Kedzie was soon wishing for Jim's return, since she could not see how to divorce him till he appeared. She tried to frame a letter asking for her release, but it was not easy writing. She felt that she would have a better chance of success if Jim were within wheedling distance. But Jim remained away, and Kedzie grew fonder and fonder of her Marquess, and he of her.
Perhaps they were really mated, their pettinesses and selfishnesses peculiarly complemental. In any case, they were mutually bewitched.
Their dalliance became the talk of Newport. Everybody believed that what was bad enough at best was even worse than it was. Charity Coe heard the couple discussed everywhere. She was distressed on Jim's account. And now she found herself in just the plight that had tortured Jim when he knew that Peter Cheever was disloyal to Charity and longed to tell her, but felt the duty too odious. So Charity pondered her own obligation. She was tempted to write Jim an anonymous letter, but had not the cowardice. She was tempted to write to him frankly, but had not the courage. She did at last what Jim had done—nothing.
Jim's mother had heard of Vanderveer's disappearance from Kedzie's entourage and she had improved with hope. When she learned that Strathdene was apparently infatuated she grew worse and telegraphed Jim to ask for a leave of absence. She did not tell Kedzie of her telegram or of Jim's answer.
Pet Bettany flatly accused Kedzie of being guilty, and referred to the Marquess as her paramour. When Kedzie furiously resented her insolence Pet laughed.
“The more fool you, if you carry the scandal and lose the fun.”
Kedzie was more afraid of Pet's contempt than of a better woman's. She began to think herself a big fool for not having been a bigger one. She fell into an altogether dangerous mood and she could no longer save herself. She almost prayed to be led into temptation. The unuttered prayer was speedily answered.
She went motoring with Strathdene late one night in a car he had hired. When he ventured to plead with her not to go back to her home where her servants provided a kind of chaperonage, she made only a formal protest or two. He stopped at a roadside inn, a secluded place well known for its unquestioning hospitality.
Strathdene, tremulous with victory, led Kedzie to the dining-room for a bit of sup and sip. The landlord escorted them to a nook in a corner and beckoned a waiter. Kedzie was studying the bill of fare with blurred and frightened vision when she heard the footsteps of the waiter plainly audible in the quiet room. They had a curious rhythm. There was a hitch in the step, a skip.
Her heart stopped as if it had run into a tree. The “skip” brought down on her soul a whole five-foot shelf of remembrances of her first New York love-affair with the lame waiter in the bakery. All her good fortune had been set in motion by poor, old, shabby “Skip.” She had soared away like some rainbow-hued bubble gently releasing itself from the day pipe that inflated it out of the suds of its origin.