Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/131

120 Damn it, man, what do you mean? Do you think I Oh, I say, this is loathsome. I believe that's what the police think. The old guv'nor!"

"Yes. But this don't help him," said Reggie Fortune placidly. "From the beginning, please."

Geoffrey Charlecote stared at him, gulped, and became more coherent. "Well, after the row I went abroad. Paris, Rome, Munich. I kept up a little place in Chelsea, too. I never saw the old man, and we didn't write. I suppose I've been a brute."

"Hard stuff in the Charlecote family. What?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, Fortune—I swear I'm sorry."

"Cut it out," said Reggie Fortune.

"Well, in Munich I married." He flushed. "You know, she's an angel, Fortune."

"Quite. German angel?"

"No. She's Italian. She came to Munich singing. And I—we met, and in a month we were married. I tell you, Fortune, I've been a different man since. It's as if she'd given me a soul, you know."

"Did you tell your father that?"

"It was she made me write to my father again. Lucia—she can't bear being in a quarrel. She's so gentle, any sort of bad feeling hurts her. So she brought me to try and make it up. I wrote to the old man and he answered—just a short, civil, formal note. But Lucia was sure it would lead to something, and so we came back to England. Then I wrote to him again, and he came to see us in.