INDIAN SUMMER

I

Evelyn Barron dressed rather mechanically for the evening at the Durlands’, quite as she always dressed to go to places. She chatted pleasantly with her husband as she arranged her hair. Martin Barron, as usual a little ahead of her, paused to smoke a cigarette before putting on his collar. Evelyn looked at him. She congratulated herself because he was good-looking, awfully nice, in fact. Nothing extraordinary, of course, but she had been married ten years and he was pleasant and she was used to him. He seemed nearly everything that a husband should be, and quite satisfactory when compared with most other husbands she knew.

Evelyn was thirty-five. Even as she looked at herself in the glass, and was pleased, she sighingly admitted that they were both—well—getting rather settled. She was not wrinkled or anything like that, of course, but she had gained ten pounds in the past year. She pulled viciously at a grey hair. She was glad that she was not really turning wholly grey, the way some women did.

Well, it wasn’t as if she were getting on alone. Martin was aging, too. His rather sandy hair was receding from his forehead. His skin, always slightly pink, was a bit redder now after meals. He had taken to wearing low collars, and with his newest lowest ones his flesh formed two rolls over the top. But Martin was awfully good. Evelyn knew that. He preferred a man as a private secretary and even at parties he never paid much attention to other women. A few years before Evelyn had rather hoped that he would look at other women. It would have added spice to things. Still, it was of no use to borrow trouble. Good old Martin! She liked him the way he was. He gave her everything he could afford.

Theirs had been practically a love match—that is, what usually passes for a love match. Martin had fallen in love with Evelyn, brown-haired, brown eyed and jolly and vivacious, at twenty-four. Evelyn, with no other love affair in the immediate foreground, had recognized his sterling qualities and his good business position and had fastened her rather nebulous affection upon him. She hadn’t made a mistake. She knew that. There hadn’t been any one else she had cared for since. She had settled down into comfortable domesticity, one-half of a “little married couple” in an upper-middle-class New York set. It was not especially exciting. Sometimes she longed for thrills, but she had longed for them more years before than she did now. She was pretty well satisfied with things, now, most of the time. Especially with Martin. They had quarrelled a bit, of course. About trifles. But, usually, Martin was awfully good.

To-night, even. Here he was, going to the Durlands’ without a word, and he hated that sort of thing. Yet he went because Evelyn liked to go. Of course he would spend most of his time smoking with the men. But he went, anyhow. Evelyn couldn’t go alone. In her set, though they were awfully modern about a lot of things—all of the women smoked and you could go to teas with men if you liked—it wasn’t quite the thing to go to formal parties without your husband. In any case, Evelyn couldn’t have gone without some escort, and no other man had ever asked her to go any place with him.

She wondered, just for a minute, why she wanted to go to the Durlands. Whenever she and Martin were invited she always made quite a point of pretending to like it. She wondered if she really did. She always felt a bit out of things. But it was different from the affairs she usually went to. Maud Durland was a writer, the only writer Evelyn knew well. She was one of those serious writers of little things who occasionally get into some of the newer literary reviews with half a column, or write a two-inch filler for a second-rate all-fiction magazine. These, when Maud Durland wrote them, seemed to have a special significance. She talked them over with her friends and her friends spoke of them when she was not with them.

She wrote exclusively about people she knew. You could pick out whom she meant if you knew her crowd. She made no money by her writing, of course, but she felt that she was in the midst of a career. Fred Durland had some sort of a remunerative, though inartistic, position connected with the coal industry, and Maud Durland spoke of it slightingly and with a patronizing sneer, though she never encouraged Fred to neglect coal for a more artistic employment.

One or two Sundays a month Maud Durland entertained with teas in her studio. Why the Durlands had chosen a duplex studio, instead of an ordinary apartment, except that it was a better setting for tea parties, no one ever knew. But all of Maud’s artistic friends liked it. At these Sunday affairs, Maud gathered together as many kindred souls as she could find. Usually they were mostly married couples, one-half of each couple being a mild devotee of some one of the arts. Sometimes, though, couples like the Barrons were asked to fill in and appreciate. There were always a few single people, too, yearning young women in wrong colours, effeminate young men trying to remember their poses, young business men attempting, once a week, anyhow, to dip into a higher culture than their routine office work afforded them.

