The Street Called Straight | Page 9

it."
"Good! With me it was always the other way."
The pause that followed was an uneasy one, otherwise Temple would
not have seized on the first topic that came to hand to fill it up.
"You'll miss Olivia when she's gone, Henry."
"Y-yes; if she goes."

The implied doubt startled Davenant, but Temple continued to smoke
pensively. "I've thought," he said, after a puff or two at his cigar, "I've
thought you seemed to be anticipating something in the way of
a--hitch."
Guion held his cigar with some deliberation over an ash-tray, knocking
off the ash with his little finger as though it were a task demanding
precision.
"You'll know all about it to-morrow, perhaps--or in a few days at latest.
It can't be kept quiet much longer. I got the impression at dinner that
you'd heard something already."
"Nothing but gossip, Henry."
Guion smiled, but with a wince. "I've noticed," he said, "that there's a
certain kind of gossip that rarely gets about unless there's some cause
for it--on the principle of no smoke without fire. If you've heard
anything, it's probably true."
"I was afraid it might be. But in that case I wonder you allowed Olivia
to go ahead."
"I had to let fate take charge of that. When a man gets himself so
entangled in a coil of barbed wire that he trips whichever way he turns,
his only resource is to stand still. That's my case." He poured himself
out another glass of cognac, and tasted it before continuing. "Olivia
goes over to England, and gets herself engaged to a man I never heard
of. Good! She fixes her wedding-day without consulting me and
irrespective of my affairs. Good again! She's old enough to do it, and
quite competent. Meanwhile I lose control of the machine, so to speak.
I see myself racing on to something, and can't stop. I can only lie back
and watch, to see what happens. I've got to leave that to fate, or God, or
whatever it is that directs our affairs when we can no longer manage
them ourselves." He took another sip of cognac, and pulled for a minute
nervously at his cigar. "I thought at first that Olivia might be married
and get, off before anything happened. Now, it looks to me as if there
was going to be a smash. Rupert Ashley arrives in three or four days'

time, and then--"
"You don't think he'd want to back out, do you?"
"I haven't the remotest idea. From Olivia's description he seems like a
decent sort; and yet--"
Davenant got to, his feet. "Shouldn't you like me to go back to the
ladies? You want to talk to the professor--"
"No, no," Guion said, easily, pushing Davenant into his seat again.
"There's no reason why you shouldn't hear anything I have to say. The
whole town will know it soon. You can't conceal a burning house; and
Tory Hill is on fire. I may be spending my last night under its roof."
"They'll not rush things like that," Temple said, tying to speak
reassuringly.
"They haven't rushed things as it is. I've come to the end of a very long
tether. I only want you to know that by this time to-morrow night I may
have taken Kipling's Strange Ride with Morrowby Jukes to the Land of
the Living Dead. If I do, I sha'n't come back--accept bail, or that sort of
thing. I can't imagine anything more ghastly than for a man to be
hanging around among his old friends, waiting for a--for a"--he balked
at the word--"for a trial," he said at last, "that can have only one ending.
No! I'm ready to ride away when they call for me--but they won't find
me pining for freedom."
"Can't anything be done?"
"Not for me, Rodney. If Rupert Ashley will only look after Olivia, I
shan't mind what happens next. Men have been broken on the wheel
before now. I think I can go through it as well as another. But if Ashley
should fail us--and of course that's possible--well, you see why I feel as
I do about her falling out with the old Marquise. Aunt Vic has always
made much of her--and she's very well off--"
"Is there nothing to be expected in that quarter for yourself?"

Guion shook his head. "I couldn't ask her--not at the worst. In the
natural course of things Olivia and I would be her heirs--that is, if she
didn't do something else with her money--but she's still in the early
seventies, and may easily go on for a long time yet. Any help there is
very far in the future, so that--"
"Ashley, I take it, is a man of some means?"
"Of comfortable means--no more. He has an entailed