T That his wife was keeping something from him had been unpleasantly apparent to Robert Penn for over two months; but what really wore upon his easily disturbed nerves was the equally obvious fact that her secret was the source of an unusual, unnatural, unseemly happiness, which she took no pains to disguise. Robert was the very much overworked junior partner in the prosperous law firm of Messrs. Flagg, Bentnor & Penn; and the question of his taking a much-needed rest had been gravely discussed by the other two partners more than once during the year; but the mere suggestion of it put him into such a tantrum that they let it drop, trusting to a redistribution of the work of the office to lighten somewhat Penn’s burden. So all the fashionable divorcÉes—hitherto Bentnor’s specialty—were turned over to the junior partner, as a slight means of professional diversion. But he threw himself into the cases of his clients, male and female, with the same old unsparing fervor, and Flagg and Bentnor—the latter was Penn’s brother-in-law—raised their eyebrows and shook their heads behind his back. What first drew Robert’s attention to his wife’s secret was the sudden inexplicable condoning of his own small negligences and ignorances, which had once been brought to book. So accustomed does the happily married husband of the day become to certain domestic requisitions that the withdrawal of them is apt to arouse his suspicions at once. These jealous doubts, later on, ran the whole gamut from the postman to the rector of Mrs. Penn’s church, but at first all Robert feared was that she had become indifferent to him. That, after five happy years, she should be sweetly serene when he suddenly remembered that he had bought tickets for the theater, just as they had settled down after dinner for a quiet evening, Mrs. Penn looking prettily domestic in a lilac tea gown! Nothing but the established repugnance of a self-made man to wasting four dollars, even to save his pride, made him uncover his delinquency—and he held his breath till the storm should pass. But no storm followed his confession. Instead of which, she sprang to her feet, laughing: It was so unusual, and she made such a delightful picture standing in the doorway, that he felt that the occasion deserved recognition. “You may have twelve minutes to dress in, Helen. I’ll call a cab.” “Oh, Rob, how lovely!” and off she flew. After a moment spent in the happy digestion of this delightful antenuptial way of exculpating a really outrageous masculine default, it slowly dawned upon him, as he arose and emptied the ash tray into the library fire, that it was most unusual, extraordinary, startling! There was a time when she would have made a scene, and either they would have spent the evening apart at home in silence, or together at the theater in a still more painful silence. At that instant was born in Robert Penn’s already overwrought brain the thought that his wife no longer loved him! Robert loathed all theatergoing. The mere physical restraint was torture to so active, high-strung a man, but when it came to a problem play—— He not unnaturally considered that it represented the full measure of his devotion to his wife, to spend an evening beside her listening to the same old jumble of human motives, human passions, that had occupied him all day long. Hate, jealousy, revenge, greed, infidelity were the staples of his trade, as it were; the untangling of law, if not always equity, from the seething mass was his raison d’Être, and moreover paid his coal bills. That Helen was almost morbidly fond of the theater had long been his heaviest cross. His thin, dark face looked very worn as he hunched himself into his overcoat in the hall, and, looking up, saw Helen running down the stairs, just as she used to do in the dear old sweetheart days, chattering merrily the while: “Talk of Protean artists! Vaudeville clamor for me some day—you’ll see! I’ll be five characters in twenty-five minutes, and no one of them Helen Penn!” And then she looked so altogether exactly the way he liked his wife to look, that he whispered something quite absurdly lover-like to her as he put her into the cab. She laughed in an excited, detached way and made no response in kind, and again his mood changed and a chilly fog of vague suspicion closed in upon him. At the theater he leaned back in his seat and watched Helen with eyes that began to reinventory her personality, seeking to comprehend this strange exhilaration that had recently uplifted her out of all her environment. Once, between the second and third acts, Helen asked Robert for a pencil and made a note on the margin of her program, which she laughingly refused to let him read. It was all that was needed to crystallize his resentment, and muttering something about “a whiff of tobacco,” he got up and went to the lobby. It so happened that Mr. Flagg, the dignified senior member of their successful firm, was strolling about alone with a cigarette, and after greetings between the two Flagg said, in a low tone, to Robert: “It’s all up with your side of the Perry case! The evidence in rebuttal will knock you higher than Haman. I’ve just got hold of it—I’ll explain in the morning. It seems that your pretty client has been hoodwinking caro