第27章

Pauline, glancing across the thronged sidewalk and along the empty, brilliantly lighted passage leading into the theater, saw a striking, peculiar-looking woman standing at the box-office while her escort parleyed with the clerk within."How much that man looks like Jack," she said to herself--and then she saw that it was indeed Jack.Not the Jack she thought she knew, but quite another person, the one he tried to hide from her--too carelessly, because he made the common mistake of underestimating the sagacity of simplicity.A glance at the woman, a second glance at Dumont, his flushed, insolent face now turned full front--and she KNEW this unfamiliar and hitherto-only-hinted Jack.

The omnibus was caught in a jam of cars and carriages; there were several moments of confusion and excitement.When the Fanshaw party was finally able to descend, she saw that Jack and his companion were gone--the danger of a scene was over for the moment.She lingered and made the others linger, wishing to give him time to get to his seats.When they entered the theater it was dark and the curtain was up.But her eyes, searching the few boxes visible from the rear aisle, found the woman, or, at least, enough of her for recognition--the huge black hat with its vast pale blue feather.Pauline drew a long breath of relief when the Fanshaws' box proved to be almost directly beneath, the box.

If she had been a few years older, she would have given its proper significance to the curious fact that this sudden revelation of the truth about her husband did not start a tempest of anger or jealousy, but set her instantly to sacrificing at the shrine of the great god Appearances.It is notorious that of all the household gods he alone erects his altar only upon the hearth where the ashes are cold.

As she sat there through the two acts, she seemed to be watching the stage and taking part in the conversation of the Fanshaws and their friends; yet afterward she could not recall a single thing that had occurred, a single word that had been said.At the end of the last act she again made them linger so that they were the last to emerge into the passage.In the outside doorway, she saw the woman--just a glimpse of a pretty, empty, laughing face with a mouth made to utter impertinences and eyes that invited them.

Mrs.Fanshaw was speaking--"You're very tired, aren't you?""Very," replied Pauline, with a struggle to smile.

"What a child you look! It seems absurd that you are a married woman.Why, you haven't your full growth yet." And on an impulse of intuitive sympathy Mrs.Fanshaw pressed her arm, and Pauline was suddenly filled with gratitude, and liked her from that moment.

Alone in her sitting-room at the hotel, she went up to the mirror over the mantel, and, staring absently at herself, put her hands up mechanically to take out her hat-pins."No, I'll keep my, hat on," she thought, without knowing why.And she sat, hat and wrap on, and looked at a book.Half an hour, and she took off her hat and wrap, put them in a chair near where she was sitting.

The watched hands of the clock crawled wearily round to half-past one, to two, to half-past two, to three--each half-hour an interminable stage.She wandered to the window and looked down into empty Fifth Avenue.When she felt that at least an hour had passed, she turned to look at the clock again--twenty-five minutes to four.Her eyes were heavy.

"He is not coming," she said aloud, and, leaving the lights on in the sitting-room, locked herself in the bedroom.

At five o'clock she started up and seized the dressing-gown on the chair near the head of the bed.She listened--heard him muttering in the sitting-room.She knew now that a crash of some kind had roused her.Several minutes of profound silence, then through the door came a steady, heavy snore.

The dressing-gown dropped from her hand.She slid from the bed, slowly crossed the room, softly opened the door, looked into the sitting-room.A table and a chair lay upset in the middle of the floor.He was on a sofa, sprawling, disheveled, snoring.

Slowly she advanced toward him--she was barefooted, and the white nightgown clinging to her slender figure and the long braid down her back made her look as young as her soul--the soul that gazed from her fixed, fascinated eyes, the soul of a girl of eighteen, full as much child as woman still.She sat down before him in a low chair, her elbows on her knees, her chin supported by her hands, her eyes never leaving his swollen, dark red, brutish face--a cigar stump, much chewed, lay upon his cheek near his open mouth.He was as absurd and as repulsive as a gorged pig asleep in a wallow.

The dawn burst into broad day, but she sat on motionless until the clock struck the half-hour after six.Then she returned to the bedroom and locked herself in again.

Toward noon she dressed and went into the sitting-room.He was gone and it had been put to rights.When he came, at twenty minutes to one, she was standing at the window, but she did not turn.

"Did you get my note?" he asked, in a carefully careless tone.