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Show Matrimonial Adventures His Wife's Visitor BY Henry Kitchell Webster Author of "Rocor Dmtte." "ClMHidll of Industry, I'lio Traitor luid loyalist." "Ttie Whispi'rlnjc Man," "A Kinir In KhaJti. I'lie Sky Slim," ".liiiw Mildness." "Thfi Keal Adventure." "The Tliorounh-e-ed," "An American lnm-Uy," lnm-Uy," "Mar-v WnlliuMon," "Keal Life," et. A Copyright by United Feature Syndicate s,....... ...S t T j HENRY KITCHELL I WEBSTER f ? i T t Like so many of America's big f ? authors, Henry Kitchell Webster ? : began writing at an early age. His I first work brought forth stories of i f mystery thrillers; he specialized In ? i Plot. j f Then he turned from that form T of fiction to material with more i i substance. For one of the leading t magazines he traveled in the trop- T ics and wrote articles, not purely ? f for local color, but studies of the i I life with a sociological background, i f Later came his novels with their ? portrayals of real people and real t f problems, showing the power of ; ? Mr. Webster's mental equipment, i i for he is a widely cultivated person j with a knowledge of the drama, ? f music and literature. He speaks T with authority on all of these sub- i Jects. i f Mr. Webster Is one of the au- f thors who takes a long time at his f ? writing, and the story that follows, ! i written expressly for the Star Au- i i thor Series of Matrimonial Adven- f f tures, was In process of develop- f ? ment during a trip through Eu- ; rope. "His Wife's Visitor" shows i f how very clever husbands some- f t times are! t t MARY STEWAitT CUTTING, JR. 4,.........-.......-........ The telephone rang for the third time since they had sat down to dinner. din-ner. The maid, In her flurried haste to placate the tyrant, set down the dish of fried eggplant from which George had been about to help himself on the sideboard out of his reach. George and his wife sat listening In silence. The maid returned and said, "I think It's for you, Mrs. Tait." George sighed and produced the evening eve-ning paper, which had been tucked under his leg against this precise contingency. con-tingency. Be didn't particularly care about the news, of which he had already read the unexciting headlines, but he did want to register a not unamlable protest pro-test against these continual interruptions interrup-tions of their dinner. Emily insisted on making a more or less formal meal of it. She'd have been mildly annoyed with him If he'd gone to the sideboard and helped himself to the eggplant while the maid was at the phone. Then why couldn't she Instruct Anna to say to these importunate telephones tele-phones that her mistress was at dinner din-ner and ask them to call her in an hour? It wasn't as If they ever had ' anything to say. There was no use saying this to Emily. He knew her argument as well as his own. Anna's morale would be ruined if they short-circuited her services by helping themselves, and then where would they be when they had people in to dinner? But if he didn't want the meal interrupted by telephone calls, why did he Insist on their dining at the bucolic hour of six Instead of seven when most of their friends did? Of course Emily knew his answer to that, too. By dining at six they could, whenever they felt like it, go to the first show at the Alcazar and see the picture right end to, Instead of from the middle of the fourth reel. Also they could find a convenient place to park the car. And they were home again by nine, so that if George had any evening eve-ning work to do there were a couple of solid hours left for it. And as for setting set-ting an example of propriety to Anna, George felt It was rather hard. Ever since their first child, George, Junior, had been two years old, George, Senior, had been submitting to innumerable small infringements upon his personal liberty under the plea of setting a proper example. But now that Junior was in college, and his younger sister in a boarding school, it seemed 10 George at forty-three that he might be allowed to tilt back In his chair if he liked and empty his pipe scrapings Into the dessert plate. There was no good saying any of that, either, for Emily knew it as well as he did. Well, he knew her answer, too, though this Inst word was one she had never said. After all, they didn't live In New York nor in Philadelphia nor even In Chicago. They lived In Avo-nla, Avo-nla, Illinois. George had a good law practice in Harrison county, but the great cities and the great corporations had never summoned him, and it was becoming clear to George nt forty-three forty-three that they never would. Avonla and the movies and the bridge club and a month's vacation at Mackinac Island was about his speed. He doubted very much, if Emily, as regarded her own potential speed granted a conjugal partner of suffi-cieiit suffi-cieiit horsepower acquiesced. Emily might well believe she was born for better things. She'd been a good deal of a belle In her day. She was too loyal to lament lost opportunities in his presence, let alone to fling them at him as missiles, but a consciousness that they might be lying ready to her hand made him walk warily. She should make the best of Avonla In her own