sposo for two years—all the time looking like a Botticello angel, all pure soul and sublimated thought, dressed always in shades of gray—pearl gray, Penn!” laughed Flagg; “a dove with the heart of a—— There’s the bell! Come down early to-morrow, there’s work ahead for us all.” The first thing that Robert did as he sank into his seat was to note the shade of Helen’s gown—it was a dull lead color! If jealousy is once allowed so much as a finger tip within the portals of a heart, the chances are that within an inconceivably short time he will be in Every little unrelated incident in Robert’s home life fell suddenly into place under suspicion’s nimble fingers. Up to that time he had been reasonably sure of the integrity of his hearthstone. Only within those eight weeks had these new symptoms been developing in the conduct of the wife of his bosom, the mother of his little daughter, Betty. Her curiously happy exaltation, her absentmindedness, her long, smiling reveries; the look of flushed excitement on her pretty face, the odd impression of breathlessness; the muttering of strange words in her sleep, followed by bursts of almost ribald laughter. Could it be possible that she was leading a double life, like that other woman?—-a life to which he had no latchkey? What was that devilish thing in “The Cross of Berny”—from Gautier’s pen, if he remembered rightly, among those four royal collaborateurs—“To call a woman—my wife! What revolting indiscretion! To call children——” But the thought of little Betty hushed even his mad imaginings. However, it was his business to fathom all this mystery at once. An idealist was a blind ass—look at Perry! Penn did not rest well that first night after the problem play, nor for many nights to come. One morning a question of law came up at the office that made it expedient that one of the firm should go at once to Washington to consult a supreme authority, and Robert was sent, that he might have the benefit of even that small change of scene. He rushed home to throw a few things into a bag and kiss his wife and Betty good-by. He opened the front door with his latchkey as usual, and as usual called out: “Helen, where are you?” There was a low cry, the shuffle of feet across a hardwood floor, the bang of a door closed quickly, and then in a voice toned to sudden insouciance and overdoing it: “Here I am, Rob, in the library.” He stood frozen stiff for an instant, as his legal experience whispered to him all the possibilities hidden in those few sounds. The main thing was to keep his head! He went to the library and found Helen sitting alone in his own especial chair, peacefully reading Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” as he was quick to notice as he passed behind her. Although her attitude was one of rather sleepy repose, there were signs of a hasty rearrangement of the mise en scÈne, which corroborated the aural evidence which reached him in the hall. Near the door to the reception room was a piece of paper; he slipped on a round “Carteret” pencil as he went to his desk in a silence that he felt that he could not break, without also breaking a few other things. Helen sat watching him in surprise—not an altogether genuine surprise, he thought, after one glance—thank Heaven, he was an expert in moral turpitudes and sinuosities—the woman did not live who could deceive him! “Did you forget something, Rob? Why didn’t you telephone? I could have sent it to you,” she asked, simply. Ah, that accursed simplicity! Well, she would find that he was not simple, that was one sure thing. “No, Helen, I forgot nothing—I never do forget anything,” he said, with sullen meaning. “Where’s Betty?” “It’s a fair day and it’s eleven; of course she is out in the park,” replied Helen, smiling. He smiled too, but in such a way that she sat forward in her chair with dilated eyes, into which Robert read a rising fear. “Dear, what is it? What is wrong?” “Wrong? Who said wrong? I didn’t,” he found himself saying, greatly to his disappointment, for suspicions are useless until graduated into—evidence; so he hastened to explain his errand; sorting over some papers at his desk meanwhile. All the time his mind was intent upon one thing only—the possession of that piece of paper lying near the reception-room door. He walked toward the cabinet in the He heard a slight noise behind him, and, wheeling-swiftly, discovered Helen creeping toward the paper, her hand already outstretched. With one quick movement he snatched it from the floor, and forced himself to hold it aloft and laugh a little. He might have spared himself all that finesse, for she ran to him, clinging to his arm, laughing, coaxing, pouting, begging him to give it to her—unread! “Rob, you’ll break my heart if you read that. Please not now—later perhaps—some day I will explain; please, dear!” “If the contents of this paper are sufficiently serious to break your heart if I do read it, perhaps mine will be broken if I don’t. So, as a measure of self-preservation——” He put the piece of note paper into his pocket. His face was white, his pulse was galloping like mad, and yet he managed a rather ghastly smile into her face, upraised and pleading. “Face of a Botticello angel!” he thought, and steeled his heart against her. She