In a flash he saw her as she would be--this woman who now stood before him twisting and turning in half-sincere outbursts, seeking to excuse or accuse herself before his eyes from the need of dramatic sensations.

"You will be," he said quietly. "So you are going to marry Boskirk?"

She nodded.

"Soon, _very_ soon?"

She winced under the note of sarcasm in his voice and turned breathlessly:

"Oh, Bojo--you despise me!"

"No--" he said indifferently. He held out his hand. "Well, we have said all we have to say, haven't we?"

Before he could prevent her or divine her intentions, she had flung herself on his shoulder, clinging to him despite his efforts to tear her from him.

"Please, no scenes," he said hastily. "Quite unnecessary."

She wished him to kiss her once--a last kiss; but he refused. Then she began to cry hysterically, vowing again and again, between her torrents of self-accusation, that no matter what the future brought she would never love any one else but him. It was not until she grew exhausted from the very storm of her emotion that he was able to loosen her arms and force her from him.

"Oh, you don't love me--you don't care!" she cried, when at last she felt herself alone and her arms empty.

"If that can be any consolation--if your grief is real--if you really do care for me," he said, "that is true. I do not love you, Doris, and I never have. That is why I do not hate you or despise you. I am sorry, awfully sorry. You could have been such an awfully good sort."

At this she caught her throat and, afraid of another paroxysm, he went out quickly.

Before the curb the touring-car was waiting. An idea came to him, remembering the glance Doris had sent about the room.

"Going back to-night, Carver?" he said to the chauffeur. "Much of a run?"

"Two hours and a half, sir."

"Mrs. Drake came down with you?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's the answer," he thought to himself, wondering how much she might have overheard. "Poor Doris."

He thought of her already as some one distantly removed, amazed to realize how quickly with the snapping of the artificial bond their true relationship had readjusted itself. He thought of her only with a great wonder, recognizing now all the possibilities which had lain in her for good, saddened, and shuddering in his young imagination at the price she had elected to pay.

He turned the corner with a last look at the turreted and gabled roof of the great Drake mansion, faint unreal shadows against the starlit sky, as though, in his newly acquired knowledge of the tremendous catastrophe impending, it lay against the crowded silhouette of the city like a thing of dreams to vanish with the awakening reality.

Before the next month was over, Doris had married young Boskirk--a quiet country wedding whose simplicity excited much comment. Before another fortnight the market, which had been slowly receding before the rising wrath of a great financial panic, broke violently.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE LETTER TO PATSIE

Two days after the breaking of his engagement to Doris, Bojo wrote to Patsie. His letter--the first he had written her--he was two days in composing, tearing up several drafts. He was afraid to say too much, and to discuss trivial matters seemed to him insincere. Finally he sent this letter:

Dear Drina:

I suppose by now Doris has told you of what has happened.

There are a great many things I want you to know about these trying months, that I've wanted you to know and have been hurt that you didn't know. Now that it's over I realize what a tragedy it would have been, and yet I would have gone on believing it was the right thing to do, trying to make myself believe in what I was doing. During all this time I have never forgotten certain things you said to me, your message the day of the panic, the look in your eyes that afternoon before I went in to see your father and--other memories. I want to see you. Where are you? When will you be back in New York?

Faithfully yours, BOJO.

Having written this he carried it around in his pocket for another day before posting it. No sooner was it irrevocably beyond his hands than he had the feeling that he had committed an irretrievable blunder. The next moment it seemed to him that he had done the direct and courageous thing, that she would understand and be grateful to him for his frankness. Each morning he heard the rustle of the mail slipping under the door with a sudden cold foreboding, certain that her letter had come. Each evening, back from the grind of the factory, he came into the monastic corridors of Westover Court and turned the corner of the desk with a hot-and-cold hope that in the letter-box there, under the number 51, would be a letter waiting for him. When after a week no word had come, he began to make excuses. She was away on a visit, her mail had to be forwarded or more probably held for her return. But one day, happening to glance at the social column, in a report of the Berkshires he found her name as a contender in a tennis tournament. He wrote a second note:

Dear Patsie:

Did you get my letter of ten days ago, and won't you write me?

