Dinny walked on, and did not answer.

“Now listen, Dinny,” began that pleasant voice. “I’m a sensualist, if you like, but what does it matter? Sex is naturally aberrational. If anyone tells you it isn’t, don’t believe them. These things work themselves out, and anyway they’re not important. If Clare comes back to me, in two years’ time she won’t even remember. She likes the sort of life, and I’m not fussy. Marriage is very much a go-as-you-please affair.”

“You mean that by that time you’ll be experimenting with someone else?”

He shrugged, looked round at her, and smiled.

“Almost embarrassing this conversation, isn’t it? What I want you to grasp is that I’m two men. One, and it’s the one that matters, has his work to do and means to do it. Clare should stick to that man, because he’ll give her a life in which she won’t rust; she’ll be in the thick of affairs and people who matter; she’ll have stir and movement—and she loves both. She’ll have a certain power, and she’s not averse from that. The other man—well, he wants his fling, he takes it, if you like; but the worst is over so far as she’s concerned—at least, it will be when we’ve settled down again. You see, I’m honest, or shameless if you like it better.”

“I don’t see, in all this,” said Dinny drily, “where love comes in.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t. Marriage is composed of mutual interest and desire. The first increases with the years, the latter fades. That ought to be exactly what she wants.”

“I can’t speak for Clare, but I don’t see it that way.”

“You haven’t tried yourself out, my dear.”

“No,” said Dinny, “and on those lines I trust I never may. I should dislike alternation between commerce and vice.”

He laughed.

“I like your bluntness. But seriously, Dinny, you ought to influence her. She’s making a great mistake.”

A sudden fury seized on Dinny.

“I think,” she said, between her teeth, “it was you who made the great mistake. If you do certain things to certain horses you’re never on terms with them again.”

He was silent at that.

“You don’t want a divorce in the family,” he said at last, and looked round at her steadily. “I’ve told Clare that I can’t let her divorce me. I’m sorry, but I mean that. Further, if she won’t come back to me, she can’t go as she pleases.”

“You mean,” said Dinny, between her teeth, “that if she does come back to you she can?”

“That’s what it would come to, I daresay.”

“I see. I think I’ll say good-night.”

“As you please. You think me cynical. That’s as may be. I shall do my best to get Clare back. If she won’t come she must watch out.”

They had stopped under a lamp-post and with an effort Dinny forced her eyes to his. He was as formidable, shameless, and mesmerically implacable as a cat, with that thin smile and unflinching stare. She said, quietly: “I quite understand. Goodnight!”

“Good-night, Dinny! I’m sorry, but it’s best to know where we stand. Shake hands?”

Rather to her surprise she let him take her hand, then turned the corner into Mount Street.

She entered her Aunt’s house with all her passionate loyalty to her own breed roused, yet understanding better what had made Clare take Jerry Corven for husband. There WAS mesmerism about him, and a clear shameless daring which had its fascination. One could see what a power he might be among native peoples, how ruthlessly, yet smoothly, he would have his way with them; and how he might lay a spell over his associates. She could see, too, how difficult he might be to refuse physically, until he had outraged all personal pride.

Her Aunt’s voice broke her painful absorption with the words: “Here she is, Adrian.”

At the top of the stairs her Uncle Adrian’s goatee-bearded face was looking over his sister’s shoulder.

“Your things have come, my dear. Where have you been?”

“With Clare, Auntie.”

“Dinny,” said Adrian, “I haven’t seen you for nearly a year.”

“This is where we kiss, Uncle. Is all well in Bloomsbury, or has the slump affected bones?”

“Bones in esse are all right; in posse they look dicky—no money for expeditions. The origin of Homo sapiens is more abstruse than ever.”

“Dinny, we needn’t dress. Adrian’s stoppin’ for dinner. Lawrence will be so relieved. You can pow-wow while I loosen my belt, or do you want to tighten yours?”

“No, thank you, Auntie.”

“Then go in there.”

Dinny entered the drawing-room and sat down beside her Uncle. Grave and thin and bearded, wrinkled, and brown even in November, with long legs crossed and a look of interest in her, he seemed as ever the ideal pillar-box for confidences.

“Heard about Clare, Uncle?”

“The bare facts, no whys or wherefores.”

“They’re not ‘nice.’ Did you ever know a sadist?”

“Once—at Margate. My private school. I didn’t know at the time, of course, but I’ve gathered it since. Do you mean that Corven is one?”

“So Clare says. I walked here with him from her rooms. He’s a very queer person.”

“Not mentally abnormal?” said Adrian, with a shudder.

“Saner than you or I, dear; he wants his own way regardless of other people; and when he can’t get it he bites. Could Clare get a divorce from him without publicly going into their life together?”

“Only by getting evidence of a definite act of misconduct.”

“Would that have to be over here?”

“Well, to get it over there would be very expensive, and doubtful at that.”

“Clare doesn’t want to have him watched at present.”

“It’s certainly an unclean process,” said Adrian.

“I know, Uncle; but if she won’t, what chance is there?”

“None.”

“At present she’s in the mood that they should leave each other severely alone; but if she won’t go back with him, he says she must ‘look out for herself.’”

“Is there anybody else involved, then, Dinny?”

“There’s a young man in love with her, but she says it’s quite all right.”

“H’m! ‘Youth’s a stuff—’ as Shakespeare said. Nice young man?”

“I’ve only seen him for a few minutes; he looked quite nice, I thought.”

“That cuts both ways.”

“I trust Clare completely.”

“You know her better than I do, my dear; but I should say she might get very impatient. How long can Corven stay over here?”

“Not more than a month at most, she thinks; he’s been here a week already.”

“He’s seen her?”

“Once. He tried to again today. I drew him off. She dreads seeing him, I know.”

“As things are he has every right to see her, you know.”

“Yes,” said Dinny, and sighed.

“Can’t your Member that she’s with suggest a way out? He’s a lawyer.”

“I wouldn’t like to tell him. It’s so private. Besides, people don’t like being involved in matrimonial squabbles.”

“Is he married?”

“No.”

She saw him look at her intently, and remembered Clare’s laugh and words: “Dinny, he’s in love with you.”

“You’ll see him here tomorrow night,” Adrian went on. “Em’s asked him to dinner, I gather; Clare too, I believe. Quite candidly, Dinny, I don’t see anything to be done. Clare may change her mind and go back, or Corven may change his and let her stay without bothering about her.”

Dinny shook her head. “They’re neither of them like that. I must go and wash, Uncle.”

Adrian reflected upon the undeniable proposition that everyone had his troubles. His own at the moment were confined to the fact that his step-children, Sheila and Ronald Ferse, had measles, so that he was something of a pariah in his own house, the sanctity attaching to an infectious disease having cast his wife into purdah. He was not vastly interested in Clare. She had always been to him one of those young women who took the bit between their teeth and were bound to fetch up now and again with broken knees. Dinny, to him, was worth three of her. But if Dinny were going to be worried out of her life by her sister’s troubles, then, indeed, they became important to Adrian. She seemed to have the knack of bearing vicarious burdens: Hubert’s, his own, Wilfrid Desert’s, and now Clare’s.