The night was falling when Buford left. He and Dominick had sat on in the den¹, talking together in low voices, going over past events in the concatenation of circumstances that had led up to the extraordinary situation in which they now found themselves. Both listened with strained ears for the opening of Bernice’s door, but not a sound came from her room. Each silently, without expressing his thoughts to the other, wondered what she would do, what sensational² move might now be expected of her. While they talked, it was evident she intended to make no sign of life.  
After Buford had left, Dominick called up his friend on the telephone telling him that he would be unable to meet him at dinner. He knew that Berny could hear every word he uttered, and with indescribable dread³ he expected that she would open her door and accost⁴ him. But again she preserved an inviolate⁵ invisibility, though beneath her portal he could see a crack of light and could hear her moving about in the room.
 
[466]He went into his own room, lit the gas, and began packing his trunks. He was dazed and stupefied by what had occurred, and almost the only clearly-defined idea he had was to leave the house and get far from the presence of the woman who had so ruthlessly poisoned his life. He was in the midst of his packing when the Chinaman summoned him to dinner, but he told the man he cared for nothing and would want no breakfast on the following morning. The servant, who by this time was well aware that the household was a strange one, shrugged⁶ his shoulders without comment and passed on to the door of his mistress’ room, upon which he knocked with the low, deferential⁷ rap of the Chinese domestic. Berny’s voice sounded shrilly⁸, through the silence of the flat:
 
“Go away! Let me alone! If that’s dinner I don’t want any.”
 
The sound of her voice pierced Dominick with a sense of loathing⁹ and horror. He stopped in his packing, suddenly deciding to leave everything and go, go from the house and from her as soon as he could get away. He thrust into a valise such articles as he would want for the night and set the bag by the stair-head while he went into the parlor¹⁰ to find some bills and letters of his that he remembered to have left in the desk. As he passed Berny’s door, it flew open and she appeared in the aperture¹¹. The room[467] behind her was a blaze of light, every gas-jet lit and pouring a flood of radiance over the clothes outspread on the bed, the chairs, and the floor. She, herself, in a lace-trimmed petticoat and loose silk dressing-sack, stood in the doorway¹² staring at Dominick, her face pinched, white, and fierce.
 
“What are you doing?” she said abruptly¹³. “Going away?”
 
“Yes,” he answered, stopping at the sight of the dreaded¹⁴ apparition¹⁵. “That’s my intention.”
 
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
 
He gave her a cold look and made no answer.
 
“Are you going to your mother’s?” she cried.
 
He moved forward toward the parlor door and she came out into the passage, looking after him and repeating with a tremulous, hoarse¹⁶ persistence¹⁷, “Dominick, answer me. Are you going to your mother’s?”
 
“Yes, I am,” he said over his shoulder.
 
He had an unutterable dread that she would begin to speak of the situation, of Buford, of her past life; that she would try to explain and exonerate¹⁸ herself and they would be plunged¹⁹ into a long and profitless discussion of all the sickening, irremediable wretchedness of the past. He could not bear the thought of it; he would have done anything to avoid it. He wanted to escape from her, from the house where she had tortured him, where he seemed to have laid down his manhood, his honor, his faith, and seen her[468] trample²⁰ on them. The natural supposition that he would want to confront her with her deception²¹ and hear her explanation was the last thing he desired doing.
 
“Don’t go to your mother’s,” she cried, following him up the hall, “for to-night, Dominick, please. And don’t tell her. I beg, I pray of you, don’t tell her till to-morrow.”
 
Her manner was so pleadingly, so imploringly²² insistent²³, that he turned and looked somberly at her. She was evidently deeply in earnest, her face lined with anxiety.
 
“This is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. I know I’ve got no right to ask anything, but you’re generous, you’ve been kind to me in the past, and it’ll not cost you much to be kind just once again. Go to a hotel, or the club, or anywhere you like, but not to your mother’s and don’t tell her till to-morrow afternoon.”
 
