“Nobody’s supposed to know,” said his daughter-in-law, “but somehow everybody does.”

Drawing up outside the Vambrace house at about half-past eight o’clock, Solly sounded his horn in a discreet, rather than a challenging blast. He did not wish to see Pearl come through the door pursued by an angry father. A light in an upper window went out at once, and immediately afterward Pearl came down the walk, perfectly self-possessed, and stepped into his car as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world. Solly could not refrain from admiring comment.

“You made it all right?”

“Of course. What did you expect?”

When he had hunted down Pearl that morning in the music room she had been too surprised to assume her new role of woman of the world, which she had not yet been able to make fully her own. Thinking about their conversation afterward, Pearl had decided that she had been too friendly; the truth was that she had been so amazed by the common sense which Solly had brought to their common predicament that she had been pleasanter than she intended; he had even made her laugh. But he had referred tactlessly to her father’s treatment of her; he had let her know, quite needlessly, that he had seen that cuff on the ear, had heard those sobs. Therefore she was determined to give him a double dose of the woman of the world tonight.

Solly was properly intimidated. He had thought, that morning, that Pearl would be easy to deal with; she had laughed with him, and he set great store by laughter. So he drove in silence along a country road until he came to a point where it ran directly beside the bay upon which Salterton faces, and there he brought the car to a stop.

There was a silence, which Solly and Pearl both found embarrassing, but after a very long time—perhaps two or three minutes—he broke it.

“Well?” said he.

“Well?” countered Pearl. She did not mean to be difficult, but she could not think of anything better to say.

“Well, here we are. The meeting is now open. Ladies first; what do you want to say?”

A woman of the world should always be able to say something, and Pearl felt herself to be at least as much a woman of the world as the Old Woman in Candide, so she plunged into speech.

“We must look at this reasonably,” said she. “There’s no use getting excited; there’s been quite enough of that. We’ve been reported engaged. We’re not engaged and aren’t going to be. We want the report contradicted. It isn’t really so dreadful. Of course Father thinks it is. He hates your family.”

“He doesn’t,” said Solly. “Only a couple of years ago when we were all working on The Tempest he was easy enough to get on with. And not so many years ago he and my mother appeared together on some sort of public committee about some current affairs thing, and they got on like a house afire. What’s all this about hating my family? It’s a good fifteen years since my father nosed him out as Dean.”

“Father’s hates ebb and flow,” said Pearl. “He hates you now and that’s all there is to it.”

“He’s as mad as a hornet at the thought of your marrying anybody. That’s what it is.”

“Please. We aren’t here to discuss my father.”

“Very well, Madam Chairman. But I’ll bet we can’t keep off him for long. Go ahead.”

“As I was saying, this report is a nuisance, and it will take some living down, but there is no very great harm done, provided there is no legal action.”

“No very great harm done?”

“Father thinks so. I don’t. After all, you’re a human being. It is within the range of possibility that I might have been engaged to you. There are people who aspire to that condition, in case you don’t know it; and in the case you do know it and are conceited about it, I may tell you that Tessie Forgie is the most avid of them all. But the fact is that I’m not engaged to you, and while I am annoyed at the report that I am, I do not consider it to be libellous or insulting.”

“You overwhelm me.”

“Please don’t be sarcastic. I’m simply trying to be objective.”

“You are succeeding magnificently. I hardly feel as if I were present in the flesh at all.”

“Unfortunately, my father takes a very serious view of this whole affair. He thinks it is part of a plot to make him appear ridiculous.”

“Please! You’re turning my head with all this subtle flattery.”

“He wants to bring an action against the newspaper. The editor is behaving abominably. Do you know this man Ridley?”

“I’ve met him once or twice—

“What?”

“I am amazed that you, a librarian, cannot place the quotation instantly. From the great Charles Heavysege, Canada’s earliest and foremost dramatist. I presume that when your father formed his opinion of me he did not know that I was the coming big man in the Heavysege field.”

“The what field?”

“It’s a rich new vein of Amcan. We scholars are pegging out our claims in this new Yukon.”

“Please be serious. Ridley has behaved with dreadful discourtesy to Father. So far as I can see there’s only one way to appease Father, and that’s to find whoever put that notice in the paper.”

“And how are we going to do that?”

“Well, surely you have some ideas? Am I expected to do everything? All I can think of is that it must be somebody who knows us both.”

“Quite a wide field.”

“Not too wide when you think it must be somebody who knows us both and hates us both.”

“Oh, come, surely whoever it is only hates you. I’m just an insulting accessory to this business. Still, you’re right. Who can it be? What goblin of ignoble mind?”

“Heavysege again?”

“Quite right.”

“I think Father knows already.”

“Really?”

“He was being extremely mysterious and hinting a lot this evening.”

“Well, why didn’t you ask him?”

Pearl hesitated for a moment. “At present it isn’t very easy to ask him questions,” said she.

Solly thought he knew why, but this time he had tact enough not to refer to the happening of Wednesday night.

“If we could find out who it was,” said Pearl, “without asking Father, naturally, we might be able to do something. Perhaps even go to see the person.”

“Have you thought of calling your cousin Ronnie?”

“I did. I went out to a public phone, and called him. All he would say was that Mr Snelgrove knew, but wouldn’t tell him. He thinks there’s to be some kind of big pow-wow tomorrow at Snelgrove’s office at three.”

“If we’re to catch whoever it is first, we’ll have to be quick. Frankly, I don’t think we have much of a chance.”

“Oh, don’t be so defeatist! Don’t you want to get this settled?”

“Pearl, have you said your say?”

“Why yes, I suppose so. For the present, anyhow.”

“Weil, then, it’s my turn. So far as I’m concerned this affair is settled, in its most important aspect, already.”

“How?”

“You mentioned Griselda this morning. I got this cable this afternoon.”

Solly brought a yellow cable form from his breast inside pocket, and gave it to Pearl, turning on the light on the dashboard of the car. She read:

“Oh, Solly,” said Pearl, in a stricken voice.

“Yes,” said Solly. “That’s the end of an old song.” And he switched off the light.

In the half-darkness Pearl stared at him. She had ceased to be a woman of the world. Her eyes filled with tears, and very slowly they brimmed over and ran down her cheeks.