If he had singled out Helen from the first, he couldn't have played his game better, for his seeming indifference to her loveliness piqued her almost to madness. During the early months of our entrance in the war he was called back to France, and every man in Eastbrook breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn't one of us who could say why we thought him a cad, but just the same, I doubt if there was a father in Eastbrook who would willingly have given his daughter to him. He was too much of the ideal lover to make a good husband. There was something about him, too, that made no man want to claim him as a particular friend, but perhaps it was because we were all jealous.
While most of the younger men of the town were in France, or, like Jim and myself, in a training-camp, Frank Woods came back, and this time there was no mistaking whom he had picked out for his attentions. Until the war was over and Jim home, it was not noticeable, for he was most meticulous in his behavior, but with Jim busy trying to straighten out our tangled practise, Woods lost no time in taking advantage of his opportunities. And there had been opportunities enough, heaven knows, with Jim surrounded by clients, yet trying in his clumsy, lovable way to remonstrate with Helen for seeing so much of Woods. My interference had only increased his opportunities, for the evening I told her what people were saying, she quarreled with Jim, and as a result he threw himself into his work with an energy in which enthusiasm had no part.
All the time these thoughts were running through my head—and they ran much faster than I can set them down—I had been throwing my clothes on, knowing something had to be done, yet what that something was I couldn't for the life of me figure out.
“Come on, Jim!” I said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him from his dejected position.
“Where to?” he responded wearily.
“First of all, we're going to shut this thing up. The Sun would like nothing better than to spread it thick all over the front page of their filthy sheet.”
“You're right, old boy! I'd forgotten about the newspapers. It would be horrible for Helen to have her name dragged through the mud.”
“I wasn't thinking of Helen,” I responded testily, “but a lot of cheap notoriety won't help our law practise any.”
All the spirit seemed to have seeped out of his system, so I pushed him into my car, preferring to take the wheel rather than have him drive. I can always think better when I have a steering wheel in my hands, and knowing with what speed Jim drove ordinarily, I didn't care to trust my precious body to him in his overwrought condition.
We were just backing into the drive when one of the servants came running from the club.
“Oh, Mr. Thompson!” he called.
I stopped the car and waited for him to come up.
“What is it?”
“You're wanted on the telephone.”
I jumped from the car and started for the club. There were the usual groups of tea-drinkers and bridge-players scattered about on the broad veranda, and it seemed to me, as I ran up the steps, that they all stopped talking and looked at me, I thought, with curiosity, if not with pity. There would be no use shutting up the newspapers if that bunch of gossips were in possession of the scandal.
I hurried to the telephone and slammed the door to the booth, expecting to hear the voice of some reporter demand if there was any truth to the rumor that Mrs. James Felderson had run off with Frank Woods. To my buzzing brain it seemed that the whole world must have heard the news.
“Hello,” I called.
“Is that you, Warren?” It was Helen's voice.
“Helen!” I yelled. “For God's sake, where are you?”
“I am at the house. Listen, Warren! Have you seen Jim?”
Her voice sounded faint and strangely uncontrolled.
“Yes—yes,” I shouted. “He's here with me now.”
“Then bring him here quickly, Warren! Please hurry.”
“But, Helen——”
“Don't ask me any questions, please.” There was a catch in the voice on the other end of the wire. “I c-can't answer any questions now, but bring Jim, and hurry!”
The receiver clicked and I dashed out of the booth, a thousand questions pounding in my brain. Why was Helen at the house? Had Frank Woods failed to keep his appointment, thinking better of eloping with another man's wife; or, had Helen come to her senses, seen through the thin veneer that covered the cad and the libertine in Frank Woods and returned to her husband for good? Over and above these questions and conjectures and hopes, there was thanksgiving in my heart that the irremediable step had not been taken; that something had intervened to keep scandal and disgrace away from Jim.
There must have been something in my face that told Jim I had been talking to Helen, for he moved into the driver's seat and greeted me with the single question: “Where is she?”
“Home!” I panted, “and drive like the devil!”
I might have saved myself the trouble of the last, for even before I got into the car there was a roar of exhaust and the crunch of grinding gears and we were off down the smooth drive with a speed that quickly brought tears to my eyes and put the fear of God in my heart.
How we ever escaped a smash-up after we got into the city I can't tell to this day, for Jim never once slackened speed. He sat there with jaws set, pumping gas and still more gas into the little car. Thrice I saw death loom up ahead of us, as vehicles approached from side-streets, but with a swerve and a sickening skid, we missed them somehow. Once a street-car and a wagon seemed completely to block the road ahead, but Jim steered for the slender opening and when I opened my eyes we had skinned through, leaving a corpulent and cursing driver far behind. After that I forgot my wretched fear and the blood surged through my veins at the delicious feel of the air as it whipped my cheeks. We turned at last into the long approach to Jim's house and it was then that my heart sank.
Frank Woods' car was standing before the door.
CHAPTER TWO. TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Had Helen been alone, I would have dropped Jim and gone on, knowing that what they had to say to each other was not for outside ears, but when I saw Frank Woods' car there, I felt that a cool head might be needed. There was an ominous set to Jim's shoulders as he walked toward the steps, a sort of drawing in of the head, as though all the muscles in his big frame were tensed. He hesitated a fraction of a second at the door, either to let me catch up with him or because of distaste for the prospective meeting, and we entered the cool dark hall together.