a. c2 3 s-v - /p v^*o 7^ 4fi-A -. *4 < *- Q n~+ MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Hadn t he come home several times lately to find Smither s silly black rihbons dangling over the teacups? MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND BY GELETT BURGESS ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY RALEIGH NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1917 Copyright, 1917, by THE CENTURY Co. Copyright, 1917, by THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY ": * Published $epte#fyr K 2917 TO E. L. B. FROM G. B. PARIS 1916-17 M22182 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Had n t he come home several times lately to find Smither s silly black ribbons dangling over the teacups? Frontispiece Said Lester Hope : " I m an attorney at law " . . 9 " You were surrounded by admirers, and I could not, would not, force myself on your notice ! " 47 "Where did this carnival of roses come from?" . 65 Was n t she always saying how clever he was, and how sensitive? 75 There was a small oblong hole in the paper, through which, quite unsuspected, he could watch his wife 107 " I ve Oh, it s sickening to have to tell you, but I Ve fallen in love, Lester at least I think I have " 141 " Where did you get this? " Pauline was demanding 151 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND WHO was she? Just another of the smart and daringly gowned guests in vited by Mrs. Woodling? As she sauntered across the wide drawing-room floor, laughing and trifling so nonchalantly with her escort, her careless scarf artfully trailing off a white shoulder, all eyes followed her. Bored, stiff gentlemen awoke; laughing ladies suddenly ceased their chatter; some of the more dis cerning began to wonder. Who was she? Wasn t she almost too charmingly distin guished for a mere millionaire ? But when, fine eyebrows lifted, she held out a graceful white-gloved hand and exchanged the first bright smiles with her eagerly welcoming hostess no longer was there any question about it. Indubitably she was the lion of the evening. 3 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND But the gentleman who accompanied her, so tall antf dark and picturesque, so gracefully erect, , with , that ..queer unreadable smile was he f amousj too ? ; &y\the fine intellectuality of his face yes, possibly. And yet, aristocratic and interesting as he seemed, was n t he a little ill at ease? That defensive reserve wasn t it somewhat overdone? Alas, probably not a celebrity. Feminine eyes were already desert ing him. As his bland, bejeweled hostess greeted him with her second-best smile oh, no, certainly not a celebrity I Only a husband. Glances, disappointed, returned to the lady. Round the elaborately paneled room, the gilded, mirrored room, frescoed, columned and Louis Quatorzed, the guest of honor s name came out in whispers. " Mrs. Hope," poet informed banker, backed up against the wall. " Mrs. Hope," the in quisitive rosy debutante murmured to her lor- gnon-peering, white-haired dowager mama on the gold settee. " Why, you know Pauline Hope, the novelist I " Aigrettes nodded, jewels flashed, pink-powdered shoulders leaned to crinkling white shirt fronts. " Yes, yes, of course; she wrote that wonderful, romantic 4 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND why, what is the name of it, now? . . . stun ning, is n t she ! " And before the buzzing flut ter had subsided, Mrs. Woodling, expensive and expansive, had bubbled through the first effervescence of her amenities ; proudly she had passed her prize along. " A rare, exotic curi osity of my own private collection," she seemed to smile : " inspect, admire ! " " Oh, I just loved it, Mrs. Hope! " virginal voices petted her. ..." Perfectly fascinat ing!" ... u So adorably romantic!" . . . " Oh, it must be simply wonderful to write! " how the blue eyes beamed !..."! suppose it just drips off your pen, Mrs. Hope, does n t it ? " . . . " Oh, I do wish you d put me in a book, some time ! " And thus, as one after another flatterer was brought up to talk with Mrs. Hope or talk at her and her husband, elbowed aside with careless " beg pardons," gradually edged off to ward the wall the season s literary favorite graciously accepted her homage. How smiling she was, how affable! As Pauline Hope the novelist she may have winced at times as the inevitable glib inanities gushed for her ; but Pauline Hope was not only a nov- 5 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND elist, she was a woman. Any shrewd ob server such as her frowning, proud husband, for instance, seeing what only a suffering lover can see might have suspected that this first full taste of social success was refreshening her very soul. With what histrionic zest she was throwing herself into the part of handsome- and-accomplished ! with what modest depre ciation, too, of her fame! But if her pose was woman-easy, her hus band s, obviously, was hard. High though his chin was held (suspiciously high, even), he withdrew more and more into himself as he withdrew from the ignoring crowd. Almost cynically he watched her till at last she. was captured from the Philistines by a pair of enor mous tortoise-shell spectacles and a pointed beard. He smiled as the editor Peever the classic, stoop-shouldered Peever claimed her as his lawful prey; for, in that crowd, even Peever could not hold her long. From the at mosphere of diamonds and dollars she was soon borne away in triumph to a rarer, loftier air, breathed by an inner circle of intellectuals, birds of a still finer feather. These, as am bitious Mrs. Woodling fondly cooed, had all 6 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " done something " ; and here Pauline Hope was, henceforth, to shine. Over her bared white shoulder, " Follow me, Lester, follow ! " her backward, questing glance had seemed to call. Oh, yes, she wanted him, no doubt. But what, in the name of all these snobs and toadies, was the use? Well he knew, by this time, what brand of patronage snubs or worse to expect of them. He was sensitive, he was fine-grained and he was married to a celebrity. He was " Mrs. Hope s Husband!" In the companies where they had appeared together since her first public recognition, he had, so far, endeavored to hold his own with dignity. But now his pride had begun to re volt. This evening, as he was removing his coat, upstairs, he had been introduced to a bearded and spectacled professor, only to hear, " Ach, Mr. Hope ! Not de huspant of our so- distinguished friend Pauline Hope de novelist, yes?" He still loved his wife; he was proud of her success. But that he himself should have to pay for it so dearly he had never anticipated. Why should he submit any longer to being 7 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND treated as a nonentity? Nonentity! Why, was n t it worse even than that ? To-night, he could n t be even simply Lester Hope. Other men, respectable and otherwise, with brains and without, seemed here to be willingly ac cepted at their face value. He, however, with a professional record of which he was in no wise ashamed, was only " Mrs. Hope s Hus band!" Yet, while he was present at such congrega tions of tuft-hunters, escape seemed impossible. Even as he stifled his pride and brooded, nerv ously twisting his mustache and the little tuft on his lower lip, watching the universal adula tion of his wife, Mrs. Woodling, like a som nambulist, glassy-eyed, obsessed with a fixed idea, was bearing magnificently down upon him with a large lady in tow. Stoically he awaited. Ah, yes, it came " Mrs. Poppity, I want you to meet Mrs. Hope s Husband ! " The blow accomplished, his hostess, smiling, oh, so sweetly smiling, slipped away. The round-eyed matron in black satin was as soft and silly as only a huge woman in black satin can be. Fan lifted, gazing at him dream ily, "And what do you do, Mr. Hope?" she 8 Said Lester Hope: "I m an attorney at law" MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND breathed ; " ah, something won-derful, I m sure ! " And then, waiting for no answer, her round, near-sighted eyes rolled away to the other side of the crowded room, where Pauline reigned. Lester Hope looked at her, and looked in no kindly mood. Said Lester Hope, " I m an attorney-at-law." Surprised and shocked, the round eyes sud denly returned, as if for explanation of a jest too subtle for her brain ; and then, embarrassed, she began to prattle very hurriedly. But when she got down to rheumatism and the weather, he finished her off with the excuse that his wife was again beckoning him, and if Mrs. Poppity would pardon him, he really must As he left, her relief, apparently, was as large as his. Toward Pauline, however, he did not, could not, go. Under the sparkling crystals of a chandelier, surrounded by men, he caught sight of her, flushed and radiant. A shock of musi cal black hair was being emotionally shaken be side her; she was attended by Poetry (with a broad, black silk ribbon depending from his eye-glasses), as she collogued Drama, fierce in ii MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND a red mustache, and dry, whiskery Architec ture. Lester watched her pensively. Well, she was happy; she had "done something." De lightedly she was receiving the Right Hand of Fellowship as a new-comer to Fame. There, he too should be, longed to be, with those choice spirits, the brains of New York. But be with them as a mere appendage he could not. He had no " tag " to his name except that damnable, that humiliating one that still rang in his ears like the tin can on a dog s tail "Mrs. Hope s Husband!" wherefore, his pride compelled him to lurk on the ragged edges of intellectuality, the limbo of half wits. From the pompous prattle of a lank youth who would criticize plays (but could n t write them), and a jolly big broker with a gold tooth who had just published an almost-original " Life of Napoleon " (at his own expense), he turned, resignedly, to slip the pale graces of Helen Ramsay, a mildly literary friend of a certain age the age that has known one at college, and feels privileged to whisper, "I say, Lester, we never thought, in those days when you were an editor and carrying off all 12 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND the prizes, that you d have a wife who d be more famous than you were, did we ! " Mrs. Woodling, however, was one of those busy hostesses. It was against her principles to let any one linger long with a congenial soul ; wherefore Helen s green ear-rings and laven der and lace were soon escorted away through the throng to meet a more appropriate guest. Lester Hope nursed a sardonic smile. It was quite all right, of course. What damned him, apparently, amongst these New York ink- worshipers, was merely that his name was not printed in the papers or between covers. What were the intricate cases he had argued before the Supreme Court compared with her magazine stories ? Could his reputation at the bar hope to compete with the thrill of her eld erly lovers, and meek self -sacrifices, and mis taken identity? Helen Ramsay, of course, was " famous." She " really must meet " What s-his-name. "Oh, Mr. Hope!" came a thin feminine voice in his ear. Ten thousand dollars worth of emeralds confronted him, strung on a skinny neck. An aged head was grinning. " How proud you must be of your wife, to-night, Mr. 13 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Hope ! Such a privilege, I m sure, for us poor, matter-of-fact souls to be associated with Real Brains ! " And it came out, in smirks and simpers and amiable wrinkles, that My Daughter Pearl was also literary, Mr. Hope, She too had real brains. It was, oh, it was too bad, Mr. Hope, that he could n t have heard a paper that My Daughter Pearl had written for our Fortnightly! Held by her emeralds and her eyes, he was rescued only by supper; and as the faint odor of sizzling lobster called her joyously away, an other provocative perfume brought its message to his own nostrils. So, toward the altar of masculine peace he wandered, musing his insig nificance, to burn his incense at her shrine whose aromatic sweetness makes all men brothers. In a remote corner of the billiard-room, where a few men, almost as disconsolate as he, were fingering their watch chains and yawning sulkily, he sat down to inhale, with his ciga rette, a few pungent truths. Was it possible that he could be envious of the attention his wife was receiving? Con science indignantly answered, No. To be sure, 14 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND he had some contempt for the silly fulsomeness of the tribute paid, in such places as this, to lit erary achievement; but if Pauline, a little ro mantic in her illusions, cared for that sort of thing, well, had n t she honestly earned it ? But why why should he be made the sport of fools? Potentially, at least, he considered himself quite the intellectual equal of any of those whom his wife found so brilliant, and, " Really worth while, Lester ! " Not a whit was he overpowered by the roaring lions of the Woodling salon. What, then, was wrong? Half amused, half contemptuous, he glanced about at the burlesque side-show of Mrs. Woodling s intellectual circus. Across the room cards flipped on a table; and some one said, "Hearts!" But the man beside Lester still gazed silently at the portrait of a dead pheasant on the wall. Beyond him, other moody gentlemen were lost in their high balls. He couldn t understand it. Why, he had never been left out of it like this before! He had never failed to be sought and welcomed much less failed even to be considered. What was wrong ? From where Lester sat he saw, slantwise 15 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND through the portieres, a strip of the flowery, red velvet hall, where violins sobbed plaintively to an accompaniment of babbling voices not at all plaintive, as brilliant couples passed and re- passed. Suddenly, for one bright moment he saw Pauline ! Pauline, in her gold-hued silk, lovely with pearls, smiling up at a hand some blond portrait painter with a Vandyke beard. She looked about a moment, as if for her husband and was gone. How vivid she was, to-night, gleeful with victory! But as he sat there smoking reflec tively, his mind drifted off to another world to those days before Fame had found her. . . . Had n t she been even more adorable then ? . . . That little pink dimity frock . . . how proudly she had told him ..." only seven cents a yard, Lester," and she had made it all herself! . . . Pauline Forr! Romantic, en gaging Pauline-of-the-Violets ! . . . How rap turously she had seized them from his hand, that day ! " Oh, Lester ! Think of it, Lester ! Violets in January ! " How she had kissed them " Oh, you darling little rascals ! " kissed them, kissed " Damned bore ! " grunted the man beside 16 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND him, lighting still another cigar, and beginning on his seventh glass of whisky.- " Lord, I de spise these confounded affairs! " The shrugged shoulders of Lester Hope un intentionally endorsed the sentiment. " Lots of good-looking women, though. Here, waiter, bring me another Scotch! Say, that Mrs. Hope s rather clever, I expect, is n t she ? Pretty, anyway. Meet her ? " "Oh, yes." But Lester Hope s cigarette had accidentally dropped. " What s her husband like? Know him? " Lester hesitated. " Oh, yes, fairly well." Uncomfortable and alarmed, he had started to rise to make his escape; but the man was holding him with a twinkling, alcoholic eye. " He must feel pretty cheap, I should think, tagging along after her. Here, try one of these Vencedoras." He yawned and hic coughed behind his hand, and grinned, " Lord, if my wife had beat me out like that, damned if I would n t stay at home." Twisting his perfecto in his mouth he began to chuckle. " Say reminds me of a vaudeville team fellow told me about once. Wife used to do a heavy acrobatic stunt and practised seven 17 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND hours a day ; earned two hundred a week. Mr. Husband stood in the wings for twenty min utes, twice a day, handing her the props. Then he d go round to the nearest saloon and brag about Our Act ! " Poking Lester in the side with his thumb, he added, " Say, this chap Hope s probably about like that, eh?" He laughed reflectively, unctuously. As a horrified guest plucked at the joker s sleeve and whispered something which made him sit up, sobered, and mutter, " Good God ! He is? " Lester Hope retreated to the drawing- room, blushing hot with shame, but at last thor oughly awakened. He had his answer, now. Why, if he had grown so negative and insignificant that a man could assume from his mere appearance that he was a nobody well, he must have fallen a good deal below par. Why should he have crawled away and hidden amongst these merely Husbands? What the devil had he, Lester Hope, to be ashamed of ? Was n t it manlier, after all, to swagger about " Our Act," than to sneak off with his tail between his legs ? Yes ; he was making more of a fool of him self than they were of him. Either he should 18 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND swallow his infernal pride and be honestly, openly proud of his wife, or else stay decently at home and let the Mrs. Poppitys of this fool ish bookish world forget him. And before he had left that swarming house that night that was what Lester Hope had firmly decided to do. II S. HOPE S HUSBAND!" For days, to the confusion of every other idea, the phrase had rung in his ears. " Mrs. Hope s Husband, Attorney-at-Law," he seemed to read at the top of his office station ery ; and, at the bottom he had all but written, " Yours truly, Mrs. Hope s Husband." Every bookstore he passed called out to him, " Mrs. Hope s Husband ! " That miserable ghost of his mortified self had worked and walked home with him. Nor did it leave him even there. Once the key was turned and the door of his smart little Georgian house, opening, showed the hall, trim and elegant with its white wood work and curling stairway, lo, the specter was ready, awaiting him. That specter, seated mockingly upon the floor, was a huge package wrapped in brown paper. It was the regular, fat, monthly offer ing of books from Peever, her publisher, ad dressed to " Mrs. Pauline Hope." " But why 20 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND the devil not Mrs. Lester Hope ? " he ques tioned sulkily. On a tray was the usual pile of letters. The envelopes were almost all ad dressed also to " Mrs. Pauline Hope " ; as if, indeed, she were already a widow ! Depressed, his aristocratic appearance al ready a little dimmed, he went into the long, low library. Those rows of books and books had often sheltered him in a port of peace. But to-night his own books reproached him. Sighing, he listlessly took up the evening paper. His eyes, after a while, fell upon the society notes. Yes, there it was ! At the very end of a list of " those present " at the Wood- ling reception he read : " Miss Helen Ram say, Mr. Saul Tremlett, and Mr. L. Hope, the husband of the distinguished novelist." The paper sailed across the room. Surely it was high time for him seriously to consider his problem ! "Mrs. Hope s Husband!" He Lester Hope! Long he sat and pondered it. He, with his high pride a mere possession ! How had he ever become so negative, he who had so often been called magnetic ! Was it just another of the many comic trage- 21 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND dies of the too-early marriage one partner going on and the other lagging behind in ar rested development? Bang! His fist came down on the table. No! Downtown he was positive enough. Men respected him, admired him; and women had shown him favor. He felt strength in him. He was not one of those timid mortals