Days passed without word of Lindaberry, and the fear of what might have happened was never absent from DorÉ. Other anxieties crowded in on her. One day she suddenly perceived that the bi-weekly basket of champagne from Mr. Peavey was three days overdue. She had heard little of him beyond the brief answers to her punctual acknowledgments, nor had she availed herself often of the opera tickets, turning them over to Winona, Ida Summers, or Estelle Monks. The automobile had been needed rarely, her entire absorption in Massingale leaving her little time. Once or twice Ida had repeated her mysterious hints as to Winona and trespassing, but, obsessed by the fever of new and strong emotions, she had paid little heed.

All at once this warning returned with a new suggestion. Had Winona, whom she had introduced to Mr. Peavey, been trying to supplant her? She went directly to Ida Summers, surprising her by the determination of her manner:

"Ida, is Winona trying to cut me out with Mr. Peavey?"

The look on the girl's face told her the truth of her guess.

"How far has it gone? What do you know? Tell me everything!"

"I have seen them at the theater together, at a restaurant once or twice."

"When? Lately?"

"No; when you were in Buffalo...."

"Alone?"

"Yes!"

"But since I have been back? Think! Be sure!"

"I am not sure, Do," said Ida slowly. "Lord! don't look as if you'd eat me up!"

"But you think—"

"I think he took her to the opera Monday night."

Dodo returned to her room in a rage. She divined at once the cleverness of the stroke. Each time she had given Winona her seats, the girl had called up Mr. Peavey as an escort—thus, even without a word, convincing him how lightly his presents were held. How far had Winona gone? She remembered now that since her return she had hardly seen her. Had Winona been deliberately avoiding her? Was she playing to marry Mr. Peavey? Had she gone so far even as to tell him of the true uses to which his presents were put?

Dodo, who was generosity itself, had also, when her sense of injustice was aroused, unfathomed depths of hatred and vindictiveness. Winona, to whom she had opened her slender purse a dozen times, whom she had placed with Blainey at the moment of her despair—Winona, of all the world, to betray her! She called up the garage and asked for Brennon immediately. From him she would get some information. Then, without knocking, she entered Winona's room. She was not there. DorÉ, restless and suspicious, examined the mantel and the table, halting before three vases of gorgeous American Beauty roses.

"Can these be from Peavey? That's not like him!" she thought, wrinkling her forehead.

On a table was a present newly arrived, a cabinet of different perfumes, in red morocco and silver. There was a card still on the top: "Penniston Schwartz."

"Don't know him," DorÉ thought, forgetting Ida's story of the dinner. She continued her examination. On the bureau were several bits of silver that she did not remember seeing before; in the closet a new gown or two; but in all this no note of Peavey. What she was seeking was a basket of champagne, and though she sought under the lounge and the bed and in the dark recesses of the wardrobe, she found no trace.

Nevertheless, her anger did not abate. Winona had betrayed her: she would strike at once, and deep. She would go to Blainey and make a personal request for the part she had procured for the ingrate. When Brennon arrived, she remained a moment talking with him. Her confidence had solidified itself in him lately; from many things, she was certain that he was her ally, that she could trust him.

"Brennon," she said directly, "is Mr. Peavey in town?"

"Left this morning."

"Then he's been back? How long?"

"Three or four days, Miss Baxter."

"Has he seen my friend, Miss Horning, much?"

He nodded energetically.

"Look here, Miss Baxter," he said, with a sly important look, "been wanting to slip you a pointer for some time. She's not your friend. Danger ahead! Look out!"

"What do you mean, Brennon?" DorÉ said confidentially. "I wish you'd speak out! Mr. Peavey's been to see her a good deal, hasn't he?"

"No; but she's seen him! She's a sly one—clever, too; wouldn't risk his coming here!"

"Has she talked against me? What has she said?"

