The Unsuspected Read Online Free PDF Page A

converse. Recite.  
     
    “Your husband," said the red-haired man.
     
    Mathilda didn't move, didn't say anything. It took all her training to stand so still. The thought of Oliver broke through and flooded her whole mind. Could it be Oliver who was waiting at the pier?
     
    By some miracle, restored to her? As if Althea had never so easily, so almost lazily, reached out and taken him away? Her heart pounded.
     
    "All I'm asking is: Do you confirm it or deny?" said the red-haired man in a rapid mutter. "How about it, Mrs. Howard? Can I take that blush—"
     
    Mathilda said, "If you'll excuse me, please." She looked full at him, although she couldn't see his face. She could feel her lips mechanically smiling.
     
    "What goes on?" said the female one, abruptly popping up beside them.
     
    The red-haired man was sending Mathilda a hurt, reproachful look, but she didn't see it. She said again, still smiling, "Won't you please excuse me now?"
     
    "O.K." said the red-haired man. "O.K." But he said it as if he were saying, "All right for you."
     
    Mathilda went and sat quietly in a corner of the deck. "Such a nice, quiet girl," Mrs. Stevens had told the reporters. "Such a little lady. Why, not the least bit conscious of all that money. We have become very close friends," said Mrs. Stevens, with plenty of con-
    sciousness of all that money.
     
    So the Stevenses came and fluttered around her, all talking at once, promising to look her up, never to forget her, begging her to promise them the same. Mathilda kept promising.
     
    But the whole thing was back now in full force. Just as strong as if she'd never been shipwrecked and carried away to Africa, half the world away. She could see, bitterly, Oliver's face as it had been two days before their wedding day, when he had come in and been so strangely silent. She had babbled innocently along, happily, naively, all unwarned, unprepared, about who had sent what present, about such silly little things. And at last, when she'd stopped the chatter, puzzled, he'd said, “Tyl, are you happy?" And she'd been so startled. The whole thing had caught her in the throat She'd finally answered in the extravagant language she never naturally used, simply because it meant too much; she couldn't answer him otherwise. She'd turned her back and cried, "Darling, of course, I'm just about out of my mind with happiness! Aren't you?"
     
    He'd said, "Well, don't worry," in that flat blunt voice that wasn't like Oliver at all. And when, in surprise, she'd turned around, he'd been gone. Gone.
     
    Nor had she, even then, understood anything. How dumb! How could she have been so dumb? Stupid. Blind. Dumb. Did she crack wise? Oh, no, not she! Not dumb-bunny Mathilda, the ugly duckling with all the money.
     
    Grandy'd had to take her aside into his study that night, with only one dim light, she remembered. Sitting beside her in the shadows, he'd told her in his gentlest voice, "Tyl, darling, I think this belated honesty of Oliver's is lucky for you. Oh, I realize that you
    won't see beyond the surface humiliation and it's true. Oliver ought to have told you more directly. Poor duckling. But this superficial blow to your pride is nothing, nothing. You must believe me. Someday you will know that this is right. Someday you will know that
    Oliver, however clumsily he's done it, hasn't really done you wrong."
     
    Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But Oliver was lost and there was a whole structure of dream and plan that tumbled down. And she had to learn all over again to be alone. And why did it have to be Althea? Damn her. Oh, damn her.
     
    All her remembered life, Althea had been there with that power to take away. Never had Tyl had a glow, a hint of success, of happiness, that Althea hadn't somehow been able to dim it or put it out. Poor penniless Althea, who was so beautiful. Tyl ground her teeth.
     
    "Nor must you blame Althea," Grandy'd said. "You must be charitable, my dear. She was in love."
     
    “I know,"