The princess was too human not to be delighted to obey this suggestion, and too well-bred to take an unfair advantage of it. She talked a long time about herself, and then about the Haines Heating Corporations.
And then they talked about him. In fact they talked all the rest of the night—as continuously as schoolgirls, as honestly as old friends, as ecstatically as lovers; and yet, of course, they were not schoolgirls or old friends, and even less lovers. They were two middle-aged people, so real and so fastidious in their different ways that they had not found many people whom they liked; and they had suddenly and utterly unexpectedly found each other.
They were interrupted by the entrance of a housemaid with a broom and a duster. She gave a smothered exclamation and withdrew. Haines looked at his watch. It was half past seven.
He got up and pulled the curtains back. A pale clear pink-and-green winter morning was just beginning to shine upon the park, glittering in snow and ice.
"At home," said Lisa, "I should consider what we have just done as rather irregular."
"In this country," he answered, "you can do anything if you have sufficient integrity to do it."
"How can I tell whether I have or not?" she asked.
He smiled again. "I have enough for both," he answered. "Luckily or unluckily"—and he sighed as he repeated it—"luckily or unluckily."
"Oh, luckily; luckily, of course," said Lisa, though there was just a trace of annoyance in her voice that this was so clear. She held out her hand.
"Good-by," she said.
He took her hand, and then from his great height he did something that no one had ever done to the princess before—he patted her on the head. "You're all right," he said, and sighed and turned away—as it were, dismissing her.
She went upstairs to her own room—which seemed altered, as backgrounds do alter with changes in ourselves. It was no longer a room in Charlotte's house but in Haines'; and she was leaving it, leaving it in a few hours. She did not debate that at all. She was going with her son, but there was something that must be done before she went—something that she must do for this new friend of hers whom she would never, probably, see again.
She did not have much time to think it over, for when her breakfast tray came in, as usual, at nine, Charlotte came with it—striking just the note the princess hoped she wouldn't strike—apology.
"I suppose your son told you what happened last night. So silly. I'm so ashamed."
"Ashamed?" said the princess, and she noted that her tone had something of the neutrality of Haines' own. She had copied him.
"Ashamed of Dan," answered Charlotte. "That's so like him—not to understand—just to take the crude view of it. I haven't seen him since, but I know so well how he would take a thing like that. As a matter of fact, I must tell you, Lisa—though I promised that I wouldn't—Raimundo was asking my help. He wants to marry the little Haines girl; he wants me to bring you round. He knows you hate everything American—"
"I don't hate everything American," said the princess, and again her voice sounded in her ears like Haines'.
"This girl, you know, is Dan's niece, and exactly like him. And now I'm afraid that will do for her, as far as you're concerned. Of course you must hate Dan—the idea of him—and if you saw him—well, you will see him at dinner tonight."
The moment had come. The princess shook her head.
"No," she said, "I shan't be at dinner tonight."
Charlotte looked at her and then broke out into protest: "No, no, you mustn't go. Let Raimundo go, if he must, but not you. Don't desert me, Lisa, because I have the misfortune to be married to a man who does not understand. Oh, to think that anything should have happened in my house that has hurt your feelings! I shall never forgive Dan—never! But don't go—for my sake, Lisa."
"It's for your sake I'm going, my dear."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't, and it is going to be so difficult to explain." The princess rose and, going to the looking-glass, stared at herself, pushed back her hair from her forehead, and then turned suddenly back to her friend. "I suppose I seem to you a terribly worn-out old creature."
"My dear!" cried Charlotte. "You seem to me the most elegant, the most mysterious, the most charming person I ever knew."
Lisa could not help smiling at this spontaneous outburst. "Then," she said, "let me tell you that the most charming person you ever knew has fallen in love with your husband." Charlotte's jaw literally dropped, and the princess went on: "Yes, last night when Raimundo came and told me what had happened, I went downstairs. I wanted to do what I could to protect you from his thoughtlessness. I went down expecting to see the kind of man you have painted your husband. Oh, Charlotte, what a terrible goose you are!"
Even then Charlotte did not immediately understand. She continued to stare. At last she said, "You mean you liked Dan?"
"I did much more than that. I thought him the most vital, the most exciting, the most romantic figure I had ever seen."
"Dan?"
The princess nodded. "The power of the world in his hands—and so alone. I said just now I had fallen in love with him. Well, I suppose at my age one doesn't fall in love, even if one talks to a man all night—"
"You and he talked all night?"
"All night long—all night long."
Charlotte looked quickly at her friend, blinked her eyes, looked away and looked back again. It was not for nothing that her black eyebrows almost met—a sign, the physiognomists tell us, of a jealous nature.
The whole process of her thought was on her face. She had never been jealous of her husband in all her life before—but then, she had never before brought him face to face with perfection. She summed it up in her first sentence.
"Dan is no fool," she said. "He felt as you did?"
The princess smiled. "Ah, Charlotte!" she said. "An Italian woman would not have asked that. You must find that out for yourself."
There was a short silence, and then Charlotte got up and walked toward the door.
It was evident that she was going to find out at once. But the princess had one more salutary blow for her. She was standing now with her elbow on the mantelpiece and her eyes fixed on the little spare-room picture, and just as Charlotte reached the door Lisa spoke.
"Oh!" she said. "One other thing. Don't despise this little picture that your husband bought. It's the best thing you have."
This was a little too much. "Not better than my Guardis," Charlotte wailed, for she would never think of disputing the princess' judgment.
"The Guardis are like you, Charlotte," said the princess; "they are excellent copies. But this little picture is original—it's American—it's the real thing."
Nan felt a sense of drama as she rang the bell of her friend's house. The houses in the row were all exactly alike, built of a new small dark-red brick, and each was set on a little square of new turf, as smooth and neat as an emerald-green handkerchief. To make matters harder, the house numbers were not honest numerals, but loops of silver ribbon festooned above the front door bell, so that Nan had almost mistaken the five she was looking for for the three next door.
She had not seen her friend for four years; and four years is a long time—a sixth of your entire life when you are only twenty-four. It seemed to her that they had been immensely young when they had parted; and yet she had never been too young to appreciate Letitia—even that first day back in the dark ages of childhood when they had found their desks next to each other at school. Even then Letitia had been captivating—lovely to look at, and gay; and, though it seemed a strange word to use about a child in short dresses, elegant. She came of the best blood in America; indeed, in the American-history class it was quite embarrassing because so many of the statesmen and generals whom the teacher praised or condemned were ancestors of Letitia's. She was a red-gold creature with deep sky-blue eyes, and, at that remote period, freckles, which she had subsequently succeeded in getting rid of.
