presence of women I drew away from them. 
 Some I even hated with an intense, unexplainable 
 
28 UNCLOTHED 
 
 aversion, probably for no more reason than that 
 they were of the opposite sex. At times, it had 
 been a hard fight to keep a knowledge of this 
 from my father. , 
 
 I wrote some short stories trying to show life 
 and the relationship between men and women as 
 I saw them. I tried to show that so-called love 
 was often subterfuge or self-deception. 
 
 When I had finished a few I posted them to 
 the magazines, and had them rejected without 
 comments. This hurt me, aside from the dis- 
 appointment, for things were really getting se- 
 rious and I had depended on these stories to bring 
 me in some money. When I came to count my 
 funds, I found I had only eighteen dollars left. 
 
 For a time I was bewildered, then I recalled 
 that there remained to me still a slight resource 
 in the stored furniture. I sold It and realised 
 something over a hundred dollars. 
 
 The possession of this sum of money acted as 
 a stimulant to me, and I resolved to approach 
 some editor In person with these stories, feeling 
 that they had not a fair chance when submitted 
 through the mail. 
 
UNCLOTHED 29 
 
 I took them to the editor of the magazine I 
 liked and respected the most. The editor saw 
 me himself, which I learned afterwards was not 
 usual. Though he was very kind, I went away 
 from him realising, for the first time, that the 
 disposing of literature was a yery difficult task. 
 I comprehended now that there were perhaps a 
 half dozen others in the same street car who too 
 were writers in the embryo. 
 
 I went to see him again. 
 
 " Well, how do you like them? " I asked as he 
 greeted me. 
 
 He grunted. " Not so bad. But we can't use 
 them. I've really read these over personally, and 
 believe that you might possibly find a magazine 
 that would want this sort of stories." He 
 handed them back to me. 
 
 " Then you don't want them? " 
 
 " No. But you must not be discouraged. If 
 you would write the sort of story we are looking 
 for, I believe we might use It." And then he 
 outlined to me the sort of story he was looking 
 for. It was a very twaddling tale about a shop 
 girl and the life she led. I thought it unreal and 
 
30 UNCLOTHED 
 
 useless, but he became more and more delighted 
 with it as he went on. 
 
 Finally, full of enthusiasm, he said, " Now, why 
 don't you write something like that for us?" 
 
 I went home and tried to write such a story as 
 he had described', and when I had it done, I took 
 it to him. The astonishing thing was he bought 
 it. 
 
 The sale of this story was the greatest dis- 
 couragement I had yet encountered. I had given 
 up a profession to write what had meaning to me, 
 and here in a short time I found myself forced 
 to repeat in this new profession, all the vile in- 
 sincerity which had so plagued me in the 
 other. 
 
 For three months after this I haunted the offi- 
 ces of magazine editors trying to dispose of my 
 stories. I became a living directory of the New 
 York magazines, and at last I learned with over- 
 whelming conviction that my stories were not mar- 
 ketable. Wherever I went, I met with the same 
 answer ; they told me : " Your stuff is too psycho- 
 logical; if you'd only try to write stories with 
 some human interest, I think we might use them." 
 
UNCLOTHED 3 1 
 
 Human interest! They thought the slop they 
 printed represented humanity. 
 
 For a short time, I discontinued writing alto- 
 gether, and took to tramping the streets, partly 
 in the hope that I might gather new ideas, but 
 more from a sense of utter loneliness and dis- 
 couragement — I had cut loose from the few 
 friends I had. 
 
 One day I remember I walked miles. I went 
 the entire length of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, 
 watching the crowd and analysing the faces as 
 they passed me. I grew to comparing myself 
 with the others and I saw how sadly low I was in 
 the balance. 
 
 I found a growing bitterness in myself. It 
 seemed that of a sudden something had given 
 way. For the first time in my life I noticed 
 that others had for necessities what were to me 
 luxuries. 
 
 On Fifth Avenue I saw that women wore bou- 
 quets that represented a week's living to me, that 
 their worthless lap dogs were treated better by the 
 world than I was. 
 
 I was slipping down. A communism was es- 
 
32 UNCLOTHED 
 
 tablishing itself between me and the man out of 
 a job. 
 
 One day I passed a woman; she was gowned 
 perfectly. A diamond pendant, nearly concealed, 
 hung down from a fluffy mass beneath her chin. 
 
 It set me afire. The shining brilliant half hid- 
 den tantalised me, seemed to mock me and I had 
 a growing passion to snatch the thing away from 
 her. 
 
 The compelling motive I realised, was not to 
 gain anything, but to cut down the distance be- 
 tween the woman of luxury and myself. The 
 feeling passed off quickly, and I walked down the 
 street tranquilly enough. But for the first time 
 I saw an over-impelling newness in my method 
 of reasoning. 
 
 I tell these things so as to make clear what my 
 state was when I met Cleodore. At the time I 
 believed she saved my life. I believe it still. 
 
 The more I saw of her, the more I appreci- 
 ated her. 
 
 " You have been in my thoughts every minute 
 since I was with you," I said to her, as I greeted 
 her on my second visit. 
 
UNCLOTHED 33 
 
 I noticed that the expression of her face had 
 changed. The careworn look on it had passed 
 away. I thought I saw new life in her smile. 
 
 " You're better, aren't you? " 
 
 She smiled wistfully as she answered me. " I 
 believe I am — somewhat. How are you ? Are 
 you working hard? " 
 
 " Hard enough," I replied, " but I am so rest- 
 less, I have not accomplished much," 
 
 " Perhaps you only think so," said she. 
 " Writing is a strange art. Sometimes when a 
 person thinks he is accomplishing the least, he is 
 really doing his best work." 
 
 " That may be true. But when a man nearly 
 thirty years old begins to discover what gives him 
 happiness and then cannot have it, though he's 
 willing to forego decent food, cleanliness, any- 
 thing, temporarily, for the end, it's — " I meant 
 to say hell, but stopped. I had worked myself 
 up tremendously. I ended up by saying that I 
 believed I was fooling myself after all, and that 
 I didn't see how I could hold out. 
 
 " Oh, you silly child," she cried out at me, 
 laughing, though I believe I saw her eyes moisten 
 
34 UNCLOTHED 
 
 with tears, " you're only a boy with an ambition 
 and now you're thinking too much of the boy. 
 Let us see. You must first get started along the 
 right lines. You might get something into print. 
 That's the best encouragement. And then I am 
 letting you come to see me. You are unappre- 
 ciative." 
 
 She noticed the manuscript I had brought. 
 "So you did bring me something, didn't you?" 
 she remarked. " Good, I'll read it before I go 
 to bed." 
 
 For a moment I left her and walked over to 
 the window. I couldn't think clearly with her 
 great big eyes, inquisitive, searching, before me — 
 and the little rounded body that seemed so in- 
 consistent with the intellect it carried. 
 
 It was only the second time we had been to- 
 gether and yet the ingrowing physical being in me 
 was ruling. Till now I had always held this de- 
 sire in me as a thing subordinate to my mental 
 wants — and had always conquered. But now, 
 just at the time I ought to be thinking clearly, I 
 was lost blindly in a passionate sentiment. 
 
 It may have been because I had gone so long 
 
UNCLOTHED 35 
 
 without it. At times, before, when I was grop- 
 ing around blindly in the dark, writing forlornly, 
 night after night, I had sometimes encountered 
 a dream that would, for the moment, rouse me 
 from myself, and my enforced passiveness. A 
 sweet languorous face, trim corsage, hips that 
 seemed protruding through their silken cover — 
 the entire figure indolent, supple, caressable, — 
 and for the moment my thoughts would chase 
 themselves wantonly to the end, lascivious from 
 long controlled emotions . . . and then I 
 would shut my eyes. And I had done this ever 
 since I had been able to think for myself. 
 
 But now I was in her apartment. The time 
 might come when I would kiss her. As I stood 
 by the window, peering down upon the street, it 
 was like looking over the past, as if I was stand- 
 ing by and watching my life parade in retrospect 
 before me. And it seemed that I could only won- 
 der at it, and pity it. I thought of the many 
 years of continuous waiting, the sacrifice of time, 
 and yearning. The memory seemed to hurt me 
 more now, than ever before. 
 
 The effect of our meeting was strange upon 
 
36 UNCLOTHED 
 
 both of us. We would talk a few minutes and 
 then be unconsciously silent. If we looked at 
 each other, our glances seemed to become locked. 
 
 While I had been thinking at the window, she 
 evidently had been studying me, 
 
 " You asked me in the office the other day if 
 I was happy. I wonder if you know how diffi- 
 cult it is to be happy." 
 
 "Of course," I answered. "If I didn't, I 
 shouldn't want to write." 
 
 As I found her listening to me, I went on, talk- 
 ing slowly and softly. It was of one piece, this 
 evening — the soft yellow light shining down 
 upon her, her face propped up between two beau- 
 tiful arms. 
 
 " Really I have discovered that we can have 
 happiness if we are only willing to pay the price. 
 And it is a costly thing — for ambition, years of 
 perilous waiting and sacrificed time; for joy, just 
 so much pain to measure it by. Oh, I could go 
 on — " I exclaimed earnestly. 
 
 "Well," she broke in, "you are right when 
 you talk of the payment, and I guess a woman 
 must pay the greatest price in whatever she does. 
 
UNCLOTHED 37 
 
 If she wants to think for herself, be independent 
 of others, she must suffer from intense isolation, 
 no matter how good she is. Oh, it means so 
 much to stand free, and do what one wants to do 
 because one just wants to do it. You can't know. 
 I've got to think of everyone's opinion but my 
 own." Then she lost herself in a spell of 
 thought, staring steadily out of the window. 
 
 The next time I saw her we went over the man- 
 uscript I had left. It was a glorious day and 
 somehow I felt the need of sharing it with some- 
 one, which was a new appreciation for me. 
 
 I called for her at the magazine office. 
 
 " You are very kind, to call for me," she said 
 gaily as I greeted her. " I am glad you thought 
 
 to come." 
 
 We walked on out of the shadows of the corri- 
 dor and out on to the avenue, all glowing with 
 sunlight and gay colours. I really felt the joy of 
 living. It seemed to penetrate my entire being. 
 
 She caught me staring at her. 
 
 " What is the matter? " she asked. 
 
 I had never seen such a pretty woman in my 
 life, and I told her so. 
 
38 UNCLOTHED 
 
 She threw off my inquisitiveness by asking if I 
 was happier to-day. I found her in turn search- 
 ing my eyes. 
 
 "Yes, I am happier — for some reason," I 
 replied. 
 
 " Ah, I believe I know," she assented. " It's 
 because you're only human after all, and just as 
 responsive." 
 
 I caught her meaning unawares. It gave me 
 a secret pleasure. Unwittingly, I saw that she 
 had acknowledged me different from the others. 
 It gave me hopes for my manuscript. 
 
 " You've something to tell me about the story," 
 I said calmly. " Please tell me." 
 
 We were crossing the park in Madison Square ; 
 the big tower of the Metropolitan looming up 
 into the sky, overwhelming, almost eerie, seemed 
 to mock and laugh at me. It made me feel so 
 inconsequential, made me realise that I was of 
 too little importance to have moods. I have al- 
 ways had this feeling when I get near such a 
 product of another's genius. 
 
 I was fortified and, for the moment, quite 
 brave. We walked on in silence between the 
 
UNCLOTHED 39 
 
 rows of park benches. At last she answered 
 me with much gravity. " Well, I have some- 
 thing to tell you," she commenced. " It's the 
 old story, too, and I hate to do it." Then she 
 paused. I could see a corner of her lip bit in 
 between the teeth. Parenthetically, she went on, 
 and her words came strangely good to my ears. 
 " Somehow, you have come to mean a bit of 
 something else to me. You're so strange or else 
 I haven't had enough to do — with men." 
 
 I heard her confession joyously. What did I 
 care about the manuscript. I found myself wel- 
 coming the worst she could tell me. 
 
 " Your stories are tremendously interesting — 
 tremendously," she went on. " I believe, though, 
 that I see the one fault. You must have had a 
 hard life and the stories show it. That's just 
 the trouble; you picture your own feelings, your 
 own morbid feelings, and while you do write with 
 understanding, still you are always yourself in 
 the story and persist in putting your own moods 
 ahead of everything else. This is the trouble 
 with all beginners. It's just as bad as a painter 
 who would paint a ballroom scene and put heavy 
 
40 UNCLOTHED 
 
 lines of suffering on the dancers' faces because he 
 happened to be starving in a garret at the 
 time, 
 
 " Oh, it's too bad, but that's what makes so 
 many who have been disappointed in life take 
 to writing; feeling that if they could portray 
 their sufferings on paper, the world would stand 
 back in amazement. Of course, though, you are 
 a cut above these affected people. 
 
 " I don't believe readers care what the writer 
 goes through. They have the story before them 
 and they are interested only in that. If you want 
 to succeed, you must forget everything but the 
 force you are creating. You must be nearly ar- 
 tificial, not even daring to write incidents of your 
 own life, should they mean anything to you. I 
 wonder if this isn't your great fault? " she con- 
 tinued. " You can't forget yourself in your work 
 and you'll never do what you're capable of un- 
 less you change." 
 
 I listened to her words with very little concern. 
 It seemed to me that I heard defined for the first 
 time, what was really the trouble with my work. 
 
 "You realise this?" she asked. 
 
UNCLOTHED 4 1 
 
 " I realised it, and never understood, but now 
 I do," I affirmed. 
 
 " Then what do you intend doing — you have 
 written so many things? They are probably as " 
 — she hesitated — "as bad as the one I have 
 read." 
 
 " Then I'll do them all over," I replied, " I 
 must make them a go. You can't know what it 
 means to me." 
 
 " And you intend to go over everything? All 
 you have done? Wouldn't it be better to do 
 some new things in the new way? Maybe you'd 
 do better at longer tales. It doesn't seem to me 
 that your touch suits short stories." 
 
 " How discerning you are," I said. " I have 
 written a longer tale, a book, and have it more 
 than half done, and to me it seems better than any 
 of these short things. I mean to write something 
 good. I've got to. I have torn down all the 
 bridges, I can't go back." 
 
 " Yes, that's just what I fe'ared. Oh, I want 
 to encourage you, but I don't dare; for fear that 
 you might blame me for it some day. I can't 
 get beyond my own selfishness." 
 
42 UNCLOTHED 
 
 She was gazing on the ground ahead of her. 
 As we walked on, I thought I could perceive a 
 pained, odd expression on her face. She was 
 feeling sad over me. Yes, that was it. 
 "Great!" I came near shouting. I wakened 
 to the fact, the truth of it — and. felt joyed 
 again. She was sad over my troubles. " That 
 shows that she cares, you fool," I said over and 
 over to myself. 
 
 I was really happy. She must have noticed It, 
 for I caught her looking up interestedly. Then 
 she grasped my arm. 
 
 " You are laughing," she remarked, perplex- 
 edly. " Why? " 
 
 For the moment my task of explanation seemed 
 too much. That she would understand, I knew 
 very well, but did I dare tell her. 
 
 At last I replied. I know now that I told her 
 the truth that afternoon. 
 
 " Well, I am happy because I've found a 
 friend," my words came smiling. " You remem- 
 ber what Stevenson said when he was only twen- 
 ty-two? He wanted three things, good health, 
 fifteen hundred pounds a year, and ' Oh, du lieber 
 
UNCLOTHED 43 
 
 Gott, — Friends.' Yes, I'm glad that — that 
 someone really cares." 
 
 For the instant she reddened. My presump- 
 tion appeared to have angered her. Then she 
 surprised me. 
 
 " I do care, a little," she said. " You are the 
 only man I know who is brave enough to suffer 
 alone. Most men can't endure hard luck and ill 
 fortune unless they have a woman to share it. 
 Then they are happy in their own miserableness. 
 Yes, I do care, though you haven't done a 
 blessed thing to make me." 
 
 As her words of understanding came to my ears 
 I became filled with appreciation. Uncon- 
 sciously I took her hand in mine, nor did she ap- 
 pear to resist me. 
 
 " We seldom find anyone who understands," 
 was all my ecstasy would let me say. " It is rare 
 fortune that I found you. Life holds out so lit- 
 tle for the most of us." 
 
 It seemed that I had said the right thing. Her 
 face brightened into a soft smile, full of feel- 
 ing, and I thought I felt her press my hand in 
 return. As we walked on and talked, I became 
 
44 UNCLOTHED 
 
 immersed in a flood of tranquillity and 
 peace. 
 
 In too short a time, she had left me. 
 
 Her words had made me happy, but now — I 
 was alone. 
 
 I walked hurriedly back over to Fifth Avenue. 
 How it seemed to mock me now. How lonely I 
 was. There was such a contrast. After all, I 
 might have been brave when I told her I should 
 do everj^hing over, but I realised in an instant 
 that it had been only transitory bravery. My 
 spirits were as deep in the mire now, as they had 
 been high, before. 
 
 Perhaps I had been brave for her sake, I rea- 
 soned, and the thought gave me some pleasure; 
 but just as soon as I remembered what she had 
 told me — which reduced to its true meaning, 
 meant that I had no right to my ambition, that I 
 was a failure — I became overwhelmed by sad- 
 ness again. 
 
 I reached my own steps when It was nearly 
 dark. I had walked for nearly three hours, 
 tramping along in a delirious sort of haste. I 
 felt half exhausted from the muscular effort and 
 
UNCLOTHED 45 
 
 yet so restless, my senses distorted with so many 
 thoughts, that I could have walked on everlast- 
 ingly. 
 
 However, I dragged myself up the stairway to 
 my room. It was uninviting, dismal, lonely. I 
 sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling sick and 
 choked. Another start, more sacrifice, I said 
 over and over to myself. 
 
 I can't tell how long I sat there, but the stars 
 were out, I noticed, when my landlady, a very 
 kind woman, came in and asked me if I would 
 take my meal in my room. They had missed me 
 at the table. 
 
 " You are looking very tired and worn, Mr. 
 Crewdon," she said. " Perhaps you should best 
 tuck yourself in bed and just let that infernal 
 writing go. It ain't no business for a poor man 
 anyhow. You're just worn out, ain't you? " 
 
 I was a bit tired, I said, and if she didn't mind 
 I would take a bite in my room and then retire. 
 Yes, I had had a very hard day. 
 
 " You had some more of them manuscripts re^ 
 jected, didn't you ? " she inquired. " I knew that 
 was it. My boy, you're not strong and you're 
 
46 UNCLOTHED 
 
 one of them that takes things to heart. I can see 
 it and you've got no business to eat your soul out 
 with this fool writing. I'll bet your folks don't 
 know what you're doing, do they? " 
 
 " Well, no, they don't," I said bitterly. 
 
 " I knew it. lYou're all alike. I had a fel- 
 low here once before, with a artistic tempera- 
 ment. He played the violin. His ambition was 
 to become great and have all the four hundred in- 
 viting him into their mansions. He used to tell 
 about it at the table. But he got over that soon 
 enough." 
 
 Talking with her helped me. It took me out 
 of my own thoughts for the moment. " Won't 
 you sit down? " I said. " Tell me more about 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, there ain't so much to tell," she an- 
 swered, as she went over and took a rocker, " ex- 
 cept that I got him a job with a railroad man 
 that used to live here. The boy is a conductor 
 now. Makes Reading, twice a week. I didn't 
 know him when he came here about three months 
 after. He'd gained over twenty pounds and was 
 just as happy as. could be. He told us how he'd 
 found a fine little girl and was going to marry 
 
UNCLOTHED 47 
 
 soon. It's a good thing he had some sense left." 
 
 I agreed with her in all she said, poor woman, 
 and told her I didn't believe I'd hold out much 
 longer myself. 
 
 Soon someone at the door called her away, but 
 it was hours after I had gone to bed before I 
 found any rest. Tossing on my pillow, my senses 
 recoiled under the burden of a thousand recollec- 
 tions. Every cell in my brain seemed a haven 
 for painful memories that recalled nothing but 
 one sordfd failure after another. 
 
 I tried hard to get past my own consciousness, 
 but with no result. I was lost between the paral- 
 leling influence of an ambition on one side, and 
 vindictive failure on the other. 
 
 The night became quite unbearable. My 
 nerves seemed to tear and twitch ruthlessly, and 
 whenever I thought of the afternoon, my heart 
 ached. For a moment I would think of her, I 
 would see the drooping lids, I would see the tears 
 that came in her eyes, and for the moment I would 
 be happy. But just as soon, her words would 
 come back to me, with the thought of to-morrow. 
 I could not sleep, and I remember that I laid 
 there the whole night in wide awake misery. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 " This being a woman," said I to Crewdon, " is 
 as complex as running a steam-engine; and no- 
 body seems even to realise it." 
 
 In the timid sunshine, he had dropped into what 
 was nearly a doze. Half awake, he heard and 
 answered me with the determination of one who 
 wants to conceal the fact that he has be^en asleep. 
 
 " Everything's complex 1 " said he flat-footedly. 
 
 The doze had not been happy. I knew that a 
 dozen little worries teased the poor lad. Editors 
 declined to sympathise; the exchequer dwindled; 
 days passed and left behind only the weariness of 
 time spent for nothing. He even had a cold in 
 his head, and he turned up his collar ; as he sat in 
 the open-air by me in the wretched parklette of 
 Madison Square, he felt, I fancy, that the demar- 
 cation \yas slight between him and the permanent 
 
 inhabitants. 
 
 48 
 
UNCLOTHED 49 
 
 Our acquaintance had — as the saying goes — 
 ripened, and with astonishing speed. The gar- 
 dener who tends such romantic fruit, whether he be 
 a le Bon Dieu or Monseigneur the Devil, had set 
 us in his hottest hot-house, and there resulted one 
 of the incredible situations of which every life is 
 full. 
 
 Of his first visit to my flat, I remember nothing. 
 One remembers things erratically; a patch clear 
 as a window pane, then a patch impervious as a 
 safety vault. The events and the atmosphere of 
 a certain unimportant Monday, you and I will re- 
 member till we lie dying. Of the infinitely more 
 interesting Tuesday we have lost the memory in- 
 side a fortnight. And, seemingly, there is no 
 reason. But then, I do not believe in reasons — 
 chance and le Bon Dieu who likes his joke — 
 that's how the world is run. And I suppose God 
 was having his joke that day. 
 
 I went on talking. One could always talk to 
 Crewdon, even when he dozed there was a sym- 
 pathy in the purr of his deepened breathing. I 
 went on about the complexity of being female. 
 
 " You say everything is complicated. Yes — 
 
,50 UNCLOTHED 
 
 but not in the same way that it is complicated to 
 be a woman. The muddle of it is limitless. 
 You've no idea. It's simply appalling." 
 
 I found myself gesticulating as though I was de- 
 livering a lecture. I have always had certain 
 ideas about women, but I have hesitated to talk 
 seriously to the men who liked me. Crewdon was 
 nearly asleep, however, so it seemed an excellent 
 chance for me to work them off. 
 
 " Don't get so excited," he interrupted. 
 " Those people over there will think this is the 
 opening scene of a real-life love tragedy. I don't 
 know why a well-brought up American woman 
 should gesticulate like an organ grinder, the way 
 you do . . . Yet, it goes with you some- 
 how." 
 
 ". . . simply appalling," I went on, "you 
 see le»Bon Dieu made woman for a certain spe- 
 cific purpose and — " 
 
 " In the first place how do you know the good 
 God made her? And secondly how do you know 
 what he made her for? I wonder? — I wonder 
 what he made you for, child? " 
 
 The poor drab on the next seat made a diver- 
 
UNCLOTHED 5 I 
 
 sion, jumping up with a squeal and crying, " Oh, 
 Gawd," in some miserable dream. Then in huge 
 boots and festoons of muddy skirts she shuffled 
 off to another bench. 
 
 " Never mind who made her — anyway, there 
 was a certain purpose in the mind that did it, and 
 somehow considering this purpose, all the other 
 things she tries to do seem so silly. I am sure 
 le Bon Dieu must think me for example very 
 laughable. Here I am a healthy young woman, 
 spending my time in offices, and all kinds of stu- 
 pid mental exercises, when according to the 
 ground plan of things, I ought to be making my- 
 self pleasant to some man or other. We are 
 really meant to be just articles of furniture or 
 bits of landscape — we women — and if we try 
 to be something else, it makes life very muddling 
 for us." 
 
 "Rats! There's nobedy nowadays denies a 
 woman's right to be an individual." 
 
 " More rats I " said I. " The woman denies 
 it herself. We pull ourselves two ways at once. 
 We try to be individuals and we long to be arti- 
 cles of furniture, but we can't be both — oh, we 
 
52 UNCLOTHED 
 
 can't! All the time we're working and being 
 somebody we feel uneasy and ridiculous and out 
 of place — I mean we feel it always underneath 
 and we realise It every now and then, and yet 
 whenever the chance comes to be furniture, we 
 draw back and say ' oh 1 I couldn't sacrifice my in- 
 dividuality — ' and if we do, we're unhappy, and 
 if we don't we are unhappy. Oh I wish I had 
 teen bom a turnip." 
 
 " I daresay it's an intricate job being a turnip, 
 if we only knew," said he, and in the peace of the 
 poor little sunny park, somehow, the absurdity 
 seemed true. Utterly lacking in a sense of hu- 
 mour in some ways, he had a quaint outlook on 
 things and a delightful ability to discard life's 
 cliches. 
 
 I found Crewdon wide awake now. 
 
 " Do you notice," he said, " how all of these 
 people have newspapers in their hands? It seems 
 to me to be part of the pitiful pride of this coun- 
 try that no man will sit paperless and brood in the 
 park as European unfortunates do. The Ameri- 
 can thinks he must hold in his hands a newspaper, 
 if for nothing more than to create in his own eyes 
 
UNCLOTHED 53 
 
 the illusion that he is a prosperous man of posi- 
 tion, taking an hour's relaxation in the open with 
 the day's news. It's too bad that this unrealness 
 must even extend to tramps. They, at least, 
 might live sincerely." 
 
 " At least there's no pretentiousness about the 
 women here," said I. " My sex never puts on 
 any airs. The moment that other people stop 
 considering them, they stop considering them- 
 selves. Look at that poor woman who squealed 
 a minute ago. I wonder what her life has 
 been." 
 
 " Probably she started as a scrub woman — 
 poor devil! " he answered. 
 
 " How terrible to start so low and yet to fall 
 still lower; to start life in the world's basement 
 and to find the only elevators are going down. 
 I hate to look at creatures like that and think 
 they're women," said I. "But that's a brutal 
 thought, isn't it?" 
 
 We wandered over to the West Side to a little 
 place I knew, which consorted better with the 
 slimness of my friend's exchequer than with our 
 gastronomic tastes. Afterwards content, if not 
 
54 UNCLOTHED 
 
 satisfied, we walked back to my flat and talked 
 through the evening. 
 
 I thought him curious, not quite human, I rec- 
 ollect. I fancied Heaven had pitied my loneli- 
 ness, and made this creature specially to cheer me, 
 a sort of Adam to play to my poor lonely Eve. 
 
 When we talked, he made himself out by rem- 
 iniscence little better than a mad man. But I did 
 not think him mad, since but for selfishness, I too 
 might easily have shaped my life as he had shaped 
 his. 
 
 To him, I showed myself at my worst, did it 
 purposely, though more through instinct than rea- 
 soningly, for I was in so hideous a mood, that all 
 subconsciously, I realised I could not charm peo- 
 ple legitimately, that my only course was to star- 
 tle them and to secure some sort of interest from 
 them by the eccentricity of my behaviour, and al- 
 most repulsive tone of my talking. So to this 
 stranger I pictured myself selfish, morbid, sen- 
 sual, ill-balanced. 
 
 I was none too kind to him either, but he 
 seemed not to blame me, nor indeed even to no- 
 tice, except that sometimes he would say, " You're 
 
UNCLOTHED 55 
 
 unkind to yourself, child. I can't let you be like 
 this. It isn't real." 
 
 Unconscious of my own ugly pretence, I did 
 not realise the truth of what he said. It seemed 
 indeed that he understood me better than I un- 
 derstood myself. Perhaps it was not difficult, for 
 I did not, nor ever have, understood myself at all. 
 
 We talked of every human thing, but not of 
 non-human things, for facts and book knowledge 
 interested us not at all. We talked of ourselves, 
 and of art, and of love, and of marriage, and 
 friendships, and food and drink. We were amaz- 
 ingly frank with one another, — and amazingly 
 reserved. That he, poor man, was literally on 
 the brink of starving, I never knew till the hor- 
 ridness of it was a humorous memory (though 
 money never was plentiful, -to be sure), nor did I 
 speak to him of what was worrying me most. 
 
 Or at any rate I did not speak directly. I do 
 not think one who has a preoccupation can ever 
 keep It out of conversation. 
 
 Perhaps he guessed. He was uncannily clever. 
 
 That night, I saw fit to speak of marriage. 
 
 " What do you think about it? " said I. 
 
56 UNCLOTHED 
 
 "I don't think about it at all," he replied. 
 " I am afraid it'll put notions into my head and 
 I'll go do it. You remember the old lady who 
 told the children not to push beans up their 
 noses? " 
 
 " That's the trouble with discussing marriage," 
 said I impatiently. " People always seem to talk 
 in the vein of a society comedy — silly epigrams 
 that mean just as little said backwards as they do 
 said forwards — you know the kind of talk." 
 
 "To be sure I do. A taste of marriage is 
 like a taste for caviar; some people like It natur- 
 ally; the only way to keep them single would be 
 to put them in jail. Some people hate it nat- 
 urally, they wouldn't marry if it was the only 
 road to salvation; and some people acquire the 
 taste because they see it's the only way to get 
 some special person — Heaven pity them I — 
 that's what you mean, isn't it? " 
 
 "Yes — but that seems rather true, and epi- 
 grams always are lies. Suppose it is true, how 
 can one know whether he's marrying from a taste 
 for matrimony or frpm an infatuation for a per- 
 son, whether it will be a case of Heaven having 
 
UNCLOTHED 57 
 
 been kind to him, or of Heaven being the only 
 thing that can help him? " 
 
 "Oh, one can't knowl" 
 
 "Which would I do?" 
 
 Crewdon looked at me meditatively. " Blest 
 if I could say," he replied, and added, " perhaps 
 all we people who think, would be wise not to 
 marry, if we could face our loneliness." 
 
 " Loneliness," said I, " But isn't it better to 
 be lonely by oneself than in company? " 
 
 " I suppose so, but you see there's always the 
 chance, just the little chance, that things would 
 turn out well, that you wouldn't be lonely. It's 
 that we gamble on — one chance in ninety, 
 perhaps — and a million people take it every 
 year." 
 
 " I shall probably take it myself," I put in pes- 
 simistically. 
 
 " Probably — you might do worse. A woman 
 needs marriage. She can't dare face the loneli- 
 ness. Don't you sometimes think when you see 
 an elderly unmarried woman, of the hold luggage 
 on an ocean voyage with its big labels ' NOT 
 WANTED?'" 
 
58 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Yes — and I often think the same of the el- 
 derly married woman too." 
 
 " Still," he reminded me, " you mean to 
 marry? " 
 
 " Sometimes I fear so, and sometimes I hope 
 so, but I am always pretty certain that I shall." 
 
 " Well, for you, for any woman, it's the only 
 way." 
 
 " The only way where? " 
 
 " Into real things. One must have love, ma- 
 terial love is one's life." 
 
 " But need one marry to get it? " 
 
 " One need not, but it seems as if a woman 
 does better to." 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 " Well," said he, " how about society, if she 
 doesn't? " 
 
 " Confound society 1 " said I. " I do not care 
 a whoop about the good of the nation. I care for 
 myself and my friends, especially myself. The 
 nation may each and all marry three times a day 
 and twelve times on Sunda.ys for all of me. But 
 should I marry? " 
 
UNCLOTHED 59 
 
 "What's the choice? What would you do, if 
 you did not marry?" 
 
 " Stop single, I expect." 
 
 " You'd not take a lover? " 
 
 " Isn't that rather a silly thing to do? One 
 always suffers for it." 
 
 " Always in books. But surely you don't think 
 it right to do a thing if a two-dollar justice of the 
 peace gives you authority and wrong if the author- 
 ity comes from your own heart? " 
 
 " No, it isn't an affair of right or wrong to me. 
 But is it advisable?" 
 
 " Probably not. The only really advisable 
 thing is to lie down and die. It surely isn't ad- 
 visable to do anything. But it's more fun." 
 
 " Ah — fun ! " said I and stood up looking out 
 through the treacherous soft air of New York's 
 May, and shivered. " Women aren't supposed 
 to want fun. Perhaps none of them does, but 
 me. 
 
 " I think they do. Only most of them take it, 
 instead of thinking about it. What kind of fun 
 do you want? " 
 
6o UNCLOTHED 
 
 " All kinds. I would like to go into the coun- 
 try and lie in the sun for a month and eat beau- 
 tiful things, and drink beautiful things, and have 
 somebody play French waltzes to me with a 
 fiddle and a harp and read me Stevenson and de 
 Maupassant. . . . Oh, you don't know, no- 
 body knows but me, what it is to lie in the sun ! " 
 
 " I know," said he, and I dropped back in my 
 chair and laughed. 
 
 " That's what I'd like to do," said I, " and here 
 am I going to an office every day and sitting there 
 hour after hour grizzling and then coming home 
 so tired in the evening that all I can do is to sit 
 and grizzle more. And every day that passes 
 makes me a day older. Why, sometimes it seems 
 as if it would be better to elope with a car-con- 
 ductor." 
 
 "And yet you've not done it?" 
 
 " I never was asked," said I. " I do not 
 think I am popular with car-conductors. But, if 
 I only were, I believe I'd be ready to run off with 
 one some day. Sometimes anything seems bet- 
 ter than oneself; the lowest degradation seems 
 preferable to loneliness." 
 
UNCLOTHED 6 1 
 
 " I wonder," he speculated, " if you would be 
 so unconventional in your views if such a thing 
 came to be a real question in your life. Some- 
 how, in the big moments, one seems instinctively 
 to act in the fashion that is the fashion. And 
 it's a good thing too. There is nothing so stu- 
 pid as doing unusual things." 
 
 " And nothing so much fun," I interjected. | 
 " That may be, but it's stupid just the same. 
 The wisest course is to do just what everybody 
 else does. Perhaps you have noticed that all the 
 really unintelligent acts are performed by intelli- 
 gent people. The ordinary-minded person who 
 never thinks of himself does instinctively what his 
 neighbours do and nine times in ten it is the right 
 thing to do. It is the original person who thinks 
 up out-of-the-way fashions of making a fool of 
 himself. He's too superior to do what the rest 
 of the world does, and — humiliating as it is to 
 confess it — the longer I live, the more I realise 
 that what all the world does, is the wisest thing. 
 It's a sickening admission, but I believe there's 
 more sound sense in the copy-book maxims, than 
 in all my brilliant and original philosophy." 
 
62 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " My friend," said I, " what you are saying is 
 as insincere as the compliments of the saleswoman 
 in a hat-shop. You harve no more intention than 
 I have of turning into a copy-book hero. You 
 hate the proletariat and all its ways as bitterly 
 as I do myself." 
 
 " I expect you are right," he replied. " But 
 sometimes it comes over me how much wiser it is 
 to be able to think and act like everybody else. 
 You must feel it too sometimes, and I expect that 
 when the impulse really comes into your life to 
 live scarlet, there'll come promptly just such a re- 
 action that will dye your blithe impulse a safe 
 conventional drab. ... I wonder if it 
 will? . . ." 
 
 " And I wonder too," said I. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDOn] 
 
 The better I got to know Cleodore the more I 
 realised her charm. 
 
 On the afternoon I finished work on my novel, 
 I hurried over to call on her. I had already been 
 with her twice that week, and felt ashamed to go 
 again. But the exhilarating delight of her pres- 
 ence, and the need I felt for her, had come to be 
 a part of me. 
 
 I hesitated even more, when at her door, Clem- 
 entine told me that her mistress was ill, and might 
 not see me. 
 
 I said not to ask, that I would come another 
 time. 
 
 " Not at all," objected the old French woman, 
 " if Mademoiselle will see you, it will be excel- 
 lent. You, a doctor, can help her, perhaps." 
 
 From inside, Cleodore's voice called, " Is that 
 Dr. Crewdon, Clementine ? Bring him in. Fetch 
 me my tea-gown. I'll get up and see him." 
 
 63 
 
64 UNCLOTHED 
 
 As she came into the sitting-room, she steadied 
 herself against the door-jamb. 
 
 "Why, girl, what is it? You're not ill, are 
 you? " I asked. 
 
 " Hush ! " she whispered, pointing to her bed- 
 room, where Clementine was moving about be- 
 hind the half open door. 
 
 When the woman had gone out, she told me 
 she had fainted. " And I am nearly ashamed to 
 tell you why," she added. 
 
 " Well, anyway, can't you tell me, or is it a 
 mystery? " I asked. 
 
 " Surely I can tell you," she said, " only I 
 didn't want Clementine to hear." And then she 
 went on to relate how she had come into the room 
 after a hot walk from her office to find Clemen- 
 tine posing in front of her bedroom mirror be- 
 decked in a new evening gown which had only 
 recently come home. 
 
 " I expect I was a fool to feel as I did," she 
 went on, " but when I saw the dear old soul, 
 beaming so radiantly happy at herself in the mir- 
 ror, I didn't have the .heart to spoil it. The poor 
 thing would have felt so silly if she'd known I 
 
UNCLOTHED 65 
 
 was looking. So I crouched down back of the bed 
 until she had taken the gown off and hung it in 
 the closet. I suppose I was tired anjTvay when I 
 came in ; at least before I knew it, my head seemed 
 queer." 
 
 " You mean you fainted to save Clementine's 
 pride?" 
 
 Cleodore laughed. " It does seem foolish, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 Her goodness of heart affected me strangely. 
 " You're a wonderful little person," I said to her, 
 " and I believe you wear yourself out being good 
 to others." 
 
 Then I noticed that she was still pale. 
 " Come," I said, " this will never do. You need 
 a bracer." And I took hold of her hand, and 
 pulled her into the dining-room. 
 
 On the side-board stood a decanter. 
 
 " It's too bad," I remarked — " that that 
 isn't whisky. It's just what you ought to 
 have." 
 
 " You do my morals an injustice, sir," she said. 
 " That is whisky." 
 
 I poured out some for her, and made her drink 
 
66 UNCLOTHfifi 
 
 it. It did me good to see the blood rush back to 
 her face. 
 
 " You see," I said manfully, " you need a doCr 
 tor by you — always." 
 
 It was growing dark outside and Clementine 
 came in to light the candles. 
 
 " That's a funny custom," said I. " Don't you 
 use the electric lights? " 
 
 " I only use them for my acquaintances ; I use 
 candles for my friends." 
 
 " But you used candle light the first evening I 
 came here," I said. 
 
 I stayed for dinner. I was master of the house 
 that night, I remember. I poured the soup, 
 carved the fowl and was happier than I had ever 
 been before in my whole life. I realised then, 
 what pleasure there was in being with the woman 
 one craved. 
 
 " What about your Squib? " she asked after we 
 had finished our coffee and cigarettes. 
 
 I didn't understand her. 
 
 " Oh, I mean your long novel," she explained. 
 " I always call the' stories mv friends write. 
 Squibs." 
 
UNCLOTHED 67 
 
 " Well," I laughed, " my Squib was finished 
 this afternoon and as soon as I have made a few 
 revisions I am going to take it to Mr. Garvin." 
 
 " Oh, I wish you could have shown it to me 
 first, but of course it's important he should see it, 
 since he asked to. But haven't you another copy 
 you can give me? " 
 
 " No, I write directly on the typewriter, and 1 
 didn't make a carbon, but I'll show it to you as 
 soon as Mr. Garvin rejects it," and I laughed. 
 
 "What's it about?" she asked. 
 
 " Oh, it's about me, like all the others ! I'm 
 most anxious for your opinion on the woman." 
 
 " Maybe you overestimate the value of my 
 opinion. One who hasn't any ability to write 
 really hasn't the right to criticise." 
 
 "Don't you write at all?" I asked. "Then 
 where did you get your critical understanding? " 
 
 " Well, if I have any ability," she said, " it 
 came partly by inheritance, but more by environ- 
 ment. My father was ' Denis Blake.' You know 
 his work, of course? It's possible that you don't, 
 though. He never had a wide popularity. He 
 was too good." 
 
68 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Yes, I do," said I quickly. It delighted me to 
 think that she was the child of this consummate 
 artist. 
 
 " If he'd been less good," she went on, " I 
 wouldn't have to be working in an office now. 
 The sales of his books are pitiful." 
 
 Something pathetic seemed to come into Cleo- 
 dore's face as she talked of her father. 
 
 " I wish you'd tell me some more about this 
 time of your life, the time when you and he were 
 together.'' 
 
 Then I regretted my question, for she seemed 
 even sadder than before. 
 
 " I am sorry — that I asked you. You needn't 
 tell," I quickly intruded. 
 
 " No, that's all right," she reassured me. " I 
 am glad to talk about it, though it's probably the 
 first time I have, since I came away from Rome." 
 
 "But you are an American, aren't you?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes, of course, but when my mother died, we 
 wandered about abroad and finally settled in 
 Rome. I lived there till six months ago." 
 
 "Why did you come back?" 
 
UNCLOTHED 69 
 
 " I didn't want to starve. His friends secured 
 me my present position, and I had to take it." 
 
 I noticed her eyes filled with tears. " You 
 mustn't talk so," I said to her. " It's the troubles 
 you have had that make you understand. You 
 never could have helped me, but for the things 
 you suffered." 
 
 Then I went on trying to take her mind away 
 from the thought I had so rudely forced back 
 on her. How I longed at that moment to take 
 her in my arms. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 Outside the sun glared and the heat vibrated 
 almost visibly across the air. All created things 
 were clammily repulsive to one another ; the pave- 
 ments shrank in disgust from the vibrating feet 
 that pressed them; horses loathed their harness; 
 the very bricks of the houses would have spat at 
 one another had they been able. A touch was 
 torture, whether to man or beast or inanimate 
 thing. Since dawn it had been so, for it was 
 summer in its first vigour of youth, and the sun, 
 frenzied, passion-ridden, caressed the unwilling 
 city through the hours. 
 
 Heat came in at my window in great waves ; it 
 rose from the floor; it brooded from the ceiling. 
 Lying limp on my coudi, I seemed close packed 
 as by some tangible thing. 
 
 Through the thin stuff of my dressing-gown, 
 
 the couch under me had the feel of something ar- 
 
 70 
 
UNCLOTHED 7 1 
 
 tificially heated. The soft fabric grew sticky and 
 clung to me irritatlngly. I flung it off, and then 
 found myself yet more discommoded by the 
 scratching of the woolly couch against my skin. 
 
 Raising myself a little I was amazed at the 
 length and whiteness of my body. I did not rec- 
 ollect ever before having looked at myself delib- 
 erately when naked. Whether it is the force of 
 modesty, or climate, I do not know, that causes 
 the hurried slipping from day clothes to night 
 clothes, from night clothes into the tub, from the 
 tub to the towels, and again into day clothes, with 
 never more than a casual glance at that great 
 white thing that is us. 
 
 I regarded my body in a leisurely and rather 
 embarrassed way as if it had been a stranger's, 
 and then touched it here and there curiously. I 
 thrilled under my own hands with as much excite- 
 ment and nearly as much shame as if they had 
 been another's, and it seemed to me for the mo- 
 ment not at all unnatural that I should feel it al- 
 most immoral to lie alone in my own room and 
 look at my own nakedness. 
 
 I moved my legs and arms slowly with a child- 
 
72 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Ish pleasure in their tractability, and then crooked 
 my knees so that as I lay on my back I could see 
 my toes and watch their helpless wriggling, like 
 new-born blind animals. I have always disliked 
 toes and somewhat shuddered at the thought that 
 I possessed them, but in my simple mood I took 
 a certain pride in them, so small, so useless and 
 seemingly rejoicing in a stupid way at their free- 
 dom from constriction and at the notice they 
 were attracting from their mistress. 
 
