“I am afraid Stuart is deteriorating. He seems to be incapable of high seriousness.”
“He needs to surround himself with pale green tapestry,” was the melancholy response.
Others of Alistair’s old circle came round him in his new home, and rejoiced in this fresh defiance to the Victorian proprieties. But there was one notable absentee. The figure of the Brazilian banker was never seen in the little high-art kitchen. Since Molly Finucane had become Lady Alistair, Mendes had been struck off her visiting-list.
CHAPTER XX
LADY ALISTAIR
Sir Bernard Vanbrugh kept his own counsel about his conversation with Lord Alistair, as he had done about the Duke of Trent’s proposal.
In a brief letter from London Alistair told Hero the truth.
“If I am a scapegoat of others” (he wrote), “I cannot let you be my scapegoat. My life, I am told, must be a cul-de-sac, and you must not think of walking down it with me. I ought to have seen this all along; perhaps I did suspect it; but I was forlorn and you made me happy. Now I can only do my best not to make you miserable. Forgive my mother for her share in the mischief that has been done, and try to forgive and forget.
“Alistair Stuart.”
This letter made no difference to Hero whatever. She guessed that her father had influenced Alistair to write it, but she forbore to speak to him on the subject. Her mind was made up, and so was his, and further discussion between them would only make them both unhappy.
She carried the letter to Alistair’s mother, who had been left wondering and dismayed by his unexplained departure, and the two women who loved Alistair embraced and shed some tears over it.