Short Fiction

I can’t have you starving to death on a feast-day. Besides, I’m thirsty as well as hungry.”

They ordered the special table d’hôte and struggled hard to get away with it. Tom drank six highballs, but they failed to produce the usual effect of making him jovial. Grace had one highball and some kind of cordial that gave her a warm, contented feeling for a moment. But the warmth and contentment left her before the train was halfway home.

The living-room looked as if Von Kluck’s army had just passed through. Ted and Caroline had kept their promise up to a certain point. They had spent part of the evening at home, and the Murdocks must have brought all their own friends and everybody else’s, judging from the results. The tables and floors were strewn with empty glasses, ashes and cigarette stubs. The stockings had been torn off their nails and the wrecked contents were all over the place. Two sizable holes had been burnt in Grace’s favorite rug.

Tom took his wife by the arm and led her into the music-room.

“You never took the trouble to open your own present,” he said.

“And I think there’s one for you, too,” said Grace. “They didn’t come in here,” she added, “so I guess there wasn’t much dancing or music.”

Tom found his gift from Grace, a set of diamond studs and cuff buttons for festive wear. Grace’s present from him was an opal ring.

“Oh, Tom!” she said.

“We’ll have to go out somewhere tomorrow night, so I can break these in,” said Tom.

“Well, if we do that, we’d better get a good night’s rest.”

“I’ll beat you upstairs,” said Tom.

Contract

When the Sheltons were settled in their new home in the pretty little suburb of Linden, Mrs. Shelton was afraid nobody would call on them. Her husband was afraid somebody would. For ages Mrs. Shelton had bravely pretended to share her husband’s aversion to a social life; he hated parties that numbered more than four people and she had convincingly, so she thought, played the role of indifference while declining invitations she would have given her right eye to accept. Shelton had not been fooled much, but his dislike of “crowds” was so great that he seldom sought to relieve her martyrdom by insisting that they “go” somewhere.

This was during the first six years of their connubial existence, while it was necessary to live, rather economically, in town. Recently, however, Shelton’s magazine had advanced him to a position as associate editor and he was able, with the assistance of a benignant bond and mortgage company, to move into a house in Linden. Mrs. Shelton was sure suburbanites would be less tedious and unattractive than people they had known in the city and that it would not be fatal to her spouse to get acquainted and play around a little; anyway she could make friends with other wives, if they were willing, and perhaps enjoy afternoons of contract bridge, a game she had learned to love in three lessons. At the same time Shelton resolved to turn over a new leaf for his wife’s sake and give her to understand that he was open for engagements, secretly hoping, as I have hinted, that Linden’s denizens would treat them as if they were quarantined.

Mrs. Shelton’s fears were banished, and Shelton’s resolution put to a test, on an evening of their second week in the new house. They were dropped in on by Mr. and Mrs. Robert French who lived three blocks away. Mrs. French was pretty and Shelton felt inclined to like her until she remarked how fascinating it must be to edit a magazine and meet Michael Arlen. French had little to say, being occupied most of the while in a petting party with his mustache.

Mrs. Shelton showed Mrs. French her seven hooked rugs. Mrs. French said, “Perfectly darling!” seven times, inquired where each of the seven had been procured and did not listen to the answers. Shelton served highballs of eighty dollar Scotch he had bought from a Linden bootlegger. French commented favorably on the Scotch. Shelton thought it was terrible himself and that French was a poor judge, or was being polite, or was deceived by some flavor lurking in the mustache. Mrs. Shelton ran out of hooked rugs and Mrs. French asked whether they played contract. Mrs. Shelton hesitated from habit. Shelton swallowed hard and replied that they did, and liked it very much.

“That’s wonderful!” said Mrs. French. “Because the Wilsons have moved to Chicago. They were crazy about contract and we used to have a party every Wednesday night; two tables⁠—the Wilsons, ourselves, and the Dittmars and Camerons. It would be just grand if you two would take the Wilsons’ place. We have dinner at somebody’s house and next Wednesday is our turn. Could you come?”

Mrs. Shelton again hesitated and Shelton (to quote O. O. McIntyre) once more took the bull by the horns.

“It sounds fine!” he said. “We haven’t anything else on for that night, have we, dear?”

His wife uttered an astonished no and the Frenches left.

“What in the world has happened to you?” demanded Mrs. Shelton.

“Nothing at all. They seem like nice people and we’ve got to make friends here. Besides, it won’t be bad playing cards.”

“I don’t know about contract,” said Mrs. Shelton doubtfully. “You’ve got good card sense, and the only time you played it, you were all right. But I’m afraid I’ll make hideous mistakes.”

“Why should you? And even if you do, what of it?”

“These people are probably whizzes.”

“I don’t care if they’re Lenz’s mother-in-law.”

“But you’ll care if they criticise you.”

“Of course I will. People, and especially strangers, have no more right to criticise your bridge playing than your clothes or your complexion.”

“You know that’s silly. Bridge is a game.”

“Tennis is a game, too. But how often do you hear one tennis player say to another, ‘You played that like an old fool!’?”

“You’re not partners in tennis.”

“You are in doubles. However, criticism in bridge