 I pictured them freed from my foot and able to 
 wriggle about on the couch and play together; I 
 named them and chose my favourites, and an- 
 tipathies. I disliked the great toes I remember, 
 and felt a pitying affection for the next to the lit- 
 tlest. 
 
 It was all, of course, very absurd, and gradu- 
 ally I drifted off to sleep and dreamed; dreamed 
 that I was lying, still naked, on the grass, soft in- 
 nocent grass of June. I had never felt grass 
 against my body before, nor the sun on it. I 
 thought of Stevenson's letter to somebody from 
 the South Pacific, in which he told how he was 
 sunburned from head to heels except for " the 
 
UNCLOTHED 73 
 
 aristocratic portion of my person on which I sit," 
 and chucked a dream laugh at the absurdity of 
 sunburning a big blister on my stomach, and won- 
 dered whether it would not make the wearing of a 
 corset next day most torturing. 
 
 Then suddenly I spied approaching the figure 
 of a man. It seemed to be someone I knew, but 
 dream-wise I contented myself with the resem- 
 blance and did not try to place the man by name. 
 In a panic at the unconventionality of my posi- 
 tion, I jumped up and rushed across the fields, 
 with this man after me. I ran wildly, leaping 
 ditches and stumbling, with him so near behind 
 that I could hear his steps. That such a chase 
 was most inconsiderate of him did not occur to 
 me. Dream ethics seemed to make it a mani- 
 festation of the extremest gallantry and, though 
 I was in duty bound to run, I do not think I 
 greatly feared to be caught. 
 
 The story of Eve and her leaf-apron darted 
 into my mind and I wondered if I could make one 
 too, but realised that such a task would take time 
 and that I was now a bare few seconds ahead 
 of my pursuer. Then I saw a brook, turned my 
 
74 UNCLOTHED 
 
 course and plunged Into it, seeking the deepest 
 part so that I was covered nearly to the shoulders. 
 The cold of It, dream-cold though It was, woke 
 me with a start, just as the man plunged In after 
 me and, bending over, kissed my shoulder. 
 
 I woke In perspiration, scratched by the couch- 
 cover and discontented, lay a moment wondering 
 how the dream story ended. Then I roused my- 
 self to go to my bath. As I got to my feet, I 
 staggered from the sudden movement In the dull 
 air, reeled and sank back, watching the room 
 grow dark and larger and then gradually come 
 near to me again. I was not frightened, for such 
 a sensation Is common to me In extreme heat, but 
 slipped Into my dressing-gown and walked cau- 
 tiously and with careful holding of the furniture 
 to my dressing-table to look at myself. My face 
 appeared large and white, and more pleasing to 
 me than usual. There seemed a dignity and pas- 
 sion In the eyes and a certain sombre attraction 
 In the paleness and the damp, close darkness of 
 the hair. 
 
 Lazily, I put a scarf over my head, a thing of 
 beautiful rose colour, and then, moved In a fem- 
 
UNCLOTHED 75 
 
 inlne fashion by the association of ideas, I com- 
 menced to wonder how I should like to be an 
 oriental, a woman purely female, freed of all bur- 
 dens of thought and soul — just a body. That 
 would be charming, at least while one was young 
 — but how about being a middle-aged, discarded 
 oriental? I shuddered at the idea. If only one 
 might cheat Providence and pass the first half of 
 one's life in Turkey and the last half in New 
 York! 
 
 I wondered if I should ever marry, or if I 
 should pass my lifetime until fifty or sixty, or 
 whenever death came, in the ridiculous innocence 
 of a young girl, in that absurd state, virginity 
 grown grey? 
 
 What else was there. To take a lover — very 
 easy to say, but how did one manage those things ? 
 I imagined the feelings of a man to whom I was 
 practically fiancee, were I to suggest such a thing. 
 One or two men had asked for me, it is true, 
 without mentioning marriage, but they had been 
 such worms. One was fat and elderly and a di- 
 vorce, and had put his proposal in a most dis- 
 gusting fashion. It seemed to me that It must be 
 
76 UNCLOTHED 
 
 expected that no attractive man would ever wish 
 to be my lover. A man to whom I would be 
 ready to give myself, and a man who had feel- 
 ings for me of sufficient depth to watrant such a 
 gift, would surely not ask it of me or be ready to 
 accept, if I offered it. It would be a selfishness 
 that could not go with real love, even merely 
 physical love. 
 
 And then, even if he were willing, should I be? 
 It is easy to think unconventional things, but had 
 I the courage to do them — to face contempt if 
 the escapade became known, to face the possibil- 
 ity of having a child, that invariable fictional ac- 
 companiment to illicit love. 
 
 " It is all very well to sow wild oats," a free- 
 spoken woman once said to me, " but you don't 
 want to sow wild babies 1 " 
 
 " Why didn't God give me enough intelligence 
 to be different from other women without suffer- 
 ing for it," said I, " or else less intelligence so 
 that I don't suffer for not being like them? " 
 
 Still thinking, I went mechanically to my bath, 
 and, in the physical pleasure of it, the crisis of 
 discomfort slipped away. There was first the 
 
UNCLOTHED 77 
 
 feel of the warm water, and then the caress of the 
 cold, then the slow, soft pressure of towels, then 
 the touch of freshly-ironed muslin, the scent of 
 violet water, and finally the yielding pressure of 
 smooth loose silk and the sheen of its colour re- 
 flected in the glass. Gradually I found myself 
 again in the mood to pet myself, to consider my 
 body first, my mind and my soul not at all. 
 
 Full of an infinite content, I carried cushions 
 and a rug to the flat roof, made a little camp for 
 myself in the breathless twilight and watched, as 
 I lay, the smoke from my cigarette mount into the 
 still air in a little column that was as straight as 
 the cigarette itself. 
 
 Gradually I began to feel lonely, and to won- 
 der whose company I would ask for, if I could 
 have my wish. Not that of any woman I knew, 
 nor that of Gordon, for I felt that the heat and 
 the evening would work upon his coldness and 
 that he would surely trouble me with emotional 
 talk and yearnings. I did not want to be yearned 
 over; I do not know what I did want — some- 
 thing easy, unthinking, sympathetic. I leaned 
 back on my pillows and looked at the newly-ar- 
 
78 UNCLOTHED 
 
 riving stars, slowly taking their places in the old 
 patterns overhead. Was it the stars that twin- 
 kled and the planets that didn't, or the other way 
 around, I wondered sleepily, with eyes half shut. 
 Forthwith I must have slid gradually into some- 
 thing near sleep, for it was with a tremendous 
 start that I stirred and saw Larry looking down 
 on me curiously. 
 
 " I thought you'd probably be up here," said 
 he. I shared my cushions with him. 
 
 Here, I realised, was what I had wanted, some- 
 one who understood, someone who would not 
 worry me with emotionalism, nor bore me by the 
 lack of it. I looked at his face in the dim light 
 and found it familiar, suggesting some other face 
 I had seen that day — the dream-face of the man 
 in the meadow. I laughed and could not tell 
 Larry the reason why. 
 
 With half my cushions left I was not comfort- 
 able and resented it. "Nature," said Oscar 
 Wilde once, " is so uncomfortable. Grass is 
 hard and lumpy and damp, full of dreadful black 
 insects. Why, even Morris's poorest workman 
 could make you a more comfortable seat than the 
 
UNCLOTHED 79 
 
 whole of Nature can." I thought of this remark 
 and reflected on its truth as I leaned on one el- 
 bow in the attitude of a Roman dinner guest. To 
 be sure the flat roof of a New York apartment 
 house is not strictly the unaided work of Nature, 
 yet to sit on the roof of an evening smacks surely 
 of the simple life, and, unpillowed as I was, I 
 shared Wilde's preference for the artificial prod- 
 ucts of the furniture maker and passed on my 
 complaint to Larry. 
 
 Lazily he cast about for a remedy, and found 
 one in taking all the cushions and inviting me to 
 lean against his arm. I may have fallen asleep 
 there with my head in the crook of his elbow, for 
 we talked sparingly. Once I found his hand on 
 my hair, and again, I think, his lips on my fore- 
 head. I was as pliant and yielding as a pet ani- 
 mal and as little conscious of wrong. Sometimes 
 we talked, but there seemed nothing particular 
 that required saying, and I, at any rate, was not 
 in the mood to search my mind for conversation. 
 
 My mind, indeed, had closed its doors and put 
 up the shutters for the night; and so too my con- 
 science. I had a certain placid instinct left, which 
 
8o UNCLOTHEO 
 
 seemed to lead me to submission. I felt as char- 
 acterless as a jelly — and gloried in it. I did not 
 think it would have seemed to me strange had 
 Larry fed me from his hand, and put a string 
 around my neck and led me down stairs. I was, 
 indeed, in my oriental mood. 
 
 And yet less than ever now that I was so near 
 to him, did he seem a real person to me. Super- 
 stitious as a savage in my heart, I had regarded 
 him — drifting into me one day and becoming in 
 half an hour my friend without reserve, while 
 scarcely even my acquaintance — as something 
 very unreal, perhaps a thing of my own Imagina- 
 tion, or perhaps a fairy-man. Certainly he never 
 had been a normal creature such as one meets in 
 Broadway or Fifth Avenue. Try as I would, I 
 could not picture what his life was when he was 
 away from me, or indeed that he had any other 
 material life at all. 
 
 Yet again, at other times, he would seem realer 
 to me and more of a force than any other human 
 being I have ever knpwn. And then it would 
 seem that they were the fairy people and he the 
 first and only real one of them all. It Is so in 
 
UNCLOTHED 8 1 
 
 dreams sometimes. A person or a sensation 
 seems more real than ever did anything in life, 
 and yet, over it all, hangs a strange, sweet sick- 
 ness and the conviction that it is not tangible, and 
 cannot endure. 
 
 I wondered sometimes how I seemed to him; 
 and in my saner moments I asked myself what 
 sort of a man he was and what his life had been, 
 and whether a half of what he said of himself 
 wgs true. 
 
 From the roof we heard It strike midnight and 
 he arose to go, giving me his hands to help me 
 to my feet. As I rose I felt giddy again and 
 clung to him. Perhaps it would have happened 
 anyhow; as it was, it seemed inevitable that he 
 should kiss me, flamboyantly it was indeed, that I 
 should struggle to free myself, and that I should 
 fail, and that then, unthinking and feeling only 
 the innocent naturalness of it, I should cease to 
 fight him and stand still in his arms. 
 
 But thought came back in the instant, and 
 struck me in the face. I caught propriety by the 
 coat-tails ■ — it was indeed time. What was I do- 
 ing in the arms of this almost stranger — a man 
 
82 UNCLOTHED 
 
 as unfamiliar to me in his antecedents, and his- 
 tory, and position as the symbolic car-conductor? 
 For all I knew he might be a madman, or a crim- 
 inal; might, half an hour from now, be arrested 
 for murder or be making sport of me in his heart. 
 No — this last, at any rate, I realised was un- 
 just. 
 
 Yet I shuddered at the cheapness of what we 
 had done. Neither of us cared or even pretended 
 to, yet here we were in passionate embrace. It 
 seemed vilely insincere, and I told Larry so, said 
 we were too much fools, that he must never see 
 me again. 
 
 " I knew you would say that," he replied. 
 " We mustn't talk about this thing, child. It had 
 to come ; surely you felt it coming ? " 
 
 I tried to say no, but I remembered the meadow 
 of my dream and could not. " It might have 
 been longer on the road," I protested. 
 
 " Ah ! That would have been Insincere. We 
 have done what we wished, no more. If I'd 
 kissed you out of boredom. It would have been 
 cheap. But you know I wanted to, wanted to too 
 much to think about it. And that you wanted to 
 
UNCLOTHED 83 
 
 have me so much that you didn't think about it 
 either." 
 
 "So it was just pure animalism?" I queried 
 spitefully. 
 
 " You're unkind to yourself when you say such 
 things, child." He kissed my hand and went 
 away. There seemed a gentle intention in the 
 act, a wish, unthought perhaps, to make me feel 
 high again in my own self respect. 
 
 Alone, among the pillows, under the stars, I 
 pondered aimlessly. The incident had been a 
 shock to me and stirred at once my senses and 
 my brain. At one moment, I wished him back 
 again; the thrill of his touch, the sympathy of it 
 and the tenderness seemed cheap bought at any 
 price which they could cost me. After all what 
 did a dreary future hold out for me compared 
 with one happy minute here and now? Was it 
 not foolish to buy a putative Heaven at the price 
 of a certain Earth? More foolish yet to con- 
 sider an even less dependable Hell? It seemed 
 so. 
 
 But what was I getting now? A minute or 
 two of physical abandonment — the same, sev- 
 
84 UNCLOTHED 
 
 eral times repeated and without the disadvantage 
 of a companion, was to be had in a dollar's worth 
 of whisky, and was it not a pity to sacrifice this 
 new friend in exchange for a slight bodily satis- 
 faction? That It would undoubtedly be such a 
 sacrifice I felt sure. Nature does not go back- 
 wards, except for that shell beastle — the crab, is 
 it not ? and he indeed goes sidewlse. To-night we 
 had kissed once ; to-morrow it would be twice — 
 but never again could we meet and touch hands 
 alone. We must keep up this travesty of emo- 
 tion till, irked by Its artificiality, we grew bored 
 and to hate one another. Friendship was over; 
 we had nothing but fleeting animalism to take its 
 place. I grew very angry and drove my elbows 
 into the pillows, muttering inarticulate self-curs- 
 ings. 
 
 And then, suddenly, I remembered Gordon, 
 safe, considerate, gentle. 
 
 His coldness, and rather pathetic yearning 
 and self-conscious love-making took on a new 
 reminiscent dignity to me. He respected me; and 
 never in his presence did I feel anything but un- 
 shaken respect for myself. 
 
UNCLOTHED 85 
 
 This wild man did not certainly tend to increase 
 my store of self-esteem. He "was very upsetting, 
 a strange influence, and one in which I had slight 
 confidence. Alone in the dark, I fancy I pursed 
 my lips; my heart seemed to beat quite sincerely 
 to a tune of prunes — and — prisms — prunes 
 — and — prisms ; and the great god of feminin- 
 ity — good-taste — shook a kid-covered finger at 
 me and frowned. 
 
 She is not glorious, this goddess, and yet which 
 one of us may ignore her? To each of us she 
 wears a different aspect, but if I see her in a cer- 
 tain fashion, and yet perchance do not shape my 
 acts to her guise, then, as surely as there are 
 stars in heaven, I am laying up for myself a store 
 of bitterness and self-despising. For In actual 
 sin there Is a dignity perhaps, and a grandeur, but 
 in erring from good taste, as she sees It, there is 
 to every woman an afterbreath horrid as the smell 
 of onions. 
 
 Presently I fell asleep, waking maybe ten min- 
 utes later to view matters with the entirely new 
 mind which even a sleep so short can give, and to 
 decide that the contretemps had after all its 
 
86 UNCLOTHED 
 
 advantages. It was a long, dreary while since 
 my heart had beat, since I had fallen asleep with 
 any thought but one of boredom and foreboding 
 for an uneventful morrow. Cynically contented, 
 I slept again. 
 
 Again I woke; already It was to-morrow; the 
 short night of the summer was ended; the stars 
 had scattered, and the sky was lightening and 
 drawing away. Shivering, I caught the rug 
 around me and sought the bed of convention, for 
 though Nature's night was over, man's lacked 
 yet several hours of its end. Leaning against the 
 door, I glanced back at the great Metropolitan 
 tower, gilded ever so faintly by the dawn. 
 
 " And lo I " said I, mumbling with mingled 
 cold and sleepiness, 
 
 " the hunter of the East has caught 
 "The Sultan's turret in a noose of light." 
 
 Omar and his creed found sympathy in my 
 eyes that morning. With the music of his words 
 in my ears, the unmorality of his tenets in my 
 heart, I sought the stifling rooms below, and my 
 bed. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWBON] 
 
 Towards the end of June the days became no- 
 ticeably hotter. Murky grey mornings, with a 
 leaden covering of low hanging sky and heavy 
 clouds of heated fog floating in from seaward, 
 settled Into sultry, enervating days, that made one 
 languid and exhausted. 
 
 It was in such weather that I completed my 
 book. That I was able to work at it hour after 
 hour in a nearly untenantable heat, seemed to me 
 a good omen. A piece of work that absorbed me 
 so deeply, could not but interest others, I told my- 
 self. And when I made the final correction and 
 looked at the completed manuscript, I found my- 
 self brimming over with a nearly hysterical joy. 
 I felt that I had even exceeded my highest antici- 
 pation and now had not one single ray of regret 
 for the profession that I gave up. 
 
 A week after I had taken my book to Mr. Gar- 
 87 
 
88 UNCLOTHED 
 
 vin, die editor who had bought my short story, 
 a note came to me asking that I call at his 
 office. 
 
 Full of expectancy I rushed over to see him. 
 In my eagerness I lost all track of time and found 
 upon my arrival that it was not yet nine o'clock 
 and that I must wait until ten. In the hour that 
 I sat in the outer waiting-room, I went over in 
 my mind all that I had gone through for just 
 this moment. Certainly they were going to buy 
 my book for a serial. I would see my name in- 
 dexed with others who were writers of reputation ; 
 announcement would be made that a novel dealing 
 with the psychological development of man, would 
 henceforth appear monthly in the magazine; all 
 the days of degout, of soul-weariness and resigna- 
 tion passed away in the instant, and I felt joyed 
 beyond measure. Strangely enough not for a mo- 
 ment did my mind revert to the material side, to 
 the money that I should receive; though I was 
 nearly penniless. There seemed so much more 
 to it — encouragement, recognition, future. 
 
 I was brought out of my dream by hearing my 
 name called and in another moment I found my- 
 
UNCLOTHED 89 
 
 self talking to Mr. Garvin. He made me feel 
 instantly at ease, being solicitous and kind. 
 
 " I've sent for you," I heard him say, " be- 
 cause I think there are one or two chapters of 
 ' The Eye ' that might be worked over into short 
 story form for us. Of course," he went on 
 bluntly, " this book of yours is not a serial. It 
 has very little movement, no curtains, and yet 
 there is stuff in it we like, remarkable stuff really, 
 if it could be put into form. 
 
 " That little incident, for example, where your 
 man throws over his job in the factory^ if you 
 could cut out most of the psychology and put in 
 some human interest and one or two real live in- 
 cidents it might make a capital short story. And 
 there are one or two others," he said, running 
 through the leaves of my manuscript. 
 
 "Why, what do you mean?" I begged as I 
 realised he was undertaking to alter one of the 
 episodes which I thought showed the intensest hu- 
 man feeling. 
 
 " Well, just this," he answered, " we can't use 
 * The Eye ' as a wihole. No magazine could. 
 But if you care to take one of the chapters. 
 
90 UNCLOTHED 
 
 and alter it as I suggested, we'd be glad to go 
 over it again, and we might use it if it satisfies 
 us." 
 
 " Then that's its only chance? " 
 
 " I'm afraid so," he smiled, and before I knew, 
 I was in the elevator with the manuscript under 
 my arm. 
 
 As I emerged from the cool of the building the 
 hot rays of the morning sun that poured down 
 fiercely upon the stone pavements, and the heat 
 radiating from the granite of the surrounding 
 buildings came into my face like a hot blast from 
 a furnace. For an instant I felt faint and weak. 
 Then I remembered that in my ecstasy of 
 the early morning, I had forgotten to break- 
 fast. 
 
 I went into the first restaurant I came to, which 
 happened to be one of Childs' places. " A cup 
 of coffee, and some boiled eggs," I told the 
 waitress, and I devoured them ravenously. I 
 have heard that sorrow and disappointment have, 
 at times, a stimulating effect upon the appetite. 
 On this morning I bolted my food like a hungry 
 dog, ordering yet another portion of eggs, and 
 steak and potatoes. 
 
UNCLOTHED 9 1 
 
 I felt the encouragement that a full stomach 
 will give one. 
 
 Sadly for me, however, it was short lived. As 
 I put my hand into my pocket I realised that I 
 had no money, having left my boarding place 
 without a penny. Seeing my predicament I be- 
 came bewildered, hardly knowing what excuse to 
 offer, as my general appearance had by this time 
 come to be none too prosperous looking. 
 
 Approaching the pay desk I determined some- 
 how to inspire the cashier with confidence in my 
 honesty. 
 
 Then I noticed that the young woman behind 
 the desk had eyes that were big and sympathetic. 
 
 " I am very sorry," I said boldly enough, " but 
 unfortunately I have left my home without a cent 
 of money. I haven't anything I can leave to 
 show my good faith, but if you will trust me I 
 will return immediately." 
 
 " How much did you eat? " she asked me, and 
 when I showed her my check she appeared sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " You have eaten a good deal," she smiled. I 
 suppose she meant that I had eaten a good deal 
 for a man that was broke. 
 
92 UNCLOTHED 
 
 At this moment our conversation was cut short 
 by the approach of the manager. In a few words 
 she explained my predicament and it seemed to 
 me that in a way she was pleading for me. 
 
 "Where do you work? " he asked, after a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " Why, I — " (I came near saying I didn't work, 
 only wrote) " I am a writer," I answered. And 
 then I remembered the manuscript under my arm. 
 
 " See," I said, " here is a book that I am re- 
 vising for one of the big magazines. It is worth 
 more to me than a thousand of your breakfasts. 
 I'll leave it as security." 
 
 Apparently he was convinced of my sincerity, 
 for after a few words with the young woman, he 
 told me that they would hold the manuscript as I 
 suggested. I handed him the bundle and walked 
 out through the door, stopping calmly on my way 
 to take a few unnecessary toothpicks. 
 
 Surely and potently did I then be^n to see 
 what material value my months of labour repre- 
 sented. He had hesitated to trust me for less 
 than a dollar in exchange for months of work. 
 Momentarily I had a desire to rush to my room, 
 
UNCLOTHED 93 
 
 get the few cents and throw them malignantly 
 into his face. Invariably during those weeks, 
 where I met with refusal or disappointment, I 
 remember that I became immediately possessed 
 with an insatiable desire for revenge. 
 
 As I walked over to my room, I recalled what 
 delectable sweetness lay in the few moments of 
 encouragement I had found in the editor's waiting- 
 room. 
 
 In the afternoon I returned to the restaurant. 
 
 " I've come for the manuscript, and here is 
 your money," I said, as I counted out the change 
 to her. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember, you are the writer that 
 was in this morning. We were so sorry to have 
 to doubt you, but you know that so many come in 
 here, with one story or another, that we must 
 just doubt everyone to keep on the safe side." 
 
 " That was all right," I answered, " I under- 
 stand. You were very kind to accept the manu- 
 script." (I never knew till months after, that 
 she had guaranteed my breakfast to the mana- 
 ger.) 
 
 "You want your papers, don't you?" she 
 
94 UNCLOTHED 
 
 asked. " I think that's them," as she pointed to 
 a parcel that lay by the side of the desk. 
 
 Bidding her good-bye I put the bundle under 
 my arm and left the restaurant. 
 
 I carried the impression of her eyes and face 
 with me to my room. The temptations that be- 
 set the path of the woman labourer of her looks, 
 must be many, I thought. Surely beauty, such 
 as hers, was a questionable treasure, should the 
 owner, perchance, wish to live virtuously. 
 
 When I got home, I opened the bundle that I 
 had brought with me. And there rolled out be- 
 fore my eyes, instead of my precious manuscript, 
 a pair of worn trousers and some dirty linen. 
 
 I became frantic and bewildered. For a time 
 I could hardly comprehend, standing before the 
 clothes and staring in incredible surprise; my 
 months of labour, a real part of me that could 
 never be replaced — could I have lost it? 
 
 A swollen lump came into my throat and my 
 heart pounded against my chest like the screw of 
 a ship out of water. I believe that I aged years 
 in that time. Everything appeared to be taken 
 
UNCLOTHED 95 
 
 from me, hope, encouragement and now even my 
 labour. 
 
 I don't know how long I stood in front of the 
 table, but at last I brought myself to realise that 
 I must do something to trace my lost manuscript. 
 I went back to the restaurant, running all the 
 way. 
 
 When I approached the place, I was breathless 
 and disihevelled, but I tore up to the. desk, not 
 stopping to think of the excitement I would 
 create. 
 
 " Great God, girl ! " I flung at the young 
 woman. " You've lost my manuscript. Tell me, 
 is it returned yet? And look what you gave 
 me " — as I pointed to the laundry and the trou- 
 sers. 
 
 " Oh, I'm terribly sorry," she lamented as she 
 noticed my delirious excitement, though at first 
 she seemed .too disconcerted to speak. " I laid 
 them there before I went out for my hour, this 
 afternoon." 
 
 Then we questioned the manager, but he had 
 no knowledge of the affair, only surmising that 
 
g6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 someone had laid his bundle down for a moment, 
 perhaps to light a cigar — and then had picked 
 up the wrong parcel. 
 
 My manuscript — the only copy I had — was 
 lost. I comprehended it now to the fullest ex- 
 tent. And there seemed nothing to do. Out on 
 the street again, I could hardly keep my feet. 
 My spirit was broken, my heart empty, and again 
 filled to the bursting with ironical sadness. 
 
 For the next few day* I held out fairly well, 
 finding solace in the fact that the book would 
 probably be returned. Then, as I failed to hear 
 from the manager of the restaurant, or from the 
 girl Loutie, I became steeped in misery, and lost 
 hope entirely. 
 
 It was, I think, the third day after my loss, 
 that I passed the eating house, and went in. 
 Loutie was at the desk, as pretty as ever, giving 
 her soft smile of recognition to the customers as 
 they passed out. 
 
 "Heard anything yet?" I asked her as I ap- 
 proached. 
 
 " Oh, how do you do," she greeted me, and her 
 face seemed to light up. " No, not a thing, and 
 
UNCLOTHED 97 
 
 I'm terribly sorry. Tell me, how have you 
 been?" 
 
 For an instant I found her searching my face, 
 then she cried anxiously, " Why, how awful you 
 look! Have you been sick?" 
 
 I answered by saying that, to tell the truth, I 
 had worried a bit about the lost manuscript, as it 
 represented quite a few months' work. 
 
 " Oh, how awful, how awful," she repeated, 
 still looking at me as I went on. " Haven't you 
 any money? " 
 
 " Yes," I answered, " quite enough for a time, 
 anyhow." 
 
 Before! I had fairly finished she interrupted, 
 saying impatiently, " I don't believe it. If you 
 had money you wouldn't worry so." Then she 
 bent closer to me. " Now listen," she went on, 
 " I feel that it was my fault that you lost those 
 papers and you've got to let me ease my mind. 
 If I hadn't laid them away so carelessly, every- 
 thing would be all right. Yes, it's my fault and 
 I'm going to make it right." 
 
 Whereupon the dear girl reached into her purse 
 and drew out a five-dollar greenback. "Here, 
 
98 UNCLOTHED 
 
 you've got to take It," she insisted as I laughingly 
 drew away. " It isn't much, I suppose, for all 
 that writing, but it's something and you've got to 
 take it." 
 
 " Why, Loutie," I answered, " I don't need the 
 money. You don't understand. It isn't the 
 money value of it, that I am mourning for — it's 
 something more — that can't be replaced." 
 
 " Well, you're funny," she answered and ended 
 up by saying that I should take the money, if for 
 no other reason than easing her conscience. 
 Poor, dear girl. 
 
 Leaving the restaurant I boarded the " L " at 
 Twenty-third street and rode down to the Bat- 
 tery. I felt I must do something, and often be- 
 fore, when I was lonely, I had gone there and 
 walked along the water's edge. It soothed me 
 entirely, I found ^ — to watch the rippling waters 
 roll in and out among the piers. 
 
 Reaching the Battery, I paced slowly up and 
 down one of the walks. The air had cooled con- 
 siderably and a fresh breeze came in from the 
 oCean, while myriads of lights began to spring 
 up along the shore. It was quieting and restful 
 
UNCLOTHED 99 
 
 and as I tramped I grew sleepy. Indeed I had 
 no sooner sat down on one of the park benches 
 than I fell deep into slumber. 
 
 I must have slept soundly, for when I awakened 
 it was dark. By my side, I noticed a young 
 woman, hard featured and ugly — with a smudge 
 of paint covering each cheek. I found her sur- 
 veying me keenly for a moment, then she said 
 brazenly, "What are you doing?" 
 
 At first my wits were hazy from the sleep. 
 Then I answered what business that was of hers. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," she replied, " only — I thought 
 if you had any money, you could come with me — 
 for an hour or so. lAin't this aiwful weather 
 we're having?" 
 
 I shall never forgive that downtrodden crea- 
 ture. In the instant she took me back to the 
 world of troubles I had left momentarily. 
 
 The few dollars in my pockets were my last, 
 my book was gone, I was a failure. We were 
 broke, both of us, and look what poverty had 
 made of her. " It won't be long before / am 
 thieving," I said to myself, as I walked away 
 from her. 
 
lOO UNCLOTHED 
 
 My mind leaped back to my former life. I 
 was suddenly overwhelmed with all of the heart- 
 ache of the past weeks. And then I did not 
 pause nor even try to defy any longer. The 
 fight in me seemed all taken away and in its place 
 was left just the desire to get away from my own 
 morbid unhappiness. 
 
 The hour's rest in the park left me in a quiet 
 kind of stupor where I could see nothing but the 
 embittering circumstances that kept pursuing me. 
 The zest of living was gone. Before my mind 
 came those morbid words of Maupassant that 
 contain all the heart pain, the emptiness of life 
 instilled into words of cold steel — 
 
 " Happy are they, whom life satisfies 
 !Who can amuse themselves and be content, 
 . . . Who have not discovered, with a vast dis- 
 gust, — that all things are weariness." 
 
 I entered the first liquor shop I came to and it 
 seemed only a moment before I had five drinks 
 of the rotten whisky down me. 
 
 The place was a sort of combination bar and 
 wine room. Here and there were perhaps a 
 dozen couples, denizens of the lower Battery 
 
UNCLOTHED lOI 
 
 bending over their glasses in a sensuous partner- 
 ship. 
 
 I drank three more drinks in the next half hour, 
 but it seemed that I could get no effect from them. 
 Perhaps it was that I was w^oefuUy in need of 
 stimulus, but I remember now that although the 
 terrible feeling of morbidness was somewhat 
 blunted, still I had absolutely no feeling of In- 
 toxication — and my drinks had each been glass- 
 fuls. 
 
 It was while I sat over my last glass that my 
 attention was attracted by someone at my elbow. 
 
 " Say, you," I heard In the coarse, rough lan- 
 guage of the street, " take yes eyes offer me 
 girl.". 
 
 He was accusing me of flirting with something 
 that might have been a twin sister of my bench 
 companion of an hour before. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," I answered, " I have 
 given the lady no attention whatever. I don't 
 even know where you are sitting." 
 
 " Aw, come off wid yer guff," he thrust back 
 at me, shoving his clenched fist In my face. " I'm 
 warning you — if you don't cut It out I'll knock 
 yer damned block off." 
 
I02 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I could plainly see that the bully was trying to 
 draw me into a fight. 
 
 It may have been the liquor, for ordinarily I 
 would have ignored his taunt ; but now there came 
 to me an intense desire, like hunger — to plunge 
 my fist into his face and see him bleed. It was 
 the ending place of my months of pent up emo- 
 tions and I suppose that I betrayed my feelings; 
 for I saw his eyes rove quickly up and down. 
 He prpbably noticed my thinned body and as I 
 hesitated he became more brazen than ever, curs- 
 ing me with foul, peccant words and then thrust- 
 ing his fist into my mouth with a vicious shove. 
 
 In the instant I lost hold of myself. Jumping 
 up from the table I aimed a wicked blow for his 
 face which caught him fairly between the eyes. 
 Then we met ferociously. 
 
 He was much stouter than I was, but drink- 
 sodden and soft, and the advantage was with me 
 I felt sure, for while my drinks had only served 
 to inflame my lower passions, he had become in- 
 toxicated and his senses were blunted. 
 
 As my fist caught him I whipped another blow 
 across, but this time he cleverly guarded it off 
 
UNCLOTHED IO3 
 
 and rushed at me with an infuriated plunge. I 
 meant to stop him with a blow in the same place, 
 but he closed into a clinch and, before I knew, I 
 was bent back over the table with his squeezing 
 fingers at my throat. 
 
 For a second I lost all consciousness of my sur- 
 roundings, of the crowd that had gathered round 
 us. I only smelt his sotted breath in my face 
 and felt that his fingers at my throat were slowly 
 pushing out my eyes. 
 
 However it was this momentary lapse that 
 keyed up my senses. Even as I yielded to his 
 clutching, I brought my right fist over with a 
 swinging blow and pounded the back of his head. 
 
 Finding that I had a free swing I drove home 
 again, and again — and finally his grasp eased off 
 at my throat just when I thought my last breath 
 would have gone. To me it seemed that I was 
 fighting in darkness, for his choking had brought 
 a black clot to my vision that blinded me. Still 
 I fought on wickedly, though for a time I barely 
 knew what I was doing. 
 
 For an instant there came a lull in the battle 
 and we were brought up face to face, glaring 
 
I04 UNCLOTHED 
 
 with harm seeking eyes, gasping for lost breath. 
 I saw with some satisfaction that his eyes were 
 swollen nearly closed and his upper lip was lacer- 
 ated and torn where I had pounded it against his 
 teeth. Too, in that instant I realised that I must 
 fight my way outj as all the onlookers were plainly 
 his friends. To this day I believe the only rea- 
 son they didn't take part was that certain love of 
 fair play which lies dormant in even the lowest 
 strata of human life. They saw that I was 
 overmatched by this bully and were willing to 
 let me win my way out, should I be able. 
 
 Men may stand up in the boxing ring calmly 
 enough. They may ward off and parry the blows 
 with all consummate cleverness, but once the ani- 
 mal passions are aroused and the hot feel of the 
 other's blood wets the bare knuckles, then surely 
 the mind goes racing back into its own raw birth 
 — the beginning of aboriginal passion. 
 
 In a moment we were locked together again 
 and fighting as wantonly as ever. Feeling his hot 
 breath coming shorter and shorter, I determined 
 to use every atom of my strength in one last ef- 
 fort. As we came close, I reached up my open 
 
UNCLOTHED 105 
 
 hand into his face and drove it back with all my 
 power, using my left forearm as a wedge, at the 
 back. Instinct warned me that I might break his 
 neck in this manner, but I feared little at that 
 moment, and cared less ; I would stop him, and in 
 this eifort I centred all the energy of my being. 
 
 Slowly then, I perceived, the while his fingers 
 were again buried in my throat, he gradually 
 yielded; that his clutch became less and less evil. 
 At last his fingers relaxed and he was at my mercy. 
 
 Before his friends could stop me, I rained a 
 frenzied torrent of blows upon his face, his 
 body. 
 
 Then he succumbed completely and sank down 
 to the floor at my feet. I had whipped him. I 
 felt the hot blood course through me like wild. 
 Jumping over his body and knocking aside the 
 others that had come to his aid, I tore from the 
 place. Like a madman I was now — intoxicated 
 with liquor, but more with fight and low vicious- 
 ness. I had whipped him, with my own hands! 
 
 Hours after I found myself at a saloon bar, 
 drinking again. In some manner I had managed 
 to make my way further uptown. Caked blood 
 
Io6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 on my hands still reminded me of my fight, yet I 
 kept on drinking. 
 
 One side of my half alive senses kept saying, 
 " Stop, stop, you're going down." But all I 
 could Hear was my other self, mumbling dully, 
 " I licked him. Twice as big, but I licked him 
 — with my own hands." 
 
 As I was leaning over the beer covered bar and 
 staring vacantly ahead of me, my drunken vision 
 perceived an image that attracted, even fright- 
 ened me. It was a gruesome sight of abject mis- 
 ery — a face that was ghostly white, pasty, 
 bloated; with long furrows running down the 
 sides of the mouth and appearing even to pull the 
 eyes with them. 
 
 " Great Heavens," came from me, pityingly. 
 " You look like a ghost," and leaning over the 
 bar I extended my hands. The cold, smooth sur- 
 face of a mirror stopped me. Good God, it was 
 . . I . the image of my own misery that I saw. 
 Then I realised what I had come to and broke 
 down, crying like a child. 
 
 There came chasing through my senses a scat- 
 tering recollection of what the day had been, but 
 
UNCLOTHED I07 
 
 ever3^hing that had happened seemed placed away 
 in some remote niche of my brain, vague and in- 
 distinct. Soon a hot debilitating weakness rose 
 up and encompassed me, I felt lost in a bewilder- 
 ing spectacle of myself being carried away; I 
 knew that others were supporting me, that my 
 legs were a hapless mass under me ; my senses be- 
 came blurred, at first seeming to settle back pla- 
 cidly into an oblivion, and then whirl away alto- 
 gether. . . . 
 
 The rays of a morning sun awakened me as 
 they filtered in through half shut blinds. Around 
 me I saw and recognised the belongings of my 
 own room — but everything strewn and scattered 
 in great confusion. 
 
 Gradually I perceived evidences of my terrible 
 night. My hands and face were cut and bloody, 
 my head bruised, and woeful looking discoloura- 
 tions darkened my throat. 
 
 For an instant I felt full of remorse, even self- 
 disgust at my plight. 
 
 I stayed in bed until evening, and then could 
 no longer harbour my lonely sadness. And the 
 orgy of the night before appeared to have stead- 
 
I08 UNCLOTHED 
 
 ied me, for now I could think of my loss more 
 calmly. 
 
 I called up Cleodore on the telephone. " I 
 have had a great misfortune, Cleodore," I said. 
 " Please let me come to see you." 
 
 " Oh, my poor friend. Of course, tome 
 quickly," she answered. 
 
 When I was in her sitting-room, I told her. 
 
 She leaped to her feet and stood for a moment 
 straight as a rod. 
 
 "Larry!" she cried. Then she came over to 
 me and caught my arm in her hands. " It isn't 
 — true." 
 
 I had not expected that she would be so moved 
 by my loss. " Yes, it's true," I answ'ered, and 
 told her how I had lost it and that I thought my 
 chances for finding it were very poor. 
 
 When I had finished I saw to my amazement 
 that she was crying. I was inexpressibly touched. 
 
 " Why, Cleodore, do you care so much as 
 that? " 
 
 She wiped her eyes and answered a little 
 chokily, " Of course, I do. It's heartbreaking." 
 
 " Well, I'm through, anyway — with every- 
 
UNCLOTHED IO9 
 
 thing," I said, " I've readied the end of the 
 road." 
 
 She thought for a moment; then rose from her 
 chair and came over to where I was standing. 
 " But you're not going to give up," she said de- 
 cisively, with the impulsive determination that 
 only women possess. " You can't give up. One 
 never gets revenge on ill luck by giving in to it. 
 Now, promise, you won't stop, you won't give In, 
 will you? " 
 
 " Well, you couldn't blame me if I did. What 
 on earth have I left? I haven't the money to go 
 on and even if I had, I could never hit it as I did 
 in ' The Eye.' Why, Cleodore, when I read that 
 book over before taking it to Mr. Garvin, it 
 seemed to me — well it seemed to me good." 
 
 " Yes, I understand. Of course it is impossi- 
 ble to do over a thing like that. There is only 
 one way of consoling yourself, that Is to think 
 you have received all that was worth while in the 
 book by writing it." She laughed sadly. 
 " That's pretty papery consolation, I expect." 
 
 " Well, it may be all right when one doesn't 
 happen to be the loser." 
 
no UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Which is all the more reason that you should 
 view it in this manner. You are the one most 
 vitally interested," she came back. 
 
 For a time I tried to throw off my mood. Her 
 sympathy cheered me wonderfully and, before I 
 knew, we were really deep in the midst of other 
 thoughts. 
 
 Often when a man arid woman are rushing 
 carelessly into the delirium of a passionate asso- 
 ciation, the two will find it most diificult to give 
 voice to their feelings or throw out the slightest 
 clue to their nearly self-consuming thoughts. 
 Though each may be nearly equally cognisant of 
 the potent force that brings them together, never- 
 theless will they squirm restlessly under the fear 
 of betraying their feelings. Of a sudden, how- 
 ever, they find themselves in the midst of their 
 innermost sentiments, voicing their cherished 
 thoughts as nonchalantly as though neither of 
 them were concerned. In such a position as this, 
 we discovered ourselves that night. 
 
 " Have you ever had much influence on men? " 
 I asked her. 
 
 " Why do you ask that? " 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 1 1 
 
 As I looked at her I thought over how really 
 Indifferently I was viewing my loss, and I could 
 not deny that I had entered on the spirit only 
 after we were together. 
 
 " I just want to know," I went on, " because 
 you have influence over me, and it's the first 
 time in my life that I haven't hated to have the 
 sympathy of a woman. I feel so comfortable 
 near you. Maybe you've had men say this to you 
 before, but I know I've never said it to anyone. 
 Since I've known you, it's the first time in my life 
 I have felt the sensation of being alone at night." 
 Then I caught myself. " I guess that sounds 
 rough, doesn't it? But I don't know very well 
 how to word what I think. Please understand 
 that, won't you? Understand that it comes from 
 a man that doesn't see a different woman each 
 night." 
 
 She seemed silent after my words and sat 
 quietly near the window, her face turned away 
 from me. I began to fear she had not under- 
 stood my honesty. But after a moment she 
 turned directly toward me. The light from the 
 candles reflected on her smooth hair, and there 
 
112 UNCLOTHED 
 
 seemed a kind of phosphorescence in her eyes. 
 
 " I don't believe I quite understand what you 
 mean," she said in a very low voice. " I haven't 
 known very many men — that is, in this way." 
 
 I found myself wondering at the change she 
 had worked in me. I couldn't help but look 
 steadily into her eyes, while my wits were being 
 dulled by the happiness I felt whenever I was 
 near her. I could see what our companionship 
 was leading to even at that time. As I remem- 
 ber, it seemed that her whole body had come to 
 be a part of me — and both of us growing less 
 and less resisting. 
 
 From the time I had first seen Cleodore, an in- 
 definable something had appealed to me. I had 
 asked myself a thousand times the question: 
 " What is this feeling? " Surely I had seen beau- 
 tiful women before, I had listened to clever wit, 
 I had looked into eyes that were more sensuous 
 than hers. 
 
 Perhaps it was a creation of my own mind. 
 Cynics have said that a certain beauty of contour 
 and a few soft spoken words, that find blending 
 within the man's thought, are all that is necessary 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 13 
 
 — that as soon as this blending takes places, the 
 man is deluded by his own impression. This may 
 be true, but I have never yet believed it arid been 
 able to think of her at the same instant. If there 
 is truth in this, then love Is simply the raising of 
 another to the standard where we have placed our 
 ideal. 
 
 " I've had a funny, lonely life," I ruminated. 
 " I wonder if this harmony in life that so many 
 people talk about, is anything like ' the milk of 
 human kindness ? ' I've never found anything 
 like this ; for me it's been mostly bitter curd." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose you have been lonely," she an- 
 swered. " You're so different. I have always 
 got on pretty well with people, but then I am an 
 ordinary kind of person. I always have been. 
 You must have been a funny little boy." 
 
 " I guess I was," I answered. " I had few play- 
 mates and found no pleasure with them. I've al- 
 ways wanted something more, but never knew what 
 it was. And, as I became older, I feared to have 
 companions, thinking they would not understand 
 
 me." 
 
 " That is a pity. Friends matter so much. I 
 
1 14 UNCLOTHED 
 
 left all mine in Rome. Now that I think of it, I 
 don't believe I know a woman in New York that 
 I could talk to about anything but shop. Human 
 relationship," she went on, " is so wonderful. 
 The relation between two women can be beautiful, 
 though most women don't know it. And the re- 
 lation between a man and a woman might be glo- 
 rious. But I don't suppose it ever is, do you?" 
 
 " I've never seen a really happily married 
 couple." 
 