whom success had never touched. At college, in the polo field, and before the bar he had proved it. Yes, in his own way he too had won. But he had n t happened to win in hers. Spontaneously, out of the past, a picture came a day in their first suburban home when she had been so happy that she had been almost afraid it might not last. With what devoted courage she had said, " Promise me, Lester, let us promise each other that if the time should ever come when our love changes ever so little, we will be honest with each other!" Would that time ever come? Was it, per haps, even now well on the way? Could this new success of hers possibly separate them? And if it did, would she be honest, would she tell him? . . . Like a warning, the ringing, 22 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND ringing of a bell awakened him from his revery. " Hello! Yes ... yes." He had gone across to Pauline s desk and taken up the tele phone. " No, she s not at home yet ... I don t know . . . Yes, probably." Then, his face clouded and he smiled bitterly. " Yes, this is Mrs. Hope s Husband. . . . Very well, Mrs. Tremlett, when she comes in." The receiver struck the hook with a whang. Even in his own home he could n t escape ! Well his wife, he recalled, was that after noon reading from her own " works " at some precious woman s club. There was, as usual, " something on " for the evening something of Peever s contriving, with people, of course, who had " done something." But Lester Hope had decided not to be there; and he antici pated a rather bad quarter of an hour breaking the news to Pauline. After she had come laughing home, how ever, and, with an impulsive kiss, had joyously invited him up to her pretty, feminine, blue- chintz room while she dressed combing, manicuring, gossiping of her female adorers of the afternoon, and, " Where is that cold cream?" her lips saying, "Oh, but. Lester, 23 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND those women were too absurd, really," while her eyes were confessing, " How I love their praise ! " he found his excuses for his ab sence that night accepted, as she gazed at her self in the mirror, with a careless, " I m so sorry, dear, you can t go ! " And at dinner, later, with her pile of letters at her plate, as she took, first, a spoonful of celery soup, and then a taste of buttered flat tery from some unknown correspondent chattering on over her fish of how Helen Ram say had inquired for him, and " Heavens, an other request for an autograph!" enthusi astically attacking her roast, seasoned with " Think of advertising me as the most beauti ful authoress in the United States ! " but, with the olives, only nibbling abstractedly at " Could n t you really manage to go with me, darling or come for me later, dear?" and " Oh, what is this ? " as she read another " lovely " review of her book, kindling and glowing, so pleased with life and art Lester Hope smiled to think with what ironic ease the scenes often pass off that one has most dreaded. He was working on an important case, he had told her, and she accepted his explanation 24 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND without suspicion. Was n t she, in fact, a little too ready to accept it ? Did n t she change the subject rather abruptly to the fact that her name was in the new edition of " Who s Who? " And, while she ran on about having her portrait painted by Willyer, and her elec tion to a woman s fashionable club, Lester Hope sat thinking. Why was he so perturbed ? After all, was n t it natural enough and pardon able enough that all this flattery and hero-wor ship should turn her head a little ? But every day he grew more depressed. So far, he had felt only the pin-pricks to his pride ; but now a steady heart-ache began to oppress him. More and more her career seemed to be alienating them. Undoubtedly if he had spoken of it, she would have said that it was only his fault. If he would stay at home nights, or work late at the office instead of accompanying her, how could she help it? Nevertheless, he noticed that she urged him less and less to go with her. There were, of course, dinners she gave at home, ordeals which he had perforce to at tend. He could n t always have " business in Boston," or " an important conference in Phil- 25 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND adelphia." At his own table he roused him self with an effort to be agreeable to the Peev- ers and Woodlings, to joke affably with writing persons, from the latest visiting Briton to story-tellers of the Helen Ramsay type. V/ith an occasional guest, such as the handsome por trait painter, Willyer, who, thank God, did n t scribble, he got on sympathetically ; but his hos pitable efforts in the role of Mrs. Hope s Hus band usually exhausted him. The minor celebrities were over-polite, treating him as something between an old family servant and a precocious boy. The higher stars of litera ture drank his wines, they smoked his cigars, they were assiduous to his pretty wife. But her husband they jovially ignored. Down to the library, one evening, came Pau line in a bewitching new gown one of the extravagances for which she was now paying herself. Never had he seen her so beautiful, he thought, as when she walked into the room and threw down her tulle scarf. What a change from the slender lines of her budding youth to this regnant lady blooming to-night in 26 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND perfect flower! His wife? It seemed impos sible! The jewels on her bare throat sparkled; and as she critically selected her orchids under the Winged Victory, Lester Hope saw as never before what success had done for her. Let ting his pen fall, he watched her. No, ah, no longer was she Pauline Forr, the na ive, roman tic, talented girl, the wayward darling he had first loved and molded. Could Pauline Forr ever have handled those orchids so calmly? Pauline-of-the-violets ! Nor was she any longer that young Mrs. Hope, that fresh, subur ban Mrs. Hope, so proud of her husband, her home, her position. Oh, no; young Mrs. Hope, before this, would have had her arms about him, petting him, teasing him, pulling that obstinate lock of hair God, how he remembered so whimsically affectionate! The orchids were arranged in her corsage; the orchids were rearranged. There was a re- connoitering glance ; then, " Could n t you pos sibly come with me, dear, this time ? " He stiffened, and shook his head. " I d particularly like you to, to-night, Les- 27 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND ter. It s horrid going alone." She laid her hand gently on his arm. "Of course I know it may bore you, but " God, how he wanted to seize that hand, seize her as he used to, and crush her in his arms ! But his demon of pride forbade. In stead, he turned to his papers uneasily. " No," he said, dully, " I m sorry, but I ve got some writing to do." There was a moment s wait; then, with a toss of her head, her expression changed. Chin up, shoulders back, splendid as a countess was Pauline Hope. Oh, there was no chang ing her pose, now ; it was quite evident that it would last all the evening and more than one would ask, admiringly, " Who is that over there, that proud-looking creature, with the dark hair?" As the front door closed on her, Lester Hope rose wearily. To-night, for the first time yes, for the very first time he really wanted to be alone. He looked about. Good God alone? why, the whole room seemed fairly filled with her brilliant, eclipsing personality. Didn t everything in it suggest her? She dominated him still. 28 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Out went an electric light, and her writing desk disappeared into the gloom. Shrouded in that shadow too, her framed photographs of authors and " presentation copies " no longer accused him of his own conspicuous lack of fame. He turned another switch, and another, drowning more evidences of her new, public prosperity those rare editions she was so proud of, her prints, her paintings, and all that made the place so appallingly literary until at last he was safe in a little yellow oasis of light at his own desk. Safe? Ah, still in the shadows the specter lurked. " What are you going to do with me? " it seemed to say. " I am Mrs. Hope s Husband ! " And yet it was not as " Mrs. Hope s Hus band " that he had gone so brilliantly through college; it was not "Mrs. Hope s Husband" who had won with dash and skill on the polo field ; and when men talked of the stars of criminal legal practice his successes had never been set down to " Mrs. Hope s Husband." Surely there was some personal force in him. No, what people had said was that Lester Hope was magnetic ; that he was a good fighter ; that he never quit. They said also that his 29 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND force was heightened by his picturesque and distinguished appearance, for, so tall and dark, with his twisted mustache and the little tuft on his chin, with his long sensitive hands, he looked more like a French count that a New York lawyer. Now, alone in his library as he paced, absorbed, he showed something of that old vigor ; but well he knew that, once Pauline had returned radiating her new prestige, that positive personality of his would again fade and dwindle. The dull blue portieres were parted, A maid looked into the room. " There s a package come for Mrs. Hope, sir," she said. " Could you sign for it ? The man s awful particular about it, but he said if she was n t in, Mrs. Hope s Husband would do." She left without noticing the cheeks of the self -controlled man who had handed her back the receipt book. They were burning as hotly as if she had struck him in the face. As he opened and shut the drawers of his desk, thinking dispiritedly that he must go to work, he paused, staring at something some thing ragged, worn, soiled. He drew it out. What queer, stutteringly 30 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND printed words, what irregular spacing and er ratic margins. Hyphens and capital letters strewn in reckless profusion, words crossed out, words written in, careted and blotted well he knew those pages! Again he seemed to be talking over those early tales of hers with her, arguing their psychology, elaborating their ro mantic plots. Why, they had sat up talking them over excitedly, night after night to gether, often till two or three in the morning! Together ! where was that " togetherness," as she used to call it, now ? He laid the manuscript gently down . . . Pauline . . . Pauline! . . . How he had worked with her! Heart and brain, how he had fought for her ! ... He could n t help it, damn it, the tears would come. . . . Once he had inspired her once he had taught her that was all over. For a while his education and his man s experience had led her, but her technique had soon caught up with her creative talent. Yes, she had caught up with him, too, and passed him on the road. And now, appar ently, she needed him no longer. Well, even if he had lost her, or was, appar ently, fast losing her, did n t that word " hus- MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND band " mean at least that he had won her once? Lost! why lost? Hadn t he lost cases be fore, in the lower courts, only to win them in the end doggedly on appeal? Why, then, should n t he demand a retrial in this case, the greatest case of his life, and try to win her back again? But how? His mind began to seek back and forth furiously on the scent, as it often did downtown when he seemed to be beaten. How? How? Was a second ro mance ever possible between married lovers? Was it? Was it? It seemed absurd, yet the thought stimulated him. How ? How the devil how? Gazing at the rows and rows of books that lined the walls, wandering, wondering through " if only " and " there must be some way ! " his fancy quested until he had no idea how long he had been sitting there, scowling, chewing his cigar he came briskly to himself, apos trophizing the shadowy Winged Victory with the savage exclamation, " Why not ? " Others had done it ; why not he ? Did n t they still come continually, come by dozens sometimes, those confounded letters, those friendly letters, foolish letters, fulsome, flat- 32 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND tering, from unknown correspondents? How interestedly they had both read them, at first, discussing the writers, analyzing the characters they revealed! How proud she still was of them, too! He smiled . . . Pauline at her desk, opening her letters complacently, sucking the last drop of praise from every one. . . . Yes, and she would read his, too. Perhaps, though, she might not answer it. A frown. But why not compel her to answer it ? A smile of pride. He had invention, many had called him clever ; could n t he play on her curiosity, her passion for romance? After all, Pauline was still a woman, and he was still a man. What were men s wits for, anyway, but to con quer women ? And his wits were supposed to be trained in practical psychology; why not prove them ? And, at least, one sharp weapon was left to him ; its name was Mystery. By the Winged Victory of Samothrace, he d do it ! At that moment any woman would say, and most men think, that Lester Hope was handsome. There was a new strength in the gesture with which he tossed back his black hair. Had Pauline come in upon him at that moment But she did not come in. 33 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Of course the letter would have to be type written to conceal his identity. A mere detail that of course could be done next day at the office. Let s see he would give for his ad^ dress a new post-office box ; and he would sign it what? Long he studied before he chose "John Irons." Long, long he reflected, more absorbed than ever he had been in a crim inal case, smoking on, smoking on, before he had, lawyer-wise, decided with a new smile upon Pauline s vulnerable point and where the line of least resistance to his flattery lay. And so, crossing to the bookshelves to turn the pages of her novel thoughtfully, back to his desk with it, lost in his plan, scribbling fu riously walking the floor sitting down, finally, to copy all carefully, deliberately, Les ter Hope did not realize, till at midnight he heard the front door opening, that for two whole hours he had forgotten that he was " Mrs. Hope s Husband." 34 Ill IT is a fact, although some unmarried women may not know it, that trimming a mustache is one of the few small vanities a self-respect ing man permits himself to practise before the mirror consciously, seriously, and unashamed. Lester Hope, with puckered brow, was trim ming his mustache. A knock a knock at his wife s door. Eight thirty-five. Ah, her breakfast and her mail ! Smiling, but a little excited, he laid down his scissors. The new trial had begun. Anxiously he awaited Pauline s opening for the defense. It was not long, however, before her gay soprano, "Lester! oh, Lester!" brought him strolling into her room, to find her ambushed in laces and ribbons in her four-poster, propped up luxuriously amongst the pillows. She was drinking her chocolate. Smiling consciously, he waited. Many, many were the witnesses he had cross-examined, and well he knew their 35 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND carefully-careless look. But this time that look was on his own face. " Say, Lester," she began, " remember what fun we had about all the people who congratu lated us on our engagement? Remember Quivin, Les? " " Why, yes. Heard from Quivin ? " " No. But just think of his saying to you, that time, Well, I hope you 11 get along well with her ! But that showed that Quivin didn t get along any too well with his wife, didn t it? And that snippy Nell Tremlett, too!" "Oh, heard from Nell?" She shook her head with impatience. <c Don t you know, though, Nell said, Well, you 11 find it very different, Pauline, after you re married ! and that told her story. Why, your cousin Ned no, I have n t heard from Ned, Lester ; don t be so nervous ! he was the only one, apparently, who was happily married. Good for you, Les, it s the only way to live ! remember ? " Watching her sharply, he nodded. " Yes, of course ; what of it ? " " Why, only this : each one of them was un- 36 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND consciously expressing his subconscious mind," said Pauline, decidedly. " According to mod ern psychology one s dominant traits must in evitably come out in one s talk or one s writ ing. A penurious person is n t he always talking about money, and a vain person of peo ple s looks?" " Yes, my dear," Lester smiled at his cig arette. " Also the earth is round, and slightly flattened at " but his eyes were suddenly at tracted by the yellow sheet with which she was now gesticulating. That squarish, yellow sheet he had chosen purposely that he might recog nize it at a glance. " See here," she said, " I d like your opinion of this. I think it s rather clever, myself. It s from one of my latest admirers." Bri dling, she turned it over and looked at the sig nature. " John Irons, whoever he is. Lis ten to this, though : Tiny, small, delicate, wee, darling, diminutive, little and so on. Look at that long list of words, will you ? All taken, if you please, from one chapter of my novel. See? Friend Irons infers, from the tendency shown in that unconscious way, that I am fond of little things toys, carvings, and minia- 37 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND tures, and bibelots, etc. Well that s all true enough. Why, he s deduced my whole won derful exquisite character, in fact, from my vo cabulary." Now, as she re-read the letter, he wondered, for a moment, if he had made any mistake that might have betrayed him. She was chuckling. " Dusky gold ! " she laughed. " Dusky gold ! Yes, I remember I was rather pleased at that. Opalescent, sheen, velvety-bloom, smoky-red, virginal, gossamer, floaty, filmy, di aphanous look, a whole procession of deco rative words like that, marching right down the page. See ? And here s what John says in conclusion. Are you listening, Lester ? An almost pathetic love of beauty; you must have been deprived of pretty things when you were young. That s right, too; I was, wasn t I? * Disliking discords in life and art. H m! Fond of admiration. Well, who is n t? " Lester walked to the window to hide his face from her. " What an ass ! " " Oh, I don t know, Les," her tone now was thoughtful. " Loyal, while seeming to for get. I don t see where he got that ! But is n t it remarkable ? " 38 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " Sounds like the Baconian cipher, to me, picking out words to fit, like that. Why, you could prove almost anything, that way." " But he happens to prove just exactly the things that are true. Why, he might have known me for years ! Of course, he s rather complimentary, too. He says where is that ? oh You must be the most charm ing woman in the world. You need n t shrug your shoulders, Lester; perhaps I am. But wait a minute ! " and she continued more slowly. " Hopes he may develop the ac quaintance by some more direct means. Her embarrassed laugh did not conceal a seri ous interest. " What d you suppose he in tends by that? Meet him around the corner, or what ? Would you answer him, Les ? " Lester yawned artistically. " Oh, if you feel like it. Lord, / don t know ! " " I don t know either." As she spoke, abstractedly she kept folding and unfolding the yellow sheet. " I think sometimes you can really tell more about a person from a letter than why, Lester, if I wanted to get a line on you d you know what I d do? I d just go away, visit mother or something, and make 39 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND you write to me. I really believe I d find out more about you than by