There was silence for a moment, and then her smooth tones came over the wire, "Why, certainly. Aunt Helen and I will be delighted to see you any time."
He lowered his accents. "Not, Auntie—you, you alone. You said you would like to come again to our apartment. And this time I will promise we won't be interrupted. Not even by John. I want so badly to see you—Elise. Won't you come?"
After a long pause, her voice came noncommittedly, "When?"
"On Saturday afternoon at three?"
Another long pause, and then she said faintly, "I shall be there."
Rodrigo hung up the receiver and took a long, deep breath. Then he walked into John's office and, taking advantage of Mary's temporary absence, said, "John, I want you to promise me something."
"What is it, old man? And why the terrifically serious look on your face?"
Rodrigo forced a smile. "I want you to stay away from the apartment until three-thirty next Saturday afternoon," he said. "At that time I want you to meet me there, and probably I'll have something very interesting to show you?"
"But my birthday isn't until next month, Rodrigo?" John bantered. "Did you go out and buy that Gainsborough original I fancied so much—or what?"
"Please don't ask any questions, John. And believe that I'm deadly serious. Three-thirty. Will you be there?"
"Why, of course—if you say so."
During the rest of the week, Rodrigo was like a man who has had the date of his electrocution set. He could not work, eat, nor sleep. John remarked about it. Mary Drake regarded him anxiously from behind his back.
At noon the following Saturday, Rodrigo heard John leaving his office and hastened to stop him. He had not reminded John of his engagement of the afternoon, but now he said,
"You haven't forgotten about coming to the apartment at three-thirty, have you, John!"
"Oh, I'll be there. You're so darned mysterious about it that you've aroused my curiosity."
Rodrigo felt a grim satisfaction. He did not purpose to have his electrocution bungled by the absence of the man who was to turn on the electricity.
Having with some awkwardness and difficulty disposed of Mrs. Brink, the housekeeper, who showed a disposition to dawdle at her work so that she might gossip with him, Rodrigo, at three o'clock that afternoon, was trying desperately to interest himself in a newspaper. He was arrayed in a purple silken dressing-gown. Soft cushions were piled invitingly upon the divan. The shades had been drawn discreetly, so that the room was in a semi-shadow. Whisky and soda stood upon a slim taboret.
He waited impatiently for fifteen minutes. Then his nerves tingled as he heard the elevator door outside roll open and someone stepped out into the corridor. An instant later the apartment bell chimed. Rodrigo gravely arose. His face broke into an excellent imitation of a smile of hearty welcome. He opened the door. A freckle-faced, gawky messenger boy grinned on the threshold, handed him two telegrams and pointed with a chewed stump of a pencil where to sign in the book.
Rodrigo, mystified and disappointed, broke the envelope of one of the telegrams. His face turned pale and his chin quivered, like a man suddenly attacked with a chill, as he read:
Congratulate me. Elise and I married at Greenwich five minutes ago. I am the happiest man in the world.
JOHN.
He walked falteringly over to the deep armchair and sat down before he had the courage to open the other yellow container.
Sorry I had to miss our engagement. Just as well perhaps. Forgive me for influencing John to break his date.
ELISE VAN ZILE.
For the first time in his life, Rodrigo cursed a lady. But mingled with his resentment against her was a frank tribute to her cleverness. For he hadn't a doubt in the world now but that Elise had seen through his stratagem and had taken this decisive step to outwit him.
One glorious morning, three weeks later, when the June sunshine bathed Fifth Avenue in a benevolent light and the staff of Dorning and Son edged over as near the doors and windows as possible and made lugubrious remarks about their luck at being shut up from the paradise outdoors, the door of Rodrigo's office was flung open and John Dorning burst in.
"Rodrigo!" he cried, and stood there near the door smiling happily and blushing furiously, looking wonderfully well and boyish.
Rodrigo sprang up at once and congratulated him heartily.
"I'm the happiest man in the world," John repeated the words of the fateful telegram, and, Rodrigo admitted, he looked it. His face was bronzed and suffused with health, the result of many hours upon the golf links and in the lake adjoining the elaborate Adirondack "lodge" where the Dornings had been spending their honeymoon. A feeling of relief for the moment and optimism for the future swept through Rodrigo. Perhaps, after all, he had misjudged Elise. Though, he told himself, it is a very rare marriage that does not at least survive the honeymoon.
"Sit right down and tell me how the elopement all happened," invited Rodrigo gayly, "you old scoundrel."
"Well, to begin at the beginning," said John exuberantly, "I had an engagement with Elise in the evening on that Saturday you wanted me to come to the apartment in the middle of afternoon, do you remember? Around noon-time Elise telephoned me and said she was sorry but she would have to cancel the evening engagement. She had to go to some charity committee meeting or other with her aunt. I insisted upon seeing her, and she finally agreed that we would have luncheon together and go for a short ride in my car. I told her of my mystery date with you, and we enjoyed a good laugh about it, old man, though, of course, she insisted upon my keeping it. And I assure you I had every intention in the world of doing so. But we got out on the Post Road, and it was such a wonderful afternoon—well, anyway, I guess I made love to her, and then miraculously she said she would marry me. I said 'When?' and she replied, 'Oh, it would be so romantic to do it at once.' She was set against a fussy wedding of any kind. Didn't even want to let my dad or sister know. I agreed, of course, being darned lucky to get her any way at all. So we stopped at Stamford. Afterward I telephoned Dad and sent you a telegram, and we started on our honeymoon."
"Great stuff!" Rodrigo enthused. "John, for a lad who has always fought shy of the ladies, you certainly put it over in whirlwind style. What are you going to do now?"
John hitched his chair nearer, beaming with high spirits. "My luck has kept right on rolling in, Rodrigo. I happened to meet a chap from home at the place we were staying. He mentioned that Ned Fernald was putting his new place on the market. It seems Ned isn't so well off as he's supposed to be, and building the place and outfitting it has strapped him so completely that now he's anxious to sell. It's a peach of a big house, with lots of ground, in the Millbank section, a new development. I'm going to get in touch with Ned, and Elise and I have agreed that if we can arrive at the proper price, we'll buy it."
Rodrigo averred that it sounded excellent. "But where is the blushing bride?" he added.
"She's on her way to Greenwich. I just said good-bye to her and her aunt at Grand Central. She's going to stop with Dad and Alice in Greenwich until we get a place of our own."
"She's never met your folks, has she?" asked Rodrigo. He wondered what Henry Dorning would think of his daughter-in-law, whether his experienced old eyes would penetrate to things in her that his infatuated son had never dreamed of.
"I'm sure they'll love her as much as I do," John enthused. "They can't help it. She's the greatest ever. Dad knows Mrs. Palmer, Elise's aunt, very well, so I got her to go along up."
Two hours later, he came back into Rodrigo's office to announce that he was leaving to subway down-town and seek out Edward Fernald, who was a minor partner in a brokerage house on Nassau Street. John confided further that he was, as yet, quite unable to settle down to the workaday problems of Dorning and Son. He was still walking upon air.
