Time has been when the most exclusive, most recherche doors of Fifth avenue flew gladly open at his approach. That day, likewise, is over.

The places that knew him, know him no more; he is an outcast and a Bohemian; he drinks, he gambles, he is poor; his coat is gray at the seams; bistre circles surround his eyes; his haggard, handsome face tells the story of his life. Yet the old elegance and old fascination of manner, linger still. People rather stare to see him here. Mrs. Allison frowns. She has flirted desperately with him "ages" ago; but really bygones should be bygones, and Mr. Thorndyke has gone to the dogs in so pronounced a manner, and been disinherited for some dreadful doings, and, really and truly, the line must be drawn somewhere, and it is inexcusable in Mr. Allison to have asked him at all.

"No one invites him now," Mrs. Allison says, indignantly. "Both he and Helen are socially extinct. They say she takes in sewing, and lives in a dreadful tenement house away over by the East River--and with dear Mrs.

Liston-Darcy here and everything! Of course it can't be pleasant for them to meet. He contested the will--if he should make a scene to-night!--good heavens! No doubt he is half-tipsy--they say he always _is_ half-tipsy--and look at his dress! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Arthur Allison, for asking him!"

"Couldn't help it, Hattie--give you my word now," responds Arthur meekly; "he as good as asked me to ask him, when he heard Mrs. Darcy was coming. And he wants to be introduced, and I've promised, and there's no use making a fuss now. He isn't tipsy, and I don't believe there will be a scene. I'll introduce him at once; the sooner it's over, the better."

He goes off uneasily, and leads Mr. Thorndyke into an inner room, where a lady sits at the piano, singing. A lady elegantly dressed in white silk, and violet trimmings, with a white perfumery rose in her black hair. Her face is averted--Mr. Thorndyke glares vindictively at the woman who has ousted him out of a fortune. She is a beautiful singer, and somehow--somehow, the sweet powerful contralto tones are strangely familiar. Can he have ever heard her before?

She finishes. Mr. Allison draws near the piano.

"Mrs. Darcy," he says, clearing his throat, "will you allow me to introduce to you Mr. Thorndyke?"

She is laughingly responding to a complimentary gentleman beside her.

With that smile still on her lips she turns slowly round, lifting up her eyes. And with a gasping sound that is neither word nor cry, Laurence Thorndyke stands face to face once more with Norine.

CHAPTER XIX.

"WHOM THE GODS WISH TO DESTROY THEY FIRST MAKE MAD."

Norine! And like this, after four years, these two meet again.

Norine! His lips shape the word, but no sound follows. He stands before her destitute of all power to speak or move. Lost in a trance of wonder, he remains looking down upon the fair, smiling, upturned face, utterly confounded.

"I am very pleased to meet Mr. Thorndyke. By reputation I know him well."

These audacious words, smilingly spoken, reach his ear. She bows, taps her fan lightly, and makes some airy remark to her host. And still Laurence Thorndyke stands petrified. She notices, lifts her eyebrows, and ever so slightly shrugs her shoulders.

"Mr. Thorndyke does not spare me. To which of my defects, I wonder, do I owe this steady regard?"

"Norine!"

The name breaks from his lips at last. He still stands and stares.

She uplifts her graceful shoulders once more--the old French trick of gesture he remembers so well.

"I remind Mr. Thorndyke of some one, possibly," she says--impatience mingled with her "society manner," this time--"of some lady he knows?"

"Of some one I once knew, certainly, Mrs.--Ah, Darcy," he retorts, his face flushing angrily, his old insolent ease of manner returning, "I am not sure that you would call her a lady. She was a French Canadienne--her name--would you like to hear her name, Mrs.

Liston-Darcy?"

"It does not interest me at all, Mr. Thorndyke."

"Her name was Norine Bourdon, and she was like--most astoundingly like _you_! So like that I could swear you were one and the same."

"Ah, indeed! But I would not take a rash oath if I were you. These accidental resemblances are so deceptive. Mr. Wentworth, if you will give me your arm, I think I will go and look at the dancers."

The last words were very marked. With a chill, formal bow to Mr.

Thorndyke she took her escort's arm, and turned to move away. With that angry flush still on his face, that angry light still in his eyes, Laurence Thorndyke interposed.

"Mrs. Darcy, they are playing the 'Soldaten Lieder'. It is a favorite waltz of yours, I _know_. Will you not give it to me?"

She turned upon him slowly, a swift, black flash in her eyes that made him recoil.

