Part 16

"In Siberia or the Congo or Australia or anywhere that's far off. I should bury myself."

"More than likely he is in London or Paris," Lorraine insisted.

"More than likely he is," Devereux admitted. "I hear that he has converted all his real estate, and has slipped his moorings for good and all."

"You mean that he is never coming back?"

"Such is the report from an authentic source, I'm told."

Lorraine smiled a bit grimly.

"_Never_ is a long time," he said. "I'll not believe it--and I shall hope not until I die.--Someway--somehow--I'm going to square off with Amherst. It may be years, yet I shall do it--and do it well."

"What if Stephanie and you make it up--you won't think then of harming Amherst?" said Devereux.

"No--I suppose not--at least, not openly; but if we don't make it up----" another gesture ended the sentence.

Devereux frowned and was about to answer; then he pulled himself up, and with the slightest lift of his eyebrows busied himself with his drink. There was no use in arguing with Lorraine--he would not know his own mind more than an hour anyway.

"There is another contingency, Lorraine," said he:--"Suppose you don't succeed in effecting a reconciliation with Stephanie--what then?"

"I'll never give up trying," Lorraine replied.

"But if your efforts after a time prove fruitless, will persistence be of any avail? Won't it simply make her more irreconcilable and unyielding?"

"You mean will I divorce her--or permit her to obtain a divorce?"

Devereux nodded.

"Most assuredly not!" Lorraine declared. "If _I'm_ not to have her, who belongs to me, none else shall."

"Sort of a dag in the manger business?" Devereux smiled.

"Not at all.--I'm simply keeping what is mine."

"Not exactly--you will be keeping what _was_ yours but is yours no longer."

"You think that I should let her go?"

"If a reconciliation is impossible, I think that you should let her go. What is more, you should make it possible for _her_ to get the divorce."

"You mean I should admit----"

"Not at all--though that is a minor matter, and wouldn't hurt you in the least if you were to admit it; under the circumstances, you are entitled to break over. However, that is neither here nor there; she can procure a divorce for non-support--if you don't contest it."

"Yes--if I don't contest it!" Lorraine sneered. "One might fancy that you contemplated marrying her yourself, Devereux."

"I don't contemplate marrying her, and you know it," said Devereux imperturbably; "though for my part, I should consider myself very fortunate indeed to win her. But someone else probably _will_ want to marry her, and she may want to marry him--and you will be only the dog in the manger, Lorraine, only the dog in the manger--with the sympathy of not one soul in all the world."

"I don't care for sympathy!" Lorraine exclaimed--"and I shouldn't get it if I did--from you men. You always favor a pretty woman. You all have been against me from the first. You think it was all my fault Amherst had a chance to ingratiate himself."

"Wasn't it?" Devereux asked.

Lorraine stopped and stared.

"They went off together, didn't they--was that my doing?" he demanded.

"Not directly--but indi----"

"Am I responsible for what a low-down dog like Amherst does? Hadn't I a right to presume he wouldn't do it? Hadn't I a right to trust my own wife? Is a husband to be suspicious and suspecting? Isn't he justified in presuming innocence rather than guilt?"

"As a general proposition, yes; varied, however, by the _dramatis personae_--and the circumstances."

"What should I have done?" Lorraine demanded.

"Anything but what you did do," returned Devereux kindly. "But that isn't the question that confronts you now, and is up to you for decision, and which you alone can decide. Don't make another blunder; you can't afford it--and neither can Stephanie." He leaned forward and put his hand on the other's knee. "Consider well, Lorraine. Stephanie and you are young--the world is before you. Make it as easy going for both of you as you can. You are a long time dead, remember."

"At least when we're dead we're done!" Lorraine broke out.

"Maybe you are--but I haven't heard of anyone who knows; and you'd best not chance it when it is so easy to do the right thing now."

"And the right thing is?" asked Lorraine sarcastically.

"What is best for you both--if you can't be reconciled, then be divorced."

Lorraine smiled a sickly smile, and made no answer.

"Gratuitous advice is rarely acceptable, I know," Devereux went on, "but it is honest and well meant, and comes from a life-long friend of you both. Now, Lorraine, we will say no more on the subject."--He struck the bell. "Take Mr. Lorraine's order," he said to the waiter.

But Lorraine shook his head.