She had charmed Nan from the first moment—nonethe less that Nan understood her weaknesses as well as her charms. No one could say that Letitia was untruthful; to lie was quite outside her code; but if at seven minutes past eight she was late, she said it was barely eight o'clock, and if you were late she said it was almost a quarter past. Someone had once observed to her mother that Letitia distorted facts, and Mrs. Lewis, had replied, after an instant of deliberation, "Well, undoubtedly she molds them."
She molded them particularly in conversation with the opposite sex; she could not bear any competition as far as her admirers were concerned. Strangely enough, though Letitia was much the prettier and more amusing of the two girls, she was always a little jealous of Nan, whereas Nan was never at all jealous of her. Letty herself explained the reason for this once in one of her flashes of vision: "It's because whatever you get from people is your own—founded on a rock, Nan; but I fake it so—I get a lot that doesn't belong to me—and so I'm always in terror of being found out."
After their schooldays the girls had seen a great deal of each other. Nan's father was a professor in a small college, and it was pleasant to be asked to stay with the Lewises in their tiny New York flat. It was also agreeable to Letitia to be invited to share in commencement festivities with their prolonged opportunities to fascinate. Then Nan's father had accepted an appointment in China; but the separation did not lessen the intimacy—perhaps it even increased it; you can write so freely to a person living thousands of miles away. Letitia had written with the utmost freedom to her friend, who atthat distance could not in any way be regarded as a competitor.
Letitia always described the new people she was seeing, and Nan noticed that the first mention of Roger in her letters had in it something sharply defined and significant:
"I sat next the most romantic-looking boy I ever saw. No, my dear, no occasion for excitement; he must be years younger than I am; but the most beautiful person you ever saw—hollow-cheeked, broad-browed like that picture you adore so of Father Damien, oh perhaps I'm thinking of an illustration of Rossetti; and he can talk, too, I promise you. He's an experimental chemist in some great manufacturing company, which at this age—"
In the next letter it appeared that he wasn't really years younger—hardly a year; in fact, nothing to speak of. Letitia began to write a good deal about the scientific point of view—its stimulating quality—its powers of observation—its justice—"almost as just as you are, Nan."
Nan waited for each letter as if it were the next installment of a serial. She had seen Letitia through a good many such affairs, and she knew that before long her friend would stage a quarrel. It was a good way, Letty said, of finding out how much he cared; although, as a matter of fact, Nan noticed that she never precipitated it until she was sure the unfortunate man in question cared enough to be at a disadvantage.
But in Roger's case, when she had said sadly, "I'm afraid, Mr. Rossiter, that this means our friendship is ended," he had answered without a word of pleading, "Yes, I'm quite sure it does."
Letitia, a little startled, had asked, "What? You wish it too?"
"No," he had said; "but the fact that you do ends it automatically."
She had some difficulty in extricating herself from her own ultimatum. Naturally, her respect for him increased.
"I'm almost glad you are not here, Nan," she wrote. "He is so honest he could not help loving your honesty. I feel as if together, somehow, you would both find me out."
She inclosed a little photograph of him to show Nan what a splendid-looking person he was; but it was not his beauty she dwelt upon, but his straight, keen eyes and the fine firmness of his mouth—not the determination of the self-conscious bulldog, which so many people assume in a photograph, but just a nice steely fixity of purpose. Yes, Nan, far away in China, with plenty of leisure for reflection, found that for the first time she envied her friend.
A little later a real honest quarrel was reported. Letitia, habitually unpunctual, was three-quarters of an hour late for an appointment, and he simply had not waited for her. Under her anger Nan could catch her admiration for the first man who had dared not to wait.
"I explained to him that I could not help it, and all he said was: 'You could have helped it if I had been a train.' Of course, everything is over—he does not know how to behave."
No letter at all came in the next mail, and the announcement of her engagement in the one following:
"Fortunately—and wonderfully—mamma likes him, for, as you know, it would have been awfully hard to marry a man if she hated him."
It would indeed; or, rather, Nan thought, it would have been difficult for Letitia to fall in love with a man Mrs. Lewis did not approve of, for she had a wonderful gift of phrase—just, but cruel—by which budding sentiments could be cut off as by a knife. Nan had seen her more than once prune away a growing romance from Letitia's life with a deft, hideously descriptive sentence. Each time Nan had been in complete sympathy with her.
She usually did agree with Mrs. Lewis, who was the most brilliant woman she had ever known—and almost the most alarming. She saw life not only steadily and whole, and in the darkest colors, but she reported most frankly on what she saw. Frauds, or even people mildly artificial, dreaded Mrs. Lewis as they did the plague. Letitia herself would have dreaded her if she had not been her daughter. It said a great deal for Roger Rossiter's integrity that his future mother-in-law liked him. It also said something for his financial situation. Mrs. Lewis had always intended her child to marry someone with money.
"It is not exactly that I'm mercenary," she said. "I don't want Letitia to be specially magnificent; but I want her to have everything else, and money too. Why not?"
So when Nan heard the marriage had actually taken place, she felt pretty sure Roger must have enough to support Letty comfortably. It was really astonishing, she thought, how much she knew about him, this man she had never seen, more than she knew about lots of peopleshe saw constantly. And so, as she rang the bell of his house, she had something of the same excitement that she might have had on seeing the curtain rise on a play about which she had heard endless discussion. At last she was going to be able to judge it for herself.
A Swedish maidservant came to the door—a nice-looking woman with an exaggerated opinion of her own knowledge of English. She almost refused Nan admittance—just to be on the safe side; but Letitia's cheerful shout intervened.
"Is that you at last, Nan?"
The two girls were quickly clasped in each other's arms—not so quickly that Nan did not see that Letitia was lovelier than ever—happier—more alive—more golden.
It was about noon when Nan arrived. She was to stay not only for luncheon but for dinner, so as to see Roger, who never got home until five o'clock, and possibly later today, for he had been in Albany the night before and might find extra things waiting for him at the office when he returned to it. Both mothers were motoring from town for lunch—in Mrs. Rossiter's car—so that the only time the friends could count on was now, immediately, this hour and a half. Letitia was awfully sorry, but she didn't see how she could have arranged it differently.
Nan smiled at that well-remembered phrase of her friend's. As a matter of fact, she was not sorry the mothers were coming. She was curious to see Roger's mother, who, for a mother with an only son, had behaved with the most astonishing cordiality about the marriage. A well-to-do widow, she had given Roger a good part ofher income. Letty's letters had referred to her as an angel; and Nan was always eager to see Mrs. Lewis at any time. Only she and Letty must waste no time, but set immediately about a process known to them as catching up. This meant that they each asked questions, listening to the answers only so long as they appeared to contain new matter, and then ruthlessly interrupting with a new question. Thus:
"Have you seen Bee since she—"
"Oh, I meant to tell you—she never did."
