Io Eyre was one of those women before whom Scandal seems to lose its teeth if not its tongue. She had always assumed the superb attitude toward the world in which she moved. "They say?--What do they say?--Let them say!" might have been her device, too genuinely expressive of her to be consciously contemptuous. Where another might have suffered in reputation by constant companionship with a man as brilliant, as conspicuous, as phenomenal of career as Errol Banneker, Io passed on her chosen way, serene and scatheless.

Tongues wagged, indeed; whispers spread; that was inevitable. But to this Io was impervious. When Banneker, troubled lest any breath should sully her reputation who was herself unsullied, in his mind, would have advocated caution, she refused to consent.

"Why should I skulk?" she said. "I'm not ashamed."

So they met and lunched or dined at the most conspicuous restaurants, defying Scandal, whereupon Scandal began to wonder whether, all things considered, there were anything more to it than one of those flirtations which, after a time of faithful adherence, become standardized into respectability and a sort of tolerant recognition. What, after all, is respectability but the brand of the formalist upon standardization?

With the distaste and effort which Ban always felt in mentioning her husband's name to Io, he asked her one day about any possible danger from Eyre.

"No," she said with assurance. "I owe Del nothing. That is understood between us."

"But if the tittle-tattle that must be going the rounds should come to his ears--"

"If the truth should come to his ears," she replied tranquilly, "it would make no difference."

Ban looked at her, hesitant to be convinced.

"Yes; it's so," she asseverated, nodding, "After his outbreak in Paris--it was on our wedding trip--I gave him a choice. I would either divorce him, or I would hold myself absolutely free of him so far as any claim, actual or moral, went. The one thing I undertook was that I would never involve his name in any open scandal."

"He hasn't been so particular," said Ban gloomily.

"Of late he has. Since I had Cousin Billy Enderby go to him about the dancer. I won't say he's run absolutely straight since. Poor Del! He can't, I suppose. But, at least, he's respected the bargain to the extent of being prudent. I shall respect mine to the same extent."

"Io," he burst out passionately, "there's only one thing in the world I really want; for you to be free of him absolutely."

She shook her head. "Oh, Ban' Can't you be content--with me? I've told you I am free of him. I'm not really his wife."

"No; you're mine," he declared with jealous intensity.

"Yes; I'm yours." Her voice trembled, thrilled. "You don't know yet how wholly I'm yours. Oh, it isn't _that_ alone, Ban. But in spirit and thought. In the world of shadowed and lovely things that we made for ourselves long ago."

"But to have to endure this atmosphere of secrecy, of stealth, of danger to you," he fretted. "You could get your divorce."

"No; I can't. You don't understand."

"Perhaps I do understand," he said gently.

"About Del?" She drew a quick breath. "How could you?"

"Wholly through an accident. A medical man, a slimy little reptile, surprised his secret and inadvertently passed it on."

She leaned forward to him from her corner of the settee, all courage and truth. "I'm glad that you know, though I couldn't tell you, myself. You'll see now that I couldn't leave him to face it alone."

"No. You couldn't. If you did, it wouldn't be Io."

"Ah, and I love you for that, too," she whispered, her voice and eyes one caress to him. "I wonder how I ever made myself believe that I could get over loving you! Now, I've got to pay for my mistake. Ban, do you remember the 'Babbling Babson'? The imbecile who saw me from the train that day?"

"I remember every smallest thing in any way connected with you."

"I love to hear you say that. It makes up for the bad times, in between. The Babbler has turned up. He's been living abroad for a few years. I saw him at a tea last week."

"Did he say anything?"

"Yes. He tried to be coy and facetious. I snubbed him soundly. Perhaps it wasn't wise."

"Why shouldn't it be?"

"Well he used to have the reputation of writing on the sly for The Searchlight."

"That sewer-sheet! You don't think he'd dare do anything of the sort about us? Why, what would he have to go on?"

"What does The Searchlight have to go on in most of its lies, and hints, and innuendoes?"

"But, Io, even if it did publish--"

"It mustn't," she said. "Ban, if it did--it would make it impossible for us to go on as we have been. Don't you see that it would?"

He turned sallow under his ruddy skin. "Then I'll stop it, one way or another. I'll put the fear of God into that filthy old worm that runs the blackmail shop. The first thing is to find out, though, whether there's anything in it. I did hear a hint...." He lost himself in musings, trying to recall an occult remark which the obsequious Ely Ives had made to him sometime before. "And I know where I can do it," he ended.

To go to Ives for anything was heartily distasteful to him. But this was a necessity. He cautiously questioned the unofficial factotum of his employer. Had Ives heard anything of a projected attack on him in The Searchlight? Why, yes; Ives had (naturally, since it was he and not Babson who had furnished the material). In fact, he had an underground wire into the office of that weekly of spice and scurrility which might be tapped to oblige a friend.

Banneker winced at the characterization, but confessed that he would be appreciative of any information. In three days a galley proof of the paragraph was in his hands. It confirmed his angriest fears. Publication of it would smear Io's name with scandal, and, by consequence, direct the leering gaze of the world upon their love.

"What is this; blackmail?" he asked Ives.

"Might be."

"Who wrote it?"

"Reads like the old buzzard's own style."

"I'll go and see him," said Banneker, half to himself.

"You can go, but I don't think you'll see him." Ives set forth in detail the venerable editor's procedure as to troublesome callers. It was specific and curious. Foreseeing that he would probably have to fight with his opponent's weapons, Banneker sought out Russell Edmonds and asked for all the information regarding The Searchlight and its proprietor-editor in the veteran's possession. Edmonds had a fund of it.

"But it won't smoke him out," he said. "That skunk lives in a deep hole."

"If I can't smoke him out, I'll blast him out," declared Banneker, and set himself to the composition of an editorial which consumed the remainder of the working day.

With a typed copy in his pocket, he called, a little before noon, at the office of The Searchlight and sent in his card to Major Bussey. The Major was not in. When was he expected? As for that, there was no telling; he was quite irregular. Very well, Mr. Banneker would wait. Oh, that was quite useless; was it about something in the magazine; wouldn't one of the other editors do? Without awaiting an answer, the anemic and shrewd-faced office girl who put the questions disappeared, and presently returned, followed by a tailor-made woman of thirty-odd, with a delicate, secret-keeping mouth and heavy-lidded, deep-hued eyes, altogether a seductive figure. She smiled confidently up at Banneker.

"I've always wanted so much to meet you," she disclosed, giving him a quick, gentle hand pressure. "So has Major Bussey. Too bad he's out of town. Did you want to see him personally?"

"Quite personally." Banneker returned her smile with one even more friendly and confiding.

"Wouldn't I do? Come into my office, won't you? I represent him in some things."

"Not in this one, I hope," he replied, following her to an inner room. "It is about a paragraph not yet published, which might be misconstrued."

"Oh, I don't think any one could possibly misconstrue it," she retorted, with a flash of wicked mirth.<............