"Well, I'll see him, darling," said Ordway. "Sit here with your mother, and have a good cry and talk things over."
As he spoke he opened the door and went out into the hall, where he got into his overcoat.
"Remember last night and don't say too much, Daniel," urged Lydia in a warning whisper, coming after him, "she is quite hysterical now and does not realise what she is saying."
"Oh, I'll remember," he returned, and a minute later, he closed the front door behind him.
On his way to the Heath house in Henry Street, he planned dispassionately his part in the coming interview, and he resolved that he would state Alice's position with as little show of feeling as it was possible for him to express. He would tell Heath candidly that, with his consent, Alice should never return to him, but he would say this in a perfectly quiet and inoffensive manner. If there was to be a scene, he concluded calmly, it should be made entirely by Geoffrey. Then, as he went on, he said to himself, that he had grown tired and old, and that he lacked now the decision which should carry one triumphantly over a step like this. Even his anger against Alice's husband had given way to a dragging weariness, which seemed to hold him back as he ascended the brown-stone steps and laid his hand on the door bell. When the door was opened, and he followed the servant through the long hall, ornamented by marble statues, to the smoking-room at the end, he was conscious again of that sense of utter incapacity which had been bred in him by his life in Botetourt.
Geoffrey, after a full dinner, was lounging, with a cigar and a decanter of brandy, over a wood fire, and as his visitor entered he rose from his chair with a lazy shake of his whole person.
"I don't believe I've ever met you before, Mr. Ordway," he remarked, as he held out his hand, "though I've known you by sight for several years. Won't you sit down?" With a single gesture he motioned to a chair and indicated the cigars and the brandy on a little table at his right hand.
At his first glance Ordway had observed that he had been in a rage or drinking heavily—probably both; and he was seized by a sudden terror at the thought that Alice had been so lately at the mercy of this large red and black male animal. Yet, in spite of the disgust with which the man inspired him, he was forced to admit that as far as a mere physical specimen went, he had rarely seen his equal. His body was superbly built, and but for his sullen and brutal expression, his face would have been remarkable for its masculine beauty.
"No, I won't sit down, thank you," replied Ordway, after a short pause. "What I have to say can be said better standing, I think."
"Then fire away!" returned Geoffrey, with a coarse laugh. "It's about Alice, I suppose, and it's most likely some darn rot she's sent you with."