He swung toward her eagerly.

“A lady?  Did she give any name?”

“No.  Sam let her in and took her up.  He said he thought you wouldn’t mind.  She’d been here before.”

The thought of Edith never entered Akers’ head.  It was Lily, Lily miraculously come back to him.  Lily, his wife.

Going up in the elevator he hastily formulated a plan of action. 
He would not be too ready to forgive; she had cost him too much. 
But in the end he would take her in his arms and hold her close. 
Lily!  Lily!

It was the bitterness of his disappointment that made him brutal.  Wicked and unscrupulous as he was with men, with women he was as gentle as he was cruel.  He put them from him relentlessly and kissed them good-by.  It was his boast that any one of them would come back to him if he wanted her.

Edith, listening for his step, was startled at the change in his face when he saw her.

“You!” he said thickly.  “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been waiting all evening.  I want to ask you something.”

 He flung his hat into a chair and faced her.

“Well?”

“Is it true that you are married to Lily Cardew?”

“If I am, what are you going to do about it?” His eyes were wary, but his color was coming back.  He was breathing more easily.

“I only heard it to-day.  I must know, Lou.  It’s awfully important.”

“What did you hear?” He was watching her closely.

“I heard you were married, but that she had left you.”

It seemed to him incredible that she had come there to taunt him, she who was responsible for the shipwreck of his marriage.  That she could come there and face him, and not expect him to kill her where she stood.

He pulled himself together.

“It’s true enough.”  He swore under his breath.  “She didn’t leave me.  She was taken away.  And I’ll get her back if I—­ You little fool, I ought to kill you.  If you wanted a cheap revenge, you’ve got it.”

“I don’t want revenge, Lou.”

He caught her by the arm.

“Then what brought you here?”

“I wanted to be sure Lily Cardew was married.”

“Well, she is.  What about it?”

“That’s all.”

“That’s not all.  What about it?”

She looked up at him gravely.

“Because, if she is, I am going to marry Mr. Cameron tomorrow.”  At the sight of his astounded face she went on hastily:  “He knows, Lou, and he offered anyhow.”

“And what,” he said slowly, “has my wife to do with that?”

“I wanted to be fair to him.  And I think he is—­I think he used to be terribly in love with her.”

Quite apart from his increasing fear of Willy Cameron and his Committee, there had been in Akers for some time a latent jealousy of him.  In a flash he saw the room at the Saint Elmo, and a cold-eyed man inside the doorway.  The humiliation of that scene had never left him, of his own maudlin inadequacy, of hearing from beyond a closed and locked door, the closing of another door behind Lily and the man who had taken her away from him.  A mad anger and jealousy made him suddenly reckless.