When tea was over Mrs. Postlewaite arose.

"Come around soon and see me, Stephanie!" she smiled, and with an intimately gracious nod, she resumed her progress down the piazza.

"Where is Gladys?" Pendleton asked.

"On the other side, playing Auction, I think; don't disturb her, Montague—and if you will call my car, I'll go home. I've had about enough excitement for one afternoon." She breathed a sigh of intense relief. "The last is very gratifying, isn't it, my friend?"

"Mrs. Postlewaite and Mrs. Porterfield, of all others!" exclaimed Pendleton. "The best witnesses you could possibly have. It's too lucky for words! Your rehabilitation is effected and Porshinger is undone. He will be cut by everyone and expelled from the Clubs. It is a social Waterloo for him."

"But it doesn't relieve you of his revenge," she objected. "It will make him all the more determined to square off."

"Don't let that bother you, dear—I mean, Stephanie!" he laughed. "You're free of him—he won't try his dirty tricks on you—and I'm a man, and it doesn't matter. I can meet him half way and then some. In fact, I'm hoping he will be kind enough to give me the opportunity."

"I'm afraid for you, Montague—indeed I'm afraid!" she repeated.

"Nonsense, little woman. Don't you worry about me—I tell you there is no need. You're out of it now.—I admit I was mightily concerned for you; that is why I didn't favor Gladys' and your scheme to placate him: because it involved you. He could have made it most unpleasant—as he did—and as he didn't, thanks to Mrs. Postlewaite."

He put her in her car, with the courteous deference he always had for a woman—were she but a beggar who accosted him on the street—and which was always just a shade more courteous and more deferential to her.

"When shall I see you again?" he asked, as he bent over her hand.

"This evening, if you wish!" she smiled, with just the faintest pressure of her fingers.

"You are very good," he murmured. "I most assuredly do wish."

"I'll expect you then—at nine, Montague. I want to—talk over—matters—Amherst, you know."

"At nine!" he answered, and the car rolled away.

Pendleton went in through the Club-house, and out again on the east piazza where Miss Chamberlain was playing Auction. She saw him coming and motioned to a chair beside her. Mrs. Postlewaite was a little way off, holding her usual court. Gladys glanced toward her and smiled.

"We all know it, Montague," she said. "Everyone in the Club-house and on the links knows it—and it has been telephoned to town, I dare say: Mrs. Postlewaite asked Stephanie to have tea with her here. It's the sensation of the—year."

"And for a sensation mighty satisfactory," Pendleton returned.

"Those of us who have been for Stephanie all through can take courage—our course has been approved by the ultimate authority," Gladys observed. "If we hadn't been staunch for our friend, the Queen wouldn't have come around."

"She'll hear you, Gladys," warned Mrs. Burleston.

"Let her—I would confide the same thing to her, if she asked me.—I've never come under her authority. I'll double your three hearts, Helen."

"By!" said Miss Tazewell, after a pause to consider whether she should take her partner out of it.

"By!" said Miss Rutledge promptly.

"I'll go back—your lead, Gladys," said Mrs. Burleston.

There was silence until the last card fell—Mrs. Burleston had made good her contract.

"That's ninety-six below, and a hundred above, and simple honors," said Miss Chamberlain, as she put down the score. "You had a bully hand, Helen."

On the next deal, Miss Rutledge was the declarant. Gladys spread out her cards; then, with a significant look at Pendleton, arose and moved out to the rail.

"What else have you to tell me?" she said, as he joined her.

"How did you know?" he smiled.

"I guessed it—from your manner!" she laughed. "A woman's intuition, if you please."

"It's more than tea for Stephanie," he said. "You have only part of it.—The Porshinger matter is won."

"He has plead guilty!" she marvelled.

"Better than that."

"What—better! How can that be?"

"Mrs. Postlewaite and Mrs. Porterfield witnessed the whole episode, and have voluntarily come to Stephanie's assistance—to deny Dolittle's story, and with an offer to testify against Porshinger."

"Oh, delightful!" Gladys cried. "The Queen P's actually witnessed the whole occurrence?"

"Yes—from the little balcony which, you know, runs along one side of the conservatory."

"Does Lorraine know it?"

"No."

"Where is Stephanie?"

"Gone home."

She looked at him thoughtfully.

He looked at her and smiled.

"I'm sorry for you, Montague.—Lorraine will be the more determined than ever on a reconciliation."

"I've a bit more news," he replied seriously. "I was so pleased with the Postlewaite matter it clean escaped me, for the moment.—I've just heard that Amherst is back."

"Here—in town!" she cried.

