whole night before me to think, to analyze the situation and study it from every side. For the first time in my life, I remember, sleep would not come to me all night long, and this helped me to listen to the voice of inner feeling — the voice of conscience — and shortly before dawn I arrived at a final decision: to preserve the altar I had built to her in the depths of my heart. My soul was at peace with this decision, and it seemed to me, for all its harshness, far more beautiful than a fleeting momentary pleasure. Yes! I would act as she herself had wished — so as not to make her lose her regard for herself and for me... and also so as not to lose my own regard for myself.

Miss Olga came on the morrow, on her lips a bewitching smile she had lost of late, and I understood, from her first glance at me, that she knew I was refusing her request. I gave her to understand that I did so to preserve her good name and to safeguard her future... Then I expressed to her my desire to help her through this crisis of the spirit, and my readiness to discuss it and to join deed to word. But she turned to me and addressed me calmly and with composure, saying:

— Thank you, my friend. My things at the pension are packed. I shall leave Paris at once... Let me, if you will, press a farewell kiss upon your brow!

So, with the utmost simplicity, I let her kiss me and go, and like one stunned I stood at the window watching her take the cab and draw away, until she vanished from my eyes at the bend of the street. Only then, without my will having any say in it, I sat down on the divan, holding my head in both hands, and like a small child gave myself up to a sharp fit of weeping; I

know not how many tears I shed in its course.

Contrary to custom, I did not go to Gibran's that morning. After Olga's going in that fashion, a fit of black melancholy came over me, as though a powerful hand had gripped and wrung my heart. Shortly before noon there came a knock at the door — and the knocker was none other than Gibran himself! He had come to look in on me and find out the reason for my absence. He came in leaning on his stick and stared long into my face before asking me:

— Why are your eyes red, Youssef?

— I sat up late last night, working on the translation of Dante's Inferno.

— That is not true! When did you learn to lie? I have always known you frank, speaking nothing but the truth though it cost you your head!

And before I could answer him he reached into his pocket and drew out a letter; I knew at once from whom it came. I recognized on it Miss Olga's hand: she had written it in haste after leaving me, and had passed by Gibran on her way to the railway station, to bid him farewell and acquaint him with the details of the story.

Gibran sat down beside me on the divan and began, as was his way, to put questions to me like an examining magistrate investigating an important case. He commented on my answers, analyzed the situation, and came at last to say:

— I am proud of you, Youssef, for you have proved yourself a man of honor, and you answered the call of reason, not of the heart — and it is no easy thing for reason to triumph over the desires of the flesh...

— Hush... I said to him, laying my finger on my lips: hush... The

matter is private... very private indeed... and its chapters have ended in peace, so let us draw the curtain over it...

XXXX

Miss Susan said to me — I had found her alone in the art shop, dusting the books and the pictures:

— You simpleton! Is that how you let Olga slip out of your hands? Why don't you teach your arts to your friend Kalimi? For he is caught! He is engaged, and will soon be married — and the story is not without its comedy. Come, sit down, and I will tell it to you.

I said to Susan, not concealing my astonishment at what I was hearing:

— Is it possible? Is it true? My friend Kalimi caught? I thought him the most immune of us all, the most resistant to these things.

Miss Susan shook her head and said, with something of defiance, or of gloating:

— You men think yourselves immune. But every one of you, in his turn, has his day of being caught in the snare! Hear the tale as it is:

We have a friend in the protocol department at the English embassy, who lately invited Kalimi to a dancing party on the anniversary of King Edward's coronation. Kalimi asked his friend, by way of a joke, to present him with the title of "Count"... Among the guests was Miss Esther, come from London to attend to her father's business; and it occurred to her, too, to carry the title of "Lady." And when Count Kalimi met Lady Esther — she a bewitching enchantress, he splendid of countenance — they danced, and exchanged all the love they pleased; and her love came like a thunderbolt, sweeping and violent, and even after