"They're coming, Caroline. Don't say much to Jenkins, but, if you think
of it, my dear, swear at him softly now and then. It'll quiet his
suspicions, if he has any."
As I started to leave the room, I turned sharply, and eyed my own face
searchingly. Imitating Suzanne's voice as well as I could, I said:
"There's a note for madame this morning. Did I not tell madame that he
would write to her?"
Bitterly did I regret my untimely sarcasm. Caroline, white to the lips,
tottered where she stood.
"Reginald!" she cried, in a deep, horror-stricken voice that could have
been heard throughout the house and in the street outside.
Rushing back, I helped her towards a chair.
"It's all right, Caroline," I said, in dulcet, pleading tones. "Don't
mind it, my dear. I am sure that you will be able to explain
the--ah--little matter wholly to my satisfaction." Then a thought
flashed through my mind that was like a cold douche, and I added: "And
don't forget about Jenkins, my dear. Don't encourage him to talk. And,
above all, don't believe anything that he may say. He's a most
stupendous liar."
With that I hurried back to Caroline's dressing-room just in time to
seat myself before Suzanne, panting from haste and excitement, rushed
into the room.
"Jenkins, madame," she cried, wringing her hands, "Jenkins is a villain,
a rascal, a scoundrel." The girl appeared to have a long list of
opprobrious French epithets in her vocabulary.
"Calm yourself, Suzanne," I said, coolly. "You have sent Jenkins to
monsieur?"
"Alas, madame, he refused to obey me unless I agreed to kiss him. The
horrid, degenerate, unprincipled English beast! _Mon Dieu_! I could
not kiss him, madame."
"Curse the man's devilish impudence!" I exclaimed, while Suzanne stared
at me, her pretty mouth wide open in amazement.
"You say such queer things to-day, madame!" she murmured, presently,
resuming her duties in a melancholy way. "What will madame wear for
breakfast?"
Her question startled me. My mind endeavored, without much success, to
recall Caroline's morning costumes.
"What's the matter with her--ah--my plum-colored--ah--tea-gown?" I
asked, recklessly.
"Madame is jocose--facetious," remarked Suzanne, pretending to laugh. I
reflected bitterly that I could not see the joke.
"You have such excellent taste, Suzanne," I said, proud of my
cleverness. "Tog me out in any old thing. But it must be warm and
snug, girl. I have had chills up my back until I feel like a small
icicle in a cold wind." Suddenly an inspiration came to me. "Suzanne,
you'll find a bottled cocktail in the bedroom closet. Never mind the
cracked ice. Pour me out about four fingers and bring it to me at once.
Don't stare at me like that, girl! Quick work, now. And--ah--don't let
Caro--that is, Mr. Stevens hear you. Go!"
Suzanne, pale with amazement, hurried away to find the stimulant that
had become suddenly the one thing on earth that I really desired.
Presently, she returned, carrying a half-filled cocktail glass.
"Here's how, Suzanne!" I cried, joyously, forgetting caste distinctions
in my delight at the opportunity of restoring my waning vitality. I
swallowed the smooth concoction at a gulp, Suzanne watching me with a
puzzled smile on her disturbed countenance.
"Jenkins is with monsieur," she remarked as she took the empty glass
from my white, slender hand. Apprehension clutched at my heart again.
"Does--ah--Mr. Stevens--monsieur--seem to be--ah--quiet?" I asked,
eagerly.
"I didn't hear his voice, madame," answered Suzanne, arranging a
sky-blue morning-gown for my use. "But Jenkins is talking, talking,
talking all the time, madame."
"Damn him for a confounded cockney gas-bag!" I murmured, despondently,
but fortunately Suzanne was at that moment busy at the further end of
the dressing-room. I stood erect, impatient of further delay.
"Look here, girl," I exclaimed, "will you quit this fussy nonsense and
get me out of here? I've got an engagement at----"
My sweet, velvety voice failed me as I realized that I was again
forgetting myself, or, rather, Caroline.
