HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST POOLE 
 
 Author of "The Harbor," "His Family 1 
 
 $fcttt fork 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1918 
 
 A.U rights reserved 
 
Copyright, 1917 
 BY THE MCCLURE PUBLICATIONS, INC. 
 
 Copyright, 1917 
 BY ERNEST POOLE 
 
 Copyright, 1918 
 BY ERNEST POOLE 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, May, 1918 
 
TO M. A. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON a train speeding toward New York, in one 
 of the parlour cars two young women sat 
 facing each other, talking and smiling, deeply ab 
 sorbed. They took little apparent notice of any 
 one else in the car, but most of the people near 
 them kept throwing curious glances their way. 
 
 These glances differed vastly, as did the 
 thoughts behind them. A tall, genial Westerner, 
 who looked as though he had come from a ranch, 
 smiled frankly and hungrily on the pair and told 
 himself with emphasis, " Those two girls are fifty- 
 fifty. I d like a dozen of each brand." And a 
 slim college boy with fresh, eager eyes kept dart 
 ing quick looks from time to time at the older of 
 the two, the blonde. He asked himself confus 
 edly, "HowM I start in with a woman like her?" 
 And exciting pictures rose in his mind. In the 
 meantime an elderly lady, with a sharp, inquisi 
 tive air, had put down the ages of the girls at 
 twenty-two and thirty. 
 
 "They re sisters," she decided, but then she 
 nearly changed her mind. They were such con- 
 
^ HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 trasted types. The blonde gave an appearance 
 of sleek and moneyed elegance, with carefully un 
 dulated hair, a rounded bust, and pretty features 
 smooth and plump, with a retrousse nose and rich, 
 full lips, and a manner of easy assurance. The 
 brunette was younger and less developed, slim 
 and lithe, her curling black hair rebellious, her 
 features more clean-cut and clear, with wide, 
 eager lips and warm brown eyes set wide apart. 
 
 "Nevertheless, they are sisters," the little lady 
 firmly concluded. "The family resemblance is 
 quite unmistakable." And frowning in perplex 
 ity, "But if they are sisters," she went on, "why 
 is only one in mourning?" She looked at the 
 younger of the two, who was simply dressed in 
 black; and then at the blonde, whose sable cloak 
 put back from her shoulders revealed a stylish 
 travelling suit. "And why is one rich and the 
 other poor?" 
 
 Meanwhile a young woman nearby, with a fat, 
 discontented face, regarded the blonde with envy 
 and thought, 
 
 "She s an actress with her maid. Why can t 
 Harry allow me a maid, a real clever one like 
 that? Men see these actresses on the stage and 
 get to expecting things from their wives without 
 being willing to pay for it ! Think what that girl 
 could make of me!" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 6 
 
 A quiet, able-looking woman sitting just across 
 the aisle, who travelled for a clothing store, was 
 watching the " maid," the brunette, and was think 
 ing, "She makes her clothes herself. She has 
 been the beauty of her small town. She s smart, 
 too, and original. That collar was a clever idea 
 and that fichu of lace. A pity she s in mourn 
 ing. " 
 
 But the large fat man behind the two girls had 
 little thought for the brunette. His heavy eyes, 
 quite motionless, were upon the older girl. He 
 took in her sensuous shoulders, the rounded con 
 tour of her bust, her glossy coiffure, the small, 
 fine hairs at the back of her neck. And he 
 thought, "Yes, she has been loved pretty well." 
 She was talking, and he could just hear her voice, 
 soft and provocative, like the little gloved hand 
 on her chair. By her eyes, which were of a violet 
 hue, he saw she was aware of his gaze. Some 
 thing gleamed in them that sent a thrill far down 
 into his sluggish soul. 
 
 In the meantime a kindly old lady, whose eyes 
 were fixed on the brunette, noticed how hard she 
 was listening, noticed the fresh expectancy in her 
 parted lips and clear brown eyes, and asked with 
 a touch of sadness, 
 
 "I wonder what s waiting for you in New York? 
 I m afraid I don t like this companion of yours. 
 
4 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 And you re so very young, my dear, and eager 
 and gay. And you are to be so beautiful. " 
 
 And while all these conjectures were being 
 made about them both, the brunette was wrapt in 
 her own inner fancies, vivid and exciting. Listen 
 ing to her sister, swift thoughts and expectations 
 mingled with the memories of the life behind her. 
 As she stared out of the window, fields and woods 
 and houses kept whirling back out of her view 
 and so it was with her memories. It was hard to 
 keep hold of any one. 
 
 She had lived with her father, a lonely old man 
 in a small, quiet town in Ohio, down in the lower 
 part of the State. He was dead, and she was 
 going to live with her married sister in New York. 
 He was dead and his daughter was not sad, 
 though she d been his only close companion and 
 had loved him tenderly. And this brought a 
 guilty feeling now, which she fought clown by tell 
 ing herself there had been little sadness in his 
 death. She pictured her father making his speech 
 at the unveiling of the Monument. How happy 
 and proud he had appeared. For half his life 
 old Colonel Knight had exhorted his fellow towns 
 men and painted dark the shame of their town: 
 "The only county seat in Ohio with no soldiers 
 monument, sir!" He had held countless meet- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ings, he had gone begging to his neighbours, and 
 every dollar he himself could save had gone into 
 that dream of his. At last he had triumphed; 
 and after all the excitement of his final victory, 
 the old soldier had made his speech, and died. 
 
 Around him and the monument and the old 
 frame house on River Street, the lazy, shallow 
 river, the high school near the court house, Dem- 
 ley s Tavern across the square, the line of shops 
 on either side, the new "movie" theatre of pink 
 tile, and the old yellow church on the corner the 
 pictures of her life trooped by, the pictures of 
 her last few years with the miracle, the discov 
 ery that she herself, Ethel Knight, who had al 
 ways been considered " plain, " was slowly now 
 developing into a beautiful woman. That brought 
 memories which thrilled various faces of men, 
 young and old, looks and glances, words over 
 heard, and countless small attentions. But these 
 came in mere fragments, rising only to be whirled 
 back again into the past, as the train sped on to 
 ward the city. 
 
 She was going to live in New York with her 
 married sister, Amy Lanier. And from looking 
 out of the car window, Ethel would turn quickly, 
 throw a swift glance at her sister and smile. 
 Amy seemed quite wonderful Amy with her ele 
 gance, her worldly assurance, her smiling good- 
 
b HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 humour and knowledge of "life," her apparent 
 content, her sense of well being, of being a joy to 
 look at and love; Amy who had an adoring hus 
 band, Amy who spent money like water, Amy with 
 dash and beauty and style. 
 
 "New York just fairly shimmering in every 
 thing she wears!" thought Ethel. 
 
 Amy s sable cloak was long. She had worn it 
 at the funeral, with a black skirt and a heavy veil. 
 But the veil she had put into her bag as soon as 
 they had left the town, and the cloak thrown back 
 revealed rich colours, the glitter and glint of a 
 diamond brooch ; and she wore a small blue feath 
 ered hat which threw out changing colours in the 
 play of light in the car. There was to be no more 
 mourning. Amy didn t believe in that; she was 
 good-humouredly arguing her young sister out of 
 it. And Ethel, smiling back at her, saw how sen 
 sible it was. She felt death and sadness slipping 
 away, and the life in the city opening. 
 
 Since Amy s marriage five years ago, Ethel had 
 only seen her twiceonce when Amy had come 
 home, appearing resplendent with Joe her hus 
 band in a large new touring car, and had sent a 
 wave of excitement through the quiet little town ; 
 and again when she had asked Ethel to visit her 
 for a week in New York. That had been a 
 glamourous week, but it had not been repeated. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 7 
 
 For nearly three years they had not met. In that 
 time had come the change in Ethel s own appear 
 ance. And glancing now at Amy, she read in 
 those clear, smiling eyes that Amy was relieved 
 and pleased and surprised at the striking beauty 
 which had come to her young sister. There was 
 even a tone of expectancy in Amy s talk of their 
 life in New York. 
 
 "She thinks I ll get on finely!" This exciting 
 thought kept rising repeatedly in Ethel s mind. 
 And with it came the sturdy resolve, "I mustn t 
 be too humble now, or too dependent on her. I 
 must show her I m somebody all by myself that 
 I won t be a burden on her hands. I ve got to 
 make a life of my own find work perhaps or 
 marry ! 
 
 Then all such resolutions would merge in 
 the images vivid and new, which kept rising 
 in her mind, of the life she would have in the 
 city. 
 
 She had a good voice. Old Mr. Eiggs, the or 
 ganist in the yellow church at home, had planted 
 that idea deep in her mind. If only her voice 
 could be brought out! She hadn t much money 
 for teachers, but how she would work if she got a 
 chance! In her heart she knew she had no great 
 voice, but gaily she let her fancy go and pictured 
 herself on the stage. . . . This image passed and 
 
8 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 was replaced by a platform in an immense audi 
 torium crowded with cheering women and girls. 
 Suffrage banners were all about, and she was 
 speaking to the crowd. Her voice rang clear and 
 resolute. . . . There were other dreams and pic 
 tures of dances in New York cafes, of theatre 
 parties, trips to Paris, hosts of friends. And the 
 vague thought flashed into her mind, 
 
 "What possibilities for life in me me Ethel 
 Knight !" 
 
 She went on listening, building. She took in 
 fragments of what Amy said and mingled them 
 with things she had read and pictures she d seen 
 in books, magazines and Sunday papers ; or with 
 things that she had heard in the long discussions 
 in her club of high school girls, over suffrage, 
 marriage, Bernard Shaw. She thought of the 
 opera, concerts, plays. She saw Fifth Avenue at 
 night agleam with countless motors, torrents of 
 tempestuous life and numberless shop windows, 
 hats and dainty gowns and shoes. She pictured 
 herself at dinners and balls, men noticing her 
 everywhere. "As they are doing now," she 
 thought, "this very minute in this car!" Out of 
 all the pictures rose one of a church wedding. 
 And then this picture faded, and changed to that 
 of her father s funeral in the old frame yellow 
 church. She frowned, her brown eyes saddened and 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 suddenly grew wet witha deep homesick tenderness. 
 
 But in a few moments she smiled again; once 
 more her pulse-beat quickened. For Amy was 
 talking good-humouredly. And Ethel s eyes, now 
 curious, now plainly thrilled, now quizzical, 
 amused and pleased, kept watching her, and she 
 asked herself, 
 
 "Shall I ever be like that?" 
 
 The picture she had of her sister grew each 
 moment more warm and desirable. Eagerly she 
 explored it by the quick questions she threw out. 
 
 They were coming into the city now, in a dusk 
 rich with twinkling lights. In the car the pas 
 sengers were stirring. Amy stood up to be 
 brushed sleek and alluring, worldly wise and 
 the fat man in the chair behind her opened wide 
 his heavy eyes. Then Ethel stood up and in the 
 poise of her figure, slim and lithe with its lovely 
 lines, in her carriage, in her slender neck, in her 
 dark face with its features clear, her lips a little 
 parted, and in the look in her brown eyes there 
 was something which made glances turn from all 
 down the softly lighted car. There was even a 
 brief silence. And Ethel drew a sudden breath, 
 as from close behind her the soft voice of the 
 darky porter drawled : 
 
 "Yes m yes m dis is New York. We s 
 comin right into de station now." 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 4 \A7" ELL Ethel my love, we re here at last! 
 V V ... It must be after midnight. I won 
 der when I 11 get to sleep 1 . . . Not that I care es 
 pecially. What a quaint habit sleeping is. 
 
 She had formed the habit long ago of holding 
 these inner conversations. Her father had been 
 a silent man, and often as she faced him at meals 
 Ethel had talked and talked to herself in quite as 
 animated a way as though she were saying it all 
 aloud. Now she sat up suddenly in bed and turned 
 on the light just over her head, and amiably she 
 surveyed her room. It was a pretty, fresh, little 
 room with flowered curtains, a blue rug, a luxuri 
 ous chaise longue and a small French dressing 
 table. Very cheerful, very empty. "It looks," 
 she decided, just like the bed feels. I m the first 
 fellow who has been here. 
 
 "No," she corrected herself in a moment, 
 "that s very ignorant of you, my dear. This is a 
 New York apartment, you know. All kinds of 
 other fellows have been in this room ahead of 
 me ; and they ve lain awake by the hour here, plan 
 ning how to get married or divorced, or getting 
 
 ready to write a great book or make a million 
 
 10 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 11 
 
 dollars, or sing in grand opera or murder their 
 child. All the things in the newspapers have been 
 arranged in this spot where I lie! Now I ll turn 
 out the light, " she added, "and sink quietly to 
 rest!" 
 
 But in the dark she lay listening to the strange 
 low hub-hub from outside. And it made her think 
 of what she had seen an hour before, when at the 
 open window, resting her elbows on the sill, she 
 had begun to make her acquaintance with her back 
 yard a yawning abyss of brick and cement which 
 went down and down to cement below, and up 
 and up to a strip of blue sky, and to right and 
 to left went stretching away with rows and rows 
 of windows. And now as the murmurs and quick 
 low cries, piano music, a baritone voice and a 
 sudden burst of laughter, came to her ears, she 
 gravely named her neighbours: 
 
 " Wives and husbands, divorcees, secret lovers, 
 grafters, burglars, suffragettes, actresses and an 
 archists and millionaires and poor young things 
 all spending a quiet evening at home. And that s 
 so sensible in you all. You ll need your strength 
 for tomorrow." 
 
 From the city far and near came numberless 
 other voices. From street cars, motors and the 
 L, from boats far off on the river this calm and 
 still October night, from Broadway and from 
 
12 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Harlem and the many teeming slums, came the 
 vast murmuring voice of the town. And she 
 thought, 
 
 "Pm becoming a part of all this!" She lis 
 tened a little and added, "It breathes, like some 
 thing quite alive. She smiled and added approv 
 ingly, "Quite right, my dear, just breathe right 
 on. But don t go and breathe as though you were 
 sleeping. Keep me company tonight." 
 
 Suddenly she remembered how in- their taxi from 
 the train, as they had sped up Park Avenue all 
 agleam with its cold blue lights and she had chat 
 tered gaily of anything that came into her head, 
 twice she had caught in her sister s eyes that glim 
 mer of expectancy. "Amy feels sure I will be a 
 success!" Ethel thrilled at the recollection, and 
 thought, "Oh, yes, you re quite a wag, my love; 
 and as soon as you get over being so young you ll 
 probably make a name for yourself. No dinner or 
 suffrage party will ever again be quite complete 
 without your droll dry humour. ... I suppose I 
 ought to be going to sleep ! 
 
 And she yawned excitedly. From somewhere 
 far in the distance there came to her ears the dull 
 bellowing roar of an ocean liner leaving dock at 
 one o clock to start the long journey over the 
 sea. 
 
 "I m going to Paris, too!" she resolved. Her 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 13 
 
 fancy travelled over the ocean and roamed madly 
 for awhile, with the help of many photographs 
 which she had seen in magazines. But she wear 
 ied of that and soon returned. 
 
 "Well, what do I think of Amy s home!" 
 
 She went over in her memory her eager inspec 
 tion of the apartment. The rooms had been dark 
 when they arrived ; for they had not been expected 
 so soon, and a somewhat dishevelled Irish maid 
 had opened the door and let them in. With a 
 quick annoyed exclamation, Amy had switched on 
 the lights ; and room after room as it leaped into 
 view had appeared to Ethel s eyes like parts of a 
 suite in some rich hotel. And although as her 
 sister went about moving chairs a bit this way 
 and that and putting things on the table to rights, 
 it took on a little more the semblance of some 
 body s home, still that first impression had re 
 mained in Ethel s mind. 
 
 "People have sat in this room," she had 
 thought, "but they haven t lived here. They 
 haven t sewed or read aloud or talked things out 
 and out and out. 
 
 To her sister she had been loud in her praise. 
 What a perfectly lovely room it was, what a won 
 derful lounge with the table behind it, and what 
 lamps, what a heavenly rug and how well it went 
 with the curtains! When Amy lighted the gas 
 
14 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 logs, Ethel had drawn a quick breath of dismay. 
 But then she had sharply told herself, 
 
 i This isn t an old frame house in Ohio, this is 
 a gay little place in New York! You re going to 
 love it, living here! And you re pretty much of 
 a kid, my dear, to be criticizing like an old maid!" 
 
 She had gone into Amy s room, and there her 
 mood had quickly changed. For the curtains and 
 the deep soft rug, the broad low dressing table 
 with its drop-light shaded in chintz, the curious 
 gold lacquered chair, the powder boxes, brushes, 
 trays, the faint delicious perfume of the place ; and 
 back in the shadow, softly curtained, the low wide 
 luxurious bed had given to her the feeling that 
 this room at least was personal. Here two people 
 had really lived a man and a woman. There had 
 come into Ethel s brown eyes a mingling of con 
 fused delight and awkward admiration. And her 
 sister, with a quick look and a smile, had lost the 
 slightly ruffled expression her face had worn in 
 the other rooms. She had regained her ascend 
 ancy. 
 
 It had not been until Ethel was left in her own 
 small room adjoining, that with an exclamation of 
 remembrance and surprise she had stopped un 
 dressing, opened her door and listened in the 
 silence. * * How perfectly uncanny ! Frowning a 
 moment, puzzled, her eye had gone to the only 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 15 
 
 other room in the apartment, down at the end of 
 the narrow hall. The door had been closed. She 
 had stolen to it and listened, but at first she had 
 not heard a sound. Then she had given a slight 
 start, had knocked softly and asked, "May I come 
 in?" A woman s voice with a hostile note had 
 replied, Yes, ma am. She had entered. And a 
 moment later, down on her knees before a grave 
 little girl of two who sat at a tiny table soberly 
 having her supper, Ethel had cried, 
 
 "Oh, you adorable baby!" 
 
 For a time she had tried to make friends with 
 the child, but the voice of the nurse had soon cut 
 in. And in the motherly Scotch face Ethel had 
 detected again a feeling of hostility. "What 
 for?" she had asked. And the answer had flashed 
 into her mind. She s angry because Amy hasn t 
 been in to see Susette." And Ethel had frowned. 
 "It s funny. If I had been away three days " 
 
 She had gone back to her own room and began 
 slowly to take off her things. And a few minutes 
 after that, she had heard a gruff kindly voice, a 
 man s heavy tread and a glad little cry from 
 Amy s room. 
 
 "Joe has come home," she had told herself. 
 "I wonder how he and I will get on." 
 
 And she had met him a little later with no slight 
 uneasiness. But this had been at once dispelled. 
 
16 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Bather tall and full of figure, with thick curling 
 hair and close-cut moustache, Joe Lanier at thirty- 
 five still gave to his young sister-in-law the im 
 pression of kindly friendliness she had had from 
 him some years before. There was nothing to be 
 afraid of in Joe. But she had noticed the change 
 in his face, the slightly tightened harassed expres 
 sion. And she had thought, 
 
 "You poor man. How hard you have been 
 working. 
 
 And yet she could not say he looked tired, for 
 at dinner his talk had been almost boyish in its 
 welcoming good humour. Later he had drawn her 
 aside and had said with a touch of awkwardness, 
 
 "No use in talking about it, of course. I just 
 want you to know I m so glad you re here." She 
 had clutched his hand : 
 
 "That s nice of you, Joe." And then she had 
 turned from him, and with a sudden quiver inside 
 she had added quite inaudibly: "Oh, Dad, dear 
 est! I m so homesick! Just this minute if I 
 could be back!" 
 
 But she had liked Joe that evening. 
 
 She remembered the hungry light in his eyes. 
 He and Amy had soon gone to their room. And 
 as Ethel thought about them now, lying here alone 
 in the dark she felt again that vague delight and 
 confused expectancy. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 17 
 
 "How much of all this is coming to me? . . . 
 Everything, I guess, but sleep!" 
 
 A wisp of her hair fell on her nose, and she blew 
 it back with a vicious, "Pfew!" 
 
CHAPTER in 
 
 HER first month in town was a season of 
 shopping and of warm anticipations and 
 then came a sudden crash. Afterward it was hard 
 to remember. For tragedy entered into these 
 rooms, and it was not easy to look back and see 
 them clearly as they had been. That first month 
 became confused, the memories uneven; in some 
 spots clear and vivid, in others hazy and unreal. 
 
 4 I want you to be gay, my dear," Amy told her 
 at the start. "You ve been through such a lonely 
 time. And what earthly good will it do poor Dad 
 to have you go about in black! You re here now 
 and you ve got to make friends and a place for 
 yourself. If he were alive I know he d agree. 
 He d want you to have every chance. 
 
 So they started in to shop. And though Ethel 
 had her memories, her moods of homesick longing 
 for the old soldier who was gone, these soon be 
 came less frequent. There was little time to be 
 lonely or sad. 
 
 Amy herself felt new youth these days. Re 
 lieved of the first uneasiness with which she had 
 gone to Ohio to bring her young sister to New 
 York, surprised and delighted at finding how the 
 
 18 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 19 
 
 awkward girl she had known had developed since 
 the last time they had met, Amy now took Ethel 
 about to get her " clothes fit to be seen in." And 
 as with intent little glances she kept studying 
 "Ethel s type" in order to set off her charms, the 
 slightly bored expression, the look of disillusion 
 ment left Amy s pretty countenance. For Ethel s 
 freshness had given to Amy new zest and belief in 
 her own life, in its purpose and importance. To 
 get Ethel clothes, to show her about, to find her 
 friends, to give her a gay winter in town and later 
 to make a good match for her these aims loomed 
 large in Amy s mind. She felt her own youth re 
 turning, and she prolonged this period. She 
 wanted Ethel all to herself. She even shut her 
 husband out. 
 
 "You can rest up a bit," she told him, "for 
 what s coming later on." And Joe, with a good- 
 natured groan at the prospect of late hours ahead, 
 made the most of the rest allowed to him. 
 
 Each morning the two sisters fared forth in a 
 taxi. And Amy began to reveal to her sister the 
 dazzling world of shops in New York : shops large 
 and small, American, French and English, shops 
 for gowns and hats and shoes, and furs and gloves 
 and corsets. At numberless counters they studied 
 and counselled, and lunching at Sherry s they 
 shopped on. And the shimmer and sheen of 
 
20 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 pretty things made life a glamourous mirage, in 
 which Ethel could feel herself rapidly becoming a 
 New Yorker, gaining assurance day by day, feel 
 ing "her type" emerge in the glass where she 
 studied herself with impatient delight. 
 
 There were little reminders now and then of 
 what she had left behind her. One day in a de 
 partment store, as they stood before a counter 
 looking at silk stockings, all at once to EthePs 
 ears came the deep tones of an organ, and turning 
 with a low cry of surprise she looked over the 
 bustling throngs of women to an organ loft above, 
 where a girl was singing a solo in a high sweet 
 soprano voice. In a flash to EthePs mind there 
 came a vivid picture of the old yellow church at 
 home. And with a queer expression looking about 
 her at the crowds, she exclaimed, "How funny!" 
 
 She was again reminded of church when one 
 afternoon in a large darkened chamber she sat 
 with scores of women whose eyes were fixed as 
 though in devotion upon a softly lighted stage 
 where "models" kept appearing. What lovely 
 figures some of them had. Others rather took her 
 breath, and gave her the feeling she d had before 
 in her sister s bedroom. But then as her eye was 
 caught again by the rapt faces all about, she 
 chuckled to herself and thought, "There ought to 
 be candles and incense here!" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 21 
 
 She was appalled at the prices. And as the 
 exciting days wore on, uneasily in her room at 
 night she would sit down with pencil and paper 
 and ask, "How much did I spend today 1" Her 
 father had left her nothing but the shabby old 
 frame house. This she had sold to a friend of 
 his, and the small fund thus secured she had re 
 solved to husband. 
 
 "Oh, Ethel, go slow, you little fool. This is 
 every penny you have in the world." 
 
 But the adorable things she saw, and the grow 
 ing hunger she felt as she began to notice with a 
 more discerning eye the women in shops and on 
 the streets just why they were so dashing and 
 how they got this and that effect all swept aside 
 her caution, the easier because of the fact that 
 everything she bought was charged. 
 
 One evening in a large cafe she sat watching 
 Amy who was dancing with her husband. It was 
 at the time when the new style dances were just 
 coming into vogue. In Ohio they had been only 
 a myth. But Amy was a beautiful dancer; and 
 watching her now, Ethel reflected, "She expects 
 me to be like that. If I m not, she ll be disap 
 pointed, ashamed. And why shouldn t I be? 
 What do you ever get in this world if you re al 
 ways saving every cent? You miss your chance 
 and then it s too late. I ll be meeting her friends 
 
22 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 in a few weeks more. I ve simply got to hurry ! 
 
 And with Amy s dancing teacher she arranged 
 for lessons at a price that made her gasp. But 
 the lessons were a decided success. 
 
 "You ve a wonderful figure for dancing, " the 
 teacher said confidingly, "and a sense for rhythm 
 that most of these women haven t any idea of." 
 He smiled down at her and she fairly beamed. 
 
 "Oh, how nice!" sighed Ethel. Something in 
 the little look which flashed between them gave her 
 a thrill of assurance. And this feeling came again 
 and again, in the shops and while she was seated 
 at luncheon in some crowded restaurant, or on the 
 streets or back at home, where even Joe was be 
 ginning to show his admiring surprise. 
 
 "You re making a fine little job of it," she 
 heard him say to Amy one night. 
 
 She caught other remarks and glances from 
 strangers, men and women. And Ethel now be 
 gan to feel the whole vast bustling ardent town 
 centred on what in her high-school club, as they 
 read Bernard Shaw, they had quite frankly and 
 solemnly spoken of as "Sex." All the work and 
 the business, the scheming and planning and rush 
 for money, were focussed on this. And for this 
 she was attracting those swift admiring glances. 
 What she would be, what she wanted to be, what 
 she now ardently longed to become, grew clearer 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 23 
 
 to her day by day. For the picture was there be 
 fore her eyes. Each day it grew more familiar, 
 as at home in Amy s room she watched her beauti 
 ful sister, a stranger no longer to her now, seated 
 at her dressing table good-humouredly chatting, 
 and meanwhile revealing by numberless deft little 
 things she was doing the secrets of clothes and of 
 figure, and of cheeks and lips and eyes, with subtle 
 hints behind it all of the ancient magic art of Pan. 
 She felt Amy ceaselessly bringing her out. This 
 gave her thrills of excitement. And looking at 
 her sister she asked, 
 
 1 Shall I ever be like that V 9 
 
 And they kept talking, talking. And through it 
 all the same feeling was there, the sense of this 
 driving force of the town. 
 
 With the sturdy independence which was so 
 deep a part of her, Ethel strove to hold up her 
 end of these intent conversations and show that 
 she had views of her own. She was no old-fash 
 ioned country girl, but modern, something differ 
 ent ! They had discussed things in her club which 
 would have shocked their mothers, discussed them 
 long and seriously. They had spoken of marriage 
 and divorce, of love and having children, and then 
 had gone eagerly on to suffrage, jobs and "mental 
 science," art, music and the rest of life. She had 
 gathered there an image of New York as a glitter- 
 
24 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ing region of strong clever men and fascinating 
 women, who not only loved to dance but held the 
 most brilliant discussions at dinners livened by 
 witty remarks a place of vistas opening into a 
 world of great ideas. And now with her older 
 sister, she questioned her about it all, the art and 
 all the "movements," the "salons" and the clever 
 talk. She asked, 
 
 "Do you know any suffragists? Do you know 
 any men who write plays or novels, or any musi 
 cians or painters or actresses ? And again and 
 again by an air of assurance Ethel tried to hide 
 her dismay, as her sister subtly made all this 
 seem like a school-girl s fancies. 
 
 "Yes," Amy would say good-humouredly, 
 "there are such people, I suppose plenty of 
 them, all over town. And they talk and talk and 
 hold meetings, and they go to high-brow plays 
 and some women even work. But it doesn t sound 
 very thrilling, does it? I don t know. They 
 never seem to me quite real. 
 
 And then Amy would go on to hint what did 
 seem real to her in life. And again that picture 
 of the town, all centred on what emerged from the 
 shops and poured into the cafes to dance, was 
 painted for her sister. 
 
 But behind her smiling manner of one with an 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 25 
 
 intimate knowledge of life, Amy would glance at 
 the girl by her side in a curious, rather anxious 
 way. For vaguely she knew that years ago when 
 she herself had come to New York, she too had had 
 dreams and imaginings of what her young sister 
 called "the real thing." And she knew that these 
 had dropped away at first in the struggle, which 
 for her had been so intense and narrowing, to gain 
 a foothold in the town ; then through rebuffs from 
 the clever friends of Joe Lanier when she married 
 him; and later through a feeling of lazy ac 
 ceptance of her lot. But Ethel s talk and Ethel s 
 eyes recalled what had been left behind. And 
 Amy thought of her present friends, and again 
 with a little uneasy pang she put off their meet 
 ing with Ethel. For they did not seem good to 
 her then, and the picture she found herself paint 
 ing of their lives and her own appeared a bit flat 
 and trivial in the light of Ethel s eagerness. 
 They dressed and went shopping, they went to tea 
 dances, they dined in cafes or in their homes, 
 rushed off in taxis to musical plays, and had sup 
 per and danced. They loved and were loved, they 
 "played the game." 
 
 "My dear," she said decisively, "it s not what 
 you say that interests men ; it s how you look and 
 what you have on." 
 
26 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 But despite her air of assurance and her own 
 liking of her life, she felt the picture growing flat, 
 and so she added quietly, 
 
 1 1 Oh, my friends aren t all I d like. They never 
 are, if you ve anything in you. If you really want 
 to be somebody " and here her whole expression 
 changed to one of resolute faith in herself "you 
 need just one thing, money. And you can t do 
 anything about that, you have to wait for your 
 husband. Joe s a dear, of course, and he s work 
 ing hard. And he s getting it, too, he s getting 
 it!" A gleam of hunger almost fierce came into 
 her clear violet eyes. l i I want a larger apartment 
 I ve picked out the very one. And I want a 
 car, a limousine. I know just how I ll paint it 
 a mauve body with white wheels. And I want a 
 house on Long Island. I ve picked out the very 
 spot just next to Fanny Carr s new place." 
 
 As her sister spoke of these ideals, again Ethel 
 had that feeling of church, but only for a moment. 
 
 "Who s Fanny Carr?" she asked alertly. 
 
 Amy was slowly combing her hair, and she 
 smiled with kindly tolerance, for her little con 
 fession had brought back her faith in herself and 
 her future. 
 
 "Fanny \vas a writer once " 
 
 "Oh, really!" 
 
 "Yes. She ran a department on one of the pa- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 27 
 
 pers." It had been the dress pattern page, but 
 Amy did not mention that. Instead she yawned 
 complacently. "Oh, she dropped it quick enough 
 she thought it rather tiresome. She s one of 
 the cleverest women I know. She d have got a 
 long way up in the world, if it weren t for her 
 second husband " 
 
 "Her second?" 
 
 "Yes. The first one didn t do very well. She 
 told me once, If you want to get on, change your 
 name at least once in every three years. Her 
 second, as it happened, was no better than the first. 
 But she was clever enough by then to get an able 
 lawyer; and when it came to the divorce, Fanny 
 succeeded in keeping the house, the one out on 
 Long Island." 
 
 "Oh," said Ethel tensely. Her sister shot a 
 look at her. 
 
 "I don t care especially for Fanny s ideas about 
 husbands, she said. But at least she has a love 
 of a home. And Amy went on to explain to her 
 sister the. value and importance of being able to 
 give "week ends." Again the gleam came into 
 her eyes. 
 
 "It s money, my dear, it s money. They are 
 the same women in Newport exactly just like all 
 the rest of us only they are richer. That s all 
 but it is everything. Put me in a big house out 
 
28 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 there, and my friends wouldn t know me in a few 
 years." 
 
 A cloud came on her face as she looked in the 
 glass. 
 
 But that s just the trouble. A few years more 
 and I ll be too late. You ve got to get there while 
 you re young. And there s so little time. You 
 lose your looks. It s all very well for some women 
 to talk about ideas and things and travel and 
 and children. I did, too, I talked a lot oh, how 
 I wanted everything! But one has to narrow 
 down. Thank heaven, Ethel, you ve years ahead. 
 I ve only got a few more left I m already thirty- 
 one. And my type ages fast in this town, if you 
 do the things you re expected to do. But you 
 oh, Ethel, I want you to marry well ! Not a mil 
 lionaire that s rather hard, and besides he d 
 probably be too fat but the kind who will be a, 
 millionaire, who has it written all over his face 
 and makes you feel it in his voice! Don t sell 
 yourself too cheap, my dear! Don t go running 
 about with men who ll keep you poor for the rest 
 of your days. They talk so well some of them 
 do; and it sounds so fine ideas and books and 
 pictures and I knew one who was an architect. 
 And it s all very well for later on, but what you ve 
 got to do right at the start while you have the 
 looks and youth is to find the man who can give 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 29 
 
 you a house where all those other people will be 
 tumbling to get in because you ll have the money 
 you ll be able to entertain and give them what 
 they really want in spite of all their talking." 
 
 Once more, with a weary sigh, she dropped the 
 religious intensity, and smiled as she wistfully 
 added, 
 
 " That s where some man can put you. They 
 do, you know, they do it. Some man does it every 
 day. You can see his name in the papers. Doz 
 ens of wives get to Newport each year. And what 
 do they do it on ? Money ! 
 
 * That s romance enough for me, my dear. And 
 if you want work and a career, the most fascinat 
 ing kind I know is to study the man you ve mar 
 ried find what s holding him back and take it 
 away what s pushing him on and help it grow! 
 YouVe got to narrow, narrow down! You may 
 want a lot of children. They re loves, of course, 
 to have around. But you run a big risk in that. 
 I could give you so many cases mothers who have 
 just dropped out. If you want to really get on 
 in this town, you ve got to stick to your husband 
 and make your husband stick to you ! There are 
 things about that you will learn soon enough. It 
 comes so naturally, once you are in it married, 
 I mean. And that s your hold. 
 
 "And if you love him as I love Joe," she added 
 
30 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 almost in a whisper, "you find it so easy that often 
 you forget what it is you re trying to do, what 
 you re really doing it for. You re just happy and 
 you shut your eyes. But then you wake up and 
 use it all everything to drive him on. You can 
 do that while you are still young and have what 
 he wants the looks, I mean and can make him 
 see that any number of other men would be glad 
 to step into his shoes. But you give them only 
 just enough to keep your husband from feeling too 
 safe. You hold them off, you make him feel that 
 he s everything to you if he ll work and give you 
 what you ought to have! And unless you re a 
 fool you don t listen to this talk of women s rights 
 and women doing the work of men. You keep on 
 your own ground and play the game. And you 
 keep making him get what you need before it s 
 too late!" All at once she gave a sharp little 
 laugh. "It s a kind of a race, you see," she 
 said. 
 
 The night after this talk, Ethel lay in her bed, 
 and tried to remember and think it out. How new 
 and queer and puzzling. So many vistas she had 
 dreamed of had been closed on every hand. 
 
 "What s the matter with me? 
 
 The matter was that her old ideals and stand 
 ards were being torn up by the roots, roots that 
 went deep down into the soil of life in the town 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE . 31 
 
 in Ohio. But Ethel did not think of that. She 
 scowled and sighed. 
 
 Well, this is real! I was dreaming! And 
 after all, this is much the same, but different in 
 the way you get it. This is New York. One thing 
 is sure," she added. "Amy needs every dollar 
 Joe can make and she must not have me on her 
 hands. I ve got to find what I really want a job 
 or a man and be quick about it ! 9 
 
 It threw a tinge of uneasiness into those breath 
 less shopping tours. And it changed her attitude 
 toward Joe. He had not counted for much at first ; 
 he had been a mere man of business ; and business 
 men had had little place in her dreams of friends 
 in the city. But watching him now she changed 
 her mind. 
 
 Joe Lanier was what is called "a speculative 
 builder." He was an architect, building contrac 
 tor and real estate gambler, all in one. He put up 
 apartment buildings "on spec," buildings of the 
 cheaper sort, most of them up in the Bronx, and 
 sold them at a profit or a loss, as the case might 
 be. He dealt in the rapidly shifting values of 
 neighbourhoods in the changing town. "The 
 gamble in it is the fun," he remarked to Ethel one 
 evening. Joe was just the kind of a man, as Amy 
 had told her sister, to make a big sudden success 
 of his work. Unfortunately he was tied to a part- 
 
32 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ner, Nourse by name, who held him back. This 
 man Amy keenly disliked. She said that Nourse 
 was a perfect grind, a heavy tiresome creature 
 who thought business was everything in the world. 
 
 "Sometimes I really believe he forgets it s for 
 making money, " Amy declared. "He s as anx 
 ious about it as an old hen, and he wants it steady 
 as a cow. He detests me, as I do him. He has 
 stopped coming here, thank heaven. And the time 
 is not so far away when I ll make Joe see that he s 
 got to lose his partner." 
 
 Joe s image gained steadily in importance to 
 Ethel s awakening eyes. Of his force as a man, 
 all that she saw made her more and more certain 
 that Amy was right. Joe was the kind who was 
 bound to succeed. He not only worked hard, his 
 work was a passion. At night and on Sunday 
 mornings he could sit for hours absorbed in the 
 tiresome pages of real estate news in his paper. 
 He went out for strolls in the evenings ; one night 
 he asked Ethel to come along; and his talk to her 
 about buildings, the growth of the city by leaps and 
 bounds, now in this direction, now in that, caught 
 her imagination at once. Joe felt the town as * 
 living thing, as she had felt it that first night 
 Different? Yes, this was business. But eve 
 business, to her surprise, as Joe saw and felt it, 
 had a strange thrilling romance of its own. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 33 
 
 And she soon noticed something else that drew 
 her to Joe. Almost every evening he would sit 
 down at his piano and start playing idly. As a 
 rule he played dance music, popular songs from 
 Broadway. But sometimes leaning back he would 
 drift into other music. And though his hand 
 would bungle and only sketch it, so to speak in 
 his black eyes, scowling slightly over the smoke 
 of his cigar, would come a look which Ethel liked. 
 But vaguely she felt that Amy did not, that it even 
 made her uneasy. For almost invariably at such 
 times, Amy would come behind him, her plump 
 softly rounded arm would find its way down over 
 his shoulder and little by little the music would 
 change and would come back to Broadway. 
 
 When Joe heard one evening that Ethel was 
 "mad to learn to sing," he took her by the arm at 
 once and marched her over to the piano. And 
 they had quite a session together till Amy sug 
 gested going out to a new cabaret she had heard 
 of that day. Her voice sounded hurt and strained. 
 And Ethel from that night on dropped all mention 
 of singing. 
 
 Her curiosity deepened toward this city love 
 affair, this husband and wife who apparently had 
 left so many things out of their lives, things vital 
 in the Ohio town. The sober wee girl in the nurs 
 ery kept just as quiet as before. Often Ethel 
 
34 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 opened that door and went in and tried to make 
 friends with its grave shy little inmate and the 
 hostile nurse. And returning to her room she 
 would frown and wonder for a time. But the 
 pretty things piling in from the shops, and the 
 gay anticipations, soon crowded such questioning 
 out of her mind. Swiftly this household was 
 growing more real, the rooms familiar, intimate ; 
 the day s routine with its small events were be 
 coming parts of her life. Her own room was fa 
 miliar now, for by many touches she d made it 
 her own. And the dining-room and the living 
 room, where she grew acquainted with Joe, these 
 too assumed an intimate air. Most of all, her 
 sister s room grew more and more vivid in her 
 thoughts, though this was still far from familiar, 
 It held too much, it meant too much. 
 
 * Shall I ever live with a man like that 1 
 The way they looked at each other at times! 
 The way they seemed keeping watch on each other. 
 If Joe were out very late at night, Amy would al 
 most invariably grow uneasy and absentminded, 
 and there would be a challenging note in the way 
 she greeted him on his return. On one such occa 
 sion Ethel was in Amy s room. She went out 
 when Joe came in ; but a queer little gasping sigh 
 behind gave her a start and a swift thrill, for al 
 though she did not turn around she knew they were 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 35 
 
 in each other s arms. And again, late one after 
 noon when the sisters came home and found Joe 
 at work with a tired anxious look on his face, his 
 wife came up behind him. And the picture of her 
 small gloved hand upon Joe s heavy shoulder re 
 mained in Ethel s memory. It seemed so soft and 
 yet so strong. 
 
 "She can do anything with him she likes. 
 When I marry somebody how will it be!" 
 
 Upon the living-room mantel was a photograph 
 of Amy. And on the smooth and pretty face with 
 the lips slightly parting, and in the smiling violet 
 eyes, there was the expression of something which 
 Ethel did not quite name to herself for she had 
 forgotten the night long ago in her high-school club 
 when they had sturdily tackled the word "sensual" 
 and what it meant. But the picture grew familiar 
 and real, filled in by the living presence here of 
 this woman who so carefully tended her beautiful 
 body, her glossy hair, her cheeks and lips; this 
 sister with so many moods, now intent and watch 
 ful, now good-humoured, indolent, now expectant, 
 hungry, now smilingly content and gay. 
 
 And as the picture grew more real, warm and 
 close and thrilling, it symbolized for Ethel that 
 mysterious force which she could feel on every 
 side, driving the throngs of humanity in this city 
 where so many things she had once deemed im- 
 
36 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 port ant were fading rapidly away. That hungry 
 hope of a singer s career, that craving for work 
 and self-education, trips to Paris, London, Rome, 
 books, art and clever people, "salons," brilliant 
 discussions of life ; and deeper still, those mysteri 
 ous dreams about having children and making a 
 home all began to drop behind, so quietly and 
 easily that she barely noticed the change. 
 
 For this was happening in a few weeks, in the 
 first whirl and excitement of those dazzling streets 
 and shops, those models, gowns, hats, gloves and 
 shoes. "It s not what you say that interests men 
 it s how you look and what you have on." The 
 image of her sister grew vivid in Ethel s eager 
 mind. And with it came the question, now ardent 
 though still a little confused, 
 
 "Shall I ever be like that?" 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ETHEL had been about four weeks in town, 
 and now she was to meet Amy s friends. 
 Amy was giving a dinner the next evening in her 
 honour ; and to let the cook and the waitress have 
 a rest on the preceding night, Joe took Amy and 
 Ethel out to dine in a cafe. His business had gone 
 well that week and Joe was a genial husband. 
 They had a sea-food supper and later he took 
 them to a play. When they came home, Ethel 
 went to her room, for she felt very tired. It was 
 not long before she was asleep. 
 
 She was awakened by Joe, half dressed. 
 
 "Amy is sick!" he said sharply. "Go in and 
 help her, will you? I ll try to get a doctor!" 
 
 On Amy s bed, a little later, Ethel saw a face so 
 changed from the one of a few hours before, that 
 she felt her heart jump into her throat. Amy s 
 face was ugly and queer, distorted by frequent 
 spasms of pain. But worse was the terror in her 
 eyes. 
 
 * Ethel, I think I m dying ! she cried. < Some 
 thing I ate it poisoned me ! There was a vio 
 lent catch in her breath. 
 
