Late one afternoon, about a month after, Lydia Maxwell was sitting in her drawing-room at Westfield. An exquisite tea service stood on a table close at hand. But tea had been served. At least the visitor who had been spending the afternoon with her had drunk his and had been gone about ten minutes. Her baby, left by the nurse on the way to her own evening meal, was cooing on the sofa at her side, fended by pillows from toppling over on its head, and provided with the latest novelties in costly toys. The child was now nearly two, and her wardrobe was a credit to her mother's decorative instincts. Lydia enjoyed the combination of the infant and herself and spared no pains to produce an effective picture on all occasions, whether the setting were the drawing-room, a victoria, or a village cart. She counted on mounting Guendolen at the earliest possible day on the tiniest of ponies as a picturesque hunting attendant. Nor had her husband failed to appreciate what an opportunity was here afforded for the artist. Six months earlier he had threatened—the phrase was Lydia's—to have her and baby done by Sargent on his next visit; in fact, Herbert had written to him. The offer had been tempting from the point of view of immortality, but left alone with the child, she had shaken her head and said:

"It would be lovely if it were just right, Guen, but he might take it into his head to form a vicious conception of mamma. And as for you, he couldn't help making you the speaking image of Grandma Maxwell. Living pictures are safest for us, dear, for we can control the canvas."

Now she sat pensive and tense, her hands clasped in her lap. "Why do I love him so?" she murmured under her breath, rebelling against the consciousness which gripped her. Yet in another moment she asserted with the abandonment of one defending his faith against all comers, "But how I do love him!"

A jocund, inarticulate effort at conversation by the child reminded her of its presence. Reaching out her hand, she felt the silky softness of the delicate infantile locks, and then the dainty texture of the frilled dress. Again she said, talking to herself: "The problem is, what will become of you, cherub? You must go with me, of course—if I go."

Her baby cooed by way of response. There was a noise in the hall as of someone arriving.

"A visitor for you, Guen," she said. Hurriedly leaning over, she raised her finger as one would to hold the attention of a dancing dog, and gave this cue for imitation.

"Say pa-a-pa—pa-a-pa."

The earlier lessons had been fairly learned, for after a brief struggle the dawning intelligence freed itself in an unequivocal if throaty reproduction of the pious salutation.

"You little pet! Now again."

"Pa-a-pa."

"At last. A sop to Cerberus," Lydia murmured.

The door opened and the master of the house entered. He had just come back from an afternoon ride, and in the few minutes which had elapsed since his return Lydia knew that he had been to the sideboard in the dining-room—a man's way of alleviating despondency. His glance, avoiding or ignoring his wife, sought eagerly the object which he expected to find—his infant daughter. This was the bright spot in his day. The baby acknowledged his advent by a crow and by shaking a solid silver rattle. Maxwell, walking across to the other side of the room, sat down and held out his arms invitingly. But Lydia intervened to defer the customary toddling journey in order to exhibit her pupil's latest accomplishment.

"Listen to her now, Herbert," she said, and gave the necessary signal.

"Pa-a-pa." The verisimilitude was undeniable.

Something very like a groan escaped Maxwell, though his countenance lighted up. Was he thinking how happy he might have been had fate so willed?

The performance was repeated successfully a second time; then the child was despatched on her travels across the carpet. When she ran staggering into her father's arms he folded her to his breast and pressed his lips against the fair, silky tresses. She was accustomed to be thus cuddled by him, though to-night there was an added fervor in his endearments, owing to her efforts at speech. Meanwhile Lydia from her angle of the sofa observed them in demure silence. She had given him an entrancing quarter of an hour, for which she was thankful. Besides, it might put off the evil day—the day of rupture, decision, breaking up of the present anomalous domestic relations—which was impending. He had been devoted, forbearing, unselfish, he had lavished on her every luxury, but he was impassible. He did not divert or interest her; his serious side lacked originality; his gayer moods were noisy and deficient in subtlety; the reddish inelegance of his physique repelled her. But what was to be the end? This was the riddle which for diverse reasons she had yet failed to solve. Its solution must depend on the future words of both of them, and she had had no final explanation with either. For the present she would fain have things remain as they were, until she could find the key.

The return of the nurse interrupted Maxwell's happiness. Grudgingly he gave up his treasure. As soon as the child had been carried off, he rose, and standing with his back to the blaze of the wood-fire, which the first sharpness of autumn made agreeable, he faced his wife.

