The Place of Honeymoons
It was not so easy returning. He ran into his wife. He tried to dodge her,
but without success.
"James, where did you get that black eye?" tragically.
"It's a daisy, ain't it, Molly?" pushing past her into Nora's room and
closing the door after him.
"Father!"
"That you, Nora?" blinking.
"Father, if you have been fighting with _him_, I'll never forgive you."
"Forget it, Nora. I wasn't fighting. I only thought I was."
He raised the lid of the trunk and cast in the gloves haphazard. And then
he saw the paper which had fallen out. He picked it up and squinted at it,
for he could not see very well. Nora was leaving the room in a temper.
"Going, Nora?"
"I am. And I advise you to have your dinner in your room."
Alone, he turned on the light. It never occurred to him that he might be
prying into some of Nora's private correspondence. He unfolded the
parchment and held it under the light. For a long time he stared at the
writing, which was in English, at the date, at the names. Then he quietly
refolded it and put it away for future use, immediate future use.
"This is a great world," he murmured, rubbing his ear tenderly.
CHAPTER XX
JOURNEY'S END
Harrigan dined alone. He was in disgrace; he was sore, mentally as well as
physically; and he ate his dinner without relish, in simple obedience to
those well regulated periods of hunger that assailed him three times a
day, in spring, summer, autumn and winter. By the time the waiter had
cleared away the dishes, Harrigan had a perfecto between his teeth (along
with a certain matrimonial bit), and smoked as if he had wagered to finish
the cigar in half the usual stretch. He then began to walk the floor, much
after the fashion of a man who has the toothache, or the earache, which
would be more to the point. To his direct mind no diplomacy was needed;
all that was necessary was a few blunt questions. Nora could answer them
as she chose. Nora, his baby, his little girl that used to run around
barefooted and laugh when he applied the needed birch! How children grew
up! And they never grew too old for the birch; they certainly never did.
They heard him from the drawing-room; tramp, tramp, tramp.
"Let him be, Nora," said Mrs. Harrigan, wisely. "He is in a rage about
something. And your father is not the easiest man to approach when he's
mad. If he fought Mr. Courtlandt, he believed he had some good reason for
doing so."
"Mother, there are times when I believe you are afraid of father."
"I am always afraid of him. It is only because I make believe I'm not that
I can get him to do anything. It was dreadful. And Mr. Courtlandt was such
a gentleman. I could cry. But let your father be until to-morrow."
"And have him wandering about with that black eye? Something must be done
for it. I'm not afraid of him."
"Sometimes I wish you were."
So Nora entered the lion's den fearlessly. "Is there anything I can do for
you, dad?"
"You can get the witch-hazel and bathe this lamp of mine," grimly.
She ran into her own room and returned with the simpler devices for
reducing a swollen eye. She did not notice, or pretended that she didn't,
that he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He sat down in a
chair, under the light; and she went to work deftly.
"I've got some make-up, and to-morrow morning I'll paint it for you."
"You don't ask any questions," he said, with grimness.
"Would it relieve your eye any?" lightly.
He laughed. "No; but it might relieve my mind."
"Well, then, why did you do so foolish a thing? At your age! Don't you
know that you can't go on whipping every man you take a dislike to?"
"I haven't taken any dislike to Courtlandt. But I saw him kiss you."
"I can take care of myself."
"Perhaps. I asked him to explain. He refused. One thing puzzled me, though
I didn't know what it was at the time. Now, when a fellow steals a kiss
from a beautiful woman like you, Nora, I don't see why he should feel mad
about it. When he had all but knocked your daddy to by-by, he said that
you could explain.... Don't press so hard," warningly. "Well, can you?"
"Since you saw what he did, I do not see where explanations on my part are
necessary."
"Nora, I've never caught you in a lie. I never want to. When you were
little you were the truthfullest thing I ever saw. No matter what kind of
a licking was in store for you, you weren't afraid; you told the truth....
There, that'll do. Put some cotton over it and bind it with a
handkerchief. It'll be black all right, but the swelling will go down. I
can tell 'em a tennis-ball hit me. It was more like a cannon-ball, though.
Say, Nora, you know I've always pooh-poohed these amateurs. People used to
say that there were dozens of men in New York in my prime who could have
laid me cold. I used to laugh. Well, I guess they were right. Courtlandt's
got the stiffest kick I ever ran into. A pile-driver, and if he had landed
on my jaw, it would have been _dormi bene_, as you say when you bid me
good night in dago. That's all right now until to-morrow. I want to talk
to you. Draw up a chair. There! As I said, I've never caught you in a lie,
but I find that you've been living a lie for two years. You haven't been
square to me, nor to your mother, nor to the chaps that came around and
made love to you. You probably didn't look at it that way, but there's the
fact. I'm not Paul Pry; but accidentally I came across this," taking the
document from his pocket and handing it to her. "Read it. What's the
answer?"
Nora's hands trembled.
"Takes you a long time to read it. Is it true?"
"Yes."
"And I went up to the tennis-court with the intention of knocking his head
off; and now I'm wondering why he didn't knock off mine. Nora, he's a man;
and when you get through with this, I'm going down to the hotel and
apologize."
"You will do nothing of the sort; not with that eye."
"All right. I was always worried for fear you'd hook up with some duke
you'd have to support. Now, I want to know how this chap happens to be my
son-in-law. Make it brief, for I don't want to get tangled up more than is
necessary."
Nora crackled the certificate in her fingers and stared unseeingly at it
for some time. "I met him first in Rangoon," she began slowly, without
raising her eyes.
"When you went around the world on your own?"
"Yes. Oh, don't worry. I was always able to take care of myself."
"An Irish idea," answered Harrigan complacently.
"I loved him, father, with all my heart and soul. He was not only big and
strong and handsome, but he was kindly and tender and thoughtful. Why, I
never knew that he was rich until after I had promised to be his wife.
When I learned that he was the Edward Courtlandt who was always getting
into the newspapers, I laughed. There were stories about his escapades.
There were innuendoes regarding certain women, but I put them out of my
mind as twaddle. Ah, never had I been so happy! In Berlin we went about
like two children. It was play. He brought me to the Opera and took me
away; and we had the most charming little suppers. I never wrote you or
mother because I wished to surprise you."
"You have. Go on."
"I had never paid much attention to Flora Desimone, though I knew that she
was jealous of my success. Several times I caught her looking at Edward in
a way I did not like."
"She looked at him, huh?"
"It was the last performance of the season. We were married that
afternoon. We did not want any one to know about it. I was not to leave
the stage until the end of the following season. We were staying at the
same hotel, with rooms across the corridor. This was much against his
wishes, but I prevailed."
"I see."
"Our rooms were opposite, as I said. After the performance that night I
went to mine to complete the final packing. We were to leave at one for
the Tyrol. Father, I saw Flora Desimone come out of his room."
Harrigan shut and opened his hands.
"Do you understand? I saw her. She was laughing. I did not see him. My
wedding night! She came from his room. My heart stopped, the world
stopped, everything went black. All the stories that I had read and heard
came back. When he knocked at my door I refused to see him. I never saw
him again until that night in Paris when he forced his way into my
apartment."
"Hang it, Nora, this doesn't sound like him!"
"I saw her."
"He wrote you?"
"I returned the letters, unopened."
"That wasn't square. You might have been wrong."
"He wrote five letters. After that he went to India, to Africa and back to
India, where he seemed to find consolation enough."
Harrigan laid it to his lack of normal vision, but to his single optic
there was anything but misery in her beautiful blue eyes. True, they
sparkled with tears; but that signified nothing: he hadn't been married
these thirty-odd years without learning that a woman weeps for any of a
thousand and one reasons.
"Do you care for him still?"
"Not a day passed during these many months that I did not vow I hated
him."
"Any one else know?"
"The padre. I had to tell some one or go mad. But I didn't hate him. I
could no more put him out of my life than I could stop breathing. Ah, I
have been so miserable and unhappy!" She laid her head upon his knees and
clumsily he stroked it. His girl!
"That's the trouble with us Irish, Nora. We jump without looking, without
finding whether we're right or wrong. Well, your daddy's opinion is that
you should have read his first letter. If it didn't ring right, why, you
could have jumped the traces. I don't believe he did anything wrong at
all. It isn't in the man's blood to do anything underboard."
"But I _saw_ her," a queer look in her eyes as she glanced up at him.
"I don't care a kioodle if you did. Take it from me, it was a put-up job
by that Calabrian woman. She might have gone to his room for any number of
harmless things. But I think she was curious."
"Why didn't she come to me, if she wanted to ask questions?"
"I can see you answering 'em. She probably just wanted to know if you were
married or not. She might have been in love with him, and then she might
not. These Italians don't know half the time what they're about, anyhow.
But I don't believe it of Courtlandt. He doesn't line up that way.
Besides, he's got eyes. You're a thousand times more attractive. He's no
fool. Know what I think? As she was coming out she saw _you_ at your door;
and the devil in her got busy."
Nora rose, flung her arms around him and kissed him.
"Look out for that tin ear!"
"Oh, you great big, loyal, true-hearted man! Open that door and let me get
out to the terrace. I want to sing, sing!"
"He said he was going to Milan in the morning."
She danced to the door and was gone.
"Nora!" he called, impatiently. He listened in vain for the sound of her
return. "Well, I'll take the count when it comes to guessing what a
woman's going to do. I'll go out and square up with the old girl. Wonder
how this news will harness up with her social bug?"
Courtlandt got into his compartment at Varenna. He had tipped the guard
liberally not to open the door for any one else, unless the train was
crowded. As the shrill blast of the conductor's horn sounded the warning
of "all aboard," the door opened and a heavily veiled woman got in
hurriedly. The train began to move instantly. The guard slammed the door
and latched it. Courtlandt sighed: the futility of trusting these
Italians, of trying to buy their loyalty! The woman was without any
luggage whatever, not even the usual magazine. She was dressed in brown,
her hat was brown, her veil, her gloves, her shoes. But whether she was
young or old was beyond his deduction. He opened his _Corriere_ and held
it before his eyes; but he found reading impossible. The newspaper finally