The Fighting Chance

Long since he knew, too, that in all the world he could never again find such a mate for him. This had, unadmitted even to himself, always remained a hidden secret within this secret man--an unacknowledged, undrawn-on reserve in case of the failure which he, even in sanguine moods, knew in his inmost corrupted soul that his quest was doomed to.

And now he had no more need of secrets from himself; now, turning his gaze inward, he looked upon all with which he had chosen to deceive himself. And there was nothing left for self-deception.

"If I marry you!" he said calmly "at least I know what I am getting."

"I will marry you, Howard. I've got to marry somebody pretty soon. You or Captain Voucher."

For an instant a vicious light flashed in his narrowing eyes. She saw it and shook her head with weary cynicism: "No, not that. It could not attract me even with you. It is really vulgar--that arrangement. Noblesse oblige, mon ami. There is a depravity in marrying you that makes all lesser vices stale as virtues."

He said nothing; she looked at him, lazily amused; then, inattentive, turned and paced the floor again.

"Shall I see you to-morrow?" he demanded.

"If you wish. Captain Voucher came down on the same train with me. I'll set him adrift if you like."

"Is he preparing for a declaration?" sneered Quarrier.

"I think so," she said simply.

"Well if he comes to-night after I'm gone, you wait a final word from me. Do you understand?" he repeated with repressed violence.

"No, Howard. Are you going to propose to me to-morrow?"

"You'll know to-morrow," he retorted angrily. "I tell you to wait. I've a right to that much consideration anyway."

"Very well, Howard," she said, recognising in him the cowardice which she had always suspected to be there.

She bade him good night; he touched her hand but made no offer to kiss her. She laughed a little to herself, watching him striding toward the elevator, then, closing the door, she stood still in the centre of the room, staring at her own reflection, full length, in the gilded pier-glass, her lips edged with a sneer so like Quarrier's that, the next moment she laughed aloud, imitating Quarrier's rare laugh from sheer perversity.

"I think," she said to her reflected figure in the glass, "I think that you are either mentally ill or inherently a kind of devil. And I don't much care which."

And she turned leisurely, her slim hands balanced lightly on her narrow hips, and strolled into the second dressing-room, where Mrs. Vendenning sat sullenly indulging in that particular species of solitaire known as "The Idiot's Delight."