Part 17

"Yes, I know, Harmon," interrupted Mrs. Willoughby, affecting to stifle a yawn "but Willard, fortunately, doesn't have to think of that."

Mrs. Willoughby gave her gloves a disdainful, careless twirl, and went on her way to her room. To her astonishment, a few moments later, she heard the front door slam. Willoughby had gone out.

He was away for nearly a week; and when he returned, his eyes were heavy and blood-shot, his face was pallid and wearily drawn.

"Well, so you are back. What have you been doing?" Mrs. Willoughby asked, perfunctorily. Though it was late in the morning she was still in bed, sitting up in a dressing sack, and turning the pages of a weekly publication that dealt in news of local high life. Its chief item, to-day, was the announcement of a dance she was to give shortly--at the club, as usual--and she had just finished for the second time the commentator's glib and unctuous phrasing.

He answered evasively, "Oh, just away on business." As he walked to the window and looked out, she carelessly turned the pages. "Stella, what did you do for the boy's birthday?" he asked, slowly pacing back to the foot of the bed.

She turned another page. "The boy? Oh, I gave him some money, and sent him down-town with the coachman. I was too busy." Smiling lightly, she went on glancing through the paper. "I suspect he stuffed himself on candy."

But there was no answering smile on Willoughby's face. "On candy? How much did you give him?"

Without looking up, she answered as lightly as before. "Oh, I can't remember now. Let me think." Then she vaguely named an amount, and Willoughby pressed his lips together.

"Stella," he said slowly, after a moment's darkening of his eyes, "do you know that amounts to a week's salary of more than one of my clerks? Don't you think it was a great deal to give a boy?"

She looked up now, astonished--a little vexed, too; for this was the second time he had questioned her use of money. "Well, what of it? It seems of little consequence." She buried her face in the paper again after this shot, and Willoughby stared at her.

"No," he murmured, reflectively, an alarming bitterness in his voice; "nothing seems of any consequence."

As she glanced casually over the top of her paper, she saw him draw a hand across his face; but, still vexed, she took no warning from the sign. "Well, there's no need of making a fuss, is there?" she asked, rebukingly. Thus showing how distasteful the subject had become, and, having had her say, she instantly changed the topic. "You're coming home Thursday night, aren't you?"

Willoughby watched her absorbedly. "I don't know. Why?"

"Oh, I just wanted to find out. It's the night of my dance, you know."

"A dance? Your dance?" He drew in his breath, and his hands, gripping the bed's footboard, closed a little tighter. "I'd forgotten that. Yes, your dance, and I----"

He broke off wearily, his lips framing a mere wraith of a smile, and in its gravity she still saw no warning of deep waters stirring troublously. "A dance--you're giving a dance!" he repeated, and there came into his eyes a subtle hint of mockery that, coupled with the words, gave them almost the significance of a jeer.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Harmon!" Mrs. Willoughby threw down her paper irritably, aware only of the unspoken protest in his manner, and disdaining to analyze it. "See here--are you going to make a fuss about that, too? Or are you still growling about the boy? I should think a man with your money would be above----"

It seemed unnecessary to round out the sentence; in itself the fragment, sharply uttered, peevish and fretful, conveyed more than enough. "You wouldn't let him have what he wanted; so what's the use of making it any worse? He swallowed his disappointment; but if you're getting ready to complain about me now, I'll----"

"Yes, I've thought there was good stuff in the boy," he interrupted, the slow words cutting short her vehement protest. "Where is he now?" he added abruptly. " I think I'd like to see him."

Mrs. Willoughby flounced down among the pillows. "I don't know--at school, I suppose. Aren't you going to your office to-day?"

Willoughby shook his head. He turned to the door, moving heavily; and there, at last, in his sunken head, his shoulders wearily bent, she caught some hint of the man's hidden emotion. Astonishment at first ousted all else from her thought, and she gaped at him in wonder. Then came a small, chilling touch of fear.

"HARMON!" At the swift call he looked back at her. "Harmon! Has anything happened?"

His answer was an evasion, and she knew it. "I'm staying home to see some men. That's all."

But the moment's fear was too stressful to be so easily set at rest. "Wait--do you hear?" She slipped from the bed, and, with her eyes still fastened on him she groped about till she found her down slippers. Willoughby had slowly opened the door, but his wife angrily reached over his shoulder and pushed it shut. "You SHALL tell me!" she insisted, fiercely determined. "I want to know what's happened."

Willoughby shook off her hand, and renewed his effort at the door. "I've nothing to tell you," he rumbled sullenly; and then--"What do you want to know for?"

She caught her breath, certain now of the fear that shook her like an ague. He was in trouble, and trouble, to her, meant but the one thing--a money trouble. It was the first time in her years of placid, self-possessed vanity that any terror like this had come to jar her. To lose it now--this bought and paid-for complacency, this counterpart of happiness, struck her to the heart with a keener, more convincingly human emotion than she had known for many a day in her negligent, shallow existence.

"You want to know?" he answered, and smiled at her in grim, accusing mockery. "All right, then; I'll tell you. You'd better be ready for it, too." In his brutality there was a guarded note of self-pity, as if to see her suffer would somehow rejoice him in his own trouble. "Well, I'm smashed up--that's all. I'm ruined!"

Mrs. Willoughby, shrinking away, laid a hand on her lips and stared with distended eyes. "RUINED?" she gasped, unable to believe him--incredulously, as if at some barbaric jest. "Ruined?" She had turned quite white. "Oh," she cried, wetting her lips, "does it mean there is nothing left? How did it happen? Oh, it can't be true!"