CHAPTER TWO. TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Had Helen been alone, I would have dropped Jim and gone on, knowing that what they had to say to each other was not for outside ears, but when I saw Frank Woods' car there, I felt that a cool head might be needed. There was an ominous set to Jim's shoulders as he walked toward the steps, a sort of drawing in of the head, as though all the muscles in his big frame were tensed. He hesitated a fraction of a second at the door, either to let me catch up with him or because of distaste for the prospective meeting, and we entered the cool dark hall together.
Helen was standing at the entrance to the big living-room, her tall figure erect, her head proudly poised, one graceful arm upraised, with the hand buried in the velvet hangings. She had on a gray traveling-suit, the coat of which lay tossed over the back of a near-by chair. A large patent-leather traveling-case lay beside it. I had expected, from the urgency of the message and the sound of her voice over the telephone, to find Helen agitated, but, except for slight traces of recent tears and a high color, she looked as cool and collected as though she had invited us to tea. Jim, on the other hand, was trembling, his face a pasty white, with great beads of perspiration standing on his forehead.
She motioned us to enter, and I led the way, gripping Jim's hand in passing. Woods was standing by the window, his back to us, and his whole pose so artificial, so expressive of disdain, that I felt the short hair rising along the back of my neck in antagonism. When he heard us, Woods turned with contemptuous deliberation, but when he caught sight of the dumb misery on Jim's face, his own turned a dull crimson. Helen crossed the room and seated herself on the divan, back of which Woods was standing. The whole performance—the place she chose near him, the look she flashed at him as she sat down, showed so completely which of the men she loved, that my heart sank and I lost hope of ever bringing her back to Jim. It was Helen who first spoke.
"You received the note I left this morning?" Jim moistened his lips once and said, "Yes." The word was barely audible.
"Then there is no need to tell you I have made up my mind to go with Frank." Her tone was coldly final. Woods had turned and was again gazing out of the window. Jim looked at Helen with the eyes of a hound-dog. My heart ached for him, but there was nothing I could do.
"Why did you come back?" Jim almost whispered, keeping his eyes directly on her face.
"Because I didn't want a scandal." She glanced down at her lap where she was opening and closing a beaded vanity bag. Evidently she was finding the interview harder than she had expected.
"I felt—I hoped that if I could show you definitely and finally that I don't love you, that I am devoted to Frank, your pride, if nothing else, would induce you to give me the divorce for which I asked. That is the reason we decided to come back—so you might make it possible for us to marry without a scandal." The gross selfishness of the woman—I could hardly think of her as my sister—her cold cruelty, yes, even her damnable beauty, seemed to go to my head and something snapped inside. I couldn't bear the sight of Jim standing there helpless, while these two turned the knife. "That was very considerate of you," I sneered. "You keep out of this, Warren!" "I'm damned if I do," I retorted. "I at least have a brother's right to tell you that a man who will sneak into another's home to make love to his wife, behind his back, and then——" Woods turned quickly. "That's a lie, and you know it." Jim put his hand on my shoulder. He knew I was ready to fight.
"Don't, Bupps!" Suddenly he seemed to straighten into life. From the way he set his jaw, I knew that the old courage, which had won so many cases in the court-room, was back on the job.
"You were quite right, Helen. While I imagine your reason for not wanting a scandal was largely selfish, yet I think that consideration for my position was partly responsible for your return, and for that I thank you. When you asked for a divorce the other night, I didn't realize that your love for me was so entirely dead, or that you had fallen so completely under this man's influence. Under the circumstances, I shall give you a divorce, if only to keep you from taking matters into your own hands. But I shall not do it until I have satisfied myself that your new love is real, that the man is worthy of it. If there is anything in Woods' life that does not bear looking into, I'll find it out; if he has done anything in the past that is likely to hurt you in the future, I shall know it, and you shall know it, too, before you take this irrevocable step." Woods flushed for a moment when Jim spoke of digging into his past, but he laughed easily and said:
"You're getting a bit melodramatic, aren't you?" "Better melodrama than tragedy," Jim responded bitterly. "Helen has told you she doesn't love you, and that she does love me. This morning she was ready to face the scandal of leaving her husband; to go to live with me, to live openly with me, unmarried, until you could get a divorce. That rather answers your first point, doesn't it?" "It makes me think no better of you, that you should have agreed to such a sacrifice." "I never expected to win the husband's love at the same time I won his wife's," Woods responded evenly. Never have I seen murder shine out of a man's eyes as it did out of Jim's at that moment. Each man measured the other across the narrow space, and I longed that the laws of civilization might be swept aside so that the two might tear at each other's throats, for the woman they loved. Both men were powerful, and neither feared the other.
"As to looking up my past," Woods continued, "one might think you were the father of the lady and I a youthful suitor. While I recognize no right of yours to meddle in my affairs, the fact that I was sent to America as the duly accredited agent of the French Government should have some weight. They are not accustomed over there to hiring thugs and cutthroats to carry on their business." "This is all beside the point," Helen broke in. "May I ask, Jim, where I am going to stay and what I am going to do while you are investigating Frank's past?" "You are going to stay here." "Here? But where will you stay?" "I am going to stay here with you." Woods came around the divan. "Look here, Felderson! Can't you see Helen doesn't love you, that you've lost—?" "Keep back!" warned Jim huskily.
"She can't stay here with you. She's no more your wife than if she had never married you. Do you think I'll allow her to stay in this house, forced to endure your attentions—?" "Who are you to say what you will or won't allow?" Jim roared, his eyes blazing. "You came into my house as my guest and stole my most precious possession. Get out before I kill you!" Woods' face was white. For one minute I felt sure the two men would settle matters then and there. Suddenly he turned and said: "Come, Helen!" "She stays here!" Jim cried.
Helen had arisen from the divan when the two men came together. Now she stepped forward.
"I'm going with Frank. We came back here more for your sake than our own. We tried to give you a chance to do the decent thing, but I might have known you wouldn't. With all your protestations of love for me, when I ask you to do the one thing that would show that love, the one thing that would make me happy, you not only refuse, but you insult the man who means everything in the world to me. If I had ever loved you in my life, what you have just said would have made me hate you. As I never loved you, I despise and loathe you now." She started to pass him, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. His face was white and drawn and his eyes were the eyes of a madman. He lifted her up bodily and almost threw her on the divan, crying, "By God! You stay here!" Jim turned just as Woods rushed and with a mighty swing to the side of the head, sent him crashing into the corner. Dazed as he was, he half struggled to his feet, and when I saw him reach beneath his coat, I sprang on him and wrenched the revolver from his hand.
Disheveled and half-stupefied, he rose and glared at us like an angry bull. Slowly he straightened his tie and brushed back his hair. He glanced over at Helen, who was sobbing on the sofa.
"Two of you—eh? A frame-up." All the hatred in the world gleamed in his eyes, as he looked at Jim. "If you don't let Helen come to me, Felderson, I'll kill you; so help me God, I'll kill you!" Then he picked up his coat and hat and walked out of the room.
Jim went slowly to the door and into the hall. He looked tired and old. I heard the outer door slam behind Frank Woods and a motor start. Then I went out to Jim.
