Her eyes flashed and her lip quivered as she did so.

"For Heaven's sake, Claire," appealed her friend, "what _is_ the matter?

I suppose Cornelia or Sylvia Lee sends a regret for luncheon. You are so foolish to mind what they do! You recollect what I used to tell you about Cornelia. But why should you mind her airs and caprices now? You are utterly above her--or rather, you have shown her that two can reign in the same kingdom. You could cut her dead with perfect impunity.

That's a good deal to say, don't you know, but you positively could!"

"No, no," said Claire, with a clouded face and a little wave of the hand, "it has nothing to do with either of those women. It is" ... here she paused, and her breath came quick. "It is from Beverley Thurston."

"Beverley!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs. "Why, he's in Europe."

"He got back yesterday. He has learned about me. I suppose his sister has told him. And he writes to me in a tone of impertinence. Yes, it's nothing else. He writes to me as if I were some sinful creature. He presumes to be sorry for me. He says that he will pay me a visit if I can spare him an hour from the giddy life I am leading.... I don't remember the exact words he uses; it is not so much what he writes as what he seems to write. The whole note breathes of patronage and commiseration. To _me!_--think of it! What right has he? What right did I ever give him?"

Mrs. Diggs started up from her chair. "Why, my dear Claire," she said, "you are greatly excited!"

"I am miserable!" cried Claire. She almost staggered toward Mrs. Diggs, and flung both arms about her friend's neck. "I am miserable--miserable!" she went on, with a sudden paroxysm of tears. She leaned her proud young head on Mrs. Diggs's bony shoulder, beginning to sob quite wildly. "Do I deserve reproaches? Have I been so wrong? What evil have I done? Let my conscience trouble me if it will, but _he_ is not my conscience. How dare _he_ reproach me?"

A violent seizure of sobs made Claire incapable of further speech. Mrs.

Diggs let the clinging arms clasp her. She did not know what to answer; she scarcely knew what to think. She only felt, at that unexpected moment, that she loved Claire very much, and would always stay her stanch friend, no matter what bitter ill might overtake her.

XVIII.

As Claire was descending into the lower hall, at about four o'clock the next afternoon, she saw her husband enter the house with his latch-key.

She quickened her step a little, and met him at the landing of the stairs. They had not seen each other for twenty-four hours; she had breakfasted in her room, that morning, as was of late almost habitual with her, and by the time that she left it he had been driven away in his brougham. On the previous night he had reached home long after she had retired to bed. All this was no new thing. Its first and second occurrence had shocked them both, as an unforeseen result of their altered existence. But repet.i.tion had set it securely among the commonplaces. They accepted it, now, with a matter-of-course placidity.

"I was going to the Vanvelsors' reception," Claire said. "Did you think of dropping in?"

"No," answered Hollister. He had taken her hand, and was holding it while he spoke. The next moment he kissed her cheek, and soon let his eye wander over the complex tastefulness of her attire. He then drew her arm within his own, and led her toward the near drawing-room, whose threshold they crossed. Except his recorded monosyllable, he had said nothing for an appreciable time, and Claire, regarding his face with a sidelong glance, had already detected there marked signs of worriment.

"No," he presently continued, taking a seat on one of the rich-clad sofas, and gently forcing her to sit beside him. "I had no idea of going there. I don't feel like anything gay, Claire. Things are doing horribly on the Street. There's a dreadful squall. I hope it will be only a squall, and soon blow over." He then named a certain stock in which he had very comprehensive interests. "It has dropped in the most furious fashion," he proceeded. "Claire, I've lost seventy thousand dollars to-day, if I've lost a penny."

He talked more technically of his ill-luck after that, and told her what he believed to be the reason of the adverse change. She listened with great attention. She knew so much of Wall Street matters that she scarcely missed a point in all that he explained.

"So Goldwin is on the other side," she said, when he had finished.

"Yes, Goldwin is safe. But you can't tell what to-morrow will bring. No one is really safe. Prices are flying about. It's a shocking state of affairs."

"There is nothing for you to do just now, is there?" Claire asked, after a little pause.

"Oh, no; I may get a few telegrams later. But nothing serious will happen till to-morrow."

She laid her hand on his arm. She was more alarmed and perplexed than she chose to show. "Then come with me to the reception," she said; "you might as well, Herbert. It is better than to brood over the state of matters down there."

He shook his head negatively. "I should make a very bad guest," he replied. "Go yourself, Claire. But remember one thing." He was looking at her very fixedly; his frank blue eyes were full of a soft yet a.s.sertive pain. "Our life may alter suddenly for the worse. We may have to give up all this." He waved one hand here and there, as though generalizing the whole luxurious encompa.s.sment. "There is no telling what _may_ happen. I never felt the insecurity of my career as I feel it now. Do you know, Claire, that a few more such days as this may ruin me?"

"Ruin you?" she repeated.

She was pale as those words left her lips. Hollister had proposed to her a terrible possibility.

"Yes, Claire, I mean it. Of course I am looking at the worst that might happen. But I want to prepare you."

She rose, keeping her eyes on his. "I don't know what I should do," she said, "if I lost what I have now. I have grown used to it, Herbert. I won't let myself think that it might pa.s.s away--that I should be left without all these good and precious things."

