Cornelia Woodyard's expression was not pleasant when she was deliberating
or in perplexity. Her broad brow wrinkled, and her mouth drew down at the
corners, adding a number of years to her face. She did not allow this
condition of perplexity to appear in public, reserving her "heavy
thinking," as Tom Cairy called these moments, for the early morning hours
of privacy. This languid spring day while Conny turned over her mail that
lay strewn in disorder on her bed, she apparently had one of her worst fits
of dubitation. She poked about in the mass of letters, bills, and
newspapers until she found the sheet she was looking for,--it was in her
husband's handwriting,--reread it, the scowl deepening, pushed it back
thoughtfully into its envelope, and rang for the maid that looked after her
personally as well as performed other offices in the well-organized
household. When Conny emerged at the end of the hour in street costume, the
frown had disappeared, but her fair face wore a preoccupied air.
"Hello, Tom!" she said wanly to Cairy, who was dawdling over the paper in
the library. "How is it out?"
"Warm,--a perfect day!" Cairy replied, smiling at her and jumping to his
feet.
"Is the cab there?"
"Yes,--shall we start?"
"I can't go to-day, Tom,--something has turned up."
"Something has turned up?" he queried. He was an expert in Conny's moods,
but he had seen little of this mood lately.
"Business," Conny explained shortly. "Leave the cab, please. I may want
it.... No," she added as Cairy came towards her with a question on his
lips. "I can't bother to explain,--but it's important. We must give up our
day."
She turned to her desk, and then remarked as if she felt Cairy's
disappointment: "You can come in after dinner if you like, Tom! We can have
the evening, perhaps."
He looked at her questioningly, as if he would insist on an explanation.
But Conny was not one of whom even a lover would demand explanations when
she was in this mood.
"We can't always play, Tommy!" she sighed.
But after he had left the room she called him back.
"You didn't kiss me," she said sweetly. "You may if you like, just once....
There!" she raised her head and smiled at Cairy, with that satisfaction
which emotional moments brought to her. "You had better get to work, too.
You can't have been of much use to Gossom lately." And she settled herself
at her desk with the telephone book. As she called the hotel where Senator
Thomas usually stayed when he was in the city, the scowl returned to her
brow. Her mind had already begun to grapple with the problems suggested by
Percy's letter of the morning. But by the time she had succeeded in getting
the Senator, her voice was gentle and sweet....
... "Yes, at luncheon,--that will be very nice!" And she hung up the
receiver with an air of swift accomplishment.
* * * * *
It is not necessary to go into what had passed between Cornelia Woodyard
and Cairy in the weeks that had elapsed since that day when Conny had been
so anxious to get back to New York from the Poles'. It would gratify merely
a vulgar curiosity. Suffice it to say that never before had Conny been so
pleased with life or her own competent handling of her affairs in it. Up to
this morning she felt that she had admirably fulfilled all claims upon her
as well as satisfied herself. Things had seemed "to come her way" during
this period. The troublesome matter before the Commission that had roused
her husband's conscience and fighting blood had gone over for the time. The
Commission had reserved its decision, and the newspapers had gone off on a
number of other scents of wrong-doing that seemed more odorously promising.
Percy's conscience had returned to its normal unsuspecting state, and he
had been absorbed to an unwonted degree in private business of one sort or
another.
Meantime the Senator and Cornelia had had a number of little talks. The
Senator had advised her about the reinvestment of her money, and all her
small fortune was now placed in certain stocks and bonds of a paper company
that "had great prospects in the near future," as the Senator
conservatively phrased it. Percy, naturally, had known about this, and
though he was slightly troubled by the growing intimacy with the Senator,
he was also flattered and trusted his wife's judgment. "A shrewd business
head," the Senator said of Conny, and the Senator ought to know. "It is as
easy to do business with her as with a man." Which did not mean that
Cornelia Woodyard had sold her husband to the Senator,--nothing as crude as
that, but merely that she "knew the values" of this life.
The Senator and Conny often talked of Percy, the promise he had shown, his
ability and popularity among all kinds of men. "If he steers right now,"
the Senator had said to his wife, "there is a great future ahead of
Woodyard, and"--with a pleasant glance at Conny--"I have no doubt he will
avoid false steps." The Senator thought that Congress would be a mistake.