"You'll have to put up with my incompetence for a while, till I get used to the idea of being married to the world's greatest wife," he pleaded smilingly with Rodrigo.
"Take your time," soothed the latter. "I'll be indulgent. We don't have a marriage in the firm every day."
"I wish some nice girl like Elise would capture you," John offered seriously.
Rodrigo laughed. "Oh, that's what all you newlyweds preach to us happy old bachelors."
Nevertheless he dropped in to see what Mary thought of the returned and changed Dorning, after John had left.
"Mrs. Dorning is very lucky," said Mary. "John is the sort who will devote his whole life to making his wife happy."
She said it so positively that she put him a trifle on the defensive. "Any normal husband would do that, wouldn't he?" he asked a little challengingly.
She was silent a moment, and then she said, evidently out of a troubled mind and into her typewriter, "Some men aren't equipped to be normal husbands."
He looked at her gravely, his eyes full of love for her. Some day soon he was going to have it out with Mary, he told himself. He would have to. Things couldn't go on with them as they had been. He had called upon her many times now out of office hours, met her mother, taken Mary to the theatre, to art exhibitions, and to concerts and the opera. Always he had avoided making love to her, because he was desperately afraid of losing her through having his intentions misunderstood. He had wanted, on many occasions, to sweep her into his arms, to cover her face with kisses, to claim her for his own, but he was afraid. He could not risk kissing Mary until he was very sure she loved him. Before the Sophie Binner blackmailing episode, he had been optimistic about Mary's feelings toward him. But during the last few months the issue had been cast again into doubt.
Frequently he told himself almost bitterly that if Mary loved him she would be willing to forget utterly anything that had happened to him in the past. But this, in his more rational moments, he knew was asking too much. She was not the sort of girl who rushes blindly into love. Her whole character and training were influences in the opposite direction. Love must come upon her gradually. She must be very sure. Americanized though he was by this time, the very fact that Rodrigo was a man of another country from her own, with other ideals and up-bringing, made the process of falling in love with him for this serious-minded American girl groping and slow. But, once he had won her, he knew that she would be his forever, utterly, without question or regret. That was Mary Drake's way too.
Two weeks later John Dorning announced that he had bought the Fernald house, and he eagerly discussed with Rodrigo furnishing the place according to their high artistic standards. The Italian, on one pretext or another, declined several invitations to go to Greenwich and look over the Fernald property and the married Elise. John was insistent that Rodrigo rush up and congratulate Elise in person, and then just try and deny that John was the luckiest fellow ever born. Elise had been asking for Rodrigo, John said, had urged John to invite him up. Rodrigo smiled benevolently, and declined. He did not, for the time being, wish to face this clever, attractive, and triumphant young lady.
But, at last, when the John Dornings had actually moved into the Fernald house and the rare old furniture andobjets d'art, which Rodrigo had helped to select, were installed to the young householder's liking, Rodrigo could no longer decline the invitation to spend a weekend with them without offending his friend.
Elise met them at the Greenwich station in a trim new little sedan. Rodrigo congratulated her heartily, and she gave him very pretty thanks. She was looking exceptionally alluring, lending an exotic distinction even to the tweedy sport clothes she was wearing.
"I am especially grateful to you, Rodrigo—I suppose I may call you that now," she added, "because you were instrumental in bringing John and me together." Rodrigo glanced at her a little sharply, wondering if there was a double meaning in this. But her smile was serene, though those enigmatic eyes were just a little narrower than normal.
"It is glorious out here. I love it," she tossed over her shoulder to him, as he sat, unusually quiet in the tonneau of the moving car beside his bag and golf sticks. And as she swept the car into the newly made driveway of their artistic home of field-stone and stucco, "Aren't we lucky to get this place? It is the first home of my own that I have ever had. I love every stone in it."
Rodrigo admitted to himself that she was giving an excellent imitation of a very happy young bride.
John showed him through the house later, and Rodrigo was very sincere in his praise of their dwelling and its broad, attractive surroundings. The close-cropped lawn sloped down gradually to a small lake, surrounded by willow trees, a body of fresh water that eventually found its way into the neighboring sound. John explained that there was a concrete dam below, with a private bathing beach of white sand and crystal-clear water. Millbank was a new development, very much restricted and exclusive, with a fine nine-hole golf course just across the lake. When Rodrigo cast pleased eyes upon the links, John recalled that Warren Pritchard, on learning of Rodrigo's coming, had immediately spoken for the guest's company on Sunday morning at the Greenwich Country Club.
"I believe Ben Bryon and Lon Sisson are anxious for a revenge match on account of the beating you and Warren gave them the last time," John explained, indicating by his tone of voice that he didn't consider the engagement so pressing as Warren evidently did, and that he would have preferred to retain Rodrigo's company himself.
"That will be fine," Rodrigo enthused. "That is, if you haven't other plans for me, John?" John shook his head in the negative.
He motored to Stamford that evening with his host and hostess and attended the first night of a polite comedy, destined for its New York premiere the following week. The play was not particularly interesting, and Rodrigo paid more attention to the audience than to the stage. It was a mixed crowd of typical small-towners, well dressed and highly sun-tanned people from adjacent Long Island Sound resorts, and professionals from Broadway who were either interested in the production or the players. He recognized the producer of the piece, a jolly, corpulent individual whom he had met at the Coffee House Club. They ran into each other in the outside lobby between the first and second act, and the theatrical admitted blithely that he had a "flop" and was debating whether to dismiss the company at once and forfeit his deposit on the lease of the Broadway theatre or chance a performance in New York.
To Rodrigo, walking down the aisle as the orchestra was playing the unmelodious prelude to the second act, came the realization anew that Elise was quite the most striking-looking woman he had ever known. Her creamy white shoulders billowing up from her black evening dress, her raven hair sleeked tightly against her skull, her dark eyes either feeling or feigning vivacious interest as she inclined her head to listen to John's animated conversation, she was easily the most beautiful person in front or behind the footlights. He sensed the strong magnetism of her presence as he took the seat on the other side of her, and she said smilingly to him, "I was telling John how bad this play is, but he seems only to have noticed that the settings are in atrocious taste."
"He's right," Rodrigo acknowledged, and, thinking this was rather curt, added, "And so are you."
"You find the audience more interesting?" she asked shrewdly.
"Yes, part of it," he said quickly, without thinking, and then cursed himself for betraying that she exerted some of her old spell over him. A sudden enigmatic smile crinkled her eyes and mouth as she gazed full at him an instant, then turned abruptly to John.
He played golf with John's brother-in-law and his two companions the next morning and had the satisfaction of being largely responsible for another victory for Pritchard and himself. The latter was as tickled as if he had captured a championship. "Come again next week-end, Rodrigo, and we'll give these birds a real ride," he proclaimed loudly for the defeated ones' benefit. But Rodrigo would not promise.
