much more when he was free and away
later. Immersed in his great affairs, he would forget, of course. And
why not? She did not fit in. Had not everything--everything
illustrated that to her? Love was not enough in this world--that
was so plain. One needed education, wealth, training, the ability to
fight and scheme, She did not want to do that. She could not.

The day came when the house was finally closed and the old life was
at an end. Lester traveled with Jennie to Sandwood. He spent some
little while in the house trying to get her used to the idea of
change--it was not so bad. He intimated that he would come again
soon, but he went away, and all his words were as nothing against the
fact of the actual and spiritual separation. When Jennie saw him going
down the brick walk that afternoon, his solid, conservative figure
clad in a new tweed suit, his overcoat on his arm, self-reliance and
prosperity written all over him, she thought that she would die. She
had kissed Lester good-by and had wished him joy, prosperity, peace;
then she made an excuse to go to her bedroom. Vesta came after a time,
to seek her, but now her eyes were quite dry; everything had subsided
to a dull ache. The new life was actually begun for her--a life
without Lester, without Gerhardt, without any one save Vesta.

"What curious things have happened to me!" she thought, as she went
into the kitchen, for she had determined to do at least some of her
own work. She needed the distraction. She did not want to think. If it
were not for Vesta she would have sought some regular outside
employment. Anything to keep from brooding, for in that direction lay
madness.

CHAPTER LV

The social and business worlds of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland,
and other cities saw, during the year or two which followed the
breaking of his relationship with Jennie, a curious rejuvenation in
the social and business spirit of Lester Kane. He had become rather
distant and indifferent to certain personages and affairs while he was
living with her, but now he suddenly appeared again, armed with
authority from a number of sources, looking into this and that matter
with the air of one who has the privilege of power, and showing
himself to be quite a personage from the point of view of finance and
commerce. He was older of course. It must be admitted that he was in
some respects a mentally altered Lester. Up to the time he had met
Jennie he was full of the assurance of