reach his dim up-town flat till after dark, and could only "brush
up" for dinner, and afterward lie on the lounge with his pipe,
while his sister droned through the evening paper. Sometimes he
spent an evening at the theatre; or he dined out, or, more
rarely, strayed off with an acquaintance or two in quest of what
is known as "pleasure." And in summer, when he and Kate went to
the sea-side for a month, he dozed through the days in utter
weariness. Once he fell in love with a charming girl--but what
had he to offer her, in God's name? She seemed to like him, and
in common decency he had to drop out of the running. Apparently
no one replaced him, for she never married, but grew stoutish,
grayish, philanthropic--yet how sweet she had been when he had
first kissed her! One more wasted life, he reflected. . .

But the stage had always been his master-passion. He would have
sold his soul for the time and freedom to write plays! It was IN
HIM--he could not remember when it had not been his deepest-
seated instinct. As the years passed it became a morbid, a
relentless obsession--yet with every year the material conditions
were more and more against it. He felt himself growing middle-
aged, and he watched the reflection of the process in his
sister's wasted face. At eighteen she had been pretty, and as
full of enthusiasm as he. Now she was sour, trivial,
insignificant--she had missed her chance of life. And she had no
resources, poor creature, was fashioned simply for the primitive
functions she had been denied the chance to fulfil! It
exasperated him to think of it--and to reflect that even now a
little travel, a little health, a little money, might transform
her, make her young and desirable. . . The chief fruit of his
experience was that there is no such fixed state as age or youth--