“How solemn you are!” laughed she. “Well, good-by, dear.” And she held
out her hand and turned her face upward for me to kiss her lips.
“Oh, I’ll probably see you in the morning,” I said, “or to-night.” And
away I went.
* * * * *
From Russia I drifted to India, intending to return home by the
Pacific. At Bombay I met Lord Blankenship, and he persuaded me to cross
to East Africa. I found him a companion exactly to my taste. He was a
silent chap having nothing to think about and nothing to think with--a
typical and model product of the aristocratic education that completes
a man as a sculptor completes an image, and prepares him to stand in
his appointed niche until decay tumbles him down as rubbish. I had lost
all my former passion for talking and listening. I wished to confine
myself--my thoughts--to the trivial matters of the senses, to lingering
over and tinkering with the physical details of life. The silent and
vacant Blankenship set me a perfect example, one easy to fall into the
habit of following.
At Paris, I picked up my private secretary, Markham, and resumed
attention to my affairs. I had arranged for things to go on without me,
when I set out for East Africa. I found that my guess as to how they
would go had been correct. For a month or so there was confusion--the
confusion that is inevitable when a man who has attended to everything
abruptly throws up his leadership. Then the affairs in which he fancied
himself indispensable begin to move as well as if he were at the
throttle--perhaps better. The most substantial result of my neglect
seemed to be that I had become much richer, had more than recovered
what my purchase of a son-in-law had cost me.
Markham, who had been at Cairo two months, had got himself engaged to
be married. For several years I had been promising him a good position,
that is to say, one more fitting a grown man of real capacity. But he
made himself so useful that I put off redeeming my promise and eased my
conscience and quieted his ambition with a succession of increases of
salary. Now, however, I could no longer delay releasing him. So I must
go back to New York, to find some one to take his place. Blankenship
was wavering between a trip through West Africa and going to America
with me, on the chance of my accompanying him on a shooting trip
through British Columbia. He decided to stick to me, and as I had
grown thoroughly used to having him about I was rather glad. It is
astonishing how much comfort one can get out of the society of a silent
man, when one feels that he is a good fellow and a devoted friend.
I telegraphed Edna that I would be unable to come to London, where she
then was. But she defeated my plan for not seeing her. When I reached
Paris there she was waiting for me at the Ritz. She had a swarm of
French, Italians, and English about her--I believe there were some
Germans or Austrians, also. I refused to be annoyed with them, and we
dined quietly with Blankenship, Markham, and a pretty little Countess
de Salevac to act us buffers between us. I tried to avoid being left
alone with her, but she would not have it so. She insisted on my coming
to her sitting room after the others had gone.
“I know you are tired,” said she, “but I shan’t detain you long.”
“Please don’t,” said I. “The journey has knocked me out. I’ve not slept
for two nights.”
“It’s a shame to worry you----”
I made for the door. “Not to-night--no worries. They’ll keep until
to-morrow.”
“No, Godfrey dear,” she said. “I must tell you at once. There is
serious trouble between Margot and Hugh.”
“Why, they haven’t been married a year.”
“He has been treating her shamefully from the outset. In fact, he cut
short the honeymoon to hurry back to that music-hall person.”
“The one I saw him with?”
“Yes--the same one--that notorious Jupey What’s-her-name. Isn’t it
dreadful! Margot’s pride is up in arms. Nothing I say will quiet her.”
“Um,” said I.
“She refuses to understand that over here husbands are allowed a--a----”
“Latitude,” I suggested.
“More latitude than in America. I have talked with Hugh, too. He
is--very difficult. Really, he isn’t at all as he seemed. He is a--he
is horribly coarse.”
“People who think of nothing but how to get money without work and how
to spend it without usefulness are apt to be coarse, when you probe
through to the reality of them.”
“He is--defiant,” pursued she, too femininely practical to have
interest in or patience with philosophy. “He-- Godfrey, he says he
hates her. He won’t speak to her. And there’s no prospect of an heir.
He says he wants to get rid of her.”
These successive admissions of a worse and worse mess were forced from
her by my air of indifference. “What has _she_ done?” I asked.
“Done? I don’t understand----”
“What has she done to drive him to extremes?”
“Godfrey!” she cried in a shocked tone. “_You_--taking sides against
your daughter--your only child! Have you no paternal feeling, either?”
“Not much,” said I. “You see, I’ve seen little of Margot--not enough
to get acquainted with her. And you educated her so that we are
uncongenial. No--since you set me to thinking, I find I haven’t much
paternal feeling for her. I used to have in Passaic, when I wheeled her
about the streets on Sundays.”