"No, I lived alone," he replied. "And I sat at a drafting board—with a sweater on—it used to be cold."
"Oh, you poor dear!"
"And I worked," he continued, "like a bull pup. And along toward morning I tied a wet towel around my head—"
"Oh, Joe!" Ethel's foot pressed his, and they laughed at each other. "But there must have been," she cried, "so much besides! Joe Lanier, you are lying! There were cafés—and student balls and fancy dress—and singing—and queer streets at night!"
"That's so," he answered solemnly, "the city of Paris did have streets.
You walked on them—from place to place."
"Joe Lanier—"
"First you put the right foot forward, then the left—you moved along."
"Joe! For goodness sakes!"
"Look here. Do you know what I want to do with you?"
"No." And Ethel shook her head. She did know, precisely, and it was her motive for all this talk.
"Take you there—and get rooms in the Quarter—not too far from the
Luxembourg—"
"Oh, Joe, you perfect darling!"
He went on describing all they would do, in the cafés and on the streets, in old churches and at plays and at the Opera Comique, where she must surely see "Louise." They began excitedly planning ways and means, expenses, his business and when he could get away. He sobered at that, and she cried to herself, "Now he's thinking of his friend Bill! Oh, what a detestable, tiresome worm!"
Then a man who was passing their table stopped in surprise as he recognized Joe, bowed, smiled and said something and went on, and joined a hilarious group down the room. And Ethel saw him speak to them and she felt their glances turned her way. Joe had grown suddenly awkward, his face wore a forced, unnatural smile, and he was talking rapidly—but she heard nothing that he said. The whole atmosphere had changed in an instant.
For those people over there were some of Amy's friends, no doubt, amused at Joe and his young second wife, amused that Joe had not had the nerve to ask them to his wedding. Ethel could feel herself burning inside. A mistake not to have asked them? No! What had they to do with it? What right had they, what hold on Joe? They had been a mighty poor lot of friends, with empty minds and money hearts, just clothes and food, late hours and wine! They had been decidedly bad for him, had drawn him off from his real work and plunged him into the rush to be rich! A voice within her, from underneath, was asking, "Or was it Amy?" But she paid no heed to that. It asked, "Are you sure they are all so bad? Have you taken the trouble to find out?" But angrily she answered that she wanted friends of her own, that she couldn't be just a second wife. "I've got to be all different, new! I've got to be—and I will, I will!" She swallowed fiercely. Besides, it was what Joe needed, exactly! He showed already what it had meant to be rid of such friends! Had he ever talked of Paris before, or his dreams and ambitions or anything real? But the voice retorted sharp and clear:
"Why hide it then? Why let this foolish dangerous habit of never mentioning Amy's name keep growing up between you and your husband? It may do a lot of harm, you know. What are you afraid of?"
Nothing whatever, she replied. She decided to speak of it then and there. She would be perfectly natural, and ask him, "Who are your friends over there? Some people Amy used to know?" And she grew rigid all at once. Her throat contracted and felt dry. Angrily she bit her lip . . . But the habit of silence was too strong. . . . Soon, with a carefully pleasant smile, she was attending to his talk and by her questions drawing out more and more of his life abroad.
"His work," she thought, "that's the strongest thing to hold his mind away from those people." And soon she had him talking of the Beaux Arts, architecture, plans and "periods" and "styles," things she was quite vague about, but she did not have to listen now. That was always so safe, she told herself. She was even a little jealous of this puzzling, engrossing work, which could so hold her husband's mind. She frowned. That was as it should be; a man's work was his own concern. But his living, his home, what he did at night?
"This can't go on," she decided. "There will have to be friends for both of us. I need them, too. Oh, how I need one woman friend! And where shall I find her? Somewhere in this city there must be just the people I want—if only I could reach them!"
And presently she was saying aloud in a lazy careless tone of voice:
"Sometimes I get wondering, Joe, if there isn't a Paris in New York."
CHAPTER XI
It was a few weeks later. A doctor had been there and gone, and returning into the living-room Ethel sank down on a chair with a quiet intensity in her eyes. For some time she had not been feeling herself, but she did not want to worry Joe, and so at last she had telephoned to the clergyman who had married her.
"You may not remember me," she had said, "but you married me in December. Perhaps you'll recall it if I say there were only three friends at the church."
"Oh, yes, I remember it—perfectly."
"Thank you. I'm not quite well and I have no friends to turn to, so I'm wondering if you could recommend a good doctor I could see."
The doctor recommended had just paid his visit. And now as the dusk deepened she had the strangest feelings. Her year and a half in the city seemed hurried and feverish as a dream. Her mind ran back into the past and on into the future. Only a few days before, the round robin letter had come again. In it the girl who had married the mining engineer out West had told of having a baby in a little town in Montana. Ethel had thought of the doctor then.
She rose now and got the letter and re-read it slowly. Presently she put it down and began crying softly, though she felt neither sad nor frightened. Her life had so completely changed. All those girl friends, so scattered; all those years, so far behind. It was like getting on a ship, she thought, to start across the ocean. "You can't get off, you must go across. Oh, Ethel Lanier, how happy you'll be." But the happiness seemed a long way off.
How quiet it was. The nurse came in with Susette from the park. Ethel went into the nursery and kneeling down she began to unbutton Susette's little jacket. The child's plump face was so rosy and cold. She kissed it suddenly.
"Martha," she said, "I'll need you here for a long time now. I'm going to have a baby."
She reddened then and held her breath. Queer, how she had blurted it out! She had not meant to tell any one yet. But the look of dawning joy and relief in Martha's eyes made her glad she had spoken. Plainly the nurse had been dreading the time so fast approaching when she would have to leave Susette, who was now nearly four years old. But all she said to Ethel was this:
"I'm glad to hear it, Mrs. Lanier. I hope you'll be very careful now." She shot a look as keen as a knife, which asked, "Do you really want a child? Or are you like her? Was it a mistake?"
And Ethel went quickly out of the room. In the living-room her eye was caught by Amy's photograph on the table. She had always kept it there. In her cleaning she had put it back. Emily, too, had put it back. They had never spoken Amy's name. But Ethel faced the picture now for some moments steadily. Somehow it had lost its beauty, it looked weak and soul-less, without power any longer over Ethel's future. "Poor Amy. Oh, how much you missed." And she added, "I'll never be like that." For an instant she let her mind dwell on the past, on how Susette's coming must have been—unwelcomed by her mother.
"But this one will be welcomed! Our love is so—so different! This will bind us, oh, so close! It's done now, you're tied for life!" She had never felt it so before. The months of her marriage had been so exciting, and even in the long summer's thinking her love had seemed always a little unreal. "But this is real—inside of me!" Her fancy went careering ahead, with joy and wonder, a thrill of dismay. "I was so free, with my life to choose! I could have been almost anything! But now it is settled. This is my life. We talk and we talk about being free—and then all at once—a baby."
In the days which followed and grew into weeks and months, the feeling of quiet remained with her. The pang of uneasiness as to how she was to find friends for Joe and herself, was allayed and put off to the future. He would not expect anything of her just now. And because it was pressing upon her no longer, it became a pleasure to dream and plan for herself and Joe and the children.
