THE news that Randall Peronett was off, that he had left his wife and gone away, positively and definitively gone away with Lindsay Rimmer, was greeted with almost universal satisfaction. There are few persons, even among those most apparently straitlaced, who are not pleased by the flouting of a convention, and glad 'deep inside themselves to think that their society contains deplorable elements. Randall indeed, when it came to it, did his job properly. He did practically everything except announce it to the press. His timing was careful. Nothing was said to anyone until the day when the plane was due to leave for Rome. Then Randall fired off a number of decisive letters. He had even with demonic efficiency arranged that Ann should receive the letter from his solicitor about the divorce arrangements by the same post as his own letter announcing his final and irrevocable departure from her life. His thoroughness amazed and impressed his father; and Hugh felt, at the spectacle of his son's ability so ruthlessly to kick things to pieces, admiration, revulsion, distress, disapproval, and envy.

The whole world now converged upon Ann. She had never been, to persons who had throughout years neglected her, almost forgotten her, a more interesting object. She was besieged by inquisitive and sympathetic visitors and received by every post letters of condolence in which scandalized exclamations and offers of help mingled with the triumphant satisfaction of the virtuous in what had occurred. She was simultaneously invited to ten different houses: she should come and rest, be looked after, stay as long as she liked. Randall and Ann were become, overnight, universal favourites.

Hugh learnt the news from Ann, who rang him up half an hour after the receipt of Randall's letter. Ann asked him to come to Grayhallock at once. Hugh answered vaguely. He would come. But he had, for the moment, urgent business in town. She was to ring him up whenever she liked, and of course if there was anything he could do for her without actually coming to Kent. He would ring her up in any case at least once a day. She was to look after herself and keep cheerful. Why not have Mildred or Clare Swann to stay with her in the house? What a blessing Miranda was at home. He thought about her constantly and would come down at the earliest possible.

Since the sale of the picture Hugh had been in a curious frame of mind. He felt like someone who had lit a long fuse to a barrel of gunpowder. He had done his task and now had only to wait for the explosion. But how odd the waiting was; and when it occurred to him sometimes that perhaps nothing would happen at all he did not know whether he was glad or sorry. Since the moment when Hugh had indicated to Randall that he would get the money, communication between father and son had ceased by tacit mutual consent.

It was still not very clear to him what he had done, what sort of crime he had committed and whether he had committed a crime at all. His curious son had, he realized, a certain power to confuse him morally. He had been, however, much set on his way by Mildred who showed, suddenly, a remarkable firmness about his doing the bold thing, the brave thing, the beautiful thing, without regard for a structure of convention which, as she now pictured the matter to him was too gross to have any relevance to an action so unusual and somehow great. She did not altogether convince him, but he let her words comfort him all the same.

His conscience continued to be busy with the matter. Was he depraving Randall? Was he depriving Ann? But Randall was depraved and Ann deprived already. The new situation would have at least a clarity and an honesty. Nothing, he felt, could be worse for all concerned than Grayhallock with Randall there. He shuddered whenever he recalled the last days, with Randall sequestered in his room brooding and drinking. So bad for Miranda. And at the end of this frequently repeated argument he could sometimes achieve a moment when he felt himself to be a fairy godfather. But then he would start off again with picturing the loneliness of Ann, the despair perhaps of Ann. Yet Ann had had, for long already, her solitude and her despair. Ann was tough, Ann would manage, Ann would survive. And then with a strange vicarious thrill which silenced his officious conscience for the time he envisaged the lovers in flight. And with that his thought returned to his own affairs and to Emma.

Hugh had felt, during the interim between his action and its results, unable to see Emma. Too much depended upon the issue and he did not want, as it were, to spoil the effect of his reappearance in a new situation of which he would be the acknowledged author. Also, he did not want to be chaperoned by Lindsay and that this would be, if he went sooner, with impish cruelty insisted on by Emma he was fairly sure. He had, about his ultimate reception by the abandoned Emma, oddly few fears or misgivings. He knew her well enough to think that she would greet his coup with admiration rather than resentment. He had not been to see her; but he had sent, every day, and with a luxurious pleasure, letters, chocolates, and flowers. She had not replied. And now, an hour and a half after Ann's telephone call, he stood upon Emma's doorstep. He had rung up to ask if he could come and she had briefly said yes.

'I miss my pretty one, said Emma. 'You'll find me dull.

She had not responded to the gentle drama of Hugh's arrival. He had imagined the scene far otherwise. She made no secret of her bereft state. But her remarks about it had a peevish and casual air, and she had spent the first ten minutes of their encounter complaining about her charwoman. There was a depressing lack of intensity. Hugh was at a loss.

The flat looked odd too. It had a sort of stripped appearance, like Aladdin's palace in a state of partial demolition. When Hugh commented on this, Emma replied. 'She took her things and a lot of mine as well. You just wouldn't recognize the bedroom.

'Why didn't you stop her?

'Ah well, said Emma vaguely, 'I wanted her to have them really. I told her she could take a few mementoes.

‘You parted — in anger?

Emma laughed. 'Lord, no! How could you think it? Surely you know what an old matchmaker I am.

'You mean you-

'I invented it, after all, Randall and Lindsay.

Now when she said it it seemed true. Yet Hugh did not know whether to believe her. His imagination drew a blank. He had never been able to, would never be able to, picture that friendship. He was disconcerted too to find Emma claiming to have done what he thought he had done. He said, 'I wonder what Randall will make of it.

Emma was grave for a moment. 'Randall may be saved in the end because at least he loves something. Though I'm afraid» Lindsay may be only the symbol of it. Now you can give me some whisky. Did I tell you? I've decided to take to drink.

He poured out two glasses and then stood before her frowning and biting his nails. He pawed absently at his ear where a large ball of steel wool seemed to be grinding to and fro. He said, 'You're not angry with me, are you?

'You keep attributing anger to me. I can certainly be ill-humoured.

But neither lust nor rage dance attendance upon my old age. There is no citadel any more upon which the flags can wave defiantly. Why ought I to be angry, though?

'I didn't say you ought to, said Hugh. 'I meant —’ He hesitated. He did not want to lay claim to an act which had harmed her, if there was any way of getting out of it, and she had already shown him a way. Yet he did want the credit of an act performed for her sake. Yet again, he did not want, in disputing her own picture of the matter, to seem even for a second to pity her. And yet he had indubitably done something and he wanted at least to be noticed for it. A subdued noise like a distant pistol shot went off in his head and the grinding stopped.