Devoted Women

by Alice Duer Miller

Illustration: “Some People Would Think it Quite a Lot of Fun to be Married to Letitia,” Said Nan Gently

 

DEVOTED WOMEN

By Alice Duer Miller

ILLUSTRATED Br JAMES H. CRANK

NAN felt a sense of drama as she rang the bell of her friend's house. The houses in the row were all exactly alike, built of a new small dark-red brick, and each was set on a little square of new turf, as smooth and neat as an emerald-green handkerchief. To make matters harder, the house numbers were not honest numerals, but loops of silver ribbon festooned above the front door bell, so that Nan had almost mistaken the five she was looking for for the three next door but one.

She had not seen her friend for four years; and four years is a long time—a sixth of your entire life when you are only twenty-four. It seemed to her that they had been immensely young when they had parted; and yet she had never been too young to appreciate Letitia even that first day back in the dark ages of childhood when they had found their desks next to each other at school. Even then Letitia had been captivating—lovely to look at, and gay; and, though it seemed a strange word to use about a child in short dresses, elegant. She came of the best blood in America; indeed, in the American-history class it was quite embarrassing because so many of the statesmen and generals whom the teacher praised or condemned were ancestors of Letitia's. She was a red-gold creature with deep sky-blue eyes, and, at that remote period, freckles, which she had subsequently succeeded in getting rid of.

She had charmed Nan from the first moment—none the less that Nan understood her weaknesses as well as her charms. No one could say that Letitia was untruthful; to lie was quite outside her code; but if at seven minutes past eight she was late, she said it was barely eight o'clock, and if you were late she said it was almost a quarter past. Someone had once observed to her mother that Letitia distorted facts, and Mrs. Lewis had replied, after an instant of deliberation, “Well, undoubtedly she molds them."

She molded them particularly in conversation with the opposite sex; she could not bear any competition as far as her admirers were concerned, Strangely enough, though Letitia was so much the prettier and more amusing of the two girls, she was always a little jealous of Nan, whereas Nan was never at all jealous of her. Letty herself explained the reason for this once in one of her flashes of vision: “It's because whatever you get from people is your own founded on a rock, Nan; but I fake it so—I get a lot that doesn't belong to me—and so I'm always in terror of being found out.”

After their schooldays the girls had seen a great deal of each other. Nan's father was a professor in a small college, and it was pleasant to be asked to stay with the Lewises in their tiny New York flat. It was also agreeable to Letitia to be invited to share in commencement festivities with their prolonged opportunities to fascinate. Then Nan's father had accepted an appointment in China; but the separation did not lessen the intimacy—perhaps it even increased it; you can write so freely to a person living thousands of miles away. Letitia had written with the utmost freedom to her friend, who at that distance could not in any way be regarded as a competitor.

Letitia always described the new people she was seeing, and Nan noticed that the first mention of Roger in her letters had in it something sharply defined and significant:

“I sat next the most romantic-looking boy I ever saw. No, my dear, no occasion for excitement; he must be years younger than I am; but the most beautiful person you ever saw—hollow-cheeked, broad-browed like that picture you adore so of Father Damien, or perhaps I'm thinking of an illustration of Rossetti; and he can talk, too, I promise you. He's an experimental chemist in some great manufacturing company, which at this age ——”

In the next letter it appeared that he wasn't really years younger—hardly a year; in fact, nothing to speak of. Letitia began to write a good deal about the scientific point of view—its stimulating quality—its powers of observation—its justice—“almost as just as you are, Nan.”

Nan waited for each letter as if it were the next installment of a serial. She had seen Letitia through a good many such affairs, and she knew that before long her friend would stage a quarrel. It was a good way, Letty said, of finding out how much he cared; although, as a matter of fact, Nan noticed that she never precipitated it until she was sure the unfortunate man in question cared enough to be at a disadvantage.

But in Roger's case, when she had said sadly, “I'm afraid, Mr. Rossiter, that this means our friendship is ended,” he had answered without a word of pleading, “Yes, I'm quite sure it does.”

Letitia, a little startled, had asked, “What? You wish it too?”

“No,” he had said; “but the fact that you do ends it automatically.”

She had some difficulty in extricating herself from her own ultimatum. Naturally, her respect for him increased.

“I'm almost glad you are not here, Nan,” she wrote. “He is so honest he could not help loving your honesty. I feel as if together, somehow, you would both find me out.”