 " Nor I," said she. " Companionship, that is 
 to be prolonged, ought to be free. It could be such 
 a charming, sacred thing, to have someone who un- 
 derstood and who was kind and who made one 
 realise the romance of life all the time. But how 
 could it be like this when they had to live together, 
 and knew it every minute ? It's turning a romance 
 into an institution, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Beautiful sentiment, but very difficult to ap- 
 ply," I emphasised. " The laws of the universe 
 would have to be changed, for it is very seldom 
 that an ideal union is brought about. Now-a-days 
 there is a material thought of gain on one side or 
 the other, in all married unions." 
 
UNCLOTHED 115 
 
 " Oh, I suppose you are right, and then they are 
 so dreadfully monotonous. It's that monotony I 
 am fighting against. It's what every woman 
 fights against. Monotony, that's it. And if you 
 interviewed ninety women out of a hundred who 
 are living luxuriously from their husband's earn- 
 ings and in return are only expected to" be good 
 housekeepers and mothers, you would hear tales 
 of terrible loneliness, of willingness to commit a 
 crime, even, to disturb the galling inertia of one 
 day falling after another with only its ' duties ' as 
 diversion. 
 
 " I can't know this from experience," she went 
 on, " but I have watched people and I can see 
 that your sex don't understand. Women are like 
 cigarettes to you. You light us, use us a little, 
 and then we're dead forever, and the only joy we 
 must find is in the short time we are being 
 smoked." 
 
 " Oh, you're very bitter in your views of life," 
 I interrupted, as I saw her face settling into the 
 saddened lines that I had noticed before. " I 
 don't see why women should look so tragically at 
 the future. God knows of the nights / have sat 
 
Il6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 in my room, counting over my previous ambitions 
 and their futile endings. We are only products of 
 a natural law," I went on, " and we age and go 
 like all other living things. 
 
 " After all, God is indeed kind ta us. We are 
 warned of the inevitable as soon as we have any 
 understanding of life. In no other game is the 
 chance so fair. All we need do is to store up for 
 the end — and when the end comes, know that we 
 deserved to die. How awful it would be to die 
 and not deserve to," I broke off, whimsically. 
 " Just think, to die and not a vice for the tomb- 
 stone to cover." 
 
 " Oh, your delightful cosmic view of life sounds 
 so cheap and artificial," she replied, with a frown, 
 turning from me and walking towards the wmdow 
 — as if to leave me alone with my cynical opti- 
 mism. Then she halted and faced me. " But you 
 are right, after all. Life is a fiendish affair. 
 Whatever you do you're bound to be sorry." 
 
 She would have had still more to say, had I not 
 gone over to her and placed my hand over her 
 lips. " You're getting a year older every minute, 
 talking so," I said playfully. " Come, we're being 
 
UNCLOTHED II7 
 
 too serious. Why," I added philosophically, " it's 
 no use to take life so seriously. The past is al- 
 ways gone and the hardest thing in the world to 
 find is yesterday's news." 
 
 " Ah, I salute thy wisdom, O master mind," 
 she remarked with a low salaam to the floor. 
 
 At that moment she looked so deliciously pretty 
 and her words came so sweetly that I could not re- 
 sist putting my arms about her and kissing her. 
 It wasn't the first time. (I remembered our little 
 party on the roof.) But each time I found that 
 it was more difficult to let go, that I wanted more 
 and more of her. 
 
 For an instant she yielded to my pressure, then 
 she struggled out of my grasp. 
 
 " Why do you do that? " I asked. 
 
 " What? " 
 
 " Why, tear away from me like that. You un- 
 derstand, don't you? " I begged. 
 
 " Oh, I understand," she replied, " but don't you 
 see it's foolish? " 
 
 " But how is it foolish since we know that our 
 feeling is true? We've talked that over, haven't 
 we? You're calling it the wrong name," I went 
 
Il8 UNCLOTHED 
 
 on warmly. " It's not that we are being foolish, 
 it is fear you feel. Fear is like the Devil — al- 
 ways haunting about and casting his shadow on 
 the delicious things of life. You might let me 
 put my arms around you, anyway." 
 
 " You can create pretty figures," she smiled 
 elusively, and tried to change the subject. 
 
 I came back instantly, apparently not noticing 
 her words. " I don't believe you have the cour- 
 age of your own convictions." 
 
 " Oh, you think that, do you? " she asked, and 
 I felt her hand in mine. " Well, dear man, you're 
 wrong again. It is fear, but of a peculiar kind. 
 It's the fear that I would have to lose a happiness 
 after I had discovered it. Can't you see? 
 Women must have a different viewpoint than 
 
 men." 
 
 Then she drew nearer to me, her words splendid 
 with mingling sincerity and passion. 
 
 " Larry, since I have had understanding enough 
 to appreciate life, I have understood how few get 
 real living from their existence. Though we've 
 known each other such a short time, and you are 
 so impulsive, still I haven't combated you, I have 
 
UNCLOTHED 119 
 
 even given in to you easily. And you have for- 
 gotten to give me any credit for thought in the 
 matter. I am only just so much material to you, 
 that needs a certain line of battle before I sur- 
 render. You see me as one of a sex ; just a thing 
 to be worked upon. Oh, you men are so ignorant 
 concerning us. 
 
 " You don't give us credit for having the same 
 desires, the same yearning for real feeling and real 
 life. Even if you did think this of us, I suppose 
 you would then fear for our morals ! " 
 
 Tears were filling her eyes now, but I let her 
 go on, enraptured by her frankness. " Please, 
 Larry, understand — won't you?" she begged. 
 " You're making it very hard for me — just now." 
 
 Instantly I saw a meaning in her words. I 
 wondered if there were another. " There isn't 
 someone else, is there ? " I asked impulsively. 
 
 For a time she buried her face in her hand, sob- 
 bing gently. At last she looked up. " Yes, 
 that's it," she replied. "There — is — someone 
 else." 
 
 " Good Heavens I You have promised — that 
 you would marry — someone else!" 
 
120 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " No, I haven't — yet," she answered, " but I 
 fear I shall. I have kept him waiting for his an- 
 swer for months." 
 
 Then she appeared to break down completely.' 
 " Oh, Larry," she cried, her cheeks wet with tears, 
 " I don't know — what to do. You have taken 
 away all my ability to reason." 
 
 I followed her to the window and took her In 
 my arms again almost brutally, and though she 
 had revealed her innermost secret to me, I pressed 
 her close and held her sobbing body tightly to 
 mine. 
 
 " Then I don't care," I cried hoarsely, " Who- 
 ever he is, he hasn't got you yet," and mentally I 
 resolved never to lose her. At that instant her 
 value to me seemed to Increase a thousand fold. 
 
 For a moment I saw what appeared to be utter 
 yielding In her eyes while her lips quivered nerv- 
 ously, but soon she tore away from me. 
 
 "Won't you ever let me touch you, now?" I 
 begged. 
 
 " Oh," she exclaimed, " how selfish and reckless 
 you are. I have told you everything and yet you 
 won't understand." Then she slipped Into my 
 
UNCLOTHED 121 
 
 arms again, seeming to give way utterly, running 
 her fingers through my hair the while her lips 
 sought mine. " Larry, child, please, please . . . 
 help me," she murmured. Then the tears gath- 
 ered, and she buried her face shamedly in my 
 arms, the while I felt great tremors like one elec. 
 trie shock after another, run through the body 
 close to mine. 
 
 " Cleodore," I pleaded in answer, " I don't care 
 who the other is or how much he cares for you. I 
 want you. I know you realise what sort of life 
 I have gone through — " then I hesitated, for in 
 that instant a new realisation came to me as I 
 heard her say: 
 
 " I am so sorry, Larryj really I am. I wish I 
 could explain." 
 
 Her words came sinister to my ears. It was 
 just what I had feared. " Cleodore, that's it," I 
 said. " It's because you are sorry for me that you 
 tell me this. You think I am weak, I suppose — 
 or you're sorry for me because you realise the 
 strangeness of being the first woman a man nearly 
 thirty has had In his arms. I know that I have 
 just awakened. I've been like a baby. I called 
 
122 UNCLOTHED 
 
 It being good until I woke up, until you woke me 
 up. I know it. You're sorry for me. Oh, I 
 felt it." 
 
 She rose gradually to her feet. I seemed to 
 have hurt her. Should I tell her, I asked myself, 
 what happiness had been mine at the very thought 
 of being with her? Should I tell her again of 
 the love I felt for her? 
 
 At that instant she raised her eyes and looked 
 into mine so submissively that I perceived it in- 
 stantly. It seemed that I could see the unsaid 
 words — and as I searched, as one sees the awak- 
 ening of dawn on the horizon I saw the truth, and 
 with it came an understanding that sent the blood 
 rampantly through my veins. 
 
 I took her in my arms and the glorious feel of 
 her intoxicated me. Her half shut lids, hiding 
 the passion in her eyes ; the quivering lips that be- 
 trayed her unsaid thoughts and the soft supple 
 arms about my neck near drove my senses from 
 me. 
 
 In a way, her endearing words and non-resist- 
 ance made me seem heartless, even cruel. But I 
 suppose the passions have no intelligence, for I 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 23 
 
 drew her even closer to me and smothered her lips 
 with kisses. Her lips and eyes awakened an in- 
 tense desire In me, and I could not get enough of 
 them. 
 
 Impetuously she pushed me away from her. 
 
 " Oh, you're cruel, Larry, to torture me so," 
 she said. " And look how red I am — and my 
 hair — Oh, we must not go through an orgie 
 like this again. We both know how it is and still 
 you make me suffer so. At least you should try 
 to help me, instead of . . . making it so dif- 
 ficult." 
 
 Her begging argument bore home. To this 
 day I believe that she would have given in then, 
 had I not realised the brutality of it all. 
 
 " I must be a man," I said to myself, though 
 even as I pushed her from me, I covered her fore- 
 head and eyes with my lips. " Girl, girl," I 
 cried, " you are right, and I am a brute to make 
 you suffer. I won't make it so hard for you 
 again." 
 
 Her lips pressed mine in thanks, while her dear 
 arms went about my neck. " I knew you would 
 understand," she said. 
 
124 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Yes, I believe that I could have conquered at 
 that time had I wanted. Sometimes I wonder if 
 it was my own precociousness and ridiculous 
 fear that held me back, but, after all, I am sure it 
 was her very yielding that controlled me and was 
 more forcible than any other argument. From 
 that afternoon on, though the desire to have her 
 never left me, still I fought it off incessantly and 
 at the end was always victorious by a shade. 
 
 It seems strange for me to relate so dispassion- 
 ately the story of our abasement. But it was 
 really love, and I make no other excuse. 
 
 " This is being happy," I would say to myself, 
 as I listened to her words and felt the warmth of 
 her body close to mine. I kncfw now that it was 
 really happiness. 
 
 And I can still see her face before me as it was 
 at that time, her eyes so passionate and yielding, 
 her lips quivering — It all seems ages ago, but 
 even now, a thousand times sweeter in the mem- 
 ory. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 When he had left me I lay tense in the twilight, 
 crouched along the chair arm, my face pressed 
 against the hot plush. Then slowly an inertia 
 and relaxation came over me. I was very tired; 
 my brain felt quite empty ; all I wanted was quiet. 
 Nothing seemed to exist and I floated in a pale, 
 strange atmosphere — a sort of sea fog. My 
 legs and arms were not my own ; my hands moved 
 Incomprehensibly as if blown about; and my mind 
 no more belonged to me than my body, but seemed 
 to swing in mid-air amongst a crowd of dim 
 thoughts and memories in which I took no part 
 and had no interest. 
 
 The -room darkened, and suddenly, chilled and 
 alone, I woke into a terror. 
 
 I remembered. Sometimes one wakes in the 
 morning, wakes out of some pleasant, silly dream 
 to sudden melodramatic realisation of a misfor- 
 
 125 
 
126 UNCLOTHED 
 
 tune, sleep banished through the night. It was 
 so that I came from my day dream. An instant 
 before my mind was deep in some childish game 
 of hide-and-seek ; an instant later it was called 
 upon, all unprepared, to deal with a crisis. 
 
 I was frightened. That night on the roof, I 
 had felt merely a humorous self-reproach; now 
 it was fear. 
 
 I looked from one side of the room to the 
 other, as if some actual thing were there that 
 threatened me. I could not understand. 
 
 Nothing had ever before shaken me out of my- 
 self; in all my life I had never lost my head. I 
 had been foolish, stupid, impulsive — but never 
 without realising it. My very indiscretions had 
 been self-conscious. 
 
 Never, except in the delirium of sickness, had I 
 spoken without knowing what I said; acted with- 
 out knowing what I did. 
 
 But, now, what had I done? — and what had 
 I said? I had no clear recollection, only knew 
 that for half an hour I had forgotten myself, 
 had lost all my self-control, — obeyed wordless 
 dictates from some unknown master. 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 27 
 
 Suddenly I was exalted. I had always wished 
 to act like this; to let myself go without thought 
 of consequences or conventions. To have done so 
 made me feel more real than ever before in my 
 life. I seemed to have attained at last to an 
 inner self that hitherto had eluded me; the 
 cooped-up emotionalism of a lifetime had sud- 
 denly been unleashed. 
 
 There was really no reason to be afraid — none 
 at all. I said this over to myself several times; 
 and each time found it more untrue. 
 
 It was not all my own doing, this outburst; it 
 was not merely stqred up amourousness finding 
 an outlet. Could I have behaved like this with 
 Gordon? 
 
 Of course not, the sophist part of me replied. 
 I had too great respect for Gordon's good opin- 
 ion to make a fool of myself before him. 
 
 I reflected. Could I have behaved so with 
 any ordinary attractive stranger? I shuddered 
 at the idea. The sophist hung its head, there 
 was no more to say. 
 
 I could not longer deny to myself that I had 
 come upon something unique in my experience — 
 
128 UNCLOTHED 
 
 a thing stronger than myself. That this stronger 
 thing should be a physical, sensual influence added 
 the crowning terror. 
 
 How could I fight it? What could I do? I 
 felt as pitifully weak as a blade of grass before 
 a scythe. What good to it, or to me, to say " I 
 will be strong "? 
 
 I had no longer any will of my own; I had 
 neither the strength to fight, nor the strength to 
 wish to. And there seemed nothing I could do, 
 — nothing. 
 
 Suppose I should send Larry away? — send 
 Larry away ! " Oh Mr. scythe, will you kindly 
 go somewhere else? " Much good that would do. 
 
 Suppose I should go away myself, should never 
 see him again, feel the touch of his hands? 
 
 I could not. 
 
 It must be someone else who could save me. 
 In my panic I did not consider what it was from 
 which I sought safety. I think I feared no tan- 
 gible misfortune, but only the loss of will power, 
 the obsession of this influence. It was, because of 
 its very indefiniteness, a greater terror than any 
 other. 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 29 
 
 There was, I said, only one thing for me to do. 
 I must get help from somewhere else, from some- 
 one who would protect me whether I liked it or 
 no. 
 
 There was only Gordon. 
 
 Why had I not thought of him before? He 
 was strong and kind. He would see me through 
 this thing. It was an illness; a serai-insanity. 
 He would take care of me. 
 
 I remember how we had parted in the autumn. 
 Again patiently he had asked me to marry him, 
 and again, I had been vague, uncertain, too kind 
 to say " no," too kind to say " yes." 
 
 " I'll leave you," he said, " with me constantly 
 about, always here when you need me, you don't 
 realise that you do need me. But you do, dear. 
 You're a silly creature, sweet as you are, and you 
 need somebody to take care of you." 
 
 I laughed at this, I remember; and said that 
 for a poor, silly creature I was rather inconsist- 
 ently capable of making my own living and run- 
 ning my own affairs. 
 
 "Oh, that's different," said he; "you've sense 
 enough of a sort, but you're a baby for all that; 
 
130 UNCLOTHED 
 
 and you need taking care of " — and then more 
 seriously, " promise me, Cleo, that if ever you 
 get into a hole you will send for me. I'll come 
 to you, dear, no matter where I am." 
 
 Well, I was in a hole now, God knew. 
 
 With almost a single movement, I ran to my 
 desk, wrote a telegram, and rang the call bell for 
 a messenger. 
 
 And then, as peaceful as a child, I went to bed. 
 
 Next day we dined together. It was Gordon's 
 first free moment, and indeed mine as well. 
 
 " I hate to see you living in a place like this," 
 said Gordon, as he walked down the stairs of my 
 flat house. 
 
 To me, too, the hall carpet looked very rag- 
 ged, the spotted wall paper unusually greasy. 
 
 I had not been in a taxicab for months. I felt 
 very much of a beggar maid. 
 
 " I can't think why you do it," my Cophetua 
 went on. 
 
 " Did you never hear of the grinding heel of 
 poverty, my friend? " I asked. 
 
 " But I thought you were doing so well at this 
 work of yours? " 
 
UNCLOTHED I3I 
 
 " I am," said I. But I'm trying to save 
 money." 
 
 Gordon poked out his chin questioningly. 
 
 " Well, isn't it a wise thing for a wage earner 
 to do? " I asked. " Suppose I should get ill, or 
 lose my job? " 
 
 " Oh, Cleo, it sickens me to hear you talk like 
 that. You living In a beastly garret, wearing 
 Twenty-third street frocks, working yourself ta a 
 bone so as to be safe in case you lose your jobl 
 A woman like you ' — it's damnable I " 
 
 "It's facts, Gordon," said I. 
 
 " Not unalterable ones, dear." 
 
 We were at the Plaza. Gordon said he liked 
 it because one met there fewer rancorous wander- 
 ers from the middle West than at other restau- 
 rants. I told him that he was personally aristo- 
 cratic and theoretically socialistic. 
 
 " Your actions and your ideas don't hitch to- 
 gether, Gordon," I said. " You are as conven- 
 tional as a wall paper tulip, in your heart, though 
 you do talk Tolstoi and What's His Name, at 
 your political meetings. I am afraid you are 
 very inconsistent. Look how you admire sweet 
 
132 UNCLOTHED 
 
 feminine propriety, and yet you fall in love with 
 me. But perhaps you are not in love with me 
 any more — after the garret and the Twenty- 
 third street frock? " 
 
 " I am afraid I am. You are my redeeming 
 vice. 
 
 He leaned toward me and took the stem of my 
 glass in his fingers — a quaint caress Indeed. 
 " Cleo," he said, " I am going to talk to you se- 
 riously as soon as we go out of here." And he 
 did not press me to eat further. 
 
 I settled into the cab a little nervously. 
 " What are you going to talk about? " 
 
 " You little devil ! " he cried and tried to take 
 hold of me. He had a hand on each of my el- 
 bows. I crushed myself back into the corner, his 
 face was very near. 
 
 Neither of us said a word, but presently he let 
 me go, leaned far back in his corner and said, " I 
 beg your pardon, Cleo." 
 
 I straightened my hat. 
 
 At my door he said, " I am coming in with you 
 if you don't mind. I want to talk. You need 
 not be afraid." 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 33 
 
 My flat seemed at its worst. Clementine had 
 cooked herself fish for supper and the bouquet of 
 it hovered at the front door. But I do not think 
 Gordon noticed. 
 
 He stood beside me in the little parlour. 
 "What is the trquble, Geo? You didn't use to 
 be like this. You did not use to shrink away 
 from me if I touched you." 
 
 I dropped into a chair. 
 
 " I don't know. I am tired and worried. I 
 don't feel well." 
 
 " Poor little girl, you are not strong enough 
 to take care of yourself." 
 
 " I suppose I am not." 
 
 " And won't you let me? " 
 
 " Oh, Gordon, don't start that now," I said 
 plaintively. 
 
 He was wonderfully patient. 
 
 " All right, dear. But let me help you. Tell 
 me what's wrong. Is it money?" 
 
 " Oh, no. I have over five hundred dollars in 
 the bank." 
 
 He smiled; I suppose it did not seem a very big 
 sum to him. 
 
134 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Then, what is It? " 
 
 " I don't know. Honestly I don't. I'm just 
 miserable, that's all. I feel tired and sad all the 
 time, and there's nothing to take pleasure in, and 
 so many, many horrid things-. I'm so lonely. I 
 wish I was dead." 
 
 He patted my hand. " My poor little Cleo. 
 I wonder what is wrong? " Then after a pause, 
 " I wonder if you would think me a sanctimonious 
 old idiot if I said that it seems to me a pity you 
 are not religious." 
 
 "I?" I was very much startled. 
 
 " Yes, dear. You need something stronger 
 than yourself to depend on. You won't lean on 
 people * — " 
 
 " So, you think, failing you, I'd better lean on 
 God?" I interrupted flippantly. His suggestion 
 had upset me very much, frightened me a little. 
 It seemed as if I must be in a very bad way in- 
 deed for a man of the world to recommend me to 
 religion. 
 
 Gordon winced. " Women need religion," he 
 said stolidly. 
 
 " That's a commonplace." 
 
UNCLOTHED 135 
 
 " Very likely. The fact is women need every- 
 thing more than we do. That is a commonplace, 
 too. But it's true. Commonplaces usually are." 
 
 " That's what Larry says," I interrupted 
 thoughtlessly. 
 
 " Who's Larry? " 
 
 " Oh, a little author-man I know, who talks a 
 tremendous lot of nonsense," I answered. 
 
 And that was the result of my attempt at con- 
 fession 1 It was a fiasco I saw, this attempt of 
 mine to suck in some strength from Gordon. 
 What had I got from him? Half a dinner — 
 he had been in too great a hurry to go beyond the 
 salad — and a recommendation to take my 
 troubles to God. 
 
 As he left me puzzled, grieved, in his way, as 
 miserable as I was, I laughed. I couldn't help 
 it as I saw how silly I had been. I felt weaker 
 than ever. Unseen, Gordon might have been, as 
 a memory, a certain protection from this infatua- 
 tion. But when he touched me in die cab with 
 hands that gave me goose flesh, I realised how 
 foolish I had been to seek help in his material 
 presence. 
 
136 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " It's like trying to build a roof of chocolate 
 drops to keep off a thunder storm," I said to my- 
 self. 
 
 People talk often of lying awake all night, but 
 I fancy it is really a rare enough experience. It 
 has been at any rate rare to me. That night I 
 came very near to it. 
 
 It was not yet midnight when I went to bed 
 and I heard it strike one when I woke again sud- 
 denly. I lay on my side and reflected. " What 
 can I do?" I asked myself. "I must decide. 
 What am I to do?" 
 
 I seemed somehow to get outside myself and 
 look down at the creature lying beneath me in the 
 bed. I thought of her career — it went before 
 me — year after year — a quick, frivolous pro- 
 cession — there seemed nothing in my life that 
 mattered — nothing in me that mattered. Of 
 what use was I? Or ever had been? 
 
 I saw myself at seventeen, very tickled because 
 some callow youth had told me I was a " woman 
 of the world." Ah, what chunks of life we 
 thought we were seeing, we two, when he kissed 
 my hand the night before we touched Naples. 
 
UNCLOTHED 137 
 
 He was going on to Colombo — his first appoint- 
 ment at some Civil Service job. 
 
 And the poet — that summer in Brittany. I 
 was nearly nineteen then and had discovered there 
 was more potency in innocence than in cynicism. 
 Peter had to drape even the table-legs when he 
 talked to me, I remembered. He had a depend- 
 ent, invalid mother; it was the salvation of his Il- 
 lusions. 
 
 And then the Baron. I tried to reform him, 
 I recollected; and he tried to seduce me. But 
 nothing came of It either way. I was back at 
 home then, in Rome arid going on to twenty-one. 
 He was fattish and unwholesome; I do not won- 
 der that neither his design nor mine succeeded. 
 
 I ran through the list, a trumpery career, full 
 of petty emotions magnified; farce acted in the 
 manner of grand opera. I was sick with self- 
 disgust. 
 
 In the space of five minutes or so I fell asleep 
 and woke again. It was perhaps three o'clock, 
 and a damp wind blew across my face. It was 
 neither light nor dark outside. I looked through 
 an atmosphere vividly pale at the house backs. 
 
138 UNCLOTHED 
 
 They were biscuit coloured with many black shut- 
 tered windows like eyes, and I thought of the 
 beasts in " Revelations." From a chimney a 
 thin wisp of smoke fell coiling before the windows 
 to the ground. The eyes seemed all to look at me 
 and to see me as just the mean thing I was; and 
 when a light wind lifted the hair off my forehead 
 I shivered and drew the blanket up to my chin. 
 My mind opened and there came into it a pro- 
 cession of ugly thoughts. Each was a little 
 twisted, sleep-distorted and deformed to greater 
 melancholy. Then a heavy van passed quickly 
 in front of the house and rattled loudly. I won- 
 dered if the driver and his horses saw horrid 
 shapes as well. 
 
 It began to rain. A cat was crying out sadly, 
 begging to be let in. I heard the sound of fog- 
 whistles, sighing, and a church-bell. Another 
 coil of smoke swept across the windows. Behind 
 it came a thin veil of mist, pearly-grey, and cut 
 by the rain. It was unbearably triste. 
 
 I got up and made myself coffee; and then 
 could not drink it. I wandered about the flat, 
 dusted some ornaments, drew a check for the gas 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 39 
 
 bill, wrote a purposeless note, arid tore It up, and 
 finally went back to bed. The bed clothes had 
 come loose from the foot and the window-shade 
 flapped irritatingly. At last when others were 
 waking, I fell asleep. 
 
 With my breakfast, there came a note by mes- 
 senger. It Was from Gordon : — 
 
 " My dear little girl, I have worried about you 
 all night. You are not like yourself. I wonder 
 if you realise how you have changed? I have 
 just looked at some letters you wrote me, back two 
 years ago when you were in Rome. Here is a 
 little bit out of one : — ' I wonder how you can 
 take life seriously and worry about the pro-let-a- 
 riat? I can't worry about anything. There's so 
 much else to do.' And another: — 'You know, 
 Gordon, I sometimes think nobody but me has the 
 least conception of what happiness is. I lie 
 awake at night thinking how happy I am, and 
 fall asleep and dream lovely things, and wake up 
 with a chuckle. Nobody else is so crazily happy 
 as I am in all the world.' 
 
 " When I read these, dear, I'm not ashamed 
 to say I felt a lump in my throat. You have 
 
140 UNCLOTHED 
 
 changed so terribly. And you were meant for 
 happiness, meant to live in the sunshine and wear 
 pretty clothes and have heaps of friends as you 
 had in those days. I can't bear to think of your 
 grubbing away and so blue and lonely and tired 
 looking. 
 
 " I promised you six months ago that I would 
 not again ask you to marry me. Well, I am go- 
 ing to break my promise. I am going to make 
 you consent. I am stronger than you are and 
 there is no use your fighting me. So long as it 
 was only I who needed you, I had no right to 
 coerce you. Now that you need me, I mean you 
 to have me, if I have to carry you off by force. 
 
 " Dearest, you know how much I care for you, 
 and that, if I say this and do it (as I certainly 
 shall), it is because I think it's right for you." 
 — G. H. 
 
 As I read it, suddenly I gained courage. My 
 mood of the night passed off. My self-disgust 
 vanished. I had been behaving like an Idiot — 
 I saw it in a flash. Here I was yielding to a 
 panic of fear because a little destitute semi-luna- 
 tic was making love to me. I was so utterly a 
 
UNCLOTHED 14I 
 
 fool as to think myself incapable of taking care of 
 myself or of fighting on my own account. I had 
 only been able to see one refuge from this man, 
 and that another, equally undesirable. 
 
 I poured myself a second cup of coffee. The 
 trouble was plainly that I was over-tired and hys- 
 terical. I needed a rest. I needed a rest, and 
 by Heaven I'd take it. And I would send these 
 two men about their business, too — .oh, I was 
 determined ! 
 
 I planted my feet firmly at each step as I made 
 my way to my office. I felt a very Amazon, 
 though I did not — for all my self-confidence — 
 trust myself enough to delay. Before noon, I had 
 arranged matters at the office so that I was free 
 to sail Saturday for Europe. By two o'clock I 
 had my passage booked. 
 
 Perhaps It was a silly thing to do. As it 
 turned out it was at any rate very futile. But I 
 meant well. 
 
 In my first childish cynicism I remember telling 
 an old gentleman that I had discovered that good 
 intentions were by themselves of no use. His re- 
 ply — he was a wise old English poet — was that 
 
142 UNCLOTHED 
 
 good intentions did perhaps no tangible good, but 
 that they made a lovely fragrance that blew up to 
 Heaven and that the angels smelt it and were 
 happy. 
 
 So I dare say I made the angels sniff with many 
 smiles that day when I signed my check for the 
 passage money. 
 
 And yet it was ignominious, for I was running 
 away. 
 
 But what better, wiser thing can one do, who 
 is too weak to dare remain ?. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDON] 
 
 I CARRIED the feel of Cleodore to my room with 
 me that night. It seemed as if I still had her 
 arms about my neck, and her frightened, sweet 
 face in front of mine. 
 
 " What a glorious thing woman is ! " I said to 
 myself as I sat, fearing to go to bed because I 
 might lose in sleep the wonderful impression of 
 her. 
 
 Again I ran my hands over her smooth brown 
 hair, I looked at her blue eyes, the tender mouth 
 pulled down at the corners by sadness; and then 
 the warm suppleness of her body was again dose 
 to me. 
 
 During the night, I heard over and over her 
 gentle voice with its queer, foreign accent. Her 
 pleading, " Larry, Larry, child I " with its soft 
 rolling of the R's was again in my ears. 
 
 I wondered if it was only I who was fortunate, 
 143 
 
144 UNCLOTHED 
 
 or if other men found women at once so tender, 
 so passionate, and so sympathetic. Had my un- 
 derstanding of the opposite sex been saved for 
 just this? I wondered then that a man could go 
 until he was twenty-eight years old without the 
 wonderful intoxication such as I had felt that 
 evening for the first time. 
 
 I couldn't wait until I should see her again. 
 The intervening of time seemed a cruel thing, 
 when such ecstasy must pause. But I kept her 
 close in my Imagination and lived in my dream 
 glory, happy and satisfied. 
 
 We had agreed upon spending Saturday In the 
 country. I cursed myself now that I had let her 
 set the time so far off. But she had insisted. 
 
 The next day, I spent the most of my time in 
 wandering about the streets. This has always 
 been a favourite pastime with me. I love to step 
 into the lives of people, and watch their actions 
 and listen to their everyday talk. In my earlier 
 days I had done this idly, wandering about the 
 streets, making acquaintances with all sorts of peo- 
 ple and catching bird's eye views of their lives. 
 Latterly, of course, I have found a certain use in 
 
UNCLOTHED 145 
 
 such observations, for It did not take me long to 
 discover that it was of such real, simple people 
 that I was best fitted to write. 
 
 It was about nine o'clock when I started. In 
 the city this is the sordidest time of the whole day. 
 Night with its glamour and the vitality of broad 
 noon have their obvious interest. Even the early 
 morning Is romantic; if one chances to find him- 
 self in the streets about six or seven, he has a 
 glow of distinction. He eyes his fellows and 
 wonders who they are and how they come to be 
 out so early. But at nine o'clock. It's all changed. 
 The streets have already lost their freshness and 
 not yet gained an atmosphere ; the people are dull, 
 dark-dressed and hurrying — petty clerks and 
 stenographers. A glance classifies them all. 
 There's no romance to pique one; no mysteries 
 walk the streets at nine in the morning. There 
 are no aimless wanderers, no lovers — only men 
 and women making what speed they can to their 
 day's work. 
 
 As I looked at the artificial eagerness of the 
 men, and the tired resignation on the faces of the 
 women, I felt a sudden catch at my heart to think 
 
146 UNCLOTHED 
 
 that my beautiful Cleodore was forced to be one 
 of these. And through the streets as I wan- 
 dered I carried the prick of this with me always. 
 
 Though the day seemed very long, yet New 
 York is ever fascinating, if you put yourself in 
 the way of it. It is the fascination of life de- 
 nuded, bared of conventional regard for your fel- 
 low beings. I was drawn by the irresistible force, 
 the trenchant life that so impels one. If you 
 search here, life shows itself in its rawness, and 
 unaccountably you are allured by it, you imagine 
 yourself part of it; and you willingly touch el- 
 bows with crime, passion, mystery; wandering 
 along the borderland on common ground with the 
 devil. 
 
 I found many things that one could write about 
 that day, though it was not so much what hap- 
 pened that would have made the good stories, as 
 what didn't appear to happen. In one cafe that 
 I went into, the women sat about me smiling, ra- 
 paciously happy, though I could see their hearts 
 were aching — in another place were men gam- 
 bling, with a year's living at stake, without a sign 
 of unusual interest. If we could collect these lit- 
 
UNCLOTHED 147 
 
 tie tragedies of suppressed emotion, tear off these 
 shallow masks of hypocritical joy, and give the 
 story of what lies beneath, these would indeed be 
 tales worth reading. 
 
 New York furnished a particularly interesting 
 study at this time. There was a big political cam- 
 paign on, and it seemed as if a charged atmos- 
 phere pervaded the city. 
 
 The campaign turned upon a question particu- 
 larly vital to the man in the street, and political 
 meetings were being held in every district of the 
 city. 
 
 In Madison Square Garden, there was a big 
 gathering, and I drifted into It. Many hundreds 
 of men were pushing their way Into the already 
 crowded building and I fell in line with the mob. 
 Inside the lurid glare of the lights cut through the 
 tobacco-laden atmosphere. 
 
 At the far end, I saw on the platform many 
 politicians. One after the other they got up and 
 made short speeches, none of which interested me 
 much. 
 
 I fell into talk with a plumber who sat along- 
 side me. 
 
148 UNCLOTHED 
 
 "Who is that speaking now?" I asked him. 
 There had just got up on the platform a speaker 
 whose appearance and whose sharp, clear-cut 
 tones and precision of manner drew my notice. 
 
 " Ohl he is a rich chap. I heard him yester- 
 day. Somebody told me that he is interested in 
 the labour problem, and that he gives up all his 
 time to social work." 
 
 The speaker seemed to know the crowd thor- 
 oughly. About me, everyone followed his few 
 words with an occasional " Good 1 " or " You're 
 right!" 
 
 He was speaking about the contrasting power 
 of money, as applied to the employer and em- 
 ploye. His voice rang out, clear and convincing, 
 and he cleverly took advantage of the surround- 
 ings to prove his contention. 
 
 " Look about you," he cried. " You work- 
 men, who put every nail in this building, who 
 laid the mortar for every brick. Tell me, what 
 do you get out of it? Barely enough to live on, 
 and then they raise the price of food so that you 
 can't even afford that. 
 
 " They have a foot race or a bicycle race in 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 49 
 
 this building and make thousands of dollars clear 
 in one night. And you, who put your strength 
 into building it, what interest do you get on your 
 investment? Nothing, of course, we all know 
 that." 
 
 He surely knew how to drive home an argu- 
 ment and he used a plainness of speech that ev- 
 eryone could understand. 
 
 He said that this was the time when only the 
 rich had a right to live. " What pleasures have 
 you?" he shouted. "If you care for sport or 
 anything that the others get, can you enjoy them? 
 — No, every avenue Is closed to you. 
 
 " And this will never be remedied," he cried 
 on, "until we all get together and force political 
 power from those who can have it by right of 
 sale. Do you think that the votes you cast in to 
 the ballot-box give you a voice in the government? 
 Why, of course not. The future of this city, the 
 result of this campaign has been pledged long 
 ago, if certain men in the machine get their hands 
 near the wheels." Then he went on to show what 
 social equality, open public books and a common 
 division of profits between capitalist and employe 
 
150 UNCLOTHED 
 
 could bring about, painting a beautiful picture of 
 prosperity and simple life, with the happy work- 
 man coming home from his work, and the wife, 
 healthy and smiling, awaiting him in the doorway 
 of their little cottage. 
 
 His argument bore home of course, the rapt 
 attention and the way everyone hung upon his 
 words showed that. It sent me home thinking. 
 
 I woke very early on Saturday morning, feel- 
 ing strangely happy, and then realised this was 
 the day when I was to see Cleodore. My mood 
 was full of placid anticipation and I wondered if 
 she looked forward with as much content to see- 
 ing me. 
 
 For the first time in years, I dabbled over my 
 dressing and was irritated to find that I had no 
 tie whose colour would blend with the shirt I wore. 
 I went downstairs feeling hungry and happy. On 
 my plate I found a note : — 
 
 " I wonder what you will think of me when I tell you 
 that we must never see anything more of one another? 
 What you will think is my punishment for being such a 
 fool the other night. I am going away, going to Lon- 
 don. I shall be gone before you get this. Think of me 
 
UNCLOTHED 15 1 
 
 kindly, or better yet not at all. I on my side, will do 
 the same. — C." 
 
 I jumped up from the table and ran to the tele- 
 phone. 
 
 " I want your mistress ! " I said, as I recog- 
 nised Clementine's voice. 
 
 " She is not here, monsieur. She left half an 
 hour ago for Hoboken to take the steamship. 
 She is going — ." 
 
 But I cut her off. 
 
 With a taxicab to the tube, I figured I could 
 just make it. And as I tore along, each minute 
 seemed an hour. 
 
 Wrestling with porters, cabmen and minor offi- 
 cials, I gained the side of the pier, only to find 
 the big steamer gliding out into the open water. 
 
 Racing along the edge of the pier I at last 
 managed to gain a glimpse of her slight figure, 
 leaning against the railing of the upper deck, 
 away from the crowd. I began shouting, at the 
 same time gesticulating wildly. But I could not 
 make my voice heard above the din of a thou- 
 sand others. She did not see me. 
 
 The boat gradually moved out into the open 
 
152 UNCLOTHED 
 
 bay, the noise of the brass band became less 
 blaitant, the farewell cheering of the passengers 
 lining the deck rails faded into faint echoes, and 
 I gave up hope. 
 
 Suddenly, I perceived another figure beside her 
 on the little dedc He seemed to be talking ear- 
 nestly to her; he took hold of her hand in both 
 his. I believe that at that moment she noticed 
 me, but she made me no sign. 
 
 My hands dropped dead at my side. What 
 my eyes told me seemed unbelievable. And then 
 in an instant they were lost in the haze of early 
 morning. 
 
 Curiously enough in the midst of my anguish, 
 one trifling' idea worried me. I seemed to recog- 
 nise the man who held her hands. At first I 
 could not place him, and then I recollected — he 
 was the man who spoke In Madison Square Gar- 
 den. 
 
 I leaned weakly against a post until I saw the 
 boat fade entirely from my gaze. 
 
 So this was the end of my dreams, I repeated 
 to myself, and I remained looking out to sea un- 
 til a pier workman Interrupted me. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 I FOUND a place on an upper deck where I could 
 be alone, and stood watching the crowd. The 
 melancholy which life at sea is bound to bring to 
 those who have no part in the working of the 
 ship, hung over me already. 
 
 We had cast loose, when suddenly Gordon 
 touched my arm. He was breathless with hur- 
 rying. 
 
 " Why, what are you doing on the boat," I 
 cried. " You're not coming? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered determinedly, " you didn't 
 expect that I was going to let you go away from 
 me like this, though it was a close shave catching 
 the boat. I got your note not half an hour ago." 
 Then he went on, relentless as a steam roller. 
 " You know why I have come, too. Shall I stop, 
 or go back with the pilot? " 
 
 I looked ahead of me, and saw — another de- 
 termined face — Larry's — as ungallantly he 
 
 153 
 
154 UNCLOTHED 
 
 screwed between two women to the edge of the 
 quay, and screamed en route, in hope that he 
 would catch my ear. I leaned forward and 
 looked at him; there hung about his eager face 
 that atmosphere of unreality , which always sur- 
 rounds those we see stopping behind, or strange 
 people who wave to us as we pass swiftly in a hur- 
 rying train. And yet somehow I felt a real pang. 
 It was as if his hands had touched me only the in- 
 stant before and then been taken away forever; 
 the feel of them was still on mine, and the chill 
 of the pressure removed, as if on a winter's day 
 my coat had been snatched away from me. I was 
 suddenly as forlorn as a lost dog in a crowded 
 street. 
 
 I turned to Gordon who waited, his question 
 unanswered. I did not answer it, but smiled 
 vaguely and went below to my cabin. Before I 
 had reached it, I found myself, to my amazement, 
 in tears. 
 
 I am not a woman who cries often. Perhaps 
 — I thought 'this as I caught sight of myself in 
 the big mirror at the head of the stairway — this 
 is because crying makes me so ugly. Or perhaps, 
 
UNCLOTHED 155 
 
 I reflected stupidly, I cry inartistically because I 
 practise the art so seldom. 
 
 My cabin was at the very toes of the ship, for 
 I had booked late and taken late comer's choice. 
 Fortunately the maiden lady from Detroit, who 
 was, so the agent said, to have shared it, was de- 
 tained. As I peered into its gloomy confines I 
 wondered where the other maiden would have put 
 herself and her properties. The place seemed 
 overflowing with my own. The bunk was the 
 only open spot and I crawled into it and lay down 
 with my hand propping up my head, so as to keep 
 my hat brim clear of the pillow. I fancy I looked 
 the embodiment of unsesthetic woe. 
 
 I heard a woman outside cry out, " Oh, girls, 
 look at the cunning little washstand that lets 
 down ! " 
 
 I moaned. I hated her for being happy and 
 commonplace. I hated the washstand because it 
 roused her kittenish enthusiasm. I hated the 
 boat, myself, Gordon; the universe. Why had 
 I come on this absurd, purposeless, melancholy 
 journey?' What was there for me on this ship, 
 or in London, or anywhere indeed? 
 
156 UNCLOTHED 
 
 In the place I had so stupidly, deserted, there 
 was perhaps a little happiness, short lived, indis- 
 creet, but still happiness. And I, like a lunatic, 
 had left it wantonly behind me. Very likely I 
 should never find such a chance again. At twen- 
 ty-three I had deliberately flung away my only 
 little joy. Poor spindling thing, I had been cruel 
 to it, and probably I should never have another, 
 and I might live to be seventy. I began to sub- 
 tract twenty-three from seventy, did the sum over 
 and over before I could get the result and sobbed 
 under my breath as I counted it on my fingers. 
 
 The stewardess came in. " Excuse me, miss," 
 said she, " I didn't know there was anybody here. 
 Do you begin to feel the motion? " 
 
 " Oh, no. I am only tired." I swung my 
 legs out of the bunk. The cabin was too dark 
 for her to see my face. " Can you get me some- 
 thing to brace me up a bit ? " 
 
 "A cup of tea, miss?" she suggested. 
 
 " I believe a whisky and soda would do me 
 more real good," I replied. 
 
 And it did. Life offers to us according to our 
 several tastes three almost unfailing cures for 
 
UNCLOTHED 157 
 
 melancholy — religion, art, and strong drink. 
 
 " It's nearly lunch time," said the stewardess. 
 " Is there anything more I can do for you, miss? " 
 
 I asked her to fix up a bath for me — perhaps 
 a bath tub should be added as a fourth to the 
 trinity I have numbered. At any rate, returning 
 from It to my cabin, I found it in my heart to 
 smile as I heard the woman next door cry out — 
 " Say, listen, girls ! Don't you think we ought 
 to go get deck chairs ? Aunt Mary told me that's 
 just the first thing you ought to do after the boat 
 starts." 
 
 My place at table was next to Gordon's. I had 
 forgotten him till I saw him sitting there. 
 
 " So you did not go 'with the pilot? " I asked. 
 
 He laughed. It was evident he had not imag- 
 ined that I ever intended to let him go. He 
 looked at me as one might at some particularly 
 complex mechanical toy. " No," said he with 
 some appearance of satisfaction. 
 
 The man next to me on the other side asked 
 me to hand him the wine list; and I managed to 
 do the service for him in such a way as to break 
 up my tete-a-tete with Gofdon. Somehow I con- 
 
158 UNCLOTHED 
 
 veyed the impression that one couldn't really talk 
 of intimate things where strangers could perhaps 
 hear and where they were certainly free to inter- 
 rupt with requests for the passing of wine-cards 
 and the like. 
 