"Isn't that just like her? She always reminds me of—"
"Yes, you wrote me—Roger simply loved it. You knew that Hubert—"
"Yes, he cabled me. I thought it was you he—"
"So did I—so did he, for that matter—only mamma once said of him—"
"Oh, my dear, that heavenly thing about the scrubbing brush! Isn't she priceless—your mother? And she really likes Roger?"
"Crazy about him—thinks him too good for me."
And so they came to talk about the really important subject—Letty's marriage—Roger's wisdom and kindness and generosity. It amused and delighted Nan to hear her friend talking of men from the point of view of a person who owned one. Mrs. Lewis, who had long ago been obliged to part from an impossible husband, had always been a little more aloof from men, a little more contemptuous of them than of women; and Letitia, although her life was occupied with nothing else, had regarded them as an exciting, possibly hostile and certainlyalien tribe. Now it was wonderful to hear her identify herself with a man's point of view— "We think—" "We feel—"
Not for a long time did the old remote tone creep in. They were speaking of men in general, and Letitia said suddenly:
"Tell me something, Nan—you have brothers—do you think the cleverest of them are a little silly about women?"
Nan's heart gave a leap. Letitia was looking intent.
"Running after women, you mean?"
"Oh, no!" Letty was quite shocked at the suggestion. "No, I mean believing everything they say. Roger repeats the most fatuous things women say to him, as if they had any importance."
Letitia twisted her eyebrows in distress only half comic.
Nan hesitated; she knew just the sort of thing Letitia must have in mind.
"Well," she said, "I think men often seem rather naïve—particularly scientific men."
"Yes," Letty agreed quickly, "and of course Roger has always been so busy. He has never gone about much; but still, he'll say driving home, 'Did you ever think, Letty, that I was a specially dominating sort of person? Mrs.'—somebody or other whom he sat next to—'said I was the kind of man who if I couldn't dominate a woman might kill her.' That old stuff, Nan, that we've all used and discarded. Or he'll look in the glass and say, 'Honestly, I can't see that my eyes—'It makes me feel ashamed, Nan."
Oh, dear, Nan thought, she could have made Lettyunderstand, if she had had brothers, that these were a man's moments of confidence, attaching and friendly, like the talk she and Letty were having at that moment. It wasn't fair to judge a man by such moments any more than to judge girls by silly giggling confidences to one another. Yes, that was it—men let down the bars of their egotism to the woman they loved, and maintained a certain reserve with their men friends, while women, just the other way—
"Oh, mercy, Nan, you're so just!" Letitia broke out. "If you were in love with a man, you'd want him to appear well all the time."
There was a ring at the bell and the sound of a motor panting at the door. The two mothers had arrived, and the subject of man's gullibility had to be dropped, as the two friends hurried downstairs.
As they went Nan whispered, "Do the mothers like each other?"
Letitia smiled, shaking her head.
"No; but they think they do."
No two women of the same age and country could have been more utterly different than the two mothers. Mrs. Rossiter, who must have been rather pretty once, was still ruffled and jeweled like a young beauty; and her diction, though not exactly baby talk, had in it a lisp somewhat reminiscent of the nursery. There was a lot of gentle fussing about her wrap and gloves and lorgnette and purse—and a photograph of Roger she had been having framed for Letty, and a basket of fruit she had brought from town. The little hallway was quite filled with the effort of getting her settled. Mrs. Lewis, on thecontrary, who not only had been but still was as beautiful as a cameo, was also as quiet as a statue, watching with a sort of icy wonder the long process of unwrapping Mrs. Rossiter.
"Your dear little house," Mrs. Rossiter was saying, trying to blow the mesh veil from between her lips, while she undid the pin at the back of a frilled hat which would have looked equally well on a child of seven. "It is a dear little house, isn't it, Miss Perkins? But you must let me call you Nan. We all call you Nan—even Roger. He's so excited about your coming home. He said to Letitia only yesterday, 'I feel as if I had known Nan all my life.' Didn't he? You'll let me go up, dear, won't you? One does get a little bit grubby motoring, doesn't one?"
She was led upstairs by her daughter-in-law.
Mrs. Lewis patted the hair behind her ear with a brisk gesture.
"I don't confess to any special grubbiness," she said with her remorselessly exact enunciation. "Well, Nan, that's what sons do to their mothers; almost consoles me for never having had a son. Letty thinks she's perfection—that's marriage, I suppose. How do you think Letty seems?"
"Wonderful—wonderfully happy, Mrs. Lewis."
"She ought to be. Roger is a very splendid person."
"You really like him?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Lewis as one facing a possible charge of sentimentality; "yes, I really do."
"No criticisms at all?"
"Oh, come, Nan," answered the older woman, "remember who it is you're talking to. When you find me without criticisms you'll find me in my grave. I have endless criticism of him—of that cooing aged seraph who has just gone up to powder her elderly nose—even of my own daughter; but still, I do say that Roger is a fine man as men go—and that is saying a good deal."
It was saying more than Nan had ever expected to hear Mrs. Lewis say of her son-in-law, and she was content.
Presently the nose powderer came down, still cooing, and they went in to luncheon. It was a pleasant meal. The little room was full of sunlight; the Swede, though a poor linguist, was a good waitress; the food was excellent, and the talk, though not brilliant, for it was absorbed by Mrs. Rossiter, was kind and friendly; and Nan had been so many years away that she enjoyed just the sense of intimacy. They were talking about Roger—his health—how hard he worked.
"I really think," said his mother, shaking her head solemnly, "that you and he ought to go abroad. I think it's your duty."
"I'm not sure Roger means to take a holiday at all, Mrs. Rossiter," answered Letitia. "You see, he did take two weeks in the winter when we were married."
"If that may be called a holiday," said Mrs. Lewis. No one noticed her, and Mrs. Rossiter pressed on:
"Not take a holiday! Oh, Letty, he must! You must make him! He'll break down. Remember, he's only twenty-four. The strain at his age— You agreewith me, don't you, Mrs. Lewis? If you had a son of twenty-four, you would not want him to work steadily all the year round?"
"If I had a son," replied Mrs. Lewis, "I should be surprised if he ever found a job. The men of my family have always been out of a job."
There was a ring at the front door and the Swede went to answer it.
"Now that Meta is out of the room, Lett," said her mother, "might I suggest that you never allow her to answer the telephone? She always begins the conversation by stoutly denying that anyone of your name lives here."
