“Settled! I wonder if anything more unsettling to all concerned could have happened.”
Pawley remained silent, a silence misapprehended by Grimshaw, who reflected, naturally enough, that congratulation was deemed impossible. But the elder man had embarked upon a long pilgrimage at racing speed. He was whirled back to those far-off days when he, a nobody, aspired to enter a guarded pleasaunce, with its conspicuous notice: “Trespassers Beware!” He had entered it and left it—alone. Ever since he had remained alone a festering fact. His kindly eyes rested upon Grimshaw’s tired face. He held out his thin hand.
“Can I help you to win through?”
His sympathy was so unexpected after a long silence that Grimshaw stammered a reply:
“You—you think I am w-w-worthy?”
Pawley gripped the hand in his.
“If you can ask that question sincerely, you are. I take it Lady Selina doesn’t know?”
Grimshaw plunged into fluent speech. When he finished, Pawley was in possession of what had passed between the lovers, of the compromise exacted by Cicely, of its effect upon Grimshaw. He listened with pursed-up lips and frowning brows. Then he delivered his considered judgment:
“You are stumbling along in ruts. Where have they led me? Where have they led Goodrich? Come out of them, my dear fellow. Cicely is wrong. But there is every excuse for her.”
“Then Lady Selina is not to be ‘spared’?”