A KEEPER IN THE HOUSE.
LILIAN opened the door, and kissed me as usual when I came home.
“Why, Paley, you have been drinking,” whispered she.
“I had a severe pain, and took a glass of whiskey. I feel fetter now,” I replied.
“There’s a gentleman waiting for you in the sitting-room,” she added.
“Yes, I saw him. It is Buckleton, an old friend of mine. I may ask him to dine with us.”
I think Lilian suspected something was wrong with me, though I am sure she had not the remotest conception of the nature and extent of the mischief which was gathering around us. Probably the smell of my breath startled her, with the added fact that I was a little flighty in my manner, for I believe that nothing can be more justly startling to a woman than the possibility of her husband becoming a drunkard. She knew nothing whatever of my financial affairs. I had never made her my confidant; on the contrary, I had weakly and foolishly assumed to be “full of money,” and behaved with a liberality and extravagance far beyond my means.
Buckleton was waiting for me. I owed Buckleton eight hundred dollars, for which he had no security. What did Buckleton want with me? It had been his own proposition to give me, under a liberal interpretation of his own words, unlimited credit as to time, if not amount. Why had he come to my house? I had been at the bank all the forenoon, and that was the proper place to meet a man in relation to business. Of course if I had not owed him eight hundred dollars, I should not have troubled my head about this particular visit of an old acquaintance.
However, I had drank two glasses of whiskey, and the circumstance of his coming did not trouble me much. I still felt light-hearted, and was not disposed to let anything trouble me much or long. I smoothed down my hair, and after drinking a glass of ice-water in the dining-room, which my parched tongue required, I entered the room where Buckleton was waiting for me. He was as cordial as though he had come only as an old friend. But exhilarated as I was, I could not fail to notice a certain constraint on his part, as though his cordiality was in a measure forced.
He was glad to see me. He had business at the South End, and thought he would call in upon me as he was passing. The messenger at the bank told me, the next day, he had been there to find me ten minutes after I left. But his coming at this particular time, he labored to represent, was purely an accident. He was glad to see me so well situated. He hoped I should call on him at the West End with Mrs. Glasswood. He had not had the pleasure of knowing my wife, but he hoped to make her acquaintance. All these things he said with the utmost suavity, and then rose from the sofa to take his leave; but he did not take it, and I knew he did not intend to do so until he had said something about the little matter of eight hundred dollars that I owed him. He had his hat in his hand, and moved toward the door.