“Oh, I don’t,” he smiled.
“Yes, you do,” she nodded wisely. “I’m onto your curves, old chap. I’ll just have to talk to you like a Dutch uncle. I’ve a scheme, too; better than anything Kate gets off. Now—mustn’t it be grand?”
“Phew!” he affected seriousness. “It must be a corker. Let’s hear it.”
“Here? Wouldn’t that be funny,” she asked herself aloud. “Wouldn’t that be too funny!” The idea amused her. “Oh, no, mon capitaine, not here before all these folks. It’s—it’s private. Yes,” she mused, “it’s quite private.... You must let me have an interview. I’ve been trying to have one with you ever since June.”
“Why, my dear child!” he was surprised. “We’ve been together nearly every blessed day, taken walks together and all that!”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ve tried to say it—and couldn’t. But I’m going to dive in soon. That’s what I came to your house for, in June; you remember when you were teaching the Croft boy? If he hadn’t been there I’d have done it then. Hush!” she raised a finger. “They’re coming back. Not a word.... It’s partly about him.” She nudged toward Leopold.
That was an exasperating way to end a conversation, characteristic of Gorgas—just like an exciting continuous story. “It’s partly about him.” About Leopold?
Leopold had never ceased his subtle interest in Gorgas since the night of their first conversation in French. He was both French and English, and, back of that, the Oriental. He seemed ever ready to do two contradictory things; to leap into the breach and seize the enemy by the throat, or to stand, courageous as the day, and undisturbed take every shock. One of these—the French or the English—might have won out and given him a positive emotional character, but the persistent Hebrew, trained to keep emotions in check, to pass them in review before hard, good sense, held the two contrary horses together and dominated from the driver’s seat. One needs a mixed metaphor to describe Leopold.
There was much more to Leopold than that—what forked, straddling biped can be summed up in a phrase?—he had the smile of compassion and the hovering sadness of those who have looked upon the world from afar off, who have travelled sympathetically among peoples and have seen the splendid futility of the life effort.
It was generally believed that Leopold was rich. He admitted a competence, but his life was simple. Ah! Blynn had a swift thought of comprehension. Leopold was to furnish the salary! That was it. Wise little Gorgas had thought to dissipate a man’s pride in being self-supporting by shifting the source of income from a stock-company to a person! Women will never understand that side of man, he mused; the fierce hatred of leaning upon another. In illness women are meek and saintly; when men become sick and incapacitated they grow unbearable, their maimed spirits cry out against the very charity that would make them whole. Women live in dependence without shame. They take furs and carriages and spending money from their fathers. Even a boy of sixteen begins to rebel. He cannot take things, even from fathers; he must earn.