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himself had always kept the door locked. Valeria was there. She had not locked the door behind her because she expected him. He almost believed she had never been away. He opened the door as if it were the entrance to paradise. Let what might, come afterward! He breathed into the darkness, 'Valeria, Valeria!'

No answer but a gust of wind from the open window. He thought he heard her breathing. There was a familiar perfume in the air. Was she hiding? He could not wait another minute. He turned on the light.

Valeria was not there.

All at once the real truth dawned on him. He stood in the empty tomb of his wedded life. The bed was the coffin. The covering was exactly as it had been left two years and two months ago. Beneath it, a dream of happiness was buried. Yet suddenly she seemed to have appeared to him. One glance told him that her busy hands had been through it all. The furniture came to life and whispered what it knew. The chiffonier stood with all its drawers half-open and empty, the door to the closet was wide open, everywhere it looked as if a cyclone had struck the place and swept it clean.

Of course she had been there. The little devil had been dancing a witch's dance among her old belongings, turning all the drawers topsy-turvy and emptying jewel-boxes. She had picked out a trunk, and then fled through the window, carrying off everything of value. She had even changed her clothes and washed with the fine soap that had been left on the stand ever since she had left. As a matter of fact, she had turned burglar where she no longer had any business.

In a white fury he clenched his fists. He could have screamed for anguish. He made faces at himself in the mirror. It was he whom she had robbed. It was

he whom she had deceived and dishonored, whose memories she had soiled, and on whose house she had brought shame. He kicked aside the impudent little shoes. Never mind. To-morrow he would disinfect the house as if it were touched with the plague. He turned off the light and went out.

In the dining-room he cooled his revengeful mind with a couple glasses of old Madeira. When he had regained possession of himself, he walked down the long dark corridor to his study, seeking rest. Nothing would surprise him now. Of course there was a light burning in his study. Everything lit up. Why not? There was a smell of something burning, and yellow clouds of smoke circled around the chandelier.

On the lounge a strange man was stretched out comfortably, blowing tobacco smoke from his mouth in clouds. Why not? If His Majesty, King Satan himself, had advanced toward him, Peder would have taken it as a matter of course.

The visitor pulled his feet from the lounge, rose, and made a bow, while half an inch of ashes fell to the floor from his cigar. He was as bald as an egg, but with very heavy eyebrows. He hardly looked like a burglar.

'Don't mind me at all,' said Professor Peder Anker. 'Just keep your seat and act as if you were at home.'

'Many thanks, many thanks,' grinned the stranger, showing a row of fine teeth. "This is rather a late hour for visiting; but since I have waited some three hours already, I thought I had better stay until you came in.'

"That is very kind of you,' answered the professor. 'May I inquire who has asked you to wait?'

'Your wife, professor.'

"Yes? Well I am not so sure that I am married.'

'No? At least she appeared entirely at home.'

"You know her?"

'Oh, just so-so. Perhaps a little bit. I met her outside. She asked me to assist her. I got a motor-car and took a couple of trunks out to her. She told me that she had to take the midnight express.'

'So, so! Perhaps you will be good enough to inform me to what I am indebted for your rather late visit?'

'Quite right, quite right! But late is better than never is n't that so?'

He laughed once more and pulled out a big silver cigar-case, threw away the stump, and asked, 'Do you smoke?'

'No, thank you.' The professor began to be impatient.

'Perhaps not at this late hour?' 'I never smoke.'

"That's too bad.

soothing effect. Try it.'

Tobacco has a

Calmly he pulled out a long, black cigar, cut off the end, and lighted it, after which he sat down on the lounge once more and continued:

'You see, professor, I should n't like you to misunderstand me. I should much rather wash my hands of it all.' 'Oh, maybe you would like to use my washstand?'

'Ha, ha! you are a regular joker, professor.'

'If you please, I am not joking at all. Be so kind as to laugh less frequently.'

'Now, to be serious, you must not think that it is I who have made all this mess here.'

'You forget that, up to the present moment, I have not the least idea who or what you are.'

'I am an insurance agent, professor." 'Insurance agent! Good Heavens!' 'Why, that is nothing to be disturbed over,' said the stranger very composedly. 'It is a very useful vocation. My particular branch is both good and new.'

'I don't want any insurance. I have all the insurance I need.'

Yes, against fire, burglary, accident, sickness. But you forget the most important of all.'

"And that is?'

"To insure against those losses that affect us most seriously.'

'And what kind of losses are they?' 'Your hand on your heart, professor. The loss of those we love the most.'

This time it was the professor who had to laugh, although with some difficulty. But the visitor remained in dead earnest.

"The greatest loss one can sustain is to lose the woman one has loved most of all in this world. A loved one, not to say a wife.'

