Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/64

 might do him good, pep him up a bit. He could afford to take a vacation and by going out to the farm, it could not be said that he was running away from Fort Wayne. He would still be nearby although in temporary retirement.

When he beheld the lovely form of Mary Blaine he had the idea that it might be permanent. Recently he had given so much time to cards, he had neglected women. He needed one and Mary was in a receptive mood. She hated Yekial Meigs and she wanted to forget Steve Garland. But more than all else she wanted to kill off that hidden woman Steve had discovered and whom she knew existed even though she fought against the knowledge.

Mary Blaine was not living the life for which nature had intended her. She was walking through life in some other woman's shoes. But the shoes fitted her well. They were comfortable and she meant to remain in them. But what had become of the Mary Blaine that might have been, that should have been? Was she lost to the world forever? Mary decided that she must be. She must be drowned. No effort must ever be made to revive her.

Yekial Meigs liked Monty Camp. Monty saw to that. Among scores of other things he was a diplomat. Often in the evenings he played checkers with Yekial. It bored him to death but it was good politics. He wanted to be in the good graces of the man whose wife he desired. While they played, he paid no attention to Mary who sat by the fireplace sewing or knitting.

At last Yekial would grow so tired that he would almost fall asleep. Then he would yawn and stride off, in excellent humor, for somehow or other he was usually a game or two ahead when the session broke up. Monty Camp knew men, especially men of the type of Yekial Meigs. He reasoned that he would gain more by losing to Yekial and so he lost gracefully.

Yekial would chuckle softly as he undressed. Monty was a good fellow, a good checker-player, but not quite good enough. In a very few minutes after he was in bed he would be sleeping, dead to the world, a great shapeless hulk of a man with the mentality of a child, at least insofar as the vagaries and treacheries of love were concerned.