There was a general movement of dispersal, and Philip Gallatin, who had now given up all hope of the opportunity Nellie Pennington had promised him, followed the party into the hall, his eyes following Jane, who had found her hostess and was making her adieux. He watched her slender figure as she made her way up the stairs, and turned to Mrs. Pennington reproachfully.

“Don’t speak, Phil,” his hostess whispered. “It’s all arranged. Go at once and get your things.”

Gallatin obeyed quickly and when he came down he heard Mrs. Pennington saying, “So sorry, Jane. Your machine came, but the butler sent it home again. There was some mistake in the orders, it seems. But I’ve ordered my brougham, and it’s waiting at the door for you. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve asked Mr. Gallatin to see that you get home safely.”

“Of course, it’s very kind of you, dear.” She hesitated. “But it seems too bad to trouble Mr. Gallatin.”

“I’m sure—I’m delighted,” he said, and it was evident that he meant it.

Jane Loring glanced around her quickly, helplessly it seemed to Gallatin, but the sight of Coleman Van Duyn, waiting hat in hand, helped her to a decision.

“It’s so kind of you, Mr. Gallatin,” she said gratefully, and then, in a whisper as she kissed her hostess,[152] “Nellie, you’re simply odious!” and made her way out of the door.

Gallatin followed quickly, but Miss Loring reached the curb before him and giving her number to the coachman, got in without the proffered hand of her escort.

Angry though she was, Jane Loring kept her composure admirably. All the world, it seemed, was conspiring to throw her with this man whom she now knew she must detest. If fate, blind and unthinking, had made him her dinner partner, only design, malicious and uncivil, could be blamed for his presence now. She sat in her corner, her figure tense, her head averted, her wraps carefully drawn about her, a dark and forbidding wraith of outraged dignity, waiting only for him to speak that she might crush him.

Gallatin sat immovable for a moment, conscious of all the feminine forces arrayed against him.

“I make no apologies,” he began with an assurance which surprised her. “I wanted to see you alone and no other chance offered. I suppose I might say I’m sorry, but that wouldn’t be true. I’m not sorry and I don’t want any misunderstandings. I asked Mrs. Pennington——”

“Oh!” she broke in wrathfully. “Many people, it seems, enjoy your confidences, Mr. Gallatin.”

“No,” he went on, steadily. “I’m not given to confidences, Miss Loring. Mrs. Pennington is one of my oldest and best friends. I told her it was necessary for me to see you alone for a moment and she took pity on me.”

“Mrs. Pennington has taken an unpardonable liberty and I shall tell her so,” said Jane decisively.

“I hope you won’t do that.”

“Have matters reached such a point in New York[153] that a girl can’t drive out alone without being open to the importunity of any stranger?”

“I am not a stranger,” he put in firmly, and his voice dominated hers. “We met within the Gates of Chance, Miss Loring, on equal terms. I have the right of any man to plead——”

“You’ve already pleaded.”

“You were prejudiced. I’ve appealed—to a higher tribunal—your sense of justice.”

“I know no law but my own instinct.”

“You are not true to your own instincts then, or they are not true to you.”

It was sophistry, of course, but she was a trifle startled at the accuracy of his deduction, for she realized that it was her judgment only that rejected him and that her instincts advised her of the pleasure she took in his company. Her instincts then being unreliable, she followed her judgment blindly, uncomfortably conscious that she did it against her will, and angry with herself that it was so.

“I only know, Mr. Gallatin,” she said coldly, “that both judgment and instinct warn me against you. Whatever there is left in you of honor—of decency, must surely respond to my distaste for this intrusion.”

“If I admit that I’m neither honorable nor decent, will you give me the credit for speaking the truth?” he asked slowly.

“With reference to what?” scornfully.

“To this story they’re telling.”

“You brought it here, of course.”

“Will you believe me if I say that I didn’t?”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Simply because I ask you to.”

[154]

She looked out of the carriage window away from him.

“I believed in you once, Mr. Gallatin.”

He bowed his head.

“Even that is something,” he said. “You wouldn’t have believed in me then if instinct had forbidden it. I am the same person you once believed in.”

“My judgment was at fault. I dislike you intensely.”

“I won’t believe it.”

“You must. You did me an injury that nothing can repair.”

“An injury to your dignity, to your womanhood and sensibility——”

“Hardly,” she said scornfully, “or even to my pride. It was only my body—you hurt, Mr. Gallatin—your kisses—they soiled me——”

“My God, Jane! Don’t! Haven’t you punished me enough? I was mad, I tell you. There was a devil in me, that owned me body and soul, that stole my reason, killed what was good, and made a monster of the love I had cherished—an insensate enemy that perverted and brutalized every decent instinct, a Thing unfamiliar to you which frightened and drove you away in fear and loathing. It was not me you feared, Jane, for you trusted me. It was the Thing you feared, as I fear it, the Enemy that had pursued me into the woods where I had fled from it.”

