The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON brown-bronze hair, as if a great sculptor had wished to immortalise the sea in storm. ”Anoint me first,” he added, with a low sob, suddenly clairvoyant of some vision of Christ and Magdalene. " Need you die?" They were seated, and her hand fell on his lap. “ Great men die never,” “ Nor kind words," he retorted, “ You have flattered me; tu veux me perdre." His English had no equivalent She gave a little shiver. "What do you want?" he said, with the man’s alarm when he at last meets the woman he may be able to love. “Your body and soul," she answered solemnly; her eyes sank into his, like a dagger into the belly of a faithless Kabyle woman. “ But beyond that, your secret! You know life, yet you can laugh from a mad heart ! ” " It is easily said. I am going to London to—morrow. There they will make me bankrupt, because I love my neigh- bour better than myself, and prosecute me for blasphemy and indecency, because I uttered a few simple truths that every— body knows." "Why, my friend, you will be famous I " she cried. " Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante 1 ” “Probably,” said he. “Already I run to a full page in the American papers, my name intimately coupled with that of a duke’s daughter whom I have never seen." “ Good, good l " she agreed—" so much for fame. But are you really great? Your laughter was better than Zarathoustra Ξ What is your real secret? Why did you love your neigh— bour? Why did you speak the truth? How did you come to know anything at all well enough to be able to laugh as 117