"I never before posed as a patron of rising musicians," she went on, "but Elizabeth knew him, it seems, in the country, and asked if I would mind helping him a little. She's so fond of music, you know." She spoke quite innocently. Gerard gave her a quick, searching glance. Apparently she suspected nothing. Yet she was a woman of quick perceptions. Perhaps, after all, it was he who was mistaken; his jealous, suspicious nature had led him into unnecessary torture. No wonder she had met his doubt with defiance, had not deigned to justify herself, or to dispel a distrust which he had no right to display. In the sudden, glad, unreasoning reaction, he was ready to heap all manner of insulting epithets upon himself.
"I think your efforts will be repaid," he said, inclined in his relief to be generous. "Halleck has a fine voice. I shouldn't wonder if he were quite a success."
"It was very nice of you to come in," she said. "You have been such a recluse lately. What have you been doing?"
"Oh, the whirl of excitement in which I've been living was too much for me," he declared "and so I've given up society for awhile, and am going in for hard study by way of rest."
"Good gracious! That sounds very impressive," she said. "I'm almost afraid to suggest, under the circumstances, that you should take a seat in our box at the opera to-night. And yet I wish you would, Julian, just by way of doing me a favor, for some people I've asked are not coming, and Bobby is away, and Elizabeth and I will be quite alone."
He smiled. "I don't think there's much chance of your being alone very long," he said. Yet he promised at last to take one of the vacant seats, though he had refused several other invitations for that evening. Mrs. Bobby's eyes sparkled as if she had achieved a victory.
"Julian is coming to-night," she announced to Elizabeth, when the musicale was over and the last guest had departed.
"Is he?" Elizabeth spoke without apparent interest, as she sank, with a weary look, into a chair in front of the fire.
"You are tired. Would you rather not go to-night?"