For a moment she could not stir, her legs were sinking under her. Then

she staggered to the table, felt for matches, and lit the lamp. She

stood gasping and panting, not daring to turn her head.

Courage ebbed back. Something must be done. Police. Ambulance. Topper.

She started to leave the room. The man groaned, very faintly.

Perhaps she’d better put a pillow under his head. She tiptoed back to

her fallen assailant, intending to approach him from behind. The word

“malingering” occurred to her. And no doubt he had a pistol of his own.

And then she stopped and screamed twice. The man lying in his blood was

Eustace Bylant.

Some time later she was wondering if she had fainted. She was sitting on

a chair, shaking from head to foot, her teeth chattering. Hours seemed

to pass.

Slowly her blood resumed its even flow, her limbs obeyed her will, and

suddenly she laughed.

“So! Caveman stuff! Eustace! And he would have committed hara-kiri

before he would have introduced such a scene into one of his novels. And

a rotten psychologist after all.”

She felt not the slightest remorse, nor stab of pity. She would have

shot him as deliberately if she had guessed who he was.

But something must be done and at once.

She slipped a pillow under his head and went out to the room under the

stair where the telephone was concealed. She took down the receiver, but

stood in doubt. He must have a doctor—but whom? Her grandmother’s old

physician had retired. She literally did not know the name of a doctor

in New Jersey. Eustace had one in New York, for he suffered at times

from dyspepsia. But here—what on earth should she do? She must consult

Topper.

She was starting for the wing, when she turned suddenly and ran back to

the cupboard.

Elsie! Of course!

It was five minutes before she could rouse Central, who had probably

eaten too many chocolates and fallen asleep. Three more before anyone in

the house on States Avenue could be awakened. But finally a man’s voice

demanded drowsily:

“Well, what is it, this time of night?”

Gita nearly dropped the receiver. “Dr. Pelham? It can’t be you! Is it

you?”

The voice sprang to life. “Is that you, Gi—Mrs. Bylant?”

“Yes. Come quickly. Don’t ask any questions. Bring Elsie. Bring—other

things.”

The voice became cool and alert. “We’ll be there in about fifteen

minutes.”

Gita replaced the receiver on its hook. “What luck! What luck!” But she

was trembling once more.

She knew nothing of first aid and she felt she never wanted to look at

Eustace again. She hoped she hadn’t killed him, as she had no desire to

be a murderess, even in self-defense. But the violence of that embrace

and those kisses had turned her heart into granite. She could feel its

weight.

And then she was aware of a certain grim humor in the situation. Her

would-be defiler was her legal husband!

She walked up and down the hall until she heard a car racing up the

avenue. She unbarred and unlocked the door. As she opened it Dr. Pelham

and Elsie sprang out of the car and ran up the steps.

“I’ve shot Eustace,” she announced briefly. “Thought he was a burglar.

He’s in the library.”

Dr. Pelham, bag in hand, went swiftly down the hall without a look at

Gita. He was a surgeon on his way to a serious case, nothing more.

Elsie grasped Gita’s hand and stared at her. Her face was white and

quivering.

“I did,” said Gita defiantly. “Couldn’t see who it was in the dark.

Didn’t expect him till Friday.” Never would she breathe a word of that

horrible scene to anyone.

Hand in hand the girls walked reluctantly to the library. Dr. Pelham had

cut out the arm of Bylant’s coat and shirt and was packing the wound

with sterilized gauze.

“Is he dead?” gasped Elsie.

“No. Wounded in the shoulder, luckily. Is there a strong man about the

place? We must get him upstairs to his room. Elsie, telephone for a

nurse.”

CHAPTER XIV

Eustace had been carried upstairs. The nurse had arrived. Dr. Pelham was

extracting the bullet on a hastily devised operating-table. The two

girls sat before the fire Topper had made in the library, silent, after

Elsie had explained that her brother had driven down to Atlantic City

the day before on his monthly week-end visit.

It was evident that Gita intended to make no confidences, and Elsie

could only guess what had happened. She herself had almost fainted when

she saw Eustace lying there, helpless, unconscious, looking as if every

drop of blood in his body had run out. She wondered impotently at the

perversity of Fate. For the first time she admitted to herself that she

loved him. Loyalty to Gita and to herself had kept that knowledge safely

locked in a remote inner cell of her brain. . . . She believed that if

he had never met Gita Carteret she could have won him. He had admired

her and sought her out whenever they had happened to meet. When he had

visited Atlantic City he had called on her. She had given up too easily,

but at that time she had been infatuated with Gita and felt a white

passion of desire to serve her and help her to happiness: after the

girl’s long wretched experience. She had cheerfully sacrificed herself,

had, indeed, not given her own claims a thought. No doubt there had been

also a desire to serve him. And for this! She knew from Gita’s cold

disdainful face that he had played his last desperate card and lost.

She asked abruptly: “Will you tell me why you are wearing that

gown—powdered your hair?”

Gita jumped as if Elsie had flung something at her more solid than

words. “Good heavens! I had forgotten all about it.” The color flooded

her face and she turned her head aside. “I had a fancy—a notion——If

you don’t mind I think I’ll not explain.”

Elsie made no reply and called on her imagination. But well as she

believed she knew Gita she could think of nothing that may have

possessed her to dress up as her great-great-grandmother with herself as

sole audience. Merely a whim, no doubt. Heaven knew she was full of

whims.

Gita, pale once more, turned and looked at her. “You are very angry with

me,” she said. “Wouldn’t you have shot a man yourself if you’d found him

prowling about your house at midnight in pitch-dark?”

“I don’t see how you could have helped knowing it was Eustace. Surely he

must have spoken.”

“Well, I didn’t and he didn’t, and that’s all there is to it.” Her eyes

hardened. “You look at me as if you hated me.”

Elsie shrugged her shoulders. “Eustace is a great man, and if he dies

American literature will be the poorer.”

“He may be a great writer, but he is not a great man. Some difference. I

don’t know that I’d even call him a great writer. That helpless

adjective has been so bandied about it’s a wonder there’s any meaning

left in it. He’s brilliant, distinguished, subtle, penetrating, and a

stylist, but no writer of fiction can be great without drama, and he has

no sense of drama at all. There’s not a great moment in one of his

books——”

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t dissect the poor man’s books when he may be

lying dead upstairs!” And then she added irresistibly: “_We_ think him

great, and perhaps are better able to judge.”

Gita laughed. “I know you think you are! Sophisticated Reputation

Factory. Quite a going concern. Still—not for a moment am I assuming

that Eustace Bylant couldn’t have got on by himself. He has indisputable

talent and intellect. But not genius.”

“He’s a great psychologist.”

Gita’s lips twisted. “His psychology has a few holes in it. I’m not as

incapable of judging as you think. And at least I think for myself.”

This unseemly quarrel was interrupted by the entrance of Dr. Pelham.

Elsie sprang to her feet.

“Is he——”

“All right for the present. But his shoulder is badly shattered. I’ve

given him an opiate and he’ll sleep for several hours. I’ll be over in

the morning and bring a second nurse.”

Gita had risen also. “Come over to the dining-room,” she said. “I’ve

told Topper to make coffee and sandwiches.”

Then she saw that he was staring at her—that dress—her powdered

hair—why on earth hadn’t she had her wits about her and changed before

they came? “You’ll excuse me,” she muttered. “I’m terribly bowled over.

Topper will look after you—I can’t thank you enough——” And she fairly

ran out of the room and up the stair. They heard a door slam.

“What does it all mean?” asked Pelham. It was the first time he had

thought of anything but his patient’s welfare, and he turned to Elsie

with a puzzled frown, speculation dawning in his eyes.

“Can’t you guess?” asked his sister shortly. “Well, if you can’t I’ll

not tell you. If you don’t want that coffee, let’s go home.”

“But surely you’ll stay—with her?”

“No, I’ll not. I’m not sure I’ll ever enter this house again. Please

come. I’ll make coffee for you at home.”

“Very well. Certainly.”

And with his brows still drawn and his mind racing he followed his

sister out of the house.

CHAPTER XV

Gita blinked at the sunlight in astonishment. She had believed she was

in for another wakeful night; and she remembered nothing but tearing off

her clothes and flinging herself into bed—not caring if she never

brushed her teeth again, nor washed her face. She must have fallen

asleep at once!

She preferred not to think at present, and there was safety in routine.

She put on her dressing-gown and went down the hall to one of the two

bathrooms the manor house boasted. Very ugly and unluxurious bathrooms,

installed in the nineteenth century. After a cold shower her brain felt

disconcertingly clear, but she hummed a tune and rubbed herself into a

glow.

As she left the bathroom she met the nurse in the hall.

“How is the patient?” she asked politely.

“His shoulder is very painful. I’ve just telephoned to Dr. Pelham,

asking if I shall give him another opiate——I couldn’t take the

responsibility of letting you see him,” she added hastily.

“Oh, of course not. What time do you expect Dr. Pelham?”

“He’ll come at once.”

Gita nodded and went into her bedroom and dressed slowly.

She was aware that she had slept off her cold fury, and felt something

like sympathy for Eustace, disabled, and suffering, no doubt, as much in

mind as in body. . . . Probably a man did have a grain of excuse when he

loved a woman and despaired of winning her with charm and good manners.

Lost his head, poor wretch . . . brain hopelessly confused by fumes of

passion and all that . . . tumbled out of hard-won psychological

differentiations straight into generalities. Passion must awaken

passion; all that old tosh. . . . He must feel like a fool—worse than

failure, for Eustace Bylant. . . . She did feel sorry for him, for she

had admired him prodigiously, and loved him in a way.

She was devoutly thankful she hadn’t killed him. He’d live to write more

books—perhaps better ones. Might get some drama into them after that

seismic upheaval inside him that must have astonished him as much as

herself. . . . Might even marry again, although he’d done well enough as

a bachelor. She doubted if he cared deeply about domestic routine. He’d

had his grand passion—like Lee Clavering over that strange Countess

Zattiany she’d heard so much about. Doubtful if Clavering would have

written a really great play if Zattiany hadn’t shocked him out of his

pleasant pastures into a tropical jungle. He might be dour to look at

and none too expansive socially, but it was evident his imagination

worked at white heat, and no doubt he was grateful whether he admitted

it or not. Eustace would live to be grateful to _her_.

At all events one thing hadn’t happened. She remembered that sometime

last night she had experienced a fleeting fear that that horrible

episode would destroy all she had learned—recall all she had

banished—during this past auriferous year, and she would be as hard and

hating and handicapped as when she had just escaped from her old life

. . . destroy all power of appreciation and enjoyment, all her new

adaptability, all interest in the future.

But all experience counted, apparently. She would always think of last

night with a shudder, but at least it had not revived her old abhorrence

of men because one man had mauled her—as other men had tried to,

sometimes had done, in the past. A second neurosis might be worse than

the first. No doubt her sense of justice, of proportion, developing

unconsciously, had balanced her unalterably.

She put on a dark blue skirt and sweater, automatically rejecting the

bright colors she preferred, and even powdered her face to subdue her

own color. Noblesse oblige! And if she didn’t feel hard she certainly

felt severely practical as she went down to meet Dr. Pelham. Romance had

toppled over the horizon.

He looked at her keenly as he entered and asked professionally: “I hope

you got a little sleep?”

“Disgraceful, but I did. Reaction, no doubt. Where’s Elsie?”

He answered evasively. “She’s rather tired. No doubt she’ll be over

later.”

