Page:More lives than one.djvu/21

 She read the papers and then, dawdling over her rather extensive preparations, she went early to bed.

Leaving the house, Barham walked to his favorite Club, and as he went he mused on the strange fate that had given him Madeleine for a wife.

“No interests in common,” he quoted to himself. “Why haven’t we? If I had her to myself—without mother Selden around—I might persuade her to take up golf or some outdoor thing that we could do together. But she’d never give up her Bridge. And I can’t learn the confounded game! Strange, too; I’ve a good head for lots of things—yet there are nincompoops like Travers and Jim Bell who can put up a wonderful game of Bridge, though they couldn’t cope with the tiniest one of my problems.

“If I had a wife, now, like—” but his own sense of right and wrong forbade him to go further.

After all, Madeleine was his wife—and that was all there was about that. He must try, he decided, to make himself more desirable in her eyes. More attractive, more useful— Well, she had said, that though he was good-looking—that was a nasty fling! As to being useful—he paid her bills and was always a gallant attendant when she wanted him.

But she seldom wanted him. Usually she preferred to go about with her own cronies, who liked him as little as he liked them.

Not that they were really objectionable. But they were a gay and frivolous lot, and even with the best intentions he couldn’t speak their lingo.

A man of the world, a clubman, a man about town—all these he was. A good fellow, a fine pal—all his chums would tell you that—yet the sort of Smart Set, semi-fast people his wife enjoyed, were as utter strangers to him.

He had tried—tried to talk their small talk, laugh at their small jests, fathom their small souls—but, though