“False colors be hanged! We’ve all got a right to the privacy of our private lives. You don’t go nosing into any one else’s soul; why should any one else go nosing into yours? Why, if I were to tell my wife all I could tell her about myself I should be ashamed to come home.”
I knew this argument, and yet when I came to apply it to my attitude toward Regina Barry I was not satisfied.
CHAPTER XI
A few days later I was surprised to receive a note from Annette van Elstine. It ran:
Dear Frank,—I have just heard that you are in New York—that you have been here some time. Why did you never come to see me? It was not kind. And didn’t you know that your mother has been heartbroken over your disappearance? Jerry and Jack knew you were somewhere in this country, but they’ve kept your mother in the dark. What does it all mean? Come to tea with me—just me—on Friday afternoon at five, and tell me all about it.
Your affectionate
Annette.
As this was the first bit of connection with my own family since Jerry had practically kicked me down his steps, I was deeply perturbed by it. I am not without natural affection, and yet I seemed to have died to the old life as completely as Lovey to that with his daughters. I had never forgotten Jerry’s words: “And now get out. Don’t let any of us ever see your face or hear your name again.”