The days dragged by. She had anxious times. What would Sally Crothers
be like? "And what in the world will she think of me? If she doesn't
like me--very much--the very first time, I'll have lost my chance. For
she's busy, her life is full of things--planning gardens and running
about with her friends. And she won't so much as bother her head!"
Ethel felt a dismal sinking. In vain she strove to assure herself.
Joe, Nourse and then Dwight, one after the other, had all bowed down
before her. "Oh, that was very simple!" she thought. "They're only
men!" It would be a woman this time, and one of the most brilliant kind.
"What a dull little fool she'll find me, in spite of all I do or say!"
It would be all the more difficult because Mrs. Crothers was older.
"That will count against me. No doubt she's beginning to show her age;
and I'm young, and she doesn't want any young things to come snooping
about her husband! Then there's Amy and the quarrel they had, and
she'll put me and Amy in the same class! I'll have all that to fight
against!" The idea of settling everything all in one brief encounter.
Oh, it was too maddening!
"Now, Ethel Lanier, for goodness' sake stop fidgeting like a nervous old
maid! This isn't the minister coming to call!"
On the day before the expected call, Ethel was just on the point of
going out for the afternoon to do some shopping and shake off these
silly fears, when the telephone rang and a few moments later the maid
came in and told her there was a visitor downstairs. In an instant with
a rush of excitement Ethel knew it was Sally at last. Dwight, in his
easy, careless way, had mixed his dates and was bringing Sally a day
ahead! How stupid of him! "What have I on?"
"Did she come up?" she breathlessly asked.
"No, Mrs. Lanier, she's waiting below."
"Did she give her name?"
"Yes--Mrs. Carr."
"Oh." Ethel gasped and sank down in a heap. "All right, ask her to come
up," she said, in a tone of indifference.
When the maid had gone, she almost called her back. She did not want to
see Fanny Carr. Still--why not? Oh, let her come. And in the two or
three minutes that followed, Ethel passed from a mood of depression to
one of easy good-natured contempt. She was no longer afraid of Fanny,
for Ethel was getting Joe in hand. "And as soon as I do," she
reflected, "and my husband makes a name as an architect doing great big
things, what harm can Fanny do me?" As she thought of the brilliant
people who were so soon to be her friends, she looked upon Fanny Carr
and her like with no more hatred but only compassion. What stupid lives
they were leading.
And so when Fanny came into the room Ethel received her kindly.
But Fanny rather smiled at that. She looked a bit seedy as to her
dress, and yet she had a confident air. She took in the fine clothes of
her handsome young hostess, and Ethel's very gracious air and the almost
pitying tone of her voice--and then with a hard little smile, "My, what
a change," said Fanny softly. Ethel frowned at her tone. This might be
rather awkward.
"You mean this way of doing my hair?" she rejoined good-humouredly. "I
was hoping you would notice it."
"Does he?" asked Fanny.
"What do you mean? Oh, Joe never--"
"No. Dwight, my dear." The hard voice of her visitor had become
suddenly low and clear. Ethel looked at the woman then and slowly
reddened to her ears. And the consciousness of blushing made her all
the angrier.
"What on earth do you mean!" she demanded. Her voice too was very low,
and it trembled only a little; but there was a glint in her brown eyes.
Fanny gave a tense little laugh.
"Look here," she said. "Don't let's waste time. Joe may be coming
home, you know, and we must get this over first."
"We'll soon get it over." Ethel's voice was shaking ominously. Fanny
noticed and spoke fast.
"Well, then, it's just this," she said. "You've made up your mind to
cut Joe off from all his old friends, including me. And I might have
stood for that--"
"How kind!"
"If I hadn't learned of the raw deal you're giving him. Strip him of
friends and then treat him like this? Oh, no, not if I can help it!"
Plainly Fanny was working herself into a rage to match that of her
hostess.
"You'd better be very clear, Mrs. Carr," Ethel exclaimed, leaning
forward. Her visitor looked straight back at her, and answered:
"Very. I mean Dwight."
Ethel rose abruptly.
"That will be enough, I think."
"Oh, will it?"
Ethel wheeled upon her:
"What a--loathsome mind you have! Will you leave me, please!"
"No, I'll show you this. And then we'll get to business." And Fanny
produced a large envelope, from which she took out a few typewritten
pages. "Just look these over," she advised, "and then tell me whether I
shall go." And as Ethel hesitated, "You'd better. They're very
important."
