"You can't afford to be mixed up in a scandal," she ventured, "or to
injure a poor little creature--I'm afraid you'll have to--to stop it."
"Stop it." His eyes gleamed with mirth and something else. "It isn't my
habit to heed gossip."
"But think of _her_, Fred!"
He smiled ironically. "What a generous, thoughtful dear you are!" said
he.
She blushed. "I'll admit I don't like it. I'm not jealous--but I wish
you weren't doing it."
"So do I!" he exclaimed, with sudden energy that astonished and
disquieted her. "So do I! But since it can't be helped I shall go on."
Never had she respected him so profoundly. For the first time she had
measured strength with him and had been beaten and routed. She fancied
herself enormously proud; for she labored under the common delusion
which mistakes for pride the silly vanity of class, or birth, or wealth,
or position. She had imagined she would never lower that cherished pride
of hers to any man. And she had lowered it into the dust. No wonder
women had loved him, she said to herself; couldn't he do with them, even
the haughtiest of them, precisely as he pleased? He had not tried to
calm, much less to end her jealousy; on the contrary, he had let it
flame as high as it would, had urged it higher. And she did not dare ask
him, even as a loving concession to her weakness, to give up an affair
upon which everybody was putting the natural worst possible
construction! On the contrary, she had given him leave to go on--because
she feared--yes, knew--that if she tried to interfere he would take it
as evidence that they could not get on together. What a man!
* * * * *
But there was more to come that day. As he was finishing dressing for
dinner his sister Ursula knocked. "May I come, Frederick?" she said.
"Sure," he cried. "I'm fixing my tie."
Ursula, in a gown that displayed the last possible--many of the
homelier women said impossible--inch of her beautiful shoulders, came
strolling sinuously in and seated herself on the arm of the divan. She
watched him, in his evening shirt, as he with much struggling did his
tie. "How young you do look, Fred!" said she. "Especially in just that
much clothes. Not a day over thirty."
"I'm not exactly a nonogenarian," retorted he.
"But usually your face--in spite of its smoothness and no wrinkles--has
a kind of an old young--or do I mean young old?--look. You've led such a
serious life."
"Um. That's the devil of it."
"You're looking particularly young to-night."
"Same to you, Urse."
"No, I'm not bad for thirty-four. People half believe me when I say I'm
twenty-nine." She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening
shoulders. "I've still got my skin."
"And a mighty good one it is. Best I ever saw--except one."
She reflected a moment, then smiled. "I know it isn't Josephine's. Hers
is good but not notable. Eyes and teeth are her strongholds. I suppose
it's--the other lady's."
"Exactly."
"I mean the one in Jersey City."
He went on brushing his hair with not a glance at the bomb she had
exploded under his very nose.
"You're a cool one," she said admiringly.
"Cool?"
"I thought you'd jump. I'm sure you never dreamed I knew."
He slid into his white waistcoat and began to button it.
"Though you might know I'd find out," she went on, "when everyone's
talking."
"Everyone's always talking," said he indifferently.
"And they rattle on to beat the band when they get a chance at a man
like you. Do you know what they're saying?"
"Certainly. Loosen these straps in the back of my waistcoat--the upper
ones, won't you?"
[Illustration: "She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening
shoulders."]
As she fussed with the buckles she said: "But you don't know that they
say you're going to pieces--neglecting your cases--keeping away from
your office--wasting about half of your day with your lady love. They
say that you have gone stark mad--that you are rushing to ruin."
"A little looser. That's better. Thanks."
"And everyone's wondering when Josephine will hear and go on the
rampage. She's so proud and so stuck on herself that they're betting
she'll give you the bounce."
"Well--" getting into his coat--"you'd delight in that. For you don't
like her."
"Oh--so--so," replied Ursula. "She's all right, as women go. You know we
women don't ever think any too well of each other. We're 'on.' Now, I'm
frank to admit I'm not worth the powder to blow me up. I can't do
anything worth doing. I don't know anything worth knowing--except how to
dress and make a fool of an occasional man. I'm not a good house-keeper,
nor a good wife--and I'd as lief go to jail for two years as have a
baby. But I admit I'm n. g. Most women are as poor excuses as I am, yet
they think they're _grand_!"
Norman, standing before his sister and smiling mysteriously, said: "My
dear Urse, let me give you a great truth in a sentence. The value of
anything is not its value to itself or in itself, but its value to some
one else. A woman--even as incompetent a person as you----"
"Or Josephine."
"--or Josephine--may seem to some man to be pricelessly valuable. And if
she happens to seem so to him, why, she _is_ so."
"Meaning--Jersey City?"
His eyes glittered curiously. "Meaning Jersey City," he said.