Heart thudding against her ribs, Claire advanced into the room. Ever since she had received Alexis’ letter asking her to come and see him she had lived for this moment alone. And yet, now that it was upon her, she was conscious only of a cold dread, a dreary fear. Her last glimpse of Alexis had been in the clutches of delirium. He had then been calling frantically upon the name of another woman. Much water had passed beneath the bridges since, congealed, stagnant water, bitter as the unshed tears lying so heavily upon her heart.

She advanced timidly into the room and Alexis rose to greet her. A wine-colored lounging robe enhanced his fairness. The smile upon his lips was both pathetic and perfunctory. Taking her proffered hand, he led Claire to a chair. For a moment they gazed at each other self-consciously.

“This is good of you, Claire, I know I don’t deserve it,” he said finally.

She smiled sturdily beneath her tears.

“You asked me to come, didn’t you? That is why I am here. I am glad you are better, Alexis.”

“Oh, I’m practically well now. I expect to go out again in a few days.”

She noticed that he ignored the beginning of her sentence and his embarrassment touched her. She looked about the room in search of a topic of conversation. Her absent eyes fell upon several large jars filled with flowers. “What lovely roses, and what masses of them!” she exclaimed impulsively. Then could have bitten out her tongue. Had they perhaps been sent by Mrs. Schuyler?

A triumphant gleam swept over his face. He forgot to be self-conscious.

“Yes, aren’t they wonderful! It’s quite like the old days, isn’t it? You see, Claire, I—I am discovered!”

“You are discovered?” she stammered.

He ran a hand through his tumbled hair with the old arrogant gesture.

“Yes, my return has leaked out somehow the last few days, and although it hasn’t appeared in the papers as yet, the exciting fact seems to have spread rather swiftly.”

Within her lap Claire’s gloved hands tightened upon each other. “Are—are you glad, Alexis?” her voice faltered.

He laughed oddly. “Am I human, Claire?”

“Yes, yes, I know! But don’t you dread having them find out?”

He looked at her in angry bewilderment.

“Find out what?” Could she be alluding to Anne?

“Why, that you have forgotten how to play,” she murmured almost in tears.

He sprang up and loomed over her with the air of a young god. His hands upon her slight shoulders, he shook her gently.

“Ah, but it has come back, Claire. It came back like a flash, just as suddenly as it left me. Listen!”

He strode over to the piano, and taking his violin out of the case, fingered it caressingly.

“Of course, they won’t let me practice yet. And I am all thumbs. But listen!”

Violin nestled beneath his chin, he began to play. Superlatively toned, the instrument hummed beneath his sweeping bow like a human thing. The penetrating sweetness pierced Claire’s heart. It sang a plaintive melody, simple as an ancient love song. The mellow tones rose higher and higher, finally repeating themselves in head notes clear and brittle as crystal. As the last note shrilled lingeringly upon the air, Claire smiled through tears into Alexis’ exalted face.

“Oh, Alexis, how happy I am for you! Shall you play in public again soon?”

He replaced the violin within its case, and crossing the room sat down beside her. “I hope to be ready for a recital the middle of January. From now on I shall practice every moment. Do you remember my old manager, Rosenfield? I’ve engaged him again. Funny fellow, but enthusiastic as ever.”

“Have you made any special plans?” Claire’s voice was strained. Would he never come to the point?

“Well,” he hesitated a moment, dreading how she might take what he was going to say, “Yes, I have. The doctors wanted me to go South for the rest of the winter, but I couldn’t bear to go away so far from” he faltered a little—“so far from New York and Rosenfield. I’m so anxious to get to work again. So we compromised on Long Island. The air is wonderful there. I have taken Karzimova’s house, the Russian actress, you know, until the first of May. It is an Italian villa, and rather gorgeous. She didn’t want to rent it, although she is in Europe, but when they cabled her who I was and that I had been ill, she gave in rather graciously, and let me have it for a ridiculous price. They say she is mad about music.”

So this was what she had come to hear? She was to lose Alexis entirely, then?

“When are you moving out?”

“In about a week, I believe. Don’t you think it is the best thing I can do?”

“Oh, Alexis, if you are happy, what more can I ask?” Her brimming eyes touched him to the quick.

“Little Claire, what a gentle thing you are. Far too dear for an egotistical brute like me.” He touched her gloved hand, and gazed down at her stormily. He noted with surprise that she was looking almost pretty. Her hat was actually becoming, and the long earrings lent her an elfin charm. What had she been doing to herself? Was the pathetic desire to attract him at the root of the change? The tragedy of it! Was it possible that he had ever possessed this girl, of whose body he retained scarcely a recollection? The very thought seemed incestuous. She was not a woman but a sister. The little Claire of nursery days, the older Claire of flushed cheeks and timid ardors, yes, her image was still vivid, and even dear, so intermingled with her companionship were his earliest recollections. But Claire, the wife of a few hectic months, the submissive puppet of rare and intermittent contacts, was unthinkable. She had existed only within the hideous confines of his disordered brain.

His silence, his gaze filled Claire with horrible confusion. She blushed crimson. Within the hurricane of his glance her soul shivered, exposed, naked. What blasting thought, what ignoble memory lurked behind those stormy eyes? Shame seared her as with a hot iron. Yet her surrender had been as pure as it had been entire. Was she not Alexis’ wife? Bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh? Did not she carry within her body his seed? With a heroic effort, she raised her head and their eyes clashed.

“What are you thinking of?” she inquired with a quiet hauteur, which surprised him.

His answer skirted the truth warily.

“That you should never have married me, Claire. We shall never be happy together. It was all a horrible mistake. Let us undo it, dear.”

“I cannot divorce you, if that is what you mean.” Her hands were clasped convulsively upon each other.

“But, Claire, we do not love each other. I—I——” he faltered.

“Yes, I know, you love another woman. You don’t have to tell me that, Alexis.” Her smile was grim.

“But, I want to marry her,” he blurted cruelly. “You must divorce me, Claire.”

The searing crimson drained from her face, leaving it the livid hue of marble.

“We are husband and wife, Alexis. No human being can undo that now.”

He sprang out of the chair and strode up and down the room.

“That toquÉ idea of yours! The idea is mediÆval and has died out like a thousand other superstitions.”

“Not among the Roman Catholics, Alexis!” Her eyes begged for mercy.

“Oh, Claire, be reasonable. Be up to date. These aren’t the Dark Ages!”

“Oh, poor Alexis.” Claire covered her face with trembling fingers. “Is it as bad as all that? But you know I have already told you, you can have a separation any time you wish. I will go away, far away. You need never see me again!” Her voice ended with a sob.

Struck with remorse, he looked down upon her haggardly.

“What an utter brute I am. But don’t you see? It is partly for your sake, too. Suppose you should meet some one else who could really make you happy? Some one good, some one entirely different from me. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if just because a few words had been mumbled over us by an unknown priest, you couldn’t marry this other man more suited to you in every way than I am?”

“But it isn’t the priest who mumbles the formula that counts. He is only an instrument. It is the spirit behind it all. We swore before God in his house to remain together until death us do part. It was a sacred oath. Nothing but death can dissolve it.”

“If you swore to remain with me until death, why are you willing to have a separation? Isn’t that against your principles, too?”

His irony cut her to the quick.

“I cannot remain with a man who does not love me,” she replied quietly, “any more than I could live with any other.”

“And supposing I love some one else and want to marry her?”

“It would be impossible. It wouldn’t be legal.”

“But I am neither Roman Catholic, nor Unitarian. I wear no label or tag of any sort, thank the pagan gods. And as I do happen to want to marry another woman, I warn you now that if you refuse to get a divorce against me, I shall do something desperate.”

