The Bad Man | Page 5

these he supplied, with no
thought of the cost. He had someone at the head of his table of whom
he was very proud. The world need never know the solemnity of their
lives when the curtain was lowered and they were alone together. After
all, many marriages were like this. Theirs was by no means an
exceptional case; and he experienced a curious secret joy in the fact
that he knew other men envied him his wife, and wondered at his
power to hold her.
And so the months rolled by, with a trip abroad now and then to relieve
the tedium of existence. For a woman to know that she comes to be
tolerated only because she is decorative, is a consummating blow. Pell
soon reached the point where he told Lucia he had bought her, body
and soul. He had determined to win her love. When he saw that he
could not, he swiftly forgot the integrity of her part of the bargain, the
honesty of her words to him before they were married; and he practised
subtle cruelties to tame her and bring her at last to him.
He began to drink too much. Only a certain pride in his business affairs,
the desire to keep a level head, a clear brain, kept him from sinking
definitely to the gutter. He became irritable with her. Nothing she did
pleased him. He found he could not wound her sufficiently when he
was sober; so he fortified himself with alcohol, gained courage to speak
flat truths, and left her alone for days at a time, thinking such absences
were a punishment.

Had he but known it, they were the only bright oases in her
monotonous life. She blessed those hours when he mercifully remained
away on the pretext of business. What he did gave her little concern.
Once she ventured to talk frankly with him about the wisdom of a legal
separation. It was foolish to go on in this way. It was dishonest; it was
the only immorality.
He laughed her to scorn. "You're too useful to me, my dear," he sneered.
He always added that "my dear" to any statement when he wished to be
thoroughly sarcastic.
He was conscious that certain captains of business would not have
come so frequently to his home if Lucia had not been there to dispense
a supposedly gracious hospitality. Let her go? Lose all this? Not at all!
He brutally told her so again and again. And finally she made up her
mind, for the sake of peace, that she would merely remain the flower
under glass, if that was his desire. Arguments were of no avail. In a
sense, she was beaten.
The opera, books, travel, a few good friends--those that Morgan
allowed her to keep--these filled her days.
One evening she was particularly surprised when he said to her,
casually:
"How would you like a little trip out West? You look peaked. Maybe it
would set you up."
"Why--it sounds nice, Morgan," she answered. "Is it business, or--" Her
sense of humor made it impossible for her to bring out the word
"pleasure."
"Of course it's business," he replied. "Precious little else I get." They
were dining alone, at home, and he motioned the butler to refill his
glass with champagne.
She wondered at his suggestion. There must be something behind it.

But as a matter of fact she was tired of Long Island, and if she could
kill a few weeks--maybe a few months--in the West, she would
willingly go.
"Sturgis telegraphed me that there was a big possibility of a new vein
of oil down on the border," Pell was telling her. "Some important men
want to talk things over with me at Bisbee. I want to get started in a day
or two. Don't take your maid. It's a rough country, but you'll be all right.
Just old clothes. You can ride a lot, so bring your habit. I'll be busy
most of the time; but I think you'll like the trip. Never been down that
way, have you?"
"No," she said. "And I've always wanted to go."
"Not afraid of bandits?" he laughed, sipping his champagne. "It's right
next door to Mexico, you know. Have some swell times down there,
they say."
She laughed too. "How exciting," she said. She grew almost jubilant at
the prospect of the journey. She knew she would probably be "shown
off" to the important men; and that touched her vanity--what little she
had left by now.
"They tell me it's God's country, with big chances for everyone. I want
to add to our little pile, Lucia," Pell went on. He hoped she would get
the significance of the "our."
"You're too good to me, Morgan," she said, and meant