She met his eyes a moment, and smiled again.

"I'm going to Etois," she said. "I think I shall get a little villa there and stay all summer."

"Then," he declared, "I think I shall go to Etois myself."

"I 'm afraid you must n't."

"But the doctor says I must n't play golf for six months. What do you think I'm going to do with myself until then?"

"There's all the rest of the world," she suggested.

Monte frowned.

"Are you going to break our engagement, then?"

"It has served its purpose, hasn't it?" she asked.

"Up to now," he admitted. "But you say it can't go any farther."

"No, Monte."

The next suggestion that leaped into Monte's mind was obvious enough, yet he paused a moment before voicing it. Perhaps even then he would not have found the courage had he not been rather panic-stricken. He had exactly the same feeling, when he thought of her in Etois, that he had when he thought of Edhart in Paradise. It started as resentment, but ended in a slate-gray loneliness.

He could imagine himself as sitting here alone at one of these little iron tables, and decidedly it was not pleasant. When he pictured himself as returning to his room in the hotel and to the company of the hotel valet, it put him in a mood that augured ill for the valet.

It would have been bad enough had he been able to resume his normal schedule and fill his time with golf; but, with even that relaxation denied him, such a situation as she proposed was impossible. For the present, at any rate, she was absolutely indispensable. She ought to know that a valet could not adjust a silk handkerchief properly, and that without this he could not even go upon the street. And who would read to him from the American papers?

There was no further excuse, she said, for her to bring in his breakfasts, but if she did not sit opposite him at breakfast, what in thunder was the use of eating breakfast? If she had not begun breakfasting with him, then he would never have known the difference. But she had begun it; she had first suggested it. And now she calmly proposed turning him over to a valet.

"Marjory," he said, "didn't I ask you to marry me?"

She nodded.

"That was necessary in order that we might be engaged," she reminded him.

"Exactly," he agreed. "Now there seems to be only one way that we may keep right on being engaged."

"I don't see that, Monte," she answered. "We may keep on being engaged as long as we please, may n't we?"

"It seems not. That is, there is n't much sense in it if it won't let me go to Etois with you."

"Of course you can't do that."

"And yet," he said, "if we were married I could go, couldn't I?"

"Why—er—yes," she faltered; "I suppose so."

"Then," he said, "why don't we get married?"

She did not turn away her head. She lifted her dark eyes to his.

"Just what do you mean, Monte?" she demanded.

"I mean," he said uneasily, "that we should get married just so that we can go on—as we have been these last ten days. Really, we'll still only be engaged, but no one need know that. Besides, no one will care, if we're married."

He gained confidence as he went on, though he was somewhat afraid of the wonder in her eyes.

"People don't care anything more about you after you're married," he said. "They just let you drop as if you were done for. It's a queer thing, but they do. Why, if we were married we could sit here all day and no one would give us a second glance. We could have breakfast together as often as we wished, and no one would care a hang. I've seen it done. We could go to Etois together, and I could pay for half the villa and you could pay for half. You can bring Marie, and we can stay as long as we wish without having any one turn an eye."

He was growing enthusiastic now.

"There will be nothing to prevent you from doing just as you wish. You can paint all day if you want. You can paint yards of things—olive trees and sky and rocks. There are lots of them around Etois. And I—"

"Yes," she interrupted; "what can you do, Monte?"

"I can watch you paint," he answered. "Or I can walk. Or I can—oh, there'll be plenty for me to do. If we tire of Etois we can move somewhere else. If we tire of each other's company, why, we can each go somewhere else. It's simple, is n't it? We can both do just as we please, can't we? There won't be a living soul with the right to open his head to us. Do you get that? Why, even if you want to go off by yourself, with Mrs. in front of your name they'll let you alone."

At first she had been surprised, then she had been amused, but now she was thinking.

"It's queer, is n't it, Monte, that it should be like that?"

"It's the way it is. It makes everything simple and puts the whole matter up to us."

"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully.

"Of course," he said, "I'm assuming you don't mind having me around quite a lot."

"No, I don't mind that," she assured him. "But I 'm wondering if you'll mind—having me around?"

"I did n't realize until this last week how—well, how comfortable it was having you around," he confessed.

She glanced up.

"Yes," she said, "that's the word. I think we've made each other comfortable. After all—that's something."

"It's a whole lot."

"And it need n't ever be anything else, need it?"

"Certainly not," he declared. "That would spoil everything. That's what we're trying to avoid."

To his surprise, she suddenly rose as if to leave.

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "Can't we settle this right now—so that we won't have to worry about it?"

He disliked having anything left to worry about.

"I should think the least you'd expect of me would be to think it over," she answered.

"It would be so much simpler just to go ahead," he declared.

There seemed to be no apparent reason in the world why she should not assent to Monte's proposal. In and of itself, the arrangement offered her exactly what she craved—the widest possible freedom to lead her own life without let or hindrance from any one, combined with the least possible responsibility. As far as she could see, it would remove once and for all the single fretting annoyance that, so far, had disarranged all her plans.

Monte's argument was sound. Once she was married, the world of men would let her alone. So, too, would the world of women. She could face them both with a challenge to dispute her privileges. All this she would receive without any of the obligations with which most women pay so heavily for their release from the bondage in which they are held until married. For they pay even more when they love—pay the more, in a way, the more they love. It cannot be helped.

She was thinking of the Warrens—the same Warrens Monte had visited when Chic, Junior had the whooping cough. She had been there when Chic, Junior was born. Marion had wanted her near—in the next room. She had learned then how they pay—these women who love.

She had been there at other times—less dramatic times. It was just the same. From the moment Marion awoke in the morning until she sank wearily into her bed at night, her time, her thought, her heart, her soul almost, was claimed by some one else. She gave, gave, until nothing was left for herself.

Marjory, in her lesser way, had done much the same—so she knew the cost. It was rare when she had been able to leave her aunt for a whole day and night. Year after year, she too had awakened in the morning to her tasks for another—for this woman who had demanded them as her right. She too had given her time, her thought, her soul, almost, to another. If she had not given her heart, it was perhaps because it was not asked; perhaps, again, it was because she had no heart to give.

Sometimes, in that strange, emotionless existence she had lived so long where duty took the place of love, she had wondered about that. If she had a heart, it never beat any faster to let her know she had it.

She paid her debt of duty in full—paid until her release came. In the final two weeks of her aunt's life she had never left her side. Patiently, steadfastly, she helped with all there was in her to fight that last fight. When it was over, she did not break down, as the doctors predicted. She went to bed and slept forty-eight hours, and awoke ten years younger.

She awoke as one out of bondage, and stared with keen, eager eyes at a new world. For a few weeks she had twenty-four hours a day of her own. Then Peter had come, and others had come, and finally Teddy had come. They wanted to take from her that which she had just gained—each in his own fashion.

"Give us of yourself," they pleaded. "Begin again your sacrifices."

Peter put it best, even though he did not say much. But she had only to look in his eyes and read his proposal.

"Come with me and stand by my side while I carve my career," was what his eyes said. "I'll love you and make you love me as Marion loves. You 'll begin the day with me, and you 'll guard my home while I 'm gone until night, and you'll share my honors and my disappointments, and perhaps a time will come when Marion will stand in the next room, as once you stood in the next room. Then—"

It was at this point she drew back. Then her soul would go out into the new-born soul, and after that she would only live and breathe and hope through that other. When Marion laughed and said that she was as she was because she did not know, Marion was wrong. It was because she did know—because she knew how madly and irrevocably she would give, if ever she gave again. There would be nothing left for herself at all. It would be as if she had died.

She did not wish to give like that. She wished to live a little. She wished to be herself a little—herself as she now was. She wished to get back some of those years between seventeen and twenty-seven—taste the world as it was then.

What Teddy offered was different. Something was there that even Peter did not have—something that made her catch her breath once or twice when he sang to her like a white-robed choir-boy. It was as if he asked her to take his hand and jump with him into a white-hot flame. He carried her farther back in her passions than Peter did—back to seventeen, back to the primitive, elemental part of her. He really made her heart beat. But on guard within her stood the older woman, and she could not move.

Now came Monte—asking nothing. He asked nothing because he wished to give nothing. She was under no illusion about that. There was not anything idealistic about Monte. This was to be purely an arrangement for their mutual comfort. They were to be companions on an indefinite tour of the world—each paying his own bills.

At thirty-two he needed a comrade of some sort, and in his turn he offered himself as an escort. She found no apparent reason, then, even when she had spent half the night getting as far as this, why she should not immediately accept his proposal. Yet she still hesitated.

It was not that she did not trust Monte. Not the slightest doubt in the world existed in her mind about that. She would trust him farther than she would even Peter—trust him farther than any man she had ever met. He was four-square, and she knew it. Perhaps it was a curious suggestion—it was just because of this that she hesitated.

