I looked at him earnestly. This was the first I had heard of his health being anything but exceedingly good.
He interpreted my glance in his own way.
“Don’t be alarmed, Israel. Nothing immediate is likely to happen, but my doctor tells me my heart is not the sound organ it ought to be, and that I must be very careful.”
“You must leave as much of the work to me as possible, sir,” I said feelingly.
“So I do, so I do, Israel; but you don’t want to turn me out altogether, do you?”
I looked hurt.
“My dear boy,” he continued good-humouredly, “I should not have ventured to take so long a holiday if I had not had you to depend on. Let us go to lunch and talk things over.”
I found that talking things over meant that he was anxious to make matters easier for my marriage, and, in fact, he made them so easy that Miss Gascoyne and I were able to fix a date within two months of their return.
Once we were married I did not mind so much what Edith discovered. Nevertheless, I had to admit that if I was frightened of anybody I was frightened of my future wife. I had imagined at one time that it would be possible to live with her on quite a dignified, unfamiliar footing, but I had now realised what I ought to have guessed before, that Miss Gascoyne to the man she loved was very different from the woman the world knew. Perhaps that is a wrong way of putting it. She was English, and a certain self-consciousness towards the world at large was born of a morbid dread of betraying the strength of her nature to the vulgar.