The Husbands of Edith Part 10

"Mamma, it's worse than that! I--"

"Merciful heaven!" The good lady blindly reached for her smelling salts.

"I've made a dreadful discovery," went on Katherine in suppressed tones.

"It came to me like a flash. I couldn't believe my own brain. So I watched them from my window. There's no doubt about it, mamma. It's as plain as the nose on your face. He--"

"My darling, what are you talking about? Is my nose--what is the matter with my nose?" She vaguely felt of her nose in horror.

"He's in love with her. There's no mistake. And, will you believe me, mamma, she is _encouraging_ him! Positively! Why--why, it's utterly contemptible! Oh, dear, what are we to do?"

Mrs. Rodney looked blankly at her daughter, who had thrown herself in a chair. She gasped and then gave vent to a tremulous squeak.

"In love! Your father? With whom--who is she?"

"Father? Oh, Lord, mother, I didn't say anything about father. Don't cry! It's another man altogether."

"Not Freddie Ulstervelt?" quavered Mrs. Rodney, pulling herself together. "After all he has said to you--"

"No, no, mamma," cried her daughter irritably. "Freddie may be in love with her, but he's not the only one. Mamma!" She straightened up and looked at her mother with wide, horror-struck eyes, "Roxbury Medcroft is madly in love with Constance Fowler!"

Mrs. Rodney did not utter a sound for fully a minute and a half. She never took her eyes from her daughter's distressed face. The colour was coming back into her own, and her lips were setting themselves into thin red lines above her rigid chin.

"I'm sorry, Katherine, that you have seen it too. I have suspected it for several days. But I have not dared to speak--it seemed too improbable. What are we to do?" She sat down suddenly, even weakly.

"She's not only leading Freddie on, but she's flirting with her own brother-in-law--her own sister's husband--her--her--"

"Her own niece's father! It's atrocious!"

"She's a horrid beast! And I _thought_ I loved her. Oh, mamma, it's just dreadful!"

"Katherine, control yourself. I will not have you upsetting yourself like this. You'll have another of those awful headaches. Leave it all to me, dear. Something _must_ be done. We can't stand by and see dear Edith betrayed. She's so happy and so trusting. And, besides all that, we'd be dragged into the scandal. I--"

"And the Odell-Carneys too. Heavens!"

"It _must_ be stopped! I shall go at once to Mrs. Odell-Carney and tell her what we have discovered. It will prepare her. She is the best friend I have, and I know she will suggest a way to put a stop to this thing before it is too late. We must--"

"Why don't you speak to father about it first?"

"Your father! My dear, what would be the use? He wouldn't believe it. He never does. I wonder if dear Mrs. Odell-Carney is in her room." The estimable lady fluttered loosely toward the door. Her daughter called to her.

"If I were you, I'd wait a day or two, mamma." She was quite cool and very calculating now. "It may adjust itself, and--and if we can just drop a hint that we suspect, they won't be so--so--well, so public about it. I _know_--I just _know_ that Freddie will be disgusted with her if he sees how she's carrying on." Katherine suddenly had realised that good might spring from evil, after all.

In the mean time, young Mr. Ulstervelt was having troubles and disappointments of his own. Persistent effort to make love to Miss Fowler had finally resulted in an almost peremptory command to desist.

An unlucky impulse to hold her hand during one of his attempts to "try her out" met with disaster. Miss Fowler s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away and, with a look he never forgot, abruptly left him. "It's all off with her,"

ruminated Freddie, shivering slightly as an after effect of the icy stare she had given him. "She's got it in for me, for some reason or other. Wow! That was a frost! I feel it yet. Medcroft has played the deuce helping me. I wonder if-- h.e.l.lo! There's Katherine."

Freddie did some rapid-fire thinking in the next half-minute, with the result that Constance Fowler was banished forever from his calculations and Katherine Rodney restored to her own. So long as he could not possibly win Constance he figured that he might just as well devote himself to the girl he was virtually engaged to marry. Freddie's was a convenient and adaptable constancy. Miss Fowler out of sight was also out of mind; he descended upon Katherine with all of the old ardour shining in his eyes. It was soon after Miss Rodney's conference with her mother, and the young lady was off for a walk in the town.

"h.e.l.lo, Katherine," called he, coming up from behind. "Shopping? Take me along to carry the bundles. I want to begin now."

It was Miss Rodney's fancy to receive his advances with disdain. She a.s.sumed a most unfriendly manner.

"Indeed?" with chilling irony. "And why, may I ask?"

Freddie was taken aback. This was most unexpected.

"Practice makes perfect," he said glibly. "Don't you want me to carry 'em, Kitty?" He said it almost tearfully.