The Durland apartment was removed from the stigma of mere pretence by being uptown, a couple of blocks from the park. Sometimes Maud managed to get real celebrities, a man or a woman who had had things in the big magazines or who had written—and sold—a book, or verse writers who filled out the pages when fiction stories ran too short and who turned an honest penny by working part time for the advertising agencies.

Evelyn had been to a number of these parties. She liked the atmosphere, the being with people who counted. Always, on the way home or the next day, she reflected on Martin’s stolidity and wished he “did things” instead of being in the wholesale leather business. It always took several days to make her feel kindly toward him again.

Evelyn and Maud Durland had known each other about four years. While they were not chummy and found little to talk about when they were alone, they did manage to have long telephone talks. Like most women, they found more to say over the telephone than when they were face to face. Occasionally they met at luncheon or tea. Evelyn was always awfully pleased to be included in Maud Durland’s parties.

Now, her hair arranged and her face made up—Evelyn used rouge and powder, but not with any degree of cleverness—she slipped into her dress. It was rather a simple frock of dark blue Georgette crêpe, a ready-made, with conventional “smart” lines, the sort of dress hundreds of women between twenty-five and fifty were wearing. It was not an inexpensive dress, but it lacked personality and effectiveness.

Evelyn pulled Martin’s coat a bit, straightened his tie, kissed him carelessly on the cheek. She felt she was really very fond of him.

“All ready, old dear,” she said cheerfully. “And please don’t make Jeffry crawl along so. It’s late now. Other people drive faster than a mile every two hours without being arrested or having accidents.”

When they arrived at the Durlands’, the guests had assembled—were, in fact, already eating and drinking. Guests usually started on the refreshments immediately on arriving or as soon afterward as things were ready. Evelyn removed her coat in Maud Durland’s room, an exotic room, like all of Maud’s things. It was done in peacock blue and lavender enamel and was heavy with odd perfume.

Martin was waiting at the studio door, and they went into the studio together, nodding to people they knew. In fifteen minutes Martin was with a group of business husbands of artistic wives who were smoking in one corner. Soon Evelyn was listening to the usual conversation. This night there was so much talk of the punch, which was pronounced extraordinarily good, that Evelyn drank several glasses of it. She joined a group who were discussing the newer lighting for the theatre.

“You see, with this new lighting the foots are merely incidental. Get a few thousand watts and a few baby spots for a real moonlight effect—”

Then,

“Here’s the man who knows about things like that—all about the theatre—writes for the stage—wrote the lyrics for ‘Here Sat Miss Muffet’ and ‘Why Didn’t You Phone Me?’ Hey, Northrup—”

A man turned, smiled, came toward them. Evelyn gasped. He was the sort of man she liked—the sort she had fallen in love with, vaguely, whenever she fell in love, years ago, before she met Martin. She had almost forgotten that there were men of that type. It made her feel different, alert, to realize that men still looked that way. Of course, he wouldn’t notice her—men didn’t notice her any more—hadn’t ever noticed her a great deal.

His name was Franklin Northrup, she learned. She felt, in some way, as if she knew quite a lot about him. She was a bit confused as to whether lyrics meant the words or the music to songs, but she knew it was one of them. But that didn’t matter. Franklin Northrup! He was the sort that had liked her, when she was younger. Younger? Well, she wasn’t old—Northrup wasn’t so young himself—her age or older. Why, she had been asleep, had forgotten what men were! It had been years since she had really looked at a man—really noticed—

He was good-looking. He was the type she admired, always. Blonde. Martin was blonde, of course, but Martin was blonde in a heavy, red, sandy sort of way. Northrup was slender, almost thin. His hair was shining and smooth. She wanted rather to put her hand on it, to see if it felt as smooth and soft as it looked. What a foolish notion to have when you are married and thirty-five! His skin was pale, too pale, really, and he had lines around his mouth and rather deep shadows under his eyes. Those eyes were dark and sleepy-looking, not bright blue and stupid, like Martin’s. She knew that type, cynical and yet sentimental and intense. How silly to think of such things! She liked his mouth, the upper lip rather thin, the under lip quite full. His nose was a bit aquiline. She liked him awfully well.

