"He is Papa Claude's partner and producer," said Eleanor with dignity.

"If I don't care anything for him, I don't see what harm there is in seeing him."

"Not liking whisky won't keep it from going to your head," said Quin stubbornly.

"That's perfect nonsense; and besides, what can I do? It's his play as well as ours. I can't ask him to stay away from rehearsals."

"No; but you can stay away yourself. You don't have to be in this play.

Something else will turn up. You can afford to wait."

"But that's just the point--I can't! And, besides, think how silly and childish it would be for me to refuse a wonderful chance for a professional debut that might not come again in years."

"But don't you see, Miss Nell, you are in honor bound not to go on with this?"

"Honor bound? How do you mean?"

"Why, to Queen Vic."

"I agreed to break my engagement with Harold Phipps and not to answer any of his letters. I've kept my promise."

"Yes; but I thought, and I made her think, that you agreed not to see him or have anything to do with him for six months."

"Well, the time will be up in six weeks."

"Lots can happen in six weeks."

If Quin had been wise he would have taken another tack; but, in his earnest effort to make her see her duty to Madam, he failed to press his own more personal claims, and thus lost his one chance of reaching her.

Eleanor understood impulse, emotion, but she would not listen to reason.

The mere mention of Madam's name stirred up a whirlwind that snuffed out any love-lights that might have been kindling. She stood with her back to the table, twisting Harold Phipps's card in her fingers, and she looked at Quin suspiciously.

"Did grandmother send you up here to see if I was keeping my word?"

"She did not. She doesn't know I am here."

"Then it's just _you_ who don't trust me?"

"Well, I don't think you are playing quite fair," admitted Quin bluntly, "either to Queen Vic or to me."

"And I suppose you propose to go back and tell her so?"

"I propose nothing of the kind. It's up to you whether we both keep our word, or whether we both break it. You know what I think, and you see the position I am in."

"I can settle that," said Eleanor with spirit. "I can write home to-night and tell them what I intend to do. That will exonerate you, if that is what you are after."

"It _isn't_ what I am after, and you know it! For G.o.d's sake, Miss Nell, be fair! You know you can't go on with this thing without starting up the old trouble with Mr. Phipps."

"But, I tell you, I _can_. I can control the situation perfectly. Why can't you trust me, Quin?"

"I don't trust _him_. He's got ways of compromising a girl that you don't know anything about. If he ever gets wind of your going to Chicago----"

"I wish you wouldn't throw that up to me!" There was real anger in her voice, which up to now had shown signs of softening. "Just because I happened to me a fool once, it doesn't follow that I'll be one again! It won't be pleasant for me, but I am not going to let his connection with 'Phantom Love' spoil my chance of a lifetime."

"And he will be at all the rehearsals, I suppose, and up here in the apartment between-times." Quin's jealousy ran through him like fire through dry stubble. "You'll probably be seeing him every day."

"And what if I do?" demanded Eleanor. "I have told you our relations are strictly professional."

"That card looks like it," said Quin bitterly.

Eleanor tossed the object referred to in the trash-basket and looked at him defiantly. The very weakness of her position made her peculiarly sensitive to criticism, and the fact that her mentor was her one-time slave augmented her wrath.

"See here, Miss Nell." Quin came a step closer, and his voice was husky with emotion. "I know how keen you are about the stage; but, take it from me, you are making a wrong start. If you'll just promise to wait until your time is up----"

"I won't promise anything! What's the use? n.o.body believes me. Even you are siding with grandmother and suspecting me of breaking my word. I don't intend to submit to it any longer!"

Queer, spasmodic movements were going on in Quin's lungs, and he controlled his voice with difficulty.

"You mean you are going on seeing Mr. Phipps and letting him send you flowers and things?"

"I am _not!_" Eleanor cried furiously. "But, if I should, it's n.o.body's business but my own!"

For an agonizing moment they faced each other angrily, both of them lost in the labyrinth of their own situation. At the slightest plea for help on her part, Quin would have broken through his own difficulties and rushed to her rescue. He would even have offered to plead her cause again at the family tribunal. But she was like a wilful child who is determined to walk alone on a high and dangerous wall. The very effort to protect her might prove disastrous.

"If that's the case," said Quin, with his jaw thrust out and his nostrils quivering, "what do you want me to do?"

"I don't care what you do!" Eleanor flung back--"just so you leave me alone."

Without a word, he picked up his hat and strode out of the apartment and down the stairs. At every landing he paused, hoping against hope that she might call him back. Even at the door he paused, straining his ears for the faintest whisper from above. But no sound broke the stillness, and with a gesture of despair he flung open the door and pa.s.sed out into the darkness.

CHAPTER 31

When an extremely energetic person has spent eighteen months making connections with a family, he does not find it easy to sever them in a day. Quin's announcement that he was going to leave the Martels met with a storm of protest. He had the excellent excuse that when Ca.s.s married in June there would be no room for him, but it took all his diplomacy to effect the change without giving offense. Rose was tearful, and Ca.s.s furious, and a cloud of gloom enveloped the little brown house.

With the Bartletts it was no easier. On his return from New York he had found three notes from them, each of which requested an immediate interview. Madam's stated that she had heard of his dismissal from the factory and that she was ready to do battle for him to the death.

"Geoffrey Bangs got rid of Ranny," she wrote, "and now he thinks he can ship you. But I guess I'll show him who is the head of the firm."

The second note was from Miss Isobel and was marked "Confidential." In incoherent sentences it told of a letter just received from Eleanor, in which she announced that she was planning to make her professional debut in July, and that as Mr. Phipps was connected with the play in which she was to appear, she felt that she could accept no further favors from her grandmother. Miss Isobel implored Quin to come at once and advise her what to do about telling Madam, especially as they were leaving for Maine within the next ten days.

The third delicately penned epistle was a gentle effusion from Miss Enid, who was home on a visit and eager to see "dear Quin, who had been the innocent means of reuniting her and the dearest man in all the world."

It was these letters that put Quin's desire for flight into instant action. He must go where he would not be questioned or asked for advice.

The mere mention of Eleanor's name was agony to him. It contracted his throat and sent the blood pounding through his veins. His hurt was so intolerable that he shrank from even a touch of sympathy. Perhaps later on he would be able to face the situation, but just now his one desire was to get away from everything connected with his unhappiness.

In beating about in his mind for a temporary refuge, he remembered a downtown rooming-house to which he had once gone with Dirks, the foreman at Bartlett & Bangs. Here he transferred his few possessions, and persuaded Rose to tell the Bartletts that he had left town for an indefinite stay. This he hoped would account for his absence until they left for their summer vacation.

The ten weeks that followed are not pleasant ones to dwell upon. The picture of Quin tramping the streets by day in a half-hearted search for work, and tramping them again at night when he could not sleep, of him lying face downward on a cot in a small damp room, with all his confidence and bravado gone, and only his racking cough for company, are better left unchronicled.