It was, perhaps, part of this reaction which enabled him to obey his hostess’ commands with a certain recklessness that, however, seemed to be in keeping with the previous Satanic reputation he had all unconsciously achieved.  The women listened to the cynical flippancy of this good-looking soldier with an undisguised admiration which in turn excited curiosity and envy from his own sex.  He saw the whispered questioning, the lifted eyebrows, scornful shrugging of shoulders—­and knew that the story of his disgrace was in the air.  But I fear this only excited him to further recklessness and triumph.  Once he thought he recognized Miss Faulkner’s figure at a distance, and even fancied that she had been watching him; but he only redoubled his attentions to the fair woman beside him, and looked no more.

Yet he was glad when the guests began to drop off, the great rooms thinned, and Susy, appearing on the arm of her husband, coquettishly reminded him of his promise.

“For I want to talk to you of old times.  General Brant,” she went on, turning explanatorily to Boompointer, “married my adopted mother in California—­at Robles, a dear old place where I spent my earliest years.  So, you see, we are sort of relations by marriage,” she added, with delightful naivete.

Hooker’s own vainglorious allusion to his relations to the man before him flashed across Brant’s mind, but it left now only a smile on his lips.  He felt he had already become a part of the irresponsible comedy played around him.  Why should he resist, or examine its ethics too closely?  He offered his arm to Susy as they descended the stairs, but, instead of pausing in the supper-room, she simply passed through it with a significant pressure on his arm, and, drawing aside a muslin curtain, stepped into the moonlit conservatory.  Behind the curtain there was a small rustic settee; without releasing his arm she sat down, so that when he dropped beside her, their hands met, and mutually clasped.

“Now, Kla’uns,” she said, with a slight, comfortable shiver as she nestled beside him, “it’s a little like your chair down at old Robles, isn’t it?—­tell me!  And to think it’s five years ago!  But, Kla’uns, what’s the matter?  You are changed,” she said, looking at his dark face in the moonlight, “or you have something to tell me.”

“I have.”

“And it’s something dreadful, I know!” she said, wrinkling her brows with a pretty terror.  “Couldn’t you pretend you had told it to me, and let us go on just the same?  Couldn’t you, Kla’uns?  Tell me!”

“I am afraid I couldn’t,” he said, with a sad smile.

“Is it about yourself, Kla’uns?  You know,” she went on with cheerful rapidity, “I know everything about you—­I always did, you know—­and I don’t care, and never did care, and it don’t, and never did, make the slightest difference to me.  So don’t tell it, and waste time, Kla’uns.”

“It’s not about me, but about my wife!” he said slowly.