"W-what is it?" she faltered.

"What is what?" he asked coolly.

"The reason there is no light in Mr. Hamil's windows?"

"He's asleep," said Malcourt in a dull voice.

"Louis! Are you telling me the truth?"

"Yes.... I'd tell you if he were dead. He isn't. Lansdale thinks there is a slight change for the better. So I came to tell you."

Every tense nerve and muscle in her body seemed to give way at the same instant as she dropped to the lounge. For a moment her mind was only a confused void, then the routine instinct of self-control asserted itself; she made the effort required of her, groping for composure and self-command.

"He is better, you say?"

"Lansdale said there was a change which might be slightly favourable.... I wish I could say more than that, Shiela."

"But—he is better, then?"—pitifully persistent.

Malcourt looked at her a moment. "Yes, he is better. I believe it."

For a few moments they sat there in silence.

"That is a pretty gown," he said pleasantly.

"What! Oh!" Young Mrs. Malcourt bent her head, gazing fixedly at the sealed letter in her hand. The faint red of annoyance touched her pallor—perhaps because her chamber-robe suggested an informality between them that was impossible.

"I have written to my father and mother," she said, "about the securities."

"Have you?" he said grimly.

"Yes. And, Louis, I forgot to tell you that Mr. Cuyp telephoned me yesterday assuring me that everything had been transferred and recorded and that my father could use everything in an emergency—if it comes as you thought possible.... And I—I wish to say"—she went on in a curiously constrained voice—"that I appreciate what you have done—what you so willingly gave up—"

An odd smile hovered on Malcourt's lips:

"Nonsense," he said. "One couldn't give up what one never had and never wanted.... And you say that it was all available yesterday?"

"Available!"

"At the order of Cardross, Carrick & Co.?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

"You made over all those checks to them?"

"Yes. Mr. Cuyp took them away."

"And that Lexington Avenue stuff?"

"Deeded and recorded."

"The bonds?"

"Everything is father's again."

"Was it yesterday?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You are absolutely certain?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

Malcourt slowly rolled a cigarette and held it, unlighted, in his nervous fingers. Young Mrs. Malcourt watched him, but her mind was on other things.

Presently he rose, and she looked up as though startled painfully from her abstraction.

"You ought to turn in," he said quietly. "Good night."

"Good night."

He went out and started to descend the stairs; but somebody was banging at the lower door, entering clumsily, and in haste.

"Louis!" panted Portlaw, "they say Hamil is dying—"

"Damn you," whispered Malcourt fiercely, "will you shut your cursed mouth!"

Then slowly he turned, leaden-footed, head hanging, and ascended the stairs once more to the room where his wife had been. She was standing there, pale as a corpse, struggling into a heavy coat.

"Did you—hear?"

"Yes."

He aided her with her coat.

"Do you think you had better go over?"

"Yes, I must go."

She was trembling so that he could scarcely get her into the coat.

"Probably," he said, "Portlaw doesn't know what he's talking about.... Shiela, do you want me to go with you—"

"No—no! Oh, hurry—"

She was crying now; he saw that she was breaking down.

"Wait till I find your shoes. You can't go that way. Wait a moment—"

"No—no!"

He followed her to the stairs, but:

"No—no!" she sobbed, pushing him back; "I want him to myself. Can't they let me have him even when he is dying?"

"You can't go!" he said.

She turned on him quivering, beside herself.

"Not in this condition—for your own sake," he repeated steadily. And again he said: "For the sake of your name in the years to come, Shiela, you cannot go to him like this. Control yourself."

She strove to pass him; all her strength was leaving her.

"You coward!" she gasped.

"I thought you would mistake me," he said quietly. "People usually do.... Sit down."

For a while she lay sobbing in her arm-chair, white hands clinched, biting at her lips to choke back the terror and grief.



"As soon as your self-command returns my commands are void," he said coolly. "Nobody here shall see you as you are. If you can't protect yourself it's my duty to do it for you.... Do you want Portlaw to see you?—Wayward?—these doctors and nurses and servants? How long would it take for gossip to reach your family!... And what you've done for their sakes would be a crime instead of a sacrifice!"

She looked up; he continued his pacing to and fro but said no more.

After a while she rose; an immense lassitude weighted her limbs and body.

"I think I am fit to go now," she said in a low voice.

"Use a sponge and cold water and fix your hair and put on your shoes," he said. "By the time you are ready I'll be back with the truth."

She was blindly involved with her tangled hair when she heard him on the stairs again—a quick, active step that she mistook for haste; and hair and arms fell as she turned to confront him.

"It was a sinking crisis; they got him through—both doctors. I tell you, Shiela, things look better," he said cheerily.



CHAPTER XXII

THE ROLL CALL

As in similar cases of the same disease Hamil's progress toward recovery was scarcely appreciable for a fortnight or so, then, danger of reinfection practically over, convalescence began with the new moon of May.

Other things also began about that time, including a lawsuit against Portlaw, the lilacs, jonquils, and appleblossoms in Shiela's garden, and Malcourt's capricious journeys to New York on business concerning which he offered no explanation to anybody.

The summons bidding William Van Beuren Portlaw of Camp Chickadee, town of Pride's Fall, Horican County, New York, to defend a suit for damages arising from trespass, tree-felling, the malicious diversion of the waters of Painted Creek, the wilful and deliberate killing of game, the flooding of wild meadow lands in contemptuous disregard of riparian rights and the drowning of certain sheep thereby, had been impending since the return from Florida to her pretty residence at Pride's Fall of Mrs. Alida Ascott.

Trouble had begun the previous autumn with a lively exchange of notes between them concerning the shooting of woodcock on Mrs. Ascott's side of the boundary. Then Portlaw stupidly built a dam and diverted the waters of Painted Creek. Having been planned, designed, and constructed according to Portlaw's own calculations, the dam presently burst and the escaping flood drowned some of Mrs. Ascott's sheep. Then somebody cut some pine timber on her side of the line and Mrs. Ascott's smouldering indignation flamed.

Personally she and Portlaw had been rather fond of one another; and to avoid trouble incident on hot temper Alida Ascott decamped, intending to cool off in the Palm Beach surf and think it over; but she met Portlaw at Palm Beach that winter, and Portlaw dodged the olive branch and neglected her so selfishly that she determined then and there upon his punishment, now long overdue.

"My Lord!" said Portlaw plaintively to Malcourt, "I had no idea she'd do such a thing to me; had you?"

"Didn't I tell you she would?" said Malcourt. "I know women better than you do, though you don't believe it."

"But I thought she was rather fond of me!" protested Portlaw indignantly.

"That may be the reason she's going to chasten you, friend. Don't come bleating to me; I advised you to be attentive to her at Palm Beach, but you sulked and stood about like a baby-hippopotamus and pouted and shot your cuffs. I warned you to be agreeable to her, but you preferred the Beach Club and pigeon shooting. It's easy enough to amuse yourself and be decent to a nice woman too. Even I can combine those things."

"Didn't I go to that lawn party?"

"Yes, and scarcely spoke to her. And never went near her afterward. Now she's mad all through."

"Well, I can get mad, too—"

"No, you're too plump to ever become angry—"

"Do you think I'm going to submit to—"

"You'll submit all right when they've dragged you twenty-eight miles to the county court house once or twice."

"Louis! Are you against me too?"—in a voice vibrating with reproach and self-pity.

"Now, look here, William Van Beuren; your guests did shoot woodcock on Mrs. Ascott's land—"

"They're migratory birds, confound it!"

"—And," continued Malcourt, paying no attention to the interruption, "you did build that fool dam regardless of my advice; and you first left her cattle waterless, then drowned her sheep—"

"That was a cloud-burst—an act of God—"

"It was a dam-burst, and the act of an obstinate chump!"

"Louis, I won't let anybody talk to me like that!"

"But you've just done it, William."

Portlaw, in a miniature fury, began to run around in little circles, puffing threats which, however, he was cautious enough to make obscure; winding up with:

"And I might as well take this opportunity to ask you what you mean by calmly going off to town every ten days or so and absenting yourself without a word of—"

"Oh, bosh," said Malcourt; "if you don't want me here, Billy, say so and be done with it."

"I didn't say I didn't want you—"

"Well, then, let me alone. I don't neglect your business and I don't intend to neglect my own. If the time comes when I can't attend to both I'll let you know soon enough—perhaps sooner than you expect."

"You're perfectly welcome to go to town," insisted Portlaw, alarmed.

"I know it," nodded Malcourt coolly. "Now, if you'll take my advice you'll behave less like a pig in this Ascott matter."

"I'm going to fight that suit—"

"Certainly fight it. But not the way you're planning."

"Well—how, then?"

"Go and see the little lady."

"See her? She wouldn't receive me."

"Probably not. That's unimportant. For heaven's sake, Portlaw, you're becoming chuckle-headed with all your feeding and inertia and pampered self-indulgence. You're the limit!—with your thirty-eight-inch girth and your twin chins and baby wrists! You know, it's pitiable when I think what a clean-cut, decent-looking, decently set-up fellow you were only two years ago!—it's enough to make a cat sick!"

"Can I help what I look like!" bellowed Portlaw wrathfully.

"What an idiot question!" said Malcourt with weary patience. "All you've got to do is to cuddle yourself less, and go out into the fresh air on your ridiculous legs—"

"Ridiculous!" gasped the other. "Well, I'm damned if I stand that—!"