She inclosed a little photograph of him to show Nan what a splendid-looking person he was; but it was not his beauty she dwelt upon, but his straight, keen eyes and the fine firmness of his mouth—not the determination of the self-conscious bulldog, which so many people assume in a photograph, but just a nice steely fixity of purpose. Yes, Nan, far away in China, with plenty of leisure for reflection, found that for the first time she envied her friend.

A little later a real honest quarrel was reported. Letitia, habitually unpunctual, was three-quarters of an hour late for an appointment, and he simply had not waited for her. Under her anger Nan could catch her admiration for the first man who had dared not to wait.

“I explained to him that I could not help it, and all he said was: 'You could have helped it if I had been a train.' Of course, everything is over—he does not know how to behave.”

No letter at all came in the next mail, and the announcement of her engagement in the one following:

“Fortunately—and wonderfully—mamma likes him, for, as you know, it would have been awfully hard to marry a man if she hated him.”

It would indeed; or, rather, Nan thought, it would have been difficult for Letitia to fall in love with a man Mrs. Lewis did not approve of, for she had a wonderful gift of phrase—just, but cruel—by which budding sentiments could be cut off as by a knife. Nan had seen her more than once prune away a growing romance from Letitia's life with a deft, hideously descriptive sentence. Each time Nan had been in complete sympathy with her.

She usually did agree with Mrs. Lewis, who was the most brilliant woman she had ever known—and almost the most alarming. She saw life not only steadily and whole, and in the darkest colors, but she reported most frankly on what she saw. Frauds, or even people mildly artificial, dreaded Mrs. Lewis as they did the plague. Letitia herself would have dreaded her if she had not been her daughter. It said a great deal for Roger Rossiter's integrity that his future mother-in-law liked him. It also said something for his financial situation. Mrs. Lewis had always intended her child to marry someone with money.

“It is not exactly that I'm mercenary,” she said. “I don't want Letitia to be specially magnificent; but I want her to have everything else, and money too. Why not?”

So when Nan heard the marriage had actually taken place, she felt pretty sure Roger must have enough to support Letty comfortably. It was really astonishing, she thought, how much she knew about him, this man she had never seen, more than she knew about lots of people she saw constantly. And so, as she rang the bell of his house, she had something of the same excitement that she might have had on seeing the curtain rise on a play about which she had heard endless discussion. At last she was going to be able to judge it for herself.

A Swedish maidservant came to the door—a nice-looking woman with an exaggerated opinion of her own knowledge of English. She almost refused Nan admittance—just to be on the safe side; but Letitia's cheerful shout intervened.

“Is that you at last, Nan?”

The two girls were quickly clasped in each other's arms—not so quickly that Nan did not see that Letitia was lovelier than ever—happier—more alive—more golden.

It was about noon when Nan arrived. She was to stay not only for luncheon but for dinner, so as to see Roger, who never got home until five o'clock, and possibly later today, for he had been in Albany the night before and might find extra things waiting for him at the office when he returned to it. Both mothers were motoring from town for lunch—in Mrs. Rossiter's car—so that the only time the friends could count on was now, immediately, this hour and a half. Letitia was awfully sorry, but she didn't see how she could have arranged it differently.

Nan smiled at that well-remembered phrase of her friend's. As a matter of fact, she was not sorry the mothers were coming. She was curious to see Roger's mother, who, for a mother with an only son, had behaved with the most astonishing cordiality about the marriage. A well-to-do widow, she had given Roger a good part of her income. Letty's letters had referred to her as an angel; and Nan was always eager to see Mrs. Lewis at any time. Only she and Letty must waste no time, but set immediately about a process known to them as catching up. This meant that they each asked questions, listening to the answers only so long as they appeared to contain new matter, and then ruthlessly interrupting with a new question. Thus:

“Have you seen Bee since she——”

“Oh, I meant to tell you—she never did.”

“Isn't that just like her? She always reminds me of——”

“Yes, you wrote me—Roger simply loved it. You knew that Hubert——”

“Yes, he cabled me. I thought it was you he——”

“So did I—so did he, for that matter—only mamma once said of him ——”

“Oh, my dear, that heavenly thing about the scrubbing brush! Isn't she priceless—your mother? And she really likes Roger?”

“Crazy about him—thinks him too good for me.”

