Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Mr. Privet shook his head. "Oh no, sir! They were going home sure enough—and rather quickly, too. I thought the car had caught that youngest Sherlock boy, but Mr. Tropenell's a skilful driver, and he missed the child, but only by a few inches, as far as I could judge!"

Godfrey Pavely nodded, walked on, and so out and across the High Street. He could not help feeling a little vexed that Oliver and Laura should have driven into Pewsbury—this morning, of all mornings. He wondered if they often did so. It was fortunate that nothing had happened to that stupid child. It would have been very unpleasant for his wife to be compelled to give evidence at an inquest....

He did not enjoy his luncheon as much as he was wont to do. In a sense he was king of the old-fashioned County Club; every member of it was either on good terms with the prosperous banker, or desired to be so. But try as he might he could not get that odious, absurd, anonymous letter out of his mind! He told himself again and again that it was thoughtless and—and yes, unbecoming—of Laura, to drive in and out of Pewsbury with Oliver Tropenell. Somehow it was the sort of thing he would never have thought his wife was likely to do. Again he wondered if she did it often. If yes, such conduct would of course provide ample reason for low, vulgar gossip.

When, at last, Godfrey Pavely walked back across to the Bank, he had come to the point of asking himself whether after all it might not be best to say just a word of caution to Laura. It need not be more than a word—he knew her well enough to know that! She was the kind of woman to shrink with fastidious disgust from the thought of her name being connected, in any vulgar silly way, with that of a man.

But his mind swung backwards and forwards, like a pendulum. The possibility of his agreeable, cordial relations with Oliver Tropenell being in any way jarred or disturbed so upset him that, finally, he made up his mind to say nothing to Laura.

At three o'clock the banker walked up to his head clerk's room. "I think I'll go home early to-day, Privet," he said.

The old man got up from his chair. He was not only fond, he was proud too, of his employer. Mr. Pavely was a model banker, a model worker. He never went home before four, and often stayed on working till five.

"Very good, sir. It's a fine afternoon. I often wonder you stay as long as you do," he said, with that queer touch of affection in his voice which Godfrey Pavely valued perhaps more than he knew.

The walk home seemed much longer than usual. Two miles and a bit? He was proud of the fact that he could do it with ease in five minutes over the half-hour. To-day, as a matter of fact, he walked so quickly that he did it in twenty-seven minutes, but he was not aware of that.

For the first time for months, he passed by Rosedean without as much as giving Katty a thought, and he took a short cut into The Chase instead of going on, up through the great park gates, as he was wont to do. And then, as he went along one of the paths in the walled kitchen garden, he suddenly heard his wife's voice.