An Old-Fashioned Man

Again Claire looked at the anonymous letter. On florid paper, in a hand that was cramped and perhaps disguised, but in words entirely free from restraint, it informed her that her husband was amusing himself elsewhere.

She turned. A Verelst⁠—that is to say one whose ancestry extended to the days when New York was a sleepy Dutch seaport⁠—there were few here better born than she and, as she never mentioned the fact, there were few also that were better bred.

Now before her was a mirror that showed back the portrait of a woman beautiful, ardent, alert, alive.

It mocked her. Again she looked at the letter. It had come by post, just before luncheon, but it was not until afterward that she had read it. Meanwhile she had heard Fred telephoning to someone named Malvolio⁠—no, Marvalho. But what about she did not know. She had heard but the name. Then at once, without a word to her, Fred had gone.

Fred was her husband. Usually he was less cavalier. Two years before he had lifted her quite off her feet. Delightedly then she had become the wife of this man whose charm, surviving the perils of matrimony, delighted her still.

But Fred Hemingway was always gracious, invariably serene. Never had she seen him angry⁠—save once, a few evenings previous, when her brother and his wife were dining with them and the butler had been drunk. That might have annoyed anyone. It had annoyed her. But it had enraged Fred. Violently he had dismissed the man who had gone exuding abuse. Otherwise and to her, always he had been perfect, entirely unselfish and, for a husband, preeminently gallant.

Again she turned. The venom which the letter distilled was dulling her faith in him. As yet it had but smeared it. As yet she was but doubting, hesitating, uncertain how to act.

But uncertainty was rare with her. Ordinarily she knew what she wanted to do and did it. Now, mentally, she reviewed her list. It was long as her arm. On it was everybody who was anybody. But for the moment she saw but two to whom she could rightly turn⁠—Harry, her brother, and Lilian, her brother’s wife. Lilian was so dear that she might have been really her sister except that they never quarreled.

Presently, in that region just beyond the Plaza which is Manhattan’s Mayfair, Claire was at her brother’s door.

The footman who then appeared was properly sorry but Mrs. Verelst was out.

“And my brother?” Claire asked.

“There he is now, mem.”

Behind her, at the curb, a motor had stopped and from it a man in clothes that were obviously Savile Row, was alighting. He waved at Claire. A moment and he was in the hall.

“A letter for you, sir,” the footman announced.

But Claire was also speaking. “Harry, where is Lilian?”

Harry, pocketing the letter with one hand, removed his hat with the other. “God knows! Shopping, I suppose. Calling. Great heavens, the way you women amuse yourselves!”

About him was an odour of champagne and Turkish tobacco. He was not squiffy exactly, but he had perhaps been doing himself rather well. Claire did not notice and animatedly he ran on:

“I never make calls. I loathe shops. Though, to be sure, shops now have their uses. Tomorrow is my birthday. What are you to give me? But come in here.”

Lifting a portiere, he moved aside. Then, following his sister, he entered a room, long, wide, bright, fitted in Empire fashion. Near a table was a sofa on which he dropped. Opposite stood a chair which Claire approached.

Harry patted his tie. “I have been lunching down town. You’ll never believe it, but even there they are turkey-trotting. New York has gone crazy. Crazy!”

For a little yet he rambled. Claire had seated herself. Absently she was considering her gown. Astonishingly simple, it must have been equally dear.

Her inattention arrested him. “What’s wrong?”

Claire raised her great eyes. “I have had an anonymous letter. It’s about Fred. You can imagine the contents.”

Harry sat up. “And you came to tell Lilian about it?”

“Yes, Lilian or you. I don’t know how to act.”

Harry nodded. “Then I’ll tell you. Forget it. People of our sort never see or hear anything that was not intended for them.”

Claire nodded also, not at him but at the remark. It was an old friend⁠—an old enemy rather. Since childhood it had been dinned into her.

“Possibly,” she replied. “But unfortunately this was intended for me.”

He caught her up. “Not by Fred, though. Does the letter say who the lady is?”

Claire shook her head.

“Have you told Fred?”

“No.”

“Then don’t. Above all, no sobs. No little scenes.”

“Harry! I am not the sobbing kind.”

