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Waythorn felt that this exploration of Haskett was like groping about with a dark-lantern in his wife's past; but he saw now that there were recesses his lantern had not explored. He had never inquired into the exact circumstances of his wife's first matrimonial rupture. On the surface all had been fair. It was she who had obtained the divorce, and the court had given her the child.
"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure. As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him. Her smile faded for a moment, but she recalled it quickly, with a scarcely perceptible side-glance at Waythorn. "How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a shade less cordially.
"I think this is a good thing you're in." "Oh, I'm sure it's immense. It's awfully good of you " Varick broke off, embarrassed. "I suppose the thing's settled now but if " "If anything happens before Sellers is about, I'll see you again," said Waythorn quietly. He was glad, in the end, to appear the more self-possessed of the two.
And as Waythorn mused, another idea struck him: had Haskett ever met Varick as Varick and he had just met? The recollection of Haskett perturbed him, and he rose and left the restaurant, taking a circuitous way out to escape the placid irony of Varick's nod. It was after seven when Waythorn reached home. He thought the footman who opened the door looked at him oddly.
The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the most self-possessed, dashed into an explanatory phrase. "We I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered, brick-red from chin to nape. Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry to intrude; but you appointed five o'clock " he directed his resigned glance to the time-piece on the mantel.
Inwardly he was trying to adjust the actual Haskett to the image of him projected by his wife's reminiscences. Waythorn had been allowed to infer that Alice's first husband was a brute. "I am sorry to intrude," said Haskett, with his over-the-counter politeness. "Don't mention it," returned Waythorn, collecting himself. "I suppose the nurse has been told?" "I presume so. I can wait," said Haskett.
When Waythorn first saw him he had been helping himself with critical deliberation to a bit of Camembert at the ideal point of liquefaction, and now, the cheese removed, he was just pouring his cafe double from its little two-storied earthen pot.
Very awkward for me, as it happens, because he was just putting through a rather important thing for me." "Ah?" Waythorn wondered vaguely since when Varick had been dealing in "important things." Hitherto he had dabbled only in the shallow pools of speculation, with which Waythorn's office did not usually concern itself.
It's so awkward, meeting everywhere and he said you had been very kind about some business." "That's different," said Waythorn. She paused a moment. "I'll do just as you wish," she returned pliantly. "I thought it would be less awkward to speak to him when we meet." Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of her own no theory about her relation to these men?
Haskett, in the background, held his ground mildly, examining his cigar-tip now and then, and stepping forward at the right moment to knock its ashes into the fire. The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I could just say half a word to you about this business " "Certainly," stammered Waythorn; "in the dining-room "
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