Leslie Ward had found the autumn extremely tedious. His old passion for
Nina now and then flamed up in him, but her occasional coquetries no
longer deceived him. They had their source only in her vanity. She
exacted his embraces only as tribute to her own charm, her youth, her
fresh young body.
And Nina out of her setting of gaiety, of a thumping piano, of
chattering, giggling crowds, of dancing and bridge and theater boxes,
was a queen dethroned. She did not read or think. She spent the leisure
of her mourning period in long hours before her mirror fussing with her
hair, in trimming and retrimming hats, or in the fastidious care of her
hands and body.
He was ashamed sometimes of his pitilessly clear analysis of her. She
was not discontented, save at the enforced somberness of their lives.
She had found in marriage what she wanted; a good house, daintily
served; a man to respond to her attractions as a woman, and to provide
for her needs as a wife; dignity and an established place in the world;
liberty and privilege.
But she was restless. She chafed at the quiet evenings they spent at
home, and resented the reading in which he took refuge from her uneasy
fidgeting.
“For Heaven's sake, Nina, sit down and read or sew, or do something.
You've been at that window a dozen times.”
“I'm not bothering you. Go on and read.”
When nobody dropped in she would go upstairs and spend the hour or so
before bedtime in the rites of cold cream, massage, and in placing the
little combs of what Leslie had learned was called a water-wave.
But her judgment was as clear as his, and even more pitiless; the
difference between them lay in the fact that while he rebelled, she
accepted the situation. She was cleverer than he was; her mind worked
more quickly, and she had the adaptability he lacked. If there were
times when she wearied him, there were others when he sickened her.
Across from her at the table he ate slowly and enormously. He splashed
her dainty bathroom with his loud, gasping cold baths. He flung his
soiled clothing anywhere. He drank whisky at night and crawled into the
lavender-scented sheets redolent of it, to drop into a heavy sleep and
snore until she wanted to scream. But she played the game to the limit
of her ability.
Then, seeing that they might go on the rocks, he made a valiant effort,
and since she recognized it as an effort, she tried to meet him half
way. They played two-handed card games. He read aloud to her, poetry
which she loathed, and she to him, short stories he hated. He suggested
country walks and she agreed, to limp back after a half mile or so in
her high-heeled pumps.
He concealed his boredom from her, but there were nights when he lay
awake long after she was asleep and looked ahead into a future of
unnumbered blank evenings. He had formerly taken an occasional evening
at his club, but on his suggesting it now Nina's eyes would fill
with suspicion, and he knew that although she never mentioned Beverly
Carlysle, she would neither forget nor entirely trust him again. And in
his inner secret soul he knew that she was right.
He had thought that he had buried that brief madness, but there
were times when he knew he lied to himself. One fiction, however, he
persisted in; he had not been infatuated with Beverly. It was only that
she gave him during those few days something he had not found at home,
companionship and quiet intelligent talk. She had been restful. Nina was
never restful.
He bought a New York paper daily, and read it in the train. “The Valley”
had opened to success in New York, and had settled for a long run. The
reviews of her work had been extraordinary, and when now and then she
gave an interview he studied the photographs accompanying it. But he
never carried the paper home.
He began, however, to play with the thought of going to New York. He
would not go to see her at her house, but he would like to see her
before a metropolitan audience, to add his mite to her triumph. There
were times when he fully determined to go, when he sat at his desk
with his hand on the telephone, prepared to lay the foundations of
the excursion by some manipulation of business interests. For months,
however, he never went further than the preliminary movement.
But by October he began to delude himself with a real excuse for going,
and this was the knowledge that by a strange chain of circumstance
this woman who so dominated his secret thoughts was connected with
Elizabeth's life through Judson Clark. The discovery, communicated to
him by Walter Wheeler, that Dick was Clark had roused in him a totally
different feeling from Nina's. He saw no glamour of great wealth. On the
contrary, he saw in Clark the author of a great unhappiness to a woman
who had not deserved it. And Nina, judging him with deadly accuracy,
surmised even that.