sank into a chair half laughing and yet with an introverted expression—“recueillement d’esprit,” he thought to himself, bitterly. Brushing her hair in passing lightly with his lips, he left the room and presently the house. When she discovered that he had gone without again seeing her, she flew to the telephone and held a long incoherent talk with some one she not infrequently called “Ben, dear,” to whom she confided certain undefined fears about her husband and her future. A suggestion of a trip to Europe from the other end of the telephone met with her unbounded gratitude and enthusiasm. After urging haste, she left the colloquy almost her old smiling self, and went to the library, where she did not continue the reading of Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” but went thence directly to the reception room—into which Robert had peered before leaving the house—and, stooping, she drew from under the lounge many sheets of paper, and was soon lost in their perusal. Robert had been forced to wait until he was settled on the train for Washington before he found time to read the note whose possession had caused Helen such perturbation. It was evidently the middle page of a letter, a single sheet, note size, torn from a pad. The handwriting was unquestionably masculine, entirely unfamiliar to Penn, hurried and full of what Helen would have called—temperament. After one glance, the blood rushed to his head, and his hot eyes devoured again and again these words:
And there it ended. The initials, H. P.—Helen Penn—were the tacks that fastened conviction to Robert’s consciousness; conviction of an intrigue of long standing and unspeakable familiarities—all these verbal obscurities were only too sickeningly familiar to him, fresh from the Perry letters—but here was more! Apparently a coolly plotted murder—one ray of light only his eyes clung to—the “climax” was yet in limine! In a well-built city house the insertion of a latchkey and opening of a front door between ten and eleven o’clock at night are noises easily covered by the urban roar of even one of the lateral streets of a great city. Robert entered and closed the door with—he assured himself—no greater minimum of noise than is instinctive toward midnight with even a sober married man. Among all the emotions which had seethed through his mind during the past few hours, a reaction was at that moment in possession of him, in The electric light in the hall was burning, and he went directly to the library. Touching an electric button near the door, the room was flooded with light, and there before his weary eyes, hanging over the back of his Morris chair, was—Heaven help him!—a pair of long delft-blue silk stockings! Robert’s agony was black upon him, his mind once more full of crawling, writhing suspicions; his mouth and throat were parched, his pulse beats filled the world. Then into the silence fell Helen’s laugh from the floor above, a long peal of mirth that spoke clearly of companionship. He had not made a life study of psychic differentiation for nothing—Helen was not alone! From that instant, all pretenses were abandoned, Robert was a sleuthhound on a keen scent. With his head well forward, he crept up the carpeted stairway. The upper hall light was burning low; from his wife’s “sewing room,” as it was called, came the sound of voices. The door was ajar, and from the crevice a strong light flooded out into the twilight of the hall. Now entirely mad with jealousy, he softly glided toward the crack, but before his eyes could further feed his torture, his ears served up a plenitude, in Helen’s voice—that dear, clear, sweet voice that had sung his child to sleep and—— “Mr. Stillingfleet—my dear Mr. Stillingfleet, if I may be allowed the liberty——” “My dearest creature,” interrupted a deep voice, muffled, almost as if by intent disguised, “if it be a liberty to call me dear, I find myself craving the instant fall of kingdoms.” “La, sir, you confuse me quite!” There was a rustle of silken skirts and Helen laughed again. Peering cautiously in, this sight met Robert’s bloodshot eyes: Helen—or at least the fantastic figure which had her voice—stood by the mantelpiece. The hair was high-rolled and powdered, in it two nodding white plumes; she wore a yellow brocade gown strangely cut, long black mitts on her hands, which waved a huge fan coquettishly at a man—a creature in the costume of Goldsmith’s day—who stood near her, bowing low. On his head was a wig, powdered and in queue, his face a mask of paint and powder and patches. He was clad in a huge waistcoat, long coat, knee breeches and hose—blue hose—upon his comely legs! Putting out his hand toward Helen’s, he said with sickening affectation, seizing her hand and raising it to his lips: “It’s high time we were off to Montague’s, my fair H. P. ‘Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites!’” For an instant a very ancient and honorable desire to enter that room and violently change the face of several things dominated the listening husband; that he did not marked the high tide of his nervous breakdown. A sudden reaction, common to the neurasthenic, swept over him, and his soul withdrew in anguish from the sickening horror of the discovery. He crept softly down the stairs, seized