 Lunch over, I said I was going to my cabin to 
 rest. 
 
 " Are you tired, or do you merely want to avoid 
 me? " Gordon asked in a friendly tone. 
 
 " Both," I answered with a sigh. 
 
 " Poor little girl," he said. " I won't bother 
 you. I'll fix up a deck chair in a nice place for 
 you, and you shall not be troubled with me till 
 you want me." 
 
 He chose me a book from the ship's library — 
 something of Mrs. Humphry Ward's — and left 
 me as solitary as anyone can be on deck of a 
 liner in the crowded season. From time to time 
 I saw him far off, but with eyes turned scrupu- 
 lously away. 
 
 The next days were rough. I stopped in my 
 cabin for forty hours or more, placid from pure 
 weakness, weak from mental inertia more than 
 from physical causes, for I am an average good 
 
UNCLOTHED 159 
 
 sailor. I kept no light and in the interior room 
 the grey twilight of the day gave place almost im- 
 perceptibly to the deeper grey of night. I slept 
 most of the time or else traced patterns on the 
 wall with my forefinger or folded the edge of 
 the sheet back and forth. I suppose I was very 
 tired; and then too I seemed to have an obstinate 
 shrinking from the light and air and companion- 
 ship of the decks. 
 
 I might have been there in my cabin to the end 
 of the voyage, but that on the third day out from 
 New York, the lady next door and her companion 
 succumbed to seasickness with the same noisy en- 
 thusiasm which they threw into the pursuit of 
 other features of ship life. This lasted an hour 
 or two, and then, somewhat recovered, they com- 
 menced to exchange symptoms and then finally to 
 sing in invalidish but cheery tones. It was, I 
 think, " Way Down upon the Suwanee River," 
 and after ten minutes of It, I seemed suddenly to 
 crave another atmosphere. 
 
 I have often wondered what It Is that makes 
 people talk of the delights of ocean travel. To 
 my mind there is no condition less attractive — 
 
l60 UNCLOTHED 
 
 constricted quarters and no escape from the so- 
 ciety of irksome people but to shut one's self into 
 a tiny cabin. Everywhere there is a ceaseless 
 bustle of folks walking up and down; and a con- 
 stant feeling of boredom in the air, an ever re- 
 peated, though maybe unspoken question : " What 
 shall we do to kill time ? " People who have 
 nothing in common plunge into intimate friend- 
 ships and love affairs from nothing but ennui; 
 they overeat themselves because they have noth- 
 ing else to do; they tramp the decks and sing 
 songs in forced joviality. 
 
 " How is one to behave? " I asked myself as I 
 settled into my steamer chair. If one declines 
 to niingle with one's fellows, there's sure to come 
 a time before long when one will feel pathetic 
 and neglected and would give one's soul if only 
 somebody would be sociable — and then it's too 
 late; one is branded already with the mark 
 " Snippy." On the other hand, if one is affable 
 and approachable, before long one's life is not 
 worth living — friendly, tiresome folk fall con- 
 tinually over one's feet and perch on the edge of 
 one's steamer chair and come into one's cabin at 
 
UNCLOTHED l6l 
 
 odd moments, till one can find privacy only in 
 the bath-tub. 
 
 At this moment, however, I felt very lonely. 
 I had been ill; I wanted someone to come up 
 and ask how I was, and say I had been missed. 
 
 Nobody came. 
 
 Then presently upon the deck, I spied Gordon. 
 He was standing alongside the chair of some 
 woman; another woman was sitting on the foot 
 support. He glanced my way and raised his 
 cap; then presently with the second woman he 
 started along down the deck. I fancied they 
 were going to play shuffle-board. 
 
 It seemed to me I was being shamefully 
 treated. Why didn't Gordon come up and speak 
 to me? For all he knew I might be very ill. I 
 felt at once furious and very pathetic. I would 
 go back to my cabin again and stop there, even 
 if the woman did sing negro melodies. 
 
 Then I heard Gordon's voice. " Are you bet- 
 ter, dear?" 
 
 " Yes, thank you," said I. 
 
 " Would it bother you if I should sit beside 
 you for a few moments?" 
 
1 62 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I said it would not. I meant that my voice 
 should sound — if anything — resigned, or bet- 
 ter yet expressionless. But Gordon with optimis- 
 tic ears detected pique in it. 
 
 " Poor litde girl," said he. " You've been 
 lonely. Do you feel up to taking a little walk? " 
 
 It was twilight now, and the crowd had scat- 
 tered to tidy its hair for dinner. From one end 
 of the ship — I am never quite certain off-hand 
 which end is back and which front — we watched 
 the beginnings of the sunset. 
 
 He began to talk quite gendy, saying that I 
 needed him, arid he me, and that I ought not to 
 be so proud and independent, and did I not think 
 I would be a lot happier with somebody to be 
 fond of me and to be fond of. " It's that you 
 need," said he. " There'll always be somebody 
 to be fond of a woman like you ; what you crave, 
 though you don't know it, is someone you can 
 care for. Now aren't you lonely, Geo? " 
 
 I don't know how it is with most women and 
 whether they can fix in their memories the exact 
 moment when they yielded to a new point of view 
 like this. Perhaps with other women it is not 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 63 
 
 a question of yielding, but only of joining in the 
 chorus when for the first time their man says such 
 things to them. But it was not like this with me. 
 I was gradually battered into consent and that 
 evening saw at last the end of my resistance. I 
 did not say " yes," I merely ceased to say " no," 
 and when I went back to my cabin that evening, I 
 had a feeling in my heart that things were differ- 
 ent between Gordon and me, that I was not going 
 to be lonely any more, that all of my battles and 
 uneasiness were over. It was like settling down 
 into a warm bath, very comfortable — not very 
 glorious. But then, who honestly prefers glory 
 to comfort? 
 
 I could take satisfaction in the thought that I 
 was making Gordon happy. He had seemed so 
 incredulously ecstatic when he bade me good- 
 night. I fell asleep in the glow of complacence; 
 woke in it again next morning; lived in it for 
 days. 
 
 It was the evening before our landing, and we 
 sat on deck, my gloved hand in his under the rugs. 
 It was wonderfully still after the tempestuous 
 weeks which had preceded my sailing, it seemed 
 
164 UNCLOTHED 
 
 very desirably sweet and peaceful. The sea was 
 nearly smooth enough to reflect the stars, the en- 
 gines repeated Longfellow to themselves sooth- 
 ingly, most of the passengers were below packing. 
 Never was Neptune so thoroughly a family man. 
 
 "Are you happy, Cleo?" said he. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " It'll always be like this for us," he went on, 
 making a gesture of placidity with his free hand. 
 " Peaceful and quiet. I don't think you'll regret 
 it, do you, dear? " 
 
 " I don't know," I answered. 
 
 "Little wild woman!" laughed Gordon indul- 
 gently. " Sometimes you hate me for having cap- 
 tured you at last, don't you? But I'll tame the 
 litde savage till she's glad to eat out of my hand." 
 
 I shivered under the rug. He returned my 
 hand quickly. "Why, Cleo, dear, you don't 
 think I'm serious, do you? Xou don't suppose I 
 would try to hold you, do you, or rob you of your 
 freedom? I love your dear, funny, little eccen- 
 tricities ; and you shall be a savage as long as you 
 like. But I know that it won't be for long. 
 When we are married you will soon tame of 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 65 
 
 your own accord and be the sweetest little wife 
 in the world." 
 
 " Why? " I asked in a friendlier mood. 
 
 " Because you are really womanly for all your 
 queer notions and when you get a chance to set- 
 tle a trifle, you will wish to be like other women 
 instead of being unconventional and full of im- 
 practicable ideas." 
 
 " Oh, Gordon ! What a superior person you 
 are ! " I cried and he caught my hand again under 
 the rug. 
 
 " Nonsense. I am an ass or I'd never be so 
 fond of such a troublesome creature as you are. 
 You've led me the devil of a life the last years, 
 Cleo." 
 
 I chuckled. 
 
 " And I propose to get even with you by clip- 
 ping off a few of your notions as soon as I get 
 you. I'll revenge myself by making a dear, con- 
 ventional little matron of you. You shall keep 
 house all day and be ready to kiss me when I 
 come home in the evenings." 
 
 " Nothing else? " I asked. " It doesn't sound 
 as if I'd be exactly overworked." 
 
1 66 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Cleo, dear, did you never think you would 
 like to have children? " 
 
 " Often," I answered. " But I have always 
 thought that a woman ought not to be expected 
 to have children and a husband both. So, if I 
 have children, I think, I shall have to ask you to 
 go and live elsewhere." 
 
 " You little devil ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Is that what I get then for my domesticated 
 sentiments? I am going to bed." I kicked off 
 the rug and got to my feet. 
 
 "Dear, nobody can see. May I kiss you?" 
 
 In the saloon some of the passengers were sit- 
 ting around the piano and a full chested, lan- 
 guorous woman was playing " Amoureuse " 
 slowly. The lilt of it followed me down to my 
 cabin. 
 
 " I wonder if I shall have twins? " I said to 
 myself as I switched on the light. The thought 
 seemed aggressively out of tune with the French 
 waltz overhead. 
 
 The passion of it — cheap passion I dare say, 
 but passion still — throbbed and the ship seemed 
 to keep time to it. I put off the light again and 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 67 
 
 sat on the edge of my steamer trunk. I was in a 
 mood that Gordon would have deplored. 
 
 I considered Gordon. Already he was trying 
 to reform me. It was plain that the young 
 woman sitting on my trunk was, in his eyes, but a 
 rough sketch of what he meant his wife to be. I 
 fancied that already he was commencing to jot 
 down rules and regulations for the future conduct 
 of the future Mrs. Hemingway. I foresaw that 
 I was to be very much married, that the hideous 
 syllables " Missis " would be branded not only 
 into my body, but into my heart and mind as 
 well. 
 
 Even now there was a shadow of domesticity 
 across our courtship. When he touched me I 
 thought of the price of eggs; his kisses smelled 
 of house rent. I had no inherent objection to do- 
 mesticity — rather the reverse. But from duty 
 and commonplace things, I shrank. I would be 
 domesticated in my own way and because it 
 seemed to me good, but I would not be domesti- 
 cated or anytl\ing else merely because it was ex- 
 pected of me. 
 
 " Amoureuse " no longer fitted my mood. It 
 
1 68 UNCLOTHED 
 
 was a sort of petticoated " Marseillaise " that the 
 engines hummed as I put myself to bed. 
 
 In the morning Gordon told me he had had an 
 inspiration. Instead of going up to London as I 
 had planned, we would stop off in a dear little 
 Yorkshire village where his old nurse had returned 
 to spend her declining years. She had a cottage 
 and he was sure she would find room for me while 
 he stopped at the Inn. Perhaps she would take 
 such a fancy to me as to consent to cross the ocean 
 again when our time came to need a nurse. 
 
 I remained silent, but Gordon was too pleased 
 with his idea to notice. He went on, enlarging 
 on the quiet, charming holiday we should have, 
 practically alone — just us two. It would be a 
 foretaste of the sweet, peaceful solitude to come. 
 
 By now we were close off Pljmiouth, and 
 through a thick, melancholy atmosphere, the 
 prospect was repellant. 
 
 The tender came alongside and, still full of 
 optimism, Gordon helped me aboard. It was the 
 sweetest village In the world, he said, one inn, a 
 church, a dozen houses — I would delight in its 
 picturesqueness. 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 69 
 
 Suddenly, I noticed that my big portmanteau 
 was not with me. 
 
 I cut Gordon short, Insisting I would go search 
 for it myself since, knowing my way to the cabin, 
 I could save time. 
 
 My steward was full of apologies. He caught 
 up the bag and was off at a run. 
 
 " We'll just make it, miss ! " he cried. 
 
 " No, we won't," I answered. " I am! not 
 going to get off here after all." 
 
 " What, miss ! " he exclaimed. " Not get off? 
 But you'll lose your trunk. It's aboard the ten- 
 der already." 
 
 "My God!" I muttered. "I'd sooner lose 
 my trunk than my immortal soul 1 " and then 
 aloud, " I'll go on to Cherbourg. Fetch in the 
 bag again, please." 
 
 At first, I dared not leave my cabin and face 
 Gordon's wrath. Then, through the stewardess, 
 I learned there was no Gordon on board. At the 
 last moment the gentleman had been seen trying 
 to leave the tender, but it was too late. Willy- 
 nilly, he had been carried on to Plymouth. 
 
 It was a shock. I did not know exactly how 
 
lyo UNCLOTHED 
 
 I felt about it; perhaps my feelings resembled 
 those which I realised when years before at 
 school a teacher died and we all got an unexpected 
 holiday. 
 
 Gordon I supposed would go on to London. I 
 hardly fancied the Yorkshire village would at- 
 tract him as things were. So I framed up a tel- 
 egram, vaguely recounting why I had failed to 
 rejoin him and asking that he meet me in Paris, 
 not exactly lying about the incident that had 
 parted us, but most assuredly not sticking to the 
 spirit of the truth. The telegraph is indeed a 
 kind friend to those who dare not speak truly and 
 fear to tell lies. 
 
 As the day advanced, the sun broke through the 
 clouds, and I stood on deck watching the Nor- 
 mandy cliffs rise up out of the mist. Alongside 
 me, in the saloon, the ample pianist was playing 
 " Amoureuse " again. 
 
 It was wonderful to see once more my beauti- 
 ful France. I had not realised till now how great 
 was my nostalgia. I forgot everything in the 
 happiness of watching the cliffs come closer and 
 
UNCLOTHED 171 
 
 grow clear In the sunshine. I stood alone by the 
 railing till we were In Cherbourg harbour. 
 
 It was twilight when we landed. My fellow 
 voyagers exclaimed what a quaint town It was. 
 I praised Heaven In silence for the touch of 
 French paving beneath my feet and the sound of 
 French voices again. 
 
 The train for Paris stood chuffing as It waited 
 for us. " Just think, ^rls," cried the most en- 
 thusiastic of the band of Idaho school teachers, 
 "Paris Is only seven hours away! " 
 
 I echoed her — Paris and all It held were In- 
 deed woefully near. The train looked unattrac- 
 tive. A small, still voice said to me, " Why not 
 stop here and dine comfortably and sleep in a bed 
 and then go on to town by daylight? Fancy 
 travelling seven hours in a little compartment with 
 those Idahoans singing ' Way Down Upon The 
 Suwanee River! ' " 
 
 I looked about me. Two alert hotel porters 
 detected the small, still voice nearly as quickly as 
 I did myself and ran forward. On their caps 
 were legends : " The Palais-Something and the 
 
172 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Grande Vue des Something else." I waved them 
 off. 
 
 A little man in a green baize apron ap- 
 proached. " There is a small hotel, very as it 
 should be, very quiet, no drunkenness, and where 
 one eats well, about ten minutes off. Shall I 
 show it to Madame? " 
 
 Who could resist? It sounded the very sce- 
 nario of Paradise. The little man picked up 
 my bag and we went off across the ankle-twist- 
 ing cobbles, through the gloaming. I felt light- 
 footed and unreal, and irresponsible as a young 
 cat in the evening, — have ever you watched a 
 young cat by twilight, seen its little, crazy rush 
 about amongst the leaves, envied it, a humble, 
 furry Pan? 
 
 I walked swift and high-headed, the little man 
 padding along at my side. 
 
 " Madame has already visited Cherbourg? " 
 he panted. 
 
 I said " yes," adding patronisingly, as strangers 
 will, that it was a fine town. 
 
 " Yes, not bad," he replied, with the air of one 
 quite as much a stranger as myself. " I am not 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 73 
 
 of Cherbourg, I come from St.-Valentine-les- 
 Roses." 
 
 " St.-Valentine-les-Roses ? " I repeated. 
 
 " Yes. Not bad, either, but small, very small, 
 and not gay. There's not a light lit after nine 
 o'clock. I worked at the inn. La Rose d'Or. 
 There was more movement there, sometimes one 
 was up till ten 1 " 
 
 We reached the hotel, small indeed, with a row 
 of tin tables on a sort of terrace before the door, 
 and a lank gargon picking his teeth patiently as he 
 awaited trade. He fell upon me with enthusiasm, 
 brought ttie the evening's paper, the menu, the 
 wine list and a very excellent dinner. As I awaited 
 the sweet omelette, there rumbled up an omnibus 
 and stopped before the hotel. It was a sort of 
 old-fashioned stage coach, swung on big springs, 
 with seats outside above, and inside below. I 
 looked at it with pleased curiosity. 
 
 " Berny, Anterre, St.-Valentine-Ies-Roses! " 
 cried the driver, inclining an observant eye to my 
 interest. " Madame would like to go to St.-Val- 
 entlne-les-Roses? " 
 
 He pointed to me with his whip, the three sol- 
 
174 UNCLOTHED 
 
 diers and two gamins on top stared at me, three 
 crepe dressed women inside looked out, the name 
 in g^lt letters from the side of the omnibus beck- 
 oned me. " St.-Valentine-les-Roses ! " It hypno- 
 tised me; there seemed a sort of conspiracy to 
 draw me to it. 
 
 " St.-Vialentine-les-Roses " — the name called to 
 me like the sighing of violins, or the voice of a 
 lover, or the sound of a little brook. I pictured 
 it sitting demurely on the top of a hillock, — the 
 words of the green baized porter returned to me. 
 
 The coach swung alluringly on its big springs, 
 and I half rose in my chair. " Madame is com- 
 ing? " said the driver. 
 
 " How far is it? " I asked. 
 
 "Whereto?" 
 
 " To St.-Valentine-les-Roses." I stammered 
 the name as a schoolgirl might hang over that of 
 her first sweetheart. 
 
 " Eight kilometres, fifty sous inside, forty up- 
 top," he answered. 
 
 " I will go," said I, " up-top." 
 
 The waiter returning found me half way up the 
 ladder of the omnibus. 
 
UNCLOTHED 175 
 
 " But the omelette? " he protested, as he pock- 
 eted the money I dropped to him. 
 
 " I will eat it as I come back," said I. 
 
 It was thick night when we stumbled into St- 
 Valentine-les-Roses, and the houses were indeed 
 quite dark except for the Inn, where a lamp 
 burned inside the open door. They set me down 
 with my bag on the edge of the road and drove 
 away before the Innkeeper had made her lei- 
 surely progress toward me. 
 
 " Suppose," said I to myself, " she has no room, 
 or doesn't fancy my looks I " It was almost an 
 adventure.. 
 
 " Good-evening, Madame," said she. " You 
 wish to stop the night? " 
 
 " If it will not disarrange you," I replied in 
 placatory tones. 
 
 "Not in the least. Madame has dined?" 
 And then, with a great brass candle-stick held 
 aloft, so that she seemed absurdly like a light- 
 house, she preceded me upstairs and into a huge 
 bedroom, large as an opera house, furnished with 
 a curtained bed in which a ballet might have been 
 danced without crowding. 
 
176 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " If Madame wants something she has only to 
 ring," said the woman, and pointed to a giant 
 bell pull. " Alphonse will bring up the portman- 
 
 teau in an Instant." 
 
 She left me, clumping in her wooden shoes, and 
 I felt ludicrously small and out of place in the 
 great room. It seemed no lodging for a slender 
 maiden lady. 
 
 " One should have at least two husbands to de- 
 serve such a place as this," I said to myself. But 
 I slept well in it nevertheless. 
 
 I woke slowly and luxuriously, trying to hold 
 back the active process of the mind and to cling 
 fast to sleep. Then gradually I realised the 
 sounds from the street below, the sounds of sim- 
 ple humanity, the rattle of a cart, the yap of a 
 little dog and the cry of some hoarse-voiced peas- 
 ant woman mingling with the nicking of her goat. 
 
 I got up and looked out. It was sunny, a sort 
 of rippling sunshine, tangible, real — you could 
 smell it, touch it, taste it and praise God. It was 
 a day Indeed that bore God's signature; no work 
 of some inferior Imitator, no job work of a set of 
 clumsy cherubs. 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 77 
 
 I saw St.-Valentine-les-Roses for the first time. 
 It was perched on the side of a hill, one street, a 
 double row of little houses with kinky, red roofs, 
 a little church, the little inn — beyond that, who 
 can describe a village? The essence of the place 
 lies in its sweet modesty ; it were as ungradous to 
 insist on a catalogue of all it held as to tear off 
 the dress from some pretty, young woman, so as 
 to give an accurate account of her beauty. Or so 
 it seemed to me in my mood of ultra-sentimental 
 exaltation. I felt like a child who had come 
 upon a fairy under a flower pot. 
 
 With an air which I tried to fancy was mechan- 
 ical, I rang for coffee, for it seemed a desecra- 
 tion to consider breakfast in the midst of such a 
 mood. It was like pulling out one's watch in 
 the middle of " Tristan and Isolde." 
 
 Yet does the highest exaltation of mind ever 
 come when one is not materially comfortable? I 
 doubt it. It takes a madman indeed, to see na- 
 ture with a poet's eye combined with an empty 
 stomach; and so, drinking a cup of coffee, that 
 was made by a Velasquez among cooks, I fell 
 upon a mood of even more enthusiastic content; 
 
1 78 UNCLOTHED 
 
 and then went out to wander along the white 
 French roads, in a soft sunshine that heated the 
 little breeze to a just companionable temperature 
 and brought out the sweet odour of the grass and 
 field flowers. 
 
 The place seemed very real. It was impossi- 
 ble that the St.-Valentinians could spend much 
 time in introspection. I fancied that to them my 
 life with its little soul searchings and worries and 
 moods would look a very silly one. Judged by 
 their standards, what was I ? Heaven knows. I 
 did not follow up the thought, but only walked on 
 slowly along the quiet road between the fields and 
 the orchards and the windmills. 
 
 Presently I met a fat old woman with a white 
 cap. 
 
 I saluted her, and her smile was so cheerful, 
 that, all toothless, it seemed to flash like any 
 chorus girl's. 
 
 " Madame is stopping at La Rose d'Or? " said 
 she. 
 
 " Yes," I nodded. Already I was known, it 
 seemed, as a distinguished visitor. 
 
 "And Madame pleases herself amongst us?" 
 
UNCLOTHED 179 
 
 I rolled my eyes, burst Into a poetic flight about 
 nature's beauties and the quiet of the country- 
 side. It was, by intention, ill-mannered and pre- 
 tentious in me, for I had no expectation that the 
 old dame would understand, let alone sympathise. 
 
 But, thank God, life is full of surprise, and 
 she answered, " Madame is right. We live in- 
 deed as people sihould here in St.-Valentine-les- 
 Roses. We are not gay; you could not write a 
 book about us, but we are very happy. If it 
 were not for the looks, Madame, you could not 
 tell us from our cows and chickens. God put us 
 all down on the earth and said, ' continue and 
 multiply ' — and we others here at St.-Valentine, 
 We do it — whether we are humans or cattle, or 
 trees. And when one has many children and has 
 to get food for them out of the ground, one has 
 little time for sad thinking — hein, Madame?" 
 
 I do not know which is the more upsetting — 
 to say something which one expects to have under- 
 stood and to meet blank incomprehension, or talk- 
 ing to please one's self and expecting blankness, 
 to run against perfect understanding. 
 
 At any rate the old lady put me off my stride. 
 
l8o UNCLOTHED 
 
 I could only smile and say she was right, which 
 indeed she certainly was. This world would be 
 an infinitely pleasanter place if all of us were oc- 
 cupied in multiplying our species and feeding it, 
 instead of busying ourselves largely with torturing 
 reflections upon the futility of human life. But 
 were we, my old white capped lady iand I, to 
 change the face of the earth, I asked myself? 
 Things are as they are, and as Henry James made 
 them. 
 
 I bade her good-morning, envying her for all 
 her little, stubby body and her toothless mouth. 
 Her life, and her neighbours' lives seemed so 
 gloriously easy and satisfactory. Here in St.- 
 Valentine-les-Roses generation after generation 
 lived in simplicity and content, married and bore 
 their children, tended the trees, plucked the fruits 
 and made jam of them; milked the cows and 
 turned their cream Into cheese. Year after year, 
 I reflected to myself, trees and cows and men had 
 done their duty with never a thought they could 
 do otherwise; and the human lives had been as 
 natural as those of the beasts and as inevitable as 
 the recurrence of the snow and the sunshine. 
 
UNCLOTHED l8l 
 
 It may have been that day, or the next, or even 
 the day after that, for I fell into a state of such 
 unreflecting peace as not even to count the sun- 
 sets, that I spent a whole afternpon sitting against 
 a haymow watching a small windmill as it patted 
 the air, itself air-patted. Poor, stationary little 
 ship, with its sails always moving and its prow 
 never making progress — I felt childishly sorry 
 for it. Yet it looked happy; and sympathy was 
 as much wasted upon it, as upon the men and 
 women who lived near its shadows. It was busy 
 and stationary, and content like them to do un- 
 endingly the same things. It was all of a piece, 
 the life of the St.-Valentine-les-Roses. 
 
 Sitting there, I wondered lazily if a young 
 woman could make a living farming, and whether 
 the remnants of my five hundred dollars would 
 be sufficient to set me up with a cottage, and a 
 goat, and a hoe and the other things farmers 
 use. 
 
 But my plan had not time for fruition. 
 
 It began to rain. I found it so when I waked 
 in the morning. It seemed to me that nature was 
 deliberately deceiving me. I had relied upon the 
 
1 82 UNCLOTHED 
 
 sun shining day after day indefinitely; the possi- 
 bility of a storm coming had never entered my 
 head. I felt as astonished and aggrieved as I 
 would have felt had the windmill left her moor- 
 ings to come and slap me. I stood at the win- 
 dow and gazed at the perfidious village. The 
 rain came down with determination, not very 
 fast, but ploddingly. There were ruts in the 
 white road, now turned grey; the trees were wa- 
 ter-laden and the branches pulled down. EverjN 
 thing seemed very matter of fact and life looked 
 to me wispy and out of curl. 
 
 " I suppose they have lots of days like this," I 
 said to myself, and went back to bed. I would 
 sleep some more, I thought. But I did not. In- 
 stead I began to think. 
 
 "What day of the week is it?" I asked 
 Madame when she brought me my coffee. 
 
 She reflected a moment and answered, " Wed- 
 nesday." 
 
 I repeated it after her. The coffee seemed 
 much less good to me than usual. From my bed, 
 I could see the grey rain falling slant-wise. The 
 noise of its falling waked my conscience. I felt 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 83 
 
 the chill and the damp of the air; I shivered in 
 body, and quaked in mind. 
 
 For four days I had lost myself in a dream of 
 sunshine, and soft grass; the world had seemed 
 very far away; and all the troubles of my former 
 self a small affair indeed. But now I was cold, 
 and frightened and thoroughly awake again^ 
 
 "Three times fool that you are!" I cried to 
 myself in the mirror and the sight of my blue 
 nose did not move me to gentler self judgment. 
 It is easy to be kind to oneself when the looking 
 glass shows one at one's best. But she who 
 has an ugly day cannot hope for a soft con- 
 science. 
 
 " Fool," I repeated, " you have thrown away 
 all you wanted in life for what — a few hours' 
 sunshine, a few quarts of coffee, some sentimental 
 burblings about nature." 
 
 I flung my clothes into my portmanteau, paid 
 my bill to Madame and departed by the next dil- 
 igence, leaving her to think me of all sane women 
 the maddest — as indeed I perhaps am. 
 
 Inside three hours I was in the express for Paris, 
 riding second-class. Indeed so ardent was my 
 
184 UNCLOTHED 
 
 wish for self-abasement that It is a wonder I did 
 not go third. 
 
 Opposite me sat a woman with two little boys. 
 I noticed them presently, saw how happy she 
 looked and tried to fancy myself in her place. 
 She smiled at me good-humouredly and suddenly 
 I spoke to her. 
 
 " Tell me, Madame, is it pleasant being mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 It was impertinent if you like, but I wanted to 
 know and I fancied her to be one of those per- 
 sons to whom one could say such things. 
 
 I was right, for her answer came spontaneous 
 and unsurprised. 
 
 " It is my life," said she, " I have nothing else," 
 
 " You have no other interests? " 
 
 " Ah, Mademoiselle, do not think my life Is 
 small — I have to make one man happy, and to 
 bring up two little ones to be as good men as he 
 is. There is something sacred about making an 
 omelette if one remembers always this." 
 
 I nodded. I thought what she said was true. 
 
 She glanced at my hands. " Mademoiselle 
 should marry," said she, and added with gallic 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 85 
 
 amiability that my charms deserved a hus- 
 band. 
 
 " Alas," said I in a burst of confidence — 
 who has not had them in railroad trains? — 
 " I wish I might marry, but I fear that I have 
 hopelessly offended the man to whom I am 
 fiancee." 
 
 " Nonsense, Mademoiselle," said she, " do not 
 be afraid. He will forgive, if you let him see you 
 are really sorry. Is he in Paris?" 
 
 I said he was so far as I knew. 
 
 " He expects you? " 
 
 " I telegraphed to him from Cherbourg." 
 
 " Ah, then, have no fear. Mademoiselle," said 
 the woman cheerfully, and with the instinctive 
 tact of her nation shifted the talk to other things. 
 
 On the station platform, Gordon stood waiting, 
 looking glum indeed. 
 
 I said good-bye to Madame and the little boys. 
 
 " Do not be afraid to show your regret. Made- 
 moiselle," whispered the good woman. " Can 
 you weep? No? " 
 
 I walked towards him and thrust out my hands 
 which he did not seem to see. 
 
1 86 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " You got my telegram? " I asked fatuously — 
 for how else would he have been there? 
 
 He bowed. " Give me the tickets for your lug- 
 gage and I will put you into a cab." 
 
 " Put me into a cab " — then he had no inten- 
 tion of driving me to my hotel. He had come to 
 the station merely because it was late in the night 
 and he could not permit any lady in whom he had 
 interested himself to arrive unmet in Paris at that 
 hour. 
 
 Presently with a porter and my luggage he re- 
 joined me. Timidly I touched his arm. " Are 
 you very angry, Gordon?" I asked. 
 
 " Need we discuss it? " 
 
 I sighed, and thought it would not be very hard 
 to follow Madame's hint about the tears. I felt 
 unspeakably forlorn. At the cab, he offered me 
 his hand, to help me to the step, and then turned 
 to give the address to the cabby. 
 
 " Gordon," I cried desperately. " Please 
 come with me — please." 
 
 I had followed Madame's hint. 
 
 Gordon came. 
 
 As I lay in bed that night and remembered my 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 87 
 
 apology to him, how I had told him of having 
 been nervous and overwrought, of being almost 
 unconscious what I was doing for several days, 
 and of how not only he, but I also for the mo- 
 ment, believed it, I chuckled cynically. 
 
 " Why use your brains and tell the truth," I 
 questioned of the pillow, " when by lying and 
 playing the abject ass, you can gain every end in 
 life ? — And this, O God, is what they call be- 
 ing womanly ! " 
 
 The eye that sees life and oneself does not 
 open often by daylight, and next morning I woke 
 full of peace and content, dressed slowly and with 
 the care one might give to fulfilling a sacred right 
 — for was it not a worship of my lover and our 
 love to make myself as attractive as possible? — 
 went down to my cafe au lait in the courtyard of 
 the hotel and soon was joined by Gordon who had 
 a room in a place near by. 
 
 He looked so happy. I felt so happy. The 
 sun shone, a street band played a jovial tune from 
 Naples. 
 
 " Come," said I, " let us go out into the 
 streets." 
 
l88 UNCLOTHED 
 
 We walked along the Avenue de I'Opera. I 
 bought a pink veil, a bottle of scent, and half a 
 dozen earthenware dishes. Gordon bought a 
 bunch of roses and gave a beggar woman half a 
 franc. He was not usually prodigal with money, 
 counting it better to give it intelligently than to 
 fling it to the supposed poor of the city who are 
 very likely no more needy than he himself. 
 
 At the Palais Royal strangely enough we met 
 Madame of the train with her children and the 
 husband, a fattish man with a black beard and 
 checked trousers. 
 
 She ran over to me. " Mademoiselle is 
 happy? " 
 
 "Ah, yes 1" 
 
 " Mademoiselle wept? " she questioned slyly. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " I have never known it fail," she said wisely, 
 and let me lead off the two boys to the magasin 
 du Louvre and buy a pair of elaborate toys, while 
 Gordon sat at the corner cafe with her and her 
 husband. 
 
 Three or four days later I went back to Cher- 
 bourg to take ship again for New York. I was. 
 
UNCLOTHED 1 89 
 
 or fancied myself, in a state of absolute content- 
 ment and all the worn sentimental sayings that had 
 used to make me laugh seemed suddenly very true. 
 
 My heart babbled of a good man's love; of 
 the beauty of homely virtues; of how a woman's 
 finest sphere was in the home with her husband 
 and her children. I was nearly capable of rhap- 
 sodising at the thought of becoming the subse- 
 quent mother of twins. I looked back on my 
 older selves with amazement. Why had I been 
 capricious, full of notions of independence and 
 absurd wilfulness? Surely, I could not have sup- 
 posed that was the way to find contentment. I 
 looked back wild-eyed at my own past, but I was 
 too sunk in buttery complacence to worry about it. 
 
 I had fallen in love with sloth and repose and 
 convention and a peaceful conscience. There was 
 no one to warn me that repose robbed me of other 
 things, or to say " does it not clang in your ears 
 'you will never be a pirate?'" 
 
 Indeed, I should not have heeded the clanging. 
 The world holds no more self-satisfied creature 
 than the newly betrothed, or newly married 
 woman. She has achieved her destiny, justified 
 
190 UNCLOTHED 
 
 her sex, and settled herself in life forever. She 
 feels she has discovered the social system — nay 
 created it, and that it is good. 
 
 Kissing Gordon good-bye at the Gare St.-La- 
 zarre, there surged over me along with the sweet 
 pathos of parting an assurance that now at last 
 and for the first time I knew real happiness. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDON] 
 
 " What are you waiting for, sir? " the dock hand 
 said to me. 
 
 I moved dully away from the post. 
 
 " Hey, there ! " cried the man, " that ain't the 
 way out I You'll walk off into the river, if you're 
 not careful I " 
 
 I returned my steps and went back over the pier 
 out to the street. 
 
 I understood everything now, perfidious Cleo- 
 dore — her casual mention of the other man, the 
 note she sent, too late for me to see them sail; 
 her telling me that we must never see each other 
 again. 
 
 I could see that I had been no more than a di- 
 version for her. She had been playing with me. 
 
 " I've saved all my affection of twenty-eight 
 years for this — to be made a fool of I " I said to 
 
 myself. And I laughed. 
 
 191 
 
192 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Now they were together on the boat. The last 
 glimpse I had was of his hand over hers. Doubt- 
 less they were both making fun of me. At that 
 moment I wished — I had taken her. 
 
 I tramped upon the gang plank of the Twenty- 
 third Street ferry, following the crowd like an 
 automaton. Looking out over the bay I could 
 still see the dim outlines of the big funnels, and 
 into my mind's eye sprang a comparison between 
 the smoke curling its way from out the huge 
 smoke-stacks, and the days when Cleodore had 
 been near me. Like the smoke evaporating in 
 the air, so did all that had meaning to me seem 
 to fade away in the instant. 
 
 Soon we reached the slips of the New York 
 side. All the heart pang and distress of the pre- 
 vious weeks came back to me. At first I started 
 to go with the crowd, then I slipped into one of 
 the side benches, unable to hold back my emotions. 
 I couldn't dare to consider what was in store for 
 me once I set foot into New York again. 
 
 But at last I pulled myself together and turned 
 my face to the crowd. With one last glance out 
 into the bay, and a hot, swift throb of my heart 
 
UNCLOTHED 193 
 
 for all that was Cleodore, I went out through 
 the dark, narrow passage. 
 
 Walking over to Broadway I found myself 
 within a few steps of Loutie's place, and looking 
 in at her door I saw that the girl was just putting 
 on her hat. 
 
 "Oh, hello!" she said, "wait a minute." 
 Then she joined me. 
 
 I smiled at her cheerfully. "Hello, Loutiel 
 It's good to see you." 
 
 "Here too," she answered; "I've thought 
 a good deal about you. Where have you 
 been?" 
 
 Observing Loutie, as we walked on, I found 
 her searching my face quizzically. 
 
 "What is the matter, child?" I cried. But 
 even as I spoke, she interrupted me. 
 
 " Oh, you look so awful. You are still wor- 
 rying about that manuscript, now aren't you ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I am, a little," I replied. " But only 
 a very little and anyway it is all past. I can't 
 be a baby about it." 
 
 " Yes, I know, but it was all my fault and I 
 can't ever forget that. I am so afraid it will dis- 
 
194 UNCLOTHED 
 
 courage you. You're looking like a tramp, 
 nearly, now." 
 
 " You're exaggerating the situation, Loutie," 
 I smiled. " You needn't worry. You don't 
 know fighting as I do. It's only when we are 
 down and out that the struggle becomes grim and 
 then a desperate man can accomplish more in a 
 minute than a genius could in a month." 
 
 Suddenly she interrupted me. 
 
 " Oh, you think I don't know, that I don't un- 
 derstand disappointment and trouble, because you 
 always see me laughing and happy. But I do 
 know and I know, too, that you can't throw off 
 worry by simply saying ' It's all right, it's noth- 
 ing.' No, you can't do' it that way. At least 
 you are not the sort that can. 
 
 " You think that because I am jollying one man 
 after another back of the cash desk that I have 
 no understanding. I've got to do that, of course, 
 to hold my job, but there is another si4e and I'm 
 no fool. 
 
 " And I've got feeling too. The other day I 
 was reading one of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poems 
 and it just set me to crying. The boss called me 
 
UNCLOTHED 195 
 
 down for it, the fool. I am telling you this be- 
 cause I want you to understand that I've got a 
 little feeling of what you're going through and 
 that I am so sorry and want to do something for 
 you and want you to know that I'll understand if 
 you tell me. 
 
 " I could tell you a lot more. I used to know 
 a lot of men who were always having moods and 
 they said I cheered them up more than anyone 
 else." 
 
 "Where did you know them, these men?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " In a hospital," she answered. " You see I 
 studied to be a nurse but had to give up after a 
 few months and make some ready money." 
 
 Hearing the girl at my side talk of hospitals 
 aroused my interest immediately. 
 
 I went on questioning her. " Did you like the 
 work in a hospital?" 
 
 " Very much. It was so satisfactory. You 
 can always get the best that's in people when 
 they're sick." 
 
 " So you've noticed that? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed — often," she replied. 
 
196 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " I'm discovering something new every min- 
 ute, Loutie," I exclaimed. " Now you're a stu- 
 dent of the philosophy of life." 
 
 "Well, it may be what you say," she mur- 
 mured, a little puzzled. 
 
 I kept her on the subject. " But when they 
 get well, they forget, don't they? " Then I 
 sighed — "Yes, Loutie, gratitude is the name of 
 a peculiar bird that only stops long enough to be 
 fed. You will learn this some day." 
 
 I found her laughing heartily at my soaring 
 sentiments. But the next instant she was serious 
 again. " Oh, It's like I thought — You don't 
 give me credit for knowing anything. Why, I 
 learnt what you just said long ago. That's why 
 you always find me happy. We mustn't want to 
 hear this gratitude in words and then pat our- 
 selves on the back. The only way Is to know 
 that you've done right and good, and then be 
 happy because you know it yourself." 
 
 I was astonished at her real philosophy. " I 
 am sure that you have had some unhappiness in 
 your life, Loutie, when you talk like that," I said. 
 " How long have you been in New York? " 
 
UNCLOTHED 197 
 
 We walked on in silence for a time, then she 
 answered — " Oh, since — well, I'd rather not 
 talk about it." 
 
 " Why not? " I asked, surprised. " But per- 
 haps it is something I shouldn't know." 
 
 " Oh, I can tell you. In fact I'm glad to. 
 You're the first one I've met since I've come here 
 who would understand. All the rest want me " 
 — then she suddenly quieted into a choked si- 
 lence. " You see, I am one of those, with a 
 past," she finished off, airily. 
 
 " You are very young — to have had a past," 
 I said. " Tell me, Loutie, I really want to 
 know." 
 
 " Well, if you must," she consented reluctantly. 
 " But it isn't anything unusual, except that it hap- 
 pened to me. I came from a little town in Mas- 
 sachusetts. They thought at home that I should 
 learn to nurse, as they heard there was such good 
 money in it, so I came on. I even had to lie about 
 my age, I was only seventeen. 
 
 " Then they needed money at home and I quit, 
 and went to work. Then I met him." 
 
 She paused. 
 
198 UNCLOTHED 
 
 "He was so big and kind to me, when I was so 
 lonely. After a few months, we got married." 
 She sighed resignedly. 
 
 "You were married!" I ejaculated. 
 
 " Yes, we got married, then. Oh, I was such 
 a baby, too." 
 
 " But the end. Tell me, what was that? 
 You're not married now, are you? " 
 
 " The end? Ah, boy, that took time. After 
 the first few months I realised that he had no un- 
 derstanding of me. He was strong and willing 
 to work for me and all that, but I could never 
 talk to him. He was always petting me and call- 
 ing me pet names and I got so that I couldn't 
 stand to have him touch me. 
 
 " I can't explain it. Maybe I don't know 
 enough about such things and I suppose I treated 
 him mean but — oh, you understand, don't 
 you?" She looked up at me. I thought I saw 
 tears in her eyes. 
 
 After a moment, she resumed her story, though 
 with seeming languor. " I held out as long as 
 I could — then I told him. And you ought to 
 have seen him then. He just broke down and 
 
UNCLOTHED 199 
 
 cried like a baby. He said I couldn't understand 
 the love of a good man. I did feel terribly sorry 
 but I didn't love him and — oh, it was awful and 
 I just couldn't hold out any longer. We went 
 to some lawyers and after a lot of time, they 
 told me that I was divorced — and free." 
 
 For an instant her eyes dimmed, but she 
 quickly controlled herself. " It was very hard, 
 I had to earn my own living again. It seemed 
 harder this time, though of course I couldn't ex- 
 pect anything from him. Still I wouldn't trade. 
 When I was with him. It was like being In jail. 
 Why, he wouldn't even let me have any girl 
 friends, he was that jealous." 
 
 "What did he do, after you separated?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh, that was three years ago. I heard he 
 married again. Maybe it's to some woman that 
 don't understand him this time and I guess they're 
 happy." 
 
 Being with Loutie seemed to quiet me and rest 
 my nerves. I have thought of the comparison 
 many times since — Loutie and Cleodore. They 
 appeared to represent the strings of a harp. 
 
200 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Loutie, the soft, low tones that quieted me and 
 gave me rest; dulcet sweetness that let me dream 
 of other things, that let me spin my web unhar- 
 assed; while Cleodore — but I couldn't help it. 
 When I thought of her, my heart leapt, and my 
 passions were aroused and I became like one who 
 has just left the sensuous visioning of a lotus feast. 
 She was life blood, energy and desire in me. 
 
 I tried to keep from thinking about Cleodore, 
 however. She was out of my life entirely, and 
 the sweet honesty of Loutie made the little shop 
 girl appear like an angel beside the low calculat- 
 ing trickery of the woman who had left me that 
 morning. 
 
 I kept the engagement I had made with Loutie 
 for the following evening and met her at the up- 
 town corner of Madison Square. 
 
 " We are to dine together, Loutie," I said as 
 I greeted her. 
 
 " AU right, boy," she answered caressingly. 
 "Did you just leave your room? And how is 
 your work coming on? " 
 
 To this she received no answer. I disliked 
 talking " work " with Loutie. She understood. so 
 
UNCLOTHED 201 
 
 little about it. We walked on in silence for a 
 few moments when I saw a bright smile light her 
 face. 
 
 " Oh, I have it," she said. " You are to come 
 dine with me. I just got my three per." 
 
 In answer I smiled and shook my head. 
 
 " Oh, but you must. Why, I came near not 
 thinking of it. You will, won't you?" 
 
