Plains la donc, plains la donc, cette belle infidèle—”
“Yes, had she been that,” Nevius interrupted, moved in spite of himself by the beauty of lines which he, too, knew by heart. “Had she been infidèle, I could see my way clearer. But though a year has gone by since she got the decree, still I am unable to understand why she asked for it. There was a moment when I thought her insane, when I thought, God forgive me, that this affair at an end I could win her back, reason with her, plead with her, love her again. But there was no insanity in her eyes when we met in court, a malignant exultation merely. And why? That Why is the first thing I find in the morning, the last that leaves me at night. For a year I have been haunted by interrogation marks, they are everywhere, they are in the food I eat. I close my eyes and still I see them. Even in sleep they pursue me, they fill my dreams.”
“It is of course supposable,” Jones, with singular acquiescence, replied, “that in asking for a divorce this lady had a motive. The malignity was due to your effort to thwart her. The exultation came of the prospect of showing that her lies were true.”
“But why drag herself through all that mud? I am a gentleman at least, am I not? If she wanted a divorce why in God’s name didn’t she tell me before I went to Paris. I am not a bit better than another, I have had my little hearts as well as anyone else, and I could have got it for her, without scandal, without disgrace, without the ruin of three lives—Well, Patrick, what is it?”
From the tray which the man held he took a pink card, gilt-edged.
“A lady, sir.”
Jones laughed loud and long. “En avant les amourettes. Va donc, farceur.”
“Blythe Sisseton,” Nevius repeated. “Never heard of her. Patrick, ask her what she wants.”
“That’s Ablaut’s Ex,” said Jones, as Patrick turned, but he bit his tongue as he did so.
“Ablaut’s Ex?”
“Oh, a little chorus girl whom he invited to dance the waltz in Faust. Man proposes you know, and chorus girls accept. But in accepting she meant Forever and he meant Tonight.”
“Well?”
“That’s all. What do you expect? A three-volume novel? He wrote Finis
on a cheque ages ago. In the circumstances it would be foolish of you to see her.”
“Foolish of me? What in thunder do you mean? What have I got to do with her? Why should it be foolish of me to see her? But what are you staring at me for?”
“I’m not staring at you;” Jones snapped back. “I am merely giving you a little friendly advice. The girl is probably here out of curiosity, to have a look at the defendant in a cause célèbre. If you are going to make a freak of yourself, run right down and show yourself off. But in your place I would send word that I was out, that I was dead. Now here’s Patrick—”
“She says she won’t detain you but a moment, sir, she—”
Nevius stood up and made for the door. Before he could reach it Jones had him by the arm.
“Carol, let me go.”
Without a word Nevius shook him off and left the room. But what was the meaning of that strange look he had?
“Does he suspect?” The novelist queried. “But when he knows!” He paused and looked about. “Anything would be better than to see the newspapers dripping again with his name. I must suggest something, but what?”
Ten minutes later the front door closed. When Nevius reentered the library Jones was reading Spinoza.
“You knew this!” Nevius blurted. The strange look had gone from his face, but a stranger one had come. He was livid, and the corners of his mouth had widened. “Why have I been gulled on every side? Why could you not tell me?”
“Dear boy, what omniscience is it that you attribute to me?” And Jones tossed aside the book he held and smiled. “The announcement of your lady’s engagement to Ablaut, if it is that to which you refer, was news to me until I read it in the Herald this morning.”
“Bah! Why didn’t you tell me she was his mistress? Why couldn’t you have told me? I committed suicide because of that woman. And look at these letters!”
But Jones had no need to look at those blue, iris-scented communications, each stamped with the Nevius crest, to divine what they contained.
“Look at them,” Nevius repeated. “Months before she began that suit, she was writing to him things like these.”
With a wrench he tore his collar apart.
“Why couldn’t you have told me,” he gasped, “why—why?”
“How could I, dear boy, I didn’t know,” the novelist with splendid mendacity replied. “But supposing, even that suspecting such a thing, I had so much as hinted at it, you would have held me up. ‘Your evidence or your life,’ you would have bawled. And I am not like you, Carol, alone in the world. I have my publishers to support. But now that the cat is out of the bag, the one thing for you to do is to say Schwamm darüber and pray that Ablaut may make an honest woman of her. Do sit down now and be quiet. Write to him, why don’t you? Paper is a splendid conductor for steam. Send him your congratulations. Say that you have just learned of the engagement, and that if the fair betrothed makes him half as happy as she has made you, he is the man of all others to be envied.”
“Yes,” Jones continued with a twist to his beard, but an eye on his host. “A little eighteenth-century politesse of that kind is far better than big words and short phrases. Anything, Carol, anything but a row. I don’t wonder though that you look as if a scrap
