If Floyd-Rosney’s temper were less imperious, if he had had less confidence in the dictates of his will, which he misconstrued as his matured judgment, he could not have so signally disregarded the feelings of others; if only in obedience to the dictates of policy, he could not have been so oblivious of the possibility of adverse action, successfully exploited.

Maddened by his wife’s revolt against his plans, futile though he deemed it, he would not await her return from the nursery whither she had hurried to verify his words. He burned with rage under the lash of her fiery denunciation—“Brute!—Fiend!” How dared she! He wondered that he had not beaten her with his clenched fists! He had some fear of being betrayed into violence, some doubt of his own self-restraint that induced him to rush forth into the street and evade her frenzied jeremiad when she found the child was indeed gone.

What a fool of a woman was this, he was arguing before the banging of the front door behind him had ceased to resound along the street. What other one would turn down such a beautiful opportunity! As to leaving the child—why, it would have been to any except the perverse vixen he had married one of the special advantages of the outing—to be free for a time of domestic cares, of maternal duties. Had he not over and over heard women of her station congratulate themselves on a “vacation”—the children loaded off on somebody, Heaven knows whom, or where, a matter of minor importance. It was absolutely fantastic, the idea of dragging a child of Edward’s age around Europe and the Orient for a year’s travel. The very care of him, the necessary solicitude involved at every move, would destroy all possibility of pleasure. The mere item of infantile disorders was enough in itself to nullify the prospect. And he might die of some of these maladies in a foreign country, deprived of his father’s supervision and experience in the ways of the world.

Floyd-Rosney’s contention in the matter seemed to him eminently right and rational. It was desirable that she should not testify in the suit, he could not leave at this crisis, and she could not well take the child with her. He would not risk his son and heir to the emergencies, the vicissitudes of a year of foreign travel under the guidance merely of an inexperienced and careless woman. Paula herself was like a child. He had kept her so. Everything had been done for her. In any unforeseen, disastrous chance she would be utterly helpless to take judicious action and to protect the child from injury.

Floyd-Rosney was not more willing to be separated from the boy than the mother herself. He had, indeed, no unselfish love for the child, but his son’s beauty and promise flattered his vanity; the boy would be a credit to his name. His prospects were so brilliant that in twenty years there would be no young man in the Mississippi Valley who could vie with him in fortune and position. Floyd-Rosney had gloated on the future of his son. He was glad, he often said, that he was himself a young man, for he would be but in the prime of life when Edward would come to his majority. No dependent station would be his—to eat from his father’s hand like a fawning pet. With an altruistic consideration, uncharacteristic of him, the father had made already certain investments in his son’s name, and these, though limited in character, by a lucky stroke had doubled again and again, till he was wont to say proudly that his son was the only capitalist he knew who had an absolutely safe investment paying twenty per cent. He had a sort of respect for the boy, as representing much money and many inchoate values. His infancy must be carefully tended, his education liberal and sedulously supervised, and when he should go into the world, representing his father’s name and fortune, he should be worthy of both. Turn him over to Paula, in his tender callowness, to be dragged about from post to pillar for her behoof—he would not endure the idea.

As the cool air chilled his temper and the swift walk and change of scene gave the current of his thoughts a new trend he began to be more tolerant of her attitude in the matter. The truth was, he said to himself, they each loved the child too dearly, were too solicitous for his well being, to be willing to be separated from him, and, but for the peculiar circumstances of this lawsuit, he would never have proposed it. It was, however, necessary, absolutely necessary, and he would take measures to induce Paula to depart on this delightful journey without making public her disinclination. He had taken her, perhaps, too abruptly by surprise. She was overcome with frenzy to discover that the child was actually gone!—he should overlook her hasty words—though to his temperament this was impossible, and he knew it; they were burned indelibly into his consciousness. Never before, in all his pompous, prosperous life had he been so addressed. But he would make an effort—one more effort to persuade her; with a resolute fling he turned to retrace his way, coming into the broad and splendid avenue on which his palatial home fronted, he walked up the street as she was walking down the opposite side.