She was only twenty-four, and although Joe was thirty-six he looked years younger. They could grow. Now she began asking him to read aloud in the evenings, nor was the reading all "mere fluff." Though she picked out amusing things to vary the monotony, she insisted on magazines and books which had been recommended by the little history "prof" at home, to whom Ethel wrote long letters. The books rather appalled her husband at times; but using her new hold on him, she said:
"Go on, dear, now begin." And she picked up her sewing with a look which said, "We've got to grow, you know, if we're ever to get friends worth while or have a life worth living."
But again she would shut out all that, and smile to herself and grow absorbed. And this habit grew to such a degree that by the beginning of summer their reading bees had come to an end. In June she took Martha and Susette and went to the seashore for three months. She came back in September, and now the time was drawing near. Her husband's love grew anxious and there came troubled gleams in his eyes.
The trained nurse had arrived. The doctor kept coming. Martha was plainly "in a state." And Emily Giles, for all her grim ways, had moments almost tender. All centering, swiftly centering, as the long voyage neared its end.
CHAPTER XII
What deep relief and blessed peace. She lay on her bed, now smiling, now inert, eyes closed, weak and relaxed, but already aware from time to time of the beginnings within herself of new vitality, food for her child. Her body felt profoundly changed, and so it was with her spirit. Again the thought rose in her mind that this had settled and sealed her life. But she was glad of the certainty. Slowly, as her strength returned, all the vague desires and dreams of the last few months came back, grew clear; and she planned and planned for the small boy whom the nurse kept bringing to her bed. At such moments the new love within her rose like some fresh bursting spring.
The city, though so vast, complex, came to be like a place full of miracles. The voices of its ceaseless life came into her window day and night, the hoots and distant bellows of ships, the rattle of wheels, the rush of cars, the long swift thunder of the "L," and bursts of laughter from the streets, and animated voices. She remembered her first night in New York; she recalled her earlier visions of the city as a place of thrilling aspirations, wide, sparkling, abundant lives. And Ethel smiled and told herself:
"All the glory I dreamed of is here."
The thought came to her clearly that Amy it was who had hidden it all, who had stood smilingly in the way and had said, "All this is nothing." But she felt a rush of pity now for the woman who was left behind, cut off so completely by the birth of this small son. The nurse was bringing him into the room, and Ethel smiled at her and said:
"Ask Susette if she doesn't want to come, too."
It was only a day or two later that her husband broke his news. He had been so dear to her, his visits had been such a joy, and although behind his tenderness vaguely she had sensed some change, some new excitement in his mind, in her own absorption in their boy she had attributed it to that. But early one evening he came in with a sheaf of roses in his arms, and when she had exclaimed at them and breathed deep of their dewy fragrance, Joe bent over and kissed her, and said a little huskily:
"I've got some big news for you, little wife. It's big. It's going to mean so much."
"What is it, Joe?"
She stared up intently into his eyes. He was telling her he had made money. He was telling how the approaching birth of their small son had made him feel he must put an end to these ups and downs, and how he had worked and racked his brains. He told of heavy borrowing, of anxious weeks, of a wonderful stroke of luck at last which not only made him rich for the moment but opened the way to wealth ahead. He was speaking of what this would mean to them here. He knew how hard it had been for her and how pluckily she had come through without ever asking for anything. But all that was over now. He had made money! What was the matter? She heard it all in fragments, topsy turvy. What was wrong? "Here is a Joe I've never known!" Still staring up into his eyes, she saw their strange exultant light; the excitement in his husky voice struck into her sensitive ear and jarred; and she nearly shrank from the clutch of his hand. She lay wondering why she was not glad, till suddenly she saw in his face his sharp disappointment at the way she was taking his news. With a pang of alarm she roused herself and said:
"Oh, Joe, it's too wonderful! It's so sudden it strikes me all of a heap!" And she laughed unsteadily, seized his hand and kissed it, talking rapidly, her eyes glistening all the while with foolish tears. Fiercely then she asked herself, "Why can't you enter in and be gay?" But though she was doing better now and had him talking as before, again and again she felt he was thinking how different Amy would have been—how in an instant, laughing and crying, she would have thrown herself into his arms!
Yes, indeed, a Joe she had never known, shaped and moulded by the wife who had had him in those early years when a woman can do so much with a man, can do what sets him in a groove in work and living, tastes, ideals. "And I thought I had done so much!" But Amy's hand had still been there; he had been her husband, all the time!
It was a relief to have him gone. Alone she could think more clearly. "What are you so frightened about? Of being rich, you little fool?" No, she had always wanted that, money enough to forget it existed, money to open all the doors. "But this money is coming too soon! I'm not ready. I'm too young! And he'll expect so much of me now. There'll be no excuse for holding back, for going slow till I find what I want. He'll expect me to find friends at once! But where shall I find them all of a sudden? It isn't as though we were millionaires, really big ones, all in a minute. The newspapers won't be very excited; the town will take it quite calmly, quite! And for the life of me I don't see any friends rushing at us! And yet he'll expect it! So much he'll expect! He'll give and give and give me things and then wonder why I don't get anywhere!" The angry tears leaped in her eyes. "Because he's different now, he's changed! All bursting with his big success, his 'strike,' his business—money mad! Oh, how I hate his business—and that detestable partner, too!"
A wave of rebellion swept over her at the way she had been caught, tangled into the life of a man and the fortunes of his business. But then she thought of the son she had borne him, and this brought quick remorse and tears, from which she fell into a deep sleep. And when she awoke she found the nurse was waiting with the baby.
And the days which followed with their peace, their slow return of health and strength, brought assurance, too, and she laughed at herself for having been such a foolish child. She recalled her panic on her wedding night. Then, too, she had found a Joe unknown. But had that turned out so dreadful? He came often to her bedside now; and although she could feel how changed he was, it no longer frightened her. She had her wee boy; and Emily Giles and Susette and her nurse kept coming in; and the room grew very gay, as they had little parties there.
"Who needs friends so all of a sudden!"
But one day Emily came in and grimly remarked, "There's a woman outside who owns this apartment."
"What?"
"She acts that way. She's walking 'round that sitting-room—picking things up and putting things down-" Emily's voice was rising in wrath.
"Emily! Sh-h! She'll hear you! Who is she? Didn't she give her name?"
"Here's her name!" And Emily poked out a card, at which Ethel looked in a startled way.
"Fanny Carr! Now why has she come here?"
"Will you see her or shall I tell her the flat is already rented?"
"No, no! Emily—don't be rude! She's a friend of my—my husband's!"