“She’s angry with me because she thinks I shot Eustace on purpose. I

never knew Elsie to be unreasonable before.”

“Oh—I’m sure she can’t think that! But she’s very sensitive under that

calm exterior, and she had a bad shock last night. I suppose you haven’t

seen my patient?”

“Nurse said I couldn’t.”

“She must get some sleep as the other nurse can’t be here before night.

Perhaps you’ll sit with him for a few hours?”

Gita turned pale, but answered steadily: “Certainly, if you think he can

stand having me near him. He probably knows it was I who shot him—might

feel a trifle nervous.”

Dr. Pelham smiled for the first time. “I’ll put him to sleep again.” And

he nodded and ran up the stair.

Gita wandered about the garden until he came down, but she thought

neither of him nor of Eustace, but of Elsie. She must win her back. Life

would be unendurable without Elsie. Of course she was in love with

Eustace. Well, here was her chance. She could stay here, and read to him

when he was better, correct his proofs, take his dictation if he felt

inspired to write a story. . . . Ideal marriage. . . . Why had he been

so blind?

“Idiots, all of us.” And she sighed.

Dr. Pelham emerged from the house and joined her. She wished she were

actress enough to feign wifely anxiety.

“How is he?” she asked, and knew that her tones were flat.

“Well enough, so far. There’s always danger of infection, in spite of

every precaution. I shall watch him, of course.”

“You’ll stay on, then?”

“Certainly. He’s my patient, to say nothing of old friendship. I have a

vacation due me, and I’ll take it now.”

They were both as emotional as the garden slugs, regarding each other as

if their slender past were obliterated.

“Tell Elsie to come along and not be a fool,” she said. “She’d be a

brute to leave me alone. I don’t want to sit there all by myself, eaten

up with remorse, and if you’ve put him to sleep we can talk.”

His eyes, which had been almost blank, became keen once more. He opened

his mouth as if to ask an irresistible question, then turned on his heel

and was gone.

CHAPTER XVI

When Eustace had arrived with his luggage on the day after the wedding,

Gita, anxious to make every amend for her thoughtlessness, had given him

the state bedroom, Mrs. Carteret’s. One of the baths had been installed

in the dressing-room and he had that side of the house to himself.

Although she had entered this room many times since her grandmother’s

death she had always avoided glancing at the bed, fearing her lively

imagination would project a vision of the old lady, high on her pillows.

She stood for a moment beside the bed after she had dismissed the nurse,

wondering if she would always see Eustace there in the future. What a

contrast! Her grandmother had looked a hundred. Eustace, the blood

drained out of his face, narrowing his contours, looked years younger

than his age. Almost a youth, in spite of his beard. Pathetic. No doubt,

if she loved him she would be yearning over him with those maternal

sensations authors of fiction were always reminding the reader—who

should know the lesson by heart—surged up in every woman as soon as she

fell in love. Well, she didn’t feel maternal a bit, but she certainly

felt sorry for him. Elsie could do the maternalizing. Why didn’t she

come?

But Elsie had telephoned to Polly, who was with her at that moment.

“I didn’t want Geoff to marry you,” she was saying. “I don’t mind

telling you that. But Gita shan’t have him. I’d rather see him dead.”

“Gita?” Polly, who was sitting on the desk in the study swinging her

feet, thrilled by the tragic tale of which Elsie had given her a bare

hint on the telephone, almost fell off. She had responded to the urgent

summons because she knew that Geoffrey was in Atlantic City, but

although she had listened agape to the recital, she had merely assumed

that Elsie was giving her an inside seat; certainly her due. “I don’t

understand.”

“Oh, she’s in love with him and he with her. I’ve known it for some

time.”

“Then mother was right,” muttered Polly, and although she rarely risked

cutting lines on her lovely forehead, she frowned until her eyebrows

met. “But it’s hard to believe it.”

“She’s only recently waked up to the fact—I can’t say just when—I’ve

felt it in the air. He’s been interested from the first; that’s the

reason he stayed away from her in town. I’ve seen a good deal of him

this last winter—stayed with him, you remember. I soon discovered she

was haunting him; and something must have happened the night of your

mother’s party, for I took lunch with him next day and he was as nervous

as a cat and wouldn’t let me mention Gita’s name——”

“I know!” And Polly repeated the shrewd observations of her mother.

“There you are! I don’t propose to have my brother’s life ruined. I

don’t know what Eustace will do after this. I should think he’d never

want to see her again, but possibly he may be more infatuated with her

than ever, go on trying to win her. Fiction-writers are the complete

morons where their own love-affairs are concerned. But he _might_

consent to divorce her, and then Geoffrey would see no further reason

for standing aside. That is if he could still love a woman who tried to

murder her husband—but when men are mad about a woman’s black eyes——”

“But you surely don’t think Gita knew it was Eustace?” The digression

was unpalatable.

“Yes, I do. She might have run up for her pistol, thinking it was a

burglar, but he must have spoken——”

“Not if he went there with the purpose you think—might have thought it

the wisest policy to——I can’t quite work it out. Didn’t she give you a

hint of how it all happened? Are you sure she ever believed it was a

burglar? May there not have been an interview in which Eustace lost his

head—and the pistol went off accidentally?”

“I’d think that a plausible explanation if it were not that the shooting

took place downstairs in the library, and she’s not the sort to carry a

pistol round, even at night—she hadn’t gone to bed, either. No, she

heard him in the library, went up and got her pistol, then guessed who

it was, saw her chance, and shot him.”

But Polly shook her always reasonable head. “Gita is no double-dyed

movie villainess. I believe her story—and I’m rather surprised at you.”

She looked at Elsie sharply, and guessed her secret. “It’s not like you,

you know.”

Elsie sighed, and ran her fingers through her hair as if its light

weight on her head were intolerable. “I don’t enjoy being hard and

suspicious, but I feel as if I never could forgive her—and I simply

can’t go there at present. But you must. Gita shan’t have Geoffrey!

Everything she wants! It would be a little too much!”

Polly stepped down to the floor. “I’ll go. And if it’s war to the knife,

all right. Gita’ll not get him, not while I’m on the job.” Her eyes were

almost black and her pretty coral mouth was a straight line with sharp

corner-depressions. “Trust me.”

“Geoffrey isn’t the man to think about the wife of his friend, lying

helpless,” Elsie reminded her insistently. “He’ll turn to you with

relief. That’s your chance. Take it. He must believe—half believe—that

Gita did it intentionally; and he is—ought to be—the sort of man to be

revolted. I wish human nature were more of a chart!”

* * * * *

Gita, hearing the door open softly, turned expectantly and was amazed to

see Polly instead of Elsie. She drew her over into a corner of the room

and Polly whispered:

“Elsie telephoned and of course I came at once. Have sent for my trunks

and I’ll stay till he’s well. She’s got to a place in her new novel

where she doesn’t dare drop it (Polly concocted this hastily), but she

knows you’ll understand, and will be over before long.”

“Oh? That’s the first clumsy lie I ever heard you get off. It’s plain

Elsie still thinks I tried to kill Eustace.”

“What if she does? What does it matter? She’ll get over it—ought to be

rather grateful to you—have my suspicions——”

“Yes, it was plain enough last night. Poor Elsie! Well, I’ll give her

every chance. But I can’t think why she doubts my word.” And her lip,

for the first time since she was a child, quivered.

Polly, whose affection was not even threatened, for she guessed shrewdly

that Gita’s pride and almost fanatical sense of honor would prompt her

to avoid Geoffrey Pelham and give herself a clear field, patted her

hand. “Cheer up. I’ll make her see daylight as soon as she gets over

this attack of temperament. That’s what it amounts to. She’s every bit

as fond of you as I am.”

CHAPTER XVII

Friendship between men may survive rivalry in love. Men have stood

shoulder to shoulder through the centuries in the hard business of life,

and the need of a strong abiding affection for one of their own

understanding sex, is rooted in the depths of being and not to be

lightly surrendered. There are instances where the woman has been

sacrificed.

But there is always something artificial in the friendship of women. It

is a harness lightly worn and has a faint suggestion of carnival about

it. Flowers must bedeck the harness, flowers of propinquity, common

interests, ambitions, tastes, mutualities of all kinds in their

particular sphere. Above all, a dissimilar taste in men. Nature designed

them for one purpose only, to carry on the race and guard it in

childhood, and if Mind today laughs at her ingenuous plan, she has her

subtle revenges. When the flowers wither the harness falls off.

Elsie realized this with a sigh. She knew that she had a certain

nobility of character and lofty ideals, and had believed they would

survive any test. But they seemed to have staggered under the first hard

blow, and cowered aside before a healthy desire for vengeance.

Gita had nearly killed the man she loved and she should not have her

almost equally beloved brother. She told herself she had idealized that

girl; blinded by her novelty and personality; and now for the first time

saw her for what she was. Her instinct of self-protection was strong and

if she were to retain her self-respect she must not hate but despise

Gita. Better to acknowledge herself a poor judge of character (when

glamoured) than admit she was incapable of true friendship.

Moreover, knowing the latent fierceness and ruthlessness in Gita’s

nature, she felt she was quite honest in her belief that the shooting

had been deliberate; moreover, that if Gita had never met Geoffrey it

would not have happened. . . . Sooner or later some man was bound to

have demolished that dyke that circumstance had built between conscious

intelligence and sex, and an unkind Fate had decreed it should be

Geoffrey.

Fine wife for an ambitious hard-working surgeon, always on the lookout

for some new kink in the human anatomy he could discover and call by his

name. When a woman like that woke up she’d whirl to the other extreme.

Have lovers. Snap her fingers at the world. Ruin her husband’s life and

career. She’d ruined one man. Quite enough. Even if Eustace accepted his

release and came to herself on the rebound—but she was in no mood to

indulge in day-dreams. Happiness was not in the air!

In the course of a week what Polly called her attack of temperament wore

itself out, and she conceded unwillingly that she might possibly have

been unjust. Might have developed an unsuspected capacity for

exaggeration. Her brain had felt as if a hot wind were blowing through

it. When it whispered itself off, particularly after her brother had

given her a bromide and she had enjoyed one night of unbroken sleep, she

blushed a little as she regarded herself in the mirror, and peered at

her fine brow anxiously. Horrid to have been a mere female. And Eustace

may not have spoken, after all. Hard to tell what a man would or

wouldn’t do when the throttled beast in him broke loose. She had never

seen Gita frightened, but anyone, even an amazon, might be susceptible

to fear once in her life.

Then her conscience became active. Love Gita again she never could. That

was over. But she could do the decent thing. Moreover, she was curious

to see how Polly was conducting her campaign.

She telephoned to the manor and told Topper to inform Mrs. Bylant she

would be over at once. She knew that Geoffrey, mortified at her

behavior, had told Gita she was in bed with a heavy cold, and at least

she would be spared the discomfort of an apology.

But she sighed. She had lost something. She had a curious feeling of

emptiness behind that lofty brow. Well, life was life.

CHAPTER XVIII

Gita was sitting on the edge of her bed when Topper brought Elsie’s

message.

“Tell her to come up—no, show her into the drawing-room.”

She had been beating her heels on the floor, frowning at the window. It

was open and voices drifted up from the garden. They were Polly’s and

Geoffrey Pelham’s.

It had been a trying week! Another “wooing game.” Polly had “wooed”

Geoffrey under her very nose. Exercised every blandishment in her

repertory. Anxious when her surgeon was anxious. Gay when his brow

relaxed. Sweet, womanly, inexhaustibly and multifariously charming. A

white vamp!

And Geoffrey almost clung to her.

She ought to hate her but she didn’t. Odd, but after all, why should

she? Certainly, she couldn’t accuse her of treachery; Polly knew nothing

of her feeling for Geoffrey. If Mrs. Pleyden had implanted a doubt in

her daughter’s egotistical bosom, she had been given the opportunity to

pluck it out and had succeeded. She had been sincere enough that day.

The lid was still on!

And hadn’t she conclusively renounced Geoffrey Pelham to Polly that

night when she had taken out her soul and skewered it? Why shouldn’t

someone find happiness in this world if such a thing as happiness really

existed?

“Oh, Lord, what a mess!” She sighed. “Eustace wants me. Elsie wants

Eustace. Polly wants Geoffrey. Geoffrey wants me. And I? Nothing

apparently. I feel as empty as an old hogshead on a junk-pile.”

And in truth she had never, not even in the old days, felt so depressed.

This cataclysm had literally left nothing in her life but her manor! Her

three friends were lost irretrievably. To resume any sort of

relationship with Eustace was unthinkable. Polly would drift away,

absorbed in her husband. Elsie had betrayed her.

She felt a deep and harsh resentment toward Elsie. Not for a moment had

she believed in the “cold.” That Elsie should have doubted her cut her

to the quick. . . . For a night, possibly, shocked as she was, and

facing for the first time the fact of her love for the man. But she

should have come to her senses before this.

Perhaps she had loved Elsie more than any of the three, and the hurt had

gone deeper. Well, she loved her no longer. And she indulged in some

bitter musings of her own on the friendship of women.

But she felt terribly alone. Stranded. And she had lost that old boyish

independence and hostility to her kind which had made loneliness far

from insupportable. Well, she must erect another superstructure.

Polly’s laugh floated up, sustained, as it were, on the deeper notes of

her playmate; now quite relieved of anxiety for his distinguished

patient and friend. The tapping of her heels became a rat-tat-tat.

“Come.”

Someone had knocked at her door. The day nurse opened it, her face no

longer solemn. She was smiling as one who had a pleasant message to

deliver. Gita’s heart deliquesced.

“Dr. Pelham promised Mr. Bylant he might see you when he waked up; he’s

so much better,” said the nurse. “He’s just had his broth and is looking

forward to your visit.”

Gita managed to get to her feet and walk steadily over to her

dressing-table. She brushed her hair, powdered, and wished that she

rouged and used a lip-stick. She lingered over these superfluities of

her toilette as long as she dared, with that woman standing behind her.

What was she thinking? She had been told the truth, but did she believe

it? Why not? She remembered a story she had once read of a woman killing

an idolized husband who had returned at night unexpectedly and been

mistaken for a burglar.

What did it matter? She rose from her chair and looked at the nurse much

as her grandmother may have done when her arrogant instinct of caste was

uppermost.

“You may go out into the garden,” she said. “And kindly tell Mrs.

Brewster, when she arrives, that I’ll be down presently.”

It is no longer possible for any but the disappearing ladies of the old

régime to “sweep by” those they wish to impress or ignore, for the skirt

of the period, short hair, and a limp or free swinging carriage, have

put an end to such extrinsic aid to importance. But Gita managed to pass

those interested eyes with a cold blankness that gave the innocent

object of her disdain the feeling she had somehow evaporated, no longer

existed. But she was as sensible as most nurses, and quite used to human

vagaries.

“You’ll not stay too long?” she suggested mildly. “Ten minutes, I should

think. He’s not very strong yet.”

But Gita was crossing the hall, apparently afflicted with deafness.

She hesitated a moment with her hand on the knob, her knees shaking a

little. What would be his cue? Well, whatever it was she would take it.

Invalids must be humored.

Bylant was propped up in the bed, very pale and thin, but he smiled

whimsically and put out his hand. She shook it limply and sank down into

a chair by the bed, her gaze wandering to the window.

His voice was as whimsical as his eyes. “You served me right, my dear,”

he said. “Don’t imagine I’ve held it against you for a moment.”

“Of course I didn’t know it was you,” she muttered.

“Of course not! And I hope you won’t hesitate to shoot the next man who

breaks into your house. Be sure it will not be I!”

Gita stirred uneasily. But she was relieved that the interview was not

to be pitched in the tragic key. Trust Eustace to carry anything off!

“It is I who should ask to be forgiven,” he continued. “But I went

progressively mad after you left. Do you remember a book I once gave you

to read—‘The Cave Man Within Us’? Well, the cave man in me got the best

of several centuries of superimpositions. I remember Darwin says

somewhere that man, even in the best of our poor civilizations, is so

close to the incalculable æons of savagery behind us, the wonder is the

veneer remains on him at all. But I promise you that my veneer shan’t

rub off again.”

“Your psychology failed you,” said Gita dryly.

“It did!” he said smiling. “It did!”

She thrust out her foot and gazed at the toe of her shoe. She reminded

herself she must not excite him but she would have liked a “show-down”

then and there.

She glanced up. He was looking at her pleadingly.

“You haven’t said you forgive me.”

“Oh, yes, of course I forgive you. Forget it and get well.”

She rose but he put out his hand and detained her. “I’d like you to

stay.”

“The nurse only gave me ten minutes.”

“Damn the nurse.”

“And Elsie telephoned she was coming. She must be downstairs now. It’s

the first time. She thinks I shot you on purpose. Elsie is a very loyal

friend of yours—more than she is of mine!”

“Is she?” His voice was indifferent.

“I’ll ask her to read to you as soon as you are better.”

“I detest being read to. It makes me nervous.”

“Well, tell you all the news, then. You know you’ll be glad to see

her——”

“I want to see you. You’ll come in every day?” His eyes were entreating

but his face was composed. Not likely he would make a fool of himself

twice.

“Oh—of course—as often as you like. I owe you that much.” And she

smiled ruefully. But she gave a deep inner sigh of relief as the nurse

opened the door with a sprightly:

“Time’s up, Mrs. Bylant.”

“Mrs. Bylant!”

CHAPTER XIX

She found Elsie at the window of the drawing-room watching her brother

and Polly Pleyden, who were retreating down a path.

“Hullo, Elsie. Hope your cold’s better.”

Elsie turned swiftly and was annoyed to feel her face flushing. “I’m

afraid you think me a brute,” she stammered.

“Not at all,” said Gita briskly. “A cold must be a beastly affliction.

Mother used to have them and always went to bed. Eustace had a horrid

one last winter. Looked horrid, too. Have a cigarette?”

“No, thanks—bad for a cold.” Elsie could not feign hoarseness, but she

was grateful that her face was peaked and pale.

Gita’s eyes were hard and bright. She sat in a high-backed wing-chair,

her head very erect. Her resemblance to the portrait of her grandmother

behind her smote Elsie; and with a faint sense of amusement but more of

regret, she seated herself opposite.

“Geoffrey tells me that Eustace is getting on splendidly,” she said.

“I’m so glad to hear it.”

“Your brother is an admirable surgeon. Lucky for Eustace he was in

Atlantic City that night. Lucky more ways than one. Averted a scandal,

no doubt. I’ve just seen Eustace, and now that he’s so much better I

hope you’ll give him some of your time. He always enjoyed talking to

you.”

“Of course I will! As often as he can stand me. But I suppose he’ll be

up and about before long.”

“He’ll still need amusing. You wouldn’t like to move over again? Eustace

will probably go abroad later, but not for quite a while, I should

think. He’ll no doubt prefer to get his strength back here in the

country. I’ll be glad to have you come.”

Elsie darted a swift glance at the haughty, almost arrogant figure in

the stately chair. What scheme lay behind that careless invitation that

was more like a command? She fancied she could guess.

“I’ll come, of course, if you want me. And I’m glad Polly was able to be

with you this week. She’s not wasting her time, by the way.” Elsie

craned her neck toward the garden. “You remember I once told you she

had—oddly enough—taken a tremendous fancy to my brother. I’m wondering

if it’s really serious.”

But Gita would not discuss Polly with Elsie. And she suddenly remembered

that Geoffrey’s sister had expressed intense disapproval of such a

marriage. She ranged herself on Polly’s side instinctively.

Dr. Pelham appeared at the window. “Why are you sitting in the house on

a day like this?” he asked. “Come out into the garden. How did you find

Eustace, Mrs. Bylant?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me Mrs. Bylant. I’m Gita Carteret to everyone

else. He seems all right, and not a bit tired when I left him. Where’s

Polly?”

“Just left. Her mother’s car came for her some time ago as she’s

expected for lunch. She asked me to explain, as she thought you were

still upstairs with Eustace.”

Gita placed her hands on the low sill of the window and swung herself

out on to the grass. “Coming, Elsie?” She suppressed an impulse to say

“Mrs. Brewster.” “Or will you go over and get your things?”

Elsie hesitated. For the first time the eyes of the two girls met in

hostility. No invitation for luncheon came from Gita although it could

not be far from one o’clock. Elsie was only half-beaten, however.

“I’ll telephone for a taxi, if I may,” she said. “I don’t feel up to a

long walk, and I’d be likely to catch more cold in a trolley.”

She strolled with them in the garden until the taxi arrived, praying it

would be late and Gita, in common decency, be compelled to ask her to

remain for luncheon, when Topper announced it. She guessed that Polly

would return at the earliest possible moment, but there was something

about Gita that filled her with misgivings. Even her hair looked wicked.

It almost stood up straight. Two hours, at least!

But the taxi arrived in less than fifteen minutes. The absence of

traffic laws in Atlantic City—or of enforcement—was conducive to

promptness. She offered to drive her brother home. He preferred a walk

later. There was no doubt about _his_ invitation! Elsie went off in her

dingy cab alone.

CHAPTER XX

If one were to tabulate truisms no doubt the prickly wall, towering to

the ether, that surrounds the ego, no matter how close its human

relationships, would be first on the list. Polly had made up her mind to

marry Geoffrey Pelham and felt no misgivings, for life had given her

confidence in herself and her power to charm. For five years men had

admired, loved, pursued her, and when she wanted a thing it was hers;

why not? Nor was there a rival in the field. If Geoffrey had been

captivated by Gita for a time it was quite patent he had given her up as

a bad job. Who wouldn’t? Both her mother and Elsie had made a mistake.

She hadn’t been asleep this last week, she had kept a sharp eye on Gita,

missing no change of expression nor inflection. Gita had prowled about

the house for the most part, looking sullen and anxious. Pelham might

have been an automaton for all the effect he had on her. Gita was not in

love with him, probably never would be in love with any man, unless

remorse drove her back to Eustace; who would be a greater fool than she

took him to be if he didn’t make the most of his helpless dependence and

the great wrong she had done him. And Geoffrey was as indifferent to

Gita as she to him. Whether he had discovered he was in love with one

Mary Endicott Pleyden she was not yet sure; but that he lingered longer

and longer at the manor after his visits to Eustace were concluded, and

that he sought her as a matter of course, and looked care-free and often

exhilarated in her society, was as plain as the nose on her face. And

they would be together in intimate association, for weeks. Her brow was

smooth, the corners of her mouth curled upward.

Gita had given Geoffrey to Polly with a grand gesture, convinced on her

part that she alone was the obstacle to the happiness of her friend. In

her brief interviews with her wounded husband’s surgeon the conversation

had been strictly technical. Nor had his cool impersonal gaze wavered

for a second, nor followed her. It was more likely to follow the

enchanting Miss Pleyden. He had come to his senses. Odd if he hadn’t.

