"Shut up till I'm through talking," she admonished him roughly.
If I had not been so angry and humiliated I could have laughed aloud
at the promptness with which Dicky closed his mouth.
"You never gave me or the boys a taste of your rages simply because
you knew we wouldn't stand for them. I'll wager you anything you like
that Mrs. Graham never knew of your temper until after you had married
her. But now that you're safely married you think you can say anything
you like. Men are all like that."
She spoke wearily, contemptuously, as if a sudden disagreeable memory
had come to her. She dropped her hands from his shoulders.
"Of course, I've no right to butt in like this," she said, as if
recalled to herself. "I beg pardon of both of you. Good-by," and she
dashed for the door.
But Dicky, with one of his quick changes from wrath to remorse, was
before her.
"No you don't, my dear," he said, grasping her arm. "You know I
couldn't get angry with you no matter what you said. I owe you too
much. I know I have a beast of a temper, but you know, too, I'm over
it just as quickly. Look here."
He flopped down on his knees in an exaggerated pose of humility, and
put up his hands first to me and then to Lillian.
"See. I beg Madge's pardon. I beg Lillian's pardon, everybody's
pardon. Please don't kick me when I'm down."
Lillian's face relaxed. She laughed indulgently.
"Oh, I'll forgive you, but I imagine it will take more than that
to make your peace with your wife! It would if you were my husband.
'Phone me about Sunday. Perhaps Mrs. Graham can come over after dinner
and meet you there. Good-by."
She hurried out to the door, this time without Dicky's stopping her.
Dicky came toward me.
"If I say I am very, very sorry, Madge?" he said, smiling
apologetically at me.
"Of course it's all right, Dicky," I forced myself to say.
Curiously enough, after all, my resentment was more against Lillian
than against Dicky. Probably she meant well, but how dared she talk
to my husband as if he were her personal property, and what was it he
"owed her" that made him take such a raking over at her hands?
XII
LOST AND FOUND
"Margaret!"
"Jack!"
It was, after all, a simple thing, this meeting with my cousin-brother
that I had so dreaded. Save for the fact that he took both my hands in
his, any observer of our meeting would have thought that it was but a
casual one, instead of being a reunion after a separation of a year.
But this meeting upset me strangely. I seemed to have stepped back
years in my life. My marriage to Dicky, my life with him, my love for
him, seemed in some curious way to belong to some other woman, even
the permission to meet him in this way, which I had wrested from
Dicky, seemed a need of another. I was again Margaret Spencer, going
with my best friend to the restaurant where we had so often dined
together.
And yet in some way I felt that things were not the same as they used
to be. Jack was the same kindly brother I had always known, and yet
there seemed in his manner a tinge of something different. I did not
know what. I only knew that I felt very nervous and unstrung.
As I sank into the padded seat and began to remove my gloves I was
confronted by a new problem.
My wedding ring, guarded by my engagement solitaire, was upon the
third finger of my left hand. Jack would be sure to see them if I kept
them on.
I told myself fiercely that I did not wish Jack to know I was married
until after we had had this dinner together. With my experience of
Dicky's jealousy I had not much hope that Jack and I would ever dine
together in this fashion again.
On the other hand, I had a strong aversion to removing my wedding ring
even for an hour or two. Besides being a silent falsehood, the act
would seem almost an omen of evil. I am not generally superstitious,
but something made me dread doing it.
However, I had to choose quickly. I must either take off the rings or
tell Jack at once that I was married. I was not brave enough to do the
latter.
Taking my silver mesh bag from my muff, I opened it under the table,
and, quickly stripping off my gloves, removed my rings, tucked them
into a corner of the bag and put gloves and bag back in my muff. Jack,
man-like, had noticed nothing.
Now to keep the conversation in my own hands, so that Jack should
suspect nothing until we had dined.
The waiter stood at attention with pencil pointed over his order card.
Jack was studying the menu card, and I was studying Jack.
It was the first chance I had had to take a good look at this
cousin-brother of mine after his year's absence. Every time I had
attempted it I had met his eyes fixed upon me with an inscrutable look
that puzzled and embarrassed me. Now, however, he was occupied with
the menu card, and I stared openly at him.
He had changed very little, I told myself. Of course he was terribly
browned by his year in the tropics, but otherwise he was the same
handsome, well-set-up chap I remembered so well.
