“My dear, of course you can. We’ll have a wonderful time. Hullo, Alan is retiring.”
Alan came up and sat beside them in the buttercups.
“I thought I saw you just as I was going in,” he said. “Anything going on in town?”
“No, nothing much,” said Michael. “I saw a man arrested for murder this afternoon.”
“Did you really? How beastly! Our team’s just beginning to get into shape. I say, Stella. That youth working on old Rundle’s farm is going to be pret-ty good. Did you see him lift their fast bowlers twice running over the pond?”
Michael strolled away to take a solitary walk. It seemed incredible now to think that he had brought Lily down here, that he had wandered with her over this field. What an infringement it must have seemed to Stella and Alan of their already immemorial peace. They had really been very good about his invasion. And here was the wood where he and Stella had fought. Michael sat down in the glade and listened to the busy flutterings of the birds. Why had Stella objected to his marriage with Lily? All the superficial answers were ready at once; but was not her real objection only another facet of the diamond of selfishness? Selfishness was a diamond. Precious, hard, and very often beautiful—when seen by itself.
Michael spent a week at Hardingham, during which he managed to put out of his mind the thought of Barnes in prison awaiting his trial. Then one day the butler informed him of a person wishing to speak to him. In the library he found the detective who had asked for his address at Leppard Street.
“Sorry to have to trouble you, sir, but there was one or two little questions we wanted to ask.”
Michael feared he would have to appear at the trial, and asked at once if that was going to be necessary.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. We’ve got it all marked out fair and square against Mr. Meats. He doesn’t stand a chance of getting off. How did you come to be mixed up with him?”