Waddington

“ Bostock's Bank at Wyck, was a perpetual tribute to his power. Mr. Waddington had nothing like the same complacence in thinking of his own son Horace; but then Horace's existence and his activity were not a tribute but a menace, a standing danger, not only to his power but to his fascination, his sense of himself as a still young, still brilliant and effective personality. (Horace inherited his mother's deplorable lack of seriousness.) And it was in Mrs. Levitt's society that Mr. Waddington was most conscious of his youth, his brilliance and effect. ”

“ Waddington was going to die. Supposing his congestion turned to pneumonia? There was so much of him to be ill, and those big men always did die when they got pneumonia.
Mr. Waddington could hear Barbara's quiet voice saying something to Fanny; he could see her unhappy, anxious face. He enjoyed Barbara's anxiety. He enjoyed the cause of it, his illness. So long as he was actually alive he even enjoyed the thought that, if his congestion turned to pneumonia, he might actually die. There was a dignity, a prestige about being dead that appealed to him. ”

“ Waddington, justly annoyed.
"From the crowd a woman springs forth. She bars the way. She seems to be speaking rapidly, with great emotion. And the man with the eye-glass is shrinking back, his face working horribly. His expression is very villainous. He raises a hand. He strikes the woman. She reels back. She draws out a revolver. And then...."
"Yes?" cried Mrs. Waddington. "Yes?"
"The vision fades," said Madame Eulalie, rising briskly with the air of one who has given a good ten dollars' worth. ”

“ Light jumped at him like a living thing. And when he opened his eyes he found himself looking at a pair of ankles clad in stockings of diaphanous silk.
The door closed. And Mrs. Waddington, who had just reached the top of the fire-escape, charged across the roof and, putting her ear to the keyhole, stood listening intently. Things, felt Mrs. Waddington, were beginning to move. ”

“ Waddington wished he would, and Horry too.
"He won't skid," said Barbara; "if he does I'll hop off."
"We'll come back," said Ralph, "if we don't get on all right."
They started in a duet of explosions, the motor-bicycles hissing and crunching through the light snow. Barbara, swinging on Ralph's carrier, waved her hand light-heartedly to Mr. Waddington. He hated Barbara; but far more than Barbara he hated Horry, and far more than Horry he hated Ralph.
"He'd no business to take her," he said. "She'd no business to go."
"You can't stop them, my dear," said Fanny; "they're too young." ”

“ Waddington, "and I see no reason why it should strike you."
"I don't like the look of her," said Sir John, quoting Major Markham.
"If you're trying to suggest that she's not straight, you're reading something into her look that isn't there."
"Come, Waddington, you know as well as I do that when a man's knocked about the world like you and me, he gets an instinct; he can tell pretty well by looking at her whether a woman's that sort or not."
"My dear Corbett, my instinct is at least as good as yours. ”

“ Waddington in a flat voice. A woman, careful with her money, she did not relish the idea of handing over ten dollars for visions about Sigsbee H.
"Does your husband's name begin with an M.?"
"No," said Mrs. Waddington, relieved.
"The letter M. seems to be forming itself among the mists."
"I have a stepdaughter, Molly."
"Is she tall and dark?"
"No. Small and fair."
"Then it is she!" said Madame Eulalie. "I see her in a wedding-dress, walking up an aisle. Her hand is on the arm of a dark man with an eye-glass. Do you know such a person?"
"Lord Hunstanton!" ”

“ Waddington saw was still the face of a handsome man, he formed a very favourable opinion of the face Miss Madden had seen. Handsome, and if not in his first youth, then still in his second. Experience is itself a fascination, and if a man has any charm at all his second youth should be more charming, more irresistibly fascinating than his first. ”

“ Piquant. And then, her clothes. Mrs. Levitt wore a coat and skirt, her sister's white serge with a distinction, a greyish stripe or something; clean straightness that stiffened and fined down her exuberance. One jewel, one bit of gold, and she might have been vulgar. But no. He thought: she knows what becomes her. Immaculate purity of white gloves, white shoes, white panama; and the black points of the ribbon, of her eyebrows, her eyes and hair. After all, the sort of woman Mr. Waddington liked to be seen out walking with. She made him feel slender.
"My dear Mr. Waddington, how good of you!" ”

“ Waddington affably.
"That is very gratifying, sir."
"Always have. Shows how honest I am, ha ha! If I were a crook, I suppose I'd be scared stiff, sitting here talking to you." Mr. Waddington drew bluffly at his cigar. "I guess you come across a lot of criminals, eh?"
"It is the great drawback to the policeman's life," assented Officer Garroway, sighing. "One meets them on all sides. ”

“ From her study of the ancestral portraits in the Manor dining-room Barbara gathered that he owed to his mother the handsome Roman structure that held up his face, after all, so proudly through its layers of Waddington flesh. He had the Postlethwaite nose. The old lady looked at her, gratified by the grave attention of her eyes.
"Miss Madden can't believe that a little woman like me could have such a great big son," she said. "But, you see, he isn't big to me. He'll never be any older than thirteen." ”

“ Sigsbee H. Waddington sat up in his chair. There was a gleam in his eyes. He snorted. Was it such an idiotic suggestion, after all?
He gazed into the future. At the moment the necklace was in safe custody at the bank, but, if Molly was going to marry this young Pinch, it would presumably be taken from there and placed on exhibition among the other wedding-presents. So that ere long there would undeniably be a time—say, the best part of a day—when a resolute man with a nimble set of fingers might....
Mr. Waddington sank back in his chair again. The light died out of his eyes. ”

“ Waddington put it to himself, a little difficult and delicate. It involved an intimacy, a closer intimacy than adoption: having her there in his library at all hours to work with him; and always that little uneasy consciousness of hers. ”

“ After thinking, thinking, all through those long days she rated accurately Charles Townsend's value; he was a common fellow and his qualities were second-rate. If she could only tear from her heart the love that still lingered there! She tried not to think of him.
Waddington too thought highly of Walter. She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you? ”

“ Waddington went further. Her whole attitude betrayed her belief that the cat, on inspecting George, had been disappointed. Seeing what it had got, her manner suggested, it had given him the look of chagrin which cats give when conscious of effort wasted and had gone elsewhere to try again. A lover, counting the days until the only girl in the world shall be his, will see sweetness and light in practically everything: but George Finch, despite his most earnest endeavours, had been compelled to draw the line at Mrs. Waddington. ”

“ Waddington, Molly, and a man with a face like a horse whom, from his clerical costume, George took correctly to be the deputy from Flushing.
"Molly!" cried George.
"Here we are, angel," said Molly.
"And mother!" said George, with less heartiness.
"Mother!" said Mrs. Waddington, with still less heartiness than George.
"This is the Reverend Gideon Voules," said Molly. "He is going to marry us."
"This," said Mrs. Waddington, turning to the clergyman and speaking in a voice which seemed to George's sensitive ear to contain too strong a note of apology, "is the bridegroom." ”

“ There was a silence. Officer Garroway, who was trying to find a good synonym for one of the adjectives in the poem on which he was occupied, stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. Mr. Waddington chewed his cigar intensely.
"Say, listen!" said Mr. Waddington.
"Sir?" said the policeman, coming out of his reverie with a start.
"Suppose," said Mr. Waddington, "suppose, just for the sake of argument, that a wicked person wanted a crook to do a horrible, nefarious job for him, would he have to pay him?"
"Undoubtedly, sir. These men are very mercenary."
"Pay him much?"
"I imagine a few hundred dollars. ”

“ His lordship staggered back, leaving the way clear for the injured man to gaze upon his erring wife.
"Ha!" said Sigsbee H. Waddington.
"I can explain everything, Sigsbee!"
Mr. Waddington snorted.
"Nerve," he said, "in its proper place and when there's not too much of it, I admire. But when a woman has the crust to disparage the morals of one of the finest young fellows who ever came out of the golden West and then I happen to pop into New York on important business and find her closeted with a man with a tooth-brush moustache and she has the audacity to say she can explain everything...." ”

“ We were quite seven or eight minutes late and found all the company assembled (except the Annamites, who were waiting with their interpreter in another room to make their entry in proper style) . As I shook hands with Lord Lyons (who was doyen of the diplomatic corps) he said to me: "Ah, Madame Waddington, I see the Republic is becoming very royal; you don't receive your guests any more, merely come into the room when all the company is assembled." He said it quite smilingly, but I understood very well, and of course we ought to have been there when the first guests arrived. ”

“ When you know perfectly well what I did it for."
"Why—what did you do it for?"
"To make things safe for us. To keep Fanny from knowing. To keep myself from knowing, Barbara. To keep you.... But it's too late to camouflage it. We know where we stand now."
"I don't think I do."
"You do. You do."
Mr. Waddington tossed his cigarette into the fire with a passionate gesture of abandonment. He came to her. She saw his coming. She saw it chiefly as the approach of a canary yellow waistcoat. She fixed her attention on the waistcoat as if it were the centre of her own mental equilibrium. ”

“ But in a bustling city like New York it is rarely that the artist is permitted to concentrate for long without interruption. A telephone-bell broke raspingly upon the stillness: and the first sensation of pleasure which Mrs. Waddington had experienced for a very long time came to her as she realised that the instrument was ringing in the passage outside and not in the room. With something of the wild joy which reprieved prisoners feel at the announcement of release she heard the butler rise. ”

“ Rickards and Elise Levitt. Elise, if you cared to be critical, had the same defects: short legs, loose hips; the same exaggerations: the toppling breasts underpinned by the shafts of her stays. Not Mr. Waddington's taste. And yet—and yet Elise had contrived a charming and handsome effect out of black eyes and the milk-white teeth in the ivory-white face. The play of the black eyebrows distracted you from the equine bend of the nose that sprang between them; the movements of her mouth, the white flash of its smile, made you forget its thinness and hardness and the slight heaviness of its jaw. ”

“ Waddington inquired.
Burton smiled quite pleasantly.
"It does seem queer, sir," he admitted. "I said that I was getting on all right because I am contented and happy. That is the chief thing after all, isn't it?"
Mr. Waddington opened his mouth and closed it again.
"I wish I could make out what the devil it was that happened to you," he said. "Why, you used to be as smart as they make 'em, a regular nipper after business. I expected you'd be after me for a partnership before long, and I expect I'd have had to give it you. And then you went clean dotty. ”

“ Waddington's mouth set in a hard line.
"Sigsbee is pining for the West again!"
"You don't say so?"
"Yes, sir, he's pining for the great wide open spaces of the West. He says the East is effete and he wants to be out there among the silent canyons where men are men. If you want to know what I think, somebody's been feeding him Zane Grey." ”

“ Waddington. Didn't you give him notice in
December?"
"A mere matter of form. He knows he can stay on if there's nowhere else for him to go to."
"Then why," said Mrs. Levitt, "does he go about saying that he dares you to let the cottage over his head?"
"Does he? Does he say that?"
"He says he'll pay you out. He'll summons you. He was most abusive."
Mr. Waddington's face positively swelled with the choleric flush that swamped its genial fatuity. ”

“ There is nothing to see now in the streets, as the whole population is out of town, and the rumbling of carriages has ceased for the moment. W. is lying back in an arm-chair, with a cigar, in his shirt sleeves, groaning with the heat; and very hot it must be to reduce him to that state. I have a theory that no Waddington knows what heat means. No words can describe what I feel. Certainly fine feathers make fine birds, and I think no one would recognize the gold embroidered, bejewelled couple that went in the coupé d'Orsay to the gala dinner at the Palace. ”

“ Mrs. Waddington refused to permit the wedding to take place. The guests returned to New York. Mr. Finch, after uttering certain protests which my informant could not hear distinctly but which appear to have been incoherent and unconvincing, also took his departure. Mrs. Waddington has for some little time past been closeted in the boudoir with Miss Waddington. A very unpleasant affair, sir, and one which could never have occurred at Brangmarley Hall. ”