Katherine exulted inwardly. Outwardly she was very cool and very baffling. "Please don't call me Kitty. I hate it."

"It's a dear little name. That's what I'm going to call you when we are--well, you know."

"I _don't_ know. What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come now, Miss Rodney. Don't be so icy. What's up? Never mind--don't tell me. I know. You're jealous of Connie." It was a bold stroke and it had an immediate effect.

"Jealous!" she scoffed, but her cheeks went red. "Not I, Freddie." She considered for a second and then went on: "She's not in love with you.

You must be blind. She's crazy about Mr. Medcroft."

"By Jove," exclaimed Freddie, stopping short, his eyes bulging. He looked at her for a minute in silence, realisation sifting into his face. "You're right! She _is_ in love with him. I see it now. Well, what do you think of that! Her brother-in-law!"

"And he is in love with her too. Now you may go back to her and see if you can't win her away from him. I shan't interfere, my dear Freddie.

Don't have me on your conscience. Good-by."

She left him standing there in the street. With well-practised tact he darted into a tobacconist's shop.

"Another shake-down," he reflected ruefully. "They're all pa.s.sing me up to-day. But, great hooks, what's all this about Medcroft and Constance?"

He bought some cigarets and started off for a walk, mildly excited by this new turn of affairs. It occurred to him, as he turned it all over in his mind, that Mrs. Medcroft was amazingly resigned to the situation.

Of course, she was not blind to her husband's infatuation for her sister. Therefore, if she were so cheerful and indifferent about it, it followed that she was not especially distressed; in fact, it suddenly dawned upon him she was not only reconciled but relieved. She had ceased to love her husband! She could be a freelance in Love's lists, notwithstanding the inconvenience of a legal attachment. "She's ripping, too," concluded Freddie, with a certain buoyancy of spirit. "If she doesn't love Medcroft, she at least ought to love someone else instead.

It's customary. I wonder--" Here he reflected deeply for an instant, his spirits floating high. Then he turned abruptly and made his way to the Tirol.

It came to pa.s.s, in the course of the evening, that Mr. Ulstervelt, supremely confident from the effect of past achievements, drew the unsuspecting Mrs. Medcroft into a secluded tete-a-tete. It is not of record that he was ever a diplomatic wooer; one in haste never is.

Suffice it to say, Mrs. Medcroft, her cheeks flaming, her eyes wide with indignation, suddenly left the side of the indomitable Freddie and joined the party at the other end of the _entresol_, but not before she had said to him with unmistakable clearness and decision,--

"You little wretch! How dare you say such silly things to me!"

The rebuff decisive! And he had only meant to be comforting, not to say self-sacrificing. He'd be hanged if he could understand women nowadays.

Not these women, at least. In high dudgeon he stalked from the room. In the door he met Brock.

"For two cents," he declared savagely, as if Brock were to blame, "I'd take the next train for Paris."

Brock watched him down the hall. He drew a handful of small coins from his pocket, ruefully looking them over. "Two cents," he said. "Hang it all, I've nothing here but pfennigs and h.e.l.lers and centimes."

In the course of his wanderings the disconsolate Freddie came upon Mrs.

Odell-Carney and pudgy Mr. Rodney. They were sitting in a quiet corner of the reading-room. Mr. Rodney had had a hard day. He had climbed a mountain--or, more accurately speaking, he had climbed half-way up and then the same half down. He was very tired. Freddie observed from his lonely station that Mr. Rodney was fast dropping to sleep, notwithstanding his companion's rapid flow of small talk. It did not take Freddie long to decide. He was an outcast and a pariah and he was very lonely. He must have someone to talk to. Without more ado he bore down upon the couple, and a moment later was tactfully advising the sleepy Mr. Rodney to take himself off to bed,--advice which that gentleman gladly accepted. And so it came about that Freddie sat face to face with the last resort, at the foot of the _chaise-longue_, gazing with serene adulation into the eyes of a woman who might have had a son as old as he--if she had had one at all. She had been a coquette in her salad days; there was no doubt of it. She had encountered fervid gallants in all parts of the world and in all stations of life. But it remained for the gallant Freddie Ulstervelt to bowl her over with surprise for the first time in her long and varied career. At the end of half an hour she pulled herself together and tapped him on the shoulder with her fan, a quizzical smile on her lips.

"My dear Mr. Ulstervelt, are you trying to make love to me? You nice Americans! How gallant you can be. I am quite old enough to be your mother. Believe me, I thank you for the compliment. I can't tell you how I appreciate this delicate flattery. You are very delicious. But," as she arose graciously, "I'd follow Mr. Rodney's example if I were you.

I'd go to bed." Then, with a rare smile which could not have been more chilling, she left him standing there.