An Ambitious Man

Preston Cheney walked briskly down the street after he left his

fiancee, his steps directed toward the Palace. It was seven o'clock,

and he knew the Baroness would be at home.

He had determined upon heroic treatment for his own mental disease

(as he regarded his peculiar sentiments toward Berene Dumont), and he

had decided upon a similar course of treatment for the Baroness.

He would confide his engagement to her at once, and thus put an end

to his embarrassing position in the Palace, as well as to establish

his betrothal as a fact--and to force himself to so regard it. It

was strange reasoning for a young man in the very first hour of his

new role of bridegroom elect, but this particular groom elect had

deliberately placed himself in a peculiar position, and his reasoning

was not, of course, that of an ardent and happy lover.

Already he was galled by his new fetters; already he was feeling a

sense of repulsion toward the woman he had asked to be his wife: and

because of these feelings he was more eager to nail himself hand and

foot to the cross he had builded.

He was obliged to wait some time before the Baroness came into the

reception-room; and when she came he observed that she had made an

elaborate toilet in his honour. Her sumptuous shoulders billowed

over the low-cut blue corsage like apple-dumplings over a china dish.

Her waist was drawn in to an hourglass taper, while her ample hips

spread out beneath like the heavy mason work which supports a slender

column. Tiny feet encased in pretty slippers peeping from beneath

her silken skirts looked oddly out of proportion with the rest of her

generous personality, and reminded Preston of the grotesque cuts in

the humorous weeklies, where well-known politicians were represented

with large heads and small extremities. Artistic by nature, and with

an eye to form, he had never admired the Baroness's type of beauty,

which was the theme of admiration for nearly every other man in

Beryngford. Her face, with its infantine colouring, its large,

innocent azure eyes, and its short retrousse features, he conceded to

be captivatingly pretty, however, and it seemed unusually so this

evening. Perhaps because he had so recently looked upon the sharp,

sallow face of his fiancee.

Preston frequently came to his room about this hour, after having

dined and before going to the office for his final duties; but he

seldom saw the Baroness on these occasions, unless through her own

design.

"You were surprised to receive my message, no doubt, saying I wished

to see you," he began. "But I have something I feel I ought to tell

you, as it may make some changes in my habits, and will of course

eventually take me away from these pleasant associations." He paused

for a second, and the Baroness, who had seated herself on the divan

at his side, leaned forward and looked inquiringly in his face.