hat and coat and staggered out into the night. It was five days before Benjamin Bentnor’s best detective work succeeded in finding his brother-in-law in a hall bedroom at an obscure hotel in Washington, for a strong impulse of duty to be performed had landed Robert there, although he had completely lost sight of his mission. When Ben found him, he was seated on the edge of the bed, his head bowed in his hands. Bentnor’s gentleness toward him would have shown a saner man that his condition was serious; but it took a physician to do that in the end, and a year of rest and travel to cure him. At first, however, all Bentnor could do was to sit about rather helplessly and chatter in an effort to break through Robert’s gloom. The second day after he found his brother-in-law, To be sure it was Helen’s secret, but surely she would not object to anything which might serve to arouse her poor husband’s interest, however slightly, and bring him to the point of consenting to return to his home. Bentnor was short, stout, slightly bald, and somehow radiated comfort, even while sitting astride of a cane-bottomed chair, and smoking another man’s brand of cigarettes, in a one-windowed room nine feet by ten and a half. “Helen Bentnor Penn’s a great girl, isn’t she, Rob?” No response came from the huddled figure on the bed. “Of course, all the Bentnors have brains—you must have observed that for yourself; but she’s the first literary genius among us, although I’ve always felt that all I needed was leisure—however, that’s neither here nor there. Helen has arrived, and shall have the honor. Why, the editor who accepted that clever little lever de rideau of hers and brings it out in this month’s issue of his magazine, was downright enthusiastic—can you imagine an editor having any enthusiasm left in him, Penn? I can’t, for one. Must have a magnificent flow of gastric juice! However that may be, this chap has taken Helen up con amore, and written advice as to some changes, and given her interviews and all that. Most amateurs have to have several ‘fittings,’ I suppose. And then the check he sent her—by Jove, even I was surprised!” Robert looked up for the first time, and turned a haggard face, blank with wonder, toward his wife’s brother. Ben laughed. “Well, I suppose it is a bit of a shock to a man to find that his wife’s brains have a market value.” He was greatly encouraged by Penn’s aroused interest and hurried on with his tale: “It strikes me I oughtn’t to be telling you this, Rob, for it was Helen’s birthday surprise for you. She’s been in an ecstasy over it for about eight weeks. Don’t you tell her I’ve told you! Promise!” “Trust me,” murmured Penn, and a smile twitched at his face. “Such plottings and plans and secrecy! I’ve been in it up to the neck from the first. On your birthday—somehow she’s in love with you yet, Penn—Lord, how does a man do that?—for breakfast she was to show you the magazine within whose fold is to be found her first literary lambkin; for luncheon—for you were to spend the day at home—she was going to give you the check! Generous little beggar, Nell! She said she had never been able to really give you anything before—she had only bought with your money and forced upon you things you didn’t want. Then that night after dinner she and I were to act her two-part play—we’ve been at it for weeks, tooth and nail, powder and patches——” “You and Helen!” gasped Robert. “Great Scott! who on earth else?—the editor?” laughed Bentnor, little dreaming what the few words meant to the distraught man before him. “Perhaps you think I can’t do that sort of thing! It’s in our blood, the love of the buskin. The fact is, I’ve always had my suspicions that in the time of Charles the Second—well, never mind. We had our last final farewell dress rehearsal the night you came on here. I tell you I’m great in it. Helen, to be sure, does fairly well as Hester Piozzi, but wait till you see me as Mr. Stillingfleet! You know he was the fellow whose grayish-blue stockings gave the name for all time to ‘blue-stocking’ clubs. He and Dr. Johnson were always buzzing around the literary women of that day, the pretty D’Arblay, the dignified Mistress Montague of Portman Square, and the great Piozzi herself—of course, you remember?” “Yes, I remember,” whispered Robert, his face once more hidden, but a great peace possessing him. “Ben,” he cried, almost joyfully, “what’s the title of Helen’s play?” “Bas Bleu,” said Bentnor, concealing his triumph at his own tactics in the lighting of his twenty-third cigarette. Then the thought of his home came to him like distant music. He saw himself opening his door; he saw a small ball of white coming down the stairs backward in a terrifying fury of speed, the little, fat, half-bare legs and a swirl of tiny skirts all that was visible of his wee daughter coming to greet him. He saw himself catch her off the last step and lift her in his arms, burying his face against the baby’s hot, panting little body, then he heard Helen’s voice and the sound of her scurrying feet! Robert sprang up, and with a burst of wild laughter, shouted: “Ben, let’s go home! I believe you’re dead right—I’ve got nervous prostration, and I’ve got it bad!” |
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