In the afternoon he pleaded pressure of work and an unbreakable dinner engagement as an excuse for leaving. John protested loudly, but his guest was adamant. At about five o'clock, they drove him to the station. Elise took the seat beside him in the tonneau and, just before they reached the station, she asked, "When are we to see you again? I was in town two or three times last week. Twice I telephoned John for lunch, and he was too busy or out or something. The next time, I warn you, I am going to invite you to give me luncheon, Rodrigo, and you mustn't refuse me." And as if to assure him that her intentions were innocent, she repeated the same thing to John in a louder voice. He laughed back and said, "Of course. I want you two to be great friends."
"Isn't she the most wonderful wife in the world?" John whispered to him as he grasped the step-rods of the train.
"Yes, she is a wonderful woman," Rodrigo replied sincerely, and looked over John's head to return her languid wave of good-bye.
Going back in the train, he thought of her and John, and of their chances for happiness. He recalled the conversation Warren Pritchard had hesitantly started on the way to the golf links that morning, and then dropped.
"I say, Rodrigo," Warren had begun, after fumbling around obviously for an opening, "I know it may sound caddish of me, and I shouldn't be talking this way, but what really do you know of this lady whom my brother-in-law has married?"
"Oh, I only know her slightly," Rodrigo had replied offhandedly. "She comes of an excellent San Francisco family, I believe, connected with the Palmers—your father-in-law knows the Palmers well."
"I wasn't thinking of her family. But will she make old John happy?"
"Why not?"
"Oh, I don't know. She isn't at all the sort I would have thought John would have picked for a wife. Very stunning woman, worldly wise, she must have had hundreds of men eager to marry her. John is a fine chap, we all know, but he's not the kind to knock a beautiful woman's eye out exactly."
"She seems to love him very much. And he's crazy about her, of course. Their marriage looks very promising to me."
Warren shrugged his broad shoulders. "Oh, well, it's as I thought. If you do know anything more about her, you're too damned much of a gentleman to spill it—and I'm not enough of a scoundrel to press you for it. I may add, though, in my own justification and with his sanction, that my honored father-in-law is the one who is slightly worried and who set me up to questioning you. Frankly, he is a bit suspicious of the lady. And his judgment is not to be slighted, you know; he has an uncanny faculty for fathoming folks."
The more praise for Henry Dorning's acumen, Rodrigo had thought, and the more pity too, for it is not pleasant to note rumblings of disaster from afar and to be unable either to warn or to confide.
About a week later, Rodrigo had a business conference that resulted in an unexpected meeting and a pleasant adventure compensating in some measure for his ill success in thwarting the clever Elise.
He had been conferring in the studio of a mural painter named Washburn, who was doing some highly intricate work for Dorning and Son, when he happened to look at his watch and discovered it was after one o'clock in the afternoon. Neither had had lunch, and Washburn invited Rodrigo to accompany him to a luncheon gathering of the Dutch Treat Club, an organization of the most successful artists, authors and other members of the intelligentsia in New York, at the Hotel Martinique.
The luncheon was already in progress when they entered the crowded room, but they managed to find two vacant chairs at a round table of chattering men.
"Well—it's the Count himself!" came a booming voice from the chair beside Rodrigo and he stared into the welcoming face of Bill Terhune.
They had little opportunity to talk during the luncheon and the program of entertainment that followed, consisting of an ex-heavyweight champion pugilist, who offered racy reminiscences of his famous victory over John L. Sullivan, and a very ebullient Russian soprano. But Washburn left them later, and Rodrigo enjoyed a talk with his friend as they mingled with the crowds on sunshiny Fifth Avenue.
"You look great, Bill," Rodrigo said sincerely.
"Haven't touched a drop since that night with Binner and her friend," Terhune declared solemnly. "You know, that party taught me a lesson. I got home the next night and found my wife had been very seriously ill—an attack of ptomaine or something that blamed near carried her off. And I had lied to her and told her I was detained in town on business. She was feeling rotten when I phoned the lie, but she told me of course to stay. Well, it brought me to my senses, and I took the pledge then and there. You know, a fellow don't know how lucky he is to have a wife like mine till he darned near loses her. I'm the model husband from now on, old boy. Swore off my class reunion at Princeton and everything." Bill looked at his companion, a little abashed at his long, intense confession. He tried to pass it off by saying more lightly, "Say, you ought to meet my wife. Why don't you?"
"Why don't you let me then?" Rodrigo grinned in reply.
"By Jove, I will," Bill resolved. "Say—I tell you. I've got a couple of extra tickets for the Princeton-Yale commencement baseball game at Princeton Saturday. Why don't you get somebody and come along with us? You'll like it. You've never seen anything like it—all the Princeton grads parading in costume, plenty of color and jazz and all that sort of thing. Have you got a girl or somebody to take? Not Binner, of course."
So it happened that Rodrigo drove Mary Drake over to the Terhune home in East Orange the next Saturday bright and early in the morning. Bill's wife proved to be a very pretty, vivacious girl of about Mary's own age. There was a three-year-old daughter who took to Rodrigo and Mary at once and embarrassed them by asking innocently if they were married.
They started off merrily, the girls in the back seat and the men in front, and joined the long procession of blue and orange-and-black bannered cars rolling along the road out of Newark and across the New Jersey flats.
Princeton was jammed with gay throngs. All the vacant lots were dotted with reunion tents, and old and young men in Scottish Highlander costumes, sailor suits, clown suits, and all manner of outlandish rigs mingled with the plain citizens and pretty girls on Nassau Street. Having parked the car, they joined the mobs. Bill had to stop every few feet, it seemed to Rodrigo, to greet friends of his college days. Rodrigo judged that his companion must have been the most popular man who ever went to Princeton.
Bill took them to lunch at his club down Prospect Street with its close-cropped lawns and cool shade-trees. Afterward he left them momentarily to parade with his class into the athletic field, Rodrigo escorting the two girls to their seats in the crowded grandstand. It was a gorgeous panorama of color, youth and vivacity. Never had Mary Drake seemed so happy and carefree. Never had she smiled at him so gayly and intimately, Rodrigo told himself.
To make the afternoon's pleasure complete, Princeton won the ball game and the Terhune party stood up on the wooden boards and watched the mad, whirling phantasmagoria of victory-crazed undergraduates and graduates alike gyrating in dervish fashion in the age-old snake dance down there on the scene of the triumph.
They motored back at a snail's pace, forced to throttle their speed by the long lines of cars ahead of them. They stopped in Newark and had dinner at a clean little restaurant on South Broad Street. Later, Rodrigo secured his own car from Bill's garage and, with sincere expressions of thanks and farewell, left the happy Terhune family waving at them from the trim suburban lawn.
"Oh, I have loved every minute of it!" Mary exclaimed when they were alone. "Thank you a thousand times for inviting me along."
"Its been wonderful to have you," he replied. "You've added a lot to my pleasure. We'll have lots of nice little parties this summer, Mary—at the beach and other places."
Later she said, as if she had been reflecting upon it for some time, "I did not know you were acquainted with and liked quiet, homey people like the Terhunes."
And he was very glad that Bill had changed.
