He turned round and, without looking at anyone, left the room.
There was silence.
Rupert said “My word!” and whistled. No one else said anything.
And, in this interval of silence, Maradick almost, to his own rather curious surprise, entirely outside the whole affair, was amused rather than bothered by the way they all took it, although “they,” as a matter of strict accuracy, almost immediately resolved itself down to Mrs. Lester. Lady Gale had shown him, long ago, her point of view; Sir Richard and Rupert could have only, with their limited conventions, one possible opinion; Alice Du Cane would probably be glad for Tony’s sake and so be indirectly grateful; but Mrs. Lester! why, it would be, he saw in a flash, the most splendid bolstering up of the way that she was already beginning to look on last night’s affair. He could see her, in a day or two, making his interference with the “Gale pie” on all fours with his own brutal attack on her immaculate virtues. It would be all of a piece in a short time, with the perverted imagination that she would set to play on their own “little” situation. It would be a kind of rose-coloured veil that she might fling over the whole proceeding. “The man who can behave in that kind of way to the Gales is just the kind of man who would, so horribly and brutally, insult a defenceless woman.”
He saw in her eyes already the beginning of the picture. In a few days the painting would be complete. But this was all as a side issue. His business, as far as these people were concerned, was over.
Without looking at anyone, he too left the room.
It had been difficult, but after he had had Lady Gale’s assurance the rest didn’t matter. Of course the old man was bound to take it like that, but he would probably soon see it differently. And at any rate, as far as he, Maradick, was concerned, that—Sir Richard’s attitude to him personally—didn’t matter in the very least.
But all that affair seemed, indeed, now of secondary importance. The first and only vital matter now was his relations with his wife. Everything must turn to that. Her clasp of his hand had touched him infinitely, profoundly. For the first time in their married lives she wanted him. Sir Richard, Mrs. Lester, even Tony, seemed small, insignificant in comparison with that.
But he must tell her everything—he saw that. All about Mrs. Lester, everything—otherwise they would never start clear.
She was just finishing her dressing when he came into her room. She turned quickly from her dressing-table towards him.