Always devotedly,
LORRAINE.
His first feeling was one of awe that he had actually, in his mature years, stolen a tricycle and pedaled Lorraine all over the Étoile between the small hours and dawn. In retrospect it was a nightmare. Locking out Helen didn’t fit in with any other act of his life, but the tricycle incident did — it was one of many. How many weeks or months of dissipation to arrive at that condition of utter irresponsibility?
He tried to picture how Lorraine had appeared to him then — very attractive; so much so that Helen had been jealous. Yesterday, in the restaurant, she had seemed trite, blurred, worn away. He emphatically did not want to see her, and he was glad no one knew at what hotel he was staying. It was a relief to think of Honoria, to think of Sundays spent with her and of saying good morning to her and of knowing she was there in his house at night, breathing quietly in the darkness.
At five he took a taxi and bought presents for all the Peterses — a piquant cloth doll, a box of Roman soldiers, flowers for Marion, big linen handkerchiefs for Lincoln.
He saw, when he arrived in the apartment, that Marion had accepted the inevitable. She greeted him now as though he were a recalcitrant member of the family, rather than a menacing outsider. Honoria had been told she was going, and Charlie was glad to see that her tact was sufficient to conceal her excessive happiness. Only on his lap did she whisper her delight and the question “When?” before she slipped away.
He and Marion were alone for a minute in the room, and on an impulse he spoke out boldly:
“Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to my rules. They’re not like aches or wounds; they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material. I wish you and I could be on better terms.”
“Some things are hard to forget,” she answered. “It’s a question of confidence. If you behave yourself in the future I won’t have any criticism.” There was no answer to this, and presently she asked, “When do you propose to take her?”
“As soon as I can get a governess. I hoped the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s impossible. I’ve got to get her things in shape. Not before Saturday.”
He yielded. Coming back into the room, Lincoln offered him a drink.
“I’ll take my daily whisky,” he said.
It was warm here, it was a home, people together by a fire. The children felt very safe and important; the mother and father were serious, watchful. They had things to do for the children more important than his visit here. A spoonful of medicine was, after all, more important than the strained relations between Marion and himself. They were not dull people, but they were very much in the grip of life and circumstances, and their gestures as they turned in a cramped space lacked largeness and grace. He wondered if he couldn’t do something to get Lincoln out of that rut at the bank.
There was a long peal at the doorbell; the maid crossed the room and went down the corridor. The door opened upon another long ring, and then voices, and the three in the salon looked up expectantly; Lincoln moved to bring the corridor within his range of vision, and Marion rose. Then the maid came along the corridor, closely followed by the voices, which developed under the light into Duncan Schaeffer and Lorraine Quarrles.
They were gay, they were hilarious, they were roaring with laughter. For a moment Charlie was astounded; then he realized they had got the address he had left at the bar.
“Ah-h-h!” Duncan wagged his finger roguishly at Charlie. “Ah-h-h!”
They both slid down another cascade of laughter. Anxious and at a loss, Charlie shook hands with them quickly and presented them to Lincoln and Marion. Marion nodded, scarcely speaking. She had drawn back a step toward the fire; her little girl stood beside her, and Marion put an arm about her shoulder.
With growing annoyance at the intrusion, Charlie waited for them to explain themselves. After some concentration Duncan said:
“We came to take you to dinner. Lorraine and I insist that all this shi-shi, cagy business got to stop.”
Charlie came closer to them, as if to force them backward down the corridor.
“Sorry, but I can’t. Tell me where you’ll be and we’ll call you in half an hour.”
This made no impression. Lorraine sat down suddenly on the side of a chair, and focusing her eyes on Richard, cried, “Oh, what a nice little boy! Come here, little boy.” Richard glanced at his mother, but did not move. With a perceptible shrug of her shoulders, Lorraine turned back to Charlie:
“Come on out to dinner. Be yourself, Charlie. Come on.”
“How about a little drink?” said Duncan to the room at large.
Lincoln Peters had been somewhat uneasily occupying himself by swinging Honoria from side to side with her feet off the ground.
“I’m sorry, but there isn’t a thing in the house,” he said. “We just this minute emptied the only bottle.”
“All the more reason coming to dinner,” Lorraine assured Charlie.
“I can’t,” said Charlie almost sharply. “You two go have dinner and I’ll phone you.”
“Oh, you will, will you?” Her voice became suddenly unpleasant. “All right, we’ll go along. But I remember, when you used to hammer on my door, I used to be enough of a good sport to give you a drink. Come on, Dunc.”
Still in slow motion, with blurred, angry faces, with uncertain feet, they retired along the corridor.
“Good night,” Charlie said.
“Good night!” responded Lorraine emphatically.
When he went back into the salon Marion had not moved, only now her son was standing in the circle of her other arm. Lincoln was still swinging Honoria back and forth like a pendulum from side to side.
“What an outrage!” Charlie broke out. “What an absolute outrage!”
Neither of them answered. Charlie dropped into an armchair, picked up his drink, set it down again and said:
“People I haven’t seen for two years having the colossal nerve—”
He broke off. Marion had made the sound “Oh!” in one swift, furious breath, turned her body from him with a jerk and left the room.
Lincoln set down Honoria carefully.
“You children go in and start your soup,” he said, and when they obeyed, he said to Charlie:
“Marion’s not well and she can’t stand shocks. That kind of people make her really physically sick.”
“I didn’t tell them to come here. They wormed this address out of Paul at the bar. They deliberately—”
“Well, it’s too bad. It doesn’t help matters. Excuse me a minute.”
Left alone, Charlie sat tense in his chair. In the next room he could hear the children eating, talking in monosyllables, already oblivious of the scene among their elders. He heard a murmur of conversation from a farther room and then the ticking bell of a phone picked up, and in a panic he moved to the other side of the room and out of earshot.
In a minute Lincoln came back. “Look here, Charlie. I think we’d better call off dinner for tonight. Marion’s in bad shape.”
“Is she angry with me?”
“Sort of,” he said, almost roughly. “She’s not strong and—”
“You mean she’s changed her mind about Honoria?”
“She’s pretty bitter right now. I don’t know. You phone me at the bank to-morrow.”
“I wish you’d explain to her I never dreamed these people would come here. I’m just as sore as you are.”
“I couldn’t explain anything to her now.”
Charlie got up. He took his coat and hat and started down the corridor. Then he opened the door of the dining room and said in a strange voice, “Good night, children.”
Honoria rose and ran around the table to hug him.