She shook out a fold of her frock impatiently. “A child frightened at momentary solitude was never more absurd than I.” For a little space she continued her promenade up and down the room, leaving at each turn some fringe of suspicion behind. And presently the entire fabric seemed to leave her. To the corners of her mouth the smile returned. She went back to the sofa and was about to resume her former seat when her eyes fell on the envelope which her husband had tossed on the table. Mechanically she picked it up and glanced at the superscription. The writing was thin as hair, but the lettering was larger than is usual, abrupt and angular. To anyone else it would have suggested nothing particular, save, perhaps, the idea that it had been formed with the point of a tack; but to Eden it was luminous with intimations. Into the palms of her hands came a sudden moisture, the color left her cheeks, for a second she stood irresolute, the envelope in her trembling hold, then, as though coerced by another than herself, she ran to a bell and rang it.
In a moment the butler appeared. To conceal her agitation Eden had gone to the piano. There were some loose sheets of music on the lid and these she pretended to examine. “Is that you, Harris?” she asked, without turning her head. “Harris, that man that brought the note for Mr. Usselex this evening was the one that came on Monday with the note for Mr. Arnswald, was it not?”
“I beg pardon, ma’am.”
Eden reconstructed the question and repeated it.
“It was a young person, ma’am,” Harris answered. “A lady’s maid, most likely. She was here before on Monday evening, just before dinner, ma’am. She brought a letter and said there was no answer. I gave it to Mr. Usselex.”
“To Mr. Arnswald, you mean.”
“No, ma’am; it was for Mr. Usselex.”
Eden clutched at the piano. Through the sheet of music which she held she saw that note again. The handwriting was identical with the one on the envelope. But each word it contained was a separate flame, and each flame was burning little round holes in her heart and eating it away. It was very evident to her now. She had been tricked from the first. She had been lied to and deceived. 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 buttonhole was a flower, and in his breath the odor of crème 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 nervousness of the slipper that prompted the question. To his thinking there was nothing more talkative than the foot of a pretty woman.
Eden shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t expect you,” she said; “I am sure that I wouldn’t have received you if I had.”
“Ah, that is hardly gracious now.”
“Besides, your reputation is deplorable.”
“No one has any reputation, nowadays,” Maule answered, with the air of a man describing the state of the weather. “You hear the most scandalous things about everyone. Who has been talking against me? A woman, I wager. Do you know what hell is paved with?”
“Not with your good intentions, I am positive.”
“It is paved with women’s tongues. That is what it is
