Part 74 (1/2)
”Why do you want to see him? You're married.”
”But they don't keep women in harems nowadays. Paris is very dull this winter. Don't take Captain Forbes away again.”
”As I remember, you gave him marching orders once yourself. You mustn't mind if he goes of his own accord now.”
”But he won't go of his own accord if you don't make him. Why do you?
You're not afraid of me?”
”Oh, but I am.”
Persis laughed with a kind of pride. ”Really! You flatter me! But why?”
Tait twisted his big, soft hands together and stared at her a long while before he could speak. ”This is very embarra.s.sing, Mrs. Enslee; but since you are so frank, let me ask you one question. Will you answer it frankly?”
”That depends upon the question.” Persis chuckled, never dreaming of its nature. When it came it was:
”Are you in love with Captain Forbes?”
She laughed evasively now. ”What a remarkable question!”
The old lawyer repeated the demand:
”Are you in love with Captain Forbes?”
”I think he is very nice,” she dodged. ”But what has that to do with our friends.h.i.+p?”
”Everything,” Tait answered, with tightened lips. ”Mrs. Enslee, your father and I rowed together in the same college crew, and Harvey's father was my best friend. May I speak freely to you?”
She responded immediately to the almost affection of his tone. ”I wish you would.”
”What little success in life I have had,” Tait began, with the somewhat formal speech of an orator, ”has been due to my habit of foreseeing dangerous combinations and preventing them, or running away from them.
The most dangerous combination on earth is a woman, a man, and another man. No married woman has a right to the--I believe you said 'friends.h.i.+p,' of a man who cares for her as Harvey cares for you.”
She extracted from his warning only the hidden sweet. ”And he does care for me still!”
”But you've married another man.”
”Of course,” she answered. ”But do you think that I can find Mr. Enslee so fascinating that I must give up all my friends?”
”Friends!” Tait exclaimed, with bitterness. ”In my day, Mrs. Enslee, I have seen some of the proudest families in New York dragged into the mire of public shame by tragedies that began as innocent experiments in friends.h.i.+p. Don't risk it, Mrs. Enslee. You are on dangerous ground.”
She mused aloud. ”And you think he loves me still?”
Tait tossed his mane in despair. ”Good Lord! That's all my words have meant to you? Well, since we are talking so bluntly, you'll perhaps permit me to say that I know you are not happily married. Everybody knew you never would be happy with Willie Enslee.”
”I thought I'd be as happy with him as with anybody-else,” she answered, meekly; ”but since you a.s.sume that I am not happy, why deny me the friends.h.i.+p of a man whose society I am fond of? Don't you think that everybody has the right to be happy?”
”Indeed I don't!”
”Doesn't the Const.i.tution, or the Declaration of Independence, or something guarantee everybody the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of--”