Immediately having made conquest of Forbes, she began to own him. She began to resent his other obligations, his other codes; her jealousy began to function.
She implored him to postpone his return to America; to follow the Ambassador's body on a later steamer; not to go, at least, on the steamer Mildred took—anything to escape the breaking of the rose-chains wherewith she withed him. But his almost filial love for his benefactor overcame even his passion. Nothing could move him from that last foothold on self-respect.
The triumph of love wound up in a war, a downright quarrel, with all the brutality of a married couple. And that came to an abrupt end with the tinkle of a clock sounding the hour. Both of them blenched. It was as if rats fighting heard the bell of the cat.
"You must hurry," she gasped, "Willie is long past due."
Forbes needed no urging. He fled so precipitately that he hardly paused for a farewell kiss. They had time for no future plans. He sneaked along the corridors of the hotel. He feared to summon the elevator lest Willie step out of it. He went down by the stairways. From the entresol he studied the lobby of the hotel to make sure of not meeting Enslee. A detective might have suspected him for a thief had not his manner been the immemorial stealth of clandestine lovers. Love had belittled him thus in one evening.
Little Willie Enslee could have put him to flight, have struck him without resistance, have shot him down without provoking an answering shot.
So Forbes had coerced and terrified soldiers of his who were far superior to him in bulk and brawn. They saw his shoulder-straps and respected them, took a pride in being humble before them. Back of them was the whole power and dignity of the nation.
Willie Enslee wore the shoulder-straps of the husband. He wore that authority, and back of it was arrayed the decency and the safety of human society.