"So you will see," Blythe went on in his letter, "why it is better that Louise should remain on the other side with you until matters work themselves out here—until, in essence, her mother completely clears her skirts of the wretched Judd entanglement; and that, I think, is something very imminent. It will be a joy for Louise to be freely and unrestrainedly alone with her mother when she comes back. You understand, of course. So stay over there for another month at least, won't you, Petrarch's Laura and the Laura of all of us?...
"A few forenoons ago I came perilously close to getting a bit of needed exercise by throwing a man bodily out of my office—and this will seem the more startling to you when you remember my almost lamb-like non-aggressiveness. I think, though, I should have gone the length of throwing him out of the window had I not mentally visualized, in an unaccustomed access of caution, the large, rampageous red headlines in the afternoon newspapers: 'Struggling Young (?) Lawyer Hurls Famous Financier From Fifth Story Window,' etc., etc.
"The man was Langdon Jesse, whom of course you know. (Sometimes I wish you did not know so many sinister persons, but perhaps you can't help it.) Probably you are aware that I don't like the Jesse individual. I don't believe I am a victim of a prejudice as to him, either. He is a waxy, doughy person who makes the pursuit of women a hobby as decenter men make hobbies of golf, billiards, cigars and so on. I do not lean to the condemnatory tone where men are concerned, but this man's record is too besmudged and his personality too repulsive even for my amiable, non-Pharisaical (I hope) taste. I have known him in a general sort of a way for a number of years, but have always been at some pains to make it clear to him that I preferred the sight of his back.
"He lounged in upon me the other forenoon, very oily and desirous of exhibiting to me his somewhat rhino-like brand of savoir-faire, and he told me that, inasmuch as he was leaving for Europe directly, he thought he would ask me if I, as the guardian of Miss Treharne, would be willing that he should extend the tourist's usual civilities and courtesies to that young lady. Can you imagine a more imbecile question? Naturally, I was astonished to find that he had even met Louise, and you may hold yourself in readiness to be very severely spoken to when you return because you did not inform me of it. Seriously, I am inordinately sorry that Louise ever did meet him. Of course I gave the fellow what the reporters call 'very short shrift.' I can't remember ever having been more annoyed. The impudence of this loathly Eden Musée Lothario, knowing (as he certainly must have known) that I was perfectly familiar with his record and character, coming to me on such a mission! He was upon the pin-point of hinting that a note of recommendation from me, submitting him to the fair opinion of you and Louise, might enable him to offer the two of you certain somewhat prized civilities not easily obtainable—when I, without the least attempt at hinting, indicated the general direction of my door and gave him a view of my back.
"I haven't the least notion as to what the fellow's actual purpose was, but if, as he claims, he really has met Louise, I am perturbed to think that presently he will be in the same hemisphere with her. (I would include you in my perturbation, only I know how thoroughly well able you are to crunch such objects with a mere word, if not, indeed, a simple lifting of the eyebrows.) Of course he will not now have the temerity to call upon you in London. But if he does exhibit such hardihood, and in any way attempts to annoy you or Louise with his 'prized civilities,' you will let me know at once, of course—by cable, if you think it necessary. I don't know why I have permitted and am permitting myself to be disturbed by this individual's inexplicable little machinations (his whole life, in business and in private, is one huge machination), but I have been and I am. Write me just how he contrived to meet Louise, won't you?"
Laura, in reading this, felt considerable compunction over the fact that she had not told Blythe of Louise's unavoidable meetings with Langdon Jesse and of the attentions which he had attempted to force upon her. She had not done so because she had frankly feared the possible consequences of Blythe's quick-blazing anger. While she would have been willing enough to commit Jesse to the corporeal handling of a physically adept man like John Blythe, she had no means of knowing in advance whether the story of such a chastisement, if it took place, would become public; and as Louise had come under her own protection very soon after her final encounter with Jesse, Laura had felt that, as the Jesse incubus probably had been disposed of for good and all, it would be better not to disquiet Blythe by telling him anything about it. She knew that Louise had not mentioned Jesse to Blythe out of a feeling of plain shame that she had been put in the way of meeting a man of his stamp. But Laura, after re-reading that part of Blythe's letter referring to Jesse, found herself vaguely uneasy at the thought that even then he was on his way to London. She determined not to say anything about it to Louise. She also determined that London was going to remain large enough for Louise and herself and ten thousand Langdon Jesses; which, interpreted, means that she had not the remotest idea of bolting for it because of Jesse's impending arrival. Laura also concluded to obey Blythe's injunction to say nothing to Louise as to her mother's changing affairs. She longed to tell the girl of Blythe's forecasting of the approaching dissolution of the relationship between her mother and Judd; but she had learned the time-biding lesson, and she disliked to arouse hopes within Louise's mind that might not, after all, have fruition. Moreover, she had frequently had occasion to test Blythe's judgment, and she had always found it sound.
"But I wish John Blythe would take a vacation of a fortnight or so and run over here," she caught herself meditating. "He would fit into the situation beautifully at the present moment and in some moments that I seem to feel approaching. But there never was a man yet who could recognize the psychological moment even when it paraded before his eyes—much less grasp it by intuition."
CHAPTER XII
Not alone from John Blythe had Langdon Jesse suffered a rebuff in his attempt to gather ammunition, in the form of intimate and more or less mandatory credentials, for his European campaign, in which Louise Treharne figured as the alluring citadel of his sinister ambition. First he had tried Louise's mother with that purpose in view; and in that quarter he had been treated to one of the surprises of his by no means uneventful life.