For how long she was never quite sure Lucinda remained rooted in that moment, unseeing gaze steadfast to that door whose closing had been synchronous with the opening of another upon her understanding, to let in light, a revelation blinding and arrestive, upon the mirk of her distraction—that failure of self-confidence and determination which had come with realization, for the first time in her history, of inability to read her own heart and mind and guide her steps by such self-knowledge.

Thus posed she was found when Fanny, weary of knocking and getting no response, without more ceremony drifted in, a vision fair of impudent innocence in dainty organdie, the ravages of "oversleeping" perceptible in dim blue stains beneath eyes the more alluring for such underscoring; and with a start and a cry of solicitude perhaps a thought theatrical, convincing enough for all that, dropped parasol and handbag and ran to strain Lucinda tenderly to her bosom of an adolescent.

"You poor, dear darling!" she cooed—"no wonder you sounded so troubled over the telephone—and so sad! I couldn't imagine ... Why didn't you tell me?"

"How did you hear?" Lucinda evaded, gently extricating herself to disguise distaste for the sickly-sweet fragrance of Fanny's breath. "Who told you?"

"The papers, dearest: haven't you seen them?" Lucinda fell back a step, clasping her hands in sharp dismay: she had never once thought of the newspapers. "Screaming headlines on every page: one would think Lynn, poor dear! was the President of the United States lying at point of death from an assassin's bullet.... But what a frightful experience for you!"

"It was a shock," Lucinda assented in a murmur. Without conscious volition she found herself moving away to a window, as if to hide her emotion. "When I heard...." In private amazement she heard her voice break; and touching a handkerchief to her lips, said no more.

"Heard! but you were there, weren't you, when it happened?"

Still acting as if in deference to an authority outside herself, Lucinda, without withdrawing her gaze from the street—now basking in the calm gold of the belated sun—deliberately shook her head.

"When I found you and Harry weren't coming," she said—"I mean, when Lynn told me what you had telephoned, I came away. I thought it best, everything considered."

"Oh, how fortunate!"

But there was in that exclamation an undertone of disbelief clear enough to untrusting ears. And of a sudden Lucinda, while continuing to view with astonishment her duplicity, all unpremeditated as it had been, no more regretted it.

"Fortunate?" she breathed. "I don't know ... perhaps...."

Now too thoroughly enmeshed in tissue of involuntary falsehoods to extricate herself without confession, she collected her wits to deal with Fanny's breathlessly vollied questions; and found curious gratification in matching the texture of fact with strand after strand of fabrication, till at length the stuff of lies was woven in with and not to be distinguished from that of the truth. Mixed with which feeling was a sort of dull and angry wonder at herself, that she should be doing something so foreign to her every instinct, lying with such shameless artistry to the one true friend she had saved from the shipwreck of her old life—and this at the behest of the man who alone had been responsible for that disaster.

She had no more than reached home (she told Fanny) after refusing to stop at the bungalow for dinner alone with Summerlad, when Bel telephoned to tell her what had happened. Suspicious of Nelly's temper for days, Bel, upon her failure to keep a dinner engagement with him, had traced her to Beverly Hills, arriving just too late, if in time to be shot in the arm by Nelly when he tried to prevent her escape.

Determined to see Summerlad—not as yet comprehending the whole truth concerning his relationship to Nelly—Lucinda had instructed her chauffeur to leave her car at the side door of the Hollywood; meaning to drive secretly to Beverly Hills. But this she couldn't do till Bel kept his promise to call and give her all details. It was while they were talking that the car had disappeared. Bel had promptly reported the theft to the police, and that morning had called to tell Lucinda how sharp work had trailed it north along the Coastal Highway to the scene of Nelly's death.... Accident or suicide, who could say?...

At the same time Bel had begged her to make sure of Fanny's silence in respect of the aborted dinner party. It was unnecessary that Lucinda's name should be dragged into the case in any way, if it were she could hardly hope to come through with her incognita intact. She felt that she owed Bel that much consideration; it wasn't his fault she was still his wife. Not that she herself had any wish to court publicity in connection with the affair....

"But of course, darling! you know you can depend on me."

"I know; but I had to be sure. You see, you told Mr. Nolan last night I was due at the bungalow for dinner."

"But Cindy!" Fanny's wide eyes were a child's for candour—"that was before I knew there was any reason ... Mr. Nolan called up about nine, said he wanted to talk to Harry; and when I told him Harry was away on business (that was a lie—tell you presently) he guessed that Harry had come here to see you, and said he'd try to get in touch with him here. So I told him I believed you were dining out with Lynn; we'd all been invited, but Harry found he couldn't make it, at the last moment, so we begged off. That's how it happened."

"I fancied it was something like that," Lucinda commented, unsuspiciously enough but in a thoughtful tone open to misconstruction by an inquiet conscience.

"But surely you don't doubt my word, Cindy!"

"Why should I, dear?" Lucinda asked, smiling; and pausing in her restless, aimless circling of the room she dropped an affectionate hand on Fanny's shoulder. "What a silly notion!"

