The Listener by Taylor Caldwell

my partner, a school chum; was graduated when I was graduated. Chemical engineer, like myself. (By the way, did I tell you that I received an ‘E’ from the government during the war? Where is that flag now? I don’t know, and I don’t care.)”
     
    His voice became deep, almost groaning. “ ‘E’ for excellence. What excellence? I’m getting old too. Never mind. Henry Fellowes. You don’t need the details. I trusted Henry, more than a brother. My partner. Worked together, denying ourselves everything. Together, we became rich. Henry made a mess of his life. Divorced one stupid woman after another; five of them. They only wanted his money. I’d try to tell him. ‘Marry somebody like Celia,’ I’d say. But no. Henry had been poor, as Celia and I had. He wanted glittering women, all teeth and flounce. He was like a kid who has no money but stares through the window of a candy store. And when he gets some money he runs in and gorges. And makes himself sick. Henry isn’t a fool, not normally. But those women of his! Bleached, hard, singing, chattering, flashing. He must have a vulgar streak in him somewhere. He couldn’t have enough of the bitches.”
     
    Mr. Summers laughed briefly. “It’s very funny. He thought, each time he married, that the woman would become like Celia — I suppose. Settle down in a nice house and have children. They never did, of course. They wanted his money, and rich furs and jewels and travel and dancing. And lovers. He always found out. But he had a juvenile personality. Celia wanted to help him, to introduce him to friends of hers, lonely widows. I told her, ‘Mind your own business, Celia. A man always knows what he wants. Henry wouldn’t be interested in your well-bred friends’. I was right, of course. Henry wanted something they call ‘glamour’. ” Mr. Summers paused. “At least I think he wanted that. He’d never had any gaiety in his life when he was young. He had no discrimination. He had no one like Celia to give him a sense of values.”
     
    He became aware of what he had said, and stared blankly. Then he frowned, and his face blackened. He struck the arm of the marble chair with his fist.
     
    “What has all this to do with anything? I had no intention of telling you all this rot. All you need to know is that Henry’s paying alimony to at least five women, all childless. Such women are expensive. They’re like leeches — on Henry. Sucking his blood. Naturally it serves him right. But he was always the hopeful, buoyant type, like a kid. And then it happened, inevitably. I had pneumonia five years ago, a bad siege. I was out for five months, then we went to Montego Bay so I could recover. When I came back I found that Henry had swindled me, ruined me, practically sold me out. He had a team of very shrewd lawyers. The details don’t matter. What does matter is that he betrayed me, his friend, the one who gave him a start, who helped him to become rich in the first place.”
     
    Mr. Summers started forward in the chair, his face fierce, yet wounded and bewildered.
     
    “When I asked Henry to come in with me he was making twenty-five dollars a week. He never did have any sense of direction. But we were old friends. He was like a child. ‘Be a partner with me,’ I said, ‘and we’ll do big things together’. He was doubtful. ‘We’ll have the whole world,’ I said. ‘I’m counting on you, Henry, to help me establish something’. I must have reached him finally, for he looked at me trustfully. ‘You mean that you want me?’ he said. ‘More than anything else,’ I told him. ‘Come with me’.
     
    “He did. And then he betrayed me. The details don’t matter. Now I have less than five thousand dollars in the bank. I have no company — my company. All my friends have deserted me. I’m all alone. Betrayed. By Henry, whom I trusted, on whom I built. Do you know what I heard recently? He was in one of those clubs I formerly belonged to but which I