The summer droned by, with the requisite number of heat waves, during which the newspapers screamed in black headlines of prostrations and of hundreds of thousands sleeping on Coney Island's sands; and the compensating number of comfortable periods in between too. John Dorning showed an ever-growing inclination to spend these hot spells away from the office, idling under the willows at Millbank. In many weeks, he did not appear on Fifth Avenue more than two or three days. John was making up for the long years he had kept clerk's hours, winter and summer. For the first time in his life, he had learned how to play. He had found in Elise an interest even more confining than Dorning and Son. He was hardly happy away from her.
Rodrigo rather enjoyed the added responsibility placed upon his own shoulders. And he did not particularly mind the heat. Frequently he would bundle himself and Mary Drake, who had taken over some of the recreant John's duties and was working harder than ever, into his recently purchased roadster, late in the afternoon, and dash out of the city's glare to Long Beach for a cooling swim. They would have supper at a shore roadhouse on the return, and he would deliver her to her Brooklyn home while it was still early in the evening, remaining for a chat with Mary and her mother or going back to New York for a theatre or other engagement. Rodrigo was quite sure that Mrs. Drake, who was keen-witted in spite of her wan face and mouselike quietness, liked him and approved of his interest in Mary.
Late in August, a museum project upon which John Dorning had been working for nearly a year, abruptly came up for decision and the committee in charge requested him to come out and meet with them. Rodrigo offered himself as a substitute, but John's conscience asserted itself at last and he declared he must really make the trip in person. It was the first time Elise and he had been separated, and he did not fancy it in the least, though it would be for only three days. Nevertheless, he superintended the packing of the models of the pieces Dorning and Son had submitted, saw them shipped off, and followed them two days later.
The morning after he left, Rodrigo's telephone rang. Elise was on the wire inviting him to take her to lunch. She was at Grand Central, she said, and would meet him at twelve-thirty. Rodrigo was filled with a curious mixture of annoyance and pleasure. She had promised frankly in the presence of her husband to do this very thing. There could be no harm in it. And yet he knew that there would always be danger to him in being alone anywhere with this woman, and the danger, he had to admit, was what gave the thing its interest. He finally issued the desired invitation and met her in the lobby of the Biltmore.
She was the soul of cool loveliness and discretion as they chatted over the salad and iced tea. Her friendliness lulled to sleep the resentment he now unconsciously always erected against her.
"I called you up one afternoon lately," she offered innocently, stirring the tall, iced glass with the long glass spoon, "and they told me at the office that you had gone to Long Beach swimming. It's so stiflingly hot this afternoon. Wouldn't it be jolly to be out there?"
He admitted that it would.
"You're thinking that I am frightfully bold," she admitted. "And Iam. Frightfully warm too. Won't you, for John's sake, prevent John's wife from perishing by taking her swimming? Or did your mother once warn you not to go near the water?"
She could have followed no surer course of goading him to comply with her wishes. Rodrigo flushed. His dark eyes shone. No woman had ever before told him thus bluntly that he was afraid of her. He accepted the dare. "I keep my car in a garage near here," he said rather curtly. "If you will wait a few moments in the lobby, I will pick you up, and we will spend the afternoon as you suggest."
They hardly spoke as he whipped the car in and out through the closely packed traffic of the uptown streets and the Queensboro Bridge. Once out beyond Long Island City, he pressed upon the accelerator and conversation became almost impossible. Long Beach was nearly as crowded as upon a Saturday or Sunday. It was by no means an exclusive resort. The children of the proletariat mingled with paunchy stock brokers and with actresses looking strangely old, with the artificial coloring washed off their faces by the relentless salt water.
Elsie and Rodrigo changed into rented bathing suits. Even in the makeshift outfit, she looked amazingly well, and he was quick to tell her so. She acknowledged the compliment with her slow, languid smile. "You are quite an Adonis yourself, as you probably know," she drawled, and raced him into the surf. They alternately swam and rested side by side upon the sand until dusk. Elise seemed to be content to act the witty, cheerful companion and Rodrigo dropped his guard and enjoyed himself. He had not known she could be so impersonally charming. This was the side of her varied personality that she had shown to John, that had enthralled him. Rodrigo could understand the attraction which she had for his friend now.
Rodrigo clasped his hands under his head, sprawled at full length upon the white sand and allowed thoughts of Dorning and Son and even of Mary to slip from his mind. He was oblivious of the world as he looked idly out into the tumbling surf, oblivious of Elise until she addressed a trivial, bantering remark to him. He turned lazily to face her and said, "You are a wonderful sport when you want to be, aren't you, Elise?"
"I should arise and make you a pretty courtesy if it weren't so warm," she replied with equal unconcern. And, after an interval, she added dryly, "You really fancy this stenographer-and-employer style of spending an afternoon in the great open spaces?"
He looked at her quickly, but he decided that she alluded not to Mary Drake in particular, but to the crowd in general that shared the sand with them, and he had to admit that there were many couples among them that seemed to answer her description.
"My tastes are simple," he said lightly. "The proletarian ideas of pleasures seem to appeal to me."
"I didn't know the European nobility had turned so democratic," she jibed.
"The Prince of Wales is our mentor. When on Long Island, do as the Prince does. But really, my title means very little, you know. And I am three-quarters an American by this time. I took out my first citizenship papers last week."
She protested at once, "You shouldn't have done that. It means that you renounce your title, doesn't it? Rodrigo, you shouldn't. Now I suppose you will marry some simple American girl, have a house in Westchester, and raise a brood of ruddy-faced little American urchins."
"That would be great stuff," he admitted.
"Fancy the immaculately attired Count Torriani hoeing a garden," she laughed. "But I can't fancy it—it requires too much imagination for such a warm day. Moreover, I am hungry, kind sir. Could you possibly give me a lobster dinner somewhere about here? I should love it."
He sprang up at once with an exclamation of assent. They dressed in their respective bath-houses. Later they dined slowly and satisfactorily at the Hotel Nassau and started back for New York in the sultry dusk of the summer evening. The salt tang was heavy in the air. A slight breeze was making fitful efforts to blow in toward them from the sea. Most of the day-time sojourners at Long Beach had already departed for apartment house dinners and engagements in town; the night crowd had not yet arrived. The roads were, in consequence, comparatively deserted.
They spun along in silence for half an hour or more. Then she said quietly, "You have not tried to make love to me at all, have you?"
His hand trembled slightly on the wheel and he pretended not to have heard her.
"Do you then find me less attractive than you once did, Rodrigo?" she asked.
"You are very beautiful," he said gravely, without looking at her. "But you happen now to be the wife of my best friend."
"In the suburban community in which we reside, it is considered quiteau faitto flirt with one's friends' wives," she offered with simulated innocence.
"Really?" he countered. "But I am just a conventional New Yorker."
She had edged closer to him and the attraction of her presence was undeniable. But when, after several minutes, he showed no inclination to pursue the theme, she slumped into the seat away from him and said coolly, "You may drop me at my aunt's. I have an engagement with her to attend some fearful concert or other. Unless you would care to drive me all the way to Greenwich."
"I too unfortunately have an engagement," he prevaricated so quickly that she recognized it as a prevarication.
Soon they were in the congested, sprawly, factory-studded Long Island City and had joined the slow-moving line of cars headed across the Fifty-ninth Street bridge for the metropolis.