 " My child," I answered gravely. " At least 
 we haven't reached that state where you have to 
 be the mainstay and support of the family. No, 
 my dear, to-day we are to dine at some place 
 where only the rich go, and you are the invited 
 guest." 
 
 For an instant I considered. " Ah, I have it, 
 Loutie. A wonderful little place down on Four- 
 teenth Street. Table d'hote, music, red wine, and 
 all that, for fifty cents. Think of it. I don't see 
 why we can't afford an extravagance of this sort, 
 at least once in the week." 
 
 Then I jingled the few cents in my pocket. 
 " Come, girl," said I, " we will celebrate my fif- 
 tieth birthday. I've used up all the rest." 
 
 We sought out a little table far back in one 
 
202 UNCLOTHED 
 
 corner. There we could observe the people about 
 us and still be near enough to hear the music 
 from a three-piece Hungarian orchestra. 
 
 Settling back in silence we studied the faces 
 about us. As the music became gay and wild 
 (they were playing the Prologue from Pagliacci) 
 everyone laughed and sang. It has only a very 
 few bars that are gay, however, and as the more 
 crooning, mellow passages came on it was interest- 
 ing to see the instant change. Women who had 
 been gay, laughing and chattering a minute be- 
 fore, suddenly seemed to be enveloped in sadness. 
 Faces grew cold and hard. 
 
 One woman attracted me most. She sat op- 
 posite to us and had been the gayest of her party 
 till the music went into its sadder tones. Then 
 she suddenly changed; her face lost its youth and 
 she sat on numbly, staring vacantly ahead of her. 
 
 " A bit of soft music and how quickly we re- 
 member," I remarked to Loutie, who also had no- 
 ticed her. But Loutie, too, was gazing into the 
 distance. 
 
 In a moment there was a change. A rollick- 
 ing waltz started. The cimbalo broke into an 
 ecstasy of riotous tenes, inertia was no more ap- 
 
UNCLOTHED 203 
 
 parent and the sadness flitted away as easily as 
 it had come. The world annihilates its cares with 
 little effort, but music will always remain some- 
 thing devilishly self-revealing. 
 
 The while we talked, now half seriously and 
 again playfully silent with each other like old 
 friends, I saw Loutie's face become suddenly 
 clouded. She knew I detected the instant's be- 
 trayal of her thoughts and she immediately as- 
 sumed a false air of gaiety, 
 
 " Now what? " I asked. 
 
 She paid no attention to me, studying my face 
 in perplexity. Then she said seriously, " You 
 seem so lonely always. Haven't you anyone that 
 cares for you? Where are your folks? " 
 
 " Well, that's part of my past, Loutie, and we 
 won't talk about it," I answered. I thought of 
 the home I had quite thrown away. 
 
 " Anyway, you ought to let them help you. 
 Why don't you?" 
 
 " I will some day," I answered moodily, 
 " when it will be too late." 
 
 " Oh, you're more queer each time I see you," 
 Loutie exclaimed restlessly. " You seemed so 
 easy to know, at first, and now I don't believe I 
 
204 UNCLOTHED 
 
 will ever know you. You need someone to help 
 and advise you. I'd do it if I knew enough." 
 
 "Thanks, Loutie, very much," I replied; "but 
 please don't. We must never give advice to 
 friends." 
 
 I took her home to her boarding place far up 
 town and then came back on the subway. 
 
 I saw her very often in the days that followed. 
 She was my only haven. 
 
 It is all very strange, very odd. Surely I must 
 have been of peculiar makeup, to turn immedi- 
 ately from Cleodore to Loutie. Even now I won- 
 der sometimes at the things I did and at my abil- 
 ity to view them so reflectively. 
 
 I suppose that like other people I had a two- 
 sided nature. One night, as I lay awake, I re- 
 member I likened myself to the poet Aldrich's 
 picture of No-Man's Land where the soul meets 
 its double; — 
 
 " And who are you? " cried one agape, 
 Shuddering in the gloaming light; 
 " I know not," said the second shape, 
 "I only died last night." 
 
UNCLOTHED 205 
 
 The thought that I could have had a devilish 
 second self of this sort actually frightened me, 
 but nevertheless seemed to fit my case. Perhaps 
 it was that my soul had become hallucinated by 
 love and that Cleodore and Loutie were the 
 spectre things. 
 
 It was about this time that I changed my lodg- 
 ing place to Third Avenue, taking a small second 
 story room, that looked out upon a tangled web 
 of " L " rails. 
 
 I found the place through my barber, who was 
 rather a friend of mine. 
 
 " I don't suppose you would want to rent a 
 room cheap, would you?" said he to me one 
 day. 
 
 " I am interested in anything cheap — what 
 about it? " said I. 
 
 He told me that he shared a floor in a house 
 with two friends of his. He had furnished it 
 himself and his share of the rent made the room 
 cost him a preposterously small amount. 
 
 " I've got to go away and I don't want to lose 
 six months' rent. I'll let you have it for what it 
 costs me," he said. 
 
2o6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 It ended by my taking the room and moving 
 into it immediately. 
 
 After I got there I found that, the barber's 
 surroundings were about as bad as they could 
 have been. 
 
 Inside, the eye was appalled by a dazzling ar- 
 ray of sartorial bibelots — tight-legged women 
 of the stage mixed with lithographs of the prize 
 fighting celebrities of recent years, while across 
 part of the window one could see the reverse side 
 of a heavy wooden sign which had been put up 
 by a little French wigmaker, downstairs. 
 
 Outside, the trains, scurrying back and forth 
 past my window, kept up an incessant fusilade 
 of noise, but I soon became accustomed to the 
 clangour, during the day. It was at night that 
 it nearly crazed me. 
 
 After a few days I learnt that the trains ran 
 upon a half hour schedule between two and five 
 o'clock, so I never went to bed until the first 
 " owl " had come past. This unnatural existence 
 soon had its effect upon me and I gradually be- 
 came lower spirited and physically depleted. 
 Too, it was at this time that I formed the habit 
 
UNCLOTHED 207 
 
 of sitting motionless for hours and staring out 
 of the open window with vacant gaze. 
 
 This was bad for me, of course, and I would 
 come to my senses exhausted and worn. It was 
 a sort of lethargy that enveloped me and I seemed 
 unable to fight it off. Before me would go racing 
 incidents of the previous weeks — the choosing 
 of a new vocation, the loss of my manuscript, the 
 meeting of Cleodore, and a hundred other inci- 
 dents chased before my vision the instant I quieted 
 myself. 
 
 I was in a state of semi-catalepsy, brought on 
 by the many days of anguish that I had endured. 
 The effect was terrifying. For the first time in 
 my life I understood what the drunkard's delirium 
 tremens must be. 
 
 One incident, however, has stayed by me and I 
 remember it served to ,give a tinge of irony to my 
 plight. I was walking over Madison Square to 
 my room when I encountered an old university 
 classmate. 
 
 During the other days he had been one of the 
 type that go about with hand extended, always 
 trying to say a pleasant word and wishing every- 
 
2o8 UNCLOTHED 
 
 one good luck. His hj^ocrisies only impressed 
 you with their idiocy after he had left. Physi- 
 cally, he had followed the signs that were notice- 
 able in his school-days, having developed Into a 
 very heavily set individual, with big pouch and 
 double chin topped by a mouth that was wide 
 with good humour (though in repose the mouth 
 was hard and sly looking, revealing some of his 
 inner nature). 
 
 " Well, Laurence," he said, greeting me with 
 a squeeze of my hand. " Who'd a thought that 
 I'd run on to you. Tell me all about it, I heard 
 you gave up medicine, took to writing novels and 
 all that. Suppose you are living way up In ' G ' 
 now and won't notice us common folks. How 
 many books have you written and what's the name 
 of the last one? " 
 
 When I told him that my work was appearing 
 steadily in the different magazines but that I 
 didn't want to use my own name until later on, 
 he seemed to believe me, though he went on ask- 
 ing questions, wanting to know when each came 
 out, what the magazines were, and how much 
 they paid me. 
 
UNCLOTHED 209 
 
 " I suppose," he kept on, " you are making 
 more money in a week than you would have in a 
 year from your medicine. But then you always 
 were a wise one. I always said that you wouldn't 
 have given it up unless you knew where you stood. 
 By the way, what was the name of the last 
 book?" 
 
 Of course I lied. I had to. He made It im- 
 possible to do otherwise. He knew very well, 
 from my sad appearance, that I wasn't entirely 
 prosperous. Yet he took a certain keen delight 
 in flaunting the realisation of failure in my face. 
 It was no harm to lie. 
 
 I should not have paid any attention to him, 
 but I was In a desperate state, anyway, and 
 though the remarks In coming from him meant 
 nothing, still they showed me my position with 
 renewed force and roused me to attempt self- 
 defence. 
 
 I was a luckless failure; and my spirits left 
 me completely after that. One day, almost 
 crazed with melancholy, I sought Loutie at her 
 lodging place far up town. 
 
 " Loutie," I cried, " I'm through fighting. 
 
2IO UNCLOTHED 
 
 Everything goes wrong and I'm in harder straits 
 than ever. You've got to stay by me, child. I'm 
 afraid to be alone." 
 
 " My poor boy, my poor boy," she answered, 
 running her hand over my face. " I'm so sorry. 
 You are in awfully bad shape, aren't you? " 
 
 She failed, however, to understand entirely the 
 full meaning of my words. 
 
 " I'm down and out, Loutie," I continued, " and 
 I'm coming to you like a piece of junk. But you 
 understand, I know. Loutie, I want you. I 
 want you to be by me, day and night. I can't 
 give you anything, but I want you because I need 
 you — to keep me from doing something a thou- 
 sand times worse." 
 
 Then she seemed to comprehend. For an in- 
 stant she stared in silence. 
 
 " Oh, Larry," she gasped. " I didn't know 
 what — you meant — at first." 
 
 I went on earnesdy, "You will, dear, won't 
 you? Why, Loutie, you've got to. I'm a weak* 
 fool but I can't help it. God only knows what I 
 shall do, if you don't come. And then why 
 shouldn't we, anyway? There's no one that has 
 
UNCLOTHED 211 
 
 any hold on you — and how terribly lonely we've 
 both been." 
 
 She went over to the window, sobbing gently, 
 as I continued my pleading. After a time we 
 both became silent and I could see that my words 
 had not made her altogether unhappy. 
 
 I debated over the question. Would we be 
 doing wrong? In my selfish moment I saw no 
 way that trouble could come of such a compan- 
 ionship or that there would be any harm done. 
 It might even make us both happy. 
 
 I tried to look at it from her point of view as 
 well. It wasn't as if Loutie was an innocent 
 young girl, I reassured myself. She had told me 
 something about her life. 
 
 " What are you thinking of ? " I heard her ask. 
 By this time I was on the sofa, my head buried in 
 my hands. 
 
 " Oh, I was thinking about the fix I'm in," I 
 answered. 
 
 " Dear boy," she said, coming over and seating 
 herself beside me and endeavouring to lift my 
 head with her dainty hands. " You are in a bad 
 way, aren't you? But I am to blame for your 
 
212 UNCLOTHED 
 
 discouragement and I know it. There is some- 
 thing that I should like to say — that somehow I 
 just can't," she went on hesitatingly. 
 
 "What is it, child?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, it's so hard to say — but — I just want 
 to tell you that I feel that I owe you more than 
 I can give, or that you can ask for. I just want 
 you to know, Larry — that — that you don't 
 have to beg for it. I hate this place, anyway." 
 
 Then I caught her regarding me curiously. 
 
 "What's the matter, Loutie?" I questioned. 
 
 She waited still longer, than answered me di- 
 rectly. " I'm just thinking how awful strange 
 this all is. It seems real enough when I don't 
 look at you, but when I do, I can hardly believe 
 it. Your face and the way you talk shows that 
 you don't belong in the hole you've got yourself 
 into." 
 
 " My face? How is that? " 
 
 " I mean it looks — well, it nearly makes me 
 cry when I look at you and hear you talk. You 
 are so different from other men. Here I let you 
 talk this way to me and still it doesn't sound the 
 way it has when other men said it. They're so 
 
UNCLOTHED 213 
 
 awfully common when they talk about this kind 
 — of thing. And you only seem better for it." 
 
 Then she came close to me. " You're going 
 to be a big man, some day, I'm sure. And I don't 
 want you to have to ask me for help when you're 
 under. I want to have my part in it, of my own 
 accord. Some day I'll have it to think of." 
 
 And now, as if in a dream, I found the dear 
 girl telling me that she hadn't been able to for- 
 get me since the first time in the restaurant. She 
 went on sympathising and encouraging me, while 
 each little word of affection wrenched my heart 
 woefully, for it brought Gleodore back vividly to 
 my memory — and the love I had given her. 
 
 I felt undeserving and greatly humbled. 
 
 " Boy," she said, after a time, " you've made 
 me happy. You've got me to caring for you." 
 
 And she took my hands in hers and looked ten- 
 derly in my eyes. " Of course — I want to be 
 by you," she said softly. 
 
 I won't easily forget Loutie. At that time, I, 
 like most men, regarded women as being living 
 examples of mutability, selfish and deceptive, will- 
 ing to sacrifice any amount of self-respect and 
 
214 UNCLOTHED 
 
 pride, to conquer an unwilling victim of their 
 charms. But she changed all my cynical ideas of 
 women. 
 
 I have gone on many a winged journey since 
 those days, piloted by the thought of that early 
 goodness of Loutie. Her open, chifdlike frank- 
 ness, her honest willingness to give herself entirely 
 to me without any gain, simply because she cared, 
 made me reverence her. I say this, knowing how 
 she changed after the battle came; but that was 
 weakness. And what right have I to blame an- 
 other for being weak? 
 
 She was one of the many thousands who simply 
 give, because of the heart impulse that their 
 Creator instils in them — and in return get- 
 ting nothing but abusive ostracism and some 
 pity. 
 
 A man, doing the same, is only called human, 
 and is more adored than ever by the sex that is 
 made to suffer. . . . 
 
 Loutie was unable to come to me at once, she 
 told me, because of a month's rent that had been 
 paid in advance — dear methodical Loutie! 
 However, our new understanding seemed to make 
 
UNCLOTHED 215 
 
 the time go more quickly, as we saw each other 
 regularly every day. 
 
 In youth, one doesn't realise that the day gone, 
 never returns. Sometimes now, when I get to 
 thinking and wishing, I feel sorry — but after all, 
 I am so happy, and I guess that everything turned 
 out for the bfest. 
 
 I feared, however, that my uninspired view of 
 the situation would be discernible by Loutie. I 
 would find her eyeing me curiously at the times she 
 came to see me. Her instinct was remarkable 
 and kept me wondering constantly; I found that 
 I could not easily hide my* thoughts from her. 
 
 "What are you thinking of, boy? " she would 
 ask, questioning me with her eyes as well as her 
 lips. 
 
 Then I would answer calmly, though I feared 
 constantly that I would make a slip and start the 
 ripple of suspicion into a tempest. 
 
 It was usually the same answer. " Why, 
 Loutie, I was only thinking of you " — and the 
 ripples would never break. But it was hard to 
 fool Loutie and sometimes I even fancied that she 
 really knew and understood. 
 
21 6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I went through a peculiar cycle of thought at 
 this time. At first I believed that life would be 
 gaunt and empty without Cleodore. Then grad- 
 ually I came to understand that for her the best 
 outcome would be to marry the other man. 
 
 What was I? What had I to offer? It was 
 an easy question to answer. 
 
 I didn't know then what an influence the sight 
 of her had over me. 
 
 Yes, I saw everything plainly. And yet, dur- 
 ing the time while I was still living in the midst of 
 my hard resolution and glorious flesh dreams of 
 Loutie, I found I was unable to keep away from 
 the little restaurant where I usually met Cleo- 
 dore. 
 
 The thing was really of psychological interest. 
 I dreamt of Loutie and rushed blindly to Cleo- 
 dore. I haci grown to hate the woman I last saw 
 leaving on the ocean liner; yet, as I walked to- 
 wards the little restaurant, I felt my heart throb 
 in the same anticipating way as when I had gone 
 to meet her, agitated with love. 
 
 Then, I did not know the reason. I did not 
 know that the explanation lies in the fact that 
 
UNCLOTHED 217 
 
 truth controls the emotions. One cannot lie to 
 one's own heart. 
 
 One day I found Cleodore sitting in a corner 
 eating her lunch. I had supposed her still in Eu- 
 rope. I fancied that I would not have gone 
 there had I known. I felt wrathful with myself 
 for betraying my feelings and letting her' see that 
 I still cared and thought enough about her to come 
 to our old haunt. 
 
 When I saw, however, that she had noticed me, 
 I could only make the best of it. Boldly I 
 stepped to her table. 
 
 " When did you return ? " I asked coolly. 
 
 *' Why, just yesterday," she replied. Her an- 
 swer was as cool as my question. With some 
 satisfaction, however, I saw the colour mount in 
 her cheeks and felt her hand tremble and turn 
 cold as I greeted her. 
 
 " You didn't stay very long," I remarked. 
 
 " No," she answered, " I never realised how 
 much I had to attend to, until I got over there. 
 Then, of course, I couldn't rest till I came home 
 and got it off my hands." 
 
 We talked on for some minutes, quite dispas- 
 
2l8 UNCLOTHED 
 
 sionately, I thought. Yet, as we talked and I 
 viewed her passive contemplation of me, there 
 arose in my being all the accumulated passion, all 
 the distress and mistrust of the past weeks; and 
 I resolved to put her under an inquisition that 
 would even up for some of my own past suffering. 
 
 I don't suppose there ever was a lover, who, 
 in some moment does not want to strangle to 
 death the woman he loves, and yet comes to his 
 senses to find his arms about her neck. And I 
 was no different, for I ended up by finding myself 
 muttering something about being glad to see her 
 and hoping she had had a pleasant voyage. 
 
 She answered as before. I could see, or at 
 least I thought I could, that she knew what I sus- 
 pected and the way I was trying to turn the con- 
 versation. 
 
 " Yes," came her reply. " A very good voy- 
 age, indeed, but not very interesting." 
 
 " Ah ! we cannot be interested in the outside 
 world if we don't bother to notice," I said. I 
 meant to imply that she had probably been con- 
 tent in a world of her own, on board ship. 
 
 She may have understood me, for she an- 
 
UNCLOTHED 219 
 
 swered, " Well, before we bother to notice it, the 
 outside world you speak of must first be as inter- 
 esting as the one we live in." I thought I saw 
 her smile faintly. " Isn't that true? " she added. 
 
 " Quite," I answered, as I discovered the inner 
 meaning of her remark, " but there is no limit to 
 the interest our own world may have for us — if 
 it holds another beside ourselves." 
 
 I saw that she understood thoroughly now. 
 
 " You are thinking of — my friend on the boat, 
 aren't you? " 
 
 " Yes, I saw you." 
 
 " I knew that too," she said slowly. " I fancy 
 you were very much surprised that I shouldn't be 
 alone, when I told you I would be." 
 
 " Well, I supposed that you had reasons," I an- 
 swered coolly, while in my heart was a wild pulsa- 
 tion and enough anger to nearly get beyond my 
 (Control. It fairly crazed me to have such vicious 
 repartee with the woman whom I had last held 
 in my arms. 
 
 And then, I heard from her, what I had feared 
 to hear ; heard what I had understood thoroughly, 
 but yet could not bring myself to believe. 
 
220 UNCLOTHED 
 
 *' Yes," came distincdy, " there was a reason. 
 But It's of no use for us to go over the whole 
 thing. We both made fools of ourselves, some- 
 what; and it is all over now. I am engaged to 
 be married to the man you saw on the boat. His 
 name is Gordon Hemingway." 
 
 Her words galled me to the quick. " Just like 
 a wonjan I " I repeated to myself. I knew it. 
 What perfidy. They expect that months of de- 
 votion and love and dreams which warp the whole 
 body and soul can be whisked away In an instant 
 simply by saying, " Let us forget. It's all 
 pasti"— God! 
 
 In that moment all the builded dreams, the ter- 
 rible nights and days ®f stress and disappointment 
 came back to my memory, swelling into a passion 
 that made me fear its enormity. However, I did 
 control myself, chivalrously. 
 
 " I suppose you know best," I said simply. 
 " I wish you every happiness." And then I 
 turned to go. " Good-bye," and I extended my 
 hand. 
 
 It seemed a minute before she extended hers, 
 and when she did. It was more like the movement 
 
UNCLOTHED 221 
 
 of an automaton. " You — you, haven't any- 
 thing — more — to say," she gasped. 
 
 " Why, no. I trust that we can always be 
 friends." 
 
 She laughed. " I suppose you have amused 
 yourself in the last few weeks? " 
 
 " Well, I haven't been so terribly alone," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Sol" she exclaimed. "Pray, who is she?" 
 
 " Can that make any difference, now? " I asked 
 placidly. 
 
 Then I saw the old quivering of her lips, and 
 her eyes flashed out from their former quiet, into 
 fire and excitement. I felt like taking her in my 
 arms at that moment, and smothering her with 
 love. 
 
 " Yes, go — go," she repeated hotly. " Go, I 
 knew I did right. It was what I meant to do all 
 the time. I only hope we won't ever see one an- 
 other again." 
 
 On my way back, I went over in my mind the 
 whole of our short conversation ; and one little in- 
 cident stood out clearly above the rest. It was 
 after she had told me of her engagement that I 
 
222 UNCLOTHED 
 
 saw her lips move, and ever so feebly — (I even 
 think she didn't intend to say it) I heard her ask, 
 " You — don't you care? " 
 
 I wasn't sure that her words were not the 
 product of my own imagination. . . . 
 
 " So — it's true, true," I repeated over and 
 over to myself as I walked on. When I gained 
 my dreary, noise-racked chamber, I could not say 
 how I had arrived there. 
 
 " Dear God," I repeated to myself. " You 
 hear, it's true ! " and though I had lived in the 
 thought of it for weeks I now seemed over- 
 whelmed at the realisation. 
 
 It would have helped me to cry. Once in the 
 days before, I had come home with tears in my 
 heart that should have come to my eyes and re- 
 lieved me, and as they stayed back, I had looked 
 into the ijiirror, begging and waiting for them to 
 come. In soliloquy, I remembered saying, as 
 the child counts sheep trying to go into slumber, 
 " Brace up, brace up, Larry, old man I It's hell, 
 of course, but look — you are not so bad off. 
 Cry — and you'll be all right, you'll feel better." 
 
 And I stood in front of my drooping reflection 
 
UNCLOTHED 223 
 
 repeating pleadingly, again and again: "Cry — 
 Oh, damn you, cry," and then the tears started. 
 
 But this day I tried, and couldn't. In the place 
 of tears there seemed to come a sort of prayer 
 for her, mingled with oaths. 
 
 My heart seemed bursting with a feeling of re- 
 venge, and yet at the same time I felt sad and 
 sorry, pitying her for her blindness in not seeing 
 rightly. I wanted to take her in my arms and 
 tell her how wrong she was. I wanted to tell 
 her what love really was, and how I loved her; 
 I wanted her to see that all the correctness of 
 choice could not be heeded if one loved. 
 
 All of a sudden I longed to tell her what this 
 other man could give her, was not love, that her 
 need was for a simple, beautiful passion that I 
 began now to understand — a passion that only 
 now I began to appreciate and that I wanted her 
 to share with me. 
 
 In that instant I saw what she meant to my 
 life — inspiration, sjTiipathy, everything that I 
 cared to live for. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 Never in my life did I act with a more henlike 
 foolishness, with a more abject lack of compre- 
 hension, than during this French trip of mine. 
 
 To be sure understanding is always des- 
 perately hard. Many folk talk about having " a 
 capacity to understand human nature " and with 
 some of them I daresay it is not mere fatuousness, 
 but the truth. Perhaps it is a gift like any other, 
 this gift of knowing how to live. At any rate I 
 do not possess it. 
 
 If I did, I should have been able to spare my- 
 self, and those who have come near to my life, 
 much suffering. Somehow I am very seldom 
 sure — at the moment — of my own feelings and 
 desires. It seems almsst insanely stupid to be 
 like this. Heaven knows I have been punished 
 for it. 
 
 Sometimes when I have been puzzled about my- 
 
 324 
 
UNCLOTHED 225 
 
 self and others I have realised my ignorance. 
 That realisation has been some slight protection, 
 but it has not always come to me. It did not 
 come in the days that followed my sailing from 
 New York. Bereft of even that little safeguard, 
 I was pig-headedly complacent almost all the time, 
 never for a moment doubting myself and my judg- 
 ment. 
 
 On the voyage back from France, I wallowed 
 in my own stupidity. Perhaps there was some 
 excuse ; the ship's company was — for almost the 
 first time in my experience — a pleasant one. I 
 was constantly with other people, went to bed 
 sleepy, and barring a few minutes of daily re- 
 flection In my bath-tub, had scarcely time for lonely 
 thinking during the whole journey. 
 
 It was hard for me to start work again at my 
 office. I had so many other things I wanted to 
 do. I had been thinking about them as I came 
 over on the boat — it was to these small plans 
 that my rare moments of solitude in the bath-tub 
 had been given. 
 
 In the first place I must have some clothes — 
 not a real trousseau; I could not afford that; I 
 
226 UNCLOTHED 
 
 would get underclothes only. Clementine had a 
 cousin who embroidered like an angel. She 
 should make me some things. I planned them all 
 very carefully. >. 
 
 Another of my ideas was less pleasant. I had 
 a big brown mole on the back of my shoulder, a 
 huge thing. It did not show in evening dress, and 
 though I had always hated it, I had never taken 
 it very seriously. But could I embark on a mar- 
 ried career with this great thing on my shoulder? 
 I scarcely thought so. I would go to a beauty 
 doctor and have it removed. 
 
 I had a dozen other similar plans and went 
 about them all with much earnestness. I reflected 
 that womanliness was a woman's sweetest and 
 noblest characteristic. How wrong and mistaken 
 I had been not to realise this all along — the 
 beauty of womanliness. 
 
 But now I knew. I had no doubt of it. What 
 after all could be more womanly than to occupy 
 oneself with the designing of chemises, and the 
 removal of unsightly moles? 
 
 I was very funny, of course. But one must not 
 laugh at oneself. The joke is too colossal. One 
 
UNCLOTHED 227 
 
 does not dare. I have often tried since to under- 
 stand myself as I was at that time. Both my 
 head and my heart seemed to fall asleep. Little 
 ideas and plans buzzed in my brain. The 
 wedding announcements would be done on linen 
 paper instead of the usual sort ; I would meet Gor- 
 don at the boat in a soft black dress and a hat 
 with roses; I would keep Clementine on as my 
 maid; next summer I would go back to St.-Valen- 
 tine-les-Roses and spend at least a month, or rather 
 we would go. It was so that my mind busied it- 
 self. I had no realisation of the fact that it was 
 a more serious thing I was doing than the mere 
 sending out of announcement cards. 
 
 Indeed I thought of Gordon only as a figure- 
 head. I wrote him kind letters and would wel- 
 come him pleasantly. Did I love him? I had 
 never said so, though he had often told me that 
 I did. At any rate his love for me was very 
 grateful to me; it was so secure, so well-defined 
 and conventional. It was that last quality in it 
 that delighted me. I was tired; the picture of a 
 love that would shield me from worry and tempta- 
 tion, that would never excite and never grieve me, 
 
228 UNCLOTHED 
 
 was as of a paradise. It was not the purely 
 material side of marriage that attracted me, not 
 Gordon's wealth as contrasted with my poverty. 
 It was the peace I should have as his wife. Al- 
 ready everything was simple and easy I said to my- 
 self jubilantly. It did not occur to me that what 
 I took for peace was merely a sort of stupefaction, 
 that when I woke again, I might find myself worse 
 off than ever. 
 
 As for Larry — so far as I could see — I took 
 no longer any interest in him. I have since 
 thought that the strange restlessness I felt, the 
 compulsion to be always in some way active and 
 never alone, was because of Larry. At the time 
 my brains were too opaque with self-satisfaction 
 for a thought so upsetting to shine through. I 
 had a mind only for lingerie, my personal appear- 
 ance, and the other material things in my new 
 condition. These were the facts of life, after all ; 
 and Larry, I said to myself, had not, even when 
 I was so infatuated with him, seemed a real per- 
 son. 
 
 I continued to feel like this, even after seeing 
 him, although at the moment the sight of him, and 
 
UNCLOTHED 229 
 
 the sound of his voice shook me more than I 
 dared realise. I met him, entirely by chance, at 
 a little restaurant where I often went for lunch, 
 and where we had had many meals together. 
 
 The interview was to me a most unpleasant 
 one. I felt horribly humiliated and angry. 
 Here was this man in whose arms I had sobbed 
 and agonised barely a month before, meeting me 
 as if I were a business acquaintance. Had I had 
 a pleasant trip ? How was Paris looking? Evi- 
 dently he despised me — could I blame him ? 
 
 If I had been even a shade less stupid, I would 
 have noticed that his was far from genuine indif- 
 ference. Indeed, I did see that he looked at me 
 oddly and that he fingered the buttons of his coat, 
 with a more than usual nervousness. But it was 
 not till afterward, days afterward, that I realised 
 he was greatly upset. I am, at times, one of those 
 folk who is capable of watching for half an hour 
 a street full of people with raised umbrellas, and 
 then suddenly waking to the fact that it is a rainy 
 day. 
 
 " Oh, Paris was more charming than ever," 
 said I. " I wasn't there long. No, I didn't buy 
 
230 UNCLOTHED 
 
 dresses. You see I wanted to spend my time with 
 my friends." My tone and expression were alike 
 simperish. 
 
 "Ahl" said Larry. 
 
 Somehow Gordon came into the conversation. 
 I expect I dragged him in by the ears. I wanted 
 Larry to know that I had found a husband. 
 Larry might think me the sort of woman one 
 kissed one day and talked weather to the next, but 
 I wished him to realise that there were people who 
 took me seriously. Lord, what a fool I was! 
 
 " Yes," said Larry, " I saw you with — some- 
 one on the boat." 
 
 I told him that this person was going to marry 
 me. This wild oats of mine should be made to 
 understand that I could sow orange-blossoms as 
 well. And yet, even then I believed I weakened 
 for a moment. Larry had always some strange 
 influence over me. 
 
 "And you — what sort of time have you 
 had? " 
 
 He looked at his finger-nails. Apparently, 
 he'd not even missed me. My place was filled 
 already. Well — it was not a hard one to fill. 
 
UNCLOTHED 23 1 
 
 all it needed was a woman who didn't mind — 
 oh, I was angry! 
 
 - " I hope I'll never see you again," I cried and 
 then, when he rose at once, and said " Good-bye," 
 I went on, with all the grace of a fishwife, to tell 
 him that I despised him. 
 
 " I am sorry that's how you feel," said he and 
 walked off. 
 
 I looked after him and thought he had a very 
 nice back. 
 
 " Your young friend seems a trifle put out about 
 something." I looked up and saw little Schrei- 
 ber, who is John Shorter's confidential secretary. 
 Shorter the publisher. 
 
 " May I sit down with you? " he went on. 
 
 Schreiber is a funny little fellow. I could not 
 have cured him of impertinence short of calling a 
 policeman. Besides he meant no harm, and I cer- 
 tainly needed company. " Quite a little put out," 
 he continued. 
 
 " Oh, no, he wasn't really angry," said I, " it's 
 merely that he is an eccentric fellow." 
 
 " He must be that. Did you notice his shoes 
 weren't mates? No? — Well, they weren't. 
 
232 UNCLOTHED 
 
 They were both black, right enough, but one had 
 a lot of those punched holes on the toe, and the 
 other was plain as my face. I don't seem ever to 
 have seen a chap with odd boots on before. He 
 must have something on his mind." 
 
 Curiously enough, I scarcely thought of Larry 
 for days after the meeting. 
 
 For one thing I was very much occupied. Gor- 
 don's mother was getting much better, he wrote 
 me ; as soon as he could leave her he would come 
 home. We were to be married before Christmas. 
 
 My mole was almost gone. The electric-man 
 considered it a very successful cure, but I some- 
 what missed the mole and decided it has been 
 rather piquant and that I ought to have kept it. 
 Clementine's cousin was getting on well with the 
 lingerie. She brought It to me piece by piece and 
 since I had not told Clementine of my engage- 
 ment, I suppose «he wondered why I was laying 
 in all these elaborate chemises and things. 
 
 Presently one of my distant relatives from the 
 South came to town to do shopping. She stopped 
 at the Hotel Barbara Fretchle, and it is proof of 
 the disinclination I felt to sitting about my flat 
 
UNCLOTHED 233 
 
 alone, that I was content to spend many evenings 
 with her even there. 
 
 She was a nice motherly woman of very con- 
 ventional type. Her unconscious influence was all 
 such as to make me wish to store my wild oats as 
 deep as possible in the forgotten past, and to tend 
 my orange blossoms with industry. 
 
 " You've not told me anything, you naughty 
 girl," said she, as I saw her off at the Hudson 
 Tube, " but I've guessed." 
 
 I missed the good soul, although she and I 
 seemed to have had little in common, except a 
 strong approval of the married state. She had 
 been married twenty years, all her children were 
 dead but one who was married and lived in 
 Omaha. Her husband, I gatlhered, was not al- 
 together an ornament to his home. But her faith 
 in matrimony never waned. She regarded the se- 
 curing of a husband as the crowning achievement 
 of a woman's career — nothing else mattered. 
 To one in my position, such views were very grati- 
 fying. No wonder that as I sat by myself in 
 lihe green chair that evening I wished her back, 
 with all her pleasant optimism. 
 
234 UNCLOTHED 
 
 All alone there, I thought too much. 
 
 " Clementine," said I, " put on your bonnet. 
 We're going to the opera." 
 
 " One moment, Mademoiselle," she answered. 
 She'd have said the same, if I had proposed she 
 go ballooning. There's no friend, after all, so 
 satisfactory as a faithful servant. 
 
 The opera was " La Boheme," a performance 
 of a second rate company. The comic opening 
 scene was over when we arrived and the love mak- 
 ing in full swing. 
 
 When Mimi and Rudolpho made their bow and 
 Clementine could see their faces, she nudged me, 
 as a French bonne will. "Tiens! " she exclaimed, 
 " but he is like the Docteur Crewdon; is he not? " 
 
 I had noticed the resemblance before I found my 
 seat, had noticed it for all the darkened stage, but 
 I answered, "Why, so he is! " 
 
 The music affected me very much. I felt 
 ashamed and a little frightened at being so greatly 
 moved. My gloves were sticky, and the hands in- 
 side of them trembled. At the end of the third 
 act, I asked myself whether I ought not to go 
 away. It was only 'hysterical emotion, of course. 
 
UNCLOTHED 235 
 
 but I distrusted it at the moment. However I 
 remained, saw Mimi come back to the garret — 
 poor Mimi, her tragedy was so inevitable, and so 
 pitiful. 
 
 No, I ought not to have stayed; I knew that, 
 when Musetta brought the dying girl the muff. 
 With tears in my eyes, I began to wonder who 
 would bring me muffs, when I came to die. Would 
 it be Gordon? No, he would be altogether out 
 of the picture. Clementine, perhaps? Or, if 
 one could, just as one was leaving it, make life as 
 one wished it — 
 
 Mimi was dead. 
 
 " Clementine ! Oh, Clementine I " I cried. 
 
 " Yes, Mademoiselle." I believe she has been 
 dozing. " What am I going to do, Clementine? " 
 I asked her in a whisper. 
 
 " I think you are going to take a cab home. 
 Mademoiselle. You are not well." Perhaps she 
 had not been dozing after all, my good Clemen- 
 tine. 
 
 But I insisted on walking, tore through the dim 
 streets with Clementine, panting at my side, and 
 not a sober thought in my brain. 
 
236 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Life is SO long," I said to myself, " and noth- 
 ing in it but to-day and to-morrow and next day, 
 over and over and over. One would know Tues- 
 day from Wednesday by the headline of the news- 
 paper and summer from winter by the weather, 
 and after days and days, when one came to die — 
 who would bring the muff? Perhaps one would 
 have no muff at all, even at the end. Perhaps — " 
 
 " Now, Mademoiselle, I will make you a cup of 
 hot chocolate. I am afraid you have caught a 
 chill," said Clementine. 
 
 But I did not drink it. I did not sleep, though 
 I undressed and sat on the bed's edge for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 I preferred to walk, wrapped In a wadded dress- 
 ing gown. Up and down my sitting-room I went, 
 thinking of the days and days to come. 
 
 " Am I mad," I asked myself, pausing before 
 the looking-glass to see my face faintly reflected 
 in the dawn. " Am I mad, or am I for the first 
 time In all my life, really sane? " 
 
 My reflection could not tell me; and I walked 
 on again, back and forth, still thinking. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDON] 
 
 It was five o'clock in the morning when she sent 
 for me. 
 
 It came like a flag of truce to the revengeful, 
 bitter mood which, when I saw her, had succeeded 
 my former dejection. 
 
 Curiously, I had been fortified by the sight of 
 her and the realisation that it was now all over, 
 that nothing I could do or feel would make any 
 difference. 
 
 I began to write again more strenuously than 
 ever before. Within the week I had plotted out 
 three short stories. One particularly pleased me. 
 In it, I incorporated something to the effect that 
 women were angels, when treated with Idndness. 
 I don't know why such an idea came to me ; how- 
 ever, the subject haunted me continually and at 
 last I concentrated all my labour upon this one 
 effort. 
 
 237 
 
238 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I wrote on feverishly, filled with remorse over 
 my dabbling waste of time and again not daring 
 to stop, for fear I should think of myself. 
 
 The following week I took my story to the edi- 
 tor of an insignificant magazine, a man with whom 
 I already had some acquaintance. He was 
 an interesting individual from the picturesque side, 
 being nearly illiterate in a literary way, yet making 
 money out of his little magazine which had across 
 its title page, the following inscription : " Snappy 
 Tales from Real Life." His magazine ranked as 
 a haven for all the rejected manuscript of the 
 more dignified journals. 
 
 I went to him feeling that I stood a better 
 chance with him than with anyone else. He had 
 a certain sentimental appreciation that I found in 
 no other editor of my acquaintance. 
 
 " How long is the story? " he asked me, 
 after a cursory examination of the first few 
 pages. 
 
 " About three thousand words," I answered. 
 
 He was still running through the first pages — 
 " Something about the goodness of love? " he re- 
 marked. 
 
UNCLOTHED 239 
 
 " Yes, I take a bad woman and make her good 
 by being kind to her — " 
 
 " Which is the wrong way, to start with," he 
 interrupted. 
 
 " The wrong way! How? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, I'll try to explain it to you." 
 
 Then he went on to show that I had only the 
 novitiate's conception of life. " This isn't true to 
 real life," he said. " You've got to treat women 
 mean, if you want to keep their love. You have 
 got to beat them once in a while. Of course, not 
 hurt them, you understand, but just to let them 
 know who's the man." 
 
 *' You mean to abuse the woman you care for? " 
 I exclaimed. 
 
 " Of course. If you treat a woman kind and 
 make a fuss over her, she will get tired of it after 
 a while and find somebody who'll put in a little 
 contrast and colour. You see, women are restless 
 creatures. They take men into their lives because 
 they want protection and strength near them — 
 and the man must show his masculinity once in a 
 w^hile or the woman won't feel like the weak, de- 
 pendent creature, she takes delight in being. So 
 
240 UNCLOTHED 
 
 you see, your story isn't true to life," he 
 smiled. 
 
 "Are you married?" I asked apologetically. 
 
 " Sure," he answered. " I wouldn't know all 
 this if I wasn't." 
 
 " And you follow this rule of yours? " 
 
 " To the dot," he replied instantly. " And my 
 wife likes it. She tells her friends that she just 
 leaves me alone after my fits of temper. But all 
 the same, I notice she is sweeter to me then, than 
 at any other time. It's because she admires me 
 more. Why, she never thinks of putting her arms 
 around me, until we have had a fuss." 
 
 I took my departure after a few minutes, leav- 
 ing my story to be looked over by his reader. I 
 had no hopes, however, as I felt sure that he had 
 taken the few minutes with me as a means of 
 sympathetic refusal. 
 
 I returned the next day and had no trouble In 
 gaining admittance to his office. 
 
 " I've come for the story," I said, by way of in- 
 troduction. 
 
 " You have? Supposing I should buy it. Are 
 you willing? " he asked. 
 
UNCLOTHED 24 1 
 
 " You buy it ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Why, yes. I take it that that was the reason 
 you left it." 
 
 " Oh, of course — it was," I stammered. 
 "Only—" 
 
 " Yes. I know. But you mustn't be so sur- 
 prised," he replied, " or you will lead editors to be- 
 lieving that you aren't used to selling many 
 stories." 
 
 Then he turned to his desk. " I really believe 
 we can use this story," he said. " It's a little un- 
 usual, and that's what we want. It shows too, 
 some pretty good thinking and a good idea of 
 situation. If you have any more you might bring 
 them in and let us see them." 
 
 " You — are too kind," I answered. " I can 
 bring in some more — many more." 
 
 Then he took a check book from the desk 
 drawer and with it a printed slip. 
 
 " You will sign this," he directed. " It gives 
 us the dramatic and book rights of the story. It's 
 only a matter of form." 
 
 As I took the pen from his hand, the thought 
 struck me — what was I to receive? With that 
 
242 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Strange shyness of a young author I hesitated, al- 
 most feared to ask it. 
 
 However, with carelessness, I said, " By the 
 way, what am I to get for the story? " 
 
 I knew he would be fair with me, and that I 
 had, in the condition of my finances, no right to 
 be independent. 
 
 Yet it was a shock to me to hear him reply, 
 " Oh, we have only one price for this sort of stuff. 
 One-haff cent a word." 
 
 " One-half cent a word? " I repeated after him. 
 It really took me off my feet. 
 
 " That's It," he answered nonchalantly. 
 " One-half a cent." 
 
 " Good heavens," I blurted out. " Why, 
 there are only about three thousand words 'in the 
 whole story." 
 
 " I know It," he answered. " That makes fif- 
 teen dollars, in round numbers. You don't have 
 to take it If you don't want to." 
 
 " But I've worked like a dog on this thing for 
 over a week. You mean to tell me that this is 
 what other writers work for. Why, a bricklayer 
 makes twice as much." 
 
UNCLOTHED 243 
 
 " Well," he answered, smiling. " There are 
 people writing that make less." 
 
 I began to perceive the real order of things. 
 
 " Then it's not what the writer means to the 
 reading public nor what he may teach them, but 
 it's what the writer's name will mean to the pub- 
 lisher — isn't it?" 
 
 " That's about it," he replied. " When an ex- 
 president goes on a hunting trip, the words he 
 sends back are not worth $2.00 each or whatever 
 the price was. No story is worth $2.00 a word to 
 the reader, but it may be worth $5.00 a word to 
 the publisher, if it advertises the magazine. You 
 can see now, what literature means, in a commer- 
 cial way. 
 
 " The world has gone on somew'hat since the 
 days when Hans Sacks gave his voice to the com- 
 munity for the pure joy of it. That's the reason 
 that shoemakers are millionaires to-day." 
 
 " It discourages me," I answered. 
 
 " Won't make any difference to you, though," 
 he replied. " You will be like the rest. None 
 of you ever believes this until you've gone through 
 it yourself. That's the reason I never have en- 
 
244 UNCLOTHED 
 
 couraged anybody to follow writing as a profes- 
 sion. We are the only ones that make money 
 out of it." 
 
 He thought seriously for a moment. "We 
 make it out of you, too," he added. " But you 
 never make it out of us." 
 
 "Then you don't give the young writer with 
 talent a fair price? " 
 
 " Ah, it comes back to the question of compe- 
 tition. We don't have to. There are a hundred 
 waiting to take the first vacant place." 
 
 At that moment the mail came in and a full 
 bushel basket of manuscripts was piled on the ta- 
 ble. 
 