And so they came to talk about the really important subject—Letty's marriage—Roger's wisdom and kindness and generosity. It amused and delighted Nan to hear her friend talking of men from the point of view of a person who owned one. Mrs. Lewis, who had long ago been obliged to part from an impossible husband, had always been a little more aloof from men, a little more contemptuous of them than of women; and Letitia, although her life was occupied with nothing else, had regarded them as an exciting, possibly hostile and certainly alien tribe. Now it was wonderful to hear her identify herself with a man's point of view——” “We think——” “We feel——”

Not for a long time did the old remote tone creep in. They were speaking of men in general, and Letitia said suddenly:

“Tell me something, Nan—you have brothers—do you think the cleverest of them are a little silly about women?”

Nan's heart gave a leap. Letitia was looking intent.

“Running after women, you mean?”

“Oh, no!” Letty was quite shocked at the suggestion. “No, I mean believing everything they say. Roger repeats the most fatuous things women say to him, as if they had any importance.”

Letitia twisted her eyebrows in distress only half comic.

Nan hesitated; she knew just the sort of thing Letitia must have in mind.

Illustration: He Looked Undressed, Out of Place, Menacing

“Well,” she said, “I think men often seem rather naïve—particularly scientific men.”

“Yes,” Letty agreed quickly, “and of course Roger has always been so busy. He has never gone about much; but still, he'll say driving home, 'Did you ever think, Letty, that I was a specially dominating sort of person? Mrs.—somebody or other whom he sat next to—'said I was the kind of man who if I couldn't dominate a woman might kill her.” That old stuff, Nan, that we've all used and discarded. Or he'll look in the glass and say, 'Honestly, I can't see that my eyes——' It makes me feel ashamed, Nan.”

Oh, dear, Nan thought, she could have made Letty understand, if she had had brothers, that these were a man's moments of confidence, attaching and friendly, like the talk she and Letty were having at that moment. It wasn't fair to judge a man by such moments any more than to judge girls by silly giggling confidences to one another. Yes, that was it—men let down the bars of their egotism to the woman they loved, and maintained a certain reserve with their men friends, while women, just the other way——

“Oh, mercy, Nan, you're so just!” Letitia broke out. “If you were in love with a man, you'd want him to appear well all the time.”

There was a ring at the bell and the sound of a motor panting at the door. The two mothers had arrived, and the subject of man's gullibility had to be dropped, as the two friends hurried downstairs.

As they went Nan whispered, “Do the mothers like each other?”

Letitia smiled, shaking her head.

“No; but they think they do.”

No two women of the same age and country could have been more utterly different than the two mothers. Mrs. Rossiter, who must have been rather pretty once, was still ruffled and jeweled like a young beauty; and her diction, though not exactly baby talk, had in it a lisp somewhat reminiscent of the nursery. There was a lot of gentle fussing about her wrap and gloves and lorgnette and purse—and a photograph of Roger she had been having framed for Letty, and a basket of fruit she had brought from town. The little hallway was quite filled with the effort of getting her settled. Mrs. Lewis, on the contrary, who not only had been but still was as beautiful as a cameo, was also as quiet as a statue, watching with a sort of icy wonder the the long process of unwrapping Mrs. Rossiter.

“Your dear little house,” Mrs. Rossiter was saying, trying to blow the mesh veil from between lips, while she undid the pin at the back of a frilled hat which would have looked equally well on a child of seven. “It is a dear little house, isn't it, Miss Perkins? But you must let me call you Nan. We all call you Nan—even Roger. He's so excited about your coming home. He said to Letitia only yesterday, 'I feel as if I had known Nan all my life.' Didn't he? You'll let me go up, dear, won't you? One does get a little bit grubby motoring, doesn't one?”

She was led upstairs by her daughter-in-law.

Mrs. Lewis patted the hair behind her ear with a brisk gesture.

“I don't confess to any special grubbiness,” she said with her remorselessly exact enunciation. “Well, Nan, that's what sons do to their mothers; almost consoles me for never having had a son. Letty thinks she's perfection—that's marriage, I suppose. How do you think Letty seems?”

“Wonderful—wonderfully happy, Mrs. Lewis.”

“She ought to be. Roger is a very splendid person.”

“You really like him?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lewis as one facing a possible charge of sentimentality; “yes, I really do.”

“No criticisms at all?”

“Oh, come, Nan,” answered the older woman, “remember who it is you're talking to. When you find me without criticisms you'll find me in my grave. I have endless criticisms of him—of that cooing aged seraph who has just gone up to powder her elderly nose—even of my own daughter; but still, I do say that Roger is a fine man as men go—and that is saying a good deal.”

