I could not speak. I looked at her.
“How solemn you are!” laughed she. “Well, good-by, dear.” And she held out her hand and turned her face upward for me to kiss her lips.
“Oh, I’ll probably see you in the morning,” I said, “or to-night.” And away I went.
From Russia I drifted to India, intending to return home by the Pacific. At Bombay I met Lord Blankenship, and he persuaded me to cross to East Africa. I found him a companion exactly to my taste. He was a silent chap having nothing to think about and nothing to think with—a typical and model product of the aristocratic education that completes a man as a sculptor completes an image, and prepares him to stand in his appointed niche until decay tumbles him down as rubbish. I had lost all my former passion for talking and listening. I wished to confine myself—my thoughts—to the trivial matters of the senses, to lingering over and tinkering with the physical details of life. The silent and vacant Blankenship set me a perfect example, one easy to fall into the habit of following.
At Paris, I picked up my private secretary, Markham, and resumed attention to my affairs. I had arranged for things to go on without me, when I set out for East Africa. I found that my guess as to how they would go had been correct. For a month or so there was confusion—the confusion that is inevitable when a man who has attended to everything abruptly throws up his leadership. Then the affairs in which he fancied himself indispensable begin to move as well as if he were at the throttle—perhaps better. The most substantial result of my neglect seemed to be that I had become much richer, had more than recovered what my purchase of a son-in-law had cost me.
Markham, who had been at Cairo two months, had got himself engaged to be married. For several years I had been promising him a good position, that is to say, one more fitting a grown man of real capacity. But he made himself so useful that I put off redeeming my promise and eased my conscience and quieted his ambition with a succession of increases of salary. Now, however, I could no longer delay releasing him. So I must go back to New York, to find some one to take his place. Blankenship was wavering between a trip through West Africa and going to America with me, on the chance of my accompanying him on a shooting trip through British Columbia. He decided to stick to me, and as I had grown thoroughly used to having him about I was rather glad. It is astonishing how much comfort one can get out of the society of a silent man, when one feels that he is a good fellow and a devoted friend.
I telegraphed Edna that I would be unable to come to London, where she then was. But she defeated my plan for not seeing her. When I reached Paris there she was waiting for me at the Ritz. She had a swarm of French, Italians, and English about her—I believe there were some Germans or Austrians, also. I refused to be annoyed with them, and we dined quietly with Blankenship, Markham, and a pretty little Countess de Salevac to act us buffers between us. I tried to avoid being left alone with her, but she would not have it so. She insisted on my coming to her sitting room after the others had gone.
“I know you are tired,” said she, “but I shan’t detain you long.”
“Please don’t,” said I. “The journey has knocked me out. I’ve not slept for two nights.”