He stared at her without speaking, wishing she would be silent and leave him.
 
“I’ll not trouble you after to-morrow. I’ll go, I’ll get out. You’ll never be bothered by me any more.”
 
“All right,” he said, “I’ll go to the club. Let me alone, that’s all, and let me go.”
 
“And—and,” she persisted, “you won’t tell her till to-morrow, to-morrow afternoon?”
 
He had entered the parlor in which the Chinaman had lit the lamps, and opening the desk[469] began hunting for his papers. To her last words he returned no answer, and she crept in after him and stood in the doorway, leaning against the woodwork of the door-frame.
 
“You won’t tell her till to-morrow—to-morrow, say, after three?”
 
He found the letters and drew them out of their pigeonhole²⁴.
 
“All right,” he almost shouted. “I won’t tell her. But, for God’s sake, leave me alone and let me go. If you keep on following me round this way I won’t answer for what I’ll do.”
 
“You promise then,” she said, ignoring his heat. “You promise you’ll not tell her till after three?”
 
He turned from the desk, gave her a look of restrained passion, and said, “I promise,” then passed by her as she stood in the doorway and walked to the stair-head. Here his valise stood, and snatching it up he ran down the stairs and out of the house.
 
Bernice, hearing the door shut, returned to her room and went on with the work of sorting her wardrobe and packing her trunks. She did it deliberately²⁵ and carefully, looking over each garment, and folding the choicer articles between sheets of tissue paper. At midnight she had not yet finished, and under the blaze of the gases, looking very tired, she went on smoothing skirts and pinching up the lace on bodices as she laid[470] them tenderly on the trays that stood on the bed, the table, and the sofa. The night was far spent before everything was arranged to her satisfaction and she went to bed.
 
She was up betimes in the morning. Eight o’clock had not struck when she was making a last tour of the parlor, picking up small articles of silver and glass that she crowded down into cracks in the tightly-packed trunks. At breakfast the Chinaman, an oblique²⁶, observant eye on her, asked her what he should prepare for lunch. Conscious that if she told him she would not be back he might become alarmed at the general desertion and demand his wages, she ordered an even more elaborate menu than usual, telling him she would bring home a friend.
 
She breakfasted in her wrapper and after the meal finished her toilet with the extremest solicitude²⁷. Never had she taken more pains with herself. Though anxiety and strain had thinned and sharpened her, the fever of excitement which burnt in her temporarily repaired these ravages²⁸. Her eyes were brilliant without artificial aid; her cheeks a hot dry crimson²⁹ that needed no rouge³⁰. The innate³¹ practicality of her character asserted itself even in this harassed³² hour. Last night she had put the purple orchid³³ in a glass of water on the bureau. Now, as she pinned it on her breast, she congratulated herself for her foresight³⁴, the pale lavender petals³⁵ of the rare blossom toning[471] altogether harmoniously³⁶ with her dress of dark purple cloth.
 
Before she left the room she locked the trunks and left beside them a dress suit-case packed for a journey. Standing³⁷ in the doorway she took a hurried look about the apartment—a last, farewell survey, not of sentiment but of investigation³⁸, to see if she had forgotten anything. A silver photograph frame set in rhinestones³⁹ caught her eye and she went back and took it up, weighing it uncertainly in her hand. Some of the rhinestones had fallen out, and she finally decided⁴⁰ it was not worth while opening the trunks to put in such a damaged article.
 
It was only a quarter past nine when she emerged from the flat. She took the down-town car and twenty minutes later was mounting the steps to Bill Cannon⁴¹’s office. She had been motionless and rigidly⁴² preoccupied⁴³ on the car, but, as she approached the office, a change was visible in her gait and mien⁴⁴. She moved with a light, perky assurance, a motion as of a delicate, triumphant⁴⁵ buoyancy seeming to impart itself to her whole body from her shoulders to her feet. A slight, mild smile settled on her lips, suggesting gaiety tempered with good humor. Her eye was charged with the same expression rendered more piquant⁴⁶ by a gleam—the merest suggestion—of coquettish challenge.
 
