Totty had lost no time in spreading the report that everything was broken off between George Wood and Constance Fearing, and she had done it so skilfully that no one would have thought of tracing the story to her, even if it had proved to be false. She had cared very little what George himself thought about it, though she had not failed to see that he would lay the blame of the gossip on the Fearings. The two girls, indeed, could have no object in circulating a piece of news which did not reflect much credit upon themselves. What Totty wanted was in the first place that George should know that she was acquainted with his position, in order that she might play the part of the comforter and earn his gratitude. She could not of course question him directly, and she was therefore obliged to appear as having heard the tale from others; to manage this with success, it was necessary that the circumstances of the case should be made common property. Secondly, and here Totty’s diplomatic instinct showed itself at its strongest, she was determined to prevent all possibility of a renewal of relations between Constance and George. In due time, probably in twenty-four hours at the latest, both Constance and Grace would know that all society was in possession of their secret. Having of course not mentioned it themselves to any one, they would feel sure that George had betrayed them in his anger, and would be proportionately incensed against him. If both parties should be so angry as to come to an explanation, which was improbable, neither would believe the other, the quarrel would grow and the breach would be widened. Totty herself would of course take George’s part, as would the majority of his acquaintance, and he would be grateful for such friendly support at so trying a time.

Matters turned out very nearly as Mrs. Sherrington Trimm had anticipated. There was, indeed, a slight variation in the programme, but she was not aware of it at the time, and if she had noticed it she would not have attached to it the importance it deserved. It chanced that Constance and Grace Fearing and George Wood had been asked with certain other guests to dine with a certain young couple lately returned from their wedding tour in Europe. The invitations had been sent and accepted on the last day of April, that is to say on the day preceding the one on which Constance gave George her definite refusal, and the dinner was to take place three or four days later. Now the young couple, who had bought a small place on the Hudson river, and were anxious to move into it as soon as possible, took advantage of those three or four days to go up to their country-house and to arrange it for themselves according to their ideas of comfort. They returned to town on the morning of their party and were of course ignorant of the gossip which had gone the rounds in their absence. Late on the afternoon of the day the husband came home from his club in great distress to tell his wife that Constance Fearing had thrown over George Wood and that the two were not on speaking terms. It was too late to make any excuse to their guests, so as to divide the party and give two separate dinners on different days. The worst of it was, that their table was small, the guests had been carefully arranged, and George Wood must inevitably sit beside either Constance or Grace. The young couple were in despair and spent all the time that was left in trying vainly to redistribute the places. There was nothing to be done but to put George next to Grace and to effect a total ignorance of the difficulty. At the last moment, however, the young hostess thought she could improve matters by speaking a word to George when he arrived. Constance and her sister, however, came before him.

“I am so sorry!” said the lady of the house quickly in the ear of the elder girl, as she drew her a little aside. “Mr. Wood is coming—we have been out of town, and knew nothing about it—I do hope——”

“I am very glad he is to be here,” answered Constance. She was very pale and very calm.

“Oh dear!” exclaimed the hostess, growing very red. “I hope I have said nothing——”

“Not at all,” said Constance reassuring her. “There is a foolish bit of gossip in the air, I believe. The facts are very simple. Mr. Wood is a very old and good friend of mine. He asked me to marry him, and I could not. I like him very much and I hope we shall be as good friends as before. If there is any blame in the matter I wish to bear it. There he is.”

The hostess felt better after this, but her curiosity was excited, and as George entered the room she went forward to meet him.

“I am so sorry,” she said. “The Fearings are here and you will have to sit next to the younger one. You see we have only just heard—I am so sorry.”

George Wood inclined his head a little. He was very quiet and grave.

“I may as well tell you at once,” he said, “that there is not a word of truth in the story they are telling. I shall be very much obliged if you will deny it when you hear it mentioned. There never was any engagement between Miss Fearing and me.”

“Well, I am very glad to hear it. Pray, forgive me,” said the lady of the house.

George met Constance with his most impenetrably civil manner and they exchanged a few words which neither of them understood while they were speaking them, nor remembered afterwards. They both spoke in a low voice and the impression produced upon the many curious eyes that watched them was that they were on very good terms, though slightly embarrassed by the consciousness that they were being so much talked of.

