"I am sorry, old man," he said, with something almost like a sigh. "You live too much alone," he added, turning as he was about to open the door. "You ought to get married."
Brett smiled in rather a ghastly fashion which did not escape his friend.
"I cannot leave New York," he repeated mechanically.
"Perhaps you will before long," said Vanbrugh, going out. "I would if I were you."
He went away in considerable perplexity. Something in Brett's manner puzzled him and almost frightened him. As a lawyer, and one accustomed to dealing with the worst side of human nature, he was inclined to play the detective for a time; as a friend, he resolved not to inquire too closely into a matter which did not concern him. In fact, he had already gone further than he had intended. Only a refined nature can understand the depth of degradation to which curiosity can reduce friendship.
A day or two later Vanbrugh met Dolly Maylands at a house in Tuxedo Park where he had come to dine and spend the night. There were enough people at the dinner to insure a little privacy to those who had anything to say to one another.
"Brett is ill," said Vanbrugh. "Do you know what is the matter with him?"
"I suppose Marion has refused him after all," answered Dolly, looking at her plate.
Vanbrugh glanced at her face and thought she was a little pale. He remembered the conversation when they had been left together in the library after John Darche's trial, and was glad that he had then spoken cautiously, for he connected her change of colour with himself, by a roundabout and complicated reasoning more easy to be understood than to explain.
"Perhaps she has," he said coolly. "But I do not think it is probable."