In a way, she was considering Monte. She did not like to help him give up responsibilities that might be good for him. She was somewhat disappointed that he was willing to give them up. He did not have the excuse she had—years of self-sacrifice. He had been free all his life to indulge himself, and he had done so. He had never known a care, never known a heartache. Having money, he had used it decently, so that he had avoided even the compensating curse that is supposed to come with money.

She knew there was a lot to Monte. She had sensed that from the first. He had proved it in the last two weeks. It only needed some one to bring it out, and he would average high. Love might do it—the same white-hot love that had driven Teddy mad.

But that was what he was avoiding, just as she was. Well, what of it? If one did not reach the heights, then one did not sound the depths. After all, it was not within her province to direct Monte's life. She was selfish—she had warned him of that. He was selfish—and had warned her.

Yet, as she lay there in her bed, she felt that she was about to give up something forever, and that Monte was about to give up something forever. It is one thing not to want something, and another to make an irrevocable decision never to have it. Also, it is one thing to fret one's self into an unnecessary panic over a problem at night, and another to handle it lightly in the balmy sunshine of a Parisian springtime morning.

Monte had risen early and gone out and bought her violets again. When she came in, he handed them to her, and she buried her face in their dewy fragrance. It was good to have some one think of just such little attentions. Then, too, his boyish enthusiasm swept her off her guard. He was so eager and light-hearted this morning that she found herself breaking into a laugh. She was still laughing when he brought back to her last night's discussion.

"Well, have you decided to marry me?" he demanded.

She shook her head, her face still buried in the violets.

"What's worrying you about it?" he asked.

"You, Monte," she answered.

"I? Well, that isn't much. I looked up the time-tables, and we could take the six-ten to-night if you were ready."

"I could n't possibly be ready," she replied decidedly.

"To-morrow, then?"

When he insisted upon being definite, the proposition sounded a great deal more absurd than when he allowed it to be indefinite. She was still hesitating when Marie appeared.

"A telephone for mademoiselle," she announced.

Monte heard her startled exclamation from the next room. He hurried to the door. She saw him, and, placing her hand over the telephone, turned excitedly.

"It's Teddy again," she trembled.

"Let me talk to him," he commanded.

"He says he does n't believe in our—our engagement."

"We're to be married to-morrow?" he asked quickly.



"Oh!"

"It's the only way to get rid of him."

"Then—"

"To-morrow?"

Catching her breath, she nodded.

He took the receiver.

"This is Covington," he said. "Miss Stockton and I are to be married to-morrow. Get that? . . . Well, keep hold of it, because the moment I 'm her husband—"

Following an oath at the other end, Monte heard the click of the receiver as it was snapped up.

"That settles it very nicely," he smiled.



CHAPTER IX

BLUE AND GOLD

Marjory was to be married on June eighteenth, at eleven o'clock, in the chapel of the English Congregational Church. At ten o'clock of that day she was in her room before the mirror, trying to account for her heightened color. Marie had just left her in despair and bewilderment, after trying to make her look as bridelike as possible when she did not wish to look bridelike. Marie had wished to do her hair in some absurd new fashion for the occasion.

"But, Marie," she had explained, "nothing is to be changed. Therefore why should I change my appearance?"

"Mademoiselle to be a bride—and nothing changed?" Marie had cried.

"Nothing about me; nothing about Mr. Covington. We are merely to be married, that is all—as a matter of convenience."

"Mademoiselle will see," Marie had answered cryptically.

"You will see yourself," Marjory had laughed.

Eh bien! something was changed already, as she had only to look in the mirror to observe. There was a deep flush upon her cheeks and her eyes did not look quite natural. She saw, and seeing only made it worse. Manifestly it was absurd of her to become excited now over a matter that up to this point she had been able to handle so reasonably. It was scarcely loyal to Monte. He had a right to expect her to be more sensible.

He had put it well last night when he had remarked that for her to go to a chapel to be married was no more serious than to go to an embassy for a passport. She was merely to share with him the freedom that was his as a birthright of his sex. In no other respect whatever was she to be under any obligations to him. With ample means of her own, he was simply giving her an opportunity to enjoy them unmolested—a privilege which the world denied her as long as she remained unmarried. In no way was he to be responsible for her or to her. He understood this fully, and it was exactly what he himself desired.

She, in return for this privilege, was to make herself as entertaining a traveling companion as possible. She was to be what she had been these last few weeks.

Neither was making any sacrifice. That was precisely what they were avoiding. That was the beauty of the arrangement. Instead of multiplying cares and responsibilities, as ordinary folk did,—thereby defeating the very object for which they married, a fuller and wider freedom,—each was to do away with the few they already had as individuals.

Therefore it seemed scarcely decent for Marie to speak of her as a bride. Perhaps that accounted for the color. No sentiment was involved here. This was what made the arrangement possible. Sentiment involved caring; and, as Monte had once said, "It's the caring that seems to make the trouble." That was the trouble with the Warrens. How she cared—from morning till night, with her whole heart and soul in a flutter—for Chic and the children. In a different way, Marjory supposed, Teddy cared. This was the one thing that made him so impossible. In another way, Peter Noyes cared.

She gave a quick start as she thought of Peter Noyes. She turned away from the mirror as if—as if ashamed. She sprang to her feet, with an odd, tense expression about her mouth. It was as if she were looking into his dark, earnest eyes. Peter had always been so intensely in earnest about everything. In college he had worked himself thin to lead his class. In the law school he had graduated among the first five, though he came out almost half blind. His record, however, had won for him a place with a leading law firm in New York, where in his earnest way he was already making himself felt. It was just this quality that had frightened her. He had made love to her with his lips set as if love were some great responsibility. He had talked of duty and the joy of sacrifice until she had run away from him.

That had been her privilege. That had been her right. She had been under no obligation to him then; she was under no obligation to him now. Her life was hers, to do with as she saw fit. He had no business to intrude himself, at this of all times, upon her.

Not daring to look in the mirror again, she called Marie to adjust her hat and veil.

"It is half past ten, Marie," she announced nervously. "I—I think Monsieur Covington must be waiting for us."

"Yes, mademoiselle."

Her ears caught at the word.

"Marie."

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"I wish—even after this—to have you always address me as mademoiselle."

"But that—"

"It is my wish."

It was a blue-and-gold morning, with the city looking as if it had received a scrubbing during the night. So too did Monte, who was waiting below for her. Clean-shaven and ruddy, in a dark-gray morning coat and top hat, he looked very handsome, even with his crippled arm. And quite like a bridegroom! For a moment he made her wish she had taken Marie's advice about her hair. She was in a brown traveling suit with a piquant hat that made her look quite Parisienne—though her low tan shoes, tied with big silk bows at her trim ankles, were distinctly American.

Monte was smiling.

"You are n't afraid?" he asked.

"Of what, Monte?"

"I don't know. We 're on our way."

She took a long look at his steady blue eyes. They braced her like wine.

"You must never let me be afraid," she answered.

"Then—en avant!" he called.

In a way, it was a pity that they could not have been married out of doors. They should have gone into a garden for the ceremony instead of into the subdued light of the chapel. Then, too, it would have been much better had the Reverend Alexander Gordon been younger. He was a gentle, saintly-looking man of sixty, but serious—terribly serious. He had lived long in Paris, but instead of learning to be gay he had become like those sad-faced priests at Notre Dame. Perhaps if he had understood better the present circumstances he would have entered into the occasion instead of remaining so very solemn.

As Marjory shook hands with him she lost her bright color. Then, too, he had a voice that made her think again of Peter Noyes. In sudden terror she clung to Monte's arm, and during the brief ceremony gave her responses in a whisper.

Peter Noyes himself could not have made of this journey to the embassy a more trying ordeal. A ring was slipped upon the fourth finger of her left hand. A short prayer followed, and an earnest "God bless you, my children," which left her feeling suffocated. She thought Monte would never finish talking with him—would never get out into the sunshine again. When he did, she shrank away from the glare of the living day.

Monte gave a sigh of relief.

"That's over, anyhow," he said.

Hearing a queer noise behind him, he turned. There stood Marie, sniffling and wiping her eyes.

"Good Heavens," he demanded, "what's this?"

Marjory instantly moved to the girl's side.

"There—there," she soothed her gently; "it's only the excitement, n'est ce pas?"

"Yes, madame; and you know I wish you all happiness."

"And me also?" put in Monte.

"It goes without saying that monsieur will be happy."

He thrust some gold-pieces into her hand.

"Then drink to our good health with your friends," he suggested.

Calling a taxicab, he assisted her in; but before the door closed Marjory leaned toward her and whispered in her ear:—

"You will come back to the hotel at six?"

"Yes, madame."

So Marie went off to her cousins, looking in some ways more like a bride than her mistress.

Marjory preferred to walk. She wanted to get back again to the mood of half an hour ago. She must in some way get Peter Noyes out of her mind. So quite aimlessly they moved down the Avenue Montaigne, and Monte waved his hand at the passing people.

