children and sick wife, Johnny Farr the errand boy with a widowed mother, Miss Gaye the assistant secretary who wore bargain-counter clothes and chewed incessant gum. Arla! Arla? Had Arla contributed to that basket of fruit, too? He cast a quick look at her, his wife, swaying there in the doorway looking white and miserable. Could it be possible that those poor wretches had asked Arla to contribute to a voyage gift for her rival? He had a passing sense of what it might have meant to her to be asked. The whiteness of her face showed she was not enjoying the festive array. Just for an instant he forgot his own annoyance and realized sharply what all this might have been to her. And yet how well she had gone through with it! So confidently, almost radiantly. It had been maddening to have her so confident, when she had dared to interfere, yet somehow it had also stirred his pride in her. After all, she was beautiful. No one could deny that! But she had gone beyond all limits in coming there to the house and precipitating this disaster. Yes, disaster! It meant destruction to his well-laid financial plans. And no matter how lovely this unsought bride might be, how well she might carry off her position as his wife, that could not offset the fact that he had in himself no position for her to carry off. It had all been a big bluff dependent on Miss Patricia Catherwood’s fortune. And what he was to do now remained to be seen. However crazy he might always have been about Arla, that did not alter the fact that he cared for money and position more than he cared for any living woman. And he had in his mind the comfortable realization that he could always get the adoration of another girl if one failed him, or became for the time unwise.
Arla rallied her self-control and quietly entered in the wake of the bags, drifting unobserved into a corner until the steward had left and they were alone.
Carter readjusted the baggage, placing his own suitcase on top impatiently. He was one who always expected those serving to anticipate his slightest unexpressed wishes. He swung savagely around to Arla, stranded pitifully by the door, her arrogance and initiative all gone now, nothing but a frightened look in her eyes. She knew his moods. She understood that her time had come to pay for what she had done.
“Well, if that’s what you wanted, there you have plenty of it!” he said, waving his hand toward the gifts. “Enjoy it while you can. It’ll probably be the last you’ll see of this sort of thing. If you could only have made up your mind to wait awhile, we might have had all this and more!”
The frightened look faded from Arla’s eyes and lightning came instead. Her lips grew thin and hard. She turned away from him haughtily and busied herself removing her gloves. She looked very handsome and angry as she stood there not listening to him. He could not but see how smart she looked, how becoming her clothes. She knew how to dress. If only he could weather this crisis somehow, things might not be so bad after all. She really knew how to wear her clothes just as well as Sherrill, could perhaps make an appearance to suit his pride. And of course she was beautiful, of much the same type as Sherrill. That was what had attracted him to Sherrill in the first place—that she had reminded him of Arla. And perhaps Arla could learn. She could get rid of her provincialism. She had learned a lot already. But the money! If he only could be sure—!
He swung around and began to fumble with the baggage, stowing one big suitcase that contained his wedding garments back under the bed. Swinging another down and shoving it after. Of course the steward would attend to all that presently, but it suited him to be stirring, throwing things around. This was an awkward moment; various emotions were striving within him.
Arla stood where she had first entered, pulling off her long gloves deliberately, finger by finger, smoothing them carefully, thoughtfully. She was struggling to keep from bursting into tears.
The steward tapped at the door, and Arla made no move to answer it, but moved away and stood staring out of the porthole at the panorama of harbor lights. Already they were moving out