I knew Jack's favorite dish, fortunately. If he could sit down in
front of just the right kind of steak, thick, juicy, broiled just
right, he was happy.
"How about a steak?" I inquired demurely. "I haven't had a good one in
ages."
"I'm sure you're saying that to please me," Jack protested, "but I
haven't the heart to say so. You can imagine the food I've lived on in
South America. But you must order the rest of the meal."
"Surely I will," I said, for I knew the things he liked. "Baked
potatoes, new asparagus, buttered beets, romaine salad, and we'll talk
about the dessert later."
The waiter bowed and hurried away. "You're either clairvoyant,
Margaret or--"
"Perhaps I, too, have a memory," I returned gayly, and then regretted
the speech as I saw the look that leaped into Jack's eyes.
"I wish I was sure," he began impetuously, then he checked himself. "I
wonder whether we are too early for any music?" he finished lamely.
"I am afraid so," I said.
"It doesn't matter anyway. We want to talk, not to listen. I've got
something to tell you, my dear, that I've been thinking about all this
year I've been gone."
I did not realize the impulse that made me stretch out my hand, lay it
upon his, and ask gently:
"Please, Jack, don't tell me anything important until after dinner. I
feel rather upset anyway. Let's have one of our care-free dinners and
when we've finished we can talk."
Jack gave me a long curious look under which I flushed hot. Then he
said brusquely, "All right, the weather and the price of flour, those
are good safe subjects, we'll stick to them."
The dinner was perfect in every detail. Jack ate heartily, and
although I was too unstrung to eat much I managed to get enough down
to deceive him into thinking I was enjoying the meal also.
The coffee and cheese dispatched, I leaned back and smiled at Jack.
"Now light your cigar," I commanded.
"Not yet. We're going to talk a bit first, you and I."
I felt that same little absurd thrill of apprehension. Jack was
changed in some way. I could not tell just now. He took my fingers in
his big, strong hand.
"Look at me, Margaret."
Jack's voice was low and tense. It held a masterful note I had never
heard. Without realizing that I did so, I obeyed him, and lifted my
eyes to his.
What I read in them made me tremble. This was a new Jack facing
me across the table. The cousin-brother, my best friend since my
childhood, was gone.
I did not admit to myself why, but I wished, oh! so earnestly, that
I had told Jack over the telephone of my marriage during his year's
absence in the South American wilderness, where he could neither send
nor receive letters.
I must not wait another minute, I told myself.
"Jack," I said brokenly, "there is something I want to tell you--I'm
afraid you will be angry, but please don't be, big brother, will you?"
"There is something I'm going to tell you first," Jack smiled tenderly
at me, "and that is that this big brother stuff is done for, as far
as I'm concerned. In fact, I've been just faking the role for two or
three years back, because I knew you didn't care the way I wanted you
to. But this year out in the wilderness has made me realize just what
life would be to me without you. I've been kicking myself all over
South America that I didn't try to make you care. I've just about gone
through Gehenna, too, thinking you might fall in love with somebody
while I was gone. But I saw you didn't wear anybody's ring anyway, so
I said to myself, 'I'm not going to wait another minute to tell her I
love her, love her, love her.'"
Jack's voice, pitched to a low key anyway, so that no one should be
able to hear what he was saying, sank almost to a whisper with the
last words.
I sat stunned, helpless, grief-stricken.
To think that I should be the one to bring sorrow to Jack, the
gentlest, kindest friend I had ever known!
"Oh, Jack, don't!" I moaned, and then, to my horror, I began to cry.
I could not control my sobs, although I covered my face with my
handkerchief.
"There, there, sweetheart, I'll have you out of this in a jiffy," Jack
was at my side, helping me to rise, getting me into my coat, shielding
me from the curious gaze of the other diners.
"Here!" He threw a bill toward the waiter. "Pay my bill out of that,
get us a taxi quick, and keep the change. Hurry."
"Yes, sir--thank you, sir." The waiter dashed ahead of us. As we
emerged from the door he was standing proudly by the open door of a
taxi.
"Where to, sir?" The chauffeur touched his cap.
"Anywhere. Central Park." Jack helped me in, sat down beside me, the
door slammed and the taxi rolled away.
The only other time in my life Jack had seen me cry was when my mother
died. Then I had wept my grief out on his shoulder secure in the
knowledge of his brotherly love. As the taxi started, he slipped his
arm around me.
