Early Thursday afternoon Gloria was all dressed.
She stood before the long mirror in her bedroom, trying to see
herself with Stan Wayburn's eyes.
Under the crown of her golden-red hair her face was very pale. And
the Cupid's bow of her mouth was rouged to the soft red of a geranium.
Gloria had put on an afternoon dress she had bought on her honeymoon.
It was a clinging thing, the color of new green leaves.
Dick had told her that she looked like a wood-nymph in it.
The doorbell rang loudly.
As she ran downstairs Gloria laughed maliciously.
She would give Stan Wayburn this glimpse of her in her beautiful
house. She would let him see how her husband cherished her ... like
a jewel in its casket ... And then she would send him away. She
would be cold and distant.
She would make him suffer as she had suffered when he had cast her
aside like an old glove, more than a year ago!
Stanley Wayburn looked all around him as he came into the living-room.
His ice-blue eyes took in the long room with its cream walls, its
Chinese rugs, its gay cushions and lamps. There was a tea table
drawn up beside the fire.
"So this is what little Russet has sold herself for!" Stanley said.
"For a saucer of cream and a cushion by the fire ... like a kitten!"
"Sold myself? What do you mean?" Gloria asked. She was stirred by
the word "Russet" on Wayburn's lips. It was what he had called her
long ago when he had made love to her.
"I mean that you don't love this husband of yours," Wayburn said.
"You love me. You always have."
Gloria dropped her eyes.
"If you knew that," she said, "if you knew I loved you a year ago,
why did you treat me as you did? You didn't even say good-by when
you went."
As soon as she had said it she wished she hadn't ... this was not the
way to keep Wayburn in his place...
His voice went on.
"Because I knew the sort of woman you were. I knew that this was the
kind of life you wanted. I knew I couldn't afford to give you the
things you wanted.... Oh, the world is full of your sort of women,
Gloria. They want everything. They take everything. And they give
nothing ... nothing at all!"
Gloria laughed scornfully.
"It seems to me I have a faint recollection of your saying you
wouldn't marry any one who didn't have a mint of money, yourself!"
she cried. "That was where I learned my lesson of 'take all, give
nothing.' From you! ... And now you'd better go!"
Her voice was choked with fury. Tears of anger stood in her topaz
eyes. To Wayburn she had never seemed so lovely.
"All right, I'll go," he said, coming across the yellow rug toward
her chair, "but first I'll take this ... and this ... and this!"
He kissed her violently, brutally.
Gloria leaned back in his arms and hit him full in the face.... Then
he was gone.
She rose from her chair and went into the sunroom to watch him go
down the street.
And the first thing she saw was Dick's gray roadster swinging into
the drive!
Gloria rushed upstairs. She tore off the green dress as she went.
She slipped into a linen house frock. She was back in the
living-room by the time Dick had put his car in the garage.
"Hello, there!" he said when he came in. "Who was the sheik I saw
leaving the house as I came up the street?"
Gloria didn't answer at once.
Suddenly Dick seemed very dear. He was no love-pirate spending his
time trying to win the forbidden love of every woman he saw ... but a
good man who loved her with all his soul. Could she tell him a lie?
Gloria rushed to him and hid her head against his breast. She kissed
his necktie....
"Who was the man I saw?" Dick asked again. His deep gray eyes were
very serious. Gloria drew a long breath.
"Oh, that was Mr. What's-His-Name ... the man I bought my lamp shades
from, that's who it was," she said. "He put the wrong kind of silk
in them.... I wanted them to be georgette crêpe. He used
taffeta.... What brings you home so early?"
"You," Dick said. "I knew it was Maggie's day out and I thought we'd
go somewhere for supper ... How would that suit you?"
His eyes were thoughtful. Gloria wondered if he had believed the lie
she had just told him about Wayburn.
The lie lay heavily on her mind.
Long after Dick had gone to sleep that night she lay awake thinking
about it.
She had told thousands of little fibs in her twenty years ... "white
lies." But this one had been different. She had told it because she
was afraid, and ashamed, of the thing she had done ... of letting
Stan Wayburn make love to her in Dick's house. It had been a
despicable lie....
Oh, well, perhaps all married women told them. That is, if they were
going to have any fun and excitement. For toeing the mark was very
dull.
There was May Seymour, for instance. A fine time May would have if
she stayed home waiting for Dr. John to take her out! He was never
home, day or night ... the busiest doctor in town.... What was
wrong, under the circumstances, for May to go out driving or lunching
with other men ... with Jim Carewe, in particular? And suppose the
gossips did talk about her? ... They were probably jealous of the
good times she had!
With this comforting thought, Gloria laid her bright head on the
pillow and was asleep.
At ten the next morning May telephoned.
"If you aren't doing anything special to-day, let's go downtown and
bat around," she said. "I've got to buy some new cream for the dear
old face. I'm getting crow's feet. Fancy that, sweet cookie! At my
age! ... Can you go with me?"
Gloria said she could. An hour later she and May were rolling
downtown in May's little car.
"Aren't you ever going to drive Dick's car?" May asked.
"I guess not. He takes it every morning, himself," Gloria answered.
"Well, don't let him get away with that stuff. Just let him learn to
use the street car, right from the start ... or walk," May advised
her.
"Better still, make him buy you a little car of your own for bridge
parties and luncheons," May went on, inspired. "You'll never get
anything in this world if you don't ask for it. I've found that out!"
An hour later they were sitting in their favorite restaurant.
"I love to eat down here," May said. "When I'm at home for lunch I
never can eat a bite.... It gives me the blues just to be there,
alone."
Gloria wasn't listening. She was wondering if she could make Dick
buy her a car. She was pretty sure she could ... she felt sure that
she could manage him, make him do anything she wanted to do ... so
long as she paid him in the coin of her kisses, kept his senses
enthralled.
She looked at May critically. May was coarsening. She wore too much
rouge.... May was smiling with narrowed eyes at some one across the
restaurant.
And in a minute or two, Gloria saw Jim Carewe leave his table near
the wall and cross the room toward them.
Jim Carewe was one of May's old flames. The town gossips said he was
still in love with her.
"Don't you girls want to go for a nice long drive this afternoon?"
Jim asked, looking down at May.
"Oh, Jim, don't ask the bride to go joy-riding!" May said in
pretended horror. "Wait a year or so till she's bored to tears with
home and husband. Confine your fascinations to an old married vamp
like me...."
She broke off, following Gloria's terrified gaze across the room. A
few tables away Dick's mother was sitting, in all her glory of black
silk and sables! On her broad florid face was a look of disgust as
she surveyed them!
Gloria swayed slowly to her feet. Her face was white as she walked
across the dining-room to Mother Gregory's table.
She was afraid of this major-domo of a woman. And Mother Gregory
knew it.
"Come into the dressing-room with me," she said sharply. "I want to
talk to you a minute or two!"
She gripped Gloria above the elbow and steered her out into the
woman's rest room. May Seymour winked at Gloria as they passed.
Gloria began to powder her nose before the mirror, to gain a moment's
time to gather her wits.
"Sit down!" Mother Gregory said. And Gloria sat.
"Now then," Dick's mother said in her powerful voice, "what in the
world are you doing down here with that woman who is the talk of the
town? Have you lost your senses?"
"How do you mean, talk of the town?" Gloria asked weakly.
Mother Gregory snorted.
"You know as well as I do that her affair with Jim Carewe is common
talk everywhere!" she said. "And here I find you sitting with them
where everybody can see you!
"And another thing, young woman ... I sent Maggie over to your house
to show you how to cook and take care of the home Dick's given you
... not to leave you free to gallivant all over town with your queer
friends!"
"If that's what Maggie's there for, you can have her back ... and
I'll get a maid of my own!" Gloria cried.
Her fear of Dick's mother was blotted out by her sudden anger.
"If you think I'm going to be a scrubbing-brush for your precious
son, you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not going to drudge for
him or for anybody else!" she cried. Tears of fury were in her voice.
"He can perfectly afford to get me a cook, and I don't mean anything
previous! I don't have to work in his house.... I can go out and
earn my twenty-five dollars any week in the year. And it won't be at
dishwashing either...."
She rose and, returning to the dining-room, gathered up her beaded
bag and white gloves.
Mother Gregory followed. She laid her jeweled hand on Gloria's arm.
"Sit down a minute, while I pay my check," she said gently, "and
we'll leave together. There's no need to make a scene this way, is
there?"
Together they walked out of the crowded restaurant.
Gloria had forgotten all about May Seymour.
Outside in the street stood Mother Gregory's coupé.
"Jump in!" she said to Gloria.
The girl hesitated.
"I have a little shopping to do..." she said.
"Jump in!" Mother Gregory repeated. "I'll drive you home. It's time
you and I had a talk about things in general, and marriage in
particular!"
She started the car.
"Now, Gloria," she began. "Just what is your idea of what you owe my
son, as his wife?"
"What do I owe Dick?" she repeated in surprise. "Why, I don't owe
him anything, do I? He wanted to marry me, and he has me."
"You think that's enough?" Mother Gregory asked. "How about being a
real wife to him ... taking care of him, cooking his meals, darning
his socks, reading to him when he's tired? How about such things?
Do you try to do them?"
"Certainly not," Gloria snapped. Her beautiful face was distorted
with anger.
"Certainly not," she said again. "I can't see where he makes life so
terribly comfortable for me. Does he hire a maid for me when I ask
him to? Not a chance! ... Does he leave me the car to use daytimes?
No, indeed! He rolls downtown in it himself every morning. And I
can walk ... And what makes me so sore is that I know he can afford
to keep a cook and an extra automobile!"
"That's where you're wrong," said Mother Gregory. "Dick is just
starting his career. Lawyers don't suddenly make a million like
inventors or promoters, you know. Dick has a long, hard row to hoe
... and you must help him as I helped his father thirty years ago
when Dick was just a baby!"
Mother Gregory smiled, her eyes full of memories.
"We had a tiny house then," she said, "and I did every stroke of work
in it myself ... and took care of my baby besides."
Her face became serious.
"By the way, my dear, have your babies early in your married life,"
she said. "The younger a mother is the more of a playmate she is for
her children..."
Suddenly Mother Gregory stopped.
In the tilted mirror above the windshield of the car, she could see
Gloria's face. It was smiling scornfully.
"I'm scarcely married, and you're beginning to talk babies already,"
the girl said. "Is that all women are for ... to have babies?"
"If it isn't that, perhaps you'll tell me what they are for,"
suggested Dick's mother.
"Oh, how do I know what women are for?" Gloria cried. "But I suppose
they're on earth to live and be happy like any one else."
"And to drink hard liquor, to smoke cigarettes until they're dopey,
and to play bridge for money until they have faces like misers!"
Mother Gregory's voice was deep with disgust. "Oh, you women who are
growing up ... who can't boil a decent pot of coffee, but can shake
up any kind of cocktail that's ever been invented! You girls who
haven't strength enough to put the buttons in your husband's
shirtsleeves, but have 'pep' enough to strut and shimmy half the
night at some tough party or other! What earthly good are any of
you? ... Now, Gloria, I want you to think things over...."
"Will you please stop this car and let me out?" Gloria interrupted.
"I've stood all the insults I can stand."
Silently Mrs. Gregory stopped the car. Gloria got out, and her
mother-in-law drove on.
Gloria turned toward home, kicking the walks as she went.
By the time she reached home she was thoroughly out of temper.