That night it was simply managed that Martin should be next to Alix, in the loge at the theatre, and she began to question him seriously at once.  All through the strange, unnatural day that followed her night of vigil she had been planning what she should say to him, but she and Cherry had not spoken of the subject again.  Cherry had dressed herself with her usual dainty care, and now, with the violets Alix had given her spraying in a great purple bunch at her breast, and her blue eyes ringed and thoughtful under her soft little feathered hat, she was so arrestingly lovely that Alix was well aware of the admiring glances from all sides to which she was so superbly indifferent.

“Martin,” Alix began, “I read a letter intended for Cherry this morning.  I—­I open all the mail!”

She had to repeat it twice before he realized that there was something behind her earnest and significant tone.  Then she saw him stop twisting his program, and veer about toward her.  She murmured a question.

“Do I what?” he asked, in an undertone instantly lowered.

“Do you know a girl named Hatty Woods?” Alix repeated, cautiously.

All hope died when she saw his face.  He shot her a quick, suspicious look, and his big mouth trembled with a scornful and contemptuous smile and he looked away indifferently.  Then he faced her, on guard.

“What about her?” he asked, almost inaudibly.

“Somebody wrote this letter about her,” Alix stated, quietly.

“Who wrote you about her?  What’d she say?” he demanded quickly.

“Just—­I’ll let you see it,” she said.  “I don’t know who wrote it--it wasn’t signed.  Do you—­do you know her?  Do you know Hatty Woods?”

Martin smiled again, a superior yet ugly smile.  It was the look of a man approached in his own realm, threatened in his infallible fastness.

“The less you have to do with girls like Hatty, the better!” he told her.  “You’ve got plenty to do without mixing up with her!”

“She said—­” Alix began.  “The letter said—­”

“Oh, sure, I know what she’d say!” Martin conceded, furious at Alix’s interference, trembling with anger and resentment, and only anxious to close the conversation.  “I know all about her and her kind.  I think I know who wrote that letter, too.  I guess Joe King’s wife knows something about it.  They’re all alike!  You give it to me to-morrow and I’ll manage it.  There won’t be any more!”

“Martin,” Alix whispered, gravely, “if you have given Cherry any cause—­” Her voice fell, and there was a silence.

“There are a great many things in life that you don’t understand, my dear sister-in-law,” Martin said reluctantly, nettled, but still maintaining his air of lofty superiority, “a man’s life is not a woman’s—­isn’t intended to be!  If this woman says she has anything on me—­”

“She said that you went to a place called Bopps’ Hotel in Sacramento—­” Alix began, but he interrupted her.