living with you for six months ! " And, though she drifted off in a description of last night s reception, her husband suspected, beneath her gossip of Mrs. Poppity s latest blunder, and how Smithers wished to dedicate his book of poems " To P. H.," a strong under current of John Irons in her mind, which she seemed to be taking some pains to conceal. That forenoon Lester Hope walked downtown to his office not a little elated. For three afternoons, each day a little less elated, he walked downtown only to be disap pointed. But on the fourth day when he stopped at the post office and looked in as usual through the little glass door, behold, a pale blue envelope! It was addressed to "John Irons, Esq., P. O. Box 1711" in Pauline s handwriting, bold and rapid. Gingerly he took it out, feeling somewhat as if he were robbing the mails, and tore open the blue envelope. The sensation was, he thought, a bit too like eavesdropping on Pauline to be comfortable. Of course it was for him, that 40 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND letter ; but at the same time it was n t exactly for her husband, was it? Well, never mind ; at a shelf -desk by the big, dirty window, hustled by the crowd, he found himself reading: " My dear Mr. John Irons: " I m so glad to have found at least one careful student of my book. Really, you quite remind one of those patient, laborious old prisoners in medieval dungeons who spent their days counting the number of the s and and s in the Bible. It was almost a pity, though, for you to have wasted so much time on my novel that might have been spent, might n t it ? at a dollar a palm, with the gyp sies." Pauline went on in an almost gleeful strain to fear that she wasn t half so nice as John Irons had made out, and that, really, if she were honest (which, of course, she was n t), she ought to insert a lot of brittle, magenta, sharp- pointed words into her next novel, just to make his pet theories consistent. In conclusion, (the note was short), she wondered Who he was. MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND There was altogether a dancing note of cor diality and frankness in it that rather surprised him ; and a little something about it also that he did n t quite like. Just why, he found it hard to decide. What, then, had he antici pated? Wasn t it in just this way, inducing just this charmingly amenable mood, that he had expected to rewin her love? All he knew was that some Imp of the Perverse had touched him with a faint regret that he had succeeded so well. Did n t she, he thought, come almost too easily? The sudden revelation of her as she appeared secretly with a stranger was al most uncomfortable, even though that stran ger were himself. At the office, he found, after some search, the last letter he had received from his wife, when, two months ago, she had gone to visit her mother. It told of the weather, it told of the theaters, it told of the state of her health. Quite a contrast, it seemed to him, her letter to " Mrs. Hope s Husband " and that flirta tious note to John Irons but the thought he shook off. After all, since he was John Irons, why not rejoice with John? This was the only way he knew to win her, and win her 42 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND he must! On with the masquerade! Jump ing again into his new mental costume, he sat down to write his reply. " So you wonder who I am ? You will never, never suspect me." He stopped and gazed at his typewriter. Then the keys snapped savagely. " I am far too unimpor tant, and I am too proud to confess my name. I am not in your set, nor even in the brilliant circle of your acquaintance. We have met, it is true; but I have every reason to believe that you have forgotten me. But, my dear Mrs. Hope, though I have only just summoned courage to write to you, I have long, long ad mired you. And yet, bright a star as I see you, don t think me dazzled or afraid. I know your faults as well as your virtues. You have no greater friend, or severer critic and remember that I am watching you all the time, in the dark!" He continued in as spirited and daring a vein as he thought he might without fright ening her away. Experience had taught him that when a woman is to be won she must be won quickly, while the game is new and ex citing. 43 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND That night they had pork chops for dinner. Pauline asked if the coal had been ordered and the milk bill paid. She spent most of the evening in deciding which photograph, from a set of proofs, would be most effective in ad vertising a holiday edition of her novel. Her next letter, because of two sly little words, amused him. " Are n t you forcing this a little?" came her mild protest. " As a reader of character I admit you are rather good, though I fear superficial. I have an idea, however, that I might perhaps do as well myself; but I haven t enough data, as yet, in your vocabulary to be able to deduce your character, and decide whether or not I care to continue the correspondence." " As yet." Business forgotten, the tele phone unanswered, in his office he thought fully rubbed his chin and smiled at those two words ; then frowned. " I have n t enough data, as yet!" Why, couched though it was, woman- fashion, in the guise of a rebuke, was n t it virtually an invitation to continue ? Yes, she was distinctly encouraging. The battle was on. And, daily, as it raged, for they now wrote 44 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND daily, there was at home, apparently, never anything more between them than a dinner table or the upstairs hall! Friends, partners, mates, roast beef and the " Evening Tribune " plus invisible, clandestine romance! With every surreptitious glance he stole at her as she read, or wrote, or sang, he wondered what name to give to the domestic drama Com edy or Tragedy ? Never before, possibly, had his office type writing machine transcribed such jaunty mes sages as during these weeks when, evening after evening, he lighted the electric lamp and sat down alone to write to Pauline. Those stiff old wires and springs, habituated to " Yours of the i8th at hand," and " the party of the first part," must have felt an unaccus tomed thrill as they jumped and rattled to the elastic words : " // / could be near you, and see you and hear you, I d probably fear you too much to confess what now I m Implying, (at least I am trying), and also relying on you, too, to guess!" So shrewdly, he eschewed the sentimental note. At lovers fond perjuries they say Jove laughs; but Minerva, yes, and all Olympus, 45 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND will abet a courtship where grace and humor woo. Hard work enough it was, too, with his wife drifting, drifting away, to force himself to the blithe pristine note of his early sweet- hearting; but he succeeded. He was sure of that when she responded a little more promptly than before, and quite in his own vein. How long, oh, how long it had been since his wife had written verses to him ! So nibble, nibble, nibble and his fish was almost on the hook. His romantic bait had been just the thing for her fancy. At home, Pauline had casually mentioned the John Irons letters occasionally as they came, with a touch of amusement. "Want to see it, Lester?" she would say, carelessly, as she skirmished through the maga zines for a February number, containing her picture. He displayed only the lukewarm interest of c* sleepy spouse. " Oh, I guess not now, thanks , I d like to finish this story I m reading." Show him her letters, would she? It was a harmless Platonic game, then a family 46 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND affair! He had no idea of carrying on a mere practical joke; his object was serious; to re- win her love, no less. So now if he were to land her, so to speak, it was time for a quick jerk to the line. He decided to try to write her so warm, so private a letter that, though she would accept it from an unknown admirer, she would not quite care or even dare to show it to her husband. For this, a new touch of romance. And if there are still those who think a typewritten letter cannot breathe romance, they should have watched Pauline Hope (as, through her half-opened door, Lester himself, one morn ing, shamelessly watched her), studying his ardent lines. " Always I shall think of you as once I saw you, in golden silk and pearls," he had writ ten. " You were surrounded by admirers, and I could not, would not, force myself on your notice; though I watched you all the evening! But to-day I saw you almost more radiant on the street with your husband. Yes, and I was, for a moment, very near you I might have touched your hand ! And I 49 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND knew, then, that I loved you! You wore no flowers, I am sure, and yet when you passed, I swear I breathed violets ! " Ah, love unadorned is common enough but robed in mystery mystery and mischief ! Little wonder the situation caught her novel ist s fancy. Yet, pause a moment, and ob serve the piquant picture ; for, tapping away at the prosaic keys of his typewriter, it never occurred to Lester Hope to wonder which, after all, was the more romantic figure his picturesque John Irons of fiction, following her dramatically in secret, or Mrs. Hope s Husband of fact, in blue worsted, in shirt sleeves and green eye-shade, alone in his office after his clerks had gone, only the one desk lamp lighted, trying mercilessly to divide him self in twain and pit one against the other in the fight for Pauline. It was the pile of unopened letters that lay on her flowery- fragrant breakfast table next morning that gave him his real result ; amongst them he spied no square yellow envelope. Yet a square yellow envelope certainly had been on the tray when the mail was brought up to her 50 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND he had assured himself of that when the maid passed him on the stairs. Pauline rose, and Pauline dressed. Down the curly staircase, clad all in white, she came a-singing. A joyous kiss she threw at Willyer s portrait of herself in the library. She scolded the dog, petted the cat, ordered veal cutlets for luncheon, talking gaily all the time. The creaming and sugaring of her oatmeal, however, seemed to require more concentra tion. In silence, she took a few dainty spoon fuls. Then, thoughtfully: "Lester, d you recall when I wore that yellow silk even ing gown of mine last? At the Woodlings , was n t it ? You were there, that night, at that first reception she gave for me, were n t you?" "Why, yes" he said; "what about it?" " Oh, nothing." She looked up, caught his eye, suddenly looked down again. " I was just wondering if if I d dare to wear it there again, that s all." A pause. " Say, Lester; d you remember who was there, that night? Now, don t be sarcastic I mean, MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND was there any one there well, that we knew, but had n t seen for a long time, for instance ? Nobody of any importance of course. Al most a stranger, you might say ? " He appeared not to notice any hidden mo tive in her query, and with the stupidity of a doting, unsuspicious husband, he answered only, "No. Why?" "Oh, I was only trying to think of of whom to invite to . . ." Pauline dwindled off, and for a time there was no sound but the delicate click of her spoon against the plate, and the rustling of his newspaper. " Say, Les ; you know when we were walk ing downtown yesterday morning ? You don t recall seeing any one particular, do you? any one you knew ? " " Nobody but the postman." " That s funny/ Pauline murmured. Yes, it was rather funny, he thought; but he did n t say so. Over the top of his newspaper he watched guardedly as she tasted her porridge, waiting for her to mention John Irons. Never a word more did Pauline say. But, when it came to it, why should she? 52 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Happy as their married life had been, it was not established upon the theory of a private ownership of one by the other. They were both tacitly free to give or withhold their con fidence. But one significant thing he did no tice that Pauline s farewell kiss was just a bit more clinging than usual. Was n t her conscience troubling her a little ? he wondered. And by just that extra amount of fervor in the demonstration, he suspected, Lester Hope had fallen, and John Irons had risen, in the scales of her affection. 53 IV IN the weeks that followed, Lester s tete-a tetes with his wife grew ever rarer. To find a bevy of celebrities gossiping over Pau line s teacups when he came home was quite what he had to expect, nowadays ; or else, per haps, it would be old Peever ensconced with her in the library. Manuscripts and maga zines, royalties, reviews how sick Lester had grown of them ! But when, by happy ac cident, he and Pauline did have dinner alone together, without literary ladies-with-three- names or blatant he-talkers, Lester was often tempted to hazard the careless question : " Oh, by the way, Pauline, ever heard any thing more from that Irons chap ? " But, as he leaned back in his chair, scrutin izing her thoughtfully, he would always won der: What if Pauline should deny it? No, he feared to put her to the test. He, the hus band, was still jealous of himself, the lover. Still, she was friendly enough, too. She 54 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND was always considerate; outwardly, at least, she was affectionate. But somehow his wife well, she seemed to be growing every day more like the fine portrait Willyer had painted of her that handsome, that inscrutable, aris tocrat in black velvet. And often, as he looked up at her, she seemed to smile ambigu ously down at him from the library wall as if saying, " Well, I too have my secret." Her soul was fading from his ken. The Lady of the Letters, on the other hand, was becoming ever more sharply defined. Nothing gives a woman a new lease of life like the discovery of an unsuspected Romeo, and the avowal of John Irons s love had lifted her spirits like wine. She was no longer merely Pauline; she was quite a new person, with all the charm of newness. But did n t she have also, thrilling him often, a charm that was old, familiar long lost? Why, at times, in the exuberance of her letters she was almost Pau- line-of-the-Violets ! Weaving in and out through the dreary technicalities of his business affairs, day after day, her friendly nonsense would dance through his head : 55 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " At a mystery you really are an artist, And your charming incognito is a game That you handle with the grace of a Delsartist; But I think you re quite too speedy, all the same ! " So the kiss that you beseech of me to post you I refuse; for you must surely understand That a lady does n t give a kiss, you ghost, you, Till the gentleman at least has held her hand ! " Oh, it was easy enough, now, to sit down and begin, " My dear Pauline " ; easy enough to jest with her on paper, easy enough to pique her curiosity and keep the romance at the bub bling point. " Yesterday, I saw you and fol lowed you for blocks. At first, I could have killed every man who turned to look at you; afterwards I could have killed every man who did not. I wonder if you are as proud as you ought to be of that free graceful gait of yours?" Easy enough it was, in the neutral environment of his downtown office, alone, quiet, to forget for the nonce that he was " Mrs. Hope s Husband." . . . What was hard was when he was at home with her; when he was watching her intently watching Pauline the wife, that is and 56 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND trying to discover in her Pauline the sweet heart. " Why, Lester, what is the matter with you?" she would exclaim, sometimes, glanc ing up from her book. " You ve been look ing at me so queerly ! What are you thinking of? I should think I were a total stranger! " And Pauline would laugh in A-sharp and Les ter in D-flat, which, in domestic music, whether classic or modern, is a discord. Harder still it was when Helen Ramsay called, and was coquettish. " Are n t you looking rather fagged, Les- .ter? You re not leading a double life, are you? " A wink at Pauline. " You can t tell much about Lester, you know; he was rather romantic, I found, when he was at college." Hardest of all on his pride were the times when his wife, smoothly reluctant, explained that Peever was going to bring that English author to-night, you know, and she supposed they d just talk books and books and, "Of course I d love to have you, Les, but still, if you think you ll be bored " She might as well have given him a stick of candy, and told him to go off and play by himself ! 57 X MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND And, meanwhile " How do you dare, you devil ! " she was writing to John Irons. " You know that I am married. Well, how do I dare? I don t know whether you are, or not; but,, (is n t it awful!) I don t much care as yet. I have to confess that you, my charming serpent, have quite fascinated poor timid bird Me. There s something about you, plague take you, that makes me quite willing to trust you recklessly. I am even willing to run the risk of your thinking me (I m not) bold or credulous. Oh, J. L, I have simply searched my soul for phrases to explain why, somehow, I don t and simply can t feel guilty. I am re duced, actually, to the coy school-girl confes sion, I feel as if I had known you always ! " And then to come home, hungry for one look of that affectionate abandon in her eyes to find her, so beautiful, so cool oh, God, so suave with her drawing-room full of Polish artists, varnished mondaines, hungry- looking poets, and be affably patronized as "Mrs. Hope s Husband!" And so, Lester Hope having thus been in troduced to the torture chamber, let him be 58 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND delicately tormented further to determine if he be domitable; or, if not, what lyric may be wrung from his distress. Lying on the big leather couch in the library alone one night (and that is where Willyer should have painted him, a long, graceful fig ure, with a darkly picturesque head how he would have made those Irish-blue eyes twinkle under the black lashes!) Lester Hope was wondering wondering if, after all, he could ever bear it to win Pauline anew in this strange, unsatisfactory fashion. Was n t it even dishonorable; a sneaky trick on her, of which he should be ashamed ? What would it prove, anyway, to make her fall in love with an unknown ? Suddenly there came a sickening thought. What if it weren t an unknown? What if she did know, or thought she did, who John Irons was? Scraps of a month-old conversa tion had come back to him. " Lester, you remember Paul Smithers, don t you ? " P auline s question had been off-hand, as she was adjusting her hat before the mirror. 