"I am not good at forgetting."

He felt her fingers, languid and tremulous, at his throat, her heart's strong throb against his shoulder as she bent, the sweet breath of her whisper stirring the hair at his temple:

"Try, Ban."

Her mouth closed down upon his, flower-sweet, petal-light, and was withdrawn. She leaned back, gazing at him from half-closed, inscrutable eyes.

"That's for good-bye, Io?" With all his self-control, he could not keep his voice steady.

"There have been too many good-byes between us," she murmured.

He lifted his head, attentive to a stir at the door, which immediately passed.

"I thought that was Archie, come after you."

"Archie isn't coming."

"Then I'll send for the car and take you home."

"Won't you understand, Ban? I'm not going home."

CHAPTER IX

Io Eyre was one of those women before whom Scandal seems to lose its teeth if not its tongue. She had always assumed the superb attitude toward the world in which she moved. "They say?--What do they say?--Let them say!" might have been her device, too genuinely expressive of her to be consciously contemptuous. Where another might have suffered in reputation by constant companionship with a man as brilliant, as conspicuous, as phenomenal of career as Errol Banneker, Io passed on her chosen way, serene and scatheless.

Tongues wagged, indeed; whispers spread; that was inevitable. But to this Io was impervious. When Banneker, troubled lest any breath should sully her reputation who was herself unsullied, in his mind, would have advocated caution, she refused to consent.

"Why should I skulk?" she said. "I'm not ashamed."

So they met and lunched or dined at the most conspicuous restaurants, defying Scandal, whereupon Scandal began to wonder whether, all things considered, there were anything more to it than one of those flirtations which, after a time of faithful adherence, become standardized into respectability and a sort of tolerant recognition. What, after all, is respectability but the brand of the formalist upon standardization?

With the distaste and effort which Ban always felt in mentioning her husband's name to Io, he asked her one day about any possible danger from Eyre.

"No," she said with assurance. "I owe Del nothing. That is understood between us."

"But if the tittle-tattle that must be going the rounds should come to his ears--"

"If the truth should come to his ears," she replied tranquilly, "it would make no difference."

Ban looked at her, hesitant to be convinced.

"Yes; it's so," she asseverated, nodding, "After his outbreak in Paris--it was on our wedding trip--I gave him a choice. I would either divorce him, or I would hold myself absolutely free of him so far as any claim, actual or moral, went. The one thing I undertook was that I would never involve his name in any open scandal."

"He hasn't been so particular," said Ban gloomily.

"Of late he has. Since I had Cousin Billy Enderby go to him about the dancer. I won't say he's run absolutely straight since. Poor Del! He can't, I suppose. But, at least, he's respected the bargain to the extent of being prudent. I shall respect mine to the same extent."

"Io," he burst out passionately, "there's only one thing in the world I really want; for you to be free of him absolutely."

She shook her head. "Oh, Ban' Can't you be content--with me? I've told you I am free of him. I'm not really his wife."

"No; you're mine," he declared with jealous intensity.

"Yes; I'm yours." Her voice trembled, thrilled. "You don't know yet how wholly I'm yours. Oh, it isn't _that_ alone, Ban. But in spirit and thought. In the world of shadowed and lovely things that we made for ourselves long ago."

"But to have to endure this atmosphere of secrecy, of stealth, of danger to you," he fretted. "You could get your divorce."

"No; I can't. You don't understand."

"Perhaps I do understand," he said gently.

"About Del?" She drew a quick breath. "How could you?"

"Wholly through an accident. A medical man, a slimy little reptile, surprised his secret and inadvertently passed it on."

She leaned forward to him from her corner of the settee, all courage and truth. "I'm glad that you know, though I couldn't tell you, myself.

You'll see now that I couldn't leave him to face it alone."

"No. You couldn't. If you did, it wouldn't be Io."

"Ah, and I love you for that, too," she whispered, her voice and eyes one caress to him. "I wonder how I ever made myself believe that I could get over loving you! Now, I've got to pay for my mistake. Ban, do you remember the 'Babbling Babson'? The imbecile who saw me from the train that day?"

"I remember every smallest thing in any way connected with you."

"I love to hear you say that. It makes up for the bad times, in between.

The Babbler has turned up. He's been living abroad for a few years. I saw him at a tea last week."

"Did he say anything?"

"Yes. He tried to be coy and facetious. I snubbed him soundly. Perhaps it wasn't wise."

"Why shouldn't it be?"

"Well he used to have the reputation of writing on the sly for The Searchlight."

"That sewer-sheet! You don't think he'd dare do anything of the sort about us? Why, what would he have to go on?"

"What does The Searchlight have to go on in most of its lies, and hints, and innuendoes?"

"But, Io, even if it did publish--"

"It mustn't," she said. "Ban, if it did--it would make it impossible for us to go on as we have been. Don't you see that it would?"

He turned sallow under his ruddy skin. "Then I'll stop it, one way or another. I'll put the fear of God into that filthy old worm that runs the blackmail shop. The first thing is to find out, though, whether there's anything in it. I did hear a hint...." He lost himself in musings, trying to recall an occult remark which the obsequious Ely Ives had made to him sometime before. "And I know where I can do it," he ended.