To know herself that such a thing had looked upon her as he had looked
was loathsome; to have others see him accost her and leer over their
interpretations of the insult seemed more than she could bear. And the
platform and hot, foul waiting-room, common to both men and women, were
both as conspicuous as the hotel had been; both peopled with the same
side-long glances.
So she had fled again from the lighted portion of the platform this
time to the darker, far more dangerous end, which was out of the puddle
of illumination. And now he was coming toward her less unhurriedly,
his canine teeth showing wolfishly through a grin. This last move of
hers he believed he understood; he even valued it. A little coquetry
lent zest to the game. And she _had_ led him a pretty chase--but
now . . . he was very sure of himself . . .
How Little-Tweed-Suit--a girl like Tweed-Suit--came there upon the
station platform of Estabrook is a long story; and it is not entirely
hers or ours. Therefore only the briefest part, for this tale's sake,
shall be set down here.
It concerns a white house on a hill, and a man who failed so bleakly
that few could remember, even directly after his funeral, how shining
his successes had been. For his brilliance could not be saved in ink
or perpetuated with paint or brush. To be sure, his friends after his
death now and then found themselves recalling something particularly
keen, something analytical and searching as a probe, which he had
voiced on this occasion or that.
"I remember how Manners used to say," they would begin; and then quote
as accurately as it were possible. But directly, when they discovered
how happily these epigrams were received by those who had not heard
them, they acquired a singular habit; they began to leave out Manners'
name and appropriate the applause to themselves. Thus they robbed the
dead man safely, nor found the practice ghoulish. One or two thereby
even acquired permanent fame as an after-dinner wit.
Even his enemies, implacable, political enemies, who had done the most
to destroy him, more than the temperament which he himself believed to
be a blight, were a little more honest than that. They had fought him
according to their own rules, which debarred nothing, with every foul
trick they knew. If there was a weak spot in a man's record, go after
it; if he had been a weakling, temporarily a fool, seek it out. There
were human bloodhounds always sniffing to come upon such a scent. Hunt
it down; find the woman.
As a matter of fact, there had not been a woman, after all. That had
been a mistake. A bad mistake, for it had killed his wife. But a
lucky mistake for them! For it had delivered into their hands the
secret of an actual and even more vulnerable place to attack.
Before his wife's death he had been proud enough to hide it, and fight
it out when the struggle was on, within the four walls of his home.
But afterward he seemed to cease to care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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