The Gloria who unlocked the door of her own house a few days later
was not the defiant young creature who had left it three weeks before.
The old Gloria would have come swinging up the steps, singing a bit
of rag-time. This one crept into the house wearily. The
grandfather's clock in the hall struck the hour as she came in.
Gloria looked up at it. She had learned a thing or two since she had
last heard the striking of that clock!
She looked around the corner of the door into the living-room. There
in his armchair sat Dick!
"I knew it was you," he said.
"Dick," Gloria said. "I've come home to you!"
She took no step toward him--only looked at him with unhappy eyes,
wondering what he would do or say.
Dick gave a short laugh. "So I see," he said.
There was no warmth in his voice.
All the way home from New York, Gloria had longed for this moment.
Her heart had sung an old nursery rhyme to the noise of the train...
"Home again, home again!
Jiggedy Jig!"
She had thought of home as safe harbor. She had wanted to throw
herself on Dick's breast--to sob out all her heartbreak and shame to
him. For she was honestly ashamed of herself.
But Dick's coldness kept her away from him, against her own will. It
was like a wall between them.
Her eyelids pricked. Her lips trembled. She had to press her
handkerchief hard against them to stifle a sob.
Dick looked at her. She had taken off her dusty hat, and her hair
shone like a copper helmet.
But neither Gloria's beauty nor her misery could touch Dick at that
moment, or move him to pity.
"Come here a minute!" he said.
Gloria moved slowly into the room. She thought that he meant to take
her in his arms, to tell her that he forgave her.
But he waved her into a little chintz-covered chair that stood across
the hearth from him. Gloria sank into it.
"Oh, Dick, don't look at me as if you could murder me!" she pleaded.
"Don't be mean to me! You wouldn't if you knew all I've been
through."
Her sobs broke out afresh.
"Why, what happened to you? ... Did Wayburn throw you down?" Dick
asked coldly.
Gloria knew that Dick wouldn't take her back if she told him the
truth. So she lied.
"You thought I'd gone to New York to be with Stan?" she asked. "No,
indeed. Although I did see him...."
"Sure you saw him!" Dick broke in. "Sure you saw him! You know you
followed him to New York. And I know it! So what's the use of
lying? Stick to the truth!" His fist came down hard on the arm of
his chair.
Gloria started. All right, she thought, she would tell him the
truth! She'd let him have it, if that was what he wanted.
She told him almost all of it.
Her voice was low and flat, almost without feeling. Dick knew that
what she was telling him was the ugly truth. Drop by drop she drank
her misery.
She began with her visit to Wayburn's rooms. She ended with the
story of her struggle with Lingard in the private dining-room where
she had gone with him.
Dick clenched his hands.
"You! Going to such a place with a man like Lingard!" he said.
"Letting him look you over, to see if you'd do for a chorus-girl in
his cursed show.... You! My wife!"
He groaned.
"Well, I'll say this for Lingard--he was crazy about my looks,"
Gloria told him complacently. "And he was very nice at first. But
when he got fresh ... well, I just smashed a glass right in his face!
I never was so frightened in all my born days..." She shivered. Her
little shoulders shook.
At that Dick rose and went to her. She laid her head on his breast.
"Don't hate me," she begged.
But he turned away.
"Run upstairs and wash your face while I make some coffee for you,"
he said gruffly.
"Why can't Ranghild make it? What are you paying her for?" she asked.
"Ranghild left a week ago," Dick answered. "I figured that you were
gone for good, you see. And besides, we can't afford a housemaid any
more.... You just won't get it into your head that we're poor, will
you, Gloria?"
From the doorway, Gloria stared at him. Then she flung him three
words:
"Still talking money!" she said, contemptuously.
She picked up her bag and went upstairs. At the top of the flight
she paused.
On one side of the hall was the double room that she and Dick had
shared until his illness. On the other was the "spare" bedroom. Her
toilet things and cushions were still in it.
Gloria hesitated for a long moment. Then she went quickly into the
room that had been Dick's and hers. She bathed her eyes, smoothed
her hair, and went downstairs to have her coffee.
She left her bag, standing open, on one of the twin beds.
Two hours later when she came upstairs again, the bag was gone.
Gloria looked all around the room for it.
Then she crossed the hall into the guest-room. There the bag stood!
On the floor beside the single bed! Dick must have put it there....
"All right," Gloria shrugged her shoulders. "If that's the way he
feels about me, I should worry!"
But she did worry! Hurt and humiliated, she bolted the door of the
room.
An hour later, she heard Dick come upstairs. The door on the other
side of the hall closed softly.
In the lonely quiet of the room that had been Gloria's and his, Dick
Gregory faced his problem that night.
Above all other living things, he loved the woman who lay asleep in
the room across the hall. He wanted to take her back, and he was
afraid to do it.
He was afraid to trust his happiness to Gloria again!
He had been beside himself for the last week, since the day when he
had come home to find her gone...
