Chapter 2

Of course, I realized that Lillian Gale meant to have us join them for a supper party after the theatre. The invitation would be given to us in the lobby after the last act. Upon the way that I received that invitation must depend my future conduct toward this woman. I could not make one of the proposed party and afterward decline to know her. My instincts all cried out to me to avoid Lillian Gale. She outraged all my canons of good taste, although even through my prejudices I had to admit there was something oddly attractive about her in spite of her atrocious make-up.

But, on the other hand, she and her husband appeared to be on most intimate terms with Dicky. Would I seriously offend him if I refused to treat his friends with friendliness equal to that which they seemed ready to shower upon me?

"Would you like to walk a bit, Madge?" Dicky's voice started me into a recollection of my surroundings. I had been so absorbed in the problem of whether I should or should not accept Lillian Gale as an intimate friend that I did not know that the curtain had fallen on the second act, nor did I know how the act had ended. My problem was still unsolved. I welcomed the diversion of a turn in the fresher aid of the lobby.

As we passed up the aisle I felt a sudden tug, then an ominous ripping. The floating chiffon overdrapery of my gown had caught in a seat. As Dicky bent to release me his face showed consternation. Almost a length of the dainty fabric trailed on the floor.

I have schooled my self-repression for many a weary year. I feared my gown, in which I had taken such pride, was ruined, but I would not let any one know I cared about it. I gathered it up and smiled at Dicky.

"It really doesn't matter," I said. "If you'll leave me at the woman's dressing room I think I can fix it up all right."

Dicky drew a relieved breath. His heartily murmured, "You're a thoroughbred for sure, Madge," rewarded me for my composure. I was just woman enough also to be comforted by the whispered comments of two women who sat just behind the seat which caused the mischief.

"Isn't that a shame--that exquisite gown?" and the rejoinder. "But isn't she game? I couldn't smile like that--I'd be crying my eyes out"

Dicky left me at the door of the dressing room, pressing a coin slyly into my hand. "You'll tip the maid," he explained, and I blessed him for his thoughtfulness. I had been too absorbed in my gown to think of anything else.

An obsequious maid provided me with needle, thimble and thread. She offered to mend the tear for me, but I had a horror of being made conspicuous by her ministrations.

"If you'll let me have a chair in a corner I shall do very nicely," I told her, and was at once snugly ensconced near one of her mirrors behind the very comfortable rampart of an enormously fat woman in an exaggerated evening gown, who was devoting much pains and cosmetics to her complexion. She looked as if she intended to remain at the particular mirror all the intermission. I hoped she would stay there, in spite the dagger's looks she was receiving from other complexion repairers who coveted her place, for she was an effectual shield from curious eyes.

To my joy I found that the gown was not ruined, and that it could be repaired without much expense or trouble. Even the temporary mending I was doing disguised the break. I was so interested in the mending that I was completely lost to my surroundings, but the sound of a familiar name brought me to with a jerk.

"Did you see the Dicky-bird and his marble bride?" A high-pitched yet rather sweet voice asked the question, and a deep contralto answered it.

"Yes, indeed, and I saw the way Lillian Gale was rushing them. For my part I don't think that's quite clubby of Lil. Of course she's got into the way of thinking she has a first mortgage on the Dicky-bird, but she might give that beautiful bride a chance for her life before she forecloses."

"What's the secret of Lil's attraction for Dicky Graham, anyway?" the soprano voice queried. "She's a good seven years older than he is, and both her past and her youth are rather frayed at the edges, you know."

"Oh! love's young dream, and the habit of long association," returned the contralto. I've heard that Lil was Dicky's first love. She was a stunner for looks 19 years ago, and Dicky was just young enough to be swept off his feet."

"That must have been before Lil married that unspeakable Morten, the fellow she divorced, wasn't it?" interrupted the soprano.

"Yes, it was," the contralto answered. "I don't know whether Dicky has been half in love with Lil all these years or not, but he certainly has been her best friend. And now comes the news of his marriage to somebody the crowd never heard of."

