Her Weight in Gold and others Part 5

"Kisses are fattening," he said.

"Goodness! Who ever told you that?" she cried in dismay.

"A well-known specialist," he said, his mind adrift.

"Well, there is one thing sure, Eddie," she declared firmly; "we will not go into debt for anything. We positively must keep out of debt. I won't have you worrying about money matters."

"I'm not likely to," said he with conviction.

He then began to watch for signs of decrepitude in the General.

As soon as Martha was strong enough to travel, her step-father suggested that they go South for the winter instead of opening the little house down the street. He went so far as to offer to pay the expenses of the trip as a sort of belated wedding gift.

Eddie objected. He said that his real estate business was in such a state that he couldn't afford to leave it for a day.

"I didn't know you HAD a business," exclaimed the General.

"I am making arrangements to take up a Government claim in Alaska,"

said his son-in-law grimly.

"Great Scott!"

"I'm going to some place where I can DIG for gold."

"Are you in earnest?"

"Bitterly."

"And--and would you subject Martha to the rigours of an Alaskan winter in--"

"Inasmuch as we shall have to subsist on s...o...b..a.l.l.s until you pa.s.s in your cheques, General, I think we'd better go where they are fresh and plentiful."

Fortunately for the bride and groom, everybody that was anybody in Ess.e.x gave them a wedding present. Not a few, in a fever of exultation, gave beyond their means, and a great many of them with unintentional irony gave pickle dishes. By the time they were ready to go into their new home, it was cosily, even handsomely furnished. The General, contrite of heart, spent money lavishly in trying to make the home so attractive for Eddie that he wouldn't be likely to desert it for something worse.

The groom's sense of humour was only temporarily dulled. He noted signs of its awakening when he a.s.sisted in the unpacking of four cheval mirrors, gifts to the bride from persons who may or may not have been in collusion but who certainly wanted Martha to see herself as others saw her, and, as it turned out, from all sides.

The glow of health--an almost superhuman health--increased in the countenance of Mrs. Edward Ten Eyck. Her hair was a bit slow in restoring itself, and a shade or two darker, but on the other hand, despite all she could do to prevent it, she resumed her natural proportions with a rapidity that was sickening.

It was not long before her figure was unquestionably her own.

Eddie tried to conceal his dismay. He even tried to drown it. Their first quarrel grew out of her objection to the presence of intoxicating liquors in the house.

"I don't approve of whiskey," she said flatly.

"But you had it at your house."

"You forget that he was only my stepfather."

"He isn't in the past tense yet," said he bitterly.

"I've always maintained that whiskey should be used for medicinal purposes only."

"Then please don't worry about it," said he curtly. "I've ordered a barrel of it."

"For--for medicinal purposes?" "Strictly."

She studied his face with uneasy alarm in her eyes.

"You--don't feel as though you were going to be ill, do you, dear?"

He moved to the opposite side of the table, involuntarily lifting his left elbow as if to shield himself. She stopped half-way. Then he laughed awkwardly and turned the subject.

One day he reached the startling conclusion, that she was getting heavier than she had ever been before. It required days of contemplation, scrutiny, and development of purpose before he could ask her to step onto the scales at the meat market.

A cold perspiration started on his forehead as he moved the balance along the bar and found it would be necessary to use the two-hundred pound weight instead of the one-hundred, the fifty, and divers small ones that had been sufficient in days of yore.

She weighed two hundred and three pounds.

At nine o 'clock that night some one took him home from the Ess.e.x Club, and Martha was in hysterics until the doctor, summoned with haste and vehemence, a.s.sured her that her husband was not dead.

The approach of springtime found Eddie in a noticeably run-down condition. Friends and acquaintances began to remark that he was "going to seed in a hurry," or "he's awfully run down at the heel," or "I've never seen such a change in a man."

He was no longer the gay, whilom, inconsequent man about town. The best proof of this was his utter lack of pride in the matter of dress and his carelessness in respect to his personal appearance. Once he had been the beau-ideal of the town. Nowadays he slouched about the streets with a cigarette drooping listlessly between his lips, his face unshaven, his clothes unpressed and dusty. There was always a hunted, far-away look in his eyes.

Habitues of the Club began to notice that he was once more making mathematical calculations on the backs of envelopes or the margins of newspapers and magazines. No one pretended to explain this queer habit of his, but they observed that his efforts represented sums in multiplication. Occasionally, as if to throw them off the track, he did a sum in subtraction, and there were frequent lapses into simplified addition.

It was noted, however, that the numerals one, nine, decimal, two and a cipher, invariably in that sequence, figured somewhere in every calculation.

General Gamble could have solved the mystery, but he maintained a rigid silence. In his heart, the old schemer nurtured a fear that sooner or later Eddie would commit suicide or run away, either of which would signify the return of Martha to the mansion she had deserted for a cottage. And he knew that if she ever came back it would be as a permanent visitor.

He encountered his son-in-law frequently at unexpected times and in unusual places, and was never without the feeling that the young man eyed him balefully. He could feel the intensity of that unwavering gaze for hours after meeting Eddie. It was an ardent, searching look that seemed to question his right to survive the day.

After such meetings, the General was wont to survey himself long and fearsomely in the first mirror or show window that presented itself. He began to wonder if he was in failing health. At times he thought he discerned signs of approaching decrepitude, but his doctor a.s.sured him that he was never healthier or happier than he appeared to be at this particular period in his life.

Still, he could not shake off the rather ghastly feeling that Eddie was secretly praying that his days were numbered.

One day at the Club he complained of a severe pain in his back, and the very next day he was shocked to find his son-in-law dressed in sombre black with a strip of c.r.a.pe around his arm. Immediately on seeing the General in his usual state of health, Eddie solemnly removed the band from his sleeve and, carefully rolling it up, stuck it into his waistcoat pocket.

"I'm saving it for a rainy day," said Eddie with a cold-blooded smile.

"Good Heaven!" said the General, and at once felt the pain return to his back.

"Have you seen Martha lately?" asked Eddie, tapping the bell on the table.

"Oh, yes," said the General, settling a little deeper into his chair.

"She is looking remarkably well."

"Do you know what she weighs at present?"