59 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Oh, yes, Lester knew; Smithers was that poet-person he of the black beribboned eye glasses and the little black chopped mus tache. " Tell me," she had asked, carelessly this was after J. I. s first really daring missive " do you think he is really clever, Lester? " Lester, quite profanely, did not. But, now he thought of it, had n t he come home from the office early several times, lately, to find Smithers s silly black ribbons dangling over the teacups, and Pauline gazing a bit in terestedly into those owlish, tortoise-shell eye glasses? When was it she had asked about him ? Was n t it yes, it must have been just after the day J. I. had written that letter about seeing her. By Jove, the poet had been " quite near enough to touch her hand ! " Lester groaned. What a fool he had been to mention that in his letter ! Why, had n t he kept his John Irons invisible, detached, an in soluble mystery, instead of setting Pauline s romantic imagination to work trying to iden tify him amongst her acquaintances! Good God! Could it be that, writing his aching heart into those letters, he had been merely 60 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND playing into that pale poet s languid, effemin ate hands? Whereat, the preliminary pleasantries with the thumbscrews having been finished, his tor turing fate now smilingly took up the red-hot pincers. That week Smithers came to dinner. Smithers was elegant at dinner, with a pat ronizing, Harvard drawl, with all the airs of a genius, and a cigarette-holder seven inches long. A separate affront was in every gog gled glance he gave Pauline, and every smile she sent him in return made Lester a little faint. Continually he kept saying to himself: " Well, at least Smithers can know absolutely nothing of the letters "; but it was small satis faction, for, if Pauline really believed Smith ers to be John Irons, her unconscious thought would instinctively encourage him. And Les ter Hope, knowing him well, had seen at a first glance that small-eyed Smithers was scarcely- one to be trusted with a complaisant woman. And, so suffering, as he told his legal anec dotes, gallantly rallying Helen Ramsay as a beauty and blarneying enthusiastic, spluttery 61 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Mrs. Woodling as he might a girl, laughing even at old Peever s monumental attempts at the jocose, Lester Hope never once lost sight of Smithers talkative Smithers in his poet ical black silk stock and soft, many-plaited, white silk shirt. Was n t he a very cat-like, a very stealthy black-and-white creature whom it might be un pleasant to arouse? thought Lester, watching him, disgusted. Think of his wife playing with such an animal it was horrible ! Now, Pauline had other admirers in her newly discovered intellectual world. They called, they dined, they danced. They sent their little books with the fly-leaves elabo rately inscribed, they presented her with little bas-reliefs and statuettes, with little colored daubs signed prominently "A mon amie." Smithers was but a sample of many who were beginning to flutter about her bright person ality. But Smithers, as the most persistent and obnoxious of them all, Smithers the soft, Smithers the sticky, had become Lester s ob session. How could Pauline possibly endure him, he wondered bitterly. " I must get rid of Smithers!" 62 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND But, as things turned out, it was not Lester who got rid of him, after all; it was Pauline. Or, rather, Smithers rid them both of himself by a characteristic form of social suicide. " I don t think I shall see much more of Smithers," said Pauline, one night, after com ing home alone and cool-eyed from a reception to which the poet had escorted her. Smith ers, it appeared from her subsequent reluctant confession, was not a gentleman and had not apparently considered her a lady. Smithers, in short had, in the cab " Well, don t worry, Lester; you know you can always trust me to take care of myself and any possible im pertinence." White-hot with indignation though he was (and not without unpleasant suspicions that perhaps Pauline had quite unconsciously en couraged the beast), the elimination of Smith ers certainly brought Lester a relief. Pauline now knew, of course, that Smithers was not the author of the John Irons letters; his vul garity was incompatible with the romance as it had been played. Lester had a quick bound of spirits. With that recrudescence of his first fresh 63 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND impulse he saw plainly now that it was not enough to get rid of Smithers; he must, so to speak, get rid of himself. Compunction for the husband was retarding the lover. No more regrets, then; no more reproaches; Les ter Hope must be tossed bodily overboard to save John Irons. The poor husband did not quite drown, however, until one day Lester came home to find, as he had often found of late, a vase of roses on the library table. At sight of the flowers he, as John Irons, had sent, he had, heretofore, always had an uneasy feeling of having robbed Peter to pay Paul. Not so to day. Always before he had gingerly avoided the subject, trying to let Pauline off from any definite explanation. But to-day he looked her in the face and asked outright : " Say, where the devil did this carnival of roses come from anyway ? " Instead of the hoodwinked husband s cus tomary twinge of pain at her feminine evasion, he smiled indulgently at her embarrassed, " Oh, I got them this morning; are n t they pretty! " He felt only the lover s joy at getting ahead of a rival. Was n t that card with the " J. I." al- 64 Where did this carnival of roses come from? MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND ways missing? Pauline was already feeling guilty. What could be more encouraging? But his respite was short; only just long enough to restore the victim sufficiently for him to feel the full force of his next keen agony. Fate had by no means exhausted the torturing possibilities of the situation; and fate, in grim earnest, now, laid him upon the rack for the peine forte ct dure. For, if you mingle contempt with jealousy, the pain is fairly easy to endure. One s na tive feeling of superiority soon heals the smart. Another week of Smithers and who knows how Lester s scorn of Pauline s taste might have affected his love for her? But, poison the wound with admiration, and jealousy has a deeper, deadlier sting. No man is so fiercely jealous as he who suspects his best friend. It was while he was shaving, one morning, shaving quite happily, listening to Pauline s voice gaily trilling in her room, that the thought struck him. Suddenly he put down his razor and watched a small spot of red on his chin grow larger and larger. 67 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND No, he had not wounded himself, he knew. That blood was really drawn by Norman Will- yer. . . . Merry as a canary, Pauline sang on. . . . Lester cleaned his razor and rubbed an alum stick on his cut ; but still it bled and bled. . . . And, like a spiritual wound, his sudden jealousy bled and bled. . . . Had n t Pauline been a good deal with Will- yer of late? And those long sittings in his studio when she had posed for her portrait what had happened? Little pictures of the two came back to his mind. Was n t she al ways watching him, studying him ? Was n t she always saying how clever he was, and how sensitive ? Was n t she, in short, suspecting Willyer of being John Irons? Probably every man, if he would but con fess it, admires some particular type and rec ognizes it, when it appears, as the sort of per son he would secretly like to be. For Lester Hope, Willyer personified that ideal. The best testimony to the strength and elegance of the big blond artist with the pointed beard was that even women s opinion that he was " charming " could n t damn him in the eyes of men; no such praise can hurt a man who is 68 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND as good on a hunting trip as in a studio. But what Lester most admired about him was that Willyer, unlike most of the pseudo-celebrities exploited by Mrs. Woodling & Co., knew the difference between conversation and mere talk. He always looked forward to seeing Will yer ; they had tastes, and what was still more satisfactory distastes in common ; they often had very agreeable masculine conversa tions in mere monosyllables. In short, there was never that infernal sheet of plate glass between them that Lester usually found seem ing to shut him off from other men. Now, in a single moment the thought of Willyer had become sickeningly painful. If Pauline did think Willyer was J. I., there was trouble ahead. But how the devil was Lester to find out? Uncomfortable, perplexed, he entered her room. Pauline, without turning, smiled at him in her mirror. " Say, Pauline," he seated himself on her bed. " How many sittings did you have with Willyer d you remember? " As the soft lead pencil administered an ex tra quarter of an inch to her already perfect 69 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND eyebrows, Pauline did n t really recall half a dozen, perhaps why? Oh, it was nothing. Somebody had asked him, that was all. Lester sat watching her, suffering her prettiness hungry to claim it, enjoy it. " Ripping studio, Willyer has, isn t it!" (How he loathed that studio now!) " Must be a rich place to talk in." (What had she talked in it?) "Magnificent rugs. Like to get him to pick some out for us. Seems to know a lot about such things." (What other things did Willyer know?) Oh, yes, Mr. Willyer was very clever. She liked Willyer. So clean, and so graceful expressive gestures, too, had n t he ? And Pauline, rising, turned a frank gaze at her hus band. She had turned, however, just as frank a gaze at him yesterday, he recalled, after she had received such a letter from John Irons as most wives would hesitate to show to their husbands. "If love is a unified trinity of emotions spiritual, mental, and physical don t for a minute imagine that I am all Holy 70 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Ghost ! I don t believe that any woman wants to think that she has n t sexual attraction well, then, why not say frankly that you have ? You re no more an angel than I am a phan tom, and if I were blind and deaf and dumb I could have no greater desire to see you and hear you and touch you ! " The sentiment did not in the least seem to offend her. " If I could only hear your voice, it would tell me all I want to know," she wrote. " Would it rend your delightful veil of mys tery if you should, say, talk to me on the tele phone? It is surely an instrument of Ro mance. But yet, you have such a graphic, colorful way of revealing yourself that I scarcely think I should be surprised if I did hear you speak." Lester smiled cynically. How often had he heard it said that, when a man s wife has an affair with another man, her husband is usu ally the last one to hear of it. At least they could never say that of him! And yet, what did he know? Whatever was in Pauline s mind was, after all, as deeply hidden from him as any other guilty wife s secret. 71 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Could her letter mean that his own ardent words went perfectly, in her mind, with Will- yer s pleasing personality? As he watched her with Willyer, next day, she was, for all Lester could detect, not par ticularly happy or excited with his friend ; and Willyer, damn him, appeared perfectly natural, frank, candid, altogether admirable, as usual. Yet the thought that Pauline might be think ing of Willyer as that impassioned J. I., who was bombarding her with provocative mis sives, kept Lester in a delirium of jealousy. How the devil could any woman, he wondered, resist Norman Willyer who seemed to care nothing for any of them? On his way downtown one morning, uncon sciously he found himself turning in at his club. Usually there was nobody about at this hour, and so by one of the big windows on the avenue he selected an easy chair and lighted a cigar to think things over. " Oh, I say, Hope, may I speak to you a moment ? " A black eye-glass ribbon dangled before him, and Lester looked up at a little black, chopped mustache. 72 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Before he could rise, however, a chair was being pulled up with, " Say, I d like to apolo gize to you, Hope or rather, I d like to ex plain." Again Lester tried to escape but he could n t. A horrid curiosity held him. He watched the poet as one watches a barnyard pest, and glared. " You remember," said Smithers, quite jauntily, playing with his bamboo stick, " that night I took a certain lady to the Woodlings ? Well, really I m afraid I must have quite par donably misinterpreted something she said. That is to say " he waved an effeminate hand " she said something, or at least I un derstood her to say something, about my writ ing to her, you know. There was something of that sort, anyway. No, just wait a min ute, please! I took it, naturally, that she wanted me to write to her awfully queer and all that, of course, but how the devil could I help it? She was really, you know, if I do say it, well, what you might call encour aging you know what I mean ? Oh, hold on; it was just simply a misunderstanding. I suppose I was a little hasty in my presump- 73 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND tions, but, Lord, I don t see why she should have taken fire the way she did, much less gone home alone what s the matter ? " Lester Hope s tense fingers knew, at that moment, exactly how Smithers s white throat would feel if his own two thumbs should meet on that poet s windpipe. It was hard work controlling himself enough to say, " D you mind leaving me alone ? Or do I have to vio late the house rules ? " Smithers did not move. "Good morning!" Lester repeated, rising. The moment grew dangerous. " By Jove ! " drawled Smithers. He was not looking at Lester, now ; he was gazing out the broad front window. He pointed with his little bamboo stick. " I see why you took this seat," he grinned. " Behold the beaute ous lady in question ! I Ve seen her several times lately like that. Of course you know Willyer s studio is right over Oh, good morning, Hope; yes, I m going! " And with an ironic laugh he was off before Lester could well, what, in "a gentlemen s club" could he have done ? Pauline s ermines, now, were crossing the 74 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND street beside a tall gray overcoat. Now they were at the entrance to Willyer s studio build ing. Now they had disappeared. Well, thought Lester, why not? It was all right enough, of course. Many people went to Willyer s studio. But somehow his own reason had deserted him, and he was the prey of raging doubts. " Have you seen Willyer lately? " he asked Pauline, next morning. It was all he could do to voice the question. Pauline s face brightened. " Oh, Les, I forgot to tell you. Why, yes, I had luncheon with him at his studio, yesterday. Helen Ramsay was there. She s so silly, lately. She always seems to own that studio." Did n t she run on a bit hysterically ? he thought; wasn t there too much of Helen Ramsay, too much explanation of that partic ular studio party? It sounded suspicious. Lester s mood grew darker. That evening Willyer dropped in, as he often did, nowadays, for a game of chess. Of course it happened to be one of the few nights that Pauline remained at home. Was it really fortuitous? Lester wondered, as he watched 77 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND her. There was no doubt at any rate she was posing for Willyer, at least to the extent of making a charming figure of herself, under the lamp, reading her book. Ordinarily, Lester played a scientific, im personal game, that kept him cool and unruf fled. But to-night his heart beat passionately in the crises of the game, and he found himself desperately fighting a personal antagonist. Willyer s leisurely, artistic hands over the board maddened him. And any one who has ever been beaten at a game of skill by one who has also beaten him at the game of love will know how Lester Hope felt when his antag onist pronounced " Checkmate ! " Willyer rose, yawned, and stood, tall and graceful, by the mantel. Why the devil doesn t he go home, damn him? Lester said to himself, as he saw Pauline s eyes watching him admiringly. Willyer, however, seemed disinclined to move. For some minutes, his hands in the pockets of his speckled gray homespun suit, he regarded his friend quizzically. Next, he slowly examined his cuff-links with absorbed interest. Then his long fingers pulled 78 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND thoughtfully, lazily, at his blond Vandyke beard. Finally he broke the long silence by remarking : " I say, I Ve got some news for you people. I do hope you 11 like it. The fact is, I m about to take the fatal plunge." Lester stared. Pauline stared. Not a word, till Willyer, chuckling at their surprise, added : " That s right. I m engaged. It s Helen Ramsay. She said I might tell just you two." Tick tick tick tick went the clock ; then, " Well, what s the matter? " The voice of Willyer took on a sharper, harsher tone. " Can t you congratulate me ? Lord, I should say you did n t approve ! " Up jumped Lester and clapped him riotously on the shoulder. " Congratulate you ! Yes, by Jove, of course I do ! " Grabbing Will- yer s hand, Lester shook off the suspicions and jealousies of a month of suffering. "Fine! Fine! Fine! Why, I m delighted!" He shook that hand till Willyer s eyes grew large. " Why, it s the best news I ve heard for a year ! is n t it, Pauline ? " Pauline s voice came calmly enough, but her 79 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND smile was queer. " Why, yes, of course ! I m really awfully, awfully pleased, Mr. Will- yer ! Helen s such a dear I m so fond of her. Indeed, you re both of you in luck!" Fairly bubbling over, now, Lester herded him into the dining-room for an immediate drink, Willyer, apparently, a bit puzzled by his tardy enthusiasm. As they left, Pauline was sitting inert. Pauline was gazing up at her portrait with that same queer smile. Many things he had repressed (things he couldn t bring himself to write for fear that Willyer might get the credit for them), now appeared in John Irons s letters. Was she happy? Lester learned to his sur prise that she was not; even her " best of hus bands," apparently, could not make her so. Did she love that superlative husband ? She ignored the question. What did she do with herself ? Unsuspected little adventures she never had told her hus band came out. It developed, for instance she made a joke of it that Peever, dry old 80 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Peever, had tried to make silly love to her yes, and in Lester Hope s own library ! " I think you were rather rude to Mr. Pee ver, last night," said Pauline, one day soon after that. What could poor Lester say? As John Irons, he had already said all that was necessary. But Peever never saw Pauline alone again in Lester s house. Queer, however, that it was old Peever who speeded John Irons up. Lester, seconding John Irons fighting toward a finish, suddenly found his principal a bit slow. Why, if even Peever could put in a few strokes behind his back, John would have to make himself more forcibly felt. From that day J. I. became ubiquitous. Messengers boys, as Pauline stepped into her cab in front of the house, handed her notes, or flowers while Lester gazed gloomily upon the act from behind a bedroom window curtain. That she might not forget John Irons even for a day, he had her followed; taxicabs drew up to the curb when she emerged from teas, or waited for hours at her club, ready to take her orders. How did J. I. know 81 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND her habits so well ? she asked, as bewildered as she was flattered. J. I. refused to state. But he succeeded in raising his mystery to a sec ond degree. Books came, confectionery carne, flowers came. He tried jewelry but Pau line sent the parcels back. It was she herself who, perhaps uncon sciously, raised the mystery still higher. Women live mainly in the present, men in the future. It is not man s eager desire for the denouement that gives women pleasure in an affair of the heart; it is the playing with pos sibilities, the exquisite unfolding of romance. And so, never once did Pauline ask to meet John Irons; and Lester had, besides his own personal energy, the accomplice of her creative imagination. How busy that imagination was, and how dangerous it might be, he found