now ready to believe that he had read
her mind from the beginning. It seemed to her as if she had been mad, and
in that madness had thrown away the only thing in the world she would
ever value. The thought of acknowledging her fault was not repugnant to
her; she had no special objection to groveling, but she knew it would do
no good. Vincent, though not ungenerous, saw clearly; and he had summed
up the situation in that terrible phrase about choosing between loving
and being loved. "I suppose I shouldn't respect him much if he did
forgive me," she thought; and suddenly she felt his arms about her; he
snatched her to him, turned her face to his, calling her by strange,
unpremeditated terms of endearment. Beyond these, no words at all were
exchanged between them; they were undesired. Adelaide did not know
whether it were servile or superb to care little about knowing his
opinion and intentions in regard to her. All that she cared about was
that in her eyes he was once more supreme and that his arms were about
her. Words, she knew, would have been her enemies, and she did not make
use of them.

When they went out, they passed Wayne in the outer office.

"Come to dinner to-night, Pete," said Farron, and added, turning to his
wife, "That's all right, isn't it, Adelaide?"

She indicated that it was perfect, like everything he did.

Wayne looked at his future mother-in-law in surprise. His pride had been
unforgetably stung by some of her sentences, but he could have forgiven
those more easily than the easy smile with which she now nodded at her
husband's invitation, as if a pleasant intention on her part could wipe
out everything that had gone before. That, it seemed to him, was the very
essence of insolence.

Appreciating that some sort of doubt was disturbing him, Adelaide said
most graciously:

"Yes, you really must come, Mr. Wayne."

At this moment Farron's own stenographer, Chandler, approached him with
an unsigned letter in his hand.

Chandler took the routine of the office more seriously than Farron did,
and acquired thereby a certain power over his employer. He had something
of the attitude of a child's nurse, who, knowing that her charge has
almost passed beyond her care, recognizes that she has no authority
except that bestowed by devotion.

"I think you meant to sign this letter, Mr. Farron," he said, just as a
nurse might say before strangers, "You weren't going to the party
without washing your hands?"