III

Bellamy Druce began the day frugally with grapefruit, the headlines of

the _Herald_, and coffee. It is no more than fair to state that he

seemed to hold all three in one degree of disfavour. The interest he

showed in the other dishes set forth for his sustenance and delectation

on the small table in the bow-window of his sitting-room, was limited to

a single jaundiced glance at the ensemble.

From the news of the day, too, he turned affronted eyes. Strong daylight

on white paper was trying to optic nerves this morning. Over his coffee

he lighted a cigarette, but after a few puffs took it from his lips and

examined it with louring distrust which suggested the birth of a

suspicion that his tobacconist was not a true friend. Hastily putting

the thing from him, he shuffled listlessly the dozen or so envelopes on

the breakfast table, put these aside in turn, and for a time sat

morosely contemplating his joined fingers, trying to recollect something

confoundedly elusive. The mental effort contributed nothing toward

assuaging a minor but distinct headache, just back of his eyes.

At thirty-five or something less, Bellamy was beginning to notice that

even a few drinks tended to play the deuce with one's memory. He liked

to boast and believe he never drank to excess, but it was none the less

true that, of late, his alcoholic evenings were frequently much of a

blur in retrospect.

After a while he unlaced his hands, held them out to the light with

fingers spread, and frowned to observe their slight but unmistakable

tremor.

In a petulant voice he asked the time of his valet and, learning it,

ruefully digested the reflection that he had eight hours more of life to

live, if it could fairly be called living, before the hour of the first

cocktail.

As a man of strong principles, he made it a rule never to drink before

six in the evening.

After another minute of wasted endeavour to put salt on the tail of that

tricky memory, he made a disconsolate noise, told his valet to order the

car round, and bestirred himself to finish dressing.

Bellamy Druce buttoned himself into his coat before a mirror. Like many

men who make no pretensions to deserve the term handsome, he was

inordinately finical about his person. His relations with his tailors,

boot and shirt-makers, were intimate and marked by conferences as solemn

and consequential as those which keep European premiers out of mischief,

but no more so. No valet had yet succeeded in earning his confidence in

such questions as that of the right shirt for the lounge suit of the

day.

But the inspection he gave his attire this morning was perfunctory, his

graver concern was with the tone of his complexion and the look of his

eyes.

To his relief the one proved to be clear and of good colour, the other

betrayed ravages of dissipation only in a hint of heaviness. More than

this, the tremor of his hands had in the last few minutes become barely

perceptible. Already a strong constitution, hardened by an athletic

history and inured to abuse, was beginning to react to restorative

measures taken immediately after waking, deep breathing, a steaming hot

bath, an icy needle-shower, a rub-down.

Drawing one more long breath, he straightened his shoulders, lifted his

chin a trifle, and went to pay his matutinal addresses to Lucinda,

hoping she wouldn't notice anything, or, if she did, would be enough of

a sportswoman to let it pass without comment.

He found Lucinda seated on a chaise-longue in her boudoir, running

through her morning's mail by way of preparation for the daily half-hour

with her secretary which it demanded. Posed with unfailing grace in a

neglige scarcely more than a sketch in lace and ribbon, with the light

from the windows seemingly drawn to a focus by hair abundant, always

rebellious, and the hue of ripe corn-silk, she seemed as pretty, as fair

and fragile as a porcelain figurine. Bellamy needed only to see her thus

to know a stab of shame and self-reproach.

Why must he be such a fool as ever to let himself be flattered into

forgetting sheer perfection was to be found nowhere if not within the

walls of his own home?

Bending to kiss his wife, he put that thought behind him. He couldn't

afford to dwell upon it. Already he was too far committed in this new

affaire to withdraw without losing face. But he would find some way soon

to make an end of it (thank God! they all had an end sometime) and this

would be the last--"and after this, never again!"

He really meant it this time, he vowed he did....

"Rest well, dear? Don't need to ask that, though, only need to look at

you. Besides, you know you went to sleep as soon as you got home; you

were dead to the world when I came in."

"You didn't stay late at the Brook?"

"As a matter of fact, made excuses to get away early. But you were too

quick for me, my dear."

Bellamy sat down on the foot of the chaise-longue and helped himself to

one of Lucinda's cigarettes. To his relief, it tasted remarkably like

tobacco.

