Forcing himself to regard it from a detached point of view, he saw the madness of that course. His imagination conjured up the blank amazement which would ensue not only among the Greenlea people, but in his town clubs, in the Trust Company. There would be hints that grief had unsettled his reason, then darker whispers still; whispers which would grow in volume until the echo of them reached him wherever he might be, at the uttermost ends of the earth.
He must not spoil all now by a precipitate move; he must possess his soul in patience until a favorable opportunity presented itself. He had inserted an opening wedge in mentioning his tentative intention to George; in a few weeks he would refer to it again, speaking of it casually but frequently, as a trip with definitely planned limitations, and hinting at a sound business proposition which awaited his return. The idea must filter through the clubs and out to Greenlea, must have become an old story before he finally acted upon it, so that his going would occasion no remark.
Once away, it would be simple enough to cable his instructions regarding the sale of the house and postpone his return from time to time until the old crowd had practically forgotten him. George would remember, but old George wouldn’t suspect the truth if he vanished to-morrow!
With the onus of fear lifted from him, Storm still shrank from solitude. Decency and convention precluded an immediate return to his clubs, and he desired above all things to avoid the society of those who knew him and the details of the recent tragedy. He took to satisfying his gregarious need by seeking out-of-the-way hotels and restaurants frequented for the most part by the visiting foreigners who thronged the city, where, sitting long over his coffee, he could lose himself in the study of his neighbors.
On an evening a few days after his interview with Foulkes he was seated at a table in an old-fashioned French hostelry far downtown, listening to the snatches of staccato conversation which rose above the subdued cadences of the orchestra and watching the scene brilliant with the uniforms of half a dozen nations, when to his annoyance he heard his name uttered in accents of cheery surprise.
Turning swiftly he beheld Millard, flushed and evidently slightly exhilarated, rising from the corner table where he had been seated with a sallow-faced, distinguished looking stranger in mufti.
He bowed coldly and returned with ostentatious deliberation to his entrèe, hoping to discourage the other’s advance; but Millard was in no mood to comprehend a rebuff.
“By Jove, old chap, delighted to find you here!” He shook Storm’s reluctant hand and without invitation pulled out the opposite chair and seated himself. “That’s the boy! Get around a bit and work up an interest in life. No use moping. We miss you out home, but as I told Dick Brewster, change is the thing for you, change——”
“What are you doing here?” Storm interrupted him brusquely. “Thought you were wedded to the three-forty; it’s been a bully afternoon for golf.”
“Business!” Millard waved a pompous hand toward the table he had just quitted. “Golf’s not in it with high finance, and this is the greatest proposition you ever heard of! Hundred per cent profit in three months and safe as a church; good deal safer than the churches on the other side have been!”