He let himself in with his latch-key, closing the door softly behind him. The great hall and the lighted rooms with their rich furnishings, glimpsed through the open doors, looked strangely desolate. For one moment silence—absolute, intense. Then a grotesque, unbecoming intrusion on the ornate elegance—a burst of distant, uncultured laughter from below stairs, and a clatter of dishes. Floyd-Rosney was something of an epicure, and it was a good dinner that went down untouched. The master of the house frowned heavily. He lifted his head, minded to ring a bell and administer reproof. Then he reflected that it well accorded with his interests that he should be supposed to be out of the house while the interview with his wife was in progress. She had a way of late of raising her voice in a keen protest that advertised domestic discordances to all within earshot. “Let the servants carouse and gorge their dinner; I’ll settle them afterward!” he said to himself grimly, as he noiselessly ascended the stairs.

Once more silence—he could not hear even his own footfall. He had a vague sense of solitude, of uninhabited purlieus. With a sudden rush of haste he pushed open the door of the nursery, flaring with lights, but vacant, and strode through to his wife’s room, to find it vacant, too. He stood for a moment, mystified, anger in his eyes, but dismay, fear, doubt clutching at his heart. What did this mean? He went hastily from one to another of the suite of luxurious rooms devoted to her especial use, but in none save one was any token of her recent presence. He stood staring at the disarray. There was the gown of lavender gauze that she had donned for the opera, lying on a chair, while the silk slip that it had covered lay huddled on the floor. The slippers, hastily thrust off, tripped his unwary step as he advanced into the room. On the dressing table, glittering with a hundred articles of toilet luxury, lay the two strings of costly pearls “where anyone might have stolen them”; he mechanically reproved her lack of precaution. He strove to reassure himself, to contend against a surging sense of calamity. What did this signify? Only that the festivity of the evening relinquished she had laid aside her gala attire. Her absence—it was early—she might have gone out with some visitor; she might have cared to make some special call, so seldom did they have an evening unoccupied. Despite the incongruity of the idea with the recollection of her pale, drawn, agonized face, the frenzy of her grief and rage, he took down the receiver of the telephone and called up Hildegarde Dean. The moment the connection was completed he regretted his folly. Over the wire came the vibrations of a string-orchestra, and he recalled having noticed in the society columns of the papers that Miss Dean was entertaining with a dinner dance to compliment a former schoolmate. He had lost his poise sufficiently, nevertheless, to make the query, “Is Mrs. Floyd-Rosney there?” and had the satisfaction to be answered by the butler, in the pomp and pride of the occasion: “No, sah. Dis entertainment is exclusively for unmarried people.”

“The devil it is!” Floyd-Rosney exclaimed, after, however, cautiously releasing the receiver.

His fuming humor was heightened by this contretemps, although a great and growing dismay was vaguely shadowed in his eyes, like a thought in the back of the mind, so to speak, too unaccustomed, too preposterous, to find ready expression. He endeavored to calm himself, although he lost no time in prosecuting his investigations. With a hasty hand he touched the electric bell for his wife’s maid and impatiently awaited the response. To his surprise it was not prompt. He stood amidst his incongruous surroundings of gowns, and jewels, and slippers, and laces, and revolving panels of mirrors, frowning heavily. How did it chance that her service should be so dilatory? He placed his forefinger on the button and held it there, and the jangling was still resounding below stairs when the door slowly opened and the maid, with an air of affronted inquiry, presented herself. Her face changed abruptly as she perceived the master of the house, albeit it was like pulling a cloak of bland superserviceableness over her lineaments of impudent protest.

“What do you mean by being so slow to answer this bell?” he thundered, his angry eyes contemptuously regarding her.

“I came as soon as I heard it, sir. I think there must be something wrong with the annunciator.”

“What do you mean by leaving your mistress’s gowns lying around, and her room in this disorder?”

The girl’s beady eyes traveled in bewilderment from one article to another of the turmoil of toilet accessories scattered about the apartment. She had looked for a moment as if she would fire up at the phrase “your mistress,” and she said with a slight emphasis on the title:

“I didn’t know that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had changed.”

“Where has she gone?”

Once more a dull and genuine bewilderment on the maid’s face.