"So I understand—he arrived this morning."

She held up her hands helplessly.

"What a complication!" she breathed.—"What will Lorraine do, do you suppose?"

"I give it up," he replied, with a shake of his head. "No one can depend on him for anything—but if he is still of the mind he was this afternoon, it would be just as well for him and Amherst not to meet."

"We're waiting, Gladys!" came Mrs. Burleston's voice.

"Coming!" Gladys replied.—"You'll do your best to keep them apart, Montague?"

"Yes—I'll do what I can; but I may have a devil of a job, and then not succeed. Lorraine's himself again, you know—which means he is as erratic as a crazy man. However——"

"Where is he now, do you know?"

"He said he was tired and was going home."

"Then let us hope he'll stay there until morning," she said.

"And that some kind friend won't call him up and put him wise," he added—and they went back to the game.

"Montague, will you either stay here or go away—far away, that is," Dorothy Tazewell requested—"down to the grill-room would be about right."

"Wherefore this happy consideration!" Pendleton laughed.

"So we can continue our game, stupid, without the attendant interruption of having Gladys desert us every time she's dummy."

"By which I might infer——" Pendleton began.

"Whatever you wish that is complimentary—or otherwise; it's a free for all.—Two royal!" and she smiled at him with roguish demureness.

"I'm squelched," said he, with affected sadness. "I was just about to ask you all to take dinner with me here this evening, but of course it is out of the question now. I'm awfully sorry it happened, you know. It's the——"

"Go 'long with you, Montague!" Mrs. Burleston exclaimed. "How can one remember the cards while that sirenly seductive voice of yours is playing on the diapason."

"Yes, run along, Montague!" agreed Dorothy—"or you'll have to pay my losses; it's a quarter of a cent a point, too, and I can't afford to lose."

"Me for the tall timber," he declined.

"Mercy! Montague," Gladys exclaimed. "One would think you were Warwick Devereux."

"I was wondering if anyone would recognize the impersonation!" Pendleton laughed.—"What is it," he asked, as a servant stopped beside him and stood at attention.

"Mr. Cameron is waiting in the grill-room, sir," the man replied.

Pendleton nodded in dismissal.

"How about having the dinner to-morrow evening?" he asked.—"Good! That's very nice indeed—will seven-thirty be convenient? All right—seven-thirty it is."

The grill was comfortably filled; the talk was of but one subject:—Amherst's return, what it signified and what would follow.

"It's too late to kill him," said Devonshire, as Pendleton entered the room, "but if I were Lorraine, I should get me a good hefty raw-hide and beat him within an inch of his life, paying particular attention to his handsome face. When I was through with him there wouldn't be much beauty left, I can tell you."

"But can Lorraine do it—has he the strength?" asked Smithers.

"In such a case the rightness of his cause would give him strength," Devonshire returned—"and any decent chap who was handy would lend him assistance if it was needed."

"The trouble is with Lorraine himself, I think," Carstairs remarked. "It isn't that he hasn't the nerve, but that he hasn't the determination, the stability, the something essential in the man who does. I fancy he has changed his mind on the subject of what to do in this matter as often as he has changed his clothes. He is a queer compound—none other like him."

"And yet he is a mighty attractive fellow at times," Smithers observed.—"It wasn't until this Amherst affair that he revealed anything particularly vacillating."

"He never before had occasion to reveal it," Devonshire explained. "The trial came—and he wasn't equal to it. Some of us might not be equal to it either, if we were in similar case. It's a mighty difficult case, my friends. Moreover, Lorraine has done the decent thing now—he is anxious for a reconciliation."

"It's decent, after a fashion," Smithers agreed—"it would be decenter if he first followed your notion and beat up Amherst—beat him until he couldn't walk; half killing would be about right, to my mind."

"This is all very well by way of discussion but what by way of prophecy?" said Carstairs. "I'll lay a bottle of wine that Lorraine doesn't do a damn thing."

"So will I," Smithers agreed. "That is why Amherst has the courage to come back. He despises the man he has wronged."

"He may be fooled," said Devonshire.

"I trust he will be," Carstairs remarked—"but I doubt mightily."

"You hear what they are saying, Pendleton?" Cameron asked, with a jerk of his head toward the other table.

"I hear," said Pendleton. "Have you seen Lorraine today?"

"No—only talked with him over the telephone."

"He hasn't heard of Amherst's return?"

"He didn't mention it."

"The evening papers will likely have it."

"I suppose so—I didn't know of it until I came up here—where it's the event of the day."

"You can't much blame them—knowing all the circumstances and the parties as club-mates do."

