Two weeks after she was again settled at the Eyrie, Langdon appeared in
Saint X, alleging business at the National Woolens' factories there.
He accepted her invitation to stay with her, and devoted himself to
Gladys, who took up her flirtation with him precisely where she had
dropped it when they bade each the other a mock-mournful good-by five
months before. They were so realistic that Pauline came to the
satisfying conclusion that her sister-in-law was either in earnest with
Langdon or not in earnest with anybody. If she had not been avoiding
Scarborough, she would probably have seen Gladys' real game--to use
Langdon as a stalking horse for him.
"No doubt Scarborough, like all men, imagines he's above jealousy,"
Gladys had said to herself, casting her keen eyes over the situation.
"But there never was a man who didn't race better with a pace-maker
than on an empty track."
Toward the end of Langdon's first week Pauline's suspicions as to one
of the objects of his winter trip West were confirmed by his saying
quite casually: "Dumont's dropped Fanshaw, and Leonora's talking of
the stage. In fact, she's gone abroad to study."
When he was leaving, after nearly three weeks, he asked her when she
was coming back East.
"Never--I hope," she said, her fingers playing with the close-cropped
curls of her boy standing beside her.
"I fancied so--I fancied so," replied Langdon, his eyes showing that he
understood her and that he knew she understood for whom he had asked.
"You are going to stay on--at the Eyrie?"
"I think so, unless something--disquieting--occurs. I've not made up
my mind. Fate plays such queer tricks that I've stopped guessing at
to-morrow."
"What was it Miss Dumont's friend, Scarborough, quoted from Spinoza at
Atwater's the other night? 'If a stone, on its way from the sling
through the air, could speak, it would say, "How free I am!'" Is that
the way you feel?"
There came into Pauline's eyes a look of pain so intense that he
glanced away.
"We choose a path blindfold," she said, her tone as light as her look
was dark, "and we must go where it goes--there's no other ever
afterward."
"But if it leads down?"
"All the PATHS lead up," she replied with a sad smile. "It's the
precipices that lead down."
Gladys joined them and Langdon said to her:
"Well, good-by, Miss Dumont--don't get married till you see me." He
patted the boy on the shoulder. "Good-by, Gardiner--remember, we men
must always be brave, and gentle with the ladies. Good-by, Mrs.
Dumont--keep away from the precipices. And if you should want to come
back to us you'll have no trouble in finding us. We're a lot of slow
old rotters, and we'll be just where you left us--yawning, and shying
at new people and at all new ideas except about clothes, and gossiping
about each other." And he was in the auto and off for the station.