He closed his eyes, leaning back. He looked exhausted; every line of his
face drooped. In spite of his tan, it was pale, with hollows under the
eyes. It was extraordinary that a few hours should make such a change,
she thought, and held him close, comfortingly.

He did not speak for a long time, but at last, "Mary," he said, in a flat
voice, "I've had a complete failure. Nobody wants my things. This is what
I've let you in for." His tone had the indifferent quality of extreme
fatigue, but Mary was not deceived. She knew that his whole being craved
reassurance, rehabilitation in its own eyes.

"Why, you old foolish darling, you're too tired to know what you're
talking about," she cried, kissing him. "Wait till you've had something
to eat." She rang the bell--four times for the waiter, as the card over
it instructed her. "Failure indeed!" she went on, clearing a small table,
"there's no such word! One doesn't grow rich in a day, you know." She
moved silently and quickly about, hung up his hat, stood the canvases in
a corner, ordered coffee, rolls and eggs, and finally unlaced Stefan's
shoes in spite of his rather horrified if feeble protest.

Not until she had watched him drink two cups of coffee and devour the
food--she guessed he had had no lunch--did she allow him to talk, first
lighting his cigarette and finding a place for herself on the arm of his
chair. By this time Stefan's extreme lassitude, and with it his despair,
had vanished. He brightened perceptibly. "You wonder," he exclaimed,
catching her hand and kissing it, "now I can tell you about it." With his
arm about her he described all his experiences, the fiasco of the Jensen
affair and his subsequent interviews with Fifth Avenue dealers. "They are
all Jews, Mary. Some are decent enough fellows, I suppose, though I hate
the Israelites!" ("Silly boy!" she interposed.) "Others are horrors. None