Edith came back from her walk very much out of sorts. It seemed to her as though Billy understood her so much better than Donald ever had, or, as far as she could see, ever would understand her, and yet their love, for such she admitted it to herself to be, was leading to nothing. The gloomy entrance of the Roxborough seemed to grate upon her nerves, and her feeling of dissatisfaction persisted throughout the evening. Donald had some work to do after dinner, and sat at his desk in silence for a long time, writing steadily. She, on her part, got out her sewing, and prepared to spend the evening darning Bobbie’s stockings. She hated it—she had always disliked to sew, but in a way it seemed a sort of penance, a duty, whereby she paid for the pleasures of the day.

Donald was more than usually quiet over his letters. Presently he sealed up the last one and, rising, began to walk uneasily up and down the room. She waited for him to speak, guiltily wondering if he suspected anything. Presently he turned to her.

“Edith,” he said, “have you heard from Billy West?”

For a moment she hesitated. To what was this question leading? What had prompted it? Then she dropped her sewing into her lap and faced him. “Yes,” she said slowly. “He was here this afternoon.”

“Then he is back?” He glanced at her suddenly, but without suspicion. “Queer he didn’t let me know.”

“Oh, he just ran in for a moment to say he’d returned. He intended to look you up in the morning. He was very busy—he told me—some man from Boston to entertain—one of the directors of his company, I believe.”

Donald seemed for a moment engrossed in his thoughts. She observed a worried look cross his face, but could not determine its cause.

“I’m glad he’s back,” he said. “I’ve got a matter I want to talk over with him.”

“What is it?” His seriousness for a moment frightened her.

“It’s something I’ve been considering for a long time. I hardly like to speak of it to him, and yet I don’t know anyone else to whom I can turn. It’s about that glass plant of ours, in West Virginia. We’re awfully short of capital, and I have an idea that there is trouble ahead. The money market is getting tighter and tighter. The outlook for business is bad. We are likely to need a little money, before long, to tide us over. I’m thinking of suggesting to Billy that if he wants to invest a few thousands on first-class security—bonds, he might very easily do much worse than put it into our concern.”

She took up her sewing again with a sigh of relief. So it was nothing but a matter of business, after all, with which she was not greatly concerned. Yet, before she replied, a curious pang of conscience smote her. Billy would do this, she knew; do it for her sake, if not, indeed, for Donald’s, and for a brief space she felt ashamed to think that Donald would owe the assistance he needed to the fact that Billy West loved her. The thought was fleeting—elusive—and in a moment was swallowed up in the greater knowledge of their love; yet, for that moment, she had ranged herself beside her husband, resenting the suggestion for his sake, finding in it something that humiliated and hurt her.

“If it is a good investment,” she presently exclaimed, “I don’t see why he should not put some money into it.”

“Of course it’s a good investment. I shouldn’t have my own in it, if it weren’t. We need only a small amount—nothing to West. He can’t begin to spend his income.” He looked moodily about the room. “I’m not envious, but I wish I had a tenth of it. There are so many things I’d like to do for you, dear, if I only could. I’m glad that he has been able to make the past few months more pleasant for you. Billy is one of the best fellows I’ve ever met—generous and unselfish to a fault. I’m very fond of him; I haven’t a friend I think more of.”

Again the pang of conscience smote Edith. The enormity of the deception which she and West had been practicing upon Donald appalled her, and he seemed so unsuspecting, so guileless. His next words, however, drove the thought from her mind.

“I wish he’d marry. He really needs someone to look after him. I wonder that your sister Alice doesn’t get along with him better. What’s the trouble, anyway? She hardly ever sees him. Why don’t you do more to bring them together?”

Edith instinctively resented the suggestion. Billy West was hers, by right of conquest. The thought of turning him over to anyone, even to her sister, annoyed her. “Alice thinks too much of someone else,” she replied primly.

“You mean Hall?”

“Yes. They’ve been as good as engaged for months. Mother objects, of course, but I think Alice loves him.”

Donald smiled. “In that case, we’ll have to find someone else for Billy. Emerson Hall is a splendid fellow, and I’d be glad to see Alice marry him.” He came over to Edith and patted her shoulder affectionately. “I never expected to play the rÔle of a matchmaker, but I’d be mighty glad to see Billy fall in love with some nice girl, who would appreciate him, and help him to make something of his life. Just sitting around New York, spending thirty or forty thousand a year, isn’t good for any man. With his money he ought to travel, see the world, take up some hobby, have children—that’s about the most human thing a man can do. With all that money at his command he could do so much for them.”

“Yes,” she assented, not daring to look at him.

“What I’m afraid of is that he’ll fall in love with some woman who’ll ruin his life—somebody that won’t have an idea above clothes, and automobiles, and physical enjoyment. There are so many like that, here in New York, and, if he should happen to care for one of them, it would spoil his whole future. Billy is really quite simple in his tastes. He’d love a big country place, and horses, and dogs, and all that. This gay New York life attracts him now, because he’s been away from it for so long, but in another six months he’ll be sick of it. I’m going to have a talk with him.”

