Mostyn took long solitary walks. His habit of morbid introspection had
grown and become a fixed feature of his life. Even while occupied with
business his secret self stood invisible at his elbow whispering, ever
whispering things alien from material holdings or profit--matters
unrelated to speculative skill or judgment.
He had wandered into the suburbs of the city one afternoon, and,
happening to pass an isolated cottage at the side of the road, he was
surprised to see Marie Winship coming out. She smiled cordially,
nodded, signaled with her sunshade, and hurried through the little gate
toward him. He paused, turned, and stood waiting for her. He had not
seen her, even at a distance, for nearly a year, and her improved
appearance struck him forcibly. Her color was splendid, her eyes were
sparkling and vivacious. She was perfectly groomed and stylishly
attired.
"Why, what are you doing away out here?" he asked, secretly and
recklessly soothed by the sight of her, for in her care-free way she,
at least, was a living lesson against the folly of taking the rebuffs
of life too seriously.
She smiled, holding out her gloved hand in quite the old way, which had
once so fascinated his grosser senses. "Mary Long, my dressmaker, lives
here." She glanced at him half chidingly from beneath her thick lashes.
"I come all the way out here to save money. You think I am extravagant,
Dick, but that is the sort of thing I have to do to make ends meet.
Mary is making me a dream of a frock now for one-fourth of what your
high and mighty _Frau_ would pay for it in New York."
"Always hard up," Mostyn said. "You never get enough to satisfy you."
She smiled coquettishly. "I was born that way," she answered. "My
brother sends me money often. He has never forgotten how you and I got
him out of that awful hole. He has gone into the wholesale whisky
business and is doing well. He paid me back long ago."
"And you blew it in, of course?" Mostyn said, lightly.
"Yes, that's how I got that last New York trip," she nodded, merrily.
"Dick, that was one month when I really _lived_. Gee! if life could
only be like that I'd ask nothing more of the powers that rule; I
certainly wouldn't."
"But life can't possibly be like that," he returned, gloomily. "Even
that would pall on you in time. I am older than you, Marie, and I know
what I am talking about. We can go just so far and no farther."
"Poof! piffle!" It was her old irresponsible ejaculation. "Life is what
you make it. 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you.' Eat, drink, and be
merry--that is my motto. But, say, Dick"--she was eying his face with
slow curiosity--"what is the matter? You look like a grandfather. You
are thin and peaked and nervous-looking. But I needn't ask--I know."
"You know!" he repeated, sensitively. "I am working pretty hard for one
thing, and--"
"Poof!" She snapped her fingers. "You used to get fat on work. It isn't
that, Dick, and you needn't try to fool me. I know you from the soles
of your feet to the end of the longest hair on your head."
He avoided her fixed stare. "I'm not making money as I did once. Many
of my investments have turned out badly. I seem to have lost my old
skill in business matters."
"I was sure you would when you married," the woman said, positively;
and he flinched under the words as under a lash. "A man of your
independent nature can't sell himself and ever do any good afterward.
You lost your pride in that deal, Dick, and pride was your motive
power. You may laugh at me and think I am silly, but I am speaking
truth."
"You ought not to say those things," he said, resentfully.
"I will say exactly what I like," she retorted, cold gleams flashing
from her eyes. "You never cared a straw for that vain, stuck-up woman.
Dick, I hate her--from the bottom of my soul, I despise her, and she
knows it. Whenever I pass her she takes pains to sneer at me. For one
thing, I hate her for the way she is treating you and your child. Dick,
that boy is the sweetest, prettiest creature I ever saw, and not a bit
like her. One day I passed your house when he happened to be playing
outside the gate. His nurse neglects him. Automobiles were passing, and
I was afraid he might get run over. No one was in sight, and so I
stopped and warned him. I fell in love with the little darling. Oh, he
is so much like you; every motion, every look, every tone of voice is
yours over and over! He took my hand and thanked me like a little
gentleman. I stooped down and kissed him. I couldn't help it, Dick. I
have always loved children. I went further--the very devil must have
been in me that day. I asked him which he loved more, you or his
mother. He looked at me as if surprised that any one should ask such a
question, and do you know what he answered?"
"I can't imagine," Mostyn replied. "He is so young that--"
"Dick, he said: 'Why, Daddy, of course. Daddy is good to me.'"
A subtle force rising from within seized Mostyn and shook him sharply.
He made an effort to meet the frank eyes bent upon him, but failed. He
started to speak, but ended by saying nothing.
"Yes, I hate her," Marie went on. "I hate her for the way she is
acting."
"The way she is acting?" The echo was a faint, undecided one, and
Mostyn's eyes groped back to the wayward face at his side. "Yes, and it
is town talk," Marie went on. "You know people in the lower and middle
classes will gossip about you lucky high-flyers. They know every bit as
much about what is going on in your set as you do. They can't have the
fun you have, so they take pleasure in riddling your characters or
talking about those already riddled. Dick, your wife's affair with Andy
Buckton is mentioned oftener than the weather. People say he always
loved her and, now that he is rich and rolling high, that he is winning
out. Many sporting people that I know glory in his 'spunk,' as they
call it. They are counting on a divorce as a sure thing."
"Can they actually believe that--" Mostyn's voice failed him; but the
woman must have read his thought, for she said, quickly:
"Don't ask me what they think. I know what _I_ think, and I'll bet I
know her through and through. She is reckless to the point of doing
anything on earth that will amuse her. She is so badly spoiled she is
rotten. I know how you are fixed--oh, I know! You can't kill him; you
don't love her enough for that; and besides, you know you can't prove
anything serious against her. Her married women friends go about with
men, and for you to object would only make you ridiculous. They sneer
at women like me, I know; but Lord, they can't criticize me! I am
myself, that's all. I can be a friend, and I can be an enemy. I want to
be your friend, Dick."
