Anthony the Absolute by Samuel Merwin

Anthony the Absolute by Samuel Merwin

Author:Samuel Merwin [Merwin, Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-08-26T22:00:00+00:00


He looked up at me, and his voice trailed off into silence.

But I did nothing, except to say, in a voice that I knew to be my own because he was no longer speaking and there was certainly no other person in the room—

“So you talked of me!”

He bowed.

“You are frank, Sir Robert.”

He waved his hand. “Why not?” Then he went on. “The most puzzling point in her puzzling story is that part relating to the other man—the one that brought her out here. She makes no effort to justify her actions, as we expect a woman to do when she has gone wrong in the eyes of men.”

“Oh—so you asked her about that?”

“Yes.” He indulged in a wry, fleeting smile. “I brought up everything—used all my logic, Eckhart. I was, like you, a fool to want her at all with that crazy husband so close on her heels; but I did want her, and I worked hard for a few hours.” He sighed. “Do you know, all she has to say of the man with whom she traveled from New York clear to Peking, is—’ That was a dreadful mistake. I was n’t the sort of woman he thought me.’ And when I spoke sympathetically of his cruelty in deserting her, she quietly informed me that he did nothing of the kind.... What do you say to that, my boy? She left him! ”

He was quite warmed up to his story now. He even chuckled.

“What do you say to that, young man? This exceedingly attractive young person, very nearly penniless, quite unhampered by practical experience, turns the man off, refuses his money, and starts out to face life—in Peking—alone and without so much as a plan of action! It is pitiful, of course. It is tragic. But it does stir the fancy. Now, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly, “why I don’t beat you to death.”

His face, I thought, grew even whiter. But his eyes met mine.

“I know why,” he replied deliberately. “Because a gentleman does not commonly enter the room of another gentleman for any such unmannerly purpose.”

I bowed a sort of assent to this. He really had me there.

“Besides, Eckhart,” he added, “while you have a perfect right to call me a fool, you certainly can’t say that, as life runs, my attitude has been unnatural. The woman deliberately broke with life. As a result of her own acts, she is now outside the pale of decent society.”

“Outside—where we men are,” said I, very sad and bitter.

He sniffed, rather contemptuously. He thought my observation too obvious.

I added, as I turned toward the door—

“And at that, after your own tribute to the essential fineness of her character, your notion of ‘decent society’ sounds highly technical to me, Sir Robert. Good-by to you. You will forgive me for saying that I shall be very glad when you are gone.”

He did not reply. But as I laid my hand on the knob of the door, I caught a low exclamation behind me that seemed to have both pain and surprise in it.



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