Before Derek had been able to recover from the feeling of having passed through a strange waking dream, before Dorothea and he had resumed the ordinary tenor of their life together, before he had seen Diane again, he was given to understand that the little scene on Bienville's arrival at the Bay Tree Inn was familiar matter in the offices, banks, and clubs he most frequented. The intelligence was conveyed by a score of trivial signs, suggestive, satirical, or over-familiar, which he would not have perceived in days gone by, but to which he had grown sensitive. It was clear that the story gained piquancy from its contrast with the staidness of his life; and his most intimate friends permitted themselves a little covert "chaff" with him on the event. He was not of a nature to resent this raillery on his own account; it was serious to him only because it touched Diane.
For her the matter was so grave that he exhausted his ingenuity in devising means for her protection. He refrained from even seeing her until he could go with some ultimatum before which she should be obliged to yield. An unsuccessful appeal to her, he judged, would be worse than none at all; and until he discovered arguments which she could not controvert he decided to hold his peace.
Action of some sort became imperative when he found that Miss Lucilla Van Tromp had heard the story and drawn from it what seemed to her the obvious conclusion.
"I should never have believed it," she declared, tearfully, "if you hadn't admitted it yourself. I told Mrs. Bayford that nothing but your own words would convince me that any such scene had taken place."
"Allowing that it did, isn't it conceivable that it might have had an honorable motive?" "Then, what is it? If you could tell me that—"
"I could tell you easily enough if there weren't other considerations involved. I should think that in the circumstances you could trust me."
"Nobody else does, Derek."
"Whom do you mean by nobody else?—Mrs. Bayford?"
"Oh, she's not the only one. If your men friends don't believe in you—"
"They believe in me, all right; don't you worry about that."