32 Caliber | Page 3

Helen from the first, he couldn't have played his game better, for his seeming indifference to her loveliness piqued her almost to madness. During the early months of our entrance in the war he was called back to France, and every man in Eastbrook breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn't one of us who could say why we thought him a cad, but just the same, I doubt if there was a father in Eastbrook who would willingly have given his daughter to him. He was too much of the ideal lover to make a good husband. There was something about him, too, that made no man want to claim him as a particular friend, but perhaps it was because we were all jealous.
While most of the younger men of the town were in France, or, like Jim and myself, in a training-camp, Frank Woods came back, and this time there was no mistaking whom he had picked out for his attentions. Until the war was over and Jim home, it was not noticeable, for he was most meticulous in his behavior, but with Jim busy trying to straighten out our tangled practise, Woods lost no time in taking advantage of his opportunities. And there had been opportunities enough, heaven knows, with Jim surrounded by clients, yet trying in his clumsy, lovable way to remonstrate with Helen for seeing so much of Woods. My interference had only increased his opportunities, for the evening I told her what people were saying, she quarreled with Jim, and as a result he threw himself into his work with an energy in which enthusiasm had no part.
All the time these thoughts were running through my head--and they ran much faster than I can set them down--I had been throwing my clothes on, knowing something had to be done, yet what that something was I couldn't for the life of me figure out.
"Come on, Jim!" I said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him from his dejected position.
"Where to?" he responded wearily.
"First of all, we're going to shut this thing up. The Sun would like nothing better than to spread it thick all over the front page of their filthy sheet."
"You're right, old boy! I'd forgotten about the newspapers. It would be horrible for Helen to have her name dragged through the mud."
"I wasn't thinking of Helen," I responded testily, "but a lot of cheap notoriety won't help our law practise any."
All the spirit seemed to have seeped out of his system, so I pushed him into my car, preferring to take the wheel rather than have him drive. I can always think better when I have a steering wheel in my hands, and knowing with what speed Jim drove ordinarily, I didn't care to trust my precious body to him in his overwrought condition.
We were just backing into the drive when one of the servants came running from the club.
"Oh, Mr. Thompson!" he called.
I stopped the car and waited for him to come up.
"What is it?"
"You're wanted on the telephone."
I jumped from the car and started for the club. There were the usual groups of tea-drinkers and bridge-players scattered about on the broad veranda, and it seemed to me, as I ran up the steps, that they all stopped talking and looked at me, I thought, with curiosity, if not with pity. There would be no use shutting up the newspapers if that bunch of gossips were in possession of the scandal.
I hurried to the telephone and slammed the door to the booth, expecting to hear the voice of some reporter demand if there was any truth to the rumor that Mrs. James Felderson had run off with Frank Woods. To my buzzing brain it seemed that the whole world must have heard the news.
"Hello," I called.
"Is that you, Warren?" It was Helen's voice.
"Helen!" I yelled. "For God's sake, where are you?"
"I am at the house. Listen, Warren! Have you seen Jim?"
Her voice sounded faint and strangely uncontrolled.
"Yes--yes," I shouted. "He's here with me now."
"Then bring him here quickly, Warren! Please hurry."
"But, Helen----"
"Don't ask me any questions, please." There was a catch in the voice on the other end of the wire. "I c-can't answer any questions now, but bring Jim, and hurry!"
The receiver clicked and I dashed out of the booth, a thousand questions pounding in my brain. Why was Helen at the house? Had Frank Woods failed to keep his appointment, thinking better of eloping with another man's wife; or, had Helen come to her senses, seen through the thin veneer that covered the cad and the libertine in Frank Woods and returned to her husband for good? Over and above these questions and conjectures and hopes, there was thanksgiving in my heart that the irremediable step had not been