And yet two weeks later, due to a telephone message from her to his office for just one word, a few minutes, anywhere that he would suggest, they met again, this time merely for a moment, as he told himself and her. It was foolish, he shouldn’t do it, but still---- At this interview, somehow, Imogene managed to establish a claim on his emotions which it was not easy to overcome. It was in one of the small side booths in the rather out-of-the-way Grill Parzan Restaurant in the great financial district. Protesting that it was only because she wished to see him just once more that she had done this, she had come here, she said, after having dropped instantly and completely out of the life at Triton Hall, not returning even for her wardrobe, as he understood it, and hiding away in an unpretentious quarter of the city until she could make up her mind what to do. She seemed, and said she was, much alone, distrait. She did not know what was to become of her now, what might befall her. Still, she was not so unhappy if only he would not think badly of her any more. He had to smile at her seemingly pathetic faith in what love might do for her. To think that love should turn a woman about like this! It was fascinating, and so sad. He was fond of her in a platonic way, he now told himself, quite sincerely so. Her interest in him was pleasing, even moving, “But what is it you expect of me?” he kept saying over and over. “You know we can’t go on with this. There’s ‘the girl’ and the kid. I won’t do anything to harm them, and besides, the campaign is just beginning. Even this is ridiculously foolish of me. I’m taking my career in my hands. This lunch will have to be the last, I tell you.” “Well, Ed,” she agreed wistfully, looking at him at the very close of the meal, “you have made up your mind, haven’t you? Then you’re not going to see me any more? You seem so distant, now that we’re back in town. Do you feel so badly toward me, Ed? Am I really so bad?” “Well, Imogene, you see for yourself how it is, don’t you?” he went on. “It can’t be. You are more or less identified with that old crowd, even though you don’t want to be. They know things about you, you say, and they certainly wouldn’t be slow to use them if they had any reason for so doing. Of course they don’t know anything yet about this confession, unless you’ve told them, and I don’t propose that they shall so long as I don’t have to use it. As for me, I have to think of my wife and kid, and I don’t want to do anything to hurt them. If ever Emily found this out it would break her all up, and I don’t want to do that. She’s been too square, and we’ve gone through too much together. I’ve thought it all over, and I’m convinced that what I’m going to do is for the best. We have to separate, and I came here to-day to tell you that I can’t see you any more. It can’t be, Imogene, can’t you see that?” “Not even for a little while?”