“I feel that I ought to tell you. It is the explanation of that silence, I fear.”
“What is it, Mother?” he asked soberly.
“I hear that Sallie has plunged into frivolous society, is dancing every night at the hotel at Narragansett Pier where they are stopping now, and flirting with a halfdozen young men.”
“I don’t believe it,” growled Gaston.
“I’m afraid it’s true, Charlie, and I’m furious with her for treating you like this. I thought she had more character.”
“I ’ll love and trust her to the end!” he declared as he went moodily to his office. But the poison of suspicion rankled in his thoughts. Why had she ceased to write? Was not this mask of society a habit with those who had learned to wear it? Was not habit, after all, life? Could one ever escape it? It seemed to him more than probable that the old habits should re-assert themselves in such a crisis, a thousand miles removed from him or his personal influence. He held a very exaggerated idea of the corruption of modern society. And his heart grew heavier from day to day with the feeling that she was slipping away from him.
CHAPTER XX—A NEW LESSON IN LOVE
McLEOD returned home to find his plans of political success in perfect order. The programme went through without a hitch. In spite of the most desperate efforts of the Democrats, he carried the state by a large majority and made, for the Republican party and its strange allies, the first breach in the solid phalanx of Democratic supremacy since Le-gree left his legacy of corruption and terror.