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that real people, in real
life and of real social position, ever so disgraced themselves. Every one
knew that Frank Woods had been seeing a lot of Helen, and several
close friends had asked me if Jim knew the man's reputation. I had even
spoken to Helen, only to be laughed at, and assured that it was the idle
gossip of scandal-mongers. That she should have left Jim, darling old
Jim, for Frank Woods, or any other man, was unthinkable. Jim sank on
a bench and turned a face to me that had grown utterly haggard.
"It's true, Bupps! I found this on the table when I went home to lunch."
He held out a crumpled note written in Helen's rather mannish
back-hand.
"Jim,
"It is now ten-thirty. Frank is coming for me at eleven. He has made me
realize that, loving him the way I do, I would be doing you a horrible
injustice to keep up the wretched pretense of being your wife.
"Had you left any other way open, I would have taken it, but you
refused a divorce. I hate to hurt you the way I must, but try to
understand and forgive me.
"Helen."
I turned toward Jim. His chin was sunk in his hands. Two men came in

from the tennis-courts and nodded as they went by.
"What have you done?" I asked.
He raised his head, and on his face was written incalculable misery.
"Nothing!" he answered, dropping his hands hopelessly. "What can I do,
except let them go and get a divorce as soon as possible? It's my fault.
After we--quarreled the other night, she asked me to divorce her, and I
refused. God, Bupps! If you only knew how much I love her and how
hard I've tried to make her love me. And she did love me till Woods
came along."
I hurried up my dressing, turning over in my mind the details of Jim's
married life. In the light of the latest developments, I realized the
painful fact that I was partly to blame myself. Helen hadn't really loved
Jim when she married him. Oh, she'd loved him in the same way she'd
loved a lot of other men whom she'd been more or less engaged to at
one time or another. She had married Jim, because it had been the thing
to do that year, to get married; and she realized that Jim loved her more
and could give her more than any of the others. Where I came in was
that I had urged her to marry Jim because he was the best man in the
world and because I wanted him for my brother-in-law.
I remembered now how cold Helen had been, even during their
engagement, trumping up almost any excuse to keep from spending an
evening alone with the man who was to be her husband. It had made
me so hot that I had reproached her even in Jim's presence. My words
didn't seem to affect Helen any, but they did affect Jim a lot. He had
taken me for a long ride in his car and filled me full of moonshine
about how he was unworthy of her and how he would win her love
after they were married. I was in such sympathy with him that I tried to
believe it true, although I knew Helen as only a younger brother can
know a sister. I knew that she had been pampered and petted ever since
she was a child; that she had never shown much affection for father and
mother, who were her slaves, while toward me, who had insulted and
made fun of her, she was almost effusive. With this in mind, I had
urged Jim to neglect her, to "treat her rough," but when a man is

head-over-heels in love with a girl, what's the good of advice? To tell
him to mistreat her was like telling a Mohammedan to spit in the face
of the prophet.
They had been married a little over a year when Frank Woods came to
Eastbrook on war business for the French Government. He had been in
Papa Joffre's Army during part of the mêlée, wore the Croix de Guerre
with several palms, and could hold a company of people enthralled
with stories of his experiences. Whether he had a right to the
decorations, or even the uniform, no one was quite sure, but it set off
every good point of his massive, well-built frame. He would stand in
front of the fire and tell of air-scraps in such a way that, while he never
mentioned the hero by name, it was easy to guess that "hero" and Frank
Woods were synonymous. He could dance, ride, play any game and
shoot better than the best