“Then don’t be the jealous kind, either. Jealousy⁠—well, jealousy always denotes a sense of inferiority. That’s it. A sense of inferiority. Don’t show any.”

“And act toward Fred as though⁠—Oh!”

“Yes, why not? There is nothing a man appreciates more. A woman who suspects and screams is to be avoided. The woman who smiles and says nothing is adored. Fred probably thinks you an angel. Act as I say and he will find you are a saint.”

“But I am nothing of the kind,” Claire angrily protested. “I don’t want to be either. I am flesh and blood and I won’t permit⁠—”

“There, there!” Harry grandly threw in. “Assume a virtue though you have it not. In the Gospel of Matrimony it is written⁠—or should be⁠—Blessed are they that ignore, for theirs is the Kingdom of Love.”

“Don’t!” Claire cried. It was protection she wanted, not platitude. “Can’t you see that if there is a word of truth in this I shall leave him?”

“Nonsense,” Harry, much as though she were a child, replied. “You have to consider⁠—”

But Claire’s great eyes had narrowed. “What I have to consider is my self-respect.”

“Self-respect!” he repeated. The expression seemed to amuse him. “But what in the world is that but egotism? It is rank selfishness to make a scandal. Why, at the mere thought of such a thing your grandmother would turn out of her grave.”

“Don’t,” Claire again protested. “If Lilian were to get such a letter about you, you would not talk grandmother to her.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Harry exclaimed. But the statement sobered him. With anonymous letters in the air no one could tell where they might strike. His conscience was none too clear, his skirts either. Abruptly he tacked. “But that is neither here nor there. What you have to consider is that if Fred should be amusing himself⁠—and mind the if⁠—it does not in the least follow but that he cares for you as much as ever.”

“A queer way to show it, then.”

“Yes, but men are queer and that’s the point⁠—a point, too⁠—that women such as you never understand. A man may like terrapin and canvasback. He can’t eat them every day. A man requires variety in the menu. It is not his fault. Nature made him that kind of a brute.”

“But you are ridiculous with your terrapin and your menu,” Claire got in. “I don’t know at all what you mean. What I do know is that no man can care for two women at the same time.”

“Certainly he can⁠—unless one of them catches him at it.”

“Well, apparently I am that one.”

“But you are not sure.” And as Harry said that ardently he hoped that Fred had covered his tracks. “Yet supposing you were,” he continued and in so doing promised himself to tip Fred off. “Supposing you were. Then, in that case, for heaven’s sake, don’t get hysterical and shriek for divorce.” By George! he thought, between us, Fred and I will gag her first. “No,” he resumed, “all that is such wretched form. Decent people never make a fuss about anything.”

He paused and for clincher threw out: “I am sure Fred doesn’t.”

Impatiently Claire looked him up and down. “What has that to do with it?”

“Why, everything! Everything in the world! If Fred made a nuisance of himself, if as some eminently virtuous people do, he nagged, argued, contradicted, found fault and sulked, that would be a different kettle of fish. But he does not, and in married life it is the cardinal virtues such as his that count⁠—the big things like smiling and forbearing and minding your own business. It is these things that count, never the trifles that occur behind your back and of which you are supposed to know nothing.”

“But I can’t take it out in supposing. I do know.”

Harry made a gesture. “No, you do not. But if you should⁠—” He hesitated. An idea had come to him. He blurted it. “I say! You have not by any chance got a man up your sleeve, have you?”

At that, indignation marks shot from her eyes.

Harry waved at them. “You see nowadays sensible people don’t take jumps in the dark unless there is somebody with an electric light in waiting. But since that is not your case, then don’t be stupid enough to kick the apple cart over and all for what? I ask you for what? An illusion!”

But Claire was rising. “Is it constancy that you call an illusion? Harry!”

“Well, anyway, it went out with crinolines⁠—before then even, it went out with girls in turrets and knights in armour. If you like, though, we will call it lack of imagination.”

“Then I am very unimaginative and, fortunately for you, so is Lilian.”

Sagaciously Harry nodded. “It is not imagination that Lilian lacks. It is temperament. It is the same way with you. Good women never have any. It is their salvation, their husbands’ as well.”

