revolution, through the carelessness and indifference of the authorities, locomotive engines were allowed to fall out of repair, so much so that on certain lines, according to figures which were given me, about thirty per cent of the locomotives are unfit for use. Americans are doing their utmost to remedy this serious state of things. About the time the eminent statesman Mr. Root went to Russia there went also a committee of some of the greatest railway specialists in America who will, no doubt, accomplish even more than seems possible, but there is an immense amount to be done. It is not as if this disorganization had come on suddenly; it is comparable to an old neglected wound, which may well appal the surgeon who at last takes it in hand.

Before I close this rapid sketch of the present Russian situation as I have seen it I must acknowledge that as I have tried to group together and synthetize its essential features the result is a gloomy picture, with very black shadows. But we must not be misled by what I may call the mirage of pessimism. All the facts which one brings together for purposes of illustration are in reality scattered and far apart-lost in the constantly changing immensity of Russia. When I read in the morning newspapers of disorders in the provinces, of peasants looting and burning country houses and soldiers deserting to their homes, I am instinctively inclined to believe that all Russia is given over to what Taine, in his history of the French Revolution, called "cases of spontaneous anarchy." But that is far from the truth. On my way back from the Caucasus I purposely went over a great part of the country,

and talked everywhere to men and women in all classes of society, coming to the conclusion that while there are undoubtedly disturbances and acts of violence here and there, on the whole the country is relatively quiet. It is well not to be too much impressed by stories of anarchy and misrule but to keep them in a just scale of proportion.

Yet another important factor should be kept in mind. The psychology of individuals or crowds in Russia is misleading to the Western mind. Their impulses, their reasoning, their actions do not seem to be governed by any logic, or if they are it is a logic widely different from ours. Situations which in France or England would infallibly lead to certain consequences here lead to entirely different ones or sometimes to none at all. Because of the sinuosity of the Slavonic mind, which usually prefers a curved line to a straight one, things which seem to us absolutely irreconcilable get on together with tolerable smoothness.

Take one case among many, that of Cronstadt, a fortress only a few miles from Petrograd and for several months in open insurrection against the provisional government. In France there would have been an instantaneous collision between the two forces, and the stronger would have got the better of the weaker. Here, on the contrary, they backed and filled, and argued and compromised, until finally they arrived at some sort of conclusion.

One of my Russian friends said to me the other day: "You French are an odd race. You insist that two and two must make four and are always doing sums in your heads. We Russians get along very well without any such game."

A SCORE of years you had been lying In this spot,

Yet I, to whom you were the dearest,

And when to-day, by time emboldened, I looked upon the stone, 'Twas not your ghost that stood beside me

JARDY told the story of "the wolf" because Mrs. Roland in her clever, carefully put together voice had settled once more the ancient question of right and wrong. Black was black, you see, and white was white. The luckless couple she had been describing might—but they were very fortunate if they got it-expect sympathy possibly, but certainly not condonation. People were free agents. Nowadays we were inclining much too much to overlook attacks upon the social order. Our moral fibre was slackening. One made his or her own bed, and-well, that was all right, provided afterward there was entire willingness to lie in it. No kicking, you understand; nor any expectation of intelligent people being infinitely forgiving. And there you are! Exactly! There you are.

There had been about this a little fierceness, a little overinsistency. One looks for it when clever women annunciate the simplicity of the moral code. They know better. One has always a sense of an attempt at self-conviction.

In the shadows of the background Callender stirred uneasily. "Oh, of course," he interjected in his thick, tired voice; "of course! It's all true-perfectly; what you've been saying; but-" He trailed off into confusion. "Damn these double beds, anyhow! There're too many of 'em."

Then Hardy leaned forward. I had known that he would lean forward. There are times when Hardy is bound to lean forward. Under his calm, spare, brown exterior he nurses passions, and perhaps the most fierce of them all is a hatred for the average judgment of the world.