He parted with her at the residence of Mrs. Porter Palmer, saying in adieu, "I have truly enjoyed our little jaunt very much, Elise." She smiled and left him non-committedly. He thoughtfully piloted the car back to the garage.
After putting the car away, he walked back through the still sweltering streets to his apartment. A telegram rested upon the center table. It was from John Dorning and stated that unforeseen developments would keep him in Philadelphia over the week-end. Rodrigo smiled at John's probable whole-hearted annoyance at fate for forcing him to remain at the home of the pompous chairman of the library committee.
A special delivery letter, pink and delicately scented, arrived at Rodrigo's office the next afternoon.
DEAR RODRIGO:
Please come out with us for the week-end. John and I will be so delighted. Telephone me when to meet you.
ELISE.
He frowned and tore the note into bits. Undoubtedly she too had received word from John that he would not be home. Why was she still trying to involve him? He tried in vain to excuse her, to convince himself that she did not know of her husband's intended absence. He decided to ignore the invitation entirely.
John Dorning did not appear at his office until Tuesday morning. Yes, he said, he had concluded his mission satisfactorily, though he would probably have to return to Philadelphia a few weeks later to supervise the installation of the paintings and statuary involved in the deal. He discussed the matter lugubriously in Rodrigo's office.
"Of course you, being a confirmed old bachelor, can't appreciate what it means being away from your home and wife," he said half-seriously, while Rodrigo smiled indulgently. "I never was so glad to see Elise in my life." His face sobered a bit. "But tell me, Rodrigo, there is no—er—constraint of any kind between Elise and you, is there? You are the same old friends, aren't you?"
Rodrigo was on his guard instantly. "Of course. Why?"
"Nothing—only she tells me she wrote you a letter, before she got my wire that I wouldn't be home for the week-end, inviting you up, and you never even acknowledged it."
"It was caddish of me," Rodrigo replied. "I'm sorry. I'll apologize very humbly to Elise the first time I see her."
John put up a deprecating hand. "Oh, that's all right, old boy. Only I'm so anxious for you and Elise to be close friends. You don't know what a wonderful girl she really is. You know, I'm so incredibly happy that I want to share the cause of my happiness—Elise—with you as much as I can. I feel you're being cheated, sort of, because you haven't found the right girl too."
Rodrigo regarded him thoughtfully. "You are happy, aren't you? I don't believe I deserve that kind of happiness. If I did, I'd go after it. Because I really believe that I have found the right girl. Next to you, she's been the biggest help in the world to me."
"Rodrigo! That's great." John's eyes were wide with pleasure. "Who is she?"
"Mary Drake," Rodrigo said with quick intensity. "But I don't deserve a fine girl like her. I haven't the nerve to—"
John walked over, his back to the door, and put his arm upon his friend's shoulder. "Don't you think she would be the best judge of that? Have you told her that you love her?"
Rodrigo shook his head.
John continued. "But is that fair to her? Suppose she loves you—and—you know, if I'm any judge, I think probably she does."
"How could she?" Rodrigo suddenly cried emotionally. "A girl like her—all soul and sweetness. I know that love doesn't demand perfections. If I told her I loved her, I couldn't lie to her—I would have to tell her the whole truth about my past, about Rosa and Sophie and the rest. She might forgive—but she might despise me too. And I couldn't stand that, John. When I first knew I cared for her, I made up my mind to attend strictly to business and to make myself worthy of Mary. And I have. With the exception of that harmless little episode with Sophie Binner, I haven't taken my nose from the grindstone a minute. And yet I'm not the man for a girl like Mary."
"That's just egotism, Rodrigo," John said sternly. "You're setting yourself up as a sort of God over Mary's destiny as well as your own. You haven't looked at the matter from her point of view at all. You think you could be happy with her?"
"I know it—I dream of nothing else!"
"Then why don't you give her the chance to say whether or not she could be happy with you? Perhaps she dreams of nothing else too. None of us are angels. None of us are privileged to ignore any chances of happiness. It's up to each one of us, man or woman, to accept humbly, gratefully, every bit of real happiness and beauty that life sends our way."
"You're right, John," Rodrigo replied simply. He tried to turn the conversation to a lighter vein, to conceal how deeply he was moved. "You're quite a philosopher, aren't you, old man? God bless you for it. I know you think a lot of Mary, and of me, and I'm grateful." His eyes suddenly turned toward the door as he realized that a third person had stepped into the room.
A clerk was standing uneasily just over the threshold, and now said in considerable agitation, "A Mr. Rosner is here to see Mr. Dorning."
"Damn!" exclaimed John. "Send him away and tell him to come back to-morrow. I'm frightfully busy."
The clerk hesitated. "He said it was very urgent."
Dorning had turned his back toward the door and was facing Rodrigo. To his surprise, he saw the latter suddenly stare, grow tense and excited. John wheeled around as Rodrigo took a quick stride toward the door.
Rosner, without waiting for the clerk's answer, had slipped past him and into the office. And what a Rosner! Putty-pale, gaunt-cheeked, unshaven, wild-eyed!
"Thought you'd send me away, eh?" he almost screamed. "See me to-morrow, eh? Well, you'll see me now, John Dorning!"
Rodrigo quickly slammed the door shut and, turning to Rosner, whipped out, "Don't yell like a madman, Rosner. Sit down and tell us what it's all about."
"I've got nothing to do withyou," Rosner cried fiercely. "It's him I got to reckon with." He pointed at John. The man was shaking all over, his eyes blazing with a strange light. "He knows! He sold me that black and ruby Huin Tsin vase—five thousand dollars. He knew I had to buy it. I had to replace it for a customer, or go out of business. He knew that."
"It was less than it was worth," John tried to explain. "And I took your note."
"I know damned well you did, damned well!" cried the hysterical Rosner. "And your father took a mortgage."
"Mr. Dorning's lawyer, Mr. Bates—Emerson Bates—is the man to see about that. Mr. Dorning doesn't handle those matters at all." Rodrigo tried to soothe the ranting Rosner. The man was ill, beside himself.
"Lawyers are paid to do as they're told!" Rosner yelled hoarsely, gasping as if his emotions would not allow him to talk. "I've been in the hospital—three months—out of my head most of the time. Yesterday they took me home. Mortgage foreclosed. Everything going at auction! My wife is sick. They—say she may die. I'm out of business, do you hear! Down and out! That's what you big men try to do, push us little fellows out, crush us, kill us! You big concerns with all your money. Cornering all the valuable stock, making us pay the price for it!" A sudden look of cruel cunning crept into his mad eyes. "But there's something your dollars can't get you now—and that's the chance to do it again!"
With a quick clutch at the pocket of his ragged coat he brought out a revolver and pointed it, with a snarl, at John. His hand held it unsteadily. He groped crazily for the trigger.
John Dorning let out an exclamation of terror. He cried, "Rodrigo!"
"Shut up!" Rodrigo cut in savagely, at the same time walking quickly, boldly up to Rosner, staring steadily into the madman's eyes.
