“Mercy! It’s the boy’s birthday—I
was to take him to his grandmother’s. She
was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up
town. I knew there was something I’d
forgotten!”
In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been
lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn,
had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain
her eyes into the darkening square. She came
back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning
between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece.
“No sign of her. She’s simply forgotten.”
Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it
with the high-waisted Empire clock.
“Six o’clock. Why not telephone again?
There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew
Ralph would be late.”
Laura laughed. “I haven’t noticed
that she follows Ralph’s movements so closely.
When I telephoned just now the servant said she’d
been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past
four, not liking to come without orders; and now it’s
too late for Paul to come.”
She wandered away toward the farther end of the room,
where, through half-open doors, a shining surface
of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which
two candles dwindled.
“Put them out, please,” she said to some
one in the background; then she shut the doors and
turned back to Bowen.
“It’s all so unlucky—my grandfather
giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her
hospital meeting, and having all the committee down
on her. And Henley: I’d even coaxed
Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again
just before you came. Undine promised she’d
have the boy here at four. It’s not as
if it had never happened before. She’s always
breaking her engagements.”
“She has so many that it’s inevitable
some should get broken.”
“All if she’d only choose! Now that
Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office
so late, it’s cruel of her to drag him out every
night. He told us the other day they hadn’t
dined at home for a month. Undine doesn’t
seem to notice how hard he works.”
Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire.
“No—why should she?”
“Why should she? Really, Charles—!”
“Why should she, when she knows nothing about
it?”
“She may know nothing about his business; but
she must know it’s her extravagance that’s
forced him into it.” Mrs. Fairford looked
at Bowen reproachfully. “You talk as if
you were on her side!”
“Are there sides already? If so, I want
to look down on them impartially from the heights
of pure speculation. I want to get a general view
of the whole problem of American marriages.”
Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh.
“If that’s what you want you must make
haste! Most of them don’t last long enough
to be classified.”
“I grant you it takes an active mind. But
the weak point is so frequently the same that after
a time one knows where to look for it.”