out, soon after Willyer was removed from the field of suspicion. He had a melancholy streak, one day; it was after Pauline had been dining out for a week, and he had, consequently, not seen her even at breakfast. " You were not so far wrong," he wrote, 82 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " when you once likened me to a prisoner in a dungeon. For all hopes I have of gaining you, I am immured in a cell of loneliness. What would I do without your letter every day ? By that one window through which you shine I get all I know of happiness. For your ray of light I watch daily, and for that one hour I am joyful. When that gracile vision fades, you will never know my recidivation into the gloom of waiting!" Reading it over, he smiled. " Recidiva tion " and " gracile " were hardly in his nor mal vocabulary, and it occurred to him that he had done an amusing bit of unconscious cerebration with those words. Where had he heard them lately? Oh, yes. In Spenser Thasp s weekly theatrical article. Queer, too, because Thasp was Lester s bete noir, or, more strictly, his bete rouge. It was n t however so much Thasp s brisk red hair and orange mustache that Lester ab horred; it was the fact that Thasp was per haps the most saturating talker ever tolerated in an intellectual drawing-room; and, like most of his species, talked mainly about him self and his own work. 83 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND As luck ordained, Thasp appeared next day, at one of the few dinners of Pauline s which Lester desperate to see her, watch her, adore her had decided to grace as host. Thasp, he suspected, was tolerated mainly on account of his influence with the newspapers. Pauline never lost a chance though always a delicate, unobvious, ladylike chance to advertise herself. Thasp, therefore, was al lowed to perform, and assiduously he did per form, upon his one-stringed harp. Peever yawned, Helen and Willyer held communion with their eyes; Mrs. Woodling listened, be lieving, apparently, everything he said. Pau line s attention was a fine bit of acting until he had talked from soup to ice, laughing heart ily at his own wit, as such bores ever do " In point of fact, the American stage is in a lamentable state of recidivation. Where are there such gracile stars as Modjeska, as Mary Anderson and Lotta " and so on, and on, and on interminably. " What the devil is recidivation ? " mut tered Willyer in Lester s ear. His question was unanswered. Lester, watching Pauline, had seen her stop, spoon in 84 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND air, staring at Thasp. There was an expres sion on her face, part incredulity, part horror. It was controlled in a moment, but until the ladies left the room, she cast keen glances from time to time at the critic. Apparently she was fascinated by him. Lester looked on, helpless. She had, of course, been struck by those two words, both rather unusual, and had recalled their occur rence in the last letter from John Irons. Thasp, scourge though he was, was indubitably clever, not at all one to be disregarded offhand as a possible John Irons. All that sustained Lester, in the contretemps his own fault was that expression of dislike on Pauline s face. No wonder she shuddered if she were thinking of what she herself had written possibly to Spenser Thasp ! It was not Lester himself, this time, who had to be saved; it was Pauline. The proof of it was that, for a week, she did not answer John Irons s letters. Undoubtedly she was afraid of committing herself with the critic and was waiting for further evidence. What, then, could be done to destroy him ? A night of deliberation brought Lester, one 85 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND morning, to Pauline s room with the informa tion that he was called to Washington on busi ness. With this alibi established, that evening he kissed her good-by. He could hardly have gone to Washington, however, for, two days later, Pauline received a letter from John Irons stating that, for a week, his address would be " General Delivery, Boston." It was a merry answer John Irons received in Boston : " I met Spenser Thasp at dinner at the Woodlings to-night," she wrote, " and if you will promise to forgive me, I will con fess a shameful thing. For three days I al most believed that you were Thasp. Don t be insulted; really, the evidence was damning. I was so relieved when I got your letter. It was such a satisfaction to know that not be ing a bird/ you could not be in two places at once." Exultant at this success, Lester returned home to find that he had not only settled Thasp, but, by his little trip, had settled al most any possible suspect, as well. Pauline now had her touchstone for them. "Have you been in Boston recently?" he heard her ask, one afternoon, at tea time, a 86 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND rather too-dashing young architect, who had worshiped at her shrine for some weeks past. No; he had not, it appeared, eaten brown bread and baked beans for years. Lester noted, with considerable glee, that afterwards, when that suitor called, Pauline spent far less time on the lamentable lack of prestige given to architects as compared with all other artists. Whether they " signed " their buildings or not, she no longer seemed to care. So Pauline applied her test, and was able to discover, if not who John Irons was, at least who he was not. More than once Lester was to catch that magic word " Boston " and see her countenance clear at the puzzled answer: " Why, no ! What made you think I d been there ? " Another candidate eliminated. And, each time he noted her suspicions, John Irons quickened his game. Even if it were but a line or two, he managed to have her receive a letter by almost every delivery. Six hours did not pass without her being reminded of him in some exciting way. Finally, when every expedient he could think of had been tried, one day Lester found his hand reaching for the telephone. MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND He called her number; he heard her say, "Hello!" He tried his best to think of himself as some short, stout person with yellow whiskers ; hop ing in that way to disguise his voice. He suc ceeded somehow in enunciating in a very fat tone, the name " John Irons." He heard her gasp. There was a long silence. Then, " Is it really you? " she asked. No answer. "Really?" " Yes." Another pause. " Well, why don t you say something?" No answer. "Can t you?" " No." "Oh, why not?" A long wait. "Don t you dare?" " No." " Oh, I see. Then, I suppose, I shall have to do the talking." " Yes." " Like a game of Forty Questions? " " Yes." She laughed. " Well, am I ever to know who you are? " How curiously his heart was beating! He was talking to his own wife, or, rather, he was 88 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND listening to her, as he had listened every day for years. Why should he tremble ? " Have you seen me lately? " " Yes." "Where? Oh, I forgot; you can t an- ,swer. Well, you know this is hardly fair, making me do all the work talking. You know I m dying to hear your voice. Can t you say anything besides yes and no ? " "No." " Are you still in love with me ? " " Yes." But he could hardly get it out. And then, impulsively, he snapped the re ceiver back on the hook. For some reason he could n t quite bear to go on. \ V T N Lester Hope s private office there was a well-worn track in the green carpet from the door to the window. Traveling that road, to and fro, working out difficult legal cases, he had walked many a mile. So now he walked, but not as a lawyer; this case was not one for the intellect, it was for the heart. Well, what, after six months perfervid cor respondence with Pauline, had he accom plished? Had his passionate attempt served only to amuse her ? Was it merely a flirtation by post ? He could n t quite believe it. At any rate, the affair should now be at the boil ing point; if he had n t yet won her, he never would. Wherefore, at whatever the risk, the time had come, he decided, to put his courtship to the test and find out definitely whether he were still only Mrs. Hope s Husband or had in deed become Mrs. Hope s Lover. He was sick of the suspense, sick of the 90 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND artificiality, sick of the deception. To reveal himself, to confess the whole thing to her, laugh over it and then to be together again where they were before they had gone astray how he longed for it! If Lester Hope, thrown overboard, had really drowned, his ghost now haunted John Irons. The impos sible, romantic situation had tired him; he wanted reality he wanted his own wife back. But, to get her he must win this last move! So, many a time, up and down he paced ; many a letter he wrote before he wrote the one that, at last, he sent her. It was short : " My dear: " Don t be afraid that I have lost my sense of humor; but to-day I must be serious. At any rate, the question I want to ask is quite in earnest. My dear, not knowing me in the flesh perhaps you may have really got to think ing of me as a kind of disembodied spirit. But I assure you I am not. I am a live man. My love for you is real and human. It is so great that any attempt to try to express it would be futile. I can only trust that my sin cerity has convinced you, that you have felt the MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND truth, and that you care, as I care. So far, I have been able to wait and hope ; but I can t, any more. My dear, I must know now whether you can love me, do love me in the way I love you. We must meet; but, before you ever see me you must answer me. Will you answer me? " Next morning, Lester went downstairs early. Pauline rose, and Pauline dressed. Down the curly staircase, clad all in white, she came a- singing. Thus, capriciously, once or twice a month, this lady chose to grace her husband s breakfast. But to-day, when she appeared in the dining- room, her whimsical mood perturbed him. He found himself watching her as one watches a child with firearms. Why did she take this particular morning to honor him, he wondered. Why, as she airily sat down opposite him, had she to be so gay, to rally him on his own taciturnity ? For, try as he might to respond in the same vein, that letter of his, awaiting her, hidden in the pile beside her plate, ob sessed him; it fascinated him like a lighted bomb. 92 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Laughing and chattering, she picked up her mail and looked it over. " Oh, dear, three more wedding presents to be bought this month ! " she remarked, sigh ing; "really it wouldn t be a bad idea, for Helen Ramsay s, to give her one of my old manuscripts. She has n t sold a story for ages, poor thing! After inviting every editor in New York to her literary dinners, too ! " And then, while jocosely wondering what letters he was receiving at his office, meanwhile, and how did she know he was n t perhaps corre sponding with some dangerous blonde her persiflage suddenly stopped. In her hand was a yellow envelope. She gave him a look. For a moment she seemed uncertain whether or not to open it ; but, as his oatmeal seemed to interest him extraordinarily just then, she nonchalantly drew out the let ter. Lester, reaching for the cream, saw her face change quickly while she read. Then, as she laid the sheet aside, he admired her control; it was far better than his own. She had assumed woman s favorite disguise, a smile. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence; 93 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND quite the lady of the portrait was Pauline Hope. "Good-by, Pauline!" "Good-by, Lester!" As he left, he felt as he had often felt when, after doing all he could, he had seen a jury file out to consider the verdict. He closed the door. It was Pauline s turn again. Corporations and corporation counsel, re ceiverships, appeals, exceptions, demurrers, rebuttals, and writs of error confused him next day. His work was far behind ; that day it fell behind still more. Lester Hope, attorney-at- law, sitting at a desk covered with papers, papers, papers and a pale blue letter har assed by questions and telephone calls and call ers, read and reread legal documents endlessly without comprehension. To wit: " It is understood and agreed between the two parties to this contract that / cannot do what you wish / cannot!" What did that mean? " And it is furthermore agreed that if at any time you have no right to ask me; I know too little of you!" Ah, little enough did he know, too! With a great effort he 94 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND would try to separate the two documents, law from love, and keep " their heirs, assigns, and administrators " from " I cannot answer. You must not write to me again" but such strange terms as " hereunto set our hands and seals " would persist in getting mixed up with still stranger sentences : " If you do persist in writing, I shall be forced to place your letters in the hands of my husband! " All he could get through his head was that, dreadfully, it was all over, his romance; and he had failed. The case of " Irons vs. Hope " had been decided against him. He had lost Pauline a second time! That night he had his dinner sent into the office and he worked long after the others had gone. How often, of late, he had stayed there all alone with the one light at his desk and Pauline! But now it all seemed changed cold, empty, desolate. It was only an office, now ; something had gone that had once made it almost a home. " You must not write to me again!" The secret, charming creature that in this dull room he had conjured up out of the failure of his 95 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND married life had vanished like a fairy back again into the Unreal. Where were those roses that bunch of red roses ? In the library, in the dining-room, her chamber, no sign of them he saw ; and Pauline said nothing. Yet the florist had sworn he had sent them, that they had been received, and with them, yes, he was sure, the card with the inscription, " Finis. J. I" Could Pauline possibly have thrown them away ? Weeks passed. ... In spite of himself, in spite of her renewed attempts at comradeship, Lester became with his wife more what was it distant? Self-conscious? Formal? Without the stimulus of her letters he found himself steadily more nervous and distraught. His experiment had failed; things between them were worse, rather than better. That Pauline thought so, too, was evidenced when, one day, she announced that she was going to visit her mother for a month or so. She wanted to finish her new novel in peace, that was her excuse ; but might n t she perhaps wish peace also for her conscience or her heart? So Lester wondered, left alone. 96 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND In the unusual quiet of the house for no body more famous than grocers and bill-col lectors disturbed Mrs. Hope s Husband when Mrs. Hope was away he spent many a dreary evening in thought. And that evening was dreariest when with what a pang he recognized that familiar pale blue envelope ! he received his first duty-letter from his wife. It told of the weather, it told of the theaters, it told of the state of her health. The tears came to his eyes, to read her perfunctory com monplaces dashed off in the same bold, rapid handwriting that had indited such spirited and gallant messages. Ah, both were drowned, now John Irons as well as Lester Hope ! Must he give her up? As time went on, stronger and stronger became his impulse, de spite her command, to write to her just once more. Would she really show the letters, con fess everything, to her husband? And what, in the name of nonsense, if she did? A tragic little farce, that, for an evening by the fireside he and Pauline pouring quicklime on the corpse of poor John Irons! And then, another dismal afternoon when, unable to work, he stood at his ofHce window, 97 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND moodily watching the smoke of a chimney op posite, blown about quite as fantastically as was he himself, the idea came to him why not, instead of forcing her to confess, confess himself? Why not make an end of the mys tery tell the whole wretched story of his negation, his wounded pride, his suffering, and let come of it what would? He had lost. The situation, at any rate could n t be worse. More and more he grew inclined to try it. He longed for the relief of confession. It did n t seem possible any longer to keep his misery to himself. And so it was that one evening he sat wearily down to his desk in the office, and, frowning, inserted a sheet of paper into his typewriter. ... A half hour passed, . . . and then, al most automatically, he began to write. . . . It is only weak souls that are crushed by suffering; those of firmer fiber resist to the end, and that very resistance it is that finally forces the revelation of oneself in bursts of power. So, in Lester Hope s mind the tension of months suddenly broke, and everything that he had endured poured forth with the unconscious energy of pure feeling. 98 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " I have searched my soul for phrases " so Pauline with her facile grace had written; but Lester Hope toyed with no such pretty fallacy. His soul was ransacked by savage emotions that snatched mutinously at what terms they could find at hand and set them furiously at work to effect their revolt. Not like her filigree sentences did his flash and sparkle, like jewels artfully arranged. He took no thought of words no adjectives he chose for mere literary beauty. The pas sionate, strong suffering Idea led him fiercely, unerringly, along the old, simple, forthright Anglo-Saxon ways. Unction is in all ele mental impulse. True emotion has instinctive modes; it is as crisp as childhood, as dramatic as a tempest. This night, Lester Hope was freeing his mind simply and without shame. Like a pris oner who for months has been starved and tor tured, now, bursting the bonds of discretion, bold Truth sprang out of him . . . glowing with his new liberty, rejoicing in self-expres sion, he wrote on and on. ... It was long after midnight when he awak ened from his absorption. Where was he? 99 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND ... He looked curiously about saw that he was in a room an office there was a filing cabinet oh, yes, his office, of course! He seemed to have come back from somewhere. The floor was strewn with papers. How many papers there were ! He picked them up, and arranged the sheets, wondering why he had such a queer sensation such a relief. It was as if a high wind that had long been blowing in his mind had abated and he was at peace. It was the calmest moment he had known for many months when, lighting a cigar and tilting comfortably back in his chair, he began to read what he had written. When he had finished he was almost afraid of it. No, it was still hot from his brain s mint; he would put it away till he could get a cooler, better judgment of it to-morrow. In a reverie he finished his cigar. Then folding the sheets into his pocket, he went home. , On the morrow, however, after re-reading it calmly in his library, he saw that it would never do to send it to Pauline. Not, at least, in that form. His pride forbade it. He had begun to tear up the pages, regretfully one by one, 100 MRS. HOPE S when he stopped, his eye fixed on the Winged Victory and then On the shoulders of his first idea, another had suddenly vaulted, higher, more ambitious, more bold, and waved him on. Now he saw clearly what to do. That moment was cli mactic ; for an instant he was more than happy ; he was exultant, thrilled. Emancipation! Insistent, that idea drew him every night after dinner back into that creative trance to write and rewrite, forge and file, hammer and polish, over and over and over. The vivid mo ment passed; and from now on his work was like a hard, slow, laborious fight, night after night of fatiguing effort, concentrated exer tion, pressure. Only the artist knows that exquisite, that almost intolerable mixture of pleasure and pain. Only the artist and the mother suffer that delicious agony of creation. Lester Hope wrote on and on. Even after Pauline had returned, he spent every evening writing at the office. And lo, as he wrote, the haunting ghost of his stultified self grew dim and dimmer. . . . Mrs. Hope s Husband was vanishing! ... on and on he wrote ... on and on and on. . . . 