 37 
 
38 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Amy ! Why, you poor little darling ! Ethel 
 held her sister tight, asked quick anxious questions 
 and did things to relieve her, but with little or no 
 success. It seemed hours till Joe came back. 
 With him was a doctor, who made an examination 
 and then took Joe into the hall. Ethel followed 
 anxiously. She heard the doctor questioning Joe, 
 and she heard him say, 
 
 "I m afraid it s ptomaine." 
 
 "What does that mean?" Joe fiercely inquired. 
 But before Ethel could hear the reply she was 
 called back into the bedroom, where on her bed 
 with both hands clenched Amy was saying, 
 
 "I can t bear this! Make him give me some 
 thing quick ! 
 
 The rest of the night was a blur and a haze, of 
 which Joe was the centre Joe half crazed and 
 impatient, making impossible demands. 
 
 "You can t get a nurse in a minute, my friend, 
 at five A.M.," the doctor cried. "I m doing my 
 best, if you 11 give me a chance ! 
 
 The fight went on. The nurse arrived, and turn 
 ing to Ethel the doctor said, Get him out of this. " 
 And she took Joe into the living-room. But there 
 with a sudden curse and a groan he began to walk 
 the floor. 
 
 "This doctor what do we know of him? He 
 was all I could find ! We haven t been to a doctor 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 39 
 
 ( 
 
 in years! . . . Ah that s it! 7 And he went to 
 the telephone, where in a few moments she heard 
 him saying tensely, "Bill, old man, I m in trou 
 ble." And she thought, "It s his partner." 
 
 "What have you done?" she asked him. 
 
 "Got Bill Nourse on the phone. He s bring 
 ing another doctor. 
 
 "But Joe! You should have asked this one 
 first!" 
 
 "Should I?" was his distracted reply. 
 
 The second physician soon arrived, and was as 
 surprised and annoyed as the first one when he 
 found how he had been summoned. In a moment 
 with angry apologies he was backing out of the 
 door. But Joe caught his arm. 
 
 "You two and your etiquette be damned! Go 
 in and look at that woman ! " he cried. And with 
 a glance into Joe s eyes, the second doctor turned 
 to the first, muttered, "Hold this man. He s 
 crazy" and went into the bedroom. 
 
 It was long before Ethel forgot the look that 
 appeared on Joe s face when the second physician 
 came out and said, 
 
 " I m sorry. There s nothing I can do. 
 
 She went in with Joe to Amy. And her sister 
 looked so relieved, the lines of pain all smoothed 
 away. Heavily drugged, she was nearly asleep. 
 Her hand felt for Joe s and closed on it, and with 
 
40 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 a little nestling movement of her soft lovely body 
 she murmured smiling, 
 
 "Oh, so tired and sleepy now." 
 
 Again, in spite of her grief and fright, Ethel 
 noticed how her sister s hand closed on that of her 
 husband. In the months and years that followed, 
 she recalled it vividly so many times. 
 
 Joe sat there long after Amy was dead. 
 
 The doctor signed to Ethel to come into the 
 living-room. 
 
 "Are you to be in charge?" he asked. She 
 looked at him and shivered. She felt a pang of 
 such loneliness as she had never known before. 
 
 "I know nobody nothing I don t know how 
 you arrange," she said. "I ve only been a month 
 in town. 
 
 The doctor gave her a curious look of pity and 
 uneasiness. It was as though he had told her, 
 "I m sorry, but don t count on me for help. I m 
 busy. This is New York, you know." He said, 
 
 "I ll see to the undertaker." She shivered 
 again, and he added, "Don t you know some older 
 woman here?" 
 
 This reminded her of the dinner which Amy 
 was to have given that night. A lump rose in 
 her throat. She waited a moment and then she 
 said, 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 41 
 
 "Yes, I know of several/ 
 
 "That s good. You d better send for them." 
 And soon afterward he hurried away. 
 
 But just as Ethel was rising to go to the tele 
 phone, there was a ring at the door. She opened 
 it, and a tall man, rather stooped, with iron grey 
 hair and moustache, a lean but rather heavy face 
 and deep-set impassive eyes, came in and said, 
 
 "I m Joe s partner Nourse, you know. How 
 is it going? Better!" 
 
 "She s dead." 
 
 "God!" With that low exclamation, she 
 thought she saw a gleam of shock but then of tri 
 umph come in his eyes. He went into Joe s room, 
 and closed the door; and with a mingling of re 
 lief and of sharp hostility she felt at once how 
 she was shut out. Who was she but a stranger 
 now? She thought of Amy, and with a quick cry 
 Ethel began to walk up and down in a scared 
 hunted fashion. She stopped with a sudden reso 
 lute clenching of her teeth, and said, "Now I ve 
 got to do something! If I don t, I ll go right out 
 of my mind ! But what ? She stared about her, 
 then went to the windows and threw back the cur 
 tains. It was well along toward noon. Daylight 
 flooded into the room, with one yellow path of light 
 which came down from the distant sun. 
 
 "I ll go out and get her some flowers." 
 
42 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 When she came back a half hour later, Ethel 
 still had that resolute look. The door of Joe s 
 room was still closed and she saw Nourse s hat in 
 the hall. She turned and went to the telephone, 
 stopped and frowned. 
 
 "Yes, that s the next thing." 
 
 She called up Amy s friend Fanny Carr. But 
 at the sound of the woman s voice which came 
 back over the wire, Ethel gave a start of dismay. 
 For it had a jarring quality, and although it was 
 prompt in its exclamations of shocked surprise 
 and sympathy and proffers of help the words, 
 "You poor child, I ll come over at once!" made 
 Ethel inwardly beseech her, "Oh, no, no! Please 
 stay away!" Aloud she said, "Thank you," put 
 up the receiver and stood staring at the wall. 
 Was this Amy s best friend! 
 
 "I want some one / ~know!" She thought of 
 Susette. She went at once to the nursery, kissed 
 the wee girl and sat down on the floor. And as 
 they built a house of blocks, Ethel could feel her 
 self softening, the strained tight sensation going. 
 Suddenly in her hot dry eyes she felt in a moment 
 the tears would come. 
 
 "What s to become of me and this child?" 
 
 She turned with a start and met the unfriendly 
 eyes of the nurse. They had a jealous light in 
 them. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 43 
 
 " You ll stay here, of course, " said Ethel. 
 " Surely you are not thinking of going " 
 
 "No. Are your 
 
 A little cold sensation struck into her spine at 
 the tone of that question. 
 
 "I haven t decided yet on my plans. Hadn t 
 you better take Susette out to the Park 1 
 
 6 All right." 
 
 "And keep her there as much as you can till 
 it s over." 
 
 "All right," said the nurse again. 
 
 Ethel went out of the room. Were there only 
 strangers here? 
 
 Just after that Fanny Carr arrived, and Ethel 
 had a feeling at once of a shrewd strong per 
 sonality. A woman of about medium height, still 
 young but rather over-developed, artificial and 
 overdressed, with a full bust and thick red lips 
 and lustrous eyes of greenish grey her beauty 
 was of the obtrusive type that is made to catch the 
 eye on the street and in noisy crowded rooms. 
 When Fanny kissed her, Ethel shrank. "I 
 mustn t do that!" she exclaimed to herself. But 
 the other woman had noticed it and shot a little 
 look at her. 
 
 "You poor girl. I can t tell you how sorry I 
 feel," she was saying. "It s horrible. Tell me 
 about it." 
 
44 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 And Ethel in a lifeless voice recounted the 
 tragedy of the night. 
 1 Where V Joel" 
 
 "In there, with his partner." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Nourse. He would be." Mrs. Carr 
 threw a glance of dislike at the door. "And you, 
 my dear I won t ask you now what are your 
 plans. Just let me help you. What can I do? 
 There s that dinner tonight, to begin with. Have 
 you let the people know?" 
 
 " Not yet " 
 
 "Have you a list of the ones who were asked?" 
 
 "I think there s one on Amy s desk." 
 
 "Then I 11 attend to it." 
 
 Soon Fanny was at the telephone. Her voice, 
 hard and incisive, kept talking, stopping, talking 
 again, repeating it to friend after friend, and 
 making it hard, abrupt and real, stripping it of its 
 mystery, making it naked and commonplace, like 
 a newspaper item Amy s death. And Ethel sat 
 rigid, listening. 
 
 < Amy s best friend ! Oh, how strange ! > 
 
 Suddenly she remembered things Amy had said 
 about this friend admiring things. She bit her 
 lips. 
 
 What a queer time for hating a person. But I 
 hate you oh, I hate you!" She went to the 
 window and frowned at the street and slowly again 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 45 
 
 got control of herself. " What s wrong with me? 
 Why am I so dull! I ought to be doing some 
 thing. But what ? Again came the voice from 
 the telephone, and again she clenched her hands. 
 L< How did you make Amy take you for a friend? 
 . . . Oh, what difference does it make 1 9 
 
 But it did make a difference. The presence of 
 Fanny got on her nerves ; and when a little later 
 two of the dinner guests arrived, to exclaim and 
 pity and offer their help, she faced them and 
 thought, 
 
 "You re all alike! You re all just hard and 
 over-dressed! You re cheap! Oh, please please 
 go away!" 
 
 The two visitors seemed glad enough to find she 
 did not want them here, that she was not going 
 to cling to them and make this abyss she was facing 
 a region they must face by her side. In their eyes 
 again she caught the look she had seen on the 
 face of the doctor. "After all, this is not my 
 affair." 
 
 The two women left her. Fanny, too, soon 
 went out on an errand. And no other woman 
 came to her that day. How different from the 
 Ohio town. Only once a girl came from the dress 
 maker s. 
 
 But just after Fanny had gone out, Joe s part 
 ner came into the living-room. In the last few 
 
46 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 hours several times she had heard his voice as he 
 talked with Joe. Deep, heavy and gruff, it had 
 yet revealed a tenderness that had given to Ethel 
 a sudden thrill which she had forgotten the next 
 moment, for her thoughts kept spinning so. But 
 now as he looked down at her she saw in his gaunt 
 lean face a reflection of that tenderness ; and there 
 was a pity in his voice which set her lip to quiver 
 ing. 
 
 "The sooner we have this over," he said, "the 
 better it will be for Joe." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Tomorrow?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "At four?" 
 
 "All right." 
 
 "I ll see to it." 
 
 "Thank you." There was a pause. 
 
 "Is there any special cemetery! You have any 
 preference!" he asked. 
 
 "I don t know any in New York." And again 
 there was a silence. 
 
 "You haven t been here long," he said. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You ll be going back now to your home, 1 
 suppose." 
 
 "I haven t any." 
 
 "Oh," he said. She glanced up and saw a 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 47 
 
 gleam of uneasiness in his steady tired eyes. She 
 shrank a little. 
 
 "You have no relatives living !" he asked. 
 
 "None that I care about," she replied. She 
 swallowed sharply. "They re scattered gone 
 West. We lost track of them. 
 
 * Oh. . . . Then do you intend to stay here ? 
 
 "For awhile if Joe wants me." 
 
 "I ll take care of Joe." Though the voice was 
 low, it had an anxious jealous note which made her 
 shiver slightly. 
 
 "There s the child," she reminded him sharply. 
 
 "Why not take it away!" he asked. "Joe 
 never cared for it, did he? Do you think it has 
 been happy here!" 
 
 And at that she could have struck him. At 
 her glare he turned away. 
 
 "Forgive me. Of course I should not have 
 said that." A pause. "Nor talked of your 
 plans. I m not myself. Sorry for Joe. Forgive 
 me. 9 He turned away from her, frowning. " I 11 
 see to everything," he said, and she heard him 
 leave the apartment. 
 
 And all the rest of the day and the night and 
 through the morning which followed, no one else 
 came but professional men, and Mrs. Carr. She 
 came and went; and her voice grew familiar 
 hard, intrusive, naked. And the thought kept 
 
48 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 rising in Ethel s mind, like a flash of revelation 
 in all the storm and blackness : 
 6 This kind of a woman was Amy s best friend ! 
 
 The funeral was soon over, and of its ugly de 
 tails only a few remained in her mind. She had 
 a glimpse of Amy s face down in the handsome 
 coffin, and at the sight she turned away with a 
 swift pang of self-reproach. "I shouldn t have 
 let Fanny do that!" Fanny had dressed her 
 sister. 
 
 She remembered the low respectful voice of 
 the building superintendent : There s an after 
 noon tea on the floor below, so the casket and 
 the funeral guests had better go down by the 
 freight elevator." 
 
 She gave a strained little laugh at that and 
 asked, "I wonder when I ll cry!" 
 
 The preacher, a tall kindly young man, came in 
 and seemed about to speak; but after a look at 
 her face he stopped. He had come from a church 
 two blocks away. Joe and Amy had never been 
 to his church, and it was Nourse who had brought 
 him here. Nourse had learned of him from the 
 undertaker. 
 
 Several boxes of flowers came. 
 
 Later from a milliner s shop two pretty autumn 
 hats arrived. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 49 
 
 The guests began arriving silent, awkward 
 strangers ten or twelve. 
 
 She heard the nurse come in with Susette and 
 take her back to the nursery. 
 
 There was no music. Not a sound. 
 
 At last the silence was broken by the minister s 
 low voice. Thank heaven that was kindly. He 
 was brief, and yet too long; for from the apart 
 ment one flight below, before he had finished, the 
 festive throb of a little orchestra was heard. 
 
 He prayed just a minute or two. 
 
 Then they followed the coffin out into the hall 
 and back and down by the freight elevator. 
 
 A motor hearse was waiting below. 
 
 When the burial was over, she came home alone 
 with Joe. She sat in the living-room watching 
 his face, while the dusk grew mercifully deep. 
 Then she made him eat some supper and take 
 something to make him sleep. And later in her 
 own small room she lay on her bed, dishevelled, 
 tearless, her mind stunned, her feelings queer and 
 uneven, now surging up, now cold and still. 
 
 < Where has she gone? What do I know? . . . 
 What do I believe? Where is God? . . . What is 
 life ? What am I here f or ? " 
 
 With a pang she recalled the town in Ohio where 
 she and Amy had been born, and her thoughts 
 
50 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 went drifting for awhile. Pictures floated in and 
 out, pictures of her life at home. She was hungry 
 for them now, the old stays and firm supports, 
 the old frame house, her father and the God in 
 the yellow church, the quiet river, the high school 
 and that friendly group of eager girl companions, 
 with work, discussions, young ideals, plans and 
 dreams of life and love. . . . All up by the roots 
 in a few swift weeks ! 
 
 1 < Shall I go back?" she asked herself. "Do I 
 want to go now that Dad is dead, and most of the 
 girls have gone away, scattered all over the coun 
 try?" Again she lapsed. "I m too dull to 
 think. She let the pictures drift again. Church 
 sociables, a Christmas tree, dances, suppers and 
 buggy rides, picnics by the river. How small and 
 very far-away and trivial they now appeared. All 
 had pointed toward New York. "Go back and 
 marry, settle down? Do I want to? No. And 
 anyhow, there s Joe and Susette. My place is 
 right here and I m going to stay. But what is 
 it going to mean to me? What do I want in this 
 city now?" 
 
 In the turmoil, startled, she looked about her 
 for a purpose, some ideal. But the old beliefs 
 seemed dim; the new ones, garish and confused. 
 She recalled those faces of Amy s friends. "Yes, 
 cheap and tough, for all their clothes!" Or was 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 51 
 
 it just this ghastly time that had made them all 
 
 appear so? 
 
 Again she thought of her sister dead. 
 "Oh Amy Amy! Where have you gone?" 
 And at last, quite suddenly, the tears came, and 
 
 she huddled and shook on her bed. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SHE slept that night exhausted, woke up early 
 the next morning and lay motionless on her 
 bed: at first staring bewildered about the room, 
 and then, with a sharp contraction of her brows 
 and a quick breath, looking intently up at the 
 ceiling. A vigilant look crept into her eyes, for 
 at once instinctively she was on guard against 
 letting the feelings of yesterday rise. 
 
 "What a selfish little beast I ve been. Did 
 I help in the funeral? Not a bit. Did I comfort 
 poor Joe? Not at all. I was occupied wholly 
 with my own morbid little soul. Now we re going 
 to stiffen up, my love, and try to be of some use 
 to Joe, and do as Amy would have liked." She 
 began to tremble suddenly. \ "No, we re not going 
 to think of her! It s dangerous! Be practical! 
 To begin with, I must clear things up. I ll have 
 a little talk with Joe. Poor Joe it s going to be 
 pretty dreadful. I ll stick by him, though, and 
 I ve got to learn how to keep him from going out 
 of his mind. ? More staring at the ceiling. < < One 
 thing I know. I shan t wear black. Amy de 
 tested mourning, and Joe will see life black enough 
 as it is. ... Thank Heaven there s the house- 
 
 52 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 53 
 
 keeping to do. That shall run smoothly if it kills 
 me! ... All right, now suppose we get out of 
 bed." 
 
 About an hour later, from behind Amy s silver 
 coffee pot, Ethel had her talk with Joe. She felt 
 ill, but she bit her lips and smiled. She had 
 dressed her hair becomingly and had donned a 
 blue silk waist, one of the countless pretty things 
 that she had bought with Amy. Her brown eyes 
 had a resolute brightness. 
 
 "We ll have to help each other," she Said. 
 "And there s Susette to be thought of. The best 
 way, I guess, is not to try to do much planning 
 ahead just now. But I d like to stay here if you 
 want me, Joe. There s no other place where I 
 want to be. 
 
 He gave her a grateful tired smile. His hair 
 was a bit dishevelled, and over his blunt kindly 
 face had come a haggard lost expression. His 
 voice was low: 
 
 6 Thank you, Ethel y ou re a brick. I want you 
 here at first, God knows. Later I ll try to fix 
 things so that you can feel more free. You re 
 only a kid, with a life of your own. Big city, you 
 know, and you ll find your place." 
 
 He stared over at the window, where the sun 
 was streaming in. 
 
 "Another cup of coffee, Joe?" 
 
54 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "No, thanks." He rose slowly, and added, 
 "Let s go now to Amy s desk and fix up the 
 housekeeping part of it." 
 
 Later he said, "I ll see the nurse and the other 
 two maids and tell em they re to take orders from 
 you." He paused a moment. "And Ethel if 
 you re to stay here, I want it to be as nearly like 
 it was as I can." He gave a wincing frown. "I 
 mean on the money side, he said. " I 11 give you 
 a check the first of each month. You ll need 
 things of your own, of course as she did. I want 
 it just like that." 
 
 "Thank you, dear." She saw a muscle in his 
 cheek suddenly begin to twitch, and she thought, 
 "It won t be easy." 
 
 When Joe left for his office, she went with him 
 to the door. 
 
 She turned at once to the housekeeping. Her 
 talks with the waitress and the cook left her both 
 a little relieved and a good deal disappointed. 
 For there seemed to be nothing for her to do ; she 
 was made to feel that things would run best with 
 the least possible interference. She learned with 
 surprise that hitherto the cook had done all the 
 ordering. 
 
 "All I need to know is how many is coming," 
 said the cook. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 55 
 
 " There won t be any one for awhile. 
 
 "Then it s very simple, ma am." On the 
 woman s face was a look which said, "Just you 
 keep out of my kitchen. 
 
 It was the same in her talk with the nurse. 
 That tall gaunt creature briefly explained that, 
 "Mrs. Lanier bought clothes Spring and Fall, and 
 then she left the child to me. I go out every 
 Thursday and every other Sunday afternoon and 
 evening. Lucy the waitress takes my place. The 
 rest of the time I Ve managed alone. She looked 
 around in a jealous way and asked, "I suppose 
 you 11 want things as before 1 
 
 "Yes, for the present," Ethel said. She felt 
 the woman glance at her sharply as she turned 
 toward the door. 
 
 She went into her sister s room, sat down and 
 had a little cry. But the sunlight was streaming 
 in through the pretty chintz curtains there; and 
 its softness and its ease, its luxury and blithe 
 content, stole into her spirit and quieted her. She 
 sat looking about. 
 
 "What is there for me to do?" 
 
 It came over her that the cook and the nurse 
 could tell her just about what they pleased. She 
 had no means of checking them up, for Amy had 
 never talked of such things. It had all been pretty 
 clothes and shops, in those brief exciting weeks, 
 
56 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 and shrewd counsel about men and what it was 
 they wanted of women. How appallingly shallow 
 and meaningless those conversations now ap 
 peared. They gave no comfort or support. The 
 remembrance of the terror in Amy s eyes at the 
 thought of death rose vividly in Ethel s mind, and 
 she got up and walked the floor. 
 
 < We 11 fight this down we ll fight this down," 
 she kept repeating determinedly. And as soon 
 as she was quiet again: "What is there for me 
 to do? Why Joe, of course and heaven knows 
 he 11 be enough. He s the hardest kind, he doesn t 
 cry, he keeps it all inside of him." She drew a 
 deep breath. "How about this room!" She 
 frowned and looked around her. "No, I don t 
 think he wants anything changed. For the pres 
 ent at least, I 11 leave it alone. But he ought not 
 to be reminded of her by every little thing he 
 sees." 
 
 She looked into the closets. In Joe s she found 
 some of Amy s things. She put them back in her 
 sister s closet and then gently closed the door. As 
 she stood there a moment longer, she had a curi 
 ous feeling of Amy s presence by her side. 
 
 6 i Now, my dear, we d better go out for a walk, 
 she told herself as she turned away. But she 
 threw a glance behind her. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 57 
 
 In the weeks that followed she and Joe were 
 more intensely alone together than she could have 
 imagined. 
 
 At first a few of Amy s friends kept dropping in 
 every now and then. But although their inten 
 tions were kindly enough, Ethel felt repelled by 
 them. She resented their having been Amy s 
 friends. For swiftly and quite unconsciously, in 
 her resolute groping in the dark for solid ground 
 on which to stand, she was building up an ideal of 
 her sister and these women jarred on that. 
 They came to her direct from a world, her sister s 
 world, which she now vaguely felt to be cheap, 
 shallow, disillusioning. And she needed her il 
 lusions. By nature frank to bluntness, she was 
 not good at hiding dislikes; and her uneasy vis 
 itors soon realized with relief that they were not 
 wanted here. 
 
 Fanny Carr still came for a time. For some 
 reason that Ethel could not understand, this 
 shrewd person seemed reluctant to let go her hold 
 as a friend. She was most solicitous about Joe 
 and tried to come when he was at home. But as 
 Ethel s dislike of the woman deepened in intensity, 
 gradually Fanny s visits, too, grew less frequent 
 and then ceased. 
 
 During the first week or two, Joe s partner al- 
 
58 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 most every night came home with him to dinner 
 and took him out for evening walks. But his talk 
 was all of business. It seemed to Ethel that pur 
 posely Nourse shut her out of the conversation. 
 His manner to her, though not unkind, was like 
 that of the cook and the nurse. "The less you 
 meddle here," it said, "the better it will be for 
 Joe. Leave him to me." 
 
 Gleams of this feeling came in his eyes. It 
 showed now and then so openly that even Joe took 
 notice. He stopped bringing his partner home, 
 and he drew closer to Ethel now, as together they 
 cherished the memory of the woman who was 
 gone. 
 
 And slowly, in this companionship, this lone 
 liness, this quiet, Joe grew very real to her, and 
 appealing in his grief. Everything else seemed 
 so remote but he was close. "He needs me." 
 It was a bright spot in the dark. At times this 
 darkness had no end, it stretched away to eternity ; 
 but at least she did not face it alone. Of Joe s 
 grief she could have no doubt. Each week his 
 blunt strong features displayed more lines of suf 
 fering; his high cheek-bones showed hard and 
 grim. He was grateful, affectionate at times, but 
 more often silent, and she saw in his eyes what 
 frightened her. He had so few resources here. 
 In his office was his work, just as it had always 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 59 
 
 been ; but at home there was nothing ; his wife was 
 gone, and he seemed restless to get out. 
 
 " Let s go somewhere, " he would mutter. 
 
 She went with him for strolls in the evenings. 
 Often they walked on and on till both were ready 
 to drop with fatigue, but she stuck doggedly by 
 his side. One evening they passed the open door 
 of a church. It was lighted, and the deep low 
 rumble of an organ floated out. Joe stopped a 
 moment irresolute, and then started to go inside. 
 But a glance through the door revealed to him 
 that the church was nearly empty ; and he turned 
 away as he would have turned from any show on 
 Broadway which was so obviously "not a hit." 
 
 "Sometimes on Sunday mornings I seem to 
 hear em, preachers, droning and shouting all over 
 the land," he told her once. "What s in it? 
 What do they know about God or where you go 
 when you are dead? Nothing, no more than you 
 or I!" 
 
 His voice was harsh and bitter then, but the next 
 instant it was kind. With his arm about her he 
 was saying, 
 
 "Don t, Ethel please don t take it like that! 
 I was a brute! I won t again! I ll keep it in 
 side ! I m sorry, dear ! 
 
 "Oh, Joe," she whispered, "if we only knew!" 
 
 So these two faced eternity. 
 
60 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 But only at moments. They looked away. For 
 she saw how good it was for Joe to have the dis 
 tractions that he craved; and so on their long 
 walks at night she took him to the noisy streets, 
 or into the movies, where his mind appeared to 
 stop and find some rest. Best of all, she dis 
 covered, was to go with him in the small car which 
 he used for his business. Driving this car through 
 crowded streets amid a clamour and blare of 
 horns and shouts and peals of laughter, the look 
 on Joe s face made Ethel see how this dulled his 
 grief, how he lost himself and his questionings and 
 became a mere part of the town. What a glam 
 ourous seething town ! There was something ter 
 rific to her in its laugh. If you stopped to think 
 and ask yourself, "What are we all doing here?" 
 how soon it jostled you back into line ! 
 
 So passed another fortnight. Then Joe grew 
 quieter, and with relief she saw he was ready to 
 stay home. She herself felt tired and relaxed; 
 and it was good to sit at home on these December 
 evenings and feel that both had partly emerged 
 from the sea of doubts in which they had been 
 plunged. He had come out of it, she soon learned, 
 with an image of his wife that even Ethel vaguely 
 felt was swiftly becoming so ideal as to have little 
 or no resemblance to the woman who had died. 
 But eagerly she helped him in this building of 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 61 
 
 Amy s memory. She dwelt upon Amy s appeal 
 ing side, her lovable moods, her beauty and dash, 
 her unerring instinct for pretty things, her un 
 selfishness, her anxious planning for Ethel s good. 
 
 And all this fitted in so well with the picture 
 Joe was making of the wife who had been so true 
 to him, who had never had a thought or a wish 
 for anything but his career. How cheerfully she 
 had given up all sorts of pleasures, trips abroad, 
 a house in the country, summer vacations. Year 
 after year she had spent the hot months almost 
 wholly in town because he could not afford to 
 leave, although she herself had had many chances 
 to go to friends in the mountains or up along 
 the seashore. Instead she had stayed with him 
 in town ; and in the evenings always she had been 
 waiting, good-humoured and gay, ready to stay 
 home or go out; with never a word of complaint 
 for the delay of his prosperity, but only encour 
 agement and praise. 
 
 At times, as Joe talked on and on, in this mood 
 of hungry wistful love and humility and self- 
 reproach, Ethel would bring herself back with a 
 jerk to the Amy she had known; but again she 
 would feel herself borne along upon the tide of 
 his belief, and she was glad that it was so. So 
 the picture grew. Nor was it only when they 
 talked. For often in long silences, when she 
 
62 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 thought he was reading his paper, she would 
 glance up from her book and find him staring into 
 the past. And again at the piano, smoking and 
 playing idly, his music made her realize how his 
 mind was groping back through the years, picking 
 and choosing here and there what he needed to 
 build up his ideal. 
 
 This music at times made her curious, wonder 
 ing what kind of a man he had been before Amy 
 took him in hand. 
 
 1 Where did you learn to play like that, Joe?" 
 He frowned a little. 
 
 "Oh, long ago." 
 
 He did not seem to care to go back of his mar 
 riage. So Ethel let him continue his building; 
 and though at times she smiled a little at some 
 of his fond recollections, still her own deep adora 
 tion of her older sister, the whirl of happy mem 
 ories of that vivid month in town, and the sense of 
 all that Amy had been planning to do for her, 
 combined now with her desperate loneliness to 
 put Ethel in a mood where she gladly and loyally 
 believed almost, anything good of her sister. 
 
 Christmas was only one example of many simi 
 lar incidents. They had a small Christmas tree 
 for Susette, and they hung up her stocking as 
 well, and went out Christmas Eve and bought 
 candy canes and dogs and dolls and picture books. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 63 
 
 And although this was Ethel s idea, it was made 
 to appear as only the thing which Amy would have 
 done had she lived. 
 
 So in these two hungry souls, groping for 
 something bright and deep and strong upon which 
 they could live, swiftly and unawares to them 
 both the picture of Amy was stamped deep, 
 idealized and beautified. In life it had been fas 
 cinating, but now it was almost heroic as well. It 
 was as though the small gloved hand, which Ethel 
 had noticed so many times, in death had increased 
 the power of its light, firm, tenacious hold. 
 
 Ethel began to feel more free, for Joe was no 
 longer on her mind. More than once, in fact, she 
 was surprised at the way he seemed to be settling 
 down. She felt a deeper change in him, something 
 she did not understand. The worn harassed ex 
 pression she had so often seen on his face while 
 his wife had been alive, the look of a man driven 
 and drained of his vitality, was now gone; and 
 in its place was an unconscious look of content. 
 He often stayed very late at the office ; and more 
 and more in his evenings at home he went to his 
 desk and became absorbed in documents and blue 
 print plans. 
 
 "What a refuge a man s business is," she 
 thought with a twinge of envy. 
 
64 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 And wistfully she began to look about for some 
 resource for herself. She felt the youth within 
 her rise, but the city seemed so vast and strange. 
 In her loneliness the big building of which her 
 present home was a part, seemed doubly huge, im 
 personal, hard; and so did every other building on 
 that block appear. She felt lost, left out amid 
 ceaseless tides of gaiety on every hand. She took 
 long determined walks, and on these walks she 
 donned the smart attractive clothes that she had 
 bought with Amy. She strove to keep her mind 
 on the sights, the faces of people afoot and in 
 cars, the adorable things in shop windows. And 
 she chatted busily to herself in order to keep on 
 admiring. This old habit of hers, of soliloquy, 
 had grown upon her unawares, as a refuge from 
 her loneliness. Sometimes she even talked aloud. 
 Sturdily she told herself, 
 
 "You ve only begun. You ll get up out of this, 
 Ethel Knight just wait. Can t you give a few 
 months to Amy now 1 
 
 And scowling at her "morbidness" in feeling 
 dreary and forlorn, she resolutely scanned the 
 papers for news of lectures, plays and concerts. 
 She went to a few in the afternoons, and dressed 
 for them as carefully as though they were great 
 social affairs. And in the intermissions when a 
 buzz of talk would rise, she would begin with quick 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 65 
 
 animation to converse with herself and be gay, or 
 alert and argumentative. Her lips would move 
 inaudibly. Now and then she would brightly 
 smile and nod across the house at some friend she 
 pretended to have seen. She enrolled for a course 
 of lectures upon "Mental Science/ She re 
 sumed her reading of magazines and books on all 
 kinds of topics. It made her think of high school 
 days, and hungrily she reached back for that old 
 zest and inquisitiveness about everything under 
 the moon and stars. 
 
 And through this searching she caught hints of 
 the presence in the city of a life wider and deeper 
 than shops and yet not antagonistic a life of 
 gaiety, grace and ease, but with it all the brilliancy 
 to which Amy had been blind ; the rich ferment of 
 new ideas in women s lives, discussions, work of 
 many kinds, art, music, "movements" all com 
 bined into one thrilling, pulsing whole. And again 
 she felt within herself that rising tide of youth 
 and eager vitality. 
 
 "Oh, what couldn t I do, my dear, if I only had 
 a chance? Why doesn t somebody see it at once 
 notice me now, right here on the street? You, 
 madam, in that limousine look out and see me 
 don t go by! You re losing the chance of a life 
 time! You re missing me me Ethel Knight!" 
 
 As the dame in her car sped smoothly by, Ethel 
 
66 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 suddenly laughed aloud. But her laughter had a 
 dangerous note, and she added fiercely, biting her 
 lip: 
 
 "Now, don t be silly and burst into tears!" 
 
 "Ma am?" said a voice. 
 
 She stopped with a jerk and looked up into the 
 startled eyes of a massive young policeman. Her 
 last remark had been spoken directly up into his 
 face, and the youth was blushing visibly. 
 
 " Oh ! " she gasped. Excuse me ! " 
 
 "Certainly, ma am." 
 
 And she hurried on. 
 
 This loneliness lasted several weeks. Then Joe 
 grew dimly aware of it, and came to her assis 
 tance with awkward efforts to comfort her. He 
 was at home more often at night. His gruff voice 
 took on a kindlier tone, and in an offhand manner 
 intended to seem casual he would ask where she 
 had been that day or what book she was reading. 
 And they would discuss it for a while. He took 
 her to the theatre and to a concert now and then. 
 They went for rides at night in his car, and he 
 talked to her about his work. She could feel his 
 anxious friendliness. "What a dear he is to me," 
 she thought. 
 
 As time went on this companionship grew so 
 natural to them both that more than once Ethel 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 67 
 
 felt in herself a content which made her a little 
 uneasy. As in his blunt kindly way Joe drew 
 closer to her now, she had an awkward conscious 
 ness of being in her sister s place. No, not that 
 exactly. Still, she did not care to think of it. She 
 kept out of Amy s room. It had subtly changed 
 and become Joe s room to her mind at least 
 though by little things he said and did she knew 
 that Joe was keeping that idealized image of his 
 wife still warm and living in his mind. 
 
 But was he altogether? At times she would 
 frown to herself a bit. Joe loyal? Yes, of course 
 he was, she would indignantly declare. In a novel 
 Ethel had once read, the hero who had lost his wife 
 had taken his grief in this same silent way; and 
 the author had laid it down as a law that all quiet 
 widowers are the kind who never, never marry 
 again. This thought had taken root in her mind ; 
 and she applied it now to Joe. 
 
 Soon at his suggestion she began to use some of 
 Amy s things. One night when they were going 
 out, he helped her slip into her sister s soft lux 
 urious sable cloak. And as she turned, she de 
 tected a queerly uncertain look in Joe s eyes. But 
 in an instant it was gone, and she soon dismissed 
 her uneasiness. For through the weeks that fol 
 lowed he became engrossed in his business and 
 barely noticed her at all. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ABOUT this time a letter from home brought 
 her a sharp disappointment. Ethel was not 
 a good correspondent, but during the homesick 
 winter months she had written several times to 
 three of the girls she had known in school. Two 
 had gone west, but the other one was still in Ohio 
 and was planning to come to New York, to take 
 a course of training as nurse in one of the hos 
 pitals. In fact it had been all arranged. And 
 Ethel had not realized how much she had counted 
 on this friend, until now a letter came announcing 
 her engagement to a young doctor in Detroit. 
 She was going there to live, and her letter was 
 full of her happiness. Ethel was very blue that 
 night. 
 
 But only a few days after this she received an 
 other missive that had quite a different effect. It 
 Was a long bulky epistle, a "round robin " from 
 the members of the little high school club to which 
 she had belonged at home. The girls had scat 
 tered far and wide. One was teaching music in an 
 Oklahoma town; another had gone to Cleveland 
 and was a stenographer in a broker s office there; 
 
 68 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 69 
 
 a third was in Chicago, the wife of a young lawyer ; 
 and a fourth had married an engineer who was 
 working a mine in Montana. It made an absorb 
 ing narrative, and she read it several times. At 
 first it took her out of herself, far, far out all over 
 the land. How good it was to get news of them 
 all, how nice and gossipy and gay. It was almost 
 as though they were here in the room ; she seemed 
 to be talking with each one ; and as they chatted on 
 and on, the feeling grew in Ethel that each was 
 starting like herself and that some were having 
 no easy time in unfamiliar places. She could read 
 between the lines. 
 
 But the part that struck her most was the con 
 tribution of their former history "prof," a little 
 lame woman with snappy black eyes, who had been 
 the leading spirit in their long discussions. She 
 was an ardent suffragist, and she it was who had 
 brought so many modern books and plays and 
 1 1 movements into their talk. Chained to her job 
 in the small town, she had followed voraciously all 
 the news of the seething changing world outside, 
 of the yeast at work in the cities. And to the let 
 ters of some of the girls who seemed bent upon 
 nothing but social success, the little teacher now 
 replied by an appeal to all of them : 
 
 "Girls, some of these letters worry me. I don t 
 want to preach you will lead your own lives. 
 
70 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 But I cannot help reminding you of the things we 
 talked about the splendid things, exciting things 
 that are stirring in this land today. Oh, what a 
 chance for women what openings with narrow 
 doors what fights to make the doorways wide for 
 the girls who will come after you! Keep your 
 selves strong and awake and alive keep growing 
 remember that life is a school and for you it has 
 only just begun. Don t sit at your desks in your 
 homes, I mean blinking with a man at your side. 
 Keep yourselves free don t marry for money 
 don t let yourselves get under the thumb of any 
 husband, rich or poor, or of social position or 
 money or clothes or any such silly trumpery. Get 
 the real things! Oh, I m preaching, I know, as 
 I did in spite of myself at home. But girls dear 
 friends and comrades be strong and don t give 
 up the ship ! 
 
 Ethel read it many times. She could hear the 
 voice of the little "prof," now earnest, scornful, 
 pleading, now obstinate and angry, again light- 
 hearted, mocking. She recalled how their leader 
 had warned them against the bribery of men. 
 Most of the girls had smiled at her then, for they 
 had felt themselves so strong and clear in their 
 aims and desires. 
 
 "Oh, Ethel Ethel Ethel Knight. How have 
 the mighty fallen. One week in New York and 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 71 
 
 your eyes were glued to the windows of shops. 
 You got ready to dance and find a man. 
 
 The thought rose in her mind "That was 
 Amy s idea." But she dismissed it with a frown. 
 She turned back to the letters and read them all 
 through over again. She rose and walked slowly 
 up and down with her hands locked behind her. 
 Then she went to her desk, and to the round robin 
 she added this : 
 
 "I am in New York and have nothing to say. 
 I have been a fool. I have spent nearly all my 
 money on a lot of silly clothes. No, not silly 
 fetching clothes for they were meant to fetch a 
 man. But in getting them I got nothing else. 
 I have had a shock a terrible one. My sister 
 Amy suddenly died. I am here now to care for 
 her child. But am II Nothing of the kind. The 
 nurse does that and I do nothing. I just sit 
 or walk about and scowl at what I am missing. 
 No more from me, girls, until the round robin the 
 dear splendid thrilling round robin comes back 
 here on its next yearly round. I swear I ll have 
 a job by then! Good luck and God bless us all! 
 We re young!" 
 
 Quickly she crammed all the letters into a large 
 envelope, licked it, pressed it firmly down, and 
 addressed it to, "Miss Barbara Wells, Bismarck, 
 North Dakota," She stamped it, felt the tears 
 
72 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 come, kissed the letter a fierce good-bye, took it 
 out and dropped it in the mail box in the hall. 
 Then she came back to her own room, and with 
 swift, determined jerks took off the black cloth 
 wrapping of a large old-fashioned typewriter, one 
 of the few belongings she had brought from Ohio. 
 She had purchased it several years ago, and by 
 typing sermons and other occasional documents 
 she had earned almost money enough for the 
 clothes that had cost so little at home. 
 
 She sat down and began to pound the keys, 
 but soon she stopped and shook her head. She 
 had never been an expert. Self-taught, her work 
 had been laboured and slow, and the lapse of 
 months had thrown her out. "However! Some 
 thing must be done ! And the pounding went on 
 for days and days, hour after hour ; and when her 
 fingers, wrists and arms felt like "two long tooth 
 aches/ she exclaimed impatiently, 
 
 "Oh, for goodness sake stop being so soft! 
 You re a new woman, Ethel Knight, and you re 
 going to earn your living!" 
 
 At times, however, stopping to rest and care 
 fully scan her labour for faults, her mind would 
 rove far out into life. She was copying from two 
 books the little "prof" had given her, the "Life 
 and Letters of George Sand"; and "The Work 
 of Susan B. Anthony." And as Ethel pounded 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 73 
 
 on, each book in its own way revealed exciting 
 vistas to her eyes of life in great cities both here 
 and abroad, life earnest and inspiring, life bright 
 and thrilling, brilliant, free! 
 
 6 i Oh, your future life, my love, will be far from 
 dull and blinking ! 
 
 And this mood lasted for two weeks. Then as 
 her hand grew more expert, and she scanned the 
 papers for information of employment bureaus, 
 there came some ugly hours when much pounding 
 was required. She went out and tramped the 
 streets, meeting the town with angry eyes that 
 struggled for self-confidence. And twice, al 
 though she had dressed herself with a keen and 
 vigilant eye to her own attractiveness and had 
 gone to the bureau she had selected, with a sinking 
 heart she turned back from the door. But the 
 second time, after leaving, with a scowl she faced 
 about, went back and marched into the office. 
 And a little later when she emerged, her face had 
 a stunned and dazed expression. She still could 
 not believe it! For the woman in charge, after 
 one sharp look and a number of questions, had re 
 marked, 
 
 "Why, yes, I think we can place you. I ve one 
 position waiting right now." There had been 
 more questioning, but this had seemed rather per 
 functory. The woman had not appeared to care 
 
74 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 very much that Ethel had only one reference 
 from the old minister back at home ; and the brief 
 exhibition of her skill which Ethel gave upon a 
 machine, with her fingers excited, cold and tense, 
 had lasted but a minute or two when the woman 
 had said, "Yes, that will do." 
 
 Ethel scowled as she tried to remember it all. 
 There had been one flaw. What was it? 
 
 "Oh, yes, she warned me about men." And 
 here Ethel gave a sharp little laugh, with a lump 
 of excitement in her throat. "Well, I think I can 
 handle myself on that point." She recalled with 
 assurance recollections and there had been not 
 a few of youths at home who had tried to "get 
 fresh," and had soon been shown where they got 
 off! 
 
 She was walking very rapidly toward a subway 
 station, and soon she was on her way downtown. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, I m sorry to say that it isn t 
 your skill, it is your face that has got you this 
 chance. All right, Face, thank you very much. 
 If you ll just keep steady, eyes easy and cool, jaw 
 firm but not too ugly." . . . 
 
 And when a few minutes later she was shown 
 into the private office of her future employer, she 
 almost laughed in his fat round face so absurd 
 in that first moment did all her little qualms ap 
 pear. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 75 
 
 "He s forty and be loves Ms meals." 
 
 And she answered his questions so blithely, with 
 such an anxious friendliness, that the dumpy man 
 who sat at the desk was plainly attracted and 
 easily caught. In fact, in his heavy-lidded eyes 
 and about his thick lips came a look which repelled 
 her a little. "I shouldn t wonder if even you 
 might get feeling young again," she thought to 
 herself disgustedly. "But I guess I can attend 
 to that!" 
 