She wished, then, that she had not worn dark blue. You can’t bring yourself out—show who you are—in dark blue. Evelyn felt suddenly that it hid her personality. A decent dark blue dress is a sort of a cloak of invisibility. Unconsciously she ran her hand through her brown hair, loosened it a trifle, pulled it a little farther over her face. She was glad she had shampooed it that morning. She was glad, too, that her eyes were brown and didn’t need any make-up. She bit her lips, moistened them, leaned forward.

The others, chatting on about stage lighting, became suddenly unimportant. Every one else became unimportant. Northrup lounged on the arm of a chair.

“This new lighting is all right, in a way,” he said; “that is, they’re making an effort. But, except in night scenes and things like that, I believe in enough light. These new birds really haven’t anything on Belasco, though they kid his realism. Half of these new artists don’t know what they’re trying to do. Take that show they put on last year—”

His voice, quite deep, drawled pleasantly. Evelyn shivered with enjoyment. He was nice. She would force him to notice her. What should she do? He knew so much about things. She leaned a trifle closer to him.

Another man came up. Evelyn barely glanced at him. He talked. Evelyn lost interest. She caught Northrup’s eye.

“Warm, isn’t it?” he asked. He rose, came up to her chair. “An awful crowd here, too.”

“You mean?”

“Oh, these groups amuse me. They talk so much of things they don’t know anything about. The theatre, for instance. You interested in stage lighting?”

“I’m one of those who don’t know anything about it,” Evelyn laughed.

“I know a little and it bores me a lot,” said Northrup. “What about a sandwich and some punch? The old girl put a big stick in it—quite like the old days, eh? Maybe she knows that is the only way she can get a crowd.”

Evelyn rose. They walked off together. Evelyn felt Northrup’s hand on her elbow. She moved a trifle closer to him. His fingers tightened around her arm.

They drank several glasses of punch, nibbled at sandwiches. Evelyn was not used to drinking.

“Wouldn’t you like to get out of this mob?” Northrup asked. “This chatter and near-music—I don’t know why I came to this place. I live on the floor below—in one of the little un-studio apartments. Maud Durland’s been worrying me for weeks to come to one of her tea fights. I didn’t know they could be as mad as this. I usually don’t go in for this sort of thing.”

Then,

“Let’s go down to my rooms and get a real drink. What say?”

“Wouldn’t it seem a bit—unusual?”

“Unusual, nothing. There’s been so many women in those rooms that the hallboy thinks it’s a girls boarding school. Honest, though, it’s better than this racket. And a real drink. We’ll just stay a minute. Oh, come on—”

“I’d love to,” said Evelyn.

II

They left the studio without any one noticing them. In the hall Northrup took Evelyn’s hand and they ran down the one flight of stairs. Evelyn felt young and buoyant and carefree.

On the floor below Northrup inserted a key in the door, opened it, turned on a light.

It was the usual bachelor apartment, but Evelyn had seen few bachelor apartments. Once, when a friend of Martin’s had been ill, she and Martin had visited him. Once, with an aunt, she had visited the aunt’s brother-in-law’s quarters. This, now, seemed wicked and pleasant and mysterious.

There was a little hall, a living-room, and beyond it the dim outlines of bedroom things. And she and Northrup were here, all alone! How much alone they seemed! There was a divan near the fireplace, Turkish rugs in rather bright colours, tables and smoking things on them, lamps with red-orange shades. These were lit now. The place was not especially artistic. The furniture was modern mahogany of rather uncertain Colonial design. But Evelyn thought it delightful.

“This is more like things, isn’t it?” asked Northrup. “The air up there, cheap perfumes and vile cigarettes—how do they stand it? You go to that sort of thing much?”

“No, I’ve just been there a few times. Maud Durland is an old friend of mine and she insisted that I come. It’s rather fun, though, watching people.”

“Fun enough. I like this.”

“This—oh, yes.”

Northrup went into the little kitchenette. He made a great clatter with shakers and glasses and returned in a minute or so with two rather warm cocktails. Evelyn had to make a face over hers. Then they each had another. Evelyn declined a third, but Northrup finished them.

“It’s a good thing,” he said, “that drinking never affects me. I’ve been pouring things down all evening. Some miserable high balls Ed Benchley had at dinner, then a lot of that awful punch upstairs and now these. If I couldn’t stand a lot, now that prohibition is here, I don’t know how I’d ever get along—”

Northrup sat near Evelyn on the couch. He touched her hand, caught her fingers and smiled.