"You won't be able to stand at all if you continue eating and sitting in arm-chairs. You don't like what I say, do you?" with easy impudence. "Well, I said it to sting you—if there's any sensation left under your hide. And I'll say something else: if you'd care for somebody beside yourself for a change and give the overworked Ego a vacation, you'd get along with your pretty neighbour yonder. Oh, yes, you would; she was quite inclined to like you before you began to turn, physically, into a stall-fed prize winner. You're only thirty-seven or eight; you've a reasonable chance yet to exchange obesity for perspicacity before it smothers what intellect remains. And if you're anything except what you're beginning to resemble you'll stop sharp, behave yourself, go to see your neighbour, and"—with a shrug—"marry her. Marriage—as easy a way out of trouble as it is in."

He swung carelessly on his heel, supple, erect, graceful as always.

"But," he threw back over his shoulder, "you'd better acquire the rudiments of a figure before you go a-courting Alida Ascott." And left Portlaw sitting petrified in his wadded chair.

Malcourt strolled on, a humorously malicious smile hovering near his eyes, but his face grew serious as he glanced up at Hamil's window. He had not seen Hamil during his illness or his convalescence—had made no attempt to, evading lightly the casual suggestions of Portlaw that he and his young wife pay Hamil a visit; nor did he appear to take anything more than a politely perfunctory interest in the sick man's progress; yet Constance Palliser had often seen him pacing the lawn under Hamil's window long after midnight during those desperate hours when the life-flame scarcely flickered—those ominous moments when so many souls go out to meet the impending dawn.

But now, in the later stages of Hamil's rapid convalescence which is characteristic of a healthy recovery from that unpleasant malady, Malcourt avoided the cottage, even ceased to inquire; and Hamil had never asked to see him, although, for appearance' sake, he knew that he must do so very soon.

Wayward and Constance Palliser were visiting Mrs. Ascott at Pride's Fall; young Mrs. Malcourt had been there for a few days, but was returning to prepare for the series of house-parties arranged by Portlaw who had included Cecile Cardross and Philip Gatewood in the first relay.

As for Malcourt there was no counting on him; he was likely to remain for several days at any of the five distant gate-keepers' lodges across the mountains or to be mousing about the woods with wardens and foresters, camping where convenient; or to start for New York without explanation. All of which activity annoyed Portlaw, who missed his manager at table and at cards—missed his nimble humour, his impudence, his casual malice—missed even the paternal toleration which this younger man bestowed upon him—a sort of half-tolerant, half-contemptuous supervision.

And now that Malcourt was so often absent Portlaw was surprised to find how much he missed the veiled authority exercised—how dependent on it he had become, how secretly agreeable had been the half-mocking discipline which relieved him of any responsibility except as over-lord of the culinary regime.

Like a spoiled school-lad, badly brought up, he sometimes defied Malcourt's authority—as in the matter of the dam—enjoying his own perversity. But he always got into hot water and was glad enough to return to safety.

Even now, though his truancy had landed him in a very lively lawsuit, he was glad enough to slink back through the stinging comments to the security of authority; and his bellows of exasperation under reproof were half pretence. He expected Malcourt to get him out of it if he could not extract himself; he had no idea of defending the suit. Besides there was sufficient vanity in him to rely on a personal meeting with Mrs. Ascott. But he laughed in his sleeve at the idea of the necessity of making love to her.

And one day when Hamil was out for the third or fourth time, walking about the drives and lawns in the sunshine, and Malcourt was not in sight, Portlaw called for his riding-breeches and boots.

He had not been on a horse in years and it seemed as though only faith and a shoe-horn could get him into his riding-breeches; but with the aid of Heaven and a powerful valet he stood before his mirror arrayed at last; and presently went out across the lawn and through the grove to Malcourt's house.

Young Mrs. Malcourt in pink gingham apron and sun-bonnet was digging with a trowel in her garden when he appeared upon the landscape.

"I don't want you to tell Louis," he cautioned her with a very knowing and subtle smile, "but I'm just going to ride over to Pride's this morning and settle this lawsuit matter, and surprise him."

Shiela had straightened up, trowel in her gloved hand, and now stood looking at him in amused surprise.

"I didn't know you rode," she said. "I should think it would be very good for you."

"Well," he admitted, turning red, "I suppose I ought to ride now and then. Louis has been at me rather viciously. But you won't tell him, will you?"

"No," said Shiela.

"Because, you see, he doesn't think me capable of settling this thing; and so I'm just going to gallop over and have a little friendly chat with Mrs. Ascott—"

"Friendly?" very gravely.

"Yes," he said, alarmed; "why not?"

"Do you think Mrs. Ascott will receive you?"

"Well—now—Louis said something of that sort. And then he added that it didn't matter—but he didn't explain what I was to do when she refused to see me.... Ah—could—would you mind telling me what to do in that case, Mrs. Malcourt?"

"What is there to do, Mr. Portlaw, if a woman refuses to receive you?"

"Why—I don't know," he admitted vacantly. "What would you do?"

Young Mrs. Malcourt, frankly amused, shook her head:

"If Mrs. Ascott won't see you, she won't! You don't intend to carry Pride's Fall by assault, do you?"

"But Louis said—"

"Mr. Malcourt knows quite well that Mrs. Ascott won't see you."

"W-why?"

"Ask yourself. Besides, her lawyers have forbidden her."

But Portlaw's simple faith in Malcourt never wavered; he stood his ground and quoted him naively, adding: "You see Louis must have meant something. Couldn't you tell me what he meant? I'll promise to do it."

"I suppose," she answered, laughing, "that he meant me to write a note to Alida Ascott, making a personal appeal for your reception. He spoke of it; but, Mr. Portlaw, I am scarcely on such a footing with her."

Portlaw was so innocently delighted with the idea which bore Malcourt's stamp of authority, that young Mrs. Malcourt found it difficult to refuse; and a few moments later, armed with a friendly but cautious note, he climbed laboriously aboard a huge chestnut hack, sat there doubtfully while a groom made all fast and tight for heavy weather, then, with a groan, set spurs to his mount, and went pounding away through the forest, upon diplomacy intent.

Hamil, walking about the lawns in the sunshine, saw him come careering past, making heavy weather of it, and smiled in salute; Shiela on a rustic ladder, pruning-knife in hand, gazed over her garden wall until the woods swallowed rotund rider and steed. As she turned to descend, her glance fell upon Hamil who was crossing the lawn directly below. For a moment they looked at each other without sign of recognition; then scarcely aware of what she did she made him a carelessly gay salute with her pruning-knife, clinging to the ladder with the other hand in sheer fear of falling, so suddenly unsteady her limbs and body.

He went directly toward her; and she, her knees scarcely supporting her, mounted the last rung of the ladder and seated herself sidewise on the top of the wall, looking down at him, leaning on one arm.

"It is nice to see you out," she said, as he came to the foot of the sunny wall.... "Do you really feel as thin as you look?... I had a letter from your aunt to-day asking an outsider's opinion of your condition, and now I'll be able to give it.... You do look pathetically thin—but I shan't tell her that.... If you are tired standing up you may come into my garden where there are some very agreeable benches.... I would like to have you come if you care to."

She herself scarcely knew what she was saying; smile, voice, animation were forced; the havoc of his illness stared at her from his sharp cheek-bones, thin, bloodless hands, eyes still slow in turning, dull, heavy-lidded.

"I thought perhaps you would come to call," he said listlessly.

She flushed.

"You did come, once?"

"Yes."

"You did not come again while I was conscious, did you?"

"No."

He passed his thin hand across eyes and forehead.

She folded her arms under her breast and hung far over the shadow-dappled wall half-screened in young vine-leaves. Over her pink sun-bonnet and shoulders the hot spring sunshine fell; her face was in shadow; his, under the full glare of the unclouded sky, every ravage starkly revealed. And she could not turn her fascinated gaze or crush out the swelling tenderness that closed her throat to speech and set her eyes glimmering.

The lids closed, slowly; she leaned there without a word, living through in the space of a dozen pulse-beats, the agony and sweetness of the past; then laid her flushed cheek on her arms and opened her eyes, looking at him in silence.

But he dared not sustain her gaze and took refuge from it in a forced gaiety, comparing his reappearance to the return of Ulysses, where Dame Art, that respectable old Haus-Frau, awaited him in a rocking-chair, chastely preoccupied with her tatting, while rival architects squatted anxiously around her, urging their claims to a dead man's shoes.

She strove to smile at him and to speak coolly: "Will you come in? I have finished the vines and presently I'm going to dig. Wait a moment"—looking behind her and searching with one tentative foot for the ladder—"I will have to let you in—"

A moment later she met him at the grille and flung it wide, holding out her hand in welcome with a careless frankness not quite natural—nor was the nervously vigorous handshake, nor the laughter, light as a breeze, leaving her breathing fast and unevenly with the hue of excitement deepening on lip and cheek.

So, the handshaking safely over, and chatting together in a tone louder and more animated than usual, they walked down the moist gravel path together—the extreme width of the path apart.

"I think," she said, considering the question, with small head tipped sideways, "that you had better sit on this bench because the paint is dry and besides I can talk to you here and dig up these seedling larkspurs at the same time."

"Don't you want me to do some weeding?"

"With pleasure when you are a little stronger—"

"I'm all right now—"

He stood looking seriously at the bare flower-bed along the wall where amber shoots of peonies were feathering out into palmate grace, and older larkspurs had pushed up into fringed mounds of green foliage.

She had knelt down on the bed's edge, trowel in hand, pink sun-bonnet fallen back neglected; and with blade and gloved fingers she began transferring the irresponsible larkspur seedlings to the confines of their proper spheres, patting each frail little plant into place caressingly.

And he was thinking of her as he had last seen her—on her knees at the edge of another bed, her hair fallen unheeded as her sun-bonnet hung now, and the small hands clasping, twisting, very busy with their agony—as busy as her gloved fingers were now, restlessly in motion among the thickets of living green.