"Never looked sweeter in your life than last night, Linda. I was quite

jealous of old Daubeney, monopolizing you...."

"You needn't have been, Bel."

"Don't know about that. Dick took it pretty hard when you accepted me,

and if I'm any judge now, he's come back only to be hit twice as hard,

in the same place, too. If not, he's got no right to look at you the

way he does."

"I don't think you were in a good condition to judge." Bel winced,

because he had laid himself open to this, and it could be taken two

ways, neither comforting. It was actually a relief to hear Lucinda add:

"You seemed to be fairly preoccupied yourself, at the table."

"Oh, bored to tears, assure you. Amelie's a pretty little thing, amiable

enough, but nobody to talk to--no conversation whatever."

Lucinda limited comment to a mildly quizzical look. Her maid, having

answered the door, was announcing that the car was waiting for Mr.

Druce. Bellamy nodded, but seemed in no hurry. What was on his mind?

"Doing anything special today?"

Lucinda shook her head slowly, watching him with a half-smile lambent

with lazy intelligence. He felt vaguely uneasy, as who should of a

sudden find himself hard by the brink of some abysmal indiscretion.

"Thought we might meet somewhere for luncheon, if you're lunching out."

"I'd love to." Lucinda put out an arm deliciously rounded beneath skin

of a texture fairer and finer than any other Bellamy had ever seen, and

took a morocco-bound engagement book from her escritoire. "Let me

see...." She riffled the leaves. "I know I've got some shopping to

do----"

"Have you, now!"

"And Mrs. Rossiter Wade's bridge-tea for some charity or other this

afternoon, but.... Oh, yes! I'm having Fanny Lontaine to lunch at the

Ritz, with Nelly Guest and Jean Sedley. What a pity. Though nothing can

prevent your coming, too, if you like."

A dark suspicion knitted Bellamy's eyebrows. "Some actress? Sounds like

it."

"Fanny Lontaine?" Needless to ask which he meant, the other women were

fixtures of their immediate circle. Lucinda laughed. "Nothing of the

sort. Fanny was at school with me--Frances Worth----"

"Chicago people?" Bellamy put in with symptoms of approval. "Not a bad

lot. Old man Worth--'Terror of the Wheat Pit', they called him--died not

long ago in the odour of iniquity, leaving eighty millions or so. Your

little schoolmate ought to be fairly well-fixed."

"I don't know, I'm sure. I believe it's something to do with the will

that brought them over. Fanny's father disliked Harry Lontaine, so Fanny

had to run away to marry him and was duly excommunicated by the family.

She's lived in England ever since; her husband's an Englishman."

"I see: another of your charity cases."

"Hardly. They're stopping at the Ritz, that's where I met Fanny the

other day."

"Anybody can stop there, but not everybody can get away."

"Does it matter?"

"It's only I don't like seeing you made use of, Linda. Your name makes

you fair game for every climber and fortune-hunter who can claim or

scrape acquaintance with you."

"But my friends----"

"Oh, you're forever being too friendly with stray cats. Why did you ask

Nelly and Jean to meet this woman if it wasn't in the hope they'd take

her up, too?"

Lucinda shrugged. "Come to my luncheon and see for yourself. Not that I

think you'd care for Fanny, though she is pretty to death."

"Why not, if you like her so much?"

"She's not at all the type you seem to find most attractive. Why is it,

I've often wondered, the women you lose your head about are almost

always a bit--well----!"

Bellamy flushed sullenly. It was one of his crosses that he seemed never

to have the right answer ready for Lucinda when she took that line.

After all, there is only one salvation for a man married to a woman

cleverer than himself: to do no wrong.

"Oh, if you're going to rake up ancient history----!"

But Lucinda pursued pensively, as if she hadn't heard: "I presume you've

got to run after that sort, Bel, because they don't know you as well as

I do--can't."

Even a slow man may have wit enough not to try to answer the

unanswerable. Bellamy got stiffly to his feet.

"I'll drop in at the Ritz if I can make it."

"Do, dear ... And Bel!" Lucinda rose impulsively and ran to him. "I'm

sorry, Bel, I was so catty just now. Only, you know, there are some

things one can't help feeling keenly. Dear!"

She clung to him, lifting to his lips a face tempting beyond all

telling. Insensibly his temper yielded, and catching her to him, he

kissed her with a warmth that had long been missing in his caresses.