So did Conny. "It takes luck or genius to survive the lower house," the
Senator said. They had talked of something in diplomacy, and now that the
stocks and bonds of the paper-mill were to be so profitable, they could
afford to consider diplomacy. Moreover, the amiable Senator, who knew how
to "keep in" with an aggressively moral administration at Washington
without altogether giving up the pleasing habit of "good things," promised
to have Woodyard in mind "for the proper place."
So Conny had dreamed her little dream, which among many other things
included the splendor of a career in some European capital, where Conny had
no doubt that she could properly shine, and she felt proud that she could
do so much for Percy. The world, this one at any rate, was for the
able,--those who knew what to take from the table and how to take it. She
was of those who had the instinct and the power. Then Percy's letter:--
... "Princhard came up to see me yesterday. From the facts he gave me I
have no doubt at all what is the inner meaning of the Water Power bill. I
shall get after Dillon [the chairman of the Commission] and find out what
he means by delaying matters as he has.... It looks also as though the
Senator had some connection with this steal.... I am sorrier than I can say
that we have been so intimate with him, and that you followed his advice
about your money. I may be down Sunday, and we will talk it over. Perhaps
it is not too late to withdraw from that investment. It will make no
difference, however, in my action here." ...
Simply according to Conny's crisp version, "Percy has flown the track
again!"
* * * * *
After a pleasant little luncheon with the Senator, Conny sent a telegram to
her husband that she would meet him at the station on the arrival of a
certain train from Albany that evening, adding the one word, "urgent,"
which was a code word between them. Then she telephoned the office of _The
People's_, but Cairy was not there, and he had not returned when later in
the afternoon she telephoned again.
"Well," she mused, a troubled expression on her face, "perhaps it is just
as well,--Tom might not be easy to manage. He's more exacting than Percy
about some things." So while the cab was waiting to take her to the
station, she sat down at her desk and wrote a note,--a brief little note:--
"DEAR TOM: I am just starting for the station to meet Percy. Something very
important has come up, which for the present must change things for us
all.... You know that we agreed the one thing we could not do would be to
let our feelings interfere with our duties--to any one.... I don't know
when I can see you. But I will let you know soon. Good-by. C."
"Give this to Mr. Cairy when he calls and tell him not to wait," she said
to the maid who opened the door for her. Conny did not believe in "writing
foolish things to men," and her letter of farewell had the brevity of
telegraphic despatch. Nevertheless she sank into the corner of the cab
wearily and closed her eyes on the brilliant street, which usually amused
her as it would divert a child. "He'll know sometime!" she said to herself.
"He'll understand or have to get along without understanding!" and her lips
drew together. It was a different world to-night from that of the day
before; but unhappy as she was she had a subtle satisfaction in her
willingness and her ability to meet it whatever side it turned towards her.
The train was a halfhour late, and as she paced the court slowly, she
realized that Cairy had come to the house,--he was always prompt these
days,--had received the note, and was walking away, reading it,--thinking
what of her? Her lips tightened a trifle, as she glanced at the clock. "He
will go to Isabella's," she said to herself. "He likes Isabelle." She knew
Cairy well enough to feel that the Southerner could not long endure a
lonely world. And Conny had a tolerant nature; she did not despise him for
going where he could find amusement and comfort; nor did she think his love
less worth having. But she bit her lip as she repeated, "He will go to
Isabelle." If Percy wanted to know the extent of his wife's devotion to
their married life, their common interests, he should have seen her at this
moment. As the train drew in, she had already thought, "But he will come
back--when it is possible."
She met her husband with a frank smile.
"You'll have to take me somewhere to dinner," she drawled. "There isn't any
at home,--besides I want to talk at once. Glad to see me?"
When they were finally by themselves in a small private room of a
restaurant where Conny loved to go with her husband,--"because it seems so
naughty,"--she said in answer to his look of inquiry: "Percy, I want you to
take me away--to Europe, just for a few weeks!"
Woodyard's face reflected surprise and concern.
"But, Con!" he stammered.
"Please, Percy!" She put her hand softly on his arm. "No matter what is in
the way,--only for a few weeks!" and her eyes filled with tears, quite
genuine tears, which dropped slowly to her pale face. "Percy," she
murmured, "don't you love me any longer?"...