"We know what the governor's like, you and I, eh?" he said, with an impertinence that she did not notice, in her distraction. "Well, she plays the quiet game—home talking, family type." He leaned forward, looking at her directly: "See here! This is straight. If you've got your mind fixed in the governor's direction, better grab him now!"

"What has she said about me?" DorÉ said anxiously Then, suddenly: "Has he asked you any questions? Where I go? Whom I see?"

He nodded, laughing.

"Sure he does—every time! Look here! He's one of those kinds you've got to snake with salt on their tails. But he got nothing out of me! Trust this old fox for that! I like to see a pretty girl have her fling as well as a man!"

"Thank you, Brennon," she said, without much attention, entering the car.

When she reached Blainey's office, she was forced to wait some time, Sada Quichy being in conference with the manager. The Red Prince had made an enormous success, and the diva had leaped into instant popularity. Of a consequence, Blainey, who had treated her with abrupt tolerance on the night of the dress rehearsal, now accorded her the honors due to royalty. At the end of a quarter of an hour he appeared at the door, according her the favor of a personal escort, which she, comedian herself, repaid with an extra languishing adieu, each sublimely indifferent to the motley audience of actors, agents, authors and musicians who assisted respectfully at this sport of the gods.

Blainey perceived DorÉ, and giving her the preference with a curt bob of his head, reentered his den. There was in the gesture something unusually abrupt that struck her. When she followed him into the room, this impression was reinforced by the evident atmosphere of ill-humor.

"What's the matter with you, Blainey?" she asked directly.

He turned—hostility in every movement—flinging himself back into his chair, cocking his cigar in the corner of his mouth, running his hands into the arm-pits of his vest, frowning, determined.

"See here, kid, it's no go! Don't start anything! You've worked me for a sucker once!... Thanks; I've retired from charity committees!"

"What do you mean? I don't understand!"

"Ain't you come here to get me to take back that stuffed doll you panned off on me?"

"Take back!" she cried, amazed. "You mean to say Horning's fired?"

"Come off!" he said, grinning.

"Honest, Blainey, I didn't know! Since when?"

"Ten days. Say, she was fierce! I wouldn't trust her to carry a spear! The next time you try to work me, kid, on the charity racket, just pick my pockets. It'll save time!"

"Horning fired!" she repeated, suddenly furnished with a clue to all that had happened.

"Clever kid!" he said, watching her appreciatively. "You don't have to be taught!"

"Honest, Blainey, I didn't know!"

"What you come here for?"

"I came to get you to bounce her," she said. "That's straight!"

He gave a long delighted whistle.

"Cripes! Why, pussy's got claws! You don't say! What's she been up to? Crossing the heart line?" he added, possessed always with the idea that he had divined the cause of her troubles.

"No. Tried to double-cross me with a friend—but one that counted! However, if she's bounced, all right! No need to bother you!"

"No hurry, no hurry, kid!" he said, with profound disdain for the forty-odd clamorers in the outer purgatory. "Don't get a chance to look you over often. Well, how's the heart?"

She laughed.

"Better!"

"What's that mean—worse?"

"Perhaps!"

He shifted his cigar.

"Better get to work!"

"Be patient!" she said, shaking her curls. "Only three months more!"

"Hein?"

"The tenth of March is when my season closes!"

"Honest?"

"Quite so!"

"You'll begin to work?"

"Either that, or other things!" she said provokingly.

"What other things?"

"Oh, I might marry!"

He snorted with rage. Then, drawing his calendar to him, he turned ahead.

"March ten, eh?" He paused, and put a big cross on the day before. "I'd like an option of the ninth myself!"

"How so?"

"Let me discuss a little contract with you before you come to any other decision. What do you say? Promise!"

She laughed. She had no illusions in her mind as to the nature of what he might propose.

"Listen to what I've in mind before you close anywhere else!" he persisted.

"All right, Blainey!"

He rose, dragging himself up from his chair.

"Heavens, Blainey, do I get the honors of Sada Quichy?" she said, laughing, as she perceived his intention was to accompany her to the outer door.

