As it afterwards appeared, Dugald Maule, on leaving the Usselex house the preceding evening, had gone directly to the Assembly. On arriving, he went up through the ferns to the vestiary, left his coat and hat, and while putting on his gloves, gazed down from the balcony which Lander occupies to the ball-room below.

A quadrille was in progress; a stream of willowy girls, fresh for the better part, well-dressed and exceptionally plain, were moving about the floor. They seemed serene and stupid, chattering amiably through pauses of the dance; and beneath, on the dais, Maule divined the presence of Mrs. Manhattan, Mrs. Hackensack, Mrs. Bouvery, the Coenties, and other ladies of maturer years. He was sure they were smiling and fanning themselves. They always were. And presently, when his gloves were buttoned, he fell to wondering what he was doing there. The incidents of the evening had supplied him with a quantum of thought which he had no desire to dispense in platitude. He was not at all in a mood to mingle with those whose chiefest ambition was to be ornate. In another minute he recovered his coat, and to the surprise of the door-keeper went down through the ferns again. In the memory of man no one before had ever come to a subscription-ball and deserted it two minutes later. He must be ill, Johnson reflected, and went on collecting tickets.

Maule, however, was not in any sense indisposed, and as evidence of it he walked far up Fifth Avenue, and on through the outskirts of the Park. It was his intention, self-avowed and dominant, that he would come to some decision in regard to Eden before that walk was done.

Like many another before and since, he found his brain most active when his legs were in motion. In working up a case for a client, many a time during an entire day he had reviewed dust-bound books of yellow hue, but the one point, the clinching argument that was to arrest attention and win the cause, came to him in the exhilaration of the open air. The inspiration that was to coÖrdinate conflicting data rarely visited him at his desk. It was in the fatigue of the flesh that his mind became clairvoyant. It was then that he found the logic for his brief. And on this particular evening, as he strode along he kept telling himself that in all his practice there had been nothing to him as important as this. It was his own case that he was preparing; and did it result in failure, how could he venture to undertake one in which the interest would be feigned and the recompense coin? If he could not plead his own case and win, then might he take his shingle down.

The facts, such, at least, as they appeared to him, were evangelical in their simplicity. Here was a girl who had given him her heart's first love, a girl who had exalted him into an ideal, and then, suspecting him of infidelity to her, had married the next comer out of pique. No sooner did he have a chance of exchanging speech with her than she confessed that she hated her husband.

"Now," he reflected, "when a woman takes a man sufficiently into her confidence to admit that she hates her husband, that admission is tantamount to an avowal of love for him. Such admission she has made to me. Nothing conceivable could have been more explicit than her words." And at the memory of them he nodded sagaciously to himself. "No other girl," he continued, "no other in all the world, is as desirable as she. St. Denis would have hypothecated his aureole to possess her. As I sat with her to-night I felt mediÆval from ears to heel. If our age were a century or two younger I would have carried her off to a crenelated castle, let down the draw-bridge, and defied the law. But my apartment in the Cumberland is hardly a donjon; a hansom is not a vehicle suited to an elopement; Lochinvar is out of fashion; and besides, she would not have gone. No, she would not have gone; so the other objections are immaterial. But then, there are girls who will not go at the asking, but who will come without instigation. And Eden, I take it, is one of them. It was six months before she would so much as let me touch the tips of her fingers; she was afraid of a kiss as of a bee; and at the very moment when I had given her up she threw herself in my arms: it is true, she never repeated the performance, which was a pity; though had it not been for that little affair of mine, we should in all probability be man and wife to-night. After all, it is for the best, I suppose." And again he nodded sagaciously.

