"Including the name of the lady!"
Julia's heart sank. Wilberforce could not be alone in his knowledge of the truth. And that meant--publicity! "Tell me, Mr. Wilberforce," she went on, "before we go any further: Is a barrister who has been co-respondent in a divorce case disbarred from further practice?"
"So she knows everything," thought Jimmy, and discarded finesse. "On that point I can reassure you. Even if the petitioner were himself a barrister, it would make no difference."
"You made inquiries then?"
"Yes."
"May I ask why?" Julia's manner stiffened again. The conversation was unutterably distasteful: but she had been alone with her thoughts so long that even the most distasteful of conversations seemed preferable to further silence.
"Because"--the man, moved by a similar impulse, laid all his cards, faced, on the table--"because the sister of the certain lady is a--a very great friend of mine."
"And if"--remembering the meeting in Hyde Park, the novelist's mind jumped instanter to its conclusion--"if the divorce we mentioned were to take place, it would make a difference to the outcome of that friendship?"
"I"--Jimmy stammered--"I'm afraid so."
Remembering Ronnie's letter, Julia Cavendish felt aware of a new pride in her son. Ronnie might have been guilty of a "lapse": but at least he had not been weak. For it was weak, pitifully weak, almost caddishly weak of a man even to contemplate ending his friendship with a girl because of a scandal in her family.