My flippancy, my dear Hylton, is but a motley coat.
If there is one being in this world whom I love and honour, it is Andrew Lackaday. From the first day I met him, I, a cynical disillusioned wastrel, he a raw yet uncompromising lad, I felt that here, somehow, was a sheet anchor in my life. He has fed me when I have been hungry, he has lashed me when I have been craven-hearted, he has raised me when I have fallen. There can be only three beings in the Cosmos who know how I have been saved times out of number from the nethermost abyss--I and Andrew Lackaday and God.
I passed my hand over my eyes when I read this remarkable outburst of devoted affection on the part of the seducer and betrayer for the man he had wronged. I thought of the old couplet about the dissembling of love and the kicking downstairs. I read on, however, and found the mystery explained.
The time has come for me to pay him, in part, my infinite debt of gratitude.
You may have been surprised when I wrung your hand warmly before parting. Your words removed every hesitating scruple. Had you said, "there is nothing between a certain lady and Andrew Lackaday," I should have been to some extent nonplussed. I should have doubted my judgment. I should have pressed you further. If you had convinced me that the whole basis of my projected action was illusory, I should have found means to cancel the arrangements. But remember what you said. "There can't by any possibility be anything between Lady Auriol Dayne and Petit Patou."
"Damn the fellow," I muttered. "Now he's calmly shifting the responsibility on to me."
And I swore a deep oath that nevermore would I interfere in anybody else's affairs, not even if Bolshevist butchers were playing with him before my very eyes.
There, my dear Hylton (the letter went on), you gave away the key of the situation. My judgment had been unerring. As Petit Patou, our friend stood beyond the pale. As General Lackaday, he stepped into all the privileges of the Enclosure. Bound by such ties to Madame Patou as an honourable and upright gentleman like our friend could not d of severing, he was likewise bound to his vain and heart-breaking existence as Petit Patou. A free man, he could cast off his mountebank trappings and go forth into the world, once more as General Lackaday, the social equal of the gracious lady whom he loved and whose feelings towards him, as eyes far less careless than ours could see at a glance, were not those of placid indifference.
The solution of the problem dawned on me like an inspiration. Why not sacrifice my not over-valued celibacy on the altar of friendship? For years Elodie and I have been, en lout bien et tout honneur, the most intimate of comrades. I don't say that, for all the gold in the Indies, I would not marry a woman out of my brother's Archdeaco If she asked me, I probably should. But I should most certainly, such being my unregenerate nature, run away with the gold and leave the lady. For respectability to have attraction you must be bred in You must regard the dog collar and chain as the great and God-given blessing of your life. The old fable of the dog and the wolf. But I've lived my life, till past fifty, as the disreputable wolf--and so, please God, will I remain till I die. But, after all, being human, I'm quite a kind sort of wolf. Thanks to my brother--no longer will hunger drive the wolf abroad. You remember Villon's lines:
"Necessité fait gens mesprendre
Et faim sortir le loup des boys."