CHAPTER VI
Sometimes, mostly all the time, Gordon forgot that before the name of Heloise van Oynne was that magical prefix “Mrs.” Too nice-minded to discover, even by an indirect method, the extent of her indiscretion, Gordon had conceived in his mind a marriage between two persons diametrically unsuited one to the other. He fashioned Mr. van Oynne in the image of a gross, unimaginative business man, without soul, and saw dimly a struggle between opposing ideals; sullen fury or blank indifference on the man’s part, and, in the case of Heloise, a refined suffering and an infinite restlessness in her, until there came into her life the other half of her intellectual being. Which was Gordon.
He looked out of the window again.
Mr. Julius Superbus was deliberately charging a black pipe from a sealskin tobacco pouch. He seemed the kind of man who would stoop to the meanest methods to gain his ends. And a prurient brute who would think nothing of writing reports highly disparaging to a slim, aesthetic girl. A detective! In desperation he turned to Diana.
“Diana, do you mind if I have The Study for a little while? I want to see a man.”
She waved a cheery farewell as she disappeared through the door at the far end of the room.
“Bring him in.”
“Bring him in, sir?” Trenter was intrigued.
Gordon repeated the order.