whirling his
bolas over his head and shouting, presented itself to Deena's
imagination. The carriage was waiting, and, obeying Mrs. Star's motion
to get in first, Simeon Ponsonby's wife fell back on the seat and
laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks.

Outside, Stephen was entreating to be allowed to visit her the next
morning.

"I haven't half finished my story, Mrs. Ponsonby," he protested.

And Deena managed to steady her voice and invite him to lunch the next
day.

CHAPTER VII.

French's visit to New York was not the result of any weakening
resolution in regard to his neighbor's wife; the object was business.
His property was chiefly in real estate, and the distinguished law
firm who managed his affairs had summoned him to confer with a tenant
who was desirous of becoming a purchaser. Being in the same town with
Deena, he decided that he could not well avoid visiting her, to say
nothing of Ben. It was his misfortune that every meeting made his
self-discipline harder, for, if they lived, he had got to see her
under still more trying circumstances--reunited with a husband who
misunderstood her.

These thoughts passed through his mind the morning after their
encounter at the opera, as he finished his breakfast at the Savoy. He
had an appointment at his lawyers' at ten o'clock, and at the
Minthrops' for luncheon at half-past one. The first, if properly
conducted, might result in a largely increased income; the second in
self-repression and a heartache; and yet his one idea was to dispatch
the business, so that no precious moments of Deena's society should be
lost to him.

He was hurrying out of the hotel to go downtown, when a telegram was
put into his hand. For the detached bachelor such messages have little
interest. Stephen opened this one as casually as most people open an
advertisement--may the foul fiend fly away with those curses of our
daily mail!--and read:

BUENOS AYRES, Jan. 30.
PEDRO LOPEZ to the HON'BLE PROFESSOR FRENCH, Harmouth
University.

_Tintoretto_ on its way home. Ponsonby missing.

Stephen read the dispatch several times before he quite understood its
significance. Pedro Lopez was his South American friend, who had set
on foot the Fuegian expedition and applied to Harmouth for a botanist;
the _Tintoretto_ was the vessel furnished by the Argentine Government.

The cable message had gone to Harmouth and been repeated to Ne