CHAPTER I
A Thread Breaks
IT was not until the Sunday evening following Tremaine’s departure that I found myself alone with Cecily and in a position to begin that conversation from which I hoped so much.
In the morning I had taken her to mass at the cathedral, where she had listened with rapt countenance. In the afternoon, the weather being very pleasant, we drove out to the Bronx to see the animals and the conservatories, in which she was as interested as any child. In fact, I found myself treating her more and more as a child. She was essentially one in character—self-willed, easily downcast and as easily elated; and though she was religious to a degree amounting almost to superstition, it seemed never to have occurred to her that there was anything wrong or irregular in her manner of life. She was frankly Tremaine’s mistress, evidently cherished a deep affection for him, and, I doubt not, would have been faithful to him under any but the most extraordinary temptation.
She had arrayed herself, that Sunday evening, in the same garments she had worn the first night I had met her—the gorgeous costume of the belle affranchie, in which she was most at home—but I had grown more accustomed to her and sat down near her without any great bedazzlement. She was lying
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