And a few moments later, propped up in bed with a pretty lace cap on her head, Ethel was smiling affably at her visitor, who was exclaiming:
"My dear girl, I'm so glad to see you again! So good of you, letting me in like this! I didn't have the least idea! I didn't know of your baby—I hadn't even heard you were married! I've been abroad for over a year. I got back to New York only last week and heard from one of Joe's men friends of the luck he has had—how his business is simply booming along! It's perfectly gorgeous, Ethel dear, and I'm so glad for you, my child! When I heard the news—"
She talked on vivaciously. And Ethel lay back, her gaze intent on Fanny's handsome features, on her rich lips, pearl earrings, her eyes with their curious color, grey green, that were so sparkling and alive. And Ethel thought to herself in dismay: "How much more attractive she is! Was my first feeling about her all wrong, or is it that I'm getting used to these New Yorkers? I thought she was just hard—all brass! She isn't! She's—she's dangerous! What is she poking 'round here for? What does she want? Is she married again? No, her name was the same on her card. Still single—yes, and looking around—for somebody with money!"
By the questions Fanny was asking, plainly she was trying to find what friends Ethel had made in New York. And although the girl on the bed talked of the town in glowing terms, in a few moments Fanny was saying:
"I'm afraid you've been rather lonely here."
"Oh, no!" And Ethel laughed merrily. "If you knew how my time is filled—every hour! My small boy—" and she went eagerly on to show how full her life had become.
"Oh, you darling!" Fanny laughed. And then with an envious sigh she said, "You make me feel so old and forlorn. With all your beauty, Ethel Lanier, and youth—your whole life starting—well, you've just got to let me in and take you about. Oh, I know, I know, it's so wonderful here, and fresh and new, and you're quite contented and all that. But after all, it's a city, you know—a perfectly good one, full of life—and people you'll like—old friends of Joe's." She went on in a crisp gay tone to paint the pleasures of the town. And meanwhile glancing at Ethel she thought, "What a perfect devil she thinks me, poor child, a bold bad creature on Joe's trail—when all I want is to take her around and help her spend her money. I need it badly enough, God knows!"
At last she rose.
"I mustn't tire you. Good-bye, dear. You'll let me come again, of course."
"Oh, yes, do." At Ethel's tone, Fanny smiled to herself, as deftly she adjusted her furs. She turned to look in the mirror and her eye was caught by the photograph of Amy over on Joe's chiffonier. She moved a step toward it, paused, turned back, and with a good-bye to Ethel went out.
Ethel's eyes went back to the photograph. How strong and alarming, all in an hour, Amy's picture had become. As she looked, it seemed to take on life, to be saying, "Money! Money at last!" And with dismay she told herself:
"Now they'll come in a perfect horde!"
CHAPTER XIII
"Shall I tell Joe! Most certainly."
But she did not tell him all, that night. She did not say, "One of Amy's friends was here today, and she's coming again, and more are coming—and I hate them, every one!" She simply remarked:
"Oh, Joe, dear—Fanny Carr was here today."
"She was, eh?" he gave a slight start. "Where has she been all this time?"
"Abroad." And Ethel answered his questions. "She'll be here a good deal, I fancy," she ended. Joe looked annoyed and uneasy. But he did not speak, that evening, of the memories rising in his mind. For on both the old spell of silence was strong. Subtly the spirit of the first wife came stealing back into the room, pervaded it and made it her own. But her name was still unspoken.
The next day brought an exquisite baby's cap with Fanny's card tucked inside. And in the fortnight after that, Fanny herself came several times. She talked in such a natural way, and her smile and the look in her clever grey eyes was so good-humoured and friendly. "She's doing it beautifully," Ethel thought. But she pulled herself up. "Doing what beautifully? What do I mean? One would think we were millionaires, and Joe a perfect Adonis! Is she trying to eat us? And aren't you rather a snob, my love, to be so sure you hate the woman before you even know her?"
At such moments Ethel would relax and grow pleasantly interested in Fanny's talk of Paris and Rome, or of New York. In each city Fanny seemed to have led very much the same existence. In each there had been Americans, and hotels, cafés and dances, motor trips and lunches, gossip and scandal without end. But she told of it all in a humorous way that made it quite amusing. And it was a good deal the same with the two women, Amy's friends, whom Fanny brought to tea a bit later. Their gossip and their laughter, their voices breaking into each other and making a perfect hubbub at times, their smart suits and hats and dainty boots, their plump faces, lively eyes, all were quite exciting to Ethel, when she threw off her hostility and the uneasiness they aroused. It felt good to be gossipy once more.
But how they chattered! How they stayed! Joe would be coming home soon now, and she wanted them to go. But they did not go, and Ethel guessed that it was Joe they were waiting for. She was sure of it when he appeared. The way they all rushed at him with little shrieks of laughter, talking together, excited as girls! "Though they're all years older than I am!" Ethel angrily exclaimed, as she sat there matronly and severe. She eyed her husband narrowly, and at first with keen satisfaction she saw how annoyed and embarrassed he was. But the moments passed, and he grew relieved, more easy and more natural, his voice taking on its usual tone, blunt and genial. And she thought, "He's going to like it!" For a moment she detested him then. "They'll flatter him, make a tin god of him! No, I mean a money god! That's what they want, his money!" She positively snorted, but no one seemed to notice it. Now they were turning back to her and she was in the hubbub, too. And how amiably she smiled!
When they were gone, there fell a silence which was like a sudden pall. "He can break it! I—won't!" she decided viciously. He had gone to their room, she had followed him there, and he was not having an easy time. He washed and dressed without a word. But at last he came to her.
"Look here." His arm was about her, she jerked away, but he would not release her.
"You're the most adorable little wife that ever made a man happy," he said. "But you're young, you know—"
"Is that a crime?"
"No, it's something those other women would all give their eye-teeth for."
"Go on."
"But you're human, you know, and you've got to grow older—and as you do you'll find, my dear, that it takes all kinds to make a world."
"How original!" He went on unabashed:
"And if you are to get any friends, you've got to get out and meet all kinds—many you don't like at all—and then little by little take your choice." He paused, and although he did not add, "After all, they're Amy's friends, and you might at least give 'em a chance"—Ethel knew he was thinking that, though he only ended gently, "But I guess I'll leave it all to you. Do as you like. I'll be satisfied."
"He won't be, though," she told herself. She knew he would be distinctly annoyed if she did not enter in. "No, I've simply got to be nice to them. There's no keeping them away!"
And in this she was right. Flowers and gifts for the baby came, and several more women friends; and one of them brought her husband. Nearly always they stayed until Joe came home; and in his manner, with dismay, she saw the hold they were getting. It was not only flattery they used, they appealed to his loyalty to his first wife. "Don't drop us now," they seemed to say. "We were your friends when you were poor—when she was poor. If she had lived, just think how welcome we should be."
Early one evening when Ethel and Joe were dressing for dinner, Emily Giles came in with a long box of roses. Ethel thought they were for herself.
"No," said Emily, "they're for your husband."
"For me?" Joe laughed. "There's some mistake."
"No—there's no mistake," said Ethel, in a low unnatural voice. In an instant she had grown cold. What a fool, to have forgotten that this was Amy's birthday! Inside the box was Fanny's card and on it she had written, "In memory of the many times I helped you buy a birthday gift."
Ethel went quickly out of the room. It was an awkward evening.
