I tried to explain. But all my explanations only seemed to make the case worse for me. Lucy was furiously jealous. We really had a devil of a row before we were through with it. I tried to tell her that I loved no one but her. She pointed out that I must have said much the same sort of thing to Emma. She said she was almost as sorry for Emma as she was for herself. When Lucy got through with me, Tom, I looked like thirty cents and felt like twenty-five of that was plugged.
"I didn't have sense enough to know that it was most of it grief over her grandfather, and nerves and hysteria, and the fact that she was only eighteen years old and lonely, and that being a bride had a certain amount to do with it. She had told me that I was a beast, and made me feel like one; and Itook the whole thing hard and believed her. Imade a fine, five-act tragedy out of a jealous fit I might have softened into comedy if I had had the wit.
"I wasn't so very old myself, and I hadn't ever been married before. I should have kept my mouth shut until it was all over, and then when she began to cry I should have coaxed her up and made her feel like I was the only solid thing to hang on to in the whole world.
"But the bottom had dropped out of the uni-verse for me. She had said she hated me. I was fool enough to believe her. I went downtown and began to drink. I come home late that night.
The poor girl had been waiting up for me--waiting for hours, and becoming more and more frightened when I didn't show up. She was over her jealous fit, I suppose. If I had come home in good shape, or in anything like it, we would have made up then and there. But my condition stopped all that.
I wasn't so drunk but that I saw her face change when she let me in. She was disgusted.
"In the morning I was sick and feverish. I was more than disgusted with myself. I was in despair.
If she had hated me before--and she had said she did--what must she do now? It seemed to me that I had sunk so far beneath her that it would take years to get back. It didn't seem worth while making any plea for myself. You see, I was young and had serious streaks all through me. So when she told me that she had written home again, and was going back--was going to leave me, I didn't see that it was only a bluff. I didn't see that she was really only waiting to forgive me, if I gave her a chance. I started downtown to the building and loan office, wondering when she would leave, and if there was anything I could do to make her change her mind. I must repeat again that I was a fool--that I needed only to speak one word, had I but known it.
"If I had gone straight to work, everything might have come around all right even then. But Ididn't. I had that what's-the-use feeling. And Istopped in at the Palmer House bar to get some-thing to sort of pull me together.
"While I was there, who should come up to the bar and order a drink but Prent McMakin.""Yes!" says Colonel Tom, as near excited as he ever got.
"Yes," says Armstrong, "nobody else. We saw each other in the mirror behind the bar. I don't know whether you ever noticed it or not, Tom, but McMakin's eyes had a way of looking almost like cross-eyes when he was startled or excited. They were a good deal too near together at any time.
He gave me such a look when our eyes met in the mirror that, for an instant, I thought that he in-tended to do me some mischief--shoot me, you know, for taking his bride-to-be away from him, or some fool thing like that. But as we turned toward each other I saw he had no intention of that sort.""Hadn't he?" says Colonel Tom, mighty in-terested.
"No," says the doctor, looking at Colonel Tom very puzzled, "did you think he had?""Yes, I did," says the colonel, right thoughtful.
"On the contrary," says Armstrong, "we had a drink together. And he congratulated me. Made me quite a little speech, in fact; one of the flowery kind, you know, Tom, and said that he bore me no rancour, and all that.""The deuce he did!" says Colonel Tom, very low, like he was talking to himself. "And then what?""Then," says the doctor, "then--let me see--it's all a long time ago, you know, and McMakin's part in the whole thing isn't really important.""I'm not so sure it isn't important," says the colonel, "but go on.""Then," says Armstrong, "we had another drink together. In fact, a lot of them. We got awfully friendly. And like a fool I told him of my quarrel with Lucy.""LIKE a fool," says Colonel Tom, nodding his head. "Go on.""There isn't much more to tell," says the doctor, "except that I made a worse idiot of myself yet, and left McMakin about two o'clock in the after-noon, as near as I can recollect. Somewhere about ten o'clock that night I went home. Lucy was gone. I haven't seen her since.""Dave," says Colonel Tom, "did McMakin happen to mention to you, that day, just why he was in Chicago?""I suppose so," says the doctor. "I don't know.
Maybe not. That was twenty years ago. Why?""Because," says Colonel Tom, very grim and quiet, "because your first thought as to his intention when he met you in the bar was MY idea also. Ithought he went to Chicago to settle with you.
You see, I got to Chicago that same afternoon.""The same day?"