With a smile⁠—the self-satisfied smile of a man whose salvation is assured⁠—he fumbled for his cigarette case. But the thing eluded him. In its place his fingers closed on the letter which he had received in the hall. He drew it out and indifferently, with a gesture of apology, opened it.

At once a curious phenomenon occurred. If, from under the table, a dog had run and bit him he could not have started more quickly. He looked as though he were in some dreadful dream. His mouth went dry and chokingly he stared at the letter.

Claire, who was standing, approached. “What is it?”

With an intake of the breath, he gave her the letter.

On florid paper, in a cramped hand, Henry Verelst, Esquire, was informed that his wife and brother-in-law were no better than they should be.

At sight of it, Claire’s lips parted. She had not known whom to suspect. Now that she was told, she gasped. Realizing instantly that this letter and the one which she had received emanated from the same sewer, she realized as rapidly that the writer, however mephitic, was only a fool.

To her great eyes a mist came. She had known Lilian too long, too well, too wholly, to credit anything of the sort. The charge had overshot the mark. From Lilian it fell away ridiculously and, in falling from her, fell, too, from Fred.

“I’ll divorce her. As for him⁠—”

In anyone’s anger there is humour, if you can only see it, and Claire, though her eyes were brimming, could. Drying her eyes, she laughed and returned the letter.

“Here, take the stupid thing and don’t be an imbecile. Lilian is as innocent as a babe unborn. Besides, a moment ago you said that decent people never see anything that was not intended for them, that they never make a fuss, that a matter of this kind is quite negligible, that constancy went out with crinolines, that the things that count are not the trifles that occur behind your back but the cardinal virtue of minding your own business.”

Without, at the street door, a bell sounded. Neither heard.

“That is what you said, did you not?” Claire maliciously ran on. “Or is it that you have a woman up your sleeve?”

Ragingly Harry backed. “What I meant⁠—”

But what he meant was never explained, or at least not then. The portieres had parted. Through them, with none of that wearily satisfied look which culprits display, but debonair and exuberant, sauntered the suspects.

Menacingly Harry glared. “Where have you been?”

Fred, who was removing a glove, looked him over. “Never ask people where they have been. It’s not civil. If you are curious, ask where they are going.”

Lilian laughed. Dressed not in the mode of the moment, but of the morrow, she was radiant. She turned to Claire. “Belovedest, I am so glad you are here.” She turned to Harry. “Yes, and I’ll tell you. I am going to give you a birthday present. Fred and I have been selecting it. Fred came here after luncheon to see you and⁠—But wait a moment, I’ll order tea.” Turning again, she vanished.

Fred nodded. “So I did and in the hall here I saw a letter for you. I could not help seeing it. It was the twin of one that I got. Before coming here, I took mine, together with a receipt for wages, to Marvalho, the handwriting expert. He said my ex-butler wrote them both. I propose to have him up for it. Give me yours and I will turn it in with mine.”

Harry blinked. He had been about to have a kick at the apple cart, but Fred’s directness, Lilian’s manner, these things superposing on Claire’s mockery and abruptly he saw that there was no cart to kick. But he could not get in a rage and out of it in a moment.

“What was in this letter of yours?” he suddenly and severely inquired.

Fred patted a smile. “Well, though addressed to me, it must have been intended for Lilian. It said that you were a model husband, yes, the model of what a husband ought not to be.”

“Oh!” said Harry. He found but that.

Claire looked up at her husband. “Then it was like one I got about you. As for Harry’s, dear me! It made him foam at the mouth.”

Harry flushed. “Nonsense! I saw at once that it was rubbish.”

But now Lilian reappeared. Behind her two men in livery were bringing a great silver salver that was heaped with things.

“Well then, Harry,” Fred resumed. “You give me your letter and Claire, you give me yours. Marvalho says it’s five years.”

“But⁠—” Harry laboriously protested. The plan did not at all suit his book. However clear other skirts might be, his own were not for exhibition.

“But what?” Fred threw at him.

“You see,” Claire cut in, “Harry probably thinks that if you have the butler up, our names will be in all the papers.”

Bravely Harry helped himself to a hot and buttered scone. “That is just what I do think.”

“The dear boy!” Lilian admiringly exclaimed. “He is so delightfully old-fashioned.”