Sassoon came to see her the first thing in the morning, just as she was completing her toilet. For, though over the city was the heavy somnolence of Sunday, she could not sleep; in fact, she had scarcely closed her eyes all night. It was daylight, and yet it was unreal. She was asking herself, incredulously, if the moment of decision had come,—the hour she had contemplated, it seemed, all her life,—when Josephus brought his card. It gave her quite a shock, this return of the persistent hunter, whom she had left, groveling and stunned, at the foot of a disordered table. What did it mean? She glanced at the card again. Across it was written in minuscule letters:

"Please see me, just for a moment!"

She hesitated, tempted by the sudden and the inexplicable. Was it possible that he credited her with acting a part, that his passion could crowd out all sense of shame? And, finally, what could he say, after last night?

"I'll be down in a few minutes!" she said, with a nod. Then she recalled Josephus hastily, giving explicit orders that, if Nebbins came, he was to be told that she had gone on a visit, that she would not be back until the next noon; under no circumstances was he to be admitted. She glanced uneasily into the room where Snyder, curled up in a ball on the bed, was sleeping the heavy sleep of those who consume the night six days of the week. What would she say to Snyder, and how avoid her questioning glances, this day of days?

When, at length, she entered the stuffy parlor, she beheld Sassoon in the raw, no longer languid and heavy of eye, but uncontrollably aroused, pacing the floor in feverish impatience. The look he gave her was so like that of a maddened animal that she halted, afraid; and the fear that ran through her bones was not only of the present, but a sudden terrified comprehension of the past—of what she had risked and escaped. She remained standing, with the table interposed as a barrier between them.

"Sit down—please!" he said, looking at her eagerly, in his voice a note of hoarse avidity that gave it a strange hurried quality.

"What have you to say to me?" she said, without moving.

"Miss Baxter," he said abruptly, "make your own conditions!"

"What! You are not ashamed?"

"Make your own conditions! I will agree to anything!"

"There are no conditions!"

"Wait!" He drew from his pocket a document, his fingers trembling so he could hardly unbutton his coat, crumpled it in his emotion and resumed:

"First, I have arranged everything! You will marry—not a trainer or a secretary, but a gentleman, Captain Markett-Blount, an English gentleman whom I have bought. No—listen to me! Understand everything! I am not putting you into the demi-monde; I'm giving you a chance at everything. You will have a social position. You will go wherever I want you to go. You can remain married, or you can divorce, when you want. You will have a husband who will do as I wish! I give him fifty thousand for his name. I will give him the same to free you. You will marry the hour you say—to-night. You will dine at my house; you will visit me on the same footing as Mrs. Sassoon's friends. In a week you will join a party on my yacht, and go with us to cruise into the Mediterranean, to Egypt, anywhere! No one will say a word—no one will dare! You will be in exactly the same position as a hundred women in society—any one who would come at a whistle from me! As for you—"

"As for me?" she repeated, fascinated despite herself.

"I will give you now, simply on your word, anything you ask. Name any sum. More, I will do what I have never done. Here, look! Here is a contract in black and white. Have it examined by your own lawyer. Write down whatever sum you want. Make it for one year or ten—I'll sign it! You can hold it over me; you can blackmail me, if you wish! And that is nothing to what I'll give you—jewels, houses—"

"But you are mad!" she cried, horrified at the craving in his voice and the wildness in his eyes.

"Yes, mad, Dodo. You are right—completely mad! But profit by it! You can place yourself anywhere; you can have anything from me! I myself will tell you how to torture me, to rob me—"

"Never!"

"Yes, yes! You will! You can't refuse such things!" he cried. "You're not a fool! Ah, I will have you!"

Suddenly, as she shuddered and closed her hands over her eyes with loathing, he glided around the table and caught her in his arms.

"Sassoon! Here! You are crazy!" she cried, struggling frantically.

"What do I care!"

"Let me go! I'll scream!"

"What do I care!" His arms inclosed her with the strength of steel, gripped her to him, struggling to bring her face to his, crying incoherent brutal words that left her sick with loathing, a cold hard pain penetrating into her breast, frightened, helpless, trying to beat away the acquiring lips with savage fingers. At the moment when, despairing, she was about to cry aloud, mercifully there came a ring at the front door. He paused, trembling and breathless; and the next she had torn herself away from him and escaped up-stairs, shaken in every muscle, sick with horror and enraged loathing. Snyder up, stared in amazement at her disordered figure. The soiling embrace seemed to cling to her arms, to her neck, to the very clothes she had on. She tore them from her with disgust, with sickening.

"Lord! Dodo, what's happened?" cried Snyder, starting up.

"Sassoon! Beast!" she gasped, choking with rage. She flung her dress in a corner, and plunged her arms and head into the wash-basin, scrubbing them with a towel as if they could not be cleansed—as if nothing could ever cleanse them again.

Then suddenly she fell into a fit of hysterical weeping. Snyder, frightened, camped at her side, pressing her to her breast, calling her childish names, implored her to be calm. When at last, from sheer fatigue, she had grown quiet, she refused all questions, unwilling to talk; all at once solemn, determined, as controlled and impassive as a moment before she had been disorganized and frantic. Snyder, amazed, watched her as if she were a statue.