It was saying more than Nan had ever expected to hear Mrs. Lewis say of her son-in-law, and she was content.

Presently the nose powderer came down, still cooing, and they went in to luncheon. It was a pleasant meal. The little room was full of sunlight; the Swede, though a poor linguist, was a good waitress; the food was excellent, and the talk, though not brilliant, for it was absorbed by Mrs. Rossiter, was kind and friendly; and Nan had been so many years away that she enjoyed just the sense of intimacy. They were talking about Roger—his health—how hard he worked.

“I really think,” said his mother, shaking her head solemnly, “that you and he ought to go abroad. I think it's your duty.”

“I'm not sure Roger means to take a holiday at all, Mrs. Rossiter,” answered Letitia. “You see, he did take two weeks in the winter when we were married.”

“If that may be called a holiday,” said Mrs. Lewis. No one noticed her, and Mrs. Rossiter pressed on:

“Not take a holiday! Oh, Letty, he must! You must make him! He'll break down. Remember, he's only twenty-four. The strain at his age—— You agree with me, don't you, Mrs. Lewis? If you had a son of twenty-four, you would not want him to work steadily all the year round?”

“If I had a son,” pet Mrs. Lewis, “I should be surprised if he ever found a job. The men of my family have always been out of a job.”

There was a ring at the front door and the Swede went to answer it.

“Now that Meta is out of the room, Lett,” said her mother, “might I suggest that you never allow her to answer the telephone? She always begins the conversation by stoutly denying that anyone of your name lives here.”

Mrs. Rossiter gave a little scream of laughter and a gesture of her hand with the fingers self-consciously crooked.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “how perfect that is! How exact!”

Mrs. Lewis looked at her coldly, as much as to say she had not intended to be, and, as a matter of fact, had not been so humorous as all that.

Then Meta returned to the room, and with the manner of beaming surprise which never left her—except on the rare occasions when she simply burst into tears—she announced that there was a policeman in the hall, come after Mr. Rossiter. At least, this was what she seemed to say; but there was enough doubt about it to keep the two mothers fairly calm, while Letitia ran out of the room to find out the truth.

“Do you suppose he's met with some horrible accident?” Mrs. Rossiter asked tremulously.

“More likely to have parked his car somewhere he ought not to have,” answered Mrs. Lewis; but Letitia, knowing her well, saw that her secret thought was darker than her words. All three women remained silent after this, listening for some sound from the hall, until Letitia came back. She was holding herself very straight and her face was white.

She came straight to the table and said in a low firm voice, “There is some mistake, of course; but this man has come to arrest Roger.”

“To arrest him!” cried his mother. “For what?”

“For murder,” answered Letitia simply.

It is only men who break news with slow agony to women—women are more direct in dealing with each other.

Mrs. Rossiter gave a little cry, and then all four were silent, and in the pause Meta came in from the pantry and, deceived by the quietness, began to clear the side table.

When they were in the sitting room, with the door shut, Letitia told them as much of the story as she had been able to get from the policeman. According to his account, Roger had been not in Albany the night before but in Paterson—yes, he did sometimes go there for the company; but he never stayed there overnight. He had gone to a cheap dance hall—no, not at all like Roger, though he did love dancing—and afterward had gone to supper with a man and woman. She was a concert-hall singer, or something of the kind. There had been a row. The man had first gone away in a fury and then had put his pride in his pocket and had come back—had drunk a cup of coffee of Roger's brewing—and had dropped dead. The woman had confessed——

“It obviously isn't true,” said Nan, and somehow her voice seemed to ring out too loudly.

“Of course not,” answered three voices in varying tones; and none of them had the trumpet ring of complete conviction. Nan stared from one to the other, and saw that each was busy with a plan to save him. Well, that perhaps was love—to be more concerned with the dear one's physical safety than with his moral integrity. When the first shock was over, when they had had time to think, they would see as clearly as she that the whole thing was utterly impossible.

But they were not thinking it over. They were talking about telephoning his office—whether it would be wise, whether the telephone wires could be tapped. Mrs. Rossiter was pleading that something should be done at once, and blocking every action that Letitia suggested. It was finally decided to telephone his office. The telephone was upstairs in her bedroom, and as Letitia opened the sitting-room door she revealed the policeman on a hard William-and-Mary chair in the hall. He had taken off his cap and showed a head of thinning fuzzy blond hair. He looked undressed, out of place, menacing. Mrs. Rossiter was upset by the sight and began to cry. Mrs. Lewis, who hated tears, cast a quick look at her and followed her daughter out of the room.

