Mrs. Gordon was washing the breakfast dishes when Gloria opened the
screen door that led into the clean, sunlit kitchen from the back
porch.
"Well, forevermore! Where are you going, bag and baggage?" She
looked down dubiously at the overnight bag Gloria carried.
"I'm not going anywhere. I've arrived," Gloria answered, "I've come
home."
Her mother scalded the silverware. "Speaking of arrivals," she said,
"your cousin Lulu's baby is here at last! It was born last night at
the hospital.... My goodness! After a while all the 'famous
birthplaces' of presidents and authors will be hospitals, I suppose!
... I've always said I'd love to see the place where George
Washington was born. Or did he just live at Mount Vernon? ... No, I
guess he was born there, wasn't he?"
Gloria set her bag down on the well-scrubbed floor.
"Mother!" she cried. "I've come home! I've left Dick!"
Her mother laid her dish towel down on the drain board.
"Tell me," she said, "did you leave Dick when you went to New York a
few weeks ago? Everybody said you did.... I couldn't believe it. I
was sure you'd have told me if you were separating.... But then,
girls don't tell their mothers things the way they used to when I was
young. I suppose I'd be the last one to hear it if you ever did
leave him."
Gloria shook her head with exasperation.
"I'm telling you right now that I have left him!" she said. "I'm
never going back to him! I've come home to stay here with you and
Dad, if you'll let me."
Mrs. Gordon took off her glasses. "I can't see a thing with those
things on," she said. "You go into the living-room and lie down.
I'm going to make you some tea. You look peaked...."
Gloria took her bag upstairs to the little room that had been hers
for so many years of her life. It was beautifully clean, but
depressing in its shabbiness.
She thought of her room at home with its soft, brilliant cushions,
its chaise longue and the taffeta that draped the bed and windows.
With a heart like lead, she went downstairs. On the living-room
table stood a tea tray.
Mrs. Gordon came in from the kitchen with a plate of hot toast in her
hands.
"You eat some of this toast that I've made for you, too," she said.
"And then tell me how you happened to leave Dick."
"There isn't much to tell. He said he was through with me.... So
what could I do but pack my bag and get out?" Gloria asked.
Mrs. Gordon sat down in her old armchair. "Now, Gloria, that's not
the truth," she said bluntly. "I know Dick too well to believe that
tale ... You probably told him you were through with him. Didn't
you?"
Gloria thought for a moment. "Yes, I believe I did," she said. The
whole affair was blurred in her mind by her own unhappiness.
"Well, then," her mother went on, "you've got to go back to Dick.
Marriage isn't like a hat that you can wear for a while, and then
throw away for a new one...."
"I don't want a new one," Gloria answered miserably. "I don't ever
want to see a man again!" She slipped to the floor and laid her head
on her mother's knees.
"Nonsense!" Mrs. Gordon said. "You and Dick have just had some sort
of a little spat or other.... You know, you're not an easy person to
live with, Gloria! You fly up at nothing.... I often say to your
Dad, 'Gloria isn't like either of us. She must take after old Aunt
Fanny!' She had a tongue if ever a woman did!"
"I knew you'd say it was my fault if Dick and I ever had a bust-up,"
Gloria answered resentfully. "Everybody thinks Dick's perfect...."
"No, he's not perfect. But he's the sort of man I should have liked
to have had for a son.... If the good Lord had seen fit to send me
one," her mother went on. "Dick's a pretty fine young fellow,
Gloria. And you're going to regret it if you leave him!"
Gloria shook her head. But she knew that her mother was right. She
was regretting it, already.
"What you ought to do is to go straight back home, and settle down to
make Dick some sort of a wife!" Mrs. Gordon said suddenly. "I
suppose it's partly my fault that you don't know how to cook or take
care of a house ... that you have to have a maid. I should have made
you go into the kitchen and work right along with me, when you were
engaged to Dick."
"I haven't any maid. Dick let Ranghild go," Gloria answered. "I've
been doing my own housework since I came back from New York...."
"Ah, hah! So that's it! I knew there was a nigger in the woodpile
somewhere!" her mother exclaimed. "You don't like to do housework,
and you've been quarreling with Dick about it!"
"I have not!" Gloria jumped up from the floor. "He's in love with
his stenographer, if you want to know! And he treats me as if I were
his old maid aunt!"
Placidly Mrs. Gordon picked up the tray of dishes and went out into
the kitchen with it.
"Oh, I guess it's not as bad as all that," she said comfortably. "A
man doesn't wait till he's thirty to marry the wrong woman."
She laid her hands on Gloria's graceful shoulders.
"And even if he were in love with his stenographer," she said
solemnly, "your job would be to win him back.... 'For better, for
worse,' Gloria. That's marriage. It's no bed of roses."
Gloria stood as silent as a statue. In her ears she could hear her
own voice repeating the words after the minister, as she had stood in
that very room on her wedding day.... "For better, for worse, for
richer, for poorer ... till death do us part."
Ah, there were other things that parted two people who had once loved
each other ... misunderstandings, pettiness....
