Husba 
 
 i^HKBnBKKBaHBHBiHMBHBMvaMHHHHKiBmaaa*H^^v~ i 
 
 Irwin 
 
 i
 
 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 WALLACE IRWIN
 
 SUFFERING 
 HUSBANDS 
 
 BY 
 
 WALLACE IRWIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "VENUS IN THE EAST," "PILGRIMS INTO FOLLY," 
 "LETTERS OF A JAPANESE SCHOOLBOY," ETC. 
 
 NEW XBr YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1920, 
 By George H. Doran Company 
 
 Copyright, 1916, 1917, 1918, 
 by The Curtis Publishing Company 
 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 ALL FRONT AND No BACK 13 
 
 II 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 55 
 
 III 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 97 
 
 IV 
 THUNDER i3 6 
 
 V 
 THE GOAT 161 
 
 VI 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 188 
 
 VII 
 FREE 2 44 
 
 VIII 
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 2 9 
 
 IX 
 MOTHER S MILK 3 2 4 
 
 2136163
 
 SUFFERING HUSBANDS
 
 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 i 
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 
 
 A YEAR and nine days after their honeymoon found 
 Norma McKeen cooking eggs, somewhat fastidiously, 
 in the ridiculous little kitchenette that served the 
 magnificent dining room at whose Sheraton table sat Na 
 thaniel Conway McKeen, an architect, scowling over his 
 morning mail. The McKeens in those days occupied an 
 apartment of two rooms which, if you stopped soon enough, 
 conveyed the effect of twenty. Their drawing-room was 
 thirty feet across, gave an appearance of mediaeval grand 
 eur, flaunted a dishonourably accurate Flemish fireplace, a 
 panelling that was almost Tudor, and many pieces of grace 
 fully galumphing furniture. Among these a great Charles II 
 settee held the McKeens grateful affections; it was not 
 only handsome, impressive, capable of luxuriously seating 
 a fat half dozen, but also, after this inestimable service, 
 could be unfolded, massaged and swaddled into a passably 
 comfortable bed. All this in a straight-fronted apartment 
 house, where rents were gloriously high and Fifth Ave 
 nue was within easy robbing distance; a sort of kingly 
 squalor of which Norma was growing discouraged and 
 weary this morning as she fished two eggs out of the sim 
 mering kettle, eased them into a bowl, and went forth 
 to face her baffled lord. 
 
 13
 
 14 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 As she fitted an egg into the little cup before him, she 
 had merely to glance over his shoulder and read the letter 
 head on the sheet over which he pored so bitterly, crackling 
 the paper between his nervous fingers. Daily for a year 
 she had turned a new page in Nat s calendar of failures, 
 and this one could be no surprise. 
 
 "Pigs, pigs, pigs!" he kept saying over and over again, 
 like some angry swineherd scolding a rebel flock. 
 
 "Is it about the Drayville Courthouse, dear?" she asked 
 soothingly as she lowered her eyes to the egg she was 
 decapitating. 
 
 "The usual result !" He tossed the letter to the floor. 
 
 "Whose designs were accepted?" She was determined 
 not to betray any weakening spot in her lines. 
 
 "Whose do you think?" 
 
 He broke his egg with a murderous spoon. 
 
 "Hannan, Gay & Moore, of course! They have only 
 to make two scratches on a sheet of white paper and the 
 bourgeois fools everywhere scramble to give em the job. 
 They ve got the world bluffed." 
 
 "They ve been at it a great many years, my dear," she 
 pointed out, daring at last to look at the crushed, withered 
 expression that had been weakening his face these humili 
 ating months. 
 
 She was two or three years older than he and her atti 
 tude toward him was passionately maternal. She wanted 
 to pick him up, smooth his hair and shove him back into 
 the fight from which he was shrinking. 
 
 "Bluff!" he barked out, his narrow handsome features 
 all awry. "Nothing but bluff counts in this business." 
 
 "In that case we should be worth untold millions." 
 
 "We ve gone at it the wrong way, somehow. Hannan, 
 Clay & Moore have put efficiency into the job. They ve 
 got society feeding out of the hand. Look at Ambrose 
 Hannan! Squeaking little ape! His wife gave him 
 entree " 
 
 Norma winced at the thrust. She didn t think Nat, even
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 15 
 
 under the whip of failure, would say that to her. He had 
 tossed the truth at her, and she wore it like a kimono of 
 nettles; for Nat had married her under the supposition 
 that she would furnish the very thing Mrs. Hannan had 
 given her ape of a husband. 
 
 "I m sorry," was all she allowed herself to say. 
 
 "Hannan everywhere!" he went on savagely. "I saw 
 his plans for this Drayville Courthouse. Pompous rub 
 bish! Imitation of all the Carnegie libraries on earth." 
 
 "You might have done better," she suggested coolly, 
 "if you had not sent in a made-over plan for your Vulga 
 rian Renaissance." 
 
 By his look she knew her joke had been ill-timed. But 
 it was a joke between them, this elaborate palace plan, 
 over which they privately snickered the gibe "Vulgarian 
 Renaissance" and publicly referred to as Nat s "Gregorian 
 Villa." Artistically it was a potboiler that had turned into 
 an Irish stew, compounding all the architectural periods 
 into one luscious mass. Poor, snobbish artist that he was, 
 Nat had planned it in bitterness, underestimating the good 
 taste of self-made men. 
 
 "It looks just as much like a courthouse as it does like a 
 private dwelling," Nat defended in an injured tone. "Be 
 sides, I added a lot of Doric pillars to the facade." 
 
 "I didn t think it looked like a courthouse." She stuck 
 to her point. 
 
 "Well, what in the world does it look like? I designed 
 it for a brand-new millionaire s perfectly grand country 
 house. You made me think it was a sure thing. I ve 
 revised it till you can t tell the front door from the back. 
 People decent people treat me like an idiot newsboy!" 
 
 Suddenly he was upon his feet, a small trim figure, nicely 
 dressed, showing a keen, sensitive little face, now distorted 
 with rage and disappointment. 
 
 "I tell you, Norma," he raved, "we are being shunned 
 shunned! Nobody that is anybody ever comes to see us, 
 invites us anywhere, accepts our invitations. Meantime
 
 16 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^ "^ " ~ mm **~*^~ ""T^*^^*1 
 
 my business is gone to pot. I had a pretty good run of 
 small stuff until I went against this millionaire game. I ve 
 had only one order and that a miserable little job since 
 we were married. I m stung!" 
 
 "Let s buck up, old man!" she pleaded, rising to meet 
 him and taking him firmly by the lapels of his coat. "We 
 haven t tried all the people in the world yet it takes a 
 little time; and when you re started " 
 
 She couldn t finish, so faint became her heart to see the 
 crushed look that had come upon this man who had 
 swaggered a little and spoken so cocksurely of his future 
 in the days before they were married. 
 
 "We ll have to sell out," he complained with one of his 
 dramatic gestures round the glories of their pretentious 
 abode. "And a lot we d get for these fakes! There isn t 
 a stick in the apartment that isn t bogus somehow. It s 
 like this darned life we lead phony, phony, phony!" 
 
 "Nothing s phony until it s discovered." Quite inno 
 cently she uttered the sophistry that has made many a noble 
 counterfeiter. 
 
 He picked his hat and coat from a chair and stood, 
 -glaring. 
 
 "We ll find another string to our bow," she promised 
 confidently, and knew how insipidly the words fell. 
 
 "If I were an Ambrose Hannan," he railed, "I d get 
 somewhere. Always scampering in and out the little 
 rat! Do you know what he s nibbling now?" 
 
 Norma was unable to guess. 
 
 "Percy Ferguson s new country house." 
 
 The name brought back to her an era in her life, not 
 long past, when she had run errands for Mrs. Percy Fergu 
 son and taken favours from her kindly, patronising hand. 
 
 "I didn t know they were back. They ve been out West 
 for over a year." 
 
 "Came up from Florida this week. Old Percy s going 
 to build a five-hundred-thousand-dollar house in Roslyn, 
 and Hannan was at the Grand Central Station to greet him
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 17 
 
 with a brass band, you can bet ! I saw them yesterday at 
 the Architects Club as thick as thieves. Probably Mrs. 
 Hannan is working the other end of the game introducing 
 Mrs. Ferguson where it ll do the most good. Teamwork !" 
 
 Nat was charging toward the front door when Norma, 
 inspired by her despair, called after him: 
 
 "I might do something with Marian Ferguson. I know 
 them at least I did." 
 
 "How well?" He swung round and faced her hungrily. 
 
 "I met them first at Colorado Springs, just after Percy 
 had made his first million or two cattle and mines. He 
 was a wild man from the hills, and she was a country 
 school teacher. I taught Marian how to dress and Percy 
 how to eat. Percy came East and turned his fortune over 
 and over in iron; and I took Marian round a great deal. 
 She really owes me something, I think." 
 
 "Well, Hannan s building their house." Nat stuck to 
 it doggedly. 
 
 "I don t think he could have persuaded Percy so soon. 
 Percy s an independent old savage; a perfect cannibal, 
 with a genius for good cooking. We might ask them to 
 dinner." 
 
 "Dinner! Is he savage enough to eat canned goods?" 
 
 Poor Nat glared toward the kitchenette that had mal 
 nourished them these many days. 
 
 "No; Percy is the fanciest feeder in all the world," she 
 wailed after him as he disappeared behind the front door. 
 
 Norma McKeen sighed, rolled up the sleeves of her 
 calico morning dress, and set about washing the breakfast 
 dishes. During all the years she had walked the social 
 slack wire she had never felt so giddily panic-stricken as 
 now. And for many years she had maintained herself in 
 her chosen stratum by dint of some rather ingenious acro 
 batics. Up to the time of her marriage she had been one 
 of those girls whom you meet and perhaps sit beside at table
 
 i8 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 in the best houses of New York and its more prosperous 
 suburbs. 
 
 You weren t supposed to know that her well-fitting 
 gowns had been made over from the offcast of some 
 wealthy patroness; or that she appeared at dinners only 
 when somebody who was somebody sent regrets at the 
 last moment ; or that she wrote difficult notes and did 
 troublesome shopping for the ladies in whose country 
 houses she spent luxurious week-ends, always entertaining 
 the dullest guest, making a fourth where the bridge was 
 poorest. You weren t supposed to know that she heard 
 her symphony concerts when the governess begged off and 
 the Canningmore-Troutt children s culture must proceed; 
 or that she sat in the diamond horseshoe only on nights 
 when the cast was mediocre and the tickets might as well 
 be used. 
 
 Norma had always sung for her supper. 
 
 As a reward of patience and industry she had been per 
 mitted to breathe some of the air that had become habitual 
 to her during the years when her father had four-flushed 
 his way through the financial district of lower Manhattan. 
 As a well-bred, poverty-stricken person of no great family 
 connections, much savoir-faire and satisfactorily mild ac 
 complishments, she had got her winters in Southern 
 resorts, her cruises on well-appointed yachts, occasional 
 European trips, many dinners of magnificent dulness, a 
 splendid wardrobe of slightly worn apparel a cold bath in 
 the great world s glamour. She had had one or two chances 
 to marry; but the picking had been poor. Norma at her 
 prettiest had been a Burne- Jones type, a rather futile claim 
 to attractiveness in a society which worships the definite, 
 be it beautiful, banal, brilliant, decadent or mysterious. 
 Then, too, most of her tete-a-tetes had been for the cheering 
 or occupation of superfluous husbands. 
 
 After she had rounded the desperate headland of thirty- 
 five, Norma had made up her mind to marry, to take her 
 place in the world and cease running errands for the rich.
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 19 
 
 She had met McKeen at an awfully Bohemian studio party 
 in New York, and later had got him an order to design 
 an unimportant country house for the very prosperous 
 Waddells, for whom she was then doing her bit as general- 
 utility girl. . 
 
 Norma had seen in McKeen a latent genius, needing, so 
 she thought, a little managing to bring it out. She had 
 thought, too, that it would be a graceful arrangement if, 
 as his wife, she could introduce him and his art into the 
 society for which she had legged it faithfully those many 
 years. 
 
 At any rate, they were married; and Norma had been 
 happy in her alliance with this man whom she admired and 
 in whose future she trusted implicitly. She had been a 
 trifle disappointed, perhaps, that so few people came to 
 their wedding. But the presents were lavish, which was a 
 comfort even though they were selected on the Chinese 
 platform that possible utility is an insult. Directly after 
 their honeymoon Nat went to work on a small job, and the 
 commission kept them comfortable for a while. Meantime 
 she had busied herself pushing buttons and pulling wires 
 in the regions of Long Island and Westchester County 
 that had known her so well. 
 
 It had come to her gradually, as unpleasant truth has a 
 considerate way of doing. Mrs. Tillinghasset-Bleeze asked 
 her in one morning to chat during a manicure; Mrs. 
 Canningmore-Troutt invited her to a very third-rate tea. 
 The fact that she was being snubbed had dawned unpleas 
 antly. She was like a faithful servant dismissed. The 
 houses she had adorned so accommodatingly knew her no 
 more. And this was a mystery until at last she had real 
 ised that, as a married woman, she could no longer be 
 summoned to be the handy minute girl she had been as a 
 dependent spinster, and that her money and her connec 
 tions, being nonexistent, did not warrant her cultivation 
 for herself alone. 
 
 This December morning, her bluish cotton sleeves rolled
 
 20 
 
 up above the elbows, Norma scraped plates and reflected 
 that she had done it all for love a consolation which any 
 woman who has married rather unsuccessfully may enjoy. 
 She had cultivated a fierce protective passion for this 
 rather futile architect who never had any orders. She 
 still saw in him the confident, the enthusiastic boy she had 
 known during the days when they were engaged; and she 
 accused herself, and herself alone, for his failures. 
 
 Norma AIcKeen, who had worked hard so many years 
 in order that somebody s servants might wait upon her, 
 scrubbed and scraped this morning over the sink in her 
 hot little kitchenette. The room in which she toiled was a 
 miserable blue-tiled galley, three feet wide by six long, 
 with a niche for a gas range and another for a sink one of 
 the abominations the unhealthy crowding of large cities has 
 devised. It outraged her natural instinct for wide spaces. 
 
 Norma hated that kitchenette; and this morning she 
 longed to toss its puny fixtures out of the window into the 
 court below. It had no exit into the hallway, and her only 
 means of taking out garbage or taking in groceries was 
 by way of the pretentious door in that magnificent Tudor 
 room. Once there had been a real kitchen with a real door ; 
 but Nat couldn t see so much space devoted to mere utility ; 
 therefore the kitchen walls had vanished and the door 
 had been panelled over at the spot where the English Shera 
 ton sideboard now stood. 
 
 To-day, as she lugged the heavy unpleasant pail through 
 the splendours of that big room, she had an impulse to 
 desert at once, go somewhere, learn a trade and do some 
 thing human. Instead, she plodded doggedly ahead, clat 
 tered the hated zinc receptacle on the tiles outside and 
 rang for the janitor to take it away. Then she rolled down 
 her sleeves and flung herself down upon the imitation 
 tapestry of a handsomely carved chair. 
 
 Reflection now brought her round again to the Percy 
 Fergusons. Nat, quite truthfully, had said they had only 
 canned goods in the house ; but Norma well knew how far
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 21 
 
 a good meal and an intimate conversation would go with 
 that rhinoceros-hided old vulgarian. In the days when she 
 had served her humble confidential time in the Ferguson 
 household she had alternately feared and admired the crusty 
 gourmet, who bore the effeminate name of Percy as 
 lightly as a travelling crane might carry a wreath of roses. 
 
 Mrs. Ferguson, too, had always made a point of her kind 
 ness. She had told Norma tearfully before her marriage 
 "I don t know what I shall do without you !" and had 
 sent her regrets to the quiet little wedding. 
 
 Feminine intuition, that miraculous gift which has got 
 man into scrapes ever since the days of Eve, told Norma 
 that now was the time. The favours were not all on Marian 
 Ferguson s side of the account book. Also, old Percy was 
 a man of independent judgments; and an evening s talk 
 with Nat would do much to neutralise the blandishments 
 of Ambrose Hannan. 
 
 Such a telephone as Queen Elizabeth might have em 
 ployed in her flirtations with Sir Walter Raleigh offered 
 its artistically antiqued mouthpiece from the vantage of a 
 Tudor desk at her elbow. The Fergusons always stopped 
 at the St. Vitus, she remembered ; and the air was charged 
 with electric hope as she got the number and, after a pause, 
 heard Marian s somewhat arrogant contralto in reply: 
 
 "Why Norma! You sweet child, how are you? I 
 thought I should never see you again. Couldn t you come 
 to see me? Or let me see I m so desperately busy. 
 We re only in town till to-morrow." 
 
 "I just couldn t let you go through town without our 
 getting a glimpse of you." 
 
 Like a singing bird Norma gushed the speech, so heartily 
 was it said. 
 
 "Oh, I should like to see you ! Let me think " 
 
 This was less encouraging. Norma had hoped vaguely 
 for an invitation to dine, which would have settled every 
 thing for the poor McKeens. 
 
 "I have shopping all day until five, when I must go to
 
 22 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 the Colony Club, and " Again the contralto paused to 
 
 compute. 
 
 Norma drew a long breath, and was out with it : 
 
 "Couldn t you dine with us to-night, Marian dear?" 
 
 Lost in a corner of that princely mediaeval drawing-room, 
 eagerly leaning over Queen Elizabeth s own telephone, she 
 felt her head swim with the importance of that impending 
 reply. She had promised Nat to pull the last string to her 
 bow. And if it snapped 
 
 "It s awfully kind of you," came the leisurely drawl 
 that Marian Ferguson had studied so carefully these last 
 years. "We re in town such a short time, and " 
 
 "Oh, but I do so want you and Percy to meet my 
 prodigy !" 
 
 "We ve heard such splendid things about him!" cooed 
 Mrs. Ferguson with that approximation of a London accent 
 so often and so badly done in New York s fashionable 
 environs. 
 
 She paused again, a semicolon s worth this time; then 
 unexpectedly said: 
 
 "We shall be delighted." 
 
 "I m so glad!" This was genuine. 
 
 "But, Norma dear, don t do anything elaborate for us. 
 Just make it a little home dinner." 
 
 "Don t worry on that score we live ever so simply," 
 said Norma, thinking wildly of Lucullan banquets, duck 
 bleeding wealthily, terrapin moistened with ripe old Span 
 ish sherry the kind of thing old Percy had savagely de 
 manded every night at the Ferguson table. 
 
 "About eight, then? Expect us, you sweet thing!" was 
 Marian Ferguson s valedictory as she hung up the tele 
 phone. 
 
 It was over; and Norma, a frail dot in the splendours of 
 that vast room which so cleverly suggested an ancient 
 aristocracy, got out her horizon-blue scratch pad and hastily 
 began to figure. In inviting the Fergusons to dinner she 
 had literally thrown all her coin upon the table. Old
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 23 
 
 Percy, she knew, fed like an anaconda if you can imagine 
 a serpent with a tooth exquisitely keyed to fish, flesh and 
 fowl out of season. To bring him to her apartment and 
 insult his appetite would be worse than useless; she must 
 feed him much and well. 
 
 At once she thought of the best cuisine in New York 
 Tanquay s Restaurant, which for fifty years had permitted 
 the world to acknowledge its superiority. She would raise 
 the money somewhere; and regretfully she thought of her 
 few jewels. She would order two or three courses from 
 Tanquay s, hire an emergency butler for ten dollars, per 
 haps, and do the rest on bluff. 
 
 There was a general-utility worker, a mulatto by the 
 name of Moselle White, who came in twice a week to scrub 
 and cook. Yes ; Moselle roasted a chicken rather well and 
 could prepare a few vegetables to help fill the Fergusonian 
 maw. 
 
 Norma figured a while on the blue pad. It came rather 
 high, add and subtract as she would. Then she went over 
 to the little bureau behind the big screen, opened a top 
 drawer, and took out the bulk of her treasure. There was 
 a large black opal brooch, cunningly set with sapphires and 
 emeralds on a ground of old French enamel. It had been 
 given her by a patronising dowager in the days before 
 black opals were fashionable. In the palm of her right 
 hand Norma weighed the brooch, while over the forefinger 
 of her left she dangled a little blue bracelet watch, set with 
 a crown of small diamonds. Nat had got her that on 
 credit as his groom s gift to her. 
 
 She didn t want to spoil her eyes by crying; so she 
 dropped the trinkets in her hand bag and went quickly about 
 dressing for the street. 
 
 II 
 
 For years Norma had enjoyed a peculiar acquaintance 
 ship with the head waiter at Tanquay s, whom the gastric
 
 24 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 world knew and acclaimed under the name of Pierre. He 
 was a Franco-Hungarian-Alsatian who had learned his 
 trade in the city of Mexico, and who, some said, had flat 
 tered America by taking out his first papers. In the days 
 of her gilded thralldom Norma had gone often to Pierre 
 confidentially to order expensive dinners for such rich 
 friends as were too busy with golf, auction bridge, and 
 like real work of the world to bother with small routine. 
 Norma had gone behind the scenes with Pierre and they 
 had learned to talk frankly together two souls engaged 
 in the same traffic, and aware of its tricks. 
 
 Norma, of old, had brought much patronage to Tan- 
 quay s ; and she had a feeling this morning, as she climbed 
 the stairs to the second floor of this famous building, that 
 Pierre would be useful in arranging the Ferguson dinner. 
 
 She found the tall, bald, clever-looking man seated in a 
 swivel chair before a mahogany desk, dictating to a secre 
 tary and employing all the vocal dignity of a great cor 
 poration lawyer which he was, somewhere inside. 
 
 "Ah, Mrs. McKeen !" he cried, rising and giving her his 
 capable hand ; she was not surprised that he knew her mar 
 ried name, for Pierre was omniscient. 
 
 "And how have you been, Pierre ?" she asked, taking the 
 chair his secretary rolled up beside the desk. 
 
 "Excellent But the work, of course, is fatiguing," 
 
 he informed her, the deep lines in his intelligent mask of a 
 face confirming his statement. "Tanquay s has never seen 
 so big a season. We are becoming too popular, if you know 
 what I mean. New York is overflowing with wealth 
 
 from " He swept out his long arms, indicating all 
 
 America. "And it is a pity that we must turn crowds away 
 every night." 
 
 "Oh ! Then perhaps you ll be too busy to attend to my 
 little order." She was approaching him on the economical 
 tack. 
 
 "I never found you parsimonious." He smiled diplo 
 matically.
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 25 
 
 "Ah, but it s different now. I m ordering for myself." 
 The shade in Pierre s expression was minute. "We re 
 planning a little dinner for four in my apartment," she 
 went on rapidly. "We can t afford to be extravagant ; but 
 it must be nice. So I thought I would order a few things 
 from Tanquay s and let my cook do the rest. I ve come 
 for your advice." 
 
 "I should be glad if there is anything I can suggest." 
 
 He said it in a tone of such genuine friendliness that she 
 was encouraged to ripple on : 
 
 "My Moselle roasts a chicken rather nicely and does 
 candied sweet potatoes very well. I thought, with some 
 
 French peas And she could manage the soup, too," 
 
 she finished, almost defiantly. 
 
 A shocking vision came to her of how Moselle White 
 would manage the soup. It would probably come out of a 
 can. 
 
 "Of course, if you ve a very good cook " He gave 
 
 her one of his forty-thousand-dollar shrugs, which was as 
 much as to say "Why talk to me?" 
 
 "Well, Pierre," she said brashly, "what would you sug 
 gest for a roast?" 
 
 "If your guests really prefer chicken," he tolled off in 
 measured tones, "there s chicken d la Tanquay. It s rather 
 simple, I should say. This will be a simple dinner?" 
 
 Norma had a memory of other days, when she was a 
 guest at a board where old Ferguson presided, croaking 
 dismally because imported Southdown lamb was not done 
 to his liking. 
 
 "I should call my guests rather particular," she con 
 fessed after a pause. 
 
 "Then, Mrs. McKeen, will you permit an old friend to 
 speak candidly?" 
 
 His attitude was so paternal, so genuinely earnest that 
 Mrs. McKeen could not take offence at his analysis of their 
 relation. 
 
 "If your guests are fastidious, as you say," he continued,
 
 26 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^ 
 
 "I m a little afraid that home-baked chicken and the other 
 things you have planned might not do. The average New 
 York cook, you know, is what shall I say? a vandal. 
 She does chicken about as Jenghiz Khan scorched it over 
 the camp fire. Between friends, tell me do you wish to 
 make an impression?" 
 
 "I shouldn t be going to this expense otherwise," she 
 agreed, rather crossly. 
 
 "Then let me tell you: You know as well as I what 
 good food is." Glorified by the compliment, she allowed 
 him to proceed : "I should have an Egyptian runner duck. 
 It will cost a trifle more, but the result will be worth it. 
 Potatoes au gratin, as we do them, and hothouse aspara 
 gus, with sauce universelle, would be enough of vegetables. 
 You do not want to have too much." 
 
 His able secretary was at that moment laying before 
 him several sheets of tentative menus, subject to his edit 
 ing. He thumbed them abstractedly before resuming: 
 
 "We can send you a butler who will make cocktails from 
 your materials there will be a saving! And with them 
 you should have a canape of fresh Russian caviar. Our 
 clear green turtle soup is especially good this week. For 
 fish " 
 
 "We might have sole supreme aux champignons she 
 cut in, remembering the comparative economy of the dish. 
 
 "Some might like it." Thus he uttered his condemna 
 tion. "Last night Mrs. Pelham Brodley gave a small party 
 here and praised our diamond-back terrapin very highly." 
 
 Her inference was rapid. The Brodleys were thick with 
 the Fergusons. Hannan, Gay & Moore had planned the 
 new Brodley house in upper Fifth Avenue. 
 
 "I m sure that would be very nice," she weakly concurred. 
 
 By now Norma s mind had collapsed and permitted itself 
 to become infolded by this man s superior will. Before 
 his magic her own programme of semihome cooking faded 
 into the realms of the sordid and impossible. Pierre was a 
 hypnotist. Out of the depths of his mahogany desk he
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 27 
 
 summoned rich delicacies which the snob within her 
 clamoured to offer for appeasement of the very rich Fer 
 gusons. Gratins and salads seemed to fly at her; vintage 
 wines arose at the will of this black wizard; heavy pluto 
 cratic cigars seemed to mock her from the box. 
 
 There was an exotic dessert by name, Peche Reine des 
 Fees which Pierre seemed bent upon her having. She 
 feebly expostulated; but the king of all the waiters pursed 
 a hand above an imaginary plate and explained how 
 very dry champagne could make magic things of hot 
 house peaches which were stuffed with nuts and sauced 
 with wild French strawberries. She capitulated to his 
 charm, then rose and asked him to make out the bill. It 
 was staggering; but Norma had in her bag the roll of bills 
 she had obtained from the broker who had taken her 
 jewelry. 
 
 "Have we credit with Tanquay s?" she asked as lightly 
 as she could. 
 
 "Just a moment, Mrs. McKeen. Let me inquire," smiled 
 Pierre with that affability which discourages ; he was reach 
 ing for the telephone. 
 
 She stopped him hastily ; for she realised that Tanquay s 
 must know what all New York appeared to know that 
 Nat was months behind with every creditor he had. 
 
 "I think it s simpler to settle now," she informed him 
 coolly as she opened her bag and peeled off green and yel 
 low leaves from the lettuce head of bills. 
 
 "Our butler will be there at six," he said, "and your 
 order will come about seven. Please let me know if every 
 thing is not satisfactory." 
 
 She thanked him and was just turning away when Pierre 
 intercepted her. 
 
 "And flowers?" he was asking as she turned to escape; 
 he reached to his desk and held out a small vase containing 
 three orchids of unearthly ugliness. "Mandarin orchids," 
 he was explaining. "Very fashionable this season."
 
 28 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 She fled abruptly, leaving in her trail the weak excuse 
 that she would buy from her florist. 
 
 in 
 
 She went dizzily out of Tanquay s and made the rounds 
 of small shopping, reflecting, with every withering raid 
 upon her bank roll, that the Fergusons must not escape 
 them, now that everything was at stake. In the course 
 of her walk she called upon Nat in his office, which was a 
 pretentious attic in the upper thirties. 
 
 "The Fergusons are coming to dinner," she announced 
 blandly to her husband, who leaned over a drawing board, 
 his one remaining draughtsman labouring beside him. 
 
 "They re what?" He blinked at her and scowled. 
 
 The draughtsman, who was young, meek and skinny, scur 
 ried away from the storm; and as soon as they were alone 
 Norma explained. 
 
 "That s bully!" concurred Nat unexpectedly, giving her 
 the kiss that was always a reward. "I m sorry I was cross; 
 but I was worried sick. Can Percy be influenced?" 
 
 "He s got to be !" she told him. 
 
 "Well, I guess we ve got enough credit at the grocer s 
 if they can stand Moselle s cooking." 
 
 She caught herself on the verge of telling him how she 
 had ordered the entire dinner from Tanquay s; how she 
 had pawned her brooch and watch. Instead, she patted his 
 shoulder and smiled. 
 
 "Well, I must be getting Moselle and planning a perfect 
 orgy." Clumsily she knocked a sheaf of stiletto-pointed 
 pencils to the floor; and as she reached to pick them up 
 she urged: "You must go right to work, old boy, and do 
 a new water-colour sketch of your Vulgarian Renaissance. 
 The old sketch looks awfully shabby and dog-eared. Bring 
 all your plans home to-night. We re going to make good 
 this time."
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 29 
 
 Nat suddenly turned, walked across the room, and stood 
 gazing over the roofs. 
 
 "What faith you ve got! he growled, never looking 
 round as she passed out. 
 
 Moselle White came to assist at about three o clock. As 
 she worked by the hour, she was seldom on time, and gave 
 to herself the airs peculiar to all specialists. She was a 
 type of the Manhattan-bred negress, which is an exotic in 
 all the world. Carefully avoiding the rich accents of her 
 Virginian mother, she imitated the drawl of all the ladies 
 she attended. There were rhinestones in her hair, and over 
 her bulbous curves she wore a skin-tight gown of black 
 satin and kittenish cut. High cafe-au-lait shoes emboldened 
 the effect. 
 
 "I m going to give a dinner to-night, Moselle," explained 
 Norma as soon as her caller had assumed an apron. "I 
 want to have it rather elaborate; so I ve ordered it sent 
 in from Tanquay s." 
 
 "That will be delightful, I m sure," commented Moselle 
 in measured accents. 
 
 "Now, Moselle," pleaded her temporary mistress, "don t 
 be sensitive. I have all the worries I can stand. Please 
 get to straightening up the apartment." 
 
 Moselle, softened to a sort of truce, exposed her muscular 
 bronze forearms and applied herself with a will to the 
 process of tidying. Bare strips of floor were waxed to a 
 gleam, mahogany was rubbed, mirrors polished; and if oc 
 casionally the sarcastic echo of "Tanquay s my word!" 
 came from afar to the busy Norma, she was too wise to 
 risk discipline in these rough seas. 
 
 When Nat came home at six o clock he was a sprightlier 
 Nat than Norma had beheld since the days of illusion that 
 followed their honeymoon. Apparently he had swallowed 
 despair and now saw only the colour of rose. Norma was 
 very tired, but his shining face restored her.
 
 30 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 , 1 
 
 "By George, Norma, that was a stroke of business!" he 
 told her. "We re beginning to learn teamwork." 
 
 He carried under his arm a long roll of plans, and would 
 have interrupted her in the work of washing her best set of 
 china had she not raised an affectionate appeal. 
 
 "Can t you see I m busy, boy?" she chided, already lifted 
 out of her depression. "Now run along and get out the 
 silver." 
 
 "Sketches for Percy L. Ferguson s Gregorian Villa!" he 
 crowed, unrolling the scroll of cardboard : "I ve been at the 
 water colour all day." 
 
 Proudly he showed the white fagade against an idealised 
 Italian sky, tall poplars garnishing the somewhat obvious 
 driveway in the foreground. 
 
 "You feed em, Norma, and I ll do the persuading," he 
 assured her in that tone of cocksureness which had once 
 conveyed to her the impression of genius. "What sort 
 are they? Ferguson looks like a prehistoric ground sloth." 
 
 "The ground sloth was a vegetarian," she informed him. 
 "Percy growls over his meat and kills at sight. It s Marian 
 I intend to influence. She s rather nice, I think, when you 
 get under the enamel a bit purse-proud ; but she s always 
 been kind to me." 
 
 He did not seem to care for the humility of her tone, 
 for he took her up short with : 
 
 "We ll be kind to her when we get on our feet." 
 
 At half past six a temporary butler, wearing just the 
 proper arrangement of side whiskers and h s, appeared 
 from Tanquay s and tried at once to bully Moselle. Nat 
 gave himself up to the languors of a tub in the pygmy bath 
 room off the Tudor hall. Peeking into the kitchenette, 
 Norma could see Moselle and the butler, whose name was 
 Nudds, standing crowded together and quarrelling in their 
 various dialects. 
 
 "A bit close in ere, I call it," sallied Nudds. 
 
 "It was meant for one help," replied she, regarding him
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 31 
 
 loftily. "Two couldn t sit in this space unless they sat 
 in each other s laps." 
 
 This stroke quite defeated Mr. Nudds, who tiptoed into 
 the dining room and set to work arranging the table. 
 
 At a quarter of seven the dinner from Tanquay s ar 
 rived by the front door. Norma was partly dressed by this 
 time; but she was quick to slip on a kimono and superin 
 tend the commissary advance across the big living room. 
 She was glad that Nat was still deep in his dressing, for she 
 dreaded his detailed inquiries into that wild extravagance. 
 
 At last the uniformed escort departed. The boxes, pails 
 and packages, so cunningly prepared by professional hands, 
 were ingeniously piled in the already overcrowded galley. 
 The handy Nudds, at her bidding, rolled a high Chinese 
 screen out of the drawing-room and arranged it as a 
 camouflage to conceal the kitchen door. 
 
 Then Norma went about the completion of her toilet. 
 Among the minor details of her afternoon she had found 
 time to put a homemade wave in her hair. She found no 
 difficulty in selecting her evening gown, a sea-green affair 
 which, like Walter Pater s vampire, had died and been re 
 stored a thousand times. Before the mirror in the bathroom 
 Nat was carolling like a lark. 
 
 Norma, too, was wasting a few vain glances upon the 
 glass of her little bureau. She approved of herself and was 
 quite right in her belief that never before had she looked 
 younger or so pretty. Occasionally she would peep round 
 to take another look at the white-clothed table, glittering 
 with her wedding crystal, glorious with roses. She flattered 
 herself with the feeling that never, in any of the wealthy 
 homes where once she had been a satellite, had a little din 
 ner been better laid. It gave her a sense of luxury which, 
 poor girl, was more necessary to her being than the mere 
 bread and meat of life. 
 
 A bell rang. 
 
 "Telephone, dear !" sang out Nat, interrupting a luscious 
 whistle.
 
 32 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Now nicely arrayed for the evening, still smiling in con 
 templation of her reviving charm, she went over to the 
 Elizabethan telephone and put the receiver to her ear. Mrs. 
 Ferguson s contralto drawl was waiting for her: 
 
 "Norma, my dear! We re so sorry! My Bobby poor 
 little chap! has come to town to see the doctor about his 
 throat, and I must be with him to-night." 
 
 "I m sorry too. I hope it is not serious," said Norma in 
 the sweetest possible tone. 
 
 "You must think it frightful of us. If it were anybody 
 but my precious boy ! I m dreadfully worried about him. 
 You must think me a beast to be letting you know so 
 late " 
 
 "Don t give it a second thought, my dear Marian," said 
 Norma in the yielding voice her long slavery had taught 
 her. 
 
 "It s dreadful to upset your plans " 
 
 "Oh, it was only a little home dinner," she assured her 
 rapidly, hoping to end it all before her endurance gave way. 
 "We must see you both soon. Good-bye !" 
 
 She hung up the receiver and burst frankly into tears. 
 Presently Nat, nicely attired for a festival and well pleased 
 with himself, came sauntering out. 
 
 "Why, Norma !" He stopped in the midst of his rounde 
 lay. 
 
 "The Fergusons!" she wailed, and repeated it several 
 times. "The Fergusons!" 
 
 "You can t mean " 
 
 "They aren t coming! Their brat of a boy s sick the 
 last minute. They aren t coming !" 
 
 Nat began whistling again; but this time it was harsh 
 and shrill, like the wail of a midnight siren announcing 
 fire. Through the mist Norma could see the elegant Mr. 
 Nudds, perfect as to attitude, shirt front and side whiskers, 
 guarding the mockery of a dining room. 
 
 "Well," said Nat, rising unexpectedly to the occasion, 
 "it s about the first civilised meal we ve faced for ever so
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 33 
 
 long. Let s powder our noses and sit down and pre 
 tend " 
 
 "Every cent we have in the world !" she raised her ulula- 
 tion; not being tearful by habit, she gave herself up utterly 
 to the rare luxury. "I ve pawned my brooch I ve pawned 
 my bracelet watch to order this dinner from Tanquay s!" 
 
 "You ve what ordered from where?" 
 
 "From Tanquay s. It cost over a hundred dollars ! What 
 shall we do ?" 
 
 "Well, of all the What got into your head, Norma ?" 
 
 "The Fergusons had to be fed," she madly excused her 
 self, as though she had been speaking of starving Belgians. 
 
 "Well," he said flatly, "the dinner s getting cold and 
 somebody s got to eat it." 
 
 "We can t!" she told him wildly. "It cost a hundred 
 dollars it would poison us." 
 
 And at that desperate thought Norma stood up, raised 
 a hand to her back hair and was herself again. 
 
 "Nat," she cried, squeezing his arm in a viselike grip, 
 "there ought to be some one in New York willing to pay for 
 that dinner!" 
 
 "There you go again! Haven t you had enough bright 
 ideas for one day?" 
 
 Norma, who had a way of charging headforemost when 
 she wanted what she wanted, had now again bounded to 
 the near-Elizabethan telephone. The line was, of course, 
 busy; and when she got into connection with Tanquay s 
 she found that Pierre was busy also. 
 
 "I don t want the captain tell Pierre that Mrs. Nathaniel 
 McKeen must speak to him." 
 
 "It s the rush hour, madam. There are a great many 
 people waiting. I ll see if I can get him." 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. McKeen," came Pierre s smooth voice much 
 sooner than she had expected. 
 
 "I m sorry to bother you when you re busy," she began, 
 not without design.
 
 34 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "We re having a very heavy night," he replied, some 
 what impatiently. 
 
 "Good ! That s just my point Pierre, are you turn 
 ing people away, as you said you had been doing?" 
 
 "I m afraid we shall be unable to accommodate several 
 large parties, madam," came his stiff reply. 
 
 "Then I want to co-operate with you. If you have a 
 nice party of four you re turning away, would you mind 
 sending them to my apartment to eat my dinner?" 
 
 "I beg pardon, Mrs. McKeen?" he shrugged over the 
 wire. 
 
 "The dinner you just sent to me. I ve been disappointed 
 in my guests at the last moment. I couldn t afford the din 
 ner in the first place, and I certainly can t afford to throw 
 it away. Of course, if Tanquay s are willing to rebate to me 
 the amount " 
 
 "I m afraid that would be a little irregular," he suavely 
 informed her. A pause. "You say it s for four?" 
 
 "Yes the dinner I ordered." 
 
 "There s a very special party here asking for a private 
 room. We shan t be able to accommodate them. Just a 
 minute !" 
 
 There came a long blank spell, during which she kept 
 her eyes upon Nat s nervous patent leathers, pacing the 
 rug. 
 
 "For Heaven s sake, Nat, stop pacing up and down like a 
 caged hyena." 
 
 "Mrs. McKeen?" Pierre s voice came back at last. "I 
 have arranged it with the party. Shall I send them to you ?" 
 
 "Send them to my apartment," she commanded eagerly. 
 "Have them ask for for Mrs. Jones." 
 
 "What name?" 
 
 "For Jones," echoed the wire and the communication 
 closed with a click. 
 
 "Well!" said Nat, pausing severely in front of her. 
 "This is the end of a perfect day !" 
 
 "No, it isn t," replied his wife briskly, restored, sparkling,
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 35 
 
 prepared to turn a forlorn hope into a triumphant adven 
 ture. "If you ll let me alone I ll get our money back and 
 make ten or twelve dollars out of it." 
 
 "I ll let you alone, if that s all you want," he said sulkily. 
 "Be sensible and come out to dinner with me." 
 
 "And leave my apartment with a lot of strangers and a 
 head waiter? Nat, be a good boy! Go over to the club 
 and have a nice quiet evening. I ll stay and manage the 
 kitchen." 
 
 "Suppose it should get round! Suppose it should leak 
 out that we were running a sort of private restaurant !" 
 
 "I ll look out for that, dear," she sighed wearily. "Now 
 please run along!" 
 
 "Well, of all the " he began feebly. 
 
 "Can you suggest a better way out of this mess?" she 
 questioned sharply ; and for reply he went charging for the 
 big front door. 
 
 Norma was now determined that this evening should be 
 as much a mystery as possible to her paying guests. As 
 soon as Nat was well gone she stepped into the hall and 
 told the elevator boy about the mythical Mrs. Jones. 
 
 "She s stopping with me," lied Norma, "and expecting 
 guests for dinner. When they ask for Jones, bring 
 them up." 
 
 In the dining room she found the man from Tanquay s, 
 erect as a sentinel awaiting a gas attack. 
 
 "Nudds," said she, "I want you to move that Chinese 
 screen a little closer to the kitchen door so there will be 
 room for us to work behind it. I am Mrs. Jones do you 
 understand? And when the guests arrive you are to show 
 them to the table, serve the dinner, and collect for it." 
 
 "Collect, ma am?" His eyes, which were very small, 
 projected from his little face like the orbs of a boiled 
 lobster. 
 
 Norma hurried over to her desk, for time was money 
 with her now. On a leaf of her frivolous horizon-blue pad 
 she scrawled a dollar mark, with several numerals there-
 
 36 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 after. Just as she was handing the slip to Nudds the door 
 bell rang. It was a merry note. Fervently she hoped 
 they wouldn t be the noisy sort. 
 
 "I turn everything over to you," she whispered to Nudds, 
 and cowered into the kitchenette beside the voluptuous 
 Moselle. 
 
 To make matters interesting, Moselle began at once to 
 frame an elegant indictment of Mr. Nudds. 
 
 "If he continues his impertinence," she proclaimed, "I 
 shall be obliged to go!" 
 
 "If you do," hissed Norma in her ear, "I shall discharge 
 you !" 
 
 In a saner moment she would doubtless have chosen a 
 more logical threat. But it had the effect of confusing 
 the enemy; for Moselle, subdued, continued stirring the 
 soup. 
 
 Curiosity got the better of Norma. She could hear the 
 front door click and the reverberation of treble and basso 
 in the big room. Through a crack in the Chinese screen 
 she could see the four of them two couples milling about 
 the spacious floor, impertinently examining bric-a-brac and 
 pictures. The sight bruised her pride, yet touched her 
 humour; she was glad she had locked all intimate photo 
 graphs away in the little bureau. 
 
 "What a bee-oo-tiful place!" a little woman in pink was 
 cooing; but a larger and older woman, who loomed indis 
 tinctly in the aesthetic shadows of mediaeval splendour, 
 seemed out of sorts with the hulking gentleman whose form 
 Was just visible beyond the Charles II settee. 
 
 "I don t like the idea of it!" she was protesting in a 
 deep contralto drawl. 
 
 A smaller man, perfectly bald and with a little mincing 
 walk, swung into view and said in a peppery, staccato voice : 
 
 "Quite amusing yes, yes quite amusing!" 
 
 Norma s mouth felt the torture of Tantalus as Nudds 
 moved forward, bearing the cocktails and expensive 
 canape of fresh Russian caviar. The paying guests held
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 37 
 
 their glasses in a convivial circle, while the spy longed to 
 steal forth and view them at close range, so sharp became 
 her curiosity. Only a little woman in pink could she see 
 plainly. She was pretty, under forty, and showed an elfin 
 smile, full of wit and spitefulness. 
 
 Just as they were putting down their glasses and begin 
 ning to move toward the dining room, a moment of delicious 
 expectancy was spoiled by the fat shadow of Moselle. 
 
 "Shall I put the soup in these?" inquired the saddle- 
 coloured duchess, daintily poising a porridge bowl in each 
 hand. 
 
 "For heaven s sake!" Norma bounded back to the 
 kitchenette. 
 
 Patiently she spread four soup plates on the homoeopathic 
 kitchen cabinet and began to ladle out portions of the 
 precious green liquid. She saved out half a cupful for her 
 self which shows she had in her the makings of a good 
 servant. Outside she could hear the mingled voices of the 
 party coming into the dining room. So close were they 
 now, she was stricken with fear that one of them, bolder 
 than the rest, might peep behind the screen and catch her 
 clad as for an occasion, sandwiched in between Moselle and 
 the helpful Nudds. 
 
 "Quite charming !" the treble voice went shrilling past. 
 
 "Rather clever faking, the whole place," spoke the acrid 
 staccato. "This room looks almost real first glance. Can 
 vas stretched over plaster, enamelled to look like wood. 
 Jove, those fake Fragonard panels fooled me for a minute !" 
 
 Nudds had now gone forth with the soup, and Norma 
 sprang back to her spying behind the screen. It proved 
 very poor peeping, for the crack through which she looked 
 was at a bad angle and the dining room had been dimly 
 lit, with regard to effect. By squinting painfully she could 
 see the guests taking their seats within the faint nimbus 
 shed by candelabra. 
 
 "For the love of barley !" The big man at that moment 
 raised his voice like the creaking of a rusty hinge. "Waiter,
 
 38 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 turn on some lights. This place must be run by a lot of 
 women. I can t see the way to my soup." 
 
 Norma flew to a more commanding spy hole just as the 
 obliging Mr. Nudds pressed his thumb to the switch, flood 
 ing with light the large ivory-tinted room, with its dim, 
 painted panels. The whole picture, thus uncomprisingly 
 outlined, came to her in the matter-of-fact way with which 
 we sometimes view the unbelievable. . . . 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Percy Ferguson were giving a little din 
 ner party for Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose Hannan ! 
 
 The thing had all the obviousness of a miracle. There sat 
 old Percy, under the uncompromising light he demanded, 
 his shapeless dinosauric body hunched over his plate, while 
 his sallow dyspeptic head craned forward in the delicious 
 toil of eating. The large angular lady, with the stringy 
 neck and iron-grey hair arranged somewhat old-maidishly, 
 revealed herself as Marian Ferguson by the characteristic 
 gesture with which she reached for the salt. Ambrose 
 Hannan had lost most of his hair since Norma had last 
 seen him, five years before; but he was still fidgety, opin 
 ionated of glance, and still retained the mannerism of mark 
 ing off spaces in the air which characterised the prince of 
 American architects. 
 
 "Percy, why did you let Pierre send you to this place?" 
 nagged Mrs. Ferguson, having finished her soup. "For all 
 we know the food may be poisoned." 
 
 How devoutly Norma, crouching in ambush, wished she 
 had thought of it in time! 
 
 "You would have a private room !" croaked the big man 
 with the withered head as he raised bilious eyes above 
 his feeding. "You know" he turned gloweringly upon 
 Mrs. Hannan, on his right "when Marian gets a notion she 
 wants to dodge somebody she ll charter a submarine or go 
 up in a balloon. Expense is nothing. Comfort is nothing." 
 
 He chewed savagely at a dinner roll. 
 
 "I know the feeling," agreed Mrs. Hannan in her light, 
 teasing little voice. "Man can die but once. And to be
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 39 
 
 bored to death " She tossed up her delicate hands and 
 
 rolled her snappy black Japanesque eyes. 
 
 "I never found Norma such a bore," grunted that terrible 
 Percy. 
 
 "You wouldn t, my dear," cooed Mrs. Ferguson ever so 
 softly. "You always had a fondness for swindlers." 
 
 "Now, Molly, that s calling names!" creaked old Percy. 
 "When Norma Wayley was legging it for you I didn t 
 notice you locking up the silver. You were mighty glad to 
 let her write your checks for you. You never put a padlock 
 on the baby when she came in to understudy the governess. 
 Rich women are a tribe all by themselves. Don t you think 
 so, Mrs. Hannan?" 
 
 "Don t scold me!" tinkled the little woman banteringly. 
 "I ll never be burned for my wealth." 
 
 "Poor Norma!" sighed Mrs. Ferguson in a tone that 
 urged the spy behind the screen to rush forth and end it 
 all in a frightful massacre. 
 
 "Oh, let up !" broke in the reformed wild man. "It seems 
 to me there was a time when Norma did a great deal for 
 you." 
 
 "That will be all, my dear !" Marian glared so icily that 
 even old Percy felt the chill. 
 
 "She was that Wayley girl, wasn t she?" Mrs. Hannan 
 seemed to pursue the subject with ghoulish glee. "Didn t 
 she marry some sort of architect, dear?" She levelled the 
 query at her husband, who sat abstracted in the details 
 of the room. 
 
 "Nat McKeen," he barked out. "I see him sometimes at 
 the club. Cleverish sort of chap; but nothing thorough 
 about him. When I see those poor devils drilling along 
 into middle age, continually scouting for an opening some 
 where, it makes me think that ours is a terribly overcrowded 
 profession. Darn it! I feel sorry for em too. Nothing 
 ahead of em!" 
 
 "We can t all be great eh, Hannan?" gibed Ferguson
 
 40 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 with a rusty little cackle, rolling the small eyes that always 
 reminded Norma of an angry elephant s. 
 
 "Poor Norma !" again sighed Marian, by way of diver 
 sion. "I should think she could push a husband into success 
 if anybody could. Bashfulness was never one of her faults. 
 If she had been a trifle better looking and hadn t tried so 
 hard she might have married very well indeed. But men 
 saw through her, I m afraid. Calculating little piece !" 
 
 "In our shining circle it s a black crime to be a calculating 
 little piece, ain t it?" grumbled old Percy. "Our young 
 ladies always linger in rosy bowers, thinking of nothing but 
 pure romance, until along comes J. W. Charming, with a 
 permanent wave in his voice; so they are married and live 
 happy ever afterward in a two-room flat in Jersey City. 
 Do they? They don t." 
 
 "Percy, you re outrageous to-night," criticised his wife 
 smoothly. 
 
 "Excuse me, darling," he replied with the mockery of a 
 smile, "but I think you gave the McKeens a pretty raw 
 deal." 
 
 "Sweetheart," she drawled, "I didn t intend they should 
 invite us to their apartment and proceed to take advantage 
 of an old friendship. I know Norma wanted something; I 
 realised it as soon as I had hung up the receiver. She s 
 always on the make ; and I have no way of knowing what 
 sort of an adventuress she has degenerated into." 
 
 "Well, from what I know of the tribe, any one who gets 
 anything out of a rich woman earns it," creaked Percival. 
 
 "I hear, round the Architects Club " Ambrose 
 
 Hannan was opening disclosures when the fascinating 
 horror of it was broken, literally, by an awful crash 
 from behind. Distracted unwillingly from the black biog 
 raphy of the McKeens, Norma glanced round and beheld 
 Moselle moaning over a mound of broken china. She was 
 too numb for reproach, and set to work gathering up the 
 fragments. 
 
 Meantime Nudds was fussing indignantly over the terra-
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 41 
 
 pin, which Moselk had treated in the manner of ordinary 
 hash. Nudds expostulated; Moselle snorted. In her ex 
 citement she had forgotten her cultivated New York accent 
 and had returned to the voice of the plantation: 
 
 "Lan sakes ! Why yo -all tryin to ack laik millionaires 
 in a kitchenette ?" 
 
 "Shut up!" hissed Norma with decisive vulgarity. 
 
 Nudds was now bearing forth the dish Mrs. Pelham 
 Brodley had flattered in the sight of Pierre. Norma, lean 
 ing daintily in her party gown, was mopping the mess from 
 the kitchenette floor. 
 
 At last, when she could leave Moselle to weep silently 
 in the sink, Norma again took up her post at the screen. 
 Morbidly she hoped the table would still be echoing scanda] 
 of which she should be the central figure. But, instead, 
 she found a still more distressful topic wagging every 
 tongue : Hannan was explaining the country house he in 
 tended to build for Percy Ferguson. 
 
 "Wouldn t that be a bit obvious?" he was asking Percy 
 sharply, using his most overwhelming tone as he pulled a 
 long upper lip and glared through his spectacles. "The idea 
 is to conceal it from the road." 
 
 "What do I want to conceal it for?" croaked Ferguson. 
 "I m building a house not a siege gun." 
 
 "Let s take up the problem as we have it," persisted Han- 
 nan, impatiently seizing a fork and beginning to draw 
 designs on the tablecloth. 
 
 Norma could have screamed. This hateful Hannan, 
 feeding unbidden at her table, was using her best cloth as 
 a drawing board in order to do her husband out of a five- 
 hundred-thousand-dollar job! 
 
 "You see or, don t you see? that on such a rise of 
 ground you can t build a driveway to face the road. There 
 fore it s got to face the other way; the driveway to wind 
 round so." He sketched with the tine of his fork. "The 
 qualified Tudor house I am planning should give an effect 
 of being half buried in the landscape."
 
 42 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^ """""^ ^ ^^^^^^i^j^at 
 
 Nudds was just brushing by with plates in his hand and 
 Norma whispered bitterly: 
 
 "Tell that idiot to stop marking up my tablecloth!" 
 
 "Yes, madam," agreed the automaton, with no intention 
 of obeying. 
 
 "What am I spending half a million for?" Percy was 
 creaking when next she hearkened. "To chuck it in a hole 
 and cover it with bushes ? I want a house that means some 
 thing; a house that people can see from the road and cuss 
 at if they feel like it. But I don t want to be buried under 
 a landscape. There s time enough for that after I m dead." 
 
 "Percival!" soothed Mrs. Ferguson just in time: for 
 Hannan was reddening visibly. 
 
 "I don t think I can violate my artistic conscience," said 
 he, sitting back and, much to Norma s relief, laying down 
 his fork. 
 
 "Maybe not. If everybody felt that way there wouldn t 
 be any business done. I m paying for a house, and I want 
 the house I want. Suppose I ordered a carload of pig iron 
 and they sent me coke instead because their artistic con 
 sciences wouldn t stand violating? I d be crazier than I 
 am, I guess, if I didn t kick." 
 
 The ladies, it seemed, had been buzzing between them 
 selves, and their words became audible as the men growled 
 into silence. Norma at once dreaded and hoped that they 
 would again distress her with the truth about herself ; but, 
 instead, they were delving deliciously in the scandals of the 
 set that Mrs. Hannan knew and Mrs. Ferguson read about. 
 
 The two men sulked over their duck and, Norma re 
 marked to herself, swilled their champagne; they were dis 
 gusting. Norma s feet were tired and her eyes were aching 
 for the tears she would have shed had she dared. She 
 would have given worlds to have been away from it all, 
 and yet she would not have missed it for the world ! Such 
 is the curse of Eve the eavesdropper. 
 
 Inwardly she was entirely crushed with the outrageous 
 things this party had come here to tell her. Once she
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 43 
 
 resolved to escape, to dash past them so quickly that they 
 would think her an apparition, and go somewhere, any 
 where, until they were out of the house ; but when she sur 
 veyed the bright glare of the dining room and the great 
 stretch of floor she would have to cover before she could 
 gain the front door, she gave it up and borrowed a chair 
 from the haughty Moselle. 
 
 Presently the name "Norma" came floating again to her 
 ears and she resumed her post at the crack. 
 
 "I gave her the best of everything " Marian was say 
 ing, and Percy was interrupting: 
 
 "Best of everything when you were through with it! I 
 bet she never wore anything that wasn t secondhand all the 
 years I knew her. She put up a pretty spunky fight, if 
 you ask me ! Trouble with Norma was, she entered the 
 wrong field of endeavour." 
 
 "She was really very amusing," Mrs. Ferguson turned 
 spitefully to the lady in pink. "The best company in the 
 world, and so adjustable. She was a bit of a Becky 
 Sharp, though ; never quite knew her place, and no loyalty. 
 I wish, for my own sake, that she d stayed single; for an 
 attractive, foot-loose old maid without any money is one 
 of the greatest conveniences in the world. Now that she s 
 married " A shrug implied her complete uselessness. 
 
 Mrs. Hannan contributed a sympathetic anecdote. It 
 seemed that she had had an invaluable maid who had mar 
 ried the one perfect chauffeur, and so spoiled two rare 
 treasures. The transition from poor Norma to the maid 
 seemed quite natural. 
 
 Then, after a pause, Hannan turned the limelight again 
 upon himself. He spoke lovingly of his plans for a tower 
 ing Hudson water gate; of his converse with noble minds 
 on the subject of beautifying America. 
 
 As if in mockery of it all, Norma could see poor Nat s 
 roll of drawings on a chair by the wall where his heedless- 
 ness had dropped them before he fled from the evening s 
 horrors.
 
 44 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 She turned tearfully to the task of helping the now 
 humbled Moselle wash a change of silver for dessert. 
 
 "Fine folks," philosophised the coloured duchess in the 
 accents of her mother, "ain t so grand when you look at 
 em out uvva kitchenette. No, ma am !" 
 
 Now the elaborate paper boxes and tins in which com 
 ponents of the Peche Reine des Fees were packed must be 
 opened. Amid Moselle s ecstatic whispers of "Man! 
 Ma-a-an !" Nudds was taking out the four perfect peaches, 
 skinned, pitted and stuffed with nuts. Almost reverently 
 he unpacked the precious sauce of wild strawberries and 
 poured it over the fruit in the wide-mouthed wine glasses. 
 Busily, then, he puffed his way into the dining room and 
 was back in a moment with the torn fragments of that 
 costly, bloody duck. 
 
 "Pardon, ma am," announced he, pointing his crablike 
 eyes at Norma, "the gentleman says e s filled." 
 
 "Filled?" echoed she, enviously regarding the four per 
 fect peaches. 
 
 " E says e s ad sufficiently, ma am, and requires is 
 coffee." 
 
 "He can t have it now. I ve paid for this dessert and he s 
 got to eat it," announced the lady of the house decisively. 
 
 "Very good, ma am," replied the slave to duty; and 
 again he disappeared into the dining room. 
 
 No rebellious clamour arose when Nudds, a moment later, 
 bore in the dessert. Through the crack in the screen Norma 
 could see him pouring over the peaches their funeral liba 
 tion of dry champagne. 
 
 "Indigestible and fussy!" creaked Ferguson; and he fell 
 to, cleaning his plate before the others were well started. 
 "What d you all say we go to the Winter Palace ?" he next 
 spoke up. "Nothing in town s worth seeing, but anything s 
 better than sitting round glaring at each other." 
 
 There came a compliant chorus and Norma enjoyed her 
 first triumphant thrill. They had slandered her and Nat;
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 45 
 
 they had robbed them of their chance but those abomin 
 able Fergusons were going to pay for the dinner. 
 
 Old Percy sat roaring for coffee and cigars, and no 
 sooner were the box of salon panetelas opened and the little 
 cups set beside the plates than he began to fidget again at 
 Marian. 
 
 "Get your things on! Get your things on!" he nagged. 
 
 The ladies rose at this polite request and went into the 
 living room. The sight, to Norma, emblemed freedom 
 freedom forever from those thankless tyrants and all their 
 kind. Her last errand was run ; her last concession made. 
 What a showing-up this had been of herself and her pre 
 tended friends ! She would take her Nat and sink to 
 poverty; she would sew, scrub, chop wood. But never 
 again would she seek or accept favours. 
 
 The two men were now lolling in their chairs Norma s 
 chair and Nat s at the round table. Cocking the expensive 
 cigars at various angles, they regarded one another quizzi 
 cally across the roses. 
 
 "A very amusing room for a cheap one," said the archi 
 tect at last, turning his eyes from Percy to the panelling. 
 
 "I don t see anything so darned comical about it," said 
 the old man, beginning to wheeze. "You re rather easily 
 amused, Hannan." 
 
 "Oh," said Hannan with a dusty laugh, "when we say 
 amusing we mean anything cleverly managed out of the 
 ordinary." 
 
 "It s like calling a spade an implement." Ferguson 
 cocked his cigar towards his left eye and tendered the archi 
 tect a bilious glare. "When doctors, householders and auto 
 mobile salesmen get to doing that, you may be sure things 
 are beginning to run up into money." 
 
 "Do you know, Ferguson," said Hannan after a pause, 
 "I got a great deal of prestige in my younger days through 
 my gift for saying disagreeable things. The habit s grown 
 on me with success. But when I listen to you I find myself
 
 46 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 so splendidly outmatched that I want to retire and go into 
 a monastery." 
 
 Ferguson rewarded this speech with a dry wheeze and 
 bit a little deeper into his cigar. Hannan rose and set to 
 fingering Nat s pretty copies of old French flower paintings. 
 Ferguson yawned ; and presently he, too, shuffled to his feet. 
 His hands thrust deep into his elephantine trousers, he 
 began a tour of the room. Presently he stopped and 
 Norma s heart stopped with him; for he was leaning over 
 the chair upon which Nat had dropped his plans and 
 sketches. 
 
 "Hi-ho-hum !" yawned the old man, like an overfed ogre, 
 and casually picked up the scroll. 
 
 Clumsily he unwrapped the outer layer and permitted a 
 coil of blue prints to fall bouncingly to the floor. The 
 tableau was enacted right in front of Norma s nose, Han- 
 nan running his thumb along the moulding as he came closer 
 to big Ferguson, who was holding up Nat s water colour 
 and squinting sidewise. 
 
 "Did you bring this?" he asked Hannan, after a critical 
 pause in which the architect had joined him. 
 
 "I m not in the habit of carrying samples round with 
 me," replied the pert little man. 
 
 "That s a darned pretty thing, don t you think?" 
 
 Hannan perked his head, tilted his cigar, and replied: 
 
 "Amusing. Banal. Mixed pickles. Amusing!" 
 
 "Found another laugh, have you?" inquired Percy grat 
 ingly. 
 
 "Those ornamental tiles, for instance." 
 
 "Darned pretty !" 
 
 "You ve expressed it." 
 
 Hannan was fingering one of the mechanical drawings 
 he had picked up. 
 
 "First floor plan. All out of balance. Fellow has a bad 
 sense of proportion. Amusing stairway." He picked up 
 another sheet: "Second floor. Closets my word! Fine 
 idea of economy here ingenious arrangement."
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 47 
 
 "Hannan," croaked old Percy, holding the water colour 
 against the wall with the ends of his fingers while he stood 
 away as far as his frontal development would permit, 
 "that s a house ! A proud house. The front door isn t 
 in the back and the main driveway doesn t look like a 
 tradesman s entrance. Ostentatious and elegant. It ain t 
 one of your new art effects, with two bricks and nine 
 chimneys showing behind a grapevine." 
 
 "It is all you say of it," concurred Ambrose Hannan. 
 
 Ferguson permitted the water colour to roll up with a 
 papery snap as he dropped it on the chair and yawned again. 
 
 "Those women have clinched again," he moaned, peering 
 into the drawing-room. "Waiter!" Mr. Nudds promptly 
 presented himself. "Check!" 
 
 A sickening faintness swept over Norma as her tempo 
 rary butler held forth the slip from her horizon-blue pad. 
 
 "A hundred and ten dollars and sixty-five cents! What 
 for?" wheezed the genial host. "What sort of a badger 
 game are you running on me?" 
 
 "Excuse me, sir. The dinner was specially ordered, sir," 
 fluttered Mr. Nudds. 
 
 "I didn t specially order it !" Ferguson s voice was roar 
 ing in full volume. 
 
 "I dare say, sir." The servant retreated out of striking 
 distance. 
 
 The room beyond the crack swam round and round in 
 Norma s eyes. 
 
 "I didn t make any lump sum bid on this contract. Go to 
 your manager and get me an itemized bill." 
 
 "Yes, sir." Nudds staggered toward the kitchen. 
 
 "Aren t you ever coming?" Norma could hear Mrs. 
 Ferguson s contralto distantly wailing. 
 
 "Hannan, I m not going to be robbed," old Percy was 
 snarling. "You take the ladies down to the car and I 
 stick round until this check business is straightened out." 
 
 Hazily the spy behind the screen could see the architect 
 join the two women beyond. In the attitude of a bear
 
 48 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 p^^ "^ """"^""^^^""T^^^rr*" "^ 
 
 watching a rabbit hole, Ferguson crouched in a chair 
 directly in front of the kitchenette door. 
 
 Norma snatched the blue slip from the hand of Nudds 
 and, all a-tremble, borrowed a stubby pencil from Moselle. 
 On the other side of the leaf she attempted to reconstruct 
 that elaborate dinner, purchase by purchase. Never in the 
 world had she been able to make figures balance. Outside 
 she could hear the waiting fiend snort defiantly. 
 
 The figures, which this afternoon had so neatly totalled 
 a hundred and ten, insisted on adding up to ninety-four, and 
 refused to go beyond. The chair outside rattled and 
 creaked. She was wild with fear that he would take the 
 whim to burst through the screen. 
 
 At last she remembered. She hadn t put down cigars and 
 dessert. In an instant she had jotted the figures into the 
 column, made the addition, and handed the check to Nudds. 
 
 "Bunk!" came the snarl a moment later. "We smoked 
 two forty-cent cigars. Here you thieves have charged me 
 for the whole box !" 
 
 In the awful pause Norma could hear the feminine voices 
 fading away. The front door slammed. 
 
 "I ll ask the lady, sir." 
 
 "I thought this place was being run by a woman !" snorted 
 the monster. "Send the proprietor to me." 
 
 Another awful pause. Norma turned upon the kitchen 
 ette the eyes of a frightened little animal, seeking vainly 
 for a hole into which she could crawl. Nudds dodged into 
 her presence, accusingly holding up the scrap of paper. 
 
 " E says, ma am " 
 
 "Make him go away tell him it s all right he can pay 
 whatever " 
 
 A panel of the screen was drawn harshly aside and she 
 found herself standing exposed to the purple-veined nose, 
 bilious eyes and stubby moustache of old Percy Ferguson. 
 Somewhere in the background Moselle tittered. The flat 
 feet of Nudds shuffled nervously in the constricted space 
 of the kitchenette.
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 49 
 
 "For the love of barley !" Ferguson broke the silence with 
 a tone that was almost prayerful. 
 
 "I I m sorry about the mistake," Norma found herself 
 echoing away off somewhere. 
 
 "Mistake! Norma, when in Sam Hill did you begin 
 working for Tanquay?" 
 
 An inner humour told her how crazy she must have 
 looked, standing in that culinary box, dressed for the even 
 ing, a butler and a coloured maid hiding behind her skirts. 
 She must have seemed weak and pitiful, too, for old Percy s 
 voice suddenly grew paternal as he said : 
 
 "Come out of the oven, Norma. Let s sit down." 
 
 She followed him to the dining room and collapsed into 
 a chair. 
 
 "Why don t you make that British marvel give you some 
 thing to eat?" he scolded, eying her in the manner of kindly 
 truculence she so well remembered. "I ll bet you haven t 
 had a bite !" 
 
 "I haven t had time," she quavered. 
 
 "Norma!" He fixed her with the eye of a bilious ele 
 phant. "I thought I had been up against every game there 
 was." 
 
 "I didn t intend it should be you," she told him in a sud 
 den gust. "I wouldn t have had it happen for a hundred 
 thousand dollars!" 
 
 "You re running it up into money," he commented. 
 
 "We d ordered this dinner for you. And when you said 
 you couldn t come well, we couldn t afford to eat it our 
 selves. So I asked Pierre to get us somebody. It was 
 horrid ! It wasn t right that I should have had to endure 
 this!" 
 
 She wrung her hands and longed to scream out invectives 
 against them all. 
 
 "I see. You blew yourselves to the limit wanted to 
 get us here and sell us something didn t you, Norma ?" 
 
 "You and Marian needn t trouble yourselves further on 
 that score," she assured him coolly.
 
 50 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 The great body began to tremble, jelly-like, but never a 
 sound made he. 
 
 "Ain t that New York again ?" he gurgled at last. "This 
 phony old town ! And you re in the game. All front and 
 no back." 
 
 "I don t understand you." 
 
 "I ve been looking over this plant, Norma. When you 
 enter by the front door you think you ve stepped into the 
 best throne room of the Czar of Europe. Dining room 
 like Dick Canfield s private saloon. Where d you live? 
 Where d you cook? Where d you sleep? There, there, 
 Norma. Don t get mad !" 
 
 She clutched the sides of her chair and could have dug 
 her nails gleefully into that pachydermous hide. 
 
 "I m a disagreeable old codger," he explained contritely. 
 "It s a habit you ought to discount me. You must be put 
 ting up an awful fight. But let me give you a business tip : 
 If your husband wants to build me a house, why don t he 
 take off his silk stockings and wade in? I ve got an office, 
 and so has he." 
 
 "We don t want to build you a house !" she stormed, giv 
 ing way to shameful rage. "Not for every dollar that 
 makes you and your wife a pair of town bullies !" 
 
 He sat up straight, his ugly old face grown suddenly 
 grave. 
 
 "Norma, you ve been listening !" he said at last. 
 
 She only turned away her face, enraged that the tears 
 should be flowing -so childishly. 
 
 "I m sorry, my dear," he told her gruffly. "It s women s 
 talk rich women s talk. You can t blame em if their 
 claws are extra sharp; they re so expensively manicured. 
 And I ll bet a year of my life that if you had married thirty 
 million and had been sitting at that table, and Marian had 
 been down and out, hiding behind a screen " 
 
 The argument seeming to make no dent upon her grief, 
 he persisted clumsily : 
 
 "Believe me, I wouldn t have had that happen not for
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 
 
 a hundred times the price of your very good dinner. I 
 want you to forgive that purse-proud clatter. I always had 
 a sneaking admiration for you, Norma, because you were 
 a scrapper to the last. But the odds were against you. To 
 gather money off a rich woman is harder than skinning an 
 eel with a wooden spoon." 
 
 This statement of his favourite theory gained him noth 
 ing. He stirred uneasily in his chair. 
 
 "I want to square myself for this rotten break," he 
 blurted. "Hannan hasn t got me hypnotised the way he s 
 got Marian. Suppose you send your husband round to me 
 to-morrow with his plans " 
 
 "Will you please go?" She sprang to her feet and 
 ground the heel of her slipper into the rug. "Don t stay a 
 minute ! I will not be insulted again by you or your wife. 
 We re through with you with everything and everybody 
 like you. There isn t anything in the world worth what 
 we d have to stand " 
 
 She heard him feebly apologising; this old tyrant, who 
 had never been crossed by a butler, a government or a board 
 of directors, stood stuttering like a schoolboy : 
 
 "I I only wanted to do something. At least, Norma, 
 let s keep this mess to ourselves. There s no use 
 
 He faded into the big room and left her panting with the 
 invectives she yearned to hurl at his head. At the door 
 she could see him doling bills into Nudds willing clutch. 
 
 At a late hour the servants left, having restored the apart 
 ment to its customary appearance of regal order. Norma 
 had slipped on her kimono, taken down her hair, and pulled 
 out the folding-bed arrangement of the Charles II settee. 
 
 "All front and no back !" Her head was thumping with 
 the repeated phrase as she lay staring at the one pale light 
 in the antique sconce. 
 
 It was growing late. She wanted Nat to come home at 
 once, so that she could settle with him candidly the humble, 
 honest basis upon which they were to pursue their lives
 
 52 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 hereafter. All front and no back! What a decorative 
 sham had hidden their miserable shoddiness ! Instead of 
 human beings living in homely contact with a real world, 
 they had been window displays. And now the window was 
 broken ; its contents poured out into the unfriendly street. 
 
 And yet Norma felt relief. They could scrape together 
 a few dollars and move to a suburb where rents were cheap 
 and the Social Register unknown ; where kitchens were wide 
 and bedrooms plentiful ; where dogs barked and children 
 played on the sidewalks. 
 
 She was cruelly glad to have had her chance with old 
 Ferguson. To have refused his patronising offer was in the 
 way of making amends for her parasitic, sponging years. 
 She and Nat should be honest from now on ; honest and 
 openly poor. . . . She thought of how her husband with 
 ered under the frost of unsuccess. Her boy her weak 
 boy could be as commanding and confident as Hannan 
 himself, once given a chance. 
 
 But there are chances one must not take. Swindlers, 
 Marian Ferguson had called the McKeens as she sat at their 
 table. No wonder Percy had besought her to keep silent! 
 
 Wouldn t Nat be coming home pretty soon ? She thought 
 of telephoning to his club, but merely turned on her hard 
 pillow. He must be told at once; told that their lives and 
 their programme were to change absolutely. How long he 
 stayed away! Bitterly she thought of him anaesthetising 
 away the pain of this latest failure beside a tall glass. He 
 would probably do this more and more now for Nat was 
 of the kind who must drug themselves into the illusion of 
 success. 
 
 He came in quietly at last, just as she had dozed. She 
 didn t dare look at him for a while; and when she turned 
 her head she found him standing curiously beside her. His 
 hair was rumpled, his eyes strangely rolling, and the hard 
 front of his evening shirt was peeping out aggressively. 
 
 "Norma," he said in a queerly repressed key, "take a look 
 at your husband ! The mountain has walked up and bought
 
 ALL FRONT AND NO BACK 53 
 
 drinks for Mohammed. He took me to his club; he 
 drowned me with favours ; he " 
 
 "What in the world are you talking about?" she asked, 
 alarmed out of herself. 
 
 "Ferguson !" cried he ; but his cheeks were crimson and, 
 as he threw out his arms, he gave the effect of a man about 
 to fly. "I m not drunk. I m crazy and I ought to be. 
 He s given me the order to build his new house !" 
 
 Norma raised herself on her elbow and uttered not a 
 word. 
 
 "He hunted me up at the Architects Club, took me over 
 to the Metropolitan, and literally threw his house at my 
 head. Dumped gold nuggets on me with a coal scuttle. He 
 seems to know all about the plans for my Vul my 
 Gregorian Villa. He s as eager as a schoolboy. Wants me 
 to go over to Long Island to-morrow and see the land. And 
 my word! how he did lace it to Ambrose Hannan! I 
 couldn t have thought of the things he called him 
 
 Nat went burbling on the full wild Arabian Nights story 
 of success. He seemed to have grown inches taller, and 
 the ring of boyish enthusiasm had come back, sounding like 
 a great bell. She saw the miracle before her eyes a shin 
 ing conqueror had stepped forth from the shrivelled rag of 
 failure. . . . "Poor Norma!" The spiteful taunt of the 
 woman who had sat at her table and called her a swindler 
 rang in her ears. 
 
 She opened her lips and made a dry sound ; a hard task 
 was before her. Nat, of course, must be told and made 
 to know from what source this patronage was coming to 
 him. But he was rattling heedlessly on, deducing self- 
 praise from his triumphant interview. That talk with Fer 
 guson had given him new life. A hundred rosy ideas 
 seemed to blossom out of the patches of his brain, which 
 had lain sterile so long. He was delirious with new projects 
 and ambitious schemes. 
 
 What would be the best way in which to tell him now? 
 How could she be humane and yet warn her darling man
 
 54 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 away from that poisoned success the money that was to 
 be flung at them like an insult? The money that was put 
 ting fresh blood into his veins ! 
 
 And there she sat, giving forth little Oh s at regular inter 
 vals, denoting pleasure and wifely sympathy. The set smile 
 she wore, frozen on her face, seemed to hearten him for a 
 while ; but presently his self -directed paean grew fainter, and 
 he said in a voice that grew suddenly concerned : 
 
 "Norma, what in the world s the matter? Aren t you 
 happy ? Aren t you glad ?" 
 
 "Oh, my dear boy ! I m so happy ! I m so glad !" 
 
 She said it over and over, struggling to force warmth 
 into cold words. Then she gathered him maternally into 
 her arms.
 
 II 
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 
 
 WHEN Andy Hanovan came home that afternoon, 
 his celebrated wit and humour quite exhausted 
 after rehearsing the Mad Masque of Mars at Mrs. 
 Talcroft Skeen s palace on the height, he walked into his 
 pretty front door and found, by the evidence, that his 
 wife was about to leave him. He had known for some 
 time that the Hanovan fortunes were taking a turn to the 
 left, that Consie knew how much he was to blame and was 
 too keen to browse on the home-made sophistries by which 
 rich wives are often calmed ; but he didn t think she had 
 it in her heart to do this. Yet there stood her complicated 
 luggage, piled like a barricade against him in the hall ; hat- 
 boxes, shoe-boxes, despatch-boxes, kit-bags, hand-bags, 
 steamer-trunks, wardrobe trunks, distinctly lettered with 
 the initials "C. H." Even as he stood there staring two 
 elephantine blacks entered and, sans apology, began re 
 moving the paraphernalia to a waiting van. 
 
 "Consie!" he called in an afflicted voice, looking up the 
 stairs; and in that keen, nervous face of his there was no 
 trace of the comedy which had caused Belleville s fashion 
 able roofs to rock with laughter during these three pleasant, 
 vanity-stricken years. 
 
 He made a headlong charge up the stairs, driven by re 
 morse and fear and, quite naturally, by anger. The big 
 bedroom door was wide open at the first landing. Desola 
 tion! She had displayed inherited executive ability, no 
 doubt about that, for the twin beds were stripped to the 
 
 55
 
 56 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 mattresses, the bureaus bare to the mahogany of their pol 
 ished tops. Andy gaped, sank down on one of the deso 
 lated beds and was trying to think it out logically, as a 
 retired lawyer should, when Consie herself appeared be 
 fore him and stood pulling on her chamois gloves. Her 
 trim, small figure was clad in a sensible costume, suitable 
 to travel, and she wore a veil which she kept wriggling 
 away with contortions of her pretty mouth as she fussed 
 with her glove. Had Andy been ten per cent better lawyer 
 or loved her ten per cent less, he would have forced her 
 to the disadvantage of a first shot. Instead he cleared his 
 throat at last and grunted, 
 
 "You re not really " 
 
 "I ve telegraphed to Dad. I m leaving by the three 
 twenty-six." Her eyes showed like little blue slits as she 
 stood, looking down at the stubborn buttons of her glove. 
 
 "But what in the world is it all about ?" asked Belleville s 
 champion funny man, showing a face from which all the 
 light had fled. 
 
 "Andy!" She came and took a seat beside him on the 
 striped ticking. She opened her eyes wide upon him and 
 surveyed him earnestly while the tiny crease in her full 
 under lip fluttered with the things she had to say. 
 
 "Andy, it isn t because I m a quitter. You ought to 
 know that. But you ve brought things round or let them 
 come round to a pass where something disagreeable s got 
 to be done. We might as well call things by their real 
 names. I didn t ask you to support me when we were 
 married, but I think I had a right to expect you to support 
 yourself " 
 
 "Please, Consie, please!" He passed his nervous hand 
 through his hair, which was growing a little thin on top. 
 "I m broke, but " 
 
 "I m not twitting you, my dear," she assured him with a 
 tantalising gentleness of which she was capable. "But as 
 I was saying we ve got to be candid. Maybe I have a 
 priggish idea of self-respect. I can t endure the thought
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 57 
 
 of my father s supporting my husband. It s all right for 
 Dad to give me luxuries, but if we ve a home, Andy dear, 
 you ve got to keep it up." 
 
 She gave him a chance to reply before continuing her 
 quite unusual lecture. "I could make all sorts of allow 
 ances for your going broke. I could say that you weren t 
 a business man, that you had a dear delightful artistic 
 temperament which you have. But I know you have abil 
 ity. I know there wasn t a young lawyer in the state with 
 more promise than you had the day you married me." 
 
 "Yes. And whose fault was it that I chucked everything 
 to the birds?" he bawled savagely. 
 
 "If it was mine, that s all the more reason why I should 
 let you alone to work it out." 
 
 "You were there with applause at the first hit I ever 
 made. You liked it. You were crazy about it. It was the 
 first time you ever looked at me. You were glad enough 
 to be the wife of a great big popular society clown 
 
 He drew his sleeve across his eyes like a whimpering 
 schoolboy, disregarding the maternal glove she had laid 
 upon his shoulder. When next he looked up, she had 
 arisen and stood in the doorway. 
 
 "I must be going now," she said with a curious inflec 
 tion. He had quarrelled with her only once before, and he 
 thought by her look that she was going to yield. 
 
 "You ll get over being mad. You ll come back pretty 
 soon," he ventured by way of peace proposals. She shook 
 her head. 
 
 "I can t come back," she said. "I ve rented the house." 
 
 "You ve what ?" 
 
 "I knew it would be too big for you to use alone. Also, it 
 would be absurd you couldn t afford to keep it up. So 
 the Gastons are going to take it for the season. They ll 
 be moving in Wednesday." 
 
 "Consie, have you gone completely off your hinge?" he 
 gasped from the mattress upon which he had collapsed. 
 
 "I think it would be better for you to go live with your
 
 58 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 mother while you re looking round for something to do. 
 It s only fair that you should give her all you can give, 
 now that you ve let her money get away. I think you 
 ought to look round for something to do something oh, 
 Andy !" 
 
 The peerless local comedian had hidden his face in his 
 miserable useless hands; and it gave him a bitter comfort 
 to feel that she had come to him and pressed his head for 
 a moment against her breast. On his cheek he could feel 
 her warm breath, fluttering through her veil. 
 
 "Andy, if you try you can come back. You ve had some 
 idle silly years. They were wonderful fun; I loved them, 
 too! I m ashamed to say that it took this money crash to 
 make me realise what I was helping you to throw away. 
 But you ve still got the stuff in you. If you find you can 
 support your mother and yourself tell me tell me " 
 
 When he looked up she was gone. He heard the front 
 door swing to. Somewhere outside a motor gurgled and 
 chugged away. 
 
 So this was the dismal curtain to the three years con 
 tinuous vaudeville performance to which Andy Hanovan 
 had treated an exclusive Belleville audience. A few of the 
 oldsters some of those who had known Andy s grand 
 father, the late illustrious Chief Justice Warwick had said 
 from the very first that it was a shame that one of An 
 drew s splendid traditions and native gifts should have 
 been lured away from the law and a dignified career by 
 the frivolous Consuela and by "that Mrs. Skeen" whose 
 white marble palace crowned the Hill like a gigantic wed 
 ding cake. Belleville s Dull Set, which comprised the an 
 cients of its aristocracy, saw only wrath impending for 
 his future. In the language of golf and palmistry his line 
 of success, swerving from the true course, had become 
 bunkered on the Mount of Venus. But you would have 
 heard no melancholy warning from the Bright Set which, 
 after all, ran the town socially. To them celebrity of the 
 Andy Hanovan type was a surpassing achievement which
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 
 
 59 
 
 got him quoted from the barroom of the Commercial House 
 to the ballroom of Mrs. Skeen s overpowering residence, 
 where it became the fashion to brighten his occasional ab 
 sence with the side-splitting reply to "Have you heard 
 Andy s latest?" 
 
