"Can't we—can't we do anything? Talk to them?"
"I just see myself talking to Errington!" murmured Jerry. "I'd about as soon discuss its private and internal arrangements with a volcano! My dear kid, it all depends upon Diana and whether she's content to trust her husband or not. I'd trust Max through thick and thin, and no questions asked. If he blew up the Houses of Parliament, I should believe he'd some good reason for doing it. . . . But then, I'm not his wife!"
"Well, I shall talk to Diana," said Joan seriously. "I'm sure Dad would, if he were here. And I do think, Jerry, you might screw up courage to speak to Max. He can't eat you! And—and I simply hate to see those two at cross purposes! They were so happy at the beginning."
The mention of matrimonial happiness started a new train of thought, and the conversation became of a more personal nature—the kind of conversation wherein every second or third sentence starts with "when we are married," and thence launches out into rose-red visions of the great adventure.
Presently the house door clanged, and a minute later Diana came into the room. She threw aside her furs and looked round hastily.
"Where's Max?" she asked sharply.
"Not concealed beneath the Chesterfield," volunteered Jerry flippantly. Then, as he caught a hostile sparkle of irritation in her grey eyes, he added hastily, "He's in his study."
Diana nodded, and, without further remark, went away in search of her husband.
"Are you busy, Max?" she asked, pausing on the threshold of the room where he was working.
He rose at once, placing a chair for her with the chilly courtesy which he had accorded her since their last interview in this same room.