_ CHAPTER XXI
The days dragged by. She had anxious times. What would Sally Crothers be like? "And what in the world will she think of me? If she doesn't like me--very much--the very first time, I'll have lost my chance. For she's busy, her life is full of things--planning gardens and running about with her friends. And she won't so much as bother her head!" Ethel felt a dismal sinking. In vain she strove to assure herself. Joe, Nourse and then Dwight, one after the other, had all bowed down before her. "Oh, that was very simple!" she thought. "They're only men!" It would be a woman this time, and one of the most brilliant kind. "What a dull little fool she'll find me, in spite of all I do or say!" It would be all the more difficult because Mrs. Crothers was older. "That will count against me. No doubt she's beginning to show her age; and I'm young, and she doesn't want any young things to come snooping about her husband! Then there's Amy and the quarrel they had, and she'll put me and Amy in the same class! I'll have all that to fight against!" The idea of settling everything all in one brief encounter. Oh, it was too maddening!
"Now, Ethel Lanier, for goodness' sake stop fidgeting like a nervous old maid! This isn't the minister coming to call!"
On the day before the expected call, Ethel was just on the point of going out for the afternoon to do some shopping and shake off these silly fears, when the telephone rang and a few moments later the maid came in and told her there was a visitor downstairs. In an instant with a rush of excitement Ethel knew it was Sally at last. Dwight, in his easy, careless way, had mixed his dates and was bringing Sally a day ahead! How stupid of him! "What have I on?"
"Did she come up?" she breathlessly asked.
"No, Mrs. Lanier, she's waiting below."
"Did she give her name?"
"Yes--Mrs. Carr."
"Oh." Ethel gasped and sank down in a heap. "All right, ask her to come up," she said, in a tone of indifference.
When the maid had gone, she almost called her back. She did not want to see Fanny Carr. Still--why not? Oh, let her come. And in the two or three minutes that followed, Ethel passed from a mood of depression to one of easy good-natured contempt. She was no longer afraid of Fanny, for Ethel was getting Joe in hand. "And as soon as I do," she reflected, "and my husband makes a name as an architect doing great big things, what harm can Fanny do me?" As she thought of the brilliant people who were so soon to be her friends, she looked upon Fanny Carr and her like with no more hatred but only compassion. What stupid lives they were leading.
And so when Fanny came into the room Ethel received her kindly.
But Fanny rather smiled at that. She looked a bit seedy as to her dress, and yet she had a confident air. She took in the fine clothes of her handsome young hostess, and Ethel's very gracious air and the almost pitying tone of her voice--and then with a hard little smile, "My, what a change," said Fanny softly. Ethel frowned at her tone. This might be rather awkward.
"You mean this way of doing my hair?" she rejoined good-humouredly. "I was hoping you would notice it."
"Does he?" asked Fanny.
"What do you mean? Oh, Joe never--"
"No. Dwight, my dear." The hard voice of her visitor had become suddenly low and clear. Ethel looked at the woman then and slowly reddened to her ears. And the consciousness of blushing made her all the angrier.
"What on earth do you mean!" she demanded. Her voice too was very low, and it trembled only a little; but there was a glint in her brown eyes. Fanny gave a tense little laugh.
"Look here," she said. "Don't let's waste time. Joe may be coming home, you know, and we must get this over first."
"We'll soon get it over." Ethel's voice was shaking ominously. Fanny noticed and spoke fast.
"Well, then, it's just this," she said. "You've made up your mind to cut Joe off from all his old friends, including me. And I might have stood for that--"
"How kind!"
"If I hadn't learned of the raw deal you're giving him. Strip him of friends and then treat him like this? Oh, no, not if I can help it!" Plainly Fanny was working herself into a rage to match that of her hostess.
"You'd better be very clear, Mrs. Carr," Ethel exclaimed, leaning forward. Her visitor looked straight back at her, and answered:
"Very. I mean Dwight."
Ethel rose abruptly.
"That will be enough, I think."
"Oh, will it?"
Ethel wheeled upon her:
"What a--loathsome mind you have! Will you leave me, please!"
"No, I'll show you this. And then we'll get to business." And Fanny produced a large envelope, from which she took out a few typewritten pages. "Just look these over," she advised, "and then tell me whether I shall go." And as Ethel hesitated, "You'd better. They're very important."
