we’ve got to eat,’ she said. So I got this damned job. I was to do my poor, pathetic painting on Sundays and holidays—after I’d mowed the lawn and carried out the ashes, and put up” the screens. …Oh, I didn’t have to do a thing. Rosalind would work so hard, and faint, because it was so hot and she was so tired.”
“But, Robert—”
“That fainting didn’t fool me for long. But even when I knew it was a sham, what could I do?…All those burns and cuts…You’ve seen her often enough with her hand bandaged. …I knew, long ago, that there wasn’t a dam’ thing under those bandages. But, oh God, that brave, bright smile…!”
A profound uneasiness possessed Delancey. He had seen Rosalind often with a bandaged hand. He had seen the brave, bright smile. What if there really were some truth in Whitestone’s passionate grievance? He could scarcely endure to think so; for over a year he had taken a benevolent pleasure in the spectacle of their happiness. …
“She made me take this job,” Whitestone went on. “And then she wasted the money I made. The blood money. The price of my soul. You must have realized that what I made was enough for us, for the mean way we live.”
“Well, I—”
“You didn’t want to see,” said Whitestone. “When I told you I was in trouble, you’d put your hand in your pocket. But you wouldn’t think. I made enough. We could even have saved a little. My tastes are simple. But she has to go to the Beauty Salon every week. She has to buy special shoes—her foot is so narrow. …She has to spend more for painting her face than I can afford for my canvases. If I don’t give it to her, she runs up bills. Which I’m legally obliged to pay.”
His mouth twitched; he stopped a moment.
“She’s taken away my money, and my work, and my faith,” he said. “She’s drained me, she’s ruined me. Inch by inch. And now—she’s so amused about Elsie. …Poor old Robert, without a penny to his name, with his hair getting gray—the pathetic failure—dreaming that a girl like Elsie, could ever take him seriously. …This morning at breakfast, she told me, in her cheerful, amused way, that she’d heard gossip about it. ‘I’m not going to let people laugh at you, Robert. …I’ve asked your Elsie here to dinner tonight, so that everyone will see there’s nothing in it.’ ”
“But, Robert, perhaps she—”
“I want you to come to dinner to-night—with Elsie,” said Whitestone. “The Luffs are coming too. Then you’ll see for yourself. I’ll tell you in advance what you’re going to see. Rosalind’s going to be brave and humorous. There’ll be a beautiful little dinner—and she’ll have a bandage on one hand. …Later she’ll ask me to bring out some of my paintings—and when I refuse, she’ll say what a pity Robert never finishes anything. …Oh, yes; she’ll be able to show Elsie what she’s made of me—her poor, silly failure of a Robert, who couldn’t exist without her.”
“By heaven!” thought Delancey, aghast. “I’m afraid that’s what she does do. …”
“She went a little too far this morning,” said Whitestone. “I called her a name she didn’t like.”
“There’s no excuse for that,” said Delancey, curtly. “She’s a—good woman, and she’s your wife. I’m surprised, Robert.”
“So was she,” said Whitestone, “and she’s afraid now. She saw.”
“Saw—what?”
Whitestone lit another cigarette.
“She knows now what I want to do.”
“You mean you’re going to leave her?”
“Oh, no!” Whitestone answered, smiling faintly. “No sense in that. She won’t give me grounds for a divorce; she’d never let me go. And I want to be free. No. …She’s going to leave me.”
“But how—?” Delancey began, and was sorry he had begun. That smile of Whitestone’s…
He wanted to get away in a hurry, he did not want to hear any more, did not want to guess any more. …He wanted to get out of the glade, away from his friend, back into the cheerful, everyday world.
“See here, Robert!” he said. “You’re overwrought. You get along home now, and dress, and come into town. Meet me at my office, and we’ll have lunch together.”
“D’you know—” said Whitestone, slowly. “I envy you, Shawe. It’s a divine blessing, the faculty you’ve got for shutting your eyes. You’re able to live in that comfortable blindness. You’ve refused to see how it was with Rosalind and me. And you won’t see how you hate Josephine.”
“Now, look here!” said Delancey. “You’re going too far, Robert. That’s a lie.”
“You—humbug!” said Whitestone, laughing. “It’s almost a pity, to try to wake you up. You hate Josephine, and she knows it.”
“That’s a damned lie!”
“You’ve told me twice—with that solemn, anxious face of yours—that you dreamed your Josephine was dead. D’you know what that means? She does. The second time you told me, she was there. I watched her—and she knew. You were honest—in your dream. It was the death wish, Shawe.”
A peculiar sensation assailed Delancey; it was as if cold water trickled down his spine, under his skin. He resented it.
“I won’t listen any more to your raving!” he said, angrily.
“You were wishing her dead, Shawe. Wishing that jealous, domineering woman was dead, and out of your way. And that you had your freedom—and her money.”
Delancey turned on his heel and walked off.
“Wait!” cried Whitestone, laughing again. “Don’t forget that I want you to dine with me to-night. Seven o’clock.”
“I’m not coming,” said Delancey. “I don’t want to see you again, until you’re in a different frame of mind. You’ve said things…”
“Shawe, come back! You can’t leave me like this. …Shawe—I tell you I’m at the end of the tether.”
His voice sounded desperate, almost hysterical. But for once Delancey ignored an appeal. He was shaken by anger.
“He’s gone too far, this time,” he said to himself, striding along the road toward his car. “I won’t forget this in a hurry. He’s said inexcusable things. Inexcusable. I mean, making all possible allowances for his temperament and so on. …”
The wind stirred the dust in the road, the trees rustled; he slackened his pace, feeling suddenly tired, and very hot.
“It’s ridiculous,” he told himself. “I shouldn’t take it so seriously. No one ought to mind an accusation when it has no foundation at all. To tell me I ‘hate’ Josephine…Simply ridiculous. Of course, I’m no Romeo. I’m not the kind of man for one of those ‘grand passions.’ I’m too practical. But I’m as fond of Josephine as I’ve ever been of any woman in my life. She has her faults—but who hasn’t? What’s more, she’s fond of me. Very. It’s—it’s an insane
