It was one of those occasions when the auditory nerve seems to connect imperfectly with the brain. Mrs. Collingham placed her cup on the table and leaned forward, puzzled, tense.

"What did you say? Sit down. Tell me that again."

Jennie collapsed against the tan cushion of the chair, and repeated her confession. Her hostess's brows knitted painfully.

"But I don't understand. When did you marry him?"

The girl explained that it had been on the previous afternoon.

"But—but—you said just now that you were in love with some one else."

"So I am—only—only, Bob made me."

"Made you what?"

"Made me go and get a license and marry him. He said"—her lips and tongue were so parched that it was hard to form the words—"he said he was going away in a few days to South America, and that he couldn't go unless he knew I was his wife. I begged him to let me off, but he—he wouldn't. Oh, Mrs. Collingham, what am I to do?"

The appeal helped Junia to rally her stricken powers. It enabled her to say inwardly: "I must act through this girl herself. If I estrange her, I may lose my son." A flash of the lioness wrath with which she trembled might lead to an irretrievably false step. So she made her tone kindly, sympathetic, almost affectionate.

"And Bob—does he know that—that you care for some one else?"

"He never asked me."

"But don't you think you should have told him?"

"That's not so very easy when—"

"But there was some sort of understanding between you and Hubert, wasn't there?"

Jennie's only answer to this was to clasp her hands and say,

"Oh, Mrs. Collingham, how do people get divorces?"

This being more than Junia had hoped for, she tried to use the opening to the best of her ability.

"They—they do something that—that makes the other person want to be free." Trying to explain this further, she ran the risk of citing a case perhaps too close to the point. "For instance, if my husband wanted to be free, he'd do something that would make me willing to divorce him."

"And would you?"

"You see, I'm taking the case of his wanting to be free. In that situation, he's the one who would do the thing. If I wanted to be free, I suppose—I suppose I should do it."

"So that if I wanted to be free, it would be up to me to do the thing rather than up to Bob."

A moral issue being here at stake, Junia was obliged, in the expressive American phrase, "to sidestep," though she supposed that the suggestion in the air was of no more than Jennie had done already. As an artist's model, it would be part of her professional occupation.

"I'm not giving you advice, my dear; I'm only trying to answer your question. I'm so sorry for you that I'd do anything I could to help you unravel the tangle."

"Then you think there are ways of unraveling it?"

"Oh, certainly, if you were willing to—"

"To what, Mrs. Collingham. There's almost nothing I wouldn't do—to get us all out—when you've been so kind to me."

Having a conscience of her own, Junia continued to "sidestep."

"My dear, I can't tell you what to do. I'm not sure that I know—very well. You see, it's your trouble, and you must get out of it. I'll help you. I will do that. In every way I can I'll make it easy for you. But I couldn't advise—or—or put anything in your way that might be considered as—as temptation."

But conscientious scruples were not in Jennie's line. When eager to reach a point, she went to it straight.

"If Bob came back from South America and found I was living with Hubert, wouldn't he have to divorce me then?"

Junia rose in the agitation of one unused to plain talk, and shocked by it.

"Jennie—your name is Jennie, isn't it?—I must go and speak to Mr. Collingham. You'll stay here—won't you?—till I come back. I may have something then rather important to say."

The girl sat still, looking up adoringly.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"No; I think not. But there's something I want to ask him. I don't think that either you or I had better say anything to anyone. What do you think?"

Jennie shook her head.

"I don't want to. I wish nobody would ever have to know."

"I wish Hubert didn't have to know. Perhaps he won't; and yet—Let us think." She dropped into a chair nearer to Jennie than the one behind the tea table. "One thing I must ask you. What happened after you and Bob went through that ceremony yesterday afternoon?"

"Nothing happened. He motored back to his friends on Long Island and I took the ferry and went home. He said he'd see me on Saturday to say good-by."

"Where?"

