At first his own conduct had seemed inexplicable to him. Everything had been going well, he had been just about to be free from the whole entanglement, when an impulse of primitive jealousy and fierce masculine egotism had suddenly brought him to New York and bound him hand and foot. It had not been an agreeable prospect--to live among people whose standards he did not understand, with a woman whom he did not love. But, since his conversation with Hickson, his eyes were opened, and he saw the situation in far more tragic colors. He _did_ love her. He did not believe in her or trust her; he had no illusions as to her feeling for him, but his for her was clear--he loved her, loved her with that strange mingling of passion and hatred so often found and so rarely admitted. He could imagine a man’s learning, even under the most suspicious circumstances, to conquer jealousy of a woman who loved him. Or he could imagine having confidence in a woman who did not pretend love. But to be married to a woman whom you love, without a shred of belief either in her principles or her affection, seemed to Riatt about as terrible a prospect as could be offered to a human being. There was just one chance for him--that Christine might be willing to release him. If she really loved Linburne, if there had been some sort of understanding between them in the past, if his coming had only precipitated a lovers’ quarrel, then certainly Christine had too much intelligence to let such a chance slip through her fingers just on the eve of Linburne’s divorce. Nor was she, he thought bitterly, too proud to stoop to ask a man to reconsider; nor did it seem likely, however deeply Linburne’s vanity had been wounded, that he would refuse to listen. With this in mind, as soon as he reached his hotel, he sat down and wrote her a letter: “My dear Christine: “What was it, according to your idea, that happened this afternoon? I believed that for the first time I asked you to marry me, and that you, for the first time definitely accepted me. But as I think over your manner, I am led to think you supposed it was just a continuation of our old joke. “Did you accept me, Christine? And if so, why? Why commit yourself to a marriage without affection, at the psychological moment when a man for whom you have always cared is about to be free? “If you still need me in the game, I am ready enough to be of use, but I will not be bound to a relation unless you, too, consider it irrevocably binding. “Yours, “M. R.” He told the messenger to wait for an answer, but he thought that Christine would hardly be willing to commit herself on such short notice, or without an interview with Linburne. But, within a surprisingly short interval, her letter was in his impatient hands. “Dear Max: