Not until the chief culprit found himself standing alone on the curb before the antiquated court-house did he appreciate the serious consequences to himself of the contretemps. The two girls, with whom he had not accomplished a single word aside, had just driven off in Judge Allen's soft-sirened car. He had not been offered a lift, not even by Irene. As for Jane, she had given no sign of recognizing his existence beyond her two rather abstracted nods of "good-morning" and "good-by." Until now he had tried to ascribe this manner to her idea of propriety in court proceedings, as also Irene's mercifully subdued air. That both should desert him the moment they were free was enough of a shock to hold him on the spot, pondering. The cut had been unanimous, as though foreplanned. So smoothly had it seemed to sever all connection between them that he did not realize it until staring after the numerals on the tail-plate of the automobile.
She had "quit him cold," his self-selected lady. True, she had done so several times before. But it mattered more now. He had declared his fealty; to some extent, had proved it; had hoped that he was gaining in her esteem. Now he was dropped, like a superfluous cat, in a strange alley. He felt as flattened-out as the cement of the pavement on which he stood. Into it, through the soles of his boots, his heart seemed to sink from its weight ... down ... down.
But as his heart sank, his mind rose in a malediction strong as his pulse was weak:
"To hell with the perquisites of our young ladies of to-day! Do I say so--or _don't_ I?"
His plans for the morning, which had included a start at that "round and round" stroll in search of four poplars within earshot of the park menagerie, were scrambled as had been his breakfast eggs. Not even the shell of a plan was left. The divine triumvirate was reduced to its original separateness--a blind father over in the East Side yellow brick, a daughter luxuriously ensconced on the avenue, a Western stray-about-town, lonely and alone.
And the worst of it was that he could not see just how to right himself; could not blame Jane any more than Irene or himself. Loyalty was a thing to live, not to talk about. After his statements to Jane, both direct and through her father, he looked, in the light of cousinly disclosures, an arrant philanderer--the sort of man who was willing, in Montana sport parlance, "to play both ends against the middle."