way, and If there was a faint flavor of absurdity about sonic of the refine ments she Insisted upon, and about the seriousness with which she took her committees and her classes and her clubs, It did not behoove her husband to rail, no matter how often they called her from the dinner table to the telephone. He had had time to think as far as this, his mind slipping rapidly past the familiar landmarks just as his eye slid down the columns of the newspapers, before lie perceived that Emily was not, this time, talking to any member of her drama committee, nor to any citizen of Avonia, nor to anyone she'd had the slightest expectation of hearing hear-ing from. It was a man George could tell that from the quality of her voice and he seemed to be throwing her into a good deal of a flutter. "Why why, yes," she was saying. "Oh, but we'd love to have you ! . . . Yes. That'll be fine . . . We certainly cer-tainly will.' Only I'm afraid you won't find us very exciting. . . . Four o'clock Saturday then." George, as she returned to the table, fastened his gaze upon the paper. When she was rattled she liked to be allowed to take her time. She sat down a bit heavily in her chair, drew a couple of long breaths, resumed her knife and fork, and then asked, "Did you hear any of that?" "Not much," he told her. "I thought you sounded sort of surprised." "I should say I was," she admitted, "when I hadn't heard from him for nineteen years. Calling up on the long-distance to ask if he can come and spend Sunday with us I Surprised Sur-prised !" "Who?" George wanted to know. "I don't know why he should want to. He certainly won't find any material ma-terial for a play in us. Still, It'll be nice to see him again. I don't suppose sup-pose I'll know him." "Look here," George demanded, "whom are you talking about?" "Oh," she said, as If she had just heard his questions; but it was another moment before she answeVed it. "Why, it's Charley Hawkins Hawthorn Haw-thorn Hawkins Geo'ge, you know who he is !" "I know who Hawthorn Hawkins is, but why do you call him Charley? And why does he call us on the long distance and propose to spend Sunday with us?" "Why, he's giving the Sheldon lectures lec-tures down at the University this year, and he looked up Avonia on the map and saw how near It was so he phoned to ask if he could come." "But why Avonia, and why us? If you know him as well as that, why haven't you ever told me anything about him?" "George," she cried, scandalized, "I told you all about Charley Hawkins when we were first engaged and you didn't even listen. He wasn't famous then, of course. And I haven't heard from him since the note he wrote with the wedding present he sent us. Now, for goodness' sake, don't ask any more questions, but let me eat." It was from preoccupation rather than obedience that he let her alone until she rang for the maid. . Then, "You haven't been writing to him, have you telling him he was great and so on?" Her eyes flashed at him, but the entrance en-trance of Anna procured him a polite answer. "I couldn't very well write to him when I'd never seen one of his plays." "Ever read 'em?" he asked. "They are published, I suppose." She shook her head and waited until Anna went out; then she swooped upon him. "I never thought you'd be so silly," she declared, "as to be jealous. jeal-ous. And about a man I haven't thought of for twenty years." ( "Jealous !" he retorted furiously. "I'm not." "What are you then?" she asked with an alkaline sort of smile, and he found the question unanswerable. "Well, I hope you will be decent to him anyhow." "I don't know whether I will or not," he told her. "That depends." She didn't speak to him again that night. Two days later, coming home from a rather strenuous bout of shopping, Emily found her husband home from the office a good hour earlier than usual reading a small green paper-covered paper-covered volume, which he put down hastily as she came in, and then took up again and held out to her. " 'Three Plays by Hawthorn Hawkins,' Haw-kins,' " she read. "Why, where did that come from? I tried to get It at Street's, but they'd never even heard of it." "Came in the mail," he said. "I found it when I got here." "Addressed to me?" she nsked. "Why yes. I believe It was. I opened the package without thinking." "Charley sent them on, of course," she remarked ; "so that I'd have something some-thing to talk to him about." "I don't believe he did," George said decidedly. "Not unless he's an unusual ass." She flushed angrily at that, but he went on before she could speak. "I said I thought he wasn't an ass, not that I thought he was. There'd have been a card or an Inscription if It had come from him. Anyhow, I wouldn't thank him for It unless he gives you a lead. Read 'em and say nothing. And don't leave 'em out on the sitting room table where they'll be the first thing he sees, either." Her smile conceded that this advice was both friendly and Intelligent. "But where did they come from?" she demanded. "Search me!" he told her. "They don't postmark this fourth-class stuff. No, I didn't mean anything uncomplimentary. uncompli-mentary. As far as I read in the first one, It seemed pretty good. I thought you might hnve sent to Chicago for