Nan, left alone with Roger's mother, felt the obligation of attempting comfort. She patted her shoulder.

“Don't cry, dear Mrs. Rossiter. It will turn out to be some stupid mistake.”

“Oh, of course, of course, it's a mistake!”

Mrs. Rossiter wiped her eyes bravely and put her handkerchief away. “But he works so hard, Nan; up at seven and never back at home until six—drudgery—and he's so young—so terribly young never to have any fun.”

And, more touched by her word picture of facts than by the facts themselves, the tears rose again in her eyes.

“Some people would think it quite a lot of fun to be married to Letitia,” said Nan gently.

But Mrs. Rossiter only shook her head, repeating, “It's all my fault—all my fault!”

“How can it be your fault, Mrs. Rossiter?” Nan asked a little sharply.

Mrs. Rossiter glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one had reëntered the room while her nose was in her handkerchief.

“He never was in love with Letitia—not really, you know—not romantically,” she said. “And when a young, ardent boy like Roger is tied for life—to an older woman—whom he doesn't really love—what can you expect?”

This view of the case was so unexpected to Nan that she could hardly receive it.

“Letitia believes he loves her,” she said.

“Does she?” answered Mrs. Rossiter in a tone that made the question a contradiction. “Or does she only try to believe it? Or it may be she doesn't know what it is to have a man really in love with her. These modern girls——”

“More men have been in love with Letitia than with any girl I ever knew,” said Nan firmly. “And unless your son has definitely told you that he does not love her——”

“Of course he hasn't done that,” returned his mother, more shocked at the idea than she had been at the suggestion of murder. “He's loyal, poor boy. It wasn't necessary for him to tell me. I know my son, Nan, and I know love. There wasn't a spark—not one—on his side at least. But she never let him alone; every day a telephone or a letter, or even a telegram. He was touched, I suppose, by her devotion. That isn't love, though. I might have saved him. I ought to have spoken out and said, 'Dear boy, you do not love this woman.' I did hint at it several times, but he pretended to think I was in fun. Nan, they were like brother and sister—or, no, more like an old married couple—no romance. If they had been married twenty years, you would have said, 'It's nice to see them so companionable.' Now it's only natural that love should come to him in some wild and terrible form—like this—an outlet—the poor child.” There were steps in the hall, and she added quickly, “But, of course, I would not have them know I thought the thing possible.”

The footsteps belonged to Letitia. She entered, bringing word that Roger had not been at the office; he had been expected about noon from Albany—yes, they had said Albany, but it was only a clerk. They had been expecting to hear from him, but knew nothing of his whereabouts. Letty was too young to look aged by anxiety, but she looked like a water color in process of being washed out. Not only her cheeks but her hair and eyes, and even her skin, seemed to have lost their color. Nan had never seen her friend suffering. She had seen her angry or jealous or wounded, but never like this. Her heart went out to the girl. She managed to get Mrs. Rossiter away to telephone to her son at his club, on the unlikely possibility that he might have stopped Gus. Left alone with Letty, she said:

“My dear, I know just how ugly and painful this is; but do remember that in a few hours it will all be explained and you will be telling it as an amusing story.”

“I know, of course,” said Letitia, as if she were listening to a platitude; and then she added, “Did you happen to bring any money with you? You see, the banks are closed now.”

Nan could hardly believe her ears.

“Yes,” she said, “I have; but why should you need it just now?”

“I shan't need it, of course,” said Letitia hastily; “but in times like this you think of all sorts of possibilities. If we did have to leave the country at a second's notice——”

Her voice died away under Nan's look of disapproval.

“Would you go with him if he did?” said Nan, wondering how a woman could love a man so much and understand him so little.

“Go with him!” cried Letitia. “I'd hang with him if I could! Oh, Nan, you don't know what it is to love a person as I love Roger! I believe I could be perfectly happy exiled, hunted, poor, in some impossible South Sea island, if I could only have him all to myself. While I was upstairs I put a few things in a bag; I brought it down and left it in the hall, and I thought that you could take it with you when you go. That couldn't excite any suspicion, and then if I have to leave in a hurry——”

Nan could not let her go on like this.

“Letitia,” she said in a sharp tone, as if rousing a sleeper, “you simply can't talk like that. You must believe in your husband's innocence. Your face alone would hang him.”

