Jennie Gerhardt

 
 
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CHAPTER XL 
Lester returned to Chicago. He realized that he had offended his father 
seriously, how seriously he could not say. In all his personal relations with 
old Archibald he had never seen him so worked up. But even now Lester did 
not feel that the breach was irreparable; he hardly realized that it was 
necessary for him to act decisively if he hoped to retain his father's affection 
and confidence. As for the world at large, what did it matter how much 
people talked or what they said. He was big enough to stand alone. But was 
he? People turn so quickly from weakness or the shadow of it. To get away 
from failure—even the mere suspicion of it—that seems to be a 
subconscious feeling with the average man and woman; we all avoid non-
success as though we fear that it may prove contagious. Lester was soon to 
feel the force of this prejudice. 
One day Lester happened to run across Berry Dodge, the millionaire head of 
Dodge, Holbrook & Kingsbury, a firm that stood in the dry-goods world, 
where the Kane Company stood in the carriage world. Dodge had been one 
of Lester's best friends. He knew him as intimately as he knew Henry 
Bracebridge, of Cleveland, and George Knowles, of Cincinnati. He visited at 
his handsome home on the North Shore Drive, and they met constantly in a 
business and social way. But since Lester had moved out to Hyde Park, the 
old intimacy had lapsed. Now they came face to face on Michigan Avenue 
near the Kane building. 
"Why, Lester, I'm glad to see you again," said Dodge. 
He extended a formal hand, and seemed just a little cool. "I hear you've gone 
and married since I saw you." 
"No, nothing like that," replied Lester, easily, with the air of one who prefers 
to be understood in the way of the world sense. 
"Why so secret about it, if you have?" asked Dodge, attempting to smile, but 
with a wry twist to the corners of his mouth. He was trying to be nice, and to 
go through a difficult situation gracefully. "We fellows usually make a fuss 
about that sort of thing. You ought to let your friends know." 
"Well," said Lester, feeling the edge of the social blade that was being driven 
into him, "I thought I'd do it in a new way. I'm not much for excitement in 
that direction, anyhow." 
"It is a matter of taste, isn't it?" said Dodge a little absently. "You're living in 
the city, of course?" 
"In Hyde Park." 
"That's a pleasant territory. How are things otherwise?" And he deftly 
changed the subject before waving him a perfunctory farewell. 
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Lester missed at once the inquiries which a man like Dodge would have 
made if he had really believed that he was married. Under ordinary 
circumstances his friend would have wanted to know a great deal about the 
new Mrs. Kane. There would have been all those little familiar touches 
common to people living on the same social plane. Dodge would have asked 
Lester to bring his wife over to see them, would have definitely promised to 
call. Nothing of the sort happened, and Lester noticed the significant 
omission. 
It was the same with the Burnham Moores, the Henry Aldriches, and a score 
of other people whom he knew equally well. Apparently they all thought that 
he had married and settled down. They were interested to know where he 
was living, and they were rather disposed to joke him about being so very 
secretive on the subject, but they were not willing to discuss the supposed 
Mrs. Kane. He was beginning to see that this move of his was going to tell 
against him notably. 
One of the worst stabs—it was the cruelest because, in a way, it was the 
most unintentional—he received from an old acquaintance, Will Whitney, at 
the Union Club. Lester was dining there one evening, and Whitney met him 
in the main reading-room as he was crossing from the cloak-room to the 
cigar-stand. The latter was a typical society figure, tall, lean, smooth-faced, 
immaculately garbed, a little cynical, and to-night a little the worse for 
liquor. "Hi, Lester!" he called out, "what's this talk about a ménage of yours 
out in Hyde Park? Say, you're going some. How are you going to explain all 
this to your wife when you get married?" 
"I don't have to explain it," replied Lester irritably. "Why should you be so 
interested in my affairs? You're not living in a stone house, are you?" 
"Say, ha! ha! that's pretty good now, isn't it? You didn't marry that little 
beauty you used to travel around with on the North Side, did you? Eh, now! 
Ha, ha! Well, I swear. You married! You didn't, now, did you?" 
"Cut it out, Whitney," said Lester roughly. "You're talking wild." 
"Pardon, Lester," said the other aimlessly, but sobering. "I beg your pardon. 
Remember, I'm just a little warm. Eight whisky-sours straight in the other 
room there. Pardon. I'll talk to you some time when I'm all right. See, Lester? 
Eh! Ha! ha! I'm a little loose, that's right. Well, so long! Ha! ha!" 
Lester could not get over that cacophonous "ha! ha!" It cut him, even though 
it came from a drunken man's mouth. "That little beauty you used to travel 
with on the North Side. You didn't marry her, did you?" He quoted Whitney's 
impertinences resentfully. George! But this was getting a little rough! He had 
never endured anything like this before—he, Lester Kane. It set him 
thinking. Certainly he was paying dearly for trying to do the kind thing by 
Jennie.