บทที่ บทที่ 28 · During the three years in which Jennie and Lester had been

associated there had grown up between them a strong feeling of mutual

sympathy and understanding. Lester truly loved her in his own way. It

was a strong, self-satisfying, determined kind of way, based solidly

on a big natural foundation, but rising to a plane of genuine

spiritual affinity. The yielding sweetness of her character both

attracted and held him. She was true, and good, and womanly to the

very center of her being; he had learned to trust her, to depend upon

her, and the feeling had but deepened with the passing of the

years.

On her part Jennie had sincerely, deeply, truly learned to love

this man. At first when he had swept her off her feet, overawed her

soul, and used her necessity as a chain wherewith to bind her to him,

she was a little doubtful, a little afraid of him, although she had

always liked him. Now, however, by living with him, by knowing him

better, by watching his moods, she had come to love him. He was so

big, so vocal, so handsome. His point of view and opinions of anything

and everything were so positive. His pet motto, "Hew to the line, let

the chips fall where they may," had clung in her brain as something

immensely characteristic. Apparently he was not afraid of

anything--God, man, or devil. He used to look at her, holding her

chin between the thumb and fingers of his big brown hand, and say:

"You're sweet, all right, but you need courage and defiance. You

haven't enough of those things." And her eyes would meet his in dumb

appeal. "Never mind," he would add, "you have other things." And then

he would kiss her.

One of the most appealing things to Lester was the simple way in

which she tried to avoid exposure of her various social and

educational shortcomings. She could not write very well, and once he

found a list of words he had used written out on a piece of paper with

the meanings opposite. He smiled, but he liked her better for it.

Another time in the Southern hotel in St. Louis he watched her

pretending a loss of appetite because she thought that her lack of

table manners was being observed by nearby diners. She could not

always be sure of the right forks and knives, and the strange-looking

dishes bothered her; how did one eat asparagus and artichokes?

"Why don't you eat something?" he asked good-naturedly. "You're

hungry, aren't you?"

"Not very."

"You must be. Listen, Jennie. I know what it is. You mustn't feel

that way. Your manners are all right. I wouldn't bring you here if

they weren't. Your instincts are all right. Don't be uneasy. I'd tell

you quick enough when there was anything wrong." His brown eyes held a

friendly gleam.

She smiled gratefully. "I do feel a little nervous at times," she

admitted.

"Don't," he repeated. "You're all right. Don't worry. I'll show

you." And he did.

By degrees Jennie grew into an understanding of the usages and

customs of comfortable existence. All that the Gerhardt family had

ever had were the bare necessities of life. Now she was surrounded

with whatever she wanted--trunks, clothes, toilet articles, the

whole varied equipment of comfort--and while she liked it all, it

did not upset her sense of proportion and her sense of the fitness of

things. There was no element of vanity in her, only a sense of joy in

privilege and opportunity. She was grateful to Lester for all that he

had done and was doing for her. If only she could hold

him--always!

The details of getting Vesta established once adjusted, Jennie

settled down into the routine of home life. Lester, busy about his

multitudinous affairs, was in and out. He had a suite of rooms

reserved for himself at the Grand Pacific, which was then the

exclusive hotel of Chicago, and this was his ostensible residence. His

luncheon and evening appointments were kept at the Union Club. An

early patron of the telephone, he had one installed in the apartment,

so that he could reach Jennie quickly and at any time. He was home two

or three nights a week, sometimes oftener. He insisted at first on

Jennie having a girl of general housework, but acquiesced in the more

sensible arrangement which she suggested later of letting some one

come in to do the cleaning. She liked to work around her own home. Her

natural industry and love of order prompted this feeling.

Lester liked his breakfast promptly at eight in the morning. He

wanted dinner served nicely at seven. Silverware, cut glass, imported

china--all the little luxuries of life appealed to him. He kept

his trunks and wardrobe at the apartment.

During the first few months everything went smoothly. He was in the

habit of taking Jennie to the theater now and then, and if he chanced

to run across an acquaintance he always introduced her as Miss

Gerhardt. When he registered her as his wife it was usually under an

assumed name; where there was no danger of detection he did not mind

using his own signature. Thus far there had been no difficulty or

unpleasantness of any kind.

