And now, as she sat back in her carriage, remembrance came rapping like an unwelcome, unadmitted visitant. She tried to put it away by chattering smartly; the theatre-wagon rolled along to the clicking of hoofs on the asphalt; but through it all the troublous knocking persistently recurred. For this was one of the few times when she had lingered upon a thought of that first romance of hers; and now, coupled with her hardening criticism of Willoughby, it brought forth insistent questions.

Whether she had really loved her husband when she married him, or whether she had not instead been dazzled by his peculiar abilities remained in doubt.

Severance had come first; he had a little money to begin, and he was doing well with it and seemed on the road to do better.

Therefore, her friends were secure in the belief that she would marry him, when Willoughby had made his appearance.

He went at this love-making of his as he went at all his affairs--implacably bold and ruthlessly sweeping aside whoever or whatever came into his way. The fact that he and Severance were considered friends seemed to have counted little; and when, a few months later, it was learned that she had dropped one to take the other, it was also learned that Severance had played at ducks and drakes with his money. Briefly, he had become bankrupt in a mining deal. He and others, Willoughby among them, had gone into a Wyoming copper prospect--the Teton Sisters Company--and while Willoughby apparently got off without damage, Severance had dropped everything. How, was never clearly understood. Severance and his sister had parted with their home to satisfy his creditors, and then moved away.

In the twelve years of the Willoughbys' married life, the tide of money had kept steadfastly on the flood. Nothing his hands touched seemed to fail him. He had his fingers in every kind of venture--mines and mills, foundries and furnaces, steam roads, trolley lines and public utilities; and to each and every one of these promotions, the name of Willoughby affixed the hall-mark of success. Now his dollars jingled in every state of the Union--and they jingled in his own home, too, almost as the only evidences that the home was his. For Willoughby, pursuing money everywhere, seemed to have lost interest in all else but his money-grubbing, just as Willoughby's wife, excepting for the same money-grubbing, seemed to have lost all interest in him.

And now she had looked at Severance; her eyes had rested on him long enough to make comparisons--Severance much improved, cool, suave, presentable, and deferential; her husband big and masterful, a brooding, preoccupied man, and a kind of Orson to be kept denned in his money caves. She sighed to herself regretfully.

Some minutes after Mrs. Willoughby had found her seat in the theatre box she was aware of another party coming down the aisle.

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed the man beside her, "here come Hudson Mills and his wife with Case Severance. I didn't know he was in town."

Mrs. Willoughby laid a gloved finger to her lips and affected to yawn, though she stole a glance out of the corner of her eye. Her guest was now nodding over her shoulder at the arrivals in the seats below.

"Severance has made a ten-strike, I hear," he volunteered, in an expressive, if inelegant, idiom of the money game; "there's a story going the rounds that Mills and Severance have been gunning together and that some one else got burned. Anyway, I hear they've lined their pockets. Severance is rich again."

This mixed metaphor affected Mrs. Willoughby with a curious interest. "Oh, is he!" she exclaimed, and, glancing down, she looked unexpectedly into Severance's watching eyes.

But she seemed not in the least disconcerted. Severance was just turning away, mindful of the previous snub, when, with a rea.s.suring smile, she bowed, and then smiled again. For why not?

Severance's position had been reestablished in her world.

It was late that night when Mrs. Willoughby returned home. There was a light in her husband's library, and before going to her room she stopped and tapped at the door. Willoughby, with a pile of papers stacked before him, sat with his chin in his hand, staring absently at the wall. As the door opened, he turned for a moment, and then, seeing who it was, thrust his hands into his pockets and slouched down in his chair. "Well?" he murmured, absently.

Mrs. Willoughby, slipping out of her wrap, dropped into a convenient seat.

"Are you still at it? It's nearly one o'clock, Harmon." Yawning slightly, she wriggled her feet out of her carriage slippers and kicked them under her chair. Willoughby looked up, silently watching her, and a momentary small shadow crept into his face.

Yet the shadow, small as it was, could not have been because of any flaw in his wife's appearance. Mrs. Willoughby was still young and fair to look upon, clear-eyed and almost girlish, her rounded, regular features set off picturesquely by her hat and its flowing purple plumes, even though both hat and plumes were extravagant in size. Willoughby must have known another reason to frown.

"Where've you been?" he demanded, heavily, his voice bare of any interest. He was a large, florid man, heavily built, square-jawed, and with the deep, scrutinous eyes of one aware of his own power and accustomed to enforce it. But now his eyes seemed listless, as if weary of the strain that had kept them so long on the alert.

"I? At the club," she answered, briefly. Though her own home was large and amply appointed, few were ever asked there to anything more formal than a luncheon or an afternoon at bridge. Home hospitality and the housekeeping it involved had long since become a bore to her; like many others in her set, she had learned to square her obligations through the convenience of her husband's club. The hospitality there entailed no other bother than paying the bills. "Just dinner at the club, and the theatre afterward."

She stripped off her long gloves and dropped them to the floor beside her carriage slippers. Again her husband studied her, almost covertly, one might have thought.

"Any one there?" Willoughby began absently to pick at the edges of the papers on his desk.

She shook her head. "No one you'd care about, I think. There were only three tables besides mine. Mrs. Chardon and her daughter with some of her young friends, and then--" Mrs. Willoughby closely inspected one of her rubies. "The Severances are back in town, Harmon. He and his sister were there with Hudson Mills and his wife."

"Severance--with MILLS!" cried her husband, lifting his head alertly. It was not often that Mrs. Willoughby's talk with him evoked such instant attention. "See here, Stella, are you sure it was Severance?"

"Sure? Sure whether it was Severance? Why, of course I am!" she answered petulantly. She and her husband had never discussed the man, and it seemed a late day now to begin. "What in the world is--?" she began, and then desisted. Willoughby, slouched down in his chair again, had dropped his chin on his breast and was nervously gnawing his lip.

His wife leaned over and gathered up slippers and gloves. "I think I'll go to bed," she murmured carelessly, and wandered toward the door. Willoughby made no response, and she turned and slowly came back. A calendar hanging from the gas bracket had fallen a little aslant, and she reached up and critically straightened it. "Harmon, I hear Case Severance is rich again. I wonder how he managed it."

"Hey? Who?" Willoughby jerked up his head as if startled from a dream--and not a very pretty dream, either, if one might judge from his countenance. "Oh, you mean HIM," he uttered thickly.

"How do I know. I suppose he's been up to some of his games again." An almost savage dislike and contempt evidenced themselves in his tone, and pushing back his chair, he picked up his papers and arose. "You'd better go to bed Stella," he suggested brusquely, averting his eyes from her quick scrutiny; "I've got a lot of work here."

She laid a hand on his arm. "What's wrong with you?" she asked intently. There was alertness in the question, rather than responsive softness. Willoughby drew a hand across his mouth.

"Nothing's wrong Stella. I've had a hard day. Aren't you going?"

"Yes--in just a moment." She had moved toward the door again, and now was standing with her hand on the k.n.o.b. "It's Willard's birthday next Wednesday." Willard was their boy. "He'll be eleven, an he wants an electric runabout. The Doane boys have one, and he's just crazy about it We'd better let him have it."

Willoughby frowned, and irritably ruffled the papers in his hand.

"A runabout. No; he sha'n't have it. He's too young, and besides----"

"Oh, nonsense, Harmon!"

Willoughby fluttered his papers more irritably than before.

"Well, he can't have it; that's all I have to say." Ordinarily, he gave to her and the boy what they wished, never questioning the cost or character of what they bought "Eleven, and wants an automobile!" he commented, sullenly. "When I was his age I was working day and night to support my----"

"Yes, I know, Harmon," interrupted Mrs. Willoughby, affecting to stifle a yawn "but Willard, fortunately, doesn't have to think of that."

Mrs. Willoughby gave her gloves a disdainful, careless twirl, and went on her way to her room. To her astonishment, a few moments later, she heard the front door slam. Willoughby had gone out.

He was away for nearly a week; and when he returned, his eyes were heavy and blood-shot, his face was pallid and wearily drawn.

"Well, so you are back. What have you been doing?" Mrs.

Willoughby asked, perfunctorily. Though it was late in the morning she was still in bed, sitting up in a dressing sack, and turning the pages of a weekly publication that dealt in news of local high life. Its chief item, to-day, was the announcement of a dance she was to give shortly--at the club, as usual--and she had just finished for the second time the commentator's glib and unctuous phrasing.

He answered evasively, "Oh, just away on business." As he walked to the window and looked out, she carelessly turned the pages.

"Stella, what did you do for the boy's birthday?" he asked, slowly pacing back to the foot of the bed.

She turned another page. "The boy? Oh, I gave him some money, and sent him down-town with the coachman. I was too busy." Smiling lightly, she went on glancing through the paper. "I suspect he stuffed himself on candy."

But there was no answering smile on Willoughby's face. "On candy?

How much did you give him?"

Without looking up, she answered as lightly as before. "Oh, I can't remember now. Let me think." Then she vaguely named an amount, and Willoughby pressed his lips together.

"Stella," he said slowly, after a moment's darkening of his eyes, "do you know that amounts to a week's salary of more than one of my clerks? Don't you think it was a great deal to give a boy?"

She looked up now, astonished--a little vexed, too; for this was the second time he had questioned her use of money. "Well, what of it? It seems of little consequence." She buried her face in the paper again after this shot, and Willoughby stared at her.

"No," he murmured, reflectively, an alarming bitterness in his voice; "nothing seems of any consequence."

As she glanced casually over the top of her paper, she saw him draw a hand across his face; but, still vexed, she took no warning from the sign. "Well, there's no need of making a fuss, is there?" she asked, rebukingly. Thus showing how distasteful the subject had become, and, having had her say, she instantly changed the topic. "You're coming home Thursday night, aren't you?"

Willoughby watched her absorbedly. "I don't know. Why?"

"Oh, I just wanted to find out. It's the night of my dance, you know."

"A dance? Your dance?" He drew in his breath, and his hands, gripping the bed's footboard, closed a little tighter. "I'd forgotten that. Yes, your dance, and I----"

He broke off wearily, his lips framing a mere wraith of a smile, and in its gravity she still saw no warning of deep waters stirring troublously. "A dance--you're giving a dance!" he repeated, and there came into his eyes a subtle hint of mockery that, coupled with the words, gave them almost the significance of a jeer.