But they knew even less of what was going on in Geoffrey’s mind than

they did of each other. Nor had he the remotest idea of what either of

them was up to. If he had guessed that they were calmly, more or less,

arranging his destiny for him he would have resented it for a moment and

then laughed.

That Gita loved him, however collaterally, he had never had the

happiness to suspect; although he had known that night as they sat

opposite in the dim drawing-room, disguised as their more picturesque

ancestors, he would have attempted to win her if she had been free—yes,

won, in the end, for he had felt that curious vibration between them.

And even after that amazing assertion of hers at the Pleydens’ he

refused to believe that Polly’s regard for him was anything but bright

friendship spiced with coquetry. He had immense confidence in himself as

a surgeon, but had given too little time or thought to women for the

fostering of conceit. He was quite unlike the vapid men of her

circle—he had heard or read somewhere that all society men were

vapid—and he amused this brilliant rather metallic little butterfly for

the moment.

She certainly amused him, let him down, sent him back to his work

refreshed; and during this last week she had been as spring-water in a

thirsty desert. That Polly was too proud to reveal a glimpse of her

deeper feelings, or even to betray sentiment until he gave her her cue,

was the last thing that would have occurred to him. Love alone would

have shattered his obtuseness and his love-stream was flowing

turbulently in another direction.

After that first meeting in his mother’s house he had found himself

thinking of Gita at the most unexpected and inopportune moments. She

projected herself abruptly upon his mental retina when he was

sterilizing his instruments preparatory to an operation, discussing a

case gravely with his chief, taking his brisk morning walk, relaxing his

mind at the play, trying to fall asleep. He had been profoundly annoyed,

but attributed the phenomenon to her unusual appearance. Those fierce

black eyes and extraordinary eyelashes, that spirited head that looked

as if it were about to lift her shoulders and fly upward, would probably

haunt any man. No doubt she had a personality as remarkable, although

she had said nothing he could remember, merely asked a good many

questions. But what it might be did not interest him in the least. He

would not care if he never met her again. His mind that night had been

like an inadvertently exposed plate and the impression it had received

would fade in due course.

When her unexpected invitation to the Christmas party arrived he had

accepted it in the hope that a second meeting would lay the ghost. But

when he had entered that great hall lit with pine torches, flaring down

on men and women in white wigs and bygone costumes, as gorgeous a scene

as even that old manor house, famed for its hospitality in the days of

Colonial governors, had ever witnessed, two centuries seemed to drop out

of life; and as he stood in the shadow, watching the mock-stately

evolutions of the minuet, a fine haze like a golden cobweb stole over

his brain, and he had a quiet conviction he had been there before and

was here again for some more definite purpose. Earlier, he had half

laughed, half frowned at his reflection in the mirror; but even then it

had seemed to him his transformation was so complete as to create a

doubt if he would be able to shake off this new personality on the

morrow. He certainly would never cease to wonder that for one night in

his life he had been handsome.

The romp that finished the minuet had brought him out of his

hallucination and he had moved forward merely to find his hostess and do

his first duty as a guest. After that he would look on for a while,

enjoying the beauty of the pageant, and then slip out. There was no

place in such a scene for him.

When he had stood staring for a moment at Gita, hardly knowing what

banalities he might be uttering, again with that iridescent cobweb flung

over his brain and that curious beating of old memories beneath, his

impulse was to flee incontinently. But after a dance with Miss Pleyden,

during which he believed that ridiculous illusions had fled forever, he

had deliberately sought Gita in the drawing-room, determined to have

done with nonsense forthwith.

He was a practical man in a practical age, a surgeon with a brilliant

future, a man who wanted no woman in his life to distract him, certainly

not the wife of Eustace Bylant. A surgeon, of all men, should find

nothing romantic in the most resplendent of women. He had cut too many

of them up. They were all made precisely alike inside and if they varied

in texture of skin and in feature, inches and symmetry, the best of them

could be classified into types and their original purpose hadn’t

deviated by a hair’s breadth. To idealize them was as nonsensical as to

idealize passion and call it spiritual love. Even what personality they

might possess was due to the balance of hormones in their ductless

glands. Anything further was the result of imitation and artifice. Women

somewhere in the dawn of time had concocted a set of tricks and some

were more skillful in the use of them than others, some had a more

arresting beauty, some a more powerful magnetism (super-active

generative hormones), but not one of them, unless possessed of

interesting abnormalities, would cut up differently from the other. They

were the vehicles of the race, nothing more. Cut out the sexual organs

of the most beautiful woman in the world and she would wither like a

rose broken on its stem. Take them out in childhood and she would be a

neuter and semi-imbecile or worse. There would be no more “soul” in her,

no more ego, nor personality, than in a cadaver on the operating-table.

Sterilize the Graafian follicles with the X-ray, coincidentally

stimulating and proliferating the interstitial cells, and a faded

woman’s beauty would not only be restored but more likely than not she

would possess a magnetism lacking when the function was divided. Perhaps

develop a higher “spirituality,” soaring mute aspirations: sublimation

of the sex-urge.

His scientific mind restored to its balance, he walked into the

drawing-room where Gita sat with the candle-light playing on her white

wig and golden gown, flickering in the depths of her black eyes, and,

without more ado, fell incurably and uncompromisingly in love.

Afterward he wondered how he had managed to confine himself to an

oblique declaration, refrained from pouring his passion over her in a

flood. But he had clung tenaciously to the thought of Eustace Bylant,

even when she casually announced that she was entering upon a travesty

of marriage. That had filled him with exultation but left him as little

at liberty to speak.

At the altar he renounced her, although he felt as if the world were

sinking under him and left him forever suspended in space. But he looked

forward to the sanity of the morrow, to daylight, to the unpicturesque

garb of his matter-of-fact era. Thankfully he remembered he was to

operate on a woman for cancer at ten o’clock.

He managed to shut Gita out of his thoughts for a week, and then

welcomed her back. And he thought of her not only as a woman but as a

case. He understood that case thoroughly. He also knew its cure, but he

was helpless even if she loved him and she did not; although he never

doubted he could win her if it were not for the malignancy of Fate. If

her husband were any man but his best friend!—but like all men’s men of

breeding he had a high and inexorable code.

His outbreak at Mrs. Pleyden’s had been irresistible. Well, let her know

it. Why not? He was entitled to that much. And he approached her on the

night of her party no more than courtesy demanded, and devoted himself

to Polly, who always diverted him.

He had asked no questions of Elsie that night he had been summoned to

the manor to save Bylant’s life, but he had thought of little else,

arriving at conclusions not far from the truth. Whether she had

recognized Bylant or believed him to be a felonious intruder, she had

defended not her house from outrage but her body; that body a peculiar

neurosis had made more sacred than virtue itself. He fancied he could

reconstruct the scene! Eustace had been a brute and a fool and got his

just deserts. As a man he might sympathize with him but as a scientist

he felt only arrogant contempt.

By this time he knew Gita’s history. What either she or Polly had not

confided in moments of expansion, Elsie’s keen analytical mind had

divined, and she had found both pleasure and profit in discussing the

girl with her brother. Pelham felt an immense pity, and if a surgical

operation would have cured her he would have contributed his services as

impersonally as when he cut a neat incision and extracted a poisonous

appendix. But the knife must come out of the blue. It must find its own

way—down through the stagnant waters, and release the sap underneath.

He might have been the man to watch it fall if he had not been compelled

to walk down that staircase beside her holding the candelabra over her

head and feeling as if he were sinking under the weight of the stone in

his breast. If the time were two centuries earlier he would have

snatched her from Eustace at the foot of the stair and dashed off with

her into the darkness. But illusions had fled. That golden haze had gone

whence it came. Men had become mere travesties of themselves.

Although his imagination had shown unexpected activities he indulged in

no longings to mount with Gita into the empyrean and dwell with her in

spiritual contact. He was a man and he wanted her, comprehensively,

exclusively. And he wanted her because he loved her; he was suffering

from no mere gust of passion. His scientific balance might be restored,

he might converse with himself as reasonably about the fatal

similarities and prosaic purpose of woman, but he had never denied

(being by no means lacking in observation) that men, at times, were

intensely personal in their selection; and whether this were due to a

sudden alliance between the generative cells and the unconscious, or

eugenic suggestion, or fetishes, or propinquity, or a pretty face, or a

restless longing for completion, or whatever, the fact remained that

man, sometime during his life, unless thymo-centric, wanted one woman in

particular and moved heaven and earth to get her. Well, he had come to

that pass, and by what special set of phenomena induced was a matter of

no interest to him. He wished that codes had never been invented.

Certainly that he had met Gita Carteret before he had known Eustace

Bylant.

He had suffered torments enough during that winter in New York. Gita and

Eustace in that narrow house! Companions, friends, almost intimates. How

could the man fail to win her? He began with everything in his favor,

and if a man could not convert a friend into a lover when he lived under

the same roof with her he must be a poor apology for one. And Geoffrey

had the highest admiration for Eustace Bylant.

He had sometimes gone out at night and stood in front of that narrow

house, paralyzed in a sort of nightmare; then fleeing like a man

possessed. Once he collided with a policeman and had some trouble

explaining himself, for the hour was two and he guessed that his eyes

were as wild as his thoughts.

But on the night after he extracted the bullet from Bylant’s body he

knew that one phase of his torments had been a waste of nerve-energy.

Gita could not have been more cruelly indifferent if she had wounded a

criminal just out of Sing Sing. And he had received a subtle message

from that golden gown and powdered hair. That she had been indulging in

an orgy of intimate psychology, his future as well as her own disposed

of in rough outline, he was mercifully ignorant, but that the masquerade

was in some way connected with himself and the night they had hovered on

the verge of an understanding, he knew as well as if she had told him.

But on this he dared not dwell. She was still Bylant’s wife, and Bylant

was his patient. He devoted his skill to saving the man’s life, avoided

Gita, and turned to Polly for distraction. And for all he knew Gita

might really be consumed with remorse; or if undergoing a profound

revulsion of feeling, needed only that first interview with her

prostrate husband to melt into pity and the determination to atone with

a lifetime of friendly devotion. Not love. If that had been latent it

would have sprung to life in the moment she had turned on the light and

seen him wounded and unconscious at her feet. But there was small

consolation in the thought that even if Eustace, pursuing his new

advantage, called in the services of an endocrinologist, it would avail

him nothing unless Gita loved him. And Gita was by no means the type of

woman to translate pity into love. But she might immolate herself,

nevertheless.

He had walked with Polly during that interview, hardly knowing whether

his answers to her lively sallies were rational or mere sputterings from

an overcharged brain. She had told him finally he was absent-minded and

run off to her car.

And when he looked in through the window and saw Gita sitting in that

high-backed chair like an image of arrogant fate he knew that Eustace

had lost again.

CHAPTER XXI

Topper announced luncheon. It was served in the dining-room, as Gita had

taken a dislike to the breakfast-room, so intimately associated with

Eustace and Elsie; and although she had sat beside Eustace here on the

night of the wedding, their chairs tied together with a white ribbon,

and listened to speeches and toasts, the only memory that emerged

definitely was the white flounces De Witt Turner had sewed on her

dignified ancestor’s uniform of state. He had looked excruciatingly

funny and she had fastened her mind on those flounces and refrained from

gritting her teeth when toasting bores were congratulating Eustace and

assuming she was congratulating herself.

Geoffrey Pelham had sat on her side of the table and she had not seen

him again until he bade her good-night. Then she had been too excited

over her beautiful wedding-presents to give him a parting glance.

The dining-room was high and dark and austere. Black-browed Carterets in

tarnished frames seemed to look out of the wall itself. But she felt a

Carteret among them, severed the more completely from that brief period

when all but the blessed sophisticates had called her Mrs. Bylant.

Places for two were laid at one end of the long table. Topper had

suggested a small table in front of the fireplace for herself and Polly,

but Gita was in no mood for compromise. She would sit where her

grandmother had sat alone for so many years, save on the rare occasions

when she had summoned the county to a formal and depressing function.

Otherwise, no doubt, she had sat with her thoughts for company, her

dimming vision peopling the long lines of chairs with ghosts. No

compromise for her.

Topper, too, was uncompromising. If he could not have a symmetrical

small table he would not crowd his beloved silver at one end leaving a

long expanse desolate. Candelabra and massive pieces were arranged with

precision from end to end, and although he felt no inclination to set

places for absent guests, and left all but two of the paneled chairs

against the paneled walls, the remote curve patronized by this

incomprehensible mistress had never the unseemly effect of being

cluttered.

Pelham felt that he had enough to endure without being asked to eat in a

tomb. His mother talked sometimes of the past glories of her family,

whose ancestral mansion (wooden, painted white, with green blinds) had

been in Massachusetts, but he was thankful he was descended from the

Dedhams on the petticoat side and had been brought up in a light and

airy house in Atlantic City, however unhistoried and architecturally

debased.

And Gita, sitting in her grandmother’s high-backed wing-chair, looked

less like a descendant than an ancestress. She had been brittle but

vivacious during that half-hour in the garden, but here she looked as if

the mantle of these infernal frowning Carterets had frozen the blood in

her veins. For the moment she once more interested him as a case.

He mentioned Eustace for the first time since he had made his

perfunctory inquiry, after her visit. “I was very much worried for a

time—afraid of infection. But Eustace has the constitution of an ox.”

“Your good doctoring.” And her smile was grimly gracious.

“Surgeons and nurses can do so much and no more. He may thank his sturdy

Dutch ancestors and the healthy life he has led.”

Silence.

“I am afraid that shoulder will be permanently stiff,” he went on

impatiently. “Hard on a writer.”

“He can dictate, I suppose.”

“He once told me he couldn’t endure the idea of anyone in the room with

him when he wrote. Jealous, or something of the sort. Wanted to be alone

with his characters. Authors are afflicted with temperament, you know.”

“He could tap it out with one hand. I’ve noticed one generally manages

to do what one has to do. If not one way then another.”

“True. I’m glad he’d just finished his novel. By the time he is ready to

begin another——”

“It would be a good idea for him to travel for a time. You might suggest

it. He’s been talking of a trip to South America. How soon will he be

able to travel?”

“Not for two or three months yet. Shock must be taken into

consideration. . . . South America. Good idea. Interesting country. You

would enjoy the trip yourself.”

He kept his eyes on his plate, although the excellent fried chicken of

the excellent cook might have been a rump steak.

“I have no intention of going to South America. I expect to live in this

house for the rest of my life.”

“Oh—rather a monotonous life, that, for a girl of your age. And rather

rash to be so certain of anything, isn’t it?”

“Nothing rash about me,” muttered Gita. “When I make up my mind to do a

thing I do it.”

Pelham cast out another line, thankful for the discretion of Topper who

remained in the room as little as possible. “I can’t imagine Eustace

shut up in an old manor house in winter. New York owns him, body and

soul.”

“There will be nothing to keep him out of New York. He’s welcome to stay

here as long as he’s an invalid, but when he goes it will be with the

understanding he’s seen the last of the manor.”

A brief silence and then Geoffrey stammered: “Do you intend to divorce

him?”

“How could I? What excuse?” And then she burst into a peal of laughter.

The one plea she could advance was a husband’s wild attempt to enforce

his rights.

Her mantle fell from her. “Don’t ask me what I was laughing at! Poor

Eustace! If he chooses to divorce me he can do so on the ground of

desertion. We could meet in Paris. And of course he will want his

freedom in time.”

The precipitations of the past week had suddenly resolved themselves an

hour since into a half-conscious determination to show Polly her place

and Pelham that he was still hopelessly in her toils. But when she found

herself alone with him in the dining-room she had anathematized herself

as a fool and retreated in stiff panic from the results of any such

exercise of power. Now she suddenly felt light-hearted once more. Her

intense self-consciousness had fled with her gale of mirth. Blessed be

humor.

No reason they shouldn’t be friends until he went out of her life

altogether. And she realized sharply that her most crying want this past

week had been someone to talk to, a confidant. She had got used to

talking things out.

She, too, threw out a line.

“Too bad Polly had to desert you today. I’m a poor substitute. Don’t

know exactly how or what I’ve been feeling this last week. Remorse, I

think, for not feeling remorse. Been as glum as—can’t think of anything

emphatic enough. Felt, rather, as if I’d been stirred up with a spoon

and nothing would settle. Better not try to diagnose me,” she added

hastily. His gaze was very intense. “Are you and Polly engaged?” She

shot out the question and then dropped her eyes in consternation. She

had had no intention of being direct.

“Certainly not. Neither I nor Polly has ever thought of such a thing.”

“You’re as blind as a bat!” She fastened her eyes on him with her

fiercest expression and he felt as if they had pushed him to the wall

and pinned him there. “Of course she expects you to marry her,” she said

with harsh and bitter emphasis. “So does everybody else. You’d be a cad

if you didn’t——”

Pelham gave a violent exclamation and sprang to his feet, overturning

his chair. “How dare you use such a word to me!” he shouted, his face

blazing. “After what I’ve been through—done—renounced! You little

tiger-cat! I wish to God you were a man!”

He felt no love for her at that moment. He almost hated her. He had had

words both high and hot with men who disagreed with him, been abused by

unreasonable patients, but it was the first time the most contemptible

word in the language had been hurled at him, and the indignity stung him

to fury. “Yes, by God! I wish you were a man. I’d beat you black and

blue and rub your nose in the dirt.”

Gita had gazed at him fascinated for a moment and then dropped her eyes.

A curious thrill rippled over her nerves, and she hid her hands under

the table.

“I’ll take it back,” she said hastily. “You know how carelessly and

exaggeratedly we use words these days. I only meant that any girl would

expect a proposal—after such devotion——”

“Devotion! She knows I enjoy her society. She knows I’ve never given

anything further a thought—any more than she has herself. There’s never

been a glance of sentiment between us. She amuses herself with one man

after another. She told me so herself. What—how could you—after what I

told you——”

“Yes, yes, I remember.” She did not raise her eyes. Geoffrey had not

looked so attractive in costume as with those flaming furious blue

eyes—almost black with temper—exactly like an indignant schoolboy

unjustly accused of raiding an orchard. “Please sit down. I’ve

apologized. You should forgive me.”

He lifted his chair and dropped into it. “You don’t deserve to be

forgiven,” he growled, although his anger was ebbing. “But we’ll settle

this once for all. If I’ve made Polly conspicuous there is but one thing

for me to do. I’ll place Eustace in the hands of a local practitioner

and return to New York. As she will spend the summer here we shall drift

apart naturally, and anyone who has gossiped—if anyone has—will forget

it. There are too many to take my place. But as a matter of fact I don’t

believe anyone has thought of such a thing but you.”

“Oh—I don’t think you should do that—leave Eustace—I——”

She felt unaccountably nervous. Cold. There was a slight tremor in her

knees.

She was on the point of telling him that Mrs. Pleyden and Elsie had

expressed themselves forcibly, and that Polly was serious . . . that

would settle it. But she could not—or would not. Moreover Topper

entered at the moment. Gone was the desire to show Polly her place, but

Polly had had her chance and lost out. Why should she sacrifice herself

further? . . . Sacrifice? She frowned down at the unsteady hands in her

lap. What did she feel, anyhow? Damn it.

Then that zealous little censor she had firmly dethroned reinstated

itself slyly. Why, of course, she wanted his friendship. She must have a

friend. She’d not make a second mistake and marry one—not she—a man

whose eyes burned like blue rockets . . . rather interesting, a

friendship with a spice of danger in it. Her friendship with Eustace had

certainly lacked that. He’d never hung out a danger-signal until that

night after the party when his eyes betrayed that the bottom was

beginning to fall out of his little game. And in him it was merely

revolting. The very thought made her sick.

But it attracted her uncannily in this man, in spite of the fact that

she had nothing to give him. Well, she’d have him for a friend if she

could manage him. Heaven knew she needed one. Being a hermit in an old

manor house didn’t really appeal to her at all. No drama in that. . . .

Here might be the bridge to something new. Element of suspense in it,

anyhow. . . . Who knew? What, after all, was life but successive links

in a chain?

Topper had brought in a lemon pie as light as a soufflé and retired. She

looked up and smiled, a hesitating, curiously girlish smile. Geoffrey’s

face was calmer but his eyes still burned.

“You won’t really go?” she asked pleadingly. “You know how Eustace

depends on you. It might set him back. And now that you’re no longer

worried about him you’re enjoying your vacation. If it’s all right about

Polly there’s no need to bother. And nobody else will be here but your

sister. Mrs. Pleyden thinks Eustace wrenched his shoulder and has only

telephoned once to inquire. Topper and the gardener won’t talk. Nor

those nurses, I suppose. The other servants think he slipped and fell

downstairs. And I don’t want a strange doctor here. And as Elsie’s

coming to stay, no doubt Polly will go home. Do, please, stay.”

There was no coquetry in her manner, but he looked at her probingly.

There was a new intonation in her voice and her face had softened

curiously. She looked not unlike a coaxing child . . . not quite. But

his mind felt a little dazed. She had been so many different kinds of

female since he had seen her, less than an hour ago, sitting under that

portrait of her grandmother. . . . But he was not too bemused to ask

pointedly:

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes, I do. You see—I haven’t a friend left. I’ll never even like

Eustace again. Polly may not be in love with you but she takes no

interest in me or any woman when she is concentrating on a man. I’ve

barely seen her except at table since she came here, and then she’s

almost as silent as myself. I’ll never forgive Elsie. Perhaps you’ve

guessed she cares a lot for Eustace?”

“Yes, I think it possible.”

“He should have married her—no doubt will in time. I’ve asked her to

stay here and give him a chance to find out his mistake. But she failed

me when I needed her most—I’ve been like a lost soul this last week and

would have given everything I possessed for one good long talk with her.

So, you see——” And her eyes so recently fierce, wicked, arrogant,

looked as if pleading to heaven, and she smiled tremulously.

He turned pale and gave the table a sharp rap with his fork. The lemon

pie was neglected. “You place me in a beastly position,” he said

harshly. “You are asking for friendship, and—well, Eustace is upstairs,

wounded——”

She lifted her head, looking less like a madonna than a Carteret. “This

is my house and he is my very unwilling guest—unwilling on both sides.”

“He is still your husband.”

“He never was my husband.” She saw where this digression was leading and

added hastily: “Not that I want to hear about anything else. I—well, I

suppose it doesn’t matter if I say it—I suppose I should have loved you

if I could love anyone. But I can’t. That’s final. Your sister and Polly

say I’m asexual.”

Dr. Pelham swore fluently and shamelessly.

“But it’s true——”

“That subject—and all it connotes—may not come within the province of

surgery, but I happen to have a friend who is a distinguished

endocrinologist and psychiatrist, two sciences which are more dependent

on each other than is generally known. We have discussed the subject

until I know as much about it as he does; and it happens to interest me

profoundly. You are no more asexual——”

“I am. I want to be. I don’t wish to talk about it. But if you don’t

want to be my friend——”

“I’ll be your friend—God knows I never wanted to help anyone

more—until you and Eustace have put an end to your marriage farce.