Ethel took them and read them, and as she did so her rage and scorn
changed first into bewilderment and then into a sickening fright She
felt all at once so off her ground. She had always heard of detectives
and their reports of shadowed wives, but that sort of thing had just
been in the papers and had never seemed very real. "This is about me!"
she thought. It told of every meeting she had had with Dwight, in his
studio and in other places, once at the Ritz where they had dined and
gone to the opera, twice in the Park where they had walked. Such clean
times, all three of them, but how cheap and disgusting they now
appeared! For here were bits about Dwight's past, his record with
women--two were named. He had been a co-respondent once! And his
studio was described in detail, with emphasis on a big lounge in one
corner! . . . Suddenly it was laughable! And so she laughed at
Fanny! And Fanny replied:
"You mean he won't believe it!"
Ethel went on laughing. Joe wouldn't believe it. She wished he would
come and turn this woman out on the street. She felt relief
unspeakable.
"You've forgotten," Fanny added, "that you lied to him about your
friend."
"How dare you say that?"
"Because I have the facts. On the second of December Joe brought Dwight
to dine with you, and you acted as though you'd never met. I gathered
that from Joe himself when I saw him the next day. While the truth of
it was you'd been seeing Dwight ever since the first of October."
"Yes? That will be easy enough to explain." But Ethel felt herself
turning white. She sank down and thought, "Now you'll need all your
nerve. Don't get faint, you've got to think clearly." But she was not
given time.
"And all that had been going on while you were supposed to be home with
the baby." Mrs. Carr leaned forward briskly. "Now the thing for you to
do is exactly what I tell you. But before I do that, there's just one
thing I wish you to understand about me. If you want to keep Joe, keep
him. I don't want him--I never did. I've laughed at you again and
again for what you thought I was trying to do. All I want is to be let
alone to go on with Joe as I always have. What I mean by that you won't
understand, because you don't understand my life. A woman like me in
this city needs one man who'll be her friend--the big brother idea--to
help and advise her, carry her through when she's down a bit. And Joe
has always been like that.
"Why? Because of Amy. When she first came to New York, you remember,
it was on a visit to me. I had known her back in boarding school.
Well, the visit lengthened out. I saw how crazy she was for the town,
and I was fairly well off then, so I let her stay and gave her a
home--let her meet my friends, Joe included. I had a husband at the
time who was in the real estate business. He knew Joe. So I took Joe
and handed him over to Amy. And though she would have been glad enough
to forget the debt, Joe wasn't that kind. So that's my hold on
him--perfectly clean and above-board. And I need him in my business.
There are times when I'm down and need his money, other times when I
need his name. But that is all. And if he has been fool enough to
marry a giddy young girl like you, that's his own look-out--I won't
interfere. I mean I won't interfere with you so long as you don't
interfere with me. You let me go on with Joe as before, and he'll never
see these papers."
With a sudden fierce impulse, in spite of herself, Ethel crumpled them
up in her hands.
"Don't be a fool," said Fanny. "They're only copies. Give them back."
Ethel did so, mechanically. "Now what will you do? Which way will you
have it? He may be here any minute now."
She waited, but got no reply. She saw the girl shiver a little.
"What's the use of being so solemn and scared?" she impatiently asked.
"You're running no more risk than before. So far as I'm concerned, my
dear, you can go right on with Dwight if you wish. All I'm asking is a
square deal."
"But she'll ask and ask," thought Ethel. "She'll ask of me anything she
wants. And she'll get me so tangled in other lies that then I wouldn't
have even a chance of making Joe see how things really are."
This thought cleared her mind a little.
"No," she said. "You can tell him."
"What!"
Ethel looked down at her hands in her lap, and noticed how tightly
they were clenched. She smiled at them.
"Tell him."
"You're sure of that?"
Ethel nodded.
"Very well!"
"She's uneasy," thought Ethel, "and disappointed--not sure of herself.
I've done the right thing."
But as in almost perfect silence they sat waiting for Joe to come home,
her decision wavered again and again, and it took all her courage to
hold herself in. She made occasional trite remarks, and received
replies of the same kind. On them both the tension was growing.
"This means everything to you, too, Fanny, dear!" Ethel reflected
viciously. "If Joe believes me--you're done for!"
At each slight stir that Fanny made, Ethel hoped she had lost her
courage and was getting ready to go. But Fanny stayed And as she sat
there motionless, what a strong figure she grew to be, moment by moment,
in Ethel's eyes--strong in spite of the life she led, of clothes, rich
feeding, drinking, dancing, old age swiftly coming on. Strong
nevertheless, in an odious way, in the loathsome point of view of her
world toward love and marriage. It had set her to prying and handed her
here--with these papers in her hands! That was her way of looking at
life, and a mighty strong way it appeared!
Suddenly Ethel's eye was caught by Amy's photograph on the table. By
degrees in the last few months Joe had ceased to notice it there. But
how he would notice it now, very soon, as soon as he'd read what Fanny
had brought. For Amy had taught Joe long ago to be jealous, never too
sure of a wife.
