“If you weren’t a fool, you would perceive he is treating you better than ninety-nine men in a hundred. He has suggested marriage. The others might not have done.” “Oh! I’m not a fool in that way,” came the bitter reply, “but I’ve wondered once or twice what your attitude would have been, supposing—er—he had been one of the ninety-nine!” Mrs. Vivian was saved replying by the unexpected appearance of Frank Raynor himself. Entering the room with a quick step, he suddenly stopped short and looked from one to the other. Something in their expressions told him what had transpired. He turned sharply on the mother. “You’ve been speaking to Lorraine about me. I told you I wouldn’t have it. I know your bullying ways, and I said she was to be left to decide for herself.” Lorraine saw an angry retort on her mother’s lips, and hurriedly left the room. She put on her hat and slipped away into the Park. What was she to do?… where, oh where was Hal! Within three months the short cut was taken. Lorraine was engaged to play a leading part at the Greenway Theatre, and she was the wife of Frank Raynor. CHAPTER IV When Hal came back from America and heard about Lorraine’s marriage, it was a great shock to her. At first she could hardly bring herself to believe it at all. Nothing thoroughly convinced her until she stood in the pretty Kensington house and beheld Mrs. Vivian’s pronounced air of triumph, and Lorraine’s somewhat forced attempts at joyousness. It was one of the few occasions in her life when Lorraine was nervous. She did not want Hal to know the sordid facts; and she did not believe she would be able to hide them from her. When Hal, from a mass of somewhat jerky, contradictory information, had gleaned that the new leading part at the London theatre had been gained through the middle-aged bridegroom’s influence, her comment was sufficiently direct. “Oh, that’s why you did it, is it? Well, I only hope you don’t hate the sight of him already.” “How absurd you are, Hal!... Of course I don’t hate the sight of him. He’s a dear. He gives me everything in the world I want, if he possibly can.” “How dull. It’s much more fun getting a few things for oneself. And when the only thing in all the world you want is your freedom, do you imagine he’ll give you that?” Lorraine got up suddenly, thrusting her hands out before her, as if to ward off some vague fear. “Hal, you are brutal today. What is the use of talking like that now?... Why did you go to America?... Perhaps if you hadn’t gone—” “Give me a cigarette,” said Hal, with a little catch in her voice, “I want soothing. At the present moment you’re a greater strain than Dudley talking down at me from a pyramid of worn-out prejudices. I don’t know why my two Best-Belovèds should both be cast in a mould to weigh so heavily on my shoulders.”