| Show the 19 CHAPTER I 1 1 edward kneir parting had begun as an erdl nary handshake but young joung ed sudden ly flung both arms around his father and hugged him dad I 1 he cried cant you pos sibly come up to the brook just for or a day or two ill see edward senior told him it if I 1 can I 1 will I 1 ill II 11 write your moth er cr about it anyway hed looked away an ay as he said that but he turned back to watch the boy go bounding up three at a time the steps to the elevated station ile he was deeply moved and part of his emotion was bewilderment it was an un thing between them that sudden strong hug how much ed ward patterson asked himself did the boy know how much had an peeked instinct enabled him to guess of the devastating melancholy that had bad settled upon the older man when he learned a little earlier that evening that ruth ingraham had sold her house and was going to move away to new york the boy have seen through that could he it would be rather nice to go up to the brook the children would give him a welcome anyhow and even julia might be found willing at least to ig nore core her supposed up posed grievance just going away anywhere would be a re ilef a protective covering for tile the bruise hed bed got tonight when hed discovered how unimportant held he d become to ruth ile he want to think about that bear to think about it ile he be sure of course that he gasn wasn t doing her an injustice her decision to sell her house and move away might have been forced her suddenly she might have written him a note that he had not yet set received it might be waiting for him now at the hotel unconsciously he be quickened his pace and then with a half audible groan as he realized what he was doing deliberately libera tely slackened it again this was the way hed he d been acting for days making excuses for her silence trying to steel himself against disappoint ment and then encouraging his hopes to rise again acting like a fool an abject hungry wistful fool he t go on like that hed he d give her a taste of her own medicine it if she wanted to be rid of him she should be sooner and more complete ly than she intended held hed arrange things at the office tomorrow and to morrow night hed he d go up to the brook he managed a tone sufficiently casual when he asked the night clerk if there were any messages or letters for h him im but his heart gave an irrepressible bound when the man said one just came in on the last delivery it sank again sickeningly when he be i aw that it was not from ruth but from hla his wife at buttermilk brook A thick letter ominously different from the brief dry missives hed been getting from her all summer ile he felt sick with premonition as he rode up in the elevator ills small barren room was nas hot and airless tie he switched on the light tore open the envelope and looked blankly at the first brat of the closely written pages for a good while before he began to read its opening addressing him as ed ward disposed of any lingering idea he might have had that its length meant an offer of a reconciliation her friendly name for him was ned jed her affectionate one what a long way back that went twenty years or morel more 1 was noddy she never used edward except as a term of reproach I 1 suppose I 1 ought to have written this letter weeks ago she wrote but ive gone along foolishly hoping that things might happen so that I 1 t have to write it at all I 1 hate to write it worse than anything ani thing I 1 ever had to do and I 1 dont don t suppose it will do any good but tor for the sake of the children ive got to there jsn t much time left because the season here at the brook Is almost over the hotel will close in two weeks so you have to decide now what you want me to do I 1 mean whether you sou want me to come back to our house in lakeside or not doi whether Yh ether you ou want to go on having a home and a family ile he put down the letter and clenched his hands ile he bent with them upon the arms of his chair then with a painful effort be b relaxed again thank god julia gasn wasn t here to talk to him I 1 she upset him horribly when she talked to him in the mood in which this letter wa written held hed better real read the rest of the letter first at ana find out precisely what the terms of her ultimatum were the next sen tenc over the page was ex elicit if you want me you will have to get rid of 0 ruth ingraham Ingi aham people have w i wrilen me letters everybody Is talking about it its humiliating it makes ine i feel like a fool I 1 simply cant stand it all and I 1 wont it if you were sick of me and wanted to be unfaithful to me wily why did you have to pick her out why you have gone into the city and picked up some woman oft off tile the street that all my friends dont know ile he felt himself bettl getting g sick with plain horror at her monstrous accusia tion A beastly lie not only as regarded the feet fact she accused him of that was a lie of course lils his relation with ruth had been an absolutely in one but a lie as the statement ment of jullas fiill ia belief that it had been nw an th fase asp 1 she believed that she was pretending to in order to justify her jealousy well he knew the worst now ue ile might as well go on and read the rest I 1 1 I suppose im saying just exactly w what hat you want me to