"Where have you been all day?" her mother asked her when she walked
into the hot little kitchen at six o'clock that night.
"Oh ... I don't know. Gadding around town," Gloria answered. "I
know I'm dead tired...." She dropped down on a chair beside the
kitchen table.
Her mother was bent above the gas stove. She was frying veal birds
for supper.
Her face was flushed. Her hair curled in little damp wisps around
her ears. There was a weary droop at the corners of her mouth.
Gloria jumped up. "I'm going to get supper to-night," she cried,
"just to show you that I can do it! ... I'll be down in a jiffy!"
She hurried upstairs to the little bedroom under the eaves. It was
close and stuffy, although the one window was opened wide, and the
muslin curtains looped back.
Gloria ripped off her silk dress, and put on her new bungalow apron
... the apron in which she had planned to look so pretty for Dick!
She ran down to the kitchen. Her father had come in. He was sitting
in his shirtsleeves beside the door that led to the back porch.
"To-day's been a corker, hasn't it?" he asked. "I tell you, I
thought I was going to drop dead as I walked down the street this
noon. The paper said some fellow died of sunstroke..."
"You and Mother go out on the porch while I slap this meal together,
Dad," Gloria said. "Now, come on ... you make Mother go! You know
she thinks no one but herself knows how to do anything..."
Mrs. Gordon hung back. "I know you don't know how to cook a meal,"
she said. "It seems a shame to spoil good food!"
"It would be a good thing if I did spoil it to-night," Gloria
answered. "People shouldn't eat anything but salad and green
vegetables in weather like this!"
Alone in the kitchen, she set to work. The lettuce was lying in a
bowl of water. Gloria cut it up and made a French dressing for it.
Mother Gregory had shown her how to mix the oil and lemon juice to
silken smoothness.
Gloria wondered what Mother Gregory had ordered for dinner at their
house to-night. Would Dick be there with his father and mother? ...
Or would he be dining somewhere or other with Susan Briggs?
Gloria wrinkled her forehead. "Well, I can't live like this ...
worrying myself to death about him all the time. Wondering where he
is, and what he's doing," she told herself. "Perhaps May's right.
Perhaps I'd be happier if I divorced Dick..."
She debated the question with herself as she set the meal on the
table. With unseeing eyes she smiled at her mother and father when
they praised it.
She was looking far away into the hidden future. What did it hold
for a woman who had separated from the only man in the world for whom
she cared? ...
Her mother's voice roused her from her dream. "Oh, I forgot," she
said in her slow, soft voice. "A letter came for you this afternoon
while you were out. I guess it's from Dick."
Gloria's heart beat fast. A telegram coming in the dead of night
couldn't have startled her more than this letter from Dick ... What
was in it? What did he have to say to her?
Her fingers pressed the envelope. There seemed to be several folds
of paper within it.
But without opening it, Gloria slipped it into her apron pocket. She
could feel the eyes of her father and mother watching her. She knew
that they were waiting for her to open the letter ... to tell them
what Dick had written.
But, somehow or other, she wanted to be all alone when she read that
letter--
There was just a wild chance that Dick was asking her to come back to
him, in it. "And if he wants me, I'll go home this very night!"
Gloria promised herself.
She raised her eyes to the cuckoo clock that hung above the
sideboard. Half past seven! ... In another hour or two she might be
in Dick's arms again!
With an effort she went on talking: "I saw May Seymour this
afternoon, Mother. She's going to leave town. Says she'll never
come back here as long as she lives."
Gloria's mother forgot all about the letter in this exciting piece of
news.
"Well, I should just think she would go away! I should think she'd
be ashamed to show her face among decent people, anywhere!" she said,
with spirit. "I always told you she was no good, didn't I? ... What
was the name of that man she used to run around with, right under her
poor husband's nose?"
"Jim Carewe," Gloria answered. "And what do you think? He's going
to be married to some little girl just out of school, next fall. The
engagement was announced in the paper the other day."
An expression that plainly said "I told you so!" flashed across Mrs.
Gordon's face. She was "Mrs. Grundy" herself, at that moment.
"I never saw it fail to happen!" she cried. "Men will run around and
have a good time with women like May Seymour. But when they settle
down, they marry some girl who still thinks the moon's made of green
cheese!"
Gloria laughed.
"Mother, you amuse me," she said. "Nobody thinks the moon's made of
green cheese, any more. Flappers of seventeen know more than their
grandmothers knew at seventy."
