_ CHAPTER XXVII
She got him to bed. The specialist came, and when he had examined Joe he had a talk with Ethel that left her very frightened. After that came days and nights, when Joe, as, though in delirium, said things in a jumble which revealed to her the inner chaos he had gone through in the last few weeks. He talked of Amy loyally, even pleading for her at times, excusing her. And he talked of Ethel in many moods. Now he was angry at her interference; again he saw her side of it, and then his love for her would rise. More often still, he talked about work, and here again the struggle went on. Money, money, money--figures, calculations, schemes and rivals, heavy chances. But suddenly all this was gone, and in a pitiful anger at his own futility he would storm at himself for not being able to put on paper his early dreams.
But the weeks dragged by, and at last she felt he was coming back to sanity. With his partner, then, she conspired to take Joe over to Paris in April, to stay for a year if he would agree. And as part of the conspiracy, Ethel had several meetings with Nourse and Sally Crothers, in the hope of bringing Sally's husband into the firm to be there in Joe's absence. This was far from easy, for Crothers naturally held back; he did not care to commit himself until he knew that Joe would agree. And whether Joe would agree or not was by no means certain. Watching him as his health came back, Ethel wondered how he would be when he returned to the office. How much of what he had said to her, the first night of his illness, had come only from a mind keyed up? How much of his promise would he remember? Men sick and men well are in separate worlds. She could not speak of it to Joe, for the doctor had forbidden it.
At the end of another month, however, Joe was up and about again; and soon, in spite of the doctor's instructions, he was back at his office hard at work. This of course looked ominous. What was he doing? She could not discover. For his partner, over the telephone, was far from satisfactory. Now that he had Joe back again in that beloved office of theirs, his manner toward Ethel seemed to her to be gruff and unfriendly, to say the least. "Stand-offish to the last degree--as though he believed he could handle Joe all by himself!" she thought in annoyance. At last she sent for him one day and gave him quite a piece of her mind; and although not fully successful, she at least made him acquiesce in the plan she and Sally had concocted for a little gathering to take place one night the following week. It was nearly seven o'clock upon the evening in question; and in her room, at her dressing-table, Ethel was completing her toilet. They were going to dine with the Crothers', and Joe was nervous about it.
"Come on, Ethel, hurry up!"
"Yes, love, I'm almost ready now. Are you sure the car is at the door?"
"It's been there nearly half an hour!"
"That's good. Just a minute more."
As he angrily lit a cigarette, she looked in the glass at him and smiled. "How he dreads it, poor dear," she was thinking, as he strode into the living-room, "meeting Sally and all his old friends." She frowned. "Heaven knows I dread it myself. What am I going to say to them all? And suppose they don't care for me in the least? . . . Well, it will soon be over." Presently Joe popped in at the door:
"Look here! If you're not dressed enough--"
"I'm all ready now," was her placid reply. "Don't you think I look rather nice?"
"Oh, yes. You'll do."
"Thank you, dear. Aren't you going to kiss me!"
"No! Yes! . . . Now come on!"
She threw back her head and laughed at him.
"It's beginning so well," murmured Sally to Ethel, as they went in to dinner. "Steady, my child."
"Oh, I'm all right!" was the reply, and Ethel smiled excitedly. The chorus of exclamations that had greeted Joe and herself had been so warm and gay and real. There had been no time for awkwardness. In a moment after their entrance, the hubbub of talk and laughter had gone right on as though nothing had happened. At table it continued still, and she felt herself borne along on the tide. She looked at Joe, who was on Sally's right, and she thought he was doing exceedingly well. And as for these old friends of his, as she rapidly scanned their faces, they looked far from formidable. On her left side Sally's husband, a tall dark creature with nice eyes, was telling her about the men--two or three writers, an architect and a portrait painter rather well known, whose pictures she had read about. She had already learned from Sally what the women did with themselves. They worked, they went to women's clubs, they dined and did the social side. One of them spoke for suffrage, another was a sculptress, one sang, one had a baby. They did not look solemn in the least. Everything went so naturally.
