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The present day woman had a standard of her own.Alfred found his eye wandering round the table surveying the wives of his friends.Was there one of them, he wondered, who had never fibbed to her husband, or eaten a simple luncheon unchaperoned by him? Of one thing he was certain, there was not one of them so attractive as Zoie.Might she not be forgiven, to some extent, if her physical charms had made her a source of dangerous temptation to unprincipled scoundrels like the one with whom she had no doubt lunched? Then, too, had she not offered at the moment of his departure to tell him the "real truth"? Might this not have been the one occasion upon which she would have done so? "She seemed so sincere," he ruminated, "so truly penitent."Then again, how generous it was of her to persist in writing to him with never an answer from him to encourage her.If she cared for him so little as he had once imagined, why should she wish to keep up even a presence of fondness? Her letters indicated an undying devotion.

These were some of the thoughts that were going through Alfred's mind just three months after his departure from Chicago, and all the while his hostess was mentally dubbing him a "dull person."

"What an abstracted man he is!" she said before he was down the front steps.

"Is he really so clever in business?" a woman friend inquired.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" commented a third, and his host apologised for the absent Alfred by saying that he was no doubt worried about a particular business decision that had to be made the next morning.

But it was not the responsibility of this business decision that was knotting Alfred's brow, as he walked hurriedly toward the hotel, where he had told his office boy to leave the last mail. This had been the longest interval that Zoie had ever let slip without writing.He recalled that her last letters had hinted at a "slight indisposition."In fact, she had even mentioned "seeing the doctor"--"Good Heavens!" he thought, "Suppose she were really ill? Who would look after her?"

When Alfred reached his rooms, the boy had not yet arrived.He crossed to the library table and took from the drawer all the letters thus far received from Zoie.He read them consecutively. "How could he have been so stupid as not to have realised sooner that her illness--whatever it was--had been gradually creeping upon her from the very first day of his departure?"

The boy arrived with the mail.It contained no letter from Zoie and Alfred went to bed with an uneasy mind.

The next morning he was down at his office early, still no letter from Zoie.

Refusing his partner's invitation to lunch, Alfred sat alone in his office, glad to be rid of intrusive eyes."He would write to Jimmy Jinks," he decided, "and find out whether Zoie were in any immediate danger."

Not willing to await the return of his stenographer, or to acquaint her with his personal affairs, Alfred drew pen and paper toward him and sat helplessly before it.How could he inquire about Zoie without appearing to invite a reconciliation with her? While he was trying to answer this vexed question, a sharp knock came at the door.He turned to see a uniformed messenger holding a telegram toward him.Intuitively he felt that it contained some word about Zoie.His hand trembled so that he could scarcely sign for the message before opening it.

A moment later the messenger boy was startled out of his lethargy by a succession of contradictory exclamations.

"No!" cried Alfred incredulously as he gazed in ecstasy at the telegram."Yes!" he shouted, excitedly, as he rose from his chair."Where's a time table?" he asked the astonished boy, and he began rummaging rapidly through the drawers of his desk.

"Any answer?" inquired the messenger.

"Take this," said Alfred.And he thrust a bill into the small boy's hand.

"Yes, sir," answered the boy and disappeared quickly, lest this madman might reconsider his generosity.

Alfred threw down the time table in despair."No train for Chicago until night," he cried; but his mind was working fast. The next moment he was at the telephone, asking for the Division Superintendent of the railway line.

When Alfred's partner returned from luncheon he found a curt note informing him that Alfred had left on a special for Chicago and would "write."

"I'll bet it's his wife!" said the partner.

CHAPTER XIV

During the evening of the same day that Alfred was enjoying such pleasurable emotions, Zoie and Aggie were closeted in the pretty pink and white bedroom that the latter had tried to describe to Jimmy.On a rose-coloured couch in front of the fire sat Aggie threading ribbons through various bits of soft white linen, and in front of her, at the foot of a rose-draped bed, knelt Zoie. She was trying the effect of a large pink bow against the lace flounce of an empty but inviting bassinette.

"How's that?" she called to Aggie, as she turned.