INEXPRESSIBLY SHOCKED ARRIVING TO-MORROW WILL CALL ON YOU TEN A
M MEANWHILE BANK OF MICHIGAN WILL SUPPLY YOU WITH FUNDS IN ANY
AMOUNT YOU MAY REQUIRE IF YOU WILL BE PLEASED TO IDENTIFY
YOURSELF TO MR. SOUTHARD THERE.
The author of this telegram, which was delivered on the morning of
Lucinda's fifth day in Chicago, was punctual to the minute of his
appointment; otherwise he would hardly have been the rectilinear
gentleman of the frock-coat school that he was.
Notwithstanding that Harford Willis was pledged to a code of morals and
manners vinted in the early Eighteen-Eighties, and so implacably
antagonistic to the general trend of present-day thought on the divorce
question, his great affection for Lucinda predisposed him to allow that
the course she had taken with Bellamy had been the only one his conduct
had left open to her.
On the other hand he was unhappily unable to hide the disconcertion
inspired by the simple gladness of her greeting, the spontaneity of
which was in such marked contrast to his own well-composed demeanour of
honorary pall-bearer at a fashionable funeral.
"If you only knew how good it is to see a friendly face for the first
time in a whole week!"
"But, my dear Lucinda," Willis intoned deliberately in his
well-modulated voice of a public speaker, "I must say you seem to be
bearing up remarkably well, all things considered, re-mark-ably well."
"I've stopped howling and drumming the floor with my heels," Lucinda
admitted--"if that's what you mean. When I found it didn't do any good,
I gave it up, and I've felt more cheerful ever since."
"Cheerful!" Willis repeated in a sepulchral voice.
"More like an average human being who's been horribly hurt but who can't
see why life should be counted a total loss for all that; less like the
wronged wife in a movie, mugging at a camera."
"But, my poor child! how you must have suffered."
"Let's not talk about that, please," Lucinda begged. "It only makes me
vindictive to remember; and I don't want to feel that way about Bel, I
don't want to be unjust. It's bad enough to have to be just."
"Must you?" Willis asked, shaking a commiserative head.
"Yes." Lucinda met his skeptical old eyes with eyes of clear candour.
"Absolutely," she added with a finality not to be discredited.
Willis sighed heavily, released her hand, sat down, and meticulously
adjusted the knees of striped grey trousers.
"I will confess I had hoped to find you of another mind."
"I'm sorry. Please don't think me hard or unforgiving, but ... I've had
plenty of time to mull things over, you know; and _I_ know I couldn't
consider going back to Bel, no matter what he might be ready to promise.
Bel can't keep a promise, not that kind, at least."
"I feel sure you wrong him there; it's true I don't know your husband as
well as I know you, my dear, but I assure you that amongst men he has
the reputation of a man of honour."
"Man of honour meaning, I presume, one who won't cheat another man but
will cheat a woman."
"Oh, come! that's a bit sweeping."
"The men who know Bel know how he's been treating me--all New York
knows! If he treated them as treacherously, would they call him a man of
honour?" Willis gave a vague gesture of deprecation, and Lucinda laughed
a little, but not in mirth. "Women are at least more honest among
themselves; if a woman knows another who isn't playing fair with her
husband, she either keeps quiet about it or calls her a cat, and lets it
go at that--she doesn't call her a woman of honour."
"You don't think it would be worth while," Willis suggested as one in
duty bound, "to forgive Bellamy, give him another chance?"
"I don't know I've got anything to forgive him, Mr. Willis. Bel did the
best he could. And that's the whole trouble. Why should I forgive him
for being true to himself? It's myself I can't forgive, because I was
silly enough to let him go on as long as I did, making me a
laughing-stock.... Besides, I'm not so sure it's good for us to be
forgiven our sins; we're all such vain creatures, we're too apt to take
forgiveness as a license to misbehave still more.... Don't you see?"
"I see you are beginning to formulate a philosophy of life."
"Isn't it about time?"
"You will need it, my dear, if you mean to fight this out alone.
Philosophy is good medicine only for lonely hearts. The others it merely
hardens."