Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/212

196 able to me that a man like you should permit such a feeling to continue to influence him, not only to mental disquiet, but to the lasting detriment of his business interests."

Mrs. Welles, who had been talking across the table to Mrs. Bowers, turned toward her hostess with a question, and Louise, inwardly quaking, but with indomitable front, met the inquiry with gay quips.

Twisting a wine-glass in his fingers, Mr. Bowers long sat speechless, watching Mrs. Jordan through narrowed eyes.

"And if I do?" he asked, enigmatically, when at length opportunity offered.

"If you do?" The strain was beginning to tell on her, and her mind fumbled for the connection.

"Yes." His lips twisted in a wry smile. "If I, who alone, of all living men, know the causes leading to that separation of which you have spoken, continue to conduct my own business in my own way, regardless of the visits of angels—and the visitation of fools—"

"Why, then"—driven into a corner, but denying defeat, she glanced around the table, preparing for flight—"then—Ellery will have but one course open to him—to resign his position with you and to accept one more promising under Mr. Welles."

She pushed back her chair and the ladies arose. Mr. Bowers held the door open for them, and as she passed him, Louise was aware that he still regarded her through half-closed eyes. She felt that the keen gaze penetrated her very soul, and that he read there her whole shallow artifice.

It was an hour or more before the men joined them—an hour in which Mrs. Jordan vainly strained her ears in an effort to catch the sound of voices in the dining-room below, while the subconsciousness developed by much social experience supplied her lips with a torrent of glib speech. When the door finally swung open, she instantly perceived that the younger men were somewhat flushed, and were manifestly making an effort to control strong excitement. Ellery laughed too often—an unfailing indication, she well knew, that his spirits were forced. Mr. Bowers stopped a moment to speak to his wife, and then they came together to where the hostess stood.

"Mrs. Jordan, we bid you good night," said the old man, with stately formality. "We lingered too long in the dining-room, and Mrs. Bowers and I promised to stop at our nephew's on the way home." In his voice was neither resentment nor cordiality, and his face was like a mask. He passed on around the little circle, following his wife, and a moment later Ellery accompanied them to the elevator. In the reaction following climax, when the door had actually closed upon them, Louise was conscious of an impulse to tears, but the obligations of the hostess still lay heavy upon her, and taking up a book at random, she was in the midst of a voluble description of its author, when her husband reentered the drawing-room, and paused, alertly glancing from one to another.

"Well!" he exclaimed.

The cord of Mrs. Jordan's self-control parted, and she turned toward him, crying: "Oh, what did he say? I can't wait! What happened?"

Bewilderment overtook Mrs. Welles, but no one observed her. The men were wringing each other's hands, punctuating their broken laughter with inarticulate ejaculations.

"By George! what do you suppose struck him, Welles? You must be a wizard!"

"Why? Wasn't it all put up?" Welles's face evinced his surprise.

"Put up! Oh, Lord! Why, man alive—"

"Ellery!" Louise grasped his coat lapels and shook them. "Ellery, if you don't tell me! What happened?"

"Everything! We exchange patents, so Welles is happy; I'm a member of the firm; and maybe—just maybe—we consolidate."

"Oh! O-oh, Ellery!"

"Why, Louise! Dear girl, don't cry about it! Louise!"

"Oh, never mind! I—it doesn't matter! I'm—I'm rather tired, I think."

"Well, I should think you might be, after all this! But what do you suppose struck him?"

A little laugh gurgled up through the sobs.

"You know you said he was a turtle, and I guess—I guess it thundered some."