The Dream

Will Herbert has an affectionate wife, Nell, but he has grown weary of her "cute" ways and longs for excitement. A typewriter in his employ names Bess, finally catches his eye to the extent that he not only flirts with her, but one evening asks her to have dinner with him at a famous road house and cafe. Bess accepts the invitation. Will drinks a great deal more champagne than is good for him. In the meantime, Nell has prepared supper for him at home, taking great pains in making a lovely cake for him. She waits patiently for him and at last falls asleep. Will and Bess at last lave the cafe. He arrives home. Nell greets him affectionately, but he treats her cruelly. He shoves the cake aside, throws some dishes on the floor and kicks over his chair. Nell stands gazing at his strange actions, but at last, completely overcome, she staggers from the room sobbing. Then Will falls on a couch and goes to sleep, and dreams. He sees Nell re-enter the room beautifully dressed. She laughs at him and going over to the buffet, gets a decanter and glass and proceeds to drink glass after glass of wine. Then seated on the corner of the table, she lights a cigarette and tells him she is tired of his stupid ways and removing her wedding ring, she throws it at him. Then she rises and leaves the house while he blindly follows. Outside, she is joined by a handsome man who helps her into an automobile, and away they go. Will follows in another machine and sees them enter the same cafe and sit at the same table he had occupied with Bess. Will stands near them and tears his hair in impotent rage, but they notice him not and grow more and more hilarious. Finally, he can stand it no longer and rushes off home. Placing a revolver against his heart, pulls the trigger and falls upon the couch. He awakens lying on the floor at the foot of the couch. Convinced that it was only a horrible nightmare, his heart is filled with joy and with penitence for his own misdeeds, and he begs her forgiveness, realizing her true value at last. She generously pardons him and seated upon his lap at the table, eats a piece of the neglected cake he cuts for her.