go to
Boston; and he would find that she had telephoned, without being told,
to the office there when to expect him, to his chauffeur to be on hand.
He never had to tell her a thing twice, nor did she interrupt--as
Miss Ottway sometimes had done--the processes of his thought. Without
realizing it he fell into the habit of listening for the inflections of
her voice, and though he had never lacked the power of making decisions,
she somehow made these easier for him especially if, a human equation
were involved.

He had, at least, the consolation--if it were one--of reflecting that
his reputation was safe, that there would be no scandal, since two are
necessary to make the kind of scandal he had always feared, and Miss
Bumpus, apparently, had no intention of being the second party. Yet she
was not virtuous, as he had hitherto defined the word. Of this he was
sure. No woman who moved about as she did, who had such an effect on
him, who had on occasions, though inadvertently, returned the lightning
of his glances, whose rare laughter resembled grace notes, and in
whose hair was that almost imperceptible kink, could be virtuous. This
instinctive conviction inflamed him. For the first time in his life he
began to doubt the universal conquering quality of his own charms,--and
when such a thing happens to a man like Ditmar he is in danger of
hell-fire. He indulged less and less in the convivial meetings and
excursions that hitherto had given him relaxation and enjoyment, and if
his cronies inquired as to the reasons for his neglect of them he failed
to answer with his usual geniality.

"Everything going all right up at the mills, Colonel?" he was asked one
day by Mr. Madden, the treasurer of a large shoe company, when they met
on the marble tiles of the hall in their Boston club.

"All right. Why?"

"Well," replied Madden, conciliatingly, "you seem kind of preoccupied,
that's all. I didn't know but what the fifty-four hour bill the
legislature's just put through might be worrying you."

"We'll handle that situation when the time comes," said Ditmar. He
accepted a gin rickey, but declined rather curtly the suggestion of a
little spree over Sunday to a resort on the Cape which formerly he would
have found enticing. On another occasion he encountered in the lobby
of the Parker House a more intimate friend, Chester Sprole, sallow,
self-made, somewhat corpulent, one of those lawyers hail fellows well
met in business circles an