That he was jealous of Judson Clark, and of his part in the past,
he denied to himself absolutely. But his resentment took the form of
violent protest to the family, against even allowing Elizabeth to have
anything to do with Dick if he turned up.
“He'll buy his freedom, if he isn't dead,” he said to Nina, “and he'll
come snivelling back here, with that lost memory bunk, and they're just
fool enough to fall for it.”
“I've fallen for it, and I'm at least as intelligent as you are.”
Before her appraising eyes his own fell.
“Suppose I did something I shouldn't and turned up here with such a
story, would you believe it?”
“No. When you want to do something you shouldn't you don't appear to
need any excuse.”
But, on the whole, they managed to live together comfortably enough.
They each had their reservations, but especially after Jim's death they
tacitly agreed to stop bickering and to make their mutual concessions.
What Nina never suspected was that he corresponded with Beverly
Carlysle. Not that the correspondence amounted to much. He had sent her
flowers the night of the New York opening, with the name of his club on
his card, and she wrote there in acknowledgment. Then, later, twice
he sent her books, one a biography, which was a compromise with his
conscience, and later a volume of exotic love verse, which was not. As
he replied to her notes of thanks a desultory correspondence had sprung
up, letters which the world might have read, and yet which had to him
the savor and interest of the clandestine.
He did not know that that, and not infatuation, was behind his desire to
see Beverly again; never reasoned that he was demonstrating to himself
that his adventurous love life was not necessarily ended; never
acknowledged that the instinct of the hunter was as alive in him as
in the days before his marriage. Partly, then, a desire for adventure,
partly a hope that romance was not over but might still be waiting
around the next corner, was behind his desire to see her again.
Probably Nina knew that, as she knew so many things; why he had taken to
reading poetry, for instance. Certain it is that when he began, early in
October, to throw out small tentative remarks about the necessity of a
business trip before long to New York, she narrowed her eyes. She
was determined to go with him, if he went at all, and he was equally
determined that she should not.
It became, in a way, a sort of watchful waiting on both sides. Then
there came a time when some slight excuse offered, and Leslie took up
the shuttle for forty-eight hours, and wove his bit in the pattern. It
happened to be on the same evening as Dick's return to the old house.
He was a little too confident, a trifle too easy to Nina.
“Has the handle of my suitcase been repaired yet?” he asked. He was
lighting a cigarette at the time.
“Yes. Why?”
“I'll have to run over to New York to-morrow. I wanted Joe to go alone,
but he thinks he needs me.” Joe was his partner. “Oh. So Joe's going?”
“That's what I said.”
She was silent. Joe's going was clever of him. It gave authenticity to
his business, and it kept her at home.
“How long shall you be gone?”
“Only a day or two.” He could not entirely keep the relief out of his
voice. It had been easy, incredibly easy. He might have done it a month
ago. And he had told the truth; Joe was going.
“I'll pack to-night, and take my suitcase in with me in the morning.”
“If you'll get your things out I'll pack them.” She was still thinking,
but her tone was indifferent. “You won't want your dress clothes, of
course.”
“I'd better have a dinner suit.”
She looked at him then, with a half contemptuous smile. “Yes,” she said
slowly. “I suppose you will. You'll be going to the theater.”
He glanced away.
“Possibly. But we'll be rushing to get through. There's a lot to do.
Amazing how business piles up when you find you're going anywhere. There
won't be much time to play.”
She sat before the mirror in her small dressing-room that night,
ostensibly preparing for bed but actually taking stock of her situation.
She had done all she could, had been faithful and loyal, had made
his home attractive, had catered to his tastes and tried to like his
friends, had met his needs and responded to them. And now, this. She was
bewildered and frightened. How did women hold their husbands?
She found him in bed and unmistakably asleep when she went into the
bedroom. Man-like, having got his way, he was not troubled by doubts or
introspection. It was done.
He was lying on his back, with his mouth open. She felt a sudden and
violent repugnance to getting into the bed beside him. Sometime in the
night he would turn over and throwing his arm about her, hold her close
in his sleep; and it would be purely automatic, the mechanical result of
habit.
