His Second Wife Part 27

"You mean your husband doesn't approve?"

"Approve!" Ethel echoed with a sniff. "I'd like to see him disapprove.

I have him in fair control, I think." And she knitted her brows in an eager way, for this was a chance to tell how she had done it.

"How long have you been married!" her visitor was asking.

"Let me see. Four years? No, two," she replied, with a quick smile.

"Time does so fly along in this town!"

"It does indeed. It seems hardly any time at all since the days when your husband and I were friends."

"Oh, yes, he has often told me about you!" And Ethel shot a swift anxious look. "I know you don't like him," she wanted to add. "But if you'll only give me a chance I'll show you what I have made of this man--or was making, at least, till all of a sudden right out of the clouds there dropped a fat detective!" She laughed at the thought and then grew rigid. How silly and pointless to laugh like that! Mrs.

Crothers was telling now of the old group down about Washington Square, and Ethel was listening hungrily.

"What gorgeous times you must have had," she exclaimed, "in those old days!" The next moment she turned crimson. "I've said it now. 'Old'!

I knew I should!" She caught Sally's good-natured smile and felt again like a mere child.

From this moment on she would take care! She avoided personal topics, and growing grave and dignified she turned the conversation from Joe to music, concerts, the opera, "Salome," "Louise." She carefully showed she was up to date, not only in music but in other things, books she had discussed years ago in the club of the little history "prof," and others she had been reading since--Montessori, "Jean Christophe." Hiding her tense anxiety under a manner smooth as oil, she talked politely on and on, and she felt she was doing better now. So much better! No more stupid breaks or girlish gush, but a modern intelligent woman of parts.

And a glow of hope rose in her breast. A little more of this, she thought, and she would be ready to break off, and with a sudden appealing smile take her new friend into her confidence, tell of her trouble and ask for advice.

But the smile came from her visitor. Mrs. Crothers had risen and was holding out her hand. And as Ethel stared in dismay at that smile, which displayed such an easy indifference to her and all her view of life, her only woman friend in New York said:

"I'm so sorry I've got to run. I hope you'll come and see me."

From the door in the hallway Ethel came back in a sort of a daze--till her eye lit on the blue china clock on the mantel.

"Seventeen minutes!" she exclaimed. And then after one quick look around, she flung herself on the sofa in tears. "I bored her! How I bored her! How stupid I was, and comic--a child! And then solemn--too solemn--all music and art--and education and--how in the world do I know what I said? Or care! I hate the woman! I hate them all! Seventeen minutes! Isn't that just like New York?"

But from this little storm she soon emerged. Grimly sitting up on the sofa, she reached out a hand icy cold, took the tea-pot and poured out a cup. It was strong now, thank Heaven! And frowning gravely into s.p.a.ce, Ethel sat and drank her tea.

CHAPTER XXIV

"Now the one thing," she told herself, "is to keep your nerve and be sensible. For this may decide your whole life, you know. . . All right, what next? What's to be done?

"I hate Sally Crothers," she began, "but I may go to see her, nevertheless. She asked me to. Didn't mean it, of course, she was plainly bored! No, I won't do it! I loathe the woman! . . . All right, my dear, but who else can you go to? Mrs. Grewe? She's doubtless at home--but there may be that detestable hat, tall, rich and shiny, in her hall. It looked as though it owned her soul! No, thanks--not yet--not for me! . . . Though she told me you soon get used to it. . . .

"Well, how about going back to Ohio, to the little history prof, and hating all men--one and all! That sounds exceedingly tempting! . . .

I won't do it, though--because if I do, it means I'm beaten here--and I'd lose Susette and the baby!--. . . Quiet, now. . . . And then there's Dwight. He will probably call up soon and ask how Sally and I got on. I could go to him this very night! How perfectly disgusting!

And yet it's just what Joe deserves! What right had he to believe that of me? . . . Now please keep cool. If I go to Dwight I become exactly like Mrs. Grewe--and I'd have to give up the children.

"No, it's back to Joe on my knees, to beg him to let me stay right here.

And I'll succeed--I know I will! But won't I be under f.a.n.n.y's thumb?

And won't I take back Amy's friends? Like a good repentant scared little girl! And eat their rich meals and chatter as they do, and dance and grow old--and push Joe on to make more money--more and more--so that I can get fat and soft--like the rest of these cats!"

Again her face was quivering. But with an effort controlling herself, she went into the nursery. And on the floor with her wee son, slowly rolling a big red ball back and forth to each other, soon again she had grown quiet, almost like her natural self. She took supper alone, and then read a novel, page after page, without comprehending. An hour later she went to bed, and there lay listening to the town--to its numberless voices, distinct and confused, from windows close by and from the street, and from other streets by hundreds and from a million other homes, and from the two rivers and the sea--voices blurred and fused in one. And its tone, to Ethel's ears, was one of utter indifference--good-humoured enough but rather bored with "young things"

weeping on its breast.

"Be Mrs. Grewe, if you like," it said, "or Sally Crothers or f.a.n.n.y Carr. Or go back home to your history prof. Each one of these things has been done before by so many thousands just like you. n.o.body cares.

You have no neighbours. Do exactly as you like."

"Thank you very much," she said. "I choose to be Sally Crothers first.

And if that fails--well, between f.a.n.n.y Carr and Mrs. Grewe there isn't much choice. Do you think so?"

"Oh, no," said the city. And it yawned. But Ethel lay there thinking.

"Excuse me," she spoke presently. "Sorry to annoy you again--but is there any G.o.d about?"

"None," came the sleepy answer. "Do as you like, I tell you."

She opened her eyes and sat up in bed.

"Now I've been getting morbid again! For goodness' sake let's try to be healthy and clear about this!"

And she tried to be. But for some time she made little headway. It was easy to grimly shut her teeth and resolve, "I've got to do this by myself, talk to Joe and simply make him believe me!" But as soon as she came to the details of what she should say to her husband, his face as she had seen it last--worn and nervous, overwrought--kept rising up before her. Could she convince him! "It's my last chance!" If only she knew how to go about it! She wanted to be heroic and face this crisis all alone--but she had been alone so much. Tonight it seemed to Ethel as though she had struggled alone for years. Was it all worth while, she asked herself. She could feel her courage ooze again. Her thinking grew vague and uneven. . . . And more and more the picture rose of the woman friend she had counted on having--Sally Crothers, who was so clever, an older woman who knew New York, knew what to do in such tangles as this, knew Joe, had known him back in that past which Ethel was trying to raise again. And it was exasperating! "If I could only get at her!" she thought.

Carefully, almost word by word, she went over in her mind her talk with Mrs. Crothers that day, in order to find out her mistakes.

"Do you know what I think?" she said at the end. "I think in the first part you did pretty well. You made breaks and were clumsy, and she was amused--but she rather liked you, nevertheless. At least you were a novelty. But then you went and spoiled it all by making solemn fool remarks about the world in general. And thereupon Sally arose and went.

. . . All right, next time I'll be different. I won't be solemn, nor afraid of saying anything incorrect. In fact I'll revel in it! She asked me to come and see her, in a tone which added, 'Don't.' But I'll be incorrect right there. I will go to see her; and what's more, I'll go tomorrow afternoon! And I won't call up first, for she'd say she was out. I'll get into her house and get her downstairs--and I'll break right through all smoothnesses and tell her exactly how and why I've got to have a woman friend! I'll give you the chance of your life, Sally Crothers, to throw out the life-line!

"If you don't I'll--just swim about for awhile. No use in thinking of that, though."

And suddenly she fell asleep.

CHAPTER XXV

Mrs. Crothers lived in a small brick house on a side street close to Washington Square. As Ethel looked out from her automobile, how dear and homey it appeared, with such a quiet friendly face. "Now for the plunge." She went up the low steps and rang the bell. Thank Heaven it was a rainy day, for when the maid came Ethel went right in, and the rain made that seem natural. At least no door had been shut in her face. She wanted to get inside this house!

"Is Mrs. Crothers at home?" she asked. The maid was not sure. Ethel gave her a card and was shown into a long cosy room with an old-fashioned air, where a small coal fire looked half asleep. She began to look around her. The walls were lined with book-shelves, with only a picture here and there. No wall-paper. "How funny." She frowned and added, "But it's nice." There was but little furniture, and plenty of room to move about. "What a love of a mirror." It was of gilt, and it reached from floor to ceiling between the two front windows. Gravely she looked at herself in the gla.s.s. "Oh, I'm not very excited."

The maid reappeared, and said, "Mrs. Crothers asks you to excuse her.

She's sick with a headache this afternoon."

"Oh, what a lie!" thought Ethel. She stood for a moment irresolute, her heart in her mouth. "I will, though!" she decided, and took out another card. "Then take her this little note," she said. And she wrote: "I know I am being quite rude--but if the headache is not too severe will you see me just for a little while! I would not bother you--honestly--but it is something so important--and it must be settled today." It took two of her cards, and even then it was horribly crowded and hard to read. "Never mind," she thought. "That's as far as I'll go. If she can't read that I'm done for!"

The maid had taken the message upstairs.

"Now I've done it, I've gone too far. I'm done for--oh, I'm done for!

Well, look about you, Ethel, my love--it's the last look you'll ever get at this room! How dear it is, what taste, what a home. Books, pictures, a piano of course--and the very air is full of the things that have been said here after dinner, over coffee and cigarettes, by all the people you want to know. Not rich nor 'smart' like Newport--just people with minds and hearts alive to the big things that really count, the beautiful things! . . . Good-bye, my dears--you're not very kind."

"She'll be down in a moment," said the maid.

"Thank you!" Ethel had wheeled with a start; and again left alone, she stood without moving. "Well, here you are--you've got your chance! And how do you feel? Plain panicky! Never mind, that's just what will catch her attention! Be panicky! Oh, I am--I am!" And her courage oozed so rapidly that when her hostess came into the room, and with a smile that was rather strained, said "I am so glad to see you--" the girl who confronted her only stared, and suddenly shivered a little.

Then she forced a smile and said, "How silly of me to shiver like that."