That afternoon when the bank was closed Mostyn went home. He walked for the sake of the exercise and with the hope of distracting his mind from the many matters which bore more or less heavily on his tired brain. As he approached the gate the sight of his little son playing on the lawn with a miniature tennis racket and ball gave him a thrill of delight. The boy was certainly beautiful. He had great brown eyes, rich golden hair, was sturdy, well built, and active for a child of only four years.
The father opened the gate softly, and when within the yard he hid himself behind the trunk of an oak and cautiously peered out, watching the little fellow toss the ball and make ineffectual efforts to hit it with the racket. Then Mostyn whistled softly, saw the boy drop his racket and look all round, his sweet face alert with eagerness. Mostyn whistled again, and then the child espied him and, with hands outstretched, came running, laughing and shouting gleefully.
"I see you, Daddy!" he cried. Whereupon Mostyn slipped around the tree out of sight, letting the amused child follow him. Round after round was made, and then, suddenly stooping down, the father caught the boy in his arms and raised him up. Pressing him fondly to his breast, he kissed the warm, flushed cheeks.
Till dusk he played with the child on the grass, pitching the ball and teaching the little fellow to hit it. Then Hilda, the mulatto nurse, came for her charge, and little Dick, with many expostulations, was taken away.
Going into the house, Mostyn met his father-in-law in the hall. The old man stopped him abruptly at the foot of the stairs.
"Did any mail come for me on the noon train?" he demanded, querulously, a light of suspicion in his eyes.
"Not that I know of," Mostyn answered. "It was not put on my desk, I am sure."
"Well, some of it goes somewhere," Mitchell complained. "I know I don't see it all. I've written letters that would have been answered by this time, and it wouldn't surprise me if somebody down there was tampering with it."
Seeing the utter hopelessness of bringing his father-in-law to reason by explanation or argument, Mostyn went on up-stairs. Noticing that the door of his wife's chamber, adjoining his own, was ajar, he pushed it open and went in. The room was brightly illuminated with electric light, and standing before a tall pier-glass he found his wife. She wore a costly evening gown of rare old lace and was trying on a pretty diamond necklace.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, indifferently, as she caught sight of him over her bare powdered shoulder. "I thought it was Cousin Kitty. She promised to be here early. If she is late we'll have to go without her. She is awfully slow. I saw you playing with Dick on the grass. He makes too much noise, screaming out like that, and you only make him worse cutting up with him as you do. Between you and that boy and father, with his constant, babyish complaints, I am driven to desperation."
Mostyn shrugged his shoulders wearily, and sat down in a chair at her quaint mahogany dressing-table. Irene had not changed materially, though a close observer, had the light been that of day, might have remarked that she was thinner and more nervous. Her eyes held a shadowy, unsatisfied expression, and her voice was keyed unnaturally high.
Noticing his unwonted silence, she put down her hand-mirror and eyed him with a slow look of irritation. "Of course, you are not going to-night," she said.
"Hardly," he smiled, satirically, "being quite uninvited."
"Well, you needn't say it in that tone," she answered. "You have only yourself to blame. You never accept such invitations, so how could you expect people to run after you with them?"
"I don't expect them to," he answered, tartly. "If they asked me I'd decline. I simply don't enjoy that sort of thing at all."
"Of course you don't," she laughed. "The last time you went to a ball you looked like an insane man pacing up and down all by yourself. Kitty said you asked her to dance and forgot all about it. Dick, your day is over."
"I wonder if yours ever will be," he sniffed. "I see no prospect of it. You are on the go night and day. You are killing yourself. It is as bad as the morphine habit with you. You love admiration more than any woman I ever saw."
She arched her neck before the glass and turned to him wearily. "Do you know what you'll do in another minute? You'll talk yourself into another one of your disgusting rages over my own private affairs. You are a business man and would not violate an ordinary business agreement, but you are constantly ignoring the positive compact between us."
