Mrs. Balfame Part 2

"You are far from complimentary!" Mrs. Balfame raised her head stiffly, not a little indignant at this natural display of sheer masculinity. She would have withdrawn her arm and hastened her steps but he held her back.

"I don't mean to be uncomplimentary. Only, you ought to be so much more advanced than you are. I repeat, I shall not make downright love to you, for I intend to marry you one of these days. But I shall say what I choose. How much longer do you think you can go on living like this?--with a man you must despise and from whom you must suffer indignities--and in this hole--"

"You live here--"

"I came back here because I had a good offer and I like the East better than the West, but I have no intention of staying here. I have reason to believe that I shall get into a New York firm next spring; and once started on that race-course I purpose to come in a winner."

"And you would saddle yourself with a wife many years your senior?" she asked wonderingly.

But she thrilled again, and unconsciously moderated her gait still further; they were but a few steps from her home.

"I am thirty-four. I am sorry that I have impressed you as looking too young to be taken seriously, but you will admit that if a man doesn't know his own mind when he is verging toward middle age, he never will.

But if I were only twenty-five, it would make no difference. I would marry you like a shot. I never have given a thought to marrying before.

Girls don't interest me. They show their hand too plainly. I've always had a sort of ideal and you fill it."

It was characteristic of Mrs. Balfame's well-ordered mind that her intention to murder her husband did not intrude itself into this unique and provocative hour. She had never indulged in a pa.s.sing desire to marry again, and hers was not the order of mind that somersaults. But she was willing to "let herself go," for the sake of the experience; for the first time in her twenty odd years of married life to loiter in a leafy shadowy street with a man who loved her and made no secret of it.

"I wonder?" She stared up at him, curiosity in her eyes.

"Wonder what?"

"If it _is_ love?"

He laughed unmusically. "I am not surprised that you ask that question--you, who know no more of love than if you had been a castaway on a desert island since the age of ten. Never mind. I've planted a seed. It will sprout. Think and think again. You owe me that much--and yourself. I know that six months hence you will have divorced Dave Balfame, and that you will marry me as soon as the law allows."

"Never! Never!" She was laughing now, but with all the gay coquetry of youth, not merely the eidola of her own.

They had arrived at the gate of the Balfame Place, which faced the avenue and a large street lamp. She put the gate between them with a quicker movement than she commonly indulged in and held out her hand.

"No more nonsense! If I were young and free--who knows?

But--but--forty-two!" She choked but brought it out. "Now go home and think over all the nice girls you know and select one quickly. I will make the wedding cake."

"Did you suppose I didn't know your age? This is Elsinore, and its inhabitants are five thousand. When you and I were born--of respectably eminent parentage--all Brabant County numbered few more."

He made no attempt to open the gate, but he raised her hand to his lips.

Even in that rare moment he was conscious of a regret that it was such a large hand, and his head jerked abruptly as he flung out the recreant thought.

"I never shall change," he said. "And you are to think and think. Now go. I'll watch until you are indoors."

"Good night." She ran up the path, wondering if her tall slight figure looked as willowy as it felt. The mirror had often surprised her with the information that she looked quite different from the image in her mind. She also wondered, with some humour, why no one ever had discovered her apparently obvious charms before.

When she was in her bedroom and electricity replaced the mellow rays of street lamps shining through soft and whispering leaves, Mrs. Balfame forgot Dwight Rush and all men save her husband.

She took the vial from her bag and stared at it. In a moment a frown drew her serene brows together, her sweet, shallow, large grey eyes, so consistently admired by her own s.e.x at least, darkened with displeasure.

She was a bungler after all. How was the stuff to be administered? She racked her memory, but the casual explanation of Dr. Anna, uttered at least two years ago, had left not an echo. A drop in his eggs or coffee might be too little; more, and he might detect the foreign quant.i.ty.

She removed the cork and sniffed. It was odourless, but was it tasteless?

Obviously there was no immediate way of ascertaining save by experiment on Mr. Balfame. And even if it were tasteless, it might cook his blood, congest his face, burst his veins--she recalled s.n.a.t.c.hes of Dr. Anna's dissertations upon "interesting cases." On the other hand, one drop might make him violently ill; the suspicions of any doctor might be aroused.

She must walk warily. Murder was one of the fine arts. Those that cultivated it and failed followed the victim or spent the rest of their lives within prison walls. Thousands, it was estimated, walked the earth unsuspected, unapprehensive, serene and content--contemptuous of failures and bunglers, as are the masters in any art. Mrs. Balfame was proudly aware that her role in life was success.

There was nothing to do but wait. She must have another cosy evening with her scientific friend and draw her on to talk of the poison. Ah!

that made another precaution imperative.

She went to the cupboard in the bathroom, rinsed a small bottle, transferred the precious colorless fluid, refilled the vial with water and returned it to her bag. To-morrow or next day she would slip into Dr. Anna's house and restore it to its hiding place. The poison she secreted on the top shelf of the bathroom cupboard.

Reluctantly, for she was a prompt and methodical woman, she resigned herself to the prospect of David Balfame's prolonged sojourn upon the planet he had graced so ill. She went to bed, shrinking into the farther corner, but falling asleep almost immediately. Then, her hands having faltered, Fate borrowed the shuttle.

CHAPTER III

A fortnight pa.s.sed before Mrs. Balfame found the opportunity for a chat with Dr. Anna.

