While the real estate deal was in progress Mrs. Gerald decided to move to Chicago. She had been staying in Cincinnati for a few months, and had learned a great deal as to the real facts of Lester’s irregular mode of life. The question whether or not he was really married to Jennie remained an open one. The garbled details of Jennie’s early years, the fact that a Chicago paper had written him up as a young millionaire who was sacrificing his fortune for love of her, the certainty that Robert had practically eliminated him from any voice in the Kane Company, all came to her ears. She hated to think that Lester was making such a sacrifice of himself. He had let nearly a year slip by without doing anything. In two more years his chance would be gone. He had said to her in London that he was without many illusions. Was Jennie one? Did he really love her, or was he just sorry for her? Letty wanted very much to find out for sure.

The house that Mrs. Gerald leased in Chicago was a most imposing one on Drexel Boulevard. “I’m going to take a house in your town this winter, and I hope to see a lot of you,” she wrote to Lester. “I’m awfully bored with life here in Cincinnati. After Europe it’s so — well, you know. I saw Mrs. Knowles on Saturday. She asked after you. You ought to know that you have a loving friend in her. Her daughter is going to marry Jimmy Severance in the spring.”

Lester thought of her coming with mingled feelings of pleasure and uncertainty. She would be entertaining largely, of course. Would she foolishly begin by attempting to invite him and Jennie? Surely not. She must know the truth by this time. Her letter indicated as much. She spoke of seeing a lot of him. That meant that Jennie would have to be eliminated. He would have to make a clean breast of the whole affair to Letty. Then she could do as she pleased about their future intimacy. Seated in Letty’s comfortable boudoir one afternoon, facing a vision of loveliness in pale yellow, he decided that he might as well have it out with her. She would understand. Just at this time he was beginning to doubt the outcome of the real estate deal, and consequently he was feeling a little blue, and, as a concomitant, a little confidential. He could not as yet talk to Jennie about his troubles.

“You know, Lester,” said Letty, by way of helping him to his confession — the maid had brought tea for her and some brandy and soda for him, and departed —“that I have been hearing a lot of things about you since I’ve been back in this country. Aren’t you going to tell me all about yourself? You know I have your real interests at heart.”

“What have you been hearing, Letty?” he asked, quietly.

“Oh, about your father’s will for one thing, and the fact that you’re out of the company, and some gossip about Mrs. Kane which doesn’t interest me very much. You know what I mean. Aren’t you going to straighten things out, so that you can have what rightfully belongs to you? It seems to me such a great sacrifice, Lester, unless, of course, you are very much in love. Are you?” she asked archly.

Lester paused and deliberated before replying. “I really don’t know how to answer that last question, Letty,” he said. “Sometimes I think that I love her; sometimes I wonder whether I do or not. I’m going to be perfectly frank with you. I was never in such a curious position in my life before. You like me so much, and I— well, I don’t say what I think of you,” he smiled. “But, anyhow, I can talk to you frankly. I’m not married.”

“I thought as much,” she said, as he paused.

“And I’m not married because I have never been able to make up my mind just what to do about it. When I first met Jennie I thought her the most entrancing girl I had ever laid eyes on.”

“That speaks volumes for my charms at that time,” interrupted his vis-a-vis.

“Don’t interrupt me if you want to hear this,” he smiled.

“Tell me one thing,” she questioned, “and then I won’t. Was that in Cleveland?”

“Yes.”

“So I heard,” she assented.

“There was something about her so —”

“Love at first sight,” again interpolated Letty foolishly. Her heart was hurting her. “I know.”

“Are you going to let me tell this?”

“Pardon me, Lester. I can’t help a twinge or two.”

“Well, anyhow, I lost my head. I thought she was the most perfect thing under the sun, even if she was a little out of my world. This is a democratic country. I thought that I could just take her, and then — well, you know. That is where I made my mistake. I didn’t think that would prove as serious as it did. I never cared for any other woman but you before and — I’ll be frank — I didn’t know whether I wanted to marry you. I thought I didn’t want to marry any woman. I said to myself that I could just take Jennie, and then, after a while, when things had quieted down some, we could separate. She would be well provided for. I wouldn’t care very much. She wouldn’t care. You understand.”

“Yes, I understand,” replied his confessor.

“Well, you see, Letty, it hasn’t worked out that way. She’s a woman of a curious temperament. She possesses a world of feeling and emotion. She’s not educated in the sense in which we understand that word, but she has natural refinement and tact. She’s a good housekeeper. She’s an ideal mother. She’s the most affectionate creature under the sun. Her devotion to her mother and father was beyond words. Her love for her daughter — she’s hers, not mine — is perfect. She hasn’t any of the graces of the smart society woman. She isn’t quick at repartee. She can’t join in any rapid-fire conversation. She thinks rather slowly, I imagine. Some of her big thoughts never come to the surface at all, but you can feel that she is thinking and that she i............