"The baby?" we all asked at once.
"Out of any immediate danger, the doctor says. The nurse came an hour ago, but the child had two more of those awful things, and I was able to help her. The mother is no good at all, one of those emotional women whose idea of taking care of a baby is to shriek over it."
Her voice held no contempt, only a great weariness. I felt a sudden rush of sympathetic liking for this woman, whom I had looked upon as an enemy.
"What can I get you, Mrs. Underwood?" I asked. "You look so worn out."
"If Katie has not thrown out that coffee," she returned practically, "let us warm it up."
I felt a foolish little thrill of housewifely pride. A few minutes before her appearance I had gone into the kitchen and made fresh coffee, antic.i.p.ating her return. Katie, of course, I had sent to bed after she had cleared the table and washed the silver. I had told her to pile the dishes for the morning.
"I have fresh coffee all ready," I said. "I thought perhaps you might like a cup. Sit still, and I"ll bring it in."
Harry Underwood sprang to his feet. "I"ll carry the tray for you."
I thought I detected a little quiver of pain on Mrs. Underwood"s face.
Her husband had expressed no concern for her, but was offering to carry my tray. Truly, the tables were turning. I had suffered because of the rumors I had heard concerning this woman"s regard for d.i.c.ky.
Was I, not meaning it, to cause her annoyance?
"Indeed you will do no such thing," I spoke playfully to hide my real indignation at the man. "d.i.c.ky is the only accredited waiter around this house."
"Card from the waiters" union right in my pocket," d.i.c.ky grinned, and stretched lazily as he followed me to the kitchen.
We served the coffee, and Lillian and her husband went home. As the door closed behind them d.i.c.ky came over to me and took me in his arms.
"Pretty exciting evening, wasn"t it, sweetheart?" he said. "I"m afraid you are all done out."
He drew me to our chair and we sat down together. I found myself crying, something I almost never do. d.i.c.ky smoothed my hair tenderly, silently, until I wiped my eyes. Then his clasp tightened around me.
"Tonight has taught me a lesson," he said. "Sometimes I have dreamed of a little child of our own, Madge. But I would rather never have a child than go through the suffering those poor devils had tonight. It must be awful to lose a baby."
I hid my face in his shoulder. Not even to my husband could I confess just then how the touch of the naked, rigid little body of that other woman"s child had sent a thrill of longing through me for a baby"s hands that should be mine.
IX
THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN
"Well, we are in plenty of time."
We were seated, d.i.c.ky and I, in the waiting room of the Long Island railroad a week after my dinner party that had almost ended in tragedy. d.i.c.ky had bought our tickets to Marvin, the little village which was to be the starting point of our country ramble, and we were putting in the time before our train was ready in gazing at the usual morning scene in a railroad station.
There were not many pa.s.sengers going out on the island, but scores of commuters were hurrying through the station on their way to their offices and other places of employment.
"You don"t see many of the commuters up here," d.i.c.ky remarked. "There"s a pa.s.sage direct from the trains to the subway on the lower level, and most of them take that. Some of the women come up to prink a bit in the waiting room, and some of the men come through here to get cigars or papers, but the big crowd is down on the train level."
I hardly heard him, for I was so interested in a girl who had just come into the waiting room. I had never seen so self-possessed a creature in my life. She was unusually beautiful, with golden hair that was so real the most captious person could not suspect that hair of being dyed. Her eyes were dark, and the unusual combination of eyes and hair fitted a face with regular features and a fair skin. I had seen Christmas and Easter cards with faces like hers. But I had never seen anyone like her in real life, and I am afraid I stared at her as hard as did everyone else in the waiting room.
"By jove!" d.i.c.ky drew in a deep breath. "Isn"t she the most ripping beauty you ever saw?"
His eyes were following her lithe, perfect figure as she walked down the waiting room. I have never seen a pretty girl appear so utterly unconscious of the glances directed toward her as she did. But with a woman"s intuition I knew that underneath her calm exterior she was noticing and appraising every admiring look she received. I could not have told how I knew this, but I did know it.
She sat down a little distance from us, and d.i.c.ky frankly turned quite around to stare at her.
"I wonder if she"s going on our train," he mused. "By George, I never saw anything like her in my life."
I looked at him in open amazement, tinged not a little with resentment. He was with me, his bride of less than a month, for our first day"s outing since our marriage, and yet his eyes were following this other woman with the most open admiration. I felt hurt, neglected, but I was determined he should not think me jealous.
"Yes, isn"t she beautiful," I said as enthusiastically as I could. "I never have seen just that combination of eyes and hair."
"It"s her features and figure that get me. I"d like to get a glimpse of her hands and feet. Perhaps she will sit near us in the train. If she does, I promise you I am going to stare at her unmercifully."
As luck would have it, just as we seated ourselves in the train, the girl we had seen in the railway station came through the door with the same air of regal unconsciousness of her surroundings that she had shown while running the gauntlet of the admiring and critical eyes in the waiting room.
She carried in her hand a small traveling bag, which, while not new, had received such good care that it was not at all shabby. She spent no time in selecting a seat, but with an air of taking the first one available sat down directly opposite d.i.c.ky and me, depositing her bag close to her feet.
As she sat down she calmly crossed her knees, something which I hate to see a woman do in a public place.
"Gee, she has the hands and the feet all right!"
d.i.c.ky has a trick of mumbling beneath his breath, so that no one can detect that he is talking save the person whose ear is nearest to him. It is convenient sometimes, but at other times it is most embarra.s.sing, especially when he is making comments upon people near us.
"I don"t blame her for elevating one foot above the other," d.i.c.ky rattled on. "Not one woman in a thousand can wear those white spats.
She must have mighty small, well-shaped tootsies under them."
The girl sat looking straight ahead of her. The crossing of her knees revealed a swirl of silken petticoat, and more than a glimpse of filmy silk stockings.
Her shoes were patent leather pumps, utterly unsuitable for a trip to the country. Over them she wore spats of the kind affected by so many girls.
I had a sudden remembrance of times in my own life when a new pair of shoes was as impossible to attain as a whole wardrobe. I had a sudden intuition that the unsuitable pumps were like the rest of her clothes, left over from some former affluence. She had bravely made the best of them by covering them with spats, which I knew she could obtain quite cheaply at some bargain sale.
"Looks like ready money, doesn"t she?" mumbled d.i.c.ky in my ear.
I did not answer, and suddenly d.i.c.ky stared at me.
"A trifle peeved, aren"t you?" d.i.c.ky"s voice was mocking. But he saw what I could not conceal, that tears were rising to my eyes. I was able to keep from shedding them, and no one but d.i.c.ky could possibly have guessed I was agitated.
He changed his tone and manner on the instant.
"I know I have been thoughtless, sweetheart," he said earnestly, "but I keep forgetting that you are not used to my vagaries yet. Tell me honestly, would you have been so resentful if I had been interested in some old man with chin whiskers as I was in the beautiful lady?"
A light broke upon me. How foolish I had been. I looked at d.i.c.ky shamefacedly.
"You mean--"