At the dinner-table George found himself next to Grace. For some time he talked with his neighbour on his other side, then turned and inquired when Grace and her sister were going out of town, and what they intended to do during the summer. She, on her part, while answering his questions, looked at him with an air of cold and scornful surprise. Presently there was a brief burst of general conversation. Under cover of the numerous voices Grace asked a direct question.

“What do you mean by telling such a story as every one is repeating about my sister?” she asked.

George’s eyes gleamed angrily for a moment and his answer came sharply and quickly.

“You would do better to ask that of yourself—or of Miss Fearing. I have said nothing.”

“I do not intend to discuss the matter,” Grace answered icily. “If the story were true it would hurt us and we should not tell it. But it is a lie, and a malicious lie.” She turned her head away.

“Miss Fearing,” George said, bending towards her a little, “I do not intend to be accused of such doings by any one. Do you understand? If you will take the trouble to ask the man on your left, he will tell you that I have denied the story everywhere during the last four days.”

Grace looked at him again, and there was a change in her face. She was about to say something in reply, when the general talk, which had allowed them to speak together unheard, was interrupted by an unexpected pause.

“Do you prefer Bar Harbour to Newport, Miss Fearing?” George inquired in a tone which led every one to suppose that they had been discussing the comparative merits of watering-places.

The young girl smiled as she made an indifferent answer. She liked the man’s coolness and tact in such small things. He was ready, imperturbable and determined, possessing three of the qualities which women like best in man. A little later another chance of exchanging a few words presented itself. This time Grace spoke less abruptly and coldly.

“If you have said nothing, who has told the tale?” she asked.

“I do not know,” George answered, keeping his clear eyes fixed on hers. “If I knew, I would tell you. It is a malicious lie, as you say, and it must have been set afloat by a malicious person—by some one who hates us all.”

“Some one who hates my sister and me. It cannot injure you in any way.”

“That is true,” said George. “It had not struck me at first, because I was so angry at hearing the story. Does your sister imagine that I have had anything to do with it?”

“Yes,” Grace answered, and her lip curled a little. George misunderstood her expression and drew back rather proudly. The fact was that Grace was thinking how Constance accused herself every day of having been heartless and cruel, declaring in her self-abasement that even if George had chosen to tell the story he would have had something very like a right to do so. Grace had no patience with what she regarded as her sister’s weakness.

To the delight of the young couple who gave the dinner it passed off very pleasantly. There had been no apparent coldness anywhere, and they were persuaded that none existed.

“Will you be kind enough to tell your sister what I have told you?” said George to his neighbour as they rose from the table.

“If you like,” she answered indifferently. “Unless you prefer to tell her yourself.” The emphasis she put on the last part of the sentence showed plainly enough what her opinion was.

“I will,” he said.

A little later in the evening he sat down by Constance in a comparatively quiet corner of the small drawing-room.

“Will you allow me to say a few words to you?” he asked.

She looked at him in pathetic surprise, and if he had been a little more vain than he was, he would have seen that she was grateful to him for coming to her.

“I am always glad when you talk to me,” she said, and her voice trembled perceptibly.

“You are very good,” he answered in a tone that meant nothing. “I would not trouble you if it did not seem necessary. I have been talking about the matter to your sister at dinner. I wish you to know that I have had nothing to do with the invention of the story that is going the rounds of the town. I have denied it to every one, and I shall continue to deny it.”

Constance glanced timidly at him, and then sighed as though she were relieved of a burden.

“I am very glad you have told me,” she said.

“Do you believe me?” he asked.

“I have always believed everything you have told me, and I always shall. But if you had told some one what everybody is repeating, I should not have blamed you. It would have been almost true.”

“I do not say things which are only almost true,” said George very coldly.

Constance’s face, which had regained some of its natural colour while she had been speaking with him, grew very white again, her lip trembled and there were tears in her eyes.

“Are you always going to treat me like this?” she asked, pronouncing the words with difficulty, as though a sob were very near.

If George had said one kind word at that moment, his history and hers might have been very different from that day onwards. But the wound he had received was yet too fresh, and moreover he was angry with her for showing a tendency to cry, and he hardened his heart.

“I trust,” he answered in a chilly tone, “that we shall always meet on the best of terms.”

