"The Ranleigh," she repeated to herself. "The Ranleigh!" And then suddenly the wall of the room parted like a curtain; to her ears came a cry of violins, dominated and accentuated by a blare of brass. Mrs. Manhattan was at her elbow. Behind her was Jones; beneath was a woman, her face turned to hers. She caught the motion of Mrs. Manhattan's fan. Beyond, in a canvas forest, stood a man, open-mouthed, raising and lowering his right arm at regular intervals. And between the shiver of violins and the shudder of trumpets, she heard some one saying, "Mrs. Feverill, that is—rather fly. Stops at the Ranleigh." At once the music swooned. The opera-house dissolved into mist, and Eden was in a carriage, eying through the open window the cut of a passer's gown. In her lap were some flowers; she raised them to her face, and as she put them down again, a cab drove past, bearing her husband and the woman who was considered fly. And this was the woman he wished her to receive! She caught and pinioned her forehead in her hands. In the distance the shadow of the afternoon loomed again, but this time more monstrous and potent than before. And nearer and nearer it came—blacker than hate and more appalling than shame; in a moment it would be on her; she would be shrouded in it for evermore, and no defense—not one.
"No, no," she murmured. Her hands left her forehead. She clutched her throat as though to tear some invisible grasp away. "No, no," she murmured, "it cannot be."
"Look at me, Eden," some one was saying; "look at me; I love your eyes. Youth is inconstant. It is with age—"
It was her husband reassuring her even in his absence. "Speak to me; I love your voice." And memory, continuing its office of mercy, served as ægis and exorcised advancing night. In her nervousness at the parried attack, she left her seat and paced the room, the opals glittering on her waist. "But he told me," she mused, "he told me that the woman's husband was in trouble—that he was endeavoring to aid them both. What did I hear when I first met him? There was a clerk or someone in his office, a man whom he trusted who deceived him, who was imprisoned, and to whose people he then furnished means for support. It is criminal for me to doubt him as I have. Do I not know him to be generous? have I not found him sincere?"
She shook out a fold of her frock impatiently. "A child frightened at momentary solitude was never more absurd than I." For a little space she continued her promenade up and down the room, leaving at each turn some fringe of suspicion behind. And presently the entire fabric seemed to leave her. To the corners of her mouth the smile returned. She went back to the sofa and was about to resume her former seat when her eyes fell on the envelope which her husband had tossed on the table. Mechanically she picked it up and glanced at the superscription. The writing was thin as hair, but the lettering was larger than is usual, abrupt and angular. To anyone else it would have suggested nothing particular, save, perhaps, the idea that it had been formed with the point of a tack; but to Eden it was luminous with intimations. Into the palms of her hands came a sudden moisture, the color left her cheeks, for a second she stood irresolute, the envelope in her trembling hold, then, as though coerced by another than herself, she ran to a bell and rang it.
In a moment the butler appeared. To conceal her agitation Eden had gone to the piano. There were some loose sheets of music on the lid and these she pretended to examine. "Is that you, Harris?" she asked, without turning her head. "Harris, that man that brought the note for Mr. Usselex this evening was the one that came on Monday with the note for Mr. Arnswald, was it not?"
"I beg pardon, ma'am."
Eden reconstructed the question and repeated it.
"It was a young person, ma'am," Harris answered. "A lady's maid, most likely. She was here before on Monday evening, just before dinner, ma'am. She brought a letter and said there was no answer. I gave it to Mr. Usselex."
"To Mr. Arnswald, you mean."