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DEAD MEN'S SHOESBy Gordon Hall GerouldILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES MONTGOMERYFLAGGDAVID LLOYD sat in hislibrary, chewing the stemof an unlighted pipe. Itwas called his library, hereflected bitterly, though itwas no more his than wasthe rest of the house. Something like halfof the books on the shelves he had placedthere: they were things he had chosen—his own. The other half went with theroom, which wasn't his at all. He scowledferociously at space and gave himselfover, with tense preoccupation, to analysisof his troubles.He hadn't worried about the matterat first. He wondered now that he couldhave been so foolish; wondered so hardthat he screwed his blue eyes into pinholesand rumpled his hair into a wilderdisorder. He had been so much in lovewith Edith that he had taken everythingfor granted, including her wealth and hisown poverty. It had all seemed easyenough, and it had sounded so as she hadput the matter to him at the time. Whatdid it matter, Edith had argued, wherethe money came from, since it was therefor them to use together ? He had acquiescedrather weakly, as he saw now, lettingher generous impulse and his own desireovercome his scruples. He had felt,indeed, that to insist on any other arrangementwould be despicable in him;that he ought to accept this, withoutquestioning and without jealousy, as heaccepted the fact of poor Bob Haskinswho had died. The money had beenBob's, certainly, just as Edith had been;and if Edith had emerged for him out ofthe clouds of her sorrowful widowhood, tobe his thereafter while life endured, thecircumstance that she brought with hera life interest in a fortune destined ultimatelyto little Jack, had seemed no impedimentto their perfect union. Love,he had thought heedlessly, would makeeverything right.Well! It hadn't. He loved Edithjust as much as he ever did. He insistedon that, clung to it, even in his presentbitterness of spirit. Not for an instantwould he admit to himself the possibilitythat his love had wilted a little, thoughthe thought insinuated itself now andagain into his ordinarily clear-thinkingbrain. He banished the notion wheneverit crept into his head, chased it from himobstinately, not from any hypocrisy offeeling, but because he was determined tohold the inner citadel of his heart to thevery last. Things were strained betweenEdith and himself—or, more exactly, betweenhimself and Edith—that was all.He didn't know, as a matter of fact,what Edith felt. She had never so muchas hinted that she was disturbed by thesituation they had reached. She hadnever once reproached him, during theselatter months while his discomfort hadbeen growing, with his comparative poverty.She had never said that she lovedhim and respected him the less becausehe continued to live in her house and lether pay the bills. It wasn't that. Theirsurface of marital amenities had remainedunbroken. Only he had seemed to perceiveunderneath her habitual sweetnessof behavior a growing disdain, as if shewere more and more coming to considerhim one of her possessions: a chattel of asuperior kind that could look after herbusiness and act as a personal attendant.She seemed never to think of his positionas a landless man whose only hold on theworld of property was energy and intelligence;she never referred to his affairs asdistinguishable from her own.He could go on for the present, he supposed,just as he had been going on, theselast months. If only on account of thebaby, that was almost necessary. Besides,Jack helped in a way. He was bothfond and proud of six-year-old Jack.The boy wasn't his, of course, and sometimesserved as a reminder of all the otherthings that weren't his; but he was such25