“He IS in love with her, and they HAVE been going about together, but there is no truth in the charges.”

“I see,” said Muskham.

“The case is coming on quite soon. I persuaded Tony Croom to let me tell you of it; it would be so awkward for him to talk about himself.”

Muskham was looking at her with unmoved face.

“But,” he said, “I know Jerry Corven. I didn’t realise your sister had left him.”

“We keep it to ourselves.”

“Was her leaving him young Croom’s doing?”

“No. They only met on the boat coming over. Clare left Jerry for quite another reason. She and Tony Croom have been indiscreet, of course; they’ve been watched and seen together in what are known, I believe, as ‘compromising circumstances.’”

“How do you mean exactly?”

“Driving back from Oxford late one evening their lights failed and they spent the rest of the night in the car together.”

Jack Muskham raised his shoulders slightly. Dinny leaned forward with her eyes on his.

“I told you there was no truth in the charges; there is NONE.”

“But, my dear Miss Cherrell, a man never admits—”

“That is why I came to you instead of Tony. My sister would not tell me a lie.”

Again Muskham made the slight movement of his shoulders.

“I don’t quite see—” he began.

“What it has to do with you? This: I don’t suppose they’ll be believed.”

“You mean if I just read the case it would put me off young Croom?”

“Yes, I think you would feel he had not ‘played the game.’” She could not quite keep irony out of her voice.

“Well,” he said, “has he?”

“I think so. He’s deeply in love with my sister, and yet he’s kept himself in hand. One can’t help falling in love, you know.” With those words all the feelings of the past rose up within her, and she looked down so as not to see that impassive face and the provocative set of its lips. Suddenly, by a sort of inspiration, she said:

“My brother-inlaw has asked for damages.”

“Oh!” said Jack Muskham, “I didn’t know that was done now.”

“Two thousand, and Tony Croom has nothing. He professes not to care, but if they lose, of course, it’s ruin.”

After that there was silence. Jack Muskham went back to the window. He sat on the sill and said:

“Well, I don’t know what I can do?”

“You needn’t take his job from him—that’s all.”

“The man was in Ceylon and his wife here. It’s not—”

Dinny rose, took two steps towards him and stood very still.

“Has it ever struck you, Mr. Muskham, that you owe me anything? Do you ever remember that you took my lover from me? Do you know that he is dead out there, where he went because of you?”

“Of me?”

“You and what you stand for made him give me up. I ask you now, however this case goes, not to sack Tony Croom! Goodbye!” And before he could answer she was gone.

She almost ran towards the Green Park. How far from what she had intended! How fatal—perhaps! But her feelings had been too strong—the old revolt against the dead wall of form and those impalpable inexorable forces of tradition which had wrecked her love life! It could not have been otherwise. The sight of his long, dandified figure, the sound of his voice, had brought it all back too strongly. Ah, well! It was a relief; an escape of old bitterness pent within her spirit! The next morning she received this note:

With that promise to her credit she went back to Condaford the following day and gave herself to mitigation of the atmosphere she found there. Her father and mother, living their ordinary lives, were obviously haunted and harassed. Her mother, sensitive and secluded, was just shrinking from publicity discreditable to Clare. Her father seemed to feel that, however the case went, most people would think his daughter a light women and a liar; young Croom would be excused more or less, but a woman who allowed circumstance to take such turns would find no one to excuse her. He was clearly feeling, too, a vindictive anger against Jerry Corven, and a determination that the fellow should not be successful if he could help it. Faintly amused at an attitude so male, Dinny felt a sort of admiration at the painful integrity with which he was grasping the shadow and letting the substance go. To her father’s generation divorce still seemed the outward and visible sign of inner and spiritual disgrace. To herself love was love and, when it became aversion, ceased to justify sexual relationship. She had, in fact, been more shocked by Clare’s yielding to Jerry Corven in her rooms than by her leaving him in Ceylon. The divorce suits she had occasionally followed in the papers had done nothing to help her believe that marriages were made in heaven. But she recognised the feelings of those brought up in an older atmosphere, and avoided adding to the confusion and trouble in her people’s minds. The line she took was more practical: The thing would soon be over one way or the other, and probably the other! People paid very little attention to other people’s affairs nowadays!

“What!” said the General sardonically. “‘Night in a car’—it’s the perfect headline. Sets everybody thinking at once how they themselves would have behaved.”

She had no answer, but: “They’ll make a symposium of it, darling: The Home Secretary, the Dean of St. Paul’s, the Princess Elizabeth.”

She was disturbed when told that Dornford had been asked to Condaford for Easter.

“I hope you don’t mind, Dinny; we didn’t know whether you’d be here or not.”

“I can’t use the expression ‘I’m agreeable’ even to you, Mother.”

“Well, darling, one of these days you must go down into the battle again.”

Dinny bit her lip and did not answer. It was true, and the more disquieting. Coming from her gentle and unmanaging mother, the words stung.

Battle! Life, then, was like the war. It struck you down into hospital, turned you out therefrom into the ranks again. Her mother and father would hate ‘to lose her,’ but they clearly wanted her ‘to go.’ And this with Clare’s failure written on the wall!

Easter came with a wind ‘fresh to strong.’ Clare arrived by train on the Saturday morning, Dornford by car in the afternoon. He greeted Dinny as if doubtful of his welcome.

He had found himself a house. It was on Campden Hill. He had been terribly anxious to know Clare’s opinion of it, and she had spent a Sunday afternoon going over it with him.

“‘Eminently desirable,’ Dinny. ‘South aspect; garage and stabling for two horses; good garden; all the usual offices, centrally heated,’ and otherwise well-bred. He thinks of going in towards the end of May. It has an old tiled roof, so I put him on to French grey for shutters. Really, it’s rather nice, and roomy.”

“It sounds ‘marvellous.’ I suppose you’ll be going there instead of to the Temple?”

“Yes, he’s moving into Pump Court, or Brick Buildings—I can’t remember. When you think of it, Dinny, why shouldn’t he have been made co-respondent instead of Tony? I see much more of him.”

Otherwise allusion to ‘the case’ was foregone. It would be one of the first after the undefended suits were disposed of, and calm before the storm was reigning.

Dornford, indeed, referred to it after lunch on Sunday.

“Shall you be in court during your sister’s case, Dinny?”

“I must.”

“I’m afraid it may make you very wild. They’ve briefed Brough, and he’s particularly exasperating when he likes with a simple denial like this; that’s what they’ll rely on. Clare must try and keep cool.”

Dinny remembered ‘very young’ Roger’s wishing it had been herself and not Clare.