The explanation of this extraordinary meeting, which had so mystified Sheila, lay in a last revolt of the miser. Once out of her presence, Max Fargus was constantly terrified at the gradual perversion of his own character. He could refuse his wife nothing, or resisted only long enough to learn anew the completeness of his surrender. From an agony of foreboding he vacillated to an ecstasy of defeat. His own impotence mystified him, for he believed that he resisted with all his being, not realizing that in an infatuation half of the man combats for the woman. Then he could never comprehend the use of money. Money spent was money lost. He would have denied angrily being a miser and would have argued that in allowing his wealth to accumulate he individualized it and turned it into a human agency which returned him the most satisfying of sensations,—power.

For the first time in his life he felt the need of a friend to advise and to steady him. But what he had cried out to Sheila was literally true, he had not a friend in the world, not even an acquaintance to whom he could turn. In all his business dealings he had sought to make himself feared. He disdained conciliation, to prevail by sheer autocracy alone intoxicated him.

In this perplexed mood he found himself one morning, in what seemed to him the most accidental manner, face to face with his former attorney, Alonzo Bofinger. The familiar face evoked the memory of an unexampled moderation. A quick thought was followed by a bow. He stopped, giving him a smiling,

"Good morning, Sir."

The lawyer shifted his glance a moment, then with a blank countenance passed on.

"But I'm not mistaken, it must be him," Fargus said doubtfully, and he called again, "Mr. Bofinger, hello there!"

The lawyer halted, wheeled, and said in a puzzled voice:

"Yes? What? Who is it?"

"Say now," Fargus protested, "you know me."

"Not at all, sir."

"Why, I was your client a month ago."

"Indeed?"

"You remember me now?"

"Not in the street, sir," Bofinger said with a smile. "My memory stops at my office."

"But if I let you," Fargus said, much impressed.

"That is different. How do you do? You may remember I don't know your name."

Such scrupulousness completed the favorable impression of the misanthrope. He nodded approvingly and said:

"Mr. Bofinger, you please me, I like your ways. And if you'll come around to the restaurant, I'd like to consult you—I want some advice. My name's Fargus, Max Fargus—you know that name, I'll bet."

"What, are you the Fargus!" Bofinger exclaimed, taking a step backwards.

"The same," Fargus said with a chuckle, flattered by the tribute. "You wonder why I came to you, don't you—on the quiet?"

"I am a little puzzled, I admit it, Mr. Fargus," Bofinger replied, putting a new deference into his address.

"I've been bitten too often," Fargus said with a grim nod. "There's a lot of your profession, Mr. Bofinger, who ain't no better than crooks!"

"Far too many," Bofinger said solemnly. "But I hope a better day will come."

They arrived in the private office. For the third time Fargus fidgeted and repeated:

"I want some advice."

"Well, sir, I hope I can help you," Bofinger said encouragingly.

"Mr. Bofinger," Fargus blurted out, "you remember Miss Vaughn?"

"Perfectly."

"Mr. Bofinger, won't you have something?" Fargus said desperately. The lawyer named his drink. His host, turning from the waiter, faced him with the manner of one about to overwhelm him with his disclosure.

"She is now Mrs. Fargus—my wife."

"Indeed?" the lawyer said politely, shooting up his cuffs, but nodding without astonishment.

"Well, doesn't that surprise you?" Fargus said, opening his eyes. Shrewd and tricky in his little specialty, in the minor experiences of life he was a little dull.

"Yes and no," the lawyer answered, examining the ash of his cigar. "From the standpoint of your attorney, yes. From any other standpoint," he added with a smile, "no."

"Then you suspected all the time?"

"Pardon me," Bofinger said, raising his hand half-way. "It was not my business to suspect, my business was to believe what you said. So Miss Vaughn is your wife?"

"Yes."

"I hope you're happy."

"That's just it," Fargus said, seizing the opening, "that's the point. You put your finger on it without knowing it. I can't say I am happy—altogether happy."

"Well, let's hear about it," Bofinger said with bluff directness.

"The trouble is this," Fargus said doubtfully. "A woman has no idea of money, except to spend it and—you know yourself—it ain't easy to refuse one anything—particularly—well—when you're fond of her."

