Thenceforth she took good care not to ask where he was going or where he had been. And he, abandoning a habit closely followed for more than eleven years, did not take the trouble to tell her. His absences grew more frequent.
Two or three afternoons and as many evenings each week he would go out and remain several hours without a word to her. She suffered considerably, but she told herself that the only possible course was to sit and wait in dignified sorrow for whatever might come.
Then, on a sudden impulse, she had gone alone to Courin’s Restaurant one night when he had told her he was to dine there with John Dupont, the painter; and she thought she had discovered her enemy in the woman with the yellow hat, only to find later that she was Dupont’s wife.
But she resolved to sit and wait no longer.
Dignity or no dignity, she would find out who or what it was that was taking her husband away from her. She had lost six pounds in a month, and her eyes were acquiring a permanent and unattractive redness from frequent tears.
When her husband left the house at eight o’clock the next evening she followed him. But not very far. At the corner of Broadway and Eighty-seventh Street he boarded a downtown car, and she stood helplessly in the middle of the pavement watching the thing whiz out of sight.
The next time, two days later, she had a taxi ready.
She saw him, a block ahead, as he darted into the subway station; but by the time she had reached the spot and leaped out and paid the driver and rushed breathlessly down the steps, a train had gone through and the platform was empty.
Then she awoke to the absurdity of her course. If she did keep close enough to follow him, he would certainly see and recognize her, even through her heavy veil.
By now she was too enraged to cry. She went home, consulted the Red Book, and in a firm and resolute voice asked central for a certain number found therein.
Within thirty minutes her maid ushered in a short, fat man in a brown suit and straw hat, with enormous hands and feet and twinkling eyes. Mrs. Stannard received him in the library.
“You are—” she began in a timid voice, as the man stood in the doorway with the straw hat in his hand.
“Mr. Pearson, of Doane, Doane & Doane,” he replied amiably. “You telephoned for a man, I believe. This is Mrs. Stannard?”
“Yes. You are” — her voice faltered — “you are a detective?”
“I am.”
Mrs. Stannard looked at him much as she might have looked at a strange and ferocious animal from the zoo. Then, partially recovering herself, she asked him to be seated. He did so, jerking up his trousers and balancing the straw hat on his knee.
“You follow people?” she declared abruptly.
Mr. Pearson smiled.
“I sure do,” he admitted proudly.
“Well” — she hesitated — “of course, I know that there’s nothing really wrong, but I am a little worried about it, and I thought if you could—”
“Pardon me,” the detective interrupted, “but are you speaking of your husband?”
“Certainly!” said Mrs. Stannard indignantly.
“Just so. You want to know where he goes. Natural curiosity. Day or night?”
“Why — both.”
“Ah!” Mr. Pearson elevated his brows. “That’s bad. Now, if you will permit me to ask a few questions. What is his full name?”
“Jonathan Stannard.”
Mr. Pearson wrote it down in a little leatherbound book.
“Business?”
“Why — the writer.”
“Writer?”
“Yes. He writes.”
“U-m. Does he drink?”
“No.”
“Gamble?”
“No!”
“Er — fond of — er — women?”
“Well! Well—”
But seeing the foolishness of it, she swallowed her indignation and replied calmly:
“No.”
“I see.” Mr. Pearson was frowning as he wrote. “Evidently he’s a bad un. Always been a good husband?”
“Yes.”
“U-m. The worst kind. Like Wooley. I handled that case. I suppose now you’ve got some particular woman in mind?”
“I have told you my husband does not run after women,” said Mrs. Stannard with dignity.
“No?” Mr. Pearson winked at a chair. “Now, madam, please give me the particulars of his absence.”
She did so; the hours, the dates, the duration. He filled two pages of the book with them.
“You say he’s a writer. Stories?”
“No. Mr. Stannard writes essays and criticisms. He is a man of high morals and serious purpose. I can’t imagine why he is deceiving me—”
“No doubt. You aren’t expected to. We find out and let you know. We always find out. I’d like to go through his desk.”
She demurred, but he insisted. She sat trembling, with an eye on the hall door, while Mr. Pearson opened drawer after drawer of her husband’s desk and examined the contents. But he found nothing but typewritten sheets with headings like, “Chiaroscuro; the Lost Art,” or “The Deleterious Effect of the Motion Picture on the Literary Sense.”
“I take it,” said Mr. Pearson, closing the bottom drawer and standing up — “I take it that Mr. Stannard is one of them serious guys. Moody and a kicker. I see here where he says he has about as much respect for the modern school of illustrators as he has for a paper hanger. Also, he seems to have a grudge against the movies.”
“He stands for the noble in art,” said Mrs. Stannard. “He has conducted a campaign against the cinema because it appeals only to the lowest function of our mentality.”
“Just so,” Mr. Pearson agreed. “I remember him now. I’ve heard my daughter speak of him. He hates things that other people like. Take this, for instance.”
He picked up a sheet from the desk and read:
“The real danger of the poison — for the motion picture is a poison — lies in the ease and frequency with which it is administered. One dose would be harmless, but repeated day after day it is slowly corroding the intellect of the nation.
“We hear much criticism nowadays of the modern craze for wealth, of materialism in art, of the undermining of Christianity by science; but more pernicious than any of these, or of all of them put together, is the subtle and insidious virus of the cinema.
“I see,” muttered Mr. Pearson, replacing the paper on the desk. “Probably a shifty customer. Secret vice. Will you please sign this order, madam, for our protection. On the bottom line.”
Mrs. Stannard did so.
“I take it,” said the detective, pocketing the slip, “that you want a complete report of your husband’s movements outside this house. Including everything?”
“Including everything,” she agreed, her lips tight.
“All right.” He picked up the straw hat. “You may depend on us, madam. You will hear developments. Good day.”
A bow from the door and he was gone.
Mrs. Stannard lived a year in the week that followed.
For the first day or two she reproached herself bitterly for what she had done. To have one’s husband followed by a detective! So vulgar! So mean, somehow! However he was wronging her, was it not better to remain in ignorance than to stoop to the role of spy, even by proxy?
If it transpired that some creature had ensnared him with unlawful charms — and she no longer had doubt of this — what could she do, anyhow? And if it were something else?
What, then? She remembered the detective’s words, “secret vice.” There was something sinister, something horrible about them. Yes, there were worse things even than a woman.
Each day she gazed at her husband’s back with alarm and dread as he left the house. To what dreadful place was he going? What revolting deed was he about to commit?
“Secret vice!” Yes, it would be something truly, grandly horrible. There was nothing petty about Jonathan Stannard. Even in his vices he would not be as other men.