The Deluge

  XXII. MOST UNGENTLEMANLY

  As we neared the upper end of the park, I told my chauffeur, through thetube, to enter and go slowly. Whenever a lamp flashed in at us, I had aglimpse of her progress toward composure--now she was drying her eyes withthe bit of lace she called a handkerchief; now her bare arms were up, andwith graceful fingers she was arranging her hair; now she was straight andstill, the soft, fluffy material with which her wrap was edged drawn closeabout her throat. I shifted to the opposite seat, for my nerves warned methat I could not long control myself, if I stayed on where her garmentswere touching me.

  I looked away from her for the pleasure of looking at her again, ofrealizing that my overwrought senses were not cheating me. Yes, there shewas, in all the luster of that magnetic beauty I can not think of even nowwithout an upblazing of the fire which is to the heart what the sun is to ablind man dreaming of sight. There she was on my side of the chasm that hadseparated us--alone with me--mine--mine! And my heart dilated with pride.But a moment later came a sense of humility. Her beauty intoxicated me, buther youth, her fineness, so fragile for such rough hands as mine, awed andhumbled me.

  "I must be very gentle," said I to myself. "I have promised that she shallnever regret. God help me to keep my promise! She is mine, but only topreserve and protect."

  And that idea of _responsibility in possession_ was new to me--wasto have far-reaching consequences. Now that I think of it, I believe itchanged the whole course of my life.

  She was leaning forward, her elbow on the casement of the open window ofthe brougham, her cheek against her hand; the moonlight was glisteningon her round, firm forearm and on her serious face. "How far, far awayfrom--everything it seems here!" she said, her voice tuned to that soft,clear light, "and how beautiful it is!" Then, addressing the moon and theshadows of the trees rather than me: "I wish I could go on and on--andnever return to--to the world."

  "I wish we could," said I.

  My tone was low, but she started, drew back into the brougham, became anoutline in the deep shadow. In another mood that might have angered me.Just then it hurt me so deeply that to remember it to-day is to feel afaint ache in the scar of the long-healed wound. My face was not hidden aswas hers; so, perhaps, she saw. At any rate, her voice tried to be friendlyas she said: "Well--I have crossed the Rubicon. And I don't regret. It wassilly of me to cry. I thought I had been through so much that I was beyondsuch weakness. But you will find me calm from now on, and reasonable."

  "Not too reasonable, please," said I, with an attempt at her lightness. "Areasonable woman is as trying as an unreasonable man."

  "But we are going to be sensible with each other," she urged, "like twofriends. Aren't we?"

  "We are going to be what we are going to be," said I. "We'll have to takelife as it comes."

  That clumsy reminder set her to thinking, stirred her vague uneasiness inthose strange circumstances to active alarm. For presently she said, in atone that was not so matter-of-course as she had tried to make it: "We'llgo now to my Uncle Frank's. He's a brother of my father's. I always used tolike him best--and still do. But he married a woman mama thought--queer.They hadn't much, so he lives away up on the West Side--One Hundred andTwenty-seventh Street."

  "The wise plan, the only wise plan," said I, not so calm as she must havethought me, "is to go to my partner's house and send for a minister."

  "Not to-night," she replied nervously. "Take me to Uncle Frank's, andto-morrow we can discuss what to do and how to do it."

  "To-night," I persisted. "We must be married to-night. No more uncertaintyand indecision and weakness. Let us begin bravely, Anita!"

  "To-morrow," she said. "But not to-night. I must think it over."

  "To-night," I repeated. "To-morrow will be full of its own problems. Thisis to-night's."

  She shook her head, and I saw that the struggle between us had begun--thestruggle against her timidity and conventionality. "No, not tonight." Thisin her tone for finality.

  To argue with any woman in such circumstances would be dangerous; to arguewith her would have been fatal. To reason with a woman is to flatterher into suspecting you of weakness and herself of strength. I told thechauffeur to turn about and go slowly up town. She settled back into hercorner of the brougham. Neither of us spoke until we were passing Grant'sTomb. Then she started out of her secure confidence in my obedience, andexclaimed: "This is not the way!" And her voice had in it the hastycall-to-arms.

