Chapter III: Part 3

"That's twice I've asked you a perfectly simple question, Kit, and you have evaded it. The plain truth, of course, is that you are in love, absolutely single-heartedly in love, but not with Russell."

"Then who?" I demanded sharply.

"With yourself," he said, and picked up his hat and went out.

IV

Russell and I eloped on a Friday morning. Mother and I packed my dressing case and a bag, and I gave her an itemized list of what was to be sent on in my trunk when I wired for it. She was greatly relieved to know that Henry was looking after things, especially the ring.

"I do hope he gets a narrow one," she said. "Wedding rings are nonsense at any time. You can never wear other rings with them. But if it is platinum you can have it set with diamonds later on."

I think she was disappointed when I refused to leave a note on my dressing table for her.

"That's out of date, mother," I said. "You needn't know anything until you get my wire that it's over. Then you can call up the newspapers and deny it. That's the best way to let them know."

Then she went out, per agreement, after kissing me good-by, and I called a taxicab and eloped.

Did you ever have a day when things went wrong with you and when you knew that the fault was somewhere in you? Well, that was that sort of day. The minute I was in the taxicab I was uncomfortable. All at once I didn't want to be married. I hoped Russell would miss the train, and I could go back home and be a spinster lady and be on committees.

But he did not miss the train. He was there, waiting. He had on a very ugly necktie and an English ulster that made his chest dish in, although he has a good figure.

"Hello, girlie," he said. "Stuff all here? Any excitement at home? No? Nice work."

My lips felt stiff.

"Train's waiting," he said. "What do you think of Henry? Big lift, that is. I've never been married before. I'm fairly twittering."

We got into the train. There was no Pullman. Not that it mattered, but it helped to upset me. I hated eloping in a day coach. And a woman with a market basket sat across the aisle, and the legs of a chicken stuck out.

Russell squeezed into the seat beside me.

"Jove, this is great!" he said. "Aren't you going to put your hand in my coat pocket, honey?"

Quite suddenly I said:

"I don't want to."

He drew away a trifle.

"You're nervous," he said. "So am I, for that matter. D'you mind if I go and smoke?"

I didn't mind. I thought if I had to see that ulster dishing in and that tie another minute I'd go crazy.

I grew calmer when he had gone. Here was the thing I had worked so hard for, mine at last. I thought of Toots, and her face when she saw the papers. I thought of Ellie Clavering and Bessie Willing and Margaret North and the others, with their earrings and the imitation of Toots and all the rest of it. I felt rather better. When Russell came back I could even smile at him.

"I wish I could have a cigarette," I said.

He turned and put a hand over mine.

"You're going to cut that out, you know, girlie," he said. "I can't have my wife smoking."

Yes, that's what he said. For ten years he'd sent girls cigarettes and offered them cigarettes and sat with them in corners while they smoked cigarettes. But he didn't want his wife smoking. Wasn't it typical?

Oh, well, I didn't care. I'd do as I liked once we were married. Then about half way, without the slightest warning, I knew I couldn't marry him. Marry him! Why, I didn't even like him. And the way he made me sit with my hand in his coat pocket was sickening.

"I don't think I'll marry you after all," I said.

"Eh? What?"

"I said I've changed my mind. I won't do it."

"I haven't changed mine."

"I'm not really in love with you."

"You're nervous," he said calmly. "Go ahead and talk. It's the new psychology. Never bury your worries. Talk 'em out and get rid of 'em."

"I was never forbidden to see you."

"All right," he said contentedly. "I knew that all along. What else?"

"Even my hand in your coat pocket is a trick."

"Sure it is, but it's a nice trick. What else?"

"I'm not going to marry you."

"Oh, yes, you are. You can't very well go back, can you? Mother's probably called up the papers already."

Then he sat up and looked at me.

"Now, look here, young lady," he said. "I'm no idiot. I knew before you were born some of the stunts you pulled. I've never been fooled for a minute about them. But you're going to marry me. Why? Because I'm crazy about you. That's why. And that's enough."

It was terrible. And there was no way out, none. The train rumbled on. There was a tunnel and he kissed me. It was a short tunnel.

Somebody behind chuckled.

And then at last it was over, and we were there, and I was being led like a sheep to the altar, and Henry was on the platform with ring and license and all the implements of sacrifice.

"Behold," said Russell from the train platform, "the family friend is on hand. Whose idea was Henry, anyhow? His or yours or mother's?"

Henry came up. He looked cheerful enough, although I fancied he was pale. I liked his necktie. I always liked Henry's ties.

"Hello," he said. "Everything here? Where's your luggage?"

"Baggage car," said Russell. "Look after Kit, Henry, will you? I'll see to it."

He hadn't taken two steps before Henry had clutched my arm.

"I knew you wouldn't," he said. "I can see it in your face."

"Henry!" I gasped. "What am I to do?"

"You're to marry me," he said in a sort of fierce whisper. "Don't stop to argue. I've always meant to marry you. Quick, into the taxi!"

That's all I remember just then, except hearing him say he had the license and the ring, and an uproar from where we'd left Russell and all his money on the platform.