"Yes," he repeated, "it is for the best. Someone—Shakspere, Martin Luther, Tupper, or Chauncey Depew—said that there were some good marriages, but none that were delicious; and I daresay that whoever said it was right. Yes, certainly it is for the best. It may be sweet and decorous, as I used to write in my copy-book, to die for one's native land; but I will be shot if it is sweet and decorous to marry for it. And practically that is what it amounts to. Men marry for the sake of others, rarely for their own, and as for women, whatever their reasons may be, plaudite sed cavite, cives! Eden, I am positive, married out of pique. It is nonsense to think that she could have any large affection for a man twice her age; and now that she is not only tired of him, but hates him to boot, he ought to be gentlemanly enough not to play the dog in the manger. No, it isn't that. I will admit that he is well enough in his way, provided that way is out of mine. The difficulty is that he doesn't seem to keep out of hers. Major premiss, then—Eden-hates Usselex. Minor premiss—Usselex keeps her from me. Ergo. Eliminate Usselex, and she is mine. The logic of that is admirable; the only fault with it is that it doesn't give a hint as to the manner in which Usselex is to be eliminated. He may eliminate himself, it is true; but that is a possibility that it is hardly worth while to count on. And, meanwhile, I know Eden well enough to be aware that until he does she will decline to listen to me."

Maule had reached the upper part of the Avenue. The night was chill and clear as our December nights are apt to be. There was a foretaste of snow in the air, and in that foretaste a tonic. And suddenly the cathedral loomed, huge, yet unsteepled, as though the designers had lost heart in its carcass and faith as well. The sky seemed remote and unneighborly. In the background the moon glinted in derision, and directly overhead was a splatter of callous stars.

The scene did not divert the channel of his thoughts. He walked steadily on, leaving behind him the dogma that time had fossilized and man had forgot. He was indifferent to creeds. The apathy of the stars told him nothing of worlds to which our own is unknown. In the derision of the moon he did not see the sneer of a sphere that is dead. The foretaste of snow in the air brought him no memory of the summer that had gone, and when he reached the park the leafless trees that spring would regarment left him unimpressed. The identity of birth and death, the aimlessness of all we undertake, were matters to which he had never given a thought. And had the beggar who presently accosted him been a thinker capable of explaining that life is an exhalation, that we respire, aspire, and expire, unconscious as is the tree of the futility of it all, Dugald Maule would have dismissed him with the same indifferent shrug. He was instinct with aims that end with self. His mind was centered on Eden, and until he solved the problem she had suggested, he had no thought of time that life devours or of time that devours life.

And as he tried to devise some form of campaign, suddenly he was visited by an idea which he grasped and detained. It was, that if Eden hated her husband a cause for that hatred must exist, and could he but discover it he would then have something tangible wherewith to work. Certainly, he told himself, it could not be money; nor did Usselex look like a man that drank. "I wonder," he mused, "whether it can be that he treats her badly. H'm. I know very little about Usselex. He may be Chesterfield one hour and Sykes the next. There are plenty of men of that stamp. If he is, that poor little thing deserves consolation. No, it can hardly be that—Eden is too high-spirited to submit to brutality. She would leave him at once, and everyone would approve. Whereas, if Usselex has got himself entangled by some woman, Eden, out of sheer pride, would remain where she is. Nothing can be more galling than the pity which is manifested for a woman whose husband disports himself abroad. It is shameful, the world says; and inwardly the world thinks, when a woman wins a man and fails to hold him, the fault is not his, but hers. Eden understands that, of course, and if there is a woman in the matter, that is the reason why she continues to reside on the sunnyside of Fifth Avenue. But then, it may not be that. I may be miles away. Though if it is, nothing could be more favorable. It would be becoming of Eden to keep her misfortune to herself, but it would be unwomanly on her part not to desire revenge; and what better revenge could she have against the man whom she married out of pique than in the arms of the man by whom that pique was excited? But, bah! All this is pure conjecture. I haven't a fact to go on. I know little or nothing of Usselex, and I doubt very much whether Eden would be willing to supply me with any information. The only thing for me to do is to cull a few facts, season them to suit her taste, and serve hot. At this stage a false step would be fatal. I must be careful of my cookery. To-morrow, in the absence of facts, I will see what I can do in the way of condiments; et alors, en route pour CythÈre."