“I am sure, sir, I don’t know—she didn’t ring for me.”

“I reckon you didn’t answer the bell,” Floyd-Rosney sneered. “She couldn’t wait forever. She hasn’t my patience.”

The girl glowered at his back, but, mindful of the mirrors, forbore the grimace so grateful in moments of disaffection to her type.

Floyd-Rosney was speaking through the house telephone.

“Have the limousine at the door—yes—immediately.”

The ready response of the chauffeur came over the wire.

“Now see what gown she wore, so that I can guess where to send for her. A nice business this is—that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney can’t get hold of her maid to change her dress and leave a message. I don’t doubt there is a note somewhere, if I could find it.”

He affected to toss over the mÉlange on the dressing-table. He even looked at the evening paper lying on the foot-rest, which she had read while her hair was being dressed for the opera.

As he did so an item of personal mention caught his attention. Mr. Randal Ducie was in the city, doubtless in connection with the gathering of planters to consult with the Levee Commission in regard to river protection. A meeting would be held this evening at the Adelantado Hotel.

This was the most natural thing in the world. Half the planters in the river bottom were in active coÖperation seeking to influence the Levee Commission, or the State Legislature, or the Federal Government to take some adequate measures to prevent the inundation of their cotton lands by a general overflow of the great Mississippi River, according to the several prepossessions relative to the proper plans, and means, and agency to that end.

But as he read the haphazard words of the paragraph the blood flared fiercely in Floyd-Rosney’s face; a fire glowed in his eyes, hot and furious; his hand was trembling; his breath came quick. And he was well nigh helpless even to conjecture if his wife’s absence had aught of connection with this ill-starred appearance of the lover of her girlhood. He—Edward Floyd-Rosney, baffled, hoodwinked, set at naught! Could this thing be!

For one moment, for one brief moment, he upbraided himself. But for his tyranny in sending off the child without her consent, without even consulting her, but for his determination that, willing or no, she should expatriate herself for a year, and, with neither husband nor child, tour a foreign country in company of his selection they might already be seated in their box at the opera, rapt by the concord of sweet sounds in the midst of the most elegant and refined presentment of their world, at peace with each other and in no danger of damaging and humiliating revelations of domestic discord.

He heard the puffing of the limousine at the curb below the windows, and he turned to the maid.

“I can find no scrape of a pen—no note here. Do you know what gown she wore?”

The girl had made a terrifying discovery. As she fingered the skirts hanging in the wardrobe, for she had thought first of the demi-toilette of usual evening wear, she was reflecting on the gossip below stairs, where it was believed that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had not known of the departure of her little son till he was out of the house, and where it was surmised she would be all “tore up” when she should discover his absence—so much she made of the boy. Aunt Dorothy had been given permission to spend the night with her granddaughter who lived on the opposite side of the river, a favorite excursion with the ancient colored retainer. She was not popular with the coterie below stairs, and, being prone to report what went amiss, would certainly have notified her young mistress if any attempt had been made to spirit away the child while in her charge. The maid had found naught missing from among the dresses most likely to be worn on any ordinary occasion in the evening, and she was turning away reluctantly to examine the boxes in the closet where were stored those gowns of grander pretension, designed for functions of special note. She had a discontented frown on her face, for they were enveloped, piece by piece, in many layers of tissue paper; she could not ascertain what was there and what was gone, from the wrappers, save by actual investigation; among them were sachets of delicate perfumes that must not be mixed; they had trains and draperies difficult to fold, and berthas and sashes that must be laid in the same creases as before—a job requiring hours of work, and useless, for no gown of this sort could have been worn without assistance in dressing, and for an occasion long heralded. As she closed the wardrobe with a pettish jerk it started open the other door, and she paused with an aghast look on her face. She was afraid of Mr. Floyd-Rosney when he was angry.

“She has worn her coat-suit of taupe broadcloth,” she said in a bated voice, and with a wincing, deprecatory glance at him, “and the hat to match.”

Floyd-Rosney received this information in silence. Then—“Why do you look like that, you fool?” he thundered.

