When he saw that I really wished to be educated, he amused himself by educating me. Not in a formal way, of course; but simply talking along, about whatever happened to come up. I have never known a man to get anywhere, who did not have an excellent memory. Lack of memory—which means lack of the habit and power of giving attention—is the cause of more failures than all other defects put together. If you don’t believe it, test the failures you know; perhaps you might even test your own not too successful self. I had an unusual memory; and I don’t think Armitage or anyone ever told me anything worth knowing that I did not stick to it and keep it where I could use it instantly.
Several months after his wife and mine departed, we were walking in the park one afternoon—the usual tramp round the upper reservoir to reduce or to keep in condition. He said in the most casual way:
“My wife is coming next week, and will get her divorce at once.”
Taking my cue from his manner I showed even less surprise then I felt. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said I.
“Really?” said he carelessly. “Everyone knows.” He laughed to himself. “She is to marry Lord Blankenship—the Earl of Blankenship.”
“And the children?” said I.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Her people will look after them. She has spoiled them beyond repair. I have no interest in them—nor they in me.” After a little tramping in silence, he halted and rested his hands on the railing and looked away across the lakelike reservoir, its surface tossed up into white caps by the wind. “I loved her when we were married,” said he. “That caused all the mischief. I let her do as she pleased. She was a fine girl—good family but poor. She pretended to be in sympathy with my ideas.” His lip curled in good-humored contempt. “I believed in her enthusiasm. My father—wonderfully sane old man—warned me she was only after our money, but I wouldn’t listen. Tried to quarrel with him. He wouldn’t have it—gave me my way. It’s not strange I believed in her. She looked all that’s high-minded—and delicate—and what they call aristocratic. Well, it is aristocratic—the reality of aristocracy.”
“Perhaps she was sincere,” said I, out of the depths of my own experience, “perhaps she honestly imagined she liked and wanted the sort of life you pictured. We are all hypocrites, but most of us are unconscious hypocrites.”
“No doubt she did deceive herself—in part at least,” he admitted. “For a year or so after our marriage she kept up the bluff. I didn’t catch on—didn’t find her out—until we began to differ about bringing up the children. Even then, I loved her so that I let her have her way until it was too late.”
“But,” said I, “don’t you owe it to them to——”