As he fumed and glared, his eye fell on his favorite photo of
Idelle—young, rounded, sensuous, only twenty-four to his forty-eight,
an air and a manner flattering to any man’s sense of vanity and
possession—and then, as a contrast, he thought of the hard, smiling,
self-efficiency of so many of her friends—J—— C——, for one, still
dogging her heels in spite of him, and Keene, young and wealthy, and
Arbuthnot—and who not else?—any one and all of whom would be glad
to take her if he left her. And she knew this. It was a part of her
strength, even her charm—curse her! Curse her! Curse her!
But more than that, youth, youth, the eternal lure of beauty and
vitality, her smiling softness at times, her geniality, her tolerance,
their long talks and pleasant evenings and afternoons. And all of these
calling, calling now. And yet they were all at the vanishing point,
perhaps never to come again, if he left her! She had warned him of
that. “If I go,” she had once said—more than once, indeed—“it’s for
good. Don’t think I’ll ever come back, for I won’t.” And he understood
well enough that she would not. She didn’t care for him enough to come
back. She never would, if she really went.
He paused, meditating, biting his lips as usual, flushing, frowning,
darkening—a changeable sky his face—and then—
“George,” he said after the servant had appeared in answer to his ring,
“tell Charles to bring the jitney around again, and you pack me the
little brown kit bag out of these others. I’m going away for a day or
two, anyhow.”
“Yes, suh!”
Then down the stairs, saying that Idelle was a liar, a wastrel, a
heartless butterfly, worthy to be left as he proposed to leave her now.
Only, once outside in his car with Charles at the wheel, and ready to
take him wherever he said, he paused again, and then—sadly— “To the
Gildases, and better go by the Skillytown road. It’s the shortest!”
Then he fell to thinking again.