They rode on in silence.

CHAPTER VIII

When Lorelei awoke on the following afternoon her first inquiry was for Jim; but he had not come home, and her mother knew nothing of his whereabouts.  Lorelei ate her breakfast in silence; then, in reply to a question, accounted for the lateness of her arrival by saying that she had dined with Mr. Merkle.

At the name Mrs. Knight pricked up her ears; vulture-like, she undertook to pick out of her daughter all that had occurred, down to the most insignificant detail.  Lorelei had always made a confidant of her mother in such cases, even to the repetition of whole conversations; but this time the latter’s inquisitiveness grated on her, and she answered the questions put to her grudgingly.  Just why she felt resentful she scarcely knew.  Certainly she had no interest in Mr. Merkle, nor suffered the least embarrassment over their exploit.  Rather, on this afternoon, she beheld with unusual clarity her present general life, and that of her family, feeling more keenly than usual the utter sordidness of their whole scheme of existence.  Unwelcome thoughts of this sort had come of late, and would not be banished.  Once she had made a pet of a magpie, but the bird’s habits had forced her to dispose of it.  She remembered the way it forever pried into things; how nothing was safe from that sharp beak and inquisitive eye.  Its waking hours had been busied in a tireless, furtive search for forbidden objects.  Now she could not help likening her mother to the bird, although the thought shocked her.  There was the same sly angle of countenance, a similar furtiveness of purpose; the very expression of Mrs. Knight’s keen, hard eyes was like nothing so much as that of the magpie’s.  Displeased at her own irritation, Lorelei made the excuse of a shopping trip to escape from the house.

At the nearest news-stand she bought the afternoon papers, and was relieved to find no mention of the incidents of the night before.  It appeared that Hammon and Merkle had succeeded in their attempt to suppress the story—­if, indeed, there had ever been any intention of making it public.

Looking back upon last night’s homeward ride, she was wholly at a loss.  In view of Jim’s words and of what she had gathered at the theater she had felt sure of Lilas’s complete knowledge of the blackmail plot, but Hammon’s unwavering faith in the girl and Lilas’s own story of her relations with Max Melcher had awakened a doubt.  If Lilas had told the whole truth, and if she really cared for Hammon, the affair, despite its clandestine nature, would bear a more favorable construction, and Lorelei could not entirely withhold her sympathy from the offending pair.  Of the two Hammon was the more blameworthy; but his domestic unhappiness in a measure canceled his guilt—­so, at least, said the code under which Lorelei lived.  What concerned her far more than the moral complexion