So mused Mr. Maule; then, having reached the end of his tether, he turned back again in the direction of his home.

The next morning, however, the plan of campaign which he had been devising was not a whit more tangible to him than it had been during his midnight stroll. He drank some coffee hopefully, and tried to lose himself in a damp copy of the Times. But in vain. The coffee brought him no comfort, and through the columns of the paper came the sultriness of Eden's eyes. The obituary of a famous general failed to detain his attention. The intelligence that an emperor was moribund lent no zest to the day. Mechanically his eyes scanned the Court Calendar; a case in which he was to appear was numbered therein, but he let it pass unnoticed. And presently, finding himself occupied in memorizing the advertisement of a new soap, he tossed the paper from him and started on his way down town.

It was late when he reached his office. In the corner of the room a fat little man sat patiently twirling his thumbs, and on a desk were a number of letters.

"What do you want?" Maule asked. His voice was gruff and inhospitable.

The fat little man started, and then fumbled in a pocket. "Dere was dot morhgige——" he began.

"Come again, then," Maule interrupted; "I am busy."

"Dot morhgige—" the little man persisted.

"Go to hell with your mortgage," Maule shouted, and slammed a door in his face.

This rite accomplished, he felt better. The brutality which he had displayed to the corpulent dwarf pleasured him. He only regretted that the man had not insisted further, that he might have kicked him down the stairs. What was a mortgage to him, forsooth, when he had Eden for a goal? The episode, trivial though it was, had stirred his pulse and left the effect of a tonic. He smiled, and opened his letters. As he read them his clerk appeared. With him he consulted for a minute and then started for court. On his return there was the little fat man again, and beating a tatoo on the window was Reginald Maule, ex-Minister to France.

"Well, Uncle Regy," he exclaimed, "how are you? Mr. Driscoll," he called out to the clerk, "attend to that Dutch beast, will you? Uncle Regy, step this way."

He led Mr. Maule into the inner office and graciously accepted a cigar. He was in great good-humor again. While in court a luminous idea had visited him, a plan of campaign which he proposed to elaborate at his ease. It was alluring as spring, and instinct with promises of success. Already he roamed in dreams forecast.

"Dugald," the uncle began, "I did not see you at the Matriarch's, last night."

Until recently Maule had not seen his uncle for several years. But during these years the uncle had not changed. He had the same agreeable manner, the same way of seating himself, the same sarcastic fold about his lips which Maule remembered of old. Even the cut of his waistcoat was unaltered. Apparently nothing had happened to him; he had contented himself with continuing to be.

"No," the nephew answered, and flicked the ashes from his cigar. "No, something else turned up and——"

"Exactly. If I had met you there I should not have come here. Now, I want a word with you in regard to the estate. Are you busy?" And the ex-Minister settled himself in his chair with the air of a man confident that, whatever else might demand attention, his own affairs would take precedence.

Thereupon, for some little time, nephew and uncle discussed matters of personal and common interest; and when at last these matters had been satisfactorily determined, the afternoon had begun to wane. At last the ex-Minister stood up to go.

"By the way," he said, his hand on the door, "who was it that Petrus Menemon's daughter married? I looked for her last night. When I saw her at the opera I could have sworn it was her mother. Same type, same eyes, same carriage of the head. She made me feel twenty years younger, I give you my word she did."

"She is pretty," Maule answered, negligently.

"Pretty? She is more intoxicating than the dream of a fallen angel. She is better looking than her mother. Hum, hum. You don't see such women in France. What did you say her name is?"

"She married a man named Usselex."

"Usselex? What Usselex?"

"What Usselex I can't tell you. But there seems to be only one, and she caught him. He has more money than Incoul, Jerolomon, and Bleecker Bleecker put together."

"You don't mean John Usselex, the banker?"

"Oh, but I do, though."

The ex-Minister opened the door and looked out into the outer room, then, assured that no one was listening, he resumed his former seat, crossed his legs, and meditatively beat his knee. In his face was an expression which a psychologist would have admired, a commingling of the vatic and the amused, accentuated by sarcasm.

