His Second Wife Part 15

"It isn't real, this living! It can't last!" she exclaimed to herself.

"They'll have to work out something better than this--something, oh, much homier!" She thought of the old frame house in Ohio. "That's gone," she declared, with a swallow.

Her acquaintance with young Mrs. Grewe was still the one bright spot at such times. When Ethel felt blue she would go upstairs to the sunny new home that was to be hers; and there the blithe welcome she received restored her own belief in herself. Mrs. Grewe would often lead her to talk of her home in Ohio, the eager dreams and plans of her girlhood; and on her side, the young widow gave pictures of life in London and Paris as she had seen it so many times. They still shopped together occasionally.

But one afternoon about six o'clock, as Ethel's car drew up at the door and she and her one friend got out, Joe came along--and with one quick angry look he hurried into the building. Quite furious and ashamed for him, Ethel turned to her companion--but Mrs. Grewe smiled queerly and held out her small gloved hand.

"Good-bye, my dear, it has been so nice--this afternoon and all the others." Her tone was a curious mixture of amused defiance and real regret. Ethel stammered something, but in a moment her friend was gone.

Upstairs she met Joe with an angry frown, but to her indignant reproaches he replied by a quizzical smile.

"Look here, Ethel." He took her arm, in a kind protecting sort of way which made her fairly boil. "Look here. I can't let you go about with a shady little person like that. I didn't know you'd picked her up.

Now, now--I understand, of course--you met her up there in the new apartment. What a fool I was not to have thought of it."

"Thought of what? For goodness sake!"

"She won't do, that's all."

"Why won't she?" Ethel's colour was suddenly high and her brown eyes had a dangerous gleam. Joe looked at her, hesitating.

"Yes," he said, "you're the kind of a girl who has to be told the truth now and then. She's the mistress of one of our big millionaires."

Ethel stared at him blankly.

"I don't believe it!" she cried. "Her taste! The way she dresses!

Her--her voice--the things she says!"

"I know, I know," he answered. "That sort is rare and they come high.

I've talked to her--"

"Oh, you have, have you! Then why shouldn't I?"

"Because, my dear, I'm one of the owners of this building. My talks were brief--just business."

"What business had you letting her in?"

"Because times were bad three years ago and tenants weren't so easy to find. What harm has she done? This isn't a social club, you know--"

"I know it isn't! n.o.body speaks--or even smiles!" A lump rose in Ethel's throat. "And she was so nice and friendly!"

"I'll bet she was--"

"I won't believe it!" Now her face was reddening with self-mortification. "Do you mean to tell me--living like that--with a companion, even--a prim old maid who looks as though she had left Boston only last night--"

A twinkle came into her husband's eyes: "My dear, the friend of a big millionaire always keeps some one from Boston close by." His arm went around her. "Poor little girl. I guess I won't have to say any more--"

"Perhaps you will and perhaps you won't!" Now again she was nearly choking with rage and with hurt vanity. Her one and only companion!

The only woman she had been clever enough to find! That kind! Oh-h!

Suddenly she turned to Joe to tell him that if he could give her no friends she'd pick and choose just where she liked! But quickly she remembered that he would answer, "Haven't I tried?" She turned away, broke into tears and left the room.

Out of the little storm that followed, she emerged at last with the thought, "Well, I must see her, anyway, in the work of moving into her apartment. And am I sorry? Not at all! She was good to me--at least she was that! And besides," reflected Ethel, with the same caution and relief which she had so despised in New Yorkers, "she's going soon.

It's safe enough."

The talk occurred the next morning, up in the new apartment. There were no awkward preliminaries, for Mrs. Grewe's whole manner had changed.

Quite a bit of its careful refinement was gone, and in its place was a rather bitter frankness.

"I quite understand--you needn't explain," she said at once. "Your husband has made a fuss, hasn't he? And this is good-bye. Too bad, isn't it?"

"Yes--it is." Ethel hesitated, then all at once she beamed on her friend. "I want you to know," she stoutly declared, "that neither is my husband my boss nor am I a prig! Back in school, we girls--we used to talk--and read and discuss things--Bernard Shaw--" Her hostess smiled:

"Oh, Shaw, my dear, is a dear, witty man--and he's so funny and so fair.