"Tell me," she said, not looking back over her shoulder, "it must be heavenly to be out of doors again."

"It is rather pleasant," he assented.

"Did you—they said you had dreadful visions. Did you?"

He laughed. "Some of them were absurd, Shiela; the most abominably grotesque creatures came swarming and crowding around the bed—faces without bodies—creatures that grew while I looked at them, swelling to gigantic proportions—Oh, it was a merry carnival—"

Neither spoke. Her back was toward him as she knelt there very much occupied with her straying seedlings in the cool shade of the wall.

Jonquils in heavy golden patches stretched away into sun-flecked perspective broken by the cool silver-green of iris thickets and the white star-clusters of narcissus nodding under sprays of bleeding-heart.

The air was sweet with the scent of late apple-bloom and lilac—and Hamil, brooding there on his bench in the sun, clasped his thin hands over his walking-stick and bent his head to the fragrant memories of Calypso's own perfume—the lilac-odour of China-berry in bloom, under the Southern stars.

He drew his breath sharply, raising his head—because this sort of thing would not do to begin life with again.

"How is Louis?" he asked in a pleasantly deliberate voice.

The thing had to be said sooner or later. They both knew that. It was over now, with no sign of effort, nothing in his voice or manner to betray him. Fortunately for him her face was turned away—fortunately for her, too.

There was a few moments' silence; the trowel, driven abruptly into the earth to the hilt, served as a prop for her clinched hand.

"I think—Louis—is very well," she said.

"He is remaining permanently with Mr. Portlaw?"

"I think so."

"I hope it will be agreeable for you—both."

"It is a very beautiful country." She rose to her slender, graceful height and surveyed her work: "A pretty country, a pretty house and garden," she said steadily. "After all, you know, that is the main thing in this world."

"What?"

"Why, an agreeable environment; isn't it?"

She turned smilingly, walked to the bench and seated herself.

"Your environment promises to be a little lonely at times," he ventured.

"Oh, yes. But I rather like it, when it's not over-populated. There will be a great deal for me to do in my garden—teaching young plants self-control."

"Gardens freeze up, Shiela."

"Yes, that is true."

"But you'll have good shooting—"

"I will never again draw trigger on any living thing!"

"What? The girl who—"

"No girl, now—a woman who can never again bring herself to inflict death."

"Why?"

"I know better now."

"You rather astonish me?" he said, pretending amusement.

She sat very still, thoughtful eyes roaming, then rested her chin on her hand, dropping one knee over the other to support her elbow. And he saw the sensitive mouth droop a little, and the white lids drooping too until the lashes rested on the bloom of the curved cheek. So he had seen her, often, silent, absent-minded, thoughts astray amid some blessed day-dream in that golden fable they had lived—and died in.

She said, as though to herself: "How can a woman slay?... I think those who have ever been victims of pain never desire to inflict it again on any living thing."

She looked up humbly, searching his face.

"You know it has become such a dreadful thing to me—the responsibility for pain and death.... It is horrible for humanity to usurp such a power—to dare interfere with life—to mar it, end it!... Children do not understand. I was nothing more a few months ago. To my intelligence the shallow arguments of those takers of life called sportsmen was sufficient. I supposed that because almost all the little children of the wild were doomed to die by violence, sooner or later, that the quicker death I offered was pardonable on the score of mercy." ... She shook her head. "Why death and pain exist, I do not know; He who deals them must know why."

He said, surprised at her seriousness: "Right or wrong, a matter of taste cannot be argued—"

"A matter of taste! Every fibre of me rebels at the thought of death—of inflicting it on anything. God knows how I could have done it when I had so much of happiness myself!" She swung around toward him:

"Sooner or later what remains to say between us must be said, Garry. I think the time is now—here in my garden—in the clear daylight of the young summer.... You have that last letter of my girlhood?"

"I burned it."

"I have every letter you ever wrote me. They are in my desk upstairs. The desk is not locked."

"Had you not better destroy them?"

"Why?"

"As you wish," he said, looking at the ground.

"One keeps the letters of the dead," she said; "your youth and mine"—she made a little gesture downward as though smoothing a grave—daintily.

They were very unwise, sitting there in the sunshine side by side, tremendously impressed with the catastrophe of life and with each other—still young enough to be in earnest, to take life and each other with that awesome finality which is the dread privilege of youth.

She spoke with conviction of the mockery of life, of wisdom and its sadness; he looked upon the world in all the serious disillusion of youth, and saw it strewn with the fragments of their wrecked happiness.

They were very emotional, very unhappy, very, very much in love; but the truly pathetic part of it all lay in her innocent conviction that a marriage witnessed by the world was a sanctuary within the circle of which neither she nor he had any reason to fear each other or themselves.

The thing was done; hope slain. They, the mourners, might now meet in safety to talk together over the dead—suffer together among the graves of common memories, sadly tracing, reverently marking with epitaphs appropriate the tombs which held the dead days of their youth.

Youth believes; Age is the sceptic. So they did not know that, as nature abhors a vacuum, youth cannot long tolerate the vacuity of grief. Rose vines, cut to the roots, climb the higher. No checking ever killed a passion. Just now her inexperience was driving her into platitudes.

"Dear Garry," she said gently, "it is such happiness to talk to you like this; to know that you understand."

There is a regulation forbidding prisoners to converse upon the subject of their misdemeanours, but neither he nor she seemed to be aware of it.

Moreover, she was truly convinced that no nun in cloister was as hopelessly certain of safety from world and flesh and devil as was her heart and its meditations, under the aegis of admitted wedlock.

She looked down at the ring she wore, and a faint shiver passed over her.

"You are going to Mrs. Ascott?"

"Yes, to make her a Trianon and a smirking little park. I can't quarrel with my bread and butter, but I wish people would let these woods alone."

She sat very still and thoughtful, hands clasped on her knee.

"So you are going to Mrs. Ascott," she repeated. And, still thoughtful: "I am so fond of Alida Ascott.... She is very pretty, isn't she?"

"Very," he said absently.

"Don't you think so?"—warmly.

"I never met her but once."

She was considering him, the knuckle of one forefinger resting against her chin in an almost childish attitude of thoughtful perplexity.

"How long are you to remain there, Garry?"

"Where?"—coming out of abstraction.

"There—at Mrs. Ascott's?"

"Oh, I don't know—a month, I suppose."

"Not longer?"

"I can't tell, Shiela."

Young Mrs. Malcourt fell silent, eyes on the ground, one knee loosely crossed over the other, and her small foot swinging gently above its blue shadow on the gravel.

Some details in the eternal scheme of things were troubling her already; for one, the liberty of this man to come and go at will; and the dawning perception of her own chaining.

It was curious, too, to be sitting here so idly beside him, and realise that she had belonged to him so absolutely—remembering the thousand thrilling intimacies that bound them immortally together—and now to be actually so isolated, so beyond his reach, so alone, so miserably certain of her soul's safety!... And now, for the first time, she missed the pleasures of fear—the exquisite trepidation that lay in unsafety—the blessed thrill of peril warning her to avoid his eyes, his touch, his—lips.

She glanced uneasily at him, a slow side gaze; and met his eyes.

Her heart had begun beating faster; a glow grew in her veins; she closed her eyes, sitting there surprised—not yet frightened.

Time throbbed on; rigid, motionless, she endured the pulsing silence while the blood quickened till body and limbs seemed burning; and suddenly, from heart to throat the tension tightened as though a cry, echoing within her, was being strangled.

"Perhaps you had better—go—" she managed to say.

"Why?"

She looked down at her restless fingers interlacing, too confused to be actually afraid of herself or him.

What was there to fear? What occult uneasiness was haunting them? Where might lie any peril, now? How could the battle begin again when all was quiet along the firing line—quiet with the quiet of death? Do dead memories surge up into furies? Can dead hopes burn again? Is there any resurrection for the insurgent passions of the past laid for ever under the ban of wedlock? The fear within her turned to impatience—to a proud incredulity.

And now she felt the calm reaction as though, unbidden, an ugly dream, passing, had shadowed her unawakened senses for a moment, and passed away.

As long as they lived there was nothing to be done. Endurance could cease only with death. What was there to fear? She asked herself, waiting half contemptuously for an answer. But her unknown self had now subsided into the obscurity from whence it rose. The Phantom of the Future was laid.



CHAPTER XXIII

A CAPITULATION

As Hamil left the garden Malcourt sauntered into view, halted, then came forward.

"I'm glad to see you," he said pleasantly.

"Thank you."

Neither offered to shake hands; Malcourt, lightly formal, spoke of Hamil's illness in a few words, using that excellent taste which was at his command when he chose to employ it. He expressed his pleasure in Hamil's recovery, and said that he was ready at any time to take up the unfinished details of Portlaw's business, agreeing with Hamil that there remained very little to talk over.

"The main thing, of course, is to squelch William's last hopes of any Rhine castles," continued Malcourt, laughing. "If you feel like it to-day I'll bring over the plans as you sketched them."

"In a day or two," nodded Hamil.

"Or perhaps you will lunch with m—with us, and you and I can go over the things comfortably."

But he saw by the scarcely perceptible change in Hamil's face that there were to be no such relations between them, informal or otherwise; and he went on quietly, closing his own suggestion:

"Or, if you like, we'll get Portlaw some morning after his breakfast, and end the whole matter by laying down the law to him."

"That would be perfectly agreeable to me," said Hamil. He spoke as though fatigued, and he looked it as he moved toward his house, using his walking-stick. Malcourt accompanied him to the road.

"Hamil," he said coolly, "may I suggest something?"

