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Updated: June 9, 2025
But whatever he may have intended to say, the sentence remained unfinished. Maule did not wait for its completion. He advanced yet nearer to where Usselex stood, he looked him in the face, and without raising his voice, he said: "This lady, Mr. Usselex, is not your wife, nor are you her husband."
She stood up from her seat and was about to leave the room when she heard the front door open, and in a second her husband's step. Eden drew the portiére aside and looked out in the hall. Usselex had his back to her. He was taking off his overcoat. She spoke to him and he turned at once, one arm still unreleased. At last he freed himself and came to her. "You got my note, did you not?" he began.
"Let me tell you now?" "Rather let me go. I prefer your reticence to your confidence." "Eden " "No, I have no need to learn more of your mistress " Usselex stepped aside. "She is my daughter," he said, sadly. "Go, since you wish to." "Nor of your wife," she added, as he spoke. "I have no other wife than you," he answered, and with the note which he held in his hand he toyed despondently.
But it was impertinent on his part to suffer that letter to be sent to him at her house. "This evening, however, as you see " he began blandly enough, but Eden interrupted him again. "What did you think of it last night?" she asked, with the inappositeness that was peculiar to her. "You are clairvoyant enough, Mrs. Usselex, to know untold what I thought. It was of that I wished to speak to you.
He touched on one topic of the day, presently on another, and left that for a third. To each he gave a new aspect. It was as though he were tossing crystal balls. Now, when an educated man is not a pedant he can in discoursing about nothing at all exert a very palpable influence. Mr. Usselex talked like a philosopher who has seen the world.
"Pretty? She is more intoxicating than the dream of a fallen angel. She is better looking than her mother. Hum, hum. You don't see such women in France. What did you say her name is?" "She married a man named Usselex." "Usselex? What Usselex?" "What Usselex I can't tell you. But there seems to be only one, and she caught him.
"Eden, it is impossible. I misunderstood you. What you say is absurd. Usselex is incapable of such infamy." "He is, then, and he has the capacity to have me share it too." "But tell me, what grounds have you for saying " "On Monday I was at the opera. In the stalls was a woman that stared at me " "Many another I am sure did that." "And the next afternoon I saw him with her.
Then with an amiable commonplace the old beau bowed and moved back. Maule bowed also, and presently, taking advantage of a recitative, he left Mrs. Manhattan and entered Eden's box. He seemed at home at once. He shook Mr. Usselex by the hand, saluted Miss Bolten and her mother, ignored Jones, and dislodging Arnswald, took his seat. "The season promises well," he whispered confidentially to Eden.
"The people whom we can like are not as infrequent as all that. Do you mean to tell me that there is no one for whom you really care?" Arnswald shook his head and smiled. "No, Mrs. Usselex," he answered, "I don't mean to say that. There are some for whom I care very much. There is even one for whom were it necessary I would lay down life itself." At this Eden experienced a mental start.
"If I remember rightly," she said, from the tips of her lips, "you left me for your mistress." "It is false " Usselex exclaimed. Presumably he was about to make further protest, but the portière was drawn aside and he was interrupted. As it afterwards appeared, Dugald Maule, on leaving the Usselex house the preceding evening, had gone directly to the Assembly.
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