Mrs. Rossiter gave a little scream of laughter and a gesture of her hand with the fingers self-consciously crooked.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "how perfect that is! How exact!"
Mrs. Lewis looked at her coldly, as much as to say she had not intended to be, and, as a matter of fact, had not been so humorous as all that.
Then Meta returned to the room, and with the manner of beaming surprise which never left her—except on the rare occasions when she simply burst into tears—she announced that there was a policeman in the hall, come after Mr. Rossiter. At least, this was what she seemed to say; but there was enough doubt about it to keep the two mothers fairly calm, while Letitia ran out of the room to find out the truth
"Do you suppose he's met with some horrible accident?" Mrs. Rossiter asked tremulously.
"More likely to have parked his car somewhere he ought not to have," answered Mrs. Lewis; but Letitia, knowing her well, saw that her secret thought was darker than her words. All three women remained silent after this, listening for some sound from the hall, until Letitia came back. She was holding herself very straight and her face was white.
She came straight to the table and said in a low firm voice, "There is some mistake, of course; but this man has come to arrest Roger."
"To arrest him!" cried his mother. "For what?"
"For murder," answered Letitia simply.
It is only men who break news with slow agony to women—women are more direct in dealing with each other.
Mrs. Rossiter gave a little cry, and then all four were silent, and in the pause Meta came in from the pantry and, deceived, by the quietness, began to clear the side table.
When they were in the sitting room, with the door shut, Letitia told them as much of the story as she had been able to get from the policeman. According to his account, Roger had been not in Albany the night before but in Paterson—yes, he did sometimes go there for the company; but he never stayed there overnight. He had gone to a cheap dance hall—no, not at all like Roger, though he did love dancing—and afterward had gone to supper with a man and woman. She was a concert hall singer, or something of the kind. There had been a row. The man had first gone away in a fury and then put his pride in his pocket and had come back—haddrunk a cup of coffee of Roger's brewing—and had dropped dead. The woman had confessed—
"It obviously isn't true," said Nan, and somehow her voice seemed to ring out too loudly.
"Of course not," answered three voices in varying tones; and none of them had the trumpet ring of complete conviction. Nan stared from one to the other, and saw that each was busy with a plan to save him. Well, that perhaps was love—to be more concerned with the dear one's physical safety than with his moral integrity. When the first shock was over, when they had had time to think, they would see as clearly as she did that the whole thing was utterly impossible.
But they were not thinking it over. They were talking about telephoning his office—whether it would be wise, whether the telephone wires could be tapped. Mrs. Rossiter was pleading that something should be done at once, and blocking every action that Letitia suggested. It was finally decided to telephone his office. The telephone was upstairs in her bedroom, and as Letitia opened the sitting-room door she revealed the policeman on a hard William-and-Mary chair in the hall. He had taken off his cap and showed a head of thinning fuzzy blond hair. He looked undressed, out of place, menacing. Mrs. Rossiter was upset by the sight and began to cry. Mrs. Lewis, who hated tears, cast a quick look at her and followed her daughter out of the room.
Nan, left alone with Roger's mother, felt the obligation of attempting comfort. She patted her shoulder.
"Don't cry, dear Mrs. Rossiter. It will turn out to be some stupid mistake."
"Oh, of course, of course, it's a mistake!"
Mrs. Rossiter wiped her eyes bravely and put her handkerchief away. "But he works so hard, Nan; up at seven and never back at home until six—drudgery—and he's so young—so terribly young never to have any fun."
And, more touched by her word picture of facts than by the facts themselves, the tears rose again in her eyes.
"Some people would think it quite a lot of fun to be married to Letitia," said Nan gently.
But Mrs. Rossiter only shook her head, repeating, "It's all my fault—all my fault!"
"How can it be your fault, Mrs. Rossiter?" Nan asked a little sharply.
Mrs. Rossiter glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one had reëntered the room while her nose was in her handkerchief.
"He never was in love with Letitia—not really, you know—not romantically," she said. "And when a young, ardent boy like Roger is tied for life—to an older woman—whom he doesn't really love—what can you expect?"
This view of the case was so unexpected to Nan that she could hardly receive it.
"Letitia believes he loves her," she said.
"Does she?" answered Mrs. Rossiter in a tone that made the question a contradiction. "Or does she only try to believe it? Or it may be she doesn't know what it is to have a man really in love with her. These modern girls—"
"More men have been in love with Letitia than with any girl I ever knew," said Nan firmly. "And unlessyour son has definitely told you that he does not love her—"
"Of course he hasn't done that," returned his mother, more shocked at the idea than she had been at the suggestion of murder. "He's loyal, poor boy. It wasn't necessary for him to tell me. I know my son, Nan, and I know love. There wasn't a spark—not one—on his side at least. But she never let him alone; every day a telephone or a letter, or even a telegram. He was touched, I suppose, by her devotion. That isn't love, though. I might have saved him. I ought to have spoken out and said, 'Dear boy, you do not love this woman.' I did hint at it several times, but he pretended to think I was in fun. Nan, they were like brother and sister—or, no, more like an old married couple—no romance. If they had been married twenty years, you would have said, 'It's nice to see them so companionable.' Now it's only natural that love should come to him in some wild and terrible form like this—an outlet—the poor child." There were steps in the hall, and she added quickly, "But, of course, I would not have them know I thought the thing possible."
The footsteps belonged to Letitia. She entered, bringing word that Roger had not been at the office; he had been expected about noon from Albany—yes, they had said Albany, but it was only a clerk. They had been expecting to hear from him, but knew nothing of his whereabouts. Letty was too young to look aged by anxiety, but she looked like a water color in process of being washed out. Not only her cheeks but her hair and eyes, and even her skin, seemed to have lost their color. Nanhad never seen her friend suffering. She had seen her angry or jealous or wounded, but never like this. Her heart went out to the girl. She managed to get Mrs. Rossiter away to telephone to her son at his club, on the unlikely possibility that he might have stopped there. Left alone with Letty she said:
"My dear, I know just how ugly and painful this is; but do remember that in a few hours it will all be explained and you will be telling it as an amusing story."
"I know, of course," said Letitia, as if she were listening to a platitude; and then she added, "Did you happen to bring any money with you? You see, the banks are closed now."
Nan could hardly believe her ears.
"Yes," she said, "I have; but why should you need it just now?"
"I shan't need it, of course," said Letitia hastily; "but in times like this you think of all sorts of possibilities. If we did have to leave the country at a second's notice—"
Her voice died way under Nan's look of disapproval.
