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Updated: May 15, 2025
A book lay on her lap, the book of "The Undying Voices." Her eyes were closed. Banneker reached out a hand to the door lintel for support. A light tremor ran through Io's body. She opened her eyes, and fixed them on Banneker. She rose slowly. The book fell to the floor and lay open between them. Io stood, her arms hanging straitly at her side, her whole face a lovely and loving plea.
Halfway across an inside page ran the explanation of Io's collapse. read the caption, in the glaring vulgarity of extra-heavy type, and below; Ducal Heir Offers Private Reward to Dinner Party of Friends After an estimating look at the girl, who sat quite still with hot, blurred eyes, Miss Van Arsdale carefully read the article through.
It drove him out of his withered seclusion, to seek Miss Van Arsdale, in the hope of hearing Io's name spoken. But Miss Van Arsdale scarcely referred to Io. She watched Banneker with unconcealed anxiety. ... Why had there been no letter?... Appeasement came in the form of a package addressed in her handwriting. Avidly he opened it. It was the promised Bible, mailed from New York City.
Bewilderment darkened Io's mind as she read, to be succeeded by an appalled conjecture; Camilla Van Arsdale's mind had broken down under her griefs. What other hypothesis could account for her writing of Willis Enderby as being still alive? And of her having letters from him?
Opposed by a loyalty such as Io's he could only be silent and wait. In the next few weeks she was very good to him. Not only did she lunch with him several times, but she came to the Saturday nights of The House With Three Eyes, sometimes with Archie Densmore alone, more often with a group of her own set, after a dinner or a theater party.
It gave forth a click, and, after swift manipulation, a second click. Enderby started toward the snap-shotter who turned and ran. "Do you know that man?" he asked, whirling upon Io. A gray veil seemed to her drawn down over his features. Or was it a mist of dread upon Io's own vision? "I have seen him before," she answered, groping. "Who is he?"
It confirmed his angriest fears. Publication of it would smear Io's name with scandal, and, by consequence, direct the leering gaze of the world upon their love. "What is this; blackmail?" he asked Ives. "Might be." "Who wrote it?" "Reads like the old buzzard's own style." "I'll go and see him," said Banneker, half to himself. "You can go, but I don't think you'll see him."
It would be so like Io's imperious temper to take the decision into her own hands, to bring about a meeting between the long-sundered lovers, to cast into the lonely and valiant woman's darkening life one brief and splendid glow of warmth and radiance. For to Io, a summons for Willis Enderby to come would be no more than a defiance of the conventions.
He walked over, through the earliest light, to the hotel, where he made a meal of musty eggs, chemical-looking biscuits, and coffee of a rank hue and flavor, in an atmosphere of stale odors and flies, sickeningly different from the dainty ceremonials of Io's preparation.
Oh, do tell me that he has a yachting cap!" Miss Van Arsdale, smiling, shook her head, but her eyes were troubled. There was compunction in Io's next remark. "I'm really going over to see about accommodations. Sooner or later I must face the music meaning Carty. I'm fit enough now, thanks to you." "Wouldn't an Eastern trip be safer?" suggested her hostess. "An Eastern trip would be easier.
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