"Whatever it is, dear, cry it out in my arms," he whispered.
But at his touch I shuddered, and drew myself away. I was Dicky's
wife. This situation was intolerable. I must end it at once. With a
mighty effort, I controlled my sobs and, wiping my eyes, sat upright.
"Dear, dear boy," I said. "Please forgive me. I never thought of this
or I would have told you over the telephone."
"Told me what?" Jack's voice was harsh and quick. His arm dropped from
my wrist.
There was no use wasting words in the telling. I took courage in both
hands.
"I am married, Jack," I said faintly. "I have been married over a
month."
"God!" The expletive seemed forced from his lips. I heard the name
uttered that way once before, when a man I knew had been told of his
child's death in an automobile accident. It made me realize as nothing
else could what Jack must be suffering.
But he gave no other sign of having heard my words, simply sat erect,
with folded arms, gazing sternly into vacancy, while the taxi rolled
up Fifth avenue.
Huddled miserably in my corner, I waited for him to speak. I had
summoned courage to tell him the truth, but I could not have spoken
to him again while his face held that frozen look. It frightened and
fascinated me at the same time.
A queer little wonder crossed my mind. Suppose I had known of this a
year ago. Would I have married Jack, and never known Dicky? Would I
have been happier so?
Then there rushed over me the realization that nothing in the
world mattered but Dicky. I wanted him, oh how I wanted him! Jack's
suffering, everything else, were but shadows. My love for my husband,
my need of him--these were the only real things.
I turned to Jack wildly.
"Oh, Jack, I must go home!"
"Margaret." Jack's voice was so different from his usual one that I
started almost in fear.
"Yes, Jack."
"I don't want you to reproach yourself about this. I understand, dear.
The right man came along, and of course you couldn't wait for me to
come back to give my sanction."
"Oh! Jack! I ought to have waited: I know it. You have been so good to
me"
"I've been good to myself, being with you," he returned tenderly. "But
I almost wish you had told me over the telephone. You would never have
known how I felt, and it would have been better all around"
He bent toward me, and crushed both my hands in his, looking into my
face with a gaze that was in itself a caress.
"Now you must go home, little girl, back to--your--husband." The
words came slowly.
"When shall I see you again, Jack?" I knew the answer even before it
came.
"When you need me, dear girl, if you ever do," he replied. "I can't
be near you without loving you and hating your husband, whoever he may
be, and that is a dangerous state of affairs. But, wherever I am, a
note or a wire to the Hotel Alfred will be forwarded to me, and, if
the impossible should happen and your husband ever fail you, remember,
Jack is waiting, ready to do anything for you."
My tears were falling fast now. Jack laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"Come, Margaret, you must control yourself," he said in his old
brotherly voice. "I want you to tell me your new name and address. I'm
never going to lose track of you, remember that. You won't see me, but
your big brother will be on the job just the same."
I told him, and he wrote it carefully down in his note-book. Then he
looked at me fixedly.
"You would better put your engagement and wedding rings back on," he
said. "Of course I realize now that you must have taken them off when
you removed your gloves in the restaurant, with the thought that you
did not want to spoil my dinner by telling me of your marriage. But
you must have them on when you meet your husband, you know."
How like Jack, putting aside his own suffering to be sure of my
welfare. I put my hand in my muff, drew out my mesh bag and opened it.
"Jack!" I gasped, horror-stricken, "my rings are gone!"
"Impossible!" His face was white. He snatched my mesh bag from my
grasp. "Where did you put them? In here?"
Jack turned the mesh bag inside out. A handkerchief, a small coin
purse, two or three bills of small denominations, an envelope with a
tiny powder puff--these were all.
"Are you sure you put them in here?"
"Yes." I could hardly articulate the word, I was so frightened.
"Have you opened your bag since?"
I thought a moment. Had I? Then a rush of remembrance came to me.
"I took out a handkerchief when I cried in the restaurant."
"You must have drawn them out then, and either dropped them there,
or they may have been caught in the handkerchief and dropped in the
taxi." We searched without success and Jack's face darkened as he
ordered the chauffeur to speed back to Broquin's. "We must hurry,
dear. This is awful. If you have lost those rings, your husband will
have a right to be angry."
