touched her nearly. Since her marriage, the most tragic thing in her world had been Gerald Dallas. Dallas had given her his best affection, admiration, and a delicate tact and sympathy for her moods invariable, except on the rare occasions—not more than three—when she had seen him in the toils of his slavery. He had a feeling for Teresa which perhaps a more respectable man could not have had. Teresa knew that poor Gerald was disreputable; that he lived with a ballet-dancer; that he had undoubtedly seen his only good days, and was steadily going down hill. He would end perhaps as one of those beery, dirty old men that haunt the edge of the city streets, wreckage cast off by the whirling machinery. Teresa had not remonstrated with him since the early days of their friendship. Once, when she had begged Basil to try to stop him, she had been answered in the words of Confucius: "Reprove your friend once and twice, but if he does not heed you, stop. Do not disgrace yourself." And she had come to feel that Basil was right, that nothing could be done. There was no spring of regeneration in the man. At forty he had lived his life, and all but burnt himself out. He did not talk about himself to Teresa; and it was one of his charms for her. The men she saw most of—mainly artists in one way or another, or detached philosophers—were all bent, first on amusing, and secondly on ana-