Fanny gave a dinner soon after that to celebrate Ethel's recovery. It was in a hotel grill room, and it was large and noisy—and noisier and noisier—till even above the boisterous hubbub at the tables all about, the noise of their party could be heard. At least so it seemed to Ethel's ears. And what were they saying? Anything really witty, sparkling? No—just chatter, peals of laughter! They were just plain cheap and tough! how red were their faces, warm and moist their lips and eyes!
"You're not vivid enough, that's the trouble with you! You've got to be vivider!" she thought. "You ought to have taken that cocktail!" She drank wine now, a whole glass of it, and tried to be very boisterous with the man on her right, who was smiling back as though he could barely hear her voice. "He has had too much!" she told herself. "Oh, how I loathe you—loathe you all!"
But later, when they began to dance, she found with a little glow of relief that she could do this rather well. Thank Heaven she had taken those dancing lessons a year ago; and she was younger than most of these creatures, and more lithe and supple. The men were noticing, crowding around her. She caught a glare from one of their wives. And that glare helped tremendously, it came like a gleam of light in the dark. She caught Joe's admiring glances. She danced with him, then turned him down for somebody else, kept turning him down. She threw into her dancing an angry vim; but joy was coming into it, too. This was not so bad, after all. "You may even grow to like all this!" But most of her thinking was a whirl.
She went home in a taxi, in Joe's arms. She thought, "This is how he and Amy came home. Never mind, I'm not half so weak as I thought. I can play this game—"
And play it she did.
The next morning they slept very late. They had breakfast in bed, and when Joe had gone she lay thinking. Her mind was marvellously clear. It went swiftly over the night before. Yes, most of it had been simply disgusting, the eating and drinking, those warm moist eyes. "The way the men looked at you, held you! This is no life for you, Ethel Lanier!" The dancing was all she cared about. She wanted that, but with other men whom she would like to be friends with—"men who would treat you as something more than a, than a—I don't know what!" Yes, she must get away from these creatures, and get Joe away, too; but to do it she must show him first that she was really willing to do her best to like them all. The next thing was to ask them here. "It's the only way to break their hold. Show him you're no jealous cat. And how do I know that among them all, as I go about, I won't find a few that aren't so tough? And through them I'll find others."
But she put off entertaining Joe's friends, for she had her hands full now in managing just Joe alone. Amy's husband was coming to life in him. Of that there could be no mistake. Under the spell of his success, and still more perhaps through his pride and delight in his handsome young wife, Joe was showing his love for her as Amy had taught him long ago. He showered gifts upon her. He delighted in surprises. One was a smart little town car, and this was a very pleasant surprise. But in it he insisted upon her shopping busily. No more wearing last year's clothes! And when she was a bit slow to move, to her dismay he went himself with Fanny Carr, and bought for Ethel's birthday a costly set of furs and a brooch. He nearly bought pearl earrings, too, but Ethel took them back at once. "Fanny knows as well as I do myself that I can't wear pearls!" she thought angrily. She exchanged them for opal pendants. And then, in order to put a stop to Fanny's detestable attempts "to make me look like a perfect fright," Ethel did start in and shop. And as soon as she got well into it, what a fever it became! Sternly eyeing herself in the mirrors of shops, she studied and made mistakes by the score, and corrected and went on and on. "I'll look right if kills me!"
One night she learned what Fanny Carr had had in mind when she came "poking into our lives!" For Fanny was poor—she had long guessed that; and Fanny had a house on Long Island, and only by a hair's—breadth now did Ethel keep her from selling it to Joe as a surprise for his wife.
"Well, Fanny, what next?" thought Ethel that night. She had been awake for hours, perfectly still and motionless, not to disturb her husband. "For you are not through yet, Mrs. Carr. So long as we're rich and you are poor and have no immediate husband, you're going to act like a ravening wolf—aren't you, my own precious. You mean to break my hold on him by keeping him thinking of her, of her! Now what am I to do about it?" She frowned. She knew that she ought to talk frankly to Joe, and get over this silly habit of never mentioning Amy's name! She grew determined, but then weak. For what could she say to him about Amy? What did she really want to say? "Do I know poor Amy was anything bad? Wasn't she good to me? Would I care to try to talk against her? No. And even if I did, you see, it would only hurt me with Joe—as it should."
So she went on in different moods. And now she saw her sister's face smiling out of clear violet eyes, and again she felt a small gloved hand on her husband drawing him gently back—back and back into the past. Why was Amy so much stronger now? "Because Fanny Carr has been clever enough to take me out of the life I was making and pitch me into Amy's life, where her hold on Joe was strongest. I'm in her setting. That's the trouble!"
But she had Amy's friends to dine one night, as in her calmer moods she knew was the only sensible course. And as they began arriving, by swift degrees amid the buzz of talk which rose, Ethel could feel the room each moment change and become Amy's home. And it was Amy's dinner, too. No cooking of Emily's that night, for Joe had suggested a caterer. "The one we've always used," he had said. And so the cocktails and the wines and the food in many courses, the two waiters in evening clothes, and the talk and the shrieks of mirth, were just as they must have been before so many, many times in this room. Ethel sat affably rigid there.
And later at the piano Joe was not Ethel's husband. Nor was it her room when they stripped up the rugs and began to dance, nor her photograph their eyes kept seeking from time to time! She even thought she could hear them whisper about the hostess who was dead!
And when very late they had departed, and last of all Joe had gone with Fanny downstairs to put her in her taxi, Ethel, left alone in the room, turned to her sister's photograph.
"I won't be like you," she tensely declared. "I won't live in your home—with your husband—"
The picture smiled good-naturedly back
"All right," it seemed to answer, "then what do you expect to do?"
CHAPTER XIV
By the next day she had made up her mind to look for another apartment. The move had several points in its favour. It would not only take her away from this place where she felt the spell so strong; it would also give her something to do. "And I need it, heaven knows!" she thought. And besides it would provide an excuse for not seeing Amy's friends. "I'll be worn out every evening," she decided with grim satisfaction.
She found Joe more than ready for the change. He himself had suggested it, some weeks before, and Ethel made the most of that. "I've been thinking over your idea of moving," she began one night. And in the talk which followed, the intent little glances she threw at him made her sure that in her husband's mind was a half conscious deep relief at the idea of getting away from these rooms and their memories.
"Poor dear," she reflected tenderly, "what a place for a tired business man—a home with two assorted wives waiting for him every night."
But when it came to looking about, to her surprise Ethel found it hard, on her own account, to make the move. For with all its faults and drawbacks, this was the place where she had struggled, groped and dreamed, had married Joe and discovered him in hours she would never forget, and here her baby had been born. The place had grown familiar. Even the huge building, for all its appearance of being exactly like every other on the street, had in some curious fashion taken on for Ethel a special atmosphere of its own; and coming back from a bleak succession of apartments she had inspected, this did at least seem more like a home.
Joe came to her rescue. He was a part owner here, and with delight she learned from him that a large and sunny apartment at the top of the building was to be free the first of May. Ethel went up to see it at once. And the arrangement of the rooms, and the way the sun flooded into each one, made her exclaim with pleasure.
The present tenants were a young widow and her companion, a most respectable elderly dame. The widow was about Ethel's age and excessively pretty and stylish, and in her low sweet voice and her manner was a peculiar attractiveness that Ethel could not analyse. She explained that she was going abroad, possibly to be gone a year, or she never would have given up this gem of an apartment. She seemed more than glad to show Ethel about, and displayed a friendly interest in her visitor's eager planning. When Ethel left at the end of an hour, the widow smiled at her and said, with a charming little hesitation:
"I don't think you have my name. It's Mrs. Grewe. I do hope you'll come up whenever you like, and let me help you all I can. I shall so love to feel when I go that you and your kiddies will be here. I've noticed them so often, down-stairs and in the elevator. And they're both such darlings."
And at that, with a thrill of pride, Ethel felt almost as though she had found a friend in the city at last.
They saw each other frequently, for Ethel was always running in to look through the various rooms and puzzle and decide on curtains, rugs and portieres. In this she was aided more than she knew by the taste displayed in the furnishings, rich, subdued and yet so gay, that young Mrs. Grewe had collected here. The two had animated talks, and once when her new acquaintance suggested, "I'd be so glad if I could be of some help in your shopping," Ethel replied, "Oh, you could! I'd love to have you!" And they started in that day.
And yet how curious, even here. For whenever Ethel endeavoured to get the conversation upon a little more intimate terms, Mrs. Grewe would almost instantly become evasive and remote. And once when Ethel asked her to "drop down and have dinner with us some night," she declined almost with a start, as though she were saying, "Ha! Look out! I'm in danger of letting you be a real friend!" And thinking this over, Ethel reflected, "The only New Yorker I've met so far, whom I'd like to know, is nice to me simply because she is going abroad in a month and so it's safe! Has she offered to introduce me to a single friend of hers? Well, then, don't! Keep your old friends! I don't want to eat them!" And for days together she would leave the young widow alone.
But the latter would make pleasant advances, and soon they would be shopping again. This acquaintance was one of the few bright spots in a season which for Ethel was full of anxious worries. For it was by no means easy. Amy had been a shopper who simply could not resist pretty things, and so her apartment was crowded with furniture and bric-a-brac. "How much can I get rid of without offending Joe?" asked Ethel. He was the kind of man who says nothing. He would not object, but he would feel hurt. It took the most careful probing to find how far she could safely go. And she was tempted by the shops. In her smart town car, with plenty of money and with young Mrs. Grewe at her side, it was almost impossible to resist the adorable things she discovered. "No wonder Amy bought too much." But there they were, all Amy's belongings, and to be rid of each table, each chair, each rug, meant the most careful thinking.
"Nevertheless," she told herself. "That apartment upstairs is to be my own home."
In the meantime her new occupation was working out wonderfully as an excuse for not going about in the evenings. She was so dead tired every night. No need to feign fatigue, it was real. She even had to call in her physician, in the first "draggy" days of Spring; and he warned her that she was doing too much, it was too soon after the birth of her child. She was glad when Joe happened to come in and overhear the doctor. He became the same old dear to her that he had been a year ago. And with eagerness, tired though she was, she took pains every evening to dress in ways that she knew he liked. And at times it was almost like a second honeymoon they were having. She used the baby, too, and Susette; she often persuaded Joe to come home in time for Susette's supper, or better still for the baby's bath. And all this was so successful that even when her spring fever was gone she still stayed at home in the evenings.
But in the meantime, what about friends? "I'm lazy," she thought, "I'm not facing it! I'm just putting it off—and it's dangerous!" For Joe was out so much at night. Over half the time he did not get home until the children were in bed, and often after a hurried dinner he would leave by eight o'clock—for business appointments, he told her, at some club or some café. He was putting through another big deal. At times, despite her efforts, angry suspicions would arise. He was dealing with some men from the West. No doubt they had to be entertained. She had heard a little of such entertaining from travelling men she had known at home. "Oh, Ethel Lanier, don't be so disgusting!" But after all, a man so tense all day in his office needed some gaiety at night.
She began to suggest going out in the evenings. They went to "Butterfly" and "Louise," and each evening was a great success. But within a few days Fanny Carr called up and asked them to dinner and the play. Ethel made some excuse and declined. She did not mention it to Joe, but that night he said gruffly, "Sorry you turned Fanny down." And Ethel looked at him with a start. So Joe was seeing her these days!
"I haven't been feeling very strong, Joe," she said in an unnatural tone.
"You've been to the opera twice this week," was her husband's grim rejoinder.
And this was only one little instance of many that made Ethel sure that Fanny Carr was still about. She was getting at Joe through his business side, going to his office. She had asked him to sell her house on Long Island, and through this transaction she had tangled him into her affairs. A lone woman, defenceless in business, needing the aid and advice of a man. "Oh, I can almost hear her lay it on—her helplessness!" And Ethel fairly ground her teeth. For Fanny, only the day before, having called and noticed that a sofa and a rug were missing, had asked to what dealer Ethel had sold them. "Now," thought Ethel, "she'll buy them herself, and then she'll ask Joe to drop in for tea at her hotel apartment—'on business,' of course-but the rug and sofa will be there! Poor Amy's things! Oh, yes, indeed, Fanny is clever enough! If only she would take his money—and get out and leave us alone!" Ethel had some lonely grapples with life. She was right, she angrily told herself, in wanting to go slowly until she could discover real friends; but on the other hand she admitted that Joe had reason for being impatient. At thirty-seven it is hard for a man to change his habits, and Amy had accustomed Joe to crave excitement every night. Even Ethel herself, in some of her moods, felt restless to go about and be gay. And again and again the youth in her rebelled against the trap into which she had fallen.
"The minute I even propose a play, I show him I'm well enough to go out. And then he asks, 'Why not Amy's friends?' And he remembers the mean little things that Fanny Carr must have told him—the beast!—and so he says, 'I see it all. Ethel is only bluffing. Now that I'm rich she's trying to make me drop the friends and the memory of the wife who stood by me when I was poor.'"
Ethel even went out twice to their detestable parties, in the faint hope of finding one woman at least she would care to know. But if there had been any such, Fanny was careful to leave them out.
Friends, friends, friends of her own! Where to find them? On the streets, as she went about at her shopping, she saw so many attractive people, and she drew their glances, too. She had developed since her marriage; she had a distinctive beauty, and she had learned how to foster that. Almost always she felt the hungry eyes of men, good, bad and indifferent, rich men, beggars, Christians, Jews. But that of course was only annoying. Ethel wanted women friends. On the street, from her elegant little car, she could see women who were walking glance at her with envy, just as she herself had done in her first year in the city. The thought brought a humorous smile to her lips. And looking at the constant stream of motors passing, she inquired, "How many of us are there, in this imposing procession, who haven't a single friend in town?" How they all passed on. How coolly indifferent, self-absorbed! Was there no entering wedge to their lives?
But her youth would rise with a sudden rush in her warm body, so smartly dressed, so tingling with ardent health, and glancing into the glass in her car and making a little face at herself, she would exclaim:
"Oh, fiddlesticks! All this is going to have a nice fine happy ending!
