The incident and the unpleasantness were forgotten. Mather's vast good
nature had smoothed over the roughness within an hour. References to it
fell with a dying cadence throughout several days--then ceased and
tumbled into the limbo of oblivion. I say "limbo," for oblivion is,
unfortunately, never quite oblivious. The subject was drowned out by the
fact that Jaqueline with her customary spirit and coolness began the
long, arduous, up-hill business of bearing a child. Her natural traits
and prejudices became intensified and she was less inclined to let
things pass.
It was April now, and as yet they had not bought a car. Mather had
discovered that he was saving practically nothing and that in another
half-year he would have a family on his hands. It worried him. A
wrinkle--small, tentative, undisturbing--appeared for the first time as
a shadow around his honest, friendly eyes. He worked far into the spring
twilight now, and frequently brought home with him the overflow from his
office day. The new car would have to be postponed for a while.
April afternoon, and all the city shopping on Washington Street.
Jaqueline walked slowly past the shops, brooding without fear or
depression on the shape into which her life was now being arbitrarily
forced. Dry summer dust was in the wind; the sun bounded cheerily from
the plate-glass windows and made radiant gasoline rainbows where
automobile drippings had formed pools on the street.
Jaqueline stopped. Not six feet from her a bright new sport roadster was
parked at the curb. Beside it stood two men in conversation, and at the
moment when she identified one of them as young Bronson she heard him
say to the other in a casual tone:
"What do you think of it? Just got it this morning."
Jaqueline turned abruptly and walked with quick tapping steps to her
husband's office. With her usual curt nod to the stenographer she strode
by her to the inner room. Mather looked up from his desk in surprise at
her brusque entry.
"Jim," she began breathlessly, "did Bronson ever pay you that three
hundred?"
"Why--no," he answered hesitantly, "not yet. He was in here last week and
he explained that he was a little bit hard up."
Her eyes gleamed with angry triumph.
"Oh, he did?" she snapped. "Well, he's just bought a new sport roadster
that must have cost anyhow twenty-five hundred dollars."
He shook his head, unbelieving.
"I saw it," she insisted. "I heard him say he'd just bought it."
"He _told_ me he was hard up," repeated Mather helplessly.
Jaqueline audibly gave up by heaving a profound noise, a sort of
groanish sigh.
"He was _u_sing you! He knew you were easy and he was _u_sing you.
Can't you see? He wanted _you_ to buy him the car and you _did_!" She
laughed bitterly. "He's probably roaring his sides out to think how
easily he worked you."
"Oh, no," protested Mather with a shocked expression, "you must have
mistaken somebody for him----"
"We walk--and he rides on our money," she interrupted excitedly. "Oh,
it's rich--it's rich. If it wasn't so maddening, it'd be just absurd.
Look here--!" Her voice grew sharper, more restrained--there was a touch
of contempt in it now. "You spend half your time doing things for people
who don't give a damn about you or what becomes of you. You give up your
seat on the street-car to _hogs_, and come home too dead tired to even
_move_. You're on all sorts of committees that take at least an hour a
day out of your business and you don't get a cent out of them.
You're--eternally--being _used_! I won't stand it! I thought I married a
man--not a professional Samaritan who's going to fetch and carry for the
world!"
As she finished her invective Jaqueline reeled suddenly and sank into a
chair--nervously exhausted.
"Just at this time," she went on brokenly, "I need you. I need your
strength and your health and your arms around me. And if you--if you
just give it to _every_ one, it's spread _so_ thin when it reaches
me----"
He knelt by her side, moving her tired young head until it lay against
his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Jaqueline," he said humbly, "I'll be more careful. I didn't
realize what I was doing."
"You're the dearest person in the world," murmured Jaqueline huskily,
"but I want all of you and the best of you for me."
He smoothed her hair over and over. For a few minutes they rested there
silently, having attained a sort of Nirvana of peace and understanding.
Then Jaqueline reluctantly raised her head as they were interrupted by
the voice of Miss Clancy in the doorway.
"Oh, I beg your pardon."
"What is it?"
"A boy's here with some boxes. It's C.O.D."
Mather rose and followed Miss Clancy into the outer office.
"It's fifty dollars."
He searched his wallet--he had omitted to go to the bank that morning.
"Just a minute," he said abstractedly. His mind was on Jaqueline,
Jaqueline who seemed forlorn in her trouble, waiting for him in the
other room. He walked into the corridor, and opening the door of
"Clayton and Drake, Brokers" across the way, swung wide a low gate and
went up to a man seated at a desk.
"Morning, Fred," said Mather.
Drake, a little man of thirty with pince-nez and bald head, rose and
shook hands.
"Morning, Jim. What can I do for you?"
"Why, a boy's in my office with some stuff C.O.D. and I haven't a cent.
Can you let me have fifty till this afternoon?"
Drake looked closely at Mather. Then, slowly and startlingly, he shook
his head--not up and down but from side to side.
"Sorry, Jim," he answered stiffly, "I've made a rule never to make a
personal loan to anybody on any conditions. I've seen it break up too
many friendships."
"What?"
Mather had come out of his abstraction now, and the monosyllable held an
undisguised quality of shock. Then his natural tact acted automatically,
springing to his aid and dictating his words though his brain was
suddenly numb. His immediate instinct was to put Drake at ease in his
refusal.
"Oh, I see." He nodded his head as if in full agreement, as if he
himself had often considered adopting just such a rule. "Oh, I see how
you feel. Well--I just--I wouldn't have you break a rule like that for
anything. It's probably a good thing."
They talked for a minute longer. Drake justified his position easily; he
had evidently rehearsed the part a great deal. He treated Mather to an
exquisitely frank smile.
Mather went politely back to his office leaving Drake under the
impression that the latter was the most tactful man in the city. Mather
knew how to leave people with that impression. But when he entered his
own office and saw his wife staring dismally out the window into the
sunshine he clinched his hands, and his mouth moved in an unfamiliar
shape.
"All right, Jack," he said slowly, "I guess you're right about most
things, and I'm wrong as hell."