"Well, what of it?" Maule asked shortly, perplexed at the mummery.

The ex-Minister leaned forward and for four or five minutes addressed his nephew in a monotone. As he spoke Maule's perplexity changed to surprise, then to bewilderment, and ultimately into jubilation. "Are you positive of this?" he exclaimed. "Tell me that you are. You must be positive!"

"I give you the facts—"

"I am off, then;" and he sprang from his seat. "I haven't a minute to lose," he added; and taking his uncle by the arm he led him from the office.

In the outer room the corpulent dwarf still sat. "Dere was dot morhgige—" he stammered.

"Accepted," Maule shouted, and turned to the clerk. "Look over the papers, will you? If they are right, get a check ready. As for you, my slim friend," he said to the German, "remember that business men have business hours." And laughing as though he had said something insultingly original, he hurried down the stairs, and jumping into a hansom, he presently rolled up town.

In a trifle over half an hour he was at Eden's door. "There is no time like the present," he told himself, as he rang the bell. But when, in answer to his ring, a servant appeared, he learned that Eden was not at home.

"Does Mrs. Usselex dine out, do you know?" Maule asked.

"I don't think Mrs. Usselex is coming back, sir," was the answer.

"You mean that Mrs. Usselex will not return until late, I suppose."

To this the man made no reply; he scratched the end of his nose reflectively. In his face was an expression that arrested Maule's attention.

"What do you mean?" he asked, a sudden suspicion entering his mind.

But still the man made no answer. He raised his arms, the elbows crooked, and assumed the appearance of an idiot.

"It is worth five dollars," Maule continued. "Here they are;" and with that he extended a bill of the nation, which the servant took, and then, glancing over his shoulder, whispered:

"Mrs. Usselex has gone to her father's, sir. I distrust something's hup."

"That man ought to be dismissed," Maule decided, as he hurried down the steps. "I say, cabby," he called to the hansom; "Second Avenue and Stuyvesant Square."

"Damn it all," he muttered, as he seated himself in the vehicle. "I am afraid I am late for the ball."

It took the hansom but a few minutes to reach its destination, and presently the door of Mr. Menemon's house was opened. As Maule entered he caught the sound of Eden's voice. "I want to see Mrs. Usselex," he said, and without waiting for a reply, he pushed the portiÈre aside.

"It is false," he heard Usselex exclaim.

For a second Maule hesitated. He would have preferred to have found Eden alone. Indeed, the possibility of encountering her husband had not occurred to him; but he felt that it was too late to recede, and visited by that prescience which comes to the alert, he divined that the blow which he intended to strike must be struck then or never. He let the portiÈre fall, and taking his courage in both hands, he stepped forward. As he did so, Eden, in annoyance at the intrusion, moved back, and Usselex, with a query on his tongue, turned to him. But before the latter could frame his words, Maule had spoken.

"Mr. Usselex," he said, with the air of one ventilating a conventional platitude, "are you aware that a man who insults a woman is a coward?"

At this speech Eden's hands fluttered like falling leaves; she made as would she speak, but Usselex motioned to her to be silent, and flicking a speck of dust from his sleeve as though the speck represented the reproof, he answered in a tone as conventional as Maule's. "And are you aware, sir, that a man who permits himself to interfere between husband and wife is—"

But whatever he may have intended to say, the sentence remained unfinished. Maule did not wait for its completion. He advanced yet nearer to where Usselex stood, he looked him in the face, and without raising his voice, he said: "This lady, Mr. Usselex, is not your wife, nor are you her husband." Then, turning to Eden, he added with the grace of a knight-errant, "Miss Menemon, allow me to present my congratulations."