Then, by God—oh!”

Polly’s laugh rang through the hall.

Gita sprang to her feet. “Go out. Don’t let her come in here. Tell her

I’ve had to go to the kitchen——”

He followed her precipitate retreat and caught her by the arm. “You

must——”

She was cowering away from him. “Let go! Let go!” she said through her

teeth. “I hate being touched.” And she pressed her hand against her

chin.

He dropped his hand but his eyes flashed. “I’d not do anything you

disliked—thought you disliked—for the world. But tell me when I may

have a talk with you again. How can we be friends if I never see you

alone? Polly and Elsie both here—there’s Elsie’s voice—have you ever

been on the salt marshes at night?”

“No.” Her eyes sparkled. “I’ve always wanted to.”

“I’ll meet you at the manor gates at ten o’clock tonight and take you

for a row. Don’t fail to be there——”

The door opened and Polly entered followed by Elsie.

CHAPTER XXII

Gita scowled. Geoffrey ran his hand through his hair until it stood up

like a rooster’s comb. Polly’s eyes glittered. Elsie set her lips.

Gita turned on her heel. “Topper gave us your favorite lemon pie,

Elsie,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m going to tell Amanda to make

another for dinner.” And she marched off.

“I must go and take a look at Eustace.” Geoffrey made his exit.

Polly turned to her ally. “What’s happened?” Her eyes were more

frightened than angry. “They looked as if he had just kissed her.”

“That’s nonsense, of course. You forget the circumstances——” Elsie’s

eyes turned to the head of the table. “But something’s happened. That

lemon pie hasn’t been touched. And it’s Amanda’s chef-d’œuvre and the

favorite dessert of both of them.”

“Do you suppose he told her—told her—oh, it can’t be possible he still

cares! Oh, no! I suppose she’d intrigue and fascinate any man if she

took the trouble, and it looks as if she had. She told me once she was

as vain as a peacock, and she’s become so used to admiration—no doubt

she’s been missing it——” She grasped Elsie’s arm. “Tell Eustace not to

let her go!” she cried, her voice harsh with fear. “Make him believe

he’s only to hold on, has everything on his side—I forgot! You want him

yourself. I’m out in the cold!”

Elsie was still frowning at the lemon pie. “All that’s in the future,”

she said. “May never come to anything. But if I could keep him buoyed up

until Geoffrey had no excuse to stay longer——” And then she shook

herself angrily and drew her hand across her brow. “No, I’ll not do

anything sly and detestable. It’s not a pleasant sensation to despise

yourself. We have to live with ourselves—must keep on good terms.

You’re quite equal to managing your own affairs and you’re on the

ground. You can see to it they’re never alone.”

Dr. Pelham was heard running lightly down the stair. The two girls went

hastily out into the hall.

“Well, I’m off,” he said. “Eustace won’t need me again today.”

Polly moved toward him. “I was going to take you for a drive to Cape May

this afternoon——”

“Oh! I’m sorry. I promised I’d meet a colleague in the Traymore Book

Store at three and take him for a tramp. He’s only able to get down to

Atlantic City for the day. I’ll be over in the morning. Go up and sit

with Eustace for a few moments, Elsie. He’ll be glad to see you.”

He smiled and nodded to Polly, and a moment later he was striding down

the avenue. He had driven his car from New York but rarely used it.

Gita entered through a door at the end of the hall.

“Amanda has two more lemon pies,” she said encouragingly. “Intact. She

made apple dumplings for the kitchen table. Bring your things over,

Elsie?”

“Topper took them up to my room. Geoff just gave me permission to sit

with Eustace for a few minutes.”

“Splendid. Go right up.”

She took one look at Polly and then made for the stair herself. “I’m

going to lie down,” she announced in a high clear voice. “Awfully tired.

Don’t sleep well. Amuse yourself, Polly.”

“Gita!”

Gita paused on the landing and clutched the banister. A show-down?

Well—surely Polly must see there was no excuse for her to stay longer.

“Yes?”

“Oh, nothing.” Polly swung on her heel. An explosion, and she would have

to go. She had no intention of going.

Gita ran up to her room and locked herself in. She had never felt less

tired. Nor did she want to think. She could always lose herself in a

good novel, and she had a new one.

But half an hour later she slipped out of the house and tramped until it

was time to dress for dinner.

CHAPTER XXIII

The dinner was almost gay. Each had her part to play and each was too

clever to play it self-consciously. By common consent both Bylant and

Pelham were ignored, and they talked of the past winter in New York, the

summer distractions planned in Chelsea (in which Elsie promised Polly to

take part if only for the sake of copy), and the new spring novels. The

last subject afforded an opportunity to quarrel, which gave them a

welcome release.

“I feel like a movie,” announced Polly, as they left the dining-room.

“Come along, girls. We can all crowd into my car.”

“I can’t go, of course.” Gita bit her lip. “Must do the decent thing.

What time do you suppose you’ll be back?”

“Round ten, probably.”

“I don’t think you should drive on lonely roads at night.”

“Nothing very lonely between here and Atlantic City, after we get out of

that avenue of yours. But if you don’t want to stay alone—there’s

always mah-jongg——”

“I detest mah-jongg. Run along. I’ll be all right.”

She shrugged her shoulders as the two girls ran upstairs to put on their

things. She could hear the car, anyway. Easy enough to hide behind those

thickly planted trees in the avenue.

“I’ll stop at the house and ask Geoff to go with us,” said Elsie, as the

young gardener brought Polly’s roadster to the door. “Then he can take

us to one of the hotels for supper. Polly says she feels like making a

night of it.”

“Good idea,” said Gita coolly, and wondered what excuse Pelham would

make.

She tapped softly on the door of the sick-room. The nurse whispered that

her patient was sleeping soundly, for the first time without an opiate.

That duty done she sat down firmly with her novel; but after she had

read one page four times wondered why anybody wasted time on fiction,

and flung the really notable effort into a corner.

She resolved not to think and promptly began thinking.

Fine performance for her—sneaking out at night to meet a man and

indulge in a semi-romantic episode on the salt marshes. They’d probably

freeze. Better wear her fur coat. Look like a bear on its hind legs.

Not in the least did she feel like one of those old Gita Carterets. If

they’d ever outraged their sense of decorum by doing such a thing and

risked a cold in the head—thank heaven she never had colds—hoped Dr.

Pelham wouldn’t sneeze—they’d have done it as a tribute to capitalized

Romance . . . sake of one more enchanting memory . . . look back upon

when suckling their first baby.

Doubted if they ever felt really romantic. Not enough imagination,

probably. Merely sentimental.

Well, she didn’t feel romantic either. No ultimates to look forward to,

no romance.

What on earth had possessed him to suggest such a thing? She could have

got rid of Polly somehow and found plenty of opportunities to talk with

him in the house or garden. Not because he wanted to make love to

her—moonlight—solitude—night—all the rest of it. Including squawking

ducks for chorus. Or was this the duck season? Or did they have wild

ducks in New Jersey? She’d gone duck-hunting one night in California and

it had been great fun although one got rather stiff.

She endeavored to concentrate on California. Gorgeous moonlight nights

on the bay. Ferry-boats like fairy ships, glittering in the dark. Chain

of lights “across the bay,” a necklace for the Queen Calafia Ordoñez de

Montalvo had imagined far back in the centuries . . . Bare sharp hills.

Fog moving in through the Golden Gate like a ship . . . California faded

off the map.

Just an impulse, probably. Felt he had more to say and wanted to get it

off his chest. No idea of making love to her; she need have no

misgivings. He had a hot temper but a cold code of honor. Nor would he

try to approach her obliquely. He had none of the subtlety of Eustace,

the diabolic patience, the ability to cloak his desires and play a

“wooing” game, while he watched for the right moment to strike. His

self-control was of a different sort. Wonderful to break down that

self-control, if things were different and she were different. But she

had her own code.

Well, if their teeth didn’t chatter it would be something to remember

when she was old. She really wanted to go more than anything else in the

world. Oh, yes, _wanted_ to go. Must have her drama—loved beauty, and

the night was heavenly, in spite of the cold.

CHAPTER XXIV

She changed into a thick skirt and heavy sweater and discarded the fur

coat in favor of a dark warm cape she had bought the year before to wear

when she prowled in her woods at night. At five minutes to ten she

walked swiftly but alertly down the avenue, feeling less romantic than

conspiratorial.

As she approached the gates she saw Geoffrey standing before his car in

the full moonlight.

“Be careful,” she called out. “Polly and Elsie went to a movie and may

be back any minute.”

“They won’t be home for two hours yet—later probably. Elsie came in to

ask me to go with them and I made her promise to say I was out. Then

Polly came in and called up two of her admirers and they were all to

meet on the Boardwalk—go to supper after the movie. Getting into the

house without running into them may be the problem——”

“I left the library window open.”

She stole a glance at him as he sat beside her in the car. The set

grimness had returned to his face and his eyes looked more gray than

blue. No doubt he regretted proposing anything so ridiculous; also, his

conscience hurt him, probably. Wonder he hadn’t telephoned off.

They reached the edge of the broadest expanse of the salt-water marsh

lands. It was as cold and desolate as the moon that silvered it, and

looked as remote from Atlantic City, blaring and flashing a few miles

away, as if it had swung off into space.

Geoffrey removed his ulster and locked it with his cap in the car. He

wore a white woolen sweater and an old pair of corduroy breeches.

“I used to know these meadows like a map,” he said, as he rowed with

sure strokes through one of the winding narrow channels. “I’d come here

to think out my problems, and generally at night.”

Gita drew her cape about her and looked out over the marsh, sniffing the

salt air. A sensation of peace descended upon her. She loved color and

movement and brilliance, but she also loved cold austere beauty, low

tones, hard outlines, white landscapes in winter. This marsh was starkly

beautiful. Far in the distance was the black mass of a pine wood. As

quiet as death. Only once a train roared over a bridge.

She looked at Pelham. He was smiling; his face was as boyish as when he

had flown into a temper, but charmingly pleasant. “I shouldn’t have

asked you to come,” he said frankly. “But we’re here, and I’ll leave

remorse for tomorrow. You may tell Eustace if you like——”

“I certainly shall not. I may fly to the moon with a man if I choose. If

he were still in danger I shouldn’t have come, of course—you wouldn’t

have proposed it. But I came out to enjoy myself and I don’t intend to

split hairs.”

“You’re rather a pagan, you know.”

“Perhaps. Seems to me we’re all pagans these days. Except you. _You’re_

rather old-fashioned.”

“I expect to remain so. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be anywhere else. We

needn’t talk at all, if you’d rather not. It is enough for me——”

“You asked me out to ‘have a talk,’” she said mischievously.

“I’m only too ready to listen to anything you may have to tell me.”

But Gita had no intention of telling anything. She had once obeyed an

egotistical impulse and the present mess was the result.

But something must happen to make the night memorable. No hope of

anything fortuitous. Impossible to turn over, and be rescued, in these

narrow channels. Not a soul on the meadows but themselves. . . . She

wasn’t cold, after all—rarely was, for that matter. That fur coat was a

wedding-present from Mrs. Pleyden . . . well, let her thoughts scatter.

