He made her meet his eyes this time: stronger than she, Galorey forced her to be sincere. She set Dan free and he turned and left them standing there facing each other. He softly crossed the room, and looking back, he saw them, tall, distinguished, both of them under the lamplight-enemies, and yet the closest friends bound by the strongest tie in the world.

As Dan went out through the curtains of the room and they fell behind him, the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater sank down in the chair by the side of the table; she buried her face. Gordon Galorey bent over her and again took her in his arms, and she suffered it.

CHAPTER XX-A HAND CLASP

It was one o'clock. Blair called a hansom and told the driver to take him to the Carlton, and leaning back in the vehicle he breathed a long sigh. He looked like his father, but he didn't know it. He felt old. He was a man and a tired one and a free one, and the sense of this liberty began to refresh him like a breeze over parched sand. He thought over what he had left for a second, stopped longest in pitying Galorey, then went into the Carlton restaurant to order some supper, for he began to feel the need of food. He had not time to drink his wine and partake of the cold pheasant before he saw that opposite him the two people who had taken their table were Letty Lane and Poniotowsky. The woman's slender back was turned to Blair, and his heart gave a leap of pain at the sight of the man with her, and the cruel suffering began again.

Dan gave up the idea of eating: drank a whole bottle of champagne, then pushed it away from him violently. "Hold up," he told himself, "you're getting dangerous; this drinking won't do." So he sat drumming on the table looking into the air. When those two got up to go, however, he would go with them; that was sure. He could never see them go out together again; no-no-no! As his brain grew a bit clearer he saw that they were having a heated discussion between them, and as the room emptied finally, save for themselves, Dan, though he could not hear what Poniotowsky said, understood that he was urging something which the girl did not wish to grant. When they left he rose as well, and at the door of the restaurant the actress and her companion paused, and Dan saw her face, deadly pale. There were tears in her eyes.

"For G.o.d's sake!" he heard her murmur, and she impatiently drew her cloak around her shoulders. Poniotowsky put out his hand to help her, but she drew back from him, exclaiming violently: "Oh, no-no!" Before he was aware what he was doing, Dan was holding his hand out to Miss Lane.

How she turned to him! G.o.d of dreams! How she took in one cold hand his hand; just the grasp a man needs to lead him to offer the service of his life. Her hand was icy-it thrilled him to his marrow.

"Oh-you-" she breathed. "h.e.l.lo!"

No words could have been more commonplace, less in the category of dramatic or poetic welcome, but they were music to the boy, and when the actress looked at him with a ghost of a smile on her trembling lips, Dan was sure there was some kind of blessing in the greeting.

"I am going to see you home," he said with determination, and she caught at it:

"Yes, yes, do! Will you?"

The third member of the party had not spoken. A servant fetched him a light to which he bent, touching his cigar. Then he lifted his head-a handsome one-with its cold and indifferent eyes, to Letty Lane.

"Good night, Miss Lane." A deep color crept under his dark skin.

"Come," said the actress eagerly, "come along; my motor is out there and I am crazy tired. That is all there is about it. Come along."

s.n.a.t.c.hed from a marriage contract, still bitter from his jealous anger, this-to be alone with her-by the side of this white, fragrant, wonderful creature-to have been turned to by her, to be alone with her, the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater out of his horizon, Poniotowsky gone-Oh, it was sweet to him! They had rolled out from the Carlton down toward the Square and he put his arm around her waist, his voice shook:

"You are dead tired! And when I saw that brute with you to-night I could have shot him."

"Take your arm away, please."

"Why?"

"Take it away. I don't like it. Let my hand go. What's the matter with you? I thought I could trust you."

He said humbly: "You can-certainly you can."

"I am tired-tired-tired!"

Under his breath he said: "Put your head on my shoulder, Letty, darling."

And she turned on him nearly as violently as she had on Poniotowsky, and burst into tears, crouching almost in the corner of the motor, away from him, both her hands upon her breast.

"Oh, can't you see how you bother me? Can't you see I want to rest and be all alone? You are like them all-like them all. Can't I rest anywhere?"

The very words she used were those he had thought of when he saw her dance at the theater, and his heart broke within him.

"You can," he stammered, "rest right here. G.o.d knows I want you to rest more than anything. I won't touch you or breathe again or do anything you don't want me to."

She covered her face with her hands and sat so without speaking to him.

The light in her motor shone over her like a kindly star, as, wrapped in her filmy things she lay, a white rose blown into a sheltered nook.

After a little she wiped her eyes and said more naturally:

"You look perfectly dreadfully, boy! What have you been doing with yourself?"

They had reached the Savoy. It seemed to Dan they were always just driving up to where some one opened a door, out of which she was to fly away from him. He got out before her and helped her from the car.

"Well, I've got a piece of news to tell you. I have broken my engagement with the d.u.c.h.ess."

This brought her back far enough into life to make her exclaim: "Oh, I _am_ glad! That's perfectly fine! I don't know when I've heard anything that pleased me so much. Come and see me to-morrow and tell me all about it."

CHAPTER XXI-RUGGLES RETURNS

Dan did not fall asleep until morning, and then he dreamed of Blairtown and the church and a summer evening and something like the drone of the flies on the window-pane soothed him, and came into his waking thoughts, for at noon he was violently shaken by the shoulder and a man's voice called him as he opened his eyes and looked into Ruggles' face.

"Gee Whittaker!" Ruggles exclaimed. "You _are_ one of the seven sleepers! I've been here something like seventeen minutes, whistling and making all kinds of barnyard noises."

As Dan welcomed him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Ruggles told him that he had come over "the pond" just for the wedding.

"There isn't going to be any wedding, Josh! Got out of all that last night."

Ruggles had the breakfast card in his hand, which the waiter had brought in, and Dan, taking it from his friend, ordered a big breakfast.

"I'm as hungry as the d.i.c.kens, Rug, and I guess you are, too."

"What was the matter with the d.u.c.h.ess?" Ruggles asked. "Were you too young for her, or not rich enough?"

Significantly the boy answered: "One too many, Josh," and Ruggles winced at the response.

"Here are the fellows with my trunks and things," he announced as the porters came in with his luggage. "Just drop them there, boys; they're going to fix some kind of a room later."

Blair's long silk-lined coat lay on a chair where he had flung it, his hat beside it, and Ruggles went over to the corner and lifted up a fragrant glove. It was one of Letty Lane's gloves which Dan had found in the motor and taken possession of. The young man had gone to his dressing-room and begun running his bath, and Ruggles, laying the glove on the table, said to himself:

"I knew he would get rid of the d.u.c.h.ess, all right."

But when Dan came back into the room later in his dressing-gown for breakfast, Ruggles said:

"You'll have to send her back her glove, Dannie."