Half an hour later when she came out to her car, a cold rain was beginning. She saw Mrs. Shaw approaching with no umbrella to protect her new spring hat. She waited, meaning to pick her up and take her wherever she should be going. But when she hailed her, this lady affected not to understand. She bowed coldly with the rain in her face and said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cutter,” although she had always called her “Helen,” and passed on.
It is depressing to find yourself suddenly outlawed by the people whom you have always known. Helen was never popular in Shannon. Unhappy people rarely ever are. They have so little to contribute to the common fund of human animation. But she had a certain standing in the good will of her neighbors.
It was not until she reached the bank that the explanation of what was going on really dawned upon her. She had known that it must come, this news of her abandonment by her husband, but she had not expected it to fall upon her like a curse.
Arnold, who occupied the chair at the president’s desk inside the doorway of the bank, having resumed this custom of the elder Cutter, had always risen to meet her when she came in. He would conduct her to the chair near his desk and attend personally to her affairs, if it was no more than the cashing of a check. This morning he was at his desk as usual. So was the extra chair, and nobody in it, but beyond a glance and a bow he took no notice of her. She went on to the cashier’s window and presented a check. She was startled to see him glance at it, then step swiftly back to the bookkeeper and make eye sure of her balance before he cashed it.
She took the bills, thrust under the wicket and stared about her confused. She had lost prestige here. Why? She wondered. She had spent the money left from her mother’s estate on the house, and a few thousands besides. But she was amply supplied with funds. She had never overdrawn her account.
Silly reflections! Childish defense against this financial coldness! If Arnold had known that she still had securities to the amount of considerably more than one hundred thousand dollars in her safety deposit box, his manner would have continued balmy. But he did not know this. He only knew that she was spending a great deal of money. And he had dined with Shippen the previous evening.
Shippen had told him that she was separated from her husband. When he expressed surprise, Shippen expressed regret that he had “let the thing out”; he supposed the facts were already known in Shannon, he said.
Arnold assured him to the contrary. He said that he had had a “hunch,” because he was subject to hunches as a financial man; but he had rather expected Cutter himself to fail. He had never entertained the slightest suspicion of Mrs. Cutter. How long had she been separated from her husband?
Shippen replied that he did not know; but he had thought probably some time before Cutter resigned from the presidency of the Shannon bank and took up his residence in New York.
Arnold said he thought it must have occurred quite recently, because Mrs. Cutter had been with her husband in New York for at least five months. In fact, she had only returned to Shannon late in January.