"It will probably only ruin your evening."

"Help yourself. I'd rather have you wreck all my evenings than--than--"

He had begun well, which was more than usual. She did not expect him to finish. She thanked him with a look of more than grat.i.tude.

"Jim," she said, "I've found out that my husband is--well--there's a certain ex-dancer named L'Etoile, and he--she--they--"

Instead of being astounded, Dyckman was glum.

"Oh, you've found that out at last, have you? Maybe you'll learn before long that there's trouble in France. But of course you know that. You were over there. Why, before you came back he was dragging that animal around with him. I saw him with her."

"You knew it as long ago as that?"

"Everybody knew it."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I'm a low-lived coward, I suppose. I tried to a dozen times, but somehow I couldn't. By gad! I came near writing you an anonymous letter. I couldn't seem to stoop to that, though, and I couldn't seem to rise to telling you out and out. And now that you know, what are you going to do about it?"

"That's what I don't know. Doctor Mosely wanted me to try to get him back."

"Doctor Mosely's got softening of the brain. To think of your trying to persuade a man to live with you! You of all people, and him of all people! Agh! If you got him, what would you have? And how long would you keep him? You can't make a household pet out of a laughing hyena. Chuck him, I say."

"But that means the divorce-court, Jim."

"What of it? It's cleaner and sweeter than this arrangement."

"But the newspapers?"

"Ah, what do you care about them? They'd only publish what everybody that knows you knows already. And what's the diff' if a lot of strangers find out that you're too decent to tolerate that man's behavior?

Somebody is always roasting even the President, but he gets along somehow. A lot of good people oppose divorce, but I was reading that the best people used to oppose anesthetics and education and republics. It's absolutely no argument against a thing to say that a lot of the best people think it is outrageous. They've always fought everything, especially freedom for the women. They said it was dangerous for you to select your husbands, or manage your property, or learn to read, or go out to work, or vote, or be in a profession--or even be a war nurse. The hatred of divorce is all of a piece with the same old habit good people have of trying to mind other people's business for 'em."

"But Doctor Mosely says that marriage is a sacrament."

"Well, if a marriage like yours is a sacrament, give me a nice, decent white-slave market."

"That's the way it seems to me, but the Church, especially our Church, is so ferocious. Doctor Mosely preached a sermon against divorce and remarriage, and it was frightful what he said about women who change husbands. I'm afraid of it, Jim. I can't face the abuse and the newspapers, and I can't face the loneliness, either. I'm desperately lonely."

"For him?" Jim groaned.

"No, I've got over loving him. I'll never endure him again, especially now that she has a better right to him."

She could not bring herself at first to tell him what she knew of Zada, but at length she confessed that she had listened to the dictagraph and had heard that Zada was to be a mother. Dyckman was dumfounded; then he snarled:

"Thank G.o.d it's not you that's going to be--for him--Well, don't you call that divorce enough? How can you call your marriage a sacrament when he has gone and made a real sacrament with another woman? It takes two to keep a sacrament, doesn't it? Or does it? I don't think I know what a sacrament is. But I tell you, there was never a plainer duty in the world. Turn him over to his Zada. She's the worst woman in town, and she's too good for him, at that. I don't see how you can hesitate! How long can you stand it?"

"I don't know. I'm ready to die now. I'd rather die. I'd better die."

And once more she was weeping, now merely a lonely little girl. He could not resist the impulse to go to her side. He dropped down by her and patted her wrist gawkily. She caught his hand and clenched it with strange power. He could tell by her throat that her heart was leaping like a wild bird against a cage.

His own heart beat about his breast like a bird that has been set frantic by another bird, and his soul ached for her. He yearned to put his long arm about her and hold her tight, but he could not.

He had never seen her so. He could not understand what it was that made a darkling mist of her eyes and gave her parted lips such an impatient ecstasy of pain.

Suddenly, with an intuition unusual to him, he understood. He shrank from her, but not with contempt or blame. There was something divine about his merciful comprehension, but his only human response was a most unG.o.dly wrath. He got to his feet, muttering:

"I ought to kill him. Maybe I will. I've got to beat him within an inch of his life."

Charity was dazed by his abrupt revolt. "What do you mean, Jim? Who is it you want to beat?"

He laughed, a bloodthirsty laugh. "I'll find him!"

He rushed out into the hall, caught up his hat and coat, and was gone.

Charity was bewildered out of her wits. She could not imagine what had maddened him. She only knew that Dyckman also had abandoned her. He would find Cheever and fight him as one stag another. And the only result would be the death of one or both and a far more odious disgrace than the scandal she had determined to avoid.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

Dyckman was at least half mad, and half inspired. Charity had been his lifelong religion. He had thought of her with ardor, but also with a kind of awe. He had wanted to be her husband. Failing to win her, he had been horrified to see that Cheever, possessing her, was still not satisfied.

He had never dreamed what this neglect might mean to her. He had not thought of her as mere woman, after all, with more than pride to satisfy, with more than a mind to suffer. When the realization overwhelmed him her n.o.bility was not diminished in his eyes, but to all her former qualities was added the human element. She was flesh and blood, and a martyr in the flames. And the ingrate who had the G.o.dlike privilege of her embrace abandoned her for a public creature.

Dyckman felt himself summoned to avenge her.

It happened that he found the Cheever limousine waiting outside. He said to the chauffeur:

"Where does Miss Zada L'Etoile live?"

The chauffeur was startled. He answered, with a touch of raillery:

"Search me, sir. How should I know?"

"I want none of your back talk," said Dyckman, ready to maul the chauffeur or anybody for practice. He took out his pocket-book and lifted the first bill he came to. It was a yellow boy. He repeated, "Where does Zada L'Etoile live?"

The chauffeur told him and got the bill. It was better than the poke in the eye he could have had instead.

Dyckman had sent his own car home. He had difficulty in finding a taxicab on Fifth Avenue along there. At length he stopped one and named the apartment-house where Zada lived.

The hall-boy was startled by his manner, amazed to hear the famous Dyckman ask for Miss L'Etoile. He telephoned the name while Dyckman fumed. After some delay he was told to come up.

Zada was alone--at least Cheever was not there. She had been astounded when Dyckman's name came through the telephone. Her first thought had been that Cheever had met with an accident and that Dyckman was bringing the news. She had given up the hope of involving Dyckman with Mrs.

Cheever, after wasting Cheever's money on vain detectives.

When Dyckman was ushered in she greeted him from her divan.

"Pardon my negligee," she said. "I'm not very well."