“No,” said Luke. “Come and sit on my knee, and tell me all your troubles.”
“I oughtn’t,” she said, but she did.
“You didn’t turn up at Victoria yesterday. Couldn’t you leave your husband?”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “I couldn’t, because I’ve not got a husband. And have never had a husband. One of Bill’s previous wives started to make a fuss, and he made a clean breast of it to me. He’d married in two different names before he married me, and both wives are still living. He went to Brighton on Saturday to marry one more. Because he wants to get his picture, as the peer convicted of trigamy, on the back page of the ‘Daily Mail,’ with the fourth wife inset. So you see what has happened. It was my fault, but that’s how I come to be in the pariah class. Can you bear me any longer?”
“Yes,” said Luke, “you’re not heavy.”
And then the sad-eyed waiter came in without knocking, and they broke away.
“I beg pardon,” said the waiter. “Perhaps I interrupt a little. I come to say the chops is ready. Shall I put the two places close together?”
“Very close together,” said Luke.
6
They entered the dining-room.