“It means something to me, too,” he told her, “to do as you want, and I don’t believe there’s a person on this green earth I’d do it for but you.”
His hand lingered for a moment on her white shoulder.
“Good luck, little girl.”
The partly lighted hall full of mysterious shadows awakened no fear in him as he quietly descended the stairs. And when he came to the avenue he did not glance up and down as he usually did to see whether or not he was being followed.
There was a lightness of heart and an exaltation of spirit which he had never experienced. It was that happiness which alone comes to the man who has made a sacrifice. There was never a moment since he had abandoned fiction that he was nearer to returning to its uncertain rewards. Pipe after pipe he smoked when he was once more in his quiet room and asked himself why he had done this thing. There were two reasons hard to dissociate. First, this wonderful girl had reminded him of the man he had passionately admired—his father, the father who had taught him to play fair. And then he was forced to admit he had never been more drawn to any woman than to this girl, who must, before his last pipe was smoked, have won her victory or gone down to defeat. Again and again he told himself that there was no man he envied so much as Norton Guestwick.
CHAPTER IX
“THE COUNTESS”
The next morning Anthony Trent observed that Mrs. Kinney was filled with the excitement that attended the reading of an unusual crime as set forth by the morning papers. It was in those crimes committed in the higher circles of society which intrigued her most, that society which she had served.
As a rule Trent let her wander on feeling that her pleasures were few. Sometimes he thought it a little curious that she should concern herself with affairs in which he was sure, sooner or later, to be involved. It was a relief to know she spoke of them to none but him. He rarely bothered to follow her rambling recitals, contenting himself now and again with exclamations of supposed interest. But this morning he was suddenly roused from his meditations by the mention of the word Guestwick.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“I was telling you about the Guestwick robbery, sir,” she said as she filled his cup.