"TREASONS, STRATAGEMS, AND SPOILS"

But as Masters walked homeward his irresolution disappeared. He saw that his love for Neaera and his amour propre had blinded him to the real significance of the testimony elicited by the investigating committee. Taking together the unanimity of this testimony, the breaking down of Chairo's carriage, the tendresse that Neaera had certainly once entertained for Chairo, the duplicity with which he had over and over again heard Neaera charged, certain ambiguities in some of her own statements, and this last barefaced appeal to me, there could be no more doubt. He rehearsed the interview at which he had asked her to marry him; he had been trapped by a show of indignation and a tearful eye.

By the time he reached his rooms his mind was made up. He sat down and wrote the following letter:

Neaera was not far from New York. She and her mother were both occupying a cottage belonging to Masters in New Jersey, behind the Palisades. Her mother was a widow and a cipher. She had been a helpless spectator of her daughter's too brilliant adventures, and was accustomed to sudden changes.

When Neaera received Masters's letter she sent word to him she would be in New York that night. Masters on receiving the message packed a small portmanteau and went to Boston, leaving word with his aunt, who kept house for him, to receive Neaera should she arrive.

Masters was unwilling to subject himself to a scene with Neaera. While his messenger was away evidence had been presented to him which left no doubt as to Neaera having tampered with Chairo's carriage; and this was more than sufficient as a last straw. He felt he had been unaccountably weak in his previous personal encounters with her and that she was now counting upon this weakness. It is not easy for a man to turn a woman out of his house, nor to hand over to the authorities a political refugee who has entrusted herself to his care. To keep Neaera in his rooms under the circumstances would have been consistent neither with what he owed the state nor with what he owed himself. He trusted, therefore, to Neaera's intelligence to conclude from his departure that his decision was irrevocable.

Meanwhile, Lydia had left Tyringham and returned to New York. This had not happened without considerable negotiation, for it had been part of the understanding upon which Chairo had been released on parole that Lydia was to remain away from New York. The intention of this arrangement was to prevent Chairo from further compromising Lydia, pending the determination of his case. But Lydia had been of late so much disturbed by Chairo's letters that she had come to a decision which she proceeded at once, if possible, to carry out, and as a first step toward doing so, it was indispensable that she should go to New York.

She sent, therefore, to IrÉnÉ the letter from Chairo which had particularly exercised her and asked IrÉnÉ whether, under the circumstances, she could not once more be received at the cloister, no longer as a Demetrian but as one in retreat, in order that she might concert with IrÉnÉ and other members of the council as to the course she proposed to pursue.

The letter from Chairo—or rather the extract from it—which she sent to IrÉnÉ ran as follows:

IrÉnÉ discussed the possibility of Lydia's return to the cloister with her colleagues, and the extract from Chairo's letter was read to them. Masters, also, was consulted; for his effort to defend Neaera's reputation had enlisted him against Chairo on the side of the cult, and he had, therefore, been occasionally admitted to their counsels. It was finally decided that in view of Chairo's present attitude—the sincerity of which very few were disposed to doubt—and in view of the course Lydia proposed to adopt, she should be readmitted to retreat in the cloister, though it was deemed wise to give as little publicity to this return as possible.

Masters, however, had told Neaera of it, and when Neaera arrived at Masters's rooms to find that he had left New York, her agile and vindictive mind immediately set itself to a combination of "treasons, stratagems, and spoils," in which somehow or another she wanted Lydia and Chairo to play a part—a part that would give some satisfaction to her spite. Then, too, there was somewhere in her mind the possibility that if, as she understood, Chairo was hard pressed, and if, as she hoped, Lydia was to any degree alienated from him through the influence of the cloister, Chairo might be induced to share her evils with her. There were chapters in their past that he might not find it distasteful to rehearse.

Neaera on arriving in New York found Masters's aunt fussily desirous to be useful to her, and yet very anxious at the thought that she was harboring a political runaway. Neaera had arrived after dark, so veiled as to escape recognition. She was nerved for an encounter with Masters, in which she was by feminine dexterity to dissipate the suspicions to which he had fallen too easy a prey, and the news that he was gone had for first effect to make her restlessly anxious to do something. She therefore asked whether two notes could be delivered by private messenger that night, one to Lydia and one to Chairo. After inquiry, arrangements were made to do this, and Neaera sat down to contrive her little plot. The first part of it was simple enough. She wrote to Lydia that she had come to New York at great personal risk expressly to see her on a matter of vital importance, and asked her to come the next morning punctually at ten. To Chairo she showed less solicitude: she confined herself to the bare statement of her whereabouts, and that she would be alone next morning at a quarter past ten till half past. The messenger was directed not to wait for an answer to either note.

The next morning, punctually at ten, Lydia, to Neaera's delight, was shown into Masters's study.

"I had to see you," said Neaera, kissing her. She dismissed the aunt, begging her not to admit any other persons without announcing them, and put Lydia down on a sofa. She sat next to Lydia and took her hand.

"I am afraid you don't like me," she said.

"On the contrary," answered Lydia, "I like you, but I differ from you."

"Yes, I know; we differ on almost everything; on the cult, on state employment, on personal liberty, etc., etc., but then, we have one thing in common, we are both women."

Lydia looked a little puzzled. This abstract conversation was not what she had been prepared by Neaera's note to expect.

"I am not at all sure," she said, "that it is not just about womanhood that we differ most."

"Lydia!" answered Neaera reproachfully.

"I did not mean to wound you," said Lydia quickly. "There is so much room for honest difference of opinion that I do not undertake to set my opinion against yours, or indeed anyone's. But is it not dangerous for you to be here?"

Neaera smiled consciously, and said:

"I am not thinking of that. I came to see you because I felt you ought to be put right, and I want to do right; in the first place, you will be misled if you believe the wicked falsehoods that are being circulated in order to put the whole blame for what has occurred upon me. I should never have left New York of my own will. Masters forced me to go, and I am occupying his cottage at Englewood. I am prepared at any time to return to New York and set things right, and I can; I can testify to the message sent by Chairo, to my efforts to induce Balbus to give up the attempt at rescue, to Balbus's refusal to listen to me, to his having arrested Xenos and bound him, to my having released Xenos—and Xenos will, I am sure, if I ask him, confirm my testimony. This will set Chairo right before the committee; only I don't want to see Chairo. He has been imploring me for an interview. I don't want to complicate things; you have suffered enough, you shall not suffer any more through me——"

Lydia was about to rise and leave the room; she would not by word or gesture admit the inference to be drawn from Neaera's words—admit the possibility of inconstancy on the part of Chairo; but at the moment she was about to rise a ring was heard at the door, and presently the aunt appeared excitedly, and announced that Chairo was there. Neaera jumped up and shut the door.

"You must not see him here," she said to Lydia. "Come into this room," and she beckoned her into an adjoining parlor, separated from the study only by a curtain. Lydia, who was under a promise not to meet Chairo, had no option but to follow Neaera, but she followed with a cheek flushed with indignation. She sat stiffly in a chair while Neaera left her to receive Chairo. She heard the door of the study open and Neaera's voice in the adjoining room say:

"Chairo, my poor Chairo!"

Then she buried her face in her hands and her fingers in her ears so that she should not be an unwilling listener. She would be staunch to her faith in Chairo, for this was the one rock under the shelter of which in the shifting and stormy skies she felt there was any longer any safety for her.

Lydia heard in spite of herself Neaera's cooing treble and the rich vibrating notes of Chairo's voice; she heard them laugh once, and then there came what seemed to be a silence that was terrible to her. Later, the voices resumed again. She passed a half hour of anguish, striving to listen and striving not to hear, and during that half hour she thought she heard the voices in the adjoining room pass through every gamut of emotion; they were sometimes raised as though each was striving to outdo the other, then they would sink into silence again. Would it never come to an end—this interview between the man she loved and a woman she despised? At last she heard a door close; she removed her hands from her head and tried to look composed.

Neaera came to her with her cheeks flushed.

"Did you hear anything?" asked she.

Lydia arose.

"I have been here too long," said Lydia. "You have nothing else to say, I think," and she moved out of the parlor into the study and was moving out of the study into the hall when Neaera stopped her, and said:

"You are not mistaking Chairo's visit, are you?" There was the prettiest little dimple in Neaera's cheek as she said this. "Nothing but politics," she added, and the dimple deepened.

"Good-by," said Lydia, without holding out her hand.

Neaera burst out now into a little laugh, for Lydia had passed her and was at the door.

"Nothing but politics," laughed Neaera, as Lydia shut the door behind her.