“Alexis, Alexis!” The tortured cry sprang from her involuntarily. “What can I do? I am ready to die to make you happy, but I cannot consent to a divorce. It would be a sin. A living lie!”

“A sin! A living lie! That is all cant and gibberish. I was sorry for you a while ago, Claire. I pitied you from the bottom of my heart. But you are hard as stone. If you had consented to do what I asked I would have been happy to settle half of my future income upon you, as I am taking up my violin again. But you are like a rock, as fixed in your mold as a fossil in its shelf of prehistoric stone.”

She wrung her hands. “Oh, Alexis, don’t speak to me of money! I’d rather kill myself than to take a penny from you under such conditions.”

He eyed her wrathfully.

“But even that satisfaction is denied you by your church!”

“How you hate me!” She rose to her feet and faced him drearily.

His expression softened. “No, Claire. I never have hated you. You are mistaken. I even loved you once—as a sister.”

“As a sister!” She flung her hands out before her blindly. “My God, what a fool, what an ignoble fool you must think me! And I did it all for the best. You were so ill, so distraught. So unlike yourself. The doctors advised me to do it. And you asked me, yourself. There was no other woman! I was so young, I loved you. I had always loved you, Alexis. The gift of myself seemed small in comparison with your need. I never thought it would bring unhappiness to you. Women seemed to mean so little in your life.”

He stepped towards her uncertainly, a horrified question back of the anger in his eyes.

“But didn’t you know, didn’t you understand why I asked you?”

Cold perspiration broke over her quivering body. The claw-like dread clutched once more at her heart.

“What do you mean, Alexis?”

He laughed cruelly.

“The interesting little scene in my room, so beautifully stage-managed by my dear mother?”

She rose with a cry. “Alexis! You think I did—that?”

“Why not?” he shrugged. “The doctor said I needed a wife. That was a good way to provide me with one. When a child refuses to take medicine, it must be forced down his throat.” He laughed excitedly.

“But Alexis, how? Why?”

She fell limply into a chair and he saw by her stricken face that she was innocent. He was seized by devastating remorse. He ceased his pacing abruptly.

“But Claire, this is terrible! I have been judging you all this time when you were innocent. I might have known better!”

Claire looked at him in amazement.

“So you think I arranged with your mother to have her find me in your room?” A slow anger flamed in her pale cheeks. “I may be a fool, but I’m not vile. I—I think I will go now.” She drew herself out of the chair and started for the door. He followed her in a few swift strides.

“Claire, this is horrible. You must let me explain.”

She avoided his touch with a visible shiver.

“It isn’t necessary. I understand only too well. I think I knew it all from the first, only I refused to let myself. I suppose my aunt threatened to put me out of the house if you didn’t marry me?”

“Yes,” he hung his head. “But I really didn’t mind, Claire. I didn’t care what happened to me, and I’d always been fonder of you than any one else. Only it—it disgusted me to think you were not quite—straight.”

She looked at him beneath heavy lids. Her bruised eyes hurt him.

“Why didn’t you ask me, Alexis?” she said, simply.

“How could I? I was afraid you couldn’t deny it.” He stepped towards her. “Oh, Claire, please forgive me if you can!” He seized her hand, but she drew it away quickly.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Alexis. It was quite natural that you should think as you did. And I—I was an infatuated fool. Oh, it is all a horrible muddle!” she wailed. (Tied to the body of a festering love was what he had said!) Hands to her lips to stifle a rising cry, she staggered towards the door.

With a remorseful gesture, he put her cape about her shoulders. His hands where they grazed her neck were icy. (The festering body of a dead love!) The old dizziness suddenly seized her.

“I must go!” she exclaimed wildly. She must not faint, she would not faint!

He took her outflung hands and pressed them repentantly.

“Is your taxi waiting for you?” His voice was husky.

“Yes, oh yes.”

“Try to forgive me.”

As she entered the elevator his voice echoed hollowly down the hall, “Good-by.”