The Last Woman

When she had left him, he dropped upon one of the veranda chairs, and with his head upon his hand gave himself up to bitter thought--bitter, because of his utter inadequacy to cope with the conditions by which he was surrounded.

Duncan was aroused, presently, by the approach of Beatrice and Sally. They came through the door with their arms encircling each other's waist, and walked forward together until they stood at the edge of the top step, under the porte cochère.

"It's a shame," Beatrice was saying, impulsively. "I feel that the whole thing is more or less my fault, Sally, and--" a warning cough from Duncan told them that they were not alone; and also, at that moment, the other guests trooped out upon the broad veranda; all save Patricia, who did not appear.

The two gentlemen who had brought Morton to the house after he was deserted by Patricia on the road, declined to remain, pleading other engagements, and soon their car whirred itself away down the road, and was gone. Nesbit Farnham contrived to secure a solitude-à-deux with Beatrice, who, however, turned an indifferent shoulder to his eager words; Agnes and Frances Houston strolled into obscurity with the two "extras" who had been asked there to fill out Sally's original plan; Sally disappeared into the house, evidently in search of Patricia; Jack Gardner and the lawyer lighted cigars and betook themselves to an "S" chair at a far corner of the veranda. Duncan remained where he was, alone, screened from view by overhanging vines, as desolate in spirit as any man can be, who is suddenly brought face to face with an unpleasant truth.

Nothing had mattered much, in a comparative sense, until this last scene with Patricia. He had been convinced all along, until now, that Patricia loved him and that her strange conduct during the last upheaval in their relations had been the result of wounded pride, only; it had not even remotely occurred to him that she did not love him. They had been together all their lives; he had never known a time when he did not love her; he believed that there had never been a time, since their childhood, when she did not expect some day to become his wife.

But that short scene he had witnessed on the veranda, when Patricia bade Morton good-bye, had changed all this. He doubted the correctness of his previous convictions. He saw another and an entirely different explanation for Patricia's conduct toward him, for her attitude in the matter of the engagement contract which Melvin had been compelled to draw, and which he, himself, had likewise been compelled to sign. He read in that last scene between the ranchman and Patricia a fondness on her part for the young cattle-king which had been forced into the "open" of her own convictions, by the principal episode of the evening. He saw the utter wreck of his own hopes, of his entire scheme of life.