Jane Loring sat in her corner apparently unconcerned, but her heart was throbbing and the hands beneath the wide sleeves of her opera kimono were nervously clutched. The sound of his voice, its deep sonorous tones when aroused were familiar to her. As he paused she stole a glance at him, for as he spoke of his Enemy he had turned away from her, his eyes peering out into the[155] dimly lighted street, as if the mention of his weakness shamed him.

“I’m not asking you for your pity,” he went on more steadily. “I only want your pardon. I don’t think it’s too much to ask. It wasn’t the real Phil Gallatin who brought that shame on you.”

“The real Phil Gallatin! Which is the real Phil Gallatin?” she asked cruelly.

“What you make him—to-night,” he replied quickly. “I’ve done what I can without you—lived like an outcast on the memories of happiness, but I can’t subsist on that. Memory is poor food for a starving man.”

“I can’t see how I can be held accountable. I did not make you, Mr. Gallatin.”

“But you can mar me. I’ve come,” he remembered the words of Mrs. Pennington, “I’ve come to the parting of the ways. Up there—I gained my self-respect—and lost it. The best of me you saw and the worst of me. You knew me only for five days and yet no one in the world can know me exactly as you do.”

“The pity of it——”

“The best of me and the worst of me, the man in me and the beast in me, my sanity and my madness. All these you saw. The record is at least complete.”

“I hope so.”

“I could not lie to you nor cheat you with false sentiment. I played the game fairly until—until then.”

“Yes—until then.”

“You cared for me, there in the woods. I earned your friendship. And I hoped that the time had come when I could prove—to you, at least, that I was not to be found wanting.”

“And yet—you failed,” she said.

“Yes, I failed. Oh, I don’t try to make my sin any[156] the less. I only want you to remember the circumstances—to acquit me of any intention to do you harm. I am no despoiler of women, even my enemies will tell you so. That, thank God, was not a part of my heritage. I have always looked on women of your sort with a kind of wonder. I have never understood them—nor they me. I thought of them as I thought of pictures or of children, things set apart from the grubby struggle for material and moral existence. I liked to be with them because their ways fell in pleasant places and because, in respecting them, I could better learn to respect myself. God knows, I respected you—honored you! Don’t say you don’t believe that!”

“I—I think you did——” she stammered.

“I tried to show you how much. You knew what was in my heart. I would have died for you—or lived for you, if you could have wished it so.”

He paused a moment, his brows tangled in thought.

“I learned many things up there—things that neither men nor women nor books had taught me, something of the directness and persistence of the forces of nature, the binding contract of a man’s body with his soul, the glorification of labor and the meaning of responsibility. I was happy there—happy as I had never been before. I wanted the days to be longer so that I could work harder for you, and my pride in your comfort was the greatest pride I have ever known. You were my fetich—the symbol of Intention. You made me believe in myself, and defied the Enemy that was plucking at my elbow. I could have lived there always and I prayed in secret that we might never be found. I wanted you to believe in me as I was already beginning to believe in myself. Whatever I had been—here in the world—up there at least I was a success. I wanted to prove it thoroughly—to[157] kill, that you might eat and be warm—to hew and build, that you might be comfortable. I wanted a shrine for you, that I might put you there and keep you—always. I worshiped you, Jane, God help me, as I worship you now.”

His voice trembled and broke as he paused.

“I—I must not listen to you, Mr. Gallatin,” she said hurriedly, for her heart was beating wildly.

“I worship you, Jane,” he repeated, “and I ask for nothing but your pardon.”

“I—I forgive you,” she gasped.

“I’m glad of that. I’ll try to deserve your indulgence,” he said slowly. He stopped again, and it was a long time before he went on. The brougham was moving rapidly up the Avenue and the turmoil of night sounds was fading into silence. Forty-second Street was already behind them, and the fashionable restaurants were gay with lights. He seemed to realize then that Jane would soon reach her destination, and he went on quickly, as though there were still much that he must say in the little time left to him to say it in. “I suppose it would be too much if I asked you to let me see you once in a while,” he said quickly, as though he feared her refusal.

“I—I’ve no doubt that we’ll meet, Mr. Gallatin.”

“I don’t mean that,” he persisted. “I don’t think I’ll be—I don’t think I’ll go around much this winter. I want to talk to you, if you’ll let me. I—I can’t give you up—I need you. I need your belief in me, the incentive of your friendship, your spell to exorcise the—the Thing that came between us.”

“I am trying to forget that,” she murmured. “It would be easier if—if you hadn’t said what you did.”

“What did I say? I don’t know,” he said passionately.

[158]

“That you—you loved me. It was the brute in you that spoke—not the man, the beast that kissed— Oh!” She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes. “It was not you! The memory of it will never go.”

He hung his head in shame.

“No, no, don’t!” he muttered. “You’re crucifying me!”

“If you had not said that——”

“It was monstrous. It was madness, but i............