Forbes was about to say that their passion had something akin to this. But as he raised his eyes to hers he saw that she had the same thought.
She shivered and said, "Let's get away from the place."
NEVER, it seems, has human ingenuity been able to devise a scheme of guardianship that human ingenuity could not thwart. Seeing that seraglio walls, and yashmaks, and eunuchs, and bow-strings, and scarlet letters, and pillories, and divorce courts, and gossips have failed to scare fidelity into the disloyal, perhaps the modern honor system is as good as any. But the honor system is not infallible; and not all the spies of Mrs. Grundy can coerce from without those who are not coerced from within their own hearts.
For those who are willing to devote themselves to deceit and make an industry of other people's property, opportunities have always been infernally provided. Persis and Forbes did not find it difficult to be alone. Solitudes seemed to be created suddenly in crowds, chances to escape and to creep back undetected seemed to be brandished in their faces. The unabated plague of the tango explained their presence at all sorts of hours at all sorts of places. There were morning classes in new steps; between the courses of luncheon at numerous restaurants in and out of town there were dances, and these were prolonged till tea, and after that till dinner, and on until whatever hour of closing the individual cabareteer had arranged with the police. The private hostesses seemed to vie with the restaurateurs.
The dancing frenzy had shown no signs of passing. It had developed into a revolution that swept the world. Dancers who were yesterday unknown, to-day were wealthy. A dancer and his wife had grown to such dimensions of fame that influential people rented them a house on Fifth Avenue, where lessons could be given at all hours. A girl who had danced in a restaurant became a national figure and hired a hall. The clergy and the editors fought in vain; the Kaiser and the Pope were unheeded; all the nations danced; even the Japanese caught the contagion. New steps abounded, became so complex that it was not easy to change partners. The turkey-trot was laughably obsolete. Everything and everybody was influenced by the tango in one of its countless forms. It had already made itself an epoch in human history.
Willie Enslee was one of the stubborn minority that refused to dance or go to dances. After a number of vain assertions of an authority he could not enforce he ceased to concern himself with Persis' whereabouts; she ceased to announce her program in advance or to report it afterward.
The motor-car was another immense enlargement of liberty—and license; it was so easy to outstrip pursuit and outwit espionage. In two hours one could vanish into the wilderness and return without evidence of escape. At distant road-houses and motor-caravansaries the twang of tango music troubled the country midnights.
And so the intrigue of Captain Forbes and Mrs. Enslee prospered and established itself as the habit of their lives; their souls adapted themselves to it. Precautions against discovery became second nature, like precautions against disease and accident. They were bound together in a kind of secret wedlock, what Tibullus called thefurtivi foedera lecti.
Persis, like another Guenevere, justified herself to herself by the feeling that she was true to one Launcelot; she flirted with no one else; she kept Willie's home in order as best she could; she paid him the tribute of outward devotion and public respect. Above all, she justified herself by her success. So far as she could see, nota human being suspected her love for Forbes, not a breath of scandal had been stirred.
And all the while gossip was busy with them; evidence accumulated against them grain by grain, as sand-dunes are formed into walls. Everybody spoke of the intrigue to everybody but those most concerned. Nobody warned Persis or rebuked Persis or tattled to Willie. A few fearless persons talked to Persis' father, but he could not believe, or, believing, could not touch so repulsive a topic in his few meetings with his daughter. How could a father accuse his little girl of outrages against a commandment he had been afraid even to mention to her. Several women broached the theme with Willie's mother, who had been suspicious on her own account. She answered the gossips with fervent denials and with vigorous defense of Persis; but she vowed to herself that she would descend upon her daughter-in-law with vengeance. Yet, before Persis' eyes she could only dissemble; then she would resolve to warn her son, but she feared the terrific possibilities of lighting such a fuse. Willie was like herself in so many ways, and half of her blood was from the Spanish aristocracy through an international marriage.
Eventually people began to say that somebody must tell Willie, and some day somebody might. Some day he might stumble upon some tryst, or open a letter, or overhear a gossip's careless word.
Ten Eyck heard plenteous scandal, and he was heartbroken. Even his cynicism could not stomach the intrigue. But even his affection could not bring him to protest.
He had intervened once before in such a scandal; but the husband had forgiven his wife because of her beauty and her gaiety, and both of them had thereafter been his bitterest enemies, because he knew and had said too much. Friends who had merely gossiped behind their backs were reinstated to complete favor.
Everybody felt that Persis and Forbes, in their madgallop across another man's boundary line, were riding for a fall. But everybody was fascinated by the breathlessness of the gallopade, the escapes from disaster. Nobody cut Persis, omitted her from a list of invitations, or treated her otherwise than as a valued and charming ornament to the world. Nobody would desert her so long as she kept the saddle, held her head up, and remained attractive.
But should she fall and be dragged in the dirt, then the panic would come; then the majesty of public morals would assert itself, and her friends would flee from her as if she appeared among them chalk-faced and scaly-handed with leprosy.
Meanwhile the poison of their Judas life was wearing upon their own souls. Forbes was growing restive to be at work again upon his career. To be the messenger-boy of a woman's summons grew increasingly irksome. He dreaded an official cognizance of his new career as home-wrecker, and his innate decency was more and more rebellious against the outrages he committed incessantly against his self-respect, his creeds, his codes, his position.
And, last of all, a strange new horror assailed the basking luxury of Persis. It dawned upon her that in spite of all her precautions nature was about to make the use of her that all this rapture was for. Her physician confirmed her dread, and congratulated her—and her husband! She dared not ask his aid in foiling her destiny. She dared not ask anybody's aid. Her life of pleasure-hunting had made a coward of her.
And so at length remorse found a lodging even in her voluptuous life. She understood the fearful responsibility she had assumed to a future soul. And she groveled in abject self-derision to think that even she could not be sure of her child's legitimacy. So helpless a vessel for nature's chemistry she was that she was not permitted to know even that! And she could not so much as be sure whether she even wished it to be love's child or the law's.
The treachery to her own child was so hideous that she would have killed herself had she not dreaded to add murder to suicide. She longed to pour out her woes to Forbes, but she could not bring herself to confess her degradation. He only knew that somehow all the rapture was gone from their union. It had lost even that compensation.
The thought came to Forbes that there was but one way to make their life livable—to make it frank and public. Persis must enter the divorce court, and as soon as possible after marry him. That sort of solution for such intrigues had been much practised of late. It had become so fashionable that protest was losing its vigor.
He opened the subject to Persis. She shrank from it with revulsion. She could not tell him her secret even then; but it was a mighty argument to herself against such a step. She gave other reasons cogent enough in her opinion.