101 VI THERE was a way Pauline had, whether she had been away a minute, an hour, or a day, of beginning to speak to him before entering the room, as if continuing a conversa tion she had only just left. One night toward one o clock, Lester, looking over her letters in the library, had scarcely time to throw them into a lower drawer of his desk and kick it shut before he heard her voice in the hall. Snatch ing a copy of " Tom Jones," he began to pre tend to read it, upside-down. " Oh, you really ought to have been there to-night, Lester ; it was so interesting ! " and, appearing in the opening of the portieres, Pauline continued, yawning prettily, " I m afraid you 11 get awfully stodgy staying by yourself all the time." Upon his forehead she pressed a dutiful kiss; listless, she dropped upon the couch and began abstractedly to draw off her long suede 102 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND gloves. Usually, Pauline came home in high spirits with a lively budget of gossip, and would listen to nothing till she had told it all. But this evening to Lester s questions she gave only an absentminded, " Oh, yes, perhaps," twirling her rings dreamily, or a remote, " No, not exactly " ; and gradually the scene dropped. After a while, she arose restlessly and walked to the fireplace. She stood for some time as if she had forgotten what she was going to do. Finally she roused; and when she turned, he noticed that she had more color than usual. " Some feminine tiff," thought Lester, re garding her with a husband s eye, " or else it s that infernal lobster Newburgh they have at the WoodlingsV But his diagnosis, like most husbands , was incorrect. " Oh, Lester, I had a talk with Peever to night. Remember how afraid I used to be of him?" A little nervous laugh (what did that mean?) " Well, he s afraid of me, now. About a new author he s discovered or rather he has n t discovered at all ; it seems he s quite a mystery. Anyway, Peever s perfectly mad over this man s work, whoever he is. 103 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND It s a short novel. A sort of confession, in a way, I believe an imaginary biography, or something like that." She was back on the couch again, speaking a bit excitedly, watching the paper cutter in Lester s hand waving slowly back and forth. " Why, Peever said he sat up last night and simply bawled over it. Can you imagine Peever s ever bawling over anything, Les? And he s going to let me read the proofs. I m awfully why, what s the matter? What a peculiar expression! Oh, well, you need n t smile, Lester ; evidently the book is unusually strong and original. Why, Peever says it actually bleeds ! " She took a new, quick look at him, saw the paper cutter now calmly slicing an imaginary cake on the table, and added : " John Irons, the man s name is." No response: but the paper cutter had stopped. " Remember him, Les ? " As she watched him, the paper cutter tapped the table slowly, very slowly; then it was laid gently down. She advanced with caution : " Why, he s 104 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND the man who wrote me about reading my char acter from my vocabulary. You thought it was so clever." " Clever ! " Lester smiled enigmatically, and carefully inspected the end of his cigar. "I thought he was an ass! " A quick frown marked Pauline s displeasure. There was a pregnant silence ; then, shrugging, she rose languidly and drawing the flowers from her corsage, she arranged them in a vase thoughtfully. Turning at last, sweetly she smiled at him ; then, " Well, what have you been doing all the evening, Lester?" Her tone had the far-away indifference of one who says : " Remember me to your mother," or, " If there is anything I can do, let me know." That night he lay awake for long. The let ter he had started to Pauline, the letter that, running away with him, had developed in such unexpected fashion, she would read, now in type ! and all the world, too, might read it. His novel had been accepted ! But, after all, what did that matter, now? The writing of it had been not a quest for fame, but a spiritual experience, a passion a 105 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND cri du cceur. He smiled, recalling how often he had heard Pauline say, " Oh, I just love to write!" So he, too, had hoped some day to sit quietly down with paper, fountain pen, and a box of cigars, and satisfy the secret desire which, ever since he had first loved Pauline, he had sacrificed to make her ambitions para mount. How strange, now, seemed that pleasant, romantic view of literary composition! He thought of those nights at the office as having been crammed with infinitely harder, more ex hausting work than ever he had put on Black- stone, Torts, or Contracts. And so, now, the fact that Peever approved his book interested him no whit; what did interest him and kept him so long awake was: how would it affect Pauline ? " Your little novel may have a fair success," Peever wrote to John Irons, " and we shall be glad to put it into type as soon as you can call in and sign the contract." Peever said noth ing whatever about " bawling " over the book, but he did rather suspect (from the address), that " John Irons " was a pseudonym. 106 There was a small oblong hole in the paper, through which, quite unsuspected, he could watch his wife MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND John Irons refusing to call, however, Peever got no nearer the mystery of its authorship. Following the agreement he reluctantly mailed (wherein John Irons became a " Party of the Second Part") came, a week or so later, the proofs, a jolly fat roll filling Box 1711; and then, behold, one evening in the library, ap peared a similar fat roll in the hands of Pauline ! Luxuriously reclining, propped with cush ions on the big leather couch, she began to read the sheets. Settled back in his Morris chair, comfortably, Lester Hope began to read the evening paper. After a while, she was sitting up straighten After a while, he was sitting up straighter. After a while she moved to an easy chair nearer the lamp. Now in Lester s newspaper, that evening, he had just noticed a short legal item; and, as Pauline read on, he reached for the scissors and snipped it neatly out. Queerly enough, after he had removed the clipping there was a small oblong hole in the paper, through which, as through a little window, he could, and he did, quite unsuspectedly, watch his wife. The amused smile a bit patronizing, even, 109 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND at first had already given way to a look of intense interest absorption. At times lay ing down the sheets she would sit gazing off, lost; while Lester ostentatiously rustled his paper or lit cigars, as one engrossed in the Law, to whom mere Literature was a silly pastime. But she had not read long before he found the look in her face growing still more fascinat ing. Her lips moved, her brows drew down. And finally, through his little Judas-hole, Lester saw in his wife s eyes something that gave him a grim pleasure tears ! He saw her dash them off. She rose, proofs in hand. " I m getting rather sleepy, Les," she said, " I think I 11 go up to bed." After those dull blue portieres had closed upon her abrupt " Good night," Lester Hope smoked, smoked, cigar after cigar. ... At one o clock, when he went upstairs, he noticed that there was a light in her room. Pausing a moment by her door, he listened ; why, was that Pauline sobbing? Tears, yes; one sometimes sheds tears; but one doesn t sob aloud over mere fiction. no MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND What did that sobbing mean? Should he knock at the door ? No. No he would go on. Next morning, however, it was the aristo cratic lady of the portrait who came down to him; her eyes were hard and bright. A fort night passed. One evening he patronizingly picked up a copy of a new book, " The Book of Pride," which had appeared mysteriously on the library table, and idly turned the pages. Far from idly had he turned those pages when he first received from the publisher that very book ! Pauline remarked casually that the novel seemed to have caught the public. The re views were better than enthusiastic ; they were causing discussion; everybody was reading " The Book of Pride," and wondering who John Irons really was. Peever had told her, in fact, that the first edition was already sold out. All this neither interested nor surprised him. What did surprise him, however, was a remark she made, later, after he had acknowledged having read the book. in MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " I like the heroine, rather," said Lester. " That s just the one I dislike," Pauline re plied. " She s a perfect minx." Lester smiled. " I m afraid you don t quite understand her." And then he added, reflec tively, " I think the author did, though." " John Irons ? " Pauline took up the novel and began thoughtfully to turn the pages. "Of course any one like that is fascinating to read about, but I mean well, actually to live with, you know, I m afraid she d be trying, at least." He had another surprise when, one morning, he caught a first sight of the extraordinary ap pearance of Post Office Box No. 1711. Receiving now no letters from Pauline, it had been over a week since he had looked into that box. But this morning it was so full of letters that, when he opened the door, they poured out, tumbling upon the tiled floor. Amazed, he tore one open. Why, it was as if he were back at that happy, suburban break fast table again with Pauline listening to the first flattering tributes to her stones ! But no ; as he walked along, dipping into another and another, these " charmed-with-its " and " in ns MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND dignants," these young lady letters of praise and spinsters disapproval were now the ridicu lous gratuities of his own literary success! No, he was not running for the 7.55, proud of Pauline s prestige, he was proceeding se dately to his office quite unmoved by the thirty- two letters from strangers testifying to the popularity of John Irons. That superior, unmoved serenity, however, received a shock when, skimming the pile of let ters at his desk, from " so human and so con vincing " to " no man who really loved would ever act like that," he came unexpectedly upon one from Pauline! Crowded in and lost amongst all the others, she seemed pathetic. " My dear John Irons: 11 1 have read it ! What an alluring plot ! You won t find many women, I m afraid, who will openly approve a hero who refuses to marry his sweetheart just because she had sud denly become famous ; but all the same you re right, and every woman will secretly sympa thize with him, as I certainly do, J. I. What ever the feminists say, there is n t a woman worth having, no, for that matter, not the MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND stoutest, mannishest, most militant standard- bearer in the Suffrage Parade who does n t, at heart, wish her lover to dominate. That s what lover means, in woman-talk. Strength of mind and strength of body that s what women want ; they still love to be mastered at least / do, anyway. That s the surest way to be happy. I know that well. Women love villains (the right kind of villains), and brutes attractive brutes, at least. Surely an artist, a creator like you, will know what I mean. " Don t try to deny that the novel is the story of your o\vn life; I feel it, I know it. No doubt you have paraphrased the actual facts beyond all recognition to protect that girl, but, oh, you must have lived those emotions, or never, never could you have made the story so bitey and so bitter. At first I hated your heroine. Then I pitied her. How you suc ceed in making one love that woman, I don t see. No doubt because you have loved her vain and spoiled though she was. " And talk about telling my character from my vocabulary, what about wounded pride and shame and lost self-respect and hu miliation ? Why, I could make columns and 114 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND columns of your pet words that show how you must have suffered, even if the whole book itself weren t full of pin-pricks! Why, J. I., I actually cried to think I had written that cruel letter to you. Who are you? What are you ? Where are you ? Secrecy hid den * reserve masque concealed you must be as subtle and as proud as Satan ! " Altogether the book had so strange an ef fect upon me that I found myself reading it as if it were a letter to just Me. Was n t that what your daring and flattering mysterious dedication meant? It brought you nearer to me than all your letters. Who are you? I feel as if you were right in the next room and I could n t open the door ! I get such mys terious glimpses through the keyhole, though; and I can almost recognize your voice! But, whoever you are, I am sure you re a genius. Oh, I m afraid of you, now, J. I. What could you ever have seen in me? But in all hu mility I say, now if you wish it I hope you do ! I shall be so glad to see you " So far, he had read with a pleasant excite ment; but "I shall be so glad to see you" MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND brought a frown. See him! That would never do. She had had her chance ; it was too late, now. The next line deepened the furrow between his eyes. " that is, if you aren t now too famous for me." " Famous ! " the frown changed to a sneer. Was n t it just because he was " fa mous/ as she called it, or whatever it was that all these letters and the literary gossip proved, that Pauline had suddenly affected this new interest in John Irons? With her whole little hero-worshiping world gabbling about the " Book of Pride," of course she could n t afford to let the mysterious author go ! No, he d be damned if he d answer the let ter. If she wanted him, now, only because he was famous but there he stopped ; he smiled. Of all insidious drinks, perhaps none turn the head so effectively as those that are smooth and sweet. Fame, too, is dangerously sweet. For three weeks Lester Hope had been tasting praise and publicity in daily doses. Careless as he had been at first of any recognition, he could n t forever ignore the amusing worldly rewards of his literary effort. Now, for the first time, he realized that no longer was he 116 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " Mrs. Hope s Husband." He was " the Au thor of," he had a "tag"; he was the " famous " John Irons. In short he had " done something ! " " Where are you going to-night, Pauline ? " he asked, one evening, wandering debonairly into his wife s room to find her dressing. " Oh, just the Woodlings . Hand me that brooch, will you, Les ? " He handed it to her with a playful gesture; she did not notice it. Then, hands in pockets, he regarded her admiringly. She was putting an ornament in her hair. Said Lester, " I believe 1 11 go along with you." She stopped, hands upraised, and stared at him. Then : " Oh, I m awfully glad! " He noticed her equivocal accent, and smiled. Nevertheless, to the Woodlings he went that night, and, moreover, he thoroughly enjoyed mingling again with those who had " done something." Self-consciousness was gone from Lester Hope. He cared no longer how he appeared nor what people thought of him. He neither posed nor felt ashamed. His se- 117 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND cret so sustained him that the very way he entered a room was different. Not even when he was introduced as " Mrs. Hope s Husband " did he lose his equanimity. The bony dowager of the emeralds he found himself actually enjoying this evening as an excellent comedy character part. He enjoyed " my daughter Pearl." Why, in this mood, he could have enjoyed even talker Thasp, the Bore Royal. But, after all, was n t it really himself that he was most enjoying? Haroun Al-Raschid, no doubt, never felt himself quite so much a sultan as when incognito on the streets of Bag dad, he was clapped familiarly on the shoulder by a porter, or asked to help a blind beggar. So, hearing John Irons s name, and the " Book of Pride " continually buzzing about him, Les- er Hope (as one who fumbles a diamond in his pocket) diverted himself with his paradox, marveling what would happen should he mur mur into the jeweled ear that never yet had listened to his words : " Florrie Woodling, behold me, your latest lion ! " Not that he had the slightest desire to do so. What overt praise could equal the piquant 118 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND flattery of overhearing himself and his work discussed? Indeed, so delightfully superior did he feel in his modest disguise that few farces had ever pleased him as did a little dialogue he listened to while loitering alone by the palms. A peep through the leaves showed him that others, also, might assume that modest disguise ! Behind his beribboned goggles, Smithers was looking more than usually important, to night. He was evidently enjoying himself. " I believe you are he ! " said Helen Ram say, shaking a coy ringer at him. " Now, are n t you? " Smithers, besides looking important, looked wise. " You don t dare say you re not, at any rate ! " she insisted. Smithers, besides looking important and wise, looked mysterious. " My dear Miss Ramsay," he drawled, " what in the world is the use of my saying anything at all about it? Suppose I do deny it what would that prove? If I really were John Irons, wouldn t I deny it, also? I d have to, to defend my secret, wouldn t I?" 119 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND And with a bland smile Smithers tactily as sumed the laurels. And with a smile equally bland Lester Hope, almost as invisible to Mrs. Woodling s clever guests as was John Irons himself, wandered and wondered like a pleased ghost through the evening s entertainment, not noticing this time the adulation paid to his wife, but pausing often idly to twist his mustache and that little tuft below his lip, while maidens exclaimed, " Oh, it must be Spenser Thasp, I m sure ! " or smiling cynically at, " Why not old Peever, sly old dog, himself?" No one asked Lester Hope s opinion of the popular mystery; no one accused him of being other than a rather poetic looking tall lawyer. Helen Ramsay Willyer, coming upon him thus alone with his diverting thoughts, smirked coquettishly. " Lester, you re looking much better, lately, d you know it ? " she said. " Somehow you re more well, as you used to be; you have more animation. Why, posi tively, I think you re growing handsome ! What have you done to yourself? Lester Hope, are you in love ? " He admitted it frankly. 