Returning to my chair by the fire I sat down and opened my book, but I was in nowise disappointedby finding that the leaves had never been cut. There was a heavy pearl-and-silver paper-cutter lying on the table near by, but I did not take the trouble to reach for it. What did I care for a lot of prehistoric teeth and toe-nails dug up and brought forward to prove that before "Adam delved and Eve span" the baboon was a gentleman?
Mr. Maxwell continued to stare into the fire, and I do not believe he ever glanced at the impressive three-quarters morocco binding I was holding up so persistently for him to see. After half-an-hour had been thus profitlessly spent I grew tired and decided that I would go to my room and go to bed. Morning would come the more quickly this way.
As I started to cross the room to replace the book in its niche I heard Mrs. Chalmers going up the steps again—it seemed to me fully fifty times that evening she had made pilgrimages up and down those stairs on her way to and from the invalid's room.
"Evelyn must be worse," I said aloud before I remembered that I was tryingnotto start conversation.
"Possibly so," he answered politely.
"I believe I'll go now and see if I can do anything to help Mrs. Chalmers; she must be worn out."
I put the Huxley back where he belonged and had turned again to wish Mr. Maxwell good night, when I found that he had at last unfastened his eyes from the bright fire and was looking toward me appealingly.
"Miss Fielding," he began with an unwonted timidity.
I had already opened the door to leave the room, but I came back a few steps, leaving the door wide open; and as I did so I heard, for the fifty-first time, the sound of Mrs. Chalmers' footfalls upon the stairs. She was coming down this time.
"Yes?" I said coldly in the direction of Mr. Maxwell.
"Miss Fielding, I am going away in the morning," he said rather awkwardly, as he pushed up a chair for me again, but I did not sit down. I leaned over a little and rested my elbows against its high leather back. He stood upon the hearth-rug, and even the shaded lights of the room brought out the troubled lines on his face. "I am going away on the same train that brings Chalmers home," he repeated.
"Yes."
"And I was anxious to talk with you a little before I go," he went on with considerable hesitation.My attitude was far from being encouraging. "You seem to be on friendly terms with her still—with Sophie, I mean."
"Iamon friendly terms," I said rather pointedly. "I am fortunately not the kind of person who indulges inseemingfriendship."
"Oh, I say, Miss Fielding, don't rub it in on a fellow! Don't you see that I have been half crazy ever since I found it out? Surely you don't think that the matter hasn't made me feel worse cut up than anything that ever happened to me before! A man doesn't get over a shock likethat!"
"Shock?"
"Certainly shock," he repeated earnestly. "If she had told me she is a horse-thief I couldn't have felt worse. Of course a man could keep up a sort of pitying friendliness after such an acknowledgment as that, but—I had intended asking her that night to marry me."
He looked at me as if he might be beseeching me to speak a word of comfort to him, but I stood there and said nothing.
"Miss Fielding, surely you understand that I couldn't marry a woman who, by her own acknowledgment, is a—a dope-fiend."
"Dope-fiend!" I gave a little shriek.
He looked at me a moment as if he thought I had lost my mind, then we were both startled by the abrupt entrance of Mrs. Chalmers at the door which I had a few minutes before left open. She had evidently heard my horrified exclamation and come in to investigate. She looked from one to the other of us inquiringly, and there was no use trying to hide the situation from her.
"Miss Fielding and I were talking about Sophie, Mrs. Chalmers," Mr. Maxwell explained after a moment of painful silence. "She acknowledged to us, Miss Fielding and me, the other night the—the truth about this unhappy condition."
"The truth?" Mrs. Chalmers' tone was questioning, although I knew that she must have heard my startled cry as I repeated the hideous word he had used a moment before.
"It was the night that we stayed away from the ball—we three—and we found the evidence in her bag. She acknowledged that it was true. I had expected to ask her to marry me that night—but she is a drug-fiend."
Mrs. Chalmers started, but she did not speak. She made no effort to correct him.
"So of course I am leaving in the morning. I should have gone long ago, but—"
He looked at Richard's mother, who stood in the center of the room, directly beneath the chandelier. The light shone down on her soft white hair and changed it into a veritable crown of glory. She moved her crown slightly as she nodded an assent to his suggestion of leaving in the morning, but she did not lift a finger to detain him, nor to set him right in regard to Sophie. Could it be that her desire to get Evelyn married off to him was going to carry her to such lengths as this? It seemed so; and I caught myself wondering quickly if in so doing she might be carrying out a command of Richard's. Likely he was very positive in bidding her keep Sophie's secret, or in impressing it upon her that Evelyn ought to be suitably married. In either case she would be mortally afraid to speak—she wouldnotspeak. Then quickly upon the heels of this came the knowledge that if she did not speak it was my place to do so, for I knew the truth as well as she did—but it might make Richard angry! It would be sure to if he had given commands that the secret should be kept! I might even lose him—
"That train leaves at six-thirty, I believe?"
Again he looked at Mrs. Chalmers and she again nodded her head. But she did not speak.
"Then I shall not have an opportunity of seeing you in the morning," and he walked over and shook hands with his hostess, making his adieus in a wretchedly forced way.
She shook hands with him and allowed him to pass on to me. I gave him my hand in a mechanical fashion, and my eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Chalmers' face. She was evidently frightened at the thought of the thing she was doing; but she was just as evidently going to see it through.
"Good-by, Miss Fielding," Mr. Maxwell said simply, then turned toward the door.
I was still looking at her as I heard the sound of his hand upon the door-knob, but as I realized in that instant that he was reallygoingand that neither of us had lifted a finger to set him right, a sudden power over which it seemed that I had no control came and caught me, almost physically forcing me out of my place. I ran across the room.
"Mr. Maxwell!" I called.
He came back a few steps and stood facing us.
"You were leaving—that is, we were about to let you leave—under a false impression," I stammeredbreathlessly, all the time a sense of my doing something very much out of place strong upon me.
"False impression?" His eyes were glittering feverishly.
"Yes. It is true that we found the—the thing you mentioned in Sophie's bag that night, but she is no—dope-fiend."
He stood still as if he were petrified.
"Physicians carry those things in instrument cases," I went on, feeling that my explanation sounded very tame and inadequate. "Physicians carry them and so donurses."
He looked at me a moment in utter bewilderment, then, slowly, comprehension dawned in his eyes. Even the understanding was going to be bitter to him, for there would be the humiliating confession that he would have to make to her that he had misjudged her.
As I said the word "nurses" Mrs. Chalmers moved a step forward and held up a warning hand.
"Ann," she exclaimed in a frightened whisper, "Richard said that this affair wasnotto be mentioned."
"A professional nurse!" Mr. Maxwell cried, his face lighting up as a hundred hazy memories cameflooding over him. "In El Paso—my God!Of course!"
He came up to me and caught my arm.
"This is what you mean?" he asked.
Mrs. Chalmers' eyes were fixed on me in a kind of fascinated wonder. Howcouldany one go against Richard's expressed wish? But my own eyes were meeting hers steadily as I turned to answer Mr. Maxwell's pleading question.
"Yes, that is what I mean. Sophie belongs to the great army of the Red Cross!"
THE DOUGLAS IN HIS HALL
As is frequently the case when I have gone to bed late and in a perturbed state of mind, I awake early, with a heavy feeling between my eyes and a marked distaste to getting up. It was so this morning, except I had an indistinct impression that, instead of waking normally, I had been awakened by some unusual noise.
I turned over in bed and looked around the room for a few minutes before I began to think of the effort of getting up. I had by no means forgotten that Richard was coming—might already be here, as the spasmodic bursts of sunshine indicated that it was at least seven o'clock—but he would not expect me to do anything so unusual as to dress this early and meet him down-stairs for a few minutes' stolen happiness before we should meet and shake hands formally at the breakfast table. The bliss of such a secret little reunion might, doubtless would, appealto most lovers, but not to Cœur de Lion. He would see in it only the impropriety of a young woman meeting a man in a deserted library in the early hours of the morning. Richard has this way of throwing—well, not exactly cold water, buticed lemonade, over the exuberance of my youthful feelings! I wish this were not so, but—
I looked around the beautiful, befrilled bedroom, with its handsome furniture of Circassian walnut and its dainty blue silk hangings—and I thought, with a quick little pang of longing, of my severely plain sleeping apartment at home. This Spartan bareness is in imitation of Alfred's cell-like bedroom, which Ann Lisbeth had once shown me, and which had attracted me by the air of wholesomeness the immaculate cleanliness gave it. Alfred and I have often planned a house so plain and sanitary that we could turn the hose all through it. Housekeeping would be a delightfully simple affair with him, for he and I agree so perfectly in our dislike of complicated things. Dear me! I wonder what kind of house Richard and I will keep? It will be—expensive, but will it be harmonious?
The events of last night came crowding before me and I remembered with a most disagreeable littlechill that Mrs. Chalmers' eye had held a look of terror as she thought of Richard's commands being disobeyed. Was Richard a monster then? Did heeatpeople when they dared to go contrary to his wishes? I also recalled the day he and I had had our first actual quarrel—about the volume of Byron which Alfred had given me. His eyes grow very cold and glittering when he is angry, and—yes, I can understand that a certain class of women might be very much afraid of him. Especially if they had him to live with! And I wondered if, at last, after months of struggling, I, too, might not find it more restful and peaceable to become a groveling sort of hypocrite to my lord and master?
"Never, never!" I cried aloud, jumping out of bed as I heard again the same sounds which had awakened me—hurrying footsteps down-stairs through the halls, and the sound of many doors being hastily opened and closed. "I'll give him up if I find him as they say he is."
Just then I recognized the heavy, dignified slam of the massive front door, a kind of muffled protest against the impertinence of using haste with such an august portion of that house; then, a moment after, there was the sound of an automobile starting.
"Evelyn must be much worse," I thought uneasily, as I hurried through with my bath and slipped into my clothes. If this were so I knew that I should not have to meet Mrs. Chalmers at the breakfast table, and I should be relieved of the ordeal of coming in contact with her bland smile. I instinctively felt that she would meet us all exactly as if nothing had happened the night before. She is entirely too well-bred to bear malice.
Now, for my part, I have a nervous distaste to whited sepulchers, aside from any question of morality, and I always have a sense of being brought face to face with the rottenness and dead men's bones whenever I am forced tosmoothover a situation which has not been thoroughly explained and threshed out. When I have a grievance against any one, my first desire is to "have it out" with the offender, and I always want any one whom I have offended to offer me the same privilege of setting myself straight.
But Mrs. Chalmers would, I know, sit for ever at the mouth of such whited sepulcher with a bottle of vera-violet held to her nose before she would face anybody in helping to rid the place of its pestilence.
These thoughts were running through my mind asI was dressing, and I will say that I had the grace to feel ashamed of them as I ran down the steps and met her in the hall, her face looking old and drawn with anxiety, her hair in disarray, and her figure enveloped in a fantastic kimono.
"Evelyn is very much worse," she said in a trembling voice as I came up with her and inquired after the patient. "It is an acute attack of appendicitis and Doctor Cooley has just telephoned to the city for Doctor Gordon to come out on the first train. He says—she can't—livewithout an operation; and, even so, he is very much afraid that it—the appendix—has ruptured."
She broke down here and sobbed miserably, burying her face in her hands and wiping away the tears upon one long silken sleeve of her flowered kimono.
"Evelyn is all I have in this world," she moaned, and I suddenly felt infinitely sorry for her—and forgiving. "She is all I have to comfort me in my miserable life, and now Richard has come home and blames this trouble on me."
"Blames you?" I questioned, looking down upon her disordered hair in amazement at the thought.
"He says that I ought to have known better than to let her dance so much the other night," she explained,lifting a tear-stained face to me for a moment, as if to acknowledge the sympathy in my voice. Clearly she was not accustomed to sympathy.
"Dance!" I said again in surprise. "Why, people have appendicitis who have never seen inside a ball-room! That is a most absurd idea."
"Not nearly so absurd as some things he hatches up against us two," she broke out, her anger toward Richard making her forget, for a moment, her anxiety for Evelyn. "Oh, Ann, he leads ussucha life! He is exactly like his father—and he was adespot!"
We were interrupted by the quick footsteps of Sophie, as she came hurrying through the hall. She had an ice-cap in her hand, and there was a thermometer-case thrust through her belt. There was no trained nurse in Charlotteville, so she had quietly explained to Doctor Cooley her qualifications to act in that capacity. Mrs. Chalmers whispered this to me, as Sophie passed by; also that Mr. Maxwell had left on the same train that brought Richard, but not before he and Sophie had spent a long hour together in the quiet library.
"She was up nearly all night," Mrs. Chalmers said, "so they came face to face here in the hall at daybreak. She is a good girl, and he will make herhappy. I am glad they have come to an understanding."
"But I thought—" I began, then stopped, not knowing how to express my idea about her plans for Mr. Maxwell and Evelyn; but she read my mind.
"You thought I wanted to catch him for Evelyn?" she asked without embarrassment. "Well, I did, but I shouldn't have gone to such lengths, except for the sake of keeping Richard in a good humor."
"Then he'll be in a very bad humor with me when he hears that I was the one who told about Sophie," I suggested, but she cut me short.
"Oh, he's in such a fiendish humor about something that happened to him on this trip of his that he will forget all about these things here at home."
"Is there some sort of political trouble?" I asked anxiously, but she shook her head.
"Richard never mentions his business affairs to us," she said, as she smoothed down her kimono and followed Sophie up the stairs.
Half an hour later Richard met me at the door of the breakfast-room, looking very tired and morose. We sat down and ate breakfast in unchaperoned gloom. He asked me a few perfunctory questions about the happenings here since he left, but he volunteeredno information as to what kind of business it was which had taken him away, nor where he had been.
After breakfast we established ourselves in the library, he with a batch of newspapers which he had brought with him from the city and I had a new magazine, but he seemed to care little for reading, and he sat and smoked in moody silence for a while. The day was warm, but the sunshine of the early morning grew fainter, and by noon there were signs of a thunder-shower, the clouds seeming to gather from all directions; and the air became oppressively heavy.
Richard finally threw away the end of his cigar, yawned a time or two in an abstracted sort of fashion, then got up and walked over to the window. He pulled aside the curtains and looked out at the threatening sky.
"Get your hat and let's go out for a little fresh air before it rains," he suggested as he came back and threw himself into his chair again, stretching out his long legs to the fire.
I got up obediently and started toward the door, but he reached out, caught my hand and stopped me.
"Isn't it a devilish old day?" he said lazily, as hedrew me down toward him. "You haven't kissed me once since I came home. Don't you love me any more?"
"Love you? Of course I love you!" I answered, kissing him on the forehead and smoothing back his fair hair. I had entirely forgotten the traitorous thoughts of the early morning. "But you have been insucha mood! Who wants to kiss something that looks about as lover-like as Rameses II?"
He smiled a little and took my face between his hands.
"Iama savage," he admitted, though not at all bearing the appearance of one at that moment; "but I've had a lot to try me lately—and then I was so disgusted when I came home and found that mother had let Evelyn dance herself into another of these attacks."
"Oh, Richard! Surely you don't really think it was the dance that brought it on? It might have been the dinner—but I shouldn't even suggest that to your mother. She is miserable enough already. You ought to try to comfort her."
"That's very charitable of you," he said, a sarcastic little flicker around the corners of his mouth, "but, all the same, I find that I can manage my womenkindbetter to use a little frankness with them occasionally."
I drew back from him somewhat.
"Frankness?" I cried in genuine surprise at his cold sarcasm. "Even if frankness were the right name for—this, do you consider that now is the time for it? When she is so wretched?"
He turned from me and threw down the paper he had picked up a moment before as I stood talking to him.
"Let's don't quarrel," he said finally, in a low tone; and, impulsively reaching out both hands to me, he added: "And, Ann, for God's sake, don't ever act as if you were afraid of me!"
"Afraid of you!"
He smiled. I think he has the most adorable smile of any man on earth.
"Go and get your hat," he said.
As I came down-stairs again with my hat on I found Sophie standing at the front door talking with Richard. She was dressed entirely in the garb of a nurse by this time, and I looked admiringly at the becoming white uniform, but Richard made no reference to the change nor anything that it entailed.
"Sophie thinks that we would better not go veryfar," he said to me as he stepped outside into the vestibule and looked up again at the clouds. "She says Evelyn is not resting so well—and mother, of course, has entirely lost her grip."
"Do you think that there is any new danger in Evelyn's case?" I asked anxiously.
"Well, we are eager for the surgeon to get here as quickly as possible," she answered.
"He'll be here on the noon train, and, of course, he can operate immediately. And it hasn't been nearly twenty-four hours since the onset of the acute attack. The mortality is less than one per cent, if taken within—"
I had been looking into Sophie's eyes as I spoke and had not observed that Richard was listening intently to what I was saying, but as I made use of this last bit of medical jargon a contemptuous little half-laugh broke from him and I looked up quickly. He was smiling sardonically.
"Of course your friend, Doctor Morgan, is your authority," he said, his brows elevated and a disagreeable expression around his mouth.
"He is—and I couldn't ask a better," I flashed back at him.
We stood thus a moment, our eyes meeting infiery challenge, and in that brief moment I realized that such a scene repeated a few times would cause us to hate each other. I felt suddenly as if the earth were receding from me and leaving me in a very uncertain stratum of air. I was violently angry with Richard—and he was infuriated.
"It's a pity the public continues to display such a lamentable ignorance in regard to this wonderful Hippocrates of yours," he sneered, though in an even voice.
"That ignorance is growing less every day," I responded easily, so easily, in fact, that I am sure Sophie never suspected that we were both at white heat.
But she was embarrassed at the bad taste we were both exhibiting, so she made some excuse and quickly left us. We walked slowly down toward the gate, not that there was any joy left in the prospect of a quiet walk together, but because there seemed nothing better to do right then. Out through the gate and quite a distance up the street we passed before either of us spoke, and I noticed once that his right hand, which clasped his slender silk umbrella, was trembling.
"Ann," he said finally, speaking in a remarkablylow, gentle voice, "why does it seem to give you such pleasure to torture me that way?"
"Torture you?" I answered. "Oh, Richard! Why should you torture yourself into a passion if I but mention anything even remotely connected with the medical profession?"
"Medical profession!" His voice was still very quiet. "You would imply then that I am—that I am jealous of this yearling doctor?"
There was infinite contempt in the word "yearling."
"I don'timply!" I responded warmly. "I have good, clear English for what I wish to say."
"You certainly have for all that you wish to say about this paragon of yours."
"Heisa paragon; but he isn't mine."
"No? I wonder why? You certainly might have won him!"
Was this a lovers' quarrel? I had always heard them spoken of as being frivolous, make-believe disagreements, whose sting was light as thistle-down and whose shadows were quick to disappear at the dawn of a beloved smile. But if this were true, then my altercation with Richard was a much more serious affair, for I found my patience strained to thebreaking point when I finally burst out: "Richard, hush! This is disgraceful! I will not quarrel with you any longer. You make me wish that I had never seen your face!"