“I do believe in it,' answered Letitia; “only I can't help seeing some terrible coincidences. There is no one in the world knows more about poisons than Roger does. He is always talking about the Borgias and what they used. And after all, Nan, I was brought up to face facts. There is a streak of weakness in Roger where women are concerned—a certain vanity.”

“There is in every man.”

“And then, Nan, I love my mother-in-law; but I can't help seeing she did not bring him up right. She spoiled him; not that she made him selfish or self-indulgent—no one could do that to Roger; but she did give him too much confidence in his own ability to arrange any situation. He jumps into anything—— Oh, can't you see how he might easily be led on to do something like this?”

“No,” said Nan; “no. I'm not his wife—I never saw him, but I feel sure he did not do this.”

Perhaps her manner was more offensive than she meant it to be; but for some reason Letty's rather alarming calm suddenly broke into anger.

“That's impertinent, Nan,” she said. “Why should you always think you understand better than anyone else? He's my husband. If you had any delicacy of feeling, you'd admit that if anyone knew the truth about him, I do—not you, who never saw him. It's easy enough for you to come preaching the beauty of perfect faith. Don't you suppose I'd believe in him if I could?” And so on and on. It was as if she hated Nan for believing in him when she didn't.

Nan let her talk for a few minutes, and then at the first pause she got up and walked to the door. “I think I'll go and sit with your mother,” she said.

“Don't tell her what I've been saying—don't tell her that I have doubt of Roger.”

You know I would not do that, Letty.”

“I don't know what you'd do in your eternal wish to know more about people than anyone else knows.”

Nan left the room with a heavy heart. Did she want to be omniscient? Was it impertinent to be surer of a man's innocence than his wife was? Well, if he were innocent, Letitia would never forgive her—that was clear.

She found Mrs. Lewis alone in an upper room. She was standing looking out the window, her arms folded, her body tilted slightly backward, while she crooned sadly to herself. As Nan entered she shook her head slowly at her.

“The poor child,” she said.

“Roger or Letty?”

“Oh, both; but, of course, I was thinking of my own.”

“Mrs. Lewis, do you believe he's guilty?”

“No, my dear—nor innocent. I don't believe anything. I simply don't know. When you get to be my age, Nan, you will understand that es is possible; the wicked do the most splendid things at times, and the virtuous do the most awful. I don't know whether Roger did this or not. He may have. It may even have been the right thing to do, although poison—well, I'm surprised Roger descended to that.”

With this point of view Nan had some sympathy, although she felt obliged to protest a little.

“You said he was the finest man you had ever known.”

“I thought so—I think so still—but what does one know about such people? An utterly different class, a different background. I'm as good a democrat as anybody, but there is something in tradition. Oh, I see you don't know. Well, the father was a plumber. Yes, my dear, little as you might think it, that ruffled marquise downstairs is the widow of a plumber. How do we know what people like that will do or not do when their passions are roused? It nearly killed me to have Letitia marry him.”

“I thought you liked the marriage, Mrs. Lewis.”

“That's where I blame myself, Nan. I let it get out of my control. I hesitated. I admired the man. He had plenty of money; and of course the mother was delighted to get such a wife for her son, and made it all too terribly easy. And then he was mad about Letty.”

“Wasn't she mad about him too?”

Mrs. Lewis shook her head.

“Not at first; but he was always there—always writing and coming. I don't suppose I ever came into the flat in those days without finding a message that Letty was to call—whatever his number was—as soon as she came in. He's a determined man and he meant to get her.”

“She is tremendously in love with him now.”

Mrs. Lewis sighed.

“Ah, yes, now, poor child—of course. Don't betray me, Nan. Don't let those two downstairs know that I have a doubt. She's a sweet creature—the plumber's widow—though to me irritating; and she wouldn't doubt anyone in the world, let alone her darling son; and, of course, Letitia does not think it possible that her husband can have killed a man, especially for the sake of another woman.”

“Have you ever heard a suspicion that there was another woman?” Nan asked.

“No; but then I shouldn't be likely to. We three women are the last people in the world to hear it, even if it were notorious.”

Nan was obliged to admit the truth of this; and presently Mrs. Lewis, fearing that her absence might appear unfriendly, decided to go back to the sitting room.

