As January went shivering into the slush and fury of February, and the fatal tenth of March drew nearer, Dodo found herself approaching the great test of her character. All the different dramatizations that she had permitted herself, with her joyful instinct toward comedy, suddenly loomed before her, no longer trivial and facile, but reaching into seriousness, fraught with the elements of tragedy. Impossible to describe the fever of emotion into which she now plunged, acting and reacting, perpetually in a whirl, avoiding solitude and rest, trying every impulse, frantically proceeding from one flirtation to another, aghast at the necessity which she had imposed on herself of definitely choosing what her life should be. She was rarely in bed before the wan grays were scurrying in their pallid flight before the dawn, like thieves across the city. She saw the heavy, jangling milk-wagons plodding to their deliveries, abhorrent figures combing the refuse of yesterday, groups in rags asleep on iron gratings which sent the warm blast of underground furnaces into the shivering winds. Often, heavy-eyed and vibrantly awake, returning in singing parties of four or six from long hours of dancing, she came suddenly upon night shifts emerging from their slavery in the bowels of the earth, black shadows trooping up from the flare of kerosene lamps, an underworld which stared at the revelers in brutish hostility.

She consumed the night thus—fearing it, avoiding its quiet reflections, stopping her ears to its whispers of rules learned in childhood; afraid to face God, who, in her simple superstitious faith, was ever personal. She felt that if she did not recall herself to Him, God, who had so much to do, would not notice her. When she returned, she fell at once into profound, dream-driven sleep from which she woke at noon, heavy and incredulous, arousing herself into a febrile energy, impatient for the whirling day to start. At the foot of the alcove she had placed an enormous calendar; and each night, on entering, she tore off another sheet—counting the days that yet intervened before the coming tenth of March. In the whole room she saw nothing but these looming figures, black against white, marking her little allotted hours. She had so little time left to revel and dare, to skirt the edge of precipices or tease the leaping flames ... such a little while to be just Dodo.

The pace she set began to tell on her vitality, to proclaim itself in the hollowing of her cheeks and the strained cords of the neck. Her eyes were never quiet, nor could her body find an instant's repose. Snyder, who had succeeded to Winona's room, perceived the danger, as did Massingale; but to the remonstrances of each DorÉ would run to the calendar, half laughing, half serious, drumming on it with her little fist, crying:

"Pretty soon—pretty soon. Can't stop now! Soon it'll be over!"

It was not simply three or four intrigues that she drove at once, but a dozen, keeping the threads from tangling, adding new ones each night, for a few days' mystification and abandonment. Yet, despite the nerve-racking and exhaustion, never had she felt so triumphant or known herself so desirable. The city which once had crushed her imagination in the first despair of her arrival, the city which she felt in all its moods, grumbling, defiant, waiting cruelly, submissive or ominous, now rolled before her in a brilliant succession of pleasures, her world and her destiny—theater and restaurant, opera and cabaret; and everywhere, in the burst of lights, or languidly sunk in the seduction of music, in the lure of shop-windows was the zest of precious temptations—dangers that it was an ecstasy to be able to reject. Everything succeeded for her: Massingale, Blood, Sassoon the patient, Gilday, Stacey and dozens of others. She managed as she wished, arranged her day so that they never crossed one another, and yet leaping from one dramatization to another. Never had she felt so confident of the mastery of her destinies, so avid of the delicious draft of pleasure. She felt that she was coming to a supreme sacrifice, self-immolation, but that the setting was superb and the climax must be magnificent!

She adored the reckless threading flight of taxi-cabs through the streets, plunging into sudden openings, grinding to hairbreadth stops, rounding abrupt corners, tossed and buffeted, skimming into new perils. It was all something of herself, her reckless, daring, danger-loving self. Then, there was the telephone, which called to her twenty times a day: she never went to it without a little thrill of anticipation. She adored it as the gambler the rolling ball, this mysterious instrument which, with its startling jangle, could change the complexion of a dull and hopeless day and send her swiftly out on some new dare, throbbing with excitement. She appreciated it, too, for its mocking moments of conversation, engagements to take or to refuse, laughing excuses or new traps to set; but it was especially this quality of the unexpected she adored, the possibility at the last moment, after a day of calculated planning, to throw everything to the winds, to go rushing off on the hazards of the unexpected. During this period her passion for the opera increased: Tristan and Isolde, BohÊme, Tosca, Manon—she never let a performance of these favorites pass unattended if she could manage it, hanging breathless on the passionate poignant tragedies at the end, soothed and satisfied, convinced, resolved, saying:

"Ah, yes! That is what love is—what it must mean!"

