32 Caliber | Page 5

Helen with the eyes of a hound-dog. My
heart ached for him, but there was nothing I could do.
"Why did you come back?" Jim almost whispered, keeping his eyes
directly on her face.
"Because I didn't want a scandal." She glanced down at her lap where
she was opening and closing a beaded vanity bag. Evidently she was
finding the interview harder than she had expected.
"I felt--I hoped that if I could show you definitely and finally that I
don't love you, that I am devoted to Frank, your pride, if nothing else,
would induce you to give me the divorce for which I 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