He had felt sure that she had left him for Stanley Wayburn. Gloria's
story bore out his fears, in part. He wondered though--and his nails
bit deep into his palms at the thought--if she had told him the whole
truth.
Could he believe her? Dick didn't know whether he could or not.
Gloria had lied to him so many times before--
And suppose she "got tired of sticking around the house" again, and
ran away? What then? ...
Dick shook his head. He was in a torment of doubt
The door behind him swung slowly open.
Before he turned to look Dick knew that Gloria stood there. His
senses knew her.
She stood there in her white nightgown. Her naked feet, spread to
the floor, showed white and slim. She was like some lovely lily
rising superbly on a slender stem.
"Dick"--she gave a little smothered cry--"don't hate me! Don't treat
me like this.... I can't stand it!"
She rushed to him and laid her head down on his knees, crying noisily
like a child.
"This isn't the way to hold me," she said, drawing a long sobbing
breath, "by keeping yourself away from me ... and treating me like an
outcast!"
"I'm not trying to hold you, Gloria," Dick said quietly. "You can go
to-morrow, if you like."
Gloria looked up at him. Surprise filled her eyes.
"Don't you love me any more? Don't you want me to live with you any
more?" she asked.
Dick slowly shook his head.
"Not unless you're ready to settle down," he said firmly. "If you
stay here, you'll have to stay on my terms this time! You'll have to
cut out running around with May Seymour on these drinking parties.
And you'll have to knuckle down and do your own housework. I can't
afford help for you. Just look here a minute...."
He got up and took a thick sheaf of envelopes from the spinet desk
that stood between the front windows.
"All these are bills," Dick said. "We're months behind with them.
All my savings are gone. The house is mortgaged right up to the
hilt.... And I wouldn't mind this, Gloria, if you'd been happy
spending the money. But you haven't been!"
He flung the bills back on the desk.
"The more money you've spent the more discontented you've been," Dick
went on. "Now you're going to try my way of living for a change! I
want you to live like other poor men's wives ... help me to get
along. Are you ready to try it?"
Gloria looked up at him with eyes that shone under the ruddy fluff of
her hair.
"Oh, I am! I will try to be a real wife to you, Dick!" she cried.
And at that moment she meant what she said. Besides, she knew, that
sooner or later, she could coax Dick into getting Ranghild back again
to work for her....
She put her arms on Dick's shoulders. This time he did not turn
away. All around him was the heavy scent of her perfumed hair. Her
arms were warm and soft, and they clung as if they never would let
him go.
Gloria closed her eyes, and his hold tightened. It was as if the
wall that Dick had raised against her and her beauty crumpled and
fell. He bent down to her lips.
They parted, suddenly, to speak ... those scarlet lips.
"I forgot to tell you," Gloria murmured dreamily, "that Stanley
Wayburn is married.... He married a Russian actress."
Dick's hold of her loosened. He waited with every nerve tense, for
her to go on.
"He married her just the day before I got to New York," she said.
"So you see I couldn't have left you just on account of him ... as
you thought I had. See?"
Dick saw. He saw too well ... too clearly.
"So that's why you came home!" he said. "So that's why! Because
Wayburn married some one else. If he hadn't you'd be in New York
this minute! ... Of course, I see! I see perfectly!"
He flung himself away from Gloria. She stood looking at him
helplessly.
"I would have come home anyhow," she defended herself. "I hate
Stanley Wayburn. I hate him ... now."
"Sure, and that's why you've come home to me!" Dick answered. "Don't
stand there and try to kid me any more. I've got your number.... Go
back to bed!"
The next morning Gloria was awakened by a loud knocking on the door
of her room.
"Ye-es," she called in a thick sleepy voice. She had been dreaming
that she was still in the lonely hotel room in New York.
Then she heard Dick's voice.
"Better get up, Gloria," he was saying. "There's no Ranghild to
bring you breakfast this morning, you know."
Gloria didn't answer at once. The door was not locked.... Why
didn't Dick come in to say "hello" to her?
Oh, all right, she made up her mind suddenly, if he wanted to keep
her at arm's length, she'd help him out!
"Thanks, I'll get up when I feel like it!" she said. But the old
snap and spirit had gone out of her voice.
There was silence for a few seconds, then the soft pad-pad of Dick's
feet going down the stairs.
Before he had reached the bottom Gloria was out of bed on her bare
feet.
Dick looked up in surprise as she ran down into the hall.
"I think you might have been a sport and made some coffee for me,"
she said to him.
"Do you?" Dick asked politely. There was no color in his voice. He
picked up his brief-case from the table in the living-room.
"Yes, I do," Gloria cried. "I think it's mean of you to treat me
like a red-headed stepchild when I've come back and told you I'm
sorry. Do you know you haven't spoken a kind word to me since the
night I showed you Stan Wayburn's letter? ... I suppose you never had
a letter from a woman in your life! I suppose you never did anything
you're ashamed of! You're so darned pure!"
Woman-like she seized upon the half-forgotten letter incident as a
peg to hang all her discontent upon, now.