Yours, BOJO.

Perhaps his first had miscarried. Such accidents were rare but yet they did occur. He calculated the shortest time she could receive his letter and answer it and waited expectantly all that day. Again a week pa.s.sed and no word from her. What had happened? Had he really blundered in sending the first letter? Was her pride hurt, or what? A feeling of despair began to settle over him. He did not attempt a third letter, sick at heart. The thought that he might have wounded her--he always imagined her as a child--was unbearable. It hurt him as it had hurt him with a haunting sadness, the day after their wild toboggan ride, when he had seen the pain in her eyes--eyes that were yet too young for the knowledge of the sorrow and ugliness of the world. Finally, through a chance remark one day when he had dropped in to his club, he learned that she was to be present at a house party at Skeeter Stoughton's on Long Island. Overlooking the incident of his unsuccessful attempt to enter their employ, he took his friend into a half confidence and begged him to secure him an invitation for over Sunday.

When he was once on the train and he knew for certain that in a short two hours he would look into her eyes again, a feeling almost of panic seized him. When they were in the motor rushing over smooth white roads and he felt the lost distances melting away beneath him, this feeling became one of the acutest misery. All that he had carefully planned and rehea.r.s.ed to say to her, suddenly deserted his mind.

"What shall I say? What shall I do?" he said to himself, cold with horror. There seemed to be nothing he could say or do. His very presence was an impertinence, which she must resent.

Luckily no one was in the house except their hostess and he had a short moment to rea.s.semble his thoughts before they strolled down to join the party at the tennis courts. He was known to most of the crowd who greeted his appearance as the return of the prodigal. Patsie was on the courts, her back to him as they came up, Gladys Stone on the opposite side of the net. Some one called out joyfully, "Bojo Crocker!" and she turned with an involuntarily startled movement, then hastily controlling herself at the cry of her partner, drove the ball into the net for the loss of the point.

When next, ensconced under a red-and-white awning among the array of cool flannels and summery dresses, he sought her, she was seriously intent on Hieher game, a little frown on her young forehead, her lips rebelliously set, the swirling white silk collar open at the browned throat, the sleeve rolled up above the firm slender forearm. She moved lightly as a young animal in slow, well calculated tripping movements or in rapid shifting springs. Her partner, a younger brother of Skeeter's, home on vacation, gathered in the b.a.l.l.s and offered them to her with a solicitude that was quite evident. Bojo felt an instinctive antipathy watching their laughing intimacy. It seemed to him that they excluded him, that she was still a child unable to distinguish between a stripling and a man, still without need of any deeper emotions than a light-hearted romping comradeship.

With the ending of the set, greetings could no longer be avoided. As she came to him directly, holding out her hand in the most natural way, he felt as though he were going red to the ears, that every one must perceive his embarra.s.sment before this girl still in her teens. He said stupidly, pretending amazement,

"You here? Well, this is a surprise!"

"Yes, isn't it?" she said with seeming unconsciousness.

That was all. The next moment she was in some new group, arranging another match. Short and circ.u.mstantial as her greeting had been, it left him with a sinking despair. He had hurt her irrevocably, she resented his presence--that was evident. His whole coming had been a dreadful mistake. Depressed, he turned to Gladys Stone to attempt the concealment from strange eyes of the disorder within himself. He was yet too inexperienced in the ways of the women of the world to even suspect the depth of resentment that could lie in her tortured heart.

"I'm awfully glad to see you--awfully," he said, committing the blunder of giving to his voice a note of discreet sympathy. It had been his distressing duty to bring her personally the little baggage of her sentimental voyage--letters, a token or two, several photographs--to witness with clouding eyes the spectacle of her complete breakdown.

She drew a little away at his words, straightening up and looking from him.

"Have you heard the date of the wedding, Doris's wedding?" she said coldly.

It was his time to wince, but he was incapable of returning the feminine attack.

"You should know better than I," he said quietly.

She looked at him with a perfect simulation of ignorance: