CHAPTER XITHE GERM OF DUTY
The case of the Good-Looking Member strained Nolan’s patience almost to the breaking point, but after many days of fruitless chafing, his forbearance was rewarded.
Eveley invited him to dinner.
“Have you rescued the good-looking one from the loveless sea?” he asked sarcastically.
“I have sown the good seed,” she said amiably.
“I never heard of sowing seeds in a loveless sea,” he sneered.
“I have thought up a wonderful scheme. But you will have to help me out. I always fall back on you in an emergency, don’t I?” Eveley’s voice was sweetest honey. “So you must come to dinner.”
“Is the Handsome Member to be among those present?”
“Oh, Nolan, this is our party—to talkthings over all by ourselves. It seems such ages since I saw you, and I’ve been so lonesome.”
Nolan was fully aware that this was fabrication, but being totally male, he found himself unable to resist.
“You do not know what lonesomeness is, Eveley. I nearly died. I almost wished I would die. I shall come early, and please wear the blue dress, and be good to me.”
That evening, after a long and satisfying preamble, they sat before her tiny grate with their coffee, and she broached the wonderful plan.
“He is the most utterly married-to-duty thing you ever saw. He says he can not in common decency refuse to marry a girl who has been engaged to him for five years. He hasn’t even seen her for three, and isn’t a bit interested in her. Why, they only write once a month, or so. That’s no love-affair, anybody can see that. But he won’t ask her to let him off, and so we have thought up the most scientific scheme to work it. He is inviting her to come here for a visit, and sheis to stay with me. She hates sensible businesslike men, and she adores scatter-brain, fussy ones. So when she comes, he is going to be as poky as duty itself, and wear old grimy clothes, and work day and night, and you are going to don your sunshine apparel and blossom out like a rose, and beau her around in great style. Result, she will fire him, hoping to ensnare you—but don’t you make any mistake and get yourself ensnared for keeps, will you?”
“He is going to work evenings, is he?”
“Yes, day times and night times and all times.”
“And I am to cavalier the lady?”
“Not the lady,” she denied indignantly. “Both of us. You shan’t go out with her alone. She is a terrible flirt, and very pretty. Where you and she goeth, I shall goeth also.”
“Well, I can stand it. But what is to become of my own future? Why should I neglect my legal interests to beau another fellow’s sweetheart about the town?”
“Because you always help me out of a tight place,” she said wheedlingly. “And becauseyou do not approve of my campaign. But if you are nice and help me this time, I think I can everlastingly prove that I am right.”
“If I do the work, seems to me I do the proving.”
“Yes, but it is my theory, so I get the credit. Of course you must be very gay and make quite a fuss over Miss Weldon, but don’t you carry it too far, or you’ll be in bad with me.”
Anything that meant the eclipse of the Handsome Member could not be other than satisfactory to Nolan. He agreed with a great deal of enthusiasm, only stipulating that all evenings previous to the arrival of the pretty fiancée should be devoted to private rehearsal of his part under the personal direction of the Dutiless Theorist.
So it was Nolan and Eveley who met Miss Weldon at the station upon her arrival. They stood together beside the white columns, searching the faces of the passengers as they alighted. When a slender, fair-haired girl swung lightly down, they hurried to greet her.
“Miss Weldon?” asked Eveley, with her friendly smile. “I am Eveley Ainsworth, and this is my friend, Mr. Inglish. Mr. Baldwin could not get away to-night—’way up to his ears in work. But he is coming up to see you later this evening.”
If Miss Weldon was disappointed she gave no sign. Instead she turned to Nolan with frankly approving eyes, remarking his tall slim build, his thin clever face, his bright keen eyes.
“Are you so devoted to business, Mr. Inglish?” she asked, as she opened her small bag and took out a solitaire, which she placed on the third finger of her left hand. At the smiles in the eyes of Eveley and Nolan, she only laughed. “Why flaunt your badge of servitude? But don’t tell Timmy, will you?”
She was indeed very pretty, with warm shining eyes, and a quick pleasant voice. She was full of a bright wit, too, and the drive to Eveley’s Cote in the Clouds was only marred for Eveley by the fact that she, being driver, had to sit in front alone.
“We shall not do much cavaliering in thecar,” she thought grimly. “Not when there are only three of us. We’ll walk—three abreast.”
Miss Weldon was enchanted with the rustic steps, but a little fearful of them as well, and appropriated Nolan as her personal bodyguard and support. She squealed prettily at every creak and rumble.
“I shall never try these steps alone, Mr. Inglish,” she said, clinging to his not-unwilling hand. “I shall always wait for you.”
“I’ll roll her down, if she begins that,” thought Eveley.
But in spite of her disapproval, even to her there was something very attractive in the pretty girlish merriment and interest of her young guest.
“I do not see why Nolan had to squeeze in on this,” she said to herself most unfairly.
Miss Weldon was charmed with the dainty apartment, and loved the cunning electric fixtures in the tiny dining-room. She tucked an apron under her belt, and appointed Nolan her assistant in making toast, while Eveley finished the light details of serving dinner.
“It certainly is a silly business all the way around,” Eveley decided.
After their coffee, and after Nolan had finished his second cigar, Miss Weldon said, “Now since Miss Ainsworth got dinner, we must do the dishes. I shall wash, and you must dry them, Mr. Inglish, and be sure you make them shine, for I am very fussy about my dishes.”
And Eveley had to sit down in a big chair and rest, though she did not feel like sitting down and hated resting—and look quietly on while Miss Weldon fished each separate dish from the hot suds and held it out playfully for Nolan to wipe. It made a long and laborious task of the dish washing for Eveley, and she was quite worn out at its conclusion.
“Funny that some people can’t do their plain duty without getting the whole neighborhood mixed up in it,” she thought resentfully.
At nine o’clock, came Timothy Baldwin. Miss Weldon met him at the window, looked at him, half curiously, half fearfully, and after lifting her lips for a fleeting kiss,backed quickly away from him into a remote corner.
Then Nolan, according to prearranged plan, suggested that he and Eveley run down and put the car in the garage. “And if there is a moon, we may go for a joy-ride, so don’t expect us back too soon.”
And as they rode he spoke so unconcernedly of Sally’s smiles and curls and pretty hands, that Eveley was restored to her original enthusiasm for the campaign.
“Won’t she be wild?” she chuckled, snuggling close against Nolan’s side, but never forgetting that she was mistress of the wheel. “Tim is going to talk business all the time, and at ten-thirty he is going to say he must hurry home to rest up for a hard day’s work to-morrow. We are not to get in until eleven, so she will be utterly bored to distraction. Isn’t it fun?”
They drove slowly, happily around the park, over the bridge and under the bridge, around the eucalyptus knoll above the lights on the bay, and then went down-town for ice-cream. At exactly eleven o’clock, Nolan tookher hands as she stood on the bottom step of the rustic stair.
“I can’t say it is your duty to—be good to me—but I hope it will make you happy. And by the rules of your own game, I have a right selfishly to insist on your being always sweet and wonderful to me, and to me alone.”
“Just what do you mean by that, Nolan?”
“Nothing, of course, but can’t you use your imagination?”
“No, I can’t. That is for brides and fiancées, not for unattached working girls like me.”
Then she ran on up the stairs, and Nolan went home.
True to arrangement, Tim had gone at ten-thirty, and Miss Weldon in a soft negligee was sitting alone pensively, before the fire.
“Tim has changed,” she said briefly. “I think he has more sense, but a little less—er—warmth, I might say.”
“Do you think so? He works very hard. He is fearfully ambitious and they think everything of him at the office.”
“Yes? Then he must certainly have changed. He was not keen on business at Salt Lake. He lost three jobs in eight weeks. That is why he came west. And his father has financed half a dozen ventures for him. But perhaps he has settled down, and will do all right. I love your little apartment, and it is dear to call it a Cloud Cote, and Mr. Nolan is perfectly charming. Timmy asked us to meet him at Rudder’s for luncheon, you and me and your Mr. Nolan, also.”
“Oh, that is nice,” said Eveley. “I’ll come up for you in the car a few minutes earlier. You won’t mind being alone most of the day, will you? I work, you know.”
“No, I rather like being alone. I sew some, and I shall read, and there are letters to write. I do not mind being alone.”
Eveley found her really very agreeable, quite pleasant to entertain. And after all Nolan had only done as she requested, and there was nothing personal in it. It was lots of fun, but it must stop before Miss Weldon had time to grow really fond of Nolan, for of course she could not have him under anycircumstances. Eveley absolutely disbelieved in any form of duty, still she would not feel justified in carrying her animosity to the point of wilfully breaking innocent hearts.
At twelve-thirty the next day, Eveley and Miss Weldon entered the small waiting-room of Rudder’s café. Nolan was already there. They waited fifteen minutes for Timothy, and then a messenger came down to them with a note. Mr. Baldwin was so sorry, but business was urgent, and they must go right ahead and have luncheon without him. He would telephone them later in the evening if he could come up.
Sally Weldon pursed her lips a little, but she smiled at Nolan. “Can you beau us both, Mr. Inglish? We think we are mighty lucky to have half a beau a piece on working days. Are you the only man in this whole town who does not work like a slave?”
So they found a pleasant table in the café, and dawdled long over their luncheon, laughing and chatting. Then they took Nolan back to his office, and Eveley and Sally went for a drive on the beach to La Jolla.
“But don’t you have to work?” asked Sally, observing that it was long after two when they finally turned back toward the office.
Eveley shrugged her shoulders prettily.
“Oh, nobody works much but Mr. Baldwin,” she said. “He does the grinding for the whole force.”
Miss Weldon frowned a little, but said nothing.
That evening she had the dinner nicely started when Eveley reached home, and Eveley was loud in praise of her guest’s skill and cleverness.
“It is just lovely, but you must not work. You are company.”
“I rather like to cook. I took a long course in it four years ago when Timmy and I were first engaged, and I have done all the housekeeping at home since then. Daddy pays me double the salary we used to pay the cook, and I provide better meals and more cheaply than she did. Daddy says so himself.”
“Why, Sally,” cried Eveley warmly, “I think that is wonderful. I am surprised. I thought—I supposed—”
“Oh, I know what you thought,” laughed Sally brightly. “Everybody thinks so, and it is true. I am very gay and frivolous. I love to dance and sing and play. And I abhor solemn ugly grimy things, and I think the only Christian duty in the world is being happy.”
Eveley flushed at that, and turned quickly away.
Later Nolan joined them for dinner, and the little party was waxing very gay long before Tim called. Then it was only to say that he would be working late, but was sending them tickets for the theater and would join them afterward for supper at the Grant.
“Does he always work as hard as this?” asked Sally, looking steadily into Eveley’s face.
“He always works pretty hard,” said Eveley truthfully, “but he does seem busier than usual right now.”
Miss Weldon only laughed, and they talked of other things. Nolan went down with them in the car, Eveley driving alone in front, but somehow she felt her pretty guest to be less of a menace since she was guilty of sensible things like cooking and sewing.
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
Eveley did not explain that Timothy had felt inclined to join them for dinner and the show that night after disappointing them at luncheon, but she had been firm with him.
“Not to-day,” she insisted. “You can only have one hour with us to-night. To-morrow you can join us for luncheon and a short drive afterward, if you will fix it so I can get off.”
He was at the Grant waiting when they arrived, and rather impatient.
“Did you have a pleasant time?” he asked, looking into Sally’s bright face.
“Lovely. And did you hurry terribly to meet us? We don’t want to interfere with your work, or bother you.”
He searched her face for signs of guile, but her eyes were unclouded, and her manner indicated only a friendly concern for his interests.
It was a very happy party that night. Both girls were merry, and Nolan was really more solicitously attentive to Sally than wasquite necessary even in the interests of a campaign directed against her. When at a late hour, they trooped out to the car, it was he who helped her carefully into the machine, though, with seeming reluctance, he permitted Timothy to sit with her while he joined Eveley in the front seat.
“Timmy is good-looking, don’t you think?” Sally asked that night, as they were preparing for bed.
“Yes, if he did not work so hard. Young men should not kill themselves with labor.”
“Your Nolan is handsomer, perhaps,” said Sally pleasantly.
The next day Timothy did meet them for luncheon, after keeping them waiting for twenty minutes, and later they went for a fast ride out Point Loma. But that night he did not see them at all, though he told Eveley he thought she was rather rubbing it in, cheating him out of so many pleasant parties and good times.
“I may not want to marry her, but it is good sport chasing around,” he protested.
But Eveley was very stern. He had puthimself in her hands, and he must obey without argument, and that settled it. And when he suggested that it would look better if he and Sally had one party by themselves without Nolan tagging at their heels, she frowned it down.
“One private party can spoil a whole week of hard work,” she decreed.
So the week passed. Once even Eveley pretended business, and Sally and Nolan had luncheon together, and a drive later in Eveley’s car. But Timothy put a stop to that.
“She is my fiancée. And I may have to marry her after all. And if I do, hanged if I want everybody in town thinking she was Nolan’s sweetheart to begin with.”
So Eveley waived that part of her plan, and the parties were always of three, and sometimes, but infrequently, of four. That Sally accepted their arrangements so easily, and took so much pleasure in their entertainment, argued well. One night she said:
“Of course, men have to work, but I shouldn’t like my husband to dig away like a servant, should you, Eveley?”
And Eveley felt the time was ripe. The next day she told Timothy he might take Sally out alone in the car for a drive, and ask her if they should not be married right away. Eveley was willing to wager that she would reject him. Timothy consented with alacrity, seeming to feel the burden of his semi-attached state.
That evening at six-thirty, when Nolan came up for dinner, Eveley met him on the roof garden over the sun parlor.
“Nolan, something has happened. They went at two o’clock, and they aren’t home yet. What do you suppose is the matter? Maybe they had an accident. Maybe she got mad and wouldn’t ride home with him. He wouldn’t put her out, would he? Shall we notify the police?”
“I should say not. Don’t worry. Let’s have our dinner. They can eat the leavings when they come. He has probably learned, as other and wiser men have learned, that a pretty and pleasant girl is not half bad company. I’ll bet he is having the time of his life. My, it is nice to have you alone again.She is very sweet, and it’s been lots of fun, but after all I am used to you, and this is nicer.”
Nolan’s prediction proved far from wrong. At ten-thirty, a messenger boy shouted up from below, and Nolan ran down. When he came back he carried a small yellow slip addressed to Eveley, which he promptly opened. And as she peered over his shoulder, they read it aloud, together, in solemn chorus.
“Three cheers and a tiger. She has accepted me, and we were married at Oceanside this afternoon. On our way to Yosemite for honeymoon. I am the happiest man on earth. Tell Nolan to go to the dickens. Love from Sally and Timothy Baldwin.”
“Three cheers and a tiger. She has accepted me, and we were married at Oceanside this afternoon. On our way to Yosemite for honeymoon. I am the happiest man on earth. Tell Nolan to go to the dickens. Love from Sally and Timothy Baldwin.”
Nolan lit a cigar and blew reflective rings into the air. “When a man is bitten with the germ of duty,” he began somberly.
For a moment Eveley was crushed. Then she rallied. “Just as I told you, Nolan. As long as it was a painful duty, marriage between them was impossible, and would have wrecked both their lives. But our campaign brought about the proper adjustment and tuned them to love again. So it was not duty,but love, and marriage is a joy. Now I hope you are convinced that I am right, and won’t argue with me any more. And if I ever had any doubts about that one exception I make in regard to duty, they are all gone now. I am dead sure of my one exception.”
But when Nolan pressed her for an explanation, she begged him to smoke again, and let her think.
CHAPTER XIITHE REVOLT OF THE SEVENTH STEP
The sharp tap on Eveley’s window was followed by an impatient brushing aside of the curtains, and Miriam Landis swung gracefully over the sill in a cloud of chiffon and silk.
“Lem is waiting in the car,” she began quickly, “but I came up to show you my new gown. Are you nearly ready? Lem is so impatient, you know.” Fumbling with the fasteners of her wide cape she drew it back and revealed a bewilderingly beautiful creation beneath.
Eveley went into instant and honest raptures.