120 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Willyer, tall and blond, looking on with a smile, inspected Lester critically. " Helen s right, Hope," said he. " I ve noticed it for some time. I ve made a study of your face, you know ; I Ve always wanted to paint your portrait, but there has always been something that baffled me something I could n t quite decide upon in it. I ve got it, now, though, and I believe I could get you onto canvas." Said Pauline, after their return home, quite in her old mood of gossip, " Oh, Lester, you should have heard that near-sighted old Mrs. Poppity gushing over me to-night. She was so lackadaisical and so far away! She said, " Oh, Mrs. Hope, when did you first find you had this power? " " And d you know what I said to her, Les ter? I just took out my powder puff, and I powdered my nose, and I said in just exactly as soulful a tone as hers, Always Mrs. Pop- pity ; I have always known it ! But wait a moment. Listen! The joke of it was, my acting was quite lost on her. She had al ready begun on Peever. She was asking him who that splendid distinguished looking man was, over there. He looked so like a genius ! " 121 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Pauline rose, gaily smiling, and touched him mischievously on the shoulder. " And who d you think it was, Lester?" Pauline broke into laughter. " It was you! " It was his turn to laugh when alone in the library after she had gone upstairs, he recol lected his pique at not having been recognized long ago as a potential celebrity. Now, al though unconscious of betraying any visible trace of having won a personal victory, that mystic difference between ability in the bud and the full flower of achievement, the pungent, psychic perfume of expression, of success, was beginning to affect those about him, de spite all his attempts at concealment. Already Helen had noticed it in his face, and so had Willyer even near-sighted old Mrs. Pop- pity ! Why, then, had n t Pauline ? That it was only because she was so near to him and so familiar, that it was because she was obsessed with John Irons, he decided, when next day he read : " My dear J. L : " Why don t you answer ? Are you always going to be merely a romantic ghost? I can t 122 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND stand it any longer. I have always been afraid of ghosts, J. I., and you haunt me day and night, as if I had murdered you. Well, per haps I did when I wrote you that cruel letter, so long ago. But if I could only see you do let me see you ! I could tell you, perhaps, just why I refused to let you write to me, and then you would forgive me. Do say you will !" Oh, yes, he thought, bitterly, tantalizing enough it must be for poor Pauline to know that, when John Irons was a nobody, she had cast him aside. Well, she would have to take the consequences. He was by no means ca joled by her flattery. No, indeed. That flattery, now, was becom ing so frequent that it had begun to lose its spice. He got it not only in letters, from the newspapers and reviews, but it was served, hot and crisp, in his own dining-room. It was more usual nowadays at those little literary dinners that were making Pauline as a hostess in her way quite as noted as Mrs. Woodling in hers, to see the foot of the table occupied by Mrs. Hope s Husband. Suave, smiling, hos pitable, he was the most charmingly harmless host ever intellectually ignored. And the most 123 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND hospitable : " A little more champagne, Mrs. Woodling?" "Another cognac, Peever?" Unnoticed was the new twinkle in Lester Hope s eye. He felt as if John Irons were surreptitiously kicking him, under the table. " A very nice chap, that husband of Mrs. Hope s, isn t he?" So people obviously thought, as they talked to Pauline and her as sorted authors. " Such large boxes of such large cigars! Yes, and so soon after the dessert, too; not a second of suspense! Such pleasant compliments, and such affable ways! Say, we must have him to dinner next week. He M be so attentive to Cousin Dorothy of Toronto he 11 take her right off our hands, poor thing. She hates literary talk, and they 11 hit it off beautifully ! " And meanwhile, " Have you read The Book of Pride ? " But the pretty, privately printed poetess beside him had turned away even be fore he answered, and was already learning of Peever, Peever purring over his port, that " Why, d you know, this man Irons has n t even yet cashed the cheque I sent him for an ad vance on royalties. Eccentric chap, evidently." Lester poured more port and encouraged him. 124 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " One of these temperamental artistic crea tures apparently no idea of money." Lester s sudden grin caught Peever s eye, and Peever grinned also. " I suppose, Hope, as a business man, you can hardly understand that, eh ? Yes, just a very little this port is excellent ! Well, there s one thing you do un derstand, anyway, Hope, you know good port ha, ha, ha!" Laughter; and a sweet smile from Helen Willyer to little Lester. " That heroine of Irons s is a fascinating character," Peever continued to his port, " ex asperating, though, as the modern literary woman is bound to be present company," he waved his glass to Pauline " of course ex- cepted! Wilful, vain, spoiled." " Oh, no, not exactly spoiled, surely," said Lester hotly. " Why don t you see, she only" But nobody was listening to Mrs. Hope s Husband. Amidst the crackling crunch of celery stalks, the incoming of glasses of pink punch, and the silent offerings of two impas sive, unfathomable maids, the guests were agreeing that John Irons s heroine was an ad- 125 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND mirable portrait of a familiar type of over-esti mated celebrity. " For my part, I don t see how her lover ever stood her," said Pauline. " He ought to have boxed her earsJ Now, if / were ever like that" " Oh, you d be fascinating, too, in John Irons s eyes," said Helen; "it s quite obvious that he thought her charming, at least." " Did n t he prove that she was charming? " Lester again ventured, " Is n t it his success just that he did vindicate her apparent van- ity?" Several impatient looks at him indicated plainly that he had said quite enough, as an amateur, amongst technical experts far more competent to criticize. Mrs. Woodling, how ever, as a professional hostess, was permitted an ex-ofhcio word. Thrilled, yes, almost agonized had Mrs. Woodling been by the " Book of Pride." And, "Ah," she moaned, " if I could only get hold of Mr. Irons, I d give him a reception such as " up rolled her eyes as if only the heavenly hosts could compete with hers, in splendor. " Ah, such a brilliant light to be hid under so 126 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND mysterious a bushel. It s so quaint to be shy, nowadays, isn t it, Mr. Hope?" Pauline did n t think John Irons was neces sarily shy. Nor apparently did Helen Will- yer, who looked suddenly very knowing and whose freckled cheeks blushed through her powder. She started to speak. " D you know " but the talk had already become gen eral and unctuous with adjectives of praise. Eagerly Helen watched her chance, as they wondered if John Irons could be a woman horrid thought if the book wasn t perhaps too true to be acknowledged, and if it would sell a hundred thousand, and if it would be dramatized. " D you know, I wrote " Helen began again, when again she was submerged in the conversational flood. Still she hung on till a pause gave her, at last, her chance. " D you know, I wrote to John Irons a while ago, and " ff You wrote to him ? " Pauline faced her like a tigress. The company sat, spellbound. Helen was now easily the heroine of the party. " Yes, and he answered me ! " 127 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND " What did he say?" Everybody leaned forward. Lester leaned forward. Helen took her time, gave a proud glance at Willyer, and smiled. " Well, he was most kind and most interesting. Of course, he did n t exactly tell who he was, but well, I don t think, really, I ought to repeat just what he said. It was confidential." Lester took an olive, bit it, and watched Helen, hinting and bridling as she held the center of the stage. Now, it was true that, amongst a mass of letters he had found in Box 1711, one morning, forwarded from Peever s publishing house, there had been a sentimental note from Mrs. Willyer. As the audience pleaded with her for more light, he tried to recall just what he had written in answer. To the best of his knowledge it had run about like this: " My dear Mrs. Willyer: " I am sincerely grateful to you for your ap preciation of my work, and thank you for your kindness in telling me of it." But if the scene was comic to him, Pauline, by what he could read of her face, found it 128 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND tragic. So darkly did she regard her dear friend Helen that, when the guests had gone, he could not forbear to remark, easily, " I say, Helen Willyer looked well to-night, didn t she? Almost beautiful." " Beautiful! " replied Pauline with asperity, " I thought she looked like a fright. I never saw her so unbecomingly dressed ! " What more she thought was evidenced next day in her letter to John Irons: " Who are you ! I simply must know I must see you. I don t care whether you are deaf or dumb or blind, a cripple or deformed, red, black, or yellow. I can t bear it not to have you write Oh, I must see you I must!" The letter left him cold. Her pride, of course, had been piqued, that was all. She was envious and feared that Helen would cap ture the hero of the hour. And, since as a lover he had failed to win her, why pursue the correspondence further as a celebrity to please her vanity? No. He sat down to finish her off with a last letter in the grand manner. If Pauline would take the 129 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND bit in her teeth and try to run away with him, he would have to steer her toward the brink of a chasm so deep that she would simply have to stop, a precipice she would never dare to jump. Pauline was proud of her position, her name, and fame. A little spoiled, of course, she was. Her head was turned, but was still well set on her shoulders no danger of her los ing it for a man she had tossed aside so cavalierly a man absolutely unknown to her. That scandal and disgrace was impossible for Mrs. Lester, much less for Mrs. Pauline Hope. And so, with one of those crafty smiles a husband, be he never so much in love, some times indulges in, secretly, he sat down to end the romance beyond recall. fe My dear Pauline: " Yes, I will meet you ; but only on one condition. I love you are ordinarily silly, meaningless words. What I mean by them is that, if I cannot be first, the only one in your life, I prefer to be nothing. But, if you are ready to give up everything, yes, I mean it, everything your husband, your home, your comfort, your reputation, and face the world 130 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND with me then set your own time and place and I shall be there and, whatever may come, ready to protect you always. If not, then this is The End." This rash epistle he sent by special deliv ery ; when he reached home he knew it must al ready have been delivered. Pauline, however, showed no sign of excitement; seldom had he seen her so calm. Undoubtedly she had given up all hope of attaching John Irons s scalp to her belt. Well, he thought, thank heaven, the sorry farce which had kept him so long in a fool s paradise was now played out. He and Pauline would jog on together; and she would never know. He was, next morning, searching absent- mindedly for some court-plaster in her cham ber, when the half-opened door of a closet where she kept her hats caught his eye. Some thing (why, that wasn t like a hat!) in the shadow (what were those brown things rosesf) attracted him. Nearer, he saw, attached to the withered, discolored flowers, a card : " FINIS. J. I." MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND He stared at it uncomprehending, then he could n t quite believe it but, yes, they were the same. His roses ! So that was what had become of them she had kept them! Then he had won! He had won! Pauline loved him! He rejoiced. But no, not him, either; she loved John Irons. He sickened. But he was John Irons yes, he must rejoice ! John Irons must win that he might win as Lester Hope. Slowly he walked downstairs and, hesitat ing, stopped at the library door. Through the slit of the portieres he saw her bending over her desk, writing she was smiling, trans figured. No, not for many, many months had he seen that once-familiar look of youth and romantic love. With that happy, rapt expression, why, she might have been Pauline-of-the-Violets ! How often, writing to her in his office, he had longed for a vision of that mysterious inner self of hers, for a glimpse underneath the mask she always wore, now, when they were to gether. Well, there, at last, she was not his wife his secret correspondent. He knew that she 132 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND was writing to John Irons. He knew that she cared for John Irons. But that he himself was John Irons, try as he might, somehow he could n t feel. To him, also, John Irons was a ghost. Lost in that reverie, he had scarce time to escape before she had risen and was coming toward him. As the chameleon changes, some where between that table and that door she changed; and it was now Mrs. Hope, Mrs. Pauline Hope, who found him in the dining- room, and, smiling calmly, handed him a let ter. For a moment he stared at her, wonder ing that women could thrive, yes, and grow fair in an atmosphere of duplicity that would suffocate a man. " D you mind mailing this letter for me, Lester? " she said, placidly. " I ve just writ ten to that mysterious Irons person " she hesitated " about his book. Every one s talking about him so, I do hope I can find out who he is. He may answer me. Don t put it in your pocket now, and forget it ! " He did not put it in his pocket. He did not forget it. Once safe out of sight and he was reading: 133 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND "My dear J. L: " You know I am romantic ; I always was. I always shall be, I suppose. And so it makes me feel appallingly grown up to have to say it, but what you ask is really quite too rash yes, it s too romantic even for romantic me. As a writer, I simply adore the idea ; it s de licious. But as a flesh-and-blood woman of twenty-eight, living on West Seventy-second Street, New York City, in this year of our Lord, well, the plan won t quite stand up straight, exactly; it tumbles over in my mind. " And then, it is n t quite fair, is it, J. I. ? You say you have seen me, but I have never seen you. To be sure mentally, even spirit ually, I do feel that I know you rather better than most women know their husbands, at least better than I do mine and yet, as you say, you are not a phantom. You are a man. There s no doubt about that, after your won derful book! An actual, face-to- face meeting well, it does have, you must admit, possi bilities for surprise as great possibilities as a first letter from a man you ve known all your life! And it takes so little to destroy an illusion! Not that I m afraid I m not a 134 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND bit afraid; but still I bope you won t insist on an unconditional surrender in advance. I re spect you, I admire you beyond words but whether I love you or not I cant say till I see you and if I could, I wouldn t. There! If you do love me as you say, trust me. Let s just see what will happen when the curtain rises on you and " PAULINE." But already those roses, those old, faded roses, had reassured him, warmed him toward her. Slight evidence, perhaps, of her sin cerity, but it gave him a welcome excuse for be lieving her letter. He was sure at least that she was not merely tuft-hunting. And if he had not succeeded in winning her acknowl edged love (the thing was impossible, he saw that, now) he had at least, as John Irons, reestablished the old relation of mental equality and camaraderie. That much, then, he would accept as his victory. And so now, to have the mystery over, he would explode his bomb and blow the romance to bits. He wired her merely, " How ? When ? Where?" Her answer came post haste the same afternoon. 135 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND "My dear J. I.: " Oh, I knew that if you really loved me you would be magnanimous. And the only way to prove that I appreciate your self-denial is to acknoweldge now what I never dared to ex press before. I wrote you once that you had fascinated me, but what I did n t write was that long before our correspondence was cut short I knew quite well that I was dangerously near falling in love with you. Indeed, I ended it all only because I was afraid it was too dangerous. Didn t you understand? I simply could n t bear the deceit I felt too ashamed and guilty. That was why I forbade you to write any more it seemed impossible to risk the consequences of letting myself go, but you will never know what a struggle with myself that decision cost me. Then I tried to forget you ; but I did n t, I could n t. I felt perfectly lost without your letters. And now your book has prevented my ever being able to forget you. It has affected me so that it is more dangerous than ever for us to meet but, meet you I shall. I have to. I must know who you are ! " 136 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND There was, in postscript, an address where he might meet her he recognized it as the Willyer s apartment, and remembered that the Willyers were away. The next evening at nine! Now he was in for it. And now, at last, he was all John Irons, rejoicing in his success. Lester Hope could wait. As John Irons he would win, and then That night Lester dined alone, not knowing what he ate, and went to a theater, not know ing what he saw. He left, next morning, with out having seen Pauline. Little work was done, that day, at the office of Lester Hope, Attorney-at-Law. He was too busy preparing for the death of John Irons. After to-morrow night his rival would be no more. 137 VII IN somewhat the mood of one who, with ticket ready and trunks strapped, sits wait ing, with a little useless time on his hands, before the carriage calls to take him to the train, Lester Hope in the library was attempt ing rather unsuccessfully to read the evening paper. It was his own thoughts rather than the gathering dusk that prevented him. Pauline, when he had come in, was not at home ; but he had since heard her enter and go upstairs. He did not call to her, but waited patiently, or impatiently, for dinner to be an nounced. It promised to be rather interest ing, he thought, that dinner with a wife on the eve of her clandestine meeting with a lover. It would be an occasion not many husbands had the opportunity and fewer still the desire of anticipating. A quick click of the curtain rings aroused him from his reverie. "Are you there, Les ter?" 138 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Pauline, entering, switched on the electric light. The tall library clock was just then striking seven. Lester dropped his paper and watched her. What feminine casuistry would she use to explain her absence to-night, he won dered; or would she indeed vouchsafe to ex plain it at all? " I m going to dine out with that is, I ve got a little dinner to-night." That was all; except that she showed some curiosity as to whether or not he was to be at home this eve ning. No, this evening, Lester was thinking of go ing out himself. For a while she stood, absorbed in her thoughts. Her gloves seemed to require con siderable buttoning. Then she took up a tulip from a bowl. Now, to most persons the odor of a tulip is far from fragrant ; but, by the way Pauline smelled of this one, it might have been a lily-of-the-valley. " Will you be home early ? " she asked finally. Lester could n t say. Would Pauline ? The tulip was thrown aside; she stood si lently while the clock ticked six or seven sec- 139 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND onds. Then, gazing down at the open fire, she replied