Why did Edna engage in that campaign of slander? Why did she say to everyone from this side the most malicious, the most mendacious things about my relations with Mrs. Kirkwood—that she had ignored the intrigue as long as she could for the sake of her dear daughter; that it had driven her from New York, had forced her to get a divorce, and so on through the gamut of malignant lying? There may perhaps be a clew to the mystery in the failure of her second marriage—as a marriage, I mean; not, of course, as a social enterprise, for there it was a world-renowned success. If the clew is not in Edna’s emptiness of heart and boredom, then I can suggest no explanation. I imagine she had been hearing and reading the gossip about an impending marriage between Mrs. Kirkwood and me until she had concluded that there must be truth in it—and by outrageous slander she hoped to make it impossible.
The first effect was as she had probably calculated. Mary and I avoided each other. Mary hid herself and would see no one. Armitage and I for a time kept up a pretense of close friendship, or, rather, publicly again pretended a friendship that had long since all but ceased. But when the talk both in the newspapers and among our acquaintances grew until the “at last uncovered scandal” was the chief topic of gossip, he and I almost stopped speaking. You may wonder why he or I or both of us did not “do something” to crush the absurd lie. Gentle reader, did you ever try to kill a scandal? It is done in novels and on the stage; but in life the silly ass who draws his sword and attacks a pestilent fog accomplishes nothing—beyond attracting more attention to the fog by his absurd and futile gesticulations. The world had made up its nasty little mind that the relations between Mary Kirkwood, divorced, and Godfrey Loring, divorced, were not, and for years had not been, what they should be. And the matter was settled. I think Armitage himself believed. I know Beechman believed, for he pointedly crossed the street to avoid speaking to me.
I stood this for a month. Then I went down to Mary’s place on Long Island.
You may imagine the excitement my coming caused among the honest yeomanry gathered at the station—those worthy folk who peep and pry into the business of their fashionable overlords, and are learning to cringe like English peasants. I found Mary setting out for a ride—through her own grounds; she was ashamed to venture abroad. I came upon her abruptly. Instead of the terror and aversion I had steeled myself to meet, I got a radiance of welcome that made my heart leap. But in an instant she had remembered and was almost in a panic.
“Please send the groom away with the horse,” said I. “Let us walk up and down here before the house.”
She hesitated, obeyed.
The broad space before the house was laid out in hedges and blooming beds with a long, straight drive leading in one direction to the highroad, in the other direction to stable, carriage house, and garage. When we were securely alone I said:
“Have you missed me?”
“Our friendship meant a lot to me,” replied she.
“I have discovered that it’s the principal thing in my life,” said I.