  "No," I replied, determined to push the panic into a rout. "As I told you,our future shall be settled to-night." That in _my_ tone for finality.

  A pause, then: "It _has_ been settled," she said, like a child thatfeels, yet denies, its impotence as it struggles in the compelling arms ofits father. "I thought until a few minutes ago that I really intended tomarry you. Now I see that I didn't."

  "Another reason why we're not going to your uncle's," said I.

  She leaned forward so that I could see her face. "I can not marry you," shesaid. "I feel humble toward you, for having misled you. But it is betterthat you--and I--should have found out now than too late."

  "It is too late--too late to go back."

  "Would you wish to marry a woman who does not love you, who loves some oneelse, and who tells you so and refuses to marry you?" She had tried toconcentrate enough scorn into her voice to hide her fear.

  "I would," said I. "And I shall. I'll not desert you, Anita, when yourcourage and strength shall fail. I will carry you on to safety."

  "I tell you I can not marry you," she cried, between appeal and command."There are reasons--I may not tell you. But if I might, you would--wouldtake me to my uncle's. I can not marry you!"

  "That is what conventionality bids you say now," I replied. And then Igathered myself together and in a tone that made me hate myself as Iheard it, I added slowly, each word sharp and distinct: "But what willconventionality bid you say to-morrow morning, as we drive down crowdedFifth Avenue, after a night in this brougham?"

  I could not see her, for she fell back into the darkness as sharply as ifI had struck her with all my force full in the face. But I could feel theeffect of my words upon her. I paused, not because I expected or wishedan answer, but because I had to steady myself--myself, not my purpose; mypurpose was inflexible. I would put through what we had begun, just as Iwould have held her and cut off her arm with my pocket-knife if we hadbeen cast away alone, and I had had to do it to save her life. She wasnot competent to decide for herself. Every problem that had ever facedher had been decided by others for her. Who but me could decide for hernow? I longed to plead with her, longed to let her see that I was nothard-hearted, was thinking of her, was acting for her sake as much as formy own. But I dared not. "She would misunderstand," said I to myself. "Shewould think you were weakening."

  Full fifteen minutes of that frightful silence before she said: "I will gowhere you wish." And she said it in a tone that makes me wince as I recallit.

  I called my partner's address up through the tube. Again that frightfulsilence, then she was trying to choke back the sobs. A few words I caught:"They have broken my will--they have broken my will."

  * * * * *

  My partner lived in a big, gray-stone house that stood apart and commandeda noble view of the Hudson and the Palisades. It was, in the main, areproduction of a French chateau, and such changes as the architect hadmade in his model were not positively disfiguring, though amusing. Thereshould have been trees and shrubbery about it, but--"As Mrs. B. says," Joehad explained to me, "what's the use of sinking a lot of cash in a housepeople can't see?" So there was not a bush, not a flower. Inside--One dayBall took me on a tour of the art shops. "I've got a dozen corners andother big bare spots to fill," said he. "Mrs. B. hates to give up money,haggles over every article. I'm going to put the job through in businessstyle." I soon discovered that I had been brought along to admire his"business style," not to suggest. After two hours, in which he bought insmall lots several tons of statu
ary, paintings, vases and rugs, he said,"This is too slow." He pointed his stick at a crowded corner of the shop."How much for that bunch of stuff?" he demanded. The proprietor gave him afigure. "I'll close," said Joe, "if you'll give fifteen off for cash." Theproprietor agreed. "Now we're done," said Joe to me. "Let's go down town,and maybe I can pick up what I've dropped."

  You can imagine that interior. But don't picture it as notably worse thanthe interior of the average New York palace. It was, if anything, betterthan those houses, where people who deceive themselves about their lack oftaste have taken great pains to prevent any one else from being deceived.One could hardly move in Joe's big rooms for the litter of gilded andtapestried furniture, and their crowded walls made the eyes ache.

