THE morrow was close and sultry. The sun pursued its course through the heavens, round and red like a ball of heated metal. Careful housewives in suburban cottages scrupulously drew in the shutters, pulled the shades, and closed the windows against the fierce heat. Thus they produced the musty coolness of the tomb, in which they existed languidly until late afternoon. Then easterly windows were opened, admitting fresh air.
On the eastern piazza of the Simmons house, as the sun sank, there appeared two people. Mrs. Simmons moved here and there restlessly, her face pale with the heat of the day, dark circles beneath her blue eyes. She looped up the wilted tendrils of the climbing vine, patting the belated blossoms with her soft, plump hands. Behind her in the shade of the long house Dr. Vessinger lounged on a chair, smoking a cigarette.
“Evelyn!”
The doctor’s low voice just reached to her. She started and turned her face to him. He was a slight man, with an active, well-proportioned body. How much he had done for himself since those far-off days when she had first known him! He was Some One now; she had a vague movement of pride that she had held his fancy all these years.
“You knew I should be out to-day?” he questioned, following her with his intelligent eyes.
“Yes,” she answered dully. “I suppose I did. It was the proper thing to do,” she added bitterly. “No! I don’t mean that! I know you are kind—only I suffer so!”
“Has your husband turned up yet?”
“No, but he telephoned that he should be back for dinner, late, quite late.”
“Oh! Pat Borden took care of him. He was well looked after. You needn’t worry.”
“Why should I, about him?” she asked inquiringly, as if she failed to see any significance in what he said. “He telephoned; he is well; he will be here this evening. I do not think about him especially.”
“I hope you have thought about—”
“No, no, please don’t say those foolish things. They don’t sound well the day after.”
He threw away his cigarette and joined her.
“You men are all alike!” she continued musingly. “You are all at the bottom brutal; you don’t care for anything but—what it means to you. I wonder if there was ever a man born who could care for a woman more than for himself?”
“If there were, the woman would tire of him in a week.”
“Mamma! You here?”
Oscar came skipping out of the house, making one long leap from the drawing-room window to the railing of the veranda. Then he ran toward his mother, arms stretched out to hug her.
“Nice little fellow,” Dr. Vessinger remarked propitiatingly. “Won’t you come here, little man?”
“No, no!” the mother objected hastily. “Run away, Oscar. Ask Dora to take you to the Laurels. It will be shady and cool there.”
The child looked steadily and curiously at the doctor.
“Who is that gentleman, mamma?” he demanded.
“Ha, ha, well said!” the doctor laughed. “He wants to know who your friends are, madam. He will manage you one of these days. Come here, sir!”
Instead of running forward at the doctor’s invitation, the child backed steadily into his mother’s dress, eying the stranger with dislike. Mrs. Simmons glanced up at the doctor, surprised and annoyed at his conduct. Did he not understand? How could he anger the child, perhaps provoke one of his frightful paroxysms? It was disagreeable in him to dwell thus on her misery, to play with the child.
“Go away, Oscar,” she said, leading him away from the terrace.
At the same moment Dr. Vessinger walked toward the mother and child. Oscar stood still, his limbs stiffening, his under lip trembling. Tears began to gather in the mother’s eyes. She was frightened, and she hated the imperious man.
“Come, dear,” she urged. “Come with mamma. Be good and do as I want you to.”
She had leaned down to him, and he threw one arm about her neck and drew her close to him, looking defiantly at the doctor.
“Is he the man who makes you cry, mamma?” he asked. “Send him away. I will drive him away!”
As the mother watched him, standing there with his head thrown back, the black curls falling on his brown neck, he recalled to her vividly his father. She had seen the man in something like the attitude of the child. Commanding, erect, noble, defiant,—so she had seen him and worshipped him during the months of their ardent first love. The little mite was like her lover born again.
“Fiery little devil, isn’t he?” the doctor remarked, hesitating and disconcerted. “Looks as if he would like to smash me, stick a knife into me, or something. Handsome, though!”
“I think you had better sit down,” Mrs. Simmons answered coldly. As the man stood irresolute, she added vehemently:
“Why do you tease the child? Go back!”
The doctor turned back to his chair sulkily. The mother kissed the boy’s face, gently loosening the grasp of the strong little arm about her neck. “Come, Oscar,” she whispered. “We will go together!”
She led him from the terrace, he looking backward constantly and scowling at the unacceptable guest.
“Send him away, mamma,” he said. “I don’t like him.”
“Ssh, ssh,” his mother murmured reprovingly, seeking to soften his barbarian instincts.
She was gone for what seemed to the doctor an interminable time, and when she returned there was something cold and severe in her pale face. Before she seated herself, she began to say what she had in mind:
“Dr. Vessinger, there is something I must say to you, all at once, now, and then you must go. You have made love to me,—yesterday evening,—and I listened. I was in great agony of mind, and so foolishly absorbed in my pain that I thought you—you understood what my trouble was. I wanted to escape from it—at any price. I was wild and bad. Now, well, you don’t understand; and I know, myself, I could not get any joy or give any, without him, little Oscar.”
“I don’t understand,” Dr. Vessinger exclaimed, thoroughly mystified.
“No, you don’t understand,” she admitted with cool irony. “Perhaps it is not necessary that you should. You doubtless see that I could not give you the pleasure you look for.”
“I do not admit that for one moment,” he protested, rising.
She held out her hand.
“I was right—eight years ago; that is all, my friend.”
He took her hand and held it, trying to come nearer, to melt the icy mood of the woman. She smiled pleasantly at him, unmoved, confident, and in another world of feeling than his.
“You are not well,” he stammered, “not yourself!”
“Who can tell what is yourself? Last night I wanted the freedom of my youth. Now I am ready to take the other thing, which makes us old,—pain. Good-by.”
He still held her hand, and she smiled at him, aloof. Just then a man’s voice sounded from inside the house, and Simmons poked his head out of the drawing-room window.
“Oh! You here, Evelyn?”
Perceiving Vessinger, he added gruffly:
“Where is Jane or some one? I must be off to-night, and I want them to pack my bag and give me some dinner!”
“How are you, Simmons?” the doctor called out in his cool manner. “Come out here and let’s have a look at you!”
“I’m all right, Vessinger,” Simmons answered sulkily, stepping through the window.
“That was a great performance you gave us last night, Simmons, a triumph! I never heard anything better. Your waving that glass over the Bellflower’s crown of false hair was magnificent!”
Simmons glowered at the man and looked furtively at his wife. She seemed to be gazing at something at the other end of the lawn.
“Oh!” Simmons muttered. “Damn nonsense!”
His handsome face looked thin and pale, as if he had been paying well for his moments of forgetfulness.
“Yes,” continued the doctor, with an insistence which seemed to Mrs. Simmons to be petty malice. “You were the success of the evening. Mrs. Bellflower ought to thank you for your parlor tricks.”
“Oh! damn,” commented the harassed man, looking miserably toward his wife.
She turned suddenly to the two men.
“We have had enough of last night, haven’t we?”
“So you’re off again?” the doctor persisted, seeking a new topic.
“Yes, yes, long trip. God knows when I shall get back.” This last he muttered to himself. Vessinger did not hear it, but Mrs. Simmons looked quickly at her husband. He hung his head.
“You—you are going away?” she asked in a low voice, forgetting the other man’s presence. “To leave me? Going to-night?”
“Why, those Jews telegraphed me—last night—got it this morning—must be in Chicago to meet them.”
He turned to enter the house. Mrs. Simmons followed him without regarding Vessinger.
“I am off,” the doctor said to her. “Good-by.”
But no one heeded him.