Their eyes met with that quick spontaneous smile of youth to youth,

which may mean all or nothing. If Geoffrey were experiencing the pangs

of unsatisfied love it was evident he had no intention of betraying

himself. He was a young man indulging in a picturesque hour with a

beautiful girl and it was a part of his part to be duly appreciative.

But with that quick involuntary response, that smiling subtly intimate

exchange, she felt a curious stir in her body. An invisible cloak seemed

to envelop her under that dark ugly cape and turn mere warmth into a

glow. A curious sense of unreality. . . . Reality?

“Have we been here before?” she asked abruptly.

“What I felt once or twice when we were in fancy dress? Unfortunately

that sort of thing has been scientifically explained. It means nothing

I’m afraid.”

“I rather like the idea of reincarnation.” Quite forgetting she had

rejected it with scorn.

“So do I—as a man. But science is uncompromising.”

“Science is always finding out its mistakes. Look at anthropology. I

read a lot of that last year.” She shied away from any mention of

Eustace, even as tutor.

“True. Well, of course, anything is possible. We know very little after

all. Certainly nothing of the Beyond.”

“I choose to believe,” said Gita clearly and looking straight at him,

“that two hundred years ago I was living at that manor and you came here

from Boston on a visit—political, probably—and brought letters to us.

You would, of course . . . I think I knew it that night.”

“A very pretty game, if you want to play it.” She saw his eyes flash and

his mouth set, simultaneously. “But this is not a romantic age, you

know. Particularly since the war. I’m told that no old cliché is so

heartily despised—that’s saying a good deal, isn’t it? Clichés being

anathema in your set, I’m told.”

“That crowd is the merest ripple on the surface. Not hit in the solar

plexus by the war like the young English writers, but taking their cue,

although they’d hate to admit it. We’re all exactly the same as we

always have been.”

“Fundamentally—I suppose we are. But luckily most of us are forced to

live on the surface of our minds, at high pressure, and seldom have time

to take a plunge.”

“Seldom, yes. But occasionally?”

He made no reply. She laughed at his frowning brows. Once more his eyes

were almost black. She forced humor into her own eyes lest he receive a

hint of that curious sensation of something rising in her veins. But her

laugh was infused with that voluptuous warmth bordering on hysteria by

which young girls betray themselves when indulging in prolonged attacks

of giggles. “You really believe it, you know. One night after a ball,

when our fine clothes were new, you begged me to slip out and row on

these meadows with you, and you had a Spanish cape over your blue satin

coat and white——”

“You are rather unfair, you know.”

“Not a bit of it.” Her voice rose. “We’re merely reconstructing the

past, not building up any kind of future. No obstacles in those days,

although my irate papa probably boxed my ears when I got back and

marched you off to the library to ask your intentions——”

“I’d hardly have put him to the trouble!”

Her eyes glowed. “Of course not!” she said softly. “Of course not!”

“Do you love me?” he asked harshly.

She shrank back and pulled the hood of her cape over her face. “You are

Geoffrey Dedham asking that, of course.”

“I’ll be damned if I am. What’s come over you? I thought you were above

flirting?”

“I am!” Her voice was muffled by more than the hood.

“Put that hood back.”

But she covered what was still visible of her face with her hand. “I’m

frightened,” she whispered. “Terribly frightened.”

“I’ve no intention of touching you. I was a fool or worse to come out

here with you, but it will stop at that——”

“I’m not afraid of you. You don’t understand, of course.”

“Oh, yes, I do!”

“But you can’t—you mustn’t——Oh! _What_——” Gita for the first time

since she was an angry child burst into strangled weeping. He had been

resting on his oars. The boat suddenly shot ahead.

“Cry it out,” he said grimly. But his voice ended on an uncontrollable

note of triumph.

“I feel so strange,” sobbed Gita. “I—I—don’t know what to think. I

never——”

“No, never! Sap rising.”

“What do you mean by that?” She pushed back her hood and tried to stab

him with her eyes. But they were full of glittering tears.

“You know quite as well as I do. And as soon as Eustace is well you’ll

put it up to him squarely.”

She flung her head down on her knees, convulsive sobs wrenching her

body. “I won’t! I won’t! I don’t want to marry you!”

“Oh, yes, you do. You never really wanted anything before in your life.”

He rowed toward the shore.

“I’d hate you——”

“You would not!”

“I do hate you——”

“That’s all right. Hate me as much as you like. It amounts to the same

thing.”

She began to tremble violently. “They say—you feel horribly when you

come to after drowning,” she stammered through her chattering teeth.

“I—feel—just like that.”

“Of course. You’re coming to life.”

“It’s not a—poetical feeling at all—and I must blow my nose!”

“Do. Have you a handkerchief?”

“Yes, I have.” She used it. “I wish I’d really drowned.” Her teeth were

still chattering.

“It’s a submerged—hitherto—part of your ego that hurts as much as

anything else. It’s undergoing birth-pangs as well as your ill-treated

body.”

“I hate my body.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Oh-h-h——” A groan of dismay. “I—I feel deathly sick.”

“Lie down flat in the boat.”

She obeyed precipitately.

“Oh, I do feel dreadfully,” she moaned. “And I’ve—never—been—ill in

my life.”

“Don’t talk. I’ll give you brandy in a moment. I brought it along in

case of a chill.”

“Don’t tell me it’s in your hip-pocket!” She gasped. “I couldn’t stand

that!”

“It’s in the pocket of my sweater. You must be feeling better. Here, sit

up and drink this.”

She raised herself warily on an elbow and drank the brandy he had poured

into the silver cup of his flask—a present from a grateful patient.

She fell back again, but only for a moment. A swift wriggling movement

and she was sitting erect at her end of the boat.

“More beastly materialism,” she muttered. “Why couldn’t I have come all

right by myself?” She stared at him resentfully, then gave a short laugh

like a bark.

“God! How romantic!”

“We don’t need romance, my dear.”

She sighed, laced her fingers, and stared at the bottom of the boat.

Then she looked up at him and smiled. He caught his breath. A wavering

dazed smile, that passed from her lips and melted in her eyes.

“It’s all over—the resentment,” she said shyly. “And I’m glad—very

glad——”

“We land in a moment. Can you drive a car?”

“Why—yes. Pretty well. Polly—and—others—have taught me.”

“Get into mine. Throw out my ulster and cap. Leave it at the gates. Take

yourself off as fast as you can.”

“But——”

“Do as I tell you. Leave it in the shade where it won’t be noticed. Here

we are. Jump out.”

CHAPTER XXV

As she parked the car under an oak she heard Polly’s swift roadster

approaching. She darted into the heavier shade of the avenue, but that

figure in its long dark cape looked ominous to two girls alone on a

deserted road at night. Polly put on her brakes and brought her car to a

protesting halt. She cried out sharply:

“Who’s there? I—I’ve got an automatic.”

Gita was in no laughing mood, but she heard herself giggling.

“It’s Gita!” exclaimed Elsie. “And that’s Geoffrey’s car.”

“I’m in for it!” She sighed. “And I’d have given my immortal soul to be

alone tonight.”

She came out into the road. “Yes, it’s I. Been taking an airing.”

“Where’s Geoffrey?” Polly’s voice was high.

“Don’t know, I’m sure.”

“That’s his car.”

“Is it?”

“You’ve been out with him. Don’t deny it.”

Gita drew her hood over her face. “Why should I deny what you’ve no

right to ask?”

“No right!”

“Certainly not. Sorry you caught me. Thought you’d telephoned to two of

your heavies and were going to supper.”

“Did. But Bob Hillier passed out—how’d you know I telephoned?”

But Gita would not mention Geoffrey’s name. She turned and walked

swiftly up the avenue.

“_Gita Carteret!_” Polly’s voice tore by her on a wild shrieking note.

Elemental Polly, at last! Gita set her lips grimly and sped on. The

matter was out of her hands. She would not discuss it. She wanted

nothing but to be alone.

“_Gita Carteret! You’ll pay! You’ll pay!_”

Menacing, that shriek, no longer hysterical. Gita heard the roar of the

engine behind her and moved hastily to the extreme edge of the road,

glancing over her shoulder. The headlights swerved and drove toward her.

She had no time even to harbor incredulity. Polly intended to ride her

down!

She darted toward a space between the trees, through it and into the

shrubbery, less terrified than humiliated at being obliged to run

instead of standing up to a fair fight. But she could not grapple with a

frantic roadster with blinding headlights.

The car plunged through the opening after her. She scrambled to the top

of a hedge and swung herself over and fled across the lawn, dropping her

hampering cape. The car crashed through the hedge. She waited until it

was almost upon her, then jumped to one side. She caught a glimpse of

the two girls. Polly’s face was a whirling disk of white fire. Elsie had

flung herself upon her, trying to wrench her hands from the wheel, but

Gita knew that Polly was nearly as strong as herself. Elsie took little

interest in sports.

Polly brought the car about with a wide sweep, picked Gita out with the

headlights and drove toward her once more. But Gita had got her breath.

She dodged behind an oak on the lawn, ran swiftly to the left and

entered the avenue again between trees too closely planted to admit even

a roadster. Her one chance was to reach the house before Polly could

bring the car about again and aim for the entrance to the avenue. She

reached the foot of the steps just as Polly made a last wild attempt to

ride her down.

Gita was breathless, but managed to walk up the steps with her head

high. Topper had left his usual faint light in the hall. She lit several

of the brackets. No more fighting-matches in the dark for her!

The car had come to a standstill and Gita wondered vagrantly why Polly

hadn’t driven it up the steps and into the hall, in the fashion of their

reckless ancestors when urging the more picturesque horse. But she heard

nothing for a few moments but the low murmur of voices. Probably Polly

had dropped out of her murderous obsession with a hard thud and was

properly ashamed. She hoped she’d take herself off, and waited for the

welcome sound of the roadster in the avenue. To retreat first would be

to show a white feather, and if Polly wanted a scene let her have it.

But she was severely shaken. She knew she had had a narrow escape. Once

more she sighed. How was she to recapture those last wondrous moments

out there on the meadows? Retreat into a throbbing solitude with this

miracle that had come to her?

Rapid feet on the steps. They were coming!

Polly entered first. Her face was no longer blazing white. It was

flushed, but otherwise composed. Elsie looked distraught, and fell at

once into a chair, staring and gasping.

Polly’s head was as high as Gita’s. Her tones had never been more crisp

and metallic. “Well!” she said. “I tried to kill you. No intention of

denying it. Almost wish I had. But once more you’ve won out. Call the

police if you like.”

Gita shrugged disdainfully.

There was a sound of flying feet on the stair.

“What is the matter?” demanded the nurse. “How could you make such a

terrible noise under Mr. Bylant’s window? I only waited to give him an

opiate, but he won’t calm down until he knows what has happened.”

Gita dismissed her with an impatient wave of the hand.

“Miss Pleyden lost control of her car. Nobody is hurt. Please tell him

so at once.”

The nurse, her curiosity by no means gratified, retired from a promising

scene.

Gita turned to Polly.

“I really think there is nothing more to say. Don’t you think we’d all

better go to bed?”

Polly looked at her wonderingly.

“Don’t you realize that I tried to kill you?” she asked.

“Well, what of it? You didn’t. Nor do I feel disposed to lay it up

against you. No doubt I’d have done the same thing in your place.

Succeeded, too. If ever I start out to kill anyone I’ll do it. No

anticlimaxes for me.”

Polly gave a short laugh. “Couldn’t have thought of anything more

cutting! Can feel the knife down on the bone. Perhaps you are grateful

to me. You always wanted drama. You’ve hit the high spots twice in one

week.”

“Melodrama,” corrected Elizabeth Pelham. “But love and melodrama seem to

be synonymous terms—in real life, at all events. We do it better in

fiction. First Eustace, then you. And both of you belong to the topmost

stratum of civilization!”

“No one is civilized,” snapped Polly. “There’s not one of us—who’s

_alive_—who wouldn’t kill to get what we wanted, if we dared. Well, I

dared, and I’m not feeling ashamed of myself. Not a bit.” She turned to

Gita. “You said out there I had no ‘right.’ I have! And you know it! He

was mine and you deliberately took him from me.”

“He never was yours. Nor had he ever the least idea you cared for him,

if that’s any consolation.”

“What on earth did he think? I’ve not looked at another man for months.”

“Thought you were amusing yourself with a new type. You told him you

amused yourself with one man after another.”

“Probably did. Sounds like me. Nothing so blind as a man who’s in love

with another woman. Were you out with him tonight? I’ve a right to ask

that.”

“Well, I was.”

“Did he make love to you?”

“Of course not! How could you think of such a thing?”

“Don’t trust any man. But he’s in love with you and you with him. Don’t

deny it.”

Gita gazed over her head.

Polly turned white and beat her hands together.

“And I must take it lying down! I, who vowed I’d get him and let nothing

stand in my way. I wish to God I’d killed you!” she burst out

passionately, although the words ended on a sob. “I’d gladly have been

hanged or electrocuted or whatever they do to you in this state. And now

I can’t go at it again. I feel as limp as a young corpse inside. Can’t

even try to scratch your eyes out. Am the well-brought-up Miss Pleyden

once more! Well—thank God I was something else for five minutes. I’ll

cherish that memory through a long and prosaic life. Poor things, we

moderns. Well, I’m off.”

She hesitated, then went forward and held out her hand.

“I don’t ask you to forgive me; but we may as well be sports.”

Gita shook the cold hand. “Good-by, Polly. I’m sorry. Wish it could be

wiped out. I’ll miss you.”

Miss Pleyden shrugged her shoulders. “Chapters have to end sometime.

You’ve made one quite interesting for me! I’ll light a cigarette if you

don’t mind.”

She performed this rite, nodded to Gita and Elsie and swung lightly down

the hall. A moment later they heard her car traveling at a reasonable

pace.

Gita turned to Elsie. “_Vale_, Polly. But you don’t go. Not yet. You

stay here until Eustace is able to leave. That’s final.”

“I feel lost and deserted myself!” exclaimed Elsie. “I wish I’d never

laid eyes on you. You are a terrible devastating force, Gita. What will

you do to my brother!”

And then she stared at Gita’s radiant face.

“Oh, don’t worry! Don’t worry! It won’t be as bad as you think.”

“Oh, when people are in love!” Elsie’s voice was more sarcastic than her

mood.

Gita swung on her heel and stared out into the moonlight. “Better go to

bed,” she said coldly. “Nothing more to say, is there?” . . .

She felt herself moving forward, felt an almost uncontrollable impulse

to run out into that moonlight . . . recapture that mood so strangely

compounded of exaltation and dismay, triumph and disappointment,

poignant sweetness and futile resentment at the remorseless

incompleteness of life. . . .

She whirled upon Elsie and, although her words tumbled out fiercely, a

curious quaver of helplessness ran through them. “Oh, you both have your

revenge! I should think life altogether wonderful tonight and I almost

hate it. It was bad enough to have to break off—to miss—to have to

wait—oh, damn honor! Damn noblesse oblige! I wish we’d been born in a

different class—like some of your sophisticates—that never heard of

such things—no, I don’t! I only wish things could have been

different—that life didn’t always laugh at you—that life wasn’t always

trying to get the best of art and generally succeeding——Life could be

so wonderful and it’s just a mean chromo of art and delights in the fact

and in taunting our anticipations—those lovely works of art we create

and hang in the blessed spaces of the mind—taunting and shattering——

“Oh, stop staring at me as if I were a lunatic, and go to bed. I’ll be

all right tomorrow. Oh, yes! Oh, yes! I’ve _got to be_. But at any rate

_I_ won’t go to bed. That would be a little too much!”

And she hurtled past the startled Elsie and into the drawing-room and

slammed the door behind her.

THE END

_The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading. Why not then own the

books of great novelists when the price is so small_

_Of all the amusements which can possibly be imagined for a hard-working

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evils of the present moment. Nay, it accompanies him to his next day’s

work, and gives him something to think of besides the mere mechanical

drudgery of his every-day occupation—something he can enjoy while

absent, and look forward with pleasure to return to._

_Ask your dealer for a list of the titles_

_in Burt’s Popular Priced Fiction_

_In buying the books bearing the A. L. Burt Company imprint you are

assured of wholesome, entertaining and instructive reading_

THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION

=Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= Frank L. Packard.

=Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. A.= Conan Doyle.

=Affair at Flower Acres, The.= Carolyn Wells.

=Affinities and Other Stories.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.

=After House, The.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.

=Against the Winds.= Kate Jordan.

=Alcatraz.= Max Brand.

=Alias Richard Power.= William Allison.

=All the Way by Water.= Elizabeth Stancy Payne.

=Amateur Gentleman, The.= Jeffery Farnol.

=Amateur Inn, The.= Albert Payson Terhune.

=Anna the Adventuress.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

=Anne’s House of Dreams.= L. M. Montgomery.

=Anybody But Anne.= Carolyn Wells.

=Are All Men Alike and The Lost Titian.= Arthur Stringer.

=Around Old Chester.= Margaret Deland.

=Arrant Rover, The.= Berta Ruck.

=Athalie.= Robert W. Chambers.

=At the Mercy of Tiberius.= Augusta Evans Wilson.

=At Sight of Gold.= Cynthia Lombardi.

=Auction Block, The.= Rex Beach.

=Aunt Jane of Kentucky.= Eliza C. Hall.

=Awakening of Helena Ritchie.= Margaret Deland.

=Bab: a Sub-Deb.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.

=Bar 20.= Clarence E. Mulford.

=Bar 20 Days.= Clarence E. Mulford.

=Bar-20 Three.= Clarence E. Mulford.

=Barrier, The.= Rex Beach.

=Bars of Iron, The.= Ethel M. Dell.

=Bat Wing.= Sax Rohmer.

=Beasts of Tarzan, The.= Edgar Rice Burroughs.

=Beautiful and Damned, The.= F. Scott Fitzgerald.

=Beauty.= Rupert Hughes.

=Behind Locked Doors.= Ernest M. Poate.

=Bella Donna.= Robert Hichens. (Photoplay Ed.).

=Beloved Traitor, The.= Frank L. Packard.

=Beloved Vagabond, The.= Wm. J. Locke.

=Beloved Woman, The.= Kathleen Norris.

=Beltane the Smith.= Jeffery Farnol.

=Betrayal, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

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=Big Timber.= Bertrand W. Sinclair.

=Black Bartlemy’s Treasure.= Jeffery Farnol.

=Black Buttes.= Clarence E. Mulford.

AT A POPULAR PRICE

=Black Cæsar’s Clan.= Albert Payson Terhune.

=Black Gold.= Albert Payson Terhune.

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=Black Oxen.= Gertrude Atherton. (Photoplay Ed.).

=Blue Circle, The.= Elizabeth Jordan.

=Bob, Son of Battle.= Alfred Olivant.

=Box With Broken Seals, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

=Brandon of the Engineers.= Harold Bindloss.

=Breaking Point, The.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.

=Bridge of Kisses.= Berta Ruck.

=Bring Me His Ears.= Clarence E. Mulford.

=Broad Highway, The.= Jeffery Farnol.

=Broken Barriers.= Meredith Nicholson.

=Brown Study, The.= Grace S. Richmond.

=Buck Peters, Ranchman.= Clarence E. Mulford.

=Bush-Rancher, The.= Harold Bindloss.

=Cabbages and Kings.= O. Henry.

=Cabin Fever.= B. M. Bower.

=Calling of Dan Matthews, The.= Harold Bell Wright.

=Cape Cod Stories.= Joseph C. Lincoln.

=Cap’n Dan’s Daughter.= Joseph C. Lincoln.

=Cap’n Eri.= Joseph C. Lincoln.

=Cap’n Warren’s Wards.= Joseph C. Lincoln.

=Carnac’s Folly.= Gilbert Parker.

=Cat’s Paw, The.= Natalie Sumner Lincoln.

=Cattle.= Winnifred Eaton.

=Certain People of Importance.= Kathleen Norris.

=Chief Legatee, The.= Anna Katharine Green.

=Cinema Murder, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

=City of Lilies, The.= Anthony Pryde and R. K. Weehes.

=City of Peril, The.= Arthur Stringer.

=Clipped Wings.= Rupert Hughes.

=Clue of the New Pin, The.= Edgar Wallace.

=Colorado Jim.= George Goodchild.

=Coming of Cassidy, The.= Clarence E, Mulford.

=Coming of the Law, The.= Chas. A. Seltzer.

=Communicating Door, The.= Wadsworth Camp.

=Comrades of Peril.= Randall Parrish.

=Conquest of Canaan, The.= Booth Tarkington.

=Contraband.= Clarence Budington Kelland.

=Court of Inquiry, A.= Grace S. Richmond.

=Crimson Blotter, The.= Isabel Ostrander.

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Rex Beach.

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=Crimson Tide, The.= Robert W. Chambers.

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=Cry in the Wilderness, A.= Mary E. Waller.

=Cry of Youth, A.= Cynthia Lombardi.

=Cup of Fury, The.= Rupert Hughes.

=Curious Quest, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

=Curved Blades, The.= Carolyn Wells.

=Cytherea.= Joseph Hergesheimer.

=Damsel in Distress, A.= Pelham G. Wodehouse.

=Dancing Star, The.= Berta Ruck.

=Danger and Other Stories.= A. Conan Doyle.

=Dark Hollow.= Anna Katharine Green.

=Daughter Pays, The.= Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.

=Depot Master, The.= Joseph C. Lincoln.

=Desert Healer, The.= E. M. Hull.

=Destroying Angel, The.= Louis Joseph Vance. (Photoplay Ed.).

=Devil’s Paw, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

=Diamond Thieves, The.= Arthur Stringer.

=Disturbing Charm, The.= Berta Ruck.

=Donnegan.= George Owen Baxter.

=Door of Dread, The.= Arthur Stringer.

=Doors of the Night.= Frank L. Packard.

=Dope.= Sax Rohmer.

=Double Traitor, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

=Dust of the Desert.= Robert Welles Ritchie.

=Empty Hands.= Arthur Stringer.

=Empty Pockets.= Rupert Hughes.

=Empty Sack, The.= Basil King.

=Enchanted Canyon.= Honoré Willsie.

=Enemies of Women.= V. B. Ibanez. (Photoplay Ed.).

=Eris.= Robert W. Chambers.

=Erskine Dale, Pioneer.= John Fox, Jr.

=Evil Shepherd, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.

=Extricating Obadiah.= Joseph C. Lincoln.

=Eye of Zeitoon, The.= Talbot Mundy.

=Eyes of the Blind.= Arthur Somers Roche.

=Eyes of the World.= Harold Bell Wright.

=Fair Harbor.= Joseph C. Lincoln.

=Family.= Wayland Wells Williams.

=Fathoms Deep.= Elizabeth Stancy Payne.

=Feast of the Lanterns.= Louise Gordon Miln.

=Fighting Chance, The.= Robert W. Chambers.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.

Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been

employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious

printer errors occur.