  The appearance of the man who opened the door for Anita and me suggestedthat our ring had roused him from a bed where he had deposited himselfwithout bothering to take off his clothes. At the sound of my voice, Ballpeered out of his private smoking-room, at the far end of the hall. Hestarted forward; then, seeing how I was accompanied, stopped with mouthajar. He had on a ragged smoking-jacket, a pair of shapeless old Romeoslippers, his ordinary business waistcoat and trousers. He was wearingneither tie nor collar, and a short, black pipe was between his fingers.We had evidently caught the household stripped of "lugs," and sunk in thedown-at-the-heel slovenliness which it called "comfort." Joe was crimsonwith confusion, and was using his free hand to stroke, alternately, hisshiny bald head and his heavy brown mustache. He got himself togethersufficiently, after a few seconds, to disappear into his den. When he cameout again, pipe and ragged jacket were gone, and he rushed for us in agorgeous velvet jacket with dark red facings, and a showy pair of slippers.

  "Glad to see you, Mr. Blacklock"--in his own home he always addressed everyman as Mister, just as "Mrs. B." always called him "Mister Ball," and hecalled her "Missus Ball" before "company." "Come right into the frontparlor. Billy, turn on the electric lights."

  Anita had been standing with her head down. She now looked round withshame and terror in those expressive blue-gray eyes of hers; her delicatenostrils were quivering. I hastened to introduce Ball to her. Her impulseto fly passed; her lifelong training in doing the conventional thingasserted itself. She lowered her head again, murmured an inaudibleacknowledgment of Joe's greeting.

  "Your wife is at home?" said I. If one was at home in the evening, theother was also, and both were always there, unless they were at sometheater--except on Sunday night, when they dined at Sherry's, because manyfashionable people did it. They had no friends and few acquaintances.In their humbler and happy days they had had many friends, but had lostthem when they moved away from Brooklyn and went to live, like uneasy,out-of-place visitors, in their grand house, pretending to be what theylonged to be, longing to be what they pretended to be, and as discontentedas they deserved.

  "Oh, yes, Mrs. B.'s at home," Joe answered. "I guess she and Alvawere--about to go to bed." Alva was their one child. She had beenchristened Malvina, after Joe's mother; but when the Balls "blossomed out"they renamed her Alva, which they somehow had got the impression was"smarter."

  At Joe's blundering confession that the females of the family were in nocondition to receive, Anita said to me in a low voice: "Let us go."

  I pretended not to hear. "Rout 'em out," said I to Joe. "Then, take myelectric and bring the nearest parson. There's going to be a wedding--righthere." And I looked round the long salon, with everything draped for thesummer departure. Joe whisked the cover off one chair, his man took offanother. "I'll have the women-folks down in two minutes," he cried. Then tothe man: "Get a move on you, Billy. Stir 'em up in the kitchen. Do the bestyou can about supper--and put a lot of champagne on the ice. That's themain thing at a wedding."

  Anita had seated herself listlessly in one of the uncovered chairs. Thewrap slipped back from her shoulders and--how proud I was of her! Joegazed, took advantage of her not looking up to slap me on the back and tojerk his head in enthusiastic approval. Then he, too, disappeared.

  A wait followed, during which we could hear, through the silence, excitedundertones from the upper floors. The words were indistinct until Joe'sheavy voice sent down to us an angry "No damn nonsense, I tell you. Allie'sgot to come, too. She's not such a fool as you think. Bad example--bosh!"

  Anita started up. "Oh--please--please!" she cried. "Take me away--anywhere!This is dreadful."

  It was, indeed, dreadful. If I could have had my way at just that moment,it would have gone hard with "Mrs. B." and "Allie"--and heavy-voiced Joe,too. But I hid my feelings.

  "There's nowhere else to go," said I, "except the brougham."

  She sank into her chair.

  A few minutes more of silence, and there was a rustling on the stairs.She started up, trembling, looked round, as if seeking some way of escapeor some place to hide. Joe was in the doorway holding aside one of thecurtains. There entered in a beribboned and beflounced tea-gown, a pretty,if rather ordinary, woman of forty, with a petulant baby face. She wastrying to look reserved and severe. She hardly glanced at me beforefastening sharp, suspicious eyes on Anita.

