closed tickets for
her box at the opera that night.

If she would only go!

He called the house. The butler answered and retired to summon Madame
Zattiany. Her voice came clear and cool over the telephone. He
invited her to go to Sherry's for dinner and to hear Farrar in
_Butterfly_ afterward. "I must tell you that we shall sit in a box,"
he added. "Mrs. Oglethorpe's."

"Oh!" There was a pause that seemed eternal. Then she laughed
suddenly, a laugh of intense amusement that ended on a note of
recklessness. "Well! Why not? Yes, I will go. Very many thanks."

"Good. It means an early dinner. I'll call for you at a quarter to
seven."

"I'm promptness itself. Au 'voir."

So that was that! One night's respite. He'd leave her at her door.
He wondered if his voice had been as impersonal as her own: he had
almost barked into the telephone and had probably overdone it. But was
any man ever in such a ghastly position before? Well, he'd lose the
game before he'd make a fool of himself again. . . . Ass . . . he'd
had the game in his own hands last night . . . could have switched off
any moment. He'd let go and delivered himself into hers.

He took a cold shower, and made a meticulous toilet.

When he arrived at the house he was shown into the drawing-room. He
had never seen it before and he glanced about him with some curiosity.
It was a period room: Louis Quinze. The furniture looked as if made of
solid gold and Madame Du Barry herself might have sat on the dainty
brocades. The general effect was airy and graceful, gay, frivolous,
and subtly vicious. (An emanation to which the chaste Victorian had
been impervious.) He understood why Madame Zattiany did not use it.
She might be subtly anything, but assuredly she was neither airy nor
frivolous.

Then he realized that there was a painting of a girl over the mantel
and that the girl was Mary Ogden. He stepped forward eagerly, almost
holding his breath. The portrait ended at the tiny waist, and the
stiff satin of the cuirass-like bodice was softened with tulle which
seemed to float about the sloping shoulders. The soft ashen hair,
growing in a deep point on the broad full brow, was brushed softly back
and coiled low on the long white neck. The mouth was soft and pouting,
with a humorous quirk at the corners, and the large dark gray eyes were
full of a mocking light that seemed directed straight into the depths
of his puzzled brain as he stood ga