 " See," my friend laughed. " Every envelope 
 of this stuff has some wild-eyed, ambitious artist 
 at the other end, waiting for the check." 
 
 " How often do you get a bunch like that? " I 
 begged. 
 
 " Nearly every day," he answered. 
 
 " But how can you read them all? Surely you 
 don't send them hack without looking at them, do 
 you?" 
 
 " I see you want to get on the inside," he re- 
 
UNCLOTHED 245 
 
 plied jocularly. " Well, I'll tell you. Usually 
 we can read the first paragraph and find out all we 
 want to know. Sometimes the title kills any 
 chance the story may have, or again the way it is 
 sent to us. A story that doesn't s'how the ordi- 
 nary knowledge of presentation, such as having 
 it typewritten, etc., has little chance. Too, if a 
 story comes to us worn out by rejection, we never 
 look at it. So a lot can be discarded in this 
 way." 
 
 I became more zealous In my questioning. 
 " Then how many will you buy from this lot? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " About seven or eight a month," he answered. 
 " We have our certain people and we have to buy 
 from them or they'll go elsewhere. It's the old 
 story, you see, and we can't get away from it." 
 
 Then he looked at me quizzically. " Now do 
 you want to sell your story? " he asked. 
 
 "Do I?" I repeated after him. "Why, I 
 feel now, that I ought to pay you for taking it — 
 after what you've told me." 
 
 " Well, it's the truth," he replied. " I took 
 this time with you because I like you — and I 
 
246 UNCLOTHED 
 
 think that you're going to make good at this 
 game." 
 
 I took his check and walked out of the office. 
 It was perhaps a half hour later before I looked 
 at the slip of paper he had given me. Fifteen 
 dollars I 
 
 For one moment I thought of spending the 
 money on one dinner for instance, but I soon ban- 
 ished the idea from me. I remembered the week 
 of board I owed, and the room rent. 
 
 That night I was so afraid that someone might 
 go through my pockets that I stopped in Monsieur 
 Gayac's door and asked him to take care of it for 
 me. 
 
 " I'm an awful fool with money. Monsieur," I 
 said, " and I don't know but what you are. Per- 
 haps you had better give it to your wife." 
 
 He laughed good-naturedly. " That's your 
 idea of married life ? You are foolish. If I did 
 that both of us would never get it back." 
 
 I went to my bed fairly peaceful. "What a 
 joke life is," I thought over to myself, and then 
 wondered whether satisfied ambition ever solved 
 the problem of happiness. 
 
UNCLOTHED 247 
 
 In the night I heard a pounding at the door, 
 arid a voice calling, " Dr. Laurence Crewdon ! 
 Dr. Laurence Crewdon I " 
 
 It was a messenger boy with a note. In the 
 straggling light that filtered in through the blinds, 
 I read : " Can you come to me at once ? Cleo- 
 dore." 
 
 Half frantically I began to put on my clothes. 
 It was not yet five o'clock. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 I SAT on the street doorstep. Now that I had 
 made up my mind about things I felt rather 
 sleepy and comfortable and leaned my head 
 againsit the door-jamb with my eyes more than 
 half shut. There was nobody to see, so early. 
 
 It is always like that with me after I have de- 
 cided about anything. I am nearly crazed till 
 I make my mind up, and then suddenly, It's as 
 peaceful as Sunday breakfast in bed. I some- 
 times think that my wisest course would be to flip 
 a coin the moment a question comes into my head, 
 and so spare myself all the agonising. 
 
 With a little jerk, I realised Larry was there, 
 looking down at me with an odd, half-pitying, 
 half-questioning expression. 
 
 " I knew you would come," said I, " so I came 
 
 down to wait for you. I've been awake all 
 
 night." I got slowly to my feet. " Do I look 
 
 it?" 
 
 248 
 
UNCLOTHED 249 
 
 " You look lovely," said he, and kissed me. 
 
 Nobody saw but an old cat with a fringed ear, 
 a love token too in its way. I suppose. 
 
 " Upstairs is full of worries. Let us stay 
 here," I said. 
 
 Then we walked along vaguely. It did not 
 seem to make much difference where we went nor 
 did there seem to be much to say, nor any great 
 necessity for saying anything. It was as if we 
 had always been together, and always would be 
 — very simple, very pleasant, rather childish. 
 
 I remembered something a Frenchman put in a 
 book once. I do not recollect who he was, but, 
 at any rate, know he was one of those who loved 
 George Sand. What he said was that the hap- 
 piest thing in the world was for two people who 
 loved one another to walk together in the open 
 air, that they seemed to merge into one another 
 and became one creature with four arms and four 
 legs, two hearts and two heads. It does not 
 sound very well, put into English, but Larry liked 
 it when I told it to him. 
 
 I suppose, by the way, it was very forward of 
 me to say it, since Larry and I, till then, had never 
 
250 UNCLOTHED 
 
 talked straightforwardly of loving one another, 
 but I do not think that either one of us noticed. 
 
 " I had to see you," said I after a while. 
 
 " I understand," said he. " I needed you, too, 
 but there was nothing I could do. The thing you 
 had done made it impossible — " 
 
 "Don't," I cried. "Don't let's talk about 
 that, now. Let us be happy, just for once? It 
 doesn't seem sudh a great deal to ask." 
 
 " We won't ask it," said he fiercely, " we will 
 take it." 
 
 "Meaning — ?" I questioned. 
 
 "Oh, Cleodore, don't let's talk. We can't 
 talk, we must not even think. You know that." 
 And he kissed me again, and I think a milkman 
 saw that time. 
 
 We had walked some distance further before 
 either of us spoke again. It was Larry who 
 stopped and looked at me earnestly. 
 
 " How right that French chap was ! " he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 I was pleased and puzzled. " Yes? " I said. 
 
 " Yes — I feel it all just as he said. Two 
 arms, two heads, two hearts, two stomachs — and 
 
UNCLOTHED 25 1 
 
 they're both empty. It's a lot worse than one. 
 Could you bring yourself to thoughts of breakfast, 
 Cleodore?" 
 
 " I suppose that is what is wrong with me too," 
 I answered. " I thought it was the pangs of 
 love. Where shall we eat? " 
 
 " Providence watches over us, my child," said 
 Larry, and there not four feet away I saw the en- 
 trance of one of the cheap eating houses that I 
 had used to shrink from each day as I passed it 
 on the way to my office. 
 
 It was only just opened for the day, and had 
 had no chance yet to get very dirty and smelly, or 
 at any rate, that was what I thought when I found 
 myself sitting down at a table quite cheerfully in 
 this place, whose very existence had used to seem 
 an insult. Perhaps the difference lay only in that 
 I was very happy. Things seem to be so much 
 an affair of how you look at them. I sometimes 
 wonder if anything really exists at all; or If all 
 the world is merely a thing each of us makes up 
 for himself, like the stories we tell ourselves about 
 ourselves just as we are falling asleep. 
 
 I heard Larry order coffee and fried ham. 
 
252 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Do you serve one order for two? " he asked. 
 
 " Huh? " returned the waitress. 
 
 " Evidently she does not," Larry interpreted. 
 
 " Don't you think tea would have been less of 
 a risk than coffee ? " I questioned when the young 
 woman had gone. 
 
 " Bless me, Cleodore, the spice of danger is 
 just what we both of us need. Besides, if we 
 don't care for the coffee, we can exchange it." 
 And he pointed to a sign in the window where 
 we could read backwards the words " Unsatis- 
 factory Dishes Exchanged." 
 
 "What do they do with the dishes they take 
 back? " I asked. 
 
 " Offer them as fresh to the next comer, I ex- 
 pect." 
 
 " That's all right if it's hash or coffee or some- 
 thing that hasn't any shape. But suppose it's 
 boiled eggs or an apple? They couldn't very 
 well offer anybody an apple with a bite out of it. 
 Maybe they sell the exchanged dishes at bargain 
 prices. We should have asked the woman. We 
 might have got something practically as good as 
 new, for near nothing." 
 
UNCLOTHED 253 
 
 The waitress returned with our meal; and al- 
 most immediately Larry called her back and said 
 would she kindly exdhange our orders. 
 
 "Huh?" said she again, and Larry repeated 
 his request. 
 
 " What's wrong with 'em? " she inquired. 
 
 " Oh, I say now," Larry complained, " that 
 isn't in the contract. Your sign says ' Unsatis- 
 factory Dishes Exchanged.' It doesn't say any- 
 thing about having to tell why they are unsatis- 
 factory. I insist on fair treatment; or I'll put 
 the matter in my lawyer's hands." 
 
 The waitress looked greatly disturbed. There 
 was nobody else in the shop at the moment. I 
 think she was a trifle frightened. 
 
 " It's all right," said I to her, " my friend was 
 merely trying to tease you." 
 
 " Trying to make a monkey of himself ! " and 
 she made off on her heels. 
 
 " If you hadn't Interfered I might have got 
 flap-jacks and sausages out of her without laying 
 out a single extra cent," said Larry discontentedly. 
 
 I made big eyes over my heavy cup. " I can't 
 bear to see anyone else bothered when I am so 
 
254 UNCLOTHED 
 
 happy," and Larry took the great thing out of 
 my hands and held them for a few seconds. 
 
 Out in the street, we wandered toward Broad- 
 way. 
 
 " What sort of woman is your ex-landlady, 
 Larry? " I asked apropos de rien. One is apt to 
 be disconnected conversationally when one is con- 
 tented. 
 
 " Oh, all right. Just a landlady, rather better 
 than most, perhaps. Why? " 
 
 " Is there anything she is specially fond of?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " What on earth are you talking about, Cleo- 
 dore?" 
 
 " Your landlady," said L 
 
 " My child, how you do sparkle! " 
 
 "Well, it's this way. I want to give the 
 woman a present. You see when I decided I had 
 to see you, the only way I could find out where 
 you were — you remember you told me you'd 
 moved — was to telephone and ask her. And it 
 was pretty early to call anybody up — four in 
 the morning." 
 
 " What did you say to her? " 
 
UNCLOTHED 255 
 
 " Oh, I pretended I thought you lived there 
 still, put a breathless quaver Into ray voice and 
 said, ' Is the Doctor there ? Doctor Crewdon. 
 I want to speak to him at once.' Of course she 
 said you had left and she was pretty cross about 
 being waked up, but I told her it was an affair of 
 life and death, somebody terribly ill, so she for- 
 gave me and told me where you were. And now 
 I want to send her a present. You see I must 
 give somebody a present, because I am happy, and 
 she really deserves one. What would she like? " 
 
 " Well, judging by the table she used to set, 
 she could make soniething to eat very useful — 
 say a few pounds of coffee, or some fresh vege- 
 tables. But I suppose she would be more pleased 
 with something ornamental — candy or flowers 
 or something? " 
 
 " Sweets it is," said I, and we stopped at a 
 shop just off Broadway where I chose and sent to 
 her some very unwholesome looking chocolates 
 with a card reading " From the lady who woke 
 you up." 
 
 " I'm tired," said I. " Let us go home." 
 
 " Where are the worries? " Larry asked, as he 
 
256 UNCLOTHED 
 
 glanced about my little flat after Clementine had 
 opened the door for us. 
 
 I looked for them. The place had indeed 
 changed since I left it a few hours before. I 
 never had seen it look so charming. It had al- 
 most an air of distinction. The little breakfast 
 table with its white cloth, the dish of tan chrysan- 
 themums on the window sill, the Botticelli on the 
 wall with its frightened faced little springtime la- 
 dies — I looked at them all with a kindly eye. 
 
 Fat Clementine regarded me in some aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 " Mademoiselle rose early? Mademoiselle 
 • will breakfast?" 
 
 " Shall we breakfast a second time, Larry? " 
 I asked. " It would be only consistent with those 
 two stomachs. Clementine makes excellent cof- 
 fee. You won't ask to exchange it for flapjacks." 
 
 Clementine went off kitchenwards. She liked 
 a compliment; and liked it best when there was 
 a third by to hear it. 
 
 " Cleodore ! " said Larry. His voice was low 
 and odd sounding. I said something too, I don't 
 know what, and moved toward him. If going 
 
UNCLOTHED 257 
 
 into his arms had meant the killing of us both, I 
 do not suppose I could have kept away. I had 
 only the one idea, to be near him. It was at once 
 very simple and very strange. 
 
 In a sort of childish fashion I took stock of him, 
 looked at his hair and patted it, noticed his eyes 
 and his teeth as he smiled at me. But it is 
 hard to look long at a face that is very near. 
 One grows frightened. 
 
 " Have you missed me? " he asked. 
 
 One does not answer questions like that. One 
 only says some foolish thing, or cries, or laughs, 
 and afterwards one cannot remember which it 
 was. But I know that I told him he had not 
 changed, put my hands to either side of his face 
 and looked hard. I thought it very wonderful 
 that it should be so. 
 
 " Everything is in exactly the same place, and 
 just the same colour and everything," I said quite 
 soberly. I must, I suppose, have been a little 
 crazy. 
 
 But he was crazy too, took hold of my shoul- 
 ders and looked at me for an immense while and 
 then said, " My God — it's true." 
 
258 UNCLOTHED 
 
 We heard Clementine with her rattling tray 
 and I ran into my little bedroom to take ofi my hat 
 — and to hide my face from her. 
 
 But bless you, Clementine knew. Her big face 
 wore a tender look and she nearly let slip the 
 coffee tray as she turned her eyes from Larry to 
 me. 
 
 Larry made an excellent second breakfast. 
 I suppose men are like that. For myself I can 
 never eat even in the midst of quite little emo- 
 tions; and now did not even pretend to try. I 
 watched Larry's hands with the knife and fork 
 in them. 
 
 "You're tired, child, aren't you?" he asked. 
 
 " I didn't sleep last night. I've a wee head- 
 ache, but it's nothing." 
 
 " Go take a nap." 
 
 I shook my head, but Larry assumed the man- 
 ner of a physician, and like other women I am al- 
 ways hypnotised by the professional air. 
 
 " What will you do? " I asked. " You won't 
 go away? You must not go away." I clung to 
 his arm. 
 
 " Of course not, child, I've got a thing I am 
 
UNCLOTHED 259 
 
 writing in my pocket. I'll put in my time revis- 
 ing it." 
 
 " And you will wake me soon? After an hour 
 1 — promise me that." 
 
 " You need more sleep than that, but I promise 
 to wake you in two hours." 
 
 I was near dropping with fatigue and had 
 scarcely the energy to shift into a dressing gown, 
 but I swore as I lay down that I would wake up 
 of my own accord in an hour at most. 
 
 " And I've done it too," said I to myself, as I 
 opened my eyes again — it could not have been 
 twenty minutes later. 
 
 Larry sat at my bedside. 
 
 " How do you expect me to sleep when you sit 
 and watch me? " I asked petulantly. 
 
 " You've been doing it this couple of hours," 
 said he. " I came to wake you as I promised, 
 but you were sleeping so soundly I couldn't bear 
 to. So I sat beside you. I knew the reason you 
 wanted to be waked was so that I should not be 
 lonely, and I've had your society, my dear, with- 
 out the exertion of having to make conversation 
 with you." 
 
26o UNCLOTHED 
 
 " But I've not had yours," I complained. 
 
 " Child, you should learn unselfishness ; and 
 you should get over your dreadful habit of 
 snoring." 
 
 "Larry!" 
 
 " I was only trying to tease you, dear."' 
 
 " ' Trying to make a monkey of yourself 1 ' " 
 I quoted. 
 
 " Your headache is better," said he. 
 
 I took his hand down from my forehead so that 
 I could look at it. There is something wonder- 
 fully appealing in the hand of someone we love. 
 It seems like a little man in itself, a faithful dumb 
 miniature of its owner. I have been thinking how 
 to say what I mean, but I cannot. I must leave 
 to those who have loved to understand without 
 my saying it. The others would never under- 
 stand anyhow. 
 
 I took Larry's in mine and held it just before 
 my nose where I could have a good look at it. I 
 turned it about and moved the fingers back and 
 forth, and counted them carefully — I, Cleodore, 
 in my twenty-fourth year and an emancipated 
 woman I There was, I discovered, a scratch along 
 
UNCLOTHED 26 1 
 
 the outside edge, and a good growth of fur on 
 the back. 
 
 " The only specimen in captivity, procured at 
 great danger and expense, and now for the first 
 time put on exhibition! " Larry interrupted. 
 
 Clementine did her best for us at dinner time; 
 and considering that she had not expected us and 
 I had given her no orders, sihe did very well. I 
 recognised in her concoctions reminiscences of 
 other 'days — yesterday's fish, Thursday's roast 
 lamb and so on, but Larry met them all for the 
 first time and with delight. By some good for- 
 tune there was a bottle of excellent Beaune in 
 the cupboard. Clementine waited on us with an 
 air that said, " Bless you, my children." 
 
 When we were finished, Larry set down his 
 coffee cup, and took mine and then blew out the 
 candles so that we sat in the twilight. 
 
 " Cleodore," he said, " this makes up for all 
 the pain I've suffered since you left me — that 
 morning on the boat." 
 
 " Oh, Larry! please not," I begged. 
 
 " Very well, child. After all, we don't have 
 to talk now; do we? " he said gently, and he took 
 
262 UNCLOTHED 
 
 my face in his hands and kissed my eyes, my fore- 
 head, my mouth. And then he strangely stopped 
 short, half frenzied, I thought. 
 
 " I've got to have you! " he said. " I've got 
 to. I love you more than any living thing on 
 earth. I've got to have you. And if you love 
 me, you'll understand and want me just as much. 
 Child, let's be honest with one another; let's be 
 happy." 
 
 " I will do whatever you wish, Larry. I can't 
 fight you any more. I've tried so hard." 
 
 Presently we heard Clementine moving about, 
 and as she went into her little bedroom she said 
 " Good-night " to us both. 
 
 iWhen her door had shut, Larry grasped me to 
 him again, but I pushed him away. 
 
 " Larry, after all, we mustn't," I said. " I 
 couldn't face her — in the morning. She'd be so 
 grieved and worried. I couldn't." 
 
 " You dear," he half laughed. " How human 
 you are." 
 
 I suppose he could see that for him I would 
 have dared the eyes of a dozen servant-maids. 
 
 " Couldn't we go away somewhere together," 
 
UNCLOTHED 263 
 
 I thought on. " To some little wee place, where 
 there are woods and cows? Do you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 " Dear child, of course. We'll go Saturday. 
 Oh, Cleodore I " he cried, " and last night at this 
 time we thought we should never see one another 
 again." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDON] 
 
 The three days in the country passed trance like. 
 
 In the corner of a big field we found what Cleo- 
 dore called " a spreading chestnut tree " — it was 
 really an elm. On the grass under its covering 
 branches we sat for hours, our thoughts rampant 
 and our hearts beating in unison. 
 
 We sat and stared, murmuring that there was 
 so much to tell each other, and so little time. At 
 the end of each day, we found our confidences only 
 beginning, and at the end of our holiday there 
 seemed more to tell than ever. 
 
 Cleodore remarked it too, I remember. " I 
 feel so happy, like a foolish kiddie," she said as 
 she bade me good-night the first evening. 
 
 Our country jaunt seemed to have been taken 
 
 with an avowed purpose in mind, but we realised 
 
 before the first day was half over, that to give in 
 
 to our passion would be tremendously wrong. 
 
 264 
 
UNCLOTHED 265 
 
 The fight was hard, all over again. When I 
 caught sight of her supple, rounded limbs, close 
 to me, and the soft skirts wrapped so carelessly 
 about them, the old battle waged anew. 
 
 " Cleodore," I cried, " I wonder if you know 
 how perfect you are? " and then I found my 
 hands roaming about her beautifully moulded an- 
 kles. 
 
 She held my hands back. *' Don't, Larry, 
 please don't," she protested. 
 
 But the thought in my hands was stronger than 
 in my head. At that minute, I knew that no will 
 of mine could keep my hands away. They seemed 
 to cry for the touch of her. 
 
 In a moment I had felt the warmth of her soft 
 flesh and my wits became drowned in a torrent of 
 jealous craving and blind desire. 
 
 She fought me back now. "Larry, for God's 
 sake," she begged. "We can't, we can't. 
 Think of me." 
 
 I looked at her face and it was distorted with 
 fear. For an instant, there shot through me the 
 same feeling that a criminal must have; and my 
 hands stopped their wanderings — I saw the wav- 
 
266 UNCLOTHED 
 
 ing grass in the fields and the cow on the crest of 
 the hill again. 
 
 " Yes, we mustn't, child, we mustn't," I cried. 
 " This can only end in one way, if we keep it up." 
 Ridiculously I was pleading that we stop, and yet 
 doing all the urging. 
 
 I moved away from her, but only for an instant. 
 She clutched at my hands and drew them up in 
 front of her eyes. For a moment, I felt the 
 trembling, quivering lids under my fingers and 
 then — she seemed to give away completely. 
 
 " Oh, I don't care how it ends ! " she said 
 shakily. " I long to make you happy, no matter 
 what the end is." 
 
 How strange it all was. Away from her, I 
 had been able to think calmly. But now if I 
 should have stopped to consider, I would have 
 been held aghast at the audacity of Cleodore's 
 lover. I cannot conceive what it was that threw 
 us so radiantly into this mood. It may have been 
 the surroundings — solitary country, clear atmos- 
 phere, perfumed by the ozone of the green hills; 
 it may have been that the inaudible tone of na- 
 ture about us was in tune with the harmony that 
 
UNCLOTHED 267 
 
 beat within us. At least, I know that every pas- 
 sionate thought that came into my mind that after- 
 noon had a hundred times the virility of other 
 days. 
 
 Her kisses made my senses reel, her touch made 
 me throb with near uncontrollable desire, and I 
 was continually longing to take her in my arms 
 again and cover her with my embrace. 
 
 But my will came slowly back to me, even as I 
 kissed her lips, her hands. 
 
 For a time she looked up at me appealingly, 
 and then I saw the timid begging on her face 
 melt into a pathetic, tender smile. " Oh, Lau- 
 rence," she said softly, " I don't know — what I 
 think, I can't stop to think. I only know that 
 I care for you so much. And I want you, 
 
 too." 
 
 Then she bent over to me, dragging my face 
 close to hers. " I don't care what the arguments 
 are," she faltered. 
 
 Her utter yielding brought me to my senses, 
 though to this day I do not know how I fought 
 off my nearly conquering emotions. 
 
 But our three days were not entirely delirious. 
 
268 UNCLOTHED 
 
 though each one as it closed left us frightened and 
 not even daring to think of the next. 
 
 On the train back to New York, I felt over- 
 joyed at the realisation that we were returning 
 as we had come, and that the enemy was still at 
 bay. For an instant the thought would confront 
 me: suppose we had given in — what then? I 
 even found myself praying in thankfulness. 
 
 We threw off easily, though, the contemplation 
 of what might have been, and our ride back to the 
 city was splendid in its intimacy. For the first 
 time since our earlier acquaintance, we talked of 
 my brief medical career. Cleodore rather made 
 fun of me and asked if I remembered the even- 
 ing she fainted, and how I saved her life. 
 
 " I suppose you think my medical career a myth 
 don't you? " said I, smiling. 
 
 " It does seem so unreal," she answered. 
 " You — a doctor." Then she gave a sigh. " I 
 could imagine you almost anything else." 
 
 " That's because you're not used to the new 
 species," I remarked. "When you think, of a 
 doctor you associate him with a comic paper beard 
 and wrinkled brow and imagine you hear him say. 
 
UNCLOTHED 269 
 
 ' ,Yes, I think I can save your child.' Why, now- 
 adays, doctors never look at your tongue and try 
 to impress you with their knowledge." 
 
 Across from us sat a very fat woman, with two 
 children, apparently twins, sharing her lap. I 
 found Cleodore studying them seriously. 
 
 " What's wrong? " I asked. " I don't believe 
 you are paying a bit of attention to my intelligent 
 remarks." 
 
 " Oh, I am," she replied playfully; " I reverence 
 your knowledge and all that. But I can't help 
 wondering what sort of a doctor you'd make if 
 those two poor children were brought to you with 
 the measles." Then she laughed. " I really 
 can't help wondering what sort of a doctor you'd 
 make." 
 
 " A very poor one from my own standpoint," 
 I answered. " When I was practising I suffered 
 more than my patients. When they were really 
 ill, I went from the premonitory symptoms to 
 convalescence with them." 
 
 " Ah, but that was only sympathy," said Cleo- 
 dore quietly. 
 
 For a moment I thought back over the year or 
 
270 UNCLOTHED 
 
 SO I had devoted to practising. I thought over 
 the peculiar confidences, the unthanked sacrifices 
 that one makes in the profession. Before I knew 
 I had launched into a tirade of protest against 
 the world. Cleodore listened submissively. 
 
 " You can't know," I went on, " what it means 
 to be a physician. If ever a doctor is a good doc- 
 tor, then he is bound to be sympathetic and will 
 take his patients' troubles to heart, no matter 
 how long he has been practising, or how calloused 
 he has become. I know a doctor, an eye special- 
 ist, who, on the day he is called upon to extract 
 an eye that cannot be saved, will mope about fret- 
 ting and irritated, unable to eat or sleep. Yet he 
 is an expert and has removed hundreds. 
 
 " There is no profession or business in the 
 world where one human being does so much for 
 another, and gets so little for it. He exposes 
 himself to infection, running a chance that not 
 even the immediate family will take. Yet people 
 think the doctor gets paid well. Why, there is 
 no money payment for this sort of thing, 
 
 " A prize fighter, running the same chances, 
 would make a fortune in a few minutes out of it. 
 
UNCLOTHED 27 1 
 
 And he need not spend years in training his 
 brain for the work. Oh, I'm glad I gave it up. 
 I—" 
 
 " Come, now," Cleodore interrupted. " Don't 
 work yourself up so. Why, Larry," she leaned 
 over to me and w'hispered, — " You haven't given 
 me a thought, you've forgotten all about me, with 
 your horrid medicine." 
 
 Then, as if to end the conversation, she turned 
 her head away from me and leaned back in the 
 seat, her dark, dreamy eyes half closed. " To 
 hear you talk," she went on, " one would think 
 you had been in a constant state of sympathetic 
 abandonment. I hope you didn't have many pa- 
 tients that were very sick. You might have worn 
 yourself out before I had a chance to have you. 
 But I understand you. The thing that made you 
 a good doctor, wasn't your learning or your knowl- 
 edge of the science. It was your character and 
 that was just the thing that made it so hard for 
 you." 
 
 " You are very kind," I replied. " I only had 
 a few sick patients, fortunately; but a good many 
 who thought they were sick. I suppose I did 
 
272 UNCLOTHED 
 
 wear myself out discriminating. You see it's bad 
 either way. . . ." 
 
 The long summer's day had dwindled into 
 dark when I left Cleodore at her doorstep. 
 
 Our three days in the country had been glori- 
 ous, one of those " Lebenstage " — all sunlight 
 and love and peaceful nature, and I walked back 
 to my room in a sort of half awake dream, living 
 over in my memory the few hours that we had 
 been together. 
 
 It seemed as if the few days had made her In- 
 finitely realler to me. The sweet Intimacy of our 
 life together had shown her to me In a new light. 
 She was still the sympathetic, romantic soul, still 
 the centre of my passionate dreams, but she had 
 grown to be something else too. I knew her now 
 as a gentle companion, full of the sweet tact 
 that greases the wheels of life, and of childish, 
 simple humour that gets the best of little 
 things. 
 
 It was in this state of mind that I entered my 
 room and found Loutie placidly occupying the 
 only rocker. She had been awaiting my return 
 for some time; I learned afterwards that my 
 
UNCLOTHED 273 
 
 friend, the wig-maker, had told her I had gone 
 to the country. 
 
 "Well, where have you been?" she greeted 
 me. 
 
 I could hardly find my speech. " Good Lord, 
 Loutie," I blurted out. " You — here 1 " 
 
 It was a perplexing circumstance. In the past 
 few days Loutie had quite slipped my memory. 1 
 
 " Sure, I'm here. I just had to come," she 
 cried. " I got so lonesome, I couldn't stand it. 
 There was four more days to the rent — Oh, I 
 suppose I should have waited, but I don't care." 
 
 Then she looked tenderly at me, with her 
 sweet, big eyes. " I'd do more than that for 
 you ' — " But soon she puckered up her lips, pout- 
 ing at my apparent lack of enthusiasm. " Why 1 
 Ain't you glad? " She hesitated with some sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Of course, dear child," I answered. " You 
 know I'm glad — awfully glad." 
 
 " You don't act it." 
 
 " Well, Loutie, I'm — a bit overwhelmed. It 
 seems so sudden, so real — all at once like, I never 
 realised." 
 
274 UNCLOTHED 
 
 She came over to me and slipped her litde, 
 round arms about my neck. " I know, boy, you're 
 sorry, ain't you? You think I'll regret it or be 
 sorry myself — or something. I know you so 
 well, and know just how you feel, and I think you 
 are that much dearer for it." 
 
 " No, Loutie," I answered, not quite able to 
 carry on my hypocrisy. " Everything is all right. 
 What makes you think such things? You are 
 trying to make me out better than I am." 
 
 " Oh, well, because I know how you are. You 
 always try to cover up the good things you think 
 and do. But you never need to worry, dear. 
 No woman is ever sorry for what she does if it is 
 love that makes her do it. And I care for you, 
 Larry — so much. I'm just going to make you 
 happy and work hard and write and get talked 
 about. You'll see, we'll be awfully happy, 
 boy." 
 
 So Loutie had come. Fate seems ironical in 
 her whims. When I had wanted Loutie, when I 
 was lonely and needed her, sihe staid away because 
 of a few dollars paid for rent. And now — she 
 was with me, dear, sweet, piquant, easy-loving 
 
UNCLOTHED 275 
 
 Loutie; the while my thoughts were full with an- 
 other. 
 
 The next few days brought a change, however, 
 into my previous order of existence. I couldn't 
 quite account for it. Chaotic unrest was replaced 
 by a placid, orderly existence and I remember that 
 I lost some of my harassed appearance. 
 
 Yes, I owed a great deal to Loutie, though 
 she was unconscious of it. She brought me nearer 
 to realising what I ought to do. 
 
 I lived in a dream life of contrasts. Loutie 
 and I would be looking open-eyed at each other, 
 over our coffee cups, when immediately there 
 would spring into my imagination the vision of 
 Cleodore, and how good it would be if it were she 
 that faced me. 
 
 I was living a lie, always, and at last it set me 
 to thinking, deeply, seriously — and the few days 
 spread themselves into the length of years. I 
 suppose other men have been placed in just such 
 a position as that in which I found myself, and 
 have gone through the same self-questioning. 
 
 It was only the third or fourth day, after our 
 liaison had been effected, that a simple conver- 
 
276 UNCLOTHED 
 
 sation brought my thoughts to a climax and 
 caused me to arrive surely at a final decision. 
 
 I had met Loutie on her way from work, and 
 we sat down in one of the park benches, to rest a 
 moment and enjoy the early twilight. We were 
 quietly musing over the different faces that passed 
 us, when she suddenly remembered to tell me that 
 the manager had raised her wages that day. 
 
 " Just think," she cried, " how that will help. 
 I can share up on some new dishes for us." 
 
 This very idea had become a point of sore touch 
 with me, an(J what little pride I had, made me rise 
 rebelliously against her unselfish goodness. It 
 hurt me, when she discussed this end of our af- 
 fairs. I suppose it brought my- selfishness to the 
 surface — ^or else made me realise the situation 
 more keenly. 
 
 And I asked colourlessly, " Did he pat you on 
 the hand when he made this announcement, or did 
 he follow it up with an invitation to dinner? " 
 
 Immediately Loutie was aroused. " Oh, 
 Larry," she exclaimed — " for you — to say such 
 a thing 1 " Then she turned her face away from 
 me. I heard her say brokenly, " You're so mean. 
 
UNCLOTHED 277 
 
 I thought it would make you happy. Now you've 
 spoiled it all." And the colour mounted high in 
 her cheeks. I never thought till afterwards that 
 she was secretly pleased at what she thought was 
 my jealousy. 
 
 But I realised my blunder. " Don't, Loutie," 
 I begged. " Don't take it so to heart. You un- 
 derstand me, don't you ? " 
 
 Then I went on to explain that what I meant 
 was not that I thought she had gained the raise 
 through certain designs of her employer, but that 
 It sickened me to have her remind me of the fact 
 that her money was being used to help keep up our 
 little establishment. 
 
 " It's this that hurts, Loutie," I went on. 
 "Can't you see? It's the fact that it is your 
 money. I can't stand the idea that I let you 
 come here and then share In running the place. 
 Now, If I could make some — " 
 
 Here she Interrupted me, saying spontaneously, 
 " Well, you're right, that is it." As she went on, 
 I could see that my previous remark had pained 
 her and aroused her ire. She added that It was 
 strange that I couldn't make any money, that there 
 
278 UNCLOTHED 
 
 must be some reason. " You certainly work 
 hard enough, and you ought to get something be- 
 sides starvation for it. Supposing you wanted to 
 marry somebody or I didn't have a job, what 
 would you do then ? " 
 
 Her question, tinged! with anger, came like an 
 electric shock. And it awakened me, sending 
 thoughts through my brain with the energy of a 
 storage battery. How right she was in her ques- 
 tion. What could I do then? 
 
 Loutie noticed my seriousness and came over to 
 me. " Don't, boy, I didn't mean to hurt your 
 feelings. I just said what I did, before I thought. 
 Don't you worry, I'll stick to you to the very last, 
 you know that. Now please — " 
 
 And she begged me out of my thoughts for the 
 'moment, trying to pass off the unfortunate situa- 
 tion, lightly. 
 
 The harm (or the good) had been done, how- 
 ever. All night I found it impossible to quiet the 
 anxieties that racked me. And very early in the 
 morning — it was some time past two o'clock — I 
 found the torture unendurable and, deciding that 
 the streets would give me more place to fight out 
 
UNCLOTHED 279 
 
 the problem, I quickly slipped into my clothes and 
 stole quietly from the room. 
 
 My thoughts seemed to have divided them- 
 selves. On the one side I saw a dark, sad face, 
 beautiful with drooping lids and quivering lips — 
 and again, a burning, living interrogation. And 
 the question asked me was always the same: 
 " What would you do if you wanted to marry? " 
 It haunted me vindictively, like a flaming 
 brand. 
 
 I don't know where I wandered that night. I 
 have a dim recollection of walking, walking — 
 and thinking. What a fool I had been to want 
 Cleodore ! What an idiot I was to yearn for the 
 absolutely impossible! And how cowardly it 
 would be of me, to drag down to the gutter the 
 one woman I really loved. And supposing our 
 relations made it necessary that we marry! 
 What then? 
 
 Oh, Cleodore, this is the first time I have con- 
 fessed to you, the thoughts that made me at once 
 more proud and miserable than ever anything 
 else in my whole life. 
 
 I readhed my door, half greeting the inward 
 
28o UNCLOTHED 
 
 pain, and even happy at my resolution . . . 
 for I had decided. 
 
 Coming up the stairs I met Monsieur Gayac. 
 He had just left my room, and he greeted me, his 
 face — usually so droll and comically happy — 
 drooping. 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur, what have you 
 done? Your little Madame is crying so — so," 
 
 — and then he wiped imaginary tears from his 
 own eyes. " You are a bad boy. Monsieur — 
 her heart will break. You must tell me. I will 
 fix it. You must. Monsieur." 
 
 " Why, Monsieur, you surprise me," said I, ap- 
 parently mystified at his tremendous emotion. 
 " I have done nothing. I have been nowhere. 
 I just took a walk. I worked too hard yester- 
 day." 
 
 "Ah, you tell me that? Me — your friend 
 
 — your confidant. Ah, Monsieur Larry, it is not 
 right, I should know." 
 
 After much persuasion and pleading I man- 
 aged to reach my room alone. Very likely the 
 sly, big-hearted! wig-maker listened outside our 
 door for possible trouble. 
 
UNCLOTHED 28 1 
 
 Loutie was at the breakfast table, crying, poor 
 child. " Oh, Larry, Larry, you've scared me so," 
 she cried, with big tears running down her cheeks, 
 unheeded. " I thought you had left because — " 
 she hesitated — " I was so mean last evening. 
 Oh, boy, I don't know what I would have done if 
 you hadn't come back. I believe I'd have killed 
 myself." 
 
 Then I noticed that the tears stopped flowing, 
 and that she viewed me curiously for an instant. 
 Soon she brightened up, and ceased her low sob- 
 bing entirely. 
 
 " Why, tell me," she exclaimed. " Say it isn't 
 bad news after all. I can see, you've got some- 
 thing good to tell me. You look so happy. 
 Tell me, Larry." And so from her I learned 
 that my inner joy at what meant the sacrifice of 
 my entire happiness was shining through to my 
 face. 
 
 Automatically I ate breakfast, questioned intes- 
 santly by Loutie. " You must tell me," she in- 
 sisted, " I just know you've got some good news." 
 
 And I answered her by saying that I would tell 
 her just as soon as I was sure that my hopes would 
 
282 UNCLOTHED 
 
 come true. As I spoke to 'her it seemed as If my 
 voice sounded far in the distance. In my brain 
 there was room for only one thought — that I 
 must go as quickly as possible to Cleodore — 
 and tell her. I could hardly await the time. 
 
 I had decided, and to pound the decision into 
 my memory, I repeated It over and over to my- 
 self. Nearly audibly I said again and again, 
 " You must give her up. You must give her up. 
 You love her too much not to. . . ." 
 
 It was all so simple. I would go to her and 
 tell her. If I was too poor to make Loutie happy, 
 then I was too poor to let the woman I loved 
 share my existence. 
 
 As I reasoned, everything seemed so plain, now. 
 In a way, Loutie had been a Godsend. She had 
 taken away the entire physical proportion of 
 things and made the situation lucid. I could 
 think plainly now and my love wasn't distorted 
 by desire and selfish passion. 
 
 And I saw that I couldn't drag Cleodore down 
 to the level I had reached. I saw too, that we 
 did not dare to wait. Our passions would take 
 us into roads that we could not dare to traverse. 
 
UNCLOTHED 283 
 
 I realised that probably she would at first be 
 blinded by her feeling for me, but later she would 
 surely see things clearly, would understand that 
 for us to be together could not but be either 
 wrong or else unendurable. She would forget 
 easily, I reasoned, and the other man would give 
 her so much. Women depend on material things 
 more than we do, I told myself — and God knew 
 what I could give her. 
 
 Yes, I must understand for her, must decide for 
 her, no matter what she thought. Yet I loved 
 her so. It was all painful, very painful — and 
 so hard to do. 
 
 " Larry, you are thinking of someone, of some- 
 one else. I never saw your face so strange. 
 Now tell me the truth. Where were you last 
 night?" 
 
 I heard the words from Loutie's lips strangely 
 aroused. I had quite forgotten my surround- 
 ings. As I became aware of Loutie, a certain 
 feeling of resentment encompassed me. I had 
 been dwelling on the heights and she brought me 
 back to my senses with an unkind jar. 
 
 " No, Loutie," I answered harshly. " There 
 
284 UNCLOTHED 
 
 was no one in my thoughts or whom I saw. I am 
 telling you the truth and I don't want you to ask 
 me again." I wondered If the room was light 
 enough to reveal the flush on my face. 
 
 " But there was, sweetheart, and I don't care, 
 If you'll only tell me." She said It gently, but 
 instantly I felt that my thoughts were being read. 
 I was on the point of telling about Cleodore; of 
 telling Loutie everything. Then I saw that If I 
 did tell the truth about what I intended doing, 
 Loutie would surely misconstrue my meaning and 
 take It that I had given Cleodore up for her sake. 
 And Cleodore, even as I renounced her, was too 
 precious for that. 
 
 "Then you won't tell me?" my persistent 
 Loutie asked again. 
 
 I looked at her. She was sitting facing me, 
 her soft, blond hair done in a long braid 
 down her back — her cihin buried deep in her 
 hand's. 
 
 " Dear little girl," I answered, " please don't 
 ask me. It was just a whim of mine. I was rest- 
 less and felt like tramping the streets. I do that 
 a good deal — and I couldn't take you with me 
 
UNCLOTHED 285 
 
 at such an unearthly hour. That's all. Please 
 believe me." 
 
 It ended up by her telling me that I was pe- 
 culiar, so peculiar — and that I was more strange 
 to her each day. 
 
 I had a rendezvous with Cleodore at noon, and, 
 as the morning wore on, my impatience grew 
 boundless. One instant I would weaken and, 
 make up my mind that I was doing wrong and 
 that I ought not to be so impulsive, and the next 
 instant my nerves were beyond control and I was 
 fearing that I would falter at the crucial moment. 
 
 I met her at the elevator, as she was leaving 
 her office. She looked more beautiful than ever, 
 I thought, as she directed the way over to our 
 usual haunt, a little restaurant off Fifth Avenue. 
 She always wore unusual things, and now the soft, 
 turban like head covering and close fitting coat, 
 made her at once more bizarre and fascinating 
 than ever. It seemed that I had a poor setting 
 for the exercise of my judgment. 
 
 As we turned off of Fifth Avenue, I begged her 
 to walk on for a few minutes. I felt that I must 
 gain some time. 
 
286 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Please, Cleodore, let us not go to lunch, just 
 yet," I said. " Let's walk over into the park." 
 
 I probably betrayed the feelings that were near 
 consuming me, for instantly she remarked my pe- 
 culiar manner. 
 
 " Why, Larry, what in the world is the matter? 
 Tell me, quickly! " she exclaimed in a startled 
 way. 
 
 I couldn't find my words. " No, not just here," 
 I replied. " Walk on for a few minutes." 
 
 "What is it?" she begged. "You frighten 
 me. 
 
 " Wait, Cleodore," I managed to murmur, 
 " wait until we get into the park." 
 
 Before my eyes was an indescribable haze, and 
 the arteries in my temples seemed to pound and 
 beat, till I nearly fell over. But I resolved to 
 abide by my previous decision. 
 
 After reaching a bench, we sat In silence, 
 strangely, mutely — for many moments ; it seemed 
 as if it was by common consent. 
 
 At length I heard myself begin to speak. The 
 words seemed to come from one other than my- 
 self. " Cleodore, you are right," I began. " I 
 
UNCLOTHED 287 
 
 have something to say. Something that has been 
 on my mind ever since our little trip. And you 
 must know that what I am going to tell you isn't 
 the result of impulsive thinking or hasty decision, 
 but something I have lived over in my mind day 
 and night." 
 
 As I went on, I found that I must keep my eyes 
 from her countenance. It seemed that I could 
 feel her searching glance penetrate me. 
 
 In another moment, I had stumbled into what 
 I intended to say. At first I felt inwardly fright- 
 ened. Then before I knew it, I was saying easily 
 what had appeared to me to be so difficult. But 
 my words come grotesquely mixed, a jumble of 
 earnest decision and faltering confession. 
 
 " Dear, I — I love you," emanated from me. 
 " I love you, that's the reason. We can't see each 
 other again. You must understand. It is im- 
 possible for us to marry. I love you too much — 
 I won't. And I go nearly crazy when I'm with 
 you, and I am afraid for your sake. So we can't 
 see each other at all. There's no other way." 
 
 As I went on, I gained courage and felt that 
 I was talking more sanely. 
 
288 UNCLOTHED 
 
 She viewed me with surprise and dread writ- 
 ten over her face. But sihe let me go on, without 
 uttering a word. And for fear that I should fal- 
 ter, I went on rapidly, crowding in every reason 
 that my devastated senses could gather. 
 
 " Yes, there's no other way, we must use our 
 will and be strong." 
 
 I was wishing I could tell her it was all for her 
 sake, that I knew I would be keeping her away 
 from the man that could give her everything — 
 but I realised how cowardly that would be. 
 
 " I am poor," I continued. " I couldn't buy 
 you a bit of food. I am living in a hell of a hole, 
 that I could no more think of taking you to, than 
 of throwing you from the top of the Metropoli- 
 tan tower. I don't want you to feel sorry. You 
 mustn't care, even. It is the only way." 
 
