The tremor that shook her limbs, her utter helplessness before him, touched his heart with a compassion beside which his old emotion for her showed as a small and trivial thing.  All that was divine in him awoke and responded to the horror that looked from her face, and he felt suddenly that until this instant he had never loved her.  Now she was really his because now she needed him; but for him she would stand alone, deserted and afraid, in that future to which she had turned with such pitiable and childlike ignorance.  She and the fight were both in his hands, and he was bracing himself to resist until the end.

“I’ll tell you if you wish,” he said, “but you mustn’t let it give you a sleepless night.”

As they turned a corner an electric light flashed into the darkness of the carriage lighting up her blonde hair and the sparkling diamonds which made her blue eyes look dull and lifeless.  “It is—­is it anything about money?” she asked with a movement toward him.

“It’s about nothing more important than that consummate ass you were with,” he answered, laughing as he reached out and took her hand in his with a friendly pressure.  “I’ve just found out that he’s a blackguard, and I thought you were too precious to be left an instant longer in his company.  We must be careful, dear,” he added.  “God knows I’ll do my best to help you—­but we must be careful”

“Oh!” she cried out sharply, in a high voice.  “Oh!” and she shrank from him as if he had hurt her by his touch.  It was all she said, but the word quivered in his ears with a suppressed emotion.  Was it thankfulness for her escape? he wondered, or was it anger at the part that he had played?

PART II

ILLUSION

CHAPTER I

OF PLEASURE AS THE CHIEF END OF MAN

On the morning after his meeting with Adams, Arnold Kemper awoke at three minutes of nine o’clock, and lay for exactly the three minutes that were needed to make up the hour watching the hand as it moved on the face of the bronze clock upon his mantel.  The clock, like everything in his rooms, was costly, a little ornate, and suggestive of an owner whose intention aimed frankly at the original.

Lying in his large mahogany bedstead, with his body outstretched between soft yet crisply ironed linen sheets, and his head placed exactly in the centre of the pillows, he waited, yawning, until the expected hour should strike.  If by an effort of will he could have put back the minute hand for another quarter of an hour he felt that it would have been pleasant to doze off again, shutting his eyes to the sunlight which streamed through the window on the Turkish rug, and inhaling agreeably the aroma of boiling coffee which reached him through the open door of his sitting-room.  With the thought he closed his eyes, stretched himself again and clasped his hands sleepily above his head;