350 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
warehouse for other people’s wives. If I might hazard
a guess, however, your wife’s discovered what her own
will is, and has gone off to do it.”
“Qh, damnation,” said I. “‘ Here, you know, I say
I can’t allow that sort of thing!”
The Big Lion turned his sternest gaze upon me.
“Now, Sir Peter,” he said incisively, ‘ pull yourself
together. You've only just discovered your own will,
and you naturally want to be let alone to do it. And
yet, at the very first opportunity, you butt in and
want to interfere with your own wife doing hers. Let
me tell you point-blank that it’s none of your business
what she chooses to do. Haven’t you seen enough
harm come from people meddling with other people’s
business ? Why, hang it, man, your first duty to your
wife is to protect her.”
“ Another of your paradoxes,”’ I growled.
As a matter of fact, I was torn between two attitudes.
Lou had been an ideal companion in debauchery of all
sorts. A woman like that was bound to be the ruin of
a hard-working engineer. At the same time I was
madly in love with her, especially after seeing her for
the first time that morning; and she belonged to
me.
It was only too clear to me what he meant by saying
she had discovered her true will. She had shown that
plainly enough when she had begged him to take her
away. He had simply worked one of his devilish tricks
on me, and got rid of me, as he thought, by getting me
absorbed in my helicopter.
I was to be the complacent husband, and allow my
wife to go off with another man right under my nose,
while I was busy with my calculations. I was to be
the mars complaisant, was I?
Well, the fiend was ingenious, but he had calculated
wrong for once. I got up and deliberately slapped him
in the face.
“‘ Before breakfast,” he said to Sister Athena,“ we
shall require pistols for two and coffee for one. But