But in the meantime, what about friends?  “I’m lazy,” she thought, “I’m not facing it!  I’m just putting it off—­and it’s dangerous!” For Joe was out so much at night.  Over half the time he did not get home until the children were in bed, and often after a hurried dinner he would leave by eight o’clock—­for business appointments, he told her, at some club or some cafe.  He was putting through another big deal.  At times, despite her efforts, angry suspicions would arise.  He was dealing with some men from the West.  No doubt they had to be entertained.  She had heard a little of such entertaining from travelling men she had known at home.  “Oh, Ethel Lanier, don’t be so disgusting!” But after all, a man so tense all day in his office needed some gaiety at night.

She began to suggest going out in the evenings.  They went to “Butterfly” and “Louise,” and each evening was a great success.  But within a few days Fanny Carr called up and asked them to dinner and the play.  Ethel made some excuse and declined.  She did not mention it to Joe, but that night he said gruffly, “Sorry you turned Fanny down.”  And Ethel looked at him with a start.  So Joe was seeing her these days!

“I haven’t been feeling very strong, Joe,” she said in an unnatural tone.

“You’ve been to the opera twice this week,” was her husband’s grim rejoinder.

And this was only one little instance of many that made Ethel sure that Fanny Carr was still about.  She was getting at Joe through his business side, going to his office.  She had asked him to sell her house on Long Island, and through this transaction she had tangled him into her affairs.  A lone woman, defenceless in business, needing the aid and advice of a man.  “Oh, I can almost hear her lay it on—­her helplessness!” And Ethel fairly ground her teeth.  For Fanny, only the day before, having called and noticed that a sofa and a rug were missing, had asked to what dealer Ethel had sold them.  “Now,” thought Ethel, “she’ll buy them herself, and then she’ll ask Joe to drop in for tea at her hotel apartment—­’on business,’ of course-but the rug and sofa will be there!  Poor Amy’s things!  Oh, yes, indeed, Fanny is clever enough!  If only she would take his money—­and get out and leave us alone!” Ethel had some lonely grapples with life.  She was right, she angrily told herself, in wanting to go slowly until she could discover real friends; but on the other hand she admitted that Joe had reason for being impatient.  At thirty-seven it is hard for a man to change his habits, and Amy had accustomed Joe to crave excitement every night.  Even Ethel herself, in some of her moods, felt restless to go about and be gay.  And again and again the youth in her rebelled against the trap into which she had fallen.

“The minute I even propose a play, I show him I’m well enough to go out.  And then he asks, ‘Why not Amy’s friends?’ And he remembers the mean little things that Fanny Carr must have told him—­the beast!—­and so he says, ’I see it all.  Ethel is only bluffing.  Now that I’m rich she’s trying to make me drop the friends and the memory of the wife who stood by me when I was poor.’”