Gordon Perry looked up from his desk with an air of surprise. "Why,
Paul, I thought you'd shaken the dust of Benham from your feet until
the last of the month." Then noticing his client's face as they joined
hands, he added, "I hope nothing has gone wrong."
"Everything is wrong." Paul seated himself with grave deliberation.
"Are you at leisure? What I have to consult you about will take some
time."
"No one shall disturb us."
"It isn't business." Then, after a moment's silence, "It's my wife.
She has betrayed me."
"Your wife betrayed you?" Gordon, as in his bewilderment he echoed the
words, recalled a woman with a dainty figure, a small, sphinx-like
mouth, full cheeks devoid of color, and black hair. He had never been
at Paul's house, but he had been introduced to her, and he had
frequently seen her and her little girl driving in her victoria, a
picture of up-to-date fastidiousness. At the time of her marriage she
had been called the prettiest girl in Benham. She was the daughter of
a St. Louis contractor with a reputation for executive ability, who had
moved to Benham in her childhood to become the president of a
car-building company. Paul's friends had intimated that he had gone
rather out of his way to marry her. Certainly it had been considered a
brilliant match for her.
"Yes. It's a pretty kettle of fish, as you'll appreciate when you hear
the story; a hopeless case so far as our living together is concerned.
I've come to you for advice and to talk it over, though she and I
threshed out the situation four days ago.
"May I smoke? Thanks. You don't here, I know; but I go from cigar to
cigar to keep my nerves straight, for I'm still dazed, and I haven't
slept much."
"It's ghastly," murmured Gordon.
"Now that I look back I suppose I ought to have realized that she never
really cared for me. Perhaps the gradual, unconscious perception of
that reacted on me. I fell dead in love with her looks, and would have
worshipped the ground she trod on had she proved what I thought her to
be. As it is, I'm humiliated, angry, disgusted, all at sea. But I can
see that we should never be happy together again. Love in the true
sense is over on both sides. I tell you this, Gordon, to begin with.
You haven't heard anything?"
"Not a word."
"I thought it likely they had copied the item from the Newport into the
Benham newspapers. Five nights ago I popped at a man in my house with
a revolver--a long shot--just as he was escaping over the balcony
outside my wife's apartment, and missed. At the moment I would have
given half my fortune to kill him. I dare say, it's just as well I
didn't. There would have been a bigger scandal. It was one o'clock,
and someone who heard the noise--servants, I know not who--talked, and
two days later there appeared in one of the newspapers an allusion to
the mysterious midnight pistol shot on the Howard place. A reporter
called on me; I declined to see him, but my butler, who can be trusted,
had instructions to say I was shooting cats. That's all the public
knows as yet. Here's a nice problem for the women's debating clubs: A
man discovers his wife's lover in his place; ought he to shoot him like
a rat on the spot, or accept the situation for what it is worth, just
as he has to accept a death in the family, a fire, or any other
visitation of Providence? Eh?" Paul gave a short laugh. "Of course
the primitive man shot every time. But we can remember one husband who
did shoot and who killed, and that all the exquisite people and some of
the wise people shook their heads and declared he ought to have thought
of his daughters. There was a world-wide scandal, and after the
funeral we were told that the husband had always been a crank, in proof
of which he died later in an insane asylum, while his wife has hovered
on the outskirts of the smart set ever since as a sort of blessed
martyr to the rigor of conventions. No, my dear fellow, the only
decent thing for me to do now is to compromise myself deliberately with
some common woman, so as to give my wife the chance to obtain a divorce
from me. That is the duty of the gallant modern husband, according to
the nicest and latest fashionable code."
"You will do nothing of the kind, Paul."
"Wait until you have mulled over it as I have, For the sake of my
little girl her mother's reputation must be sacred."
"I see. Then her misconduct is not known?"
"It's a profound secret. That is, no one has seen her in the act, but
it seems that all Newport except myself has taken it for granted and
been whispering about it all summer. It began last summer, dolt that I
was. But it's not known officially. That is, the newspapers have not
got on to it." Paul made a movement of impatience and, rising, took a
turn or two across the office. He stopped in front of Gordon and said:
"Mind you, the temptation to kill him like a rat was not presented to
me. I don't say I would have done it. I don't know what I would have
done under all the circumstances--the gruesome circumstances--had we
been face to face and he unarmed. He heard me and fled by the window.
I was in the ante-room and stepped out on the balcony, and running
round merely saw a disappearing figure. I did not know who he was, but
I surmised; and on the spur of the moment I felt it was almost a
hopeless shot. Who do you suppose he was?"
"I have no idea, of course."
"Guess."
"It would be useless. I know no one at Newport except yourself, Paul."
"Oh, yes, you do. Here's situation number two in the tragedy. It was
my cousin Lucille's husband, Clarence Waldo."
"For Heaven's sake!" Gordon ejaculated. "It can't be possible."
Paul's laugh broke forth again. "Stunning, isn't it? No dramatist can
improve on that. But I can. I know what you're thinking," he said,
folding his arms, as he stood before Gordon with a saturnine glee, as
though he were enjoying the other's consternation. "You're wondering
what Mrs. Wilson will say?"
Gordon shook his head. "It is terrible for her, of course. But I was
thinking of your poor cousin."
"Spare your pity in that quarter, man, until you know the truth.
Situation number three! Lucille and her husband have fallen out,
agreed to differ, ceased to love each other, never have loved each
other, and are to be divorced as soon as circumstances will permit.
Waldo is to marry my wife, and she--Lucille--has plighted her troth to
Bradbury Nicholson, of New York, a son of the president of the Chemical
Trust, of whom she is enamoured, and with whom, it seems, she has been
carrying on clandestinely for months. Didn't I tell you I could
improve on myself? The curtain now to red fire and the strains of
Tschaikowsky!"
Paul flung himself into his chair, and squared his jaw. For a moment
he looked like his father.