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Updated: June 13, 2025
She saw that Cheever's affair with Zada had settled down to a state of comfort, of halcyon delight. It had taken on domestication. He was at home with her and an alien in Charity's home. He told the woman his business affairs and little office jokes. He laughed with a purity of cheer that he had long lost in his legal establishment.
When he had gone Charity got up and washed her hands, particularly the hand, particularly the spot, he had kissed. She seemed to feel that some of the rouge from Zada's lips had been left there by Cheever's lips. There was a red stain there and she could not wash it away. Perhaps it was there because she tried so hard to rub it off.
She was delicious. When Dyckman learned of Cheever's extra establishment it enraged him. He had let Cheever push him aside and carry off Charity Coe, and now he must watch Cheever push Charity Coe aside and carry on the next choice of his whims. To Dyckman, Charity was perfection. To lose her and find her in the ash-barrel with Cheever's other discarded dolls was intolerable.
Her first thought had been that Cheever had met with an accident and that Dyckman was bringing the news. She had given up the hope of involving Dyckman with Mrs. Cheever, after wasting Cheever's money on vain detectives. When Dyckman was ushered in she greeted him from her divan. "Pardon my negligee," she said. "I'm not very well." He saw at a glance that the dictagraph had told the truth.
It was enforced on Charity that it was she and not Zada who had been the inspirer and the victim of Cheever's flitting appetite. It was Zada and not she who had won him to the calm, the dignity, the sincerity, the purity that make marriage marriage. It was a hard lesson for Charity, and she did not know what she ought to do with her costly knowledge. She could only listen.
It may be interesting to outline the procedure as a social document in chicanery, or social surgery, as one wills to call it. McNiven first laid under Charity's eyes a summons and complaint against Peter Cheever. She glanced over it and found it true except that Zada L'Etoile was not named; Cheever's alleged income was vastly larger than she imagined, and her claim for alimony was exorbitant.
He did not explain that he carried two or three visible fist marks from Cheever's knuckles which he did not wish to exhibit in a public restaurant. So Kedzie dined at home in solitary gloom. She had only herself for guest and found herself most stupid company. She dined in her bathrobe and began immediately after dinner to dress for conquest.
I've been wondering how long you would stand Cheever's scandalous behavior, and how long you could be convinced that you were helping the morals of the world by condoning and encouraging such immorality. Now that you've brought your troubles to my shop I'm going to help you if I can. But I don't want to get you or myself into the clutches of the law.
But there was little danger of Peter Cheever's being found so near his wife. "Tell her that wastes her time and me," kept running through Jim's head. He was furious at Charity for wasting so much of him. He had followed her about and moped at her closed door like a stray dog. And she had never even thrown him a bone. A wave ran up on the beach and seemed to try to embrace the earth, possess it.
She remembered Cheever's purchase of the theater tickets, and she was startled with an intuition that he would take his wife in her place. Men are capable of such indecent economies. Zada was suffocated with rage at the possibility. She always believed implicitly in the worst things she could think of. If Peter Cheever dared do such a thing! And of course he would! Well, she would just find out!
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