‘My God!’ thought Sir Lawrence. He had suddenly realised that to deaden feeling on any subject one only needed to sit in conclave. Whenever the Government got into trouble, they appointed a Commission. Whenever a man did something wrong, he went into consultation with solicitor and counsel. If he himself hadn’t been sitting in conclave, would he ever have gone to see Desert and put the fat into the fire like this? The conclave had dulled his feelings. He had gone to Wilfrid as some juryman comes in to return his verdict after sitting in conclave on a case for days. And now he had to put himself right with Dinny, and how the deuce would he do that? He went into his study, conscious that his wife was following.

“Lawrence, you must tell her exactly what you’ve done, and how he took it. Otherwise it may be too late. And I shall stay until you’ve done it.”

“Considering, Em, that you don’t know what I said, or what he said, that seems superfluous.”

“No,” said Lady Mont, “nothing is, when a man’s done wrong.”

“I was charged to go and see him by your family.”

“You ought to have had more sense. If you treat poets like innkeepers, they blow up.”

“On the contrary, he thanked me.”

“That’s worse. I shall have Dinny’s taxi kept at the door.”

“Em,” said Sir Lawrence, “when you want to make your will, let me know.”

“Why?”

“Because of getting you consecutive before you start.”

“Anything I have,” said Lady Mont, “is to go to Michael, to be kept for Catherine. And if I’m dead when Kit goes to Harrow, he’s to have my grandfather’s ‘stirrup-cup’ that’s in the armoire in my sitting-room at Lippin’hall. But he’s not to take it to school with him, or they’ll melt it, or drink boiled peppermints out of it, or something. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then,” said Lady Mont, “get ready and begin at once when Dinny comes.”

“Quite!” said Sir Lawrence meekly. “But how the deuce am I to put it to Dinny?”

“Just put it, and don’t invent as you go along.”

Sir Lawrence played a tune with his fingers on the window-pane. His wife stared at the ceiling. They were like that when Dinny came.

“Keep Miss Dinny’s taxi, Blore.”

At the sight of his niece Sir Lawrence perceived that he had indeed lost touch with feeling. Her face, under its chestnut-coloured hair, was sharpened and blanched, and there was a look in her eyes that he did not like.

“Begin,” said Lady Mont.

Sir Lawrence raised one high thin shoulder as if in protection.

“My dear, your brother has been recalled, and I was asked whether I would go and see young Desert. I went. I told him that if he had a quarrel with himself he would not be fit to live with till he’d made it up. He said nothing and turned off. Afterwards he came up behind me in this street, and said that I was right. Would I tell your family that he was going away. He looked very queer and troubled. I said: ‘Be careful! You might do her a great injury.’ ‘I shall do her that, anyway,’ he said. And he went off. That was about twenty minutes ago.”

Dinny looked from one to the other, covered her lips with her hand, and went out.

A moment later they heard her cab move off.

CHAPTER 28

Except for receiving a little note in answer to her letter, which relieved her not at all, Dinny had spent these last two days in distress of mind. When Sir Lawrence made his communication, she felt as if all depended on whether she could get to Cork Street before he was back there, and in her taxi she sat with hands screwed tight together in her lap and her eyes fixed on the driver’s back, a back, indeed, so broad that it was not easy to fix them elsewhere. Useless to think of what she was going to say—she must say whatever came into her head when she saw him. His face would give her a lead. She realised that if he once got away from England it would be as if she had never seen him. She stopped the cab in Burlington Street and walked swiftly to his door. If he had come straight home, he must be in! In these last two days she had realised that Stack had perceived some change in Wilfrid and was conforming to it, and when he opened the door she said:

“You mustn’t put me off, Stack, I MUST see Mr. Desert.” And, slipping past, she opened the door of the sitting-room. Wilfrid was pacing up and down.

“Dinny!”

She felt that if she said the wrong thing it might be, then and there, the end; and she only smiled. He put his hands over his eyes; and, while he stood thus blinded, she stole up and put her arms round his neck.

Was Jean right? Ought she to—?

Then, through the opened door Foch came in. He slid the velvet of his muzzle under her hand, and she sank on her knees to kiss him. When she looked up, Wilfrid had turned away. Instantly she scrambled up, and stood, as it were, lost. She did not know of what, if of anything, she thought, not even whether she were feeling. All seemed to go blank within her. He had thrown the window open and was leaning there holding his hands to his head. Was he going to throw himself out? She made a violent effort to control her nerves, and said very gently: “Wilfrid!” He turned and looked at her, and she thought: ‘My God! He hates me!’ Then his expression changed, and became the one she knew; and she was aware once more of how at sea one is with wounded pride—so multiple and violent and changing in its moods!

“Well?” she said. “What do you wish me to do?”

“I don’t know. The whole thing is mad. I ought to have buried myself in Siam by now.”

“Would you like me to stay here to-night?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know.”

“Wilfrid, why take it so hard? It’s as if love were nothing to you. Is it nothing?”

For answer he took out Jack Muskham’s letter.

“Read this!”

She read it. “I see. It was doubly unfortunate that I came down.”

He threw himself down again on the divan, and sat there looking up at her.

‘If I do go,’ thought Dinny, ‘I shall only begin tearing to get back again.’ And she said: “What are you doing for dinner?”

“Stack’s got something, I believe.”

“Would there be enough for me?”

“Too much, if you feel as I do.”

She rang the bell.

“I’m staying to dinner, Stack. I only want about a pin’s head of food.”

And, craving for a moment in which to recover her balance, she said: “May I have a wash, Wilfrid?”

While she was drying her face and hands, she took hold of herself with all her might, and then as suddenly relaxed. Whatever she decided would be wrong, painful, perhaps impossible. Let it go!

When she came back to the sitting-room he was not there. The door into his bedroom was open, but it was empty. Dinny rushed to the window. He was not in the street. Stack’s voice said.

“Excuse me, miss: Mr. Desert was called out. He told me to say he would write. Dinner will be ready in a minute.”

Dinny went straight up to him.

“Your first impression of me was the right one, Stack; not your second. I am going now. Mr. Desert need have no fear of me. Tell him that, please.”

“Miss,” said Stack, “I told you he was very sudden; but this is the most sudden thing I’ve ever known him do. I’m sorry, miss. But I’m afraid it’s a case of cutting your losses. If I can be of service to you, I will.”

“If he leaves England,” said Dinny, “I should like to have Foch.”

“If I know Mr. Desert, miss, he means to go. I’ve seen it coming on him ever since he had that letter the night before you came round in the early morning.”

“Well,” said Dinny, “shake hands, and remember what I said.”

They exchanged a hand-grip, and, still unnaturally steady, she went out and down the stairs. She walked fast, giddy and strange in her head, and nothing but the word: So! recurring in her mind. All that she had felt, all that she had meant to feel, compressed into that word of two letters. In her life she had never felt so withdrawn and tearless, so indifferent as to where she went, what she did, or whom she saw. The world might well be without end, for its end had come. She did not believe that he had designed this way of breaking from her. He had not enough insight into her for that. But, in fact, no way could have been more perfect, more complete. Drag after a man! Impossible! She did not even have to form that thought, it was instinctive.