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When he arrived she was stretched on a chaise-longue which was covered with cretonne for the summer, and the tears he had called up at luncheon seemed still to be standing in her eyes. Then he was aware of Cary Sloane’s dark anxious presence upon the cold hearth.

“What’s this idea of yours?” broke out Sloane immediately.”I understand you invited Edna to lunch and then threatened her on the basis of some cheap scandal.”

Anson sat down.

“I have no reason to think it’s only scandal.”

“I hear you’re going to take it to Robert Hunter, and to my father.”

Anson nodded.

“Either you break it off–or I will,” he said.

“What God damned business is it of yours, Hunter?”

“Don’t lose your temper, Cary,” said Edna nervously.”It’s only a question of showing him how absurd–“

“For one thing, it’s my name that’s being handed around,” interrupted Anson.”That’s all that concerns you, Cary.”

“Edna isn’t a member of your family.”

“She most certainly is!” His anger mounted.”Why–she owes this house and the rings on her fingers to my father’s brains. When Uncle Robert married her she didn’t have a penny.”

They all looked at the rings as if they had a significant bearing on the situation. Edna made a gesture to take them from her hand.

“I guess they’re not the only rings in the world,” said Sloane.

“Oh, this is absurd,” cried Edna.”Anson, will you listen to me? I’ve found out how the silly story started. It was a maid I discharged who went right to the Chilicheffs–all these Russians pump things out of their servants and then put a false meaning on them.” She brought down her fist angrily on the table: “And after Tom lent them the limousine for a whole month when we were South last winter–“

“Do you see?” demanded Sloane eagerly.”This maid got hold of the wrong end of the thing. She knew that Edna and I were friends, and she carried it to the Chilicheffs. In Russia they assume that if a man and a woman–“

He enlarged the theme to a disquisition upon social relations in the Caucasus.

“If that’s the case it better be explained to Uncle Robert,” said Anson dryly, “so that when the rumors do reach him he’ll know they’re not true.”

Adopting the method he had followed with Edna at luncheon he let them explain it all away. He knew that they were guilty and that presently they would cross the line from explanation into justification and convict themselves more definitely than he could ever do. By seven they had taken the desperate step of telling him the truth–Robert Hunter’s neglect, Edna’s empty life, the casual dalliance that had flamed up into passion–but like so many true stories it had the misfortune of being old, and its enfeebled body beat helplessly against the armor of Anson’s will. The threat to go to Sloane’s father sealed their helplessness, for the latter, a retired cotton broker out of Alabama, was a notorious fundamentalist who controlled his son by a rigid allowance and the promise that at his next vagary the allowance would stop forever.

They dined at a small French restaurant, and the discussion continued–at one time Sloane resorted to physical threats, a little later they were both imploring him to give them time. But Anson was obdurate. He saw that Edna was breaking up, and that her spirit must not be refreshed by any renewal of their passion.

At two o’clock in a small night-club on 53d Street, Edna’s nerves suddenly collapsed, and she cried to go home.
Sloane had been drinking heavily all evening, and he was faintly maudlin, leaning on the table and weeping a little with his face in his hands. Quickly Anson gave them his terms. Sloane was to leave town for six months, and he must be gone within forty-eight hours. When he returned there was to be no resumption of the affair, but at the end of a year Edna might, if she wished, tell Robert Hunter that she wanted a divorce and go about it in the usual way.

He paused, gaining confidence from their faces for his final word.

“Or there’s another thing you can do,” he said slowly, “if Edna wants to leave her children, there’s nothing I can do to prevent your running off together.”