"Wha-what sort of license?" I asked, with my teeth chattering from pure fright. "If it's in Russell's name it's not good, is it?"

"It's in my name," said Henry, grimly.

"But the ring--that's Russell's."

"Not at all," said Henry, still without an atom of tenderness. "I bought it and paid for it. It's got 'From H. to K.' inside of it. Very small," he added hastily. "It's quite narrow, as you requested."

"Henry," I said, sitting up stiffly, "what would I have done if you hadn't been round?"

"You needn't worry about that. After this I'll always be round. I don't intend to be underfoot," he volunteered, "but I'll be within call. As a matter of fact," he added, "I've been within call practically all of the last month. It's taken a lot of time."

If only he had said something agreeable or yielding, or looked anything but grim and efficient, I could have stood it. But, there we were, on our way to be married, and he looked as sentimental as a piano tuner.

All at once it came over me that it was Henry, it always had been Henry, it always would be Henry. And he looked calm and altruistic and rather hollow round his eyes.

"If you're only doing this to save me," I said, "you needn't, you know. I can go home, even if the papers have got it."

"Don't make me any more nervous than I am, Kit," he said. "I'm about evenly divided as to beating you up or kissing you. Any extra strain, and it's one or the other."

"Don't beat me, Henry."

"I'm damnably poor, Kit," he said.

For reply I slid my hand into his coat pocket. He melted quite suddenly after that, and put his arms round me. I knew I was being a fool but I was idiotically happy.

"Henry," I said, "do you know that verse in the Bible, that as a partridge sits on eggs and fails to hatch them, so too the person who gets riches without deserving them?"

He held me off and looked at me as if he suspected my sanity. Then he kissed me.

V

Mother has never really forgiven me. It put her in so awfully wrong, of course. For she called up the newspapers, and said that if they received a report that I had eloped with Mr. Russell Hill, they were please to deny it.

Of course they sent reporters everywhere at once. And they traced me to the station. About the time mother was reading the headlines "Society Bud and Well-Known Clubman Elope," and wiring Madge, she got Henry's telegram.

She thinks I threw away the chance of a lifetime. But since the day before yesterday I've been wondering. I was going over Henry's old suits, getting them ready to be cleaned and pressed. We have to be very economical. And in a pocket I came across this letter:

"DEAR BOY: We have decided on the eleven-o'clock train. For the
love of Mike don't miss meeting it! And after thinking it over
carefully, you're right. When I go to see after the luggage will be
the best time.

"Yours,

"RUSSELL."

CLARA'S LITTLE ESCAPADE

"The plain truth is," said Carrie Smith, "that, no matter how happy two people may be together, the time comes when they are bored to death with each other."

Nobody said anything. It was true and we knew it. Ida Elliott put down the scarf she was knitting for the Belgians and looked down over the hill to where a lot of husbands were playing in the swimming pool.

"It isn't just a matter of being bored, you know, Carrie," she said. "A good many of us have made mistakes." Then she sighed. Ida is not really unhappy, but she likes to think she is.

None of the rest made any comment. But one or two of the other girls put down their knitting and looked out over the hills.

"I hope you don't mind my saying it, Clara," Carrie said, turning to me; "but it's a mistake to have a week-end party like this. Last night when I played pool with your Bill after the rest of you had gone upstairs, Wallie refused to speak to me when I went to bed. He's still sulking."

I am not sensitive; but when they everyone turned on me and said it was a beautiful party, but why, in heaven's name, had I asked only husbands and not one extra man, it made me a trifle hot.

"As most of us see our husbands only during week-ends," I said tartly, "I should think this sort of family reunion would be good for us."

Carrie sniffed.

"See them!" she snapped. "They've been a part of the landscape since we came, and that's all. Either they're in the pool, or playing clock golf, or making caricatures of themselves on the tennis court. A good photograph would be as comforting, and wouldn't sulk."

Well, the whole thing really started from that. I made up my mind, somehow or other, to even up with them. I'd planned a really nice party, and even if they were bored they might have had the politeness to conceal it.

Even now, badly as things turned out, I maintain that the idea was a good one. I had a bad time, I'll admit that. But the rest of them were pretty unhappy for a while. The only thing I can't quite forgive is that Bill--but that comes later on.

There had been very little doing all spring. Everybody was poor, and laying up extra motors, and trying to side-step appeals for Eastern relief, and hiding dressmakers' bills. There were hardly any dividends at all, and what with the styles completely changing from wide skirts to narrow ones, so that not a thing from last year would do, and the men talking nothing but retrenchment and staying at the table hours after every dinner party, fighting the war over again, while we sat and knitted, I never remember a drearier spring.

"Although," Carrie Smith said with truth, "the knitting's rather good for us. No woman can enjoy a cigarette and knit at the same time."

The craze for dancing was dying away, too, and nothing came along to take its place. The débutantes were playing tennis, but no woman over twenty-two should ever play tennis, so most of us were out of that. Anyhow it's violent. And bridge, for anything worth while, was apt to be too expensive.

But to go back.

We sat and knitted and yawned, and the husbands put on dressing gowns and ambled up the hill and round to the shower baths in the basement. I looked at Bill. Bill is my husband and I'm fond of Bill. But there are times when he gets on my nerves. He has a faded old bathrobe that saw him through college and his honeymoon, and that he still refuses to part with, and he had it on.

