Ethel Watts Mumford

“ Linda looked at Roland, her heart in her eyes. Her husband leaned across the bed, and with his free hand sought hers.
“I begin to understand,” he said slowly.
“Had to do some little act of kindness before I left,” Isthar hurried on. “I couldn't leave you money; what I've got goes to that angel of a woman who has cared for a peevish, impossible person like me for years, because she loved me.” She looked across the room to where Tascha crouched on the chaise longue in an attitude of despair. “You've got more now than is good for you, anyway, Roland. ”

“ Roland growled at her, but long experience had taught him not to argue with Isthar.
To Linda her admonitions were even more unconventional. “Don't you fool yourself,” she said repeatedly. “You think you're a cold-blooded woman of the world. You're not. You're an impulsive, idiotic child. You've got all sorts of pride and temper—no, don't tell me you haven't. You're headed for some unhappy days, or I miss my guess. You've got to learn to eat humble pie and crow. Trouble is, both you and Rowly think a whole lot of yourselves. Fact is, too, you think a lot of each other and don't realize it.” ”

“ A white-enameled chaise longue occupied the end of the room, near it a little glass-topped table held a Benares box of carved silver. One of Isthar's eternal cigarettes lay beside it on a black glass tray.
Linda roused herself from her almost hypnotic contemplation. At any moment the maid might come back. If she were to find where Isthar had hidden herself, she must make the most of the opportunity. A glance at the laden toilet table showed no scrap of paper, nothing but orderly rows of oddly beautiful personal belongings. ”

“ She was afraid to go home, afraid to face those empty rooms. Roland would be gone, that was certain. To face the commiseration of the servants, the sleek pity of Cummings. She shuddered, and yet—home was the only place where she could hope to have news of him. Deserted or not, it was home.
She was deposited at the ornate entrance of her house, too tired to observe the embarrassment of the doorman, the hesitation of the elevator boy. They could not refuse to take her up, and she did not see the attendant cross quickly to the telephone as the cage ascended with unwonted slowness. ”

“ On the wide window divan Roland sprawled, his head in the lap of a bobbed-haired girl, whose evening gown of silver tissue was a mere disordered wisp. At the piano a youth banged away, on either side a young woman of no uncertain cast. Another couple occupied an easy-chair together. From behind the door to the dining room came giggles and the sound of clinking glassware.
A sob of despair broke from Linda's constricted throat. She wanted to turn and run. She could not; she could only stand statuelike in the middle of the floor. ”

“ Dying! Poor woman—poor Isthar!”
Linda began to wind her heavy braids about her head, jamming in hairpins at random. She shook herself from the pegnoir, tossed her clothes on the bed. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. Isthar must be ill, indeed, to have asked Tascha to call her at that hour—or was it some vagary of the drug? And why was she at home, and not in the sanitarium under the doctor's care? But there was no time to lose. These were questions that would answer themselves in the course of time. Now it was imperative to answer Isthar's call. Dying! ”

“ Her resentment smoldered and eventually found expression.
“While we're being so frank, Isthar, I'll say a thing or two to you. Why don't you stop smoking as you do? You're killing yourself, everybody says it; you're a wreck. Why don't you use some of your critical energy to control yourself—since you know what's best for everybody else?”
Isthar's pale face went ashen. Her lips were a thin blue line, and the large hand that held her cigarette holder shook. Linda had never seen her show so much emotion, and she was surprised. Isthar pulled herself together with a physical effort. ”

“ Linda found resources of wit and gayety of which she had not dreamed. She felt that she must reënforce her beauty; she must outdo, outshine herself. Never for a moment did she forget her trouble, the canker at her heart, but to all appearances the presence of her husband had been, in the past, a check on her hilarity. Her hostess observed to Buddy that “Linda, without Roland in tow, was twice the lark.” When the party broke up, every one was busily making love to every one else. Engagements for tea and luncheon and bridge were being discussed. ”

“ You win—freedom, alimony, the whole works! You'll have all the evidence in the world, and the world will have it, too. No half portions on this order!” His voice rose.
Linda was on her knees beside him. “No, no, no!” she sobbed, “it isn't true—it isn't true, it isn't—it isn't. I love you, I do, I do, with all my heart and soul, I love you—whoever told you that lied—it is a lie. Oh, Roland!” ”

