Gloria didn't want to go home. After Dick had left her she walked
slowly along the street, looking into the shop windows and the
lighted lobbies of the moving picture theaters.
Suddenly she saw two faces that she knew in the moving throng around
her ... little blond Mrs. Wing and Gretchen Geist. The two were
chums. Gloria had played cards with them dozens of times. They had
been at her house for lunch, often.
And now she smiled at them in greeting. But the smile froze on her
lips.
For both women looked her full in the face for a moment. Neither
spoke. Then they looked sharply away. And the coldness in their
eyes was like a slap across Gloria's face. She smarted under it.
She stood quivering for a long moment. Here was a new problem!
These women must have heard the story of her love affair with Stanley
Wayburn ... these women who had been her good friends. Oh, she
couldn't lose them! They were the people with whom she would have to
live her life, now that she had come back to Dick!
As a drowning man clutches at a straw, Gloria's thoughts turned to
Mother Gregory. She would have to go to Dick's mother and ask her to
stand by her. As long as Dick's own mother was her friend, no one
would dare to believe the story that she had left Dick for Stanley
Wayburn!
Gloria looked at the clock in a jewelry store. Half past nine. Too
late to see Mother Gregory to-night.... She would go to her first
thing in the morning, though.
In the meantime, she could telephone May Seymour. May would be sure
to know whatever gossip was "out" about her. May was a born news pad.
There were scores of people in this town of ours who "knew for a
fact" that Gloria Gregory had left her husband, and had run away with
a Broadway actor named Stanley Wayburn.
No one knew where the nasty bit of gossip had started. But it flew
all over town on the wings of the wind.
Gloria's card club heard it, and voted Gloria out of the club.
Lola Hough heard it and said it wasn't true. She defended Gloria.
May Seymour heard it and said she didn't blame Gloria for going.
May, herself, would have been glad to escape to New York for a few
weeks. For the gossips were busy with her and Jim Carewe again.
"Sure they've been talking about you," she told Gloria cheerfully
that night on the telephone. "They say you ran away with Wayburn,
and that Dick went down to New York and brought you home."
Gloria sighed dismally.
"What a tale!" she said, "If they must talk, why don't they get
things straight?"
"Didn't you run away with Stanley Wayburn?" There was surprise in
May's voice. She, too, believed the story of Gloria's desertion of
Dick.
"Of course not! Don't be silly!" Gloria said sharply. "I went down
to New York to go on the stage. I didn't even see Stan Wayburn!"
"That was a lie," she told herself bluntly, as she left the
telephone, and began to undress, "but it's my story and I'm going to
stick to it!"
She would never let any one know that she had followed Wayburn to New
York and that he had turned her down! She could never raise her head
again and look people in the eye, if they found that out!
Gloria tiptoed out into the hall and half way down the stairs. She
thought she heard the sound of Dick closing the door. But no one was
in the lower hall. The clock there struck twelve slowly and
boomingly.
Where was Dick? Why didn't he come? ... Surely he and Miss Briggs
couldn't be working until midnight--
Suddenly as Gloria stood there on the stairs, she was afraid.
The empty house seemed to be filled with strange sounds and
rustlings. The pantry door creaked ... And was something or somebody
moving in the dark dining-room?
With her heart in her mouth, Gloria dashed back upstairs to her room.
She slammed and bolted the door behind her.
The lights in her room were blazing. Without stopping to turn them
off, she plunged into bed and pulled the covers up over her head like
a frightened child.
She lay trembling for long minutes, listening for the sound of Dick's
key in the lock.... Where in the world was he at this hour of the
night? Why didn't he come home? He had no right to leave his wife
alone in the house half the night while he was out, doing ... what?
That was the question!
Surely he and Miss Briggs weren't still working in Dick's office?
Where were they? Together, somewhere? ... The questions swarmed like
bees in Gloria's brain. She forgot her fear. Anger toward Dick took
its place.
She swung her feet over the side of the bed and stepped out onto the
rug. Then she put her head out of one of the open windows and looked
up and down the street. But it lay empty and still under the hushed
calm of midnight.
As Gloria stood there, she heard a sound in the house, itself! It
came from downstairs ... the harsh tinkle of metal against metal.
Some one was at the silver in the sideboard drawers! Burglars!
Gloria pressed one hand tight to her breast! She felt as if her
heart were jumping out of her body ... it beat so fast! She tiptoed
across the room to the door that led into the hall. She put her ear
against it and listened for a long time. But there was no further
sound.
Gloria began to wonder if she really had heard a noise, downstairs or
not? Perhaps her tired brain had been playing her tricks....
Well, as soon as Dick came she would find out if any one had been in
the house. She wouldn't be afraid to go downstairs to the
dining-room then. But why didn't he come?
Gloria got back into bed, and lay waiting for him. Oh, but wouldn't
she pan him when he did get home, though! The very idea! Leaving
her alone as if she were Lola Hough, or any other faded, middle-aged
wife!
She'd let him know she wasn't going to be treated like this....
She'd leave him first! That's what she'd do. She had done it once,
and she'd do it again! ...
The next thing Gloria knew it was morning. Her room was filled with
the warmth and sunshine of early June. Through the open windows came
the sound of a neighbor's lawn-mower and the sweet smell of fresh-cut
grass.
Gloria smiled and stretched herself like a tiger-kitten. Then she
remembered last night. She frowned.
Softly she went out into the hall and listened at Dick's door. No
sound within! She opened the door and peeked into the room.
The bed had been slept in. Dick's pajamas lay on the rug beside it,
where he had stepped out of them. There were ashes in the tray on
the bedside table. He had been home part of the night at least....
And he had gone that morning without even saying good-by!
Gloria closed the door of his room.
"I'll be jiggered if I make his bed or clean up the place!" she said
to herself. "He can't treat me like a servant and expect I'll be one
for him! Because I won't!"
While she was waiting for her tub to fill, she went downstairs to the
dining-room. The drawers of the sideboard were piled one on top of
each other on the floor. They were empty.
So there had been burglars in the house last night! And they had
taken every piece of the flat silver that had been Mother Gregory's
wedding present! Not so much as a spoon was left!
Gloria shivered. Then it was the burglar she had heard taking the
silver out of the sideboard drawers! ... And it must have been the
burglar whom she had seen moving stealthily against the darkness of
the dining-room, last night! He must have been in the house when she
entered it alone!
Why, she might have been shot, if she hadn't run upstairs when she
did!
Gloria burst into tears of panic at the terrible thought.
... Well, she'd stand no more of Dick's neglect. The very idea of
his sending her home alone at nine o'clock at night to a dark house!
And then leaving her alone in it until 'way past midnight! She bet
she'd never let him do a stunt like that again to her....
She bathed and dressed. She didn't stop to dust or make beds.
But, leaving the house just as it was, Gloria closed the door of it
behind her, and started out. She was going to see Mother Gregory!
She'd let her know whose fault it was that Dick's marriage was a
fizzle!
She was through talking to Dick ... through pleading with him to
treat her decently, Gloria told herself.
But she knew she was only trying to bolster up her vanity. Under all
her bravado, she knew that the fact of the matter was that Dick was
through with her! ... She had seen it in his eyes the night she had
come home from New York. She had heard it in the indifferent tone he
used when he talked to her. And his indifference was maddening her.
She couldn't stand it!
She had always had love and indulgence from Dick. He had treated her
like a beautiful, spoiled little girl. And now he hardly looked at
her.
Gloria's heart was heavy as she rang the doorbell of the old Gregory
homestead. Maggie opened the door for her.
She found Mother Gregory eating her substantial breakfast of ham and
eggs, rolls and coffee. Her face was flushed with too much food.
"Well, Gloria!" she cried in her rich, full voice. She got up from
the table.
She put her well-rounded arms about Gloria and gave her a peck on
either cheek.
"Come upstairs and talk to me while I get dressed," she said,
steering Gloria out of the dining-room.
She nodded her head in the direction of Maggie, who was listening
with all her might.
"We'll talk up here where Maggie can't hear every word we say," she
told Gloria in a stage whisper as they mounted the wide staircase.
"What did you come to see me about, Gloria?"
She knew that this was no friendly call the girl was making. She
knew that Gloria didn't like her any more than she, herself, liked
Gloria. She was sure that Gloria had come on a special errand.
The girl curled herself up in a little ball on the hard leather
window seat in Mother Gregory's room. It was a room as plain as the
woman who slept in it ... a woman who scorned silk underwear and
make-up as only Mother Gregory could scorn them! There were no
cushions in that room, no ruffled curtains, no dressing-table laden
with perfume and powder boxes.
Mother Gregory stood before the walnut dresser and began to hook
herself into an elaborate black dress, made in a style that had been
popular when Dick was a baby!
"What did you come to see me about, Gloria?" she asked again.
"We-ll," Gloria began, "last night we were robbed of every bit of
that lovely flat silver you gave us for a wedding present! Some one
broke into the house."
Mother Gregory threw up her plump hands.
"My stars! ... Dick's reported it to the police, of course?" she
said. "Why, that silver has been in the family for a hundred years!"
Slowly Gloria shook her pretty head.
"No, Dick hasn't reported it to the police. Dick doesn't know
anything about the burglary," she said calmly.
Mother Gregory looked at her with her sharp black eyes.
"You see," Gloria went on without flickering an eyelash, "it all
happened in the middle of the night when Dick wasn't at home."
"When Dick wasn't at home!" Mother Gregory echoed in a loud,
surprised tone. "Well, where on earth was he at that time of night,
then?"
"That's what I want to know," Gloria answered. "But I have every
reason to think that he was with Miss Briggs."
The words exploded like a bomb in the quiet room.
"With Susan Briggs!" Mother Gregory repeated. "With Susan Briggs!
Oh, no, Gloria!"
Gloria shrugged her shoulders.
"Have it your own way," she said. "But I know that I found them
having dinner together on the quiet, last night. I left them at nine
o'clock. They said they were going to work for a while at the
office. And at one o'clock when I fell asleep, Dick hadn't come
home!"
Mother Gregory all but fell into a chair that stood opposite Gloria.
Her eyes were wide, and her mouth stood open with surprise.
"I can't believe it!" she cried at last. "And how do you know when
the burglar was in the house?"
"I heard him," Gloria answered. "I thought I heard Dick come in and
I ran downstairs. Then I saw some one in the dining-room and I
rushed back to my room and locked myself up.... I was scared to
death!"
"You couldn't have been so terribly frightened," Mother Gregory
mused, "or you wouldn't have dropped quietly off to sleep at one
o'clock, as you said you did."
At that Gloria flared up.
"Well, I'll tell you just how frightened I was, if you want to know,
Madam Gregory!" she said, furiously. "I was so frightened that I'll
never stay alone in that house again, after dark! ... And if your son
wants to have a love affair with his office girl he'll have to work
at it daytimes!"
"Glo-ree-a!" exclaimed Mother Gregory in the severe tones of the vice
president of the Home Women's Club. "You're vulgar!"
"Vulgar nothing! I'm just telling you the truth about your beautiful
son!" Gloria sneered. "When I married him I thought he was a plaster
saint, too! But I've found out all about him.... Look at those!"
She pulled some of the "Roxie" and "Lucie" love letters and pictures
from her handbag and threw them into Mother Gregory's lap.
Dick's mother laughed her comfortable deep laugh, as she picked them
up.
"Roxie and Lucie Gilchrist!" she cried. "They were both in love with
Dick. First Roxie was--and then Lucie. They're both married now,
though. And Lucie has a baby! ... Dick had a lot of girls in his
day, Gloria. But that doesn't prove that he isn't what you call a
'plaster saint'!"
Gloria's lip curled.
"All right," she said. "But you can't explain his staying out most
of last night with Susan Briggs!"
"I don't believe for a single second that Dick was out half the night
with Sue Briggs or any other woman!" Mother Gregory said with spirit.
"I'd have to see that with my own eyes to believe it!"
"Well, then, where was he until two or three o'clock last night?--No
place where he had any business to be!" Gloria cried. "He certainly
wasn't working until then! ... Don't try to tell me that!"
Mother Gregory's fine black eyes flashed.
"Why don't you ask him where he was?" she asked quietly.
Gloria laughed unpleasantly.
"That's just it! He didn't give me a chance to ask him anything!"
she answered. "He sneaked away this morning before I woke up."
"My poor child," Mother Gregory's voice was soft with sudden pity.
"Can't you trust your husband out of your sight? Don't you know by
this time what sort of man Dick is?"
Gloria shook her head.
"I certainly don't!" she said. "I thought I did once. But Dick's
changed so, lately. He's getting to be a regular crossword puzzle.
I can't make him out. What do you suppose he did the night I came
home from New York?"
"Tell me."
"He put me out of our room!" Gloria said. "He moved all my things
into the spare room. He doesn't want me for his wife any more, I
suppose. And that was his gentle way of breaking the news to me."
Mother Gregory knitted her brows. This was more serious than she had
supposed--this breach between Gloria and Dick.
"My dear," she said. "How did you happen to go to New York in the
first place? There's a story around town that you went there with
that actor of yours ... What was his name? Westfield? Wakefield?"
"Wayburn," Gloria helped her out. "But I didn't go to New York with
him. He went two weeks before I did."
"But did you go because he was there?" Mother Gregory asked.
Gloria was all ready to say "No." But she had a feeling that Mother
Gregory's eyes could see right down into her very soul!
"Yes," she whispered. Her lips quivered.
Mother Gregory sat down heavily on the edge of her great four-poster
bed. The springs creaked under her weight.
"A-ah!" she said, "and then you expect Dick to take you back with
open arms when you've shown him you love another man?"
"I don't love Stan Wayburn," Gloria answered sullenly.
"You don't love Dick, that's sure!" Dick's mother said.
"And he doesn't love me!" Gloria came back at her. "If he did he
wouldn't leave me alone in the house all night to be frightened to
death! ... He doesn't care a darn for me any more!"
"I hope he doesn't, Gloria," Mother Gregory said solemnly. "I'd hate
his marriage to wind up the way poor John Seymour's did, last night."
"Dr. John!" Gloria cried. "Why, what's happened to Dr. John?"
A curious, cold fear seemed to take hold of her heart ... to squeeze
it. She could hardly breathe. Mother Gregory's voice seemed to come
from a long way off, when she spoke again.
"Didn't you see the morning paper?" she asked.
With a great effort, Gloria shook her head. Her thoughts flew to
May. What terrible trouble was she in? What had happened to Dr.
John?
"He shot himself," Mother Gregory said. There was a long silence.
Then Mrs. Gregory arose and called down the stairs to Maggie.
"Maggie, bring up the paper, please," she asked. In a minute she
came back into the room, shaking out the rustling sheet.
"Dr. John Seymour..." she began to read. But Gloria stopped her.
"No, no," she said. "Don't read it! I must go to May! She hasn't
anybody but me...."
She ran down the stairs, and out into the street. A trolley car was
coming. She ran to catch it.