It was rather short, and Bill's legs, though serviceable, are not beautiful.

He waved his hand to me.

"If you'd do a little of that sort of thing, Clara," he called, "you wouldn't need to have the fat rubbed off you by an expensive masseuse."

"Quite a typical husbandly speech!" said Carrie Smith.

"Do they ever think of anything but exercise and expense?"

Well, the men bathed and dressed and had whisky-and-sodas, and came out patronisingly and joined us at tea on the terrace. But inside of ten minutes they were in a group round the ball news and the financial page of the evening papers, and we were alone again.

Carrie Smith came over and sat down beside me, with her eyes narrowed to a slit.

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings, Clara," she said, "but you see what I mean. They're not interested in us. We manage their houses and bring up their children. That's all."

As Carrie was the only one who had any children, and as they were being reared by a trained nurse and a governess, and the baby yelled like an Apache if Carrie went near him, her air of virtue was rather out of place. However:

"What would you recommend?" I asked wearily. "They're all alike, aren't they?"

"Not all." Her eyes were still narrowed. And at that moment Wallie Smith came over and threw an envelope into her lap.

"It came to the office by mistake," he said grimly. "What made you have your necklace reset when I'm practically bankrupt?"

"I bought hardly any new stones," she flashed at him. "Anyhow, I intend to be decently clothed. Tear it up; nobody's paying any bills."

He stalked away, and Carrie looked at me.

"No," she said slowly, "they are not all alike. Thank heaven there are a few men who don't hoist the dollar mark as a flag. Clara, do you remember Harry Delaney?"

I looked at Carrie.

A little spot of red had come into each of her cheeks, and her eyes, mere slits by now, were fixed on the far-away hills.

She and Harry had been engaged years ago, and she threw him over because of his jealous nature. But she seemed to have forgotten that.

"Of course," I said, rather startled.

"He was a dear. Sometimes I think he was the most generous soul in the world. I cannot imagine his fussing about a necklace, or sulking for hours over a bit of innocent pleasure like my playing a game of pool after a lot of sleepyheads had gone to bed."

"What time did you and Bill go upstairs?"

"Something after two. We got tired of playing and sat out here and talked. I knew you wouldn't mind, Clara. You've got too much sense. Surely a woman ought to be allowed friends, even if she is married."

"Oh, friends!" I retorted. "If she's going to keep her husband a friend she's got her hands full. Certainly I'm not jealous of you and Bill, Carrie. But it's not friends most of us want, if you're after the truth. We want passionate but perfectly respectable, commandment-keeping lovers!"

Carrie laughed, but her colour died down.

"How silly you are!" she said, and got up. "Maybe we'd like to feel that we're not clear out of the game, but that's all. We're a little tired of being taken for granted. I don't want a lover; I want amusement, and if I'd married Harry Delaney I'd have had it."

"If you'd married him he would have been down there at the pool, showing off like a goldfish in a bowl, the same as the others."

"He would not. He can't swim," said Carrie, and sauntered away. Somehow I got the impression that she had been sounding me, and had got what she wanted. She looked very handsome that night, and wore the necklace. Someone commented on it at dinner, and Wallie glared across at it.

"It isn't paid for," he said, "and as far as I can see, it never will be."

Of course, even among old friends, that was going rather far.

Well, the usual thing happened after dinner. The men smoked and argued, and we sat on the terrace and yawned. When they did come out it was to say that golf and swimming had made them sleepy, and Jim Elliott went asleep in his chair. Carrie said very little, except once to lean over and ask me if I remembered the name of the man Alice Warrington had thrown over for Ted. When I told her she settled back into silence again.

The next morning all the husbands were up early and off to the club for a Sunday's golfing. At ten o'clock a note came in on my breakfast tray from Carrie.

"Slip on something and come to my room," it said.

When I got there Ida and Alice Warrington were there already, and Carrie was sitting up in bed, with the same spots of colour I'd seen before. I curled up on the bed with my hands round my knees.

"Go to it, Carrie," I said. "If it's church, it's too late. If it's a picnic, it looks like rain."

"Close the door, Ida," said Carrie. "Girls, I'm getting pretty tired of this."

"Of what?"

"Of dragging the matrimonial ball and chain wherever I go, and having to hear it clank and swear and sulk, and--all the rest. I'm tired, and so are all of you. Only I'm more honest."

"It's all rather a mess," Ida said languidly. "But divorce is a mess too. And, anyhow, what's the use of changing? Just as one gets to know a man's pet stories, and needn't pretend to laugh at them any more, why take on a new bunch of stories--or habits?"

"The truth is," said Carrie, ignoring her, "that they have all the good times. They don't have to look pretty. Their clothes last forever. And they're utterly selfish socially. You girls know how much they dance with the married women when there are any débutantes about."

We knew.

"The thing to do," said Carrie, "is to bring them back to a sense of obligation. They've got us. We stay put. They take us to parties and get up a table of bridge for us, and go off to a corner with a chit just out of school, or dance through three handkerchiefs and two collars, and grumble at paying our bridge losses. Or else they stay at home, and nothing short of a high explosive would get them out of their chairs."

