_By_ LOUAL B. SUGARMAN
Unwaveringly, my guest sustained my perplexed and angry stare. Silently,
he withstood the battering words I launched at him.
He appeared quite unmoved by my reproaches, save for a dull red flush
that crept up and flooded his face, as now and then I grew particularly
bitter and biting in my tirade.
At length I ceased. It was like hitting into a mass of feathers—there was
no resistance to my blows. He had made no attempt to justify himself.
After a momentous silence, he spoke his first word since we had entered
the room.
“I’m sorry, my friend; more sorry than you can imagine, but—I couldn’t
help it. I simply could not touch her hand. The shock—so suddenly to come
upon her—to see her as she was—I tell you, I forgot myself. Please convey
to your wife my most abject apologies, will you? I am sorry, for I know I
should have liked her very much. But—now I must go.”
“You can’t go out in this storm,” I answered. “It’s out of the question.
I’m sorry, too; sorry that you acted as you did—and more than sorry that
I spoke to you as I did, just now. But I was angry. Can you blame me? I’d
been waiting for this moment ever since I heard from you that you had
come back from the Amazon—the moment when you, my best friend, and my
wife were to meet. And then—why, damn it, man, I can’t understand it! To
pull back, to shrink away as you did; even to refuse to take her hand or
acknowledge the introduction! It was unbelievably rude. It hurt her, and
it hurt me.”
“I know it, and that is why I am so very sorry about it all. I can’t
excuse myself, but I can tell you a story that may explain.”