The Bonanza⁴⁷ King was already in his office.[472] The same obsequious⁴⁸ clerk who had shown her in on a former occasion took her card in to the inner sanctum where the great man, even at this early hour, was shut away with the business which occupied his crowded days. In a moment the young man returned smiling and quite as murmurously polite as he had been on her former visit, and Berny was once again ushered⁴⁹ into the presence of the enemy.
 
The old man had read the name on the card with a lowering glance. His command to admit the visitor had been hardly more than an inarticulate growl⁵⁰ which the well-trained clerk understood, as those about deaf mutes can read their half-made signs. Cannon was not entirely⁵¹ surprised at her reappearance, and mingled⁵² feelings stirred in him as he turned his swivel chair away from the table, and sat hunched⁵³ in it, his elbows on its arms, his hands clasped over his stomach.
 
She came in with an effect of dash, confidence, and brilliancy that astonished him. He had expected her almost to sidle in in obvious, guilty fear of him, her resistance broken, humbly⁵⁴ coming to sue for the money. Instead, a rustling⁵⁵, scented⁵⁶ apparition appeared in the doorway, more gracious, handsome, and smiling than he had ever thought she could be. She stood for a moment, as if waiting for his invitation to enter, the whole effect of her rich costume, her feverishly⁵⁷ high coloring, and her debonair⁵⁸ and self-confident[473] demeanor⁵⁹, surprising him into silence. A long white feather on her hat made a background for her darkly-flushed face and auburn hair. There were some amethysts⁶⁰ round her neck, their purple lights harmonizing richly with the superb flower pinned on her breast. Her eyes looked very black, laughing, and provocative⁶¹ through her spotted⁶² veil.
 
“Well,” she said in a gay voice, “here I am again! Is it a surprise?”
 
She advanced into the room, and the old man, almost unconsciously, rose from his chair.
 
“Yes, sort of,” he said dryly.
 
She stopped by the desk, looked at him sidewise, and said,
 
“Do we shake hands?”
 
His glance on her was hard and cold. Berny met it and could not restrain a sinking of the courage that was her most admirable characteristic and that she had screwed far past its ordinary sticking-point that morning. She sank down into the same arm-chair that she had occupied on her former visit and said, with a little languid effect of indifference⁶³,
 
“Oh, well, never mind. We don’t have to waste time being polite. That’s one of the most convenient things about our interviews. We just say what we really think and there’s no need bothering about humbug⁶⁴.”
 
“So glad to hear it,” said the old man with[474] his most ironical⁶⁵ air. “Suppose then you let me know what you’ve come down to say.”
 
“Can’t you guess?” she answered, with an expression that was almost one of flirtatious⁶⁷ interrogation.
 
“Nup,” he answered, looking steadily⁶⁸ at her. “I have to have it said in that plain style with no politeness that you say is the way we always talk.”
 
“All right,” she answered briskly. “Here it is as plain as A B C. I’ve decided to accept your offer and take the money.”
 
She looked up at him, smiling gallantly⁷⁰. But as her eye caught his her smile, try as she would to keep it, died. He suddenly realized that she was extremely nervous, that her lips were dry, and the hand she put up to adjust her veil, and thus hide her intractable mouth, was shaking. The admiration⁷¹ he had of late felt for her insolent⁷² fearlessness increased, also he began to feel that now, at last, he was rising to the position of master of the situation. He leaned back in the swivel chair and glowered⁷³ at her.
 
“You know,” he said slowly, “you’ve a gall⁶⁹ that beats anything I’ve ever seen. Two days ago you busted⁷⁴ this business higher than a kite by stopping my daughter on the public street and telling her the whole story. You did the one thing you knew I’d never forgive; and you ended the affair, hammered the nails in its ............