Although they solemnly promised not to speak of it, they were tempted constantly to find arguments to support their separate attitudes. He thought her unnecessarily vindictive about her cousin, while she considered him a credulous fool. For a while they managed to keep their opinions to themselves.
One night they met Phyllis at a dinner party. Afterward Gil and Phyllis were partners at bridge. They won quite a lot of money, and on the way home Gil boasted about his game and, to show sportsmanship, praised his partner. Nancy stiffened. Aware of her displeasure, he hastily changed the subject.
Although her marriage had increased Nancy’s self-confidence, she was still thin-skinned.
“You needn’t be afraid to talk about Phyllis,” she said coldly. “I know what a superior creature she is.”
Gil did not speak again until they were in their apartment. His nerves were on edge. “Look here,” he said when they were in the hall, taking off their coats; “this has gone far enough. Every time I mention Phyllis you act as if I’d insulted you. We’ve got to have this out once and for all.”
They quarreled bitterly, brought out buried grievances, and led each other to the subject of the poisoned pills. Later, when she was questioned about this quarrel, Nancy said that she could not remember precisely what each of them had said, but only that Gil’s gibes had so wounded her that she ran the length of the apartment into her bedroom and locked the door. For a while, she said, he had stayed in the corridor, shouting abuse.
The next day she could not force herself to speak to him. He addressed her politely, just as though they had not quarreled, but she seemed not to hear. It was Nancy’s habit, when she was hurt, to brood for days. She regretted her moodiness, but had never been able to cure it.
This, more than the quarrel, upset Gil, for the actor’s pride was fed by the response of his audience. Nancy’s passionate silence destroyed his self-confidence and led to the distrust of his charm. And when, lunching alone at a popular restaurant, he ran into Phyllis, in a turban made all of violets and a purple veil tied in a bow under her chin, he invited her to have a drink with him.
He told her, as she later reported to the police, of Nancy’s sulks. The news did not surprise Phyllis. She was well acquainted with this habit of Nancy’s; it had always made family history. She advised Gil to feed Nancy a bit of her own stew and to treat her with the same black indifference.
The idea delighted Gil. When he donned a mood he wore it like a wig and tights. In contrast with his brooding melancholy, Nancy’s sulks were a pale fog beside a storm cloud. She was utterly bewildered. All of her life, Nancy had been given her own way; when she sulked and refused to talk, her parents and the servants had waited tremulously for her mood to lighten. Now she had a taste of the bitter medicine.
Gil noted the effect of his performance and was as pleased as though he had heard a first-night audience shouting bravos. Perhaps he kept it up longer than necessary. Her nerves were frayed. Too proud to beg forgiveness, she waited shyly for him to offer the first word.
The triumphant actor sought a wider audience. One woman was not enough for him. Daily he made reports to Phyllis. One day, when they had been having tea together, he went off with her gloves in his pocket. They were fuchsia-colored and size five and three quarters. Nancy’s maid, going through Gil’s pockets before she sent his suit to the cleaner’s, found the gloves and brought them to her mistress with an air of sly innocence.
Nancy turned as pale as if a wound had drained the blood from her. That very day she had bought Gil a reconciliation gift, a costly morocco traveling case with gold fittings. It was in her closet, shrouded in tissue paper, ready to be presented after the first embrace...
It was about four in the afternoon when the maid brought her the gloves. Gil came home at seven o’clock. When Nancy heard the door open she rushed at him, pallid, red-eyed, and screaming like a fishwife.
This was no time for sullen dignity. Gil used words he’d picked up back-stage, filth which belonged to the riff-raff of the theater, and which had never before soiled the lips of that dignified actor.
The two maids retired to the kitchen. According to their report, the quarrel lasted almost two hours. It thoroughly exhausted Nancy. Sobbing, she threw herself across her bed. The cook came out of the kitchen to ask cautiously if Mr. Jones wished dinner, but Gil turned and stalked out to the hall, put on his coat, and left the apartment.
According to the story which Phyllis told the police the next day, she was reading in her living-room, when the doorbell rang so furiously that her young Negro maid, who was washing dishes in the tiny kitchen, came out and begged Phyllis not to obey that nervous summons. Quite calmly Phyllis opened the door, and admitted Gil.
He walked to the center of the living-room and said quietly, “I’ve been through hell.”
“Sit down,” she said gently.
Gil strode up and down like a caged beast. Phyllis, not wishing the maid to overhear, bade her leave the dishes and go home.
“I’d rather die,” Gil said, “than have to look at my wife’s face again.”
“Why? What’s happened, Gil?”
“She’s an evil woman.” Gil shuddered. “Although I’m not a particularly virtuous man, wickedness in a woman horrifies me.”
“Gil dear, be reasonable. Nancy’s your wife and a fine, generous girl. She was spoiled at home, but she’s wonderfully goodhearted and she loves you desperately. Won’t you try to forgive her?”
Gradually, with such argument, she managed to calm him. He asked for a drink, and she brought out the whisky and soda. She did not count the drinks he poured for himself, but thought he must have taken four or five. Toward the end of the evening he became quite garrulous, and told her why he had married Nancy. During rehearsals and the out-of-town tryouts of the play, they had been thrown together constantly. Nancy had been such a good sport about the money she lost on the play that Gil had tried to make it up as much as possible in offering her his friendship. She had interpreted his kindness as love, and showed her passion for him with shocking frankness. The marriage had been impulsive.
He now realized how grave had been the mistake. As sternly as he tried he could not reject his need for Phyllis. Her image was engraved indelibly, he had said, upon his heart.
“I can’t sleep, I can’t think, I can’t work,” Gil said, rising and crossing the room to the wide Victorian armchair where Phyllis sat. “I can’t live with that woman another day. I’m going to tell her so... tonight.”
“No, Gil. Think it over. Your marriage was an impulse, and this may be another. You know your own nature; you’re too flexible, you allow yourself to be carried away too easily. Tomorrow you may feel differently about her.”
“No. I’ll never love her. And I’m too upset to let this thing go on any longer. I’ll tell her, darling, that I love you.”
“No, Gil. That you must never tell her. If it were any other woman—” Phyllis shrugged off the rest of the thought. “But you must never tell Nancy that.”
“I’m going home. Tomorrow I’ll let you know what I’ve done.” He kissed her on the forehead tenderly like a fond uncle.
Phyllis put the whisky into a walnut cabinet which had once been a Victorian commode. She carried the soda water to the refrigerator and the glass to the sink. The dinner dishes had not been dried and put away. Phyllis ran hot water over them, dried them and tidied the kitchen. This was a habit developed by early training. All the women in the family, even when they had servants, were fussy housekeepers.
She barely slept that night, and at dawn fell into a fitful slumber made hideous by nightmares. She spent most of the day waiting for Gil to telephone.