"Come to me, kid, when you need a tip or for anything else!" he said quietly. He put out his stumpy hand, tapping her shoulder. "I'd like to do a lot for you—know that, don't you? All right! Good luck!"

She gave him a quick pressure of her hand and went out. The atmosphere of the theater always impressed her, throwing her other life into futile outlines. Here was something definite—the satisfaction of a purpose, the reality of work. And as she returned, thinking of Massingale, of the wild romance she had created for themselves, she felt more and more drawn to a career. A woman who achieved things, who had even a trace of genius, had a right, in the eyes of the world, to her own life, to be judged differently.

The news she had received of Winona doubled her suspicions. If this chance had failed the girl, no wonder that she had set herself deliberately toward a marriage with Peavey. Dodo was wildly indignant at this double dealing. She considered the least of her admirers her inviolate property, and she never saw one desert without a feeling of resentment. In Peavey's case it was thrice blameworthy, considering all the prodigies of planning she had spent to bring him to the point and maintain him in the status quo. For Peavey was in truth, as Judge Massingale had laughingly expressed it, the "man behind the rock," and even in the wildest flights of her imagination she retained, unconsciously, a prudent spirit toward the uncharted future. She might fly in the face of society, and then, again, at the last, she might not find in herself all the audacity she desired to believe in. Peavey was a bridge back into conventionality, security and certain necessary luxuries which she never for a moment, in her thrifty mind, intended to neglect.

As soon as she reached her room, she sat down to write to him. This letter called for her deepest intuition; it was a very difficult letter to compose. She tried a dozen methods, rejecting each as too obvious. In the midst of her labors, Josephus, to her surprise, arrived with the basket of champagne, which, strangely enough, it appeared, had been below, forgot, all this time. This at once relieved her, and suggested a bold stroke. She wrote:

"Dear Mr. Peavey:

"Thank you for the champagne. Certain things which have come to my knowledge make it impossible for me to accept any more such favors from you. Indeed, I reproach myself for what I have permitted in the past. But I have always had a different feeling about you, a real respect and trust, and I have always believed in you as an ideal of what a gentleman should be. I am very disappointed—very sad.

"Sincerely yours,
"DorÉ Baxter.

"P. S. I thank you also for your automobile, which I shall never use again.

"P. P. S. I return the remaining tickets to the opera."

She studied this, well content with its indefinite reproach.

"There; he will believe I know more than I know," she said, with a bob of her head, "and he will have to come to me in person. That is better!"

Once Mr. Peavey was before her eyes, she had no doubt of the interview. She posted the letter immediately, telephoned again without being able to receive any news of Lindaberry, and went out to shop for Christmas presents for each of her score of admirers—presents which she would see were carefully delivered to their destinations by three o'clock on the preceding day. For a month she had carefully gone over her acquaintances, much as a fisherman overhauls his nets, consecrating hours at the telephone, fanning back into substantial flames little sparks of intimacy that were sinking into gray forgetfulness. She did not throw herself into such machinations with any relish, but as a necessity forced upon her; yet, once embarked, she did nothing by halves. She lunched, motored, descended for tea, dined, dipped into theaters and danced without a rest. She even revived the hopes of Harrigan Blood and Sassoon by a few discreet concessions—matinÉe performances, tea at five, or an innocuous luncheon.

With Massingale she was still far from that moment when she could distinguish the man who was from the romantic ideal her imagination had visualized. After the second meeting in her rooms, when she had a second time reached the man in the raw, each, as if by mutual consent, had avoided further opportunities of dangerous intimacy, each a bit apprehensive. But the conflict between them continued. There were moments when he seemed to abandon his attitude of incredulity, relaxing into humorous or confidential moods, and others when he seemed to be flinging barricades between them. If he had planned deliberately to seduce her (which God knows he hadn't!) he could have adopted no more adroit means than this intermittent opposition which rose from the struggle in his own conscience. She could not brook the slightest resistance in him. It roused in her a passion for subjugation, an instinct for reprisals which sought insistently to reverse the original rÔles.

