If Kedzie had known how much Charity was having done for her she
would have had a colic of envy. But she slept while Charity could
not. Charity could not pay anybody to sleep for her or stay awake
for her, or love or kiss for her, and her wealth could not buy the
fidelity of the one man whose fidelity she wanted to own.
Charity had done work that Kedzie would have flinched from. Charity
had lived in a field hospital and roughed it to a loathsome degree.
She had washed the faces and bodies of grimy soldiers from the bloody
ditches of the war-front; she had been chambermaid to gas-blinded
peasants and had done the hideous chores that follow operations. Now
with a maid to change her slippers and a secretary to make up her
mind, and a score of servants within call, she was afraid that she
had squandered her substance in spendthrift alms. She was a prodigal
benefactress returned from her good works too late, perhaps. She
wondered and took stock of her charms. She rather underrated them.
Peter Cheever had been extravagantly gallant the morning after
her return from the mountains. He had added the last perfect tribute
of suspicion and jealousy. They had even breakfasted together. She
had dragged herself down to the dining-room, and he had neglected
his morning paper, and lingered for mere chatter. He had telephoned
from his office to ask her for the noon hour, too. He had taken her
to the Bankers' Club for luncheon in the big Blue Room.
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