A long silence followed, during which it was evident that Constance was struggling to maintain some appearance of outward calm. When she felt that she could command her strength, she rose and left him without another word. It was the only thing left for her to do. She could not allow herself to break down in a room full of people, before every one, and she could not stay where she was without bursting into tears. She had humbled herself to the utmost, she had been ready to offer every atonement in her power, and he had met her with a face of stone and a voice that cut her like steel.

That was the last time he saw her before the summer season. She and her sister left town suddenly the next day and George was left to his own devices and to the tender consolation that was showered upon him by Totty Trimm. But he was not easily consoled. As the days followed each other his face grew darker and his humour more gloomy. He could neither work nor read with any satisfaction and he found even less pleasure in the society of men and women than in his own. He would not have married Constance now, if she had offered herself to him, and implored him to take her. If it had been possible, he would gladly have gone abroad for a few months, in the hope of forgetting what had happened to him amidst the varied discomforts, amusements and interests of travelling. But he could not throw up certain engagements he had contracted, though at first it seemed impossible to fulfil them. He promised himself that as soon as he had accomplished his task he would start upon a journey without giving himself the trouble of defining its ultimate direction. For the present he remained sullenly in New York, sitting for hours at his table, a pen held idly between his fingers, his uneasy glance wandering from the paper before him to the wall opposite, from the wall to the window, from the window to his paper again. He was neither despondent nor hopeless. The more impossible he found it to begin his work, the more unyieldingly he forced himself to sit in his chair, the more doggedly he stuck to his determination. Writing had always seemed easy to him before, and he admitted no reason for its being hard now. With iron resolution he kept his place, revolving in his mind every situation and story of which he had ever heard and of which he believed he could make use. But though he turned, and twisted, and tormented every idea that presented itself, he could find neither plot nor scene nor characters in the aching void of his brain. Hour after hour, day after day, he did his best, growing thinner and more tired every day, feeling each afternoon more exhausted by the fruitless contest he was sustaining against the apathy of his intelligence. But when the stated time for work was past, and he pushed back the sheet of paper, sometimes as white as when he had taken it in the morning, sometimes covered with incoherent notes that were utterly worthless, when he felt that he had done his duty and could not be held responsible for the miserable result, when his head ached, his brow was furrowed, and his sight had become uncertain, then at last he gave himself up to the contemplation of his own wretchedness and to the pain of his utter desolation.

Totty did her best to attract him to her house as often as possible. He was vaguely surprised that she should stay so long in town, but he troubled himself very little about her motives, and as he never made any remark to her on the subject, she volunteered no explanation. She would have found it hard to invent one if she had been pressed to do so. It was hotter than usual at that season, and Mamie was greatly in need of a change. Totty could not plead a desire to make economies as a plausible excuse with any chance of being believed, and even Tom Craik, whose health usually supplied her with reasons for doing anything she wanted to do, had betaken himself to Newport. She seemed to have lost her interest in his movements and doings of late and had begun to express a pious belief that only heaven itself could interfere successfully when a man took such rash liberties with his health. Mr. Craik, indeed, lived by the book of arithmetic as Tybalt fought, his food was weighed, his hours of sleep and half-hours of repose were counted and regulated by untiring attendants, the thickness of his clothing at each season was prescribed by a great authority and his goings out and comings in were registered for the latter’s inspection, carriage-makers invented vehicles for his use, upholsterers devised systems of springs and cushions for his rest and when he travelled he performed his journeys in his own car. It was hard to see where Totty could have been of use to him, since he did not care for her conversation and could buy better advice than she could give.

If George had even suspected that Totty was responsible for the report spread concerning him and Constance, he would have renounced his cousin’s acquaintance and would never have entered her house again, not even for the sake of his old friendship with Sherry Trimm. But Totty’s skill and tact had not been at fault. In her own opinion she had made one failure in her life and one mistake. She had failed to induce her brother to change his will a second time, and she had committed a very grave error in opening the will itself in the strong room instead of bringing it home with her and lifting the seal with a hot knife, so as to be able to restore it with all its original appearance of security. The question of the will still disturbed her, but she was not a cowardly woman, and, in particular, she was not afraid of her husband. If worst came to worst, she would throw herself upon his mercy, confess her curiosity, give him back the document, clear her conscience and let him scold as he pleased. He would never tell any one, and Totty was not afraid of making great personal sacrifices when she could escape from a situation in no other way. At the present time the main thing of importance was to please George, and to induce him to make her house his own as much as possible. If Sherrington, knowing George’s financial situation, came back and found him engaged to marry Mamie, it would not be human in him to bear malice against his wife for the part she had played. Remorse she had none. She only regretted that she should have so far forgotten her caution as to do clumsily what she had done. She would neither fail nor make mistakes again.

