CHAPTER V
AN APPARITION
THE next morning Frieda received a message from her brother-in-law asking her to give him half an hour of her time, whenever it was convenient to her.
In a way she had anticipated this request, although it had come sooner than she expected. Frieda knew that Frank was fond of her and regarded himself as her brother. She had no other. Also, she held a wise idea inside her blonde head, believing that men were apt to stand together in many difficulties of the kind in which she and her husband were now involved.
However, Frieda did not, of course, anticipate the news of her husband's having immediately followed her to Europe. She had not written to him or to any friend in Chicago since her sudden departure. But she had made up her mind that the last interview between herself and Henry was their final one. There could be no reason for their ever meeting again. She supposed, of course, that there were certain matters that would have to be arranged in the future, but Frieda was not given to troubling herself over details. Someone else had always attended to such things for her, in order that she might have her way. Later, Jim Colter, or Frank, or a lawyer—Frieda was entirely vague as to the method to be employed—would have to see that she was released from the cause of her unhappiness.
For since arriving at Jack's house not thirty-six hours before, Frieda had been happier than she had for several months. Therefore, during the night she had decided for the hundredth time, that her husband must be the sole cause of all the upsetting emotions which had been recently troubling her. So soon as she could learn to forget Henry and put the recollection of him entirely out of her mind, she would again become the perfectly care free and irresponsible Frieda of the old days at the Rainbow Ranch.
As she was not fond of getting up in the mornings and usually did pretty much what she liked in her sister's house, Frieda had not gone down to breakfast. However, she sent word to her brother-in-law that she would be glad to see him in her own sitting room between eleven and twelve o'clock.
Whether it was done intentionally or not, Frieda put on a frock in which she looked particularly young. It was a simple white muslin, with sprays of blue flowers and folded kerchief fashion across Frieda's white throat. Nothing could really make Frieda appear demure; her lips were too full and crimson; her nose was too retrousée and her hair held too much pure sunlight. But she could look very innocent and much abused, and this was the impression she subconsciously wished to make. One must not believe that Frieda actually thought out matters of this kind, but she was one of the women who acted on what is supposed to be feminine instinct.