In the moments of these half-hearted retreats he adopted a policy of far-off analysis, putting questions with impersonal directness, inviting her into indiscreet confidences. She divined that all this curiosity had one instinctive object—to discover something in her harum-scarum present or devious past that could roughly and effectively repel him. At such times she responded with a violent antagonism, paying him back in coin, tantalizing him, inventing stories to plague him, and always succeeding. Once she said to him:

"You know Sassoon's getting reckless. Look out! Some day I'll disappear!"

He chuckled, inciting her on.

"You needn't laugh! I'm serious—he's serious, too. Where do you think I went this afternoon? To look at a house. Oh, the loveliest little house, a little jewel-box—within a stone's-throw of you, too; and everything beautifully furnished, wonderful rugs, bedrooms in old red brocade, like a palace!" She continued with an account of details, warming up to the part: "Sassoon began by talking apartments. But I killed that quickly. Entirely too common!"

"But the house?" he said, forcing a smile.

"Only one thing lacking; yes, and I told him so at once—flat, like that!"

"What?"

"No garage!"

He affected to laugh hugely at this bit of fiction.

When he sought to explore her history she was ready with another artfully contrived story to infuriate him:

"My life? Oh, it's terribly exciting! Father was a gambler—Mississippi River, mining-camps and all sorts of dangerous places. Mother was in the circus, bareback riding—hoops, you know. They separated when I was five; had a terrible fight, they say. I went around with the circus, in the processions, dressed as a star. Mother was teaching me the tight-rope; I'd learned a bit of acrobating, too. There was a funny old clown."

She stopped, with a far-off pensive look. When she invented a story she had a natural gift for dramatic detail. She said very sadly, as if conjuring up the figure of a mournful child, sinking her voice to a whisper:

"My mother drank. When she was in her tantrums she was very cruel to me—she beat me! I remember my poor little arms and legs all blistered and smarting! Then I used to run to Jocko—that was the funny old clown's name. He had three colors in his hair, red, white and brown—all natural, too! Jocko used to put a poultice on my wounds and give me candy. I loved old Jocko; he taught me the back-somersault, too. Then mother ran off with a dentist—one of the kind that travel around in a band-wagon from village to village, teeth-pullers, you know, and whenever a tooth is to be taken out the bass-drum goes off bang! so you don't notice the pain. The dentist hated me! He was a horribly tall, long man with a broken nose. I can see him leering down at me like an ogre and saying:

"'Soon as you get your second teeth, little brat, I'll make a fine set out of 'em, worth seventy plunks at the least. Just you wait!'

"He used to pinch me and box my ears when mother wasn't looking!"

She considered this phase thoughtfully, satisfied that she had done it justice, and said suddenly:

"Then, one night, father turned up. Whew! that was a scene! He came up suddenly just as Crouch—that's the dentist—had finished with the cymbals and was beginning:

"'Ladies and gentlemen, I come not to take your hard-earned money, but to do you good!'

"He always began like that. I can see it all now—the kerosene lamps flaring below, the country crowd standing around, gaping, and all of a sudden a Spanish-looking man, broad-shouldered, pushing his way violently through them all, and then mother shrieking:

"'My God! Crouch, it's Baxter!'"

She drew a quick breath; the recital had made her tremble a little. He watched her closely, with that lantern stare with which he transfixed the accused at the bar, amazed at her exhibition, incredulous, and yet with a lingering wonder.

"Mother got away," she said, resuming. "Crouch was laid up in a hospital for months, they told me. Father took me with him. He was very kind, very; but it was a terrible life; rough company, squabbling and shooting, no home, no rest, always taking French leave! Then he struck a run of luck and made enough to strike for Gold Fields and open a saloon—faro at the back. Gold Fields was worse. Every one drunk by eight o'clock at night; poker and faro until breakfast!"