Nan said she was coming, too, but stood a minute staring at the carpet. What was it, she wondered, made her so passionately eager that Roger should be innocent? Was it love of her friend, or pride of opinion, or interest in abstract truth, or interest in a man she had never seen? She had a strange feeling of a bond between her and Roger. As she went slowly down the stairs, her eye fell again upon the police officer, shifting, patient, but uncomfortable on the William-and-Mary chair. A sudden inspiration came to her. She asked to see the warrant.

Well, it was just as she thought—not for Roger at all, but for a man whose last name was Rogers, who lived in a house two away. The number wasn't even right; but that was more the fault of the real-estate company than of the police department. She took the officer outside and showed him his mistake, and finally had the satisfaction of shutting the door forever on that blue-coated figure.

She turned toward the sitting room. To break good news is not always so easy, either. She thought of those three doubters, each one trying to show the others how full her heart was of complete confidence.

Nan opened the door, went in, shut it behind her and leaned on the knob.

“Now, you three,” she said, “you've been wonderful in bad times; try to be equally calm in good.” They looked up at her, wondering what good news was possible, and she hurried on: “The policeman has gone. The warrant was not for Roger at all.”

There was a pause, hardly broken in any real sense by the sound of Mrs. Rossiter repeating that she had always known it could not be true—had always known it could not be Roger.

“Still,” said Mrs. Lewis with an amused sidelong glance, “it is a comfort that now the police know it too.”

But Nan's eyes had never left her friend's face. Letty did not say a word. She rose and stared straight at Nan, looking at her almost as if she were an enemy. Nan knew that Mrs. Rossiter would forget that she had ever doubted her son—had already forgotten and was cooing her faith and joy. Mrs. Lewis had nothing to forget. She had merely expressed an agnostic attitude; but Letitia had revealed to Nan the very depths of her estimate of her husband—and she had been wrong and Nan right. She would never forgive that.

Except for this change in the relation between the two younger women, in five minutes it was as if the whole incident had never occurred. Mrs. Rossiter was again the devoted mother-in-law, Letitia the happy bride, and Mrs. Lewis was saying, “Which brings us back to the point I was making when the fatal ring came—it is a mistake to let Meta answer either the door or the telephone.”

In a little while Mrs. Rossiter announced that she must be going, and Nan was not surprised when Mrs. Lewis, who had had a few minutes alone with her daughter, suggested that Nan should go back with them and spend the night with her.

“But I promised Letty——” she began, and then glancing at her friend she saw that she was expected to accept.

Letitia spoke civilly, kindly, as ff she were come everyone a favor.

“Oh, I let you off,” she said. “Mamma is all alone, and I know how you and she enjoy picking all the rest of us to pieces.”

Nan hesitated rebelliously. It seemed hard that she was not to see Roger just because she had understood him too well.

She said, “But I want so much to see Roger.”

Mrs. Lewis glanced at her. It was not like the girl to be so obstinate. Of course, poor Letty wanted her husband to herself after a shock like this.

“Roger will keep,” she said firmly.

She went into the hall and picked up her scarf from the companion chair to that on which the policeman had sat. As she did so her eye fell upon a bag standing as if ready for a journey.

“Is that your bag, Nan?” she asked, trying to remember if the plan had ever been that Nan was to spend the night.

“No,” said Letitia in a quick sharp voice; “that's something of mine.”

And then, without the least warning, the front door opened and Roger himself walked in—walked in without any idea that he had been a murderer, arrested, extradited, defended and freed since he had last seen his own house.

He was just as Nan knew he would be. She didn't care anything about his mere beauty. It was that fine firm mouth of his—just like the photograph. How could anyone imagine that a man with a mouth like that——

He greeted his wife, his mother, his mother-in-law casually, and came straight to Nan.

“So this is Nan—at last,” he said, and he stooped and kissed her cheek.

Well, Nan said to herself, she had a right to that; but she saw Letty's brow contract; and Mrs. Lewis, who perhaps saw it, too, hurried her toward the car. Roger protested.

“But you're not taking Nan! I came home early especially to see her. I did not even go back to the office for fear of being detained.” But, of course, his lonely protest accomplished nothing, and as he opened the front door for the three departing women, he asked, “When am I to see you, Nan?”

Nan looked up at him very sweetly and said “Never.” She said it lightly, but she knew it was the bitter truth. She knew Letitia. Letitia would never permit a second meeting.

Just as she got into the car she heard him call, “Oh, isn't this your bag?” and she heard Letty answer:

“No, it's mine. It represents one of Nan's abandoned ideas.”