"I think the moon must be letting me look at its other side to-night,"

said she. "Have you been saving up the artist and poet in you, to show them to me now?"

"Oh, no," said he, "not at all--why, any one knows these little things.

Now let's go through the arrangement of the chambers; shall we?"

"Not to-night, if you please. Let us sit by the fire again. It will be a grand house, dear. Sometimes I think, too grand for Bellevale; and quite often I feel, too grand, too elegant--for me."

"Who then," answered Florian, who saw his conversational duty, a dead-sure thing, and went for it there and then, "who then could have such a house, or ought to have it, if not you?"

The girl looked questioningly, pathetically at him, as if she missed something of the convincing in his words.

"To deny that you feel so--felt so about it when you gave orders for the building, would be foolish," said she at last. "And it was very dear of you to do it. But once a man, having a little gem which he thought of perfect water, placed it in a setting so large and so cunningly wrought that n.o.body ever saw the little stone, unless it was pointed out to them."

"He saw it," said Florian, "whenever he wanted to--and no setting can be too beautiful for a moon-stone."

He felt that he was rallying n.o.bly.

"Really," he thought, "I am getting quite ardent. And under different circ.u.mstances, I could be so in the utmost good faith; for I know she's as good and true as she is queenly and beautiful. But after all, it is duty, only, and----"

"In such a house," she went on, "people may live a little closer than acquaintances, or not quite so close, as the case may be, with their lives diluted by their many possessions."

"Yes?" said he expectantly.

"Before it comes to that," she burst forth, her eyes wide and her hands clasped in her lap, "I want to die! I could gather the f.a.gots for the fire, and cuddle down by it on a heap of straw by the roadside, with the man I love; and if I knew he loved me, he might beat me, and I would bear it, and be happy in his strength--far happier than in those chambers you spoke of a moment ago, with an acquaintance who merely happened to be called a husband! I would rather walk the streets than that!"

Now, a lovers' quarrel requires lovers on both sides. Had Amidon really been one, this crisis would have pa.s.sed naturally on to protestation, counter-protestation, tears, kisses, embraces, reconciliation. But all these things take place through the interplay of instincts, none of which was awakened in Florian. So he sat forlorn, and said nothing.

"I am going to let you go home, now," said she, rising. "I gave out the date of the wedding, as you requested, the day after you went away.

If it were not for that, I should ask you to wait a while--until the house is finished--or even longer. As it is, you mustn't be surprised if I say something surprising to you soon."

"I--I a.s.sure you----" began Amidon. "Good night, my----"

He had schooled himself for this farewell, and remembering what Madame le Claire had told him, had decided on a course of action. The two had walked out into the hall and he had put on his top-coat. Now he went bravely up to her and stooped to kiss her.

She raised her face to his, and again the feeling that this man was only a mere acquaintance pa.s.sed into her being, as she looked into his eyes. She turned her lips away. But Florian, as the feeling of strangeness impressed her, lost it himself in the contemplation, brief but irresistible, of the upturned lips with their momentary invitation so soon withdrawn. The primal man in him awoke. His arm tightened about the lissome waist; the divine form in the creamy silk, on which he had only now almost feared to look, he drew to him so tightly as almost to crush her; and with one palm he raised the averted face to his, and made deliberate conquest of the lips of vivid red. Once, twice, three times--and then she put her hands against his shoulders and pushed him away. Her face flamed.

"Eugene!" she exclaimed, "how----"

"Good night!" he answered, "my dearest, my darling, good night!"

And he ran down the street, in such a conflict of emotions that he hardly knew whither he went.

XII

ON THE FIRM GROUND OF BUSINESS

O merry it was in the good greenwood when the goblin and sprite ranged free, When the kelpie haunted the shadowed flood, and the dryad dwelt in the tree; But merrier far is the trolley-car as it routs the witch from the wold, And the din of the hammer and the cartridges' clamor as they banish the swart kobold!

O, a sovran cure for psychic dizziness Is a breath of the air of the world of business!

--_Idyls of a Sky-Sc.r.a.per_.

It is recorded in the last chapter that Mr. Amidon ran from Miss Waldron's presence in such a state of agitation that he hardly knew whither he went. To the reader who wonders why he was agitated, I have only to hint that he was wretchedly inexperienced. And as it was, he soon got his bearings and walked briskly toward his hotel; still, however, in a state of mind entirely new to him.

Gradually he lessened his gait, absorbed in mental reconstructions of his parting with Elizabeth. The pet lion which, while affectionately licking the hand which caresses it, brings the blood, and at the taste reverts instantly to its normal savagery, is acted on by impulses much like those of Amidon. His thoughts were successions of moving pictures of the splendid girl whom he had held in his arms and kissed. He saw her sitting by the fire as he entered. His mind's eye dwelt on the image of the strong, full figure and the lovely head and wondrous eyes.

He felt her lean against him as they stood by the table, and his arms fairly ached with the thrill of that parting embrace. His lips throbbed still with the half-ravished kisses, and he stopped with an insane impulse to return and repeat the tender robbery. Then, wondering at the turbulence of his thoughts, he walked on.

