CHAPTER XX. A CROP O’ KISSES.
It was six o’clock, and the lowering sun had singed the western sky with a scallop of faded brown.
April, with her wreathed crook, was leading her glad flock about the hem of the city’s skirt, winding a golden mist away into the country’s lushways. Nature’s voice sounded: “Oh heart, your winter’s past.”
But it was not true with Cherokee, as she sat by the window waiting for her husband. The room was quite still; she was only half admitting to herself that it had come—the divide; in her hand she held a dainty pair of white gloves; in one of the fingers there was a crumpled paper—a note, maybe—but this she did not know, though what husband would believe it?
Presently he came in, and she greeted him as usual, though he had been cross that morning.
“I can’t imagine why I am so tired all the time, it seems I do very little,” he said, as he dropped wearily down on a couch near by.
“It is not so wonderful to me that you are tired, you are overworked,” she said, sitting beside him, “once in a while you should call a halt.”
“I mean to sometime, but not yet, I cannot stop yet.”
“Have you secured your model for the Athlete?”
“Not yet, they are hard to find. I must have a man with solid and graceful curves of beauty and strength, and they are not picked up every day. Few men are of perfect build.”
“Mr. Latham has a fine physique, why don’t you get him?”
“What an idea! Do you suppose for a moment that a man of his means would hire himself out by the hour for such a price as I could afford to pay? Don’t let me hear you speak of it again, he would positively be insulted.”
Presently Robert’s eyes were attracted toward the floor:
“What is that?” he asked, pointing to a white something.
“I did not know I dropped them,” and she sprang hastily, as if to conceal what it was.
“Bring it to me. What is it?”
She bowed her head low and made no answer.
“Look here, Cherokee, I will see what it is,” and he laid his hand on her arm.
She raised her eyes to him and began bravely enough:
“Robert, it is best that you do not see——”
“What, you refuse? It is not necessary for my wife to keep anything from me.”
“Even if it could only annoy you?”
“Yes, if it half killed me, I would insist upon knowing.”
“I don’t mean that you ought not, that I—Oh!”
“Come, Cherokee, don’t get so confused, you can’t make a success of deceiving me. I presume I know it anyway. Anna said you had received flowers last night from Frost—I guess that is the love letter that came with them.”
Suddenly her gentle eyes looked startled; she was humiliated.
“I would not have believed that you would question the maid about the conduct of your wife.”
He watched her for a moment in troubled silence, but did not speak.
“Robert, do you think this is a manly, honorable way to act?”
“It is—is what you deserve,” he answered coldly.
“You are mistaken; while Anna Zerner was making her report, did she inform you that I returned Mr. Frost’s flowers?”
“No. She did not tell me that; I supposed you kept them.”
He looked at her squarely.
“Nothing has ever shaken my faith in you, Cherokee, until now, and this I must and will understand. Take your choice between force and persuasion.”
A deep wave of self-conscious color rushed over her face; suddenly she grew very pale, and her whole attitude toward him stiffened.
She laid the little white gloves in his hands, saying:
“I did not care to worry or accuse you.”
He shrank back, and they eyed each other fixedly.
“I call this a mean, contemptible trick,” he said, bitterly, “and now what are you going to do about it?”
“I have done all I intend to do,” she said, calmly.
“And pray what’s that?”
“Mended a rent in the fore-finger.”
Robert felt abashed at this, though there were still some ugly lines between his brows.
“Let’s kiss and make up,” he said, and as she wound her arms about him, his whole manner changed, softened into melting.
“I did not read the note in the glove, if you believe me.”
“I do believe you, for it was not a note, but a programme of ‘Ogallalahs’;” then he laughed. “And the gloves belong to Marrion’s sweetheart; he left them at the studio and I just——”
“Oh! that will do,” she said merrily, as she supplemented his explanation with kisses.