“Your mother and I were disgracefully neglectful of them,” pursued I. “But I shall make up for it, as far as I can. I wish you would come over and visit us.” “I should like it, papa,” murmured she, ready to sink down with shame. “They are plain people,” I went on, “but they are good and honest--much ahead of these wretched parasites you’ve been brought up among.... Talk to your mother about them. Tell her what I have said.” She understood thoroughly; that is the sort of thing fashionable people always understand. “I shall, papa,” said she. And I could see her putting on a fetching air of sweet innocence and telling her mother. “And if she does not like it,” continued I--“can’t bear the scandal and ridicule among her fashionable friends--why, she can desert me. And that would give me ground for divorce.” “She would be dreadfully unhappy over there,” said Margot. “I am sure of it,” said I, and my accent was a guarantee. Should I see Edna again and picture our life together in the house of love she was bent upon? I decided against it. Margot’s pictures might lack the energy and detail of mine. They would more than make up in bringing home to her the awful reality, as she would believe Margot where she might suspect me of merely threatening what I would never carry out. So, off I went to London--to wait. About the hardest task in this world is inaction when every fiber of your being is clamorous for action. Yet I contrived to sit tight--for a week--for two weeks. I have always regarded myself as too impatient, too impetuous. And, beyond question, my natural tendency is to the precipitate. But looking back over my life I am astonished--and not a little pleased with myself--as I note how I have held myself in check, have confined my follies of rash haste to occasions when miscarriage was not a serious matter. Armitage came--on the way from St. Moritz to America. As soon as I could command the right tone, I said: “You’ve seen your sister and Mrs. Armstrong? How are they?” “All right,” replied he indifferently. “Motoring in Spain at present, I believe.” “Beechman--he’s with them?” “No. He’s somewhere hereabouts, I believe. I saw him in Hyde Park the other day--looking as seedy as if he were pulling out of an illness. I spoke and he stared and scowled and nodded--like the bounder that he is.” “You don’t care for him?” said I, rejoiced by this news of my rival’s seediness. “Oh, one doesn’t bother to like or dislike that sort of chap.” He said this in a supercilious manner--a manner he had never had in the earlier period of our acquaintance. How the inner man does poke through the surface when the veneer of youth wears thin! “For one who despises birth and wealth and rank,” said I, not without a certain malice, “you have a queer way of talking at times.” Armitage winced, changed the subject by saying: “And what the devil’s the matter with _you_? You’re looking anything but fit yourself.”