“What can I do for you?” said I to him politely, much as if he were a stranger making an untimely interruption.
My look had disconcerted him; my tone threw him into confusion. “You keep out of the way, now that you've become famous,” he began, with a halting but heroic attempt at his customary easy superiority. “Are you living up in Connecticut, too? Sam Ellersly tells me your wife is stopping there with old Howard Forrester. Sam wants me to use my good offices in making it up between you two and her family.”
I was completely taken aback by this cool ignoring of the real situation between him and me. Impudence or ignorance?—I could not decide. It seemed impossible that Anita had not told him; yet it seemed impossible, too, that he would come to me if she had told him. “Have you any business with me?” said I.
His eyelids twitched nervously, and he adjusted his lips several times before he was able to say:
“You and your wife don't care to make it up with the Ellerslys? I fancied so, and told Sam you'd simply think me meddlesome. The other matter is the Travelers Club. I've smoothed things out there. I'm going to put you up and rush you through.”
“No, thanks,” said I. It seemed incredible to me that I had ever cared about that club and the things it represented, as I could remember I undoubtedly did care. It was like looking at an outgrown toy and trying to feel again the emotions it once excited.
“I assure you, Matt, there won't be the slightest difficulty.” His manner was that of a man playing the trump card in a desperate game—he feels it can not lose, yet the stake is so big that he can not but be a little nervous.
“I do not care to join the Travelers Club,” said I, rising. “I must ask you to excuse me. I am exceedingly busy.”
A flush appeared in his cheeks and deepened and spread until his whole body must have been afire. He seated himself. “You know what I've come for,” he said sullenly, and humbly, too.
All his life he had been enthroned upon his wealth. Without realizing it, he had claimed and had received deference solely because he was rich. He had thought himself, in his own person, most superior; now, he found that like a silly child he had been standing on a chair and crying: “See how tall I am.” And the airs, the cynicism, the graceful condescension, which had been so becoming to him, were now as out of place as crown and robes on a king taking a swimming lesson.