"That's more than any of us knows," mourned Hermione. "I feel that I never wish to look my father in the face again."
"Oh, that's going too far," the young man protested. "He's an awful old scoundrel, of course, but still, there are plenty more like him."
Before they parted, Wick uttered a word of wisdom. "She won't give in to you, or any of you, or to me," he said. "There's nothing so obstinate in this world as a good woman fighting for a principle, and the fact that the principle is perfectly idiotic has no bearing on the case. But your mother's an old-fashioned woman, Mrs. Gaskell-Walker, and she's written so many sentimental stories that her whole mind is coloured by them. If you can get Mrs. Crichell to go to your mother and grovel and tear her hair and cry, your mother would divorce your father." Then he went his way.
"By Jove!" Gaskell-Walker said to his wife. "I believe he's right. Stout fellow! I'll put your father up to this. I'll look him up at lunch at Seeley's to-morrow."
[CHAPTER XIX]
Mrs. Walbridge never told any of her children what it was that made her so suddenly decide, two days after her interview with Oliver Wick, to do as her husband begged her, and give him his freedom, as he invariably called it. Freedom is a prettier word than divorce, and he had a natural instinct for eliminating ugly words from his life, although he had never been very particular about steering clear of the deeds to which the words fitted.
"Very well, Ferdie," she said to him, the Sunday morning when he came to get his clothes and various little belongings. "You shall have it, your freedom. I'll give it to you."
In his muddle-headed gratitude, he nearly kissed her. She drew back, an irrepressible smile twitching at her lips. He was such a goose!