"Would you go with him if he did?" said Nan, wondering how a woman could love a man so much and understand him so little.
"Go with him!" cried Letitia. "I'd hang with him if I could! Oh, Nan, you don't know what it is to love a person as I love Roger! I believe I could be perfectly happy exiled, hunted, poor, in some impossible South Sea island, if I could only have him all to myself. While I was upstairs I put a few things in a bag; I brought it down and left it in the hall, and I thought that you couldtake it with you when you go. That couldn't excite any suspicion, and then if I have to leave in a hurry—"
Nan could not let her go on like this.
"Letitia," she said in a sharp tone, as if rousing a sleeper, "you simply can't talk like that. You must believe in your husband's innocence. Your face alone would hang him."
"I do believe in it," answered Letitia; "only I can't help seeing some terrible coincidences. There is no one in the world knows more about poisons than Roger does. He is always talking about the Borgias and what they used. And after all, Nan, I was brought up to face facts. There is a streak of weakness in Roger where women are concerned—a certain vanity."
"There is in every man."
"And then, Nan, I love my mother-in-law; but I can't help seeing she did not bring him up right. She spoiled him; not that she made him selfish or self-indulgent—no one could do that to Roger; but she did give him too much confidence in his own ability to arrange any situation. He jumps into anything— Oh, can't you see how he might easily be led on to do something like this?"
"No," said Nan; "no. I'm not his wife—I never saw him, but I feel sure he did not do this."
Perhaps her manner was more offensive than she meant it to be; but for some reason Letty's rather alarming calm suddenly broke into anger.
"That's impertinent, Nan," she said. "Why should you always think you understand better than anyone else? He's my husband. If you had any delicacy of feeling, you'd admit that if anyone knew the truth abouthim, I do—not you, who never saw him. It's easy enough for you to come preaching the beauty of perfect faith. Don't you suppose I'd believe in him if I could?" And so on and on. It was as if she hated Nan for believing in him when she didn't.
Nan let her talk for a few minutes, and then at the first pause she got up and walked to the door. "I think I'll go and sit with your mother," she said.
"Don't tell her what I've been saying—don't tell her that I have doubt of Roger."
"You know I would not do that, Letty."
"I don't know what you'd do in your eternal wish to know more about people than anyone else knows."
Nan left the room with a heavy heart. Did she want to be omniscient? Was it impertinent to be surer of a man's innocence than his wife was? Well, if he were innocent, Letitia would never forgive her—that was clear.
She found Mrs. Lewis alone in an upper room. She was standing looking out the window, her arms folded, her body tilted slightly backward, while she crooned sadly to herself. As Nan entered she shook her head slowly at her.
"The poor child," she said.
"Roger or Letty?"
"Oh, both; but, of course, I was thinking of my own."
"Mrs. Lewis, do you believe he's guilty?"
"No, my dear—nor innocent. I don't believe anything. I simply don't know. When you get to be my age, Nan, you will understand that anything is possible; the wicked do the most splendid things at times, and the virtuous dothe most awful. I don't know whether Roger did this or not. He may have. It may even have been the right thing to do, although poison—well, I'm surprised Roger descended to that."
With this point of view Nan had some sympathy, although she felt obliged to protest a little.
"You said he was the finest man you had ever known."
"I thought so—I think so still—but what does one know about such people? An utterly different class, a different background. I'm as good a democrat as anybody, but there is something in tradition. Oh, I see you don't know. Well, the father was a plumber. Yes, my dear, little as you might think it, that ruffled marquise downstairs is the widow of a plumber. How do we know what people like that will do or not do when their passions are roused? It nearly killed me to have Letitia marry him."
"I thought you liked the marriage, Mrs. Lewis."
"That's where I blame myself, Nan. I let it get out of my control. I hesitated. I admired the man. He had plenty of money; and of course the mother was delighted to get such a wife for her son, and made it all too terribly easy. And then he was mad about Letty."
"Wasn't she mad about him too?"
Mrs. Lewis shook her head.
"Not at first; but he was always there—always writing and coming. I don't suppose I ever came into the flat in those days without finding a message that Letty was to call—whatever his number was—as soon as she came in. He's a determined man and he meant to get her."
"She is tremendously in love with him now."
Mrs. Lewis sighed.
"Ah, yes, now, poor child—of course. Don't betray me, Nan. Don't let those two downstairs know that I have a doubt. She's a sweet creature—the plumber's widow—though to me irritating; and she wouldn't doubt anyone in the world, let alone her darling son; and, of course, Letitia does not think it possible that her husband can have killed a man, especially for the sake of another woman."
"Have you ever heard a suspicion that there was another woman?" Nan asked.
"No; but then I shouldn't be likely to. We three women are the last people in the world to hear it, even if it were notorious."
Nan was obliged to admit the truth of this; and presently Mrs. Lewis, fearing that her absence might appear unfriendly, decided to go back to the sitting room.
Nan said she was coming, too, but stood a minute staring at the carpet. What was it, she wondered, made her so passionately eager that Roger should be innocent? Was it love of her friend, or pride of opinion, or interest in abstract truth, or interest in a man she had never seen? She had a strange feeling of a bond between her and Roger. As she went slowly down the stairs, her eye fell again upon the police officer, shifting, patient, but uncomfortable on the William-and-Mary chair. A sudden inspiration came to her. She asked to see the warrant.
Well, it was just as she thought—not for Roger at all, but for a man whose last name was Rogers, who lived in a house two away. The number wasn't even right; but that was more the fault of the real-estate company thanof the police department. She took the officer outside and showed him his mistake, and finally had the satisfaction of shutting the door forever on that blue-coated figure.
She turned toward the sitting room. To break good news is not always so easy, either. She thought of those three doubters, each one trying to show the others how full her heart was of complete confidence.
Nan opened the door, went in, shut it behind her and leaned on the knob.
"Now, you three," she said, "you've been wonderful in bad times; try to be equally calm in good." They looked up at her, wondering what good news was possible, and she hurried on: "The policeman has gone. The warrant was not for Roger at all."
There was a pause, hardly broken in any real sense by the sound of Mrs. Rossiter repeating that she had always known it could not be true—had always known it could not be Roger.
"Still," said Mrs. Lewis with an amused sidelong glance, "it is a comfort that now the police know it too."
But Nan's eyes had never left her friend's face. Letty did not say a word. She rose and stared straight at Nan, looking at her almost as if she were an enemy. Nan knew that Mrs. Rossiter would forget that she had ever doubted her son—had already forgotten and was crooning her faith and joy. Mrs. Lewis had nothing to forget. She had merely expressed an agnostic attitude; but Letitia had revealed to Nan the very depths of her estimate of her husband—and she had been wrong and Nan right. She would never forgive that.
Except for this change in the relation between the two younger women, in five minutes it was as if the whole incident had never occurred. Mrs. Rossiter was again the devoted mother-in-law, Letitia the happy bride, and Mrs. Lewis was saying, "Which brings us back to the point I was making when the fatal ring came—it is a mistake to let Meta answer either the door or the telephone."
In a little while Mrs. Rossiter announced that she must be going, and Nan was not surprised when Mrs. Lewis, who had had a few minutes alone with her daughter, suggested that Nan should go back with them and spend the night with her.
"But I promised Letty—" she began, and then glancing at her friend she saw that she was expected to accept.
Letitia spoke civilly, kindly, as if she were doing everyone a favor.
"Oh, I let you off," she said. "Mamma is all alone, and I know how you and she enjoy picking all the rest of us to pieces."
Nan hesitated rebelliously. It seemed hard that she was not to see Roger just because she had understood him too well.
She said, "But I want so much to see Roger."
Mrs. Lewis glanced at her. It was not like a girl to be so obstinate. Of course, poor Letty wanted her husband to herself after a shock like this.
"Roger will keep," she said firmly.
She went into the hall and picked up her scarf from the companion chair to that on which the policeman had sat.As she did so her eye fell upon a bag standing as if ready for a journey.
"Is that your bag, Nan?" she asked, trying to remember if the plan had ever been that Nan was to spend the night.
"No," said Letitia in a quick sharp voice; "that's something of mine."
And then, without the least warning, the front door opened and Roger himself walked in—walked in without any idea that he had been a murderer, arrested, extradited, defended and freed since he had last seen his own house.
He was just as Nan knew he would be. She didn't care anything about his mere beauty. It was that fine firm mouth of his—just like the photograph. How could anyone imagine that a man with a mouth like that—
He greeted his wife, his mother, his mother-in-law casually, and came straight to Nan.
"So this is Nan—at last," he said, and he stooped and kissed her cheek.
Well, Nan said to herself, she had a right to that; but she saw Letty's brow contract; and Mrs. Lewis, who perhaps saw it, too, hurried her toward the car. Roger protested.
"But you're not taking Nan! I came home early especially to see her. I did not even go back to the office for fear of being detained." But, of course, his lonely protest accomplished nothing, and as he opened the front door for the three departing women, he asked, "When am I to see you, Nan?"
Nan looked up at him very sweetly and said "Never."She said it lightly, but she knew it was the bitter truth. She knew Letitia. Letitia would never permit a second meeting.
Just as she got into the car she heard him call, "Oh, isn't this your bag?" and she heard Letty answer:
"No, it's mine. It represents one of Nan's abandoned ideas."
Strange, unnatural conventions were growing up about divorce, Cora reflected. The world expected you to appear as completely indifferent to a man when once your decree was granted as it had assumed you to be uniquely devoted to him as long as the marriage tie held. Here she was, sitting at her ease in her little apartment; she had bitten her toast, poured out her coffee, opened her mail—a dinner invitation, a letter from her architect about the plans for her new house, a bill for her brocade slippers, an announcement of a picture exhibition, and— As she moved the last envelope from its position on the morning newspaper her eye fell for the first time on the account of Valentine Bing's illness.
"It was said at the Unitarian Hospital, where Mr. Bing was taken late last night, that his condition was serious."
A sketch—almost obituary—of him followed: "Valentine Bing was born in 1880 at St. Albans, a small town on Lake Erie. He began life as a printer. At twenty-one he became editor of the St. Albans Courier. In 1907 he came to New York." She glanced along rapidly. "Great consolidation of newspaper syndicate features—large fortune—three times married—the last time to Miss Cora Enderby, of the prominent New York family, from whom he was divorced in Paris in October of this year." Nothing was said about the two other wives;that seemed natural enough to Cora. But it did not seem natural that this man, who for two years had made or marred every instant of her life, was ill—dying, perhaps; and that she like any other stranger should read of it casually in her morning paper.
She did not often think kindly of Valentine—she tried not to think of him at all—but now her thoughts went back to their first romance. In those days—she was barely twenty—she had been in conflict with her family, who represented all that was conservative in old New York. She had wanted work, a career. She had gone to see Valentine in his office, armed with a letter of introduction. He was a tall red-haired man, long armed and large fisted, with intense blue eyes, clouded like lapis lazuli; he was either ugly or rather beautiful, according as you liked a sleek or rugged masculinity. For an instant she had had an impression—the only time she ever did have it—that he was a silent being.
She had told her little story. "And as I really don't know much about writing," she ended, "I thought—"
"You thought you'd like to do newspaper work," he interrupted with a sort of shout.
He explained to her how newspaper writing was the most difficult of all—the only kind that mattered. What was the object of writing anyhow? To tell something, wasn't it? Well, in newspaper work— On and on he went, the torrent of his ideas sparkling and leaping like a mountain brook. She was aware that she stimulated him. She learned later that he was grateful for stimulation, particularly from women.
Almost immediately afterward, it seemed to her, hewas insisting that she should marry him. At first she refused, and when her own resistance had been broken down her family's stood out all the more firmly.
They regarded two divorces and a vulgar newspaper syndicate as insurmountable obstacles. But a family had very little chance against Bing, and he and Cora were married within a few months of their first meeting.
On looking back at it she felt that she soon lost not his love but his interest. He would always, she thought, have retained a sincere affection for her if she had been content to remain the patient springboard from which he leaped off into space. But she wasn't content with any such rôle. She wanted to be the stimulus—the excitement of his life. And so they had quarreled and quarreled and quarreled for two horrible years which had just ended in their divorce.
And now he, so vital, so egotistical, so dominating, was dying; and she, the pale slim girl whose charm to him had been the joy of conquering her, was alive and well and happy. It would annoy Valentine to know that she was happy—fairly happy—without him.
She wondered whether she should call up the hospital, or go there herself to inquire about him. Wasn't it possible that he would send for her? After all, it was only the other day that she was his wife. And at that instant the telephone rang.
She heard a suave voice saying, "Is that Mrs. Bing? Mrs. Enderby-Bing? This is Doctor Creighton, at the Unitarian."
Half an hour later she was at the hospital. She had expected to be hurried at once to Valentine's bedside.Instead a little reception room was indicated. At the door a figure was standing, head raised, hands clasped behind the back. It was Thorpe, Valentine's servant.
"In here, madam," he said, opened the door for her, and closed it, shutting her in.
