If nothing more definite had come of all this, I should now see but
little significance in those long afternoons of riding with Lucy. She
could leave the substance of her trouble behind, as easily as she could
have left a pair of gloves, and she took into the saddle with her only
a shadow of the tragedy that was glowering upon her house.
I see now, that, at this time, we must have begun to talk more
seriously and upon more intimate topics; that we laughed less and that
there were longer silences between us. We began to take an interest in
the trees and flowers among which we rode, to learn their names, and to
linger longer over those which did not at once strike the eye.
And I see now that Lucy talked more than usually about her husband. It
was as if by doing constant justice to his character she hoped to make
up to him for her failure of affection. In his domestic relations he
was a real hero by all accounts. Didn't I _think_ they lived nicely?
She thought so, too, but it wasn't her fault. She was so extravagant,
and such a bad manager, it was a wonder they could live at all. She
admitted so much with shame. But if I could understand how it is with
some men about drink, then it must be easy for me to understand how it
is with some women about money. Oh, she'd spent John into some
dreadful holes; but he had always managed to creep out of them. How he
hated an unpaid bill! It wasn't his fault that there were so many of
them. For her part (wasn't it awful!) they filled her neither with
shame nor compunction. And he'd been so fine about people. His
instinct was to be a scholar and a hermit. But she loved people, she
simply couldn't be happy without them, and (wasn't it fun?) she had had
her way, and now John liked people almost as much as she did. And he
had a knack of putting life and laughter into the simplest parties.
Sometimes when we had finished riding, we had tea in the garden. It
would be turning cool, and she would slip a heavy coon-skin coat over
her riding things; and there was a long voluminous polo-coat of John's
that I used to borrow. Evelyn nearly always joined us, John not so
often. Sometimes Dawson Cooper came. He was getting over his shyness.
Sometimes he was quite brazen and facetious. It looked almost as if he
was being encouraged by someone.
Of the sorrow that was gnawing at John Fulton's heart I saw no sign.
He was alert, hospitable, humorous often, and toward Lucy his manner
was wonderfully considerate and gentle. If I had guessed at anything,
it would have been that the wife was in trouble and not the husband.
He could not sit still for long at a time, but he did not in the least
suggest a man who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His
activity and sudden shiftings from place to place and from topic to
topic were rather those of a man who superabounds in physical and
mental energy.
At this time he did not know whether he and Lucy were going to separate
or not. If they should, he was already preparing dust to throw in the
world's eyes. He let it be known that at any moment he might have to
go to Messina in the interests of his cartridge company (this was a
polite fiction) and that he might have to be gone a long time.
Business was a hard master. He had always tried to keep it out of his
home life, but in times like these a man must be ready to catch at
straws.
And Lucy, just her head and fingers showing from the great coon-skin
coat, would give him a look that I should not now interpret as I did
then. I thought that it made her feel sick at heart even to think of
his going to some far-off place without her!
"Speaking of far-off places," I said once, "Gerald Colebridge is taking
some men to Burlingham to play polo. He's asked me, and I'm tempted
almost beyond my strength. What does everybody think?"
"I'd go like a shot," said Dawson Cooper. "Gerald will take his car
and everything will be beautifully done; and California just about
now!" Here he bunched his fingers, kissed them and sent the kiss
heavenward.
"Wish _I_ was asked!" exclaimed Evelyn.
"Ever been to California?" Fulton asked. "Because if not, go. And
still I've thought sometimes that spring in Aiken is almost as lovely."
Poor fellow, it must have been quite obvious that he didn't think so
any more. But then Evelyn, Dawson, and I were blind and deaf, at this
time.
"When," said Lucy at last, "would you go, if you go?"
"Why, in a day or two," I said. "I'd probably leave day after tomorrow
on the three o'clock and join the party in New York."
"Oh, dear," she said, "I'll have to take up golf then. You're the only
man in Aiken who likes to ride. And John won't let me ride alone."
"Why not," said he, "ask me to ride with you?"
"Oh, I know you'd do it," she said. "You're a hero, but I'm not quite
such a brute."