"Not yet, sir," was the reply. "Probably caught out when the wind fell. Will let you know the minute they are in sight." With which assurance Mr. Pollock was finally driven by the pangs of natural appetite to sit down alone to a cheerless meal.
There was a message by telephone, as he finished his repast. The Lorelei was in, and Mrs. Pollock desired to speak with her husband.
"We're all right," Ethel's voice said, "and I hope you haven't been worried. They insist on our going to dinner at a restaurant, and, of course, you understand, I can't spoil the fun by refusing. Couldn't you come down and meet us?"
His first impulse was to say yes; but a second thought withheld him. He gave her a pleasant answer, however, bidding her enjoy herself without thought of him, and adding: "Cranbrooke will look out for you and bring you home."
It was quite ten o'clock when they arrived at the cottage, Ethel in high spirits, flushed with the excitement of a merry day, full of chatter over people and things Max had no interest in, appealing to Cranbrooke to enjoy her retrospects with her. She was "awfully sorry" about having kept Max from his dinner; "awfully sorry" not to have come home at once, but there was no getting out of the impromptu dinner; and, of course, they had to wait for it; and she was the first, after dinner, to make the move to go; Mr. Cranbrooke would certify to that.
"I don't need any certification, dear," said Max, gently; but he did not smile. Cranbrooke, who sat with him after sleepy Ethel had retired from the scene, felt his heart wrung at thought of certain things that never entered into Ethel's little head. But he made no effort to dispel the cloud that had settled over his friend's face.
By and by, Cranbrooke, too, said good-night, and went off into his wing, and Max was left alone with his cigar.
The day on the water had verified Max's prediction that it would prove "an opening wedge." Ethel, caught in the tide of the season's gaieties, found herself impelled from one entertainment to the other; their cottage was invaded by callers, their little informal dinners were transformed into banquets of ceremony, as choice and more lively than those of their conventional life in town. The only persons really satisfied by the change of habits in the house were the servants, who, like all artists, require a public to set the seal upon their worth.
Max, bewildered, found himself sometimes accompanying his wife to her parties; oftener—struck with the ghastly inappropriateness of his presence in such haunts—stopping at home and deputing to Cranbrooke the escort of his wife. To his surprise, he perceived that Cranbrooke was not only ready, but eager, on all occasions, to carry Ethel away from him. But then, of course, this was precisely what he had wished.
And Ethel, who lost no opportunity to tell Max how "good," how "lovely," Cranbrooke had been to her, was she not carrying out to the letter her husband's wishes? He observed, moreover, that Ethel was even more impressed than he had expected her to be with that quality of "fascination." Cranbrooke's mind was like a beautiful new country into which she was making excursions, she said once; and Max, after a moment's hesitation, agreed with her very warmly.