e,
whom he had once inwardly taxed with the morbid raising of
obstacles, seemed to see none now; and he could only infer that her
sister-in-law's actual words had carried more conviction than
reached him in the repetition of them. The mere fact that he had so
much to gain by leaving his friend's faith undisturbed was no doubt
stirring his own suspicions to unnatural activity; and this sense
gradually reasoned him back into acceptance of her view, as the most
normal as well as the pleasantest he could take.

VIII

The uneasiness thus temporarily repressed slipped into the final
disguise of hoping he should not again meet Madame de Treymes; and
in this wish he was seconded by the decision, in which Madame de
Malrive concurred, that it would be well for him to leave Paris
while the preliminary negotiations were going on. He committed her
interests to the best professional care, and his mother, resigning
her dream of the lakes, remained to fortify Madame de Malrive by her
mild unimaginative view of the transaction, as an uncomfortable but
commonplace necessity, like house-cleaning or dentistry. Mrs. Durham
would doubtless have preferred that her only son, even with his hair
turning gray, should have chosen a Fanny Frisbee rather than a Fanny
de Malrive; but it was a part of her acceptance of life on a general
basis of innocence and kindliness, that she entered generously into
his dream of rescue and renewal, and devoted herself without
after-thought to keeping up Fanny's courage with so little to spare
for herself.

The process, the lawyers declared, would not be a long one, since
Monsieur de Malrive's acquiescence reduced it to a formality; and
when, at the end of June, Durham returned from Italy with Katy and
Nannie, there seemed no reason why he should not stop in Paris long
enough to learn what progress had been made.

But before he could learn this he was to hear, on entering Madame de
Malrive's presence, news more immediate if less personal. He found
her, in spite of her gladness in his return, so evidently
preoccupied and distressed that his first thought was one of fear
for their own future. But she read and dispelled this by saying,
before he could put his question: "Poor Christiane is here. She is
very unhappy. You have seen in the papers--?"

"I have seen no papers since we left Turin. What has happened?"

"The Prince d'Armillac has come to grief. There has been some
terrible scandal about money