"Now," he announced, "you are none of anybody's business."

"Is that true, Monte?" Marjory asked eagerly.

"True as preaching."

"And no one has any right to scold me?"

"Not the slightest. If any one tries it, turn him over to me."

"That might not always be possible."

"You don't mean to say any one has begun this soon?"

He glared about as if to find the culprit.

"Don't look so fierce, Monte," she protested, with a laugh.

"Then don't you look so worried," he retorted.

Already, by his side, she was beginning to recover. A Parisian dandy coming toward them stared rather overlong at her. An hour ago it would have made her uneasy; now she felt like making a face at him.

She laughed a little.

"The minister was terribly serious, was n't he, Monte?"

"Too darned serious," he nodded. "But, you see, he did n't know. I suppose the cross-your-throat, hope-to-die kind of marriage is serious. That's the trouble with it."

"Yes; that's the trouble with it."

"I can see Chic coming down the aisle now, with his face chalk-white and—"

"Don't," she broke in.

He looked down at her—surprised that she herself was taking this so seriously.

"My comrade," he said, "what you need is to play a little."

"Yes," she agreed eagerly.

"Then where shall we go? The world is before you."

He was in exactly the mood to which she herself had looked forward—a mood of springtime and irresponsibility. That was what he should be. It was her right to feel like that also.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "I'd like to go to all the places I could n't go alone! Take me."

"To the Cafe de Paris for lunch?"

She nodded.

"To the races afterward and to the Riche for dinner?"

"Yes, yes."

"So to the theater and to Maxim's?"

Her face was flushed as she nodded again.

"We're off!" he exclaimed, taking her arm.

It was an afternoon that left her no time to think. She was caught up by the gay, care-free crowd and swept around in a dizzy circle. Yet always Monte was by her side. She could take his arm if she became too confused, and that always steadied her.

Then she was whirled back to the hotel and to Marie, with no more time than was necessary to dress for dinner. She was glad there was no more time. For at least to-day there must be no unfilled intervals. She felt refreshed after her bath, and, to Marie's delight, consented to attire herself in one of her newest evening gowns, a costume of silk and lace that revealed her neck and arms. Also she allowed Marie to do her hair as she pleased. That was a good sign, but Marie thought madame's cheeks did not look like a good sign.

"I hope madame—"

"Have you so soon forgotten what I asked of you?" Marjory interrupted.

"I hope mademoiselle," Marie corrected herself, "has not caught a fever."

"I should hope not," exclaimed Marjory. "What put that into your head?"

"Mademoiselle's cheeks are very hot."

Marjory brought her hand to her face. It did not feel hot, because her hands were equally hot.

"It is nothing but the excitement that brings the color," she informed Marie. "I have been living almost like a nun; and now—to get out all at once takes away one's breath.

"Also being a bride."

"Marie!"

"Eh bien, madame—mademoiselle was married only this morning."

"You do not seem to understand," Marjory explained; "but it is necessary that you should understand. Monsieur Covington is to me only like—like a big brother. It is in order that he might be with me as a big brother we went through the ceremony. People about here talk a great deal, and I have taken his name to prevent that. That is all. And you are to remain with me and everything is to go on exactly as before, he in his apartments and we in ours. You understand now?"

At least, Marie heard.

"It is rather an amusing situation, is it not?" demanded Marjory.

"I—I do not know," replied Marie.

"Then in time you shall see. In the mean while, you might smile. Why do you not smile?"

"I—I do not know," Marie replied honestly.

"You must learn how. It is necessary. It is necessary even to laugh. Monsieur Covington laughed a great deal this afternoon."

"He—he is a man," observed Marie, as if that were some explanation.

"Eh bien—is it men alone who have the privilege of laughing?"

"I do not know," answered Marie; "but I have noticed that men laugh a great deal more about some things than women."

"Then that is because women are fools," affirmed Marjory petulantly.

Though Marie was by no means convinced, she was ready to drop the matter in her admiration of the picture her mistress made when properly gowned. Whether she wished or not, madame, when she was done with her this evening, looked as a bride should look. And monsieur, waiting below, was worthy of her.

In his evening clothes he looked at least a foot taller than usual. Marie saw his eyes warm as he slipped over madame's beautiful white shoulders her evening wrap.



Before madame left she turned and whispered in Marie's ear.

"I may be late," she said; "but you will be here when I return."

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Without fail?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

Marie watched monsieur take his bride's arm as they went out the door, and the thing she whispered to herself had nothing to do with madame at all.

"Poor monsieur!" she said.



CHAPTER X

THE AFFAIR AT MAXIM'S

It was all new to Marjory. In the year and a half she had lived in Paris with her aunt she had dined mostly in her room. Such cafes as this she had seen only occasionally from a cab on her way to the opera. As she stood at the entrance to the big room, which sparkled like a diamond beneath a light, she was as dazed as a debutante entering her first ballroom. The head waiter, after one glance at Monte, was bent upon securing the best available table. Here was an American prince, if ever he had seen one.

Had monsieur any choice?

Decidedly. He desired a quiet table in a corner, not too near the music.

Such a table was immediately secured, and as Covington crossed the room with Marjory by his side he was conscious of being more observed than ever he had been when entering the Riche alone. His bandaged arm lent him a touch of distinction, to be sure; but this served only to turn eyes back again to Marjory, as if seeking in her the cause for it. She moved like a princess, with her head well up and her dark eyes brilliant.

"All eyes are upon you," he smiled, when he had given his order.

"If they are it's very absurd," she returned.

Also, if they were, it did not matter. That was the fact she most appreciated. Ever since she had been old enough to observe that men had eyes, it had been her duty to avoid those eyes. That had been especially true in Paris, and still more especially true in the few weeks she had been there alone.

Now, with Monte opposite her, she was at liberty to meet men's eyes and study them with interest. There was no danger. It was they who turned away from her—after a glance at Monte. It amused her to watch them turn away; it gave her a new sense of power. But of one thing she was certain: there was not a man in the lot with whom she would have felt comfortable to be here as she felt comfortable with Monte.

Monte was having a very pleasant time of it. The thing that surprised him was the way Marjory quickened his zest in old things that had become stale. Here, for instance, she took him back to the days when he had responded with a piquant tingle to the lights and the music and the gay Parisian chatter, to the quick glance of smiling eyes where adventure lurked. He had been content to observe without accepting the challenges, principally because he lived mostly in the sunshine. To-night, in a clean, decent way, he felt again the old tingle. But this time it came from a different source. When Marjory raised her eyes to his, the lights blazed as brilliantly as if a hundred new ones had been lighted; the music mixed with his blood until his thoughts danced.

With the coffee he lighted a cigarette and leaned back contentedly until it was time to go.

As they went out of the room, he was aware that once again all eyes were turned toward her, so that he threw back his shoulders a little farther than usual and looked about with some scorn at those who had with them only ordinary women.

The comedy at the Gymnase was sufficiently amusing to hold her attention, and that was the best she could ask for; but Monte watched it indifferently, resenting the fact that it did hold her attention. Besides, there were too many people all about her here. For two hours and a half it was as if she had gone back into the crowd. He was glad when the final curtain rang down and he was able to take her arm and guide her out.

"Maxim's next?" he inquired.

"Do you want to go?" she asked.

"It's for you to decide," he answered.

She was dead tired by now, but she did not dare to stop.

"All right," she said; "we'll go."

It was a harlequin crowd at Maxim's—a noisier, tenser, more hectic crowd than at the Riche. The room was gray with smoke, and everywhere she looked were gold-tipped wine bottles. Though it was still early, there was much hysterical laughter and much tossing about of long streamers of colored paper and confetti. As they entered she instinctively shrank away from it. Had the waiter delayed another second before leading them to a table, she would have gone out.

Monte ordered the wine he was expected to order, but Marjory scarcely touched it to her lips, while he was content to watch it bubble in his glass. He did not like to have her here, and yet it was almost worth the visit to watch her eyes grow big, to watch her sensitive mouth express the disgust she felt for the mad crowd, to have her unconsciously hitch her chair nearer his.

"The worst of it is," he explained to her, "it's the outsiders who are doing all this—Americans, most of them."

Suddenly, from behind them, a clear tenor voice made itself heard through the din. The first notes were indistinct; but in a few seconds the singer had the room to himself. Turning quickly, Marjory saw the slender figure of Hamilton, swaying slightly, standing by a table, his eyes leveled upon hers. He was singing "The Rosary"—singing it as only he, when half mad, could sing it.

She clutched Monte's hand as he half rose from his seat.

"Please," she whispered, "it's best to sit still."

