The Breaking Point | Page 8

to expect that, Lucy. Is it Elizabeth Wheeler, do you think?"
"Yes."
For a moment there was silence. The canary in its cage hopped about, a
beady inquisitive eye now on one, now on the other of them.
"She's a good girl, Lucy."
"That's not the point, is it?"
"Do you think she cares for him?"

"I don't know. There's some talk of Wallie Sayre. He's there a good
bit."
"Wallie Sayre!" snorted David. "He's never done a day's work in his
life and never will." He reflected on that with growing indignation. "He
doesn't hold a candle to Dick. Of course, if the girl's a fool--"
Hands thrust deep into his pockets David took a turn about the room.
Lucy watched him. At last:
"You're evading the real issue, David, aren't you?"
"Perhaps I am," he admitted. "I'd better talk to him. I think he's got an
idea he shouldn't marry. That's nonsense."
"I don't mean that, exactly," Lucy persisted. "I mean, won't he want a
good many things cleared up before he marries? Isn't he likely to want
to go back to Norada?"
Some of the ruddy color left David's face. He stood still, staring at her
and silent.
"You know he meant to go three years ago, but the war came, and--"
Her voice trailed off. She could not even now easily recall those days
when Dick was drilling on the golf links, and that later period of
separation.
"If he does go back--"
"Donaldson is dead," David broke in, almost roughly.
"Maggie Donaldson is still living."
"What if she is? She's loyal to the core, in the first place. In the second,
she's criminally liable. As liable as I am."
"There is one thing, David, I ought to know. What has become of the
Carlysle girl?"

"She left the stage. There was a sort of general conviction she was
implicated and--I don't know, Lucy. Sometimes I think she was." He
sighed. "I read something about her coming back, some months ago, in
'The Valley.' That was the thing she was playing the spring before it
happened." He turned on her. "Don't get that in your head with the
rest."
"I wonder, sometimes."
"I know it."
Outside the slamming of an automobile door announced Dick's return,
and almost immediately Minnie rang the old fashioned gong which
hung in the lower hall. Mrs. Crosby got up and placed a leaf of lettuce
between the bars of the bird cage.
"Dinner time, Caruso," she said absently. Caruso was the name Dick
had given the bird. And to David: "She must be in her thirties now."
"Probably." Then his anger and anxiety burst out. "What difference can
it make about her? About Donaldson's wife? About any hang-over from
that rotten time? They're gone, all of them. He's here. He's safe and
happy. He's strong and fine. That's gone."
In the lower hall Dick was taking off his overcoat.
"Smell's like chicken, Minnie," he said, into the dining room.
"Chicken and biscuits, Mr. Dick."
"Hi, up there!" he called lustily. "Come and feed a starving man. I'm
going to muffle the door-bell!"
He stood smiling up at them, very tidy in his Sunday suit, very boyish,
for all his thirty-two years. His face, smilingly tender as he watched
them, was strong rather than handsome, quietly dependable and faintly
humorous.
"In the language of our great ally," he said, "Madame et Monsieur, le

diner est servi."
In his eyes there was not only tenderness but a somewhat emphasized
affection, as though he meant to demonstrate, not only to them but to
himself, that this new thing that had come to him did not touch their old
relationship. For the new thing had come. He was still slightly dazed
with the knowledge of it, and considerably anxious. Because he had
just taken a glance at himself in the mirror of the walnut hat-rack, and
had seen nothing there particularly to inspire --well, to inspire what he
wanted to inspire.
At the foot of the stairs he drew Lucy's arm through his, and held her
hand. She seemed very small and frail beside him.
"Some day," he said, "a strong wind will come along and carry off Mrs.
Lucy Crosby, and the Doctors Livingstone will be obliged hurriedly to
rent aeroplanes, and to search for her at various elevations!"
David sat down and picked up the old fashioned carving knife.
"Get the clubs?" he inquired.
Dick looked almost stricken.
"I forgot them, David," he said guiltily. "Jim Wheeler went out to look
them up, and I--I'll go back after dinner."
It was sometime later in the meal that Dick looked up from his plate
and said:
"I'd like to cut office hours on Wednesday night, David. I've asked
Elizabeth Wheeler to go into town to the theater."