"I met Spencer coming from here."

"He stayed to tea."

"And was here all the afternoon?"

"You know he comes every afternoon."

"And nearly every morning?"

"Yes."

"What is to be the end of this, Lydia?"

She was preparing his tea, which he was accustomed to take after the departure of Guendolen. "How do you wish to have it end?" she asked presently.

"I would have you promise me never to see him again, and to go abroad with me for two years. Let us change the scene entirely. You owe it to me, Lydia, and to our child." This was no new discussion, but he was making one last determined effort to counteract the influences working against him.

"But you know I love him."

"So you have informed me. You have informed me also that it has stopped there."

"It is true. Why, I scarcely know. Perhaps it would have been juster to you if I had left you and gone to him."

"I do not understand."

"No matter, then."

"But you loved me once," he exclaimed resolutely. "That is, you told me so."

"Yes, I told you so. And I did love you as I understood loving then. I liked you, that's what it really was, and I liked the things which a marriage with you brought me."

"You mean you married me for my money?"

"I did not know it at the time."

"What do you mean, then?"

Lydia clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back in her seat. "I am trying to be frank with you," she said. "I am trying to make you the only reparation in my power—to let you see me just as I am, just as I see myself. We are what we are. I discovered that long ago."

He caught up this appeal to fatalism with a quicker appreciation of her significance than he was wont to show.

"You need never see this man again unless you choose. You are my wife; I am your husband. Does that stand for nothing?"

"I should choose to see him," she answered with low precision, ignoring the rest. "There is the trouble."

He winced as though from a buffet. "Good God, Lydia, what have I done? Is there anything within my power which you desired which I haven't given you?"

"You have been very generous."

"Generous!" The word evidently galled him. "Do you realize that to regain your love I would gladly sacrifice every dollar of the five million I own?"

For a moment she made no response. The idea of living with a penniless Maxwell was one which she had never entertained, and it made clearer to her the hopelessness of her plight.

"I am not worth it, Herbert," she said gently.

He, too, paused, baffled and at a loss how to proceed. "You are so cold," he asserted with an access of indignation.

"Cold?" The quality of the interrogation expressed the incredulity of newly discovered self-knowledge.

"To me."

"Yes, to you, Herbert."

He bent his brow upon her. "I suppose if I had devoted myself to some other woman I might not have lost you. I had hints enough from our kind friends, which I ignored because I did not choose to soil our wedlock by such a foul pretense." His conclusion betrayed the loyalty of his emotions, but there was the sneer of gathering temper in his tone.

Lydia shook her head with a fastidious smile. "With some women that might have been the remedy. It could have made no difference with me."

"It is not too late yet," he cried with loud-mouthed menace. "You forget that I am human—that I am a man."

She raised the pages of a book beside her and let them fall gradually. "You must do as you choose about that."

"Then what is the remedy?" he shouted.

"I used an inappropriate word. There is no remedy in our case."

"Lydia, you are goading me to ruin."

Striding up and down the room, he struck his leather breeches smartly with his riding-crop—which he had brought from the hall because the baby liked to play with it—so that they resounded. He halted before his wife and exclaimed hoarsely:

"What are we to do, then?"

She had been warned by feminine innuendoes before marriage of the Maxwell vehemence below the surface, and she perceived that their affairs had reached a crisis.

"Sit down, Herbert, please. I cannot bear noise. If we are to arrange matters, we must talk quietly in order to decide what is really best under all the circumstances."

He gave an impatient twist to his head. "I wish you to know that I am master here after this," he announced. Nevertheless, he walked to the chair near the fireplace, which he had first occupied, and sitting down, folded his arms.

"Well, what have you to say?"

"To begin with, Herbert, there is no escape for either of us from this calamity. And you must not suppose that I do not realize how dreadful it is for us both. So far as there is fault, it is mine. I ought never to have married you. But the past is the past; I do not love you now; I can never love you again."

"One way out of it," he said between his teeth, "would be to kill the man you do love."

"How would that avail?"

"I have thought more than once of shooting him down like a dog," he blurted.

Lydia shook her head. "You never could do that when it came to the point. And in case of a duel, he is more handy than you. Besides, who fights duels nowadays? And think of the newspapers! You know as well as I that such a thing is out of the question—on Guen's account if for no other reason. It would be blazoned all over the country."