She lay on the edge of the bed and thought things over.
He had his good qualities. He was kind and affectionate to her family.
He had been wonderful when Jim died, and he loved Elizabeth dearly. He
was generous and open-handed. He was handsome, too, in a big, heavy way.
She began to find excuses for him. Men were always a child-like prey
to some women. They were vain, and especially they were sex-vain; good
looking men were a target for every sort of advance. She transferred her
loathing of him to the woman she suspected of luring him away from her,
and lay for hours hating her.
She saw Leslie off in the morning with a perfunctory good-bye while cold
anger and suspicion seethed in her. And later she put on her hat and
went home to lay the situation before her mother. Mrs. Wheeler was out,
however, and she found only Elizabeth sewing by her window.
Nina threw her hat on the bed and sat down dispiritedly.
“I suppose there's no news?” she asked.
Nina watched her. She was out of patience with Elizabeth, exasperated
with the world.
“Are you going to go on like this all your life?” she demanded. “Sitting
by a window, waiting? For a man who ran away from you?”
“That's not true, and you know it.”
“They're all alike,” Nina declared recklessly. “They go along well
enough, and they are all for virtue and for the home and fireside stuff,
until some woman comes their way. I ought to know.”
Elizabeth looked up quickly.
“Why, Nina!” she said. “You don't mean--”
“He went to New York this morning. He pretended to be going on business,
but he's actually gone to see that actress. He's been mad about her for
months.”
“I don't believe it.”
“Oh, wake up,” Nina said impatiently. “The world isn't made up of
good, kind, virtuous people. It's rotten. And men are all alike. Dick
Livingstone and Les and all the rest--tarred with the same stick. As
long as there are women like this Carlysle creature they'll fall for
them. And you and I can sit at home and chew our nails and plan to keep
them by us. And we can't do it.”
In spite of herself a little question of doubt crept that day into
Elizabeth's mind. She had always known that they had not told her all
the truth; that the benevolent conspiracy to protect Dick extended even
to her. But she had never thought that it might include a woman. Once
there, the very humility of her love for Dick was an element in favor of
the idea. She had never been good enough, or wise or clever enough, for
him. She was too small and unimportant to be really vital.
Dismissing the thought did no good. It came back. But because she was
a healthy-minded and practical person she took the one course she could
think of, and put the question that night to her father, when he came
back from seeing David.
David had sent for him early in the evening. All day he had thought
over the situation between Dick and Elizabeth, with growing pain and
uneasiness. He had not spoken of it to Lucy, or to Harrison Miller; he
knew that they would not understand, and that Lucy would suffer. She was
bewildered enough by Dick's departure.
At noon he had insisted on getting up and being helped into his
trousers. So clad he felt more of a man and better able to cope with
things, although his satisfaction in them was somewhat modified by the
knowledge of two safety-pins at the sides, to take up their superfluous
girth at the waistband.
But even the sense of being clothed as a man again did not make it
easier to say to Walter Wheeler what must be said.
Walter took the news of Dick's return with a visible brightening. It was
as though, out of the wreckage of his middle years, he saw that there
was now some salvage, but he was grave and inarticulate over it, wrung
David's hand and only said:
“Thank God for it, David.” And after a pause: “Was he all right? He
remembered everything?”
But something strange in the situation began to obtrude itself into his
mind. Dick had come back twenty-four hours ago. Last night. And all this
time--
“Where is he now?”
“He's not here, Walter.”
“He has gone away again, without seeing Elizabeth?”
David cleared his throat.
“He is still a fugitive. He doesn't himself know he isn't guilty. I
think he feels that he ought not to see her until--”
“Come, come,” Walter Wheeler said impatiently. “Don't try to find
excuses for him. Let's have the truth, David. I guess I can stand it.”
Poor David, divided between his love for Dick and his native honesty,
threw out his hands.
“I don't understand it, Wheeler,” he said. “You and I wouldn't, I
suppose. We are not the sort to lose the world for a woman. The plain
truth is that there is not a trace of Judson Clark in him to-day, save
one. That's the woman.”