The old legends tell of disputants ossified by one glance of Jove's avenging stare; and when Maule made his melodramatic announcement, both Usselex and Eden stood transfixed and motionless with surprise. Of the little group Maule alone preserved any semblance of animation. The palms of his hands were moist, and he felt unable to control one of the muscles of his face. But his emotion was not apparent. Outwardly he was perfectly self-possessed, and admonished by that instinct which at times warns us that every trace of feeling should be disguised, he succeeded in heightening the illusion by means of his moustache, to which he proceeded to give a negligent twirl.

And as he twirled it Eden seemed to recover from her stupor. To her face, which had been blanched, the color returned. In her eyes came a gleam as from a reflection caught from without. Her lips moved, and she glanced from accuser to accused. And as she glanced, dumb and ineffectual of speech, Mr. Menemon crossed the room.

"What is it you say?" he asked.

It was evident at once that of the scene—which if long in the telling had in reality not outlasted a moment—he had stood as witness.

"What is it you say?" he repeated.

"I say that this man is a bigamist." And as Maule spoke he tossed his head as though inviting possible contradiction. "I say," he continued, "that Mr. John Usselex has a wife living in Paris."

Mr. Menemon smoothed the back of his head reflectively. "Dear me!" he said; "that may all be. I daresay there are hundreds of John Usselexes. You don't expect them to remain bachelors because one of their name-sake gets married, do you?" And with that he nodded and turned with a smile to his daughter. "He can't expect that, Eden, can he?"

But Eden's eyes were fixed on Usselex. Her attention was wholly centered in him. Seemingly her father's words were unheeded. And the old gentleman turned again to Maule.

"What evidence have you that this John Usselex is the John Usselex of whom you speak?" he asked; and with the hand with which he had smoothed the back of his head, he now began to caress his chin.

But before Maule could answer, Eden caught her father by the arm. "His face!" she whispered quickly. "You can see it in his face." She pointed to him; in her eyes was conviction, and in her voice no tremor of doubt. "Look at him," she cried; "it is he."

Usselex turned to her in a manner which to those present was uninterpretable, then his eyes sought Mr. Menemon's, and finally he lowered them to the ground. His attitude was tantamount to admission, and as such Eden construed it.

"Thank God!" she exclaimed. "O God! I thank you. I am free." She still clutched her father's arm, and Maule made a movement toward her.

"Yes," he said, as he did so, "yes, Miss Menemon——"

But before he could reach her, Usselex barred the way. "By what right, sir—" he began, very firmly, but Eden interrupted him.

"I told you once that I thought Miss Bolten was interested in him. Let me tell you now he is in love with me."

"Eden, Eden—" her father murmured, reprovingly. Into Usselex' face came an expression that a demon might have envied. For a second he fronted Maule, his hand clenched. Then the fingers loosened again. The demon was transformed into a quiet, self-possessed man, that looked like a monk, a trifle valetudinarian at that.

"Madam," he said, "when a woman speaks in that way to the man whose name she bears, there is but one thing for him to do, and that is to withdraw." He bowed, and without further comment left the room.

"I don't bear your name," Eden called after him, but he had gone. "I don't bear your name; I throw it to the mud from which it sprang."

"And you are right, Miss Menemon," Maule echoed. "You are right to do so." And again he moved to her.

"Don't touch me," the girl cried; she was trembling. Evidently the excitement had been too much for her. "Don't touch me," she repeated; and drawing from him as from a distasteful thing, she added, with a look of scorn that an insulted princess might have exhibited: "Though you have not a lackey's livery, you have a lackey's heart."

"Eden, I beg of you—" Mr. Menemon began. But the girl had turned her back, and divining the uselessness of any admonition, the old gentleman addressed himself to Maule. "You will permit me to say, sir," he continued, "that whatever your motive may have been, and whatever evidence you may have, your announcement might have been conveyed a trifle less unceremoniously. I bid you good afternoon."

"But——"

"I bid you good afternoon."

Maule twirled his moustache for a second, and then, with a glance at Eden, he too left the room.

Hardly had he gone, when Eden threw herself on a lounge. In her ears was the roar of water displaced. The flooring turned from red to black. Then all was still; she had fainted.

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