er. Gurney stared with his
mouth open.

Cowperwood paid no heed. Out he went through the dark hall and down
the stairs. For once the lure of a beautiful, enigmatic, immoral, and
promiscuous woman--poison flower though she was--was haunting him.
"D-- her!" he exclaimed. "D-- the little beast, anyhow! The ----! The
----!" He used terms so hard, so vile, so sad, all because he knew for
once what it was to love and lose--to want ardently in his way and not
to have--now or ever after. He was determined that his path and that
of Stephanie Platow should never be allowed to cross again.

Chapter XXIX

A Family Quarrel

It chanced that shortly before this liaison was broken off, some
troubling information was quite innocently conveyed to Aileen by
Stephanie Platow's own mother. One day Mrs. Platow, in calling on Mrs.
Cowperwood, commented on the fact that Stephanie was gradually
improving in her art, that the Garrick Players had experienced a great
deal of trouble, and that Stephanie was shortly to appear in a new
role--something Chinese.

"That was such a charming set of jade you gave her," she volunteered,
genially. "I only saw it the other day for the first time. She never
told me about it before. She prizes it so very highly, that I feel as
though I ought to thank you myself."

Aileen opened her eyes. "Jade!" she observed, curiously. "Why, I
don't remember." Recalling Cowperwood's proclivities on the instant,
she was suspicious, distraught. Her face showed her perplexity.

"Why, yes," replied Mrs. Platow, Aileen's show of surprise troubling
her. "The ear-rings and necklet, you know. She said you gave them to
her."

"To be sure," answered Aileen, catching herself as by a hair. "I do
recall it now. But it was Frank who really gave them. I hope she
likes them."

She smiled sweetly.

"She thinks they're beautiful, and they do become her," continued Mrs.
Platow, pleasantly, understanding it all, as she fancied. The truth was
that Stephanie, having forgotten, had left her make-up box open one day
at home, and her mother, rummaging in her room for something, had
discovered them and genially confronted her with them, for she knew the
value of jade. Nonplussed for the moment, Stephanie had lost her
mental, though not her outward, composure and referred them back
casually to an evening at the Cowperwood home when Aileen had been
present and the gauds had been genially forced upon her.

Unfortu