"Oh, thank God for one clean woman in
this dirty world!"
He caught her bruised hand and began to kiss it and pour tears on it.
And she looked down at his beautiful bent head and laid her other
hand on it in benison.
It is one way of reconciling families.
Cheever was so filled with remorse that he was tempted to write
Jim Dyckman a note of apology. That was one of the few temptations
he ever resisted.
Now he was going to kill everybody who had been dastard enough
to believe and spread the scandal he had so easily believed himself.
But he would have had to begin with Zada. He was afraid of Zada. He
enjoyed a few days of honeymoon with Charity.
He dodged Zada on the telephone, and he gave Mr. Hudspeth
instructions to say that he was always out in case of a call
from "Miss You Know."
"I know," Mr. Hudspeth answered.
One morning, at an incredibly early hour for Zada, she walked into
his office and asked Mr. Hudspeth to retire--also the suspiciously
good-looking stenographer. Then Zada said:
"Peterkin, it's time you came home."
His laugh was hard and sharp. She took out a little weapon. She had
managed to evade the Sullivan law against the purchase or possession
of weapons. Peter was nauseated. Zada was calm.
"Peterkin," she said, "did you read yesterday about that woman who
shot a man and then herself?"
Peter had read it several times recently--the same story with
different names. It had long been a fashionable thing: the disprized
lover murders the disprizing lover and then executes the murderer.
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