Baby Mine Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  LESS than half an hour later, Jimmy's taxi stopped in front of thefashionable Sherwood Apartments where Zoie had elected to live.Ascending toward the fifth floor he scanned the face of the elevator boyexpecting to find it particularly solemn because of the tragedy thathad doubtless taken place upstairs. He was on the point of sending outa "feeler" about the matter, when he remembered Zoie's solemn injunctionto "say nothing to anybody." Perhaps it was even worse than suicide. Hedared let his imagination go no further. By the time he had put out hishand to touch the electric button at Zoie's front door, his finger wastrembling so that he wondered whether he could hit the mark. The resultwas a very faint note from the bell, but not so faint that it escapedthe ear of the anxious young wife, who had been pacing up and down thefloor of her charming living room for what seemed to her ages.

  "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Zoie cried through her tears to her neat littlemaid servant, then reaching for her chatelaine, she daubed her smallnose and flushed cheeks with powder, after which she nodded to Mary toopen the door.

  To Jimmy, the maid's pert "good-morning" seemed to be in very bad tasteand to properly reprove her he assumed a grave, dignified air out ofwhich he was promptly startled by Zoie's even more unseemly greeting.

  "Hello, Jimmy!" she snapped. Her tone was certainly not that of aheart-broken widow. "It's TIME you got here," she added with an injuredair.

  Jimmy gazed at Zoie in astonishment. She was never what he would havecalled a sympathetic woman, but really----!

  "I came the moment you 'phoned me," he stammered; "what is it? What'sthe matter?"

  "It's awful," sniffled Zoie. And she tore up and down the roomregardless of the fact that Jimmy was still unseated.

  "Awful what?" questioned Jimmy.

  "Worst I've ever had," sobbed Zoie.

  "Is anything wrong with Alfred?" ventured Jimmy. And he braced himselffor her answer.

  "He's gone," sobbed Zoie.

  "Gone!" echoed Jimmy, feeling sure that his worst fears were about to berealised. "Gone where?"

  "I don't know," sniffled Zoie, "I just 'phoned his office. He isn'tthere."

  "Oh, is that all?" answered Jimmy, with a sigh of relief. "Just anotherlittle family tiff," he was unable to conceal a feeling of thankfulness."What's up?"

  Zoie measured Jimmy with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. She resented thepatronising tone that he was adopting. How dare he be cheerful whenshe was so unhappy--and because of him, too? She determined that hisself-complacency should be short-lived.

  "Alfred has found out that I lied about the luncheon," she said,weighing her words and their effect upon Jimmy.

  "What luncheon?" stuttered Jimmy, feeling sure that Zoie had suddenlymarked him for her victim, but puzzled as to what form her persecutionwas about to take.

  "What luncheon?" repeated Zoie, trying apparently to conceal her disgustat his dulness. "OUR luncheon yesterday."

  "Why did you LIE," asked Jimmy, his eyes growing rounder and rounderwith wonder.

  "I didn't know he KNEW," answered Zoie innocently.

  "Knew what?" questioned Jimmy, more and more befogged.

  "That I'd eaten with a man," concluded Zoie impatiently. Then she turnedher back upon Jimmy and again dashed up and down the room occupied withher own thoughts.

  It was certainly difficult to get much understanding out of Zoie'sdisjointed observations, but Jimmy was doing his best. He followed herrestless movements about the room with his eyes, and then ventured atimid comment.

  "He couldn't object to your eating with me."

  "Oh, couldn't he?" cried Zoie, and she turned upon him with a lookof contempt. "If there's anything that he DOESN'T object to," shecontinued, "I haven't found it out yet." And with that she threw herselfin a large arm chair near the table, and left Jimmy to draw his ownconclusions.

  Jimmy looked about the room as though expecting aid from some unseensource; then his eyes sought the floor. Eventually they crept to the tipof Zoie's tiny slipper as it beat a nervous tattoo on the rug. To savehis immortal soul, Jimmy could never help being hypnotised by Zoie'ssmall feet. He wondered now if they had been the reason of Alfred'sfirst downfall. He recalled with a sigh of relief that Aggie's feet werelarge and reassuring. He also recalled an appropriate quotation: "Thepath of virtue is not for women with small feet," it ran. "Yes, Aggie'sfeet are undoubtedly large," he concluded. But all this was not solvingZoie's immediate problem; and an impatient cough from her made himrealise that something was expected of him.

