guess we can use you—some place,’ I says, tryin’ not t’ look too anxious. If your ideas on salary can take a slump be tween New York and Milwaukee. Our salaries around here is more what is elegantly known as a stipend. What’s your name, Bo?’
“`Name?’ says he, smiling again, `Maybe it’ll be familiar t’ you. That is, it will if my wife is usin’ it. Orme’s my name—Peter Orme. Know a lady of that name? Good.’
“I hadn’t said I did, but those eyes of his had seen the look on my face.
“`Friends in New York told me she was here,’ he says. `Where is she now? Got her address?’ he says.
“`She expectin’ you?’ I asked.
“`N-not exactly,’ he says, with that crooked grin.
“`Thought not,’ I answered, before I knew what I was sayin’. `She’s up north with her folks on a vacation.’
“`The devil she is!’ he says. `Well, in that case can you let me have ten until Monday?’”
Blackie came over to me as I sat cowering in my chair. He patted my shoulder with one lean brown hand. “Now kid, you dig, see? Beat it. Go home for a week. I’ll fix it up with Norberg. No tellin’ what a guy like that’s goin’ t’ do. Send your brother-in-law down here if you want to make it a family affair, and between us, we’ll see this thing through.”
I looked up at Von Gerhard. He was nodding approval. It all seemed so easy, so temptingly easy. To run away! Not to face him until I was safe in the shelter of Norah’s arms! I stood up, resolve lending me new strength and courage.
“I am going. I know it isn’t brave, but I can’t be brave any longer. I’m too tired—too old—”
I grasped the hand of each of those men who had stood by me so staunchly in the year that was past. The words of thanks that I had on my lips ended in dry, helpless sobs. And because Blackie and Von Gerhard looked so pathetically concerned and so unhappy in my unhappiness my sobs changed to hysterical laughter, in which the two men joined, after one moment’s bewildered staring.
So it was that we did not hear the front door slam, or the sound of footsteps in the hall. Our overstrained nerves found relief in laughter, so that Peter Orme, a lean, ominous figure in the doorway looked in upon a merry scene.
I was the first to see him. And at the sight of the emaciated figure, with its hollow cheeks and its sunken eyes all terror and hatred left me, and I felt only a great pity for this wreck of manhood. Slowly I went up to him there in the doorway.
“Well, Peter?” I said.
“Well, Dawn old girl,” said he “you’re looking wonderfully fit. Grass widowhood seems to agree with you, eh?”
And I knew then that my dread dream had come true.
Peter advanced into the room with his old easy grace of manner. His eyes glowed as he looked at Blackie. Then he laughed, showing his even, white teeth. “Why, you little liar!” he said, in his crisp, clear English. “I’ve a notion to thwack you. What d’ you mean by telling me my wife’s gone? You’re not sweet on her yourself, eh?”
Von Gerhard stifled an exclamation, and Orme turned quickly in his direction. “Who are you?” he asked. “Still another admirer? Jolly time you were having when I interrupted.” He stared at Von Gerhard deliberately and coolly. A little frown of dislike came into his face. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you? I knew it. I can tell by the hands, and the eyes, and the skin, and the smell. Lived with ‘em for ten years, damn them! Dawn, tell these fellows they’re excused, will you? And by the way, you don’t seem very happy to see me?”
I went up to him then, and laid my hand on his arm. “Peter, you don’t understand. These two gentlemen have been all that is kind to me. I am happy to know that you are well again. Surely you do not expect me to be joyful at seeing you. All that pretense was left out of our lives long before your—illness. It hasn’t been all roses for me since then, Peter. I’ve worked until I wanted to die with weariness. You know what this newspaper game is for a woman. It doesn’t grow easier as she grows older and tireder.”
“Oh, cut out the melodrama, Dawn,” sneered Peter. “Have either of you fellows the makin’s about you? Thanks. I’m famished for a smoke.”
The worrying words of ten years ago rose automatically to my lips. “Aren’t you smoking too much, Peter?” The tone was that of a harassed wife.
Peter stared. Then he laughed his short, mirthless little laugh. “By Jove! Dawn, I believe you’re as much my wife now as you were ten years ago. I always said, you know, that you would have become a first-class nagger if you hadn’t had such a keen sense of humor. That saved you.” He turned his mocking eyes to Von Gerhard. “Doesn’t it beat the devil, how these good women stick to a man, once they’re married! There’s a certain dog-like devotion about it that’s touching.”
There was a dreadful little silence. For the first time in my knowledge of him I saw a hot, painful red dyeing Blackie’s sallow face. His eyes had a menace in their depths. Then, very quietly, Von Gerhard stepped forward and stopped directly before me.
“Dawn,” he said, very softly and gently, “I retract my statement of an hour ago. If you will give me another chance to do as you asked me, I shall thank God for it all my life. There is no degradation in that. To live with this man—that is degradation. And I say you shall not suffer it.”
I looked up into his face, and it had never seemed so dear to me. “The time for that is past,” I said, my tone as calm and even as his own. “A man like you cannot burden himself with a derelict like me—mast gone, sails gone, water-logged, drifting. Five years from now you’ll thank me for what I am saying now. My place is with this other wreck—tossed about by wind and weather until we both go down together.” There came a sharp, insistent ring at the doorbell. No answering sound came from the regions above stairs. The ringing sounded again, louder than before.
“I’ll be the Buttons,” said Blackie, and disappeared into the hallway.
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about you,” came to our ears a moment later, in a high, clear voice—a dear, beloved voice that sent me flying to the door in an agony of hope.