The trouble with this situation was that it was criss-crossed with

the danger and consequent worry which the deception in regard to Vesta

had entailed, as well as with Jennie's natural anxiety about her

father and the disorganized home. Jennie feared, as Veronica hinted,

that she and William would go to live with Martha, who was installed

in a boarding-house in Cleveland, and that Gerhardt would be left

alone. He was such a pathetic figure to her, with his injured hands

and his one ability--that of being a watchman--that she was

hurt to think of his being left alone. Would he come to her? She knew

that he would not--feeling as he did at present. Would Lester

have him--she was not sure of that. If he came Vesta would have

to be accounted for. So she worried.

The situation in regard to Vesta was really complicated. Owing to

the feeling that she was doing her daughter a great injustice, Jennie

was particularly sensitive in regard to her, anxious to do a thousand

things to make up for the one great duty that she could not perform.

She daily paid a visit to the home of Mrs. Olsen, always taking with

her toys, candy, or whatever came into her mind as being likely to

interest and please the child. She liked to sit with Vesta and tell

her stories of fairy and giant, which kept the little girl wide-eyed.

At last she went so far as to bring her to the apartment, when Lester

was away visiting his parents, and she soon found it possible, during

his several absences, to do this regularly. After that, as time went

on and she began to know his habits, she became more

bold--although bold is scarcely the word to use in connection

with Jennie. She became venturesome much as a mouse might; she would

risk Vesta's presence on the assurance of even short

absences--two or three days. She even got into the habit of

keeping a few of Vesta's toys at the apartment, so that she could have

something to play with when she came.

During these several visits from her child Jennie could not but

realize the lovely thing life would be were she only an honored wife

and a happy mother. Vesta was a most observant little girl. She could

by her innocent childish questions give a hundred turns to the dagger

of self-reproach which was already planted deeply in Jennie's

heart.

"Can I come to live with you?" was one of her simplest and most

frequently repeated questions. Jennie would reply that mamma could not

have her just yet, but that very soon now, just as soon as she

possibly could, Vesta should come to stay always.

"Don't you know just when?" Vesta would ask.

"No, dearest, not just when. Very soon now. You won't mind waiting

a little while. Don't you like Mrs. Olsen?"

"Yes," replied Vesta; "but then she ain't got any nice things now.

She's just got old things." And Jennie, stricken to the heart, would

take Vesta to the toy shop, and load her down with a new assortment of

playthings.

Of course Lester was not in the least suspicious. His observation

of things relating to the home were rather casual. He went about his

work and his pleasures believing Jennie to be the soul of sincerity

and good-natured service, and it never occurred to him that there was

anything underhanded in her actions. Once he did come home sick in the

afternoon and found her absent--an absence which endured from two

o'clock to five. He was a little irritated and grumbled on her return,

but his annoyance was as nothing to her astonishment and fright when

she found him there. She blanched at the thought of his suspecting

something, and explained as best she could. She had gone to see her

washerwoman. She was slow about her marketing. She didn't dream he was

there. She was sorry, too, that her absence had lost her an

opportunity to serve him. It showed her what a mess she was likely to

make of it all.

It happened that about three weeks after the above occurrence

Lester had occasion to return to Cincinnati for a week, and during

this time Jennie again brought Vesta to the flat; for four days there

was the happiest goings on between the mother and child.

Nothing would have come of this little reunion had it not been for

an oversight on Jennie's part, the far-reaching effects of which she

could only afterward regret. This was the leaving of a little toy lamb

under the large leather divan in the front room, where Lester was wont

to lie and smoke. A little bell held by a thread of blue ribbon was

fastened about its neck, and this tinkled feebly whenever it was

shaken. Vesta, with the unaccountable freakishness of children had

deliberately dropped it behind the divan, an action which Jennie did

not notice at the time. When she gathered up the various playthings

after Vesta's departure she overlooked it entirely, and there it

rested, its innocent eyes still staring upon the sunlit regions of

toyland, when Lester returned.

That same evening, when he was lying on the divan, quietly enjoying

his cigar and his newspaper, he chanced to drop the former, fully

lighted. Wishing to recover it before it should do any damage, he

leaned over and looked under the divan. The cigar was not in sight, so

he rose and pulled the lounge out, a move which revealed to him the

little lamb still standing where Vesta had dropped it. He picked it

up, turning it over and over, and wondering how it had come there.

A lamb! It must belong to some neighbor's child in whom Jennie had

taken an interest, he thought. He would have to go and tease her about

this.

Accordingly he held the toy jovially before him, and, coming out

into the dining-room, where Jennie was working at the sideboard, he

exclaimed in a mock solemn voice, "Where did this come from?"

Jennie, who was totally unconscious of the existence of this

evidence of her duplicity, turned, and was instantly possessed with

the idea that he had suspected all and was about to visit his just

wrath upon her. Instantly the blood flamed in her cheeks and as

quickly left them.

