e come and thank you--" he began.

"You must thank Miss Marion Grimston," she interrupted, "for any real
service. All I've done for you, as you see, has been to bring you on an
unnecessary journey."

"For me it has been a journey--into truth."

"I'll say good-night now. I shall not see you in the morning. You'll not
forget to be very gentle with Dorothea, will you--and with him?
Good-night again--good-night."

Smiling into his eyes, she ignored the hand he held out to her and
slipped away into the semi-darkness as the impatient clerk began turning
out the lights.

XXII

Derek Pruyn was guilty of an injustice to the Marquis de Bienville in
supposing he would make the incident at Lakefield a topic of
conversation among his friends. His sense of honor alone would have kept
him from betraying what might be looked upon as an involuntary
confidence, even if it had not better suited his purposes to intrust the
matter, in the form of an amusing anecdote, told under the seal of
secrecy, to Mrs. Bayford. In her hands it was like invested capital,
adding to itself, while he did nothing at all. Months of insinuation on
his part would have failed to achieve the result that she brought about
in a few days' time, with no more effort than a rose makes in shedding
perfume.

Before Derek had been able to recover from the feeling of having passed
through a strange waking dream, before Dorothea and he had resumed the
ordinary tenor of their life together, before he had seen Diane again,
he was given to understand that the little scene on Bienville's arrival
at the Bay Tree Inn was familiar matter in the offices, banks, and clubs
he most frequented. The intelligence was conveyed by a score of trivial
signs, suggestive, satirical, or over-familiar, which he would not have
perceived in days gone by, but to which he had grown sensitive. It was
clear that the story gained piquancy from its contrast with the
staidness of his life; and his most intimate friends permitted
themselves a little covert "chaff" with him on the event. He was not of
a nature to resent this raillery on his own account; it was serious to
him only because it touched Diane.

For her the matter was so grave that he exhausted his ingenuity in
devising means for her protection. He refrained from even seeing her
until he could go with some ultimatum before which she should be obliged
to yield. An unsuccessful appeal to her, he judged, would be worse than
none