Ethel took them and read them, and as she did so her rage and scorn changed first into bewilderment and then into a sickening fright She felt all at once so off her ground. She had always heard of detectives and their reports of shadowed wives, but that sort of thing had just been in the papers and had never seemed very real. "This is about me!" she thought. It told of every meeting she had had with Dwight, in his studio and in other places, once at the Ritz where they had dined and gone to the opera, twice in the Park where they had walked. Such clean times, all three of them, but how cheap and disgusting they now appeared! For here were bits about Dwight's past, his record with women--two were named. He had been a co-respondent once! And his studio was described in detail, with emphasis on a big lounge in one corner! . . . Suddenly it was laughable! And so she laughed at Fanny! And Fanny replied:
"You mean he won't believe it!"
Ethel went on laughing. Joe wouldn't believe it. She wished he would come and turn this woman out on the street. She felt relief unspeakable.
"You've forgotten," Fanny added, "that you lied to him about your friend."
"How dare you say that?"
"Because I have the facts. On the second of December Joe brought Dwight to dine with you, and you acted as though you'd never met. I gathered that from Joe himself when I saw him the next day. While the truth of it was you'd been seeing Dwight ever since the first of October."
"Yes? That will be easy enough to explain." But Ethel felt herself turning white. She sank down and thought, "Now you'll need all your nerve. Don't get faint, you've got to think clearly." But she was not given time.
"And all that had been going on while you were supposed to be home with the baby." Mrs. Carr leaned forward briskly. "Now the thing for you to do is exactly what I tell you. But before I do that, there's just one thing I wish you to understand about me. If you want to keep Joe, keep him. I don't want him--I never did. I've laughed at you again and again for what you thought I was trying to do. All I want is to be let alone to go on with Joe as I always have. What I mean by that you won't understand, because you don't understand my life. A woman like me in this city needs one man who'll be her friend--the big brother idea--to help and advise her, carry her through when she's down a bit. And Joe has always been like that.
"Why? Because of Amy. When she first came to New York, you remember, it was on a visit to me. I had known her back in boarding school. Well, the visit lengthened out. I saw how crazy she was for the town, and I was fairly well off then, so I let her stay and gave her a home--let her meet my friends, Joe included. I had a husband at the time who was in the real estate business. He knew Joe. So I took Joe and handed him over to Amy. And though she would have been glad enough to forget the debt, Joe wasn't that kind. So that's my hold on him--perfectly clean and above-board. And I need him in my business. There are times when I'm down and need his money, other times when I need his name. But that is all. And if he has been fool enough to marry a giddy young girl like you, that's his own look-out--I won't interfere. I mean I won't interfere with you so long as you don't interfere with me. You let me go on with Joe as before, and he'll never see these papers."
With a sudden fierce impulse, in spite of herself, Ethel crumpled them up in her hands.
"Don't be a fool," said Fanny. "They're only copies. Give them back." Ethel did so, mechanically. "Now what will you do? Which way will you have it? He may be here any minute now."
She waited, but got no reply. She saw the girl shiver a little.
"What's the use of being so solemn and scared?" she impatiently asked. "You're running no more risk than before. So far as I'm concerned, my dear, you can go right on with Dwight if you wish. All I'm asking is a square deal."
"But she'll ask and ask," thought Ethel. "She'll ask of me anything she wants. And she'll get me so tangled in other lies that then I wouldn't have even a chance of making Joe see how things really are."
This thought cleared her mind a little.
"No," she said. "You can tell him."
"What!"
Ethel looked down at her hands in her lap, and noticed how tightly they were clenched. She smiled at them.
"Tell him."
"You're sure of that?"
Ethel nodded.
"Very well!"
"She's uneasy," thought Ethel, "and disappointed--not sure of herself. I've done the right thing."
But as in almost perfect silence they sat waiting for Joe to come home, her decision wavered again and again, and it took all her courage to hold herself in. She made occasional trite remarks, and received replies of the same kind. On them both the tension was growing.
"This means everything to you, too, Fanny, dear!" Ethel reflected viciously. "If Joe believes me--you're done for!"
At each slight stir that Fanny made, Ethel hoped she had lost her courage and was getting ready to go. But Fanny stayed And as she sat there motionless, what a strong figure she grew to be, moment by moment, in Ethel's eyes--strong in spite of the life she led, of clothes, rich feeding, drinking, dancing, old age swiftly coming on. Strong nevertheless, in an odious way, in the loathsome point of view of her world toward love and marriage. It had set her to prying and handed her here--with these papers in her hands! That was her way of looking at life, and a mighty strong way it appeared!
Suddenly Ethel's eye was caught by Amy's photograph on the table. By degrees in the last few months Joe had ceased to notice it there. But how he would notice it now, very soon, as soon as he'd read what Fanny had brought. For Amy had taught Joe long ago to be jealous, never too sure of a wife.
