II
She was out of the hospital in seventeen days. He went
to see her each afternoon, and in their long talks they drifted
back to intimacy. Once he hinted something of his relations
to Tanis and the Bunch, and she was inflated by the view that
a Wicked Woman had captivated her poor George.
If once he had doubted his neighbors and the supreme charm
of the Good Fellows, he was convinced now. You didn't, he
noted, "see Seneca Doane coming around with any flowers or
dropping in to chat with the Missus,'' but Mrs. Howard Littlefield
brought to the hospital her priceless wine jelly (flavored
with real wine); Orville Jones spent hours in picking out the
kind of novels Mrs. Babbitt liked—nice love stories about
New York millionaries and Wyoming cowpunchers; Louetta
Swanson knitted a pink bed-jacket; Sidney Finkelstein and
his merry brown-eyed flapper of a wife selected the prettiest
nightgown in all the stock of Parcher and Stein.
All his friends ceased whispering about him, suspecting him.
At the Athletic Club they asked after her daily. Club members
whose names he did not know stopped him to inquire,
"How's your good lady getting on?'' Babbitt felt that he
was swinging from bleak uplands down into the rich warm air
of a valley pleasant with cottages.
One noon Vergil Gunch suggested, "You planning to be at
the hospital about six? The wife and I thought we'd drop in.''
They did drop in. Gunch was so humorous that Mrs. Babbitt
said he must "stop making her laugh because honestly it was
hurting her incision.'' As they passed down the hall Gunch
demanded amiably, "George, old scout, you were soreheaded
about something, here a while back. I don't know why, and
it's none of my business. But you seem to be feeling all
hunky-dory again, and why don't you come join us in the
Good Citizens' League, old man? We have some corking
times together, and we need your advice.''
Then did Babbitt, almost tearful with joy at being coaxed
instead of bullied, at being permitted to stop fighting, at being
able to desert without injuring his opinion of himself, cease
utterly to be a domestic revolutionist. He patted Gunch's
shoulder, and next day he became a member of the Good Citizens'
League.
Within two weeks no one in the League was more violent
regarding the wickedness of Seneca Doane, the crimes of labor
unions, the perils of immigration, and the delights of golf,
morality, and bank-accounts than was George F. Babbitt.
