om her own room and this
entailed a search, for her possessions were always in the wildest
disorder. Olga waited for her in the hall, chafing at the delay, since
she knew that the car would be required by Max early in the afternoon to
take him on his rounds.

Mitchel remained outside in the hot sunshine, severe disapproval in
every line of him. Olga felt decidedly out of patience with him. As if
it were her fault!

She sat on the old oak chest that Violet gaily called her coffin, and
stared at the gruesome east window, while her thoughts dwelt upon the
story she had just heard from Mrs. Briggs's lips. Had Max really
intended to place freedom within the old woman's reach? For some reason
wholly inexplicable she longed to know. She recalled the words he had
uttered that day in the library of Redlands, his half-cynical talk of "a
free pass," his reference to himself as "gaoler." Was it possible that
she had formed a wrong impression of him? And if in this matter, perhaps
in others also. Perhaps after all she had mistaken his attitude towards
Violet. Perhaps after all he was human enough to feel the strong
attraction of the girl's beauty. Perhaps after all he was beginning to
care. And if so, what then? She felt her face burn in the coolness.
Somehow she did not want him to be hurt, to suffer as she knew that
other men had been made to suffer by the gay inconsequence of her
friend. Only a week ago she had desired his ignominious downfall. To-day
she wanted to save him from it. She had a desperate longing to warn him
that Violet's favour was a thing of nought, that her treatment of him
had all been planned between them beforehand, that it was all a game.

She could not picture him at any woman's feet. Yet undoubtedly Violet
was hard to resist; their intimacy had grown apace during the past few
days. And Violet knew so well how to wield her power, when to scorn and
when subtly to flatter. She had never yet received a check in her
triumphant career, and she boasted openly of her conquests.

No, Olga was fain to admit it. All her own private aversion
notwithstanding, she did not want this man added to the list of victims.
Cynical and even overbearing though he might be, she no longer desired
to see him humiliated. And her face glowed more and more hotly as she
remembered that it was she who had set the trap.

She fully realized, however, that an appeal to Violet at this stage
would be worse than futile. Violet was too set