gold-hungry world whatever he could and however he would. . . . Only
his mother had understood. . . . And Diane had mocked her memory.
Still there had been thrilling moments of tenderness for him in Diane's
life. . . . But Diane was like that--a flash of fire and then
bewildering sweetness. There was the spot Starrett's glass had struck;
there the ancient carven chair in which Diane had mocked his mother;
there was red--blood-red in the dying log--and gold. Blood and
gold--they were indissolubly linked one with the other and the demon of
the bottle had danced wild dances with each of them. A mad trio!
After all, there was only one beside his mother who had ever understood
him--Philip Poynter, his roommate at Yale. And Philip's lazy voice
somehow floated from the fire to-night.

"Carl," he had said, "you've bigger individual problems to solve than
any man I know. You could head a blood revolution in South America
that would outrage the world; or devise a hellish philosophy of
hedonism that by its very ingenuity would seduce a continent into
barking after false gods. You've an inexplicable chemistry of
ungovernable passions and wild whims and you may go through hell first
but when the final test comes--you'll ring true. Mark that, old man,
you'll ring true. I tell you I _know_! There's sanity and will and
grit to balance the rest."

Well, Philip Poynter was a staunch optimist with oppressive ideals, a
splendid, free-handed fellow with brains and will and infernal
persistence.

Four o'clock and the log dying! The city outside was a dark, clinking
world of milkmen and doubtful stragglers, Carl finished the whiskey in
his glass and rose. His brain was very drunk--that he knew--for every