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“Not so far as I’m concerned.”
“Pity there are always two parties to a conference.”
“Uncle Lawrence,” she said suddenly, “what is the law of divorce now?”
The baronet uncrossed his long thin legs.
“I’ve never had any particular truck with it. I believe it’s less old-fashioned than it was, but see Whitaker.” He reached for the red-backed volume. “Page 258—here you are, my dear.”
Clare read in silence, while he gazed at her ruefully. She looked up and said.
“Then, if I want him to divorce me, I’ve got to commit adultery.”
“That is, I believe, the elegant way they put it. In the best circles, however, the man does the dirty work.”
“Yes, but he won’t. He wants me back. Besides, he’s got his position to consider.”
“There is that, of course,” said Sir Lawrence, thoughtfully; “a career in this country is a tender plant.”
Clare closed the Whitaker.
“If it weren’t for my people,” she said, “I’d give him cause tomorrow and have done with it.”
“You don’t think a better way would be to give partnership another trial?”
Clare shook her head.
“I simply couldn’t.”
“That’s that, then,” said Sir Lawrence, “and it’s an awkward ‘that.’ What does Di
“I haven’t discussed it with her. She doesn’t know he’s here.”
“At present, then, you’ve no one to advise you?”
“No. Di
“I should doubt if Jerry Corven is a very patient man.”
Clare laughed.
“We’re neither of us long-suffering.”
“Do you know where he is staying?”
“At the Bristol.”
“It might,” said Sir Lawrence slowly, “be worth while to keep an eye on him.”
Clare shivered. “It’s rather degrading; besides, Uncle, I don’t want to hurt his career. He’s very able, you know.”
Sir Lawrence shrugged. “To me,” he said, “and to all your kin, his career is nothing to your good name. How long has he got over here?”
“Not long, I should think.”
“Would you like me to see him, and try to arrange that you go your own ways?”
Clare was silent, and Sir Lawrence, watching her, thought: ‘Attractive, but a lot of naughty temper. Any amount of spirit, and no patience at all.’ Then she said:
“It was all my fault, nobody wanted me to marry him. I hate to bother you. Besides, he wouldn’t consent.”
“You never know,” murmured Sir Lawrence. “If I get a natural chance, shall I?”
“It would be lovely of you, only—”
“All right, then. In the meantime young men without jobs—are they wise?”
Clare laughed. “Oh, I’ve ‘larned’ him. Well, thank you frightfully, Uncle Lawrence. You’re a great comfort. I was an awful fool; but Jerry has a sort of power, you know; and I’ve always liked taking risks. I don’t see how I can be my mother’s daughter, she hates them; and Di
Sir Lawrence stayed in his armchair thinking: ‘Putting my oar in! A nasty mess, and going to be nastier! Still, at her age something’s got to be done. I must talk to Di
CHAPTER 8
From Condaford the hot airs of election time had cleared away, and the succeeding atmosphere was crystallised in the General’s saying:
“Well, those fellows got their deserts.”
“Doesn’t it make you tremble, Dad, to think what THESE fellows’ deserts will be if they don’t succeed in putting it over now?”
The General smiled.
“‘Sufficient unto the day,’ Di
“She’s in her diggings. Her work so far seems to have been writing letters of thanks to people who did the dirty work at the cross-roads.”
“Cars? Does she like Dornford?”
“She says he’s quite amazingly considerate.”
“His father was a good soldier. I was in his brigade in the Boer War for a bit.” He looked at his daughter keenly, and added: “Any news of Corven?”
“Yes, he’s over here.”
“Oh! I wish I wasn’t kept so in the dark. Parents have to stand on the mat nowadays, and trust to what they can hear through the keyhole.”
Di
“One has to be so careful of their feelings. Sensitive plants, aren’t you, Dad?”
“Well, it seems to your mother and me an extraordinarily bad look-out. We wish to goodness the thing could be patched up.”
“Not at the expense of Clare’s happiness, surely?”
“No,” said the General, dubiously, “no; but there you are at once in all these matrimonial things. What is and will be her happiness? She doesn’t know, and you don’t, and I don’t. As a rule in trying to get out of a hole you promptly step into another.”
“Therefore don’t try? Stay in your hole? That’s rather what Labour wanted to do, isn’t it?”
“I ought to see him,” said the General, passing over the simile, “but I can’t go blundering in the dark. What do you advise, Di
“Let the sleeping dog lie until it gets up to bite you.”
“You think it will?”
“I do.”
“Bad!” muttered the General. “Clare’s too young.”
That was Di
“I think I ought to go up, Dad, and find out what’s happening.”
“I wish to God you would. If it’s at all possible to patch things up, they ought to be.”
Di
“I don’t believe it is, and I don’t believe you’d wish it if Clare had told you what she told me.”
The General stared. “There it is, you see. In the dark.”
“Yes, dear, but till she tells you herself I can’t say more.”
“Then the sooner you go up the better.”
Free from the scent of horse, Melton Mews was somewhat strikingly impregnated with the odour of petrol. This bricked alley had become, indeed, the haunt of cars. To right and to left of her, entering late that afternoon, the doors of garages gaped or confronted her with more or less new paint. A cat or two stole by, and the hinder parts of an overalled chauffeur bending over a carburettor could be seen in one opening; otherwise life was at a discount, and the word ‘mews’ no longer justified by manure.
No. 2 had the peacock-green door of its former proprietress, whom, with so many other luxury traders, the slump had squeezed out of business. Di
“Come in, my dear. This is the lioness in her den, ‘the Douglas in her hall!’”
Di
“Nothing doing here so far,” said Clare. “Come upstairs.”
Di