Stronger and stronger the plaintive melody fell from his lips, until finally the orchestra itself joined. Women strained forward, and half-dazed men sat back and listened with bated breath. Even Monte forgot for a moment the boldness that inspired Hamilton, and became conscious only of Marjory's warm fingers within his. So, had the singer been any one else, he would have been content to sit to the end. But he knew the danger there. His only alternative, however, was to rise and press through the enraptured crowd, which certainly would have resented the interruption. It seemed better to wait, and go out during the noisy applause that was sure to follow.

At the second verse Hamilton, still singing, came nearer. A path opened before him, as before an inspired prophet. It was only Monte who moved his chair slightly and made ready. Still there was nothing he could do until the man committed some overt act. When Hamilton concluded his song, he was less than two feet away. By then Monte was on his feet. As the applause swept from every corner of the room, Hamilton seized from a near-by table a glass of wine, and, raising it, shouted a toast:—

"To the bride."

The crowd followed his eyes to the shrinking girl behind Monte. In good humor they rose, to a man, and joined in, draining their glasses. It was Monte's opportunity. Taking Marjory's arm, he started for the door.

But Hamilton was madder than he had ever been. He ran forward, laughing hysterically.

"Kiss the bride," he called.

This he actually attempted. Monte had only his left arm, and it was not his strongest; but back of it he felt a new power. He took Hamilton beneath the chin, and with a lurch the man fell sprawling over a table among the glasses. In the screaming confusion that followed, Monte fought his way to the door, using his shoulders and a straight arm to clear a path. In another second he had lifted Marjory into a cab.

Leaning forward, she clutched his arm as the cab jumped ahead.

"I'm sorry I had to make a scene," he apologized. "I should n't have hit him, but—I saw red for a second."

She would never forget that picture of Monte standing by her side, his head erect, his arm drawn back for the second blow which had proved unnecessary. All the other faces surrounding her had faded into a smoky background. She had been conscious of him alone, and of his great strength. She had felt that moment as if his strength had literally been hers also. She could have struck out, had it been necessary.

"You did n't hurt your shoulder, did you?" she asked anxiously.

He did not know—it did not much matter. Had Hamilton actually succeeded in reaching her lips, he would have torn his wounded arm from the bandages and struck with that too. He had never realized until then what sacred things her lips were. He had known them only as beautiful. They were beautiful now as he looked down at them. Slightly parted, they held his eyes with a strange, new fascination. They were alive, those lips. They were warm and pulsating. He found himself breathing faster because of them. He seemed, against his will, to be bending toward them. Then, with a wrench, he tore himself free from the spell, not daring to look at her again.

Leaving her to Marie at the door of her room, Monte went into his own apartment. He threw open a window, and stood there in the dark with the cool night breeze blowing in upon him. After Maxim's, the more clean air the better; after what had followed in the cab, the more cool air the better.

He was still confused by it; still frightened by it. For a moment he had felt himself caught in the clutch of some power over which he had no control. That was the startling truth that stood out most prominently. He had been like one intoxicated—he who never before in his life had lost a grip upon himself. That fact struck at the very heart of his whole philosophy of life. Always normal—that had been his boast; never losing his head over this thing or that. It was the only way a man could keep from worrying. It was the only way a man could keep sane. The moment you wanted anything like the devil, then the devil was to pay. This evening he had proved that.

He went back to the affair at Maxim's. He should have known better than to take her there, anyway. She did not belong in such a place. She did not belong anywhere he had taken her to-day. To-morrow—but all this was beside the point.

The question that he would most like to answer at this moment was whether this last wild episode of Hamilton's was due to absinthe or to that same weird passion which a few weeks before had led the man to shoot. It had been beastly of Hamilton to try to reach her lips. That, doubtless, was the absinthe. It robbed him of his senses. But the look in the man's eyes when he sang, the awful hunger that burned in them when he gave his mad toast—those things seemed to spring from a different source. The man, in a room full of strangers, had seen only her, had sung only to her. Monte doubted if the crazed fellow saw even him. He saw no one but this one woman. That was madness—but it did not come of absinthe. The absinthe may have caused the final utter breakdown of Hamilton's self-control here and at Madame Courcy's—but that the desire could be there without it Monte had twice proved to himself that evening.

Once was when he had struck Hamilton. He alone knew that when he hit that time it was with the lust to kill—even as Hamilton had shot to kill. The feeling lasted only the fraction of a second—merely while his fist was plunging toward Hamilton's chin. But, however brief, it had sprung from within him—a blood-red, frenzied desire to beat down the other man. At the moment he was not so much conscious of trying to protect her as to rid himself of Hamilton.

The second mad moment had come in the cab, when he had looked down at her lips. As the passion to kill left him, another equally strong passion had taken its place. He had hungered for her lips—the very lips Hamilton, a moment before, had attempted to violate. He who all his life had looked as indifferently upon living lips as upon sculptured lips had suddenly found himself in the clutch of a mighty desire. For a second he had swayed under the temptation. He had been ready to risk everything, because for a heart-beat or two nothing else seemed to matter. In his madness, he had even dared think that delicate, sensitive mouth trembled a like desire.

Even here in the dark, alone, something of the same desire returned. He began to pace the room.

How she would have hated him had he yielded to that impulse! He shuddered as he pictured the look of horror that would have leaped into her dark eyes. Then she would have shrunk away frightened, and her eyes would have grown cold—those eyes that had only so lately warmed at all. Her face would have turned to marble—the face that only so lately had relaxed.

She trusted him—trusted him to the extent of being willing to marry him to save herself from the very danger with which he had threatened her. Except that at the last moment he had resisted, he was no better than Hamilton.

In her despair she had cried, "Why won't they let me alone?" And he had urged her to come with him, so that she might be let alone. He was to be merely her camarade de voyage—her big brother. Then, in less than twelve hours, he had become like the others. He felt unfit to remain in the next room to her—unfit to greet her in the morning. In an agony of remorse, he clenched his fists.

He drew himself up shortly. A new question leaped to his brain. Was this, then, love? The thought brought both solace and fresh terror. It gave him at least some justification for his moment of temptation; but it also brought vividly before him countless new dangers. If this were love, then he must face day after day of this sort of thing. Then he would be at the mercy of a passion that must inevitably lead him either to Hamilton's plight or to Chic Warren's equally unenviable position. Each man, in his own way, paid the cost: Hamilton, mad at Maxim's; Chic pacing the floor, with beaded brow, at night. With these two examples before him, surely he should have learned his lesson. Against them he could place his own normal life—ten years of it without a single hour such as these hours through which he was now living.

That was because he had kept steady. Ambition, love, drunkenness, gluttony—these were all excesses. His own father had desired mightily to be governor of a State, and it had killed him; his grandfather had died amassing the Covington fortune; he had friends who had died of love, and others who had overdrunk and overeaten. The secret of happiness was not to want anything you did not have. If you went beyond that, you paid the cost in new sacrifices, leading again to sacrifices growing out of those.

Monte lighted a cigarette and inhaled a deep puff. The thing for him to do was fairly clear: to pack his bag and leave while he still retained the use of his reasoning faculties. He had been swept off his feet for an instant, that was all. Let him go on with his schedule for a month, and he would recover his balance.

The suggestion was considerably simplified by the fact that it was not necessary to consider Marjory in any way. He would be in no sense deserting her, because she was in no way dependent upon him. She had ample funds of her own, and Marie for company. He had not married her because of any need she had for him along those lines. The protection of his name she would still have. As Mrs. Covington she could travel as safely without him as with him. Even Hamilton was eliminated. He had received his lesson. Anyway, she would probably leave Paris at once for Etois, and so be out of reach of Hamilton.

Monte wondered if she would miss him. Perhaps, for a day or so; but, after all, she would have without him the same wider freedom she craved. She would have all the advantages of a widow without the necessity of admitting that her husband was dead. He would always be in the background—an invisible guard. It was odd that neither she nor he had considered that as an attractive possibility. It was decidedly more practical than the present arrangement.

As for himself, he was ready to admit frankly that after to-day golf on an English course would for a time be a bore. From the first sight of her this morning until now, he had not had a dull moment. She had taken him back to the days when his emotions had been quick to respond to each day as a new adventure in life.

It was last winter in Davos that he had first begun to note the keen edge of pleasure becoming the least bit dulled. He had followed the routine of his amusements almost mechanically. He had been conscious of a younger element there who seemed to crowd in just ahead of him. Some of them were young ladies he remembered having seen with pig-tails. They smiled saucily at him—with a confidence that suggested he was no longer to be greatly feared. He could remember when they blushed shyly if he as much as glanced in their direction. His schedule had become a little too much of a schedule. It suggested the annual tour of the middle-aged gentlemen who follow the spas and drink of the waters.

He felt all those things now even more keenly than he had at the time. Looking back at them, he gained a new perspective that emphasized each disagreeable detail. But he had only to think of Marjory as there with him and—presto, they vanished. Had she been with him at Davos—better still, were she able to go to Davos with him next winter—he knew with what joy she would sit in front of him on the bob-sled and take the breathless dip of the Long Run. He knew how she would meet him in the morning with her cheeks stung into a deep red by the clean cold of the mountain air. She would climb the heights with him, laughing. She would skate with him and ski with him, and there would be no one younger than they.