 Then for the first time, she broke her silence. 
 " Larry," she answered, " what you say may be 
 very true and perhaps you are right, and when 
 you tell me that you love me, I believe you. But 
 we can see each other just the same. Surely that 
 would be all right. I think you have become hys- 
 terical over a simple thing. Why we can't see 
 
UNCLOTHED 289 
 
 each Other is only a creation of your own brain." 
 
 " No, it isn't," I replied. " I know that I can't 
 keep on being with you, and resist. You don't 
 see this end of it, as I do. There are certain 
 laws that we must live up to — Nature's laws — 
 and we can neither abort them nor give in to 
 them. This is plain truth." 
 
 Cleodore came nearer to me, grasping both of 
 my hands in hers. " Larry," she said, " you are 
 the one who doesn't understand. I'm not a child. 
 I am a woman, with all a woman's understanding 
 and feelings. What do you think women — I, 
 care for laws, when we realise what is good and 
 honest happiness to us? If you were a woman 
 you'd understand, if you went through half the 
 suffering a woman goes through. 
 
 " You don't know that we endure all of it — 
 for the some day we are waiting for and never 
 cease believing must come. Why, that is all that 
 keeps life in the bodies of women of forty, who 
 have been unfortunate enough not to have been 
 loved. 
 
 " Oh, Laurence, you're wrong, terribly wrong, 
 I don't care for people, or laws, or consequence. 
 
290 UNCLOTHED 
 
 After all this time, I know what is worth having, 
 and it is just the one thing — honest, blind, feel- 
 ing. It's something that only the one you love 
 can give you and all the other people on earth 
 cannot take away." 
 
 Luckily the park was deserted. A few strug- 
 gling shop people passed us, and for a moment a 
 couple of ragged street urchins gazed upon us, 
 with open-eyed awe. We were unusual figures in 
 the makeup of the place. But time and sur- 
 roundings were not in our thoughts. " This 
 maudlin self-respect, this opinion of others, what 
 do they bring to you?" she went on. "People 
 only sympathise, or envy you in this world; there's 
 no half way place. And I know which I prefer. 
 I will take for granted that what you say about 
 marrying is right. I suppose it would be fool- 
 ish for us to marry with such circumstances. But 
 have we the right to rob ourselves of all that 
 means life to us, because of the misfortune of 
 others? Of course others have brought shame 
 and disgrace upon themselves by tempting fate 
 too strongly. But these names are only terms 
 that are created by the unfortunate or the weak. 
 
UNCLOTHED 29 1 
 
 You are weak and foolish if you believe in 
 them. 
 
 " Why, how is it possible to think that le Bon 
 Dieu will arrange it so that only people who have 
 the material right to marry will meet. Do you 
 imagine that He only has those meet who have 
 just the right amount of money and just the right 
 social position and the right love for each other? 
 Oh, it's a joke that enough fools believe in without 
 
 us." 
 
 "Then I am foolish," I interrupted. "At 
 least I know what would be the outcome if we 
 should still go on together. Cleodore, I care too 
 much for you to let it go on along those lines. No, 
 I couldn't make you my mistress." 
 
 For a moment I paused. Was I right, I asked 
 myself. And then I saw what it meant if we 
 should go on. The ruination of Cleodore, in all 
 probability. 
 
 Surely I would not spoil her wholeness, the one 
 thing that stood out above everything else, for a 
 moment of realisation. No, my love for her was 
 stronger than my desire. I faltered no more. 
 
 " No, Cleodore," I exclaimed, " I am sure that 
 
292 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I'm right. I am looking further ahead than you 
 are. Some day, perhaps, you'll understand. But 
 we must not see each other again." 
 
 Talking like this to Cleodore was breaking my 
 heart. I noticed the old trembling of her lips and 
 they seemed nearly to cry out their protest. I 
 couldn't watch her suffer. I turned and walked 
 away. In another instant, she too, had turned 
 silently, and was gone. I felt a lump rise in my 
 throat, I tried to call her back to me, then choked 
 my thoughts down and settled into a settee. 
 
 This day had ever remained sacred in my 
 memory. It was only marred by one thing. Lou- 
 tie, I learned afterwards, had followed us, and 
 been a witness of our meeting and our parting. 
 
 I arose from the park bench, perhaps an hour 
 later. I was in a state of daze. I felt as if a 
 spell had broken around me, but there was in my 
 inner consciousness something that made me feel 
 proud. I had made a great sacrifice, I realised, 
 and knew that the days coming would bring with 
 them a sense of irrevocable loss. Yet at the same 
 time there was an ecstatic elation about my being 
 that appeared to filter my soul of all its past 
 
UNCLOTHED 293 
 
 wrongs. Though suffering Intensely, yet I felt 
 happy and strangely peaceful. 
 
 As I write, I don't desire to give the impres- 
 sion that I did my duty to Cleodore out of pure 
 unselfishness or that I wish to create a halo about 
 my head. I am only trying to set down, as best I 
 can, the peculiar state of mind into which my 
 actions threw me. And it makes me happy, all 
 over again. 
 
 I walked on. I remember that I tramped up to 
 Grant's Tomb — and then back again, nearly 
 oblivious to my surroundings or passing things. 
 The scurrying of automobiles, the passing of car- 
 riages and people, seemed not of my world. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, I came to the cathedral 
 on Fifth Avenue and went in, slowly — uncon- 
 sciously. It was the first time in years that I had 
 entered a place of worship, but I felt easily at 
 home. Some sort of memorial service was going 
 on, and I sat down in the last pews, subdued by a 
 spirit of reverence, and sweet solitude. 
 
 My state of mind was peculiar. My heart re- 
 sponded like an echo to the spirit of the soft music 
 that came to me. Seldom since has anything made 
 
294 UNCLOTHED 
 
 such an impression upon me, as did those great 
 solemn tones of the organ that day. They were 
 full of longing and again beautifully peaceful and 
 harmonious. I found myself dwelling in a land 
 of hope and dreams that soothed me compassion- 
 ately, and thrust me into a scene of Nirvana-like 
 yearning and desire. 
 
 I must have fallen into a soft sleep, when a 
 verger, gently touching my arm, aroused me from 
 my dreams. 
 
 Leaving the cathedral, I walked slowly home. 
 The sun was just setting, buried in a fluffy cloud of 
 golden red. The picture seemed complete. It 
 was my imagination, of course, but as I stood on 
 the edge of the curbing, studying the skies, and 
 saw the sun sink into the horizon amidst what ap- 
 peared like a bed of red and golden roses, it 
 seemed to me a' symbol of myself; and as it faded 
 into oblivion with its beautiful glow, I repeated 
 over in my mind, that it was glorious, like this, 
 that I had made my sacrifice. 
 
 I knew that what I had done was right, and as 
 I walked, I sighed over and over to myself: 
 " Thank God, I did right." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 Beyond a doubt Larry loved me, and I him. 
 Everything else seemed utterly unimportant. 
 From the moment I sent for him after " La 
 Boheme " I had only this one thought in my brain. 
 It seemed to have been there half of my lifetime. 
 It was, I think, about a week. 
 
 I did my work mechanically, dropping between 
 whiles into dozes, thinking of him. I fell asleep 
 and woke with his name in my breath. I do not 
 know how I seemed to other people, to myself I 
 was a different person. 
 
 It could not have lasted, I suppose. Other 
 thoughts must have intruded, conscience, pru- 
 dence, ordinary common sense have intervened. 
 As it was, I remember that week always as the 
 happiest of my life, and I think Larry too was 
 happy. 
 
 At any rate, he was happy, if it was in my 
 295 
 
296 UNCLOTHED 
 
 power to make him so, for I was in a mood to 
 deny him nothing. From the moment we were 
 reunited on my doorstep that early morning, I 
 realised that there was nothing I would not have 
 done for him. Physically, I loved to have him 
 hurt me as he did sometimes when he was sav- 
 agely passionate. In less material things, I 
 longed to have him demand sacrifices of me. But 
 he asked very little. 
 
 I wondered at his forbearance. I felt as com- 
 pletely in his hands as if I had been a lifeless 
 thing, I would not have made the most perfunc- 
 tory resistance. But even during the time we were 
 away in the country together, he asked nothing. 
 In a way I was greatly astonished at this. Had I 
 been in a mood for thought when I went away, I 
 would have pictured a less conventional outcome 
 for our trip. 
 
 Indeed it is rather comic to reflect on how I 
 left New York with the expectation that I was to 
 lose the world for love, and returned quite as in- 
 nocent as I went. In a way I was deeply grate- 
 ful to Larry for his forbearance, for he had said 
 enough to show me that it was not for lack of de- 
 
UNCLOTHED 297 
 
 sire that things were as they were. But, never- 
 theless, I felt a little resentful; I had been ready 
 to give, and my gift had not been asked for. And 
 I felt, in my heart, a trifle ridiculous as well, as 
 might a person who had gone forth with a mighty 
 impulse to commit a murder and returned home 
 with only a dead fly on his conscience. It would 
 seem perhaps as if the moral side of the affair did 
 not affect me. Indeed, it did not appear to be of 
 great importance, for in my eyes to give oneself 
 where one had given one's love looked not a ques- 
 tion of morality or immorality, but of expediency 
 or inexpediency. It might be that I was con- 
 templating something foolish, but it simply did 
 not look to me wrong, and I was so placed that I 
 had only my own point of view to consider. 
 
 But after all, I did not think much, in those 
 few happy days. As I look back on them I can 
 see that my mind was nearly always befogged in 
 a haze of joy and passion, that I lived altogether 
 in emotion and except for a few flashing minutes, 
 never once reflected on actualities. 
 
 When I was with Larry, I thought only of him, 
 looked at him every instant and listened to his 
 
298 UNCLOTHED 
 
 voice without caring much what he said. When 
 he was absent, I gave all my energy to trying to 
 call back his image, to fancying that I could feel 
 him near me. I used to close my eyes as I sat in 
 front of my desk and imagine that his arms were 
 around me and his breath in my face. 
 
 Ah, I was very weak, very foolish and very 
 happy. And it was over so pitifully soon. 
 
 One morning when I had met him to have 
 lunch, he told me quite suddenly that we must 
 part. 
 
 I was appalled. He seemed so in earnest, 
 there were tears in the corners of his eyes, and 
 his hands and voice shook. 
 
 I thought him hysterical and tried to talk to 
 him reasoningly to make him calm again. But 
 soon I saw he was in his right senses, and barring 
 his emotional state, perfectly sane. 
 
 We had not talked fifteen minutes when he 
 turned and left me. His shoulders were quiver- 
 ing, and I, without in the least understanding our 
 position, was as upset as he. I could not run 
 after him, there in the square; already people 
 were trying to notice our dishevelment and pecul- 
 
UNCLOTHED 299 
 
 iar behaviour. I went the other way. My brain 
 was spinning. At the comer I took a Fifth Ave- 
 nue motor 'bus and did not come to any realisa- 
 tion of where I was, till I had reached Fifty- 
 ninth Street. 
 
 All the afternoon at the office I was stupefied, 
 and made the oddest blunders. I sat at my desk 
 after the rest of the staff had left for the day, 
 looking at my ink-well and trying to think. 
 
 At last I sprang to my feet. 
 
 " Only two things matter," I cried, " I love 
 him and he loves me. I will go to him and say 
 
 so." 
 
 Larry lived on Third Avenue. I had never 
 been there before, but the way was easy. I had 
 only to walk straight east two blocks from the 
 Metropolitan Building where my office was. 
 
 It was a muggy evening. The elevated trains 
 running on close schedule made the air full of ir- 
 ritation. The place must have been quite at its 
 worst. I came near to Larry's number. Every- 
 thing seemed inexpressibly dreary. I could not 
 conceive it possible that it was actually here that 
 he lived. I looked about me in amazement. The 
 
300 UNCLOTHED 
 
 pavement was carpeted with dirty little children, 
 women with sloppy figures leaned in doorways, 
 and the men folk coming home from work smelt 
 of beer and sweat. 
 
 The street was full of miserable sights. I saw 
 a poor drunken woman with greasy hair. She 
 had collapsed in front of a barber sfhop and two 
 men in white coats were trying to lift her up and 
 fina^y did heave her to her feet and the crowd 
 laughed. The barbers shoved her across to a 
 doorway and dropped her, and she pulled her 
 torn dress across her dirty breast and pushed her 
 hat from one ear to the other; and then went to 
 pieces again. 
 
 A moment later I met a dreadful old woman of 
 about sbcty with paint thick in her wrinkles. It 
 seemed as if a quarter of the people were de- 
 formed; club-footed men and bow-legged children 
 jostled me at nearly every step. 
 
 Larry's was a corner house, and the entrance 
 was in a side street. Just outside the door stood 
 an ash tin with a pair of old corsets stiddng out 
 of It. 
 
 " Poor Larry, no wonder he is hysterical ! " I 
 
UNCLOTHED 30I 
 
 said to myself and went upstairs looking for his 
 room. 
 
 I found him standing in the middle of the floor. 
 I fancy he had just come in. He looked at me 
 astonished and cried, " Why, Cleodore ! " 
 
 I went and stood beside the window without 
 speaking. It was a stifling, sticky night. 
 
 " I thought I would come and talk to you in- 
 telligently," I said. " This morning in Madison 
 Square, we were both melodramatic and foolish. 
 What is it, Larry, that's put this idea into your 
 head that we must part forever?" 
 
 He looked at me dreamily. " Don't spoil ev- 
 erything. Since we must do it, let us do it finely 
 — and quickly." 
 
 " I don't understand you, Larry," said L 
 
 " You will later. You will understand and be 
 grateful." 
 
 " Larry, you talk like a fool ! " I cried. " You 
 put your hand on your chest and murmur trash. 
 Oh, my dear child — why can't we be happy? 
 It would be so easy." I went over to him and 
 put my hand on his shoulder. I could not 
 think that at my touch and with me so close to 
 
302 UNCLOTHED 
 
 him he could still maintain this strange atti- 
 tude. 
 
 But I was wrong. He merely turned his head 
 away and stiffened his whole body. 
 
 " Don't," he said. " Be brave, Cleodore. 
 We've got to do it." 
 
 " Why? What prevents our keeping on be- 
 ing friends? " 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Friends — if we could be friends, it would 
 be all right. But we can't. I ask you — can we ? " 
 
 I stretched out my hands to him. " Oh, Larry, 
 you talk so mudh I " 
 
 " My God! It's you who make me. Did I 
 ask you to come here and prolong this discus- 
 sion?" 
 
 I shrank back as if he had struck me. I could 
 not believe that he really meant that we should 
 part. It was inconceivable. He had seemed to 
 care so sincerely. 
 
 . " Cleodore," said he. " You must see after 
 all how foolish this Is. Here you are giving up 
 everything, your chances of a peaceful, comfort- 
 able life— " 
 
UNCLOTHED 303 
 
 " I don't want a peaceful, comfortable life, I 
 want you ! " 
 
 " My dear child, when you've been sue months 
 married you will be glad we have done this." 
 
 " Six months married! Good God, Laurence, 
 do you mean I am to marry Gordon, after this? '' 
 
 " It would be the best thing," he said. 
 
 I flung out my arms and caught at the curtain. 
 I was near falling to the ground with horror. I 
 could not understand things at all, only that Larry 
 was turning me away, inviting me to marry an- 
 other man, that he would not let me touch him. 
 
 "Oh, Larry, how can you treat me so?" I 
 cried. "Why don't you want me any more? 
 I'm just the same. I'll do just what you say. 
 Why must I go?" 
 
 I looked about the room piteously, trying to 
 find in the air some argument to meet this incom- 
 prehensible cruelty. I saw on the end of the bed 
 a feather scarf, pale blue. I looked at it, fasci- 
 nated. Larry followed my eyes and then a queer 
 look came into his face, half dismay, half relief. 
 
 I went over and picked it up. It had a smell 
 of Trefle Incarnate. I held it off and looked at it. 
 
304 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I saw one of the little feathers come loose and 
 drift to the floor. Then I laid it back on the 
 end of the bed carefully. 
 
 I started to say several things, some angry, 
 some despairing, some bitterly matter-of-fact. 
 After a long time I asked simply, " Have you a 
 woman living here with you? " 
 
 Larry hesitated, came toward me with one 
 hand out, then stopped and nodded. 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 "A waitress in Childs'." 
 
 " Do you love her? " 
 
 " Well, she suits me — and this." 
 
 "And I — wouldn't have, I suppose?" 
 
 " No, you don't fit into my life — oh, Cleo- 
 dore, for God's sake, go away from here." 
 
 He caught me by the arm and hurried me to 
 the door and down the stairs. 
 
 The street was full of rowdy looking people. 
 
 " I can't let you go alone. Someone might 
 hurt you." 
 
 " Nobody can hurt me now," I said. 
 
 And there beside the ash-tin we parted. This 
 was what this beautiful love of mine had led me 
 
UNCLOTHED 305 
 
 to, all my trust and passion outweighed by this 
 waitress who smelled of Trefle Incarnate; those 
 wonderful moments of exaltation had reached 
 their climax here in a hideous parting under the 
 rattle of elevated trains, in the midst of drunken 
 people and dirty-nosed children. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said, and I hurried away 
 through the crowd silently. 
 
 It seemed only an instant before I was at home. 
 I was panting, and, as I shut the door of my flat, 
 I began to cry, not very loud, just a sort of moan- 
 ing. I did not realise what had happened to me 
 and felt as I fancy an animal might who had had 
 a limb torn away. 
 
 There was nothing melodramatic nor pictur- 
 esque about my grief. Perhaps for the first time 
 in my life I was a real woman. 
 
 I set to work in a business-like way to put my- 
 self to bed. But everything seemed strange to 
 my touch. I might never before have encoun- 
 tered those buttons and ribbons. My comb and 
 brush had no familiarity to my hand. Blunder- 
 ingly I felt my way out of my clothes and into a 
 night-dress. I could not see much from crying. 
 
3o6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I lay with my face flat against the pillow. I 
 was shaking so that my teeth chattered. 
 
 " Larry, how can you treat me so? How can 
 you?" I kept saying over and over to myself. 
 I could not understand. There was surely a mis- 
 take somewhere. And then I remembered, re- 
 membered that hideous blue scarf, remembered 
 Larry's dismissal, " You don't fit into my life." 
 That was what he had told me. 
 
 I turned over, smoothed my hair away from 
 my eyes and tried to control myself. And then, 
 there came back to me the scene of a week be- 
 fore when I lay on the same pillow and counted 
 Larry's fingers and looked at the fur on the back 
 of his hand — only a week ago. 
 
 My little refrain started afresh : " Larry, how 
 can you? " 
 
 I woke over and over in the night to say it; 
 then fancied for just one happy moment that I 
 had dreamed the whole thing, as one dreams 
 sometimes that all one's teeth have fallen out, 
 and then wakes to joyous cognisance that It is 
 not so. 
 
 At daybreak, when only a few days before I 
 
UNCLOTHED 307 
 
 had called Larry to me, I got out of bed and 
 knelt down to pray. It was utterly abject in me. 
 I did it as I might have brought a gipsy's love 
 charm, or a written letter to the person who an- 
 swers unhappy lovers' questions in the yellow 
 newspapers. 
 
 I was not religious; and even if I had been, 
 would not, I think, have believed in the efficacy 
 of a personal prayer for a specific thing. God 
 might make me stronger and help me to stand 
 against temptation, if one prayed Him to, but I 
 do not believe that he considers prayers for spe- 
 cial things, nor that it is intelligent to ask Him 
 for the return of a lover or a diamond necklace. 
 The Deity is not, I am sure, a Lost and Found 
 Bureau. I fell asleep there on my knees, waking 
 just in time to scramble back to bed as Clemen- 
 tine came in to call me. 
 
 " Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle I " she cried aghast. 
 " You are ill." 
 
 I blinked at her. " Give me the glass." 
 
 It was the sight of my face that quenched the 
 first blaze of my grief. Never had I seen any- 
 thing so terrifying. It was my own face, I sup- 
 
308 UNCLOTHED 
 
 pose; it must have been because it fitted on to my 
 throat — 'Otherwise I should not have known it 
 for mine. 
 
 " Clementine ! " I cried. " Clementine ! look 
 at me 1 " 
 
 " We will send for a doctor," said she, " ce 
 brave Docteur Crewdon?" 
 
 " No, no ! " I was on my feet. " I am not 
 ill. Get me a cold bath, some black coffee." 
 
 At the office I had an especially busy day, and, 
 as it happened, had to go that night to Chicago 
 to have a talk with a troublesome author. 
 
 One does not indulge in obstreperous distress 
 in a sleeping car, nor during business interviews, 
 so for three days I practised self-control. 
 
 When the fourth came and I was again at 
 home and free to break down, I had no wish to 
 do so. I had not forgotten. But the first phase 
 of my grief was past. 
 
 I kept hoping, like a fool, that I should have 
 some word from Larry — a letter or a telephone 
 message. I would not leave my flat in the even- 
 ings lest he might telephone or come to see me, 
 and I miss him. Sometimes I stood half an hour 
 
UNCLOTHED 309 
 
 on end — staring into the ugly black face of the 
 telephone as if I could hypnotise his voice to come 
 out. If ever the bell rang I nearly fainted till I 
 got the receiver down and heard — someone else. 
 
 Clementine took unostentatious care of me, got 
 me port to drink at lunch time on the plea that 
 one needed to fortify oneself in these chill autumn 
 days, made me a great deal of mutton broth, 
 which is something I especially dislike, and in- 
 sisted that I put on thick flannel underclothes al- 
 though it was still of the mildest weather. 
 
 And so a fortnight passed, and then, one day, 
 I had a cablegram from Gordon to say he was to 
 reach New York in a week's time. I think I had 
 almost forgotten his existence, arid when I read 
 the message I laughed bitterly at myself. 
 
 " This is the man, my dear, that you cried over 
 in Paris not two months ago, the man you have 
 promised to marry before Christmas — you had 
 nearly forgotten he was alive ! " 
 
 I did not meet him at the dock. I could not. 
 I sent a note saying I would be at home that even- 
 ing. I had little idea what I should say to him. 
 
 Since parting with Larry, I had given the fu- 
 
310 UNCLOTHED 
 
 ture small thought. When there is only one 
 thing in the world that a body wants, and that 
 she cannot have, there's little interest in con- 
 sidering what she will choose to take in Its 
 place. 
 
 But now, with Gordon in New York, I had to 
 decide on something. Should I let things take 
 their course, and marry him? Or should I tell 
 him I had changed my mind? It did not seem 
 to matter very much. To me I think that the 
 question was quite honestly at that moment one 
 of absolute indifference. 
 
 The idea occurred to me, however, of consid- 
 ering it from someone else's point of view. This 
 was a thing I was not accustomed to doing. All 
 my life I had been selfish in a comfortable, inof- 
 fensive way. 
 
 There was nobody to care what I did except 
 Gordon — nobody in all the world, except dear 
 old Clementine, and a few doddering relations in 
 Maryland. 
 
 And Gordon's point of view — that was plain 
 enough. He had wanted me for years, he was 
 pathetically happy at his final success. If I were 
 
UNCLOTHED 3II 
 
 to send him away, I would be making him suffer, 
 as I now was suffering. 
 
 That thought settled the question for me. No 
 one should, through me, be made to be as miser- 
 able as I was. 
 
 And so, when Gordon came, I let him kiss me, 
 asked him kind questions about his trip and his 
 mother, smiled w'hen he told me how greatly he 
 had missed me. It was all a litde mechanical, 
 but Gordon was not one of those who notices. I 
 was glad. It would make things much easier for 
 us both. 
 
 " Isn't it wonderful, dearest, to think that we 
 shall be married inside a month or so, and be 
 together all our lives? " said he. 
 
 His choice of adjectives made it easy for me 
 to say " yes." 
 
 " It might have been two years ago, if only 
 you hadn't been such an obstinate little soul. 
 You know, Cleodore, you've been in love with 
 me all the time, haven't you ? " 
 
 He had put me on a footstool beside his chair 
 and as he spoke, caught me under the chin and 
 looked at my face. 
 
312 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I laughed. " Do you think so?" 
 
 "Well, haven't you?" 
 
 I turned my head away, and suddenly his fat- 
 uousness disappeared. 
 
 "You love me now, don't you, Cleodore?" 
 
 I said " no " playfully. It was a lie in 
 spirit for he believed, of course, that I meant 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I wonder when you ever will love me? " he 
 said in mock pathos. 
 
 " Peut-etre jamais 
 
 " Peut-etre demain 
 
 " Mais pas aujourd'hui 
 
 " C'est certain.' " — I hummed. 
 
 " Little devil ! " said Gordon. And then, 
 " Why haven't you written to me the last three 
 weeks? I've been really worried." 
 
 " Why, I thought you would be coming home 
 and would miss the letters." 
 
 "You can't have expected me to sail three 
 weeks ago?" he objected. 
 
 " Yes, I thought you said so. I expected you 
 a week before your cable came." 
 
 We had some argument about my mistake, I 
 
UNCLOTHED 3 13 
 
 contradicted myself a little, but Gordon set it 
 down to feminine vagueness. 
 
 When he had gone away, a terrible self-dis- 
 gust came over me. How I had lied, and twisted 
 and smirked — there had been hardly a word I 
 said, or a look of my face or one of my move- 
 ments that had been sincere and truthful and 
 spontaneous. I had done nothing but lie and lie 
 and lie all the evening — and he so good and 
 kind. 
 
 I hated myself. 
 
 Could one live all one's life in this way, I won- 
 dered? It looked as if I should have to, except 
 that perhaps I should come eventually to believe 
 my own lies. Many people did. 
 
 I sat on my feet in the big green arm-chair, 
 and considered whether I should tell him the 
 truth and leave it to him to decide If he would 
 have me as things were. The idea appealed to 
 me very much. 
 
 It would be so easy and simple to say, " Gor- 
 don, I do not love you — I love somebody else, 
 but that's all over — do you want me to marry 
 you and do the best I can?" 
 
314 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Was it not the only square thing to do? Af- 
 ter all, an honourable woman would not marry 
 a man who thought her pure, if she wasn't; and 
 though I was honest enough in act, I was, in soul, 
 far from being the innocent spinster Gordon pic- 
 tured me. 
 
 It was due to no virtue of mine, I reflected 
 bitterly, that I was still, technically, a pure woman. 
 
 The impulse to tell the truth to Gordon and to 
 start clear with him was very strong. It was in- 
 calculably the easier way for me — but for Gor- 
 don? 
 
 Which would be better for him, to marry me 
 thinking me what I was not, or to marry me know- 
 ing me as I was? There was only one answer. 
 I must stand my punishment myself. How ut- 
 terly foolish to say, " I am going to devote my 
 blighted life to making you happy, and the first 
 thing I shall do is gratuitously tell you something 
 that cannot but make you miserable." 
 
 "It's a point of conduct, my dear," said I to 
 myself as I fell asleep, " that you aren't capable 
 to deal with. You're not accustomed to consid- 
 ering other people; unselfishness is as strange to 
 
UNCLOTHED 3 1 5 
 
 you as open air is to fishes. No wonder you 
 don't know how to act." 
 
 I awoke terribly sad. The excitement of Gor- 
 don's coming had made me forget things for a lit- 
 tle, but now I felt again worse than ever. Clem- 
 entine nearly wept when I would not touch even 
 my coffee. 
 
 It was Saturday and Gordon had decided that 
 we should have lunch together and then do some 
 shopping. 
 
 I made an honest effort to be a bright, cheer- 
 ful companion at lunch time, but I was so faint 
 from lack of food that I could not eat; the band 
 played selections from " La Boheme " that made 
 me want to put my head down on the table and 
 cry, and a man sitting near us took hold of his 
 wine glass in exactly Larry's fashion. 
 
 Gordon worried over my lack of appetite. He 
 was greatly concerned and wonderfully kind and 
 irritating. 
 
 He fancied exercise would do me good so we 
 walked from Thirty-fourth Street to the furniture 
 shop in lower Broadway, where he thought we 
 had best buy the simpler things we wanted for our 
 
3l6 UNCLOTHED 
 
 menage. It was drizzling with rain — not 
 enough to incommode a man, but the pavements 
 werei wet and I had to hold up my skirts. I was 
 thoroughly uncomfortable, but in my mood of 
 self-sacrifice would have felt it a disgrace to com- 
 plain. 
 
 At the shop I smiled and looked down in a 
 mechanical fashion and chose, without con- 
 sciously seeing them, chairs and tables and sofas, 
 and what not. Feminine instinct led me to affect 
 a difficult taste and to spurn many of the offerings 
 the young man set before us, but, as a matter of 
 fact, I had no realisation of anything, and may, 
 for all I can say now, or could have said then, 
 have bought chairs covered with puce brocade and 
 art nouveau dressing-tables inlaid in magenta. 
 
 I know that we chose what seemed an enor- 
 mous number of things, and that Gordon ordered 
 them to be held in the shop until he should send 
 them word of our address. 
 
 By the time we had bought some table linen, it 
 was well into the late afternoon. 
 
 " We shall have to put off getting the rugs, 
 darling," said he. 
 
UNCLOTHED 317 
 
 " Yes," I agreed brightly, " but would it not 
 be wiser anyway to wait till we see the shape of 
 the rooms? " 
 
 Gordon was delighted with this remark. It 
 was feminine and practical. He swore that my 
 idea would never have occurred to him. " What 
 fools we men are I " 
 
 " Perhaps we have been premature in getting 
 all that furniture before we know where we are 
 going to put it?" I ventured. I was trying so 
 very, very hard, and I felt so far, far away 
 from all these chairs and table cloths. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. We didn't get anything 
 that wouldn't fit in almost anywhere. And of 
 course, if we find we have got something that is 
 perfectly impossible, we can exchange it I sup- 
 pose. I don't approve of exchanging things as 
 a rule — it's a silly woman's trick. But, of 
 course, if the things weren't satisfactory — " 
 
 "Oh, Gordon, don't!" I cried and caught his 
 arm so close I think I hurt him, hard as he was. 
 
 " Don't what, dearest? " 
 
 "Oh, nothing." 
 
 " But, Geo dear, what was it? You must tell 
 
3l8 UNCLOTHED 
 
 me. You can't clutch at people in that melo- 
 dramatic way and then say ' Oh, nothing ! ' 
 You'll have to be a reasonable little girl now you 
 belong to me. Come, tell me what's the matter." 
 
 " I don't like to hear you talk about exchang- 
 ing things — that are unsatisfactory." 
 
 " Lord, Cleo I you're a funny little soul," said 
 he, in a kindlier tone. He could never be angry 
 with me for very long when I was foolish. That 
 woman's foolishness was after all the brightest 
 gem in my diadem for him and I had no right to 
 resent his point of view. I had let the gem shine 
 for him for more than two years ; had blinked ad- 
 miringly at it myself. I thought of this and tried 
 to smile with the old-time flattered pleasure. 
 After all it was I who had taught him to think 
 me "a funny little soul." Perhaps I was "a 
 funny little soul." At any rate I should certainly 
 grow to be one after I had been married a few 
 years. 
 
 It was muddier than ever going home, but I 
 was ciharmingly gay and siUy; talked in a child- 
 ishly practical view and amongst other things 
 asked Gordon soberly whether three-fifths was 
 
UNCLOTHED 319 
 
 more or less than a half. It was a quotation 
 from Bernard Shaw, but Gordon gave me all the 
 credit and was delighted. 
 
 And then finally we had climbed the stairs and 
 Clementine had let us in and I had tossed aside 
 my hat and dropped down in the green chair. 
 
 Gordon looked at me. He was going to be 
 affectionate ; and I made up my mind I would be 
 kind and nice about it. But I felt so tired. I 
 was sure I had a blister on one heel, and I had 
 eaten nothing all day; and there'd been such a lot 
 of mud and so many chairs. 
 
 I began to cry like a child; I scarcely noticed 
 it at first and the tears collected slowly in my eye 
 corners and rolled down my face before I had 
 realised them. 
 
 I jumped up and walked with a fierce purpose- 
 lessness across the room and back. 
 
 "Gordon!" I cried, "we can't go on like 
 this." 
 
 " Now, my dear girl, don't start a scene merely 
 because you starved yourself at lunch-time. You 
 may as well realise first as last that I don't care 
 for them. Your artistic friends may like to see 
 
320 UNCLOTHED 
 
 you tear about and to hear you talk like that. 
 They're an anemic set and I suppose it braces 
 them up to have a domestic circus going on all 
 the time, but it isn't my Idea of home life, not a 
 bit of it." 
 
 Poor Gordon. I stroked his sihoulder. That 
 made it all right so far as he was concerned. 
 
 He began to talk to me in a kindly fashion al- 
 though it annoyed him that I was tired and not 
 in good form — except in moments of tender- 
 ness he was rather intolerant of weakness. 
 He expected to be entertained, but the formula 
 was a very easy one^ — ^vivacity and silliness, that 
 was all. 
 
 To-night he was genuinely worried about me, 
 and very gentle. Oh, the misery of receiving 
 kindness from the wrong man when eyes and ears 
 and heart are all calling out for the right onel 
 
 I was still crying intermittently, but in the dim 
 room he had not noticed. Presently, I began to 
 talk quietly, I did not know what I was going to 
 say when I started; as I went on I realised that 
 all unconsciously I had met the temptation that 
 hung over me and had yielded to It. 
 
UNCLOTHED 32 1 
 
 " Gordon, you asked me yesterday if I loved 
 you. Shall I tell you the truth?" 
 
 " Why, little girl, how solemn you look I " said 
 he. " Of course, tell me the truth — all of it, 
 if a humbug like you can." 
 
 " Well then, I don't love you. I never have. 
 But I will marry you, if you like, and try to be 
 a good wife." 
 
 " Really, Cleo, dear, you mustn't talk this way. 
 You are much too fond of scenes. Of course, 
 you love me; only you're excited at seeing me 
 again and it's made you nervous and imagina- 
 tive." 
 
 " Have you loved other people besides me, Gor- 
 don? " I asked. 
 
 " Nothing that need worry you, dearest," said 
 he. " Of course, every man has his notions, but 
 it's all over long ago with me. I've never 
 thought twice about any other girl, since I first 
 met you. That's the truth. And you, little 
 girl?" 
 
 I think he fancied I had some girlish confes- 
 sion to make and wanted to help me over it. 
 
 Even then I wondered if I should not smooth 
 
322 UNCLOTHED 
 
 over the incident, and leave him with his confi- 
 dence unshaken. I sat silent, thinking. 
 
 "Well, Cleo, am I the only man? Has there 
 been another? " He smiled as he said it. 
 
 I bowed my head. " It's only right to tell 
 you, Gordon. Nobody else will ever matter as 
 he did." 
 
 Gordon caught my hand. " Do you mean 
 that? Or is it one of your jokes to tease me?" 
 
 " It's true. You told me to tell the truth." 
 
 " But I never thought it would be like this." 
 
 " If you had, I suppose you would not have 
 urged me to be truthful," said I lightly, in a fee- 
 ble effort to gain a minute's grace. 
 
 "Who was this man?" 
 
 " It doesn't matter now. I shall never see 
 him again. It's all over." 
 
 "Are you sure? Quite sure?" Gordon had 
 both my hands. " How long has it been over? " 
 
 Suddenly — it was as unexpected to me as to 
 poor Gordon — I flung back my head and 
 laughed. " About two weeks 1 " said I. 
 
 Gordon jumped to his feet. " What do you 
 mean? Two weeks! Are you crazy?" 
 
UNCLOTHED 323 
 
 " Very nearly," said I. " If you will go away 
 now, I will write you and tell you all about it 
 and then you can do as you like. I don't want 
 to talk about it." 
 
 "You don't want to talk about it! Well, I 
 do. You, my affianced wife for months, tell me 
 that you parted two weeks ago with the only man 
 you ever loved, and then you say * go away and 
 I'll send you the details by post.' We'll have 
 them now, please." 
 
 " All right," said I. " I met a man last spring 
 and I fought against caring for him as hard as I 
 could fight, and finally I couldn't fight any more. 
 That's all. It's all over now, quite over." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 I got up off my footstool. " He didn't want 
 me," I said. 
 
 " Great God ! " cried Gordon. " So it's this 
 chap's leavings you are offering me? " 
 
 " You are not compelled to take them, my 
 friend," I reminded him. 
 
 " Do you realise what you have done, Cleo? " 
 he asked. " You became engaged to me, and 
 within a week or so, you got yourself involved 
 
324 UNCLOTHED 
 
 with this man and now — when he has turned you 
 down, you come to me and say sweetly, ' I suppose 
 you don't mind ! ' I never heard of such con- 
 duct. You must be mad 1 " 
 
 " Oh, no, I am not. I wish I was. I am only 
 miserable. I know how badly I've treated you. 
 Don't think I don't. But I've been punished. 
 I'm very unhappy, Gordon." 
 
 " I hope you are ! " said he. 
 
 He walked up and down, talking angrily. 
 How ugly people look in anger; what stupidly 
 brutal things they say! I tried not to hear him. 
 
 At last I spoke myself. " I know I have been 
 wicked and weak and selfish," I said, " and I wish 
 you could forgive me. But you have been fool- 
 ish, too. You fell in love with me, and you 
 wanted me and thought no more of my point of 
 view than if I were something in a shop. I re- 
 fused over and over again when you asked me to 
 marry you ; and last summer before I went abroad 
 I told you I never wanted to see you again. Yet 
 you came with me, forced yourself on me, played 
 on my weakness and loneliness on the ship, and 
 got me to consent to marry you. You are not 
 
UNCLOTHED 325 
 
 utterly a fool, Gordon. You know I didn't love 
 you, and then I ran away from you, but there in 
 Paris you took me back. Why, even now, if I 
 were to say, I'll marry you, knowing I love some- 
 one else, you would do it; and then you'd blame 
 me for our failure afterwards. Oh, you're 
 strong, Gordon, and you should have taken bet- 
 ter care of me. You, in your way, have been as 
 selfish and as wicked as I. I forgive you — can 
 you forgive me? " 
 
 " Forgive you, forgive you, great God, you've 
 got the nerve to stand there and taunt me like 
 this! Do you think I'm a fool? Forgive you 
 — I would to heaven I had forgotten you two 
 years ago." He paced back and forth across the 
 room, shoving aside the furniture as it came in his 
 path. 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you, little woman," he flung out 
 savagely, " here's what it comes to. You can 
 come live with me — if you want to. You are 
 no better than some other women I know." 
 
 Then he went out and shut the door hard, very 
 hard. " Ah," I reflected, " in his place I would 
 have closed it softly. He is very commonplace, 
 
326 UNCLOTHED 
 
 is Gordon. Poor Gordon. But he won't suf- 
 fer as I did. He has treated me not too well, 
 and that will make him dislike me, so it will be 
 easy for him. . . . And I, well, I'm no 
 worse off than I was before. I couldn't be." 
 
 I looked about the room. It had that expres- 
 sion that rooms, like people, have after a scene. 
 The chairs were pushed aside as Gordon had 
 shoved them out of his way; the curtain was 
 crushed back, where I had leaned In its folds to 
 hide myself from the sight of his angry face and 
 the sound of his angry voice. 
 
 I picked a cigarette out of its box. Gordon 
 did not care for women smoking. 
 
 "Well, Cleodore," said I to myself with a 
 laugh. " You seem to have made a pretty thor- 
 ough mess of your life so far." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 [by LAURENCE CREWDON] 
 
 It is a mockery of Heaven that what was perhaps 
 the finest of my few good deeds should have 
 brought only misery to her for whom I did it, 
 and should have driven from me the simple lit- 
 tle soul who had trusted me. Abandoning Cleo- 
 dore — God, how hard it was to do I And she, 
 dear woman, deliberately made it harder. 
 
 I had just come back to my room, still dazed 
 by our parting in Madison Square, when I heard 
 a skirt swish in the hall. 
 
 " It's Loutie," said I to myself with a sigh. I 
 longed for solitude. 
 
 Then I heard a knock. So it was not Loutie. 
 I went and opened the door. Cleodore was 
 standing there. 
 
 " Cleodore, Good Lord 1 " I cried, " what are 
 you doing here? How did you find this place? " 
 
 We were silent for a moment, and then I asked 
 her why she had come. 
 
 327 
 
328 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " To ^ make you see things sensibly," she an- 
 swered. "You're acting crazily — and nothing 
 else." 
 
 " Poor child ! " I thought, as I found her trem- 
 bling hand on my shoulder and her unhappy, puz- 
 zled eyes looking into mine. " You don't un- 
 derstand, Cleodore," I said, " I wish you 
 would." 
 
 Then I came near telling her the same thing, 
 all over again. I came near to telling her how 
 I loved her too much to marry her into such a 
 hole, and loved her too much to make her my 
 mistress. I might have drawn her closer to me 
 — I longed to and I would have, I daresay, but 
 for Loutie ; — not that I feared that Loutie 
 might come in, but rather because I was living 
 with her here in this room. The sordid absurd- 
 ity of it brought my will back to me. 
 
 Cleodore moved from me and went over to the 
 window. I could see that the fingers that rested 
 on the sill were white from pressure, and that 
 her breast rose and sank nervously and irregu- 
 larly. How I loved her at that moment! It 
 was all I could do to keep from taking her in my 
 
UNCLOTHED 329 
 
 arms and telling her that I was wrong after all 
 and would not let her go. 
 
 Then she turned to face me directly and talked 
 in a wonderfully gentle way, and with a dignity 
 and sincerity that made it very hard to stay by 
 my resolution. 
 
 "I realise you are trying to make a sacrifice 
 for me," she said, " and I don't want you to do 
 it. Larry, can't you see? I'll do anything you 
 tell me except say good-bye. Don't make me do 
 that." 
 
 And then, somehow, she came to know about 
 Loutie. We did not speak her name, or discuss 
 the matter. To me Loutie seemed a thousand 
 miles away, but I tried to make her real to Cleo- 
 dore. I knew it would drive her away from me, 
 and every moment she stayed showed me more 
 clearly how necessary our parting was, and how 
 hateful. How I kept my strength of purpose 
 with her there before me, I do not know. 
 
 At last, she left me; and as I closed the door 
 at the foot of the stairway, a pang of misery 
 shot through me, from head to foot, and shocked 
 my being. 
 
330 UNCLOTHED 
 
 For a long time after I sat quietly in the dark- 
 ness of the room. Across the street below, a 
 drunken man was reeling into the doorway of a 
 saloon — a fruit vender was closing up his little 
 wagon shop, and talking to an organ grinder in 
 heated tones. They were gesticulating wildly. 
 
 I heard a tune start up on the hand organ. It 
 affected me strangely. The music seemed to go 
 into me, instead of stopping at my ears. Before 
 I knew I was repeating the " Boola " song of my 
 old college days. 
 
 It took me back through the years. I saw my- 
 self in my room and remembered the last time I 
 had listened to the same appeal to my heart 
 strings. I recalled a little group and a piano in 
 a dark corner — rolling out the thrilling air of 
 sweet, fading, student days. 
 
 It was so long ago now, but " Boola " had 
 never left me. The notes that cracked out from 
 the organ took me back a good many years. 
 
 " How easily one goes down," I said .again 
 and again to myself, as I looked about me. 
 
 I hardly heard Loutie, as she entered the door, 
 and she brought me out of my reverie with a jerk. 
 
UNCLOTHED 33 1 
 
 I could not speak to the poor girl. I longed 
 to be alone. 
 
 "Why don't you talk?" she asked. 
 
 She spoke angrily and disturbed me more than 
 ever. 
 
 " I don't feel like talking this evening," I said 
 simply. 
 
 "Huh I You don't, well, you don't have to." 
 And she put on her hat again and left me. 
 
 A half hour after she had gone, I found my 
 solitude intolerable. For a time I moved rest- 
 lessly about the room, thinking, recapitulating, 
 and then I went downstairs to Gayac. 
 
 " You are miserable, yes? " said Gayac, as soon 
 as he saw me. 
 
