Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

The awful collapse of this cherished structure, her spiritual house, under her hopeless and violent passion for Dwight Rush had almost demoralised her. After she had won herself to reason once more, she still had sat, stunned, among the ruins. It was true that Rush was all that she had demanded of man and that he emanated a promise of happiness along strictly modern lines—which was all she asked, being no romantic fool; but not only had she loved him unasked, sacrificing the first and perhaps the dearest of her dreams, to be wooed and awakened and surprised, but, accepting the inevitable (the man being overburdened, like most busy young Americans, and unselfconscious), she deliberately had set herself to awaken him—and for nought. For worse than nought: he had instantly taken fright and withdrawn.

Of the terrific upheaval of that time, like some graveyard of the sea flung putrid and phosphorescent to the surface by submarine vulcanism, she had ceased to think as soon as her will was reinstated in command. Immediately she had striven to rebuild her house lest she be swamped in mere femaleness, so permanently demoralised that life would be quite unendurable. She had cultivated the heights too long. She might tumble off occasionally, but in no other atmosphere could she breathe deeply and realise herself, find any measure of content. It had occurred to her that if she had been born in the gutter and grown to adolescence with no ennobling influence, she would have developed into a notable force for evil. At all events, she liked to think so; many women of stainless lives do.

She guessed this, having a saving sense of humour, but did not expand upon it, not being inclined to humour at the moment. Accompanying her resolution to be finer and better than ever, to fortify herself against life with some degree of satisfaction in herself, was the hope of complete deliverance from what she called the Dwight Rush Idea. In due course she had conquered the obsession, for pride and self-disgust served her like first-aid surgeons on the battlefield; and although she felt amputated and scarred, she had lost her sense of humiliation. But her heart still accelerated its beats when she met Rush, and no will is strong enough to prevent the recurrence of the mental image; only time can dim it. But it was not until Broderick had left her alone in her studio with the poisons of fear and jealousy implanted that she had admitted she still loved him, probably must continue to love him for years to come.

In that hour she had hated Mrs. Balfame, although she neither believed her guilty nor was tempted to the dastardly course of helping to force the appearance of guilt upon her. And for a time that night she had hoped she hated Dwight Rush also, so utterly disgusted and indignant was she that he could prefer a faded woman of forty-odd to a unique and beautiful girl like herself.

But once more Miss Crumley's sense of proportion enforced itself, and she reflected sternly that men had fallen in love with women older than themselves since the world began, and that some of those transcendent—and lasting—passions had made history. She was no green village girl to be astounded at the least common phase of the sexual adventure. It was then she had given way to tears, for although she might be intelligent enough to admit this most unpardonable of nature's informalities, she could regret it with bitterness and despair.

Later had come her fear for Rush's safety. Not for a moment did she suspect him of the crime, but if accused of it during the process of elimination, there was the appalling doubt that he could prove an alibi. As likely as not he had missed his man in Brooklyn—she knew that he had expected to dine and spend the evening at the Country Club—or had not gone there; knowing Balfame's ugly temper when drunk, what more natural than that he should hide in the grounds to be near at hand in case the man were disposed to wreak vengeance on his wife for his own humiliation. It was Alys's theory that the murder was political.

Until to-day! From the moment that she saw Mrs. Balfame empty and rinse the vial, she was convinced that Broderick was right in his deductions and that for some reason the terrible woman had changed her mind and used the revolver. It was a stupider act than she would have expected of Mrs. Balfame, for Dave was a man whose sudden death would excite little suspicion, nor would Mrs. Balfame be the woman to use a common poison. Her intimacy with Dr. Anna would put her on the track of one of those organic potions that were too subtle for chemical analysis. She had heard doctors talk of them herself.

Then abruptly she recalled the sinister change in Mrs. Balfame's smiling countenance on that day she sketched her at the Friday Club; her mind opened and closed on the conviction that in that moment Mrs. Balfame had conceived the purpose of murder.

But why the change of method? She dismissed the riddle. It was not for her to unravel. Nor did she care. The fact was enough. This good friend of her family was an abominable creature from whom in even mental contact she shuddered away with a spasm of spiritual nausea.