“ I did marry Roland to escape from poverty and the little town I hated. I did marry him in cold blood, bragging that I'd be free in a year and be a fashionable divorcee with big alimony. I did deliberately trade on his bad reputation. It's true. But I swear it isn't true now. I love him, but he won't believe me, and he's gone mad—he's killing himself—he's disgraced himself. He has told me to take all I bargained for and get out. He even says he'll shame me into leaving him. But, oh, Isthar, if you'd see him and make him understand!” Linda stopped short. A change was coming over Isthar's face. ”

“ His own absolute devotion, his singleness of love, at last awakened, blinded him, and if he lived in a fool's paradise, it was, nevertheless, a very real paradise.
He found a new and thrilling pleasure in watching her. The mere sight of her spending his money was a delight. It tickled his sense of humor to see her astonishment over the lavishness of her new surroundings and her control of any expression of it. ”

“ If I hadn't been listening with all my might I couldn't have got it, for they were talking almost in whispers—but I heard Roland hiss at him—'If I knew it was true, I'd kill you.' Then Con tried to laugh and slip his arm through Roland's. 'Shucks, no woman in the world should be allowed to come between the friendship of men.' Roland looked him straight in the eyes. ”

“ Linda recalled the battered cigarette case with a shudder, the little pile of stubs that always accumulated at Isthar's elbow—— Poor woman! Was it heart hunger that had driven her to the malefic surcease, or the curiosity of her brain—at once avid of emotion and strangely reticent? Poor Isthar! How recreate a broken will? Poor Isthar!
Linda's mind wandered back to that beautiful, intensely feminine room her weakness had invaded, and the ministrations, so sadly experienced, of the enigmatic serving woman, in whose touch she had felt something achingly maternal. ”

“ Her husband's blurted confidences had touched feelings she had never dreamed he could arouse. She was jealous, angry, resentful, all the things a conventional wife should be. She shut herself up in her new plum-and-blue boudoir, in her gorgeous Park Avenue apartment, and pouted. She was amazed at herself, and deeply, unreasonably resentful of Connie's influence over her husband.
In spite of the fact that she knew better, she found herself trying to exculpate her Roland and throw all the blame on his friend. “Connie had led him on”—“if he'd been by himself, Roland would never have acted so.” ”

“ She must be prepared to act, should Roland have returned. She must know just how to approach and reproach him. She was absent-minded in her answers to her escort, but genuinely and frankly glad of his presence. It was all she could do to restrain from questioning the elevator attendant as to whether Mr. Bland had come in, but the question was in her eyes and on her tongue as her maid opened the apartment door at the sound of her key in the lock. She did not need to voice it. He had not come and there was no news. Linda sought her own room and submitted like an automaton to being put to bed. ”

“ The guests had waved Godspeed to the happy pair, as, with glittering luggage piled high on the rear seat, they had glided in the big, sleek car down the old, tree-lined avenue and turned north at the high brick-and-stone Georgian gates. The guests dispersed, the excitement died down, but Roland Bland stayed on. A week later Linda Catherton wrote to Quebec, to Mrs. Conrad Fontaine:
Teddy, My Dear: There's no question about it—I have him. Don't you ever tell me I can't do what I set out to do. He's been asking me to marry him every day now, for the last four days. ”

“ The big thing is that I want my husband to know I adore him; that I understand why he is like this; that nothing, nothing will drive me from him. Ask Con to tell him that, whenever he can, and—if he can help me—I'll be so grateful, so grateful.” She turned away to hide her emotion.
“I'll tell him,” said Teddy softly. “I know he'd do anything for you, Linda—he's a great admirer of yours, and you know how he adores Roland.”
Linda shrugged. It seemed to her, in her unhappiness, that she could expect help from no one—she seemed to be walled in—immured in impotence. ”

“ Suddenly Isthar struggled to a sitting position, her face took on the set, rapt look of an oracle.
“Linda,” she gasped, her breath coming in short, painful intake, “I—watch out for Con—I've been watching him, He cant fool me. He's a snake—you are in his way, Linda—watch out! I can't—now. I know I'm right,” she laughed dryly, “but I was all wrong about poor old Caldwell. He's a good friend. Oh, I knew you and Roland were headed for something. Roland is a fool; tell him so—so are you. But I—I—I'm the greatest fool of all!” ”

“ I'm alone, and I'm an ugly old grouch. You've got beauty and youth and a husband who adores you, and health and wealth, and when you get over being a drunken sailor with your new money and your new city, why, you've brains to be something. Really, you mustn't mind my being a nuisance. You and Roland are about all I care for—old maid's children, you know.”
“Don't be silly,” said Linda tartly. ”