“Was Miss Waldron out?” Annandale asked.
“I could not say, sir. I gave the flowers to the maid, and said as how you would call this evening, sir. The maid came back and said Miss Waldron would not be at ’ome.”
At this Annandale flushed. It is true he was flushed already. But the affront was a little more than he could stand. Was he not engaged to her? What did she mean? Yet, then, too, what had he done? He wished to the devil he could tell. Try, though, as he might, he could not recall a thing except a vision of the girl’s face, white, drawn and angered. The rest was not blurred, it was blank. It was extremely unfortunate, and Annandale decided that he was both unhappy and misused.
These meditations Harris interrupted.
“Mr. Orr, sir.”
Annandale, who had been far away, looked up. Then he nodded.
A moment and Orr entered, eying Annandale curiously as he came.
“What a deuce of a chap you are,” he began.
“Who? I? Why? Why do you say that?”
Orr looked about the room, contemplated a wide lounge of black leather, selected a straight-backed chair instead and seated himself, his hat and stick in his hand.
“You know well enough,” he answered. “But there,” he added at a protest from Annandale, “I don’t propose to scold you. My visit is purely official. Sylvia has asked me to inform you that the engagement is at an end.”
Had any little dog which Annandale did not possess run out from nowhere and bit him fiercely on the leg, he could not have started more. He stared at Orr, who stared at him.
“But! It is impossible! What have I done?”
“It would be more to the point,” Orr cheerfully replied, “to ask what you have not done. Though just what you did do Sylvia omitted to state. She said she could not.”
“Could not tell you?”
“Could not or would not.”
“Then I can’t,” said Annandale helplessly. “I went there last evening, I remember that. I remember, too, that she was angry. But why I do not know. Though, to be candid, she had cause to be. I was drunk.”
“You seemed all right at the Arundel,” Orr objected.
“At all events, drunk or sober, I cannot recall a thing. I have tried. I have tried hard. It has gone.”
“Does it happen to you often?”
“What?”
“To forget like that?”
Annandale shook his head. He stood up and stalked about. Orr eyed him. He saw he was not shamming.
“You know, Annandale,” he said at last, “you could not get many to accept that. But I can and do. I have seen cases of the kind before. Will you permit me to advise you?”
“Advise me? I wish to God you would.”
“Littré, who was the wisest and ugliest of men, stated that Hippocrates recommended everybody to get tight once a month, asserting that it was hygienic, good for the system, that it relaxed the nerves. Littré must have known what he was talking about. He put Hippocrates in French, into ten volumes at that! But what is good for everybody is bad for you. Don’t drink, Annandale. It will get you into mischief.”
“As if it had not? Look at the box I am in. But could you not get Sylvia to reconsider the matter? If she will, I pledge my word never to touch another drop. Of course, I apologize for everything I did. I am only too anxious to. You must understand that I am profoundly humiliated at the idea that I could have done anything she did not like. Certainly I did not intend to. Won’t you say that to her?”
“Oh, I appreciate your position,” said Orr. “To me the essence of crime is the intent. But, then, you see, I am a man. Now girls are different, and my cousin is very different even from most girls. Her views are very strict. Even otherwise, to any decent girl, a man in his cups is not agreeable. But then, you know, it is not merely a question of that. It is a question of matrimony. Matrimony generally means children. It is on them that the sins of the father are visited. There is the rub. Sylvia, I have not a doubt, will in the end forgive you, but were she to marry you and her children have your sins visited on them, never would she forgive herself. That I am sure you can realize. Anyway, for the moment argument with her would be futile. Besides, she has gone from town.”
“Gone?”
“Yes, she left for Newport today. If I were you I would not attempt to follow. But I will write. I will tell her what you say, and I will tell you her reply.”
Orr stood up. As he did so Annandale sat down. He cared for Sylvia Waldron, absolutely, uniquely. He felt, too, that she had cared for him. But while Orr had been speaking he told himself that her caring had ceased. Had any affection remained she could not have gone. It was his fault, though. He had shocked it out of existence. At the thought of that he felt unutterably miserable. What he felt he looked.
Orr saw his dejection. “Annandale,” he said, “I hardly suppose that it will console you now to have me tell you that nothing earthly is of any consequence, but, if you let the idea permeate you, ultimately perhaps it may. By the way, that is a new man you have, isn’t it?”
In the wreckage amid which Annandale was floundering the question was like a rope; he caught at it and swam up.
“Who? Harris? Yes, the other poor devil I had was run over and died in an ambulance.”
Orr tapped at his foot with his stick. “I may be in error,” he said, “but I think I have seen him before.”
“Then it must have been in London. He has been here only a short time. He tells me he used to be with Catty.”
Catty was a relative of Annandale, a New York girl who had married the Duke
