The woman hesitated, gave her mistress a fluttering glance as if some sort of gibbering, peeping thought had suddenly popped up in her mind. “This is not Mr. Arnold,” she said. “I think he is a stranger. Shall I tell him you are not at home?”
“I will see him; but hereafter, Charlotte, I am not at home to any one who does not give his name.”
“Yes, Mrs. Cutter,” Charlotte answered meekly, closing the door behind her. Then she glanced again at the crumpled bill she held in her hand, thrust it into her pocket, wrinkled her nose, sniffed and discreetly disappeared.
Helen stood for a moment with her back to the mirror, as we all do sometimes when we cannot bear to read in our own faces the fear we have in our hearts. Since that night six months ago, when Cutter had left her, she had received no word from him. She had sternly repressed every thought of him. But never for a day had she been free from the vague fear that he might return. She no longer loved him; she despised him. Yet the old habit of submission—if he should return, how could she find the courage to send him away, if he asserted his claim upon her as his wife? She must do it. Her plans were made for a different life altogether. But suppose now, when she was on the point of realizing her dearest hope, this man waiting for her in the parlor should be her husband?
She came slowly into the hall and advanced toward the open door of the parlor. Reproaches, words inconceivable to her until this moment, trembled upon her lips. This was her house; she had built it for her own peace and happiness. She would not share it, not for the space of a breath, with a man so depraved that he could betray his own wife, abandon her—and so on and so forth as she advanced, halted, and finally came steadily up the long hall, pale with fury, eyes blazing blue flames, convinced by her own fears that this man was Cutter. She was ready to deal with him according to the natural vocabulary of an outraged woman.
For the gentlest woman, wronged, may suddenly change into a virago after you have made sure that she will endure anything. But if she ever breaks, it is like any other form of hysteria, incurable. She will be subject to verbal frenzies upon the slightest provocation so long as she lives.
For one instant Helen stood upon the threshold of her parlor, speechless with amazement. Shaded lights cast a soft glow from above over the room, where the faintest outline of castles showed between shadowy trees in the wall paper. And tufted, spindle-legged chairs, covered with blue-and-golden brocades, flashed like spots of sunlight in the pale gray gloom.
The visitor was undoubtedly enjoying these effects. He sat, the elegant figure of a man, on the sofa beyond the circle of light cast from the reading lamp behind him. His knees were crossed. He was working one foot musingly after the manner of a man pleased with his reflections. And he was smiling—not a smile you could possibly understand, unless you are familiar with the outlaw mind of certain rich men. But, in case you are scandalously psychic, you might have inferred that he was smiling at these dim castles in Helen’s wall paper as a prospective tourist in the romantic lands, where passing rivers sing to these castles and where scenes, centuries old, are laid for lovers.
He was so much absorbed in whatever he was trailing with his thoughts that he had not seen Helen when she appeared in the doorway, but almost at once some sense warned him of her presence.
His startled glance caught her. He was on his feet at once. “Oh, Mrs. Cutter! This is indeed good of you. I was afraid you would not see me,” he exclaimed, hurrying to meet her.