Baby Mine | Page 8

Aggie's orders, and, later on, when he "trundled off
to bed" alone, he again recalled that it was Zoie Hardy who was always
causing hard feeling between him and his spouse.
Some hours later, when Aggie reached home with misgivings because
Jimmy had not joined her, she was surprised to find him sleeping as
peacefully as a cherub. "Poor dear," she murmured, "I hope he wasn't
lonesome." And she stole away to her room.
The next morning when Aggie did not appear at the breakfast table,
Jimmy rushed to her room in genuine alarm. It was now Aggie's turn to
sleep peacefully; and he stole dejectedly back to the dining-room and
for the first time since their marriage, he munched his cold toast and
sipped his coffee alone.
So thoroughly was his life now disorganised, and so low were his
spirits that he determined to walk to his office, relying upon the crisp
morning air to brace him for the day's encounters. By degrees, he
regained his good cheer and as usual when in rising spirits, his mind
turned toward Aggie. The second anniversary of their wedding was fast
approaching--he began to take notice of various window displays. By
the time he had reached his office, the weightiest decision on his mind
lay in choosing between a pearl pendant and a diamond bracelet for his
now adorable spouse.
But a more difficult problem awaited him. Before he was fairly in his
chair, the telephone bell rang violently. Never guessing who was at the
other end of the wire, he picked up his receiver and answered.
"What?" he exclaimed in surprise. "Mrs. Hardy?" Several times he
opened his lips to ask a question, but it was apparent that the person at
the other end of the line had a great deal to say and very little time to
say it, and it was only after repeated attempts that he managed to get in
a word or so edgewise.
"What's happened?" he asked.

"Say nothing to anybody," was Zoie's noncommittal answer, "not even
to Aggie. Jump in a taxi and come as quickly as you can."
"But what IS it?" persisted Jimmy. The dull sound of the wire told him
that the person at the other end had "hung up."
Jimmy gazed about the room in perplexity. What was he to do? Why on
earth should he leave his letters unanswered and his mail topsy turvy to
rush forth in the shank of the morning at the bidding of a young woman
whom he abhorred. Ridiculous! He would do no such thing. He lit a
cigar and began to open a few letters marked "private." For the life of
him he could not understand one word that he read. A worried look
crossed his face.
"Suppose Zoie were really in need of help, Aggie would certainly never
forgive him if he failed her." He rose and walked up and down.
"Why was he not to tell Aggie?"
"Where was Alfred?" He stopped abruptly. His over excited
imagination had suggested a horrible but no doubt accurate answer.
"Wedded to an abomination like Zoie, Alfred had sought the only
escape possible to a man of his honourable ideals--he had committed
suicide."
Seizing his coat and hat Jimmy dashed through the outer office without
instructing his astonished staff as to when he might possibly return.
"Family troubles," said the secretary to himself as he appropriated one
of Jimmy's best cigars.
CHAPTER IV
LESS than half an hour later, Jimmy's taxi stopped in front of the
fashionable Sherwood Apartments where Zoie had elected to live.
Ascending toward the fifth floor he scanned the face of the elevator boy
expecting to find it particularly solemn because of the tragedy that had
doubtless taken place upstairs. He was on the point of sending out a

"feeler" about the matter, when he remembered Zoie's solemn
injunction to "say nothing to anybody." Perhaps it was even worse than
suicide. He dared let his imagination go no further. By the time he had
put out his hand to touch the electric button at Zoie's front door, his
finger was trembling so that he wondered whether he could hit the
mark. The result was a very faint note from the bell, but not so faint
that it escaped the ear of the anxious young wife, who had been pacing
up and down the floor of her charming living room for what seemed to
her ages.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Zoie cried through her tears to her neat little
maid servant, then reaching for her chatelaine, she daubed her small
nose and flushed cheeks with powder, after which she nodded to Mary
to open the door.
To Jimmy, the maid's pert "good-morning" seemed to be in very bad
taste and to properly reprove her he assumed