Neither of us spoke again until the taxi drew up in front of the
restaurant. Then Jack said almost curtly:
"Wait here. I don't think it will be necessary for you to go inside,
and it might be embarrassing for you."
He fairly ran up the steps and disappeared inside the door.
So anxious was I to know what would be the result of his inquiry that
I leaned far forward in the machine, watching the door of Broquin's
for Jack's return.
I did not realize my imprudence in doing this until I heard my name
called jovially.
"Well! well, Mrs. Graham, I suppose you are on your way to our shack.
Won't you give me the pleasure of riding with you?"
Hat in hand, black eyes dancing in malicious glee, I saw standing
before me, Harry Underwood, of all people!
At that instant Jack came rushing out of the restaurant and up to the
taxi.
"It's no use, Margaret. They can't find them anywhere."
"Jack, I want you to meet Mr. Underwood, a friend of my husband's," I
said hastily, hoping to save the situation. "Mr. Underwood, my cousin,
Mr. Bickett."
The two men shook hands perfunctorily.
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Bickett," Harry Underwood said, in his effusive
manner. "Have you lost anything valuable? Can I help in any way?"
"Nothing of any consequence," I interrupted desperately.
"Oh, yes, I see, nothing of any consequence," he replied meaningly.
His eyes were fixed upon my ungloved left hand, which showed only too
plainly the absence of my rings.
"But don't worry," he continued. "Your Uncle Dudley is first cousin to
an oyster. Wish you luck. So long," and lifting his hat he strolled on
up the avenue.
Jack was consulting his note-book. I heard him give the address of my
apartment to the driver. "Drive slowly," he added.
"Who was that man?" he demanded sternly. "He is no one you ought to
know."
"I know, Jack," I said faintly. "I dislike him, I even dread him, but
he and his wife are old friends of Dicky's and I cannot avoid meeting
him."
"He will make trouble for you some day," Jack returned. "I don't like
him, but there is nothing I can do to help you. I've messed things
enough now."
"What shall I do, Jack?" I wailed. All my vaunted self-reliance was
gone. I felt like the most helpless perfect clinging vine in the
world.
"We're going straight to your home to see your husband," he said.
"You will introduce me to him and then leave us. I shall explain
everything to him."
"Oh, Jack," I said terrified, "he has such an uncertain temper, and,
besides, he isn't at home. He was to take dinner at the Underwoods at
2 o'clock."
"Well, we must go there, then," returned Jack. "Put on your gloves,
then the absence of the rings won't be noticed until I have a chance
to explain about them."
I picked up the gloves and unfolded them. Something glittering rolled
out of them and dropped into my lap.
"Oh, Jack, my rings!" I fairly shrieked. Then for the first time in
my life I became hysterical, laughing and sobbing uncontrollably.
* * * * *
That night I told Dicky the whole story--not one word did I keep back
from him--and when I came to the loss of my rings and the meeting with
Harry Underwood, there developed a scene that I cannot even now bring
myself to put down on paper. But at last Dicky managed to control
himself enough to ask what I had told Harry Underwood.
"I told him that my rings had not been lost, that my gloves were too
tight and that I had removed them to put on my gloves."
"Good!" Dicky's voice held a note of relenting. "That's one thing
saved, any way. Wonder your conscience would let you tell that much of
a lie."
His sneer aroused me. I had been speaking in a dreary monotone which
typified my feeling. Now I faced him, indignant.
"See here, Dicky Graham, don't you imagine it would have been easier
for me to lie about all this? I didn't need to tell you anything.
Another thing I want you to understand plainly and that is my reason
for not telling Jack at first that I was married.
"If I had had a real brother, you would have thought it perfectly
natural for me to have waited for his return before I married. Now,
no brother in the world could have been kinder to me than was Jack
Bickett. We were indebted to him for a thousand kindnesses, for
a lifetime of devotion. I never should have married without first
telling him about it. Do you wonder that realizing this I delayed
in every way the story of my marriage until I could find a suitable
opportunity? I give you my word of honor that I did not dream he
cared, and I expect you to believe me."
I walked steadily toward the door of my bedroom. I had not reached
it, however, before Dicky clasped me in his arms, and I felt his hot
kisses on my face.
"I'm seventeen kinds of a jealous brute, I know, sweetheart," he
whispered, "but the thought of that other man, who seems to mean so
much to you, drives me mad. I'm selfish, I know, but I'm mad about
you."
