“Dead as a mackerel, thank God. My lawyers certify to the blessed event. They ought to know. They have stood in the breach for four years, warding off writs, injunctions, mandamuses, and appeals, with which she and the unscrupulous scoundrels, her solicitors, bombarded them. The costs those ancient parties must have charged up against me! Man, I’m fair frightened to go into the City and face them. There are three attempts at judicial separation, one divorce suit, two petitions for restoration of conjugal rights, three examinations of witnesses by commission, four appeals—the thought of those bills sickens me, Davie.”
“You’re well out of the noose at any cost.”
“Well, then, if your neck is free, keep it so, man!”
David smiled with gentle self-assurance.
“Ah, laddie, if you could have seen the innocence of her. She drank Capri at breakfast, and then champagne at luncheon, and more of the same at dinner, with old tawny port on top of it—all as trustingly and confidingly as a babe. It softened one’s heart to see her lack of guile, her pretty inexperience.”
The Earl sniffed audibly. “Oh, ay, it’s a beautiful spectacle, no doubt, and very touching. The pity is that magistrates will not always view it in that light next morning. But then so many things look different in the morning.”
Again Mosscrop smiled. “Save your moans, Archie,” he advised, “till you see her yourself. You’ll meet the lady at breakfast.”
“I’m damned if I do,” said Drumpipes.
“Now then, you’re talking like an idiot. You, a hunter of lions and crocodiles and wild asses of the desert, to turn tail and run from one wee yellow-headed lassie! and desert an old friend, moreover, who needs your advice and judgment in the most important matter of his life! You know you’re flatly incapable of it.”
“I’ll not promise to be civil to her if I stop,” the other growled. “The mere thought of yellow-haired women is nauseating to me. Why on earth, man, if you must make a stark-staring lunatic of yourself, could you not hit on a decent and reputable colour?”