"Stand still," cried Rosner, but his hand and his voice were wavering. He looked almost pleadingly at Rodrigo. "If you m—move again, I'll shoot."
"No, you won't," said Rodrigo calmly, clearly. "Rosner, if you pull that trigger, what will become of your wife and children?" With a stealthy, quick movement he pushed John Dorning behind him. Rosner made a half-hearted effort to resist as Rodrigo seized his wrist in a clutch of steel and knocked the gun out of the man's weak fingers. Rodrigo put the revolver in his own pocket and, the tension over, stood regarding Rosner with a look of infinite pity. Then the reaction hit the broken man with full force and, suddenly crumpling into a chair, he covered his face with his hands and his thin body was shaken with hacking, convulsive sobs.
John and Rodrigo stood looking at him in silence for a moment, and then Rodrigo said quietly, "You'd better speak to him, John."
Rosner had quieted a little now, and John put his hand upon his bent shoulder. "Don't worry, old man," he said. "I'm terribly sorry. It's a mistake all around. Dad and I would never have let this happen for the world, had we been told anything about it. Forget the vase and the mortgage—and I'll lend you anything you want to see you through."
Rosner raised a haggard, tear-swollen face. "My wife," he whispered huskily, "is sick. And they told her I—I was out of my head."
John patted Rosner's shoulder. "Well, you're all right now, aren't you? Sure—fine."
"I'll telephone Bates, and Madison can see Rosner home and do anything necessary for his wife," Rodrigo suggested in an undertone to John.
"No, I'll go myself," John said. He helped the broken man to his feet and located his hat for him.
Dazed, but strangely sane again and hopeful, Rosner turned to John and said in an awed, puzzled voice, "I meant—to shoot." And, indicating Rodrigo, "It was him that stopped me. Oh, thank God!—thank God!"
He allowed John to lead him out of the office and stood waiting calmly outside for a moment while John went for his own hat. Dorning darted back, a moment later, to Rodrigo. Still flushed with excitement, he held out his hand, his eyes expressing his full heart. "Rodrigo!"
Rodrigo took his hand. "We think we've got our problems, but they don't amount to a thing, do they?—not a thing," he said thoughtfully.
"It's my life—that I owe—" John began.
But Rodrigo stopped him. "Forget it," he advised. "Nobody knows what happened, and nobody needs to. There's just one thing I want you to promise—I want you to agree that we give Rosner a job here when he's fit to work again."
John smiled. "I was thinking of the same thing myself. I'll tell him about it on the way to his home."
"I DARE YOU TO KISS ME--AND LET ME GO?" ELISE BREATHED."I DARE YOU TO KISS ME—AND LET ME GO?" ELISE BREATHED.
One summery September morning, a month later, John Dorning, gloom written on his face, walked into Rodrigo's office and laid a letter ruefully upon his desk.
"The dread summons has come," John announced. "Ferris wants me to be in Philadelphia in the morning. The painting and pieces are there and he wants to see me about arranging them and having plaques made and all that sort of thing. What a bore! That's the annoying part of this business, Rodrigo—when you've made a sale, your troubles have just begun. Your customers know so little about what they're buying that you have to take it home for them and keep it dusted and—oh, it's a nuisance."
Still fussing, John left for Greenwich early that afternoon, intending to go all the way home and return to New York to catch the midnight train for Philadelphia, rather than miss the precious hours with Elise.
The afternoon following John's departure brought two unexpected developments. Rodrigo received a long telegram from his partner. The painstaking Ferris wished estimates at once upon some new specimens of Italian sculpture. He also desired to see new models. John suggested that Rodrigo secure both at once and meet him at his hotel in Philadelphia early the next morning. He indicated that competitors were interested in the new proposition and that there was consequently need for both secrecy and haste.
Rodrigo hurried out of the office. He would have to secure some of the desired pieces from a certain private collection, which he was quite sure could be purchased on the spot.
He was, as a result, not present when Elise appeared in the establishment of Dorning and Son about three o'clock in the afternoon.
The wife of John Dorning occasioned frank glances of admiration from her husband's staff as she walked gracefully through the exhibition rooms and into John's office. She was looking marvelously well in her new, svelte fall costume, and she was quite aware of it. John Dorning's money permitted her to give her striking beauty an adequately luxurious setting.
She was not sorry to find Mary Drake alone in her husband's office. She was curious to make a more intimate study of this pretty blond girl, whom she had previously noticed and spoken to but casually. For John had indiscreetly shared Rodrigo's love secret with his wife. Though there had been a tacit agreement between the men that Rodrigo's regard for Mary was to be held in confidence, John had quite innocently told Elise about it. Were they not equally interested in seeing their friend happy? John had, of course, not noticed Elise's face turn cloudy for an instant as he related the news to her.
Elise now concealed her real feeling toward Mary Drake behind a voice of almost excessive sweetness as she asked, "Is Count Torriani outside the building?"
"Yes, Mrs. Dorning. But he will probably be back at any moment."
"I shall wait here then—if you don't mind," Elise said quietly, settling herself down comfortably in the chair beside the desk, while Mary resumed her work of opening John's afternoon mail.
For several minutes, Elise carefully considered the delicate-faced girl before her. What did Rodrigo see in this pale creature? Good Lord, he couldn't be serious. She felt a resentment against Mary, a feeling of enmity that was really a rising jealousy. As the moments passed, she suddenly was seized with a desire to crush her,——
"I understand from Mr. Dorning that you and Count Torriani are good friends—something more, perhaps, than just—secretary and employer?" Elise said suddenly, striving with an effort to keep the suavity in her voice and make what she had resolved to say sound as casual and friendly as possible.
Mary looked up with a start, her eyes questioning and a faint pink suffusing her cheeks.
"I hope you won't misunderstand what I have to say or think me impertinent," Elise went on. "You have been associated with Mr. Dorning so long that I feel that you are almost one of our family." Elise forced a smile, striving to disarm the disconcerted Mary. "From several things Mr. Dorning has told me, I gather that Count Torriani has been very attentive to you in—a social way?"
Mary rose and faced Elise coldly. "Mrs. Dorning, I do not care——"
"I assure you I have the best intentions in the world," Elise cut in quickly. "I understand you have not encouraged Count Torriani. In that, you show your excellent sense. Nevertheless, I know Count Torriani so well that I feel I must warn you further. He is not what people call—a marrying man. And I don't believe that you are the sort of girl who would care to——"
"Mrs. Dorning, please!" Mary cried sharply. Then she relaxed a little her tense attitude. John had so often sung the praises of his sweet, unselfish wife. Perhaps she was misjudging Elise's motives. She faltered in a more conciliatory tone, "You mean to be kind, of course, but——"
"I do, I do. Mr. Dorning and I have seen so much unhappiness caused by Rodrigo's impulsiveness and thoughtlessness. And you seem so much above the average type."
"Thank you," said Mary. Hurt, outraged, she yet managed to be calm. "But I can assure you that you need distress yourself no further on my account."
