“It is not loaded,” Nevius muttered from between his teeth.
“Even if it is not, it is capable of becoming so I suppose. Were Ablaut in this room and you shot him you would be acquitted—provided these letters were read. But would you permit them to go before a jury? I wouldn’t let the villain in a novel defend himself at the expense of a woman’s honor, and you, Carol, are a gentleman in flesh and blood. You remember that episode at Nice. There the lady showed even less foresight. The husband surprised the lover in her arms, but when he shot, civilization revolted at the medievalism of the act. Legally he was justified, but law and good breeding are not the same.”
Jones gave another twist to his beard and the douche of words continued.
“No, dear boy, you can’t shoot Ablaut. On the contrary, you should be very nice to him. He is in trouble. He has been led astray, and these are the wages of sin. From the announcement of the engagement I suppose he considers that this lady is in honor bound to make reparation, and while I can understand that, I can not understand what induced him to commit the error which makes the reparation needful. No, he deserves your sympathy. A more venomous, soulless little catin than she who is to lead him to the halter—altar, I mean—doesn’t exist, and never has, outside the walls of St. Lazare.”
“H’m—”
Nevius muttered something, but whether in agreement or rebuke, Jones did not care. He drawled on uninterruptedly in the leisurely fashion in which he had begun:
“This morning, when I read the announcement, it took me a moment before I understood why she waited as long as she has. Knowing her, as several of us do, it was quite on the cards that she should bring Ablaut to book the day the decree was signed. But remember on what grounds it was granted. The woman in the amended complaint existed only in Tooth’s imagination, and existed there only at your suggestion. It was the Frick case upside down. Tandems and tally-ho’s could have been driven straight through it—which was the reason, I fancy, when the newspapers were jubilating over your defeat that you held your tongue. And, by the way, do you know who it was that inspired that jubilee? This lady, dear boy, no one else. She had the articles written to order, and she had marked copies sent to everyone she knew. Actually she sent one to me. She did not think it worth while, though, to send O’Donnell’s contradiction. Ah, mais non!” And Jones drew breath.
“But to return to the point, had she led Ablaut to the altar as precipitately as she led you to court, you, had you chosen, could have vitiated her decree, vitiated her marriage, and very neatly turned the tables by applying for a divorce from her. All that you could have done, dear boy, more too, had she been stupid enough to let you. But she wasn’t. The dear little thing knew a trick worth two of that. You had one year in which to appeal, yesterday the year expired; today the engagement is announced. And you can do nothing. Not a thing, dear boy. You can’t even shoot her; no, not any more than you can shoot Ablaut. Put any such idea as that out of your head. She has been malignant as syphilis, I admit; she has disgraced, corroded and destroyed; her conduct has been without parallel, without excuse; that she should be lapidated I admit also; I have nothing but contempt for her; she has unsexed herself, and if you struck her in the face with your glove, you would pay her an honor she does not deserve. But you can’t shoot her. To defend any such act these letters would have to be read. And though you may say now that they could be read, and not only that but all the secrets of this divorce be ventilated, yet when the time came you would permit nothing of the sort, and you would be electrocuted, dear boy, because of this fallatrix for whose sake a skunk is too good to die.”
The novelist paused and contemplated his fingertips. Presently, with a glance that noted the effects of the douche, he began anew:
“No, you are too young, life holds too many possibilities yet, for you to jeopardize it for her or for her maquereau either. Could you kill her, as I have killed many a culprit in my novels, without a suspicion resting on the executioner, I am rather inclined to think I would approve. But the difficulty is that she is not under your roof and not being a cracksman you can’t get under hers. Were she here in Tenth Street, a bit of catgut tied across the head of the stairs, a slight shove, and there you are. The catgut vanishes and another accident in high life is recorded. Failing that, you could try a folding-bed; many a person has been smothered in them, you could imitate Incoul and turn on the gas when she was asleep, you could give her a vibrio in a mushroom, or squeeze a taste of cyanide of potassium into her champagne. Any one of these things, or of a hundred others, you could do if she were here, but luck is hers and she isn’t.
“Now, in view of all the circumstances, were this one of my novels, I would have the injured hero experiment in what will be one of the fine arts