"All right, I'll go home!" Gloria said suddenly. "By jinks, I'll
make things turn out the way I want them to! If it kills me!"
Her mother laughed at her fierceness. "It won't kill you," she said.
"It'll be the saving of you, Baby. You haven't been a real wife yet,
to Dick. You've just been playing at it."
The doorbell rang loudly through the little house.
"That must be your Aunt Dorcas," said Mrs. Gordon. "She said she'd
stop in for me on her way to the hospital to see Lulu's baby..."
Gloria groaned.
Aunt Dorcas was a born gossip. She told everything she knew for the
pure joy of seeing the look of surprise and interest dawn in her
listeners' eyes.
"Now, Mother, please don't tell her anything about this trouble
between Dick and me," Gloria begged. "If you do, it'll be all over
town by dark!"
But she knew it was useless to ask her mother not to tell Aunt Dorcas
anything. She was wax in the hands of Lulu's mother.
Aunt Dorcas was large and blond. She had the nose of a Roman
senator, and the blue, inquiring eyes of a child. She turned one of
her cheeks to Gloria to be kissed.
"Well, my dear!" she said briskly. "Lulu beat you to it, having a
baby! And she's a year younger than you are, at that!"
Gloria laughed. "She's been married for two years, though," she
said, "and I haven't been.... And anyway I should think you'd be
furious with her for making you a grandmother at your age ... only
forty-four! And you don't look a minute over thirty-five, does she,
Mother?"
Aunt Dorcas beamed.
"Wouldn't you like to come along with us to see the new baby, my
dear?" she asked, flattered.
"I would! ... I'd love to," fibbed Gloria, "but I've got to go home."
She ran upstairs to get her hat and over-night bag.
"Been here all night?" Aunt Dorcas asked sharply. Her eyes were
fixed on the little bag.
"No," Gloria answered reluctantly. She shot a warning look at her
mother.
"Gloria and Dick had a little quarrel," Mrs. Gordon said blandly,
"and I've been talking her into going home. 'Bear and forbear' I
say. That's the only way to get along with a man, isn't it?"
Aunt Dorcas shook her head. "Well, I don't know whether it is or
not," she replied. "I never did think much of this young Gregory. I
may as well tell you I always thought he was something of a snob ...
and if I were Gloria I wouldn't take any back-chat from him! She's
just as good as he is any day in the week!"
"I haven't taken any back-chat from him," said Gloria. "The whole
thing's been my own fault.... And it isn't anything that matters,
anyhow. A tempest in a teapot!"
Her aunt snorted. "No, I guess nothing's the matter when you pack up
and come home!" she exclaimed, "I should say that something was very
much the matter! ... Well, are we ever going to start for the
hospital, Libby?"
Mrs. Gordon hurried upstairs. "There's a pie I baked, all wrapped up
for you on the pantry shelf, Gloria," she called downstairs. "Tell
Dick I sent it to him."
Gloria tucked the pie carefully into one side of her bag. "I'd love
to stay here and visit with you, Aunt," she said, "but I've just got
to go home...."
"I think you're very foolish to go home. If you've quarreled with
your husband make him come here after you!" Aunt Dorcas spoke her
mind. "You take my advice.... I'll bet your mother's been telling
you to knuckle down and go home. That's the way she's been all her
life ... afraid to say 'Boo' to a goose! But what's it ever got her,
eh? Nothing, so far as I can see!"
She tapped her foot angrily on the floor.
"She thinks she has a great deal," Gloria said softly. "And she and
Dad really are happy in their way...."
She kissed her aunt on her florid cheek where a tiny network of veins
was beginning to show. She drew a sigh of relief when she escaped,
at last, from the house and from Aunt Dorcas.
On her way home Gloria stopped in at a store and bought herself a
housedress. It was a soft, pretty thing with frills around the neck
and sleeves.
She had a sudden vision of herself in it when Dick should come home
that night. He would think that she had gone ... and there she would
be, with dinner ready, the table set, the house clean! Wouldn't he
get the surprise of his life!
Unless he had a heart of granite, that certainly ought to melt him ...
And let's see, what would she have for dinner? Dick liked lamb chops
and fresh peas. She'd have them, she guessed.... No, even Mother
Gregory had said that it was quite a job to shell peas.
Gloria bought canned ones and a can of beets. And she saw some
potato salad in a delicatessen she passed. So she bought that, too.
It would save her going to the bother of cooking potatoes....
Then there was the pie her mother had given her. Why, she wouldn't
have anything to cook but the meat! Anybody could warm up canned
vegetables.
"How long do you fry lamb chops?" Gloria asked the butcher as he
wrapped them up for her.
"'Bout fifteen minutes, lady," he said. "Depends on how you like
'em, rare or well done."
How did Dick like his meat cooked? ... Gloria didn't know. Well, she
guessed she'd take a chance and fry them slowly for twenty minutes.
At six o'clock that night she put them on the stove. The peas and
beets were in their kettles. The potato salad was heaped high in a
bowl on the dining-room table.
Gloria's heart swelled with honest pride as she looked around the
house. It was in what she called perfect order. There was a roll of
dust, like a gray mouse, here and there in a shadowy corner ... but
no one would notice that she was sure.