“We’re going to be friends, aren’t we?” he asked.

Evelyn felt, suddenly, as if all of her youth had come back to her. She felt the way she had felt, years before—before she had met Martin. A funny little choking feeling, far down in her throat—she had nearly forgotten that—not in years—. She felt a sudden lightness, almost an ache of happiness. So—she could still care—could thrill—Northrup—how handsome he was!

Northrup got up lazily, punched at some logs already laid in the fireplace and touched a match to the paper under them. It flared up. The logs blazed a moment later. He turned out the orange lights.

“This is what I like,” he said, “just you and I. Somehow, from the minute I saw you, you seemed different—the sort of woman who gets things—not like most women ... as if I’d known you a long while.”

“I—I felt like that, too,” admitted Evelyn. “There was something about you that reminded me, some way, of some one I must have known ages ago. I—you’re rather different from most men—you seem....”

“You’ve noticed that, then? It’s only with a few women—just a few, that I dare to be myself. Most women are a stupid lot, crude. I shrivel up, mentally, when I am near them. But there is something about you—I can be myself with you. You have a sympathy....”

“I’m—I’m glad you feel that. I can’t express myself with most people. But you....”

Northrup talked about her—Evelyn talked about him. They said sentimental, romantic things, the sort Evelyn had almost forgotten. A moment later Northrup’s arms were around her. She should have resisted, of course. She knew that. But, instead, she hid her head in his coat, a nice coat, pleasantly smelling of tobacco. Martin’s clothes smelled of tobacco, too, but this was different, more masculine—something.

With one hand Northrup raised her head, looked at her. Then he kissed her. It was a pleasant kiss. She had forgotten—perhaps had never known—that any one could kiss like that. It left her a bit breathless. The choking thrill was in her throat again. How nice it was to be kissed—like that—and by a man without a moustache! Martin’s kisses were so hurried and moustachy and bristly—you couldn’t feel his lips, even—and unemotional.

They stood up, then. Northrup went to the piano.

“I shall make up a song for you,” he said, “a song just as dear and lovely and sweet as you are, a song that will always remind me of you—”

His fingers struck indefinite chords. Then he played a plaintive, sentimentally pretty little air, improvising words in a husky, deep voice. Suddenly he stopped with a crash, turned around, caught Evelyn in his arms and kissed her again. She loved the roughness of his caress.

“You dear, you dear!” he said, over and over, very softly.

“I must go—I really must,” Evelyn said. “I—I—don’t know why I act this way. I don’t do this sort of thing, you know—really. What do you think of me? Coming in here at all and now....”

“I think you’re a dear, a darling ... why, child, I love you ... I do, really....”

“I must go....”

“Tell me you’re fond of me....”

“Of course....”

He caught her, kissed her again. She went to the door. They were out in the hall ... up in the studio again. The lights seemed brighter and more glaring, the voices shriller than ever. No one had missed them. They joined a group who were discussing plagiarism—how much it was possible to take—not steal, of course—from some other writer, without really doing anything wrong. Evelyn was surprised at herself when she voiced an opinion. The lights were dancing a bit. She felt as if she were breathing something much lighter than air. Northrup drawled replies. She caught his eye, dropped her own eyes, met his again. A delicious secret was between them. These other people—how stupid they were—they didn’t know—couldn’t guess what had happened—while they had been talking about nothing at all.

Couples began to leave. Evelyn went to the dressing-room, added powder to her face, pulled her hair out a little more at the sides than she usually wore it, put on her coat. In the hall, as Martin stopped to speak to some one, Northrup joined her.

“You’re going to see me?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“May I telephone you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Any time you like. Not—not in the evening, though.”

“Oh, no.”

He put a card into her hand.

“Here’s my ’phone number. I’m here most of the time. I do my work here, you know. We’ll have tea—some day this week....”

“Lovely....”

Other people separated them. He was gone. Evelyn slipped the card into the pocket of her coat.

III

On the way home Evelyn scarcely noticed Martin. She was very happy, thinking. They must have talked, though, for later she remembered that she had answered questions that he had asked her. The ride seemed rather bumpy. That’s all she remembered definitely about it.