"Well, I think Lil may say good-by to her Dicky-bird now," returned the first speaker. "That bride is quite the prettiest piece of flesh and blood I've seen for many days."

"She is all of that," agreed the other, "She holds all the best cards, but you'll find she is too statuesque and dignified to play them. I saw her face tonight when Lil was talking to her. She is not accustomed to Lil's kind, and she does not like her friendship with Dicky."

"You can't blame her for that," interrupted the soprano. "I am sure I would not like to see my husband dancing attendance on Lillian Gale."

"No, of course not," the contralto replied; "but she will be just fool enough to show Dicky her feelings, and Dicky, who is the soul of loyalty to his friends, will resent her attitude and try to make it up to Lil and Harry by being extra nice to them. It's too bad. But then, these marble statue sort of women always sacrifice their love for their pride or their fool notions or propriety."

"It will be as good as a play to watch the developments," the soprano commented. "Come on, we'll be too late for the curtain."

I felt suddenly faint, and the room appeared to whirl around me. The maid touched me on the arm.

"Are you ill, madame? Here!" and she held a glass of water to my lips. I drank it and motioned her away.

"I'll be all right in a moment," I murmured. "Thank you, but I am quite well."

So this was what marriage would mean to me, a contest with another woman for my husband's love! A fierce anger took possession of me. One moment I regretted my marriage to Dicky, the next I was fiercely primitive as any savage woman in my desire to crush my rival. I could have strangled Lillian Gale in that moment. Then common sense came back to me. What was it that woman had said? I had all the best cards in my hand? Well! I would play them. I felt sure that Dicky loved me. I would not jeopardize that love for a temporary pride. I would eliminate Lillian Gale from Dicky's life, but I would bide my time to do it.

IV

DIVIDED OPINIONS

If anybody wishes an infallible recipe for taking the romance out of life, I can recommend washing a pile of dishes which have been left over from the day before, especially if there be among them a number of greasy pots and pans. Restoring order to a badly cluttered room is another glamour destroyer, but the first prize, I stoutly affirm, goes to the dishes.

An especially aggravating collection of romance shatterers awaited me the morning after our visit to the theatre, and my first encounter with Lillian Gale.

Dicky took a hurried breakfast and rushed off to the studio, while I spent a dreary forenoon washing the dishes and putting the apartment to rights. I dreaded the discussion with Dicky at luncheon. I had insisted before my marriage that I must either do most of the housework, or keep up some of my old work to add to our income. To have a maid, while I did nothing to justify my existence save keep myself pretty and entertain Dicky, savored too much to me of the harem favorite.

A mother of small children, a woman with a large house, one who had old people to care for, or whose health was not good, was justified in having help. But for me, well, strong, with a tiny apartment, and just Dicky, to employ a maid without myself earning at least enough to pay for the extra expense of having her--it was simply impossible. I had been independent too long. The situation was galling.

The postman's ring interrupted my thoughts. I went to the door, receiving a number of advertisements, a letter or two for Dicky, and one, addressed in an unfamiliar handwriting, to myself. I opened it and read it wonderingly.

"My dear Mrs. Graham:

"Our club is planning a course in history for the coming year. We need an experienced conductor for the class, which will meet once a week. Your name has been suggested to us as that of one who might be willing to take up the work. The compensation will not be as large as that given by the larger clubs for lectures, as we are a small organization, but I do not think you will have to devote much of your time to the work outside of the weekly meeting.

"Will you kindly let me know when I can meet you and talk this over with you, if you decide to consider it?

"Yours very truly,

"HELEN BRAINERD SMITH,

"Secretary Lotus Study Club,

"215 West Washington Avenue."

Had the solution to my problem come? Armed with this I could talk to Dicky at luncheon without any fears.

The receipt of the letter put me in a royal good humor. I did not care how little the compensation was, although I knew it would be far more than enough to pay the extra expense of having a maid, an expense which I was determined to defray.

