{"product_id":"2940013740570","title":"A Man Divided","description":"VICTOR HAD REFUSED his bride at the altar! That was the brute fact\u003cbr\u003ewhich agitated the little party in the vestry. No amount of\u003cbr\u003eexplanation could mitigate it. As best man I had been in a good\u003cbr\u003eposition to observe events; and even I, who had formerly been fairly\u003cbr\u003eintimate with Victor, was completely taken by surprise. True, I had\u003cbr\u003elong suspected that there was something queer about him; but up to the\u003cbr\u003every moment of his quietly shattering remark, as he put the ring into\u003cbr\u003ehis pocket, I had no idea that anything serious was amiss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJames Victor Cadogan-Smith, later to be known as plain Victor Smith,\u003cbr\u003ehad seemed the ideal bridegroom. He was the son of a successful\u003cbr\u003ecolonial administrator who had climbed by his own ability from a very\u003cbr\u003elowly position, and had recently acquired a knighthood. The family had\u003cbr\u003ebeen humble \"Smiths\" until Victor's father had married the only child\u003cbr\u003eof a more aristocratic family, and had agreed to splice his wife's\u003cbr\u003ename to his own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe new \"Cadogan-Smith\" assured his friends that he had done this\u003cbr\u003emainly to please his father-in-law. But in later life he used to say,\u003cbr\u003e\"In those days my snobbery was unconscious.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis son Victor was born in 1890. He was now a bridegroom of thirty-\u003cbr\u003eone, and certainly a catch for any girl. Looking at him in his wedding\u003cbr\u003eclothes, one could not help using the cliché \"every inch a gentleman.”\u003cbr\u003eHis financial prospects were excellent. He was already reputed to be\u003cbr\u003eone of the most brilliant young business men of his city, and he was\u003cbr\u003ewell established as a junior partner in a great shipping firm. Victor\u003cbr\u003ehad come through the Great War, as we called it in those days,\u003cbr\u003eundamaged and with a Military Cross; and now, in the brief period of\u003cbr\u003eoptimism that followed the war, it seemed that he had excellent\u003cbr\u003eprospects of working out for himself a triumphant business career in\u003cbr\u003ethe phase of post-war recovery. To crown all, he had secured as his\u003cbr\u003ebride the charming daughter of the head of his firm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe wedding celebrations had been planned in appropriate style. The\u003cbr\u003eonly factor which was not in perfect harmony with the spirit of the\u003cbr\u003eoccasion, I fear, was the best man. I had been greatly flattered by\u003cbr\u003eVictor's request that I should fill this office, but I could not help\u003cbr\u003ewondering why he had not asked one of his many more presentable\u003cbr\u003efriends. His subsequent behaviour toward me almost suggested that he\u003cbr\u003eregretted his choice. Certainly I did not fit at all into the picture\u003cbr\u003eof a smart wedding; and from the moment when I found that I should\u003cbr\u003ehave to hire a conventional wedding garment my heart had failed me.\u003cbr\u003eVictor must have found me a very inefficient manager, for he had to\u003cbr\u003ere-arrange almost everything that I had undertaken. I knew, of course,\u003cbr\u003ethat in one of his moods he had sometimes an almost obsessive passion\u003cbr\u003efor correctness, but I had been surprised and exasperated by his\u003cbr\u003emeticulous scrutiny of every detail of our clothing and of the time-\u003cbr\u003etable of the honeymoon tour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the church, Victor's erect and perfectly tailored figure had seemed\u003cbr\u003ethe very pattern of orthodoxy; and Edith, I am sure, must have been\u003cbr\u003eadmired by the whole congregation as the ideal bride, so \"radiant\" was\u003cbr\u003eshe (yes, that is the fatally right word), and so expensively adorned.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070245683440,"sku":"2940013740570","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740570_p0.jpg?v=1763589612","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740570","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}