"It's a wonder to me," he said, "how well people get on under the circumstances. We're all of us living in a world much too big and complex for the best of

us. We're like peas shaken in a giant hopper; and we don't know why we're shaken." He paused and lit a cigarette. Behind the orange flame of the match you had a sudden glimpse of lean, firm-textured cheek and gray, narrow eyes. Then there was darkness again. For a moment no one spoke, and Hardy asked abruptly: "Do any of you happen to remember John Murray and Eloise Foster-Alec Foster's wife?"

About the question was a curious whiplash quality, and you realized immediately that although you did not know John Murray and Eloise Foster-had never heard of them, in fact-some of the others did; remembered them, that is, poignantly, for there fell another silencethis time a silence in which you suddenly became acutely aware of your surroundings; of the white shirt-fronts of the men, forming, in the soft darkness, a circle of etiolation like century-plants in the dusk of a garden; of the firefly ends of cigarettes and cigars. Far away to the south a hanging of gold across the sky indicated the city; and in the valley below the lights of a suburb twinkled through the trees. Pressing in upon the vine-covered porch was the smell of July, sweet and heavy; and the continuous, strident chirruping of insects seemed for a moment to monopolize all sound. It was as if instantaneously a picture of John Murray and Eloise Foster had been flashed upon a screen-one was so vividly aware of their presence in the minds of some of those listening to Hardy.

Callender broke the spell. He stirred uneasily. You heard his rattan chair creaking under his heavy body. He made a curious sound with his lips. "Good Lord, yes!" he murmured.

"I saw them a year ago," said Hardy.
"You did! Where?"
"In Wyoming."

From his dark corner Roland spoke precisely. His words sounded like dollars

being counted. "Is that that fellow, that painter, that ran away with Alec Foster's wife about fifteen years ago?" he asked. Hardy answered with equal rimness. "Yes," he said, "it was that fellow Murray-that painter." His lighted cigarette described a circle in the darkness, and I realized that he had made the peculiar gesture with which, as a rule, he precedes narration-rare narration, for he is not much given to story-telling-a gesture as if out of the air he was gathering together memory with his fingers.

"You remember John Murray in New York, don't you, Helen?" he began. "I do especially, because, perhaps you recollect, I knew him intimately; as intimately, that is, as any one knew him. He happened to be the one bright spot in the dreary five years of office work that followed my graduation from college. You see, I was at the age when I hungered for color and didn't know how to go about getting it. Most young men are that way. Then I met Murray. It was at a reception given by a distant cousin of mine. I can see him now, standing before an open fireplace, balancing a cup of tea in one hand and talking with extreme dexterity to three women at once, and I am perfectly sure that each one of them thought he was wishing the other two were not there. He had to a supreme degree the peculiar gift of complimenting by his manner even the dullest person to whom he talked." Hardy interrupted himself. "You remember that trait, don't you?" he asked.

Mrs. Roland answered. "Yes," she said.

"It was an odd trait," continued Hardy thoughtfully, "when you consider what Murray really was; he was, you see, in reality the most impersonal man I have ever known. I put this down at first to the aloofness of genius, but afterwardwell, you will understand. At all events, he made no such impression upon me that afternoon. I realized only the apparent, and to me unaccustomed, interest he took in my personality and the charm of the man's face and figure: his tall, lithe figure; his black, close-cropped, curly hair; his black, amused eyes. It wasn't until much later that I perceived the faun-like quality other people complained of; the

curio cour

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oddly to expe

rting elusiveness. And, of used to believe it long after I s true. He was I wish I Khim clear to you-so oddly ned-down to anything; so te about refusing to live up Jos; in the end, so cold about life. T ere were dozens of little outward signs. 1. signs.rgers were always limp, I remem lough he shook hands so eagerly And there was about him the queerend of a blurred quality. At a dista e, yo understand, he seemed clean-cut, extremely so, but as you came closer ters grov a mistiness, a mobile lack of precision, that eventually made you aware only of the eyes I have mentioned: a nused, and quick, and black, with litt wine-color lights in them. our less ways he was so and humorous.

