I've Married Marjorie Part 3

"It's worse for him," said Marjorie in a subdued voice, nestling down on Lucille's shoulder.

"Oh, I don't know," said Lucille comfortably. "Men can generally take care of themselves. . . . But are you sure you don't love him the least little bit?"

"I'm afraid of him. He's like somebody strange. . . . It's so long ago."

"So long ago an' so far away, le's hope it ain' true!" quoted Lucille amiably. "Well, darling, if you don't want to marry him you needn't--I mean, if you don't want to stay married to him you needn't. I'm sure something can be done. Francis is perfectly sure to do anything you like, he adores you so."

But this didn't seem to give comfort, either. And as the boiler was moaning with excess of heat, Lucille dashed for the bathtub. She talked to Marjorie through the flimsy door as she splashed, to the effect that Marjorie had much better let her call up another man and go out on a nice little foursome, instead of staying at home. But there Marjorie was firm. She would have preferred anything to her own society, but she felt as if any sort of a party would have been like breaking through first mourning.

So she saw Lucille, an immaculate vision of satins and picture hats, go off gaily with her cavalier, and remained herself all alone in the little room, lying on the sofa, going over everything that had happened and ending it differently. She was very tired, and felt guiltier and guiltier as time went on. Finally she rose and went to the telephone and called the number Francis had left.

The voice that answered her was very curt and very quiet.

"Yes. . . . This is Captain Ellison. Yes, Marjorie? What is it?"

It seemed harder than ever to say what she had to say in the face of that distant, unemotional voice. But Marjorie had come to a resolve, and went steadily on.

"I called up to say, Francis, that I am ready to go with you anywhere you want to, at any time. I will try to be a good wife to you."

She clung to the telephone, her heart beating like a triphammer there in the dark, waiting for his answer. It seemed a long time in coming.

When it did, it was furious.

"I don't want you to go with me anywhere, at any time. I don't want a wife who has to try to be a good wife to me."

He hung up with an effect of flinging the receiver in her face.

Marjorie almost ran back to the davenport--she was beginning to feel as if the davenport was the nearest she had to a mother--and flung herself on it in a storm of angry tears. He was unjust. He was violent. She didn't want a man like that--what on earth had she humiliated herself that way for, anyway? What was the use of trying to be honorable and good and fair and doing things for men, when they treated you like that? Francis had proposed and proposed and proposed--she hadn't been so awfully keen on marrying him. . . . It had just seemed like the sort of thing it would be thrilling to do. Well, thank goodness he did feel that way. She was better off without people like that, anyhow.

She would go back home to Westchester, and live a patient, meek, virtuous life under Cousin Anna Stevenson's thumb, as she had before she got the position at the office or got married. She certainly couldn't go back to the office and explain it all to them. At least, she wouldn't. It would be better, even if Cousin Anna did treat everybody as if they were ten and very foolish. . . . And she had refused the offer of a nice foursome and one of Lucille's cheerful friends, to stay home and be treated this way!

She rose and went to the telephone again, with blazing cheeks.

She called up, on the chance, Logan's number; and amazingly got him.

And she invited him on the spot to come over the next evening and have something in a chafing-dish with Lucille and herself. Lucille, she knew, had no engagement for that evening, and could produce men, always, out of thin air. Marjorie chose Logan because Francis had said he didn't like him. She had been a little too much afraid, before that, of Logan's literariness to dare call him up. But that night she would have dared the Grand Cham of Tartary, if that dignitary had had a phone number and been an annoyance to Francis Ellison.

Logan, to her surprise, accepted eagerly, and even forgot to be mannered. He did, it must be said, keep her at the telephone, which was a stand-up one, for an hour, while he talked brilliantly about the Italian renaissance in its ultimate influence on the arts and crafts movement of the present day. To listen to Logan was a liberal education at any moment, if a trifle too much like attending a lecture.

But at least he didn't expect much answering.

She went to the office, next day, in more or less of a dream. She was very quiet, and worked very hard. n.o.body said much to her; she took care not to let them. When stray congratulations came her way, as they were bound to, and when old Mr. Morrissey, the vice-head, said, "I suppose we can't hope to keep you long now," and beamed, she answered without any heartbeatings or difficulty. She was quite sure she would never feel gay again; she had had so much happen to her. But it was rather pleasant not to be able to have any feelings, if a little monotonous. The only thing at all on her mind was the question as to how much cheese a party of four needed for a rarebit, and whether Logan would or could eat rarebits at night. And even that was to a certain degree a matter of indifference.