  "Why did you lunch with me," he asked, with a touch of irritation, "ifyou thought he wouldn't like it?"

  "I was hungry," snapped Zoie.

  "Oh," grunted Jimmy, and in spite of his dislike of the small creaturehis vanity resented the bald assertion that she had not lunched with himfor his company's sake.

  "I wouldn't have made an engagement with you of course," she continued,with a frankness that vanquished any remaining conceit that Jimmy mighthave brought with him. "I explained to you how it was at the time. Itwas merely a case of convenience. You know that."

  Jimmy was beginning to see it more and more in the light of aninconvenience.

  "If you hadn't been in front of that horrid old restaurant just when Iwas passing," she continued, "all this would never have happened. Butyou were there, and you asked me to come in and have a bite with you;and I did, and there you are."

  "Yes, there I am," assented Jimmy dismally. There was no doubt aboutwhere he was now, but where was he going to end? That was the question."See here," he exclaimed with fast growing uneasiness, "I don't likebeing mixed up in this sort of thing."

  "Of course you'd think of yourself first," sneered Zoie. "That's justlike a man."

  "Well, I don't want to get your husband down on me," argued Jimmyevasively.

  "Oh, I didn't give YOU away," sneered Zoie. "YOU needn't worry," and shefixed her eyes upon him with a scornful expression that left no doubt asto her opinion that he was a craven coward.

  "But you said he'd 'found out,'" stammered Jimmy.

  "He's found out that I ate with a MAN," answered Zoie, more and moreaggrieved at having to employ so much detail in the midst of herdistress. "He doesn't know it was you."

  "But Zoie----" protested Jimmy.

  She lifted a small hand, begging him to spare her further questions.It was apparent that she must explain each aspect of their presentdifficulty, with as much patience as though Jimmy were in reality only achild. She sank into her chair and then proceeded, with a martyred air.

  "You see it was like this," she said. "Alfred came into the restaurantjust after we had gone out and Henri, the waiter who has taken careof him for years, told him that I had just been in to luncheon with agentleman."

  Jimmy shifted about on the edge of his chair, ill at ease.

  "Now if Alfred had only told me that in the first place," she continued,"I'd have known what to say, but he didn't. Oh no, he was as sweet ascould be all through breakfast and last night too, and then just as hewas leaving this morning, I said something about luncheon and he said,quite casually, 'Where did you have luncheon YESTERDAY, my dear?' So Ianswered quite carelessly, 'I had none, my love.' Well, I wish you couldhave seen him. He called me dreadful things. He says I'm the one thinghe can't endure."

  "What's that?" questioned Jimmy, wondering how Alfred could confinehimself to any "ONE thing."

  "He says I'm a liar!" shrieked Zoie tearfully.

  "Well, aren't you?" asked Jimmy.

  "Of course I am," declared Zoie; "but why shouldn't I be?" She lookedat Jimmy with such an air of self-approval that for the life of him hecould find no reason to offer. "You know how jealous Alfred is," shecontinued. "He makes such a fuss about the slightest thing that I've gotout of the habit of EVER telling the TRUTH." She walked away fromJimmy as though dismissing the entire matter; he shifted his positionuneasily; she turned to him again with mock sweetness. "I suppose YOUtold AGGIE all about it?" she said.

  Jimmy's round eyes opene
d wide and his jaw dropped lower. "I--I--don'tbelieve I did," he stammered weakly. "I didn't think of it again."

  "Thank heaven for that!" concluded Zoie with tightly pressed lips. Thenshe knotted her small white brow in deep thought.

  Jimmy regarded her with growing uneasiness. "What are you up to now?" heasked.

  "I don't know yet," mused Zoie, "BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELLAGGIE--that's ONE SURE thing." And she pinned him down with her eyes.

  "I certainly will tell her," asserted Jimmy, with a wag of his veryround head. "Aggie is just the one to get you out of this."

  "She's just the one to make things worse," said Zoie decidedly. Thenseeing Jimmy's hurt look, she continued apologetically: "Aggie MEANSall right, but she has an absolute mania for mixing up in other people'stroubles. And you know how THAT always ends."

