Chapter XVII

_The Midsummer Night's Ball_

And now I come to a certain chapter of my book of life which I would

fain leave unwritten. But I am bound to set down the full truth, no

matter how unpleasant the bare, ugly facts may be. No one can blame me

more hardly than I did myself, and assuredly I was well punished for my

misdoings. So here goes.

I had become jealous of Chalmers Warriner, bitterly, almost insanely

jealous; and this in spite of my sober judgment, my real inner

conviction of Betty's unswerving loyalty and wholehearted love. It is a

humiliating confession for a man to make, but since I did play the fool

to the top of my bent I ought to be willing to endure my penance; as it

turned out, I came within an ace of paying the ultimate price of my

folly. So much by way of _apologia pro mea culpa_.

The winter, spring and early summer had passed without incident. In June

it occurred to me that it would be well if Betty were away from the

"Hundred" for the period covered by the double tragedy of Francis

Graeme's death and Eunice Trevor's mysterious taking-off. Accordingly,

we went to the "Old White" for three weeks, returning to our home the

first day of July. Betty had certainly been benefited by the change, and

I hoped that the current of our family life was now to flow smoothly on

for an indefinite length of time.

The immediate rock upon which our matrimonial barque proceeded to wreck

itself was the Midsummer Night's ball at "Powersthorp" on August the

fourth. As Hilda Powers was Betty's most intimate friend we had motored

over early to assist in receiving the guests; half of King William

county seemed to have been invited, and the crush was tremendous.

I was standing near the receiving line of ladies when Chalmers Warriner

came up; and, in spite of my secret dislike and suspicion, I could not

help thinking how distinguished looking he was--just the sort of man

that a woman invariably favors with a second glance. And now he was

lingering for that maddening hundredth part of a second over Betty's

hand; I heard him whisper: "The supper waltz then?" and I saw Betty

start and flush and finally nod a smiling assent. Ignoble of me to be

standing there, actually spying on my own wife! I admit the justice of

your censure, dear reader, but have you ever endured even the smallest

pang of the jealous man's agony? One ought to be competent to testify in

this particular court.

I suppose I went through the ordinary motions of a man attending a ball;

I have a vague recollection of dancing at least half a dozen times; I

comforted innumerable elderly dowagers and flagons of near-claret cup,

and encouraged several flappers to venture on their first cigarette in

the friendly dusk of the pleached lime alley; I even played one rubber

of auction with the colonel, the commodore, and the judge, while they

were awaiting the arrival of the rector to make up their accustomed

coterie. But my eyes were always fixed on the big clock at the end of

the hall; according to our simple country fashion supper was invariably

scheduled for midnight, and was preceded by the principal waltz number

of the dance program.

There it came at last! the opening bars of Strauss's "On the Beautiful

Blue Danube." Why is it that smiles and tears lie so close together in

the lilt and swing of a fine waltz tune? And, by that same token, the

saddest music in all the world to-day is that same "Blue Danube," the

last, faint exhalation of an old regime that, however rotten at its

core, continued to present a lovely and gracious exterior. At least

there were no war-brides and greasy Israelitish profiteers on the

polished boards of the ancient Hofberg when Maestro Johann raised his

baton, and his incomparable band, in their gay Hussar uniforms, breathed

out the intoxicating melody which the great Brahms himself would not

have been ashamed to have composed, the veritable apotheosis of the

dance.

Gone, all gone! and this old, gray world, albeit made safe for

democracy, has yet lost something of perennial beauty and enchantment

that can never be renewed--a broken spell, a vanished vision. The wax

candles have guttered to their sockets, the shimmering waves of color

are graying under the merciless white light of a proletarian dawn, the

haunting violins have sobbed themselves to sleep; and of all that

brilliant, bewildering, phantasmagoric past there remains but one

poignant and exquisite echo--the "Blue Danube."

I watched Betty as she circled past me held close in the hollow of

Warriner's arm; she was looking up at him, her eyes intent and her

cheeks glowing. I pushed through the throng and caught them temporarily

halted in a re-entrant swirl of dancers. "I'll take the rest of this

turn," I announced, with small pretense of civility. Warriner would have

been fully justified in resenting my rudeness, for this was no ordinary

case of give-and-take cutting in; but he instantly relinquished his

claim, and I whirled Betty away to the farther end of the great hall.

"We won't wait for supper," I said curtly. "You know Hilda well enough

for that, and she won't mind. Or I don't care if she does." Betty's

lower lip went out and her eyes flashed. But a woman, in an emergency,

can summon a control over her nerves that mere man may only wonder at.

"As you like, Hugh," she said with quiet composure. "I'll just slip up

to the dressing room, and you can have the motor brought around to the

side door, where it won't be noticed."

We exchanged only a few, indifferent words on the way home, since Zack

was acting as chauffeur and sat within easy earshot.

Betty confronted me under the swinging hall lantern of "Hildebrand

Hundred," her small figure straight and tense as a grenadier on parade.

"Well?" she said briefly.

"You know what I mean," I evaded weakly enough. But she only continued

to look at me, and I had to come out in the open.

"I object to your dancing with that man," I growled.

"What man?"

"Chalmers Warriner, of course."

"Chalmers Warriner! Why----" Betty bit her lip and choked back the

coming words.

"Go on!" I demanded, instantly alert to the possible significance of

that suddenly checked utterance.

But Betty only shook her head--mutinously so as I chose to think in my

green-eyed madness.

"You won't tell me?" I persisted hotly.

"I can't."

"Then I've nothing more to say except just this: You are my wife, and so

long as you continue to bear my name you are to have no communication of

any kind with Mr. Warriner."

Betty made no reply, and we parted without another word.

I had to be in Calverton all the following day on some law business; and

I had left the "Hundred" before Betty appeared at the breakfast table.

When I returned, late in the afternoon, the house was fairly upside down

with hurried preparations for a departure; everywhere trunks and

handbags were being packed for the journey, and the station car was

already in waiting at the front door. Betty met me as usual in the lower

hall. I lifted my eyebrows interrogatively.

"You know little Hugh has been feeling the hot weather of late," she

answered steadily, "and Doctor Marcy strongly advised a change to a

Northern climate."

"Where are you going?"

"To my Aunt Alice Crew's in Stockbridge. We can stay there through

August and September."

"And then?"

"Probably to the Davidsons at Irvington-on-Hudson."

"For how long?"

"That depends on you, Hugh." Betty was actually smiling as she looked up

at me, and that made me angrier than ever.

"You mean until I am ready to trust you," I blurted out.

"If you like to put it that way."

The discussion had let us into an _impasse_; there was nothing more to

be said. I accompanied Betty to the Crown Ferry station, and saw my

little family party of wife, baby, and nurse safely aboard the sleeper.

Even at that last moment I should have dropped everything and gone

along had Betty given me the smallest opening. But she said no further

word, and I could not conquer at once my masculine pride and my jealous

fear. I watched the red tail lights of the train disappear around a

curve, and told myself that I was the unhappiest man and the biggest

fool on God's green earth.