t. She, at
least, could have kept these hours sacred, and she had not only
received this grinning ape, but evidently given him a delectable morsel
to chew on. He could have knocked both men down but he was not even
permitted to pass them by with a scowling nod. Another contretemps.

Dinwiddie hailed him delightedly.

"Good old Lee! Haven't seen you in an age. Where've you kept
yourself? Know Vane? Mother's an old friend of Mary's. He's head
over like the rest of us. Who says we don't live in the age of
miracles?"

"Yeh, ain't life wonderful?" Clavering's jocular faculty was
enfeebled, but it came to the rescue. He was staring at Vane.
Evidently this young man was unimpressed by searing phrases and he must
have heard several, for, if he remembered aright, "Polly Vane" with
"her head like a billiard ball," who "wore a wig for decency's sake,"
had been one of the most resentful women at the luncheon. For a moment
he had a queer impression that his stature had diminished until the top
of his head stood level with this glowing young man's waistcoat. And
then he shot up to seven feet. Something had turned over inside him
and vomited forth the pitch and its vapors. But he still felt angry
and jealous. He managed to reply, however:

"Well, I must be getting on. Have an engagement at four. See you in a
day or two, Din." He nodded to young Vane and in another moment he was
taking Madame Zattiany's front steps three at a time.

XXXV

When Mary Zattiany had reached her bedroom on Sunday morning she had
leaned heavily on her dressing-table for a few moments, staring into
the mirror. Then she curled her lip and shrugged her shoulders. Well,
it was done. She had been as bald and uncompromising as she knew how
to be. A picturesque softening of details, pleas to understand, and
appeals to the man's sympathy, might be for other women but not for
her. Life had given her a respect for hard facts and an utter contempt
for the prevalent dodging of them.

She had told him that she was determined to relate her story in full as
much for his sake as her own. But she had told it far more for her
own. Before going any farther she was determined to know this man, who
may only have intoxicated her, as thoroughly as it was possible for a
woman to know any man she had not lived with. If he met the test she
could be reasonably sure that for once she had made no mistake. If he
did not--well, perhaps, so much th