"You're all right now?"

"All right!"

"You can't tell me? Nothing?"

"Nothing!"

At the end of a moment she turned thoughtfully. "Come to lunch, just in Lexington Avenue?"

"Sure, petty!"

"I have no money."

"Shut up! I have lots!"

"Good! Now, don't talk to me, Snyder! I don't want to talk!"

The woman nodded, uneasy and suspicious, moving about her way, but never losing sight of the girl.

Dodo went to the trunk, took out Lindaberry's letters, and returned to the window. Outside it was raining by fits and starts, in swerving sheets, wind-driven, with the restlessness of March. Handfuls of drops flung against the panes with sudden rattling crescendo. She opened the last letter and read it without emotion, in a dull, listless, painless, concentration. It began, "Dodo, my good angel," and it announced the thing she had feared—his imminent return.

"He will get over it!" she said, staring down the avenue, where the rain-drops rebounded from the asphalt like myriads of shimmering insects, swarming hungrily. "He will get over it, and he will live his own life, and he will end by being grateful to me!"

She remained silent a long while, wondering, thinking of Massingale, of Blainey, watching the leaden clouds breaking and rolling above, feeling the spray that lashed the window, cooling her cheeks, fascinated by the rain-drops that swarmed, like myriad white insects, dancing below. There was so much to do—and she was unable to do anything.

At twelve she rose quietly, telephoned to Blainey for an afternoon appointment, signaled Snyder and led the way to luncheon.

She went to the theater by the subway on account of a famished pocketbook, and the depressing sensation of damp ankles and muddied skirts, which came to her as she clung to her umbrella and leaned against the wind, reinforced her determination to come to actualities.

"Hello! This is a surprise!" he said, when at last she had come, with dripping umbrella, into his office. "Must have got my dates mixed!"

"No! It's I who am tired of waiting!" she said abruptly.

She shed her rain-coat, shaking her skirts and glancing at her muddy shoes in delicate disgust. Then she advanced in a businesslike manner to the seat which Blainey, contrary to his customary bluff indifference, was presenting to her with extreme deference.

"Blainey, I've come to the end of my rope!" she said, folding her arms over her breast. "I'm through with playing and cutting up. I'm going to make up my mind to something serious now! I've got to talk to some one about it; that's why I've come to you!"

"Good eye!" he said, nodding and reaching for a cigar. "I, too, have got something to thrash out. Well, kid, what's annoyin' you?"

"Things have been getting mixed up, Blainey," she told him seriously. "I guess I'm not as clever as I thought!" She stopped, thinking of the legion that had fallen away: of Peavey, who had gone; of Massingale, who was still a mystery; and of Nebbins, a present menace. "Either that, or I'm getting tired of fooling!"

He nodded wisely, waiting for her to continue. She noted the rough sympathetic cut of visage,—the mouth, which had changed its grimness for a tolerant humor, the eyes, which were fixed on her with keen perception, softened by a homely adoration,—and she felt that she could talk to him as to no one else. He would understand everything, the good and the bad in her. He was nearer to her, to her kind, to an understanding of her longings and her temptations, than those other men who had never known the struggle of a self-made life.

"Blainey, it's awfully hard to decide," she said, leaning forward and clutching her knee. "I'm in a fix; I don't know what I'll do!"

"Well, first," he asked, with an encouraging nod, "how's the heart?"

She sat silent a moment, her hands locked, staring at the floor.

"I wish I knew!" she said slowly.

"Marriage?"

"No!"

"Sure of the man?" he said abruptly.

"That's it; I'm not sure of him!"

"And yourself?"

She tried conscientiously to see herself.

"Even of that—I don't know."

"Pretty hard hit, eh?"

She nodded.

"Go slow! Be sure!"

"I'm going to, Blainey!"

"What else? Marriage?"

She made a gesture of irritation.

"No; that's not for me!"

"You're wrong, kid," he said energetically. "You don't know the game!"

"What! You advise me to marry?" she exclaimed, in astonishment.

"You? Every time!" he said, straightening up. "However, we'll discuss that later!" He looked at her shrewdly and said abruptly: "How about Sassoon?"

A fantastic idea came into her head—to try to what extent his advice could be disinterested.

"Sassoon's the point," she said quietly. "What do you think he offered me this very morning?"

She detailed the terms, the proffered marriage and the contract, while Blainey, craning forward, listened with intense curiosity. When she had finished, he rose abruptly, eased the grip of his collar and moved heavily to the window. Then he made her repeat all that she had said, word for word.

"You're giving me a straight story?"

"Honest to God!"

He gave vent to a long whistle, drumming on the desk.

"Well, kid," he said at last, with an effort, "that's a pretty big proposition!" He shook his head solemnly. "I don't see how you can turn it down!"

"Well, Blainey, that's just what I've done!" she said evenly.

"Think it over! Better think it over carefully!" he advised anxiously. "Ten years from now you may get a different squint at life, and regret it!"

She laughed. She had an idea that what they were discussing was curiously immoral; but, strange as it was, she had a feeling that he was quite unselfish, and was grateful to him for it. In fact she felt nearer to him than ever before.

"No, no, Blainey," she said quickly. "Not for me! I'm not thirty-two—I'm twenty-two; and, thank heaven, I can be a little fool!"

He resumed his seat, unconvinced, half inclined to argue. All at once he looked up, with a snap in his gray eyes, at the girl who was watching him, amused.

"Speaking of marriage, why don't you marry me?"

She rose to her feet in amazement.

"Surprised?" he asked, grinning.

"Bowled over!"

"Rather expected another proposition?" he said bluntly.

"Yes, I did! Good heavens! Blainey, why do you want to marry me?"

"For about six hundred and fifty-two reasons!" he said solemnly. "First, because I'm fond of you. Second, because I'm lonely, kid! Third, because I'd like to work for you, make something big out of you, give you a career that would be a career. The rest don't count! You see, kid, I believe in you, and the contract I'm offering you," he added, with a sudden chuckling return to playfulness, "is the only contract I know that's worth a damn between manager and star. Of course, you've got to work!"

"Blainey, how much talent have I?" she asked passionately. "No compliments! Give me the truth! It may mean a lot!"

"I don't know!"

"And yet—"

"Talent be damned!" he said royally, as he said a dozen times a day. "Art be damned! It ain't talent, it's personality that counts—personality and advertising. Personality, kid, is the reason we build the stage three feet above the orchestra, to keep the bald heads from coming over. Do you think I'm in this God-forsaken business thirty-four years, and don't know the tricks? You'll be talking art to me next!"

"And I have personality?" she said doubtfully.

He smiled hugely.

"Would you be sitting here if you hadn't?"

"And you want to marry me, after all you know about me?" she asked solemnly. It was the one thing she did not like. Why was it impossible for her to go her way, free and irresponsible, as men went? Why was it that all sought this absolute control over her liberty? And yet, she was genuinely touched that Blainey, believing what he must, should have made the offer.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"My old dad ran a milk-wagon over in Brooklyn," he said. "I've pulled myself up by my boot-straps, and pretty much of everything has stuck to them on the way. I know what life is, kid. I stopped judging long ago! Leave that to a bunch of snobs in Fifth Avenue churches. Whatever you've done, you'd look like a white spot against me!"

"Blainey, I'll tell you something!" she said suddenly. "You've got me wrong! I'm as straight as they make 'em!"

"Don't lie, kid! It ain't necessary."

"Look at me! It's God's truth!" she exclaimed vehemently.

"Honest?" he said, opening his eyes.

"Honest!"

"Well, I'll be damned!"

"Blainey, you're an awfully good sort!" she said genuinely.

"Damned few would agree with you!" he said grimly.

"You've always been with me! Why?"

"'Cause I'm a sentimental nature!" he said, grinning. "Well, kid, how about it?"

"Well, Blainey, it may be yes! I shouldn't be surprised!"

He started up eagerly, with a look that somehow spoiled it all. She retreated instinctively, and perceiving it, he was clever enough to retain his seat, saying:

"When will you know?"

"To-night!"

"Telephone me here or at the hotel. Now, one thing more. This marriage means freedom to each—no spying and no interfering! It's a sentimental business contract for life. Savvy?"

She nodded.

"That's the best way!"

"You're free—I'm free!"

She nodded again, giving him her hand.

"Now I must go," she said hastily, with a glance at the clock. She went to the door, while he watched her without a word. Suddenly she turned. "If I decide, I want it over to-night! Do you understand?"

He nodded seriously. She smiled and went lightly out.

When she reached her room again she received a shock. Snyder informed her that Lindaberry had called twice, once while they were at luncheon, and again at three. Dodo was in a panic at the news, expected though it was. Josephus had informed her of Nebbins' insistent queries. All that she had planned dramatically, which now she wished to avoid, was rising up to confound her. She turned breathlessly on Snyder.

"You saw Mr. Lindaberry?"

"Yes!"

"He was here? Long?"

"About an hour!"

"Then you talked to him?" she persisted, suddenly suspicious.

"So-so," said Snyder evasively.

"What did you talk about? What did you say? What did you tell him about me? You didn't discuss—did he leave a message?"

"No, he left no message!" said Snyder obstinately.

"When is he coming back? You know!"

"No, I don't know!"

"Snyder!"

"I don't know!" she repeated, shrugging her shoulders and escaping into the other room, leaving Dodo in a torment of suspense, half inclined to flight.

She could explain whatever she intended doing to Blainey, to Massingale even, but not to Lindaberry. The thing was unthinkable. And she was afraid of his coming, for she was afraid to destroy the illusion, fragile and beautiful, which she had built of herself in his soul. To undeceive him, to let him see her as she believed she really was, brought her pain that she could not endure. And at that moment, as the town clock was methodically beating out the hour of five, she stopped abruptly, suddenly recalled to Massingale by the sound of his step on the stairs, torn between hope and fear, but inwardly steeling herself against the shock of disillusionment which she was certain awaited her with the opening of the door.