"Why, I'm an Episcopalian! You ought to know that! You went to my wedding. You didn't think Holmes had any say about that, did you? Well, I guess not! No, sirree, I wouldn't change my religion for anything!"
Danilo was very busy now and Claire really saw little of him. He took an early breakfast, almost on the run, and it was seldom that he came in at the dinner hour. But somehow the atmosphere of the Robson flat was tremulous with his presence.
The month of June passed, unusually clear and unusually warm for early summer in San Francisco. Claire never remembered a time when she had been busier. There was the housework to do and sewing to be accomplished and her mother to attend to. Not that Mrs. Robson was making any great demands, but Claire found herself surrendering every spare moment to the invalid. At such times Claire had a shuddering sense of keeping a watch for the coming of that thief which was to rob her of the last link binding her to her old life. It was plain that Mrs. Robson was failing fast. Complications were developing, the end could not be far off.
At night she took long walks while Miss Proll sewed feverishly. The old gray city was like an old intimate friend and she was saying good-by to it as passionately as if it had been a warm and living personality. She would stand for long stretches upon the heights, watching the twilight lay its cloak gently upon the town's curving limbs. And as night came on apace, the hills would twinkle with the shameless gauds of evening. What a wanton, fascinating city it was! And how she loved it!... All her life she had taken it for granted, as one takes for granted the familiar things that grow commonplace by constant association. And yet for all this new-found appreciation of her native city, she longed to leave it, she wanted to hold the memory of its beauty as an ever-living thing, and she was afraid to trust to the narrowing vision of bitter years. Sometimes in these glowing moments she thought of Stillman, trying to dismiss the picture of his face, sneering and cold before the realization that she was soon to be lost to him forever. She had not seen him since that night when Danilo had invited him to dinner at the St. Francis. He had recovered his old genial manner after the first lapse, but she knew that the flimsy robes of pretense were at best an indifferent covering for the wounds which were staining his pale contentment. She did not like to remember that evening. It smacked of subterfuge and unworthiness.
She should have told Danilo—she must tell him to-morrow—that was the thought that flashed over her every time she came face to face with the question. But somehow to-morrow never came.
"I must tell him to-morrow!... I must tell him to-morrow!" It became a stereotype formula which she repeated as one repeats a monotonous prayer in the hope of dulling a keen sensation of guilt. She was in the grip of one of those simple situations that grow complicated, through concealment. That was the trouble, it was almost too simple, and she could find no convincing argument to explain why she had been silent so long.
During the days when the papers had been full of her engagement to Danilo she found her heart beating anxiously every time she opened the newspaper to the society column. What if a hint of her friendship for Stillman were to be blazoned forth there? It was just as likely that some such airy fiction as this would grace the feast of gossip:
"Miss Robson is an unusually graceful dancer and she and Mr. Ned Stillman were the sensation of the St. Francis supper dancers all last season."
If it were so curiously awkward to approach Danilo with the truth at first hand, what could she say if, hearing the facts of the case from other sources, Danilo were to suddenly demand an explanation? She could not say: