“Oh, don’t ask me; I don’t know; I am frightened.”

Durham gave a deep sigh of discouragement.  “I thought your coming here with me today—­and above all your going with me just now to see my mother—­was a sign that you were not frightened!”

“Well, I was not when I was with your mother.  She made everything seem easy and natural.  She took me back into that clear American air where there are no obscurities, no mysteries—­”

“What obscurities, what mysteries, are you afraid of?”

She looked about her with a faint shiver.  “I am afraid of everything!” she said.

“That’s because you are alone; because you’ve no one to turn to.  I’ll clear the air for you fast enough if you’ll let me.”

He looked forth defiantly, as if flinging his challenge at the great city which had come to typify the powers contending with him for her possession.

“You say that so easily!  But you don’t know; none of you know.”

“Know what?”

“The difficulties—­”

“I told you I was ready to take my share of the difficulties—­and my share naturally includes yours.  You know Americans are great hands at getting over difficulties.”  He drew himself up confidently.  “Just leave that to me—­only tell me exactly what you’re afraid of.”

She paused again, and then said:  “The divorce, to begin with—­they will never consent to it.”

He noticed that she spoke as though the interests of the whole clan, rather than her husband’s individual claim, were to be considered; and the use of the plural pronoun shocked his free individualism like a glimpse of some dark feudal survival.

“But you are absolutely certain of your divorce!  I’ve consulted—­of course without mentioning names—­”

She interrupted him, with a melancholy smile:  “Ah, so have I. The divorce would be easy enough to get, if they ever let it come into the courts.”

“How on earth can they prevent that?”

“I don’t know; my never knowing how they will do things is one of the secrets of their power.”

“Their power?  What power?” he broke in with irrepressible contempt.  “Who are these bogeys whose machinations are going to arrest the course of justice in a—­comparatively—­civilized country?  You’ve told me yourself that Monsieur de Malrive is the least likely to give you trouble; and the others are his uncle the abbe, his mother and sister.  That kind of a syndicate doesn’t scare me much.  A priest and two women contra mundum!”

She shook her head.  “Not contra mundum, but with it, their whole world is behind them.  It’s that mysterious solidarity that you can’t understand.  One doesn’t know how far they may reach, or in how many directions.  I have never known.  They have always cropped up where I least expected them.”

Before this persistency of negation Durham’s buoyancy began to flag, but his determination grew the more fixed.