She said quietly: "I didn't put it to him. I didn't put anything to him.... And that's just what I want to talk to you about...."
We talked. That quiet country lane, dappled in sunshine, wound upwards to the windy cross-roads, and all the way we argued whether a man who had been the unknowing victim of robbery should be told about it by his friends. Perhaps it isn't fair to put it like that. She wasn't arguing the general case; it was only of Terry that she was thinking. Briefly, her idea was that we should leave things where they were. Since the truth hadn't occurred to him, what was the use of trying to prove it to him?
I answered her as well as I could. I told her that my whole mind and soul revolted against letting Karelsky go scot-free. We ought to fight, and Terry ought to fight—even if we didn't win. Severn thought so, anyway, for he intended to back Terry in a law-suit....
Then she said: "Damn the law-suit. If father wants one to amuse him, he can denounce Karelsky publicly and get himself sued for libel. There's no need to bring Terry into it at all. He's happy—because he thinks he's succeeded in something at last. What's the good of convincing him that what he thinks is a success is only another failure?"
Put like that, it sounded fairly unanswerable; nevertheless, I wasn't by any means convinced. All I promised was that I wouldn't attempt the process of disillusionment till I had discussed the matter with her at least once again. She smiled and answered: "I'm satisfied with that. I'm so certain you'll agree with me when once you've seen him."
And just then I did see him. He was coming up the lane to meet us.
V
He was different. It isn't easy at first to say anything but just that. He came to me with outstretched hand and gave me a quick smile and a grip of iron; with his superb physical fitness there seemed now another and more potent sort of fitness. By God—June was right about him!.... All the way down the lane she and he were talking, but I didn't hear a word: I was desperately trying to size things up for myself. He was different; the cloud had passed from him; he looked as he had looked in those old days when we had tramped for miles on those Sunday afternoons.
And at the Valley Hotel we went into the small ground-floor room where June's tidy hand had exercised careful restraint over the litter of his books and papers. But there were signs visible enough of what had been happening—a typewriter, a paper-perforator, and stacks of typed manuscript. I said, cheerfully: "Well, I see you've begun work in real earnest."
And he looked almost embarrassed, as if he had been found out in a guilty act. "I'm just gathering up the loose threads," he replied, and changed the subject.