1 Ever since the contretemps at Patrick O'Riordan's first-night--although his sense of family solidarity would have given much to admit his eldest son entirely in the right--Rear-Admiral Billy's sense of chivalry had been troubling him. From whatever angle he considered Hector's conduct, the cruelty of it was apparent. Moreover, he and Aliette had always been "jolly good pals," and he hated "parting brass-rags with the little woman" who, all said and done, had been perfectly "aboveboard."
Nor was it only this "aboveboardness" on the part of his daughter-in-law which worried the admiral, but the knowledge, acquired quite fortuitously, and therefore relegated to the background of his memory, of his son's first infidelity to her.
Always a religious man, though never a formal religionist, Rear-Admiral Billy worshiped a god of his own in his own way. But this god--a peculiar combination of the laws of cricket, navy discipline, family feeling, and sheer sentimentalism--found in Julia Cavendish's short, carefully worded note so insoluble a problem that within half an hour of its arrival the admiral sent his stable-boy on a bicycle to summon Adrian.
Adrian mounted his cock-throppled nag and rode over to Moor Park. Said Adrian, who knew his father better than most sons: "Naturally, sir, you won't go?"
Whereupon Adrian's father, after damning the episcopalian eyes for narrow-minded bigotry, dashed off a characteristic scrawl to say that, he "would take pleasure in calling on Mrs. Cavendish on the following Monday, December 30, at 3:30 P.M."
2
It was exactly twenty-five years since "the young Mrs. Cavendish," whose second novel had already laid the foundation-stone of her literary reputation, danced the old-fashioned waltz with Commander Brunton of her Majesty's China Squadron, newly returned from foreign service; but the pleasant bygone meeting came back clearly to Julia's mind as she rose from her sofa to welcome the bearded figure in the cutaway coat and sponge-bag trousers.
This present meeting, both felt, was not going to be pleasant. On the contrary, it was going to be very awkward: its purpose presenting a social stile over which even their good breeding and the similarity of their castes must inevitably stumble.
However, after a good deal of finesse on Julia's part, and various high-falutin compliments from her visitor, the admiral managed to stumble over it first, with a gallant:
"Mrs. Cavendish, I fancy I've a pretty shrewd idea why you sent for me."
"It's nice of you to come to the point, admiral," said an equally gallant Julia; and then, taking opportunity by the forelock, "Your son isn't behaving very well, is he?"
The father in Rear-Admiral Billy bristled. "He's behaving within his rights. Your son hasn't behaved over-well, either."
"If you think that," the mother in Julia met brusquerie with brusquerie, "why did you come and see me?"
The sailor in Rear-Admiral Billy cuddled his beard. "Damned if I know why I came," he ejaculated. "We can't do anything, either of us. Young people are the very deuce. I don't know what your son's like, but mine's as obstinate as a mule."
"You've spoken to your son then?" The novelist in Julia could not restrain a smile at her opponent's incapacity as a diplomat.
"Spoken to him? Of course I've spoken to him. I've done nothing else but speak to him." The sailor waxed confidential. "But what's the use? Sons don't care a cuss about their fathers nowadays, nor about their mothers, either."
"I'm sure mine does."
"Don't you believe it. None of 'em care about their parents. They call us 'Victorians'--whatever that may mean. Ungrateful young puppies!"
Seeing her man mollified and disposed for confidences, Julia thought it best to let him "return to his muttons" in his own way.
"Nice little woman, Aliette," he said, apropos of nothing in particular. "Not like these up-to-date hussies."
"A charming woman, I call her."
"Pity her kicking over the traces like this."
"You're sorry for her, then?"
"Sorry for her? Of course I'm sorry for her. I'm sorry for any woman who makes a hash of things. But that"--the disciplinarian, finding that the luxurious room and the pleasant creature on the sofa were both affecting his judgment, momentarily revolted--"that don't alter facts. Marriage is marriage; and if your son runs away with my son's wife, you can't expect me to sympathize with either of 'em."
"But surely," Julia nearly purred, "surely, my dear admiral--sympathy apart--your son doesn't intend----"
"My dear lady,"--the disciplinarian in Billy subsided--"if I only knew what my son did intend, I might be able to help you. Whenever I try to talk to him about this business, he just shuts me up. What has your son got to say?"
And suddenly both of them began to laugh. Old age, the greatest tie in the world, made them for the moment peculiarly comrades. In the light of that comradeship, the young, even their own young, seemed less pathetic than to be envied. "After all," they thought, "it's all very sad; but it's worse for us than for them. They do get some fun out of these affairs. We don't. We only get the trouble; and we're too old for troubles."
"It isn't so much the scandal I mind," broke in the admiral, voicing their mutual idea; "it's the damned upset of the whole business. I like a quiet life, you know. And that seems the one thing one simply can't get nowadays. Not for love nor money."
For fully ten minutes they wandered away from the purpose in hand; discussing first their own era, then his profession, then her profession.
"Talking about books," said the admiral, "give me Surtees."
Truth to tell, the pair were rather enjoying themselves. Both belonged to the conversational school of an earlier day; and the flow of conversation was so satisfactory that--finally--it needed all Julia's strength of will, all her love for her son, to interpolate a crisp, "We don't seem to have come to any decision. You will try and do something, won't you, admiral?"
The sailor interrupted himself sufficiently to manage a courteous, "But, my dear lady, what can I do?"
"Couldn't you talk to your son again? Couldn't you tell him that he's doing himself just as much harm as he's doing his wife?"
"I have told him that. He says he doesn't care."
"And your other son? You have another son, haven't you, a clergyman?"
"Oh, Adrian! Adrian's no good to us. Hector doesn't like him. Still,"--after all, thought the admiral, one really ought to do something for a woman who lived in Bruton Street--"I might get him to talk to Hector. I might even have another talk with Hector myself. But I'm afraid it'll be quite useless. You see, Mrs. Cavendish, neither of my sons is a man of the world. That's the whole trouble. Alie isn't a woman of the world, either. Between men and women of the world, these situations don't occur. At least, they didn't in our day. Not often."
"I rather agree with you. Still, we have to take life as we find it."
"Exactly, exactly." The old man waved a hairy-backed hand. "Nobody can say that I'm old-fashioned. Divorce don't mean what it did in my young days. And besides--I'm devilish fond of little Alie."
"Then I can rely upon your help?" smiled Ronnie's mother.
"Absolutely, dear lady, absolutely."
Ringing the bell for Kate to see her guest out, Julia Cavendish felt that she had at last found an ally; but the feeling was tinged with apprehension--reticence, she gathered, not being the admiral's strong point.
3
The admiral, making his way up Bruton Street, and along Berkeley Street toward his club, felt not only apprehensive but a trifle foolish. He had intended to be so very much on his dignity, so very much on his guard. Instead of which----
"That's a damn clever woman," he said to himself, half in admiration, half in annoyance. "An infernally clever woman. Wormed everything out of me, she did, just as if I'd been an innocent snotty. Not that I ever met an innocent snotty. Confound it, I've let myself in for something this trip. Have another talk with Hector! Made me promise that, she did."
For frankly, the admiral funked the idea of having another talk with Hector. One never knew how to tackle Hector. "Hector was such a damned unreasonable dumb-faced puppy!"
Cruising along Piccadilly, a mid-Victorian figure in the inevitable top-hat, with the inevitable white spats and the inevitable malacca cane, the admiral wondered whether he hadn't better get Simeon to tackle Hector, Adrian to tackle Hector, any one other than himself to tackle Hector--and so wondering, nearly rammed Hector's wife.
The meeting, completely unexpected, entirely unavoidable, flurried the parties. But the sailor recovered his wits first; and Aliette, wavering between the impulse to pass on without bowing and the desire to smile and fly, knew herself cornered. Automatically she extended a hand, which her father-in-law squeezed in a firm clasp.
"Hello, my dear, whither away?" he asked in his bluffest, heartiest manner.
"Nowhere in particular," answered Aliette shyly.
"Then you can walk me as far as the club." He took her arm and steered her masterfully along the pavement. It flashed across his mind, "Bless her heart, she didn't want to recognize me. After all, she is a lady. She is one of us."
"Quaint--our meeting this afternoon," he volunteered aloud.
"Why this afternoon, Billy?"
Billy thought, guiltily, "Perhaps I oughtn't to tell her," but the words were out of his mouth before thought could restrain them: "Because I've just come from Bruton Street."
"Bruton Street!" She panicked at that; and tried to release her arm. "Billy, I'm sure you oughtn't to be seen walking with me."
"Stuff and nonsense, my dear! Stuff and nonsense!" The old man, gripping her arm all the tighter, lowered his voice in conspiratorial sympathy. "We ain't either of us criminals. Why shouldn't we be seen walking together? Besides, you and I've got to have a little chat. Between you and me and the gatepost, Mrs. Cavendish has been asking my advice about things. Naturally, I had to tell her that I thought you'd behaved pretty badly to Hector. Still," he patted her arm blatantly, "that's no reason why Hector should behave badly to you, is it?"
And for a full five minutes--all the way from Devonshire House to the door of his club--chivalry had its way with Rear-Admiral Billy Brunton. He called her his "dear Alie," he assured her that he'd "fix up the whole business," and that she was to "rely upon him." He even managed to remember that she would like news of Miracle, and to inquire after Ponto.
Listening, Aliette's heart warmed. Billy seemed so hopeful, so sympathetic. And she needed both hope and sympathy that afternoon: for latterly the tension between her and Ronnie had become almost unbearable, vitiating every hour, accentuating the loneliness of outlawry, till outlawry--in comparison with retrogression from their standard of happiness--appeared only a trivial sorrow.
They arrived at the club. "Tell you what you'd better do," said Billy, "you'd better come in and drink a dish of tea. We've got a ladies room at the Jag-and-Bottle these days. Too early for a cocktail, I'm afraid. That's what you need. You're looking peaky."
"You're a dear, Billy," retorted Aliette, at last disengaging her arm. "But you mustn't be a silly dear. You know perfectly well that you can't take me in there"; and, cutting short the old man's protests, she bolted.
4
As he watched his daughter-in-law's fur-coated figure, the little shoes thereunder and the little hat a-top, recede from view up Piccadilly, chivalry still had its way with the sailor's sentimental soul. He had promised Julia Cavendish that he would tackle Hector--and, by jingo, he would tackle Hector.
So, navy discipline and the laws of cricket alike allotting him the role of knight-errant, he drew a fat watch from his fob-pocket, consulted it, waved the malacca at a crawling taxi-driver, ordered him peremptorily: "The Temple, Embankment entrance," and stepped aboard.
The admiral anchored his taxi on the Embankment; strode through the gates, up Middle Temple Lane, and across King's Bench Walk. David Patterson, rising superciliously from the desk in the outer office of Brunton's chambers to inquire a stranger's business in vacation-time, encountered a curt, "Tell my son that his father wants to see him," and disappeared within.
"What the devil does he want?" Hector Brunton looked up from a letter he was studying; rose to his big feet, and straddled himself before the fire as his subdued clerk ushered his father through the doorway.
"This is an unexpected honor, sir," said Hector Brunton, K.C.
The old man took off his top-hat, laid it among the papers on the desk; retained his malacca; and sat himself down pompously on an imitation mahogany chair.
"I've come to talk to you about your wife," he began tactlessly; and without more ado plunged into a recital of his interview with Julia Cavendish and his chance meeting with Aliette, concluding: "And if you take my advice, the best thing you can do is to start an action for divorce."
"As I told you before, sir," broke in the K.C., who had listened with restrained anger to his father's recital, "I regret I cannot take that advice." The hands trembled behind his back. "If I may say so, I consider that you've put me entirely in the wrong by calling on Mrs. Cavendish."
"Oh, you do, do you?" The old man, already sufficiently excited for one afternoon by his interview with the two ladies, felt his............