"Oh, I don't know. In Central Park, I expect. He's asked me to meet him there once or twice already."

"But I wouldn't go anywhere else with him if I were you—not into a house, or anything."

"I won't if he doesn't make me."

"I'd be firm about that. You see, if you did—well, I'm sure you understand—it might—it might make it harder for you to find your way out to where you'd be happy again. Are you sure you see what I mean?"

"I've had that out with him. He'd said that nothing would happen till he got back from South America."

Relieved by this simple statement, Junia went on.

"And if I were you, I wouldn't say a word to anybody—not even to your own father and mother. Your mother is living, isn't she? Don't even tell Bob that you've seen me. Don't tell anyone anything. Let it be your secret and mine. I want you to feel that I'm your friend and anxious to help you out of the muddle in which you've tied up your happiness. At first, when you told me, I thought more of Hubert; but now that we've talked I'm thinking of you, too, and how much I should like to see you—" A dim smile conveyed the rest of the thought while she rose again. "Now I'll go. Don't be alarmed if I'm a little long. Max will take care of you."

Left to herself, Jennie's emotions came in waves of conflicting calculation. Had she only been in love with Bob, and not with Hubert, all this graciousness would have lapped her round in silk and softness. Nothing would have been denied her from a limousine to pearls. There would have been the villa for the family, with Gussie and Gladys turned into "buds."

But, as an offset to it, there would be the renunciation. Somehow, since cutting herself away from Hubert by the ceremony with Bob, he seemed nearer to her than before. Things she had supposed to be out of the question now presented themselves as more in the line of those that could be done. Within twenty-four hours she had lived much; she had ripened much. Now that she had had this talk with Mrs. Collingham, Hubert became more definitely an alternative. She could choose him and let this wealth and beauty go, or she could choose the wealth and beauty and let him....

But at the thought of turning her back on him something seemed to choke her. To choose what money could buy instead of this great love was treachery to all she knew as sublime. She clutched herself over the heart. It was as if she were going to die. Max was so startled that he sprang upon her with his mighty paws in the roughness of young consternation.

On the other hand, home conditions were well-nigh imperative. Love and Hubert were all very well, but they were part of the world of romance. The family, with their concrete needs, were actuality. Jennie thought of each one of them in turn, but of Teddy most of all. Among those of her own generation, he was her favorite. If she became openly Mrs. Robert Bradley Collingham, Junior, of Marillo Park, Teddy would go far. He might have a place like Mr. Brunt's. Only the other day her father had said of Mr. Brunt, "There's one who don't have any trouble in pickling down his ten a week." To see Teddy pickling down his ten a week, which would be more than five hundred dollars in a year, Jennie was ready to submit to almost anything—even Bob's hands on her person. She might get used to them, and, if she didn't, why, the daily sacrifice would be not without its reward.

She had reached something like this decision when Mrs. Collingham came back. Watching her from the minute when she rounded the corner of the flagged pavement, Jennie noted a rapid change in her expression. At first it was terrible—that of a queen in wrath. As she approached the bird cage, however, it cleared so quickly that by the time she reached the threshold it was almost tender.

"That's because she likes me," Jennie said to herself. She was accustomed to being liked, though especially by men. "I think it will cheer her up if I say right off that I've come to stay with her."

To make this announcement she had risen to her feet, with lips already parted; but Mrs. Collingham forestalled her.

"Sit down again, my dear. I want to talk to you some more. I must tell you about Mr. Collingham." She herself sank into the chair near Jennie which she had already occupied. She panted as after a difficult experience. "Oh dear! It's been so trying! You don't know him, do you? Well, he's a good man—kind and just in his way—but oh, so stern and relentless! If he knew what Bob had done in going through that mad thing with you, he'd turn the boy adrift."

Having reseated herself already, Jennie now closed her lips. She had forgotten Mr. Collingham. Coming to stay was meeting a new obstacle.

