And with her last remnant of restraint gone, she lay downright at his feet, abandoned to virulent grief, and in her naked agony a shapeless mass of frill and flounce, a horrible and not dramatic spectacle of abandonment; decencies gone down before desire, the heart ruptured and broken through its walls.  In such a moment of soul dishabille and her own dishabille of bosom bulging above the tight lacing of her corset-line as she lay prone, her mouth sagging and wet with tears, her lips blowing outward in bubbles, a picture, in fact, to gloss over, Mae Munroe dragged herself closer, flinging her arms about the knees of Mr. Zincas, sobbing through her raw throat.

“Just a month, Max!  Don’t ditch me!  Don’t!  Don’t!  Don’t!”

He looked away from the sorry spectacle of her bubbling lips and great, swollen eyelids.

“Leggo!  Leggo my knees!”

“Just a month, Max, just—­”

“Leggo!  Leggo my knees!  Leggo, girl!  Ain’t you ashamed!”

“Just a month, Max, I—­”

“Gad! ’ain’t you got no shame, girl!  Get up!  Leggo!  I can’t stand this, I tell you.  Be a sport and leggo me quiet, Mae.  I—­I’ll send you everything, a—­a check that’ll surprise you, old girl!  Lemme go quiet!  Nothing can’t change things.  Quit your blubbering.  It makes me sick, I tell you.  Quit your blubbering, old girl, and leggo.  Leggo!  Leg-go!  Leg-go, I say!”

Suddenly he stooped and with a backward turn of her wrist unloosed himself and, while the pain still staggered her, side-stepped the huddle of her body, grasped his hat from the divan and lunged to the door, tugging for a frantic moment with the lock.

On her knees beside the piano, in quite the attitude he had flung her, leaning forward on one palm and amid the lacy whirl of her train, Mae Munroe listened to his retreating steps; heard the slam of a lower door.

You who recede before the sight of raw emotions with every delicacy shamed, do not turn from the spectacle of Mae Munroe prone there on the floor, her bosom upheaved and her mouth too loose.  When the heart is torn the heart bleeds, whether under cover of culture and a boiled shirt-front or without shame and the wound laid bare.  And Mae Munroe, who lay there, simple soul, only knew or cared that her heart lay quivering like a hurt thing, and for the sobs that bubbled too frankly to her lips had no concern.

But after a while they ceased of exhaustion, and she rose to her feet, her train threatening to throw her; walked toward the cold, cloyed dinner, half-eaten and unappetizing on the table; and fell to scooping some of the cold gravy up from its dish, letting it dripple from the spoon back again.  The powder had long since washed off her cheeks and her face was cold as dough.  The tears had dried around her mouth.

Presently she pinned up the lacy train about her, opened a cupboard door and slid into a dark, full-length coat, pinned on a hat with a feather that dropped over one side as if limp with wet, dabbed at her face with a pink powder-chamois and, wheezing ever so slightly, went out, tweaking off two of the three electric lights after her—­down two flights of stairs through a quiet foyer and out into the fluid warmth of late October.  Stars were out, myriads of them.