"I had arranged to meet her at luncheon the next day," she continued hastily. "We have been friends ever since."
"You went to luncheon with her, and—" Constance prompted.
"Oh, she told me her story. It was very much like my own—a husband who was a perfect bear, and then gossip about him that so many people, besides his own wife, seemed to know, and—"
Constance shook her head. "Really," she observed thoughtfully, "it's a wonder to me how any one stays married these days. Somebody is always mixing in, getting one or the other so wrought up that they get to thinking there is no possibility of happiness. That's where the crook detective comes in."
Anita Douglas, confidence established now, poured out her story unreservedly, as there was little reason why she should not, a story of the refined brutality and neglect and inhumanity of her husband.
She told of her own first suspicions of him, of a girl who had been his stenographer, a Miss Helen Brett.
But he was careful. There had never been any direct, positive evidence against him. Still, there was enough to warrant a separation and the payment to her of an allowance.
They had lived, she said, in a pretty little house in the suburb of Glenclair, near New York. Now that they were separated, she had taken a little kitchenette apartment at the new Melcombe. Her husband was living in the house, she believed, when he was not in the city at his club, "or elsewhere," she added bitterly.
"But," she confided as she finished, "it is very lonely here in a big city all alone."
"I know it is," agreed Constance sympathetically as they parted. "I, too, am often very lonely. Call on me, especially if you find anything crooked going on. Call on me, anyhow. I shall be glad to see you any time."