U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [140]
and said when he was taking her home from the opera where they'd seen Manon that his wife didn't under-stand their relations and was making scenes and threaten-ing to divorce him. Eleanor was indignant and said she
-353-must have a very coarse nature not to understand that their relations were pure as driven snow. J.W. said she had and that he was very worried and he explained that most of the capital invested in his agency was his mother-in-law's and that she could bankrupt him if she wanted to, which was much worse than a divorce. At that Eleanor felt very cold and crisp and said that she would rather go out of his life entirely than break up his home and that he owed something to his lovely children. J.W. said she was his inspiration and he had to have her in his life and when they got back to Eighth Street they walked back and forth in Eleanor's white glittering drawing-room in the heavy smel of lilies wondering what could be done. They smoked many cigarettes but they couldn't seem to come to any decision. When J.W. left he said with a sigh, "She may have detectives shadowing me this very minute," and he went away very despondent. After he'd gone Eleanor walked back and forth in front of the long Venetian mirror between the windows. She didn't know what to do. The decorating business was barely breaking even. She had the amortization to pay off on the house on Sutton Place. The rent of her apart-ment was two months overdue and there was her fur coat to pay for. She'd counted on the thousand dol ars' worth of shares J.W. had said would be hers if he made the kil ing he expected in that Venezuela Oil stock. Something must have gone wrong or else he would have spoken of it. When Eleanor went to bed she didn't sleep. She felt very miserable and lonely. She'd have to go back to the drudgery of a department store. She was losing her looks and her friends and now if she had to give up J.W. it would be terrible. She thought of her colored maid
Augustine with her unfortunate loves that she always told Eleanor about and she wished she'd been like that. Maybe she'd been wrong from the start to want every-thing so justright and beautiful. She didn't cry but she
-354-lay al night with her eyes wide and smarting staring at the flowered molding round the ceiling that she could see in the light that filtered in from the street through her lavender tul e curtains.
A couple of days later at the office she was looking at some antique Spanish chairs an old furniture dealer was trying to sel her when a telegram came: DISAGREEABLE
DEVELOPMENTS MUST SEE YOU INADVISABLE USE TELEPHONE MEET ME TEA FIVE OCLOCK
PRINCE GEORGE HOTEL
It wasn't signed. She told the man to leave the chairs and when he'd gone stood a long time looking down at a pot of lavender crocuses with yel ow pistils she had on her desk. She was wondering if it would do any good if she went out to Great Neck and talked to Gertrude Moore-house. She cal ed Miss Lee who was making up some cur-tains in the other room and asked her to take charge of the office and that she'd phone during the afternoon. She got into a taxi and went up to the Pennsylvania Station. It was a premature Spring day. People were walk-ing along the street with their overcoats unbuttoned. The sky was a soft mauve with frail clouds like milkweed floss. In the smel of furs and overcoats and exhausts and bundledup bodies came an unexpected scent of birchbark. Eleanor sat bolt upright in the back of the taxi driving her sharp nails into the palms of her graygloved hands. She hated these treacherous days when winter felt like Spring. They made the lines come out on her face, made everything seem to crumble about her, there seemed to be no firm footing any more. She'd go out and talk to Gertrude Moorehouse as one woman to another. A scandal would ruin everything. If she talked to her a while she'd make her realize that there had never been anything between her and J.W. A divorce scandal would ruin
everything. She'd lose her clients and have to go into bankruptcy and the only thing to do would be to go back to Pul man to live with her uncle and aunt.