“There was a woman?” said Jane.
“A bad one. Pretty and clever as sin. My fault. I should have sent him to college where he’d have got at least a glimmer of life. But I kept him under the tutor until the thing happened. He thought he was in love, when it was only his first woman. She wanted his money—or, more properly speaking, mine. I had her investigated and found that she was bad all through. When I told him boldly what she was he called me a liar. I struck him across the mouth, and he promptly knocked me down.”
“Pretty good punch for a youngster,” was Cunningham’s comment. 256
“It was,” replied Cleigh, grimly. “He went directly to his room, packed, and cleared out. In that he acted wisely, for at that moment I would have cast him out had he come with an apology. But the following day I could not find him; nor did I get track of him until weeks later. He had married the woman and then found her out. That’s all cleared off the slate, though. She’s been married and divorced three times since then.”
“Did you expect to see him over here?”
“In Shanghai? No. The sight of him rather knocked me about. You understand? It was his place to make the first sign. He was in the wrong, and he has known it all these seven years.”
“No,” said Jane, “it was your place to make the first advance. If you had been a comrade to him in his boyhood he would never have been in the wrong.”
“But I gave him everything!”
“Everything but love. Did you ever tell him a fairy story?”
“A fairy story!” Cleigh’s face was the essence of bewilderment.