Fanny cuddled the hand to her cheek. "Forgive me, dear: I don't know why I said that. I suppose it's because I'm as much upset about my own affairs as you are about yours, Cindy—most of all about this shocking business, of course, and so sorry for you, dear——"

"Don't be sorry for me." Lucinda's fingers tightened on Fanny's. "Be glad I've learned a good lesson and had a fortunate escape. I ought to be glad the hurt's no worse...."

"Poor darling! you were fearfully fond of Lynn, weren't you?"

"Was I? I've been wondering. In love with Lynn, or just in love with Love: which? I'm afraid the shock of it all is too new for me to be sure as yet, but.... Oh, I'm sorry for Lynn, of course! but only as one would be for any acquaintance who was in pain and at death's door. But in the light of what I know now, of how Lynn lied to me, and how shamefully he treated that poor creature he married, it seems impossible I could ever have been in love, actually in love with such a man.... In love with being loved, yes, I'm afraid I shall never get better of that weakness; and so absurdly conscious that Lynn Summerlad, the great lover, had chosen me, I never stopped to consider him in comparison with other men. But I don't think I was in love with Lynn.... Or am I sincere? is what I'm saying just sophistry to salve my poor, sore vanity?"

She laughed consciously, then in swift variation of mood added a pensive, wistful note: "Fanny: Bel loves me...."

The countenance turned up to hers was quick with mirth: Fanny started to speak, gurgled rapturously, and broke down in laughter so infectious that Lucinda could not but respond, if ruefully.

"You great goose! if that's news to you, it's news to no one else."

"It is to me." Lucinda sobered. "Daresay I might have guessed if I'd been a wiser woman, but I wasn't, not till just now, when Bel was going away, after a wretched little squabble. Then something, I'm sure I don't know what...."

"I could have told you long ago, sweetest; in fact, I was only awaiting the right moment. I've been sounding Bel out, you may have noticed. There isn't anything one can teach him about flirting, Cindy, all the same there's only one woman in the world Bel can see."

"I'm sure of that," Lucinda agreed ... "just now."

"Cindy!" Fanny insisted, tugging at her hand—"tell me something—"

"Very well, dear. No: I shan't give Bel another chance. I'm not in love with him at all, and I dare not run the risk of falling in love with him again, I daren't risk going mad with happiness, as I should if what once was could be again ... and then having to live through all the misery of breaking with him another time."

"But surely—if he promised faithfully——"

"The promises men make to win us, Fanny, are not the sort that they know how to keep. It's always what they can't have they want most. Give them all they ask today, and tonight they'll lie awake longing for the things they've forsworn. The only woman who could hold Bel to his good behaviour would be one who could keep him guessing. I'm not that woman, I can't pretend, with me it's all or nothing—always!"

"Poor lamb!" Fanny drew her down to sit on the arm of the chair and nestled her frivolous, fair head upon Lucinda's bosom. "You have such desperate troubles, I'm ashamed to tell you my own...."

"Your own, Fanny?"

"We're both in the same boat, Cindy," Fanny lamented—"two lorn women this very day as ever was! Harry has left me ... flat!"

"Fanny!" Lucinda caught the girl's face between tender hands and looked incredulously into its swimming eyes. "You're not joking?"

"Divvle the joke's in me the day," Fanny declared between gulps, dabbling her tears with a handkerchief. "I didn't want to tell you, when you had so much else to worry you, but I'm afraid you've got to know. Because, you see, you're mixed up in it, too."

"I! what do you mean?"

"Well, Harry and I haven't been happy together for ever so long. Love with us you know, was rather a flash in the pan. Last night we had a scene, I mean another scene—forget the serial number. When I went home I found him trying to drink himself to death. He was half out of his head, and wouldn't tell me why. But I had a suspicion and wormed it out of him finally: he's been speculating with the company's money, your money, Cindy; and, now, with Zinn taking over the production, his shortage is sure to be found out. I couldn't make him say how much it was, but there's no question, it will run into a good sum. Well: I promised to intercede with you, and managed to quiet him down and get him to bed. Next thing I knew he was in the bathroom, trying to cut his throat. Then I hid his razors and let him go back to his whiskey, hoping he'd drink himself asleep. And presently he did. At least, he seemed to. So I went to bed—about three this morning, that was—worn out. When you called up, Cindy, I fibbed to you: I'd been awake about half an hour, howling like a lost child because I knew that Harry had deserted me at last."

"But how did you know—? Did he leave a note?"

"No, dear—that's how I knew. He didn't leave me a note or much of anything else except my clothes; everything that was portable and easy to turn into money he'd taken, all my jewels, everything. So you see, dear"—the face of an unworldly child quivered with a pitifully sad smile—"I'm not only an embezzler's wife, I'm a pauper—and a friendless pauper unless you keep on being my friend!"

The woebegone voice died away in sobs, and with a broken cry of compassion Lucinda gathered that unhappy little body into her arms.