On Sat.u.r.day afternoons it was the pleasant custom of the flower of Elsinore to repair to the Country Club, a building of the bungalow type, with wide verandas, a large central hall, several smaller rooms for those that preferred cards to dancing, a secluded bar, a tennis court--flooded in winter for skating--and a golf links. It was charmingly situated about four miles from the town, with the woods behind and a glimpse of the grey Atlantic from the higher knolls.

The young unmarried set that danced at the Club or in the larger of the home parlours every night would have monopolised the central hall of the bungalow on Sat.u.r.days as well had it not been for the sweet but firm resistance of Mrs. Balfame. Lacking in a proper s.e.x vanity she might be, but she was far too proud and just to permit her own generation to be obliterated by mere youth. Having no children of her own, it shocked her fine sense of the fitness of things to watch the subservience of parents and the selfishness of offspring. One of the most notable results of her quiet determination was that she and her friends enjoyed every privilege of the Country Club when the mood was on them, and that a goodly number of the men of their own generation did not confine their attentions exclusively to the bar, but came out and danced with their neighbours'

wives. The young people sniffed, but as Mrs. Balfame had founded the Country Club, and they were all helpless under her inflexible will and skilful manipulation, they never dreamed of rebellion.

During the fortnight Mrs. Balfame had cunningly replaced the vial, the indifferent Ca.s.sie leaving the sitting-room at her disposal while she wrote a note reminding Dr. Anna of the promised list of war books, adding playfully that she had no time to waste in a busy doctor's waiting-room. In truth Dr. Anna was a difficult person to see at this time. There was an epidemic of typhoid in the county, and much illness among children.

However, on the third Sat.u.r.day after the interrupted supper, as Mrs.

Balfame was motoring out to the Club with her friend, Mrs. Battle, wife of the President of the Bank of Elsinore, she saw Dr. Anna driving her little runabout down a branching road. With a graceful excuse she deserted her hostess, sprang into the humbler machine, and gaily ordered her friend to turn and drive to the Club.

"You take a rest this afternoon," she said peremptorily. "Otherwise you will be a wreck when your patients need you most. You look just about f.a.gged out. And I want a little of your society. I've been thinking of taking to a sick bed to get it."

Dr. Anna looked at her brilliant friend with an expression of dumb grat.i.tude and adoration. She was worth one hundred per cent. more than this companion of her forty years, but she never would know it. She regarded Enid Balfame as one of the superwomen of Earth, astray in the little world of Elsinore. Even when Mrs. Balfame had done her own work she had managed to look rare and lovely. Her hair was neatly arranged for the day before descent to the lower regions, and her pretty print frock was half covered by a white ap.r.o.n as immaculate as her round uncovered arms.

And since the leader of Elsinore had "learned things" she was of an elegance whose differences from those of women born to grace a loftier sphere were merely subtle. Her fine brown hair, waved in New York, and coiled on the nape of her long neck, displayed her profile to the best possible advantage; like all women's women she set great store by her profile. Whenever possible it was framed in a large hat with a rolling brim and drooping feathers. Her severely tailored frocks made her look aloof and stately on the streets (and in the trains between Elsinore and New York); and her trim white shirt waists and duck skirts, or "one piece suits" for colder weather, gave her a sweet feminine appeal in the house. At evening entertainments she invariably wore black, cut chastely about the neck and draped with a floating scarf.

Poor Dr. Anna, uncompromisingly plain from youth, worshipped beauty; moreover, a certain mental pressure of which she was quite unaware caused her to find in Enid Balfame her highest ideal of womanhood. She herself was never trim; she was always in a hurry; and the repose and serenity the calm and sweet dignity of this gifted being both fascinated and rested her. That Mrs. Balfame took all her female adorers had to offer and gave nothing but enhanced her worth. She knew the priceless value of the pedestal, and although her wonderful smile descended at discreet intervals her substantial feet did not.

Dr. Anna, who had never been sought by men and had seen too many of them sick in bed to have a romantic illusion left, gave to this friend of her lifetime, whom the years touched only to improve--and who never was ill--the dog-like fidelity and love that a certain type of man offers at the shrine of the unattainable woman. Mrs. Balfame was sometimes amused, always complacent; but it must be conceded that she took no advantage of the blind devotion of either Dr. Anna or her numerous other admirers. She was far too proud to "use" people.

Mrs. Balfame seldom discussed her domestic trials even with Dr. Anna, but this most intimate of her friends guessed that her life with her husband was rapidly growing unendurable. She was, naturally, the family doctor; she had nursed David Balfame through several gastric attacks, whose cause was not far to seek.

But despite much that was highly artificial in her personality, Enid Balfame was elementally what would be called, in the vernacular of the day, a regular female; for a fortnight she had longed to talk about Dwight Rush. This was the time to gratify an innocent desire while watching sharply for an opportunity to play for higher stakes.

"Anna!" she said abruptly, as they sped along the fine road, "women like and admire me so much, and I am pa.s.sably good looking--young looking, too--what do you suppose is the reason men don't fall in love with me?

Dave says that half the men in town are mixed up with those telephone and telegraph girls, and they are pretty in the commonest kind of way--"

"Enid Balfame!" Dr. Anna struggled to recover her scandalised breath.

"You! Do you put yourself in the cla.s.s with those trollops? What's got into you? Men are men. Naturally they let your sort alone."

"But I have heard more than whispers about two or three of our good friends--women of our age, not giddy young fools--and in our own set.