iosity.
"What does Mrs. Langdon want?"

"To see you--for just a few minutes--whenever it is convenient."

"If Mrs. Langdon has business with me, I'll see her at my office," said I.
She was one of the fashionables that had got herself into my black books by
her treatment of Anita since the break with the Ellerslys.

"She wishes to come to you here--this afternoon, if you are to be at home.
She asked me to say that her business is important--and very private."

I hesitated, but I could think of no good excuse for refusing. "I'll be
here an hour," said I. "Good day."

He gave me no time to change my mind.

Something--perhaps it was his curious expression as he took himself
off--made me begin to regret. The more I thought of the matter, the less I
thought of my having made any civil concession to a woman who had acted so
badly toward Anita and myself. He had not been gone a quarter of an hour
before I went to Anita in her sitting-room. Always, the instant I entered
the outer door of her part of our house, that powerful, intoxicating
fascination that she had for me began to take possession of my senses. It
was in every garment she wore. It seemed to linger in any place where she
had been, for a long time after she left it. She was at a small desk by the
window, was writing letters.

"May I interrupt?" said I. "Monson was here a few minutes ago--from Mrs.
Langdon. She wants to see me. I told him I would see her here. Then it
occurred to me that perhaps I had been too good-natured. What do you
think?"

I could not see her face, but only the back of her head, and the loose
coils of magnetic hair and the white nape of her graceful neck. As I began
to speak, she stopped writing, her pen suspended over the sheet of paper.
After I ended there was a long silence.

"I'll not see her," said I. "I don't quite understand why I yielded." And I
turned to go.

"Wait--please," came from her abruptly.

Another long silence. Then I: "If she comes here, I think the only person
who can properly receive her is you."

"No--you must see her," said Anita at last. And she turned round in her
chair until she was facing me. Her expression--I can not describe it. I can
only say that it gave me a sense of impending calamity.

"I'd rather not--much rather not," said I.

"I particularly wish you to see her," she replied, and she turned back to
her writing. I saw her pen poised as if she were about to begin; but she
did not begin--and I fe