Her eyes narrowed. "That's not exactly the Law and the Prophets, is it?"
"It's the truth. To think of selecting out of all the world one woman, and
electing to spend the rest of one's days with her! Although--"
His eyes looked past Carlotta into distance.
"Sidney Page was one of the bridesmaids," he said irrelevantly. "She was
lovelier than the bride."
"Pretty, but stupid," said Carlotta. "I like her. I've really tried to
teach her things, but--you know--" She shrugged her shoulders.
Dr. Max was learning wisdom. If there was a twinkle in his eye, he veiled
it discreetly. But, once again in the machine, he bent over and put his
cheek against hers.
"You little cat! You're jealous," he said exultantly.
Nevertheless, although he might smile, the image of Sidney lay very close
to his heart those autumn days. And Carlotta knew it.
Sidney came off night duty the middle of November. The night duty had been
a time of comparative peace to Carlotta. There were no evenings when Dr.
Max could bring Sidney back to the hospital in his car.
Sidney's half-days at home were occasions for agonies of jealousy on
Carlotta's part. On such an occasion, a month after the wedding, she could
not contain herself. She pleaded her old excuse of headache, and took the
trolley to a point near the end of the Street. After twilight fell, she
slowly walked the length of the Street. Christine and Palmer had not
returned from their wedding journey. The November evening was not cold,
and on the little balcony sat Sidney and Dr. Max. K. was there, too, had
she only known it, sitting back in the shadow and saying little, his steady
eyes on Sidney's profile.
But this Carlotta did not know. She went on down the Street in a frenzy of
jealous anger.
After that two ideas ran concurrent in Carlotta's mind: one was to get
Sidney out of the way, the other was to make Wilson propose to her. In her
heart she knew that on the first depended the second.
A week later she made the same frantic excursion, but with a different
result. Sidney was not in sight, or Wilson. But standing on the wooden
doorstep of the little house was Le Moyne. The ailanthus trees were bare at
that time, throwing gaunt arms upward to the November sky. The
street-lamp, which in the summer left the doorstep in the shadow, now shone
through the branches and threw into strong relief Le Moyne's tall figure
and set face. Carlotta saw him too late to retreat. But he did not see
her. She went on, startled, her busy brain scheming anew. Another element
had entered into her plotting. It was the first time she had known that K.
lived in the Page house. It gave her a sense of uncertainty and deadly
fear.