He had opened the book and was loitering in its languors when William reappeared.
“I am sorry, sir. I made a mistake. Miss Barhyte is not at home.”
The mistake must have been anticipated. Welden manifested no surprise.
“Is the general in?” he asked, his eyes still on the book.
“No, sir. The general is not at home either.”
But now Welden put the book aside and nodded.
“Give him my compliments and say that I will wait on him at nine tonight. How is he?”
“Pretty well, sir.” The man moved out through the reception room to the marble of the hall, where he handed Welden his hat and stick. “That was a nasty accident he had last summer. He limps a little still. Yes, sir.”
Opening the door, he held it open until Welden reached the street.
Welden sauntered on. Five days previous he had left Santa Barbara. It was but an hour or two before that he had reached New York. In his head he could still feel the motion of the cars. That would pass, he told himself, as all things do. It would pass, as would also pass a girl’s disinclination to be at home.
He sauntered on, turned into Fifth Avenue, and sauntered up. At once, a man whom he knew stopped him, buttonholed, questioned, platitudinised. From passing traps and motors, women bowed, two other men joined him and, at the curb, a withered creature tossed from a barrel-organ a strain of Italian love.
The men annoyed him. It wearied him to talk about what had happened. It wearied him as much to be told about stocks. Pretexting a pretext he hailed a hansom and sailed away.
Presently, at the Plaza, where he had put up, it was comforting to find that his luggage had arrived. After the philistinism of the West, it was agreeable to be lodged in an artistic inn. After the horrors of a transcontinental trip, it was a pleasure to dress at ease. After the convict fare of the Limited, food properly served was a relief. After a tragedy, a change of air is good for the nerves.
Welden, as he sat at table that evening, his recent mourning indicated in his shirt by two small black studs, considered momentarily these minor gifts of the minor gods. But he had work ahead of him and, at five minutes to nine, hailing a hansom, he sailed back to Madison Avenue.
At a door there, as he rang, a melody of Beethoven’s which was being played within, ceased abruptly. The door opened and William, after taking his hat and coat, showed him into the dining-room where, before a wide table, the general sat, looking, as perhaps a general should, very fierce.
“William,” he ordered, “close the door behind you.”
Then, rising, he turned at Welden.
“Had you left your address this afternoon, I would have warned you not to call here. Your conduct has been dastardly. Dastardly! God bless my soul, there is no other word for it.”
He paused, removed his glasses and shook them.
“After an accident which I experienced and Maud had joined me at Frascati’s, you picked a quarrel with Malakoff, induced the duchess to obtain a divorce and married the lady, married her, God bless my soul, when you were engaged to my daughter and today, your wife barely cold in her grave, you have the impudence to come here. Damn me, sir, if I had acted as you have I would have come expecting the cowhide.”
As the tirade proceeded the general’s voice mounted to the diapason of a roar. At its conclusion he stamped a foot.
“Yes, damn me, the cowhide.”
Immediately, but without heat, Welden took it up.
“From no other man living would I endure for an instant that expression, nor yet the one which preceded it. But you are right, right, that is, from your point of view. It would be dastardly, and it would be the cowhide I should expect, if I had acted as you say I have, intentionally.”
“Intentionally,” the general shouted. “Intentionally—”
He would have run on but Welden cut in.
“When your daughter left Deauville I was on my way to Paris. She wrote me of your accident, telling me she was going to you at once, and asking me to join you both at Frascati’s—”
“Damn me, sir, this is ancient history.”
Welden nodded. “Yes, to you and to your daughter. But not to me. The letter which your daughter wrote at Deauville on the morning of the , I received less than a fortnight since at Santa Barbara.”
“Even so what of it? They were not dumb at the Malakoff’s, I suppose. They all knew of it. Anyone could have told you.”
“General, not only no one told me that your daughter had gone, but I was led to believe that she was still there and did not wish to see me.”
“Stuff and nonsense! Do you mean to say that you are a born fool? How could anyone gammon you with such rubbish?”
There are explanations which explain nothing. Unhesitatingly Welden advanced one.
“For the very reason you have given. Because I was a fool. But however much of a fool I may have been I am not a knave. Your daughter will appreciate that.”
General Barhyte reached forward and touched a bell.
“Never,” he answered. “I shall not allow you to see her and even if I did, she would refuse to do so.”
The servant entered.
“William, the door for this gentleman.”
He turned his back, took up an evening paper and sat down. To him Welden had apparently ceased to exist.
But Welden was thoroughly alive. Preceded by William, he passed into the drawing room and on to the hall. There, after getting his hat and coat,
