“My dear, you can’t tell,” said Theophilus’ wife sombrely, “women, the cleverest of ’em, do marry the strangest men!—yes I just bet you anything, this intreegant’s husband is some s’ciety loafer, who’s made his wife so tired with his foolishness, she just had——”
“No, not a loafer,” Mrs. Chalmers shook her head decidedly, “certainly he is not a loafer, though——”
“Ah, you do know him then?” Mrs. Budd fairly trembled with anxiety. No wonder Mrs. Chalmers had looked angry. “He ’n’ she’s friends of yours?”
“She’s not a friend of mine, no,” said Farleigh slowly. She seemed to have forgotten Mrs. Budd as a “funny little person,” Farleigh. “I should rather say she’s my worst enemy. He—well, I don’t know,” she ended rather abruptly.
“Do you know, my dear,” the other woman—the woman with the tan cotton gloves leaned forward earnestly, “I sh’d think there would be a chance for some real mission’ry work for you—and if I called ’em names, I’m sorry indeed——”
“It’s all right,” said Farleigh hastily, “one’s quite apt to tell the truth about people, before one knows who they are.”
“But being such friends of yours, or at least knowin’ ’em as you do, if you could bring them together, my dear,” went on the simple little woman looking earnestly into the beautiful face, “if you could make that woman see how she’s wastin’ herself on the trapeze business, when she might be walkin’ along safe an’ happy on the ground with him; an’ if you could make him see that—but men’s queer creatures!—if you could make him see that if he’ll only stir his stumps a bit ’n’ make himself more interestin’ for her, she—don’t you see, my dear? Why, if you did that, if you could make ’em see that each is part wrong, why—it’d be the biggest job you ever did in your life!”
“Yes,” Farleigh drew a deep breath, “it would. The biggest job I ever did in my life! And—isn’t it funny, Mrs. Budd? that’s just what Mr. Pix said too: that to make each see that each is part wrong, is the first step toward reconciliation.”
“Ah, but he’s a smart man, Mr. Pix,” said Mrs. Budd ingenuously. “But you’ll try, my dear? You’ll do what you can to bring these two together again?—don’t know why I take s’ much interest in ’em,” she laughed a little abashed, “but readin’ that woman’s story in the paper seemed so kind o’ pitiful—you see, I thought o’ Theophilus always playin’ around with these climbin’ machines—and then I knew, ’s I say, there must be something wrong about the husband.—You’ll try, my dear?”
“Yes,” promised Farleigh simply, “I’ll try. And—I’m glad you happened to read the story in the paper, Mrs. Budd.”