At such times, if she happened to be with Massingale, she would close her eyes, serenely content, her fingers fastened over his hand, clinging, as if her arms were wrapped about him. She was certain now that this was the best—if only she could bring him to the height she wished, if she could only make him rise above the commonplace and know the tragic ecstasy. She knew now that he loved her; would it be as she wished, great enough to justify the sacrifice she would willingly make to grasp the dream? Perhaps, unconsciously, at the bottom it was necessary for her to know of what he was capable before she could decide what she herself would do. To force him to this was now her one idea; she was fiercely resolved that what had started as a casual flirtation should redeem itself in a heroic flame.

Besides, Massingale had a physical effect over her. In the anticipation of his coming she was always nervous and excited; in his presence always conscious of a feverish magnetized need of drawing closer, of touching his hand, his arm, of the pressure of his shoulder against hers, resisting the impulse to be caught in his arms; and always melancholy and depressed on his departure. This empire over her senses was so strong, she was convinced that this was the only way love could show itself. She was glad, at such times, that the day of decision was coming; for if, in her contrary moods, she inflicted torture on him, she, too, knew now what it was to suffer. The strong emotions on which she was living had at last aroused the elemental in her below all the mental hazards of the girl. If she had ever seen him clearly, she could not now. She had so completely visualized him in the image of what she imagined a lover should be that she might have created him herself.

At an earlier moment Massingale might have perceived this; but he had now drunk too deep of the narcotic on her lips, and followed too long the firefly lights in her eyes, to distinguish fact from fancy. He saw he could no longer command, and he felt no strength in him to run away. He was resigned to letting her conduct them where she willed. For he, too, was in love with love for the first time in his life; yet it was not a hungry scanning of future horizons, but a profound melancholic reflection over the wasted past. He saw himself young, capable of dreams once more, remembering the hours when he fondly believed in a great destiny; and this longing, which, against his reason, had fastened him to the young, ardent and graceful girl, had she but divined it, was the same that made Peavey so ridiculous—the yearning back to a stolen youth.

And Lindaberry? Yes; certainly she thought of him often, but as something she had surrendered, that was not for her rebellious life. It was love, lawless and destructive, which she sought, not that quiet content that rises from the wells of peace and serenity. She was indeed a lawless waif of a law-defying generation, and her mind was set on great flaming sensations, hating conventions and resolved on rebellion. She saw her future in the hands of Massingale, Blainey—yes, possibly even Sassoon, if the others should fail; and conscious of the fierceness and selfishness of her desires, she judged herself unworthy of Lindaberry. Once or twice she had paused to consider such a marriage; but the affection for him which she termed friendship, sympathy, pity—everything but love—was so deep that she shrank from the thought of inflicting harm, saying:

"If I married him, what would come?"

For occasionally she looked her image in the face, judging it mercilessly. Dodo married, she believed, would not be Dodo reformed. She would still run after adventures, still hunger for admiration, still be tempted to play with other men—many men at once; and when she saw herself thus, she recoiled at the ruin she might cause him, at the thought of bringing another deception into his life, of offering him anything but a complete self. But when his rare letters came she devoured them, and answered them while yet his words were in her ears. Then she thought to herself, since it could not be, at least she wished she could choose his wife—some one who would be worthy of the desperate battle he was fighting, of the big vision that was awakening, of the fineness and the gentle strength which glowed through every page and moved her strongly.

On the days his letters came, DorÉ could hardly control herself with Massingale; she was cruel beyond all reason, flying into a temper at the slightest imagined excuse. Occasionally they brought a reaction against the senseless fever in which she was caught, against these men of pleasure or craving who pursued her; and abruptly, throwing all engagements to the winds, she flung herself back into childhood, in long giggling, romping afternoons with Betty. With Snyder she never really conversed. Once or twice the woman had made as though to open her confidence, but there was something that lay between them, that each was conscious of, that could not be bridged. She had ended by telling her of her adventure with Lindaberry. He had even, once or twice before his departure, met Snyder in her room, and disapproved too strongly of the friendship. But Massingale was a subject they could not discuss.

In the last week of February two events of importance occurred. Ida Summers was married, and Mr. Peavey returned. The news of the engagement came to Dodo as a great surprise. In the last month she had seen little of the other Salamanders, except in the confusion of gay parties—having no time, and, besides, rather avoiding them. Of Winona not the slightest word had come. Miss Pim, who retained embattled possession of the trunk, had decided "suspicions," which Dodo did not share. For her, the worst of all fates had occurred: Winona had retroceded, gone back and given up the struggle, overcome. Ida Summers had somehow ceased to drop into the room, or rather their hours no longer coincided. Dodo was correspondingly surprised when, one morning as she was rising heavily and against the spirit, Ida, a vision of youth and health, burst abruptly in on her with the announcement that she was to marry Tony Rex, that the wedding was for that night, and that Dodo would kindly attend.

