“I’ve simply got to tell you, Irene. Oh——!”
“Grace Durland, don’t be silly! You know I’d die for you!”
She listened in patient silence while Grace told with minute detail and many tears the story of her interview with Mrs. Trenton.
“I loved him; I still love him, Irene!” she moaned pitifully when she had finished. “And it had to end like that!”
“If you want my opinion,” said Irene judicially, “I’ll say that Ward Trenton is a perfect nut—the final and consummate nut of the whole nut family! The idea that he would take a girl like you—and you’re a good deal of a kid, my dear—to call on a woman like that wife of his, who’s an experienced worldly creature, and as much as tell her that he’s in love with you! It’s the limit!”
“But,” said Grace, quick to defend the moment Trenton was attacked, “he had every reason to believe she would be decent! She’d always let him think that if there was any one else she’d—she’d——”
“She’d hand him a transfer!” Irene laughed ironically. “Isn’t that just like poor old Ward! I tell you men are even as little babes where women are concerned. There isn’t a woman on earth who’d just calmly sit by and let another woman walk off with her husband even if she hated him like poison. It’s against nature, dearest. I can see how that woman would make the bluff, all right, but all she wanted was to see what you looked like and finding you young and beautiful she tried to make you feel like a counterfeit nickel. The trouble with Ward is that he’s so head over heels in love with you that he’s lost his mind. I wonder what happened after you skipped! I’ll bet it was some party! But don’t you believe he’s going to give you up—not Ward! Everything’s going to straighten out, honey. His telling you to go doesn’t mean a blessed thing! He just wanted to get you out of the scrap.”
“It means the end,” said Grace with a sigh that lost itself in a sob.
The bell tinkled and Grace ran away to remove the traces of tears from her face. When she reappeared Kemp greeted her with his usual raillery.
“I had only a word with Ward over the telephone,” he said. “He came out to see his wife and as he borrowed my limousine I guess he showed her the village sights. But, of course, you know more about that bird than I do, Grace. You couldn’t scare me up a drink, could you, Irene? Minnie’s got some stuff of mine concealed here somewhere. Just a spoonful—no? Grace, this girl is a cruel tyrant. She positively refuses to let me die a drunkard’s happy death.”