“Was. What I am now, I really don’t know.”

“Is he still in town?”

“Yes; he’s been having a bout of malaria, I believe.”

“Dinny still seeing him?”

“No, sir.”

Again the General hesitated, and again seemed to firm himself by gripping his stick.

“Her mother and I, you know, only want what’s best for her. We want her happiness; the rest doesn’t matter. What do you think?”

“I really don’t believe it matters what any of us think.”

The General frowned.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s just between those two.”

“I understood that he was going away.”

“He said so to my father, but he hasn’t gone. His publisher told me just now that he was still at his rooms this morning.”

“How is Dinny?”

“Very low in her mind. But she keeps her end up.”

“He ought to do something.”

“What, sir?”

“It’s not fair to Dinny. He ought either to marry her or go right away.”

“Would you find it easy, in his place, to make up your mind?”

“Perhaps not.”

Michael made a restless tour of his little room.

“I think the whole thing is way below any question of just yes or no. It’s a case of wounded pride, and when you’ve got that, the other emotions don’t run straight. You ought to know that, sir. You must have had similar cases, when fellows have been court-martialled.”

The word seemed to strike the General with the force of a revelation. He stared at his nephew and did not answer.

“Wilfrid,” said Michael, “is being court-martialled, and it isn’t a short sharp business like a real court-martial—it’s a desperate long-drawn-out affair, with no end to it that I can grasp.”

“I see,” said the General, quietly: “But he should never have let Dinny in for it.”

Michael smiled. “Does love ever do what’s correct?”

“That’s the modern view, anyway.”

“According to report, the ancient one, too.”

The General went to the window and stood looking out.

“I don’t like to go and see Dinny,” he said, without turning round; “it seems like worrying her. Her mother feels the same. And there’s nothing we can do.”

His voice, troubled not for himself, touched Michael.

“I believe,” he said, “that in some way it’ll all be over very soon. And whichever way will be better for them and all of us than this.”

The General turned round.

“Let’s hope so. I wanted to ask you to keep in touch with us, and not let Dinny do anything without letting us know. It’s very hard waiting down there. I won’t keep you now; and thank you, it’s been a relief. Good-bye, Michael!”

He grasped his nephew’s hand, squeezed it firmly, and was gone.

Michael thought: ‘Hanging in the wind! There’s nothing worse. Poor old boy!’

Compson Grice, who had no mean disposition and a certain liking for Michael, went out to lunch mindful of his promise. A believer in the power of meals to solve difficulties, he would normally have issued an invitation and obtained his information over the second or third glass of really old brandy. But he was afraid of Wilfrid. Discussing his simple sole meunière and half-bottle of Chablis, he decided on a letter. He wrote it in the Club’s little green-panelled writing-room, with a cup of coffee by his side and a cigar in his mouth.

This letter, in his elegant and upright hand, he addressed to Cork Street and sent at once by the club messenger. The remains of his recess he spent sounding in his rather whispering voice the praises of his French Canadian product, and then took a taxi back to Covent Garden. A clerk met him in the lobby.

“Mr. Desert is waiting up in your room, sir.”

“Good!” said Compson Grice, subduing a tremor and thinking: ‘Quick work!’

Wilfrid was standing at a window which commanded a slanting view of Covent Garden market; and Grice was shocked when he turned round– the face was so dark and wasted and had such a bitter look: the hand, too, had an unpleasant dry heat in the feel of it.

“So you got my letter?” he said.

“Thanks. Here’s the address of my bank. Better pay all cheques into it and take their receipt.”

“You don’t look too fearfully well. Are you off again?”

“Probably. Well, good-bye, Grice. Thanks for all you’ve done.”

Compson Grice said, with real feeling: “I’m terribly sorry it’s hit you so hard.”

Wilfrid shrugged and turned to the door.

When he was gone his publisher stood, twisting the bank’s address, in his hands. Suddenly he said our loud: “I don’t like his looks; I absolutely don’t!” And he went to the telephone…

Wilfrid walked north; he had another visit to pay. He reached the museum just as Adrian was having his cup of ‘Dover’ tea and bun.

“Good!” said Adrian, rising. “I’m glad to see you. There’s a spare cup. Do sit down.”

He had experienced the same shock as Grice at the look on Desert’s face and the feel of his hand.

Wilfrid took a sip of tea. “May I smoke?” He lighted a cigarette, and sat, hunched in his chair. Adrian waited for him to speak.

“Sorry to butt in on you like this,” said Wilfrid, at last, “but I’m going back into the blue. I wanted to know which would hurt Dinny least—just to clear out or to write.”

Adrian lived through a wretched and bleak minute.

“You mean that if you see her you can’t trust yourself.” Desert gave a shivering shrug.

“It’s not that exactly. It sounds brutal, but I’m so fed up that I don’t feel anything. If I saw her—I might wound her. She’s been an angel. I don’t suppose you can understand what’s happened in me. I can’t myself. I only know that I want to get away from everything and everybody.”

Adrian nodded.

“I was told you’d been ill—you don’t think that accounts for your present feeling? For God’s sake don’t make a mistake in your feelings now!”

Wilfrid smiled.

“I’m used to malaria. It’s not that. You’ll laugh, but I feel like bleeding to death inside. I want to get to where nothing and nobody remind me. And Dinny reminds me more than anyone.”

“I see,” said Adrian gravely. And he was silent, passing his hand over his bearded chin. Then he got up and began to walk about.

“Do you think it’s fair to Dinny or yourself not to try what seeing her might do?”

Wilfrid answered, almost with violence: “I tell you, I should hurt her.”

“You’ll hurt her any way; her eggs are all in one basket. And look here, Desert! You published that poem deliberately. I always understood you did so as a form of expiation, even though you had asked Dinny to marry you. I’m not such a fool as to want you to go on with Dinny if your feelings have really changed; but are you sure they have?”

“My feelings haven’t changed. I simply have none. Being a pariah dog has killed them.”