 Whether Andy was upstarting or downsliding during 
 these years was a matter of opinion, all depending on 
 where the spectator stood when he watched the perform 
 ance. 
 
 At any rate, everybody in Belleville, including solid 
 members of the Western Addition who didn t approve of 
 Mrs. Skeen s parties because they were never invited, 
 agreed that St. Valentine s Day marked the arrival of 
 Andy as a municipal asset. 
 
 Belleville, being a seat of ancient Colonial aristocracy, 
 cherished Mrs. Hanovan as a precious relic to show to 
 visitors and prove that original Belleville did actually come 
 over in the Ark. It was her pride to live in a small, per 
 fectly rounded circle, to visit only into the Six Families, 
 to gossip in the language of heraldry, to point offended nos 
 trils at such residents of the Hill as had "come in" dur 
 ing the past twenty years, introducing a vulgarity acquired 
 in the sale of bricks and cotton goods. 
 
 From earliest infancy Andrew had been reminded that 
 the blood of Chief Justice Warwick flowed in his veins. 
 He could not distinctly remember his grandfather, but there 
 was a marble bust of him in the Hanovan library and the 
 little boy, often secretly studying the high, marble fore 
 head, prayed to be made worthy of that stony perfection. 
 He did fairly well with his mother s help; for even in the 
 days when normal boys rode "safety" bicycles and 
 gambled for "cigarette pictures" by the process known as 
 "flipping," the brats of Belleville called him "Stilts" and, 
 later on, "Chief Justice." From the cradle he was marked 
 for a lofty pilgrimage, to follow in the gigantic footsteps 
 of his grandsire. 
 
 Nobody played with Andy very much, except a few prim
 
 60 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ladies to whom the Widow Hanovan took him on stately 
 visits. At nine he already looked like the Chief Justice. 
 A majestic thunder-cloud bore him away to college at an 
 early age, and Mrs. Hanovan was very happy to know that 
 her son was already crystallising into the magnificent War 
 wick statue. She was glad to feel that Andrew was not 
 like the Hanovans, who were frivolous and usually died 
 young. Classmates, returning from Harvard for a sum 
 mer s flirtation, reported Andy to be a plugger and a grind ; 
 but in his senior year Mrs. Hanovan was distressed by the 
 rumour that her son had taken the part of a Welsh rabbit at 
 a performance of the Hasty Pudding Club. For this she 
 condemned him to two years of foreign travel under her 
 own careful chaperonage. 
 
 He was said to have graduated "with the highest honours" 
 from law school. Exactly how high these honours were no 
 one seemed to know. No barograph could have recorded 
 the altitude of his manner when he strode back to Belleville 
 and chose for his partner his third cousin, Gaston Cole 
 locally known as "Coal Gas" who had already been in 
 practice two years and demonstrated a solidity which his 
 nickname belied. Cole and Hanovan were both good legal 
 names throughout the state. Moreover the partners were 
 gluttons for work. In a few years of it they had inched 
 themselves up to a foothold on the ladder then along came 
 St. Valentine s evening to lace poor Andy round and round 
 with blood red ribbons. 
 
 Nobody could have blamed Consie Birch for her share in 
 the downfall. It wasn t her fault that she was human and 
 born prettier than anything allowable in the criminal code. 
 Her father was the very rich contracting engineer, G. W. 
 Birch of Fairfield. She came to visit Mrs. Skeen; and 
 Andy, from his height, surveyed her as the hawk surveys 
 the rose or, more commonly speaking, the chicken. 
 Andy s pomposity and rolling style of speech amused her 
 and she elected at once to call him "Stilts." It irritated and 
 charmed him curiously to be called "Stilts" by one whom
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 61 
 
 he so utterly desired. Therefore he had made himself 
 ridiculous in pursuit, had proposed to her almost on first 
 acquaintance, and had stood glum as the bust of the late 
 Chief Justice while she turkey-trotted with all the nimble 
 patent-leathers in the colony. 
 
 By St. Valentine s eve Andy had had about enough of 
 this. He had spent a week of self-torment, pleading his 
 case ponderously before the bar of his higher nature. He 
 had given his dancing contemporaries the tribal name of 
 Fluff. He wasn t Fluff; and yet this girl, who seemed to 
 have more than ordinary common sense, persisted in mock 
 ing him because he struck attitudes and courted her in the 
 manner of Daniel Webster. For the first time in his life 
 he grew dissatisfied with himself and the stony upland 
 paths which, he began to realise, grew no daffodils. His 
 inferiors, by their essential inferiority, were outdoing him 
 at the game which he was breaking his heart to win. 
 
 Those were in the days before Mrs. Skeen had added 
 the great ball-room with the permanent stage to her archi 
 tectural wedding-cake on the Hill. So the St. Valentine 
 party was given under that lady s able tyranny, in the new 
 Heatherways Golf Club, which Mrs. Skeen had largely 
 financed, with the aid of Sam Bethel, the millionaire vaude 
 ville manager, who was then making desperate attempts 
 since abandoned to pick the lock of Belleville society. 
 
 So grudgingly that night poor Andy had draped himself 
 in a brown domino and gone forth to the carnival of bleed 
 ing hearts. Mrs. Skeen had a passion for fancy dress, and 
 had decreed that the costumes should be significant of ro 
 mantic love. Bertie Hall, who at that time had somewhat 
 outworn his long-held title of official club cut-up, was to be 
 a very comical Cupid, he was told, and Andy groaned to 
 think what he must endure for love. He had seen his 
 Consie s favouring looks upon the capering Mr. Hall ; so that 
 night, as he came into the noisy clatter and noisier colours of 
 the St. Valentine s party, the future Chief Justice was 
 primed to break every law upon the calendar. The first
 
 62 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 pretty sight to offend his eye upon entering was that of 
 Consie s teasing smile under a Marguerite wig as she sat 
 in a corner flirting with an entirely new young man. 
 
 "And what do you represent?" Mrs. Skeen, sweeping 
 forward in her proprietorial way and surveying Andy s 
 monkish gown, had inquired. 
 
 "St. Anthony, trying to be tempted," he had replied; 
 and this was the first joke he ever made. Which shows 
 from what a small nut a tall tree may grow. 
 
 Like most amateur parties Mrs. Skeen s Valentine Rout 
 was mostly preliminary. It was generally understood that 
 Bertie was dressing somewhere down in the locker-room. 
 Andy stood around disconsolately in his gabardine, watch 
 ing Mrs. Skeen bustling in and out, tagging volunteers from 
 the audience, disappearing into the depths, looking more 
 and more mysterious as the minutes dragged along into 
 hours. Everybody upstairs seemed perfectly content, with 
 the exception of Andy, who stood footsore inside his hide 
 ous habit, casting baleful eyes upon Romeos and Juliets, 
 Tristans and Isoldes, Jacks and Jills. From Consie Birch 
 he kept his gaze, because he had about made up his mind 
 to have no more of her. She was light. 
 
 When the hand of the clock had passed round the dial 
 again and it was wearing toward ten, Andy had a mind to 
 go home ; but Fate, who was there in no disguise whatever, 
 touched him on the shoulder and tempted the dour St. 
 Anthony to go down into the locker room and see what the 
 foolish delay was all about. 
 
 In the confined, soapy, cigarette-smelling room he found 
 the reason soon enough. A half-dozen of the tallest men 
 in the club stood around in kittenish Grecian costumes 
 cursing miserably over a helpless figure, stretched at length 
 on a cot. Here lay the collapsed Bertie, mumbling "All 
 right in a minute," while Mrs. Skeen, hovering as near as 
 the limits of modesty would permit, exhorted and chafed 
 the rings on her costly fingers. 
 
 "On me? I d split em!" Big Bill Hubbard, the next
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 63 
 
 best comedian in Belleville, was saying dazedly as he held 
 up a suit of pink silk tights. Upstairs the notes of the 
 phonograph proclaimed mockingly that the youngsters had 
 tired of the delay and were going to dance. 
 
 "I told Bertie he couldn t rehearse on cocktails and an 
 empty stomach," sounded another watcher, whereupon 
 Andy, grumbling that the party would get along pretty 
 well without any show, had turned on his heel. Mrs. 
 Skeen, a jewelled figure of dismay, had intercepted him in 
 the corridor. 
 
 "Help me!" she had pleaded. "You re the only man 
 here who can wear them. There s a bag of valentines 
 Bertie and I worked a whole week with the rhymes you re 
 a lawyer and I m sure you ll have no trouble making up 
 speeches " 
 
 "I ll try them on," Andy had agreed, referring to the 
 tights. For there had come to the young lawyer a perverse 
 desire to show the flirtatious little Marguerite upstairs that 
 he was not always stalking on his lofty stilts. At Mrs. 
 Skeen s command he went obediently into the locker-room 
 and fell among strong hands. There followed a dreadful 
 pulling on, daubing of grease-paint, pinning of false wings. 
 Those preposterous garments clung to his supple figure, re 
 vealing the fact that he was a trifle bow-legged ; and those 
 limbs needed but revealment to insure their success. They 
 were comedy legs. Big Bill, being one of little faith, 
 looked sorrowfully down as they fitted a golden wig on 
 Andy s skull, incarnadined his nose, tried out his wings, 
 which were expected to buzz annoyingly at the pull of a 
 string. 
 
 "Don t weaken!" Big Bill, evidently expecting a dreary 
 spectacle, had whispered in his ear just before the chorus 
 of six-foot flower-bearers had stamped into the assembly- 
 room, strewing cabbage roses and shouting an hilarious 
 song. Thus Andy staggered forward, bearing in the one 
 hand a mail pouch, in the other a ridiculous Cupid s bow. 
 
 The serious-minded young attorney was thinking hard
 
 64 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 as he advanced. There was laughter on all sides, and from 
 her corner he could see the admiring smile of Consuela, who 
 evidently took him for the talented Bertie Hall. Andy was 
 trained to brazening courts and juries, so shyness was not 
 his fault. Also her look stung him to an acrobatic madness. 
 He had a feeling that he had borrowed another body for the 
 evening and was free to do what he pleased with it. There 
 fore he brought his comedy legs into play, cut several auda 
 cious didoes and was intoxicated by the storm of encourage 
 ment which rewarded his pains. He was accustomed to 
 giving juries what they wanted, and here was a jury which 
 required him to make an ass of himself, or be thrown out 
 of court. 
 
 How he succeeded is history now in the Heatherway 
 Club. He capered down the aisle of Grecian youths under 
 a shower of roses. The orchestra banged out a jungle air 
 and Andy, in the madness of Thespis, reverted to the 
 Welsh rabbit dance of college days. His ridiculous dis 
 guise acted, for him, as a rosy barricade behind which he 
 performed all the antics of the zoo. And Belleville went 
 wild over Andy. 
 
 After that he had but to open his mouth to start an 
 echoing clatter. He hadn t yet learned the repressed style, 
 so he introduced the subject of Valentines by taking a 
 header over the mail-bag. Envelopes scattered across the 
 floor and the comedian, picking them up with coos of 
 clownish tenderness, improvised doggerel as he doled them 
 out one at a time. The archives of the Club still record 
 his address upon that occasion to Mr. Arthur McAfee, 
 Belleville s justly celebrated young miser: 
 
 "Art, Art, 
 Here s my heart 
 
 You ll keep it safe, I know. 
 It cost a dime 
 Twould be a crime 
 
 For you to let it go."
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 65 
 
 When, at the conclusion of the performance, Andy part 
 ly by mistake shot himself through the wig with a comedy 
 arrow, died acrobatically all over the floor and permitted 
 the Grecian youths to drag him out by the heels, Belleville 
 was howling for more. Even in the racketing salvo he 
 could hear shrill voices inquiring, "Who is he?" And then 
 he knew he had accomplished something. Just what he 
 wasn t sure until later. 
 
 From that moment on it was as if the grease-paint had 
 struck in and permanently dyed his personality. Down in 
 the locker-room he gloried in the sensation of warm hands 
 slapping his back and cordial voices assuring him that he 
 was the best ever. The hard legal shell seemed to be melt 
 ing away from him. And when at last he got upstairs 
 properly garbed as St. Anthony, it was with all the com 
 placency of a star that he permitted Belleville to proclaim 
 him. He carried a magic charm in his pocket by which he 
 could gain the admiration of all men and women. And, 
 being a woman, Consie Birch rewarded his apish behaviour 
 by looking at him seriously for the first time that evening. 
 
 Well, it was the history of a nut in a nut-shell. Consie 
 Birch got hold of him and Mrs. Skeen got hold of him. 
 He married Consie and attached himself to Mrs. Skeen as 
 her ever-ready entertainer ; for the mistress of the wedding- 
 cake house accepted only the best and Andy became that in 
 a marvellously short time. The antediluvian Mrs. Hanovan 
 might fume a bit and chide her son for his neglect of the 
 law but it was very evident that Andy s popularity as an 
 amateur comedian gave the young married couple a central 
 position in local society. He had to be at every dinner 
 party with a funny story ; he developed unexpected talent as 
 a stage manager and designer of costume affairs. In less 
 than no time he had changed his pose, dropping the sub 
 lime manner in favour of the ridiculous. 
 
 Meanwhile Gaston Cole s broad face, which was square 
 and dingy like an Indian s, grew more and more forbidding. 
 It was evident that he didn t fancy Andy s entertaining
 
 66 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 fellows from the Club during office hours. Dolefully he 
 kept tab on the Hanovan jokes and resented his partner s 
 trying them out on juries. Andy saw it coming and didn t 
 care when Cole used their failure in the case of the Clement 
 heirs versus the Dreadnaught Trust Company as an excuse 
 for a peppery dialogue. 
 
 "Law is a serious business," Gaston had said, showing 
 his wide-spaced teeth. "And the next thing you know 
 we ll be laughed out of court." 
 
 Trying his new facetious vein even there, Andy had re 
 sponded that there was nothing he knew of quite so funny 
 as most of the courts he frequented. And, of course, that 
 was the end. Andy had moved his share of the office furni 
 ture to another building, had displayed his name on the 
 door for a few months, then closed up shop without a pang 
 because the Hill was calling loudly for his talents and the 
 business districts of Belleville didn t seem to care much 
 whether he came or went. He had invented a new anecdote 
 about a lame chicken and a coloured burglar at this crisis of 
 his career. He was being quoted everywhere and Mrs. 
 Skeen s parties were gaining notice in the metropolitan 
 press. Consie, complacent in the knowledge that the Hano 
 van money would pay his expenses, warmed herself in the 
 reflection of her husband s false fires. Only the Widow 
 Hanovan, who paid his bills, sighed occasionally and in 
 quired in her stilted way: 
 
 "Andrew, when will you be resuming the practice of the 
 law?" 
 
 So here it ended in the third year, Andy sitting dejected 
 and alone on the bare connubial mattress. Consie was 
 right of course. She had shoved him out of the boat; 
 then, seeing him in the water, had stretched out an oar for 
 him. Was she offering him that oar as a saving buoy ? Or 
 did she intend to hit him over the head with it? How 
 could Andy tell, since he was dealing with a woman, and 
 his wife at that ?
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 67 
 
 II 
 
 He decided to resume at once the serious thread of his 
 life, so he changed his necktie to one befitting the solemn 
 nature of his quest and started down the Hill toward the 
 flat below, where, distantly toward the declining sun, tall 
 chimneys plumed the sky and, more intimately, Belleville s 
 vulgar thoroughfares rattled with motor-trucks, flaunted 
 their five-and-ten-cent stores, brazenly displayed their ad 
 vertisements for moving picture theatres. Belleville was 
 booming; and Andy knew that Gaston Cole, lumbering al 
 ways ahead like a clumsy, invincible force, had carried on 
 his law practice from the point where Andy had deserted 
 it. 
 
 Toward the foot of the Hill he saw the white pillars of 
 his mother s house showing through the autumnal elms. 
 He turned in at the gate and knocked at the big door with 
 the elaborate fan light above. The servant told him that 
 his mother would see him in the library, and he was sorry 
 for that, because he knew where she would be sitting and 
 how she would meet him. 
 
 She sat with her hands folded in her lap, directly in front 
 of the marble bust of the late Chief Justice Warwick. She 
 was a small woman, a feminine version of the Warwick 
 invincibility. Her features were as aquiline as those of 
 the marbled Justice on the pedestal and her iron-grey hair 
 was frizzed primly in an antiquated style. Preposterously 
 laced in at the waist-line, her figure was quaint with the 
 girlishness of a past decade. In her ears she wore long 
 pendants of carved onyx, set with pearls. 
 
 "Well, Mother," he began, choosing the lightest of his 
 intonations as he took a chair as far as possible out of line 
 with the frowning bust of his ancestor, "life is real and 
 life is earnest, this afternoon." 
 
 "I don t want you to worry too much, my dear," she told 
 him, real tenderness for the moment softening her fierce
 
 68 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 black eyes. "I ve gone over everything, and I find there 
 is enough coming in from the Falls Farm property to keep 
 us, if we manage very carefully. Of course, I shall have 
 to curtail your allowance " 
 
 "Don t worry about that," said Andy huskily. "That s 
 all on the junk pile now." 
 
 "I don t understand you." Not to understand modern 
 slang was a part of her religion. 
 
 "I mean," he resumed, after clearing his throat, "that 
 I m going to take a new hitch in my belt. I ve decided to 
 stop all this nonsense up on the Hill. I m going to work." 
 
 "Andrew, I m so glad!" 
 
 Of course that was what she was expected to say. But 
 there were a million prejudices and reservations in the look 
 she gave him. 
 
 "What does Consuela say to all this?" She always 
 spoke of Consie in this way, as though hesitating to admit 
 her into the sacred house of Warwick. 
 
 "She insisted on my supporting myself. In fact, Mother, 
 she s left me." 
 
 "She what?" 
 
 "Packed up and gone back to her father until I can make 
 enough to support myself." 
 
 "Since when have the Fairfield Birches begun telling the 
 Warwicks what they should do?" 
 
 This remark was quite characteristic. She had all the 
 people in the county card-indexed in her keen little mind, 
 and at will she could take them out and condemn them by 
 families. 
 
 "I think under the circumstances she was perfectly right," 
 persisted he. "I ve been leading a pretty useless life these 
 two or three years. It s time I bucked up and it s not fair 
 to ask Consie to support me." 
 
 "It s a great joy to me to hear you say that, my dear," 
 said Mrs. Hanovan, sitting straight as a ramrod. "You ve 
 been wasting your great talents on Nobodies." She shook 
 her proud little chin toward the circle of the Hill. "And
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 69 
 
 I think it high time you got back to your serious work 
 your grandfather s work." 
 
 Vainly Andy strove to avert his gaze from the marble 
 eyeballs of the Chief Justice, but the effigy of that old mar 
 tinet was frowning down on him with his beetling brows. 
 
 "I m not so sure about the law," he told her at last, 
 shamefacedly. 
 
 "What in the world do you mean?" It was as though 
 the Chief Justice and his daughter had volleyed it together 
 at him, a marble chorus. 
 
 "I know there s a lot of family pride to be swallowed and 
 all that sort of tosh but in a corner you ve got to take 
 what s to be had." 
 
 "And what s to be had ?" she echoed sarcastically. 
 
 "Well, if we swallow a few old-fashioned prejudices I 
 know where I can go to work to-morrow or next day at a 
 salary of two or three hundred a week." 
 
 "You mean you could go into a business ?" 
 
 "No. I was thinking of the stage." 
 
 The suggestion didn t produce the shock he had expected, 
 for she sat stiffly a moment, considering. 
 
 "Some gentlemen have adopted that profession," she 
 admitted grudgingly, "there was the late Richard Mans 
 field." 
 
 "I m not a Mansfield," he took her up rather tartly. 
 "The only place where I could make money would be musi 
 cal comedy or vaudeville." 
 
 "Vaudeville !" She uttered it like a cry of pain. 
 
 "As I ve said," he temporised, "I can t go back and pick 
 up my practice where I left it, and I ve got to make money 
 quick. They tell me I m the best amateur comedian in the 
 State heaven knows I ve had practice enough at that. It s 
 a matter of capitalising my talents. I d be a fool if I 
 didn t." 
 
 "You mean you d appear for money with your face 
 painted like a clown?"
 
 70 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 r"*^ *^ ^ "^ "^ 
 
 "I ve done it for glory a long time," he admitted quite 
 without bitterness. 
 
 "Aping before an audience of common women and trades 
 people a grandson of Chief Justice Warwick?" 
 
 The worshipful graven image was staring down on him 
 and the sight of it drove Andy to a passion of candour. 
 
 "He s been planted in his grave for thirty years. Ex 
 cuse me, Mother we can t live on tombstones. If the 
 Chief Justice can rise up and find me a job, good. Other 
 wise " 
 
 "Andrew !" She raised a skinny arm as if to smite him 
 for his blasphemy. 
 
 "I m sorry, Mother." Tears rimmed his eyes as he came 
 over and gathered her slender little body into his arms. 
 She looked fearfully ill and his conscience tortured him 
 with pictures of his wasted, unworthy years. 
 
 "My boy! My boy!" She was clinging to him and 
 sobbing as he didn t know this rock-ribbed woman could 
 sob. "You were so much to me. You were so splendid. 
 Why can t you ever be the same again ? You mustn t you 
 mustn t " 
 
 "There, there. I won t!" He could see now how hard 
 the strain had been on her. He stood there inanely patting 
 her shoulder, struggling against an impulse to blubber out 
 his grief and disappointment in himself. 
 
 "Go back to the law, my boy ! Be something in the world 
 promise me." 
 
 "Yes, yes, Mother. I will. I ll go round and see Gaston 
 right away." 
 
 "Because, if you should do anything beneath our dig 
 nity what would your grandfather say?" 
 
 She cast adoring eyes up to that inexorable portrait. 
 And that was too much for Andy, who had grown to hate 
 the disagreeable image of unearthly purity. 
 
 He kept telling himself as he walked through the rattling 
 streets of Belleville that it would be natural enough for
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 71 
 
 Cole to take him back into the firm. Andy had been the 
 backbone of the firm in the old days and Gaston, who was 
 something of a social bull, would have sufficient common 
 sense to see the advantages of wealthy contact which 
 Andy s wastrel years had brought him. 
 
 He found the names of Cole, Phipps and Brenning em 
 blazoned smartly on the ninth floor of the new Ajax Insur 
 ance Building. Gaston had taken unto himself two keen, 
 busy little partners, both his seniors; and upon entering 
 Andy sensed the jealous pang of the discarded favourite 
 who revisits the harem and finds it remodelled and re 
 stocked. 
 
 The new offices were splendidly labyrinthine. A thin- 
 wristed secretary took his card and permitted him a seat 
 in the outside waiting room. Mr. Cole would be able to 
 see his visitor in due time. 
 
 There were vistaed glimpses of solid success to be 
 caught rapidly as mahogany doors opened and revealed 
 shining book-cases, deep-piled rugs and this was almost 
 too much dignified plaster of Paris busts on high shelves. 
 Typewriters clicked, clerks tiptoed, buzzers buzzed. Andy s 
 dramatic instinct assured him that Gaston s prosperity was 
 well stage-managed. Presently the secretary came out 
 again and informed him in a velvety voice that the great 
 man was at leisure. A polished door swung upon an ex 
 pensive rug and Andy followed in. 
 
 He could hear Gaston s voice before he saw him; that 
 big, monotonous voice, which always seemed to imply, "I 
 may bore you, but you ll find I ve worked it all out," went 
 droning on in dictation. 
 
 "Whereas the party of the first part, having agreed under 
 Section Two, Paragraph Three of said contract " 
 
 "Behold the prodigal s return!" grinned Andy, stepping 
 up and holding out his hand. 
 
 "Well, well ! And what can we do for the prod ? Sit 
 down. Have a smoke." 
 
 Andy s hand was held in a powerful palm as his former
 
 72 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 *^^^^ "* " l "~- " <1 ^ "*-"- ^^^-^^^^^^^ 
 
 partner offered a roll of bilious cigars. Cole was an enor 
 mous man with bovine eyes, a shapeless mouth and wide-set 
 teeth. His head was quite hairless and shiny with a mole 
 near the top. He had been bald-headed ever since Andy 
 had known him. "He has a bald-headed mind," was the 
 unworthy thought which amused the caller as he took a seat 
 and a cigar almost simultaneously. 
 
 "You ve spread out quite a bit, as the old lady said when 
 the trolley ran over her dog," began Andy, indicating the 
 expansive environment. This was, of course, no way to 
 begin. 
 
 "Our practice is increasing," his cousin made the un 
 responsive response. 
 
 "Cole, Phipps and Brenning!" mocked the visitor. 
 "You re lengthening like a train of freight cars. If you d 
 only tag the name Hanovan on, now, for a caboose " 
 
 "Nothing s sacred with you," grinned the lawyer, show 
 ing his best poker face. "Have you seen my latest ?" 
 
 Off the desk he plucked an oval photograph in a silver 
 frame. It was the portrait of a very ugly baby, quite as bald 
 and unmagnetic as his father. 
 
 "A peach !" cried the hypocrite. 
 
 "The remark is irrelevant and immaterial. Also you re 
 a liar." Gaston Cole put the photograph beside a solitaire 
 rose on the desk. "He s named after his father and he ll 
 never be shot for his beauty. But I ll turn him into a Su 
 preme Court Justice before I quit." 
 
 "Have a heart!" groaned Andy quite sincerely; for the 
 first time he noticed a chalky bust of Demosthenes staring 
 down at him from a shelf. He turned away with a feeling 
 of nausea. Also he was considering the question of just 
 how and where to begin with a proposition which the able 
 Cole was too apparently trying to avoid by a show of af 
 fability; Andy had moistened his lips for an attempt when 
 the telephone rang. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Bethel." Gaston Cole, swarthy and expres 
 sionless as an Aztec, sat listening to the sharp syllables com-
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 73 
 
 ing out of space. "No. It was quite impossible to avoid 
 the delay. Yes. It will be tried before Judge Foster in 
 that case. Can t we meet for another conference to-mor 
 row, say, at three ? Thank you. Good-bye." 
 
 "Sam Bethel!" announced Gaston, sighing deeply as he 
 named the eccentric magnate who, having established an 
 endless chain of theatres in a dozen states, had elected the 
 Western Addition for the site of his architectural excres 
 cences. "He s got the lawsuit habit incurably." 
 
 "Should a lawyer grieve for that?" was Andy s quite 
 natural question. 
 
 "He never brought a serious suit in his life. All that 
 Bethel can see in the law is a good advertising medium. He 
 has the reputation of spending fifty thousand dollars a year 
 on eccentric cases and doubling his money in free news 
 paper publicity. That s all right. He s got plenty of money 
 and it s as good as anybody s, I suppose. But there comes 
 a limit." 
 
 "Just where?" asked Andy, who was thinking over his 
 own troubled fortunes. 
 
 "Well, you see, we re representing some of the most dig 
 nified business enterprises of the State. And along comes 
 Bethel asking us to bring suit for a hundred thousand dol 
 lars to protect the fair name of a pair of performing chim 
 panzees." 
 
 "Breach of promise ?" The prospect tickled the ex-come 
 dian s imagination. 
 
 "It s undignified!" growled Cole, as he sat biliously tap 
 ping the point of a red-nosed pencil on his blotter. 
 
 There came a pause. Cole was, apparently, trying to 
 tire him out, so Andy decided on a plunge : 
 
 "Speaking of dignity," said he, "I m thinking of going 
 back into the law." 
 
 "Congratulations !" responded Cole, looking straight 
 through him with his bovine stare. 
 
 "I m speaking quite seriously." Andy set his jaw and 
 returned look for look.
 
 74 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "I d rather be a partner." 
 
 "Andy, do you realise," began Cole, keying his voice to 
 a tone of kindly patronage which was maddening, "that a 
 great deal has happened since we dissolved partnership?" 
 
 "You mean that you think I can t come back?" 
 
 "Well, after you have burned your bridges it is difficult 
 to return to the status quo ante." 
 
 "The time has come," Andy blurted desperately, "when 
 I ve got to do something. We practised law together for 
 several years and it s quite natural that I should come back 
 and work with you. I wouldn t ask to be taken back into 
 the firm until I d made good." 
 
 Slowly Gaston Cole wagged his big bald head. 
 
 "The law is a serious matter. I don t deny your popu 
 larity with a certain set I ll go farther than that and grant 
 that you are the most popular man in Belleville. But you 
 never were a business lawyer. And I m afraid if you went 
 into court to-day to plead you wouldn t make the right 
 impression." 
 
 "You mean they d laugh at me ?" asked Andy hotly, com 
 ing to his feet. 
 
 "I am saying this in the kindliest possible spirit. In the 
 law appearances count for a great deal. A great deal." 
 
 "If there were the shadow of a chance in this office" 
 
 Cole arose ponderously and held out his hand "I should 
 be more than glad to welcome you back. And if you ll take 
 a little advice in the spirit in which it is given " 
 
 "I m willing to take anything," bitterly Andy backed 
 toward the door. 
 
 "Why don t you commercialise your really great gift?" 
 
 "Mine?" 
 
 "You must have put a world of energy and practice into 
 learning that sort of stuff you ve been doing up on the 
 Hill. Why don t you go on the stage dignify it into a 
 profession ?"
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 75 
 
 "Family reasons," smiled Andy bravely. "My mother is 
 very anxious for me to get back into the law." 
 
 "I should like to help, but I m afraid it would be mis 
 directed. You see, Andy, you ve become an amateur." 
 
 He held open the door for his departing guest. 
 
 There stood a dangerous looking steel bodied racing car 
 out in front of the Commercial House and Andy had no 
 sooner passed it than he saw Sam Bethel himself, noisily 
 clad for motoring, come out by a side door and waddle over 
 toward the car. The coincidence was too much for good 
 resolutions and the fact that the little man held up one of 
 his short arms like a semaphore signal half influenced Andy 
 to take his pride in his teeth and brazen the inevitable. 
 
 "Been talkin with the undertaker?" asked Bethel, his 
 cock eyes twinkling merrily as he took note of Andy s un 
 usual gravity. 
 
 "Gas Cole," replied the ex-humourist. 
 
 "Same thing," supplied the manager. "Grave-digger, em- 
 balmer and licensed pall-bearer. Cole, Phipps and Bren- 
 ning! Say, how do they do it? I never see em but what 
 I want to burst into tears. Have a drink ?" 
 
 "No, thanks." 
 
 Cole, Phipps and Brenning seemed to be on Mr. Bethel s 
 nerves, for he dug a finger into Andy s ribs and went on, 
 
 "How do they get like that? I tell you, Andy, it s done 
 you a lot of good buzzin round the Four Hundred kids 
 up on the Hill. It s loosened you up. Do you realise that 
 when you were practising law you used to be enough like 
 Gaston Cole to be his little brother?" 
 
 "Oh, say not so !" plead the accused. 
 
 "Fact. And here I come along with a perfectly good 
 lawsuit and old Gas sits there clucking as if he was going 
 to lay an egg and says Undignified ! " 
 
 "It s something about a team of trained chimpanzees?" 
 inquired Andy, mainly because he wanted to keep the mana 
 ger a little longer.
 
 76 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 r*"**^ ^^^^^^^^^"^^^^^q 
 
 "You ve heard about it?" The publicity instinct of the 
 man was pleased. "They ve been big headliners for three 
 seasons now Professor Klegg s Mutt and Nutt. They re 
 really a wonderfully talented pair of monks. Well, we got 
 em trained to do the Ballet Russe this season and it was 
 going big when along comes a faker named Olsen with a 
 couple of very inferior chimps. And he runs em in the 
 Joy Circuit under the same name Mutt and Nutt, with a 
 very poor Ballet Russe. See ? They re no artists. They re 
 crabbing the reputation of my chimps and I want satisfac 
 tion." 
 
 "Defamation of character?" asked Andy. 
 
 "That s a good idea if you can get away with it. 
 
 "You can get away with anything, if you go at it right." 
 
 "You ve said something." Mr. Bethel stood pondering 
 the possibilities. Presently he came out of his trance, held 
 out his hand and took a step toward the car. 
 
 "Sam," said Andy, who had already decided against ma 
 ternal prejudices. "I m looking for a job and I think you 
 can help me/ 
 
 "Shoot!" replied Bethel, already on his guard. 
 
 "I wonder just how much I would be worth if I went 
 into vaudeville." 
 
 "About nine a week," replied the little man. It was 
 everybody s privilege to josh Andy. 
 
 "I m speaking quite seriously." It seemed to Andy that 
 he had said this a hundred times to-day. 
 
 "What s the matter with you ? Off your feed ?" 
 
 "I ve got to make some money. Funny stuff s all I can 
 do. And I think I do that rather well." 
 
 "Well," spoke the manager cannily, "if you tried it pro 
 fessionally you wouldn t find it so darned funny. I know 
 about you amateurs. You re used to standing up before 
 friends and getting their kind applause because you re the 
 son of James W. Fitz Flapper. Anything goes in the par 
 lour. Applause and loud laughter. You sound like a mil 
 lion dollars. But try to drop the same stuff into the average
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 77 
 
 Bethel audience and it flattens out like a gob of sour dough. 
 Most amateurs are spoiled from the start by being told 
 how perfectly lovely they are. A professional has to get 
 used to a crowd hollering Rotten! before he can make 
 good. A big name? Yes, that ll go some, if it s big enough 
 and well advertised. I d give ten thousand a week to the 
 Pope just to walk across the stage. But take it by and 
 large, it s the conscientious, intelligent professional that 
 gets the coin. Look at my educated chimps in their Ballet 
 Russe ! What makes em go ? Experience, my boy." 
 
 "What salary did you say they draw?" 
 
 "Eight hundred a week," announced Mr. Bethel proudly. 
 "And they earn it." 
 
 "Well, thanks for the nine you offer," said Andy as he 
 moved away. 
 
 "You ve got to remember that you re an amateur," said 
 Mr. Bethel as he jumped into his car; and if he made any 
 further wise remarks they were squelched in the rattle of 
 the self-starter. 
 
 Andy took a solitary dinner in an obscure corner of the 
 Racquet Club. His experience as a job-seeker had been 
 limited to the day s adventures, but the indications looked 
 dark. He had applied for work in the only two fields he 
 knew law and vaudeville and had been refused in both 
 cases because he was an amateur. Well, he was an amateur. 
 That had been no disgrace as long as money came to him 
 easily. But in real life, apparently, people didn t want to 
 be either entertained or bulldozed in the gentlemanly method 
 of the drawing room. Then he thought of Mrs. Talcroft 
 Skeen. 
 
 He had given the bulk of his time now for over two 
 weeks, writing, rehearsing and costuming the elaborate per 
 formance which was to take place in about ten days and in 
 which he was to have the principal part. He reflected upon 
 Mr. Bethel s discouraging essay with a sort of doleful re 
 lief. Had the enterprising manager snapped him up at a 
 fancy salary, as Andy had predicted he would, the offer
 
 78 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 could never have been accepted. Andy knew his mother s 
 pride and prejudice and realised that it would kill her to 
 know that her son had taken to professional vaudeville. 
 But then there was Mrs. Skeen. . . . 
 
 The more Andy thought over Mrs. Skeen the better it 
 looked to him. No professional entertainer could have 
 worked for her so assiduously as Andy had worked these 
 three years. The reputation she had won through her 
 money, as displayed in Andy s entertainments, had gained 
 her entree into houses to which she would gladly have 
 crawled on her jewelled hands and silken knees. In grate 
 ful moods she often referred to Andy as "her precious, in 
 dispensable genius," and this was scarcely an overstatement 
 of fact. 
 
 Andy wasn t looking for gratitude; but ne was cast into 
 a position where he must consider himself in the terms of 
 dollars. He would let his past experience with Mrs. Skeen 
 go as education, he reflected to-night, as he sat alone beside 
 his coffee cup. Mrs. Skeen had far more money than was 
 good for her and was continually signing checks for the 
 most senseless charities. Now how about this Mad Masque 
 of Mars which he had been planning and rehearsing so in 
 dustriously? The plot concerned a young aviator Andy, 
 of course who had planned to break the Belleville altitude 
 record and finds himself accidentally stranded on the planet 
 Mars. Asked by the King whence he came and why, the 
 Aviator points out a moving picture version of the rolling 
 Earth, indicates Belleville on the Western Hemisphere and 
 proceeds to lecture on the charms of the home town. Andy 
 saw the hardest kind of rehearsing ahead of him and be 
 gan to wonder, vaguely at first, if here wasn t a solution to 
 his problem. 
 
 The rehearsal to-night had been called for half -past eight ; 
 but it lacked a quarter of nine when Andy wearily took his 
 way up the crooked driveway leading to the big white 
 stuccoed pile on the Hill. Reflectively he strolled between 
 the high gate-posts, whose peevish, rampant little stone lions
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 79 
 
 showed fearsomely in the moonlight. It had been easy to 
 ask Sam Bethel for a job and the tackling of Gaston Cole 
 had been less painful than he had anticipated. But with 
 Mrs. Talcroft Skeen it was different. It was a perfectly 
 fair request he was intending to make, yet a million un 
 formed obstacles seemed to loom before him. Mrs. Skeen 
 was a lady who worshipped the social delicacies, in spite 
 of the fact that her father had made his millions in the 
 manufacture and sale of a patent fertiliser. 
 
 A liveried man had no sooner shown him in at the ornate 
 front door than Mrs. Skeen herself came volubly forth to 
 greet his late appearance. Like her house Mrs. Skeen was 
 elaborate and showy. Her hair was an unusual shade of 
 auburn and she wore a very high collar to conceal her sag 
 ging throat; for she had eaten to grow thin a few months 
 ago and since then her skin had remained several sizes toq 
 large for her diminished figure. 
 
 "You angel of deliverance !" she hailed him with a little 
 gushing shriek, and caressed his sleeve with her ringed 
 fingers. "Everything s a perfect mess. Just hear those 
 brats screaming in there !" 
 
 Distantly from the ball-room, where the Mad Martians 
 had assembled for rehearsal, Andy could hear their youth 
 ful clatter. 
 
 "I ll rush right in and brain them for you, Miss Eliza." 
 She only permitted her favourites to address her so. 
 
 "What s wrong, Andy? You look tired to death." 
 
 That was a splendid opening, yet he weakened on the 
 verge. 
 
 "I ve been thinking. Naturally I m quite exhausted." 
 
 "Let it be a lesson to you." By the turn of her keenly 
 selfish little grey eyes he could see that her mind was on 
 the younger set, rioting in the ball-room. 
 
 "They re all conspiring against me, Andy. If it weren t 
 for you I should go insane. I want you to see what Hen- 
 dricks has sent me as samples of draperies for the Court 
 scene."
 
 8o SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ m * m ^^~~* i ~*^******^^ 
 
 "Leave it to Handy Andy!" he gibed as she looped her 
 arm in his and led him away toward a little room beyond 
 the high Italian mantel. He knew that this woman would 
 be generous to her court jester in trouble. 
 
 She closed the door behind them in the small space which 
 she chose to call her "work room" and whose cluttering of 
 small, meaningless finery revealed the owner s taste, which 
 was naturally poor. From a pot-bellied, spindle-shanked, 
 hand-painted desk she brought forth a half dozen squares 
 of brilliant material. She laid them out on an onyx-topped 
 table and stood regarding him as he pawed them over 
 judicially. 
 
 He picked up a square of wild electric blue and held it 
 under the light. 
 
 "That s very good," he pronounced solemnly, striving 
 vainly to key his tone to its wonted enthusiasm. 
 
 "Mad dog ! It s a nightmare." 
 
 "That s the very idea. We re giving a scene on Mars. 
 Most of the costumes will be silver and I ll be wearing a 
 comedy suit of bright orange." 
 
 "I m sure you must know, Andy," she assured him, giving 
 him a sharp look out of her shrewd grey eyes with the badly 
 enamelled wrinkles at the corners. "I had Sam Bethel look 
 over the colour scheme to-day and he didn t seem quite so 
 sure." 
 
 "Sam Bethel!" There wasn t really any cause for sur 
 prise that the capable manager should have been taken into 
 her confidence. It was a coincidence, that was all. 
 
 "Of course, if you mind, Andy " 
 
 "Not in the least," he cordially assured her. "I should 
 be glad to have his assistance." 
 
 "All he ll do will be to supply a few stage hands. He 
 says he doesn t like amateur performances. He s tremen 
 dously vulgar. And, Andy, do you know what I ll have to 
 do with Sam Bethel?" 
 
 Andy couldn t imagine. Nothing less than murder, ap 
 parently.
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 81 
 
 "I can t see any way around it. I ll have to ask him to 
 my party." This was her way of confessing the social bribe 
 by which she had saved money on stage hands. 
 
 "Bully! Hand him over to me. In my opinion, Sam s 
 one of the few interesting men in Belleville." 
 
 She gave his case another quick, quizzical diagnosis. 
 
 "What s happened to you, Andy?" 
 
 "Happened?" He swallowed hard and hoped she didn t 
 see it. 
 
 "You re sour about something. You re bitter without be 
 ing funny. Is it serious?" 
 
 This was the third chance she had given him and he took 
 it. 
 
 "I m in a peculiar kind of corner " 
 
 "My dear ! Tell me all about it." 
 
 She motioned him to an uncomfortable chair and took a 
 seat beside him. 
 
 "I m broke I m not going to allow Consie s money to 
 support me. It s up to me to go to work." 
 
 "I m so sorry." She said this with a show of surprise 
 and he wondered if she had heard. 
 
 "It s necessary for me to devote all my time and 
 strength " 
 
 "But, my poor boy, what can you do ?" 
 
 "That s the point. I ll have to make the best of my abili 
 ties, such as I ve got." 
 
 "I ll venture to say you don t know the slightest thing 
 about business." 
 
 "No. All I really know how to do well is this sort of 
 thing." He directed a sweeping gesture toward the noisy 
 ball-room. 
 
 There ensued a terrible pause in which Mrs. Skeen sat 
 quite without understanding. Couldn t the woman take a 
 hint? 
 
 "It s awful, Andy," she said at last, "to think of your 
 going into the wretched hum-drum of business. It has been 
 such a joy to have you with me at my parties. And I m
 
 82 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 planning the most wonderful spectacles for next winter. 
 I m sure, Andy, that you ll relent when you see the parts 
 I ve got for you." 
 
 He stared at her in blank amazement. It didn t seem 
 real, yet it was obvious that Mrs. Talcroft Skeen was tak 
 ing to herself the undivided credit for all the successful en 
 tertainments which Andy had planned and carried out ! He 
 resolved now to drop the slender rapier and attack her with 
 a club. 
 
 "Don t you think," he asked baldly, "that I could make a 
 good living as coach and producer of amateur entertain 
 ments ?" 
 
 "Oh, Andy, you poor foolish dear !" 
 
 "I don t mean to start in right now," he protested, half 
 ashamed. This woman had always had the effect of bluffing 
 him out of his resolutions. He had given her a chance and 
 he was far too proud to let it go begging. 
 
 "It has been so wonderful as it was," she was expostu 
 lating. "Everything done for the fun of it for the joy 
 of it. You d be putting yourself in a dreadfully false po 
 sition, you know. They d be calling you a professional." 
 
 "Anybody that ever does anything is a professional," he 
 informed her calmly. 
 
 "Yes, but you d be going into a class " 
 
 "Live or die, I mustn t do that," he assured her with a 
 futile sarcasm. "Shall we rush in and still the mob?" 
 
 They walked together through the great hall toward the 
 waiting rehearsal whence came calfish bawls of "Author! 
 Author!" 
 
 "You d be rubbing some of the bloom off," she whispered 
 affectionately as she squeezed his hand. "That s been your 
 charm. You ve been such a delightful am " 
 
 "Whatever you do," he raised an agonised appeal, "don t 
 call me an amateur!" 
 
 Never before had Andy been disgusted with or even criti- 
 al of the amateur point of view. But to-night as the
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 83 
 
 ! *^"^^"~^""""""" """""* """ ~*^ "" 
 
 frivolous youngsters of his troupe gambolled and larked 
 through the rehearsal, disregarding orders, forgetting the 
 simplest lines, the amateur director was amazed to think 
 how he had floated so long, lighter than air, upon this atmos 
 phere of praise. While he stood by the piano, vainly striv 
 ing to drive a single-line speech into the pretty head of 
 Maisie Whipple, who had alternately learned and forgotten 
 that same line every night for two weeks, the younger set 
 turned on the phonograph, practised dance-steps which had 
 nothing to do with the piece, encouraged two loutish fresh 
 men in a burlesque boxing bout, roared at Campbell Hill s 
 poor imitation of Andy s latest monologue. 
 
 The traditional Hanovanian good nature cracked and fire 
 began to spit out. 
 
 "I ve got to have attention !" he roared, going forth and 
 dragging toward the piano each comely member of the Mars 
 Maiden Chorus, whom he must train to sing a greeting to his 
 descent upon the red planet. 
 
 A hired pianist patiently thumped the keys while the 
 chorus shrilled raggedly through the big room. The mixed 
 effect was due to the fact that each of the eight pretty girls 
 had forgotten a part of her song and each a different part, 
 the hiatus being supplied with the good old stand-by of the 
 forgetful, "La- la, la-la, la, la, la!" 
 
 "Katherine !" Andy summoned from her flirtation the 
 tallest of the beautiful, blonde, brainless Fenley sisters. 
 Katherine, as Crown Princess of Mars, was to have a lead 
 ing part in the aviator s reception. She came obediently, 
 after casting a languishing glance to the rear. 
 
 "Andy, I ve got a dreadful cold," she began. 
 
 "Good. You can t talk through your lines leading up 
 to my cue." 
 
 The eight Maids of Mars, gathered around, were begin 
 ning to chatter again. 
 
 "Oh, please !" he implored. 
 
 "Isn t he a horrid bear to-night !" whispered the shortest 
 of the Fenley sisters.
 
 84 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 The piano whanged as Katherine went stumblingly 
 through her lines. Approaching the end she uplifted her 
 pretty, mediocre treble. 
 
 Kitty 
 
 Oh, Mr. Aviator, 
 You have a foolish face I 
 
 Andy 
 
 You re right, my dear, 
 I ve journeyed here 
 From a very foolish place. 
 
 Kitty 
 
 What distant city gave you birth? 
 
 Andy 
 
 Belleville, the centre of the earth. 
 (Etc., etc., etc.) 
 
 Ill 
 
 The fact that Andy had to live with his mother those ten 
 days did nothing toward improving his frame of mind. 
 Mrs. Hanovan uttered no word of reproach that he showed 
 no inclination to apply himself to the law or that he was 
 still at the beck and call of "that Skeen woman" on the 
 Hill. A dark ten days for Andy, unlightened by the thank 
 less and payless labour of knocking musical comedy into 
 the block head of Belleville. His story got round town and 
 was repeated with fair accuracy ; and the knowledge that it 
 was known caused him to slink in spite of himself as he 
 went feeling about among his friends for what he thought 
 of vaguely as "an opening." 
 
 Consie wrote to him once, a sweet and chatty letter with 
 out any reference to what had happened between them. 
 Andy kept the letter in his pocket. He had no bitterness 
 toward Consie. It was merely hopelessness, that was all. 
 
 Once after a rehearsal Mrs. Skeen had come to him quite 
 magnanimously and offered him a situation as manager of
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 85 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~~~*~ m ^*~~*~*~*~~**~^~~^^^^~ m ^~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 the Heatherways Club. So profound was his humility that* 
 Andy considered the job, until, upon investigation, he found 
 that the club was now being excellently run by a profes 
 sional steward that the quite useless post of "manager" 
 was being created merely as an excuse for giving Andy 
 something to do. The position offered seventy-five dollars 
 a month and board. Andy considered the job and, regard 
 ing it from every angle, concluded that death would be more 
 dignified, if not more comfortable. 
 
 It was, then, a curiously repressed Andy Hanovan who 
 pulled on a comic costume, preparatory to taking centre 
 stage at the one and only performance of the Mad Masque 
 of Mars. 
 
 Of course the show was an hour or more late in begin 
 ning. Andy, experienced in amateur performances, had 
 long since given up hope of seeing one open on time. But 
 to-night the preliminary chaos left him cold. Clad gro 
 tesquely in a bright orange aviation suit, wearing a monocle 
 over one eye and a silk hat somewhat slantingly on his head, 
 he slouched wearily across the stage, exhorting several stage 
 hands kindly loaned by Mr. Sam Bethel to prompter 
 action. The men hitched up their overalls and gave him the 
 grin of contempt which the professional ever yields the 
 amateur. 
 
 Big Bill Hubbard, who was to be King of Mars, com 
 plained childishly to his manager because he couldn t get his 
 royal crown on his head "without splittin* the darned thing." 
 One of the Martian seneschals tripped over his spear and 
 tore a jagged hole in the starry heavens, painted on the back 
 drop outside the palace window. A Mad Maid of Mars 
 lost if I may be permitted to say so one of her stockings 
 and refused to appear until another just like it was supplied. 
 Pandemonium reigned in the red planet ; which was all right 
 from the Martian point of view. But "out in front" a mere 
 earth-born audience was sending up sarcastic gusts of ap 
 plause. They were growing tired of waiting. 
 
 Andy walked over to a hole in the curtain and took a
 
 86 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 peep. Mrs. Skeen s ample ball-room was undoubtedly 
 crowded "to capacity." The unpopular Browning family 
 had just arrived in a body, as for mutual protection. Stuart 
 Bayliss, like the petted beauty that he was, was rambling 
 handsomely from chair to chair. Charley White, the always 
 affable President of the Belleville Gas and Electric Com 
 pany, had a seat toward the front, between his large family 
 of daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Gaston Cole sat stolidly near 
 the centre aisle. All the picture of his days was revealed 
 there before Andy Hanovan, who scanned it carefully from 
 his ambush, bitterly resolved that this should be his last ap 
 pearance before a Belleville audience. 
 
 The stage hands were now bringing the clatter to a cre 
 scendo, but Andy still stood at the peep-hole, dwelling fondly 
 upon the spectacle which he was to face no more. Bertie 
 Hall, who, since his downfall on that past St. Valentine s 
 eve, had retired in Andy s favour and gone into the banking 
 business, sat blissfully beside his pink-and-white fiancee. 
 There was old Tom Bullard, making himself charming as 
 usual to a chorus of debutantes ; and on the next row to the 
 rear 
 
 Great Scott! Where in Mars did she drop from, airily 
 gowned in blue, aqua marine dripping at her slender white 
 throat, her eyes puckered to a teasing smile as she leaned 
 toward the courtly young man beside her Consuela ! 
 
 The sight smote him with a weak desire to run away, to 
 blot himself out, to be as nothing. Then he swore softly 
 under his breath. She could make splendid preachments on 
 the subject of life s serious side, of bucking up, being a 
 man and all that sort of thing. Meanwhile she could live 
 at Fairfield, weltering in her father s prosperity, and disdain 
 fully trip it back to Belleville, upon occasion, to enjoy the 
 public clowning of the husband she had made into a clown. 
 
 "Andy, aren t you ever going to begin ?" 
 
 Some one touched him on the shoulder, and he came back 
 into the present with a nervous jerk. There stood Mrs. 
 Skeen, her costume all a-sparkle like the Great Glacier, and
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 87 
 
 beside her Sam Bethel in an ornately pleated shirt with 
 emerald studs the size of pennies. 
 
 "I ve done everything but dress em," Andy informed her. 
 "If you ll beg em to get their clothes on, maybe we can 
 begin." 
 
 "It s nearly ten o clock," wailed the patroness of art. 
 
 "Be calm, madam," grinned Sam Bethel. "If people liked 
 things on time they wouldn t like amateur shows. For my 
 part they drive me crazy." 
 
 "Don t you think we ve arranged a lovely scene?" she 
 asked, indicating the glories of her stage. 
 
 "I once tried a set like that," grunted Sam disdainfully. 
 "It lasted a week." 
 
 At that instant the Court Jester of Mars rushed in minus 
 a wig and implored the loan of a pair of scissors. Andy 
 produced a pair miraculously from under his aviation suit 
 and Sam continued to grin. 
 
 "Mrs. Skeen," said he, "I m boss of forty-eight vaude 
 ville houses ; and when they re goin all at once they make 
 me a lot of trouble. But I wouldn t trade my job for 
 Andy s not for a bonus of a million a year." 
 
 "Mercenary beast !" scolded the great lady. 
 
 "I don t know what Andy gets out of all this," persisted 
 the social bull. "But he sure do earn it." 
 
 "Get out! You re more trouble than all the actors." 
 Mrs. Skeen led him away ; and the fact that the manager s 
 gibe had struck home was apparent in the self -consciousness 
 with which she quit the scene. 
 
 The curtain rolled up to the customary rounds of ap 
 plause, which included some laughter, because one of the 
 Maids of Mars came in from the wrong side, got tangled 
 among the chorus men and had to be sorted out in full view 
 of the audience. Andy Hanovan, sweating in a hot aviation 
 costume, stood in the wings and saw all this through a veil. 
 He didn t much care whether it went well or wry. His 
 springs of illusion had all dried up. Quite impartially at this
 
 88 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 moment he could see what Sam Bethel meant by amateurs. 
 Nothing went as it should. Everybody had relatives and 
 friends in the audience to acclaim mediocrity with indulgent 
 palms. The wheels of his home-built comedy creaked on 
 their rusty axles, the music of an amateur composer tinkled 
 insipidly. There was every variety of bad acting, from 
 shrill over-eagerness to gasping stage-fright. He saw there 
 the behaviour of raw recruits who, unused to arms, fired 
 at random and hit nothing. 
 
 However, the performance rattled on toward the scene 
 which was to introduce the visiting avxator from Belleville. 
 The stage gradually darkened to the thunderous speech of 
 the King and a clamour from the court. A moving-picture 
 machine at the back of the hall came into play, throwing on 
 the heavenly back-drop outside the Martian window a very 
 natural likeness of the rolling planet upon which we live 
 and quarrel. Somewhat raggedly the chorus chirped, "Hail ! 
 hail ! The Earth !" just as a moving-picture airplane came 
 soaring across the screen. 
 
 "The miracle ! The miracle !" bleated Big Bill Hubbard, 
 King of Mars, in his mechanical voice. Andy, per cue, ad 
 justed his monocle and stepped on the darkened stage. The 
 lights came on much too slowly, but the audience didn t 
 mind, for the dawning radiance revealed Andy their Andy ! 
 Applause began to clatter like hail upon a tin roof. 
 
 "Who sent thee here?" bleats the King under his big 
 white beard. 
 
 "The Belleville Gas and Electric Company," upspeaks the 
 stranger. 
 
 "What is thy quest?" 
 
 "Mars has been burning brightly for a million years and 
 Charley White has sent me to read your meter." 
 
 The affable Gas President, being in the centre of the audi 
 ence, lifted his great laugh and spread it about him; local 
 pride was tickled to the core and the Mad Masque was a 
 success even before Andy plunged into his dreadfully comic 
 song. He was never better than to-night, and he took ad-
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 89 
 
 I . \ 
 
 vantage of the tide to play his burlesque in the highest pos 
 sible key. Belleville could scarcely wait for the jokes to 
 come out of his mouth before they yelled for more. Much 
 as he had won his fool s cap on that past St. Valentine s 
 eve he came out of his lethargy to-night and conquered them 
 utterly. 
 
 "Isn t he too wonderful!" he heard a shrill, hysterical 
 treble lifted in one of those lulls which follow a gale. The 
 remark brought on another storm. And when, like Joshua 
 with a reverse English, he had borrowed the King s sceptre 
 and bade the Earth stand still long enough to point out 
 Belleville on the map, Mrs. Skeen s ball-room quaked peril 
 ously. To-night Andy spared nobody. With his short 
 wand he jabbed the inhabitants categorically, working up 
 gradually to the subject of Mrs. Skeen. 
 
 "She has two little lions on her gate-posts," he explained 
 solemnly. "They re a team of trained lions named Mutt 
 and Nutt I hope Mr. Bethel won t bring suit he can t 
 very well, because they work without pay. They re ama 
 teurs." 
 
 Andy s borrowed sceptre became, indeed, a spear that 
 knew no brother. And of all that audience perhaps the only 
 one who remained unspeared was a pretty little woman in 
 blue who always laughed at the right place, her eyes puck 
 ering mirthfully, a pendant of aqua marines bobbing at her 
 throat. 
 
 When the curtain went down at last the house was ring 
 ing again to the summons, "Andy ! Andy ! Speech ! 
 Speech!" 
 
 Mrs. Skeen came to him where he stood dazed in the 
 wings and commanded affectionately, 
 
 "You ve got to say something, my dear ! Be a good 
 boy!" 
 
 The curtain rolled up again before Mrs. Skeen got off 
 the stage, which was probably as she had intended it. With 
 out the least hesitation she took her protege by the hand,
 
 90 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 led him to the footlights and bowed herself to an exit. Andy 
 Hanovan stood there with all the coolness of one who knows 
 his public. He grinned a moment in pretended bashf ulness, 
 then deliberately showed them the broad of his back as he 
 strolled up stage, laid his hands on the deserted throne chair 
 and, after much clownish slipping and struggling, wheeled 
 it down to the footlights. There he patted it fussily, shoved 
 it one way and then another, stood off and surveyed it, his 
 bandy legs fidgeting, his head cocked to one side. 
 
 "Friends and playmates," he began easily as he struck a 
 pompous pose at the side of the big chair, "before this exhi 
 bition begins I want to warn you, so that in case you don t 
 like what s coming our gentlemanly ushers may show you 
 out by the fire exits. I am going to close the evening with 
 a little auction. No, not a card game. A shell game. All 
 the money in Belleville is here to-night in some form or 
 other solid, liquid or gaseous that includes Charley White 
 and we re not going to unlock the doors until the goods 
 are knocked down to the highest bidder. Do I hear any 
 dissenting voice ?" 
 
 Cries of "Fake! Fake!" and invitations to put up or 
 shut up encouraged the speaker to further effort. 
 
 "I thank you. Before the bidding begins I wish to state 
 that the article I am putting up for sale has been tried by 
 every member of the colony and found delicious. It is an 
 ornament to any home, will not injure the most delicate fab 
 ric and is a great favourite when served with tea." 
 
 "Animal, vegetable or mineral?" thundered out Charley 
 White with one of his earthquake laughs. 
 
 "Strictly vegetable ; a fungus," replied Andy promptly. 
 
 "Put up the goods !" shouted Bertie Hall in an echo of 
 his old comedy voice. 
 
 Very nimbly Andy jumped up into the throne chair ai: 
 stood grinning down upon his audience. 
 
 "I m the goods," said he. "And now who wants to start 
 the bidding? We are offering for unrestricted sale the 
 former Andrew Hanovan, commonly known as Andy."
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 91 
 
 He paused and permitted the facetious cheers, "It can t 
 be done !" and "It s damaged !" to settle down before he 
 proceeded. 
 
 "Andy Hanovan is no stranger to this audience. You all 
 know his virtues and his faults need no introduction. He 
 would be an ornament to any home, and with a little train 
 ing might be turned into a useful utensil. Could be taught 
 to entertain the baby, play the pianola or referee family 
 quarrels. Has no objection to work, but very little prac 
 tice. Would make an excellent caddie or could serve as 
 extra man on a honeymoon tour. In other words, he s will 
 ing to be anything in the world but an amateur." 
 
 The crowd tittered gently, but the atmosphere was grow 
 ing tense. It was plain to see that everybody knew what 
 was the matter with Andy Hanovan. 
 
 "In short," said Andy, leaning far over and dropping his 
 monocle from a face which had become deep-lined and 
 tragic, "I want a job and I don t much care what it is. 
 Belleville here knows my case knows why I m a retired 
 lawyer at thirty-seven without the ghost of a chance to get 
 my practice back. Everybody here knows that I stopped 
 my real work to give Belleville a good time. I don t be 
 grudge a minute of it. But now that the entertainment is 
 over and I m pulling down the curtain on the show, I m ask 
 ing Belleville to reciprocate. Somebody has got to find me 
 a job. How much do you bid, ladies and gentlemen, on the 
 time and talents of Andy Hanovan?" 
 
 "Thirty-two cents !" The bid came distinctly from the 
 direction of Gaston Cole. 
 
 "I d be worth two dollars a week to you as a necktie 
 buyer," protested Andy, getting down and leaning over the 
 footlights. "Your neckties are a scandal to the law, 
 Gaston." 
 
 "Make it one-seventy-five," said his ex-partner with a 
 spike-toothed smile. 
 
 "One-seventy-five from Cole," went on the auctioneer in 
 silvery tones, "do I hear two?"
 
 92 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Two and a quarter !" One of the beautiful blond brain 
 less Fenley sisters belled this forth, having been prompted 
 by her escort. "Two and a quarter to exercise the canary." 
 
 "Going up !" shouted Andy. "And now where s two and 
 a half?" 
 
 "Can you tell funny stories to the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission?" bellowed Charley White. 
 
 "Funnier than anything you can testify, Charley," the 
 auctioneer assured the gas man. 
 
 "Three dollars a week !" Up went as many fingers. 
 
 "We have three now do I hear four?" 
 
 "Three and a half!" Big Bill Hubbard, standing in 
 kingly robes and carrying his white beard over one arm, 
 bawled this from the wings. 
 
 "Come out here, Bill, and show yourself." He dragged 
 forth the monarch and displayed him to the audience. 
 "Here s Bill Hubbard without his whiskers and bidding 
 three and a half a week on my services. Bill s in the real 
 estate business, selling Belleville suburban lots, and he often 
 makes as much as four dollars a day. Three and a half ! 
 Aren t you ashamed of yourself, Bill? Now, come on. 
 Who says four dollars?" 
 
 The bids now began coming in briskly in terms of cents, 
 Andy was offered salaries for 2very job under the sun from 
 local dog catcher to mushroom-gardener on the golf course. 
 It was more fun than Belleville had had since the old Club 
 burned down and the company quite neglected Mrs. Skeen s 
 excellent supper downstairs in the excitement of helping 
 Andy sell himself at public auction. When the bids had 
 mounted up to five sixty-two, Andy began to particularise, 
 pointing out individuals in the auction and exhorting them 
 to brisker bids. 
 
 "Let s speed up now," he suggested, walking briskly back 
 and forth and clapping his hands. "If you re short on 
 ready money, what do you offer in groceries, liquor or ci 
 gars ? As a retired actor I ll accept any vegetables but to 
 matoes. Who wants me as a chauffeur ? I ve had experi-
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 93 
 
 ence at running a car I ve already run two into the 
 ground." 
 
 He wished he hadn t said that, for in a sweeping glance 
 he caught sight of Consie s pale face, staring at him with a 
 hurt expression. He swiftly glanced away and went on 
 with his harangue. 
 
 "Well, now what do I hear in groceries? Mrs. Skeen, 
 your credit s good, I hear " 
 
 "Two dinners a week," sang out that lady somewhat con 
 strainedly. 
 
 "F. O. B. with wine?" 
 
 "Any way you like," she offered in her kindest tone. 
 
 "Seven dollars in groceries is bid by Mrs. Skeen. Come 
 now ! The hour grows late. Do I hear anything better ? 
 How about you, Mr. Cole? And you, Mr. White? Mr. 
 Bethel, as our leading amusement magnate you ve been 
 strangely silent. This game is open to all. How much do 
 I hear, Mr. Bethel ?" 
 
 There was a silence. Evidently Belleville was beginning 
 to get enough of play. Eyes, however, were turned toward 
 the over-dressed little man in the front row and there was 
 a general craning of necks when he shuffled awkwardly and 
 came to his feet before the whole audience. 
 
 "Andy," he rasped, looking up at the man on the stage, 
 "how much of this is serious and how much monkey busi 
 ness?" 
 
 "Every darned bit of it s serious," responded Andy with 
 out hesitation. 
 
 "You mean to say you re willing to hire out on the 
 strength of this fool auction?" 
 
 "If I live to take the money." 
 
 "All right," said Mr. Bethel in a tone of finality, "then 
 I bid two hundred dollars a week." 
 
 "Seriously?" Andy heard somebody with his voice ask 
 ing the question. 
 
 "I never make a joke out of two hundred a week," said 
 Mr. Bethel, and sat down.
 
 94 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Somewhere in the distance Andy could see a figure in 
 blue arising and going swiftly toward the door. 
 
 "One to Mr. Sam Bethel at two hundred two at two 
 hundred do I hear two hundred and ten? Then three at 
 two hundred, and gone to Mr. Sam Bethel at two hundred a 
 week. Will you call for the goods, Mr. Bethel, or shall I 
 have them sent round?" 
 
 When Consuela, trembling and uncertain, knocked on his 
 dressing-room door and opened to his harsh "Come in !" she 
 found him tying his evening cravat before a little mirror 
 which reflected the deadly seriousness of his face. 
 
 "Andy," she appealed softly, but he didn t turn around 
 until the knot was perfectly smooth and straight. 
 
 "Consie," he said, then quite uncordially, "you oughtn t 
 to be coming round like this. It s against the rules of the 
 agreement, you know." 
 
 "But, Andy, dear you re not going to send me back, are 
 you?" She looked into a face which was perfectly stony 
 except for a pair of suffering human eyes. 
 
 "I m going to make good, Consie or jump into the 
 river," he said. "But not this time." 
 
 "You mean to say you re not going to accept Sam Bethel s 
 offer?" 
 
 Andy stood there and shook his head. To resist the temp 
 tation to take her into his arms and beg her to relent, to 
 stick by him for a while, he thrust his hands deep into his 
 pockets. 
 
 "I couldn t take it," he mumbled. "Of course, that s 
 luck. I put up that asinine performance to-night because I 
 saw it was the only way of letting Belleville know that I 
 was desperate for a job. And the only person who took me 
 seriously made me an offer that I can t possibly take." 
 
 "You mean you wouldn t work for Bethel?" 
 
 He could see by the way she drew away from him that 
 she suspected his incompetence again.
 
 MONKEY ON A STICK 95 
 
 "Mother has raised an awful row. She says she d rather 
 see me dead than in vaudeville." 
 
 "Oh, yes. I forgot about her." Consie stood looking at 
 the toe of her small satin slipper. 
 
 "You won t lose faith in me, Consie ?" he blurted. 
 
 "I told you before, Andy, that I d wait," she assured him. 
 "And do you know, somehow, this fool performance to 
 night has increased my faith in you?" 
 
 She was gone before Andy could say another word. He 
 had a wild impulse to pursue her, to try to argue it out. 
 In fact, he was throwing on his coat to follow some such 
 vague programme when the door opened unceremoniously 
 and Sam Bethel walked in. 
 
 "Well, Andy," he wheezed in his cheerful manner. "I ve 
 come to get my package. And something tells me I haven t 
 made such a bum bargain." 
 
 "Sam," said Andy, taking the little man by the lapel of 
 his coat, "I wish I had been in earnest. There s nothing in 
 the world I d like better than taking your two hundred a 
 week, but " 
 
 "Look here! Wasn t that proposition on the square?" 
 The manager s face grew red with indignation. 
 
 "Well, you see, my mother she s rather old-fashioned in 
 her ideas, and I don t think she d stand for my going on 
 the vaudeville stage." 
 
 "Vaudeville stage!" spluttered Sam. "Who the devil 
 wants you to go on the vaudeville stage?" 
 
 "Why, don t you?" 
 
 "Hell, no ! I want you for a lawyer." 
 
 "A which?" 
 
 "Lawyer. I ve chucked Gas Cole over the rail and I ll 
 never be seen in that morgue again. I watched your work 
 to-night, and it s just the ticket. Nerve ! Say, you d comb 
 the fleas out of a Bengal tiger. And I want your services 
 before February so that we can get that chimp suit into the
 
 96 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 papers by the time my new Marathon Theatre opens in St. 
 Louis." 
 
 "Excuse me a minute. I want to tell my wife." 
 
 And Sam Bethel didn t see Andy again until ten o clock 
 next morning, when the contract was signed. 
 
 That evening the widow Hanovan, sitting stiffly among 
 "real lace" mats and the Warwick and Stanley silver, enter 
 tained a vaudeville manager at high tea. It was wonderful 
 to see how well they both behaved. Possibly the fact that 
 a distinguished Corporation Lawyer and his wife were also 
 present might have had a neutralising effect. Then, too, 
 there was the bust of Chief Justice Warwick, taking in every, 
 word that was said. It was a very helpful evening for all 
 parties concerned.
 
 Ill 
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 
 
 YOU would know the King of Spain, would you not?" 
 Nimbly Count Francisco Miguel de Llargo y Jimi- 
 nez plunged his aristocratic right hand up to the wrist 
 watch into an inside pocket and brought out a photograph. 
 This he placed deferentially under the wide-eyed, pink and 
 white face across the table. Lora Hollis drew in her 
 breath and gazed, all dazzled, upon the likeness. In the 
 good-humoured, loose-jowled Hapsburg features she recog 
 nised Alfonzo, lord of Castile and Aragon. 
 
 "How perfectly, perfectly wonderful !" she told him in 
 her infantile voice. She was glad that Tanquay s fashion 
 able orchestra had stopped playing for a moment, so they 
 could pitch their conversation to a confidential key. Again 
 she took in Alfonzo s scraggly smile, blazoned above with 
 towers and lions. It was as though she had been introduced 
 already to this nice, kind king; and below the picture, boy 
 ishly scrawled, she read the royal message which served to 
 establish the handsome Spaniard firmly in her regard: 
 
 "Felicidad, mi Francisco ! 
 Siempre su amigo, 
 
 Alfonzo." 
 
 "You do know him awfully well, don t you !" she chirped. 
 
 Being, by his own acknowledgment, an envoy extraordi 
 nary from a foreign court, Count Francisco received the 
 compliment with the repression proper to ambassadors. His 
 long olive face, which somehow reminded Lora of a beauti- 
 
 97
 
 98 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ~ " ^ ^ ! 
 
 fully decorated egg, showed no expression, save that of his 
 agate-coloured eyes, which drooped languidly as he reached 
 across for the photograph. 
 
 "You must remember, Senora, that the house of Llargo y 
 Jiminez has been long associated with the court of Spain." 
 
 "Oh, yes." He had said that to her several times during 
 their brief but miraculously growing acquaintanceship. And 
 now again he was launching forth upon a pleasant historical 
 voyage which, although it conveyed a fascinatingly regal im 
 pression to Lora, yet confused her with its proud allusions 
 and hard foreign names. It was always difficult for her 
 quaint little mind to concentrate on anything. Tanquay s 
 orchestra was making a great to do over the Humoresque, 
 and Lora s thoughts went skipping amiably and aimlessly. 
 
 It gave Lora a pleasurable thrill to tell herself again that 
 this handsome foreigner was a count in his own country. 
 The portrait of Alfonzo brought courts and crowns very 
 near ; and his noble mien confirmed the patrician ideal which 
 she had built in her New England village home to coincide 
 with all the books she had borrowed in youth from the 
 New Balaam, Connecticut, public library. . . . She glanced 
 nervously around the room, fearful that her husband might 
 have dropped in by some pernicious chance. Claymore 
 would be furious, of course. He had never understood her 
 yearnings to break into the society column . . . and he 
 would doubtless scold her because a genuine count, ripe 
 from the tree, had dropped into her lap ! 
 
 "But ah, Seiiora !" the dulcet Francisco had gotten some 
 how back to the personal note. "It is refreshing in this so 
 strange country to meet one lady all aristocratic like those 
 ladies of that Spain !" 
 
 "Honest, Count," she protested with just the suggestion 
 of a titter, "I m not so much on family. We re " 
 
 It was on her tongue s end to confess that her father, a 
 gentleman of the name of McClosky, still kept a hardware 
 store in New Balaam and that her husband, a divorced 
 dentist, had plucked her from a front porch in the home
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 99 
 
 town and that she had, at the time of their wedding, re 
 garded Riverside Drive as an introduction to Golconda. 
 Upon second thought she decided not to drag in Claymore 
 W. Hollis, the able treater of wealthy teeth. Clay had 
 caught her flirting with the Count the night before at a 
 restaurant dance and had referred to the interloper as a 
 "Spiggoty." 
 
 "I m only a country girl," she confessed at last. 
 
 "Ah, but that is distinguished the great haciendados!" 
 He sang this to her in his rich notes, apparently determined 
 to confer nobility upon the house of McClosky. She re 
 membered having heard her father boast his descent from a 
 king named Brian Boru. 
 
 Francisco was now launching floridly upon a description 
 of hidalgos he had known. She admired his eyes as he 
 talked, fascinating jewels that could contract to little black 
 shoe-buttons or be soft and limpid as the fallow deer s. It 
 was those eyes which had led her out of her weak discretion 
 last night when he had presented his graceful impudence and 
 asked her to dance right under the nose of her husband. 
 Her acceptance, of course, had been in the way of a reprisal ; 
 for she and Clay had been quarrelling all evening about 
 Winifred s alimony, now due again. Ye Muses, how this 
 Count could dance ! He had led her into shambling, lan 
 guid, unconventional steps which were rapture to her little 
 joy-loving soul. And, dancing, he had explained to her 
 how the step she followed was all the rage in court circles 
 of Madrid, how he was in America on a secret diplomatic 
 mission, how he had escaped for the evening from the 
 padded plush palace of Mrs. de Flingpillar Mawe and gone 
 forth alone, like Haroun the Good, to see New York enjoy 
 itself. At the end of the dance he had whispered "Tan- 
 quay s at one" and, swooning in the spell of imported 
 Granada, she had nodded her foolish head. 
 
 So here they were; and Lora, all bound round with a 
 magic string, sat wondering what this fairy-book prince 
 wanted with the likes of her.
 
 loo SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 The Count, meanwhile, was taking full advantage of his 
 time, speaking English fluently with a Latin gurgle. 
 
 "As His Majesty, the King of Spain, said to me so shortly 
 before I boated to this America," here the affable grandee 
 lowered his voice to a pitch of reverence, " Francisco, he 
 said, there is a distinction to the American woman ! " 
 
 "How how well do you know the King?" she asked at 
 length. 
 
 "Senora !" Count Francisco Miguel de Llargo y Jiminez 
 drew the royal photograph half way out of his pocket. It 
 was as though the picture were about to bow and smile and 
 say, "My friend, Francisco." 
 
 The Count became at once autobiographic. He had been 
 born to court life. The house of Llargo y Jiminez was Ah ! 
 so influential ! Always the King s superior at outdoor sports, 
 he had taught the game of marbles to his royal playmate. 
 They had been college chums at Barcelona. Later they had 
 taken up aviation together ; and when the young King s air 
 plane was in full flight over the Pyrenees the quick-witted 
 Francisco, who occupied the extra seat, saw in a flash that 
 the King had fainted at the wheel. It had taken but an in 
 stant for the lesser lord to scramble through mid-air, snatch 
 the controls from the hand of the swooning monarch . . . 
 
 Lora sat giddy with the picture and with admiration of 
 this lithe, cat-like aristocrat who, effeminate in appearance, 
 yet possessed the lion s heart in the face of danger. 
 
 "It was natural, then, that I should be chosen to come to 
 Washington with the mission," he confessed modestly. 
 
 "What just what is this mission?" She puckered her 
 fine brows and tried hard to concentrate on a subject which, 
 she felt sure, would be full of hard words. 
 
 The Count glanced keenly round ere he leaned far over 
 and whispered. 
 
 "To arrange the new Spanish loan !" 
 
 "Oh. Is Spain doing it too?" 
 
 "The reasons I cannot divulge," intimated Francisco mys-
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 101 
 
 teriously. "Perhaps I have already said too much. But I 
 can trust in the Sefiora s common sense ?" 
 
 "I suppose so." Lora said it quaveringly. To be ac 
 cused of common sense was as novel to her, perhaps, as to be 
 reminded of her noble birth and breeding. But her mi 
 raculously growing intimacy with this diplomat inspired her 
 with a flashing hope. Here was one not only illustrious in 
 affairs of the old world, but courted by the society of the 
 new. Poor little Lora Hollis, who had so often dragged 
 her husband to the Metropolitan Opera House in order that 
 she might gloat from afar upon the bulging tier where 
 basked the jewelled great, sat here en tete-a-tcte with one 
 who could be master of them all. Her surreptitious lunch 
 eon with the Count hadn t seemed quite right at first. But 
 now, at one stroke, she could do a mighty favour for her 
 Clay. He was always mentally comparing her with the 
 first Mrs. Hollis, he had always treated her as an expen 
 sive, adorable, profligate doll. Now he should see what the 
 charm and beauty which had made woman a power in the 
 court of Louis XIV could do for an ambitious dentist of 
 Riverside Drive. 
 
 "It must be wonderful to know the King of Spain," she 
 came rapidly back to her subject, employing her most in 
 fantile voice. 
 
 "Ah, Senora. Kings are but human. It is the common- 
 popular soul of Alfonzo that is to be admired. At heart he 
 is what your great Wilson calls Safe from Democracy. It 
 would be so easy for one so beautiful like you to be 
 what you call ? entirely the show in our Court." 
 
 "You think so?" upspake Lora, brightening visibly. 
 
 "Seiiora, I will tell you why I am here so long in New 
 York." He leaned at his intimate angle and his eyes came 
 down to their shoe-button focus. "It is Sefior your hus 
 band I am after." 
 
 Lora was alarmed. She had heard that these Spaniards 
 were deadly swordsmen and she had no faith in her Clay s
 
 102 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ability to handle any weapon more deep-cutting than an 
 electric drill. 
 
 "Your husband is very distinguished dentist, is it not?" 
 
 "He s one of the best," she responded with a prompti 
 tude born of natural pride. 
 
 "I will tell you something more, Senora Lora." Consid 
 ering the brevity of their friendship, his address seemed just 
 a shade familiar ; but there were garnet sub-lights in his re 
 markable eyes and his voice was running smoothly like a 
 trickle of syrup over a plateful of ripe r s. 
 
 "Last night when I was so bold to address myself to your 
 table I was charmed first by the beauty que linda ! " He 
 said the word thrillingly. "Then I was brave because you 
 dance so well like the Castillian feet ! But must I confess 
 it? Your husband was entirely observed by me all the 
 time." 
 
 "Clay s jealous," she informed him. 
 
 "Jealous! That is nothing." Between an aristocratic 
 thumb and finger he snapped away the memory of a hun 
 dred duels. "I do not watch men for that. The reason 
 why I keep my eye over your husband wherever he appear 
 is far more international than jealousy." 
 
 "Well, what is the reason?" she asked obligingly like an 
 end-man. 
 
 "Spain." 
 
 He spoke the monosyllable and edged a little closer, his 
 slender fingers bent back in their pressure upon the table 
 cloth. 
 
 "It was part of my instructions before arriving to this 
 America," he told her in a still, slow voice, "to watch out 
 for one distinguished scientist who would come with me to 
 be Court Dentist to the King." 
 
 Ah, she knew it ! From the first she had suspected that 
 this romantic stranger had something up his sleeve for her 
 and hers! Court Dentist of Spain! She grew suddenly 
 light-headed as under the influence of her husband s laugh-
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 103 
 
 ing gas. And poor, blind Clay had sneered and called this 
 man a "Spigotty." 
 
 "Does the King of Spain need a dentist?" she at last 
 found breath to ask. 
 
 "But that is apparent, Seiiora." Again he brought the 
 photograph half out of his pocket, revealing the irregularity 
 of the monarch s smile. "His Majesty suffers the intensity 
 his malformation you will notice. He has the tooth of 
 the Hapsburgs. And when Count Andreo de Todos los 
 Toros died recently he left poor Alfonzo quite desolate 
 spesarado because Count Andreo had always been such 
 fine dental scientist. Count Andreo, you understand, was 
 American, Andrew Kelley by name. The title was given 
 by distinguished service. The King depend very affection 
 ate upon Americans for what you call it ?" 
 
 Count Francisco pantomimically drew the point of his 
 long forefinger around his gums. 
 
 "Bridge work," Lora supplied. A rapidly expanding 
 thought was bumping the walls of her narrow little brain. 
 
 "Do you think my husband runs a chance for the job 
 the appointment?" 
 
 "My recommendation can do much, Seiiora," he informed 
 her under the fire of his sombre eyes. 
 
 "And will they make a Count of him?" 
 
 "Probably. That is to be seen." 
 
 "Oh." She eyed him narrowly. His noble honour, no 
 doubt, prevented his promising too much; but his manner 
 conveyed the hope that her Clay could look forward to rapid 
 advancement and titles. 
 
 "Would would I be in the Court, too ?" 
 
 "Segura! The lady of the Court dentist must hold the 
 official rank of Dentina." 
 
 That settled the matter once and for all in her mind. 
 
 "I ll speak to Claymore as soon as I get home," she eagerly 
 assured him. 
 
 "Not so fast, Senora ! In such work of la diplomicm we 
 must not shove too many matters altogether. And yet
 
 104 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 everything must be done swiftly, because I sail for Spain 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "I m sorry," she said quite sincerely. This miraculous 
 contact with nobility was more thrilling than anything that 
 had happened to her since the dentist s whirlwind courtship 
 in New Balaam three years ago. 
 
 "This matter has held me here a week longer than I 
 should," he went on rapidly. "I have had to consider so 
 many names. Dr. Anderson and Dr. Fortesque were highly 
 recommended " 
 
 "They re not nearly so smart as Clay," she broke in men 
 daciously, remembering with what respect her husband often 
 spoke of the above-mentioned lights of dentistry. 
 
 "So I have found," he assured her with a wise smile. 
 "And it is so that I have come to you for a little help in the 
 matter." 
 
 "What can I do ?" she was ail-too ready to offer. 
 
 "It may sound a foolish matter." The orchestra had set 
 in again and Francisco must needs tune his notes skilfully 
 to a confidential pitch just above the hair-cutting motif from 
 Samson and Delilah. 
 
 "I must have the guarantee before noon to-morrow." 
 1 "What guarantee ?" she chirped. 
 
 "Of course you would not understand the usage," he be 
 gan in a tone which conveyed a kindly toleration. "In such 
 cases it is customary for the applicant to make a small de 
 posit to pledge good faith, you know ? The Spanish Gov 
 ernment pass his name or reject it the money is then re 
 turned to the applicant. It is old-fashioned Spanish form." 
 
 This was the first fly that had buzzed into her ointment 
 of romance. Dr. Claymore W. Hollis was getting tighter 
 and tighter in money matters, poor dear, and he had cursed 
 aloud, for the first time in her presence, when the bill had 
 come in last month from the Boew Peepe Shoppe, that fas 
 cinatingly misspelled trap for feminine vanities. There 
 would be another bill from that same source arriving, per 
 haps, to-day. Also, that disgusting Winifred s must be paid.
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 
 
 How could she ask Clay for more money, even to buy a 
 royal ribbon for his shirt-front? 
 
 "How much will it cost?" she asked in her crudest up 
 state voice. 
 
 "A very little." The vulgarity of the question seemed 
 to offend, for he twitched slightly. "A deposit of fifteen 
 hundred pesetas fifteen hundred dollars will be much 
 sufficient." 
 
