Dudley Leicester said, with a sudden and hot gloom:
“There’s nothing about me to talk about. I’ve never wanted to be an interesting chap, and I never have been. I shall give Saunders the sack and report the postman.”
“Oh, come now,” Grimshaw said. “I know it’s in human nature to dislike the idea of being talked about. It used to give me the creeps to think that all around me in the thousands and thousands of people that one knows, every one of them probably says something of me. But, after all, it all averages out. Some say good, no doubt, and some dislike me, and say it. I don’t suppose I can go out of my door without the baker at the corner knowing it. I am spied upon by all the policemen in the streets round about. No doubt half the shop-assistants in Bond Street snigger at the fact that I help two or three women to choose their dresses and their bracelets, and sometimes pay their bills, but what does it all amount to?”
“Hell,” Dudley Leicester said—“sheer hell!”
“Oh, well, eat your breakfast,” Grimshaw replied. “You can’t change it. You’ll get used to it in time. Or if you don’t get used to it in time, I’ll tell you what to do. I’ll tell you what I do. People have got to talk about you. If they don’t know things they’ll invent lies. Tell ’em the truth. The truth is never very bad. There’s my man Jervis. I’ve said to him: ‘You can open all my letters; you can examine my pass-book at the bank; you can pay my bills; you’re at liberty to read my diary of engagements; you can make what use you like of the information. If I tried to stop you doing these things, I know I should never succeed, because you chaps are always on the watch, and we’re bound to nod at times. Only I should advise you, Jervis,’ I said, ‘to stick to truth in what you say about me. It don’t matter a tinker’s curse to me what you do say, but you’ll get a greater reputation for reliability if what you say always proves true.’ So there I am. Of course it’s an advantage to have no vices in particular, and to have committed no crimes. But I don’t think it would make much difference to me, and it adds immensely to the agreeableness of life not to want to conceal things. You can’t conceal things. It’s a perpetual strain. Do what you want, and take what you get for doing it. It’s the only way to live. If you tell the truth people may invent a bit, but they won’t invent so much. When you were married, I told Hartley Jenx that if you hadn’t married Pauline, I should have. Everybody’s pretty well acquainted with that fact. If I’d tried to conceal it, people would have been talking about my coming here three times a week. As it is, it is open as the day. Nobody talks. I know they don’t. Jervis would have told me. He’d be sure to know.”
“What’s all that got to do with it?” Dudley Leicester said with a suspicious exasperation.
Robert Grimshaw picked up on to his arm Peter the dachshund, that all the while had remained immobile, save for an occasional blinking of the eyelids, between his feet. Holding the dog over his arm, he said:
“Now, I am going to confide Peter to Saunders. That was the arrangement I made with Pauline, so that he shouldn’t worry you. But you can take this as a general principle: ‘Let your servants know all that there is to know about you, but if you find they try to take advantage of you—if they try to blackmail you—hit them fair and square between the jaws.’ Yes, I mean it, literally and physically. You’ve got mettle enough behind your fists.”
Robert Grimshaw desired to speak to Saunders in private, because of one of those small financial transactions which the decencies require should not be visible between guest and master and man. He wanted, too, to give directions as to the feeding of Peter during his absence; but no sooner had the door closed upon him than Dudley Leicester made after him to open it. For he was seized by a sudden and painful aversion from the thought that Saunders should be in private communication with Robert Grimshaw. He strongly suspected that Saunders knew where he had spent those hours of the night—Saunders, with his mysterious air of respectful reserve—and it drove him nearly crazy to think that Saunders should communicate this fact to Robert Grimshaw. It wasn’t that he feared Grimshaw’s telling tales to Pauline. It was that he dreaded the reproach that he imagined would come into Robert Grimshaw’s dark eyes; for he knew how devoted Grimshaw was to his wife. He had his hand upon the handle of the door; he withdrew it at the thought that interference would appear ridiculous. He paused and stood irresolute, his face distorted by fear, and his body bent as if with agony. Suddenly he threw the door open, and, striding out, came into collision with Ellida Langham. Later, the feeling of relief that he had not uttered what was just on the tip of his tongue—the words: “Has Pauline sent you? How did she hear it?”—the feeling of relief that he had not uttered these words let him know how overwhelming his panic had been. Ellida, however, was bursting into voluble speech:
“Katya’s coming back!” she said. “Katya’s coming back. She’s on one of the slow ships from Philadelphia, with an American. She may be here any day, and I did so want to let Toto know before he started for Athens.”