"What do you think Lorraine will do—anything?" asked Cameron.

Pendleton carefully knocked the ashes from his cigarette and studied the bare coal a moment.

"I think," said he slowly, "that it would be just as well for Amherst to keep out of Lorraine's way."

"You do?" said Cameron quietly. "Why?"

"Because Lorraine seems to have become possessed of two ideas—and like all weak men he is becoming obsessed by them. One idea is to effect a reconciliation with Stephanie; the other is to be revenged on Amherst. I have tried to persuade him that if he would do Stephanie a service, he must do Amherst no physical hurt—it would simply revive the scandal and react upon her, and probably terminate any chance he has to have her return to him."

"What chance has he?" Cameron asked. "None, to my mind."

"Not the slightest in the world, to my mind either," Pendleton replied. "But the question now is, I think, which idea will prevail:—the hope of reconciliation with Stephanie, or vengeance on Amherst. I admit I won't even attempt to predict. It will depend on the circumstances of the moment."

"With the chances in favor of violence," said Cameron instantly. "I fear it—I've feared it ever since Stephanie's return. Why the devil does Lorraine do everything too late?"

"It is the nature of the animal, I suppose. Some men seem to do everything backward."

"What do you say to both of us going to see him after dinner, and—well, trying what we can do? He may listen to us."

"If you wish I'll go—but I've given him my views on it once to-day; and while he seemed to agree, I know it was only half-heartedly. However, it will do no harm for you to go.—Amherst's return may have set him wild. Lorraine at his worst is a crazy irresponsible—and I'm rather inclined to look for the worst."

"Very good!" said Cameron. "Now about this miserable Porshinger affair. We——"

"The Porshinger affair is easy," Pendleton interrupted. "Mrs. Postlewaite has cleared that up beautifully—and Stephanie also."

"What!" exclaimed Cameron, "Mrs. Postlewaite?"

Pendleton nodded.

"Mrs. Postlewaite and Mrs. Porterfield were witnesses of Porshinger's assault on Stephanie," he replied—and he told the story.

When it was finished, Cameron's face wore a most satisfied smile.

"It is the end of Porshinger!"—he laughed, "he is busted for good. The case will never come to trial. Stephanie is completely vindicated by Mrs. Postlewaite's story. She need never think of him again. She has been a bit foolish in her conduct toward him, but that is only a passing matter, and will be lost in the general satisfaction at his complete discomfiture. What a fool he was—to risk his social life on a single throw!"

"He didn't imagine he was risking it," Pendleton rejoined. "He thought that she was dazzled by his money and quite ready to be his. The fellow is simply drunk with his financial success. He thinks anything is within his reach; that it is simply a matter of price, and he has the price. As between him and Amherst there is mighty little choice. Amherst is a seducer; Porshinger is a purchaser who trades on the other's crime to procure a victim."

"The truth is, Lorraine would be justified in killing both," Cameron declared.

"I think that I should start with Porshinger," said Pendleton—"to me he is the more contemptible and the more criminal. To try to drag a woman down after she has made a mistake, and is endeavoring to make amends for the past! Such a man is a monster."

"You're right!" said Cameron, "right as gospel! And yet Lorraine may not—because in Amherst's case he dallied too long, and in Porshinger's, the law would view it as absolutely unjustifiable."

"Oh, surely!" Pendleton responded, "I know that you're not recommending violence—just stating what, to my mind as well as to yours, the circumstances warrant."

"I wanted to discuss Lorraine's case with you, but it isn't necessary now," Cameron remarked. "Porshinger will be only too glad if it is dropped. Lorraine can't object, for Stephanie is cleared of Dolittle's nasty story."

"Our trouble, it seems, isn't any longer with Porshinger, but with Amherst and Lorraine—either to keep them apart or to persuade the latter to be sensible," Pendleton observed. "I confess that, if it were not for Stephanie, I wouldn't meddle in the affair. They might go their own gait. I'm disgusted with Lorraine."

"I don't blame you," the other nodded. "But, you see, Lorraine is a client of mine and I've always been fond of him, though naturally I don't approve of his course with Stephanie."

"You can go to him this evening—I shall refrain," Pendleton decided. "If you need me for anything, I'll be at the Mourrailles'. For heaven's sake! don't tell him—he may veer around and get notions as to me.—Let us have dinner. Shall I order, or do you want anything in particular?"

"Only a pint of Sparkling Burgundy—anything will do for the rest," Cameron answered. Then he raised his hand for the captain of the waiters. "Will you please have Mr. Lorraine telephoned at his apartments that I'll be in to see him on an important matter at eight o'clock this evening."