"Why, why!" she stuttered, "it's a little toy I bought."

"I see it is," he returned genially, her guilty tremor not escaping

his observation, but having at the same time no explicable

significance to him. "It's frisking around a mighty lone

sheepfold."

He touched the little bell at its throat, while Jennie stood there,

unable to speak. It tinkled feebly, and then he looked at her again.

His manner was so humorous that she could tell he suspected nothing.

However, it was almost impossible for her to recover her

self-possession.

"What's ailing you?" he asked.

"Nothing," she replied.

"You look as though a lamb was a terrible shock to you."

"I forgot to take it out from there, that was all," she went on

blindly.

"It looks as though it has been played with enough," he added more

seriously, and then seeing that the discussion was evidently painful

to her, he dropped it. The lamb had not furnished him the amusement

that he had expected.

Lester went back into the front room, stretched himself out and

thought it over. Why was she nervous? What was there about a toy to

make her grow pale? Surely there was no harm in her harboring some

youngster of the neighborhood when she was alone--having it come

in and play. Why should she be so nervous? He thought it over, but

could come to no conclusion.

Nothing more was said about the incident of the toy lamb. Time

might have wholly effaced the impression from Lester's memory had

nothing else intervened to arouse his suspicions; but a mishap of any

kind seems invariably to be linked with others which follow close upon

its heels.

One evening when Lester happened to be lingering about the flat

later than usual the door bell rang, and, Jennie being busy in the

kitchen, Lester went himself to open the door. He was greeted by a

middle-aged lady, who frowned very nervously upon him, and inquired in

broken Swedish accents for Jennie.

"Wait a moment," said Lester; and stepping to the rear door he

called her.

Jennie came, and seeing who the visitor was, she stepped nervously

out in the hall and closed the door after her. The action instantly

struck Lester as suspicious. He frowned and determined to inquire

thoroughly into the matter. A moment later Jennie reappeared. Her face

was white and her fingers seemed to be nervously seeking something to

seize upon.

"What's the trouble?" he inquired, the irritation he had felt the

moment before giving his voice a touch of gruffness.

"I've got to go out for a little while," she at last managed to

reply.

"Very well," he assented unwillingly. "But you can tell me what's

the trouble with you, can't you? Where do you have to go?"

"I--I," began Jennie, stammering. "I--have--"

"Yes," he said grimly.

"I have to go on an errand," she stumbled on. "I--I can't

wait. I'll tell you when I come back, Lester. Please don't ask me

now."

She looked vainly at him, her troubled countenance still marked by

preoccupation and anxiety to get away, and Lester, who had never seen

this look of intense responsibility in her before, was moved and

irritated by it.

"That's all right," he said, "but what's the use of all this

secrecy? Why can't you come out and tell what's the matter with you?

What's the use of this whispering behind doors? Where do you have to

go?"

He paused, checked by his own harshness, and Jennie, who was

intensely wrought up by the information she had received, as well as

the unwonted verbal castigation she was now enduring, rose to an

emotional state never reached by her before.

"I will, Lester, I will," she exclaimed. "Only not now. I haven't

time. I'll tell you everything when I come back. Please don't stop me

now."

She hurried to the adjoining chamber to get her wraps, and Lester,

who had even yet no clear conception of what it all meant, followed

her stubbornly to the door.

"See here," he exclaimed in his vigorous, brutal way, "you're not

acting right. What's the matter with you? I want to know."

He stood in the doorway, his whole frame exhibiting the pugnacity

and settled determination of a man who is bound to be obeyed. Jennie,

troubled and driven to bay, turned at last.

"It's my child, Lester," she exclaimed. "It's dying. I haven't time

to talk. Oh, please don't stop me. I'll tell you everything when I

come back."

"Your child!" he exclaimed. "What the hell are you talking

about?"

"I couldn't help it," she returned. "I was afraid--I should

have told you long ago. I meant to only--only--Oh, let me go

now, and I'll tell you all when I come back!"

He stared at her in amazement; then he stepped aside, unwilling to

force her any further for the present. "Well, go ahead," he said

quietly. "Don't you want some one to go along with you?"

"No," she replied. "Mrs. Olsen is right here. I'll go with

her."

She hurried forth, white-faced, and he stood there, pondering.

Could this be the woman he had thought he knew? Why, she had been

deceiving him for years. Jennie! The white-faced! The simple!

He choked a little as he muttered:

"Well, I'll be damned!"