The long suffering Suzanne was at my side, instantly.
"Madame may go now," she said, giving a finishing touch here and there
to my hair and costume. I made for the bedroom eagerly, but tripped
over my dress, recovering my equilibrium and went on. Suzanne said
something to herself in French, but the only words that came distinctly
to my ears were:
"_Le cocktail! Il est diabolique!_"
*CHAPTER III.*
*CAROLINE'S USURPATION.*
In philosophic mood last night, as idly I was lying,
That souls may transmigrate, methought, there could be no
denying;
So just to know to what I owe propensities so strong,
I drew my soul into a chat--our gossip lasted long.
--_Beranger_.
It was not wholly unpleasant to find myself facing Caroline across the
breakfast-table. There she sat, attired in my most becoming gray
business suit, in outward seeming a large, well-groomed
man-of-the-world. The light in her--or my--eyes suggested the
possibility that she had found compensations for her soul's change of
base. If that was the case, Caroline was more to be envied than I was,
for, despite the feminine beauty that had become mine for a time, I was
wholly ill-at-ease and disgruntled. My hand trembled and I spilled the
coffee that it had become my duty to serve. Jones, our phlegmatic
butler, appeared to be politely astonished at my clumsiness and glanced
at me furtively now and again.
"Two lumps, Caroline?" I asked, absently. Catching my wife's masculine
eye, I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. "Reginald, I mean!"
"Three lumps, and plenty of cream, Caroline," said my wife, with ready
wit. What a domineering note there was in my voice when used
vicariously! I wondered if Caroline had noticed it.
"You may go, Jones," I said, presently. "I'll ring if we need you."
A gleam of surprise came into the butler's eyes, but he controlled it
instantly, and strode from the breakfast-room like a liveried automaton.
"You are not eating, Reginald," said my wife, in a gruff whisper,
glancing at the door through which Jones had made his exit. "You must
not give way to your nervousness, dear boy. You'll need all your
strength before the day is over."
"Gad, you're right--if I can judge by the last hour, Caroline," I
remarked, endeavoring by force of will to beget an appetite for toast
and eggs. "Just hand me my letters, will you? Here are yours, my dear."
I saw the masculine cheeks redden, but Caroline made no effort to act
upon the suggestion that I had thrown out.
"Reggie! Reggie!" she moaned, hoarsely, "is there no help for us?
Can't you think of something that will change us back again? It's
simply unbearable. Sometimes it makes me laugh, but I almost died
before I got out of the bath-room. And Jenkins was simply detestable!
You must get us out of this, Reginald, or I warn you I shall read these
letters, go down to your office and your club--and enjoy life in your
way for a while, my dear."
There was something in all this that I did not altogether like, but I
smiled as I said:
"Are you laboring under the delusion, Caroline, that my daily life,
filled to overflowing with business cares that you know nothing about,
is pleasanter than yours? You can do as you please all day long--see
people or deny yourself to them, as you choose. I had noticed a
tendency upon your part, my dear, before this--ah--accident occurred, to
complain that your existence was dull, that a man had a happier lot than
a woman. It's all bosh, that idea. From the moment when I leave this
house in the morning, Caroline, I am a slave to duties that I cannot
shirk. I am under a terrific strain all day long. As for you, my dear,
you may go and come as you please, see the people you like, and dodge
those you detest; take a nap if you're tired, a drive if you're
suffocated, a walk if you feel energetic. And you have nothing but
petty worries that don't amount to a row of beans. Great Scott!
Caroline, what an easy job a woman in your position has!"
Caroline refused to meet my gaze, and I observed with annoyance that my
eyes sometimes had a shifty way with them. She had placed one large
relentless hand over my small pile of letters. Presently, she said, in
a tone that indicated a stubborn spirit:
"You are off the track, Reginald. What I want to know is whether you
think that we have exhausted every method for getting out of this queer
scrape?"
"Drop that, will you, Caroline?" I exclaimed, petulantly. "I'm no
theosophist nor faith-curist. I'm not going to fool with this thing at
all. If we get to tampering with it--whatever it is--you may find
yourself in Jenkins's shoes and I may be Suzanne or Jones for a change.
I'm banking on a readjustment in our sleep to-night. Until then, we'll
have to accept the situation as it stands."
"Then I'm going to boss things, Reggie," remarked my wife, firmly. "If
I'm obliged to get about in your great, hulking figure, my dear, I'm
going to enjoy all the perquisites for the next few hours. I don't
believe--I never did believe--that you work half as hard as you say you
do, nor that you have such horrible dragons to slay every day before
dinner. Then, I want you to see for yourself how much leisure I really
enjoy. You can stay at home and run my affairs, Reggie, dear. I'm going
down-town to see 'the boys' at work!"
"Good heavens, Caroline, you are joking!" I cried, my delicate hand
trembling as I endeavored to raise my coffee-cup to my white lips. "It
would be utter madness--what you plan! I'll have to let things slide
for to-day. I'll telephone to the office saying that I'm down with the
grip. Grip? That's good," I went on, hysterically. "It's just what
we've lost, Caroline. But never mind! It's a word that will serve my
turn. And then, my dear, we'll pass the day together here. We might get
a readjustment at any moment, don't you see, if we stick close to each
other. If you're down-town--great Nebuchadnezzar! anything might happen
to us, Caroline."
"But there's the telephone, Reginald," suggested my wife, coldly. "As
soon as I reach your office I'll call you up. If you don't leave the
house to-day you'll have me at the end of a 'phone most of the time.
And let me tell you, Reggie, you'll need me. I am very much inclined to
think, my dear, that you'll wonder, before the day is over, what has
become of my sinecure. I am quite sure that you'll not find time for a
great many naps."
"If you leave me, Caroline," I said, musingly, "I shouldn't dare to fall
asleep. But I really can't believe, my dear, that you seriously
contemplate the expedition you have mentioned. You'll have the devil's
own time, let me tell you, Caroline. Let me glance at that
memorandum-book in your inside coat-pocket. Thanks. Wednesday? To-day
is Wednesday. Nine-thirty--Boggs and Scranton. We'll scratch that off.
I'm late for that, as it is. Rogers!" To myself, I cried: "Lord, she
mustn't meet Rogers! I shouldn't have given him my office address."
As I glanced through the day's appointments, item by item, my horror
grew apace. Caroline, if she went to my office, was bound to derive a
wholly false impression of the general tenor of my life. There would be
so many things that would be open to misconstruction! Unimaginative I
might be, but my memoranda enabled me to foretell just what kind of an
experience awaited Caroline in my daily haunts. The methods by which a
successful business is conducted in New York would puzzle her sorely,
and place me in a most uncomfortable light.
"It can't be done, my dear," I said, presently; and Caroline's sweet
voice annoyed me by its lack of an imperative note. It seemed to beat
impotently against that stubborn-looking countenance across the
breakfast-table. "You'd bungle matters most desperately if I allowed
you to go down. As it is, I dread the outcome of my enforced absence.
Playing lady to-day will cost me a cool ten thousand, at the very
least."
I could see, plainly enough, that what I had said had made very little
impression upon my wife. Perhaps she doubted my word or felt confidence
in her own business ability. In desperation, I took a new tack.
"I think, Caroline, that, on the whole, it would be much better for you
to remain here with me and tell me all about that note to which Suzanne
referred. It may take some time, my dear, to get that--ah--little
matter straightened out."
My eyes never wavered as I gazed into their depths.
"It's easily explained, Reggie, dear," said Caroline, coldly. "It will
take me but a moment. As to your interpretation of what Jenkins has been
saying to me--that, of course, is another matter. Your explanations may
require considerable time, Reggie, darling."