"In manus tuas . . ." Val raised his head, and shivered, the wind struck chill: he was tired out. Yet only a second or so had gone by while he was indulging himself in useless regrets for what could never be undone, and still more useless anxiety for a future which was not only beyond his control but outside his province as Bernard's agent. That after all was his status at Wanhope, he had no other. It was still striking twelve: the last echo of the last chime trembled away on a faint, fresh sough of wind. . . . A lolloping splash off the bank into the water—what was that? A dark blot among ripples on a flat and steely glimmer, the sketch of a whiskered feline mask . . . Val made a mental note to speak to Jack Bendish about it: otters are bad housekeepers in a trout stream.
"Hallo! Good man!" Major Clowes was on his back in the drawingroom, in evening dress, and playing patience. "I've tried Kings, Queens and Knaves, and Little Demon, and Fair Lucy, and brought every one of 'em out first round. Something must be going to happen." With a sweep of his arm he flung all the cards on the floor. "What do you want?"
"A pipe," said Val, going on one knee to pick up the scattered pack. "I looked in to see how you were getting on. Aren't you going to bed?"
"Not before they come in."
"Nor will Jimmy, I left him sitting up for Isabel. You're both of you very silly, you'll be dead tired tomorrow, and what's the object of it?"
"To make sure they do come in," Bernard explained with a broad grin. Val sprang up: intolerable, this reflection of his own fear in Bernard's distorting mirror! "Ha ha! Suppose they didn't? Laura was rather fond of larks before she married me. She was, I give you my word—she and the other girl. You wouldn't think it of Laura, would you? Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. But she might like a fling for a change. Who'd blame her? I'm no good as a husband, and Lawrence is a picked specimen. Quelle type, eh?"
"Very good-looking."
"'Very good-looking!'" Bernard mocked at him. "You and your Army vocabulary! And I'm a nice chap, and Laura's quite a pretty woman, and this is a topping knife, isn't it, and life's a jolly old beano— Pity I can't get out of it, by the by: if physiology is the basis of marriage, those two would run well in harness."
"There's an otter in the river," remarked Val, examining the little dagger, the same that Lawrence had given Bernard. "I heard him from the bridge. They come down from the upper reaches. Remind me to tell Jack, he's always charmed to get a day's sport with his hounds." He laid the dagger on a side-table.
"Have one of my cigars? You can't afford cigars, can you? poor devil! They're on that shelf. Not those: they're Hyde's." Val put back the box as if it had burnt his fingers. "Leaves his things about as if the place were a hotel!" grumbled Major Clowes. "That's one of his books. Pick it up. What is it?" Val read out the title. "Poetry? Good Lord deliver us! Do you read poetry, Val?"