As she spoke the last words he rose also, and caught both her hands, looking eagerly into her face.

"Claire," he exclaimed, "you _must_ think of losing it all! You _must_ try to reconcile yourself with the idea! If you don't, the ordeal will be all the harder when it comes."

"When it comes?" she again repeated.

"Yes--you see just how I stand. You have grasped the whole wretched situation. Of course there's a chance that I may right myself, but" ...

"I'll take that chance," she broke in, quite forcibly withdrawing her hands. "So will you, Herbert. I prefer to look at it this way. We will both take the chance."

Hollister's face was full of reproach.

"Claire!" he exclaimed. "I see that you love this new life with a positive pa.s.sion!"

"I love it very much," she answered. "I love it so much that I should suffer fearfully if I were turned adrift from it.... Come, we will both go to the Vanvelsors' reception."

"No," replied Hollister. He walked away from her. By her lack of sympathy she had dealt him a cruel sting.

"Very well," responded Claire, as she watched his receding figure, "_I_ am going."

His back was turned to her, but he suddenly veered round, facing her, and saying, with a bitter sharpness: "Go, if you please! Go, and leave me to my misery! If you cared for me in the right manner, you would not want to go. You would want to stay with me, and forget, for a while at least, the gay crowds that admire and court you!"

These words were utterly unexpected. He had never before alluded to her lack of fondness. She was embarra.s.sed, ashamed. For a moment she could not speak. Then she simulated an affronted demeanor; it seemed her sole refuge. "I--I care for you as much as I have always cared," she said.

"No more and no less."

She moved toward the door at once, after thus speaking. She wondered if he would seek to detain her. He did not.... She entered her coupe very soon afterward. During the drive to Mrs. Vanvelsor's reception she had a keen remembrance of just how Hollister had looked when her final gaze had dwelt upon him. She knew that she had stung at last into life the perception of how much he had been giving and how little he had received. Her conscience sternly smote her; she was more than once on the verge of ordering that the vehicle should be driven home again. But in her then mood any attempt at amendment seemed wildly futile. What could she say to her husband? That she deplored his possible ruin? Yes; but not that such regret sprang from the sweet sources of a wifely, unselfish love. She could not regard the possibility of being flung downward from her present high place with any unselfish feeling. Mrs.

Diggs had touched the living and sensitive truth last night: her thirst for luxury had grown a vice. Soft raiment, obsequious attendance, a place of supreme social distinction, all these had become vitally, imperiously needful to her happiness.

It was not the sort of happiness which she believed high or fine. She could most clearly conceive of another, less fervid, less material, less intoxicating, fraught with a spiritual incentive and an intellectual meaning. But it was too late to dream of that now. She had taken the bent; she must have power or nothing. She regarded the idea of being obscure and with straitened funds as a calamity simply horrible.

Hollister must think her cruel as death; that was inevitable. She did not blame him for blaming her. She blamed herself for having married him with loveless apathy. His reproachful words haunted her--but what could she do? He wanted genuine tenderness, sympathy, fortifying cheer. But he wanted these from an impulse of which her heart had always been incapable. Fate was avenging itself upon her. She had tampered with holy things. Her marriage oath had been a mockery. Could she go back and tell him this? Could she go back and lie to him, feign before him? No; best that she should not go back at all.

The reception was a great crush. But they seemed to make way for her with a sort of obeisance. No one jostled against her; they all appeared to give her a little elbow-room in the throng, while they either bowed or stared. She was secretly agonized. She smiled and spoke as effectively as usual; she held her court among them all, as of late she had invariably held it. But her heart was sick; she was besieged by a portentous dread, and she was pierced with that self-contempt whose length of thrust is measured by a consciousness of how far the being we might have become surpa.s.ses the being that we are. While she stood the centre of a small, courtly group, a gentleman softly pushed his way into her notice and held out his hand. She took the hand, and looked well into the face of him who had extended it. The new-comer was Beverley Thurston. As Claire looked she swiftly noted that his familiar face wore marked signs of change. He had distinctly aged. The gray at his temples had grown grayer; the crows'-feet under his hazel eyes were a little more apparent; perhaps, too, his gravity of manner was more clearly suggested by a first glance. At the same time she felt herself regarding him in a new light and by the aid of amplified experience. She silently and fleetly made him stand a test, so to speak, and at once decided that he stood it well. She had met no man since they had parted who bespoke high-breeding and gentility with more immediate directness.

"I thought I should find you here," he said, as their hands dropped apart.

"Did you come on that account?" she asked.

"Not entirely, because I had great fears of not being able to do more than watch you from a distance."

"Ah," she said, with a pretty graciousness, and loud enough for all the others to hear, "you have an excellent claim upon me--that of old acquaintance."

Her surrounders felt that there was either dismissal or desertion waiting for them. She managed to make it promptly plain that her favoring heed had been wholly transferred to Thurston; she showed it to them with a cool boldness which they would have resented with resolves of future neglect if indulged in by many another woman present; for they were all men who put a solid worth upon their courtesies, and had a fastidious reluctance ever to be charged with sowing them broadcast.

But Claire had long ago learned that the security of her reign depended upon an occasional open proof of how she herself trusted its power. She had guessed the peril of continuing monotonously clement. To talk with Thurston now interested her more than any other conversational project.