'Once more I shall ask you to be good enough not to speak of-of-my wife,' said the professor, angrily.

"That is so; you are not married.'

'Married or not, if ever I have been married it must have been with a devil. Yes, I was married just six months. In that time I succeeded in making a devil of her, or, maybe, she of me. I got so far with making her unhappy that early and late she charged me with wishing her dead, so that I might keep her skull before me on my writingtable.'

'A very interesting sight that would have been; she with all that gold in her mouth.'

'Yes, I am inclined to think she is right. Once insanely in love with a woman, a man never gets rid of the subject until he can put up her skeleton in his study, in a pose like the Venus de Medici - something I once saw in a museum of anatomy.'

'Very pretty, very pretty, but the best remedy is to insure in time.'

'So, there you are again with your insurance nonsense.'

'No nonsense whatever. Is it not an admirable idea that we poor human beings can insure against those most 'You only imagine that, professor. intimate disasters of all— love's in

exorable changes, which threaten every one of us? Who would not pay a high premium against such a loss?'

'All right, Mr. Insurance Agent. You come here again the next time I fall in love or get married. I'll give you a chance to write a big policy then!'

The professor turned around in his chair toward his writing-table. He noticed for the first time that the drawers were open and all the pictureframes were empty.

'Who did this?' he cried, indignantly. "That, too, is your wife's work.' 'Did she break open my writingdesk while you looked on?'

'Oh, no, she had a key to everything. She wanted what was hers, she said.' 'Hers?'

'Yes, all the letters she had written. She said they remained her property.'

The stranger rose, prepared to leave. 'So I can't write you out a nice little policy this time? When may I call again?'

'You need n't give yourself any further trouble,' answered the professor coldly.

The stranger bowed, picked up his hat, hung his cane over his arm, and lighted a fresh cigar.

Against his will the professor followed him to the garden gate. It was beginning to get light and the birds were chirping in the tree-tops. The stranger pointed toward the gable of the house and quoted:

""When you have only left a picture and a name. The name you have still,' he added.

'But not so much as a picture,' broke from the professor.

'Why, that is too bad,' said the

"Then she ought to have given back stranger as he took out his pocketbook. what was mine.'

'She could n't do that.'

'Why not?'

'Because she never keeps even the most tender letter.'

'Is that so? You seem to know her quite well.'

'Just a little, as I have said. You see, when once she has read a love-letter, she has no further use for it. She tears it into bits and throws the pieces to the wind, like so many butterflies.' 'But what does she want with her own stuff?'

'Here. Take this. I can spare it.'

The professor stared at the picture as if in a trance.

'But that is my own!' he exclaimed. 'It was you who took my picture.'

'No, professor, you are mistaken. The picture belongs to yours truly. It is merely a matter of sweet generality that it is signed, "Your own Valeria."

'Did you did you receive this picture to-night?' stammered the professor, bewildered.

'Oh, no, my dear sir. I received this just two years and three months ago.

'She made a nice little fire of it before Good-night.' she left.'

The professor looked angrily toward the open fireplace. It cut him to the quick. Those foolish little letters had been more precious to him than all his scientific manuscripts. Those pictures, with the sweet little assurances of eternal love, all burned to a crisp in his own fireplace!

The professor was on the point of running after him. He called out,

'Why did n't you go with her on the night express?'

'Because she was going with another man.'

The professor turned around and entered his rifled domicile. The key was still in the door.

BY IGNACIO BAUER

[Max Nordau, who has made his home in Paris for many years, found it convenient to reside in Spain during the war. The book here reviewed is in part the fruit of that experience.]

From La Epoca, May 16
(MADRID CONSERVATIVE DAILY)

WHO is not familiar with the genius of this gifted Israelite, whose fame has encircled the globe? However, few indeed are the Spaniards who know that Max Nordau can trace his ancestry to their own country, and that he prides himself decidedly upon his Segovian lineage. He says in his present book: 'My forefathers lived in Spain for full seven centuries; and though they left that beautiful country four hundred and twenty-two years ago, their descendants have never forgotten their Spanish inheritance. So I may consider myself at least a distant relative.'

It will delight any Spaniard to read these 'Impressions' wherein a great master traces a picture of our country that is full of life and light, of sun and color, and vibrates with the soul of our race. It is drawn by a man who is himself an ancient Spaniard, though he has absorbed the culture of other climes and other heavens; by a Spaniard who feels still stirring in the depths of his soul ancestral love and sympathy for the glorious land of his forbears, the Sefarditas the Spanish Jews, driven into exile in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, from Seville, Cordova, Grenada, and Madrid.

