"Isn"t it good, sir? Sha"n"t I tell the chef to--"
His solicitude brought him only a reproof:
"Crofts, if you speak again I"ll have the other servants serve the dinner. Take it away, I said."
Hurt and frightened, Crofts hurried the soup and its apparatus off. As he slipped out with his aides the swinging door went "Phew!" and the tapestried figures glanced and whispered together.
As soon as he was alone with his wife, Enslee"s voice rose querulously:
"If Dobbs ever leaves us in the lurch again I"ll fire him for keeps.
This old fool gets on my nerves. Everything is going wrong here. The whole house is falling to rack and ruin. Ought at least to have decent servants--if I can"t have a decent wife!"
Persis smiled patiently at this, but as with lips bruised from a blow.
"I trust, Willie, that you won"t forget yourself. All these doors have ears, you know."
"You bet they have!" he snapped. "And eyes, too. Are you crazy enough to think that lowering our voices will conceal the truth from any one?
Don"t you realize that those hounds out there know everything that goes on in this house? Don"t you understand that your good name and my honor were gossiped away down-stairs long before my dishonor became public property?"
Persis felt a panic in her own heart at his manner. Still she tried suasion. "I implore you to postpone this. At any moment Crofts will be back."
"Crofts, eh?" Willie shouted. "Crofts! Crofts will be back! Why, do you imagine for a moment that even that deaf old relic is ignorant of this intrigue you have carried on? Don"t you know that every servant of ours that has left the house for weeks has carried through the area-gate a bundle of news and innuendo and suspicion and keyhole information, to be scattered broadcast in every servants" hall in town?"
And then he heard Crofts at the door, and in spite of him habit throttled him; he pulled down the comic mask he had pushed back from his dour face. He ransacked his brain for something humorous to serve as a libretto, and he was reminded of a story he had laughed at heartily before he learned that his own household was a theme for laughter.
He began to giggle uncannily, gruesomely. Persis looked at him, wondering if he had gone mad and begun to gibber. But while Crofts and the others served deviled crabs in their grotesque sh.e.l.ls he began to explain his elation, overacting sadly:
"I heard the best story to-day about Mrs. Tom Corliss."
Forgetfully Persis, from her own gla.s.s house, protested: "Oh, don"t tell me anything about that woman!"
Enslee sneered. "Oh, you"re always so easily shocked--such a prude, so conventional!"
Persis understood and blanched. "Go on, I"ll stand it."
Enslee began to snicker again, taking some support in his shame from another man"s disgrace.
"Well, you know old plutocrat Crane?"
"Not old Deacon Crane," Persis gasped, "that pa.s.ses the plate at church?"
Willie nodded.
"What can he have to do with any story about Mrs. Tom?"
Enslee he-he"d. "That"s the fun of it. Mrs. Tom, it seems--one day when Tom was off to the races--entertained the dear Deacon at a little dinner--served _a deux_. The Deacon used to give her tips on the market and back them himself for her, and she--well, he was talking about the present-day craze for dancing with bare feet, _et cetera_; and she vowed that she wasn"t ashamed of her feet either; and so she made the Deacon play Mendelssohn"s Spring Song on the pianola, and--"
He looked up to find that Chedsey, while pretending to be very busy at the sideboard, wore a smile that extended almost into the ear he perked round for the gossip. Willie choked on his own laughter, and roared:
"Chedsey, leave the room, and don"t come back!"
Chedsey slunk away, and Roake became a statue of gravity. Crofts had not heard at all. Willie finished his story without mirth.
"Anyway, Tom Corliss came in unexpectedly just then, and--well, when the Deacon finally got home his wife met him in the hall; he told her he had been sandbagged by a footpad; and she believed him!"
Willie found Tom Corliss" shame so piquant that he began to relish his food. Crofts, a little encouraged, nodded to Roake and led him out for the next dish.
Persis took small comfort from other people"s sordid scandals. They seemed to have no relation to the pure and high tragedy that had ended the romance of her own love. Seeing that they were alone again, she expressed her dislike before she realized its inconsistency.
"And where did you pick up all this garbage?"
Enslee was outraged at this ingrat.i.tude for his hard work. "Oh, it shocks you, eh? So beautiful a veneer of refinement and so thin!"
"Where did you hear it?" Persis persisted, lighting herself a cigarette to give her restless hands employment; and Willie answered:
"Mrs. Corliss" second man told it to Mrs. Neff"s kitchen maid, and she to Mrs. Neff"s maid, and she to Mrs. Neff; and Mrs. Neff to Jimmie Chives, and he to me--at the Club."
"At the Club?"
"Where I heard of your behavior."
"You heard of me at the Club?" Persis gasped.
"Yes, that crowning disgrace was reserved for me. Big Bob Fielding took me to one side and said: "Willie, everybody in town knows something that you ought to be the first to know--and seem to be the last. I hate to tell you, but somebody ought to," he said. And I said "What"s all that?"
And he said: "Your wife and Captain Forbes are a d.a.m.ned sight better friends," he said, "than the law allows," he said."
The room swam, and Persis clung to her chair to keep from toppling out of it.
"So that"s what he said. And what did you say?"
"I didn"t believe him--then. I was too big a fool to believe him; but he opened my eyes, and I came home to see what was going on. And I saw!"
Persis was on fire with a woman"s anxiety to know if any champion had defended her name. She demanded again:
"What did you say to Bob Fielding?"
And Enslee answered with a helpless, mincing burlesque of dignity:
"I told him he was a cad, and I didn"t want him ever to speak to me again."
"And you didn"t strike him?"
Enslee cast up his eyes at the thought of attacking the famous center-rush; then he lowered his eyes before her blazing contempt. She demanded again, incredulously: "You didn"t strike him?"
Enslee dropped his face into his two palms and wept, the tears leaking through his fingers. Persis felt outlawed even from chivalry. She gagged at the thought: "Agh! The humiliation!"
Enslee lifted his head again, his wet eyes flashing. "Humiliation?" he screeched, in a frenzy of self-pity. "Do you talk of humiliation? What about me? My father and mother brought me into the world with a small frame and a poor const.i.tution. They left me money as a compensation. And what did my money do for me? It bought me a woman--who despised me--who dishonored me before the world. And I"m too weak to take revenge. I"m helpless in my disgrace, helpless!"