§ iii
Not only at home were his moods known and respected, at his office it was a recognized thing that the early morning was a bad time for him, and that it was most unwise to disturb him. As usual he strode through the outer office and shut himself into his own small room, without exchanging a word or even a nod. He looked through his mail which had been opened and neatly sorted for him, then pushed it aside, staring after it with a distrait and wretched look. He couldn’t put his mind on it, he hated every detail, every possibility.
“Why the devil am I slaving away here?” he asked himself. “Working day in and day out, so that she can go flaunting in fine clothes and idling away the whole summer up there in the mountains.”
He remembered the extensive wardrobe Claudine had taken with her. Never did she suspect, never could she have suspected, how he resented it. The primeval male in him would deny all luxuries to the unloved woman.
“She! In her silk dresses—loafing all day long—servants to wait on her, never does a useful thing! Good God! Think of the time and leisure she’s got, and she doesn’t even read the papers! Not even charitable! Useless, through and through.... Where would she be if it weren’t for me? She’s got everything she wants, without raising a finger for it. Food, clothes, jewels, money to spend, fool women to jabber with—”
It seemed to him quite intolerable to think of her privileges; he couldn’t have endured it at all if he hadn’t had a certain very curious consolation for his grievances. His delight was to picture his wife as cast away upon a desert island, and he gloated over her utter futility there. He could imagine how helpless she would be, how incongruous, she with her fastidiousness, her chilly dignity. She wouldn’t be able to make herself dresses out of grass, sewing with a thorn for a needle. She wouldn’t know how, and couldn’t learn how, to grind flour from exotic roots, to tame birds, to construct houses. Incurably romantic Gilbert! That was his test for any woman; how she would look and behave on his classic desert isle. She must be lovely, strong, and young, and she must be altogether daring and brave and unwifelike, she must be resourceful and full of alluring wiles, she must urgently need him, and yet be entirely independent.
He glanced at the clock, took up his hat, and went out to a celebrated café near by, had two whiskies and soda, and immediately felt much better. He would confess to you that he was rather too dependent upon “bracers,” but like all that army, he was merely waiting for a propitious day to renounce the thing entirely. Some day when he wasn’t worried or depressed. No hurry about it; it didn’t interfere with his business, and it helped him beyond measure through his fits of awful despondency. He was willing to admit that perhaps his health might be better if he drank less, but he couldn’t become really interested in his health.
He chatted with the other ten o’clock frequenters of the bar, whom he knew very well, for they came with great regularity. He felt ready for business now; he went back—in fact, he now entered the office officially for the first time, in his proper character, nodded genially to the cashier and to his stenographer, an ambitious young Cuban, and began to pace up and down the big sample room, planning his autumn campaign and reviewing his “line.” A very fine line this year; he looked upon it with satisfaction as it lay spread out before him on a big counter sloping steeply on both sides and divided into little compartments filled with red rubber cows and white rubber horses, big, brightly colored balls and tiny hard rubber ones, dolls in knitted dresses, rattles, teething rings. There were among these several novelties which he considered very promising....
“A gentleman to see you!” said the young Cuban, with his alert and zealous air.
“Who?”
“Mr. MacGregor.”
“Don’t know him. Where’s he from?”
“Didn’t say,” replied the young Cuban, with a creditable imitation of his chief’s brusque business-like tone.
“Bring him in!” said Gilbert.
He stood facing the door with a non-committal expression which would be either menacing or genial, as circumstances might dictate. But the man who entered was a type not familiar to him; he couldn’t place him; a big, shambling, rugged man of forty or so, a bit uncouth in appearance, but not without distinction. His face was ironic, but his smile was genial.
“Mr. Vincelle?” he asked.
“What can I do for you, sir?” inquired Gilbert, briefly.
“My name is Alexander MacGregor,” said he. “I have had the pleasure of instructing your elder daughter in music.”
Oh, a music teacher! Probably about a bill, or those outrageous “extra lessons” which his children were forever in need of.
“Sit down, sir, sit down!” said Gilbert.
Mr. MacGregor did so.
“I hope I don’t find you very busy!” he said. “This is quite a personal matter....”
“Cigar?” asked Gilbert.
Mr. MacGregor accepted one.
“It’s about Miss Andrée,” he said. “I understand that you’re going out there this afternoon, and I thought—”
They talked for more than an hour, and Gilbert was captivated. He liked this fellow! He liked his cool, manly air, his practical outlook. Mr. MacGregor began his proposal by stating his financial position, which was sound and satisfactory. He put forward his own good points with assurance and he affirmed that his age was an asset.
“Andrée is very temperamental,” he said, “and hard to understand. A young, inexperienced man wouldn’t be able to. She requires the greatest tact. A rare, peculiar nature. Only men of our age can appreciate it.”
Well, thought Gilbert, after all, why not? Wouldn’t he himself be a marvelous lover for a young girl, if she were the right sort of young girl? There was a sort of indirect flattery in Mr. MacGregor’s idea.
Moreover, he found Andrée an intensely irritating young woman, and he would be glad to see her safely married and gone away. She was a sort of ally to her mother. She was antagonistic; she didn’t admire him; she wasn’t the sort of daughter he had expected.
And he was delighted with Mr. MacGregor’s old fashioned idea of asking his permission before speaking to Andrée. It was really the first time he had ever been treated as a father should be treated. He took Mr. MacGregor out to lunch, to a sedate little second floor restaurant known only to connoisseurs. They ate largely and critically....
By two o’clock indigestion had engulfed Gilbert in black misery. He lingered at the table, chewing a cigar, and meditating. It was Saturday; the office was closed; he had nothing to do until train time. He ordered more liqueurs, more coffee, and refused to be parted from Mr. MacGregor, clung to him, in fact.
Of course, he said, it all depended upon Andrée herself. Of course it did, Mr. MacGregor agreed.
“See here!” said Gilbert. “Come out there with me, and we’ll see. You’ll have plenty of time to pack what you need for over Sunday. Come on!”