Downstairs Miss Jaffray entered her machine and was driven northward.

It is not for a moment to be supposed during the weeks which followed Mr. Egerton’s party that Miss Jaffray had retired from the social scene. And if her rebuff at Phil Gallatin’s hands had dampened the ardor of her enjoyment, no sign of it appeared. She was more joyously satirical, more unmitigably bored, more obtrusively indifferent than ever. But those who knew Nina best discovered a more daring unconvention in her opinions and a caustic manner of speech which spared no one, not even herself. She was, if anything, a concentrated essence of Nina Jaffray.

A woman’s potentiality for mischief proceeds in inverse ratio to her capacity for benevolence, and Nina’s altruism was subjective. She gave her charity unaffectedly to all four-legged things except the fox, which had been contributed to the economic scheme by a beneficent Providence for the especial uses of cross-country riders. She spent much care and sympathy upon her horses, and exacted its equivalent in muscular energy. Two-legged things enjoyed her liking in the exact proportion that they contributed to her amusement or in the measure that they did not interfere with her plans.

But the word benevolent applied to Nina with about as much fitness as it would to the Tropic of Capricorn.

The motto of New York is “The Devil Take the[262] Hindmost,” and it feelingly voiced Nina’s sentiments in the world and in the hunting field. She had always made it a practice to ride well up with the leaders, and to keep clear of the underbrush, and had never had much sympathy for the laggards. There was a Spartan quality in her point of view with regard to others, which remained to be put to the test with regard to herself. The occasion for such a test, it seemed, had arrived. For the first time in her life she was apparently denied the thing she most wanted. She had even been willing to acknowledge to herself that she wouldn’t have wanted Phil Gallatin if she hadn’t discovered that he wanted some one else.

But her liking for him had been transmuted into a warmer regard with a rapidity which really puzzled her and forced her to the conclusion that she had cared for him always. And Phil Gallatin’s indifference had stimulated her interest in him to a degree which made it necessary for her to win him away from Jane Loring at all hazards.

She was not in the least unhappy about the matter. Here was a real difficulty to be overcome, the first in personal importance that she had ever faced, and she met it with a smile, aware that all of the arts which a woman may use (and some which she may not) must be brought into play to accomplish her ends.

As a matter of fact, Nina’s mechanism was working at the highest degree of efficiency and she was taking a real delight in life, such as she had never before experienced. Since the “Pot and Kettle” affair she had thought much and deeply, had noted Coleman Van Duyn’s attentions to Jane Loring, and her acceptance of them, had heard with an uncommon interest of their reported engagement and had kept herself informed as to the goings and comings of Phil Gallatin. And she read Jane[263] Loring as one may read an open book. Their personal relations were the perfection of amiability. They had met informally on several occasions when Nina had noted with well-concealed amusement the slightly exaggerated warmth of Jane’s greeting, and had taken care to return this display of friendship in kind. Everything added to the conviction that Jane’s love of Phil was only exceeded by her hatred of Nina Jaffray.

And yet until this morning Nina had had moments of uncertainty, for the incident Jane had witnessed was too trivial to stand the test of sober second thought, and Jane was just silly enough to forgive and forget it.

Nina’s visit to Phil Gallatin’s office had agreeably surprised her, for Phil had made it perfectly clear that his estrangement from Jane still existed. But to make the matter doubly sure, Nina had decided to play a card she had been holding in reserve. In other words, more smoke was needed and Nina was prepared to provide the fuel.

First she met Coleman Van Duyn by appointment at her own house, and they had a long chat, during which, without his being aware of it, he was the subject of a searching examination which had for its object the revelation of the exact relation between himself and Miss Loring. Even Coley, it seemed, was not satisfied with the state of affairs. They were not engaged. No. He was willing to admit it, but he had hopes that before the winter was over Miss Loring would see things his way. His dislike of Phil Gallatin was thinly veiled and Nina played upon it with a skill which left nothing to be desired, to the end that at the last Coley came out into the open and declared himself flat-footed.

“I don’t know—your relations with him, Nina. Don’t care, really. You know your way about and all that sort[264] of thing, but he’s going it too strong. I’m tired of beatin’ about the bush. I know a thing or two about Phil Gallatin and I’ll tell ’em soon. It’s time people knew the sort of a Johnny that fellow is.”