At home, she undressed slowly, in a sort of a daze, still with the lovely, breathless feeling in her throat. In bed she snuggled in the pillows, closed her eyes.

It didn’t seem possible—and yet—this had happened to her ... Northrup—Franklin Northrup—his hand ... his lips on her lips—kisses—his arms about her, roughly tender.

She slept restlessly, waking up for long periods of pleasant thoughts. When she awoke in the morning Martin was already splashing in the bathroom.

“You don’t mind if I don’t get up for breakfast?” she called. “Marie will have things the way you want them. I’ve a headache.”

“Sorry. Don’t bother about me. Lie with your eyes closed—you’ll feel better.”

A few minutes later Evelyn heard Martin awkwardly pulling down the shades. She was more annoyed that he was there at all than she was grateful for this thoughtfulness. He interfered with her thoughts about Northrup.

Martin finished dressing and stood beside her bed, put a hand on her shoulder.

“Feel better?”

“Yes, a little. I’ll be all right.” She didn’t like the feel of his hand, shrugged it away, pulled the covers higher.

He stamped out of the room in an attempt at quiet. She heard him in the dining-room, a faint clatter of dishes. Finally he left the house. She sighed with relief when she heard the door close.

Northrup ... now she could think comfortably of him again. He seemed vague now, but still dear. She knew she should have felt guilty. She knew Martin’s theory about things like that. She had heard him express it so many times. If a woman has an affair with another man—and this was an affair in a way—not only is the woman cheating her husband, but the other man knows he is making a fool of the husband, too, and thinks of him accordingly. In theory it seemed quite all right. Evelyn didn’t want any one to make a fool of Martin—he was her husband. But she remembered Northrup, his sleek light hair, his full underlip, his half-closed eyes—how dear he had been when he had kissed her. He did care, of course. He’d ring her up to-day—this morning. Of course he’d telephone, just to talk to her, to assure her she hadn’t imagined things....

She bathed slowly, taking as long as possible. She put some of her best bath powder in the water. Then she dried briskly and rubbed talcum powder into her skin. She examined her body in the long mirror of her bathroom. She did have rather nice lines—for thirty-five. Her body was straight and white. Of course—that was silly—thinking things—she might kiss Northrup again, of course. But nothing further. It would be dangerous—more than that. She was quite comfortably settled. She had heard often enough that you can keep a man caring for you only as long as you don’t yield too definitely to him. A few kisses ... yes. She closed her eyes and imagined herself in Northrup’s arms again.

She knew that he would not call, especially this morning, without making an appointment. But she put on her best negligée of rose-coloured chiffon and braided her hair in a long braid down her back. She felt it made her look younger arranged that way.

He would telephone about eleven. Of course he was the sort who rose late. Until ten she busied herself with little things, a bit of torn lace on another negligée, reading the newspapers and her mail. What uninteresting mail—impersonal things from a lot of women—and advertising! Why had she ever let herself get so settled?

That was it. Really, she was not old or settled at all. Thirty-five isn’t old. Why, summer was barely over. This was a coming back to youth again—a sort of Indian summer. Of course. She would be as lovely as she had ever been. Lovelier! She had learned things about life, about men, that a young girl could never know. After all, ten years of marriage ought to have taught her something—how to get along with men, anyhow.

The telephone did not ring at eleven. But Northrup could ring up at any time—in the afternoon, even. He’d said something about tea. Maybe he’d ask her to-day....

What could she wear, to tea?

She went to her clothes closet, opened it wide, examined her things. Suddenly a great truth about clothes seemed to come to her. She knew, vaguely, that she had known it before, that some young women knew it—some older ones, too—but that she had forgotten it entirely. The truth was that there are definitely two kinds of clothes—clothes that women wear for men and clothes that women wear for other women. She knew now, as she had known, years before, that some women dress just for men. She saw them every day. Yes, she had degenerated in clothes, if she had ever been different. For her clothes were picked out because they were “stylish,” because they were the clothes other women liked.

She took down a black satin dress. Yes—that was it—for women. Seated on the edge of her bed, she snipped at the neck. It was too high, of course. Lower, a bit of dainty lace. That’s what men like—plain things, but striking and dainty and cuddly. Of course, she had known that all the time. How could she have let herself go? Yet she had felt that she had been keeping up with things. She felt that she knew, instinctively, now, the kind of clothes she wanted.