And yet in sweet and

"I remember that first afternoon an incident which at the time made little impression upon me, but which, in the light of subsequent knowledge, was sinister. There was a small blonde girl talking to Murray when I went back to where he was, and she moved away, but not before I had noticed an unmistakable look in her eyes. As for Murray, he was bored. He took no great pains to conceal it."

Hardy paused long enough to throw away his cigarette. "Of course," he resumed in a dry voice, "I am not contending that every time a man has the misfortune to be the object of an unreciprocated passion it is his duty to propose marriage. That Victorian ideal, I believe, has gone out of fashion. But there's a difference. I don't think we've yet reached the point where such things can be done for amusement, or to gratify a taste for amateur psychology. And Murray, I am afraid, rather enjoyed illuminations. He was a lighter of bonfires he had no intention of tending. He was something like a cold, sweet windif the figure is not too exaggerated— blowing tinder into flame.

"All these things were not clear to me at once, you understand; they came to me gradually, after I had known Murray some time. And with them came another sense of disturbance, all very confused—a haunting discomfiture. Briefly, Murray should have been on his way to being a

great painter; briefly, he wasn't. There was no use blinking the fact. Even my ignorant and loyal eyes told me that. But what was holding him back? Admitting all he had against him-too much money, too much love of gayety, too large a flock of adoring women-there was still no adequate reason that I could find. It wasn't until the end of those five years that I laid my finger on the scar; then it was laid for me by Hewitt-Hewitt, who was old and wise, and who, occasionally, painted a beautiful thing. "The fault lies in the boy's character,' he spluttered. 'How the devil can you paint a portrait when you can't get inside, and don't want to get inside, your subject's mind? When you don't know what getting inside a mind is? Sense of beauty? Oh, yes, he's got a marvellous sense of beauty; but you can't even paint a great landscape unless you have a perception of humanity. In the end, as in everything else, you've got to know the taste of blood and smell of sweat. I'm talking about great stuff, not even fairly good stuff; and, mark my words, the former is the only kind young Murray will ever be satisfied to paint. If he doesn't come through he'll kill himself. I know him. And how the deuce can he come through?'

"That was at luncheon at a club, and I recollect how depressed I was. It was a snowy February day, and after Hewitt had gone I went to one of the windows and peered down into the muddy desolation of the street. I knew that what he had said was true. Here, after all my twistings and turnings, I was face to face with a fact. None the less, late that afternoon I went up to Murray's studio. By that time my mind was a little bit more at peace; at all events, I found myself needing desperately Murray's laugh, his quick, amused eyes, the warm beauty of his rooms, the reassuring smell of paint. It was a coincidence, wasn't it, that I should have met Eloise Foster there that very day?

"I shan't forget it. The room was dark when I came in, but a lamp was burning on a table beside a screen, over which had been flung a gorgeous vestment of cloth of gold. Standing before the screen was Eloise Foster. At first she terrified me a little, she was so bright

and arresting. I wasn't used to women. A tall, slim, coming-toward-you sort of person she was, with boyish bronze hair parted at one side and smiling lips. I delighted in her laugh and her gestures. But I must confess this first impression suffered a slight reaction when later on we sat down to tea. It was rather like meeting the mystery of a lantern at night, and then, immediately afterward, hearing the matter-of-fact voice behind it. At that time I am sure-I am very sureEloise Foster was rather an ordinary sort of woman. Indeed, I am not at all sure she isn't a very ordinary sort of woman to-day. Perhaps that's the thing about her she is so ordinary as to be exceptional. We don't grow ordinary women any more. Primitive impulses are carefully restrained. It isn't the fashion to act like bursting dams; emotions are run into strongly banked irrigation ditches. And Eloise Foster, you see, did give one the impression of a dam-a well-groomed dam. But that first afternoon the conversation was more than normal-it was subnormal, as most 'smart' conversation is. At that time the Fosters lived at Long Slip, and the talk was almost entirely about the inner life of that spiritual community.

"That was in February, and during the winter I met Mrs. Foster several times at Murray's, but it was not until a certain night in spring that I ever talked to her alone. We had had tea, and I walked with her through the growing night to the house of a friend with whom she was staying. It was a very fragrant night; we didn't say much until we had gone a block or two, then she turned to me abruptly.

