Jake groaned at the anticlimax to his lofty flight, but he realized that the main business before the house was what his wife propounded.
He remembered seeing an Information Bureau sign in the station. He had learned from the newspaper in which he had seen Mamise’s picture that she was visiting Major Widdicombe. He had written the name down on the tablets of his memory, and his first plan was to find Major Widdicombe. Jake had a sort of wolfish cunning in tracing people he wanted to meet. He could always find anybody who might lend him money. He had mysterious difficulties in tracing some one who could give him work.
He left his wife to simmer in the station while he set forth on a scouting expedition. After much travel he found at last the office of the Ordnance Department, in which Major Widdicombe toiled, and he appeared at length at Major Widdicombe’s desk.
Jake was cautious. He would not state his purpose. He hardly dared to claim relationship with Miss Webling until he was positive that she was his sister-in-law. Noting Jake’s evasiveness, the Major discreetly evaded the request for his guest’s address. He would say no more than:
“Miss Webling is coming down to lunch with me at the––that is with my wife. I’ll tell her you’re looking for her; if she wants to meet you, I’ll tell you, if you come back here.”
“All right, mucher bliged,” said Jake. Baffled and without further recourse, he left the Major’s presence, since there seemed to be nothing else to do. But once outside, he felt that there had been something highly unsatisfactory about the parley. He decided to imitate Mary’s little lamb and to hang about the building till the Major should appear. In an hour or two he was rewarded by seeing Widdicombe leave the door and step into an automobile. Jake heard him tell the driver, “The Shoreham.”
Jake walked to the hotel and saw Marie Louise seated at a table by a window. He recognized her by her picture and was duly triumphant. He was ready to advance and demand recognition. Then he realized that he could make no claim on her without his awful wife’s corroboration. He took a street-car back to the station and found his nominal helpmeet sitting just where he had left her.
Abbie had bought no newspaper, book, or magazine to while away the time with. She was not impatient of idleness. It was luxury enough just not to be warshin’ clo’es, cookin’ vittles, or wrastlin’ dishes. She took a dreamy content in studying the majesty of the architecture, but her interest in it was about that of a lizard basking on a fallen column in a Greek peristyle. It was warm and spacious and nobody disturbed her drowsy beatitude.
When Jake came and summoned her she rose like a rheumatic old househound and obeyed her master’s voice.