She finally decided that scallops a la King might be more what he would eat. She bought them on her way home, together with all the rest of the things she needed. Lucille had produced a fourth person with her usual lack of effort, and it promised to be--if anything in life could have been anything but flavorless--rather a good party.

In fact, it was. It was a dear little apartment that the girls shared, with a living-room chosen especially for having nice times in. It was lighted by tall candles, and had a gas grate that was almost human.

There was a grand piano which took up more than its share of room, there was the davenport aforesaid, there were companionable chairs and taborets acquired by Lucille and kept by Marjorie in the exact places where they looked best; there were soft draperies, also hemmed and put up by Marjorie. The first thing visitors always said about it was that it made them feel comfortable and at home. They generally attributed the homelikeness to Lucille, who was dangerously near looking matronly, rather than to Marjorie, who would be more like a firefly than a matron even when she became a grandmother.

Marjorie, with cooking to do, tied up in a long orange colored ap.r.o.n, almost forgot things. She loved to make things to eat. Lucille, meanwhile, sat on the piano-stool and played s.n.a.t.c.hes of "The Long, Long Trail," and the men, Lucille's negligible one and Marjorie's Mr.

Logan, made themselves very useful in the way of getting plates and arranging piles of crackers. The small black kitten which had been a present to Lucille from the janitor, who therefore was a mother to it while the girls were out, sat expectantly on the edge of all the places where he shouldn't be, purring loudly and having to be put down at five-minute intervals.

"I suppose this is a sort of celebration of your having your husband back," said the Lucille man presently to Marjorie. He had been told so, indeed, by Lucille, who was under that impression herself, Logan looked faintly surprised. He, to be frank, had forgotten all about Marjorie's having a husband who had to be celebrated.

Marjorie nearly spilled the scallops she was serving at that moment, and the kitten, losing its self-control entirely, climbed on the table with a cry of entreaty for the excellent fish-smelling dishful of things to eat. It was lucky for Marjorie that he did, because while she was struggling with him Lucille answered innocently for her.

"Yes, more or less. But he's late. Where's your perfectly good husband, Marge?"

"Late, I'm afraid," Marjorie answered, smiling, and wondering at herself for being able to smile. "We aren't to wait for him."

"Sensible child," Lucille answered. "I'm certainly very hungry."

She drew her chair up to the low table the men had pushed into the center of the room, sent one of them to open the window, rather than turn out the cheerful light of the gas grate, and the real business of the party began.

It was going on very prosperously, that meal; even Mr. Logan was heroically eating the same things the rest did, and not taking up more than his fair share of the conversation, when there was a quick step on the stairs. n.o.body heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just as she had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, and when he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go over and let him in.

He came in exactly as if he belonged there; but after one quick glance at the visitors he drew Marjorie aside into the little inner room.

"Marjorie, I've come to say I was unkind and unfair over the telephone.

I've made up my mind that you are fonder of me than you know. I think it will be all right--it was foolish of me to be too proud to take you unless you were absolutely willing. Let me take back what I said, and forgive me. I know it will be all right--Marjorie!"

She gave him a furious push away from her. Her eyes blazed.

"It never will be all right! It isn't going to have a chance to be!"

she told him, as angry as he had been when she called him up. "You had your chance and you wouldn't take it. I don't want to be your wife, and I never will be. That's all there is to say."

She took a step in the direction of the outer room. He put out a hand to detain her.

"Marjorie! Marjorie! Don't!"

"I'm going out there, and going to keep on having the nice time I had before you came. If you try to do anything I'll probably make a scene."

"You're going to give me one more chance," he said. "That's settled."

She looked at him defiantly.

"Try to make me," was all she said, wrenching her wrist out of his hand.

"I will," said Francis grimly.

She smiled at him brilliantly as he followed her into the room where the others were.

"I'm afraid there isn't any way," she said sweetly.

Lucille, who had not seen Francis before, flew at him now with a welcome which was affectionate enough to end effectually any further ardors or defiances.

"And you're in time for your own party after all," she ended, smiling sunnily at him and pus.h.i.+ng him into a chair. She gave him a plate of scallops and a fork, and the party went on as it had before. Only Marjorie eyed him with nervous surprise. "What will he do next?" she wondered.

CHAPTER III