"I must—even at the risk of making you angry at me. Of course, John and Rodrigo have always been close friends, almost like brothers. Even in that dreadful Sophie Binner mess, John stood by him. Rodrigo is in many ways a fine man, but he has the continental ideas of love, you know. He scoffs at our American worship of faithfulness. He has been the hero of so many affairs, known so many worldly women, that I am sure the thought of marriage has never entered his head. He could never settle down and make a wife happy."
"You misjudge him—you must!" Mary said hoarsely, but her defense did not even convince herself. Elise was but putting into brutal words the answer Mary herself did not want to give to the questions which had been agitating her mind and heart for months. And who could say that Elise's answer was not the true one? The past of Rodrigo was undeniable. And what proof was there, Mary forced herself to ask, that he had not been playing with her too?
"You are so invaluable here," Elise went on caressingly. "It would be a shame if—that is, Rodrigo would be the first to blame himself if his thoughtlessness compelled you to——"
But in that veiled threat, Elise went just a little too far. Amid the confusion in Mary Drake's mind came a flash of intuition. She relaxed her tense posture and stared at Elise quietly. She understood what the wife of John Dorning was driving at now—what it meant to her own relations with Rodrigo. Mary made a sudden radical decision.
She said quietly to Elise, "I understand you, Mrs. Dorning. I understand both Count Torriani—and you. In any case I am leaving—at the end of the week."
"Oh, I didn't know that," Elise replied sympathetically, striving to keep the relief out of her voice. She had accomplished her purpose far more completely and with less effort than she had anticipated. This puritanical miss, she had realized, must be eliminated. And now, it developed, the good angel was eliminating herself.
Both women looked up quickly as the door opened to admit Rodrigo. Without a word Mary turned and walked out past him with such a white and troubled countenance that, his eyes turned grave and followed her questioningly. When he shifted them to Elise, there was a glint of accusation in their dark depths, though he said nothing about Mary. Instead he greeted the wife of his friend with a colorless "This is a surprise."
"Is it?" she asked in a voice of velvet, resolving to humor him. "I am merely following John's instructions. He said you were to take me to tea, dinner, and the concert at Aeolian Hall later."
"That was before the old boy telegraphed me all this extra work," he said with affected good nature. What the devil, he was asking himself, had she said to Mary—if anything? He said to Elise pointedly, indicating the bulging brief case he laid upon the desk, "I'll have to work here every minute on this stuff until I catch the midnight train for Philadelphia, if I'm to have things shipshape bright and early in the morning as John instructed."
Her face clouded with annoyance. What an evasive, exasperating man he was. But the very fact that he was going to such lengths to avoid being alone with her only added stimulus to the game for Elise. "You're really going to stay in this stuffy place until midnight?" she asked casually.
"I'm afraid I'll have to," he replied. "Please don't think I'm a boor or anything of that sort, Elise. I should like nothing better than to spend the rest of the day and evening with you, but—some other time."
"Why didn't you answer my letter inviting you to Greenwich for the week-end?"
"Because I received a wire from John that he wasn't returning until the following Monday," he said sharply. "And I naturally supposed you had received the same information and that it automatically cancelled the invitation."
A little smile played around her lips and she said softly, "What a safe and sane and altogether good person you have developed into, Rodrigo." She picked up her purse from the table and rose slowly to her feet. "Well, I suppose I can call Rita Corson or somebody. You're sure you are playing the business slave?"
"I'm sorry," he bowed. "Some evening soon we'll make it a foursome with John and you and Mary and me."
"How interesting," she smiled, and he saw her to the door.
He watched her wending her serene way down the deserted aisle to the street door, then picked up his brief case and went into his own office. A few minutes later, he heard footsteps and judged correctly that it was Mary returning to her sanctum for her coat and hat. He unbuckled his brief case and took out of it a slender book bound in blue and gold. He walked quickly out through the main room and into the office marked "John Dorning." Mary was seated at John's desk staring into space, her eyes a little moist and red.
"I've found the book we were talking about the other evening, Mary," he said cheerfully. "'The Anonymous Sonnets.' I located it in Dobell's collection."
She summoned an answering smile, but her voice was dull as she said. "You have a treasure then. It's very rare."
He came closer. "It isn't for me, Mary. I intended it for your birthday to-morrow."
"It must have cost a fortune, Rodrigo—I can't accept it," she replied in a low voice.
He looked at her blankly. "But why not? What's wrong, Mary?"
"I hope you won't think me ungrateful. But circumstances have developed—that make it necessary for me to leave my position here at the end of the week—or at least as soon you can get someone to replace me."
"Nonsense," he cried impulsively. "I know—someone has been talking to you. But I'm not going to let you go." He suddenly felt happiness sweeping away from him, darkness closing in, all that he held dear escaping him. He clutched at her hand and cried quickly, pleadingly, "Mary! You can't! I need you—I love you! I want you to be my wife." She looked at him, startled, frightened, afraid to trust herself to speak. Emotion surged from him, "Oh, haven't you seen how much I cared?" Then, a light and a terrible forecast of disaster dawning, "Have you been afraid of this? Is that why you're leaving?"
"Please, Rodrigo," she almost whispered. "I'm grateful—and honored—but——"
"Don't say that yet, Mary. I've so much to tell you. So much that you must believe."
She looked at him now with clear, resigned eyes. She said quietly, "Is there any use of it?"
"Not if you—couldn't love me. If you don't believe in my love, or that I could make you happy."
She replied slowly, "How I wish I could say to you, or put clearly to myself, all that is in my mind. I wish I dared listen to you. But it will be easier for both of us—the less there is to remember. Please let me go."
Despair crept into his voice as he answered her, "Perhaps you have condemned me already. Is that what you mean?"
She said proudly, "You don't understand. If I was sure I loved a man, and wanted to marry him, it would be for what he meant to me, not what he had meant to other women." He started eagerly to interrupt, but she held up her hand. "But even if you were that man," she said firmly, "I wouldn't say 'yes.' It would only mean unhappiness for both of us—in the end. We are not meant for each other."
"But why?—why?" he cried.
She replied, "I cannot tell you."
"It's unjust. Unfair! You're denying me—and perhaps yourself—the greatest happiness in the world, and giving no reason for it."
"Please!" she cried, as he seemed about to sweep her into his arms, to crush out all of her doubts and questionings. "There is so much unnecessary suffering in the world. Let us spare ourselves any needless pain. I mean what I have said—and please believe that I am sorry—for both of us."
He followed her with stricken, beaten eyes as she slowly walked into her office and took her hat and coat.
"Good-bye, Mary," he said as calmly as he could.
"Good-bye," she said. "I shall be in in the the morning—as usual."
As usual! When she had gone, he flung himself into John's chair and put his head into his arms, pressing his fingers into his forehead to crush out the pain that was there. He remained thus for half an hour, unable to think, to move, aching in body and soul. Then, gradually, a reaction set in. Why had he to suffer so? Why had the only pure love he had ever had in his life been cast aside as if it were something presumptuous, unclean?
