One hope remained to him—that when they knew of his immoral life in Moscow they would definitely insist on Katherine’s leaving him—and, if it came to that, she would stand by him. He knew that she would stand by him. He would himself long ago have told Trenchard had he not been sure that someone else would do that for him, and that then the sense of his own subterfuge and concealment would add to their horror and disgust.
The stronger their disgust the better for him.
The day of that disclosure seemed now his only hope. Let them fling him off and he knew what Katherine would do!...
Upon a torrid afternoon, two days after the Trenchard-Faunder wedding, an irresistible desire to see Katherine drove him to the Westminster house. He rang the bell, and was told by Rocket, who always treated him with an air of polite distrust, that the ladies were out, but might be in at any time.
“I will wait,” said Philip.
“Very good, sir,” said Rocket reluctantly, and showed him into the drawing-room, cool and damp like a green cave. To Rocket’s own restrained surprise, old Mr. Trenchard was there sitting quite alone, with a shawl covering his knees, in a large arm-chair near the empty fireplace.
The old gentleman showed no interest whatever in the opening of the door, and continued to stare in front of him through his gold-rimmed eye-glasses, his hands pressed fiercely into his knees. Rocket hesitated a moment, then withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Philip advanced slowly into the room. One of his difficulties with old Mr. Trenchard had always been that he was not sure whether he were truly deaf or no. On certain occasions there had been no question old Mr. Trenchard was not at all deaf, and then again on others deaf as a crab! He had never shown any marked signs of being aware of Philip’s existence. There were many weeks that he spent in his own room, and he could not be said to show a very active consciousness of anyone except Katherine, whom he adored, and Aunt Aggie, whom he hated.
But, altogether, he was to Philip a terrible old man. Like a silver-grey shadow, beautiful perhaps, with the silver buckles on his shoes, his delicate hands and his snow-white hair, but emphatically terrible to Philip, who throve and blossomed under warm human intercourse, and shrivelled into nothing at all under a silent and ghostly disapproval.
But to-day Philip was desperate and defiant. This old man would never die any more than this old drawing-room, reflected in the green mirror, would ever change.