That was a question which always rose before him.
Was she as kindly?
Wasn't she deliberately scheming under his very eyes to win him away from the woman who was as good as his wife?
Was that admirable?
Was it the thing a truly big woman would do?
Was she good enough for him after all?
Ought he to marry her?
Ought he to marry any one seeing that he really owed a spiritual if not a legal allegiance to Jennie?
Was it worth while for any woman to marry him?
These things turned in his brain. They haunted him.
He could not shut out the fact that he was doing a cruel and unlovely thing. Material error in the first place was now being complicated with spiritual error.
He was attempting to right the first by committing the second.
Could it be done to his own satisfaction? Would it pay mentally and spiritually? Would it bring him peace of mind?
He was thinking, thinking, all the while he was readjusting his life to the old (or perhaps better yet, new) conditions, and he was not feeling any happier.
As a matter of fact he was feeling worse—grim, revengeful.
If he married Letty he thought at times it would be to use her fortune as a club to knock other enemies over the head, and he hated to think he was marrying her for that.
He took up his abode at the Auditorium, visited Cincinnati in a distant and aggressive spirit, sat in council with the board of directors, wishing that he was more at peace with himself, more interested in life.
But he did not change his policy in regard to Jennie.
Of course Mrs. Gerald had been vitally interested in Lester's rehabilitation.
She waited tactfully some little time before sending him any word; finally she ventured to write to him at the Hyde Park address (as if she did not know where he was), asking,
"Where are you?"
By this time Lester had become slightly accustomed to the change in his life.
He was saying to himself that he needed sympathetic companionship, the companionship of a woman, of course.
Social invitations had begun to come to him now that he was alone and that his financial connections were so obviously restored.
He had made his appearance, accompanied only by a Japanese valet, at several country houses, the best sign that he was once more a single man.
No reference was made by any one to the past.
On receiving Mrs. Gerald's note he decided that he ought to go and see her.
He had treated her rather shabbily. For months preceding his separation from Jennie he had not gone near her.
Even now he waited until time brought a 'phoned invitation to dinner. This he accepted.
Mrs. Gerald was at her best as a hostess at her perfectly appointed dinner-table.
Alboni, the pianist, was there on this occasion, together with Adam Rascavage, the sculptor, a visiting scientist from England, Sir Nelson Keyes, and, curiously enough, Mr. and Mrs. Berry Dodge, whom Lester had not met socially in several years.
Mrs. Gerald and Lester exchanged the joyful greetings of those who understand each other thoroughly and are happy in each other's company.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, sir," she said to him when he made his appearance, "to treat me so indifferently?
You are going to be punished for this."
"What's the damage?" he smiled. "I've been extremely rushed.
I suppose something like ninety stripes will serve me about right."
"Ninety stripes, indeed!" she retorted.
"You're letting yourself off easy.
What is it they do to evil-doers in Siam?"
"Boil them in oil, I suppose."
"Well, anyhow, that's more like.
I'm thinking of something terrible."
"Be sure and tell me when you decide," he laughed, and passed on to be presented to distinguished strangers by Mrs. De Lincum who aided Mrs. Gerald in receiving.
The talk was stimulating.
Lester was always at his ease intellectually, and this mental atmosphere revived him.
Presently he turned to greet Berry Dodge, who was standing at his elbow.
Dodge was all cordiality.
"Where are you now?" he asked.
"We haven't seen you in—oh, when?
Mrs. Dodge is waiting to have a word with you."