Morning, by George! Ten o’clock! He had been asleep all this time! He would have to hurry and dress now!
But where was he in regard to Idelle? Oh yes!... How she haunted him all the time these days! Coulstone, angered at her refusal to come with him again (she could not bring herself to do that, for all her religiosity, she said, not caring for him so much any more), but frightened by the presence of others, had eventually transferred all his interests from Pittsburgh to G——, and at this very time, on the ground of some form of virtue or duty—God only knows what!—five years later, indeed—was here in G—— with his wife and attempting to persuade her that she ought to give him a divorce in order to permit him to marry Idelle and so legitimize her child! And he, Garrison, already married to her! The insanity of mankind!
He must be hurrying through his breakfast; they would soon be nearing G—— now ... and he must not forget to stop in at Kiralfy’s when he reached G—— and buy some flowers for her!
But Idelle was not to be taken that way. She did not care for J—— C—— any more, or so she said. Besides nothing would cure her varietism then or now but age, apparently. And who was going to wait for age to overtake her? Not he, anyhow. Why, the very event that threw her into his arms—couldn’t he have judged by that if he had had any sense? Wasn’t that just such another affair as that of Coulstone and old Candia, only in this case it concerned much younger men—wasters in their way, too—one of whom, at least, was plainly madly in love with her, while the other was just intensely interested. Why was it that Idelle’s affairs always had to be a complex of two or more contending parties?
The condition of these washrooms in the morning!
According to her own story, she had first fallen in love, or thought she had, with the younger of the two, Gaither Browne, of the Harwood Brownes here in G—— and then while he was still dancing attendance on her (and all the while Coulstone was in the background, not entirely pushed out of her life) young Gatchard Keene had come along with his motor cars, his yacht, his stable of horses, and she had begun to flirt with him also. Only, by then—and she didn’t care particularly for him, either—
What a crowded breakfast car—all the people of last night, and more from other cars attached since, probably!
—she had half promised young Browne that she would marry him, or let him think she might; had even confessed a part of her past to him (or so she said) and he had forgiven her, or said it didn’t matter. But when Keene came along and she began to be interested in him Browne did not like this new interest in the least, became furiously jealous indeed. So great was his passion for her that he had threatened to kill her and himself if she did not give up Keene, which, according to her, made her care all the more for Keene. When Browne could stand it no longer and was fearful lest Keene was to capture the prize—which he was not, of course, Idelle being a mere trifler at all stages—he had invited her out on that disastrous automobile ride—
A mere form, eating, this morning! No appetite—due to his troubled thoughts, of course, these days!
—which had ended in her being carried into his presence at the Insull General. Browne must have been vividly in love with her to prefer to kill himself and her in that fashion rather than lose her, for, according to her, he had swung the car squarely into the rocks at Saltair Brook, only it never came out in the papers, and neither Idelle nor Browne would tell.