Nothing awful is to happen to me!"
At one such time, as though interrupted, she leaned quickly and graciously forward, as she had seen women do in the Park, and bowed with a cordial little smile—to a vacant lot—and then turning back to the imagined friend at her side, she said sweetly, "Excuse me, dear. What were you saying? Why yes, we'd love to. Thursday night? What time do you dine?" A lump rose in her throat. "Now, Ethel, Ethel, you soft little fool—you're only twenty-five, you know. And of all the adorable babies waiting in a nursery—"
One day she found Fifth Avenue crammed and jammed with a huge parade. She had her chauffeur get as close as he could, and with intent and curious eyes she watched the suffragists march by. What hosts and hosts of women, how jolly and how friendly. Oh, what a lark they were having together! Why not join them, then and there? For an instant she thought of leaving her car and falling right in with some marching group. "But how do I know they won't turn me down?" She waited and lost courage. Soon she saw marching ahead of one section a smartly dressed woman whose photograph she had often seen in the papers. At this Ethel's courage oozed again, and with a pang of envy she thought:
"Oh, yes, this is all very fine for you! You're so safe and settled here; you've got position—everything!"
In a moment she felt this was small and mean. The envy and the bitterness passed. She watched other women, such confident, easy, bright-looking creatures—not at all like Amy's set—who looked as though they could preside at big meetings or at their own tables at home, and be gracious and say witty things to the clever men at their sides. Behind them came whole regiments of women and girls of a simpler kind. Some of them earned their own living, no doubt—yes, and had to work hard to do it.
"Wouldn't they do? Look at that one! Wouldn't I like her for a friend?"
In a flash Ethel remembered the little history "prof" at home, who had begged her girls to live and grow.
"Now, Ethel Lanier, you're going to get right out of this car and fall into line—friends or no friends!"
In a moment, scowling to keep up her nerve, she was pushing through the standers-by right out into the Avenue; and feeling like a public sight, she tried quickly to get into line.
"You can't march here! Our line is full!" a voice said sharply. Ethel gasped and reddened, turned blindly to the file behind.
"Do you want to march with us?" somebody asked.
"Yes! Oh, thank you!"
"Fall right in. That's right, my dear—here, take one of my flags."
"You're awfully kind!"
"Hooray for the vote!"
Through eyes a little misty Ethel saw striding along at her side a sturdy little old lady in black. And she blessed her fervently. It was a thrilling marvellous time. In less than ten minutes she felt herself boon companions with every one in her line. But then, before she realized what it was that had happened, her group had reached the end of their march and had melted suddenly into a throng of chattering laughing women. Ethel stared about her blindly.
"Never mind," she decided, "I'm going to see more of this!"
And the next day she presented herself at suffrage headquarters.
"I want to work," she said to a girl at a desk. The girl looked up at her busily.
"All right, go to that table," she answered. And at a long oak table, one of a dozen women and girls, Ethel folded envelopes and addressed them for about three hours. Down at the end, two girl companions chatted and laughed at their labour. But the rest were just busy. "Hand me those envelopes, if you please." And so it was all through the room. She came back the next morning and the next; and as she worked, her expression was grim. "It isn't their fault," she decided. "They want the vote, they don't want me."
And she turned forlornly back to the work of moving up to her new apartment.
The first of May was drawing near, and she saw signs of restlessness, as thousands of New Yorkers prepared to change their quarters. Moving, always moving. Did they never stop in one place and make it a home? The big building in which Ethel lived took on an impersonal air, as though saying, "What do I care? I'm all concrete, with good hard steel inside of that." What a queer place for people's homes! People moving in and out! Curiously she probed into its life. She had long ago made friends with the wife of the superintendent, and through her Ethel collected bits about these many families so close together and yet so apart; all troubles kept strictly out of sight, with the freight elevator for funerals, cool looks and never a word of greeting. "Keep off," writ clear on every face.
"It isn't real, this living! It can't last!" she exclaimed to herself. "They'll have to work out something better than this—something, oh, much homier!" She thought of the old frame house in Ohio. "That's gone," she declared, with a swallow.
Her acquaintance with young Mrs. Grewe was still the one bright spot at such times. When Ethel felt blue she would go upstairs to the sunny new home that was to be hers; and there the blithe welcome she received restored her own belief in herself. Mrs. Grewe would often lead her to talk of her home in Ohio, the eager dreams and plans of her girlhood; and on her side, the young widow gave pictures of life in London and Paris as she had seen it so many times. They still shopped together occasionally.
But one afternoon about six o'clock, as Ethel's car drew up at the door and she and her one friend got out, Joe came along—and with one quick angry look he hurried into the building. Quite furious and ashamed for him, Ethel turned to her companion—but Mrs. Grewe smiled queerly and held out her small gloved hand.
"Good-bye, my dear, it has been so nice—this afternoon and all the others." Her tone was a curious mixture of amused defiance and real regret. Ethel stammered something, but in a moment her friend was gone.
Upstairs she met Joe with an angry frown, but to her indignant reproaches he replied by a quizzical smile.
"Look here, Ethel." He took her arm, in a kind protecting sort of way which made her fairly boil. "Look here. I can't let you go about with a shady little person like that. I didn't know you'd picked her up. Now, now—I understand, of course—you met her up there in the new apartment. What a fool I was not to have thought of it."
"Thought of what? For goodness sake!"
"She won't do, that's all."
"Why won't she?" Ethel's colour was suddenly high and her brown eyes had a dangerous gleam. Joe looked at her, hesitating.
"Yes," he said, "you're the kind of a girl who has to be told the truth now and then. She's the mistress of one of our big millionaires."
Ethel stared at him blankly.
"I don't believe it!" she cried. "Her taste! The way she dresses!
Her—her voice—the things she says!"
"I know, I know," he answered. "That sort is rare and they come high.
I've talked to her—"
"Oh, you have, have you! Then why shouldn't I?"
"Because, my dear, I'm one of the owners of this building. My talks were brief—just business."
"What business had you letting her in?"
"Because times were bad three years ago and tenants weren't so easy to find. What harm has she done? This isn't a social club, you know—"
"I know it isn't! Nobody speaks—or even smiles!" A lump rose in
Ethel's throat. "And she was so nice and friendly!"
"I'll bet she was—"
"I won't believe it!" Now her face was reddening with self-mortification. "Do you mean to tell me—living like that—with a companion, even—a prim old maid who looks as though she had left Boston only last night—"
A twinkle came into her husband's eyes: "My dear, the friend of a big millionaire always keeps some one from Boston close by." His arm went around her. "Poor little girl. I guess I won't have to say any more—"
"Perhaps you will and perhaps you won't!" Now again she was nearly choking with rage and with hurt vanity. Her one and only companion! The only woman she had been clever enough to find! That kind! Oh-h! Suddenly she turned to Joe to tell him that if he could give her no friends she'd pick and choose just where she liked! But quickly she remembered that he would answer, "Haven't I tried?" She turned away, broke into tears and left the room.