She finished the black dress, altered another gown with a few stitches. She’d have a seamstress in the house. She knew what her clothes needed—shorter sleeves, lower neck and touches of lace at the throat, hats that were little and trim and would show her hair at the sides, or big hats, floppy and mysterious. How could she have forgotten? Why hadn’t she dressed that way always? She would show Martin that she really needed clothes, get him to buy her some.

Martin ... what a stupid, impossible fellow he was! How could she have ever thought differently? How stupid to let her put things over him. Why, she could put anything over Martin.

Then it came to her that she didn’t want to put things over Martin, that she didn’t want to consider him or have to worry about him at all. Why, his being around, the necessary thoughts about him, were really too stupid, too dreadful. She didn’t want him near her at all, in any way.

Martin—how could she have stood him, all these years? How could she have liked him—stupid and awkward and dull, with his bristly moustache and his unfeeling kisses? She couldn’t stand any more. That was certain. If she went away....

She dreamed, then, over her sewing. After all—if she left Martin ... could get a divorce ... Martin would be good enough to let her get it ... then she could marry Northrup. That was it—marry Northrup, be with him all the time ... wait for him in the evening, as she waited for Martin now.

Martin ... what good was Martin, anyhow? She remembered that Martin had increased his life insurance. It was all made out to her. If anything happened to Martin ... an automobile accident ... Martin made Jeffry drive very carefully, but didn’t accidents happen every day? Twenty-five thousand dollars—that was something. Even the interest on that, with what Martin had saved ... not so much, but she wouldn’t have to go to Northrup penniless, anyhow. She pictured Martin dying of half a dozen painless illnesses or accidents, saw herself his devoted nurse, saw herself in widow’s weeds, very becoming ones ... afterwards ... a few weeks afterwards....

She ate luncheon, hardly noticing what was served to her. It was two o’clock. Northrup had not telephoned. Martin telephoned to tell her he had got seats for a play she had wanted to see—she was to meet him at the hotel where they were to dine at seven. Plays, restaurants ... they seemed stupid now, empty, without Northrup—if he could be there—if she were with him.

What if he didn’t know her telephone number? She had told him, of course, but it was a difficult number to remember. It was not in the telephone book. Maybe he didn’t even remember her name. That was delicious—and he had kissed her!

She got his card from her dressing-table drawer, where she had put it the night before, fingered it, went to the telephone. She would call him, say just a word, ring off. He’d want to talk more with her, then. She felt that she must hear his voice, low, deep, tender. What lovely things he had said to her!

She gave the number to the operator. Her voice broke into a falsetto. The line was busy. She drew little idle squares on the fancy telephone book cover some woman had given her for Christmas. A minute later she rang again. She heard central ringing the number this time. A minute’s ring. A masculine voice. Then,

“Well?”

“Is this Mr. Northrup?” Evelyn asked in her softest tones.

“No. It’s Northrup’s apartment.”

“May I speak to him, please?”

A pause, then,

“Who is this, please?”

“Mrs. Barron.”

He was at home, then. She would hear his voice in just a minute. He had company—of course that was why he hadn’t telephoned her.

“I’ll see if Mr. Northrup is at home.”

She waited. It wasn’t a servant’s voice. Northrup had said that he had a Japanese valet who took rather good care of him, but Evelyn felt sure it wasn’t a Japanese who had answered the telephone. How could a visitor not know if Northrup was at home?

The same voice,

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Northrup isn’t in. If you’ll leave your number I’ll have him call you when he returns.”

Evelyn gave her number, hung up the receiver. What did it mean? Northrup not at home—and the other man had to find out—in a two-room apartment! The voice had sounded rather amused, but of course that was imagination. But, if he weren’t at home, why hadn’t he telephoned to her? If he were at home, why didn’t he want to speak to her? Because another man was there? It hadn’t been Northrup’s voice, though. Of course that wasn’t possible.

She wandered around the apartment. The day had turned from grey to a misty rain. It was not nice enough to go out. Evelyn hated rain. Anyhow, until seven there really was no place to go. She telephoned the garage, so that her car would call for her at half-past six.