  "I never deceived my wife in all my life," declared Jimmy, with an airof self approval that he was far from feeling.

  "Now, Jimmy," protested Zoie impatiently, "you aren't going to havemoral hydrophobia just when I need your help!"

  "I'm not going to lie to Aggie, if that's what you mean," said Jimmy,endeavouring not to wriggle under Zoie's disapproving gaze.

  "Then don't," answered Zoie sweetly.

  Jimmy never feared Zoie more than when she APPEARED to agree with him.He looked at her now with uneasy distrust.

  "Tell her the truth," urged Zoie.

  "I will," declared Jimmy with an emphatic nod.

  "And I'LL DENY IT," concluded Zoie with an impudent toss of her head.

  "What!" exclaimed Jimmy, and he felt himself getting onto his feet.

  "I've already denied it to Alfred," continued Zoie. "I told him I'dnever been in that restaurant without him in all my life, that thewaiter had mistaken someone else for me." And again she turned her backupon Jimmy.

  "But don't you see," protested Jimmy, "this would all be so very muchsimpler if you'd just own up to the truth now, before it's too late?"

  "It IS too late," declared Zoie. "Alfred wouldn't believe me now,whatever I told him. He says a woman who lies once lies all the time.He'd think I'd been carrying on with you ALL ALONG."

  "Good Lord!" groaned Jimmy as the full realisation of his predicamentthrust itself upon him.

  "We don't DARE tell him now," continued Zoie, elated by the demoralisedstate to which she was fast reducing him. "For Heaven's sake, don't makeit any worse," she concluded; "it's bad enough as it is."

  "It certainly is," agreed Jimmy, and he sank dejectedly into his chair.

  "If you DO tell him," threatened Zoie from the opposite side of thetable, "I'll say you ENTICED me into the place."

  "What!" shrieked Jimmy and again he found himself on his feet.

  "I will," insisted Zoie, "I give you fair warning."

  He stared at her in absolute horror. "I don't believe you've anyconscience at all," he said.

  "I haven't," she sniffled. "I'm too miserable." And throwing herselfinto the nearest armchair she wept copiously at the thought of her manyinjuries.

  Uncertain whether to fly or to remain, Jimmy gazed at her gloomily."Well, I'M not laughing myself to death," he said.

  For answer Zoie turned upon him vehemently. "I just wish I'd never laideyes on you, Jimmy," she cried.

  Jimmy was wishing the very same thing.

  "If I cared about you," she sobbed, "it wouldn't be so bad; but tothink of losing my Alfred for----" words failed her and she trailed offweakly,--"for nothing!"

  "Thanks," grunted Jimmy curtly. In spite of himself he was always miffedby the uncomplimentary way in which she disposed of him.

  His sarcasm was lost upon Zoie. Having finished all she had to say tohim, she was now apparently bent upon indulging herself in a first classfit of hysterics.

  There are critical moments in all of our lives when our future happinessor woe hangs upon our own decision. Jimmy felt intuitively that he wasface to face with such a moment, but which way to turn? that was thequestion. Being Jimmy, and soft-hearted in spite of his efforts toconceal it, he naturally turned the wrong way, in other words, towardsZoie.

  "Oh, come now," he said awkwardly, as he crossed to the arm of herchair. "This will soon blow over."

  Zoie only sobbed the louder.

  "This isn't the first time you and Alfred have called it all off," hereminded her.

  Again she sobbed.

  Jimmy could never remember quite how it happened. But apparently hemust have patted Zoie on the shoulder. At any rate, something or otherloosened the flood-gates of her emotion, and before Jimmy could possiblyescape from her vicinity she had wheeled round in her chair, thrown herarms about him, and buried her tear-stained face against his waist-coat.

  "Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy, for the third time that morning, as heglanced nervously toward the door; but Zoie was exclaiming in her ownway and sobbing louder and louder; furthermore she was compelling Jimmyto listen to an exaggerated account of her many disappointments in herunreasonable husband. Seeing no possibility of escape, without resortingto physical violence, Jimmy stood his ground, wondering what to expectnext. He did not have long to wonder.