"I didn't expect at the time to have you going so constantly with a man that—"
"Oh, you didn't?" she laughed, tantalizingly. "You were to have all sorts of outside freedom, but I was not. Well, you were mistaken, that's all. I know whom you are hinting at. You mean Andy Buckton. I'm going with him to-night. Why shouldn't I? He's got up the party for me. Dick, don't tell me that you are actually jealous. It would be too delicious for anything."
"I can't ask you not to go with the fellow," Mostyn answered, "considering the well-known habits of your limited set to lay down new laws of conduct, but you nor no other woman can form the slightest idea of what it costs a man's pride to have people say that his wife is constantly seen with a man who always has been in love with her."
An almost imperceptible gleam of delight flashed into Irene's eyes, and a tinge of real color struggled beneath the powder on her face.
"You don't mean, Dick, that he really, really loves me?" she said, lingeringly.
"I think he does," Mostyn answered, bluntly. "He never got over your refusal to marry him. He shows it on every occasion. Everybody knows it, and that's what makes it so hard to—to put up with. I think I really have a right to ask the mother of my child to—"
"Don't begin that, Dick!" Irene commanded, sharply. "I have my rights, and you shall respect them. It is cowardly of you to always mention the boy in that way. I am not crazy about children, and I won't pretend to be. You know I did not want a child in the first place. I am not that sort. I want to have a good time. I like admiration. I like amusements. You men get the keenest sort of pleasure out of gambling in stocks and futures. All day long you are in a whirl of excitement. But you expect us women to stay at home and be as humdrum as hens in a chicken-house. You are to have your fun and come home and have us wives pet you and pamper you up for another day of delight. Dick, that may go all right with farmers' wives who haven't shoes to wear out to meeting, but it won't do for women with money of their own to spend."
"I knew that would come," he flashed at her. "It always does crop up sooner or later."
"You are out of temper to-night, Dick," she retorted. "And it is simply because I am going with Andy Buckton. You needn't deny it."
"I don't like the gossip that is going around." Mostyn frowned and bit his mustache as he said this. "The people of Atlanta, as a whole, are moral, conservative citizens, and the doings of your small set are abhorrent to them."
"My set!" Irene forced a harsh, mirthless laugh. "And for goodness' sake, what do they think of your set? You force me to say this, Dick. There is not a person in this city who has not heard of you and that unspeakable Winship woman."
Mostyn flinched beneath the gaze she bent on him. "That is a thing of the past, Irene, and you know it," he stammered, trying to keep his temper.
"I can consider it a thing of the past," she returned, coldly, "if I will take your word for it, just as you may or may not take my word for my conduct with Andy Buckton. Oh, I suppose it is nothing for a wife to see the knowing smiles that pass around when the gaudy creature shows up at the theater or ball-game accompanied by gamblers and bar-keepers. The brazen thing stares straight at me whenever I am near her."
Mostyn was now white with restrained fury. He stood up. "I will not go over all that again," he said. "The mistake I made was in ever owning up to the thing."
"You had to own up to it," Irene answered, bluntly. "I knew it when we were married, and I would not mention it now if you were not constantly nagging me about my actions. Dick, you will have to let me alone. I won't take advice from you."
He met her frank eyes with a shrinking stare. "I shall let you alone in the future," he faltered. "I see I have to. You are merciless. For the sake of the boy we must live in harmony. God knows we must!"
"All right," she laughed, coldly, "that is another agreement. Harmony is the word. Now, go away. Kitty is not coming. She may be going with some one else."
Mostyn went to his room across the hall. He bathed his bloodless face and hands and automatically brushed his hair before the glass, eying his features critically. "Can that actually be me?" he whispered to the grim reflection. "I look like a man of sixty. I'm as old and decrepit as—Jeff Henderson. Why did I think of him? Why am I constantly thinking of that old man, unless it is because he has predicted my ruin so confidently? He seems as sure of it as he is of the air he breathes. If evil thought bearing on a man can hurt him, as the mental scientists believe, Henderson's will eventually get me down. He would give his life to permanently injure me. So would Marie. She can't forgive me for ignoring her. She can't understand any more than I do why I ignore her."
There was a rap on the door. It was a servant to ask if he wanted his supper.
"Not now," he answered. "Keep it for me. I'll be in later."
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