"So Amy is here again, after all. . . . I wonder what I shall say to Joe? . . . Oh, rubbish! Use more common sense! All I've got to do is to make him see why I never told him about Dwight. It was only part of that plan I had. But what a fool! Oh, what a fool!"
When at last Joe's key was heard in the door, both women leaned slowly forward, as though the strain were unbearable. And then as Joe came into the hall, Fanny said suddenly, sharp and clear:
"No, I won't keep quiet! Joe has got to be told of this!" Ethel wheeled on her:
"How odious!"
"I can't help it--he's my friend!"
And the next moment, with Joe in the room, both women were talking to him at once--angrily, incoherently, almost shoving each other away. But only for a moment. It was too disgusting! Ethel left off and stood rigid there, while Fanny talked on rapidly. She was speaking of how Ethel had cut off Joe from Amy's friends. Ethel heard only bits of this, for it all seemed so confused and unreal. But she noticed how nervously tired he looked, all keyed up from his day at the office. She remembered that his partner was out of town on business, that Joe had been running the office alone. "He will be hard to manage," she thought. He interrupted Fanny in a sharp, excitable tone.
"What's it all about?" he asked.
"It's time you saw where you stand, Joe Lanier. Look at this girl. I don't blame her, God knows. Look how young she is, and then look at yourself. Here, take a look at yourself in that mirror. Are you still young? Can't you see the lines, the gray hairs, Joe? They're coming--oh, they're coming! Can you supply all the love she wants?"
"Fanny?" he snapped out her name in so ugly a voice that she lost no time. She shoved those papers into his hands and began to tell him what they were. But Joe refused to read them and grew each moment angrier.
"Joe!" cried Fanny sharply. "When you brought Dwight to dinner here, he met your wife as though for the first time. Did you know they had been friends for months?" And at his startled look, she added, "If you didn't, you'd better read all this!" There fell a sudden silence.
"I'll explain everything--when we're alone," Ethel managed to put in. How queer and thick her own voice sounded.
Now Joe had gone into the hall with Fanny. Curtly he said good-night to her. The door closed, and there was silence again. Why didn't he come? He must be standing there in the hall trying to get hold of himself. Oh, how terribly hurt he must feel! But she checked the sudden lump in her throat. "Remember now--just common sense!" This was a time for keeping clear! But Joe had come back into the room, and passing the gilt mirror into which Fanny had told him to look, he stopped a moment.
"Don't do that, Joe!" In an instant, in spite of herself, her love for him rose up in a wave, with fear and pity and anger, too. She came to him, and her voice was shaking. "Oh, Joe--Joe! Can't you see it's all lies? It's so loathsome--every word! And so cheap--so cheap and mean!"
As she spoke, his eyes were rapidly scanning the report he still had in his hands. Again she noticed how tired he was. He looked up at her:
"I know it is! But why didn't you treat it like that? Why did you try to make her keep quiet? Weren't you trying, when I came in?"
"No! No! It was just her odious trick--her pretending!"
"Pretending? How about you? Why did you pretend, when I brought Dwight here, that you'd never laid eyes on him before? Had you or hadn't you? Careful, now! Fanny says it is all here!"
"I'll explain in one word!"
"What's the word? Say it, please--and for God's sake clear this up!"
She was breathing hard, frightened, her mind in a whirl. Oh, to be able to think clearly! Use a little common sense!
"Just a minute!" she gasped. "You'll see in a minute--"
"I see a good deal! It's right in your eyes! What are you looking so scared about! And what did she say about my being old! I am old--and you're young, young! And a beauty--just the kind for Dwight! Don't I know of his love affairs? Wasn't he at it way back in Paris? Hasn't he been--ever since?"
"Be careful, Joe," she cried angrily. But in his condition, nerves on edge, he paid no heed and went rapidly on:
"I'm just a business man! And you've made me feel your contempt for all that! And he's a musician, he's different--he has exactly what you want! So you went to his studio twice a week--for months and months--without letting me know--although he was a friend of mine! And you went to the Ritz and the opera! And then I brought him here to dine! God, how you two must have smiled at each other--when I wasn't looking!"
"Joe! Joe!"
"You lied to me, didn't you, when he came! You say you'll explain it in a word! Well, what's the word? I'm waiting!"
"There isn't any!" Her face was white. "I don't care to explain to you now!" she cried. He looked at her. She could see he was trembling, and she nearly changed her mind. But her anger came again. "I won't!" she thought. "Not tonight!"
"Then you and I are through, you know," he said very huskily. He turned and went into the hall, and a moment later the outer door closed. Ethel sat down and stared blankly.
"I acted like an idiot!" _