 "Yes, sir, fifteen dollars a week," she was say 
 ing meanwhile in a firm brisk tone of voice. Of 
 course I know it s just a trial, but I ll do my best, 
 I promise you." 
 
 "Veil," said Mr. Greesheimer, "you be here to 
 morrow at nine und ve ll see." He sighed. 
 "Ve ll see, my friend." He turned back to his 
 desk with an abrupt and businesslike little gesture 
 of dismissal. 
 
 And this businesslike air he retained on the 
 morrow. As he explained her work to her, the 
 tone of his voice was crisp and dry. Ladies 
 cloaks were Greesheimer s "line," and though his 
 business was still new he was increasing it rapidly. 
 He was eager, hungry, almost fierce in the way he 
 snapped off his letters at times; again he was a 
 genial soul, boasting to her of his success and giv 
 ing forth shrewd homely proverbs that he had 
 
76 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 learned long ago as a child in some Galician vil 
 lage. But never in those weeks of work did she 
 catch a suggestion of " freshness." He was her 
 boss, and at times her friend in a fatherly fashion 
 . that was all. She worked hard, overcame her 
 awkwardness, was punctual, laboured to please 
 him. And he was not slow to praise. 
 
 "You re a smart young goil," he said more than 
 once. "Keep on it s great it suits me fine." 
 
 And despite the monotonous bleak detail of her 
 life in that room, Ethel grew steadily happier 
 there. For she was gaming confidence fast, she 
 was living up to her ideals. Soon she would be 
 ready to leave this funny little man and get a 
 place of a different kind as secretary, for in 
 stance, to some clever woman novelist or noted 
 suffrage leader. She had already put down her 
 name at three employment bureaus, in each of 
 which the woman in charge seemed to look upon 
 her with a favourable eye. 
 
 Too bad poor Joe disliked it so. When she in 
 formed him of what she had done, he had appeared 
 quite taken back. 
 
 "All right, Ethel, go ahead. I don t want to 
 meddle," he had replied. "Only" he had 
 scowled at her in an effort to smile "I don t quite 
 see well, go ahead." 
 
 Plainly it had been a surprise. It was so utterly 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 77 
 
 different from what Amy would have done. It 
 had set him thinking, hurt him. "She wants to 
 get away," he had thought. Ethel had caught his 
 feeling and had pitied him for it. But mingled 
 with this pity had been a vague resentment : 
 
 "The minute you show you ve made up your 
 mind to be a little independent, they treat it like 
 a slap in the face. All right, Mr. Male Provider, 
 your tender feelings will have to be hurt. There s 
 nothing the matter, I mean to stay here. I 11 stick 
 by you just as long as you need me. Only, I pro 
 pose to be free!" 
 
 Their relations had grown a little strained. He 
 had stayed at the office more often at night. Very 
 well, let him sulk in his masculine way. Only one 
 remark of his had annoyed her. Like the woman 
 in the employment bureau, he had warned Ethel 
 against men. 
 
 "When it comes to looks," he had ended, 
 "you re one in a thousand. And in this town " 
 
 "Oh, Joe, for goodness sake hush up !" she had 
 cried. A bright spot of colour had come in each 
 cheek and her strong little mouth had set viciously. 
 "You ll be telling me next that I got my position 
 simply on my pretty face ! No brains behind it, 
 of course, no mind!" And she had tapped one 
 foot on the floor in a way which made him look 
 at her in a curious manner, startled and admiring. 
 
78 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "Oh, no, I won t," he had told her meekly. 
 "You ve got the makings of more real mind than 
 any girl I ve ever seen." 
 
 "Thank yon," she had snapped at him, but she 
 had liked him nevertheless. So long as one had 
 to live with a man, even as his sister-in-law, it was 
 well to have him in his place. 
 
 So her annoyance had died down, and had only 
 risen a little again when one day Joe came to her 
 office. There was some excuse, of course, but his 
 real reason obviously was to have a look at her 
 employer and at the same time show the man 
 that she had a male protector. Booh! . . . But 
 Joe had smiled at Greesheimer and had withdrawn 
 quite reassured, leaving her and her job in peace. 
 
 As Ethel s business life went on, her self-confi 
 dence grew apace. And now that she had proved 
 to herself that she had brains behind her face, she 
 dropped her air of severity and even began to en 
 joy the glances which she knew were cast her 
 way, on the streets and in the office. Even on old 
 Greesheimer, when he was in one of his genial 
 moods, she would bestow a winning smile. It was 
 good to have both brains and face. She looked 
 at the city with challenging eyes, a self-supporting 
 woman. 
 
 And this state of mind might have lasted some 
 time, had it not happened that one sunny day to- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 79 
 
 ward the end of April Greesheimer opened a letter 
 with eager trembling fingers, read it swiftly and 
 glared with joy, his big glistening eyes nearly 
 leaving their sockets. Then he whirled around in 
 his chair, and as his eye lit on Ethel, he laughed, 
 and in a harsh queer voice he cried, 
 
 "Veil? Now you see? I m rich alreatty, I m 
 veil off ! I got the Zimmerman contract see ? I 
 can do vot I like ! I got it ! I got it ! " He ca 
 pered in triumphant glee, laughing again and seiz 
 ing her arms. Veil, vot you say ? Vy don t you 
 speak? By Gott, I raise your salary!" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Greesheimer!" she cried, half laugh 
 ing. " It s simply too wonderful for words ! 
 
 "Ha ha!" He still had her by the arms. 
 "All you young goils could love me now eh? 
 you could take an old fellah! Ha-ha-ha!" And 
 the next instant, furious, she felt herself hugged 
 violently, kissed! His lips! His fat soft body! 
 Ugh ! She dug her elbow into him with a stifled 
 cry and wrenched away. A moment she turned on 
 him eyes ablaze. 
 
 "You dirty beastly " she gasped for breath, 
 then turned, and seizing her hat and coat she 
 rushed blindly from the room and through the 
 outer office. In the elevator crowded with men she 
 felt a queer taste in her mouth. 
 
 "That s blood," she thought. "Biting my lip, 
 
80 HIS SECOND WIPE 
 
 am Iwell, bite on. I m not going to cry I m 
 not, I m not I ll reach that street if it kills me !" 
 
 Meanwhile in his office Greesheimer was still 
 staring, first at the door and then at the window, 
 and upon his pudgy countenance was a glare of 
 utter astonishment and honest indignation. 
 
 "Mein Gott!" he exploded. "I give her a hug 
 a hug like a daughter and off like a rocket 
 off she goes!" And in Yiddish and in Hebrew 
 and Eussian and American, Greesheimer ex 
 pressed himself as he strode swiftly up and down. 
 For seven years without a break he had "kept a 
 goil" more fascinating to his taste than any fe 
 male in New York. Her name was Sadie, she 
 was a model in a dressmaker s shop uptown, and 
 she owned him body and soul. Their marriage 
 had only been put off until he had bridged the 
 dangerous time in the launching of his business. 
 For Greesheimer had a mother, an old uncle and a 
 sister and two small nephews to support. But this 
 Zimmerman contract, "Gott sei danke!" would 
 clear the way for marriage at once. And as that 
 glorious vision, of relatives all radiant and Sadie 
 flushed and joyous leaping into his embrace, had 
 burst upon his dazzled soul, his glance had lit on 
 his employe, and he had hugged her in his joy! 
 And she 
 
 Again did Greesheimer swear! He felt hot 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 81 
 
 angry blushes rise. And later at his telephone he 
 was saying to a woman friend who ran an employ 
 ment bureau, 
 
 "I got to have a stenographer. See? Und I 
 don t vant a goil, I vant a man a smart young 
 fellah, y understand. . . . Jewish? Yes! You 
 betcher ! No more Christian goils in mine ! Dey 
 have rotten minds plain rotten minds ! 
 
 But to Ethel, walking blindly, no such explana 
 tion occurred. She could still feel that body, those 
 greedy lips and clutching hands, and out of her 
 disgust and rage emerged another feeling which 
 grew like a load on her shoulders, sagging her 
 spirit and crushing her down. 
 
 "Joe was right. It was only my face. That 
 beast was only waiting! ... I wonder if they re 
 all like that? Probably not. But how can I tell 
 the sheep from the goats? I thought I could. I 
 thought I knew how to handle myself I thought 
 I knew how to get on in this town! But I don t, 
 it seems I ve done nothing at all ! I Ve just been 
 a little fool! . . . And New York is like that !" 
 
 She glared at the city around her, at its tall, 
 hard unfriendly walls, the jangling trolleys down 
 below, the trucks and drays and the crowds rush 
 ing by her. For all their hurry, some of the 
 men shot glances at Ethel that made her burn. 
 One tall thin man even stopped and turned and 
 
82 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 she felt his look travel right down to her toes! 
 She walked on and on with her bare fists clenched. 
 She had left her gloves in the office. Go back for 
 them I No ! Nor to any office, nor any man ! 
 
 "Oh, yes, I will, I ll go back to Joe and hear 
 him say, I told you so. " 
 
 She reached the apartment faint and sick. Joe 
 had not come home, thank goodness. She went 
 to her room and to her bed, and had a good cry, 
 which relieved her a little. And so, after an hour 
 or two, looking steadily up at the ceiling, she de 
 cided that after a few days rest she would go to 
 all three of those bureaus and say, "I m in the 
 market still, if you please, but only for a woman 
 boss." 
 
 But later, as she was dressing for dinner, her 
 eye was caught by the photograph of her sister 
 Amy. And the face appeared to her suddenly so 
 strong and wise with its knowledge of life. She 
 remembered Amy s smiles at all new "move 
 ments" and ideas and work for women. She 
 seemed to be smiling now, with a good-humoured 
 pitying air, and to be saying, 
 
 "Now will you believe me? It isn t what you 
 say to men, it s how you look and what you wear." 
 
 And Ethel stared at it and frowned, in a dis 
 illusioned, questioning way. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 JOE did not say, "I told you so." 
 It was after eight that evening when he 
 came home from his office, and she was annoyed at 
 the delay, for she wanted to have her confession 
 of failure over and done with. As she waited 
 restlessly, she envied him his business life. How 
 much simpler everything was for a man! Her 
 nerves were on edge. Why didn t he come? At 
 last she heard his key in the door and sharply 
 pulled herself together. "How I detest him!" 
 she thought to herself. 
 
 "Hello, Ethel." His voice from the hallway 
 had a gruff and tired sound ; but a moment later 
 when he came in, it was with his usual friendly 
 smile. "Sorry I kept you waiting. I ve had a 
 mean day at the office. 
 
 "So have I," said Ethel, and with a frown she 
 plunged right in. The sooner this was over the 
 better. But when she had finished and looked 
 up, she detected no triumph on his face. He was 
 watching her so queerly. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I ought to be sorry, I sup 
 pose but I can t exactly say I am." 
 
 83 
 
84 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 < < Why not f " At her sharp challenge he grimly 
 smiled. 
 
 4 1 Because this kind of puts us in the same 
 boat two of a kind." 
 
 "What on earth do you mean?" she demanded. 
 And then with a rueful grimace he said, 
 
 6 Because I too have bumped my head. " As at 
 that she felt a swift little thrill of surprise and 
 liking for Joe, he continued, "I ve been a fool. 
 You re always a fool when you take a chance and 
 aren t able to get away with it. You re a fool 
 because you missed out. I m a fool because / 
 missed out. We both of us took chances. And I 
 got very badly stung. We ve got to be poor for 
 a little while." Joe drew a deep breath and 
 smiled again. "I ve dreaded this. I ve put off 
 telling you for a week I don t like eating humble 
 pie. But it s all right now, God bless you we can 
 eat it side by side." 
 
 "Why, Joe, dear, how nice!" she sighed. "Go 
 on and tell me. What will it mean?" He held 
 up his hand. 
 
 "Hold on a minute, can t you? Let me make 
 my little speech. I ve made it so many times in 
 my mind." 
 
 "All right, you poor dear, just start right in." 
 
 "Well," said Joe, "it begins like this." And 
 his face grew a little portentous, with humour and 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 85 
 
 a deeper feeling mingled awkwardly together. 
 " You ve been about as good to me as one fellow 
 could be to another. I know what a hell it must 
 have been, and the stiff upper lip was all on your 
 side. I don t want to talk about it, but when 
 Amy died the life went out of my business too. 
 Later I got back my nerve, and because my job 
 was all I had left I tried to make it more worth 
 while. I ve got a few old dreams in me I mean 
 I ve always wanted to build something better 
 than flats in the Bronx. So I well, I took a 
 chance and failed. I m in debt and my only 
 chance to scrape through is to cut down here as 
 low as we can. I ve figured out our expenses, 
 and" 
 
 He walked for a moment. She quickly rose, 
 went to him and took his arm and said, 
 
 "A very fine speech. We ll go in to our dinner 
 now and later we ll get a pencil and paper, and 
 we won t stop until everything s right." 
 
 There came for Ethel busy days. 
 
 The next morning she went to the nursery and 
 told the nurse she would have to go. "I m 
 sorry," she added and then stopped short, startled 
 by the woman s face. The way her eyes went to 
 Susette made something leap in Ethel s breast. 
 The nurse wheeled sharply : 
 
86 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "What have I done? What s the matter with 
 me?" Her voice was strained. 
 
 "Nothing. There has been nothing at all." 
 Ethel found it hard to speak. "You ve been 
 quite wonderful with Susette. The trouble is that 
 Mr. Lanier has found he must cut expenses." 
 
 "Oh. Then why am I the one?" She broke 
 off and grew rigid, but her thought struck into 
 Ethel s mind : Why am I the one ? Why don t 
 you go ? What good are you here ? 
 
 "I m sorry," Ethel repeated. "I wish I could 
 keep you, but I can t. I ll have to take care of 
 Susette myself " 
 
 "You?" 
 
 "Yes, and you ll have to teach me how." 
 
 "I won t!" 
 
 "You mean you ll let her suffer because you 
 haven t shown me things ? No, no, I m sure you 11 
 be sensible. You ll stay on a few days and help 
 me, and meanwhile I ll do all I can to find you a 
 good position. I only hope I can get you back 
 again in the autumn. You see it may only be for 
 a time. She went to the nurse, who now had her 
 arms about the child. " I m so sorry. Eemember 
 I want you back. 
 
 There were tears in Ethel s eyes as she left the 
 nursery. "Whew!" She went into her own 
 small room. "I wonder if I ll ever feel like that 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 87 
 
 about a child V She stared a moment and added, 
 1 i That was real enough, poor thing. 7 She drew 
 a resolute breath. "Well, no use in feeling like 
 a criminal, my dear. Now for the cook and the 
 waitress. " 
 
 She rather took satisfaction in that, for she had 
 disliked both of them keenly. She gave them 
 until the end of the week, and in the meantime 
 telegraphed for Emily Giles, who for over five 
 years had helped her keep house for her father at 
 home. Of medium height, spare, thin chested and 
 thin lipped, her hair already streaked with grey, 
 Emily had been less a servant than a grimly de 
 voted friend. Since Ethel s departure, she had 
 been head-waitress at the small hotel. 
 
 "Emily will come," thought Ethel, "unless 
 she s dead or paralysed." 
 
 And Emily came. 
 
 "Well, Miss Ethel, here I am," she said on her 
 arrival. She said, "Miss Ethel" quite naturally, 
 although she had always said "Ethel" before. 
 But her tone made it sound like, "Well, kid, here 
 I am. Now let s see what kind of a mess it is you 
 want me to get you out of." 
 
 With the aid of a book entitled, "How To Live 
 Well On Little," together they puzzled and con 
 trived. 
 
 "The things that have gone on in this kitchen," 
 
88 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Emily muttered more than once, as her sharp 
 grey eyes peered here and there, now into drawers 
 and closets, now at the many unpaid bills. 
 "When that cook of yours wasn t grafting she 
 must have been getting drunk on your wine." 
 As the record was unfolded of years of careless 
 extravagance, Ethel would frown and turn away, 
 for it seemed disloyal to pry so deep. Poor Amy 
 was dead and buried. 
 
 .With Emily she went marketing, and they beat 
 down and bullied mankind. Emily was so good 
 at that. And at home they worked out a schedule 
 of housekeeping on a rigidly economical scale, 
 dividing the work between them. All this was 
 rather pleasant. The trouble came in the nurs 
 ery, where more than once the face of the stricken 
 woman there made it hard to keep one s mind 
 keen and clear for all the intricate details of the 
 careful mothering in this room, from which barely 
 a sound had ever gone out to disturb the peace of 
 Amy s home. 
 
 But it was soon over. The nurse had taken her 
 departure and Ethel had moved to the nursery. 
 And now the routine of her day brought such a 
 change in Ethel s life as deeply affected her future 
 course though at first she had but little time to 
 stop for self -analysis. At five in the morning she 
 was roused by the low, sweet chirrup of Susette, 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 89 
 
 who was peering over the edge of the crib. And 
 her day from that time on was filled with a suc 
 cession of little tasks, which at first puzzled and 
 wearied her, made her often anxious and cross, 
 but then attracted her more and more. What a 
 change from the month before, from Mr. Grees- 
 heimer to Susette! She became engrossed in 
 the washing and dressing and feeding of her tiny 
 charge. Anxiously she watched Susette for the 
 slightest sign of illness ; and in this watching she 
 grew to know the meaning of certain looks and 
 gestures, baby talk. Susette became a person, 
 wee but very intimate. 
 
 In the park on those lovely days of May, Ethel 
 liked to feel herself a part of the small world of 
 nurses and mothers who chatted or sewed while 
 children played and motor cars went purring by. 
 There were little distractions ; for Susette was a 
 sociable creature, and the small friends she dis 
 covered brought Ethel into conversation with the 
 women who had them in charge. Several of the 
 mothers were French very French in the way 
 they dressed, in the way they sewed, in their quick 
 gestures, shrugs and smiles and their pretty, 
 broken English. They lent a piquant novelty to 
 motherhood in Ethel s eyes. 
 
 At times she thought of Amy. Why had Amy 
 missed all this? How had she been able to keep 
 
90 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 away from this adorable child of hers? Ethel 
 saw in the windows of shops the most tempting 
 garments for small girls. And Amy had had 
 money to spend! Susette s wardrobe was " sim 
 ply pathetic I" And often, sitting in the Park 
 and watching on the road nearby the endless pro 
 cession of automobiles and the women like Amy 
 so daintily clad, and puzzling and remembering 
 innumerable little things from her first gay 
 month in town in Ethel s mind the picture of the 
 sister she had adored began to change a little, and 
 to lose its hold upon her. Amy beautiful, indolent 
 toward Susette and the household; Amy tense, 
 with a jealous, vigilant light in her eyes, when it 
 was a matter of Joe and her love or the money 
 so passionately desired. 
 
 But these recollections she would dismiss with 
 excuses for her sister. " There are two kinds of 
 women," Ethel sagely told herself. " Mothers 
 and wives. And she was a wife. It may be I m 
 a mother." And little by little, in spite of her 
 self, her worship of her sister changed to a pity 
 ing tolerance. The question, Shall I ever be like 
 that?" once so full of eagerness had already 
 been answered unconsciously. "Poor Amy, she s 
 dead. She lived her life. I m going to live an 
 other." 
 
 Just what life it was to be was as unsettled as 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 91 
 
 before. For as she grew used to this mothering, 
 the old adventurous hunger for life welled up 
 again within her. For long periods she forgot the 
 child and sat frowning into space, her mind grop 
 ing restlessly for ways and means to find herself 
 and get friends of her own, independence, work 
 and gaiety, a chance to grow and "be somebody 
 here ! She had her angry, baffled moods. 
 
 But from these Susette would bring her back. 
 "What s your life to be, you poor little dear? 
 And if you don t worry, why should I?" And 
 resolutely she would turn to the small, absorbing 
 life of the child. 
 
 This went on for many months. It changed her 
 feeling toward the town, for now she had a foot 
 hold here. It changed her feeling toward Amy, 
 whose picture had begun to blur. But that queer 
 sensation of intimacy, of being in her sister s 
 place, was even deeper than before. For now she 
 was mothering Amy s child her child and her 
 husband. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FOE a time she had seen little of Joe. She 
 had been absorbed in her new work; and 
 Joe, in his business troubles. But as he began to 
 see light ahead, again he took notice of things at 
 home; and rather to his own surprise he enjoyed 
 the change that had been made. The simpler 
 ways appealed to him. He and Emily got on fa 
 mously. And he began to notice Susette, to come 
 home early now and then, in time to see her take 
 her bath or to sit on the floor and build houses of 
 blocks. He knew about building houses, and he 
 could do fascinating things which made his small 
 daughter stare at him in grg#e admiration. 
 
 "How dear he is with her," Ethel thought. 
 
 Although she was barely aware of the fact, her 
 own new tenderness for the child had tightened 
 the bonds between her and its father. His blunt, 
 affectionate kindliness appealed to her often in a 
 way that even brought little qualms of doubt. 
 She would look at Joe occasionally in a thought 
 ful, questioning manner. 
 
 He stayed home again in the evenings now ; and 
 while she sat at her sewing, often he would look 
 up from his paper or his work to make some brief 
 
 92 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 93 
 
 remark to her; and the conversation thus begun 
 would somehow ramble on and on while his work 
 lay forgotten. But almost always, unknown to 
 them both, the spirit of Amy was in the room, and 
 the influence of her memory was shown in Joe s 
 attitude toward his home. For in spite of his 
 enjoyment of the simpler regime, he revealed a 
 feeling of guiltiness at not being able to give to 
 Ethel the easy lot he had given his wife. As busi 
 ness improved he began to suggest getting back 
 a nurse and a waitress. And it was all that Ethel 
 could do to dissuade him. 
 
 "His idea of being nice to a woman," she told 
 herself impatiently, "is to give her expensive 
 things, and above all keep her idle." She did not 
 add, "Amy taught him that." But it was in the 
 back of her mind. 
 
 He often talked of his business. He tried to 
 explain to her the details of speculative building, 
 real estate values and the like. And listening and 
 watching his face, she felt his force and vitality, 
 his doggedness, the fight in him. She recalled 
 Amy s eager faith in Joe as a man who was "sim 
 ply bound to make money." And at times she 
 said to herself, "What a pity." Still, it was all 
 rather puzzling. For his talk of the growth of 
 the city, his view of its mighty pulsing life, rest 
 less, heaving, leaping on, gripped her more than 
 
94 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ever before. And moreover, now that Amy was 
 dead, Ethel soon began to feel another Joe emerg 
 ing out of some period long ago. With a new and 
 curious eagerness to find in him what her sister 
 had never known (an eagerness she would have 
 disclaimed with the utmost indignation), she be 
 gan to probe into Joe s past. And in answer to 
 her questions he threw out hints of old ideals -in 
 which the making of money had played only a 
 second part. He had meant to be an architect, 
 a builder of another kind. Instead of putting up 
 "junk in the Bronx, " he had meant to do some 
 thing big and new, something bold and very 
 French, "to make these infernal New Yorkers sit 
 up and open their cold grey eyes." At times he 
 rather thrilled her with hints of his early bachelor 
 life in New York and Paris, his student days. 
 
 About this time, one evening, he brought his 
 partner home to dinner, but the experiment 
 proved even more of a failure than it had in the 
 past. Nourse made Ethel feel as before his surly, 
 jealous dislike of her presence in Joe s home. 
 And Ethel s hostility redoubled. She recalled 
 what Amy had told her of his tiresome worship of 
 work, its routine and its dull detail. No wonder 
 Joe s ideals had died, with such a man in his office. 
 
 "What a pity you re his partner," her manner 
 plainly said to him, for she was not good at hiding 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 95 
 
 dislikes. And to that his gloomy eyes rejoined, 
 "What a damned shame if you were his wife." 
 
 But Nourse did not come again. And with 
 business dropped out of their talk, she and Joe 
 turned to other things small happenings of the 
 household, amusing incidents of the day, and little 
 problems to be solved. They were well into the 
 summer by now, and Susette ought to go to the 
 seashore. They began to discuss seaside hotels, 
 and chose a place along the Sound. It was de 
 cided that Emily should stay here to look after 
 Joe, and that he should run up for his week-ends. 
 In the meantime, as his business improved, he 
 began to bring Ethel little surprises, candy or 
 spring flowers, and to take her out in his car at 
 night. They went to the theatre several times. 
 And everything which was said or done upon such 
 occasions gave Ethel food for thinking. 
 
 At the seashore, with Susette on the beach, hour 
 after hour, she thought about Joe and about her 
 self. This thinking was long and curious. It 
 was confused, barely conscious at times, all min 
 gled with the long bright waves that came rolling 
 in from the shining sea. The picture of her sis 
 ter s face kept rising up before her there of Amy 
 in her bedroom good-humouredly talking and 
 smiling, and teaching Ethel how to get on ; of Amy 
 with her husband, throwing swift, vigilant glances 
 
96 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 at him, kissing him, nestling in his arms. In her 
 thinking Ethel grew hot and cold, with jealousy, 
 swift self-reproach and a new, alarming tender 
 ness. She thought of Joe, of his every look, his 
 smile and the tones of his gruff voice; of Joe 
 grief-stricken and half crazed, of Joe awakening, 
 coming back. Again with a warm rush of feel 
 ings, not unmingled with dismay, she would go 
 over in her mind their talks and the queer, almost 
 guilty expression that had often come in his eyes. 
 For Amy had always been in the room. 
 
 For this thinking, fresh fuel was given by Joe s 
 weekly visits here. There was not much talk of 
 Amy now, her name had subtly dropped away, but 
 Ethel could feel it behind the talk. "It would 
 always be there I" she would cry to herself. 
 Well, and why not 1 9 she would demand. < Why 
 be such a jealous cat? Would you let that hold 
 you back V 9 It was all so involved, this Amy part, 
 with EthePs own earlier visions of happiness and 
 a love of her own. Was this really love this 
 queer, leaping feeling, up and down, hot and cold, 
 uncertain, tense, unhappy, hungry, undecided? 
 "Oh, if I could only make up my mind!" 
 When with Joe, she had many moods. In some 
 she grew resentful toward him for forcing this 
 upon her. But soon she would grow repentant. 
 Her manner, from cool friendliness, would change 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 97 
 
 in a few moments ; and her eyes would grow ab 
 sorbed, attentive, now to Joe and now to herself, 
 grave, wistful, sad, and then suddenly gay 
 though they only talked of little things, of Susette, 
 the beach, the city, the coming winter, household 
 plans, his work, half spoken aspirations. Any 
 one watching them in these talks might have 
 thought she was his wife. 
 
 Again came that disturbing sense of intimate 
 relationship to her sister who was dead. "I m 
 stepping into Amy s shoes." But this feeling be 
 gan to be left behind. It was back in the past ; 
 she was looking on. One day, when Susette had 
 bumped her head and her aunt was comforting her, 
 suddenly in a revealing flash came the thought, 
 "I love you, oh, so hard, my sweet! But I want 
 another one all my own!" 
 
 When in September she and Susette went back 
 to Joe in the city, all this grew more intense and 
 clear. For he would not give her much longer 
 now; she saw that he had made up his mind. She 
 felt his strength and tenderness, his hunger for 
 her growing. Sometimes it was frightening, the 
 power he was gaming. A touch of his hand and 
 she would grow cold. One evening when she had 
 a headache, Joe bent over and kissed her. 
 
 "Good-night," he said, and left the room left 
 her burning, trembling. She pressed both hands 
 
98 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 tight to her cheeks, pressed the hot tears from her 
 eyes. 
 
 At other times, she told herself, "Yes, I m 
 going to marry him. But there s nothing to be so 
 excited about or scared like this. I know him 
 now, I know just what he is and what he is not. 
 He is not a good many things I had dreamed of, 
 but he s so dear and kind and safe. And I want 
 to have children. Gravely wondering, she would 
 look ahead. "You re no longer a child, my dear. 
 Be strong and sensible. This is real. ... It s 
 getting rather cold tonight. I must run in and 
 see if Susette is warm." 
 
 She still felt Amy s presence. Out of the vari 
 ous rooms certain pictures, chairs and vases 
 forced themselves upon her attention. For some 
 time past she had disliked them. It seemed to her 
 at moments as though she could not have them 
 here. 
 
 She knew what they were waiting for now. It 
 was nearly the end of October, and the day which 
 both dreaded was nearly at hand, the anniversary 
 of her death. They spoke not a word to each 
 other about it, except once when Joe said gruffly, 
 
 "There s a bad time coming for both of us. 
 Let s try not to be morbid about it. 
 
 As it drew nearer she felt she must speak. She 
 felt how this unspoken name of her sister would 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 99 
 
 keep rising, rising, between them for the rest of 
 their lives. It was uncanny, it was like a spell, 
 the force of this unspoken name ; and she thought, 
 "I must break it! 7 
 
 And yet she did not speak. She had little op 
 portunity, for she saw very little of Joe that week. 
 When the dreaded night arrived, he did not come 
 home until very late. From her room she heard 
 him come in, and presently by the silence she knew 
 he had settled himself to work. She barely slept, 
 rose early and dressed herself with a resolute air. 
 But already Joe had gone. 
 
 It was a beautiful morning. With Susette she 
 went to a florist s shop and had the child pick out 
 some flowers. Then they went out to Amy s 
 grave. And a moment came to Ethel there, an 
 overwhelming moment, when something seemed 
 bursting up in herself and crying passionately, 
 
 "leant!" 
 
 But a little miracle happened. For Susette, 
 who was only three years old and understood 
 nothing of all this, took half the purple asters 
 from Amy s grave, and turning back confidingly 
 she put the rest in Ethel s hand and then saw a 
 sparrow and chased it, and laughed merrily as it 
 flew away. 
 
 At night when Joe came home, although he did 
 not speak of the flowers, she knew that he too had 
 
100 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 been at the grave. He appeared relieved, the ten 
 sion gone. 
 
 "Now is the time to speak of her." And Ethel 
 looked up with a resolute frown. . . . But once 
 again she put it off. Soon they were talking 
 naturally. 
 
 Weeks passed, and the memory of that day 
 dropped swiftly back behind them. And there 
 came a night when Joe, close by her side, had been 
 talking slowly for some time, his voice husky, 
 strained and low, and she had been sitting very 
 still. She turned at last with a quick little smile, 
 said, 
 
 "Yes, Joe, I ll marry you and oh, I m very 
 happy! Please go now, dear! Please go go!" 
 
 And when he had gone she still sat very still. 
 
 From that night the name of her sister was not 
 spoken between them was not spoken for nearly 
 two years. 
 
 She grew used to being held in Joe s arms, to 
 his kisses and to his voice that had changed, to the 
 things he said and the way his eyes looked into 
 hers. That hunger, it was always there, and 
 growing, always growing! The feeling she d 
 never had before, that "We re to be parts of one 
 another!" deepened, thrilled her with its depth, 
 dazzled and confused her mind. 
 
HIS SEQOND , WIPE, 101 
 
 One day she went to Amy s room, and slowly 
 began looking over the clothes. From the closet 
 and the drawers, in a careful, tender way she 
 took the shimmering little gowns and dainty hats 
 and slippers, silk stockings, filmy night-gowns 
 and packed them into boxes. All were to be given 
 away. "I couldn t!" Her throat contracting, 
 she turned away with a sharp pang of pity and 
 of jealousy and of a deep, deep tenderness. 
 
 She lavished her love upon Amy s child. What 
 adorable little garments she bought for Susette, 
 those autumn days. And at night, bending over 
 her cradle, Ethel would whisper to her, "Oh, I m 
 dreaming, dreaming, dear!" And to Susette this 
 was a huge joke, and they would laugh at it like 
 mad. * Oh, my precious loved one ! What a fine, 
 happy life we ll lead!" 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THEY were married early in December. 
 There were no preparations to be made, for 
 a wedding is nothing without friends, and they had 
 none but Amy s; and though Joe said nothing to 
 Ethel about it, she knew he had not sent them 
 word. "It s better," she thought. She herself 
 wrote to a few girl friends, but they were scat 
 tered all over the country. No one of them would 
 be coming East. And at times she felt very 
 lonely. With memories of weddings at home and 
 of her dreams for one of her own, which she 
 had planned so often, she begged Joe to let her 
 be married in church, and Joe gave in good- 
 naturedly. He did not go to the minister who 
 had buried Amy a year before, but to one who 
 had a small Presbyterian church on the next street. 
 There he soon arranged to be married. But then, 
 in his ignorance of such matters, Joe said, in his 
 blunt, off-hand way, 
 
 "I like to settle these things ahead. So if 
 you ll just name the amount " he stopped. For 
 the clergyman straightened up as though at an 
 insult. Joe reddened. "Look here," he blurted, 
 " I didn t mean " 
 
 102 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 103 
 
 "Oh, that s all right." The other man was 
 smiling queerly. "How long have you been in 
 New York?" he asked. 
 
 "Nine years." 
 
 "Ever been inside of a church?" 
 
 "No, I can t say that I have." 
 
 "Then why do you want to get married here?" 
 
 Joe smiled frankly. "The bride s idea." 
 
 "I thought so," said the preacher. A glint of 
 humour came into his eyes. "You asked me what 
 it would cost to get married. If you ll go down 
 to City Hall, it will cost you exactly two dollars. 
 But if you care to be married here well, there s 
 an old scrub-woman I know who for nine years 
 every Sunday has come to this church and put a 
 quarter in the plate to keep this institution going 
 for you. And if you care to use it now it will cost 
 you just what it has cost her. Figure it out and 
 send me a check, or else go down to City Hall." 
 
 "I ll pay up," was the prompt reply. 
 
 At home he told Ethel about it with keen relish 
 at the joke on himself. And Ethel smiled rather 
 tensely and said, 
 
 "Don t let s make a joke of it, dear. Let s 
 make it as much of a one as we can." 
 
 But there was little or nothing to do. And the 
 next afternoon in church it felt so queer and un 
 real to her as she stood with Joe in front of the 
 
104 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 pulpit. Behind her in the shadowy place were 
 only Susette and Emily and the building super 
 intendent s wife. No long rows of faces caring. 
 Only the hard murmur of the busy street outside. 
 No excited whispers here, no music and no flowers, 
 no bridesmaids and no wedding gown. . . . 
 
 "I pronounce you man and wife." 
 
 Then what? 
 
 She took Susette tight in her arms for a mo 
 ment. Then Emily thank God for her! was 
 whispering fiercely in her ear, 
 
 " It s going to be all right, my dear! In a min 
 ute you re going to laugh or cry! Laugh! It s 
 better! Laugh! . . . That s right!" 
 
 Joe had his small car waiting outside ; and wav 
 ing good-bye to Emily, who was taking Susette to 
 the park, they sped away to the river and off into 
 the country. Soon they were talking excitedly. 
 
 It was after dark when they returned, and as 
 had been already planned they went to a cafe 
 to dine, a gay place crowded full of people, music 
 throbbing, voices humming. Ethel wanted it like 
 that. She wanted to be lifted through. Joe 
 alarmed her now. "Oh, don t don t be so con 
 siderate ! " she wanted to exclaim to him. * What 
 good does it do? " As they smiled at each other, 
 again and again she had to fight down an impulse 
 to cry or shiver. She would bite her lips and 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 105 
 
 turn away and watch people, then turn quickly 
 back and start talking rapidly. 
 
 At home, alone in Amy s room, she sat at the 
 dressing table there, her movements swift and 
 feverish. She had often looked at herself of late 
 in her mirror in the nursery, but now she did not 
 look into the glass. Her hands were cold. In a 
 very few minutes she called to Joe. 
 
 And a little later, on her old bed by the cradle 
 in the nursery, she lay violently trembling and 
 staring intently up at the ceiling. 
 
 "What has happened?" she asked. "Whose 
 fault was it? Mine!" With a strange thrill of 
 fear and repulsion, she clenched her teeth and 
 held herself until the fit of trembling passed. 
 "Is this real, Ethel Knight? Do you mean to say 
 this is what love is just this, just this!" She 
 shook her head and bit her lips. She asked, "Am 
 I tied to this man for life ! I am not ! I can t be ! 
 This isn t real it isn t me !" 
 
 The night was a blur, like a bad dream. Once 
 she remembered jumping up and quickly locking 
 the nursery door. But that was the beginning of 
 a return to her senses. "I needn t have done 
 that, she thought. It wasn t fair. It was even 
 rather insulting. This thought made her quieter. 
 And later, as the night wore on, a feeling of hav- 
 
106 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ing been unjust and foolish little by little emerged 
 from the chaos and began to steady her. But 
 again the old dismay and dread and loathing 
 would come back with a rush. All at once her 
 body from head to foot would grow cold and rigid. 
 And the power which a year ago with her sister 
 she had excitedly sensed as the driving force of 
 this whole town, now loomed brutal, savage ! The 
 thought rose suddenly in her mind, "Amy. She 
 was his wife! Five years!" And then in a re 
 vealing flash, "Her love was like that! She 
 taught him!" 
 
 With a bound that feeling of intimacy with her 
 sister leaped to a climax burned ! 
 
 It was long till she could quiet herself. She 
 had to do it by walking the floor. . . . Thank 
 heaven for the daylight and the small, round face 
 of Susette peering over the edge of the crib. 
 Soon she had the child in her bed and they were 
 looking at pictures. 
 
 Later she went back to her husband. It cost 
 her no slight effort of will, and it was a relief to 
 find him gone. On her dresser he had left a note : 
 
 "I am sorry, dear it was all my fault. I was 
 a fool a clumsy fool. But remember there is 
 plenty of time and be certain absolutely that 
 everything will be all right." 
 
 She read it more than once that day, and it 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 107 
 
 helped her prepare for the evening. When Joe 
 came home and took her in his arms, she knew at 
 once that he meant her to feel there was nothing 
 to be afraid of. 
 
 "I ve got to be down at the office tonight," was 
 all he said. But in his voice, low, kind and reas 
 suring, like that of a big brother, there was a 
 promise which gave her a thrill of gratitude and 
 deep relief. With it came some self-reproach, 
 which caused her again to struggle, alone, and 
 then go to Amy s room to sleep. She lay listen 
 ing there for hours, carefully holding herself in 
 check. When she heard his key in the hall door, 
 she sharply stiffened, held her breath. . . . She 
 heard him go into the small guest room which had 
 been hers a year before. . . . And then she cried 
 softly to herself. With the blessed relief of it, 
 her love for Joe was coming back. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ONE evening about two months later Ethel 
 was dressing for dinner. As usual they 
 were dining alone, but long ago she had taken the 
 habit of dressing each night as though there were 
 people coming. Amy had taught her to do that ; 
 and after the death of her sister she had always 
 made a point of " keeping up" for Joe s sake, al 
 though often it had been an effort. But it was no 
 effort now. She had been here for nearly an hour, 
 absorbed in this pleasant, leisurely art that had 
 such a new meaning and delight. To keep being 
 different, revealing her beauty in new ways, to see 
 if he d notice, to laugh in his arms and feel her 
 power over Joe, had brought back her old zest for 
 pretty clothes, and she had been wearing all the 
 things she had bought when she first came to town. 
 Last year s clothes, for they still smilingly called 
 themselves "poor," although Joe was doing much 
 better now. Last year s clothes, and the styles 
 had changed, but in ways which Joe, poor dear, 
 was too blind to notice. 
 
 The room in which she was dressing had some 
 how assumed a different air. Although in the 
 main it was the same as when Amy had been here, 
 
 108 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 109 
 
 and her picture was still on Joe s chiffonier still 
 subtly by degrees it had changed. Some of 
 Ethel s clothes were lying about, her work-bag 
 and a book or two ; the dressing table at which she 
 was sitting had been covered in fresh chintz, and 
 Ethel s things were on it. Joe s picture and 
 Susette s were here, and a droll little painted bird 
 was perched above the mirror. 
 
 As she glanced into the glass, gaily she thanked 
 herself for the charms which she was deftly en 
 hancingin the glossy black hair, smooth and 
 sleek, in the flushed cheeks and the red of her lips 
 and the gleaming lights in her brown eyes. She 
 nodded approvingly at herself. 
 
 " You re a great help to me, Mrs. Lanier." 
 In the glass she could see her husband; she felt 
 his glances from time to time. This evening after 
 dinner they were going out somewhere. To what, 
 he would not tell her. There had been many of 
 these small surprises. . . . Now her pulse beat 
 faster, for he had come behind her. A sudden 
 bending, a quick laugh, a murmur and a silence. 
 Then at last he let her go ; but as she drew a deep, 
 full breath and shot a side look up at him, he 
 laughed again, low, tensely, and bent over as 
 before. 
 
 Left alone, she smiled again into the glass. It 
 was hard to believe too wonderful this amaz- 
 
110 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ingly intimate feeling, this living with somebody, 
 body and soul. And what a child she had been 
 before, a child in that solemn young resolve to 
 marry Joe, this good, safe man, and raise a large 
 family carefully. It had been like a small girl 
 thinking of dolls. And like a small girl she had 
 been in her panic on the night of her wedding, she 
 thought. How silly, ignorant, funny! No she 
 frowned it had been real, pretty ugly while it 
 lasted. But like a bug-a-boo it had gone. And 
 this good, safe man had become transformed in 
 this amazing intimacy and had become a wild de 
 light : a man to laugh at, tease, provoke, and cling 
 to, silent, in a flame ; a man to mother, study out, 
 probe into deep with questions ; a man to plan and 
 plan with. 
 
 "This love is to be the love of his life! It s to 
 make us work and grow, make us fine and awake 
 and alive to everything worth living for! No 
 laziness for you, my dear, no soft, cosy kitten life ! 
 You re to be a woman, a real one ! Don t let there 
 be any mistake about that ! 
 
 In the other room Joe was at his piano, and the 
 music he was playing had nothing to do with any 
 one else. She did not say, "with Amy." She 
 frowned a little and cut herself short, as she so 
 often did in her thinking, these days, when it 
 touched upon her sister. She could feel Amy here 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 111 
 
 at so many points, and she did not want to be 
 jealous. 
 
 "I wonder where we re going tonight. " 
 What was it Joe was playing! Music she had 
 heard before. She did not like to ask him and so 
 betray her ignorance. "I ought to know this! 
 What is it?" she asked herself impatiently. 
 "Why, of course! It s from Boheme !" She 
 smiled as she felt he was playing to her. With 
 the thrill now so familiar, she felt her power over 
 him. She remembered little tussles in which she 
 had been victorious. They had all been over his 
 business. Joe, the poor darling, had formed the 
 idea (she did not say from his first wife) that if 
 a man is in love with a woman he must express 
 it by loading her down with things which cost a 
 lot of money, that he must work for her, slave for 
 her! But Ethel was putting an end to that. 
 They had taken back Susette s old nurse, for it 
 was unfair to one s husband to be a child s slave 
 if there was no need. But she had refused to get 
 other servants. Emily Giles was still in charge, 
 and though Emily of her own accord had gone to 
 a shop on Fifth Avenue and purchased caps and 
 aprons, "the nattiest things this side of France," 
 she wore them with a genial air and spoke of them 
 as "my uniform." Ethel took care of her own 
 room and helped Emily with the cleaning. She 
 
112 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 had kept expenses firmly down, and she had re 
 fused to be loaded with gifts. When Joe had 
 urged that his affairs were going so much better 
 now, she had said in her new decisive voice : 
 
 "I m so glad to hear it, my love, for it simply 
 means you ve no earthly excuse for staying late 
 at your office. I don t mean I want you to loaf, 
 you know," she had gone on more earnestly. "I 
 want you to work and do, oh, so much, all the 
 things you dreamed of doing over there in Paris. 
 But I m not going to have you make your business 
 a mere rush for a lot of money we don t need!" 
 She had gone to him suddenly. "And just now 
 I want you so." 
 
