and ashamed.

"I do apologize," he said, less certainly. "I did not come in here to say all that, Lucille. But I did come to say what reaches the same end. We cannot finish this thing we have begun. We could not stand it. Think whatever you may of me as a coward, I am not going on."

"Indeed, I think you have gone far enough," she calmly returned. "Suppose we sit down and be civilized. Will you smoke before dinner?"

He shook his head, baffled in spite of himself by her elusiveness, but also angered to resolution. And he knew that he had seen her truly a moment since; the loveliness that had glamoured his sight for a year could not hide from memory that glimpse of her mind.

"I am not staying to dinner, thanks," he refused. "And I am not playing. Our matter looked bad enough as it was, but you showed me a worse thing, just now. It was bad enough to take my friend's wife for love; I can't and won't take her by means of my father's money."

She wheeled about, swiftly and hotly aflame, and they stared at each other as strangers.

"You have forgotten that we are engaged," she said stingingly. "Or doesn't your conscience heed a broken word?"

"Perhaps it is heeding the tactfulness of being engaged to one man while you are married to another," he struck back, goaded to a brutality foreign to his nature.

The faint chime of touching glasses checked them on the brink of a breach that would have made reconciliation impossible. Mrs. Masterson dropped into a chair, snatching up a fan to shade her flushed face. Adriance stood stiffly, where he was, wisely making no attempt at artificial nonchalance. The servant who entered saw only composure in his immobility.Mrs. Masterson eagerly lifted the offered cocktail to her lips, as if anger had parched them. Adriance took a glass from the tray presented to him, but at once set it aside upon the table; now that he realized, he felt that the hospitality of this house was not for him. But the brief interlude helped both of them.

When the servant had gone, Adriance spoke with restored calmness. "You see, even now the situation has warped us all awry. If it were not so, I should like to buy things for you, I suppose. I can imagine----" He broke the sentence; quite suddenly he had remembered the little buckled shoes bought for the girl in the pavilion. He had looked interestedly at other things in the 

 Prev. P 23/157 next