Frontispiece

Brock 24

Katherine 44

"She began to detect a decided
falling off in his ardour" 74

"'I _do_ love you,' she said simply" 98

THE HUSBANDS OF EDITH

CHAPTER I

HUSBANDS AND WIFE

Brock was breakfasting out-of-doors in the cheerful little garden of the
Hotel Chatham. The sun streamed warmly upon the concrete floor of the
court just beyond the row of palms and oleanders that fringed the rail
against which his _Herald_ rested, that he might read as he ran, so to
speak. He was the only person having _dejeuner_ on the "terrace," as he
named it to the obsequious waiter who always attended him. Charles was
the magnet that drew Brock to the Chatham (that excellent French hotel
with the excellent English name). It is beside the question to remark
that one is obliged to reverse the English when directing a _cocher_ to
the Chatham. The Paris cabman looks blank and more than usually
unintelligent when directed to drive to the Chatham, but his face
radiates with joy when his fare is inspired to substitute Sha-_t'am_,
with distinct emphasis on the final syllable. Then he cracks his whip
and lashes his sorry nag, with passive appreciation of his own
astuteness, all the way to the Rue Daunou. The street is so short that
he almost invariably takes one to _it_ instead of to the hotel itself.
But one must say Sha-_t'am_!

Charles was standing, alert but pensive, quite near at hand, ready to
replenish the bowl with honey (Brock was especially fond of it), but
with his eyes cocked inquiringly, even eagerly, in the direction of an
upstairs window across the court, beyond which a thoughtless guest of
the establishment was making her toilette in blissful ignorance of the
fact that the flimsy curtains were not tightly drawn. Brock had gone to
the Chatham for years just because Charles was a fixture there. Charles
spoke the most execrably picturesque English, served with a
punctiliousness that savoured almost of the overbearing, and boasted
that he had acquired the art of making American cocktails in the Waldorf
during a five weeks' residence in the United States.

It was a lazy morning. Brock was happy. He was even interested when a
porter came forth and unravelled a long roll of garden hose, with which
he abruptly began to splash water upon the con