"I"m content," she sighed, "just as it is."
"I"m not!" Milly retorted, rather unfeelingly.
"It suits me to a T, if it could only last."
For a time neither added anything to the subject. Milly, who was never hard for more than a few moments, went over to the lounge and caressed the Laundryman"s face.
"That was horrid of me," she said. "It"s going to last--forever, I guess."
But in spite of herself she could not keep the droop from her voice at this statement of the irrevocable, and Ernestine shook her head sadly.
"No, it ain"t. You"ll marry again sometime."
"I"ll never do that!" Milly exclaimed impatiently.
"I s"pose it would really be the best thing for you," Ernestine admitted, looking at Milly thoughtfully. Milly was now barely thirty-four and more seductive as a woman than ever before. Ernestine"s jealous heart could understand why men would desire her mate. "And this time," she continued more cheerfully, "you"ll know enough to pick a good provider."
"Don"t talk such nonsense."
Nevertheless Milly was pleased at this proof that she was still desirable, merely as a woman. What woman wouldn"t, be? Her early romantic notion that second marriages were impure had completely changed since the failure of her marriage with Jack. Now she had merely a feeling of disgust with the married state in general and with husbands as a cla.s.s.
"They ain"t all bad, I expect," Ernestine remarked in a spirit of fairness. "There must be exceptions among husbands the same as in everything else in life."
"I don"t care to take the risk."
"But I expect if you"d happened to marry one of those others who wanted you to you"d felt different. You"d be on easy street to-day, anyhow!... The trouble was, my dear, you trusted to your feelin" too much, and not enough to your head."
She nodded her own large head sagely.
"Perhaps," Milly agreed vaguely.... "Well, will you shut the house up?"
Ernestine went downstairs to lock the doors and see that the lights were out in the servants" quarters.
II
AT LAST, THE REAL RIGHT SCHEME
Whenever Eleanor Kemp came to New York--which happened usually at least twice a year, on her way to and from Europe--she always endeavored to see her old friend, if for only a few minutes. So when she landed this spring, she went almost immediately from her hotel to number 236, and Milly found her waiting in the little reception room on her return from her marketing.
"You see I didn"t forget the number, and just came over!" Mrs. Kemp said gayly. "We docked at ten, and Walter has already disappeared to see some pictures.... How are you, dear?"
The two friends had kissed, and then still holding each other by the arms drew off for the preliminary scrutiny. Eleanor Kemp"s black hair showed gray about the temples, and there were lines around the trembling mouth. "She"s getting old, really," Milly thought in a flash. "But it doesn"t make so much difference to her, they are so rich!"
"Milly, you are prettier than ever--you always are when I see you--how do you keep so young?" the older woman exclaimed admiringly, and drew Milly"s smiling face closer for another kiss. "And you have been through so much since I saw you last--so much sadness."
"Yes," Milly admitted flatly.
Somehow she did not want to talk of her marriage and Jack"s death with Eleanor Kemp, who had been so near her during the ecstatic inception of that pa.s.sion.
"How pretty your house is!" Eleanor said, divining Milly"s reluctance to intimacy. "I"ve been peeking into the next room while I waited."
"Yes, it"s pleasant," Milly replied unenthusiastically. "It"s small and the street is rather noisy. But it does well enough. You know it isn"t my house. It belongs to a friend,--Ernestine Geyer."
"Yes, you wrote me."
"She"s in business, away all day, and I keep house for her," Milly explained, as if she were eager not to have her position misunderstood.
"It must be much pleasanter for you and Virginia than being alone."
"Yes," Milly agreed, in the same negative voice, and then showed her friend over the house, which Mrs. Kemp p.r.o.nounced "sweet" and "cunning."
As Milly"s manner remained listless, Eleanor Kemp suggested their lunching at the hotel, and they walked over to the large hostelry on the Avenue, where the Kemps usually stayed in New York.
Walter Kemp not having returned from his picture quest, the women had luncheon by themselves at a little table near a window in the ornate dining-room of the hotel. Milly grew more cheerful away from her home.
It always lightened her mind of its burdens to eat in a public place.
She liked the movement about her, the strange faces, the unaccustomed food, and her opportunities of restaurant life had not been numerous of late. It was pleasant to be again with her old friend and revive their common memories of Chicago days. They discussed half the people they knew. Milly told Eleanor of Vivie Norton"s engagement finally to the divorced man and the marriage, "a week after he got his decree." And Eleanor told Milly of the approaching marriage of Nettie Gilbert"s daughter to a very attractive youth, etc.
"You must come to visit me this summer," she declared. "Your friends are all dying to see you."
"Do you think they remember me still?"
"Remember you! My dear, they still talk about your engagement to Clarence Parker."
Milly laughed gayly.
"That!"... She added quite unexpectedly, "I suppose I ought to have married him really."
"Milly!"
"Why not?" Milly persisted in a would-be indifferent tone. "Then I shouldn"t be keeping house for somebody else for my living."
Mrs. Kemp gave her a quick look, and then turned it off with,--
"You should have stayed in Chicago, whatever you did. We all miss you so!..."
In her glances about the crowded room Milly"s eyes had rested upon a little woman seated at a table not far away,--a blond, fluffy-haired, much-dressed and much-jewelled creature, who was scrutinizing the long menu with close attention.
"Do you know who she is, Nelly?" Milly asked, indicating the little blond person. "It seems to me she"s some one I ought to know."
Mrs. Kemp glanced out of her lowered eyes; then as the other looked up both bowed. She said in a whisper to Milly,--
"You ought to know her, Milly! She was Annie Dove."
"Who is she now?"
Eleanor Kemp paused to laugh before replying and then whispered,--