Dobbin had cared, of course. At least, Dobbin had believed he cared. So had Lucinda, then....
How long ago it seemed!
XV
INEXPRESSIBLY SHOCKED ARRIVING TO-MORROW WILL CALL ON YOU TEN A M MEANWHILE BANK OF MICHIGAN WILL SUPPLY YOU WITH FUNDS IN ANY AMOUNT YOU MAY REQUIRE IF YOU WILL BE PLEASED TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF TO MR. SOUTHARD THERE.
The author of this telegram, which was delivered on the morning of Lucinda's fifth day in Chicago, was punctual to the minute of his appointment; otherwise he would hardly have been the rectilinear gentleman of the frock-coat school that he was.
Notwithstanding that Harford Willis was pledged to a code of morals and manners vinted in the early Eighteen-Eighties, and so implacably antagonistic to the general trend of present-day thought on the divorce question, his great affection for Lucinda predisposed him to allow that the course she had taken with Bellamy had been the only one his conduct had left open to her.
On the other hand he was unhappily unable to hide the disconcertion inspired by the simple gladness of her greeting, the spontaneity of which was in such marked contrast to his own well-composed demeanour of honorary pall-bearer at a fashionable funeral.
"If you only knew how good it is to see a friendly face for the first time in a whole week!"
"But, my dear Lucinda," Willis intoned deliberately in his well-modulated voice of a public speaker, "I must say you seem to be bearing up remarkably well, all things considered, re-mark-ably well."