But Mr. Lorton shook his head.
“I’m very sorry,” he replied. “But that’s quite impossible. For, in the first place, my brother’s business is a very complicated and peculiar one, and in the second I regret to say that I have absolutely no influence with him. In fact—er—well, to tell the truth, any testimonial from me would be worse than useless.”
“Oh, worse,” said Mrs. Lorton, “much worse. And besides, he has no vacancies.”
For perhaps a quarter of a minute there was a dead silence, and then very slowly my father rose to his feet.
“So I am to understand,” he said, “that you entirely refuse to approach your brother on my son’s behalf?”
With a pitiable gesture Mr. Lorton shrugged his shoulders, and the clock on the mantelpiece made an insolent crowing noise. Trembling, but composed, my father swept it to the floor together with several of its adjacent ornaments. Then very quietly, but with increasing emphasis, he began to address Mr. Lorton. It was a painful task. It is always a painful task to confront such a character with its own portrait. But it was a duty from which, I am proud to say, I never knew my father to shrink. Nor did he cease, on the present occasion, until the last iota of it had been discharged, though such, as I have shown, was his verbal economy that this was completed in fifteen minutes. Then with his hand resting upon my shoulder, for he was still the taller by two and a half inches, we turned our backs, as we thought for ever, upon Mr. and Mrs. Septimus Lorton.
I have said for ever. But though, as the event proved, this was a misjudgment on both our parts, it must not be assumed that either my father or myself had lost his self-confidence. For the moment, it was true, the path seemed obstructed, the vision obscured, the end denied. But neither of us doubted that, by means yet unrevealed, I should be brought at last to the destined haven, although, as I must admit, neither of us foresaw the tremendous speed with which this would be accomplished.
Such was the case, however, for when brooding alone, upon the very next evening, in Greenwich Park, a familiar voice pierced my consciousness and suddenly awakened my every faculty. It was a warm but cloudy April dusk, and I was sitting upon a seat under a large chestnut tree, when I began to hear again, to my disgust and astonishment, the detested voice of Mr. Septimus Lorton. Rapidly withdrawing myself behind the tree, I then observed him to be approaching my seat, evidently engrossed in his conversation with a medium-sized female who was accompanying him. For a moment, as was only natural, I resolved to transport myself as far as possible from his neighbourhood. But by some impulse—I realize now, of course, that this could only have had one origin—I merely performed perhaps a quarter of a revolution round the commanding trunk of the chestnut tree. By this manœuvre, not, I think, uningenious, I thus concealed myself from his vision while at the same time conferring upon myself such possible advantages as might accrue from observation. Nor was the event to prove me unjustified. For hardly had he arrived at the seat that I had vacated when he proceeded, accompanied by his companion, himself to sit down upon it.
Being a slow runner my position now was one of the extremest peril, and in the event of detection, I could only have relied upon my happily exceptional vocal powers. But a closer inspection of Mr. Lorton’s companion and something in the tones in which he was addressing her combined in bidding me hold my ground entirely regardless of personal danger. Indeed from the beginning, I think, it was less the physical than the moral contingencies that disturbed me. For I had instantly recognized, to my profound discomfort, that the person accompanying him was not Mrs. Septimus Lorton. A woman of much slenderer and more graceful build, she had a pink complexion and hazel eyes, with a rather large but conceivably alluring mouth, and a considerable quantity of yellowish hair. Her name, it appeared, was Nina, the i being pronounced as if it were an e, and it was quickly apparent to me that, for the first time, I was in the presence of the gravest human vice. Nor have I ever, perhaps, entirely recovered from the enormous shock of that discovery. For though I had been aware, of course, from my studies of Holy Scripture, that such things had occurred in the Middle East, and had even deduced from contemporary newspapers their occasional survival in the British Islands, I had never dreamed it possible that here, in a public park in the Xtian London of my own experience, a married man could thus openly sit with his arm round a female who was not his wife.
Trembling all over, I was afraid for two or three moments that I was about to relapse into unconsciousness, and that I did not do so I can only attribute to the amazing discovery that followed. For no sooner had Mr. Lorton taken his seat than the petrifying fact became manifest that his fellow-criminal was not only married herself but was actually the wife of his brother Chrysostom.[[5]] Afterwards, as was inevitable perhaps, I utterly broke down, but not until I had made full notes of their conversation, learned that Mrs. Chrysostom was supposed to be out shopping, and observed them kiss one another several times. Then, pale and distraught, blinded with tears, and scarcely indeed able to suppress my sobs, I hurried home, and within less than an hour had buried my face in my father’s waistcoat.