 Her hands dropped to her side. He might as well be 
 asking Claymore for the full sum of the Liberty Loan. 
 
 "You couldn t make it a little less, could you?" she was 
 so bold as to query at last. 
 
 "Senora! I am assured that fifteen hundred dollars is 
 very small to ask for so great honour. Less, I am afraid, 
 would look what you call him? stingy to the Court 
 Chamberlain who would handle the deposit." 
 
 "I might possibly be able to raise a thousand," she tem 
 porised, embarrassed to be haggling with this fine spirit. 
 
 "Bueno !" he shrugged all the way from his slender waist 
 line to the tips of his ears. "It is a small matter. It can t 
 be less than fifteen hundred dollars. But I tell you ! You 
 bring one thousand. I will put in five hundred from my 
 own account." 
 
 "Oh, Count !" His generosity struck her dumb. 
 
 "It is my desire to see your husband promoted to Count," 
 he assured her with one of his languid smiles. 
 
 Lora Hollis pushed back her chair and began putting on 
 her gloves. She was thinking rapidly, if not deeply. She 
 might raise part of the money on her fur coat and some of 
 her gowns. No. It must be her jewels. The baroness of 
 romance always pawns her jewels, never her fur coat. 
 
 "Of course, I could go to Claymore and explain 
 
 "No, no, no!" The negatives came rapidly like bullets 
 from a Lewis gun. "Your question is natural, but it would 
 not do. Let us keep the happiness from him as one keep 
 what I say? Christmas present. I can only recommend
 
 106 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 his name, you understand. Suppose the King do not ac 
 cept it?" 
 
 Lora had never thought of that. 
 
 "This would make how you say? " He went dex 
 terously through the motions of tying a knot "out of sim 
 ple diplomatic situation. I confide in you, Senora. Let 
 us keep it close beside us until the appointment is an 
 nounced." 
 
 Lora took her beaded bag from the extra chair and arose. 
 
 "I ll I ll see what I can do," she faltered. 
 
 "Could I have the honour again to-morrow?" 
 
 "If I can raise the money I ll be here at noon " 
 
 "If I might ask," he persisted courteously, "could it be 
 at the Claremont on the Hudson? That is a more out-of- 
 place rest and you have the intellect to know how valuable 
 is secrecy." 
 
 He took her hand as they parted in the foyer. She was 
 puzzled as to just what he intended doing with that hand, 
 as he didn t shake it, but continued slowly to raise it toward 
 his chin. 
 
 "Don t !" she gasped, snatching it away. She had read in 
 delightful books about courtly hand-kissings ; but con 
 fronted by actuality, she blushed to the roots of her yellow 
 hair and glanced hastily through the glass partition. She 
 was horribly nervous, conscious that all New York must 
 be looking at her. 
 
 She bade her Count a hasty au revoir and bounded forth 
 to the Hollis town-car which the carriage man had called 
 for her. 
 
 II 
 
 The little car nosed its way up Fifth Avenue toward 
 Riverside Drive and the Gigantic Apartments where the 
 Hollises showed an ornate front to the world. The Gigan 
 tic was symbolic of Lora and her attitude toward the life 
 she had wheedled out of her middle-aged husband. Since 
 the day when the sentimental Dr. Hollis had whisked her
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 107 
 
 off the McClosky porch in New Balaam and transported 
 her on a magic carpet to the Gigantic she had eaten into 
 luxury like the graceful, insatiable pink and white weevil 
 that she was. Never having had much to spend before, the 
 Drive had been overwhelming to her until she got used to 
 it. To put on an evening gown almost every night and 
 be whirled beside her white-fronted husband to a fashion 
 able cafe had been, at first, intoxication enough for her. 
 Then her silly head had cooled and she had cast her eyes in 
 a fatal direction eastward across the roofs toward the 
 other side of Central Park. Why didn t she get her picture 
 in the paper or her name among those present at the De 
 Flingpillar Mawe fancy dress ball? It couldn t be because 
 her Clay was divorced. That was quite the thing, she had 
 learned from Sunday supplements . . . then vaguely she 
 began associating their obscurity with Winifred and that 
 awful monthly alimony. 
 
 A little over three years ago Dr. Claymore W. Hollis, 
 then a prosperous dentist with a past, had whirled through 
 New Balaam on a fishing trip, had paused to mend a leaky 
 tire and stayed to soothe a broken heart. From the honey- 
 suckled depths of the McClosky porch Lora had smiled 
 upon his rakish grey roadster with the result that he had 
 spun her for two excited hours round the countryside and 
 they had returned in time for strawberry shortcake at the 
 McClosky table. The temperamental dentist fished very 
 little that summer, because he himself was caught. About 
 the time Mr. McClosky began referring to the able Dr. 
 Hollis as "Lora s young man" New Balaam started specu 
 lating on the date of the wedding. No one denied that 
 Lora was the prettiest girl in town ; she wasn t brainy in 
 fact local gallantry had referred to her more than once as 
 a "nut" ; but there are nuts which give anodyne to unhappy 
 men. 
 
 When Claymore W. Hollis put the question Lora had 
 giggled lightly a way she had when under the stress of 
 strong emotion. It was as though the Secretary of the
 
 io8 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Treasury had opened all his money vaults and handed her 
 a shovel. After it was all settled her dentist had cleared 
 his throat and further explained: 
 
 "It s only fair to tell you. I ve been divorced." 
 
 "It was her fault, wasn t it ?" she had asked promptly. 
 
 "It wasn t anybody s fault, I guess," he had subtly in 
 formed her. She was a simple village maiden then, and 
 she had thought him terrifically intricate and worldly. "I 
 think we must have outgrown one another. She was cut 
 out for a business woman; not the type for a masterful 
 man. And when she asked for her freedom well, I paid 
 her way to Reno. You understand, don t you ?" 
 
 "I suppose so," Lora had replied, thinking that fashion 
 able men like Claymore must require more divorces than 
 common folks. 
 
 "Was she pretty?" Such a question, of course, would 
 come next in the feminine mind. 
 
 "You see she d be considerably older than you," he had 
 parried. "She never could have been like you." 
 
 In the fair face of Lora he might have been forgiven a 
 greater disloyalty to his earlier infelicity. The county- 
 wide renown of her beauty had driven two or three young 
 men to drink and at least one to prohibition. 
 
 "Well." Lora had tried to dismiss the former wife at 
 the end of Claymore s first confession. "She won t bother 
 us, I guess." 
 
 "She won t," he had agreed somewhat bitterly. "But her 
 lawyers will." 
 
 Lora had gaped blankly at this and her lover had 
 specified. 
 
 "Winifred s alimony has to be paid on the first of every 
 month." 
 
 That was the first time the other woman s name had 
 been pronounced to her, and through the ensuing years 
 she had associated the disagreeable combination Winifred 
 and alimony. 
 
 So they had married and gone straight to New York.
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 109 
 
 Dr. Hollis took his second wife to the pompous, near-onyx 
 foyer of the Gigantic and didn t explain to her, at first, how 
 the rent and the fixtures and the added servants were some 
 what more than he could afford ; that the late Winifred had 
 been contented with an old-fashioned apartment on West 
 End Avenue. Lora s greed for luxury seemed to strike 
 the fires of profligacy from him. He had seemed always 
 eager to spend money on her; and she had always kept at 
 least a nose ahead of him in the dangerous race. She was 
 raised in New Balaam where the best restaurant dinner 
 cost forty cents a plate. It toolc her less than a year to 
 complain properly over the quality of food in a Fifth Ave 
 nue establishment where a little affair for four came to 
 upward of forty dollars. She graduated from home-made 
 into tailor-made, from dresses into frocks. Everything was 
 on the grand scale whose limit is bankruptcy; and Lora s 
 all too doting husband had aged visibly in the last few 
 months. 
 
 Lora s small mind had learned the arts of wheedling and 
 of sulking. Schooled in the tactful science of teeth, Dr. 
 Hollis had been patient. When she cried for the moon he 
 promised to hire a taxi-plane and bring down the shining 
 bauble. She didn t see why their names never got into the 
 papers. She didn t see why he didn t trade in his old car 
 for a 1918 model. She didn t see why that woman Wini 
 fred should have her alimony so promptly on the first of 
 every month. It was only the mention of Winifred that 
 caused Hollis to bridle. Lora suspected that he cared more 
 for her than he pretended. He was so touchy about that 
 alimony which, month by month, Lora saw slipping beyond 
 the reach of her slender, grasping fingers. Then there was 
 a letter which she had shaken one day out of an old desk. 
 Her flighty memory had retained the words, after innumer 
 able readings: 
 
 "Dear old Boy: 
 
 "I understand We re not going to spoil things by a lot of 
 recriminations. I ve got my work to do and you ve got yours.
 
 1 10 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 That never occurred to you, did it my work ? For heaven s 
 sake, be happy and sensible. You were never cut out to live 
 with your intellectual equal. You ve taken your daily without 
 thanks. What you want is peaches and cream. Don t marry 
 the kind that thinks. Choose one that s fluffy one that al 
 ways wants you to buy her something, that keeps you in a 
 stew all the time. If I hadn t tried to economise and keep 
 something ahead for you, I verily believe we d be cooing still. 
 Take care of yourself, old man and pick out a girl who needs 
 taking care of. Do you know, that idea makes me just a little 
 jealous? 
 
 "WINIFRED." 
 
 "She talks like his mother," was Lora s first spiteful 
 thought, to which she added, "I never heard of a mother s 
 demanding alimony." 
 
 Since then she had been on one splendid spending con 
 test with the phantom Winifred. About alimony- time each 
 month she had entered upon a career of profligacy. Of 
 course, there comes an end to every carouse. When 
 Madame Florence had come to town and opened up the 
 frivolously misspelled "Bowe Peepe Shoppe" in the lower 
 Thirties Lora had descended thereon and outstripped all 
 previous records. Claymore W. Hollis had looked over the 
 bill, blanched visibly, groaned and sat down. 
 
 "I suppose you want to save some more for old Wini 
 fred !" she had twitted. 
 
 That had been last month and another bill would be com 
 ing soon. To-day as Lora got out at the Gigantic and 
 entered the ornate splendours of her apartment she knew 
 too well how useless it would be to ask him for the money 
 she must have before to-morrow noon. However, des 
 peration makes heroes out of fools and vice versa. She de 
 termined on one last try. 
 
 At the telephone in her rather staring grey and blue bed 
 room she waited a nervous while for Clay to answer. She 
 knew that it made him furious to be interrupted in the midst 
 of a dental operation.
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM ill 
 
 "Yes?" came his voice at last, gentle and cutting like 
 one of his fine instruments of torment. 
 
 "This is Lora, dear," she began in her most wheedling 
 tone. "Sweetheart, I can t tell you everything at once. 
 But I wonder if you could do me a really truly great big 
 favour." 
 
 "But, darling, there s a man waiting in the chair with 
 his mouth propped open and " 
 
 "I m so sorry, Dodo !" This was her pettest of all pet 
 names. "It will only take a minute to tell you what I 
 want." 
 
 "Can t it wait till to-night ?" 
 
 "Oh, no. That would be awfully too late. Listen, 
 Dodo." 
 
 "I m listening." 
 
 "Can t you put off that old alimony just this once and 
 let me have the money?" 
 
 "Oh, dearie, please!" She knew then that it was just as 
 good as lost. "Do you want me to go to jail?" 
 
 "I don t see what that has to do with it," she sulked by 
 wire. 
 
 "Now, Lora, if you ll ask anything reasonable " 
 
 She banished him by the simple expedient of banging 
 the receiver on the hook. No good trying that tack, she 
 thought indignantly ; and she wished she had told her hate 
 ful Clay just what she wanted the money for and let him 
 make the most of it. 
 
 "Of all the old things !" she sniffed as she whisked across 
 the room and seated herself at her fussy little dressing 
 table. She stared into the mirror and was dissatisfied with 
 the peevish mood which had roiled her usually placid 
 beauty. She began to smile, vacantly as she always did in 
 contemplation of herself; lovingly she patted her strands 
 of honey-coloured hair and with a slender forefinger out 
 lined her fine, yellowish eyebrows, her wide eyes reflecting 
 crystal from the glass. 
 
 The room in which she sat was a lavish affair, panelled
 
 112 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 in grey with spotty blue medallions here and there ; an ap 
 proximated Adam interior which a decorator named Ad- 
 delheimer had done for her in imitation of a musical com 
 edy setting she once admired. Lora loved this room, which 
 was superficial, satiny, modish, somewhat shoddy it ex 
 pressed her with a subtlety it could never claim for itself. 
 
 Turning the peach-blow of her cheeks from side to side A 
 she admired and, admiring, dreamed. When she became 
 Dentina of the Court of Spain, she thought with a sudden 
 return of gaiety, she should have a tiara to wear on state 
 occasions. Reflectively she picked two rhinestone combs 
 from the tray in front of her and stuck them, tiara-fashion, 
 into her brilliant hair. She took a queenly pose, turning 
 her little empty head this way and that with the effect that 
 she did look queenly; or like a naughty, spoiled princess 
 about to do the wrongest thing that ever she knew how. 
 
 She sighed. There was no good telling him what she 
 wanted the money for. It would be just like poor old 
 darling, grumpy Clay to laugh at her for her folly; when 
 the summons from a royal court came to him, it would be 
 her time to laugh ! Thus she constructed her Spanish cloud- 
 castles as she went rummaging for valuables to pawn. 
 
 Lora opened the top drawer and brought out her jewel- 
 box. It was a sizeable casket, finished in gold wash. The 
 trinkets she produced from its satiny depths made quite a 
 double handful; a string of pearls which looked genuine 
 and had cost her forty dollars ; some seed peari ear-rings 
 which Clay had inherited from some of the female Hollises 
 and had handed over to tier; a garishly set ring with a 
 large ruby and several small diamonds; a pearl and sap 
 phire bar pin; a pair of ear-rings set with large pearls 
 genuine; an elaborate platinum filigree brooch with several 
 inferior diamonds ; a corporal s guard of insignificant pins. 
 Surely, thought Lora, as she weighed the baubles, a few of 
 these would bring a thousand dollars and Clay could be 
 evaded until they were redeemed. 
 
 She remembered a pretty pawnshop she had often passed
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 113 
 
 on her trips to Mme. Florence s "Bowe Peepe Shoppe." 
 She liked this place, because it had a shiny front like a real 
 jeweller s and there were no revolvers, razors, or musical 
 instruments scattered among the tidy rows of gems dis 
 played in the window. She was sure the keeper of the 
 place must be a nice man at heart, no slovenly Shylock who 
 would grind the face of the poor. Therefore she ordered 
 up her car, decided on her small hat with the golden feather 
 and set forth upon her first venture into finance. 
 
 She had the chauffeur let her off at the Waldorf Astoria ; 
 a new-born worldly cunning told her that it would never 
 do to have a servant of her household see her entering 
 a pawnshop. She walked down the Avenue to Thirty- 
 second Street, turned in half a block and was well in sight 
 of her destination when her joy-devouring mind was again 
 turned from its purpose. She was standing in front of 
 one of those small, coquettish store-fronts which the af 
 fected, exotic whim of Fifth Avenue renders profitable. 
 It was a Dresden shepherdess of a store-front, its bay 
 window latticed with white sashes, blue forget-me-nots 
 painted on the cornices, a useless brass knocker on the 
 white-enamelled door; and over all on a long white sign 
 board, lettered antiquely in Colonial type, the following 
 label: 
 
 Ye BOWE PEEPE SHOPPE. 
 
 There were only two o-r three things in the window be 
 hind the white-sashed panes. Such a sport-coat as Psyche 
 might have worn for the rough work of chasing butterflies ; 
 a doll dressed in the period of Louis XIV, her skirts de 
 signed as curtains for the unsightly telephone; and on a 
 gawky, violet-enamelled spindle one coquettishly-brimmed 
 white hat, all dripping down the sides with paradise plumes. 
 
 "The dear !" whispered Lora, her mind for the moment 
 off the floating courts of Spain. That was the hat she had 
 been looking for, the one which perfidious Mme. Florence 
 had faithfully promised to show her!
 
 114 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 r"""^ ^^^^^ 
 
 But duty like a stern policeman came and took her by the 
 elbow. Lora stopped but to sigh again ere she passed on. 
 
 There stood a bald-headed albino behind the counter of 
 the pretty pawn-shop, a half block nearer Broadway. He 
 focussed his pink eyes to a look of hostility as she offered 
 her spoil, at which he squinted carefully. He was a dis 
 agreeably pink person, suggestive of rubber. First he 
 sneered at the seed pearl ear-rings and offered to buy them 
 outright for ten dollars cash. He flattered the ruby ring 
 with several of his squints; the stone was large and had, 
 as Lora knew, cost Clay dearly for his bad taste. Finally 
 the pink pawnbroker weighed her entire collection of trin 
 kets in his chubby hand. Spitefully he glared at them 
 through his magnifying glass and at last, in the voice of 
 Simon Legree, spat out his verdict: 
 
 "Six hundred for the lot !" 
 
 "That s ridiculous," she protested, and would have ex 
 plained further had not the roseate monster glared at her 
 with the eyes of a venomous rabbit and sniffed : 
 
 "Six hundred is too much !" 
 
 She made a poor show of pleading. The pawnbroker 
 gave her a rubber smile and began directing his greenish 
 assistant in the work of arranging a new row of bejewelled 
 cards on a nickelled rod. It was getting on toward five 
 o clock and Lora, unfamiliar with the business hours of 
 pawnbrokers, had a panicky feeling that they were closing 
 for the night. 
 
 "All right," said she at last, acknowledging defeat. 
 
 He made her out a deck of little cards and shoved out 
 a pile of bills with a gesture that was like a curse. It was 
 a dear price she was paying for nobility ; and as she walked 
 dazedly back toward Fifth Avenue, her whole being was 
 embittered by the thought that she still lacked four hun 
 dred dollars of Count Francisco s reasonable request. Old 
 Winifred s alimony would more than make up the sum, she 
 reflected, and was like to burst into tears as she dismissed 
 the thought.
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 115 
 
 Presently her walk got her as far as the Bowe Peepe 
 Shoppe. Somehow the act of gazing through the latticed 
 window upon that dripping paradise plume had a settling 
 effect upon her nerves. She had a large sum in her beaded 
 bag and, since the Spanish castles were gone a-glimmering, 
 she saw no valid reason why she shouldn t have the hat. 
 Peeping over the ornate back-board of the window, she 
 could see the comforting, substantial figure of Madame 
 Florence, passing back and forth in the act of shutting up 
 for the night. The very sight of Florence was a sedative 
 to Lora s twitching nerves. Florence was sensible, she was 
 maternal or was she a hypnotist? 
 
 At any rate the poor foolish rnoth fluttered into the 
 glamour of the Bowe Peepe Shoppe. 
 
 "My dear !" said Mme. Florence in a big New England 
 voice as she rolled forth a frivolous chair for Lora s ac 
 commodation. She was a large-boned, middle aged woman, 
 her hair severely parted, her eyes a kindly brown, her face 
 handsome, as though disdaining the nonsense of being 
 pretty. 
 
 "Oh, why didn t you tell me?" fluttered Lora, casting an 
 accusing look toward the window. 
 
 "Do you know I called you up twice to-day and you were 
 out both times ?" accused the able Florence with one of her 
 maternal smiles. "But isn t it charming?" 
 
 She walked over to the window with the stride of one 
 who should command armies. And strangely it seemed 
 quite natural that she should be bringing the hat forth 
 daintily and trying it on Lora s lovely head. 
 
 "It seems a shame that you should do your beautiful hair 
 so elaborately," she commented as she pressed the hat down 
 at the crown and permitted her client a peep in the long 
 mirror. 
 
 Lora glanced up at the reflection of the large, friendly 
 face bending over her. Somehow she could not take of 
 fence at Mme. Florence s splendid impertinences. 
 
 "Clay likes me to do it this way," she defended.
 
 li6 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "That should settle it," said the kindly voice. "If he 
 wants you to dress in gold mesh with a ring in your pretty 
 little nose, don t you disappoint him." 
 
 "Oh, couldn t you make it less than sixty dollars !" cried 
 Lora, only half heeding the philosophy as she regarded the 
 angelic vision of herself under the lacy plumage. 
 
 "Elise," commanded Florence of her skinny assistant, 
 "the small hand-mirror, please." 
 
 Lora tilted the little glass one side and another, catching 
 ecstatic flashes of peach-bloom and crystal grey and the 
 fountain-spray of feathers to which some kingly bird, deep 
 in the forests of New Guinea, had given his life. 
 
 "I m afraid sixty dollars is my very rock-bottom price," 
 said Mme. Florence at last. 
 
 "I know it is. But my husband says I m spending too 
 awfully much money and " 
 
 "He s probably right," mused the peculiar shepherdess 
 of Bo Peep. "Of course you re pretty enough to be spoiled 
 to death. But you know what happens to children who 
 have too many birthday parties ?" 
 
 Lora sat cocking her head to piquant angles and per 
 mitted Mme. Florence to answer her own question. 
 
 "They break all their toys, cry about it and have to be 
 spanked." 
 
 "Madame," upspoke the cutting voice of Elise from 
 across the room, "shall I put these away also?" 
 
 Lora s luxury-seeking eyes followed the question to be 
 hind a small show-case from which the lights of many 
 stones sparkled and shone. Elise was arranging a tray o 
 beads and golden knick-knacks. 
 
 "Oh, I didn t know you sold jewellery !" cried Lora, thrill 
 ing ardently. 
 
 "Just a few little things. Mostly tailor-made," explained 
 the capable person. "Elise, bring the tray over and show 
 Mrs. Hollis." 
 
 Lora had now removed the paradise hat and replaced it 
 with the yellow feather. The ugly Elise tiptoed forth and
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 117 
 
 set a brimming tray on the lap of the eager little customer. 
 There were miscellaneous rings and beads and bracelets. 
 
 "Most of these, you see, are imitations," explained 
 Madame. "Smart effects to give a dot of colour to a shirt 
 waist or an outing suit. Two or three of them, though, 
 are genuine. Once in a while a customer comes in and asks 
 me to sell an old piece at a commission. There s a hand 
 some old topaz in French enamel." 
 
 She held the stone daintily against Lora s gown; but 
 Lora was unheedingly pawing over the miscellaneous col 
 lection. 
 
 "What a dear!" she exclaimed, holding up a large ring 
 whose cabochon gem twinkled with a rich blue light. 
 
 "Quite dear," laughed the older woman. "I m asking 
 fifteen hundred dollars for it, and a bargain at that. It s 
 one of the few genuine bits I m handling. It really makes 
 me nervous to keep such valuable things about the place. 
 Isn t it beautifully mounted ?" 
 
 She took the ring and held it to the light so that its 
 blue mysterious orb glowed like the heart of a star. It 
 was then that a naughty, tempting thought tickled the cor 
 ner of Lora s conscience. Had she been able to carry such 
 a sapphire to the pink man s pawnshop she would not be 
 worrying about Count Francisco and to-morrow s meeting. 
 
 "Oh dear!" sighed she as Mme. Florence dropped the 
 ring on the tray and Lora went on with the pawing over 
 process. 
 
 "There s a lovely old quartz cameo," Mme. Florence con 
 tinued with the exposition as she opened a large brooch in 
 the palm of her capable hand. "It isn t worth much as a 
 stone, but oh, my goodness !" 
 
 It all happened so suddenly that Lora, even in the terri 
 ble cool reflection which followed after, could not have 
 told just what brought it about. Perhaps the lace of 
 Madame s sleeve caught under a corner of the tray as she 
 lifted her arm. At any rate the tray flew up at a dangerous, 
 angle, Lora struck out a well-meaning hand and all of an,
 
 ii8 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 instant she had the irritating impression of sitting under a 
 shower-bath of jewels. With a clatter like the spilling of 
 many beans, beads, pins, rings and bracelets went bouncing 
 to the four points of Mme. Florence s dainty compass. A 
 jade necklace had sprung up and looped itself in the em 
 broidery of Lora s jacket. She sat with her lap full of 
 small, shiny treasures. 
 
 "Isn t it awful!" she was repeating helplessly as the 
 skinny Elise set busily to work picking the gems from her 
 lap and Mme. Florence, already on hands and knees, was 
 gathering a harvest from the rug. 
 
 "Let me help." Lora sank to the floor and began scoop 
 ing industriously, rattling vari-coloured stones back into 
 the tray. 
 
 "Foolish child!" Mme. Florence assumed her good-na 
 tured, motherly tone. "You re spoiling that sweet little 
 gown of yours. You don t deserve a husband." 
 
 "Oh, but it s such a mess, and " 
 
 Lora, on her hands and knees, had stopped to consider 
 the wreckage of^ her costume. Her gaze went travelling 
 down her skirt as far as the big, senselessly feminine pocket 
 arrangement; and, looking there, her eyes and her heart 
 stopped together. It was as though a managing fate 
 had brought forth this accident for her own special bene 
 fit. Wealth had literally dropped into her pocket. 
 
 She arose nimbly to her feet and began shaking out her 
 rumpled skirt. She didn t look down, but she felt sure the 
 bright, gleaming occupant of her pocket must have slipped 
 out of sight. Only Elise, the austere, regarded her sharply. 
 
 "I I m sorry but I guess I will have to go," Lora 
 found herself trying to explain. 
 
 "Just a minute, my dear," urged Mme. Florence from 
 her kneeling posture. "Would you mind looking under that 
 showcase? There s one piece missing that sapphire " 
 
 "I I m sorry. I m really late now. Send the paradise 
 hat around, won t you?" 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Hollis." Mme. Florence arose stiffly and
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 119 
 
 with worried look, unusual in her calm, firm face. "I ll 
 have the girl take it right over." 
 
 "And I hope you find the ring. Well, good night." 
 As soon as Lora had siunk out into the street she took a 
 guilty peep down into her pocket. The ring, caught rather 
 high in a seam, was showing forth its brilliant blue eye. 
 What if that ugly assistant had seen it there and wondered 
 at her silence? Lora looked nervously over her shoulder. 
 After she had walked the block s length she delved stealthily 
 and slipped the ring into her muff. A glance satisfied her. 
 It was the cabochon sapphire. 
 
 It didn t seem at all like stealing; more like having dis 
 agreeable wealth forced upon her. She had never enter 
 tained the remotest intention of taking it. There were 
 plenty of sophistries to help her out. In the first place it 
 would be terribly embarrassing to go back to the Bowe 
 Peepe Shoppe and try to convince Mme. Florence that the 
 ring had dropped into her pocket. Also she was only tak 
 ing it as a loan to tide her over until the Spanish Govern 
 ment should return her husband s guarantee . . . tempt 
 ingly on a far corner she could see the blazing window of 
 the pink man s pawnshop. It would be better to put it 
 there at once and have it over with. The blue radiance of 
 the jewel seemed to be burning a hole in her glove. 
 
 When she got back to her apartment she found the place 
 a blaze of light; and Clay, a white beard of lather on his 
 chin, was shaving in front of a bath-room mirror. They 
 were to dine with the Bob Tyndalls to-night. She had for 
 gotten that. Her face wore the fixed smile of dread as she 
 came forth and permitted her lord to smear the end of her 
 nose with lather. She was deliriously happy that he said 
 nothing about her request over the telephone. 
 
 "I ve had a hard, hard day," she told him as she sat on 
 the bed and began unlacing her high boots. 
 
 "How much did they soak you this time ?" he asked, but 
 entirely without malice.
 
 120 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "There you go again!" she pouted. He came over and 
 mauled her in his arms, teasing her with affectionate gibes. 
 
 "Pinky !" he grinned. "Something tells me that business 
 is picking up this month. I don t want to seem like a flinty 
 jailer, honey. But we were running awfully close for 
 a while." 
 
 "What would you say if I should help you some time in 
 a big, big way?" she asked mysteriously, revelation on the 
 tip of her tongue. 
 
 "If you ll stay just as pretty as you are now you can 
 help me about all I deserve," he eulogised, bending over 
 and lifting her, doll-like, from her feet. 
 
 Clay, she thought, looked especially distinguished to-night 
 with a little grey in his wavy hair and his seamy, florid face 
 all beaming. How well a ribbon across his shirt-front 
 would become him ! And then a small resentment took pos 
 session of her. He thought her only help to him was being 
 pretty. Unpleasantly she remembered how the late Wini 
 fred in her letter had bid him wed "something fluffy" and 
 be happy. She would show him what a fluff can do in af 
 fairs of state. 
 
 "I can be something besides pretty," she pouted. 
 
 "Of course you can," he assured her lightly. "You can 
 be quick, darling. Peggy Tyndall s an awful scold when 
 anybody s late for dinner." 
 
 Trance-like she went through the motions of dressing. 
 She jumped nervously when the door-bell rang. A maid 
 came in with a flower-strewn band-box distinctly labelled 
 "Ye Bowe Peepe Shoppe." It w r as a horrible reminder and 
 she could not get rid of the feeling that Mme. Florence 
 was outside waiting to grab her. She remembered that her 
 beaded bag was filled with the pink pawnbroker s tickets, 
 mingled with his soiled bills. She tiptoed over to a silly 
 gilt desk and hid her self-convicting evidence behind a clut 
 ter of papers. 
 
 All that evening she was by turns half dead and sur 
 charged with galvanic energy. Bob Tyndall drank too
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 121 
 
 many cocktails and wanted to flirt. She usually thought 
 him comic when he was a bit light-headed, but to-night he 
 drove her to a frenzy. She wanted to lock herself away; 
 away with that money which would not rest easy until she 
 had delivered it into the hands of her Spaniard. Late in 
 the evening they went to a roof-garden restaurant where 
 Lora danced miserably and often, her eyes roving always 
 in hopes of sighting the nimble Francisco. It was here she 
 had first seen him the night before. He danced divinely, 
 those curious steps in vogue among the elite of Madrid. 
 She was mad to dance with him again, to talk to him as 
 they whirled and assure him, in the most approved manner 
 of court intrigue, that all was well with their enterprise. 
 Once in the midst of a labyrinthine figure across the floor 
 she fancied she had caught a glimpse of his lithe form. It 
 was impossible that she had been mistaken; yes, his elbow 
 all but touched hers as he went skimming and bobbing 
 across the room, clasping a young lady as slender and 
 olive-skinned as himself. She turned to catch his eye, but 
 he seemed utterly absorbed in his partner. The picture 
 affected her disagreeably. She wondered if he spoke fa 
 miliarly to all women, just as he had called her "Senora 
 Lora." 
 
 "There s your Spigotty friend," said her husband when 
 she came back to their table. 
 
 Lora did not see him again that evening, which dragged 
 on and on into the small hours. Bob insisted on taking a 
 table at the Midnight Frivols and Lora was eagerly com 
 pliant. She couldn t face the idea of going home. But 
 Tyndall s mood grew heavy and he began nodding on the 
 heels of two o clock. 
 
 She said little to her husband as they bounced homeward 
 in a late taxicab. She was seething to tell him everything, 
 but the blue eye of that stolen sapphire glared evilly upon 
 her conscience. Clay, who was at heart a gentle, protective 
 animal, seemed to fall in with her mood and to ask no
 
 122 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 questions. But before they had taken to their twin beds 
 he kissed her with his usual good natured tenderness. 
 
 "What s the matter, Lo ?" he asked. 
 
 "Just sleepy." She smothered her face in her pillow to 
 restrain herself from screaming out, from pleading with 
 him to save her from the hands she feared were waiting to 
 snatch at her from the darkness. 
 
 "Tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-ring !" 
 
 The voice of the telephone shrilled through the night and 
 seemed to throw at her all the nerves her husband had dis 
 turbed during his years of tooth- tapping. 
 
 "Wow!" 
 
 She heard him turn over in bed and clumsily grope for 
 the instrument on the stand. Terror gripped her in its 
 skinny arms. She knew that hideous bell was ringing out 
 her guilt. Therefore she thrust blindly into the dark and 
 snatched the receiver from its hook, just ahead of Clay s 
 blundering fingers. 
 
 "Hello !" said a low, steady voice in her ear. "I wish to 
 speak to Dr. Hollis, if you please." 
 
 "Who is this ?" asked Lora, trying to speak clearly. 
 
 "I am Mme. Florence." 
 
 Lora gulped twice and steadied herself to the lie. 
 
 "This is Mrs. Hollis. The Doctor is asleep now. Is it 
 important ?" 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Hollis," spoke Mme. Florence quite cordially. 
 "I m sorry to disturb you. But I have a shocking tooth 
 ache an ulceration; and I can t find anything to relieve it. 
 I m too ill to go out or I d come to your apartment for 
 treatment." 
 
 "But, Madame !" Lora was rapidly regaining her nerve. 
 "You know dentists aren t accustomed to go out at night 
 like regular doctors. I m afraid " 
 
 "Don t you think I could speak to your husband a mo 
 ment ?" the proprietor of Bowe Peepe suggested. 
 
 "I I m afraid not. He isn t very well and if I dis 
 turbed him "
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 123 
 
 Clay had switched on the light and was signalling with 
 frantic gestures. Lora put her hand over the mouthpiece. 
 
 "It s Madame Florence, the dressmaker. She s got a 
 tooth-ache." 
 
 "I don t see why she needs to chat about it at two o clock 
 in the morning," he growled, immersing himself in pillows. 
 
 "Well," suggested Lora, all too sagely, "shall I tell her 
 you can t come ?" 
 
 "Here, let me talk." He motioned authoritatively to 
 ward the telephone. 
 
 "But, Clay, dear!" She held it tightly to her breast, al 
 most fainting with the fear of that impending conversation. 
 
 "What s all this, Lora?" he asked crossly, fairly snatch 
 ing the instrument from her hands. 
 
 "I m sorry, Madame," he began well enough. "There s 
 nothing I can do at this time of night, except to suggest 
 something from the drug-store I understand but it will 
 be better for me to see you in the morning yes. My 
 office? No. It s only two or three blocks from your 
 shop what s that?" 
 
 There was a pause in which she could hear faint, echoing 
 words, thin as cobwebs as they fluttered through the re 
 ceiver. But it was the expression on Clay s face which 
 held her there, propped on an elbow, staring. For all his 
 features seemed to have straightened out, his eyes had 
 squeezed tight and his mouth dropped open, forming a mask 
 of astonishment. How much could Mme. Florence have 
 told him in those few sentences? 
 
 "Yes. Yes." He snapped the words out one after an 
 other. "All right. I ll be right over." 
 
 He arose at once and began to dress. 
 
 "Will you ring up a taxi, dear ?" he asked in a curiously 
 constrained voice as he went rummaging after his shoes. 
 
 "But, Clay," she drawled, steeling herself to look straight 
 at him, "it s raining and you have a cold already. I never 
 heard of anything so peculiar. The brazen nerve of that 
 dressmaker ! Let me call her up and say "
 
 124 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Please, darling, don t bother me!" He went right on 
 with his dressing. 
 
 She lay there, huddled among the bedclothes, and watched 
 the details of his hasty toilet. What had Mme. Florence 
 told him to fetch him so suddenly out of coma into action? 
 Never before in their married years had he stirred to duty 
 after office hours. Yet there he stood, struggling passion 
 ately with a collar-button, impatient as a fireman at the 
 first alarm. 
 
 "I ll be back as soon as I can," he informed her hastily 
 as he threw on an overcoat and snatched up a bag of instru 
 ments. He made a charge at the door, but as he rushed over 
 the threshold his hurrying feet crashed, crumpled and 
 cracked against some cylindrical object which seemed to fly 
 at him out of ambush. 
 
 "Oh, damn !" he snarled and kicked across the room a 
 flower-strewn bandbox. 
 
 "My hat ! My new hat with the paradise plume !" wailed 
 Lora, now utterly undone. The front door closed with a 
 bang. 
 
 He was gone two hours and twenty-one minutes, for Lora 
 had kept constant watch of the little mantel-clock which 
 seemed ticking off her doom. That horrid, shrewd dress 
 maker had, of course, made her toothache an excuse to get 
 Clay there quietly and tell him about the lost sapphire. 
 Lora thought of wild, simple devices of escape, but re 
 mained huddled in bed, enjoying the sensations of the rat 
 which clings to the wires of its trap, slowly descending into 
 a tubful of cold water. Could she lie out of the scrape? 
 Or could she face him with a true story which would sound 
 quite unbelievable? He would make a search of the place 
 and find those awful pawn tickets. 
 
 Galvanised by the thought, she scuttled over to the silly 
 gilt desk and brought our her beaded bag, crammed with 
 the evidence against her. She hadn t the heart, even now, 
 to sacrifice the bills ; but she had made up her mind to burn 
 the tickets. Therefore she took them cautiously over to
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 
 
 the gas-log across the room and was just stooping, match 
 in hand, when she thought she heard the front door click. 
 Frantically she spilled the cardboards behind the log and 
 scampered back to bed where she lay for a long time, per 
 fectly quiet, listening. No footsteps had followed the warn 
 ing click. The sound must have come from the next apart 
 ment. 
 
 She lay for a long time, quite paralysed, watching the 
 clock. Nothing in the world would have bribed her to 
 gather those pawn-tickets again, for she had a feeling that 
 to touch them would produce another ghostly clicking of 
 the front door. The gilt hour hand had just swung beyond 
 the fourth figure when Lora resolved upon the art which 
 woman first learned in caves. She would appease her god 
 with food. After hours of slopping through the drizzly 
 night a cup of coffee and a few slices of crisp toast would 
 surely have an effect in softening his towering mood. 
 
 Therefore she got up again, shuddered into a lacy negli 
 gee, thrust her bare feet into high-heeled, satiny arrange 
 ments and went click-clacking toward the kitchen. Driven 
 by a nervous industry, she sliced bread, set water to boiling, 
 measured coffee into the electric percolator. She laid a 
 breakfast tray daintily on the pompous dining table and the 
 heartening aroma of coffee was just beginning to penetrate 
 the atmosphere when the door clicked again. This time 
 there were footsteps, leaden, weary, slow. She didn t dare 
 call out at first, and when she had gathered her breath she 
 quavered softly, 
 
 "Clay !" 
 
 "Yes, dearie." 
 
 More briskly the footsteps approached the dining room. 
 She never looked up, but almost swooned over the bread 
 she had laid on the electric toaster. She felt his accusing 
 presence, heard his shoes squeak less than a yard from 
 where she stood. Wasn t he going to speak? 
 
 "Lo, dear," he said at last quite huskily.
 
 126 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "^^^^^^^^""^" ** ***"^" ^^*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^~ ^"*^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 Because her voice had gone she continued fussing with 
 the toaster. 
 
 "Lo," he repeated, "you aren t sore at me, are you be 
 cause I went off that way ?" 
 
 And now she looked at him and beheld a miracle. His 
 face was suffused with the tenderest expression she had 
 ever seen there but there was something else, too. He 
 looked older and fearfully tired. 
 
 "Oh, Clay!" she threw her arms around his neck and 
 clung there tearfully. 
 
 "And you ve gotten me a breakfast ! By George, you 
 are a peach !" 
 
 "I I thought you d be cold and 
 
 She couldn t say any more. The relief seemed to have 
 pulled all the props out from under her. 
 
 "I won t do any more of this midnight ambulance chas 
 ing and scare my little girl to death," he was assuring her. 
 
 "Was was Madame Florence very sick?" she asked 
 when at last he had seated himself to his coffee and she 
 could look at him. Just the shadow of a cloud passed 
 across his brow. 
 
 "Rather a bad ulceration," he declared. A few sips of 
 coffee seemed to revive him. 
 
 "She was a mean old thing to rout you out like that." 
 
 "I suppose so." He stirred reflectively. 
 
 "Lora," he smiled at last, laying his hand over hers, "I m 
 mighty proud of you sometimes." 
 
 What in the world had Madame Florence said to him? 
 
 in 
 
 Clay had no sooner gone to his office in the broad light of 
 day than Lora gathere4 the pawn-tickets from behind the 
 gas log and slipped them back in her bag. At a quarter 
 past eleven she dusted the last touch of powder on her deli 
 cate little nose, surveyed the beauties of her paradise- 
 plumed hat and put on her mink coat. She was stimulated
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 127 
 
 with the cocktail of mixed emotions, which is compounded 
 as follows: one third guilt, one third glamour, one third 
 ambition with a large dash of foolish romance, all shaken 
 together briskly in the ice of fear. 
 
 The expression on her pink and white face was one of 
 withering hauteur as she rode down the rococo-mir 
 rored elevator, her hand-bag bulging with the pawnbroker s 
 dirty bills. Out on the drive, the drizzle having abated, 
 she took an omnibus. She didn t know why she should 
 have chosen this economical mode of locomotion, unless it 
 was that she wished to go forth to an intrigue of state in 
 a character other than her own. 
 
 She walked stiffly up the driveway to the Claremont s 
 glass-caged entrance and was just surveying the utter empti 
 ness of the window-lined, corridor-like dining room, over 
 looking the Hudson, w ^ c a taxicab chugged up to the door 
 and, to her terrified relief, Count Francisco Miguel de 
 Llargo y Jiminez, handsomely attired in a light grey over 
 coat with sealskin collar and cuffs, bounced nimbly forth, 
 tossed a lordly fee to his chauffeur and approached her in 
 courtly wise. 
 
 "Isn t it fine the place is all empty!" were her first in 
 cautious words to him. 
 
 "Senora !" He laid a warning hand upon her arm. An 
 other taxicab had whiffled round the drive and come to a 
 stop at the door. A loud young man in a pin-check pat 
 terned suit got out with the vague air of one who had 
 mingled day with night for an indefinite period. 
 
 "My party ain t here? Well it ought to be here," the 
 pin-checked one kept explaining to the head waiter at the 
 Claremont s door. "I want a Scotch highball and a tele 
 phone and a table for four. Where s my party?" 
 
 The head waiter was protesting that the management 
 stooped not to concealment. 
 
 "Over in this corner," Francisco guided Lora by an el 
 bow to a remote table. 
 
 "I didn t think you d be on time," she giggled nervously.
 
 128 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Promptness is an American virtue," he smiled, giving 
 his compliment just the touch of disapproval. He man 
 aged to convey the impression that the royal house of Spain 
 never did anything on schedule. He didn t look so hand 
 some this morning. There were shadows under his agate 
 eyes and his olive complexion had greened over night. 
 She wanted to ask him about the sombre beauty with whom 
 he had been dancing, but instead she whispered : 
 
 "I ve got it." 
 
 "The whole amount?" His eyes lost their languor and 
 kindled into coals. 
 
 Lora nodded. She was going into details, but the perky 
 young man in the loud suit came quarrelling down the 
 aisle, insisting that he wanted a telephone for his "party." 
 Francisco watched him narowly until * waiter had helped 
 the interloper toward the office. 
 
 "I had an awful time," Lora repeated as soon as the 
 coast was clear. She opened her bag and brought the un 
 tidy roll of bills. Francisco took one look round the room 
 before he whisked the bank-notes dextrously into an inside 
 pocket. 
 
 "You understand this mustn t be seen," he whispered. 
 "Diplomatic spies watch everything much rivalry." 
 
 "There isn t anything dishonest about it?" she enquired, 
 wide-eyed with the thought that she might be playing from 
 one crime into another. 
 
 "La politico,, Sefiora, is seldom pure. In my mission here 
 I have arranged many appointments. You would be sur 
 prised at the offers of bribes I have received from most 
 high people. I should like to give you name of one Sena 
 tor but not! He was so desirable for position as Am 
 bassador to Spain that he attempt to present me with one 
 hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars." 
 
 "What did you do?" she asked, wondering why the cor 
 rupt Senator had chosen so odd an amount as the wages 
 of perfidy. 
 
 "The Austrian Ambassador met him in the morning with
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 129 
 
 my card. Then what did that Senator paisano? He de 
 sired to club me with his fists ! Malo! In Spain only mules 
 are permitted to combat with hoofs." 
 
 Lora, who had read somewhere in a magazine that 
 America was still a young nation, tried her best to be sym 
 pathetic. Francisco brightened visibly at her solace. 
 
 "But, ah, Senora ! To see you and Senor your husband, 
 that is the difference. Civilisation, culture are possible 
 even here." 
 
 Still pleased, yet full of a muddled worriment, Lora was 
 about to repeat Mr. McClosky s Brian Boru myth; but an 
 uneasy conscience spoiled her zest. She had come here at 
 great risk, bearing the money which had robbed her of 
 rest and honour, and he had taken it as lightly as one 
 plucks a weed from a vacant lot. She had come expecting 
 him to specify his further plans for her husband s ad 
 vancement. Instead he dallied with compliments. It was 
 as though the transaction were quite over; in fact she sus 
 pected that Francisco was casting glances toward the door. 
 
 "Would the Senora care for some drink?" he at last 
 languidly enquired. 
 
 "Nothing for me," she replied a trifle tartly. 
 
 "No?" He beckoned to the hovering waiter. "I will 
 take another of your amusing American cocktails." 
 
 When the waiter had withdrawn with the order she at 
 last spoke up. 
 
 "Say, Count, don t I get a receipt or anything to show 
 that I ve paid over the money?" 
 
 "Senora !" he lifted a thin, deprecating hand and smiled 
 a smile to match. "You must remember this is of a deli 
 cacy ! One scrap of paper could be dangerous to that in 
 ternational relations." 
 
 "Oh, but I d be careful of it," she persisted. 
 
 "I trust your wiseness, Senora. That is not it. But 
 there are such many people to watch and do harm !" 
 
 "I don t care." She resorted to the illogic which had 
 always fetched her husband. "I want a receipt."
 
 130 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 For Lora Hollis knew nothing of the world. But her 
 father s simple business dealings with New Balaam had 
 taught her one basic rule; when you pay out money you 
 get a receipt for it. 
 
 "If I don t get it, I want my money back," she told him 
 harshly, disregarding the injured look upon his sensitive 
 face. 
 
 "Bring paper and ink !" The lord of Aragon and Castile 
 snapped his fingers under the nose of the waiter. 
 
 For the first time in their brief but rapid acquaintance 
 there came an embarrassing pause between them. She was 
 dreadfully sorry she had hurt him, possibly wrecked poor 
 Clay s chances with the choosy Alfonze. The Count, who 
 had spoken of fiery encounters with United States Sena 
 tors, was no doubt touchy. 
 
 The tension was at last relieved by the arrival of writing 
 material which the waiter arrayed deferentially beside 
 Francisco s untouched cocktail. Daintily the grandee 
 dipped the pen, poised it a moment and began to scribble 
 flourishingly upon the Claremont s best paper. She hoped 
 he wouldn t write it in Spanish, but didn t dare suggest 
 anything, so engrossed did he seem in the difficult compo 
 sition. With fascinated eyes she watched the elaborate 
 gyrations of his cameoed hand; she heard the shuffling of 
 chairs at the next table and the low murmur of voices, but 
 her eyes were all for the mechanical details of that great 
 transaction. 
 
 "How would that be, Sefiora?" he was smiling his cus 
 tomary smile as he shoved the paper toward her, but the re 
 ceipt was scarcely under her hand than her eyes were held, 
 not by the document but by the miraculous change which 
 suddenly transformed the Count s expression. It was as 
 though he had slipped on a mask, for the olive smoothness 
 of his cheeks darkened suddenly to the colour of a sun- 
 struck brkk. His eyes were glued to a point just over her 
 shoulder arfd he was bobbing his head, showing a row of
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 131 
 
 teeth like marble monuments. Lora turned her head and 
 followed the direction of his peculiar salute. 
 
 She recognised the young man with the pin-checked suit 
 and it took her numbing senses just a moment to grasp the 
 identity of the large, comfortable woman who had taken 
 a chair beside him and was smiling over at Count Fran 
 cisco. Madame Florence of the Bowe Peepe Shoppe ! 
 
 "You have your receipt," explained Francisco, using a 
 voice which had become suddenly brisk as he popped 
 nimbly to his feet. "Adios, Sefiora ! I what you say ? 
 see you some more." 
 
 Already he had turned toward the door. Lora had a 
 feeling of being basely deserted, alone in a cage with a 
 Bengal tiger. 
 
 "But Count say!" 
 
 The appeal was wasted on the row of empty tables and 
 the horridly occupied one next hers. Out of the swim 
 ming room he seemed to float away. Dimly she could hear 
 his taxicab chugging down the Drive. She sat all hud 
 dled over the table, afraid to move, her shoulder cringing 
 from the avenging Fate who sat behind her. At last there 
 came the soft whispering of skirts and she saw Madame 
 Florence, still smiling, come round the table and seat herself 
 in the chair which Francisco had so recently vacated. 
 
 "Who s your friend?" she asked quite agreeably, leaning 
 on her elbow and giving Lora the benefit of her entire 
 attention. 
 
 "Don t ask me," replied Lora rudely. "You seem to 
 know him." 
 
 "Well, yes in a professional way. But I wondered 
 what he d been telling you I heard you calling him Count." 
 
 "He is," replied Lora sullenly. "He s Count Francisco 
 and a lot of things." 
 
 "He must have gotten his title over night," Madame in 
 formed her victim. "He was plain Mr. Blanco of Ar 
 gentina when he came to my shop yesterday with his 
 dancing partner "
 
 132 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "His what?" The shock of cold water brought her to. 
 
 "He s an acrobatic vaudeville dancer," the Bowe Peepe 
 proprietress explained. "He brought around his wife 
 she s his dancing partner and wanted to get a wardrobe 
 on credit. Of course I don t do business that way with 
 strange dancers from Argentina. So he told me he d have 
 the money this afternoon." 
 
 "Oh." Lora said it sickeningly as though she had been 
 struck by a baseball. 
 
 "Now tell me, my dear," urged Madame Florence, her 
 brown eyes holding her powerfully, "what is it you ve been 
 signing away so industriously?" 
 
 "It can t be he s a fraud !" Lora was exerting her entire 
 will to keep from weeping aloud. "It can t be! He s a 
 friend of the King of Spain. He promised to make Clay 
 Court dentist. He s gone you ve got to help me he s gone 
 with my thousand dollars !" 
 
 "My Lord!" swore Madame Florence. "Can it be pos 
 sible that people are still falling for that sort of stuff?" 
 
 "But he s getting away with my money!" 
 
 "I think, my dear," replied the older woman very calmly, 
 "that you d better forget about that thousand dollars." 
 
 "But I can t afford to forget about it can t you see?" 
 
 "I don t think your husband s reputation will be improved 
 by a humorous column in all the morning papers. We 
 could get the money away from your Francisco in fact, 
 I ve had my detective follow him up to see that he doesn t 
 cause any more trouble " 
 
 Lora glanced swiftly round and for the first time realised 
 that the loudly dressed young man had also departed. 
 
 " but I think we re cheaply out of it, as it is. In fact, 
 when I realised that you had taken the sapphire ring, I 
 wondered just what had gotten into your foolish little 
 head." 
 
 Lora lifted her eyes. There was no use denying any 
 thing now. 
 
 "Elise was almost sure she had seen it in your pocket;
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 133 
 
 but I wanted to be certain, so I searched the place until 
 midnight. There hadn t been another person in the shop 
 since the tray was spilled, and I ve trusted Elise with all 
 sorts of valuables for years." Madame Florence eyed the 
 thief reflectively. "It gave me a great deal of worry. I 
 knew that you had more to spend than was good for you. 
 Also, you aren t the shoplifting kind. You must have 
 wanted the money awfully for some silly thing. It was 
 nearly morning before I decided to call up your husband. 
 I couldn t think up any better excuse, so I had a tooth 
 ache " 
 
 "Madame Florence !" Lora s eyes were big with the 
 impending disgrace. "You didn t tell him! You couldn t 
 be so cruel !" 
 
 "No, I couldn t," she replied with one of her sad, rather 
 ironical smiles. "I thought I could you see, I was pretty 
 mad. But when Claymore got there and I began asking 
 him about you I wonder if men aren t harder to fathom 
 than women?" 
 
 The thought caused her eyes to stray over the Hudson, 
 whose leaden stream a tug was then smudging from a 
 smoky stack. 
 
 "Anyhow, I had fully made up my mind to tell him, 
 because I thought he ought to be warned. But when I 
 began to quizz him he burst into a perfect hymn of praise. 
 You were the duckiest, sweetiest, most wonderful little 
 wife in all the world. Child, child, but you have him 
 drugged !" 
 
 "Then you didn t tell him?" 
 
 "How could I bring him out of his dream? No. I just 
 groaned and let him put some awful dope into my perfectly 
 well tooth." 
 
 Mme. Florence seemed a trifle ashamed of her weak 
 ness, for she added, quickly, 
 
 "But I m a business woman, you know. I didn t intend 
 to have that ring taken right from under my nose. So the 
 first thing this morning I hired a detective to watch you
 
 134 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^ "" ^ **"^^^^""^**TTTTT"" ^^^ " * "" MM **T**"^^^^"^ 
 
 and he telephoned me when you and your nobleman got 
 as far as the Claremont. Now I want you to tell me some 
 thing right away. Where did you pawn it?" 
 
 Lora s trembling hand went into her bag, now vacant of 
 its wealth, and brought out the sheaf of pawn-tickets. 
 
 "You poor lamb!" sighed Mme. Florence. "I ll bet 
 you ve popped everything you could lay your pretty hands 
 on. Oh, well !" She gave a short laugh and slipped the 
 right ticket into her purse. "I suppose it s a consolation 
 to know that if there weren t so many fools in the world 
 the Bowe Peepe Shoppe could never pay its rent." 
 
 Half blinded with her tears, Lora reached out for the 
 other tickets which had strewn the cloth. 
 
 "My child," said Madame Florence softly, "I wish you d 
 let me make a bargain with you. I happen to know how 
 awfully in love with you your husband is. You may be 
 a doll, my dear, but what s the difference if he s got you 
 on a really dignified pedestal? Don t let s get sentimental. 
 But take it from a woman who knows how valuable it is 
 to be attached to anything human. And I want to keep this 
 thing dark, so that there won t be a chance in the world 
 of your husband s thinking less of you." 
 
 "Why are you so good to me? * asked the child wife 
 brokenly. 
 
 "I don t suppose it s proper for a dressmaker to feel like 
 an older sister towards one of her customers, is it? But 
 that s the crazy notion I have in my head. And so I m 
 going to take over the whole job." Her plump hand had 
 gone across the table and gathered in the entire deck of 
 pawnbroker s tickets. "I m going to redeem the whole 
 pack." 
 
 "I can t believe it!" cried Lora, biting her red under lip 
 as tears gathered anew. 
 
 "Your husband s one of the sort who takes out his ar 
 tistic temperament in filling teeth. It s impossible for him 
 to live long on the mere bread and meat of matrimony. 
 But don t take advantage of his weakness. Be humanly
 
 PEACHES AND CREAM 135 
 
 grateful for what he does. It may give him pleasure to 
 squander money on you like water but give him a little 
 kindness for his trouble. He s the sort that can t really 
 love a woman unless he s breaking his neck for her; but 
 it sort of breaks me up to see him making this big play 
 and getting so little for it. He seems to look frazzled and 
 neglected, in spite of his protests that he s the happiest man 
 in the world. Sweeten things for him, my dear. Make him 
 glad he s got his peaches and cream " 
 
 Peaches and cream ! 
 
 "Madame Florence," said Lora rather sharply, "it seems 
 to me you re telling me a lot about how to run my hus 
 band. Do you think you know him any better than I do ?" 
 
 "How do I know?" asked the fashionable shopkeeper. 
 "I might. I lived with him fifteen years." 
 
 The present Lora and the past Winifred rode together 
 in the same taxicab down Riverside Drive. Which is not 
 so strange, after all, in the city of infinite combinations. 
 When she alighted at the Gigantic Apartments there was 
 just time for Lora to make one last protestation. 
 
 "You you don t think all this will be too much expense 
 for you?" 
 
 "I feel quite rich to-day," smiled Madame Florence. "I 
 got my alimony this morning." 
 
 And Lora, to her own amazement, offered her face for 
 a kiss, which, she regretted, yet prayed, would be good-bye.
 
 IV 
 THUNDER 
 
 SOPHIE EMMETT was waiting for Harlan Wey- 
 mouth in the foyer at Sherry s. He caught the gleam 
 of her pale-coral evening gown and the flash of her 
 dark eyes from a far corner where she sat. The sight 
 of her, merely an impression from a distance, imparted to 
 him something of that original thrill of anticipation which 
 he had felt in their earlier meetings, sometimes casual or 
 stolen. There was nothing furtive in their trysts now, 
 kept openly in the most public restaurants in New York. 
 Old Emmett had seen to all that. Their appearances to 
 gether might breed scandal, but it was scandal well stage- 
 managed by Sophie s husband, as though it had been billed 
 in enormous letters "Sophie Emmett and Harlan Wey- 
 mouth, To-night at Sherry s, under the Direction of 
 Elijah Emmett." 
 
 Harlan stepped briskly up to the lady in the coral gown 
 and bowed his most urbane bow. 
 
 "Late, Harlan !" she smiled at his approach. 
 
 Dashed ! He had hoped against hope, during that short 
 tour across the foyer carpet, that the original Sophie, the 
 Sophie of the bland, insinuating wit, would be there to 
 greet him with an epigram. But here sat his beautiful 
 changeling, calm in her decorative dulness. 
 
 "I like being waited for," he suggested, desperately cast 
 ing his bait. "It gives me a feeling of power." It fell dead. 
 
 "Oh, does it ?" she asked, moving her small mouth help 
 lessly. 
 
 They walked in together to take their seats at a table for 
 
 136
 
 THUNDER 137 
 
 two by the wall. Weymouth now began to understand why 
 civilised men become wife beaters. 
 
 He found a chance to study her a moment as she puzzled 
 over the bill of fare. Undoubtedly she had her good points. 
 The upward sweep of her delicately brushed eyebrows, the 
 slant of her coal-black eyes, the spirited poise of her small 
 head, the defiant tip of her nose gave to her person an 
 elfin charm. She might have carried little, tantalising wings 
 on the points of her smooth white shoulders. She was, in 
 a word, the lively physical embodiment of the Sophie Em- 
 mett Idea ; the body and the idea which had turned Harlan 
 Weymouth in an hour from a scoffer to a mangled devotee. 
 What an admirable picture she was of brilliancy and quick 
 ness, designed to fascinate and destroy an errant knight 
 who, even as a neophyte, had written on his shield in red 
 dest letters "I Hate Dull Women." And surely nothing 
 trite or threadbare could come from those delicate, up 
 turned lips ! 
 
 "I ll have oysters," she was saying just then. "They re 
 safe in the R months." 
 
 "I don t believe you re even pretty!" snarled Harlan 
 Weymouth to himself. 
 
 "Are you tired, my dear?" he asked her somewhat hope 
 fully, after their order was given. That must be it. 
 
 "Oh, no," she replied with the same terrible brightness 
 she shed upon the dulness of her words. "I had ever so 
 good a nap this afternoon." 
 
 Then her comatose state was deeper than the physical. 
 It was a spiritual deadening. His heart sank. 
 
 "Why did you ask?" She eyed him directly. 
 
 "You seem to be spreading all over the cosmos, like 
 melted butter. I mean to say, you re distraught. You re 
 not entirely with us. Must I get out a search warrant and 
 look for Sophie?" 
 
 "Oh," she pouted. Faint hope revived within him she 
 often pouted on the verge of her famous utterances, glow 
 ing in his memory of the Golden Era, two months past.
 
 138 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Don t you think good friends as we are can enjoy 
 beautiful silences together?" she asked solemnly, mincing 
 her words as he had heard so many members of the Medal 
 lion Club do. She gave him an appealing look, just as a 
 child would after delivering a set speech. Then she plain 
 tively asked, "Harlan, what s the matter?" 
 
 "You must know, Sophie," he answered shortly. 
 
 "I haven t the remotest idea." 
 
 "That s it you haven t the remotest idea. Oh, I m 
 sorry, Sophie. I didn t mean to be rude. But I can t help 
 thinking you re acting some sort of part." 
 
 "I don t understand." 
 
 From her expression it was obvious to see that she didn t, 
 yet he went on stubbornly : 
 
 "Sophie, you re the cleverest woman in New York. 
 People say so. I say so. Mrs. Clemworthy says it unto 
 the Scribes and Pharisees every Wednesday morning. 
 And I ve heard you talk like like the angel Israfel reply 
 ing to George Bernard Shaw. You had a slant on life. 
 You were seldom at a loss. I went wild over you, Sophie, 
 because I found you the inspired prophetess of lively think 
 ing. You had a glorious view-point on yourself and me and 
 everybody else. I don t like ugly women, as a rule; but if 
 you had been as ugly as Medusa I think I should have 
 packed my grip and followed you to the ends of the world." 
 
 She was looking blankly at him, offering not a word in 
 her defence, and Weymouth found his temper rising as he 
 went rapidly on: 
 
 "I hate dull women. I ve deserted the whole adoring 
 tribe of my female relatives and gone to live in a hotel as a 
 protest against verbal stupidity. I d rather live alone on a 
 mountain top or in the back of a saloon than to listen to 
 warmed-over cant. And that s why I flew to you, Sophie, 
 and kicked over every convention in the world made this 
 ridiculous bargain with your husband in order to listen to 
 you forever. And this is how you ve been serving me."
 
 THUNDER 139 
 
 He fell suddenly silent, ashamed of his outburst; for 
 Sophie Emmett s little mouth was trembling childishly. 
 
 "You re disappointed in me !" she said quaveringly. 
 
 "Oh, please don t cry. I know it s only temporary 
 everybody has lapses. But it seems so unfortunate. Just 
 in the two months when we were to be together, to get used 
 to each other . . . and it s only an hour before we must 
 go to your husband with some sort of decision 
 
 "What do you want me to say ?" she demanded, her black 
 eyes taking fire. Hope and -love raged suddenly in his 
 breast. He had lashed her with words. She couldn t look 
 like that without saying something out of the ordinary. 
 
 "Something besides bromidioms, Sophie, that s what I 
 want you to say." He was out with it now, and the task 
 grew easier. "For the past two weeks, I swear, you ve been 
 going on like this telling me that oysters should be eaten 
 only in the R months ; that you like many Germans individu 
 ally, although you re strongly pro- Ally; that the Republi 
 cans might have won if it hadn t been for the Hughes Spe 
 cial Have a heart, Sophie ! I didn t fall in love with you 
 
 for the purpose of finding out that the sky is blue when 
 the sun shines or that the Rocky Mountains are grand. My 
 Aunt Cordelia, from whom I am now a refugee, has in 
 formed me along that line until I m entirely fed up on the 
 obvious. What I want is Sophie and I d like to know 
 where you ve been hiding her. Where is the girl I saw that 
 day, sizzling like a comet into the midst of a foggy ladies 
 discussion with the remark that a club woman in Bohemia 
 is like a High Church clergyman mounted on a motor 
 cycle?" 
 
 "Harlan, you re impossible!" she flashed out suddenly. 
 "I m ashamed I m disappointed in you oh, how can 
 you!" 
 
 She reached for the large silk hand bag which occupied 
 a third chair, and fished out a tiny square of lace. This 
 she applied pathetically to her eyes. 
 
 His heart sank to even a lower level. He had expended
 
 140 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 r*~ ^ ^ ~-- i -^-~~" ^""-"^^~ *~" * ^- ~~-*~ a^^ ^ 
 
 his ingenuity on empty space. The ideal Sophie, the iri 
 descent Sophie, had evaporated by some black magic and 
 left this dull woman in her stead. He had stung her with 
 sarcasms, she had responded with tears. How he hated a 
 dull woman ! 
 
 "I m sorry," he found himself apologising in leaden 
 tones. "I I merely thought this was the last chance we 
 should have to discuss the matter candidly. I 
 
 An intrusive waiter was serving soup. She sat staring 
 at the swimming okra. Presently her fine eyes lit with a 
 sudden inspiration and she delved again into the silken 
 bag. This time she brought out a small gold box which she 
 opened and began staring into the recess. Instinctively he 
 knew she was looking at her nose in a concealed mirror. 
 At last, when she had quite finished patting away the tear 
 stains under her eyes, he went on desperately: 
 
 "Of course, if you wish it, I m going to ask your hus 
 band s consent to our marriage." 
 
 "You re going to do no such thing !" she snapped, drop 
 ping the little box into the silk bag and drawing the string. 
 The tears had left her dark eyes, which were flashing dan 
 gerously. "You ve gone far enough you re horrid I don t 
 like you a bit and 
 
 She arose, picked up her bag, dropped a glove, picked it 
 up, gathered a gold-mesh purse from beside her plate, put 
 it in her bag, picked up another glove and then stood facing 
 him defiantly. 
 
 "Where are you going?" was his weak appeal. 
 
 "Home," said she. "Back to my husband as fast as I 
 can." 
 
 "But we we re not to see him until nine o clock. We 
 were to go together. It s now only quarter past " 
 
 "Don t follow me, please !" He stood there with the 
 silly feeling that all Sherry s was witness to another social 
 comedy. Then he settled weakly into his chair, leaving her 
 to sweep down the aisle toward the door. 
 
 It was a matter of minutes before he had summoned the
 
 THUNDER 141 
 
 waiter and sheepishly paid his bill. Then he was after her 
 flaming course. But in those minutes she had cloaked her 
 self in a furry garment of peacock blue ; and before he 
 could snatch his hat and coat from the man at the door her 
 vivid little figure had locked itself in a taxicab which now 
 honked away toward Fifth Avenue. 
 
 Weymouth took the downward steps four at a time. It 
 was foolishly unnecessary that she should be running back 
 home like this at the eleventh hour. There was a lack of 
 teamwork in it that offended his sense of order. 
 
 "Taxi !" he shouted savagely and plunged into the first 
 open tonneau. 
 
 "Where to, sir*?" inquired the broad-faced one on the 
 box. 
 
 "Follow that yellow car ahead !" demanded Weymouth 
 breathlessly. The driver threw in the clutch so rudely that 
 the structure trembled in its greasy joints, and the pursuit 
 started with a kangaroo plunge that landed them well 
 toward the corner, round which the yellow car was just 
 disappearing. So closely for a while did the pursuer cling 
 to the pursued that Weymouth, under brilliant street lamps, 
 could distinctly see the back of her proud little head sil 
 houetted in the rear window of the yellow car. It was a 
 garlanded head, well poised on a straight white neck, and 
 there were rhinestones twinkling among the coils of her 
 hair. 
 
 What plot had that little head been hatching against him ? 
 he asked uneasily. Was it Sophie s fault, or her husband s ? 
 Could it be possible that she was just the pathetic little fool 
 she had appeared of late? A curious predicament for any 
 sane man to find himself in curiouser and curiouser, as 
 Alice had said to a Wonderland acquaintance. 
 
 II 
 
 It was now six months since Harlan Weymouth had first 
 found Sophie Emmett. To his memory that initial glimpse
 
 H2 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 was like the first sighting of a meteor in a drizzly sky. In 
 capacity of editor and critic of the Spark, that journal of 
 cleverness which the few admired, he had been persuaded 
 against his better judgment to attend a meeting of the Me 
 dallion Club. Mrs. Clemworthy, indefatigable member, had 
 extended the welcome in good faith ; but it had been Wey- 
 mouth s intention to write a satirical essay entitled Dull 
 Gilt, showing how wit, like Midas, can be strangled by too 
 much gold. 
 
 So Weymouth had gone to a morning session of the Me 
 dallion Club and sat in an ornate roomful of fashionable 
 ladies of the sort who "think they think," according to the 
 Weymouthian code. Poor, patient martyr to investigation, 
 he had sat for a long time and sighed himself into a torpor. 
 The topic of the morning was Does Bohemia Exert a Genu 
 ine Influence on Civilisation ? 
 
 He had come there thinking this was going to be funny ; 
 but already his thoughts were centred on a graceful means 
 of getting out. His slumberous eyes had wandered over 
 every detail of the room. Mrs. Douglas Clemworthy, shape 
 less, sitting upright like some florid piece of upholstery, had 
 occupied a chair next him, as though to shut off his escape. 
 Mrs. Hawtry Blucher, displaying her fashionable figure 
 below a faded, simpering face, had been reading for sev 
 eral minutes in her pallid voice. Weymouth had thought 
 with an inner groan of Mrs. Blucher s industrious social 
 secretary what she must have endured in tables d hote in 
 order to gather data for that paper on How Bohemia Eats. 
 Weymouth had all but succumbed to sleep upon this 
 thought; but he had still held a corner of his eye on the 
 door. He had hated dull women from infancy. He yawned 
 behind his programme. At that instant a broken, sympa 
 thetic sigh had emanated from the lady on his left. 
 
 It was then that Weymouth had his first glimpse of So 
 phie Emmett. She, too, was yawning; and as he caught 
 her eye just the ghost of an understanding spark was tele 
 graphed to him to keep him awake until Mrs. Blucher had
 
 THUNDER 143 
 
 brought her hopeless eternity to a period. And it was at 
 that moment that his comet, his lawless, splendid meteor 
 in a Paris gown had flared up for him in all her glory. 
 
 "Are there any re " Mrs. Spratt-Cowle, the chair- 
 lady, had been about to say "any remarks," but the small, 
 pantherlike young woman on Weymouth s left had deci 
 sively gotten to her feet and requested the floor. 
 
 "Madam Chairman," she had prefaced her memorable 
 comment, "I hope you ll pardon my asking something. But 
 isn t a club woman in Bohemia something incongruous like 
 a Church of England clergyman mounted on a motor cycle?" 
 
 The Medallion Club laughed. It was easy to see that the 
 Medallion Club appreciated Sophie Emmett, and Weymouth 
 was grateful. 
 
 "Why, Mrs. Emmett, I " stammered the large lady 
 
 on the platform. 
 
 "I just wanted to know," went on the pretty little irri 
 tant. "I realise that women s clubs, taken altogether, do a 
 great deal of good. But the Medallion Club doesn t it 
 wouldn t know good when it saw it. It only talks about it, 
 the way Peer Gynt talked about the Bogue and then went 
 roundabout. Now here we are discussing Bohemia. It 
 might as well be Mars or better perhaps, because some of 
 us have seen Mars through a telescope. But how many of 
 us have gotten nearer Bohemia than Puccini s opera ? You 
 can t see Bohemia, you know, the way you see Chinatown 
 by paying a dollar a head and being taken round by a man 
 with a megaphone. You ve got to live Bohemia, and dance 
 Bohemia, and eat Bohemia. That s probably the hardest 
 of the lot eating Bohemia. Then, of course, you ve got to 
 meet Bohemia in its own jungle jolly, reckless, ratcish 
 young art students ; actors temporarily unemployed ; free, 
 inspired, dusty poets, and whatnot. It s the whatnot that 
 makes Bohemia hardest to bear. Ladies, have we investi 
 gated? Have we danced and mingled with their perfectly 
 dreadful wine, women and song? Have we greeted the 
 dawn with a lyric and forgotten to shampoo our heads for
 
 144 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 generations ? I should like to know if Mrs. Hawtry Blucher 
 has done any of these things? And if so, when?" 
 
 The tall lady reared her fashionable form, and her pallid 
 face took on a coat of scarlet. 
 
 "I sometimes think we members of this exclusive circle," 
 Sophie Emmett had gone on suavely, "have reached a plane 
 of development like yogis and Grand Lamas where we 
 know all about everything, without bothering our heads to 
 find out about anything. Facts are dull ; feminine intuition 
 is bright. Feminine intuition is magical. It leaps to con 
 clusions and pulls the facts up after it. Or, if there aren t 
 any facts, it sits proudly on top of the conclusions and stays 
 there until some one comes to the rescue with a stepladder. 
 By this method we have gone rapidly through Bohemia this 
 morning. Bohemia is finished. Our next topic will be The 
 Human Soul." 
 
 "You are mistaken, I think." Mrs. Spratt-Cowle stepped 
 to the edge of the platform to correct her. "Our next topic 
 will be The Panama Canal : Its Use in Case of War." 
 
 "I stand corrected," Sophie had said and sat down. 
 
 "Does Mrs. Emmett wish to put her remarks in the form 
 of a motion?" Madam Chairman had asked. 
 
 "Not necessarily," had been the smiling reply that had 
 adjourned the meeting. The room had broken up into 
 chattering groups. 
 
 "For heaven s sake, who is she?" Weymouth had asked 
 eagerly of Mrs. Clemworthy. 
 
 "Is it possible you haven t heard of Sophie Emmett? 
 Sophie with the serpent s tongue ? Sophie, the spice of the 
 Medallion Club? Sophie of the disappearing husband? 
 You must come right over and meet the most 6rilliant 
 woman in New York." 
 
 Sophie Emmett had given him an inspiring fifteen min 
 utes of her point of view, of ideas that soared high like a 
 fish hawk and plunged deep and true upon their prey. Wey 
 mouth, the fastidious dilettante of women and of minas, 
 absorbed her, spongelike, and went away saturated and
 
 THUNDER 145 
 
 happy to put her thoughts on paper, to fill the columns of 
 the Spark with the eternal glory of an idealised Sophie. 
 
 He had called, of course, at the big, handsome Emmett 
 home in East Sixty-seventh Street ; and almost immediately 
 he had told her that she was his literary breath of life. 
 He had been sure of her pleasure in seeing him, for she had 
 come swiftly across the formal rose-and- white drawing- 
 room, her ivory cheeks flushing happily as she held out her 
 hand. She had expressed the Medallion Club so livingly, 
 he told her ; and got the response that she, Sophie Emmett, 
 cared too much for women and their work to see it mocked 
 by that pretentious circle of parlour thinkers. 
 
 This private interview had brought them together with 
 tremendous rapidity, and he had found himself naively 
 relating scraps of autobiography with a freshman s enthu 
 siasm. The rosy spectacles had straddled his nose ; she had 
 appeared to him, from that hour on, as some fascinatingly 
 unique orchid, bewitchingly involved. 
 
 "Oh, you wouldn t like my husband," she had assured 
 him on that occasion. "Nobody likes him besides, he 
 would loathe the sight of you. He would have some sort 
 of theory in his pocket by which to condemn you forever. 
 Elijah, you know, lives in a cave and gnaws theories. He s 
 an anchorite. He crawls into his cell upstairs during day 
 light hours and prowls by night. In his lighter moments 
 he reads Nietzsche and condemns the human race. Of 
 course he isn t decent to go about in society. The old 
 darling, I love him ! We ve arranged everything splendidly. 
 On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I lock away the 
 world and play cave woman to his cave man. On Sun 
 days, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I belong to the 
 world. Isn t it an excellent plan? Few women can enjoy 
 freedom respectably four days in the week." 
 
 "If you told him what a perfect savage you d found, 
 don t you think he might be favourably impressed?" he 
 laughed. 
 
 "Probably not," quoth she. "You know how it is with
 
 146 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 married couples. When a stranger comes into their midst 
 the chances are about eight to one against everybody liking 
 everybody else. It can be worked out mathematically 
 but I hate figures, they re so truthful." 
 
 "Well, let s say we like each other and let it go at that," 
 he had suggested brashly. 
 
 His last request, put with boyish plainness, had grown 
 to be an obvious enough fact. He saw her well and long 
 during the four charmed days in the week. The dour 
 Elijah grumbled somewhere in the background, Weymouth 
 supposed, always grimly obliging to their thickening ro 
 mance. Weymouth caught Sophie s husband one day when 
 he came for tea. A greying man, fat, uncouth, slightly 
 bald, with sags under his eyes and a mouth that turned 
 down at the corners, he had regarded Weymouth curiously, 
 as a mastiff might sniff at a beetle. Weymouth felt that 
 he had intruded into a family colloquy and reflected, with 
 a novel pang of jealousy, that he had no right here. Elijah 
 Emmett s replies had been mostly grunts, as he gobbled his 
 tea with scalding haste, spilling a few drops on the waist 
 coat of his untidy suit. 
 
 Somehow that one sight of the mysterious Elijah Emmett 
 had given Weymouth a feeling that his pursuit of Sophie 
 was within the realm of fair game. This thing of joy and 
 fancy chained unhappily to a sullen stone; how could he 
 blame her if she gambolled wildly during her little hours 
 of freedom? And yet Emmett could not be so tyrannous 
 a monster, else he would have forbidden her journeying 
 into the realm of even her discreet adventurings. 
 
 "Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays." She had said it 
 jestingly, but time proved to her adorer that the speech 
 was literally true. Several times he had telephoned on 
 those sacred days, only to be put off with "Oh, I can t. 
 I m husbanding to-day." Elijah, Weymouth discovered 
 after much painstaking research among club gossips, had 
 gone out into the world almost not at all since their mar 
 riage several years ago. He had retired from the stock
 
 THUNDER 147 
 
 exchange with a carefully invested fortune, and had given 
 up most of his clubs at the same time. Emmett was a 
 queer fish, they told him rather clever, but eccentric. 
 What did he do with his time? Oh, he was some sort of 
 fatuous student scribbled a great deal for his own amuse 
 ment and collected things books probably. He made semi 
 annual descents upon his clubs, where he nodded stiltedly 
 at a few greying heads and ate alone behind a newspaper. 
 Emmett had deliberately lost himself in the thickets of 
 New York. 
 
 Weymouth s intimacy with Sophie Emmett had pro 
 gressed with insidious smoothness. Of course they were 
 talked about, because he was a figure of a sort in the world 
 of art, and the fashionable society with which he endured 
 an occasional dinner or opera usually referred to him 
 breathlessly as "a fascinating Bohemian." Sophie, too, had 
 cast aside a troop of gentlemanly flower bearers in order 
 to give free way to his devotions. 
 
 Step by step to-night, pursuing her yellow taxicab 
 through the mazes of Manhattan s traffic system, Wey- 
 mouth could trace the course which had brought them so 
 suddenly into each other s arms. 
 
 He had tried his best to keep their intimacy on a Pla 
 tonic basis. Plato was a poor chaperon, as always. Nimble 
 as they were at thrust and parry, cool as they intended to 
 be in logic and epigram, they could not avoid the keen edge 
 of danger. Weymouth had been the first to feel the wound ; 
 and he told her so blunderingly, fully expecting her to laugh 
 him down from her worldly barricade. Instead he was 
 alarmed and a little delighted to find her silent. Obviously 
 Sophie Emmett had no adequate repartee to an emotion to 
 which her quick little nature responded all too well. They 
 were blundering into love. 
 
 And on the memorable night, just two months and a day 
 ago, they had gone to the opera together. Of course it was 
 Tristan and Isolde, which no two people who admire the 
 colour of one another s eyes should ever see without a
 
 148 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 padded neutral to sit between them. Love, death and a 
 passionate orchestration, added to the fact that the great 
 vault of the Metropolitan was darkened for the scene, com 
 bined to banish scruples as lightly as the swaying of a 
 wand in the hand of an eminent director. Weymouth 
 pressed Sophie s fingers, as naively as the art is practised 
 among callow lovers when the light is low in the moving- 
 picture theatres. She had permitted the caress until the 
 last tragic curtain. And on the way home, after he had 
 taken her in his arms and said several things unworthy of 
 a penetrating thinker as he deemed himself to be she 
 had looked up suddenly and declared : 
 
 "Harlan, I am going to tell my husband everything." 
 
 "Don t do anything crazy, Sophie !" he had pleaded in a 
 panic, for their cab had almost reached the Emmetts door. 
 "Let me go away for good I ve been insane. I m sorry." 
 
 "No, you re not. And neither am I," she had replied as 
 she had stepped out to run up the white steps of her house. 
 
 Next morning, sleeping late after a surprisingly good 
 night s rest, the telephone beside his bed had disturbed him 
 before nine o clock, and a sharp New England voice had 
 barked through the receiver: 
 
 "Weymouth? Want to see Weymouth!" 
 
 "This is he," Weymouth had replied with all the cool 
 ness he could command. 
 
 "My name s Emmett if you don t remember me, I m 
 Sophie s husband." And before Weymouth could formu 
 late a polite syllable the voice at the other end had gone on 
 in harsh, choppy sentences : "Wish you would call on me. 
 To-day this morning eleven sharp. Not a quarter past. 
 I m going out at half past. By." 
 
 That was all, delivered in the most acutely businesslike 
 tone. 
 
 "A new chapter in the code duello," Sophie s lover had 
 reflected, shuffling toward his bath. 
 
 He had called promptly at eleven, as Mr. Emmett had 
 so unbendingly suggested. Weymouth found the clumsy,
 
 THUNDER 149 
 
 massive, untidy man wiping his eye-glasses behind a fearful 
 chaos of books and papers in a big, bare room full of bur 
 dened shelves. The sacks beneath his eyes this morning had 
 suggested the bloodhound. But to his nervous visitor s sur 
 prise the bunchy, square face had been twisted to a grin. 
 
 "Well, Weymouth," had been his first comment, ad 
 dressed quite familiarly, as though to a confidential clerk, 
 "so you and Sophie have made up your minds that you re 
 in love with each other." 
 
 "Ye-yes. That s about the case." Weymouth had stam 
 mered like a schoolboy. 
 
 "Humph! She came and told me last night. I wasn t 
 surprised. Thing to be expected." The big man had sat 
 toying with his necktie, an article of antique pattern that 
 he wore askew under his low, unfashionable collar. 
 
 "Not surprised a bit. Women have to be suited at any 
 price these days," he went on in his choppy accents. 
 "Suits me all right. Provided, of course, it s genuine. Are 
 you sure about that, Weymouth?" 
 
 "Absolutely, as far as I m concerned," the lover had re 
 plied with unnecessary heat. 
 
 "Well, Sophie thinks she s just as sure. Said so several 
 times. Now I ve made up my mind to take this case in 
 hand. This is my policy : Do nothing to stand in your way. 
 All foolishness to interfere in a genuine love affair. But 
 there s one thing, Weymouth understand one thing." 
 He brought a big, stubby finger down on the manuscript be 
 fore him. "If you re going to marry Sophie and take care 
 of her you ve got to be sure first that you ll get on together. 
 If you re going to swap steeds in midstream there s no use 
 trading a mule for a jackass. Understand? The only ex 
 cuse for matrimony is that it adds something desirable to 
 the life of each party. That s the idea, isn t it?" 
 
 Emmett had quizzed him shrewdly with his keen eyes. 
 
 "I think you ve stated the case rather well," the uncon 
 ventional suitor had admitted. 
 
 "All right, then. Here s the bargain I m willing to make
 
 150 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 i^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^j 
 
 with you : Weymouth, I m sending Sophie to a good, re 
 spectable private hotel to stay exactly two months. Won t 
 see her husband a minute during that period. She ll have 
 a chaperon to look out for her, but you can see her, take 
 her round all you please. That s all. And here s the only 
 string I tie to the arrangement: If at the end of those two 
 months you young people can come round to see me and 
 say you re still in love, all right. Leave it to me ! I ll say 
 Bless you, my children, see that she s divorced properly 
 and you re married. No questions asked." 
 
 Weymouth had given Sophie s obliging husband a look 
 of blank amazement. 
 
