"What did he say?" pursued H.M. "Oh, he was ail bounces and smiles! He never in the world could have married the gal, and he was awful relieved. He'd grown up with her! Cor! He gave the impression they'd lived in each other's pockets for about twenty years; and he'd as soon have thought of marrying a sister. "But what was the truth?
“The gal there,'' H.M. pointed at Jenny, "told me on Sunday. She'd been at school from the time she was ten. Her holidays were spent with one or the other of her parents abroad. Then came the War and the Wrens. In other words, he couldn't possibly have seen much of the gal for about thirteen years. And what happens then, hey? She comes back at the end of the war.”
"And he sees her. He goes straight overboard. Presently, as they say, a marriage is arranged.”
"But Ricky Fleet (in the bar-parlour with Drake) is all dewy-eyed innocence. He's mad-keen on a gal named Susan Harwood. She was his newest, ripest conquest. (Of course, son, you heard his philosophy of marriage; you knew he saw himself as a boundin’ faun, all Pan-pipes and breathin's in the grove). Oh, he was goin' to marry Susan! — Then in walked our Jenny."
H.M. shook his head. Again Martin saw the dingy bar-parlour.
"She's just been having a blazing row with Ruth Callice here, across the road. — Don't interrupt me, dammit, either of you! Before she came in, Ricky Fleet made a dramatic business of what was he goin' to say to Jenny?' Son, do you remember what he did?"
Martin nodded.
"I thought he was acting a little. He looked at himself in a wall-mirror, to see if his posture was right He was preening a good deal."
"Uh-huh. And Ricky Fleet's passion for looking at himself in mirrors, at exactly the time when nobody except a vanity-swollen feller would, is going to figure in this business again.
"Anyway, in came Jenny. Very soon she asked you would you please, please take her driving that night and not go to the prison. That wasn't merely because she was jealous of Ruth, or..