 " Yes, Gayac," I answered. " Life's pretty 
 hard," and then I asked for one of his French 
 cigarettes, and smoked for a. few minutes. 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur, you are so foolish," he began. 
 " You make love — like a monkey. Yes. You 
 are like all the Americans. You make love with 
 the heart and wear out the head." 
 
 "You know how, I suppose?" I said banter- 
 Ingly. 
 
332 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Yes, I know how. It is not difficult. To 
 the woman we love we say pretty things. Then 
 all is well. 
 
 " * Aux hommes I'amour vient par les yeux, 
 
 " Aux femmes par les oreilles,' " he hummed. 
 
 " You see, Monsieur Larry, it is not new to us. 
 Men love through the eyes; women by the ears; 
 . ah, it is true, very true." 
 
 After resting for a while and hearing nearly 
 the whole of Gayac's repertoire of philosophies, 
 I went back upstairs. 
 
 My mind was full of contemplation. I could 
 not help thinking how easy it is to change the en- 
 tire current of a life by the saying of a few words, 
 and how difficult it always is to get what we want. 
 
 " What good is life," I argued, " if we can 
 have only that for which we do not care? . Or 
 must else suffer for the good things we take ? " 
 
 Loutie was late again the next evening. 
 
 " Dreaming? " she said to me as she came in. 
 
 "No," I answered, "why are you so late?" 
 
 "Oh, am I late? Yes, I guess I am a little 
 later than usual. But I've got a pretty good rea- 
 son. I lost my job." 
 
UNCLOTHED 333 
 
 " You lost your job." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Good Heavens," I cried. 
 
 " Well, it's true." 
 
 *' Loutie, I can't believe you." 
 
 " It's true," she answered carelessly. 
 
 I noticed her face. It was hard set, with none 
 of the old sympathy in it. I thought at first it 
 might be suppressed emotion, then I saw her 
 mouth curve into a half cynical smile. 
 
 " You're not taking it very hard," said I. 
 " You don't seem very unhappy over it." 
 
 " Oh, what's the use," she answered. " Life 
 is too short." 
 
 " Loutie," I exclaimed. " You — are you 
 joking about this? Tell me the truth." 
 
 " Well, I've told you," she repeated noncha- 
 lantly. " I've lost my job." 
 
 " But, Loutie, can't you realise ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is a shame," she came back. 
 
 I couldn't understand — Loutie, always so 
 sweet and gentle, to be rough and common like 
 a woman of the streets bent on vengeance. 
 I saw hard lines in her face that were utterly 
 
334 UNCLOTHED 
 
 new to me. Then I asked her how the job had 
 gone. 
 
 "Oh, he got fresh," she replied. "Wanted 
 me to go out with him. The old fool." 
 
 "Who wanted you?" 
 
 "Who? Why, the manager, who else do you 
 suppose would? " 
 
 " Well, why " — we were staring hard at each 
 other — " why didn't you play him along a bit? 
 It would have given you time to look about for 
 a new job." 
 
 " You mean that I should do that — go with 
 him, for your sake. Oh ! you, you dirty dog I " 
 She had flared up and taken a meaning, such as 
 had never entered my thoughts. 
 
 " Loutie, take care," I answered angrily. 
 " You are acting like — well, not like yourself. 
 You know I didn't mean that." 
 
 " Oh, you're not so far above it," she answered 
 bitterly. 
 
 "I? Why, I don't understand you! Quick, 
 tell me what you mean." 
 
 " Well, I have reasons for saying what I do," 
 she replied. 
 
UNCLOTHED 335 
 
 " You have reasons. What? Tell me." 
 
 For an instant she eyed me furiously. Then 
 she broke out in a tempest of anger, stamping hei 
 little foot and pounding the table with her 
 clenched fists. 
 
 " I saw you," she stormed. " I saw you and 
 followed you yesterday. And I know every- 
 thing. You thought you could play two games at 
 once, didn't you ? Well, you can go to your stuck 
 up fairy. I suppose I'm not good enough. Ain't 
 got the clothes. When you wanted me I came, 
 but I suppose I'm not the right sort — only when 
 I'm needed. 
 
 " I know now where you was the night you left 
 me — and then came in with a lame excuse about 
 walking the streets all night. Oh, I feel sorry 
 for you . . . you. . . . 
 
 " Yes, you can go to her all right. I've made 
 some arrangements of my own since yesterday." 
 
 Then she took a little picture out of her 
 pocket-book. 
 
 " See this picture," she said. " Well, I've 
 made up my mind. I don't care for him like I 
 did for you — but he's got money and is a good 
 
336 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Spender — and wants to spend it on me. Oh, 
 I've made up my mind. What's the use. Love, 
 companionship — God! It's a joke and I'm not 
 going to cry my head off about it. Girls like me 
 ain't got no chance, anyhow. 
 
 " I'm going to Europe in a few days, maybe. 
 You can look me up on the passenger lists. Mrs. 
 Jerry Sheehan. That ain't his name quite but 
 it's pretty near — and will serve the purpose. 
 He told me not to tell. 
 
 " Yes, he's got the dough and what do I care 
 anyway, now." Then she suddenly drew herself 
 up to her fullest height and her voice cracked out, 
 coarse and strained. " Why, I am just begin- 
 ning to realise it. Do you know what jrou've 
 done to me?" She glared at me threateningly. 
 " Well, I'll tell you. You've taken everything I 
 could give you, you've taken away everjrthing that 
 I used to have to make me happy. You've 
 spoiled me for anyone else with your fool ideas 
 about life and things. And what have you given 
 me? Why, you ain't ever cared for me and you 
 know it. I've been hanging around you trying 
 to keep you encouraged — Oh, I know it's only 
 
UNCLOTHED 337 
 
 been for a few days, but I'd of kept it up. And 
 you've never yet kissed me and meant it. I see 
 it all now. You've played with me, you've made 
 a fool out of me. And I — I swallowed It whole. 
 Oh, I hate you, I hate you." 
 
 In another instant I found her little clenched 
 fist in my face. She tried to tear the flesh of my 
 cheeks in her astonishing frenzy; and as I held 
 her off, she managed to loosen her right hand 
 from my grasp, and pound my face viciously. 
 Then, as she saw that I made no resistance, she 
 burst into hysterical tears. 
 
 I had listened to her storm of words, sadly 
 enough. All the bitter invectives that hard luck 
 had stirred up in her little body had belched forth 
 like a tumultuous upheaval. 
 
 At first I tried to explain but I saw it was too 
 late. Then I made up my mind not to. It was 
 a good way to end everything. The book with 
 its months of concentrated labour was gone ; I had 
 sent Cleodore away. There was one thing left 
 that I could see. And what difference was there 
 if it was delayed a day or a month. 
 
 I couldn't look at Loutie when she finished 
 
338 UNCLOTHED 
 
 her vile tirade. I saw plainly that everything 
 had come to an end. And I realised that it was 
 the only possible ending. 
 
 For some minutes both of us stood in the centre 
 of the room. Then Loutie moved over to the 
 bureau drawer and took out a few bits of ribbon, 
 a collar and a belt, and threw them carelessly 
 into her trunk. Her low sobbing had entirely 
 ceased. 
 
 " What are you going to do? " I asked. 
 
 " I don't know — yet," came her reply as sul- 
 lenly as ever. 
 
 As I thought over the situation I saw the best 
 way to get her over the fit of temper was to leave 
 her alone. 
 
 I took my hat from off the table. She seemed 
 to wonder now, though she kept silent. 
 
 " I am going, Loutie," I said, " to leave you 
 alone till you get over this." 
 
 I passed out through the door, and though she , 
 uttered not a word, it seemed that I could feel 
 her eyes follow me down the passage. 
 
 Then I heard her fling bitterly at me: " You 
 — you, couldn't wait, could you, until I had gone 
 
UNCLOTHED 339 
 
 to bed? Well, you can see her this time, with 
 my willing permission." 
 
 It was daybreak when I crawled back up the 
 wooden stairs. Passing the first floor landing, a 
 whining dog, that had probably been out all night, 
 took my mind from myself. An ill omen, I 
 thought, in subconscious fashion, and turned my 
 steps to my room. 
 
 As I gained the hall, I saw the door of the 
 room was open. Instinctively I concluded that 
 Loutie had left. Then I went on mechanically. 
 On the table lay a folded note. 
 
 " Larry, I am leaving you," I read. " You 
 don't care for me and we're in such hard lines, 
 it's no use for us to be fools. I am writing this 
 about midnight. I called Sheehan up over the 
 phone about an hour ago, and he is standing by 
 me now, as I write this. 
 
 " This is all for the best. I am sorry that we 
 ever met, for your own sake. You would never 
 have lost that manuscript of your book if it hadn't 
 been for me. So I guess it's all for the best. 
 ' — Loutie. 
 
 " P. S. Enclosed is twenty dollars. That 
 
340 UNCLOTHED 
 
 ought to keep things going until you can find a job 
 or something. I owe it to you, anyway. I tried 
 to make him give me more, but he won't do 
 it" 
 
 . . . It seems to me now, as I look back, 
 that something in me gave way, when I read that 
 note, and saw the money lying before me. The 
 sight of it given me — as to a beggar — battered 
 down all my resistance. It was a help, yes — 
 but only to push me to a quicker realisation of my 
 fate. And as one in drunken tremors runs from 
 the countless reptiles that pursue him, so did I 
 find no rest until the yellow piece of paper lay 
 torn to a thousand bits. 
 
 And as I pondered, each bit of the bill seemed 
 to take life and resemble some incident, some 
 happening of the past. 
 
 It was the end, I thought. I found a certain 
 peace in tearing up the yellow money, and as I 
 laboured at my sordid occupation, I was impressed 
 more than ever before by the infinitesimality of 
 the human being. 
 
 " We think life so much," I thought incoher- 
 ently — "and here are the things that kept me 
 
UNCLOTHED 34 1 
 
 wanting to live — and there was so little that was 
 happiness In them." 
 
 Everything passed kaleidoscopically before me. 
 I saw that when the future came, it was always 
 the present at the end; with the same unsatisfied 
 yearning and ambition, 
 
 I counted back over the years — and saw that 
 I amounted to nothing. As one thinks over an 
 entire life in that fraction of a moment that lies 
 between health and some fatal accident, so did I 
 seem to run over the days and weeks, seeing all 
 the past incidents clearly, feeling all their bitter, 
 pains and few pleasures as vividly as at the time 
 of their activity. It was like running over the 
 pages of a book — and stopping at the dog-eared 
 leaves. 
 
 I amounted to nothing In the world's makeup. 
 After all my struggling, only two or three peo- 
 ple were aware of my suffering, or my exist- 
 ence, even. The idea amazed me. It became 
 even picturesque. And how I had fooled my- 
 self! . . . 
 
 Outside my window, the trains seemed to rat- 
 tle by, faster and more noisily than ever. I heard 
 
342 UNCLOTHED 
 
 the Frenchman and his wife, downstairs, over 
 their morning dishes. 
 
 Down on the street a newsboy's shrill voice 
 announced another sensation. I listened for the 
 details, but his voice faded away in the distance 
 and became conglomerate with the noise of the 
 street. 
 
 The noise itself came up from below and af- 
 fected me strangely. The acute sounds seemed 
 to have gone, and were all combined into a com- 
 mon mass that came to me like a purring rumble, 
 from off in the distance. It was the kind of 
 crushed silence that one would liken to the sound 
 of overwhelming things. 
 
 Then I noticed that my sensations appeared be- 
 numbed into a strange kind of resignation. I had 
 no longer the ability for acute human pain. 
 There was no longer any agony of mind. A sort 
 of dull aching, narcotic-like, seemed to have taken 
 its place in my voluntary movements and I was 
 apparently crushed into a silent acquiescence. I 
 had been drinking, but surely not enough to make 
 me feel so queerly. 
 
 And then I began to feel that I had entered 
 
UNCLOTHED 343 
 
 some pleasing land of dreams, where everything 
 was soft and sweet scented. I seemed to float 
 along in the atmosphere I breathed. 
 
 Vaguely I saw lying at my feet a piece of 
 broken mirror. I strained and looked, and real- 
 ised that I was trying, and yet I was unable to see 
 myself. 
 
 I recall going closer to the window and draw- 
 ing a chair up to the sill. 
 
 I remember that I sat there till the sun camie 
 brightly in my face — and until it was dark again. 
 
 It was Gayac who brought me back to being 
 one of the earth again. 
 
 At first a wrenching, throbbing grasp at my 
 nerves, then came the instinctive feeling of an 
 awakening when someone is near, and I saw a 
 figure over me as I sat, fingers clutching at my 
 shoulders, with a face all terrified and distorted 
 with anxiety and fear. 
 
 It was Gayac half crying and pleading and 
 then seeming to laugh with hysterical joy as I 
 opened my eyes. 
 
 For a time I was completely bewildered. 
 
344 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Then I realised in a vague, indistinct sort of way, 
 what had been my condition. And strangely it 
 was I who utteted the first frightened words. 
 
 " Gayac, Gayac! Tell me, am I all right? " I 
 cried at last. He told me afterwards that I had 
 looked at him stupidly for an hour before a word 
 had come from my lips. 
 
 Dear Gayac. He heard my words with tears. 
 
 I heard him tell me how they had tried my 
 door the day before, thinking I was out ; and fear- 
 ing something had happened, they had sat up all 
 of the second night, awaiting my return. 
 
 And then he told me that he had persuaded 
 his wife into agreeing with him that I must be 
 ill, or dead, and how he had broken open the 
 door to find out. 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur Larry," he went on, " it is 
 strange, very, very strange. For how many days 
 you have sat here, I don't know. Perhaps two." 
 And then — " Yes, it is terrible. You look like 
 a ghost. Yes, you look very bad. But now I 
 am so happy, my little boy." 
 
 After all, death cannot be as repellant as it is 
 pictured, for while he was going over the details 
 
UNCLOTHED 345 
 
 of my awakening, I felt a certain deep resent- 
 ment gather force within me that I had not died. 
 
 Ever3rthing was painful again. The light 
 pierced my eyes like so many darts, my head and 
 body felt sore and bruised and my senses, which 
 had seemed to have flown from me, came back 
 now, separate and distinct, and each with its own 
 special pain of realisation. I rediscovered all my 
 worldly assets. 
 
 My blurred sensibilities came back only slowly 
 that afternoon and it was hours before I could 
 come to comprehend. 
 
 But it was as he said : for two days I had been 
 the lethargic occupant of my chair by the window, 
 and in that time I had not made one voluntary 
 movement. 
 
 It seemed difficult to believe and even now, 
 after having studied the case, I do not entirely 
 understand it. It was surely true, however, for 
 as I took stock of myself, I saw the verification 
 of it everywhere — full grown beard, feet and 
 ankles swollen from the pressure of my shoes and 
 laces, and a sad, gaunt face with such unnatural 
 lines as to frighten me. 
 
346 UNCLOTHED 
 
 I was put into bed in a little room back of 
 Gayac's shop, arid I stayed there for many weeks. 
 They fed and waited on me like samaritanic an- 
 gels and I lay there and God blessed them a hun- 
 dred times a day. 
 
 At last I became strong enough to leave the 
 bed. They propped me up in a chair overlook- 
 ing the street, and I spent a few weeks more 
 in this manner. It took me long to heal it 
 seemed. 
 
 " God repairs the damage to his own struc- 
 tures, but injury to the heart and soul are caused 
 by ourselves," said Gayac one day to me, in one 
 of his philosophical wanderings. 
 
 Under my breath, I remember that I remarked 
 to myself that we indeed were very poor menders. 
 
 We had many good talks during this time and 
 I came to understand Gayac better than ever. Of 
 course I told him everything. It was good for 
 me, and I emptied myself of all the miserable dis- 
 appointments that had occupied my thoughts for 
 months. I told him about the lost manuscript, 
 about Loutie and my great love for Cleodore; 
 how I wished that I could have earned only 
 
UNCLOTHED 347 
 
 enough to support us. " There would have been 
 one happy marriage at least," said I. Then I 
 went over again the sacrifice I had made and how 
 I regretted it, but had tried to stay strong for her 
 sake. 
 
 He sympathised deeply and let me pour out 
 the burning words and resentful disappointments 
 with equal encouragement and attention. 
 
 And when I talked of my love affairs he was 
 always the same, trying to cheer me and feel with 
 me, and again banteringly playful with my senti- 
 ments. 
 
 " Poor Larry," he would say, " we are both of 
 us unfortunate. You, because you are single and 
 I — because I'm married." 
 
 My days in bed brought me one thing at least 
 — resolutions. 
 
 I suppose that more new resolutions are made 
 upon the sick bed than on any New Year's eve. 
 Life shows itself in all its truth then and valua- 
 tion is put for the first time on good health and 
 peace of mind. And so, during my last day in 
 bed, I remember becoming lost in a flood of new 
 resolve. I would forget Loutie, my lost book, 
 
348 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Cleodore even — and with what fragments re- 
 mained I would start anew. 
 
 A light snow had fallen during the night, cov- 
 ering with whiteness the dirty streets and walks. 
 It was the first snow of the season and I recall 
 remarking to myself that it was a coating of 
 whitewash for my past weaknesses. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 [by cleodore blake] 
 
 One day in early October a fit of reckless cour- 
 age came over me. Larry had turned me off, 
 Gordon would have none of me, my life lay in 
 ruins about me. Things ^ould not be worse, so 
 why not try to make them better? 
 
 It all came about from my looking consciously 
 In the glass for I think the first time since the day 
 when I parted with Larry. Of course I had seen 
 my reflection many times each day, one must tidy 
 one's hair and smooth one's eyebrows, even if the 
 heavens fall. But up till how I had seen the mir- 
 rored face without recognition or interest. 
 
 " Curious you have not changed," said I to my- 
 self. I thought of the lonely evenings I had 
 spent, of the nights when first I could not sleep, 
 and then feared to wake and lose my happy 
 dreams. I remembered all the bitterness I had 
 held in my heart — I had not been a resigned 
 and Christian sufferer. 
 
 349 
 
350 UNCLOTHED 
 
 But of all this I saw no trace in the mirror. 
 The discovery gave me infinite comfort. I looked 
 and looked. My eyes were the same, they had 
 always looked sad, but there was colour in my 
 face and my mouth didn't droop and my cheeks 
 had not fallen in. 
 
 I began to laugh. 
 
 It was a brisk day, with sunshine everywhere, 
 the electric sunshine of late autumn. A patch of 
 it lay along the corner of my dressing table, and 
 I moved into it and began to make up a story to 
 myself all about how suddenly the telephone bell 
 would ring, and it would be Larry, and he would 
 say he was on his way to come see me, and I 
 would rush into a pretty dress, and — I went 
 on for fully an hour, he and I were hoeing cab- 
 bages together in Normandy before I roused my- 
 self. 
 
 I started to write, still day-dreaming. I sup- 
 pose we all of us write letters which even as we 
 write them, we never mean to send. This was 
 such a one : — 
 
 " Do you ever dream about me? I think you 
 must; perhaps we both are dreaming at the same 
 
UNCLOTHED 351 
 
 time, and, when I wake so happy, it means that 
 we have really been together. The dreams are 
 so real, I think it must be like that. 
 
 " I had one just now. It was very common- 
 place, just that you rang the telephone bell and 
 said you were coming, and I was waiting at the 
 head of the stairs and heard your steps from the 
 minute you got inside the front door, first little 
 steps, and they got bigger and bigger until at 
 last I saw you. And you said quite cheerfully, 
 * Oh, child, what fools we've been ! ' Would it 
 not be wonderful if, while I was dreaming that, 
 you had dreamed your half. 
 
 " Couldn't we make it true, Larry? Couldn't 
 we let the two dream people be happy? They 
 say dreams only last the fraction of a minute. 
 Surely it would not be wrong if we were to be to- 
 gether for only that long? 
 
 " Couldn't we make it true. The telephone 
 bell and the little steps getting bigger and bigger 
 and you saying, ' What fools we've been ! ' — 
 couldn't we just for once? " 
 
 I read it over and wondered what Larry would 
 say if I should really send it to him. Did he ever 
 
352 UNCLOTHED 
 
 think of me? Had he suffered? I hoped that 
 he had not; I had never wished him to suffer. 
 But, of course, he had. 
 
 I wrote again, pushing the childish effusion 
 aside : — 
 
 " Dear Larry, is it quite out of the question 
 that we should meet again? I have been very 
 unhappy, so have you I am sure. Could we not 
 meet just once? Perhaps it's rather abject of me 
 to ask it, after what you did. But I have no 
 pride — with you. Or rather, this is my only 
 pride, that I will not pretend. If you will do 
 what I ask this once, I promise not to ask it ever 
 again." 
 
 I read over rfiis second letter. After all, why 
 not? What possible harm would I do in send- 
 ing it ? And suppose he did come — suppose the 
 telephone bell did ring, the steps did grow bigger 
 — I pretended to myself that I could feel his 
 hand, and hear him talking, could see him move 
 across my rooms. 
 
 I put on my hat and coat and went out with 
 the letter in my hand. 
 
 I could not quite bring myself to post it. One 
 
UNCLOTHED 353 
 
 minute I asked myself why in Heaven's name I 
 had not written such a letter weeks ago, the next 
 I was aghast that I should for a moment be seek- 
 ing after the man who had discarded me. My 
 brain fluttered between one point of view and an- 
 other, diametrically different. I could never 
 think coherently on any subject that lay close to 
 my heart. 
 
 As I walked along thinking, I came presently 
 to the corner of Madison Square where there is 
 that imposing stone bench affair with a statue of 
 Farragut on top. Often before in passing, I had 
 noticed this edifice and wondered why nobody 
 ever sat on the bench, so now I wandered toward 
 it whimsically and placed myself there, — perhaps 
 the first person who had ventured to sit there, 
 ever since the monument was erected. 
 
 From my post I surveyed Fifth Avenue with its 
 Saturday afternoon crowd. Suddenly the throng 
 parted and, half a block uptown, I saw coming 
 towards me a woman with something blue about 
 her throat. I watched her as she walked along, 
 a plump, commonplace creature, and as I looked, 
 I could feel my eyes start, and my breath stiffen. 
 
354 UNCLOTHED 
 
 She was wearing a blue feather scarf like that I 
 had seen in Larry's room. 
 
 I jumped to my feet and stared at her. I did 
 not know whether it was that scarf or not, whether 
 she was Larry's woman or some other. I fancied 
 it was someone else. This woman was well past 
 first youth. But at any rate, the miserable orna- 
 ment, no matter who its wearer was, spoke to me, 
 clearly, brought me to my senses in a flash. 
 
 I watched the woman out of sight till her 
 brown dressed figure and the blue line about her 
 shoulders were lost in the crowd. Then I re- 
 membered my letter and sat with my elbows on 
 my knees, looking at it for many minutes. At 
 last I tore it slowly into pieces and dropped them 
 on the ground. 
 
 " Thank God 1 Oh, thank God, I didn't post 
 it I " said I, and then, after a moment I rose and 
 went home. 
 
 " Mon amie," I said to myself bitterly, " will 
 you never understand the truth? This episode 
 is over." 
 
 As I went through the hall, I caught sight of 
 my reflection. It seemed to me that I did now 
 
UNCLOTHED 355 
 
 look different from my old self, but I was not 
 greatly interested. After all, what did it mat- 
 ter how I looked, or what I did, or whether I 
 did anything at all? Was I not absolutely su- 
 perfluous? Of what use was I to any human 
 creature? 
 
 I kept seeing that blue scarf in my mind's eye 
 and shuddering at the memory of it. What a 
 hideous thing it was ! I reflected that this woman 
 of Larry's must be a pretty creature to afford to 
 wear it. But, naturally, she would be pretty — 
 pretty and simple and easy to get on with, phy- 
 sically satisfactory and nothing else. 
 
 That was the sort of woman Larry wanted, 
 poor, overwrought lad; no wonder I, with my un- 
 ending talk, my upsetting behaviour and my com- 
 parative paucity of physical charms had not sat- 
 isfied him for long. 
 
 I remembered a story he had told me of a 
 former patient of his, a woman who was breaking 
 her heart because of her husband's indifference. 
 The husband had loved her for her mental qual- 
 ities, and she had insisted on the physical side. 
 I had agreed, when Larry told me this story. 
 
356 UNCLOTHED 
 
 that the poor woman had acted very foolishly 
 and yet I, in my turn, had not been content to be 
 Egeria, confidante, Muse. I must need apply 
 for the post of mistress and there I had been re- 
 jected for a waitress in Childs'. 
 
 I thought of these things without great bitter- 
 ness ; and certainly with no special ill will towards 
 the girl herself. It was the fact of Larry's fail- 
 ing me that mattered, I had no emotion to waste 
 on the cause of it all. And then, was she the 
 cause? Alas, no — if Larry had deserted me, it 
 was I, and I alone who was to blame. 
 
 It was I who had failed him, somehow. I de- 
 served my fate, and had got from life exactly 
 what I put Into it. I had been stupid and vain 
 and unable to recognise the real things when I 
 met them. When in Larry's arms last summer 
 I had felt the world swing round, had I said, 
 " This is happiness and I mean to cling to It? " 
 Not a bit of It. I had acted like a fool, mistaken 
 the purest and noblest thing in my life for a cheap 
 infatuation and treated 111 the only creature on 
 earth who mattered to me. 
 
 No wonder I lost good things, if I had not the 
 
UNCLOTHED 357 
 
 sense even to know them when I saw them. Oh, 
 I had been a fool — a wicked, wicked fool. 
 There was something almost grotesque in the way 
 I had mismanaged things for myself. 
 
 Would they give me another chance, I won- 
 dered? I did not know if I wanted another 
 chance; indeed I was sure that I did not. There 
 was only one thing I wanted — or that was how 
 I felt a large part of the time. 
 
 But then there would come days when my 
 mood was different and when I felt that I was 
 getting to be a sentimental fool. Of course, 
 this thing had hit me, I admitted that, but didn't 
 we all get hit now and then? And wasn't I tak- 
 ing the blow rather hysterically? 
 
 " After all, my dear," said I to myself, " if 
 you loved this impecunious young man so dearly 
 that now your life is over because he scorns you, 
 isn't it rather peculiar that you bade him ' Good- 
 bye ' at the height of his passion and went off to 
 Europe and became engaged to someone else?" 
 
 In these moods I would argue with myself and 
 take the cynical tone of a scheming mamma in a 
 society noveL I would tell myself I was well 
 
358 UNCLOTHED 
 
 free of Larry and a subject for congratulations, — 
 and tlien I would look about my little room so 
 full of his memories and know that I had lied. 
 
 Ah, I wanted him so. Nothing made a differ- 
 ence; I could be cynical with myself, I could be 
 bitter about this other woman for whom he'd 
 thrown me over, I could try to fool myself with 
 a dozen lies, but always I woke in the morning 
 thinking of him and of how much I wanted him. 
 
 And yet, unhappy as I was during all this time, 
 curiously enough I never even thought of killing 
 myself. I had literally nothing to live for, but 
 it never seemed to occur to me that I had the 
 power to cease to live. I fancy that my distress 
 was too real for any such melodramatic notions 
 to enter my mind. 
 
 At any rate, I continued in the usual routine 
 without a break. There were mornings after bad 
 nights when breakfast bore a repellant aspect, 
 but on the whole I ate and slept with moderate 
 success. And I worked like a horse. At my of- 
 fice they were delighted with me. 
 
 " I never supposed you had it in you," said the 
 chief. " You know I took you on here largely on 
 
UNCLOTHED 359 
 
 your father's account, and I don't mind confessing 
 I never expected to be able to keep you. A less 
 practical looking creature than you seemed that 
 first day you came to call on me in your long 
 crepe veil, I never saw. But you're doing capi- 
 tally, capitally." 
 
 They raised my salary. The only thing I could 
 think of to do by way of celebration was to buy 
 Clementine a new dress. 
 
 I gave quite a number of presents in those days. 
 It afforded me a certain satisfaction, and it gave 
 me something to do, I used to try to buy some- 
 thing or other, every day. This kept me busy 
 between the time I left the office and the coming 
 on of the evening. 
 
 I do not know why it was, but these moments 
 of autumn twilight were the hardest for me to 
 bear. My flat seemed so lonely and sad when I 
 came into it; and the hour or so till dinner-time 
 full of terrible melancholy. 
 
 So I drifted into the habit of going into the 
 shops at this time and stopping until they closed. 
 I did not buy many things for myself. I very 
 seldom saw anything I wanted. But I went over 
 
360 UNCLOTHED 
 
 and over through the names of my acquaintances 
 trying to think of persons to whom I could make 
 little gifts, and then spent an hour perhaps search- 
 ing for exactly the right thing. Then, if it was 
 not yet time when I got home to bathe and put on 
 a tea-gown I could keep myself going in the writ- 
 ing of a note to go with my present, in wrapping 
 it up in tissue paper and addressing the parcel. 
 
 Thanks to this absurd habit I did not find my- 
 self much better off for my raise of salary. I had 
 used to think that a little more money would 
 make all the difference to me, but now that I had 
 it, I could not even find a personal use of it. I 
 did not care to save because that made me think 
 of the future — the dreadful future of one who 
 has nothing to which to look forward. I did not 
 want clothes — I had a decent tailor-made office 
 frock and a tea-gown for the evenings and all my 
 trousseau lingerie. I used to laugh whenever I 
 put on a piece of it. I did not wish to go to 
 theatres or to the opera, for either I found my- 
 self bored or else emotionally excited. The only 
 extravagance I might logically have allowed my- 
 self was to change my lunching place. 
 
UNCLOTHED 36 1 
 
 I don't know why I did not do this. " Le 
 Petit Trou " was not an attractive restaurant and 
 the food, though it had a certain piquant and 
 fearsome interest, was often unpalatable. But 
 from inertia I continued to go there at noon time 
 nearly every day. 
 
 I grew to be one of the features of the place, 
 sitting at my table in my corner, with a bunch of 
 papers or some poor author's manuscript propped 
 up against the little wine bottle. And in the 
 course of time I got on nodding terms with the 
 other features of the place, and became in a cas- 
 ual fashion well acquainted with Schreiber. 
 
 He had, in social matters, the skin of an ani- 
 mal, and being always inclined to talk himself, 
 did not conceive it possible that others might be 
 inclined to silence. I finally told him that unless 
 I cast a really glittering smile at him, he was to 
 understand that I preferred my table to myself. 
 
 " What an odd woman you are! " said he, and 
 was so pleasant in return for my rudeness, that 
 next day I smiled my brightest. It was, I fancy, 
 the crucial smile of my life — but of course I did 
 not realise it then. 
 
362 UNCLOTHED 
 
 Schreiber came over bubbling with talk. 
 " Strange thing happened to-day," said he. " If 
 Mr. Shorter wasn't so awfully dignified we could 
 make some bully ads. out of it. As it is, he is 
 furious." 
 
 I looked inquiring, as was expected of me. 
 
 " Well, you see, about a month ago a chap 
 came into the office and sent in his name to Mr. 
 Shorter. Of course Mr. Shorter wouldn't see 
 him. He only sees royalty by appointment. So 
 I went out. The usual chap with a parcel under 
 his arm — and he was poorer looking than most, 
 might have been a small shop-keeper from his 
 get up and manner. 
 
 " ' Do you buy books ? ' says he. 
 
 " * Sometimes we do,' said I. 
 
 " ' How much do you pay for 'em? ' he asked. 
 
 " I told him that depended on the book. I 
 asked him if he'd written it himself. 
 
 " ' No, a friend wrote it,' he told me, and I 
 thought he hesitated a bit. 
 
 " So I took the manuscript and turned it over 
 to our lowest reader. He said it was no good. 
 He was so emphatic about it, I turned it over to 
 
UNCLOTHED 363 
 
 one of the good men, and he came in to see me 
 next day wild with excitement about it. It was 
 rotten, he said — you know Bowling's way?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " It was the worst written book you could think 
 of, all the rules of style and construction ignored 
 — and it was superb — superb, slrl- — wonder 
 who the author is." 
 
 " So then I read it. And I tell you, it's the 
 stuif. It's a big book and no mistake, all about 
 one man, realistic — the sort of thing the Russian 
 chaps do, only put right here in New York with 
 all the details we all know. The man can't 
 write, but he knows — and any fifteen dollar a 
 week stenographer can unsplit his infinitives and 
 mark in the paragraphs for him." 
 
 " That sounds good," said I. Schreiber bored 
 me. I was beginning to regret my smile. 
 
 " Oh, that's not the whole story," said he. 
 " There's a bit of comedy and a bit of tragedy 
 coming. I don't know if we shall be able to pub- 
 lish the book after all." 
 
 " Too realistic for Mr. Shorter's non-conform- 
 ist conscience?" I asked. 
 
364 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " No — it's a bit high in spots, but Mr. Shorter 
 says he'll stand for it. The trouble is, we can't 
 find the author. Of course, as soon as Mr. 
 Shorter had read it, he told me to send for the 
 shop-keeper person and I did. Shorter told me 
 to see him and find out where the author was, 
 and get him to come round. 
 
 " ' So you want the book? ' said our friend. 
 'What'U you pay for it? Will you give me a 
 hundred dollars ? ' 
 
 " ' Lord ! ' said I to myself. Then I told him 
 we would prefer to make the arrangements with 
 the author in person. 
 
 " The little chap began to squirm. ' It's im- 
 possible,' he cried, ' my friend is ill, he is in Chi- 
 cago, it's impossible.' 
 
 " I thought our little man was acting rather 
 queer, but I said ' all right. I'll ask Mr. 
 Shorter to speak to you. I suppose if you can 
 show us a note from the author giving you author- 
 ity to negotiate, it'll be all right. By the way, 
 what is his name? It isn't on the manuscript.' 
 
 " The little man hemmed and hawed and fi- 
 nally told me the name was Smith. 
 
UNCLOTHED 365 
 
 " ' And I suppose since he's in Chicago, you've 
 got some letters from him to show this is all 
 right and done with his knowledge?' 
 
 " ' I have them at home,' said the little man, 
 and he ran out of the place. If you ask me, we'll 
 never see him again ! Mr. Shorter's furious, says 
 the man doubtless stole the manuscript and that 
 I ought to have kept him and questioned him, 
 and that he will not be able to publish the stuff 
 unless he can get hold of the author, and here he 
 is with this remarkable novel and he'll have to 
 bury it, because I was such a fool." 
 
 "What did you say the book was about?" I 
 asked. Schreiber told me. 
 
 "Is the title 'The Eye'?" 
 
 " Good Lord ! " said Schreiber, " you know 
 something about it? " 
 
 " I believe I do." 
 
 " Well, look here. You come right round to 
 Mr. Shorter with me this minute." 
 
 " Too busy," I answered. " Besides,' I don't 
 know whether — I don't know exactly what I 
 ought to do." 
 
 "You don't know what to do? Why, the 
 
366 UNCLOTHED 
 
 thing for you to do is to tell the author to go see 
 Mr. Shorter. He'll treat him well. He's really 
 keen. Of course, the book's crude and all that, 
 and maybe It'll fall perfectly flat — " 
 
 Schreiber's enthusiasm fell off so palpably at 
 the very hint of putting a money value on it that 
 I began to laugh. " Suppose you tell Mr. 
 Shorter," I went on, " that I almost think I can 
 find the author, but that I don't want to disappoint 
 him by raising false hopes of what Mr. Shorter 
 is going to do for him. You ask Mr. Shorter to 
 send me word what that book's worth with a clear 
 title and I'll hope to give him a reply by to-mor- 
 row morning." 
 
 Schreiber laughed too. " You're a shrewd 
 one, you are! " said he. " I'll tell Mr. Shorter." 
 
 I was scarcely back at the office again when a 
 messenger brought me a note from Mr. Shorter. 
 It was written in his usual dignified style. He 
 understood, it ran, that I might be able to put 
 him in communication with the author of " The 
 Eye," a work which he considered to be, despite 
 its crudity, a remarkable book and one which he 
 would be gratified to put upon his list. He 
 
UNCLOTHED 367 
 
 trusted that my hope would prove to be well 
 founded, and that I would write the author im- 
 mediately to call upon him (Mr. Shorter's respect 
 for the sanctity of the infinitive was nearly slav- 
 ish). He felt confident that he and the author 
 would have no difficulty in making satisfactory 
 financial settlements in view of the fact that he 
 was prepared to offer a fair percentage of roy- 
 alty and, if the author's arrangements made it 
 desirable, to pay to him at the present time some 
 reasonable sum on account of such royalty. And 
 he was with compliments and much appreciation 
 of my courtesy in the matter, faithfully mine, 
 John Shorter. 
 
 I thought John Shorter seemed rather a dis- 
 appointing signature to such a fine sounding epis- 
 tle; it ought to have been something like "Max- 
 imilian Montmorency." I laughed at the pom- 
 posity of this man who was big and talented 
 enough to have afforded to be simple. And then 
 I went back to my work, for it was an excessively 
 busy day. 
 
 At half-past five I left the office and, for the 
 first time commenced to ask myself what I should 
 
368 UNCLOTHED 
 
 do. It seemed as if it was inevitable that I should 
 see Larry, I had not till then really taken this 
 fact into my mind. 
 
 I stopped short at a street corner and caught 
 at my breast. " My God, I can't ! " I whispered. 
 A conception of all the suffering it would 
 cause me surged over me. I stood there — I 
 fancy it must have been for a considerable 
 time, for finally someone came up and spoke to 
 
 me. 
 
 V 
 
 Then I hurried home, determined to make the 
 pain as short as possible, to go to him that even- 
 ing and get it over. I shuddered at the pros- 
 pect — to go there pale and ugly and find him 
 with his tea-shop girl; to face their surprise, her 
 possible indignation, or — if she knew of how 
 things had been between Larry and me, and what 
 was more probable? — to find her either laugh- 
 ing at me or pitying me ; to tell Larry of his good 
 luck; to have him thank me constrainedly; to go 
 away and leave them to rejoice together, while I, 
 with my wound fresh opened by the sight of him, 
 must go back to my flat — alone. How could 
 God be so cruel to me? Why was I so placed 
 
UNCLOTHED 369 
 
 as, willy-nilly, to have to do this thing? It 
 seemed a senseless torture. 
 
 I dianged my mind. I would not go. I 
 would write to Larry instead. What a fool I 
 was, not to have thought of this before. But an 
 instant's reflection showed me that this course 
 would serve only to prolong my agony. Eventu- 
 ally I would have to see Larry, I knew, to accept 
 his gratitude, to see him pitying me in my suf- 
 fering — ' gratitude, pity from him, I shrank from 
 the thought. 
 
 I flung myself Into the green chair. I was suf- 
 fering again as poignantly as I did in the first 
 days of my bereavement; the thing I had longed 
 so passionately to forget was thrown back at my 
 heart. 
 
 An ugly thought came into my head — suppose 
 I should do nothing; should neither go to Larry 
 nor write to him, should tell Shorter I had been 
 mistaken in thinking I knew the author? This 
 would be a revenge for what he had done to me, 
 and for the hypocritical way In which he had done 
 it — ."AH for your sake," as he said; but did I 
 want revenge? No, I wanted only to forget, to 
 
370 UNCLOTHED 
 
 nurse my poor heart back to health again. And 
 this I could not do — I saw before me months of 
 misery such as I had first known. How amaz- 
 ingly cruel life was 1 
 
 Then dimly a new light shone into my mind. 
 I began to realise how much this would mean to 
 poor Larry, this bit of good luck after his heaped 
 up disappointments. 
 
 I remembered him as he was in the earliest 
 days of our acquaintance, before questions of emo- 
 tion came between us. Poor child — how pathet- 
 ically in earnest he was about this new profession 
 of his, how pompous and proud of himself for 
 being an author, and how humble in his 
 heart and ready to listen to my criticism and 
 advice. 
 
 I remembered the stories he had shown me, 
 nearly all bad and yet with a sort of different- 
 ness. I had recognised his promise, and now I 
 realised that probably his talent was not suited 
 to short story writing, that doubtless this novel 
 of his showed him to far better advantage than 
 had the things he had let me read. 
 
 I remembered his grief at the loss and how I 
 
UNCLOTHED 37 1 
 
 had comforted him — such a child he was. At 
 first, before passion overtook us, I had longed to 
 help him, had hoped sometimes he would come to 
 big things and that to my encouragement would 
 be due some of the credit. It was a very simple 
 ambition I had had. " Every true woman's a 
 mother at heart," Gordon once confided to me; 
 and it was this kindly elementary impulse that 
 moved me towards Larry, It was the first nor- 
 mal, kindly feeling that I had experienced for 
 many months. I was in a bad way when I first 
 met Larry. 
 
 Suddenly I woke to the fact that, miserable and 
 forsaken as I was now, I was a healthier and 
 happier creature for knowing him. I had suf- 
 fered, it is true, but I was alive now, and a real 
 person. It is strange that just then, as I re- 
 called all the pain he had brought me and looked 
 forward to the pain he was to bring, I should 
 have felt a burst of gratitude towards him. 
 
 "Thank God I can do this for him! He's 
 done so much for me," I cried aloud. " Why, 
 it'll alter all his life, maybe." 
 
 The humiliation and the suffering that I must 
 
372 UNCLOTHED 
 
 undergo seemed as nothing to me. I would go 
 to him now, at once. 
 
 " Your bath has been ready this twenty min- 
 utes, Mademoiselle," interrupted Clementine 
 from the door. 
 
 There is something odd in the moral effect of 
 a large body of water confined in the bathtub. 
 Seemingly no matter what is one's frame of mind 
 when one steps into It, one feels quite different 
 when one steps out. I have known a bath to 
 quench melancholy, and to blot out high spirits 
 and sooth vague longings. That night it seemed 
 to dampen my spirit of exaltation. I went to 
 the tub a very heroine; I came away wondering 
 which of my dresses would have the most devas- 
 tating effect on Larry's tea-shop lady. 
 
 I decided on a long, black one, something which 
 I had got from Doucet in the old days and 
 scarcely worn since. I determined to go in a 
 cab. I told myself it was because I could not 
 go into that slum on foot in the dark. But in 
 my heart I fancy I had another motive — a sim- 
 ilar one to that which made me choose the black 
 dress. 
 
UNCLOTHED 373 
 
 "Mademoiselle will be out all the evening?" 
 said Clementine, more than a little astonished at 
 my preparations. "Mademoiselle dines out?" 
 
 " No, I don't think so," I answered, distrait. 
 
 " I will keep dinner hot, then." 
 
 " No ! No ! " I cried. I pictured the horrid 
 home-coming I should have. My cab and my 
 Doucet frock seemed small consolation now. I 
 sat on the edge of my bed, trembling. It seemed 
 as if I could not face it. 
 
 But at last I pulled myself together and was 
 off. As I closed the flat door I little dreamed in 
 what mood I should return to open it. 
 
 "Drive quickly!" said I to the cabman; and 
 then as the street corners flashed by and I saw 
 myself going nearer and nearer, and all unpre- 
 pared to meet what was before me, I tugged down . 
 the window and cried to him to go slowly. But 
 we were there pitifully soon. 
 
 As I stepped hesitatingly from the cab, a beg- 
 gar woman accosted me. " For the love of 
 Heaven, give me the price of a drink, lady," she 
 whined< " God, it's so cold and you so well off 
 and happy, lady." 
 
374 UNCLOTHED 
 
 " Happy? " I said it after her with a laugh, 
 and fished into my purse for a coin. 
 
 She peered at me curiously ; she must have been 
 a rather superior beggar. " Ain't yer happy, 
 then, lady? " she questioned. 
 
 I shook my head and gave her the coin. 
 
 " I'm terrible sorry, lady," said she, and made 
 off to the saloon across the way. 
 
 Larry's doorway was before me. Alongside 
 it w^s the ash-tin. Under the thin coating of 
 snow which topped it, I fancied I saw another 
 pair of old corsets. 
 
 I shivered and went in. 
 
 " Wait for me, please," I called back to the 
 cabman. 
 
 The door slammed behind me and I went up 
 the dark stairs. 
 
 THE END.