With what delight he describes the songs of Andalusia:

A peculiar and strangely foreign melody follows the prelude of the guitar. Andalusian songs are directly descended from the Moorish music born in the great deserts of

Africa and the mountainous solitudes of Morocco. I fancy that an educated ear and a cultivated musical taste will find Andalusian music at first more original than beautiful; but as we become accustomed to it, it discloses its profound beauty and exercises an irresistible charm. These are not true songs, but rather recitals, or passionate, dreamy chants, in which the words themselves continue to play the major part and music merely serves to shade their meaning.

The melody consists of an endless series of tremolos, rising to a high falsetto and then descending to the deepest gutturals. It produces the effect of a continuous decoration. The song itself is a highly figurative recitative, but so perfectly executed, so selfconsistent, and so expressive, that many of our greatest vocal critics assign it no low rank among our musical forms. The guitar constantly carries the melody—a melody ever simple and beautiful and of unvarying purity, without a single variant or inharmonious chord. None the less, it has a strange power to move the heart of the hearer.

Farther on, he discusses the Spanish workingman, the proletarian of Ma

drid:

I have witnessed the following scene, not once, but a dozen times, and in case of at least six couples, both young and old. To be sure, I did so unobserved; but if the persons concerned had noticed that I was watching them, they would certainly have invited me to share their hospitality; and this I could not refuse without offending them, or accept without putting myself in a false position. The men were clothed in

their soiled workers' clothes; their faces were those of common laborers, toil-worn and coarse. In any other country they would have gone to a restaurant at noonday to dine alone, while their wives would have eaten something at home. But here the laborer dines with his family, although he may have to do so in the public streets. He has all the manner of a master in his own house, with his wife by his side. Each shows the other the courtesies of good society. When the wife arrives and when she departs, they invariably exchange some little formula of politeness; and there is an innate courtesy in their intercourse, a certain dignity and mutual respect, that cannot fail to impress the stranger who observes them. These simple workingmen seem gentlemen in disguise. Give them wealth and education, and they will be no different from the best blood of the land. They have the same refinement of sentiment and instinct. These laborers, dining at midday with their wives on the asphalt pavement on San Ricardo Street, are living examples of Spanish courtesy.

Nordau gives us a vivid description of a bull-fight, in which he again shows his sympathetic appreciation for the Spanish point of view.

The spectators wear short jackets, and hats with a flat narrow brim, or what they call cordobes, shaped like low truncated cones; and they carry canes with curved handles, which make them appear like toreros in everyday garb. The general effect is pleasing. It is a costume which combines style with equality, and disguises differences of class. In such garb a great Spanish nobleman is scarcely to be distinguished from a wharfman working along the Guadalquivir, except that the cut and quality of his costume may be better. However, this democratic similarity of costume does not make the aristocrat look like a man of the people; but it makes the man of the people, in this country of universal good taste and universal dignity and polish, seem a gentleman.

Nordau discusses the psychology of the Spanish nation; and this man, who knows that his Hebrew ancestors were driven out of what had been their fa

therland for centuries, for the sole fault of worshiping God in a different manner from their neighbors, writes:

Spain is, for those who judge its history by Torquemada, and its literature by Don Quixote and Don Juan Tenorio, the land of bloody fanaticism, and of violent and unscrupulous gallantry. Nevertheless, bear this well in mind: the Spaniard is the most tolerant man in the world, without the slightest natural impulse to torture or to burn. He overflows with kindness. He does not seek glory in single combat with windmills; and though he is naturally sentimental and tender, he does not pass his life registering his mil y tres amadas, or accompany his serenades with stiletto thrusts.

Seldom has the soul of our Spanish race been depicted with greater sincerity than in these admirable lines:

After the reconquest of the country from the Moors, the glorious qualities of the Spanish soul, its perseverance, vigor, sohave found their happiest employment in briety, discipline, valor, and idealism, might furthering the political, scientific, economic, and social progress of the country. But the tragic command of history bade them serve other ends. The House of Austria seized the throne that the Catholic kings had erected on the ruins of the Arab domination, and inaugurated a Golden Age. Its dawn coincided with the discovery of America and the extension of Spanish sway over the New World. Spain's vigorous spirit of local independence broke forth in the revolt of the Comuneros or free municipal burgesses - so cruelly crushed by the powerful hand of Charles V. The noble spirits which might eventually have won this fight for liberty found boundless employment beyond the seas. He who would have adventure found it there to his heart's desire. He need only become a conquistador, or attach himself to the fortunes of any bold leader. Every vigorous and daring soul could drink to its full of the wine of life in the virgin lands of America. There lay glory, wealth and pleasure. There beckoned the joy of combat, victory, and unbridled liberty. There he who would might be king. He

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