“It’s hard fact. Well, her motive is to revenge herself upon me, but not for that. It is because she had entangled that young fool Percy West—had made him engage himself to her. He told me this the night we were at Earle’s, and I put my foot down on it at once. I gave her the chance of drawing out of it, of releasing him, and she refused it.—I put the alternative before her, and she simply defied me. ‘If you give me away, I’ll give you away,’ those were her words. I couldn’t allow the youngster to enter into any such contract as that, could I?”
“Of course not. Go on.”
“So I told him the whole thing on our way out the other morning. It choked him clean off her—of course. I was as good as my word, and she was as good as hers. That’s the whole yarn in a nutshell.”
Bayfield nodded. He seemed to be thinking deeply, as he filled his pipe meditatively, and passed the pouch over to Blachland. There was one thing for which the latter felt profoundly thankful. Remembering the more than insinuation Hermia had thrown out, he had noticed with unspeakable relief that there was no reference whatever to Lyn throughout the communication. Even she had shrunk from such an outrage as that, and for this he felt almost grateful to her.
“This Mrs Fenham, or St. Clair, or whatever her name is,” said Bayfield, glancing at the subscription of the letter, “seems to be a bad egg all round. Seems to be omnivorous, by Jove!”
“She has an abnormal capacity for making fools of the blunder-headed sex, as I can testify,” was the answer, given dryly. “Well Bayfield, I don’t want to whitewash myself, let alone trot out the old Adamite excuse—I don’t set up to be better than other people, and have been a good deal worse than some. You know, as a man of the world, that there is a certain kind of trap laid throughout our earlier life to catch us at every turn. Well, I’ve fallen into a good many such traps, but I can, with perfect honesty, say I’ve never set one. Do you follow?”
“Perfectly,” replied Bayfield, who thought that such was more than likely the case. He was mentally passing in review Blachland’s demeanour towards Lyn, during the weeks they had been fellow inmates, and he pronounced it to be absolutely flawless. The pleasant, unrestrained, easy friendship between the two had been exactly all it should be—on the part of the one, all that was sympathetic, courteous and considerate, with almost a dash of the paternal, for the girl was nearly young enough to be his daughter—on that of the other, a liking, utterly open and undisguised, for Lyn liked him exceedingly, and made no secret of it—and if hers was not a true instinct, whose was? Bayfield was not a man to adjudge another a blackguard because he had sown some wild oats, and this one he acquitted entirely—and he said something to that effect.
“Thanks,” was the reply. “I don’t care a rap for other people’s opinions about myself, good, bad, or indifferent, as a rule, but I’m rather glad you don’t judge me too hardly, on account of this infernal contretemps?”
“Oh, I don’t judge you at all, old chap, so don’t run away with that idea. We ain’t any of us silver-gilt saints if the truth were known, or if we are, it’s generally for want of opportunity to become the other thing, at any rate, that’s my belief. And Lyn likes you so much, Blachland, and her instinct’s never at fault.”
“God bless her!” was the fervent reply. “I don’t wonder, Bayfield, that you almost worship that child. I know if she were my child I should rather more than entirely.”