32 Caliber | Page 5

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