RACE CARSON was not by nature adventurous. If it hadn't been for that silly talk at Sue Layton's luncheon about the prevalence of the wandering eye among twentieth century husbands she would never have thought of doing anything foolhardy.
If a husband, following the devices and desires of his own wicked heart, flirted and cut up generally, there was no sound reason why a wife shouldn't enjoy a like privilege. This was the revolutionary doctrine announced by Alma Townley, a charming young matron from Baltimore, who was the guest of honor at Mrs. Layton's table. Mrs. Townley sketched several little affairs of her own, which she excused on the ground that she was only keeping the balance even with her husband.
“They're all alike!” she declared. “They love us and all that, and wouldn't do anything to give us a moment's unhappiness—oh, not for worlds! But out of sight is out of mind with all of them.”
Grace was first shocked and then fascinated by this attitude toward the marital relationship, though, to be sure, nothing in her four years of happy married life justified any such sweeping assertion. Her Philip she knew to be the finest fellow in the world; he worked hard and, at twenty-eight, was already enjoying a good practice in the law. One or two other girls had brightened his horizon before he fell in love with Grace, but they had vanished the moment she appeared. He had given her no cause for jealousy, and his loyalty and devotion were touched with a fine chivalry. They were the best of chums and comrades, and their friends called them the “inseparable Carsons.”
With all the strength of her healthy young being, Grace resented the cynical tone of the table talk and was not slow to express her disapproval.
“Phil isn't like that at all!” she cried. “I'd trust him round the world.”
“Where's your Phil now?” demanded Mrs. Carbury. “He must have left town in a hurry, for you know you only telephoned me at four Monday to say he couldn't come to my dinner that night.”
Grace colored and her eyes fell as they laughed at her discomfiture, for it was a dismaying fact that she did not know where Phil had gone! She was at the Curley's playing bridge Monday when he called her to the telephone to say that he was leaving town unexpectedly and might be absent several days. He would write, he said. It was now Wednesday and he had not written; and for the first time it occurred to her as extraordinary that he hadn't mentioned his destination. In his haste he had very likely forgotten it and with the Curleys waiting she hadn't taken time to ask.
“Oh, he went to New York on business,” she answered with ill-feigned ease.
“Oh yes, it's always business!” the Baltimorean remarked malevolently, “but always with a little pink social trimming on the edges!”
“Isn't it astonishing,” remarked another guest, “how easily men pick up acquaintances? In skirts, I mean. I run down to New York often for a day of shopping and frequently eat my luncheon and dinner alone. But no man ever does that. I say that if it's all right for a man to amuse himself by taking a woman his wife doesn't know out to lunch his wife ought to have a like privilege if she meets a man who looks interesting.”
“If I ever tried my hand at it,” remarked Grace with a defiant glance in her eyes, “I should certainly never tell.”
she reached home there was still no message from Phil. She might call his office and ask where he had gone, but this would only betray her ignorance, and that wouldn't do at all. And then, just as she dismissed this from her mind, Phil's clerk called her on the telephone and asked for Mr. Carson's address.
“He's in Buffalo today,” she lied instantly, “but 1 expect him home in the morning.”
If any proof were needed that Phil was absent on a questionable errand it was supplied by the disclosure that his office did not know his whereabouts. She excused herself from a bridge party and spent the day in self-torture. A month earlier her young unmarried sister had gone to California with her father, who was suffering from a nervous breakdown. He was very ill when he left home, and two weeks had passed since she had heard from them. This, too, was on her mind; and under her resentment at her husband's silence there lay a dark foreboding of impending calamity which she was unable to dispel. Imperative telegrams to her sister at the last address given on the Coast had brought no reply. She did not understand this, and it seemed to her that Phil and all the rest of the world had suddenly deserted her.