"Huh!" jeered Balfame, "you two get me home! I'm not so drunk I can't see the joke of that. The matter with you is you think I'm disgracin'

you, and you want to go on bein' the high c.o.c.k-alorum of this bunch.

Well, I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of bein' told to eat out when you're at matinees or that d.a.m.ned Woman's Club. Home's the place for women.

Knittin's all right." He laughed uproariously. "But stay at home by the fire and knit your husband's socks. Smoke a pipe too, if you like it.

That's what my granny did. The whole lot of you women haven't got one good man's brain between you, and yet you'd talk the head off the President of the United States--"

He was about to launch upon his opinion of Elsinore society when a staccato cough interrupted the flow. Mrs. Balfame turned away with a gesture of superb disdain, although her face was livid.

"The s.e.x jealousy we have so often discussed!" Her clear tones from the first had carried all over the room. "He must be taken home." She looked at Dwight Rush and said graciously: "I am sure he will go with you. And he will apologise to the Club when he is himself again. I shall go back to our game."

She held her head very high as she swept down the long room, but her jaw was set, her nostrils distended, a narrow strip of eye was fixed and glaring.

An unforeseen situation had blown to flame such fires of anger as existed in her depths, and she was unable to extinguish them as quickly as she would have wished. To the intense surprise of the bridge women who had followed her out of the card-room and in again, she sank into a chair and burst into tears. But she managed to cry quietly into her handkerchief, and in a few moments had her voice under control.

"He has disgraced me!" she exclaimed bitterly. "I must resign from the Club."

"Well, I guess not." The ladies had crowded about her sympathetically.

"We'll all stand up for you," cried Mrs. Battle. "The men will give him a good talking-to, and he'll write an apology to the Club and that will end it."

These friends, old and more recent, were embarra.s.sed in their genuine sympathy, for no one had ever seen Mrs. Balfame in tears before. Vaguely they regretted that, extreme as was the provocation, she should have descended to the level of mere womanhood. It was as if they were present at the opening of a new chapter in the life of Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; as, in truth, they were.

Mrs. Balfame blew her nose. "Pardon me," she said. "I never believed I should break down like this--but--but--" once more she set her teeth and her eyes flashed. "I have a violent headache. I must go home. I cannot finish the game."

"I'll take you home," Dr. Anna spoke. "Oh, that beast!"

The other women kissed Mrs. Balfame, straightened her hat, and escorted her out to the runabout which Dr. Anna brought to the rear entrance of the clubhouse. She smiled wearily at the group, touching her brow with a finger. As soon as the little car had left the grounds and was beyond the reach of peering eyes, she made no further attempt at self-control, but poured forth her inmost soul to the one person she had ever fully trusted. She told the doctor all the secret horror of her life, her hatred and loathing of David Balfame; everything, in short, but her determination to kill him, which in the novel excitement that had invaded her nervous system, she forgot.

Dr. Anna, who had heard many such confessions, but who obstinately had hoped that her friend's case was not as bad as it appeared superficially, was glad that she was not driving a horse; humane as she was, she should have forgotten herself and lashed him to relieve her own feelings.

"You must get a divorce," she said through her teeth. "You really must.

I saw Rush looking at you. There is no mistaking that expression in a man's eyes. You must--you must divorce that brute."

"I'll not!" Mrs. Balfame's composure returned abruptly. "And please forget that I gave way like this and--and said things." She wondered what she really had said. "I know I need not ask you never to mention it. But divorce! Oh, no. If I continue to live with him they'll be sorry for me and stand by me, but if I divorced him--well, I'd just be one more divorced woman and nothing more. Elsinore isn't Newport. Moreover, they'd feel I'd no further need of their sympathy. In time they'd let me pretty well alone."

"I don't think much of your arguments," said Dr. Anna. "You could marry Rush and go to New York."

"But you know I mean what I say. And don't worry, Anna dear." She bent over the astonished doctor and gave her a warm kiss. "And as I'm not demonstrative, you know I mean that too. You are not to worry about me.

I've got the excuse I needed, and I'm going to buy some things at second hand and refurnish one of the old bedrooms and live in it. He can't say a word after this, and he'll be humble enough, for the men will make him apologise to the Club. I'll threaten him with divorce, and that alone will make him behave himself, for it would cost him a good deal more to pay me alimony than to keep the old house going--"

"That isn't an argument that will have much effect on a man, usually in liquor. But women are queer cattle. Divorce is a great and beneficent inst.i.tution, and here you elect to go on living under the same roof with a brute--Oh, well, it's your own funeral. Here we are. I've got to speed up and practise medicine. Am expecting a call from out at Houston's any minute. Baby. Good night."

