"You're on my side," she said. "Somehow I know you are. My idea, our idea, in fact—is that Terry mustn't be told. It might just smash him if he realized.... He mustn't know, and we mustn't let anybody tell him. Just let things go on quietly for a while, and the danger will be over."
"Masterly inactivity?" I suggested, and she answered with a smile:
"Yes, if you like. And I'll persuade father."
CHAPTER TEN
I
NOTHING happened for nearly a week. Terry stayed at Hindhead; the Karelsky sensation died down a little; and I, after my adventures at Crewe and elsewhere, had no time to visit the End House. On Friday, however, Severn telephoned me to come to dinner the next day, and by the late evening post there came this note from June:
"DEAR HILTON,—I hear you are dining with us to-morrow, and I want you to be on your guard. Father is sure to ask your advice about the Karelsky affair. I've argued with him for hours over it, but it hasn't seemed to be much use so far; and apparently he's rooted out some discreditable part of K's past, which of course makes him keener than ever on action. He likes Terry, and wants to help him, but it's so hard to get him to understand how things are. I think, though, that if you back me up, as you promised, we may just manage it. Yours,
"JUNE."
But I hadn't promised! At least, I ransacked my memory for any word or incident that might have given her such an impression, and I couldn't find any.... Even when I sat down at Severn's table the next night, I was by no means certain what I would do. There was nobody there but the four of us. Helen was very quiet and June rather nervously subdued; only Severn, in his febrile way, possessed any degree of vivacity. There was something slightly horrible in the contrast between the intense activity of his mind and the dead incapacity of his body. During dinner he talked principally politics, but afterwards, when the servants had disappeared, he announced his newest Karelsky discovery. It was pretty shady—some business about a student whom Karelsky had tricked and who, in despair, had drowned himself. The affair had been partially hushed up at the time, but under Severn's skilled manipulation it could doubtless be made to live again. "It's just the very thing we wanted," he exclaimed rapturously. "Nothing could have been better—except a scandal about a woman.... It's just possible we might even get a verdict—you never know. Anyhow, we shall certainly achieve our object, which is, I take it, to give our hero a good boost at the expense of our villain."
"No," said June quietly, and looked at me.
He smiled. "June," he went on, quite good-humouredly, "has some rather peculiar ideas on the subject. May I assume that she has hammered them into you as well as into me?"