It has been said that neither the woman nor the man alone is the complete human being, but the man and the woman together. This woman, Georgia, who for seven years had been completed by the addition of the masculine element, was now made incomplete. She struggled in vain to find contentment in regular hours, regular sleep, regular work and regular pay.
She had supposed for years that peace and quiet, and enough money, and never the smell of whiskey were all she wanted. And here was her subconsciousness, which she couldn't understand, making her perfectly wretched, though she couldn't tell why; calling insistently for another man, though she didn't in the least realize it. She only knew she was tired of being cooped up in the house evenings; she wanted to get out now and then for a change and to see people who had some ideas.
She went for a Saturday evening supper to the Kaiser Wilhelm Zweite Beer and Music Garden with a school-girl friend and her husband. This pleasure-ground was well north, out of the smoke. The night was soft and the music lovely. She was much entertained by the husband's talk, and considered that she held up her end with him very well.
The next time they invited her she spent some little time before hand, "fixing-up" for the occasion. Ribbons were put back where they used to be long ago when she first met Jim. Her hat underwent revolutionary readjustment, as the school friend made plain by heated compliments on Georgia's millinery skill.
However, the husband seemed absolutely content with its effect and Georgia's animation increased throughout the evening, calling back a long neglected flush to her cheeks and a gay pace to her bearing. She was not asked a third time, however, which did not unflatter her. It was evidence that she had not slowed down completely—that she was not finished.
Meanwhile Jim, after spreeing away his twenty dollars, had gone West.
VI
TRIANGULATION
Mason Stevens, Sr., was a horse doctor in Rogersville, Peoria County, Illinois. He wore a gray mustache and imperial beard in tribute to that famous Chicago veterinarian who has made more race horses stand on four legs than any other man in the Mississippi Valley.
Besides horses, Mr. Stevens knew cattle, hogs, sheep, tumbler and carrier pigeons, bred-to-type poultry, and whiskey. If he hadn't carried a bottle about with him in his buggy he might be alive now.