"I may have been wrong about it, Joe, but I thought the best way to bring you back to all the things you used to love was to let you think you were doing it. So I let you and Dwight come together alone. I kept in the background, as I did about getting you into that club of yours. I was afraid to show my hand." On and on she talked to him. Oh, how simple and convincing, strong, and sensible and true. "Why didn't you say it, you little fool? You acted just like a scared young girl found out in doing something wrong!" She was ready to cry, but checked herself. "At least don't be a baby now. What are you to do about it?" She bit her lip. Now it was too late. She had made it worse—a hundred times! All at once she rose and began to walk. "Oh, rubbish!" she thought, impatiently. "You're not to give up, when everything else in your whole life was going so perfectly splendidly! . . . Why, of course. That's it. I'll call up Nourse, and have him come and explain to Joe how I went to him at the very start."
With a swift feeling of relief Ethel went to the telephone.
"Mr. Nourse is out of town."
"Oh, yes. Thank you. I'd forgotten. When do you expect him back?"
"Not until the end of the week."
As Ethel hung up the receiver she felt a little faint and queer. When Joe came back this evening she would have to face him alone! In vain she angrily told herself that it only needed common sense. The picture of his tired face, nerves all on edge, rose in her mind. The way his jealousy had flared up! No, it would not be easy! She might even—fail with him! At the thought, a foolish panic came. More walking was required. . . . She heard Susette beginning her supper, and she went in and sat with the child. And at first that worked out very well. Soon she was smiling and listening to the ceaseless chatter of the small girl. But suddenly Ethel exclaimed to herself, "Suppose I do fail, after all! If there's a divorce he'll take them both!" She jumped up in a frightened way, and went into her bedroom. She threw herself sobbing on the bed—but in a few minutes regained control with an effort and lay there motionless. The tangle was growing clearer now.
The very best she could hope was to make Joe half believe her, she thought. And that would mean she would have to drop Dwight and all chance of meeting those people he knew. She would live with a Joe so suspicious that she would be under his friend, Fanny Carr. "She'll be my friend, and bring me in touch with whatever other people she likes. I'll have to be nice to them—every one. And I'll live her life. Amy's life." She looked at the large photograph over on Joe's chiffonier. "Perhaps after all I shall be like her. How do I know what she was at my age? As I grow older, all hemmed in, why not stop caring for anything else?
"Oh, now do let's be sensible!" With an impatient movement of her lithe beautiful figure Ethel was up off the bed and walking the room with grim resolution in her brown eyes. Soon she was much quieter. She felt the warm youth within her rise. There must be a way! So far, so good. But the moment she tried to think what way, again at once she was off her ground. What could she do or say to Joe? Her failure to manage him that afternoon had shaken her confidence in herself. Ethel was only twenty-five, and now she felt even younger than that. All at once in a sickening way her courage oozed; she felt herself ignorant and alone. Why did not Joe come back, she asked. Was he going to stay away all night? And if he did, what would it mean? She remembered what he had said when he left: "Then you and I are through, you know." All right, then what was he going to do! "I don't even know how a man goes about it, if he wants to get a divorce!" And panic seized her as before. "I can't do this all by myself! I can't talk to him as I've got to talk—not till I know just what to say! I bungled it so! I need sound advice! Oh, for somebody to help me!" She thought of Dwight, but she would not go near him! She loathed the very sight of him now! Why had not he told her of those other affairs of his that could rise in this way against herself? Why had he allowed her to do those few little daring things, which looked so cheap and disgusting in the detective's typed report? And besides, if she did want to see him, could she, without being watched by some wretched detective? For the whole town seemed bristling with detectives and police. And the city of New York felt cold. As she lay on her bed, a sudden gay laugh from a neighbouring window recalled to her mind that night long ago, her first in New York, when she had listened excitedly and thought of all the stories here, both sad and comic.
"Well, I'm a story now," she thought. "And I suppose I'm comic!" The angry tears rose in her eyes. Oh, for a real friend! There was Emily Giles, of course, but this was Emily's night out; and besides, in matters of this kind she would be worse than useless. "What I need is a woman who knows this town—and all its ways—and what to do!" As the evening drew on and still Joe did not come, again and again she felt ready to scream. And though she savagely held herself in, each time was harder than the last.
"Something has simply got to be done!" she told herself after one outbreak like that. Then all at once came the recollection of young Mrs. Grewe downstairs. "I must have some one or I'll go mad!" And she hurried to the telephone. But in the hall she stopped and frowned. "No, I won't call her up," she thought. "That inquisitive telephone girl downstairs would begin to gossip about it at once." For the same reason Ethel did not take the elevator. She ran quickly down two flights and rang at Mrs. Grewe's door. There was silence. She waited some moments, then rang again. "Oh, she's out—I know she is!" The thought brought a sickening empty feeling. She would have to face this night alone!