“Do you like it, Eveley? Am I beautiful in it?” There was a curious wistfulness in her voice, and Eveley studied her closely.
“Of course you are beautiful in it. You are a dream. You are irresistibly heavenly.”
“I wonder if Lem thinks so,” said Miriam, half breathlessly.
“Why, you little goose,” cried Eveley, forcing the laughter. “How could he think anything else? There, he is honking for us already. We must hurry—Why, Miriam, you silly, how could any one think you anything in the world but matchlessly wonderful in anything—especially in a dream like that?”
Miriam fastened her wrap again silently, and got carefully out through the window.
“Twelve steps,” cautioned Eveley. “You’d better count them, it is so dark, or you may stumble at the bottom.”
Miriam, clinging to the railing on one side, passed slowly down. “One, two, three, four, five, six.” Then she stopped and turned.
“Seven.” Looking somberly up to Eveley, standing above her, her face showing pale and sorry in the dim light, she said, “I have been married five years, Eve. You do not know what it is to spend five years struggling to maintain your charm for your husband. And never knowing whether you have failed or won. Always wondering why hefinds more attraction in other women less beautiful and less clever. Always wondering, always afraid, trying to cling to what ought to be yours without effort. It isn’t funny, Eveley.” She turned slowly, to go on down, but Eveley laid a restraining hand on her arm.
“Five years? That is a long time,” she said in a tender voice. “It must almost be his turn now. Five years seems very long to me.”
Miriam passed on down the stairs, counting aloud, eight, nine, ten, and on to the last. At the last step she turned again.
“He is my husband, Eveley. One must do what is right.”
“Yes? Yet five years of duty does not seem to have brought you much happiness. At least you should not be selfish. You ought not to deny him the pleasure of doing his by you for the next five.” Then she added apologetically: “Forgive me, Miriam. You know I should never have mentioned this if you hadn’t spoken.”
Miriam clung to her hand as they felt theirway carefully around the house, Lem in the machine still honking for them to hurry.
At the corner she paused again. “You are very clever, aren’t you, Eveley?”
“Well, yes, I rather think I am,” admitted Eveley.
“How would you go about it?”
“The way Lem does,” came the quick retort, and Miriam laughed, suddenly and lightly.
She was very quiet as they drove down Fifth Street. Only once she spoke.
“It was the seventh step, wasn’t it, Eveley?”
“Yes, the seventh.”
“The Revolution of the Seventh Step,” she said, laughing again.
This was nonsense to Lem Landis, but he did not ask questions. Women always talked such rot to each other. And he was wondering if Mrs. Cartle would surely be at the ball?
“The way Lem does.”
The words were startlingly sufficient. From five years of painful experience, Mrs. Landis knew how Lem did it. And so on thisevening, as she stood beside him in a corner of the ballroom after their first greetings, and looked as he did with eager speculative eyes about the wide room, seeking, seeking, she felt a curious sympathy and harmony between herself and her husband. She knew without turning her head when the sudden brightening in his eyes came; and then he slowly made his way to the dim corner where Mrs. Cartle sat waiting.
But Miriam was not so quickly satisfied. There was Dan O’Falley, but his was such fulsome effrontery. There was Clifford Eggleton, but he had been a sweetheart of Miriam’s in the old days before Lem came, and that seemed hardly fair. There was Hal Jervis, but he was too utterly wax in woman’s hands to give her any semblance of thrill. Then her eyes rested on a profile in another corner of the room—a dark sleek head, a dark thin face, and the clear outline of one merry eye. Miriam appraised the head speculatively. Who in the world could it be? That merry eye looked very enticing. Ah, now she could see better—he was talking tothe Merediths. Then the merry-eyed one was a stranger—so much the better, the uncertainty of him pleased her. She was very weary of those she knew so well. She moved happily that way, suddenly surprised to know that she was not at all concerned because her husband sat in the distant corner with Mrs. Cartle. She felt for him to-night only a whimsical comradeship. Stopping many times on her way to exchange a word and a smile, she finally drew near the corner where the sleek dark head and the merry eye had drawn her. Mrs. Meredith, seeing her, came to meet her, and drew her forward impulsively.