"Knocks you off your feet, eh? No more surprised than I am, Do!" she cried in her exclamatory style. "But, lord! what are you going to do when a human detective agency like Tony camps on your trail and shoos all eligibles away!"

"Tony Rex!" said Dodo, with a gasp of astonishment. She was studying the brilliant beauty of the girl, wondering to herself if she would ever know what chances she had missed.

"Tony, God bless him!"

"Why?"

"Can't help myself! He's my kind, and I can't fool him!" cried Ida. Then she continued enthusiastically: "I say, Dodo! I'm tired of all that other crowd—the stuffed shirt brigade, you know. What's the use? I don't belong! Lord! I'd rather link my arm in Tony's and trolley it to a hot dog and a glass of beer, where you can talk English, than to stiffen up and act refined with a Sassoon or a Charley-boy, feeding me broiled lobster in a gilded caff! It's not in me. I don't belong—thank God!"

"Well, I never!" said DorÉ clutching a stocking.

"Now, just a word or two strictly on the Q. T.," resumed Ida anxiously. "Tony is a most hot-headed native; I think it just as well to cut out all references to a few episodes in the past. Do you get it?"

"I do!"

"He tells me I'm a blue-eyed baby somersaulting through a wicked world, entirely too innocent and fragile to understand—ahem! If that's what Tony wants, why,—God bless him!—I wouldn't have him disturbed for the world! Besides—lord! Dodo! I've been an awful fool; such risks—whew! I wish one particular party—well, ahem! It's to-night, no fuss or feathers. That's Tony's way, quick, on the trigger. Gets me. He's got a best man: that'll make a party of four. Little Church Around the Corner, a good blow-out after—Mrs. T. Rex! Why don't you do the same, Do? Lord! I feel so happy I could jump fifty feet in the air and bite the feathers out of the lulubird!"

The marriage was very quiet. The sudden solemnity of Ida at the last, the proud carriage of Tony Rex, the new sidelong clinging of the young wife to her husband, half protection, half proprietorship, the glow in her eyes, the gay dinner and the trip to the station to wave them Godspeed on their mysterious journey into the new world—all this impressed Dodo strongly. At first it seemed a sort of treason: she resented Ida's succumbing to the impertinent mastery of Tony Rex—Rex, who always, with a shudder recalled to her that other figure who had once, in the forgotten past, domineered likewise over her. But the marriage service in the little chapel, the quiet of the party of four, the feeling of solemnity, the way Ida had turned for her husband's kiss, oblivious of them, had affected her curiously. She scarcely noticed the best man at her side. She was thinking of Lindaberry—how happy he would be if she should turn to him, if she could feel as Ida did! Lindaberry was in her thoughts all the evening, and again in her dreams that night. The next day she refused to see Massingale at all.

Mr. Peavey arrived two days later, and the moment she entered the musty parlor where he was fidgeting before the mirror, waiting to take her out, she realized that a crisis was approaching. Luckily, another couple were by the window, impatient for their departure, talking in stilted phrases. Their greeting was therefore formal.

"Glad to see you!"

"Been an age, hasn't it?"

"Shall we go?"

They went immediately to his automobile, where it seemed to her that Brennon, the chauffeur, sent her a knowing glance from a malicious eye.

"I must leave right after for Boston," he said hurriedly. "I'm sorry, but I'll be back, the end of the week, for good. I broke the trip just to see you—first chance."

"What a lot of traveling you have to do!"

"Yes," he assented; "but it has been worth it. Things have worked out marvelously—better than I hoped. In a year I can retire: you've brought me luck! I'll tell you later."

He stopped, drawing a long breath, frowning but happy. The joy she saw on his face made her guess what he would have to announce, and set her busy imagination planning for some means to postpone an issue. They entered the restaurant of one of the quieter hotels. A table was already reserved, in a secluded corner, somewhat removed from the crowd, which had not yet begun to pour in.

