She sat looking down, her hand absently occupied with the twist of pearls he had given her.  In a flash she saw the peril of this departure.  Once off on the Sorceress, he was lost to her—­the power of old associations would prevail.  Yet if she were as “nice” to him as he asked—­“nice” enough to keep him—­the end might not be much more to her advantage.  Hitherto she had let herself drift on the current of their adventure, but she now saw what port she had half-unconsciously been trying for.  If she had striven so hard to hold him, had “played” him with such patience and such skill, it was for something more than her passing amusement and convenience:  for a purpose the more tenaciously cherished that she had not dared name it to herself.  In the light of this discovery she saw the need of feigning complete indifference.

“Ah, you happy man!  It’s good-bye indeed, then,” she threw back at him, lifting a plaintive smile to his frown.

“Oh, you’ll turn up in Paris later, I suppose—­to get your things for Newport.”

“Paris?  Newport?  They’re not on my map!  When Ralph can get away we shall go to the Adirondacks for the boy.  I hope I shan’t need Paris clothes there!  It doesn’t matter, at any rate,” she ended, laughing, “because nobody I care about will see me.”

Van Degen echoed her laugh.  “Oh, come—­that’s rough on Ralph!”

She looked down with a slight increase of colour.  “I oughtn’t to have said it, ought I?  But the fact is I’m unhappy—­and a little hurt—­”

“Unhappy?  Hurt?” He was at her side again.  “Why, what’s wrong?”

She lifted her eyes with a grave look.  “I thought you’d be sorrier to leave me.”

“Oh, it won’t be for long—­it needn’t be, you know.”  He was perceptibly softening.  “It’s damnable, the way you’re tied down.  Fancy rotting all summer in the Adirondacks!  Why do you stand it?  You oughtn’t to be bound for life by a girl’s mistake.”

The lashes trembled slightly on her cheek.  “Aren’t we all bound by our mistakes—­we women?  Don’t let us talk of such things!  Ralph would never let me go abroad without him.”  She paused, and then, with a quick upward sweep of the lids:  “After all, it’s better it should be good-bye—­since I’m paying for another mistake in being so unhappy at your going.”

“Another mistake?  Why do you call it that?”

“Because I’ve misunderstood you—­or you me.”  She continued to smile at him wistfully.  “And some things are best mended by a break.”

He met her smile with a loud sigh—­she could feel him in the meshes again.  “Is it to be a break between us?”

“Haven’t you just said so?  Anyhow, it might as well be, since we shan’t be in the same place again for months.”

The frock-coated gentleman once more languished from his eyes:  she thought she trembled on the edge of victory.  “Hang it,” he broke out, “you ought to have a change—­you’re looking awfully pulled down.  Why can’t you coax your mother to run over to Paris with you?  Ralph couldn’t object to that.”