Monte again began to pace his room. She must go to Davos with him next winter. He must take her around the whole schedule with him. She must go to England and golf with him, and from there to his camp. She would love it there. He could picture her in the woods, on the lake, and before the camp-fire, beneath the stars.

From there they would go on to Cambridge for the football season. She would like that. As a girl she had been cheated of all the big games, and he would make up for it. So they would go on to New York for the holidays. He had had rather a stupid time of it last year. He had gone down to Chic's for Christmas, but had been oppressed by an uncomfortable feeling that he did not belong there. Mrs. Chic had been busy with so many presents for others that he had felt like old Scrooge. He had made his usual gifts to relatives, but only as a matter of habit. With Marjory with him, he would be glad to go shopping as Chic and Mrs. Chic did. He might even go on to Philadelphia with her and look up some of the relatives he had lately been avoiding.

Where in thunder had his thoughts taken him again? He put his head in his hands. He had carried her around his whole schedule with him just as if this were some honest-to-God marriage. He had done this while she lay in the next room peacefully sleeping in perfect trust.

She must never know this danger, nor be further subjected to it. There was only one safe way—to take the early train for Calais without even seeing her again.

Monte sat down at the writing-desk and seized a pen.

Dear Marjory [he began]: Something has come up unexpectedly that makes it necessary for me to take an early train for England. I can't tell how long I shall be gone, but that of course is not important. I hope you will go on to Etois, as we had planned; or, at any rate, leave Paris. Somehow, I feel that you belong out under the blue sky and not in town.

He paused a moment and read over that last sentence. Then he scratched it out. Then he tore up the whole letter.

What he had to say should be not written. He must meet her in the morning and tell her like a man.



CHAPTER XI

A CANCELED RESERVATION

Though it was late when he retired, Monte found himself wide awake at half past seven. Springing from bed, he took his cold tub, shaved, and after dressing proceeded to pack his bags. The process was simple; he called the hotel valet, gave the order to have them ready as soon as possible, and went below. From the office he telephoned upstairs to Marie, and learned that madame would meet him in the breakfast-room at nine. This left him a half-hour in which to pay his bill at the hotel, order a reservation on the express to Calais, and buy a large bunch of fresh violets, which he had placed on the breakfast table—a little table in a sunshiny corner.

Monte was calmer this morning than he had been the night before. He was rested; the interval of eight hours that had passed since he last saw her gave him, however slight, a certain perspective, while his normal surroundings, seen in broad daylight, tended to steady him further. The hotel clerk, busy about his uninspired duties; the impassive waiters in black and white; the solid-looking Englishmen and their wives who began to make their appearance, lent a sense of unreality to the events of yesterday.

Yet, even so, his thoughts clung tenaciously to the necessity of his departure. In a way, the very normality of this morning world emphasized that necessity. He recalled that it was to just such a day as this he had awakened, yesterday. The hotel clerk had been standing exactly where he was now, sorting the morning mail, stopping every now and then with a troubled frown to make out an indistinct address. The corpulent porter in his blue blouse stood exactly where he was now standing, jealously guarding the door. Vehicles had been passing this way and that on the street outside. He had heard the same undertone of leisurely moving life—the scuffling of feet, the closing of doors, distant voices, the rumble of traffic. Then, after this lazy prelude, he had been swept on and on to the final dizzy climax.

That must not happen again. At this moment he knew he had a firm grip on himself—but at this moment yesterday he had felt even more secure. There had been no past then. That seemed a big word to use for such recent events covering so few hours; and yet it was none too big. It covered nothing less than the revelation of a man to himself. If that process sometimes takes years, it is none the less significant if it takes place in a day.

"Good-morning, Monte."

He turned quickly—so quickly that she started in surprise.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked.

She was in blue this morning, and wore at an angle a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with black and white. He thought her eyes looked a trifle tired. He would have said she had not slept well.

"I—I didn't know you were down," he faltered.

The interval of six hours upon which he had been depending vanished instantly. To-day was but the continuation of yesterday. As he moved toward the breakfast-room at her side, the outside world disappeared as by magic, leaving only her world—the world immediately about her, which she dominated. This room which she entered by his side was no longer merely the salle-a-manger of the Normandie. He was conscious of no portion of it other than that which included their table. All the sunshine in the world concentrated into the rays that fell about her.

He felt this, and yet at the same time he was aware of the absurdity of such exaggeration. It was the sort of thing that annoyed him when he saw it in others. All those newly married couples he used to meet on the German liners were afflicted in this same way. Each one of them acted as if the ship were their ship, the ocean their ocean, even the blue sky and the stars at night their sky and their stars. When he was in a good humor, he used to laugh at this; when in a bad humor, it disgusted him.

"Monte," she said, as soon as they were seated, "I was depending upon you this morning."

She studied him a second, and then tried to smile, adding quickly:—

"I don't like you to disappoint me like this."

"What do you mean?" he asked nervously.

She frowned, but it was at herself, not at him. It did not do much except make dimples between her brows.

"I lay awake a good deal last night—thinking," she answered.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "You ought n't to have done that!"

"It was n't wise," she admitted. "But I looked forward to the daylight—and you—to bring me back to normal."

"Well, here we are," he hastened to assure her. "I had the sun up ready for you several hours ago."

"You—you look so serious."

She leaned forward.

"Monte," she pleaded, "you must n't go back on me like that—now. I suppose women can't help getting the fidgets once in a while and thinking all sorts of things. I was tired. I 'm not used to being so very gay. And I let myself go a little, because I thought in the morning I 'd find you the same old Monte. I 've known you so long, and you always have been the same."

"It was a pretty exciting day for both of us," he tried to explain.

"How for you?"

"Well, to start with, one does n't get married every morning."

He saw her cheeks flush. Then she drew back.

"I think we ought to forget that as much as possible," she told him.

Here was his opportunity. The way to forget—the only way—was for him to continue with his interrupted schedule to England, and for her to go on alone to Etois. It was not too late for that—if he started at once. Surely it ought to be the matter of only a few weeks to undo a single day. Let him get the tang of the salt air, let him go to bed every night dog-tired physically, let him get out of sight of her eyes and lips, and that something—intangible as a perfume—that emanated from her, and doubtless he would be laughing at himself as heartily as he had laughed at others.

But he could not frame the words. His lips refused to move. Not only that, but, facing her here, it seemed a grossly brutal thing to do. She looked so gentle and fragile this morning as, picking up the violets, she half hid her face in them.

"You mean we ought to go back to the day before yesterday?" he asked.

"In our thoughts," she answered.

"And forget that we are—"

She nodded quickly, not allowing him to finish.

"Because," she explained, "I think it must be that which is making you serious. I don't know you that way. It is n't you. I 've seen you all these years, wandering around wherever your fancy took you—care-free and smiling. I've always envied you, and now—I thought you were just going to keep right on, only taking me with you. Is n't that what we planned?"

"Yes," he nodded. "We started yesterday."

"I shall never forget that part of yesterday," she said.

"It was n't so bad, except for Hamilton."

"It was n't so bad even with Hamilton," she corrected. "I don't think I can ever be afraid of him again."

"Then it was n't he that bothered you last night?" he asked quickly.

"No," she answered.

"It—it was n't I?"

She laughed uneasily.

"No, Monte; because you were just yourself yesterday."

He wondered about that. He wondered, if he placed before her all the facts, including the hours after he left her, if she would have said that. Here was his second opportunity to tell her what he had planned. If he did not intend to go on, he should speak now. To-morrow it would be too late. By noon it would be too late. By the time they finished their breakfast, it would be too late.

He met her eyes. They were steady as planets. They were honest and clear and clean and confident. They trusted him, and he knew it. He took a deep breath and leaned forward. Impulsively she leaned across the table and placed her hand upon his.

"Dear old Monte," she breathed.

It was too late—now! He saw her in a sort of mist of dancing golden motes. He felt the steady throb of her pulse.

She withdrew her hand as quickly as she had given it. It was as if she did not dare allow it to remain there. It was that which made him smile with a certain confidence of his own.

"What we'd better do," he said, "is to get out of Paris. I'm afraid the pace here is too hot for us."

"To Etois?" she asked.

"That's as good a place as any. Could you start this afternoon?"

"If you wish."

"The idea is to move on as soon as you begin to think," he explained, with his old-time lightness. "Of course, the best way is to walk. If you can't walk—why, the next best thing—"

He paused a moment to consider a new idea. It was odd that it had never occurred to him before.

"I have it!" he continued. "We'll go to Etois by motor. It's a beautiful drive down there. I made the trip alone three years ago in a car I owned. We'll take our time, putting up at the little villages along the way. We'll let the sun soak into us. We'll get away from people. It's people who make you worry. I have a notion it will be good for us both. This Hamilton episode has left us a bit morbid. What we need is something to bring us back to normal."