say ever since you fell in love with her I 1 must have been just justa a burden and a restraint rest to you I 1 dont know how long ago that was wag long before her husband died dieci I 1 suppose 1 I any plans now I 1 dont seem to be able to think at all if I 1 only had any way of earning money the way ed has been earning it this summer so that I 1 could support myself lind and be independent but there anything special that I 1 know how to do and I 1 feel pretty old to learn but im going to do something ned you can cou count at on n that I 1 wont go on living the way you made me live last spring if you want to go on in a different wil way y for the sake of the children I 1 know you dont tor for me you can decide now and let me know and ill come back and try to keep things looking as if nothing had happened well come down the ric night lit of the fifteenth if you dont feel that you can give her up I 1 wish say that too in so many words so that ill know its the not knowing driving me wild only dont write justifying yourself and trying to get me to change my mind I 1 dont care if your friendship la Is as sweet and noble and innocent as you pretended it was last r spring I 1 dont know but I 1 think id hate that worse than the other I 1 cant bear 0 to o have her make such a fool of you what she was doing all last spring and I 1 suppose has been ever since all the more if she never was your mistress do you think she cared anything an thing about friendship you were useful to her I 1 suppose and what she mostly wanted was to show that she could take you away from me this summer has hag been like a nightmare it seem as if it could be true that after two people had been living together for twenty years a worthless woman like ruth ingraham could come between them and ruin their lives you may not know she has ruined your life but she will I 1 cant help it I 1 have done my best let me know what you decide to do julia anger was the emotion he wanted hot sustaining indignation against his wife for the brutality of her ultimatum to him for the licentious injustice of her charges against ruth it come lie he had no control over the gusts of feeling that shook him now from this direction and now from that one of them was an ineluctable sympathy for julia herself in her forlorn helpless wish that she could find a job earn her own living it bearable to picture julia dol doing ag that or to think of the misery that had driven her to wanting to do it it help to assure himself that it was her own fault more excruciating still was the picture of himself that was etched in acid in the last sentences of his bis wife cifes s letter A fool aalthe all the more a fool it if she never was your mistress welcome 8 so 0 long as he was useful contemptuously discarded when he had ceased to be the object at first of a tolerant and later of an exasperated contempt on the part of a woman who neither valued nor understood the friendship he talked about a woman who would have understood lit him m better it if he had frankly sought from the beginning the adulterous rewards of a lover the hottest indignation that he cou could id muster protect him against the twinge every now and then of an intolerable misgiving that julia was right 0 a at four that afternoon he was alone luckily in hla his office at the time ruth ingraham telephoned to him with tile the recognition of her voice he began to tremble violently slid accused him playfully of having forgotten all about her it was so BO long days dass and days she said really it was aa weeks since hed been out to see her lie must come since she sha had something awfully important to tell him and unless he came quite soon it would be too late for her to see him at all she had just that morel morning ag sold her house and she was going away for good there were a few matters she wanted his advice about it if he was still his kind and helpful self when would he come tonight it as a queer thing ills body was com completely plemely disorganized but his mind from the moment she began to speak became suddenly untroubled pellucid the stuff that had for so long befogged it dropped into instantaneous irate lie ile saw her now understood her altogether together ol the false plausibility of tier her voice the crudely transparent wish to summon him back now thai lie he could once more be serviceable it no longer mattered to tier her now that she was going away for good what prying neighbors might think of their companionship ile he noted without surprise the lie she told him ile he was perfectly aware now that she had often lied to him before thrush though this was the first moment of that awareness well she demanded at last Il lavent you got anything to say have I 1 struck you speechless im almost as surprised as that myself it edme over him now chilt lie must speak qu quickly ekly no im not cot our ur A novel by henu henry kitchell webster copyright by the bobba merrill merrall coo co service he said fold in face fact i I 1 already knew about it but im afraid I 1 shant be able to come out to see you before you go im going away myself today or tomorrow and ill hardly be back before the fifteenth there was a moment of silence then in a gasp goodby doo dby he be sald said and hung up the receiver he watched the instrument for a moment in terror lest