"Destructive criticism," said Alice Warrington, "never gets anywhere. We agree with you. There's no discussion. Are you recommending the high explosive?"

"I am," said Carrie calmly. "I propose to wake them up, and to have a good time doing it."

Well, as it turned out, it was I who wakened them up, and nobody had a very good time about it.

"There's just one man a husband is always jealous of," Carrie went on, and her eyes were slitted as usual. "That's the man his wife could have married and didn't."

I expect I coloured, for Bill has always been insanely jealous of Roger Waite, although honestly I never really cared for Roger. We used to have good times together, of course. You know.

Carrie's plan came out by degrees.

"It will serve two purposes," she said. "It will bring the men to a sense of responsibility, and stop this silly nonsense about bills and all that sort of thing. And it will be rather fun. It's a sin to drop old friends. Does Wallie drop his? Not so you could notice it. Every time I'm out of town he lives at Grace Barnabee's."

Carrie had asked us all to spend the next week-end with her, but the husbands were going to New York for the polo game and she had called the party off. But now it was on again.

"Do you girls remember the house party I had when Wallie was in Cuba, before we were engaged? We had a gorgeous time. I'm going to repeat it. It's silly to say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. Of course it does, if one doesn't use lightning rods. Peter Arundel for Alice, and Roger for you, Clara. Ida, you were in Europe, but we'll let you in. Who'll you have?"

"Only one?" asked Ida.

"Only one."

Ida chose Wilbur Bayne, and Carrie wrote the notes right there in bed, with a pillow for a desk, and got ink on my best linen sheets.

"I'm sorry I never thought of it before," she said. "The house party is bound to be fun, and if it turns out well we'll do it regularly. I'll ask in a few people for dancing Saturday night, but we'll keep Sunday for ourselves. We'll have a deliciously sentimental day."

She sat back and threw out her arms.

"Good Lord," she said, "I'm just ripe for a bit of sentiment. I want about forty-eight hours without bills or butlers or bridge. I'm going to send my diamond necklace to a safe deposit, and get out my débutante pearls, and have the wave washed out of my hair, and fill in the necks of one or two gowns. I warn you fairly, there won't be a cigarette for any of you."

When I left them they were already talking clothes, and Carrie had a hand glass and was looking at herself intently in it.

"I've changed, of course," she sighed. "One can't have two children and not show the wear and tear of maternity. I could take off five pounds by going on a milk diet. I think I will."

She went on the diet at luncheon that day, and Wallie told her that if she would cut out heavy dinners and wine her stomach would be her friend, not her enemy. She glanced at me, but I ignored her. Somehow I was feeling blue.

The week-end had not been a success, and the girls had not been slow to tell me about it. The very eagerness with which they planned for the next week told me what a failure I'd had. Even then the idea of getting even somehow with Carrie was in the back of my mind.

The men did some trap shooting that afternoon, and during dinner Jim started a discussion about putting women on a clothes allowance and making them keep within it.

"I can systematise my business," he said, "but I can't systematise my home. I'm spending more now than I'm getting out of the mill."

Wallie Smith came up to scratch about that time by saying that his mother raised him with the assistance of a nursemaid, and no governess and trained nurse nonsense.

"That is why I insist on a trained nurse and a governess," said Carrie coldly, and took another sip of milk.

They went home that night, and Bill, having seen them into the motors, came up on the terrace.

"Bully party, old dear," he said enthusiastically. "Have 'em often, won't you?"

He sat down near me and put a hand over mine. All at once I was sorry I'd accepted Carrie's invitation. Not that there would be any harm in seeing Roger again, but because Bill wouldn't like it. The touch of his warm hand on mine, the quiet of the early summer night after the noise that had gone before, the scent of the honeysuckle over the pergola, all combined to soften me.

"I'm glad you had a good time, Bill," I said after a little silence. "I'm afraid the girls didn't enjoy it much. You men were either golfing or swimming or shooting, and there wasn't much to do but talk."

Bill said nothing. I thought he might be resentful, and I was in a softened mood.

"I didn't really mind your staying downstairs the other night with Carrie," I said. "Bill, do smell the honeysuckle. Doesn't it remind you of the night you asked me to marry you?"

Still Bill said nothing. I leaned over and looked at him. As usual he was asleep.

About the middle of the week Roger Waite called me up. We did not often meet--two or three times in the winter at a ball, or once in a season at a dinner. Ida Elliott always said he avoided me because it hurt him to see me. We had been rather sentimental. He would dance once with me, saying very little, and go away as soon as he decently could directly the dance was over. Sometimes I had thought that it pleased him to fancy himself still in love with me, and it's perfectly true that he showed no signs of marrying. It was rather the thing for the débutantes to go crazy about Roger. He had an air of knowing such a lot and keeping it from them.

"Why don't you keep him around?" Ida asked me once. "He's so ornamental. I'm not strong for tame cats, but I wouldn't mind Roger on the hearthrug myself."

