“He didn't model his style on Pepys, evidently,” he said as he turned the leaves rapidly, “There seems to be about ten per cent. of ‘I's’ on every page. Ah! Here's your first red marker.”
He read the indicated passage carefully.
“This is the description of his feelings on getting engaged to Norma Hailsham,” he commented aloud. “It sounds rather superior, as if he felt he'd conferred a distinct favour on her in the matter. Apparently, even in the first flush of young love, he thought that he wasn't getting all that his merits deserved. I don't think Miss Hailsham would have been flattered if she'd been able to read this at the time.”
He passed rapidly over some other passages without audible comment, and then halted for a few moments at an entry.
“Now we come to his meeting with Mrs. Silverdale, and his first impressions of her. It seems that she attracted him by her physique rather than by her brains. Of course, as he observes: ‘What single woman could fully satisfy all the sides of a complex nature like mine?’ However, he catalogues Mrs. Silverdale's attractions lavishly enough.”
Flamborough, with a recollection of the passage in his mind, smiled cynically.
“That side of his complex nature was highly developed, I should judge,” he affirmed. “It runs through the stuff from start to finish.”
Sir Clinton turned over a few more pages.
“It seems as though Miss Hailsham began to have some inklings of his troubles,” he said, looking up from the book. “This is the bit where he's complaining about the limitations in women's outlooks, you remember. Apparently he'd made his fiancée feel that his vision took a wider sweep than she imagined, and she seems to have suggested that he needn't spend so much time in staring at Mrs. Silverdale. It's quite characteristic that in this entry he's suddenly discovered that the Hailsham girl's hands fail to reach the standard of beauty which he thinks essential in a life-companion. He has visions of sitting in suppressed irritation while these hands pour out his breakfast coffee every day through all the years of marriage. It seems to worry him quite a lot.”
“You'll find that kind of thing developing as you go on, sir. The plain truth is that he was tiring of the girl and he simply jotted down everything he could see in her that he didn't find good enough for him.”