II

After a fortnight of intensive work, Roger Halsey's days blurred into

each other and passed by in blocks of twos and threes and fours. From

eight until 5.30 he was in his office. Then a half-hour on the commuting

train, where he scrawled notes on the backs of envelopes under the dull

yellow light. By 7.30 his crayons, shears, and sheets of white cardboard

were spread over the living-room table, and he labored there with much

grunting and sighing until midnight, while Gretchen lay on the sofa with

a book, and the door-bell tinkled occasionally behind the drawn blinds.

At twelve there was always an argument as to whether he would come to

bed. He would agree to come after he had cleared up everything; but as

he was invariably sidetracked by half a dozen new ideas, he usually

found Gretchen sound asleep when he tiptoed up-stairs.

Sometimes it was three o'clock before Roger squashed his last cigarette

into the overloaded ashtray, and he would undress in the darkness,

disembodied with fatigue, but with a sense of triumph that he had lasted

out another day.

Christmas came and went and he scarcely noticed that it was gone. He

remembered it afterward as the day he completed the window-cards for

Garrod's shoes. This was one of the eight large accounts for which he

was pointing in January--if he got half of them he was assured a quarter

of a million dollars' worth of business during the year.

But the world outside his business became a chaotic dream. He was aware

that on two cool December Sundays George Tompkins had taken Gretchen

horseback riding, and that another time she had gone out with him in his

automobile to spend the afternoon skiing on the country-club hill. A

picture of Tompkins, in an expensive frame, had appeared one morning on

their bedroom wall. And one night he was shocked into a startled protest

when Gretchen went to the theatre with Tompkins in town.

But his work was almost done. Daily now his layouts arrived from the

printers until seven of them were piled and docketed in his office safe.

He knew how good they were. Money alone couldn't buy such work; more

than he realized himself, it had been a labor of love.

December tumbled like a dead leaf from the calendar. There was an

agonizing week when he had to give up coffee because it made his heart

pound so. If he could hold on now for four days--three days----

On Thursday afternoon H. G. Garrod was to arrive in New York. On

Wednesday evening Roger came home at seven to find Gretchen poring over

the December bills with a strange expression in her eyes.

"What's the matter?"

She nodded at the bills. He ran through them, his brow wrinkling in a

frown.

"Gosh!"

"I can't help it," she burst out suddenly. "They're terrible."

"Well, I didn't marry you because you were a wonderful housekeeper. I'll

manage about the bills some way. Don't worry your little head over it."

She regarded him coldly.

"You talk as if I were a child."

"I have to," he said with sudden irritation.

"Well, at least I'm not a piece of bric-à-brac that you can just put

somewhere and forget."

He knelt down by her quickly, and took her arms in his hands.

"Gretchen, listen!" he said breathlessly. "For God's sake, don't go to

pieces now! We're both all stored up with malice and reproach, and if we

had a quarrel it'd be terrible. I love you, Gretchen. Say you love

me--quick!"

"You know I love you."

The quarrel was averted, but there was an unnatural tenseness all

through dinner. It came to a climax afterward when he began to spread

his working materials on the table.

"Oh, Roger," she protested, "I thought you didn't have to work

to-night."

"I didn't think I'd have to, but something came up."

"I've invited George Tompkins over."

"Oh, gosh!" he exclaimed. "Well, I'm sorry, honey, but you'll have to

phone him not to come."

"He's left," she said. "He's coming straight from town. He'll be here

any minute now."

Roger groaned. It occurred to him to send them both to the movies, but

somehow the suggestion stuck on his lips. He did not want her at the

movies; he wanted her here, where he could look up and know she was by

his side.

George Tompkins arrived breezily at eight o'clock.

"Aha!" he cried reprovingly, coming into the room. "Still at it."

Roger agreed coolly that he was.

"Better quit--better quit before you have to."

He sat down with a long sigh of physical comfort and lit a cigarette.

"Take it from a fellow who's looked into the question scientifically. We

can stand so much, and then--bang!"

"If you'll excuse me"--Roger made his voice as polite as possible--"I'm

going up-stairs and finish this work."

"Just as you like, Roger." George waved his hand carelessly. "It isn't

that I mind. I'm the friend of the family and I'd just as soon see the

missus as the mister." He smiled playfully. "But if I were you, old boy,

I'd put away my work and get a good night's sleep."

When Roger had spread out his materials on the bed up-stairs he found

that he could still hear the rumble and murmur of their voices through

the thin floor. He began wondering what they found to talk about. As he

plunged deeper into his work his mind had a tendency to revert sharply

to his question, and several times he arose and paced nervously up and

down the room.

The bed was ill adapted to his work. Several times the paper slipped

from the board on which it rested, and the pencil punched through.

Everything was wrong to-night. Letters and figures blurred before his

eyes, and as an accompaniment to the beating of his temples came those

persistent murmuring voices.

