The Business of Life

"What on earth is the matter? Aren't you ill?" he began.

"Yes; that, too. But – there is something else. I thought it had made me ill – but – " She began to shiver, and he laid his hand on hers and found it burning.

"I tell you Allen ought to come at once – " he began again.

"No, no, no! You don't know what you're talking about. I – I'm frightened – that's what is the matter! That's one of the things that's the matter. Wait a moment. I'll tell you. I'll have to tell you, now. I suppose you'll – divorce me."

There was a silence; then:

"Go on," he said, in his heavy, hopeless voice.

She moistened her lips with her tongue:

"It's – my fault. I – I did not care for you – that is how it – began. No; it began before that – before I knew you. And there were two men. You remember them. They were the rage with our sort – like other fads, for a while – such as marmosets, and – things. One of these things was the poet, Orrin Munger. He called himself a Cubist – whatever that may be. The other was the writer, Adalbert Waudle."

Clydesdale's grin was terrible.

"No," she said wearily, "I was only a more venturesome fool than other women who petted them – nothing worse. They went about kissing women's hands and reading verses to them. Some women let them have the run of their boudoirs – like any poodle. Then there came that literary and semi-bohemian bal-masque in Philadelphia. It was the day before the Assembly. I was going on for that, but mother wouldn't let me go on away earlier for the bal-masque. So – I went."

"What?"

"I lied. I pretended to be stopping with the Hammertons in Westchester. And I bribed my maid to lie, too. But I went."

"Alone?"

"No. Waudle went with me."

"Good God, Elena!"

"I know. I was simply insane. I went with him to that ball and left before the unmasking. Nobody knew me. So I went to the Bellevue-Stratford for the night. I – I never dreamed that he would go there, too."

"Did he?"

"Yes. He had the rooms adjoining. I only knew it when – when I awoke in the dark and heard him tapping on the door and calling in that thick, soft voice – " She shuddered and clenched her hands, closing her feverish eyes for a moment.

Her husband stared at her, motionless in his chair.

She unclosed her eyes wearily: "That was all – except – the other one – the little one with the frizzy hair – Munger. He saw me there. He knew that Waudle had the adjoining rooms. So then, very early, I came back to New York, badly scared, and met my maid at the station and pretended to mother that I had just arrived from Westchester. And that night I went back to the Assembly. But – ever since that night I – I have been – paying money to Adalbert Waudle. Not much before I married you, because I had very little to pay. But all my allowance has gone that way – and now – now he wants more. And I haven't it. And I'm sick – "

The terrible expression on her husband's face frightened her, and, for a moment, she faltered. But there was more to tell, and she must tell it though his unchained wrath destroy her.

"You'll have to wait until I finish," she muttered. "There's more – and worse. Because he came here the night I – went to Silverwood. He saw me leave the house; he unsealed and read the note I left on the library table for you. He knows what I said – about Jim Desboro. He knows I went to him. And he is trying to make me pay him – to keep it out of the – the Tattler."

Clydesdale's congested face was awful; she looked into it, thought that she read her doom. But the courage of despair forced her on.

"There is worse – far worse," she said with dry lips. "I had no money to give; he wished to keep the seven thousand which was his share of what you paid for the forged porcelains. He came to me and made me understand that if you insisted on his returning that money he would write me up for the Tattler and disgrace me so that you would divorce me. I – I must be honest with you at such a time as this, Cary. I wouldn't have cared if – if Jim Desboro would have married me afterward. But he had ceased to care for me. He – was in love with – Miss Nevers; or she was with him. And I disliked her. But – I was low enough to go to her in my dire extremity and – and ask her to pronounce those forged porcelains genuine – so that you would keep them. And I did it – meaning to bribe her."

Clydesdale's expression was frightful.

"Yes – I did this thing. And worse. I – I wish you'd kill me after I tell you! I – something she said – in the midst of my anguish and terror – something about Jim Desboro, I think – I am not sure – seemed to drive me insane. And she was married to him all the while, and I didn't know it. And – to drive her away from him, I – I made her understand that – that I was – his – mistress – "

"Good God!"

"Wait – for God's sake, wait! I don't care what you do to me afterward. Only – only tell that woman I wasn't – tell her I never was. Promise me that, whatever you are going to do to me – promise me you'll tell her that I never was any man's mistress! Because – because – I am – ill. And they say – Dr. Allen says I – I am going to – to have a baby."

The man reared upright and stood swaying there, ashy faced, his visage distorted. Suddenly the features were flooded with rushing crimson; he dropped on his knees and caught her in his arms with a groan; and she shut her eyes, thinking the world was ending.

After a long while she opened them, still half stunned with terror; saw his quivering lips resting on her tightly locked hands; stared for a while, striving to comprehend his wet face and his caress.

And, after a while, timidly, uncertainly, wondering, she ventured to withdraw one hand, still watching him with fascinated eyes.

She had always feared him physically – feared his bulk, and his massive strength, and his grin. Otherwise, she had held him in intellectual contempt.

Very cautiously, very gently, she withdrew her hand, watching him all the while. He had not annihilated her. What did he mean to do with this woman who had hated him and who now was about to disgrace him? What did he mean to do? What was he doing now – with his lips quivering against her other hand, all wet with his tears?

"Cary?" she said.

He lifted a passion-marred visage; and there seemed for a moment something noble in the high poise of his ugly head. And, without knowing what she was doing, or why, she slowly lifted her free hand and let it rest lightly on his massive shoulder. And, as she looked into his eyes, a strange expression began to dawn in her own – and it became stranger and stranger – something he had never before seen there – something so bewildering, so wonderful, that his heart seemed to cease.

Suddenly her eyes filled and her face flushed from throat to hair and the next instant she swayed forward, was caught, and crushed to his breast.

"Oh!" she wept ceaselessly. "Oh, oh, Cary! I didn't know – I didn't know. I – I want to be a – a good mother. I'll try to be better; I'll try to be better. You are so good – you are so good to me – so kind – so kind – to protect me – after what I've done – after what I've done!"

CHAPTER XVIII

Desboro passed a miserable afternoon at the office. If there had been any business to take his mind off himself it might have been easier for him; but for a long time now there had been nothing stirring in Wall Street; the public kept away; business was dead.

After hours he went to the club, feeling physically wretched. Man after man came up and congratulated him on his marriage – some whom he knew scarcely more intimately than to bow to, spoke to him. He was a very great favourite.

In the beginning, it was merely a stimulant that he thought he needed; later he declined no suggestion, and even made a few, with an eye on the clock. For at five he was to meet Jacqueline.

Toward five his demeanour had altered to that gravely urbane and too courteous manner indicative of excess; and his flushed face had become white and tense.

Cairns found him in the card room at six, saw at a glance how matters stood with him, and drew him into a corner of the window with scant ceremony.

"What's the matter with you?" he said sharply. "You told me that you were to meet your wife at five!"

Desboro's manner became impressively courteous.

"Inadvertently," he said, "I have somehow or other mislaid the clock. Once it stood somewhere in this vicinity, but – "

"Damn it! There it is! Look at it!"

Desboro looked gravely in the direction where Cairns was pointing.

"That undoubtedly is a clock," he said. "But now a far more serious problem confronts us, John. Having located a clock with a certain amount of accuracy, what is the next step to take in finding out the exact time?"

"Don't you know how to tell the time?" demanded Cairns, furious.