She knew what she meant to do, and she knew how to do it. A man in George’s situation is not easily affected by words no matter how skilfully put together nor how kindly uttered. He either does not hear them at all, or pays no attention to them, or puts no faith in them. It is more easy to soothe his humour by giving him agreeable surroundings than by talking to him. He has no appetite, but he may be tempted by new and exquisite dishes. He wants stimulants, and an especial brand of very dry champagne flatters his palate, exhilarates his nervous system and produces no evil consequences. He smokes more than is good for him, and in that case it is better that he should smoke the most delicate cigars imported directly from Havana, than that he should saturate his brain with nicotine from a vulgar pipe—Totty thought all pipes vulgar. The love-lorn wretch is uneasy, but he is less restless when he is left to himself for half an hour after dinner, in an absolutely perfect easy-chair, with an absolutely perfect light, and with all the newest and greatest reviews of the world at his elbow. He loathes the thought of conversational effort, but he can listen with a lazy satisfaction to the social chatter of a clever mother and her beautiful daughter, or his sensitive ears may even bear the reading aloud of the last really good novel. It is distressing to learn the next day that he does not remember the name of the hero nor the colour of the heroine’s hair, and that he does not care to hear any more of the book. But it is no matter. Feminine invention is not at an end. It is late in May and there is a full moon. Would he enjoy a drive in the Park? He may smoke in the open carriage, if he pleases, for both the ladies like it. Or it will be Sunday to-morrow, and he never works on Sunday. Would it be very wrong to run out for the day on board of Mr. Craik’s yacht, instead of going to church? Totty has the use of the yacht whenever she likes, and she can take her prayer-book on board and read the service with Mamie while George lies on deck and meditates. It is a steam-yacht, and it is no matter whether the weather is calm or not. If he likes they can go up the river with her instead. Or would he not care to have a horse waiting for him at seven in the morning at the corner of the Park? There are all those horses eating their heads off. It would be too early for Mamie to ride with him, unless he positively insists upon it, but it could not interfere with his day’s work. He has forgotten to write a letter? Poor fellow, when he has been working all day long. It is a very important letter, and must be posted to-night. There is the luxurious writing-table with its perfect appliances, its shaded candles, the beautiful “Charta Perfecta,” the smoothly-flowing ink that is changed every morning, the very pens he always uses, the spotless blotting-paper, wax and seals, if he needs them, and postage-stamps ready and separated from each other in the silver box—there is even a tiny sponge set in a little stand on which to moisten them, lest the coarse taste of the Government gum should offend the flavour of the Turkish coffee he has been drinking. He has an idea? He would like to make notes? There is the library beyond that door. It is lighted. He has only to shut himself in as long as he pleases. There is a box of those cigars on the table. He has forgotten his handkerchief? A touch of the bell, an order, and here are two of dear Sherrington’s, silk or linen, whichever he prefers. The evening is hot? The windows are open and there is a mint-julep with a straw in it by his side. Or is it a little chilly? Everything is closed, the lamps are all lighted, and the subtle perfume of Imperial tea floats on the softened air. All is noiseless, perfect, soothing, beyond description, and yet so natural that he cannot feel as though it gave the least thought or trouble, nor as if it were all skilfully prepared for his especial benefit. He wonders why Sherry Trimm ever goes to the club, when he could spend his evenings in such a home, he closes his eyes, thinks of his unwritten book and asks himself whether the wheel of fortune will ever in its revolutions give him a right of his own to such supreme refinement of comfort.