 "D you call that square?" Emmett inquired, biting off 
 his words more sharply than ever. 
 
 "Square? Yes it s too square. It s a very peculiar ar 
 rangement." 
 
 "I m a peculiar man," replied Emmett shortly, with his 
 rough, rather ingratiating smile. "Is the arrangement 
 agreeable to you?" 
 
 "Absolutely," his dazed visitor had admitted. 
 
 "Good ! I can t give you any more time this morning 
 got to get out. Two months from to-day will be Wednes 
 day, the fourth of January. At nine o clock in the evening. 
 Good day, sir." 
 
 in 
 
 Harlan Weymouth, lumbering along in the wake of the 
 yellow taxicab this evening of the fourth of January, looked 
 at his watch. It now lacked twenty-five minutes of the 
 hour of nine. His cab came to a stop in a narrow street 
 leading into Park Avenue, and peering out he could see 
 that they were pocketed in a tangle of drays and excava 
 tions. Sophie s car was blocked a few yards ahead of him. 
 There was a wait of two minutes, during which teamsters 
 swore in the darkness, lanterns flashed back and forth, con 
 fusion reigned in the sloppy street. Dimly in the rear win 
 dow of the yellow car he thought he could see her white
 
 THUNDER 151 
 
 face turned appealingly toward him. He opened the door 
 of his vehicle and was about to plunge out and go to her, 
 but a saving caution restrained him. If they came together 
 now they would probably quarrel again. It was too late 
 for further words. The case must be laid before Elijah 
 Emmett. 
 
 A fog-horn voice out of the night brayed "Go ahead!" 
 He could see the ruby light of the yellow taxicab plunge 
 forward through the debris. The driver of his own ram 
 shackle chariot pulled the gears with a frightful rasp, his 
 car responded with its habitual kangaroo movement and 
 stopped so suddenly that its passenger was half thrown 
 from his seat. 
 
 Weymouth uttered an unclever oath and resumed his 
 cushions. Another truck had wheeled across his path, the 
 horses dozing philosophically. 
 
 "Go round !" roared Weymouth to his driver, and the 
 latter began backing away in a smudge of oily smoke. 
 
 In their subsequent detour Weymouth clutched the seat 
 and ground his teeth like a thwarted pirate. She had beaten 
 him to the goal after all. Upon cooler thought he knew that 
 it couldn t make any great difference if she saw her hus 
 band first. It was just the feminine character of the act 
 that irritated him. Elijah had distinctly stated the rules 
 by which the game was to be played. And she had lightly 
 defied these rules at the last moment. 
 
 As soon as his vehicle had come to a violent halt in front 
 of the Emmetts greystone fagade, he had a stinging realisa 
 tion that the yellow taxicab had come, left its fare and de 
 parted. By now Sophie had met her husband and rendered 
 her verdict. The small hostility of her act annoyed him, 
 as he took the steps three at a time and jammed an irritable 
 thumb against the button of the bell. After a dignified 
 space a footman appeared, to motion him stiffly into the 
 formal reception room. 
 
 "Mr. Emmett is still at dinner, sir," he announced upon 
 his return. "He says won t you please come in."
 
 152 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 It was a nightmare walk for Weymouth down the hall 
 toward the wide, tapestried doorway of the Emmett dining 
 room. And it was a splendid setting for a comedy of 
 Italian duplicity that he beheld in the great space beyond, 
 with its carved wainscoting and ornate Florentine ceiling. 
 He had associated this big room with rapturous dinners en 
 joyed in an atmosphere of intellectual adoration during the 
 Golden Age of Sophie. Yet here in the doorway he paused, 
 a stranger, blinking into the flood of light that surrounded 
 the well-set table, flashing reflections of crystal and silver. 
 And this was what he saw: The massive Elijah Emmett, 
 like a great grey bear, in a badly fitting business suit, sat 
 by the table, utterly absorbed in a shuddering silken bundle 
 that he held tightly and clumsily in his arms. A surge of 
 destructive jealousy quite overcame the onlooker at first. 
 Then he wanted to laugh. The light of four many-branched 
 candlesticks, geometrically arranged on the damask cloth, 
 imparted a sparkle to the elaborate table display and il 
 lumined the bald spot at the apex of Elijah Emmett s low 
 ered head. For the silken bundle in his arms was Sophie 
 Emmett. 
 
 "Hem!" suggested Weymouth as soon as he had gazed 
 his fill. 
 
 "Ah, Weymouth!" responded Elijah, looking up at last. 
 
 Whereat the white and slender arms which clung so hys 
 terically round the massive neck were tightened and a high 
 voice quavered: 
 
 "Oh, Elijah! Send him away! He doesn t" a sob 
 "he doesn t understand me !" 
 
 "There, there," soothed her gigantic master, patting her 
 gently with a heavy paw, "don t worry about him. I under 
 stand you." 
 
 As Harlan Weymouth approached the dramatic table he 
 had some delicacy at first in looking upon this intimate 
 family scene. But when he did look he turned quickly 
 away. Still snuggled against her Elijah s untidy waistcoat,
 
 THUNDER 153 
 
 she had got out her little golden box and sat serenely pow 
 dering her nose ! 
 
 "Come here and sit down, Weymouth," invited Emmett 
 genially, as he sipped his cooling coffee, making no pretence 
 at rising. "On time, I see." 
 
 Weymouth seated himself a space away from the table, 
 as far removed from Sophie as convenience would allow. 
 There ensued a terrific pause, the more oppressive because 
 of Emmett s mountainous good humour. The arbiter of the 
 situation, he chose his time to finish his coffee. 
 
 "Well," said Elijah at last, nestling his wife s dark head 
 the more closely against his shoulder, "what s the verdict ?" 
 
 Sophie Emmett sat suddenly up on her husband s knee, 
 and considering her perch she presented a front of sur 
 prising dignity. 
 
 "I don t want to hear another word about it, if you 
 please," she commanded, a queen in the lap of her god. 
 
 At that moment Weymouth almost rendered her his un 
 biased judgment. Anger had brought animation into her 
 pretty face or was it merely the stupid pique of a cat 
 striking out with her claws ? 
 
 "That s quite positive, is it?" smiled Elijah Emmett. 
 "And, of course, that s enough to dissolve the partnership. 
 Too bad. Started out with every promise of going nicely." 
 
 Emmett began striking fire upon Weymouth s imagina 
 tion. 
 
 "You re splendid !" he admitted abruptly. 
 
 "I m sensible," replied the big man, with his staccato 
 accent. "And that has a certain splendour in this genera 
 tion. The splendour of loneliness." He put his wife down 
 in a chair as though she had been a doll. "You look tired, 
 my dear," he said gently. "Better go to your room and put 
 on something less elaborate. You couldn t afford that gown 
 in the first place, and you ll spoil it sitting round in it." 
 
 She never looked at Weymouth as she went out of the 
 room and out of his life as docile as a chidden child. So
 
 154 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 this was a glimpse of the rough country at the farther end 
 of romance ! He sighed. 
 
 "Sigh away!" Elijah Emmett "bade him, his rugged 
 features breaking into a smile. "I guess you re about as 
 glad as she is." 
 
 "I should like to ask what the devil you ve been trying 
 to do ?" asked Weymouth, facing his tormentor. 
 
 "That s a fair question," replied Elijah slowly. "I m a 
 queer fish, Weymouth. Probably you ve noticed that. 
 We re both of us investigators along our own lines. You 
 write for an exclusive public; I write for a one-man au 
 dience myself. Well, this has been in the way of an ex 
 periment in matrimonial psychology." 
 
 Weymouth slightly raised his brows. 
 
 "You don t understand me ? To put it plainer : I m writ 
 ing a book about women. It s called Limitations. I don t 
 know any women but Sophie don t care to know any 
 others but I think I know her pretty well." 
 
 Elijah Emmett paused and pressed a button under the 
 table. When the butler had appeared he commanded 
 shortly : 
 
 "Bring in another bottle ! Then you may go !" 
 
 And when the man had shown a cobwebby label to his 
 master, and left the bottle uncorked between two glasses, 
 Emmett explained: 
 
 "This is old tawny port eighteen-seventeen. It s out of 
 fashion and so am I. We ll split the bottle between us." 
 
 He filled the glasses brimming full, and held the topaz 
 liquid to the light. 
 
 "To our escape!" he pledged. Weymouth was ashamed 
 of himself, yet he tossed the toast off with alacrity. 
 
 "Weymouth, there s nothing that lives or breathes that 
 can look dignified in a false position. It s like a Church of 
 England clergyman trying to ride a motor cycle " 
 
 "What s that?" asked his guest, sitting up as though a 
 cold hand had touched him. "Would you mind saying that 
 again ?"
 
 THUNDER 155 
 
 "Like a Church of England clergyman trying to ride a 
 motor cycle." 
 
 "By George, that s queer !" cried Weymouth ; and again : 
 "By George ! Unless I m mistaken I ve heard " 
 
 "Heard Sophie say it several times?" 
 
 Weymouth faintly nodded. 
 
 "Quite possibly. And that s the point I m getting at 
 my experiment in matrimonial psychology. Weymouth, 
 we ve got to talk quite candidly,, as men must when they re 
 similarly interested. Now tell me this : Just when did you 
 begin to lose interest in my wife?" 
 
 "That would be rather an ungentlemanly thing to discuss, 
 wouldn t it ?" inquired Sophie s quondam lover. 
 
 "Probably. Don t let that stand in your way. I ve met: 
 very few gentlemen in my lifetime and none of them 
 have had anything to say worth repeating. What I want 
 is facts." 
 
 "Well, if it comes down to a bald confession, I ll admit," 
 replied Weymouth, "that she began to bore me slightly 
 about two weeks after we began our probation." 
 
 "Humph !" Emmett s grunt was filled with satisfaction. 
 "That s about the time, I should say. In what way did she 
 bore you?" 
 
 "I was slightly disappointed not so much at first. But 
 it began to dawn upon me that I was either losing my taste 
 for wit or Sophie was losing her point of view. You see, 
 I was inordinately interested in her from the first because 
 she had positively her own way of looking at things and 
 expressing what she saw. I hate dull women. That was 
 what drew me to her she was a shining difference. But 
 after you began your your experiment with us and I 
 could see her as often as I liked away from you, it seemed 
 to me her mind was what shall I call it? thinning out. 
 Where once there were ten thoughts to the minute, there 
 was less than one to the hour. Then she began visibly 
 struggling to make good. She began to repeat herself."
 
 156 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "No clever woman ever repeats herself to the same 
 man," grinned Emmett. "Let me fill your glass again." 
 
 "Finally it got to be positively distressing. We would 
 spend hours together groping desperately for something to 
 say. It got so I dreaded to hear her speak, for fear she 
 would come out with something so threadbare that " 
 
 "Ha !" Emmett uttered a one-syllable laugh. "She was 
 now delving down to the subbromidic stratum. Was that 
 toward the end ?" 
 
 "Two or three weeks ago. I avoided going to see her 
 as much as I could. I was still in love with her and hoped 
 against hope. No use. The brilliance of her imagination 
 had evaporated. You will pardon my saying so, but she 
 was dull as ditch water." 
 
 "And you weren t much better?" snapped Emmett sud 
 denly. 
 
 "I I never looked at it in that way," he confessed. "I 
 must have had a pretty hard time with nothing to work 
 on." 
 
 "Now I m going to show you something," pursued the 
 elder man in the same cross-examining tone. "I am going 
 to show you something and ask one or two more questions." 
 
 He leaned bulkily down and fished from under the table 
 a small portfolio, such as lawyers employ for the carrying 
 of documents. Rapidly he unbuckled the straps and 
 brought out a thick, typewritten manuscript, in size and 
 character very much like the one he had been blue-pencilling 
 upon their first interview up in the library. 
 
 "This is my book, Limitations, so far as it has gone. 
 Let s look at page one-thirty-one." He pulled the sheet 
 from its place and laid it on the table before them. 
 
 "Now, Weymouth," he said, "I want you to read the 
 ninth line from the top here." He indicated the place 
 with his broad thumb. 
 
 " Woman has always occupied a position of priest 
 hood, " he read aloud, " standing before an inner shrine 
 and guarding a sanctity that is essential to civilisation. To
 
 THUNDER 157 
 
 many of them, in their modern aspects, freedom is merely 
 a delightful joy ride. She rides astride upon her rights, 
 and the aspect, I am compelled to say, is like that of a 
 Church of England clergyman mounted upon a motor 
 cycle. " 
 
 Weymouth looked up blankly at Emmett s face, stonily 
 amused. 
 
 "There s a lot more," insisted Emmett, "and I d have no 
 trouble showing you Sophie s pet epigrams and philoso 
 phies if I wanted to bore you with my work. There s the 
 one about married couples not liking each other eight 
 chances to one or the statement that too many people 
 want socialism the way they see Chinatown by being taken 
 round at a dollar a head by a man with a megaphone, 
 or " 
 
 "Has she stooped to that?" Weymouth half whispered. 
 "Stolen thunder !" 
 
 "Oh, we shouldn t mind that. Every echo steals thunder 
 and imitates it faintly. And, of course, you must realise by 
 now that Sophie is " 
 
 "An echo?" inquired Weymouth. 
 
 "An echo !" echoed Emmett. "She has one of those 
 minds which can only give back the sounds they receive." 
 
 "I see," grunted Weymouth. "She s changed so in her 
 absence from you, because " 
 
 "She s been shut off from the base of supplies. Her 
 mind went dry. It s been a shame to take my words out 
 of her pretty mouth. She has always echoed so delight 
 fully! Really, Weymouth, with her beauty and the way 
 she has with her it has been more than worth the trouble." 
 
 "It would be a crime against art to stop her now," sug 
 gested Weymouth, "like taking the lines away from a great 
 actress." 
 
 "Oh, bless her!" laughed Emmett heartily. "I wouldn t 
 have the brutality to do that ! In a week she ll be bristling 
 with ideas again my ideas. And I ll give her all the phi 
 losophy and bright paragraphs she can use, just as I d give
 
 158 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 her money until I went bankrupt. I don t think you realise 
 how much I love her, Weymouth." 
 
 The young critic was amazed at the intense earnestness 
 with which this peculiar man made the last statement. 
 
 "I ll have a little more of that excellent port, if you don t 
 mind," suggested Weymouth in a voice that was dry as dust. 
 Emmett s hand shook slightly as he poured out the liquor. 
 
 "She used to take me round a good deal in society when 
 we were first married," went on Emmett. "She acted as 
 my convoy because she had the position and I had the 
 money. I never cared much for that sort of thing, because 
 I never could talk to advantage to more than one person 
 at a time and I ve only found one in ten worth talking to. 
 But I stood this dinner business for a while. The thing that 
 really attracted me on these occasions was Sophie. It gave 
 me a sort of rare, epicurean delight to sit a few places away 
 from her and hear her strewing epigrams my epigrams 
 right and left like handfuls of jewels. People are often 
 careless with other people s valuables, and Sophie was a 
 spendthrift. I never really appreciated how good my lines 
 were until I heard Sophie delivering them in that wonderful 
 voice of hers. I used to go to dinners that mummified me 
 where I sat, just for the exquisite joy of hearing myself 
 quoted quoted without quotation marks by the most 
 charming little actress I ever met. 
 
 "But I was punished for it at last. It got round that 
 people endured poor, stupid Emmett for the sake of get 
 ting his brilliant wife. Then I decided to let Sophie do it 
 all. I ve stayed home ever since." 
 
 They sat a while regarding the tablecloth. The topaz 
 liquid in the bottle was fast reaching its nadir. 
 
 "Mr. Emmett, if you don t mind telling me," asked the 
 younger man, "how a clever man like you for I m be 
 ginning to think you re a stupendous person ever came 
 , 
 
 "To be fooled the way you were ?" grinned his host. 
 "Well, that s one way of putting it. I wonder how you
 
 THUNDER 159 
 
 came to marry her. Whom was she echoing when you 
 first met her ?" 
 
 "Her father," Emmett replied. "He was a remarkable 
 individual and gave her enough ideas to keep her going until 
 she could tap my mine." 
 
 Weymouth pushed back his chair. He had heard the 
 truth and must take it for what it was worth. 
 
 "I thank you," he volunteered rather heavily. "There 
 aren t many men who would speak out like this. Of course 
 it s been rather crushing for me. I thought I understood 
 women 
 
 "You did? You poor, lost lamb!" Emmett let his 
 friendly hand rest a moment on his victim s shoulder. "I 
 don t think you understand much of anything. You clever 
 fellows professionally clever fellows are usually pretty 
 stupid when it comes down to the facts of life. I don t 
 suppose, now it s all over, that you have an inkling as to 
 why I ve done all this to make you and Sophie tired of each 
 other?" 
 
 "I really believe you re fond of her !" gasped the dupe of 
 fate. 
 
 "Fond of her! My dear boy, if she d stayed away two 
 days longer well, your case would have been simplified to 
 courting a pretty widow. I don t think you ll comprehend 
 what I m going to say, but I ll tell you as plainly as I know 
 how. I adore Sophie for exactly what she is simple and 
 unreasonable and feminine utterly lacking in that abomi 
 nable thing called cleverness. On the days when we re alone 
 together we drop all pretence and chatter like children. 
 She takes me out of my maddening theories. She rests me 
 and makes me feel young again. I don t care how she ca 
 vorts in public, like a charming little animated phonograph. 
 She doesn t waste any of that foolishness on me. She 
 saves it for people who aren t discerning enough to know 
 glass from diamonds. But when she s home, she s Sophie 
 just entirely Sophie. We frolic and talk nonsense together. 
 And when the servants are out we commandeer the kitchen,
 
 160 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 and cook our own little dinners. She s quite a wonderful 
 cook." 
 
 Emmett paused, arrested by an idea. His eyes were 
 twinkling with enthusiasm. 
 
 "Weymouth, you ve never really tasted a curried squab 
 until you ve tried Sophie s !" 
 
 Her reformed lover smothered a groan. He had lost a 
 comet and found a curry cook ! 
 
 "Why don t you come round Wednesday night and have 
 a family dinner with us?" Elijah s voice rasped on his re 
 flections. 
 
 "I I should like to. But don t you think it would be 
 better if 
 
 "You and I ate alone? Nonsense! I want you to come 
 when Sophie s here. It would hurt her feelings if you 
 didn t."
 
 V 
 THE GOAT 
 
 ON the top floor of a damaged apartment house, in 
 that zone of New York which the psychological map- 
 maker should colour a watery claret-pink, expres 
 sive of the state of mind therein prevailing, a goddess of a 
 woman sat drumming busily at a rented piano. She was 
 wearing a light yellow wrapper, and as her vocal notes 
 progressed up an invisible stairway "yah-oo-ah-eeee" 
 struggling, agonised but eager, from chest tones to head 
 tones, the lovely lines of her milk-white neck, below great 
 quantities of dusky hair, were pleasantly revealed to her 
 husband. Dumpy little man that he was, he stood in an 
 attitude of critical regard at the door of their kitchenette, 
 his left hand dangling a moist dishcloth, while his right 
 hand, clutching a half-dried tablespoon, waved cadence to 
 the flight. 
 
 "Bully!" he encouraged, adjusting the blue-gingham 
 apron under his armpits. But the mind of Adelia Rumley 
 was apparently concentrated upon her vocal cords, which 
 were now executing a rapid downstairs movement "ee-ah- 
 oo-ya-a-ah!" 
 
 Robert W. Rumley, seasoned to unencouragement in 
 the field of art, returned meekly to the kitchenette and pur 
 sued his daily practical task of "redding up" the breakfast 
 dishes. To this indignity he had long been a martyr, re 
 ceiving for his pains the martyr s regular salary of thorns. 
 Yet the cruel stings gave to him still the stimulus of hope. 
 Famed sopranos, whose notes he had heard surging forth 
 
 161
 
 162 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 from the mahogany front doors of friendly phonographs, 
 enchanted the world with no such angelic strains as those 
 which floated to him hourly from the throat of his adored 
 one. Strangely enough, she did not seem to get on; but 
 there were many amateur savants, in the Bohemian zone 
 wherein they dwelt, who could account for that. "Noth 
 ing great was ever done in a hurry," the insurgent sculptor, 
 Pedro McKonkie, had often whinnied in his ear. And from 
 the lips of Ambrose Blaize, musical critic by day, poet by 
 night, had come the tribute : "Genuine Art and all true 
 Art is genuine must be gained upon the heights of blood 
 and tears." 
 
 Ambrose had said this so often that Robert W. Rum- 
 ley, whose knowledge of life had been gathered over the 
 counter of a village hardware store, had learned the lines 
 by heart. He was willing to stand for the blood and tears, 
 he reflected loyally. It was only the hard pinch that wor 
 ried him, for he was bitterly unwilling to see her suffer. 
 And things were getting pretty close for the Rumleys. 
 
 The dangling of the human hand into hot soapy water is 
 wont to bring a dreamy stimulation to the brain. And as 
 the vocalist s husband turned a steaming flood into a panful 
 of nicked chinaware, he cogitated idly but without comfort. 
 
 There was an expensive music teacher still to pay. The 
 hospitality which their metropolitan life seemed to demand 
 of them was forcing the grocery bill up, up, as rapidly as 
 the soarings of Adelia s musical scale. And the circle of 
 free souls who gathered about them nightly and gibbered in 
 a dialect Robert had given up trying to understand had 
 an insinuating habit of confiding financial difficulties at the 
 occasional times when vulgar money seemed to them some 
 thing other than the sordid foe of Art. Lofty minds, who 
 was Rumley to permit their earthbound torments? Gold, 
 to them, was only a means to an end. Adelia had struggled 
 to make that point clear as his bank account lightened to a 
 feather s gravity. 
 
 The kitchen was becoming very moist and warm as Rum-
 
 THE GOAT 163 
 
 ley mooned over his clattering toil. He paused and lighted 
 a poor man s cigarette. A tin can, which had once guarded 
 its freight of evaporated cream, he tossed despondently into 
 a yawning garbage pail. 
 
 "Bob, dear!" The aspiring notes had hardened to a 
 querulous call. 
 
 "Yes, dearie !" 
 
 "Can t you be a little quiet?" 
 
 "Excuse me, honey." Rumley s tone was contrite as he 
 resumed his household cares, making clumsy efforts to sup 
 press the senseless habit of china cups to clatter against 
 their mates. 
 
 It had been over a year now since the Rumleys, radiant, 
 hopeful pilgrims to the shrine, had shaken from their shoes 
 the colourless dust of Bushelville, where, as Adelia had 
 truthfully explained, "there was no appreciation." It was 
 he who urged that rash departure ; for the enchantment of a 
 honeymoon was still upon him. It had been scarce three 
 months since, sitting in the Rumley pew, he had first bowed 
 down in worship to an image and a voice which theoreti 
 cally had no place for man in that house of prayer. The 
 leading hardware dealer of Bushelville, he was quite eligible 
 to look upon that radiant vision who each Sunday bade him 
 "Flee as a bird !" as, turning beautiful topaz eyes toward 
 the gates of song, she stood divinely fair beside the small 
 pipe organ, Bushelville s boasted pride. From the hour of 
 their meeting he had wallowed, and she, angel of the sweet 
 acceptance, had stooped to raise him to her level. Result : 
 Mr. Jones, Bushelville s official organist, had sweetened one 
 June day by an appropriate two- four selection from the 
 works of Mendelssohn. 
 
 "She has voice !" the congratulatory Mr. Jones had in 
 formed him at the wedding reception. "A few faults . . . 
 training . . . there s no field in Bushelville." 
 
 And it was in the month of September, his hardware 
 business sold at a discount, a few items of inherited real 
 estate liberally mortgaged, that Robert W. Rumley had
 
 164 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 heard his prodigy, for the last time before a Bushelville 
 audience, trill My Rosary as the well-wishing elite of the 
 town gathered sentimentally for farewell. 
 
 It had been a queer sort of year since then ! 
 
 "Poor child looks tired !" mused Rumley, dousing his 
 cigarette stump in the moisture of his galley sink. 
 
 The vocalist in the large bleak studio room was now 
 executing a sort of musical pyramid, climbing a laborious 
 "O-o-o-o" up one side and sliding an ecstatic "Ah-h-h-h!" 
 down on the other. Rumley admitted that he had never 
 until recently considered the price of Art. Madame Lu- 
 netti, who guaranteed to make operatic stars, given suf 
 ficient time at so much per lesson, continued to flatter and 
 to temporise. Mrs. Rumley was young, her voice required 
 placing and it was not disinterested friendship which 
 prompted Madame Lunetti to seek so carefully, so tirelessly, 
 its true and ultimate place. 
 
 The great city, which the optimist in the kitchenette still 
 viewed with the starry eyes of hope, had considered him 
 no more seriously in a business way than in an artistic 
 guise. He had held and lost several small jobs in retail 
 hardware establishments, he had sought vainly for capital 
 with which to put on the market the humble household 
 inventions which bore the Rumley name Rumley Eraser, 
 Rumley Noiseless Lawn Mower. He had accomplished 
 nothing in the past few weeks, except to work up the details 
 of a device which had at least made Adelia s morning ex 
 ercises less a trial to her nerves the Rumley Radiator 
 Silencer. It was the promise of another serene hour of 
 filing and scraping at this complicated metal bit, an hour 
 of repose in the little workshop off the kitchenette, that 
 caused Rumley to clutter hurriedly through with his dish 
 washing. That littered, dusty den out there, what a sanc 
 tuary it was to him when the inhabitants of Adelia s world 
 came to praise the Eternal Beauties in the language of angry 
 magpies ! 
 
 Meanwhile, Robert W. Rumley washed dishes, ac-
 
 THE GOAT 165 
 
 r""""" """"^ - 
 
 cording to his lot. Adelia wasn t strong, and some one must 
 keep the house in order. 
 
 "Dearie !" came again the petulant summons. 
 
 "Yes, honey !" He wiped his hands on the gingham 
 apron and came distrustfully forward. Already he sus 
 pected that his goddess had sensed the gloomy tenor of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 "The gasman was here twice yesterday. He bothered 
 me to death just as Mr. Blaize and Mr. Poole came in. It 
 was horribly mortifying. Seems to me you could leave a 
 little change round the house when you go away gad 
 ding " 
 
 "I had to keep a date with the International Metal Con 
 trivance people," he apologised. 
 
 "Did they promise anything?" She was fingering her 
 score dreamily. 
 
 "Oh, I didn t ask for a job. I went to show my silencer." 
 
 "Well, I hope they ll make your fortune," she sniffed, 
 never looking up from the sheet music she was turning. 
 
 "The engineer, he attends to the patent end of the con 
 cern. He ll be back from New kochelle this afternoon." 
 
 "I m surprised." Adelia had learned a trick of barbed 
 marksmanship from her cultured circle, and it was growing 
 habitual with her to choose her husband s patient skin as 
 target for her archery. 
 
 "I ve had the thing in the shop, reassembling it," he went 
 on, seemingly unwounded. "I m putting a new type of 
 gasket in the air chamber. That ll keep the International 
 people guessing. You know, they control everything in 
 this line. 
 
 "Will their line include paying for the gas?" she snapped ; 
 then added more gently: "Bob, I m all nerves this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "Sorry, honey." He laid a stubby hand on her beauti 
 fully rounded shoulder. She yielded no response. 
 
 "Ambrose Blaize and Hildreth Sunder are coming in to 
 lunch," she sighed at last wearily. "Anything in the flat?"
 
 166 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "We re all out of vermouth." 
 
 "Can t you get some?" 
 
 "Y-yes. Or maybe we could make orange juice do." 
 
 "I don t know whether he likes his cocktails that way," 
 she replied, pitching her voice to a tone of rebuke. 
 
 "Say, Delia, I think that highbrow has got his nerve ! 
 He s using the place as a sort of charity boarding house. 
 I don t object to cooking for him and shaking up the drinks 
 day and night to his order. But I can t see where it s up 
 to him to stick up his nose at my style of mixing cocktails." 
 
 "Robert !" Her mysterious topaz eyes came suddenly 
 upon him in an accent of horror. "How can you talk that 
 way?" 
 
 "I know. He s helped you a lot in your career, and in 
 troduced us into his set " 
 
 "It s not a circle every one can belong to, my dear," she 
 assured him, and went on fingering the ivory keys. 
 
 "I don t just quite get the life here, honey," he shame 
 facedly confessed. "To play the game, you ve got to take 
 the cards as they come, I ll admit ; and if it s what you need 
 to build up your Art oh, I ain t saying a word !" 
 
 "That s a dear," she relented, and permitted her earnest, 
 uninitiated spouse to touch her ever so lightly on the lips. 
 
 "What was that German stuff you were singing about an 
 hour ago?" he ventured by way of penance. 
 
 "Still wie die Nacht, you mean ?" asked she as her fingers 
 made rather uncertain work of Bohm s introduction to love 
 and ocean s deeps. 
 
 Still wie die Nacht, 
 Tief wie das Meer " 
 
 "What does it mean ?" Rumley inquired, adoring her with 
 eyes which were round and blue as a child s. 
 
 "Still as the night, deep as the sea, so thy love must be," 
 she answered dreamily. 
 
 "Oh." He waited a moment and shyly cleared his throat. 
 "Say, Delia, sing it again, will you?"
 
 THE GOAT 167 
 
 Once more her hands brought the still, sweet water music 
 from the keys. Tide upon tide, chord upon chord, swelled 
 the prelude. Then the maddeningly expected thing hap 
 pened. 
 
 Bang-bang-bang ! 
 
 A Hunnish monster of a noise, it smote upon the nerves 
 in a horrible tattoo, violating the aesthetic sense like the 
 metallic salute of ironworkers caressing the skeleton of a 
 skyscraper with heavy sledges. 
 
 "Oh!" Hysterically the pretty songstress raised her 
 hands to her ears. "That radiator merciful heavens!" 
 
 "Full head o steam on this morning," called out Rum- 
 ley, his chubby face lighting with a new enthusiasm. "The 
 silencer s in shape now just watch me!" 
 
 Clang-boom-clash ! 
 
 Louder and louder rang the chorus of invisible steel- 
 smiths. In a moment the inspired Rumley had plunged into 
 the depths of his workshop and was back again. Skating 
 hastily over bare spaces of floor he advanced on the offend 
 ing radiator, a cup-shaped billet of metal borne threaten 
 ingly in his right hand. 
 
 Bang ! G-g-r-r-r ! Bang-pang ! 
 
 The army of the steam shouted to him a loud defiance. 
 
 "Just a minute, honey !" he reassured her as, his face now 
 purple with concentration, he leaned over and screwed his 
 patent appliance to the valve-end of the boisterous heater. 
 
 With a strangled growl the noise died away into silence. 
 Triumphantly Robert W. Rumley, inventor, stood view 
 ing his work. Secure in his protection his wife pursued the 
 running chords of her prelude. 
 
 "Still wie die Nacht!" she chanted clearly. 
 
 Robert s face was radiant beyond compare. 
 
 II 
 
 Rumley paid for the dinner that night at Vermicellio s. 
 Mainly he remembered that the claret had been rank and
 
 168 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 the conversation ranker. The painter of queer, pale-green 
 miniatures, Miss Hildreth Sunder, who chose to wear her 
 hair bobbed over a face which was all concaves like a new 
 moon, occupied the place next his and, being half a yard 
 taller than he, was able to talk over his head, physically as 
 well as intellectually. 
 
 "Baskt oo !" she chirped at Pedro McKonkie, insurgent 
 sculptor, whose jaws were knifelike and whose black hair 
 fell a trifle longer than Miss Sunder s own. 
 
 Adelia, her bewitching topaz eyes turned, now in laughter, 
 now in admiration, was easily the prettiest woman in the 
 room. Rumley felt this was the sense of obscure proprie 
 torship which a clownish fellow must enjoy upon inherit 
 ing a priceless object of art. She sat beside Blaize and 
 looked at no one else, as garlic called unto garlic through 
 out the length and breadth of Vermicellio s feast. 
 
 Ambrose Blaize was good-looking in a bushy sort of 
 way. His reddish-brown mane differed from the compet 
 ing manes round the table in that it displayed the beauty of 
 the horizontal line. Bolingbroke Squashe, designer of damp 
 landscapes, wore his tow-coloured hair in the manner of 
 Buster Brown. Miss Sunder s coiffure remotely resembled 
 the palm thatch on a Kafir hut. Pedro McKonkie had ap 
 parently cajoled his barber into trimming his locks into a 
 straight-edged form that gave to him the appearance of 
 wearing some regal Egyptian headdress of patent leather. 
 But Blaize was always different. 
 
 The capillary ornament upon the head of Blaize shot out 
 sidewise and frontwise in tight, curly masses, like the foli 
 age of those picturesque cypress trees which, for ages en 
 during the trade winds of a California sea, have become 
 flat on top and ornate at the edges. Blaize s mouth was 
 thin and small, his eyes wide and expressive. When he 
 spoke it was like the rich sighing of summer winds through 
 an empty aqueduct. He was endowed with the amphibious 
 gift of expressing himself in two different ways at the same 
 time, sweetly with his lips, eloquently with his eyes.
 
 THE GOAT 169 
 
 "Let s go over to the flat," at last suggested Rumley. It 
 was about the only audible remark he had uttered in this 
 sitting upon the oniony Parnassus. And the suggestion 
 seemed to spread the quick fires of emulation among the 
 feasters. It was check-paying time, and every bottle at 
 the table had been emptied of its claret. 
 
 As they walked home, under a drizzling rain, little Freddie 
 Poole, excellently tailored in a pin-checked suit which 
 showed an increasing rust among the pins at knees and 
 elbows, took Rumley familiarly t)y the arm and snuggled 
 under his umbrella. Poole s intoxication was just strik 
 ing its general average. Engaging, ne er-do-well younger 
 son of a good English family, he lived in a studio some 
 where under the illusion that he was painting something. 
 He was not shaggy like the rest of Adelia s friends, and 
 although Rumley hated a dude which Freddie undoubtedly 
 still struggled to be yet Adelia s husband honoured the 
 scapegrace for the shortness of his hair and the bluntness 
 of his opinions." 
 
 "Blaizie s going strong on soul harmonies to-night," Fred 
 die rambled along. "Blaizie is very musical musical 
 comedy if you follow me." 
 
 "You re going kind of strong yourself, Freddie," Rum- 
 ley suggested, fixing a paternal hand under the English 
 man s elbow in order that he might not collide with one of 
 the sentry ash cans which lined their way. 
 
 "I m strong on one thing, Blaizie s strong on another. My 
 weakness is liquor." 
 
 "What s Blaizie s ?" was Rumley s obvious question. 
 
 "My word, here we are !" The vanguard of Vermicellio s 
 legions was turning in at the gargoyled and greasy brown- 
 stone arch which guarded the apartment where the Rumleys 
 lived. 
 
 "I say, Rumley, old top, you ve got some of that fire 
 water in the ice-box eh, what ?" 
 
 Freddie had shuffled off his favourite theme in the antici 
 pation of his dearest weakness.
 
 170 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^ ^~ 
 
 The guests were already making themselves at home in 
 the big, bleak studio room. Couples were seated, paired 
 off, heads leaning bush-to-thatch, on the numerous divans 
 which edged the walls. McKonkie, the insurgent, was en 
 gaging his soul to that of Miss Sunder, the two being seated 
 on a small chest right below the shelf where contorted the 
 gymnastic plaster sketch of McKonkie s first masterpiece, 
 The Vampire Resurrection. Bolingbroke Squashe slightly 
 disarrayed his Buster Brown adornment in order to inform 
 a little lady, worshipping him under her Mona Lisa bangs, 
 that there was no such thing as colour. Pedro McKonkie, 
 in his corner, assured an equally reverential lady that "all 
 life is a background." 
 
 Adelia was seated on the piano stool, Ambrose Blaize 
 hovering tenderly above. 
 
 "Nothing can be unbeautiful that your eyes have seen," 
 he was lisping in his sweetest wood-note as Rumley came 
 upon them. Her face held the rhapsodical, hypnotised look 
 peculiar to ladies art-bound in this charmed circle. Rumley 
 broke the eye-locked spell by a brash inquiry. 
 
 "Drinks now, dearie ?" he ventured. 
 
 Adelia looked sharply round. Blaize straightened up, 
 the raptures of a yearning saint which had but now paled 
 his cheeks giving way to a graceful cynicism. 
 
 "Oh, anything, bartender!" he faintly smiled. 
 
 "Bob, dear, you ought to know what the crowd wants," 
 she supplemented with less sarcasm than her adorer. 
 
 Rumley drilled meekly away to the kitchenette. In the 
 depths of that foody compartment he beheld the figure of 
 a young man in a pin-checked suit, stooping down, head 
 completely obscured behind the door of the ice box. 
 
 "Cherry brandy," a voice from the depths was chanting. 
 "Sweet, sticky benedictine two other kinds of French per 
 fumery 
 
 "What s the matter, Freddie?" Robert W. Rumley in 
 quired. The Englishman s small, flushed face came forth 
 from its ostrich concealment.
 
 THE GOAT 171 
 
 ^ "" T3 
 
 "Not a bally drop of blessed cognac, dear soul !" 
 
 "Guess it s all gone." 
 
 "Oh, no matter. Here s rye. The Stars and Stripes for 
 ever eh, what?" 
 
 "Say, Freddie," said the unbefriended host, urged by his 
 obsessing spirit, "what s the matter with Blaize that you re 
 so down on him?" 
 
 "Silly ass, I used to call him that. But no, dear boy 
 by no means silly ass. Wise adder." 
 
 Freddie Poole leaned against the ice-box door, the pic 
 ture of a gently born, well-reared Englishman shaking him 
 self to pieces under the tearing waste of alcohol. 
 
 "Rummie, old pal, I m a bit of all wrong to-night. No 
 more poison, waspish stings from me, I say. We re all 
 brothers and sisters and mothers-in-law in the sight of 
 heaven. Peace, peace! Vive I Art! and all that sort of rot. 
 Blaize? To the philosophical mind he s but a splotch of 
 pale mauve in the foreground of the composition. I say, 
 let s bear forth the rye and pour it into the bacchanal !" 
 
 Suiting action to word, Freddie strode bravely out, the 
 spirit of revelry, bottled, in the clasp of his elbow. 
 
 As soon as Rumley was left alone in the kitchenette he 
 experienced, for the first time in years, a feeling of resent 
 ment. Clattering glasses upon a cheaply lacquered tray 
 and banging soda siphons on the board beside them, he 
 wondered just what drug was creeping under Adelia s lovely 
 skin. Loiterers of the Blaize type he had learned to call by 
 a crude name in the bourgeois atmosphere of Bushelville. 
 Blaize could talk circles round the moon and bring down the 
 stars to gem the silver-gilt of his speech. But what right 
 had he to stand gaping into the face of another man s wife 
 and, in the next grimace, address her husband as a bar 
 tender ? 
 
 Rumley tottered rapidly into the studio room, the hooked 
 noses of three siphons looped over the fingers of his left 
 hand, a trayful of tall glasses poised dizzily on his elevated 
 right. So deep was he in the thrall of uncomfortable specu-
 
 172 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 lations that he never paused for apology when he tunked 
 the sky-soaring McKonkie, with a glassy crash, on the very 
 summit of his patent-leather headdress. The sculptor 
 rubbed the wound and glowered, but Rumley passed on 
 toward the isolated pair at the piano. 
 
 "A musical critic worthy of the name knows these facts," 
 the poet was breathing his soft bassoon. "In my years of 
 observation I have seen the tragedy repeated over and over 
 again environment. There are chains of freedom in the 
 mating of harmonious souls. You have the spirit to soar, 
 but your wings are weighted. There is no progress for a 
 woman, tied to this." 
 
 Expressively Ambrose Blaize looked over his shoulder 
 and caught the brief but menacing figure of Nathaniel W. 
 Rumley just as he stood at his elbow, the tray of glasses 
 poised as if to spill them all, a clattering rebuke, upon the 
 offensive rhapsodist. 
 
 "Tied to what?" asked Rumley, edging closer. 
 
 "My dear man," said Ambrose, twisting his little mouth 
 to a smile, "your behaviour is well, comic, shall I say ?" 
 
 "Say what you damned please !" bawled Adelia s hus 
 band, brave before his tormentor, but not daring to look 
 at his adored. "I don t need you to go on telling my wife 
 what she s chained to." 
 
 "Bob, dear, you re having a brain storm," came Adelia s 
 soothing voice, and Robert, like a silly, puffing Atlas, 
 bore aloft his tray and departed with the impression that 
 he had been making a fool of himself. 
 
 It was under the influence of an artificial calm that he 
 played Ganymede to this thirsty Parnassus. From guest to 
 guest he passed, his fingers tingling to the angry squirting of 
 his siphon. As he poured conciliatory libations before the 
 offended shrine of Pedro McKonkie, he felt Adelia s hand 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 "Bob," she whispered, "come into the workshop." 
 
 It was hard by his mechanic s bench, cluttered with sol 
 dering devices, pliers, metal-workers tools, copper filings,
 
 THE GOAT 173 
 
 that she confronted him, menacing in her cerise gown, fire 
 blazing from those fine topazes that could beam so gently. 
 
 "What in the world were you saying to Mr. Blaize ?" she 
 questioned coldly. 
 
 "I can t stand that durned ladykiller any longer. He s 
 getting too fresh. He s " 
 
 "Robert, are you aware you re insulting me by your in 
 ferences ?" 
 
 "Darling!" Robert was again the husband of a god 
 dess. He strove to take her hand, but she tore it from his 
 grasp. "Never, honey, never for an instant 
 
 "Well, you ve offended him for life. He s going away 
 unless you hurry." 
 
 "I will, dearie, I will !" At the words Rumley skated 
 forth, eager to intercept the poet s progress toward the 
 door. 
 
 "I m sorry, Blaize," he blurted out, seizing the cool hand 
 which reached for the doorknob. "I guess I misunderstood. 
 I ve been worried all day and sort of peevish about every 
 thing." 
 
 A vast magnanimity swam in his guest s expressive orbs. 
 
 "Don t speak of it, Rumley ! Let s forget it. I admire 
 you for coming to me like a man. And we re all of us at 
 fever heat to-night. It was a feast of reason in quart bot 
 tles at Vermicellio s and we re saying a number of things 
 we ll forget in the morning." 
 
 "You re you re very kind," faltered the embarrassed 
 host of the evening. 
 
 "Not a bit of it! And perhaps, Rumley, you ll be inter 
 ested in what I was telling Mrs. Rumley at the time our 
 duet became a trio?" 
 
 "Maybe I might." Robert was at once in a listening 
 mood. 
 
 "I have been interested purely as an artist in the pos 
 sibilities of Adelia s career. She has talent, Rumley per 
 sonality, dramatic power, charm. No great voice perhaps;
 
 174 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 but then " Blaize shrugged a critic s shrug. "What 
 
 shall we say of Farrar, Garden, Cavalieri ?" 
 
 "Give it up," confessed Rumley with the promptitude* 
 of happy ignorance. 
 
 "I am related, on my mother s side, with a certain power 
 ful financial influence behind the Metropolitan. I don t 
 care a snap of my finger for these money-getters, you un 
 derstand, but then " The Blaize shrug was repeated. 
 
 "Que voulez-vous? As dramatic critic on the Limelight I 
 am thrown in contact my opinions carry weight in certain 
 quarters " 
 
 "Sure," said Rumley, although he was not in the least 
 sure. 
 
 "And I think I am not certain, mind but I think I can 
 get Adelia Mrs. Rumley, that is a hearing before well- 
 known authorities, with a view to an engagement in grand 
 opera." 
 
 "You don t mean it !" The promise had come like a 
 blinding surge of elf-light to that soul so long nurtured 
 upon poor hopes. 
 
 Dizzy with contemplation Rumley glanced over to the 
 rented piano at which his queen sat again enthroned. He 
 caught her eye, and there was condemnation in the look 
 she shot him. 
 
 "Blaize," said Rumley thickly, again grasping the poet 
 by the hand, "I didn t know I ve spilled the beans some 
 thing awful." 
 
 "S-s-sh ! Your wife is going to sing," Ambrose informed 
 him, generously permitting the handshake. 
 
 The babel of artistic jargons had died at some one s signal 
 to a whisper throughout the room. Adelia sat perfectly 
 still for a moment, the angelic contour of her face turned 
 to the lyre-shaped music stand above the keyboard. Proud, 
 crushed, happy, heartbroken, Rumley caught the first surg 
 ing chords of the song he worshipped on her lips. Swelling, 
 swelling came the harmonious idyl of unfathomed tides; 
 then
 
 THE GOAT 175 
 
 Bang ! Clatter-tatter ! Clash ! 
 
 The radiator had been lurking in its corner, awaiting the 
 fatal opportunity. 
 
 "Darn it," whispered Rumley, "I ve left the silencer in 
 the shop!" 
 
 Handy minuteman that he was, he rushed headlong 
 toward his laboratory. 
 
 Clang ! Clang ! Br-r-r-r ! 
 
 "In a minute, dearie !" Adelia s husband, gallant as any 
 helmeted fireman, rushed back, his marvel-working silencer 
 gleaming between thumb and forefinger. In a moment he 
 was squatting beside the maddened radiator. In another 
 he had screwed upon the hissing valve the small, ugly, mi 
 raculous device that never failed to strangle those apocalyp 
 tic bellowings. 
 
 "Funny little man," smiled Hildreth Sunder, rodent teeth 
 showing in the midst of her sallow, concave face beneath 
 its Kafir palm thatch. 
 
 in 
 
 Robert W. Rumley, on the drizzly morning after Ver- 
 micellio s feast, had gone forth to pay his ninth visit to the 
 offices of the International Metal Contiivance Company. 
 Adelia had been headachy and morose that morning, and 
 the cup of special percolator coffee which he had so indus 
 triously prepared and carried to her bedside had done little 
 to revive her from her indifference and exhaustion. 
 
 "I don t believe the life s agreeing with us, honey," he 
 had sagely begun, but she had deigned no comment on his 
 homily. Neither had said a word on the subject of Am 
 brose Blaize, but the spectre stood between them as Rob 
 ert W. Rumley, his hard hat crammed tightly over his bullet 
 head, the silencer bulging a side pocket of his dull coat, had 
 gone his way and permitted the ghost to walk the Rumley 
 apartment. 
 
 At the International Metal Contrivance Company s of-
 
 176 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 fices he was told the old, old story by the brisk lady who 
 sat at the desk outside a door marked "Chief Engineer." 
 
 Mr. McCall would not be back until three o clock, she 
 informed him. No, he had returned from New Rochelle, 
 but he was usually late on Thursday. Would Mr. Rumley 
 leave his card and state his business? Mr. Rumley sur 
 rendered card and statement, according to request. After 
 which he surrendered hope and went forth to take the air. 
 Yet he was in no mood to return home until he had made 
 another pitiful try at the mythical engineer. It wore on 
 past noon, and Rumley walked over to Fourth Avenue, 
 where he joined the tribe who eat standing, a glass of beer 
 in one hand, a plate of Frankfurters in the other. 
 
 At three o clock he returned to interview the brisk lady 
 outside the engineer s office. Again apologetic, she ex 
 plained that Mr. McCall had just telephoned. He was de 
 layed again. Would Mr. Rumley take a seat in the waiting 
 room? Life s scene was all one waiting room to Rumley, 
 who tilted a philosophical hour in the company s hospitable 
 chair, seeking to strain new humour from the comic section 
 of an evening newspaper. At half past four the brisk lady 
 smiled again. Mr. McCall had decided upon to-morrow 
 as a more convenient date for a visit to his office. 
 
 Twilight thickened in the room as Robert entered the 
 flat, brain- fagged and foot- weary. 
 
 "Are you there, Rummie, my boy?" 
 
 Rumley turned to the cheerful source of sound and ob 
 served that blessed rake, Freddie Poole. 
 
 "Hello, Freddie !" Rumley s feet were tired, so he threw 
 himself into a handy chair and started taking off his shoes. 
 Finally he inquired : "Where s Delia ?" 
 
 "She lunches," quoth the cheerful alcoholic. "The great 
 hearted poet he pays for food at times, you understand?" 
 
 "Blaize?" 
 
 "Right-o !" Freddie dropped a cigarette stub into his 
 empty glass and fixed upon his friend a wild and whimsical 
 stare. "I say, old Rummie, between you and me and the
 
 THE GOAT 177 
 
 bottomless pit, wouldn t you call this atmosphere" in pan 
 tomime he snuffed exotic scents "Florida water, ha penny 
 a bottle eh, what? No air for woodland violets, and all 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 "I get you," replied Rumley very earnestly. 
 
 "I m glad you do, faithful Rummie ! I was taking a bit 
 of an eyeful of the whole mess last night, and, by George, it 
 flashed across me like a touch of sun. With the exception 
 of Mrs. Rumley, of course, you and I are the only genuine 
 animals in the menagerie ! We ain .t any birds of paradise, 
 Rummie; but we re just what we pretend to be." 
 
 "And what s that ?" the weary seeker questioned. 
 
 "I m a grafter, Rummie no two ways about it. And 
 you re a splendid, well-developed specimen of the domes 
 ticated Capricorn species. You understand what you 
 Americans call a Goat." 
 
 "Now, why in thunder, Freddie Robert was 
 
 pursuing^ his zoological investigation, when the Englishman 
 turned startled eyes toward the door. 
 
 "Mrs. Rumley," he said in a dramatic whisper, viewing 
 that lady s distant entrance at the twilit door. "Well, I ll 
 be heeling it !" 
 
 He paused for a brief gallantry as Adelia came forward, 
 cool from outdoor winds. Then with a sketchy " Bye ! I m 
 off !" he banged the front door behind the figure which some 
 how always managed to remain undisreputable. 
 
 "Tired, honey?" asked Rumley, lighting a gas jet by the 
 mantel and observing her as she stood removing her little 
 blue hat before the ugly mirror. 
 
 "No. Why should I be?" The face he saw distinctly in 
 the glass expressed a curious neutral emotion he had never 
 before beheld there. There had been cocktails for lunch, 
 that he knew by the heightened colour of her cheeks. But 
 it wasn t that so much. 
 
 The simple Rumley continued to eye her in puzzlement. 
 A curious inward look was in those topaz eyes; in some 
 manner she had grown older, more experienced she knew
 
 178 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^^^^^^^""^^^^^^^"^^"^^^^ ^^^^""^^"^ ^^^^^"^^ 
 
 an added something. There was a repressed excitement 
 in the movement of her pliant fingers among the wisps that 
 strayed across her temples. 
 
 "Do you know, Rob," she said, facing him and speak 
 ing brightly, "I ve got a piece of splendid news some 
 thing is going to happen to us at last!" 
 
 "Dearie !" he cried, keening to the announcement. But 
 he did not rise to embrace her as he might have done yes 
 terday. 
 
 "That big man behind the Metropolitan Ambrose told 
 you about him, didn t he ?" 
 
 "He didn t mention any name." 
 
 "H. Stanchlow Sommerfield." 
 
 "He s perfectly gigantic !" Robert informed her. 
 
 "That s the man. Well, Ambrose has seen him and he s 
 coming here to-night with Dr. Paul Slagow, the celebrated 
 producer, to try out my voice." 
 
 "Here?" Rumley sprawled perfectly helpless, his white- 
 socked toes wagging toward the ceiling. 
 
 "To this very flat." 
 
 "You don t mean it !" 
 
 "Absolutely." 
 
 "Whoops !" Rumley bounded wildly to the support of his 
 snowy hosiery. Half round the room he executed an un 
 couth war dance, then halted abruptly in the midst of an 
 antic figure. 
 
 "Where the deuce did Blaize get his drag?" 
 
 "I told you he could be of use to us," she answered rather 
 defiantly, fixing him with that new look of hers. 
 
 "H. Stanchlow Sommerfield right here in our flat. By 
 ginger, I knew they d be coming to you pretty soon !" 
 
 Under the stress of a sudden, startled reminder he stood 
 looking round the room, which in the dingy gaslight still 
 showed untidy traces of last night s revel. 
 
 "Got to hustle and red up the place! Feller like Som- 
 merfield s got to find things shipshape."
 
 THE GOAT 179 
 
 Already Rumley had collected an armful of stray highball 
 glasses. 
 
 "By Jupiter, honey!" he puffed joyously. "We got to 
 have a genu-wine party in honour of this. Yes, siree ! I ll 
 blow the whole neighbourhood to the wine !" 
 
 Adelia stood dreamily criticising the corners of her mouth 
 as reflected in the walnut mirror. 
 
 The radiator banged, at first timidly, then in a series of 
 mighty thumps. The air was horrid with the din, but Rob 
 ert, executing prodigies of cleanliness with a soggy grey 
 dusting rag, had neither time nor inclination to still its tocsin 
 note. 
 
 IV 
 
 As the first faint tunk of the farmer s feed pan brings 
 from unexpected corners of the chicken yard a cackling rush 
 of feathered gluttons, so, in that humble zone of Bohemia 
 wherein dwelt the Rumleys, the very faintest intimation of 
 a party brought the top-knotted denizens of the district 
 a-running to be included in the festivities. Robert W. 
 Rumley, overcoated and setting forth for a corner liquor 
 store where the kind-of-champagne-you-almost-can t-tell- 
 from-the-genuine-article could be purchased on limited 
 credit, confided the Sommerfield bonanza to Miss Hildreth 
 Sunder, whom he met in the hallway, returning from Miss 
 Allardyce s apartment with a dish of borrowed potatoes. 
 Miss Sunder, true to type, rode like Paulina Revere, spread 
 ing the alarm from door to door, it appeared; for when 
 the faithful Rumley returned from his interview with the 
 purveyor of case goods he found Bohemia assembled in the 
 studio room. Hildreth Sunder, flapping her long arms like 
 some awkwardly winging bird of the Congo, caressed the 
 Turkish rug with a carpet sweeper. Bolingbroke Squashe 
 whittled the ends of paraffin candles and stuck them into 
 convenient bric-a-brac at well-balanced intervals round the 
 room. Hildreth s friend with the Mona Lisa bangs was
 
 i8o SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 running over to another friend s to borrow a punch bowl. 
 Even now, up the dark staircase came Ambrose Blaize and 
 Freddie Poole, the latter convoying young ladies who, upon 
 introduction, bowed to names which sounded vaguely like 
 Mary and Carrie. 
 
 "You re too early," Robert W. Rumley was explain 
 ing from the top of his stepladder, where he laboured with 
 a shred of Chinese embroidery borrowed for the occasion 
 from Miss Sunder. 
 
 "Never too early for a party," protested Freddie, shed 
 ding his coat and plunging into the kitchenette. 
 
 Only the insurgent sculptor, Pedro McKonkie, held aloof 
 in a corner. Puffing dreamily at his yellow-paper cigarette, 
 he viewed the picture from eyes that flattened mystically 
 under his Egyptian headdress. Life was to him only a 
 background. 
 
 "Adelia told me the news," whispered Rumley, leaning 
 down and wringing Blaize by the hand. 
 
 "It doesn t amount to anything," said the influential one 
 with a tired smile. Rumley, while admiring his modesty, 
 wondered just why he said it that way. 
 
 Adelia came sweeping in from the secret enchantment 
 of her boudoir. Of necessity she wore the same cerise 
 gown, but a new importance had clothed her in a garment 
 of charm. 
 
 "Hurrah !" shouted Bohemia as the vision floated in. 
 
 "Where s your corkscrew?" called Freddie from the 
 kitchenette. 
 
 "I didn t know you were asking all the world," was 
 Blaize s comment to Adelia, which floated upward to Rob 
 ert on his perch. 
 
 "What are you going to do about it?" he heard her de 
 mand. 
 
 From his ladder Rumley looked down, holding a corner 
 of the Chinese embroidery limply between thumb and fore 
 finger, for his eyes were at that instant upon the faces of 
 his wife and her admirer.
 
 THE GOAT 181 
 
 "It s a quarter of nine," said that watchful Egyptian, 
 Pedro McKonkie. 
 
 The naturally inhospitable barn of a room, now draped, 
 garnished, swept, wore an air of merry carnival. On a bat 
 tered Chippendale relic in the corner a blue jardiniere 
 tinkled with ice. Near by was American champagne a row 
 of bottles standing attention, like long-necked soldiers with 
 tinfoil helmets, waiting to pour forth their bubbling hearts. 
 Bohemia was talking self-consciously, one eye cocked 
 toward the door. 
 
 Rumley was the first to spring for the knob, responsive 
 to the trilling of the bell ; but Blaize was at his elbow, keen 
 to his social obligation. The evening-clad gentlemen who 
 stepped in from the dingy hallway were both men in their 
 early sixties; and as they stood blinking into the glamour 
 of this unexpected fete it was easy to see that neither rel 
 ished the surprise. H. Stanchlow Sommerfield, his with 
 ered head somewhat vulturelike, humorous Yankee eyes 
 under a blue-veined forehead, was the first to recover him 
 self as he smiled upon the roomful. 
 
 "In our honour? Well!" He puckered grey eyes at 
 Rumley s halting explanation. The dumpy, beetle-browed 
 Polish maestro who stood beside him was inspired by no 
 such lenient philosophy. 
 
 "Ve can t haf dis !" growled Dr. Paul Slagow. He was 
 a fierce old man, broadfaced, square-toothed, tyrannical. 
 And yet when he spoke he waved delicate little hands, as 
 though conducting the most airy of fluted tremolos. 
 
 "So this is our Prodigy !" smiled the patron of art, alive 
 to the beauty of the picture as Adelia welcomed him. 
 
 "Oh, no no, Mr. Sommerfield. I m sure I m not." Her 
 white skin pinked with embarrassment. "It was awfully 
 good of you to come and I hope you ll find find some 
 thing " 
 
 "I m sure, I m sure!" he grunted. Doctor Slagow re 
 vealed no such chivalrous frame of mind as he stood glar 
 ing his malevolence.
 
 i8i SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Only half an hour," he reminded his employer, clicking 
 his watch case angrily. 
 
 There were no further introductions. The audience had 
 fallen to an expectant hush. The group of principals were 
 advancing on the rented piano. Rumley, trailing in the 
 rear, was making Spartan effort to control his craven knees. 
 
 "Unter whom do you study?" asked the dyspeptic mu 
 sician, looking up from the piano stool. 
 
 "Madame Lunetti." Adelia s voice, to her hovering 
 spouse, sounded pathetically thin and indistinct. Robert 
 balanced nervously from one foot to the other, fidgeting 
 with the silencer, which he had forgotten to remove from 
 the pocket of his best coat. Somehow the contact of his 
 fingers with the hard metal gave him comfort, like the 
 touching of a talisman. 
 
 "Lunetti. Hum." The dragon of the Metropolitan thus 
 dismissed the vocal instructor. 
 
 "Madame Lunetti she tells me I m making prog 
 ress " 
 
 "She would say anytink," Slagow assured her, darting up 
 a savage glance. 
 
 Rumley was of a mind to interpose with the explanation 
 that Madame Lunetti was the best going, that she had been 
 indorsed by no less an authority than Mr. Jones, organist 
 of Bushelville s First Methodist Church. But again the 
 musical authority took up his inquisition. 
 
 "Vat vould you pree-far to sing?" 
 
 "Let me see I have several pieces. I know Bohm s Still 
 wie die Nacht. I might sing that." 
 
 "You might!" was Slagow s helpful comment. 
 
 Already the hands that seemed to conjure forth sound 
 without movement were drawing from the poor instrument 
 the rippling surge of Bohm s prelude. 
 
 "It begins here," he suggested with an acrid smile. 
 
 "Oh, yes I have to get used to you would you muri 
 starting over ? I m so stupid." 
 
 Rumley, helpless spectator of the pitiful ordeal, coulu
 
 THE GOAT 183 
 
 have carried her bodily away from this horrifying vision 
 of Success. 
 
 Again the smoothly running fingers of the musician 
 passed over the keys, gliding like the legs of some marvel 
 lously rapid spider. The tune seemed new and strange to 
 Rumley s ears. 
 
 "Now !" hissed the irritable accompanist. Adelia s voice, 
 far away and small and uncertain, quavered into the open 
 ing bars : 
 
 "Still wie die Nachjt, 
 Tief wie das Meer " 
 
 Bang ! Clash ! Gr-r-r-r-rup ! 
 
 "That durned radiator !" Rumley s mind telephoned hor- 
 rifically to his ready hand, which went plunging against the 
 silencer in his pocket. 
 
 Gug gug-g-g-g-g ump ! Bang ! Clang ! 
 
 The uncertain treble of Adelia s voice quavered into si 
 lence, the pianoforte accompaniment terminated with an 
 angry crash which, during its brief shock, rivalled the battle 
 music of the steam pipes. 
 
 "I ll fix it, dearie !" Rumley called out according to his 
 formula as he tiptoed over to the radiator ; and, crouching 
 on two knees and one hand, he concentrated upon his task 
 of fitting the silencer to the valve. 
 
 Ar-r-r-r-r 
 
 With a choking, sneezing growl the radiator lost its me 
 tallic fury, hiccuped once, then settled into peace. Rumley 
 gave his invention an extra twist for luck, ere he raised his 
 empurpled visage to the room. 
 
 Doctor Slagow, assuming a look of martyred tenacity, 
 was again tackling the prelude. H. Stanchlow Sommerfield 
 was tiptoeing across the room, toward where Rumley squat 
 ted. Amusedly the capitalist stood regarding the busy me 
 chanic, who had again engaged himself in the problem of 
 the valve. 
 
 "Still wie die Nacht!" Clearer and more certain this
 
 184 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 time, Adelia greeted the midnight s noiseless deep. Rumley 
 heard her song arise sweet and pure, and, on his knees be 
 side the radiator, held his breath and prayed that his bit of 
 metal would hold against all the steam pressure exerted by 
 their malevolent janitor. Upward, upward floated the mel 
 ody, poised, for the husband who knelt in worship, serenely 
 as a soaring bird, settled smoothly down and came to an 
 end at last, bell-like and sustained. Every hand in Bo 
 hemia claqued noisily. 
 
 "Well?" asked Rumley, arising and casting a beseeching 
 glance up to the awful judge who stood beside him. Som- 
 merfield, still smiling, continued to look down at the radiator 
 valve. 
 
 "By George, Rumley," he said at last ; "it s wonderful !" 
 
 "Isn t it?" cried the little man, all out of breath. "She 
 can sing, can t she?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," replied the magnate, his grin broadening. 
 "But er I was referring to that thing you put on the 
 radiator. How in the world do you do it?" 
 
 Bohemia had carried its self-conscious burden to the 
 neighbourhood of the punch bowl, the bearish gentleman at 
 the piano was gesturing under Adelia s nose, as Robert 
 W. Rumley, the move having been suggested to him, led 
 the patron of arts and letters to the little room he called 
 his workshop. 
 
 The candles in the studio were mostly out, the rest dimly 
 flickering. Rumley could catch a glimpse of the gloomy, de 
 serted vault as, his stubby hands knuckled against his nubby 
 chin, he leaned against his work-bench and wondered how 
 to take it all. 
 
 Adelia came in at last and seated herself wearily beside 
 him on an overturned crate. 
 
 "Dearie, you were wonderful !" he said, laying his hand 
 gently in her lap. The coil of her splendid hair was falling
 
 THE GOAT 185 
 
 loose and the lines of a young middle age were showing at 
 the corners of her eyes. 
 
 "No, Rob, say the truth. I was abominable." 
 
 "Oh, dearie !" 
 
 His hand lay still neglected in the pillow of cerise silk 
 as she looked sorrowfully into the green-shaded lamp. 
 
 "Doctor Slagow told me about myself." She uttered the 
 words faintly. 
 
 "You need some more lessons and " 
 
 "Lessons can t make a voice when it isn t there," she 
 said. "He wasn t very polite to me 
 
 "I ll punch that mean little guinea!" 
 
 "That wouldn t help any. And why should you? He s 
 probably the best friend I ve got we ve got. He showed 
 me how useless it was. I ve studied enough to know. He s 
 perfectly right." 
 
 "But, dearie ! I ve got a plan. I can fix it so that you ll 
 have a better teacher, a lot more lessons 
 
 "There won t be any more lessons for me," she replied 
 with a sort of hopeless decisiveness. "Rob, dear." 
 
 "Yes, honey." 
 
 "Let s go back to Bushelville." 
 
 "What ! And leave your career, all this art crowd we ve 
 been working up?" 
 
 "They ve been working us up, I think, Rob. We ve sold 
 out everything we had to pay for the party. They re will 
 ing to praise and flatter and encourage, so long as we keep 
 a bottle on ice. The bottle s empty now and we can afford 
 tickets home maybe." 
 
 "But there s Blaize." It cost Robert a struggle to 
 yield this justice. "He really did a nice, friendly thing in 
 getting you a chance." 
 
 "Blaize!" Then she turned slowly to her husband and 
 asked : 
 
 "Do you know what Blaize suggested yesterday at lunch ? 
 Don t be angry, Rob. It was my fault as much as his. I ve 
 been crazy, I think, with an ambition to be something I
 
 186 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 wasn t. Hildreth Sunder, too, had been telling me a lot of 
 emancipated stuff. She warned me time and again that an 
 artist could never succeed until the false values of the con 
 ventional world had been cast away. I didn t know exactly 
 what she meant then. But when Blaize offered me Som- 
 merfield as a sort of bribe I was fool enough to let him talk 
 without without killing him on the spot. It s queer what 
 this poison does to people." 
 
 "I could have told you that, dearie," he said gently. 
 
 "Why didn t you?" 
 
 "I knew it sort of made you nervous to have me butting 
 in. There s a limit, even for a Goat, honey." 
 
 "Oh, Rob !" 
 
 There was a long pause, but she never moved. 
 
 "I sent him away to-night," she said finally. 
 
 "Delia, could you be satisfied with Bushelville and the 
 choir after this ? It s a jay, one-street burg and the people 
 don t know they re alive. It s awful small." 
 
 "I m awful small too," she sighed. "It would be heaven 
 to me after this. I m tired to the heart of the whole mess." 
 
 "We ll start packing to-morrow !" 
 
 "How can we? We re broke. I know, Rob, how deep 
 you ve gone into this thing for me. There isn t a cent in 
 prospect. You ve sold out your business, the house we first 
 lived in is mortgaged. We just couldn t live." 
 
 "Oho ! If that s all you re worrying about !" 
 
 "Have you have you anything in view?" 
 
 "Just a little thing." Robert W. Rumley could not find 
 heart to rebuke the elation that rose shining to his brow. 
 "Sommerfield saw me work the silencer while you were 
 singing. Right after that he locked me in here and talked 
 like a business man he s president of the International 
 Metal Contrivance Company, you know. He won t buy my 
 patent yet, he says, because it s crude and requires a lot of 
 tinkering." 
 
 "Oh!"
 
 THE GOAT 187 
 
 "But he s offered me ten thousand dollars advance for 
 the year, just to work it out." 
 
 Ambition s emancipated slave looked away to hide the 
 tears which would not be denied. 
 
 "Rob, you re the only real thing in the world," she whis 
 pered. 
 
 "There s Freddie Poole," suggested her husband loyally. 
 
 Her slender fingers doubled over a chunky, capable hand 
 reddened by continual contact with kitchen soap and labora 
 tory metal filings.
 
 WHEN Admah Hoag, quite without announcing his 
 intention, emerged out of obscurity and into fame 
 as America s ablest mural painter, it became the 
 duty of his aunt, Mrs. Corlear van Zoon, to civilise him. 
 She started early, for she had a great task on her hands; 
 and this is how she succeeded. 
 
 But a few months after "The Elektra," his remarkable 
 fresco, had been unveiled in the new Pan-Hellenic Build 
 ing, and newspaper men were still scrambling for interviews 
 with this elusive young genius, who had hidden away as 
 though his achievement had been a shameful crime, she 
 went over the bridge to Brooklyn with the definite object 
 of making something out of the sorry material which her 
 nephew offered. A smartly clad, handsome woman, her 
 hair pleasantly pepper-and-salted, she threaded her way 
 gingerly down the narrow, sloping street under the bridge 
 and entered a barn of a place so near the river that you 
 could have popped a snowball into the water. The second 
 floor, at whose battered door she knocked daintily, had 
 once been a storage loft. Even in his unrewarded youth 
 Mrs. van Zoon had resented this structure, and to-day as 
 she brought a white knuckle against the drab panel she 
 reflected that it was silly, unsanitary and not at all in keep 
 ing with her Admah s rising fortunes. 
 
 Her knocks awoke nothing but echoes. She tried the 
 knob and her sense of secure property value was outraged 
 to find that the door was unlocked, the studio apparently 
 
 1 88
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 189 
 
 deserted. The great, gaunt, dingy room, mysterious in the 
 November twilight, looked lonesome; a vast cartoon of the 
 Elektra figure covered a far wall and seemed about to spring 
 forth in that menacing, terrible strength with which the 
 brush of the young giant was able to endow his creations. 
 
 Somewhere up aloft a nasal tenor was droning and dron 
 ing a sort of weird incantation. It was something about 
 a little dog. . . . "The little dawg was run-ning. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, Ad ! Admah, dear !" 
 
 In spite of herself her voice quavered into the cry of a 
 frightened child. 
 
 "Yip !" 
 
 "Where in the world are you?" 
 
 "Come up !" The strident summons floated down to her. 
 Suddenly a square of light appeared in a far corner of the 
 ceiling and, operated by unseen hands, an electric bulb on 
 the end of a cord came down and illuminated a rickety 
 stairway. 
 
 The caller picked her way through the clutter of the big 
 untidy space. Even as her small, light-topped shoes began 
 taking the steps upward the drawling chant resumed its 
 drone : 
 
 "The little dawg was run-ning round the engine, 
 The engine it was run-ning through the fawg. 
 There came an awful yelp 
 Which the engine couldn t help; 
 For the engine couldn t run a-round the dawg." 
 
 Then, as she achieved the top step, the threnody sobbed 
 to its inevitable conclusion : 
 
 "The little dawg was run-ning round the en-gine ; 
 But the en-gine couldn t run a-round the dawg." 
 
 In a cheap and awful little room, a cell of a place, papered 
 with purple roses, heated by a base burner stove, adorned 
 with Civil War lithographs of lowly origin, furnished with 
 a yellow roll-top desk and a Morris chair of super-mid- 
 Victorian design, stood the newly acknowledged prince of
 
 190 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^vr^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^T^ 1 "" 
 
 American painters under a blaze of electric lights. His 
 big-muscled arms protruded from an athletic undershirt, 
 the re v st of him was encased in a comprehensive pair of 
 blue overalls. His blond hair closely cropped, his eyes keen 
 as a sharpshooter s, his features heavy but curiously shy, 
 Admah Hoag looked exactly what he was the best born 
 grandson of an able mechanic. 
 
 It was quite a minute before he looked up, for he was 
 absorbed in manipulating a mass of clay on the top of his 
 desk, shaping it dexterously by the aid of a match and a 
 palette knife. 
 
 "Aunt Pinny! Excuse me!" He dropped his knife with 
 a clatter and, bounding over, planted a dutiful kiss upon 
 her spotted veil. "I thought it was the girl from Louey s 
 with the goulash." 
 
 "Why in the world don t you turn out some of these 
 awful lights?" 
 
 "I love em," seemed sufficient explanation for him. 
 
 "What a way to live!" moaned his good aunt, who had 
 said it in his presence a thousand times. 
 
 "I was going to dress and come over to the Island for 
 dinner. But I got to fussing with this 
 
 Upon closer inspection she saw what he had been doing 
 with the clay. He had moulded it into a miniature land 
 scape; a very crooked shanty with a very crooked stove 
 pipe and, to the rear on the summit of a high crag, a 
 haughty little goat. It was done with the delicate intri 
 cacy of a Chinese ornament in malachite, and it was ex 
 pressive of that character which Admah Hoag put into his 
 slightest work. 
 
 "What a silly little gob !" exclaimed his censorious rela 
 tive. 
 
 "It s a design for a country house," he told her cheer 
 fully, puffing away at a very black Porto Rican cigar. "I 
 once saw such a shanty on a bluff near Pittsburg. It was 
 inhabited by an Irish lady who was a witch and kept an 
 enchanted princess rushing the growler for her all day long.
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 191 
 
 I tried to hire the princess as a model, but when the witch 
 heard of it she told her brother-in-law, who was a team 
 ster and " 
 
 "What a vile room !" cut in Mrs. van Zoon, paying not 
 the slightest heed to the unfolding romance. "Where in 
 the world did you get together such a collection of atroci 
 ties ?" 
 
 "It is pretty bad, isn t it?" he acknowledged in a voice 
 which revealed much pride. "This little old room has been 
 sealed up ever since I took the loft. I ve always pined for 
 a natural abiding place, all my own. So % last week I man 
 aged to jimmy the lock. This is just as I found it. It used 
 to belong to a tug-boat captain who left everything ship 
 shape the day he was drowned." 
 
 "Of course you ll have it decorated." 
 
 "Decorated ! If an interior decorator comes within a 
 mile of this spot well, I guess you know what I think 
 about interior decorators." He settled himself on a box 
 and glared moodily. "No, sir! This is a he-room. It s a 
 place where a man can come to think and smoke tobacco." 
 
 "Where s your aesthetic sense?" 
 
 "I check it outside when I come in here. This is the best 
 place I know of to forget that I m an artist. By Jove, 
 Aunt Pinny, this whole artistic game makes me sick !" 
 
 "Admah!" 
 
 "Why can t people leave me be to lead the life I m used 
 to?" 
 
 "You oughtn t to get used to this sort of thing," chided 
 his aunt very gently. "You ve got to remember that the 
 instant you were recognised in the big way you ve been 
 you stepped into a new plane. You don t belong to your 
 self any more. You belong to the public who have ac 
 knowledged you." 
 
 "Good Lord! Is it as bad as that?" he groaned, and 
 scraped his capable 5ngers through his short hair. 
 
 "You ve got to cultivate a sense of your obligation. I 
 hate to scold you, my dear; but it did seem a shame, the
 
 192 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^~^~ m ~^~ ^^^ m * mmmmm ^ m * m *~ m ~^~^~ m **~ i ^^ mm ^^^^^^~ mmiim **^^* mi ~ m ^~^ m * mi ^~^^y 
 
 night your fresco was unveiled everybody who was any 
 body surrounding you and doing you honour that you 
 didn t have anything better to say than that you had a cold 
 and wanted to go home " 
 
 "Why in the world do people lose all their brains when 
 they travel in crowds?" he protested. "Because I did my 
 job and they liked it and I got paid for it, why did they 
 have to hold me there to hear them lecture at me and sing 
 at me " 
 
 "Few people can have Caruso to sing at them, as you call 
 it." 
 
 "And then an actor had to get up and recite Gungha Dhin. 
 Years ago I swore that I d never again listen to a recita 
 tion of Gungha Dhin." 
 
 "There s no living actor who does it better." 
 
 "I tell you, Aunt Pinny, the New York idea of art is 
 killing me by inches. This blessed town can t do anything 
 in moderation." He was now storming full force at his 
 favourite abomination. "They ve gone mad over interior 
 decorators want to cover all the fire plugs with Japanese 
 tea-paper. I d like to go somewhere where I could draw 
 a breath of fresh air and meet some human beings. Look 
 at that Mrs. Ballymoore sometimes I scream out in the 
 night, thinking that woman s coming at me again . . . with 
 her three dozen millions that she ought to be spending on 
 dogs and horses . . . now she s getting together a collec 
 tion of artists. And that awful little interior decorator 
 who s been turning her house into a second-rate mu 
 seum " 
 
 "You mean Carlo Dulcimer ?" asked the lady in a shocked 
 tone. 
 
 "I suppose that s his wormy little name. I ve been 
 dragged once too often into Mrs. Ballymoore s mob of ge 
 nius and been bored enough by that interior decorator " 
 
 "Mr. Dulcimer," supplied his aunt with the patience of 
 an ambassador. 
 
 " squirming and going into a trance over a yard of art
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 193 
 
 . 
 
 cretonne; sticking a lot of fake primitive paintings around 
 walls the colour of spoiled pistachio nuts. I don t like 
 Dulcimer, I don t like Mrs. Ballymoore, I don t like her 
 crowd, I don t like her house. And that s why I ve chosen 
 this room to live in. It s a protest." 
 
 "It s about Mrs. Ballymoore that I ve come all this way," 
 said his aunt, folding her gloved hands and looking at him 
 quizzically. 
 
 "Now, Aunt Pinny, darling! Don t say " 
 
 "Have you forgotten she s giving you a reception to-mor 
 row afternoon?" 
 
 "Reception? Say now that s just like that woman. 
 She asked me to drop in and have a cup of tea " 
 
 "Her cards are out. This is to be one of the largest re 
 ceptions of the season." 
 
 "Now look here !" The man in overalls arose and loomed 
 over the neat figure of the only member of the Hoag family 
 that had ever attained the Social Register. "She s going 
 a little too far. She can t get me under false pretences. 
 I ll not go." 
 
 "You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your reputation." 
 
 "I don t owe a darned thing to Mrs. Ballymoore. Aunt 
 Pinny, it s impossible. Besides, I ve got to be out of town 
 I m going West." 
 
 It was only that instant that he knew of the impending 
 Westward journey, but his excuses were sufficient. 
 
 "W T hy didn t you tell me? Why did you allow Mrs. 
 Ballymoore to make all those preparations?" she asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "Well, I ve just decided. There s a town out West where 
 they ve been begging me for the past month to come and 
 look over an Auditorium. There has been considerable 
 correspondence. I ve been negotiating I ve 
 
 "Where is this Auditorium ?" she interrupted suspiciously. 
 
 Admah hesitated. As a matter of fact he had forgotten 
 the name of the town, but what he said was literally true. 
 
 "Admah, you poor daft child! Don t you know you ve
 
 194 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 got more work right here in New York than you can pos 
 sibly do in a lifetime ? Why should you go West ?" 
 
 "I ll tell you why. I want to get away from interior 
 decorators and speechifying and receptions and all this New 
 York twaddle. I want to go to a place where there s more 
 fresh air than culture, where the people are just natural 
 and this confounded lion-chasing hasn t gotten fashionable. 
 That s why I want to go." 
 
 "You ve never been West of Pittsburg in your life. You 
 don t know the least thing about anything. Have you 
 positively promised to go?" 
 
 "Well, no. But practically " 
 
 "Then you re not going to do anything insane. You ll 
 think this over and be a good boy. Won t you, Admah ?" 
 
 He cast an affectionate glance at the relative, whom he 
 had always adored and never agreed with. 
 
 "You know, painting with me is a business. I can t be 
 at Mrs. Ballymoore s beck and call when really serious 
 things are at stake." 
 
 "I ll call you up in the morning," she smiled securely, ris 
 ing and picking up her beaded bag. "I ll engage rooms for 
 you at the Vanderbilt and have your afternoon things all 
 laid out for you. Don t worry about anything. And I ll 
 stand by you to see that Mrs. Ballymoore doesn t eat you 
 up." 
 
 "And that decorator chap ?" 
 
 "He won t bother you. He s gone away." 
 
 Admah Hoag, ordinarily a wordless individual, stood ir 
 resolute, striving for further protests. 
 
 "Good-bye, dear. No, don t go out with me you ll catch 
 cold. My car s right around the corner. You ll feel more 
 sensible in the morning." 
 
 She was gone and Admah Hoag settled down again in his 
 hideous Morris chair. The thought of Mrs. Ballymoore and 
 her hated family smarted like a burn. The fear of the 
 crowd, too, had been a disease with him since the early day 
 when a zealot of a schoolmistress had dragged him to the
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 195 
 
 rostrum to say "Horatius at the Bridge" before a giggling 
 roomful. And to his distorted imagination Mrs. Bally- 
 moore stood for but one thing the public appearance which 
 he abhorred; teas, receptions, inane palaverings. 
 
 He had not spoken vainly when he threatened to go West. 
 A booming city. . . . Harnessville he now remembered it 
 to be called . . . had taken an inscrutable interest in his 
 work ever since the Pan-Hellenic unveiling. Innumerable 
 letters and telegrams signed "A. A. Gallop, Chairman Art 
 Committee," had come to him, each more coaxing than the 
 last. Harnessville desired to be beautified and it would 
 take no substitutes. There was an endowment and Admah 
 Hoag could have fifty thousand dollars for the asking. 
 
 Once or twice he had been on the verge of packing for 
 Harnessville. It would be a refuge from such tuft-hunters 
 as the Ballymoore tribe. It was that woman s daughter, 
 Vera, who had been a particular annoyance to him. For a 
 week or so he had been inane enough to imagine himself in 
 love. Their meetings had been aided and abetted by the 
 ambitious Mrs. Ballymoore, he found out soon enough. She 
 had a way of bringing together celebrities as one collects 
 porcelains, as a piquante social attraction. Then along had 
 come this cooing, plausible interior decorator, Carlo Dulci 
 mer. Vera had played them very nicely as decoys for a 
 large foreign title which she was then stalking. To have 
 been thrown with Dulcimer, every hair of whose head he 
 despised, in such a position of spurious rivalry, was an 
 unending irritation to Hoag, who was of those impulsive 
 souls who fracture their skulls in attempting to smash a 
 mosquito. 
 
 At any rate, he had had common sense enough to escape. 
 And now Mrs. Ballymoore was after him again! 
 
 For a long, long time Admah Hoag sat under his favour 
 ite cluster of electric lights as he puffed a Porto Rican cigar 
 and reflected. For his aunt s sake he would buck up and 
 go to the reception. But he hated all receptions. And it 
 was like Mrs. Ballymoore s detestable trickery to wish this
 
 196 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 one on him. Sweat gathered on his brow as he thought of 
 the ordeal to which family affection had pledged him. He 
 saw himself trussed up like an usher wasting away at centre 
 stage and being sung at perhaps some awful actor would 
 recite "Gungha Dhin." . . . 
 
 Far away on the outside studio door there came a thun 
 derous rap-tap-tapping. Admah swore, hitched his sus 
 penders over his athletic undershirt and went forth. As he 
 opened the door he saw, vaguely silhouetted in the hall 
 lamp, a small figure in a visored cap. 
 
 "Mr. Hog?" 
 
 "Sometimes." 
 
 "Telegram. Sign here." 
 
 When he had clicked on a light he tore open the yellow 
 envelope to read: 
 
 "Can you come at once Harnessville make your own terms 
 must know immediately answer paid. 
 
 W. A. GALLOP, 
 Chairman Art Committee." 
 
 Admah retained the boy by a sleeve. "Answer paid." 
 It was as though he had called upon his Divinity and she 
 had responded with a miracle. W. A. Gallop the name 
 had a blunt, forthright man-sound. Obviously he owed 
 nothing to Mrs. Ballymoore. The West was calling the 
 great, free, natural West, unspoiled by the empty vanities 
 which had made the East unendurable for him ! 
 
 "Four words," responded the lad, after Admah had 
 scrawled his reply on a scrap of card-board. 
 
 Thus Admah Hoag became a refugee from Fame. 
 