Mrs. Gordon shook her head. "Of course, if you think that knowing
how to shimmy or roll a cigarette is knowing anything, you're right,"
she said, "but we old-fashioned women weren't so slow. When I was
your age I could run a house all myself ... washing, ironing, baking.
Everything!"
"Yes, and she used to make all my shirts, too," Gloria's father
added, mildly. "And your little dresses, Gloria. Remember how cute
she used to look in those pink gingham dresses, Mother?"
Mrs. Gordon nodded. Her blue eyes filled with tears as she looked
across the table at Gloria. This was a terrible thing for her ...
this breach between Gloria and Dick. Like a death in the family,
almost!
That this should have happened to her little Gloria! The little
daughter for whom she had worked and prayed for twenty years....
Gloria read her mother's thoughts. She carried her dishes out into
the kitchen, and then ran upstairs to her tiny bedroom.
With shaking fingers she tore open the envelope.
She took out the paper that was in it ... a double sheet, folded
around a check. A check for $50. That was all.
There wasn't a word written on the paper ... not a word! Just the
money ... the check. As if money were all she wanted!
"So that's the letter I've been having chills and fever about, for
the last fifteen minutes! ... Nothing but a measly check!" she said,
ruefully.
She sank down on the edge of her bed, turning the slip of paper over
and over in her fingers. Then she looked into the envelope once more
... just to make sure that there was no letter from Dick in it. But
there was none.
Gloria tore the envelope into tiny pieces, and flung the check down
on her dresser. That bit of paper ... It was the death to her hopes!
For until that moment, Gloria had been telling herself that ...
sooner or later ... Dick would want her for his wife again.
Even when he had put the house up for sale, she had comforted herself
with the thought that he wouldn't sell it when it came to a show-down.
But this check ... this $50 ... looked as if he really was through
with her, forever. He had probably made up his mind to send her that
much money every week for the rest of her life. It ... it was
alimony!
In his own mind, Dick was divorced from her.... What else could that
check mean?
Gloria opened the door of her stuffy little bedroom and called
downstairs: "Oh, Mother! Come up here a minute. I want to show you
something!"
When her mother came, Gloria held out the check to her without a
word. She watched her as she looked at it ... wondering if her
mother had been pretty when she was young.
Lines of worry fretted her forehead now, and her hair was gray above
her temples. Wrinkles dragged down the corners of her mouth.
Gloria turned suddenly and looked at her own face in the dim mirror
of her old dresser. Her own mouth was dragged down like her mother's
... and tremulous at the corners. Her eyebrows were twisted with
unhappiness!
"I'll look like an old hag soon, if I don't stop worrying and fussing
about Dick," she told herself angrily. She scooped up some cold
cream from the jar on the dresser, and patted it around her mouth.
"Well, Mother, what do you think of my love letter from Dick?" she
asked with flippant sarcasm.
Mrs. Gordon stroked the check with her work-worn hands.
"I've always said," she began slowly, "that there would be fewer
divorces in the world if there were less alimony! If a woman knew
that she'd have to go to work to support herself, she wouldn't be so
ready to leave her husband as most wives are, nowadays.... What are
you going to do with that check, Gloria?"
"I don't know. Get it cashed, I suppose," Gloria answered. "I ought
to give some of the money to you and Dad for my board.... Why do you
ask?"
"Because if I were you, I'd send it straight back to Dick," her
mother said. "You've no right to his money."
Gloria's eyes opened like sea-flowers. "I'd like to know who has a
better right to it!" she cried. "I'm his wife and if he doesn't live
with me, the least he can do is support me!"
Mrs. Gordon shook her head. "No, if you had a child or two to care
for, I'd tell you to take Dick's money," she said.. "But you're a
free, able-bodied woman who can earn her own living.... And it's not
fair to take money from a man when you're not being a wife to him.
Can't you see that, yourself?"
"I certainly can't!" Gloria replied. "Dick's been my husband for a
long time, and he's got to pay for it!" Her little chin was firm and
hard.
She stood suddenly. "Come on, let's go downstairs. I'll wipe the
dishes for you," she offered.
In silence they cleared away the dishes, and set to work to wash them.
They had almost finished when Gloria's father came in from the back
yard, where he had been sprinkling his little garden.
"Well, what are you two so quiet about?" he asked.
Gloria laughed shakily.
"I had a windfall. Dick sent me $50," she answered, "and Mother and
I don't know what to do with it."
Her father came over to her and laid his hands tenderly on her
shoulders.
"Don't touch a nickel of his money," he said. He felt that whatever
the trouble was between Dick and Gloria, it couldn't be his "baby
girl's" fault. So in his own mind he blamed Dick for her unhappiness.