"Anything but divorce, Harvey. I'd rather die than go through it. Willie couldn't do the polite thing. He is a Catholic, you know, and his mother's Spanish blood boils at the divorce habit."
"Then if he won't give it, you can take it, anyway."
"But suppose he should fight. Suppose he should set detectives going back over our trail or bribe the servants. Look at this morning's papers—the ghastly head-lines about Mrs. Tom Corliss—her photographs! Did you read the testimony of the maid at that big hotel? Suppose Willie should get hold of that bellboy who was so insolent to us—the one we didn't dare rebuke and had to tip so heavily. Did you read Mrs. Tom's love letters yesterday? Only one paper dared to print them all. Mrs. Neff said everybody bought it specially. Mrs. Neff laughed till she cried.
"Wouldn't you rather die than go through with it? And, my God, how they would tear me to pieces! The poor people and the middle-class people push throughthe divorce court in droves—eighty divorces were granted in two hours the other day, Murray Ten Eyck was telling me, and only one paper mentioned it—in a paragraph! But if Mrs. Tom Corliss gets the front page, what wouldn't they give to Mrs. Willie Enslee?"
Forbes said no more. Somehow he was reminded of the time when he was dancing with Persis, and the rose light was suddenly changed to green. There was a charnel odor in the air.
THE following afternoon Persis came home from a tango-tea, where she had expected to meet Forbes. Through some misunderstanding he had failed to appear. This left her plans in a decided tangle. He was probably trying to find her by telephone. He would doubtless call up the house. Things were in a mess there, too. An ancient romance in the servants' quarters had resulted in a wedding between the second man and one of the chambermaids. Nichette had been chosen as a bridesmaid and had begged off for the afternoon, as had all of the others that could be spared.
Nichette had long ago been taken into their confidence as a necessary go-between. Persis trembled lest a message from Forbes should fall into inexperienced hands.
To complicate matters Willie had resolved to go to the opera that night and to be on time. He had read an editorial somewhere ridiculing the horseshoe of box-holders for their indifference to overtures and first acts. Willie naturally selected this one evening for his rebuke to the editor. Dinner was to be served an hour earlier than usual.
Harrowed by the multiplex difficulties surrounding an intrigue, Persis was kept waiting at the door a long time in the cold. She was about to rend the tardy footman to pieces when the door was opened by Crofts, the superannuated butler, an heirloom from Enslee's father.
Crofts had long ago reached the age when he was too venerable to wear the Enslee livery. He was an ideal gentleman, respected and loved by all the family and itsfriends. But as an officer of the household he was deaf, decrepit, and almost useless. Yet he was too much of an institution to discharge, and he simply would not retire.
He was permitted to lag superfluous as a sort of butleremeritus. At large dinners he hovered about in the offing correcting and directing with a marvelous tact and an infallible memory for the encyclopedic lore of nice service. For a guest to be recognized by his watery old eyes and named by his thin lips was in itself a distinction.
To-day he was blissfully happy. The young upstart servants had flocked to the wedding, and he was called to the helm. When Persis saw him at the door her heart melted, but it also sank.
"Did anybody call?" she asked, and asked several times increscendo.
"Only Mrs. Enslee, ma'am," he whispered, in his dry, cackling, deaf man's voice.
Persis cast her eyes up in despair and hastened to pay her devoirs to her mother-in-law. The elder Mrs. Enslee was looking radiantly beautiful in her white hair and her black eyes and the assisted red of her Spanish lips, with her cascade of furs falling about her.
She smiled at Persis sadly. Her daughter-in-law was beautiful undeniably. What a pity that she was not also good! But she kept back her reproaches, and said in the most delicate of accents, with her tendency to an exquisite lisp:
"Don't worry, my dear. It's only a duty call."
"Won't you stop to dinner?" Persis urged. "We're only going to have a bite. We're dining early and hurrying away to the opera. Willie is determined to hear the overture and the first act. I dote on 'Carmen,' but I've never been in time for the first of it."
"'Carmen!'" Mrs. Enslee sniffed. "That old slander on my race—as if Spanish women were all faithless!"
"But if it's Carmen for Spain," Persis said, "it's Camillefor France, and Becky Sharp for England, and—who for America?"
"Hester Prynne, perhaps."
"Oh yes," laughed Persis. "Even the Puritans had their scandals; but she was a grass-widow, and the town was so dull, and the preacher so handsome. Can you blame her?"
"Cynical Persis!" Mrs. Enslee sighed. "Well, I shall be late."
"I wish you'd stay," Persis lied, graciously. "You're a picture. And everybody says you are flirting dreadfully with old General Branscomb."
"I hope you don't believe all you hear."
"Only the worst."
"Then you're on the safe side. But remember, my dear, other people can apply the same rule. I'm not the only one who has been suspected of flirting with an army officer." The doorbell had punctuated their chatter several times. It rang again. "Now, who's that? Expecting anybody?"
"No, and I've got to fling into my opera-gown."
"What are you wearing to-night?"
The rhapsody of description was interrupted by the incursion of Willie. He wore his overcoat and top hat into the room, and his key-chain dangled. He was in one of his most fretful moods. He vouchsafed his mother a casual "Oh, hello,madre mia," then turned to Persis.
"What the devil has happened to the servants? Nobody to answer the bell. Had to let myself in. Deuced nuisance unbuttoning coat, getting keys out, finding right one. What are we coming to? I'll fire that Dobbs."
"You forget, dear, he is getting married this afternoon."
"We all ought to have gone," said Mrs. Enslee; but Willie has no sense of obligation to his employees.
He ignored the suggestion and raged on, "Well, Dobbs isn't our only servant, is he?"
"No," Persis explained; "but, you see, he's marrying the housekeeper's daughter, and the butler is best man, and the maids are bridesmaids—"
"Romance everywhere," Willie sneered, as he laid off his things and threw them on a chair, "except up-stairs. I suppose that's why my man was so surly when I told him he'd have to stay and dress me. He'll probably cut my throat while he shaves me. I wish he would."
"That's cheerful!" said Persis. "What brings you home from the club so early? It's such an unusual honor."
"I heard something I didn't like—gossip."
"Tell us what you heard," Mrs. Enslee asked, hungrily.
"I prefer not to retail club gossip in my home," said Willie.
"Oh, aren't we punctilious?" Persis railed; and Willie answered, curtly:
"One of us ought to be."
Persis was jarred a trifle, but her only comment was: "Why is it that when men are feeling ugly they always come home early?"
Willie threw her a look of wrath and turned to his distressed mother. "Won't you stop to dinner?"
"Not when there's so much war-paint visible, thanks!"
"But hang it all—" Willie began, and checked himself, for Crofts shuffled through the room. Willie rounded on him. "Oh, somebody at last, eh? Why the deuce was no one at the door? I had to let myself in."
Crofts cupped his hand behind his ear, and crackled, "Beg pardon, sir?"
"I had to let myself in, I say."
"Very sorry, sir, but owing to Dobbs' wedding and your early dinner, sir, the servants have a great deal to do."
"But I rang and rang!" Willie stormed, and repeated, wrathfully, "I rang and rang!"
"Very sorry, indeed, sir," Crofts pleaded. "My hearing isn't as good as it was when I entered your father's service."
"Well, I won't have my house turned into a—an infirmary."
Crofts heard that and withered. "Your father never complained of me, sir."
"You heard better then and jumped quicker," Willie shouted.
The old man, at bay, answered with unintended irony: "I meant no offense, sir, by growing old."
"Oh, get out!" Willie snapped.
Crofts bowed and turned on Persis a pitiful look. She gave him a glance of sympathy, then pointed to Enslee's coat and hat. Crofts took them, and, touching the back of his hand to his eyes and swallowing hard, shuffled away.
Willie's mother rebuked him. "You've broken his poor old heart."
And Persis was more severe. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
Willie retorted, more sharply: "Oh, we all ought to be ashamed of ourselves—for something or other. Crofts isn't the only man on earth with a broken heart."
As Persis stared in wonderment at his unusual mood Crofts came back. "You are wanted on the telephone, ma'am. The gentleman wouldn't give his name."
Persis flinched at this, and stammered, "You'll excuse me?"
Mrs. Enslee answered with a sudden frigidity, "Of course, but I'll not wait. Good-by."
"Good-by!" said Persis, uneasily, and left the room. The moment she was gone Mrs. Enslee put her hand on Willie's arm and spoke in some confusion.
"Willie, I—it's very hard for me to say it. But I think you allow Persis too much liberty."
Willie snorted. "Gad! a lot of good it does an American husband to try to manage his wife!"
"I know, and Persis is very headstrong," Mrs. Ensleefaltered; "but—well, if anything happens, remember I tried to—"
"Enjoying the luxury of an 'I told you so' already, eh?" Willie sneered. "What's up?"
"Oh, nothing—nothing definite—but I—I'm just a little uneasy. It can't hurt to keep your eyes open, can it?"
She had said this much at last. Willie took it solemnly. "What could hurt a man worse than to have to watch his wife?"
"Well, if that's the way you feel, just forget what I've said. I'm a foolish old woman. Good-by!"
Willie let her make her way out unattended. He stood musing till Persis came back, then he wakened with a start, and demanded, "Who was it telephoned you?"
The question took Persis by surprise. "No one that would interest you."
"Are you sure?"
"Since when this sudden concern in my affairs?"
"Aren't your affairs mine?" he pleaded; but she was curt:
"Indeed they're not. I don't nag you with questions."
He answered this with a sorrowful humility. "Sometimes I wish you would take a little more interest."
"You're in a funny mood," she said, more gently.
"It's not very funny to me," he groaned.
"You'll feel better after dinner. Run along and let Brooks dress you."
"What about you?"
"I had my hair done while I was out. I've got to wait for Nichette to get back. I—I'll come up as soon as I—as soon as I write a letter or two."
"All right," he sighed, and went out obediently, but paused to stare at her with a curious craftiness.
PERSIS awaited his departure impatiently, tapping her foot with restlessness. She fell into reverie of indefinite duration. The bell rang. She gave a start of joy. Crofts went by on his way to the door. She checked him. "I'm expecting Captain Forbes." He got the name on the third iteration. "If it is he, show him in here." He nodded and set out again. She called after him, "If it is any one else I'm not at home."
She ran to a mirror, preened herself expectantly, and waited with a look of joy. Crofts returned with a card. Persis took it, and asked, "You told her I was out?"
Crofts was alarmed at once. "No, ma'am, I said you were at home."
"But I said I was out to every one except—"
Crofts was in despair at his blunder. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm afraid I'm too old and deaf to—"
She relented and patted his hard shoulder-blade. "There, there! don't worry, we'll get through the day somehow. Show Mrs. Neff in; but nobody else except Captain Forbes."
Crofts smiled like a forgiven child, and returned with Mrs. Neff, who bustled in crying, "Ah, my dear, such luck to find you at home."
"So sweet of you to come," said Persis. She was in no mood for Mrs. Neff. She determined to be rid of her. She explained about the early dinner and begged to be excused lest Willie murder her for being late. Persis rang for Crofts, kissed Mrs. Neff a grateful good-by, and fled. As Crofts opened the door to let Mrs. Neff out he letWinifred Mather in. Crofts protested feebly that Persis was not at home, but Winifred came in anyway.
Winifred was just returned from Paris, foiled in her campaign for the late Ambassador, and determined to regain her control over Bob Fielding. She had not seen Mrs. Neff, and she had much to say. Ignoring the helpless Crofts, they drifted back to the drawing-room to swap scandals from the opposite shores of the ocean. In this fascinating barter they forgot the flight of time, forgot even the place they were in, for they fell to discussing Persis and her affair with Forbes.
Winifred had heard of it even in Paris.
"But what does Willie think of it?" she asked; "if he can think?"
"In any intrigue, my dear," Mrs. Neff pronounced, "the last three persons to learn what all the world knows are the husband and the two intriguers."
"I saw Bob Fielding yesterday," said Winifred. "He told me about it on the dock. He's furious at Persis. He said somebody ought to tell Willie."
"He's right, my dear," said Mrs. Neff; "but who wants to do that sort of job? It's like street-cleaning—very necessary and sanitary, but we don't care to do it ourselves, and we don't admire the people who do. Crooked things have a way of arranging themselves in this naughty world. Leave Persis alone. Some day some little accident she couldn't foresee—the mistake of a messenger-boy or a postman or somebody—and bang! out comes the whole scandal. Persis is clever, but she's juggling with dynamite."
It was only the last thirteen words that Persis overheard as she came down to the drawing-room, never dreaming that Mrs. Neff had not gone or that Winifred had come. Her slippers were soft, and her gown made no frou-frou. The voices of the women, softened to a ghoulish stealth, reached her with uncanny clearness.
She paused, struck to stone. Her heart pummeledher till her throat throbbed visibly. She wanted to fall down and die. She wanted to run from the house and from the town. Instead, she shook off every primitive impulse, and, tossing her head in defiance of fate, marched into the room with all the gracious majesty of a young queen going to her coronation. Her costume completed the picture: she was robed for the opera, and she wore her all-around crown of diamonds. She stared incredulously at Winifred, and cried with ardent hospitality:
"Winifred, it's you! I didn't know you were in town!"
