“Wait a minute,” he said, in a low voice. He raised his hand. “I warn you that you are interfering with matters that don’t concern you, that you can’t even comprehend. You are doing it at your peril.”
“What do you do for that company?” she repeated.
He extended both hands in a gesture of deprecation. “I simply look after its interests in the House. There’s the truth, now. It’s perfectly legitimate. There are plenty of men who do the same thing for other corporations—men in big positions.”
Her face grew pale and she swayed forward slightly. Then she stood erect and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Douglas!” she said.
XI
On the morning after the reception Franklin West sat at his desk in his office in the Belmore Building. His head was bowed over a mass of type-written sheets. He paid little attention to them, however. He found it hard to work this morning. He was thinking, with considerable disgust, that he had made himself ridiculous the night before. He had, moreover, made a misstep that might lead to serious consequences.
Yes, he had certainly been a great ass. He had spoken to Mrs. Briggs in a way he would never have thought of speaking if he had been in his senses. However, now that the mischief was done, he must consider how to meet the consequences. What would the consequences be? Would she tell her husband? The answer to that question depended wholly on whether she believed the charge he had made against her husband’s integrity. West knew well enough that Mrs. Briggs had an absolute belief in her husband, and this knowledge had often caused him a contemptuous bitterness. Why should a man like Briggs be allowed to deceive such a woman as that? If Mrs. Briggs still kept her faith in her husband, there was no reason why she should not reveal the episode of the previous night—none except the woman’s natural fear of creating a scandal. This motive might be strong enough to keep her silent. But, of course, he could never enter her house again. He might, it is true—and the thought gave him a momentary relief—he might write her an apology, and explain his behavior on the plea of his condition. But that would be too humiliating, and it might give Briggs a hold on him that would be decidedly disagreeable, and lead to disastrous consequences. However, this expedient he could try as a final resort. It was, of course, possible that Mrs. Briggs would believe what he had said, or would make an investigation that would bring the truth home to her. Here was an interesting problem. Once convinced that her husband was a hypocrite, that he had made his money by means that she considered dishonest, would she still respect and love him?
West took a satisfaction in thinking that if he had made himself ridiculous, he might have at least ruined the happiness of the woman who had repulsed him, and of the man for whom he had a covert hatred, caused partly by jealousy, partly by an instinctive consciousness of Briggs’s dislike, and partly by that natural aversion which all men have for those associated with them in dealings that degrade them in their own esteem.
The green door leading into the adjoining room opened, and the office boy entered. “There’s a lady to see you, sir,” he said.