The Lady of Big Shanty | Page 9

and letters."
The girl crossed the room, opened a mirrored door, deftly extracted
from a hanging mass of frou-frous behind it a silk dressing jacket,
helped thrust the firm white arms within its dainty sleeves, tucked a
small lace pillow between Alice's shoulders and picking up the glossy
mass of black hair, lifted it skilfully until it lay in glistening folds over
the lace pillow. She then went into the boudoir and returned with a
dainty tray bearing a set of old Sevres, two buttered wafers of toast and
two notes.

Alice waited until her maid closed the bedroom door, then, with the
impatience of a child, she opened one of the two notes--the one Annette
had discreetly placed beneath the other. This she read and re-read; it
was brief, and written in a masculine hand. The woman was thoroughly
awake now--her eyes shining, her lips parted in a satisfied smile. "You
dear old friend," she murmured as she lay back upon the lace pillow. Dr.
Sperry was coming at five.
She tucked the letter beneath the coverlid and opened her husband's
note. Suddenly her lips grew tense; she raised herself erect and stared at
its contents:
I shall pass the summer in the woods if I can find suitable place for you
and Margaret. Make no arrangements which will conflict with this.
Will write later.
SAM.
Again she read it, grasping little by little its whole import: all that it
meant--all that it would mean to her.
"Is he crazy?" she asked herself. "Does he suppose I intend to be
dragged up there?"
It was open defiance on his part; he had done this thing without
consulting her and without her consent. It was preposterous and
insulting in its brusqueness. He evidently intended to change her
life--she, who loathed camp life more than anything in the world was to
be forced to live in one all summer instead of reigning at Newport. She
understood now his open defiance in leaving for the woods with
Holcomb, and yet this last decision was far graver to her than his taking
a dozen vacations. Still deeper in her heart there lurked the thought of
being separated from the man who understood her. The young doctor's
summer practice in Newport would no longer be a labour of love. It
really meant exile to them both.
At one o'clock she lunched with Margaret, hardly opening her lips
through it all. She did not mention her husband's note--that she would

reserve for the doctor. Between them she felt sure there could be
arranged a way out of the situation. Again she devoured his note.
Yes--"at five." The intervening hours seemed interminable.
That these same hours were anything but irksome to Sperry would have
been apparent to anyone who watched his use of them. The day, like
other days during office hours, had seen a line of coupes waiting
outside his door. Within had assembled a score of rich patients waiting
their turn while they read the illustrated papers in strained
silence--papers they had already seen. There was, of course, no
conversation. A nervous cough now and then from some pretty widow,
overheated in her sables, would break the awkward silence, or perhaps
the voice of some wealthy little girl of five asking impossible
explanations of her maid. During these hours the mere opening of the
doctor's sanctum door was sufficient to instantly raise the hopes and the
eyes of the unfortunates.
For during these office hours Dr. Sperry had a habit of opening the
door of this private sanctum sharply, and standing there for an instant,
erect and faultlessly dressed, looking over the waiting ones; then, with
a friendly nod, he would recognize, perhaps the widow--and the door
closed again on the less fortunate.
It was, of course, more than possible that the young woman was ill over
her dressmaker's bill, rather than suffering from a weak heart or an
opera cold. Sperry's ear, however, generally detected the cold. It was
not his policy to say unpleasant things--especially to young widows
who had recently inherited the goods and chattels of their hard-working
husbands.
"Ill!--nonsense, my dear lady; you look as fresh as a rose," he would
begin in his fascinating voice--"a slight cold, but nothing serious, I
assure you. You women are never blessed with prudence," etc., etc.
To another: "Nervous prostration, my dear madame! Fudge--all
imagination! Silly, really silly. You caught cold, of course, coming out
of the heated theatre. Get a good rest, my dear Mrs. Jack--I want you to
stay at least a month at Palm Beach, and no late suppers, and no

champagne. No--not a drop," he adds severely. Then softening, "Well,
then, half a glass. There, I've been generous, haven't I?" etc., etc., and
so the day passed.
On this particular day it