Forbes was in desperate case; he laughed bitterly. "Revenge is a little late. My life is ruined. I might as well put an end to it."
The old man stared at the tragic face, the brow corded with veins, the eyes fanatic with despair. He could not believe that so brilliant an officer could kill himself. And yet men did kill themselves—several thousand every year. When Forbes' father was a young man courting the fickle young beauty who was later to become the so steadfast wife and the mother of Forbes, they had quarreled, and Forbes' father had been frantic with grief, had threatened self-destruction. Tait himself had taken the revolver away from him and helped to lift him across the dark waters of jealousy. It startled him to see the father's black despair repeated in the son. He felt that he must repeat the rescue.
Yet, as humanity is constituted, tragedy becomes grotesque when it is repeated. He felt a certain helpless amusement at finding the son just as desperate as the father had been. He had laughed the elder Forbes out of his gloom. He attempted to ridicule the son free of the same obsession. He spoke in a low tone surcharged with an anxiety whose exaggeration was too dolorous to catch.
"You say that you can't stand the loss of Miss Cabot, and you might as well commit suicide?"
"I might as well."
"I'll tell you, Harvey, let's commit suicide together!" Forbes' haggard glance showed that he was not yet awake to the old man's parody of his solemnity.
"Do you mean it?" Forbes asked.
"Yes," Tait murmured; "all good Americans go to Paris when they die—let's go to Paris."
Now Forbes caught the twinkle in his eye. It took him off his guard. It was as if some one had made a funny face at a funeral. A guffaw of laughter escaped him. It shocked him and shamed him, but it shattered his depression.
Tait seized the opportunity of Forbes' disorder and urged his idea: