That afternoon when the bank was closed Mostyn went home. He walked for
the sake of the exercise and with the hope of distracting his mind from
the many matters which bore more or less heavily on his tired brain. As
he approached the gate the sight of his little son playing on the lawn
with a miniature tennis racket and ball gave him a thrill of delight.
The boy was certainly beautiful. He had great brown eyes, rich golden
hair, was sturdy, well built, and active for a child of only four years.
The father opened the gate softly, and when within the yard he hid
himself behind the trunk of an oak and cautiously peered out, watching
the little fellow toss the ball and make ineffectual efforts to hit it
with the racket. Then Mostyn whistled softly, saw the boy drop his
racket and look all round, his sweet face alert with eagerness. Mostyn
whistled again, and then the child espied him and, with hands
outstretched, came running, laughing and shouting gleefully.
"I see you, Daddy!" he cried. Whereupon Mostyn slipped around the tree
out of sight, letting the amused child follow him. Round after round
was made, and then, suddenly stooping down, the father caught the boy
in his arms and raised him up. Pressing him fondly to his breast, he
kissed the warm, flushed cheeks.
Till dusk he played with the child on the grass, pitching the ball and
teaching the little fellow to hit it. Then Hilda, the mulatto nurse,
came for her charge, and little Dick, with many expostulations, was
taken away.
Going into the house, Mostyn met his father-in-law in the hall. The old
man stopped him abruptly at the foot of the stairs.
"Did any mail come for me on the noon train?" he demanded, querulously,
a light of suspicion in his eyes.
"Not that I know of," Mostyn answered. "It was not put on my desk, I am
sure."
"Well, some of it goes _somewhere,_" Mitchell complained. "I know I
don't see it all. I've written letters that would have been answered by
this time, and it wouldn't surprise me if somebody down there was
tampering with it."
Seeing the utter hopelessness of bringing his father-in-law to reason
by explanation or argument, Mostyn went on up-stairs. Noticing that the
door of his wife's chamber, adjoining his own, was ajar, he pushed it
open and went in. The room was brightly illuminated with electric
light, and standing before a tall pier-glass he found his wife. She
wore a costly evening gown of rare old lace and was trying on a pretty
diamond necklace.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, indifferently, as she caught sight of him over her
bare powdered shoulder. "I thought it was Cousin Kitty. She promised to
be here early. If she is late we'll have to go without her. She is
awfully slow. I saw you playing with Dick on the grass. He makes too
much noise, screaming out like that, and you only make him worse
cutting up with him as you do. Between you and that boy and father,
with his constant, babyish complaints, I am driven to desperation."
Mostyn shrugged his shoulders wearily, and sat down in a chair at her
quaint mahogany dressing-table. Irene had not changed materially,
though a close observer, had the light been that of day, might have
remarked that she was thinner and more nervous. Her eyes held a
shadowy, unsatisfied expression, and her voice was keyed unnaturally
high.
Noticing his unwonted silence, she put down her hand-mirror and eyed
him with a slow look of irritation. "Of course, you are not going
to-night," she said.
"Hardly," he smiled, satirically, "being quite uninvited."
"Well, you needn't say it in _that_ tone," she answered. "You have only
yourself to blame. You never accept such invitations, so how could you
expect people to run after you with them?"
"I don't expect them to," he answered, tartly. "If they asked me I'd
decline. I simply don't enjoy that sort of thing at all."
"Of course you don't," she laughed. "The last time you went to a ball
you looked like an insane man pacing up and down all by yourself. Kitty
said you asked her to dance and forgot all about it. Dick, your day is
over."
"I wonder if yours ever will be," he sniffed. "I see no prospect of it.
You are on the go night and day. You are killing yourself. It is as bad
as the morphine habit with you. You love admiration more than any woman
I ever saw."
She arched her neck before the glass and turned to him wearily. "Do you
know what you'll do in another minute? You'll talk yourself into
another one of your disgusting rages over my own private affairs. You
are a business man and would not violate an ordinary business
agreement, but you are constantly ignoring the positive compact between
us."
"I didn't expect at the time to have you going so constantly with a man
that--"
"Oh, you didn't?" she laughed, tantalizingly. "You were to have all
sorts of outside freedom, but I was not. Well, you were mistaken,
that's all. I know whom you are hinting at. You mean Andy Buckton. I'm
going with him to-night. Why shouldn't I? He's got up the party for me.