 By these talks she had already worked a change. 
 No more hasty breakfasts to let him be off by 
 eight o clock. They had breakfasted later and 
 later each day ; she had made an affair of break 
 fast. And as at last he kissed her and tore him 
 self away from his home, she had smiled to herself 
 delightedly at the guilty look in his eyes. This 
 kind of thing would cause a decided coolness, no 
 doubt, between Joe and his partner. So much the 
 better, she had thought, for she detested that man 
 Nourse, and in his case she could quite openly 
 admit, "I m jealous of you and your business de 
 votion! Your time is coming soon, friend Bill!" 
 The office was half way uptown, and several times 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 113 
 
 in the last few weeks she had gone there for Joe 
 at five o clock, and once at four-thirty, as though 
 by appointment. She chuckled now as she re 
 called the black look of his partner that day. Yes, 
 four-thirty had been a blow ! 
 
 " Where are we going this evening?" 
 
 It was delightful to be so free, she told herself 
 repeatedly. Friends? They didn t need any 
 friends. For the present they had each other 
 enough! "Yes, and for some time to come!" 
 But there always came to her a little qualm of un 
 easiness when her thinking reached this point. 
 How were friends to be found in this city? 
 
 6 < Oh, later later later ! 
 
 And rising impatiently with a shrug, she went 
 into the nursery. The nurse had been so glad to 
 get back that most of her old hostility toward 
 Ethel had vanished. Still there were signs now 
 and then of a sneer which said, "You ll soon be 
 paying no more attention to this poor bairn than 
 her mother did before you. And it was as well 
 to show the woman how blind and ignorant she 
 was to make her see the difference. 
 
 "Boheme" was the surprise that night. It was 
 Ethel s first night at the opera. And looking 
 up at the boxes, at the women she had read about, 
 the gorgeous gowns and the jewels they wore, 
 
114 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 and watching them laugh and chatter ; or looking 
 far above them to the dim tiers of galleries reach 
 ing up into the dark ; or again with eyes glued on 
 the stage feasting upon Paris, art, " Bohemia, " 
 youth and romance; squeezing her companion s 
 hand and in flashes recollecting dazzling little in 
 cidents of the fortnight just gone by her mind 
 went roving into the future, finding friends and 
 wide rich lives shimmering and sparkling like the 
 sunlight on the sea. As that Italian music rose, 
 all at once she wanted to give herself, "To give 
 and give and give him all ! " The tears welled up 
 in her happy eyes. 
 
 * However ! To be very gay ! 
 
 Later that evening in a cafe she leaned across 
 the table and asked excited questions about 
 "Boheme" and Paris. What was Paris really 
 like? The Latin Quarter, the Beaux Arts? 
 What did he do there, how did he live? In what 
 queer and funny old rooms ? Did he live alone or 
 with somebody else? Something was clutching 
 now at her breast. (Farrar had sung "Mimi" 
 that night). "Don t be silly!" she told herself. 
 "Oh, Joe!" she said, and she looked down at the 
 fork in her hand which she was fingering nerv 
 ously. Then she looked quickly up and smiled. 
 "What man did you room with? Any one?" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 115 
 
 He was smiling across the table still. "You in 
 quisitive woman," said his eyes. 
 
 * No, I lived alone, he replied. And I sat at 
 a drafting board with a sweater on it used to be 
 cold." 
 
 "Oh, you poor dear!" 
 
 "And I worked," he continued, "like a bull pup. 
 And along toward morning I tied a wet towel 
 around my head " 
 
 "Oh, Joe !" Ethel s foot pressed his, and they 
 laughed at each other. "But there must have 
 been," she cried, "so much besides! Joe Lanier, 
 you are lying! There were cafes and student 
 balls and fancy dress and singing and queer 
 streets at night!" 
 
 "That s so," he answered solemnly, "the city 
 of Paris did have streets. You walked on them 
 from place to place." 
 
 "Joe Lanier " 
 
 "First you put the right foot forward, then the 
 left you moved along. 
 
 Joe ! For goodness sakes ! 
 
 "Look here. Do you know what I want to do 
 with you ? 
 
 "No." And Ethel shook her head. She did 
 know, precisely, and it was her motive for all this 
 talk. 
 
1.16 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 " Take you there and get rooms in the Quarter 
 not too far from the Luxembourg " 
 
 "Oh, Joe, you perfect darling!" 
 
 He went on describing all they would do, in the 
 cafes and on the streets, in old churches and at 
 plays and at the Opera Comique, where she must 
 surely see f Louise." They began excitedly plan 
 ning ways and means, expenses, his business and 
 when he could get away. He sobered at that, and 
 she cried to herself, "Now he s thinking of his 
 friend Bill! Oh, what a detestable, tiresome 
 worm ! 
 
 Then a man who was passing their table stopped 
 in surprise as he recognized Joe, bowed, smiled 
 and said something and went on, and joined a 
 hilarious group down the room. And Ethel saw 
 him speak to them and she felt their glances turned 
 her way. Joe had grown suddenly awkward, his 
 face wore a forced, unnatural smile, and he was 
 talking rapidly but she heard nothing that he 
 said. The whole atmosphere had changed in an 
 instant. 
 
 For those people over there were some of Amy s 
 friends, no doubt, amused at Joe and his young 
 second wife, amused that Joe had not had the 
 nerve to ask them to his wedding. Ethel could 
 feel herself burning inside. A mistake not to have 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 117 
 
 asked them ? No ! What had they to do with it ? 
 What right had they, what hold on Joe? They 
 had been a mighty poor lot of friends, with empty 
 minds and money hearts, just clothes and food, 
 late hours and wine! They had been decidedly 
 bad for him, had drawn him off from his real work 
 and plunged him into the rush to be rich! A 
 voice within her, from underneath, was asking, 
 6 Or was it Amy ? But she paid no heed to that. 
 It asked, "Are you sure they are all so bad? 
 Have you taken the trouble to find out!" But 
 angrily she answered that she wanted friends of 
 her own, that she couldn t be just a second wife. 
 "I ve got to be all different, new! I ve got to 
 be and I will, I will!" She swallowed fiercely. 
 Besides, it was what Joe needed, exactly! He 
 showed already what it had meant to be rid of 
 such friends ! Had he ever talked of Paris before, 
 or his dreams and ambitions or anything real? 
 But the voice retorted sharp and clear, 
 
 "Why hide it then? Why let this foolish dan 
 gerous habit of never mentioning Amy s name 
 keep growing up between you and your husband? 
 It may do a lot of harm, you know. What are you 
 afraid of?" 
 
 Nothing whatever, she replied. She decided to 
 speak of it then and there. She would be per 
 fectly natural, and ask him, "Who are your 
 
118 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 friends over there? Some people Amy used to 
 know?" And she grew rigid all at once. Her 
 throat contracted and felt dry. Angrily she bit 
 her lip ... But the habit of silence was too 
 strong. . . . Soon, with a carefully pleasant smile, 
 she was attending to his talk and by her questions 
 drawing out more and more of his life abroad. 
 
 "His work," she thought, " that s the strongest 
 thing to hold his mind away from those people." 
 And soon she had him talking of the Beaux Arts, 
 architecture, plans and "periods" and "styles," 
 things she was quite vague about, but she did not 
 have to listen now. That was always so safe, she 
 told herself. She was even a little jealous of this 
 puzzling, engrossing work, which could so hold 
 her husband s mind. She frowned. That was as 
 it should be; a man s work was his own concern. 
 But his living, his home, what he did at night? 
 
 "This can t go on," she decided. "There will 
 have to be friends for both of us. I need them, 
 too. Oh, how I need one woman friend! And 
 where shall I find her? Somewhere in this city 
 there must be just the people I want if only I 
 could reach them!" 
 
 And presently she was saying aloud in a lazy 
 careless tone of voice, 
 
 "Sometimes I get wondering, Joe, if there isn t 
 a Paris in New York." 
 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IT was a few weeks later. A doctor had been 
 there and gone, and returning into the living- 
 room Ethel sank down on a chair with a quiet in 
 tensity in her eyes. For some time she had not 
 been feeling herself, but she did not want to worry 
 Joe, and so at last she had telephoned to the 
 clergyman who had married her. 
 
 "You may not remember me," she had said, 
 "but you married me in December. Perhaps 
 you ll recall it if I say there were only three 
 friends at the church." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I remember it perfectly." 
 
 * Thank you. I m not quite well and I have no 
 friends to turn to, so I m wondering if you could 
 recommend a good doctor I could see." 
 
 The doctor recommended had just paid his visit. 
 And now as the dusk deepened she had the 
 strangest feelings. Her year and a half in the 
 city seemed hurried and feverish as a dream. 
 Her mind ran back into the past and on into the 
 future. Only a few days before, the round robin 
 letter had come again. In it the girl who had 
 married the mining engineer out West had told of 
 
 119 
 
120 HIS. SECOND WIFE 
 
 having a baby in a little town in Montana, Ethel 
 had thought of the doctor then. 
 
 She rose now and got the letter and re-read it 
 slowly. Presently she put it down and began cry 
 ing softly, though she felt neither sad nor fright 
 ened. Her life had so completely changed. All 
 those girl friends, so scattered; all those years, 
 so far behind. It was like getting on a ship, she 
 thought, to start across the ocean. You can t get 
 off, you must go across. Oh, Ethel Lanier, how 
 happy you ll be." But the happiness seemed a 
 long way off. 
 
 How quiet it was. The nurse came in with 
 Susette from the park. Ethel went into the 
 nursery and kneeling down she began to unbutton 
 Susette s little jacket. The child s plump face 
 was so rosy and cold. She kissed it suddenly. 
 
 "Martha," she said, "I ll need you here for a 
 long time now. I m going to have a baby." 
 
 She reddened then and held her breath. Queer, 
 how she had blurted it out ! She had not meant to 
 tell any one yet. But the look of dawning joy and 
 relief in Martha s eyes made her glad she had 
 spoken. Plainly the nurse had been dreading the 
 time so fast approaching when she would have to 
 leave Susette, who was now nearly four years old. 
 But all she said to Ethel was this : 
 
 * I m glad to hear it, Mrs. Lanier. I hope you 11 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 121 
 
 be very careful now. She shot a look as keen as 
 a knife, which asked, "Do you really want a child? 
 Or are you like her? Was it a mistake?" 
 
 And Ethel went quickly out of the room. In 
 the living-room her eye was caught by Amy s 
 photograph on the table. She had always kept it 
 there. In her cleaning she had put it back. 
 Emily, too, had put it back. They had never 
 spoken Amy s name. But Ethel faced the picture 
 now for some moments steadily. Somehow it had 
 lost its beauty, it looked weak and soul-less, with 
 out power any longer over Ethel s future. "Poor 
 Amy. Oh, how much you missed." And she 
 added, "I ll never be like that." For an instant 
 she let her mind dwell on the past, on how Su- 
 sette s coming must have been unwelcomed by 
 her mother. 
 
 "But this one will be welcomed! Our love is 
 so so different ! This will bind us, oh, so close ! 
 It s done now, you re tied for life!" She had 
 never felt it so before. The months of her mar 
 riage bad been so exciting, and even in the long 
 summer s thinking her love had seemed always a 
 little unreal. "But this is real inside of me!" 
 Her fancy went careering ahead, with joy and 
 wonder, a thrill of dismay. "I was so free, with 
 my life to choose ! I could have been almost any 
 thing! But now it is settled. This is my life. 
 
122 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 We talk and we talk about being free and then 
 all at once a baby." 
 
 In the days which followed and grew into weeks 
 and months, the feeling of quiet remained with 
 her. The pang of uneasiness as to how she was 
 to find friends for Joe and herself, was allayed 
 and put off to the future. He would not expect 
 anything of her just now. And because it was 
 pressing upon her no longer, it became a pleasure 
 to dream and plan for herself and Joe and the 
 children. 
 
 She was only twenty-four, and although Joe was 
 thirty-six he looked years younger. They could 
 grow. Now she began asking him to read aloud in 
 the evenings, nor was the reading all "mere fluff." 
 Though she picked out amusing things to vary 
 the monotony, she insisted on magazines and 
 books which had been recommended by the little 
 history " prof " at home, to whom Ethel wrote long 
 letters. The books rather appalled her husband 
 at times ; but using her new hold on him, she said, 
 
 "Go on, dear, now begin. " And she picked up 
 her sewing with a look which said, "We ve got to 
 grow, you know, if we re ever to get friends worth 
 while or have a life worth living." 
 
 But again she would shut out all that, and smile 
 to herself and grow absorbed. And this habit 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 123 
 
 grew to such a degree that by the beginning of 
 summer their reading bees had come to an end. 
 In June she took Martha and Susette and went to 
 the seashore for three months. She came back in 
 September, and now the time was drawing near. 
 Her husband s love grew anxious and there came 
 troubled gleams in his eyes. 
 
 The trained nurse had arrived. The doctor 
 kept coming. Martha was plainly "in a state. " 
 And Emily Giles, for all her grim ways, had mo 
 ments almost tender. All centering, swiftly cen 
 tering, as the long voyage neared its end. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHAT deep relief and blessed peace. She 
 lay on her bed, now smiling, now inert, 
 eyes closed, weak and relaxed, but already aware 
 from time to time of the beginnings within her 
 self of new vitality, food for her child. Her body 
 felt profoundly changed, and so it was with her 
 spirit. Again the thought rose in her mind that 
 this had settled and sealed her life. But she was 
 glad of the certainty. Slowly, as her strength re 
 turned, all the vague desires and dreams of the 
 last few months came back, grew clear; and she 
 planned and planned for the small boy whom the 
 nurse kept bringing to her bed. At such moments 
 the new love within her rose like some fresh burst 
 ing spring. 
 
 The city, though so vast, complex, came to be 
 like a place full of miracles. The voices of its 
 Ceaseless life came into her window day and night, 
 the hoots and distant bellows of ships, the rattle of 
 wheels, the rush of cars, the long swift thunder of 
 the "L," and bursts of laughter from the streets, 
 and animated voices. She remembered her first 
 night in New York ; she recalled her earlier visions 
 of the city as a place of thrilling aspirations, wide, 
 
 124 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 125 
 
 sparkling, abundant lives. And Ethel smiled and 
 told herself, 
 
 "All the glory I dreamed of is here." 
 
 The thought came to her clearly that Amy it 
 
 was who had hidden it all, who had stood smilingly 
 
 in the way and had said, "All this is nothing. " 
 
 But she felt a rush of pity now for the woman 
 
 who was left behind, cut off so completely by the 
 
 birth of this small son. The nurse was bringing 
 
 him into the room, and Ethel smiled at her and 
 
 said, 
 
 "Ask Susette if she doesn t want to come, too." 
 
 It was only a day or two later that her husband 
 broke his news. He had been so dear to her, his 
 visits had been such a joy, and although behind his 
 tenderness vaguely she had sensed some change, 
 some new excitement in his mind, in her own ab 
 sorption in their boy she had attributed it to that. 
 But early one evening he came in with a sheaf of 
 roses in his arms, and when she had exclaimed at 
 them and breathed deep of their dewy fragrance, 
 Joe bent over and kissed her, and said a little 
 huskily, 
 
 "I ve got some big news for you, little wife. 
 It s big. It s going to mean so much." 
 
 "What is it, Joe?" 
 
 She stared up intently into his eyes. He was 
 
126 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 telling her he had made money. He was telling 
 how the approaching birth of their small son had 
 made him feel he must put an end to these ups and 
 downs, and how he had worked and racked his 
 brains. He told of heavy borrowing, of anxious 
 weeks, of a wonderful stroke of luck at last which 
 not only made him rich for the moment but opened 
 the way to wealth ahead. He was speaking of 
 what this would mean to them here. He knew how 
 hard it had been for her and how pluckily she had 
 come through without ever asking for anything. 
 But all that was over now. He had made money ! 
 What was the matter? She heard it all in frag 
 ments, topsy turvy. What was wrong? "Here 
 is a Joe I Ve never known ! Still staring up into 
 his eyes, she saw their strange exultant light ; the 
 excitement in his husky voice struck into her 
 sensitive ear and jarred; and she nearly shrank 
 from the clutch of his hand. She lay wondering 
 why she was not glad, till suddenly she saw in his 
 face his sharp disappointment at the way she was 
 taking his news. With a pang of alarm she 
 roused herself and said, 
 
 "Oh, Joe, it s too wonderful! It s so sudden 
 it strikes me all of a heap!" And she laughed 
 unsteadily, seized his hand and kissed it, talking 
 rapidly, her eyes glistening all the while with fool 
 ish tears. Fiercely then she asked herself, "Why 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 127 
 
 can t you enter in and be gay?" But though she 
 was doing better now and had him talking as be 
 fore, again and again she felt he was thinking 
 how different Amy would have been how in an in 
 stant, laughing and crying, she would have thrown 
 herself into his arms ! 
 
 Yes, indeed, a Joe she had never known, shaped 
 and moulded by the wife who had had him in those 
 early years when a woman can do so much with 
 a man, can do what sets him in a groove in work 
 and living, tastes, ideals. "And I thought I had 
 done so much!" But Amy s hand had still been 
 there ; he had been her husband, all the time ! 
 
 It was a relief to have him gone. Alone she 
 could think more clearly. "What are you so 
 frightened about 1 Of being rich, you little fool ? 
 No, she had always wanted that, money enough 
 to forget it existed, money to open all the doors. 
 "But this money is coming too soon! I m not 
 ready. I m too young ! And he 11 expect so much 
 of me now. There ll be no excuse for holding 
 back, for going slow till I find what I want. He 11 
 expect me to find friends at once! But where 
 shall I find them all of a sudden! It isn t as 
 though we were millionaires, really big ones, all in 
 a minute. The newspapers won t be very excited ; 
 the town will take it quite calmly, quite! And 
 for the life of me I don t see any friends rushing 
 
128 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 at us! And yet hell expect it! So much he ll 
 expect! He ll give and give and give me things 
 and then wonder why I don t get anywhere!" 
 The angry tears leaped in her eyes. "Because 
 he s different now, he s changed! All bursting 
 with his big success, his strike, his business 
 money mad! Oh, how I hate his business and 
 that detestable partner, too!" 
 
 A wave of rebellion swept over her at the way 
 she had been caught, tangled into the life of a 
 man and the fortunes of his business. But then 
 she thought of the son she had borne him, and 
 this brought quick remorse and tears, from which 
 she fell into a deep sleep. And when she awoke 
 she found the nurse was waiting with the baby. 
 
 And the days which followed with their peace, 
 their slow return of health and strength, brought 
 assurance, too, and she laughed at herself for hav 
 ing been such a foolish child. She recalled her 
 panic on her wedding night. Then, too, she had 
 found a Joe unknown. But had that turned out 
 so dreadful? He came often to her bedside now; 
 and although she could feel how changed he was, 
 it no longer frightened her. She had her wee boy ; 
 and Emily Giles and Susette and her nurse kept 
 coming in; and the room grew very gay, as they 
 had little parties there. 
 
 "Who needs friends so all of a sudden?" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 129 
 
 But one day Emily came in and grimly re 
 marked, " There s a woman outside who owns this 
 apartment." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "She acts that way. She s walking round 
 that sitting-room picking things up and putting 
 things down " Emily s voice was rising in 
 wrath. 
 
 "Emily! Sh-h! She ll hear you! Who is 
 she 1 Didn t she give her name ! 
 
 "Here s her name!" And Emily poked out a 
 card, at which Ethel looked in a startled way. 
 
 "Fanny Carr! Now why has she come here?" 
 
 "Will you see her or shall I tell her the flat is 
 already rented?" 
 
 "No, no! Emily don t be rude! She s a 
 friend of my my husband s ! " 
 
 And a few moments later, propped up in bed 
 with a pretty lace cap on her head, Ethel was smil 
 ing affably at her visitor, who was exclaiming, 
 
 "My dear girl, I m so glad to see you again! 
 So good of you, letting me in like this! I didn t 
 have the least idea ! I didn t know of your baby 
 I hadn t even heard you were married ! I Ve been 
 abroad for over a year. I got back to New York 
 only last week and heard from one of Joe s men 
 friends of the luck he has had how his business 
 is simply booming along ! It s perfectly gorgeous, 
 
130 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Ethel dear, and I m so glad for you, my child! 
 When I heard the news 
 
 She talked on vivaciously. And Ethel lay back, 
 her gaze intent on Fanny s handsome features, on 
 her rich lips, pearl earrings, her eyes with their 
 curious color, grey green, that were so sparkling 
 and alive. And Ethel thought to herself in dis 
 may: "How much more attractive she is! Was 
 my first feeling about her all wrong, or is it that 
 I m getting used to these New Yorkers ? I thought 
 she was just hard all brass! She isn t! She s 
 
 she s dangerous ! What is she poking round 
 
 here for? What does she want? Is she married 
 again? No, her name was the same on her card. 
 Still single yes, and looking around for some 
 body with money!" 
 
 By the questions Fanny was asking, plainly she 
 was trying to find what friends Ethel had made in 
 New York. And although the girl on the bed 
 talked of the town in glowing terms, in a few mo 
 ments Fanny was saying, 
 
 "I m afraid you ve been rather lonely here." 
 
 "Oh, no!" And Ethel laughed merrily. "If 
 you knew how my time is filled every hour ! My 
 small boy " and she went eagerly on to show how 
 full her life had become. 
 
 Oh, you darling ! Fanny laughed. And then 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 131 
 
 with an envious sigh she said, "You make me feel 
 so old and forlorn. With all your beauty, Ethel 
 Lanier, and youth your whole life starting well, 
 you ve just got to let me in and take you about. 
 Oh, I know, I know, it s so wonderful here, and 
 fresh and new, and you re quite contented and 
 all that. But after all, it s a city, you know a 
 perfectly good one, full of life and people you ll 
 like old friends of Joe s." She went on in a 
 crisp gay tone to paint the pleasures of the town. 
 And meanwhile glancing at Ethel she thought, 
 "What a perfect devil she thinks me, poor child, 
 a bold bad creature on Joe s trail when all I 
 want is to take her around and help her spend her 
 money. I need it badly enough, God knows ! 
 
 At last she rose. 
 
 "I mustn t tire you. Good-bye, dear. You ll 
 let me come again, of course." 
 
 "Oh, yes, do." At Ethel s tone, Fanny smiled 
 to herself, as deftly she adjusted her furs. She 
 turned to look in the mirror and her eye was 
 caught by the photograph of Amy over on Joe s 
 chiffonier. She moved a step toward it, paused, 
 turned back, and with a good-bye to Ethel went 
 out. 
 
 Ethel s eyes went back to the photograph. How 
 strong and alarming, all in an hour, Amy s pic- 
 
132 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ture had become. As she looked, it seemed to 
 take on life, to be saying, " Money! Money at 
 last ! And with dismay she told herself, 
 "Now they ll come in a perfect horde!" 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 < <Q5HALL I tell Joe? Most certainly." 
 
 J5 But she did not tell him all, that night. 
 She did not say, "One of Amy s friends was here 
 today, and she s coming again, and more are com 
 ing and I hate them, every one!" She simply 
 remarked, 
 
 "Oh, Joe, dear Fanny Carr was here today." 
 "She was, eh?" He gave a slight start. 
 "Where has she been all this time?" 
 
 "Abroad." And Ethel answered his questions. 
 "She ll be here a good deal, I fancy," she ended. 
 Joe looked annoyed and uneasy. But he did not 
 speak, that evening, of the memories rising in his 
 mind. For on both the old spell of silence was 
 strong. Subtly the spirit of the first wife came 
 stealing back into the room, pervaded it and made 
 it her own. But her name was still unspoken. 
 
 The next day brought an exquisite baby s cap 
 with Fanny s card tucked inside. And in the fort 
 night after that, Fanny herself came several times. 
 She talked in such a natural way, and her smile 
 and the look in her clever grey eyes was so good- 
 humoured and friendly. "She s doing it beauti 
 fully," Ethel thought. But she pulled herself up. 
 
 133 
 
134 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 66 Doing what beautifully? What do I mean? 
 One would think we were millionaires, and Joe a 
 perfect Adonis! Is she trying to eat us? And 
 aren t you rather a snob, my love, to be so sure 
 you hate the woman before you even know her?" 
 
 At such moments Ethel would relax and grow 
 pleasantly interested in Fanny s talk of Paris and 
 Kome, or of New York. In each city Fanny 
 seemed to have led very much the same existence. 
 In each there had been Americans, and hotels, 
 cafes and dances, motor trips and lunches, gossip 
 and scandal without end. But she told of it all in 
 a humorous way that made it quite amusing. 
 And it was a good deal the same with the two 
 women, Amy s friends, whom Fanny brought to 
 tea a bit later. Their gossip and their laughter, 
 their voices breaking into each other and making 
 a perfect hubbub at times, their smart suits and 
 hats and dainty boots, their plump faces, lively 
 eyes, all were quite exciting to Ethel, when she 
 threw off her hostility and the uneasiness they 
 aroused. It felt good to be gossipy once more. 
 
 But how they chattered! How they stayed! 
 Joe would be coming home soon now, and she 
 wanted them to go. But they did not go, and 
 Ethel guessed that it was Joe they were waiting 
 for. She was sure of it when he appeared. The 
 way they all rushed at him with little shrieks of 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 135 
 
 laughter, talking together, excited as girls! 
 "Though they re all years older than I am!" 
 Ethel angrily exclaimed, as she sat there matronly 
 and severe. She eyed her husband narrowly, and 
 at first with keen satisfaction she saw how an 
 noyed and embarrassed he was. But the moments 
 passed, and he grew relieved, more easy and 
 more natural, his voice taking on its usual tone, 
 blunt and genial. And she thought, "He s going 
 to like it!" For a moment she detested him then. 
 "They ll flatter him, make a tin god of him! No, 
 I mean a money god ! That s what they want, his 
 money!" She positively snorted, but no one 
 seemed to notice it. Now they were turning back 
 to her and she was in the hubbub, too. And how 
 amiably she smiled ! 
 
 When they were gone, there fell a silence which 
 was like a sudden pall. "He can break it! I 
 won t!" she decided viciously. He had gone to 
 their room, she had followed him there, and he 
 was not having an easy time. He washed and 
 dressed without a word. But at last he came to 
 her. 
 
 "Look here." His arm was about her, she 
 jerked away, but he would not release her. 
 "You re the most adorable little wife that ever 
 made a man happy, he said. * But you re young, 
 you know " 
 
136 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "Is that a crime I" 
 
 "No, it s something those other women would 
 all give their eye-teeth for." 
 
 "Goon." 
 
 "But you re human, you know, and youVe got 
 to grow older and as you do you 11 find, my dear, 
 that it takes all kinds to make a world." 
 
 "How original!" He went on unabashed: 
 
 "And if you are to get any friends, you ve got 
 to get out and meet all kinds many you don t like 
 at all and then little by little take your choice." 
 He paused, and although he did not add, "After 
 all, they re Amy s friends, and you might at least 
 give em a chance" Ethel knew he was thinking 
 that, though he only ended gently, "But I guess 
 I ll leave it all to you. Do as you like. I ll be 
 satisfied. 
 
 "He won t be, though," she told herself. She 
 knew he would be distinctly annoyed if she did not 
 enter in. "No, I ve simply got to be nice to them. 
 There s no keeping them away ! 
 
 And in this she was right. Flowers* and gifts 
 for the baby came, and several more women 
 friends; and one of them brought her husband. 
 Nearly always they stayed until Joe came home; 
 and in his manner, with dismay, she saw the hold 
 they were getting. It was not only flattery they 
 used, they appealed to his loyalty to his first wife. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 137 
 
 Don t drop us now," they seemed to say. "We 
 were your friends when you were poor when she 
 was poor. If she had lived, just think how wel 
 come we should be." 
 
 Early one evening when Ethel and Joe were 
 dressing for dinner, Emily Giles came in with a 
 long box of roses. Ethel thought they were for 
 herself. 
 
 * No, said Emily, they re for your husband. 
 
 "For me?" Joe laughed. "There s some mis 
 take." 
 
 "No there s no mistake," said Ethel, in a low 
 unnatural voice. In an instant she had grown 
 cold. What a fool, to have forgotten that this was 
 Amy s birthday! Inside the box was Fanny s 
 card and on it she had written, "In memory of the 
 many times I helped you buy a birthday gift." 
 
 Ethel went quickly out of the room. It was an 
 awkward evening. 
 
 Fanny gave a dinner soon after that to cele 
 brate Ethel s recovery. It was in a hotel grill 
 room, and it was large and noisy and noisier and 
 noisier till even above the boisterous hubbub at 
 the tables all about, the noise of their party could 
 be heard. At least so it seemed to Ethel s ears. 
 And what were they saying? Anything really 
 witty, sparkling? No just chatter, peals of 
 
138 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 laughter ! They were just plain cheap and tough ! 
 How red were their faces, warm and moist their 
 lips and eyes ! 
 
 "You re not vivid enough, that s the trouble 
 with you! You ve got to be vivider!" she 
 thought. "You ought to have taken that cock 
 tail!" She drank wine now, a whole glass of it, 
 and tried to be very boisterous with the man on 
 her right, who was smiling back as though he could 
 barely hear her voice. "He has had too much!" 
 she told herself. "Oh, how I loathe you loathe 
 you all!" 
 
 But later, when they began to dance, she found 
 with a little glow of relief that she could do this 
 rather well. Thank Heaven she had taken those 
 dancing lessons a year ago ; and she was younger 
 than most of these creatures, and more lithe and 
 supple. The men were noticing, crowding around 
 her. She caught a glare from one of their wives. 
 And that glare helped tremendously, it came like 
 a gleam of light in the dark. She caught Joe s 
 admiring glances. She danced with him, then 
 turned him down for somebody else, kept turning 
 him down. She threw into her dancing an angry 
 vim; but joy was coming into it, too. This was 
 not so bad, after all. You may even grow to like 
 all this ! But most of her thinking was a whirl. 
 
 She went home in a taxi, in Joe s arms. She 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 139 
 
 thought, "This is how he and Amy came home. 
 Never mind, I m not half so weak as I thought. I 
 can play this game " 
 
 And play it she did. 
 
 The next morning they slept very late. They 
 had breakfast in bed, and when Joe had gone she 
 lay thinking. Her mind was marvellously clear. 
 It went swiftly over the night before. Yes, most 
 of it had been simply disgusting, the eating and 
 drinking, those warm moist eyes. "The way the 
 men looked at you, held you ! This is no life for 
 you, Ethel Lanier!" The dancing was all she 
 cared about. She wanted that, but with other 
 men whom she would like to be friends with 
 "men who would treat you as something more 
 than a, than a I don t know what!" Yes, she 
 must get away from these creatures, and get Joe 
 away, too; but to do it she must show him first 
 that she was really willing to do her best to like 
 them all. The next thing was to ask them here. 
 * It s the only way to break their hold. Show him 
 you re no jealous cat. And how do I know that 
 among them all, as I go about, I won t find a few 
 that aren t so tough? And through them 111 find 
 others." 
 
 But she put off entertaining Joe s friends, for 
 she had her hands full now in managing just Joe 
 
140 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 alone. Amy s husband was coming to life in him. 
 Of that there could be no mistake. Under the 
 spell of his success, and still more perhaps through 
 his pride and delight in his handsome young wife, 
 Joe was showing his love for her as Amy had 
 taught him long ago. He showered gifts upon 
 her. He delighted in surprises. One was a smart 
 little town car, and this was a very pleasant sur 
 prise. But in it he insisted upon her shopping 
 busily. No more wearing last year s clothes! 
 And when she was a bit slow to move, to her dis 
 may he went himself with Fanny Carr, and bought 
 for Ethel s birthday a costly set of furs and a 
 brooch. He nearly bought pearl earrings, too, 
 but Ethel took them back at once. l i Fanny knows 
 as well as I do myself that I can t wear pearls!" 
 she thought angrily. She exchanged them for 
 opal pendants. And then, in order to put a stop 
 to Fanny s detestable attempts "to make me look 
 like a perfect fright," Ethel did start in and shop. 
 And as soon as she got well into it, what a fever 
 it became ! Sternly eyeing herself in the mirrors 
 of shops, she studied and made mistakes by the 
 score, and corrected and went on and on. "I ll 
 look right if kills me ! " 
 
 One night she learned what Fanny Carr had had 
 in mind when she came "poking into our lives!" 
 For Fanny was poor she had long guessed that ; 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 141 
 
 and Fanny had a house on Long Island, and only 
 by a hair s-breadth now did Ethel keep her from 
 selling it to Joe as a surprise for his wife. 
 
 "Well, Fanny, what next?" thought Ethel that 
 night. She had been awake for hours, perfectly 
 still and motionless, not to disturb her husband. 
 "For you are not through yet, Mrs. Carr. So 
 long as we re rich and you are poor and have no 
 immediate husband, you re going to act like a 
 ravening wolf aren t you, my own precious. 
 You mean to break my hold on him by keeping him 
 thinking of her, of her! Now what am I to do 
 about it!" She frowned. She knew that she 
 ought to talk frankly to Joe, and get over this 
 silly habit of never mentioning Amy s name! 
 She grew determined, but then weak. For what 
 could she say to him about Amy? What did she 
 really want to say? "Do I know poor Amy was 
 anything bad? Wasn t she good to me! Would 
 I care to try to talk against her ? No. And even 
 if I did, you see, it would only hurt me with Joe 
 as it should. 
 
 So she went on in different moods. And now 
 she saw her sister s face smiling out of clear 
 violet eyes, and again she felt a small gloved hand 
 on her husband drawing him gently back back 
 and back into the past. Why was Amy so much 
 stronger now? "Because Fanny Carr has been 
 
142 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 clever enough to take me out of the life I was mak 
 ing and pitch me into Amy s life, where her hold 
 on Joe was strongest. I m in her setting. That s 
 the trouble! 
 
 But she had Amy s friends to dine one night, 
 as in her calmer moods she knew was the only 
 sensible course. And as they began arriving, by 
 swift degrees amid the buzz of talk which rose, 
 Ethel could feel the room each moment change and 
 become Amy s home. And it was Amy s dinner, 
 too. No cooking of Emily s that night, for Joe 
 had suggested a caterer. "The one we ve always 
 used," he had said. And so the cocktails and the 
 wines and the food in many courses, the two wait 
 ers in evening clothes, and the talk and the shrieks 
 of mirth, were just as they must have been before 
 so many, many times in this room. Ethel sat 
 affably rigid there. 
 
 And later at the piano Joe was not Ethers hus 
 band. Nor was it her room when they stripped 
 up the rugs and began to dance, nor her photo 
 graph their eyes kept seeking from time to time ! 
 She even thought she could hear them whisper 
 about the hostess who was dead! 
 
 And when very late they had departed, and last 
 of all Joe had gone with Fanny downstairs to put 
 her in her taxi, Ethel, left alone in the room, 
 turned to her sister s photograph. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 143 
 
 "I won t be like you," she tensely declared. 
 "I won t live in your home with your hus 
 band " 
 
 The picture smiled good-naturedly back. 
 
 "All right," it seemed to answer, "then what 
 do you expect to do?" 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BY the next day she had made up her mind 
 to look for another apartment. The move 
 had several points in its favour. It would not 
 only take her away from this place where she felt 
 the spell so strong; it would also give her some 
 thing to do. " And I need it, heaven knows ! she 
 thought. And besides it would provide an excuse 
 for not seeing Amy s friends. "I ll be worn out 
 every evening," she decided with grim satisfac 
 tion. 
 
 She found Joe more than ready for the change. 
 He himself had suggested it, some weeks before, 
 and Ethel made the most of that. "I ve been 
 thinking over your idea of moving," she began 
 one night. And in the talk which followed, the 
 intent little glances she threw at him made her 
 sure that in her husband s mind was a half con 
 scious deep relief at the idea of getting away from 
 these rooms and their memories. 
 
 "Poor dear," she reflected tenderly, "what a 
 place for a tired business man a home with two 
 assorted wives waiting for him every night." 
 
 But when it came to looking about, to her sur 
 prise Ethel found it hard, on her own account, to 
 
 144 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 145 
 
 make the move. For with all its faults and draw 
 backs, this was the place where she had struggled, 
 groped and dreamed, had married Joe and dis 
 covered him in hours she would never forget, and 
 here her baby had been born. The place had 
 grown familiar. Even the huge building, for all 
 its appearance of being exactly like every other 
 on the street, had in some curious fashion taken 
 on for Ethel a special atmosphere of its own ; and 
 coming back from a bleak succession of apart 
 ments she had inspected, this did at least seem 
 more like a home. 
 
 Joe came to her rescue. He was a part owner 
 here, and with delight she learned from him that 
 a large and sunny apartment at the top of the 
 building was to be free the first of May. Ethel 
 went up to see it at once. And the arrangement 
 of the rooms, and the way the sun flooded into each 
 one, made her exclaim with pleasure. 
 
 The present tenants were a young widow and 
 her companion, a most respectable elderly dame. 
 The widow was about Ethel s age and excessively 
 pretty and stylish, and in her low sweet voice and 
 her manner was a peculiar attractiveness that 
 Ethel could not analyse. She explained that she 
 was going abroad, possibly to be gone a year, or 
 she never would have given up this gem of an 
 apartment. She seemed more than glad to show 
 
146 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Ethel about, and displayed a friendly interest in 
 her visitor s eager planning. When Ethel left at 
 the end of an hour, the widow smiled at her and 
 said, with a charming little hesitation, 
 
 "I don t think you have my name. It s Mrs. 
 Grewe. I do hope you ll come up whenever you 
 like, and let me help you all I can. I shall so love 
 to feel when I go that you and your kiddies will 
 be here. I ve noticed them so often, down-stairs 
 and in the elevator. And they re both such dar 
 lings." 
 
 And at that, with a thrill of pride, Ethel felt al 
 most as though she had found a friend in the 
 city at last. 
 
 They saw each other frequently, for Ethel was 
 always running in to look through the various 
 rooms and puzzle and decide on curtains, rugs and 
 portieres. In this she was aided more than she 
 knew by the taste displayed in the furnishings, 
 rich, subdued and yet so gay, that young Mrs. 
 Grewe had collected here. The two had animated 
 talks, and once when her new acquaintance sug 
 gested, "I d be so glad if I could be of some help 
 in your shopping," Ethel replied, "Oh, you could! 
 I d love to have you!" And they started in that 
 day. 
 
 And yet how curious, even here. For when 
 ever Ethel endeavoured to get the conversation 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 147 
 
 upon a little more intimate terms, Mrs. Grewe 
 would almost instantly become evasive and re 
 mote. And once when Ethel asked her to "drop 
 down and have dinner with us some night, " she 
 declined almost with a start, as though she were 
 saying, "Ha! Look out! I m in danger of let 
 ting you be a real friend!" And thinking this 
 over, Ethel reflected, "The only New Yorker I ve 
 met so far, whom I d like to know, is nice to me 
 simply because she is going abroad in a month and 
 so it s safe! Has she offered to introduce me 
 to a single friend of hers? Well, then, don t! 
 Keep your old friends! I don t want to eat 
 them!" And for days together she would leave 
 the young widow alone. 
 
 But the latter would make pleasant advances, 
 and soon they would be shopping again. This ac 
 quaintance was one of the few bright spots in a 
 season which for Ethel was full of anxious wor 
 ries. For it was by no means easy. Amy had 
 been a shopper who simply could not resist pretty 
 things, and so her apartment was crowded with 
 furniture and bric-a-brac. How much can I get 
 rid of without offending Joe?" asked Ethel. He 
 was the kind of man who says nothing. He would 
 not object, but he would feel hurt. It took the 
 most careful probing to find how far she could 
 safely go. And she was tempted by the shops. 
 
148 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 In her smart town car, with plenty of money and 
 with young Mrs. Grewe at her side, it was almost 
 impossible to resist the adorable things she dis 
 covered. "No wonder Amy bought too much." 
 But there they were, all Amy s belongings, and to 
 be rid of each table, each chair, each rug, meant 
 the most careful thinking. 
 
 "Nevertheless," she told herself. "That 
 apartment upstairs is to be my own home." 
 
 In the meantime her new occupation was work 
 ing out wonderfully as an excuse for not going 
 about in the evenings. She was so dead tired 
 every night. No need to feign fatigue, it was 
 real. She even had to call in her physician, in 
 the first "draggy" days of Spring; and he warned 
 her that she was doing too much, it was too soon 
 after the birth of her child. She was glad when 
 Joe happened to come in and overhear the doctor. 
 He became the same old dear to her that he had 
 been a year ago. And with eagerness, tired 
 though she was, she took pains every evening to 
 dress in ways that she knew he liked. And at 
 times it was almost like a second honeymoon they 
 were having. She used the baby, too, and Susette ; 
 she often persuaded Joe to come home in time for 
 Susette 7 s supper, or better still for the baby s 
 bath. And all this was so successful that even 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 149 
 
 when her spring fever was gone she still stayed at 
 home in the evenings. 
 
 But in the meantime, what about friends? 
 6 I m la zy, she thought, " 1 7 m not facing it ! I m 
 just putting it off and it s dangerous ! For Joe 
 was out so much at night. Over half the time he 
 did not get home until the children were in bed, 
 and often after a hurried dinner he would leave by 
 eight o clock for business appointments, he told 
 her, at some club or some cafe. He was putting 
 through another big deal. At times, despite her 
 efforts, angry suspicions would arise. He was 
 dealing with some men from the "West. No doubt 
 they had to be entertained. She had heard a little 
 of such entertaining from travelling men she had 
 known at home. "Oh, Ethel Lanier, don t be so 
 disgusting!" But after all, a man so tense all 
 day in his office needed some gaiety at night. 
 
 She began to suggest going out in the evenings. 
 They went to "Butterfly" and "Louise," and each 
 evening was a great success. But within a few 
 days Fanny Carr called up and asked them to din 
 ner and the play. Ethel made some excuse and 
 declined. She did not mention it to Joe, but that 
 night he said gruffly, "Sorry you turned Fanny 
 down." And Ethel looked at him with a start. 
 So Joe was seeing her these days ! 
 
150 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "I haven t been feeling very strong, Joe," she 
 said in an unnatural tone. 
 
 "You ve been to the opera twice this week," 
 was her husband s grim rejoinder. 
 
 And this was only one little instance of many 
 that made Ethel sure that Fanny Carr was still 
 about. She was getting at Joe through his busi 
 ness side, going to his office. She had asked him 
 to sell her house on Long Island, and through this 
 transaction she had tangled him into her affairs. 
 A lone woman, defenceless in business, needing 
 the aid and advice of a man. "Oh, I can almost 
 hear her lay it on her helplessness ! And Ethel 
 fairly ground her teeth. For Fanny, only the day 
 before, having called and noticed that a sofa and 
 a rug were missing, had asked to what dealer Ethel 
 had sold them. "Now," thought Ethel, "she ll 
 buy them herself, and then she ll ask Joe to drop 
 in for tea at her hotel apartment on business, 
 of course but the rug and sofa will be there! 
 Poor Amy s things! Oh, yes, indeed, Fanny is 
 clever enough ! If only she would take his money 
 and get out and leave us alone!" 
 