But up to this time I'd never really wanted anybody on the hearthrug but Bill. If I do say it, I was a perfectly contented wife until the time Carrie Smith made her historic effort to revive the past. "Let sleeping dogs lie" is my motto now--and tame cats too.

Well, Roger called me up, and there was the little thrill in his voice that I used to think he kept for me. I know better now.

"What's this about going out to Carrie Smith's?" he said over the phone.

"That's all," I replied. "You're invited and I'm going."

"O!" said Roger. And waited a moment. Then:

"I was going on to the polo," he said, "but of course--What's wrong with Bill and polo?"

"He's going."

"Oh!" said Roger. "Well, then, I think I'll go to Carrie's. It sounds too good to be true--you, and no scowling husband in the offing!"

"It's--it's rather a long time since you and I had a real talk."

"Too long," said Roger. "Too long by about three years."

That afternoon he sent me a great box of flowers. My conscience was troubling me rather, so I sent them down to the dinner table. Whatever happened I was not going to lie about them.

But Bill only frowned.

"I've just paid a florist's bill of two hundred dollars," he grumbled. "Cut out the American beauties, old dear."

It was not his tone that made me angry. It was his calm assumption that I had bought the things. As if no one would think of sending me flowers!

"If you would stop sending orchids to silly débutantes when they come out," I snapped, "there would be no such florist's bills."

One way or another Bill got on my nerves that week. He brought Wallie Smith home one night to dinner, and Wallie got on my nerves too. I could remember, when Wallie and Carrie were engaged and we were just married, how he used to come and talk us black in the face about Carrie.

"How's Carrie, Wallie?" I said during the soup.

"She's all right," he replied, and changed the subject. But later in the evening, while Bill was walking on the lawn with a cigar, he broke out for fair.

"Carrie's on a milk diet," he said apropos of nothing. "If she stays on it another week I'm going to Colorado. She's positively brutal, and she hasn't ordered a real dinner for anybody for a week."

"Really!" I said.

He got up and towered over me.

"Look here, Clara," he said; "you're a sensible woman. Am I fat? Am I bald? Am I a doddering and toothless venerable? To hear Carrie this past few days you'd think I need to wear overshoes when I go out in the grass."

I rather started, because I'd been looking at Bill at that minute and wondering if he was getting his feet wet. He had only pumps on.

"It isn't only that she's brutal," he said, "she has soft moments when she mothers me. Confound it, I don't want to be mothered! She's taken off eight pounds," he went on gloomily. "And that isn't the worst." He lowered his voice. "I found her crying over some old letters the other day. She isn't happy, Clara. You know she could have married a lot of fellows. She was the most popular girl I ever knew."

Well, I'd known Carrie longer than he had, and of course a lot of men used to hang round her house because there was always something to do. But I'd never known that such a lot of them made love to Carrie or wanted to marry her. She was clever enough to hesitate over Wallie, but, believe me, she knew she had him cinched before she ran any risk. However:

"I'm sure you've tried to make her happy," I said. "But of course she was awfully popular."

I'm not so very keen about Carrie, but the way I felt that week, when it was a question between a husband and a wife, I was for the wife. "Of course," I said as Bill came within hearing distance, "it's not easy, when one's had a lot of attention, to settle down to one man, especially if the man is considerably older and--and settled."

That was a wrong move, as it turned out. For Bill, who never says much, got quieter than ever, and announced, just before he went to bed, that he'd given up the polo game. I was furious. I'd had one or two simple little frocks run up for Carrie's party, and by the greatest sort of luck I'd happened on a piece of flowered lawn almost exactly like one Roger used to be crazy about.

For twenty-four hours things hung in the balance. Bill has a hideous way of doing what he says he'll do. Roger had sent more flowers--not roses this time, but mignonette and valley lilies, with a few white orchids. It looked rather bridey. It would have been too maddening to have Bill queer the whole thing at the last minute.

But I fixed things at bridge one night by saying that I thought married people were always better off for short separations, and that I was never so fond of Bill as when he'd been away for a few days.

"Polo for me!" said Bill.

And I went out during my dummy hand and telephoned Carrie.

I hope I have been clear about the way the thing began. I feel that my situation should be explained. For one thing, all sorts of silly stories are going round, and it is stupid of people to think they cannot ask Roger and me to the same dinners. If Bill would only act like a Christian, and not roar the moment his name is mentioned, there would be a chance for the thing to die out. But you know what Bill is.

Well, the husbands left on Saturday morning, and by eleven o'clock Ida, Alice and I were all at Carrie's. The change in her was simply startling. She looked like a willow wand. She'd put her hair low on her neck, and except for a touch of black on her eyelashes, and of course her lips coloured, she hadn't a speck of makeup on. She'd taken the pearls out of her ears, too, and she wore tennis clothes and flat-heeled shoes that made her look like a child.

She was sending the children off in the car as we went up the drive.

"They're off to mother's," she said. "I'll miss them frightfully, but this is a real lark, girls, and I can't imagine anything more killing to romance than small children."

She kissed the top of the baby's head, and he yelled like a trooper. Then the motor drove off, and, as Alice Warrington said, the stage was set.

"Get your tennis things on," Carrie said. "The men will be here for lunch."

We said with one voice that we wouldn't play tennis. It was too hot. She eyed us coldly.

"For heaven's sake," she said, "play up. Nobody asked you to play tennis. But if you are asked don't say it's too hot. Do any of the flappers at the club ever find it too hot to play? Sprain an ankle or break a racket, but don't talk about its being too violent, or that you've given it up the last few years. Try to remember that for two days you're in the game again, and don't take on a handicap to begin with."

Well, things started off all right, I'll have to admit that, although Carrie looked a trifle queer when Harry Delaney, getting out of the motor that had brought them from the station, held out a baby's rattle to her.

"Found it in the car," he said. "How are the youngsters anyhow?"

"Adorable!" said Carrie, and flung the rattle into the house.

Roger came straight to me and took both my hands.

"Upon my word, Clara," he said, "this is more luck than I ever expected again. Do you remember the last time we were all here together?"

"Of course I do." He was still holding my hands and I felt rather silly. But the others had paired off instantly and no one was paying any attention.

"I was almost suicidal that last evening. You--you had just told me, you know."

I withdrew my hands. When a man is being sentimental I like him to be accurately sentimental. It had been a full month after that house party, at a dance Carrie gave, that I had told him of my engagement to Bill. However, I said nothing and took a good look at Roger. He was wonderful.

Why is it that married men lose their boyishness, and look smug and sleek and domesticated almost before the honeymoon is over? Roger stood there with his hat in his hand and the hot noon sun shining on him. And he hadn't changed a particle, except that his hair was grey over his ears and maybe a bit thinner. He was just as eager, just as boyish, just as lean as he'd ever been. And positively he was handsomer than ever.

Bill is plain. He is large and strong, of course, but he says himself his face must have been cut out with an axe. "Rugged and true," he used to call himself. But lately, in spite of golf, he had put on weight.

Well, to get on.

Luncheon was gay. Everyone sat beside the person he wanted to sit beside, and said idiotic things, and Peter Arundel insisted on feeding Alice's strawberries to her one by one. Nobody talked bills or the high cost of living. Roger is a capital _raconteur_, and we laughed until we wept over his stories. I told some of Bill's stock jokes and they went with a hurrah. At three o'clock we were still at the table, and when Carrie asked the men if they wanted to run over to the Country Club for a couple of hours of golf Wilbur Bayne put the question to a vote and they voted "No" with a roar.

I remember that Harry Delaney said a most satisfactory thing just as luncheon was over.

"It's what I call a real party," he said. "After a man is thirty or thereabouts he finds débutantes still thrilling, of course, but not restful. They're always wanting to go somewhere or do something. They're too blooming healthy. The last week-end I spent I danced until 4 A. M. and was wakened at seven-thirty by a fair young flower throwing gravel through my open window and inviting me to a walk before breakfast!"

"Anyone seen about the place before eleven to-morrow morning," said Carrie, "will be placed under restraint. For one thing, it would make the servants talk. They're not used to it."

So far so good. I'll confess freely that if they'd let me alone I'd never have thought of getting even. But you know Carrie Smith. She has no reserves. And she had to tell about my party and the way the husbands behaved.

"Don't glare, Clara," she said. "Your house is nice and your food and drink all that could be desired. But it was not a hilarious party, and I'll put it up to the others."

Then and there she told about the swimming and the golf and the knitting. The men roared. She exaggerated, of course. Bill did not go to sleep at dinner. But she made a good story of it, and I caught Roger's eye fixed on me with a look that said plainly that he'd always known I'd made a mistake, and here was the proof.

We went out into the garden and sat under a tree. But soon the others paired off and wandered about. Roger and I were left alone, and I was boiling.

"Don't look like that, little girl," said Roger, bending toward me. "It hurts me terribly to--to think you are not happy."

He put a hand over mine, and at that moment Alice Warrington turned from a rosebush she and Peter were pretending to examine, and saw me. She raised her eyebrows, and that gave me the idea. I put my free hand over Roger's and tried to put my soul into my eyes.

"Don't move," I said. "Hold the position for a moment, Roger, and look desperately unhappy."

"I am," he said. "Seeing you again brings it all back. Are they looking? Shall I kiss your hand?"

I looked over. Alice and Peter were still staring.

"Bend over," I said quickly, "and put your cheek against it. It's more significant and rather hopeless. I'll explain later."

He did extremely well. He bent over passionately until his head was almost in my lap, and I could see how carefully his hair was brushed over a thin place at the crown. Thank goodness, Bill keeps his hair anyhow!

"How's this?" he said in a muffled voice.

"That's plenty." I'd made up my mind, and I meant to go through with it. But I felt like a fool. There's something about broad daylight that makes even real sentiment look idiotic.

He sat up and looked into my eyes.

"There are times," he said, raising his voice, "when I feel I can't stand it. I'm desperately--desperately unhappy, Clara."

"We must make the best of things," I said, and let my eyes wander toward Alice and Peter. They had turned and were retreating swiftly through the garden.

"Now," said Roger, sitting back and smoothing his hair, "what's it all about?"

So I told him and explained my plan. Even now, when I never want to see him again, I must admit that Roger is a sport. He never turned a hair.

"Of course I'll do it. It isn't as hard as you imagine. Our meeting like this revives the old fire. I'm mad about you, recklessly mad, and you're crazy about me. All right so far. But a thing like that won't throw much of a crimp into Carrie. Probably she expects it."

"To-night," I explained, "we'll be together, but silent and moody. When we smile at their nonsense it is to be a forced smile. We're intent on ourselves. Do you see? And you might go to Carrie after dinner and tell her you think you'll go. You can't stand being near me. It's too painful. I'll talk to one of the men too."

He looked rather uncomfortable.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that, Clara. They wouldn't understand."

"Not about you," I retorted coldly. "I'll merely indicate that Bill and I aren't hitting it off, and that a woman has a right to be happy. Then, when things happen, they'll remember what I said."

He turned round his wicker chair so that he faced me.

"When things happen?" he said. "What things?"

"When we elope to-morrow night," I replied.

I'm not defending myself. Goodness knows I've gone through all that. I am merely explaining. And I think Roger deserves part of the blame, but of course the woman always suffers. If he had only been frank with me at the time it need never have happened. Besides, I've been back to that bridge again and again, and with ordinary intelligence and a hammer he could have repaired it. It is well enough for him to say he didn't have a hammer. He should have had a hammer.

At the mention of an elopement Roger changed colour, but I did not remember that until afterward. He came up to scratch rather handsomely, when he was able to speak, but he insisted that I write the whole thing to Bill.

"I can tell him afterward," I protested.

"That won't help me if he has beaten me up first. You write him to the office, so he'll get it Monday morning when he gets back from the game. If anything should slip up you're protected, don't you see? Tell him it's a joke and why we're doing it. I--I hope Bill has kept his sense of humor."

Well, it looked simple enough. We were to act perfectly silly and moonstruck all the rest of that day and Sunday until we had them all thoroughly worried. Then on Sunday night we were to steal Wallie's car and run away in it. The through train stops at a station about four miles away, at eleven-fourteen at night, and we were to start that way and then turn around and go to mother's.

We planned it thoroughly, I must say. Roger said he'd get one of the fellows to cash a check for all the money he had about him. They'd be sure to think of that when Carrie got my note. And I made a draft of the note then and there on the back of an old envelope from Roger's pocket. We made it as vague as possible.

"Dear Carrie," it ran, "by the time you receive this I shall be on my way to happiness. Try to forgive me. I couldn't stand things another moment. We only live one life and we all make mistakes. Read Ellen Key and don't try to follow me. I'm old enough to know my own mind, and all you have been saying this last few days has convinced me that when a chance for happiness comes one is a fool not to take it. Had it not been for you I should never have had my eyes opened to what I've been missing all this time. I have wasted my best years, but at last I am being true to myself. CLARA."

"Now," I said, rather viciously I dare say, "let her read that and throw a fit. She'll never again be able to accuse me of making things dull for her."

Roger read it over.

"We'd better write Bill's letter," he said, "and get it off. We--it wouldn't do to have Bill worried, you know."

So we went into the house and wrote Bill's letter. We explained everything--how stupid they'd all found our party and that this was only a form of revenge.

"Suppose," Roger said as I sealed it, "suppose they get excited and send for the police?"

That stumped us. It was one thing to give them a bad night, and telephone them in the morning that it was a joke and that I'd gone direct from Carrie's to mother's, which was the arrangement. But Carrie was a great one for getting in detectives. You remember, the time her sister was married, that Carrie had a detective in the house for a week before the wedding watching the presents, and how at the last minute the sister wanted to marry the detective, who was a good-looking boy, and they had a dreadful time getting her to the church.

We both thought intently for quite a time.

"We must cut the telephone wire, Roger," I said at length.

Roger was not eager about cutting the telephone. He said he would probably be shocked to death, although if he could find a pair of rubber overshoes he'd take the risk.

"It ought to be done the very last thing," he said. "No use rousing their suspicions early."

We played up hard all afternoon. Roger kissed the lump of sugar he put in my tea, and went and sulked on the parapet when Peter Arundel came and sat beside me. Carrie joined him there, and I could see her talking earnestly to him while Roger looked out over the landscape with eyes that were positively sombre.

"Having a good time?" said Peter Arundel to me.

"Heavenly, Peter," I replied, looking at Roger. "I didn't believe I could be so happy."

"Go to it," said Peter. "What's a day or two out of a lifetime."

I turned round and faced him, my hands gripped hard in my lap.

"That's it," I said tensely. "That's the thought that's killing me. One can only be happy for a day or two."

"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as that," said Peter. "You have a pretty fair time, you know, Clara. Old Bill's a good sort."

"Oh, Bill!" I said.

"I went to college with Bill. Maybe Bill hasn't any frills, but he's a real man." He glared at Roger's drooping shoulders. "He's no tailor's dummy anyhow."

I ignored this.

"Peter," I said in a thin voice, "have you ever read Ellen Key?"

"Not on your life!" said Peter.

I quoted a bit I happened to remember.

"'Nothing is wiser than the modern woman's desire to see life with her own eyes, not only with those of a husband.'" I sighed.

"If I were Bill," said Peter, "I'd burn that book."

"'Nothing,'" I continued, "'is more true than that souls which are parted by a lack of perfect frankness never belonged to one another.'"

"Look here," said Peter, and got up; "I think you've lost your mind, Clara--you and Roger Waite both. Look at him mooning over there. I'd like to turn the garden hose on him."

I looked at Roger--a long gaze that made Peter writhe.

"'Love's double heartbeat'----" I began. But Peter stalked away, muttering.

Carrie had left Roger, so I put down my cup and followed him to the parapet of the terrace.

"Darling!" he said. And then, finding Peter was not with me: "How's it going?"

"Cracking! They're all worried already."

"We've hardly started. Slip your arm through mine, Clara, and I'll hold your hand. Dear little hand!" he said. "When I think that instead of that ring----" Here he choked and kissed my hand. Then I saw that Harry Delaney was just below the wall.

Carrie's voice broke in on our philandering.

"If," she said coldly, "you two people can be pried apart with a crowbar for a sufficient length of time, we will motor to Bubbling Spring. There's just time before dinner."

"I don't think I'll go, Carrie," I said languidly. "I have a headache and Roger has just offered to read to me. Do you remember how you used to cure my headaches, Roger?"

"I'd rather not talk about those days, Clara," said Roger in a shaky voice.

"I wish you two people could see and hear yourselves!" Carrie cried furiously, and turned on her heel.

"I guess that will hold her for a while," Roger purred. "Clara, you're an angel and an inspiration. I haven't had such a good time since I had scarlet fever."

Dinner, which should have been gay, was simply noisy. They were all worried, and it is indicative of how Carrie had forgotten her pose and herself that she wore her diamond necklace. Roger had been placed at the other end of the table from me, but he slipped in and changed the cards. There were half a dozen dinner guests, but Roger and I ate little or nothing.

"Act as though the thought of food sickens you," I commanded.

"But I'm starving!"

"I'll have my maid take a tray into the garden later."

In spite of me he broke over at the entrée, which was extremely good. But everyone saw that we were not eating. The woman on Roger's right, a visitor, took advantage of a lull in the noise to accuse Roger of being in love. Ida giggled, but Roger turned to his neighbour.

"I am in love," he said mournfully; "hopelessly, idiotically, madly, recklessly in love."

"With any particular person?"

"With you," said Roger, who had never seen her before.

She quite fluttered.

"But I am married!"

"Unfortunate, but not fatal," said Roger distinctly, while everyone listened. "These days one must be true to one's self."

We were awfully pleased with ourselves that evening. I said my head still ached and I could not dance. Roger and I sat out-of-doors most of the time, and at eleven o'clock Powell, my maid, brought out a tray of what was left from dinner and the dance supper. She took it by order to a small shaded porch off the billiard room, and we found her there with it.

"Thank you, Powell," I said. But Roger followed her into the house. When he returned he was grinning.

"Might as well do it right while we're about it," he observed. "To-morrow morning Powell will go to Carrie and tell her you sat up all night by the window, and she's afraid you are going to be ill."

In the dusk we shook hands over the tray.

Well, a lot of things happened, such as our overhearing the men in the billiard room debating about getting poor old Bill on the long distance.

"It isn't a flirtation," said Wilbur Bayne. "I've seen Clara flirting many a time. But this is different. They're reckless, positively reckless. When a man as fond of his stomach as Roger lets a whole meal go by, he's pretty far gone."

Roger bent over, with a part of a squab in his hand.

"Have they bitten!" he said. "They've not only swallowed hook, line and sinker but they're walking up the bank to put themselves in the basket!"

Well, the next morning it was clear that the girls had decided on a course and were following it. Although it had been arranged that everyone was to sleep late, breakfast trays appeared in the rooms at nine-thirty, with notes asking us to go to church. When I said I had not slept, and did not care to go, no one went, and when Roger appeared at eleven the girls surrounded me like a cordon of police.

Roger was doing splendidly. He came up across the tennis court, covered with dust, and said he had not slept and had been walking since six o'clock. The men eyed him with positive ferocity.

I'll not go into the details of that day, except to relate a conversation Ida Elliott and I had after luncheon. She came into my room and closed the door behind her softly, as if I were ill.

"Well," she said, "I did think, Clara, that if you didn't have any sense, you would have some consideration for Carrie."

I had been addressing the envelope to Bill, and so I shoved a sheet of paper over it.

"I'm not going to try to read what you are writing," she said rudely.

"What do you mean about Carrie?"

"She's almost ill, that's all. How could anyone have had any idea that Roger and you----" She fairly choked.

"Roger and I are only glad to be together again," I said defiantly. Then I changed to a wistful tone. Just hearing it made me sorry for myself. "We are old friends; Carrie knew that. It is cruel of you all to--to spoil the little bit of happiness I can get out of life."

"What about Bill?"

"Bill?" I said vaguely. "Oh--Bill! Well, Bill would never stand in the way of my being true to myself. He would want me to be happy."

I put my handkerchief suddenly to my eyes, and she gave me a scathing glance.

"I'm going to telephone Bill," she said. "You're not sane, Clara. And when you come back to your senses it may be too late."