them." She pointed out that there wouldn't have been time. "Oh, well," he concluded, "I don't believe if 3 much of a mystery. Some old friend, most likely, that he told he was coming, sent It along so that you could surprise sur-prise him. You'll read 'em tonight, I suppose." She said she would, unless he wanted want-ed to go out somewhere with her; hut he said he must go hack to the office and work. ' "I'm going to be pretty busy between now and Monday," he added. She looked at him sharply. You're going to he here tomorrow when he conies, aren't you?" "Oh, yes, I'll be here you bet." It was so evident, though, that the last brace of words had escaped him Involuntarily In-voluntarily that she forbore to remonstrate. remon-strate. They kept rather carefully away from Charles Hawthorn Hawkins as a conversational topic that night. Next morning, however, just before he left for the office, George uneasily broke the Ice by saying, "Don't count on him too much, Emily. He may not come, you know send you a telegram this morning." She nsked hotly why he said that, and added, as the suspicion struck her, "I believe you've been telegraphing him, yourself, not to come." But this Injurious charge she at once retracted. "They're supposed to be sort of temperamental and changeable, that's all," he explained, "and I thought he might change his mind about this." "You wish he would, I suspect," she observed. "Yes," he answered, unhappily; "I suppose I do." She gazed at him a moment in mute exasperation. Then her expression softened and she gave a reluctant laugh. "I think you're the most ridiculous ridic-ulous person in the world," she said. "I suppose you think he's coming out here to break up our happy home and get me to run away with him." He looked so glum over this that she gave him up as hopeless. "Oh, go along," she cried. "But I'm going to kiss you first. And you will be home sharp at four, won't you?" It was afl hour earlier than this that she found him in the dining room unwrapping a package containing two bottles, one of gin and the other of Scotch whisky. "Got 'em from Walter Harbury," he explained sheepishly. "Walter has a regular bootlegger comes around once a month. Been meaning to lay In something like this for quite a while." Her astonishment over this bit of unabashed mendacity made It possible for him to get on to something else. He put the bottles away In the sideboard, side-board, turned his back upon It, and gazed at her so intently that she frowned Inquiringly and presently asked, "Well, what Is It?" "Nothing," he said, "only I think you're looking great just as you are." Now this was the unadulterated truth. At forty, after two children and nineteen years of marriage and Avonla, she still looked Infinitely desirable de-sirable to George, and never more so than In the sort of clothes she was wearing now, a small felt hat crammed down upon her small round head (she'd been out doing some last-minute marketing), a sweater, a sport skirt, low-heeled shoes; her face moistly flushed, innocent of powder. It was true and Emily knew it was true. All the same, she saw through him and smiled derisively. "So you want me to look like this when Mr. Hawkins Haw-kins comes?" she asked. "Well, I won't. I'm going up to dress this minute." "I wish you wouldn't, Emily," he pleaded. "I don't want you to dress up for this chump. I don't want you to do anything special for him. I don't see why you should. You don't care anything about him, do you? Nor about what he thinks?" Her flush deepened as she met his look. She reached out suddenly and took hold of him by the ears. "Idiot !" she said, "Idiot !" But in the interval between the two words she kissed him, and she die! not dress up for Mr. Charles Hawthorn Hawkins. Perhaps because her husband's performance per-formance occupied the first place in her attention, she found it hard to remember re-member what a celebrity Charley Hawkins had become. He was curiously unchanged, through all his changes. The twenty pounds or so he had put on hadn't made him look older; had served only to accentuate accen-tuate the plump, cherubic look of boyish boy-ish innocence there'd always been about him. He talked about himself a lot, Just as he'd always done. Emily shot an uneasy glance at George now and then ; for instance, when Charley spoke offhand of the foremost American actress as Ethel. She wondered whether George was saying to himself, "Ass!" But apparently ap-parently George was not. He seemed to be enjoying the gossip of the theater the-ater as much as the tales of Capri and Tahiti and other wondrous places the playwright had Inhabited. Emily herself didn't talk much. They drifted back occasionally Into reminiscence, but since this, of course, excluded Georgilk hey didn't go far with It. George had spoken of being busy, of the amount of time he'd have to spend upon a case that was coming up Monday, but he showed no signs of going off and leaving them to their own devices. She didn't know whether she wished he would or not. Intrinsically Intrin-sically she wasn't especially anxious to be left alone with Charley, but If George was staying away from his work in order to watch them, she was furious with him. Only, It didn't seem