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, decidedly. 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 difference." 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 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 "wholesome."

Now it was well along in June, time for the children 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 advice by the hour to this gracious young creature so stylishly clad. And she had soon selected a quiet little resort in Rhode 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 reply was always, "Business"; and he would go on to give her details—all of which were tiresome. 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 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 remembered what Amy used to say about the man's worship of business. Yes, with his detestable greed for money, only money, Nourse was doubtless 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—"

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 besides, 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 suggested 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, ungracious tone of his voice, the very worst side of the 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 seashore.

"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 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? How funny!"



CHAPTER XVI

The week after Ethel's return to town, she was surprised one afternoon when in response 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'll be home late."

Tall, gaunt and angular, somewhat stooped, Nourse stood looking down at her; and as, perplexed and excited, Ethel scanned his visage, so heavy in spite of its narrow lines, she saw an expression in which contempt was tempered by a sort of regret and weariness. And of course he was awkward, too. She said to herself, "Be careful 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.

"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 account—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.

"Money," he said.

"Where did you get that idea?"

"From your sister," he replied. "She sent for me, too—long ago."

"What for?"

"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 answered 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 answered all her questions, again and again did Ethel feel a little wave of excitement. For Nourse 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 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 muttered. 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 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 revelations he had made, was looking at her as at first, with suspicion and dislike. "I won't go into details 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 enough 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 different—it was for money alone. He began to throw over his ideals, and very soon there was 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 speculating 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.

"And because he still had a soul in him—and a stomach that turned—he began to vary the dulness of it by becoming sensational. He did daring things, cheap daring things—no real originality in it, but it took on and caught the eye. Pictures 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 consider 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 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 begin.

"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 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 weak 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. 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, watching 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 consciousness 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 sacrificed. 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 shivered 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 making. 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 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—frightened 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 reason 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 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 believe 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.

"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 forgotten—a point in those Taggert specifications. I want to clear it up tonight."



CHAPTER XVII

What impression had she made? How far had she overcome the heavy weight of dislike 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'll come again."

She waited three days. Then he telephoned, "Can I see you today at four o'clock?" She answered, "Yes, I'll be very glad." And she felt a little faint with relief as she hung up the receiver.

When he came in, that afternoon, one glance at him made her exclaim to herself, "He half believes! 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 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.

"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, 'Heigh there' at the windows?" She leaned forward 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 thinking 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 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 discouragement.

"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 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 murmured.

"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.' 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 compassion 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 herself 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 person 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 propose to sing! I used to, in the choir at home—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 won't even let me in at her door. And her husband—yes, he'll 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 inducement 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 between songs talk with him—of Paris and my husband, and the great ideals I have—and the delicious 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, 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 almost 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!"

"Right there in the hall!"

"I'll call up Dwight."

"Wait! Is he married?"

"No."

"Thank God!"



CHAPTER XVIII

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.

"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 coming 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 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 interested. 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, smiling, "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!"

"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."

"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 exuberant 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 gardens. 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 belonged."

"Was it you who taught him to play?" she asked.

"On the piano? It was," he replied. "Isn't 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 successful middle age—he was building it now, in a terrible 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."

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."

"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 boundless 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,

"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 husband'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 partner. He smiled:

"Bill Nourse is not a very brisk digger."

"Well," she remarked, in a casual tone, "if you know of brisker diggers about—people who knew him—"

"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 hospitable—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 already 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. "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 endless 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 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, architects 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 husband 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 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 careful. Repeatedly 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!"

"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 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, because 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 responded 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 excited!" 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:

"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 harassed. "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 arguments. 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 successful 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:

"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 something 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 toward him in his tired moods, now alive and interested 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 surprises 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, 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 ignorant! If you only knew about his work!" And knitting her brows she would listen hard while he talked of steel construction. As with her encouragement 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 conspiracy with the charming young Mrs. Lanier, he expressed his gallantry by bringing her books of appalling size. But some had beautiful illustrations that set her to imagining. Eagerly she groped her way deep into the history of the building 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 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 bring him home to dinner, I mean. He isn't especially cheery, God knows—but he seems so damnably 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.

