Family doctors accumulate a store of perfectly useless but uncomfortable information; that is the penalty we pay for expert advice, we reveal our affairs and our tongues.
Meanwhile, Paul Van Citters and the Italian Chargé d'Affaires having fallen into the toils of little Mrs. Prynne, Astry found himself offering his best cigars to Colonel Sedley as a means of diverting him from his one idea. But, though the fragrant Havana somewhat softened the edge of the colonel's observations, it did not entirely change the course of his conversation.
"I say, Astry, how about Charter?" he said. "You know I thought he was hard hit when he was here last."
Astry lit his own cigar carefully. "I'm not responsible for that, you know," he said dryly.
"I know that if he's come a cropper you didn't lend him the horse! But he's a fine fellow, Astry, a splendid fellow! I'd like to have seen Miss Leven marry a man like that."
"Exactly, but isn't it for her to choose after all?"
Sedley nodded slowly. "Of course, but, by Jove," he added, after a moment of silent puffing at his cigar, "what queer men women choose!"
Astry colored slightly and frowned, yet he was aware that Sedley did not know that he had loved Rachel first and asked her to marry him before Eva came back from a two years' stay in Paris. Rachel had refused him, simply because she did not love him. Knowing this, Astry had always regarded her as above the consideration of fortune, and it angered him the more that she should have deliberately chosen Belhaven. He was conscious, too, and it embittered his mood, that he had never hated Belhaven so on Eva's account, nor been so jealous of him as he was now, watching him stand close to Rachel to receive the congratulations of their bewildered friends. What would Rachel say to Belhaven, what would she do? The position was so forced, so unreal, that it affected Astry like a distasteful tragedy realistically acted but imperfectly staged.
"I have a feeling that Charter'll be considerably knocked up about it," persisted Sedley; "and he's made a splendid record in the Philippines."
"Well, a man who can stand the Philippines can stand a disappointment in love."