"Say, now, ain't this about it?" Bofinger said, abandoning his stilted accents for an air of rough and confidential understanding. "This is the trouble. You're in love with a pretty woman, a remarkably pretty and charming woman—a whole lot in love. Now she, like a woman, a pretty woman, thinks more of pleasure than you do, wants to be out and seeing and wants to be out and be seen."

"Yes," Fargus assented, and with a sigh he echoed faintly, "yes."

"And she probably thinks that you're much better off than you are," Bofinger said with a wise nod.

"That's it; there, that is it!"

In his eagerness, Fargus extended his hand until it touched the lawyer on the sleeve.

"Doesn't understand that just because you run a few fine places, that don't mean money—but expenses."

"Ah, Mr. Bofinger!" Fargus said, raising his hands.

"Come, now, you're worried over expenses at home, or rather at what you may be getting into, and you find the trouble is here,—dealing with a woman you're in love with ain't like talking business to a man."

"Mr. Bofinger," Fargus said solemnly, "You've struck the nail on the head. That's my case—you can't handle a woman like a man."

"Of course not. You're not the man to do it either. You'd spend everything on her!"

Fargus, with an effort, allowed the statement to pass without betraying his emotion.

"I'll tell you the best way," Bofinger said, after drumming a moment with his fingers, while Fargus pricked up his ears. "Here, this is it! Get a friend to talk to her."

"How so?"

"Why, a friend—the right sort—could do this," Bofinger continued. "He could tell her confidentially—that he thought—that he rather suspected, well, that he'd heard things weren't going as well with you as people thought. In fact, he feared you were going to have a close squeeze. He needn't say anything direct now, that would make her suspicious, but he might advise her to beg you to cut expenses down all you could."

"Mr. Bofinger," Fargus cried, slapping his hands together, as Bofinger with a satisfied chuckle turned to him for his approval, "that's an elegant idea! And you're the man to do it!"

"Me?" Bofinger exclaimed, in real surprise at such quick success. "But I'm not exactly, do you think, in the position of a friend?"

"She'd never know it!" Fargus insisted. "I say, you're the man."

"Why, frankly, sir," the lawyer objected, "I can't see I'd do—I really don't—you can't say those things off-hand—I'd have to get acquainted more—"

Bofinger resisted so well and protested so earnestly that, an hour later, Fargus carried him away, under his arm, to that meeting which had come so near to Sheila's undoing.

The situation was a perilous one for the lawyer. There was, he knew, the insane jealousy of the misanthrope to be reckoned with, the danger that Fargus would fear more from his intimacy than from the prodigality of his wife. Fortunately for Bofinger, Sheila's attitude had completely reconciled Fargus, who wanted her to receive advice, but more that it should come from unwelcome lips.

In a fever of trepidation, Sheila awaited the next meeting with the lawyer. The sense of peril had sent her panic-stricken, with almost affection, to the shelter of her husband. The instinct of safeguarding her home and the memory of her pinched and wandering career impelled her towards all the virtues, in an incentive to flight from the menace of the lawyer.

Many times she debated the consequences which would follow confession and an appeal to her husband's generosity. Invariably she recoiled, as before an impossibility, convinced that he would never pardon the slightest deception. She had divined under the intoxication of love the implacable, dormant fierceness of the misanthrope, and with this perception she came to recognize by what slender bonds she held his savage nature imprisoned. To surrender a moment her supremacy meant at best servitude. Besides, in her ignorance of the law she saw no escape from the marriage contract which lay in the hands of Bofinger.

To her annoyance, it was not until the third afternoon that the lawyer arrived. From her window she discovered him sauntering elegantly toward her, displaying to the street a brilliant tan vest, a pair of lavender trousers, and a smooth gray cutaway. A villain masked has thrice the terror of a villain seen, and to the despairing woman this outward semblance of the negligent dandy magnified immeasurably the lurking venom of the shyster beneath.

She went hurriedly down the stairs, rehearsing the dozen and one evasions she had prepared in making up the account he had come to demand.

"He cannot prove I am lying," she thought defiantly. "Let him make a scene if he wants to. As for the furniture and the expense of fitting up the house, that belongs to Fargus. On that point I won't yield." Then, as his step sounded, she opened the door and said pleasantly, "Well, you've come at last."

"Ah, Mrs. Fargus, I am unlucky! You are going out?" he said, starting back with a frown and speaking punctiliously. "But I may come in, for a moment? Just for a moment, then."

"Fargus is not in," she said, sneering at his sleek hypocrisy, "and no one is around."

"Excuse me, every one is around!" he said savagely, pushing past her. "Neighbors have eyes as well as ears. Oblige me by not coming to the door until I ring!"

"A pleasant introduction."

He shrugged his shoulders and made a quick survey. Returning to the parlor he took his seat by the window, to command a view of the street.

"Sit there," he said, placing a chair. "Now no one can steal in on us."

He stretched out his legs, quizzing her with a smile, in which he took no pains to conceal his vanity.

"You were a little surprised to see me the other night, just a leettle, eh?"

"How long have you known Fargus?" she said instantly.

"You heard what he said."

"Then you deceived me."

"If what he said is true."

She saw that she would learn nothing from him, so, drawing back, she said angrily:

"Very well. Is this why you came?"

"No," he said sharply, and abandoning his coxcomb attitude he sat erect with a jerk, brought his brows together above his joined fingers, staring at her so fixedly that Sheila nerved herself for the dreaded demand.

"Sheila," he said moodily, "why didn't you complain of this box of a house, as I told you?"

"Because I did not intend to play blindly."

He shifted his glance, gazing moodily out of the window until, with a pucker of his lips, he said condescendingly:

"Blindly, Sheila? I thought you more clever than that. You missed a trick. We must quarrel before him. If you had obeyed me I should have pooh-poohed your extravagant ideas. We would have been at once on bad terms. Do what I tell you another time."

"Why, what is the use?"

"To work into his confidence and get rid of his infernal jealousy, my dear."

"But why make him stingy? Certainly that's not our game."

"That's but temporary," he said after a long pause.

"Now be frank with me," she said anxiously. "What are you trying to do? You've got a new plan, haven't you?"

"None whatever," he said with emphasis. "One may come. On my honor, I have nothing in mind now but to work into his confidence and become the friend of the family. The advantage to us is obvious."

The reply did not convince her. Despite his glibness she felt that he was deceiving her. She pressed him for some time, but without success. Finally, as she persisted, demanding his confidence, he cut her short by rising and saying:

"I mustn't stay too long. It's understood now you are to hate me?"

"Very well."

"Not difficult, eh?" he said with a laugh.

"No."

He turned upon her violently, catching her wrists.

"Don't try any tricks on me, my dear!"

"You hurt," she said in white anger, but without resistance.

"You heard?"

"I hear."

"And remember this," he said without releasing her. "When Fargus asks what we talked about, say that I told you I thought he was hard up and worried over his business."

"I hear."

"And I told you to make him go slow."

"I hear."

"There," he said, smiling and releasing his hold. "Don't be a little fool. Act square and you won't regret it. Au revoir."

It was not until he had gone that she remembered with a shudder of foreboding that he had not once referred to their contract or demanded his account. The thought left her frightened and dismayed. Without a doubt he had changed his plan of campaign. Yet what could be his new purpose and why should he want to cater to her husband's avarice? Did he plan, when he had gained his complete confidence, to carry off by some master stroke what he would have to wait for painfully, year by year? She asked herself twenty such uneasy questions and resolved that, until she had forced Bofinger's confidence she would do nothing to further his purposes.

"Well, have you seen Mr. Bofinger yet?" Fargus asked on his return.

"He called."

"Indeed," he said with a start. "And what did you talk about?"

"Mr. Bofinger preached to me about—economy," she said slowly.

"Well, well," he said, at loss for a comment. "And how do you like him now?"

"Max, I wish you'd tell me something?" she said earnestly, laying her hand on his shoulder. "Is he your lawyer? Does he have charge of anything for you?"

"No, no!" he said, shaking his head. "I look after my own business, thank you! Still, Bofinger is a good fellow; though you're set against him, aren't you?"

"I?" she said in surprise, "oh, I was—"

"Well?" he said fretfully.

"Why, this afternoon I liked him better. Why did you say he wasn't a lady's man? I should say just the opposite."

"Nonsense!" he said angrily. "So you like him?"

"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully. "Yes, I do. He's quite different when you talk to him, alone." She added pensively, "What funny eyes he has,—very handsome, don't you think?"

"What do you mean? What makes you say that?" Fargus said in great disturbance.

"Oh, you silly man!" she said, throwing back her head and laughing. "Don't look so fierce. The idea! A man doesn't make love to you the first time he calls!"