Dick didn't answer. He crossed the room to his old writing-desk ...
the only bit of furniture that he had brought with him from his old
home.
He took from it a bundle of letters and photographs, and tossed them
down on the table without a word. There was a queer cold smile on
his face ... as he went out.
The front door banged. In the stillness that settled down over the
house, Gloria could almost hear her heart beating.
Did Dick mean that she was to look at the letters? Was there an
answer to her question in them? Was that what the smile on Dick's
face had meant?
She picked them up, and loosed the rubber bands that held them
together.
The letter that lay on the top of the pile was the one she read
first. It was written in blue ink on dull blue paper, and it smelled
faintly of violets.
"Dick dearest," it said, "I am sick of tearing up the letters that I
write to you. I am tired of pretending--and so I am going to tell
the truth to you. I love you. Dick, I love you. It is hard for me
to write this letter.... Lucie."
"Lucie" had not found it so hard to write the half dozen letters that
followed, it seemed. Some of them were ten pages long. And all of
them were signed with "Love and kisses from Lucie." That seemed to
be her stock phrase.
Under "Lucie's" love notes was another package of letters. These
were all from a woman who signed herself "Roxie." Roxie's letters
were passionate, to say the least.
"She must have been reading Elinor Glyn," said Gloria to herself,
with amusement. To think of good old Dick having a love affair with
a woman like Roxie! ... Gloria giggled inwardly.
But her laughter died when she came to the photographs that had been
tied up with the letters.
One was a picture of a lovely blond with bobbed hair.
Bobbed hair! Then Dick must have known her within the last few
years, since bobbed heads had become the fashion!
The other picture was an enlarged snapshot of Dick and a tall,
sweet-faced brunette. Both of them were in white sports clothes and
carried tennis racquets. Dick had his arm across the shoulders of
the girl. At the bottom was written, "Gilchrist's house party, June,
1923."
Only two years ago!
"Well!" Gloria said to herself, a little out of breath, "what do you
know about that!"
She wondered if the girl in the snapshot were "Roxie" or "Lucie."
She read the letters again--as if, perhaps, they might yield up their
secret the second time. But she was just as puzzled as before.
She pondered all morning as she went around the house with a silly
feather duster that only stirred up the dust in the rooms instead of
clearing it away.
A dozen times she came back to the living-room table to look at those
two pictures. She wasn't worried about the "Roxie" letters ... but
the girl who had written the "Lucie" letters had evidently cared
deeply for Dick.
Had he cared for her, Gloria wondered?
She couldn't think of Dick caring for any woman save herself. She
couldn't bear the thought of his holding another woman in his arms
and telling her that he loved her.... And yet, of course, he had!
He must have! Not only one but two women. Otherwise they would
never have written him all these love letters ... They wouldn't have
dared.
She took the letters with her out into the kitchen, and read them
again while she ate the cold canned salmon that was all the lunch she
had. She propped the two photographs up against the mirror of her
dressing-table while she dressed late in the afternoon.
She had never thought of any other women being in Dick's life, before
she met him. And yet there must have been, of course.... But he had
been so madly in love with her from that first night when he had
kissed her that she had never dreamed of any other women ... the
thought had never worried her at all. It had not even ruffled her
vanity.
While she sat there brushing her hair, the telephone rang.
"Hello, Gloria." It was Dick's voice. "Are we going to have dinner
at home to-night?"
Gloria gasped. "Who's going to cook it?"
"Why don't you make a stab at it?" Dick asked. "No time like the
present, you know."
"Oh, no," Gloria objected. "I couldn't. And besides, there's not a
thing in the house."
"All right, suit yourself," Dick's voice was remotely polite. "I'll
eat downtown then, if you don't mind. Good-by."
But Gloria did mind. She minded very much.... There was nothing she
enjoyed more than having a meal downtown. And Dick knew it!
Gloria stamped her foot. What did Dick think she was, anyway? Some
kind of a doormat that he could trample on?
Did he think that he could have a fine meal downtown, with a waiter
hovering over him, while she sat alone at home and ate a couple of
sandwiches? ... Did he really think she'd let him get away with it?
Well, she'd show him where to head in! ... She would get dressed this
very minute, and march straight downtown to his office! She would go
out to supper with him or know the reason why....
"'Mama goes where papa goes,
Or papa don't go out to-night,'"
sang Gloria at the top of her voice, as she turned on the faucets in
the bathtub. Then she remembered that the song was Stanley Wayburn's
favorite ballad. She stopped singing.
She wanted never to think of Stan Wayburn again, so long as she lived!
For the last six months Gloria had thought that she was in love with
Stan. There had been something in him that called to her ... his
devil-may-care quality, his everlasting cheerfulness.
But when she found out that he didn't love her, it had not broken her
heart. It hadn't even touched her heart! ... It had hurt only her
pride. That was the thing that cowered in her, ashamed ... the thing
that wouldn't lift its head. Her pride in herself. Her vanity.