What an impulsive, delightful, compromising fool a true woman is! I only met her twice—for a minute, by accident—with Kinsman—and yet she came to me to-night. Put herself absolutely in my power. I might blackmail her as Kinsman did. I might tell Conifer. Fortunately for her I shan’t.
She sat and talked, elaborated every detail, shredded every sensation, just as Pray did. I wish these remorseful, perplexed, sinned against and sinning people would not come to me. They shove their skeletons in my face, rattling every bone, speaking of the past—always, always the past—to a fellow who wants to keep young, who doesn’t feel his age.
[MORTGAGED.]
I HAVE told you about Kinsman—his china and oak, his flirtations—never from the heart—his downfall and sorry end.
Poor Kinsman! Like most born bad lots he was a charming companion. If it had not been for the apocryphal aristocratic connections to whom he persistently alluded, he would have been perfect. He was so charmingly enthusiastic over his curios; such a solemn enthusiasm—the only earnest thing about him.
Yet over the affair of that one supreme curio he kept rigid silence. He told me; but it was a couple of years later—when the Inn had ceased to talk about Harrowsmith. A couple of years later! By then Kinsman had lived down the first strength of his angry regret. He told me fully, lovingly, sadly, opening out his passionate collector’s soul. He made me understand the full virility of those odd emotions which had once fired and wasted him.
Yes. He was silent enough while the affair was in progress. That odd, weird, inanimate affair! How little any of us suspected the nature of the struggle that was going on behind his constantly sported oak.
It was in this way. Let me begin, as he began, with his introduction to the brown, burly god which gained possession of him.
Harrowsmith asked him to lunch one Saturday. After lunch he brought out cigars; he had money and could afford them daily. To him cigar-smoking was a habit, not an occasional indulgence.