"My friend?" he repeated, with an inaudible sigh drawn from the
seething reservoir of his gloom.
"Yes, and not only that, but I want to give you some good, solid
advice."
"Oh, you do?" He forced a smile of bland incredulity.
"I will tell you what is the matter with you, and how to get out of it.
Dick, you have let this thing get on your nerves, and it is hurrying
you to the grave or the mad-house. I know you well enough to know that
it is on your mind day and night. Now, there is one royal road, and if
you'll take it the whole dirty business will slip off of you like water
off a duck's back."
"What is that road, Marie?" he asked, affecting a lighter mood than he
felt.
"Why, it is simply to do as they are doing. Plunge in and have a good
time. You made all the money you ever made when you were living the
life of a red-blooded, natural man. Marrying that woman has given you
cold feet, and she knows it. Forget it all. Sail in and be glad you are
alive. Look at me. Things have happened to me that would have finished
many a woman, but I took a cocktail, won a game of poker, and was as
chipper as if nothing out of the way had happened."
"You don't understand, Marie," he said, with a bare touch of his old
reckless elation. "That may be all right for you, but--"
"Piffle! Dick, you are the limit. I can turn you square about and make
you see straight. Think things are bad, and they will be so. Your wife
and her fellow are having a good time; why shouldn't you? People who
used to admire you think you are a silly chump, but they will come back
to you if you show them that you are in the game yourself. I like you,
Dick--I always have, better than any other man I know. Come to see me
to-night, and let's talk it over."
She saw him wavering, and laid her hand on his arm and smiled up at him
in her old bewitching way. Some impulse surging up from the primitive
depths of himself swayed him like a reed in a blast of wind. He touched
the gloved hand with the tips of his fingers. The look beneath her
sweeping lashes drew his own and held it in an invisible embrace. He
pressed her hand.
"You are a good girl, Marie," he muttered, huskily. "I know you want to
help me, but--"
"I am not going to take a refusal, Dick. I want to see you. I want you
to take the bit in your teeth again. Come to see me to-night. I'll have
one of our old spreads in my little dining-room. I'll sing and dance
for you and tell you the funniest story you ever heard. I am going to
expect you."
There was a genuine warmth of appeal in her face. In all his knowledge
of her she had never appeared to such an advantage. After all, her
argument was reasonable and rational. A titillating sensation suffused
his being. In fancy he saw the little dining-room, which adjoined her
boudoir; he saw her at the piano, her white fingers tripping, as in the
old days, over the keyboard; he heard her singing one of her gay and
reckless songs; he saw her dainty feet tripping through the dance he so
much admired.
"You are coming, Dick," she said, confidently, withdrawing her hand and
raising her sunshade. "I shall expect you by nine o'clock, sharp. I
won't listen to a refusal or excuse. I shall have no other engagement."
He hesitated, but she laughed in his face, her red lips parted in an
entrancing smile. He caught a whiff of her favorite perfume, and his
hot brain absorbed it like a delicious intoxicant.
"I know you of old, Dick Mostyn. You used to say now and then that you
had business that would keep you away, but you never failed to come
when you knew _positively that I was waiting._ I am going to wait
to-night, and if I don't make a new man of you I'll confess that I am a
failure."
"I really can't promise." He was looking back toward the smoke-clouded
city, at the gray dome of the State Capitol. "I may come, and I may
not, Marie. I can't tell. If I shouldn't, you must forgive me. It is
kind of you to want to help me, and I appreciate it."
"You are coming, Dick; that settles it." She smiled confidently. "Huh!
as if I didn't know you! You are the same dear, old chap, ridden to
death with silly fancies. Now, I'm going to run back and speak to Mary.
I forgot something. She is all right. She won't talk even if she
recognized you, which is doubtful, for she is a stranger here."
Turning, he walked back toward the city. Already he was in a different
mood; his step was more active; all of his senses were alert; his blood
surged through his veins as if propelled by a new force. He saw some
vacant lots across the street advertised for sale by a real
estate-agent, and found himself calculating on the city's prospective
growth in that direction. It might be worth his while to inquire the
price, for he had made money in transactions of that sort.
Returning to the bank, he found that the activity of the clerks and
typewriters did not jar on him as it had been doing of late. He paused
at Saunders's desk and made a cheerful and oddly self-confident inquiry
as to the disposition of a certain customer's account, surprising his
partner by his altered manner.
In his office, smoking a good cigar, he found a new interest in the
letters and documents left there for his consideration. After all, life
_was_ a game. Even the early red men had their sport. Modern routine
work without diversion was a treadmill, prisonlike existence. Delbridge
was the happy medium. The jovial speculator had never heard of such a
fine-spun thing as a conscience. What if Irene and Buckton were having
their fun; could he not also enjoy himself? If the worst came, surely a
man of the world, a stoical thoroughbred, who was willing to give and
take a matrimonial joke would appear less ridiculous in the public eye
than an overgrown crier over spilt milk. How queer that he had waited
for Marie Winship to open his eyes to such a patent fact!
All the remainder of the day he was buoyed up by this impulse. A man
came in to see him about buying a new automobile, and he made an
appointment with him to test the machine the next morning. It was said
to be better and higher-priced than Buckton's. He might buy it. He
might openly ride out with Marie. That would be taking the bull by the
horns in earnest. He smiled as he thought that many would think his
relations with Marie had never been broken, but had only been adroitly
concealed out of respect for a wife who no longer deserved such
delicate consideration. The town would talk; let them--let them! Its
tongue was already active on one side of the matter; it should be fed
with a morsel or two from the other. Richard Mostyn was himself again.