It needed no words from Mrs.
Hardy to tell him that Irene and Dave were engaged. He had expected it
for some time, and the information was not altogether distasteful to
him. He had come somewhat under the spell of Irene's attractiveness,
but he had no deep attachment for her. He was not aware that he had
ever had an abiding attachment for any woman. Attachments were things
which he put on and off as readily as a change of clothes. He planned
to hit Dave through Irene, but he planned that when he struck it should
be a death blow. Their engagement would lend a sharper edge to his
shaft.

It may as well be set down that for Mrs. Hardy Conward had no regard
whatever. Even while he shaped soft words for her ear he held her in
contempt. To him she was merely a silly old woman. From the day he
had first seen Mrs. Hardy his attitude toward her had been one of
subtle flattery; partly because it pleased his whim, and partly because
on that same day he had seen Irene, and he was shrewd enough to know
that his approach to the girl's affections must be made by way of the
acquaintanceship which he would establish under the guise of friendship
for her mother. Since his trouble with Dave, Conward had a double
purpose in developing that acquaintanceship. He had no compunctions as
to his method of attack. While Dave was manfully laying siege to the
front gate, Conward proposed to burglarize the home through the back
door of family intimacy. And now that Dave seemed to have won the
prize, Conward realized that his own position was more secure than
ever. Had he not been called in consultation by the girl's mother?
Were not the inner affairs of the family now laid open before him? Did
not his position as her mother's advisor permit him to assume toward
Irene an attitude which, in a sense, was more intimate than even Dave's
could be? He turned these matters over quickly in his mind, and
congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his tactics.

"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy was saying, between dabbings of her
perfumed handkerchief on eyes that bore witness to the genuineness of
her distress. "Irene is not an ordinary girl. She has in her
qualities that justified me in hoping that--that she would do--very
differently from this. You have been a good friend, Mr. Conward. Need
I conceal from you, Mr. Conward, from you, of all men, what have been
my hopes for Irene?"

Conward's heart leapt at the confession. He had secretl