"Oh no, he wouldn't." She smiled again, with a sense of her
superiority. "He wouldn't kill you when he knew I didn't care."
"But _don't_ you care?"
She shook her head. "No. And I shall never care again. He can do what he
likes. He's free--and so are you. I'd rather he went to you. Eleven
years, did you say? Why, he was your husband long before he was mine."
"Oh no; he was never my husband. We agreed from the first--"
"He wasn't your husband according to the strict letter of the contract;
but I don't care anything about that. It's what _I_ call being your
husband. I'd rather you took him back.... Oh, my God! There he is."
He was standing on the other side of the street watching them. How long
he had been there neither of them knew. Engrossed in the subject between
them, and screened by their sunshades, they hadn't noticed him come
round the corner from Madison Avenue on his way home. He stood leaning
on his stick, stroking an end of his long mustache pensively. He wore a
gray suit and a soft gray felt hat. For a minute or more there was no
change in his attitude, even when the terrified eyes of the women told
him he was observed. As he began to thread his way among the vehicles to
cross the street he displayed neither haste nor confusion. Edith could
see that, though he was pale and grave, he could, even in this
situation, carry himself with dignity. In its way it was something to be
glad of. She herself stood her ground as a man on a sinking ship waits
for the waves to engulf him.
Reaching the pavement, he ignored his wife to go directly to the woman.
"What does this mean, Maggie?"
His tone was not so much stern as reproachful. The faded woman, who was
still trying to make herself young and pretty, quailed at it.
Edith came to her relief:
"Isn't that something for _you_ to explain, Chip?"
He turned to his wife. "I'm willing to explain anything you like,
Edith--as far as I can."
"I won't ask you how far that is--because I know already everything I
need to know."
"Everything you need to know--what for?"
"For understanding my position, I suppose."
"Your position? Your position is that of my wife."
"Oh no, it isn't. There's your wife."
"Don't say that, Edith. That lady would be the first to tell you--"
"She _has_ been the first to tell me. She's been extremely kind. She's
answered my questions with a frankness--"
"But _you're_ not kind, Edith. Surely you see that--that mentally she's
not--not like every one else."
"Oh, quite. I don't think _I_ am now. I doubt if I ever shall be again.
No woman can be mentally like every one else after she's been deceived
as we've been."
"_She_ hasn't been deceived, Edith; and I should never have deceived you
if--"
She laughed without mirth. "If you hadn't wanted to keep me in the
dark."
"No; if I hadn't had responsibilities--"
"Responsibilities! Do you call _that_"--her glance indicated the woman,
whose misty stare went from the one to the other in a vain effort to
follow what they were saying--"do you call that a responsibility?"
"I'm afraid I do, Edith."
"And what about--me?"
"Hasn't a man more responsibilities than one?"
"A married man hasn't more wives than one."
"A married man has to take his life as his life has formed itself. He
was an unmarried man first."
"Which means, I suppose, that the ties he formed when he was an
unmarried man--"
"May bind him still--if they're of a certain kind."
"And yours _are_--of a certain kind."
"They're of _that_ kind. I haven't been able to free myself from them.
But don't you think we'd better go in? We can hardly talk about such
things out here."
She bowed to another passing friend. He, too, lifted his hat. When the
friend had gone by she glanced hastily toward the house.
"No, I can't go in," she said, hurriedly. "I'd rather talk out here."
"Very well, then. We can take a stroll in the Park?"
"What? We three?"
"Oh, she's gone--if that's the only reason."
Turning, Edith saw the woman with the rose-colored parasol rapidly
descending the path by which she had come.
[Illustration: He turned from the girl to his wife. "I'm willing to
explain anything you like--as far as I can."]
"I'd still rather stay out here," she said. "If I were to go in, I think
it would--"
"Yes? What?"
"I think it would kill me."
"Oh, come, Edith. Let's face the thing calmly. Don't let us become
hysterical."
"_Am_ I hysterical, Chip?"
"In your own way, yes. Where another woman would make a fuss, you're
unnaturally frozen; but it comes to the same thing. I know that your
heart--"
"Is breaking. Oh, I don't deny that. But I'd rather it broke here than
indoors. I don't know why, but I can stand it here, with people going
by; whereas in there--"
"Oh, cut it, Edith, for God's sake! Can't you see that my heart's
breaking, too?"
She looked him in the face, shaking her head sadly. "No, Chip, I can't
see that. If there had been any danger of it you wouldn't have--"
"But I couldn't help it. That's what you don't seem to understand."
"No; I'm afraid I don't."
"Would you _try_ to understand--if I were to tell you?"
"I think I know already most of what you'd have to say. She's a woman
whom you knew long before you knew me--and from whom you've never been
able--"
"She was the daughter of a Swedish Lutheran pastor--dead
now--established in New Jersey. In some way she drifted to the stage.
Her name was Margarethe Kastenskjold. When she went on the stage she
made it Maggie Clare. She had about as much talent for the theater as a
paper doll. When I first knew her she was still getting odd jobs in
third and fourth rate companies. Since then she hasn't played at all."
"I understand. There's been no need of it. She's quite well dressed."
"Let me go on, will you, Edith? I was about two or three and twenty
then. She may have been a year or two older. She was living at that time
with Billy Cummings. And somehow it happened--after Billy died--and she
was stranded--"
She made an appealing gesture. "_Please!_ I know how those things come
about--or I can easily imagine. In your case--I'd--I'd rather not try."
She got the words out somehow without breaking down.
"All the same, Edith," he went on, "you'll _have_ to try--if you're
going to do me anything like justice. If she hadn't been a refined,
educated sort of girl, entirely at sea in her surroundings, and
stranded--stranded for money, mind you, next door to going to
starve--and no chance of getting a job, because she couldn't act a
little bit--if it hadn't been for all that--"
"Oh, I know how you'd be generous!"
"Yes; but you don't know how I came to be a fool."
"Is there any reason why I _should_ know--now that the fact is there?"