"I'd love it," she fell in eagerly. "We'll just play gypsy."

"Right. Now, what you want to do is to throw into a dress-suitcase a few things, and we'll ship the trunks by rail to Nice. All you need is a toothbrush, a change of socks, and—"

"There's Marie," she interrupted.

"Can't we ship her by rail too?"

"No, Monte," she answered, with a decided shake of her head.

"But, hang it all, people don't go a-gypsying with French maids!"

"Why not?" she demanded.

She asked the question quite honestly. He had forgotten Marie utterly until this moment, and she seemed to join the party like an intruder. Always she would be upon the back seat.

"Wouldn't you feel freer without her?" he asked.

"I should n't feel at all proper," she declared.

"Then we might just as well not have been married."

"Only," she laughed, "if we had n't taken that precaution it would n't have been proper for me to go, even with Marie."

"I'm glad we've accomplished something, anyhow," he answered good-naturedly.

"We've accomplished a great deal," she assured him. "Yesterday morning I could n't—at this time—have done even the proper things and felt proper. Oh, you don't know how people look at you, and how that look makes you feel, even when you know better. I could n't have sat here at breakfast with you and felt comfortable. Now we can sit here and plan a wonderful trip like this. It's all because you're just Monte."

"And you just you!"

"Only I don't count for anything. It makes me feel even more selfish than I am."

"Don't count?" he exclaimed. "Why—"

He stifled the words that sprang to his lips. It was only because she thought she did not count that she was able to feel comfortable. Once let her know that she counted as at that moment she did count to him, and even what little happiness he was able to bring her would vanish. He would be to her then merely one of the others—even as he was to himself.

He rose abruptly.

"I must see about getting a machine," he said. "I want to start this afternoon if possible."

"I'll be ready," she agreed.

As they went out to the office, the clerk stepped up to him.

"I have secured the reservation, monsieur," he announced.

"Please cancel it," replied Monte.

"Reservation?" inquired Marjory.

"On the Calais express—for a friend of mine who has decided not to go," he answered.



CHAPTER XII

A WEDDING JOURNEY

Monte made an extravagant purchase: a new high-powered touring car capacious enough for a whole family—his idea being, that the roomier the car, the less Marie would show up in it. On the other hand, if he cared to consider her in that way, Marie would be there as much for his protection as Marjory's. The task that lay ahead of him this next week was well defined; it was to get back to normal. He had diagnosed his disease—now he must cure it. It would have been much easier to have done this by himself, but this was impossible. He must learn to gaze steadily into her eyes, while gazing into them; he must learn to look indifferently upon her lips, with her within arm's reach of him. Here was a man's job.

He was not even to have the machine to occupy his attention; for there was no time to secure a license, and so he must take with him a chauffeur. He was fortunate in being able to secure one on the spot—Louis Santerre, a good-looking lad with the best of recommendations. He ordered him to be at the hotel at three.

Thus, in less than an hour from the time he entered the salesroom, Monte had bought and paid for his car, hired his man, given orders for certain accessories, and left, with Monsieur Mansart bowing him out and heartily wishing that all his customers were of this type.

There were, however, several little things that Monte still wished to purchase—an automobile coat and cap, for one thing; also some rugs. These he found in a near-by store. It was as he was leaving that the clerk—who, it seems, must have had an eye—noticed the shiny new gold ring upon Monte's left hand.

"Madame is well supplied?" he inquired.

"Madame? Who the devil is madame?" demanded Monte.

"Pardon, monsieur," replied the clerk in some confusion, fearing he had made a grave mistake. "I did not know monsieur was traveling alone."

Then it was Monte's turn to show signs of confusion. It was quite true he was not traveling alone. It was the truest thing he knew just then.

"What is necessary for a lady traveling by motor?" he inquired.

The clerk would take great pleasure in showing him in a department devoted to that very end. It was after one bewildering glance about the counters that he became of the opinion that his question should have been: "What is it that a lady does not wear when traveling by motor?" He saw coats and bonnets and goggles and vanity boxes and gloves, to mention only a few of those things he took in at first glance.

"We are leaving in some haste," explained Monte, "so I'm afraid she has none of these things. Would n't the easiest way be for you to give me one of each?"

That indeed would be a pleasure. Did monsieur know the correct size?

Only in a general way—madame was not quite his height and weighed in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty pounds. That was enough to go upon for outside garments. Still there remained a wide choice of style and color. In this Monte pleased himself, pointing his stick with sure judgment at what took his fancy, as this and the other thing was placed before him. It was a decidedly novel and a very pleasant occupation.

In this way he spent the best part of another hour, and made a payment in American Express orders of a considerable sum. That, however, involved nothing but tearing from the book he always carried as many orders for twenty-five dollars as most nearly approximated the sum total. The articles were to be delivered within one hour to "Madame M. Covington, Hotel Normandie."

Monte left the store with a sense of satisfaction, tempered a trifle by an uncomfortable doubt as to just how this presumption on his part would be received. However, he was well within his rights. He held sturdily to that.

With still two hours before he could return,—for he must leave her free until luncheon,—he went on to the Champs Elysees and so to the Bois. He still dwelt with pleasure upon the opportunity that had been offered him to buy those few things for her. It sent him along briskly with a smile on his face. It did more; it suggested a new idea. The reason he had been taking himself so seriously was that he had been thinking too much about himself and not enough about her. The simple way out of that difficulty was from now on not to consider himself at all. After all, what happened to him did not much matter, as long as it did not affect her. His job from now on was to make her happy.

For the rest of his walk he kept tight hold of that idea, and came back to the hotel with a firm grip on it. He called to her through the door of her room:—

"How you making it?"

"Pretty well," came her voice. "Only I went shopping and bought all my things—including a coat for you. Then, when I return, I find a whole boxful from you."

"All my efforts wasted!" he exclaimed.

"No, Monte," she replied quickly. "I could n't allow that, because—well, because it was so thoughtful of you. So I kept the coat and bonnet you selected—and a few other things. I've just sent Marie out to return the rest."

She had kept the coat and bonnet that he selected! What in thunder was there about that to make a man feel so confoundedly well satisfied?

They left the hotel at three, and rode that day as far as a country inn which took their fancy just before coming into Joigny. It was, to Marjory, a wonderful ride—a ride that made her feel that with each succeeding mile she was leaving farther and farther behind her every care she had ever had in the world. It was a ride straight into the heart of a green country basking sleepily beneath blue skies; of contented people going about their pleasant tasks; of snug, fat farms and snug little houses, with glimpses of an occasional chateau in the background.

When Monte held out his hand to assist her down, she laughed light-heartedly, refreshed in body and soul. For Monte had been himself ever since they started—better than himself. He had humored her every mood, allowing her to talk when she had felt like talking, or to sit back with her eyes half closed when she wished to give herself up to lazy content. Often, too, he had made her laugh with his absurd remarks—laugh spontaneously, as a child laughs. She had never seen him in such good humor, and could not remember when she herself had been in such good humor.

The rays of the sun were falling aslant as she stepped out, and the western sky was aglow with crimson and purple and pink. It was a drowsy world, with sounds grown distant and the perfume and color of the flowers grown nearer. At the door of the inn, which, looked as if it must have been standing right there in the days of dashing cavaliers, the proprietor and his wife were obsequiously bowing a welcome. It was not often that the big machines deigned to rest here.

Monte stepped toward them.

"Madame desires to rest here for the night, if accommodations may be secured," he said.

For the night? Mon Dieu! The proprietor had reckoned upon only a temporary sojourn—for a bottle of wine, perhaps. He had never entertained such a host as this. How many rooms would be required?

"Four," answered Monte.

"Let me see; monsieur and madame could be put in the front room."

Monte shook his head.

"Madame will occupy the front room alone," he informed him.

"Eh? Oh, I understand; a sister. That was a curious mistake. Eh bien, madame in the front room. Monsieur in the room to the right. The maid in the room on the back. But there is the chauffeur."

There was no room left for him, or for the machine either.

"Then he can go on to Joigny," announced Monte.

So Louis went on, and in less than five minutes the others were safely sorted out and tucked away in their respective rooms.

"We ought to get out and see the sun set," Monte called to Marjory as she waved him an adieu at her door.

"I'll be down in ten minutes," she nodded.

There is a princess latent in every woman. She makes her appearance early, and too often vanishes early. Not many women have the good fortune to see her—except perhaps for a few brief moments—after seventeen. But, however, far in the background, she remains as at least a romantic possibility as long as any trace of romance itself remains. She is a languid, luxury-loving creature, this princess; an Arabian Nights princess of silks and satins and perfumed surroundings. Through half-closed eyes she looks out upon a world of sunshine and flowers, untroubled as the fairy folk. Every one does her homage, and she in her turn smiles graciously, and there is nought else for her to do except to rest and be amused.

