“Let me in,” I said through the key-hole, for the door was locked; she had thrown the bolt on the inside.

“Go away, Johnnie, I want to be alone.”

“Hildreth, dearest woman, do let me in.  It hurts my heart to see you so suffer so.”

“I don’t want to see anybody.  I want to die.”

“I’ll come in the window.”

I was at the window madly.  I caught it.  It was locked.  But I pulled it up like a maniac.  The lock, rusty, flew off with a zing!  The window crashed up.  I tumbled in at one leap.

My whole life was saying, “this is your woman, your first and only woman—­go where she is and take her to yourself!”

That avalanche of me bursting in without denial, struck little Hildreth Baxter dumb with interest.  She had been kneeling by her bed, sobbing.  Now she rose and was sitting on it.

“Well?” and she smiled wanly, looking at me with fear and a twinkle of amusement, and intrigued interest, all at one and the same time, on her face—­

“I couldn’t stand seeing you suffer, Hildreth.  I had to come in.  And you wouldn’t unlock the door ... what has gone wrong?”

“It’s Darrie!—­”

“But you all three started on your hike like such a happy family, and—­”

“For God’s sake don’t think I’m jealous of Darrie ...  I’m only wild about the way she encourages Mubby to talk over his troubles with her—­and tell her about him and me, asking her advice ... as if she could give any advice worth while—­

“They began to talk and talk about me just as if I were a laboratory specimen....

“Damn this laboratory marriage! damn this laboratory love!

“Penton experiments, and Penton experiments ... on his cat, his dog, himself, me—­you, if you’d let him ... everybody! let him marry Humanity if he loves it so much.”

“But what did you do?”

“I caught myself running away from them, and sobbing.”

“And what did they do?”

“‘Hildreth, for God’s sake!’ Mubby called, ‘what’s the matter now?’ in that bland, exasperating tone of his,—­that injured, self-righteous, I’m-sacrificing-myself-for-mankind tone—­”

I had to laugh at her exact mimicry....

I stroked her hair....

* * * * *

“I’m glad you came to Eden, John Gregory.  You might be a poet, but you have some human sense in you, too....

“Oh, you don’t know what I’ve been through,” then, femininely, “poor, poor Mubby, he’s been through a lot, too.”

Her tears began to flow again.  I sat beside her on the bed.  I put my arm about her and drew her to me.  I kissed her tear-wet mouth.  The taste of her ripe sweet mouth with the salt of her tears wet on her lips was very good to me....

In a minute unexpectedly she began returning my kisses ... hungrily ... her eyes closed ... breathing deeply like one in a trance....