  "Mrs. Ball," said I, "this is Miss Ellersly."

  "Miss Ellersly!" she exclaimed, her face changing. And she advanced andtook both Anita's hands. "Mr. Ball is so stupid," she went on, with thatamusingly affected accent which is the "Sunday clothes" of speech.

  "I didn't catch the name, my dear," Joe stammered.

  "Be off," said I, aside, to him. "Get the nearest preacher, and hustle himhere with his tools."

  I had one eye on Anita all the time, and I saw her gaze follow Joe as hehurried out; and her expression made my heart ache. I heard him saying inthe hall, "Go in, Allie. It's O K"; heard the door slam, knew we shouldsoon have some sort of minister with us.

  "Allie" entered the drawing-room. I had not seen her in six years. Iremembered her unpleasantly as a great, bony, florid child, unable tostand still or to sit still, or to keep her tongue still, full of aimlessquestions and giggles and silly remarks that she and her mother thoughtfunny. I saw her now, grown into a handsome young woman, with enough beautypoints for an honorable mention, if not for a prize--straight and strongand rounded, with a brow and a keen look out of the eyes which it seemeda pity should be wasted on a woman. Her mother's looks, her father's goodsense, a personality apparently got from neither, but all her own, andunusual and interesting. No wonder the Balls felt toward her much as a pairof barn-swallows would feel if they were to hatch out an eaglet. Thesequiet, tame American parents that are always finding their suppressedselves, the bold, fantastic, unadmitted dreams of their youth startlinglyconfronting them in the flesh as their own children!

  "From what Mr. Ball said,"--Mrs. Ball was gushing affectedly to Anita,--"Igot an idea that--well, really, I didn't know _what_ to think."

  Anita looked as if she were about to suffocate. Allie came to the rescue."Not very complimentary to Mr. Blacklock, mother," said she good-humoredly.Then to Anita, with a simple friendliness there was no resisting: "Wouldn'tyou like to come up to my room for a few minutes?"

  "Oh, thank you!" responded Anita, after a quick, but thorough inspectionof Alva's face, to make sure she was like her voice. I had not counted onthis; I had been assuming that Anita would not be out of my sight until wewere married. It was on the tip of my tongue to interfere when she lookedat me--for permission to go!

  "Don't keep her too long," said I to Alva, and they were gone.

  "You can't blame me--really you can't, Mr. Blacklock," Mrs. Ball began toplead for herself, as soon as they were safely out of hearing. "After somethings--mere hints, you understand--for I'm careful what I permit Mr. Ballto say before _me_. I think married people can not be too respectful ofeach other. I _never_ tolerate _vulgarity_."

  "No doubt, Joe has made me out a very vulgar person," said I, forgettingher lack of humor.

  "Oh, not at all, not at all, Mr. Blacklock," she protested, in a panic lestshe had done her husband damage with me. "I understand, men will be
men,though as a pure-minded woman, I'm sure I can't imagine why they shouldbe."

  "How far off is the nearest church?" I cut in.

  "Only two blocks--that is, the Methodist church," she replied. "But I knowMr. Ball will bring an Episcopalian."

  "Why, I thought you were a devoted Presbyterian," said I, recalling how intheir Brooklyn days she used to insist on Joe's going twice every Sunday tosleep through long sermons.

  She looked uncomfortable. "I was reared Presbyterian," she explainedconfusedly, "but you know how it is in New York. And when we came to livehere, we got out of the habit of church-going. And all Alva's littlefriends were Episcopalians. So I drifted toward that church. I find theservice so satisfying--so--elegant. And--one sees there the people one seessocially."

  "How is your culture class?" I inquired, deliberately malicious, in myimpatience and nervousness. "And do you still take conversation lessons?"

  She was furiously annoyed. "Oh, those old jokes of Joe's," she said,affecting disdainful amusement.

