As the car swerved from the curb, Anne sank against the cushions. Turning to the immobile figure at her side, she questioned anxiously.

“Is Alexis—is Mr. Petrovskey very ill?”

The shadowy form retained its frozen quiescence.

“He is perhaps dying,” said the light, harsh voice.

“Oh!” Anne’s cry was involuntary. Conscious of the flood of hatred beating against her, she steeled herself. When she spoke her voice was well under control.

“Surely you can’t mean that! Why, what is the matter?”

The delicate profile beside her, momentarily illuminated by a street lamp, acquired the translucent hardness of carved, white jade. “He has pneumonia.” Once more in shadow, the mask turned towards Anne. A pair of eyes gleamed from out of dark caverns. “It developed several days ago. He had had a bad cough for about two weeks, and of course had taken no care of it.” The dull voice ceased.

Beneath her fur cape, Anne clasped gloved hands convulsively together.

“Oh, poor boy, and he never let me know!” she murmured contritely. She faced with shame a thrill of relief. So Alexis had not neglected her wilfully after all.

“Where is he now? Is he—alone?”

The answer came deliberately, from averted lips.

“Yes, he is in his apartment in Gramercy Park. He is alone with the exception of a day and night nurse. He—he prefers it that way.” She faltered for the first time, then continued with a resumption of hardness. “Women have always been superfluous to Alexis. I have heard all geniuses are the same.”

The sheer, foolish bravado of it pierced Anne’s heart. The impulse to put her arms about the proud, suffering, little creature was almost irresistible, but she repelled it scornfully. Why cheapen the child’s dignity by histrionics? This was obviously neither the time nor place for explanations. Let those come later. The important thing at present was to get to Alexis as quickly as possible, and with as little friction. So she said nothing, but gazed steadily at the stream of motors which glutted Park Avenue like an endless chain of monster glowworms.

Without turning perceptibly, Claire cast a surreptitious glance in her direction. In the constant glare from passing motors, Anne emerged, doubly magnificent in regal furs, and jeweled band glowing within the copper meshes of her hair, the proud face of a patrician, charmingly insolent, utterly non-committal. Beside her, Claire felt smitten with mediocrity as with a hopeless disease. And yet it was she herself who was bringing this woman to Alexis. Why not? He desired her. Perhaps his very life depended upon her presence. When existence narrowed down to a primal factor such as death, one shed all fears except one. Her eyes fixed upon Anne, she suddenly laughed aloud.

“I startled you, didn’t I?” she said harshly, in response to Anne’s look of surprise, “but the mirthfulness of the occasion suddenly overcame me. It—it is funny, isn’t it? Just——” her voice faltered ever so slightly, “just like the movies?”

Anne looked back at her gently. “I doubt if real life could ever be as complicated as Hollywood imagines, don’t you?” she replied impersonally.

Bitterly ashamed of her outburst, Claire was about to reply with the same aloofness, when the motor turned into 21st Street and glided toward Gramercy Square. It stopped before a tall, narrow house with an English basement.

“Are we there?” asked Anne.

Her face fiery with chagrin, Claire nodded laconically.

They mounted in the elevator and were admitted into the studio by Mme. Petrovskey.

“This is very good of you to take pity upon my poor boy,” said a suave voice.

Anne felt herself drawn swiftly into the room. An inscrutable China-doll face gazed blankly into her own.

“Not at all,” she replied quietly. “I am distressed to hear of your son’s illness and only hope I shall be of some use.”

The small, blue eyes urbanely veiled, were fixed upon Anne’s face.

“I’m afraid you’re too modest,” continued the bland voice. Dislike, tinged with a hint of curiosity lurked beneath the perfect manner. “The doctor seems to think you are necessary for my son’s recovery, and we, his wife and mother,” the eyes ceased to bore through Anne momentarily and swept ironically over Claire’s shrinking figure, “are only too grateful.” She came a little nearer and laid a massive hand on Anne’s cloak. “Perhaps you’d better keep your wrap on. The sick-room is very cold, and you’re not exactly dressed for the occasion, are you, dear lady?”

“Perhaps not,” replied Anne, a frozen anger accumulating in her voice. “You see I was on my way to the theater. But isn’t this delay unnecessary, Mme. Petrovskey? Won’t you please take me in to your son? That is, if the doctor permits?”

Perfect urbanity descended once more upon Mme. Petrovskey.

“Certainly,” she said in brisk, business-like tones. “Just wait a minute and I’ll call the nurse.”

She crossed the large studio with ponderous agility and tapped upon a glass paneled door. It opened just enough to permit the emerging of a white-capped head. Whispered words were exchanged, and Anne was beckoned forward.

With a glance of commiseration for Claire, who had sunk into a chair next the wall and was leaning forward like a broken thing, Anne passed by her swiftly.

The next moment she knelt at Alexis’s bedside.

Emaciated, a spot of crimson beneath each glowing eye, his labored breathing filled the room with tragic effort. Suppressing a cry of pity, Anne took one of the burning hands and held it between her cool palms, as if to quench the inward fire. But the glittering eyes, as they fell upon her, held no gleam of recognition. The monotonous agony of ingoing and outgoing breath continued as before.

“Will he die?” she whispered to the nurse who had closed the door upon Mme. Petrovskey, and tiptoed back again to the bedside.

The woman looked non-committal. In the shaded glare from the night light, green rings about her eyes cut into her face like spherical eclipses.

“If the fever goes down he ought to live,” she said. “The congestion in the lung is bad, but so far has not spread to the other. If the cause of cerebral excitement can be removed”—her eyes rested upon Anne curiously—“he will probably get well.”

“He doesn’t seem to be particularly excited? I understood that——” Anne broke off in some confusion, and then continued sturdily, “that he had been asking for me?”

The nurse nodded.

“Oh, he has asked for you! That is, he has asked for some lady named ‘Anne’ almost constantly, and I suppose that means you? You see he has his quiet moments, and this is one of them. A sort of unconsciousness, you know. I guess it’s Nature’s way of giving him a rest.”

“How long do these periods usually last?”

“Anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. You’d better stay all night. I’ll make up the daybed for you in the studio. The doctor will be here soon again and will probably want to talk things over with you. If you can only be here when one of his spells comes on, it may make all the difference!”

“Very well.” Anne put Alexis’ hand back on to the cover and rose to her feet. “I will stay, of course. If you’ll show me where the telephone is, I’ll call up my maid and have her send me a few necessary things for the night. By the way,” she hesitated a moment as she reached the door, “are the other two ladies spending the night here also?”

The nurse looked surprised.

“Oh no, ma’am. They always go home at night. They’ve probably left already. The telephone’s right in the studio by the front door. Yes, that’s it.”

So they had gone! With a sensation of reprieve, Anne crossed the empty room quickly and got into communication with Regina.

Half an hour later she was installed in the raised alcove off the studio.

But it would be days before Anne would see her own house again. Days in which she and the doctor and the nurse would wrestle with fiery death for the life of Alexis Petrovskey.