I put my arms around his neck. "Don't you know, foolish Dicky," I
murmured, "that there's nobody else in the world for me but just you,
you, you?"
XIII
"IF YOU AREN'T CROSS AND DISPLEASED"
Today my mother-in-law!
That was my thought when I awoke on the morning of the day which was
to bring Dicky's mother to live with us.
I am afraid if I set down my exact thoughts I should have to admit
that I had a distinct feeling of rebellion against the expected visit
of Dicky's mother.
If it were only a visit! There was just the trouble. Then I could have
welcomed my mother-in-law, entertained her royally, kept at top pitch
all the time she was with us, guarded every word and action, and kept
from her knowledge the fact that Dicky and I often quarrelled.
But Dicky's mother, as far as I could see, was to be a member of our
household for the rest of her life. She herself had arranged it in a
letter, the calm phrases of which still irritated me, as I recalled
them. She had taken me so absolutely for granted, as though my opinion
amounted to nothing, and only her wishes and those of her son counted.
But suddenly my cheeks flamed with shame. After all, this woman who
was coming was my husband's mother, an old woman, frail, almost an
invalid. I made up my mind to put away from me all the disagreeable
features of her advent into my home, and to busy myself with plans for
her comfort and happiness.
I hurried through my breakfast, for I wanted plenty of time for the
last preparations before Dicky's mother should arrive. Dicky had gone
to his studio for a while and then would go over to the station in
time to meet her train, which was due at 11:30.
As I started to my room I heard the peal of the doorbell.
"I will answer it, Katie," I called back, and went quickly to the
entrance. A special delivery postman stood there holding out a letter
to me. As I signed his slip, I saw that the handwriting upon the
letter was Jack's.
What could have happened? I dreaded inexpressibly some calamity.
Only something of the utmost importance, I knew, could have induced
my brother-cousin to write to me. He was too careful of my welfare
to excite Dicky's unreasoning jealousy by a letter, unless there was
desperate need for it.
Finally, I sat down in an arm-chair by the window, and breaking the
seal, drew out the letter.
"Dear Cousin Margaret:
"I have decided, suddenly, to go across the pond and get in the big
mix-up. You perhaps remember that I have spoken to you frequently
of my friend, Paul Caillard who has been with me in many a bit of
ticklish work. He was with me in South America, and like me, heard of
the war for the first time when he got out of the wilderness. He is
a Frenchman, you know, and is going back to offer his services to the
engineering corps."
"And I am going with him, Margaret. I think I can be of service over
there. Paul Caillard is the best friend I have. As you know you are
the only relative I have in the world, and you are happily and safely
married, so I feel that I am harming no one by my decision.
"We sail tomorrow morning on the Saturn. It will be impossible for
me to come to your home before then. So this is good-by. When I come
back, if I come back, I want to meet your husband and see you in your
home.
"And now I must speak of a little matter of which you are ignorant,
but of which you must be told before I go. Before your mother died, I
had made my will, leaving her everything I possessed, for you and she
were all the family I had ever known. After her death I changed her
name to yours. If anything should happen to me, my attorney, William
Faye, 149 Broadway, will attend to everything for you. He is also my
executor.
"Most of what I have, would have come to you by law, anyway, Margaret,
for you are 'my nearest of kin'--isn't that the way the law puts it?
But you might have some unpleasantness from those Pennsylvania cousins
of ours, so I have protected you against such a contingency.
"And now, Margaret, good-by and God bless you.
"Your affectionate cousin, Jack."
I finished the letter with a numb feeling at my heart. It seemed to me
as if one of the foundations of my life had given away.
When Jack had left me after that miserable reunion dinner where he
had been hurt so cruelly by the news of my marriage during his year's
absence, he had said--ah, how well I remembered the words--"I shall
not see you again, dear girl, unless you need me, if you ever do. I
can't be near you without loving you and hating your husband, whoever
he may be, and that is a dangerous state of affairs. But wherever I
am, a note or a wire to the Hotel Alfred will be forwarded to me,
and if the impossible should happen, and your husband, ever fail you,
remember Jack is waiting, ready to do anything for you."
I had not expected to see Jack for months, perhaps years, but the
knowledge of his faithfulness, of his nearness, had been of much
comfort to me. And now he was going away, probably to his death.