⁂
Meantime Harry had wended his way to the club.
“Hello, Tyler!” said the man his wife had refused. “Don’t mean to say you’ve actually ceased to be one of the ‘submerged tenth?’ How and where is your superior moiety?”
“When I left Mrs. Tyler before her fire, ten minutes ago, she was very well.”
“By George, if I had as clever and pretty a wife I don’t think I should dare to leave her alone. I should be afraid of the other men.”
Harry turned away to hide his frown, but as he went towards the door of the billiard room, rejoined: “Perhaps it wouldn’t be safe with your wife.” To himself he carolled gleefully: “That cuts both ways.”
“But you are not afraid, I understand,” called the man, irritatingly, “so I take it you won’t mind if I drop round there for a few moments this evening, eh?”
“Certainly not,” responded Harry, suavely, but gritting his teeth. “Hang the fellow,” he muttered. “How do such cads ever get into decent clubs? As if Margaret’s refusing him twice wasn’t enough to make him understand that she doesn’t want him round!”
Tyler’s anger was quickly forgotten in the warm reception his cronies gave him, and a tumbler of “unsweetened” and a cue quickly made him forget both the incident and the passing hours. Not till the marker notified the players that the time limit had come did he wake to the fact that it was two o’clock.
With a sense of guilt the husband hurried home. In the hallway, as he took off hat and coat, he noticed the card, and picked it up. “So he did come,” he growled, with a frown. “I hope Meg had gone to bed before he got here. Not, of course, that it really matters,” he went on. “She told me she never could endure him, so he’s welcome to call as often as he likes to be snubbed.” To prove how little he cared, the husband crushed the card viciously, and tossed it on the floor.