"I think I've had enough," he replied--"both of liquor and the Club, for this time. I'm going home and think it over. I'm a bit tired and out of sorts. So long!" and went slowly out, got into his car and drove off.

Devereux watched him meditatively until he was gone; then he too shook his head--and sat drumming on the chair-arm with his finger tips.

"What is it?" asked Pendleton, who had approached from the rear. "What do you see, Dev--a pretty girl?"

"Do I look it?" said Devereux, glancing around.

"Now that you favor me with your full countenance, I can't say that you do," the other smiled, swinging a chair around for his feet and sitting down. "You are evidently bunkered or have topped your drive. I beg your pardon for intruding--don't let me interrupt, I pray."

"I wasn't playing mental golf--I was thinking."

"I see," said Pendleton. "A good occupation--continue to think, if it isn't too exhausting."

"I was thinking and wondering," Devereux continued--"why Stephanie Mourraille married Lorraine. What in the devil's name did she see in him anyway!--What _could_ she see in him!"

"Qualities which you and I and the other men are blind to," said Montague dryly. "Woman has the power of endowing the man with whom she imagines she is in love, with every attribute that he should normally possess--and rarely does. We're all deficient, Devereux, at the Bar of Popular Opinion--it is only a matter of degree."

"Well, I should say that Lorraine is the maximum degree--and then some," was the reply.--"And that Stephanie knows it at last--when it is too late. Why didn't you marry her, Pendleton? Everyone thought _you_ were willing--and _she_ ought to have been."

Pendleton sent a smoke whirling upward, and followed it with another, and another--but said no word.

"It's a bit personal, I know--and you shouldn't answer," Devereux admitted--"but all the same, why didn't you?"

"Maybe Stephanie wouldn't have me," said Pendleton slowly.

"The more fool she!" the other exclaimed. "Yet it's like a woman--they never know what is best for them when they have a choice to make--at least, they choose wrong thirty-five times out of fifty."

"And forty-five out of fifty they think they are the winning fifteen--and fifty times out of fifty, it is no one's business but their own," Pendleton replied.

"You're right in theory," Devereux admitted, "but you're wrong in practice. We have some business with our friends' affairs--enough to regret when we see one of them, especially a woman, going on the rocks from very heedlessness of the buoys that mark the channel."

"Why not chain in the channel so they can't get out of it?" asked Pendleton.

"They would break the chains from very perversity and go on the rocks just the same," Devereux averred. "The only way is to provide a pilot who won't run amuck."

"You're mixing your metaphors, old man!"

"Maybe I am, but you know what I mean."

"Stephanie chose a pilot," Pendleton reminded him.

"Not at all--she chose a blockhead--a fool. Now she is paying the price for her error--and I'm mighty sorry for her. The simpleton now is crazy to effect a reconciliation, says he will never give her up, and vows vengeance on Amherst. I advised him, if he can't effect the reconciliation--which of course he can't--to let Stephanie divorce him. But nay! nay! If _he_ can't have her no one shall have her, he declares--she is his wife and she is going to stay his wife--et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It makes me sick! I asked him why, for Stephanie's sake, he didn't forget Amherst and not stir up the nasty scandal afresh? He answered that he would do nothing if she returned to him, but if she did not, he would----" He imitated Lorraine's gesture. "I don't know what that gesture means, but I assume it threatens something dire."

"And the pity of it is that he is just a big enough fool to do it," said Pendleton. "If he had acted at once, and shot Amherst down for the vicious beast he is, everyone would have been glad and the deed would have been amply justified. Now it is worse than foolish--it's asinine."

"Just so," Devereux responded. "You can't blame him, of course, for feeling bitter, but I haven't any sympathy for him now--he has shilly-shallied so long he would best forget it. Altogether Stephanie seems to have made a devil of a mess of it--with her husband, and the Amherst matter, and coming back the way she did, and refusing Lorraine's overtures for a reconciliation, and _now_ his attitude. It makes a pretty problem in human frailties--and mistakes. There isn't a thing about the whole affair that is normal. Why in thunder didn't Lorraine get killed in the recent accident? No one would ever have missed him!"

"Those that will never be missed are usually the ones that can't be killed," Pendleton remarked. "However, so long as Amherst stays away there will be no killing--and Lorraine, in the meantime, may see reason. Let us hope for it--for Stephanie's sake."