“’C—c—cause,” stuttered the girl, “she has taken her suit-case—it was always kept on the shelf here, packed with fresh lingerie, so she might be ready for them quick little auto trips you like to go on so often, and her walking boots is gone”—holding up a pair of boot-trees,—“and,” opening a glove box, “the suÈde taupe gloves is gone.” Her courage asserted itself; her temper flared up. “And it seems to me, Mr. Floyd-Rosney, that if there’s any fool here, ’taint me!”

“You will be paid your wages to-morrow,” foamed Floyd-Rosney, dashing from the room. “Clear out of the house.”

“Just as well,” the girl said to the gaping servants downstairs, who remonstrated with her for her sharp tongue, reproaching her with throwing away a good place, liberal wages and liberal fare. “Just as well. If there’s to be no lady there’s no use for a lady’s maid.”

“To the Union Station,” Floyd-Rosney hissed forth as he flung himself into the limousine. In the transit thither he took counsel within himself. Where could Paula be going?—Only on some fantastic quest for her child. He ran over, in his mind, any hint that he might have let drop as to the locality where he had bestowed him, and she, putting two and two together, had fancied she had discovered the place. If, by any coincidence, she had hit upon the boy’s domicile, he told himself, he would make no protest; he would let her have her way; he would give the world for all to be between them as it was this afternoon. As to the lawsuit—let come what might! If only he could intercept her in this mad enterprise; if he could reach her before she took the train! He called through the speaking tube to the chauffeur to go faster.

“Never mind the speed limit—do all you know how!”

Presently the great vehicle slowed up, panting and sizzling as if winded in the race. He sprang out before it had ceased to move and rushed up the stairs, patrolling the various apartments, the ladies’ waiting room, the refreshment room—he remembered that she could have had no dinner—the general ante-room, with its crowd of the traveling public. He was a notable figure, with his splendid appearance, his fur-lined overcoat, his frowning, intent brow, his long, swift stride.

All in vain—she was not there. The clamor of the train that was making ready for departure struck his absorbed attention. The place was full of the odor of the bituminous smoke from the locomotive; he heard the panting of the steam exhaust.

Floyd-Rosney rushed down the stairs and into the great shed which seemed, with its high vaulted roof, clouded with smoke dull and dim, despite the glare here and there of electric lights. He was stopped in the crowd at the gate. He had no ticket—money could not buy it here. He explained hastily that he wished to see a friend off. The regulations were stringent, the functionary obdurate; the crowd streaming through the gate disposed to stare, and a burly policeman, lounging about, regarded the insistent swell with an inimical glare. For there are those dressed like swells that are far from that puffed-up estate.

The suggestion calmed Floyd-Rosney for the nonce. It needed but this, he felt, to complete his folly—to involve himself in a futile fracas with a gateman and a cop. Moreover, he had no justification in fancying that Paula was likely to take a train—in fact, and he smiled grimly, she would not have the cash to buy a ticket. The whole theory that she might quit the city was a baseless fabrication of his fears, of the disorder of his ideas induced by the vexatious and unexpected contretemps. Doubtless, by this time she had returned from the stroll or the call, or whatever device she had adopted to quiet her spirit and divert her mind, he argued—he himself had found refreshment in a brisk walk in the night air—and was now sitting before the fire at home, awaiting his coming, possibly willing to discuss the matter in a more amicable frame of mind.

He was about to turn aside when suddenly down the line of rails within the shed and between the train standing still and the one beginning to move, the metallic clangor of its bell insistently jarring the air, he saw the figure of Paula, visible in the glare of the headlight of the locomotive beside her. Every detail was as distinct, as illuminated as in the portrayal of a magic lantern—her taupe gown, her hat with a plume of the same shade, her face flushed, laughing and eager. A man was assisting her to mount the platform of the coach and in him Floyd-Rosney was sure he recognized Randal Ducie, whose arrival in the city he had noted in the evening paper. The whole maneuver of boarding the train,—the placing of the stool by the porter, Paula’s failure to reach from it to the step of the car, the swift muscular effort by which Ducie seized her, swung her to the platform, and then sprang upon it himself,—was all as plain to the frenzied man watching the vanishing train from between the palings of the gate as if the scene had been enacted within ten feet of him.