I noted a date on the picture. "He seems to be an old friend. You never told me about him."
"He doesn"t like being told about. He has a troublesome wife."
I winced inwardly, but all I said was, "I see."
"He"s a stock-broker; and he got "squeezed," so he says, and it"s made him cross--and careful with his money, too. That"s trying, in a stock-broker, you must admit." She laughed. "And still he"s just as particular--wants to have his own way in everything, wants to say whom I shall know and where I shall go. I said, "I have all the inconveniences of matrimony, and none of the advantages.""
I made some remark upon the subject of the emanc.i.p.ation of woman; and Claire, who was now leaning back in her chair, combing out her long black tresses, smiled at me out of half-closed eyelids. "Guess whom he"s objecting to!" she said. And when I p.r.o.nounced it impossible, she looked portentous. "There are bigger fish in the sea than Larry Edgewater!"
"And you"ve hooked one?" I asked, innocently.
"Well, I don"t mean to give up all my friends."
I went on casually to talk about my plans for the summer; and a few minutes later, after a lull--"By the way," remarked Claire, "Douglas van Tuiver is in town."
"How do you know?"
"I"ve seen him."
"Indeed! Where?"
"I got Jack Taylor to invite me again. You see, when Douglas fell in love with his peerless southern beauty, Jack predicted he"d get over it even more quickly. Now he"s interested in proving he was right."
I waited a moment, and then asked, carelessly, "Is he having any success?"
"I said, "Douglas, why don"t you come to see me?" He was in a playful mood. "What do you want? A new automobile?" I answered, "I haven"t any automobile, new or old, and you know it. What I want is you. I always loved you--surely I proved that to you." "What you proved to me was that you were a sort of wild-cat. I"m afraid of you. And anyway, I"m tired of women. I"ll never trust another one.""
"About the same conclusion as you"ve come to regarding men," I remarked.
""Douglas," I said, "come and see me, and we"ll talk over old times.
You may trust me, I swear I"ll not tell a living soul." "You"ve been consoling yourself with someone else," he said. But I knew he was only guessing. He was seeking for something that would worry me, and he said, "You"re drinking too much. People that drink can"t be trusted." "You know," I replied, "I didn"t drink too much when I was with you. I"m not drinking as much as you are, right now." He answered, "I"ve been off on a desert island for G.o.d knows how many months, and I"m celebrating my escape." "Well," I answered, "let me help celebrate!""
"What did he say to that?"
Claire resumed the combing of her silken hair, and smiled a slow smile at me. ""You may trust me, Douglas," I said. "I swear I"ll not tell a living soul!""
"Of course," I remarked, appreciatively, "that means he said he"d come!"
"_I_ haven"t told you!" was the reply.
8. I knew that I had only to wait for Claire to tell me the rest of the story. But her mind went off on another tack. "Sylvia"s going to have a baby," she remarked, suddenly.
"That ought to please her husband," I said.
"You can see him beginning to swell with paternal pride!--so Jack said.
He sent for a bottle of some famous kind of champagne that he has, to celebrate the new "millionaire baby." (They used to call Douglas that, once upon a time.) Before they got through, they had made it triplets.
Jack says Douglas is the one man in New York who can afford them."
"Your friend Jack seems to be what they call a wag," I commented.
"It isn"t everybody that Douglas will let carry on with him like that.
He takes himself seriously, as a rule. And he expects to take the new baby seriously."
"It generally binds a man tighter to his wife, don"t you think?"
I watched her closely, and saw her smile at my naivete. "No," she said, "I don"t. It leaves them restless. It"s a bore all round."
I did not dispute her authority; she ought to know her husbands, I thought.
She was facing the mirror, putting up her hair; and in the midst of the operation she laughed. "All that evening, while we were having a jolly time at Jack Taylor"s, Larry was here waiting."
"Then no wonder you had a row!" I said.
"He hadn"t told me he was coming. And was I to sit here all night alone?
It"s always the same--I never knew a man who really in his heart was willing for you to have any friends, or any sort of good time without him."
"Perhaps," I replied, "he"s afraid you mightn"t be true to him." I meant this for a jest, of the sort that Claire and her friends would appreciate. Little did I foresee where it was to lead us!
I remember how once on the farm my husband had a lot of dynamite, blasting out stumps; and my emotions when I discovered the children innocently playing with a stick of it. Something like these children I seem now to myself, looking back on this visit to Claire, and our talk.
"You know," she observed, without smiling, "Larry"s got a bee in his hat. I"ve seen men who were jealous, and kept watch over women, but never one that was obsessed like him."
"What"s it about?"
"He"s been reading a book about diseases, and he tells me tales about what may happen to me, and what may happen to him. When you"ve listened a while, you can see microbes crawling all over the walls of the room."
"Well----" I began.
"I was sick of his lecturing, so I said, "Larry, you"ll have to do like me--have everything there is, and get over it, and then you won"t need to worry.""
I sat still, staring at her; I think I must have stopped breathing.
At the end of an eternity, I said, "You"ve not really had any of these diseases, Claire?"
"Who hasn"t?" she countered.
Again there was a pause. "You know," I observed, "some of them are dangerous----"
"Oh, of course," she answered, lightly. "There"s one that makes your nose fall in and your hair fall out--but you haven"t seen anything like that happening to me!"
"But there"s another," I hinted--"one that"s much more common." And when she did not take the hint, I continued, "Also it"s more serious than people generally realize."
She shrugged her shoulders. "What of it? Men bring you these things, and it"s part of the game. So what"s the use of bothering?"
9. There was a long silence; I had to have time to decide what course to take. There was so much that I wanted to get from her, and so much that I wanted to hide from her!
"I don"t want to bore you, Claire," I began, finally, "but really this is a matter of importance to you. You see, I"ve been reading up on the subject as well as Larry. The doctors have been making new discoveries.
They used to think this was just a local infection, like a cold, but now they find it"s a blood disease, and has the gravest consequences. For one thing, it causes most of the surgical operations that have to be performed on women."