CHAPTER II.

After a week or so of the new atmosphere of the tiny library she summed up her life as follows, and was able to state that the routine of her days never varied: She rose at seven and dressed. George’s train went at eight, and she sat with him at table through a breakfast of hot bread, meat, potatoes and coffee. Then her husband put on his coat and hat and took his leave without even bidding her good-by. She felt lonely when the butcher and the grocer had gone. When she had given her directions to Eliza, it was never more than ten o’clock. In days past she had been used to walk out to the library and get a book, or wander into a neighbor’s “and sit a while,” but of late there commenced from the early morning a period of rocking and reading in the library. In the evening George returned from New York only in time to come to the table without the formality of washing his hands.

These were her interests. Too timid to go to Town Club meetings, too simple-minded to be of any great importance in the different Slocum circles, she kept to herself. Her sole interest would naturally be her husband; him she saw from seven P. M. to seven A. M.; or, rather, she slept beside him during these hours--for directly after dinner he would throw himself down on the lounge in his library and smoke and read till at nine o’clock she roused him and sent him to bed in their common bedroom, in their common bed.

George, tired and devitalized by his strenuous life, absorbed by his own and his employer’s affairs, fell asleep at once. But his companion, more alive than she knew, would lie awake until long past midnight, her body unfatigued, her mind restless, her wakeful eyes staring into the dark which had for her no emotion and no mystery.

One afternoon she found she had read through a whole book without stopping, and for the first time in her life had been absorbed. She got up and turned off the steam heat and opened the window.

“It must be ninety here with these radiators! You either freeze or stew.”

The air came in bluffly, its unfriendly edges met her cheeks; before they could be refreshed she was cold in her thin muslin shirt-waist.

She had risen in expression of a sudden need of air, a sudden sense of suffocation, but she thought only that she was “nervous,” and would go out and take a walk. A little later, a golf cape over a short coat of material known as “covert”--short-skirted, a gray felt hat on her head--Mrs. George Warrener was seen by her neighbors to be going “uptown.”

Not until she had left the village, keeping steady pace up the hill toward the Golf Club, did she feel that she had “let off steam.” The quick motion set free the tension of her nerves, and she almost forgot the acute sensation that drove her from the house. At the golf links she approached the course and stood by the fence, near to one of the last bunkers.

The field was sparsely dotted with the golfers. A red dash in the distance, a green dash, indicated the players who bent in bright sweaters over their sticks. Two men came across the ground close to her--strangers--she saw that instantly, and regarded them with the curiosity of a resident. The man who was playing, his club swung over his shoulder, his driver in his hand, was short and stout, with smooth, red cheeks and bright eyes under shaggy brows. His shoes were large and heavy, his golf stockings thick, and his fustian clothes rough and well made. His companion, a younger man in a loose-sleeved overcoat, had a soft felt hat on his head and a lighted cigar in his hand. The older man said to him, laughing:

“There you are, old man! If you’re really caddying for me, you’ll have to ferret the ball out of that ditch by the fence. I saw it roll down.”

The other lazily nodded, took a puff at his cigar and came over in the direction indicated. Mrs. Warrener leaned on the fence watching the gentleman, who poked about in the grass with his cane.

“Let me give you a fresh ball out of my pocket; I’ve got three left,” he called.

The older man laughed. “Oh, go on, look for it; it’s right under your nose. You’ve given me a ‘fresh ball out of your pocket’ every time one has rolled fifteen yards!”

Mrs. Warrener stooped down; she saw the golf ball on the other side of the fence. She put her hand under through the railing and picked it up; she handed it to the gentleman.

“I think this is your ball.”

He took it with a swift, quick look at her, lifted his hat with cane and cigar in the same hand and thanked her. Taking the ball, he returned to his friend.

Mrs. Warrener watched the older gentleman prepare to drive--then the two men follow the direction indicated by the sharp, momentary flight of the little white ball, the golfer tripping briskly along, the other dark figure following slowly. She had never seen either of them before; who were they? The distant rattle of an incoming train--the one before her husband’s--warned her of the time. She would barely reach home before George came in. “Although,” she reflected, “I may just as well be late, for all _he_ will notice, he is so tired, anyway.”

She walked, nevertheless, mechanically toward home, so slowly that when she reached the village street George’s train had been in some time.

