She did not suspect Cheever of treason to her.
That was so odious that she simply could not give it thought room.
She stumbled on a newspaper article, the same perennial essay in
recurrence, to the effect that many wives lose their husbands by
neglect of their own charms. It was full of advice as to the tricks
by which a woman may lure her spouse back to the hearth and fasten
him there, combining domestic vaudeville with an interest in his
business, but relying above all on keeping Cupid's torch alight by
being Delilah every day.
Charity Coe was startled. She wondered if she were losing Cheever
by neglecting herself. She began to pay more heed to her dress
and her hats, her hair, her complexion, her smile, her general
attractiveness.
Cheever noticed the strange alteration, and it bewildered him. He
could not imagine why his wife was flirting with him. She made it
harder for him to get away to Zada, but far more eager to. He did
not like Charity at all, in that impersonation. Neither did Charity.
She hated herself after a day or two of wooing her official wooer.
"You ought to be arrested," she told her mirror-self.
There were plays and novels that counseled a neglected wife to show
an interest in another man. Charity was tempted to use Jim Dyckman
as a decoy for her own wild duck; but Dyckman had sailed away in
his new yacht, on a cruise with his yacht club.
The gossip did not die in his absence. It oozed along like a dark
stream of fly-gathering molasses.
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