“I can’t go with you. I don’t want to see you, ever again.”

“I know all that. But we’ve got to leave this place together. Please.”

And so they left the party as quickly and unobtrusively as they could, and Solly helped Pearl into his tiny Morris quite as though they wanted to be together.

“Now,” said Solly, when they had gone a short distance, “I suppose you don’t know anything about all this?”

“Of course I don’t,” said Pearl. “How would I?”

“I didn’t suppose you did. But before I can do anything about it myself I have to be quite sure.”

“Before you do anything about it?”

“Yes. Didn’t it occur to you that I might want to contradict that notice?”

“Surely I am the one to do any contradicting that is done.”

“Why, precisely?”

“Well—because I’m the one that’s been dragged into this mess.”

“Why you more than me?”

“Because—” Pearl was about to say “because I’m a girl,” but she felt that such a reason would not do for the twentieth century. There was a short silence.

“I think that you had better get things straight,” said Solly. “You haven’t been dragged into the mess any more than I have. And I am every bit as anxious to contradict this story as you are.”

Pearl was surprised to feel herself becoming angry. It is one thing not to want to marry a young man; it is quite another thing to find that the young man is offended that people should think he wants to marry you. She sat up very straight and breathed deeply through her nose.

“There’s no sense snorting about it,” said Solly. “And you needn’t expect me to be gallant about it, either. This damned thing has put me in a very queer position, and God only knows what will be the upshot of it. It could very easily ruin everything for me.” He frowned over the wheel at the dark street.

“You mean when Griselda Webster hears about it?” said Pearl, in a well-simulated tone of polite interest.

“Yes. That’s what I mean,” said Solly. “Though what you know about it, or how it concerns you, I don’t understand.”

“I only know what everybody knows. Which is that you have been hounding Griselda for the past three years; and that on her long list of suitors you rank about fifteenth; and that now she is in England you write to her all the time, and even take her little sister Freddy for drives to get the news of Griselda that she doesn’t trouble to write to you. And as for how it concerns me, well—I am sure Griselda will hear it from somebody, by air-mail, probably the day after tomorrow, and she will be glad because it will relieve her of the nuisance of thinking she has blighted your life. However, if it will relieve your mind, I will write to her myself, and tell her that you are still her faithful slave, and that contrary to public report, I haven’t stolen you away from her.”

“You!” said Solly, with so much scorn and horror and—worst of all—amazement, that Pearl was goaded beyond bearing.

“Yes—me!” she shouted.

By this time they had reached the Vambrace home, and by unlucky chance Solly stopped his car just as the Professor was about to open his front gate. Her father heard Pearl’s indignant shout, and in an instant he had pulled open the door of the Morris and, bending more than double from his great height, thrust his head into it.

“What does this mean?” he demanded.

Solly was weary of feminine illogicality, and was delighted to see a fellow man, with whom he could argue in a reasonable manner.

“Professor Vambrace,” said he, “I’ve been wanting to see you. Pearl seems to have some very queer ideas about this mix-up—you know, this newspaper nonsense—and I think we ought to get together and straighten matters out.”

“Do you so!” roared the Professor, in such a voice that the whole body of the tiny car hummed with the sound. “Is it get together with you, you sneaking little cur? There’s been too much getting together with you, I see! Get out of that contraption!”

This last remark was addressed to his daughter.

“Daddy,” said she, “there’s been a mistake—”

“Get out of it!” roared the Professor. “Get out of it or I’ll pick you out of it like a maggot out of a nut!” And with these words he brought his stick down on the roof of the Morris with such force that he dented it badly and smashed his treasured blackthorn to splinters.

“Daddy,” said Pearl, “please try to understand and be a little bit quiet. Everybody will hear you.”

“What do I care who hears me? I understand that you sneaked out of my house tonight, like a kitchen maid, to meet this whelp, to whom you have got yourself clandestinely engaged.”

“We’re not engaged,” shouted Solly. He was badly frightened by the Professor, but a shout was the only possible tone in which this conversation could be carried on.

“You’re coupled in the public mouth,” roared Vambrace.

“We’re not coupled anywhere, and never intend to be!”

“Do you dare to say that to my face?”

“Yes, I do. And stop banging on my car.”

The Professor was now quite beyond reason. “I’ll bang on what I choose,” cried he, and began a loud pummelling on the roof. Whereupon Solly, who was not without resource, leaned on the horn and delivered such a blast that even the Professor was startled. He seized Pearl by the shoulder.

“Get out,” said he. And he pulled at her coat so sharply that she fell sideways out of the car on to the pavement. Solly leaned forward.

“Have you hurt yourself?” said he. “Can I help you?”

It was involuntary courtesy, but it was like gasoline on the flame of the Professor’s wrath. Gallantry before his very eyes! The product of who knew what shameless familiarity! He stooped and jerked Pearl to her feet.

“You dirty little scut!” he cried. “Roaring drunk in the car of the one man you should be ashamed to see! God!”

And he pushed Pearl toward the gate, and as she fumbled with the latch, he cuffed her shrewdly on the ear.

The quietest, but most terrible sound in this hurly-burly was Pearl’s sobbing as she ran up the path. Solly started his car with a roar.

Half an hour later, the Professor sat in his study, white with anger. In the circumstances he should have been drinking whisky, but there was never any whisky in the house, and he had made himself some wretched cocoa, that being the only drink he could find. His thoughts were incoherent, but very painful. He had played the fool all night; he had been bested. Yet unquestionably he was right—the only person connected with this villainous business who was right. He hated Pearl who, he was now convinced, was no longer pure, perhaps—O torturing thought!—no longer a virgin; certainly no longer his little girl. He had struck her! Struck her, like any bog-trotting peasant beating his slut of a daughter. And it was all for love of her.

The Professor was suddenly, noisily sick, and then, in the silence of his ugly house, he wept.

Solly crept quietly into his mother’s house, removed his shoes, and crept past his mother’s bedroom door to the attic where his living-room and bedroom were. Quickly he made himself ready for bed, and then, from inside a folio copy of Bacon’s Works, where he fondly hoped that his mother would never think of looking, he brought out his photograph of Griselda Webster. It was of her as she had appeared as Ariel in The Tempest. Stealthily he mixed himself a drink of rye and tap-water, and sat down in his armchair for his nightly act of worship. But as he gazed at Griselda, the sound of Pearl Vambrace, weeping, persisted in his ears. He thought it the ugliest sound he had ever heard, but none the less disturbing. He should have done something about that.

Pearl was still weeping, but silently, when dawn came through her window. She felt herself to be utterly alone and forsaken, for she knew that she had lost her father, more certainly than if he had died that night.