She played a little on the piano, but she did not play very well. Then she put a roll in it—it was one of the reproducing players that played not badly for its kind. She chose several sentimental rolls, and then, seated on the couch in quite the same position she had sat the night before on Northrup’s couch, she thought of him. She tucked one hand under her cheek, the way his hand had been under her cheek. Didn’t he care, really?

Her restlessness grew greater. She must talk to some one. She rang up two women friends. They were not at home. Then she thought of Maud Durland. Of course! Maud could tell her things about Northrup. She wouldn’t say much—nor let Maud suspect. Maud was always having affairs with other men, but she was the first to talk if any one else had a little affair. Maud was at home.

“You had the most wonderful party last night,” Evelyn started in gaily enough. “You do have lovely parties.”

“Yes.” Maud’s tone was pleasantly self-congratulatory, “every one seemed to have a nice time. Some punch, eh? Rogers and Maxwell and Hamilton each brought bottles and I said, ‘Oh, be a sport and dump ’em all in the punch,’ and they did, and see what happened. Nothing exploded, at that, but it did add quite a lot of pep to the party.”

“It certainly did. I didn’t neglect the punch, you bet. By the way, tell me about a man I met—rather interesting—Northrup his name was—”

“Franklin Northrup. He lives in my building. Does lyrics. A dear, isn’t he?”

“Rather nice.”

“Northrup had a beautiful bun on, did you notice? Still, he’s more fun with a bun on than not. Knows how to carry it. He’s rather a dignified, retiring fellow when he’s strictly sober, if at all. He—he didn’t by any chance make love to you, did he, Evelyn?”

“Why—the idea—why of course not....”

“Yes he did, Evelyn. Naughty, naughty! Don’t tell fibs to mamma! But don’t let that worry you. He’s forgotten all about it to-day. Meet him to-morrow, sober, and he’ll be a perfect gentleman. Meet him a bit stippled and he’ll start in all over again. He’s the lovin’est man any one ever saw. No harm, you know—you needn’t feel ‘ruint’ over it or anything like that. He’s just sort of soft and sentimental. And Evelyn, he’d make love to a post or one of the Hartman girls if he were in the mood. When he’s sober he’s in love with Marjorie Blake. He dedicates all of his music to her. And did you notice a tall, dark-haired fellow named Millard—?”

IV

Maud talked on. When she had finished, Evelyn hung up the receiver rather limply and sank back into her chair. So—Northrup was just a sort of a ... a town lover! He acted that way to every one! And, when he was sober, he was in love with Marjorie Blake! And Marjorie Blake was a dancer about twenty, slender and blonde and dimpled, a typical ingenue with blonde curls and a naughty smile, all pink and white and young ... and here she, Evelyn, was thirty-five and she had thought—hoped—that Northrup....

Suddenly, she hated Northrup and his love-making. How dared he kiss her—because he had been drinking? If she ever saw him again she wouldn’t speak to him at all. And he hadn’t even had the decency to apologize—or to talk to her when she had called him on the telephone! What a fool he must think her. She hated herself—she had been drinking a little, too. She hated him worst of all.

It was time to dress for dinner. Evelyn dressed hurriedly, putting on the gown she had altered that morning. How cheap it looked—like a shop-girl’s with the neck cut so low! It was too late to alter it and they were dining too informally for evening clothes. How silly she had been this morning about dresses! Why, she dressed very well for her position, nice things and conservative. What idiocy to think that men like one sort of thing and women another. Northrup—she shuddered.

The telephone rang. Evelyn ran to answer it herself. It was to announce that her car was waiting. She put on her hat, tucking her hair in neatly at the sides. Why—she was middle-aged ... getting middle-aged! Indian summer indeed! She didn’t even know any men except awful friends of Martin’s and the husbands of her friends. There wasn’t any one who gave her any attention at all. And now—one man, after drinking terrible punch and worse cocktails, had put his arms around her—kissed her—and it had kept her from sleeping, worried her all day. Even now there were dark circles under her eyes.

Martin ... oh, he was all right. She liked him, of course. Their life would go on, together, just the same. But now Evelyn knew that in some way this dipping into youth or an attempted youth had robbed her of something rather important—of really liking Martin—of appreciating him. She had looked up to him. But from now on Martin would be just a husband—unimportant—getting bald and fat. But then, she was just a wife, getting grey and fat, too, without an adventure. Indian summer? Evelyn doubted whether there really was such a season.