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Waythorn's charming face when she presently joined him. Though she had put on her most engaging teagown she had neglected to assume the smile that went with it, and Waythorn thought he had never seen her look so nearly worried. "What is it?" he asked. "Is anything wrong with Lily?" "No; I've just been in and she's still sleeping." Mrs. Waythorn hesitated. "But something tiresome has happened."
Waythorn's marriage, had acquainted their readers with every detail of her previous matrimonial ventures, and Waythorn could fancy the clerks smiling behind Varick's back as he was ushered in. Varick bore himself admirably. He was easy without being undignified, and Waythorn was conscious of cutting a much less impressive figure.
It's a bare question of rights." She murmured: "It's not as if he could ever be a help to Lily " Waythorn flushed. This was even less to his taste. "The question is," he repeated, "what authority has he over her?" She looked downward, twisting herself a little in her seat. "I am willing to see him I thought you objected," she faltered.
Her own were quite clear and untroubled: he saw that she had obeyed his injunction and forgotten. Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal A small effaced-looking man. WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual. Haskett was not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct of flight drove him forth. He meant to stay away all day he had thoughts of dining at his club.
Waythorn could not but respect the father's tenacity. At first he had tried to cultivate the suspicion that Haskett might be "up to" something, that he had an object in securing a foothold in the house. But in his heart Waythorn was sure of Haskett's single-mindedness; he even guessed in the latter a mild contempt for such advantages as his relation with the Waythorns might offer.
If she had denied being married to Haskett she could hardly have stood more convicted of duplicity than in this obliteration of the self which had been his wife. Waythorn started up, checking himself in the analysis of her motives. What right had he to create a fantastic effigy of her and then pass judgment on it?
This time, luckily, they were too far apart for conversation, and Varick, who faced another way, had probably not even seen him; but there was an irony in their renewed nearness. Varick was said to be fond of good living, and as Waythorn sat despatching his hurried luncheon he looked across half enviously at the other's leisurely degustation of his meal.
The course of Lily's illness ran smooth, and as the days passed Waythorn grew used to the idea of Haskett's weekly visit. The first time the day came round, he stayed out late, and questioned his wife as to the visit on his return. She replied at once that Haskett had merely seen the nurse downstairs, as the doctor did not wish any one in the child's sick-room till after the crisis.
He had taken her two hands, and now perceived that he was crushing a paper between them. "This letter?" "Yes Mr. Haskett has written I mean his lawyer has written." Waythorn felt himself flush uncomfortably. He dropped his wife's hands. "What about?" "About seeing Lily. You know the courts " "Yes, yes," he interrupted nervously. Nothing was known about Haskett in New York.
But Mrs. Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither avoided Varick nor sought him out. Even Waythorn could not but admit that she had discovered the solution of the newest social problem. He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He had fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man.
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