While he busied himself with the ordering, she studied him, seeking some way to escape the proposal that she saw coming, as one sees an inevitable collision on a narrow road. Above everything in the world, she wished to prevent a spoken offer. She was sure that, for the present, he did not represent a possibility; but there were unsounded currents in the future of which she knew nothing. At the bottom there was in her a prudent streak: she did not like to burn her bridges. Despite all the license she permitted her imagination, there was always back of it all a sober second sense. She wished to keep him as a friend until she was at least certain of other things—even perhaps as a refuge, if that were possible, for whatever turn fate might play her in the coming years.

She was not quite certain that it was possible to achieve this tour de force, but she intended to try; for, curiously enough, she doubted Massingale not so much now, in the impulses of his infatuation, but beyond, in the hazardous months that must succeed. Up to the present she had two refuges; Blainey, who would continue steadfast, and Peavey, who was a problem. They had always been fixed points in her moments of greatest recklessness. Youth was a madness; but, after that, what? And whom to lean upon? With these thoughts in mind, she looked at Peavey's honest simple features with a feeling of tenderness and wonder. If the end of the romance were tragedy and disillusion, would he forgive her? Would she find there the charity—

"I owe you an explanation, Miss Baxter," Peavey began abruptly. Then he hesitated, and rearranged the knives and forks. "Your letter caused me great pain—the greatest! I would have come back instantly, if it had been possible without sacrificing things I had set my heart on."

"I was very much surprised; hurt, too!" she said gravely. "I have always thought of you—well, as different, don't you know?"

He bit his lip, and brought the knives over to the forks.

"I hope you didn't misjudge me?"

"I didn't know what to think!"

"I—I don't quite know how to explain. I did not realize Miss Horning's character. She confessed to me that she was in want; I thought of her as your friend."

"And you helped her?" she said, instantly alert.

"It was not much."

"It is true," she said seriously, "I introduced Winona to you. She has been a great deception to me, too. But why did you keep on seeing her without saying anything to me? Nothing wrong in it, but why hide it? That's what wounded me."

"Of course," he said miserably, "that was wrong. I don't know how it came—"

"Sympathy?" she suggested, with a smile.

"I was sorry for her."

"She wished you to marry her, didn't she?"

"No, it was not that! It—was quite different!" he said, and his face crimsoned, while the knives were transferred hastily back to the right. He drew a long painful breath. "It's something very disagreeable—something I can't talk to you about! All I wish to say is, for your own good, Miss—Miss Horning is not a proper friend for you."

"She has been gone almost two months!" she said quietly. "Very well; we won't say anything more. You are too generous, too warm-hearted, Mr. Peavey! Tell me about what you've been doing."

Her doubts had been suddenly confirmed, but it gave her a sudden feeling of horror as she thought of the desperation to which Winona must have been driven to have attempted such a stroke. Then she was afraid of the opening into sentiment which she saw before her, and changed the subject quickly, but, unfortunately, to her disadvantage.

"I have carried through a great merger of our interests," he said, his face lighting up. "The last formalities will be completed to-night, in Boston. It will be"—he stopped, not daring to look at her—"very profitable. In a year I shall be, not a very rich man, but quite rich—yes, quite rich, even as things go to-day! My intention then is to retire, to travel, to see the great cities of the world. I don't care for money myself, except—well, to give everything possible in the world to the person I care for."

He was speaking rapidly now, staring directly before him at her hand, which was playing with the glass. She looked about in terror. The near tables were vacant; they were still practically isolated. In another moment it would be all over. The arrival of the second course momentarily saved her. She plied him with questions, signaling the waiter on a dozen invented pretexts whenever the conversation turned to an intimate note. But at the end of the luncheon, as if overburdened with the strain of a great secret, resolved to end the torture, he said abruptly:

"Miss Baxter, it was not simply to explain I came here; I want to talk to you very seriously, on a matter that is everything in the world to—"

She drew back suddenly as if frightened, and her hand, apparently by accident, coming in contact with her glass, sent it tumbling over the table, drenching the cloth, amid a clatter of cutlery. The maÎtre d'hÔtel came running immediately to her rescue, napkin in hand.

"Oh, dear! how awkward I am!" she cried, in great confusion.

"It's nothing—nothing!" Peavey said hastily, reproaching himself for having frightened her by the abruptness of his methods, here in a crowded restaurant.

But when they had gone into the anteroom, he said quickly:

"Miss Baxter, will you come into the salon here, or up-stairs? For a quarter of an hour—a few moments, just a second—I must speak to you. Now—at once—please!"

There was no escape; she resigned herself to following him. But as she entered the green-and-gold desert where intimacy could no longer be avoided, she thought to herself:

"Oh, dear! If I had only knocked it over my dress I could have gone right home!"

In twenty minutes it was all over, and very red, very quiet, he had conducted her to his car and sent her off.

