Part 20 (2/2)
”Sure she was!” he said coa.r.s.ely; ”she was as rotten as the rest of them!”
”But--but----” Martie's lips felt dry, her voice failed her.
”I was only a kid, I tell you,” said Wallace, uneasily watching her.
”Why, Mart,” he added, dropping on his knees beside the bed, and putting his arms about her, ”all boys are like that! Every one knows it. There isn't a man you know----And you're the only girl I ever loved, Sweetheart, you know that. Men are different, that's all. A boy growing up can't any more keep out of it----And I never lied to you, Mart. I told you when we were engaged that I wished to G.o.d, for your sake, that I'd never----”
”Yes, I know!” Martie whispered, shutting her eyes. He kissed her suddenly colourless cheek, and she heard him move away.
”Well, to go on with the rest of this,” Wallace resumed suddenly.
Martie opened tired eyes to watch him, but he did not meet her look.
”Golda and I went together for about a year,” he said, ”and finally she got to talking as if we were going to be married. One day--it was a rainy day in the office, and I had a cold, and she fixed me up something hot to drink--she got to crying, and she said her stepfather had ordered her out of the house. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now, but anyway, we talked it all over, and she said she was going down to Los Angeles and hunt up this other fellow. Well, that made me feel kind of sick, because we had been going together for so long, and her talking about how things would be when we were married and all that, and I said--you know the way you do--'What's the matter with us getting married, right now?'”
Martie's face was fixed in a look of agonized attention: she made no sound.
”She said we wouldn't have anything to live on,” Wallace pursued, not looking at his wife, ”and that she wanted to take a rest when she got married, and have a little fun. Well, I says, we can keep it quiet for awhile. Well, we talked about it that day, and after that we would kind of josh about it, and finally one day we walked over to the bureau and got out a license, and the Justice of the Peace----”
”Wallie--my G.o.d!” Martie breathed.
”Well, listen!” he urged her impatiently. ”I put a wrong age on the license and so did she, and she had told me a lot of lies about herself, as I found out later, Martie----”
”So that it wasn't legal!”
”Well, listen. After that we went on with the crowd for a few weeks, and we didn't tell anybody. And then this Dr. Prendergast turned up----”
”WHAT Dr. Prendergast!”
”I don't know who he was--a dentist anyway. And he had known Golda before, somewhere, and he was crazy about her. His wife was getting a divorce, it seems; anyway, he b.u.t.ted right in, and she let him. I don't think she had awfully good sense, she would act sort of crazy sometimes, as if she didn't know what she was doing. Well, I told her I wouldn't stand for that, and we had some fights. But just then my dad wrote and told me that he would finance me for a year at Stanford, and I began to think I'd like to cut the whole bunch. So I said to Golda: 'I'm done. I'm going to get out! You keep your mouth shut, and I'll keep mine!' She says, 'Leon'--that was Prendergast--'is going to marry me, and you'll talk before I do!' So----”
”But, Wallace----”
”But what, dearie?”
”But it wasn't left that way?”
”Now, listen, dearie. Of course it wasn't! She and Prendergast were going to leave town, a few days later, but I was kind of worried about it, and I finally told my uncle the whole story. Of course he blew up!
He sent for her, and she came right in, scared to death. He told her that he'd give away the whole story to Prendergast, or else he'd give her a check for five hundred dollars on her wedding day. She fell for it, and we said good-bye. She swore it was only a sort of joke anyway, and that the day we--we did it, she'd been filling me up with whisky lemonades and all that, and that the whole thing was off. And let me tell you that I was glad to beat it! I never saw her again until this morning! I went on the stage, and changed my name because the leading lady in that show happened to be Thelma Tenney. About a month later my uncle wrote me that she had sent him a newspaper notice of her marriage, and he had sent her the check. I'll never forget reading that letter. I'd been worrying myself black in the face, but that day I went on a bust, I can tell you!”
”That marriage would cancel the other?” Martie asked, with a dry throat.
”Sure it would!” he said easily.
”But now--now----” she pursued fearfully.
”Now she's turned up,” he said, a shadow falling on his heavy face again. ”She was at the theatre last night. G.o.d knows what she's been doing all these years; she looks awful. She saw my picture in some paper, and she came straight to the city. She found out where I lived, and this morning, while you were at church, Mabel came in and said a lady wanted to see me. I took her to breakfast. I didn't know what to do with her--and we talked.”
”And what does she say, Wallie--what does she want?”
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