like that. The two men got around to the war, at last, and the humble hut absorbing parts they had respectively played In a'' It, and after an hour of this, she bade them good-night. This was Insincere, so far as It was addressed to George, for she fully Intended staying nvak until he came to bed, and asking him a few questions, hut her modest shar of the unwonted alcohol made her sleepy, and she never knew bow lato the two men and the bottle 0 Scotch sat up. She got no chance next morning, either, fur a private talk with George before they met their guest, and in consequence George's calm announcement announce-ment of the day'-s program and his total elimination of himself from it fell upon her like a thunderclap. She caught him alone a few minutes after breakfast and asked him what he meant by it. "I don't mean anything by it," he protested. "I have got to work all day, just as I told you. Hawkins understands un-derstands all right. I told him about It last night. He's got to leave this afternoon and there's no good Sunday train from here, so it seemed decent to say that you'd drive him over to Itockport." "You're simply throwing me at his head !" she protested. She detected a touch of bravado in the way he said, "Nonsense! He came to see you, didn't he?" But Charley was already coming downstairs with his bag, so there wasn't time for anything any-thing more. Well, the events of that day were In George's head, then, whatever they turned out to be. George bade their guest a cordial, almost paternal farewell and, clapping his hat a little too much on one side of his head for a Sabbath morning and an hour when he was certain to meet their neighbors going to. church, strolled down the street In the direction direc-tion of his office. It was seven o'clock that evening when she stopped their car at the curb after her return, alone, from the fifteen-mile drive to Rockport. George was reclining, very much at his ease, upon the Gloucester swing on the veranda. "Hello !" he called to her. "You back already? Had a good day?" She chose to regard his second question ques-tion as of a piece with the first, and she came up the front steps before she spoke at all. , "I suppose you're famished for supper," sup-per," she remarked, "... If you've been working all day." "Oh, I got home about an hour ago and scrambled myself some eggs. How about you?" "I'm not specially hungry," she said. "I'll get myself a glass of milk by and by." She sat down facing him. "George," she demanded, "w.hy did you send for those three plays of Charley's?" He sat up. "Why did I send . . . ?" "It was either you or Anna who sent for them," she Interrupted. "Charley swears he didn't send them and that he didn't say anything to a soul about coming out here." He lay back again. "Oh, all right," he conceded. "I telephoned to Chicago Chi-cago for 'em the morning after I found out he was coming." "But why?" "Oh, I don't know. How could I know what he was going to he like? I didn't know what he was coming for. So well, I wanted you to be ready for him." She took a minute or so to digest this reply. "I suppose you mean," she mused, "that you thought he might be coming out here to see how much of a hick the girl was that he wanted to marry once, after she'd lived twenty years in Avonia. And you wanted to fix me up so he wouldn't laugh. I suppose that afternoon dress Miss Maitland made for me doesn't look like much." "Oh, d n!" he said, and got to his feet. "Look here, Emily ! You're all right In any dress. It wasn't you I didn't feel sure about. But he might have been any sort of ass. Of course, I saw he was all right before I'd talked with him ten minutes." "No," she said, "you needn't have worried about that." She let the voltage accumulate during dur-ing a longish silence. Then she added, "He kissed me this afternoon. He'd been rather sentimental all day, and when I said good-by to him he kissed me." "Well," said George, after a silence of his own, "he certainly is a darned nice fellow." She stared at him, speechless. "Oh, I'm not much surprised," he went on. "Y'ou see, he told me about It last night." "Told you, last night!" she echoed. "He didn't say he was going to kiss you," George exclaimed. "Said he'd always been romantic about yii, and all the more after he'd got old enough to realize how kind you'd been to a ridiculous, priggish kid. He said you'd contributed more to his education than anybody else he'd ever met, and he'd always felt grateful to you. Been wanting to come to see you for years, but was afraid to. Scared to death, he said he was, until he saw you were Just as you had been ; hadn't changed a hair. Actually wrote a telegram to say he wasn't coming and then tore it up. "Well, then, why shouldn't he have a . . . day in the country? I hope you showed him a good time. I guess you did, or he wouldn't have kissed you." He perceived now that she was crying. cry-ing. "I don't blame him for that, a hit," he went on. "I think he showed darned good Judgment. Because yon are a peach, Emily, and that's the truth." He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "Come on In, old lady," he concluded. "What do you pay to some scrambled eggs? You're hungry, that's all the matter with you." |