Mr Pickering writhed.
‘Made a pretty considerable fool of yourself, didn’t you, with your revolvers and your hidings and your trailings? Too old for that sort of thing, you know. You’re getting on. Probably have a touch of lumbago to-morrow. You must remember you aren’t a youngster. Got to take care of yourself. Next time you feel an impulse to hide in shrubberies and take moonlight walks through damp woods, perhaps you will listen to me.’
Mr Pickering relit the stump of his cigar defiantly and smoked in long gulps for a while. He was trying to persuade himself that all this was untrue, but it was not easy. The cigar became uncomfortably hot, and he threw it away. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a diamond ring, at which he looked pensively.
‘A pretty thing, is it not?’ said Subconscious Self
Mr Pickering sighed. That moment when Claire had thrown the ring at his feet and swept out of his life like an offended queen had been the culminating blow of a night of blows, the knock-out following on a series of minor punches. Subconscious Self seized the opportunity to become offensive again.
‘You’ve lost her, all through your own silly fault,’ it said. ‘How on earth you can have been such a perfect fool beats me. Running round with a gun like a boy of fourteen! Well, it’s done now and it can’t be mended. Countermand the order for cake, send a wire putting off the wedding, dismiss the bridesmaids, tell the organist he can stop practising “The Voice that Breathed O’er Eden”–no wedding-bells for you! For Dudley Damfool Pickering, Esquire, the lonely hearth for evermore! Little feet pattering about the house? Not on your life! Childish voices sticking up the old man for half a dollar to buy candy? No, sir! Not for D. Bonehead Pickering, the amateur trailing arbutus!’
Subconscious Self may have had an undesirable way of expressing itself, but there was no denying the truth of what it said. Its words carried conviction. Mr Pickering replaced the ring in his pocket, and, burying his head in his hands, groaned in bitterness of spirit.
He had lost her. He must face the fact. She had thrown him over. Never now would she sit at his table, the brightest jewel of Detroit’s glittering social life. She would have made a stir in Detroit. Now that city would never know her. Not that he was worrying much about Detroit. He was worrying about himself. How could he ever live without her?
This mood of black depression endured for a while, and then Mr Pickering suddenly became aware that Subconscious Self was sneering at him. ‘You’re a wonder!’ said Subconscious Self.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why, trying to make yourself think that at the bottom of your heart you aren’t tickled to death that this has happened. You know perfectly well that you’re tremendously relieved that you haven’t got to marry the girl after all. You can fool everybody else, but you can’t fool me. You’re delighted, man, delighted!’ The mere suggestion revolted Mr Pickering. He was on the point of indignant denial, when quite abruptly there came home to him the suspicion that the statement was not so preposterous after all. It seemed incredible and indecent that such a thing should be, but he could not deny, now that it was put to him point-blank in this way, that a certain sense of relief was beginning to mingle itself with his gloom. It was shocking to realize, but–yes, he actually was feeling as if he had escaped from something which he had dreaded. Half an hour ago there had been no suspicion of such an emotion among the many which had occupied his attention, but now he perceived it clearly. Half an hour ago he had felt like Lucifer hurled from heaven. Now, though how that train of thought had started he could not have said, he was distinctly conscious of the silver lining. Subconscious Self began to drive the thing home.
‘Be honest with yourself,’ it said. ‘You aren’t often. No man is. Look at the matter absolutely fairly. You know perfectly well that the mere idea of marriage has always scared you. You hate making yourself conspicuous in public. Think what it would be like, standing up there in front of all the world and getting married. And then–afterwards! Why on earth do you think that you would have been happy with this girl? What do you know about her except that she is a beauty? I grant you she’s that, but are you aware of the infinitesimal part looks play in married life? My dear chap, better is it for a man that he marry a sympathetic gargoyle than a Venus with a streak of hardness in her. You know–and you would admit it if you were honest with yourself–that this girl is hard. She’s got a chilled-steel soul.