At this time of night a little crowd was gathered, as a rule, for the trolley, and Mrs. Warrener decided to take the car and anticipate her husband’s arrival by several minutes.

While she stood with the others who waited, the strangers of the Golf Club joined the crowd. As the car appeared the gentleman in the black coat helped her in and sat opposite her. When he threw back his coat to get out his fare from his pocket, she observed that he wore a gray waistcoat of soft material--it looked as though it were “knit,” she thought, or “worked”--a bright red tie and--unusual elegance among the men of Slocum--gloves--gray gloves, as soft in color as his waistcoat. Very much struck by his dress, she ventured, with a certain timidity, to look him in the face. The vivid color of his cravat made him seem very dark; all she could observe was a dark face, dark mustache and eyes, for he was looking at her, and she met his eyes directly. Their interested curiosity rendered her uncomfortable, and she removed her glance, which traveled down the line of colorless passengers, tired men in dusty, careless dress; unbrushed derbys, linen far from immaculate, gloveless hands. Each man had his bunch of evening papers, some carried parcels from the city for suburban use. A woman she knew, an inveterate shopper, nodded brightly to her.

“Been in New York all day. Just too tired. Never saw such a crowd in the stores; why, I thought I never _would_ get waited on. Say----” There was a vacant seat by Mrs. Warrener, and the lady came over and took it, continuing a description of bargains, and a tirade against crowds. “Been up this week, Gert?”

“No, I hardly ever go in.”

“Well, it’s a change, but I always say when we get to Slocum I’m glad I don’t live in New York, it’s so wearing. Been up to the Golf Club?”

“Yes, but not to play.”

The conversationalist was conscious of a change in her well-known neighbor’s tone, an accent, just what it was she could not imagine, but it was sufficiently marked to give her food for thought.

As Mrs. Warrener left the car at her corner, Mrs. Turnbull puzzled over her. Perhaps she was offended with her? But she had no reason for such an idea! Perhaps George Warrener was losing money? As money to the unsentimental, commercial American mind is the source of all bliss and the cause of all unhappiness, the slide down which all spirits fall and the height to which they rise, she reached a sad conclusion in this, and dropped her wonderings.

* * * * *

Warrener and his wife arrived at the same moment on the steps of their two-story frame house.

“Well!” he said. He took out his latchkey and entered the door. The hall was hot and full of the smell of roasting meat and soup herbs. The dinner puffed out to meet the diners with damp, pungent warmth. George put his batch of papers down on the hall stand.

“Well,” he repeated, absently, took off his dusty derby, hung it up and got out of his overcoat.

He looked for no response to his greeting. Mrs. Warrener understood this, and made none.

Warrener went upstairs to his study.

“Gracious, Gert, some one’s left the window open in my den! It’s like ice here!”

“It’ll get hot enough. Turn on the steam.”

Mrs. Warrener followed her husband upstairs into the cold little room. The smell of stale smoke seemed to have frozen on the air, but over it the smell of the cigar the gentleman had smoked, a peculiar aroma, as new to her, as delicious, as would have been a priceless perfume, came to her nostrils. She went to her chair where she had sat for hours reading, and picked up her book, which she kept in her hand.

“What have you been doing all day, Gert?” he asked at dinner, after he had eaten his tepid soup and drunk an entire glass of ice water.

“Oh, I don’t know--nothing much.”

“Nothin’ doin’? Well, you are in luck! I feel as if something was doin’ in every inch of my body. I’m tired out. Harkweather kept the clerks down to-night--they won’t get out before nine o’clock; but I said ‘not tonight for me. I’m goin’ home.’ And I’m goin’ right to bed. I guess I’ll sleep twelve hours, all right!”

As they went upstairs, he first and she slowly following, she suggested:

“How would you like me to sleep in the spare room, if you’re so tired?”

“Why?” he asked, jocularly. “Do I snore so?”

“Yes, but that’s not it. It may feel good to have the whole bed to yourself.”

“Well, I believe it would.”

In the spare room, close to the springs, on a narrow, single bed, Mrs. Warrener crept alone. She drew the adjusting electric light close to her and took her book up again to re-read, her elbow in the pillow and her cheek on her hand. She followed the printed lines with dawning interest on her face, and a growing intelligence, until all of a sudden the dead stillness of the hour and time struck her. The fireless room--for there was no steam heat in it--gave her a chill. She put out the light and drew the coverlet about her and settled down to sleep.