She went upstairs to her room to put a little powder on her nose.
She decided that she needed some more rouge on her cheeks ... and
more gloss on her fingernails.
Suddenly Gloria sniffed the air.... What was that queer smell? ...
The meat! The chops were burning!
She flew down to the kitchen. It was filled with smoke. The
sputtering fat in the pan had caught on fire. It was blazing.
"Here's where the house goes up in smoke!" Gloria thought with
terror. She lifted the red-hot pan from the stove in her bare hands.
Then she ran out doors with it, and threw it down on the grass. It
hissed fiercely as she turned a spray of water from the garden hose
on it.
Gloria was so excited that she did not hear Dick drive into the yard.
It was only when she turned to go back to the house that she saw him
watching her from the driveway.
"What have you been doing ... having a bonfire?" he asked.
Gloria burst into tears. She ran over to the car to show Dick how
she had burned her hands.
"No," she sobbed. "I just burned up all the chops ... and I'm all
blistered, too! ... Oh--ooh, I meant to have such a good dinner,
too...."
"I didn't expect to find you here at all," Dick said calmly. "You
said you were going to leave me, last night, you know."
Gloria hung her head. "I know I did," she said in a tone so low that
Dick divined rather than heard her words, "but I changed my mind."
Dick studied her for a moment with half-lowered lids. Gloria thought
she even detected a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
"Well, never mind about that," he said. "Run upstairs and get your
hat, and I'll take you downtown for dinner. I'll wait here for you.
Hurry."
Gloria put the fire out under the vegetables on the stove, and took
the potato salad away.
She made a paste of baking soda and water to smear on her burns.
In the old days Dick would have done it for her, without doubt. He
would have been filled with distress and pity ... and he would
probably have kissed the blistered hands.
Now he didn't seem to care. He was utterly indifferent to her. And
the thought was all the harder to bear because Gloria knew that she
had brought all this on herself ... Dick's indifference and aloofness.
She had helped to build the wall that rose between them, mountain
high....
She put on a sage-green sports hat and went out to the automobile.
"Darn shame about your hands," Dick muttered as she got in beside
him. Gloria said nothing.
"Where do you want to go to eat?" he asked.
Some demon in Gloria's brain prompted her answer. "Let's go to the
restaurant where you and Miss Briggs eat," she said wickedly. "By
the way, how is Miss Briggs behaving herself these days?"
"As usual ... perfectly," Dick said.
"Hasn't she told you she loves you yet?" Gloria raised her eyebrows
in feigned surprise. "I thought that would be the first thing she'd
do!"
It was a silent meal that they ate at the little corner table where
the two of them and Susan Briggs had dined only a few days before.
The waiter had set their coffee down before them before either spoke.
"What's become of your rings?" Dick broke the silence that had hung
like a smoke-screen between them. "Your wedding ring and your
diamond?"
Gloria felt herself redden. "I--sold them when I was in New York,"
she faltered. "I had to have the money."
Dick looked down at her hands, curiously, but said nothing.
"I hated to do it," Gloria went on, feeling that she ought to say
something. "But I didn't have a dollar to pay my hotel bill. I
don't suppose I'll ever have another diamond like the one in my
engagement ring, will I?"
"Not from me," Dick answered shortly.
Gloria leaned across the table toward him. Her eyes were soft and
bright with unshed tears. And her voice trembled when she spoke.
"What difference does it make that the rings are gone ... when the
marriage they stood for is gone?" she asked. "You don't love me any
more."
Dick looked at the date line of the paper he was reading.
"This is the tenth of June," he said. "Seven months ago to-day you
and I were married. We were pretty good friends, then, weren't we?"
Gloria nodded. What was Dick driving at?
"And to-night we haven't a word to say to each other," he went on.
"We're miles apart ... We're strangers."
In her mind Gloria furiously debated that. She denied it ...
ridiculed it. She had plenty to say to Dick.... But she didn't know
how to say it.
"No," she began. "We know each other too well ... that's what's the
matter with us. You know about me and Stan Wayburn. And I know
you're in love with Miss Briggs...."
She waited for him to say that he was not in love with Susan Briggs.
But he buried himself again in his newspaper.
In silence they drank their coffee.
In silence they drove home.
And in silence that shrieked almost they settled down in the
living-room to wait for bedtime to come....
... Somewhere in the neighborhood a radio set sent forth a silver
soprano through the still night air.
"Somebody loves me,
I wonder who..."
Unable to sit there facing Dick while the song went on, Gloria got up
and went out doors. In the back yard the wind stirred the leaves of
the poplar trees along the fence. Behind them was a theatrical white
moon.
"Somebody loves me...
I wish I knew...
Maybe it's you."
The song died away wistfully in the air. But it had confused her ...
saddened her. Love! That was all there was that counted. When you
had lost that, you might just as well be dead....
The whole world was Love's footstool.
It was a background for love. Without it there need have been no
heart-breaking music, no white moons, no beauty at all ... anywhere.
... Gloria did not look at Dick as she went into the house and up the
stairs where her room waited for her ... her lonely room.