"Stefan," murmured Felicity, from behind her drooping mask, "we have had three golden months, but I think they are now over."
"Disharmony"--she waved a white hand--"is in the air. Beauty--the arts--are to give place to barbarity. In a world of war, how can we taste life delicately? We cannot. Already, my friend, the blight has fallen upon you. Your nerves are harsh and jangled. I think"--she folded her hands and sank back on her green cushions--"I shall make a pilgrimage to China."
"All of which," said Stefan with a short laugh, "is an elaborate way of saying you are tired of me."
Her eyebrows raised themselves a fraction.
"You are wonderfully attractive, Stefan; you fascinate me as a panther fascinates by its lithe grace, and your mind has the light and shade of running brooks."
"But," she went on, her lids still drooping, "I must have harmony. In an atmosphere of discords I cannot live. Of your present discordant mood, my friend, I _am_ tired, and I could not permit myself to continue to feel bored. When I am bored, I change my milieu."
"You are no more bored than I am, I assure you," he snapped rudely.
"It is such remarks as those," breathed Felicity, "which make love impossible." Her eyes closed.
He pushed back his chair. "Oh, my dear girl, do have some sense of humor," he said, fumbling for a cigarette.
Yo San entered with a folded newspaper, and a plate of letters for Felicity. She handed one to Stefan. "Monsieur Adolph leave this," she said.
Disregarding the paper, Felicity glanced through her mail, and abstracted a thick envelope addressed in Constance's sprightly hand. Stefan's letter was from Mary; he moved to the end of the balcony and tore it open. A banker's draft fell from it.
"Good-bye, Stefan," he read, "I can't forgive you. What you have done shames me to the earth. You have broken our marriage. It was a sacred thing to me--now it is profaned. I ask nothing from you, and enclose you the balance of your own money. I can make my living and care for the children, whom you never wanted."
The last three words scrawled slantingly down the page; they were in large and heavier writing--they looked like a cry. The letter was unsigned, and smudged. It might have been written by a dying person. The sight of it struck him with unbearable pain. He stood, staring at it stupidly.