"So Amy is here again, after all. . . . I wonder what I shall say to
Joe? . . . Oh, rubbish! Use more common sense! All I've got to do
is to make him see why I never told him about Dwight. It was only part
of that plan I had. But what a fool! Oh, what a fool!"
When at last Joe's key was heard in the door, both women leaned slowly
forward, as though the strain were unbearable. And then as Joe came
into the hall, Fanny said suddenly, sharp and clear:
"No, I won't keep quiet! Joe has got to be told of this!" Ethel wheeled
on her:
"How odious!"
"I can't help it--he's my friend!"
And the next moment, with Joe in the room, both women were talking to
him at once--angrily, incoherently, almost shoving each other away. But
only for a moment. It was too disgusting! Ethel left off and stood
rigid there, while Fanny talked on rapidly. She was speaking of how
Ethel had cut off Joe from Amy's friends. Ethel heard only bits of
this, for it all seemed so confused and unreal. But she noticed how
nervously tired he looked, all keyed up from his day at the office. She
remembered that his partner was out of town on business, that Joe had
been running the office alone. "He will be hard to manage," she
thought. He interrupted Fanny in a sharp, excitable tone.
"What's it all about?" he asked.
"It's time you saw where you stand, Joe Lanier. Look at this girl. I
don't blame her, God knows. Look how young she is, and then look at
yourself. Here, take a look at yourself in that mirror. Are you still
young? Can't you see the lines, the gray hairs, Joe? They're
coming--oh, they're coming! Can you supply all the love she wants?"
"Fanny?" he snapped out her name in so ugly a voice that she lost no
time. She shoved those papers into his hands and began to tell him what
they were. But Joe refused to read them and grew each moment angrier.
"Joe!" cried Fanny sharply. "When you brought Dwight to dinner here, he
met your wife as though for the first time. Did you know they had been
friends for months?" And at his startled look, she added, "If you
didn't, you'd better read all this!" There fell a sudden silence.
"I'll explain everything--when we're alone," Ethel managed to put in.
How queer and thick her own voice sounded.
Now Joe had gone into the hall with Fanny. Curtly he said good-night to
her. The door closed, and there was silence again. Why didn't he come?
He must be standing there in the hall trying to get hold of himself.
Oh, how terribly hurt he must feel! But she checked the sudden lump in
her throat. "Remember now--just common sense!" This was a time for
keeping clear! But Joe had come back into the room, and passing the
gilt mirror into which Fanny had told him to look, he stopped a moment.
"Don't do that, Joe!" In an instant, in spite of herself, her love for
him rose up in a wave, with fear and pity and anger, too. She came to
him, and her voice was shaking. "Oh, Joe--Joe! Can't you see it's all
lies? It's so loathsome--every word! And so cheap--so cheap and mean!"
As she spoke, his eyes were rapidly scanning the report he still had in
his hands. Again she noticed how tired he was. He looked up at her:
"I know it is! But why didn't you treat it like that? Why did you try
to make her keep quiet? Weren't you trying, when I came in?"
"No! No! It was just her odious trick--her pretending!"
"Pretending? How about you? Why did you pretend, when I brought Dwight
here, that you'd never laid eyes on him before? Had you or hadn't you?
Careful, now! Fanny says it is all here!"
"I'll explain in one word!"
"What's the word? Say it, please--and for God's sake clear this up!"
She was breathing hard, frightened, her mind in a whirl. Oh, to be able
to think clearly! Use a little common sense!
"Just a minute!" she gasped. "You'll see in a minute--"
"I see a good deal! It's right in your eyes! What are you looking so
scared about! And what did she say about my being old! I am old--and
you're young, young! And a beauty--just the kind for Dwight! Don't I
know of his love affairs? Wasn't he at it way back in Paris? Hasn't he
been--ever since?"
"Be careful, Joe," she cried angrily. But in his condition, nerves on
edge, he paid no heed and went rapidly on:
"I'm just a business man! And you've made me feel your contempt for all
that! And he's a musician, he's different--he has exactly what you
want! So you went to his studio twice a week--for months and
months--without letting me know--although he was a friend of mine! And
you went to the Ritz and the opera! And then I brought him here to
dine! God, how you two must have smiled at each other--when I wasn't
looking!"
"Joe! Joe!"
"You lied to me, didn't you, when he came! You say you'll explain it in
a word! Well, what's the word? I'm waiting!"
"There isn't any!" Her face was white. "I don't care to explain to you
now!" she cried. He looked at her. She could see he was trembling, and
she nearly changed her mind. But her anger came again. "I won't!" she
thought. "Not tonight!"
"Then you and I are through, you know," he said very huskily. He turned
and went into the hall, and a moment later the outer door closed. Ethel
sat down and stared blankly.
"I acted like an idiot!"