His Second Wife

by Ernest Poole

In the other room Joe was at his piano, and the music he was playing had nothing to do with—any one else. She did not say, "with Amy." She frowned a little and cut herself short, as she so often did in her thinking, these days, when it touched upon her sister. She could feel Amy here at so many points, and she did not want to be jealous.

"I wonder where we're going tonight."

What was it Joe was playing? Music she had heard before. She did not like to ask him and so betray her ignorance. "I ought to know this! What is it?" she asked herself impatiently. "Why, of course! It's from 'Bohême'!" She smiled as she felt he was playing to her. With the thrill now so familiar, she felt her power over him. She remembered little tussles in which she had been victorious. They had all been over his business. Joe, the poor darling, had formed the idea (she did not say from his first wife) that if a man is in love with a woman he must express it by loading her down with things which cost a lot of money, that he must work for her, slave for her! But Ethel was putting an end to that. They had taken back Susette's old nurse, for it was unfair to one's husband to be a child's slave if there was no need. But she had refused to get other servants. Emily Giles was still in charge, and though Emily of her own accord had gone to a shop on Fifth Avenue and purchased caps and aprons, "the nattiest things this side of France," she wore them with a genial air and spoke of them as "my uniform." Ethel took care of her own room and helped Emily with the cleaning. She had kept expenses firmly down, and she had refused to be loaded with gifts. When Joe had urged that his affairs were going so much better now, she had said in her new decisive voice:

"I'm so glad to hear it, my love, for it simply means you've no earthly excuse for staying late at your office. I don't mean I want you to loaf, you know," she had gone on more earnestly. "I want you to work and do, oh, so much, all the things you dreamed of doing—over there in Paris. But I'm not going to have you make your business a mere rush for a lot of money we don't need!" She had gone to him suddenly. "And just now I want you so."

By these talks she had already worked a change. No more hasty breakfasts to let him be off by eight o'clock. They had breakfasted later and later each day; she had made an affair of breakfast. And as at last he kissed her and tore himself away from his home, she had smiled to herself delightedly at the guilty look in his eyes. This kind of thing would cause a decided coolness, no doubt, between Joe and his partner. So much the better, she had thought, for she detested that man Nourse, and in his case she could quite openly admit, "I'm jealous of you and your business devotion! Your time is coming soon, friend Bill!" The office was half way uptown, and several times in the last few weeks she had gone there for Joe at five o'clock, and once at four-thirty, as though by appointment. She chuckled now as she recalled the black look of his partner that day. Yes, four-thirty had been a blow!

"Where are we going this evening?"

It was delightful to be so free, she told herself repeatedly. Friends? They didn't need any friends. For the present they had each other—enough! "Yes, and for some time to come!" But there always came to her a little qualm of uneasiness when her thinking reached this point. How were friends to be found in this city?

"Oh, later—later—later!"

And rising impatiently with a shrug, she went into the nursery. The nurse had been so glad to get back that most of her old hostility toward Ethel had vanished. Still there were signs now and then of a sneer which said, "You'll soon be paying no more attention to this poor bairn than her mother did before you." And it was as well to show the woman how blind and ignorant she was—to make her see the difference.

"Bohême" was the surprise that night. It was Ethel's first night at the opera. And looking up at the boxes, at the women she had read about, the gorgeous gowns and the jewels they wore, and watching them laugh and chatter; or looking far above them to the dim tiers of galleries reaching up into the dark; or again with eyes glued on the stage feasting upon Paris, art, "Bohemia," youth and romance; squeezing her companion's hand and in flashes recollecting dazzling little incidents of the fortnight just gone by—her mind went roving into the future, finding friends and wide rich lives shimmering and sparkling like the sunlight on the sea. As that Italian music rose, all at once she wanted to give herself, "To give and give and give him all!" The tears welled up in her happy eyes.