"Funny feller, Breton. What puzzles me is what did he go and give up Rachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came here I was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between them was finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it so quietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over."
"Ah, you don't know Francis," said Christopher. "It's all romantic impulses that set him going—Rachel romantic impulse on one side, getting back to the family romantic impulse on the other. He knew if he went off with her that getting back to the family would be over for ever as far as he was concerned. He knew that he'd never cease to regret it.... John Beaminster coming to him gave him what he'd been waiting for, longing for. He seized it——"
"Yes, but it was more than that," said Roddy slowly. "It all lies with Rachel. He never got close to her any more than I've done. I know now that she's fond of me, but it's by the child I'll hold her and by my helplessness, nothin' else. And she'll have her wild moments when myself and everythin' about me will seem simply impossible, just as if she'd gone off with Breton she'd have had her comfortable domestic sort of longin's and hated him and everythin' about him. I believe Breton knew—just as I knew—that never tryin' to hold her was the way to keep her, and he'd have had to have her if he'd gone off with her....
"Anyway, Rachel wouldn't be so adorable if there wasn't a lot of her that no one man could master. But I've been given all the tricks in the game by bein' laid up like this—just when I thought I'd lost all worth havin' in life and never a chance of a kid again!... Funny thing, Life!
"But she's mine! Christopher, and no one can take her. Breton's got his idea of her; there is a bit of her that he stirred that I never could touch, but it don't matter—she's the most wonderful creature on this earth and I'm the luckiest beggar."
"She'll be quieter," said Christopher, "now that the Duchess is gone. They were always conscious of one another...."
"And now there'll be the kid instead. If he's a boy I swear he shall be the best rider, the best sportsman in this bloomin' old world—not that I'd mind a girl, either. I'd like to have a girl—just the time for a woman nowadays. Whichever way it is I'll be contented. Not, you know," he added hastily, "that I'm going to be a sort o' blessed angel with domestic bliss and never wantin' to get off this old sofa and the rest—not a bit of it—it's damned tryin' and I curse hours together often enough. Peters has the benefit of it. I wasn't born an angel and I shan't die one...."
"Nobody wants you to," said Christopher.
"Well, you needn't worry. But it's funny how I get talkin' nowadays—never used to say a word—now I gas away.... Well, cheers for the new generation, cheers for young Roddy Secundus.... Long life to him!"
"There's one thing," said Christopher, looking at him. "Whatever inspired you, that day you had the scene here, to behave to Frank Breton as you did? To give them both carte blanche—it wouldn't be the way of most husbands confronted with such a question—it was the only way for Rachel ... but how did you know her well enough? You'll forgive my saying so, your method as a rule is to drive straight in, let fly all round, and then count the bits."