"We took care of you for twenty years, daughter," he went on. "I
guess we can do it a while longer.... You send his money back to
him."
Gloria looked thoughtful. "Do you know, I believe I will," she said
suddenly. "To-morrow morning I'll get up early, and hunt a job.
Thank goodness, I know how to earn a few dollars!"
But she was filled with sadness that night, as she sat in her room,
looking out into the dark street. Behind her on the dresser, the
alarm clock ticked loudly. It was set for six o'clock in the morning.
"Back to the old grind!" Gloria said to herself, miserably.
It had always been hard for Gloria Gordon to rouse herself at break
of day, and go out to work long dreary hours. How much more
difficult it was going to be for Mrs. Richard Gregory, who had had
her breakfasts in bed for many months ... who had had her own home,
her own automobile!
Gloria couldn't eat the poached eggs and toast that her mother cooked
for her the next morning. She looked through the "Help Wanted"
columns of the paper as she sipped her coffee.
"Here's an ad that looks pretty good to me," she said to her mother.
"'Wanted: Experienced stenographer, with knowledge of bookkeeping.
Good salary.'"
The address was that of a real estate firm in a downtown building.
"I think I'll go there," Gloria made up her mind. "It may be the
very place I want."
But when she got off the street car in the downtown district, she did
not turn toward the office of the real estate firm.
Instead, she went straight to Dick's office, with the eager swiftness
of a homing pigeon.
She pushed open the door and stepped inside. Dick and Miss Briggs
stood talking beside the desk in the inner room.
They looked up in surprise as Gloria came toward them. She did not
even glance at Susan Briggs.
"Hello, Dick," she said. He did not answer.
Gloria turned then, and looked straight at Miss Briggs. "I want to
talk to my husband. Will you please leave us alone?" she asked
coldly.
The secretary did not meet Gloria's eyes. But she walked slowly out
of the office. The door closed behind her.
Gloria opened her handbag and laid the check Dick had sent her down
upon his desk.
"There's your money. I've brought it back to you," she said. "I
don't want anything from you, Dick."
She raised her questioning eyes to his face. "What was the big idea
of sending it to me?" she asked.
Under her eyes, Dick flushed darkly. Gloria could see that he was
embarrassed.
"I thought you understood that I was going to take care of you," he
said. "I told you that if you lived with your folks, I'd see that
you had plenty of money.... I'll send you $50 every week, just as I
said I would."
Gloria shook her head. "No, you won't," she contradicted, "because I
shan't take it. I'm going back to work this morning. I'll earn my
own money.... So you can keep yours to pay off some of the debts I
piled up for you!"
She couldn't resist saying that. The memory of Dick's sermons about
debts was still a thorn in her flesh.
"I'll send you a check for $50 every week, just as I said I would,"
Dick repeated firmly. "So long as you're my wife, I'm going to
support you. And I don't want you to work in some office with a lot
of men...."
Gloria interrupted him with a laugh. "I'm not your wife any more,"
she cried. "The law may say I am, and you may say so! But I'm not!"
Her face was white, and hard with rebellion. "And another thing ...
I'll work anywhere I please! And it'll take more than you to stop
me!" she added.
Dick was speechless. As he stood there looking at her, without a
word to say, she began to cry.
Tears reddened her eyes and coursed down through the rouge that was
thick on her cheeks. Her mouth trembled.
"Dick," she began huskily, "I've been so lonesome. And look...."
She held out her hands to show him the burns and cuts on them.
"See, I've been trying to cook," she sobbed. "Dick, please let me go
home again.... I can't stand being away from you. I can't stand it!"
Her voice rose on a high note of hysteria.
"Sssh!" Dick hissed, frowning. "Be careful or Miss Briggs will hear
you! Hush!"
Gloria sank down on the floor and laid her head on the seat of Dick's
swivel chair. "What do I care if she hears me or not!" she said
thickly, "All I care about is getting home, again!"
"Please, please don't treat me like this," she sobbed.
Dick lifted her to her feet. "For Lord's sake, get up!" he said
sharply. "And don't come here again, until you can control yourself,
Gloria! ... What are you trying to do? Put on a one-act play for
Miss Briggs' benefit?"
His sharpness brought Gloria to her senses. She stood up and dried
her eyes.
"All you think about is Miss Briggs, isn't it?" she asked, choking.
"And what is she, anyway! Nothing but a little old maid! ... I
wouldn't care so much if I'd lost you to a raving, tearing beauty...."
Her voice broke again.
She almost ran out of the office.