CHAPTER III

The guests made desperate efforts to pretend that they were unaware to pretend that they were unaware of the feud and at the same time to follow it. They were polite enough even to try to ignore the salt the wrathful Asaph had let slip into the ice-cream.

In the cheerful stampede for the dining-room Debby had crowded into a sofa alongside another re-visitor to the town, Newton Meldrum, whom she had known but slightly. He had gone with the older girls and had already left Carthage when Debby came out-as far as she ever came out before she went back.

Newt Meldrum had prospered, according to Carthage standards. He was now the "credit man" for a New York wholesale house. Debby had not the faintest idea what a credit man was. But Asaph knew all too well. As the owner of the largest department store in Carthage, Asaph owed the New York house more money than he could pay. He gave that as a reason for owing it still more. The New York house sent Meldrum out to Carthage to see whether it would be more profitable to close Asaph up or tide him over another season.

Asaph's wife chose this anxious moment to give a party to Birdaline! Asaph protested violently that it would make a bad impression on Meldrum to be seen giving parties when he could not pay his bills. But Josie was running a little social business of her own, and not to entertain Birdaline would be to go into voluntary bankruptcy. She could still get the necessary things charged-and to Josie getting a thing charged was just a little cheaper than getting it for nothing. It didn't put you under obligations, like accepting gifts. Asaph forbade her to give the party, but of course she gave it, anyway, and he was not brave enough to forbid the grocer to honor her requisitions.

Asaph had to invite Meldrum, and Josie announced that she would show how much a wife can help her husband; she promised to lavish on Meldrum especial consideration and to introduce him to some pretty girls (he was a notorious bachelor).

She forgot him at once for her ancient rivalry with Birdaline. And now Asaph forgot him in the excitement of quarrel.

Indeed, host and hostess ignored their fatal guest so completely that they left him to eat his supper alongside the least-considered woman in town-poor old "Dubby Debby."

Debby had long ago fallen out of the practice of expecting attention from anybody. To-night she was so grievously wounded that she forgot her custom of squandering the consideration she rarely got back. She said nothing to her elbow neighbor, but sat pondering her own shame and trying to extract some ice-cream from between the spots of salt. A few big tears had welled to her eyelids and dropped into her dish. She blamed herself for the salt. Then she heard her neighbor grumble:

"Say, Debby, is your ice-cream all salty?"

"Ye-es, it is," she murmured, fluttering.

"So's mine. Funny thing, there's always salt in the ice-cream. Ever noticed it?"

"Tha-that's so; there usually is-a little."

"A lot! That's life, I guess. Poor old Asaph! Plenty of salt in his ice-cream, eh? What's the matter with that wife of his, anyway? Aren't they happy together?"

"Oh, I guess they're as happy as married folks ever are," Debby answered, absently, and then gasped at the horrible philosophy she had uttered.

Meldrum threw her a glance and laughed.

Debby winced. He probably was saying to himself, "Sour grapes!" At least she thought he would think that. But she had not meant to be foxy. The fox in the fable had tried to leap to the grapes before he maligned them. Debby had hardly come near enough to them or made effort enough toward them to say that she had failed.

But Meldrum had not thought, "Sour grapes!" He only remembered that "Debby" was "Debby." In these returns to childhood circles one rarely knows what has happened between then and now. He remembered Debby as an ugly little brat of a girl, and he saw that she was still homely. But plenty of homely women were married. He proved his ignorance by his next words:

"You married, Debby?"

"N-no," she faltered, without daring even to venture a "not yet." He surprised her shame with a laughing compliment:

"Wise lady! Neither am I. Shake!"

Then she turned on the sofa so that she could see him better. His eyes were twinkling. He was handsome, citified, sleek, comfortable. Yet he had never married!

He was holding out his hand. And because it commanded hers she put hers in it, and he squeezed her long, fishy fin in a big, warm, comfortable palm. And she gave her timid, smiling eyes into his big, smiling stare and wondered why she smiled. But she liked it so much that fresh tears rushed to her eyelids-little eager, happy tears that could not have had much salt in them, for one or two of them bounced into her ice-cream. Yet it did not taste bitter now.

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