“Let’s call her Charlotte.”

“All right. But why?”

“After her father.”

Francis looked blank.

“Frank, I’ve been trying to get around to this for quite a while, but the time never seemed just right. But this is it. You know, of course, that this is Charlie’s child?”

Francis still looked blank.

“Well, it is. I know for a certainty. We were very close before he scarpered.”

“And you sucked me in to give cover for Charlie’s child?”

“I suppose I did. But don’t think I liked doing it. You’re a dear, and you’ve behaved beautifully. But there’s a basic difference between you and Charlie: he’s the kind that makes things happen, and you’re the kind things happen to, and for me there’s no question of choice. Don’t forget that before the wedding I gave you a chance to get away, and you decided not to take it. This is Charlie’s child.”

“Does Charlie know?”

“I don’t suppose he knows or cares. I’ve had some indirect news of him, and you know how things are hotting up in Spain, so I suppose that if he did know he couldn’t do anything about it. He’s got bigger fish to fry.”

“Ismay, this puts the lid on it.”

“I didn’t expect you to be pleased, and I honestly meant to say something earlier, but you see how it is. I wanted to be square with you, and now I have.”

“Oh, so that’s what you’ve been, is it? Square? Ismay, I’d hate to be near when you were being crooked.”

Back to Oxford, miserable and beaten so far as his marriage was concerned, but with a compensating fierce ambition to distinguish himself in his Final Schools, which he faced in June. It is impossible to prepare for Final Schools by extreme exertions during the last ten weeks; preparation should have been well begun two years before. That was when Francis had started to work, and thus his last ten weeks was free for finishing touches, rather than the acquirement of basic knowledge. His tutor was pleased with him—or as pleased as a tutor ever admits to being—and polished him up to a fine gloss. The consequence was that when he had written his papers and waited out the obligatory period during which they were read and marked, he had the satisfaction of seeing his name posted in the First Class. He telegraphed to Canada, and the next day received an answer: “Congratulations. Love to Ismay and Charlotte.” Did his parents, then, see them as a happy trio, a Holy Family, with Baby Bunting prettily innocent of Daddy’s distinction?

Ismay and the child were at St. Columb’s; Aunt Prudence had insisted that a summer in the country, with country food and air, was just what Ismay and Baby needed. It was to St. Columb’s, therefore, that Francis sent his second telegram about his academic success. He was surprised to receive a telephone call on the following day. The telephone was not a favourite agent of the Glassons, nor was Oxford, with its great population of students and its paucity of telephones, an easy place with which to communicate. But Uncle Roderick called, and Francis was found by the Porter of Corpus, and there, in the Porter’s lodge, while one undergraduate bought a stamp and another inquired about the whereabouts of his bicycle, he heard his uncle, distant and mouse-like of voice, saying that Ismay was not at St. Columb’s but had said she was going up to Oxford for a couple of days to see Francis. That had been a week ago. Was she not with him?

It was on the following day that he received a letter from Lausanne:

The money, he discovered, was what he had deposited in an account for her use. She had cleared it out. Scarpered!

“I want to beat up a woman with my fists. Are you interested, and if so what would your price be?”

Francis had put his question to at least eight prostitutes on Piccadilly, and had had eight refusals, ranging from amusement to affront. Obviously he was in the wrong district. These girls, most of them fragile and pretty, were high-priced tarts, not hungry enough to consider his proposal. He found his way into Soho, and on the fourth try had better luck.

She was fortyish, with badly dyed hair and a gown trimmed with imitation fur. On the stout side, and underneath a heavy paint job her face was stupid but kindly.

“Well—I don’t know what to say. I’ve had gentlemen who had special tastes, of course. But usually it’s them that wants to be beaten up. A few slaps, you know, and some rough talk. But I don’t know. With your fists, was it you said?”

“Yes. Fists.”

“I’d have to think it over. Talk it over with my friend, really. Have you got a moment?”

From the depths of her bosom she pulled out a crucifix which, when she put it in her lips, proved to be a little whistle, on a chain. She gave a discreet double tweet. Very soon a small, dark man, quietly dressed and wearing a statesman’s black Homburg, appeared, and the woman whispered to him. “How rough would this be?” asked the man.

“Hard to say, till I got into it.”

“Well—it could come very dear. Broken teeth, now. Bruising. That could put her out of business for a fortnight. No; I don’t think we could look at it, not at any price that would make sense.”

“Would one good punch be any help?” said the woman, who seemed to have a pitying heart. “One good punch at, say, ten quid?”

“Twenty,” said the man, hastily.

They went to the woman’s flat, which was near by.

“You understand I’ve got to stick around,” said the man. “This isn’t your ordinary call. You might get carried away, and not in control of yourself. I’ve got to stick around, for both yoursakes.”

The woman was undressing, with rapid professional skill.

“No need for that,” said Francis.

“Oh, I think she’d better,” said the man. “In fact, I’d say she’d rather, seeing as you’re paying. Professional, you understand. Her birthday suit is her working clothes, isn’t it?”

“Okay. Ready when you are,” said the woman, now naked and bracing herself on stout legs. She had, Francis saw with an embalmer’s eye, an appendicitis scar of the old-fashioned kind that looks rather like a beetle with outspread legs. Francis raised his fist, and to summon anger he thought hard of Ismay at her most defiant, her most derisive, her most sluttish. But it would not come. It was the Looner who dominated his feeling, not as an image, but as an influence, and he could not strike. He sat down suddenly on the bed, and to his deep shame burst into sobs.

“Oh, the poor love,” said the woman. “Can’t you, darling?”

She pushed a box of tissue handkerchiefs toward him.

“Don’t feel it so. There’s lots that can’t, the other way, you know. They’ve very good reasons, too.”

“He needs a drink,” said the man.

“No, I think he needs a cup of tea,” said the woman. “Just put on the electric, will you, Jimsie? There, there, now. You tell me about it.” She sat beside Francis and drew his head down on her large scented breast. “What did she do to you, eh? She must have done something. What was it? Come on, tell me.”

So Francis found himself sitting on the bed with the woman, who had pulled a silk peignoir trimmed with rather worn marabou about her, and her ponce, or her bully, or whatever the term might be for Jimsie, sipping hot, strong tea, giving a shortened, edited version of what Ismay had done. The woman made comforting noises, but it was Jimsie who spoke.