“But suppose it does.”

“It won’t. But if it does—all the more reason for our being married at once.”

“My darling girl, I can’t possibly.”

“You must. You don’t suppose that if you WERE extradited—which is absurd—I shouldn’t go too. Of course I should, and by the same boat—married or not.”

Hubert looked at her.

“You’re a marvel,” he said, “but—”

“Oh! yes, I know. Your father, and your chivalry, and your desire to make me unhappy for my own good, and all that. I’ve seen your uncle Hilary. He’s ready to do it; he’s a padre and a man of real experience. Now, look here—we’ll tell him of this development, and if he’ll still do it, we’ll be done. We’ll go to him together tomorrow morning.”

“But—”

“But! Surely you can trust him; he strikes me as a real person.”

“He is,” said Hubert; “no one more so.”

“Very well then; that’s settled. Now you can kiss me again.” And she resumed her position on his knee. So, but for her acute sense of hearing, they would have been surprised. She was, however, examining the White Monkey on the wall, and Hubert was taking out his cigarette case, when Dinny opened the door.

“This monkey is frightfully good,” said Jean. “We’re going to be married, Dinny, in spite of this new nonsense—that is, if your Uncle Hilary still will. You can come with us to him again tomorrow morning, if you like.”

Dinny looked at Hubert, who had risen.

“She’s hopeless,” he said: “I can’t do anything with her.”

“And you can’t do anything without her. Imagine! He thought, if the worst came to the worst and he was sent out to be tried, that I shouldn’t be going too. Men really are terribly like babies. Well, Dinny?”

“I’m glad.”

“It depends on Uncle Hilary,” said Hubert; “you understand that, Jean.”

“Yes. He’s in touch with real life, and what he says shall go. Come for us at ten tomorrow. Turn your back, Dinny. I’ll give him one kiss, and then he must be off.”

Dinny turned her back.

“Now,” said Jean. They went down; and soon after, the girls went up to bed. Their rooms were next each other, and furnished with all Fleur’s taste. They talked a little, embraced and parted. Dinny dawdled over her undressing.

The quiet Square, inhabited for the most part by Members of Parliament away on holiday, had few lights in the windows of its houses; no wind stirred the dark branches of the trees; through her open window came air that had no night sweetness; and rumbling noises of the Town kept alive in her the tingling sensations of that long day.

‘I couldn’t live with Jean,’ she thought, ‘but,’ she added with the greater justice, ‘Hubert could. He needs that sort of thing.’ And she smiled wryly, mocking her sense of having been supplanted. Once in bed she lay, thinking of Adrian’s fear and dismay, of Diana, and that poor wretch, her husband—longing for her—shut off from her—shut off from everyone. In the darkness she seemed to see his eyes flickering, burning and intense; the eyes of a being that yearned to be at home, at rest, and could not be. She drew the bedclothes up to her own eyes, and over and over, for comfort, repeated to herself the nursery rhyme:

If you had examined Hilary Cherrell, Vicar of St. Augustine’s-inthe-Meads, in the privacy that lies behind all appearance, all spoken words, even all human gesture, you would have found that he did not really believe his faithful activity was leading anywhere. But to ‘serve’ was bred into his blood and bone, as they serve, that is, who lead and direct. As a setter dog, untrained, taken for a walk, will instantly begin to range, as a Dalmatian dog, taken out riding, will follow from the first under the heels of the horse, so was it bred into Hilary, coming of families who for generations had manned the Services, to wear himself out, leading, directing and doing things for the people round him, without conviction that in his leadership or ministrations he was more than marking the time of his own duty. In an age when doubt obscured everything and the temptation to sneer at caste and tradition was irresistible, he illustrated an ‘order’ bred to go on doing its job, not because it saw benefit to others, not because it sighted advantage to self, but because to turn tail on the job was equivalent to desertion. Hilary never dreamed of justifying his ‘order’ or explaining the servitude to which his father the diplomat, his uncle the Bishop, his brothers the soldier, the ‘curator,’ and the judge (for Lionel had just been appointed) were, in their different ways, committed. He thought of them and himself as just ‘plugging along.’ Besides, each of his activities had some specious advantage which he could point to, but which, in his heart, he suspected of being graven on paper rather than on stone.

He had dealt with a manifold correspondence when, at nine-thirty on the morning after the reappearance of Ferse, Adrian entered his somewhat threadbare study. Among Adrian’s numerous male friends Hilary alone understood and appreciated his brother’s feelings and position. There were but two years between them in age, they had been fast chums as boys; were both mountaineers, accustomed in pre-war days to each other’s company in awkward ascents and descents still more awkward; had both been to the war, Hilary as Padre in France, Adrian, who spoke Arabic, on liaison work in the East; and they had very different temperaments, always an advantage to abiding comradeship. There was no need of spiritual discovery between them, and they went at once into Committee of Ways and Means.

“Any news this morning?” asked Hilary.

“Dinny reports all quiet; but sooner or later the strain of being in the same house is bound to break down his control. For the moment the feeling of being home and free may be enough; but I don’t give that more than a week. I’m going down to the Home, but they’ll know no more than we.”

“Forgive me, old man, but normal life with her would be best.”

Adrian’s face quivered.

“It’s beyond human power, Hilary. There’s something about such a relationship too cruel for words. It shouldn’t be asked of a woman.”

“Unless the poor fellow’s going to stay sane.”

“The decision’s not for you, or me, or him—it’s for her; it’s more than anyone ought to have to bear. Don’t forget what she went through before he went into the Home. He ought to be got out of the house, Hilary.”

“It would be simpler if she took asylum.”

“Who would give it her, except myself, and that would send him over the edge again for a certainty.”

“If she could put up with the conditions here, we could take her,” said Hilary.

“But the children?”

“We could squeeze them in. But to leave him alone and idle wouldn’t help him to stay sane. Could he do any work?”

“I don’t suppose he could. Four years of that would rot any man. And who’d give him a job? If I could get him to come to me!”

“Dinny and that other young woman said that he looks and talks all right.”

“In a way he does. Those people down there may have some suggestion.”

Hilary took his brother’s arm.

“Old boy, it’s ghastly for you. But ten to one it won’t be so bad as we think. I’ll talk to May, and if, after you’ve seen those people, you think asylum here is the best thing for Diana—offer it.”

Adrian pressed the hand within his arm.

“I’ll get off now and catch my train.”

Left to himself Hilary stood frowning. He had seen in his time so much of the inscrutability of Providence that he had given up classing it as benevolent even in his sermons. On the other hand he had seen many people by sheer tenacity defeat many misfortunes, and many other people, defeated by their misfortunes, live well enough on them afterwards; he was convinced, therefore, that misery was over-rated, and that what was lost was usually won. The thing was to keep going and not worry. At this moment he received his second visitor, the girl Millicent Pole, who, though acquitted, had lost her job at Petter and Poplin’s; notoriety not being dispelled by legal innocence.