“She looks like a jade; probably is one,” his wife announced, with one appraising look.
“Fellow with her is all in then—head down, knees sprung, tail drooping. He’s come a cropper and knows it. Look at him, Lily.”
The old Lily looked at the man before the “jade” indifferently, then passed the look on to the service door from whence cometh, or should come, the next course of this very good dinner. “Henry, you are a born scandalmonger,” she said reproachfully.
“No, it’s an acquired taste, but I have it; and if ever I saw a fine scene in a matrimonial melodrama, I’ve just witnessed one. Pale lady’s the wife, t’other one’s the gallant gal bandit, and the man’s the victim,” he snickered.
Before these guests had finished dining, Helen Cutter had left the Inn.
A week later Charlotte received a wire from her mistress, instructing her to send Buck with the car to Atlanta in time to meet a certain train at the Terminal Station on a certain day. This message was sent from Baltimore, which had not been Mrs. Cutter’s destination when she left home, Charlotte observed with a sniff. She did not like Mrs. Cutter’s ways, referring to this tendency she had of flying about the world alone when she had a perfectly good maid, who had expected to accompany her. And she did not like the company she kept, referring to Shippen who was the only visitor she had received. And what was more to the point, she had no idea of being buried alive in this little speck of a town. Therefore she meant to go back to Atlanta in the car, and stay there—strong emphasis on the last two words.
It was known in Shannon that “Helen Cutter had gone again.” But as late as the third week in April, no one knew that she had returned. There was a rumor current that probably she would not come back, since she must have realized that everybody knew what had happened.
Then Mrs. Flitch, who was out selling Liberty Bonds one afternoon, passed the Cutter place and beheld a baby carriage on the lawn! Not only that, but the carriage was obviously occupied, because Maria, togged out in a nurse’s cap and apron, was rolling it back and forth along the driveway. Mrs. Flitch said later that you could have “knocked her down with a feather,” but she decided no matter what kind of woman Helen Cutter was, it was no more than right that she should be called upon to buy these bonds. Therefore she turned in and walked briskly up the drive, meeting Maria directly front of the house.
“Is Mrs. Cutter at home?” she asked, ignoring the old woman’s occupation.
“No’m, she ain’t here; she’s gone to git a goat,” Maria answered.