“Oh, Miriam, you must meet our friend, Mr. Cameron. He has only just come here to be with my husband in business, and we are going to love him, I know.” And so immediately Miriam found herself looking directly, and with great pleasure, full into the merry eyes. The gown was beautiful upon her, she knew it positively, whether Lem had been stirred by the vision or not.
“Oh, she is lovely enough,” said BillyMeredith plaintively. “But don’t be lured by her, Cameron. She is still in love with her husband.”
Miriam smiled at her victim with disarming friendliness. “But I like to be amused,” she said. “And I have been married long enough now to feel like playing again.”
Cameron laughed at that, and the laughter fulfilled the promise of the merry eye. Miriam was quite intoxicated with the game her husband had taught her. That Eveley was a clever little thing, wasn’t she?
“Suppose we dance then,” Cameron suggested eagerly. “It is the approved method of beginning to play.”
“We resign you to your fate,” sighed Billy Meredith once more. “I warned you, you laughed me to scorn. Now plunge and die.”
“He seems to think I am dangerous,” said Miriam, as they stepped lightly away to the call of the music.
“Well, far be it from me to say he is wrong. But I am sure you will prove a charming playfellow. You seem fairly to match my own mood. I suppose we can notclimb trees and go nutting and fishing and wade in the creek as we might have done together years ago, but if you will be patient and teach me your way of playing in your ladyhood, I think you will find me an apt, and certainly a willing playmate.”
“Then let’s begin to-morrow night. Come to my house, and let’s play pool. It is the most reckless thing we can do. I have a sweet little friend and she has a deadly admirer, and they will come with us. She is very clever, too, and full of fun. See, that is she there, dancing—the one with the golden frock. Her name is Eveley Ainsworth and the solemn young man is Nolan Inglish, and they are unannounced but accepted sweethearts. You are not afraid of Friend Husband, then?”
“Not until Friend Husband gets afraid of me,” he said.
Later in the evening, as they were having ices in a wonderful nook in the ballroom, he said seriously, and with no laughter in the merry eyes:
“Are you trying to make a truant husbandjealous? Just be frank with me, and I will do my best. I know you wanted a pal to-night. Do you mind telling me why?”
For a moment she hesitated. Then she smiled. “If my frankness loses me a pleasant comrade I shall regret my candor. But I do want to play fairly with you. So hear then the bitter truth. I have been married five years, and I have worked like a common slave to make myself beautiful and winsome and irresistible to my husband. And you know that a wife can’t do it, if the husband isn’t in the mind for it. And so to-night I am starting a revolution. I do not want to struggle forever. I want to play and be happy. I have no notion of making my husband jealous. That has not even occurred to me. I just want to be joyful—to learn to be joyful—regardless of him.”
“Then may I be a disagreeable old preacher, and say one thing? You know this may be fun, but sometimes it is dangerous. Human beings are not machines, and often they make mistakes and fall in love, when they had only meant to play. You would not findit at all pleasant to be married to one man, and in love with another. And maybe you would not enjoy having a husband and a lover in two persons, I am not trying to foretell the future, or make unpleasant predictions—I am only sounding the warning note.”
Miriam considered this very solemnly. Then she said: “Well, I think I should not mind. It does not seem to bother Lem to be married to me, and at the same time be involved in stirring friendships with other people.”
“Just one more sermon then, and I am through,” he said, laughing. “It is this. Men and women are very different. A man can play his head off with a dozen women, and still stay in love with his wife, and want no one but her. But a really nice woman, and you are awfully nice, can not have love-affairs without love. When she loves a man, she wants him, and will not have any one else. Your husband can have a dozen affairs, and still want you. But if you have a pleasant affair—you may not want your husband.”
“Well, of course, Mr. Preacher, one must take a chance. And it is to be only play, you know. That must be understood right in the start. I am really not a bit advanced nor modern, nor anything. I have no forward ideas in my head. I am just tired of trying to please my husband; I want some one to please me. It does not seem to offer you much for your pains, does it? But you may find me fairly amusing.”
“I am sure of it,” he agreed warmly. “And it is all settled, and we are going to play together. And if sometimes you get tired of me, and fire me off, I shall bob up serenely the next day and start over, just as we might have done when we were little children.”
When Miriam reported her progress in revolution to Eveley the next day, Eveley was greatly perturbed.
“You went too fast,” she said with a frown. “And besides—it is not fair. He isn’t married. He will fall in love with you.”
“Oh, no, we have a regular understanding,” said Miriam confidently. “It is all settled according to rules, and we are only going toplay. Lem goes to his club to-night, and you and Nolan are to come and play pool with us. Doesn’t it sound emancipated and free?”
“Almost bolshevistic,” said Eveley grimly. “I do not approve of it—not exactly—though I do think you are justified. But it is so risky—and people talk—”
“Well, Eveley, I think it is better to have people say, ‘What do you think of the way Miriam Landis is carrying on?’ than ‘Isn’t Miriam Landis a little fool not to get next to her husband in all these years?’ Shouldn’t you?”
“Well, we’ll be there,” said Eveley evasively. “We’ll be right there. If he just wasn’t so good-looking, and sort of—decent? Why didn’t you pick out a roue? They are lots safer than these decent young chaps.”
Nolan, always a willing sacrifice when Eveley bade, joined them without demur, and a more rollickingly gay time they had never had. Even Eveley admitted that things seemed innocent and harmless enough, but she shook her head.
“He is too good,” she whispered to Miriam. “When he falls, he will fall hard. And if he is once in love, I have a feeling he will work like—like the dickens—and you haven’t much spinal column yourself, you know. And I do not believe in home wreckers, and things.”
Nolan, also, frankly disapproved.
“It doesn’t make any difference what kind of husband she’s got,” he said decidedly. “As long as he is her husband, it is her duty to stick to him and leave other men alone.”
“Don’t say duty to me,” said Eveley crossly. “Five years is long enough for any woman to do her duty. I think she is quite justified in giving Lem a good scare. Maybe he will wake up, and behave himself. But this Gordon is too good-looking, and too desperately nice. How can they play together like two children? You know what will happen.”
“I think it has already happened. He is head over heels right now, and she is not breaking her heart over Lem, either. I give them two weeks to develop a first-rate rash.”
“But Miriam believes in duty,” said Eveleyhopefully. “Maybe that will save them. She would never elope with him, and I do not think he would even ask her, he is so sort of respectable and set.”
But Nolan was pessimistic. “Folks talk about duty until they fall in love, and then they forget it and everything else. And Lem has acted abominably. I thought she did not know it.”
“So did I. But—”
“Well, no use to worry. We’ll stick around with them and sort of boss the job. I am glad you invited them to the Cote to-morrow night.”
“And for supper, too. When Lem finds she is coming here for a supper party and he is left out, he may begin to think.”
“The trouble with Lem is, he can’t help himself. He loves Miriam all right, but women go to his head. He may get jealous and promise everything on heaven and earth, but he can’t keep his word.”
“Then he shouldn’t have married.”
“She should never have married him. When women understand that a man who cannot look at a woman before marriage without making love to her—can’t do it afterward—they will save themselves a lot of trouble.”
“Well,” said Eveley hopefully. “No one can say you hurt yourself making love.”
So the playing went on, Nolan and Eveley acting as constant and merry chaperons, and the little grouping grew more and more congenial. Lem realized that a convulsion was going on in his home, and reformed desperately for days at a time, but a secluded corner and a lovely woman invariably set him pleading for forgiveness. Miriam always forgave him promptly and said it did not bother her; and was at first frightened, and then delighted, to know that it truly did not bother her any more.
Then one evening, Eveley had a mad telephone call from Lem, quickly followed by a flying rush to her little Cote.
“See what you’ve done,” he shouted, half-way through the window. “That is what comes of your interference. Miriam was the most contented woman on earth till you began feeding her up on this notion of revenge.”
“You sit down and talk sense, Lem Landis, or get out,” said Eveley. “Contented! She hasn’t known a contented day since she married you. You have had five years of jollying with other women. Now because another man smiles on her, you go into a rage and tear your hair. You make me sick.”
“Look here, Eveley, you got me into this, and you’ve got to get me out. I didn’t care how much they smiled. I thought at first it was a put-up job to make me jealous, and I laughed at it. But it has gone too far.”
“Everything is all right,” said Eveley soothingly. “They are just playing. Nolan and I are with them all the time. There is nothing serious between them.”
“Don’t be a fool,” he said rudely. “You know that men and women can’t play like kids. Miriam wants a divorce.”
Eveley sat down and swallowed hard.
“A divorce,” he raged, champing wildly up and down the small room. “She says there is nothing between them, and she does not love him, but she can’t stand me any more. Why can’t she stand me? She stood me forfive years. What’s come over her all of a sudden that she says it makes her sick to kiss me? She won’t even let me hold her hand. She says it is blasphemous. Blasphemy to touch my own wife’s hand! You know what that means, don’t you? She is in love with that—that—”
“You can’t swear here,” Eveley broke in quickly. “I won’t have it. I think you are mistaken, Lem. She doesn’t want a divorce. Not really. She wouldn’t, you know.”
“But she does, I tell you. She says it is sacrilege to live with me, and so she is going off by herself to desert me, and says I’ve got to get a divorce on those grounds when the time is up, or heaven only knows what she’ll do. Now, you got us into this mess, and you’ve got to stop it.”
“I’ll do what I can, Lem,” she promised. “And so will Nolan. But between you and me, I do not blame her. I wouldn’t have lived with you two months, myself.”
“I have never wanted another woman in my life,” he said brokenly. “It has always been Miriam with me from the very minuteI saw her. I have fooled around a lot, I know, but it’s always been Miriam for serious.”
“Yes,” she said bitterly. “That is it. It is just as Gordon says. A man can fool around and still love his wife. But a nice woman can’t. She is strong for one man—at a time. When she falls for a new one, it is all off with the last. You could love a dozen at a time, but Miriam is too nice for that.”
“But you promised—”
“Oh, yes, I’ll do what I can, and I will advise her to stick it out, but I think she will be very foolish if she takes my advice.”
Nolan was immediately summoned, and a desperate struggle began with Miriam. But it was really no struggle.
“Why, Eveley,” she said reproachfully, “I am surprised at you. Can’t you see that a woman can not live with a man she dislikes? It makes the shivers run down my back when he touches me. It—isn’t nice. It—makes me feel like—well, not at all right. You can see that, can’t you, Nolan?”
“I am afraid I can.”
“But he is your husband,” protestedEveley. “Isn’t it your place as his wife to—to—”
“Do you mean my duty, dear?” asked Miriam, smiling faintly. “I am surprised at you, Eve. No dear, it isn’t. Your theory that duty is happiness is half right. But a woman has one other duty also—self-respect. I am all packed up, dear, and going to-morrow. You do not mind my not leaving my address, do you? I want to go off very quietly by myself. I do not want Gordon to know. I am afraid he will blame himself for it. You will make him see that it was not he, at all, won’t you? And after it is all over, I shall write, or maybe come to see you. You will ask him not to look for me, won’t you? There has not been a thing serious between us, Eveley, you believe that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I know it. I’ve chaperoned you two till I am fairly sick of it.”
Miriam smiled again. “Be sure to tell him everything I said, will you?”
Nolan and Eveley were very quiet after she had gone. And Eveley cried a little.
“I hope she will be happy,” she said tearfully.
“She will be. Gordon will wait for her, and not crowd her. He is like me. He can talk to a woman without loving her.”
“You can, at least.”
“At least, I do not talk about it all the time,” he amended. “What I mean is that his affection is for the one, and not for the sex.”
“Do you think she did right, Nolan?”
“I do not think it is my duty to judge,” he evaded cleverly. “She had one chance for happiness, and she lost. Now she is to have one more. We are her friends, and we love her. We can not begrudge her one more opportunity, can we?”
“No indeed, and you put it very nicely,” she said more comfortably. “Isn’t it nice that we do not believe in duty? But we shall miss them. They were very nice playmates for us, as well as for each other—Nolan, there was something sort of sweet about Lem, after all? Something very human and lovable and—but of course it was Miriam’s duty to be happy.”