Edith said nothing. What, indeed, was there for her to say? Donald’s words cut deep. For a brief space she almost hated herself. Was West’s love for her going to spoil his whole life? She shivered at the thought. Then the picture of the man, his smiling face, his attractive and alluring personality, rose before her, and drove away the doubts which had for the moment chilled her heart. She rose and put away her sewing. “Perhaps you had better let Billy West manage his own love-affairs,” she remarked quietly.

Donald, busily engaged in refilling his pipe, failed to see the trace of resentment which accompanied her words. “Oh, I don’t mean to interfere,” he said. “I’m not a fool. But Billy and I have been friends for a long time, and I don’t think he’d mind a little advice from me.”

“You are going to ask him about this—this money, to-morrow?” Edith inquired presently.

“Perhaps. I may sound him out, at least. We sha’n’t need the money for some weeks—may not need it at all, in fact, but I want to be prepared.”

He did talk the matter over with West the next day, and the latter fell in with the plan at once. He felt a deep sense of shame at the injury he was doing his friend, and was anxious to make amends in any way that he could. It occurred to him, also, that perhaps in this way he might, indirectly at least, help Edith. Deep down in his soul he despised himself, felt himself a traitor, in thought at least, if not yet in deed, to this man who loved and trusted him. For a moment he almost made up his mind to tell Edith at once that he could not see her again, that they must part forever. The intention was an honest one, at the time. Even he did not admit, that one smile from her—one touch of her hand—would consign it to the paving operations in hell which is the destiny of so large a proportion of all good intentions.

He refused Donald’s invitation to luncheon, explaining that he meant to take Edith out for a drive in the car. Donald even thanked him for this. “You are a brick, Billy,” he said, gripping his hand at parting. “Since you’ve been back, Edith has been like another woman. I believe she’s gained ten pounds, and all her nervousness is gone. Being out in the air so much, I suppose. But we can’t let her monopolize you. Why don’t you get married, Billy?”

The suddenness of the question threw West for the moment off his guard. “Married!” he exclaimed. “Why—I—what do you mean?” He looked at his friend narrowly.

“It’s plain enough, isn’t it? Here you are, a young and good-looking chap with plenty of money. What more natural than to marry, and have a home, and children? It’s the only way to be really happy. All this”—he waved his hand toward the vista of roofs and pinnacles which stretched endlessly northward—“doesn’t really get you anywhere. You know that, as well as I.”

“I—I guess you’re right. I’d be glad enough to get away from it all—with a woman I loved. I’d never want to see New York again. But—I—” he hesitated, faltered—“I guess I won’t marry yet awhile, Don—not yet awhile.”

“Better think it over, old man,” he heard Donald call out to him, as he turned away.

All the way up-town he hated himself, hated the circumstances which had placed him in this horrible situation, with love on the one side, duty on the other, tearing at his heart. He felt so depressed that he stopped on the way and drank two highballs. They served to drive away the fog of doubts which had begun to envelop him.

By the time he reached the Roxborough, his spirits had commenced to revive. The presence of Edith, her happy, smiling face, her unconcealed joy at seeing him, completed the change. After all, he was only taking for a spin in the country the woman he loved, the woman he had always loved. There was nothing wrong in that. He had not been false to Donald by any overt act. God had put this love into his heart, and he had only responded as his nature made him respond. The futility of blaming the whole affair upon God did not at the moment occur to him. It was a convenient way of shifting the responsibility, and one that has been much utilized since the days of Adam.

Edith, on her part, felt that the time had come for an understanding of some sort between West and herself. It would be unfair to all concerned, she decided, to allow matters to drift as they had been drifting. If West should tell her that he loved her, it would give her a reason for not seeing him, an excuse for driving him away. Until he did speak, she could do nothing. She was by no means certain that, should he declare himself, she would forthwith proceed to put him out of her life. That question she left for the emotions of the moment to decide. But she believed that, until the moment arrived, she was quite helpless, for either good or ill. To break with West, her husband’s friend and her own, now, without apparent reason, would be to assume that he loved her, and loved her wrongfully—she was not certain that this was true, not sufficiently certain, at least, to deny herself the joy of finding out.

For all these reasons she decided to do her best to force West to declare himself. Then she would have a crisis to face—a reality, not a mere supposition. And whatever course she then decided upon, whether love, or duty, it would at least be definite and final, and the present state of affairs was neither.

By this complex system of reasoning Edith Rogers justified herself in her intention to force from West a declaration of his love, and justified herself so completely that, when she joined him at the entrance to the apartment, she had almost convinced herself that she was about to commit a most laudable and praiseworthy act.