The sight of him destroyed the last remnant of Cora's self-control. He seemed like a little bit of Valentine himself. Thorpe had been with them on their honeymoon; she could see him waiting at the gate under the turquoise dome of the Grand Central Station, with their bags about his feet, and their tickets in his hand—so cool and competent in contrast to their own excitement that first day.
She hurried into the room. It is not to be expected that a hospital should waste sun and air on mere visitors, and yet the reception room, painted a cold gray and dimly lighted by a shaft, was depressing. Some logical interior decorator had hung one large Braun photograph on the wall. It was a copy of the Lesson in Anatomy.
Cora sat down and covering her face with her hands began to cry. A kind voice said in her ear, "I'm afraid you've had bad news."
Looking up Cora saw that a middle-aged woman was sitting beside her, a woman with comfortably flowing lines and large soft brown eyes and hair beginning to turn gray.
"I'm afraid my husband is dying," answered Cora simply. She thought it better not to mention divorce to a person who seemed like the very genius of the family.
"Why, you poor child," said the other, "you don't look old enough to have a husband."
"I'm twenty-four," replied Cora. "It's almost three years since I was married."
"Of course," said the other. "It's just because I'm getting old that everyone seems so young to me."
She smiled and Cora found herself smiling too. There was something comforting in the presence of the older woman; Cora felt assured that she knew her way about in all simple human crises like birth and illness and death.
Suddenly as they talked Cora saw the face of her companion stiffen; Thorpe was ushering in another woman, sleek headed, with a skin like white satin, wrapped in a mink cloak. Evidently the newcomer was painfully known to Cora's friend, though the mink-clad lady gave no sign. She sat down, holding the blank beauty of her face unruffled by the least expression; and as she did so Doctor Creighton entered.
"Mrs. Bing," he said. All three women rose. The doctor glanced at a paper held in the palm of his hand.
"Mrs. Johnson-Bing, Mrs. Moore-Bing, Mrs. Enderby-Bing."
Even in her wild eagerness to know what the doctor had to tell them of Valentine's condition Cora was aware of the excitement of at last seeing those two others. Phrases that Valentine had used about them came back to her: "A cold-hearted unfaithful Juno"—she in the mink coat. "She was so relentlessly domestic"—Cora glanced at her new friend. Yes, she was domestic—almost motherly. Cora's friendly feeling toward her remained intact; but toward Hermione—Mrs. Moore-Bing—who had so deceived and embittered Valentine, herhatred flamed as it had flamed when Valentine first told her the story.
How could she stand there, so calm, drooping her thick white eyelids and moving her shoulders about in a way that made you aware that under the mink coat they were as white as blanc mange. "She must know," Cora thought, "that I know everything there is to know about her. Valentine had no reserves about it. And Margaret, from whom she took him; and Thorpe, whose testimony in the divorce case—" Instinctively she took a step nearer to Margaret, as if wishing to form an alliance against Hermione.
Meantime the doctor was speaking rapidly, apologetically: "You must forgive me, ladies. I might have arranged this better, but time is short. You must help me. Mr. Bing's condition is serious—very serious. He keeps demanding that his wife come and nurse him. He believes we are keeping her from him. His temperature is going up, he is exciting himself more and more. We must give him what he wants, but—" The doctor paused and looked inquiringly from one to the other.
Mrs. Johnson-Bing smiled her quiet maternal smile. "Poor Valentine," she said; "he was always like that when he was ill."
There was a pause.
"But you don't help," said the doctor. "You don't tell me which one it is that he wants."
"Well," said Mrs. Moore-Bing in her cool drawl, "as I'm the only one who left him against his will I'm probably the only one he wants back again."
Cora would not even glance in the direction of such a woman. She had been kept silent heretofore by the trembling of her chin, but now she managed to enunciate: "Mr. Bing and I were divorced only a few months ago. Until October, you see, I was his wife."
The logic of this, or perhaps his own individual preference for a slim elegant young woman, evidently influenced the doctor. He nodded quickly.
"If you'll come with me, then—" he began, and turned toward the door, but there Thorpe was standing, and he did not move.
"If you'd excuse me, sir," he said, "am I right in thinking it will be bad for Mr. Bing if we mistake his wish in this matter?"
"Yes, I'd like to get it right," said the doctor.
"Then, sir, may I say it's not Mrs. Enderby-Bing that he wants, sir?"
"What makes you think that?" said Doctor Creighton.
"I could hardly explain it, sir. Twenty years of being with Mr. Bing—"
There was an awkward pause. The obvious thing to do was to ask Thorpe who it was Bing did want, and something in the poise of Thorpe's head suggested that he was just waiting to set the whole matter straight, when hurried footsteps were heard in the hall, and a nurse entered—an eager panting young woman. She beckoned to Creighton and they spoke a few seconds apart. Then he turned back to the group with brightened face.
"At last," he said, "Mr. Bing has spoken the first name. It is Margaret."
Cora caught a glimpse of Thorpe quietly bowing to himself—as much as to say, "Just what I had expected."
Mrs. Johnson-Bing rose.
"My name is Margaret," she said, and left the room with the doctor.
Hermione rose, too, hunching her cape into place. "Well," she said without taking the least notice of Thorpe, who was opening the door for her, "that's one chore you and I don't have to do. He was bad enough healthy—sick he must be the limit."
Cora did not so much ignore Hermione as she conveyed in her manner as she turned to Thorpe that everyone must know that whoever might be the object of Mrs. Moore-Bing's conversation it could not be herself.
"Tell me, Thorpe," she said, "what do you think of Mr. Bing's condition?"
"Mr. Bing is ill, madam—very ill," Thorpe answered immediately; "but not so ill as the doctors think."
"No?" said Cora in some surprise.
"No, madam. Mr. Bing, if I might use the expression, yields himself up to illness; this assists him to recover."
He opened the door for her at this point, and she went out of it.
She returned home not so emotionally upset but more depressed than before. There was a core of bitterness in her feeling that had not been there when she went to the hospital, and at first she found it difficult to discover the reason for this. Was it anxiety at Valentine's illness? No, for he was a little better than she had feared. Was it the realization that those two former wives, who had always seemed to her like shadows, were, in fact, livingbeings like herself? No, for they had turned out to be more unattractive, more utterably unsuitable to Valentine than she had imagined. It was true that her taste, her sheltered selectiveness—a passion which many well-brought-up women mistake for morality—was outraged at being in the same room with Hermione, but there was a certain satisfaction in finding her to be worse even than Valentine's highly colored descriptions of her. And as for Margaret, she felt no jealousy of her, even though she had been chosen. No one could be jealous of any woman so kind, so old and so badly dressed.
