“He was my friend, you see. And I brought him home with me and made ’em friends.... I can see now, looking back, what a fool I was—about it. But I didn’t see it—then. I don’t know now what it was about him.... He’s old as I be—and I’ve got the money. I can give her everything she wants—more than he can. But I know now that from the first day she see him she was curious about him.... I’d brought him home to dinner one night—It was just after we were married.... I always kind of think of him that night—the way he looked at table—he’s tall—You know him—?”
Eldridge nodded. He was seeing the tall, distinguished figure—and beside it a humped-up one across his desk.
“We had red lamp-shades and candles and flowers—Everything shining, you know—Cordelia likes ’em that way.... When I try to think how it started I see ’em the way they looked that first night. I was proud of ’em both. I felt as if Cordelia belonged to me—and as if he did, too—in a way—” He looked at Eldridge. “I’d put him on to a good thing in business—!”
“Yes.”
“He and Cordelia laughed and talked the whole evening—kind o’ took it up—back and forth—the way you’d play ball. I could see Cordelia liked him. I was a fool. I’d waited about getting married till I had money enough to give a woman—to give her everything—and when she’d got it I never see there might be—something else she’d want.... I don’t just know what now—” He shook his head.
“Some days, since I’ve got sure of it, I’ve felt as if it couldn’t be so—as if she couldn’t have gone on living with me and having that other life—I didn’t know about—shut away from me—and I loving her....” The little, clear alcove moved before Eldridge and moved away. He was making absent marks on the edge of the pad before him.
The man sighed. “Well—It isn’t any use! That’s all, I guess—” Eldridge looked up. “Had you thought of—winning her back?”
The man shook his head. “I couldn’t do it.” He looked at him as if wondering whether he would understand. “There’s something about her I don’t get at,” he said slowly.
“Isn’t there something about any woman you don’t get at?” said Eldridge.
“That’s it!” assented the man. “It isn’t just Cordelia. It’s all of them—in back of ’em, somehow. I can’t tell you just how it is, but I’ve thought of it a lot—I guess there isn’t anything I haven’t thought of—since I knew—lying awake nights and thinking. Somehow, I knew, the first day it came to me—I knew there wasn’t any use... since the day I come on ’em at Merwin’s.”