He stood up suddenly, looking old and tired. “I believe I’ll be off. I wish you’d come down to my place for Sunday.... No, don’t shake hands—I want to slide away unawares.”
He had backed away to the threshold and was turning the noiseless door-knob. Even Mrs. Cumnor’s doorknobs had tact and didn’t tell.
“Of course I’ll come,” I promised warmly. In the last ten minutes he had begun to interest me again.
“All right Good-bye.” Half through the door he paused to add:—“She remembers you. You ought to speak to her.”
“I’m going to. But tell me a little more.” I thought I saw a shade of constraint on his face, and did not add, as I had meant to: “Tell me—because she interests me—what wore her down?” Instead, I asked: “How soon after Trant’s death did she remarry?”
He seemed to make an effort of memory. “It was seven years ago, I think.”
“And is Reardon here to-night?”
“Yes; over there, talking to Mrs. Cumnor.”
I looked across the broken groupings and saw a large glossy man with straw-coloured hair and a red face, whose shirt and shoes and complexion seemed all to have received a coat of the same expensive varnish.
As I looked there was a drop in the talk about us, and I heard Mr. Reardon pronounce in a big booming voice: “What I say is: what’s the good of disturbing things? Thank the Lord, I’m content with what I’ve got!”