The Dominant Strain Part 17

"Thayer?"

"No; yourself. Sidney, I hate to discuss this thing, for it has come between us and spoiled life for us both; but you have no right to depend on Mr. Thayer as you do. You aren't a child, and you can fight your own way out of this."

"What's the use now?"

"Use! Everything. Your whole manhood."

"But in the end? What does it all amount to?"

"Surely, you aren't child enough to need a bribe?" she asked in sharp scorn.

Her scorn stung him to rapid speech.

"Beatrix, ever since I turned into manhood, I have known this danger of mine, and I have tried to fight it for the sake of the woman I might love, some day. Laugh, if you will. Perhaps it is funny; but it has a certain pitiful side to it, this trying to keep one's self clean for the sake of the woman one has never yet seen. Then, last fall, I did see her. Since then, the fight has been easier; perhaps I've not lost so many battles. It all seemed more worth while. And now--"

"And now?" Her voice was almost inaudible.

"Now I have had it all and lost it, lost it through my own fault, and there doesn't seem to be anything left worth fighting for."

There was a long silence. At length, Beatrix rose.

"Sidney," she said, as she slowly held out both hands to him; "shall we fight side by side for a little longer?"

CHAPTER TEN

"I've manufactured a new definition of happiness," Sally said to Bobby Dane, six months later.

"What now?"

"Think with the mob."

"Who has rubbed you the wrong way, this time?" Bobby queried unsympathetically.

"Everybody. I am so tired of hearing people praise Beatrix for marrying Sidney Lorimer."

Bobby halted and shook hands with her, to the manifest wonder of the post-ecclesiastical Fifth Avenue throng.

"That's where even your head is level, Sally," he said, as he resumed his stroll. "Do you want to know what I think of her?"

"If you agree with me; not otherwise. I hate arguments, and, besides, it is bad form to condemn one's dearest friend. But keeping still so long has nearly driven me to--"

"Teta.n.u.s," Bobby suggested. "Well, my impression of Beatrix is that she is a bally idiot. I don't know just what _bally_ means; but our English brethren apply it in critical cases, and so it is sure to be right. Yes, I think Beatrix is very bally indeed."

"Then you don't approve, either?"

"Me? I? I have hated Lorimer from the start."

"I haven't," Sally said, after a thoughtful interval. "I liked him at first."

"You never saw him at the club," Bobby returned briefly.

"What did he do there?"

"I don't know. He just wasn't right."

Sally paced along meditatively at his side.

"Bobby, you are a critical being," she observed at length.

"Mayhap. But the event justifies me. I never have liked Lorimer, and I never shall."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Bobby opened his hands and turned them palm downwards.

"There's nothing to be done. I hate to see Beatrix throw herself away; but I can't help it."

"I wonder what her idea is," Sally said thoughtfully. "She has always been so down upon any fastness that I supposed she would cut his acquaintance entirely, after that Lloyd Avalons supper."

"He acted an awful cad, that night." Bobby's tone was disdainful. "I helped get him home and, before he was fairly out of the dining-room, he was bragging about his family, and his money, and the Lord knows what."

"Yes, I heard him. Beatrix heard some of it, too, before Mr. Thayer took her away. I was at her house, the next afternoon, when Mr. Lorimer called, and I was sure she would break her engagement there and then.

Put not your faith in the principles of a woman in love."

"Confound her principles! That's what is the matter with her," Bobby growled. "I had always supposed that Beatrix was a reasonable girl; but no girl in her senses would tackle the job of marrying Sidney Lorimer to reform him."

"When I do it, I'll reverse things and reform the man to marry him,"

Sally returned shrewdly.

Bobby raised his brows.

"The first time you've ever warned me that I was on probation, Sally!"

"I said a man, not a boy," she replied unkindly. "But, after all, Mr.

Lorimer has been perfectly steady, all summer long."

"Mm--yes, after a fashion. Of course, he would do his best, for I will do him the justice to admit that he loves Beatrix with all the manhood there is in him. To be sure, that's not saying much."

"You aren't quite fair to him, Bobby. He must have some manhood in him, to have steadied down as much as he has done, this summer."

Bobby shrugged his shoulders.

"He is playing for high stakes, Sally, and he can afford to be careful.

Any slip now would prove to be the losing of the whole game. Wait a year and see."