“Nothing much in that,” said his father. “She’d put it that way—playfully.”
“Nothing much if it stood alone,” Waldo agreed. “But suppose she was struggling between two influences—mine and his.” For a moment his voice faltered. “He’s always been against me—always—ever since that time at Cragsfoot.” I heard a swallow in his throat, and he went on again steadily. “Never mind that. Look at it as a case, a problem, impersonally. A girl is due to marry a man; another is besieging her. She can’t make up her mind—can’t make it up even on the very day before the wedding; or, if you like, won’t admit to herself that she has really resolved to break her promise, to be false to the man to whom she is already——” Again there was a falter in his voice—“already really a wife, so far as anything short of—short of the actual thing itself—can make her——”
He came to a sudden stop; he was unable to finish; he had invited us to a dispassionate consideration of the case as a case, as a problem; in the end he was not equal to laying it before us dispassionately. “Oh, you see, Father!” he groaned.
“Yes,” said Sir Paget. “I see the thing—on your hypothesis. She couldn’t make up her mind—or wouldn’t admit that she had. So she told the other man——”
“Yes, Julius. Arsenio Valdez. She told Arsenio to be at a certain spot at a certain time—a time when, if she were going to keep her promise, she would be getting ready for her wedding. ‘Be at the corner of St. James’s Street at one o’clock.’ That would be it, wouldn’t it? If I drive by in a taxi, alone, it means yes to you, no to him. If I don’t, it means the opposite.’ That’s what you mean, Waldo?”
Waldo nodded assent; but I could not readily accept the idea.
“You mean, when I saw her she’d just seen him, and when I saw him, he’d just seen her?”
“Wouldn’t that account for the animation and excitement you noticed in her face—for the flush that struck you? She had just given the signal; she’d just”—he smiled grimly—“crossed her Rubicon, Julius.”
“But why wasn’t he with her? Why didn’t he go with her? Why did he come to the wedding? Why did he go through that farce?”
Sir Paget shrugged his shoulders. “Some idea of throwing us off the scent and getting a clear start, probably.”