to love her husband. It was clearly her duty to marry Jack; therefore,
the doubting thoughts and the ache at the heart which would not ease
were merely more outcroppings of the same evil part of her nature that
had tempted her into deceiving her parents, and into entangling herself
and Scarborough. She knew that, if she were absolutely free, she would
not marry Jack. But she felt that she had bartered away her birthright
of freedom; and now, being herself, the daughter of HER father and HER
mother, she would honorably keep her bargain, would love where she
ought to love--at seventeen "I will" means "I shall." And so--they
were "really married."

But the days passed, and there was no sign of the miracle she had
confidently expected. The magic of the marriage vow failed to
transform her; Pauline Dumont was still Pauline Gardiner in mind and in
heart. There was, however, a miracle, undreamed of, mysterious,
overwhelming--John Dumont, the lover, became John Dumont, the husband.
Beside this transformation, the revelation that the world she loved and
lived in did not exist for him, or his world for her, seemed of slight
importance. She had not then experience enough to enable her to see
that transformation and revelation were as intimately related as a lock
and its key.

"It's all my fault," she told herself. "It must be my fault." And
Dumont, unanalytic and self-absorbed, was amused whenever Pauline's
gentleness reminded him of his mother's half-believed warnings that his
wife had "a will of her own, and a mighty strong one."

They were back at Saint X in August and lived at the Frobisher place in
Indiana Street--almost as pretentious as the Dumont homestead and in
better taste. Old Mrs. Dumont had gone to Chicago alone for the
furnishings for her own house; when she went for the furnishings for
her son's house, she got Mrs. Gardiner to go along--and Pauline's
mother gave another of her many charming illustrations of the valuable
truth that tact can always have its own way. Saint X was too keen-eyed
and too interested in the new Mrs. Dumont to fail to note a change in
her. It was satisfied with the surface explanation that Europe in
general and Paris in particular were responsible. And it did not note
that, while she had always been full of life and fond of company, she
was now feverish in her restlessness, incessantly seeking distraction,
never alone when she could either go somewhere or induce some one to