CHAPTER VI

Mrs. Balfame let herself into the dark house. Sat.u.r.day was Frieda's night out.

Contrary to her economical habit, she lighted up the lower floor recklessly, and opened the windows; she felt an overwhelming desire for light and air. But as she wished to think and plan with her accustomed clarity she went at once to the pantry in search of food; the blood was still in her head.

The morrow would be Sunday, and the Sat.u.r.day luncheon was always composed of the remains of the Friday dinner. On Sat.u.r.day she dined at the Country Club. Therefore Mrs. Balfame found nothing with which to accomplish her deliberate scientific purpose but dry bread and a box of sardines. She was opening this delectable when the front door bell rang.

Her set face relaxed into a frown, but she went briskly to the door. The poison might be transpirable after all, and her alibi must be perfect; she had changed her mind about going to bed with a headache, and at ten o'clock, when she knew that several of her childless friends would be at home, she purposed to call them up and thank them sweetly and cheerfully.

When she saw Dwight Rush on the stoop, however, she almost closed the door in his scowling face.

"Let me in!" he commanded.

"No!" She spoke with sweet severity. "I shall not. After such a scene? I must be more careful than ever. Go right away. I, at least, shall continue to be above reproach."

"Oh!" He swallowed the natural expression of masculine irritation. "If you won't let me in I'll say what I've got to say right here. Will you divorce that brute and marry me? I can get you a divorce on half a dozen grounds."

"I'll have no divorce, now or ever." Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore spoke with haughty finality. "I abominate the word." Then she added graciously: "But don't think I am unappreciative of your kindness. Now you must go away. The Gifnings live on the corner, and they always come home early."

"A good many have left, including Balfame. He spoilt the evening." Rush stared at her and ground his teeth. "By G.o.d! I wish the old duelling days were back again. I'd call him out. If you say the word I'll pick a quarrel with him anyhow. He carries a gun, and there isn't a jury in Brabant County that wouldn't acquit me on the plea of self-defence. My conscience would trouble me no more than if I had shot a mad dog."

Mrs. Balfame gave a little gasp, which he mistook for horror. But temptation had a.s.sailed her. Why not? Her own opportunity might be long in coming. It would be like Dave Balfame to go away and stay for a month. But the temptation pa.s.sed swiftly. Human nature is too complex for any mere mortal to reduce to the rule of three. While she could dispose of her husband without a qualm, her conscience revolted from turning an upright citizen like Dwight Rush into a murderer.

She closed the door abruptly, knowing that no mere verbal refusal to accept such an offer would be adequate, and he went slowly down the steps. But in a moment he ran back and a few feet down the veranda, thrusting his head through one of the open windows.

"Just one minute!"

She was pa.s.sing the parlour door and paused.

"Promise me that if you are in trouble you will send for me. For no one else; no other man, that is, but me. You owe me that much."

"Yes, I promise." She spoke more softly and smiled.

"And close these windows. It is not safe to leave veranda windows open at this hour."

"I intended to close them before going up stairs. But--perhaps you will understand--the house when I came in seemed to reek with tobacco and liquor--with him!"

His reply was inarticulate, but he pulled down the windows violently, and she locked them, smiling once more before she turned out the light.

She returned to the dining-room, thinking upon food with distaste, but determined to eat until her head felt normal. She had no intention of speaking to her husband should he return, for she purposed to sleep on a sofa in the sewing-room and lock the door, but tones and brain must be lightly poised when she telephoned to her friends.

The telephone bell rang. Once more she frowned, but answered the summons as promptly as she had opened the front door. To her amazement she heard her husband's voice.

"Say," it said thickly, "I'm sorry. Promise not to take another drink for a month. Sorry, too, I've got to go to the house for a few minutes.

Didn't intend to go home to-night--thought I'd give you time to get over bein' as mad as I guess you've got a right to be. But I got to go to Albany--politics--got to go to-night--must go home and get my grip.

You--you--wouldn't pack it, would you? Then I needn't stay so long. Only got to sort some papers myself."

Mrs. Balfame replied in the old wifely tones that so often had caused him to grit his teeth: "I never hold a man in your condition responsible for anything. Of course I'll pack your suitcase. What is more, I'll have a gla.s.s of lemonade ready, with aromatic spirits of ammonia in it. You must sober up before you start on a journey."

"That's the ticket. You're a corker! Put in a bromide, too. I'm at Sam's, and I guess I'll walk over--need the air. You just go on bein'

sweet and I'll bring you something pretty from Albany."

"I want one of those new chiffon-velvet bags, and you will please get it in New York," she said practically. "I'll write an exact description of it and put it in the suitcase."