as dead again. It was hard work to write. Everything he said
seemed a lie and he did not want to say it. He hated to pretend. Still,
if he did not write Angela would be in a state of mortal agony, he
thought, and would shortly come to look him up. It was only by writing,
protesting his affection, explaining why in his judgment it was
unadvisable for her to come at present, that she could be made to stay
where she was. And now that he was so infatuated with Carlotta this
seemed very desirable. He did not delude himself that he would ever be
able to marry her. He knew that he could not get a divorce, there being
no grounds, and the injustice to Angela being such a bar to his
conscience; and as for Carlotta, her future was very uncertain. Norman
Wilson, for all that he disregarded her at times, did not want to give
her up. He was writing, threatening to come back to New York if she did
not come to him, though the fact that she was in her mother's home,
where he considered her safe, was some consolation to him. Angela was
begging Eugene to let her come. They would get along, she argued, on
whatever he got and he would be better off with her than alone. She
pictured him living in some uncomfortable boarding house where he was
not half attended to and intensely lonely. Her return meant the leaving
of this lovely home--for Mrs. Hibberdell had indicated that she would
not like to keep him and his wife--and so the end of this perfect
romance with Carlotta. An end to lovely country inns and summer
balconies where they were dining together! An end to swift tours in her
automobile, which she guided skilfully herself, avoiding the presence of
a chauffeur. An end to lovely trysts under trees and by pretty streams
where he kissed and fondled her and where she lingered joyously in his
arms!

"If ma could only see us now," she would jest; or,

"Do you suppose Bill and John would recognize you here if they saw you?"

Once she said: "This is better than the engine room, isn't it?"

"You're a bad lot, Carlotta," he would declare, and then would come to
her lips the enigmatic smile of Monna Lisa.

"You like bad lots, don't you? Strays make fine hunting."

In her own philosophy she was taking the cash and letting the credit go.

CHAPTER XXIV

Days like this could not go on forever. The seed of their destruction
was in their beginning. Eugene was sad. He used to show his mood at
times and if she asked him what was the matter,