  In fact, they were anything but jokes. On Mondays and Thursdays she usedto attend a class for women who, like herself, wished to be "up-to-date onculture and all that sort of thing." They hired a teacher to cram them withodds and ends about art and politics and the "latest literature, heavy andlight." On Tuesdays and Fridays she had an "indigent gentlewoman," whateverthat may be, come to her to teach her how to converse and otherwise conductherself according to the "standards of polite society."

  Joe used to give imitations of those conversation lessons that raised roarsof laughter round the poker table, the louder because so many of the othermen had wives with the same ambitions and the same methods of attainingthem.

  Mrs. Ball came back to the subject of Anita.

  "I am glad you are going to settle with such a charming girl. She comes ofsuch a charming family. I have never happened to meet any of them. We arein the West Side set, you know, while they move in the East Side set, andNew York is so large that one almost never meets any one outside one's ownset." This smooth snobbishness, said in the affected "society" tone, wasas out of place in her as rouge and hair-dye in a wholesome, honest oldgrandmother.

  I began to pace the floor. "Can it be," I fretted aloud, "that Joe's racinground looking for an Episcopalian preacher, when there was a Methodist athand?"

  "I'm sure he wouldn't bring anything but a Church of England priest,"Mrs. Ball assured me loftily. "Why, Miss Ellersly wouldn't think she wasmarried, if she hadn't a priest of her own church."

  My temper got the bit in its teeth. I stopped before her, and fixed herwith an eye that must have had some fire in it. "I'm not marrying a fool,Mrs. Ball," said I. "You mustn't judge her by her bringing-up--by herfamily. Children have a way of bringing themselves up, in spite of damnfool parents."

  She weakened so promptly that I was ashamed of myself. My only apology forgetting out of patience with her is that I had seen her seldom in the lastfew years, had forgotten how matter-of-surface her affectation and snobberywere, and how little they interfered with her being a good mother and agood wife, up to the limits of her brain capacity.

  "I'm sure, Mr. Blacklock," she said plaintively, "I only wished to say whatwas pleasant and nice about your fiancee. I know she's a lovely girl. I'veoften admired her at the opera. She goes a great deal in Mrs. Langdon'sbox, and Mrs. Langdon and I are together on the board of managers of theMagdalene Home, and also on the board of the Hospital for UnfortunateGentlefolk." And so on, and on.

  I walked up and down among those wrapped-up, ghostly chairs and tables andcabinets and statues many times before Joe arrived with the minister--andhe was a Methodist, McCabe by name. You should have seen Mrs. Ball's lookas he advanced his portly form and round face with its shaven upper lipinto the drawing-room. She tried to be cordial, but she couldn't--her mindwas on Anita, and the horror that would fill her when she discovered thatshe was to be married by a preacher of a sect unknown to fashionablecircles.

  "All I ask of you," said I to him, "is that you cut it as short aspossible. Miss Ellersly is tired and nervous." This while we were shakinghands after Joe's introduction.

  "You can count on me, sir," said McCabe, giving my hand an extra shakebefore dropping it. "I've no doubt, from what my young neighbor heretells me, that your marriage is already made in your hearts and with allsolemnity. The form is an incident--important, but only an incident."

  I liked that, and I liked his unaffected way of saying it. His voice hadmore of the homely, homelike, rural twang in it than I had heard in NewYork in many a day. I mentally doubled the fee I had intended to give him.And now Alva and she were coming down the stairway. I was amazed at sightof her. Her evening dress had given place to a pretty blue street suitwith a short skirt--white showing at her wrists, at her neck and throughslashings in the coat over her bosom; and on her head was a hat to match. Ilooked at her feet--the slippers had been replaced by boots. "And they'rejust right for her," said Alva, who was following my glance, "though I'mnot so tall as she."

