"There it is!" I exclaimed, laughingly. "You blow hot and cold.
You would have me go and stay."
"Take the cigar, at least, and smoke it as you go. My advice is
good, and that it is honest you may infer from my reluctance to
part with you. I will see you at the office at nine in the morning.
There is some prospect of a compromise with Jeffords about the tract
in Dallas, and he is to meet Wharton and myself at your law-shop
to-morrow. It is important to make an arrangement with Jeffords--his
example will be felt by Brownsell and Gibbon. We may escape a
long-winded lawsuit, after all, to your great discomfiture and my
gain. But you do not hear me!"
"Yes, yes, every word--you spoke of Jeffords, and Wharton, and
Gibbon--yes, I heard you."
"Now I know that you did not hear me--not understandingly, at
least. I should not be surprised if I have made you jealous. You
look wild, mon ami!"
"Jealous, indeed! what nonsense!" and I prepared to depart when
I had thus spoken.
"Well, at nine you must meet us at the office. My business must
not suffer because you are jealous."
"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?"