The policeman reversed his sleeves, and Sir Lawrence crossed, pursuing his way to Berkeley Square. Here was change enough! The houses of the great were going fast. Piecemeal, without expressed aim, almost shamefacedly, in true English fashion, London was being rebuilt. The dynastic age was gone, with its appendages, feudalism, and the Church. Even wars would now be fought for peoples and their markets. No more dynastic or religious wars. Well, that was something! ‘We’re getting more like insects daily,’ thought Sir Lawrence. And how interesting! Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place—service—social service—the ants’ creed, the bees’ creed! Communism had formulated it and was whipping it into the people from the top. So characteristic! They were always whipping something into somebody in Russia. The quick way, no doubt, but the sure way? No! The voluntary system remained the best, because when once it got hold it lasted—only it was so darned slow! Yes, and darned ironical! So far the sense of social service was almost the perquisite of the older families, who had somehow got hold of the notion that they must do something useful to pay for their position. Now that they were dying out would the sense of service persist? How were the ‘people’ to pick it up? ‘Well,’ thought Sir Lawrence, ‘after all, there’s the bus conductor; and the fellow in the shop, who’ll take infinite trouble to match the colour of your socks; and the woman who’ll look after her neighbour’s baby, or collect for the waifs and strays; and the motorist who’ll stop and watch you tinkering at your car; and the postman who’s grateful for a tip; and the almost anybody who’ll try and pull you out of a pond if he can really see you’re in it. What’s wanted is the slogan: “Fresh air and exercise for good instincts.” One might have it on all the buses, instead of: “Canon’s Colossal Crime,” or “Strange Sweepstake Swindle.” And that reminds me to ask Dinny what she knows about Clare and that young man.’

So thinking, he paused before his house door, and inserted his key in its latch.

In spite of Sir Gerald Corven’s assurance, the course before a husband wishing to resume the society of his wife is not noticeably simple, especially if he has but a week wherein to encompass his desire. The experience of that evening had made Clare wary. On leaving the Temple at lunch-time the day after, a Saturday, she took train for Condaford, where she carefully refrained from saying that she had sought asylum. On Sunday morning she lay long in bed, with the windows wide open, watching the sky beyond the tall denuded elms. The sun shone in upon her, the air was mild and alive with sounds surprised into life, the twittering once more of birds, the lowing of a cow, the occasional caw of a rook, the continual cooing of the fantails. There was but little poetry in Clare, but for a moment to her easeful stretched-out being came a certain perception of the symphony which is this world. The lacing of the naked boughs and those few leaves against the soft, gold-bright, moving sky; that rook balancing there; the green and fallow upland, the far line of trees; and all those sounds, and the pure unscented air on her face; the twittering quietude and perfect freedom of each separate thing, and yet the long composure of design—all this for a moment drew her out of herself into a glimpse of the universal.

The vision passed; she thought instead of Thursday night, and Tony Croom, and the dirty little boy outside the restaurant in Soho, who had said in such endearing tones: “Remember the poor old guy, lady; remember the poor old guy.” If Tony had seen her the next night! How irrelevant was event to feeling, how ignorant were even the closest of each other! She uttered a little discomfited laugh. Where ignorance was bliss, indeed!

The village church bell began ringing now. Marvellous how her father and mother continued to go every Sunday, hoping—she supposed—for the best; or was it because if they didn’t the village wouldn’t, and the church would fall into disuse, or at least behind the chapel? It was nice to lie here in one’s own old room, feel safe, and warm, and idle, with a dog on one’s feet! Till next Saturday she was at bay, like a chased vixen taking advantage of every cover; and Clare drew taut her lips, as a vixen does at sight of hounds. Go back he must—he had said—with her or without. Well, it would be without!

Her sense of asylum was rudely shaken about four o’clock, when, returning from a walk with the dogs, she saw a car outside and was met by her mother in the hall.

“Jerry’s with your father.”

“Oh!”

“Come up to my room, dear.”

In that first-floor room adjoining her bedroom Lady Charwell’s personality had always more scope than in the rest of the old, tortuous, worn-down house, so full of relics and the past tense. This room’s verbena-scented, powder-blue scheme had a distinct if faded elegance. It had been designed; the rest of the house had grown, emerging here and there into small oases of modernity, but for the most part a wilderness strewn with the débris of Time.

Clare turned and turned a china figure, in front of the wood fire. She had not foreseen this visit. Now were conjoined the forces of creed, convention, and comfort, and against them was only a defence that it was hateful to lay bare. She waited for her mother to speak.

“You see, darling, you haven’t told us anything.”

But how tell one who looked and spoke like that? She flushed, went pale, and said: “I can only say there’s a beast in him. I know it doesn’t show; but there is, Mother, there is!”

Lady Charwell, too, had flushed. It did not suit her, being over fifty.

“Your father and I will help you all we can, dear; only, of course, it is so important to take a right decision now.”

“And I, having made a wrong one already, can only be trusted to make another? You’ve got to take my word, Mother; I simply can’t talk about it, and I simply won’t go back with him.”

Lady Charwell had sat down, a furrow between her grey-blue eyes which seemed fixed on nothing. She turned them on her daughter, and said, hesitating:

“You’re sure it’s not just the beast that is in nearly all men?”

Clare laughed.

“Oh! no. I’m not easily upset.”

Lady Charwell sighed.

“Don’t worry, Mother dear; it’ll be all right once we’ve got this over. Nothing really matters nowadays.”

“So they say, but one has the bad habit still of believing that it does.”

At this near approach to irony Clare said quickly: “It matters that one should keep one’s self-respect. Really, with him I couldn’t.”

“We’ll say no more then. Your father will want to see you. You’d better take your things off.”

Clare kissed her and went out. There was no sound from below, and she went on up to her room. She felt her will-power stiffening. The days when men disposed of their women folk were long over, and—whatever Jerry and her father were concocting—she would not budge! When the summons came, she went to the encounter, blade-sharp, and hard as stone.

They were standing in the General’s office-like study, and she felt at once that they were in agreement. Nodding to her husband, she went over to her father.

“Well?”

But Corven spoke first.

“I leave it to you, sir.”

The General’s lined face looked mournful and irritated. He braced himself. “We’ve been going into this, Clare. Jerry admits that you’ve got much on your side, but he’s given me his word that he won’t offend you again. I want to appeal to you to try and see his point of view. He says, I think rightly, that it’s more to your interest even than to his. The old ideas about marriage may have gone, but, after all, you both took certain vows—but leaving that aside—”