Chapter XXII

Keeping an appointment, Kathleen Boyce dropped in next day. Her tall indolent figure, prematurely wrapped in loosely hanging furs, stood in the doorway surprisedly.

“Not dressed yet, Rose? Have you forgotten that we’re going to that showing at Boyle’s?”

In the afternoon light Mrs. Hubbell’s face looked sallow and mean little lines dragged down the corners of her mouth.

“Boyle’s? I don’t want to go to Boyle’s.”

“Sick or bored?”

“Both--and done with this place. I’m off for New York next week. Look in there. I’m packing. I’ll do better in New York than I could at Boyle’s, I guess. Look here, Kathleen, why don’t you come with me?”

“Can’t afford a winter in New York. My modest alimony isn’t able to hold a candle to your fortune. Sometimes a living husband isn’t as generous as a dead one.”

Rose smiled viciously.

“Jack wasn’t as rich as lots of people think. I’d my own income.”

Kathleen let the statement pass. Delving into Rose’s affairs was fatiguing. But she shrugged just enough to show her friend that the talk about an independent income didn’t deceive her at all.

“What’s driving you away?”

“What’s there to keep me?”

“Well--the gilded Mr. Martin--and me--and always Jim.”

Mrs. Hubbell sneered.

“I wonder,” said Kathleen negligently, “I’ve always wondered what you got out of that Jim proposition. He obviously wasn’t able to take care of you or marry you and you knew some flapper would grab him sooner or later. Rather a nice flapper too. And you didn’t want to marry him!”

“Marry him! I hate him! I never wanted him! He’s crooked anyhow.”

“Oh, come now, Rose.” Kathleen was adroitly probing and thoroughly enjoying herself. It was cheering to know that something was driving Rose away from her last decent quarry. Kathleen had few scruples but she had some and Horatia had waked one of them.

“Drop Jim, then.” Rose was brief. “And better come to New York.”

“Where are you going?”

“Apartment--somewhere.”

“Alone--any attachments?”

“Not yet,” said Rose brazenly.

“Well--I guess I won’t come. I’m not ready. I’ll be along later, maybe.”

Kathleen was not tight-laced but she did not care to spend a winter with Rose. And Rose must have known it and included her in the general hate she was lavishing today. She had had a disagreeable morning with her check-book. What she told Kathleen had been in part true. Her husband had not been as rich as people thought--but the fact that he had died intestate, having somehow forgotten to make a will or perhaps not having cared enough to make one, had left her generously taken care of. She had spent overlavishly however and well as she knew how to supplement her income she was just now more pressed than she cared to admit.

Languidly Kathleen said good-bye and made her exit into the street to be stared at and admired and to wend her way to Boyle’s to study fashions and look at clothes she could not afford to buy. Thence to dinner and the theatre with some man. So futile, so lazy, so stupid a life! But without great malice was Kathleen. She was glad her friend was going, though it would mean that a good organizer of parties was lost to their vague circle.

Rose packed her trunk, and made her plans. A few days before she left she received, by appointment, a heavy, youngish, florid man of perhaps thirty-two or three. She was lovely and soft that night--tinted with rose by the light of her candles. The man sat beside her and caressed her with some enthusiasm.

“About ready to go?” he asked.

“And lonely--I wish you’d come with me.”

“Maybe I will if you ask me nicely. Do you really want me or are you just broke?”

“Both.”

He took that as a rare joke.

“Well, by George, you’re honest anyhow. How much?”

“Later,” she answered negligently. “Time enough for that. Will you come?”

“I will, if you’ll devote yourself to entertaining me. Just me--mind. You will too. We’ve had some great times. I’ve never forgotten what a peach you were that winter after your trouble. And you were pretty clever. No one ever suspected I was implicated. It would have been rotten if they had. Not a cent for little Willie if he doesn’t go straight, says the old man. That means not a cent for Rosie. So I’ve got to be pretty careful here. But in New York----”

“When you get it yourself, will you marry me?”

“The money?” A shrewd, hard little look passed between them. He stroked her arm. “Well, he’s a long liver and there’s a jolly income for me--and you--now. What’s the use of bothering?”

“None.” She knew that he wouldn’t marry her.

“When do we leave?”

“I’ll leave Sunday, and wait over in Chicago. You can meet me by accident on the flyer Tuesday.”

“And you’ll get the accommodations?”

She nodded a little wearily.

Her packing was very complete. Her furniture was put into storage, and the agent of her apartment agreed, after a struggle, to sublet it. When it came to business the languorous eyes of Mrs. Hubbell could become immensely practical and definite and she could out-Herod most of her tradespeople. She got what she wanted out of men whether she had to try wits or emotions on them.

On Sunday, unattended, after a few curiously casual telephone calls of farewell, she left on the Chicago train. Through the early evening, which darkened so early now, the train sped along and in her compartment Rose sat close to the window, still as a sphinx. The shadows crept over her lovely face and softened it. And her thoughts softened it too, making her so alluring that men on their way to the dining-car turned back to repass her open door. But she did not seem to notice them. Who could tell of what she was thinking? Of a misspent selfish life which had ridden cruelly roughshod over the lives of the people around her? Of Jack Hubbell, the gentle, loving, passionate man, who had given her everything a man could give and whom she had cheated in return? Of how she might have been still a revered and loved wife if it had not been for the strange devil in her which hungered after looseness and hated control? No--more likely it was of the man she was to meet day after tomorrow “by accident,” of the way to manage him and bring him to the point of arranging for her future; of his possibilities and financial solidity. There were so many things of which she might have been thinking if she looked into her past and future as the train sped along faster and faster, carrying her away from the lives which she had scarred. But the scars were healing and she would never harm those lives again.

Her passing was only casually noted. At the restaurants and hotels they asked after her once or twice. That was all--they soon forgot to ask.