 Ethel had some lonely grapples with life. She 
 was right, she angrily told herself, in wanting to 
 go slowly until she could discover real friends; 
 but on the other hand she admitted that Joe had 
 reason for being impatient. At thirty-seven it is 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 151 
 
 hard for a man to change his habits, and Amy had 
 accustomed Joe to crave excitement every night. 
 Even Ethel herself, in some of her moods, felt 
 restless to go about and be gay. And again and 
 again the youth in her rebelled against the trap 
 into which she had fallen. 
 
 "The minute I even propose a play, I show him 
 I m well enough to go out. And then he asks, 
 Why not Amy s friends! And he remembers 
 the mean little things that Fanny Carr must have 
 told him the beast! and so he says, I see it all. 
 Ethel is only bluffing. Now that I m rich she s 
 trying to make me drop the friends and the mem 
 ory of the wife who stood by me when I was 
 poor. " 
 
 Ethel even went out twice to their detestable 
 parties, in the faint hope of finding one woman at 
 least she would care to know. But if there had 
 been any such, Fanny was careful to leave them 
 out. 
 
 Friends, friends, friends of her own! Where 
 to find them? On the streets, as she went about 
 at her shopping, she saw so many attractive peo 
 ple, and she drew their glances, too. She had de 
 veloped since her marriage ; she had a distinctive 
 beauty, and she had learned how to foster that. 
 Almost always she felt the hungry eyes of men, 
 good, bad and indifferent, rich men, beggars, 
 
52 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Christians, Jews. But that of course was only 
 Lnnoying. Ethel wanted women friends. On the 
 .treat, from her elegant little car, she could see 
 yomen who were walking glance at her with envy, 
 ust as she herself had done in her first year in 
 he city. The thought brought a humorous smile 
 o her lips. And looking at the constant stream 
 >f motors passing, she inquired, "How many of 
 is are there, in this imposing procession, who 
 laven t a single friend in town?" How they all 
 )assed on. How coolly indifferent, self-absorbed ! 
 Was there no entering wedge to their lives? * 
 
 But her youth would rise with a sudden rush in 
 ler warm body, so smartly dressed, so tingling 
 dth ardent health, and glancing into the glass in 
 ier car and making a little face at herself, she 
 yould exclaim, 
 
 "Oh, fiddlesticks! All this is going to have a 
 lice fine happy ending ! Nothing awful is to hap- 
 )en to me!" 
 
 At one such time, as though interrupted, she 
 eaned quickly and graciously forward, as she had 
 >een women do in the Park, and bowed with a 
 jordial little smile to a vacant lot and then 
 Burning back to the imagined friend at her side, 
 she said sweetly, 
 
 "Excuse me, dear. What were you saying? 
 
 . . "Why yes, we d love to. Thursday night? 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 153 
 
 What time do you dine?" A lump rose in her 
 throat. "Now, Ethel, Ethel, you soft little fool 
 you re only twenty-five, you know. And of all 
 the adorable babies waiting in a nursery " 
 
 One day she found Fifth Avenue crammed and 
 jammed with a huge parade. She had her chauf 
 feur get as close as he could, and with intent and 
 curious eyes she watched the suffragists march 
 by. What hosts and hosts of women, how jolly 
 and how friendly. Oh, what a lark they were hav 
 ing together ! Why not join them, then and there? 
 For an instant she thought of leaving her car and 
 falling right in with some marching group. "But 
 how do I know they won t turn me down?" She 
 waited and lost courage. Soon she saw marching 
 ahead of one section a smartly dressed woman 
 whose photograph she had often seen in the pa 
 pers. At this Ethel s courage oozed again, and 
 with a pang of envy she thought, 
 
 "Oh. yes, this is all very fine for you! You re 
 so safe and settled here; you ve got position 
 everything ! 
 
 In a moment she felt this was small and mean. 
 The envy and the bitterness passed. She watched 
 other women, such confident, easy, bright-looking 
 creatures not at all like Amy s set who looked 
 as though they could preside at big meetings or at 
 
154 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 their own tables at home, and be gracious and say 
 witty things to the clever men at their sides. Be 
 hind them came whole regiments of women and 
 girls of a simpler kind. Some of them earned 
 their own living, no doubt yes, and had to work 
 hard to do it. 
 
 "Wouldn t they do? Look at that one! 
 Wouldn t I like her for a friend?" 
 
 In a flash Ethel remembered the little history 
 "prof" at home, who had begged her girls to live 
 and grow. 
 
 "Now, Ethel Lanier, you re going to get right 
 out of this car and fall into line friends or no 
 friends ! 
 
 In a moment, scowling to keep up her nerve, 
 she was pushing through the standers-by right out 
 into the Avenue; and feeling like a public sight, 
 she tried quickly to get into line. 
 
 "You can t march here! Our line is full!" a 
 voice said sharply. Ethel gasped and reddened, 
 turned blindly to the file behind. 
 
 "Do you want to march with us?" somebody 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes! Oh, thank you!" 
 
 "Fall right in. That s right, my dear here, 
 take one of my flags." 
 
 6 ( You re awfully kind ! 
 
 "Hooray for the vote!" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 155 
 
 Through eyes a little misty Ethel saw striding 
 along at her side a sturdy little old lady in black. 
 And she blessed her fervently. It was a thrilling 
 marvellous time. In less than ten minutes she felt 
 herself boon companions with every one in her 
 line. But then, before she realized what it was 
 that had happened, her group had reached the 
 end of their march and had melted suddenly into a 
 throng of chattering laughing women. Ethel 
 stared about her blindly. 
 
 " Never mind," she decided, "I m going to see 
 more of this!" 
 
 And the next day she presented herself at suf 
 frage headquarters. 
 
 "I want to work," she said to a girl at a desk. 
 The girl looked up at her busily. 
 
 "All right, go to that table," she answered. 
 
 And at a long oak table, one of a dozen women 
 and girls, Ethel folded envelopes and addressed 
 them for about three hours. Down at the end, 
 two girl companions chatted and laughed at their 
 labour. But the rest were just busy. "Hand me 
 those envelopes, if you please." And so it was 
 all through the room. She came back the next 
 morning and the next ; and as she worked, her ex 
 pression was grim. "It isn t their fault," she 
 decided. "They want the vote, they don t want 
 
156 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 And she turned forlornly back to the work of 
 moving up to her new apartment. 
 
 The first of May was drawing near, and she saw 
 signs of restlessness, as thousands of New Yorkers 
 prepared to change their quarters. Moving, al 
 ways moving. Did they never stop in one place 
 and make it a home? The big building in which 
 Ethel lived took on an impersonal air, as though 
 saying, "What do I care? I m all concrete, with 
 good hard steel inside of that." What a queer 
 place for people s homes! People moving in and 
 out! Curiously she probed into its life. She 
 had long ago made friends with the wife of the 
 superintendent, and through her Ethel collected 
 bits about these many families so close together 
 and yet so apart ; all troubles kept strictly out of 
 sight, with the freight elevator for funerals, cool 
 looks and never a word of greeting. "Keep off," 
 writ clear on every face. 
 
 "It isn t real, this living! It can t last!" she 
 exclaimed to herself. "They ll have to work out 
 something better than this something, oh, much 
 homier ! She thought of the old frame house in 
 Ohio. "That s gone," she declared, with a swal 
 low. 
 
 Her acquaintance with young Mrs. Grewe was 
 still the one bright spot at such times. When 
 Ethel felt blue she would go upstairs to the sunny 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 157 
 
 new home that was to be hers ; and there the blithe 
 welcome she received restored her own belief in 
 herself. Mrs. Grewe would often lead her to talk 
 of her home in Ohio, the eager dreams and plans 
 of her girlhood ; and on her side, the young widow 
 gave pictures of life in London and Paris as she 
 had seen it so many times. They still shopped to 
 gether occasionally. 
 
 But one afternoon about six o clock, as Ethel s 
 car drew up at the door and she and her one friend 
 got out, Joe came along and with one quick angry 
 look he hurried into the building. Quite furious 
 and ashamed for him, Ethel turned to her com 
 panion but Mrs. Grewe smiled queerly and held 
 out her small gloved hand. 
 
 "Good-bye, my dear, it has been so nice this 
 afternoon and all the others." Her tone was a 
 curious mixture of amused defiance and real re 
 gret. Ethel stammered something, but in a mo 
 ment her friend was gone. 
 
 Upstairs she met Joe with an angry frown, but 
 to her indignant reproaches he replied by a quiz 
 zical smile. 
 
 "Look here, Ethel." He took her arm, in a 
 kind protecting sort of way which made her fairly 
 boil. "Look here. I can t let you go about with 
 a shady little person like that. I didn t know 
 you d picked her up. Now, now I understand, 
 
158 JEIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 of course you met her up there in the new apart 
 ment. What a fool I was not to have thought of 
 it." 
 
 "Thought of what? For goodness sake!" 
 
 "She won t do, that s all." 
 
 "Why won t she?" Ethel s colour was sud 
 denly high and her brown eyes had a dangerous 
 gleam. Joe looked at her, hesitating. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "you re the kind of a girl who 
 has to be told the truth now and then. She s the 
 mistress of one of our big millionaires." 
 
 Ethel stared at him blankly. 
 
 "I don t believe it!" she cried. "Her taste! 
 The way she dresses ! Her her voice the things 
 she says!" 
 
 "I know, I know," he answered. "That sort is 
 rare and they come high. I ve talked to her" 
 
 Oh, you have, have you ! Then why shouldn t 
 I?" 
 
 "Because, my dear, I m one of the owners of 
 this building. My talks were brief just busi 
 ness." 
 
 "What business had you letting her in?" 
 
 "Because times were bad three years ago and 
 tenants weren t so easy to find. What harm has 
 she done? This isn t a social club, you know " 
 
 "I know it isn t! Nobody speaks or even 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 159 
 
 smiles!" A lump rose in Ethel s throat. "And 
 she was so nice and friendly ! 
 
 "I 11 bet she was " 
 
 "I won t believe it!" Now her face was red 
 dening with self -mortification. "Do you mean to 
 tell me living like that with a companion, even 
 a prim old maid who looks as though she had 
 left Boston only last night " 
 
 A twinkle came into her husband s eyes: "My 
 dear, the friend of a ~big millionaire always keeps 
 some one from Boston close by." His arm went 
 around her. "Poor little girl. I guess I won t 
 have to say any more " 
 
 "Perhaps you will and perhaps you won t!" 
 Now again she was nearly choking with rage and 
 with hurt vanity. Her one and only companion! 
 The only woman she had been clever enough to 
 find ! That kind ! Oh-h ! Suddenly she turned to 
 Joe to tell him that if he could give her no friends 
 she d pick and choose just where she liked ! But 
 quickly she remembered that he would answer, 
 Haven t I tried ? She turned away, broke into 
 tears and left the room. 
 
 Out of the little storm that followed, she 
 emerged at last with the thought, "Well, I must 
 see her, anyway, in the work of moving into her 
 apartment. And am I sorry? Not at all! She 
 
160 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 was good to me at least she was that ! And be 
 sides," reflected Ethel, with the same caution and 
 relief which she had so despised in New Yorkers, 
 " she s going soon. It s safe enough." 
 
 The talk occurred the next morning, up in the 
 new apartment. There were no awkward prelimi 
 naries, for Mrs. Grewe s whole manner had 
 changed. Quite a bit of its careful refinement was 
 gone, and in its place was a rather bitter frank 
 ness. 
 
 "I quite understand you needn t explain," she 
 said at once. "Your husband has made a fuss, 
 hasn t he? And this is good-bye. Too bad, isn t 
 it?" 
 
 "Yes it is." Ethel hesitated, then all at once 
 she beamed on her friend. * 1 1 want you to know, 
 she stoutly declared, "that neither is my hus 
 band my boss nor am I a prig! Back in school, 
 we girls we used to talk and read and discuss 
 things Bernard Shaw " 
 
 Her hostess smiled : 
 
 "Oh, Shaw, my dear, is a dear, witty man 
 and he s so funny and so fair. But to live with 
 him ugh! rather icy!" She laughed. "See 
 here. No matter what you have read, you ve 
 never met me until now. I mean the big Me that 
 thrills all girls who speak about me in whispers. 
 Well, then, just for a minute, meet me look at 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 161 
 
 me and see what I am." On her piquante little 
 face was a look of friendly challenge. "We ve 
 had such fine little shopping bees, and I d like you 
 not to be sorry. And what I want to say is this : 
 
 1 I was just like you. / came from a small town 
 / had my dreams I reached New York I mar 
 ried. She smiled. l Not once but twice. I was 
 divorced. And my second was a love of a man, 
 and we had such a blissful honeymoon. It lasted 
 a year and a half, and then he got taking things 
 dope and that made it hard. It ended in an 
 other divorce. The next man didn t marry me. 
 Meant to, you know, but hadn t time. Then he 
 passed on " with a wave of her hand "and 
 now I m here." A humorous smile came over 
 her face. "And for the life of me I can t see how 
 changed it is from when I was married. The 
 same sort of apartment, only it s nicer the same 
 ocean liners and hotels the same cafes where one 
 can dance exactly as one did before." Again she 
 wrinkled up her brows. "The only real differ 
 ence I can see is that when I was married like 
 you, my husband only told me the truth once in 
 a while as yours did last night while now they 
 tell it all the time. Oh, I m wise, I m wise, my 
 dear for one so young. I m twenty-eight. How 
 old are you?" 
 
 " I m twenty-five. 
 
162 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 " Three years behind. Well, on the whole I 
 guess I d stay married if I were you. It s so nice, 
 if he s still in love with you. But the minute he 
 isn t, or makes any fuss, or gets ugly or mean, 
 remember this." And her sweet, clear voice 
 grew impressive. Eemember then you can never 
 be sure what he s really doing in this town. I 
 know because they tell me and most of them 
 are married men. And second, and last and al 
 ways remember, rriy dear, that with your figure 
 and your face and your lovely hair which you do 
 so well, you don t have to put up with any man! 
 You can get right out whenever you please ! And 
 the only trouble will be to choose your next from 
 all the others who will come crowding about you ! 
 And whether you make him marry you well 
 I honestly think there s not much choice." 
 She rose and said, with a strange little smile, 
 "Now that I ve had my little revenge on your 
 beast of a husband for spoiling it all, when I 
 wasn t doing the least bit of harm and was leaving 
 anyhow this week let s say good-bye and each 
 get to our packing." 
 
 "She was once like me. I could be like her," 
 thought Ethel late that night. She had been lying 
 awake for hours. < I could be but I won t ! " she 
 declared. "She had read Shaw. How funny! 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 163 
 
 ... I think it s a mighty big mistake to let young 
 girls read Bernard Shaw. Susette certainly 
 shan t!" Her lips compressed. In a moment 
 she was frowning. 
 
 "How easily Joe changed about from loving 
 Amy to loving me. Here he lies asleep at my side. 
 Where was he today? What do I know? . . . 
 Oh, Ethel Lanier, don t be a fool and let every 
 cheap little woman you meet get you thinking 
 things! Such silly things! ... I do wish that 
 odious Fanny Carr would get out of my life and 
 stay out! . . . You d better be very careful, Joe." 
 She had risen on her elbow now, and by the dim 
 light from the window she could just see her hus 
 band s face. "Because if you re not very good 
 to me remember that a person whom you your 
 self consider one of the very best of her kind 
 told me that I" 
 
 She dropped back. All at once her face was 
 burning. 
 
 "Oh, how I loathe all this!" she thought, 
 "And how silly and untrue! Do you want to 
 know where you and I are different, little Mrs. 
 Grewe? I ll tell you! I have a baby! And 
 when he grows up he s going to have this same 
 man still for a father! So there! I m not sure 
 about anything, even God, any more in this town 
 it s all a whirl! But I ve got a baby, and 
 
164 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Susette, and for them I m going to have a real 
 home keep wide awake, make friends I ll love 
 and grow and learn and march in parades and 
 go to the opera in a box and go to concerts, go 
 abroad, shop in Paris love my husband be very 
 gay make friends, friends I will, I will I 
 won t be downed I ll beat this cat of a city- 
 "However. Now I ll go to sleep. " 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SHE did not see Mrs. Grewe again, she did not 
 want to see her. It was not until from the 
 telephone girl she learned that the charming 
 young widow was gone, that Ethel went up to her 
 new home. In a little while her furniture would 
 begin to pour in, but as yet the rooms were empty, 
 flooded with warm sunshine. She looked about 
 and thought of the life which had been here, and 
 then of Mrs. Grewe 7 s advice and her last smiling 
 admonition. She could almost hear the voice. 
 
 "Is every place I live in to be haunted?" Ethel 
 asked herself. And then with a humorous little 
 scowl: "Now see here, young woman, the sooner 
 you learn that every apartment in this city has a 
 complete equipment of ghosts, the better it will be 
 for you. I don t care who lived here, nor how she 
 lived nor what she said. I don t need her advice, 
 and her life is not to affect mine in the slightest ! 
 She stopped short. Of whom was she speaking, 
 Mrs. Grewe or Amy? There were two of them 
 now ! Both had given her advice, and in each case 
 the life portrayed had been very much alike, so 
 much so as to be rather disturbing. Things were 
 certainly queer in this town ! 
 
 165 
 
166 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Very well, my dears/ she said amiably, "if 
 I must be haunted, it s much more gay and so 
 ciable to have two instead of one. Eemember tea 
 will be served at five, and from the present out 
 look there s little chance of our being disturbed by 
 the intrusion of any live woman in New York. 
 ... At least the ghosts are friendly." She sud 
 denly compressed her lips and looked about: 
 "However!" She went to the telephone in the 
 hall: "Please hurry up those porters! I m up 
 here waiting to begin ! 
 
 And in the days that followed, she was far too 
 engrossed in "settling" to spare any time for 
 brooding on phantoms. "A home of my own and 
 a life of my own, to be lived with my own hus 
 band!" But when at last they were settled, and 
 Joe in a dear, genial mood had gone about admir 
 ing, and taking no notice apparently of the scarcity 
 of Amy s things he turned to Ethel with an air 
 which was meant to be easy and natural : 
 
 "Well, now that we re taking a fresh start, the 
 time has come for a little talk." 
 
 "What about?" she asked, endeavouring to 
 make her smile as easy as his. 
 
 "It will take about one minute." His gruff 
 voice was low and kind. "I m not going to force 
 my friends on you. If you want to make friends 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 167 
 
 of your own, go ahead. And when you get them 
 let me know and they ll be mine, too, if I have 
 to break a leg in the effort. I ll dance in front 
 of them, so to speak, until they re all enchanted. 
 But in the meantime, on your side, I want you to 
 let me down easy with these people I once knew. 
 I don t want to hurt them or be a cad. A few I 
 may keep in touch with for years." 
 
 4 * Fanny !" flashed into Ethel s mind. 
 
 44 And all I ask of you is this. You ll soon be 
 going away for the summer. Let s do the decent 
 thing just once and have a little party here. I 
 give you my word we won t do it again." 
 
 "All right, Joe that s fair, of course and I ll 
 do my best to make it exactly what you want." 
 
 And in the dinner that she gave, Ethel lived 
 up to her bargain. The dinner was large; there 
 were twenty guests. The caterer was as before, 
 and so were the food and the flowers. And all 
 through the evening Ethel was gracious and affa 
 ble. But behind her affability, hidden but subtly 
 conveyed to each guest, was a serene good-bye to 
 them. This was their dismissal. Did they all 
 feel it, every one? To her at least it seemed so. 
 Again and again she caught the men throwing 
 looks of regret at Joe, and the women glancing 
 about the rooms as though in search of what was 
 
168 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 gone. Amy s things? Oh, more than that. The 
 whole atmosphere was gone. This was the home 
 of the second wife. 
 
 "Well, dear, did I live up to our bargain?" she 
 asked her husband when they were alone. 
 
 "You did," said Joe. He looked at her then 
 in such a puzzled, masculine fashion. What she 
 had done and how she had done it was plainly such 
 a mystery to him. "You did," he repeated loy 
 ally. She slipped her arms about his neck. 
 
 "Thank you, love," she answered. And in a 
 moment or two she murmured, "Have them again 
 in the Fall if you like." 
 
 "No," said Joe. "Once was enough." 
 
 "Now," she asked herself the next day, "let s 
 try to see what all this means." She was almost 
 speaking aloud. She was growing so accustomed 
 to these sociable little chats with herself. "It 
 means that I am getting on. But Fanny Carr will 
 still be about. She won t come here except just 
 enough to keep up appearances, but she ll still 
 have her business dealings with Joe in the man 
 agement of her property. He means to keep in 
 touch, he said, with a few of them meaning her, 
 of course and his tone conveyed quite plainly 
 that I am to leave him alone in that until I can 
 produce friends of my own. Whereupon, my 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 169 
 
 dear," she threw up her hands, "we come back to 
 exactly the same point at which we have been all 
 along. Where am I going to find friends? 9 And 
 she gave an angry, baffled sigh. * Oh, damn New 
 York!" 
 
 As she glared viciously about the pretty, sunny 
 living room, the image of its former tenant rose 
 up in her memory. And Ethel s expression 
 changed at once, became intent and thoughtful. 
 How much more attractive was Mrs. Grewe than 
 were any of Amy s set. Immoral? Yes, decid 
 edly. But what did "immoral" mean in this 
 town? Who was moral? Fanny Carr? Did 
 these wives and divorcees do any good with their 
 "moral" lives? She recalled what Mrs. Grewe 
 had said: "And whether you marry or whether 
 you don t, for the life of me I can t see any differ 
 ence. And again : * With your face and figure, 
 my dear, you don t have to put up with any one 
 man." Ethel sat frowning straight before her. 
 "What kind of a life am I going to find? I m 
 going to stay with my husband that s sure. I m 
 in love with him and he with me. That much is 
 decided." 
 
 She rose abruptly, and walking the floor she 
 firmly resolved to "be wholesome" and look on 
 the bright side of things. In the next few weeks 
 she busied herself with the small affairs of her 
 
170 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 household. There was plenty to occupy her mind. 
 There were finishing touches to give to the rooms ; 
 there were Spring clothes to buy for Susette ; and 
 the baby was ready for short dresses and a baby 
 carriage. There was the life in the nursery, a 
 cheerful little world in itself. There was Martha, 
 grown more friendly now, and Emily and the new 
 waitress, Anne, and the telephone girl and the 
 chauffeur and the clerks in various shops who had 
 become acquaintances altogether quite a circle of 
 people who greeted Ethel on her rounds. One 
 day as she passed a laundry shop she spied this 
 sign in the window: "Fine linen respectfully 
 treated. And Ethel chuckled at the thought that 
 she herself was treated like that. On the whole 
 it was rather pleasant, though, and she made the 
 most of it. She was being carefully "whole 
 some." 
 
 Now it was well along in June, time for the chil 
 dren to go to the seashore, so she began to hunt 
 for a place. At the traveller s bureaus she visited 
 she found the clerks more than ready to give ad 
 vice by the hour to this gracious young creature 
 so stylishly clad. And she had soon selected a 
 quiet little resort in Ehode Island. 
 
 But what was Joe doing all this time? She did 
 not mean to keep prying, but for the life of her 
 she could not help throwing out casual inquiries. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 171 
 
 His reply was always, " Business "; and he would 
 go on to give her details all of which were tire 
 some. How much was he seeing of Fanny Carr 
 and her detestable money affairs? His manner, 
 engrossed as it had grown, and even irritable at 
 times, made Ethel feel he was putting her further 
 and further out of that part of his existence which 
 now interested him most, the part that lay outside 
 his home. Was it all business, all of it? "And 
 when I go to the seashore, he ll be here five nights 
 a week!" Sometimes he came in so late at night ! 
 Business? At such an hour? "Now carefully, 
 carefully, Ethel Lanier. But in spite of herself 
 the smiling words of young Mrs. Grewe recurred 
 to her mind: "Most of them are married men." 
 
 Ethel s doubts, however, were all ended late one 
 night, when at the sound of his key in the door she 
 got out of bed and came into the doorway of her 
 room. Joe was standing in the hall. He did not 
 see her. In fact, his eyes, when he switched on 
 the light, seemed to see nothing in the world but 
 the package of business papers he took from his 
 overcoat. His face was haggard but intent. He 
 turned and went into his study to work. And any 
 suspicion of Fanny Carr, or of any other friend 
 of Joe s, was swept at once from Ethel s mind. 
 Her rival was his business. 
 
 And later at the seashore, where she had so 
 
172 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 many hours alone, she thought about this work of 
 his with deepening hostility. Her mind went back 
 into the past. How his office had always absorbed 
 him. What a refuge it had been in the months 
 that followed Amy s death. "I wasn t the one 
 who first made him forget. Oh, no, it was his 
 business!" And now, as it had weaned him once 
 from his grief for the woman who had died, it was 
 at him again to draw him away from the woman 
 who was living. 
 
 There had been a time when it was not so, when 
 she could keep him late at breakfast and make him 
 come home early at night, still fresh enough to 
 read and talk, discuss things, go to the opera, take 
 up his music, plan a trip to Paris. "Oh, yes! 
 Then we were making a start!" But now this 
 wretched work of his had got him worse than ever 
 before and she blamed his partner for that. 
 She recalled how Nourse had disliked her, she re 
 membered what Amy used to say about the man s 
 worship of business. Yes, with his detestable 
 greed for money, only money, Nourse was doubt 
 less driving Joe. "You re making him just a 
 business man, without a thought or a wish in his 
 head for anything beautiful, really fine, ambition, 
 things he dreamed of and told me about when he 
 was mine things that would have led us both to 
 everything I wanted " 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 173 
 
 She set her lips and whispered : 
 
 "All right, friend Bill, then it s you or it s me!" 
 
 And all the rest of the summer she set herself 
 determinedly to breaking up the partnership. 
 
 "Joe, dear," she said pleasantly, when he had 
 come out for the week end, "why don t you ever 
 bring your partner with you over Sunday!" 
 And at his quick look of surprise, "It seems too 
 bad, I think," she added, "never to have him with 
 
 us." 
 
 "I thought you didn t like him," he said. 
 Ethel gave a frank little smile. 
 
 "I didn t but that was a year ago. And be 
 sides, he didn t like me, you see. But people do 
 change, I suppose and as long as he means so 
 much to you, I should so like to be friendly." 
 
 It turned out just as she had expected. Nourse 
 declined the invitation. "I m sorry," she said 
 when her husband told her. She felt her position 
 strengthened a bit. At. another time she sug 
 gested that Joe s partner be asked to spend the 
 rest of the summer with him in the apartment 
 back in town. It was doubtless so much cooler 
 at night than Nourse s bachelor quarters. And 
 Emily Giles could take care of them both. But 
 this overture, too, Bill Nourse declined. She 
 could just imagine him doing it, the surly, ungra 
 cious tone of his voice, the very worst side of the 
 
174 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 man shown up. Joe often now looked troubled 
 when Ethel talked of his partner. 
 
 But toward the end of the summer in one such 
 talk he gave her a shock. It was after Nourse had 
 again refused an invitation to come to the sea 
 shore. 
 
 "He s queer," said Joe, "and he can be ugly. 
 Being polite is not in Bill s line. I told him so 
 myself today and we had quite a session." 
 
 "Oh, Joe, I m sorry," Ethel said. 
 
 "You needn t be. Bill Nourse and I will stick 
 together as long as we live. Ethel looked at him 
 sharply, but he did not notice. "Because," he 
 said, "with all his faults, his queerness and his 
 grouches, Bill has done more than any man living 
 to well, to keep something alive in me in my 
 work, I mean that I want later on as soon as 
 I ve made money enough." She stared at him. 
 
 "You mean that he your partner wants 
 something more than money?" It was a slip, but 
 she was stunned. He turned and looked at her 
 and asked, in a voice rather strained and husky, 
 
 "Do you think Bill cares about money alone!" 
 
 "Why, yes!" 
 
 "That s funny." But Joe s laugh was grim. 
 "If Bill had had his way with me, I d have had a 
 name as an architect that would have been known 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 175 
 
 all over the country instead of being what I am, 
 a gambler in cheap real estate. 
 
 She questioned him further, her manner alert, 
 her eyes with a startled, thoughtful look. But he 
 did not seem to want to talk. 
 
 "Then why," she asked herself in a daze, "if 
 Bill is so against this business, does he keep at 
 it day and night? Oh, yes, we ll have to look into 
 this as soon as I get back to town! You ve got 
 to come and see me, and explain yourself, friend 
 Bill." She frowned in such a puzzled way. 
 < You, a friend I How funny ! 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE week after Ethel s return to town, she 
 was surprised one afternoon when in re 
 sponse to a note she had sent him her husband s 
 partner came to see her. She had thought it 
 would be more difficult. 
 
 "Joe won t interrupt us," he said. "I put 
 work in his way. He 11 be home late. 
 
 Tall, gaunt and angular, somewhat stooped, 
 Nourse stood looking down at her; and as, per 
 plexed and excited, Ethel scanned his visage, so 
 heavy in spite of its narrow lines, she saw an ex 
 pression in which contempt was tempered by a 
 sort of regret and weariness. And of course he 
 was awkward, too. She said to herself, "Be care 
 ful now. 
 
 "Won t you sit down?" she asked him. 
 
 Thank you. And he took a seat. 
 
 "I wanted to see you," she began, but Nourse 
 interrupted her. 
 
 "Would you object," he asked her, "if I do the 
 talking for a while? I ve got it fairly clear in 
 mind, just what I want to say to you." 
 
 "Why, yes, of course, if you prefer," she said, 
 a little breathlessly. 
 
 176 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 177 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Lanier, I think I know about what 
 you want and I m here to say that I ll help you 
 to get it if in return you will leave us alone." 
 He stopped for a moment, and went on: "In the 
 last few months, it has seemed to me, you ve been 
 doing your best to bring on a clash between me 
 and your husband. Every week in the office is 
 worse than the last. I don t blame you for that, 
 from your point of view. You felt I was trying 
 to make him eat and sleep in his office. I was 
 and I am. But my point to you is that it won t 
 be for long, and I m doing this really on your ac 
 count to get money enough to satisfy you." 
 She looked up in a startled way, but he went on 
 unheeding. "You and I must understand each 
 other. Tell me how much you really need and 
 we ll get it, Joe and I. And then I ll give him 
 back to you nights and in the daytime you leave 
 him to me. 
 
 He glanced at her with a weary dislike which 
 gave her an impulse to say to him, "Isn t this 
 rather insulting!" But she did not speak. For 
 looking at him sharply, she caught in the man s 
 heavy eyes a certain grim, deep wistfulness which 
 drew her a little in spite of his speech. And she 
 felt very curious, too. 
 
 "What do you think I really want?" she asked 
 him, then. Her voice was low. 
 
178 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 4 Money, " he said. 
 
 " Where did you get that idea?" 
 
 < < From your sister, he replied. i She sent for 
 me, too long ago. 
 
 "What fort" 
 
 Money. She told me that we were not making 
 enough that I was holding her husband back 
 from his career she called it. She said that if I 
 kept him out of a certain job that meant money 
 quick, she would break up our partnership. She 
 said she could do it, and she was right. My hold 
 on Joe wasn t in it with hers." 
 
 "What was your hold on him? What do you 
 mean!" asked Ethel. Again her voice was low. 
 Nourse looked down at his big hands and an 
 swered very quietly, 
 
 "I m afraid you wouldn t understand." She 
 bit her lip. 
 
 "But until I do learn what you want of Joe," 
 she retorted sharply, "I m afraid that I can t tell 
 you how much money I shall need. He glanced 
 up at her, puzzled. "Suppose you try me," she 
 went on. And as the man still frowned at her, 
 "I learned the other day," she said, "that you 
 knew Joe long before he was married. I want 
 you to tell me about that." 
 
 Little by little she drew him out. And as in 
 a reluctant way, in sentences abrupt and bald, he 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 179 
 
 answered all her questions, again and again did 
 Ethel feel a little wave of excitement. For 
 Nonrse was speaking of Joe s youth of college 
 and later of Paris, and then of a group of young 
 men in New York, would-be architects, painters 
 and writers who had lived near Washington 
 Square; of long talks, discussions, plans, and of 
 all night work in the architect s office where he 
 and Joe had worked side by side. Joe had been 
 a " designer" there; he had been the brilliant one 
 of the two, and the more impassioned and intense 
 and bold in his conceptions. There was a feeling 
 almost of reverence in the low, rough voice of 
 Joe s friend. He told how Joe had risen, until in 
 a few years he became the chief designer for his 
 firm; and of how from other firms offers had 
 come. To keep him his employers had been 
 forced to raise his salary, and to do much more 
 than that, for money didn t appeal to him then. 
 They had given him more important work "job 
 after job, and Joe made good." The climax of 
 this rising had come one night in the rooms they 
 shared, when Joe told his friend he had made up 
 his mind to set up an office of his own, though he 
 was only twenty-nine. 
 
 "And he offered me a partnership." The big 
 man s voice was husky now, as, in a little outburst 
 with a good deal of bitterness in it, he spoke of 
 
180 HIS SECOND WIPE 
 
 the glory of the work of which he and Joe had 
 once been a part. He seemed appealing to Joe s 
 wife to see, for God s sake, what it was in Joe 
 that had been lost. Then he stopped and frowned 
 and stared at her. Oh, what s the use ? " he mut 
 tered. But Ethel s voice was sharp and clear: 
 
 "Oh, if you only knew," she .cried, "how much 
 good this is doing! I won t stop to explain but 
 please go on!" Her brown eyes threw him a 
 fierce appeal. And again she had him talking. 
 He told of a plan for apartment buildings Joe had 
 conceived in those early days. "I don t say it 
 was practicable, I give it just to show you what 
 the man had in him," he said. "Big ideas that 
 strike in deep, the kind that change whole cities." 
 Instead of a street like a canyon with sheer walls 
 on either side, the front of each building was to 
 recede in narrow terraces, floor by floor, so letting 
 floods of sunlight down into the street below and 
 giving to each apartment a small terrace garden. 
 As she listened, Ethel grew intent. It was not the 
 mere plan that excited her, she was giving small 
 heed to the details. But this had in it what she 
 had craved ever since she had come to the city 
 beauty and creative work and this had been in 
 Joe s "business"! 
 
 "There was only one point against it," she 
 heard Nourse saying presently. "Those terraces 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 181 
 
 took a lot of space. Each one meant so much rent 
 was lost. For years, till the plan took hold of the 
 town, it was a money loser. . . . And Joe met 
 your sister then." The voice had changed, and 
 its hostile tone brought Ethel back with a sharp 
 turn. The man, as though uneasy at the revela 
 tions he had made, was looking at her as at first, 
 with suspicion and dislike. "I won t go into de 
 tails of how she got her hold on Joe. You know 
 how that s done, I suppose. I m speaking of the 
 effect on his work. He soon put off that plan of 
 his and any others of the kind. For now he had 
 to have money. And he has been putting it off 
 ever since not dropping it, he ll tell you, only 
 putting it off till he s rich. But if he isn t rich 
 enovgh soon, it ll be too late. For that part of 
 him is nearly dead. 
 
 "But to go back to your sister. It was not 
 only his money, it was his time she needed. First 
 it was a wedding trip, and after that late hours 
 a short day in his office. And he wasn t half the 
 man he had been. He was thinking of the night 
 before, and then of the night that was coming. 
 She came for him at five o clock." He saw Ethel 
 start, and he added, "Just as you did later on. 
 
 "And when he did wake up to work, it was dif 
 ferent it was for money alone. He began to 
 throw over his ideals, and very soon there was 
 
182 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 only me to hold him back. You see, he had had so 
 many friends before he met your sister, men and 
 even women, too, who had been a spur to him. 
 But when he brought his wife around, they 
 wouldn t have her, turned, her down and that 
 made her bitter against them all and she kept Joe 
 from them. All but me. I stayed in the office, 
 and now and then I got some of his friends and 
 we would take him out to lunch. But then even 
 that stopped. Joe hadn t time. He was too busy 
 getting the cash. 
 
 "He had dropped all pretence of any work that 
 was really worth while, and had turned his art 
 into a business. He became a real estate gambler 
 and an architect, all in one. He got to speculat 
 ing in land and what he built on it he didn t care, 
 so long as it produced the cash. Oh, it wasn t 
 all at once, you know, you can t strangle the soul 
 of a man in a hurry but by the time your sister 
 died, the buildings Joe was putting up were just 
 about as common and cheap as the average play 
 on Broadway crowd pleasers. He had lost his 
 nerve. Everything had to be popular. Play safe 
 each time, on the same old flats that every woman 
 seems to love. A woman is conservative. To 
 have and to hold, to get and keep, to stand pat 
 with both eyes shut that s the average woman in 
 this town. And Joe had to play her. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 183 
 
 "And because he still had a soul in him and a 
 stomach that turned he began to vary the dul- 
 ness of it by becoming sensational. He did dar 
 ing things, cheap daring things no real original 
 ity in it, but it took on and caught the eye. Pic 
 tures of his buildings got into the real estate pages 
 of the Sunday papers. He hired a press agent 
 then and went after the publicity. And all I need 
 to tell you of that, is that just the other day the 
 press agent came into the office with a scheme 
 for a string of buildings up on the new part of 
 the Drive. They were to be patriotic see? 
 named after the presidents of our country cheap 
 and showy terra-cotta main effect red, white and 
 blue." Ethel leaned back with a little gasp. But 
 Nourse added relentlessly, "And Joe didn t turn 
 him down. 
 
 She stiffened sharply in her chair and looked 
 at Nourse with indignant eyes, as though he alone 
 were to blame. 
 
 "You mean to say my husband could even con 
 sider such a plan!" 
 
 "Why not? There s money in it big the 
 publicity value would be immense. It would make 
 his name a joke of course, with every architect in 
 town but think of all the talk, free ads! And 
 that means tenants pouring in and money! 
 Don t you like it? She would have your sister 
 
184 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 would, I mean. It was just such a scheme on a 
 smaller scale that made her send for me one day 
 and tell me I could keep hands off or else get out 
 of the office. I gave in because I couldn t go I 
 couldn t quite make up my mind to the fact that 
 Joe was done for. So I stuck and she tried to 
 break me again and again. But Joe, for all the 
 change in him, had a loyal streak not only for me 
 but for all he had once meant to do. Even still 
 he kept saying he d just put it off, and that when 
 he d got the money he d turn back and we d be 
 gin. 
 
 "And when his wife died, I began to have hope. 
 The only blot on her funeral was the fact that you 
 were there and you told me you intended to stay. 
 Her sister the same story. I soon shook that 
 off, however for I saw the way he turned to his 
 work as a refuge from his grief for her. I had 
 my chance and I took it. When his mind was dull 
 and numb I began to slip in changes. And each 
 change meant better work and less easy money. 
 And soon I was making headway fast ; for Joe had 
 never cared for money for himself, but only for 
 her and she was dead. So he let our profits go 
 down and down, while what we did got more worth 
 doing. It even began to take hold of him of the 
 old Joe that was still there. 
 
 "But after nearly a year of that, I had to laugh 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 185 
 
 at myself for a fool. For Joe began wanting 
 money again, and I knew he was thinking of 
 marrying you. I fought, of course, and for a time 
 I had some hope of beating you. I remembered 
 you as you had been at the time of your sister s 
 funeral. You had seemed so young and w r eak to 
 me. But later, when you were his wife and began 
 taking half his time, keeping late hours, draining 
 him for you women can drain a man, you know 
 then I knew that you were strong, your sister s 
 sister. I gave in. Or I should say I took the 
 only chance that was left. I threw over the things 
 we had dreamed of and got him to work for money 
 hard harder than he d ever done. I drove him! 
 Why! Because I got him back that way. By 
 making him work for money for you I began to 
 get him away from you. In time I even got him to 
 stay in the office late at night. I got him to keep 
 away from you nights. And there was more than 
 that in my scheme. For now we re making money 
 enough to satisfy even you, I think. I m not sure 
 I m never sure your sister taught me never to 
 be. Perhaps you can t be satisfied. But if you 
 can, I see a chance. Tell me how much you really 
 need. We ll get it. And then for the love of 
 God leave us alone before it s too late before 
 what s in the man is dead!" 
 
 Nourse finished and rose, looking down at her. 
 
186 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 She sat rigid, keeping herself in hand. Again and 
 again she had been on the point of bursting out, 
 for the sheer brutality of so much he had told her 
 had made it very hard to sit still. But then as he 
 had spoken of Amy, Ethel had kept silent, watch 
 ing his face intensely. How much Amy must have 
 done to have aroused such bitterness! A sense 
 of reality in his talk, a clear and sudden conscious 
 ness of having the real Amy held up here before 
 her eyes, had gripped Ethel like a vise. Till now 
 she had no clear idea of how much Joe had sacri 
 ficed. But all that finer side of him, that early 
 life, those dreams, those friends, had all been 
 known to Amy. And Amy had been willing to lose 
 them all, to crush them out, for money, only money, 
 and money for such an empty life! Ethel shiv 
 ered a little. Her sister s picture was complete. 
 "No," she said, looking up at Nourse, "I m not 
 going to leave you alone. What I ve got to do 
 now is to try my best to make you feel what I 
 really want, and what a mistake you ve been mak 
 ing. Please listen, while I try to be clear." Her 
 expression was strained as she looked at him. 
 She smiled a little. "I am not like my sister. 
 I d rather not say much about her now. She 
 had her good points, too she s dead. And all 
 you need to know is this. You were wrong about 
 me in those first months I was trying to get away 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 187 
 
 from Joe. I had my own dreams and I wished to 
 be free. I even tried to earn my living. I worked 
 for a while. But the man I worked for fright 
 ened me and that threw me back on Joe. He was 
 poor then, so I nursed his child and ran his home 
 on very little. And I liked that. Believe me 
 please ! I liked that ! And I think the main rea 
 son for it was that I was falling in love, not with 
 her husband but with the man whom you were 
 bringing back to life. It was that in him, that 
 kind of ambition and that kind of life and friends, 
 that I wanted oh, so hard ! I was groping about 
 to get them but it s not easy in New York. And 
 meanwhile we were married, and about that part 
 of it you were right. I was selfish, I did want him 
 all. I let everything go, kept everything out 
 especially his business. I was jealous of you as 
 I was of his wife of everything past I wanted 
 him new ! 
 
 "Then my baby came, and it was a time when I 
 did a good deal of thinking. I thought out my 
 sister. I saw how different we were. What she 
 wanted I didn t want at all. So I set to work to 
 change him and I thought I was doing it all by 
 myself just as you thought you were doing it. 
 Each of us was working alone and we thought 
 we were working in spite of each other against 
 each other. I was against you in his office, you 
 
188 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 were against me in his home. And because you 
 hadn t any idea of what I was trying, you made 
 him work for money for me to buy me off ! But 
 I don t want money alone, I mean! And when 
 he came and said he was rich, it frightened me 
 I wasn t ready I had no friends! And so the 
 money only brought back my sister s friends in a 
 perfect horde and with them her memory her 
 influence her husband! 
 
