I noticed that Wicks had taken an infernally long time to start the fire. Although it was burning merrily, he still puttered about, brushing up the chips and rearranging the blower and tongs. When Wicks hangs about he usually has a question on his mind that he wants answered, and he takes that means of letting you know it. I decided not to notice him but to force him to come out in the open and ask, for once, a straightforward question. From the fire, he moved to the table and straightened the magazines and books, glancing now and then in my direction, trying to catch my eye, but I buried myself more deeply than ever in the paper. When he finally stepped back of my chair, human nature could stand his puttering no longer, so I laid down The Sun, and turned to him.
“Well, Wicks, what do you want?” I snapped.
Wicks looked at me with the expression of a small boy caught sticky-handed in the jam-closet.
“Nothing, sir!—that is—er—nothing.” He turned and started from the room.
“Come here, Wicks!” I called. “I know when you hang around a room unnecessarily, as you have been doing for the last ten minutes, that you have something on your mind. Now, out with it.”
“I was merely going to arsk, sir, hif I 'ad better begin lookin' arfter another place, sir?”
That was an extraordinary question. Wicks had been with the Feldersons ever since they were married.
“What put that idea into your head, Wicks?”
He was far more confused than I had ever seen him.
“Meanin' no disrespect, sir, and I don't mean to be hinquisitive about what doesn't concern me, but I couldn't 'elp 'earin' a bit of what took place this arfternoon, sir.”
Good lord! I'd forgotten there might have been other witnesses to the scene of the afternoon besides myself.
“Do the other servants know about this, Wicks?”
“Hi think they do, sir, seein' as 'ow Mrs. Felderson 'as been actin' and talkin' so queer.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
Wicks struggled for composure. The subject was evidently most distasteful to his conservative and conventional British nature.
“Hit was Annie, Mrs. Felderson's maid, sir, that hupset the servants. W'en she came down from hup-stairs, she said as 'ow Mrs. Felderson was a ragin' and a rampagin' around 'er room, sayin' that if Mr. Felderson didn't give 'er a divorce, she would do violence to 'im, sir.”
“Did Annie hear her say that?” I questioned.
“She says so, sir.”
The whole thing was so monstrous that I gasped. For this awful dime-novel muck to be tumbled into the middle of my family was too sickening. My sister, running away from her husband with another man and now threatening, in the hearing of the servants, to kill him, unless he gave her a divorce, disgusted me with its cheap vulgarity. I hid, as best I could, the tempest that was brewing inside me.
“Wicks, Mrs. Felderson is not well. Tell the servants that she is greatly depressed over an accident that happened to a friend. At the present time, she is so upset over that, she really doesn't know what she is saying. Quiet them in some way, Wicks! And tell Annie to stay with Mrs. Felderson!”
“Very good, sir.” He started to leave.
“And, Wicks—”
“Yes, sir.”
“There is no need of your looking for another place.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!”
Wicks departed and I was left to my gloomy thoughts. Helen must be brought to her senses. Mary and I must work, either to bring her back to Jim, or, if that prove hopeless, to see that the divorce was hurried as much as possible. The very thought of having Mary along with me, with her inexhaustible fund of God-given humor and common sense, gave me a vast amount of comfort and confidence.
At this point, Jim came in. He had had a bath and a shave and had put on a dinner-coat, looking a lot more fit to grapple with his troubles than he had the last time I had seen him. Only in his eyes did he show the shock he'd received that day.
“Communing with yourself in the dark, Bupps?”—his voice was natural and easy.
“Yes,” I sighed, “I've been trying to see a way out of this mess.”
Jim lit a cigarette and threw himself into a chair. For a few moments he puffed in silence, taking deep inhalations and blowing the smoke against the lighted tip, so that it showed all the rugged, strength of his superb head.
“What would you say, Bupps, if I told you everything would come out all right?”
“And Helen stay with you?” I asked incredulously.
“And Helen stay with me,” he repeated calmly.
“Of her own free will?”
“Of her own free will,” he answered.
“I should say that the events of the day had addled your brain and that you are a damned inconsiderate brother-in-law to try to make a fool of me.”
“I mean it, Bupps,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
“That everything will come out all right,” he smiled.
“But how, man?” His complacency almost drove me wild.
“Bupps, have you noticed how much money Woods has been spending around here—his extravagant way of living? Where do you think that money comes from?”
“His contracts with the French Government,” I replied.
“But I happen to know he didn't land those contracts. That's the reason he beat it so suddenly when we got into the war.” He tossed his cigarette into the fire.
“His salary from the French, then. They must have paid him some kind of salary.”
“Have you never heard what ridiculously small salaries the French Government pays its officers?”
It was true that Woods could never have lived as he did on ten times the salary of a French captain.
“His own private fortune then,” I suggested.
“Ah! There's the point! If he has a private fortune, then my whole case falls to pieces. That's what I've got to find out. Woods has been playing for a big stake, and I think he has been playing with other people's money. Did you notice how he flushed this afternoon when I suggested looking into his private affairs? It was the veriest accident—I was stalling for time—but when I saw him color up I knew I'd touched a sore spot. No, Bupps, I don't think Woods has a private fortune.”