"I'm sorry!" she said, distressed at his pathetic figure.

"Such things can't be helped!" he said, with a closing of the jaws.

"But let's be friends, can't you? Just now—I'm so young still—later—Please let's be friends, Mr. Peavey!"

He shook his head.

"I'm afraid—that's too hard, and—I don't think you'll ever change!"

"I have been honest!" she said sadly—which was true, in a measure.

"Very!"

He shook her hand with an exaggerated bow, signaled the chauffeur and went back.

All at once she had a feeling of utter loneliness and abandonment. He had been something so secure in her life, so dependable. To give him up was more of a wrench than she had imagined. It brought her a curious sense of peril. Would he wait, as she had suggested, or would this be the end, the last glimpse she would have of this strong, solitary, devoted soul?

She jumped out hastily at Miss Pim's, and then stopped to consider.

"Want me this evening?" said Brennon, watching her attentively.

"I don't know—yes—I'll telephone."

"Everything all right?" he asked slyly.

"What do you mean?" she said, frowning and surprised.

"Oh, nothing!" he said noisily. Then he leaned forward, his eyes fixed boldly, covetously on her. "I say, when you've got an open date, why not come joy-riding with me?"

"Oh!" She drew back, stung to the quick of her pride.

He misunderstood her action, perhaps. Shrugging his shoulders, he went on:

"Why not? I'm as good a spender as some of the high-rollers!"

"How dare you?" she cried, blushing hot under his look. "What do you think I am? Go with you!"

"You needn't be so particular!" he said, angry in his turn at her contempt. "A chauffeur's not a servant. And I guess I've kept your secrets, young lady!"

"What do you mean?"

"Look here! I'm no fool! Don't you think I know your game? Don't you think I got on to the brother racket that night? All right! Don't get in a huff! What've I done? Invited you out! What are you turning up your nose at me for? Come, now!"

He had ended in a conciliatory tone, smiling at her indignant face with undisguised admiration.

"Brennon, that's enough! I shan't want you, now or ever! Mr. Peavey shall hear of this!"

"Oh, will he?" he said, with an ugly look. "Then he'll hear of a good deal more! What are you but a—"

She gave a cry of shame at the word he flung out in anger, and rushed into the house, utterly crushed and revolted, wounded as she had never been before in all her life. The whole day had been one of blank defeat. Now with her body smarting as if from a blow, broken in spirit, clinging to the window-frame, she had a sudden ominous chill. It seemed as if in a twinkle everything had changed for her—that all that had been so rosy and brilliant before, was now become grim and black; that everything had been broken up; that, one by one, all would fall away.

And, as if her cup of bitterness were not full, in her mail she found the one letter she had dreaded for months:

"All over and I've won out, Flossie! Whew! Three months ago things looked so squally, I couldn't even write. If I'd gone under, I'd just have quietly dropped out, and, Kid, you'd never known what had hit me! But, bless the luck, I'm It! Clear the tracks for me! I'm coming East with the bells on! Listen! Six thousand eight hundred fifty-two dollars in the bank, salted away. Prospects, sixteen karat fine. Got a cracker-jack proposition; six cinematograph shows, one-fifth interest. In a year, Flossie, it's a gasoline buggy for you! I'm beating it to you, hot-foot. One stop in Des Moines to pick up some easy money, and me for the gay White Way! Watch for me about March fourteenth. Say, we're going to be rich, and don't you forget it! It's all for you, bless your pretty eyes! Do I love you? Well, say! I'm sitting up, talking to your little photo, foolish as a kid! I'm daffy about you. If you're still strong for Josh, why, set the date. Go the limit on the clothes—the best isn't too good for you! Don't keep me waiting, and don't go for to tease me, honey, for my heart's been true to you!

"Josh.

"P. S. If you've got any foolish thinks in your sassy head that you care for any cane-bearing dude, dismiss them! You don't! Sweep the porch and cut the hammock-strings. Don't fool yourself one minute—we're the team!"

She gave a cry of horror. The worst had come! The past was rising up to claim her, stretching out its cruel tentacles to drag her back, as it had done to Winona. How could she escape him? What could she say to him, after all these months of weak postponement? If only she could stop him by a letter or a telegram! But there was no address. All she knew was that somewhere, out on the cold brown sky-line, he was hurrying toward her, resolute, confident, a terribly earnest lover. All that night, in the midst of hideous dreams, where Brennon pursued her with his vindictive grin, she had the feeling of something advancing over the horizon, black, swelling like a tornado, roaring toward her, obscuring everything with its expanding darkness.