But Bertha did not go abroad, and the season reached its height and its wane, and, though Miss Jessup began to refer occasionally to the much-to-be regretted delicacy of the charming Mrs. Amory\'s health, there seemed but little alteration in her mode of life.

"I will confide to you," she said to Colonel Tredennis, "that I have set up this effective little air of extreme delicacy as I might set up a carriage,—if I needed one. It is one of my luxuries. Do you remember Lord Farintosh\'s tooth, which always ached when he was invited out to dinner and did not want to go,—the tooth which Ethel Newcome said nothing would induce him to part with? My indisposition is like that. I refuse to become convalescent. Don\'t prescribe for me, I beg of you."

It was true, as she had said, that the colonel presented himself at the house less often than had been his wont, and that his visits were more frequently for Janey than for herself. "You will never hold out your hand to me when I shall not be ready to take it," he had said; but she did not hold out her hand, and there was nothing that he could do, and if he went to her he must find himself confronted with things he could not bear to see, and so he told himself that, until he was needed, it was best that he should stay away, or go only now and then.

But he always knew what she was doing. The morning papers told him that she was involved in the old, unceasing round of excitement,—announcing that she was among the afternoon callers; that she received at home; that she dined, lunched, danced, [Pg 357]appeared at charitable entertainments, and was seen at the theatre. It became his habit to turn unconsciously to the society column before he read anything else, though he certainly found himself none the happier for its perusal.

But, though he saw Bertha less frequently, he did not forget Richard. At this time he managed to see him rather often, and took some pains to renew the bloom of their first acquaintance, which had, perhaps, shown itself a little on the wane, as Richard\'s friendships usually did in course of time. And, perhaps, this waning having set in, Richard was not at first invariably so enthusiastically glad to see the large military figure present itself in his office. He had reasons of his own for not always feeling entirely at ease before his whilom favorite. As he had remarked to Planefield, Philip Tredennis was not a malleable fellow. He had unflinching habits of truth, and remorseless ideas of what a man\'s integrity should be, and would not be likely to look with lenient or half-seeing eyes upon any palterings with falsehood and dishonor, however colored or disguised. And he did not always appear at the most convenient moment; there were occasions, indeed, when his unexpected entrance had put an end to business conferences of a very interesting and slightly exciting nature. These conferences had, it is true, some connection with the matter of the Westoria lands, and the colonel had lately developed an interest in the project in question which he had not shown at the outset. He had even begun to ask questions about it, and shown a desire to inform himself as to the methods most likely to be employed in manipulating the great scheme. He amassed, in one way and another, a large capital of information concerning subsidies and land grants, and exhibited remarkable intelligence in his mental investment of it. Indeed, there were times when he awakened in Richard a rather uneasy sense of admiration by the clearness of his insight and the practical readiness of his views.

[Pg 358]

"He has always been given to digging into things," Amory said to Planefield, after one of their interviews. "That is his habit of mind, and he has a steady business capacity you don\'t expect to find."

"What is he digging into this thing for?" Planefield asked. "He will be digging up something, one of these days, that we are not particularly anxious to have dug up. I am not overfond of the fellow myself. I never was."

Richard laughed a trifle uneasily.

"Oh, he\'s well enough," he said; "though I\'ll admit he has been a little in the way once or twice."

It is quite possible that the colonel himself had not been entirely unaware of this latter fact, though he had exhibited no signs of his knowledge, either in his countenance or bearing; indeed, it would be difficult, for one so easily swayed by every passing interest as Richard Amory was, to have long resisted his manly courtesy and good nature. Men always found him an agreeable companion, and he made the most of his powers on the occasions which threw him, or in which he threw himself, in Amory\'s way. Even Planefield admitted reluctantly, once or twice, that the fellow had plenty in him. It was not long before Richard succumbed to his personal influence with pleasurable indolence. It would have cost him too much effort to combat against it; and, besides this, it was rather agreeable to count among one\'s friends and supporters a man strong enough to depend on and desirable enough to be proud of. There had been times during the last few months when there would have been a sense of relief in the feeling that there was within reach a stronger nature than his own,—one on whose strength he knew he could rely. As their intimacy appeared to establish itself, if he did not openly confide in Tredennis, he more than once approached the borders of a confidence in his moments of depression. That he had such moments had become plain. He did not even look so bright as he had looked;[Pg 359] something of his care-free, joyous air had deserted him, and now and then there were to be seen faint lines on his forehead.

"There is a great deal of responsibility to be borne in a matter like this," he said to Tredennis, "and it wears on a man." To which he added, a few seconds later, with a delightfully unconscious mixture of petulance and protest: "Confound it! why can\'t things as well turn out right as wrong?"

"Have things been turning out wrong?" the colonel ventured.

Richard put his elbows on the table before him, and rested his forehead on his hands a second.

"Well, yes," he admitted; "several things, and just at the wrong time, too. There seems a kind of fate in it,—as if when one thing began the rest must follow."

The colonel began to bite one end of his long mustache reflectively as he looked at the young man\'s knitted brow.

"There is one thing you must understand at the outset," he said, at length. "When I can be made useful—supposing such a thing were possible—I am here."

Richard glanced up at him quickly. He looked a little haggard for the moment.

"What a steady, reliable fellow you are!" he said. "Yes, I should be sure of you if—if the worst came to the worst."

The colonel bit the ends of his mustache all the way home, and more than one passer-by on the avenue was aroused to wonder what the subject of his reflections might be, he strode along with so absorbed an air, and frowned so fiercely.

"I should like to know what the worst is," he was saying to himself. "I should like to know what that means."

It was perhaps his desire to know what it meant which led him to cultivate Richard more faithfully still, to join him on the street, to make agreeable bachelor dinners[Pg 360] for him, to carry him off to the theatres, and, in a quiet way, to learn something of what he was doing each day. It was, in fact, a delicate diplomatic position the colonel occupied in these days, and it cannot be said that he greatly enjoyed it or liked himself in it. He was too honest by nature to find pleasure in diplomacy, and what he did for another he would never have done for himself. For the sake of the woman who rewarded his generosity and care with frivolous coldness and slight, he had undertaken a task whose weight lay heavily upon him. Since his first suspicions of her danger had been aroused he had been upon the alert continually, and had seen many things to which the more indifferent or less practical were blind. As Richard had casually remarked, he was possessed of a strong business sense and faculty of which he was not usually suspected, and he had seen signs in the air which he felt boded no good for Richard Amory or those who relied on his discretion in business affairs. That the professor had innocently relied upon it when he gave his daughter into his hands he had finally learned; that Bertha never gave other than a transient thought—more than half a jest—to money matters he knew. Her good fortune it had been to be trammelled neither by the weight of money nor the want of it,—a truly enviable condition, which had, not unnaturally, engendered in her a confidence at once unquestioning and somewhat perilous. Tredennis had recalled more than once of late a little scene he had taken part in on one occasion of her signing a legal document Richard had brought to her.

"Shall I sign it here?" she had said, with exaggerated seriousness, "or shall I sign it there? What would happen to me if I wrote on the wrong line? Could not Laurence sign it for me in his government hand, and give it an air of distinction? Suppose my hand trembled and I made a blot? I am not obliged to read it, am I?"

"I think I should insist that she read it," the colonel had said to Richard, with some abruptness.

[Pg 361]

Bertha had looked up and smiled.

"Shall you insist that I read it?" she said; "I know what it says. It says \'whereas\' and \'moreover\' and \'in accordance\' with \'said agreement\' and \'in consideration of.\' Those are the prevailing sentiments, and I am either the \'party of the first part\' or the \'party of the second part\'; and if it was written in Sanskrit, it would be far clearer to my benighted mind than it is in its present lucid form. But I will read it if you prefer it, even though delirium should supervene."

It was never pleasant to Colonel Tredennis to remember this trivial episode, and the memory of it became a special burden to him as time progressed and he saw more of Amory\'s methods and tendencies. But it was scarcely for him to go to her, and tell her that her husband was not as practical a business man as he should be; that he was visionary and too easily allured by glitter and speciousness. He could not warn her against him and reveal to her the faults and follies she seemed not to have discovered. But he could revive something of Richard\'s first fancy for him, and make himself in a measure necessary to him, and perhaps gain an influence over him which might be used to good purpose. Possibly, despite his modesty, he had a half-conscious knowledge of the power of his own strong will and nature over weaker ones, and was resolved that this weak one should be moved by them, if the thing were possible.

Nor was this all. There were other duties he undertook, for reasons best known to himself. He became less of a recluse socially, and presented himself more freq............