Рауль Уитфилд - Sinners' Paradise

Hobart Sickler grinned broadly at his wife. But Helene Sickler did not manage her usual smile in return. It was a bit beyond her this morning.

“Scotch,” Hobey stated in a placid voice, “is a bad drink for women of your type, Pinky.”

Pinky was Hobart’s pet name for his wife. She possessed such cute little toes, and there had been a time, two years ago, when he had delighted in sitting on the edge of her bed and playing with them. Pinky had come, somehow, out of this habit.

“My type?” Helene’s voice was a trifle weary. “Why my type in particular?”

Hobey chuckled. He was rather inclined towards a definite stoutness, and it seemed to Helene that in the last year he had dropped back into his old ways-before marriage ways.

“You’re too temperamental,” he stated lazily. “It affects you too much.”

Helene remained silent. Her head was splitting, and she felt completely exhausted. And then, in spite of these facts, she remembered that tonight Jimmy Weare was giving a party at the Romany Inn. She smiled.

“Run along to your business, Hobey,” she returned sarcastically. “You are late as it is-and with the weather bad it will take you an hour to get in.”

Her husband smiled. “Shall I return tonight,” he asked casually, “so that I may write a few cheques for you, dear?”

But Helene was not up to his jocular mood, and she missed completely the heavy undertone of his words. Hobart Sickler was near the edge-and his wife did not notice it.

He rose leisurely from his chair at the table in the breakfast-room. Thirty-five, a trifle flabby, too good-natured, Hobart was not a particularly imposing human. But he was not as stupid as his wife imagined. For a year now he had been observing Pinky in the process of breaking loose, and had not interfered. But now-

“Leave me the closed car,” she was saying in her morning-weary tone. “Delatante’s coming over later. He’s found an old farmhouse somewhere on the Island-and he wants to show me some antiques.”

Hobey frowned. “Antiques?” he said slowly. “Are they so rare in these parts?”

His implication was obvious, but Helene disregarded it with a sigh. Delatante dabbled in art, painted a bit-it was even rumoured that one of his oils had been exhibited in Boston. He was tall, dark and handsome-and quite consistently broke.

But that never seemed to matter. He travelled with the exclusive, lively element of Long Island. He borrowed a limousine here or there; somehow he always managed to get everywhere. Better still, Delatante was interesting.

Hobey gestured impatiently with his hands. He moved slowly towards the threshold of the sun-parlour. But suddenly he stopped, faced his wife.

“Pinky,” he said slowly and quietly, “you’ve got to cut it out. I’m getting pretty tired of this business. I was talking with Sam yesterday, and he feels the same way about Tiny. It’s got to stop.”

Pinky was staring at her husband in utter amazement. Was it possible that Hobey meant what he was saying?

Tiny Fenwick was her best friend, her best woman friend, at least. And Hobey had been talking to her husband, Sam. That was simply disgusting!

“Why, Hobey,” she managed to say, her eyes upon his, “you’re talking foolishly. What do you expect me to do all day while you’re in the city? Sit and read the latest philosophical books, have no social life whatever?”

Her husband grunted. “Sit and read the latest scandals among your friends, you mean,” he returned. “As for ‘social life’-I guess you have plenty of it.”

“I do,” she admitted, “because I won’t allow myself to grow old.”

“Meaning that I am allowing myself to grow old?” Hobey asked.

Helene’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly,” she replied.

Her husband muttered something under his breath that she did not catch. There was a grim smile on his face.

“All right!” he said decisively. “If I’m growing old it’s worry about you that’s causing it. I’ve a business to attend to, and plenty to think about. I don’t object to your playing around with women-and there are some decent men around here, too. But I’m getting pretty sick of this fast, noisy nightclub crowd that you and Tiny are running with. Sam’s getting sick of it, too. You can go a bit too far, you know-and it’s our money that you’re spending.”

“Hobart!” Pinky got to her feet, her eyes flashing. She was rather stunning in her dark, Oriental way, and anger gave her a hot, quick beauty that her husband was not accustomed to seeing.

“It’s true,” he went on. “Night after night. Parties here, parties there. The same old thing. Delatante and that Italian, Grutti, George Standing, Louis Fenway. Rotters-all of them!”

“They are not rotters!” she protested hotly. “You know they are not!”

“I know nothing of the sort!” Her husband had raised his voice. Pinky was surprised to see such an exhibition of his temper; her husband was usually a very calm man. But he continued to talk now, his words booming out into the room:

“But I do know that this business must come to an end. I want you to stay away from Romany Inn, from that section of the Island. It’s getting to be a joke-for those who aren’t mixed up in it. Do you know what the columnists are calling that section?”

Pinky shook her head. She was terribly angry, and her eyes showed the fact.

“’Sinners’ Paradise’,” her husband informed her “That’s what they call it.”

Pinky threw back her dark-crowned head and commenced to laugh. Her laughter was silvery, and considered by many quite beautiful, but it was evident that her husband would have disagreed at this moment. Finally she stopped. There were tears of mirth in her eyes. She stared at her husband.

“’Sinners’ Paradise’,” she repeated, still chuckling. “Oh, Hobey-that’s too good!”

“It is,” he agreed, in a hard tone, “but not the way you mean it. It’s too good, too airy a title to give that bunch of night clubs. ‘Fools’ Paradise’ would have been better. But that’s aside from the point. I warn you, Pinky-you must keep clear of cafe society. If you do not-“

He broke off abruptly, dropping his hands at the sides of his immaculate grey business suit.

Pinky drew herself straight. Her husband was threatening her! Actually threatening!

“If I don’t keep away-what then?” Her voice was sharp, pregnant with anger.

Hobart Sickler shrugged his shoulders.

“Then I’m through with you,” he said, and walked out through the sun-parlour. Five minutes later, Pinky thoroughly astounded, heard a machine move away from the elaborate drive.

In the back seat was her husband, already reading the morning paper and-worst of all-he had taken the limousine!

“It’s ridiculous, absurd! Just because some of the newspaper columnists term that little neck of land in the Sound ‘Sinners’ Paradise’, because some ‘blurb’ writer has to earn his salary-Hobey tells me I must drop out of things.” Pinky curled kittenishly on her divan, glared at Tiny Fenwick.

“Don’t get so angry at me, Pinky,” Tiny retorted. “Haven’t I just been through the same thing? I tell you, sure as the dickens, your Hobey and my Sam have gotten together and decided to make us safe for democracy-or something like that. It’s utterly silly!”

Tiny Fenwick was small and blonde. Her husband was a rather big fellow, and Pinky had always thought them thoroughly unsuited. But she liked Tiny, and they were almost always together. Pinky had cultivated Delatante, while Tiny had shown a strong liking for Louis Fenway.