Teaching or lecturing upon historical subjects was child's play to me. I had specialized in it, and had been counted one of the most successful instructors in that branch in the city. Woman's club work was new to me, but the husband of one of my friends had once conducted such a course, and I knew I could get all the information I needed from him.

I thought of Dicky's possible objections, but brushed the thought aside. He had objected to my going on with my regular school work and I realized that the hours which I would have been compelled to give to that work would have conflicted seriously with our home life. But here was something that would take me away from home so little.

* * * * *

"About that servant question," I began, after Dicky was comfortably settled and smiling over his cigar. "I will employ one, a first-class, really competent housekeeper, if you will make no objection to this."

I opened the letter and handed it to him. He read it through, his face growing angrier at every line. When he had finished he threw it on the floor.

"Well, I guess not," he exclaimed. "I know that club game; it's the limit. There's nothing in it. They'll pay only a beggarly sum, and you'll be tied to that same afternoon once a week for a year. Suppose we had something we wanted to do on that day? We would have to let it go hang."

"I suppose if we had something we wanted to do on a day when you had a commission to execute you would leave your work and go," I answered quietly.

"That's entirely different," returned Dicky. "I'm responsible for the support of this family. You are not. All you have to do is to enjoy yourself and make home comfortable for me."

We were interrupted by the door bell. Dicky went to the door while I hastily dropped the portiers between the living room and the dining room. I heard Dicky's deep voice in greeting.

"This is good of you, Lil," and Lillian Gale came into the room with outstretched hand.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have come so soon," she said, "but you see I am bound to know you, even if Dicky does spirit you away when we want you to join us."

She threw him a laughing glance as she clasped my hand.

"I am so glad you have come," I said cordially, but inwardly I fiercely resented her intrusion, as I deemed it.

But what was my horror to hear Dicky say casually:

"You've come at a most opportune time, Lil. Madge has had an offer from some woman's club to do a lecturing stunt on history, her specialty, you know, and she wants to take it. I wish you'd help me persuade her out of it."

"I cannot imagine why we should trouble Mrs. Underwood with so personal a matter," I heard myself saying faintly.

Mrs. Underwood laughed boisterously. "Why, I'm one of the family, my dear child," she said heartily. Then she looked at me keenly.

"I might have known that one man would have no chance with two women," Dicky growled. His tone held capitulation. I knew I had won my battle. But was it my victory or this woman's I so detested?

"Don't let this man bully you," she advised half-laughingly. "He's perfectly capable of it. I know him. By all means accept the offer if you think it's worth while. All these husbands are a bit archaic yet, you know. They don't realize that women have joined the human race."

"Come, Dicky-bird," she rattled on as she saw his darkening face. "Don't be silly. You'll have to give in. You're just 50 years behind the times, you know."

During the remainder of Mrs. Underwood's brief call she ignored Dicky, and devoted herself to me. There is no denying the fact that she has great charm when she chooses to exercise it. Dicky, however, appeared entirely oblivious of it, sitting in moody silence until she rose to go.

"You ought to preserve that grouch," she carelessly advised, as he stood holding the door open for her. "Carefully corked in a glass jar, it ought to keep to be given to your grandchildren as a horrible example."

Dicky grinned reluctantly and bowed low as she passed out of the room with a cordial adieu to me, but no sooner had the door closed behind her than he turned to me angrily.

"Look here, Madge," he exclaimed, "are you really in earnest about taking that blasted position?"

"Why! of course I am," I answered. "It seems providential, coming just as you insist upon having the maid. I can engage one with a clear conscience now."

Dicky sprang to his feet with a muttered word that sounded suspiciously like an oath, and began to walk rapidly up and down the room, his hands behind his back, and his face dark with anger. Up and down, up and down he paced, while I, sitting quietly in my chair, waited, nerving myself for the scene I anticipated.

When it came, however, it surprised me with the turn it took. Dicky stopped suddenly in his pacing, and coming swiftly over to me, dropped on one knee beside my chair and put his arms around me.

"Sweetheart," he said softly, "I don't want to quarrel about this, nor do I wish to be unreasonable about it. But, really, it means an awful lot to me. I don't want you to do it. Won't you give it up for me?"

I returned Dicky's kiss, and held him tightly as I answered:

"Dear boy, I'll think it over very carefully. If I possibly can, I will do as you wish. But, remember, I say if I can. I haven't made you a definite promise yet."

"But you will, I know; that's my own dear girl. Good-by. I'll have to rush back to the studio now."

Dicky's tone was light and confident as he rose. Life always has been easy for Dicky. I heard him say once he never could remember the time when he didn't get his own way.

V

"ALWAYS YOUR JACK"

As soon as Dicky had left the house I cleared away the dishes and washed them and prepared a dessert for dinner. Then, finding the want advertisements of the Sunday papers, I looked carefully through the columns headed "Situations Wanted, Female."

I clipped the advertisements and fastened each neatly to a sheet of notepaper. Then I wrote beneath each one: "Please call Thursday or Friday. Ask for Mrs. Richard Graham, Apartment 4, 46 East Twenty-ninth street."

I addressed the envelopes properly, inserted the answers in the envelopes, sealed and stamped them, then ran out to the post box on the corner with them. I walked back very slowly, for there was nothing more that needed to be done, and I could put off no longer the settling of my problem.

I locked the door of my room, pulled down the shade and, exchanging my house dress for a comfortable negligee, lay down upon my bed to think things out.

I tried to put myself in Dicky's place, and to understand his reasons for objecting to my earning any money of my own. I sat upright in bed as a thought flashed across my brain. Was that the reason? Were his objections to this plan of mine what he pretended they were? Did he really fear that I might have unpleasant publicity thrust upon me, and that some of our pleasure plans might be spoiled by the weekly lecture engagement? Or was he the type of man who could not bear his wife to have money or plans or even thoughts which did not originate with him?

I resolved to find out just what motive was behind his objections. If he were willing that I should try to earn money in some other way I would gladly refuse this offer. But if he were opposed to my ever having any income of my own the issue might as well come now as later.

A loud ringing at the doorbell awakened me.

For a moment I could not understand how I came to be in bed. Then I remembered and throwing off my negligee and putting on a little afternoon gown, I twisted up my hair into a careless knot and hurried to the door. The ring had been the postman's. The afternoon newspapers lay upon the floor. With them was a letter with my former name upon it in a handwriting that I knew. It had been forwarded from my old boarding house. The superscription looked queer to me, as if it were the name of some one I had known long ago.

"Miss Margaret Spencer," and then, in the crabbed handwriting of my dear old landlady, "care of Mrs. Richard Graham."

I opened the letter slowly. It bore a New Orleans heading, and a date three days before.

"Dear little girl:

"A year is a long time between letters, isn't it? But you know I told you when I left that the chances were Slim for getting a letter back from the wild territory where I was going, and I found when I reached there that 'slim' was hardly the word. I wrote you twice, but have no hope that the letters ever reached you. But now I am back in God's country, or shall be when I get North, and of course, my first line is to you. I am writing this to the old place, knowing it will be forwarded if you have left there.

"I shall be in New York two weeks from today, the 24th. Of course I shall go to my old diggings. Telephone me there, so that I can see you as soon as possible. I am looking forward to a real dinner, at a real restaurant, with the realest girl in the world opposite me the first day I strike New York, so get ready for me. I do hope you have been well and as cheerful as possible. I know what a struggle this year must have been for you.

"Till I see you, dear, always your

"JACK."

I finished the reading of the letter with mingled feelings of joy and dismay. Joy was the stronger, however. Dear old Jack was safe at home. But there were adjustments which I must make. I had my marriage to explain to Jack, and Jack to explain to Dicky. Nothing but this letter could have so revealed to me the strength of the infatuation for Dicky which had swept me off my feet and resulted in my marriage after only a six months' acquaintance. Reading it I realized that the memory of Jack had been so pushed into the background during the past six months that I never had thought to tell Dicky about him.

"You've made a great conquest," said Dicky that evening when we were finishing dinner, "Lil thinks you're about the nicest little piece of calico she has ever measured--those were her own words. She's planning a frolic for the crowd some night at your convenience."

"That is awfully kind of her. Where did you see her." I prided myself on my careless tone, but Dicky gave me a shrewd glance.

"Why, at the studio, of course. Her studio is on the same floor as mine, you know. Atwood and Barker and she and I are all on one floor, and we often have a dish of tea together when we are not rushed."

I busied myself with the coffee machine until I could control my voice. How I hated these glimpses of the intimate friendship which must exist between my husband and this woman!

"I suppose we ought to have them all over some night," I said at last, "but I'll have to add a few things to our equipment, and wait until I get a maid."

"That will be fine," Dicky assented cordially, pushing back his chair. "Did the papers come? I'll look them over for a little. Whistle when you're ready and I'll wipe the dishes for you."

He strolled into the living room, and I suddenly remembered that I had laid my letter from Jack on the table, with its pages scattered so that any one picking them up could not help seeing them.

I had forgotten all about the letter. I had meant to show it to Dicky after I had explained about Jack. It was not quite the letter for a bridegroom to find without expectation. I realized that.

I could not get the letter without attracting his attention. I waited, every nerve tense, listening to the sounds in the next room. I heard the rustling of the newspaper; then a sudden silence told me his attention had been arrested by something. Would he read the letter? I did not think so. I knew his sense of honor was too keen for that, but I remembered that the last page with its signature was at the top of the sheets as I laid them down. That was enough to make any loving husband reflect a bit.

How would Dicky take it? I wondered. I was soon to know. I Heard him crush the paper in his hand, then come quickly to the kitchen. I pretended to be busy with the dishes, but he strode over to me, and clutching me by the shoulder with a grip that hurt, thrust the letter before my face, and said hoarsely:

"What does this mean?"

The last words of Jack's letter danced before my eyes, Dicky's hand was shaking so.

"Till I see you, dear. Always Jack."

Dicky's face was not a pleasant sight. It repulsed and disgusted me. Subconsciously I was contrasting the way in which he calmly expected me to accept his friendship for Lillian Gale, and his behavior over this letter. Five minutes earlier I would have explained to him fully. I resolved now to put my friendship for Jack upon the same basis as his for Mrs. Underwood.

So I looked at him coolly. "Have you read the letter?" I asked quietly.

"You know I have not read the letter." he snarled. "It lay on the papers. I could not help but see this--this--whatever it is," he finished lamely, "and I have come straight to you for an explanation."

"Better read the letter," I advised quietly. "I give you full permission."

I could have laughed at Dicky, if I had been less angry. He was so like an angry, curious child in his eagerness to know everything about Jack.

"You have no brother. Is this man a relative?"

"No," I returned demurely.

"An old lover then, I suppose a confident one, I should judge by the tone of the letter. Won't it be too cruel a blow to him when he finds his dear little girl is married?"

Dicky's tone fairly dripped with irony. "He will be surprised certainly," I answered, "but as he never was my lover, I don't think it will be any blow to him."

"Who is he, anyway? Why have you never told me about him? What does he look like?"

Dicky fairly shot the questions at me. I turned and went into my room. There I rummaged in a box of old photographs until I found two fairly good likenesses of Jack. I carried them to the kitchen and put them in Dicky's hands. He glared at them, then threw them on the table.

"Humph! Looks like a gorilla with the mumps," he growled. "Who is this precious party, then, if he is not a lover or a relative?"

"He is an old and dear friend. His friendship means as much to me as--well--say Lillian Gale's means to you."

Dicky stared at me a long, long look as if he had just discovered me. Then he turned on his heel.

"Well, I'll be--" I did not find out what he would be, for he went out and slammed the door.