It would have been strange, indeed, if George’s humour had not been somewhat softened by so much luxury. He had liked what he could taste of it in his old days, when Totty had hardly ever asked him to dinner and had never expected to see him in the evening, in the days when he was a poor, unhappy nobody, and only a shabby relation of Mrs. Sherrington Trimm’s. There had not been much done for his comfort then, when he came to the house, but the softness of the carpets, the elasticity of the easy-chairs and the harmony of all details had seemed delightful to him, and Totty had always been kind and good-natured. But he had seen many things in the last two years, and was by no means so ready to be pleased as he had been when his only evening coat had been in a chronic state of repair. He had eaten terrapin and canvas-back off old Saxon china, and he had looked upon the champagne when it was of the most expensive quality. He had dined in grandeur with men whose millions were legion, and he had supped with epicures who knew what they got for their money. He had seen all sorts of society in his native city, all sorts of vulgar display, all sorts of unostentatious but enormously expensive luxury, all sorts of gilded splendour, and all sorts of faultless refinements in taste. But now, after he had dined and spent the evening with Totty half a dozen times in the course of a fortnight, he was ready to admit that he had never been in an establishment so perfect at all points, so quietly managed, so absolutely comfortable and so unpretentiously sybaritic in all its details. Totty and her husband were undoubtedly rich, but they were no richer than hundreds of people he knew. It was not money alone that produced the results he saw, and the certainty that the household was managed upon a sort of artistic principle of enjoyment gave him intense satisfaction. There was the same difference between Totty’s way of living and that of most of her friends, that there is between a piece of work done by hand and the stereotyped copy of it made by machinery, the same difference there is between an illuminated manuscript and its lithographed fac-simile. The one is full of the individuality of the great artist, the other presents the perfection of execution without inspiration. The one charms, the other only pleases.

George appreciated most thoroughly at the end of the first week everything he ate, drank, felt and saw at his cousin’s house, and what he heard was by no means as wearisome to his intelligence as he had supposed that it must be. Totty was far too clever a woman to flatter him openly, for she was keen enough to perceive that he was one of those men who feel a sort of repulsion for the work they have done and who put little faith in the judgment of others concerning it. She soon found out that he did not care to see his books lying upon the drawing-room table and that he suspected her of leaving them there with the deliberate intention of flattering him. They disappeared into the shelves of the library and were seen no more. But when George was reading the papers or a review—a form of rudeness in which she constantly encouraged him, she occasionally took the opportunity of introducing into her quiet conversation with Mamie some expression or some thought which he had used or developed in his writings. She avoided quotation, which she had always considered vulgar, and exercised her ingenuity in letting his favourite ideas fall from her lips in a perfectly natural manner. Though he was not supposed to be listening, he often heard her remarks, and was unconsciously pleased. The subtlety of the flatterer could go no further. Nor was that part of the talk which concerned himself neither directly nor indirectly by any means tiresome. Totty possessed very good powers of conversation, and could talk very much better than most women when she pleased. If she pretended to abhor the name of culture and generally affected an air of indifference to everything that did not affect her neighbours or herself, she did so with a wise premeditation and an excellent judgment of her hearers’ capacities. But her own husband was fond of more intelligent subjects, and was a man of varied experience and wide reading, who liked to talk of what he read and saw. Totty’s memory was excellent, and as she gave herself almost as much trouble to please Sherrington as she was now taking to please George, she had acquired the art of amusing her husband without any apparent exertion. What she said was never very profound, unless she had got it by heart, but the matter of it was generally clear and very fairly well expressed.

As for Mamie, she was perfectly happy, for she was unconsciously very much in love with George, and to see him so often and in such intimacy was inexpressibly delightful. It was a pleasure even to see him sitting silent in his chair, it was happiness to hear him speak and it was positive joy to wait upon him. She had been more disturbed than she had been aware by his evident devotion to Constance Fearing during the winter. The gossip about the broken engagement had given her the keenest pain, due to the fact, as she supposed, that Constance was totally unworthy of the man she had jilted. But George’s own assurance that no engagement had ever existed had driven the clouds from her sky, although his own subsequent conduct might well have aroused her suspicions. Totty, however, took good care to explain to her that the talk had been entirely without foundation and that George’s silence and gloomy ways were the result of overwork. She hoped, she said, to induce him to spend the summer with them and to give himself a long rest.