Mrs. Whitney vented an audible sigh of relief. "Then you didn't let him deceive you!" "He shattered my last illusion," said Janet, in a mournful voice. "Mother, I simply _couldn't_ believe in him, in the purity of his love. I had to give him up." Mrs. Whitney put her arms round her daughter and kissed her soothingly again and again. "Don't grieve, dear," she said. "Think how much better it is that you should have found him out now than when it was too late." And Janet shuddered. * * * * * Ross dropped in at the house in the Lake Drive the next morning on his way East from the Howlands. As soon as he was alone with his mother, he asked, "How about Janet and Arthur?" Mrs. Whitney put on her exalted expression. "I'm glad you said nothing before Janet," said she. "The child is so sensitive, and Arthur has given her a terrible shock. Men are so coarse; they do not appreciate the delicateness of a refined woman. In this case, however, it was most fortunate. She was able to see into his true nature." "Then she's broken it off? That's good." "Be careful what you say to her," his mother hastened to warn him. "You might upset her mind again. She's so afraid of being misunderstood." "She needn't be," replied Ross dryly. And when he looked in on Janet in her sitting room to say good-by, he began with a satirical, "Congratulations, Jenny." Jenny looked at him with wondering eyes. She was drooping like a sunless flower and was reading poetry out of a beautifully bound volume. "What is it, Ross?" she asked. "On shaking Artie so smoothly. Trust you to do the right thing at the right time, and in the right way. You're a beauty, Jen, and no mistake," laughed Ross. "I never saw your like. You really must marry a title--Madame la Duchesse! And nobody's on to you but me. You aren't even on to yourself!" Janet drew up haughtily and swept into her bedroom, closing the door with _almost_ coarse emphasis. CHAPTER XII ARTHUR FALLS AMONG LAWYERS Arthur ended his far from orderly retreat at the Auditorium, and in the sitting room of his suite there set about re-forming his lines, with some vague idea of making another attack later in the day--one less timid and blundering. "I'd better not have gone near her," said he disgustedly. "How could a man win when he feels beaten before he begins?" He was not now hazed by Janet's beauty and her voice like bells in evening quiet, and her mystic ideas. Youth, rarely wise in action, is often wise in thought; and Arthur, having a reasoning apparatus that worked uncommonly well when he set it in motion and did not interfere with it, was soon seeing his situation as a whole much as it was--ugly, mocking, hopeless.