My vehemence seemed to startle him out of his own wrath, or, at all events, it acted as a signal to him that he was to go no further, for he began to retract; not humbly, not penitently, as if he had found himself in the wrong, but with a sudden sparkling brilliance, his eyes and his smile dazzling my senses as they did the sunny afternoon we spent together, sitting on the orchard fence.
"Well, I'm glad I have seen your face," he said fondly, as he looked down upon me with that same air of possession, "for you are the prettiest little spitfire I ever saw."
He suggested that we walk up to the river side, not a great distance away, but it is as secluded a spot as if it were miles away from human habitation. There are thickets of undergrowth just beyond a skirt of woods, and a stone wall where we might sit down for a quiet little talk.
We made for this spot in silence, and, as he placed a strong, lithe hand on either side of my waist to lift me bodily up on the wall he said, with that samedirectness of manner which I found characterized his speech: "Ann, I beg your pardon—ten thousand times, sweetheart! Will you forgive me—and—and kiss me?"
His lips were already upon mine, and I knew then that there was nothing in this life so beautiful and sweet and intoxicating as their touch. I gave myself up to the exquisite madness with an abandon which shuts out all knowledge that Richard and I are not comrades, not even friends—that we have no ideals in common, no similar tastes! What does all this matter when he has his arms about me and I am so close to him that I can hear the quick thump, thump of his heart-beats, and I know how they quicken for me! Nothing matters! I love him!
"That's my own little girl," he said radiantly, as he lifted his face from mine and saw my entire surrender. "This is the first moment to-day that I have felt as if you really love me."
He dusted off a space on the wall then sprang lightly up to a seat by my side.
"I've been waiting for you to brighten up a bit and look like yourself," he continued after a few minutes of happy silence. "I have something to show you."
"Something to show me?" I looked at him wonderingly.
"Something I brought you from—from the city."
"But I told you not to bring me anything."
"I know. But I had already bought it then, and I couldn't take it back to the jeweler and tell him that my lady had turned it down, could I?"
He drew a little case from his pocket, a long, slender one this time, and as I found my eyes fixed with an eager fascination upon his hands as they worked for a moment with the catch, I seemed to see stretching before me a long vista of years, each one punctuated with quarrels like the one we had just endured, and the rough places left by these ruptures filled in and smoothed over by myriads of these small, dainty jewel-boxes. But Richard's deft fingers had opened the case, and he passed it over to me. I gave a little gasp of astonished delight as I saw lying upon its bed of velvet a string of pearls—white, softly-glistening, beautiful things.
"Let's see how they look on you," he suggested, unfastening the dull gold clasp and slipping the lovely chain around my neck. He fastened them securely, then smiled approval as he leaned back and viewed the effect.
"I've wanted you to have something like this ever since I've known you," he said with the air of a connoisseur as he still held back and looked at the pearls lying close around the neck of my collarless blouse. "So when I happened to see these the other day in—the city, I decided that they were exactly what I wanted for my little girl."
I was opening and shutting the box as he talked, and when he mentioned seeing them in the city I idly glanced at the name on the lining, and saw that the case bore the name of a well-known firm in St. Louis.
"Why, Richard," I cried, "did you go all the way to St. Louis to find them?"
I laughed, but there were two tiny lines between his eyes.
"Don't say anything about it to mother, but the truth is I did have to go to St. Louis while I was away from home this time."
"Your mother thinks you were down in some little country town—away from a telephone!"
"Well, it was a—business trip. She wouldn't be interested, and I never have believed in a man boring his family with his business affairs."
"I shouldn't be bored, Richard," I began, hopingso fervently that he was going to confide in me that half the joy I should have been feeling over my beautiful new possession was turned into pain when I saw that he was not.
He changed the subject quietly and we discussed various minor matters, until I remembered, with a start, that it was time for us to be going home. It must be long past noon. I mentioned this to Richard and he jumped down immediately.
"I haven't heard the train whistle, have you?"
"No, but we haven't been listening for it. Look at your watch."
He did so, and we were both surprised and not a little ashamed when we saw that it was half-past one.
"We'll have to hurry," he said briefly, and we walked home faster, I dare say, than ever lovers walked away from that delightful spot before.
When we reached the house we found that the doctor from the city had indeed arrived; the preparations for the operation being well under way. There was not to be an hour's delay, Sophie told us, as she paused on her way up the steps. Her hands were full of glistening instruments, and a negro servant followed with kettles of boiled water.
"What does Gordon think of her condition?" Richard asked, as he eyed Sophie's burden with a little shrinking.
"Doctor Gordon couldn't come," she answered abstractedly as she looked around and gave the servant some directions about keeping a bountiful supply of water that had been boiled, "there was a wreck on the road that he is surgeon for—it didn't amount to much, but still he had to be there, so he telephoned Doctor Cooley that this young colleague of his whom he sent to do the operation is thoroughly competent—it seems that they operate together a great deal. I didn't catch the young doctor's name when he was introduced—and I've been too busy since to ask."
"Doctor Morgan," I said, feeling sure that Doctor Gordon would send no one but Alfred on a case like this.
"Doctor Morgan—thedevilit is!" Richard's voice burst out so suddenly and so fiercely that I turned and looked at him in amazement. Then, for the first time, I realized how easy it might be to be afraid of him. Fierce and sudden as the words were, they were spoken in his deep, even voice, and not a muscle of his face showed the intense fury which I feltthat he was laboring under. It was a cold, cruel anger, and it showed only in his eyes. They were glittering like two sharp-pointed steel blades. "Doctor Morgan here—and you knew all the time that he was coming!"
He looked at me so accusingly that Sophie sensed the point of the situation at once, although she had never heard Alfred's name mentioned before; and she broke in with a light laugh.
"Why, he didn't know himself that he was coming until ten minutes before train time. It was too late even to find a nurse to bring with him, so I am going to help in the operation."
Her words had the effect of quieting, in a measure, this insane suspicion of Richard's; and he and I followed her up the broad staircase. She led the way into the room which had been hastily divested of its rich furnishings and transformed into a semblance of an operating-room; and we two followed automatically. Sophie passed in and began busying herself about the preparations, but just inside the doorway we stopped.
