_ CHAPTER L
While the real estate deal was in progress Mrs. Gerald decided to move to Chicago. She had been staying in Cincinnati for a few months, and had learned a great deal as to the real facts of Lester's irregular mode of life. The question whether or not he was really married to Jennie remained an open one. The garbled details of Jennie's early years, the fact that a Chicago paper had written him up as a young millionaire who was sacrificing his fortune for love of her, the certainty that Robert had practically eliminated him from any voice in the Kane Company, all came to her ears. She hated to think that Lester was making such a sacrifice of himself. He had let nearly a year slip by without doing anything. In two more years his chance would be gone. He had said to her in London that he was without many illusions. Was Jennie one? Did he really love her, or was he just sorry for her? Letty wanted very much to find out for sure.
The house that Mrs. Gerald leased in Chicago was a most imposing one on Drexel Boulevard. "I'm going to take a house in your town this winter, and I hope to see a lot of you," she wrote to Lester. "I'm awfully bored with life here in Cincinnati. After Europe it's so--well, you know. I saw Mrs. Knowles on Saturday. She asked after you. You ought to know that you have a loving friend in her. Her daughter is going to marry Jimmy Severance in the spring."
Lester thought of her coming with mingled feelings of pleasure and uncertainty. She would be entertaining largely, of course. Would she foolishly begin by attempting to invite him and Jennie? Surely not. She must know the truth by this time. Her letter indicated as much. She spoke of seeing a lot of him. That meant that Jennie would have to be eliminated. He would have to make a clean breast of the whole affair to Letty. Then she could do as she pleased about their future intimacy. Seated in Letty's comfortable boudoir one afternoon, facing a vision of loveliness in pale yellow, he decided that he might as well have it out with her. She would understand. Just at this time he was beginning to doubt the outcome of the real estate deal, and consequently he was feeling a little blue, and, as a concomitant, a little confidential. He could not as yet talk to Jennie about his troubles.
"You know, Lester," said Letty, by way of helping him to his confession--the maid had brought tea for her and some brandy and soda for him, and departed--"that I have been hearing a lot of things about you since I've been back in this country. Aren't you going to tell me all about yourself? You know I have your real interests at heart."
"What have you been hearing, Letty?" he asked, quietly.
"Oh, about your father's will for one thing, and the fact that you're out of the company, and some gossip about Mrs. Kane which doesn't interest me very much. You know what I mean. Aren't you going to straighten things out, so that you can have what rightfully belongs to you? It seems to me such a great sacrifice, Lester, unless, of course, you are very much in love. Are you?" she asked archly.
Lester paused and deliberated before replying. "I really don't know how to answer that last question, Letty," he said. "Sometimes I think that I love her; sometimes I wonder whether I do or not. I'm going to be perfectly frank with you. I was never in such a curious position in my life before. You like me so much, and I--well, I don't say what I think of you," he smiled. "But anyhow, I can talk to you frankly. I'm not married."
"I thought as much," she said, as he paused.
"And I'm not married because I have never been able to make up my mind just what to do about it. When I first met Jennie I thought her the most entrancing girl I had ever laid eyes on."
"That speaks volumes for my charms at that time," interrupted his vis-a-vis.
"Don't interrupt me if you want to hear this," he smiled.
"Tell me one thing," she questioned, "and then I won't. Was that in Cleveland?"
"Yes."
"So I heard," she assented.
"There was something about her so--"
"Love at first sight," again interpolated Letty foolishly. Her heart was hurting her. "I know."
"Are you going to let me tell this?"
"Pardon me, Lester. I can't help a twinge or two."
"Well, anyhow, I lost my head. I thought she was the most perfect thing under the sun, even if she was a little out of my world. This is a democratic country. I thought that I could just take her, and then--well, you know. That is where I made my mistake. I didn't think that would prove as serious as it did. I never cared for any other woman but you before and--I'll be frank--I didn't know whether I wanted to marry you. I thought I didn't want to marry any woman. I said to myself that I could just take Jennie, and then, after a while, when things had quieted down some, we could separate. She would be well provided for. I wouldn't care very much. She wouldn't care. You understand."
"Yes, I understand," replied his confessor.
"Well, you see, Letty, it hasn't worked out that way. She's a woman of a curious temperament. She possesses a world of feeling and emotion. She's not educated in the sense in which we understand that word, but she has natural refinement and tact. She's a good housekeeper. She's an ideal mother. She's the most affectionate creature under the sun. Her devotion to her mother and father was beyond words. Her love for her--daughter she's hers, not mine--is perfect. She hasn't any of the graces of the smart society woman. She isn't quick at repartee. She can't join in any rapid-fire conversation. She thinks rather slowly, I imagine. Some of her big thoughts never come to the surface at all, but you can feel that she is thinking and that she is feeling."