"I feel as though I knew you," she said. "I've 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 summer, but in October she had returned. She had come to see Ethel several times, in the same determinedly 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. "Remember 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 criticize 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 patriotic atrocities up on Riverside Drive." Ethel squirmed.

"But he 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. "His name will be a perfect 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 middle-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 children. 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'll fight it out once and 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 rapidly, 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 details 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 there, with Nourse helping at her side, she revealed 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 encouraged 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 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 sometimes 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 Riverside scheme." He paused, and her heart was in her mouth.

"I haven't said so, have I?"

"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?" 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'll the winter be like?"

"Oh, I think we'll do nicely, Emily. I've quite a few plans in my head."

"I'll 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 herself for having been so clumsy. "I'll show her I'm not such a prude," she thought. And having learned that Mrs. Grewe had taken another apartment 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 expected—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.

"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. "What's the difference between Mrs. Grewe and his own 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 herself 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. "Oh, 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 exactly 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—"As Fanny doubtless does with Joe," she suddenly 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 he what?"

"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 understand?"

She had hesitated a moment upon just how to answer. Her heart had pounded rapidly.

"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're 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 suddenly 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 lesson."

"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 yourself!"

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 smiling good-fellowship—were all very nice and exciting. But safe? 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 Crothers 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 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. Crothers 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'll 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 maddening!

"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?"

"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 makes a name as an architect doing great big things, what 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 confident air. She took in the fine clothes of her handsome young hostess, and Ethel's very gracious 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?" 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 reddened 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 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, and 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:

"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!"

"No, I'll show you this. And then we'll get to business." And Fanny produced a large envelope, 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 important."

Ethel took them and read them, and as she did so her rage and scorn changed first into bewilderment 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 meeting 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!"

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 unspeakable.

"You've forgotten," 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 Dwight to dine with you, and you acted as though you'd never met. I gathered that from Joe himself 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 understand 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. What I mean by that you won't understand, because 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 interfere. 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."

With a sudden fierce impulse, in spite of herself, Ethel crumpled them up in her hands.

"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 minute 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 running 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. "She'll ask of me anything she wants. And she'll 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?"

Ethel nodded.

"Very well!"

"She's uneasy," thought Ethel, "and disappointed—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 herself 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 believes 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 handed 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 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 wonder 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'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 Ethel had cut off Joe from Amy's friends. Ethel heard only bits of this, for it all seemed so confused 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 coming! 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 startled look, she added, "If you didn't, you'd better read all this!" There fell a sudden silence.

"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. "Remember now—just common 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?"

"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!

"Just a minute!" she gasped. "You'll 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 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!"

"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 tonight!"

"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 explained 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 everything else in your whole life was going so perfectly 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 evening she would have to face him alone! In vain she angrily told herself that it only needed common sense. The picture of his tired face, nerves all on edge, rose in her mind. The way his jealousy 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 required. . . . She heard Susette beginning her supper, 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, "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 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'll be my friend, and bring me in touch with whatever other people she likes. I'll 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 impatient 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 manage him that afternoon had shaken her confidence in herself. Ethel was only twenty-five, and now 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 remembered 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 allowed her to do those few little daring things, which looked so cheap and disgusting in the detective'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 window recalled to her mind that night long ago, her first in New York, when she had listened excitedly and thought of all the stories here, both sad and comic.

"Well, I'm a story now," she thought. "And I suppose I'm comic!" The angry tears rose in I 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 inquisitive 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. "Oh, she's out—I know she is!" The thought brought a sickening empty feeling. She would have to face this night alone!

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 bedroom 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'll 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 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 expression 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."

Rid 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 explanation 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 somebody, 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 unfair. You are quite right in waiting now—it is better for both of us to cool down. But my explanation is simple and real—as you will see. I shall send for you in a few days. I love you, dear. I love you."

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 from it—so she must lead to it gradually. "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 understand. 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!"