"There is news, Mr. Thorndyke. Will you be kind enough, in talking of my old and valued friend,—and yours once,—to speak a little more respectfully?"
"A little more fiddle-dee-dee!" retorts Mr. Thorndyke. "Confound the old bloke, I say again! What business has he cutting up the way he has cut up ever since my marriage? I did everything I could to please him—I leave it to yourself, Gilbert, I did everything I could to please him. He wanted me to marry Helen. Well, haven't I married Helen? He wanted us to go with him to Europe in May. Didn't we come back from the South in April, to go with him in May as per agreement? And what do we find? Why, that the venerable muddle-head has started off on his own hook, with old Liston and some girl that he's taken in—adopted, or that bosh—a niece of Liston's. Started off without a word—without one blessed word of excuse or explanation to Helen or me. That's four months ago, and not a letter since. Then you talk of respect! By Jove, sir, I consider myself—Helen considers herself, shamefully treated. And here we are broiling alive in New York this beastly hot weather, instead of doing the White Mountains, or Newport, or somewhere else, where a man can get a breath of air, waiting for a letter that never comes. You've heard from him, you say—now what has the old duffer to say for himself?"
"He has nothing to say for himself. I have not heard from him. I said I had heard of him. How is Mrs. Thorndyke?"
"Well enough in health—devilish cross in temper. The old story—I'm a wretch, drink too much, gamble too much, spend too much, keep too late hours. Tell you what, Gilbert, matrimony's a fraud. Whilst I thought Nellie was the old man's pet and I was his heir, it was all well enough; blessed if I know what to think now. Are you going to tell me what you have heard of him?"
In silence, and with a face of contemptuous disgust, Mr. Gilbert takes up the French letter, points to a column, and watches him. This is what Mr. Thorndyke, with a face of horror, reads:
"I presume you know that your old friend and client, Hugh Darcy, died here two days ago. The bulk of his fortune, I hear, is left to the beautiful young widow, Mrs. Liston, whom he had legally adopted. She takes his name, and with her own rare loveliness, and Darcy's half million, Mrs. Liston-Darcy is destined to make no ordinary sensation when she returns to New York."