During this pause, he was dimly conscious that a person whom he had seen approaching had neared the point of meeting, and after a moment's halt, had pa.s.sed on. As he resumed his walk, he heard rapid steps behind him, and was pa.s.sed by a man who strongly resembled the pa.s.senger whom he had just met. This figure turned a corner a few rods in advance of Florian, and almost immediately reemerged; having turned, apparently, for the purpose of encountering Amidon once more. This time, he walked up, and halted, facing Amidon.

"You'll be at the office in the morning, I suppose, Mr. Bra.s.sfield?"

said the man.

"At the office?" said Amidon. "My office? Yes."

"Well," this new acquaintance proceeded, in tones which indicated a profound sense of personal injury, "you'd better come prepared to fill my place in the establishment as soon as possible."

This statement was followed by a pause of the sort usually adopted for the purpose of noting the effect of some startling utterance. Amidon was feeling in his pocket for Elizabeth's first-found letter, and the affairs of the Bra.s.sfield Oil Company had little interest for him. Yet he dimly realized that some one was resigning something.

"Let me see," said he musingly; "what--what do you do?"

The man gave a sort of hop, of the kind we have been taught to expect of the stag when the bullet strikes him.

"Do?" he snorted. "What do I _do_? What do _I_ do? Do you mean to---- I'll tell what I do! I get together options for you and send you cipher telegrams about 'em, and don't get any answers! I attend stock-holders' meetings and get whipsawed by minorities because you are dead to the world off there in New York, or the Lord knows where, and don't furnish me with proxies! I stay here and try to protect your interests when you desert 'em, and you send some white-headed old reprobate of a Pinkerton man to shadow me for a week and try to pry into my work! And when you get home you never show up at the counting-room, though you know what a pickle things are in; and when I meet you on the street, I get cut dead: that's what I do! And I stand it, do I? Ha, ha, ha! Not if J. B. Stevens knows himself, I don't!

Good night, Mr. Bra.s.sfield. Come round in the morning, and I'll _show_ you what I do!"

After the speaker had rushed away, which he incontinently did following this outburst, Amidon's mind reverted to Elizabeth; and not until he had reached his room did his thoughts return to his encounter in the street; and then it was only to wonder if this man Stevens was really of any importance, and if a breach with him was a matter of any consequence.

His mind soon drifted off from this, however, and he got out of bed to turn on the lights and read the above-mentioned letter. And as he read it, he grew ashamed. That embrace, those kisses, now seemed an outrage to him. Was this his return for the sweet confidences, the revelations of hidden things, with which she had honored him? "You must forget this," she had written, "only at such times of tenderness as you will sometimes have when you are gone," and: "When you see me again, . . .

without a word or look from me, know me, even more than you now do, yours." And after this, he had permitted her allurement to fly to his brain, and had given her reason to think that because she had lowered her guard, he had struck her a dastard's blow. His eyes grew soft with pity, and they moistened, as he repeated to himself, "Poor little girl!

poor little girl!"

Oh, yes! doubtless it was silly of him; but please to remember that he was quite as far from being blase as--as we used to be; and that he was just now becoming really in love with Elizabeth. And love is much nearer kin to pity than pity is to love. So he lay there and pitied Elizabeth, and wondered when the wedding was to be. He must have Clara find this out from Bra.s.sfield. And he thought regretfully of Madame le Claire. His reflections thus touched on the two most unhappy women in Bellevale.

To the hypnotist he had become so much more than a "case," merely, that a revulsion of feeling was setting in against bringing him here to be turned over to a woman for whom he cared nothing. It was a shame, she thought. It was something which no one had a right to expect of any girl.

And Elizabeth Waldron still sat by the dying fire, her heart full of a fighting which would not let her sleep. She felt humbled and insulted, and her face burned as did her heart. But all the time she felt angry with herself for her inconsistency. She had longed for Eugene's letters, and when they came, so few and cold, she was grieved. She had expected a dozen little caresses, even before he left her carriage; and she was saddened because she missed them. She had thought of his coming in on her in a manner quite different from that in which he had actually crept into her presence--and when he had only pressed her hands, she had felt defrauded and robbed. And when at parting he had done (somewhat forcibly, it is true) what she had many times allowed, and what she had all the time wanted of him, she felt outraged and offended!

These thoughts kept her long by the fire, and accompanied her to her chamber. "Elizabeth Waldron," said she to her mirror, "you are going insane! Aren't you ashamed that now, when he has shown his love and understanding of the things you love and try to understand, and surprised you by the possession of the very qualities you have felt secretly regretful on account of his not having--that you feel--that way? What ails you, that you begin to feel toward the dearest man in all the world as if he were a stranger?--Ah, but you do, you do! And you'll never be happy with him, nor even make him happy!--And, oh, that letter, that letter! That awful letter for him to read on the cars!

If you had never written that!"

"What's my manager's name--Stevens?" asked Mr. Amidon of Judge Blodgett. "Yes? Well, I'm going to have trouble with him! I won't be bullied by my clerks. And who is the next man?"

"Alderson," said the judge. "It's all in the notes, you know."

"And very convenient, too," said Amidon. "And who is the stenographer?"

"Miss Strong," answered the judge.