But to live with him--ugh!--rather icy!" She laughed. "See here. No matter what you have read, you've never met me until now. I mean the big Me that thrills all girls--who speak about me in whispers. Well, then, just for a minute, meet me--look at me and see what I am." On her piquante little face was a look of friendly challenge. "We've had such fine little shopping bees, and I'd like you not to be sorry. And what I want to say is this:

"I was just like you. I came from a small town--I had my dreams--I reached New York--I married." She smiled. "Not once but twice. I was divorced. And my second was a love of a man, and we had such a blissful honeymoon. It lasted a year and a half, and then--he got taking things--dope--and that made it hard. It ended in another divorce. The next man didn't marry me. Meant to, you know, but hadn't time. Then he pa.s.sed on--" with a wave of her hand--"and now I'm here." A humorous smile came over her face. "And for the life of me I can't see how changed it is from when I was married. The same sort of apartment, only it's nicer--the same ocean liners and hotels--the same cafes where one can dance exactly as one did before." Again she wrinkled up her brows.

"The only real difference I can see is that when I was married like you, my husband only told me the truth once in a while--as yours did last night--while now they tell it all the time. Oh, I'm wise, I'm wise, my dear--for one so young. I'm twenty-eight. How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-five."

"Three years behind. Well, on the whole I guess I'd stay married if I were you. It's so nice, if he's still in love with you. But the minute he isn't, or makes any fuss, or gets ugly or mean, remember this." And her sweet, clear voice grew impressive. "Remember then you can never be sure what he's really doing in this town. I know--because they tell me--and most of them are married men. And second, and last and always--remember, my dear, that with your figure and your face and your lovely hair which you do so well, you don't have to put up with any man!

You can get right out whenever you please! And the only trouble will be to choose your next from all the others who will come crowding about you! And whether you make him marry you--well--I honestly think there's not much choice." She rose and said, with a strange little smile.

"Now that I've had my little revenge on your beast of a husband for spoiling it all, when I wasn't doing the least bit of harm and was leaving anyhow this week--let's say good-bye and each get to our packing."

"She was once like me. I could be like her," thought Ethel late that night. She had been lying awake for hours. "I could be--but I won't!"

she declared. "She had read Shaw. How funny! . . . I think it's a mighty big mistake to let young girls read Bernard Shaw. Susette certainly shan't!" Her lips compressed. In a moment she was frowning.

"How easily Joe changed about from loving Amy to loving me. Here he lies asleep at my side. Where was he today? What do I know? . . .

Oh, Ethel Lanier, don't be a fool and let every cheap little woman you meet get you thinking things! Such silly things! . . . I do wish that odious f.a.n.n.y Carr would get out of my life and stay out! . . .

You'd better be very careful, Joe." She had risen on her elbow now, and by the dim light from the window she could just see her husband's face.

"Because if you're not very good to me--remember that a person whom you yourself consider one of the very best of her kind--told me that I--"

She dropped back. All at once her face was burning.

"Oh, how I loathe all this!" she thought. "And how silly and untrue!

Do you want to know where you and I are different, little Mrs. Grewe?

I'll tell you! I have a baby! And when he grows up he's going to have this same man still for a father! So there! I'm not sure about anything, even G.o.d, any more in this town--it's all a whirl! But I've got a baby, and Susette, and for them I'm going to have a real home--keep wide awake, make friends I'll love--and grow and learn and march in parades--and go to the opera in a box--and go to concerts, go abroad, shop in Paris--love my husband--be very gay--make friends, friends--I will, I will--I won't be downed--I'll beat this cat of a city--

"However. Now I'll go to sleep-."

CHAPTER XV

She did not see Mrs. Grewe again, she did not want to see her. It was not until from the telephone girl she learned that the charming young widow was gone, that Ethel went up to her new home. In a little while her furniture would begin to pour in, but as yet the rooms were empty, flooded with warm sunshine. She looked about and thought of the life which had been here, and then of Mrs. Grewe's advice and her last smiling admonition. She could almost hear the voice.

"Is every place I live in to be haunted?" Ethel asked herself. And then with a humorous little scowl: "Now see here, young woman, the sooner you learn that every apartment in this city has a complete equipment of ghosts, the better it will be for you. I don't care who lived here, nor how she lived nor what she said. I don't need her advice, and her life is not to affect mine in the slightest!" She stopped short. Of whom was she speaking, Mrs. Grewe or Amy? There were two of them now! Both had given her advice, and in each case the life portrayed had been very much alike, so much so as to be rather disturbing. Things were certainly queer in this town!

"Very well, my dears," she said amiably, "if I must be haunted, it's much more gay and sociable to have two instead of one. Remember tea will be served at five, and from the present outlook there's little chance of our being disturbed by the intrusion of any live woman in New York."