"You make a mistake, Mr. Thorndyke! Of what I dance or what I do not, you can possibly know nothing. For the rest, my time of mourning for my dear adopted father has but just expired. I do not dance at all."

Then she was gone--tall, and fair and graceful as a lily. And Laurence Thorndyke drew a long breath, his face aglow with genuine admiration.

"By Jupiter!" he said; "who'd have thought it! In the language of the immortal Dick Swiveller, 'This is a staggerer!' Who'd have thought she'd have had the pluck! And who would have thought she would ever have grown so handsome?"

"You _do_ know her, then, Thorndyke?" his host asked, in intense curiosity.

Mr. Thorndyke had forgotten him, but Mr. Allison was still at his elbow.

His reply was a short, curious laugh.

"Know her? By Jove! I used to think so, but at this moment I am inclined to doubt it. Have you not heard her deny it, and ladies invariably tell the truth, do they not? 'These accidental resemblances are so deceptive!'" He laughed shortly. "So they are, my dear Mrs. Darcy! Yes, Allison, it's all a mistake on my part, no doubt."

He turned and swung away to escape Allison, and think his surprise out.

His eyes went after her. Yes, there she was again, the centre of an admiring group of all that was best in the room. Her beautiful dark face was all alight, the black, beautiful eyes, like dusk diamonds, the waving hair most gracefully worn--by odds the most attractive woman in the rooms. Those years had changed her wonderfully--improved her beyond telling. The face, clear cut and calm as marble, the lips set and resolute, the figure matured and grown firm. About her there was all the uplifted ease, the ineffable self-poise of a woman of the world, conscious of her beauty, her wealth, and her power.

"And this is Norine--little Norry," Laurence Thorndyke thought in his trance of wonder. "I can hardly believe my own senses. I thought her dead, or buried alive down there in the wilds of Maine, and lo! here she crops up, old Darcy's heiress--beautiful, elegant, and ready to face me with the courage of a stage heroine--the woman who has done me out of a fortune. This is her revenge! And I thought her a love-sick simpleton, ready to lie down and die of a broken heart the hour I left her. By George! _how_ handsome she has grown. It would be easy enough for any man to fall in love with her now."

She meant to ignore the past, utterly and absolutely ignore it--that he saw. Well, he would take his cue from her for the present, and see how the farce would play. But--was it Norine?--that self-possessed regal-looking lady! Could it be that those dark, calm, haughty eyes had ever filled with passionate tears at his slightest word of reproach? had ever darkened with utter despair at his going? Could it be that yonder beautiful, stately creature had waited and watched for him in pale anguish, night after night, his veriest slave?--had clung to him, white with direst woe, when he had seen her last? Proud, uplifted, calm--could it be?--could it be?

"Norine, surely; but not the Norine I knew--a Norine ten thousand times more to my taste. But how, in Heaven's name, has she brought this transformation about? Mrs. Jane Liston--old Liston's niece. I have it! I see it all! Liston is at the bottom of this. It is his revenge for Lucy West; and they have worked and plotted together, whilst I, blind fool, thought him my friend, and thought her too feeble, soul and body, to do anything but droop and die when I left her."

Yes, he saw it all. Like inspiration it came upon him. In his own coin he had been paid; the trodden worms had turned, and Lucy West and Norine Bourdon were avenged.

Mr. Thorndyke withdrew from every one and gave himself wholly up to the study of Mrs. Darcy. There was no scene; Mrs. Allison need not have feared it; no gentleman present "behaved himself" more quietly or decorously than Mr. Laurence Thorndyke. How wonderfully she had changed!

how handsome she had grown! that was the burden of his musings. And she had loved him once--ah, yes--"not wisely, but too well." They say first love never wholly dies out. He didn't know himself; he had had so many first loves--centuries ago, it seemed to him now--they certainly had died out, wholly and entirely. But with women it was different. Had she quite outgrown the passion of her youth? And if it were not for Helen, who could tell--

He broke off, with a sudden impulse, and joined her. For a moment she was alone, in a curtained recess, wielding her fan with the languid grace of a Castilian, and watching the dancers. He came softly from behind and bent his tall head.

"Norine!"

If she had been stone-deaf she could not have sat more perfectly still and unheeding.

"Norry!"

No motion--no sign that she heard at all.

"Mrs. Darcy!"

She moved slowly now, turning her graceful shoulder and lifting the brown, tranquil eyes full to his face.