Out of the little storm that followed, she emerged at last with the thought, "Well, I must see her, anyway, in the work of moving into her apartment. And am I sorry? Not at all! She was good to me—at least she was that! And besides," reflected Ethel, with the same caution and relief which she had so despised in New Yorkers, "she's going soon. It's safe enough."
The talk occurred the next morning, up in the new apartment. There were no awkward preliminaries, for Mrs. Grewe's whole manner had changed. Quite a bit of its careful refinement was gone, and in its place was a rather bitter frankness.
"I quite understand—you needn't explain," she said at once. "Your husband has made a fuss, hasn't he? And this is good-bye. Too bad, isn't it?"
"Yes—it is." Ethel hesitated, then all at once she beamed on her friend. "I want you to know," she stoutly declared, "that neither is my husband my boss nor am I a prig! Back in school, we girls—we used to talk—and read and discuss things—Bernard Shaw—" Her hostess smiled:
"Oh, Shaw, my dear, is a dear, witty man—and he's so funny and so fair. But to live with him—ugh!—rather icy!" She laughed. "See here. No matter what you have read, you've never met me until now. I mean the big Me that thrills all girls—who speak about me in whispers. Well, then, just for a minute, meet me—look at me and see what I am." On her piquante little face was a look of friendly challenge. "We've had such fine little shopping bees, and I'd like you not to be sorry. And what I want to say is this:
"I was just like you. I came from a small town—I had my dreams—I reached New York—I married." She smiled. "Not once but twice. I was divorced. And my second was a love of a man, and we had such a blissful honeymoon. It lasted a year and a half, and then—he got taking things—dope—and that made it hard. It ended in another divorce. The next man didn't marry me. Meant to, you know, but hadn't time. Then he passed on—" with a wave of her hand—"and now I'm here." A humorous smile came over her face. "And for the life of me I can't see how changed it is from when I was married. The same sort of apartment, only it's nicer—the same ocean liners and hotels—the same cafés where one can dance exactly as one did before." Again she wrinkled up her brows. "The only real difference I can see is that when I was married like you, my husband only told me the truth once in a while—as yours did last night—while now they tell it all the time. Oh, I'm wise, I'm wise, my dear—for one so young. I'm twenty-eight. How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-five."
"Three years behind. Well, on the whole I guess I'd stay married if I were you. It's so nice, if he's still in love with you. But the minute he isn't, or makes any fuss, or gets ugly or mean, remember this." And her sweet, clear voice grew impressive. "Remember then you can never be sure what he's really doing in this town. I know—because they tell me—and most of them are married men. And second, and last and always—remember, my dear, that with your figure and your face and your lovely hair which you do so well, you don't have to put up with any man! You can get right out whenever you please! And the only trouble will be to choose your next from all the others who will come crowding about you! And whether you make him marry you—well—I honestly think there's not much choice." She rose and said, with a strange little smile.
"Now that I've had my little revenge on your beast of a husband for spoiling it all, when I wasn't doing the least bit of harm and was leaving anyhow this week—let's say good-bye and each get to our packing."
"She was once like me. I could be like her," thought Ethel late that night. She had been lying awake for hours. "I could be—but I won't!" she declared. "She had read Shaw. How funny! . . . I think it's a mighty big mistake to let young girls read Bernard Shaw. Susette certainly shan't!" Her lips compressed. In a moment she was frowning.
"How easily Joe changed about from loving Amy to loving me. Here he lies asleep at my side. Where was he today? What do I know? . . . Oh, Ethel Lanier, don't be a fool and let every cheap little woman you meet get you thinking things! Such silly things! . . . I do wish that odious Fanny Carr would get out of my life and stay out! . . . You'd better be very careful, Joe." She had risen on her elbow now, and by the dim light from the window she could just see her husband's face. "Because if you're not very good to me—remember that a person whom you yourself consider one of the very best of her kind—told me that I—"
She dropped back. All at once her face was burning.
"Oh, how I loathe all this!" she thought. "And how silly and untrue! Do you want to know where you and I are different, little Mrs. Grewe? I'll tell you! I have a baby! And when he grows up he's going to have this same man still for a father! So there! I'm not sure about anything, even God, any more in this town—it's all a whirl! But I've got a baby, and Susette, and for them I'm going to have a real home—keep wide awake, make friends I'll love—and grow and learn and march in parades—and go to the opera in a box—and go to concerts, go abroad, shop in Paris—love my husband—be very gay—make friends, friends—I will, I will—I won't be downed—I'll beat this cat of a city—
"However. Now I'll go to sleep-."
CHAPTER XV
She did not see Mrs. Grewe again, she did not want to see her. It was not until from the telephone girl she learned that the charming young widow was gone, that Ethel went up to her new home. In a little while her furniture would begin to pour in, but as yet the rooms were empty, flooded with warm sunshine. She looked about and thought of the life which had been here, and then of Mrs. Grewe's advice and her last smiling admonition. She could almost hear the voice.
"Is every place I live in to be haunted?" Ethel asked herself. And then with a humorous little scowl: "Now see here, young woman, the sooner you learn that every apartment in this city has a complete equipment of ghosts, the better it will be for you. I don't care who lived here, nor how she lived nor what she said. I don't need her advice, and her life is not to affect mine in the slightest!" She stopped short. Of whom was she speaking, Mrs. Grewe or Amy? There were two of them now! Both had given her advice, and in each case the life portrayed had been very much alike, so much so as to be rather disturbing. Things were certainly queer in this town!
"Very well, my dears," she said amiably, "if I must be haunted, it's much more gay and sociable to have two instead of one. Remember tea will be served at five, and from the present outlook there's little chance of our being disturbed by the intrusion of any live woman in New York."
"At least the ghosts are friendly." She suddenly compressed her lips and looked about: "However!" She went to the telephone in the hall: "Please hurry up those porters! I'm up here waiting to begin!"
And in the days that followed, she was far too engrossed in "settling" to spare any time for brooding on phantoms. "A home of my own and a life of my own, to be lived with my own husband!" But when at last they were settled, and Joe in a dear, genial mood had gone about admiring, and taking no notice apparently of the scarcity of Amy's things—he turned to Ethel with an air which was meant to be easy and natural:
"Well, now that we're taking a fresh start, the time has come for a little talk."
"What about?" she asked, endeavouring to make her smile as easy as his.
"It will take about one minute." His gruff voice was low and kind. "I'm not going to force my friends on you. If you want to make friends of your own, go ahead. And when you get them let me know—and they'll be mine, too, if I have to break a leg in the effort. I'll dance in front of them, so to speak, until they're all enchanted. But in the meantime, on your side, I want you to let me down easy with these people I once knew. I don't want to hurt them or be a cad. A few I may keep in touch with for years."
"Fanny!" flashed into Ethel's mind.
"And all I ask of you is this. You'll soon be going away for the summer. Let's do the decent thing—just once—and have a little party here. I give you my word we won't do it again."
"All right, Joe—that's fair, of course—and I'll do my best to make it exactly what you want."
