So Well Remembered Read Online Free PDF

the tour whom she was
supposed to be looking after?”
    “Maybe she just left them stranded… It would be crazy and irresponsible
—but no more so than—than—”
    “Than anything else. That’s so.”
    “I admit the whole thing sounds—must sound to you, in fact—
well, if you were to tell me you simply didn’t believe a word of it,
I’d—”
    “Aye, it’s a bit of a facer.”
    “But you DO believe it?”
    “Reckon I have to, don’t I? After all, you took a good look at that
photograph…”
    “Yes, it’s the same. I knew that at once…” Winslow’s voice grew almost
pathetically eager. “And you WILL help me, won’t you—now that you know
how it is? What I had in mind was this—if you agreed— that we go
out there together—quite soon—immediately, in fact —before
there can be any open scandal involving him—you see what I mean?”
    “Aye, I see what you mean.”
    “And you agree?”
    To which George retorted with sudden sharpness: “Why not, for God’s sake?
He may be your son, but she’s my wife too. Don’t you think I’M
interested?”
    “Of course. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I—I—”
    “Now, now, don’t apologize. Come to that, we’ve neither of us much to
apologize for.”
    “I thought we might leave tomorrow—”
    “Aye, if we’re going, might as well—”
    “Boswell, I can’t tell you how much I—”
    “None o’ that, either, man. Let’s get down to some details. I’ll need a
passport.”
    And somehow from then on, in spite of what might have been held more
humiliating for George than for Winslow in the situation, it was nevertheless
George who took the leadership, a certain staunch four-squareness in his
make-up easily dominating the other. They both belonged to a world in which
the accomplishment of any suddenly urgent task requires the cancelling or
postponement of other less urgent ones; and now, as they eased themselves
back into chairs, there was nothing left but such routine adjustments.
Winslow pulled out a little black notebook and began crossing off this and
that; George reached for a sheet of paper on his desk and jotted down a few
memoranda. Into the momentary silence there came the distant chiming of the
hour on Browdley church clock, and a newsboy shouting familiarly but
incoherently along Market Street. GOOD news, perhaps, about the international
situation… but it did not seem to matter so much now, so quickly can world
affairs be overshadowed by personal ones in the life of even the most public
man.
    Winslow looked up. “You’re optimistic, Boswell? From your own knowledge of
her—do you feel that—that somehow or other you’ll be able to
persuade her to—to—”
    George’s face was haggard as he replied: “I wouldn’t call my own knowledge
so very reliable—not after this.”
    “Then perhaps you could talk to my son—try to influence
him—”
    “Aren’t you the one for that?”
    “But a new angle, Boswell—YOUR point of view in the matter— he
may not have realized—”
    “All right, all right—no good badgering me.” The first shock had
been succeeded by anger—helpless anger, which Winslow’s concern for his
own son merely exacerbated. “I’m damned if I know what I’ll do—
YET.”
    “I’m sorry again.” And the two faced each other, both driven out of
character and somehow aware of it, for it was not like George to be angry,
nor was Winslow accustomed to pleading and apologizing. Presently an odd
smile came over his face. “Badger… BADGER…” he repeated. “It’s a long
time since I heard that word, and you’ll never guess why it makes me
smile.”
    “Why?”
    “My nickname at school—Badger.”
    Then George smiled too, glad of the momentary side-issue. “Because you
looked like one or because you did badger people?”
    “Both—possibly.”
    They once called me Apple-Pie George in Browdley, but it sort of died
out.”
    “Apple-Pie George?”
    “Aye…