The other turned an expressionless face toward him: "What do you wish to suggest?"

"That, some day when you feel physically better, I'd like to go over one or two matters with you—privately—"

"What matters?"

"They concern you and myself."

"I know of no private matters which concern you and myself—or are ever likely to."

Malcourt's face darkened. "I think I warned you once that one day you would misunderstand my friendship for you."

Hamil straightened up, looking him coldly in the eye.

"Malcourt," he said, "there is no reason for the slightest pretence between us. I don't like you; I don't dislike you; I simply don't take you into consideration at all. The accident of your intrusion into a woman's life is not going to make any more difference to me than it has already made, nor can it affect my complete liberty and freedom to do and say what I choose."

"I am not sure that I understand you, Hamil."

"Well, you can certainly understand this: that my regard for—Mrs. Malcourt—does not extend to you; that it is neither modified nor hampered by the fact that you happen to exist, or that she now bears your name."

Malcourt's face had lost its colour. He began slowly:

"There is no reason, I think—"

"I don't care what you think!" said Hamil. "It is not of any consequence to me, nor will it govern me in any manner." He made a contemptuous gesture toward the garden. "Those flower-beds and gravel walks in there—I don't know whether they belong to you or to Mrs. Malcourt or to Portlaw; and I don't care. The accidental ownership of property will not prevent my entering it; but its ownership by you would prevent my accepting your personal invitation to use it or even enter it. And now, perhaps, you understand."

Malcourt, very white, nodded:

"It is so useless," he said—"all this bitterness. You don't know what you're saying.... But I suppose you can't help it.... It always has been that way; things go to smash if I try to do anything.... Well, Hamil, we'll go on in your own fashion, if we must—for a while. But"—and he laughed mirthlessly—"if it ends in a little shooting—you mustn't blame me!"

Hamil surveyed him in cold displeasure.

"I always expected you'd find your level," he observed.

"Yes, I'll find it," mused Malcourt, "as soon as I know what it ought to be. Under pressure it is difficult to ascertain such things; one's true level may be higher or lower. My father and I have often discussed this matter—and the ethics of straight shooting."

Hamil's eyes narrowed.

"If you mean that as a threat"—he began contemptuously; but Malcourt, who had suddenly assumed that curious listening attitude, raised his hand impatiently, as though silencing interruption.

And long after Hamil had turned on his heel and gone, he stood there, graceful head lowered a little and partly turned as though poetically appreciative of the soft twittering music which the bluebirds were making among the falling apple-bloom.

Then, slowly, not noticing Hamil's departure, he retraced his steps through the garden, head slightly inclined, as though to catch the murmur of some invisible companion accompanying him. Once or twice he nodded, a strange smile creeping over his face; once his lips moved as though asking a question; no sound came from them, but apparently he had his answer, for he nodded assent, halted, drew a deep breath, and looked upward.

"We can try that," he said aloud in his naturally pleasant voice; and, entering the house, went upstairs to his wife's apartments.

Shiela's maid answered his knock; a moment later, Shiela herself, gowned for the afternoon, came to the door, and her maid retired.

"Do you mind my stepping in a moment?" he asked.

She glanced back into her own bedroom, closed the door, and led the way to the small living-room at the other end of the house.

"Where's that maid of yours?" he asked.

"Sewing in my dressing-room. Shall I send her downstairs?"

"Yes; it's better."

So Shiela went away and returned shortly saying that her maid had gone; and then, with a questioning gesture to her husband, she seated herself by the open window and looked out into the sunshine, waiting for him to speak.

"Do you know," he said abruptly, "what saved Cardross, Carrick & Co. from going to the wall?"

"What?" The quick, crisp question sounded like the crack of a tiny whip.

He looked at her, languidly amused.

"You knew there was a panic?" he asked.

"Yes, of course."

"You knew that your father and Mr. Carrick were worried?"

"Yes."

"You didn't realise they were in bad shape?"

"Not—very. Were they?"

"That they needed money, and that they couldn't go out into the market and borrow it because nobody would lend any money to anybody?"

"I do not understand such details."

"Details? Ah—yes, quite so.... Then you were not aware that a run was threatened on the Shoshone Securities Company and certain affiliated banks?"

"Yes—but I did not suppose it meant anything alarming."

"And you didn't understand that your father and brother-in-law could not convert their securities into the ready cash they needed to meet their obligations—did you?"

"I do not understand details, Louis.... No."

"Or that they were desperate?"

Her face altered pitifully.

"On the edge of bankruptcy?" he went on.

"What!"

"Then," he said deliberately, "you don't know what helped them—what tided them over those two days—what pulled them through by the slimmest margin that ever saved the credit of anybody."

"Not—my money?"

"Yes; your money."

"Is it true, Louis?"

"Absolutely."

She leaned her head on her hand and sat gazing out of the open window. There were tears very near her eyes, but the lids closed and not one fell or even wet the thick lashes resting on her cheeks.

"I supposed it would please you to know what you have done."

The face she turned toward him was wonderful in its radiance.

She said: "I have never been as happy in all my life, I think. Thank you for telling me. I needed just—that."

He studied her for a moment, nimble wits at work. Then:

"Has your father—and the others—in their letters, said anything about it to you?"

"Yes, father has. He did not say matters had been desperate."

"I suppose he does not dare commit such a thing to paper—yet.... You do not burn your letters," he added blandly.

"I have no reason to."

"It might save servants' gossip."

"What gossip?"—in cold surprise.

"There's a desk full of Hamil's letters upstairs, judging from the writing on the envelopes." He added with a smile: "Although I don't pry, some servants do. And if there is anything in those letters you do not care to have discussed below stairs, you ought either to lock them up or destroy them."

Her face was burning hot; but she met his gaze with equanimity, slowly nodding serene assent to his suggestion.

"Shiela," he said pleasantly, "it looks to me as though what you have done for your family in that hour of need rather balances all accounts between you and them."

"What?"

"I say that you are square with them for what they have done in the past for you."

She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean, Louis."

He said patiently: "You had nothing to give but your fortune, and you gave it."

"Yes."

"Which settles your obligations toward them—puts them so deeply for ever in your debt that—" He hesitated, considering the chances, then, seriously persuasive:

"They are now in your debt, Shiela. They have sufficient proof of your unselfish affection for them to stand a temporary little shock. Why don't you administer it?"

"What shock?"—in an altered voice.

"Your divorce."

"I thought you were meaning that."

"I do mean it. You ought to have your freedom; you are ruining your own life and Hamil's, and—and—"

"Yours?"

"Let that go," he said almost savagely; "I can always get along. But I want you to have your freedom to marry that damned fool, Hamil."

The quick blood stung her face under his sudden blunt brutality.

"You think that because I returned a little money to my family, it entitles me to publicly disgrace them?"

Malcourt's patience was fast going.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Shiela, shed your swaddling clothes and act like something adult. Is there any reason why two people situated as we are cannot discuss sensibly some method of mitigating our misfortune? I'll do anything you say in the matter. Divorce is a good thing sometimes. This is one of the times, and I'll give you every reason for a successful suit against me—"

She rose, cheeks aflame, and in her eyes scorn ungovernable.

He rose too, exasperated.

"You won't consider it?" he asked harshly.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not coward enough to ask others to bear the consequences of my own folly and yours!"

"You little fool," he said, "do you think your family would let you endure me for one second if they knew how you felt? Or what I am likely to do at any moment?"

She stood, without replying, plainly waiting for him to leave the room and her apartments. All her colour had fled.

"You know," he said, with an ugly glimmer in his eyes, "I need not continue this appeal to your common sense, if you haven't got any; I can force you to a choice."

"What choice?"—in leisurely contempt.

He hesitated; then, insolently: "Your choice between—honest wifehood and honest divorce."

For a moment she could not comprehend: suddenly her hands contracted and clinched as the crimson wave stained her from throat to brow. But in her eyes was terror unutterable.

"I—I beg—your pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean to frighten you—"

But at his first word she clapped both hands over her ears, staring at him in horror—backing away from him, shrinking flat against the wall.

"Confound it! I am not threatening you," he said, raising his voice; but she would not hear another word—he saw that now—and, with a shrug, he walked past her, patient once more, outwardly polite, inwardly bitterly amused, as he heard the key snap in the door behind him.

Standing in his own office on the floor below, he glanced vacantly around him. After a moment he said aloud, as though to somebody in the room: "Well, I tried it. But that is not the way."

Later, young Mrs. Malcourt, passing, saw him seated at his desk, head bent as though listening to something interesting. But there was nobody else in the office.

When at last he roused himself the afternoon sun was shining level in the west; long rosy beams struck through the woods turning the silver stems of the birches pink.

On the footbridge spanning the meadow brook he saw his wife and Hamil leaning over the hand-rail, shoulder almost touching shoulder; and he went to the window and stood intently observing them.

They seemed to be conversing very earnestly; once she threw back her pretty head and laughed unrestrainedly, and the clear sound of it floated up to him through the late sunshine; and once she shook her head emphatically, and once he saw her lay her hand on Hamil's arm—an impulsive gesture, as though to enforce her words, but it was more like a caress.

A tinge of malice altered Malcourt's smile as he watched them; the stiffening grin twitched at his cheeks.

"Now I wonder," he thought to himself, "whether it is the right way after all!... I don't think I'll threaten her again with—alternatives. There's no telling what a fool might do in a panic." Then, as though the spectacle bored him, he yawned, stretched his arms and back gracefully, turned and touched the button that summoned his servant.

"Order the horses and pack as usual, Simmons," he said with another yawn. "I'm going to New York. Isn't Mr. Portlaw here yet?"

