In the weeks that followed, the boy discovered in the totally absurd, yet curiously persuasive illogic of the woman’s mind a revealing illustration of the psychology of fraud, the self-hypnosis of the impostor. When he would protest to her at the effrontery of her representations, the staggering fiction she had now woven about him, his family, his wealth, his power, his influence, and his profession, which made an open, barefaced use of great names and institutions of which he had no knowledge and to which he could make no claim, the old woman would answer him at once with a series of arguments so ingeniously persuasive that for a moment he would find himself almost conquered by their hypnotic power, absurdly false though he knew them to be.

“Look here,” he would say resentfully. “What do you mean by telling all these people that I represent The New York Times? What if The New York Times should hear about it and have me thrown in jail for fraud — for using their name when I had no right to do it? — You’d be safe — you would,” he said bitterly. “I’d be the one to suffer — YOU could always get out of it by saying that you acted in good faith, that you really thought I DID work for The Times.”

“But you DO, don’t you?” She looked at him with a surprised and puzzled face.

“No!” he shouted. “Of course I don’t! And I never told you so, either! It’s something you made up out of your own head five minutes after I met you, and nothing I could say would stop you. — Now you’ve told people all over the town that I’m writing stories about Orléans for The New York Times, and am going to put THEM in the stories. We’ve accepted favours, got things at reduced prices and been entertained by these people all because you told them I am working for The Times and that they are going to get some free publicity out of it. Don’t you realize what that is?” he said angrily, glaring at her. “That’s fraud. That’s getting something by false pretence. You can be put in jail for that! . . . Why, the next thing I know you’ll be getting money from them — collecting a commission from them for getting me to write them up. Perhaps you have already, for all I know,” he concluded bitterly.

“But you did tell me that you were a journalist, my boy,” the old woman said gently. “You told me that, you know.”

“Well — yes,” he sullenly admitted. “I did tell you that. I said that because I want to be a writer, and I’ve done nothing yet — and somehow it didn’t seem so big to say I was a journalist. . . . Besides,” he blundered on uncertainly, “I thought the word had a kind of different meaning here from what it has at home —”

She nodded her head briskly with a satisfied air:

“Exactly. . . . A journalist is one who contributes articles and sketches on timely subjects to current publications. . . . And you’ve done that, haven’t you?”

“Well,” he conceded, “I wrote some pieces for the university magazine when I was at college —”

“Ah-h! Exactly!”— this with an air of triumph.

“And I was editor of the college newspaper.”

“But of course! Just as I say!”

“And I suppose I did write news stories about the university once in a while and send them to the paper back home.”

“Of course you did, my boy! Of course!”

“And I did write what they call a feature article one time and sold it to a paper. . . . And I wrote a one-act play and it was published in a book and I’ve had so far eight dollars royalty on it,” he concluded his recital with a meagre glow of hope, a lame belief that his journalistic pretensions were not wholly fraudulent.

“But —” the Countess lifted astounded eyebrows and looked about her with a fine gesture of the hands expressive of bewilderment —“just as I SAY, my boy! Just as I SAY. From what you tell me there’s no doubt of it! You are a journalist.”

“Well,” he conceded gloomily, “I guess if you can establish my reputation from that, I could swear to what I’ve told you. . . . Oh, yes,” he added ironically, “and I forgot to tell you that I got up early in the morning and delivered papers when I was a kid.”

“Exactly! Exactly!” she nodded seriously —“you showed a talent for your present work right from the start. You have been trained in your profession since childhood.”

“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “What’s the use? Have it your own way, then. I can’t argue with you. . . . Only, for God’s sake, Countess, stop telling people around here that I am working for The New York Times.”

“Now, my boy, see here; you mustn’t be so modest about things. If you don’t learn to blow your own trumpet a little no one else will do it for you. As clever and brilliant as you are, you mustn’t be so self-effacing. What if you are not yet editor of The New York Times —?”

“Editor! Editor, hell! I’m not even office-boy!”

“But, of COURSE, my dear!” she said patiently. “You will be some day. But at the present time you are a rising young journalist of great gifts, for whom all of your confrères of The Times are expecting a brilliant career —”

“Now, Countess, you look here —”

She waved her hand tolerantly with a dismissing gesture, and went on:

“All that will come,” she said. “You are still young — no one expects you to be editor yet.”

“You’ll have me editor if you talk much longer,” he said sarcastically. “I wouldn’t put it past you. But if you’re determined to tell people I’m a journalist, why drag in The New York Times? After all, I could pretend to be a journalist without feeling an utter fraud. So why drag in The Times?”

“Ah,” she said. “The Times is a great newspaper. People have heard of The Times. To say you are connected with The Times means something, carries prestige.”

“Well, if it’s prestige you want, why don’t you tell them I’m a college professor? You know, I did work as an instructor for a year in New York. If you told them I’m a professor I could at least feel a little less guilty.”

“Oh,” she said seriously, “but no one here would believe such a story as that. You are too young to be a professor. Besides,” she added practically, “it is much better, anyway, to tell them you are working for The Times.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she patiently explained, “they can see some value in that. The power of the press is great. A professor could do nothing for them. A clever young man writing articles for The Times might do much.”

“But, damn it,” he cried, in an exasperated tone, “I’ve never written articles for The Times. Can’t you understand that?”

“Now, see here, my boy,” she said quietly. “Try to be reasonable about this thing. What’s the use of confusing these people here with needless explanations? What does it matter if you haven’t written articles for The Times? You ARE writing them now —”

“Oh, hell, Countess!”

“You are going to write these very brilliant and interesting articles about Orléans,” she went on calmly, “and they will be published in The New York Times, because they will be so very clever that The New York Times will want to publish them. So why tell these simple people here anything more than that? It would only confuse them. I have told them nothing but the truth,” she said virtuously, “I have told them you are writing a series of articles about Orléans for the great newspaper, The New York Times, and that, my boy, is all they need to know.” She smiled tranquilly at him. He gave up.

“All right,” he said. “You win. Have it your own way. I’m anything you like — the white-haired boy, the prize performer, the crown jewel of The New York Times.”

She nodded with approval.

The farce grew more extravagant day by day. And because this fantastic chance had somewhat dulled the smothering ache that had been almost constant since his parting with Ann, Elinor, and Starwick, he stayed on from day to day, not knowing why he stayed or why he should depart, but held with a kind of hypnotic interest by this web of absurd circumstance in which he had so swiftly been involved.

In the morning, when he came downstairs, the old woman would be waiting for him and would sharply and eagerly catechize him about his conduct the night before.

“Did you go to the café last night, my dear? . . . How much did you have to drink? Eh? . . . A Pernod, four cognacs, coffee, a packet of cigarettes. . . . What did that come to, eh? . . . How much did you spend? . . . Twenty-one francs! . . . Ah, my dear, too much, too much!” she clucked sadly and regretfully. “You will spend all your money in café‘s and have nothing to go on with! . . . Tell me, now, my dear,” her old eyes had an eager glint of curiosity, “were there many people there? . . . Was the place crowded? . . . Were there many women? . . . You didn’t talk to any of the girls, did you?” she said sharply.

He said that he had.

“You should not have done that!” she said reproachfully. “And what did she want? She wanted you to come with her, eh?”

“No; we didn’t get that far. She asked me for a cigarette.”

“And did you give it to her?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But no money! You didn’t give her any money?” she said feverishly.

“No.”

“Did you buy her a drink? . . . Was that what all the co............