Was it fortunate or unfortunate that she did not know an automobile was just turning into the lake road, a hired automobile, occupied by her fiance, Dulac?  Rangar’s note had reached his hands and he had acted as Rangar had hoped. ...

CHAPTER XIII

Until a few moments before Ruth had never had a suspicion of Bonbright’s feeling for her; she had not imagined he would ever cross that distinct line which separates the friend from the suitor.  It was an unpleasant surprise to her.  Not that he was repugnant to her, but she had already bestowed her affections, and now she would have to hurt this boy who had already suffered so much at the hands of others.  She recoiled from it.  She blamed herself for her blindness, but she was not to blame.  What she had failed to foresee Bonbright himself had realized only that morning.

He had awakened suddenly to the knowledge that his sentiment for Ruth Frazer was not calm friendship, but throbbing love.  He had been awakened to it rudely, not as most young men are shown that they love. ...  When he flung out of his father’s office that morning he had recognized only a just rage; hardly had his feet carried him over the threshold before rage was crowded out by the realization of love.  His father’s words had aroused his rage because he loved the woman they maligned!  Suddenly he knew it. ...

“It’s so,” he said to himself.  “It’s so—­and I didn’t know it.”

It was disconcerting, but he was glad.  Almost at once he realized what a change this thing brought into his life, and the major consequences of it. ...  First, he would have her—­he must have her—­ he would not live without her.  It required no effort of determination to arrive at that decision.  To win her, to have her for his own, was now the one important thing in his life.  To do so would mean—­what would it mean?  The Family, dead and living, would be outraged.  His father would stand aghast at his impiousness; his mother, class conscious as few of the under dogs are ever class conscious, would refuse to receive this girl as her daughter. ...  There would be bitterness—­but there would be release.  By this one step he would break with the Family Tradition and the Family Ghosts.  They would cast him out. ...  But would they cast him out?  He was Bonbright Foote VII, crown prince of the dynasty, vested with rights in the family and in the family’s property by family laws of primogeniture and entail. ...  No, he would not be cast out, could not be cast out, for his father would let no sin of his son’s stand in the way of a perpetuation of the family.  Bonbright knew that if a complete breach opened between his father and himself it must be his hand that opened it.  His father’s would never do so. ...  He wondered if he could do so—­if, when he was calm, he would desire to do so.

Once he recognized his love he could not be still; office walls could not contain him.  He was in a fever to see Ruth with newly opened eyes, with eyes that would see her as they had not seen her in the days before. ...  He rushed out—­to encounter Hangar, and to experience a surging return of rage. ...  Then he went on, with no aim or purpose but to get rid of the time that must pass before he could see Ruth.  It was ten o’clock, and he could not see her until five.  Seven hours. ...