"No, sir."

"Did you say he went away on horseback?"

"Yes, sir, this morning."

"And you don't know where?"

"No, sir. Mr. Portlaw took the South Road."

Malcourt grinned again, perfectly certain, now, of Portlaw's destination; and thinking to himself that unless his fatuous employer had been landed in a ditch somewhere, en route, he was by this time returning from Pride's Fall with considerable respect for Mrs. Ascott.

* * * * *

As a matter of fact, Portlaw had already started on his way back. Mrs. Ascott was not at Pride's Hall—her house—when he presented himself at the door. Her servant, evidently instructed, did not know where Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser had gone or when they might return.

So Portlaw betook himself heavily to the village inn, where he insulted his astonished stomach with a noonday dinner, and found the hard wooden chairs exceedingly unpleasant.

About five o'clock he got into his saddle with an unfeigned groan, and out of it again at Mrs. Ascott's door. They told him there that Mrs. Ascott was not at home.

Whether this might be the conventional manner of informing him that she declined to receive him, or whether she really was out, he had no means of knowing; so he left his cards for Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser, also the note which young Mrs. Malcourt had given him; clambered once more up the side of his horse, suppressing his groans until out of hearing and well on his way toward the fatal boundary.

In the late afternoon, sky and water had turned to a golden rose hue; clouds of gnats danced madly over meadow pools, calm mirrors of the sunset, save when a trout sprang quivering, a dark, slim crescent against the light, falling back with a mellow splash that set the pool rocking.

At gaze a deer looked at him from sedge, furry ears forward; stamped, winded him, and, not frightened very much, trotted into the dwarf willows, halting once or twice to look around.

As he advanced, his horse splashing through the flooded land fetlock-deep in water, green herons flapped upward, protesting harshly, circled overhead with leisurely wing-beats, and settled on some dead limb, thin, strange shapes against the deepening orange of the western heavens.

Portlaw, sitting his saddle gingerly, patronized nature askance; and he saw across the flooded meadow where the river sand had piled its smothering blanket—which phenomenon he was guiltily aware was due to him.

Everywhere were signs of the late overflow—raw new gravel channels for Painted Creek; river willows bent low where the flood had winnowed; piles of driftwood jammed here and there; a single stone pier stemming mid-stream, ancient floor and cover gone. More of his work—or the consequences of it—this desolation; from which, under his horse's feet, rose a hawk, flapping, furious, a half-drowned snake dangling from the talon-clutch.

"Ugh!" muttered Portlaw, bringing his startled horse under discipline; then forged forward across the drowned lands, sorry for his work, sorry for his obstinacy, sorrier for himself; for Portlaw, in some matters was illogically parsimonious; and it irked him dreadfully to realise how utterly indefensible were his actions and how much they promised to cost him.

"Unless," he thought cannily to himself, "I can fix it up with her—for old friendship's sake—bah!—doing the regretful sinner business—"

As the horse thrashed out of the drowned lands up into the flat plateau where acres of alders, their tops level as a trimmed hedge, stretched away in an even, green sea, a distant, rapping sound struck his ear, sharp, regular as the tree-tapping of a cock-o'-the-woods.

Indifferently convinced that the great, noisy woodpecker was the cause of the racket, he rode on toward the hard-wood ridge dominating this plateau where his guests, last season, had shot woodcock—one of the charges in the suit against him.

"The thing to do," he ruminated, "is to throw myself gracefully on her mercy. Women like to have a chance to forgive you; Louis says so, and he ought to know. What a devilishly noisy woodpecker!"

And, looking up, he drew bridle sharply.

For there, on the wood's edge, stood a familiar gray mare, and in the saddle, astride, sat Alida Ascott, busily hammering tacks into a trespass notice printed on white muslin, and attached to the trunk of a big maple-tree.

So absorbed was she in her hammering that at first she neither heard nor saw Portlaw when he finally ventured to advance; and when she did she dropped the tack hammer in her astonishment.

He dismounted, with pain, to pick it up, presented it, face wreathed in a series of appealing smiles, then, managing to scale the side of his horse again, settled himself as comfortably as possible for the impending conflict.

But Alida Ascott, in her boyish riding breeches and deep-skirted coat, merely nodded her thanks, took hold of the hammer firmly, and drove in more tacks, paying no further attention to William Van Beuren Portlaw and his heart-rending smiles.

It was very embarrassing; he sidled his horse around so that he might catch a glimpse of her profile. The view he obtained was not encouraging.

"Alida," he ventured plaintively.

"Mr. Portlaw!"—so suddenly swinging on him that he lost all countenance and blurted out:

"I—I only want to make amends and be friends."

"I expect you to make amends," she said in a significantly quiet voice, which chilled him with the menace of damages unlimited. And even in his perturbation he saw at once that it would never do to have a backwoods jury look upon the fascinating countenance of this young plaintiff.

"Alida," he said sorrowfully, "I am beginning to see things in a clearer light."

"I think that light will grow very much clearer, Mr. Portlaw."

He repressed a shudder, and tried to look reproachful, but she seemed to be very hard-hearted, for she turned once more to her hammering.

"Alida!"

"What?"—continuing to drive tacks.

"After all these years of friendship it—it is perfectly painful for me to contemplate a possible lawsuit—"

"It will be more painful to contemplate an actual one, Mr. Portlaw."

"Alida, do you really mean that you—my neighbour and friend—are going to press this unnatural complaint?"

"I certainly do."

Portlaw shook his head violently, and passed his gloved hand over his eyes as though to rouse himself from a distressing dream; all of which expressive pantomime was lost on Mrs. Ascott, who was busy driving tacks.

"I simply cannot credit my senses," he said mournfully.

"You ought to try; it will be still more difficult later," she observed, backing her horse so that she might inspect her handiwork from the proper point of view.

Portlaw looked askance at the sign. It warned people not to shoot, fish, cut trees, dam streams, or build fires under penalty of the law; and was signed, "Alida Ascott."

"You didn't have any up before, did you?" he asked innocently.

"By advice of counsel I think I had better not reply, Mr. Portlaw. But I believe that point will be brought out by my lawyers—unless"—with a brilliant smile—"your own counsel sees fit to discuss it."

Portlaw was convinced that his hair was stirring under his cap. He was horribly afraid of the law.

"See here, Alida," he said, assuming the bluff rough-diamond front which the alarm in his eyes made foolish, "I want to settle this little difference and be friends with you again. I was wrong; I admit it.... Of course I might very easily defend such a suit—"

"But, of course"—serenely undeceived—"as you admit you are in the wrong you will scarcely venture to defend such a suit. Your lawyers ought to forbid you to talk about this case, particularly"—with a demure smile—"to the plaintiff."

"Alida," he said, "I am determined to remain your friend. You may do what you will, say what you wish, yes, even use my own words against me, but"—and virtue fairly exuded from every perspiring pore—"I will not retaliate!"

"I'm afraid you can't, William," she said softly.

"Won't you—forgive?" he asked in a melting voice; but his eyes were round with apprehension.

"There are some things that no woman can overlook," she said.

"I'll send my men down to fix that bridge—"

"Bridges can be mended; I was not speaking of the bridge."

"You mean those sheep—"

"No, Mr. Portlaw."

"Well, there's a lot—I mean that some little sand has been washed over your meadow—"

"Good night," she said, turning her horse's head.

"Isn't it the sand, Alida?" he pleaded. "You surely will forgive that timber-cutting—and the shooting of a few migratory birds—"

"Good night," touching her gray mare forward to where he was awkwardly blocking the wood-path.... "Do you mind moving a trifle, Mr. Portlaw?"

"About—ah—the—down there, you know, at Palm Beach," he stammered, "at that accursed lawn-party—"

"Yes?" She smiled but her eyes harboured lightning.

"It was so hot in Florida—you know how infernally hot it was, don't you, Alida?" he asked beseechingly. "I scarcely dared leave the Beach Club."

"Well?"

"I—I thought I'd just m-m-mention it. That's why I didn't call on you—I was afraid of sunstroke—"

"What!" she exclaimed, astonished at his stuttering audacity.

He knew he was absurd, but it was all he could think of. She gave him time enough to realise the pitiable spectacle he was making of himself, sitting her horse motionless, pretty eyes bent on his—an almost faultless though slight figure, smooth as a girl's yet faintly instinct with that charm of ripened adolescence just short of maturity.

And, slowly, under her clear gaze, a confused comprehension began to stir in him—at first only a sort of chagrin, then something more—a consciousness of his own heaviness of intellect and grossness of figure—the fatness of mind and body which had developed so rapidly within the last two years.

There she sat, as slim and pretty and fresh as ever; and only two years ago he had been mentally and physically active enough to find vigorous amusement in her company. Malcourt's stinging words concerning his bodily unloveliness and self-centred inertia came into his mind; and a slow blush deepened the colour in his heavy face.

What vanity he had reckoned on had deserted him along with any hope of compromising a case only too palpably against him. And yet, through the rudiments of better feeling awakening within him, the instinct of thrift still coloured his ideas a little.

"I'm dead wrong, Alida. We might just as well save fees and costs and go over the damages together.... I'll pay them. I ought to, anyway. I suppose I don't usually do what I ought. Malcourt says I don't—said so very severely—very mortifyingly the other day. So—if you'll get him or your own men to decide on the amount—"

"Do you think the amount matters?"

"Oh, of course it's principle; very proper of you to stand on your dignity—"

"I am not standing on it now; I am listening to your utter misapprehension of me and my motives.... I don't care for any—damages."

"It is perfectly proper for you to claim them, if," he added cautiously, "they are within reason—"

"Mr. Portlaw!"

"What?" he asked, alarmed.

"I would not touch a penny! I meant to give it to the schools, here—whatever I recovered.... Your misunderstanding of me is abominable!"

He hung his head, heavy-witted, confused as a stupid schoolboy, feeling, helplessly, his clumsiness of mind and body.

Something of this may have been perceptible to her—may have softened her ideas concerning him—ideas which had accumulated bitterness during the year of his misbehaviour and selfish neglect. Her instinct divined in his apparently sullen attitude the slow intelligence and mental perturbation of a wilful, selfish boy made stupid through idleness and self-indulgence. Even what had been clean-cut, attractive, in his face and figure was being marred and coarsened by his slothful habits to an extent that secretly dismayed her; for she had always thought him very handsome; and, with that natural perversity of selection, finding in him a perfect foil to her own character, had been seriously inclined to like him.

Attractions begin in that way, sometimes, where the gentler is the stronger, the frailer, the dominant character; and the root is in the feminine instinct to care for, develop, and make the most of what palpably needs a protectorate.

Without comprehending her own instinct, Mrs. Ascott had found the preliminary moulding of Portlaw an agreeable diversion; had rather taken for granted that she was doing him good; and was correspondingly annoyed when he parted his moorings and started drifting aimlessly as a derelict scow awash, floundering seaward without further notice of the trim little tug standing by and amiably ready to act as convoy.

Now, sitting her saddle in silence she surveyed him, striving to understand him—his recent indifference, his deterioration, the present figure he was cutting. And it seemed to her a trifle sad that he had no one to tell him a few wholesome truths.

"Mr. Portlaw," she said, "do you know that you have been exceedingly rude to me?"

"Yes, I—do know it."

"Why?" she asked simply.

"I don't know."

"Didn't you care for our friendship? Didn't it amuse and interest you? How could you have done the things you did—in the way you did?... If you had asked my permission to build a dozen dams I'd have given it. Didn't you know it? But my self-respect protested when you so cynically ignored me—"

"I'm a beast all right," he muttered.

She gazed at him, softened, even faintly amused at his repentant bad-boy attitude.

"Do you want me to forgive you, Mr. Portlaw?"

"Yes—but you oughtn't."

"That is quite true.... Turn your horse and ride back with me. I'm going to find out exactly how repentant you really are.... If you pass a decent examination you may dine with Miss Palliser, Mr. Wayward, and me. It's too late anyway to return through the forest.... I'll send you over in the motor."

And as they wheeled and walked their horses forward through the dusk, she said impulsively:

"We have four for Bridge if you like."

"Alida," he said sincerely, "you are a corker."

She looked up demurely. What she could see to interest her in this lump of a man Heaven alone knew, but a hint of the old half-patient, half-amused liking for him and his slow wits began to flicker once more. De gustibus—alas!



CHAPTER XXIV

THE SCHOOL OF THE RECRUIT

When Portlaw arrived home late that evening there existed within his somewhat ordinary intellect a sense of triumph. The weak usually experience it at the beginning and through every step of their own subjugation.

Malcourt, having decided to take an express which stopped on signal at six in the morning, was reading as usual before the empty fireplace; and at the first glance he suspected what had begun to happen to Portlaw.

The latter bustled about the room with an air of more or less importance, sorted his letters, fussed with a newspaper; and every now and then Malcourt, glancing up, caught Portlaw's eyes peeping triumphantly around corners at him.

"You've been riding?" he said, much amused. "Are you stiff?"

"A trifle," replied the other carelessly. "I must keep it up. Really, you know, I've rather neglected the horses lately."

"Rather. So you're taking up riding again?"

Portlaw nodded: "I've come to the conclusion that I need exercise."

Malcourt, who had been urging him for years to exercise, nodded approval as though the suggestion were a brand-new one.

"Yes," said Portlaw, "I shall ride, I think, every day. I intend to do a good bit of tramping, too. It's excellent for the liver, Louis."

At this piece of inspired information Malcourt assumed an expression of deepest interest, but hoped Portlaw might not overdo it.

"I'm going to diet, too," observed Portlaw, watching the effect of this astounding statement on his superintendent. "My theory is that we all eat too much."

"Don't do anything Spartan," said Malcourt warningly; "a man at your time of life—"

"My—what! Confound it, Louis, I'm well this side of forty!"

"Yes, perhaps; but when a man reaches your age there is not much left for him but the happiness of overeating—"

"What d'y' mean?"

"Nothing; only as he's out of the race with younger men as far as a pretty woman is concerned—"

"Who's out!" demanded Portlaw, red in the face. "What sort of men do you suppose interest women? Broilers? I always thought your knowledge of women was superficial; now I know it. And you don't know everything about everything else, either—about summonses and lawsuits, for example." And he cast an exultant look at his superintendent.

But Malcourt let him tell the news in his own way; and he did, imparting it in bits with naive enjoyment, apparently utterly unconscious that he was doing exactly what his superintendent had told him to do.

"You are a diplomat, aren't you?" said Malcourt with a weary smile.

"A little, a little," admitted Portlaw modestly. "I merely mentioned these things—" He waved his hand to check any possible eulogy of himself from Malcourt. "I'll merely say this: that when I make up my mind to settle anything—" He waved his hand again, condescendingly.

"That man," thought Malcourt, "will be done for in a year. Any woman could have had him; the deuce of it was to find one who'd take him. I think she's found."

And looking up blandly:

"Porty, old fellow, you're really rather past the marrying age—"

"I'll do what I please!" shouted Portlaw, exasperated.

Malcourt had two ways of making Portlaw do a thing; one was to tell him not to, the other the reverse. He always ended by doing it anyway; but the quicker result was obtained by the first method.

So Malcourt went to New York next morning convinced that Portlaw's bachelor days were numbered; aware, also, that as soon as Mrs. Ascott took the helm his own tenure of office would promptly expire. He wished it to expire, easily, agreeably, naturally; and that is why he had chosen to shove Portlaw in the general direction of the hymeneal altar.

He did not care very much for Portlaw—scarcely enough to avoid hurting his feelings by abandoning him. But now he had arranged it so that to all appearances the abandoning would be done by Portlaw, inspired by the stronger mind of Mrs. Ascott. It had been easy and rather amusing to arrange; it saved wordy and endless disputes with Portlaw; it would give him a longed-for release from an occupation he had come to hate.

Malcourt was tired. He wanted a year of freedom from dependence, surcease of responsibility—a year to roam where he wished, foregather with whom he pleased, haunt the places congenial to him, come and go unhampered; a year of it—only one year. What remained for him to do after the year had expired he thought he understood; yes, he was practically certain—had always been.

But first must come that wonderful year he had planned—or, if he tired of the pleasure sooner, then, as the caprice stirred him, he would do what he had planned to do ever since his father died. The details only remained to be settled.

For Malcourt, with all the contradictions in his character, all his cynicism, effrontery, ruthlessness, preferred to do things in a manner calculated to spare the prejudices of others; and if there was a way to accomplish a thing without hurting people, he usually took the trouble to do it in that way. If not, he did it anyway.

And now, at last, he saw before him the beginning of that curious year for which he had so long waited; and, concerning the closing details of which, he had pondered so often with his dark, handsome head lowered and slightly turned, listening, always listening.

But nothing of this had he spoken of to his wife. It was not necessary. He had a year in which to live in a certain manner and do a certain thing; and it was going to amuse him to do it in a way which would harm nobody.

The year promised to be an interesting one, to judge from all signs. For one item his sister, Lady Tressilvain, was impending from Paris—also his brother-in-law—complicating the humour of the visitation. Malcourt's marriage to an heiress was the perfectly obvious incentive of the visit. And when they wrote that they were coming to New York, it amused Malcourt exceedingly to invite them to Luckless Lake. But he said nothing about it to Portlaw or his wife.

Then, for another thing, the regeneration and development, ethically and artistically, of Dolly Wilming amused him. He wanted to be near enough to watch it—without, however, any real faith in its continuation.

And, also, there was Miss Suydam. Her development would not be quite as agreeable to witness; process of disillusioning her, little by little, until he had undermined himself sufficiently to make the final break with her very easy—for her. Of course it interested him; all intrigue did where skill was required with women.

And, last of all, yet of supreme importance, he desired leisure, undisturbed, to study his own cumulative development, to humorously thwart it, or misunderstand it, or slyly aid it now and then—always aware of and attentive to that extraneous something which held him so motionless, at moments, listening attentively as though to a command.

For, from that morning four years ago when, crushed with fatigue, he strove to keep his vigil beside his father who, toward daybreak, had been feigning sleep—from that dreadful dawn when, waking with the crash of the shot in his ears, his blinded gaze beheld the passing of a soul—he understood that he was no longer his own master.

Not that the occult triad, Chance, Fate, and Destiny ruled; they only modified his orbit. But from the centre of things Something that ruled them was pulling him toward it, slowly, steadily, inexorably drawing him nearer, lessening the circumference of his path, attenuating it, circumscribing, limiting, controlling. And long since he had learned to name this thing, undismayed—this one thing remaining in the world in which his father's son might take a sporting interest.

* * * * *

He had been in New York two weeks, enjoying existence in his own fashion, untroubled by any demands, questions, or scruples concerning responsibility, when a passionate letter from Portlaw disturbed the placid interlude:

"Confound it, Louis, haven't you the common decency to come back when you know I've had a bunch of people here to be entertained?

"Nobody's heard a peep from you. What on earth do you mean by this?