"And if Lorraine does go into the killing business, I trust he will make a thorough job of it and wipe out both Amherst and himself. Clean the slate!"

"A clean slate for a fresh start," said Pendleton.

Devereux looked keenly at him.

"For a fresh start?" he inflected tentatively.

But Pendleton had resumed his smoke rings--and for a time there was silence.

Presently Devereux spoke:

"I didn't see you at the Croyden's last night."

"I wasn't there," replied Pendleton. "I came in from New York this morning. Was it interesting?"

"The Croyden functions are always interesting--some more so than others, but any of them will do for mine, thank you!--Lucky chap, Croyden!"

Pendleton nodded. "Not many girls would have done what Elaine Cavendish did: throw convention overboard and--because Croyden was poor and wouldn't, and she was rich and loved him--bridge the chasm and made it easy for him to cross to her."

"Elaine's a girl in a million!" Devereux declared. "I wish there were some more of that sort."

"Would you pick one?" Pendleton asked.

"Would I pick one? Well, rather, my friend."

"Why didn't you pick Elaine?"

"I wanted to but she wouldn't be picked--by me."

"I can't remember that you fussed her especially."

"I can't remember it myself; but I reckon I read my doom beforehand, and didn't go up against it. Elaine is a winner for looks, Pendleton. She was the loveliest thing last night I most ever saw--in a shimmering silver gown and--there was only one woman who was her equal in looks: Stephanie Lorraine. _She's_ unbeatable--simply unbeatable!"

"I'm sorry I wasn't there!" laughed Pendleton.

"You should have been there. That bounder Porshinger was playing the devoted to her--had her in the conservatory for a half an hour." He glanced slyly at the other. "So long, indeed, as to occasion comment. I overheard some of the dowager tabby-cats mewing over it." He paused a moment, then asked seriously: "Pendleton, why don't you warn her of Porshinger's attentions? _You_ can do it. He is up to no good, you may be sure--at least, no one will ever credit him with any good where Stephanie is concerned. You understand, old chap."

"Do you mean that people will suspect _her_?" Pendleton demanded.

"You and I and her other friends and the right-minded people won't, but there are a lot who will. It well be a fresh bit for them to roll over their tongues and to infer and imply the scandalous. The question is whether she can afford to have them do it--now."

"She is simply courteous and nice to him," Pendleton replied.

"I know she is. Yet why not be simply courteous, and let it go at that; what is the good of being _nice_ to him?"

"No good at all--but----"

"I told Gladys she would regret having Porshinger to Criss-Cross. It's all due to that Sunday, damn it!"

"I don't think so," Pendleton said, with a shake of his head. "It may have accelerated it by a few weeks--Porshinger was sure to get in anyway."

"Get in! Of course he would get in!" Devereux exclaimed. "But he wouldn't have come in through the Chamberlain doorway--nor have had any opportunity to know Stephanie well. I can't see what Gladys meant by it--and yet she must have had some object. She is the last to do things on impulse."

"Here she comes--you might ask her," Pendleton remarked, as Miss Chamberlain appeared on the piazza through one of the low French-windows.

Both men arose and bowed.

"May I sit down?" she said. "I'm tired out and--thirsty. Get me some tea, please--and some toast, the soft kind." She removed her gloves and put up her veil. "It is charming here."

"_Now_ it is!" said Devereux.

"Warwick," she smiled, "I've long ago learned that when you flatter you want something! What is it? Out with it."

"He must be in a condition of perpetual want," Pendleton derided.

"When Gladys is around, I am," Devereux agreed. "She keeps me on starvation rations, don't you know."

"Isn't that better than letting you starve?" Gladys asked.

"It is not comparable to being well fed," he responded.

"I can't devote all my time to providing for the needy," she smiled.

"You might at least give me the time you confer on Mr. Porshinger."

"So--that is the fly in the ointment, is it?" she asked.

"You're likely to find before you are through with him that you're the fly and not Porshinger," retorted Devereux.

"Then I shall look to you and Montague to come promptly to my rescue and fish me out."

"It would have been wiser never to have got in. However, as first aid to the injured, Monte and I are some class--and we're likely to be called on to fish someone else than you out of the ointment--that is to say, out of your friend Porshinger's clutches."

"I confess that I don't understand you," said Gladys. "Do you, Montague?"

"Do you, Montague?" sarcasmed Devereux.

"Well, seeing that we're just discussing the matter when you blew along, I sort of reckon he does. Tell the lady what it is, Monte; you advised me to ask her."

"Tell her yourself, you tattle-tale!" laughed Pendleton. "Gladys will understand the spirit in which _I_ said it."

"You must admit that you didn't and don't approve!"

"Certainly--as I've already told Gladys; but I've not asked for her reasons. They are her own, I take it."

"And I'm just curious, you think? Well, let it go at that. I am curious, I admit it, to know--and Pendleton advised me to ask you, Gladys--why _you_ invited Porshinger to Criss-Cross the other Sunday? You see what has been the result: the bars are down. Why did you do it?"

"Because I wanted to do it," she replied sweetly.

"Undoubtedly. You don't do much that you don't want to do--but what was your ulterior motive?"

"Was it so bad as that?" Gladys asked.

"Worse--far worse, I suspect."

"Then don't voice it--keep it dark."

"I will. I'll go away and leave you with Pendleton--and with an insane curiosity to know just what I suspect. In fact, you will give him no rest until he tells you.--See?" and with a laugh and a nod he arose and strolled away.

Gladys watched him with an amused smile until he turned the corner of the piazza--then she spoke.

"He doesn't suspect the real reason?" she asked.

Pendleton shook his head rather shortly.

"No more than that there _was_ a reason," he answered. "A reason which, I fear, was very foolish and absurd. You see where it has led and is leading?--Were you at the Croydens last night?"

"For a little while."

"Did you see Stephanie?"

"Only for a moment."

"Where?"

"I don't recollect--in the drawing-room, I think."

"Was Porshinger with her?"

"Not that I remember."

"It is none of my affair, perhaps--more than a friend--but do you think it wise for Stephanie to have Porshinger dangling around her so much? I've been away for two weeks, and Devereux says that he has become exceedingly attentive recently--so much so, indeed, as to occasion comment of not the kindest sort.--I don't want to say anything to her on the matter, but _you_ can--so, if you consider it expedient, you might mention it to her."

"Why don't you mention it yourself, Montague? You have the most influence with Stephanie, surely!"

"I don't think so," he replied, with a bit of a smile.

"A quarrel?" she asked.

He nodded. "Just before I went to Boston.--It's nothing serious, but I'm not exactly in a position to influence her until we have made it up."

"Then why don't you make it up?" Gladys demanded. "You would think you two were children."

"We _are_ children. I'm ready to make it up any time, but I don't want to start it by finding fault with her recent conduct. It would hardly be conducive to the makeup, do you think?"

"The idea of Stephanie and you having a misunderstanding!" she exclaimed. "You ought to be sent back to the nursery--you overgrown infants."

"Granted again," he agreed.

"Whose fault was it?"

"Both, I imagine, to be accurate."

"Do you mind telling me what it was about?"

"No--I don't mind telling _you_, Gladys. It was about Porshinger. I cautioned Stephanie about letting him show her attention. She--well, one thing led to another and--we quarrelled. I had to leave town the following morning. I wrote to her from Boston; I was there a week, and she never replied to the letter."

"Maybe she didn't get it."

"Not likely; moreover, I passed her on Fifth Avenue last week--and she never saw me."

"_Did_ she see you?" Gladys asked.

"Certainly she saw me; she looked straight at me."

"And _you_ didn't speak?"

"Of course I didn't speak."

"Wasn't it just as much in your place to speak as in hers?" Gladys inflected.

"I thought not. My letter put it up to her."

"If she had received it. If not?"

"I'm assuming that she received it. Not many letters go astray."

"Why didn't you ask her if she had received it?"

"Would you?" he laughed.

"No--I think I wouldn't--but I'm a woman, you're a _man_."

"And my action was womanish, not mannish, you imply!"

She acquiesced with a nod and a smile.

"You might expect it from Stephanie--and excuse it; but I've not much patience with you, Montague Pendleton!"

"I see you haven't!" Pendleton grinned. "Well, I'm properly humble and contrite."

"According to your idea of the proper humbleness and contrition, I suppose," Gladys retorted.

"Which, however, is beside the way," he suggested. "Let us get back on the original road. I'll ask Stephanie if she received my letter, if you'll do what you can to make her see reason in the Porshinger matter. The latter is too sore a subject for me to broach, until you have had your say."