He forced himself to his feet and walked into his own office, hardly knowing what he was doing, and, spreading the papers from his brief case out upon his desk, he tried to work on the new estimates for Dorning. He was starting to pity himself now, and gradually a fierce resentment, not against Mary—for he still loved Mary—but against the whole scheme of things, the world with its petty moral code, seized him. He laughed aloud, and it echoed very unpleasantly through the vacant office. Bah! What was the use of burying his past, when the past had arisen from its coffin to mock him at the critical moment. Bah! Why deny one's self pleasures, why fight against women like Elise, why try to change the leopard's spots when the world chose to think them blacker than they really were?
He tossed his pencil down impatiently and took to pacing the office. A mad, reckless mood was coming upon him that he could not control. It was after nine o'clock when finally he forced himself back into his chair, his mind having been wrenched into a semblance of order, and resumed his labors upon the report.
He did not hear the light tap upon his door. It was not until the door softly opened and quietly closed again that he became aware that a second person was in the room.
Elise was standing just inside the door, smiling at him from the shadows.
She had changed her costume. A gauzy black wrap covered her black evening gown, from which her white shoulders could be seen rising. Her small, tight-fitting black hat was draped with black lace that shaded her eyes almost with the effect of a mask. She was quite aware of the impression she made as she stood there silently. The tired man raised his eyes and stared at her. Then he pulled his long, handsome body out of the chair and arose questioningly.
At length she approached him and said lightly, "Ah, you are a man of your word after all. I was afraid the work was just a bluff."
"Why have you come back?" he asked almost sharply from behind the table. "You must go at once."
"Oh, don't be annoyed, Rodrigo. No one saw me come in. I have a private key to the place, you know. Please don't begrudge me the innocent pleasure of doing something slightly clandestine." She came near to the chair opposite him, and went on, "And now that I am here, won't you be a polite host and ask me to sit down?" Without waiting for the invitation, she took the chair, laying aside her wrap as she did so.
He sank into the chair opposite and rustled the papers uneasily.
"I haven't had dinner yet, Rodrigo," she suggested. "I thought that if I came back you might relent and take me to dinner. In fact, I was so sure of it that I dashed up to Aunt Helen's and changed my gown."
He was silent for a moment, and then he raised his head suddenly and, looking her in the eyes, said, "I'm sorry you came back, and I won't take you to dinner. But now that you are here, it's as good a time as any to talk certain things out that are bound to come up sooner or later."
She made a wry little face, cupped her finely ovaled chin in her hands, and smiled at him. "Heavens, Rodrigo, I believe you, of all men, are about to preach to me. Please don't, I beg of you! Remember that I am the wife of a man who is somewhat of a preacher."
"Leave John out of it," he returned. "He's altogether too good for either of us to discuss. You and I understand each other, Elise. I am quite aware of the game you have been playing. I——"
She cut in with an unpleasant little laugh. She rather enjoyed his violent seriousness.
"So—I have been playing a game," she encouraged him.
"Yes. You married John for his money. You wanted to marry me until you discovered that I was poor."
She was not offended. "Why didn't you warn your best friend then, if you saw through my purpose so clearly?" she asked calmly.
"What chance did I have to warn him? He was head over heels in love with you at once, and it was too late. It would have half killed the poor chap to tell him the truth. I had to let him make his mistake."
Her smile left her face and her eyes darkened. "No, I will not let you say that," she replied earnestly. "I will grant you that I married John chiefly for his money. I admire him—but I have never loved him. And I did outwit you, my friend. You made a very clever attempt to show John what an error he was making in falling in love with me, but I forestalled you. And that was quite a feat, Rodrigo, for you are usually rather keen in matters of that sort.
"But I have made John happy. He tells me that fifty times a day—fifty times too many! One does not enjoy having it drummed into one that one is an angel. I have taken his money and his love, but I have been faithful to him and I have made him a good wife. Now I think I have earned the right to a little something for myself."
He stared at her tensely. "What do you mean, Elise?" he asked.
Her manner lost its hardness, and she leaned toward him.
"Ihadto marry the wrong man, Rodrigo," she said softly. "My whole existence has had its foundation in money. But it hasn't made me happy. I have been miserable ever since my marriage. It hasn't made me stop—loving you!"
"Elise—no! You mustn't say that," he cried, and rose swiftly to his feet.
She had risen too as she said, "I won't believe that you are as surprised as you pretend to be. You must have guessed it plainly enough many times. I think that we were meant for each other and that a few words spoken by a minister is not going to keep us apart. I will ask John for a divorce if you wish, and marry you. I will do anything—but I will not go on living a lie."
He stared at her, fascinated, wondering if he had heard her aright. Had some malignant fate brought her and her confession to him at the precise moment when Mary had abandoned him?
He said slowly, "You will have to go on. You are mad to think of anything else. I will go away at once, home to Italy. I had planned to go over there this fall anyway. But I will change my plans, and not return."
She laughed. "And you think that I am innocent enough to believe that would be the only reason for your departure. Mary Drake has evidently told you that she is leaving here also."
He started, suspicion dawning in his eyes. He asked, "Mary has told you that? You must have spoken to her about me first. What did you say to her?"
"Yes, I spoke to her about you. I told her the truth. I told her that she could never be happy with you, that you are not the sort to stay contented with such a wife. And I think she agreed with me. She is a very sensible girl. There are certain traits in your character, Rodrigo, that a girl like Mary could never reconcile herself to."
He returned fiercely, "That's rot! If there's anything about me that Mary could object to, it's long since passed. I'm through with my past forever. No woman in the world means a thing to me but Mary."
Her answer was to come close to him and say softly, "You have lost Mary forever, Rodrigo. In your heart you know it. And in your heart you know that what you have just said is nonsense. I dare you to test it. I dare you to hold me in your arms and repeat it. I dare you to kiss me—and then let me go!"
He caught her hand. "Elise, are you crazy!" But he did not relinquish her hand, until her arms had slipped slowly around his neck and her lips were very close to his.
"Why do we pretend any longer, you and I?" she murmured. "You are not like John or Mary. You are only chasing thin, white shadows when you try to fashion yourself after them." And with a swift movement of her head she had kissed him.
He cried, "No—no! You must go—please."
"I love you." And she clung to him.
Fascinated, harassed, he did not resist her any longer. He took her into his arms and buried her face in his kisses.
When at last he let her go, she still held him close and said almost in a whisper, "We will go to the Van Clair, Rodrigo, and dine high up on the roof, near the stars. You can go to your appointment afterward. No one will know—or care."
"Except our own souls."
"I don't believe we have any," she said, with a queer little note of solemnity. "I think this life, this happiness, is all—and we must take it while we may."
He kissed her again, completely under her spell, and then he said tensely, "Go now, Elise. I will finish here, and I will meet you in fifteen minutes at the Van Clair."
Obediently she secured her wrap from the table, flung it about her and started for the door.
She smiled back at him, whispering, "In fifteen minutes, Rodrigo." And just as she closed the door, "I love you."
He turned, his emotions running riot within him, back to the papers on his desk. For ten minutes he tried in vain to work. Then, with a gesture of helplessness, he started tossing the papers into his brief case. He had risen and taken his hat when the telephone rang.