At last Wilberforce said: "You see, old chap, if this case comes on, I'm afraid it will be a big shock to her. H. B. might call her as a witness. Pretty rough on a girl, being dragged into"--he hesitated--"this sort of thing."
"Yes, rotten. We'll have to keep her name out." Ronnie, too, hesitated. "She hasn't said anything to you, I suppose?"
"No, but I feel she knows." The red man nearly blushed. "I say, you'll be decent about breaking things, won't you? You'll let her down lightly. Mollie's jolly fond of her sister, and--er--you mustn't mind my saying it--her sister hasn't behaved over-well in this business--leaving her all by herself at Brunton's."
"My fault, Jimmy. It was I who persuaded Aliette not to wait. But I promise you, I'll see that Brunton keeps Mollie Fullerford's name out of the affair.
"By the way," added Ronnie casually, "you remember something you said to me just before we went into court in the Ellerson case?" A pause. "Does that still hold good? What I mean is this. I should never forgive myself if I thought that this--this trouble of mine----"
"I'm not that sort of cad," retorted James Wilberforce hotly. But all the same, walking home through the night, he realized once more--with revolting clarity--himself. Which self-knowledge is no bad discipline for the James Wilberforces of this world!
3
Ronnie, too, walked home from the Lustrum. The interview with Wilberforce had clarified his mind; he foresaw now exactly how his world would regard the case. The foreknowledge hardened his determination to see Brunton. He must see Brunton. Brunton must be brought to immediate action. Otherwise----
Resolutely the man strove to put that "otherwise" away from him. But the "otherwise" kept on intruding. Suppose Aliette's legal owner refused to take any action at all? Carrington had waited five years.
And that night, his first bereft of her, alone and sleepless at Jermyn Street, Aliette's lover began to conceive a hatred of Aliette's legal owner. The Wixton imagination, always most active in darkness, showed him pictures of Brunton, of the sandy hair, the cold gray eyes, the feet in their big boots. Tossing sleepless on his tumbled pillows, imagination bade him remember that once--long ago though it must have been--Brunton had actually----