Chapter 33 - Page 2

her plans had reached. All she had apparently
vouchsafed her parent was the statement that she intended to re-marry,
and the command to send Paul over; and Ralph reflected that his own
betrothal to her had probably been announced to Mr. Spragg in the same
curt fashion.

The thought brought back an overwhelming sense of the past. One by one
the details of that incredible moment revived, and he felt in his
veins the glow of rapture with which he had first approached the dingy
threshold he was now leaving. There came back to him with peculiar
vividness the memory of his rushing up to Mr. Spragg's office to consult
him about a necklace for Undine. Ralph recalled the incident because his
eager appeal for advice had been received by Mr. Spragg with the very
phrase he had just used: "I presume you'll have to leave the matter to
my daughter."

Ralph saw him slouching in his chair, swung sideways from the untidy
desk, his legs stretched out, his hands in his pockets, his jaws engaged
on the phantom tooth-pick; and, in a corner of the office, the
figure of a middle-sized red-faced young man who seemed to have been
interrupted in the act of saying something disagreeable.

"Why, it must have been then that I first saw Moffatt," Ralph reflected;
and the thought suggested the memory of other, subsequent meetings in
the same building, and of frequent ascents to Moffatt's office during
the ardent weeks of their mysterious and remunerative "deal."

Ralph wondered if Moffatt's office were still in the Ararat; and on the
way out he paused before the black tablet affixed to the wall of the
vestibule and sought and found the name in its familiar place.

The next moment he was again absorbed in his own cares. Now that he had
learned the imminence of Paul's danger, and the futility of pleading for
delay, a thousand fantastic projects were contending in his head. To
get the boy away--that seemed the first thing to do: to put him out of
reach, and then invoke the law, get the case re-opened, and carry the
fight from court to court till his rights should be recognized. It would
cost a lot of money--well, the money would have to be found. The first
step was to secure the boy's temporary safety; after that, the question
of ways and means would have to be considered...Had there ever been a
time, Ralph wondered, when that question hadn't been at the root of all
the others?

He had promised to let Clare Van Degen know the result of his visit, and
half an hour later he was in her drawing-room. It was the first time he
had entered it since his divorce; but Van Degen was tarpon-fishing in
California--and besides, he had to see Clare. His one relief was in
talking to her, in