Standing in the middle of the floor, near the end of a long table upon which had been placed several bowls of water, some clear, others light blue, histop shirt off and his arms up to his elbows thickly coated over with a soft lather, was Alfred. Another young fellow, whom I afterward learned was a local physician, stood near the table; and he too was busily "scrubbing up." As we came into the room Alfred bade Sophie hurry up with her own preparations.
"Would you object to hearing a word from me before your manipulations go further?" Richard's voice broke in, after the briefest and most perfunctory of greetings, which fortunately were divested of any hypocritical handshaking on account of Alfred's green soapiness. "I understand that our family physician, Doctor Cooley, telephoned to the city for DoctorGordonto come down here and operate upon my sister."
"Doctor Gordon received the message, but was detained by a small wreck on the Eastern," Alfred said quietly, rinsing the soap-suds from his hands and motioning Sophie to drop another bichloride tablet into the next bowl of water. "He sent me to do the work."
"So I have been informed," Richard said, his eyes looking far colder and more cutting than the steel instruments which Sophie was now rattlingabout in a big pan, "but—as it happens—I don't want you to do the work."
The insult was so barefaced and so ugly that Sophie suddenly turned scarlet and the young doctor bending over the bowl of water busied himself unnecessarily with a bottle of green soap. Richard himself began nervously tampering with his watch-fob, while I afterward recalled that my fingers were playing convulsively with the pearls which were still around my neck. It was anelectricalmoment and we all showed signs of weakening before the current—all except Alfred.
He stood in the same spot at the end of the table, directing straight at Richard his level, steady glance, and looking the personification of simple dignity—in an undershirt.
"That might put a different aspect upon the matter," he said slowly after a moment's deliberation. Not a muscle of his face changed, and no one less well acquainted with him than I am could have detected the hardness in his voice.
"Mightput a different aspect?" Richard looked incredulous.
"Yes, it might—if the patient were a minor, and you her sole guardian."
"Ah! Then you mean to ignore my rights?"
"I do—if you wish to put it that way. Your sister's condition is critical; and there is no one else to operate."
"Then there is no appeal to be made to your pride?" I do not know what Richard meant, nor do I believe that he knew himself, for he surely would not have run the risk of trying to get another surgeon when it had been made so clear to him that the delay would be fatal. Alfred seemed to realize that there was no more occasion for argument than if he had been talking to an unreasonable child—or a dangerous lunatic.
"No; my pride lies dormant in a case like this," he answered simply. "I acknowledge only Duty."
Then, at Alfred's words, it seemed that the magic change which I have before noticed comes over Richard when he sees that he has gone far enough, began to make itself felt. It appeared that he was not going to have the courage to turn about and apologize, as he had done with me earlier in the day; but he began to do what he considered all that was ever necessary fromhimto ordinary mortals. He began to back, sullenly.
"Of course, if it is only an ordinary case of appendicitisyoumight do," he admitted grudgingly, "but—suppose there are complications?"
I give Richard credit for not intending this worst insult of all. He was so entirely absorbed in gaining his own end, and that end was proving to Alfred that he was incompetent to operate, that he failed to consider the words he used. To him this was only a simple argument in favor of his theory. Alfred met the thrust as he had met the minor ones.
"If there are complications, I shall grapple with them," he answered quietly. "That's what I studied surgery for."
Sophie came across the room then and told us in a low voice that they were about ready. Would we please wait outside? Without another word Richard took me by the arm and we walked out together. He held my arm tightly as we made our way cautiously down the steps; cautiously because it had suddenly grown very dark and there were threatening rumbles in the distance, following vivid flashes of lightning. The fumes of the anesthetic were filling the house, while outside the big drops of rain were beginning to pelt down, making little comet-shaped streaks of wetness against the window-panes.
We heard the shuffling steps as they moved Evelyn into the room and placed her upon the table; then we heard Alfred call from the head of the steps, his voice calm and unruffled as it would be in the case of any gentleman making a request of another.
"Mr. Chalmers, will you call the power-house and have them turn on the lights?"
Hours after, when it was all safely over and Sophie earnestly supplemented the local doctor's praise of Alfred's skill and technique, Richard sought me out as I stood alone in the dining-room locking up the silver. I had seen Mrs. Chalmers do this and knew that it was a habit of hers; and to-night there was no one else to do it.
"Ann," he said, coming close and looking around to make sure that there was no one else near, "Ann, I'm really sorry about what I said to that fellow, Morgan, this afternoon. Of course I didn't intend any aspersions upon his ability, but I suppose, according to their infernal ethics, it was—discourteous."
I picked up a soft flannel case and wrapped a handful of heavy forks in it. "Yes, I dare say he considered it so," I agreed.
"I've wondered what I can do to make amends,"he continued. "Do you think I might double the amount of his fee?"
"No, no," I begged earnestly, a sudden sense of disgust at the thought of such a thing. "No, don't try to offer Alfredmoney."
Poor Richard! Was there nothing in the world he could do except trample upon people's feelings then offer to pay them to get in a good humor again? He had insulted Alfred, who was a hero, then suggested offering him money to wipe out the stain. He had neglected and offended me this miserable day—but he had given me a string of pearls!
THE IDES OF MARCH
"Love's second summer," was the name Mammy Lou bestowed on the troubled period of my engagement with Richard Chalmers which followed the portentous events chronicled in the last few chapters.
"A love affair ain't no different from a baby," she would say to me sometimes, as her quick eye saw that all was not going well, and her maternal pity for me caused her to forgive the disappointment I had given her in my choice of a lover. "It's bound to have some miz'ry as well as joy mixed along with it. Why, you can't no more make true love run smooth than you can play a 'juice harp' with false teeth."
True love! Oh the irony of the words! So many months have passed since the happenings that I last recorded that I can look back now and dispassionately dissect even the motives of many thingswhich transpired during that gilded year. For it proved to be only a gilded year, while I thought at the time that it was a golden one. And I can see, among many other strange and bewildering things, that at the moment I saw Alfred Morgan stand up and bravely defy Richard's selfish tyranny, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes and I knew then which was the false and which the true. That I did not act upon this knowledge and follow the dictates of my intuition, I afterward regretted more poignantly than it often befalls the lot of a girl to rue a guiltless deed.
On that November night when I stood in the dining-room and counted out and stored away the Chalmers' family silver while Richard stood by and suggested appeasing Alfred's outraged pride by a gift of money, I felt an almost overpowering desire to fly precipitately away from the great, gleaming house with its Midas-like master, who, as I remembered for the first time with a shudder, was alsomymaster.
