“I’m somewhat older than you . . . and should like to give you a small
piece of advice—or warning, if I may?”
“Of course, and I’m sorry if I’m being childish this morning, Doctor.”
“Not at all . . . Perhaps you don’t realize that as a young woman—and
an extremely attractive one—separated from her husband—men are going
to consider you the fairest game in the world. You’ll get used to it,
and adjust yourself. At first it may be difficult.” . . . (Well, why
doesn’t he get to his advice? Is he going to suggest a course in the
Psychology of Sex? I should not be so impatient, he has been very kind
to me. That must be his taxi-man ringing the doorbell.)
“Try to remember that the banality about time healing everything is
quite true.”
(Is that all the medical profession has to offer me? How much time does
it take is what I want to know.)
“Yes, taxi, wait outside a minute.”
“Meanwhile, Patricia, don’t take things too hard.”
He smiled. “It was one of the pleasantest nights of my life,” he said
quite gravely.
He picked up his hat, refrained from kissing me, and held out his hand.
For that last I was suddenly so warmly grateful that I could smile,
really gaily, and say what was truth at the moment. “I am glad you
stayed.”
“I shall hope that you telephone, Patricia.” The door closed behind
him—a completely comprehending and nice man.
I knew that I would never telephone—that I would never see him again.
He understood that, too.
* * * * *
The telephone rang. It was Lucia. Very beautiful Lucia was—ex-wife of a
man named Archibald. I met Arch once; had known Lucia casually some
time, at the Advertising Club. She seemed to be taking more interest in
me of late, since she knew I had been having what department store help
call “family troubles.”
“I hear from a friend of a friend of Rickey’s, that your husband and
Rick celebrated your husband’s return to bachelor life, at the Yale Club
last night?”
“I shouldn’t wonder, Lucia. He left before dinner yesterday.”
A little silence.
“How are you feeling?”
“All right, I guess.” (It is going to be awful to have people asking how
I feel all the time, as if I were convalescing from typhoid.)
“Come up and have tea with me?”
“Love to.”
“And Pat, it’s not bad being an ex-wife when you get used to it. I quite
like the life.”
“Tell me about it at tea.”
“’Right.”
Ex-wife—ex-wife of Peter puts on a beaver coat and fresh white gloves.
I cannot _bear_ being ex-wife of Peter.
The late sun of Sunday afternoon shone on ex-wife of Peter walking fast
uptown, through the crowds of funny people recovering from too-huge
dinners by waddling a few blocks along Fifth Avenue. (I can tell by the
expression of men’s faces that I am looking well. I look just the same
as I did last week, probably, and shall not look much different next
week, or for five years, or even ten, if I take exercise. In five years
or ten, shall I walk, still wanting to meet Peter in the middle of the
next block?)
Park Avenue.
Lucia is a red-haired oval-faced madonna in a black velvet dress. She is
much slimmer than a Titian madonna though—a sort of a cross between
Titian’s and Burne-Jones’ women.
“Pat, I’m giving you a highball instead of tea.”
“Lucia, don’t break the news gently, but does one ever get over it?”
She sipped a highball. She held a cigarette in long thin fingers. She
regarded me sympathetically, then appraisingly. She grinned a gaminesque
grin, that set oddly on her lovely face. She looked as if I were being
very funny indeed. She did not answer.
“One doesn’t ever get over it, does one?”
She threw her cigarette into the fireplace, impatiently. “I’ll make a
prophecy, Pat. In three years you won’t remember the colour of his
eyes.”
“That’s a comfort.”
“Do you think so?” said Lucia.
V
It was time I went home. Lucia, no doubt, had a dinner engagement. But I
did not want to leave. I suddenly did not want, ever, to spend another
night, another hour, even, in that apartment that had been Pete’s and
mine.
Lucia said: “Come upstairs, there’s something I want to show you.” She
wanted to show me a small duplex apartment, on the upper two floors.
There was a huge room and bath on each level, with an amusing interior
staircase connecting them. There was the usual Manhattan view of
building operations in progress.
“If you would come live with me,” said Lucia, “we could afford this
place. I’d like to live with another woman anyway—it would have its
advantages, provided there was a relative amount of privacy.”
Indifference, that was rather comfortable, descended on me. I would have
to live somewhere; Lucia was lovely. Why not?
“But do you make a habit of being kind to dumb animals, Lucia?”
She laughed. “You _will_ be dumb for a while, you know, Pat. I was . . .
I’m going to put on my hat, because Checko will be turning up. You’d
better stay here tonight. There’s a fruit-cake for you to eat, or you
can go out and get something nourishing. Why go home and wait for your
husband to telephone? He won’t—yet. I’ll be late. . . . The daybed
unfolds, or you can sleep on the little couch.
“Have you a daybed by the way, Patricia? No ex-wife’s home complete
without. A single bed, as decorative as possible, capable of adjustment
to meet crises as they occur.”