"Miss Palliser, Mrs. Ascott, Miss Cardross are here, also Wayward, and Gray Cardross—which with you and Mrs. Malcourt and myself solves the Bridge proposition—or would have solved it. But without warning, yesterday, your sister and brother-in-law arrived, bag and baggage, and Mrs. Malcourt has given them the west wing of your house. I believe she was as astonished as I, but she will not admit it.

"I don't know whether this is some sorry jest of yours—not that Lady Tressilvain and her noble spouse are unwelcome—but for Heaven's sake consider Wayward's feelings—cooped up in camp with his ex-wife! It wasn't a very funny thing to do, Louis; but now that it's done you can come back and take care of the mess you've made.

"As for Mrs. Malcourt, she is not merely a trump, she is a hundred aces and a grand slam in a redoubled Without!—if that's possible. But Mrs. Ascott is my pillar of support in what might easily become a fool of a situation.

"And you, you amateur idiot!—are down there in town, humorously awaiting the shriek of anguish from me. Well, you've heard me. But it's not a senseless shriek; it's a dignified protest. I tell you I've learned to depend on myself, recently—at Mrs. Ascott's suggestion. And I'm doing it now by wiring Virginia Suydam to come and fill in the third table.

"Now I want you to come back at once. If you don't I'm going to have a serious talk with you, Louis. I've taken Mrs. Ascott into my confidence more or less and she agrees with me that I ought to lay down a strong, rigid policy and that it is your duty to execute it. In fact she also took me into her confidence and gave me, at my request, a very clear idea of how she would run this place; and to my surprise and gratification I find that her ideas of discipline, taste, and economy are exactly mine, although I thought of them first and perhaps have influenced her in this matter as I have in others. That is, of course, natural, she being a woman.

"I think I ought to be frank with you, Louis. It isn't good form for you to leave Mrs. Malcourt the way you do every week or two and disappear in New York and give no explanation. You haven't been married long enough to do that. It isn't square to me, either.

"And while I'm about it I want to add that, at Mrs. Ascott's suggestion—which really is my own idea—I have decided not to build all those Rhine castles, which useless notion, if I am not mistaken, originated with you. I don't want to disfigure my beautiful wilderness. Mrs. Ascott and I had a very plain talk with Hamil and we forced him to agree with us that the less he did to improve my place the better for the place. He seemed to take it good-humouredly. He left yesterday to look over Mrs. Ascott's place and plan for her a formal garden and Trianon at Pride's Hall. So he being out I wired also to Virginia and to Philip Gatewood, which will make it right—four at a table. Your brother-in-law plays a stiff game and your sister is a wonder!—five grand slams last night! But I played like a dub—I'd been riding and walking and canoeing all day with Mrs. Ascott and I was terribly sleepy.

"So come on up, Louis. I'll forgive you—but don't mind if I growl at you before Mrs. Ascott as she thinks I ought to discipline you. And, confound it, I ought to, and I will, too, if you don't look out. But I'll be devilish glad to see you.

"Yours, "W. VAN BEUREN PORTLAW."

Malcourt, in his arm-chair by the open window, lay back full length, every fibre of him vibrating with laughter.

Dolly Wilming at the piano continued running over the pretty firework melodies of last season's metropolitan success—a success built entirely on a Viennese waltz, the air of which might have been taken from almost any popular Yankee hymn-book.

He folded Portlaw's letter and pocketed it; and lay for a while under the open window, enjoying his own noiseless mirth, gaily accompanied by Dolly Winning's fresh, clear singing or her capricious improvising.

Begonias bloomed in a riotous row on the sill, nodding gently in the river-wind which also fluttered the flags and sails on yacht, schooner, and sloop under the wall of the Palisades.

That day the North River was more green than blue—like the eyes of a girl he knew; summer, crowned and trimmed with green, brooded on the long rock rampart across the stream. Turquoise patches of sky and big clouds, leafy parapets, ships passing to the sea; and in mid-stream an anchored island of steel painted white and buff, bristling with long thin guns, the flower-like flag rippling astern; another battle-ship farther north; another, another; and farther still the white tomb—unlovely mansion of the dead—on outpost duty above the river, guarding with the warning of its dead glories the unlovely mansions of the living ranged along the most noble terrace in the world.

And everywhere to north, south, and east, the endless waste of city, stark, clean-cut, naked alike of tree and of art, unsoftened even by the haze of its own exudations—everywhere the window-riddled blocks of oblongs and cubes gridironed with steel rails—New York in all the painted squalor of its Pueblo splendour.

* * * * *

"You say you are doing well in everything except French and Italian?"

Dolly, still humming to her own accompaniment, looked over her shoulder and nodded.

"Well, how the dickens are you ever going to sing at either Opera or on the road or anywhere if you don't learn French and Italian?"

"I'm trying, Louis."

"Go ahead; let's hear something, then."

And she sang very intelligently and in excellent taste:

"Pendant que, plein d'amour, j'expire a votre porte, Vous dormez d'un paisible sommeil—"

and turned questioningly to him.

"That's all right; try another."

So, serenely obedient, she sang:

"Chantons Margot, nos amours, Margot leste et bien tournee—"

"Well, I don't see anything the matter with your French," he muttered.

The girl coloured with pleasure, resting pensively above the key-board; but he had no further requests to make and presently she swung around on the piano-stool, looking at him.

"You sing all right; you are doing your part—as far as I can discover."

"There is nothing for you to discover that I have not told you," she said gravely. In her manner there was a subdued dignity which he had noticed recently—something of the self-confidence of the very young and unspoiled—which, considering all things, he could not exactly account for.

"Does that doddering old dancing-master of yours behave himself?"

"Yes—since you spoke to him. Mr. Bulder came to the school again."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him that you wouldn't let me sing in 'The Inca.'"

"And what did Bulder say?"

"He was persistent but perfectly respectful; asked if he might confer with you. He wrote to you I think, didn't he?"

Malcourt nodded and lighted a cigarette.

"Dolly," he said, "do you want to sing Chaske in 'The Inca' next winter?"

"Yes, I do—if you think it is all right." She added in a low voice: "I want to do what will please you, Louis."

"I don't know whether it's the best thing to do, but—you may have to." He laid his cigarette in a saucer, watched the smoke curling ceilingward, and said as though to himself:

"I should like to be certain that you can support yourself—within a reasonable time from now—say a year. That is all, Dolly."

"I can do it now if you wish it—" The expression of his face checked her.

"I don't mean a variety career devoted to 'mother' songs," he said with a sneer. "There's a middle course between diamonds and 'sinkers.' You'll get there if you don't kick over the traces.... Have you made any more friends?"

"Yes."

"Are they respectable?"

"Yes," she said, colouring.

"Has anybody been impertinent?"

"Mr. Williams."

"I'll attend to him—the little squirt!... Who are your new friends?"

"There's a perfectly sweet girl in the French class, Marguerite Barret. I think she likes me.... Louis, I don't believe you understand how very happy I am beginning to be—"

"Do people come here?"

"Yes, on Sunday afternoons; I know nearly a dozen nice girls now, and those men I told you about—Mr. Snyder, Mr. Jim Anthony and his brother the artist, and Mr. Cass and Mr. Renwick."

"You can cut out Renwick," he said briefly.

She seemed surprised. "He has always been perfectly nice to me, Louis—"

"Cut him out, Dolly. I know the breed."

"Of course, if you wish."

He looked at her, convinced in spite of himself. "Always ask me about people. If I don't know I can find out."

"I always do," she said.

"Yes, I believe you do.... You're all right, Dolly—so far.... There, don't look at me in that distressed-dove fashion; I know you are all right and mean to be for your own sake—"

"For yours also," she said.

"Oh—that's all right, too—story-book fidelity; my preserver ever!—What?—Sure—and a slow curtain.... There, there, Dolly—where's your sense of humour! Good Lord, what's changing you into a bread-and-butter boarding-school sentimentalist!—to feel hurt at nothing! Hello! look at that kitten of yours climbing your silk curtains! Spank the rascal!"

But the girl caught up the kitten and tucked it up under her chin, smiling across at Malcourt, who had picked up his hat, gloves, and stick.

"Will you come to-morrow?" she asked.

"I'm going away for a while."

Her face fell; she rose, placed the kitten on the lounge, and walked up to him, both hands clasped loosely behind her back, wistfully acquiescent.

"It's going to be lonely again for me," she said.

"Nonsense! You've just read me your visiting list—"

"I had rather have you here than anybody."

"Dolly, you'll get over that absurd sense of obligatory regard for me—"

"I had rather have you, Louis."

"I know. That's very sweet of you—and very proper.... You are all right.... I'll be back in a week or ten days, and," smilingly, "mind you have your report ready! If you've been a good girl we'll talk over 'The Inca' again and—perhaps—we'll have Mr. Bulder up to luncheon.... Good-bye."

She gave him her hand, looking up into his face.

"Smile!" he insisted.

She smiled.

So he went away, rather satiated with the pleasures of self-denial; but the lightly latent mockery soon broke out again in a smile as he reached the street.

"What a mess!" he grinned to himself. "The Tressilvains at Portlaw's! And Wayward! and Shiela and Virginia and that awful Louis Malcourt! It only wants Hamil to make the jolliest little hell of it. O my, O my, what an amusing mess!"

However, he knew what Portlaw didn't know, that Virginia would never accept that invitation, and that neither Wayward nor Constance Palliser would remain one day under the roof that harboured the sister of Louis Malcourt.



CHAPTER XXV

A CONFERENCE

When Malcourt arrived at Luckless Lake Sunday evening he found Portlaw hunched up in an arm-chair, all alone in the living-room, although the hour was still early.

"Where's your very agreeable house-party?" he inquired, looking about the empty room and hall with an air of troubled surprise.

