IX. Lovers' Quarrels. They did quarrel, as always. Inez refused to take seriously the struggle between Jasper's friends and the guardians of capitalist law and order.

"Two sets of virtuous fanatics!" she said impatiently. "Either set would be cruel to make the world better. Only, the others have the power to be cruel, and your crowd has n't; that's the difference."

"A voice from Olympus!" he mocked. "Not at all," she said. "The truth is, I've seen so much of their cruelties, I'm tired of them; I'd welcome some other kind for a change. But victory is always so ugly! I can sympathize more easily with defeat. Only I know the under dog is just the same kind of dog as the upper dog, really."

"You think, Inez, that I'm just the same sort of animal as that assistant district attorney who 's been yelping at us to-day?"

"You both want to make the world better, don't you? He believes in his cause, and perhaps he would die for it. Who knows? Martyrdom would glorify even him, I 'm afraid. Yes, I assure you that if your revolution came, and you were the stern, self-satisfied, smugly virtuous prosecutor, and he the one who was being sent to rot in prison, he would be to me the more appealing figure of the two! Oh, Jasper, don't you see that it's a kind of madness, this wanting to make the world better? The only sane ones are the dreamers and idlers. At least they don't wilfully increase the sum of human misery."

"We can't all be artists, Inez."

"Why not? And who are you to defend the useful life, Jasper? You are a tramp. You have got yourself into a missionary state of mind, but

really you are just a tramp. You got converted, and went about converting others, and I'll tell you why: because it gave you a good excuse for keeping on being a tramp. I knew that when you were telling me all those things about yourself back in Greenwich Village. You called it organizing the seasonal workers; I call it bumming around with the kind of people you like best. They are tramps because they have to be; you, because it's in your blood. But a tramp is a tramp. I know. Am I not one of them? We look at life differently from people who live the year round under the same roof. We are not afraid of things that other people are afraid of. We take chances that other people don't take. We are free, and we don't give a damn. So you stay with us and play with us. You can call it creating a new society within the shell of the old if you want to. But I am more candid. I am not a part of this silly old world, and I have no responsibilities toward it. But you-you seem to have a New England conscience. it because you ran away from home, Jasper, and let them take that house away from your mother? Are you still trying to make it up to her? To be a dutiful son? You want to be good and useful, and yet you can't bear to settle down and be a slave, like every one else. Well, along comes this new gospel, and gives you a chance to risk your neck doing your precious duty to society-and still keep on being a tramp! I'm not making fun of you, Jasper. I love your courage; only I think it's absurd. But I think the United States Government is still more absurd. It thinks you are a danger to society, and wants to lock you up in prison for half a lifetime!

Is

Oh, you are all mad; and sometimes I think I am the only sane person alive on this wretched earth!"

And they argued, as before in Greenwich Village, about whether she loved him.

"You are like that assistant district attorney, Jasper-the way you cross-question me! You want me to confess that I am guilty of being in love with you; and then you 'll sentence me to be faithful to you forever after! Jasper, I tell you I am not that kind of person. I am an idler and a vagabond. I thought you were, too. That was why I liked you!"

"Why are you so stubborn, Inez? Why won't you say-love!"

"Because, Jasper, love is a word that belongs to the world we don't live in, the world of stability and order. When people love each other, they get married and settle down and have a family and go to church and believe what they read in the newspapers. They surrender to the world and become a part of it. No, Jasper, I don't love you. And you don't want me to, really. You would n't want me to be your wife."

He made a painful grimace.

"I'm scarcely in a position to propose marriage just now, with twenty years in prison hanging over my head. But-if I were free to ask you, I would propose marriage. Of course I want you to be my wife, Inez."

"Oh, no, Jasper!" It was like a cry of pain. And then she burst out laughing gaily. "But how absurd!"

"I know it's absurd," he said stiffly. "As you have taken pains to remind me, I'm a tramp. I shall have nothing to support a wife on, even if I am lucky enough not to get sent to prison. All that you say is true-I 've been a

bum. But I don't want to be a bum all my life."

"Oh, but I want you to, Jasper dear!" she cried. "And-and-that's not what I meant! Do you think I would marry you if you had a job and money and could support me?”

"If you loved me," he said.
She sighed.

"Well, we 've agreed that I don't, so that 's out of the question."

"It's out of the question for practical reasons," he said, "but the principle of the thing remains the same."

"Good!" she said cheerfully, reaching over for another cigarette. "Let's quarrel about the principle of the thing!"

The world was at war, and the destiny of nations was at stake. The freedom of a hundred men was being weighed in scales by a carefully blindfolded goddess, and one of these men was Jasper Weed. But all this seemed remote to them now. Love was their theme. They hurt each other with cruel words, and sought passionately to heal those hurts with kisses.