It came to her gradually as she moved about her room, unable to look at her plans, unable to read, unable to do anything but encourage the toothache at her heart, which was like a memory of all her later relations with Valentine. The reason was Thorpe—Thorpe's instant conviction that it was not she whom Valentine wanted. Why was he so sure? He had been right; Thorpe was always right. For twenty years he had made it his business to know what Valentine wanted. That was Thorpe's idea of the function of a good servant. He had always quietly and consistently followed his line, while the wives had followed others. Margaret had been concerned with what was best for Valentine; Hermione had thought entirely of what was most agreeable to herself; Cora had cared only to preserve the romance of her love. Thorpe's specialty was knowing what at the moment Valentine wished for, and then in getting it. Thorpe had survived all three.
Cora could understand a sick man having a fancy to be nursed by Margaret, but Thorpe's conviction thatshe, Cora, could not be the wife called for had a deeper and more lasting significance. That was the thought that made her heart ache.
She tried to take up her life where she had left it that morning, but everything had paled in interest—even her new house. She had bought a little corner of land, within the city limits but near the river, surrounded by trees. She saw wonderful possibilities—a walled garden and a river view within twenty minutes of the theaters. She recognized certain disadvantages—the proximity of a railroad track, and the fact that the neighborhood was still unkempt; she enjoyed the idea of being a pioneer. But now, though the plans were lying on the table, she did not open them. It was as if that hour in the hospital had married her again to Valentine, and there was no vividness left in the rest of life.
For ten days the bulletins continued to be increasingly favorable, and then—a sign that convalescence had set in—they ceased entirely.
Cora found the silence trying. With the great question of life or death answered there was so much else that she wanted to know—whether he had been permanently weakened by his illness; whether he would now be starting on one of his long-projected trips—to China or the South Seas. China had always fired his imagination. Twice during her short marriage they had had their trunks packed for China. Had he been softened, or frightened, or in any way changed by the great adventure of almost dying?
There was one person who could tell her all these things, and that was Margaret. Without exactly formulatinga plan Cora went to the hospital one day and inquired about him. The girl at the desk answered as if Valentine were already a personage of the hospital.
"He's getting along splendidly now. His wife's with him."
"I wonder," Cora heard herself saying, "whether Mrs. Bing would see me for a minute."
She retired, rather frightened at her temerity, to the reception room, where the Lesson in Anatomy still dominated the wall. "Margaret won't mind," she kept telling herself. "She's so kind, and, anyhow, she's more like his mother than his wife." It was on this maternal quality that Cora depended.
There was a footstep in the hall. A statuesque figure molded into blue serge stood in the doorway—bare-headed with shiny bronze-colored hair elaborately looped and curled. It was Hermione.
"You wanted to see me?" she asked in her drawling, reconstructed voice. She did not at once recognize Cora.
"No," said Cora, "I certainly did not want to see you. I thought it was Mrs. Johnson-Bing who was here."
"Margaret?" replied Hermione. She drooped her thick eyelids and smiled, as if the name itself were comic—she never broke her beautiful mask with a laugh.
"No, that didn't last long. He bounced Margaret as soon as he got over being delirious."
"And was it then that he sent for you?" asked Cora with an edge to her voice that a Damascus blade might have envied.
"As a matter of fact he didn't; it was Thorpe who sent for me," said Hermione. "Thorpe had a wholesomerecollection that I used to keep Val in order. Nice little job, keeping Val in order. Ever tried it? No, I remember Thorpe said that wasn't your line."
Cora would have given a good deal to know just how Thorpe had characterized her line, but not even curiosity could make her address an unnecessary word to the coarse, cold woman before her. She was not jealous as she understood the word, but the disgust she felt for Hermione included Valentine, too, and made her hate him for the moment with an intimate disturbing warmth.
Hermione went on: "And, after all, as I said to Val yesterday, what does it matter to me whether he gets well or not? It takes too much vitality—making him mind. I'm through. I'm off for Palm Beach to-morrow. Thorpe's taking him home."
"It's amiable of you—to come and go as Thorpe orders."
Hermione moved her eloquent shoulders. "Oh, Thorpe and I understand each other."
"I knew Thorpe understood you," said Cora insolently.
But the woman was insensitive to anything but a bludgeon, for she answered, "I understand Thorpe too. All he objects to is wives. He's like the—whatever it is, you know—that fishes in troubled waters."
Cora merely moved past her and went away. It wasn't until she was outside that she took in how pleasant had been the unconscious suggestion behind Hermione's last words. Thorpe objected to wives. That was why he had not sent for her—she wasn't a mother like Margaret; nor a vice, like Hermione. She was a wife. The story-teller, the magic builder of castles that is ineveryone, suddenly made for Cora a splendid scene, in which she, reunited to Valentine, was dismissing Thorpe.
Ten days later she took title to her new property and her architects filed the plans. Both events were announced in the newspapers.
That very morning her telephone rang, and Thorpe's voice—a voice so associated with all her emotional life that her nerves trembled even before her mind recognized it—was heard saying, "I'm telephoning for Mr. Bing, madam. Mr. Bing would be pleased if you could make it convenient to stop in and see him this afternoon."
"Tell Mr. Bing I'm sorry. I can't," answered Cora promptly. She was not a Hermione to come and go at Thorpe's invitation. And then just to show that she was not spiteful she added, "I hope Mr. Bing is better."
"Yes, madam," said Thorpe, "he's better, but he hasn't thoroughly regained his strength. He tests it every day."
Cora hung up the receiver. Her thought was, "He can't test it on me." She was aware of a certain self-satisfaction in having been able so firmly to refuse, to set her will against Valentine's. In old times she had been weak in yielding to every wish and opinion that he had expressed, until she had almost ceased to be a person. Of course in this case her ability to refuse had been strengthened by the incredible impertinence of allowing Thorpe to be the one to communicate Valentine's invitation. A few minutes later the telephone rang again. This time she let the servant answer it, and when the woman came to her with interested eyes and said thatMr. Bing was on the wire Cora answered without a quaver, "Say I'm out."
But she knew Valentine well enough to know she was not going to get off so easily as that. He kept steadily calling until at last, chance, or perhaps Cora's own wish, directed that he should catch her at the telephone.
He must see her; it was about this new house of hers. Her heart beat so she could hardly breathe, while Valentine ran on as of old:
"It's folly, Cora, absolute folly! Why didn't you consult me before you bought? You can't live there—the railroad on one side and a gas tank on the other. Besides, the railroad is going to enlarge its yards; in two years you'll have switching engines in your drawing-room."