When Wheeler said nothing, but sat twisting his hat in his hands, David
went on. It might be only a phase. As its impression on Dick's youth
had been deeper than others, so its effect was more lasting. It might
gradually disappear. He was confident, indeed, that it would. He had
been reading on the subject all day.
Walter Wheeler hardly heard him. He was facing the incredible fact, and
struggling with his own problem. After a time he got up, shook hands
with David and went home, the dog at his heels.
During the evening that followed he made his resolution, not to tell
her, never to let her suspect the truth. But he began to wonder if she
had heard something, for he found her eyes on him more than once, and
when Margaret had gone up to bed she came over and sat on the arm of his
chair. She said an odd thing then, and one that made it impossible to
lie to her later.
“I come to you, a good bit as I would go to God, if he were a person,”
she said. “I have got to know something, and you can tell me.”
He put his arm around her and held her close.
“Go ahead, honey.”
“Daddy, do you realize that I am a woman now?”
“I try to. But it seems about six months since I was feeding you hot
water for colic.”
She sat still for a moment, stroking his hair and being very careful not
to spoil his neat parting.
“You have never told me all about Dick, daddy. You have always kept
something back. That's true, isn't it?”
“There were details,” he said uncomfortably. “It wasn't necessary--”
“Here's what I want to know. If he has gone back to the time--you know,
wouldn't he go back to caring for the people he loved then?” Then,
suddenly, her childish appeal ceased, and she slid from the chair and
stood before him. “I must know, father. I can bear it. The thing you
have been keeping from me was another woman, wasn't it?”
“It was so long ago,” he temporized. “Think of it, Elizabeth. A boy of
twenty-one or so.”
“Then there was?”
“I believe so, at one time. But I know positively that he hadn't seen or
heard from her in ten years.”
“What sort of woman?”
“I wouldn't think about it, honey. It's all so long ago.”
“Did she live in Wyoming?”
“She was an actress,” he said, hard driven by her persistence.
“Do you know her name?”
“Only her stage name, honey.”
“But you know she was an actress!”
He sighed.
“All right, dear,” he said. “I'll tell you all I know. She was an
actress, and she married another man. That's all there is to it. She's
not young now. She must be thirty now--if she's living,” he added, as an
afterthought.
It was some time before she spoke again.
“I suppose she was beautiful,” she said slowly.
“I don't know. Most of them aren't, off the stage. Anyhow, what does it
matter now?”
“Only that I know he has gone back to her. And you know it too.”
He heard her going quietly out of the room.
Long after, he closed the house and went cautiously upstairs. She was
waiting for him in the doorway of her room, in her nightgown.
“I know it all now,” she said steadily. “It was because of her he shot
the other man, wasn't it?”
She saw her answer in his startled face, and closed her door quickly. He
stood outside, and then he tapped lightly.
“Let me in, honey,” he said. “I want to finish it. You've got a wrong
idea about it.”
When she did not answer he tried the door, but it was locked. He turned
and went downstairs again...
When he came home the next afternoon Margaret met him in the hall.
“She knows it, Walter.”
“Knows what?”
“Knows he was back here and didn't see her. Annie blurted it out; she'd
got it from the Oglethorpe's laundress. Mr. Oglethorpe saw him on the
street.”
It took him some time to drag a coherent story from her. Annie had
told Elizabeth in her room, and then had told Margaret. She had gone to
Elizabeth at once, to see what she could do, but Elizabeth had been in
her closet, digging among her clothes. She had got out her best frock
and put it on, while her mother sat on the bed not even daring to broach
the matter in her mind, and had gone out. There was a sort of cold
determination in her that frightened Margaret. She had laughed a good
bit, for one thing.
“She's terribly proud,” she finished. “She'll do something reckless,
I'm sure. It wouldn't surprise me to see her come back engaged to Wallie
Sayre. I think that's where she went.”
But apparently she had not, or if she had she said nothing about it.
From that time on they saw a change in her; she was as loving as ever,
but she affected a sort of painful brightness that was a little hard. As
though she had clad herself in armor against further suffering.