Away from home he drifted out of church-going. He immersed himself in business and began to be a brilliant success. He wrote long letters to his mother and enjoyed hers in return, but his epistles were not revealing. She sensed his reserves, and when they met she felt his playful gentleness with her was a screen for a bitterness of soul which she hoped and prayed might pass. And it did pass, gradually, until she had almost come to feel that his soul was healed, and the tragedy forgotten. More and more she prayed now that some day, when he was ready, he might meet a different kind of girl, one who would make him forget utterly the poor little vampire who had almost ruined his life’s happiness. In fact, the last time she had seen him on her recent trip to Philadelphia he had laughingly told her that she needn’t worry about him any more. He was utterly heart whole and happy. But it is a question, whether if she had been permitted to look in on him this morning as he read Evadne’s letter, she would have felt that his words had been quite true. He had promised his mother, in those first days after the break with Evadne, that he would not see her nor communicate with her for at least two years. The time was more than past, yet he felt the righteous obligation of his promise still upon him. He knew that he ought not to see Evadne again. He knew that the very sight of her would stir in him the old interest, which he now felt to be of a lower order than the highest of which he was capable. He could see her sitting now flung back in some bewildering costume that revealed the delicate, slim lines of her figure, some costly bauble smouldering on the whiteness of her neck that might have graced an Egyptian queen, her hair moulded in satin-like folds about her small head, and her slanted eyes half closed, studying him tauntingly as she held her cigarette in her jewelled fingers and considered with what clever personality to bind him next. The distance of time had shown him that he had been bound, that he had been a fool, and had brought him disillusionment; yet he knew that if he gave it half a chance the enchantment would work again upon him, and he felt contempt for himself that it was so. Yet strangely he found a law within himself that longed again to be enchanted, even while he sneered at the emptiness of it all. Suppose he should go tonight to meet her—it was tonight. He glanced at the date of the letter to make sure. He could tell almost to a flicker of an eyelash what would happen.