The storm without, which had broken so violently at the hour of the equally violent storm within, and between those two strong and determined spirits, had spent its force during the afternoon, and whenthe dreary night closed down there was a sharp wind from the east, and the rain changed into a driving sleet.
Out into this Alfred went, and I stood at the door with him as we said good-by, until the piercing wind blew in and brought with it a little shower of light sleet, which it scattered over the inlaid floor.
"I'll be in the city for a day or two next week," I said as he held out his hand and looked with a slight shiver out into the icy blackness through which he must pass. "I'll see you then."
For the moment I had forgotten that Alfred and I no longer saw each other when I was in the city. I had failed to remember the fact, and also the circumstances leading up to it.
"But I'm leaving for New York Saturday night," he said briefly, as he pulled a little closer the big storm collar of his heavy coat, and slipped on his long automobile gauntlets. He had left the city so hurriedly that he had not had time to exchange these for ordinary gloves. "—And I sail on the following Wednesday."
"Oh! So this is good-by then?"
"Yes—for all time, I suppose. You'll be married long before I get back."
We were standing alone at the door which led out to the driveway and there was a motor-car a few feet away puffing softly a warning to hurry; Richard was somewhere near, in the front part of the house—but I thought not of his anger if he should find me in such a plight; I did not stop to remember that Alfred was in danger of missing his train; above all I did not recall that only a few months before I had had the chance of making a decision which, if differently made, would have put such a different aspect upon the world's cold blackness this miserable night—I remembered nothing, except that Alfred was going away from me—and I had already seen my mistake. Giving way completely as this mighty knowledge came bearing down upon the tired, aching nerves of my brain, which had already been working at over-tension for the past many days, I covered my face with my hands and gave vent to the sobs and tears which seemed to have been gathering in my heart since I had last seen Alfred. Now he was going away, and I was to see him no more!
"Ann," he begged, as he quickly stripped off the long gauntlets and started to put out his hand, "don't! For God's sake don't cry! I've stood a lot to-day, but I'll swear I can't stand that."
"If you've stood a lot, don't you think that I have, too?" I demanded in a low voice, the convulsive little catches in my throat making speech difficult. I had lost all power of self-control for the moment, and I think that if Richard had come out into the hall at that instant and demanded an explanation I should have frankly given it. Many times through the succeeding months I regretted bitterly that he had not.
Alfred's hand started out toward me again at my passionate words, and caught mine this time, dragging them gently down from my face as he compelled my eyes to meet his.
"What do you mean?" he demanded. "Is he unkind toyou, too?"
"Oh, no, not unkind," I stammered, half frightened at the sudden turn of our conversation. "Certainly not unkind. He is the soul of generosity—but we don't—get along well—together." I broke down weakly in my speech, for the sense of disloyalty was strong upon me, and I felt that it was almost as grave a crime to recount the faults of a lover as those of a husband.
But Alfred's face was very serious, and if my perfidy made any impress upon him it was lost in the mazes of a greater problem.
"That is what I've been afraid of," he said in almost the same tones he had used when he made a similar remark upon my telling him I cared for Richard. "I thought you would find that your natures are—incompatible."
"Incompatible? Oh, Alfred, if we marry we'llfight!" I sobbed, burying my face in my hands again, and forgetting theloverAlfred in the dear friend whom I could always go to with a trouble. And I would be willing to stake anything in life that, in that moment, he, too, had forgotten that he was my lover.
"Well, that is a very serious question, and one which you will have thoroughly to thresh out before it is too late," he said, his bright brown eyes anxious and troubled. He looked down upon me with infinite sympathy.
"And you are going away so soon—and for so long?"
"Well, if I were not going away I could no longer be a—a friend to you, Ann; for I am not capable of giving you unbiased advice, and that is what you need. It would be a great temptation to make capital for myself out of your troubles with—him; and I can't lower myself this way. So don't grieve overmy going away, and—take council with your mother and Mrs. Clayborne. I am not the one to advise you in this case."
So he went out into the blackness!
From New York, the day he sailed, he wrote me a note saying that he could not leave without telling me some things which he could not honorably speak of while we were in Richard Chalmers' house that night; and those things were that his own feeling for me would never change; if years passed before I ever felt that I needed him I was to send for him just as confidently as I would to-day. No matter what decision I came to in regard to my marriage with Richard Chalmers he would never approach me again in the light of a lover until I sent for him, the note ran on; and, as I read this last I looked up and smiled into vacancy over the thought of how proud and high-minded he is. He gave me the address of a London hospital and said that if I cared to write to him at any time within the next few weeks the letter would reach him there.
But I did not write to him within the next few weeks.
On the morning after Alfred's departure fromCharlotteville I came down-stairs early and found Richard in the breakfast-room. He was smiling radiantly as he looked up and saw me; then he threw aside his morning paper and pulled up a chair close to the fire.
"Evelyn is doing splendidly; the political news is to my liking; there are fresh trout for breakfast, and—here's a rose for your hair, my lady-love," he said, holding out to me a perfect bud of pearly whiteness. A box of them had come on the early train from a friend of Evelyn's in the city, and Richard had purloined the most beautiful one for me.
The ground outside was white and there was the sharp little sound of sleet against the window-pane, but the breakfast-room was a scene of glowing cheer. A Japanese tea-service was on the table, and the trout, which Richard had been fortunate enough to secure from a passing fisherman that morning, was broiled to a most delicious brown and seemed to be enjoying its repose upon its bed of water-cress. A steaming pot of hot water was presently brought in and placed beside my plate, and the tea-ball was brought to me. I was to make the tea and Richard and I were to breakfast together.
"This strikes me as being a happy arrangement,"he said, smiling what I had often called his "twenty-one-year-old smile," for when he wore it it was difficult for me to believe that he was as far advanced in the thirties as I knew him to be. "This looks quite married and home-like, doesn't it—Mrs. Chalmers?"
Richard seldom jested about our marriage, and he never, but this one time, made reference to the name which would be mine when we married. Such a jest on the morning before, when he had just come in from his trip and was the personification of gentlemanly grouch, would have made all the world radiant to me; but, as it was, I blushed painfully as he spoke the name—and he took the blush at its face value.
"Ah, madam, I see that the thought pleases you!" he kept on banteringly as my hand trembled a little over the tea-ball. "Perhaps this is my opportunity for pressing my suit—isn't that what they call it in novels? It smacks too much of the tailor shop to suit my taste, however.—But honestly, Ann, I do want us to make arrangements for our marriage the first minute this nomination business is over. What do you say, dear heart?"
