"I thought you might object." He forced a laugh with the avowal, but his eyes denied the lightness. "Parents do in books and plays, you know. I thought you might tell me---- Oh, well, to pull out of this and bring home a woman of my own instead of some other man's woman. It isn't very pretty!"

Mr. Adriance looked up with a certain curiosity.

"You have a sentimental streak, Tony? I never suspected it. Why should I object to an affair so suitable? You have been following Mrs. Masterson about for a year; she is altogether charming and will make a good hostess here--a great lack in our household. I admire her myself, more than any débutante I ever saw. I am very well satisfied. Suppose you had brought home some milkmaid romance, a wife to stumble over the rugs and defer to the servants? No, no; manage this properly, that is all my advice. Meanwhile, do you know it is after seven o'clock? Unless you hurry----"

"Oh, I'll hurry," was the dry promise. "And I am much obliged for the advice. But I fancy a good many of us may defer to the milkmaids, after we are dead."

He swung the door shut with unnecessary force, as he went out. While he climbed the broad, darkly-lustrous stairs, he was aware that his father was turning another page of the book; and as a pendant to that picture had a mental glimpse of Lucille Masterson, lovely, perfect in every line of costume and tint of color, waiting for a man who was not her husband. What would the girl in black think of that, he wondered? Yet Lucille was altogether beyond reproach. She had every right to contemplate a divorce, in view of Fred Masterson's undoubted wildness and extravagance. If only she had not discussed it with him, Tony Adriance, he thought impatiently. If only she had announced her intention to her husband and the world, instead of broaching it secretly to the admirer she had chosen for her second husband! It was horrible to meet Masterson with this knowledge thrust like a stone blocking the way of intercourse. Certainly she lacked delicacy.

Of course he must go on gracefully. It was very like climbing these stairs; one step taken implied taking the next. But he wished that he had not met the girl in the pavilion.
CHAPTER II
HIS NEIGHBOR'S WIFE

During the next few days, Tony Adriance several times saw the girl in black. But he did not venture to approach or speak to her. It was too soon; moreover, he was not altogether certain that he wished to be with her. She was too disturbing, too concrete an evidence of other 

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