For a moment, here in the twilight, this princess returned to Marjory. As she sat before the mirror, doing over her hair, she held her chin a little higher at the thought and smiled at herself contentedly. She used to do just this—and feel ashamed of herself afterward—long, long ago, after she first met Monte at the Warrens'. For it was he who then had been her gallant knight, without which no one may be a fairy-book princess. He had just finished his college course, and eager-eyed was about to travel over the wide world. He was big and buoyant and handsome, and even more irresponsible then than now.

She recalled how one evening they sat alone upon the porch of the Warren house until late, and he had told her of his proposed journey. She had listened breathlessly, with her chin in her hands and her eyes big. When she came in, Mrs. Warren had placed an arm about her and looked significantly at her flushed cheeks and said gently:—

"Be careful, my dear. Don't you let that careless young prince take away your heart with him. Remember, he has not yet seen the world."

He had sailed away for a year and a day soon after this; and, perhaps because he was safely out of her life, she had allowed herself more liberty with him than otherwise she would have done. At any rate, that year she was a princess and he her prince.

Now, to-night, he came back for a little. It was the twilight, which deals gently with harsh realities, and the perfume of the flowers floating in at the open window, and the old room, doubtless. Only yesterday he called her "Your Highness," and she had not responded. There in the Cafe Riche none of her old dreams had returned. Perhaps it was because all her surroundings there had been too grossly real. That was no setting for a fairy prince, and a fairy prince was, of course, all he had ever been or was now. He was only for the world when the sun was low.

Outside her window she heard a voice:—

"Oh, Marjory."

She started. It was her prince calling. It was bewildering to have dreams suddenly blended with life itself. It was bewildering also to have the thoughts of seventeen suddenly blended with the realities of twenty-seven. She remained silent, breathing gently, as if afraid of being discovered.

"Marjory," he called again.

"Coming," she answered, with a quiet intake of breath.

Hatless and with a silk shawl over her shoulders, she hurried to where he was waiting. He too was hatless, even as he had been that night long ago when he had sat beside her. Something, too, of the same light of youth was in his eyes now as then.

Side by side they strolled through the quaint village of stone houses and to the top of a near-by hill, where they found themselves looking down upon Joigny outlined against the hazy tints of the pink-and-gold horizon.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "It's a fairy world."

"Better; it's a real world," he answered.

"I doubt it, Monte," she disagreed, with a touch of regret. "It's too perfect."

It would not last. It would begin to fade in a moment, even as her fairy prince would fade and become just Monte. She knew from the past. Besides, it was absolutely essential that this should not last. If it did—why, that would be absurd. It would be worse. It made her uncomfortable even to imagine this possibility for a moment, thus bringing about the very condition most unfavorable for fairy princes. For, if there is one advantage they have over ordinary princes, it is the gift of keeping their princesses always happy and content.

Somewhat shyly she glanced up at Monte. He was standing with his uninjured hand thrust into the pocket of his Norfolk jacket, staring fixedly at the western sky as if he had lost himself there. She thought his face was a bit set; but, for all that, he looked this moment more as she had known him at twenty-one than when he came back at twenty-two. After his travels of a year he had seemed to her so much wiser than she that he had instantly become her senior. She had listened to him as to a man of the world, with something of awe. It was more difficult then to have him for a prince, because princes, though brave and adventurous, must not be too wise.

She smiled as she realized that, as he stood there now, Monte did not in the least inspire her with awe or fear or a sense of superior wisdom. The mellow light softened his features and the light breeze had tousled his hair, so that for all his years told he might have been back in his football days. He had been like that all the afternoon.

A new tenderness swept over her. She would have liked to reach up her hand and smooth away the little puzzled frown between his brows. She almost dared to do it. Then he turned.

"You're right," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "It is n't real. See, it's fading now."

The pink clouds were turning a dull gray.

"Perhaps it's better it should," she suggested. "If it stayed like that all the time, we'd get so used to it we would n't see it."

He took out his watch.

"I ordered supper to be ready in a half hour," he said. "We'd better get back."

She fell in step by his side—by the side of her fairy prince. For, oddly enough, he had not begun to fade as the sunset faded. The twilight was deepening into the hushed night—a wonderful night that was like beautiful music heard at a distance. It left her scarcely conscious of moving. In the sky the stars were becoming clearer; in the houses, candles were beginning to twinkle. It was difficult to tell which were which—as if the sky and the earth were one.

There was no abrupt change even when they came into the inn, where near the open window a table had been set and two candles were burning.

"Oh," she exclaimed again, "here is another bit of fairy world."

He laughed abruptly.

"I hope the supper is real, anyhow," he said.

He spoke as if making a conscious effort to break the spell. It made her glance up as he seated her; but all she thought of then was that she would like to smooth back his hair. The spell was not broken.

Chops and cauliflower and a salad were served to them, with patties of fresh butter and crusted white bread. She was glad to see him eat heartily. She prepared his salad with a dash of salt and pepper, a little vinegar and oil. That much, at least, she was at liberty to do for him. It gave her a new pleasure.

"Monte," she asked, "do you suppose it's always as nice as this here?"

"If it were, would you like to stay?" he asked.

She thought a moment over that. Would it be possible just to drift on day after day, with Monte always a fairy prince beside her? She glanced up and met his eyes.

"I—I guess it's best to follow our schedule," she decided, with a little gasp.



CHAPTER XIII

A WEDDING JOURNEY (continued)

Through the golden sunshine and beneath the blue sky, they went on the next day, until with a nod she chose her place to stop for lunch, until with another nod, as the sun was getting low, she chose her place to stop for the night. This time they did not ask to know even the name of the village. It was his suggestion.

"Because," he explained, "that makes it seem as if we were trying to get somewhere. And we are n't, are we?"

"Wherever we are, we are," she nodded gayly.

"It is n't even important that we get to Etois," he insisted.

"Not in the slightest," she agreed. "Only, if we keep on going we'll get to the sea, won't we?"

"Then we can either skirt the shore or take a boat and cross the sea. It's all one."

"All one! You make me feel as if I had wings."

"Then you're happy?"

"Very, very happy, Monte. And you?"

"Yes," he answered abruptly.

She had no reason to doubt it. That night, as she sat alone in her room, she reviewed this day in order to satisfy herself on this point; for she felt a certain obligation. He had given to her so generously that the least she in her turn could do was to make sure that he was comfortable and content. That, all his life, was the most he had asked for. It was the most he asked for now. He must wake each morning free of worries, come down to a good breakfast and find his coffee hot, have a pleasant time of it during the day without being bored, and end with a roast and salad and later a good bed. These were simple desires—thoroughly wholesome, normal desires. With the means at his command, with the freedom from restraint that had been his ever since he left college, it was a great deal to his credit that he had been able to retain such modest tastes. He had been at liberty to choose what he wished, and he had chosen decently.

This morning she had come down early and looked to his coffee herself. It was a slight thing, but she had awakened with a desire to do something positive and personal for him. She had been satisfied when he exclaimed, without knowing the part she played in it:—

"This coffee is bully!"

It had started the day right and given her a lightness of spirit that was reflected in her talk and even in her smiles. She had smiled from within. She was quite sure that the day had been a success, and that so far, at any rate, Monte had not been either bored or worried. Sitting there in the dark, she felt strangely elated over the fact. She had been able to send her fairy prince to his sleep contented. It gave her a motherly feeling of a task well done. After all, Monte was scarcely more than a boy.

Her thoughts went back to the phrase he had used at the end of the day's journey.

"We aren't getting anywhere, are we?" he had asked.

At the moment she had not thought he meant anything more than he said. He seldom did. It was restful to know that she need never look for hidden meanings in his chance remarks. He meant only that there was no haste; that it made no difference when they reached this town or that.

They had no destination.

That was true, and yet the thought disturbed her a trifle. It did not seem quite right for Monte to have no destination. He was worth something more than merely to revolve in a circle. He should have a Holy Grail. Give him something to fight for, and he would fight hard. Twice to-day she had caught a light in his eyes that had suggested this to her—a clean, white light that had hinted of a Monte with a destination. But would not that destroy the very poise that made him just Monte?

It was too puzzling a question for her own peace of mind. She turned away from it and slowly began to take down her hair.

On and on they went the third day—straight on—with their destination still hidden. That night, when again alone, she sat even longer by her open window than she had yesterday, instead of going to bed and to sleep, which would have been the sensible thing to do. In some ways this had been rather a more exciting day than the others. Again she had risen early and come down to order his coffee; but he too must have risen early, for he had come upon her as she was giving her instructions. It had been an embarrassing moment for her, and she had tried to carry it off with a laugh. That she was not to do so surprised her and added a still deeper flush to her cheeks.

"So this is the secret of my good coffee?" he asked.

"There is so very little I can do for you," she faltered.