 II 
 
 Because Trenton, New Jersey, had been Out West to 
 Admah Hoag before his latest adventure, let me pioneer the 
 way, revealing Harnessville and the events which covered 
 several months and culminated in that fourteen-word tele-
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 197 
 
 gram. W. A. Gallop, signer of the message, was one Wini 
 fred Alisia Gallop, known as "Skinny Winny" to the 
 younger or disrespectful set and published as "Mrs. Ameri- 
 cus Gallop" in the society column of the Harnessville Eagle. 
 Mrs. Gallop was a lady of decisive character, as illustrated 
 by the set of her jaw, and of soaring ideals, as indicated 
 by the occasional softening of her fierce blue eyes. Ameri- 
 cus, husband and provider by profession, well knew that 
 softening of the iris and had learned to dread what it por 
 tended; anything in Harnessville might be torn up or torn 
 down. And it was on a night in early Spring, just as 
 Americus had settled down in his favourite Morris chair 
 and under the uncompromising brilliance of the brass- 
 stemmed, green-globed reading lamp he so dearly loved, that 
 a glance over the sporting edition brought to him disturb 
 ingly that bodeful look in his lady s eyes. 
 
 "Carlo Dulcimer has come back. He s going to stay 
 awhile and give us some talks about beautifying. He 
 makes our life out here seem so sordid." 
 
 She was telling this to her eldest daughter, Amelia, while 
 their youngest, America, sat at the piano banging out musi 
 cal comedy with all her raw-boned strength. 
 
 "I saw him going into Palessy s Drug Store. Isn t he 
 distinguished looking !" 
 
 Amelia offered this contribution and Americus Gallop, 
 poring over baseball futurities, made the note in the back of 
 his head, "Amelia would say that." He was one of your 
 fathers who love all their children equally well, yet there 
 was a human quality in his affection for the hobbledehoy 
 America Merry as he familiarly called her which he 
 could not extend to his more accomplished and better be 
 haved daughter. He sat there, just catching such shreds 
 of the conversation as escaped above the tune which the 
 noisy Merry was dinning from the keys : quite unconscious 
 of the fascinating subject, the young girl stretched her long 
 arms across the keyboard, shook her unruly hank of red 
 dish hair and swung into the rhythm of "Some Little Bug
 
 198 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^"^ ^^ mm~mm~^^m **** ~ i^ ~ y 
 
 Will Get You Some Day," a composition then becoming 
 popular in Harnessville. 
 
 Man, they say, has no intuitions. He may be permitted, 
 however, to have a hunch now and then ; and that evening 
 Americus Gallop, as he glanced awry across the cosy, ugly, 
 mid- Victorian comforts of his living room, enjoyed a vision 
 of trouble approaching in the flesh of Mr. Dulcimer. He 
 had known and played cards with Joe Dulcimer, Harness- 
 ville s leading dry-goods merchant, for the better part of a 
 lifetime. He remembered Joe having a boy called Charlie, 
 a Fauntleroyish thing in a pleated collar. When did he be 
 come Carlo ? What was the meaning of this insect coming 
 back and finding Harnessville sordid ? What sort of strange 
 germ was Winifred going to absorb now into her sensitive 
 pores? It was bad enough the way Mrs. Modderson had 
 got hold of her in her highbrowed lectures on How to 
 Speak. 
 
 Reflection made Americus nervous, so he clapped on his 
 hat and rambled over to the Falstaff club for a game of 
 pitch in the Amen Corner. 
 
 On the evening of the morrow he had forgotten his fears 
 as he unlatched the front door and whistled "Rock of Ages" 
 slightly off the key. Mr. Gallop was a short, round-faced, 
 round-bodied man, somewhat suggestive of the barrels 
 which had prospered him greatly in the flour business. And 
 to-night his face was dreamy with anticipation ; for Ameri 
 cus Gallop, never an imaginative man, loved the quiet dusk 
 when he could sprawl with the evening papers in his own 
 Morris chair, under his own green light. The chair, the 
 light, the paper and Americus Gallop had come into con 
 junction at about this hour for a length of days beyond com 
 putation. He always saved the papers to read in that Mor 
 ris chair, under that light. And to-night was no exception, 
 save that olive branches were, perhaps, a trifle more promi 
 nent than usual in the mood he carried home with him. 
 
 But as he swung the front door to the arc of observation
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 199 
 
 Americus became aware that something had happened, and 
 that something affected him disagreeably. He skipped a 
 stanza of his hymn and supplied it with profanity. Some 
 thing had gone wrong with the lights in the big living room. 
 The green light on the tall brass rod was out, certain wall 
 brackets glowed dismally. Hadn t he just spoken to the 
 Electric Company about the wiring? If there was anything 
 he naturally abominated it was coming home to a dungeon. 
 He hated watery half-lights as all male-kind are supposed 
 to hate them. He worshipped Edison as the Incas adored 
 the sun. Consequently his spirits fell like winter mercury 
 as he groped his way by ponderous articles of black walnut 
 furniture until he had found the switch and, with an im 
 patient punch of thumb, caused the chandelier which hung 
 from the ceiling to blaze again. 
 
 "Americus !" 
 
 It was the voice of his wife which came chidingly. Cen 
 tred under the light which beat upon the big, comfortable, 
 ugly room, he stood blinking into the semi-darkness and 
 saw or thought he saw what had never appeared to him 
 before. His Winifred was absorbingly interested in a 
 young man; vis-a-vis in an alcove she sat with a slender, 
 fair-haired youth, talking earnestly in a tone as neutral as 
 the lights had been. 
 
 "Americus !" Now she pitched her voice to a shriller key, 
 which was more the way she talked before Mrs. Modder- 
 son came to town. "Turn them down they re dreadful." 
 
 "What s got into you, Winnie?" inquired the rattled 
 interloper. 
 
 "They re garish," she complained, bringing her voice 
 down again. "And, Americus, I want you to meet Mr. 
 Dulcimer." 
 
 He knew it ! Hunch had again triumphed over intuition. 
 
 Americus shuffled forward and was hypocritically pleased 
 to meet Mr. Dulcimer. The slender young man unwound 
 himself and came to a stand. His face was chalky, his hair 
 the shade of straw; and in his smile there was saddish
 
 200 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 sweetness. He affected rings set with unhealthy green 
 stones. 
 
 "Not Joe Dulcimer s son?" asked Americus quite natu 
 rally. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Gallop." Dulcimer spoke with the suggestion 
 of a lisp. 
 
 "I thought you were dead," announced Americus, not 
 trying to disguise his disappointment. 
 
 "I ve been away studying," replied he. "And I ve been 
 practising my art several years in New York." 
 
 "Hum. What s your art ?" 
 
 "Decorating." 
 
 "That s good. I guess Joe needs a good window trim 
 mer around his store." 
 
 "Not that!" Dulcimer stiffened like an offended lily. 
 "Interior decorating." 
 
 Americus was going to sit down, but thought better of it. 
 
 "I ve been asking Mr. Dulcimer for some advice," Wini 
 fred came quickly to his defence. 
 
 "Well." Americus shuffled grimly away toward his cor 
 ner. "I don t see how you can accomplish much by sittin 
 in the dark unless you expect a spirit message." 
 
 Settled at last in his Morris chair, Americus could see, 
 indistinct in the twilight, the wavering outlines of Wini 
 fred s guest, perched on the edge of a chair as though about 
 to fly. What the deuce was Winny up to now? He 
 growled like the sequestered bulldog who scents a cat, then 
 he sighed and unfolded the sporting sheet of the Evening 
 Courier. 
 
 Prosperity in the flour business, of which Americus Gal 
 lop was undisputed chieftain in that region, had brought to 
 his home a new standard of luxury. This had been mostly 
 reflected in the women folks. His two daughters, Amelia 
 and America, had "been out" a year or two and their father 
 had learned to look upon their expenses as a sort of blind 
 investment. The effects of finishing school, social groom 
 ing, imported gowns were so obvious in Amelia that Ameri-
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 201 
 
 cus could easily see his money coming back to him with in 
 terest in the form of golden culture. Then there was 
 Merry. She wasn t always right about things as Amelia 
 was; and she lacked her sister s neat, cameo-cut beauty. 
 Americus wasn t sure that his younger daughter was even 
 pretty. Secretly he adored her shadow. Officially he wor 
 ried about her. 
 
 But what the deuce was Winny up to now? 
 
 Behind the arsenical sporting sheet he could hear those 
 soft voices droning in the alcove. It was mostly Dulci 
 mer s lisping note with an occasional exclamation from the 
 lips of Winifred. 
 
 "So much of our taste . . . we have no national colour- 
 intelligence . . . symphonic treatment with a definite 
 melodic theme . . . oh, nothing garish ... a spot here and 
 there for accentuation ... a virile note should be intro 
 duced, like a blare of trumpets . . . the arrangement I se 
 lected in Mrs. Hornblower Ballymoore s drawing- 
 room. . . ." 
 
 Americus had thought so ! This Dulcimer boy might be 
 miles up in the air, but he was working round to business 
 very nicely. 
 
 ". . . violence in colour is like violence in life . . . crim 
 inal ! Yet there is charm in brutality ... a brutal spot 
 of red, let us say . . . some rare old ox blood vazz . . ." 
 
 Mr. Gallop looked sourly up from an analysis of the 
 American League and wondered just what a vazz could be. 
 
 "By ginger !" he decided finally, "he means a vase !" 
 
 It was not until the Gallops, as a family, had assembled 
 round the knobby, jig-sawed black- walnut dinner table that 
 Americus learned the worst about Mr. Dulcimer. Prepara 
 tory to the shock his eyes were again offended by that weird, 
 disagreeable half-light, flickering from a seven-branched 
 candle-stick in the centre of the cloth. Dimly through the 
 obscure atmosphere he could see the familiar features of 
 his women-folk and the gleam of the decolletee, for they
 
 202 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 were apparently going somewhere. To his right the dainty 
 Amelia spooned soup with a perfection of skill. To his 
 left America, white of skin, bright of eye, rather hollow 
 chested, her hank of auburn hair done in a reckless sort of 
 swirl, was attacking the fluid with her usual voracious 
 appetite. 
 
 "Winny, is this economy or style ?" began the head of the 
 house, blinking mildly at the guttering flame. 
 
 Mrs. Gallop sat looking quite the duchess, as she was apt 
 to do after six-thirty, when her iron-grey hair had a way of 
 going into a coiffure icy with rhinestones. 
 
 "America, dear, do sit up !" requested the dowager ere 
 she gave ear to her anxious lord. "Is what economy ?" she 
 at last inquired, regarding him dimly through the haze. 
 
 "This Coliseum by moonlight effect. Are we behind with 
 our electric light bill?" 
 
 "Not as I am aware," she replied, punctiliously helping 
 herself to olives. 
 
 "Well, why not switch on a few? I ve lost the way be 
 tween my plate and my mouth." 
 
 Mr. Gallop had already turned to the waitress when 
 Winifred countermanded the gesture. 
 
 "Americus ! I wish you wouldn t interfere." 
 
 "But, darling! Nobody s dead. When I come home 
 nights I don t see any reason why I can t look at my family, 
 be cheerful and " 
 
 "Your idea of cheerfulness, of course, is all lights blaz 
 ing at once and the Victrola shouting rag-time." He caught 
 a vague impression of his consort shrugging the expansive 
 ivory of her shoulders. "That s the trouble with you Amer 
 ican men. No subtlety. No perspective. No sense of 
 values." 
 
 "The Glendennings," chimed Amelia, introducing the 
 name of the next richest family in Harnessville, "are using 
 candles throughout their house." 
 
 "That accounts for it!" snorted Americus. "Pete Glen- 
 denning was drunk at the club twice last week."
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 203 
 
 The faintest echo of a giggle emanated from the place 
 where America sat; but her mother s disapproving eye 
 caught only the demure, downcast glance of a cat lapping 
 cream. 
 
 There came a momentary silence in which Mrs. Gallop 
 gathered force. 
 
 "If you d only do something with your mind," she began 
 cuttingly, "instead of talking business all day long and 
 playing pitch with a lot of vulgarians at the club, maybe 
 you d begin to appreciate the finer things of life. If you d 
 take the pains to read a few uplifting books " 
 
 "In the dark?" asked Americus wickedly, blinking at the 
 candles. 
 
 "We ll not discuss that point," replied his spouse, snap 
 ping the door of logic and pinching his fingers in the jam. 
 "It wouldn t do a bit of harm for you to know something 
 besides money-making." 
 
 "How much does Dulcimer ask to turn this house into a 
 junk shop?" 
 
 He fired the question with such brutal suddenness that 
 his wife, peering at him through the seven guttering candles, 
 betrayed an unguarded surprise. 
 
 "Mr. Dulcimer doesn t express himself in the terms of 
 dollars and cents. He has dedicated his life to creating 
 beauty, to educating the American people in domestic 
 taste " 
 
 "Who, for instance?" 
 
 "I suppose you have never heard of Mrs. Hornblower 
 Ballymoore of New York?" 
 
 "I don t pay much attention to the movies any more." 
 
 "Movies!" Amelia stiffened at the shock like a smaller 
 and prettier Winifred. America choked on her soup. 
 
 "Aside from her unequalled social position," explained 
 the good lady as soon as she was able, "Mrs. Ballymoore 
 is one of America s few great patrons of art. It is a dis 
 tinguished honour for any artist to be recognised by her." 
 
 "What then ?" asked her husband meekly.
 
 204 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Carlo Dulcimer decorated her Fifth Avenue house, that s 
 what then." 
 
 Haughtily Winifred speared a slice of lamb. Under the 
 table Americus could feel a slight pressure on his toe; of 
 course it was Merry giving him the secret signal one short 
 one and two long but he had forgotten whether it meant, 
 "Keep it up !" or "Go easy !" Whatever the motive, the 
 contact brought comfort and courage to the lonesome de 
 fender of Things As They Are. 
 
 After dinner, when Amelia and her mother had retired to 
 the upper realms in pursuit of evening wraps, America 
 stayed below and hovered over the Morris chair where her 
 father lounged again. 
 
 "America, dear, please hurry!" came the warning from 
 above. 
 
 "Yes, mother." The careless girl leaned over and twined 
 a slim, bare arm around the thick neck of her sire. 
 
 "Daddy," she whispered, "we might as well face the 
 music. We ve got to be stylish, haven t we? Carlo Dulci 
 mer s got all Harnessville going with his lectures on The 
 Sin of Ugliness. Have you heard Carlo coo?" 
 
 She stood away and, assuming a back-leaning curve from 
 neck to heel, writhed her fingers in an imitation of the up- 
 lifter. 
 
 "The crime of garishness . . . the tired business man 
 demands musical comedy in art as well as drama . . . sub 
 dued tones rest the soul with an occasional trumpet-note 
 . . . brutal, brutal!" 
 
 "If I owned that boy I d kill him!" Americus dropped 
 his paper. 
 
 "Perhaps you might arrange to do it anyhow," suggested 
 his own darling daughter, kissing him ere she fled. 
 
 For a long time after his women folk, sweeping past in 
 various shades of evening grandeur, had departed by the 
 big front door, Gallop lay obesely back under the glaring 
 radiance of his green-shaded light. These women ! As he 
 remembered it, thinking back to his boyhood, they had been
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 205 
 
 a softer, more consoling race than now. And yet, come to 
 remember, certain cynical comments had been heard from 
 the bearded lips of his sire. But there was no doubt that 
 the sex had changed for the worse. Everything for ap 
 pearances nowadays. Style had taken the place of com 
 fort. Women had become a tribe of window dressers. 
 
 A retrospective glance over the wealth of black-walnut 
 furniture he had inherited reminded him of another, smaller 
 house, further East, where his mother s care had arranged 
 everything for the comfort of the family head. In those 
 days the dining room had been used as a sitting room for 
 the whole family and the dining table had been, after sup 
 per, an assembly spot. There his father, assuming the 
 official dressing-gown of repose, had sat with his wife and 
 children, reading, talking, helping with the lessons. There 
 hadn t been so darned much visiting round in those days. 
 People stayed at home. Only relatives and intimates were 
 admitted to the evening circle, which was sacred to privacy 
 and comfort. The table was not littered with silver- framed 
 photographs of young mothers in full evening dress tending 
 the baby, or antique gift-books or curious lamps made out 
 of Chinese bowls. It had been frankly a dining table, 
 cleared off for the evening. 
 
 Thus Americus Gallop indulged in the pre-Adamite 
 pastime of saluting the good old days. 
 
 Lately women had got notions, he continued his sad 
 dening philosophy. Even his mother in her declining days 
 had decreed a special "living room," in keeping with their 
 station in society. But there had still been comfortable 
 chairs and plenty of lights. The new house here in Har- 
 nessville had begun to take on the look of a hotel after the 
 children grew up. Winifred had insisted upon a "library" 
 and had just tolerated Americus in his corner with his Mor 
 ris chair and his green light, the latter shedding brilliancy 
 downward like an inverted funnel. 
 
 Burdened with the weight of these reflections, Americus 
 bounced to his feet, crossed the big room and switched on
 
 206 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 the big chandelier. From thence he strode into the dining 
 room and caused a bath of light to pour over that interior. 
 He gloomily surveyed the scene which he loved and loved 
 deeply, for the very good reason that he had grown up with 
 it. His defiant gaze took in everything; the marble-topped 
 side tables; the curio cabinet, harbouring relics from Colo 
 rado Springs and the Mammoth Cave; the gigantic sofa, 
 built to a sort of Egyptian design and inlaid with oblongs 
 of French walnut; the knife-edged steel engravings, illus 
 trating moral and patriotic subjects. Then last and longest 
 he regarded the homely, cosy corner he called his own. No 
 style, no attempt at appearances ; and the only place on 
 earth where he could read the papers in perfect satisfaction. 
 Americus Gallop blew his nose, then abruptly he walked 
 over to the old-fashioned hat-rack where he selected his 
 Fedora from the proper peg. A moment later the front 
 door slammed so violently as to threaten the integrity of its 
 needlessly ornate stained glass pane. 
 
 in 
 
 "If you don t want things to happen," saith the sage, "stay 
 at home." How true a speech ! How many an Ulysses, re 
 turning unexpectedly after a hard season on the road, has 
 found his house profaned by stranger influences, effete 
 Athenians draping art-chintz over the altar of Poseidon! 
 
 But Americus Gallop couldn t exert his entire vigilance 
 to repelling Dulcimer. A few days after the door-slamming 
 episode business called him East as far as Chicago and he 
 was gone nearly two months. Upon his grateful return to 
 the ugly, complicated brick house on the Square he opened 
 the front door much more gently than he had closed it ; for 
 he was hoping against hope. Winifred in a letter had hinted 
 briefly at "some repairs." Therefore it was painfully, as 
 though the latch-key had swollen with the heat, that he 
 opened the door of 1211 Washington Street and stood 
 rooted.
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 207 
 
 Behold ! He beheld. His first gasping thought was that 
 there had been a fire in the place and Winny hadn t told 
 him. A sort of muddy, ashen texture covered the walls. 
 Upon closer observation he concluded that this was of de 
 liberate design, for the stuff, when he touched it, felt expen 
 sive. He rubbed up his eyeglasses, which the heavy weather 
 had somewhat fogged, and took another look. Stiff, carven 
 chairs fearful engines upon which kings might have been 
 electrocuted reared their high backs in defiance of human 
 anatomy. Literally the floor rang to the stranger s tread. 
 Americus unlimbered his roly-poly person and bent down 
 to touch the carpet a feat he could never have accom 
 plished under a less excitation. Was it madness ? Had the 
 horrors of modern travel turned his brain? There was no 
 carpet there. The space underfoot had been lain with a 
 pinkish, brownish tiling, such as is sometimes found under 
 the chairs in aseptic barber shops. 
 
 At last his trembling fingers came upon the switch whose 
 button he pressed, flooding the madhouse scene with light. 
 Devastation everywhere. Beauty like the Plague of Egypt 
 had marked his home. 
 
 Not a vestige of the historic Gallop furniture remained. 
 As far as his eye could reach those absolutely unsittable 
 chairs insulted him with their back-breaking contours. 
 Sofas, too, springless as morgue slabs, carved with wreaths 
 and cupids in places cunningly designed to skin the elbow. 
 Dull prints occupied chaste deserts of wall-space; awful 
 Japanese nightmares, representing epileptic Samurai dis 
 jointing themselves under elaborate kimonos. 
 
 Americus stalked silently into the dining room. Just as 
 he had expected. Spindling tables and chairs, obviously not 
 to be touched save in reverence and awe; curious white 
 panelling on the walls running up to a terrible Futurist 
 border representing purple pumpkins at play among blue 
 tennis balls. The wooden bust of a bald-headed maiden 
 with almond eyes smirked down at him from a high shelf.
 
 208 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Then a blighting fear came to Americus Gallop and gripped 
 him by the heart. 
 
 Had they been monkeying with his corner, his shrine, 
 sacred to bright light, cheer and the evening edition? It 
 took some minutes for the haunted man to steel himself. 
 Then numbly he strode forth and hunted out what had been 
 his corner. 
 
 Strangers had profaned the spot. Wonderful strangers 
 they were to be sure, aristocratic, difficile and highly unwel 
 come. It was as though a royal family had moved into a 
 middle-class apartment and set about making themselves 
 obnoxious. Where Mr. Morris friendly invention had once 
 reclined, offering its two squares of apple-green plush to the 
 toil-worn back, here sat an immense, florid golden throne, 
 silken fringes dangling from the edges, a regal coat of arms 
 embroidered into its tapestried back. A porphyry lamp on 
 a marble pillar supported an exaggerated flower-strewn 
 shade, perched aloft like a bit of atrocious millinery. 
 
 Americus Gallop sniffed and, sniffing, turned. Ke wished 
 to see no more. Half way up the stairs he met his wife 
 coming down, dressed for the street. She kissed him very 
 sweetly and was, of course, delighted at his early return. 
 
 "And, Americus," she intimated as he was passing her 
 toward the second landing, "you haven t said a word about 
 it. Haven t you seen how we ve improved?" 
 
 "I was noticing," he grunted. "Where do you propose 
 to set Father in the future ?" 
 
 "We ve gone to all sorts of trouble to arrange your cor 
 ner," she went on in the affable tone which betrayed her 
 guilt. "It s the most successful arrangement of all. 
 Haven t you seen your new lamp and the Venetian throne 
 chair?" " 
 
 "I m not a Venetian," he growled. "And as far as I can 
 make out those Dodges of Venice must have stood up a lot 
 or else wore pillows strapped to " 
 
 "Americus !" she warned him and took her departure.
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 209 
 
 He was partially consoled upon reaching the head of the 
 stairs to find that Beauty had receded at the top step and 
 left the second floor undamaged. In a little ante-room off 
 Winny s boudoir he found his Morris chair and reading 
 lamp clustered comfortably in a corner under his favourite 
 steel engraving, a romantic piece representing rival heroes 
 of the Civil War shaking hands over a section of battle 
 field. There was a walnut rack for his newspapers, a com 
 petent gas-log, the big old-fashioned sofa from downstairs. 
 Altogether the scene was livable for him, although it im 
 parted a sense of isolation as though he were a defective 
 member of the family to be kept in retirement. 
 
 The vigorous America, singing at the top of her lungs, 
 came in upon him, smothered him with kisses, patted him 
 into his Morris chair, sat on an arm and assured him that 
 he had returned in time to save a fragment. She had bor 
 rowed a gingham apron from somewhere, her reddish hank 
 was braided down her back and there was a short pencil- 
 smudge on her chin. 
 
 "You were being evicted, old dear," she told him. "It 
 was to the second hand store with poor Dad s corner. 
 You re not ornamental, Pop. Mr. Dulcimer says your Mor 
 ris chair is banal and he turns quite pink with passion 
 every time he looks at your reading lamp. Well, I per 
 suaded Mother to move your chamber of horrors up here." 
 
 "My sakes. I didn t know you had any influence." 
 
 "I guess I was pretty atrocious. Mommer said she d leave 
 your junk be if I d stop making Mr. Dulcimer ridiculous 
 in public." 
 
 "Is that milky little worm still infesting the town?" 
 
 "The town? He s infesting Amelia." 
 
 "D you mean to say he s got the nerve to presume 
 * 
 
 "Mother s flattered to death, of course. He sticks to 
 Amelia like a caterpillar and she s well, it s just what 
 Mr. Coleridge said in the poem, A damsel with a Dulci 
 mer.*"
 
 210 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "You don t say so !" This was Mr. Gallop s formula for 
 receiving news which he did not choose to flatter with his 
 opinion. 
 
 "That s a sketchy get-up, Merry," he volunteered at last, 
 surveying his daughter s apron and the pencil smudge under 
 her chin. 
 
 "I ve been drawing," she announced breathlessly. 
 
 "Drawing what?" 
 
 "Pictures." 
 
 "Land of Canaan! Have you got it, too?" 
 
 He must have swooned away had she not promptly in 
 formed him, 
 
 "Oh, nothing serious. Heaven save me from it. Awful 
 blobs, Daddy. Honestly, somebody had to do it." 
 
 "Do what?" he puzzled. 
 
 "Mr. Dulcimer and Mr. Dulcimer s Disciples and Mother 
 and Amelia and the Pilgrim s Chorus and the Uplift in 
 Harnessville you look tired, Daddy darling. Want to see 
 something foolish?" 
 
 She bounded forth and came stamping back again, a great 
 sheaf of paper under her capable arm. 
 
 "First," she announced, bringing forth a sheet, "this is 
 Mr. Dulcimer reproving the Family Furniture." 
 
 A spirited, insulting and highly lifelike representation of 
 Mr. Dulcimer writhed in the centre of the composition, to 
 his right the mid- Victorian sofa, to his left the Gallop what 
 not. Disgust was on his pallid features, his fingers were 
 plucking invisible weeds from thin air; and from his in-, 
 drawn lips emerged, in a caricaturist s cloud, the word 
 "Banal!" 
 
 "Mr. Dulcimer Having an Ecstasy," she next sang out, 
 bringing forth a second sheet which revealed the prophet of 
 domestic beauty holding up a strip of art-cretonne while 
 several of Harnessville s best known club women knelt in 
 adoration. Mrs. Gallop s likeness was conspicuously cen 
 tred in the group. Americus grinned wickedly, then re 
 marked in a tone of grave admonition,
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 211 
 
 "You oughtn t to do that to your mother, Merry." 
 
 "Well, she was in the crowd," replied America carelessly. 
 "And you know what happens to the innocent bystander." 
 
 "Give me a kiss," he demanded. And as soon as that 
 filial act was accomplished, 
 
 "Better hide em deep, Merry. Because, if your mother 
 should see that stuff " 
 
 Under the well established law that nothing stands still, 
 Decoration advanced steadily in the Gallop household. The 
 first time Americus heard Carlo Dulcimer s purring voice 
 in an upstairs hall he crept into his improvised reading room 
 and muttered in the calmness of despair, 
 
 "Give him two weeks." 
 
 Americus gave him four days too long, for he came home 
 early one afternoon to find overalled strangers tacking 
 gaudy chintz all over his newly made holy of holies. His 
 Morris chair, his trombone lamp, his patriotic engravings 
 had again been spirited away and they were already moving 
 in green and white furniture of an unknown material and 
 exotic pattern. Next came cushions to match the curtains. 
 Americus gloated morbidly, glorying in his own pain like 
 one of those fabled monsters who obtain nourishment by 
 swallowing themselves. Another sardonic substitute for 
 his Morris chair had been shoved into a corner. This time 
 it was one of those slippery wicker hermaphrodites which 
 go by the name of chaise tongue. A tall thing on a long 
 white pole with a ridiculous chintz ruffle on top stood for 
 an illumination. 
 
 "What s the latest idea ?" he asked Winny feebly as soon 
 as that arbiter, busily bossing workmen, appeared on the 
 scene. 
 
 "We had to have an upstairs sitting room," she took time 
 to explain. "So many people drop in informally in the 
 morning and at odd hours. It s perfectly barbarous to re 
 ceive informal callers in the drawing room." 
 
 "Good night !" Americus Gallop spoke not in the Ian-
 
 212 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 guage of the street, but with the finality of a broken spirit. 
 "My address after office hours will be the Falstaff Club." 
 
 "Americus, you re not going to have one of your spells 
 when I m so busy?" She looked sincerely worried. 
 
 "I am not," said he. "But I am looking for a place where 
 I can sit down where I can sit down without having to 
 wear chintz pajamas." 
 
 "You re a hopeless Philistine," she sighed. 
 
 "I am," he replied, "and I m being beautified out of 
 house and home." 
 
 This is fighting talk, the food of litigants. And many a 
 prospective divorce has threatened thus and sued afterward. 
 Winifred Gallop wondered what he was going to do as she 
 saw her lord charge out of the house; and she would have 
 been relieved to know that Americus was wondering the 
 same thing. 
 
 His coat collar turned up in the approved mode of the 
 Apache, his hat over his ears, his hands in his pockets, his 
 heart in his shoes, he slushed along through the rainy streets 
 contemplating a larger, wetter alcoholism than had ever 
 solaced the grief of Pete Glendenning. 
 
 "Da-a-ad-dy !" A treble voice in breathless pursuit caught 
 the ear between the hat brim and the upturned collar. He 
 turned sourly to behold A_merica, her cheeks brightest pink 
 from vigorous walking, her eyes flashing blue, her flimsy 
 collar flaring back in the wind. 
 
 "What are you escaping from now, old dear?" 
 
 "I m through, Merry," he mumbled, pointing to the brick 
 red towers he had once called home. 
 
 "Daddy, you haven t got the idea at all," she giggled. 
 "II faut soufrlr pour ctre swell. If you re really smart, you 
 know, you re not supposed to be comfortable." 
 
 "All I ask is a soft, quiet place where I can sit down and 
 read my paper," he all but wept. 
 
 "Probably the Apollo Belvedere thinks the same thing. 
 But it can t be done." 
 
 "I m going over to the Club to live."
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 213 
 
 "You sweet old thing, don t be selfish," she pouted. 
 "They don t allow ladies at the Club." 
 
 "That s the very idea," he bitterly informed her. 
 
 "You re a nice one leaving your daughter in a museum 
 and going off to the Club to live. And just as I was ar 
 ranging our lives." 
 
 "Well, chick, it s up to you," he relented. 
 
 "I ve found ^ rat s nest," she announced mysteriously, 
 holding him by the arm to prevent further retreat. 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 "Up in the garret. There s an old trunk room where 
 nobody goes since Mother s taken a notion to store things 
 down in the cellar." 
 
 Americus demurred and took a few steps as he tem 
 porised, 
 
 "I might look it over and see how it can be fixed." 
 
 "Come on !" she urged enthusiastically. "It s miles away 
 from the art centre. Nobody would ever care to follow us 
 there. Come back and take a look at it." 
 
 Reluctantly Americus Gallop doubled his tracks over his 
 line of retreat. America s air became cannier and cannier 
 as she approached the big brick house ; and as they neared 
 that landmark she beckoned her father into an alley where 
 a gate door led through a wall into the servants entrance. 
 
 "We can always come this way," she whispered, "nobody 
 in the world will ever know." 
 
 Up the creaky back stairs they tiptoed, past the second 
 story to the third, down the narrow hall by the servants 
 rooms, across an attic loft devoted to outcast Gallop relics. 
 And at last, under the rafters, America stopped by a little, 
 low white door to which she leaned and inserted a latch 
 key. The mysterious door swung open, and as the girl 
 switched on the overhanging cluster of lights Americus was 
 aware of Paradise. 
 
 Far above the disturbance of housekeeping, out of the 
 way of decorators and domestic uplifters, among the bare 
 boards, under the eaves reposed his Morris chair, his read-
 
 214 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ing lamp, his collection of patriotic steel engravings, his 
 black walnut sofa with the Egyptian legs. Peace and with 
 drawal from an unsympathetic world ! 
 
 "Who did that?" He stood transfixed in the doorway, 
 his fat cheeks wrinkled to a smile, tears brightening his little 
 grey eyes. 
 
 "America Gallop, interior decorator," she announced. 
 
 "Now don t start calling names," grinned her favourite 
 parent, throwing himself into the solace of the apple green 
 cushions. 
 
 IV 
 
 So the Rat s Nest became an established retreat for the 
 dissenting members of the Gallop family. Here content 
 ment caused the air to quiver, much as wheat fields quiver 
 under an August sun. Of afternoons Americus went di 
 rectly from his office to his adored garret, where he usually 
 found America scrawling away at her sketches as she heated 
 water over an electric stove, preparatory to Father s tea. 
 But America was cultivating a heedless and noisy following 
 of young men who employed her days and sometimes kept 
 her away from the sanctuary at the hour of Mr. Gallop s 
 return. At such times he was very lonely indeed. Then 
 she would breeze in with something new about Mr. Dulci 
 mer, who was now reducing poor Amelia to the aesthetic 
 pulp of his ideal. 
 
 If Winifred knew about the Rat s Nest she was too busy 
 to include it in her raids. The civic pulchritude of Har- 
 nessville quite absorbed her time nowadays. The Gallop 
 home was the first interior which Carlo Dulcimer had 
 "done" in that thriving municipality and Mrs. Gallop basked 
 in the prestige it gave her. She discovered herself the 
 crowned arbitrix elegantiarum, proclaimed as a critic and 
 patroness of the arts. Mr. Dulcimer s lectures continued. 
 Harnessville was to become the Athens of the West, Mr. 
 Dulcimer furnishing beauty at his regular rate per yard. 
 
 It was then that the agitation about the Municipal Audi-
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 215 
 
 torium crescendoed to a climax. This great building, which 
 Harnessville had been constructing by popular subscription 
 over a number of years, still lacked adequate decorations. 
 When the Committee on Art, munitioned by a twenty thou 
 sand dollar fund, was wrangling over colour schemes and 
 materials the enterprising Dulcimer insinuated himself into 
 the argument. With him came drawings and figures and 
 a roll of samples. The Committee was entirely composed 
 of ladies with Mrs. Gallop in the chair. Result, Carlo sent 
 to New York for materials and enlarged his offices. 
 
 It was then that Uncle Harry Newcross, local philan 
 thropist, did a most melodramatic thing. He died. His end 
 came after a series of fits, superinduced by a violent quarrel 
 with his family. His substantial fortune, when the will was 
 read, was bequeathed to almost every enterprise alien to the 
 interests of the Newcross clan. A prison reform society 
 got some, an insane asylum more, and fifty thousand dol 
 lars in cash was to be laid aside to be devoted to mural 
 paintings for the new Auditorium, which had been Uncle 
 Harry s weakness in his declining years. 
 
 The loss to the Newcross family was an exhilarating gain 
 to the beautifiers of Harnessville. The Art Committee gave 
 a memorial tea to Uncle Harry s shade and the cloth was 
 spread in Mrs. Gallop s embellished home, wherein Mr. 
 Dulcimer grew impassioned over his Ceylon and went so far 
 as to declare that life was Greek, a sentiment which, some 
 how, brought forth wonderfully enunciated expostulations 
 from the lips of Mrs. Modderson, lecturer on Articulation. 
 Americus Gallop, who heard echoes of this elegant war as 
 he crept up the back stairs toward his retreat, sighed and 
 thanked the Lord that he was well out of it. America, too, 
 seemed to agree with him, for he found her in the little 
 attic room, rapidly pencilling a page in her big portfolio, 
 serene and somewhat messy in her borrowed gingham apron. 
 
 "Who s this Admah Hoag?" asked Americus, as soon as 
 he had tossed his overcoat and hat on the mid- Victorian 
 sofa.
 
 216 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Oh," said Merry, chewing the end of a pencil as she 
 looked up, "what about him?" 
 
 "As I came up I heard Dulcimer making a speech. He 
 was saying Admah Hoag you know how he would say it." 
 
 "You poor ignorant old dear! Haven t you heard of 
 Sargent or Whistler or Michael Angelo? Hoag is all of 
 those. He gets his medals by the barrel. I think he s a 
 bore." 
 
 "What does Dulcimer want of him?" 
 
 "I can t make out," confessed Merry, cocking her head 
 sidewise at the sheet over which she leaned. "He s crazy 
 to get Admah here to do the auditorium." 
 
 "Working it on a commission basis, probably." 
 
 "Sordid !" commented his daughter in the Dulcimer voice. 
 
 "If he s another specimen like that Dulcimer kid I ll 
 wreck the train. This thing has got to stop." 
 
 "I guess he s pretty bad," she cheerfully assured him. 
 "Still, he may be funny I hope so. I m getting a little 
 tired of doing Dulcimer over and over again." 
 
 "Well, if he s Carlo s friend, that s all I want to know 
 about him." 
 
 "It s queer," she murmured abstractedly, her deep blue 
 eyes, which were slightly near-sighted, very close to the 
 page. "I can t make out just what Carlo wants. He s keen 
 to wish this Hoag on Harnessville, but he s gosh-awful 
 modest about dragging his own name into it. For instance, 
 when the Committee sends letters and telegrams and procla 
 mations to the Great One, Carlo fairly screams that they 
 mustn t mention Dulcimer. They wanted to send Carlo 
 East as a special envoy to coax the genius with sugar. No 
 enthusiasm from Carlo. All-of-a-sudden shyness." 
 
 "Then those women are seriously trying to bring another 
 Blight to Harnessville?" moaned the afflicted husband and 
 father. 
 
 "Yes. But between you and me, I don t think he ll come. 
 The Committee has tried all the bait there is. Mother has
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 217 
 
 even stooped to signing herself W. A. Gallop, because she 
 hears that Admah is a professional woman-hater." 
 
 "He ll come all right," persisted Americus bleakly. 
 
 "Maybe so," allowed his daughter. "But there s no tell 
 ing what he ll do when he sees the Auditorium. He might 
 come right down with an attack of temperament and go 
 home." 
 
 "He ll do the job," grunted the unrelenting one. 
 
 "Don t be sure about it, old dear. He s a perfect bear. 
 He s written one reply wanting to know where Harness- 
 ville is, what fifty thousand dollars is and what good a lot 
 of pictures is going to do our old Auditorium. The strain 
 is killing Mother by inches. They re downstairs now com 
 posing a telegram asking him for pity s sake to come to 
 town just for a day and look over the Auditorium." 
 
 "He ll come and he ll paint the picture," echoed her father 
 like the antistrophe in a Greek tragedy. 
 
 "He s a very busy artist," she pointed out. "He s got 
 orders to paint pictures all over Grand Central Depots and 
 Metropolitan Museums in sixteen States." 
 
 "That doesn t make any difference." 
 
 "Why this all-fired cocksureness ?" 
 
 "I don t know anything about art," replied the true Philis 
 tine. "But I do know how far fifty thousand dollars will 
 fetch an artist." 
 
 "That s some agrument." 
 
 "And not only that. If your mother s got her mind set 
 on him, he ll come if it takes a row of caterpillar tractors 
 all the way from here to Omaha." 
 
 Americus was right in his prediction. The Harnessville 
 Eagle came out next morning with the jubilant announce 
 ment that the celebrated painter had been induced by the 
 Committee on Art to come and be persuaded. Americus 
 never found courage to ask his wife how she did it. Her 
 eyes had softened to an ideal then hardened to a purpose, 
 that was all. She had willed it. Naturally Hoag was 
 coming.
 
 218 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Admah Hoag, just as his aunt had pointed out, had never 
 been West of Pittsburg in all his travels, which had taken 
 him to student quarters in Paris, lodgings in London and 
 some dubious inns as far East as Vladivostok. Like many 
 another American born genius he entertained vague and 
 somewhat childish ideas about his own country beyond the 
 exotic Babel which is its metropolis. Therefore when he 
 boarded the late train for Chicago he had pleasing visions 
 of broad spaces, the direct heritage of Kit Carson, of peo 
 ple who spoke straight from the heart and twanged most 
 honestly when they spoke. Lovingly he nursed the super 
 stition that East is East and West is West, that somewhere 
 in the distant sunset there lived a race who hunted jack- 
 rabbits and disdained the pursuit of social lions. The fact 
 that he was running away gave him not the slightest shame. 
 As he had argued it out, he owed less than nothing to Mrs. 
 Ballymoore and her hypocritical tribe. Perhaps it would be 
 a bit hard on Aunt Pinny, but she had gone beyond her 
 rights in trying to force him again into the life he so cor 
 dially detested. 
 
 When he changed cars at Chicago the sharpshooter s eye 
 of America s most promising painter saw there but another 
 New York equally mad and unequally balanced. The West 
 ward-flying train revealed to him refreshing spaces between 
 towns which, somewhat to his discouragement, exhibited 
 smart motors, paved streets and adequate lighting systems. 
 He was somehow grateful for the lights, because Admah 
 Hoag had a sneaking fondness for electricity, rightly em 
 ployed. Taken all in all, he found the wilds somewhat 
 tamer than he had been led to expect ; and although he was 
 not one of your greenhorns who look for painted redskins 
 in the outskirts of St. Louis, he confessed to disappointment 
 when he saw so few sombreros and so many economical 
 motors along the sidings.
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 219 
 
 ^ *~ ^" """^ -^ ^ ^-. 
 
 His spirits rose as the train roared on toward Harness- 
 ville. During the morning he had looked upon many broad 
 acres, neatly fenced in, and had seen wide-hatted men among 
 the wintry fields. The porter assured him that the train 
 was only eight minutes late, which was a prodigy. Pres 
 ently they slowed up and began steaming into the suburbs. 
 Neat houses in rows reminded him uncomfortably of Phila 
 delphia. Splendid pavements appeared along the track as 
 they progressed. Automobiles became thicker and more ex 
 pensive; on a low hill a handsome Doric building loomed. 
 Admah Hoag shuddered at the sight, because it reminded 
 him disagreeably of Mrs. Ballymoore, the Pan-Hellenic 
 Building and the haunting memory of Carlo Dulcimer. And 
 this was all far behind him, thank the Lord ! 
 
 It was an expensive modern station into which the train 
 shuttled to a stop. The scene might have been metropolitan, 
 only that the crowd showed no evidences of metropolitan 
 misery. There seemed to be a preponderance of women. 
 . . . Many high-powered automobiles stood banked against 
 the concrete platform. 
 
 Admah Hoag, shunner of teas and receptions, sworn 
 enemy of all public ceremonies and such like cant, got all 
 this in a glance of his sharpshooter s eye as they were bun 
 dling him and his simple baggage out of the train. He 
 wished there weren t so many people about to stare and 
 make gestures. Evidently a great number of passengers 
 were expected off at Harnessville, for there was a throng, 
 mostly female, and every well-trimmed hat was cocked his 
 way. He came down centre stage through the chorus, as it 
 were, and he could feel his complexion brick-reddening as 
 he advanced. 
 
 "Mr. Hoag?" A tall, thin lady with a turban came out 
 of the chorus and took his hand. 
 
 "Er ha " This was the speech by which he first 
 
 endeared himself to local admirers. 
 
 "I am Mrs. Gallop, Chairman of the Committee on Art," 
 she was telling him as his frightened senses at once realised
 
 220 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 that the mythical W. A. Gallop now stood before him. An 
 infinite sea of trimmed hats, toques, bonnets, Gainsbor- 
 oughs, Tarn o Shanters seemed to hedge him in like en 
 chanted flowers. 
 
 "And this is Mrs. Modderson, Chairman of the Commit 
 tee on Entertainment." 
 
 A smallish, sallow lady whose popping black eyes were 
 seared below with brownish circles seemed excruciatingly 
 glad to meet him. Wringing his hand, in a remarkably 
 sonorous voice she said something about Dante in exile 
 from his native Florence. The platform swam round and 
 round. Admah dropped his suit-case. 
 
 "And Mrs. Glendenning of the Committee on Arrange 
 ments," Mrs. Gallop tolled on, "and Mrs. Clark of the Com 
 mittee on Ways and Means and Mrs. Hobuck, Chairman of 
 the Finance Committee. . . ." 
 
 Admah Hoag gave one frightened glance over his shoul 
 der, thinking only of escape. The train was already pulling 
 out of the station. No friendly nightmare had ever come 
 to warn him of this situation. He had travelled all the way 
 from New York to avoid a reception and, at the end of a 
 trying journey, had walked right into the outstretched hands 
 of another ! 
 
 He realised how like a silly ass he must have leered as 
 he stood there, utterly dumb in the midst of the throng who 
 had come to do him honour. 
 
 "But, Mrs. Gallop," he at last found voice to say, "I 
 I m not very well." This, of course, was preposterous on 
 the face of it "I don t want you to go to all this trouble, 
 you know all this bother and fuss. I shouldn t mind if 
 you d just give me a bite to eat and let me spend the day 
 looking over your Auditorium I ve only a few hours with 
 you " 
 
 "The train East doesn t leave until noon to-morrow," re 
 plied Mrs. Gallop decisively. "We are anxious to welcome 
 so distinguished a guest to our city and to do everything in 
 our power to make your stay a pleasant one."
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 221 
 
 "I I appreciate the honour," faltered Admah, faintly 
 remembering his manners. 
 
 "We are the honoured ones," she assured him in her most 
 positive tone. 
 
 He had an uneasy feeling that something worse was 
 about to happen, for the plumes and flowers around him 
 nodded as to a Spring zephyr as a small runabout came to 
 a halt by the platform. Indistinctly Admah could see a 
 slender man with a green hat, and he felt the encouragement 
 which one male can give another in such a situation. Into 
 his presence the young man was finally hustled and as the 
 spokeslady led him to the proper introductory distance the 
 two opposing males stood gazing eye for eye. 
 
 And Admah Hoag saw in the pale, seraphic visage which 
 smiled a little nervously the much-to-be-avoided Carlo Dul 
 cimer, who had done so much to make New York unbear 
 able for him ! 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Hoag?" The decorator swayed 
 like a lily and offered a dead hand. 
 
 "Ah, then you know Mr. Hoag?" 
 
 "We ve met before. How d you do, Dulcimer?" 
 
 Momentarily the painter lost his shyness and regarded 
 his former rival quite coolly. Dulcimer, too, seemed curi 
 ously unabashed. 
 
 "If you only knew what an impulse your coming has 
 given this town !" cooed the lymphatic one. 
 
 "This your town, Dulcimer?" asked the genius, noting 
 the air of proprietorship. 
 
 "In a way 
 
 "Mr. Dulcimer is a Harnessville boy," upspoke a cheer 
 ful, matronly voice from the background; and it imparted 
 quite a shock to hear this pampered orchid of Fifth Ave 
 nue mentioned as a "Harnessville boy." He had never 
 thought of him as coming from any place except, perhaps, 
 the moon. 
 
 "Harnessville," the indefatigable Dulcimer cooed on, 
 "needs all we you and I can give it."
 
 222 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Admah Hoag was wondering just what he and Mr. Dul 
 cimer in partnership had to offer. 
 
 "We owe so much to Mr. Dulcimer," Mrs. Gallop was 
 telling him. Her manner reminded him disagreeably oi 
 Mrs. Ballymoore. "Don t you think his work has been in 
 valuable to the Movement?" 
 
 Admah was quite sure it had. A moment later he was 
 being introduced to a pretty, rather insipid girl as Mrs. 
 Gallop s daughter, and as this young thing stuck close to the 
 side of Dulcimer, obviously under his spell, the artist won 
 dered in a flash if the decorator had carried his favourite 
 business methods so far West. He was given little time to 
 reflect on this point, however, for Mrs. Gallop was pulling 
 him out of the affable hands of Mrs. Glendenning and 
 shoving him toward the phalanx of waiting automobiles. 
 It seemed that the ladies had been quarrelling over whose 
 car should contain the celebrity. Mrs. Gallop got him, just 
 as she got most of her mortal desires ; and flanked on the 
 right by the lady with the carven jaw and on the left by 
 the lymphatic beautifier, Admah settled himself into the 
 tonneau of the handsomest vehicle to be seen. 
 
 The chauffeur had just eased in the clutch and warped 
 the wheel to position when a vision swam into Admah s 
 ken. She was tall and natural and somehow lovely, and 
 under her little hat peeped a hank of tawny hair. Her eyes 
 were heavenly, her mouth somewhat irregular and generous, 
 and her skin was of that perfection which comes to auburns 
 who do not freckle. 
 
 "Shall I " she sang out, looking first at Mrs. Gallop, 
 
 then at an extra seat which was vacant. 
 
 "Mrs. Glendenning will take care of you," announced 
 the masterful lady, just as they were slipping away along 
 the smooth pavement. 
 
 Instantaneously the artist s eye caught one humorous, un 
 derstanding look which plainly said, "Poor dear ! They ve 
 got you where they want you!" 
 
 As they rolled away he looked back and caught a glint of
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 223 
 
 her green coat and the strip of fur on her small hat. She 
 was gazing after him and he was sure her lips still held that 
 same satiric smile. 
 
 It seemed as though all Harnessville had come out to view 
 the triumphal entry. As they neared the centre of town he 
 could see the residents packed like flies upon the sidewalks ; 
 the scene only lacked the aspect of waving flags and patri 
 otic bunting to give his casual trip to Harnessville the ap 
 pearance of a Presidential tour. His blushes knew all the 
 shadings from pink to purple along that progress, during 
 which he appreciated all the feelings of the young calf being 
 dragged from its mother s side to the slaughter pen. In 
 semi-rational moments he wondered if he should stand up 
 in the tonneau, as he had seen candidates do, and remove 
 his hat from left to right. Apparently they were driving 
 him to some sort of ceremony. 
 
 "Since Mr. Kleinmetz left us," Mrs. Gallop was saying 
 on, "our stringed quartette isn t what it used to be." 
 
 Their intention was now obvious. There would be a 
 programme. They were going to kill him to slow music. 
 
 "Ah, but the artistry of Chomvitz!" came the echoing 
 Dulcimer. 
 
 Admah Hoag s sense of humour, stalled somewhere in 
 the background, told him, as by long-distance telephone, that 
 here was a situation which served him jolly good and right: 
 Meanwhile he was floundering among attempted answers 
 to Mrs. Gallop s queries as to the progress of the Philhar 
 monic and the destiny of the Kneisels. 
 
 At last they came to a halt in front of a pretty Colonial 
 building with a wealth of spindling pillars. 
 
 "The Woman s Club," announced Mrs. Gallop, indicating 
 that he was expected to step down. "We have only time 
 for a short programme before luncheon." 
 
 He could see that their attendant train of automobiles 
 had also stopped. Pedestrians were packed in front of the 
 Colonial columns and surging, a dense mass, across the
 
 224 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 street. One of the dandified new traffic policemen, of 
 which Harnessville was justly proud, semaphored a white- 
 gloved hand as he roared the fog-horn signal, familiar to 
 Fifth Avenue parades: 
 
 "Come on, now ! Let em through !" 
 
 The next two hours was all a blur to Admah Hoag. It 
 was called an Art Luncheon, he remembered vaguely; a 
 detailed report was printed later in the Evening Courier. 
 He had a faint impression of being deluged in Saint-Saens 
 and de Bussy from those accorded viols which Mr. Klein- 
 metz had so inscrutably fled. His right hand became quite 
 numb from continual grasps of welcome. Some one told 
 him that Harnessville had grown miraculously in the last 
 three years. He was sure of this, because their illimitable 
 army passed in review before his eyes. 
 
 The art-life of Harnessville was, to his imagining, what 
 the Russian Revolution would be like if conducted entirely 
 by ladies. Everything was run on the committee plan. He 
 was passed nimbly from committee to committee; and at 
 last he was seated at the table of honour, devoted exclu 
 sively to chairladies of all the committees. Twenty-two 
 plates were laid at that table. Oysters were no sooner 
 served than they ceased playing and singing at him and 
 began talking at him. Mr. Dulcimer came in very early 
 with his remarks, his theme being, Carrying the Torch into 
 the Wilderness. Several chairladies spoke at length. Mrs. 
 Modderson, articulating very dis-tinct-ly, read an original 
 poem entitled "Beauty Lives for Beauty." With tragic art 
 everything moved inevitably toward the final catastrophe. 
 
 "You will be called on for a few remarks," said Mrs. 
 Gallop at last in a voice which would brook no denial. 
 
 "Christians torturing the lion," said a little, giggly voice 
 directly behind him. Mrs. Gallop turned a blighting frown 
 and Hoag, also turning, saw the pretty red-headed girl, 
 seated a short space away and looking with some embarrass 
 ment into the eyes of the disapproving Chairlady of Chair- 
 ladies. How he wished that this vision of naturalness and
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 225 
 
 youth and humour would work some magic now by which 
 he could take her slender hand and fade from sight ! 
 
 Distantly he could hear Mrs. Gallop s sonorous notes 
 echoing to his doom. "Seldom has it been our honour . . . 
 we have in our midst to-day ... a few words from Amer 
 ica s Torch of Beauty, Mr. Admah Hoag." 
 
 Apparently it had arrived. Doom sat upon his plate and 
 bade him rise. Admah Hoag choked upon a mouthful of 
 coffee, buried his face in his napkin and stumbled to his 
 miserable feet. He scarcely remembered what he said at 
 first, save that he said it splutteringly, inanely. Like the 
 coward that he was he resorted to his time-worn formula, 
 complaining that he had a bad cold which he had and 
 this would prevent his speaking at length. He had a sick 
 ening feeling that every ear in the room was centred on his 
 pallid lips. The silence was terrible. And in the midst of 
 all this he suddenly found himself heating to a panicky rage 
 on the strength of which he snorted, 
 
 "Confound it, ladies, you ve got a beautiful town, if you ll 
 let it alone. But you re getting all the Eastern vices. Why 
 don t you let the West stay West ? You can t improve the 
 sunset by trimming it with cretonne. I m really very much 
 flattered and honoured and and . . ." 
 
 He sat down heavily, leaving some mysterious adjective 
 trailing in air. He was horribly ashamed of his discourtesy 
 and afraid of the momentary hush which greeted his sudden 
 vanishment from the floor. Then Harnessville saved him 
 by an act of unequalled chivalry. Some one applauded. 
 Yet others took up the noise and in an instant the Woman s 
 Club was ringing with salvo after salvo. The thoughtful 
 courtesy of the thing moved this overstrung stranger almost 
 to tears. Instinctively he looked round to see how the red 
 headed girl was taking it. She was gone. 
 
 After luncheon another committee came round to drive 
 him over to the Auditorium. There was another progress 
 through the streets, this time heading some distance out of 
 town into a well-set wintry park in the midst of which stood
 
 226 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 a dignified structure, still littered round with the rubbish of 
 building. At first sight of the Auditorium Admah Hoag 
 began to crawl out of the coma into which he had merged 
 himself for protection. It was a fine, big simple thing 
 which had been planned by a young architect who had died 
 before its completion. Subsequent botchwork had not suc 
 ceeded in spoiling the exterior, and the interior was essen 
 tially too dignified to be ruined by the decorative scheme 
 which Carlo Dulcimer displayed in her ever-ready drawings. 
 
 Admah Hoag stood oblivious now of his keepers, directed 
 his imaginative gaze into the deep-hooded space over the 
 proscenium. 
 
 "Don t you thrill for brush and palette?" inquired Mrs. 
 Modderson s carefully groomed voice in his ear. 
 
 "Awful lot of space to cover," replied Admah in a sign- 
 painter s voice as he came out of his trance. 
 
 He quickly relapsed, however. He had not met and 
 talked to so many strangers since the abominable night when 
 they had centre-staged him and unveiled his Elektra at the 
 Pan-Hellenic Building. In a vapour he could see Mrs. 
 Gallop extending a glove, and he could hear her saying 
 something about dinner at seven thirty. 
 
 "I m so sorry I haven t brought any evening clothes," 
 he informed her in a voice that thrilled with hope. 
 
 "Don t give it a second thought, then," she told him. 
 "Come just as you are. We ll make it informal." Admah 
 had heard this sort of thing before. It was just the same 
 as announcing that every one but him would come panoplied 
 for the evening. 
 
 However he breathed fresh air at once, for he saw a 
 prospect of two good hours by himself. Two good hours in 
 which to think up unpuncturable reasons why he should not 
 decorate the Auditorium at Harnessville. He was smiling 
 vapidly and bowing committee after committee out of his 
 presence when a lanky arm was linked through his and a 
 pallid face smiled up at him appeasingly. It was Mr. 
 Dulcimer.
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 227 
 
 "They have turned you over to me," he said fawningly. 
 "It will give us a chance for a little chat about our sub 
 jects." 
 
 They had reached the front steps of the structure before 
 Admah had worked out his plan. 
 
 "I ve dropped some notes," he said with fairly simulated 
 confusion. "You wait here I know where they are." 
 
 "Oh, let me 
 
 "Stay here !" commanded Admah Hoag in a voice which 
 would brook no disobedience. Dulcimer stayed. 
 
 Admah slunk hastily through the darkening vault of the 
 Auditorium. He remembered a little stage door which, as 
 he had noted out of the corner of his eye, must lead some 
 where out back to escape and freedom. He groped to 
 the door, pushed it open, stumbled down a flight of stairs, 
 barked his shins over a kalsomine keg and, following a 
 small gleam of light through the dimness, came at last to 
 an open window. It wasn t a hard climb and Admah was 
 desperate. He dropped softly to the ground outside and 
 found himself plunging down an irregular incline and into 
 a wintry woodland through which the sunset shone splen 
 diferous. 
 
 "Decided to run, did you?" 
 
 A light green coat with fur around the collar and some 
 thing to match in the hat first struck his eye. Then he saw 
 a hank of reddish hair and a generous mouth which, at that 
 moment, was laughing at him. 
 
 "Oh, no," he responded lamely. "Just wanted a little 
 fresh air and " 
 
 "You needn t be ashamed. I ran away myself," she told 
 him soberly. "But of course I had a snap. There were 
 only one or two watching me." 
 
 "I just wanted a chance to think and be alone " 
 
 "I m not going to bother you, poor dear. If you ll follow 
 this path to the big willow, then cut in toward the river, 
 you ll find such a tangle that they never can find you, 
 Who s after you now?"
 
 228 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 r""**~* ~~^~ ^~*~ ~ ~^ . i^ ^ 
 
 "Mr. Zither Mr. Mandolin " 
 
 "Oh! Mr. Dulcimer! Well, he s too feeble to follow 
 you far. But I understand your feelings. Only don t stay 
 out all night. It turns bitter cold after ten o clock. And 
 then, I suppose you ve got to be at the dinner party?" 
 
 "I m beginning to take interest," he confessed with un 
 usual boldness. "You ll be there?" 
 
 "Oh, no. I ve been especially invited not to come." 
 
 "Well then. That settles the affair for me." 
 
 "Do as you please, Mr. Hoag." 
 
 She turned away and started up the path. 
 
 "But, I say, Miss 
 
 "You ve come here, you know, of your own free will," 
 she faced him hotly. "You ve been here a few hours and 
 done your best to insult the whole town my town. They ve 
 done all they knew how to make things pleasant for you, 
 they re offering you money on a hot platter. And you re 
 taking it like the spoiled darling you are." 
 
 He stood there wide-eyed regarding the lithe, heroic 
 figure that loomed there out of the sunset, holding him to 
 account for his shortcomings. 
 
 "I never intended I " 
 
 "The town will be much better off without your old mural 
 decorations. We were a happy, natural lot of people until 
 this art-thing got hold of us. First came Mr. Ducimer to 
 tie everything up in chintz, and now you re going to be 
 wished on us " 
 
 "You re wrong there, little wolf," he smiled grimly, stung 
 by the thought of associating with Mr. Dulcimer. 
 
 "I m sorry," she said with sudden contrition. "But 
 when you go to the party to-night, please try to behave." 
 
 "I ll go and I ll try." 
 
 "Thank you. Maybe it will be good for you to be bored 
 stiff for twenty-four hours. I sometimes think that if all 
 the egotists in the world would take that treatment you 
 know just standing on one leg and letting all the bromides
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 229 
 
 talk them blind say once a year it would do them a 
 world of good." 
 
 "I wish you d reconsider that invitation." She clasped 
 his hand boyishly and looked straight into his eyes. 
 
 "Can t be done. Good night." 
 
 She had taken three steps away from the sunset back 
 ground when he called after her, 
 
 "I don t want you to feel that I m always like this " 
 
 She stopped and turned, her hair glowing like the red in 
 the West, her eyes serious, her face milk-white and rather 
 tragic. 
 
 " I came here in a rotten funk and I thought I d have 
 a few quiet hours to talk over the Auditorium. I don t 
 know why I stood there saying those curious things. You 
 know, I can t speak and receptions scare me blue. There 
 wasn t a word of truth in what I said 
 
 "That s what makes me mad," she replied coolly. "Every 
 word you said was so true it makes me furious to think 
 that an Easterner " She gave this last word the in 
 flection she might have given "mulatto" "has to come here 
 and tell us things we haven t got pep enough to tell our 
 selves." 
 
 VI 
 
 Admah did as the spirit of the wood had advised. He 
 followed the path as far as the big willow and turned in 
 toward the river. His lungs expanded with the sharp air 
 of a prairie winter as he floundered blissfully among the 
 bare shrubs and little icy hollows. Occasionally he would 
 stop and let his artist s eye indulge itself in its passion for 
 form and colour. Like Whistler he hated sunsets, detesting 
 the bombast of Nature s obvious mood. Yet to-night there 
 came a savage delight in glimpses of the West, which was 
 mystery to him ; there was an Indian rhapsody out there 
 where the Rocky Mountains must be looming. Somewhere 
 in the rear a church bell tolled as placidly as in a Kentish 
 shire. A locomotive tooted and, nearer yet, an automobile
 
 230 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 honked. After all there was no getting away from it. ... 
 
 Toward dusk he stole through the residential streets oi 
 Harnessville, dreading Dulcimer at every corner. Behind 
 this town s quixotic call for Art the artist scented Dulcimer 
 like a cheap perfume. Harnessville would never have 
 thought of Hoag without Dulcimer s instigation. But why 
 had the decorator, who surely had no more use for Hoag 
 than Hoag for him, taken pains to introduce the mural 
 decorator to the West? Undoubtedly Carlo saw a substan 
 tial advertisement for himself in his alleged friendship with 
 the genius. No doubt that was it. So here he was adapting 
 his New York technique to a smaller scale, making love to 
 the richest girl in town and turning home into an expensive 
 dungeon, no doubt, for the richest girl s mother. 
 
 As the artist walked he noted that there were plenty of 
 comfortable houses with space around them. The streets 
 were clean and the same delicious, inspiring air came blow 
 ing to him from the prairie. The sunset was dying in the 
 West how the wastrel hair of that saucy, heroic girl by 
 the birch tree had caught the glow ! She was right. He had 
 been rude and patronising at the Art Luncheon and he was 
 sorry he had struck out so blindly against his oppressors. 
 Shy and egoistic as an artist can be, Admah Hoag had a 
 heart that was soft as a sponge. He remembered the girl 
 with a pleasant shame, blazing out at his Eastern snobbish 
 ness like her own Western sky. Well, he would try and 
 behave himself. If only he could get away without murder 
 ing Carlo! 
 
 It was a quarter past seven when he looked at his watch, 
 and he was then standing by a vacant lot past which a 
 suburban trolley crashed at lonesome intervals. Presently 
 the universal suburbanite, laden with parcels, joined him 
 at the corner, and of him Admah made inquiries as to the 
 whereabouts of the Gallop house. 
 
 "Nine blocks to your left to the Boulevard," said the 
 stranger without hesitation, "then turn to your right and 
 you ll come to Washington Street. It s the big red place
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 231 
 
 ^^^*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ - ^" " - *^^^~ ~ ~~ ^~*~ ~"~~ ^^~^~ i ^^**~ ^^^~ *~~ ^ 
 
 with the round towers in front. You can t miss it. Known 
 in town?" 
 
 "In a way," replied Admah, making a rapid escape in 
 the direction indicated. 
 
 His guide had spoken truthfully. Admah couldn t miss 
 the Gallop house. He recognised many of the automobiles 
 which had followed him that morning, now parked com 
 fortably along the curb in front of the red towers. Weak 
 fear again seized him as he pressed the button of the 
 electric bell. Distantly under the street lamp he could see 
 groups of people approaching afoot. The door opened and 
 admitted him into the dim splendours of the re-decorated 
 Gallop parlour. In a glance he took in the putty-coloured 
 walls, the Japanese prints, the high-shouldered furniture. 
 There was something disagreeably reminiscent about it 
 all ... the Fifth Avenue residence of Mrs. Ballymoore, 
 to avoid whom he had fled away to the wilds. Out of the 
 dimness he saw the figure of Mrs. Gallop swimming to 
 ward him. . . . 
 
 All around him, chatting in groups, he could see the 
 broad white fronts and long black tails of complete evening 
 attire. Shaking hands feebly, Admah stood in his wrinkled 
 grey travelling tweeds a figure of the rough uncouth East, 
 alone, and uncomfortable in the dress-suited presence of 
 the varnished West ! 
 
 The dinner was an enormous one in number of plates, 
 and in quality excellent. Fortified by his chivalrous vow to 
 try and behave himself, Admah was amazed to find himself 
 appropriating the conversation, even telling a few anecdotes, 
 tittering appreciatively, if vacuously, at even the mildest 
 utterance. The champagne, of which there seemed to be 
 a generous supply, helped a great deal. Through it all 
 Mrs. Gallop was a bit trying, because she invariably shunted 
 the conversation round to a vein she called "serious" every 
 time the guest of honour began really enjoying himself. 
 For all the world like Mrs. Ballymoore. Mrs. Modderson,
 
 232 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 too, was ghastly ; and Admah was seated between this good 
 lady and his hostess. But across the table he caught the 
 glint of fellowship in the roving eye of Americus Gallop. 
 On the wind of an occasional pithy, blunt remark Admah 
 suspected that Americus was an old Philistine. He adored 
 a consistent Philistine, just as he admired any of the 
 genuine works of God. 
 
 Mrs. Modderson, it was obvious, had been reading up for 
 the occasion from a complete set entitled "Great Masters" 
 with coloured lithographs. She strangled him with biograph 
 ical data, passing heavily from Fra Filippo Lippi to Tinto 
 retto, from Tintoretto to Memlinc and Boucher. All the 
 world s art-periods were scrambled in her mind into one 
 cultured mess. There was no gainsaying her opinions, for 
 she had stocked her little brain with the verdicts of eminent 
 experts. She uttered vast bromidioms with the air of de 
 lightful discovery to which there was no answer save an 
 agreeable smile. In spite of his resolution to remain polite, 
 Admah discovered in himself a tendency to doze; he had 
 had a trying journey on the train, and he never slept well in 
 a Pullman. The wine was dying in his veins. His head 
 was beginning to ache. 
 
 The diners had scarcely adjourned to the big living- 
 room and the extra tables whisked away by an army of 
 assistants when the door bell started a brisk jangling. More 
 citizens were arriving arriving in droves ! The horrid 
 truth now dawned upon the sore-tried stranger. They were 
 going to give him another reception. 
 
 "The town ain t always like this," Mr. Gallop got a chance 
 to assure him in the moment they were thrown together in 
 a corner. 
 
 "It s really quite a beautiful little city," Admah came out 
 promptly with his compliment, which was sincere. 
 
 "Towns are like children," said the flour merchant, offer 
 ing an excellent cigar. "Let em alone pretty much and 
 they grow up in their own way. But the trouble with em, 
 is that people won t let em alone. Just about the time
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 233 
 
 they re beginning to develop some, along comes a lot of 
 women, determined to tie em up in ribbons and teach em 
 the broad a. It s like " 
 
 Mr. Gallop paused for a simile. 
 
 "Like putting a frilled collar on baby Hercules," sup 
 plied Admah. 
 
 "For an artist you do talk a lot like a male," said Ameri- 
 cus, throwing away his cigar and disappearing in the direc 
 tion of his wife s beckoning finger. 
 
 There was now a great hurrying back and forth, an as 
 sembling of chairs in the big hall between the putty-coloured 
 walls. Admah now again fell into the hands of Mr. Dul 
 cimer, to whom he made feeble excuses for his escape of 
 the afternoon. The lion of the occasion found himself 
 surrounded and his hand going forth to greet a hundred and 
 fifty new clasps of welcome. In the faces of the Harness- 
 villians coming toward him in a long line, he saw that 
 same vapid, smirking, inhuman expression which had har 
 rowed his soul on that frightful evening when they had 
 stood him up at the Pan-Hellenic Building and directed half 
 New York toward his place of honour. Presently that, too, 
 was over and the guests began seating themselves in the 
 tiers of chairs. Admah backed away in a corner beside 
 Americus Gallop. From this little natural fat man he 
 seemed to gather strength and sympathy. 
 
 A table and a chair were pushed into the cleared space in 
 front of the bay-window. With that parochial pomp which 
 was her breath of life Mrs. Gallop bustled to the table and 
 knocked twice for silence. The buzzing waned at last as 
 wanes the humming of the swarm when the queen bee has 
 settled on her branch. 
 
 "In honour of the distinguished guest who has graced 
 our community with his presence . . ." 
 
 Admah heard the rest confusedly. His temples were 
 thumping. There was a heavy feeling at the pit of his 
 stomach. His feet were cold. He was sure he was going 
 to have one of his sick headaches. Appealingly he laid
 
 234 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 his hand on the shoulder of the little man who sat beside 
 him near the stairs. Gathering loose ends of the sentences 
 which touched his frazzled nerves in fragments, he con 
 cluded that Mrs. Gallop had arranged a programme in his 
 honour and that it was to be loosed upon him forthwith. 
 
 "First on the programme Mrs. Cadra Modderson will 
 favour us with Rudyard Kipling s immortal ballad Gunga 
 Dhin. " 
 
 Admah Hoag lay back heavily in his chair. Ten years 
 ago he had made the vow that never again would he sit in 
 public and listen to a recitation of "Gunga Dhin." Yet a 
 distinguished actor had recited it at him in his Pan-Hellenic 
 triumph, yet here again he sat in a position where to escape 
 would be an atrocity. He had given his promise to the girl 
 with the red hair and Mrs. Modderson took her place at a 
 spot on the rug where every syllable would be dis-tinct-ly 
 uttered. Her prominent eyes sought him out in his obscure 
 place and as she launched vigorously into the recitation she 
 seemed popping her words directly into his tired ear 
 drums. 
 
 "For it s Dhin ! Dhin ! DHIN ! ! !" 
 
 Din, din, din like the pounding of a tin-pan upon nerves 
 that could stand no more. Mrs. Modderson took an enthusi 
 astic encore. This time she chose "Boots" by the same 
 author. Admah knew she would. People who recite 
 "Gunga Dhin" always give "Boots" as an encore. At last 
 it was over. Admah found himself leaning heavily on the 
 shoulder of his sympathetic host. 
 
 "Not feeling well ?" asked Americus welcome voice in his 
 ear. 
 
 "Sick headache, I think," replied Admah drearily. 
 "Those Pullman cars haven t slept a wink for two nights." 
 
 "Tell you what " Mr. Gallop plucked him slyly by a 
 
 sleeve, arose and beckoned him toward a door in the rear. 
 Admah followed mechanically. In the small enclosure be 
 tween the butler s pantry and the dining-room the helpful 
 gentleman stopped and whispered cautiously:
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 235 
 
 "Winny d murder me if she knew. But I understand the 
 limit. Now there s a little room away upstairs in the attic. 
 Sneak up there and they can t find you with a pack of 
 bloodhounds. Sofa to stretch out on only decent place in 
 the house." 
 
 Already his guide was tiptoeing ahead of him up half- 
 darkened passages, the haunts of serving people. 
 
 "I ve got to get away early in the morning," Admah was 
 apologising as they paused aloft amidst a litter of domestic 
 rubbish. "Perhaps you ll think it eccentric of me, but I 
 must have a little peace to think things over. Maybe it 
 would be better, though, for me to answer the Committee 
 by mail " 
 
 "That s the way I do, too, when I turn down an order," 
 smiled Americus. 
 
 "Well," grinned the painter, "I ve about made up my 
 mind. But Mrs. Gallop has been so kind and " 
 
 "You think it would be gentler to ease it to her con 
 fidentially ?" 
 
 "Well, if you think " Again an irresolute pause. 
 
 "Tell you what you do." 
 
 Americus had now switched on an electric light and was 
 pointing across a space of garret toward a small white door 
 at the end. 
 
 "You just sneak in there and stretch out. The light s 
 on I ve been reading. It s a hell of a room, but com 
 fortable." 
 
 "I understand," sighed Admah, a world of gratitude in 
 his tone. 
 
 "And I d better run back before Winny gets on. Stay 
 there as long as you like, and I ll fetch you down after the 
 party s over." 
 
 He turned and began clambering down the narrow stairs. 
 With the feeling of a criminal who finds himself unex 
 pectedly torn from a mob and locked away in a cosy prison, 
 the refugee advanced and opened the little white door at 
 the end.
 
 236 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 The first object to catch his eye was a tall brass reading 
 lamp with a green glass shade. There was a comfortable 
 cluster of old-fashioned chairs and glimpses of steel engrav 
 ings on the wall. The sight gave him the sensation of 
 blessed release which the homely room of the East River 
 tug-boat captain had always brought. He eased the door 
 a crack wider and sensed the start which the human animal 
 always enjoys when coming unexpectedly upon another 
 human animal. 
 
 For settled in the vivid green plush of a Morris chair, 
 directly under the green light, slouched a tall, slender girl, 
 a hank of red hair braided down her back as she leaned 
 intently over a large portfolio into which she was sketching 
 industriously w r ith a sharp pencil. The one detail which he 
 caught in that surprising encounter was that her quickly 
 sensitive fingers were smudged to the knuckles from the 
 pencils she had been sharpening. 
 
 "Ah hum !" 
 
 This, I think, is the correct introduction under such cir 
 cumstances. The vision leapt as to the call of fire. Her 
 portfolio went one way, her sheaf of pencils the other. 
 
 "I m sorry," he further volunteered, admiring her as she 
 stood there, her pencil-smudged fingers drawn to her breast, 
 her face as pallid as the moon, her clear, wonderful eyes 
 fixed wide upon him. 
 
 "Running away again?" she asked suddenly with a 
 nervous little laugh. 
 
 "Well, if you ll forgive me it wasn t my fault this time. 
 An elocutionist insisted on reciting Gunga Dhin and your 
 father " 
 
 "Dear old Daddy !" She was smiling quite naturally now. 
 "I think he s got more sense than all the rest of the world 
 put together. So he showed you to our room." 
 
 "I didn t intend to intrude. He assured me there 
 wouldn t be a soul here and that I could lie down and 
 enjoy my headache in peace." 
 
 "And mother?"
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 237 
 
 "Oh, she s presiding. I don t think she knows I ve 
 gone." 
 
 "Well. I ll go and let you rest." 
 
 "For heaven s sake please don t!" He was agonised 
 by the fear that the spirit of the forest would again escape 
 him, leaving him to gnaw the sweet morsel of an unfinished 
 interview. 
 
 "It isn t good for a man with a headache to be talking," 
 she protested ; but to his relief she made no further move 
 to depart. 
 
 "There s a sort of talk that soothes," he pointed out. 
 
 "I m afraid that isn t my kind." She resumed her place 
 in the Morris chair, which seemed a signal for him to make 
 himself comfortable on the broad old-fashioned sofa. She 
 studied him very frankly with eyes which he had thought 
 grey, but which had deepened to a rich violet. Admah 
 Hoag had enjoyed looking into eyes of a great variety. The 
 Ballymoore girl s eyes had been bright and spirited, but 
 they had gleamed cold like a wintry tide. There had been 
 two or three models with eyes of brown and snappy black ; 
 eyes into which you could paint the enchantment which 
 was not there in real life. 
 
 "Did you behave at the party?" she drawled at last, still 
 contemplating him at close range. 
 
 "Do you know, I really enjoyed a part of it," he con 
 fessed. "Until they began reciting at me 
 
 "Mrs. Modderson yes. She s part of the Blight." 
 
 "The what?" 
 
 "That s what Daddy and I call it the Blight. Mrs. 
 Modderson s part of it and Mr. Dulcimer oh, he s a per 
 fect bag of boll weevils." 
 
 "And I suppose that I " 
 
 "Yes. You re the latest phase. I m not sure that you re 
 not more deadly than any of them, because you re more 
 expensive." 
 
 Admah Hoag took this with a good natured smile, but
 
 238 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^l^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^p^^^^^^ 
 
 there must have been some sensitive betrayal in his look, 
 for she hastened on : 
 
 "There ! I m talking like an impertinent little dog again. 
 You know I m ever so much cut up about the way I treated 
 you this afternoon in Willow Park." 
 
 "My dear Miss Gallop that s what you are, aren t you ?" 
 "One of em," she admitted. "The one who doesn t pat 
 ronise the arts." 
 
 "No. I should say not. You pulverise them rather." 
 "Well, I had no right treating a stranger the way I did 
 you. But it got on my nerves horribly. You see Mrs. 
 Modderson has been lecturing us on our crudity for three 
 years, then along came Dulcimer. Then along came you. 
 I don t suppose you realise how a person out here can love 
 his town and be proud of it and sensitive about it, just the 
 way New Yorkers are proud of the way they re always 
 tearing their beloved city to ribbons and never finishing it. 
 Daddy and I have loved to see Harnessville boom and 
 double in size every two years, but we wanted it to grow 
 up to be Harnessville. Then along comes Art." 
 
 "Art is going back on the morning train," Admah assured 
 her, not without a pang. 
 
 "Of course that would break Mother s heart." 
 "But, Miss Gallop what do you suggest my doing?" 
 "You d better lie down, if you have a headache." She 
 patted a soft pillow at the head of the couch and Admah 
 found himself stretching out in infinite comfort. 
 
 "Do you know," he said, "I have a room above my studio 
 that s so much like this you could put em together and 
 call em twins." 
 
 "You re not telling me this seriously?" She was gather 
 ing scattered leaves from the floor and looked luminously 
 up at him. 
 
 "I hate to sit in a cave with greenish-grey walls and one 
 rush-light dimly shining. We ve been spending several 
 thousand years getting away from the troglodytes, and I 
 see no reason why we should be getting back to them "
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 239 
 
 "Gee !" she exclaimed in a tone of such perfect rapture 
 that he was thrilled sub immo pectore. 
 
 "I think you must be something of a hypocrite," he ac 
 cused at last. 
 
 "That s a new one for me," she acknowledged, glancing 
 at him over her portfolio. 
 
 "Else why should you be abusing art when, as I can see, 
 you ve been busy as a bee sketching all manner of things ?" 
 
 Impulsively he reached out and picked up the sheet which 
 lay face down beside his couch. 
 
 "Oh, please don t I- 
 
 But the damage was done. Admah got it almost before 
 he had lifted the page. Sketched forcibly and with a few 
 good lines upon the page was a strikingly lifelike and un 
 flattering portrait of himself. As represented in the picture 
 he was standing at a banquet table, the same being laden 
 with laurel wreaths and loving-cups, and as the caricatured 
 Admah struggled against his appalling doom a replica of 
 Mrs. Gallop held him firmly by the throat while a replica 
 of Mrs. Modderson forced a crown of roses upon the 
 victim s brow. In a round scrawl the page was labelled 
 "Art Triumphant." 
 
 He glanced swiftly from lampoon to lampoonist. She 
 was red as a rose and her eyes were bright with tears of 
 shame. Again he surveyed the picture and gave vent to 
 such a roar as shook the rafters against the sloping roof. 
 
 "My Lord!" he bellowed, "it s colossal! It s an epic 
 it s " 
 
 "I didn t tell you you could do that," she informed him 
 coldly. 
 
 "Oh, but if the rest are like this Miss Gallop, you ve 
 got to show me the rest." 
 
 "I haven t got to do anything," she made her character 
 istic rejoinder as she gathered up the bundle and held it 
 close. He found himself standing over her in an attitude 
 which, to the superficial observer, would have looked men 
 acing.
 
 240 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "If I tell you that drawing is superb, that it s got a knock 
 to it like the hammer of Thor, that it expresses every 
 thing I ve felt to-day and then some " 
 
 She sat there shaking her head, her hands crossed upon 
 the sheaf of papers upon her breast. 
 
 "But I ve got a sort of right to see them. They represent 
 what I m up against and they re so darned funny !" 
 
 "How do you know they re funny?" 
 
 "Well, the fellow who did that one I saw couldn t help 
 himself." 
 
 "Well, then," she said and, coming over to the Victorian 
 sofa, began spreading her exhibition. Now Admah Hoag 
 was a hearty young man whose hates and loves ran red 
 under a ruddy skin. When he laughed it was a vigorous 
 noise like the quality which had endowed his famous 
 Elektra. And he was at it again in an instant. 
 
 "This," said she, "is Mr. Dulcimer Putting Chintz on 
 the City Hall." 
 
 The lily-like youth was shown draping the dome of 
 Harnessville s most pompous edifice. The statue of Justice 
 was falling off the roof while a marble Venus de Milo was 
 being hoisted on a crane. 
 
 "Mr. Dulcimer Having an Ecstasy," she further expostu 
 lated, showing a retouched version of Harnessville s elite 
 adoring the Crowned One. 
 
 When satire had followed insult and she had come at 
 last to "Father s Hour of Ease," revealing Mr. Gallop try 
 ing to read in the new throne chair, the voice of the dis 
 tinguished guest had thickened to a wheeze, but he still 
 begged for more. 
 
 "I didn t intend that Mother should see them," she was 
 telling him, "but of course Amelia got sensitive said they 
 weren t respectful to Carlo. Mother got her first peep at 
 them this morning just before she left to meet you at the 
 train. That s why I m not at the party to-night." 
 
 "If the Committee had met the train with these draw-
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 241 
 
 ings," said Admah Hoag at last, "it would have been a 
 lot pleasanter day for all of us." 
 
 The programme was over and the audience ready to de 
 part when Mrs. Gallop, satisfied that the Committee had 
 done itself proud, surrendered the chair and became, for the 
 first time, aware that he for whom so much brilliancy had 
 been let loose had disappeared. She knew that the sheepish 
 Americus must be in some way mixed into the crime, so she 
 took him to task. 
 
 "He s sick," whispered the consort, "so I put him away." 
 
 "Away ? Did you take him to the violet room ?" 
 
 "No. He wanted to think. I showed him the little room 
 in the garret. He s all right, he " 
 
 "Are you mad?" 
 
 "Now, Winny he said he wanted " 
 
 "Bring him down at once. Can t you see they re all going 
 home?" 
 
 Americus viewed the impending exodus without betraying 
 any sign of grief. He could hear Winifred s careful accents 
 explaining away the celebrity s sudden indisposition as he 
 took the rear door and back stairs up to his sanctuary. He 
 had no sooner gained the third landing under the rafters 
 than volley after volley of ribald laughter came echoing 
 to his astonished ears. The sufferer was either cured or 
 beyond hope, he reflected- as he knocked at the little white 
 door. 
 
 Downstairs Mrs. Gallop at last gave up waiting. She was 
 weak with fury as she bade a remnant of the Art Commit 
 tee stay and hear, if possible, the artist s verdict on the 
 Auditorium. Then she, too, took the back stairs toward 
 the Rat s Nest. 
 
 The astonishment which Americus had felt upon gaining, 
 the top landing was magnified, in her case, a thousand times. 
 The very ill Mr. Hoag s rough laughter rushed through the 
 place like a boreal blast and attuned to it the gurgling, 
 chuckling fat man s tee-hee of her husband. Did she hear
 
 242 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 America s drawling little soprano running like a thread of 
 silver through the symphony ? 
 
 She knocked timidly at the white door, then, losing 
 patience, thumped it with the heel of her fist. Finally she 
 turned the knob and walked dramatically into the bril 
 liantly lighted den. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hoag! I heard you were ill and we were all 
 worrying about you." 
 
 "I have these nervous attacks really nothing," he 
 stammered, at once abashed out of his boisterous mood. 
 
 "We re all so sorry " 
 
 "Oh, but I m much better. Your daughter has been 
 cheering me up with those remarkable drawings." 
 
 "I see." There was just one cutting glance for America. 
 
 "The Committee on Art are waiting," said the good lady, 
 regaining her poise. "We thought perhaps you might have 
 come to some decision about the Auditorium." 
 
 "Oh, yes. You wouldn t mind delivering my message to 
 them, would you, Mrs. Gallop? I m really not fit to talk 
 much." 
 
 "But, Mr. Hoag!" Her face went blank, then puckered 
 pathetically. "What shall I tell them?" 
 
 "You might say, if you would," he informed her lightly, 
 "that I shall feel honoured to do those mural paintings." 
 
 "My dear Mr. Hoag!" Her face lit up with such a joy 
 as never glowed from any earthly source. "I m so glad 
 I m " 
 
 "There are just one or two things I wanted to ask in the 
 way of terms," he went on. "In the first place, fifty thou 
 sand dollars isn t satisfactory." 
 
 "You mean " 
 
 "It s exactly twice as much as I ll take." 
 
 "Well, swallow my head!" said Americus Gallop in a 
 prayerful tone. 
 
 "And the town has got to furnish me with certain 
 materials I must have." 
 
 "Anything. Anything in our power "
 
 THE LIGHT THAT PALED 243 
 
 "Could I use your daughter?" 
 
 "I don t quite understand " 
 
 "I have just worked out an idea to be entitled Indepen 
 dence of Thought Tearing the Veil from the Eyes of Pre 
 tence, and I should very much like your daughter to 
 pose as the central figure with your consent, of course." 
 
 Nearly an hour passed before Mrs. Gallop, enchantment 
 overcoming fatigue, came back to the attic retreat and 
 joined the group on the family sofa. 
 
 "Of course you ll stay with us," she announced. "Mr. 
 Dulcimer has just finished the violet room and we ll make 
 you comfortable as possible." 
 
 Admah Hoag glanced lovingly around the small space, 
 took in the rafters and the reading lamp and the com 
 fortable Morris chair. 
 
 "Couldn t you move a cot bed in and let me sleep here ?" 
 he pleaded very humbly. "I hate to be a nuisance, but I m 
 used to a room like this. You see, I always was a crank 
 about lights " 
 
 Americus Gallop snorted once and his jelly-mould of a 
 body quivered in every atom. Purple mounted to his 
 cheeks, large tears streamed from the slits where his eyes 
 had been. 
 
 "Father can t survive this," drawled America in a voice 
 of genuine concern. 
 
 Somewhere in New York Mrs. Van Zoon got over being 
 angry and received a call from Mr. Dulcimer in late 
 Spring. The slender one seemed disheartened and explained 
 that he had left the West before it spoiled him, as it was 
 spoiling Admah Hoag. This so alarmed her that she 
 packed at once and arrived at Harnessville just in time for 
 the wedding, held at night and celebrated by such an electric 
 display as had not been seen thereabouts since the last 
 State Fair.
 
 JUST as a combination of nasty weather and engine 
 trouble drove the much-enduring yneas upon the lisp 
 ing sands where waited a temperamental Dido, so did 
 the poor teamwork of the Fates beach Miss Hortense Troutt 
 to change the sex of our simile against those imposing 
 bluffs that guard the uplands of superior thought. Cross 
 currents and poor navigation instructions had done the work 
 for Miss Hortense. 
 
 Back in Rockinock, no doubt, Aunt Hen would have 
 declared that Hortense was getting ideas, and would have 
 prescribed a course of intensive culture in the Baptist 
 church; but it was a far cry from Rockinock to Thirty- 
 second Street, where Miss Hortense was pouring coffee out 
 of one of those tinny percolators and contemplating an 
 egg which was fresh without being aggressive. In the 
 language of birds she rather favoured the chickadee type. 
 Plump, small, black-eyed, she had been one useful little drop 
 in the huge industrial bucket and counted herself lucky 
 until this cussed week, which had culminated in the soul 
 revolution of the night before. 
 
 Slaves are never lucky, she concluded this morning while 
 she contemplated the choking sobs of her patent percolator. 
 Slaves are merely subservient, stupidly contented at best; 
 and the stirring scenes of last night at the International 
 Button Moulders rally came vividly back to her aching 
 thoughts. Again she saw the red-draped platform of Har 
 monica Hall, where Judith Kelp, the insurgent, had led her, 
 
 244
 
 FREE 245 
 
 protesting; again she saw the imposing, rather well-filled 
 figure of Harriet Pebbles Cull, spokeslady of liberty, as she 
 braced her fingers against the rostrum table and pumped 
 the crystal waters of truth over the fevered heads which had 
 come to receive just such a shower. 
 
 Under that baptism Hortense had gasped at first gasped 
 and awakened. Light had flooded her prison cell ; she had 
 struggled to rise and been mocked by her chains figura 
 tively speaking, of course. As a matter of physical fact she 
 had sat quietly for three hours, eagerly absorbing Mrs. Cull s 
 lecture, and at the door as she passed out a comrade had 
 handed her a sample copy of The Unshackled, Mrs. Cull s 
 weekly paper. 
 
 Contagion, doctors tell us, awaits upon conditions. Had 
 conditions been different Hortense, no doubt, would have 
 walked away immune and never have come down with this 
 violent attack of Cull. But here it was, nearly the first of 
 the month again, rent coming due and not a word from Lulu 
 McCabe, her flat mate, who had disappeared weeks ago, to 
 join her husband, she said. 
 
 Patrick McCabe, alias Turnbull Bromworthy, of the 
 Lummox Film Corporation, was rehearsing a Western Front 
 movie Somewhere in Jersey ; that was his own business 
 or was it? If it was his passing whim that his faithful wife, 
 whom he had nine times threatened with divorce, should 
 bide with him, was it Hortense Troutt s duty to go on paying 
 that half of the rent which Lulu McCabe had solemnly 
 sworn to assume as her share? 
 
 Normally sweet and self-abnegating to excess, Hortense 
 Troutt wasn t like herself this morning. Possibly she was 
 like her alter ego, which might have been lurking all these 
 years. The sweep of the steel knife with which she was 
 reclaiming a scorched area on a slice of toast was positively 
 murderous. She hated this apartment with all its movie- 
 actor pictures and everything tied up in Lulu s pink-ribbon 
 effects. The awful place was leased in her name for the 
 monthly rental of forty dollars; half of that hadn t been a
 
 246 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 great burden, considering her salary. But faced with the 
 problem of going it alone it was as though the whole shoddy 
 apartment house had risen up and come down upon her. 
 Lulu had seemed such a nice, generous, sweet-tempered 
 example of the paying chaperon ! 
 
 Hortense grunted and sat down at the reconvertible 
 library table at the centre of the well-sized living room. She 
 bit her toast, inflicting a savage wound. That bite was 
 directed against all the enemies of society whom Harriet 
 Pebbles Cull had so systematically outlined in last night s 
 lecture. It was poor Saul Shilpik, Jr., upon whom she set 
 her teeth most impatiently. Saul had become a pest and a 
 bore in her business career ; more than that she now knew 
 him to be a menace. Hadn t Aunt Hen warned her a year 
 ago, upon her departure for the perils of the great city, to 
 beware the affable attentions of wealthy employers? Affable 
 was the word, referring to Saul, Jr. Not that he could be 
 called either an employer or wealthy, strictly speaking, since 
 the affairs of the Quick Supply Photo Syndicate were 
 firmly held in the plump clutch of Mr. Saul Shilpik, Sr. 
 But the principle was annoyingly the same. His image 
 kept getting in her way this morning, intruding upon her 
 social discontent 
 
 "I m a slave!" she informed herself, sipping the coffee, 
 which was not much warmer than the tears that were start 
 ing to her eyes. As though to seek confirmation of this 
 cheerful discovery she glanced across the long table and 
 saw a copy of The Unshackled neatly displaying its artisti 
 cally set editorial page upon a pile of frivolous magazines. 
 Hortense rose and snatched the copy to her, her eyes burn 
 ing upon a solid paragraph, all too plainly entitled : Slaves, 
 Arise ! 
 
 "Slaves of Industry, sweating serfs of Greed," began 
 the editorial in the restrained style peculiar to The Un 
 shackled, "do you see any way of bettering your condition 
 by lying flat on your faces under the heel of a suave and 
 mocking Capitalism? . . . You, the gigantic Many, grow
 
 FREE 247 
 
 weak from inaction, while Capital, gaining in pounds, will 
 soon crush you by the very weight of its fat. . . . Do the 
 fruits of the earth belong to the snake who coils or the 
 wolf who devours? . . . Under the so-called protection of 
 a hypocritical Republic you are ground down by a Feudal 
 ism which reveals the tyranny of Charlemagne without 
 the glory of his armour. . . ." 
 
 Which was all very encouraging. But it was the follow 
 ing statements which gave to Hortense Troutt a series of 
 wild surmises : 
 
 "In the new state which our programme includes which 
 is our programme, in fact there will be no such thing as in 
 equality of service. When all are sharing alike in the work 
 and its rewards what need of Slave Drivers? None. The 
 Slave Driver is as obsolete as the stegosaur, if we but knew 
 it. Work should be and shall be a fair and happy partner 
 ship. If we must have business and that is a questionable 
 blessing to all emancipated minds why should the fat and 
 lazy schemer who sits in greedy dreams at his desk be any 
 better rewarded than the skilled artisan, the useful pro 
 ducer who makes business possible ? We have as yet heard 
 no satisfactory answer to this question. Perhaps some rep 
 resentative of the self-satisfied bourgeoisie " 
 
 Hortense, who had grown to hate the bourgeoisie which 
 she pronounced boor joysey had about made up her mind 
 that one thing was the matter with the whole system which 
 had run her life into a blind alley. Lulu McCabe was boor 
 joysey ; Saul Shilpik, Sr., was boor joysey ; and as to Saul, 
 Jr. she struggled in vain for some superlative with which 
 to express a sort of glowing self-satisfaction in a sinful state 
 of capitalism. 
 
 Thus reflecting Hortense Troutt turned the key upon the 
 pretty apartment, with which she was no more pleased 
 now than was Prometheus with the rough rock which 
 barked his shins. Considering bitterly that she would have 
 to find a tenant or a flat mate or a boarding house, she tucked 
 her copy of The Unshackled like a sword of defiance under
 
 248 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 her arm. Going down in the elevator, which had always re 
 minded her of a badly regilded secondhand bird cage, she 
 opened her comfort at the editorial page and read : "Harriet 
 Pebbles Cull, editor in chief." 
 
 That helped her make up her mind that something was 
 pretty much wrong with everything and that she didn t 
 know what to do about it. But on her way down to the 
 office she had about decided that if Saul, Jr., didn t stick to 
 his own work and let hers alone she would be forced to tell 
 him something worth remembering. 
 
 Hortense s mother, when there was such a person, used 
 to tell it as a scientific fact that there were days when chil 
 dren just naturally got up out of the wrong side of the bed. 
 
 "Sauljer s lookin for you!" squawked a freckled stenog- 
 raflapper almost as soon as Hortense had laid aside her 
 hat in the cloakroom of the Quick Service Photo Syndicate. 
 It must be explained that Saul, Jr., and Saul, Sr., respec 
 tively but unofficially enjoyed the abbreviations of Sauljer 
 and Saulser among the force. 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 Hortense gave this for the worm to chew on with her 
 gum. She had never been afraid of Sauljer as she was of 
 Saulser ; and this morning it was as though the white spirit 
 of Harriet Pebbles Cull stood at her shoulder, urging her 
 on to a keen blow against the ogre here incarnate. 
 
 She should have gone straight into Sauljer s office, but 
 instead she lingered in her own little compartment tidying 
 her already perfectly tidy desk. And Sauljer came to her. 
 He was always down early when Hortense was late, and 
 this morning his I-told-you-so spread over his white teeth 
 and terminated in little wrinkles under his ears. His coat 
 was off, and through the armholes of his greenish waist 
 coat lavender silk sleeves protruded, large cameos clinking 
 in the cuffs as Sauljer brought his expressive hands to 
 gether. 
 
 He was a florid young man with florid grey eyes and a 
 becoming wave in the inky blackness of his hair.
 
 FREE 249 
 
 "Oh, welcome, welcome !" said he, shaking his own hand 
 most cordially. "It s all right, girlie, if you can get away 
 with it. The time clock s out of order and I won t tell the 
 boss on you." 
 
 "I have nothing to conceal," responded Hortense with 
 the air of a duchess accused of smuggling pearls. She 
 seated herself, seeing no good reason for standing. Her 
 resolution seemed to put Sauljer more at his ease, for he 
 came over and sat on the edge of her desk. 
 
 "Thirty below and a coal strike on." It was really quite 
 pleasant spring weather, so his parable was apparent. 
 "Now come on, girlie, and fess up. What s the idea?" 
 
 "If you ll look on the pay roll," said she, bringing down 
 an upper lip which was quaint without being unbeautiful, 
 "you ll find that my name isn t Girlie. It s Troutt." 
 
 "That s a little bit fishy for you." He seemed immensely 
 pleased with his own sidewalk comedy. 
 
 "I can laugh at your name too," she told him. 
 
 "That s only fair," said Sauljer as he stood and braced 
 himself against her desk on the heels of his palms. "It s a 
 busy day and I m essentially a business man. Now look 
 here, girlie-trout, I ve got a flat proposition to make : Sup 
 pose I blow round to your igloo at about six-thirty under 
 a canopy of American Beauties and we can buzz over to 
 Sherry s for a mess of beans. Maybe we ll have time for the 
 Winter Garden who knows? What? How does that 
 listen?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 And her upper lip grew longer by just that hair s breadth 
 which can make a difference in a destiny. 
 
 "Oh, very well." 
 
 Sauljer was looking at her very intently. He had a not 
 unpleasant gaze, the stupid slave in Hortense s heart was 
 suggesting; but his eyes rested only a moment, then 
 shifted nervously, guiltily, toward the glassy partition be 
 yond. Old Saulser was in there, as a bronchial cough and a 
 series of rasping growls proclaimed. Saulser would be sore.
 
 250 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Having no managerial status in the Quick Service Photo 
 Syndicate, young Saul had no business loafing and flirting on 
 his father s time. As if to ease his conscience, he consulted 
 the diamond-fringed face of his wafer watch. 
 
 "Gee!" he said; and then rapidly, as though clutching in 
 midair : "you know, Miss Hortense Troutt, that I m not ask 
 ing you out for any Kit Kat revel. Everything nice and 
 everything. Mrs. and Mr. Isadore Zull along as a chaperon 
 and " 
 
 "No." Her black eyes were turned up to him in tremen 
 dous earnestness. "If I m late, as you say I am, you d 
 better let me go to work." 
 
 "Come down to the footlights, Hortense!" he begged of 
 her. "What s the idea? Ain t Mrs. and Mr. Zull good 
 enough for you ? Zull s third vice president of the Cyanide 
 National Bank, if I got to boast about it." 
 
 "It isn t that, Saul," she permitted herself; and only 
 wished he would go away before The Unshackled got control 
 of the discussion. "It isn t that. I don t think you d under 
 stand " 
 
 "Come on and teach me," he pleaded. 
 
 "Well, under the false social system in which we live it s 
 
 it s " How she wished she could remember Mrs. 
 
 Cull s inspired phrasing! "it s important for employees 
 not to accept unearned favours from employers and " 
 
 "Where do you get that third-reel stuff ?" Saul, Jr., was 
 beginning to show some of the irritability which in the case 
 of his father served as power for his engines. 
 
 "Don t you call it stuff !" spluttered the slave. "Because 
 you belong to the capitalistic class you think you have a 
 right to sneer at the really serious thinkers of the world. 
 When there s a proper and fair division of labour" she was 
 making a sort of club sandwich out of Mrs. Cull, but she 
 said it rapidly and it sounded logical to her at the moment 
 "there won t be any feudal people or any down 
 trodden " 
 
 "My Gawd!" he groaned. "Emma must have got her."
 
 FREE 251 
 
 "I don t know what you mean. But I do know that when 
 our programme is carried out then capitalism will have to 
 stop. The man at the desk doesn t deserve any more re 
 wards than he who wins by the skill of his hands." 
 
 "What you kickin about? You got a desk job." 
 
 At this point the wheezing in the next compartment in 
 creased to the laboured breathing of a locomotive. A shape 
 less shadow loomed against the frosted glass of the door, 
 which swung slowly open. 
 
 "I knew it," whispered Sauljer. "You ve gone and roused 
 up Papa. He s got an awful grouch, anyway." 
 
 The vision of the roused Papa now completely rilled the 
 open doorway, a picture of pinkish vengeance. His com 
 plexion showed the pink which glows on the brow of an 
 enraged baby; the tonsure of his pinkish hair, surrounding 
 a pink bald spot, seemed to bristle with his mood. There 
 were ogreish spaces between his square teeth. Old Shilpik, 
 who had served nis time as a newspaper photographer, that 
 tribe of horny-souled heroes who will with equal calmness 
 unscrew the lid of a coffin for a close-up of the late lamented 
 or climb a flagpole to get a good snapshot of a Knights- 
 Templar parade, was not of the breed to permit a Soviet to 
 sit harping in the Wilhelmstrasse. 
 
 "What s all this shenanigan about?" he demanded, his 
 complexion deepening to the hue of a young baby who has 
 been holding its breath. 
 
 "Just a little gassing, Papa," replied young Saul, horribly 
 crushed. 
 
 "This ain t no gas corporation," came the immediate, un 
 answerable argument. "But it s getting worse than that. 
 You d think this place was being run by a committee, same 
 as Russia. Go back to your office, Solly. The Tribune is 
 queryin about those wreck pictures." 
 
 "Yes, Papa." 
 
 Sauljer took a few steps, like a little dog being stoned 
 home, then loitered by the door. 
 
 "And you look here, young lady!" Despite her pro-
 
 252 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 gramme the young lady had risen before the pink incarna 
 tion of capitalism, towering fatly above her. "I ve had just 
 about enough of this whangdoodle. You re hired to do your 
 work, see ? We can get plenty of conversation at home, see ? 
 Didn t I hear you hollerin about capitalism and stuff ?" 
 
 Hortense wanted to tell Saulser, just as she had told 
 Sauljer, that Mrs. Cull didn t teach stuff; instead she 
 trembling acknowledged her anticapitalistic preachment. 
 
 "Well, you look here !" Hortense was earnestly looking 
 there at that moment. "I can hire a good Socialist off n the 
 Cooper Union to come here and lecture for half I m givin 
 you. Your personal convictions ain t nothing to me under 
 stand? If this place ain t big enough for your head to 
 swell in out!" 
 
 "Aw, Papa !" came the voice of Sauljer from his obscure 
 corner. "Hortense don t really mean that stuff. She s 
 only kiddin ." 
 
 "Kiddin ?" asked Saulser. By his colour now it was plain 
 to see he was holding his breath. "Kiddin ? Maybe you d 
 like to have a little vaudeville or something while the 
 Tribune s waiting. Now look here! Any more shilly 
 shallying and bohunkus and I fire the both of you. See?" 
 
 In one sweeping glance Hortense got an impression of the 
 cowering Sauljer, quite pale above his brave haberdashery. 
 And she mad-e her stand. 
 
 "You needn t take the trouble, Mr. Shilpik," she an 
 nounced. "You may accept my resignation." 
 
 There fell the desolate blank which follows an explosion. 
 A deafening silence seemed to resound toward her from 
 Sauljer s corner. 
 
 "Can you beat that?" asked Mr. Shilpik of space. "The 
 secretary of state has resigned. Maybe you ll write it out 
 before a notary public." 
 
 "That won t be necessary," she told him in a voice of 
 alarming superiority. "I don t care to be connected with 
 the commercial slavery which gives all the rewards to greed 
 and none to industry "
 
 FREE 253 
 
 "What s the girl been takin ?" asked the sire of his now 
 silent son. 
 
 "Neither of you would understand my point of view," she 
 continued, and was entranced to find that her voice was at 
 a pitch resembling Mrs. Cull s. "Neither of you would 
 understand because you belong to a class which is as absolute 
 as the stagger-sore. You are boor joyseys, both of you." 
 
 "I can call names, too, but I ain t got time to behave 
 ungentlemanly. Solly, git the hell out of here and tend to 
 that Tribune query." 
 
 The glass door slammed and Hortense knew that her one 
 weak champion had departed. 
 
 "And now, young lady," said Capital, looming over her 
 he had faded to a pale-salmon colour and a business calm 
 had settled down "you can step round to the treasurer s 
 office any time." 
 
 He was gone. But he had no sooner disappeared behind 
 the partitions than she could hear his wheezy voice com 
 manding of some one to send Miss Carhart in. Hortense 
 knew what that meant. Miss Carhart was next in succession 
 to her desk. The d-ethroned one set immediately to work 
 removing a vanity case, six personal letters, a back copy of 
 The Unshackled and a half-eaten mess of candy from the 
 top drawer. When Miss Carhart passed through on her 
 way toward promotion Hortense never looked up. But 
 she could have killed herself for the irritating tear which 
 trickled down to the end of her little nose. Even slaves 
 are jealous of their oarlocks in the galley. 
 
 Sauljer had warned her that her ravings against capital 
 ism and the down-crushing of the working gel was third- 
 reel stuff, and her sensations were undoubtedly cinemato 
 graphic as she came back to her apartment in Thirty-second 
 Street, opened the door and went desolately in. A martyr s 
 exaltation had sustained her up to now, but the place had 
 the uninviting appearance of a self-kept apartment in mid- 
 morning. No sooner had she closed the door on the inside 
 than she spied a white envelope on the rug.
 
 254 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 y^ "* " *""*^ ~^ "~ """""^ * m *" *-- ^^ 
 
 At first she thought it was another of those bills she had 
 been keeping for Lulu, but she picked it up to find that it 
 was worse. It bore the large elaborate trade-mark of the 
 Lummox Film Corporation ; it was addressed in Lulu Mc- 
 Cabe s hand, and Hortense just knew it would carry bitter 
 tidings. 
 
 "Honey Kid," it began which was bad, because Lulu always 
 began with a pet name when she wanted to put something over 
 "Honey Kid, that sweet, wicked, adorable Hubbins of mine 
 is going to be the whole camera in Captain Killdevil, which is 
 going to be some spectacle, believe me ! I m going to have a 
 fine part. It s going to be grand. Now don t get mad, you 
 darling, but I just simply can t get away from Newark for at 
 least three months. I don t suppose you want to get some nice 
 girl and run the flat yourself, do you? Or if you think it 
 would be too much trouble, why not the Kelleys ? I told them 
 about the place and they re crazy to move in any time. Just 
 temporary. But don t disturb yourself, dear, if you really want 
 to stay. Will you please express trunk to me, care the Lummox 
 Corporation, Newark, N. J., and oblige? Come and see me 
 sometime. It s going to be a grand film. 
 "With dear love. 
 
 LULU." 
 
 "Now that s all arranged," thought Hortense with one 
 of those monosyllabic laughs which sound like short, heavy 
 bumps along the road to disillusionment. It was all so 
 simple for Lulu, who had a way of simplifying her troubles 
 by complicating other people s. Just ship her trunk to 
 Newark and go on paying all the rent. It was now the 
 last week in April and the lease terminated in another year, 
 come May. 
 
 The insurgent slave sat for a long time in the midst of 
 that untidy studio room, a copy of The Unshackled folded 
 loosely under her listless hands. Undoubtedly she had 
 chosen an unpropitious day for her revolt against capitalism. 
 Possibly, with the aid of Sauljer, she reflected, she could 
 return even now and eat humble pie at the shrine of the 
 offended if offensive Saulser. No. Starvation were better 
 than such hateful nourishment. With the world full of
 
 FREE 255 
 
 such high-minded thinkers as she had seen and heard at 
 the Button Moulders rally was it possible that a girl in her 
 position must still be compelled to humiliate herself before 
 capitalism in order to gain for herself a bare livelihood? 
 
 As though in answer to her question Harriet Pebbles 
 Cull s editorial on Slaves stared up at her from her lap. "In 
 the New State ... no such thing as inequality of serv 
 ice. . . . The Slave Driver is as obsolete as the stegosaur. 
 . . . Work ... a fair and happy partnership." 
 
 Clouds of comforting incense ! Here, then, lay the remedy 
 for all her woes Harriet Pebbles Cull, editor in chief, 
 twenty cents the copy, eight dollars the year, to any address 
 in the United States or Canada. 
 
 It was a fateful convenience that Hortense Troutt at that 
 moment still retained her hat and coat. Had she been com 
 pelled to put them on she might have had time to reconsider. 
 Details cramp decisions. Caesar s assassins never stopped 
 to change their togas. The hat and coat did the business for 
 Hortense Troutt, who was off in the jiffy of her impulse; 
 and it seemed no time at all ere a green bus had delivered her 
 at the arched doorway in lower Fifth Avenue which bore 
 the card Unshackled Publishing Company, Third Floor. 
 Thus easily did Alice pop through three and a half dimen 
 sions, down the rabbit hole and into the presence of a magic 
 bottle labelled Drink Me. 
 
 She found herself in a waiting room which was like any 
 other waiting room save for the fact that the pictures on 
 the walls were about equally divided between photographs 
 of mobs being violently handled by the police and paintings 
 which, to Hortense, conveyed no clearer message than that 
 somebody s children had been messing in a box of water 
 colours. A girl in an apron-like garment, a girl with stringy 
 hair above a stringy neck, glared up from her desk to inform 
 her that Mrs. Cull was busy just now. Over in a corner an 
 untidy gentleman with a Vandyke beard sat, knees crossed, 
 huddled diagonally against a dapper person of the commer 
 cial-drummer type. Hortense hoped that the dapper one
 
 256 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 was a new convert being instructed in the code of the un 
 shackled, but her straining ears were disappointed to find 
 that they were arguing in a strange, commercial jargon, 
 bandying stock terms over the increasing cost of white 
 paper. 
 
 "Harriet Pebbles Cull," announced the distinguishing 
 label on a glazed door. This door swung open and a fattish, 
 rather goodlooking young man emerged, pulling a golf cap 
 over a wealth of bushy curls. He wore a soft shirt open 
 at the throat above a blue suit which was shiny and 
 spotted. Hortense reflected that he needed sponging. His 
 greyish shoes seemed to spurt dust as he walked. She was 
 to know him later as Larry Hoden, the Harvard-bred 
 tramp; but this morning he merely represented to her a 
 symbol of the newer freedom beyond. 
 
 Feeling for all the world like Alice about to be spoken 
 to by the rabbit with the white gloves, Hortense blushed 
 when he turned and would have addressed her as comrade, 
 no doubt, had not her freshman shyness unnerved him. He 
 looked up at the clock instead and said in the most refined 
 tone possible : "As I live, it s time to hit the trail again !" 
 Thus his exit. 
 
 "She s ready now," said the stringy girl, giving Hortense 
 a sour smile as she followed meekly and faced the owner 
 of the great name upon the door. Her guide clicked the 
 latch behind her and left her alone with the prophetess of a 
 better dawn, who showed no intention of either seeing or 
 hearing her visitor. On closer view Harriet Pebbles Cull 
 looked more forbidding than she had last night on the ros 
 trum, when she had opened her arms to the working gels of 
 the world and bidden them be of good cheer. With a long, 
 fine-pointed pencil she was counting the words of a type 
 written manuscript; the violet eyes were not unkind but 
 merely concentrated. 
 
 "Well?" asked the editor in chief at last without look 
 ing up. 
 
 "I I m Miss Troutt" As soon as she had said it she
 
 FREE 257 
 
 knew that this was no way to begin. "I we met I met you 
 at the Button Moulders rally." 
 
 "Miss Troutt ?" The seeress knitted her brows ; then she 
 took a good look at Hortense, and apparently liking the view 
 assumed a smile which was as comprehensive and general as 
 any of her theories. 
 
 "No, you re not Miss Troutt," she corrected with the air 
 of ineffable kindness which Buddha must have used toward 
 his less brilliant disciples. "There aren t any Misses here. 
 What is your first name ?" 
 
 "Hortense," replied the confused one. 
 
 "Comrade Hortense that s better. And now, Comrade 
 Hortense, what is it?" 
 
 "Why, you see, Mrs. Cull " 
 
 "Comrade Harriet, if you please. We are all equals." 
 
 "Comrade Harriet" it was like meeting Elihu Root for 
 the first time and calling him Uncle El, but Hortense was 
 game "Comrade Harriet, I m only a working girl and " 
 
 "A working gel, yes." Comrade Harriet s accent was 
 wonderfully civilised. "And you wish to identify yourself 
 with the cause ?" 
 
 "Oh, very much! I heard your speech, and I ve been 
 reading your paper ; your fine views on everything made such 
 an impression on me that this morning I went right down to 
 the office and resigned my situation." 
 
 "I see." Comrade Harriet s pure brow was all but haloed 
 with an expression of divine guidance. "Another slave aris 
 ing against his driver. I am very happy to hear this, com 
 rade. Our work is spreading." 
 
 "And I ve come to you because you have such a wonder 
 ful mind and can advise me about getting a job somewhere 
 where I won t have to be bossed round by the boor joysey." 
 
 "Boor-zhwah-zee," corrected Comrade Harriet. She 
 didn t laugh or make light of Hortense s bad French. In 
 fact, it seemed impossible for her to make light of anything. 
 "I distinctly see what you mean. You refuse to remain a 
 slave to the capitalistic system."
 
 258 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 r^ " "*"^ *" *" i * ~ ~*^^~"^^~"~~^^^~~" * ^"** * 
 
 "That s it !" Hortense was wildly glad that she had come. 
 "You see I m an expert stenographer and business secretary. 
 If I could get away from those capitalists I d work for quite 
 a reduction." 
 
 "Stenographer and business secretary/ mused Harriet 
 Pebbles Cull. "A profession which will become obsolete 
 upon the dissolution of the commercial hierarchy." 
 
 "I was thinking that you might have some job for me 
 round your office." 
 
 This came all in one breath. 
 
 "My dearest child !" Comrade Harriet s look was honey- 
 sweet. "The work of the Unshackled office is largely a 
 labour of love. Comrade Elsa, my associate who sits out 
 side, and Comrade Larry, whom you may have seen just 
 now, have small incomes from the capitalist class, from 
 which they have been converted. All of our contributions 
 are in the nature of propaganda and are of course supplied 
 without charge. Won t you sit down ?" 
 
 Comrade Harriet eyed her curiously during a pause in 
 which she held her pencil by its long point and caressed a 
 handsome eyebrow with the rubber. 
 
 "Comrade Hortense," she said at last, "I approve of the 
 brave stand you have taken against the spoiler. H m. And 
 yet secession is sometimes inopportune before a definite 
 programme is indicated. Do you understand me ?" 
 
 Hortense supposed vaguely that it meant you shouldn t 
 quit one job before another was in sight. 
 
 "But rather than expose you again to the capitalism from 
 which you are now free, let me suggest an idea of my own. 
 How would you like to enter with me into a partnership 
 based on the equality of reward?" 
 
 "That s awfully kind of you, Mrs. Cu Comrade Har 
 riet," replied the shattered being, thinking that she was being 
 offered a half interest in the Unshackled Publishing Com 
 pany. "But wouldn t that be giving me too much ?" 
 
 Mrs. Cull waved a shapely hand which was ringed with 
 carved jade set in old silver. 

 
 FREE 259 
 
 "To us there is no such expression as too much. Par 
 ticipation is the very heartbeat of communism. Have you 
 ever done general housework?" 
 
 Hortense was now swimming fast to keep up with the 
 rising tide of suggestions. 
 
 "Why, yes. Aunt Hen keeps a boarding house back in 
 Rockinock. She s taught me quite considerable." 
 
 "Excellent! Then you will fall in very nicely with my 
 programme. I have a studio apartment the task of direc 
 tion would fall most properly to me. The work of produc 
 tion no less important and dignified would constitute your 
 half in the equal partnership." 
 
 "What would I be expected to do ?" asked Hortense, who 
 was already half hypnotised. At the direct question Mrs. 
 Cull braced two slender forefingers against two white teeth 
 and sat a while in thought. 
 
 "Your work would consist largely," she defined at last, 
 "in converting raw material into terms of human comfort, 
 the nutriment of strength, health and intelligence. There 
 is an almost priestly dignity attached to the office of the 
 cook and houseworker a dignity seldom appreciated by the 
 bourgeoisie. See what alchemic changes can be wrought in 
 the produce of the butcher or greengrocer, turning the fruits 
 of the earth into the fruits of the mind! So you will have 
 complete province over the ordering of our domestic habits. 
 You, in fact, will be the home maker, while I will be tha 
 home sustainer." 
 
 "Well, as I understand it," upspoke Hortense, "you want 
 a girl who can live with you, sort of like one of the family, 
 and run things while you re away at the office." 
 
 "That is very well put, in its way," conceded the lecturer. 
 Apparently she guessed that her caller was awaiting other 
 particulars, for she explained: "And about the arrange 
 ments. Among our emancipated thinkers, you know, we 
 have tried, so far as is practical under the capitalistic sys 
 tem, to do away with the clumsy monetary exchange which 
 has done so much to ruin this beautiful world. As an equal-
 
 260 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 sharing partner in our home you will receive exactly what 
 I receive therefrom : attractive sleeping quarters, nourishing 
 food, pleasing surroundings, adequate clothing, and com 
 panionship with the finest minds in the world of modern 
 thought." 
 
 "Would you like me to go right to work ?" Hortense asked 
 breathlessly. 
 
 "What was that ?" It was evident that Mrs. Cull s larger 
 vision had already reverted to its problems. 
 
 "Do you want me right away?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes ! To be sure !" 
 
 Scarcely looking up, Mrs. Cull reached into a small 
 drawer, and with one motion of the hand brought out a key 
 to which a card had been attached by means of a pale pink 
 ribbon. 
 
 "The address is on the card," Hortense heard her telling 
 the typewritten manuscript. "We dine at seven. I think 
 you ll find a list of tradesmen in the frame by the telephone. 
 Better lay places for two extra, as Comrade Elsa and Com 
 rade Larry may come in. Excuse me, won t you?" 
 
 In the outer office Hortense looked upon Comrade Elsa 
 with eyes of a new reverence ; she must be one of the Finest 
 Minds. Hortense wondered if, now that she was in the 
 circle, she hadn t better smile and say "Good morning, 
 comrade !" as Comrade Larry had done. But Comrade Elsa, 
 who was now busily beating a typewriter, never looked up. 
 
 ii 
 
 And that is how in the course of an hour Miss Hor 
 tense Troutt moved across the border of Philistia and 
 took a flat in Utopia. She found that Mrs. Cull occu 
 pied the top floor of a three-storied house within short 
 pistol range of Gramercy Park; the floor was sublet, she 
 later found out, by a young lawyer named Green, whose 
 plump little wife, two well-nurtured children and economical 
 town car combined to proclaim him and his tribe as boor
 
 FREE 261 
 
 joysey in the extreme. The Greens occupied the two floors 
 below, kept fairly good hours and enjoyed only a dumb 
 waiter speaking acquaintance with the comrades in the upper 
 realm. 
 
 On the morning of her first enchantment Hortense found 
 the keyhole of the third-floor apartment and walked tim 
 orously into the strange life. Her impression of the big 
 room which first she entered was that Comrade Harriet had 
 been dry cleaning and had pinned innumerable fragments 
 of Chines-e and Japanese clothing to the wall in order that 
 they might retain their intended shape. This theory was 
 abandoned, however, when upon closer inspection she found 
 that the embroideries were quite dusty and that some of them 
 served as backgrounds for the curiously splashy pictures of 
 which Comrade Harriet had a great many. On the marble 
 mantel, directly under the enlarged photograph of revolu 
 tionary corpses lying before the gates of Tsarskoe Selo, a 
 baker s dozen of froth-streaked glasses sat in gloomy con 
 ference as though last night s discussion had seriously dis 
 agreed with them. 
 
 Hortense raised the shades and threw open the big 
 windows. She was sure she had never before seen such a 
 variety of cigarette butts. Hand-rolled, machine-rolled, 
 white, yellow, brown, black, a mangled army of them clut 
 tered the fireplace, piano, bookshelves, table. Cigarette 
 papers lay strewn like autumn leaves along the rug over a 
 sifting of fine-chopped tobacco. 
 
 Comrade Harriet had no doubt spoken true when she had 
 confessed that the pursuit of large problems had unsuited 
 her for home-making. Hortense approached the priestly 
 dignity of the kitchen and found an expanse of that dreary 
 yellow woodwork once fashionable for service quarters. A 
 family of resident cockroaches scrambled over mountains 
 of greasy tinware, which lay about like wreckage in the wake 
 of a defeated army. The sink was overflowing with crum 
 pled napkins of Japanese crepe, and on the draining 
 board tottered a soiled stack of those cardboard plates which
 
 262 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 one associates with pie-serving at country barbecues. The 
 gas range was a pyre of meaty sacrifices. As home maker 
 there was no doubt that Hortense had her work cut out for 
 her. 
 
 Behind a door she found an all-enveloping garment of 
 calico, and with this on and her sleeves tucked back she set 
 to work, beginning at the front of the apartment and pro 
 gressing slowly toward the back. The homely effort of 
 wiping down neglected shelves, mobilising cigarette stubs, 
 carpet-sweeping the vast grey surfaces of the studio room, 
 wrought in her a very fury of exaltation. Back in Rock- 
 mock she had never liked housework ; but here there was a 
 difference which brought charm. She might work twice 
 as hard as ever she had worked in her life ; every swish of 
 the dusting rag was a blow for freedom. Comrade, co- 
 worker, partner! 
 
 Powered by such thoughts, she plunged through the sur 
 rounding rubbish like a ship in a high sea like some won 
 derfully contrived ship, designed to head through a storm 
 and leave orderly calm behind. By noon she had polished, 
 swept and tidied the big room until it looked all but com 
 fortable. Then she had rung up a hurry call to one Cosimo 
 Pelligrino, grocer, green, wet and dry. By the same means 
 she had notified the butcher; and in a pause she had tele 
 phoned Mrs. Kelley, who, as it proved, had been in corre 
 spondence with Lulu McCabe and was overjoyed at the 
 chance to take over the Thirty-second Street apartment. 
 
 It was all like a dream to Hortense. Out of the dull 
 ledger of the commonplace she had stepped into a picture 
 book: a poetically written, wonderfully illustrated picture 
 book whose pages, if somewhat rumpled now, could be 
 smoothed out by her hand. 
 
 She lunched on the nub end of a loaf which she found in 
 the bread box. Staring at her from the pantry shelves she 
 beheld stack after stack of new paper plates, bale after bale 
 of fresh crepe napkins ; and in these she admired the wisdom 
 of the emancipated who had no time for scraping china or
 
 FREE 263 
 
 scrubbing linen. She was just finishing with the pots and 
 pans when Cosimo Pelligrino sent over a fat Italian boy 
 with a laden market basket. He was Cosimo s son, it turned 
 out, and though obviously unemancipated he seemed eager to 
 fraternise. Indeed he lost no time in interviewing Hortense 
 on the subject of her aims and aspirations, with a view to 
 proving, as he confessed, that some likes one lady and some 
 another. 
 
 "Do Mis Cull need-a some more rad-ennk wine ?" he in 
 quired at last; and in answer to his own question leaned 
 under the stationary washtub and brought out a demijohn, 
 which he shook close to his ear before restoring it to its 
 place of hiding. 
 
 "Plenta for one more time," he decreed, then looped the 
 handle of his basket so high on his biceps that the edge was 
 level with his shoulder. "Lasta girl Mis Cull had was a 
 Swede. She verra good girl named Heeld. She go craza." 
 
 Hortense would have loved a more detailed account of 
 the Craza Heeld, but young Cosimo departed as though in 
 the wake of that demented spirit. In one disturbing flash 
 Hortense wondered if her forerunner had entered the Cull 
 household on the basis of equal participation; but the day 
 was all too short for psychopathic speculations, and Mrs. 
 Cull s new partner was already searching her mind for a 
 few of her aunt s standard boarding-house recipes. She 
 worked it out finally from veal cutlets to rice pudding. This 
 ought to sustain the Finest Minds for another night, she 
 thought, then went forth to explore the bedrooms. 
 
 There stood off the kitchen a little dark alcove, once no 
 doubt the lurking place of the Craza. Heeld. Here she found 
 a spirit cabinet which had once held clothes and behind 
 whose horridly striped calico curtains there remained a leaky 
 pair of overshoes and an empty flask fancifully labelled Old 
 Comfort Gin. The bed, which was of iron, was as hard and 
 narrow as any nun s could ever hope to be. Beside the yel 
 low oak bureau a wonderfully glazed brewery calendar dis 
 played a pampered beauty clad in the style of 1898 and
 
 264 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 drinking beer alone under an exotic linden. The priestly 
 dignity of Craza Heeld s office had not included clean sheets, 
 obviously; and the search brought Hortense to Mrs. Cull s 
 bedroom across the studio. 
 
 This chamber was not without charm, if you discount the 
 Russian Messiah with the middy blouse, who stood framed 
 at the head of Mrs. Cull s four-poster. This photograph 
 was autographed with a signature which looked ever so 
 much as though its owner had taken a pen in his left hand 
 and written his name backward. Hortense reflected that it 
 would do no harm to take down, wash and press the pretty 
 chintz curtains ; but the floor was comparatively well pol 
 ished, the woodwork comparatively white, and Mrs. Cull 
 had chosen for her art intimates some landscapes that were 
 comparatively sane. In digging her knuckles into the tufted 
 mattress it was impossible for Hortense to refrain from the 
 thought that the thinking end of this establishment might be 
 a trifle fussy in the matter of sleeping luxuries. That the 
 reflection brought no sting was but another tribute to Mrs. 
 Cull s ability to hypnotise at a distance. 
 
 It was a radiant moment for Hortense when Comrade 
 Harriet, coming home with her associates that evening, put 
 a protective arm round the girl s slim waist and led her 
 before her guests. 
 
 "Comrades," said she, "this is Hortense. She has vol 
 untarily abandoned the bourgeoisie to fight for us." 
 
 Despite the fact that this was all said in the tone of 
 a missionary who exhibits a Papuan child recently rescued 
 from the tribal bake ovens, Hortense was so overwhelmed 
 with love and adoration for her kind deliverer that she 
 could have fallen to her knees and touched the hem of that 
 peculiar baggy walking skirt. 
 
 Comrade Elsa twisted her watery face into the approxi 
 mation of a smile and said something with comrade at the 
 end of it as she thrust forth a clammy flipper; but Hortense 
 admitted she was thrilled when the Harvard tramp took her 
 hand almost hurtfully in his warm broad palm.
 
 FREE 265 
 
 "Shake, sister !" said he. "You can t keep the good guys 
 off our dump !" 
 
 This rough-hewn speech was delivered with the broad a 
 fashionable in Cambridge, and sounded the keynote of his 
 character. For the patois of the dusty road was to Larry 
 Hoden just as much an acquired trait as were the soiled blue 
 suit and hobgoblin shoes which rather set off than detracted 
 from his cultivated appearance. It was as though an actor, 
 nicely shaved and bathed in scented soap, had temporarily 
 disguised himself as a tramp. 
 
 They were in the midst of a discussion. Hortense had 
 yet to learn that discussion with these people was synony 
 mous with social intercourse. Heaven to Harriet Pebbles 
 Cull was an extensive place where a multitude of souls could 
 sit through the aeons defining their various attitudes. Com 
 rade Harriet especially relished discussion because, after 
 picking her own crowd, she usually managed to monopolise 
 the floor. 
 
 To-night while dinner cooled they were right in the midst 
 of one. Two or three times Hortense was on the point of 
 suggesting that they sit down while the soup a last-minute 
 inspiration out of a can was still hot. But it seemed there 
 had been a protest on the part of somebody somewhere in 
 Wisconsin, and the three Finest Minds were going at it 
 from three different angles. Comrade Larry accused Com 
 rade Harriet of being an Opportunist, which caused Harriet 
 to flush and discover that Larry was a Decembrist ; and in 
 the midst of a general engagement Comrade Elsa opined 
 that as a Fabian she would hang them both. Larry wanted 
 to know how Elsa could be both a Fabian and a Maximalist, 
 and it was in the heat of analysis that Comrade Harriet sud 
 denly turned upon her unshackled partner who was 
 crouched in a corner wondering which of these heads, if 
 any, she would come under and inquired : "When will we 
 have dinner, comrade?" 
 
 "It has been waiting twenty minutes," retorted Hortense, 
 a trifle hurt.
 
 266 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Oh, so it has," replied the home sustainer, twirling her 
 glasses on the end of their black cord and making no move 
 to rise. Larry, it seemed, had discovered something called 
 Chauvinism, which was the worst yet. 
 
 They agreed on this at last and all advanced upon the 
 table, which Hortense had set as daintily as cardboard plates 
 and paper napkins could make it. Before sitting down Mrs. 
 Cull focused her absent-minded eyes and said : "My dear, 
 not cocktail glasses for claret !" 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 Hortense scurried toward the kitchen. She could feel the 
 blushes, redder than Cosimo s demijohned beverage. She 
 brought back goblets and Comrade Harriet wasted but the 
 fraction of a glance upon the home maker ere returning to 
 the really weighty problem of wage-slavery among the creo 
 sote workers. Lingering in the stuffy kitchen during the 
 process of pouring claret into a carafe, the girl resolved to 
 ask her partner for some easy books that would tell her 
 all about these great questions. Once included in the debate, 
 she thought, the illusion of freedom would be perfect in 
 deed. 
 
 Nobody commented on her dinner, save once when Com 
 rade Harriet called for more oil on her salad and twice 
 when Comrade Larry requested another large helping of 
 veal cutlets. All during the meal the Finest Minds stuck 
 to their favourite brands of cigarettes, which may be super 
 ficially described as white, yellow and brown. After dinner 
 they moved their debate to the far end of the studio, where 
 Mrs. Cull, stretching herself at length on a chaise tongue, 
 got complete control of the caucus, going on and on and on 
 in one unbroken editorial, full of mighty adjectives and en 
 tirely lacking in paragraphs. 
 
 From the kitchen, where Hortense worked long and faith 
 fully tidying things for the night, as Aunt Hen had taught 
 her to do, she caught the cadence of those beautiful periods 
 without being troubled by their meaning. From this far 
 vantage she enjoyed the dream of being at one with these
 
 FREE 267 
 
 mighty souls. At last she heard the lecturer pause, clear 
 her throat and call her name. 
 
 "Hortense," she suggested when her partner appeared, 
 "will you please bring me a glass of water? And open 
 some of the windows. It s fearfully stuffy. Comrade 
 Larry, how would you define group consciousness?" 
 
 The tired girl must have fallen asleep on a divan at the 
 outer edge of the discussion, for when she opened her hazy 
 eyes she was aware of a deep, pleasant voice in her ear. 
 Comrade Larry was leaning over her, and the sight caused 
 her to leap hastily to her feet. 
 
 "Que linda!" he chuckkd. "That s what they say in 
 Guatemala when they find the Sleeping Beauty pounding her 
 ear." 
 
 She was refreshed to see that his eyes were clear and 
 much more humorous than those which beamed from the 
 other Finest Minds. 
 
 "I m afraid we haven t given you a chance to define your 
 attitude," he was going on. "We re a noisy lot of bindle- 
 stiffs when we get into action." 
 
 "I I was all tired out, I guess," she faltered, not dis 
 pleased by his confidential attitude. She could see Comrades 
 Harriet and Elsa browsing over a pile of drawings in the 
 big bedroom. 
 
 "Masterly inaction," came the smile of the rather too 
 small mouth. "I suspect you of being a Fabian aren t 
 you?" 
 
 "Honestly, I don t know what I am," confessed the novice. 
 
 "I ll tell you what we ll do, comrade." He gave one quick 
 glance toward the bedroom before resuming. "If you ll 
 come and sit with me in Washington Square to-morrow 
 afternoon I ll help you clarify your attitude." 
 
 It s just the way young men act when they want to teach 
 you to swim, she thought, and was pleased again. 
 
 "That will be ever so kind of you," she said in her 
 politest tone. A little of the Rockinock snobbery lingered 
 and she found herself wishing he would sponge his suit
 
 263 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 and shine his shoes. Back in Rockinock even the roughest 
 young men took pains with such particulars before going 
 out with the girls. 
 
 "I m not sure whether Mrs. Cull Comrade Harriet will 
 let me," she qualified, and earned his guffaw. 
 
 "Can that bunk! There s no such thing as Let Me in 
 our philosophy. Our restraints are our inclinations, nothing 
 more. Of course, if your inclination forbids your sitting 
 in the square and learning how to clarify your attitude 
 why, very well. Freedom of choice is our watchword." 
 
 He flushed slightly and turned half away. The other 
 comrades were now emerging from the bedroom. 
 
 "At what time ?" asked Hortense breathlessly. 
 
 "Half-past one," replied the Finest Mind, speaking out of 
 the corner of his mouth quite as furtively as Sauljer might 
 have done when Papa was threatening. Then he joined the 
 others hastily with a feeling comment on the Civic Forum 
 and the pernicious anti-tea-room statute. Hortense per 
 mitted her hand to linger in his as he departed, giving her a 
 conspiratorial smile. She had a feeling of taking her first 
 step out of the novitiate into the priesthood. 
 
 "And how do you like us by now?" 
 
 It was Comrade Harriet who thus inquired as with all the 
 caution of a landed proprietress she bolted the studio door 
 for the night. 
 
 "I think you re splendid !" What else could she say ? 
 
 By way of good night Comrade Harriet planted a cool 
 kiss upon the unworthy forehead and said : "You mustn t 
 permit any of the old chains to dangle the intellectual 
 chains and prejudices. You must cast aside slave-thinking 
 and be free as we all are. Slavery is a habit of the mind 
 see how often a convict, released from unjust imprisonment, 
 longs again for his cell. Remember the wide spaces, the 
 upper air be free !" 
 
 "Yes, Comrade Harriet," said the meek disciple. 
 
 "Then to bed, my dear." The voice of Harriet Pebbles
 
 FREE 269 
 
 Cull was like that of a singing seraph. "And don t forget 
 that freedom of choice is the very essence of our belief." 
 
 "Yes I won t," she promised somewhat sleepily. 
 
 It reminded her of what Larry the tramp had just said 
 in that furtive aside. She was on the point of taking Com 
 rade Harriet into her confidence in the matter of that 
 Washington Square rendezvous of the morrow; then she 
 remembered that there were no chaperons in Utopia, so she 
 held her peace. 
 
 "You are doing very well," Mrs. Cull allowed herself as 
 she stood removing the pins from her back hair. "I think 
 the soup was a trifle cool, but you will learn. I always 
 have chocolate, a hot roll and a four-minute egg brought 
 to my room at eight o clock. And oh, yes !" She walked rap 
 idly across the studio to a battered Italian desk. "Here are 
 some revised chapters of my new book which I must have 
 typed before the end of the week. There is a new machine in 
 its case under my bed. I wonder if you d mind, in your odd 
 moments " 
 
 "Oh, will you let me?" So, after all, her training as a 
 typist, stenographer and business secretary would bring her 
 in closer link with the cause. 
 
 "I knew you wouldn t mind. Good night, comrade !" 
 
 And the heavy door at last slammed on the studio. 
 
 in 
 
 A week later found a curiously revised Hortense Troutt 
 dusting, ironing, sweeping and cooking between spells of 
 typing a manuscript which was obscurely annotated and 
 entirely composed of hard words. But in all this flurry she 
 was not too busy to think almost constantly of Larry Hoden. 
 In that first Washington Square meeting he had, by way of 
 clarifying her attitude, proposed marriage to her. 
 
 That had been an act of splendid renunciation on his 
 part because, as he had taken time to explain to her, he 
 didn t believe in marriage as an institution. But as a con-
 
 270 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 cession to her bourgeois upbringing he was willing to appear 
 before a capitalistic marriage-license bureau, sign his name 
 to a contract, and if necessary submit himself to the rites 
 of a priest, rabbi, rector, preacher or Christian Science prac 
 titioner. In his dusty garments and scraggly haircut he had 
 appeared to her like some love-inspired young prophet as 
 he had made his self-submerging proposal. She was sure 
 he had a broader vision and finer spirit than any young 
 man she had ever met and yet 
 
 Back in Rockinock there had been a different way of 
 looking at essentials. Aunt Hen had always referred to the 
 institution of marriage as the Holy Bond of Wedlock, de 
 spite the fact that Uncle James had been far from sanctified 
 in his behaviour and had died of lockjaw superinduced 
 by tearing his foot on a rusty screen door which he had 
 kicked while in a state of rage and sin. But Hortense had 
 always associated weddings with Mendelssohn, roses, or 
 gandies and a ritual of holy joy. She remembered how 
 Aunt Hen had always given prominent place among the 
 hundred horrible examples to a certain wanton jade who 
 had refused to say "I will" when the Reverend Mr. Potts 
 had asked the promise to obey. 
 
 What was Hortense to think of a man who made no choice 
 between priests, rabbis, rectors, preachers and Christian 
 Science practitioners? 
 
 She thought of him a great deal. She didn t count it 
 strange that he should have proposed to her upon their 
 first meeting alone. She thought that love ought to come 
 that way suddenly, like a stroke of lightning or a bad 
 attack of influenza. How much more noble, worthy and 
 temperamental was this Finest Mind s wooing than the 
 calculated advances of poor Sauljer, now fortunately for 
 gotten. 
 
 Such thoughts had sustained Hortense during this week; 
 for she could not conceal even from her rosy illusions that 
 she was working pretty hard. If her broad-minded and 
 equal-sharing partner would only get into the habit of rising
 
 FREE 271 
 
 for breakfast or of picking up after herself things would 
 simplify no doubt. As it was Hortense must be up be 
 fore seven each morning, and the entertainment of assorted 
 Finest Minds every night kept her busy until a late hour. 
 Several hundred pages of her typewriting had come out 
 wrong; the light in the studio wasn t very good, and she 
 was suffering a great deal from headaches eyestrain and 
 lack of sleep. 
 
 But in the first pause of early afternoon, when her 
 strength was beginning to fail, a little ring at the studio 
 door always brought the roses back along the road to Ar- 
 cady. To-day as she awaited his visit she thought that she 
 had got over wishing that he would dress up in her honour ; 
 in fact, Hortense herself had taken to wearing one of Mrs. 
 Cull s greenish creations which, though it gave to her the 
 effect of a velvet bag tied round with a candy ribbon, yet 
 also imparted the chaste satisfaction that a Trappist brother 
 must feel when first he dons the gaberdine of his order. 
 
 Comrade Harriet, too, had taught her disciple how to do 
 her hair in such a way as to take all the wave out of it 
 and cause it to fall in loose, irregular avalanches round her 
 face. 
 
 And sure enough, on this afternoon a week or so after 
 her entrance into freedom, the hour of two brought Larry 
 Hoden s familiar double ring; he was fairly regular in his 
 calls, if Larry Hoden could be said to be fairly regular 
 in anything. 
 
 As Hortense had her hand on the knob to open the door 
 she had a vision of how he would look in a brand-new 
 suit with a becoming tie and stiff collar. At what an in 
 opportune moment this idea had clamoured for entertain 
 ment ! For the appearance of the materialised Hoden was 
 dramatic by contrast. A diagonal trail of dust ran from his 
 right shoulder to the second button of his waistcoat or to 
 the place where the second button had been before its last 
 thread had broken from anchorage. His dark hair seemed 
 Medusalike in its unbarbered riot, and the hand which he
 
 272 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 raised in the act of removing his shapeless cap was as 
 dingy as though it had been shovelling coal. Which the 
 hand of Larry Hoden would never do if it could help it. 
 
 "Howdy, comrade !" cheerily he bade her, his handsome 
 eyes sparkling as he presented a hand which for the first 
 time she was loath to press. 
 
 "Oh, Larry!" 
 
 It was a poor speech in this wordy atmosphere, but it 
 must have had its effect, for he relinquished his hold and 
 asked : "What s eating you now, comrade ?" 
 
 "Nothing !" Some more of her eloquent inadequacy. 
 
 "Come off! Your attitude is Fabian. Fabians never get 
 married, you know; because their masterly inactivity for 
 bids it." 
 
 "I think I m tired." 
 
 "Bully!" he rejoiced. "What you need is a change of 
 work. One of the most disgusting aspects of capitalistic 
 slavery is its horrible permanence. Hell is a place where 
 people have to stick to one job forever. We Maximalists 
 hate monotony. Change of work, change of environment, 
 change of government that s our creed. Come on, Hor- 
 tense put on your hat and follow me." 
 
 "Where?" She took him seriously and was now quite 
 breathless. 
 
 "First to the bourgeois headquarters where they deal 
 in marriage licenses. Then to one of those gospel hucksters 
 who will say a few lines of vers libre and declare us man 
 and wife." 
 
 "Larry, I don t like the way you speak about clergymen," 
 she declared, lengthening her upper lip. She was deter 
 mined that this should be the point of departure. 
 
 "Holy alkali !" swore the Harvard tramp. "How like a 
 birthmark our prejudice clings !" He thrust his dirty hands 
 deep into his baggy trousers and took a few paces up and 
 down before he again faced her. "Hortense, my dear girl 
 I m desperately in love with you. You believe that, don t 
 you?"
 
 FREE 273 
 
 "Y-yes." She admitted even this with a reservation. 
 
 "You ve got to believe it! If I weren t mad about you 
 I shouldn t consider making these these humiliating con 
 cessions to your prejudice. You say you want me to con 
 sider your religion. Have I asked you to consider mine?" 
 
 "I am perfectly willing that a clergyman of your religion 
 should marry us," she decreed. 
 
 "Bunk ! My religion doesn t include clergymen." 
 
 "Then it isn t a religion," she informed him in true 
 Rockinock form. 
 
 "My Lord, if I weren t demented I should give you up, 
 send you back to the bourgeoisie." 
 
 "Of course, you might " 
 
 "Look here, Hortense! Pick your preacher. If your 
 so-called religion demands that I be married on a pile of 
 fagots and burned afterward like a Hindu widow, I m 
 game." 
 
 His tone was light, but there was a touch of temper in 
 the florid face as he stood sifting fine-chopped tobacco into 
 a brown paper. 
 
 "Let s sit down," she suggested. She was terribly sorry 
 that she had hurt him ; but now or never, she thought, was 
 the time to speak. Indeed, she had a programme of her own. 
 
 "I think you re wonderful." She began with the sweet 
 end first. "I think you re a great genius with awfully 
 awfully grand ideas about everything. You re the finest 
 mind I ever saw. But if you re going to marry me I want 
 you to understand it s a holy bond " 
 
 "Aw !" 
 
 He groaned and covered his face with his sooty hands. 
 She wasn t sure whether he was laughing or crying ; which 
 certainly added to the difficulties of her subsequent speech. 
 
 "It s a terrible responsibility I know, because I watched 
 Aunt Hen and Uncle James. And I don t think any nice 
 girl ought to go into it sight unseen without making the 
 gentleman she is going to marry sacrifice a few things 
 just to prove that he really cares."
 
 274 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "What would you suggest?" asked the voice behind the 
 hands. 
 
 "In the first place" here she bit her lip, realising the 
 impiety of her forthcoming request "I think you ought to 
 slick up a little. You know. Get a new suit of clothes 
 and necktie and things." 
 
 "I see. Array myself like, the peasant bridegroom of the 
 Balkans." This came through his dirty fingers. 
 
 "Something like that," she responded. "The clothes you 
 have are very nice to wear when you re speaking at 
 rallies and everything. When we re married you can 
 keep them to put on when you go out among the propa 
 ganda" she wasn t at all sure she had got this word right, 
 but she continued full steam ahead "and and you must 
 trim your hair, and manicure and and sort of spruce up." 
 
 "Wash?" He put it monosyllabically. 
 
 "Well," came her oblique attack, "you ve sort of got to 
 stop being a genius when you re a husband." 
 
 "Do you know what you re asking me to do?" He 
 lowered his hands suddenly and faced her. "You re com 
 manding me to betray my class and put on the livery of 
 capitalism !" 
 
 "Most capitalists are very nice dressers," she persisted. 
 
 "Anything else you require?" he asked, coming back 
 to his amused smile. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she countered promptly. "If we re going to 
 get married of course we ll have to have a place to live; 
 and that means paying the grocer and landlord and hiring 
 a girl to do the housework " 
 
 "A girl to do the housework?" he echoed. 
 
 "Certainly. It s all right to get along this way" she 
 pointed her little nose round the studio room to indicate 
 where "this way" lay "but if you and I got married on 
 that equal-distribution-of-labour basis we d find pretty quick 
 that it didn t work for either of us. To tell you the truth 
 I ve been in partnership with Comrade Harriet long enough 
 to want to do some bossing for myself. A Swedish girl at
 
 FREE 275 
 
 thirty dollars a month would save us money in the long 
 run I d see that she did and it would go a long way 
 toward keeping us decent and contented " 
 
 "Decent and contented!" He groaned. "What a fate!" 
 Bouncing to his feet with more energy than he usually dis 
 played, he set to pacing again. 
 
 "Hortense," he roared at last fiercely, "if I go to a depart 
 ment store and rig myself out like a penny clerk I shall 
 entirely lose my effectiveness among the people I have 
 chosen to lead. But if you ask me to throw away my dig 
 nity I ll do it. Women are an alien race." He calmed 
 down to the analytic level as he stopped and faced her. 
 "Women are all Circes never satisfied until they ve turned 
 men into trained pigs." 
 
 "I saw a woman at a circus once," she digressed. "She 
 had a trained pig. He was the cleanest pig I ever saw." 
 
 But Larry Hoden wasn t to be lured from his obsessing 
 theme. 
 
 "By hickory, I m crazy about you ! I ll do all the monkey- 
 shines you ask if you ll marry me. I ll wear a frock coat 
 and a gardenia and " 
 
 "Will you?" 
 
 Utterly ignoring his satire, she brought together her en 
 raptured hands, thinking how handsome he would look in 
 a silk hat. 
 
 "And to resume your programme how do you expect me 
 to pay for these bourgeois splendours, since your tastes 
 require them ?" 
 
 "Well" she hesitated, because the forthcoming state 
 ment seemed indelicate "Comrade Harriet tells me you 
 inherited some money from a rich uncle or something." 
 
 "Faugh !" He smote his breast in high disdain. "An old 
 reactionary I ve never seen was so impertinent as to re 
 member me in his will. It s a hundred and fifty a month 
 we can t live in capitalistic splendour on that. * 
 
 "Oh, yes, we can !" she spoke up. "Everybody says 
 you re a real talented writer. If you go to work I m sure
 
 276 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 you can make an extra hundred a month without half try 
 ing." 
 
 "I see. Sell myself to the Philistines." 
 This seemed all right to Hortense, who was unlettered 
 in the phraseology. 
 
 "Yes, you could do that, if they paid well. Anyhow, 
 if you only made a hundred extra we d have two hundred 
 and fifty altogether. I can chase the Kelkys out of the 
 McCabe apartment Mrs. Kelley rang me up last night and 
 said she wanted to move again and allowing thirty a 
 month for the general houseworker and forty for the rent 
 we d have a hundred and eighty left for living expenses, 
 clothes and movies." 
 
 "Will you marry me this afternoon?" He fairly spat the 
 proposal through his clenched teeth. 
 "With a regular Baptist clergyman?" 
 "Anything in the world. Will you ?" 
 As he stood there, tall and rather splendid looking in spite 
 of his abominable disguise, she seemed to see him in a 
 smooth greyish morning coat with braided edges, a spar 
 kling tie knotted under his winged collar, pearl-grey gloves 
 carefully held in his right hand. She would insist on a best 
 man too. She hoped Larry would pick out a stylish one 
 she wondered if he would mind if she suggested Sauljer for 
 the part? After all, Sauljer was stylish and he would look 
 wonderful standing by the altar holding a wedding ring by 
 proxy. Hortense, you see, was bred in the romantic school. 
 "Yes," she said faintly at last, but stood him off as he 
 came toward her. 
 
 "Please wait till you get your new clothes and things." 
 "How much money have you got?" was Larry Hoden s 
 sudden query, confusing under the circumstances. 
 
 "About thirty-nine dollars," she acknowledged. After 
 all, there should be no secrets between them. 
 
 "I m a little shy on kale until next Tuesday, when my 
 
 allowance comes in. Suppose I make a touch until " 
 
 "Why, certainly !"
 
 FREE 277 
 
 The favour seemed light compared with the concessions 
 he had made for her against his conscience. She flew to 
 Craza Heeld s room, rummaged in a wicker suitcase and 
 found to her delight that her roll numbered forty-four 
 dollars. Some instinct she had inherited from the forest 
 woman prompted her to withhold five dollars when she pre 
 sented the loan to her temperamental lover. 
 
 "I ve got a new pair of kicks somewhere," he mumbled. 
 "This ll be enough for a suit, a shirt, a shave and a marriage 
 license. Happy days !" 
 
 He was swinging out of the door when she found 
 voice to call after him : "You re not mad at me, are you, 
 Larry?" 
 
 "Mad ? Not at you but about you," he growled. "Other 
 wise I shouldn t be violating my creed for yours." 
 
 He rumbled away and left his sudden fiancee torn be 
 tween triumph and misgiving. Love of her had caused a 
 prophet to tear up his message and throw it to the winds. 
 Being very feminine, she was charmed with the idea. But 
 she wondered if she wasn t killing something fine in him 
 something which would wash off, as it were, and be lost 
 forever to the world of intellect which was his proper 
 realm ? 
 
 Her reflections were interrupted by a ring at the telephone 
 and the didactic tones of Harriet Pebbles Cull : 
 
 "Comrade Hortense?" 
 
 "Yes, Comrade Harriet." 
 
 "Cosimo always has hot spaghetti on Fridays," she ex 
 plained in the coming-out-of-nowhere manner which she 
 chose for the conveyance of orders. "Please have enough 
 for fourteen or fifteen sent over. You might make some of 
 that nice chicken salad too or if you haven t time get it at 
 Baumgarten s. Have an extra gallon of claret and a case 
 of light beer. There will be fourteen or fifteen instead of 
 eight as I planned." 
 
 "Why are we giving a party?" asked the astonished 
 slave of freedom.
 
 278 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Oh, didn t I tell you this morning? I thought I did. 
 The leaders of the Button Moulders Committee are coming 
 in for a buffet supper at eight. Then there ll be Adam 
 Whaile, the novelist, you know, and his wife and I have 
 the greatest good news for the cause. We have a convert 
 from the capitalistic class " 
 
 "My goodness !" interrupted the disciple. "This is an 
 awful time to order a dinner for fifteen people." 
 
 "My dear!" The wire seemed to quiver with the shock. 
 "Am I taxing you beyond your ability?" 
 
 "Excuse me I was just a little surprised, that was all. 
 I ll see to everything. Don t worry." 
 
 Hortense could have kicked herself. Mrs. Cull always 
 did have a way of ascending in her intellectual balloon 
 and dropping ballast on her opponent. Somehow or other 
 she hadn t given Hortense a chance to explain that ere eight 
 o clock to-night she would be Mrs. Larry Hoden. At that 
 very instant she was wondering if after marriage it wouldn t 
 be more dignified to call him Lawrence. 
 
 She had just finished ordering lakes of red wine, moun 
 tains of French bread, armies of beer bottles, wriggling 
 colonies of spaghetti from Cosimo s abundant store, and 
 was counting the number of cardboard plates and crepe 
 napkins in stock, when the doorbell again rang its prear 
 ranged double ring. She was thrilled and somewhat discon 
 certed. Larry had certainly purchased his trousseau and 
 his license at express speed, she reflected, as she rushed to 
 open the door. 
 
 The sight she met was crushing and somewhat terrible. 
 The Harvard tramp appeared more tramplike and less 
 Harvardlike than ever before. There was a look of de 
 jection, of sullen revolt in his eyes and something else, 
 too, that she was afraid to understand. As he brushed by 
 her his atmosphere glowed with volatile fumes he had 
 acquired at some convenient bar. 
 
 "Larry!" she cried; and her first thought was of sym- 

 
 FREE 279 
 
 pathy, because it was evident that something terrible had be 
 fallen him. 
 
 "Hortense, it can t be done !" he announced, sinking on 
 the couch and combing his dishevelled hair with slender, 
 dirty fingers. 
 
 "What can t be done ? You mean the stores are all closed 
 and the barbershops " 
 
 "No, no ! But the disgusting laws of this half-civilised 
 country make it impossible for us to carry out our pro 
 gramme." 
 
 "About the Baptist preacher?" She was determined to 
 be adamant in this direction, when he exploded again. 
 
 "No, no ! But the money you require to keep us in this 
 bourgeois respectability you demand. I ve seen her. She 
 won t give it up." 
 
 "Seen who? Who won t give it up?" 
 
 "Seen my wife. She " 
 
 "Your wife ?" Medea never put a sharper question to her 
 Jason. 
 
 "Not my regular wife my divorced wife. The banal 
 laws of this stupid country compelled me to pay her my 
 whole allowance in alimony. I dropped in on my way down 
 town and asked her to be reasonable. She insists in her 
 attitude of petty revenge." 
 
 "Why didn t you tell me you were divorced?" snapped 
 the disillusioned one. 
 
 "Why should I ? Did I ask you about your private affairs 
 when I proposed marriage to you ?" 
 
 "That s entirely different." She wasn t tall, but she 
 seemed to stand miles above his frowsily diminished head. 
 "When a man s divorced and comes courting a girl just as if 
 he was a a bachelor good gracious ! Haven t you any 
 reverence for matrimony ?" 
 
 He looked up and smiled miserably. 
 
 "How can I," he asked, "when I ve been tied and untied 
 three times in seven years?"
 
 280 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Oh !" She was surprised that she could be so calm. Life 
 was never like this in the moving pictures. 
 
 "And I suppose you re dividing your income with them, 
 also?" 
 
 "The first two ? No. I didn t have any money then, and 
 they were glad enough to break away without charge." 
 
 "I think I prefer the way the first two did," she in 
 formed him "breaking away without charge." 
 
 Apparently he put a cheering construction upon this 
 speech, for he brightened visibly. 
 
 "Hortense, you re a darling !" he reassured her. "I knew 
 you d take a broad-minded view of the matter." 
 
 She had kept comparatively calm up to this point, but the 
 last speech had the effect of roiling her to the depths. 
 
 "I m entirely too broad-minded for you," she spat out. 
 
 "As long as you feel that way about it" he was quite 
 pale, but he still retained his smile as he came to his feet 
 "I d better go, and give you a chance to get over it." 
 
 "That will be quite a piece of time," said she, cooling 
 as suddenly as she had flamed. And then she made a most 
 unchivalrous request which revealed her as no Fabian, but 
 a Maximalist of the deepest dye. 
 
 "Before you go," she said, holding out her hand, "you 
 might give me back that thirty-nine dollars." 
 
 He didn t move. He didn t put his hands in his pockets, 
 because they were already there ; but the pallor of his face 
 deepened through all the shades of rose dye, from palest 
 coral to purplest American Beauty. 
 
 "I I m afraid you ll have to wait for that," he stam 
 mered. 
 
 "Well, you are a swift worker!" she found herself telling 
 the Finest Mind in her most unladylike tone. And then : 
 "What in the world have you done with it?" 
 
 "Well, you see, my wife I forgot that I was behind with 
 my alimony " 
 
 "I see. The third Mrs. Hoden or do you keep count ? 
 had to be paid, so you settled with my money." She found
 
 FREE 281 
 
 herself uttering one of those laughs which tear the heart. 
 
 "Annie was on the warpath. What could I do ? Threat 
 ened to drag me into the alimony court. The capitalistic 
 judge there would be only too glad to send me to jail for 
 a hundred years." 
 
 There was a quantity of mumbled explanation still com 
 ing, but Hortense retreated to the kitchen and slammed the 
 door behind her. Had he followed her to that armoury of 
 bread knives, ice picks, rolling pins and can openers this 
 tale would doubtless have ended in one of those backyard 
 tragedies which have no place in the pages of high romance. 
 
 Instead of mangling her ex-adorer Hortense spent a 
 savage afternoon cutting sandwich bread. Rage has an 
 anaesthetic quality and she did not realise how terribly she 
 was suffering during those hours of detestable preparation 
 for Mrs. Cull s buffet supper. The affair was to be given 
 at eight and Comrade Harriet came stamping in at seven- 
 thirty, full of ideas about humanity in general but empty 
 of suggestions as to how a dinner for fifteen could be 
 planned, cooked and served by an amateur houseworker 
 with a broken heart. 
 
 "Didn t I tell you to get orange-coloured candles instead 
 of those ugly white things?" asked the equal sharer, poking 
 her head in at the door. It was evident that Hortense s re 
 bellious attitude over the telephone had been ill received. 
 But the comrade went on in a more conciliatory tone : "My 
 dear, it s going to be a wonderful evening, and I hope 
 you ll be attentive to what s said. Comrade Isadore has 
 planned a national strike on entirely new lines." It was 
 as though she were speaking of a clever male dressmaker; 
 but no matter, for she went right on : "And Adam Whaile 
 will clarify your attitude tremendously. I m so glad we ll 
 have this opportunity to introduce our convert from the 
 capitalistic class. He promises to be one of our most bril 
 liant " 
 
 "How are we going to serve drinks for fifteen with only 
 nine glasses?"
 
 282 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 The disciple never looked round. When at last she did 
 turn she found that the door had swung to and Comrade 
 Harriet had disappeared. 
 
 Being of Puritan stock, transplanted and grown stronger 
 in the Middle West, Hortense had a prejudice against 
 breaking contracts or leaving people in the lurch. Other 
 wise she would have discarded her apron then and there, 
 left several kilometers of spaghetti to cool under the sink, 
 and gone forth into the night. Instead she arrayed a 
 variety of sandwiches, olives and sliced ham on the big 
 table in the studio. She set the favorita d ltalia to warming, 
 snuggled a dozen bottles against the ice and all the time 
 her mind was planning such a revolt as no chained muzhik 
 ever planned under the lowering Fortress of Sts. Peter and 
 Paul. 
 
 At last she heard the party coming in. Comrade Harriet s 
 soprano modulations floated contrastingly above cordial 
 basso roars from the throats erf blood-bonded Button 
 Moulders. The alarm clock over the sink recorded six 
 minutes past eight it was either fast or slow, she couldn t 
 remember which. 
 
 By the noise outside it sounded as though Mrs. Cull s 
 jubilee had swollen from fifteen to fifty. Hortense would 
 not have been surprised. 
 
 The door swung again, and again Mrs. Cull s head was 
 apparent. 
 
 "My dear," she invited, "aren t you coming in to meet the 
 comrades ?" 
 
 "Some one has to look after the food, you know," replied 
 the hitherto silent partner, fixing her benefactress with 
 hostile eyes. 
 
 "Oh, so some one has," agreed Harriet Pebbles Cull. 
 Then bringing her entire bag-draped figure into the kitchen 
 she took up the matter more minutely. 
 
 "My dear child," she asked, "what s wrong?" 
 
 "Nothing at all, Mrs. Cu Comrade Harriet. I m just 
 worried about this dinner. It s pretty short notice, you know.
 
 FREE 283 
 
 And I shan t be able to stir from this kitchen until the 
 spaghetti is served." 
 
 Comrade Harriet sighed her forgiveness. 
 
 "I ll have Comrade Elsa and Comrade Judith help serve. 
 You re not going to miss Comrade Isadore s speech?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 "But, child! Certainly you ll meet the convert; and 
 Comrade Larry s wandering around quite lost." 
 
 "My Lord, I believe the spaghetti s burning!" lamented 
 Hortense, insanely longing to empty the squamy, squirmy 
 contents of the can over the uplifter s tranquil head. 
 
 The noise grew louder outside, and presently Comrades 
 Judith and Elsa the former an enormously stout maiden 
 who favoured little cigars came in to bear away cardboard 
 plates, glasses and ice-cooled bottles. 
 
 "There aren t glasses enough," was Comrade Elsa s star 
 tling discovery. 
 
 "We ll let the convert drink out of a bottle converts 
 should, you know," giggled the fat girl, who dared to joke 
 on Parnassus. 
 
 "His influence will be enormous," Elsa was solemnly 
 predicting, evidently referring to the convert as she balanced 
 two plates of spaghetti in the same hand. "He came quite 
 voluntarily." 
 
 At last, after fifteen shares had been ladled forth and 
 the comrade waitresses had gone to their convert, Hortense 
 retreated to Craza Heeld s deserted nest and sat down to 
 gaze at the stylish lady of 1898 who reclined under an 
 idealised linden in the obsolete brewery calendar. 
 
 Hortense felt as lonely as that painted girl upon her 
 painted landscape. She had made up her stubborn little 
 mind to avoid Comrade Harriet s party to-night ; she could 
 never have sat in the same room, breathed the same smoky 
 atmosphere with Larry Hoden and his craven spirit. Also, 
 she had a shameful dread of bursting into tears at the very 
 thought of those wonderful wedding clothes. Unique in 
 all the history of disappointed brides, she was not regretting
 
 284 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 her own trousseau, never to be, but was mourning the hypo 
 thetical beauties of a bridegroom s garments. How splendid 
 Larry would have looked in a high-winged collar with a 
 solitaire pearl in the knot of his cravat! 
 
 "Comrade Hortense!" 
 
 She heard Mrs. Cull s sweetly tyrannical note floating 
 toward her from the kitchen. 
 
 "I m in here," replied Hortense, keeping her seat near 
 the bed of the Craza Heeld. 
 
 "What can you be doing in there ? Comrade Isadore will 
 begin in a few minutes. Won t you bring in a half dozen 
 more bottles of beer?" 
 
 "They re on the ice," replied Hortense and then her 
 familiar fiend prompted her to the arch impiety: "They 
 aren t heavy. You might take them in yourself." 
 
 "I might what?" 
 
 "Take them in yourself." 
 
 "Are you aware that you are being very impertinent?" 
 
 "I thought that nobody but servant girls and children 
 were ever impertinent." Hortense would have perched her 
 heels on the bureau, only it was too high. But she managed 
 to tilt her chair back in the most defiant fashion. "Of 
 course, in an equal partnership like ours 
 
 "I have no time for a discussion," announced the editor 
 of The Unshackled, for the first time in her life. 
 
 The high heels clicked angrily across the oilcloth and 
 the hinges of the swinging door groaned on their springs. 
 The poor misguided girl had no way of knowing just how 
 long she sat there, frozen with her own impiety, her chair 
 tilted back, her eyes glazed as were the cheeks of the solitary 
 beer drinker in the brewery calendar. 
 
 Then of a sudden down came the front legs of the chair, 
 under the bed dashed the head and hands of Hortense 
 Troutt, and out they came again, the hands clutching one 
 of those wicker suitcases that country bankers and poor 
 relations always carry. Packing was easy. She simply
 
 FREE 285 
 
 pulled out the top drawer of her bureau and reversed it 
 over the open suitcase. 
 
 It was lucky she had saved that five dollars out of the 
 Larry loan, she reflected, as she kicked aside Mrs. Cull s 
 secondhand dress and began getting into the pretty, clever 
 imitation of some rich woman s street costume the imi 
 tation she had worn so saucily in the days of Saulser and 
 Sauljer, a period now as remote as the Pliocene. As she 
 dressed she was formulating plans. She would steal out 
 by the rear entrance, telephone Mrs. Kelley from a corner 
 drug store and plead for a night s lodging. Then to-morrow 
 she would go over to Newark, look up Lulu McCabe and 
 offer herself as a supernumerary in the gigantic following 
 of the Lummox Film Corporation. 
 
 She had got on her hat and was regarding her suddenly 
 smartened appearance in the mirror when the misery of 
 her mistake seemed to flash out at her from the glass, to 
 shame and overcome her. 
 
 "Don t do it!" she said aloud in a queer little broken 
 voice. She didn t mean "Don t run away!" or "Don t Re 
 bel !" or "Don t seek a job with the movies !" What she was 
 trying to tell herself was merely "Don t cry !" But she 
 could feel the glands tickling and burning at the base of 
 her nose, and she had a frightful feeling that some of the 
 emancipated would come in and find her there and heaven 
 knew how they would take it ! 
 
 She reached hysterically for her suitcase and had just 
 gained the threshold of the kitchen when she was aware 
 of a modishly clad masculine presence leaning over an open 
 door of the ice box. So creaselessly correct were the lines 
 of the costume, so tall and white the collar, so varnished 
 the boots, that Hortense enjoyed a momentary fear that 
 she had become infected with the germ of the Craza Heeld, 
 that her imagination had conjured up this vision of the 
 perfect bridegroom. However, the well-dressed spectre 
 proved better tailored than bred, for it turned and sang 
 out: "Where d ye keep your beer?"
 
 286 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "My goodness sakes alive !" gasped Hortense Troutt ; 
 for when her vision had straightened itself out she saw 
 what she saw. It was Saul Shilpik, Jr! 
 
 Pots and pans, shelves, cupboards, gas ranges seemed 
 to swim round her as though Mrs. Cull s ism had over 
 flowed into the kitchen and caused all things to float. Out 
 of this a strangely idealised Sauljer sprang, young Perseus 
 to the relief of a chained Andromeda. She could see him 
 distinctly in all the blur, and what alone seemed to matter 
 now was the one transcendent fact he looked so clean. 
 The brightness of his new necktie flashed upon her like a 
 star through the rift in a departing hurricane. 
 
 It seemed perfectly normal that his arm should have 
 gone round her and that she should hear his consoling 
 nasals inquiring: "What s happened to you, Hortense? 
 You re all in. Have you been on a hunger strike or some 
 thing?" 
 
 "Don t keep me. I m running away," she faintly told 
 him, paradoxically clinging to him as to a rock of refuge. 
 
 "So am I," he giggled rather nervously. "I only came 
 here to sleuth you out." 
 
 "Sleuth me out?" she echoed vacantly. 
 
 "Sure ! I m the convert, you know. We d better step 
 on the gas or they ll get me again." 
 
 He half led, half dragged her toward the rear entrance. 
 When they were out on the third-floor landing she felt very 
 weak and it became his obvious duty to support her again. 
 
 "Honey, what s this gang been doing to you ?" he was ask 
 ing in her ear. "What do they think you are a galley 
 slave?" 
 
 "S-Sauljer," she implored as steadily as she could, "you 
 c-can t go without your hat !" 
 
 "Can t I?" he defied. "To get away from that bunch 
 I d go without my " 
 
 He didn t denominate the garment he would sacrifice in 
 the name of liberty. In fact his remarks had become discon-
 
 FREE 287 
 
 nected, because Hortense had lost control of her tear 
 glands and was sobbing deliciously in his arms. 
 
 "Shush! Cheese it!" he cautioned. "First you know 
 they ll be pouncing out and pulling us in. Heaven help 
 us if that Queen o the Highbrows gets her hooks on us a 
 second time !" 
 
 He dragged her farther along the passage, and when they 
 had gained the comparative safety of the second landing he 
 stopped for breath and chuckled: "Eliza crossing the ice. 
 If we duck the hounds we re safe. I ve got my new 
 racin runabout parked round the corner." 
 
 "Sauljer it s a miracle!" she confessed. "If you hadn t 
 shown up I don t know what would have become of me." 
 
 "They would have tied you to the piano and talked you 
 to death, one leg at a time," said Sauljer, who was now 
 conducting her through open air toward the grey monster 
 which crouched between its tires in a gutter under the 
 Elevated railroad. 
 
 "Say, girlie, you thought I was kiddin you that day in 
 the office, didn t you? Think it over! Why, when you 
 made that high dive off the job I went about twenty thou 
 sand feet in the air. Telephone? Say, I kept the line so 
 busy that they re going to put in a new exchange and name 
 it after me. The fat lady at your flat said she thought 
 you d gone into the movies somewhere then this morning 
 I tackled her again and she fessed up that you d joined the 
 Band of Hope and was tooting a trombone for old lady 
 Pebbles. So I sleuthed out Sister Cull ; she wouldn t listen 
 until I told her I d got the bug and wanted to join the Polly- 
 Terry-Hutt, or whatever you call the thing. So I came to 
 her party, and I ll never get over the headache it gave me 
 tryin to follow Harriet !" 
 
 "Will you take me round to the flat?" she asked faintly, 
 as soon as they had come up level with the grey body of the 
 racing runabout. 
 
 "I will not!" replied Sauljer positively. "Mrs. Kelley 
 hasn t got room to take in a married couple."
 
 288 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 "Get me?" asked Sauljer, evidently quite confident that 
 he had got her. "And, say, I ve got a swell piece of news 
 for you." 
 
 He beamed so cheerfully that Hortense was half pre 
 pared for the blessing which had fallen when he announced: 
 "Papa s got an awful attack of inflammatory rheumatism!" 
 
 "Actually?" 
 
 "Posi-tively ! He can t come down to the office any more. 
 I m moved up to the main desk. Get that?" 
 
 The smart car moved silently away, as though sharing 
 its owner s fear that the tribes of Upliftland would get 
 wind of their escape. 
 
 "Then, Sauljer, dear," she whispered, with a deep and 
 happy sigh, "we can keep a hired girl, can t we ?" 
 
 It was nearly a month later, the hour being about six, 
 when Comrade Larry slouched into the inner office of The 
 Unshackled, as he often did at the approach of mealtime; 
 Mrs. Cull was now taking her dinner at an Italian restau 
 rant, leaving the servant problem to the miserable bour 
 geoisie who created it. 
 
 "Sit down, comrade," said she, drawing a blue pencil 
 through a page of manuscript of the supplied-without- 
 charges variety. "Damon Irks is prolix again. As soon 
 as I ve gotten rid of another five hundred words we ll go 
 over to De Medici s for dinner." 
 
 Larry sifted chopped straw into brown paper and bode 
 his time. 
 
 "Larry," said she at last, laying down her pencil and 
 dangling her glasses at the end of their black cord, "I ve 
 got traces of that Troutt girl." 
 
 "Indeed." 
 
 The crease in the brown paper suddenly broke, permitting 
 a shower of straw to fall into the Harvard tramp s lap. 
 
 He reached clumsily for the string of his tobacco sack, 
 dangling from an upper pocket.
 
 FREE 289 
 
 "She is irreconcilable, unreclaimable and, in the strictest 
 sense of the word, amoral. She has married that hypo 
 critical capitalist, Saul Shilpik, and is living in a state 
 of disgusting bourgeois luxury on Riverside Drive." 
 
 "Where did you get that stuff?" he inquired, modulating 
 his cultured voice to the slang he idealised as he did the 
 grease on his coat. 
 
 "They asked me to dinner last night." 
 
 "Hm." His cigarette hand shook. "Of course, you re 
 fused?" 
 
 "Quite to the contrary. I went, as I feel it my duty 
 to go wherever my social investigations call me. They 
 have, as I remember it, thirteen rooms and four baths 
 possibly it is thirteen baths and four rooms. The figures 
 are immaterial. There is much gaudy carving and garish 
 panelling in the dining room, in imitation of that baronial 
 pomp which the bourgeoisie love to affect. They have a 
 footman in a ridiculously feudal livery, and the intricacy of 
 their furnishings is entirely in keeping with the ideas of 
 the unchastened few who glorify their shame at the ex 
 pense of the unawakened many. They served three kinds 
 of wine in a variety of etched glasses. Altogether it was 
 disgusting, but not without its fascination. I wash my 
 hands of that Troutt girl. During the evening she showed 
 me sufficient of her character to convince me that she is 
 addicted to soft living and entirely ungrateful for all that 
 I have done for her." 
 
 "It is just as I have always maintained," said Comrade 
 Larry, after consuming half his cigarette at one magnificent 
 intake, "there are some people who are temperamentally 
 and morally unfitted to receive freedom."
 
 VIII 
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 
 
 IT S gasless Sunda, I m after tellin ye," the skeleton in 
 livery was creaking from his high throne above a night 
 mare hansom cab. "I m a-wor-r-kin on me own skejool 
 to-night. Pay me price or walk." 
 
 Under the fuel-administered glimmer of Broadway, the 
 time being 12 102 A. M., Mr. Pontius Blint limped on a 
 gouty foot out of the misadventures of a gloomy Saturday 
 night into the calamities of a drizzly Sunday morning. A 
 few scattered taxicabs, chugging mournfully toward their 
 garages, proclaimed the horror of the situation. 
 
 "It s gasless Sunda !" the spectre in the ratty beaver was 
 insisting to the mob of outraged citizens collected on the 
 curb. "Th year round ye can have yer grand taxys an 
 limy-zeens. But to-night ye pay good if ye ride with me. 
 
 Vaguely recalling that Death in a poem had once spoken 
 in a similar vein, Pontius exerted the will-power of an in 
 dustrial leader and got himself to the forefront of the crowd. 
 
 "Here, my man ! What s your rate ?" he asked sharply, 
 bringing his cane like a chairman s gavel on the edge of the 
 box. 
 
 "Where d ye want to go?" 
 
 Pontius really wanted to go somewhere where lights 
 glared and music played, but he felt too ill for further 
 parley. 
 
 "The Hotel Merlinbilt," he said. 
 
 "I don t leave me stand for less than tin dollars," the 
 
 290
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 291 
 
 spectre decreed, pulling the reins taut over a steed which 
 Don Quixote would have abandoned to the ash-man. 
 
 "Robber ! Thief ! Grafter !" now came the chorus of 
 citizens, soldiers and others. 
 
 "You re a robber," Pontius obligingly took up the refrain. 
 
 "I am that an the fur-r-st time for manny a year I ve 
 had me chance." 
 
 "You re a profiteer," was the next best argument which 
 came to the invalid s mind. 
 
 "I m a Dimocrat, savin yer honour. An now will ye 
 step in or step aside for a payin coostomer?" 
 
 Pontius cast his eyes toward the muggy heavens and con 
 sidered the effects of rain upon a gouty foot. 
 
 "Take me and be damned to you !" he snarled, whereat 
 the folding doors swung on their mysterious hinges and he 
 deposited his weary form into the depths of the padded 
 casket. Overhead, coming from the direction of the driver s 
 box, he could hear a loud kissing sound as a drooping, 
 water-soaked whip fell forward and flecked itself against 
 the sorriest carcass that ever stood between thills. 
 
 "Come along, Pansy !" 
 
 Pansy, poor thing, gave a moan and lurched against a 
 collar so large for her that she might well have walked 
 through it. With the rocking chair motion peculiar to han 
 som cabs the creaking structure turned eastward toward 
 Fifth Avenue, while Pontius sat considering. 
 
 His whole adventure had dwindled to a messy failure, 
 had gone dead on him, much as the lights had gone out in 
 the Pandemonium Roof at almost the moment he had taken 
 a table with the idea of sitting up all night. How brightly 
 on the Saturday afternoon which was yesterday he had left 
 his poison-gas projectile factory in Jersey and had come to 
 New York fired with a young enthusiasm. How he had 
 chuckled to think of the gasp of glad surprise when he 
 should appear before his wife at her Liberty Loan booth 
 and write down his name for a half million dollars. Thus 
 the anticipated glory of a few hours had gone. And here
 
 292 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 sat Pontius in a rickety cab, his gouty foot throbbing time 
 to the sudden thoughts which lay mired inside his brain. 
 
 Three brilliant impulses had brought him here ; to make 
 his peace with the misjudged Mrs. Blint, to loan till it hurt, 
 to feed heavily and dance lightly until dawn. And one after 
 the other his three rich impulses had been knocked over the 
 head, one, two, three, a series of mangled illusions. Firstly 
 he had appeared at his wife s apartment in the Merlinbilt 
 only to be informed that his wife had disappeared for the 
 night. Secondly the tired workers in Mrs. Elint s booth 
 had killed his enthusiasm by speaking shortly of Mrs. Blint 
 as of one dead and not to be regretted. And blow number 
 three had fallen sullenly at Florio s, where, his appetite fixed 
 upon red meat and redder wine, he had scarcely seen ruddy 
 duck and Burgundy set under his nose than his ancient 
 enemy, gout, had caught him by the foot as in the jaws of 
 a steel trap, wherefore he had ordered milk toast and rat 
 tled the chandeliers with his great round oaths. 
 
 The iron-shod wheels bumped over Broadway s shell- 
 craters and to every bump his foot responded with a twinge ; 
 his irritation grew. For seven months Pontius had gone 
 without his customary luxuries, had eaten characterless 
 food, washed down with weak coffee, had suffered the pangs 
 of self-internment in order that the government job, whicu 
 he had undertaken because he was the biggest man for the 
 place, might be organised to the point of efficiency. Being 
 by nature a sensualist that is to say, a New Yorker he 
 had longed for his native town much as a catfish, acciden 
 tally tossed into a trout-stream, might waste away for the 
 mud, oil and constant churning of some busy barge canal. 
 Dreams of ruddy duck and Burgundy had fevered his 
 nights, visions of continuous tangoes under the jazz and 
 jasemine on the Pandemonium Roof had distracted his days. 
 Through those months of uninterrupted grind he had 
 planned it in the back of his head, knowing that he was 
 tired and that he owed himself a party. 
 
 And here he was in a war-darkened New York, lurching
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 293 
 
 through the slush in Death s own chariot. Even the Pan 
 demonium Roof, compliant with government regulations, 
 had turned him out into the street. 
 
 Pontius Blint was a prey to peevishness, peevishness being 
 usually the outward symbol of heart-ache. It wasn t gout 
 and it wasn t a cheated digestion and it wasn t disappointed 
 patriotism that troubled him. Curse as he might at his foot, 
 his food or his fate, it was not one or the other of these 
 that spoiled his rest. What pained him was Mrs. Blint. 
 
 When first he had gone to Jersey to give his knowledge 
 of cyanogen to the Vesuvius Gas Projectile Works he had 
 left a sort of left-handed blessing with Julia, his wife, and 
 with Doris, his daughter now Mrs. Middleton Knox. He 
 had seen in them a tendency to take the war as a cross be 
 tween the horse show and the mardi gras. There were 
 plenty of genuine women in the land, he realised, but he had 
 taken it for granted that Julia and Doris were not among 
 them ; and yet he had hoped wistfully at times that world- 
 tragedy and world-sacrifice might work some magic soften 
 ing about those ladies whose emotions had never seemed 
 any deeper than their plucked eyebrows and enamelled com 
 plexions. In times. of peace he had tolerated, even loved 
 them for what they were porcelain ornaments admirably 
 suited to their bloodless environment. But war had taken 
 Pontius out of his fatted ease, and self-denial had bred in 
 him a scorn of such women as quarrel for social prefer 
 ment over the dead bodies of their warriors. And war had 
 proved to him or so he had thought for several months 
 that his Julia and his Doris were of that sort and no better. 
 Then there had come a change over Julia s letters. She was 
 going in "heart and soul," as she described it, for Liberty 
 Bond selling and other necessary work. She wanted him 
 to stand behind her, she said. And poor, trusting Pontius 
 had hurried to town to help to the extent of half a million 
 dollars. He should have known better. Julia, of course, 
 wasn t on the job. Tried in the balance and found wanting? 
 
 With such bitter thoughts Pontius made up his mind that
 
 294 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 he should not go to bed; and he was about to confide his 
 resolution to the skeleton cabman when his ideas were dis 
 tracted by a curious woody rattling from some mysterious 
 point just above his hat. 
 
 "I ve carried all Noo Yark, dhrunk an 1 sober, these 
 twinty- siven years." 
 
 This spirit communication, floating out of the nowhere 
 into the coffin-like interior, froze the practical-minded Blint 
 into something like a superstitious palsy until, upon looking 
 up, he observed that the cabman had opened his little trap 
 door at the top and was using the hole as a mouthpiece 
 through which to address his memoirs. 
 
 "Good. Then maybe you won t charge me more than 
 ninety dollars extra to take me to some all-night restau 
 rant." 
 
 "There ain t a brick in Noo Yark I don t know like me 
 grandfather s wig from Bathry Park to Cleopathrick s 
 Needle forninst the Methropol tan Museem. A. all-night 
 cabaray is ut? I ll dhrive ye there." 
 
 "Not so sudden!" objected Blint, suspicious at the un 
 wonted energy with which the cabman was jerking his 
 Pansy s thin neck away from the eastward pilgrimage 
 where, all too obviously, her oats lay. "What sort of a 
 cabaret do you mean?" 
 
 "Kidd s dairy rest rant, sor." 
 
 "What are you driving at?" was Pontius appropriate 
 question, for the mention of Kidd s brought visions of 
 those standardised, white-tiled, middle-class mush-and-milk 
 palaces where the economical clerk may woo Ceres but see 
 nothing of either Bacchus or Terpsichore. 
 
 "Ye moight be a stranger in town, Gineral," went on the 
 burring voice from above. "But sence the war Kidd s Res 
 taurant do be a live wire an it s me that s tellin ye. Be 
 cause why? Early closin reg lations. Them wid a whiskey 
 license must close on th rap o twelve ; them wid nawthin 
 stronger than a milk-bill stays up full blast an singin till 
 the bright day."
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 295 
 
 "Anything s better than going to bed," grunted Pontius. 
 
 "There ll be time foi sleepin when we re dead," came 
 the consoling note. "An we ll all be that soon. Where 
 there s life there s dope. Come along, Pansy!" 
 
 Pontius made no sign as the bony mare executed that 
 difficult manoeuvre known as turning around. 
 
 "Takin ye there ll be five exthra and waitin tin," the 
 trap door had opened again to warn the interned cripple. 
 
 "Look here," protested Pontius, only able now to make 
 a feeble moan. "I ve come all the way over from Jersey, 
 to buy Liberty Bonds. At this rate I ll have to borrow to 
 get back." 
 
 "Ye ll git nawthin from me," came the melancholy drone, 
 and Pontius was about to argue that such a sentiment 
 savoured more of the purple heather than of the green sod, 
 when there came again the mortuary refrain, 
 
 "I ve carried all Noo Yark, dhrunk an sober, these twin- 
 ty-siven years and what do I git out av ut? Me Ould 
 Woman s patched me coat till it looks like the Austhree- 
 Hoongar yan flag bad cess to ut. An here I set in me 
 ould age dhrivin a lame mare to the divvil s own doomp- 
 cart. Manny s the millionaire an juke I ve hauled in me 
 day from th Astor House to th Madison Square Garden. 
 I ve seen th toime whin I wudn t leave me stand for less 
 than two dollars. And look at me now." 
 
 Pontius Blint did his level best to look at him then, but 
 all he could see was the point of a grizzled chin silhouetted 
 above the little square trap door. 
 
 "And now you re getting ten or asking it," he smiled in 
 spite of his mood. "The reward of honesty eh, what ?" 
 
 Came the solemn assurance through the hole, 
 
 "It s honesty that done for me honesty and gasoleen." 
 
 "Since when did those two get acquainted?" asked he 
 who sat solitary as a medium in a spirit cabinet, harking 
 to astral voices. 
 
 "They re acquainted like the sole o me fut and the small 
 o me back. Thim was happy days, sor, whin Noo Yark
 
 296 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 thravelled behind horse-flesh and Jay Goold dhrove his 
 coach an four up Fift Avenoo. Taxy cabs ! Huh ! Divvil 
 a wan. Sorra the day whin fir-r-st I seen wan o thim sac- 
 riligious little stink-buggies choogin it s way round Union 
 Square smellin loike a fire in a turpentine factory. On that 
 occasion, sor, I says to Barney McCarthy that dhrove a 
 horse-car round Fourteenth Street he s dead now and God 
 never rested a better man s soul to Barney McCarthy I 
 says, It s a bad day for you and for me, Barney, now that 
 they re learnin to dhrive hacks wid droogs an chemicals. " 
 
 All this was diverting. The rain was letting up and Pon 
 tius foot, for the time being, was letting up also. 
 
 "So the evil days increased and multiplied!" He was 
 merely "feeding," as they say, for he was entertained by 
 the swan-song and was momentarily afraid that the lid 
 would pop down and the notes would cease. 
 
 "Where there was wan there came a dozen. Come a year 
 and they was tick-tickin round th Square like a flock o 
 buzzards what had swallied that many alar-r-um clocks, all 
 the thribes av Israel jerkin at th wheel an takin the oats 
 out o me poor Pansy s mouth. And there stood I like a 
 blind pencil-seller, offerin me janius fer what I could git 
 fer ut. Fifty cents from Union Square to the Waldorf 
 Astory can ye beat that, sor ?" 
 
 Pontius could not. 
 
 "Gasoleen has got into the stummick o Noo Yark and 
 made er wild. Nawthin healthy wid four legs and a tail 
 behind is considered grand and stylish anny more. Now 
 to git into soci ty ye ve got to take yer gur-r-1 in a tin thou 
 sand dollar limma-zcen half way to Boston, fill up on cham- 
 pagne-wather an break the speed-laws to Philadelphy in 
 time fer yer next divoorce. Look at th young folks. Ar-re 
 they satisfied wid Shakspeare or the Eden Musee for an 
 avenin s pleasure? They ar-re not. It s whist for the 
 movies in a dress suit an a cane like a Frinch juke. Gaso 
 leen done ut !" 
 
 "You re a conservative!" Pontius was cheered by the
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 297 
 
 ^ ^~ ~ i ^ "^ ~ "^~ "~ *^ *""*"^ 
 
 sight of the moon coming out through drifting clouds. In 
 the little square hole above he could see one bright eye 
 twinkling with an elfin light. 
 
 "I m a Dimocrat," the high-seated one repeated his doxy. 
 "An it was five years ago me Ould Woman and there s 
 none betther says to me, Jerry, says she, the sooner ye 
 come to ut the more bacon in the cupboard. Gasoleen? 
 says I. Befoor I come to ut may me grave sprout this 
 tles. Twill be afther sproutin thim soon enough what 
 wid hunger an high rents/ says she, an the Socoity for 
 th Promotion o Croolty to Animals 11 be lookin afther yer 
 Pansy widout consultin yer Royle Highness, says she, an 
 if ther s wan dhrop o wisdom above yer ears ye ll be afther 
 buyin wan o thim taxy cabs an learnin the trick av it 
 bef oor it s too late. " 
 
 "Of course you didn t mind her." 
 
 "For five years I didn t. But this marnin I did. There s 
 a yiddisher be the name av Stanley Rosewather what s got 
 wan o thim things, an sence he was drafted for the ar-r-my 
 he ll part wid ut, take ut or lave ut, for two hundhred and 
 twinty-five dollars. So this marnin I took me fir-r-st les 
 son; and me ould feyther should have turned in his grave 
 to see his son a-settin there toogin at a haythen wheel, 
 bein called a harp an a coachman be a wall-eyed yiddisher 
 whose religious convictions ain t no betther than a Chinee." 
 It seems that the Voice whose name was Jerry had 
 fallen under the charm of that taxicab, despite his protesta 
 tions to the contrary. His Old Woman, so he suspected, 
 had nearly seventy-five dollars in the family sock, and Jerry 
 had extorted seventy more out of the public s need on the 
 two preceding gasless Sundays. 
 
 "Wid the tin I m chargin ye thot ll be wan fifty-five. 
 And to-morra s gasless Sunda again 
 
 At this point the faithful Pansy, as though already worn 
 out with her efforts to buy herself from bondage, stumbled 
 over a car-track ; and in the act of reining her to her feet 
 her master let the trap door come down with a clatter.
 
 298 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Pontius Blint actually chuckled. As a war profiteer, 
 Jerry the cabman had struck at the very root of supply and 
 demand. Gas, as it were, had asphyxiated his business for 
 twenty years ; and in this short breathing spell during which 
 the Government had turned off the gas, Jerry was back on 
 the job, feeding fat his grudge against the public which had 
 starved and neglected him during the best years of his life. 
 And when this harvest time was over he would get himself 
 a taxicab ! 
 
 Strange is the circle of fate ! thought Pontius Blint, only 
 he expressed it in plain business terms by the reflection that 
 even in the hansom cab business you must improve your 
 plant to meet modern conditions. And with this reflection 
 the padded casket in which he sat swayed round a corner 
 and stopped. Peering through the round window, he could 
 see the great glassy restaurant front, exposing, with all the 
 immodesty of a show-case, the skimmed-milk whiteness of 
 a vast tiled interior. Right under the famous word 
 "Kidd s," running diagonally in white porcelain script 
 across the middle pane of plate glass, a white-clad juggler 
 forever conjured the nimble flapjack from a soapstone 
 griddle to a handy plate. Kow could the Bacchantes go 
 rioting to Kidd s? thought Pontius Blint, staring at the 
 scene. How could the great god Pan, evicted from his tem 
 ple, associate with the little god Skillet, forever stewing 
 cereal foods for the bourgeoisie ? And yet behold the mira 
 cle ! Crying "Wait !" to Jerry the cabman, Pontius followed 
 the throng which surged through the door, all but fighting 
 for admittance, hot with that same feverish inspiration 
 which Mr. Maeterlinck attributes to a tribe of bees at 
 swarming time. 
 
 A. the long table where he managed to sandwich himself 
 in between a khakied colonel and a student aviator sat many 
 ladies in evening wraps and a few gentlemen who ladled 
 ham and eggs carefully above their pure lawn ties. He had 
 not seen such a display of uniforms and fine clothes since 
 the last diplomatic reception at Washington. Two hundred
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 299 
 
 rookies from Camp Upton were marching lock-step round 
 and round the room, chanting more or less in accord, "I 
 hate to get up in the morning !" In the centre of the room 
 an elderly vaudeville artist, standing on a table, volunteered 
 a saxophone obligato to the triumphal march. Across from 
 him sat six splendid warriors, shrugging the silver shoulder 
 straps of ill-fated Russia as they gabbled in French and ate 
 pie a la mode from bomb-proof plates. Could this be 
 Kidd s, the American synonym for economical feeding, the 
 hackneyed joke of the newspaper paragrapher? Appar 
 ently so, for there in the window stood the flapjack juggler 
 right under Kidd s universally-known trade-mark in porce 
 lain script. 
 
 "A stack of wheats and a cup of coffee !" commanded 
 Pontius in the correct vernacular when the waiter-lassie 
 came round. 
 
 A comic barytone had just finished the Yaphank version 
 of Poor Butterfly. At Pontius elbow the khakied colonel 
 released his glass of buttermilk to join the applause. 
 
 "He s from Upton," smiled the officer, "and we ve got 
 enough professional talent out there to " 
 
 Pontius was beginning to feel that this was just what 
 he had been needing for months. In the noise and hurrah 
 of it he almost forgot the defection of his wife, the disap 
 pointment which threatened to turn him into a boggy paci 
 fist. He could see it demonstrated all around him, the vi 
 brant magic which had turned America from a country 
 into a nation. Broadway had forsaken its dram and under 
 the influence of the national spirit was rejoicing more 
 spontaneously than ever it had rejoiced before on milk 
 and coffee ! 
 
 Pontius began to feel that, after this, Julia couldn t be so 
 bad as he had painted her. He was preparing himself to 
 believe that he would go back to the hotel and find that 
 he had misjudged her again, that the mistake had been his 
 and not hers as sometimes happens in matrimonial rela 
 tions.
 
 300 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Two Canadian aviators, one with an empty sleeve and 
 another leaning stiffly on a cane, came down the centre aisle 
 and were offered seats by thirteen pretty girls and forty- 
 two male civilians. A human megaphone in the form of 
 an artillery sergeant stood on the speaker s table and in 
 formed the multitude that they had with them to-night 
 none other than Private Muscowitz known to the stage 
 as Bernard de Long, the Human Crab and to prove that 
 he needed no introduction Private Muscowitz himself ap 
 peared walking on his hands, politely lifted his trench-cap 
 between his toes and in a moment won the public heart. 
 
 Soldiers, sailors and marines were knotted together right 
 behind Pontius chair and in the centre-group stood an old- 
 time German monologist who twisted the pathetically 
 comic seams in his face and continued to tell about himself. 
 The package he held, w r rapped in a copy of the Evening 
 Trombone, had split at one end, revealing what appeared 
 to be the frazzled tails of a dress coat. 
 
 "How can you prove you hate the Kaiser ?" a red-headed 
 bean-pole of a gob was leaning kindly to enquire. 
 
 "I vas born in Roosian Poland und taught to hate em 
 like a snake." 
 
 "What you got in the package, Fritz a gas bomb ?" asked 
 a sad marine whom the rest called Eddie. 
 
 "Mein dress-coat und vest." 
 
 As by magic he had stripped off the Evening Trombone 
 and was holding up a shiny, greenish ceremonial garment 
 to whose lapel there clung tin, brass, leather and paper 
 medals in rich profusion. 
 
 "Mit dis I make a funny talk aboud der Kaiser for der 
 poys," he insisted as, suiting action to words, he began 
 making a rapid change of costume then and there. 
 
 "Tell it behind the chicken-wire !" 
 
 "Throw im in the brig !" 
 
 "Give im the iron cross !" 
 
 "Give im a chance !" 
 
 The last of the varying opinions seemed to win the ma-
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 301 
 
 jority, for the much-decorated alien was shoved forward 
 upon the arms of the mighty. The human megaphone be 
 gan roaring for order. At last the shabby dress-coat with 
 its solid front of decorations appeared on the eminence 
 while its owner stood licking his lips after the classic usage 
 of Weber and Field. 
 
 "Chendlemens und uddus," he began, "I vill now told you 
 a leedle connunderrum. Vot iss de tifference betveen der 
 Kaiser und a piece of Limburger?" 
 
 The difference, though possibly essential, was never made 
 plain to Pontius Blint, for at that very instant his eye had 
 wandered and fixed itself upon a sheet of paper half way 
 under his chair. It was the society page of the Evening 
 Trombone which the comedian, in his hasty change, had 
 cast aside. 
 
 Centred in the page, gazing straight up from a floreate 
 frame, was a full-length portrait of Mrs. Pontius Blint. 
 
 Pontius leaned painfully down and brought the fragment 
 within reading distance of his nose. 
 
 "Society Leader Who Poses To-Day in Percy 
 
 Follip s Fashion Show at 
 
 Atlantic City." 
 
 There was some more about it in the gushing write-up 
 down the column, but the blow was sufficient to drive the 
 last nail into the closed door of optimism. So this was 
 why Julia had deserted her patriotic work, left her Liberty 
 Bond booth to shift for itself. Of course. The strutting, 
 arrogant, silk-stockinged lot of females were all like that. 
 Help, service, sacrifice were to them words and poor ones. 
 Percy Follip, the male dressmaker, had lured her away 
 at the crowded hour when America was clamouring for 
 the only help she could give. 
 
 "I vill now tell you aboud camel-flooge. Camel-flooge is 
 ven a society lady buys a nine huntred und fifty tollar dress 
 und spends der change on a Liperty Bond." 
 
 This morsel of dialectic wisdom was floating down from
 
 302 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 the speaker s platform directly into the tired ear of Pontius 
 BHnt. He looked at his watch. It was half-past two. 
 Roughly he snatched a punctured meal-ticket out of the 
 waiter-lassie s astonished grasp. He was neither surprised 
 nor annoyed to find that somebody had stolen his hat ; taking 
 this minor outrage with due philosophy, Pontius stole 
 some one else s; then, arm in arm with his jinx, passed 
 wofully out into the night. 
 
 II 
 
 Out by the curb, in the ghastly reflected light of Kidd s 
 show-window, he descried the skeleton cabman perched like 
 a sleeping bird on the top of his skeleton cab. His battered 
 beaver nodding forward, his scarecrow of a body hunched 
 as though broken in its supporting slat, he presented a 
 macabre picture of collapse. Below him the spring-kneed 
 Pansy companioned his dreams, her blinders, her ears, her 
 mane flapping, her nose almost level with the sidewalk. 
 
 "Hi there !" 
 
 With one marvellous automatic movement Jerry came to 
 an upright position, acting upon a system of well-trained 
 springs as he brought the reins taut and pulled the mare s 
 pole-like neck to the spirited angle of a thoroughbred at 
 the horse-show. 
 
 "It do be the fall weather, sor," explained the ever-ready, 
 causing the double doors to open mysteriously like the petals 
 of a sun-kissed rose. "As I often says to the Ould Woman, 
 says I, It s waitin round that takes the hear-r-t out of a 
 man. Rather would I dhrive a hundred miles, says I, than 
 wait two hours be th cold an rain. But that s the curse 
 av the poor, says I, to be whistlin wid th autumn wind 
 while the rich man dhrinks fine wine. " 
 
 "You ll be charging me extra for that ?" snarled Pontius. 
 
 "It s already on the bill, yer honour. An if ye ll git 
 aboord, Gineral, I ll be afther dhrivin ye to th Hotel 
 Astor."
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 303 
 
 m ~ mm ~ mm ~~ < """^ ** ^^^~ """"^j 
 
 "Who ever mentioned the Hotel Astor?" enquired the 
 nerve-worn fare. "I said the Merlinbilt and if you take 
 me anywhere else it ll be to a hospital." 
 
 "My mistake, sor," corrected Jerry. 
 
 Pontius was swearing softly as he eased himself to the 
 footboard and he might have continued the futile eloquence 
 had not the unexpected energy of Pansy s dash toward the 
 East side thrown him violently among the cushions and in 
 contact with something sufficiently gristly to erase all pres 
 ent troubles from his mind. The interior of the cab was all 
 in shadow, but he could feel it crowding against his elbow, 
 a soft and fluffy something which had nothing to do with 
 the crazy padding of the cushions. An icy rill went down 
 his spinal marrow. Gropingly he reached out, then sprang 
 back as though bitten. 
 
 His hand had come in contact with a sleeve, and inside 
 that sleeve there was a soft human arm! 
 
 Pontius Blint rubbed his aching eyes, and when the port 
 hole opposite had swung within the radius of a street lamp 
 he braced himself and dared take another look. A rather 
 small girl, her face pale as the moon under her dark velvet 
 Tarn o Shanter, lay perfectly still in the corner, her body 
 huddled, her hands folded. To all appearances she was 
 lifeless. There was not a flutter of the black lashes that lay 
 upon her cheeks. Her mouth, which was small and pretty, 
 was fixed to a childlike droop which conveyed the idea both 
 of tragedy and of helplessness. 
 
 A perfect finish for his enterprise ! Pontius Blint had 
 come to New York to renew his youth, and instead found 
 himself escorting a corpse in a hansom cab. 
 
 Under such circumstances a fool will cry out, a coward 
 will run away and a wise man will consider the case. De 
 spite what the day and its fate had done to him, Pontius 
 was a wise man. As soon as he had shaken himself together 
 he considered the advisability of driving at once to a police 
 station. The cabman, undoubtedly a mild lunatic, might be 
 to blame for all this, a detail in some frightful plot. Pontius
 
 304 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 picked up one of the small hands, intent to see if life still 
 lingered. The fingers were not rigid, certainly, but they 
 gave poor evidence, for they were covered with a black 
 glove of cheap quality and worn blue at the finger ends. 
 Carefully he put the hand back beside its mate. And at 
 that point a faint, monotonous, not unpleasant noise came 
 to his ears. It had the comforting, home-making sound 
 which a cat gives forth in hours of ease before an open 
 fire. He leaned down and bent his ear close to the nostrils 
 of his mysterious fellow passenger. 
 
 It was quite all right. She was snoring. Or should we 
 use another word, since the noise he heard bore to a snore 
 the same relation that the trill of a silver flute bears to the 
 bawling of a tug-boat whistle? 
 
 "Poor child !" Pontius found himself saying in his fath 
 erly way. Heartened by the assurance that she was not 
 dead but sleeping, he gave her a more careful scrutiny and 
 came to the conclusion that the girl beside him was one de 
 gree more weary, pathetic and world-beaten than himself. 
 She wore one of those thick and shapeless coats which 
 poor girls buy with a view to many seasons warmth. Her 
 hands, curled helplessly in her lap, reminded him of the 
 claws of a little dead bird he had once picked up, for senti 
 mental reasons, after an early autumn storm. The cheap 
 lace at her comely throat was fastened by one of those 
 heart-shaped turquoise pins which one may find at any well- 
 stocked five and ten cent store. She presented an appealing 
 picture of surrender to an unkind fate, and because she 
 was more than usually pretty 
 
 "By Jove!" said Pontius Blint, the instinct of a well- 
 conducted family man coming to his rescue. What in the 
 world was he going to do about it? This sort of thing 
 couldn t go on indefinitely, you know. He thought once 
 of consulting Jerry upon this delicate point, and he had 
 turned his eyes appealingly toward the trap door, now 
 securely closed, when a faint rustling in the space beside 
 him reclaimed his attention upon the girl of mystery.
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 305 
 
 She was sitting bolt upright, wide frightened eyes burn 
 ing upon him out of the patch of white which was her face. 
 
 "I I beg your pardon, Miss I I didn t mean to dis 
 turb you," he found himself lamely apologising, but the 
 words were scarcely out of his mouth than she gave a little 
 smothered scream and started to climb out over the low 
 folding doors. 
 
 "You can t do that," said he, restraining her somewhat 
 roughly, for he had a feeling that even at Pansy s crawling 
 pace the leap might do her harm. "You re perfectly safe 
 with me don t get excited everything s all right." 
 
 He realised even as he was repeating these inadequate 
 assurances and crowding her back to her seat that this was 
 exactly what a professional kidnapper would say under 
 similar circumstances. 
 
 "Oh, please !" at last he heard her voice, which was sweet 
 and, fortunately, pitched to a low key. "Mister, I didn t 
 do it. Honest ! If you ll only let me explain. Oh, please 
 don t take me I couldn t stand it!" 
 
 "What have we here?" was old Pontius first thought, 
 which he voiced in the kindly tone of which he was always 
 capable. 
 
 "My child, you didn t do what? Please don t take you 
 where ?" 
 
 "To the station house, sir," she said simply, but with a 
 tremolo that went straight to his heart. 
 
 "Please don t get excited," he implored. "I give you my 
 word I hadn t any intention of turning you over to the 
 police." 
 
 "Then what for did you grab out like that when I went 
 to jump?" 
 
 Apparently she was a direct thinker, this frightened little 
 miss. 
 
 "To tell you the truth I didn t see any occasion to jump," 
 said he. 
 
 "And what for did you get into my cab?" 
 
 "Get into your cab !" Pontius whistled. "I didn t know
 
 306 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 you were the proprietor. I had an impression that I had 
 chartered this boat for the evening I might almost say 
 that I ve bought it." 
 
 She sat stiff as a ramrod and in the twilight he could see 
 her large eyes fixed upon him in a stare which was hyp 
 notic. 
 
 "Oh, that was it," she said in her small, crushed voice. 
 
 "Now look here," he spoke at last, and a wildwood doe 
 could not have taken fright at his manner of speaking. 
 "I m not in cahoots with the police in fact I ve been most 
 decidedly against them once or twice. If you re in trouble 
 and haven t committed any real crime " 
 
 "Indeed, sir, before God I haven t !" Her pathetic bird s 
 claws came together, and under the flash of a street lamp 
 she seemed more pallid than before. 
 
 "Well, then," spoke the best intentioned man that ever 
 captained an industry, "whatever s the matter you can trust 
 me to help square it. If you ve been given a raw deal 
 well, I m an international expert in raw deals. Why don t 
 you tell me about it ?" 
 
 She had again settled back into her rigid calm. Quite 
 apparently she was looking him over. 
 
 "You look to be a kind gentleman," she at length admitted 
 with the qualification, "but not one maybe that would have 
 great infloonce." 
 
 "Less and less every day." It was a pained smile he 
 gave behind his cropped grey moustache. "But as a father 
 confessor I have no equal. And you ll admit that s some 
 thing." 
 
 "That would be," she said as though talking to herself. 
 
 "In the first place, then, what s your name ?" 
 
 "Lizzie Defoe," she replied in the mechanical tone of a 
 child being cross-examined by a well-meaning elder. 
 
 "Related to Daniel ?" enquired Pontius, but was ashamed 
 of his joke when she replied simply, 
 
 "He was my father, but he died last May fightin with 
 the British Army."
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 307 
 
 "Then you re English." 
 
 "English we are not !" The response was snapped back 
 with a promptness that explained which side of St. George s 
 channel the Defoes came from. 
 
 "Lizzie, how did you come to be sleeping in my cab at 
 this peculiar hour?" 
 
 "I got in, sir. There didn t seem no other place to run 
 to when I saw Sergeant Burger amongst the soldiers in the 
 big restaurant." 
 
 "Oh. And who is Sergeant Burger ?" 
 
 "He s the fine American Marine, sir, who was keepin 
 company with me and was a-standin right there by the 
 booth when the stylish gentleman came along and took em." 
 
 "Took what?" 
 
 "Why, the bonds, sir." 
 
 "Took the bonds out of Kidd s restaurant ?" 
 
 "Oh, no, sir. Out of the booth this afternoon." 
 
 Of course. What else could the stylish gentleman have 
 done? 
 
 "Sergeant Burger was standing by the booth this after 
 noon when the stylish gentleman took the bonds," prompted 
 her examiner, "so that was the reason why you were found 
 asleep in a hansom cab on Broadway at half past two in 
 the morning." 
 
 "There s lots of other reasons such a power of em!" 
 By the way her shabby gloved hands went up to her face 
 he had a feeling that she was beginning to cry. "But I m 
 that tired I been all the way to Jersey City and back and 
 where I m goin now I don t know." 
 
 "Why did you go to Jersey City ?" 
 
 "When I found the gentleman took the bonds I run away, 
 thinkin I could sleep with my cousin Susie Riley and 
 when I got there she s got another place and " 
 
 "Let s begin somewhere," suggested Pontius, seeing that 
 this method of telling the story savoured of Henry James 
 having one of his spells. "As I understand it you were a
 
 3o8 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^"""""^^^"^^^* "^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 bond salesman somewhere and a gentleman had something 
 to do with your running away." 
 
 "The grand lady that hired me took me temporary a 
 week ago out of an employment bureau." Pontius had a 
 relieved feeling that she was reverting to the straight- from- 
 the-beginning method of the motion picture scenario. "I 
 was to be ladies maid and to get my salary doubled on the 
 first if I gave satisfaction. I was livin in a boardin house 
 with another girl at the time and we both got a license to 
 sell Liberty Bonds, hopin to win the honour prize of the 
 St. Martha s guild. I took subscriptions for four hundred 
 dollars worth when the lady hired me, but after that I 
 was that busy I couldn t call me soul me own. I I think 
 I was doin very well in the new place " 
 
 "I m sure you were," he encouraged. 
 
 "All the rkh ladies was sellin Liberty Bonds all over 
 town and it was a grand work to help the country; and I 
 was so anxious to sell a few for myself that I told my lady 
 one night how I was workin for the St. Martha s guild 
 prize with a license to be a saleslady. Just the thing ! says 
 she; sometimes I m that busy with patriotic work I don t 
 have time to sell bonds. " 
 
 "So busy she couldn t do anything!" snorted Pontius. 
 "I know the sort !" 
 
 "Well, she was workin pretty hard at that, what with 
 meetin s and rallies all over town. And it was yesterday 
 afternoon she comes around to me and says, Lizzie, I m 
 that distracted with duties I won t be able to go to me booth 
 to-morrow at all. And would you mind taking my place 
 and helping the ladies with the bonds ? So I went to this 
 booth it was yesterday morning no, it was this morn- 
 ing " 
 
 She put her hands to her forehead and seemed to be 
 struggling with her thoughts. 
 
 "It s morning now," he prompted her. 
 
 "It seems so long ago," she wailed. "Yes, it was yes 
 terday mornin . It was an awful responsibility, but it made
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 
 
 me that happy. I thought I might have a chance to sell a 
 big bond to one of them millionaires and get the prize. But 
 the ladies in the booth was there to do all the selling and 
 it was Lizzie here and Lizzie there fetchin and carryin 
 for them. There was a great strong box full of bonds 
 from fifty dollars up to a thousand and another box to put 
 the bills in when they was sold. There was hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars worth of bonds in that box, some of 
 em in envelopes marked with the amount. And it was one 
 of me jobs to keep them envelopes full and marked with 
 the number. And when a person would come up for a bond 
 it was me that took em from the box and gave it to the lady 
 who was a-sellin . And I was just crazy to sell one of em." 
 
 "And didn t you get your chance ? 
 
 "Eddie Sergeant Burger stood by and whispered now 
 and then, Your chance is comin " 
 
 "Ah. So Eddie was there?" 
 
 "He was borrowed from the Marines to be a guard. 
 Eddie is a hero from France, where he fought at Shadow- 
 Terry, and he ain t afraid of anything. So I worked there 
 all the morning and you d better believe them ladies 
 worked too. You d a-thought they d been in the banking 
 business all their lives the way they could shuffle the money 
 and make change. We didn t none of us have lunch until 
 three o clock, when the crowd sort of got thin ; then them 
 ladies went away for somethin to eat. Eddie stuck around 
 and brought me a sandwich, sayin very polite, Now s your 
 chance, Miss Defoe. I bet the sodas you ll catch a million 
 aire inside five minutes. They re awful gamblers, them 
 military men. Well it just seemed like a stroke out of 
 heaven at that moment for across the lobby comes a-walk- 
 in a very stylish gentleman with a fine gold beard and a 
 checked suit o clothes. Is this the young lady who s run- 
 nin the booth? says he. I was going to answer, No, but I 
 could see Eddie winkin go-ahead-like, so I plucks up cour 
 age and says, Will you buy a bond? Til take eighteen 
 hundred dollars worth, says he. Just like that. I had the
 
 310 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 key to the strong box, but I was that flustered what with 
 excitement and fear that the ladies would come back and be 
 angry that I almost couldn t turn the lock. If I only 
 hadn t done it !" 
 
 He could hear her sob quite distinctly now and Pontius 
 should be forgiven the fatherly pat he laid across her 
 slender knuckles. 
 
 "I m sure you did what was right," he was so rash as 
 to concede. This seemed to lend the needed encourage 
 ment, for she went on, 
 
 "I picked out an envelope with a thousand dollar bond 
 in it and another with five hundred. Then I counted out 
 three ones. Eddie Burger helped me count em over again, 
 so I was sure I was right. Cash sale or credit? says I to 
 the gentleman in the checked suit. Cash, says he quite 
 careless, and won t you put em all in one envelope so they 
 won t make such a big bundle ? " 
 
 Pontius Blint was beginning to guess the nature of poor 
 Lizzie s troubles, but he chimed in soothingly, 
 
 "So you counted em into one envelope." 
 
 "While I was doing it the gentleman reached into his 
 inside pocket and brought out a great big bale of bills. It 
 was all in hundreds, done up neat as wax with a strip of 
 paper round it. I thanked him very kind and when he 
 had put the envelope in his pocket where the money had 
 been Eddie leans over and whispers, Better count it ! Yes, 
 you d better be sure it s right, says the gentleman in the 
 checked suit. So I counted the bills and Eddie counted the 
 bills. But go over them as often as we might there was only 
 seventeen hundred in the pile." 
 
 "So ho !" said Pontius Blint softly as though to himself. 
 
 "The gentleman seemed that worried when he found the 
 bale was a hundred dollars short. I got them from a 
 friend/ said he, and I never even counted them. Just give 
 the money back to me. I ll take it round to Charley I 
 think he said Charley and have it straightened out. I ll
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 311 
 
 ^"^^^^^*"^^^^^ 
 
 bring back the right amount in a few minutes, says he, 
 and meanwhile here s your bonds. " 
 
 "So he gave you back your bonds?" Pontius all but 
 laughed. 
 
 "He gave me back the envelope," said the sad little voice. 
 "Then he went away hurried-like to find Charley who had 
 made the mistake. I opened the strong box to put back 
 the envelope he gave me and I thought to myself, Maybe it 
 should be counted again. So I opened the flap and my 
 God, what did I see? Nothin but an old wad of letters 
 and scrap paper, folded to look like so many Liberty 
 Bonds !" 
 
 "Poor child !" said Pontius Blint with a sad smile. "You 
 fell for the old trick of course you would. He simply 
 substituted an envelope full of scrap paper and walked away 
 with your bonds." 
 
 "How was I to know it? How was I to know it?" she 
 kept asking over and over. "I d scarcely never seen nothin 
 larger than a ten dollar bill before in my life. And to be 
 put there countin out thousands like a teller in a bank !" 
 
 "It was an outrage !" grunted Pontius Blint. 
 
 "You re not blamin me, too, are you, sir?" 
 
 "I wasn t referring to you, my dear. But what sort of a 
 woman would leave an ignorant girl in charge of hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars? These amateurs make me very 
 tired. And now I suppose she s blaming it all on you." 
 
 "I dunno, sir. You see I ran away." 
 
 "That was foolish. What did you do with the envelope 
 the man gave you?" 
 
 "When I seen what was inside it I was that taken aback 
 I didn t dare tell anybody. I was going to tell Eddie Bur 
 ger, knowin he d find a way out if it could be done. But 
 just then I seen the ladies coming back from lunch, so I 
 opened the lid of the box and slipped the envelope under 
 a pile of bonds. Then I just simply walked out. I was so 
 scared I was wild. I had a date with Eddie to go to the 
 movies and to Kidd s restaurant for supper, but all I could
 
 312 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 think of was getting away before they found out about 
 what I done. I wandered over to Jersey City, afraid to 
 come back, but the men talked so rough in the parks that 
 I got on the tube again, not knowing what to do. Once 
 I thought of goin back to the lady where I worked and 
 tellin her everything." 
 
 "That would have been the wisest course," counselled 
 Blint. "But I suppose the silk-stockinged idiot would have 
 made a scene." 
 
 "The tube let me off at Broadway. By then I was too 
 tired to be scared, but everybody looked at me so strange 
 and queer and once I tried to run, because I seen folks 
 followin me. Then there was the cops. There seemed 
 to be nothin but big blue officers all over the street. Once 
 or twice I thought of going up to a policeman and tellin 
 him to take me to the station house and be done with it. 
 And at that I seen Kidd s restaurant shinin out of the 
 dark and I thought of Eddie Burger." 
 
 "I see. Eddie and you had a date for supper at Kidd s." 
 
 "Yes, sir. But the first thing I seen when I looked in at 
 the crowd was Eddie standin by the cashier s desk glum 
 as a singed cat. I wanted to go in. I wanted to call to 
 him. But I was that scared I just couldn t and around 
 the corner comes another policeman, swingin his stick and 
 lookin straight at me. It was all up, I thought, and my 
 feet stuck to the sidewalk. I turned, lookin for somethm 
 to crawl into. And there stood this hansom cab, the driver 
 fast asleep on the box. Folks that comes in carriages ain t 
 wanted by the police, I thought, and with that I walked into 
 the carriage, proud as a duchess. 
 
 "It happened to be my cab," grinned Pontius. 
 
 "Did I do wrong, sir?" Another slanting street lamp s 
 ray showed him that helpless look which appealed to every 
 corner of his chivalry. 
 
 "My child," said Pontius, "you were certainly very fool 
 ish to have run away, because that puts a bad face on the 
 matter. If your story s straight and I know the foolish-
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 313 
 
 ness of society women enough to believe every word of it 
 then you should have faced the music and you would have 
 been able to put the blame where it really should lie." 
 
 "And where should it lay?" she echoed. 
 
 "With your mistress." Pontius was ever so positive 
 about that. 
 
 "You think so, sir?" 
 
 "By all means. There are too many bediamonded dames 
 around the country making a great bluff about winning the 
 war and doing nothing more than get their silly pictures 
 in the papers. These gabbling females who think that the 
 Western Front is at Newport and that they can stop hos 
 tilities by cutting the Kaiser socially. I m of the opinion 
 that this woman who employs you is a she-jackass. An 
 example ought to be made of her. By Jove, I will make 
 an example of her ! I ll see that she has to make good the 
 sum of money lost through her carelessness I ll fight it out 
 in the courts if necessary. It will be a fine object-lesson to 
 show these satin-finished slackers that this is something 
 more than a charity benefit." 
 
 "Then then you think that I won t have to pay back 
 that eighteen hundred?" asked Lizzie Defoe quaintly, just 
 as though she could if she had to. 
 
 "I ll pay it myself first." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, sir!" 
 
 Possibly she would have said more had not the cabman, 
 roused from his cross-town sleep, opened the hatchway 
 above. 
 
 "Dhrunk an talkin to himself !" said he pleasantly. 
 
 "What do you want, if anything?" asked Pontius, less 
 genially than in his previous conversation. 
 
 "If it please yer honour, was it the Hotel Wahldoff-As- 
 tory ye was a-goin to ?" 
 
 "Merlinbilt, you fool! Hotel Merlinbilt!" 
 
 "Thank ye, Gineral." The little trap door banged to. 
 
 When Pontius looked again at Lizzie Defoe he beheld 
 quite a new person, for she had pushed open the folding
 
 314 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 doors and was again making as though to jump out into 
 the night. 
 
 "See here !" said Pontius, now slightly ruffled. "What s 
 all this?" 
 
 "Did you say you live at the Hotel Merlinbilt?" she 
 asked, her hands braced between the porthole window and 
 the door. 
 
 "That s where I m stopping. But then " 
 
 "Excuse me, mister. Please don t take me near there 
 I shouldn t be goin by the Merlinbilt." 
 
 She fell back, as though too weak to follow her desperate 
 plan. 
 
 "Why ? Is there anything the matter with it ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. It it s the place where I was a-workin ." 
 
 Pontius looked at her a puzzled minute, then more under- 
 standingly out into the street where the dim fagade of the 
 Merlinbilt was already swinging into view. 
 
 "Say, what s the name of the lady who employed you?" 
 "tie asked ever so gently. 
 
 "Mrs. Pontius Blint," said she and wearily closed her 
 eyes. 
 
 in 
 
 The ormolu clock over the mantel in Mrs. Blint s pink 
 dressing room was just arranging its golden hands in such 
 a manner as to indicate the hour of seven. Pontius Blint 
 had chosen his wife s dainty Empire chaise longue upon 
 which to stretch himself and on a costly satin pillow he 
 had elevated that mound of flannel, grease, and absorbent 
 cotton which contained his suffering foot. A hotel boy had 
 brought him some nasty black salve from an all-night drug 
 store and Pontius, having smeared the gouty area and left 
 several indelible ichthyol stains upon the surrounding up 
 holstery, had fallen back among the cushions with the idea 
 of waiting until Julia returned or something definite hap 
 pened. 
 
 He had made up his mind to stay and die quietly; but
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 315 
 
 his one prayer was that life should linger until his wife s 
 return, because he had composed a dying speech which 
 would compensate in many ways for his life of silent en 
 durance. He had resolved to tell Julia just what he thought 
 of her now, had thought of her for years, and to do this 
 artistically it was essential that he should not pass away too 
 soon. 
 
 "Such women as you" he lay repeating to himself the 
 opening lines of his yet-to-be-famous speech "do the gov 
 ernment far more harm than Bolshevism, defeatism or 
 anarchy. You turn Liberty into a pink tea and, by gad, 
 take all the sanctity out of patriotism." 
 
 In spite of himself Pontius began to drowse. The couch 
 on which he lay was so cunningly adapted to the lines of the 
 figure that he found himself yielding to its effeminate in 
 fluences. Muscle by muscle he relaxed. His foot disturbed 
 him less, but his eyes rolled like burning coals in volcanic 
 craters. He yawned. 
 
 "Such women as you . . . such women do the govern 
 ment more harm than capitalism . . . such women . . . 
 Bolshevism . . ." 
 
 He opened his eyes gradually upon broad daylight and 
 sitting in a slender gilt chair beside him he beheld a badly 
 drawn and badly damaged portrait of Mrs. Pontius Blint. 
 His first feeling was that he would let the artist sue for 
 his money he wouldn t pay for such a daub. Good heav 
 ens, her hat was on crooked, a strand of titian-dyed hair 
 was draggling loose. She looked positively dirty and what 
 in the world was that smudge running from one of her 
 expensively arched eyebrows to the bridge of her enam 
 elled nose? 
 
 "Well, Pontius, is this any time for you to get yourself 
 laid up?" 
 
 It was her voice and the way she said it that at once 
 convinced him that, however outwardly changed, this was 
 Julia herself and not a poor reproduction. She seemed to 
 have dressed herself hastily out of a ragbag. Possibly
 
 316 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Percy Follip s fashion show had degenerated into one of 
 those hard-time parties they used to give out in the country 
 districts. But what was she doing with her dress all spat 
 tered with mud and her white gloves the colour of dusting 
 rags? 
 
 " Well, what in thunder s the matter with you?" he 
 asked croakingly, glancing up at the ormolu clock, which 
 was pointing to nine, and convincing himself that he was 
 not dreaming. 
 
 "I ve just got back," she infomed him with a deep- 
 drawn sigh. 
 
 Quite disregarding the poor condition in which she had 
 returned, he reverted to his dying speech and opened up 
 thickly, 
 
 "Such women as you do the Government far more . . ." 
 
 "No wonder you ve got gout," she snapped him up. 
 "You ve been drinking in times like these and ought to 
 be ashamed of yourself." 
 
 "You will have your joke," he replied. "I didn t expect 
 you to take it seriously I might have fallen out of an 
 airship into the City Hall for all you would know about it." 
 
 This sudden attack silenced her for a moment and seemed 
 to offer an orational pause, so he opened up thickly, 
 
 "Such women as you . . . women do the Government 
 far more . . ." 
 
 "Are you crazy or are you ill?" asked his fond wife, set 
 tling back into her chair and eyeing him through her dis- 
 hevellment. 
 
 "I should like to ask you exactly the same question," he 
 replied, struggling to arise and groaning as he did so. 
 
 "Why didn t you tell me you were coming to New York ?" 
 she queried sharply. "I could have made use of you." 
 
 "I think you ve made enough use of me, Madam." Here 
 was a splendid opening ! "Call me away from my important 
 work under the pretext that you wanted me to buy bonds 
 then I find you gadding about after some idiotic society 
 show "
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 317 
 
 "Pontius, I don t want you to speak that way !" she said, 
 and it came upon him with a sudden pity that her eyes 
 looked tired and dreadfully old. 
 
 "Do you expect me to quote poetry?" he resumed. "I ve 
 been all the evening trying to square one of your fool mis 
 takes." 
 
 She merely raised her plucked eyebrows which seemed 
 at that moment worn to a frayed shred. 
 
 "You went away and calmly left an ignorant servant in 
 charge of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of 
 bonds." 
 
 "What s what s happened to Lizette?" she asked with 
 sudden anxiety. 
 
 "Lizette my word ! Why don t you call things by their 
 right names? If you mean Lizzie Defoe ; 
 
 "She hasn t stolen any?" asked his wife, emerging from 
 her lethargy. 
 
 "Worse than that. A bunko man has come along and 
 cheated her out of eighteen hundred dollars worth. And 
 of course I ve got to make good." 
 
 "I might have known that girl couldn t be trusted," was 
 all the comment she made. 
 
 "Always pass the buck to the working girl ! Of course 
 it wasn t your fault. You had more important things to do. 
 You had to be at Atlantic City prancing round the ring with 
 Percy Follip " 
 
 "Percy Follip !" she echoed. 
 
 "Well, haven t you?" 
 
 "Pontius, has that poison gas gone to your head ?" 
 
 "Didn t I see your picture in the Evening Trombone, big 
 as a three-sheet poster ?" 
 
 "I never read the Trombone, she responded with a 
 shrug. Apparently she was not too tired to be a snob. But 
 then she added, "I ve been too busy to read the papers." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose Percy has kept you changing gown after 
 gown." 
 
 The eyes which he had always regarded as hard as blue
 
 318 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 china plates became suffused with a moisture which, ac 
 cording to his previous belief, could never come there. 
 
 "Perhaps if you d paid a little attention to your family," 
 she said in the broken voice of an old woman, "you d know 
 better than to think such things." 
 
 "I m sorry," was the next paragraph of his carefully 
 prepared Philippic. 
 
 "This morning, or rather yesterday morning early, another 
 hospital ship came in," he heard her explaining. "The in 
 fluenza has caused a dreadful shortage of nurses and last 
 week I promised to do what I could. So when the call came 
 I took Anderson and the car and went down to the dock. 
 It was dreadful, Pontius and yet there was something 
 splendid and beautiful about it. A lot of the soldiers died 
 on the way over; some of them died as they were being 
 moved. I rolled up my sleeves and did what I could. I 
 never realised what a helpless fool I d been raised to 
 
 Pontius sat up and brought his swaddled foot thump- 
 ingly to the floor. 
 
 "Do you mean to say you ve been doing something?" 
 
 "You don t think I ve been staying up all night look 
 ing like this for the fun of it." She swept a messy glove 
 over a muddy skirt. 
 
 "Where s Doris?" he asked, shooting his last feeble bul 
 let. "It seems to me she ought to have been helping too." 
 
 "Doris? She s still at work. I couldn t make her go to 
 bed. She s driving with the Woman s Motor Corps, you 
 know." 
 
 Pontius sat and blinked like an owl, and like an owl 
 his head was whirling round and round. He heard the 
 telephone ring, a muffled note, and saw his wife nervously 
 spring toward the receiver. 
 
 "Oh," he heard her saying. "Yes, I m sorry but of 
 course I told you I couldn t possibly go. Is it as serious as 
 that? Yes, we re still up. Yes, we ll be ever so glad to 
 see you, I m sure."
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 319 
 
 r*"* """"""" **"""" ~ ^ ~ ^ .n^ _ ^ 
 
 "Is that Doris now?" asked the perfectly reduced hus 
 band. 
 
 "It s Percy Follip," she explained while she preened be 
 fore the mirror, faint reflections of her vanity returning as 
 she stood arranging her eccentric coiffure and making hasty 
 attempts to powder her nose. "My word, what a fright I 
 look !" 
 
 "Nine o clock !" groaned the battered Blint. "Well, that s 
 the fashionable hour for a call, only he s chosen the wrong 
 end of the day." 
 
 The jangling of the doorbell brought Mrs. Blint again 
 to attention. Out in the lobby Pontius could hear words 
 of greeting between his wife s soprano and an effeminate 
 voice only a trifle less shrill than her own. 
 
 "Most unconventional hour I m sure, my dear Mrs. Blint, 
 you ll think me no end of a bounder very disastrous 
 quite silly all around." 
 
 "Pontius, do you think you could come into the drawing 
 room, or is your foot too bad?" asked his wife, returning 
 to the boudoir after a faraway parley. 
 
 "I m beyond either joy or pain," he told her, yet per 
 mitted her to help him with his coat and support him 
 across the hall. Many years of it had accustomed her to 
 Pontius gout. 
 
 In the panelled drawing room he found a lithe gentleman 
 with a thin golden beard, a checked suit and a barber s pole 
 necktie, who arose mincingly and simpered, 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Blint, in times like these one must be prepared 
 for anything, must one not?" 
 
 "One must," gloomed old Pontius. "And what s the 
 great war crisis now?" 
 
 "The first night of my style show was nearly ruined," he 
 mourned dramatically. 
 
 "I hope the Kaiser doesn t hear about that !" Pontius sym 
 pathised. 
 
 "The feature of the evening, you see, was to be a series 
 of rapid sketches by the great modern colourist, Fortescue
 
 320 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Klotz. As he worked fashionable ladies, robed in the styles 
 illustrated, were to march across the stage. But Klotz, 
 like all geniuses, is peculiar. It is impossible for him to 
 work without the original drawings before him as refer 
 ences." 
 
 "And you ve lost the original drawings," spluttered Pon 
 tius. "Of course I m just the man to come to about that." 
 
 "The originals were made in Paris by Andre Carnot, and 
 I had them just as they came on thin paper for conven 
 ient transportation in an envelope in my inside 
 pocket " 
 
 "Don t bother with the rest of your story," said Pontius, 
 grinning his old grin. "You went to Mrs. Blint s booth 
 yesterday afternoon at about three, asked for eighteen hun 
 dred dollars worth of bonds, got the wrong change and in 
 the mix-up gave the saleslady the envelope full of French 
 sketches." 
 
 "My Lord, Pontius!" said Mrs. Blint, and, "My dear 
 sir !" chirped Mr. Follip. 
 
 "It s getting on toward bed-time," continued the man of 
 affairs, "so there s no use spoiling the day with explana 
 tions. Julie, if you ll go back to the service section you ll 
 find Lizzie Defoe awake and crying." 
 
 "Lizette? How do you know she s awake?" Julia got 
 in her oar. 
 
 "She had a good nap in the cab." 
 
 This was Pontius contribution to the dialogue before 
 Lizzie Defoe, who* too apparently had been awake and 
 crying, was brought in, dressed exactly as she was when 
 Pontius sent her to bed. 
 
 "That s the gentleman who took the bonds!" she ex 
 claimed almost as soon as she had got into the room. 
 
 "I wouldn t part with those sketches for ten thousand 
 dollars," vowed the voice through the golden beard. "My 
 dear young woman, could you tell me what you did with 
 them?"
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 321 
 
 "They re in the strong box under a pile of bonds where 
 I put the envelope." 
 
 "You see," said Mrs. Blint wearily. "They re perfectly 
 safe." 
 
 "Now please don t cry," pleaded Pontius, noting alarming 
 symptoms on the part of his wife s maid. "Just go to bed 
 and sleep this time." 
 
 "My word ! When did you become housekeeper ?" asked 
 Julia, but Pontius hadn t finished the day yet. 
 
 "Julie," he said meekly, "are you going to take Mr. 
 Follip down to the booth to get his sketches ?" 
 
 "I suppose so since there s nobody else in the house 
 capable of getting anything straight." 
 
 "Well, there s something I want you to fix up for me, 
 since I m too sick to move." 
 
 Poor Lizzie Defoe, more confused than ever, was now 
 sliding away toward the service section. 
 
 "Lizzie." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Bring me two subscription blanks and do it now." 
 
 "You ought to have a doctor," exclaimed his wife, pulling 
 off a glove and laying her hand on his hot forehead. 
 
 "I m going to be sick for two weeks," he reassured her, 
 "and believe me, it ll be the time of my life." 
 
 Lizzie Defoe came tiptoeing back with two tan-coloured 
 squares of cardboard. 
 
 "Now, Follip," said Pontius briskly, shaking the ink down 
 in his fountain pen, "are you carrying those bonds round 
 with you?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Blint but I haven t got my drawings 
 back " 
 
 "You have my word and it s still pretty good that 
 you ll get em as soon as Mrs. Blint opens the box." 
 
 Mr. Follip rather tremblingly handed over his envelope. 
 
 "Here s my check for eighteen hundred," said Pontius, 
 tearing a sheet from a brown book. "That s a cash trans 
 action."
 
 322 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 f ^ ** ~^^~ ^^^^^ 
 
 "Yes but I was intending to buy " 
 
 "I m coming to that." Pontius was scribbling in his 
 fussy hand across the face of a subscription blank. "I m 
 making this out for twenty-five hundred. You won t mind 
 making it a little extra, now that you re going to get your 
 drawings back. Sign here, please." 
 
 Pontius furnished the fountain pen and when Percy 
 Follip, saying not a word but blinking like a Maltese cat, 
 had added his ornate signature, it was Pontius who in the 
 most businesslike way handed the blank over to Lizzie 
 Defoe. 
 
 "Maybe that ll help a little bit for the St. Martha s prize," 
 he barked out. 
 
 "Pontius, what in the world?" Julia was beginning when 
 he interrupted her drily. 
 
 "I m coming to that," he growled, almost savagely shak 
 ing the pen another time as he tackled the second blank, 
 scribbled fussily and thrust it into her hands. 
 
 "That might add to the day s business in your booth," 
 was the length and breadth of his crusty speech as his 
 wife stood turning the card this way and that. 
 
 "But Pontius you can t mean this. It s for a million 
 dollars." 
 
 "All I can afford," he grunted. "And now please take 
 him away and let me be sick in peace." 
 
 Julia, however, refused to take Mr. Follip away until 
 she had deposited her husband in the spare bedroom and, 
 insisting that he was a better financier than surgeon, re- 
 wrapped his foot into a smooth parcel of black salve and 
 gauze. 
 
 The telephone rang. 
 
 "It s Jerry," moaned Pontius, already half asleep. "Tell 
 him I died." 
 
 "He s intoxicated, I think," explained Mrs. Blint, turn 
 ing from the telephone. "He says he wants to talk to you 
 about gasolene or something "
 
 GASLESS SUNDAY 323 
 
 Pontius got the instrument in his clutch. 
 
 "Hello, yer honour. I was askin afther yer health. 
 Mebbe ye d be afther feelin wor-r-rse as th day goes on. 
 We ll never be young agin, sor." 
 
 "Who the devil told you to wait ?" 
 
 "Waitin s me job, sor. While th rich dhrinks his fine 
 wine th poor man must wait out in th wind an weather." 
 
 "How much do I owe you?" 
 
 "From twelve to nine, Gineral. And I d sooner dhrive 
 a hundhred mile than wait an hour." 
 
 "I can t do that sum. Come down to figures." 
 
 "Make it nine dollars, sor." 
 
 Pontius had just strength to whistle. 
 
 "You ll never get a taxi at that rate." 
 
 "Nor do I want wan o thim things. What wud I be doin 
 wid Pansy, says I. Sell her to a rag man, says you. Bad 
 cess to em, ther s never been a ragpicker in the Sullivan 
 family nor a hangman nayther. An I see be th papers 
 that Profissor Gar-r-rfield do be afther stoppin gasless 
 Sunda from this day on. 
 
 "Go round to the desk and collect," said Pontius wearily 
 as he hung up. 
 
 "You d better get some sleep," said Julia, hanging over 
 his pillow. 
 
 "Do me two favours," he whispered. "Ask the man at 
 the desk to give Jerry twenty-five dollars." 
 
 "What s the other one ?" 
 
 "Give me a kiss." 
 
 After that she waited a few minutes to see if the medi 
 cine had taken effect. Apparently he was under its influ 
 ence, for out of dreamland she could hear him gibbering 
 into his pillow, 
 
 "Such women as you do the Government far more . . . 
 far more harm than Bolshy . . ." 
 
 She found Mr. Follip waiting impatiently and led him 
 forth to her booth, where she resumed her day s work.
 
 IX 
 MOTHER S MILK 
 
 IT was while the winter s third bumper harvest of snow 
 lay shocked along Manhattan s gutters, putting on a 
 deep coat of grime in apology for the Street Cleaning 
 Department s annual break-down, that Miss Rosa Peabody 
 came loitering down West End Avenue, returning home 
 from church with her Boly Pawley. She was slender, ani 
 mated and nicely clad, and he despite the name which 
 indicated a Papuan savage was of the city type, some 
 what saurian in his graceful lines. The Pawley parents 
 had originally christened him J. Bolingbroke, innocent of 
 the abbreviation which was to brand him through life. He 
 wore a silk hat, sealskin collar, light-topped boots and 
 pallid gloves. His walk was inclined to delicacy. He had 
 a knobby little face whose most distinguishing feature was 
 a tiny, furry moustache of butterfly pattern. His father 
 was associated with the Peabodys in the retail drug busi 
 ness and Boly had been paired off with Rosa several seasons 
 ago. 
 
 To-day as they sauntered along Rosa was indulging in 
 her favourite puzzle : What to do with Boly ? She was 
 very pretty, a >ifle taller than he and heiress to a large 
 share of the Jumbo Drug Stores, Inc. She had small, 
 sparkling black eyes and hair which was as fine and almost 
 as light as thistle down ; and as often happens with city 
 girls of the upper middle class, she was gymnasium trained, 
 outdoor-loving, healthy and wholesome. Her skirts fell 
 well below the tops of her tan spats, her brown coat and 
 
 324
 
 MOTHER S MILK 325 
 
 small hat were trimmed modestly with very expensive fur. 
 
 "We ll never catch up with mother," she was warning 
 Boly, who spied the maternal plume bobbing half a block 
 ahead. 
 
 Boly was listlessly attentive. It was impossible for him 
 to consider two ideas at the same time. 
 
 "Fred Stone s got a new show funny stuff." 
 
 "Is that what you ve been thinking about all during 
 church?" 
 
 "What say I rope in a gang," was Boly s oblique reply, 
 "and give a theatre party, say about Tuesday?" 
 
 "You re probably borrowing money on your allowance," 
 chided Rosa with that maternal air she reserved for him 
 alone. 
 
 "You ve said something!" His Boston terrier eyes gave 
 her a sly look ; he loved to be twitted of his dissipations. 
 
 "You ve been running a regular Roman circus all the 
 month. I ve a good mind to tell your father." 
 
 "He ll know all about it on the First," Boly assured her 
 with a gloomy sigh. "But say! Let s have a touch o 
 life!" 
 
 "I ll tell you what!" Rosa had an inspiration. "Why 
 not put off the party till late next week?" 
 
 "What s on?" he asked, unimpressed. 
 
 "My Cousin Fluff is coming down to visit me." 
 
 "Ouch ! Say it again." 
 
 "Her company name is Florence Annister. She s coming 
 down to-morrow." 
 
 "Coming down! From Heaven or something?" 
 
 "From Burgeonville." 
 
 "Burgeonville to New York quite a come-down all 
 right !" He gave the speech the benefit of his superior 
 irony. 
 
 "Boly, you impudent pup ! Father was born in Burgeon 
 ville, so was his favourite daughter. All the virtues come 
 from Burgeonville." 
 
 "They come early I guess."
 
 326 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "For the original see Joe Miller s Joke Book." She was 
 a little weary of Boly s pepper-and-salt style of conversation, 
 so she went on in a soberer key. "I really want you to know 
 Fluff." 
 
 "What does she look like?" 
 
 "Me." 
 
 "Score one for Fluff." 
 
 "At least she did. I saw her about eleven years ago 
 when Father took me to Uncle Eric s funeral in Burgeon- 
 ville. Fluff and I were both little brats then. We had a 
 bitter quarrel because she said my doll had no style." 
 
 "I ll stand by you, Rosie," he staunchly assured her. 
 "If she needs her prayer meeting Wednesday nights I ll 
 be there with a sleigh. I ll buy her any amount of root 
 beer, take her to see the Liberty Statue and " 
 
 "She won t be so bad as that," broke in Rosa over- 
 emphatically. As a matter of fact she was wondering if 
 Cousin Fluff mightn t be worse. 
 
 "Don t jolly me along," Boly was protesting. "She ll 
 want somebody to help her look at the family album on 
 rainy days and when the sun comes out it will be Fluff for 
 the Seeing New York rubberneck tour. If you really ask 
 me to, Rosie, I ll follow till I lose my umbrella." 
 
 "Things aren t as awful as you think!" 
 
 "Things usually are," he replied with a weeping philos 
 ophy more profound than she gave him credit for. 
 
 "You aren t sore are you, Boly?" 
 
 "You bet I am!" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "When a girl asks you to be nice to another girl for her 
 sake it indicates one of two things. Either the other girl 
 is a lemon or the girl thinks you re such a boob she doesn t 
 care whether she loses you or not oh, you know what I 
 mean !" 
 
 They had now reached the big pile of Nuremberg archi 
 tecture at the corner from which the Peabodys paid their 
 bills and sped their stately motor car. Mrs. Peabody,
 
 MOTHER S MILK 327 
 
 plump, pretty and pleasant, stood in the doorway and called 
 down the steps, 
 
 "Hurry, children!" 
 
 "It seems to me you ought to let me be nice to you once 
 in a while without handing me something from Burgeonville 
 to hold," he was persisting in his lamentation. 
 
 "Why can t you be good, Boly?" 
 
 "I ve been in love with you ever since ever since I 
 learned to smoke " 
 
 "Don t let s go over all that now " 
 
 "All right, then." 
 
 He raised his hat with the ceremony of a stage ambas 
 sador and advanced a pale-gloved hand. 
 
 "Please don t go away in a peev. Let s give poor Fluff 
 a continuous performance next week. I ll be eternally 
 grateful to you if you help. Have your theatre party and 
 we ll give a series of fiestas and send Fluff back up-State 
 full of enthusiasm. I m tremendously serious. I do so 
 want her to have a good time. It s a long story, but I 
 don t think she s had any too much fun in her life." 
 
 "Oh, well, if you put it on those grounds/ he replied 
 with a sainted smile and took his departure. 
 
 The Peabodys were of the class which the Bolsheviki 
 damn with the word Bourgeois. Garrett Peabody had made 
 a plentiful supply of money made it with both hands and, 
 as the saying goes, stood on it with both feet. This some 
 what old-fashioned pressed brick house, gleaming with 
 plate glass, shining with polished brass, represented Pea- 
 body s ideal ; comfort and solidity in a neighbourhood which 
 was not irksomely ostentatious. 
 
 The dining room in which the Peabodys were taking 
 their two o clock Sunday dinner was a model of this very 
 comfort and solidity. The furniture was of golden oak, 
 machine carved, the chairs deeply upholstered in green 
 leather. The windows were draped in heavy plush of a 
 petunia shade, festoon upon festoon hanging from cornice
 
 328 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 to floor, each loop being knotted with a silken cord as thick 
 as a man s forefinger; there was an old-gold placque em 
 broidered in the centre of each festooned valance above the 
 windows. The mantelpiece had a fanciful pagoda-shaped 
 top with many small mirrors. There were mirrors, too, in 
 the side-board which reflected pot-bellied silver of florid 
 design. 
 
 In the South wall of the big room the doors of the 
 Fernery were open, showing under its glass roof the sides 
 of an infinite variety of rubber-plants, ferns, palms, foliage 
 plants. At a lavish expenditure of New York real estate 
 Mrs. Peabody had had this small conservatory built for 
 Grandma Whipple s special benefit. "It keeps her fussing 
 with something," as Grandma s daughter modestly explained 
 to those who deplored such wicked waste. There were neat 
 rows of thriving geraniums, fuchsias, bleeding hearts, cycla 
 men. Grandma Whipple kept it in wonderful order ; it was 
 quite in keeping with the homely, domestic atmosphere 
 which the Peabodys had always maintained. As witness 
 the Sabbath meal at which they were seated to-day. 
 
 At the head of the table beamed old Garry Peabody, 
 somewhat broadened from the popular Burgeonville drug 
 gist who had come to New York to preach the gospel of 
 chain drug stores these twenty years ago. His famous fuzz 
 of red hair had grown sparse with prosperity and rolls of 
 fat had gathered about the April innocence of his round 
 blue eyes. He unfolded his napkin and beamed over his 
 darlings. Mid-board, to his right, crouched Grandmother 
 Whipple, his adored mother-in-law, who had grown de 
 crepit since he had taken her off the farm near Penn Yann ; 
 a grim and silent Roman crone who chewed carefully on a 
 double set of false teeth, spoke seldom and that pithily. 
 Rosa occupied the chair opposite to that of her grandmother. 
 Across from Garry sat his wife, she who had been Nan 
 Whipple of Penn Yann, placid, contented and what Garry- 
 most loved in her never without her common sense. 
 
 "Well, Chuck," said old Garry, winking over his soup
 
 MOTHER S MILK 329 
 
 toward his daughter, "I suppose you brought the text back 
 from church?" 
 
 "Mr. Beel preached with a cold in his head and Boly in 
 sisted on writing notes," announced Miss Peabody, attack 
 ing the rich gumbo. 
 
 "A chapter from Revelations," grinned her father. 
 
 "You always did talk like a heathen," croaked Grand 
 mother Whipple, fixing her filmy brown eyes on her son- 
 in-law with a sort of fierce fondness. 
 
 "I catch it from Rosie," explained the head of the house, 
 well pleased. 
 
 "You ll catch it from Grandma if you don t watch out," 
 warned his pride and joy. 
 
 "Lola," commanded Mrs. Peabody of the coloured maid, 
 "see that Mr. Peabody has some sherry with his soup." 
 
 "Never mind," consoled Rosa s father, still inclined to 
 banter. "You ll have Cousin Fluff to fight with to-morrow 
 afternoon." 
 
 "By the way, Garry," upspoke his wife, "you never gave 
 me back that letter from Sophie." 
 
 "I brought it from the office last night and forgot to 
 hand it over," apologised Mr. Peabody, and went fumbling 
 in his pocket until he had brought out the cheap pink 
 envelope, engraved with the Annister crest, which had come 
 nearly a month ago and had introduced the Fluff idea into 
 West End Avenue. 
 
 "If you once get Sophie s system," he went on as he 
 adjusted his eyeglasses and opened the sheet, "the thing 
 is comparatively easy." 
 
 "Can t I see it, Mother?" asked Rosa. 
 
 "I don t know why you shouldn t," acknowledged Mrs. 
 Peabody; and this was a signal for old Garry to hand the 
 pink stationery to his daughter, who puzzled awhile over the 
 crabbed scrawl. 
 
 "Dearest Nan: 
 
 "I was both pleased and surprised to receive your letter in 
 viting my little girl to visit yours, because it came as a happy
 
 330 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 shock to know that after these years of separation you still 
 have some interest in us. 
 
 "Of course she will come and most gladly, for the Great City 
 lures her as it does all girls, and for my own part I am glad 
 to have her go, as there is a most undesirable young man, who 
 is so persistent in his attentions, that, despite the great number 
 of admirers she has (and has had ever since her hair was up!) 
 I am a little afraid she might take him, and as he has nothing, 
 and you are a mother yourself, I know you will understand my 
 being glad to have her diverted. 
 
 "With my love to your dear girl, and thanking you for your 
 thought of your little country niece, and my regards to Garry, 
 
 "Affectionately, 
 
 "SOPHIA ANNISTER." 
 
 Being herself mainly responsible for the approaching 
 Fluff, Rosa chose to make no comment. 
 
 "Doing anything to entertain her?" asked the father of the 
 family. 
 
 "Rosie s been arranging the parties," replied Mrs. Pea- 
 body. "And I do hope she ll have a good time." 
 
 "Good time?" he snorted. "Turn a country girl loose 
 in New York with nothing to do but see the wheels go 
 round she ll amuse herself. Do you remember the time, 
 Nan, when I first took you to see the Eden Musee ?" 
 
 She gave him an affectionate look for this, but resumed 
 her worry almost at once. 
 
 "Things have gotten pretty complicated since then. I 
 don t know what notions Sophia Annister may have about 
 what s proper for her daughter " 
 
 "As I remember it Sophia wasn t such a dead one in her 
 day," remarked Garry and was sorry he said it. Mrs. 
 Peabody spooned soup discreetly before resuming. 
 
 "The Annisters aren t so well off as they used to be and 
 Sophia has notions. I know that by the snippy way she 
 answered my letter, asking Fluff down. I don t see how 
 she can possibly afford clothes to dress Fluff. And she d 
 eat her heart out if she thought her girl wasn t so well 
 gotten up as the next one." 
 
 "I mind the time," croaked Grandmother Whipple from
 
 MOTHER S MILK 331 
 
 ^ "^" ^ " ^^"^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^T^^^^^^; 
 
 her place, "when Sophie Whipple that was came down to 
 Penn Yann. Nothing us folks had was good enough for 
 her folks. Proud as a peacock. Dressed like a duchess 
 she went out one day to see Pa milk cows. Land, such 
 mighty airs ! You d a-thought she never saw a cow before." 
 
 "There s a new shuffle about once in a generation," her 
 son-in-law told her. 
 
 "Hoity-toity!" creaked Grandmother Whipple. 
 
 After the dinner had come to its symphonic conclusion 
 upon assorted fruits and nuts the Peabodys arose and took 
 their separate ways ; it was their Sunday custom to eat well 
 and sleep afterwards. Rosa was the one exception to the 
 rule, as the mode of the day had taught her moderation. 
 She was rummaging along a row of novels in the library 
 when her father came in and perched on the arm of a padded 
 chair. 
 
 "Suffering from insomnia, Dad ?" she asked, looking up. 
 
 "What say you and I pick out a lover s lane and take 
 a walk?" was his astonishing proposal. 
 
 "What s come over you?" Rosa slipped her book back 
 in its row. 
 
 "Old age," he admitted. "Doctor says I ve got to choose 
 between exercise after meals or a lot of one-two-three tor 
 ture in a gymnasium." 
 
 Reflectively he caressed his bulging waistcoat. 
 
 "Oh, if it s as bad as that I ll take you to Grant s tomb 
 and back," she responded, and flew for her fur-trimmed 
 coat and hat. 
 
 As they walked toward Riverside Drive her curiosity pro 
 gressed with every step. Never before had she known her 
 father to take any exercise that was not forced upon 
 him. And it was evident to-day that he wasn t walking be 
 cause he liked it. He blinked in the wintry sun and yawned 
 his generalities. It was not until they had joined that end 
 less procession which, morning and afternoon of fine Sun 
 days, passes unbroken, marching and counter-marching 
 along the Drive between Seventy-second Street and the
 
 332 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 architectural pudding dish which shelters the bones of 
 Shiloh s conquerer, that he ckared his throat and began 
 to talk. 
 
 "Was it your mother s idea or yours, bringing Fluff down 
 for a visit?" 
 
 "I ve had her on my mind for about a year," explained 
 Rosa, wondering at his air of mystery. 
 
 "How did the notion ever get into your head ?" 
 
 "Last winter when I was coming down from Canada 
 the train got blocked at a funny-looking station. I didn t 
 know it was Burgeonville at first. Then I saw the sign and 
 it dawned upon me that it was the place where I was born ; 
 I got to thinking of the funeral, the time we saw Fluff and 
 her mother eleven years ago do you remember the big, 
 tumble-down house with the weeds in the yard and broken 
 urns on the gate-posts?" 
 
 "Only too well," replied old Garry, quite without humour. 
 
 "Well, looking from the station that day it struck me 
 Burgeonville, all bleak and snow-bound, was the saddest 
 place I had ever seen. And as soon as I got back to New 
 York I asked Mother about Fluff. It seemed she wasn t 
 married and nothing much had happened to her. I wanted 
 to ask her right down for a visit, but we couldn t have her 
 last winter on account of Grandma s being so ill. I teased 
 Mother into it just after Christmas." 
 
 "Of course you always take a chance," commented Pea- 
 body in that same unnatural voice. 
 
 "Why aren t they nice?" 
 
 "Sophie Whipple was very lovely when she was young," 
 said Rosa s father, and he was gazing straight ahead of him. 
 
 "Fluff must be very pretty by now." 
 
 "She would be. Hm. Her father was regarded as an 
 unusually handsome man." 
 
 The echo of a buried jealousy rattled in the voice of this 
 undersized millionaire with the commonplace figure. 
 
 "And, Rosie," he went on impulsively, "all I m afraid of 
 is that you re biting off more than you can chew."
 
 MOTHER S MILK 333 
 
 "In what way ?" 
 
 "I m a country boy," said Peabody. "And your mother s 
 a country girl. You can t realise the feeling, never having 
 been put in that position ; but it s a horrible torture for folks 
 who don t know the ropes to be dropped cold-handed, right 
 into the midst of a crowd who do. It makes em unhappy, 
 and proud and cross-grained and mighty contrary! I ll 
 never forget the time I found myself in that fix. A cousin 
 of your Aunt Sophie s was being married it was called a 
 Rainbow Wedding very swell in those days. Everybody 
 there dressed to kill. A lot of dudes and belles prancing 
 round, giving each other the masonic sign, showing that I 
 was a Rube and didn t belong to their lodge. I guess I d have 
 frozen to the wall if your mother hadn t come round and 
 thawed me out." 
 
 "Poor Dad ! It must have been awful." 
 
 "Not so bad that was the night I proposed to Nan." 
 
 "If I d been there I d have fallen in love with you my 
 self," she enthusiastically assured him, clinging to the 
 broad sleeve of his overcoat. 
 
 "Hush your blarney !" He pretended to be fearfully an 
 noyed. "What would Boly Pawley be doing all that time ?" 
 
 "You know, Dad, I m awfully fond of Boly." 
 
 "When you begin that way I know you re going to knock. 
 What s the matter with him?" 
 
 "I think he amuses me too much." 
 
 "That can be done," agreed her father, coming back to 
 a broad grin. 
 
 "I d be lonesome if he didn t show up once in a while. 
 But he doesn t seem to mean much to me." 
 
 "That s the woman of it." His smile faded. 
 
 "You re talking like an old cynic to-day," she scolded. 
 "Anybody would think you were unhappily married or 
 something." 
 
 "That would be a pretty erroneous impression, wouldn t 
 it?" he yielded.
 
 334 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "I hate those half-baked remarks about women. Leave 
 that sort of wise stuff to old young men like Boly." 
 
 "Say on I m listening." 
 
 "If I told you my theory about Boly Pawley you d be 
 shocked to death." 
 
 She stopped in her walk and faced her father with an 
 air which hinted that she had found Boly to have two 
 stomachs or a secret passion for astrology. 
 
 "You can t shatter any of my illusions," he smiled. 
 
 "Well, then. Love is Nature s process of selection for 
 the benefit of the race. I know this sounds a lot like the 
 book I got it out of, but you can t deny it. I ve watched 
 Boly Pawley for a long time and I ve heard a lot about 
 him, too. He s a bright talker in a small way and a good 
 dancer and he simply adores clothes. But his talk merely 
 covers his cockney New York ignorance, just as his good 
 dancing and well-cut trousers try to make up for his skinny 
 little calves. He hates the sight of work; the only mental 
 effort he ever makes is spent on wheedling money out of 
 his father ; his constitution and his conscience are both badly 
 undermined." 
 
 "That s quite a list, I will admit," her sire conceded. 
 
 "As a business proposition honestly, Dad would you 
 take a man like that into partnership?" 
 
 "He represents quite a bit of capital," demurred the suc 
 cessful retail druggist. 
 
 "He won t represent it long, once he gets his hands free," 
 she pointed out. 
 
 "Well, I shouldn t call Boly a very safe investment." 
 
 "Would you take into your family a very dubious busi 
 ness proposition with a broken constitution and bad habits ?" 
 
 "See here, Rosie!" He threw up his hands. "I never 
 asked Boly to marry you." 
 
 But she would not be averted from her relentless cross- 
 examination. 
 
 "Do you think a man like J. Bolingbroke Pawley is a fit 
 candidate to be the father of my "
 
 MOTHER S MILK 335 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 "Land of Canaan!" swore old Garry Peabody. "Your 
 mother and I didn t talk like that the night we met at tht 
 rainbow wedding." 
 
 "Nature probably did the talking for you," she told him. 
 
 "We d better change the subject," he broke in, attempting 
 to be firm. "But while we re at it, Chuck, I want to tell you 
 that you re just about on the right track. Not that I be 
 lieve in this eugenics rot you can t improve the race by 
 incubating a lot of little Eugenes, born perfect and with 
 no chance of getting any better. But this Boly Pawley is 
 small fry, I agree." 
 
 "I really want to get married, Daddy," she wailed. "I m 
 getting along past twenty-three and I don t seem to have 
 any patience with the little dancing fellows that show up, 
 whole fraternities at a time." 
 
 "Save em for your cousin Fluff," suggested old Garry 
 with his characteristic frugality. 
 
 "I ve already asked Boly to be good to her and he be 
 haved just as he always does when you ask him to be 
 decent." 
 
 They paused a moment and looked over the coping. The 
 Sunday procession, each item furred or plumed or top- 
 hatted, presented to the superficial eye the effect of an end 
 less plutocracy. Peabody and his daughter leaned their 
 elbows on the stone wall and gazed toward the Hudson, 
 a wintry stream upon which polar ice-packs floated down 
 from Poughkeepsie way while fussy tugs churned around 
 the racy hulls of war-grey destroyers. 
 
 "I guess Florence will be quite a job," said her father 
 at last, casting a timid glance. 
 
 "Perhaps not ; anyway I m glad she s coming." 
 
 "I haven t said much to your mother about it. You girls 
 are about the same age, and it ll be easier for you to under 
 stand. You ve got to expect her to be sort of shy. It ll be 
 up to you not to allow her to be shoved in a corner. If her 
 clothes are a little bit shabby and plain you must remember 
 that it s harder for the Annisters to get things than it is
 
 336 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 for us. Your Aunt Sophie s probably worked her fingers 
 to the bone, making over old things. She s proud as 
 punch " 
 
 "Dad," Rosaline assurred him, her face brightening, "I ve 
 thought out the clothes situation!" 
 
 "Then I ve been wasting my lecture!" he grinned with 
 something of an effort. 
 
 "I m going to lend her some of mine." 
 
 "You re the real thing, Chuck," he told her huskily. 
 
 And they talked in monosyllables on their walk back to 
 the pressed-brick house in West End Avenue. At the steps 
 Garry waved her farewell, muttering something about his 
 club and being home after a while. A melancholy seemed 
 to have settled upon his unreflecting spirit; he was putting 
 himself back into the humiliation and the triumph of his 
 thirty-fifth year. 
 
 You would never have thought of this smooth and com 
 fortable little person, waddling downtown through Manhat 
 tan s snow-piles, as the ancient battle-ground of two loves. 
 But that roaring romance had begun and closed in a curious 
 victory before the go s were well on their way. Garry s 
 father had run a hack between the Burgeonville station and 
 the summer boarding houses of the place and Garry, having 
 studied pharmacy in Buffalo, had come back to his home 
 town, clerked in Robb s drug store and finally had taken the 
 establishment for his own. Almost from the first day of 
 proprietorship Garry had begun introducing vaudeville into 
 the ancient and honourable profession of pill-rolling. His 
 Burgeonville corner was the first Jumbo Drug Store, and 
 his peace-destroying window displays were the wonder and 
 amusement of the country side. 
 
 "There s nothing sacred about the price of quinine," was 
 one of his favourite sayings in those days. "Why can t I cut 
 rates in drugs the same as they cut em in sugar or boys 
 pants ?" 
 
 Nobody could tell Garry exactly why. Yet Burgeonville
 
 MOTHER S MILK 337 
 
 r^ "* """"*"^"^"" MMM ^*^"**" M * MM ^ M ** M ^* ^^^ 
 
 had its gasp when the Jumbo offered a beautiful souvenir 
 bottle of cologne with every prescription of fifty cents or 
 over filled on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Peabody s 
 show window legitimatised the arts of the patent-medicine 
 faker when a comic minstrel performer, temporarily 
 stranded on the Lake, blacked up and demonstrated a lot of 
 razors which Garry had bought for a song from a bank 
 rupt in Syracuse. The Jumbo seemed to be handling 
 almost anything but drugs ; yet nobody could deny that the 
 lettered boast "prescriptions carefully compounded" was 
 well fulfilled at Garry s corner. 
 
 It was notable that Garry was headed toward doom. The 
 seven wise men of the town whispered, "He s borrowing 
 money like water." Yet when things collapsed they fell 
 from the outside in; for before its second Christmas the 
 Jumbo had amalgamated unto itself its two rivals and the 
 reckless dreamer, who was beginning to introduce real 
 cigars for the traditional drug-store article, was asking 
 cheerfully, "What s the matter with running Jumbo through 
 Syracuse and Buffalo and maybe down to York?" 
 
 The growth of factories in the Burgeonville region 
 had caused the town to flourish and there was reasonable 
 elbow room for Garry s expanding ambitions. He might 
 have married any of a dozen pretty, sensible young ladies ; 
 but Garry s love for brilliant effects took him far astray in 
 one particular. 
 
 Sophia Whipple returned from finishing school with a 
 fashionable figure and a come-hither in her eye. The Bur 
 geonville Whipples held themselves very high in those days. 
 Not at all like their poor, farm-grubbing cousins, the Penn 
 Yann Whipples mercy no! There was a dear, dead 
 Whipple ancestor, buried somewhere in Rhode Island, who 
 had borne a crown title and been an eminent somebody. Of 
 course the Penn Yann Whipples might have held a claim 
 to that stock too, but the Penn Yann Whipples weren t 
 claiming very much. 
 
 Across the allurements of his show window Garry Pea-
 
 338 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 body beheld Sophia walking down the street, wearing the 
 first tailor-made suit the town had ever seen in or on the 
 flesh. It was made of broadcloth, drawn in very tight at 
 the waist with little tails sticking out back and great leg o 
 mutton sleeves puckered at the shoulders. This she wore 
 arrogantly, a little gravy-boat of a hat perched upon her 
 reddish curls. Actually she looked not half so absurd as 
 the ultra-fashionable young lady of to-day. 
 
 Garry had just introduced his new crystal soda fountain 
 from which he could draw such exotic beverages as Sea 
 Breeze Cream and Tutti Frutti Cobbler; and he gave the 
 pampered Sophie Whipple his very personal attention when 
 she wandered in on a dull afternoon and chose to use her 
 eyes for his undoing. They were handsome, shallow brown 
 eyes which carried with them a more dangerous languour 
 than anything Garry could furnish out of bottles. They 
 maddened him to ambitious dreams; he even went so far 
 as to ask if he could call, and her consent turned him into 
 a silly slave. Garry Peabody had never cared much about 
 clothes until this perplexing point in his career ; but after his 
 first call at the Whipple house the fires of his new cravat 
 vied with his blushes. 
 
 Garry possessed a saving caution which kept his Jumbo 
 from pining utterly away from neglect. It was certain that 
 his business didn t prosper under the influence of Venus. 
 When Garry wasn t with Sophie he was taking les 
 sons on the guitar from a local teacher, hoping to sing 
 college glees for her pleasure. His singing voice was like 
 that of a mournful calf, indeed the local Circe was making 
 a very poor animal out of the hero. The Burgeonville Re 
 publican, in its society column, was now referring to her as 
 "our reigning belle." College boys from up the Lake, a 
 trifle more wary than poor Peabody, flitted around, dis 
 played their superior accomplishments and drove the smitten 
 druggist to distraction. And yet he was her handy man. 
 His perpetual talk about Chain Drug Stores and Cut Rate 
 Pharmacies bored Sophie to the point of insult. It was a
 
 MOTHER S MILK 339 
 
 f*** 1 ^ ^ " ^ "^ m ~^ m ^^~^^~^^~^ mi ~ imm *~ i ~~^^^^^~* 
 
 great come-down for the Whipples to endure this melan 
 choly plebeian ; and yet his red-headed persistency got a 
 solitaire ring on the third finger of her left hand one winter 
 afternoon. The arrangement brought a sort of ease to 
 Garry Peabody, who went back to his drug store and was 
 sane for a space of time. 
 
 Then Eric Annister graduated from Yale. He came back 
 in June covered with fraternity pins, displaying wonderful 
 patterns on his puffy Ascot ties, wearing trousers wider 
 and stiffer than ever before seen in those parts, shoes with 
 exaggeratedly pointed toes, a flat straw hat of the type then 
 known as Buzz Saw; and he was leading a dangerous bull 
 dog named "Hickory." A conquering spirit, a credit to the 
 small nobility of the county! Photographs of the splendid 
 Annister, showing the bare calves and striped blazer of a 
 Varsity oarsman, were sticking in the mirrors of many 
 dainty bureaus around the Lake. He could dance any 
 dance, round or square, that "Lorena" or "The Washington 
 Post" ever harmonised to an enchanted ball-room. From 
 the Annister home with its elegant mansard roof, it be 
 came Burgeonville s daily upliftment to see Eric s weir- 
 matched tandem team drawing his high-wheeled dog-cart 
 between the wooden urns of the Annister gate-posts. . . . 
 
 Heigh-ho ! thought old Garry Peabody on this Sunday 
 afternoon as he passed moodily along West End Avenue. 
 It wasn t so many years ago that he had gone to Eric s 
 funeral and walked down Main Street, Burgeonville, as far 
 as the dilapidated gate-post marked "27." The bronze let 
 ters hung loosely on their nails. One of the wooden urns 
 had been split some time since ; the broken piece had prob 
 ably gone for Annister firewood. The iron gate had been 
 tied with a piece of rope. On that day he had seen the ugly 
 shape of the old Annister mansard, leprous for lack of 
 paint, the lawn shaggy with burdock and chickweed. Down 
 the lovely slope, rolling to the Feeder which overflowed into 
 the Lake, crimson globes were weighing down stalwart
 
 340 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 branches of an apple orchard which no longer belonged to 
 the Annisters. And through the corner of the lawn there 
 was worn a little footpath, convenient to small boys hurrying 
 down to the Feeder with bent pins upon their lines, intent 
 to angle for baby sunfish as innocent and artless as them 
 selves. . . . 
 
 The behaviour of Garry Peabody upon the first onslaught 
 of Eric Annister had been a lesson in unpreparedness. The 
 able local druggist knew nothing about the game which 
 was instinctive to the awe-inspiring collegian. Garry should 
 have made the best of it, but it is hard for a fly, stuck in 
 fresh asphalt, to make the best of an approaching steam 
 roller. 
 
 Had the high-rolling young Annister come home for the 
 direct purpose of winning Sophie Whipple he could not 
 have gone at it better. Whom the gods destroy they first 
 make mad ; and Eric drove her crazy forthwith. He got out 
 his spanking tandem and his dog-cart with the Yale-blue 
 wheels ; and in this equipage he stopped at every prosperous 
 gate-post around the Lake except the Whipples . He 
 danced with Sophia just enough to show her that they 
 weren t two-stepping like that at the Prom that year, then 
 he forgot about her for several fortnights while he busied 
 himself elsewhere. During this period Garry, nursing the 
 foolish masculine fancy that she would get over it, was as 
 dirt under her feet. But the sight of Annister, disporting 
 his worldly charms right under her nose, was to Sophie 
 Whipple like snatching fresh meat away from a hungry cat. 
 Garry, being the nearest at hand, got the scratches. 
 
 It was on the day when the Jumbo proprietor was ar 
 ranging a window display of Peabody s Eczema Cream that 
 he looked across the street just in time to realise his doom. 
 A spirited tandem team went prancing by, and above the 
 violet blue of the high wheels sat Sophie Whipple, giving 
 the benefit of her killing eyes to the sportively clad gentle-
 
 MOTHER S MILK 341 
 
 man at her side who, due to constant practice, could drive 
 tandem with one hand. 
 
 A spinster lady of the Whipple connection was married 
 to a clergyman at about that time. All the Whipple stock 
 were invited to the wedding, and that had to include at least 
 one of those awful Penn Yann Whipples. Little Nan was 
 wished upon the Burgeonville branch for the week of 
 festivities; and Sophie, branding it as an outrageous im 
 pertinence on the part of Nan s bucolic mother, saw visions 
 of her country cousin arriving in a sun-bonnet. It wasn t 
 so bad as that, Garry remarked from his show window as 
 he saw her driving in from the station and saw the bloom 
 ing young face above a somewhat obsolete garment. Sophie 
 was to be a bridesmaid that night and had commanded 
 Garry to escort her, exerting her royal prerogative. He 
 hadn t the heart to ask her why Eric didn t volunteer. 
 
 The sacred union of the elderly Miss Whipple and the 
 still more withered divine was made the excuse for an 
 evening party of a type much in vogue in the early go s. It 
 was called a "rainbow wedding." To these affairs the 
 bridesmaids came two by two, each pair imitating in china 
 crepe one colour of the heaven s spectral arch with a dif 
 ference. And at the wedding of Second Cousin Betty Miss 
 Sophie Whipple was a baby blue bridesmaid with an orange 
 ribbon. After the knot was tied she caught the bride s 
 bouquet under the jealous observation of Garry Peabody, 
 who had been shoved into a corner and had the bitter sat 
 isfaction of seeing Eric Annister, wearing a Gordon sash 
 with his evening clothes, peering into her handsome eyes and 
 declaring that he wasn t superstitious. 
 
 Poor Garry wasn t dancing that night. He had come 
 there filled with a renewed hope and desperately resolved 
 to show the world that the belle of Burgeonville was still 
 engaged to him and that he had, in spite of everything, 
 some rights on earih. Instead of which the baby-blue 
 coquette went whirling away in the arms of the dancing 
 knight. Sophie had lightly promised to give Garry the sec-
 
 342 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ond dance; but at the second dance and the third she was 
 again found reclining on Annister s well-tailored shoulder. 
 Once, as she whirled toward him, she tried to give Garry 
 an appeasing smile, but he turned his eyes away. He had 
 noticed in a glance that she no longer wore the solitaire 
 which he had purchased from the best dealer in Syracuse. 
 
 The entire rainbow had turned red to him, and he had 
 been considering some romantic foolishness when a little 
 girl in a funny brocaded gown came and sat beside him. 
 He was through with Sophie Whipple, and the thought gave 
 him a wonderful relief. Also the girl in the next chair had 
 childish eyes of an honest blue and cheeks bright as the 
 Penn Yann orchards. She seemed a little confused and 
 confessed that she didn t know how to dance. So they sat 
 together and watched the world go by. Later he became 
 gallant and brought her a supper of chicken salad and mild 
 punch. He found himself glorying in her simplicity and 
 honesty and natural flavour; it was as though he had sick 
 ened with the perfumes of his drug store and had fled to the 
 open air and the sweet orchards. He was reckless, of 
 course, with the over zeal of a new convert. And when he 
 had taken her home to the Whipple gate after the dance and 
 she had released the modest touch of her little hand from 
 his sleeve he paused a minute before blurting, 
 
 "I know this is sudden, Miss Whipple. But I m going to 
 ask you to marry me." 
 
 Sophie Whipple in the ensuing weeks paid very little at 
 tention to her ex-adorer s frequent visits to Penn Yann. 
 The gossip got round town but she was entirely absorbed 
 in retaining Eric s exclusive attention. It was somewhat 
 at variance with her nature that she didn t even once reach 
 out and try to snatch back poor Garry. Possibly she would 
 have succeeded. 
 
 Garry and Nan were married sensibly in the spring of 
 1893. Sophie managed her own affair so skilfully that her 
 wedding with Annister came in the Fall of the same year. 
 No doubt that Garry s insurrection left a wound in the
 
 MOTHER S MILK 343 
 
 iridescent thing she called her heart, and it is probable that 
 she hurried matters a bit with Annister. The Annister- 
 Whipple wedding was billed as a Function by the Burgeon- 
 ville Republican. It packed a church and brought a high- 
 priced organist all the way down from Buffalo. The young 
 Annisters Garry heard this vaguely at his hard-working 
 prescription counter took their honeymoon at one of New 
 York s most fashionable hotels, which was then in the pre- 
 dreadnought period. And they came back to Burgeonville 
 to live in great state with Annister s opinionated mother who 
 bossed the square house with the mansard roof. 
 
 The young Peabodys took a small house less than two 
 blocks away from the Jumbo Drug Store. During the forth 
 coming years both Garry and Eric borrowed money, Garry 
 on his character and Eric on his lack of it. Garry, in fact, 
 had taken to business junketings about the State, and when 
 folks came into the Burgeonville Jumbo and reminded its 
 proprietor that bigger and newer Jumbos were appearing in 
 Syracuse and Buffalo, the news was received with interest 
 but without astonishment. In fact there was an epidemic of 
 Jumbos creeping yellow-fronted and violent from city to 
 city. About the time Rosa was born, Garry was spending 
 most of his time on the road, only giving his week ends to 
 the family he adored. And on a bright Wednesday morn 
 ing, scarcely bidding the town a decent farewell, they closed 
 the Burgeonville house and moved to New York. Link 
 by link a shining chain of Jumbo Cut Rate Drug Stores was 
 now working its way across the Island of Manhattan. 
 
 . . . Garry Peabody s reflections, following his habit- 
 driven feet, had now taken him past Central Park along 
 Fifty-seventh Street. Automatically he was turning into 
 Fifth Avenue toward the Apothecaries Club, of which he 
 was charter member and life president. 
 
 "Poor Sophie was cut pretty deep," h kept thinking 
 remorsefully, as though it were some fault of his own. 
 
 He couldn t forget the details of Eric Annister s funeral,
 
 344 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 i . . , 
 
 to which a stubborn loyalty had drawn him in the early 
 years of the Twentieth Century. Eric had given the town 
 the opportunity for a splendid funeral, ostentatious and 
 insincere as everything must be which touched upon Eric 
 Annister. The weedy Annister fortunes and the shame 
 which Eric had brought his wife seemed to make no differ 
 ence. Burgeonville s finest beau with all his showy incom 
 petence lay upon his bier. The Best People in the district 
 came to the ceremony, a fashionable preacher gave his 
 services free and delivered a sermon which was dramatic 
 for the things he didn t say. He didn t say that the late 
 lamented failed in life principally because he had been 
 puffed beyond his small capacity; that women had spoiled 
 him, undergraduate popularity had made an ass of him; 
 that he was too proud to work and too stupid to think ; that 
 in his latter poverty he permitted his wife to launder the 
 splendid shirts in which he attitudinised wherever there was 
 a chance of borrowing a dollar bill. A wealthy Annister 
 connection laid lilies of the valley on Eric s casket and 
 escaped further responsibility by chugging back to Buffalo 
 in one of the first American automobiles. 
 
 "Poor Sophie was cut pretty deep," persisted the imp at 
 the back of old Garry s head as he paused in front of the 
 Apothecaries Club and shook the new-fallen snow from 
 his collar. He had called to see her directly after the 
 funeral. It was obvious that something must be done for 
 her, as the Annister house had become a Bedlam of weather- 
 beaten junk. 
 
 "I m no pauper," she had ungraciously responded, her 
 haggard face grown sourly middle-aged, glaring up under 
 her widow s weeds. "And I want you to understand that 
 nobody by the name of Peabody shall do any favours for 
 us." 
 
 And quite without any personal vanity Garry Peabody 
 had yet been forced to realise that Sophie Whipple would 
 always hate the man whom she had jilted for a ne er-do-well.
 
 MOTHER S MILK 345 
 
 ii 
 
 "For the sake of mercy !" 
 
 Mrs. Peabody, who was not given to violent expressions, 
 said it twice as she peeked through the petunia curtains into 
 West End Avenue. Rosa had just gotten out, bringing a 
 large hat-box after her, and through the glass-paned, padded 
 door followed the cause of Mrs. Peabody s lady-like pro 
 fanity. The sight wasn t one you could have missed. The 
 girl from Burgeonville showed a generous stretch of cham 
 pagne-coloured stocking above the first high yellowish boot 
 she thrust out of the motor s door. When the whole of her 
 was visible it was easy to see that she was wearing a black 
 and white coat of a remarkable checkerboard pattern, three 
 feet of sealskin at her collar and on her head an exaggerated 
 fur creation which towered heavenward like the shako of 
 a Scottish drum-major. She was about Rosa s height, but 
 beside the hypermodishness of her country cousin, Miss 
 Peabody looked like a little nun. 
 
 "For the sake of mercy !" again whispered Mrs. Peabody ; 
 and it was fortunate that the coloured maid remembered her 
 manners and went to assist with the complication of bags 
 and boxes which had laden down the chauffeur. 
 
 "My dear !" the good lady had gathered strength to gush 
 when the bright visitor came in. As she gathered the 
 checkerboards and lofty furs into her arms she was sud 
 denly aware that the little face she was about to kiss had 
 been freshened by a touch of rouge and that the handsome 
 brown eyes were pencilled around the lashes. There was 
 no doubt in the world that Fluff was pretty. 
 
 "The train was two hours late and Fluff has missed her 
 lunch," Rosa was explaining. 
 
 "You poor child. Aren t you starved?" asked her aunt. 
 
 "Not so very." Her rather strained smile conveyed a first 
 impression of hostility. "I met a nice man on the train. He 
 gave me a box of candy."
 
 346 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Rosie, do take your cousin to her room. I ll have some 
 thing on the table as soon as she comes down." 
 
 "Oh, I don t want you to go to so much trouble." The 
 pretty, rather indefinite little face was truly concerned. She 
 was the very picture of Sophie in her young twenties, 
 thought Aunt Nan, placidly reviewing the prodigy. But 
 where in the world did she get those clothes? 
 
 "I wouldn t think of your missing your lunch," said Mrs. 
 Peabody with good-natured authority. 
 
 Rosa, who had recovered from the first shock of surprise 
 at the Grand Central Station, guided the vision in black 
 and white up the stairs and to the spare bed-room. As 
 soon as her cousin had removed that hat the rather fuzzy 
 honey-coloured hair, from which Fluff had taken her nick 
 name, was revealed, bobbed and barretted in a heinous fash 
 ion of the day. Rosa was fairly bursting with impulses 
 toward cousinly advice in the matter of hairdressing, when 
 Fluff laid aside her patchy cloak and sprung the next sur 
 prise. As she stood revealed before the long mirror the gown 
 which clung around her graceful person was a symposium 
 of all the modes with a few fanciful additions. There were 
 horizontal stripes around the tight bodice and a row of pro 
 digious pearl buttons; the skirt, what there was of it, was 
 Egyptian in its simplicity. 
 
 "Do I look all right?" asked the girl from Burgeonville, 
 flirting with herself in the mirror as she powdered her nose. 
 
 "You look lovely," Rosa lied, lacking courage for the 
 truth. 
 
 "Mrs. Heman Sutler, up the Lake, makes all my 
 clothes," confided Fluff. "She copies the patterns out of the 
 fashion magazines and they do say she improves them a 
 lot." 
 
 She cast a haughty glance over the slim, long-skirted 
 costume of her cousin. 
 
 "This is just an old thing," said Rosa modestly. 
 
 "Mrs. Sutler comes down to York twice a year and 
 studies the latest styles. She copied this waist from Fleurot
 
 MOTHER S MILK 347 
 
 and the skirt from Poirel. Of course she puts in a lot of 
 original touches. I read in Dame Rumor how Mrs. Pulsiver 
 Smallweed wore something like this at the Tuxedo horse 
 show. Don t you adore Dame Rumor?" 
 
 Rosa was reluctant to admit that her mother had for 
 bidden the house to Fluff s favourite publication. 
 
 "Mr. Jacobson, the gentleman I met on the train, said 
 that I reminded him of a girl he knew in the Winter Garden. 
 He was very nice till he got fresh. Charlie White told me 
 he ought to come down and take care of me." 
 
 "Who s Charlie White?" 
 
 "Charlie ?" Fluff gave a sidelong glance at her reflection. 
 "Oh, we re engaged, sort of." 
 
 "That must be thrilling!" 
 
 "Do you mean to say you ve never been ?" 
 
 "Not even once," confessed the city cousin. 
 
 "My goodness, what have you been doing?" Rosa 
 couldn t say, so Fluff went on, "I took off Charlie s ring on 
 the train. No use putting all your eggs in one basket, you 
 know." 
 
 "Haven t you any intention of marrying him?" 
 
 "Oh, maybe. Charlie s peculiar. He s always gadding 
 away on engineering jobs. Last year he came back from 
 Peru dead broke and now he wants to go back again and 
 start a railroad or something. I keep telling him he must 
 stop chasing rainbows. The Whites never amounted to a 
 row of pins," she assured the image in the mirror, "but 
 Charlie s crazy about me." 
 
 "I think your lunch is ready," said Miss Peabody. And 
 the two descended the stairs with arms entwined. 
 
 The two Peabodys sat around and watched Fluff eat her 
 luncheon ; and their air was as consciously impersonal as is 
 usual when two polite persons sit as witnesses upon an 
 other s gustatory feats. 
 
 "How s your mother?" asked Aunt Nan.
 
 348 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "She s very well, thank you," was Fluff s startling revela 
 tion as she speared a second slice of cold mutton. 
 
 "I was disappointed when she wrote that she couldn t 
 come down too," Mrs. Peabody politely assured her guest. 
 
 "She s been awfully busy this winter. You see Mrs. Sut 
 ler s getting to be the fashionable dressmaker round the 
 Lake. So Mamma s been helping her out." 
 
 "Oh, I see," exclaimed Mrs. Peabody ; then turning to 
 her daughter, "Your Aunt Sophie always had a wonderful 
 knack." 
 
 "Mamma s just doing it to help Mrs. Sutler out till 
 spring," Fluff was quick to explain, looking up defiantly 
 as though expecting a sign of contempt or disapproval. 
 "Mamma s very loyal to her friends." 
 
 Involuntarily Rosa glanced down at the white fingers 
 which so nervously plied knife and fork. No sign of 
 needle scars there. And here, too, was a rational explana 
 tion of Fluff s remarkable wardrobe. 
 
 "What s the matter? Did I say anything I shouldn t?" 
 asked Fluff, laying down her fork. 
 
 "My dear!" upspoke Mrs. Peabody, as embarrassed as 
 her touchy guest. 
 
 "Well, a great many fashionable ladies have gone in for 
 dressmaking Lady Duff Gordon s shop " 
 
 "Oh, most decidedly," cut in Aunt Nan s appeasing note. 
 "Fluff, dear, I think your toast is getting cold. Let me 
 bring you in a fresh plate." 
 
 Mrs. Peabody smoothly extracted herself, leaving her 
 daughter to face the discord. Rosa could have murdered 
 her impertinent little cousin. Instead, she smiled, and 
 reached out desperately for something to say. 
 
 "An awfully nice chap I know a Mr. Pawley is coming 
 round with his motor pretty soon. I thought, if you 
 weren t too tired, we might take a spin and have tea some 
 where." 
 
 "I thought you never got engaged," twitted Fluff with a 
 wicked smile.
 
 MOTHER S MILK 349 
 
 "To Boly?" Here she gave a genuine laugh. 
 
 "What do you call him?" 
 
 "Boly Pawley. That s his nickname." 
 
 "Sounds like an Indian." 
 
 "I think you ll like him." Devoutly Rosa hoped she 
 would. 
 
 "Is he rich?" 
 
 "Rather." 
 
 "Oh ! And my trunk hasn t come." 
 
 Rosa was going to say that Fluff looked perfectly lovely 
 as she was. But she hadn t the heart. 
 
 "Lola/ asked she of the black maid who had entered with 
 fresh toast, "has Miss Annister s trunk come?" 
 
 "Yes m. Fanny s unpackin it now." 
 
 "Then I ll get on something for the afternoon. No more 
 toast, thank you," said Fluff decisively and fled. 
 
 Mrs. Peabody came in a moment later and gazed aghast. 
 
 "Where s she gone now ?" was her artless question. 
 
 "When I told her Boly was coming with his car she 
 fairly raced away to put on another dress." 
 
 "I hope it s a change for the better," sighed Mrs. Pea- 
 body. "Did you ever see such a sight ?" 
 
 "Anyhow, you needn t be afraid any more that the bold 
 clothes and careless manners of the great city will shock 
 our little country cousin." 
 
 "You shouldn t talk that way about her, Rosie!" chided 
 her mother. 
 
 The young girl arose and stood stiffly. 
 
 "Mother, I think she hates the very sight of us," she 
 said with unaccustomed asperity. "I think she resents every 
 cent we have, every stitch we wear, every mouthful we eat." 
 
 "That s not worthy of you, dear," replied Mrs. Peabody 
 in a voice stranger than her daughter s. "And even if she 
 does you ve got to remember that life has dealt very 
 harshly with the Annisters." 
 
 "I m sorry, Mother. I promised Dad I d be good to 
 her "
 
 350 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "You did?" asked Mrs. Peabody, her blue eyes opening 
 wide. 
 
 "Mr. Pawley s calling," announced Lola, approaching 
 from the rear. 
 
 Boly, swaddled in furs, stood on the centre of the parlour 
 rug. He was in one of his sacrificial moods, which always 
 affected him unpleasantly. 
 
 "Well, you got here, didn t you?" began Rosa. 
 
 "I thought we were going to take Burgeonville buggy 
 riding or something," he reminded her bleakly. 
 
 "Fluff? She s crazy to go. She ll be down in a minute. * 
 
 "What s keeping her making over last year s hat ?" 
 
 "Really I wouldn t say that." 
 
 "Or dusting the camphor balls off the family shawl ?" 
 
 "You re an outrageous little snob, Boly Pawley." 
 
 "Quit callin me names. I gave up a perfectly ripping tea 
 dance at the Columbine Roof just to come and dray your 
 country cousin round town. I ve even picked out a quiet 
 restaurant up the Hudson where almost nobody goes this 
 time of year so that Fluff won t faint away when she sees 
 the wicked behaviour and brilliant costuming of the na 
 tives." 
 
 "Of course you ll have to break that sort of thing very 
 gradually to Fluff," agreed Rosaline quite without a smile. 
 Fortunately she had inherited old Garry s sense of humour. 
 
 Do you think she d get mad if I smoked?" asked Boly, 
 bringing out his flat and slippery golden case. 
 
 "I wouldn t try it at first," warned Rosa in solemn 
 tones. 
 
 At that moment the portieres at the big door fluttered 
 fluttered and separated. It was as though a tropic bird had 
 winged its way into a dim forest of the North. In the 
 language of the trade, Cousin Fluff s afternoon gown was of 
 second grade rose velveteen, cut with exaggerated pannier 
 pockets at the sides and draped into a bustle at the back. 
 The moyen-age collar of imitation ermine was cut so as to 
 hit her across the shoulder-blades, giving her the effect of
 
 MOTHER S MILK 351 
 
 a young lady crawling out of a brilliantly decorated bag. 
 The skirt sloped sharply inward to the calf of the leg, 
 where it stopped and revealed two inches of gauze-thin 
 champagne-coloured stocking. 
 
 "Miss Annister, Mr. Pawley," announced Rosa, praying 
 for composure as she beheld the look of helpless astonish 
 ment upon Boly s knobby features. 
 
 "How do you do, Miss Annister?" 
 
 He strode forward and manfully presented his hand. 
 
 "I ve heard Cousin Rosie speak of you so often," said the 
 vision, employing her killing brown eyes upon the newly 
 intended victim. Poor Boly stood there, struggling between 
 embarrassment and flattered vanity. 
 
 "I I ve heard Rosa mention you so much, too," he stam 
 mered thickly. 
 
 "Oh! I hope you re not disappointed?" She held him 
 with her brown gaze and pouted slightly. 
 
 "Oh no." The usually glib Boly hesitated for words, then 
 stammered baldly, "You re really much more wonderful 
 than I even imagined." 
 
 "Flatterer!" she pouted again. 
 
 "The car s waiting. Let s get on our things," suggested 
 Rosa in the kindest possible tone. 
 
 In the moment of solitude which followed Boly Pawley 
 indulged in a strange bit of pantomime. First with the 
 broad of his palm he smote his knobby forehead, at the 
 same moment rolling his Boston terrier eyes in the direction 
 where, theoretically, a witnessing heaven should be. Then 
 he opened out his golden cigarette case, struck a match and 
 inhaled deeply. 
 
 After he had helped the ladies into the big grey racer at 
 the curb, the girl with the checkered coat leaned over and 
 giggled, 
 
 "Oh, I do hope it s one of those swell roof-garden res 
 taurants where everybody goes. I want to see some of the 
 people I ve been reading about all my life !"
 
 352 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 in 
 
 It was on the afternoon of the fourth day since Fluff 
 Annister had arrived at the Peabody house that the difficult 
 guest sat upon her bed upstairs and decided that her feeling 
 for the Peabodys was something deeper than mere con 
 tempt. She hated every seeming-kindly, purse-proud one of 
 them. They were everything her mother in a moment of 
 envenomed candour, the occasion being Fluff s departure 
 from Burgeonville, had said of them. Plainly now the 
 words of that ill-natured prophecy came back to Fluff. 
 
 Her mother had been fussing round the bleak bedroom to 
 which a coal-oil stove gave tepid warmth. Heman Sutler 
 had just removed the family trunk and Mrs. Sutler had 
 departed from her labour of love with the assurance, 
 "They re just too tasty for anything." 
 
 The aging woman, whose once-enchanting eyes were 
 hollow in her head, was still thumbing the copy of Splurge 
 from which she had copied several of Fluff s gowns and 
 she was pondering over the pictured lady who bore the 
 number "131" as she looked forth with alluring slits for 
 eyes, no mouth to speak of and never-fading roses on either 
 cheek. 
 
 "This sweet dancing frock," read the text below, "shows 
 again the autumn s tendency among the haut monde free 
 dom and yet more freedom " 
 
 "Fluff, just as you say, I ve worked myself almost to 
 death," Mrs. Annister had croaked in a voice which was 
 always hoarse nowadays "I m glad you re going to look so 
 stylish and I think my taste is better than some who pride 
 themselves. But these disgusting Peabodys are giving you 
 a chance which is only your right, and you must make 
 the most of it. A chance to bring the family back where 
 it belongs. It s my right and your father s. There aren t 
 any men in the village worth having. These harum-scarum 
 college boys and Charlie White. Charlie ll have to do if
 
 MOTHER S MILK 353 
 
 ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 there s nothing left. I think I ve taught you how to get a 
 beau." 
 
 "I think you have," Fluff had agreed. 
 
 "Remember, the world owes a beautiful woman wealth 
 and comfort. I ve been cheated out of it and I don t intend 
 my daughter shall. Don t go mooning round about love. 
 There s no such thing." The bitter woman s narrow jaw had 
 closed like a steel trap and her eyes, from which enchant 
 ment had faded, had lacquered with cold hate. "Jewels, fine 
 clothes, fashion, luxury they re made to offset your good 
 looks. Only a fool will marry a poor man. Don t be 
 prudish. Keep them sentimental but see that every kiss 
 counts for something They say there s a rich man to every 
 block in York. Don t be too gingerly with Rosie s beaux. 
 We don t owe the Peabodys any favours." 
 
 "There won t be any love lost," Fluff had assured her. 
 
 "Love ! They re fair game for us purse-proud, strutting 
 vulgarians with all their flunkies and fine clothes and rich 
 houses. They think they can keep my daughter out in the 
 cold like a snow-bird throw her a crumb from their table. 
 All right. Accept their board-and-keep for a week, Fluff. 
 Yes, and if that strutting little cock-robin of a cousin of 
 yours thinks she s so irresistible, you can walk away with 
 her beau, too." 
 
 "I think I can," Fluff had replied as she heard the bells 
 of Charlie White s cutter approaching to take her to the 
 station. 
 
 "Fluff," the faded, terrible womfan had besought, cling 
 ing to her as she said good-bye, "there isn t coal enough in 
 
 the cellar to keep us a month and Lordy knows But 
 
 I won t begrudge the sacrifice if you ll promise me one 
 thing." 
 
 "Yes, Mamma." 
 
 "Don t you take any favours from them. Don t you 
 let them patronise you don t you let them lend you a thing 
 do you hear ?" 
 
 Mrs. Annister had stood wheezing through her feeble
 
 354 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 tubes and her true daughter had taken her to her bosom, 
 promising not to be beholden to those upstarts for any 
 favour under the sun. . . . 
 
 Well, here was the fourth day of Fluff s stay with the 
 Peabodys and on the edge of her dainty bed she sat engaged 
 in an amateurish effort to convert the lower folds of her 
 green velvet evening gown into a regular skirt by means of 
 pinning a hem in such a way as to attract less attention than 
 it was originally designed to attract. Splurge, that monthly 
 oracle of style, had recommended this draped and tasselled 
 model for its Oriental Pantalon Effect, but brief experience 
 in the metropolis had weakened her heart for startling novel 
 ties, despite the oracular assurance of Splurge that such a 
 costume had been worn by Mrs. van Horn Tweebank at the 
 opening of the opera season. 
 
 One by one, Fluff jabbed pins into that obdurate hem, 
 spitefully as though every point were smarting in the skin 
 of her temperamental enemies. By one means or another 
 the Peabodys had managed to make her visit a continual 
 misery. To look at the way Rosa behaved, reflected Fluff, 
 you would think she were the reigning queen of beauty and 
 fashion. In the estimation of the cousin from up-State, 
 Miss Peabody was little better than downright ugly. She 
 didn t know how to do her hair so that anybody would 
 notice it and her gowns were obviously lacking in anything 
 like style. And what the fashionable Mr. Pawley could see 
 in her was a mystery to Fluff Annister. 
 
 Ever since her arrival the girl from Burgeonville had been 
 engaged in a continual struggle to keep her temper; should 
 she lose it there would be nothing to do but go home and 
 acknowledge defeat before her Spartan mother. No. She 
 chose to see the horrid week to its bitter conclusion. She 
 almost wished Charlie White would come down as he had 
 threatened. And then she became obsessed with terror lest 
 he should. Charlie would furnish the last humiliating touch. 
 Every night here had been worse than the last. First they 
 had given her a dinner-party which, in her morbid esti-
 
 MOTHER S MILK 
 
 mation, had been solely designed to humiliate the guest of 
 honour. They had seated her next to the wonderful Mr. 
 Pawley and that man of fashion would too evidently have 
 none of her. The realisation that this charming blade of the 
 world was infatuated with her cousin added to Fluff s im 
 potent rage. He had kept up a sort of chaffing she didn t 
 understand, and managed to convey the impression that 
 Fluff was anything but vogue. Fluff had thought the other 
 girls quite dowdy. Could it be possible that there was 
 something wrong with the wardrobe over which her mother 
 and the fashion-mentor of Burgeonville had slaved those 
 unremitting weeks ? She could have slapped Mr. Pawley. 
 
 On the second night she had barely got home without 
 making a scene. It had been a dinner dance at a big apart 
 ment on Riverside Drive, and she didn t consider that most 
 of the people she saw there knew how to dance. A gawky 
 freshman had taken her round the floor for a miserable 
 whirl. Mr. Pawley had deigned to look her up late in the 
 evening and made a feeble excuse about spraining his ankle 
 at St. Nicholas Rink this in the face of the fact that she 
 had seen him spinning blithely with Rosa most of the 
 evening. When at last she had teased him to the centre 
 of the floor and had essayed to show him her own version 
 of the fox trot, he had giggled and said, 
 
 "Cut out the Follies stuff, cousin. Your aunt s looking 
 cross like an eagle." 
 
 Uncle Garry had taken them to the theatre on the third 
 night. That had been practically a blank so far as Fluff 
 was concerned. She had worn her pink silk with the ropes 
 of pearl over the shoulders and had sat next to her Uncle 
 Garry while Boly devoted himself to her cousin. She re 
 garded Mr. Peabody as a crude, good-natured old simpleton 
 whose views on life bored her to the verge of hysterics. 
 
 And so had sped the days. 
 
 Sequestered in the light of this wintry afternoon Fluff 
 continued hatefully to drive pins into the garment in which 
 her faith was beginning to dwindle. Secretly she had come
 
 356 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "^ ""^"^^ ^^~~ ***" < ^ 
 
 to the conclusion that the Pantalon Effect which Mrs. Sutler 
 had so highly recommended would not meet with the ap 
 proval of gay New York s chaste standards. Mr. Pawley 
 was giving his box party to-night and Fluff had become des 
 perate. She had lost her ambition to appear different 
 and yet she would have put out both her expressive brown 
 eyes rather than ask one word of advice or one stitch of 
 help from that family which crushed her with their superior 
 smiles. 
 
 At that very instant Mrs. Peabody and her daughter were 
 holding a consultation upon Fluff s case. They were 
 closeted together in Mrs. Peabody s fussy bedroom. 
 
 "She s having a perfectly rotten time," agreed Rosa again. 
 
 "Hopelessly conceited," was her mother s reiterated com 
 ment. "If she d only let a body give her some advice." 
 
 "Boly says she rents her clothes from the Hippodrome. 
 Of course Boly isn t at all nice about such things." 
 
 "Her dancing is perfectly outrageous," put in Mrs. Pea- 
 body, whose social comments always erred on the side of 
 mildness. "Where do you suppose she picked it up ?" 
 
 "When Boly gave her a hint she got mad and went home." 
 
 Mrs. Peabody, who was knitting a sweater, clicked her 
 needles together and looked up over rimless eyeglasses. 
 
 "Seriously, I think the poor child is doing herself a 
 great injury. Her skirts are inches too short and that 
 awful checkerboard coat! I declare, Rosie, when I saw 
 her coming down in that pink dress, eyes made up to kill 
 and her hair bobbed off in that ridiculous way actually, I 
 thought we had made a mistake and asked a chorus girl to 
 visit us. She laughs too loud and doesn t seem satisfied un 
 less she s alone somewhere with a young man * 
 
 "After all, we ve got to be alone sometimes, or we ll never 
 get married," Rosa sagely reminded her mother. 
 
 "I had to speak to her or she would have gone away 
 quite unchaperoned, mind you to lunch with that awful 
 Inness boy."
 
 MOTHER S MILK 357 
 
 i 
 
 "And you were the one," her daughter pointed out, "who 
 were afraid Fluff would be shocked by our wild city ways." 
 
 "She s sulky and sensitive and high strung," went on the 
 placid woman. "She knows she isn t getting on and she 
 must have some inkling that it s her clothes. Don t you 
 think" in her temerity Mrs. Peabody dropped a stitch 
 "that there s some way of hinting to her " 
 
 "About the way she dresses?" 
 
 Mrs. Peabody nodded significantly. 
 
 "What could I say ? I couldn t walk up to her and begin, 
 Dearest, you would look all right in Hawaii, but here your 
 make-up scares the natives. She d merely have a brain 
 storm." 
 
 "Perhaps you could think of some diplomatic way. 
 Couldn t you make an excuse to offer her one of your 
 dresses for the theatre to-night? Otherwise, there s no 
 knowing what she ll put on." 
 
 "She s making a mess of her visit," agreed Rosa. "But 
 it s as much as your life s worth to speak to her." 
 
 Nevertheless Rosa did take her life in her hands and 
 walk across the hall to Fluff s room. After a tap she heard 
 a harsh clearing of the throat and the dry summons, "Come 
 in !" Fluff was still fussing with the emerald velvet. 
 
 "My dear!" Rosa was quick to this providential oppor 
 tunity. "Why don t you get Olga to stitch it for you ? She s 
 downstairs without a thing to do " 
 
 "No, thank you," replied the country cousin ungraciously. 
 
 "Were you thinking of wearing it to-night?" asked Rosa. 
 
 "That was the idea." 
 
 "Dearest, let s be sensible." Rosa sat on the bed and 
 began fingering the cheap material. "I don t think I ve got 
 anything so becoming as this." 
 
 "I m glad you like it." She looked up with a hostile smile. 
 
 "But when we re visiting, it s next to impossible to have 
 everything we want for every occasion." 
 
 Fluff widened her handsome eyes which, when unadorned
 
 358 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 for public appearances, were a trifle less handsome than 
 was generally supposed. 
 
 "What do you mean ?" she asked. 
 
 "Well, it s nearly five and I don t think you can alter that 
 gown before dressing time." 
 
 "That s what I intend to do," replied Fluff, drawing down 
 the corners of her mouth. 
 
 "I ve got several gowns you could put on in a minute 
 my things would fit you perfectly and you could have this 
 done overnight by Olga. 
 
 "No, thank you." Fluff pleated a pin savagely into the 
 hem. 
 
 "I m sorry." Rosa was hurt and looked it as she came 
 to her feet and took a step toward the door. "I only 
 thought I d tell you in case you needed anything." 
 
 "My mother has provided me with everything I need," 
 announced Fluff with icy distinctness. 
 
 "I m sorry I interfered." 
 
 When Rosa went out she slammed the door. 
 
 About dinner time Fluff decided it couldn t be done, so 
 she tacked the draperies and tassels back in place and wore 
 the gown just as the modish Mrs. Sutler had intended it 
 should be worn. Boly Pawley was dining with the family 
 to-night. No one seemed in the least surprised at her cos 
 tume when she came down rather late. She had a con 
 scious feeling about the eccentric drapery at her ankles. 
 The elder Peabodys were dressed for the party and Uncle 
 Garry was his usual hilarious self. Aunt Nan seemed 
 politely composed; but from across the table Fluff could 
 see the averted glance of her cousin. How she hated that 
 girl ! How she prayed for power to dazzle young Pawley 
 away from the arrogant charm of that purse-proud, con 
 temptible little Rosa! 
 
 Jealous hatred and mangled pride kept her abed next 
 morning and caused her to plead a headache at noon rather 
 than go down to lunch and face her persecutors. She lay
 
 MOTHER S MILK 359 
 
 r^T*"^ """""^"""""^ 
 
 among the pillows, glaring at the detestable luxuries being 
 forced upon her; she wondered why she didn t get up and 
 pack her trunk. Under her window, on the walk going 
 round the house, she could hear men clattering in and out 
 of the Fernery probably florists with decorations for the 
 dance to-night. "In Miss Annister s honour" what a sar 
 casm! 
 
 The box-party last night had been a nightmare to Fluff. 
 No one had paid her more than a punctiliously polite atten 
 tion. Some one had giggled as she passed in her Oriental 
 Effect and she had heard a coarse voice inquire, "How do 
 they get that way ?" The fascinating Mr. Pawky, whose in 
 difference stung Fluff to a mad desire, had looked at her 
 once and stuck close to Rosa for the rest of the evening. 
 There had been a calfish young man named Trambell who 
 had devoted himself to Mrs. Peabody, as if in avoidance of 
 graver terrors. A fat lady in the next box had used her 
 fierce lorgnettes on Fluff s emerald velvet. The evening had 
 been worse than wasted. She had been paired off with 
 Uncle Garry, who had bored her so that she wanted to 
 scream. Boly and Rosa had cackled together in a language 
 of their own. It had been wormwood to the daughter of 
 Sophie Annister. 
 
 After hours of these cankering thoughts Fluff got tired 
 of lying abed. She arose frowsily and peered out into the 
 sunlight of early afternoon. On the walk below two men 
 were struggling round to the outside door of the Fernery 
 with a tall palm in a green tub. Evidently the Peabodys 
 were going to outdo themselves to-night. The sight of the 
 festive greens caused Fluff to snort like a young war-mare, 
 scenting battle. In a flash she made up her mind about 
 Boly Pawley. He had asked them out for another of his 
 automobile rides at four. Rosa, of course, had expected her 
 to refuse. Not she ! 
 
 She was in the act of choosing an Effect from the ward 
 robe she now despised when there came a knock at her door. 
 Opening cautiously and peeping round the crack, she could
 
 360 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 see the blue-black complexion of Lola under its ridiculously 
 dainty cap. One dusky hand was holding a little silver tray 
 in the exact centre of which lay a calling card. 
 
 "For me?" asked Fluff, confused. 
 
 "Yas m." 
 
 She reached forth for the pasteboard, which bore upon its 
 face in bold business script the printed announcement : 
 
 CHAS. W. WHITE 
 Contracting Engineer 
 
 BURGEONVILLE, N. Y. 
 
 Charlie White ! Then the poor blundering simpleton had 
 carried out his threat ! 
 
 "My goodness " she hesitated just a moment. "Would 
 
 you tell him I m quite ill to-day and can t see any one?" 
 
 "Yas m." 
 
 Lola retreated a few steps. 
 
 "Lola!" 
 
 "Yas m." 
 
 "Tell him to wait. I ll be down after a while." 
 
 It was just like Charlie. Without the least hint at an in 
 vitation he had forced himself upon the scene of her 
 humbling. She thought rapidly. There was no possible way 
 of using him as a bait to Boly Pawley. Boly would merely 
 employ his worldly sarcasm and set them off as a couple 
 of jays. This would be adding another item to the Pea- 
 bodys unbearable conceit. She enjoyed a snobbish dread of 
 the moment when she must introduce the up-State boor 
 and see their sly-glanced intimation, "Is this the best you can 
 show?" 
 
 Fluff kept Charlie waiting nearly an hour, and when at 
 last she walked toward the ornate, sombre Peabody drawing- 
 room, she was piqued to hear the buzzing of basso mono 
 logue, punctuated now and then by tinkles of feminine 
 laughter. She took one sly peep through the portieres and 
 gasped her amazement The large room and the dining-
 
 MOTHER S MILK 361 
 
 room beyond had been cleared for the dance, rugs removed, 
 floors waxed, walls festooned with roses. A large settee had 
 been moved half across the doorway of the Fernery, which 
 was ajar, revealing a forest of rubber-plants in its glassy 
 depths. And on the settee, elbow to elbow and chatting like 
 lifelong friends, sat Charlie White and Cousin Rosa ! 
 
 Fluff s first impulse was to throw something ; then she had 
 a mind to creep back to the sulky silence of her bedroom; 
 then a jungle instinct got control of her and urged her to 
 spy upon her enemy. What did they find to talk about so 
 engrossingly, these two who had never heard of each other 
 until this hour? Why was Charlie s big clumsy face all 
 flushed as though inspired with its message? Why was 
 Rosa listening as though to the voice of prophecy? She 
 looked almost pretty, acknowledged the girl in ambush with 
 a nauseating heart-thump. 
 
 Standing there behind the portieres was a vantage too 
 exposed, also too distant for effective hearing. Then she 
 remembered the Fernery. The place seemed clogged with 
 ferns, palms and rubber-plants ; by tiptoeing round the pas 
 sage by the butler s pantry one could gain the Fernery by 
 the little door outside. Her nimble feet were quick to serve 
 her plotting brain. There was no one in the passage beyond 
 the pantry. She left the door ajar as she slunk out and was 
 cunningly triumphant to find the Fernery door unlocked. 
 Once inside she found the tub of a rubber plant less than 
 three yards behind the settee, a barricade of foliage con 
 veniently between her and the big room. She could see their 
 two heads close together and their words were perfectly dis 
 tinct. 
 
 "A spigotty engineer had been working eleven years with 
 an idea of tunnelling the Andes," Charlie was going on in his 
 big, nasal voice, which was like the droning of a gigantic 
 bumble-bee. "He didn t care how long it took because the 
 Spanish company was paying him by the year. Then comes 
 that Scotch expert saying Gang aroond. His name was
 
 362 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 MacNee and he was very generous with other people s 
 money. ..." 
 
 The girl behind the rubber plant sniffed so scornfully she 
 all but betrayed herself. So Charlie had got a girl to 
 listen to his tiresome old Peruvian tales! 
 
 "You mean to say a system of cantilever bridges would 
 save " 
 
 "About five thousand miles on the Gang Aroond system," 
 snorted the heavy voice. "And there isn t a mathematician 
 alive who can compute the number of millions the spigotty 
 engineer had wasted already on his tunnels. When I men 
 tioned cantilevers the spigotty blew up all over Lima and 
 the Scotchman said Losh ! and asked me when I escaped. 
 I had my estimates made out before I left Lima, but the 
 spigotty got nervous and saw the jefe, who called me nine 
 kinds of Spanish brigand and gave me a military escort as 
 far as the Western Addition. I lost my trunk, my passports, 
 my Sunday sombrero and my shoes ; but as soon as I d beat 
 it to the coast in a pair of misfit overalls I went straight to 
 see Van Doon, who sent me back to the States with a letter 
 to the Sudbury Corporation." 
 
 "What a romance !" the soprano was chiming in a distant 
 rapture. 
 
 "It ain t a marker on what it s going to be," he was as 
 suring her. "It took most a year to wake up the Sudbury 
 bunch and it took a French concern with another cantilever 
 scheme to get a rise out of em." 
 
 "Have you brought your plans with you ?" 
 
 "You wouldn t care to see em. They re thick as a bale 
 of hay." 
 
 "Oh, wouldn t I !" 
 
 "Gee! I d be tickled blue if you gave em the once over. 
 I thought girls didn t like that sort of stuff." 
 
 "There are two or three different kinds of girls in the 
 world." 
 
 The allusion this remark conveyed to the hiding Fluff 
 was that of another Peabody slur upon her mentality.
 
 MOTHER S MILK 363 
 
 "I ll sure do that. But say!" The settee creaked with 
 his sudden arising. "I ve got my nerve to come here calling 
 on one girl and be taking the time of another." 
 
 "I don t know what could have happened to her," Rosa 
 came in. "I ll send Lola up again and ask." 
 
 "Don t bother. I ve got to be going. Very pleased to 
 have met you." 
 
 She could see his square, uncouth, bushy-headed figure 
 now in the centre of the room. 
 
 "You ve been awfully good to tell me all about it." She 
 held out her hand with a maddening graciousness. "It gives 
 me a new faith in life to think of men working forward to 
 big things. So many of our young men are satisfied with 
 being nothing, doing nothing " 
 
 "They have everything handed to them on a hot plate," 
 chuckled the heavy voice. 
 
 "There s nothing big in having things it s the getting 
 of them that counts. That s what I adore my Dad for he 
 had something that sounded silly to the half-baked thinkers 
 and he made good on it." 
 
 The words clutched Fluff Annister by the heart. 
 
 "We re giving a little dance to-night half after nine," 
 Rosa was going on. "I m sure Fluff would love to have you 
 come." 
 
 "Lord ! I guessed right when I brought my Tuxedo !" 
 
 "Then we can count on you?" 
 
 "You sure can. And tell Fluff I ll phone her if her 
 headache s better." 
 
 The doorbell rang at that instant. It rang alarmingly to 
 the conscience-stricken girl in the Fernery. Distantly she 
 heard a door bang and the voice of a new arrival. 
 
 "Mr. Pawley to see you, Miss," came Lola s announce 
 ment. 
 
 Fluff shrank further behind the ferns, fearful that the 
 approaching Pawley would catch sight of her. 
 
 "Oh, hello, Boly ! Mr. White, Mr. Pawley. Won t you
 
 364 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 stay for tea, Mr. White? No? Then good-bye till to 
 night." 
 
 Pawley stood gloomily watching the heavy-set man out 
 of the door. Then without a word he strode over to the 
 settee. Rosa came and sat beside him. Fluff s first in 
 stinct was to steal away from this second interview, which 
 she had no heart to hear. Then insane curiosity got the 
 better of her. 
 
 "Jove, you ve taken down everything but the wall paper, 
 haven t you ?" came Boly s first exclamation. 
 
 "We re doing our best," Rosa chimed in. "We want to 
 give Fluff a good send-off but of course there s no telling 
 how she ll take it." 
 
 There was a long moment of silence and then Rosa was 
 heard to say in a small, annoyed voice, 
 
 "Oh, Boly, I wish you d be sensible." 
 
 "Well, I don t see why " 
 
 "Boly, we might as well speak out now as any time. 
 There s no chance in all the world. You re a dear and I 
 ought to be in love with you and I couldn t even consider 
 such an absurd thing. Why can t we put things on a rational 
 basis?" 
 
 "Rational rot ! You re talking like a regular female let 
 a chap spend the best part of his life buzzing round, then 
 take a notion to cut him off your string like like a cater 
 pillar." 
 
 "Boly, you re having a brainstorm." 
 
 "What do you want me to have?" 
 
 "A little human kindness. You promised you d be good 
 to Fluff for my sake and here you ve treated her like a beast 
 of the field." 
 
 "Honest, Rosie, there s a limit. Her clothes remind me 
 of a fire in the circus tent. She might go with the Burgeon 
 ville smart set, but here positively no. Everything in i .s 
 place. Rome for the Romans, Hippodrome for the hip 
 but Cousin Fluff won t do."
 
 MOTHER S MILK 365 
 
 "If you really cared anything about me you d be good 
 to Fluff." 
 
 "Hold her on my knee and tell her fairy stories while 
 you dance, I suppose." 
 
 "She dances far better than I do. I never cared much 
 for dancing." 
 
 "She wriggles like a Coney Island cobra." 
 
 "You haven t very nice ideas about women, Bolingbroke 
 Pawley." 
 
 "I see. Would you prefer me to make love to your 
 cousin as a sort of proxy arrangement ?" 
 
 "You shouldn t talk like that." 
 
 "I m sorry." 
 
 "I ve asked you several times and you haven t paid the 
 slightest attention. I know poor Fluff doesn t know how to 
 dress and is a little peculiar in her manner at times, but I 
 intend her visit shan t be spoiled." 
 
 "Will you like me better if I m good to her?" 
 
 From the Fernery Fluff could see his head drooping over 
 toward Rosa s. 
 
 "I like you well enough, Boly and that s all." 
 
 "All right. Good-bye then." 
 
 "Aren t you coming to-night ?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 His note was perfectly flat and Rosa s bright, consoling 
 tone followed out into the hall. As soon as the dining-room 
 was empty Fluff arose from her cramped posture and 
 slunk away. The last straw had been laid upon her break 
 ing back. Rosa Peabody, whose offer of cast-off clothes 
 she had so savagely rejected, was now offering her cast-off 
 lover ! 
 
 As soon as she had gained the bedroom Fluff locked the 
 door and snatched a time-table out of her bureau drawer. 
 There was a train leaving at nine which would connect her 
 with Burgeonville. Of course her going would raise a 
 storm, but she was determined she should stay under this 
 roof not another hour. She began getting out her gowns,
 
 366 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 mussing them savagely as she threw them in untidy piles 
 on the bed. For the first time she began to feel resentment 
 against her mother, whose ill judgment had got her into 
 this mortifying mess. . . . "You promised to be good to 
 Fluff for my sake" . . . the memory of her cousin s 
 words stung like a box on the ear. . . . 
 
 Then it occurred to Fluff that she must call some one to 
 bring her trunk. There would be an awful fuss. She 
 longed for the crisis, a chance to come out in the open and 
 tell the P-eabody outfit what she thought of them. . . . 
 
 Half-way across the room, as she went toward the push 
 button on the wall, she stopped so abruptly as to all but 
 topple over. She stood just an instant, her finger to her 
 lips. And then there came to her such a smik as Sophie 
 Whipple had known how to use in the days when she 
 counted for something on the Lake. 
 
 A moment later Fluff was gliding down the hall toward 
 her cousin s room. She knocked and heard the little piping 
 response coming from within. Rosa sat before the mirror, 
 her bright hair down and a mulatto maid laying out all the 
 dainty accessories to the gown on the frivolous bed. 
 
 "Hello, dear!" upspoke Rosa forgivingly. "I do hope 
 your headache is better." 
 
 "It s a lot better, thank you." 
 
 As a matter of fact she felt quite ill at that instant; her 
 knees were giving way and she had a task of it. 
 
 "Mr. White called to see you. He waited quite a while. 
 He was dreadfully disappointed and a little bored with me, 
 I think." 
 
 "I got his card," said Fluff miserably. 
 
 "I thought you might like to see him, so I asked him to 
 the dance to-night." 
 
 "That was very nice of you. Er " 
 
 "If you re not feeling well, dear, couldn t I lend you 
 Minnie to help you do your hair ?" enquired Rosa as though 
 she had guessed her thoughts.
 
 MOTHER S MILK 367 
 
 Fluff s heart leapt so wildly that it was a space before she 
 could speak. 
 
 "Rosie," she said at last, "I I don t seem to have the 
 right things to wear I " 
 
 Her cousin turned wide eyes upon her in blank amaze 
 ment. 
 
 " and I was wondering if you happened to have a 
 dress you wouldn t mind my borrowing just for to-night?" 
 
 IV 
 
 Boly Pawley, who for hours had been wooing euthanasia 
 by means of Mr. Peabody s veritable old vatted Killybonnie, 
 pulled himself together at mid-evening with the determina 
 tion that he would try again to have a word with Rosa. 
 He was gently spiffed, as he acknowledged to himself, and 
 he didn t care who knew it. He had come there as a protest, 
 to lurk and glare, to be a social outlaw; and above all to 
 show Rosa that he would take no country cousin as a 
 substitute. His contrary little mind had been set upon a 
 cool snubbing of Miss Fluff Annister. He was denied that 
 icy comfort, too, because he had caught no flash of Miss 
 Annister s grotesque costuming among the whirling couples 
 on the floor. 
 
 Grumpily at last he deserted the refreshment table and 
 skirted round the busy floor. He was aware of Rosa s 
 creamy gown weaving its way among the dancers. She was 
 again in the arms of the big fellow who so obviously needed 
 a haircut. Where did she pick up the bounder and why 
 had she chosen this public place to give the fellow dancing 
 lessons? It was a wonder some one wouldn t tell him not 
 to come to an evening party in a dinner jacket! 
 
 "Oh well," thought Boly, who had never been a slave to 
 consistency, "I suppose I ve got to look up the Sofa Cushion 
 or go home." 
 
 The young lady whom he had thus tabulated wasn t so 
 easy to look up, as it turned out. He had probably stared
 
 368 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 straight at her without recognition two or three times dur 
 ing the evening, for she had to make herself known when 
 at last she came out of the Fernery, several youths 
 pestering her for a dance. 
 
 "By George!" he permitted himself to exclaim when at 
 last her identity was established among his jumbled 
 thoughts. 
 
 Her elegant little figure stood straight and slim in a dark, 
 simple gown with a silver girdle. Somehow she had man 
 aged to gather up her light hair so that the fearful bobbed 
 effect had disappeared ; it gave a new distinction to her small 
 face, from which the sullenness had gone. Apparently she 
 was having a very good time, basking in the atmosphere of 
 praise which her competitive adorers had created. 
 
 Boly Pawley touched his furry upper lip, a way he had 
 when hesitant. Had she seen him out of a corner of her 
 eye? He was again weakly resolved to rebellion when she 
 turned and gave him the full force of her smile. She cer 
 tainly did know how to wear her complexion ! 
 
 Boly walked across eagerly, for her expressive eyes had 
 plainly beckoned him. 
 
 "I thought you weren t going to speak to me," she pouted 
 as he came up. 
 
 "I ve been standing in line for hours and hours," he ar 
 dently protested. 
 
 It happened like dream-magic. The obstructing college 
 boys seemed to melt into nothing as he swung her across the 
 floor in a fox trot from which no variations were omitted. 
 What did he care now if Aunt Nan was glaring her prim 
 disapproval? After all a touch o life was the only real 
 thing to be had. If there was anything Boly Pawley could 
 do it was to dance ; and in this hour of revelation, prejudice 
 swept aside, he had to admit that this little outlander who 
 might have learned her technique at the Follies made her 
 cousin look like a wagon-load of bricks. 
 
 "You re not afraid of the Coney Island cobra?" he was 
 sure he heard her giggle in his ear.
 
 MOTHER S MILK 369 
 
 "I say, what s that?" 
 
 "Coney Island cobra," came the taunt a second time. 
 
 He skipped a step and all but stumbled. 
 
 "Who in the world told you that ?" 
 
 "Oh, I know lots and lots of things clumsy, you ve 
 stepped on my toe !" 
 
 "I m sorry." He righted himself, then asked in a blaze 
 of indignation, "Has Rosie been talking?" 
 
 "You don t expect to say all those witty things and not 
 have them repeated, do you?" 
 
 "Well, I like that!" The seasoned worldling blushed 
 deep, then he fumbled for an apology. "It was a slander, 
 anyhow. You re one of the best dancers I ve ever met." 
 
 "And you re the wittiest man in New York. I don t blame 
 you for saying bright things at other people s expense. 
 Rome for the Romans, Hippodrome for the " 
 
 "Have a heart, Fluff!" 
 
 "Who said you could call me that?" 
 
 "I permit it." Boly was now recovering his natural 
 brass. "And when you call me Boly I ll sit up and bark." 
 
 "Boly Pawley sounds like a cannibal king." 
 
 "Bolingbroke accent on the last syllable after the first 
 of each month." 
 
 Meanwhile he was executing some wonderful figures. He 
 could see his mother and Mrs. Peabody sitting together 
 against the wall, their faces petrified with horror. 
 
 The music stopped. As the couples came to a standstill 
 and polite spats of applause went out to the jazz artists on 
 the platform Boly caught a swift glimpse of Rosa standing 
 at his elbow, absorbed in the uncouth fellow with the bushy 
 hair. 
 
 "I can just see them !" she was saying in an enraptured 
 tone she had never used for Boly. "Great caravans of 
 llamas winding down from the snowy mountains with sacks 
 of silver ore just as they were before Cortez came." 
 
 "If the Incas had known the value of transportation the
 
 370 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 Spanish couldn t have licked them in a million years," the 
 bushy fellow was booming on. 
 
 Boly turned and gave the couple a vulgar stare. The 
 music started again and the re-converted girl from Bur- 
 geonville twitched him by the sleeve. 
 
 "We re not going to forget the encore," she reminded him 
 in a constrained voice. 
 
 "I tell you something!" suggested Boly. 
 
 "You can tell me a lot, I think." Her eyes were playing 
 with him now and the sensation was narcotic. 
 
 "On the refreshment table they have a bowl of Absentee 
 punch." 
 
 "Of what?" Her admiration enveloped him like a cloud. 
 
 "Absentee punch you take a bottle of wine and ten 
 pounds of ice. Rub the bottle on the ice until both are blood 
 warm. Add lemon peel and serve with seltzer." 
 
 "Delicious !" Fluff permitted herself to be dragged away. 
 
 Boly took a highball after all. Then they danced again 
 and in the wait for an encore she complained of fatigue; 
 so it was quite natural that Boly should have suggested the 
 Fernery. 
 
 "You re not at all the girl I thought you were," Boly told 
 her behind a spreading palm. 
 
 "You shouldn t judge by first appearances." 
 
 It was a bromidiom, but he didn t care what she said. 
 Her eyes were wonderful and the pencilling of the lashes 
 offset them like a frame. 
 
 "You know," Boly confided, cuddling very close, "I ve 
 been about a great deal, but I m a silly ass in lots of things 
 crazy about appearances. I think Rosie must have in 
 fluenced me. You know the way girls have of saying sweet 
 things to put another girl in wrong." 
 
 "I d never have thought it of Rosie, though," mused Fluff 
 in a wounded tone. 
 
 "And I didn t realise how really smart you were until 
 to-night "
 
 MOTHER S MILK 371 
 
 r""*^"""^^^^^^^^ 
 
 "How do you like my gown?" she besought his valued 
 opinion. 
 
 "A pippin!" His eyes were popping with admiration. 
 "I m going to fess up. Do you know I never saw you until 
 to-night? Those circus clothes you wore " 
 
 "Oh." She looked away, her little face puckered as 
 though she were about to cry. "I was afraid you never 
 understood the joke." 
 
 "Joke?" he echoed stupidly. 
 
 "Rosie put me up to it. She had the best intentions in 
 the world but I think she carried it a little too far. She 
 wrote me before I came down that you expected to see a 
 little country girl in a sunbonnet and suggested that I bring 
 down those awful things that I wore in a melodrama we 
 gave for charity at home. I confess I was embarrassed 
 when she let it go so far " 
 
 "That was a low trick to play you !" he muttered, reach 
 ing over for her hand. She permitted it. 
 
 "Please don t be cross with poor Rosie. She meant it 
 well only it was a little hard on me." 
 
 "She s shown herself up plain enough. I m done with 
 Rosie " 
 
 "Oh, don t say that! I should never forgive myself if 
 t thought I d stepped in between lifelong friends." 
 
 "I can t blame her for being a bit nervous with you in the 
 house. But that s no excuse for not playing the game. She 
 went around publishing you as a little greenhorn the green 
 was all in Rosie s eyes." 
 
 "She s been so kind to me !" protested Fluff with an ex 
 quisite nobility. 
 
 "You re so wonderful!" blurted Boly, drawing her hand 
 toward him. Still she made no sign of disapproval. Dis 
 tinctly she saw a light skirt fluttering among the palms. 
 
 "You re not going right back to Burgeonville ?" 
 
 "Day after to-morrow," she told him with a sigh. 
 
 "Tease your Aunt Nan to let you stay on a week longer.
 
 372 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 We re really just getting acquainted. I want to teach you 
 how to like New York." 
 
 "Rosie s been begging me to stay." 
 
 "There s a touch o life about you, Fluff. You can show 
 this Quaker Headquarters how to keep awake after meals. 
 Dear little Fluff, don t you see " 
 
 It happened as such things do ; but Fluff could not re 
 member ever before having been kissed so ardently upon 
 so brief an acquaintance. 
 
 "Don t !" she whispered, pulling herself away. 
 
 Two or three palms away a bright skirt moved and a 
 couple walked past them toward the dining room 
 
 "By Jove, I m sorry !" he apologised thickly. "I hadn t 
 the least notion that anybody " 
 
 "How dare you !" she began furiously. Then she covered 
 her eyes and began sobbing like a child. 
 
 "Fluff Miss Annister upon my word " 
 
 "This sort of thing I don t allow. You had no right to 
 
 take advantage " Her protest wandered away in a 
 
 storm of weeping. 
 
 Boly was now looking wildly round the room, fearful that 
 the encroaching couple would come back upon the ridiculous 
 scene. 
 
 "It was only a little kiss, after all," he informed her 
 sheepishly. 
 
 "They saw it they saw it!" she gurgled. 
 
 "I never had any luck!" He opened his cigarette case 
 and found it empty. "Put me to matching pennies and I 
 lose a thousand dollars." He shot his cuffs, then came and 
 stood over her. "By George I believe you ve never been 
 kissed before!" 
 
 "I m not used to that sort of treatment. People who 
 aren t engaged don t " 
 
 "Oh, for the matter of that " 
 
 Boly Pawley sat down beside her, closer than ever this 
 time. 
 
 "Fluff," he began solemnly, "if it s the custom in your
 
 MOTHER S MILK 373 
 
 neck of the woods to get engaged every time a man kisses 
 you believe me, I m game!" 
 
 "You mean you re proposing to me?" She looked up, 
 genuinely dazzled by the rapidity of events. 
 
 "I d be the happiest chap in the world." 
 
 "But " 
 
 "Don t tell me it s sudden. I couldn t stand it." 
 
 "We haven t known each other an hour," she said; and 
 added in her most angelic tone, "Such things should be 
 sacred." 
 
 "I m a man of decision. I ve gone balmy over you. Come 
 on, Fluff be a good sport." 
 
 "Let me think " 
 
 "No you d decide I was a lemon. Are you engaged to 
 that man from Burgeonville ?" 
 
 "Oh, him!" she exclaimed, waiving grammar. 
 
 "You think I m a nut, maybe, or a second-handed propo 
 sition or " 
 
 "I think you re far, far too good for me, Boly. And if 
 you really mean it " 
 
 "Dear little girl !" 
 
 This time there was nobody lurking in the palms and 
 Fluff Annister was permitted to enjoy the delirium of a 
 Columbus who, having gone forth to prove a theory, bumps 
 into the greatest real-estate bonanza of all time. 
 
 It was getting well into Lent, Miss Annister having de 
 parted weeks ago conveyed to the Grand Central Station in 
 the Pawley car when Garry Peabody came out of his 
 library, alternately wiping his eyes and polishing his bifocals. 
 He found Nan sitting under the petunia curtains in the 
 parlour. Being a woman, it was her right as well as her duty 
 to cry upon such occasions, and she was exercising her 
 privilege.
 
 374 
 
 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 "Well, I ve talked with him," said he, settling heavily into 
 a fragile chair. 
 
 "Couldn t they put the wedding off till June?" asked his 
 wife. "I can t think of losing Rosie so soon." 
 
 "Nope. They outvoted me two to one. Charlie s got to 
 start for Peru next week at the latest and Rosie s dead set 
 on going with him." 
 
 "I have a feeling I ll never see her again." 
 
 "Shucks, Nannie!" He came over and gave her a tre 
 mendous hug. He pulled out his big silver watch and 
 consulted its oracular face ere resuming, 
 
 "Nan, the way Rosie dumped that Boly and took up with 
 Charlie White was one of the biggest victories for common- 
 sense since Bryan was defeated." 
 
 "I was fearfully afraid she d accept Boly some time," 
 said Mrs. Peabody, smiling through her tears. 
 
 "It looks just as though Providence kept its eye on the 
 Peabody family," admitted Garry. "I got you just in time, 
 you know." 
 
 "It isn t in her to put up with a trifler," said she. 
 
 "No, Nan. Rosie s your daughter, every drop of blood. 
 She s got a winner in Charlie and she knows it. You ought 
 to hear the talk she gave me last night about the Big Ad 
 venture. She s in love with that boy. He s a he-man. She 
 wants to start out and rough it with him." 
 
 "The way I wouldn t be satisfied until you d come to New 
 York," Mrs. Peabody reminded him. 
 
 "Well, there s some difference between the upper Andes 
 and New York," Garry pointed out. 
 
 "But the principle s the same." 
 
 "You ve said it, Nan. There s something romantic about 
 the Penn Yann Whipples. Whether its retail drugs or 
 cantilever bridges they want to see their men-folk pioneer. 
 Why, Rosa won t be satisfied unless she sees every spike her 
 Charlie drives into that railroad of his. She wants to help 
 lead llamas or whatever you call those dago jackrabbits 
 up and down the Andes. In other words, she s alive, Nan."
 
 MOTHER S MILK 375 
 
 P"^ ^ ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 "I know how it is," said his gentle wife, giving her ad 
 venturer the look she had kept for him ever since the 
 Rainbow Wedding. 
 
 "Charlie s going to South America on three thousand a 
 year. I d back him myself for a million if I didn t know 
 the Sudbury Corporation intend to push him to the top. The 
 whole idea s as good as his." 
 
 "He s crazy about the Andes just the way you couldn t 
 get the Jumbo Stores off your mind until you d tried." 
 
 "There s no poetry in retail drugs, of course." 
 
 "How can you say that, Garry?" 
 
 What an epic, indeed, had been the triumph of chain drug 
 stores, progressing from up-State to the Battery! Garry 
 Peabody considered a moment. 
 
 "Anyhow," said he at last, "it was a mean trick to play 
 on Fluff." 
 
 "Fluff ?" Mrs. Peabody looked her surprise. 
 
 "It wasn t quite fair to wish Boly off on her. If she s 
 made up her mind to him and I guess she has she s got to 
 get used to being tied to a vain little chimpanzee all her days. 
 His father s money will last a year, once his hands are free. 
 No, it wasn t exactly fair to Fluff." 
 
 "I was going to read you this letter," broke in Nan Pea- 
 body. "It came from Sophie this morning, but we ve been 
 so unsettled " 
 
 She never looked at him as she passed out a broken en 
 velope, a pinkish bit of stationery sealed with the Annister 
 crest. The sheet was scrawled all over with Sophie s ram 
 bling sentences : 
 
 "Dearest Nan: 
 
 "Before I tell you my great news I feel that I must thank you 
 again for your goodness to my child and as it has all turned out 
 so beautifully you can imagine that I am very grateful to you 
 for giving her such opportunities, but these things you yourself 
 must realise as I know you have considered them many times, 
 but as Rosie lives in the Metropolis and will always have op 
 portunities, I hope neither you nor she will bear any resentment 
 to my little wild-flower, for you remember le bon dieu donne
 
 376 SUFFERING HUSBANDS 
 
 ^^^^*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^*^^ 
 
 les beaux yeux and when you consider that this event has 
 saved my sweet daughter from that penniless dreamer, Charlie 
 White, I feel sure you will forgive, although it may be hard, 
 but Fluff says Rosie is very sweet looking and I am sure that 
 with such a clever mamma she will have her chances. 
 
 "It did my heart good to hear my dear child speak again and 
 again of the attentions she received and of the way you and 
 Rosie admired her pretty clothes. But then, I always knew 
 clothes, didn t I, dear? 
 
 "And now for my news, which, although it makes me very 
 happy, cannot but bring sadness to my heart, for my own flesh 
 and blood deceived me, which is always distressing, even 
 though the cause is a splendid one. Florence went by train 
 yesterday to meet Bolingbroke at Exham, where he arrived in 
 his automobile, and so drove with him here, the trip being very 
 pleasant. When they had not returned at ten o clock last 
 night I was naturally alarmed, and imagine my sweet pain 
 when the telephone rang, and it was long distance and my dear 
 child s voice said she wanted to introduce her husband, and 
 then Bolingbroke called me Mother, which was very touching ! 
 
 "I had hoped to ask you all for the wedding, which naturally, 
 considering the prominence of the contracting parties, should 
 have been an elaborate affair, but as it is, though wounded to 
 the quick I must make the best of it and show a bright face 
 to my darlings when, after taking the Ideal Tour, including 
 stops at all the most exclusive hotels they come to the old home. 
 
 "With love to all and my tender good wishes for your girl s 
 good fortune and thanking you again, 
 
 "Your affectionate Cousin, 
 
 "SOPHIA ANNISTER." 
 
 "Nannie," said old Garry, handing back the pinkish en 
 velope, "I ve been in the drug business nearly thirty years 
 now and I ve come to the conclusion that there s only one 
 brand of infants food whose results can be guaranteed." 
 
 "What s that, dear?" asked the wife who never tired 
 of her husband s theories. 
 
 "Mother s milk," replied the druggist. 
 
 "Garry!"
 
 A 000040410 3