"Linda: you're a witch!"

"I wish I were ... enough of a witch, at least, to make you realize

nobody cares for you as I do, nor ever will. Bel: don't go yet. There's

something I want to ask you...."

"Yes?" He held her close, smiling down magnanimously at that pretty,

intent face. As long as she loved him so, couldn't do without him, all

was well, he could do pretty much as he liked--within reasonable limits,

of course, bounds dictated by ordinary discretion. "What's on the busy

mind?"

"I've been wondering if we couldn't go away together somewhere this

Winter." Lucinda divined hostility in the tensing of the arm round her

waist. "We're not really happy here, dearest----"

"But you were in Europe all Summer."

"Not with you, except for a few weeks. You took me over but left me to

come back to business affairs that could have got along perfectly

without you. And while you were with me, what was different from our

life here? Nothing but the geography of our environment. Meeting the

same people, doing the same things, living in the self-same groove

abroad as at home--that sort of thing's no good for us, Bel."

"What's wrong with the way we live?"

"Its desperate sameness wears on us till we turn for distraction to

foolish things, things we wouldn't dream of doing if we weren't bored.

Look through my calendar there; you'll find I'm booked up for weeks

ahead, and week in and week out the same old round. And so with you.

Consciously or unconsciously you resent it, dear, you're driven to look

for something different, some excitement to lift you out of the deadly

rut. As for me ... Would you like it if I took a lover simply because I

was bored silly, too?"

"Linda!"

"But don't you see that's what we're coming to, that is how it's bound

to end with us if we go on this way, all the time drifting a little

farther apart? Why can't we run away from it all for a while, you and I,

forget it, and find ourselves again? Take me to Egypt, India, any place

where we won't see the same people all the time and do the same things

every day. I feel as if I'd lost you already----"

"What nonsense!"

"Oh, perhaps not altogether yet. But slowly and surely I am losing you.

Bel: I want my husband and--he needs me. Give me a chance to find him

again and prove to him I'm something better than--than a boutonniere to

a man of fashion."

"Boutonniere?"

"A neglected wife, the finishing touch."

Bellamy laughed outright, and Lucinda's earnestness melted into an

answering smile. "What a notion! How did you get it, Linda?"

"Thought it up all out of my own head, strange as it may appear. You

see--this is the danger of it all--you make me think, dear. And if you

keep that up, first thing you know I'll be all mental--and that would be

too awful!"

Bel laughed again, more briefly, and slackened his embrace; and she

understood from this that, if she had not actually lost, she had gained

nothing.

"Perhaps you're right. At all events, it's worth thinking about."

"You will think it over, Bel--promise?"

"Word of honour. But now--late for an appointment--must run."

Against the better counsel of her instinct, Lucinda put all she had left

unsaid into her parting kiss--and felt that his response was forced.

In chagrin she wandered to a window and stood gazing blankly out till

recalled by a new voice: "Good morning, Mrs. Druce."

Lucinda wadded the handkerchief into her palm and turned to her

secretary, an unruffled countenance.

"Good morning, Elena."

Elena Fiske was conscientiously unalluring in the livery affected by

intellect in reduced circumstances. Thanks to a cultivated contempt for

powder, her good features wore an honest polish. She walked with a

stride and looked you in the eye. Erroneously she conceived her opinion

of Lucinda to be privately entertained.

"If you're ready for me," she suggested with perfect poise.

"Yes, quite ready."

Elena consulted a sensible note-book. "I was to remind you to telephone

Mrs. Rossiter Wade."

"Oh, yes."

Lucinda took up the telephone but only to find the wire already in use;

that is to say, somebody in another part of the house was talking

without having thought to disconnect the boudoir extension. Recognizing

Bel's voice, she would have hung up at once had she not overheard a

name.

"Lucky to catch you in, Amelie," Bellamy was saying in the blandishing

accents she knew too well. "About our luncheon, you know----"

"See here, Bel: you're not going to put me off at the last minute!"

"Rather not! But for reasons which I confidently leave to your

imagination, it might be better to make it any place but the Ritz. What

do you say to the Clique? It's at least discreet----"

"But Bel!" the mocking voice of Amelie Severn put in----"we settled on

the Clique instead of the Ritz last night, just before you went home.

What's happened to the old memory?"

Bellamy was still stammering sheepishly when Lucinda cutoff.