"You're a great friend of John Murray's, aren't you?' she asked. "I assured her I was.

"Does he ever worry you?'

"My heart gave a little jump, but I pretended not to understand what she

meant.

"He seems to me,' she said-'he seems to me rather like a man dying standing up-inch by inch.'

"I was astonished. I had never before suspected this typical product of Long Slip of any seriousness or any capability of feeling. She had seemed to me

merely the most attractive addition to Murray's adulatory dove-cote. Her next speech had the curious logical disconnectedness of the direct feminine mind.

"I wish,' she said, a little breathlessly, 'I wish he would fall in love with some one-forget himself. But he can't. That's his trouble. He ought to be such a great mar. If he could only lay his hands on something!'

"We came to the house where she was staying and went up the steps. As the door was opened she turned and smiled at me a very radiant, proudly beautiful sort of person. I wasn't to see her again for fourteen years. Within two weeks she and Murray ran away together."

In the silence that followed Callender again made the odd little whispering sound with his lips.

"Yes," said Hardy, out of the darkness, "you remember her too, don't you?"

He lit another cigarette. "Do any of you by any chance know central southern Wyoming?" he asked. "Well, it's a good deal of a desert-yellow and red buttes and stunted cactus; all of it under a sky of piercing blueness. Every now and then there's a water-hole, or a valley opening up unexpectedly out of the dead monotony. A year ago last August I dropped into one of these one of these valleys. It was dusk. I had been five days coming from Idaho. I was all alone just a couple of pack-horses. At a God-forsaken little town fifteen miles back they had told me there was a ranch ahead of me where I could spend the night. And then, here it was. The road dipped suddenly and twisted through a sand-bank, and at the end of the twist I found myself looking down into a bowl of green fields through which ran a shining ribbon of river. As I looked, a yellow light broke out from a clump of cottonwoods, and then another, and I traced between the foliage the outline of a long, low ranch-house. The smell of dampness and the smell of grass came up to meet me. It was like wine. My mouth was dry with alkali. The country through which I had come had been even more desolate than usual, for there had been a drought; no rain for a month. The dust was ankle-deep on a horse. The road followed down another bench.

At the bottom I found a gate; then some corrals, to one side of which were outbuildings and saddle-sheds. As I led my horses toward the latter a woman came out of a near-by cabin-a woman dressed in white-and started toward the main ranch-house. She did not see me at all, but, at the sound of my voice, turned, hesitated, and came toward me. She walked very slowly. One had the impression of a picture slowly emerging from the black-and-gray of a negative. When she was within a foot or two of me she stopped. She was the quietest, slowest-moving woman I had seen in a long time. You notice gestures, mental or physical, with extraordinary quickness and accuracy in a lonely country. The woman was Eloise Foster."

Hardy fell silent for a moment, and then again described the curious circle with the end of his lighted cigarette-the circle as if he was gathering with his fingers memory out of the air. "One gets used to coincidence after a while," he proceeded. "One comes to the conclusion that life is almost entirely a matter of coincidence. Astonishment is replaced by an attitude toward fate of 'I told you so.' At the back of my brain I had always thought that somewhere, some day, I should again see John Murray and the woman he had run away with. I had even imagined that I might meet them under some such circumstances as I did. There were rumors of their being West. But I was not prepared for Eloise Foster's first words:

"Oh!' she said. 'So it's you!'

"Wasn't it odd? Nothing else: no word of greeting, no laugh. Nor did we speak while I was taking my saddles off and turning my horses in to pasture. Afterward I walked beside her to the house. "We came to a grove of trees, and a courtyard and a well; beyond, silhouetted against a sky of deep yellow, was the outline of a large T-shaped log house. A window or two was lighted. We were facing the end of the T.

"Then, for the first time since her opening words, my companion spoke again. She looked at the sky. 'Another hot day to-morrow,' she said. 'It's bad. The river is shrinking to nothing.' Perhaps my nerves were beginning to be already