"I never put my fingers into anybody's matrimonial pie," resumed Helen, "so I'll let you think out your own schemes to keep the charming Mr. Carson under his own vine and fig tree, but you know I live only three blocks away, and there are no followers in my camp. My brother would take you home, any time you might care to come."
Kitty was silent.
"Think it over, dear," said Helen as she rose to go.
After several minutes of hard thought, Kitty arrived at Helen's meaning. "This evening shall decide it," she said to herself. "If he stays at home, I shall think that he cares just a little bit; but if he doesn't, I'll make him care." There was a smouldering fire in Kitty's brown eyes, that might at any time leap into a flame.
The pretty house gown appeared at dinner again, but George, seemingly, took no notice of it. Moreover, immediately after the meal he found his hat, and merely saying: "Bye-bye, Kitty," began the jaunty whistle. She heard it as it grew fainter, and at last, only lost it in the distant sound of a street car.
The emancipated husband had no particular place to go, and his present nocturnal pilgrimage was undertaken purely in the interest of wifely discipline. He dropped into his club, but found it dull; and perhaps the thought of Kitty's sad little face tugged remorsefully at his heartstrings, for he went home early.
The lights were low in the drawing-room, she always left them so for him. "Must have gone to bed about nine," he mused. He went up-stairs, expecting to hear her say: "Is that you, dear?" But no sound of any sort greeted him. The house was as silent as a tomb. After a few minutes, it became evident that she was not at home, and he sat down with a book to await her arrival.
It seemed strange, someway, without her,—perhaps because her gown hung from the back of a chair. It was a soft pretty thing of pinky-yellow—he mentally decided that must be the colour—trimmed with creamy lace and black velvet ribbon. It was a very pretty gown—a most adorable gown.
It was half-past eleven, when Kitty came home humming the chorus of a popular song. She started in apparent surprise when she saw him. "Oh, it's you, is it?" she said indifferently.
"Certainly it's me," he responded irritably. "Whom did you expect to see here?"