第53章 X(4)

"You don't realize how conspicuous you are."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it can't be helped."

"You can't afford to be mixed up in a scandal," she ventured, "or to injure a poor little creature-- I'm afraid you'll have to--to stop it."

"Stop it." His eyes gleamed with mirth and something else. "It isn't my habit to heed gossip."

"But think of HER, Fred!"

He smiled ironically. "What a generous, thoughtful dear you are!" said he.

She blushed. "I'll admit I don't like it. I'm not jealous--but I wish you weren't doing it."

"So do I!" he exclaimed, with sudden energy that astonished and disquieted her. "So do I! But since it can't be helped I shall go on."

Never had she respected him so profoundly. For the first time she had measured strength with him and had been beaten and routed. She fancied herself enormously proud; for she labored under the common delusion which mistakes for pride the silly vanity of class, or birth, or wealth, or position. She had imagined she would never lower that cherished pride of hers to any man. And she had lowered it into the dust. No wonder women had loved him, she said to herself; couldn't he do with them, even the haughtiest of them, precisely as he pleased? He had not tried to calm, much less to end her jealousy; on the contrary, he had let it flame as high as it would, had urged it higher. And she did not dare ask him, even as a loving concession to her weakness, to give up an affair upon which everybody was putting the natural worst possible construction!

On the contrary, she had given him leave to go on--because she feared--yes, knew--that if she tried to interfere he would take it as evidence that they could not get on together. What a man!

But there was more to come that day. As he was finishing dressing for dinner his sister Ursula knocked.

"May I come, Frederick?" she said.

"Sure," he cried. "I'm fixing my tie."

Ursula, in a gown that displayed the last possible --many of the homelier women said impossible--inch of her beautiful shoulders, came strolling sinuously in and seated herself on the arm of the divan. She watched him, in his evening shirt, as he with much struggling did his tie. "How young you do look, Fred!" said she. "Especially in just that much clothes. Not a day over thirty."

"I'm not exactly a nonogenarian," retorted he.

"But usually your face--in spite of its smoothness and no wrinkles--has a kind of an old young--or do I mean young old?--look. You've led such a serious life."

"Um. That's the devil of it."

"You're looking particularly young to-night."

"Same to you, Urse."

"No, I'm not bad for thirty-four. People half believe me when I say I'm twenty-nine." She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening shoulders.

"I've still got my skin."

"And a mighty good one it is. Best I ever saw--except one."

She reflected a moment, then smiled. "I know it isn't Josephine's. Hers is good but not notable. Eyes and teeth are her strongholds. I suppose it's--the other lady's."

"Exactly."

"I mean the one in Jersey City."

He went on brushing his hair with not a glance at the bomb she had exploded under his very nose.

"You're a cool one," she said admiringly.

"Cool?"

"I thought you'd jump. I'm sure you never dreamed I knew."

He slid into his white waistcoat and began to button it.

"Though you might know I'd find out," she went on, "when everyone's talking."

"Everyone's always talking," said he indifferently.

"And they rattle on to beat the band when they get a chance at a man like you. Do you know what they're saying?"

"Certainly. Loosen these straps in the back of my waistcoat--the upper ones, won't you?"

As she fussed with the buckles she said: "But you don't know that they say you're going to pieces--neglecting your cases--keeping away from your office --wasting about half of your day with your lady love.

They say that you have gone stark mad--that you are rushing to ruin."

"A little looser. That's better. Thanks."