Again, if the question had been asked yesterdaymorning it would have made a startlingly different impression, but, as it was this morning, I parried.
"I say that we are two very selfish and thoughtless young people to be talking about such things while Evelyn is lying up-stairs so ill—and your mother in such distress, Richard," I answered.
"Well, we'll not say another word about it, if it troubles you, sweetheart," he said gently. Then after a moment he added: "I never expect to do anything to hurt you, even a little bit, again."
"You mean—?"
"I mean as I did yesterday—about Morgan, you know. Did you notice how I stayed clear away last night while you went to the door with him? But," resuming his tone of persiflage, "you were there an unreasonable time, it seems to me. Now, tell your rightful lord what you two cronies were talking about."
"About his trip," I said quickly, spilling a little tea upon the cloth and vigorously mopping it up with my napkin. "He's going to Europe next week."
"Well, he's a pretty decent chap, although he does look deucedly young to be cutting into people—don't you think so?" he asked, not that he really did thinkso, for Alfred is quite old-looking for his years, but he thought it would place him in a better light—the way he acted yesterday.
"Oh, you'd like a bearded old surgeon who learned so much technique before the war that he hasn't needed to learn any since," I answered, and the breakfast-hour passed away with this kind of light, bantering talk.
From that day Richard set about being the most agreeable companion when we were together, and the most devoted lover when we were separated that it has ever been my lot to meet in fact or fiction. I left Charlotteville the next day and he followed me up to the city on the fourth day thereafter, as soon as the doctors pronounced Evelyn out of danger. I had not intended stopping over in the city any length of time, but I found Cousin Eunice in a state of despair over the progress, or lack of progress, of her new book.
"Do stay," she begged, as I announced this intention to her, "at least until I get through with the proposal. It's as hard to get your hero to propose nicely as it is to get the gathers of a sleeve to set right. There's always either too much or too little in a given spot. And it's so provoking, when I'mright in the midst of such a delicate situation, to have Pearl call out to me from the foot of the steps: 'Mrs. Clayborne, here's a jepman at the do' want's to know if your husban's a householder and a freeholder.'
"'Tell him yes, and aslave-holder,' I yell back at her; for any woman who really keeps houseisa slave."
"What do 'jepmen' want to ask such fool questions for?" I asked wonderingly.
"To avoid election frauds. You see there is so much deviltry right now in politics that the law-enforcement faction is sending men around all over the city to find out every voter, and if he has the right to vote."
"Well, what good does it all do?"
"None; but it gives the poor, overworked housewives one more trip to the front door, in the course of the day.—Then there are agents selling non-rustible wired bust-forms. Pearl never knows what to say to them, either."
"Mercy, what should one say?" I demanded, thinking all of a sudden that maybe my task was going to be too large for me.
"Say anything that comes to your mind, just soit's unfit for publication—nothing milder will do for them," she answered bitterly.
"And Waterloo doesn't give you any trouble while you're trying to work, does he?" I inquired.
"Happily no, for Grapefruit is his consolation and his joy. Never were there such ways of a nursemaid with a man child. Never has anybody invented such tales and games—"
"And spitting contests," I interpolated.
"It's true she taught him that ugly habit," she responded with some dignity, "but all boys learn it sooner or later."
So I stayed and the book grew like a soap-bubble the first week. Then Pearl's brother got into that condition which is always described by our colored servants with much gusto and rolling of white eyeballs as "'bout ter die," and, whether he ever dies or not, is a matter that the housekeeper knows nothing of. But the servant always leaves, and she did in this case; and upon the Sunday morning thereafter the gas stove in the Clayborne home looked as if gangrene had set in on it. I had magnanimously insisted on doing the cooking; and I didn't know before that a gas stove had to be washed as often as a new-born baby.
Cousin Eunice came out of her cataleptic state on Sunday morning, for she is ashamed to write on the type-writer that day for fear Waterloo will tell it at Sunday-school—and she showed me how to dispose of the week-old egg-shells and concentrated soup cans which had accumulated amazingly around the fenders of the range.
"Oh, I think a literary ambition is an evil thing sometimes," she said with a deep sigh, looking around at the house, which she declared was enough to give us all bubonic plague.
"It is—er, disheartening to have you shut up all the week in the little back room up-stairs," Rufe admitted, fishing one of his best gloves out from behind the coal-box. "When you're locked away up there the house looks as empty as a hotel bureau-drawer—and that's the emptiest thing on earth."
"I know it," she answered, looking at him sympathetically. "—Besides, it's wearing to have a book for ever in your mind. Inspiration is so uncertain—and so urgent. I've had it strike me while I was washing my hair; and it's far from pleasant to have to dash the soap out of your eyes while you search all over the house for your note-book and pencil—and the water drips down all over the furniture."
"It must be," Rufe agreed.
"And here lately I've grown so absent-minded that when I go down-town for a little shopping I have to dress with my memorandum in my mouth to keep from going off and forgetting it."
But on Monday morning genius was burning again, and I stayed through that week, but only in the capacity of a protection against interruptions. We got another cook, for Pearl's brother, like Charles II., was "an unconscionable time a-dying." Richard came every day and every night and was so attentive to the whole family that Rufe rather sarcastically asked one day: "Ann, is Chalmers courting you or me?"
Rufe's words meant little to me then, but later they kept recurring to my mind with a persistency that would make Banquo's ghost appear like a tame and laggard thing. Was Richard hoping to gain, through his friendship with me, the support of theTimes? He knew that if Rufe's personal influence could not bring about an actual support of him in the coming campaign it would be a factor in having the paper judge his manipulations with a lenient eye.
And now this finally brings me up to that miserableday the following spring, the Ides of March, it was, when the skies fell; and they never fell upon a more wretched, more humiliated, more bitterly disciplined young woman.
As I have said, Richard had made an ideal fiancé throughout the time which followed that miserable parting with Alfred, and I had occasion many times to wonder if, after all, I might not have been mistaken about the incompatibility of our natures. Besides, the fascination of the handsome, physical Richard Chalmers was still there; perhaps it was never so strongly and bitterly there as on the fifteenth of March that I have just mentioned.
As the winter wore away, Richard's visits down home here, in the country, had been much further apart, especially since the time for the actual political fight drew nearer; and, from this fact and from the newspapers' more volcanic outbursts, I knew that a gubernatorial contest was about to take place.