"Gone to bed," replied Portlaw irritably,—"what's left of 'em." And he continued reading "The Pink 'Un."

"Really!" said Malcourt in polite concern.

"Yes, really!" snapped Portlaw. "Mrs. Ascott went to Pride's and took Wayward and Constance Palliser; that was Friday. And Gray and Cecile joined them yesterday. It's been a horrible house-party; nobody had any use for anybody else and it has rained every day and—and—to be plain with you, Louis, nobody is enchanted with your relatives and that's the unpleasant truth!"

"I don't blame anybody," returned Malcourt sincerely, removing his driving-gloves and shaking off his wet box-coat. "Why, I can scarcely stand them myself, William. Where are they?"

"In the west wing of your house—preparing to remain indefinitely."

"Dear, dear!" exclaimed Malcourt. "What on earth shall we do?" And he peered sideways at Portlaw with his tongue in his cheek.

"Do? I don't know. Why the devil did you suggest that they stop at your house?"

"Because, William, curious as it may seem, I had a sort of weak-minded curiosity to see my sister once more." He walked over to the table, took a cigarette and lighted it, then stood regarding the burning match in his fingers. "She's the last of the family; I'll probably never see her again—"

"She appears to be in excellent health," remarked Portlaw viciously.

"So am I; but—" He shrugged and tossed the embers of the match onto the hearth.

"But what?"

"Well, I'm going to take a vacation pretty soon—a sort of voyage, and a devilish long one, William. That's why I wanted to see her again."

"You mean to tell me you are going away?" demanded the other indignantly.

Malcourt laughed. "Oh, yes. I planned it long ago—one morning toward daybreak years ago.... A—a relative of mine started on the same voyage rather unexpectedly.... I've heard very often from him since; I'm curious to try it, too—when he makes up his mind to invite me—"

"When are you starting?" interrupted Portlaw, disgusted.

"Oh, not for a while, I think. I won't embarrass you; I'll leave everything in ship-shape—"

"Where are you going?—dammit!"

Malcourt looked at him humorously, head on one side. "I am not perfectly sure, dear friend. I hate to know all about a thing before I do it. Otherwise there's no sporting interest in it."

"You mean to tell me that you're going off a-gipsying without any definite plans?"

"Gipsying?" he laughed. "Well, that may perhaps describe it. I don't know; I have no plans. That's the charm of it. When one grows tired, that is the restful part of it—to simply start, having no plans; just to leave, and drift away haphazard. One is always bound to arrive somewhere, William."

He had been pacing backward and forward, the burning cigarette balanced between his fingers, turning his handsome head from time to time to answer Portlaw's ill-tempered questions. Now he halted, dark eyes roving about the room. They fell and lingered on a card-table where some empty glasses decorated the green baize top.

"Bridge?" he queried.

"Unfortunately," growled Portlaw.

"Who?"

"Mrs. Malcourt and I versus your—ah—talented family."

"Mrs. Malcourt doesn't gamble."

"Tressilvain and I did."

"Were you badly stung, dear friend?"

Portlaw muttered.

Malcourt lifted his expressive eyebrows.

"Why didn't you try my talented relative again to-night?"

"Mrs. Malcourt had enough," said Portlaw briefly; then mumbled something injuriously unintelligible.

"I think I'll go over to the house and see if my gifted brother-in-law has retired," said Malcourt, adding carelessly, "I suppose Mrs. Malcourt is asleep."

"It wouldn't surprise me," replied Portlaw. And Malcourt was free to interpret the remark as he chose.

He went away thoughtfully, crossing the lawn in the rainy darkness, and came to the garden where his own dogs barked at him—a small thing to depress a man, but it did; and it was safer for the dogs, perhaps, that they sniffed recognition before they came too near with their growls and barking. But he opened the gate, disdaining to speak to them, and when they knew him, it was a pack of very humble, wet, and penitent hounds that came wagging up alongside. He let them wag unnoticed.

Lights burned in his house, one in Shiela's apartments, several in the west wing where the Tressilvains were housed. A servant, locking up for the night, came across the dripping veranda to admit him; and he went upstairs and knocked at his wife's door.

Shiela's maid opened, hesitated; and a moment later Shiela appeared, fully dressed, a book in her hand. It was one of Hamil's architectural volumes.

"Well, Shiela," he said lightly; "I got in to-night and rather expected to see somebody; but nobody waited up to see me! I'm rather wet—it's raining—so I won't trouble you. I only wanted to say good night."

The quick displeasure in her face died out. She dismissed the maid, and came slowly forward. Beneath the light her face looked much thinner; he noticed dark shadows under the eyes; the eyes themselves seemed tired and expressionless.

"Aren't you well?" he asked bluntly.

"Perfectly.... Was it you the dogs were so noisy about just now?"

"Yes; it seems that even my own dogs resent my return. Well—good night. I'm glad you're all right."

Something in his voice, more than in the words, arrested her listless attention.

"Will you come in, Louis?"

"I'm afraid I'm keeping you awake. Besides I'm wet—"

"Come in and tell me where you've been—if you care to. Would you like some tea—or something?"

He shook his head, but followed her into the small receiving-room. There he declined an offered chair.

"I've been in New York.... No, I did not see your family.... As for what I've been doing—"

Her lifted eyes betrayed no curiosity; a growing sense of depression crept over him.

"Oh, well," he said, "it doesn't matter." And turned toward the door.

She looked into the empty fireplace with a sigh; then, gently, "I don't mean to make it any drearier for you than I can help."

He considered her a moment.

"Are you really well, Shiela?"

"Why, yes; only a little tired. I do not sleep well."

He nodded toward the west wing of the house.

"Do they bother you?"

She did not answer.

He said: "Thank you for putting them up. We'll get rid of them if they annoy you."

"They are quite welcome."

"That's very decent of you, Shiela. I dare say you have not found them congenial."

"We have nothing in common. I think they consider me a fool."

"Why?" He looked up, keenly humourous.

"Because I don't understand their inquiries. Besides, I don't gamble—"

"What kind of inquiries do they make?"

"Personal ones," she said quietly.

He laughed. "They're probably more offensively impertinent than the Chinese—that sort of Briton. I think I'll step into the west wing and greet my relations. I won't impose them on you for very long. Do you know when they are going?"

"I think they have made plans to remain here for a while."

"Really?" he sneered. "Well, leave that to me, Shiela."

So he crossed into the western wing and found the Tressilvains tete-a-tete over a card-table, deeply interested in something that resembled legerdemain; and he stood at the door and watched them with a smile that was not agreeable.

"Well, Helen!" he said at last; and Lady Tressilvain started, and her husband rose to the full height of his five feet nothing, dropping the pack which he had been so nimbly manipulating for his wife's amusement.

"Where the devil did you come from?" blurted his lordship; but his wife made a creditable appearance in her role of surprised sisterly affection; and when the two men had gone through the form of family greeting they all sat down for the conventional family confab.

Tressilvain said little but drank a great deal of whisky—his long, white, bony fingers were always spread around his glass—unusually long fingers for such a short man, and out of all proportion to the scant five-foot frame, topped with a little pointed head, in which the eyes were set exactly as glass eyes are screwed into the mask of a fox.

"Bertie and I have been practising leads from trick hands," observed Lady Tressilvain, removing the ice from her glass and filling it from a soda bottle which Malcourt uncorked for her.

"Well, Herby," said Malcourt genially, "I suppose you and Helen play a game well worth—ah—watching."

Tressilvain looked dully annoyed, although there was nothing in his brother-in-law's remark to ruffle anybody, except that his lordship did not like to be called Herby. He sat silent, caressing his glass; and presently his little black eyes stole around in Malcourt's direction, and remained there, waveringly, while brother and sister discussed the former's marriage, the situation at Luckless Lake, and future prospects.

That is to say, Lady Tressilvain did the discussing; Malcourt, bland, amiable, remained uncommunicatively polite, parrying everything so innocently that his sister, deceived, became plainer in her questions concerning the fortune he was supposed to have married, and more persistent in her suggestions of a winter in New York—a delightful and prolonged family reunion, in which the Tressilvains were to figure as distinguished guests and virtual pensioners of everybody connected with his wife's family.

"Do you think," drawled Malcourt, intercepting a furtive glance between his sister and brother-in-law, to that gentleman's slight confusion, "do you think it might prove interesting to you and Herby? Americans are so happy to have your countrymen to entertain—particularly when their credentials are as unquestionable as Herby's and yours."

For a full minute, in strained silence, the concentrated gaze of the Tressilvains was focused upon the guileless countenance of Malcourt; and discovered nothing except a fatuous cordiality.

Lady Tressilvain drew a deep, noiseless breath and glanced at her husband.

"I don't understand, Louis, exactly what settlement—what sort of arrangement you made when you married this—very interesting young girl—"

"Oh, I didn't have anything to endow her with," said Malcourt, so amiably stupid that his sister bit her lip.

Tressilvain essayed a jest.

"Rather good, that!" he said with his short, barking laugh; "but I da'say the glove was on the other hand, eh, Louis?"

"What?"

"Why the—ah—the lady did the endowing and all that, don't you see?"

"See what?" asked Malcourt so pleasantly that his sister shot a look at her husband which checked him.

Malcourt was now on maliciously humourous terms with himself; he began to speak impulsively, affectionately, with all the appearance of a garrulous younger brother impatient to unbosom himself to his family; and he talked and talked, confidingly, guilelessly, voluminously, yet managed to say absolutely nothing. And, strain their ears as they might, the Tressilvains in their perplexity and increasing impatience could make out nothing of all this voluntary information—understand nothing—pick out not one single fact to satisfy their desperately hungry curiosity.