do this.  He knew about the enterprise which had absorbed the banker’s capital, and while he believed it would respond promptly to the returning flow of the financial tide, it now seemed stranded among more hopeless ventures.  There was no escaping the conviction that Muir was in a perilous position, and that a little thing might push him over the brink.  Therefore, he had returned fully beat upon using all his influence in behalf of Arnault, and was spurred to this effort by the fact that his finances, but not his expenses, were running low.  His wife could give but a dubious account of Stella’s conduct.

“In short,” said Mr. Wildmere, irritably, “she is dallying with both, and may lose both by her hesitating folly.”

His daughter’s greeting was brief and formal.  A sort of matter-of-course kiss had been given, and then he had been left to eat his supper alone, since his wife could not just then be absent from her child.  At last he lounged out on the piazza, sat down before one of the parlor windows, glanced at the gay scene within, and smoked in silence.  Before the German began, Graydon passed him several times, regarding him curiously and with a growing sense of repulsion.  He disliked to think that the relation between this man and the girl he would marry was so close.

Before the evening was over, Mr. Wildmere saw that his daughter was in truth pursuing a difficult policy.  The angry light in Arnault’s eyes and the grave expression on Graydon’s face proved how fraught with peril it was to his hopes.  Neither of her suitors liked Stella’s manner that evening, for it suggested traits which promised ill for the future.  Graydon, who understood her the less, was the more lenient judge.

“Not only Arnault,” he thought, “but her father also, has been pressing her toward a course from which she revolts, and she is half reckless in consequence.”

He endeavored by his quiet and observant attention, by the grave and gentle expression of his eyes, to assure her once more that she could find a refuge in him the moment that she would decide absolutely in his favor.  She understood him well, and was enraged that she could not that night go out with him into the moonlight, put her hand in his, and end her suspense.

Her father had whispered, significantly, when they met, “Stella, I must see you before you give Mr. Muir further encouragement;” and she, feeling that it might be among her last chances, for the present, of showing Graydon favor, was lavish of it.  But it was not the preference of strong, true, womanly choice; it was rather the half-defiant aspect with which forbidden fruit might be regarded.

As the great clock was about to chime the hour of midnight the dancing ceased.  Arnault seemed determined to have the last word, and Graydon interposed no obstacle.  The former walked on the piazza by Stella’s side for a few turns in moody silence.  Her father still sat at his post of observation.  Mrs. Wildmere had been with him part of the time, but he had not had much to say to her.