"And you saw all that?" he said gravely.

"Yes, all!" she said simply, shaking her head. "Father dressed me up in red slippers and white stockings, red dress and mantilla, and rigged up a flower-booth for me—said it brought custom. And there I had to sit, so tired and sleepy, with all the vile tobacco smoke, and the men—black, red and white—shouting and singing. Once or twice I fell asleep."

All at once, as if groping in the dark, her hand had at last found the door, she said abruptly:

"But one night a Mexican tried to kiss me, and father shot him. He fell across my counter, grabbing at me. It was awful! The next night father was called to the side entrance, and when we found him there was a knife in his back, and he was dead!"

She rose.

"What, you're going to leave me there, Dodo?" he said maliciously, forcing a smile. "You're worse than a dime novel!"

"That's enough for now. It tires me! The rest for another time," she answered. "Now you can understand all that happened after,—I never had half a chance!"

The next time she began all over again, saying:

"My real story is much more terrible. Now, this is the truth!"

These inventions usually started from her insistence on discussing his wife with Massingale. She had an imperative curiosity, which always shocked his sense of delicacy, to hear him criticize her, to admit her faults, even to drop a hint that there might be other men—that, in fact, she lived her own life; which would mean, to Dodo's illogical need of self-justification, that he also had the right. But Massingale curtly, peremptorily refused to be drawn into such discussions. Whereupon a coolness arose, and she sought to annoy him by pretended pasts. He knew that she was embroidering, and yet the very facility of it amazed him. The past was one thing: he did not like her references to Sassoon and Blood and what they implied, even though he was sure it was specially fabricated for his confusion.

So, as soon as peace had been restored, he always pressed her for a denial. Whereupon with a laugh, after some coaxing, she would admit the fiction. But the moment the next cause of conflict came, she was always quits by turning on him and declaring:

"You know all I told you? Well, half of it was true!"

At the end of the week she received an answer from Mr. Peavey. Contrary to custom, it was not typewritten, but performed in his minute and regular hand:

"Dear Miss Baxter:

"Your letter has caused me the utmost pain. Please do not, I beg you, judge me by appearances! I have found, to my cost, that I have been greatly misled in the character of a person I trusted. I must see you and explain everything. I am now in the Middle West. I shall be able to run over to New York for five hours on Thursday next, and shall advise you. Believe me, this is the first opportunity I can make.

"Your devoted friend,
"O. B. Peavey."

She had found this letter, on entering, in the pile of mail that always accumulated on the hall seat, and had read it standing in the hall. She sought for other letters, and suddenly encountered one that made her halt with surprise. It was in Mr. Peavey's handwriting, and addressed to Miss Winona Horning. She took it and went up-stairs. Winona was in her room, looking up a little startled at DorÉ's determined interruption.

"I have brought you a letter!" she said very quietly.

The girl took it, glanced at it, but did not raise her eyes.

"Read it, why don't you?"

Winona Horning opened the letter and read slowly—once, then a second time. Then, without a word or a raising of her glance, carefully and scrupulously tore it into bits.

"Have you anything to say to me?" said DorÉ in a hard voice, triumphant.

Winona did not raise her eyes. From the first, she had not met Dodo's glance. She hesitated a moment, opening and shutting the case of red morocco, shifting the card, that lay too exposed. Then her shoulder rose defiantly:

"No, nothing! What's the use of words?"

Dodo remained a moment, enjoying her defeat, waiting an overt act, ready to blaze forth. But, Winona continuing inert and unresisting, she turned on her heel, with a final scornful glance, and went to her room.

"There's one thing, at least, she'll never be," she thought to herself, "Mrs. Orlando B. Peavey!"

Had she known then just what had transpired between the bachelor and the girl who shared the dingy wall with her, she would have been even more amazed—and perhaps a little inclined to make allowances.