She talked for an hour, having got between me and the door, and she
scolded Jim and Bella thoroughly. But they did not hear it, being
occupied with each other, sitting side by side meekly on the divan with
Jim holding Bella’s hand under a cushion. She said they would have to be
very good to make up for all the deception, but it was perfectly
clear that it was a relief to her to find that I didn’t belong to her
permanently, and as I have said before, she was crazy about Bella.
I sat back in a chair and grew comfortably drowsy in the monotony of her
voice. It was a name that brought me to myself with a jerk.
“Mr. Harbison!” Aunt Selina was saying. “Then bring him down at once,
James. I want no more deception. There is no use cleaning a house and
leaving a dirty corner.”
“It will not be necessary for me to stay and see it swept,” I said,
mustering the rags she had left of my self-respect, and trying to pass
her. But she planted herself squarely before me.
“You can not stir up a dust like this, young woman, and leave other
people to sneeze in it,” she said grimly. And I stayed.
I sat, very small, on a chair in a corner. I felt like Jezebel, or
whatever her name was, and now the Harbison man was coming, and he
was going to see me stripped of my pretensions to domesticity and of a
husband who neglected me. He was going to see me branded a living lie,
and he would hate me because I had put him in a ridiculous position. He
was just the sort to resent being ridiculous.
Jim brought him down in a dressing gown and a state of bewilderment.
It was plain that the memory of the afternoon still rankled, for he was
very short with Jim and inclined to resent the whole thing. The clock
in the hall chimed half after three as they came down the stairs, and I
heard Mr. Harbison stumble over something in the darkness and say that
if it was a joke, he wasn’t in the humor for it. To which Jim retorted
that it wasn’t anything resembling a joke, and for heaven’s sake not to
walk on his feet; he couldn’t get around the furniture any faster.
At the door of the den Mr. Harbison stopped, blinking in the light.
Then, when he saw us, he tried to back himself and his dishabille out
into the obscurity of the library. But Aunt Selina was too quick for
him.
“Come in,” she called, “I want you, young man. It seems that there are
only two fools in the house, and you are one.”
He straightened at that and looked bewildered, but he tried to smile.
“I thought I was the only one,” he said. “Is it possible that there is
another?”
“I am the other,” she announced. I think she expected him to say
“Impossible,” but, whatever he was, he was never banal.
“Is that so?” he asked politely, trying to be interested and to
understand at the same time. He had not seen me. He was gazing fixedly
at Bella, languishing on the divan and watching him with lowered lids,
and he had given Jim a side glance of contempt. But now he saw me and
he colored under his tan. His neck blushed furiously, being much whiter
than his face. He kept his eyes on mine, and I knew that he was mutely
asking forgiveness. But the thought of what was coming paralyzed me. My
eyes were glued to his as they had been that first evening when he had
called me “Mrs. Wilson,” and after an instant he looked away, and his
face was set and hard.
“It seems that we have all been playing a little comedy, Mr. Harbison,”
Aunt Selina began, nasally sarcastic. “Or rather, you and I have been
the audience. The rest have played.”
“I--I don’t think I understand,” he said slowly. “I have seen very
little comedy.”
“It was not well planned,” Aunt Selina retorted tartly. “The idea
was good, but the young person who was playing the part of Mrs.
Wilson--overacted.”
“Oh, come, Aunt Selina,” Jim protested, “Kit was coaxed and cajoled into
this thing. Give me fits if you like; I deserve all I get. But let Kit
alone--she did it for me.”
Bella looked over at me and smiled nastily.
“I would stop doing things for Jim, Kit,” she said. “It is SO
unprofitable.”
But Mr. Harbison harked back to Aunt Selina’s speech.
“PLAYING the part of Mrs. Wilson!” he repeated. “Do you mean--?”
“Exactly. Playing the part. She is not Mrs. Wilson. It seems that that
honor belonged at one time to Miss Knowles. I believe such things are
not unknown in New York, only why in the name of sense does a man want
to divorce a woman and then meet her at two o’clock in the morning to
kiss the place where his own wedding ring used to rest?”
Jim fidgeted. Bella was having spasms of mirth to herself, but the
Harbison man did not smile. He stood for a moment looking at the fire;
then he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his dressing gown, and
stalked over to me. He did not care that the others were watching and
listening.
“Is it true?” he demanded, staring down at me. “You are NOT Mrs. Wilson?
You are not married at all? All that about being neglected--and loathing
HIM, and all that on the roof--there was no foundation of truth?”
I could only shake my head without looking up. There was no defense to
be made. Oh, I deserved the scorn in his voice.
“They--they persuaded you, I suppose, and it was to help somebody? It
was not a practical joke?”
“No,” I rallied a little spirit at that. It had been anything but a
joke.
He drew a long breath.
“I think I understand,” he said slowly, “but--you could have saved me
something. I must have given you all a great deal of amusement.”
“Oh, no,” I protested. “I--I want to tell you--”
But he deliberately left me and went over to the door. There he turned
and looked down at Aunt Selina. He was a little white, but there was no
passion in his face.
“Thank you for telling me all this, Miss Caruthers,” he said easily.
“Now that you and I know, I’m afraid the others will miss their little
diversion. Good night.”
Oh, it was all right for Jim to laugh and say that he was only huffed
a little and would be over it by morning. I knew better. There was
something queer in his face as he went out. He did not even glance in my
direction. He had said very little, but he had put me as effectually in
the wrong as if he had not kissed me--deliberately kissed me--that very
evening, on the roof.
I did not go to sleep again. I lay wretchedly thinking things over and
trying to remember who Jezebel was, and toward morning I distinctly
heard the knob of the door turn. I mistrusted my ears, however, and so
I got up quietly and went over in the darkness. There was no sound
outside, but when I put my hand on the knob I felt it move under my
fingers. The counter pressure evidently alarmed whoever it was, for the
knob was released and nothing more happened. But by this time anything
so uncomplicated as the fumbling of a knob at night had no power to
disturb me. I went back to bed.