the activity kept her occupied. It kept her mind off a frightening fact. A fact so personal she didn't know how to discuss it; there was no one to whom she felt close enough.
Her husband no longer spoke to her.
He had left her bed in her third month of pregnancy. In the south of France, to be exact. He had refused to have intercourse on the assumption that her miscarriage had been brought on by sex. She had wanted sex. She had wanted it desperately. She had wanted his body on hers because it was the only time she felt close to him. The only time her husband appeared to her to be without guile, without deceit, without the cold manipulation in his eyes. But even this was denied her.
Then he left their communal room, insisting upon separate rooms wherever they went.
And now he neither answered her questions nor asked any of his own.
He ignored her.
He was silent.
He was, if she wanted to be honest with herself, contemptuous of her.
He hated her.
Janet Saxon Scarlett. A reasonably intelligent product of Vassar. A graduate of the Pierre cotillions and a sane habitue of the hunt clubs. And always, always wondering why it was she and not someone else who enjoyed the privileges she had.
Not that she ever disclaimed them. She didn't. And perhaps she was entitled to them. God knew she was a 'looker.' Everyone had said it for as long as she could remember. But she was what her mother always complained about - an observer.
'You never really enter into things, Janet! You must try to get over that!'
But it was hard to 'get over.' She looked upon her life as two sides of a stereopticon - both different, yet merging into one focus. On one plate was the well-appointed young lady with impeccable credentials, enormous wealth, and an obviously assured future with some well-appointed, enormously wealthy, impeccably credentialed husband. On the other was a girl with a frown on her forehead and questioning look in her eyes.
For this girl thought the world was larger than a confined world presented to her. Larger and far more compelling. But no one had allowed her to see that larger world.
Except her husband.
And the part of it he let her see - forced her to see - was terrifying.
Which is why she drank.
. While preparations for the birth continued, aided by a steady stream of Janet's friends and family, a strange passivity came over Ulster Stewart Scarlett. It was discernible especially to those who observed him closely, but even to others it was apparent that he had slowed down his normally frantic pace. He was quieter, less volatile, sometimes reflective. And for a while his periods of going off by himself became more frequent. Never very long, just three or four days at a time. Many, like Chancellor Drew, attributed it to impending fatherhood.
'I tell you, Mother, it's simply wonderful. He's a new man! And you know, I told him having children was the answer. Gives a man a purpose. You watch, when it's all over he'll be ready for a real man's job!'
'You have an acute ability to grasp the obvious, Chancellor. Your brother is quite convinced that he has a purpose in avoiding what you call a real man's job. I suspect he's bored to death by his imminent role as a father. Or he's drinking bad whiskey.'
'You're too hard on him.'
'Quite the contrary,' interrupted Elizabeth Scarlatti. 'I think he's become far too hard on us.'
Chancellor Drew looked bewildered. He changed the subject and began to read aloud a report of Scarwyck's newest project.
A week later a male child was born to Janet Scarlett at the French Hospital. Ten days later at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine he was christened Andrew Roland Scarlett.
And a day after the christening, Ulster Stewart Scarlett disappeared.
Chapter Eleven
At first no one took much notice. Ulster had stayed away from home before. Although it was not the conventional behavior of a new father, Ulster hardly fit into any conventional pattern. It was presumed that the tribal rites attending the birth of a male child proved just too much for him and that he had taken refuge in activities best left undescribed. When after three weeks no word had been heard from him and no satisfactory explanations furnished by a variety of people, the family became concerned. On the twenty fifth day after his disappearance, Janet asked Chancellor to call the police. Instead Chancellor called Elizabeth, which