“Come, no more of that, Kingsley!”
“By heavens, you are touched.”
He laughed merrily. I laughed also, but with a choking effort which almost cost me a convulsion as I left the tavern. The sport of Kingsley was my death. What he had said previously sunk deep into my soul. Not rightly—not as it should have sunk—showing me the folly of my own course without assuming, as I did, the inevitable wilfulness of the course of others; but actually confirming me in my fears—nay, making them grow hideous as THINGS and substantive convictions. It seemed to me, from what Kingsley said that I was already dishonored—that the world already knew my shame; and that he, as my friend, had only employed an ambiguous language to soften the sting and the shock which his revelations must necessarily occasion. With this new notion, which occurred to me after leaving the house, I instantly returned to it. It required a strong effort to seem deliberate in what I spoke.
“Kingsley,” I said, “perhaps I did not pay sufficient heed to your observations. Do you mean to convey to my mind the idea that people think Edgerton too familiar with my wife? Do you mean to say that such a notion is abroad? That there is anything wrong?”
“By no means.”
“Ah! then there is nothing in it. I see no reason for suspicion. I am not a jealous man; but it becomes necessary when one's neighbors find occasion to look into one's business, to look a little into it one's self.”
“One must not wait for that,” said Kingsley; “but where is your cigar?”
The question confused me. I had dropped it in the agitation of my feelings, without being conscious of its loss.
“Take another,” said he, with a smile, “and let your cares end in smoke as you wend homeward. My most profound thoughts come from my cigar. To that I look for my philosophy, my friendship, my love—almost my religion. A cigar is a brain-comforter, verily. You should smoke more, Clifford. You will grow better, wiser—COOLER.”
“I take your cigar and counsel together,” was my reply. “The one shall reconcile me to the other. Bon repos!” And so I left him.