Overman was quick to detect the hostility of his friend’s unusual silence, and hastily rose.

“Excuse me, old boy,” he said, apologetically, “if I’ve hit too hard. I think the world of you in spite of your fool theories. You know that.”

“Don’t worry, Mark,” he answered, carelessly. “I haven’t been listening to you at all. I’ve been thinking of something else. Life’s too short to pay any attention to your big Philistine jaw.”

The banker smiled.

“Well, you have the instrument handy with which Samson slew the Philistine.”

“Yes, if you would only loan it to me. Goodnight.”

When he had gone, Kate leaned back on the lounge and said with evident amusement:

“You forgot something in parting with your old schoolmate.”

“Yes, I thought it quite unnecessary to tell him to drop in any time, unless you wish to let the front room.”

A tremor of catlike fun slyly played about her mouth.

“And yet women have been called fickle. Mr. Overman was no college chum of mine.”

“No; but he is evidently trying to make up for it now.”

A low musical laugh seemed to come from the depth of Kate’s spirit.

“And I thought I was pleasing you by neglecting my Bohemians and cultivating your powerful friend.”

“Still it is not necessary to hang on his words with such melting interest,” he said, with quiet emphasis.

She looked up sharply and a gleam of cruelty flashed from her blue eyes and struck the steel-gray in his. Beneath the quiet words of the man and woman there was raging the mortal struggle of will and personality, the woman in fierce rebellion, his iron egotism demanding submission.

“‘Oh, I see,” she purred, softly. “There is to be but one man-god, arrayed and beautiful, if I may quote your formula. There may be many women-gods in paradise. I saw Ruth in the Temple the first Sunday you spoke, hanging on your words as the voice of the Lord.”

Gordon flushed and turned uneasily in his chair.

“I’d as well be frank with you, Kate. Overman is coming to this house too often. I was shocked beyond measure when I failed to find you in your accastomed seat on the Sunday of the dedication of the Temple. I was told you were in the gallery with him.”

She straightened herself up suddenly.

“You took the pains to find that out?”

“Yes.”

She fixed on him a look of scorn.

“And stooped to ask an usher instead of asking me? You, who boldly say to the world that I am your free comrade, the mate and equal of man?”

“An odd way you took to show comradeship in such an hour,” he answered, doggedly.

“Am I a slave, to sit in solemn rapture at your feet and await your nod?”

“You seemed to eagerly await the nod of another man to-night.”

She laughed.

“Am I not your serene-browed Grecian goddess whose untamed eyes of primeval womanhood proclaim the end of slave marriage?”

Gorden winced, scowled and was silent.
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