Dick, don't tell me that you are actually jealous. It would be too
delicious for anything."
"I can't ask you not to go with the fellow," Mostyn answered,
"considering the well-known habits of your limited set to lay down new
laws of conduct, but you nor no other woman can form the slightest idea
of what it costs a man's pride to have people say that his wife is
constantly seen with a man who always has been in love with her."
An almost imperceptible gleam of delight flashed into Irene's eyes, and
a tinge of real color struggled beneath the powder on her face.
"You don't mean, Dick, that he really, really loves me?" she said,
lingeringly.
"I think he does," Mostyn answered, bluntly. "He never got over your
refusal to marry him. He shows it on every occasion. Everybody knows
it, and that's what makes it so hard to--to put up with. I think I
really have a right to ask the mother of my child to--"
"Don't begin that, Dick!" Irene commanded, sharply. "I have my rights,
and you shall respect them. It is cowardly of you to always mention the
boy in that way. I am not crazy about children, and I won't pretend to
be. You know I did not want a child in the first place. I am not that
sort. I want to have a good time. I like admiration. I like amusements.
You men get the keenest sort of pleasure out of gambling in stocks and
futures. All day long you are in a whirl of excitement. But you expect
us women to stay at home and be as humdrum as hens in a chicken-house.
You are to have your fun and come home and have us wives pet you and
pamper you up for another day of delight. Dick, that may go all right
with farmers' wives who haven't shoes to wear out to meeting, but it
won't do for women with money of _their own_ to spend."
"I knew _that_ would come," he flashed at her. "It always does crop up
sooner or later."
"You are out of temper to-night, Dick," she retorted. "And it is simply
because I am going with Andy Buckton. You needn't deny it."
"I don't like the gossip that is going around." Mostyn frowned and bit
his mustache as he said this. "The people of Atlanta, as a whole, are
moral, conservative citizens, and the doings of your small set are
abhorrent to them."
"_My_ set!" Irene forced a harsh, mirthless laugh. "And for goodness'
sake, what do they think of _your_ set? You force me to say this, Dick.
There is not a person in this city who has not heard of you and that
unspeakable Winship woman."
Mostyn flinched beneath the gaze she bent on him. "That is a thing of
the past, Irene, and you know it," he stammered, trying to keep his
temper.
"I can consider it a thing of the past," she returned, coldly, "if I
will take your word for it, just as you may or may not take my word for
my conduct with Andy Buckton. Oh, I suppose it is nothing for a wife to
see the knowing smiles that pass around when the gaudy creature shows
up at the theater or ball-game accompanied by gamblers and bar-keepers.
The brazen thing stares straight at me whenever I am near her."
Mostyn was now white with restrained fury. He stood up. "I will not go
over all that again," he said. "The mistake I made was in ever owning
up to the thing."
"You _had_ to own up to it," Irene answered, bluntly. "I knew it when
we were married, and I would not mention it now if you were not
constantly nagging me about my actions. Dick, you will have to let me
alone. I won't take advice from you."
He met her frank eyes with a shrinking stare. "I shall let you alone in
the future," he faltered. "I see I have to. You are merciless. For the
sake of the boy we must live in harmony. God knows we must!"
"All right," she laughed, coldly, "that is another agreement. Harmony
is the word. Now, go away. Kitty is not coming. She may be going with
some one else."
Mostyn went to his room across the hall. He bathed his bloodless face
and hands and automatically brushed his hair before the glass, eying
his features critically. "Can that actually be me?" he whispered to the
grim reflection. "I look like a man of sixty. I'm as old and decrepit
as--Jeff Henderson. Why did I think of him? Why am I constantly
thinking of that old man, unless it is because he has predicted my ruin
so confidently? He seems as sure of it as he is of the air he breathes.
If evil thought bearing on a man can hurt him, as the mental scientists
believe, Henderson's will eventually get me down. He would give his
life to permanently injure me. So would Marie. She can't forgive me for
ignoring her. She can't understand any more than I do _why_ I ignore
her."
There was a rap on the door. It was a servant to ask if he wanted his
supper.
"Not now," he answered. "Keep it for me. I'll be in later."