ved. It behooved her now to be very cool. It
was on business indeed that he had left her! Unconsciously she recalled
Mrs. Manhattan's aphorism about business and other men's wives, and to
her mouth, which the smile had deserted, came a sneer.

He is with her now, she told herself; well, let him be. In a sudden gust
of anger she tore the sheet of music in two, and tossing it from her,
turned.

At the door the butler still stood, awaiting her commands.

"You may go," she said, shortly. The shadow which twice that day she had
eluded was before her. But she made no effort now to escape. It was
welcome. She eyed it a moment. Her teeth were set, her muscles
contracted. Then grasping it as Vulcan did, she forged it into steel.

About her on either side were wastes of black, and in the goaf, by way
of clearing, but one thing was discernible, the fealty of Adrian. To
save her from pain he had taken the letter on himself; he had accepted
her contempt that he might assure her peace of mind. Through the dismal
farce which had been played at her expense his loyalty constituted the
one situation which was deserving of praise. With a gesture she
dismissed her husband; it was as though he had ceased to exist. It was
not him that she had espoused; it was a figure garbed in fine words. She
had detected the travesty, the mask had fallen, with the actor she was
done. She had never been mated, and now she was divorced. And as she
stood, her hands clenched and pendant, the currents of her thought
veering from master to clerk, the portiere furthermost from her was
drawn aside, the butler appeared an instant in the doorway, he mumbled a
name, Dugald Maule entered the room, and the portiere fell back.

"I made sure of finding you," he announced jauntily, as he approached.

He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. In his button-hole
was a flower, and in his breath the odor of _Creme de Menthe_. It was
evident that he had just dined. "Your man tells me that Mr. Usselex is
not at home," he continued. "I fancied he might be going to the
assembly too. I see that you are. You look like a queen of old time. No,
but you are simply stunning."

He stepped back that he might the better enjoy the effect. Eden had sunk
on the lounge again. In and out from her skirt a white slipper,
butterflied with gold, moved restlessly.

"But you are pale," he added. "What is it?" He had scanned her face--its
pallor was significant to him; but it was the