“Who’s the German? I’m not well enough up on the nobility to be able to guess, though it’s probably plainly told.”
“The Count von Biestrich,” said he.
“Thanks,” said I, no wiser than before, and we went up to play bridge.
A year or so before I might possibly have talked freely with Armitage; but the day of our closest intimacy had passed. He was still my intimate friend; I was his—with several large reservations. Why? Chiefly because when he passed the critical age his mind took the turn for the worse. At forty to forty-five a man begins to reap his harvest. Armitage had many and varied interests, but the one that affected his nature most profoundly was women. He mocked at them; he was always inventing or relating stories about them of the more or less gamey sort. But, somewhat like his pretensions of disdain for birth and fashion, his wordy scorn of women concealed a slavish weakness for them. After forty this began to disclose itself in his features. Their handsome intellectuality began to be marred by a sensual heaviness; and presently his wit degenerated toward a repellent coarseness. It takes delicate juggling to make filth attractive. After forty a man does well to be careful how he attempts it; for, after forty, the hand loses its lightness. I rather avoided Armitage; not that I was squeamish, but my sense of humor somehow rarely has responded to rude rootings and pawings in the garbage barrel.
About an hour after dinner Edna called me to the telephone and asked me to come to her. I found her in high excitement, her color vivid, her manner nervous beyond its natural vivacity even as now expanded upon the best Continental models. “I got rid of my guests,” said she, “and sent for you as soon as I could. Have you heard?”
“About von Biestrich?” said I.
“It is hideous!—hideous!” she cried. “I who have kept my name unsullied—I who have——”
“I’m sure of that,” I interrupted. “I’m dead tired and, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go home.”
She caught me by the arm. “Godfrey, you think this was what I had in mind. I swear to you——”
“I’m sure you’ve been all that a wife is expected to be,” said I, in my usual manner of good-natured raillery. “And I’m also sure you would wait until you were free, and would deliberate very carefully before deciding——”