And in the dinner that she gave, Ethel lived up to her bargain. The dinner was large; there were twenty guests. The caterer was as before, and so were the food and the flowers. And all through the evening Ethel was gracious and affable. But behind her affability, hidden but subtly conveyed to each guest, was a serene good-bye to them. This was their dismissal. Did they all feel it, every one? To her at least it seemed so. Again and again she caught the men throwing looks of regret at Joe, and the women glancing about the rooms as though in search of what was gone. Amy's things! Oh, more than that. The whole atmosphere was gone. This was the home of the second wife.
"Well, dear, did I live up to our bargain?" she asked her husband when they were alone.
"You did," said Joe. He looked at her then in such a puzzled, masculine fashion. What she had done and how she had done it was plainly such a mystery to him. "You did," he repeated loyally. She slipped her arms about his neck.
"Thank you, love," she answered. And in a moment or two she murmured,
"Have them again in the Fall if you like."
"No," said Joe. "Once was enough."
"Now," she asked herself the next day, "let's try to see what all this means." She was almost speaking aloud. She was growing so accustomed to these sociable little chats with herself. "It means that I am getting on. But Fanny Carr will still be about. She won't come here except just enough to keep up appearances, but she'll still have her business dealings with Joe in the management of her property. He means to keep in touch, he said, 'with a few of them'—meaning her, of course—and his tone conveyed quite plainly that I am to leave him alone in that until I can produce friends of my own. Whereupon, my dear," she threw up her hands, "we come back to exactly the same point at which we have been all along. Where am I going to find friends?" And she gave an angry, baffled sigh. "Oh, damn New York!"
As she glared viciously about the pretty, sunny living room, the image of its former tenant rose up in her memory. And Ethel's expression changed at once, became intent and thoughtful. How much more attractive was Mrs. Grewe than were any of Amy's set. Immoral? Yes, decidedly. But what did "immoral" mean in this town? Who was moral? Fanny Carr? Did these wives and divorcees do any good with their "moral" lives? She recalled what Mrs. Grewe had said: "And whether you marry or whether you don't, for the life of me I can't see any difference." And again: "With your face and figure, my dear, you don't have to put up with any one man." Ethel sat frowning straight before her.
"What kind of a life am I going to find? I'm going to stay with my husband—that's sure. I'm in love with him and he with me. That much is decided."
She rose abruptly, and walking the floor she firmly resolved to "be wholesome" and look on the bright side of things. In the next few weeks she busied herself with the small affairs of her household. There was plenty to occupy her mind. There were finishing touches to give to the rooms; there were Spring clothes to buy for Susette; and the baby was ready for short dresses and a baby carriage. There was the life in the nursery, a cheerful little world in itself. There was Martha, grown more friendly now, and Emily and the new waitress, Anne, and the telephone girl and the chauffeur and the clerks in various shops who had become acquaintances—altogether quite a circle of people who greeted Ethel on her rounds. One day as she passed a laundry shop she spied this sign in the window: "Fine linen respectfully treated." And Ethel chuckled at the thought that she herself was treated like that. On the whole it was rather pleasant, though, and she made the most of it. She was being carefully "wholesome."
Now it was well along in June, time for the children to go to the seashore, so she began to hunt for a place. At the traveller's bureaus she visited she found the clerks more than ready to give advice by the hour to this gracious young creature so stylishly clad. And she had soon selected a quiet little resort in Rhode Island.
But what was Joe doing all this time? She did not mean to keep prying, but for the life of her she could not help throwing out casual inquiries. His reply was always, "Business"; and he would go on to give her details—all of which were tiresome. How much was he seeing of Fanny Carr and her detestable money affairs? His manner, engrossed as it had grown, and even irritable at times, made Ethel feel he was putting her further and further out of that part of his existence which now interested him most, the part that lay outside his home. Was it all business, all of it? "And when I go to the seashore, he'll be here five nights a week!" Sometimes he came in so late at night! Business? At such an hour? "Now carefully, carefully, Ethel Lanier." But in spite of herself the smiling words of young Mrs. Grewe recurred to her mind: "Most of them are married men."
Ethel's doubts, however, were all ended late one night, when at the sound of his key in the door she got out of bed and came into the doorway of her room. Joe was standing in the hall. He did not see her. In fact, his eyes, when he switched on the light, seemed to see nothing in the world but the package of business papers he took from his overcoat. His face was haggard but intent. He turned and went into his study to work. And any suspicion of Fanny Carr, or of any other friend of Joe's, was swept at once from Ethel's mind. Her rival was his business.
And later at the seashore, where she had so many hours alone, she thought about this work of his with deepening hostility. Her mind went back into the past. How his office had always absorbed him. What a refuge it had been in the months that followed Amy's death. "I wasn't the one who first made him forget. Oh, no, it was his business!" And now, as it had weaned him once from his grief for the woman who had died, it was at him again to draw him away from the woman who was living.
There had been a time when it was not so, when she could keep him late at breakfast and make him come home early at night, still fresh enough to read and talk, discuss things, go to the opera, take up his music, plan a trip to Paris. "Oh, yes! Then we were making a start!" But now this wretched work of his had got him worse than ever before—and she blamed his partner for that. She recalled how Nourse had disliked her, she remembered what Amy used to say about the man's worship of business. Yes, with his detestable greed for money, only money, Nourse was doubtless driving Joe. "You're making him just a business man, without a thought or a wish in his head for anything beautiful, really fine, ambition, things he dreamed of and told me about when he was mine—things that would have led us both to everything I wanted—"
She set her lips and whispered:
"All right, friend Bill, then it's you or it's me!" And all the rest of the summer she set herself determinedly to breaking up the partnership.
"Joe, dear," she said pleasantly, when he had come out for the week end, "why don't you ever bring your partner with you over Sunday?" And at his quick look of surprise, "It seems too bad, I think," she added, "never to have him with us."
"I thought you didn't like him," he said. Ethel gave a frank little smile.
"I didn't—but that was a year ago. And besides, he didn't like me, you see. But people do change, I suppose—and as long as he means so much to you, I should so like to be friendly."
It turned out just as she had expected. Nourse declined the invitation. "I'm sorry," she said when her husband told her. She felt her position strengthened a bit. At another time she suggested that Joe's partner be asked to spend the rest of the summer with him in the apartment back in town. It was doubtless so much cooler at night than Nourse's bachelor quarters. And Emily Giles could take care of them both. But this overture, too, Bill Nourse declined. She could just imagine him doing it, the surly, ungracious tone of his voice, the very worst side of the man shown up. Joe often now looked troubled when Ethel talked of his partner.
But toward the end of the summer in one such talk he gave her a shock. It was after Nourse had again refused an invitation to come to the seashore.
"He's queer," said Joe, "and he can be ugly. Being polite is not in
Bill's line. I told him so myself today—and we had quite a session.
"Oh, Joe, I'm sorry," Ethel said.
"You needn't be. Bill Nourse and I will stick together as long as we live." Ethel looked at him sharply, but he did not notice. "Because," he said, "with all his faults, his queerness and his grouches, Bill has done more than any man living to—well, to keep something alive in me—in my work, I mean—that I want later on—as soon as I've made money enough." She stared at him.