But I should never have known it from the man who was most concerned in the race, for, during all this time, Richard never confided one hope nor fear of his to me; and I see now that it was not because he "didn't want to bother my pretty littlehead about such things," as he occasionally stated, with a fond smile, but because he judged me to be exactly of the same intellectual stripe as his mother and Evelyn. He thought that I would not have sense enough to understand the situation.
Richard had been out of town a good deal lately on business trips, and the meeting that morning in March, at Rufe's office, was in the nature of an accident. Richard had not known that I was in the city for a day's shopping, so when we accidentally ran across each other on the street, theTimesbuilding was the nearest place we might drop into for a little talk.
"Well, you are taking your campaign hard," I said, as I looked at him critically after Rufe had assured us that we might have the whole morning without interruption, in his own particular little den, as he was going to be out in town. Then Richard had asked him to give orders that we were not to be interrupted, as he particularly wished for a little talk with me.
"Ann, I've had enough to run any man crazy since I saw you last, dear," he said wearily, in answer to my comment on his looks. He dropped down into the nearest chair and put up one hand toshade his eyes from the brilliant morning glare. "This political business is the most infernal—"
"What, Richard?"
He was looking steadily into my eyes, but at my question he looked away; then after a moment moved his chair over closer and caught up my left hand.
"I'm in a devil of a mess, love," he said after a little inward struggle—then with that charming directness of his he ventured—"I want you to promise to help me out."
"Of course I will," I readily agreed.
"Oh, that's not the kind of promise I want," he instantly objected. "Say it solemnly. Say, 'I'll promise to stick to you.'"
"Why, Richard, you make me fear that something is seriously wrong," I cried in sudden alarm, for my sense of oneness with him had grown so amazingly since those months between the time of my visit to Charlotteville and then, and I felt as entirely identified with his interests as if we were already married. His attitude toward me at the breakfast-table the morning after Alfred's departure was a key-note to the manner in which he strove every day after that to cement this relation; and I know now that thiswas an immense factor in causing me to allow the engagement to exist through those days of doubt. I had always felt that an engagement was very nearly as binding as a marriage—and Richard had always exercised such a charming right of possession.
"Something is seriously wrong, Ann," he said gravely, and his eyes held mine in a sort of fascinated wonder; "and I expect you to stand by me."
His manner was very grave; and he seemed to be in a serious doubt as to whether or not I would stand by him.
"Tell me about it," I suggested as patiently as I could, for I was trembling with uneasy eagerness.
"Give me your hand and swear that you will stick to me."
"Oh, sweetheart, I'll stick to you if you're a horse-thief," I said, trying to force a laugh.
"Then listen! You know that I want to be governor of this state—"
I nodded my head.
"—And the temperance party is about to go back on me because they think that Major Blake and I are going to form a separate faction and leave out the liquor question."
"Yes, I know."
"Well, that is just what we are going to do—to save the state from the Republicans."
"Well?"
"And Blake is going to work up the campaignfor me—on the condition—"
My blood was pounding like fire through my veins, but I felt absolutely unable to move. I knew what he was going to say and my heart was pleading for mercy, but my lips were mute. They could not even move enough to say, "I know it all. Don't say the hideous words." Richard had grown painfully embarrassed, and he stammered awkwardly:
"—on the condition that I become his son-in-law."
Just what happened after this I do not know. I might sit here all night trying to recall his explanations and protestations, but I shall get through with it all as speedily as possible, for all I really remember about that terrible day is that I felt dreadfully ill—andbenumbed. I listened in a sort of trance to his recital of how Berenice Blake had labored under an hallucination for some time that he cared for her; and she had learned to return the fancied affection; how very ill she was, so ill that when she camehome for Thanksgiving it was found that she would have to go right back to Denver—
"And you went as far as St. Louis with them—and brought me a string of pearls," I said in a dazed fashion.
"Yes, I always think of you first—no matter where I am," he answered, looking at me fondly. "And our love-affair will not even be suspended for very long," he went on. "She can't possibly live six months; and her father wants, above everything on earth, that she shall be happy for the little while that she has to live."
"By marrying you."
"By being engaged to me. I wouldnotmarry her—there is no necessity for that."
"And you are asking me to release you?"
"I amnot," he said very firmly. "I am asking you to give me—a leave of absence."
Some unknown power seemed to put the words into my mouth, for I was not conscious of any effort toward thinking.
"But I release you, Richard. I could not be—mixed up in that kind of thing."
He sprang from his chair and caught me violently in his arms.
"That's just what you're not going to do. You aremine. You are going to stick to me."
"I said that I would stick to you if you were a horse-thief," I said slowly. "—But not—this."
"Oh, Ann, you are breaking my heart," he cried, as he caught me close to him and buried his head on my shoulder. "You can't mean to throw me over."
"You are kind to put it that way, Richard," I said.
"You are a sensible girl," he exclaimed suddenly as he raised his head and looked at me again. "You must listen to reason and do exactly as I tell you in this matter. Then all will be well. The affair will be nothing more than a make-believe between us all, for Major Blake knows that I do not love the poor, homely, half-dead creature; the betrothal will have no more feeling in it than a stage kiss. The only deception you will have to practise will be to announce your own engagement to some one else this week, so that—"
"This week? My own engagement? Richard, what do you mean?"
"I mean just this, my poor little girl," he began, his deep gray eyes full of tears, and his hands, as they held mine, trembling piteously, "—that if thestory gets noised abroad that I—I hate even to suggest such a thing, Ann, it is so far from truth, darling—but if the story gets noised abroad that I jilted you it will harm my prospects, as well as being a humiliation to you."
"Oh, I see."
"So I thought you might announce your engagement to some one else—of course, just for a pose, but—"
"But there isn't any one else."
His eyes glanced into mine for a moment, then sought the floor.
"I've thought of all that," he said easily. "But you know that Alfred Morgan would—would—"
"Would let me use his name?"
"Oh, Ann, don't look so queer and unnatural, dear; you frighten me! You're not going to faint, nor—anything, are you?" he began, looking around helplessly.
"I'm not going to faint," I assured him with a little smile that was forced up from somewhere in the depths of my misery. "But I'm not going to use Alfred's—nor any other man's name in the way you suggest."
"It is only to save yourself humiliation, dear," hesaid, looking annoyed and relieved at the same time.