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As she had not read very widely, she supposed that she had discovered this religion for herself; she was not aware that everybody else had passed that way it being the first immature moult in young people after rejecting dogma. And the ripened fruit of all this philosophy she helpfully dispensed for Siward's benefit as bearing directly on his case.
And he repeated it unctuously, almost reconciled to his own shortcoming, because it was the first time, as far as he knew, that a Belwether might legitimately enjoy the pleasures of holding the word of a Siward in contempt. Sylvia had dismissed her maid, the old feeling of distaste for the touch of another had returned since the last mad, crushed embrace in Siward's arms had become a memory.
The faint trace of surprise faded from Quarrier's face; he quietly retraced his steps, and, entering Siward's room, stood silently confronting its pallid tenant. "Will you sit down a moment?" Quarrier seated himself in the arm-chair by the window, and Siward found a chair opposite. "Quarrier," said the younger man, turning a tensely miserable face on his visitor, "I want to ask you something.
That reminds me of a story " He chuckled and chuckled, his lambent eyes suffused with mirth; and slipping his arm through the pivot-sleeve of Lord Alderdene's shooting-jacket, hooking the other in Siward's reluctant elbow, and driving Mortimer ahead of him, he went garrulously away up the stairs, his lordship's bandy little legs trotting beside him, the soaking gaiters and shoes slopping at every step.
Siward's profile, as it bent in the lamplight over the paper, was very engaging. The boyish note predominated as he talked while he drew, his eyes now smiling, now seriously intent on the sketch which was developing so swiftly under his facile pencil. Marion's clean-cut blond head was close to his, her supple body twisted in her seat, one bare arm hanging over the back of the chair.
The doctor arrived at daylight, responding to Plank's summons by telephone, and Plank went away with the morphine and Siward's revolver bulging in the side-pockets of his dinner coat. He did not come again for a week. A short note from Siward started him toward lower Fifth Avenue. There was little said when he came into the room: "Hello, Plank! Glad to see you." "Hello! Are you all right?"
It was patent to every man present that the Kemp Ferralls had determined to ignore Siward's recent foolishness, which indicated that he might reasonably expect the continued good-will of several sets, the orbits of which intersected in the social system of his native city.
Drifting from one topic to another through the haze of their cigars, silent when it pleased them to be so, there could be no doubt of their liking for each other upon a basis at least superficially informal; and if Plank's manner retained at times a shade of quaint reserve, Siward's was perhaps the more frankly direct for that reason.
The dog had returned to lie at Siward's feet, its brown eyes tirelessly watching the man it had chosen for its friend; and the man, without turning his eyes, dropped one hand on the dog's head, caressing the silky ears. Some sentimentalist had once said that no man who cared for animals could be wholly bad. Inexperience inclined her to believe it.
Noticing this, late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested Klondyke for Siward's benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to him than anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring rather to "carry" Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into bankruptcy under the sheer deadly hazard of Klondyke.
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