 "Oh, can t you understand what I mean and 
 how I m placed and what it s like ? Can t you be 
 lieve that I want in him exactly what you want 
 yourself? But it hasn t been easy! Don t you 
 see? I am only a second wife! She s here she 
 has been all the time like a ghost and we 
 never speak her name ! But if you will only work 
 with me " 
 
 She stopped with a quick turn of her head. 
 They listened, and heard Joe s key in the door. 
 In a moment he had entered the hall. 
 
 * Hello. Who s here ? " he asked at once. 
 
 6 * It s I," said his partner, quietly, going out to 
 meet him. And sitting there rigid, she heard him 
 continue in gruff low tones, " Something I d for 
 gotten a point in those Taggert specifications. 
 I want to clear it up tonight. 
 
CHAPTER XVH 
 
 WHAT impression had she made? How far 
 had she overcome the heavy weight of dis 
 like and suspicion Amy had rolled up in his mind ? 
 As Ethel s thoughts went rapidly back over the 
 things Nourse had told her, again and again with 
 excitement she felt what a help he could be if 
 he would. Here lay the gate to her husband s 
 youth. 
 
 "If only he ll believe in me! Shall I send for 
 him? No," she decided. "If there s any hope, 
 he 11 come again. 
 
 She waited three days. Then he telephoned, 
 "Can I see you today at four o clock?" She an 
 swered, "Yes, I ll be very glad." And she felt 
 a little faint with relief as she hung up the re 
 ceiver. 
 
 When he came in, that afternoon, one glance at 
 him made her exclaim to herself, "He half be 
 lieves ! He s puzzled ! 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Lanier," he began at once, with 
 more friendliness now in his heavy voice, "if I ve 
 made any mistake about you, I m sorry. But you 
 must show me first. If you re real about this, you 
 look to me like a woman who would have thought 
 
 189 
 
190 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 it all out in the last few days and formed a plan. 
 What is it?" 
 
 His abruptness rather took her breath for a 
 moment. Then she said, "Yes, I have a plan, but 
 so have you. What is it!" At her quick retort 
 she saw a smile of grim relish come over his large- 
 features. 
 
 "My plan is simple," he replied. "Leave Joe 
 to me. Keep him quiet at night so he can work, 
 and I ll show you another husband." She shook 
 her head. 
 
 i * He d only make more money. 
 
 "Tell him you don t want it, then!" She 
 smiled at him. 
 
 "Too simple," she said. He looked at her. 
 
 "I thought it would be too simple for a woman," 
 was his answer. 
 
 "It s worse than that," she replied. "It s 
 blind. You ve never been married apparently 
 not even to one woman while Joe, you see, has 
 been married twice. To you a man s life is all 
 in his office but half of Joe s is in his home 
 and you ll have to change that half of him, too. 
 I told you her friends are about and they have 
 her memory on their side and so I can t get rid 
 of them until I get some friends of my own." 
 
 "Then get them." 
 
 "How? Go out on any street and call up, 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 191 
 
 * Heigh there at the windows?" She leaned for 
 ward quickly and sternly: "The friends I want 
 are the people he knew the ones you told me of. 
 That s my plan. Put me in touch with some of 
 them, and let me bring them in touch with Joe. 
 And I ll show you a different partner." He 
 looked at her. 
 
 "Well, that s too simple, too," he said. 
 
 "Why is it?" she demanded. 
 
 "Because in those first years of his marriage I 
 went to them so often, in just the way you re think 
 ing of. I got some of the men he used to know to 
 come to his office and take him to lunch. And it 
 did so little good they quit. They all got sick of 
 it and they re through." 
 
 Ethel leaned forward intensely: 
 
 But it will be different now ! Before, they had 
 Amy here working against them ! I m here now, 
 and I ll be on their side!" He frowned, and she 
 cried impatiently, "You don t believe me, do you! 
 You don t believe I can do anything or even that 
 I want to!" 
 
 He looked at her for a moment. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I almost do." 
 
 "Then please give me a chance," she said, very 
 low. And by her eager questions she began to 
 draw out of Nourse the information she wanted. 
 It did not come easy, for the past seemed buried 
 
192 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 deep in his memory. As one by one he spoke of 
 Joe s friends he would add, "But he s dead," or, 
 "He s gone West." He had kept track of them, 
 after a fashion, but he had seen them little of late. 
 What a lonely life he had led, she thought. She 
 wondered if he had grown too old and hopeless to 
 be of any help. She fought down her discourage 
 ment. 
 
 "There was Crothers," he was saying. "He s 
 an architect, and he s doing good work. He never 
 had Joe s boldness, but he always had a fine sense 
 of things, and at least he has stuck to his ideals. 
 He could do more to bring Joe back than any other 
 man I know." 
 
 Then we must get him ! 
 
 "That will be hard." 
 
 "Why will it?" 
 
 "Because some years ago I tried to get Crothers 
 into our firm. The two of us together might have 
 kept Joe from the mere money jobs and made it a 
 firm to be proud of. Crothers was ready to come 
 in, and I had nearly succeeded in bringing Joe to 
 agree to it." 
 
 "Then what was the matter?" 
 
 Your sister. Joe had told her he was thinking 
 of some move in his business which would keep 
 him poor awhile. And she flew into quite a rage. 
 That was another time she sent for me." Nourse 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 193 
 
 leaned grimly back in his chair. "She told me 
 that if I ruined her husband s * career, as she 
 called it, she d break us apart once and for all. 
 She wouldn t have Crothers in the firm not only 
 because it meant money lost, but because Crothers 
 wife had turned her down." Ethel looked at him 
 sharply. 
 
 Oh he has a wife, she said. 
 
 "Yes, and she wasn t your sister s kind. She 
 was a college woman who wanted to be a great 
 painter and when the painting petered out, she 
 shut her jaw and said, Never mind. If I can t 
 paint landscapes I can make them. And she took 
 up landscape gardening. She married Burt 
 Crothers soon after that, but she stuck to her 
 work and in course of time it fitted in with her 
 husband s. He and Sally have struggled along 
 up-hill, and though they ve never made much 
 money they ve had a lot of fun out of life." 
 
 "She sounds so nice," Ethel hungrily mur 
 mured. 
 
 "Oh, yes, she s nice enough," he said, "until 
 you go against her. Then Sally gets mad, and 
 stays that way. And she got that way, he added, 
 "when we turned her husband down. She hadn t 
 liked your sister. In fact, when Joe married and 
 brought his wife and the Crothers together, it 
 wasn t a go. She called your sister hopeless. 
 
194 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 And when Joe s wife came back at her by keeping 
 Crothers out of our firm, then war was declared. 
 
 Nourse broke off and looked at Ethel. 
 
 "So you see what you re up against," he said. 
 
 "Yes, I see," said Ethel. At every door to her 
 husband s youth, Amy seemed to be barring the 
 way. She gave an impatient little shrug. "If 
 I could only show them ! 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That I m different! And the hole I m in! 
 And what it is I want in Joe! . . . Can t you go 
 and talk to them!" There was impatience again 
 in her eyes. He saw it and smiled wearily. 
 
 "You think I m mighty weak," he said, "with 
 not much fight left in me. You re right, I guess. 
 But you don t know what I ve been through in the 
 last seven years. I stuck to Joe and they didn t 
 like that. Sally said I had knuckled down to Joe s 
 wife. So she hasn t asked me there in years. 
 And if I were to go to her now, I m afraid my 
 opinion of you wouldn t count." 
 
 There was another silence. Again that dull 
 weight of discouragement fell, and again she shook 
 it from her. 
 
 "Nevertheless," she said quietly, looking him 
 full in the face, "I mean to have Crothers in our 
 firm." She saw the mingled liking and compas- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 195 
 
 sion which came in his eyes, and she bit her lip to 
 keep down the wave of self-pity which arose in her. 
 
 "Perhaps you will," she heard him say. His 
 voice sounded a long way off. She brought her 
 self back to him with a jerk. 
 
 Of course I will ! We will, I mean ! You and 
 I are to work together, you know. Now will you 
 please tell me," she continued grimly, "one per 
 son who knew my husband and who will be so very 
 kind as not to call for the police the minute I 
 come into view?" A moment later she started 
 forward. "Oh, please!" she cried. "Do that 
 again! You chuckled! Don t deny it! Go on 
 and really laugh with me !" Her voice, unsteady 
 and quivering, broke into a merry laugh, and in 
 this Joe s partner joined. Then she said sternly. 
 "You give me a friend!" 
 
 Nourse thought for a moment. "There s only 
 one left on the list," he replied. 
 
 "His name, please " 
 
 "Dwight." 
 
 "Business!" 
 
 "Music. He shows rich girls how to sing." 
 She stared at him. 
 
 "But look here," she said emphatically. "I m 
 a rich girl I m very well off and I certainly pro 
 pose to sing! I used to, in the choir at home 
 
196 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 and I was told I had quite a voice ! And I meant 
 
 to take lessons in New York of a tall dark man 
 
 with curly hair " 
 
 "Dwight," said Nourse, "is fair and fat." 
 "Never mind. Then he probably has blue eyes. 
 
 And they twinkle at you in the friendliest 
 
 way " 
 
 "Young woman, I m your husband s friend." 
 "Never mind if you are. You re not enough. 
 
 I want more of his friends. Now tell me where 
 
 did the fat man study ? Abroad ? 
 "In Paris." 
 
 "Oh!" she cried. "Were he and Joe together 
 there?" 
 
 "They were, for a while " 
 
 * Oh, how nice ! She laughed at him. < < What 
 a dear you ve been to me," she said. "You like 
 me, don t you ! 
 
 "Yes I do." 
 
 "Quite a good deal!" 
 
 ^ "All right," he said. She was watching his 
 face. This is new to him, she was thinking. 
 
 "You believe I don t want money?" 
 
 "Yes" 
 
 "Nor friends like Amy s?" 
 
 "You don t seem to." 
 
 "And I don t. I want friends like you and this 
 Mr. Dwight and that odious Sally Crothers who 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 197 
 
 won t even let me in at her door. And her hus 
 bandyes, he 11 do. Why how the circle widens ! 
 "So far," Nourse reminded her, "I m the only 
 circle you ve got." 
 
 "Yes, and a very nice one. And now you re 
 going to be a dear, and go to this man Dwight and 
 say what a remarkable voice I have and tell him 
 all my other points, and the hole I m in and the 
 money I have. Don t forget that the money I 
 have for my acquaintance with Mr. Dwight 
 leads me to believe that wealth is a great induce 
 ment with him. It makes his blue eyes twinkle 
 so." 
 
 "Very well," Nourse answered grimly. "But 
 when you get them twinkling, what are you going 
 to do with him?" 
 
 "Sing with him," was her firm reply. And be 
 tween songs talk with him of Paris and my hus 
 band, and the great ideals I have and the de 
 licious dinners I have for he s fat, you know, 
 and he loves his meals and then ask him to come 
 to dinner, of course." She scowled. "That," 
 she said severely, "is all I can tell you at present. 
 My plans for resurrecting Joe will have to be 
 made as I go along step by step and friend by 
 friend." All at once she turned on him fiercely. 
 * < There s that pity again in your eyes ! Oh, how 
 young, you are thinking. Then let me tell you, 
 
198 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Mr. Bill Nourse, that you are not to pity me ! If 
 you do, she cried, the time will come when you 
 will be pitying yourself for being cast off like an 
 old leather shoe from one of the most brilliant 
 and attractive circles in this town! Do you know 
 what you almost do to me you, the one friend I 
 have in New York ? You make me feel you Ve al 
 most lost your faith and hope in everything that 
 you re nearly old! You make me wonder if I m 
 too late whether my husband is nearly old, and 
 the dreams he had in him cold and gone! You 
 scare me and you ve got to stop ! You ve got to 
 be just exactly as young as I am this very 
 minute! You ve got to borrow some youth from 
 me for I have plenty to go around and help me 
 make this fight for friends ! It may not come to 
 anything for the soul of this city is hard as 
 nails ! This music man may turn me down or be 
 perfectly fat and useless! Who knows? But 
 how can I tell till I meet the man? And when 
 will you go and see him? Today or tomorrow? 
 I haven t very much time, you know, for any more 
 shilly-shallying! I want some action out of 
 you" 
 
 She faced him flushed and menacing, and he took 
 her hand and said, 
 
 "You ll get it. Where s your telephone?" 
 
 " Eight there in the hall!" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 199 
 
 * I ll call up Dwight." 
 "Wait! Is he married?" 
 
 "No." 
 "Thank God!" 
 
CHAPTEE XVHI 
 
 THE next morning at eleven o clock she met 
 Dwight in his studio, and in a brisk pleasant 
 businesslike way she began to tell him of her 
 voice what singing she had done at home and 
 how she had always meant to take lessons when 
 she should come to New York to live. 
 
 6 To find out how much of a voice I really have, 
 you know/ she said. Her manner was more 
 affable now. But my husband and my baby have 
 kept me rather busy, you see, and so I ve put it 
 off and off until just lately I began to look about 
 and make inquiries. And then by good luck I 
 learned of you from my husband s partner. " 
 
 "You re Joe Lanier s wife, aren t you?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "His second," she said with emphasis. And a 
 moment later she told herself, "Yes, his eyes do 
 twinkle, and he seems to be quite nice. He isn t 
 so excessively fat, and he has a big wide generous 
 mouth, and I like his eyes. But he thinks my com 
 ing like this a bit queer, and he s wondering 
 what s behind it." She downed her excitement 
 and went on in the same resolute tone she had 
 
 used with such success on Nourse. No personal 
 
 200 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 201 
 
 conversation just yet, she would show him she 
 meant business. And so she stuck to the lessons. 
 
 "If you ll take me as a pupil," she said, "I d 
 like to begin immediately." 
 
 "Let me try your voice," he proposed. He 
 went to the piano, and there his manner had soon 
 changed. From genial and curious it grew inter 
 ested. He spoke rather sharply, asking her to 
 do this and that, and she felt as though she were 
 being probed. "You have a voice," he said, at 
 the end. "Not a world shaker," he added, smil 
 ing, "but one that interests me a lot." She 
 beamed on him. 
 
 "You ll take me, then?" 
 
 "Assuredly." 
 
 Oh, that s so nice. They decided on the time 
 for her lessons. Then she glanced at her wrist 
 watch. "Will you see if my car is waiting?" 
 she asked. "I had him take the nurse and baby 
 up to the Park and he ought to be back by now, 
 I think." But as Dwight went to the telephone, 
 she added excitedly to herself, "Now if that idiot 
 of a chauffeur is as late as I told him to be, you 
 and I will have quite a talk, Mr. Dwight. 
 
 "It isn t here yet," he informed her. 
 
 "Oh, I m so sorry. I ll have to walk." She 
 smiled and held out her hand to him. "Will you 
 send the chauffeur home?" 
 
202 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "If you like," he replied good-humouredly. 
 "But I d much rather you d wait here if you 
 have nothing pressing." And as she hesitated, 
 "It s not only your voice, you know I used to be 
 quite a friend of Joe s." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I remember his telling me. Over in 
 Paris, wasn t it!" 
 
 Soon they were talking easily. Dwight had lit 
 a cigarette, and Ethel could see he was studying 
 her. She tried to look unconscious. 
 
 "I ve wanted to go to Paris all my life," she 
 told him. "How long is it since you left?" 
 
 "Only a year." She looked at him. 
 
 "Is there a Paris in New York?" 
 
 "I m not sure yet I m new, you see." 
 
 "So am I," she confided frankly. And at that 
 he gave her a swift glance which made Ethel add 
 to herself, "Yes, he could be very personal." 
 
 She asked him what he had found in New York 
 as a contrast, coming from abroad. She spoke of 
 the high buildings here, and from that she passed 
 quite naturally to her husband s business. 
 
 "It isn t the work I d like for him," she said 
 with a regretful sigh. "Joe is getting to be like 
 all the rest he s making too much money. She 
 waited a moment and added, "I should so like him 
 to be as he was when you knew him." 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 203 
 
 "I ll be curious to see how he has changed. 
 You must let me see him, Dwight replied. 
 
 "Why yes, of course." 
 
 "Over in Paris he had so much. He was such a 
 wonderful lad for dreams with the most exuber 
 ant fancy in the way he used to talk of New York 
 and what he wanted to do back here to use the 
 backyards and the roofs and turn them into gar 
 dens. This town, when Joe got through with it 
 well, from an aeroplane it was to look more or less 
 like a bed of roses or a hill town in Italy. But 
 that was only his lighter vein. When his fancy 
 was really working hard, he took department 
 stores, hotels and huge railroad terminals and 
 jammed them all together into one big building. 
 How deep in the earth it was to have gone I really 
 can t remember, nor how far up into the skies. 
 But there was a garden at the top or a meadow 
 or prairie or something." 
 
 "Yes," thought Ethel, "I m going to like him." 
 
 Joe could talk of his plans all night, Dwight 
 went on good-naturedly. "And keep a poor lazy 
 musician like me from my piano where I be 
 longed." 
 
 "Was it you who taught him to play?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "On the piano! It was," he replied. "Isn t 
 
204 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 his touch amazing? And so thoroughly Christian, 
 too." 
 
 "Christian?" 
 
 Yes. He doesn t let his right hand know what 
 his left hand is doing." They laughed. And 
 from that laugh she emerged with eagerness in 
 her brown eyes. 
 
 "Oh, please go on," she begged him. "I had 
 no idea you knew him so well. Did he do nothing 
 but talk over there?" 
 
 "He did he worked like a tiger. Joe could 
 stand more hard labour in one consecutive day and 
 night than any fellow I ever met. And he could 
 do it night after night. I remember dropping in 
 on him for coffee and rolls one morning. A chap 
 named Crothers and myself" Ethel started at 
 the name "had just come home from the 
 Quatres Arts Ball. We found Joe in his room 
 with the curtains drawn he didn t know it was 
 morning yet. He had a towel bound round his 
 head and was building an opera house for Chicago 
 or Kansas City I m not sure which. And he 
 wasn t just dreaming of building it in his success 
 ful middle age he was building it now, in a ter 
 rible rush, as though Kansas City were pushing 
 him hard. Joe didn t live in the future, you see 
 he took the future and made it the present, and 
 then lived in the present like mad." 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 205 
 
 Dwight tossed away his cigarette. 
 
 "But you say it s money now." 
 
 * Yes, she replied. " It s money. " He smiled 
 at her dejected tone. 
 
 "I wouldn t be so sad," he remarked. * Money 
 isn t as bad as it seems." 
 
 1 Oh, yes, and I want it, Ethel declared. But 
 I want the others so much more !" 
 
 When her car had come, she rose and said, "You 
 and Joe must get together some time. Couldn t 
 you call him up some day and get him to lunch 
 with you!" 
 
 Gladly. They went to the door. 
 
 "But don t be disappointed," she said, "if you 
 find him changed even more than you think. 
 Money has such a pull on a man. 
 
 "I know, but I rather like it." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "Oh, don t be so indignant, please. I am an 
 artist honestly. But some of these men I ve met 
 over here well, they fascinate me. Such bound 
 less energy and drive ought to go into a symphony. 
 Plenty of drums and crashing brass. Good-bye, 
 Mrs. Lanier, he added. * This has been a lucky 
 day for me." 
 
 "Thank you. Don t forget about Joe. And 
 meanwhile till next Tuesday." 
 
 As she settled back in her car she thought, 
 
206 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "All right, Ethel, very good." 
 
 Twice a week, that autumn, she went to Dwight 
 for lessons. But until some time had passed, she 
 did not mention it to Joe< 
 
 "When you meet him," she said to Dwight, 
 "I d rather you wouldn t speak of my lessons. I 
 want my singing to be a surprise. And besides, 
 I d so much rather that any old friends of my hus 
 band s come to him through his partner. It seems 
 so much more natural." 
 
 "I see," said Dwight. "But he doesn t," she 
 thought, "and I ll have to explain." 
 
 "Later, of course, I ll tell him," she said, 
 "But just now, in the state he s in, if you or any 
 one else of his friends who knew him as he used 
 to be should come and say, Sent by your wife, 
 with her compliments and fervent hopes of your 
 speedy resurrection oh, no, it wouldn t do at 
 all." Dwight was watching her curiously. 
 
 "How many of us are there?" he asked. She 
 looked at him in a questioning way. 
 
 "Of us," he explained, "Joe s old friends, who 
 are to dig him up, you know." 
 
 "Only you, at present and of course his part 
 ner." He smiled: 
 
 "Bill Nourse is not a very brisk digger." 
 
 "Well," she remarked, in a casual tone, "if you 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 207 
 
 know of brisker diggers about people who knew 
 
 "Say no more. I ll search the town." Their 
 eyes had met for an instant. Yes, she thought, 
 "I m getting on." 
 
 Dwight lunched with Joe soon after that, and 
 later in the studio he and Ethel had a talk. 
 
 "In a good many ways," he assured her, "he 
 struck me as the same old Joe friendly and hos 
 pitable he insisted on ordering quite a meal. 
 But we didn t eat much of it. We talked. 
 
 "Of Paris?" 
 
 "Very much so. There s a lot of Paris in him 
 yet. And he told of their long conversation. 
 
 "Now," she said, when she rose to leave, "if 
 you ll just keep at him occasionally while his 
 partner does the same at the office, and I do what 
 I can at home " 
 
 "You insist on his being home every night?" 
 
 "That depends," said Ethel gravely. 
 
 "Suppose I take him some night to my club. 
 We have quite a number of architects there. 
 
 Oh, wonderful ! How good of you ! 
 
 "Mrs. Lanier," said her teacher, "I m under 
 your orders digging for gold. 
 
 He took Joe to his club on the following night, 
 and later several times for lunch. 
 
 "Joe likes it," he reported. "And he has al- 
 
208 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 ready met some chaps who knew of him and his 
 earlier work, not only in Paris but over here. He 
 was one of the most brilliant designers in the city, 
 I find and a good many men were disappointed 
 when he threw over his true profession and went 
 after ready cash. How would you like me to put 
 up his name?" 
 
 "For club membership ?" 
 
 " Precisely. " 
 
 "I d like it, sir." 
 
 "And I obey." 
 
 "This is getting rather intimate," Ethel told 
 herself that night. * l Never mind, my love, you Ve 
 been perfectly honest. He knows very well what 
 you re after. And if he likes you and wants to 
 help, so much the better." 
 
 Some days in the studio she stuck severely to 
 her voice and showed him she meant business. 
 She was practising quite hard, and her progress 
 was by no means slow. But on other days half the 
 hour at least was spent in learning from her new 
 friend about "a Paris in New York." Dwight 
 was already finding one, although he had been 
 here less than a year. In this teeming city of end 
 less change he had found a deep joy of creation, of 
 newness, youth and boldness that made even Paris 
 seem far behind. "It s all so amazingly big," he 
 said, .with such revealing chances opening up on 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 209 
 
 every side!" How simple it was for him, she 
 thought, with a little pang of envy. A young 
 musician with plenty of talent, easy manners, 
 single, free. As he spoke of his club friends and 
 some of their homes that were open to him, the 
 glimpses exasperated her. Here were the people 
 she wanted to know, a little world of artists, archi 
 tects and writers, and goodness only knew what 
 else. She was still rather vague about them. To 
 her surprise she discovered that many were after 
 money, too. "Decidedly," her teacher said. 
 "Excessively," he added. 
 
 "But at least," she rejoined, defending them, 
 "when they get the money they know how to spend 
 it on something better than food and clothes! 
 They really live I m sure they do and have 
 ideas and really grow!" She caught her breath. 
 What an idiot, to have said so much! "I m so 
 glad," she added lamely, "that you got my hus 
 band into your club. It s bound to do so much 
 for him." She threw a sharp little glance at 
 Dwight, and scowled, for she thought she detected 
 a smile. 
 
 "He s doing something for the club," Dwight 
 was saying cheerfully. Some of those chaps are 
 a bit too refined and remote for this raw crude city 
 of ours. And Joe is getting back enough of his 
 old vim and passion, his wild radical ideas of what 
 
210 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 may still be done with the town, so that he jars on 
 such sensitive souls makes em frown and bite 
 their moustaches like the husbands in French 
 plays. On the other hand some are decidedly for 
 him. I hear them discuss him now and then." 
 
 "Oh, how nice!" sighed Ethel. 
 
 At times she grew so impatient to get Joe into 
 this other world. But she had to be very care 
 ful. Eepeatedly she warned herself that Dwight, 
 for all his Paris past and his present friendliness, 
 was very fast becoming a New Yorker like the 
 rest : making his way and climbing his climb, and 
 wanting no climbers who had to be carried. 
 "Ethel Lanier, the first thing you know you ll 
 be dropped like a hot potato," she thought. 
 There s nothing unselfish about this man. Don t 
 make him feel he has you on his hands. And she 
 would grow studiously abstract and detached in 
 her talk about the town. But it kept cropping up 
 in spite of her, this warm eagerness to "really 
 live." 
 
 "It s funny," she said to Dwight one day. "I 
 had thought of music and all that I wanted as 
 being so different from Joe s work. But now in 
 this city that you seem to know, I find that what 
 I ve wanted most is just what he ought to want in 
 his work ! The two go together ! 
 
 "Exactly!" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 211 
 
 "The city Joe once lived in." She frowned. 
 "There are so many cities in New York. But 
 I don t want to try to get into his, until I can do 
 it through Joe himself. People will have to want 
 me because I m the wife of Joe Lanier." 
 
 "I think they ll want you more than that." 
 His tone was most reassuring. "But I like the 
 way you are going about it. It s so delightfully 
 novel, you see conspiring to make your husband 
 find his friends all by himself so that when he 
 has found them he ll come to you with a beaming 
 smile and say, Woman, I bring you wealth and 
 fame and friends in abundance. Take them, love, 
 and bless me for I have done all this for you. " 
 
 Ethel smiled. "I don t like you to joke about 
 it," she said. 
 
 "Very well," he agreed, "let s get back to the 
 serious work of his resurrection. You asked me 
 to recruit other brisk diggers, and I ve hunted 
 about quite a bit. There s that chap Crothers and 
 his wife, but so far they re the best I can do 
 and the Crothers pair seem rather blind. They 
 can t see the old Joe for the new." 
 
 "You mean they think he s hopeless," Ethel 
 scornfully put in. 
 
 "Oh, we ll make them open their eyes in time. 
 I drop in on them every now and then. I had 
 Crothers to the club last week, and let him hear 
 
212 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 some of the gossip about the emerging Joe 
 Lanier." 
 
 Often he talked of the early group of students 
 over in Paris, of their ideas, ambitions, and their 
 youthful views of life, which for all their gaiety 
 had been so fervid and intense. But to Ethel, be 
 cause she herself was still young, their dreams 
 seemed very wonderful. Some she had hungrily 
 read about long ago with the history "prof " at 
 home. But the world which the little suffragist 
 had revealed to her pupils had been more heroic 
 and severe. This was warmer, dazzling, this had 
 beauty, this was art ! And yet not weak nor tame 
 nor old this was gloriously new in the way it 
 jabbed deep into life and talked of really changing 
 it all. This was youth ! And her own youth re 
 sponded and she made it all her own. She was 
 reading now voraciously, with a sparkle and gleam 
 of hope in her eyes. She was coming so very close 
 to her goal, or rather the gate of her promised 
 land. 
 
 At times she grew impatient at her teacher s 
 calm, and the good-natured easy smile with which 
 he looked upon all this. "Oh, why not get ex 
 cited I" she thought. She felt the old dreams a 
 bit cold in him, as they had been in her husband. 
 And in dismay she would ask herself, 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 213 
 
 "Are they all too old? Is just the fact that 
 I m ten years younger than Joe and his friends 
 going to mean that I m too late to bring back 
 what was in him?" 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 BUT all this was as nothing compared to the 
 intensity, the ups and down, in her relations 
 with Joe himself. He often looked tired and har 
 assed. i i What s the matter with me ? " he seemed 
 to ask. And she felt his two sides combatting each 
 other. On the one hand were the influences of 
 Nourse and Dwight and the men at the club, to 
 which he went nearly every day. He took part in 
 discussions there, long rambling talks and argu 
 ments. And his old ideals were rising hungrily 
 within him. But meanwhile the business man in 
 Joe kept savagely putting the dreamer down, and 
 for days he would plunge into his work and the 
 fever of the money game. Joe had been so suc 
 cessful of late ; and she knew that in his office that 
 odious press agent was for ever at him. From 
 Nourse she learned that her husband was even 
 still considering the scheme for a row of buildings 
 named after the presidents. And Ethel had a 
 sinking of heart. 
 
 "If he does that, I m lost," she decided. But 
 she would shake off such fears, as she felt again 
 the old Joe emerge, the Joe of dreams and startling 
 plans. And she grew excited as she thought, 
 
 214 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 215 
 
 "Oh, if he ll only let himself go! I don t want 
 him just nice and tame and refined ! I don t want 
 only friends like that! I want I want " 
 
 What she wanted was still exceedingly vague, 
 and Ethel could not put it in words. It had some 
 thing to do with the teachings of the little history 
 "prof" at home. She wanted the artist in him to 
 rise, the creative soul of him! Cautiously she 
 probed his thoughts now tender and maternal to 
 ward him in his tired moods, now alive and inter 
 ested as she got him talking. Bits came out. Joe 
 was so plainly tortured by the struggle going on 
 inside. She felt at once pity and admiration, and 
 was deeper in love with him than she had ever 
 been before. She felt the excitement of a fight 
 with hope of victory close ahead. She took care 
 in her dress and manner to give him little sur 
 prises at night, and by her cheery comradeship 
 and her warm beauty of body and soul, Ethel drew 
 him on and on. At such times she would often 
 lose all memory of her scheming and would give 
 up to her love, which had become a passion now. 
 
 But always she came back to her plan. Not 
 openly, for she had to be careful ; she worked at 
 him in little ways. She stirred his youth and his 
 cast-off dreams by her own youth and zest for it 
 all. She got him to tell her of Nourse and Dwight, 
 the old friends she herself had put on his trail, 
 
216 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 and of new friends he had met in his club "the 
 club I elected you to, she exulted. But the next 
 instant she would add, "Oh, Ethel, you re so ig 
 norant ! If you only knew about his work ! And 
 knitting her brows she would listen hard while he 
 talked of steel construction. As with her encour 
 agement he talked on rapidly, absorbed, Ethel 
 would clutch at this and that. She learned of 
 books and magazines on architecture here and 
 abroad. Stealthily she noted them down, and 
 those she could not purchase she hunted up in 
 libraries. Nourse was a great help to her here. 
 He came to see her now and then ; and though he 
 still had his discouraging moods, at other times 
 he was friendly and kind. Enjoying this con 
 spiracy with the charming young Mrs. Lanier, he 
 expressed his gallantry by bringing her books of 
 appalling size. But some had beautiful illustra 
 tions that set her to imagining. Eagerly she 
 groped her way deep into the history of the build 
 ing of cathedrals and palaces in times gone by. 
 And the long majestic story of man s building on 
 the earth thrilled her to the very soul. Joe must 
 make his place in it all ! 
 
 When on coming home at night he dumped a 
 pile of work on the table, she would unobtrusively 
 slip some book beside it. She grew to know which 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 217 
 
 ones tempted him most. He had been surprised 
 and amused at first at her interest in architecture 
 and secretly a little disturbed, suspecting what 
 lay behind it. But as autumn drew on he read 
 more and more of the books she kept putting in 
 his way. While he read she would sit with a novel 
 or sew. She would glance up with some remark, 
 and they would talk and then read on. Subtly 
 she made the atmosphere. She often brought 
 Paris into their talks. She spoke longingly of the 
 shops and plays, and all she wanted to see over 
 there. And she almost succeeded in making him 
 promise to take her over the following spring. 
 
 Joe was happy at such times, when she could 
 make him leave business alone. And although 
 he had many relapses, when night after night he 
 would sit by the table planning more horrible 
 "junk for the Bronx," with an inner smile she 
 saw how often her husband scowled at such labour 
 now. She heard of changes in the office. 
 
 "We re still building junk," Nourse confided 
 one day, "but it isn t quite as bad as before. Joe 
 wants the money just as hard, but he s plainly 
 jarred by some of the jobs. He even fought his 
 press agent last week!" 
 
 One night Joe suggested awkwardly, 
 
 "Suppose we try Bill Nourse again. Let me 
 
218 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 bring him home to dinner, I mean. He isn t espe 
 cially cheery, God knows but he seems so damna 
 bly lonely this fall. 
 
 "Very well, dear if you want to," she sighed. 
 She had told Nourse to hint he was lonely. 
 
 When Nourse came to dinner that Saturday 
 night, Joe was surprised and delighted at the way 
 his partner seemed to get on now with his wife. 
 The visit indeed was such a success that it was not 
 long before Joe proposed bringing-home "an old 
 pal of mine fellow named Dwight." To this, 
 too, Ethel assented, and when Dwight arrived one 
 night she greeted him very graciously, 
 
 6 I feel as though I knew you, she said. " Pve 
 heard Joe talk of you so much." 
 
 To Joe s delight they got on like old friends. 
 And when Dwight spied the piano there and 
 learned of her interest in music, he insisted on 
 trying her voice, and was loud in his praise of its 
 promise. Before he left, it was arranged that she 
 should come to his studio and take lessons twice 
 a week. Openly his pupil now, she could speak of 
 him to Joe, and he came to dine with them often. 
 
 How smoothly things were working out. If 
 there were any cloud upon the horizon it was the 
 occasional presence of Amy s old friend, Fanny 
 Carr. Fanny had been abroad through the sum- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 219 
 
 mer, but in October she had returned. She had 
 come to see Ethel several times, in the same de 
 terminedly friendly way; and Nourse reported 
 that she was going frequently to see Joe at his 
 office about her eternal money affairs. And the 
 fact that Joe never spoke of it only made the 
 matter worse. For Joe still had his money side, 
 and Fanny knew how to flatter him so. He still 
 had his loyalty to his first wife, and Fanny so 
 cleverly played to that. "And he likes her, too 
 clothes, voice, perfumery and all!" Ethel would 
 declare to herself in anger and vexation. Oh, 
 these women who used sex every minute! How 
 could men be so easily fooled ? 
 
 "You can t change a man in a minute," she 
 thought. "Kemember Amy had him five years." 
 Amy had planted so deep in him the feeling that 
 money is everything; she had got the fever into 
 his blood. And Fanny was there to keep it alive 
 by her flattery of his money success. And for 
 Ethel, even still, it was decidedly unsafe to criti 
 cize Joe in some of his moods. As autumn 
 changed to winter, these moods grew much 
 more frequent. What was worrying him? She 
 couldn t find out. She sent for Nourse and asked 
 him, "What s going on in the office?" 
 
 "The press agent is pushing him hard," was 
 Nourse s gloomy answer, "for that row of patri- 
 
220 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 otic atrocities up on Eiverside Drive." Ethel 
 squirmed. 
 
 "But lie won t !" she cried. "He couldn t !" 
 
 "Oh, yes he could, " Joe s partner growled. 
 "There s so much money in it!" 
 
 "If he puts that through I m done for!" Ethel 
 told herself that night. 1 1 His name will be a per 
 fect joke among all the people I want to know! 
 And they ll all keep away from us as though he 
 were running a yellow journal ! And then her 
 friends will crowd about because we ll be so rich, 
 you see ! Oh, damn money ! Damn ! Damn ! 
 
 She was lying sleepless on her bed, and Joe was 
 sleeping by her side. She sat up now and looked 
 at his face in the dim light from the window. 
 
 "If you get very rich," she thought, "and mid 
 dle-aged and very fat in body and soul, get to care 
 only for building junk and for going about with 
 Amy s friends I wonder what would I do then?" 
 Again the words of young Mrs. Grewe came up in 
 her mind: "You can get out whenever you 
 choose." She frowned. "But there are the chil 
 dren. And besides, I love you, Joe yes, more 
 than ever, and in a queer way! I m fighting for 
 what I love in you, but at the same time I love you 
 all every bit of you!" Breathing quickly now, 
 she sank back on her pillow, and there she soon 
 grew quiet again. " So we 11 fight it out once and 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 221 
 
 for all. You ve got to drop this plan of yours." 
 One evening that same week when Nourse had 
 come to dinner, she led the talk by slow degrees 
 to that other plan of Joe s the one with terrace 
 gardens. Soon she had Nourse talking about it, 
 and seeing her husband grow morose she grew 
 cheerily interested. 
 
 "Oh, I m very dull, I suppose," she said at the 
 end with a quizzical smile, "but I m afraid I 
 can t get it clear. Couldn t you draw it!" 
 Nourse smiled at this, for he saw what she was 
 driving at. 
 
 "No, I m poor at that," he said. 
 "Then, Joe, you sketch it out for me." 
 Joe put down his paper and began in surly 
 fashion. But as he sketched more and more rap 
 idly, she saw the thing take hold of him. With 
 little exclamations and questions Ethel drove him 
 on. She thought it a fascinating plan but the de 
 tails puzzled her still, she said, and the rough 
 sketch he had drawn was very unsatisfactory. 
 She begged him to draw it on a large scale, and 
 he set out to do so. But his hand was inexpert. 
 Although once the most brilliant designer in town, 
 for years Joe had stuck to the business side, and 
 his hand had grown clumsy, his memory cold. 
 Ethel had known of this from Nourse. And now 
 probing by her questions as to details here and 
 
222 HIS SECOND WIPE 
 
 there, with Nourse helping at her side, she re 
 vealed Joe s weakness to himself. A scared 
 angry look came into his eyes. Stubbornly he 
 worked on and on, but the thing would not come as 
 it used to ! 
 
 And this revealing process continued until 
 Nourse with masculine pity dropped out of the 
 torturing and went home. But Ethel gently en 
 couraged Joe, and in his dogged persistency he 
 kept at it half the night. The more tired he grew, 
 the worse was his work. And again and again, as 
 she glanced at his face, she saw that frightened 
 look in his eyes. It almost brought the tears in 
 her own, but steadily she kept thinking, 
 
 "I m scaring him badly, and that s what he 
 needs. For years he has been telling himself that 
 first he would make money and then he would work 
 out his ideals. But he s frightened now. He s 
 wondering if he has put it off too long!" 
 
 Pitilessly she goaded him on. Then at last she 
 relented and began to persuade him to go to bed. 
 How white and haggard and queer he looked. 
 Again a lump rose in her throat. Soon she was 
 saying quietly, 
 
 "I should think that some day, dear, you d want 
 to go back to Paris and work. " 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 But in the weeks that followed, she dropped this 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 223 
 
 thought again and again into his mind. Paris, 
 study, work, old dreams she played these against 
 his business, against Amy and her friends and the 
 flattery of Fanny Carr, against that odious press 
 agent and the plan for Riverside Drive. 
 
 "Has he turned it down?" she inquired of his 
 partner. 
 
 "Not yet," was the answer. "It s still in the 
 air." 
 
 "I wish this were over," Ethel thought. Joe s 
 face had grown so queer and drawn that some 
 times as she looked at him a sickening dread stole 
 into her mind. "Is he really too old?" she asked 
 herself. 
 
 One Saturday night when he came home, with a 
 sudden leap of compassion she saw what a day 
 he had been through. "But he is through! 
 Something has happened ! she thought. And she 
 treated him very tenderly both because of the 
 state he was in, and more perhaps because she 
 knew how bad it would be for both of them if he 
 had decided against her. 
 
 "How has the work been going?" she asked. 
 He looked at her almost with dislike. 
 
 "For a month," he said, "you ve been trying 
 to make me give up that Eiverside scheme." He 
 paused, and her heart was in her mouth. 
 
 "I haven t said so, have I?" 
 
224 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "No you haven t said so," he growled. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " It s off. I Ve dropped it. 
 
 She started to embrace him, but saw at once 
 it would be a mistake. 
 
 "Thank you, Joe," she said softly, and went 
 into the nursery. It was so dark and quiet there. 
 She had a cry. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE next morning Emily Giles returned from 
 a visit back in Ohio. 
 
 "How have things been going V 9 she asked. 
 
 Very well indeed, said Ethel, with a scarcely 
 perceptible smile. She and Emily understood 
 each other, though very little had ever been said. 
 
 "Mr. Lanier still working hard?" 
 
 "Yes, poor dear," said Ethel, "but it has been 
 so good for him." And at that a look of grim 
 relish came on Emily s sallow face. 
 
 "You know I m getting to like this town," she 
 remarked with a genial air. "I wonder what 11 
 the winter be like?" 
 
 "Oh, I think we ll do nicely, Emily. I ve quite 
 a few plans in my head. 9 
 
 " I 11 bet you have, said Emily. And she went 
 to don her "uniform." 
 
 In these days, again and again a sense of being 
 just on the eve of something very exciting gave 
 Ethel a new zest in life. 
 
 One day in the hall downstairs she came upon 
 young Mrs. Grewe. Ethel gave a little start and 
 then swiftly reddened. And she saw the young 
 widow smile at that, and it made her annoyed with 
 
 225 
 
226 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 herself for having been so clumsy. i I 11 show her 
 I m not such a prude, she thought. And having 
 learned that Mrs. Grewe had taken another apart 
 ment here, Ethel went to see her with a safe little 
 feeling that Mrs. Grewe would have too much 
 sense to return the call. This would end it 
 pleasantly. 
 
 The visit was a decided success. Mrs. Grewe 
 was back from Europe sooner than she had ex 
 pected for reasons she did not explain. "And 
 now I m looking about," she said, "for another 
 old lady from Boston. I rent a new one every 
 year." Ethel stayed for tea. For nearly eight 
 months she had had no woman to talk to, but 
 Fanny Carr and Emily Giles. And she found it 
 very pleasant to be chatting here so cosily. Not 
 that she meant to keep it up. This sort of 
 woman! H m well, no. But on the other hand, 
 why not? After all, New York was a very big 
 city. 
 
 "I m never going to shut myself up in one little 
 circle of people," she thought. "I mean to keep 
 rubbing up against life." 
 
 There was an added pleasure, too, in the vague 
 warm self-confidence which the young widow gave 
 to her. * You can take care of yourself, my dear, 
 said Mrs. Grewe s small lustrous black eyes. 
 
 "Well? Is he treating you better?" she asked. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 227 
 
 "Yes," said Ethel. 
 
 "He s very wise." They smiled at each other. 
 
 "He s becoming quite sensible," Ethel said. 
 
 "And have you found those friends you 
 wanted!" 
 
 "They re in sight," was Ethel s answer. Her 
 hostess smiled good humouredly. 
 
 "You won t be able to keep me," she said. 
 "He won t stand that" 
 
 Ethel knit her brows. 
 
 "He ll stand a good deal," she answered, 
 "when once I know where I stand myself." 
 
 "In the meantime you d better leave me alone." 
 
 The two parted in affable fashion. 
 
 "There," thought Ethel in relief. "I got 
 through that rather nicely. I needn t go again, 
 of course." 
 
