The Descent of Man and Other Stories

till house-bound, asked Waytho

oot propped up by the fire, greeted his

; I've got to ask you to d

the arrangement of his phrases: "The fact is, when I was knocked out I h

n, with an attempt t

dently had an inside tip from somebody, and had made about a hundred thousa

was an alluring one, but required negotiation. He listened intently while Sellers put t

And this thing can't wait. I hate to ask you, but no

ess of Varick's venture, but the honor of the office was to be

" he said,

others thought of it. The newspapers, at the time of Mrs. Waythorn's marriage, had acquainted their readers with every detail

ing a much less impressive figure. Varick had no head for business, and the talk prolonged itself for ne

n't want to make an ass of myself-" He smiled, and Waythorn could not help noticing that there was something pleasant about

he Varick separation, but it did not occur to him that Varick's words were intentional. It seemed more likely that the de

r you," he said. "I think th

od of you-" Varick broke off, embarrassed.

e you again," said Waythorn quietly. He was glad, in

rst time the day came round, he stayed out late, and questioned his wife as to the visit on his return. She replied at once that

few days later, with a rapid decline of fever, and the little girl was pronounced out of danger. In the rejoicing which ensued the thought of Haskett passed out of Wa

een a piano-tuner, or one of those mysteriously efficient persons who are summoned in emergencies to adjust some detail of the domestic

Inwardly he was trying to adjust the actual Haskett to the image of him projected by his wif

said Haskett, with his ov

ythorn, collecting himself. "I

ad a resigned way of speaking, as though life

threshold, nervously p

opened the door he added with an effort: "I'm glad we can give you a good report

horn. It's been an a

he'll be able to go to you." W

rried that his wife's former husbands were both living, and that amid the multiplied contacts of modern existence there were a thousand chances to one that he would run against on

much from his two meetings with Varick. It was Haskett's presence in his own house

the background of her life, a phase of existence so different from anything with which he had connected her. Varick, whatever his faults, was a gentleman, in the conventional, traditional sense of the term: the sense which at that moment seemed, oddly enough, to have most meaning to Waythorn. He and Varick had the same social habits, spoke the same language, understood the same allusions. But this other man...it was grotesquely uppermost in Waythorn's mind that Haskett had worn a made-up tie attached with an elastic. Why should that ridiculous detail symbolize the whole man? Waythorn was exasperated by his own paltriness, but the fact of the tie expanded, forced itself on him, became as it were the key to Alice's past. He could see her, as Mrs. Haskett, sitting in a "front parlor" furnished in plush, with a p

d. It was as if her whole aspect, every gesture, every inflection, every allusion, were a studied negation of that period of her life. If she had de

rst marriage as unhappy, had hinted, with becoming reticence, that Haskett had wrought havoc among her young illusions....It was a pity for Waythorn's peace of mind that Haskett's very i

she said with a dist