And it seemed that the debate was not waged in vain. As the trial ended, Inez Vance wavered irresolutely in her defense of freedom. On the night the jury went out to decide the fate of the accused, Inez Vance wept. And from her tears she whispered presently: "Oh, Jasper, I do love you!"

"Stubborn girl! I knew it!" he answered.

"I suppose," she said spitefully, "you think it is worth while going to prison just to wring that admission from me!"

"Well worth it," he said, laughing. "I shall go to prison happy."

That may have been a lover's extravagance, but they were happy,

lyrically happy. Others may have waited with anxious hearts for the jury's verdict. They did not seem to care.

The jury brought in its verdict. "Guilty" against ninety-eight men, including Jasper Weed. And that night, so paradoxically ran the course of their vagabond love, Jasper and Inez became engaged.

"I know it's silly," said Inez, "but since we are honestly in love, let 's declare it to each other in the usual way."

"We ought to have a ring," said Jasper, gravely, wondering where he could borrow the money.

"Let me give you a ring," said Inez, and took one of quaint workmanship from her finger and slipped it on his. It would only go on his little finger. "With this I give you my heart," she whispered, "forever."

They kissed each other solemnly.

The judge was to pronounce sentence. That morning, absurdly and beautifully and defiantly, they went to the city hall and were married. That afternoon Jasper Weed sat in his place among the defendants, and Inez in a corner of the court-room, and heard the white-haired judge pronounce sentence: "Jasper Weed, twenty years in prison."

"And now that this trial is over," said Jasper that night, "I can go and look for a job."

X. Anticlimax. Jasper looked for work, and so did Inez. She made a precarious living at that time doing various kinds of hack commercial artwork, at which she was very clever. She presently found something to do for a department store. In order to do this work, she had to have a place of her own. Her key did not repose over the ledge of her door as an invitation to idle friends. Nevertheless, she was sometimes at home to Jasper and others.

The change was disconcerting to Jasper. He did not complain, because the things that came into his mind to say were rather too bitter. He contented himself with taking the ring from his little finger, and keeping it in his pocket. If she noticed its absence, she did not mention it. Not being able to say the things in his heart, he said little or nothing. He must have been poor company.

He told himself that his nerves were all on edge. When he had a job, he would be better able to deal with the situation.

But before he got a job, Inez had finished her pictures, turned them in, and received the check; and now, she told him casually, as though it were news in which a good friend of hers would be interested, she was going back to New York.

"That so?" he said as politely as he

He did not come to her place again; but a few days later, on returning home from job-hunting, he found a note slipped under his door, saying she was sorry she had n't been able to see him to say good-by. It was a friendly note. "If you should come to New York again," it ended, "be sure to come and see me. I shall be at my old address."

He wrote her a letter full of angry reproach, and mailed it, and next day hopped a freight eastward. A week later he walked up the stairs and stopped in front of her door in Greenwich Village. He was wearing a ring of quaint workmanship on his little finger.

The door was slightly ajar. He knocked, and when there was no answer, he pushed it open and entered. The room was empty. But there was a book lying open on the couch, as though she had just been reading and had laid it down. He walked over and looked frowningly at it, as if seeking for an omen. It was a book of poems, and there was a black pencil mark beside one of the stanzas. He knelt and read:

vain. vain. Word had gone out for those on bond to surrender themselves within a week to the authorities. All but three had already done so, and there were newspaper stories to the effect that these three men would try to escape from the country and go to Soviet Russia, under instructions from the Third International. One of these three men was Jasper Weed. Mrs. Raymond was naturally interested. In fact, she and her guests were talking about it that April evening. By an odd chance, one of these guests happened to be connected with the Department of Justice; he was assuring Mrs. Raymond that her five thousand dollars were gone. Another of the guests, Inez Vance, now becoming a celebrity, had smiled and made no comment. It was at this point that

over

"I guess you are right," he murmured, and took the ring from his little finger and laid it on the page of the open book. Then he went out, leaving the door ajar as he had found it.

XI. Believe It or Not. That is doubtless where the story should end. But there yet remains one more episode to be told. The time is three years later, and the place Mrs. Raymond's house on Long Island. The war of the nations was over, and people were trying to forget it. And the case of the men convicted in Chicago had at last reached the Supreme Court in

to signify that he was some one she knew. "Bring him in," she said. Then Inez Vance frowned anxiously, and instantly Mrs. Raynond's mind made the association: Jimson-Weed, of course! She rose, a little fluttered.

He entered the room, smiling. Yes, it was Jasper Weed, instantly recognizable despite his absurd beard and still more absurd horn-rimmed spectacles.

"How do you do, Mr. Jimson!" she said warmly, and shook his hand. "I'm so glad you could come. I believe you know Miss Vance?"

"Of course. How are you, Mr. Jimson?" said Inez, coolly.

Mrs. Raymond remained nervous