“No, nothing like that,” replied Lester, easily, with the air of one who prefers to be understood in the way of the world sense.
“Why so secret about it, if you have?” asked Dodge, attempting to smile, but with a wry twist to the corners of his mouth. He was trying to be nice, and to go through a difficult situation gracefully. “We fellows usually make a fuss about that sort of thing. You ought to let your friends know.”
“Well,” said Lester, feeling the edge of the social blade that was being driven into him, “I thought I’d do it in a new way. I’m not much for excitement in that direction, anyhow.”
“It is a matter of taste, isn’t it?” said Dodge a little absently. “You’re living in the city, of course?”
“In Hyde Park.”
“That’s a pleasant territory. How are things otherwise?” And he deftly changed the subject before waving him a perfunctory farewell.
Lester missed at once the inquiries which a man like Dodge would have made if he had really believed that he was married. Under ordinary circumstances his friend would have wanted to know a great deal about the new Mrs. Kane. There would have been all those little familiar touches common to people living on the same social plane. Dodge would have asked Lester to bring his wife over to see them, would have definitely promised to call. Nothing of the sort happened, and Lester noticed the significant omission.
It was the same with the Burnham Moores, the Henry Aldriches, and a score of other people whom he knew equally well. Apparently they all thought that he had married and settled down. They were interested to know where he was living, and they were rather disposed to joke him about being so very secretive on the subject, but they were not willing to discuss the supposed Mrs. Kane. He was beginning to see that this move of his was going to tell against him notably.
One of the worst stabs—it was the cruelest because, in a way, it was the most unintentional—he received from an old acquaintance, Will Whitney, at the Union Club. Lester was dining there one evening, and Whitney met him in the main reading-room as he was crossing from the cloak-room to the cigar-stand. The latter was a typical society figure, tall, lean, smooth-faced, immaculately garbed, a little cynical, and to-night a little the worse for liquor. “Hi, Lester!” he called out, “what’s this talk about a ménage of yours out in Hyde Park? Say, you’re going some. How are you going to explain all this to your wife when you get married?”
“I don’t have to explain it,” replied Lester irritably. “Why should you be so interested in my affairs? You’re not living in a stone house, are you?”