"

He measured her strength with an expert eye. He knew that he
was beaten. He laughed lightly and went into his dressing-room.

CHAPTER XXII

THEY met the next morning with no sign in the manner of either
that there had been a drawn battle, that there was an armed
truce. She knew that he, like herself, was thinking of
nothing else. But until he had devised some way of certainly
conquering her he would wait, and watch, and pretend that he
was satisfied with matters as they were. The longer she
reflected the less uneasy she became--as to immediate danger.
In Paris the methods of violence he might have been tempted to
try in New York were out of the question. What remained? He
must realize that threats to expose her would be futile; also,
he must feel vulnerable, himself, to that kind of attack--a
feeling that would act as a restraint, even though he might
appreciate that she was the sort of person who could not in
any circumstances resort to it. He had not upon her a single
one of the holds a husband has upon a wife. True, he could
break with her. But she must appreciate how easy it would now
be for her in this capital of the idle rich to find some other
man glad to "protect" a woman so expert at gratifying man's
vanity of being known as the proprietor of a beautiful and
fashionable woman. She had discovered how, in the aristocracy
of European wealth, an admired mistress was as much a
necessary part of the grandeur of great nobles, great
financiers, great manufacturers, or merchants, as wife, as
heir, as palace, as equipage, as chef, as train of secretaries
and courtiers. She knew how deeply it would cut, to find
himself without his show piece that made him the envied of men
and the desired of women. Also, she knew that she had an even
stronger hold upon him--that she appealed to him as no other
woman ever had, that she had become for him a tenacious habit.
She was not afraid that he would break with her. But she
could not feel secure; in former days she had seen too far
into the mazes of that Italian mind of his, she knew too well
how patient, how relentless, how unforgetting he was. She
would have taken murder into account as more than a
possibility but for his intense and intelligent selfishness;
he would not risk his life or his liberty; he would not
deprive himself of his keenest pleasure. He was resourceful;
but in the circumstances what resources were there for him to
draw upon?