A Man's Hearth. Eleanor M. Ingram
in college, and later, always he had found a courier whisper running officiously before him, "Young Adriance—paper, you know. Millions!" And always it had led him into trouble; at twenty-six he was just commencing to realize that fact. The trouble never had been very serious until now. He never had committed anything his mother's church would have called a mortal sin. Even yet he stood only on the verge of commission. But he could not draw back; he was like a man being inexorably pushed into a dark place.
The house toward which he turned did not arrest the eye by any ostentatious display. In fact, it was remarkable only for being one of the very few houses on lower Riverside Drive which possessed lawns and verandas. Set in a small town, or a suburb, the gray stone villa would have been merely "very handsome." Here, it gained the value of an exotic. To Anthony Adriance, junior, as he climbed the steps that night, it seemed to stare arrogantly from its score of blinking windows at the glittering sign on the opposite shore. Cause and effect, they duly acknowledge each other. The man paused to glance at them both, then let his gaze fall to the avenue below the terraced lawn. That way the black-gowned girl had gone. Probably she had turned across into the city; her dress was hardly that of a resident of the neighborhood.
The man who took his hat and coat deferentially breathed a message. Mr. Adriance was in the library and desired to know if his son was dining at home.
"Yes," was the prompt, even eager reply. "Certainly, if he wishes it. Or—never mind; I will go in, myself."
The inquiry was unusual. It was not Mr. Adriance's habit to question his son's movements. One might have said they did not interest him. He and "Tony" were very good acquaintances and lived quite without friction. He was too busy, too self-centred and ultra-modern to desire any warmer relation. Affection was a sentimentality never mentioned in that household; a mutilated household, for Mrs. Adriance had died twenty years before Tony's majority.
But it was not curiosity, rather an odd, faintly flickering hope that lighted the younger man's eyes as he entered the room and returned his father's nod of greeting. The two were not unlike, at a first glance; definitely good features: eyes so dark that they were frequently mistaken for black instead of blue, upright figures that made the most of their moderate height—these they had in common. The great difference between them was in expression; the difference between untempered and tempered metal. No one would ever have nicknamed the elder Anthony "Tony."
"I shall be glad to dine with you," the younger Anthony opened, at once. "I'll go change, and be back. Were you going to try the new Trot tonight—I think you said so?"
"No. I had an hour this afternoon," Mr. Adriance stated, picking up a pen from the table and turning it in his fingers. He had a habit of playing with small articles at times—to distract his listener's attention rather than his own, said those who knew him well. Neither to his son nor to himself did it occur as incongruous that he should discuss a lesson in dancing with the matter-of-fact decision that made his speech cold and sharp as the crackle of a step on a frost-bound road. "It is not so difficult as the tango, though more fatiguing. Where had you intended to dine, tonight? At the Mastersons'?"
Tony Adriance colored a slow, painful red that burned over face and neck like a flame scar.
"Fred asked me," he made difficult work of the reply. "I couldn't get out of it very well, but I am glad of an excuse to stay away. It is early enough to 'phone."
Mr. Adriance turned the pen around.
"If Masterson was to be there, you might safely have gone," he pronounced.
"If——"
"Exactly. Dining with Mrs. Masterson will no longer do. Am I speaking to a full-grown man or a boy? If Mrs. Masterson chooses to get a divorce, and you afterward marry her, very good. It is done; divorce is accepted among us. But there must be no gossip concerning the lady."
"There is no cause for any," retorted the other, but the defense lacked fire. He looked suddenly haggard, and the shamed red scorched still deeper. "She—isn't that kind."
"No. She is very clever." He laid down the pen and took up a book. "I was cautioning you. Will you hurry your dressing a little? I have an early engagement down-town this evening."
The dry retort was not resented. The younger man did not retreat, although way was shown to him. Since the subject had been dragged into the open ground of speech, he had more to say, with whatever reluctance.
"You don't seem to consider Fred," he finally said.
"Why should I?" Mr. Adriance looked up perfunctorily. "Masterson is nothing to me. You have not considered him."
"I have! At least, I tried to stop this—after I understood. I never meant——"
There was a pause, during which Mr. Adriance turned a page. The sentence was not completed, but Tony Adriance lingered as if in expectation of some reply to it; an expectation half eager, half defiant. No reply was made; finally it became evident there was to be none.
"I thought you might object." He forced a laugh with the avowal, but his eyes denied the lightness. "Parents do in books and plays, you know. I thought you might tell me—— Oh, well, to pull out of this and bring home a woman of my own instead of some other man's woman. It isn't very pretty!"
Mr. Adriance looked up with a certain curiosity.
"You have a sentimental streak, Tony? I never suspected it. Why should I object to an affair so suitable? You have been following Mrs. Masterson about for a year; she is altogether charming and will make a good hostess here—a great lack in our household. I admire her myself, more than any débutante I ever saw. I am very well satisfied. Suppose you had brought home some milkmaid romance, a wife to stumble over the rugs and defer to the servants? No, no; manage this properly, that is all my advice. Meanwhile, do you know it is after seven o'clock? Unless you hurry——"
"Oh, I'll hurry," was the dry promise. "And I am much obliged for the advice. But I fancy a good many of us may defer to the milkmaids, after we are dead."
He swung the door shut with unnecessary force, as he went out. While he climbed the broad, darkly-lustrous stairs, he was aware that his father was turning another page of the book; and as a pendant to that picture had a mental glimpse of Lucille Masterson, lovely, perfect in every line of costume and tint of color, waiting for a man who was not her husband. What would the girl in black think of that, he wondered? Yet Lucille was altogether beyond reproach. She had every right to contemplate a divorce, in view of Fred Masterson's undoubted wildness and extravagance. If only she had not discussed it with him, Tony Adriance, he thought impatiently. If only she had announced her intention to her husband and the world, instead of broaching it secretly to the admirer she had chosen for her second husband! It was horrible to meet Masterson with this knowledge thrust like a stone blocking the way of intercourse. Certainly she lacked delicacy.
Of course he must go on gracefully. It was very like climbing these stairs; one step taken implied taking the next. But he wished that he had not met the girl in the pavilion.
CHAPTER II
His Neighbor's Wife
During the next few days, Tony Adriance several times saw the girl in black. But he did not venture to approach or speak to her. It was too soon; moreover, he was not altogether certain that he wished to be with her. She was too disturbing, too concrete an evidence of other possibilities in life than those he had been taught. He remembered the story of the Grecian lake that was only muddy when stirred. Probably those who lived within view of its waters seldom "disturbed Comarina."
Nevertheless, he always regarded the girl with a keen interest he could not have explained even to himself. He would glimpse her from his automobile in passing, or observe her from the opposite sidewalk as he went in or out of his father's house. She always had the child with her, and always wore the same frock. Usually, she was to be found in the white stone pavilion, established on the