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Haskett returned the bow in silence, and Waythorn was still groping for speech when the footman came in carrying a tea-table. The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the deuce are you bringing this here for?" he said sharply. "I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the drawing-room, and Mrs. Waythorn said she would have tea in the library."
For the moment his foremost thought was one of wonder at the way in which she had shed the phase of existence which her marriage with Haskett implied. It was as if her whole aspect, every gesture, every inflection, every allusion, were a studied negation of that period of her life.
He winced as the we slipped out, but Haskett seemed not to notice it. "Thank you, Mr. Waythorn. It's been an anxious time for me." "Ah, well, that's past. Soon she'll be able to go to you." Waythorn nodded and passed out. In his own room, he flung himself down with a groan. He hated the womanish sensibility which made him suffer so acutely from the grotesque chances of life.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must apologize for tumbling in on you in this way, but I was too late to catch you down town, and so I thought " He stopped short, catching sight of Haskett, and his sanguine color deepened to a flush which spread vividly under his scant blond hair. But in a moment he recovered himself and nodded slightly.
She looked singularly soft and girlish in her rosy pale dress, against the dark leather of one of his bachelor armchairs. A day earlier the contrast would have charmed him. He turned away now, choosing a cigar with affected deliberation. "Did Haskett come?" he asked, with his back to her. "Oh, yes he came." "You didn't see him, of course?" She hesitated a moment. "I let the nurse see him."
I've noticed a change in Lily she's too anxious to please and she don't always tell the truth. She used to be the straightest child, Mr. Waythorn " He broke off, his voice a little thick. "Not but what I want her to have a stylish education," he ended. Waythorn was touched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Haskett; but frankly, I don't quite see what I can do." Haskett hesitated.
Waythorn was exasperated by his own paltriness, but the fact of the tie expanded, forced itself on him, became as it were the key to Alice's past. He could see her, as Mrs. Haskett, sitting in a "front parlor" furnished in plush, with a pianola, and a copy of "Ben Hur" on the centre-table.
Dan Haskett was paid off, the mainsail was hoisted, and once more they stood up the river in the direction of the State capital. It was their intention to spend two days in Albany and then return to New York with the yacht. This would wind up their vacation, for Putnam Hall was to open on the following Monday.
The hat was often seen there now, for it had been decided that it was better for Lily's father to visit her than for the little girl to go to his boarding-house. Waythorn, having acquiesced in this arrangement, had been surprised to find how little difference it made. Haskett was never obtrusive, and the few visitors who met him on the stairs were unaware of his identity.
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?
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