she should call him back but the bell was silent mr air vane the general agent walked into his office a few minutes later half stated the errand that had brought him in and stopped short with a stare into his cashiers face the matter lie he asked with sharp concern you look as it if you were going to faint edward protested that he was all right what was it that vane wanted for the moment vane let it go at that but later inter in the afternoon he came back to edward to urge him to take a vacation ile he was entitled to it and he clearly needed it As best he could edward argued against the suggestion the office somehow had become his city of refuge it protected him in a way 19 4 0 A woman who would have understood him better if he had frankly sought the rewards of a lover agal against st both julia and ruth the thought of being deprived of it turned adrift for the next nest two weeks filled him with terror vane of course suspected nothing I 1 like ike that but he saw plainly enough that a valuable officer of the company was temporarily unfitted for business and heedless of edwards protests he went ahead and arranged for his relief by friday noon it was all settled ile he went out ostensibly for lunch though he knew he be able to eat in 16 a state of complete demoralization sixteen dayal include ruths departure and julias return ile he go to jura julia and won not otter after that letter shed written to him and he misdoubted mis doubted his courage to stay away from ruth even though now in his mind he saw her for exactly what she was in his random walk in the search of a restaurant that would invite him in to lunch he had stopped automatically before the window of a downtown ticket office of one of the western railroads it was advertising a new 1 limited train to los angeles angel es hed never been out there it was a trip he and julia had talked about taking off and on tor for the last twenty years probably never do it but why he do it alone now that would solve the problem of his vacation with ft ith a vengeance it was it a way of burning his bridges of course as far ns ruth huth was concerned but this the main attraction it would show julia show her what ile he dismissed the question impatiently whatever it was shed see those days on the train were the best part of his vacation they gave gae him a chance to think the thing that bewildered him most outraged his sense of justice was his conscience it playing fair with him search as he might and he spent hours raking over oer the past he put the finger of memory upon an act of his that had been consciously wrong hed had plenty of chances to do wrong but held hed successfully resisted temptation every time ile he had remained through everything everi thing a faithful husband a loyal friend an industrious off lelal and yet let he now he believed bel leed feet feel guiltier more contemptible if hed done every wicked thing that julia in her letter by word or implication had accused him of it the way a conscience was supposed to act edward ought to know ile he was a ministers son though not at all the traditional one ills father had been pastor of a large evangelical church in new york city but edwards upbringing had not been handicapped by pietistic limitations ills his start in business had been promising ills fathers brother had been one of the higher officials in the great insurance company that edward still worked for it was perhaps owing to this pull but not at all to an unjustifiable exercise of it that edward had bad been taken in on the executive side instead of having to start out as a solicitor peddling policies from door to door ed edward ard would have am e loathed that in the crude competitive hustle of life was congenitally distasteful to him luckily for him his uncle had bad been in a position to swe save him from all that edward had gone to work the autumn after lie graduated in the accounting department of the home office hed never minded long hours nor hard work not even dull work lie he mind anything an thing as long as it came in a dignified way to him as long as he have hae to go out after it I 1 hed done his work well conspicuously well so far as it was possible tor for anything to be conspicuous in a great office like that it liken been but two or three years before made him a traveling auditor r ills route took him through the upstate cities in new york that was how hed met julia julia nineteen years old at the time was a real beauty queenly the undergraduates used to call her her father was dead but hed left her mother a comfortable for table annuity and as the girl had no brothers and sisters the greater part of it probably was spent on buying julia pretty clothes and letting her go wherever the prospects for a good time were the brightest A retrospective eye could see a purpose in nil all this to see julia w well ell and safety safely married was her mothers first duty even if edward had bad not looked like allie a good match julia would no doubt have hae married him just the same for she fell in love with him as swiftly and unequivocally as he with her they known each other for a week before it was as good as settled been engaged about a year and during the whole time hed found tier her utterly adorable been no quarrels no flaws the only thing shed found to cry |