 She had started out for a brisk walk, and she 
 drew a deep breath of the frosty air. The air in 
 New York was often so gay! And Mrs. Grewe 
 had given her such a feeling of independence. 
 She saw a man turn and look at her the beast! 
 But she smiled as she hurried on toward the Park. 
 Still, the brief visit had been rather daring. 
 Joe would not have liked it at all. He would have 
 been perfectly furious ! 
 
 However ! She walked briskly on. i What s 
 the difference between Mrs. Grewe and his own 
 
228 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 dear friend, Fanny Carr?" she asked. "Nothing 
 whatever except that Fanny, so far as we know, 
 has taken the trouble with each man to have a 
 wedding and a divorce. The only other difference 
 is that Fanny has no taste at all, while Mrs. Grewe 
 has heaps of it! And she reads things even 
 Shaw; and she likes good music, too. She is 
 going tonight to Salome. " . . . For a moment 
 Ethel let her mind run over all the operas she her 
 self was going to hear, and the concerts, and the 
 plays she would see and the dinners she would go 
 to, the talks in which she would take part. She 
 could see herself just scintillating! . . . With a 
 jerk she came back to Mrs. Grewe. U 0h, I guess 
 it isn t very defiling to turn to her from Fanny 
 Carr! I ll do as I please!" she impatiently 
 thought. 
 
 Still, it had been rather daring. It fitted in ex 
 actly with several talks she had had of late with 
 Dwight, her music teacher: talks in which each 
 one of them had taken rather a challenging tone 
 that had grown distinctly intimate. One night 
 when Joe was out of town she had gone with 
 Dwight to the opera. And she had not mentioned 
 it to Joe not that she felt guilty at all, she had 
 simply dropped it out of her mind. In love with 
 her husband? Yes, indeed. And let Dwight or 
 any other man try to go the least bit too far 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 229 
 
 11 As Fanny doubtless does with Joe," she sud 
 denly added to herself. For a moment she walked 
 viciously. Then she thought again of Dwight. 
 He had told her she really had voice enough with 
 which to go on the stage if she chose. 
 
 "Though I hope you won t," he had added. 
 
 "Why not?" she had asked. In reply he had 
 hinted at perils that made it all sound rather 
 thrilling. 
 
 "Joe wouldn t like it," Dwight had said. 
 
 "I might sing in concerts " 
 
 "Joe wouldn t like it." 
 
 "Oh, bother Joe!" 
 
 Dwight had smiled a bit. "I wonder what you 
 will do," he had said, "if Joe flivvers?" 
 
 "If to ttftoir* 
 
 "Flivvers drops back and makes money 
 turns to those other friends of his. 
 
 "He won t do that." But her voice had been 
 tense, for the intimate feeling in Dwight s tone 
 had made her a bit uneasy. 
 
 "Well," he had told her in a low voice, "I m 
 a friend of Joe s, you know, and I don t propose 
 to play the cad. But if you and Joe ever should 
 have a break don t drop me, too. Do you under 
 stand!" 
 
 She had hesitated a moment upon just how to 
 answer. Her heart had pounded rapidly. 
 
230 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 6 i That isn t going to happen/ she had told him 
 gravely. 
 
 < Sure of that!" 
 
 * Yes, and you would be if you understood me 
 better. " 
 
 "How!" 
 
 "I m in love with that husband of mine for 
 life," she had informed him impressively. 
 
 * You Ye very old-fashioned, he had smiled. 
 
 "Not at all!" 
 
 "Suppose I understand you better than you do 
 yourself?" 
 
 She had glanced at him, seen the gleam in his 
 eyes as he had drawn closer. And then very sud 
 denly she had found it hard to breathe. What 
 to say to stop him? 
 
 "At this moment," she had nearly gasped, 
 "you appear to me so very-^-fat!" 
 
 That had bowled him over naturally! In the 
 next few moments the atmosphere had become 
 chilly and depressed, and with a sudden rush of 
 shame the certainty had grown upon her that she 
 had made a fool of herself, that he had meant to 
 do nothing at all. And from blushing furiously 
 she had turned a little white, and had said to him, 
 
 "Please forgive me. I didn t mean that. I 
 was just a silly fool. Let s go on with my les- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 231 
 
 * i Now that I Ve learned mine, you mean. 
 
 And then regaining control of herself she had 
 turned upon him quickly : 
 
 "Oh, be sensible, for goodness sake! How are 
 you and I to be friends if you act like this, you 
 silly boy? You ought to be ashamed of your 
 self !" 
 
 So she had got out of that all right, and had 
 felt tremendously relieved. It was not only that 
 she liked the man, he was besides her only hope, 
 the one who could bring friends to her. "Women 
 friends! That s what I need!" All this was so 
 unsafe at times. Her husband s business, his two 
 sides, Fanny Carr and her scheming, Dwight and 
 his blue, twinkling eyes, Mrs. Grewe and her smil 
 ing good-fellowship were all very nice and ex 
 citing. But safe 1 Oh, by no means ! 
 
 But today as Ethel walked on through the Park, 
 she smiled to herself expectantly. For Dwight 
 had promised the next week to bring Sally Croth- 
 ers to see her. "If only I can get on with her! 
 She s my kind I know she is she s just exactly 
 what I want. I don t want to be anything wild 
 not Mrs. Grewe nor Fanny Carr. I want to be 
 myself, that s all, and happy with my husband!" 
 
 She turned abruptly toward her home. * In the 
 meantime I am going back to give the baby his 
 bath," she thought. She glanced at the watch on 
 
232 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 her gloved wrist. And a man who looked like a 
 detective, or a villain in the " movies, " looked 
 after her in an envious way. 
 " Who s her date with?" he wondered. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE days dragged by. She had anxious 
 times. What would Sally Crothers be like! 
 "And what in the world will she think of me? If 
 she doesn t like me very much the very first 
 time, I ll have lost my chance. For she s busy, 
 her life is full of things planning gardens and 
 running about with her friends. And she won t 
 so much as bother her head ! Ethel felt a dismal 
 sinking. In vain she strove to assure herself. 
 Joe, Nourse and then Dwight, one after the other, 
 had all bowed down before her. "Oh, that was 
 very simple ! she thought. They re only men ! 
 It would be a woman this time, and one of the 
 most brilliant kind. "What a dull little fool 
 she ll find me, in spite of all I do or say! ? It 
 would be all the more difficult because Mrs. Croth 
 ers was older. "That will count against me. No 
 doubt she s beginning to show her age; and I m 
 young, and she doesn t want any young things to 
 come snooping about her husband! Then there s 
 Amy and the quarrel they had, and she 11 put me 
 and Amy in the same class! I ll have all that to 
 fight against!" The idea of settling everything 
 all in one brief encounter. Oh, it was too mad 
 dening ! 
 
 233 
 
234 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "Now, Ethel Lanier, for goodness sake stop 
 fidgeting like a nervous old maid! This isn t the 
 minister coming to call ! 
 
 On the day before the expected call, Ethel was 
 just on the point of going out for the afternoon 
 to do some shopping and shake off these silly 
 fears, when the telephone rang and a few moments 
 later the maid came in and told her there was a 
 visitor downstairs. In an instant with a rush of 
 excitement Ethel knew it was Sally at last. 
 Dwight, in his easy, careless way, had mixed his 
 dates and was bringing Sally a day ahead ! How 
 stupid of him! "What have I on?" 
 
 4 Did she come up?" she breathlessly asked. . 
 
 "No, Mrs. Lanier, she s waiting below." 
 
 "Did she give her name?" 
 
 "Yes Mrs. Carr." 
 
 "Oh." Ethel gasped and sank down in a heap. 
 "All right, ask her to come up," she said, in a 
 tone of indifference. 
 
 When the maid had gone, she almost called her 
 back. She did not want to see Fanny Carr. 
 Still why not? Oh, let her come. And in the 
 two or three minutes that followed, Ethel passed 
 from a mood of depression to one of easy good- 
 natured contempt. She was no longer afraid of 
 Fanny, for Ethel was getting Joe in hand. "And 
 as soon as I do," she reflected, "and my husband 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 235 
 
 makes a name as an architect doing great big 
 things, wnat harm can Fanny do me?" As she 
 thought of the brilliant people who were so soon 
 to be her friends, she looked upon Fanny Carr and 
 her like with no more hatred but only compassion. 
 What stupid lives they were leading. 
 
 And so when Fanny came into the room Ethel 
 received her kindly. 
 
 But Fanny rather smiled at that. She looked a 
 bit seedy as to her dress, and yet she had a con 
 fident air. She took in the fine clothes of her 
 handsome young hostess, and Ethel s very gra 
 cious air and the almost pitying tone of her voice 
 and then with a hard little smile, "My, what 
 a change, " said Fanny softly. Ethel frowned at 
 her tone. This might be rather awkward. 
 
 "You mean this way of doing my hair 1 ?" she 
 rejoined good-humouredly. "I was hoping you 
 would notice it." 
 
 "Does he?" asked Fanny. 
 
 "What do you mean? Oh, Joe never " 
 
 "No. Dwight, my dear." The hard voice of 
 her visitor had become suddenly low and clear. 
 Ethel looked at the woman then and slowly red 
 dened to her ears. And the consciousness of 
 blushing made her all the angrier. 
 
 "What on earth do you mean?" she demanded. 
 Her voice too was very low, and it trembled only 
 
236 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 a little ; but there was a glint in her brown eyes, 
 Fanny gave a tense little laugh. 
 
 "Look here," she said. "Don t let s waste 
 time. Joe may be coming home, you know, anc 
 we must get this over first. " 
 
 "We ll soon get it over." Ethel s voice was 
 shaking ominously. Fanny noticed and spoke 
 fast. 
 
 Well, then, it s just this, she said. < You Ve 
 made up your mind to cut Joe off from all his old 
 friends, including me. And I might have stood 
 for that " 
 
 "How kind!" 
 
 "If I hadn t learned of the raw deal you re 
 giving him. Strip him of friends and then treat 
 him like this! Oh, no, not if I can help it!" 
 Plainly Fanny was working herself into a rage 
 to match that of her hostess. 
 
 "You d better be very clear, Mrs. Carr," Ethel 
 exclaimed, leaning forward. Her visitor looked 
 straight back at her, and answered: 
 
 1 1 Very. I mean Dwight. 
 
 Ethel rose abruptly. 
 
 "That will be enough, I think." 
 
 "Oh, will it?" 
 
 Ethel wheeled upon her : 
 
 * What a loathsome mind you have ! Will you 
 leave me, please?" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 237 
 
 "No, I ll show you this. And then we ll get 
 to business." And Fanny produced a large en 
 velope, from which she took out a few typewritten 
 pages. Just look these over, she advised, * ; and 
 then tell me whether I shall go." And as Ethel 
 hesitated, " You d better. They re very impor 
 tant." 
 
 Ethel took them and read them, and as she did 
 so her rage and scorn changed first into bewilder 
 ment and then into a sickening fright. She felt 
 all at once so off her ground. She had always 
 heard of detectives and their reports of shadowed 
 wives, but that sort of thing had just been in the 
 papers and had never seemed very real. "This 
 is about me!" she thought. It told of every meet 
 ing she had had with Dwight, in his studio and in 
 other places, once at the Ritz where they had 
 dined and gone to the opera, twice in the Park 
 where they had walked. Such clean times, all 
 three of them, but how cheap and disgusting they 
 now appeared! For here were bits about 
 Dwight s past, his record with women two were 
 named. He had been a co-respondent once ! And 
 his studio was described in detail, with emphasis 
 on a big lounge in one corner! . . . Suddenly it 
 was laughable! And so she laughed at Fanny! 
 And Fanny replied : 
 
 "You mean he won t believe it!" 
 
238 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Ethel went on laughing. Joe wouldn t believe 
 it. She wished he would come and turn this 
 woman out on the street. She felt relief unspeak 
 able. 
 
 "You ve forgo tten," Fanny added, "that you 
 lied to him about your friend. 
 
 "How dare you say that?" 
 
 "Because I have the facts. On the second of 
 December Joe brought D wight to dine with you, 
 and you acted as though you d never met. I gath 
 ered that from Joe Jiimself when I saw him the 
 next day. While the truth of it was you d been 
 seeing Dwight ever since the first of October." 
 
 "Yes? That will be easy enough to explain." 
 But Ethel felt herself turning white. She sank 
 down and thought, "Now you ll need all your 
 nerve. Don t get faint, you ve got to think 
 clearly. But she was not given time. 
 
 "And all that had been going on while you were 
 supposed to be home with the baby." Mrs. Carr 
 leaned forward briskly. "Now the thing for you 
 to do is exactly what I tell you. But before I do 
 that, there s just one thing I wish you to under 
 stand about me. If you want to keep Joe, keep 
 him. I don t want him I never did. I ve 
 laughed at you again and again for what you 
 thought I was trying to do. All I want is to be 
 let alone to go on with Joe as I always have. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 239 
 
 What I mean by that you won t understand, be 
 cause you don t understand my life. A woman 
 like me in this city needs one man who ll be her 
 friend the big brother idea to help and advise 
 her, carry her through when she s down a bit. 
 And Joe has always been like that. 
 
 "Why? Because of Amy. When she first 
 came to New York, you remember, it was on a 
 visit to me. I had known her back in boarding- 
 school. Well, the visit lengthened out. I saw 
 how crazy she was for the town, and I was fairly 
 well off then, so I let her stay and gave her a 
 home let her meet my friends, Joe included. I 
 had a husband at the time who was in the real 
 estate business. He knew Joe. So I took Joe 
 and handed him over to Amy. And though she 
 would have been glad enough to forget the debt, 
 Joe wasn t that kind. So that s my hold on him 
 perfectly clean and above-board. And I need 
 him in my business. There are times when I m 
 down and need his money, other times when I 
 need his name. But that is all. And if he has 
 been fool enough to marry a giddy young girl 
 like you, that s his own look-out I won t inter 
 fere. I mean I won t interfere with you so long 
 as you don t interfere with me. You let me go 
 on with Joe as before, and he ll never see these 
 papers." 
 
240 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 With a sudden fierce impulse, in spite of her 
 self, Ethel crumpled them up in her hands. 
 
 4 * Don t be a fool/ said Fanny. "They re 
 only copies. Give them back." Ethel did so, 
 mechanically. "Now what will you do? Which 
 way will you have it? He may be here any min 
 ute now." 
 
 She waited, but got no reply. She saw the girl 
 shiver a little. 
 
 "What s the use of being so solemn and 
 scared?" she impatiently asked. "You re run 
 ning no more risk than before. So far as I m 
 concerned, my dear, you can go right on with 
 Dwight if you wish. All I m asking is a square 
 deal." 
 
 "But she ll ask and ask," thought Ethel. 
 1 She 11 ask of me anything she wants. And she 11 
 get me so tangled in other lies that then I wouldn t 
 have even a chance of making Joe see how things 
 really are." 
 
 This thought cleared her mind a little. 
 
 * No, she said. You can tell him. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 Ethel looked down at her hands in her lap, and 
 noticed how tightly they were clenched. She 
 smiled at them. 
 
 "Tell him." 
 
 "You re sure of that?" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 241 
 
 Ethel nodded. 
 
 " Very well !" 
 
 She s uneasy," thought Ethel, "and disap 
 pointed not sure of herself. I ve done the right 
 thing." 
 
 But as in almost perfect silence they sat waiting 
 for Joe to come home, her decision wavered again 
 and again, and it took all her courage to hold her 
 self in. She made occasional trite remarks, and 
 received replies of the same kind. On them both 
 the tension was growing. 
 
 "This means everything to you, too, Fanny, 
 dear!" Ethel reflected viciously. "If Joe be 
 lieves me you re done for!" 
 
 At each slight stir that Fanny made, Ethel 
 hoped she had lost her courage and was getting 
 ready to go. But Fanny stayed And as she sat 
 there motionless, what a strong figure she grew 
 to be, moment by moment, in Ethel s eyes strong 
 in spite of the life she led, of clothes, rich feeding, 
 drinking, dancing, old age swiftly coming on. 
 Strong nevertheless, in an odious way, in the 
 loathsome point of view of her world toward love 
 and marriage. It had set her to prying and 
 landed her here with these papers in her hands ! 
 That was her way of looking at life, and a mighty 
 strong way it appeared ! 
 
 Suddenly Ethel s eye was caught by Amy s 
 
242 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 photograph on the table. By degrees in the last 
 few months Joe had ceased to notice it there. But 
 how he would notice it now, very soon, as soon as 
 he d read what Fanny had brought. For Amy 
 had taught Joe long ago to be jealous, never too 
 sure of a wife. 
 
 "So Amy is here again, after all. ... I won 
 der what I shall say to Joe? . . . Oh, rubbish! 
 Use more common sense! All I ve got to do is 
 to make him see why I never told him about 
 Dwight. It was only part of that plan I had. 
 But what a fool ! Oh, what a fool ! 
 
 When at last Joe s key was heard in the door, 
 both women leaned slowly forward, as though the 
 strain were unbearable. And then as Joe came 
 into the hall, Fanny said suddenly, sharp and 
 clear, 
 
 No, I won 9 t keep quiet ! Joe has got to be told 
 of this ! Ethel wheeled on her : 
 
 "How odious!" 
 
 "I can t help it he s my friend!" 
 
 And the next moment, with Joe in the room, 
 both women were talking to him at once angrily, 
 incoherently, almost shoving each other away. 
 But only for a moment. It was too disgusting! 
 Ethel left off and stood rigid there, while Fanny 
 talked on rapidly. She was speaking of how 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 243 
 
 Ethel had cut off Joe from Amy s friends. Ethel 
 heard only bits of this, for it all seemed so con 
 fused and unreal. But she noticed how nervously 
 tired he looked, all keyed up from his day at the 
 office. She remembered that his partner was out 
 of town on business, that Joe had been running 
 the office alone. "He will be hard to manage," 
 she thought. He interrupted Fanny in a sharp, 
 excitable tone. 
 
 "What s it all about?" he asked. 
 
 "It s time you saw where you stand, Joe Lanier. 
 Look at this girl. I don t blame her, God knows. 
 Look how young she is, and then look at yourself. 
 Here, take a look at yourself in that mirror. Are 
 you still young? Can t you see the lines, the gray 
 hairs, Joe? They re coming oh, they re com 
 ing ! Can you supply all the love she wants ? 
 
 "Fanny?" He snapped out her name in so 
 ugly a voice that she lost no time. She shoved 
 those papers into his hands and began to tell him 
 what they were. But Joe refused to read them 
 and grew each moment angrier. 
 
 "Joe!" cried Fanny sharply. "When you 
 brought Dwight to dinner here, he met your wife 
 as though for the first time. Did you know they 
 had been friends for months?" And at his star 
 tled look, she added, "If you didn t, you d better 
 read all this!" There fell a sudden silence. 
 
244 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "I ll explain everything when we re alone," 
 Ethel managed to put in. How queer and thick 
 her own voice sounded. 
 
 Now Joe had gone into the hall with Fanny. 
 Curtly he said good-night to her. The door 
 closed, and there was silence again. Why didn t 
 he come ? He must be standing there in the hall 
 trying to get hold of himself. Oh, how terribly 
 hurt he must feel! But she checked the sudden 
 lump in her throat. "Bemember now just com 
 mon sense !" This was a time for keeping clear! 
 But Joe had come back into the room, and passing 
 the gilt mirror into which Fanny had told him to 
 look, he stopped a moment. 
 
 "Don t do that, Joe!" In an instant, in spite 
 of herself, her love for him rose up in a wave, 
 with fear and pity and anger, too. She came to 
 him, and her voice was shaking. Oh, Joe Joe ! 
 Can t you see it s all lies? It s so loathsome 
 every word! And so cheap so cheap and 
 mean ! 
 
 As she spoke, his eyes were rapidly scanning 
 the report he still had in his hands. Again she 
 noticed how tired he was. He looked up at her : 
 
 "I know it is ! But why didn t you treat it like 
 that! Why did you try to make her keep quiet? 
 Weren t you trying, when I came in?" 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 245 
 
 "No! No! It was just her odious trick her 
 pretending ! 
 
 "Pretending? How about you! Why did you 
 pretend, when I brought Dwight here, that you d 
 never laid eyes on him before? Had you or 
 hadn t you? Careful, now! Fanny says it is all 
 here!" 
 
 "I ll explain in one word!" 
 
 "What s the word? Say it, please and for 
 God s sake clear this up ! " 
 
 She was breathing hard, frightened, her mind 
 in a whirl. Oh, to be able to think clearly ! Use 
 a little common sense ! 
 
 1 Just a minute ! she gasped. You 11 see in a 
 minute " 
 
 "I see a good deal! It s right in your eyes! 
 What are you looking so scared about? And 
 what did she say about my being old ! I am old 
 and you re young, young! And a beauty just 
 the kind for Dwight! Don t I know of his love 
 affairs? Wasn t he at it way back in Paris? 
 Hasn t he been ever since ? 
 
 "Be careful, Joe," she cried angrily. But in 
 his condition, nerves on edge, he paid no heed and 
 went rapidly on: 
 
 "I m just a business man! And you ve made 
 me feel your contempt for all that! And he s a 
 
246 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 musician, he s different he has exactly what you 
 want! So you went to his studio twice a week 
 for months and months without letting me know 
 although he was a friend of mine! And you 
 went to the Ritz and the opera! And then I 
 brought him here to dine! God, how you two 
 must have smiled at each other when I wasn t 
 looking I" 
 
 "Joe! Joe!" 
 
 "You lied to me, didn t you, when he came? 
 You say you ll explain it in a word ! Well, what s 
 the word ? I m waiting ! 
 
 "There isn t any!" Her face was white. "I 
 don t care to explain to you now!" she cried. He 
 looked at her. She could see he was trembling, 
 and she nearly changed her mind. But her anger 
 came again. I won t ! " she thought. Not to 
 night!" 
 
 "Then you and I are through, you know," he 
 said very huskily. He turned and went into the 
 hall, and a moment later the outer door closed 
 Ethel sat down and stared blankly. 
 
 "I acted like an idiot!" 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AS she sat there she grew furious with herself 
 for having bungled so. Why hadn t she ex 
 plained to him! Why hadn t she simply told him 
 her plan for giving him back his friends! All at 
 once she could hear herself saying what she should 
 have said to Joe : 
 
 "I may have been wrong about it, Joe, but I 
 thought the best way to bring you back to all the 
 things you used to love was to let you think you 
 were doing it. So I let you and Dwight come 
 together alone. I kept in the background, as I 
 did about getting you into that club of yours. 
 I was afraid to show my hand." On and on she 
 talked to him. Oh, how simple and convincing, 
 strong, and sensible and true. 
 
 "Why didn t you say it, you little fool! You 
 acted just like a scared young girl found out in 
 doing something wrong!" She was ready to cry, 
 but checked herself. "At least don t be a baby 
 now. What are you to do about it!" She bit 
 her lip. Now it was too late. She had made it 
 worse a hundred times ! All at once she rose 
 and began to walk. "Oh, rubbish!" she thought, 
 impatiently. You re not to give up, when every 
 thing else in your whole life was going so per- 
 
 247 
 
248 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 fectly splendidly! . . . Why, of course. That s 
 it. I ll call up Nourse, and have him come and 
 explain to Joe how I went to him at the very 
 start. " 
 
 With a swift feeling of relief Ethel went to 
 the telephone. 
 
 "Mr. Nourse is out of town." 
 
 "Oh, yes. Thank you. I d forgotten. When 
 do you expect him back?" 
 
 "Not until the end of the week." 
 
 As Ethel hung up the receiver she felt a little 
 faint and queer. When Joe came back this eve 
 ning she would have to face him alone ! In vain 
 she angrily told herself that it only needed com 
 mon sense. The picture of his tired face, nerves 
 all on edge, rose in her mind. The way his jeal 
 ousy had flared up! No, it would not be easy! 
 She might even fail with him! At the thought, 
 a foolish panic came. More walking was re 
 quired. . . . She heard Susette beginning her sup 
 per, and she went in and sat with the child. And 
 at first that worked out very well. Soon she was 
 smiling and listening to the ceaseless chatter of 
 the small girl. But suddenly Ethel exclaimed to 
 herself, l Suppose I do fail, after all ! If there s a 
 divorce he ll take them both!" She jumped up 
 in a frightened way, and went into her bedroom. 
 She threw herself sobbing on the bed but in a 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 249 
 
 few minutes regained control with an effort and 
 lay there motionless. The tangle was growing 
 clearer now. 
 
 The very best she could hope was to make Joe 
 half believe her, she thought. And that would 
 mean she would have to drop Dwight and all 
 chance of meeting those people he knew. She 
 would live with a Joe so suspicious that she would 
 be under his friend, Fanny Carr. " She 11 be my 
 friend, and bring me in touch with whatever other 
 people she likes. Pll have to be nice to them 
 every one. And I ll live her life. Amy s life." 
 She looked at the large photograph over on Joe s 
 chiffonier. "Perhaps after all I shall be like her. 
 How do I know what she was at my age? As I 
 grow older, all hemmed in, why not stop caring 
 for anything else? 
 
 "Oh, now do let s be sensible!" With an im 
 patient movement of her lithe beautiful figure 
 Ethel was up off the bed and walking the room 
 with grim resolution in her brown eyes. Soon 
 she was much quieter. She felt the warm youth 
 within her rise. There must be a way! So far, 
 so good. But the moment she tried to think what 
 way, again at once she was off her ground. What 
 could she do or say to Joe! Her failure to man 
 age him that afternoon had shaken her confidence 
 in herself. Ethel was only twenty-five, and now 
 
250 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 she felt even younger than that. All at once in a 
 sickening way her courage oozed; she felt herself 
 ignorant and alone. Why did not Joe come back, 
 she asked. Was he going to stay away all night? 
 And if he did, what would it mean! She remem 
 bered what he had said when he left : Then you 
 and I are through, you know." All right, then 
 what was he going to do? "I don t even know 
 how a man goes about it, if he wants to get a 
 divorce !" And panic seized her as before. 
 
 "I can t do this all by myself! I can t talk to 
 him as I ve got to talk not till I know just what 
 to say! I bungled it so! I need sound advice! 
 Oh, for somebody to help me!" She thought of 
 Dwight, but she would not go near him! She 
 loathed the very sight of him now ! Why had not 
 he told her of those other affairs of his that could 
 rise in this way against herself? Why had he al 
 lowed her to do those few little daring things, 
 which looked so cheap and disgusting in the detec 
 tive s typed report? And besides, if she did want 
 to see him, could she, without being watched by 
 some wretched detective? For the whole town 
 seemed bristling with detectives and police. And 
 the city of New York felt cold. As she lay on her 
 bed, a sudden gay laugh from a neighbouring win 
 dow recalled to her mind that night long ago, her 
 first in New York, when she had listened excitedly 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 251 
 
 and thought of all the stories here, both sad and 
 comic. 
 
 i l Well, I m a story now, she thought. * And I 
 suppose I m comic !" The angry tears rose in 
 her eyes. Oh, for a real friend! There was 
 Emily Giles, of course, but this was Emily s night 
 out ; and besides, in matters of this kind she would 
 be worse than useless. "What I need is a woman 
 who knows this town and all its ways and what 
 to do !" As the evening drew on and still Joe did 
 not come, again and again she felt ready to scream. 
 And though she savagely held herself in, each 
 time was harder than the last. 
 
 "Something has simply got to be done!" she 
 told herself after one outbreak like that. Then 
 all at once came the recollection of young Mrs. 
 Grewe downstairs. "I must have some one or I ll 
 go mad!" And she hurried to the telephone. 
 But in the hall she stopped and frowned. "No, 
 I won t call her up," she thought. "That in 
 quisitive telephone girl downstairs would begin 
 to gossip about it at once." For the same reason 
 Ethel did not take the elevator. She ran quickly 
 down two flights and rang at Mrs. Grewe s door. 
 There was silence. She waited some moments, 
 then rang again. i Oh, she s out I know she is!" 
 The thought brought a sickening empty feeling. 
 She would have to face this night alone ! 
 
252 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 But abruptly the door opened, and a sleepy 
 startled maid looked at her in dull surprise. 
 
 "Is she out tonight? Is Mrs. Grewe out?" 
 Ethel asked impatiently. 
 
 Yes she s out, the girl replied. 
 
 But glancing behind her Ethel saw a high hat 
 and an overcoat on a chair, and with a quick little 
 "Oh!" of dismay, she turned and hurried away 
 down the hall. She heard the maid s chuckle 
 behind her. "Oh-h!" She could feel her cheeks 
 burning. And when she got back to her bed 
 room upstairs, out of the shame and humility 
 rose a fierce anger which downed all her fears at 
 the thought of this night or of anything else. 
 
 "I ll never be like her!" she exclaimed. 
 "There ll never be a high hat in my hall at this 
 time of night nor a Boston old maid nor a 
 snickering telephone girl downstairs! Never! 
 I 11 make myself ugly first ! For I m not like you, 
 I m not like you ! I Ve had a child, to begin with 
 and I m going to keep him, he s mine ! 
 
 There came again a period of swift determined 
 thinking. And at last with a quick thrill of relief 
 she remembered Mrs. Crothers was coming with 
 Dwight to call the next day. Sally Crothers 
 Joe s old friend! "If she believed in me really 
 believed in all that I was trying to do she could 
 give me just the advice I need! It may be I m 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 253 
 
 just silly and she could give me her common 
 sense! She might even talk to Joe herself and 
 make him realize my whole plan! If only I can 
 get her to help me ! 
 
 Ethel went at once to her desk and rapidly wrote 
 a note to Dwight, saying she thought it would be 
 better to let Mrs. Crothers come alone. 
 
 "For I could do nothing, with him around. 
 And I ve got to do everything!" she thought as 
 she folded the envelope. 
 
 In the morning she heard from Joe. When a 
 messenger came with a note, she tore it open and 
 read this: 
 
 "Please give this man my suit-case and put in 
 what things I need. I shall stay here at the club 
 awhile it will be better all around. I am sorry 
 for the scene I made and I don t want another. 
 If you have any real explanation, send me word 
 and I will come. But understand it has got to be 
 real. If it is not we can t go on. I guess you see 
 that." 
 
 She read it again. Then glancing up at the 
 messenger, who was plainly curious at the expres 
 sion on her face, she frowned at him impatiently. 
 
 "Will you wait downstairs?" she said. "It 
 will take some little time to find the things my 
 husband wants." 
 
254 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Eid of him, she began again and read the letter 
 with desperate care. Yes, Joe was trying to be 
 fair. To have said he was sorry for that scene 
 was rather decent in him. "Oh, yes, but he ll 
 make another ! she thought. Don t I know how 
 he is all tired and nervous and unstrung? If 
 my explanation doesn t seem real he ll fly up and 
 leave me, and then we ll be through!" She 
 clenched the letter and told herself that her ex 
 planation must be real. It was her one chance 
 she must take time, and get good sensible advice. 
 Joe had Fanny Carr about. That was certain. 
 She d never leave him alone. She was busily 
 bolstering up her side. And Ethel needed some 
 body, too, on her side right behind her. Sally 
 Crothers Joe s old friend ! 
 
 She packed Joe s things and sent them to him 
 with a little letter : I am glad you said you were 
 sorry, Joe, for the way you acted was very un 
 fair. You are quite right in waiting now it is 
 better for both of us to cool down. But my ex 
 planation is simple and real as you will see. I 
 shall send for you in a few days. I love you, dear. 
 Hove you. 9 
 
 After that, she spent hours in anxious reflection. 
 
 Now about Sally Crothers, she thought. Should 
 she tell her the trouble she was in? No, not at 
 once. New Yorkers hate trouble and always fly 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 255 
 
 from it so she must lead to it gradually. * i When 
 she comes I ve got to make her like me very 
 much so much she s surprised ! " To begin with, 
 looks for looks did count. That much of what 
 Amy had said was true. "But what I must do is 
 not to look like her. Sally Crothers detested her, 
 and I ve got to overcome all that. I must show 
 her I m quite different." For a time Ethel s 
 mind dwelt on details. It must all be so simple, 
 yet not too severe. "For Sally is gay, I under 
 stand. What I want is to look halfway between 
 Mrs. Grewe and Emily Giles. Black? No. 
 Dark blue, with that old Rhinestone pin. Wave 
 my hair ? No, that s Amy again ! 
 
 But from such thoughts about her dress, or her 
 tea table, flowers, the lights in the room, her mind 
 kept darting anxiously off. All this was nothing! 
 What should she say? "It s a woman of brains 
 who is coming to call. Think of all she knows 
 and she earns her living she has a profession 
 of her own I How in the world shall I talk to her ? 
 She thinks me like Amy there s Amy again! 
 Oh, Amy, Amy, I don t want to hate you! You 
 helped me once, you were dear to me, and you had 
 heaps and heaps of good points! But please, 
 please stop coming up in my life ! 
 
 "Don t get into another panic, my dear. When 
 she comes you must be natural. Your natural 
 
256 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 self that always counts. Don t try to show off 
 what you haven t got. Show her only what you 
 have. Make her feel you re young and ready to 
 learn half mad to learn! No, that won t do 
 not mad, but keen for everything interested in 
 her life in all she does and thinks and feels." 
 She frowned. "No, that s too personal. And 
 you can t be personal in New York not very 
 they don t like it here. Every one s too busy. 
 You must be interested in things the town in 
 general music books people in a general way. 
 * * Here s the kind of a girl who will grow, she 
 must say, and who is worth my taking up ! But 
 will she? Now here s that panic again! And 
 can t you see, you little goose, this is just what 
 may spoil everything? If you re scared, you ll 
 lose ! You ve got to keep cool every minute she s 
 here! Who is this Sally anyhow? What has she 
 done that you won t do when you re as old as she 
 is? ... Yes, but don t you strike that note! No 
 woman likes to be reminded that she is ten years 
 older than any other woman on earth. She ll put 
 me down as a cute young thing who has a danger 
 ous way with men. Dwight has praised me to her, 
 of course but she ll put his liking down to that 
 the the the sex side! I must show her it 
 isn t, that I ve got more, that I don t want men 
 but women now! But not too hard or eager, you 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 257 
 
 know. Oh, I must watch her all the time, to see 
 if I m getting any hold. And then, the minute I 
 see my chance, I must tell her my trouble no, my 
 big chance all I was just on the point of doing 
 with Joe, and could do now if only I had her for 
 a friend ! 
 
 Such thinking was spasmodic and often discon 
 nected. Thoughts of Joe kept breaking in, and of 
 what she should do if she failed with him. And 
 again, putting down with an effort all such 
 thoughts and fancies, she took Susette and the 
 baby and went out for a walk in the Park. It was 
 one of those balmy days that come in winter now 
 and then, and Ethel sat down on a bench for 
 a while. 
 
 But then she looked around with a start. Who 
 was that on a bench nearby? A fat man with a 
 black moustache, his derby hat tipped over his 
 forehead, and his two small piggish eyes morosely 
 and narrowly watching her. A detective work 
 ing for Fany Carr ! Ethel angrily rose and called 
 to Susette and wheeled the baby carriage away. 
 But just as she passed the fat man, a small fat boy 
 ran up to him. 
 
 6 Say, Pa, whined the urchin. Buy me a bag 
 of peanuts." 
 
 "Like hell I will," the fat man growled. 
 
 And Ethel blushed. How absurd she had been ! 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 IN reply to her note, Dwight had telephoned that 
 Sally would be there at five. Mrs. Crothers 
 arrived at a quarter past. She was a small alert 
 looking woman of thirty-five, slender, almost wiry, 
 dark, with black hair worn over her temples. Her 
 small mouth was strong and wilful, but she had 
 nice pleasant eyes. She was wearing a pretty tan 
 hat and grey furs that she put back on her shoul 
 ders as she smiled and held out her hand. 
 "I m so glad to meet you at last, my dear." 
 4 i Oh, thank you, said Ethel quickly. And then, 
 because that sounded too grateful, she added, 
 "Won t you sit down?" in rather a stilted little 
 voice. This woman made her feel so young. 
 "Now don t act like a school-girl!" With an 
 appearance of lazy ease she turned and poked the 
 small logs in the fire. "I do so love wood fires. 
 Don t you!" she said, in carefully easy tones, but 
 she did not hear the answer. 
 
 Mrs. Crothers was wearing a trim street suit 
 of brown and dark green. "She dresses as I do, 
 so that s all right," thought Ethel. "She s tak 
 ing me in. So much the better. I 11 do the same. 
 And as they talked, she kept throwing glances at 
 
 258 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 259 
 
 the dark face, rather narrow, the small and rather 
 mischievous mouth, and the grey eyes which looked 
 as though they could be so very good-humoured 
 and friendly. But with a little pang of dismay 
 Ethel saw that these eyes were preoccupied and 
 only half attending. "She has a hundred things 
 on her mind, and she s asking, Now let s try to 
 see if there s really anything here worth while. " 
 The preliminaries were already over. That part 
 at least had gone smoothly enough. i We re off ! " 
 thought Ethel excitedly. 
 
 "How will you have your tea?" she asked. 
 
 "Clear with lemon." 
 
 "One lump or two I" 
 
 "Three or four." 
 
 "Oh, how funny," Ethel laughed. And then 
 she reddened. "You little goose," she exclaimed 
 to herself, why did you say, How funny ? " She 
 poured the tea with a trembling hand and prof 
 fered it with a plate of cakes and small toasted 
 crumpets, dainties she had purchased with care 
 at a smart little shop in the neighbourhood. And 
 meanwhile she was answering the questions, pleas 
 ant but searching, though thrown out in a casual 
 voice. -* 
 
 "Yes, my home was in Ohio. Such a dear old 
 town," she said. But the next moment she bit 
 her lips, for she had come so near to adding, "I 
 
260 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 wish I were back this very minute !" What was 
 her visitor saying? She frowned and leaned for 
 ward attentively. Something about a small town 
 in Vermont and the funny local politics there. 
 "Where is she leading by that remark ?" Oh, 
 yes, suffrage ! That was all right ! 
 
 "Yes, indeed," declared Ethel eagerly, "I m 
 for suffrage heart and soul! I marched in the 
 parade last Fall ! Wasn t it glorious ? Were you 
 there?" 
 
 "Yes, I marched " 
 
 "With the gardeners?" Ethel blushed again. 
 
 "Landscape, I mean!" And her visitor smiled. 
 
 "Yes, with the gardeners," she said. "There 
 
 were only four of us, but we felt like the Four 
 
 Hundred." Ethel giggled excitedly. 
 
 "Wasn t it glorious?" she exclaimed. "You 
 
 ninny!" she thought. "You said that once!" 
 
 And she hastened to add, "And isn t it perfectly 
 
 silly for men to try to keep us from marching?" 
 
 "You mean your husband doesn t approve?" 
 
 "Approve!" Ethel echoed with a sniff. "I d 
 
 like to see him disapprove. I have him in fair 
 
 control, I think." And she knitted her brows in 
 
 an eager way, for this was a chance to tell how 
 
 she had done it. 
 
 "How long have you been married?" her visitor 
 was asking. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 261 
 
 "Let me see. Four years? No, two," she re 
 plied, with a quick smile. i Time does so fly along 
 in this town ! 
 
 "It does indeed. It seems hardly any time at 
 all since the days when your husband and I were 
 friends." 
 
 "Oh, yes, he has often told me about you!" 
 And Ethel shot a swift anxious look. "I know 
 you don t like him," she wanted to add. "-But if 
 you ll only give me a chance I ll show you what 
 I have made of this man or was making, at least, 
 till all of a sudden right out of the clouds there 
 dropped a fat detective!" She laughed at the 
 thought and then grew rigid. How silly and 
 pointless to laugh like that! Mrs. Crothers was 
 telling now of the old group down about Wash 
 ington Square, and Ethel was listening hungrily. 
 
 "What gorgeous times you must have had," 
 she exclaimed, "in those old days!" The next 
 moment she turned crimson. "I ve said it now. 
 Old ! I knew I should!" She caught Sally s 
 good-natured smile and felt again like a mere 
 child. 
 
 From this moment on she would take care ! She 
 avoided personal topics, and growing grave and 
 dignified she turned the conversation from Joe to 
 music, concerts, the opera, "Salome," "Louise." 
 She carefully showed she was up to date, not only 
 
262 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 in music but in other things, books she had dis 
 cussed years ago in the club of the little history 
 "prof," and others she had been reading since 
 Montessori, "Jean Christophe." Hiding her 
 tense anxiety under a manner smooth as oil, she 
 talked politely on and on, and she felt she was 
 doing better now. So much better! No more 
 stupid breaks or girlish gush, but a modern intelli 
 gent woman of parts. And a glow of hope rose in 
 her breast. A little more of this, she thought, 
 and she would be ready to break off, and with a 
 sudden appealing smile take her new friend into 
 her confidence, tell of her trouble and ask for ad 
 vice. 
 
 But the smile came from her visitor. Mrs. 
 Crothers had risen and was holding out her hand. 
 And as Ethel stared in dismay at that smile, which 
 displayed such an easy indifference to her and all 
 her view of life, her only woman friend in New 
 York said, 
 
 "I m so sorry I ve got to run. I hope you ll 
 come and see me." 
 
 From the door in the hallway Ethel came back 
 in a sort of a daze till her eye lit on the blue china 
 clock on the mantel. 
 
 "Seventeen minutes!" she exclaimed. And 
 then after one quick look around, she flung herself 
 on the sofa in tears. i I bored her ! How I bored 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 263 
 
 her! How stupid I was, and comic a child! 
 And then solemn too solemn all music and art 
 and education and how in the world do I know 
 what I said? Or care! I hate the woman! I 
 hate them all! Seventeen minutes! Isn t that 
 just like New York 1" 
 
 But from this little storm she soon emerged. 
 Grimly sitting up on the sofa, she reached out a 
 hand icy cold, took the tea-pot and poured out a 
 cup. It was strong now, thank Heaven! And 
 frowning gravely into space, Ethel sat and drank 
 her tea. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 the one thing, " she told herself, "is 
 to keep your nerve and be sensible. For 
 this may decide your whole life, you know. . . . 
 All right, what next ? What s to be done 1 
 
 "I hate Sally Crothers," she began, "but I may 
 go to see her, nevertheless. She asked me to. 
 Didn t mean it, of course, she was plainly bored! 
 No, I won t do it! I loathe the woman! . . . All 
 right, my dear, but who else can you go to? Mrs. 
 Grewe? She s doubtless at home but there may 
 be that detestable hat, tall, rich and shiny, in her 
 hall. It looked as though it owned her soul ! No, 
 thanks not yet not for me! ... Though she 
 told me you soon get used to it. ... 
 
 "Well, how about going back to Ohio, to the 
 little history prof, and hating all men one and 
 all? That sounds exceedingly tempting! ... I 
 won t do it, though because if I do, it means I m 
 beaten here and I d lose Susette and the baby! 
 . . . Quiet, now. . . . And then there s Dwight. 
 He will probably call up soon and ask how Sally 
 and I got on. I could go to him this very night ! 
 How perfectly disgusting ! And yet it s just what 
 
 264 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 265 
 
 Joe deserves ! What right had he to believe that 
 of me? ... Now please keep cool. If I go to 
 Dwight I become exactly like Mrs. Grewe and 
 I d have to give up the children. 
 
