Before leaving, Dick announced that he was eager to start West to connect with Barnum's circus, complaining of the unprofitable idleness that had been forced upon him. He expressed the confident hope that Braddock might be persuaded to leave with him.
"I can't afford to be loafin' around New York this season of the year," he reflected in the most degage manner imaginable. "It's expensive, the way Ernie and me are living nowadays. I got to get out and round up the rubes. Now, kid, don't preach. Oh, by the way, has Joey told you the good luck that's happened to Ruby? Going to marry Ben Thompson, a newspaper man. I'm mighty glad she's gettin' a chap like him, and not one of them rotten guys that hang around the op'ry houses. She's—she's a fine girl, Davy—a plum' daisy."
Jenison once more impulsively offered to provide a refuge and employment for life on his plantation for the delectable scalawag, but Dick laughed at him in fine scorn. He departed a few minutes later, sauntering down the hall with a complacency that fairly scoffed at house detectives and their ilk.
David went to the Portman home in a state of suppressed eagerness and anxiety, one emotion topping the other by turns as he was being driven toward Washington Square. He expected to see Christine. He was counting on it with all the pent-up fervor of a long-denied lover. The brief glimpse he had had of her in the afternoon drove out all doubts as to his own state of mind concerning her. She was incomparably beautiful; she had the air of the high-bred; she was worthy of the attentions of the well-born; she possessed poise, manner—all that and more: the indefinable charm that radiates in some mysterious way from the superlatively healthy.
His admiration for her, instead of suffering the shock that might have been anticipated—and which was secretly dreaded, to be quite candid—had grown more intense under the test. What would be her attitude toward him? That was the question. What had the five years and new environment done for her?
Eager as he was to discover the state of her feelings, he recognized, however, the more pressing matters that were to be considered. The peace and welfare of the girl herself demanded his first thoughts, his most devoted efforts. Tragedy stalked close beside her. He was afraid to think how close it was, or when it would make its ugly presence felt.
He lost no time, therefore, in apprising Mary Braddock of the true state of affairs. She sat before him, a great dread in her dark eyes, the pallor of helplessness on her cheek, listening to the direful tale he told. He did not make the mistake of minimizing the situation. He spared her not the details, nor softened the stubborn facts. As clearly as possible he drew for her the picture of Thomas Braddock as he had seen him. He repeated faithfully all that Dick Cronk and the Noakeses had told him, neglecting no particular in the known history of her husband since the old circus days.
She was very still and tense. Her eyes never left his face while he was speaking, except once when she looked toward the door in response to a sound that led her to believe that Christine was returning. There were times when he imagined that she was not breathing. After the first few minutes she asked no questions, but mutely absorbed the story as it fell from his lips. The light of joy and gladness in her eyes that had been his welcome was gone now. In its place was the dark gleam of dread and anxiety.
She interrupted him once, to ask him to tell her again how Braddock looked and how he had acted. As he repeated the description, her perplexed, even doubting, expression caused him to hesitate, but she shook her head as if putting something out of her mind and signified that he was to proceed.
"I would not have known him," he concluded, "he was so unlike the man I knew."