Katy rang the breakfast gong.  Five minutes later the tattoo of knives and forks and spoons told of appetites in process of appeasement.  Charlie came into the kitchen in the midst of this, bearing certain unmistakable signs.  His eyes were inflamed, his cheeks still bearing the flush of liquor.  His demeanor was that of a man suffering an intolerable headache and correspondingly short-tempered.  Stella barely spoke to him.  It was bad enough for a man to make a beast of himself with whisky, but far worse was his gambling streak.  There were so many little ways in which she could have eased things with a few dollars; yet he always grumbled when she spoke of money, always put her off with promises to be redeemed when business got better.

Stella watched him bathe his head copiously in cold water and then seat himself at the long table, trying to force food upon an aggrieved and rebellious stomach.  Gradually a flood of recklessness welled up in her breast.

“For two pins I would marry Jack Fyfe,” she told herself savagely. “Anything would be better than this.”

CHAPTER XI

THE PLUNGE

Stella went over that queer debate a good many times in the ten days that followed.  It revealed Jack Fyfe to her in a new, inexplicable light, at odd variance with her former conception of the man.  She could not have visualized him standing with one foot on the stove front speaking calmly of love and marriage if she had not seen him with her own eyes, heard him with somewhat incredulous ears.  She had continued to endow him with the attributes of unrestrained passion, of headlong leaping to the goal of his desires, of brushing aside obstacles and opposition with sheer brute force; and he had shown unreckoned qualities of restraint, of understanding.  She was not quite sure if this were guile or sensible consideration.  He had put his case logically, persuasively even.  She was very sure that if he had adopted emotional methods, she would have been repelled.  If he had laid siege to her hand and heart in the orthodox fashion, she would have raised that siege in short order.  As it stood, in spite of her words to him, there was in her own mind a lack of finality.  As she went about her daily tasks, that prospect of trying a fresh fling at the world as Jack Fyfe’s wife tantalized her with certain desirable features.

Was it worth while to play the game as she must play it for some time to come, drudge away at mean, sordid work and amid the dreariest sort of environment?  At best, she could only get away from Charlie’s camp and begin along new lines that might perhaps be little better, that must inevitably lie among strangers in a strange land.  To what end?  What did she want of life, anyway?  She had to admit that she could not say fully and explicitly what she wanted.  When she left out her material wants, there was nothing but a nebulous craving for—­what?  Love,