"Well, here I am at last," she thought. She kept throwing quick little glances about. Was it all so much worth while, she wondered. Yes, they were very pleasant and nice. But she had expected--well, something more, a kind of a brilliancy in their eyes and the things they were saying. For here were Art and Music, Movements, Causes and Ideas, and goodness only knew what else! Here were the people who really saw something richer and deeper in life than the sort of existence Amy had led--great bright vistas leading off from the city as it was today to some dazzling promised land. She thought of the little history "prof." They were so cosy about it here! She did not want them to be "highbrows"--Heaven forbid! But they took it all so easily!
She thought of the struggles she had been through in order to get where she was tonight, the ardent hopes and the despairs, and all the eager planning. And just for a moment there came to her some little realization of those other women still outside, in this city of so many worlds, each with her particular world, her bright and shining goal, her shrine, and pushing and scheming to get in. She recalled the fierce light in Amy's eyes and the tone of her voice: "I may be too late!" Amy had wanted only money, and people like that. But how hard she had wanted it! . . . These people took it so pleasantly; they seemed so snug in their little group. She wondered if she would become like that. No, she decided, most certainly not! And suddenly she realized that this was only one more step in the life she was to lead in this town. These people? For a time perhaps.
Then others--always others! That was how it was in New York.
Ethel gave a queer little laugh--which at once she pretended had been caused by something Sally's husband had said. And she listened to him attentively now. "There's so much time for everything! I'm only twenty-five!" she thought. She turned to the painter on her right, and was soon talking rapidly.
The moments seemed to fly away. Now they had left the men to smoke. But soon the men had followed them, and every one was smoking, and Ethel was trying a cigarette. The talk ran on, about this and that. But over on her side of the room, Sally had led the conversation back to Joe's old student days, to the Beaux Arts and life in the Quarter. Ethel heard snatches from time to time, and she kept throwing vigilant glances over at her husband's face. He seemed to be responding, with a hungriness that thrilled his wife. Again he would fall silent, with an anxious gleam in his eyes. "He's wondering if he's too old!" she thought, and she crossed the room and joined them.
Sally was cleverly drawing him out about some of those early plans of his. And though awkward at first, he was warming up. In the room the hubbub died away. "They're listening to Joe!" thought Ethel. Joe kept talking on and on. Every few moments some one would break in to ask him something, or to raise a little laugh. Ethel tingled with pride in him, and with hope for the success of her scheming.
Now the crucial time arrived. For one by one the guests had gone, till only she and Joe and Nourse remained with Sally and her husband. The moment for springing the great idea had come at last. Nourse was to do the talking. That had been arranged ahead, at a meeting of Nourse and the two wives. But all at once in a panic now, Ethel knew that Nourse would bungle it. Why had she entrusted so much to this man? Had he ever shown tact in his whole life? And why so soon? Oh, it had been rash! The evening had passed so gorgeously. Why not have waited and had other evenings to pave the way and make it sure! She tried to signal to Nourse to stop him, but he could or would not hear! Now he was getting ready to speak.
"Well," he said, rising and turning on Ethel a curious smile, "I guess it's time I was going home."
She stared at him in blank relief. So he had some sense about things, after all.
"But look here, Bill," said her husband, "before you go, let's give these scheming women of ours to understand we don't want 'em to meddle in our affairs."
"Right," growled Nourse. And a moment later the three men confronted two astonished wives, and Bill was gravely announcing, "We've done this thing all by ourselves. The firm is 'Nourse, Lanier and Crothers.' And from this night on we propose to do business without any interference from wives. Understand!" He frowned menacingly. "We settled that this afternoon. And the next thing we decided was that Joe packs up this wife of his, whether she happens to like it or not, and takes her over to Paris. See? And if she tries to keep him from work by yanking him all around to the shops--"
While Nourse growled on in his surly way, Ethel slipped quietly into the hall--where presently Sally with one arm about her was proffering a handkerchief and murmuring.
"Use mine, dear." _