Terry said that you wanted to consult me. If there's anything that I can say or do——"
VIII
The door was reopening. Tabs glanced back across his shoulder through the shadows. She was hovering just inside the threshold, hastily clad in her evening-wrap; beyond her in the hall the General stood fidgeting with his cap. Sir Tobias was sitting with his head bowed; he had not heard the sound of her reëntry. He spoke evidently believing that they two were alone. "I don't like that fellow. It's the last time he ever comes to my house. Whatever Terry can see in him—— And he's not good for Terry."
She tiptoed back into the hall, pulling the door softly behind her. A moment later the front door closed with a bang.
"What was that?" Sir Tobias looked up gnome-like and startled.
Tabs guessed what it was; but because, as she had said they three had paid the price together, he kept her secret. "General Braithwaite, probably. But you were speaking of Adair?"
Sir Tobias shivered, betraying his nervous tension. "A disturber," he said irritably, "even in his going. And yet, I suppose it's true; we shouldn't be sitting here comfortably to-night if it hadn't been for his sort."
Now that it had been broached, it was anything to avoid the main topic. He drummed with his
fingers on the table, ceased drumming and sighed heavily. "Yes, I was speaking of Adair. I don't understand him. I've grown out of touch; I don't seem to understand anybody. I'm left behind, somehow. People do things to-day that they never used to do. They shout about things from the house-tops which all my life I've mentioned only in whispers. Terry does; you heard what she said to-night about never having been loved and never having had children. The loss of delicacy——"
"I wouldn't call it a loss of delicacy." Tabs struck a match. "I would call it a loss of prudishness. We all know that girls are born to be married and that the best of them long to have children. Why shouldn't they own it? You owned it long ago when you bought her dolls. The lid is off false reticences. I hope it stays off; we shall be a much honester world."