And Winifred, assured by her manner that she had not overheard, hastened to embrace her, exclaiming: "Persis, darling! I haven't seen you for a thousand years."
And they kissed each other.
"You see, I haven't gone yet," Mrs. Neff apologized. "Winifred and I fell to talking—about you, of course."
"Say it to my face," said Persis.
Winifred lied angelically. "Cornelia was telling me how famously you and Willie get along. You're so congenial."
Persis recognized the intended obloquy, and beamed in answer: "Willie is a duck of a husband. Why don't you try marriage?"
This was so straight a lunge that Winifred slid in a slyriposte:
"Do you ever see that li'l snojer man of yours any more?"
"Li'l snojer man? Have I one?" said Persis, white-mouthed with fear at the directness of the attack, and at the simultaneous tingle of the door-bell. She tried to check Crofts, calling to him as he moved to the door. But he did not hear.
Mrs. Neff was enjoying the rare treat of seeing Persis discomfited, ill at ease. She joined the onset.
"She means Captain Forbes."
"Yes—that's the one," Winifred smiled. "See him often?"
"Oh, once in a long while," Persis confessed. "Why?"
"I just wondered. He used to be so devoted to you."
"Oh, that was ages ago," Persis laughed. And then Crofts came in with his little salver. Persis regarded it with as much dread as if it bore the head of John the Baptist instead of a tiny white card.
Crofts was so proud of remembering his instructions that he murmured, with a senile smile: "You told me you were at home to him, ma'am."
Persis read the name, and it danced before her eyes, fantastically. In the phrase of the prize-fighters, "they had her going." It was all so simple and foolish, yet so naggingly annoying, that she was utterly nonplussed. She stood a moment snapping the card in her fingers. Then she had a mad inspiration. She smiled stupidly between Mrs. Neff and Winifred and said:
"It's my—my lawyer. I—I'll go to the door and see him."
"But I asked him to come up!" Crofts protested in a doddering collapse, and vanished like a ghost at cockcrow.
Forbes appeared at the door. He saw Persis, and there was no mistaking the love in his eyes. Then he saw Winifred and Mrs. Neff, and there was no mistaking his confusion, though he tried to put on a smile of delight at the sight of them.
Mrs. Neff grinned with rapturous malice, and bewildered Forbes utterly by asking three ironical questions and not staying for an answer:
"Changed your profession, Captain Forbes? A lawyer now? Specialty divorces?"
Then she nodded to Winifred, and they made their way out, ignoring Persis' outstretched hand.
FORBES stared after the two women in complete perplexity. He turned to Persis to ask stupidly:
"What did they mean, Persis?"
Persis had lost almost every whit of self-control. She had an insane desire to scream, to hide somewhere and go into hysterics. She sank into a chair and mumbled:
"They know everything."
"Good God, it's not possible! Was it because I came in as I did?"
"Yes, but it wasn't your fault. It was mine and Crofts'."
He made to take her in his arms, but she warned him where he was with a gesture. He sank into a chair, groaning:
"I'd rather cut off my right hand than bring suspicion on you, Persis."
Staring idly ahead of her, Persis maundered in a hollow voice, "And they refused my hand!" The lash of this remembered insult brought her to her feet with a snarl. "They refused my hand! Oh, it's all over now. A war extra couldn't spread the scandal faster than those two women. But I suppose it had to come some day. And we thought we were so discreet!"
She laughed bitterly, for the luxury of self-contempt was alkali upon her tongue. But Forbes could only sigh, "How you must hate me!"
"How much I love you!" she whispered. Even in her panic she had no reproach for the author of her defeat; and as she paced the floor she touched his cheek with a passing caress.
She walked to the window idly and stared out into the street. She fell back with a gasp. "Oh, they saw me!—they saw me!"
"Who?—who saw you?"
"Alice Neff and Stowe Webb just drove up. They waved to me. They're coming here. Good Lord of heaven, at such a time!"
The door-bell rang in confirmation, and Crofts shuffled down the hall. He glanced timidly at Persis, and she nodded her head.
"You can't see them now," Forbes protested; "tell the man not to let them in."
"It wouldn't do any good. Besides, they saw me. Now of all times I must keep up a bold front. Wait in the library, Harvey. I'll get rid of them as soon as I can." He was hardly gone before Alice came running, crying, "Oh, here you are," and seizing the hand that Persis thrust at her absent-mindedly. Stowe Webb seized her other hand and clung to it as Alice rattled on: "We had the narrowest escape! Just as our taxi drew up to your door my awful mother and Winifred drove away—without seeing us!"
"And do you poor children still have to meet in secret, too?" Persis asked with a dreary sympathy.
"Indeed we have to," Webb replied, "and always shall. Her mother won't let me in the house! And I am doing a little better now—two thousand a year. But Alice's mother still calls me a pauper. Our only hope is a runaway marriage. But Alice always remembers what you told her. I wish you could advise her differently now, for we are hopelessly unhappy. We couldn't be more miserable even if we were married."
Alice corroborated this theory. "It's simply terrible the trials we are put to now. But you made it so vivid to me—the other side of it—the sordidness, the poverty, the stairs, the bills; how I should grow plain, and begin to nag; how I should ruin Stowe's career. Oh, why dowe women always seem to be getting in the way of the careers of the men we love! Why can't we help them?"
"We can, Alice, we can!" Persis averred, with a sudden energy. "If we begin the right way, if our love is the right sort, if we don't wait too long. Marry him, Alice."
"But you said," Alice reminded her, "that I should miss all the comforts that make life worth while." And Persis answered with a solemnity that was unwonted in her:
"If you don't marry the one you love you miss everything that makes life worth while. If you don't sacrifice everything that love asks, why, love robs you of all your delight in the things you have kept. Your mother will forgive you, Alice. But what if she doesn't? It is better to lack the forgiveness of some one else—of every one else!—than to feel that you can never, never forgive yourself. That is the most horrible thing in life, not to forgive yourself."
"But you talk so differently now!" Alice interposed; and Persis explained it dismally enough:
"I know more now than I did then."
Alice went into her arms, eager to be coerced and decided for: "And you really think it is my duty to go?"
"A woman's first duty is to her love," Persis cried. "Go, marry the boy, Alice, and be true to him—oh, be true to him!—always! whatever—whoever—comes into your life. Love and fidelity!—what a marriage they make!"
Young Webb bent and kissed her hand, saying: "You must be a very good woman to give such noble advice. And Willie Enslee must be a mighty good husband. Come along, Alice, remember your promise!"
He started to drag her out, but Alice hung back and demanded, "Give us your blessing first."
"My blessing? My blessing?" And Persis' amazement was hardly greater than a curious shock of rapture over the unheard-of prayer.
"Yes, for you are so good!" Alice insisted. And Persis, in half-hysterical emotion, waved her shivering hands over them and murmured:
"God be with you forever!"
When they had gone and Forbes came back to her she was mumbling in a strange delight: "I don't believe any one ever before called me good. It has a rather pleasant sound." She was half laughing, half crying. "I've done some good in the world at last."
"I don't believe I ever truly loved you till now," Forbes said. He had played eavesdropper to her counsel, and it had endeared her to him magically. He took her in his arms and she kissed him, and there was a moment of peaceful oblivion. Then the habit of stealth resumed control of Persis. She began anew to hear footsteps everywhere and to imagine eyes gazing from all sides.
"You mustn't stay a minute longer," she whispered. "Willie is at home. You telephoned you had something awfully important to tell me."
"Yes. You've got to help me make the most important decision of my life."
"Can't it wait?"
"No. I must decide to-day. My leave of absence has been withdrawn, and I've been ordered back to my cavalry regiment at once."
So disaster followed disaster.
"Isn't there any way out of it?" she asked, weakly.
"I tried to get the order recalled, but there is some influence against me at Washington."
"Some woman! I know! It's Willie's mother. She has General Branscombe under her thumb."
"But that would mean that she suspected us!"
"A woman always suspects the worst. And she's always right. Well, what are we to do?"
"That is for you to decide, Persis," Forbes said. "I have two letters here, two requests." He produced twoformidable official envelopes. "I have influence enough to get either of them granted."
"What are they?" she asked, terrified by the documents.
"This is an acknowledgment of the order and a statement that I take the train to-morrow for New Mexico."
"New Mexico!" Persis gasped. "I shouldn't see you again for a long, long while."
"Never."
"Then I choose that you send the other letter, of course," she spoke almost gaily. "What is it?"
"My resignation from the service."
"Your resignation?" she gasped. "Why should you resign?"
"To avoid court-martial for the crime of stealing another man's wife. Either you go away with me where your husband can't follow, or I go away where you can't follow."
"You don't mean to force a choice like that on me?" she protested. He nodded grimly.
But her frantic soul was incapable of decision; it fled from the effort. The memory of her humiliation before Mrs. Neff and Winifred swept back over her with intolerable shame; she began to stride along the floor again, gnashing her teeth in rage:
"What can I do to silence those women? Harvey, you must help me. Think up some neat lie that will look like the truth."
He was so tired of deception that he groaned aloud. She whirled on him in raucous fury: "Do you suppose I'm going to give in to a couple of frumps like those two? Do you think I'll let an old hen and an old maid down me?—now! Well, hardly! I'm no quitter, Harvey. I never was a quitter, was I? But what can I do? No story would convince them. I must stop their mouths—that's it. Everybody's got a scandal somewhere. What do I know about them? What have I heard?" She beat her head to stir her memory. "If I can't find out something I must make it up."
Forbes glared at her incredulously. "Persis! Are you lost to all decency?"
"You ought to know," she retorted. "But what of that? I'm desperate. I'm fighting for life."
"Oh, my God, Persis, what have we come to?" he moaned. "Is this the result of our love?"
"Yes, this is it!" she laughed. "This is what comes of having a heart. I see now why a love like ours is against all the laws, written and unwritten. It's the wisdom of the ages, Harvey." His very neck rebelled against the galling yoke of their intrigue. He groaned:
"We can't go on with the situation any more. We are getting degraded—driven to lies, and now you suggest blackmail. What next? We must pull up short and sharp, Persis. You must decide this minute: either to go away with me or to stay here without me."
"You've got to stay here and help me fight."
"I tell you I won't fight such a battle. It isn't fighting; it's cowardice, it's treachery. Decide now, once for all. Give me up or free yourself from Enslee and become my wife. You advised Alice to run away; you can't go back on your own advice."
"Oh, but the elopement of a young unmarried couple is a pretty romance; ours would be a hideous scandal."
"But we're all smothered in scandal now. Everybody is talking about us—everybody. The only way to make our love right is to come out before the world and proclaim it."
"And even now, when I should be thinking of you, all I can think of is what they'll be saying of me to-morrow."
"If we do the best we can what difference does it make what people say? Persis, I'd rather die than endure another hour of this underhand life. But I can't give you up. I can't leave you here to the mercy of these people and the evil influences around you. I offer you happiness. We shall be together always. You can't refuse."
"You're right, of course. I've got to decide. I'mafraid to be alone. I'll go with you. Give me just one moment to get my cloak. I—I can't very well go like this, though, can I—in an opera-gown and tiara? I must change to a traveling-suit. And Willie expects me to go to the opera."
The little things, the little briery things of life were holding her fast, tripping her headlong desires. She grew more irresolute with delay. "It's a terrible step, and it means the end of me. Everybody will cut me dead on the street. My own father will never speak to me again. The newspapers will be full of it. They'll only remember the scandal when they see us. It will follow us everywhere, and come between us and turn even you against me."
Then she shivered and sank into a chair helpless.
"I can't go, Harvey, I just can't go. I'm afraid of what people will say."
That was the acid phrase that turned his love to hate, his adoration to disgust. He broke the vials of his wrath upon her head.
"What will people say?" he sneered. "Is that all you can think of? Why, that has become your religion, Persis. You can stand the lying—the sneaking—the treachery—can't you? You've courage enough for the crimes, but when it comes to consequences, you're a coward, eh? But I'm not afraid of the consequences. I'm afraid of the crimes. I'm not afraid of the gossips, but of giving them cause. I offered you protection, devotion. I wanted to rescue our honor. But you—what do you care for me—for love—for honor? You care only for yourself and for what people will say—well, you'll soon know. But I won't help you to ruin your life. I won't let you ruin mine. I'm sorry I ever saw you. Before God, I'll never see you again!"
He turned to go. A cry of anguish broke from her. She rushed in pursuit of him, flung her arms about him, sobbing: "No, no, I won't let you! You've no right toleave me. I've given up everything for you. I've been everything to you. You can't leave me! Don't, don't, don't!"
He was too deeply embittered to have mercy. Her panic only angered him the more. He ripped her hands from his shoulders, jeering at her: "Agh, you're faithless to your duty to your husband, faithless to your love of me, faithless to everybody—everything."
"Don't say that, Harvey," she pleaded, brokenly. "Take that back."
"You've killed my trust," he raged. "You've killed my love. I hate the sight of you."
She put her hand over his cruel mouth to silence it. "Don't let me hear that from you—pity me, pity me!"
He tried to break her intolerable clasp, but she fought back to him. Abruptly she ceased to resist. She just stared past him. Startled, he looked where she stared. She whispered:
"Some one is behind that curtain—listening!"
The curtain trembled, and she gasped again: "Look!"
A shudder of uneasiness shook him, but he muttered: "It's only a draught from somewhere."
"Perhaps it is," she answered, weakly. "I feel all cold." And then she stared again and whispered: "No! See! There's a hand there in the curtain!"
And Forbes could descry the muffled outlines of fingers clutching the heavy fabric. He hesitated a moment, then he moved forward.
She put out her arm and stayed him, and spoke with abrupt self-possession. "No, it is my place." Then she called, hoarsely: "Crofts, is that you? Crofts!" There was no answer, but the talons seemed to grip the shivering arras tighter. She called again: "Nichette! Dobbs! Who's there?"
There was no answer.
"It's none of the servants," she whispered. Then, after a pause of tremulous hesitation, she strode to the curtain and hurled it back with a clash of rings. It disclosed Willie Enslee cowering in ambush. He held a silver-handled revolver in his hand.
A LITTLE groan of dismay broke from Persis' lips as she rushed between Forbes and the danger, interposing her body to protect his. Forbes seized her and thrust her away and leaped toward Enslee.
But Enslee darted aside and, running behind a great carved table, covered Forbes with the revolver, and cried, in a quivering voice, "Don't you move or I'll fire!"
Forbes smiled grimly at the plight, and spoke with the calm of the doomed. "All right, if you want to. It's your privilege. But I wouldn't if I were you. In the first place, I'm sure you'd miss; you don't hold your revolver like a marksman."
"The first shot might miss," Enslee admitted; "but there are five others."
"You'd never pull the trigger a second time," said Forbes, icily. "And there's not one chance in a thousand of that toy stopping me. I've got two bullets in me now—from real guns. And I'm not dead yet. If you should wing me, though, I'm afraid you'd never shoot a second time, for I'd have you by the wrist and by the throat—and I'd strangle you to death before I realized what I was doing."
Enslee quaked with terror, less of Forbes than of his own fatal opportunities and his own weapon; Forbes began to edge imperceptibly closer and closer as he reasoned with the wretch, who, having lost the momentum of his frenzy, was a prey to reason.
"After all, what good would it do to shed a lot of blood?" Forbes urged, gently, as to a child. "It wouldonly publish your disgrace. Besides, people don't indulge in pistol-play any more. It's out of style, man. That ought to appeal to you, if nothing else will. And then it's so unjust. Why kill a man because your wife preferred him to you? It's a free country, isn't it? What does a man want with a wife who doesn't want him? The days of slavery are over, aren't they? If she doesn't love you enough to—" There was such a pitiful sag of Enslee's head at this stab that Forbes spared him more, and went on soothingly: "Better let this whole affair just drop. I was going away. She wouldn't go with me. She didn't love me enough, either. She preferred to stay with you. I'll never see her again. I promise that."
He put his right hand out appealingly. "Come, let's make the best of it and cheat the gossips."
One quick motion and he had struck Enslee's wrist aside and down, and clamped it to the table with his left hand. It was hardly necessary to press his thumb between Enslee's knuckles to force his inert fingers open. Forbes picked up the revolver, pressed the catch to the safety, and dropped it into his pocket. Then he breathed a deep sigh, less of relief than regret, and turned to go. He almost stumbled over the body of Persis. She had swooned to the floor when he thrust her off, and had lain unnoticed while the males fought through their feud on her account.
Forbes stared down at her. Shame and anger had so burned him out that he had no love left for her and no mercy. She seemed an utter stranger to him. He did not even stoop and lift her to a chair. He shook his head, smiled bitterly, and went out.
Enslee hung across the table in a stupor of imbecility. The noise of the outer door, as Forbes closed it, shocked him back to life. He peered about the room and understood. He dropped into a chair and hid his face in his hands.
By and by Persis gradually returned to consciousness.She rose to her elbow in a daze, striving to collect her senses. With a sudden start she recalled everything, got to her knees, and hobbled with all awkwardness toward Enslee, whispering, haggardly: "Have you killed him? Where is he?"
"Gone!"
"Gone! No, no! No, no!" She raised herself to her feet to set out in pursuit of him, but just as she reached the door she was confronted by Crofts, who bowed once and walked away.
Persis' training and her heart fought a duel in her quivering frame. Then she gained her self-control, turned to Willie, and murmured:
"Dinner."
The marvelously inappropriate word sent through him a shudder of nausea.
Persis appealed to his other self. "Must we take the servants into our confidence?"
"I think you may trust my breeding," he answered, frigidly. He stalked woodenly to the door, held back the curtain, and bowed with mechanical gallantry.
"Thank you!" she sighed. She wavered a moment and clutched at her throat. Then she flung her head high in that thoroughbred way of hers and walked steadily from the room.
And Willie followed in excellent form.
IN the famous Enslee dining-room, where brilliant companies had gathered for a generation, giving and taking distinctions, and where Persis in her brief reign had mustered cohorts of pleasure that outgleamed them all, only two chairs were drawn up to the table; and that was contracted to its smallest circle. All the other chairs were aligned along the white marble walls with a solemn look as of envious, uninvited ghosts sitting with hands on knees and brooding. The walls were broken with dark columns like giant servants, and between them hung tapestries as big as sails. The tapestries told in a woven serial the story of "Tristram and La Beale Isoud."
Only three servants waited now: Roake and Chedsey—in the somber Enslee livery, whispering together as they straightened a rose stem or balanced a group of silver—and Crofts, eternally bent in an attitude of deference, standing near the door—the great golden portal ripped from the Spanish castle of one of the senior Mrs. Enslee's ancestors.
For all their listening the servants had been unable to learn the details of the immediate wrangle, though they knew that war was in the air.
Crofts had kept them at their tasks and at a distance, and Crofts either had not heard or would not have told if one of them had presumed to ask him.
He had lived through so many family tragedies that he rather celebrated in his heart a day of good spirits than remarked a period of stress. And of all times, he felt, a good servant shows his quality best when the atmosphereis sultry with quarrel and a precarious truce is declared in the dining-room. To Crofts that was a temple for peace and perfect ceremony. There flourished the genius for self-effacement and the invisible, inaudible provision of whatever might be needed, that made service a high art, a priesthood.
Crofts, in his plain black, slightly obsolete evening dress, looking rather like a poor relation than a servant, had been in his day an aristocrat among servants. To-night he was old and alarmed. He had seen, when he announced the dinner, that he broke in upon some unusually desperate conflict, and his old heart fluttered with terror. He had heard so much gossip at the servants' table, such ribald comment and interchange of eavesdroppings, that he wondered what new stain threatened the old glory of Enslee.
He loved the new Mrs. Enslee. All the servants did—as much as they disliked Mr. Enslee. But they all felt that she was as dangerous in the house as a panther would have been in a wicker cage. And they all gossiped with other people's servants. And one of the maids, on her evenings off, was meeting a very attentive gentleman with brindle hair and half an eyebrow. She didn't know his business, but he was generous; he took her to tango-places, and he loved to hear her talk about her employers.
Suddenly Crofts lifted his head and threw Roake and Chedsey a glance of warning; they came to attention, each behind a chair, watching with narrow eyes where Persis slowly descended, as into a gorgeous dungeon, the three velveted steps leading down through the red-velvet-curtained golden portal.
First they saw Persis' slipper, a golden slipper on a slim, gold-silk stocking. Next the gleaming shaft of her white-satin skirt, with its wrinkles flashing and folding round her knees; and then a rose-colored mist with glints of gold spangles; a few flowers fastened at her waist; the double loop of a long rope of pearls; then her wide, whitebosom, with half the breasts revealed in the deep V between. And next her shoulders; her long throat, passionate and bare save for one coil of pearl-rope; and then her high-held, resolute chin; her grim, red lips; her tense nostrils; her downcast eyelids; her brows; and, finally, the crown of diamonds sparkling in her hair.
Her velvet-muffled footsteps grew faintly audible as her heels advanced with a soft tick-tock across the black-and-white chessboard of the marble floor. There was such a hush in the room that even her soft, short train made a whispering sound as it followed reluctantly after her.
Then Enslee's glistening black shoes appeared on the steps; his short legs; the black-rimmed bay of white waistcoat and shirt, and tie, and the high, choking collar, where his fat little head rested like a ball on a gate-post.
In the rich gloaming of the big room the table waited, a little altar alight and very beautiful with its lace and glass and silver and its candles gleaming upon strewn roses.
Overhead the massive chandeliers hung dark from an ornate ceiling powdered with dull Roman gold. It was illuminated now only by the fretful glow of the fire slumbering beneath the carved mantel ravished from a bishop's palace in Spain.
In such a scene the audience of three servants awaited the performance of the polite comedy by the farceur and farceuse, who would pretend to leave their personal tragedies in the wings. The actors made their entrance with a processional formality, faced each other, and were about to be seated in the chairs the men had drawn back a little.
But the dignity vanished when the male buffoon, glancing at the array before him, broke out with a sharp whine:
"Where's my cocktail?"
There was such a twang of temper in his voice that Crofts heard at once, and made a quick effort at placation.
"Very sorry, sir, but, the other servants being away, I was not able to learn just how you had it mixed, sir."
"Just my luck!" Enslee snarled. "When I need a bracer most I can't have one." He shook his head so impatiently that Persis foresaw calamity and hastened to intervene.
"Let me make it for you, dear."
Enslee threw her an ugly glance, and wanted to refuse, but could find no reason to give except the truth: that he hated to accept any more of her ministrations. And truth was the one thing that must be kept from these menials at all cost. So he said:
"Mighty nice of you."
Persis went to the vast sideboard, and, while Crofts fussed about her, handing her the shaker, the ice, and bottle after bottle, she prepared the cup as if it were a mystic philter of love. She poured each ingredient into one of the glasses, and held it up to the light to make sure of the measure; then she emptied its contents into the shaker and filled it again from another bottle; and so when the square, squat flagon of gin, the longnecks of Italian and of French vermouth, and the flask of bitters, had contributed each its quota, she pondered aloud:
"That's all, isn't it?"
Willie, who had strolled to the sideboard in a kind of loathing fascination, spoke up:
"Here, barkeeper, you're forgetting the absinthe."
"Oh yes," she said, recalling his particular among the numberless formulas—"six drops of absinthe and twelve drops of lemon."
Crofts passed her the absinthe, and, finding a lemon, sliced it across and handed it to her on a plate. She held it over the shaker and, squeezing, counted the drops.
"Nine, ten, eleven, twelve—oh, there went the thirteenth! That's a bad omen." She was so overwrought that a little genuine fear troubled her. Enslee felt it, too, but would frighten the bogie with indifference:
"Hang the omen, so long as the cocktail's not bad."
Persis nodded with a difficult smile, and, setting the top on the shaker, said:
"Now, Crofts."
The old man was so slow and so feeble with his agitation that she snatched the shaker from his hand and shook it herself, the ice clacking merrily. Then she lifted off the top and poured the cold amber through the strainer into the two glasses and dried her chilled hands on a napkin.
Willie was too eager for the stimulus to go back to the table and take the cocktail there. He lifted his glass.
"We'll take it standing at the bar." And he reached for an imaginary foot-rail, as he had seen the vaudeville comedians do. Persis laughed, and he laughed, but sorrily. Still another idea occurred to him in his determination to enact domestic bliss.
"And now what's the toast? To the absent one?"
The ghastly patness of this unnerved him, but Persis came to the rescue with, "Toasts are out of date." And Willie, setting the glass to his lips, guzzled it in that chewing way they had never been able to correct in him since his infancy. Persis stood a moment with a far-off look of fierce regret in her eyes, then drained her glass swiftly and dabbed her rouged lips with her handkerchief.
Crofts held out a little tray, and Willie set his glass down so hard that the stem cracked. He gave Crofts the blame in a sullen look, then went back to the table and sat in the chair that Roake pushed under him.
He was up again instantly with another complaint. Willie was by nature one of the tribe of waiter-worriers. In his present tension he was doubly irascible.
"Where the devil is my cushion?" he barked. "You know I can't carve without my cushion."
The cushion was whisked under him instantly.
He stabbed at his canapé of caviar with his fork as ifhe hated it, ate but a morsel of it, and turned aside in his chair. Persis, watching him with anxious eyes, gave Crofts a command in a glance, and the plates were removed and replaced with oysters, the men bringing everything to the table, but Crofts alone serving their Majesties.
Crofts was senile and slow, and unusually aspen with anxiety and the rebukes he had had. His deliberation was maddening to Enslee. The old-fashioned deference of Crofts' manner was only further irritation.
Persis' own heart was wretched enough with its load of shame; she was hard put to it to sit and smile at the husband who had caught her in the arms of her paramour and heard him casting her off. But she had that social understanding of the actor's creed that the show must go on to the last curtain, no matter what had preceded it, or what might happen between the acts, or what might follow. She was certain of only one thing, that she and Willie must sit out this dinner somehow.
The entr'actes in the solemn mummery were the spaces between the courses while the servants left the room for a few moments to bring on the next thing.
When the caviar had been nibbled and rejected, the oysters set down and refused without being tasted, the two men went into the pantry for the soup-tureen and the hot plates. The swinging door oscillated with little puffs of air like sneers, and a breath ran around the tapestries hung on the walls. Ripples went through them in shudders, and, as the wrinkles traveled, averted faces seemed to turn and glance quickly at the Enslees, then turn away again.
With all the surreptition possible Crofts and his lieutenants brought in the silver urn and the ladle and the plates, and set them down on the serving-table behind the screen of Spanish leather with its glowing landscape and its gilded sky.
But Enslee's raw nerves shrieked at the soft thud ofplate on tray, the infinitesimal click of ladle on tureen, the very endeavor not to make a sound. He fidgeted, bit his knuckles, wrung his hands out like damp cloths, played a tattoo on the arm of his chair, and passed his hand wildly across his eyes. At length he whirled, and shouted:
"In God's name, less noise! Less noise!"
Crofts turned to bow and made a trifle more noise. And when he took the plate from Roake's tray and set it before Enslee his hand trembled perilously. It was Enslee's favorite soup, a lusciouspurée Mongole. He lifted one spoonful now to his lips and put it away with disgust. His ignominy was so vile that it sickened his stomach. He had been told that his wife was unfaithful to him; he had found it true; he had wrought himself to a frenzy of revenge upon the destroyer of his home; but the lover, instead of leaping from the window like the typical man of guilt, had taken the husband's weapon from him, denounced the wife, and left the wrecked home in triumph.
Enslee had endured all these disgraces; why should he add one more? Why should he play a part before his own menials? Why should he care what they thought? None the less, as mutinous soldiers keep the line automatically, so a lifetime of paying devotion to the ordinances of etiquette held him to the mark now.
Seeing that Persis had not even made a pretense of lifting her spoon to her lips, he nodded to Crofts, "Take it away."
The failure of a dinner was a catastrophe to Crofts, and he forgot his wonted reticence enough to ask:
"Isn't it good, sir? Sha'n't I tell the chef to—"
His solicitude brought him only a reproof:
"Crofts, if you speak again I'll have the other servants serve the dinner. Take it away, I said."
Hurt and frightened, Crofts hurried the soup and its apparatus off. As he slipped out with his aides theswinging door went "Phew!" and the tapestried figures glanced and whispered together.
As soon as he was alone with his wife, Enslee's voice rose querulously:
"If Dobbs ever leaves us in the lurch again I'll fire him for keeps. This old fool gets on my nerves. Everything is going wrong here. The whole house is falling to rack and ruin. Ought at least to have decent servants—if I can't have a decent wife!"
Persis smiled patiently at this, but as with lips bruised from a blow.
"I trust, Willie, that you won't forget yourself. All these doors have ears, you know."
"You bet they have!" he snapped. "And eyes, too. Are you crazy enough to think that lowering our voices will conceal the truth from any one? Don't you realize that those hounds out there know everything that goes on in this house? Don't you understand that your good name and my honor were gossiped away down-stairs long before my dishonor became public property?"
Persis felt a panic in her own heart at his manner. Still she tried suasion. "I implore you to postpone this. At any moment Crofts will be back."
"Crofts, eh?" Willie shouted. "Crofts! Crofts will be back! Why, do you imagine for a moment that even that deaf old relic is ignorant of this intrigue you have carried on? Don't you know that every servant of ours that has left the house for weeks has carried through the area-gate a bundle of news and innuendo and suspicion and keyhole information, to be scattered broadcast in every servants' hall in town?"
And then he heard Crofts at the door, and in spite of him habit throttled him; he pulled down the comic mask he had pushed back from his dour face. He ransacked his brain for something humorous to serve as a libretto, and he was reminded of a story he had laughed at heartilybefore he learned that his own household was a theme for laughter.
He began to giggle uncannily, gruesomely. Persis looked at him, wondering if he had gone mad and begun to gibber. But while Crofts and the others served deviled crabs in their grotesque shells he began to explain his elation, overacting sadly:
"I heard the best story to-day about Mrs. Tom Corliss."
Forgetfully Persis, from her own glass house, protested: "Oh, don't tell me anything about that woman!"
Enslee sneered. "Oh, you're always so easily shocked—such a prude, so conventional!"
Persis understood and blanched. "Go on, I'll stand it."
Enslee began to snicker again, taking some support in his shame from another man's disgrace.
"Well, you know old plutocrat Crane?"
"Not old Deacon Crane," Persis gasped, "that passes the plate at church?"
Willie nodded.
"What can he have to do with any story about Mrs. Tom?"
Enslee he-he'd. "That's the fun of it. Mrs. Tom, it seems—one day when Tom was off to the races—entertained the dear Deacon at a little dinner—servedà deux. The Deacon used to give her tips on the market and back them himself for her, and she—well, he was talking about the present-day craze for dancing with bare feet,et cetera; and she vowed that she wasn't ashamed of her feet either; and so she made the Deacon play Mendelssohn's Spring Song on the pianola, and—"
He looked up to find that Chedsey, while pretending to be very busy at the sideboard, wore a smile that extended almost into the ear he perked round for the gossip. Willie choked on his own laughter, and roared:
"Chedsey, leave the room, and don't come back!"
Chedsey slunk away, and Roake became a statue of gravity. Crofts had not heard at all. Willie finished his story without mirth.
"Anyway, Tom Corliss came in unexpectedly just then, and—well, when the Deacon finally got home his wife met him in the hall; he told her he had been sandbagged by a footpad; and she believed him!"
Willie found Tom Corliss' shame so piquant that he began to relish his food. Crofts, a little encouraged, nodded to Roake and led him out for the next dish.
Persis took small comfort from other people's sordid scandals. They seemed to have no relation to the pure and high tragedy that had ended the romance of her own love. Seeing that they were alone again, she expressed her dislike before she realized its inconsistency.
"And where did you pick up all this garbage?"
Enslee was outraged at this ingratitude for his hard work. "Oh, it shocks you, eh? So beautiful a veneer of refinement and so thin!"
"Where did you hear it?" Persis persisted, lighting herself a cigarette to give her restless hands employment; and Willie answered:
"Mrs. Corliss' second man told it to Mrs. Neff's kitchen maid, and she to Mrs. Neff's maid, and she to Mrs. Neff; and Mrs. Neff to Jimmie Chives, and he to me—at the Club."
"At the Club?"
"Where I heard of your behavior."
"You heard of me at the Club?" Persis gasped.
"Yes, that crowning disgrace was reserved for me. Big Bob Fielding took me to one side and said: 'Willie, everybody in town knows something that you ought to be the first to know—and seem to be the last. I hate to tell you, but somebody ought to,' he said. And I said 'What's all that?' And he said: 'Your wife and Captain Forbes are a damned sight better friends,' he said, 'than the law allows,' he said."