Ordham did dine with his mother, whom he knew to be alone, but he left her after coffee, and drove to the Temple. He roamed about the gardens for a time, watching the ghost shadows of the ancient buildings, the blue-black mystery of the river that it took an American artist to interpret; then made his way to the Inner Temple and ascended to an upper floor, opening a door with a latch-key. The gas he lit revealed, not an office, but a comfortably furnished den, the walls covered with the red paper dear to the heart of even the exceptional man. There were several boxes of cigars and cigarettes on a buffet, a tea service, a roller desk, manifestly locked, and on the walls all the photographs he had taken of Styr during their summer. They were really creditable performances, and he had put them under glass, not only for personal reasons, but because he fully appreciated their unique value, even though he had no mind that any eyes but his should behold them. The collection represented Styr in every costume familiar to opera goers: in her Fedora gowns, in other home toilettes, and in Alpine costume leaning on her staff against a background of rocks, the cross on Kochel, and the glacier above Berchtesgaden. Several times Fr?ulein Lutz had been induced to snap the camera and take them together.

Ordham had now revelled in this unsuspected refuge for something over two months. At the castle Mabel had been too much occupied to enter his rooms save now and then on a sentimental excursion; but in the comparative seclusion of town and increasing ennui, she not only wandered in and out of his rooms perpetually, whether he were there or not, but took an inexplicable pleasure in upsetting and rearranging his things. This was a phase of matrimony for which Ordham was wholly unprepared, although he recalled an amusing picture Styr had drawn of one phase of the American household: the front bedroom the common sitting room; formality, much less exclusiveness, practically unknown. He had assumed that among the wealthy classes, accustomed to large houses, life would be planned on the European scale; but while he was given his own suite as a matter of course in Grosvenor Square, the ancient instinct was planted in Mabel, whose ancestors had been simple democratic folk to whom the traditions of their new country were dear, despite their social eminence. It never occurred to her that what was her Jackie’s was not her own, nor was it in her to suspect that she could fail to be welcome at all hours and seasons.

Ordham had been amused at first, but not for long. When only his opportune return diverted her from a cabinet which contained Styr’s letters and photographs, he was so incensed that he nearly ordered her out instead of gently conducting her forth to admire a new picture. After a day of black, albeit invisible, sulks, that gift for compromise which seldom failed him came to his rescue; and a week later found him installed in The Temple, with solitude within and beauty without, and only the roar of the Strand in his ears. Here he wrote his letters to Styr, read and reread hers, smoked, and dwelt upon the happiness of the past summer, as his eyes travelled from presentment to presentment of its heroine. He also enjoyed the sensation of deceiving his wife, for he felt that it was even a duty to balk a gregarious nature like that, and this secret life that he shared with Styr alone was eminently agreeable to the future master of the diplomatic art. Too proud to write of his disappointment to his friend, however her presence might have tempted confession, the very fact that he had taken this room as a solitary retreat would have told the whole story to his acute correspondent, even had not that atmosphere of melancholy superseded the subtle exaltation of those letters written from Ordham when his energies were humming and he was excited with a foretaste of power.

He lit the fire and a cigar, and settled himself into the ample Morris chair, but not with his usual sense of unqualified delight. Heretofore, when he had entered this room, it was to banish all unpleasant thought, all haunting doubt; but to-night he intended to open certain water-tight compartments and look squarely on their contents. He fancied that this unusual disposition to confront and probe must be inspired by the woman who had pricked his energies in so many other ways. Certainly, had he never known her, he would, after some such crisis as this evening’s understanding with his mother-in-law, have gone at once to the theatre, postponed indefinitely the admission that his marriage was a mistake.

No man could be more direct, more outspoken, than Ordham when it suited him, and this was his chief charm for people thrown much in his society,—betraying, as it did, the cool courage under his listless habit, furnishing the high lights, as it were, for that formal indubitably diplomatic nature. To-night he put several facts into the plainest possible English. He was mortally tired of his wife, hopelessly disappointed in her. He could have resigned himself to her intellectual lacks, trusting to time and his own assiduous tutoring to furnish her skull respectably; but her character was so utterly without variety, depth, mystery, interest of any sort, that the task of stuffing the brain was not worth while. Neither time nor determination can create a personality, and to Ordham’s mind people without strong individual characteristics were hardly worthy of visibility, no matter how admirable the shell. He had caught himself staring at Mabel in wonderment, half fancying he saw behind her that stately romantic elusive figure of his wooing, suggesting infinite possibilities. Had he been hypnotized, and where had she gone? True, Mabel was as beautiful as ever, as tall, her manners retained their grace, her head its lofty poise; but her features lost their dignity, her eyes their dreams, the moment she began to chatter; and heavens, how she did chatter!

He was still annoyed and embarrassed at this prospect of early paternity, still felt that this projection of himself would appropriate what was left of his youth; but at least it had the merit of causing a certain tenderness to linger. Not for the world would he have given Mabel a hint of his present evolution; he had only to remind himself of her pathetic condition to be delivered of the temptation. But later, when she was well again, strong, more tactless than ever in her renewed beauty and social successes, should he hate her? This was the ghost that had been tapping at his brain for weeks. He had no desire to hate his wife. It would be demoralizing, inconvenient, a constant source of irritation. Could he but crowd the world between them, wean her until she shared his own indifference, he fancied he could accept his lot philosophically; a well-bred ornamental wife was not to be despised. But inflict himself with her society and pertinacious affections he would not.

He realized now why his spirits had gradually sunk below their normal level, save only when the drawing-rooms were full of kaleidoscopic guests; moreover, that resentment had steadily grown at the trickery which had brought him to his present pass, anger at his own unthinkable stupidity. True, he was now immensely wealthy, but a young Briton’s only appreciation of money is in the incessant want of it, and, this passed, Ordham h............