Cheever back to America. He disguised his solicitude with brutality;
he told her he did not want her to die on their hands.
When Charity came back, Cheever met her and celebrated her return.
She was a new sensation to him again for a week or two, but her need
of seclusion and quiet drove him frantic and he grew busy once more.
He recalled Miss L'Etoile from the hardships of dancing for her
supper. Unlike Charity, Zada never failed to be exciting. Cheever
was never sure what she would do or say or throw next. She was
delicious.
When Dyckman learned of Cheever's extra establishment it enraged him.
He had let Cheever push him aside and carry off Charity Coe, and now
he must watch Cheever push Charity Coe aside and carry on the next
choice of his whims.
To Dyckman, Charity was perfection. To lose her and find her in
the ash-barrel with Cheever's other discarded dolls was intolerable.
Yet what could Dyckman do about it? He dared not even meet Charity.
He hated her husband, and he knew that her husband hated him. Cheever
somehow realized the dogged fidelity of Dyckman's love for Charity
and resented it--feared it as a menace, perhaps.
Dyckman had two or three narrow escapes from running into Charity,
and he finally took to his heels. He lingered in the Canadian wilds
till he thought it safe to return. And now she chanced to board the
same train. The problem he had run away from had cornered him.
He had cherished a sneaking hope that she would learn the truth
somehow before he met her.
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