“Well, old man,” he said, with an assumption
of comradery that was nauseous to Halleck, “you’ve
done the handsome thing by me. I know all about
it. I knew something about it all the time.”
He held out his hand, without rising, and Halleck
forced himself to touch it. “I appreciate
your delicacy in not telling my wife. Of course
you couldn’t tell,” he said, with
depraved enjoyment of what he conceived of Halleck’s
embarrassment. “But I guess she must have
smelt a rat. As the fellow says,” he added,
seeing the disgust that Halleck could not keep out
of his face, “I shall make a clean breast of
it, as soon as she can bear it. She’s pretty
high-strung. Lying down, now,” he explained.
“You see, I went out to get something to make
me sleep, and the first thing I knew I had got too
much. Good thing I turned up on your doorstep;
might have been waltzing into the police court about
now. How did you happen to hear me?”
Halleck briefly explained, with an air of abhorrence
for the facts.
“Yes, I remember most of it,” said Bartley.
“Well, I want to thank you, Halleck. You’ve
saved me from disgrace,—from ruin, for all
I know. Whew! how my head aches!” he said,
making an appeal to Halleck’s pity, with closed
eyes. “Halleck,” he murmured, feebly,
“I wish you would do me a favor.”
“Yes? What is it?” asked Halleck,
dryly.
“Go round to the Events office and tell old
Witherby that I sha’n’t be able to put
in an appearance to-day. I’m not up to writing
a note, even; and he’d feel flattered at your
coming personally. It would make it all right
for me.”
“Of course I will go,” said Halleck.
“Thanks,” returned Bartley, plaintively,
with his eyes closed.
Bartley would willingly have passed this affair over
with Marcia, like some of their quarrels, and allowed
a reconciliation to effect itself through mere lapse
of time and daily custom. But there were difficulties
in the way to such an end; his shameful escapade had
given the quarrel a character of its own, which could
not be ignored. He must keep his word about making
a clean breast of it to Marcia, whether he liked or
not; but she facilitated his confession by the meek
and dependent fashion in which she hovered about,
anxious to do something or anything for him. If,
as he suggested to Halleck, she had divined the truth,
she evidently did not hold him wholly to blame for
what had happened, and he was not without a self-righteous
sense of having given her a useful and necessary lesson.
He was inclined to a severity to which his rasped
and shaken nerves contributed, when he spoke to her
that night, as they sat together after tea; she had
some sewing in her lap, little mysteries of soft muslin
for the baby, which she was edging with lace, and
her head drooped over her work, as if she could not
confront him with her swollen eyes.
“Look here, Marcia,” he said, “do
you know what was the matter with me this morning?”
