"And if the lady disapproves?" said Sir Peter.
"She will not disapprove," countered Ronnie.
In the pause which followed, Jimmy drew out Julia Cavendish's letter, and read it for the tenth time.
If I have brought any happiness into your life by bringing you and the woman you are going to marry together, help me to bring happiness into my son's life and into the life of the woman whom he is not able to marry. I feel that I have taken the best, the only way to put things right for Ronnie; but if there is any other method by which my main object, the object of forcing Hector Brunton to set his wife free, is possible of achievement, by all means explore it.
"Don't you think"--James Wilberforce put the letter back in his pocket and turned to Ronnie, who was eying his father in positive hostility--"that it might be advisable to discuss this matter with--Hector Brunton?"
"I won't have that. I'll be damned if I'll have that."
Ronnie's answer was openly provocative; but Sir Peter apparently had recovered his temper. "We mustn't be hasty," purred Sir Peter. "We mustn't be overhasty. As Julia Cavendish's executors, we have to regard the spirit rather than the letter of her instructions. Believe me, the immediate publication of that codicil would be fatal to the plans which your dear mother obviously had in mind. Fatal!"
And the baronet, lighting himself a cigarette, relapsed into thought. Privately he considered that his old friend must have been mentally deranged some time before her death. Yet he dared not say so to her son; and, moreover, to prove mental derangement would entail more publicity than to prove the will itself.
Various plans for the avoidance of publicity began to pass through Sir Peter's mind. Brunton, faced with the alternative of the book's being published, might consent to file his petition for divorce. Then, Julia's main object accomplished, the book might be--accidentally destroyed. Other methods, too--gentler methods--might be adopted with the book. But what in Hades was one to do about the will? Unfortunately, tampering with wills constituted a felony. Therefore, unless some one ("And whom could I get to do it!" mused Sir Peter) risked going to jail, that will, that deadly, damning, white-faced, blue-written testament on the desk would have to be filed in toto at Somerset House. Filed, every pressman in England would seize upon it for a column.
A knock, followed by a voice asking, "May I come in, Ronnie?" brought the three men to their feet; and, before any of them could answer, the door opened, revealing "the lady in the case."