  But what amazed me most, and delighted me, was that she seemed to be almostin good spirits. It was evident she had formed with Joe's daughter one ofthose sudden friendships so great and so vivid that they rarely lived longafter the passing of the heat of the emergency that bred them. Mrs. Ballsaw it, also, and was straightway giddied into a sort of ecstasy. You canimagine the visions it conjured. I've no doubt she talked house on theeast side of the park to Joe that very night, before she let him sleep.However, Anita's face was serious enough when we took our places beforethe minister, with his little, black-bound book open. And as he read in avoice that was genuinely impressive those words that no voice could makeunimpressive, I saw her paleness blanch into pallor, saw the dusk creepround her eyes until they were like stars waning somberly before the grayface of dawn. When they closed and her head began to sway, I steadied herwith my arm. And so we stood, I with my arm round her, she leaning lightlyagainst my shoulder. Her answers were mere movements of the lips.

  At the end, when I kissed her cheek, she said: "Is it over?"

  "Yes," McCabe answered--she was looking at him. "And I wish you allhappiness, Mrs. Blacklock."

  At that name, her new name, she stared at him with great wondering eyes;then her form relaxed. I carried her to a chair. Joe came with a glass ofchampagne; she drank some of it, and it brought life back to her face, andsome color. With a naturalness that deceived even me for the moment, shesmiled up at Joe as she handed him the glass. "Is it bad luck," she asked,"for me to be the first to drink my own health?" And she stood, lookingtranquilly at every one--except me.

  I took McCabe into the hall and paid him off.

  When we came back, I said: "Now we must be going."

  "Oh, but surely you'll stay for supper!" cried Joe's wife.

  "No," replied I, in a tone that made it impossible to insist. "Weappreciate your kindness, but we've imposed on it enough." And I shookhands with her and with Allie and the minister, and, linking Joe's arm inmine, made for the door. I gave the necessary directions to my chauffeurwhile we were waiting for Anita to come down the steps. Joe's daughter wasclose beside her, and they kissed each other good-by, Alva on the verge oftears, Anita not suggesting any emotion of any sort. "To-morrow--sure,"Anita said to her. And she answered: "Yes, indeed--as soon as you telephoneme." And so we were off, a shower of rice rattling on the roof of thebrougham--the slatternly man-servant had thrown it from the midst of thegroup of servants.

  Neither of us spoke. I watched her face without seeming to do so, and bythe light of occasional street lamps saw her studying me furtively. At lastshe said: "I wish to go to my uncle's now."

  "We are going home," said I.

  "But the house will be shut up," said she, "and every one will be in bed.It's nearly midnight. Besides, they might not--" She came to a full stop.

  "We are going--home," I repeated. "To the Willoughby."

  She gave me a look that was meant to scorch--and it did. But I showed atthe surface no sign of how
I was wincing and shrinking.

  She drew farther into her corner, and out of its darkness came, in a lowvoice: "How I _hate_ you!" like the whisper of a bullet.

  I kept silent until I had control of myself. Then, as if talking--of amatter that had been finally and amicably settled, I began: "The apartmentisn't exactly ready for us, but Joe's just about now telephoning my manthat we are coming, and telephoning your people to send your maid downthere."

  "I wish to go to my uncle's," she repeated.

  "My wife will go with me," said I quietly and gently. "I am considerate of_her_, not of her unwise impulses."

  A long pause, then from her, in icy calmness: "I am in your power just now.But I warn you that, if you do not take me to my uncle's, you will wish youhad never seen me."

  "I've wished that many times already," said I sadly. "I've wished it fromthe bottom of my heart this whole evening, when step by step fate has beenforcing me on to do things that are even more hateful to me than to you.For they not only make me hate myself, but make you hate me, too." I laidmy hand on her arm and held it there, though she tried to draw away."Anita," I said, "I would do anything for you--live for you, die for you.But there's that something inside me--you've felt it; and when it says'must,' I can't disobey--you know I can't. And, though you might breakmy heart, you could not break that will. It's as much my master as it isyours."

  "We shall see--to-morrow," she said.

  "Do not put me to the test," I pleaded. Then I added what I knew to betrue: "But you will not. You know it would take some one stronger than youruncle, stronger than your parents, to swerve me from what I believe rightfor you and for me." I had no fear for "to-morrow." The hour when she coulddefy me had passed.

