As soon as she reached her room, she sat down to write to him. This letter called for her deepest intuition; it was a very difficult letter to compose. She tried a dozen methods, rejecting each as too obvious. In the midst of her labors, Josephus, to her surprise, arrived with the basket of champagne, which, strangely enough, it appeared, had been below, forgot, all this time. This at once relieved her, and suggested a bold stroke. She wrote:
"Dear Mr. Peavey:
"Thank you for the champagne. Certain things which have come to my knowledge make it impossible for me to accept any more such favors from you. Indeed, I reproach myself for what I have permitted in the past. But I have always had a different feeling about you, a real respect and trust, and I have always believed in you as an ideal of what a gentleman should be. I am very disappointed—very sad.
"Sincerely yours,
"Doré Baxter."P. S. I thank you also for your automobile, which I shall never use again.
"P. P. S. I return the remaining tickets to the opera."
She studied this, well content with its indefinite reproach.
"There; he will believe I know more than I know," she said, with a bob of her head, "and he will have to come to me in person. That is better!"
Once Mr. Peavey was before her eyes, she had no doubt of the interview. She posted the letter immediately, telephoned again without being able to receive any news of Lindaberry, and went out to shop for Christmas presents for each of her score of admirers—presents which she would see were carefully delivered to their destinations by three o'clock on the preceding day. For a month she had carefully gone over her acquaintances, much as a fisherman overhauls his nets, consecrating hours at the telephone, fanning back into substantial flames little sparks of intimacy that were sinking into gray forgetfulness. She did not throw herself into such machinations with any relish, but as a necessity forced upon her; yet, once embarked, she did nothing by halves. She lunched, motored, descended for tea, dined, dipped into theaters and danced without a rest. She even revived the hopes of Harrigan Blood and Sassoon by a few discreet concessions—matinée performances, tea at five, or an innocuous luncheon.
With Massingale she was still far from that moment when she could distinguish the man who was from the romantic ideal her imagination had visualized. After the second meeting in her rooms, when she had a second time reached the man in the raw, each, as if by mutual consent, had avoided further opportunities of dangerous intimacy, each a bit apprehensive. But the conflict between them continued. There were moments when he seemed to abandon his attitude of incredulity, relaxing into humorous or confidential moods, and others when he seemed to be flinging barricades between them. If he had planned deliberately to seduce her (which God knows he hadn't!) he could have adopted no more adroit means than this intermittent opposition which rose from the struggle in his own conscience. She could not brook the slightest resistance in him. It roused in her a passion for subjugation, an instinct for reprisals which sought insistently to reverse the original rôles.
In the moments of these half-hearted retreats he adopted a policy of far-off analysis, putting questions with impersonal directness, inviting her into indiscreet confidences. She divined that all this curiosity had one instinctive object—to discover something in her harum-scarum present or devious past that could roughly and effectively repel him. At such times she responded with a violent antagonism, paying him back in coin, tantalizing him, inventing stories to plague him, and always succeeding. Once she said to him:
"You know Sassoon's getting reckless. Look out! Some day I'll disappear!"
He chuckled, inciting her on.
"You needn't laugh! I'm serious—he's serious, too. Where do you think I went this afternoon? To look at a house. Oh, the loveliest little house, a little jewel-box—within a stone's-throw of you, too; and everything beautifully furnished, wonderful rugs, bedrooms in old red brocade, like a palace!" She continued with an account of details, warming up to the part: "Sassoon began by talking apartments. But I killed that quickly. Entirely too common!"