"On Guen's account! Why did you not think of her before you sacrificed us both?"

She looked back at him unruffled. "I am thinking of her now," she replied with her finished modulation. "I have told you I am what I am."

"Do not repeat that shallow sophistry," he exclaimed fiercely. "You are what you choose to be." But in the same breath he fell back in his seat with the air of one confounded. Then, resting his elbow on the arm of the chair and his cheek on his hand, he gazed at her from under his reddish, beetling brows as one might gaze at the sphinx. "What, then, do you suggest?" he asked wearily.

Lydia had shrugged her shoulders at his last stricture. Now raising again the cover of the book beside her and letting the leaves slip through her fingers, she replied slowly, "I suppose if you were a foreign husband you would accept the inevitable and console yourself as best you could. We should go our respective ways and ask no questions. I should be discreet and—and things would remain as they are so far as Guen is concerned."

"I see. But I am an American husband, and, though they have the reputation of being the most accommodating in the world, they draw the line at such an arrangement as you suggest."

"I thought very likely that you would. Then we must separate. Sooner or later, I suppose, you will be entitled to a divorce, if you wish it."

There was a pause. "Where will you go?" he asked in a hollow tone.

"I have not thought," she answered.

It was the truth. Clever and discerning as she was, she had put off the inevitable from day to day, basking in the glamour of the present. What would her lover say? Would he be ready to venture all for her sake? to throw convention to the winds and glory in their passion? She did not know; she had never asked him. They had never discussed the future. She needed time—time to think and time to ascertain. Then a sudden thought seized her, and she spoke:

"I shall take Guen."

"Guen?" There were agony and revolting consternation in his exclamation.

"I am her mother. She is a mere baby. Am I not her natural guardian?"

He sprang to his feet. "I should not permit it!" he thundered. "I should go to law; I should appeal to the courts."

"I should not permit it!" he thundered. "I should go to law;
I should appeal to the courts."

Her wits showed themselves her allies. "But if you drive me from this house, the courts will give her to me," she said triumphantly. "What, after all, have I done? You are jealous, and you dismiss me. They will let me have my baby."

The horror inspired by her cool, confident declaration choked his utterance. He raised his riding crop in his clenched fist as though he were impelled to strike her. "You—you—" he articulated, but no suitable stigma was evolved by his seething brain. His arm fell, but he stood with set teeth and bristling mien, like a wild boar at bay.

His fury had the effect of enhancing Lydia's appearance of calm. "There is no use in getting excited. I'm only telling you what is likely to happen if we have recourse to desperate measures. She's a girl, and I brought her into the world—had all the stress of doing so. Why shouldn't I have her? I've heard lawyers say that when parents separate the courts consider what is for the best good of the children. Surely it is for the best good of a baby girl of two that she should go with her mother. That's the modern social view, Herbert, and a man has to make the best of it."

As she proceeded Lydia had warmed to the plausible justice of her argument. Recognizing that she had put herself in the best possible position for the time being, she rose to go. Maxwell, gnawing at his lips, stood pondering her dire words. The appalling intimation that he might lose his precious child had numbed his senses with dread. He knew his wife's cleverness, and that there must be some truth in her statement. Might she not even at the moment be premeditating an attempt to carry her away? Every other thought became at once subordinate to his resolve to safeguard his treasure. As though he suspected that his wife had risen under a crafty impulse to get the start of him, he blocked her pathway by stepping between her and the door.

"I forbid you to touch her," he said frowningly. "She shall never leave this house. I am going to give my orders now and they will be obeyed."

Maxwell stood for a moment as though waiting to see what response this challenge would elicit, then, with a forbidding nod, he strode from the room and shut the door after him.

His departure was a relief to Lydia. All she had desired was to be alone. She dropped again upon the sofa and sat looking into space. There was only one course: she must have an understanding with Harry Spencer. What would he say? What was he prepared to do for her sake? She thought to herself, "He said once that my time would come. It has come, and, as he prophesied, I am just like the others—only more so. More so because they might be ready to give him up; they might not have the courage to persevere and sacrifice everything else for the one thing which is worth while—love. And I thought it would never come—that I was cold, as Herbert says, and likely to be bored all my life. Now, against my creed, against my will it has come, and I cannot do without him." For a moment she sat in reverie, then murmuring, "I must know—and the sooner the better," she stepped to the desk with an impulsive movement and wrote.

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