“We all talk of getting the decree,” she said in connubial privacy, “as if it were a diploma.”
He nodded ruefully. But he was the more progressive of the two.
And in this feeble and sorry wise the influence of modern civilization began to impinge on the primitive convictions and traditions of Ingleside.
CHAPTER XXIII
Adrian Ducie was affronted beyond measure by the unseemly notoriety given to his part in the Floyd-Rosney incident, in the subsequent publications emanating from various sources. The serious menace, however, that the circumstances held for Randal moderated for a time his indignation. He thought it not improbable that Floyd-Rosney would shoot Randal Ducie on sight, and he greatly deprecated the fact that his brother was chronicled by the New Orleans papers as having quitted that city, on his way to Memphis, returning by boat.
“Why didn’t the fellow stay where he was until matters should have developed more acceptably?” Adrian fumed in mingled disgust and apprehension. His anxiety was somewhat assuaged in the meantime when Colonel Kenwynton’s letter appeared, and more especially when Floyd-Rosney withdrew his petition for divorce—a definite confession of his clumsy mistake. Still in Adrian’s opinion latent fires slumbered under the volcanic crust, as this sudden eruption had proved. This city was no place for the bone of contention between husband and wife. The season for the preparations for cotton planting was already well advanced. Assuredly it was seemly and desirable for Randal to repair to his plantation and supervise the operations of his manager and his laborers. Adrian found his own stay in the city harassing to his exacerbated nerves. The questioning stare of men whom he passed on the streets, who looked as if they expected salutation, in default of which surmised that this was the twin brother, hero of the Floyd-Rosney esclandre, annoyed him by its constant repetition, and gave his face a repellant reserve which the countenance of the gentle and genial Randal had never known. A dozen times he was more intimately assailed, “Hey, Ran, old man, how goes it?” with perhaps a quizzical leer, or an eager hopefulness that some discussion of the reigning sensation of the day might not be too intrusive. When the stranger was enlightened, not abruptly, however, for Adrian was cautious to refrain from alienating Randal’s friends, the comments on the wonderful likeness implied an accession of interest in the significant incident in Union Station, and, doubtless, many a surmise as to what had betided heretofore to arouse the lion in the husband’s breast. Obviously, both the brothers for every reason should be removed from the public eye till the story was stale; but, although Adrian felt this keenly, he himself could not get away in view of the interests of his firm in an important silk deal with a large concern desiring to treat directly with the representative of the manufacturers.
He had never cared so little to see his brother as one day when the door of his bedroom in the hotel unceremoniously opened and Randal entered. He had deprecated the effect of all this publicity on the most sensitive emotions of that high-strung and spirited nature. He was proud, too, and winced from the realization that all the world should be canvassing the fact of Randal’s rejection by Mrs. Floyd-Rosney in her girlhood days. She had treated him cruelly, and had dashed her plighted troth, his love, his happiness to the ground with not a moment’s compunction, for a marriage of splendor and wealth—“and,” said Adrian grimly to himself, “for it she has got all that was coming to her.”
He felt for Randal. His heart burned within him.
“Why, who is this that I see here?” cried Randal gaily, as he entered. “Not myself in a mirror surely, for I never looked half so glum in all my life.”
There was a hearty handclasp, and a sort of facetious fraternal hug, after the fashion of men who humorously disguise a deeper emotion, and they were presently seated in great amity before the glowing fire.