“And if, as you say,” said he, “Pendleton thinks me the whole works here, it will show a self-possession and freedom from anxiety on our part to accredit a subordinate (as you call yourself) as envoy to the court of St. Scads. Again, affairs here are likely to need me at any time; and if we go wrong here, it’s all off. I don’t dare leave. Anyhow, down deep in your subconsciousness, you know that in diplomacy you really have us all beaten to a pulp: and this is a matter as purely diplomatic as draw-poker. You’ll do all right.”
My wife was skeptical as to the necessity of my going.
“Why doesn’t Mr. Cornish go, then?” she inquired, after I had explained to her the position of Mr. Elkins. “He is a native of Wall Street, I believe.”
“Well,” I repeated, “they both say positively that they can’t go.”
“Your natural specialty may be diplomacy,” said she pityingly, “but if you take the reasons they give as the real ones, I must be permitted to doubt it. It’s perfectly obvious that if Josie were transferred to New York, the demands of business would take them both there at once.”
This remark struck me as very subtle, and as having a good deal in it. Josie had never permitted the rivalry between Jim and Cornish to become publicly apparent; but in spite of the mourning which kept the Trescott’s in semi-retirement, it was daily growing more keen. Elkins was plainly anxious at the progress Cornish had seemed to make during his last long absence, and still doubtful of his relations with Josie after that utterance over her father’s body. But he was not one to give up, and so, whenever she came over for an evening with Alice, Jim was sure to drop in casually and see us. I believe Alice telephoned him. On the other hand, Cornish was calling at the Trescott house with increasing frequency. Mrs. Trescott was decidedly favorable to him, Alice a pronounced partisan of Elkins; and Josie vibrated between the two oppositely charged atmospheres, calmly non-committal, and apparently pleased with both. But the affair was affecting our relations. There was a new feeling, still unexpressed, of strain and stress, in spite of the familiarity and comradeship of long and intimate intercourse. Moreover, I felt that Mr. Hinckley was not on the same terms with Jim as formerly, and I wondered if he was possessed of Antonia’s secret.
It was with a prevision of something out of the ordinary, therefore, that I received through Alice a request from Josie for a private interview with me. She would come to us at any time when I would telephone that I was at home and would see her. Of course I at once decided I would go to her. Which, that evening, my last in Lattimore before starting for the East, I did.
There was a side door to my house, and a corresponding one in the Trescott home across the street. We were all quite in the habit, in our constant visiting between the households, of making a short cut by crossing the road from one of these doors to the other. This I did that evening, rapped at the door, and imagining I heard a voice bid me come in, opened it, and stepping into the library, found no one. The door between the library and the front hall stood open, and through it I heard the voice of Miss Trescott and the clear, carrying tones of Mr. Cornish, in low but earnest conversation.
“Yes,” I heard him say, “perhaps. And if I am, haven’t I abundant reason?”
“I have told you often,” said she pleadingly, “that I would give you a definite answer whenever you definitely demand it—”