  A long, long silence, the electric speeding southward under the archingtrees of the West Drive. I remember it was as we skirted the lower endof the Mall that she said evenly: "You have made me hate you so that itterrifies me. I am afraid of the consequences that must come to you andto me."

  "And well you may be," I answered gently. "For you've seen enough of me toget at least a hint of what I would do, if goaded to it. Hate is terrible,Anita, but love can be more terrible."

  At the Willoughby she let me help her descend from the electric, waiteduntil I sent it away, walked beside me into the building. My man, Sanders,had evidently been listening for the elevator; the door opened without myringing, and there he was, bowing low. She acknowledged his welcome withthat regard for "appearances" that training had made instinctive. In thecenter of my--our--drawing-room table was a mass of fresh white roses."Where did you get 'em?" I asked him, in an aside.

  "The elevator boy's brother, sir," he replied, "works in the florist's shopjust across the street, next to the church. He happened to be down stairswhen I got your message, sir. So I was able to get a few flowers. I'msorry, sir, I hadn't a little more time."

  "You've done noble," said I, and I shook hands with him warmly.

  Anita was greeting those flowers as if they were a friend suddenlyappearing in a time of need. She turned now and beamed on Sanders. "Thankyou," she said; "thank you." And Sanders was hers.

  "Anything I can do--ma'am--sir?" asked Sanders.

  "Nothing--except send my maid as soon as she comes," she replied.

  "I shan't need you," said I.

  "Mr. Monson is still here," he said, lingering. "Shall I send him away,sir, or do you wish to see him?"

  "I'll speak to him myself in a moment," I answered.

  When Sanders was gone, she seated herself and absently played with thebuttons of her glove.

  "Shall I bring Monson?" I asked. "You know, he's my--factotum."

  "_I_ do not wish to see him," she answered.

  "You do not like him?"

  After a brief hesitation she answered, "No." Not for worlds would she justthen have admitted, even to herself, that the cause of her dislike was herknowledge of his habit of tattling, with suitable embroideries, his lessonsto me.

  I restrained a strong impulse to ask her why, for instinct told me she hadsome especial reason that somehow concerned me. I said merely: "Then Ishall get rid of him."

  "Not on my account," she replied indifferently. "I care nothing about himone way or the other."

  "He goes at the end of his month," said I.

  She was now taking off her gloves. "Before your maid comes," I went on,"let me explain about the apartment. This room and the two leading out ofit are yours. My own suite is on the other side of our private hall there."

  She colored high, paled. I saw that she did not intend to speak.

  I stood awkwardly, waiting for something further to come into my own head."Good night," said I finally, as if I were taking leave of a formalacquaintance at the end of a formal call.

  She did not answer. I left the room, closing the door behind me. I pausedan instant, heard the key click in the lock. And I burned in a hot flush ofshame that she should be thinking thus basely of me--and with good cause.How could she know, how appreciate even if she had known? "You've had tocut deep," said I to myself. "But the wounds'll heal, though it may takelong--very long." And I went on my way, not wholly downcast.

  I joined Monson in my little smoking-room. "Congratulate you," he began,with his nasty, supercilious grin, which of late had been getting on mynerves severely.

  "Thanks," I replied curtly, paying no attention to his outstretched hand."I want you to put a notice of the marriage in to-morrow morning's_Herald_."

  "Give me the facts--clergyman's name--place, and so on," said he.

  "Unnecessary," I answered. "Just our names and the date--that's all. You'dbetter step lively. It's late, and it'll be too late if you delay."

  With an irritating show of deliberation he lit a fresh cigarette beforesetting out. I heard her maid come. After about an hour I went into thehall--no light through the transoms of her suite. I returned to my own partof the flat and went to bed in the spare room to which Sanders had moved mypersonal belongings. That day which began in disaster--in what a blaze oftriumph it had ended! Anita--my wife, and under my roof! I slept with goodconscience. I had earned sleep.