"I will get back!" Gloria said fiercely to herself the next morning
when she awoke. She had set her alarm clock for seven!
"I will get back into Dick's life! I belong there. He can't put me
out of it!"
She bathed, and dressed herself in one of the bungalow aprons that
Ranghild had worn for her morning work. Then she tiptoed downstairs
and brought in the milk and the paper from the back porch.
She lighted the gas stove and took the coffee tin from the kitchen
cupboard. She stood looking at it helplessly. How did you make
coffee?
There were no directions on the gay wrapper around the tin, and
Gloria didn't own a cook book.
Then suddenly she remembered that Dick knew how to make coffee. She
would run upstairs and ask him how it was done.
She knocked on his door. "Dick ... I've brought you the morning
paper," she called, brightly.
In a moment Dick opened the door.
"Thanks." His eyes took her in--the bungalow apron, the rolled-up
sleeves, and the coffee tin in her hand.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked. An amused smile
flickered over his face.
"Making coffee for my husband!" Gloria answered pertly. "Only I
don't know how to make it. Aside from that I'm getting along fine!"
Dick's smile broadened into a grin. "I suppose you're after my
recipe," he said. "I use a tablespoon of coffee for each cup, and an
extra one for the pot."
Gloria's spirits lifted at his good humor. And something in her
breast that he had been like a lump of ice, seemed to melt.... She
was sure that he hadn't meant his harshness to her last night. He
hadn't meant what he had said....
She put up her lips for him to kiss. "You aren't peeved at your
Gloria, are you?" she asked. She laid her hand on his cheek, and
came a step nearer.
Then, with a little sigh, she put her head down on his shoulder. It
was good to be there with Dick, friends once more. Like the solution
of a problem.
"We've quarreled long enough ... you and I. Kiss me!" she said.
But as she spoke, she knew she was making a mistake. She could feel
Dick draw away from her.
Her hands dropped at her sides, and she went downstairs without
another word.
She made the coffee, according to Dick's campfire recipe, and put it
on the stove to boil.
When he came downstairs to breakfast, it was more than ready.
"I'm sorry there isn't toast," Gloria said as she poured it for him,
"but there wasn't so much as a crumb of bread in the house. I'll
stock up to-day."
She tried to drink a cup of her coffee. But she had to admit to
herself that it was too bitter to drink. She didn't dare to offer
Dick a second cup of it.
"Will you be home to-night for dinner?" she asked as he got up from
the table.
She hoped that he would at least offer to kiss her good-by. But he
didn't.
"Yes, I'll be home," he said colorlessly. "I think I'll take your
car to-day. You don't seem to drive it any more ... do you mind if I
do?"
Gloria shook her head. There was a lump in her throat. She watched
Dick drive down the street, her vision blurred with tears. She wiped
them away, angrily.
"What's the matter with me?" she asked herself. "Am I falling in
love with the poor simp?"
Was she? ... Or had she always been in love with him? And had it
taken her jealousy of Miss Briggs to unveil the fact to her? ...
The thought of Miss Briggs down in Dick's office with him all day was
a torment to her. She stopped in the middle of her work a dozen
times that morning to wish that Dick had a man secretary instead of
Susan Briggs.
"He's just got to fire her!" she kept telling herself. "I just won't
have her down in that office with him. That's all there is to it!"
Soothing and sympathetic, was she? Well, Gloria would show Dick that
she, herself, could be soothing and sympathetic. If that was Miss
Briggs' method of "vamping" Dick, that would be Gloria's game. Two
could play at any old game.
The sight of Dick's shabby old house-coat hanging in his closet was
an inspiration to Gloria. She would buy him a new one. Goodness
knew he needed it!
And it wouldn't be a dull gray one like this.... It would have some
pep and dash about it....
When Dick came home that night, the table was neatly set. There was
an appetizing odor of frying steak in the house. And Gloria, in a
clean white dress, came out of the kitchen to meet him.
"Dinner will be ready in two minutes," she greeted him cheerfully.
"And when you go upstairs to wash your hands, take a peek at the
surprise I have for you up there."
On the bed in Dick's room was spread Gloria's "surprise" ... a purple
silk house-coat lined with scarlet.
"Holy suffering cats!" Dick said to himself. "Does she think I'd
wear a thing like that!"
He went down to dinner in his suit. Gloria's face fell when she saw
him.
"Aren't you going to put on your new house-coat?" she asked.
Dick shook his head. "You know I never wear bright colors like that,
Gloria," he said, "though it is a doggoned nice coat. Thanks."
"What'll I do with it?" Gloria asked pathetically. She looked as if
she were going to cry. "Take it back?"
"You didn't pay cash for it, did you?" Dick asked.
"N-no," Gloria faltered. "I charged it to you."
"And how much was it?" Dick's voice had grown stern.
"Not very much ... only $50," Gloria replied. "It really was a
bargain. It had been $75 ... awfully good silk in it."
Dick sat down at the dining-room table.
"Now look here, Gloria," he said. "I've told you a dozen times that
you're not to go downtown and run up bills without asking me about
it, first.... And in spite of it, you charge a $50 house-coat to me
in a store where I owe money as it is!"
Gloria felt a frown growing between her eyebrows.
"Well, what do you want me to do ... take the thing back?" she asked.
"I'm going to be terribly ashamed if I have to, let me tell you!"
"I'll take it back," Dick answered.. "Just do it up in a bundle, and
I'll take it with me in the car to-morrow morning.... I hate to seem
ungrateful, Gloria, but a $50 present that isn't paid for wouldn't
give me any satisfaction at all. I'd have the blues every time I put
it on."
Gloria shook her head. "I can't understand you at all, Dick," she
said. "Suppose you do owe a few bills? Everybody does. Nobody ever
has every dollar paid right up on the first of the month,"
Dick was silent. He made little dots on the tablecloth with the
tines of his fork.
"I ... I suppose you'll have a fit if I mention the word 'clothes' to
you," Gloria went on, after a minute, "but I haven't a single summer
dress. You know you promised me I could have some before you went
away on your trip. Remember?"
"Yes," Dick answered quietly. "But don't you think it's more
important for us to get some of our old bills paid off, first?"
"No!" Gloria cried, angrily. "I'm just about at the point where I
could go to jail for debt, cheerfully, like Mr. Micawber. That is,
if I could have a few clothes.... I'm in rags!"
Dick's lip curled. "Pretty costly rags, I'll say," he remarked.
"You bought three $100 dresses just a few weeks ago. I'll bet my
mother never had one dress in all her life that cost that much. And
Dad could buy and sell me a dozen times over..."
"It's just terrible that you have to support a wife, isn't it?"
Gloria asked with fine sarcasm. "I feel sorry for you!"
"You should!" Dick answered. "All I hope is that you'll feel so
sorry for me that you won't buy any more $50 hats for a while!"
Gloria moved irritably under his angry gaze. "You think of every
penny..." she said.
"I've got to think of every penny!" Dick answered. "And you must,
too, for a while, until I get on my feet again. That sickness of
mine knocked everything in the head ... There's just one way of
looking at this thing. Our marriage has become nothing but a
business partnership--and a one-sided one, at that."
"Oh, is that so!" Gloria cried. "So that's the way you've come to
feel about it.... Well, thanks, I don't care for any! If that's all
I mean to you, I'm through! See? All through!"
The minute Gloria told Dick she was through with him she was sorry.
She was not through with him! She was just beginning to be
interested in him as she had never been before in all her life.
Hoping that he wouldn't take her at her word, she found herself
breathlessly waiting for his answer. It came.
"All right, Gloria," he said. "And this time, it's for good.
Remember! No coming back!"
Gloria couldn't speak. With her little head held high, she marched
past him into the kitchen.
The steak was burning in the frying pan. Gloria took it from the
stove, and put it away in the ice-box, steaming hot as it was. She
tossed the bread-tray with the bread on it back into its box. The
asparagus and salad went into the garbage can.
"If I can't be his wife, I won't be his cook ... that's a cinch!" she
thought to herself.
She stood at the screen door looking out into the yard. There was a
strong smell of boiling fruit in the air. Mrs. Donberg, next door,
must be responsible.... It was the season for preserving.
Suddenly Gloria saw the beauty of the common lot ... of a woman
working for a man, and him for her. Of their children. And their
little homes and backyard gardens.... It was a precious thing, the
everyday kind of love that Dick had once offered her. And that she
hadn't had the wit to accept!
Tears scalded her eyes, and ran down her cheeks.
Blinded by them, she felt her way upstairs and into her own room.
She packed her overnight bag.
Dick was waiting for her in the hall when she came downstairs. She
looked up at him with red-rimmed, swollen eyes.
"I'll come back to-morrow to pack my trunks," she said. "I'm going
home to Mother's, now."
"No," he objected. "We'll do this thing decently. I'm not going to
let you run crying down the street to-night.... We won't give the
neighbors any more to gossip about than we have to! You go upstairs
to bed, now. And we'll talk things over to-morrow morning."
"Talk what over?" Gloria asked. "You want me to go ... and I'm
going. What is there to jabber about? I'm sick of all this talk,
talk, talk!"
She drew a long sobbing breath.
"There are a good many things we've got to discuss," Dick said.
"Selling the house, and the furniture ... things of that kind."
Selling the house! And the furniture, too! ... Ah, Dick must mean
business then! He really must be through with her ... eager to rid
himself of her!
She looked around her at the bright, cheerful house with its
cream-colored walls, its blue rugs, and the yellow curtains that
looked as if sunshine were always pouring through them.
"I--I don't want to go away from my house!" she said in a whisper.
She couldn't trust her treacherous voice.
"Oh, rats!" Dick exclaimed. "You've never stayed in this house long
enough to care for it. Six months from now you'll have forgotten you
ever lived in it ... with me!"
Gloria had no answer to that. She went back up the stairs with
lagging steps.
She locked herself in her room and went to sleep. When Dick knocked
on her door in the morning, she did not get up.
"There's no use in our talking to each other," she called wearily.
"We'll only have another row.... Good-by."
To Gloria's disappointment, Dick went without saying another word.
She lay, listening tensely to his retreating footfalls.
Her nerves shook to the sound of the front door closing behind him
... to the purr of the little car rolling out of the yard.
And when it had died away in the distance, she got up and dressed,
slowly and uncertainly.