"That is a whole lot more than I deserve," he answered.

However, he was pleased by this trivial attention, and she knew it. It was an absurdly insignificant incident, and yet here she was recalling it with something like a thrill. Not only that, but she recalled another and equally preposterous detail of the day. She had dropped her vanity-box in the car, and as they both stooped for it his cheek had brushed hers. He laughed lightly and apologized—forgetting it the next second. Eight hours later she dared remember it, like any schoolgirl. Small wonder that she glanced about to make sure the room was empty. It sent her to bed shamefaced.

The fourth day came, with the golden road still unfolding before them and her fairy prince still beside her. Then the fifth day, and that night they stopped within sight of the ocean. It came as a surprise to both of them. It was as if, after all, they had reached a destination, when as a matter of fact they had done nothing of the sort. It meant, to be sure, that the next day would find them in Nice, which would end their ride, because they intended to remain there for a day or two until they arranged for a villa in Etois, which, being in the mountains, they must reach afoot. But if she did not like it she had only to nod and they could move on to somewhere else. There was nothing final even about Etois.

That evening they walked by the shore of the sea, and Monte appeared quieter than usual.

"I have wired ahead for rooms at the Hotel des Roses," he announced.

"Yes, Monte," she said.

"It's where I've stopped for ten years. The last time I was there I found Edhart gone, and was very uncomfortable."

"You were as dependent upon him as that?" she asked.

"It was what lured me on to Paris—and you," he smiled.

"Then I must be indebted to Edhart also."

"I think it would be no more than decent to look up his grave and place a wreath of roses there," he observed.

"But, Monte," she protested, "I should hate to imagine he had to give up his life—for just this."

"At any rate, if he hadn't died I'm sure I should have kept to my schedule," he said seriously.

"And then?"

"I should not have been here."

"You speak regretfully?" she asked.

He stopped abruptly and seized her arm.

"You know better," he answered.

For a moment she looked dizzily into his eyes. Then he broke the tension by smiling.

"I guess we'd better turn back," he said below his breath.

It was evident that Monte was not quite himself at that moment. That night she heard the roll of the ocean as she tried to sleep, and it said many strange things to her. She did not sleep well.

The next morning they were on their way again, reaching the Hotel des Roses at six in the afternoon. Henri was at the door to meet them. Henri, he thought, had greatly improved since his last visit. Perhaps Edhart, from his seat on high, had been instructing him. The man seemed to understand better without being told what Monsieur Covington desired. The apartments were ready, and it was merely a personal matter between Monte and the garcon to have his trunk transferred from the second floor to the third and Marie's trunk brought down from the third to the second. Even Edhart might have been pardoned for making this mistake in the distribution of the luggage, if not previously informed.

That evening Marjory begged to be excused from dinner, and Monte dined alone. He dined alone in the small salle-a-manger where he had always dined alone, and where the last time he was here he had grown in an instant from twenty-two to thirty-two. Now, in another instant, it was as if he had gone back to twenty-two. It was even almost as if Edhart had returned to life. The mellow glow of the long twilight tinted the room just as it used to do. Across the boulevard he saw the Mediterranean, languid and blue.

A thing that impressed Monte was how amazingly friendly every one was—how amazingly friendly even the material objects were. His old table in the corner had been reserved for him, but this time it had been arranged for two. The empty chair opposite him was quite as friendly as Marjory herself might have been. It kept him company and humored his thoughts. It said, as plainly as it is possible for a chair to speak:—

"Madame Covington is disappointed to think she could not join you this evening, but you must remember that it is not to be expected of a woman to stand these long journeys like a man. However, she will have breakfast with you in the morning. That is something to look forward to. In the meanwhile let me serve to remind you that she is upstairs—upstairs in the room you used to occupy. Perhaps even at this moment she is looking out the window at this same languid blue sea. Being up there, she is within call. Should you need her—really need her—you may be perfectly sure that she would come to you.

"That time you were ill here two years ago, you had rather a bad time of it because there was no one to visit you except a few chance acquaintances about whom you did not care. Well, it would not be like that now. She would sit by your bed all night long and all day long, too, if you permitted. She is that kind. So, you see, you are really not dining alone to-night. I, though only an empty chair, am here to remind you of that."

Felix, who was in charge of the salle-a-manger, hovered near Monte as if he felt the latter to be his especial charge. He served as Monte's right hand—the hand of the sling. He was very much disturbed because madame refused her dinner, and every now and then thought of something new that possibly might tempt her.

Every one else about the hotel was equally friendly, racking his brains to find a way of serving Monte by serving madame. It made him feel quite like those lordly personages who used to come here with a title and turn the place topsy-turvy for themselves and for their women-folk. He recalled a certain count of something who arrived with his young wife and who in a day had half of Nice in his service. Monte felt like him, only more so. There was a certain obsequiousness that the count demanded which vanished the moment his back was turned; but the interest of Felix and his fellows now was based upon something finer than fear. Monte felt it had to do with Marjory herself, and also—well, in a sense she was carrying a title too. She was, to these others, a bride.

But it was a great relief to know that she was not the sort of bride of which he had seen too many in the last ten years. It would be a pleasure to show these fellows a bride who would give them no cause to smile behind their hands. He would show them a bride who could still conduct herself like a rational human being, instead of like a petulant princess or a moon-struck school girl.

Monte lighted a cigarette and went out upon the Quai Massena for a stroll. It was late in the season for the crowds. They had long since adjourned to the mountains or to Paris. But still there were plenty remaining. He would not have cared greatly had there been no one left. It was a relief to have the shore to himself. He had formerly been rather sensitive about being anywhere out of season. In fact, this was the first time he had ever been here later than May. But the difference was not so great as he had imagined it must be. Neither the night sky nor the great turquoise mirror beneath it appeared out of season.

Monte did not stray far. He walked contentedly back and forth for the matter of an hour. He might have kept on until midnight, had it not been for a messenger from the hotel who handed him a note. Indifferently he opened it and read:

I've gone to the Hotel d'Angleterre. Please don't try to see me to-night. Hastily,

MARJORY.



CHAPTER XIV

THE BRIDE RUNS AWAY

Henri, who was greatly disturbed, explained to Monte that madame came downstairs shortly after monsieur left for his walk and asked for him. Being told that monsieur had gone out, she too had gone out, wearing a light shawl—to meet monsieur, as Henri supposed. In some fifteen minutes madame had returned, appearing somewhat excited, if it were permissible to say so. Thereupon she had given orders to have her luggage and the luggage of her maid removed at once to the Hotel d'Angleterre. Henri had assured her that if her rooms were not suitable he would turn the house upside down to please her.

"No, no," she had answered; "it is not that. You are very kind, Henri."

He had then made so bold as to suggest that a messenger be sent out to find monsieur.

"By all means," she had answered. "I will give you a note to take to him."

She had sat down and written the note and Henri had dispatched it immediately. But, also immediately, madame and her maid had left.

"I beg monsieur to believe that if there is anything—"

Monte waved the man aside, went to the telephone, and rang up the Hotel d'Angleterre.

"I wish to know if a Madame Covington has recently arrived."

"Non, monsieur," was the response.

"Look here," said Monte sharply. "Make sure of that. She must have reached there within fifteen minutes."

"We have had no arrivals here within that time except a Mademoiselle Stockton and her maid."

"Eh?" snapped Monte. "Repeat that again."

"Mademoiselle Stockton," the clerk obeyed.

"She signed the register with that name?"

"But yes. If monsieur—"

"All right; thanks."

"You found her?" inquired Henri solicitously.

"Yes," nodded Monte, and went out into the night again.

There was nothing he could do—absolutely nothing. She had given her orders, and they must be obeyed. He returned to the Quai Massena, to the shore of the sea; but he walked nervously now, in a world that, as far as he was concerned, was starless and colorless. He had thought at first, naturally enough, that Hamilton was in some way concerned; but he dismissed that now as wholly unplausible. Instead of running away, in that case, she would have sent for him. It was decidedly more likely that this was some strange whimsy springing from within herself.

In looking back at the last few days, he recalled now that upon several occasions she had acted in a way not quite like herself. Last night, for instance, she had been disturbed. Again, it was most unusual for her not to dine with him. He had accepted her excuse that she was tired; but now he blamed himself for not having seen through so artificial an excuse, for not having detected that something else was troubling her.

She had run away as if in fear. She had not dared even to talk over with him the cause for her uneasiness. And he—blind fool that he was—had not detected anything unusual. He had gone off mooning, leaving her to fight her own fight. He had been so confoundedly self-satisfied and content because she was here with him, where heretofore he had always been alone, that he had gone stony blind to her comfort. That was the crude fact.

However, accusing himself did not bring him any nearer an explanation of her strange conduct. She would not have left him unless she had felt herself in some danger. If Hamilton were eliminated, who then remained by whom she could feel menaced? Clearly it must be himself.