quietly, " Would you care very much if I never came home, Lester ? " And then, dropping into a chair, she turned to him to watch the effect of her words. "What d you mean?" He knew, of course, just what she meant, but her unex pected candor had surprised him. Somehow, he had n t counted on her compunction. " My dear Pauline," he said, " if you have anything to tell me, I think I shall be able to stand it. You need n t think you have to break it to me gently, you know." There was a long, long pause, while she sat, her chin in her gloved hand, looking at him steadfastly. " Lester," she began, " you know we once promised each other that if either of us ever changed toward the other oh, Lester, you know what I mean, don t you ? that we d be honest, and that we d tell the other? " He helped her out only with a nod. " It is n t so much that I ve changed toward you, dear, as that I ve changed all over. I m not the girl you married any more, Lester; I m not Pauline Forr ; I m Pauline Hope, now 140 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND and I ve gone on I m different. You can t create and not well, I don t know, something changes you. It s a different world, the artist s. Oh, I can t explain it, Lester you would n t understand/* Her egoism was so beautifully blind that he missed the sting in her reproach. It had only a grim humor. Consolingly the words of " Alice in Wonderland " came to him, and he thought, " The less there is of mine, the more there is of yours/ John Irons ! " " And, Lester, there s something else I ve got to tell you. It s extraordinary, it s wild and rash, I suppose but I can t help it." With pity, she hesitated before she dealt the blow. " I ve oh, it s sickening to have to tell you, but I ve fallen in love, Lester at least I think I have I m afraid I have with some one else. I don t know I can t explain it even to myself, but I well, you 11 be awfully surprised, Lester it s John Irons!" " John Irons ! " Lester repeated stupidly. " Yes, John Irons. And the impossible part, the mad part, of it is that I ve never even seen him at least to my knowledge/ 143 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Now what would a surprised and jealous husband naturally do, Lester wondered un easily, to express his emotion ? Rage and rail, break down and weep, slay her with withering contempt? And yet, how could he feign such a part when he was so distracted by that baffling Siamese-twin feeling of combined victory and defeat? Engrossed by it, he almost forgot to speak. The occasion certainly called for some display of feeling, but all he could do was to nod like a mandarin gravely and remark, " Oh, yes; I do recall his having written you a let ter once." How flat it fell! But it was the best he could do. It didn t matter. Pauline was too excited by her own confession to listen; and while Lester wondered why he did n t himself con fess and end it all, he was held entranced by the grotesqueness of the situation and the nervousness with which she was pouring out: " He s written me many letters. I never told you, because -. well, because I was in love with him, I suppose. His letters got me, just as his book * got the public. Oh, I suppose it sounds strange, but letters do reveal so much! They tell things, sometimes that are always 144 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND hidden when one meets face to face. One can know a person for years sometimes and never find out what one letter will betray. Oh, you know how I used to be thrilled by your let ters, Lester, more thrilled, often, than when I was with you. I was a young girl then; I don t know how they d be now you never write me letters like that, any more. Oh, Les ter " the tears had come into her eyes " I know you won t believe it and I can t ex plain, but really I love you, dear, just as much as ever ! Really I do, Lester. That s the inexplicable part of it all it does n t seem to take away anything of my feeling for you. Don t think I ever can forget those wonderful days we ve had together, dear only, I m afraid I care for him more, somehow, at least in a different way. I mean he s just like another you, somehow, only more so like you in evening dress, or a romantic costume, or you in another incarnation." She was getting a bit hysterical ; Lester s very impassivity seemed to drive her on. " When I saw that I was getting too interested in him I tried to stop it, Lester. In fact, I did stop it. I did n t hear from him for months and months. 145 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND And then oh, if he had n t written that won derful, terrible book ! I could n t bear it ! It just talked to me it took hold of me it dragged me, dragged me ! It s no use my try ing to resist him, I can t, I can t ! " She looked up at him desperately. " Les ter, I m going to see him to-night. I feel as if I knew him, through his letters and his book, as well as I know you, better, even; and yet I can t be absolutely sure whether I really love him or not till I have actually seen him. But I could n t go on without telling you, Lester ; it did n t seem fair, because, Lester, if he is what I think he is well, it will be like touching a match to gunpowder, I suppose I don t know what may happen. It may mean " She stood looking at him for a moment, her eyes wet. Then, as he tried vainly to make up his mind to tell her before it was too late, she was kneeling beside him and she was clasping his hands and she was pleading : " Won t you kiss me, Lester ? Just one kiss for for what we have been to each other? " He kissed her somehow; somehow she left him. Through the dull blue portieres he saw her go. ... Then, not till then, did the inhibi- 146 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND tion of his will for a moment relax. Up he jumped and followed her, reaching the hall just as the front door closed. But open it and call her he could not. . . . He walked back to the library . . . What now? What should he do? The clock struck half -past seven. Too late, he saw the dilemma he was in. How could he meet her at nine o clock! Go to that rendezvous as her lorer, only for her to find her husband ? And she was expecting a match to her gunpowder. Never! Could she, could any woman, bear such a banal anti climax at the very crisis of her secret, long- nourished romance? Put the picturesque, chivalrous ideal, the " wonderful " John Irons she had created (with what wealth of fervent fancy, he could well imagine) into the plod ding shoes of a commonplace lawyer the blue worsted coat and pantaloons of a man she saw every day, talked with, ate with? No! Pacing the floor, back and forth, back and forth, pacing, he argued it. But if he did not go what then? No excuse whatever for John Irons s absence to-night was ade- 147 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND quate; even if it were, wouldn t it only post pone the difficulty? No; more and more he felt it impossible to tell her the truth. And yet Pauline waiting for a lover who never came ! How could he so humiliate her, end it all so miserably? Was there no other way? So Lester Hope sought desperately for some means of avoiding the issue. So all the while he knew that he would not, could not, ever con fess. . . . The clock struck eight . . . half- past. . . . Still irresolute, he struggled with his predicament, until he awoke from his ab sorption with a start. The clock was striking nine! His very indecision had decided it for him ; it was too late. Decided it for him, yes ; but what about poor Pauline, a mile away, waiting? Something must be done, and be done immediately to spare her further mortification. No more time for thought, now; the affair must be settled irrevocably. * Thank God, one resource was left that modern magic ever at hand to pro tect the shame of the coward. In an instant he was at the telephone; he called up Helen Willyer s apartment. A mo- 148 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND ment of distressing suspense, then her fright ened, anxious, " Hello ! " No need to disguise his voice; his emotion did that for him. "Is this Mrs. Hope?" Surely she would never recognize that strange, husky tone. "Pauline? ... It s John Irons . . . Yes, John Irons! I can t come . . . No, I can t meet you at all, I can t even explain. I can never come never ! . . . Good-by ! " The phone clicked. Their romance was over. Whether he had killed or wounded, he did n t know ; but he felt exactly as if he had shot somebody. Well, John Irons at least was dead. No one ever would know who he was, now, or what had become of him. Tick, tick, tick, tick the library clock ticked on while, unlocking a lower drawer of his desk, Lester Hope looked in, as into a new- made grave. There never again ! there they were, her letters. That was all he had of her, now all he ever would have to solace his loneliness. . . . One envelope he took out abstractedly, and opened. It was the letter about his book. . . . Tick, tickj tick, tick 149 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND the clock ticked on as he sat there, reading dreaming. ..." Women still love to be mas tered " ... "At least, I do, any way !" . . . " That s the surest way to be happy, as I know, full well!" . . . Suddenly startled, he threw the letters back into the drawer just in time. He jumped up; and, as he stood there as if dreading a ghost, she was before him Pauline, in a gap of the portieres. Which of the two was the whiter, the more haggard? A sense of intolerable guilt un nerved him; he trembled. He was the con science-stricken sportsman ; she the bird with a broken wing. " Well, I ve come back, Lester," she said simply. " That is, if " wearily she dropped down upon the couch, " that is, if you 11 let me. . . ." She sat apathetic, her eyes on the floor. ..." He did n t come." Lester s eyes, too, were on the floor. If he could only have put his arm about her., kissed her, assured her of his devotion, made up in some way for her disappointment but he was numb, dazed. He tried to think of some thing to comfort her nothing came. For a MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND while there was no sound in the room but the ticking of the clock . . . tick tick tick. . . . More wretched now from the pain he had caused her than he had ever been from his own suffering, he waited in silence, feeling shame fully inadequate to the situation. The sports man can kill his wounded bird outright and put it out of its misery ; but Lester Hope dared not act. Nervously, to brace his courage, he kept saying to himself, " No, she must never learn the truth; it is ghastly, but she will re cover in time." Whatever happened he would let her at least keep the memory of her romance inviolate, a poetic mystery to the end. After a while she roused herself and said, languidly, " Lester, would you mind getting me a glass of milk? I feel faint. I haven t had any dinner. I could n t eat." Glad of any excuse for action he left her, her eyes still fixed on the floor . . . A few minutes later in the doorway : Lester Hope had stopped suddenly, transfixed. A glass had fallen from his fingers with a crash. " Where did you get this ? " Pauline was 153 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND demanding. She was standing by his desk; in her hand was a pale blue envelope one of her own letters to John Irons. It had dropped upon the floor, undoubtedly, when he had thrown the others into the drawer. " Did John Irons give you this letter ? " No answer. " Do you know John Irons ? " No answer. But in his countenance was something that made her stare and stare at him. And her face, too, like his, was chang ing, changing, and her eyes were as if she were watching the crumbling of a year s illusions. Then suddenly they fired as she made the des perate jump at an unthinkable conclusion. "You are John Irons!" He started to speak, hesitated. But there was little need to confess, corroboration was in his face. " Did you write those letters to me, Lester Hope? Did you, did you? Tell me! " As he tried to put his arm about her she avoided him, crouching away as if he were something dreadful, and made her way 10 the door. One bewildered, incredulous look, and she was gone. Up the stairs he heard her stumbling; then, above, a door slammed. MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND Below Lester Hope stood, his eyes fixed on the letter, then gradually he awoke, his mind insurgent. It was all so stupid, so unreal, so unnecessary! After all, why were they both suffering so? A violent revulsion of feeling swept over him indignant revolt an im perious mandate of common sense. Lawyer or novelist, invisible or in blue worsted suit, still he was John Irons. Husband or ghost, was n t he her lover ? Good God, he had won her, had n t he ? Why the devil did n t he take her? Why fear a bugaboo anticlimax? He had kissed her with passion before this, why should she shrink from him now? There she was, right upstairs; what was he doing down here ? fool ! " Women still love to be mastered at least I do, anyway." Why, was n t it in that very letter he had just been reading? " That s the surest way to be happy!" Take her at her word, fool be happy ! The morbid fantasy he had built from his diseased pride fell to pieces. An abnormal mental tension was miraculously freed in his brain; his spirits soared, soared, skylarking. But already he was running upstairs, two 155 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND steps at a time, and now his hand was on the knob of her door. Locked. " Pauline! " he cried, " let me in! " There was no reply. "Pauline!" This time it was a command, in virile vermilion. Pauline, half -dressed, clutching a white ki- mona about her, opened the door and looked out at him with frightened eyes. It was long since she had heard that compelling tone. In strode Lester Hope, confident and jubi lant, and smiled as for long he had not smiled, at his wife. The achievement of success is like climbing a hill. Once at the top, and lo, a new mental prospect shines beyond. Mrs. Hope s Hus band had reached at last the summit of his en deavor, and there, meeting him over the ridge he found himself. Oh, positive enough, now, was Lester Hope. He was so sure of himself that he could play with the situation, play with Pauline, yes, and play comedy. In his voice was the laughter of victory. " Mrs. Lester Hope," he announced, " I Ve decided to appeal your case. I have won you once, and lost you. I have won you twice, and 156 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND lost you. But now, by the Winged Victory of Samothrace, I m going to win you for the third time. I intend to take your case up to the Supreme Court ! " He seized that darling defendant in his arms and held her close. " And I am now going to show you," he informed her, " what I know about the Supreme Courtship ! " But Pauline was pushing him away. "Wait! Wait a minute," she was crying; and then, with her two hands on his shoulders, she gazed long, long into his eyes. " John Irons ! " It was scarcely audible. And then " You wrote those letters ! You wrote that book ! " And as she looked, looked, over her rapt face there passed admiration, contrition, anger, amusement, disappointment, delight a rain bow of emotions refracted from the white light of revelation. She sighed, " Well, in the last ten minutes I Ve thought out ten whole months," she went on, " and I want to tell you, Lester Irons," and now there was no mood on her face but joy, " that I have n t changed my mind one bit about that self -satisfied little chit of a heroine 157 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND of yours. I hate her just hate her! And I still insist that if I had been your hero, I would have jolly well boxed her ears! Is it too late now, Les? " It was Pauline-of-the-Violets who was speak ing to him; it was Pauline-of-the-Violets who was smiling at him so mischievously. But, temptingly though she leaned to him, he did not box those ears. Instead The case of " Irons vs. Hope " was not a long contest, however, the two parties to the suit the blue worsted suit soon arriving at a happy arrangement. After the Agree ment was duly signed and sealed some time after Pauline smiled whimsically up into his eyes. " I suppose I am a very bad woman," she said. " After being married to the nicest and cleverest man in the world, I have had two lovers. But it is n t every bad woman who can say, can she, Lester, that she has been in love three times, and each time with her own husband ! " 158 VIII IT was Mrs. Woodling s lifelong regret that " John Irons " refused to disclose his iden tity until his second book had been published. " And a second book," she confided, with raised eyebrows and a Woodling smile, " is usually such a drop after an initial success." Consid erable satisfaction it was to this professional hostess nevertheless, to sustain her reputation as a lion-hunter by being the first, the very first, to present the latest popular author to the pub lic in flesh and blood and swallow-tail. He had insisted (genius is always eccentric, Mrs. Woodling well knew, and how she loved it!) that he be presented still as "John Irons " ; and, standing beside his proud, smiling wife, he was so introduced to flattering fools who had once ignored him as " Mrs. Hope s Husband." To the unillumined his real name was whispered behind Mrs. Woodling s bedia- monded fingers ; at which her prize exhibit felt 159 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND even queerer than he had when, coming home one evening, he had found the Irish night- watchman sitting on his front steps reading " The Book of Pride." Yielding to Pauline s insistent fond demand, he endured it, however, for this one ridiculous evening only, and did his best to enjoy the comedy, accepting with an ironic grace the ex aggerated reward paid, in such salons as this, to literary achievement. Over bare shoulders, past heads tousled and heads bald, through the brilliant shifting whirl of wealth and talent, style and beauty gaily chattering, his eyes roved, meanwhile, toward the dim outer regions, limbos of hall and library and the smoky refuge of the billiard room, questing a familiar expression on the faces of bored hus bands. One or two such countenances as suaged his own ordeal. To Pauline, on the contrary, the affair, with its lights and laughter was all solemn earnest. She glowed at the " fascinatings " and " charmings " and other adulatory adjectives bestowed upon his novel by sweet young things, low-necked, even as a mother listens to the praise of an only child. Eyes burning, uncon- 160 MRS. HOPE S HUSBAND scious even of her own pearls, she looked up at him, so handsome and distinguished, as every woman with a third lover looks at him, caring not who may witness her infatuation. Towards the end of the evening, a last, late- arriving lady was presented to Mr. " John Irons." She was a round-eyed matron in black satin. She was as soft and silly as only a huge woman in black satin can be. At the author of the hour near-sighted Mrs. Poppity let her senti mentality gush copiously forth, unwitting that it had ever gushed at him before. Finally she turned; and as her round eyes rolled toward the wife of the newest celebrity, slowly her fan swayed back and forth -back and forth, her ostrich fan. "A h ! " in her wistful, far-away tone she breathed, never once looking at Pauline s face, "and what do you do, Mrs. Irons?" Then, waiting for no answer, soulfully she added, "something wow-derful, I m sure!" THE END 161 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 7lFeb57 r0 . - o r "7 FLU < raw R EC D LD htb ^ 9 1957 , , ~ *> - " REC D LD FtB_^5jg57 LD 21-100m-6, 56 (B9311slO)476 General Library University of California Berkeley ( YB 73173 $22182 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY