The Letter of the Contract Part 2

"_You_ can't help it, can you?" Edith smiled, with a sense of her own superiority. "I suppose that's the reason you come here. I've seen you before."

"Have you?"

"Yes; several times. And that _is_ the reason, isn't it?--because you can't help loving him."

The woman's tears began to flow again. "It's because I don't know what else to do. When he doesn't come any more--"

"Oh, so he doesn't come."

"Not unless I make him. When he sees me here--"

"Well, what then?"

"He gets angry. He comes to tell me that if I do it again--"

"I see. But he _comes_. It brings him. That's the main thing, isn't it?

Well, now that you've told me so much, I'll--I'll try to--to send him."

She was struck with a new thought. "If you were to come in now--you could--you could wait for him."

The frightened look returned. "Oh, but he'd kill me!"

"Oh no, he wouldn't." She smiled again, with a sense of her superiority. "He wouldn't kill you when he knew I didn't care."

"But _don't_ you care?"

She shook her head. "No. And I shall never care again. He can do what he likes. He's free--and so are you. I'd rather he went to you. Eleven years, did you say? Why, he was your husband long before he was mine."

"Oh no; he was never my husband. We agreed from the first--"

"He wasn't your husband according to the strict letter of the contract; but I don't care anything about that. It's what _I_ call being your husband. I'd rather you took him back.... Oh, my G.o.d! There he is."

He was standing on the other side of the street watching them. How long he had been there neither of them knew. Engrossed in the subject between them, and screened by their sunshades, they hadn't noticed him come round the corner from Madison Avenue on his way home. He stood leaning on his stick, stroking an end of his long mustache pensively. He wore a gray suit and a soft gray felt hat. For a minute or more there was no change in his att.i.tude, even when the terrified eyes of the women told him he was observed. As he began to thread his way among the vehicles to cross the street he displayed neither haste nor confusion. Edith could see that, though he was pale and grave, he could, even in this situation, carry himself with dignity. In its way it was something to be glad of. She herself stood her ground as a man on a sinking s.h.i.+p waits for the waves to engulf him.

Reaching the pavement, he ignored his wife to go directly to the woman.

"What does this mean, Maggie?"

His tone was not so much stern as reproachful. The faded woman, who was still trying to make herself young and pretty, quailed at it.

Edith came to her relief:

"Isn't that something for _you_ to explain, Chip?"

He turned to his wife. "I'm willing to explain anything you like, Edith--as far as I can."

"I won't ask you how far that is--because I know already everything I need to know."

"Everything you need to know--what for?"

"For understanding my position, I suppose."

"Your position? Your position is that of my wife."

"Oh no, it isn't. There's your wife."

"Don't say that, Edith. That lady would be the first to tell you--"

"She _has_ been the first to tell me. She's been extremely kind. She's answered my questions with a frankness--"

"But _you're_ not kind, Edith. Surely you see that--that mentally she's not--not like every one else."

"Oh, quite. I don't think _I_ am now. I doubt if I ever shall be again.

No woman can be mentally like every one else after she's been deceived as we've been."

"_She_ hasn't been deceived, Edith; and I should never have deceived you if--"

She laughed without mirth. "If you hadn't wanted to keep me in the dark."

"No; if I hadn't had responsibilities--"

"Responsibilities! Do you call _that_"--her glance indicated the woman, whose misty stare went from the one to the other in a vain effort to follow what they were saying--"do you call that a responsibility?"

"I'm afraid I do, Edith."

"And what about--me?"

"Hasn't a man more responsibilities than one?"

"A married man hasn't more wives than one."

"A married man has to take his life as his life has formed itself. He was an unmarried man first."

"Which means, I suppose, that the ties he formed when he was an unmarried man--"

"May bind him still--if they're of a certain kind."

"And yours _are_--of a certain kind."

"They're of _that_ kind. I haven't been able to free myself from them.

But don't you think we'd better go in? We can hardly talk about such things out here."

She bowed to another pa.s.sing friend. He, too, lifted his hat. When the friend had gone by she glanced hastily toward the house.

"No, I can't go in," she said, hurriedly. "I'd rather talk out here."

"Very well, then. We can take a stroll in the Park?"

"What? We three?"