“Oh, I know, Coley. You’re prejudiced. You’ve got a right to be. A man doesn’t want any scandal hanging around the name of the girl he’s going to marry. Everybody knows, of course, that Phil and Jane Loring were together last summer up in the woods and that——”

Van Duyn had risen, his eyes more protrusive, his face more purple than was good for him. It was the first time he had heard that story spoken of with such freedom, and it shocked him.

“It wasn’t Jane,” he roared. “She wasn’t the only woman in Canada last summer. How do you know it was Jane?”

“She admitted it,” said Nina sadly.

“Oh, she did! Well, what of it? If I don’t care, what business is it of anybody else? She suits me and I’m going to marry her.”

He stopped and glared at Nina, as though it was she who was the sole author of his unhappiness. Nina only smiled up at him encouragingly.

“Of course, you are. That’s one of the things I wanted to see you about. I think I can help you, Coley, if you’ll let me.”

She made him sit down again and when he was more composed, went on.

“You see it’s this way. I don’t mind your running Phil down, if it gives you any pleasure, but you might as well know that I don’t share your opinions. He isn’t your sort, you don’t understand him, and he has managed to come between you and Jane. But I don’t see the slightest use in getting excited. These silly romantic affairs[265] of the teens are seldom really dangerous. Phil’s infirmities excited her pity.”

“His infirmities!”

“Yes, but Jane Loring isn’t the kind of a girl to put up with that kind of thing long.”

“Rather—not!”

“Oh, I don’t mean what you do. I mean that she isn’t suited to him, that’s all. There are other women who might marry him and make something of him.”

“Who?” he sneered.

“I,” she said calmly.

Her quiet tone transfixed him.

“You want to—to marry him?”

“Yes—and I’m going to. Perhaps you understand now how we can help each other.”

“By George! I hadn’t an idea, Nina. I knew you’d been flirting with him—and all that—but marriage!”

She nodded.

“You are a good sort,” he grinned. “Do you really mean it? Of course I’ll help you if I can, but I hardly see——”

“You don’t have to see. Jane Loring may still have a fancy for Phil Gallatin, but it ought to be perfectly obvious that she can’t marry him if he’s going to marry me. All I want you to do just now is to make yourself necessary to Jane Loring. Propose to her again to-morrow,” and then with convincing assurance, “I think she’ll accept you.”

“You do? Why?”

“That, if you’ll pardon me, is a matter I do not care to discuss.” She arose and dismissed him gracefully, and Van Duyn wandered forth into Gramercy Park with a feeling very like that of a timorous hospital patient who has for the first time been subjected to the X-ray.

[266]

Nina lunched alone, then dressed for the afternoon and ordered her machine. She had made no mistake in presupposing that Jane Loring’s curiosity would outweigh her prejudices. In their talk upon the telephone there had been a slight hesitation, scarcely noticeable, on Jane’s part, after which, she had expressed herself as delighted at the opportunity of seeing Nina at the Loring house.

Miss Jaffray entered the portals of the vast establishment, her slender figure lost in the great drawing-room, as she moved restlessly from one object of art to another awaiting her hostess, like a mischievous and lonely bacillus newly liberated into a new field of endeavor.

“Nina, dear!” said Jane effusively as she entered. “So sweet of you. I haven’t really had a chance to have a talk with you for ages.”

“How wonderfully pretty you look, Jane? I’m simply wild with envy of you.”

It was the feminine convention. Each pecked the other just once below the eye and each wished that the other had never been born. Jane led the way into the library where they sat side by side on the big divan, where they both skillfully maneuvered for an opening for a while, feinting and parrying carte and tierce, advancing, retreating, neither of them willing to risk a thrust.

But at last, the preliminaries having given her the touch of her opponent’s foil, Nina returned.

“You’re really the success of the season, Jane. And you know when a back number like I am admits a thing like that about a débutante, it’s pretty apt to be true. But the thing I can’t understand is why you want to end it all and marry.”

“Marry—whom?”

“Coley.”

[267]

“Oh, you have some private source of information on the subject?” Jane asked pleasantly.

“None but your own actions,” Nina replied coolly. “It’s funny, too, because I’ve had an idea&mdas............