At ten he realized that he had done nothing for more than an hour, and

with a sudden exclamation he gathered together his papers, replaced them

in his portfolio, and went down-stairs. They were sitting together on

the sofa when he came in.

"Oh, hello!" cried Gretchen, rather unnecessarily, he thought. "We were

just discussing you."

"Thank you," he answered ironically. "What particular part of my anatomy

was under the scalpel?"

"Your health," said Tompkins jovially.

"My health's all right," answered Roger shortly.

"But you look at it so selfishly, old fella," cried Tompkins. "You only

consider yourself in the matter. Don't you think Gretchen has any

rights? If you were working on a wonderful sonnet or a--a portrait of

some madonna or something"--he glanced at Gretchen's Titian hair--"why,

then I'd say go ahead. But you're not. It's just some silly

advertisement about how to sell Nobald's hair tonic, and if all the hair

tonic ever made was dumped into the ocean to-morrow the world wouldn't

be one bit the worse for it."

"Wait a minute," said Roger angrily; "that's not quite fair. I'm not

kidding myself about the importance of my work--it's just as useless as

the stuff you do. But to Gretchen and me it's just about the most

important thing in the world."

"Are you implying that my work is useless?" demanded Tompkins

incredulously.

"No; not if it brings happiness to some poor sucker of a pants

manufacturer who doesn't know how to spend his money."

Tompkins and Gretchen exchanged a glance.

"Oh-h-h!" exclaimed Tompkins ironically. "I didn't realize that all

these years I've just been wasting my time."

"You're a loafer," said Roger rudely.

"Me?" cried Tompkins angrily. "You call me a loafer because I have a

little balance in my life and find time to do interesting things?

Because I play hard as well as work hard and don't let myself get to be

a dull, tiresome drudge?"

Both men were angry now, and their voices had risen, though on

Tompkins's face there still remained the semblance of a smile.

"What I object to," said Roger steadily, "is that for the last six weeks

you seem to have done all your playing around here."

"Roger!" cried Gretchen. "What do you mean by talking like that?"

"Just what I said."

"You've just lost your temper." Tompkins lit a cigarette with

ostentatious coolness. "You're so nervous from overwork you don't know

what you're saying. You're on the verge of a nervous break----"

"You get out of here!" cried Roger fiercely. "You get out of here right

now--before I throw you out!"

Tompkins got angrily to his feet.

"You--you throw me out?" he cried incredulously.

They were actually moving toward each other when Gretchen stepped

between them, and grabbing Tompkins's arm urged him toward the door.

"He's acting like a fool, George, but you better get out," she cried,

groping in the hall for his hat.

"He insulted me!" shouted Tompkins. "He threatened to throw me out!"

"Never mind, George," pleaded Gretchen. "He doesn't know what he's

saying. Please go! I'll see you at ten o'clock to-morrow."

She opened the door.

"You won't see him at ten o'clock to-morrow," said Roger steadily. "He's

not coming to this house any more."

Tompkins turned to Gretchen.

"It's his house," he suggested. "Perhaps we'd better meet at mine."

Then he was gone, and Gretchen had shut the door behind him. Her eyes

were full of angry tears.

"See what you've done!" she sobbed. "The only friend I had, the only

person in the world who liked me enough to treat me decently, is

insulted by my husband in my own house."

She threw herself on the sofa and began to cry passionately into the

pillows.

"He brought it on himself," said Roger stubbornly. "I've stood as much

as my self-respect will allow. I don't want you going out with him any

more."

"I will go out with him!" cried Gretchen wildly. "I'll go out with him

all I want! Do you think it's any fun living here with you?"

"Gretchen," he said coldly, "get up and put on your hat and coat and go

out that door and never come back!"

Her mouth fell slightly ajar.

"But I don't want to get out," she said dazedly.

"Well, then, behave yourself." And he added in a gentler voice: "I

thought you were going to sleep for this forty days."

"Oh, yes," she cried bitterly, "easy enough to say! But I'm tired of

sleeping." She got up, faced him defiantly. "And what's more, I'm going

riding with George Tompkins to-morrow."

"You won't go out with him if I have to take you to New York and sit you

down in my office until I get through."

She looked at him with rage in her eyes.

"I hate you," she said slowly. "And I'd like to take all the work you've

done and tear it up and throw it in the fire. And just to give you

something to worry about to-morrow, I probably won't be here when you

get back."

She got up from the sofa, and very deliberately looked at her flushed,

tear-stained face in the mirror. Then she ran up-stairs and slammed

herself into the bedroom.

Automatically Roger spread out his work on the living-room table. The

bright colors of the designs, the vivid ladies--Gretchen had posed for

one of them--holding orange ginger ale or glistening silk hosiery,

dazzled his mind into a sort of coma. His restless crayon moved here and

there over the pictures, shifting a block of letters half an inch to the

right, trying a dozen blues for a cool blue, and eliminating the word

that made a phrase anæmic and pale. Half an hour passed--he was deep in

the work now; there was no sound in the room but the velvety scratch of

the crayon over the glossy board.

After a long while he looked at his watch--it was after three. The wind

had come up outside and was rushing by the house corners in loud,

alarming swoops, like a heavy body falling through space. He stopped his

work and listened. He was not tired now, but his head felt as if it was

covered with bulging veins like those pictures that hang in doctors'

offices showing a body stripped of decent skin. He put his hands to his

head and felt it all over. It seemed to him that on his temple the veins

were knotty and brittle around an old scar.

Suddenly he began to be afraid. A hundred warnings he had heard swept

into his mind. People did wreck themselves with overwork, and his body

and brain were of the same vulnerable and perishable stuff. For the

first time he found himself envying George Tompkins's calm nerves and

healthy routine. He arose and began pacing the room in a panic.

"I've got to sleep," he whispered to himself tensely. "Otherwise I'm

going crazy."

He rubbed his hand over his eyes, and returned to the table to put up

his work, but his fingers were shaking so that he could scarcely grasp

the board. The sway of a bare branch against the window made him start

and cry out. He sat down on the sofa and tried to think.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" the clock said. "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

"I can't stop," he answered aloud. "I can't afford to stop."

Listen! Why, there was the wolf at the door now! He could hear its sharp

claws scrape along the varnished woodwork. He jumped up, and running to

the front door flung it open; then started back with a ghastly cry. An

enormous wolf was standing on the porch, glaring at him with red,

malignant eyes. As he watched it the hair bristled on its neck; it gave

a low growl and disappeared in the darkness. Then Roger realized with a

silent, mirthless laugh that it was the police dog from over the way.

Dragging his limbs wearily into the kitchen, he brought the alarm-clock

into the living-room and set it for seven. Then he wrapped himself in

his overcoat, lay down on the sofa and fell immediately into a heavy,

dreamless sleep.

When he awoke the light was still shining feebly, but the room was the

gray color of a winter morning. He got up, and looking anxiously at his

hands found to his relief that they no longer trembled. He felt much

better. Then he began to remember in detail the events of the night

before, and his brow drew up again in three shallow wrinkles. There was

work ahead of him, twenty-four hours of work; and Gretchen, whether she

wanted to or not, must sleep for one more day.

Roger's mind glowed suddenly as if he had just thought of a new

advertising idea. A few minutes later he was hurrying through the sharp

morning air to Kingsley's drug-store.

"Is Mr. Kingsley down yet?"

The druggist's head appeared around the corner of the prescription-room.

"I wonder if I can talk to you alone."

At 7.30, back home again, Roger walked into his own kitchen. The general

housework girl had just arrived and was taking off her hat.

"Bebé"--he was not on familiar terms with her; this was her name--"I

want you to cook Mrs. Halsey's breakfast right away. I'll take it up

myself."

It struck Bebé that this was an unusual service for so busy a man to

render his wife, but if she had seen his conduct when he had carried the

tray from the kitchen she would have been even more surprised. For he

set it down on the dining-room table and put into the coffee half a

teaspoonful of a white substance that was not powdered sugar. Then he

mounted the stairs and opened the door of the bedroom.

Gretchen woke up with a start, glanced at the twin bed which had not

been slept in, and bent on Roger a glance of astonishment, which changed

to contempt when she saw the breakfast in his hand. She thought he was

bringing it as a capitulation.

"I don't want any breakfast," she said coldly, and his heart sank,

"except some coffee."

"No breakfast?" Roger's voice expressed disappointment.

"I said I'd take some coffee."

Roger discreetly deposited the tray on a table beside the bed and

returned quickly to the kitchen.

"We're going away until to-morrow afternoon," he told Bebé, "and I

want to close up the house right now. So you just put on your hat and go

home."

He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to eight, and he wanted to

catch the 8.10 train. He waited five minutes and then tiptoed softly

up-stairs and into Gretchen's room. She was sound asleep. The coffee cup

was empty save for black dregs and a film of thin brown paste on the

bottom. He looked at her rather anxiously, but her breathing was regular

and clear.

From the closet he took a suitcase and very quickly began filling it

with her shoes--street shoes, evening slippers, rubber-soled oxfords--he

had not realized that she owned so many pairs. When he closed the

suitcase it was bulging.

He hesitated a minute, took a pair of sewing scissors from a box, and

following the telephone-wire until it went out of sight behind the

dresser, severed it in one neat clip. He jumped as there was a soft

knock at the door. It was the nursemaid. He had forgotten her existence.

"Mrs. Halsey and I are going up to the city till to-morrow," he said

glibly. "Take Maxy to the beach and have lunch there. Stay all day."

Back in the room, a wave of pity passed over him. Gretchen seemed

suddenly lovely and helpless, sleeping there. It was somehow terrible to

rob her young life of a day. He touched her hair with his fingers, and

as she murmured something in her dream he leaned over and kissed her

bright cheek. Then he picked up the suitcase full of shoes, locked the

door, and ran briskly down the stairs.