Somewhere on the way back from the home farm I lost Captain Spencer Fullard. Miss Tyler’s letters must have been concise; there was the gleam of a white frock, dashed here and there with splashes of black, in the park. Fullard said he wanted more exercise, and I arrived alone on the lawn, where my hostess sat beside the tea-table. Feeling guilty for another’s sin, as one often does, I approached shamefacedly.
She gave me tea, and asked, with a businesslike abruptness which I recognised as inherited, “What are they saying about me?”
That was Gladwin all over! To say not a word for twelve months, because for twelve months she had not cared; then to blurt it out! Because she wanted light? Obviously that was the reason—the sole reason. She had not cared before; now something had occurred to make her think, to make her care, to make the question of her dealings with Miss Tyler important. I might have pretended not to understand, but there was a luxury in dealing plainly with so fine a plain-dealer; I told her the truth without shuffling.
“On the whole, it’s considered that you would be doing the handsome thing in giving her something,” I answered, sipping my tea.
She appreciated the line I took. She had expected surprise and fencing; it amused and pleased her to meet with neither. She was in the mood (by the way, we could see the black-dashed white frock and Fullard’s manly figure a quarter of a mile away) to meet frankness with its fellow.
“She never put in a word for me,” she said, smiling. “With father, I mean.”
“She doesn’t understand business,” I pleaded.
“I’ve been expected to sympathise with her bad luck!”
So had I—by the captain, half-an-hour before. But I did not mention it.
“The Bittleton Club thinks I ought to—to do something?”