"Aren't you unduly sensitive! She hasn't done anything but be nice to him."

"She has done enough to provoke talk and 'set the old tabby-cats mewing,' as Devereux says--he heard them mewing at the Croydens. I don't like it, Gladys. Stephanie is hurting her chances for complete rehabilitation because of a foolish notion, as you know, and----"

"I don't know that it is foolish," Gladys interrupted.

"Well it is, nevertheless--and because of her quarrel with me. She's headstrong and a bit wilful and we must look out for her--you and I."

"Which _you_ proceed to do by quarrelling with her."

"I was justified in quarrelling with her--you should have heard what she said. However, I admit that in this instance justification isn't an excuse. I'll apologize and make a fresh start--if she will let me."

"She'll let you!" laughed Gladys.

"Has she mentioned our quarrel to you?" he asked eagerly.

"Not a word--but if you show the proper spirit, she'll be only too glad to make up. I know it--trust me. You are the one man, Montague, whom she will permit to advise her."

"She didn't permit it--she resented it."

"Because you went at it in the wrong way. Stephanie Lorraine is the easiest girl in the world to manage if you handle her right--but if you don't----" an expressive shrug ended the sentence. "I think she has become more so, since the Amherst affair--which is entirely natural."

"I know it. I should have made every allowance for her," Pendleton concurred. "I'll fix it up with her if she will let me."

Miss Chamberlain smiled satisfiedly.

"She will let you, never fear, as I said before." She drank the last of her tea and put down the cup. "I just learned today," she said, "that shortly after Stephanie's return a resolution was introduced, by one of Lorraine's friends on the Board of Governors, requesting her resignation; that after a desperate fight it was held over until the next meeting--when it was voluntarily withdrawn by the mover. Is it true?"

"It is true--but I didn't know it had got out," he answered.

"I heard it only this morning. It was pretty well kept--for a Board secret."

"Yes--about four weeks overtime. Why is it that some one on the Board always leaks?"

"Why is it that almost everyone on the Board leaks?" she amended. "Talk about women not being able to keep a secret. If there is anything more gossippy and leaky than a man's club, I should like to know it."

He smiled tolerantly, with a good-natured air.

"Different sexes, different minds," he replied.

"But the same delight in gossip!" she retorted. "However, to return to the road, as you would say. What caused Lorraine's friend to have a change of heart, do you suppose?"

"Lorraine's accident and Stephanie's visit to him at the Hospital occurred on the same evening the Governors met. The postponement of the resolution was owing, I understand, to a hard fight by a couple of her friends on the Board. The subsequent action of the proposer was due to these facts--and to Lorraine's request."

"I see," nodded Miss Chamberlain. "Altogether that first visit to the Hospital--and the subsequent one--were the two wisest, most politic things Stephanie ever did. They accomplished more for her rehabilitation than she could have effected in a year's time. Even the Queen P's were mollified and were disposed to be nice--which Stephanie hasn't let them be yet, however. She _is_ a bit wilful, Montague."

"She may be wilful in her resolve not to accept Lorraine's offer of reconciliation," said Pendleton. "What is your opinion?"

"On the ground of expediency, it would be better, beyond all question, for her to accept," said Gladys, "but if it were I--I'd die first. I fancy Stephanie is of the same mind."

"I fancy she is," Pendleton agreed.

Just then Stephanie herself appeared in the doorway.

She saw Gladys, and smiled and came toward her--not seeing Pendleton, who had his back toward her and was hidden by the tall chair in which he was sitting.

"Hello!" said Gladys.--"Come and join me in a cup of tea."

Pendleton slowly arose and turned--and Stephanie stopped short with a smothered exclamation!

XVII

DOLITTLE'S TALE

She recovered herself instantly--and took Pendleton's outstretched hand.

It was a lifeless hand she gave him, however. It said plainly to him that it was offered out of respect to the conventionalities and nothing more. And her smile was as purely formal as the handshake. There was no warmth in either.

"I did not mean to intrude," she remarked.

"Intrude!" marvelled Gladys.--"Why what an idea, Stephanie! Montague and I are not--now if I were someone else, it might be apropos. This tea is cold--let me order another pot."

Pendleton went over and pushed the bell.