impelled to run
away from them. As there was no possibility of running away now, he
could only dodge, by pretending to misunderstand, what he feared Guion
was trying to say.

"So everything you undertook you pulled off successfully?" his host
questioned, abruptly.

"Not everything; some things. I lost money--often; but on the whole I
made it."

"Good! With me it was always the other way."

The pause that followed was an uneasy one, otherwise Temple would not
have seized on the first topic that came to hand to fill it up.

"You'll miss Olivia when she's gone, Henry."

"Y-yes; if she goes."

The implied doubt startled Davenant, but Temple continued to smoke
pensively. "I've thought," he said, after a puff or two at his cigar,
"I've thought you seemed to be anticipating something in the way of
a--hitch."

Guion held his cigar with some deliberation over an ash-tray, knocking
off the ash with his little finger as though it were a task demanding
precision.

"You'll know all about it to-morrow, perhaps--or in a few days at
latest. It can't be kept quiet much longer. I got the impression at
dinner that you'd heard something already."

"Nothing but gossip, Henry."

Guion smiled, but with a wince. "I've noticed," he said, "that there's a
certain kind of gossip that rarely gets about unless there's some cause
for it--on the principle of no smoke without fire. If you've heard
anything, it's probably true."

"I was afraid it might be. But in that case I wonder you allowed Olivia
to go ahead."

"I had to let fate take charge of that. When a man gets himself so
entangled in a coil of barbed wire that he trips whichever way he turns,
his only resource is to stand still. That's my case." He poured himself
out another glass of cognac, and tasted it before continuing. "Olivia
goes over to England, and gets herself engaged to a man I never heard
of. Good! She fixes her wedding-day without consulting me and
irrespective of my affairs. Good again! She's old enough to do it, and
quite competent. Meanwhile I lose control of the machine, so to speak. I
see myself racing on to something, and can't stop. I can only lie back
and watch, to see what happens. I've got to leave that to fate, or God,
or whatever it is that directs our affairs when we can no longer manage
them ourselves." He took another sip of cognac, and pulled for a minute
nervously at his cigar. "I thought at first that Olivia might be married
and get, off before