"It's only fair to you to make you understand what kind of man my husband is. Of course, he's a strong man, otherwise he wouldn't have accomplished all he has. My son, my daughter, I myself—we're but puppets on his string. His word has to be law to us. And with Bob the way he is—wanting to marry every girl he meets—and forgetting her next day—his father has no patience. You don't know how hard it is for me, my dear, always to have to stand between them."

As she paused to dab her eyes, Jennie saw the limousine, the villa, with Teddy's chance of pickling down ten a week, fading out like a picture in the movies.

"I wouldn't dare to tell him of the great wrong Bob has done to you. He'd disinherit him on the spot. If Bob were to insist on having this escapade—you wouldn't really call it a marriage, would you?—but if he were to insist on its being made public, why, there'd be an end of his relations with his father. My husband would neither give him a cent nor leave him a cent. I must say that Bob would deserve it; but, Jennie, I'm thinking of you. You'd have forsaken the man you loved, married a man you didn't care for, and got nothing in the world to show for it. That's where you'd have to suffer, and I can see well enough that you're suffering already."

There was every reason now that Jennie's tears should begin to flow. Flow they did while her companion watched.

"And yet, as you'll see, Mr. Collingham is not an unkind man. When I explained to him that we might be more indebted to you than I had thought at first, he said—"

With a look of anticipation, Jennie stopped crying suddenly, though the tears already shed were glistening on her cheek.

The point was now to find phraseology at once clear enough and delicate enough to suggest a course and yet not shock the sensibilities.

"You see, my dear, it's this way. One has to keep one's ideals, hasn't one? That goes without saying. Once we let our ideals go"—she flung her hands outward—"well, what's the use of living? My own life hasn't been as happy as you might think; and if it hadn't been for my ideals—"

Jennie broke in because she couldn't help it.

"Mr. Wray is ideal for a man, don't you think, Mrs. Collingham?"

It was the lead Junia needed.

"He's perfect, Jennie, in his way; and, oh, how I wish you were as free as forty-eight hours ago! You could be, of course, if—But I mustn't advise you, must I? I don't know how to. I'm just as lost as you are. Only, if you could find a way to cast the burden of the whole thing on Bob—"

"Do you mean to make him get the divorce?"

"In that case, we should want to feel that you had something to fall back upon. And so my husband thought that perhaps twenty-five thousand dollars—"

Jennie gave a great gasp. Her head began to swim. Not villas and limousines rose before her, but cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces.

"Poor daddy," she thought, "wouldn't have to hunt for a job any more, and momma'd have nothing to do for the rest of her life but sit in a chair and rock."

Yet that was only part of the vision. The rest did not go so easily into words. She had only to hurry to the studio, fling herself into the arms she was longing to feel clasped round her—and become fabulously rich.

That would be if Bob took the opening she offered him. If he didn't—

"But suppose Bob won't?" she asked, in terror lest he should not.

"I've thought of that, too," came the prompt answer. "He will, of course. But suppose he didn't. Well, we're not hagglers, my dear. We're only simple people trying to do right, just as you're trying to do right yourself. If Bob is only in a position in which he can undo his wrong, whether he undoes it or not, you shall have your twenty-five thousand just the same."

"Could I have it as early as—as next week?"

"If the conditions are fulfilled, certainly."

Jennie was anxious to free herself from the charge of cupidity.

"The reason I say next week is that my father is worried about the interest on the mortgage and the taxes. He didn't pay the interest last time, and the taxes are two months overdue. If he can't find the money by next week—"

"You yourself can be in a position to take all the worry off his hands—once the conditions are fulfilled."

Little more was said after this. There was little more to say. The necessities of the case being once understood, Junia steered her guest back to the car which waited at the door.

But into the leave-taking Max threw an odd note of hostility. As if he resented some baseness toward his master, he pressed his flank against Jennie with such force as almost to knock her down, and when she sprang away from him into the car he growled after her.