"I'll go now," he said. "I'm done. Little brute!"
"I'm so sorry for you," she said, which was quite different from what she had meant to say.
"I know you are, and I deserve it; I deserve everybody's pity. But damn it all," he added, with sudden brightness, pushing back the strands of straight dun-coloured hair that hung down over his damp forehead, "I'll get her yet."
She went with him to the door, and they stood on the step in the bitter cold of the still night.
"You'll stand by me then? You'll believe," she added earnestly, laying her hand on his sleeve, "that I'm not just being a cat; that I really am doing what I know will be best for him in the long run?"
"If you suddenly spat at me and scratched my eyes out and ran up the wall there, and sat licking your fur, I shouldn't believe you were a cat. But, mind you, Mrs. Walbridge, I think you are making a great mistake. What on earth will you do with him about the house in this frame of mind?"
"Oh, don't make it any harder for me. I know that I'm right."
They parted very kindly, and she went back into the house, knowing that he would, as she expressed it, take sides with her. But something of the virtue of her resolution seemed to have gone out of her, for, young as he was, she respected his shrewdness and his instinct, and it depressed her to know that he disapproved of her determination.
The next evening, Wick dined with the Gaskell-Walkers in Campden Hill. He was the only guest, and Hermione told him at once that they had sent for him in order to talk over this disgusting business of her father's. When Gaskell-Walker had laid before him the combined reasons of the whole tribe for wishing for the divorce, Wick sat down his glass and looked at his host.
"I agree with every word you've said," he answered, without unnecessary words. "It's a great mistake, but I know why she's doing it."