 "No, it s back to Joe on my knees, to beg him to 
 let me stay right here. And I ll succeed I know 
 I will! But won t I be under Fanny s thumb? 
 And won t I take back Amy s friends? Like a 
 good repentant scared little girl! And eat their 
 rich meals and chatter as they do, and dance and 
 grow old and push Joe on to make more money 
 more and more so that I can get fat and soft 
 like the rest of these cats !" 
 
 Again her face was quivering. But with an ef 
 fort controlling herself, she went into the nursery. 
 And on the floor with her wee son, slowly rolling 
 a big red ball back and forth to each other, soon 
 again she had grown quiet, almost like her nat 
 ural self. She took supper alone, and then read a 
 novel, page after page, without comprehending. 
 An hour later she went to bed, and there lay lis 
 tening to the town to its numberless voices, dis 
 tinct and confused, from windows close by and 
 from the street, and from other streets by hun 
 dreds and from a million other homes, and from 
 the two rivers and the sea voices blurred and 
 fused in one. And its tone, to Ethel s ears, was 
 one of utter indifference good-humoured enough 
 
266 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 but rather bored with young things weeping on 
 its breast. 
 
 "Be Mrs. Grewe, if you like," it said, "or Sally 
 Crothers or Fanny Carr. Or go back home to 
 your history prof. Each one of these things has 
 been done before by so many thousands just like 
 you. Nobody cares. You have no neighbours. 
 Do exactly as you like." 
 
 "Thank you very much," she said. "I choose 
 to be Sally Crothers first. And if that fails well, 
 between Fanny Carr and Mrs. Grewe there isn t 
 much choice. Do you think so ? " 
 
 "Oh, no," said the city. And it yawned. But 
 Ethel lay there thinking. 
 
 "Excuse me," she spoke presently. "Sorry to 
 annoy you again but is there any God about?" 
 
 "None," came the sleepy answer. "Do as you 
 like, I tell you." 
 
 She opened her eyes and sat up in bed. 
 
 "Now I ve been getting morbid again! For 
 goodness sake let s try to be healthy and clear 
 about this!" 
 
 And she tried to be. But for some time she 
 made little headway. It was easy to grimly shut 
 her teeth and resolve, "I ve got to do this by my 
 self, talk to Joe and simply make him believe me !" 
 But as soon as she came to the details of what she 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 267 
 
 should say to her husband, his face as she had seen 
 it last worn and nervous, overwrought kept 
 rising up before her. Could she convince him? 
 l It s my last chance ! " If only she knew how to 
 go about it! She wanted to be heroic and face 
 this crisis all alone but she had been alone so 
 much. Tonight it seemed to Ethel as though she 
 had struggled alone for years. Was it all worth 
 while, she asked herself. She could feel her cour 
 age ooze again. Her thinking grew vague and 
 uneven. . . . And more and more the picture rose 
 of the woman friend she had counted on having 
 Sally Crothers, who was so clever, an older woman 
 who knew New York, knew what to do in such 
 tangles as this, knew Joe, had known him back in 
 that past which Ethel was trying to raise again. 
 And it was exasperating! "If I could only get at 
 her!" she thought. 
 
 Carefully, almost word by word, she went over 
 in her mind her talk with Mrs. Crothers that day, 
 in order to find out her mistakes. 
 
 "Do you know what I think?" she said at the 
 end. "I think in the first part you did pretty 
 well. You made breaks and were clumsy, and 
 she was amused but she rather liked you, never 
 theless. At least you were a novelty. But then 
 you went and spoiled it all by making solemn fool 
 remarks about the world in general. And there- 
 
268 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 upon Sally arose and went. ... All right, next 
 time I ll be different. I won t be solemn, nor 
 afraid of saying anything incorrect. In fact I ll 
 revel in it! She asked me to come and see her, 
 in a tone which added, < Don t. But I ll be incor 
 rect right there. I will go to see her; and what s 
 more, I ll go tomorrow afternoon! And I won t 
 call up first, for she d say she was out. I ll get 
 into her house and get her downstairs and I ll 
 break right through all smoothnesses and tell her 
 exactly how and why I ve got to have a woman 
 friend ! I 11 give you the chance of your life, Sally 
 Crothers, to throw out the life-line ! 
 
 "If you don t I ll just swim about for awhile. 
 No use in thinking of that, though. " 
 
 And suddenly she fell asleep. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 MRS. CROTHERS lived in a small brick 
 house on a side street close to Washington 
 Square. As Ethel looked out from her automo 
 bile, how dear and homey it appeared, with such a 
 quiet friendly face. l Now for the plunge. She 
 went up the low steps and rang the bell. Thank 
 Heaven it was a rainy day, for when the maid came 
 Ethel went right in, and the rain made that seem 
 natural. At least no door had been shut in her 
 face. She wanted to get inside this house ! 
 
 "Is Mrs. Crothers at home!" she asked. The 
 maid was not sure. Ethel gave her a card and 
 was shown into a long cosy room with an old- 
 fashioned air, where a small coal fire looked half 
 asleep. She began to look around her. The walls 
 were lined with book-shelves, with only a picture 
 here and there. No wall-paper. "How funny." 
 She frowned and added, "But it s nice." There 
 was but little furniture, and plenty of room to 
 move about. "What a love of a mirror." It was 
 of gilt, and it reached from floor to ceiling between 
 the two front windows. Gravely she looked at 
 herself in the glass. "Oh, I m not very excited." 
 
 The maid reappeared, and said, "Mrs. Crothers 
 
 269 
 
270 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 asks you to excuse her. She s sick with a head 
 ache this afternoon. " 
 
 < Oh, what a lie I " thought Ethel. She stood for 
 a moment irresolute, her heart in her mouth. "I 
 will, though!" she decided, and took out another 
 card. "Then take her this little note," she said. 
 And she wrote : "I know I am being quite rude 
 but if the headache is not too severe will you see 
 me just for a little while? I would not bother 
 you honestly but it is something so important 
 and it must be settled today." It took two of 
 her cards, and even then it was horribly crowded 
 and hard to read. "Never mind," she thought. 
 "That s as far as I ll go. If she can t read that 
 I m done for!" 
 
 The maid had taken the message upstairs. 
 
 * l Now I Ve done it, I Ve gone too far. I m done 
 for oh, I m done for! Well, look about you, 
 Ethel, my love it s the last look you ll ever get 
 at this room ! How dear it is, what taste, what a 
 home. Books, pictures, a piano of course and 
 the very air is full of the things that have been 
 said here after dinner, over coffee and cigarettes, 
 by all the people you want to know. Not rich nor 
 smart like Newport just people with minds and 
 hearts alive to the big things that really count, 
 the beautiful things! . . . Good-bye, my dears 
 you re not very kind. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 271 
 
 1 She 11 be down in a moment, said the maid. 
 
 * * Thank you ! Ethel had wheeled with a start ; 
 and again left alone, she stood without moving. 
 "Well, here you are you ve got your chance! 
 And how do you feel! Plain panicky! Never 
 mind, that s just what will catch her attention! 
 Be panicky! Oh, I am I am!" And her cour 
 age oozed so rapidly that when her hostess came 
 into the room, and with a smile that was rather 
 strained, said "I am so glad to see you " the 
 girl who confronted her only stared, and suddenly 
 shivered a little. Then she forced a smile and 
 said, "How silly of me to shiver like that." 
 
 "Come here by the fire and sit down." Mrs. 
 Crothers voice was suddenly kind. "Now tell 
 me how I can help you," she said. 
 
 "Thank you. Why, it s simply this. I ve had 
 trouble with Joe, my husband just lately in the 
 last few days. And the trouble is so serious that 
 it s my whole life one way or the other. At 
 least it certainly feels so ! And I have no women 
 friends I can go to. They re all his hers, I 
 mean. 
 
 "Hers?" 
 
 "Yes. My sister s. She is dead but very 
 much alive at times through the friends she left 
 behind her. I ve been fighting them all my life, 
 it seems ever since I married Joe ! 
 
272 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "Why were you fighting them!" Ethel 
 frowned : 
 
 "Because they well, they were all just fat 
 in body and soul the women, I mean and the 
 men were just making money for food and things 
 to keep them so. Do you know what I mean 
 that kind of New Yorker 1 
 
 "I do," said Mrs. Crothers. "Was that the 
 cause of your trouble with Joe?" 
 
 "Partly yes. You see when I tried to shake 
 them off, they wouldn t be shaken they hung on 
 because Joe was growing rich all of a sudden. 
 Oh, I got pretty desperate! But then I learned 
 of other friends that Joe had had here long ago 
 before he married ~ker, you know. And I hunted 
 for them one by one. I could feel they were just 
 what he needed, you see. I mean that back among 
 such friends I hoped he d stop just making money 
 and get to work on things he had dreamed of! 
 You understand?" 
 
 "I think so but not fully. Go on in your own 
 way, my dear. Don t try to think. Keep talk 
 ing." 
 
 "Thank you. I was in love with him. There 
 was nobody else, man, woman or child except 
 Susette. She was Amy s little girl. You see, 
 Mrs. Crothers, when Amy died I was there I 
 had just come to town. So I stayed with Joe to 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 273 
 
 look after Susette. Then later on I began to feel 
 that he was beginning to care for me. And I 
 didn t like that on Amy s account, for I wor 
 shipped her then. So I broke away and took 
 a job. . . . Oh, what in the w^orld am I getting 
 at?" 
 
 " Don t try to think. Just tell me. You took 
 a job. What was it?" 
 
 Ethel told of Greesheimer, and then of coming 
 back to Joe, of his poverty and of her nursing Su 
 sette, of dreaming of children, of falling in love, 
 of marriage and the birth of her boy. 
 
 "But all the time Amy had been there. Do you 
 understand? Like a spirit, I mean ! She had Joe 
 first ! She had shaped him ! 
 
 "Yes" 
 
 "And so when he loved me even more, T do be 
 lieve, than he ever loved her still he did the thing 
 she would have wanted. Amy had taught him 
 to show his love by loading money on his wife. 
 And that was what started everything wrong. 
 For he got rich for my sake and the money 
 brought Amy s friends back in a horde ! Oh, now 
 I m repeating! I ve said all that " 
 
 "Please say it again! You re doing so well!" 
 
 Ethel told about Fanny and the rest. "I tried 
 to like them honestly! But I simply couldn t!" 
 she cried. 
 
274 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 l Why couldn t you ? Tell me plainly just what 
 it was you wanted. 
 
 What I wanted ? Plainly I Oh, dear I can t 
 exactly " 
 
 * What kind of people ! 
 
 Ethel frowned. 
 
 * Not just eaters ! she exclaimed. * 1 wanted 
 men and women who well, who were seeing some 
 thing big and beautiful and real in life! Life 
 is so hard and queer in this town so awfully 
 crowded and mixed up and empty, somehow. 
 You know how I mean? But they see something 
 in it all. Not clearly it s way off, you know. 
 And they re busy of course, and by no means 
 saints. They have their worries and their faults 
 and pettiness they re human, too, But they re 
 looking for something really worth while ! Oh, I 
 can t express it I really can t!" 
 
 6 1 Oh, yes you can, you ve done quite well, said 
 Mrs. Crothers steadily. " And now to narrow this 
 down to Joe, you wanted him to be like that in 
 his work and so in his life with you. Was that 
 it?" 
 
 "Yes! And he used to be! You must know 
 that!" 
 
 "Yes I knew that. Your husband and I were 
 once very good friends." 
 
 "That s it, and I guessed it!" Ethel cried. "I 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 275 
 
 was making wild guesses in the dark. And at last 
 I put my finger on his partner, and we had a talk. 
 It was a talk, a hard one but I made him believe 
 me in the end. And he told me a little about you 
 and I wanted to meet you, oh, so much! But 
 he seemed to be out of touch with you, so he took 
 me to Mr. Dwight instead. I had always wanted 
 to sing, you know and the rest of it well, Mr. 
 Dwight must have told you." 
 
 "Only a little," was the reply. "I don t yet 
 fully understand. How did all this bring trouble 
 with Joe? It s something serious, you said " 
 
 * l It s something very nasty. And Ethel began 
 telling of Fanny s revelations. In the midst of 
 it the door-bell rang. 
 
 "One moment." And Sally went into the hall. 
 "Whoever it is, say I ve a headache," Ethel heard 
 her tell the maid. "The same old headache," 
 Sally remarked as she grimly pulled the portieres. 
 They waited in a tense little silence till the visitor 
 had gone. "And Alice," Sally called to the maid. 
 "If any one else comes, say I m out." She 
 turned back to Ethel, smiling : 
 
 "Suppose you stay to supper. I ll telephone 
 my husband to dine at his club and we 11 go right 
 on with this talk of ours. We ll go on," she 
 added determinedly, "until we have Joe so in our 
 toils that he ll be yours so long as he lives." 
 
276 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 Ethel suddenly sniffed and swallowed hard, and 
 said, "Oh, what a dear you are to me!" 
 
 Sally looked at her queerly. 
 
 "This is to be a talk without tears, but much 
 good sensible planning," she said. "I don t 
 blame you a bit for having been frightened 
 you ve been through an ugly time. But I think 
 with a little common sense " 
 
 "I know," said Ethel, "that s just what I need. 
 And that is why I came to you. 
 
 "Thank you," Sally smiled again. "Now go 
 on about Mrs. Carr." 
 
 The talk went on, with interruptions for supper 
 and Sally s two small children, far into the eve 
 ning. And Mrs. Crothers did her share filling in 
 for Ethel the picture of Joe s old life, his work 
 and dreams, and his first marriage. She told of 
 several meetings with Amy. And all the time she 
 kept watching, probing into this young second 
 wife, skilfully raising Ethel s hopes, her vivid 
 freshness and her youth, her hunger for a life she 
 saw only in dazzling glimpses. 
 
 "Do you want my advice about meeting Joe? 
 Then here it is," she said at the end. "I needn t 
 say don t go on your knees " 
 
 "You needn t!" 
 
 "I thought so you re not that kind. And I 
 wouldn t explain too much about Dwight, and 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 277 
 
 those little things you did with him. Make Joe 
 take you on faith or not at all. Have a long talk 
 and make him listen don t give him a chance to 
 say a word. Talk right on and give him the pic 
 ture of his two wives, and then let him choose 
 between letting you go, while he takes her friends, 
 or dropping them and keeping you and finding 
 what he had before. I can help you in that but 
 before I do, I think you ve got to lay a ghost. 
 She s in the way of everything. She has been 
 in your home long enough. And her strength is 
 the fact that you and Joe never mention her name 
 to each other. I wonder if you realize how great 
 a danger that has been. At any rate I m very 
 sure that you must break the silence now. It has 
 been like a spell between you. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE next afternoon she sat waiting for Joe. 
 She had come home the night before feeling 
 so strong and sure of her course. But beginning 
 at the moment when she came into the empty 
 apartment, subtly and by slow degrees again her 
 home had cast its spell, as though the rooms were 
 haunted. "I ve got to lay the ghost, " she 
 thought. She had telephoned to Joe to come, and 
 he had replied abruptly, "All right, I ll be there 
 about four o clock. It was just that now. Ethel 
 poked the logs in the fireplace until there was a 
 cheerful blaze. As she straightened up she caught 
 sight of her face in the mirror over the mantel. 
 Even in the firelight how gaunt and strained it 
 looked to her. 
 
 "Not very attractive," she grimly thought. 
 "This has got to be done by brains, my dear." 
 
 In a moment she heard Joe s key in the door. 
 She heard him taking off his coat and then coming 
 slowly into the room. With an effort she turned 
 and looked at him. His face appeared even more 
 tense and grey than it had two days before; the 
 nerves seemed quivering under the skin. And she 
 felt a pang of pity. "He wasn t to blame for the 
 
 278 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 279 
 
 way he acted, it was his wretched nerves," she 
 thought. "He ll have a break-down after this." 
 
 "Well, Ethel !" 
 
 * * Oh, Joe, I m so glad you re here. All at once 
 she felt herself change. She had meant to be so 
 firm with him; but now, after one quick anxious 
 look, in a low eager voice she said, l i I m not going 
 to talk much of myself. It won t do any good 
 I m sure it won t. I love you, Joe, and I can see 
 you still love me. We need each other. And if 
 we can just be sensible now and you can only be 
 lieve in me " 
 
 "God knows I want to, Ethel!" His tone was 
 low, but so sharp and tense that she drew suddenly 
 closer. He turned from her and sank into a chair, 
 with his hands for a moment pressed to his eyes. 
 " I m sick of this I m not myself. Maybe I acted 
 like a fool. . . . Some of that stuff from Fanny 
 Carr doesn t hold together it s too thin." He 
 looked up at her. "But some of it does. And 
 what you ll have to clear up now is why you never 
 let me know. 
 
 "The reason I didn t," she answered quickly, 
 "goes way back into the past. And it s not only 
 about you and me it s about about somebody 
 else." She stopped and her throat contracted. 
 She set her teeth. "We must talk about Amy for 
 a while." 
 
280 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 There ! At last she had brought it out ! And 
 she had seen her husband flinch. For a moment 
 both were silent. 
 
 "Why?" he asked. She swallowed hard. 
 
 "Because we never have before. We ve gone 
 two years without speaking her name. I had no 
 idea how bad that might be." She broke off, for 
 her voice was trembling so. "I don t know how 
 much you ve learned in that time about Amy, I 
 mean but I ve learned a lot, and I think I d 
 better tell you. I must, you see, or you won t 
 understand what I ve been doing lately. I 
 couldn t have explained before, without speaking 
 of her and I didn t do that. But I should have, 
 Joe, and I will now if only you ll be patient and 
 let me do the talking." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Some of it goes so very far back." She 
 leaned forward with a queer little smile: "Amy 
 was good to me when I came and I had always 
 worshipped her I thought she was nearly every 
 thing. She made me feel how she loved you, Joe 
 she had ambition, urged you on. But oh, I ve 
 got to try to be clear. What kind of ambition was 
 it, Joe? What did you have before you met her? 
 How did you used to look at your work? You 
 were coming up to do big things but you man 
 her and your work all changed. You threw c 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 281 
 
 ideals to make money for her. And when your 
 partner tried to hold you, Amy tried to break up 
 the firm. Didn t she? Don t you remember?" 
 She waited, but he did not speak. "How hard it 
 is for him, she thought, 9 to admit a thing against 
 her. This won t be easy." But she felt a little 
 thrill of pride in him. 
 
 "So Bill has been talking, has he," he said. 
 
 "Yes, I made him." She went on. "Amy set 
 herself against him and against all your other 
 old friends. Not at first I want to be fair to 
 her, Joe don t think I m blaming just her for 
 all this. I m sure that at first she was different 
 she wanted your friends to take her in. Re 
 member those dinners you took her to, and that 
 week-end party up in Vermont?" 
 
 Joe looked at her sharply : 
 
 "Who told you that?" 
 
 "Sally Crothers," said Ethel. "She was 
 there." 
 
 "Sally Crothers? You know her?" he de 
 manded. She smiled at the startled look on his 
 face. 
 
 "Why, yes," she replied "You see I ve been 
 hunting so hard for you, Joe, among those friends 
 you used to have. And I did it without ever let 
 ting you know. Dwight, too he was only one of 
 them." She frowned, and added briskly, "Just 
 
282 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 incidental, so to speak. But I don t care to talk 
 of him now I m speaking only of Amy. And 
 from what Sally Crothers has told me, poor Amy 
 must have had some hard times. They weren t 
 fair to her. If they d given her time and a real 
 chance, everything might have been different. 
 But they didn t, they turned her down. And feel 
 ing hurt and angry and feeling besides how she d 
 have to grow in her mind, I mean, and her inter 
 ests, to take any place among people like that I 
 think she hesitated. You might have helped her 
 then, perhaps but you didn t and Amy was lazy, 
 Joe that had always been a part of her. So she 
 wouldn t make the effort. Instead of coming up 
 to you, she made up her mind to pull you down!" 
 
 "That isn t true!" he said harshly. "And if 
 you ve been taking for God s own truth what Sally 
 Crothers told you " 
 
 "Stop! Please!" cried Ethel eagerly. "I 
 didn t mean what I said just then I put it badly 
 oh, so wrong! She didn t say, I ll pull him 
 down. She told herself your friends were snobs ! 
 And she said, I have friends who are human, and 
 they re quite good enough for me! So she went 
 on with Fanny Carr. And others came, the circle 
 grew. And it was all done day by day, and week 
 by week. It happened and you never knew. 
 Nor did she. It was all so natural. But within 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 283 
 
 a year she was going with people, and so were you, 
 who cared for nothing you had wanted women 
 with no growth at all. They were all oh, so 
 common, Joe ! 
 
 "That s a bit snobbish, isn t it?" 
 
 "You can call it what you like ! But I say you 
 can find them all over town richer and poorer, 
 better and worse women who want only common 
 things just clothes and food and what they call 
 love with not a wish that I can see except for 
 money to live like that! I m no prig, Joe! I 
 want pretty clothes, and I want to be gay and 
 have nice things. But you can get all I want 
 of that and still get what is so much more !" Her 
 voice dropped; she hurried eagerly on: "Real 
 work you love and which makes you grow, and 
 friends that keep you growing ! Ideas and things 
 to know about and beauty, music, pictures the 
 opera books and people, plays and buildings! 
 The new library the station the the tower 
 down on Madison Square! Your work, Joe! 
 And your old friends! Men and women who 
 really think and feel not just alive in their 
 bodies! I don t know much about all that. Do 
 you, these days? Mighty little! Because she 
 kept you away from it ! " 
 
 "No!" But she caught the uncertain look in 
 his eyes. 
 
284 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "Are you so sure? Why didn t she ever go to 
 Paris? She must have been dying to go there 
 and shop, but she never let you take her there. 
 She was afraid to let you go near it again the 
 Beaux Arts work, the student life afraid that 
 you d get thinking! So she kept you here and 
 away from your friends. She even kept Crothers 
 out of your firm. You partner fought her hard 
 on that and you held out until one day Crothers 
 came to your office and told you he had changed 
 his mind. You remember ? 
 
 "Yes " 
 
 "Did he give you his reason?" 
 
 "Yes he did " 
 
 "Did he bring Amy into it?" 
 
 " He did not " 
 
 "He should have, Joe. For just the afternoon 
 before, Amy had made a call on his wife and had 
 said things insulting enough so that her husband 
 had to break off!" 
 
 "Sally told you that!" 
 
 "Why should she lie?" Ethel threw a quick 
 glance into Joe s eyes. "He believes it!" she 
 thought, and hurried on: "I ve talked to her, 
 Joe, in a way that was bound to get the truth. Oh, 
 I ve been hunting hard for you, dear! If Fanny 
 Carr had told her detectives to follow me every 
 where I ve been, and not just hunt for the nasti- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 285 
 
 ness that was in her own mind about me they 
 could have shown what a hunt it has been ! I had 
 so little time, you see! You were all in the bal 
 ance you d waited so long! Even now you ve 
 found you can t draw the plans the ones you used 
 to dream about ! I know because I made you try ! 
 And I went to Nourse, to your old friend Dwight, 
 and then to Sally Crothers and asked them all 
 to help me. And as I went on and learned about 
 you as you used to be, I fell in love all over again 
 with the man I found not Amy s husband mine, 
 all mine ! 
 
 "And I had almost got you back when Fanny 
 Carr, with her nasty view of me and what I was 
 doing, brought you those perfectly rotten reports ! 
 And if you believe them, Joe, I m through! Go 
 to Nourse or to Sally Crothers, and they ll tell 
 you I have spoken the truth. If you won t believe 
 either them or me, go on alone without me or else 
 marry Fanny Carr. But if you do believe me and 
 we re to go on together now, you ll have to drop 
 Fanny for good and all, and leave Amy way be 
 hind. You ll have to take up your old friends and 
 try to get Crothers into your firm. You may think 
 your business is yours and, not mine but if it s 
 my life, it s my business, too ! It s like four walls 
 around me now, and I want to break out and so 
 do you away from mere money! I ve watched 
 
286 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 you, dear seen what a struggle has gone on 
 inside of you it has worn you out ! Haven t you 
 made money enough? Let s leave it, go to Paris, 
 and get to work before it s too late for you to get 
 back what you had! And if there s no money, 
 never mind. It will come later on but don t let s 
 be afraid if it doesn t. Don t let s be afraid of 
 painof fighting hard and suffering, Joe! I 
 want more children! I want you! I want you 
 mine, all mine, my dear not her husband. Don t 
 you see?" 
 
 She had been eagerly leaning toward him. Joe 
 was staring into the fire ; the look in his eyes had 
 frightened her and made her hurry to be through. 
 
 "What is it!" she asked. And she waited a 
 moment. "Don t you believe what I ve told you, 
 Joe!" 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I believe all that. I believe 
 a good deal more than that." There was a little 
 silence, and then suddenly he reached for her 
 hand, held it tight and smiled into the fire in a 
 twitching sort of way. "I haven t been quite as 
 blind as you think. I ve seen a good deal of what 
 you were doing. But he frowned i I m older 
 than you are. I know this job of mine clear 
 through way back to those dreams you spoke of. 
 Pve had some hard mean tussles about it lately 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 287 
 
 and that s my only excuse for acting like a damn 
 fool as I did the other day. No use in talking of 
 that any more or of Amy either. She s 
 dead." 
 
 "Joe!" Ethel whispered. Tears came in her 
 eyes. He went steadily on : 
 
 "She had some fine points you ll never know. 
 There were things we needn t talk about now. 
 But you ve made me see things, too. I don t 
 think she ll be in the way any more I think we ll 
 be able to speak of her." 
 
 "Of course! We must! I want to, dear!" 
 Ethel s voice was shaking. 
 
 Not now. With an effort he rose. There s 
 something else to worry about. You don t quite 
 know me yet, you see." 
 
 * What do you mean ? She had risen, too, and 
 caught his arm. "You re not well, Joe! You re 
 white as a sheet ! " He laughed a little. 
 
 " I m not quite right. Something wrong in here, 
 I guess." He pressed one hand to the base of his 
 brain and scowled as though it hurt him. "Noth 
 ing serious, probably. But before it goes too far, 
 I want you to know that when I get well I m going 
 to have a try at all that the work you spoke of. 
 I m going to try but I may be too late! I may 
 be older than you think! 9 The tone of his voice 
 
288 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 was sharp and strained. * * I don >t know, he said. 
 The doctor may. About him that s another 
 point! It s a nerve specialist we need! Tele 
 phone your doctor and have him send one here to 
 night ! I >m sorry, Ethel damnably ! 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 SHE got him to bed. The specialist came, and 
 when he had examined Joe he had a talk with 
 Ethel that left her very frightened. After that 
 came days and nights, when Joe, as though in de 
 lirium, said things in a jumble which revealed to 
 her the inner chaos he had gone through in the last 
 few weeks. He talked of Amy loyally, even plead 
 ing for her at times, excusing her. And he talked 
 of Ethel in many moods. Now he was angry at 
 her interference ; again he saw her side of it, and 
 then his love for her would rise. More often still, 
 he talked about work, and here again the struggle 
 went on. Money, money, money figures, calcu 
 lations, schemes and rivals, heavy chances. But 
 suddenly all this was gone, and in a pitiful anger 
 at his own futility he would storm at himself for 
 not being able to put on paper his early dreams. 
 
 But the weeks dragged by, and at last she felt 
 He was coming back to sanity. With his partner, 
 then, she conspired to take Joe over to Paris in 
 April, to stay for a year if he would agree. And 
 as part of the conspiracy, Ethel had several meet 
 ings with Nourse and Sally Crothers, in the hope 
 
 289 
 
290 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 of bringing Sally s husband into the firm to be 
 there in Joe s absence. This was far from easy, 
 for Crothers naturally held back ; he did not care 
 to commit himself until he knew that Joe would 
 agree. And whether Joe would agree or not was 
 by no means certain. Watching him as his health 
 came back, Ethel wondered how he would be when 
 he returned to the office. How much of what he 
 had said to her, the first night of his illness, had 
 come only from a mind keyed up ? How much of 
 his promise would he remember? Men sick and 
 men well are in separate worlds. She could not 
 speak of it to Joe, for the doctor had forbidden it. 
 At the end of another month, however, Joe was 
 up and about again ; and soon, in spite of the doc 
 tor s instructions, he was back at his office hard 
 at work. This of course looked ominous. What 
 was he doing? She could not discover. For his 
 partner, over the telephone, was far from satisfac 
 tory. Now that he had Joe back again in that 
 beloved office of theirs, his manner toward Ethel 
 seemed to her to be gruff and unfriendly, to say 
 the least. "Stand-offish to the last degree as 
 though he believed he could handle Joe all by him 
 self!" she thought in annoyance. At last she 
 sent for him one day and gave him quite a piece of 
 her mind; and although not fully successful, she 
 at least made him acquiesce in the plan she and 
 
 I 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 291 
 
 Sally had concocted for a little gathering to take 
 place one night the following week. 
 
 It was nearly seven o clock upon the evening 
 in question ; and in her room, at her dressing-table, 
 Ethel was completing her toilet. They were going 
 to dine with the Crothers , and Joe was nervous 
 about it. 
 
 4 * Come on, Ethel, hurry up!" 
 
 "Yes, love, I m almost ready now. Are you 
 sure the car is at the door?" 
 
 "It s been there nearly half an hour!" 
 
 "That s good. Just a minute more." 
 
 As he angrily lit a cigarette, she looked in the 
 glass at him and smiled. "How he dreads it, 
 poor dear," she was thinking, as he strode into 
 the living-room, "meeting Sally and all his old 
 friends." She frowned. "Heaven knows I dread 
 it myself. What am I going to say to them all? 
 And suppose they don t care for me in the least? 
 . . . Well, it will soon be over." Presently Joe 
 popped in at the door: 
 
 "Look here! If you re not dressed enough " 
 
 "I m all ready now," was her placid reply. 
 "Don t you think I look rather nice?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. You ll do." 
 
 "Thank you, dear. Aren t you going to kiss 
 me?" 
 
292 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "No! Yes! . . . Now come on!" 
 
 She threw back her head and laughed at him. 
 
 "It s beginning so well," murmured Sally to 
 Ethel, as they went in to dinner. "Steady, my 
 child." 
 
 "Oh, I m all right!" was the reply, and Ethel 
 smiled excitedly. The chorus of exclamations 
 that had greeted Joe and herself had been so warm 
 and gay and real. There had been no time for 
 awkwardness. In a moment after their entrance, 
 the hubbub of talk and laughter had gone right on 
 as though nothing had happened. At table it 
 continued still, and she felt herself borne along 
 on the tide. She looked at Joe, who was on 
 Sally s right, and she thought he was doing exceed 
 ingly well. And as for these old friends of his,, 
 as she rapidly scanned their faces, they looked far 
 from formidable. On her left side Sally s hus 
 band, a tall dark creature with nice eyes, was tell 
 ing her about the men two or three writers, an 
 architect and a portrait painter rather well known, 
 whose pictures she had read about. She had al 
 ready learned from Sally what the women did with 
 themselves. They worked, they went to women s 
 clubs, they dined and did the social side. One of 
 them spoke for suffrage, another was a sculptress, 
 one sang, one had a baby. They did not look sol- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 293 
 
 emn in the least. Everything went so naturally. 
 
 1 i Well, here I am at last," she thought. She 
 kept throwing quick little glances about. Was it 
 all so much worth while, she wondered, Yes, 
 they were very pleasant and nice. But she had 
 expected well, something more, a kind of a bril 
 liancy in their eyes and the things they were say 
 ing. For here were Art and Music, Movements, 
 Causes and Ideas, and goodness only knew what 
 else ! Here were the people who really saw some 
 thing richer and deeper in life than the sort of 
 existence Amy had led great bright vistas lead 
 ing off from the city as it was today to some 
 dazzling promised land. She thought of the little 
 history prof. ? They were so cosy about it here ! 
 She did not want them to be " highbrows" 
 Heaven forbid! But they took it all so easily! 
 
 She thought of the struggles she had been 
 through in order to get where she was tonight, the 
 ardent hopes and the despairs, and all the eager 
 planning. And just for a moment there came to 
 her some little realization of those other women 
 still outside, in this city of so many worlds, each 
 with her particular world, her bright and shining 
 goal, her shrine, and pushing and scheming to get 
 in. She recalled the fierce light in Amy s eyes and 
 the tone of her voice: "I may be too late!" 
 Amy had wanted only money, and people like that. 
 
294 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 But hoiv hard she had wanted it ! ... These peo 
 ple took it so pleasantly; they seemed so snug in 
 their little group. She wondered if she would be 
 come like that. No, she decided, most certainly 
 not ! And suddenly she realized that this was only 
 one more step in the life she was to lead in this 
 town. These people? For a time perhaps. 
 Then others always others! That was how it 
 was in New York. 
 
 Ethel gave a queer little laugh which at once 
 she pretended had been caused by something 
 Sally s husband had said. And she listened to 
 him attentively now. "There s so much time for 
 everything! I m only twenty-five!" she thought. 
 She turned to the painter on her right, and was 
 soon talking rapidly. 
 
 The moments seemed to fly away. Now they 
 had left the men to smoke. But soon the men had 
 followed them, and every one was smoking, and 
 Ethel was trying a cigarette. The talk ran on, 
 about this and that. But over on her side of the 
 room, Sally had led the conversation back to Joe s 
 old student days, to the Beaux Arts and life in 
 the Quarter. Ethel heard snatches from time to 
 time, and she kept throwing vigilant glances over 
 at her husband s face. He seemed to be respond 
 ing, with a hungriness that thrilled his wife. 
 Again he would fall silent, with an anxious gleam 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 295 
 
 in his eyes. "He s wondering if he s too old!" 
 she thought, and she crossed the room and joined 
 them. 
 
 Sally was cleverly drawing him out about some 
 of those early plans of his. And though awkward 
 at first, he was warming up. In the room the 
 hubbub died away. "They re listening to Joe!" 
 thought Ethel. Joe kept talking on and on. 
 Every few moments some one would break in to 
 ask him something, or to raise a little laugh. 
 Ethel tingled with pride in him, and with hope for 
 the success of her scheming. 
 
 Now the crucial time arrived. For one by one 
 the guests had gone, till only she and Joe and 
 Nourse remained with Sally and her husband. 
 The moment for springing the great idea had come 
 at last. Nourse was to do the talking. That had 
 been arranged ahead, at a meeting of Nourse and 
 the two wives. But all at once in a panic now, 
 Ethel knew that Nourse would bungle it. Why 
 had she entrusted so much to this man? Had he 
 ever shown tact in his whole life? And why so 
 soon? Oh, it had been rash! The evening had 
 passed so gorgeously. Why not have waited and 
 had other evenings to pave the way and make it 
 sure? She tried to signal to Nourse to stop him, 
 but he could or would not hear ! Now he was get 
 ting ready to speak. 
 
296 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 "Well," he said, rising and turning on Ethel a 
 curious smile, "I guess it s time I was going 
 home" 
 
 She stared at him in blank relief. So he had 
 some sense about things, after all. 
 
 "But look here, Bill," said her husband, "be 
 fore you go, let s give these scheming women of 
 ours to understand we don t want em to meddle 
 in our affairs." 
 
 "Eight," growled Nourse. And a moment 
 later the three men confronted two astonished 
 wives, and Bill was gravely announcing, "We ve 
 done this thing all by ourselves. The firm is 
 Nourse, Lanier and Crothers. And from this 
 night on we propose to do business without any 
 interference from wives. Understand?" He 
 frowned menacingly. "We settled that this 
 afternoon. And the next thing we decided was 
 that Joe packs up this wife of his, whether she 
 happens to like it or not, and takes her over to 
 Paris. See? And if she tries to keep him from 
 work by yanking him all around to the shops" 
 
 While Nourse growled on in his surly way, 
 Ethel slipped quietly into the hall where pres 
 ently Sally with one arm about her was proffering 
 a handkerchief and murmuring, 
 
 "Use mine, dear." 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ON" the night before they sailed for France, 
 long after she had gone to bed Ethel came 
 out in her wrapper into the warm dark living- 
 room. There was something she had forgotten to 
 do, and she wanted to get it off her mind. She 
 switched on the light by the doorway, and looked 
 about her smiling, but with a little shiver, too. 
 
 The ghost was gone or nearly so. Already 
 the room had been stripped bare. Only Ethel s 
 desk was left, and a chair or two and the long, 
 heavy table with a lamp at either end. Amy s 
 picture was still on the table, but it lay now on its 
 back and looked up at the ceiling as though it 
 knew it must soon depart. Tomorrow the movers 
 would finish their work. Soon somebody else s 
 things would be here, and somebody else s life 
 would pour in and fill the room and make it new. 
 Somebody else. What kind of a woman? An 
 other Amy, or Fanny Carr, or Sally Crothers or 
 Mrs. Grewe? What a funny, complicated town. 
 On her return a year from now, Ethel had already 
 decided to take a small house near Washington 
 Square. How long would that experiment last? 
 Doubtless in the years ahead she would try other 
 homes, one after the other. "Why do we move 
 
 297 
 
298 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 so in New York!" She thought of that plan of 
 her husband s for the future city street, with long 
 rows on either hand of huge apartment buildings 
 with receding terraces, numberless hanging gar 
 dens looking into the street below. And she won 
 dered whether the city would ever be anything like 
 that? "In New York all things are possi 
 ble." . . . 
 
 "However." Ethel went to her desk and rum 
 maged for paper, pen and ink. Then she took out . 
 of a cubby-hole a bulky letter and read it through. 
 It was the "round-robin" come again on its an 
 nual journey over the land. It had been in a 
 lonely mining camp, on a cattle ranch, in a mill 
 town and in cities large and small. There were 
 many kinds of handwriting here, and widely dif 
 ferent stories of the growth, the swift unfolding, 
 of the lives of a new generation of women. 
 "Girls like me." She read it through. 
 
 Then she took up her pen and began to write 
 swiftly : 
 
 "I have been here for over three years but it 
 was hard to write before, because everything was 
 far from clear." She stopped and frowned. 
 "How much shall I tell them?" An eagerness to 
 be frank and tell all was mingled with that 
 feeling of Anglo-Saxon reticence which had been 
 bred in Ethel s soul back in the town in Ohio. 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 299 
 
 "Besides, I haven t time," she thought. 
 
 "I feel," she wrote, "as though 1 were just out 
 of danger barely out. In danger, I mean, of 
 nervously dashing about after nothing until I got 
 wrinkled and old at forty nerves in shreds. I 
 might have done that. I have met a nerve spe 
 cialist lately and the stories he has told me about 
 women in this town ! 
 
 "However! I want to make myself clear. Am 
 I a high-brow? Not at all. I want good clothes 
 I love to shop and I propose to go on shop 
 ping. If you do not, let me tell you, my dears, 
 that the men in New York are like all the rest 
 and you would soon be leading a very lonely ex 
 istence! And I don t want that, I want bushels 
 of friends and some of them men decidedly! 
 I want to dance and dine about but I don t want 
 to be religious about it ! Nor frantic and get my 
 self into a state! 
 
 "Well, but I did start out like that. When I 
 came here to live " She hesitated. "No, I d 
 better scratch that out." 
 
 "Thank Heaven I got married," she wrote, 
 "and fell in love with my husband." Again she 
 stopped with a quick frown. "And I had a baby. 
 And I began to find something real." Another 
 pause, a long one. 
 
 "I had quite a struggle after that. I was all 
 
300 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 hemmed in " she stopped again "by the city 
 I found when I first arrived. But I huffed and 
 I puffed and I hunted about and at last I discov 
 ered our New York the town we girls used to 
 dream about at home in all those talks we had! 
 Oh, I don t mean I have found it yet but I ve 
 felt it, though, and had one good look. I dined 
 with some people. How silly that sounds. But 
 never mind the point is not me, but the fact that 
 this city is really and truly crammed full of the 
 things we girls used to get so excited about Art, 
 you know, and Music of course, and people who 
 make these things their God. The town opens up 
 if you look at it right and you find Movements 
 Politics you hear people talk you see suffrage 
 parades I marched in one not long ago feeling 
 like Joan of Arc! And you find men, too, who 
 are doing things. Big schemes for skyscrapers 
 and homes ! I mean that our New York is here!" 
 
 Again there came a pause in the writing. Her 
 eyes looked excited. She smiled and frowned. 
 Now to finish it off ! 
 
 "What I want of it all I am not yet sure for 
 me personally, I mean. But there is my husband, 
 to begin with, and his work that I can help grow 
 and his old friends. And they are not all. I 
 keep hearing of new ones I must meet and they 
 are mixed in with all those things I have discov- 
 
HIS SECOND WIFE 301 
 
 ered in the town. A few of these people were 
 born here but most have come from all over the 
 country. Sometimes I shut my eyes and ask 
 * Where are you now, all over the land, you others 
 who are to come to New York and be friends of 
 mine and of my children? 
 
 "I want children more than one. How many 
 I am not quite sure. That s another point you 
 decide these things. " She frowned and scratched 
 this sentence out. "And children grow and the 
 idea of bringing them up makes me feel very 
 young and humble, too. But in that we are all 
 in the same boat for the whole country, I sup 
 pose, is a good deal the same. What a queer and 
 puzzling, gorgeous age we are just beginning 
 all of us! I wonder what I shall make of it? 
 What shall I be like ten years from now? How 
 much shall I mean to my husband and to other 
 men and women? But most of all to women for 
 we are coming together so! I wonder what we 
 shall make of it all? I wonder how much we 
 women who march march on and on to every 
 thing are really going to mean in the world? 
 
 "Oh, how solemn! Good-night, my dears! A 
 kiss to every one of you!" 
 
 She folded her letter with the rest, and then she 
 quickly squeezed them all into a large envelope, 
 
302 HIS SECOND WIFE 
 
 which she addressed to Miss Barbara Wells, Bis 
 marck, North Dakota. Ethel s eyes were very 
 bright. She sniffed a little and smiled at herself. 
 "Oh, don t be a baby! It s all over now, you 
 know I mean it s just beginning!" 
 
 She stopped for a moment by the table, with 
 the letter in her hand, and looked down at Amy s 
 picture. 
 
 "That is all any one needs to know." 
 
 Her look was pitying, tender, but a little curi 
 ous, too. 
 
 * * I wonder what you were like at my age ? I 
 wonder what you went through, poor dear? .... 
 But it s over now all over. All we don t like 
 will fade away, and you ll grow so beautiful again. 
 Susette will love her mother. . . . But she won t 
 be just like you, my dear." 
 
 Ethel went slowly out of the room. At the 
 doorway she switched off the light, and the bare, 
 empty room was left in the dark.* The photo 
 graph was invisible now. On the street below, 
 a motor stopped; and there was a murmur of 
 voices, a laugh. Tomorrow somebody else would 
 be here. 
 
 THE END 
 
 PRINTED IN THK UNITED STATES OV AMERICA. 
 
28 1832 
 AUG 7 1933 
 
 JUL la 1937 
 
 LD 21-50W-8,, 
 
 32 
 
YB 31827 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY