“What difference will it make, whether I do, or not?” she asked, bitterly.
CHAPTER THREE
ANDRÉE’S WEDDING
§ i
GILBERT was alone in his office, working in one of his characteristic fits of great energy. A sort of inspiration would seize him, he would map out astounding campaigns, design advertisements, write letters to his travelling salesmen which filled them with admiration and enthusiasm, humorous, racy letters, replete with valuable suggestions. The greater part of his time he was cross and wretched, but he had his glorious hours, his days of geniality and amazing penetration. The entire office staff would be enchanted, and ready to adore him, for he had a perverse charm about him, an elusive loveableness, a touch of the fascination so marked in his eldest child.
He always addressed his salesmen in his own writing, a very neat and legible one, and he was doing that now, his plump, well-kept hand travelling deliberately over the paper, and a faint smile on his lips, when there was a knock at the door and his young Cuban entered.
“Your daughter is outside, sir!” he announced, with all the homage of a courtier. He was profoundly attached to “the family”; he was not without hope of something happening similar to the things he had read of in French romances—that, as a reward for his furious zeal, he would one day be invited to dinner, for instance, when he could be presented to the young ladies with due ceremony. After that, the rest would be easy....
“Ask her to step in,” said Gilbert, and looking at his watch, decided that he would take Edna out to lunch. He took it for granted that it was Edna, because it always was. She was sent as an emissary by both Bertie and Andrée when they wanted money or permission for any unapproved enterprise, because she knew how to handle him.
He wheeled round in his chair, and was surprised to see Andrée standing there.
“Well, well!” he said, good-humouredly. “What do you want, eh?”
He thought she looked “queer,” and he stared at her more closely. She had a sort of desperate, defiant air, an unchanging smile.