He walked on the grass, so that his footsteps made no sound. He was a stalwart man, tall and of soldierly bearing, with a handsome, heavy face and dark hair a little gray on the temples. He was a domineering, headstrong, passionate man, and terribly unhappy. He wanted to be angry, but it was unhappiness that filled him—a queer, pathetic sort of bewilderment.
“By God, it’s not fair! It’s not fair!” he said to himself over and over again.
That was the way he saw it—it was not fair that he should be hurt like this. He never once looked for a cause, for any fault in himself, or for any general rule to apply. It simply was not fair that this should happen to him.
He had been away, in Chicago, looking after some business affairs, making more money—for her to spend, of course; and then this letter came. What if it was anonymous, what if it was written in savage malice? He had a pretty fair idea as to who had written it, and why. Serena had enemies. He had listened to innuendo before; and now he was going to know.
The front of the house was deserted, and he went round to the side, where the dining room was. Just as he turned the corner, he saw some one come out through one of the French windows. He stopped, and drew back into the shadow of the wall. It was a man, and he fancied he recognized that slender and vigorous figure. He waited and watched.
The other man stopped to light a cigarette, but his back was toward the house. Then he strolled on leisurely toward the garage. Page followed him a little way, but when the other entered the brightly lit building, he was satisfied. It was young Randall.
That was all he needed to know. He went back to the front of the house and entered there. It was his own house, but the servants—a new crew—did not know him. The butler tried to stop him, but he pushed the anxious little man aside, and proceeded to the dining room.
They were there, the whole crowd of them, sitting about the disordered table, jaded and hot, and full of a restless languor. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. A little blue-eyed man with a gray mustache was performing an elaborate conjuring trick with match sticks and somebody’s gold watch, and Serena lay back in her chair, looking at him with a distant smile. Her haggard face was flushed, her eyes heavy. Jesse Page thought he had never seen her more beautiful, or more hateful.
“By God, it’s not fair!” he thought again. “I’ve given her everything, I’ve put up with all her whims, and now I—I could kill her!”
It was as if his thought had sped through the room like an arrow. Serena straightened up in her chair, turned her head, and saw him standing in the doorway.