"You pay her a lovely tribute, Lester," said Letty.
"I ought to," he replied. "She's a good woman, Letty; but, for all that I have said, I sometimes think that it's only sympathy that's holding me."
"Don't be too sure," she said warningly.
"Yes, but I've gone through with a great deal. The thing for me to have done was to have married her in the first place. There have been so many entanglements since, so much rowing and discussion, that I've rather lost my bearings. This will of father's complicates matters. I stand to lose eight hundred thousand if I marry her--really, a great deal more, now that the company has been organized into a trust. I might better say two millions. If I don't marry her, I lose everything outright in about two more years. Of course, I might pretend that I have separated from her, but I don't care to lie. I can't work it out that way without hurting her feelings, and she's been the soul of devotion. Right down in my heart, at this minute, I don't know whether I want to give her up. Honestly, I don't know what the devil to do."
Lester looked, lit a cigar in a far-off, speculative fashion, and looked out of the window.
"Was there ever such a problem?" questioned Letty, staring at the floor. She rose, after a few moments of silence, and put her hands on his round, solid head. Her yellow, silken house-gown, faintly scented, touched his shoulders. "Poor Lester," she said. "You certainly have tied yourself up in a knot. But it's a Gordian knot, my dear, and it will have to be cut. Why don't you discuss this whole thing with her, just as you have with me, and see how she feels about it?"
"It seems such an unkind thing to do," he replied.
"You must take some action, Lester dear," she insisted. "You can't just drift. You are doing yourself such a great injustice. Frankly, I can't advise you to marry her; and I'm not speaking for myself in that, though I'll take you gladly, even if you did forsake me in the first place. I'll be perfectly honest--whether you ever come to me or not--I love you, and always shall love you."
"I know it," said Lester, getting up. He took her hands in his, and studied her face curiously. Then he turned away. Letty paused to get her breath. His action discomposed her.
"But you're too big a man, Lester, to settle down on ten thousand a year," she continued. "You're too much of a social figure to drift. You ought to get back into the social and financial world where you belong. All that's happened won't injure you, if you reclaim your interest in the company. You can dictate your own terms. And if you tell her the truth she won't object, I'm sure. If she cares for you, as you think she does, she will be glad to make this sacrifice. I'm positive of that. You can provide for her handsomely, of course."
"It isn't the money that Jennie wants," said Lester, gloomily.
"Well, even if it isn't, she can live without you and she can live better for having an ample income."
"She will never want if I can help it," he said solemnly.
"You must leave her," she urged, with a new touch of decisiveness. "You must. Every day is precious with you, Lester! Why don't you make up your mind to act at once--to-day, for that matter? Why not?"
"Not so fast," he protested. "This is a ticklish business. To tell you the truth, I hate to do it. It seems so brutal--so unfair. I'm not one to run around and discuss my affairs with other people. I've refused to talk about this to any one heretofore--my father, my mother, any one. But somehow you have always seemed closer to me than any one else, and, since I met you this time, I have felt as though I ought to explain--I have really wanted to. I care for you. I don't know whether you understand how that can be under the circumstances. But I do. You're nearer to me intellectually and emotionally than I thought you were. Don't frown. You want the truth, don't you? Well, there you have it. Now explain me to myself, if you can."
"I don't want to argue with you, Lester," she said softly, laying her hand on his arm. "I merely want to love you. I understand quite well how it has all come about. I'm sorry for myself. I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry--" she hesitated--"for Mrs. Kane. She's a charming woman. I like her. I really do. But she isn't the woman for you, Lester; she really isn't. You need another type. It seems so unfair for us two to discuss her in this way, but really it isn't. We all have to stand on our merits. And I'm satisfied, if the facts in this case were put before her, as you have put them before me, she would see just how it all is, and agree. She can't want to harm you. Why, Lester, if I were in her position I would let you go. I would, truly. I think you know that I would. Any good woman would. It would hurt me, but I'd do it. It will hurt her, but she'll do it. Now, mark you my words, she will. I think I understand her as well as you do--better--for I am a woman. Oh," she said, pausing, "I wish I were in a position to talk to her. I could make her understand."
Lester looked at Letty, wondering at her eagerness. She was beautiful, magnetic, immensely worth while.
"Not so fast," he repeated. "I want to think about this. I have some time yet."
She paused, a little crestfallen but determined.
"This is the time to act," she repeated, her whole soul in her eyes. She wanted this man, and she was not ashamed to let him see that she wanted him.
"Well, I'll think of it," he said uneasily, then, rather hastily, he bade her good-by and went away. _