The Duchess helped him: "That she'll make a charity of it."
"Yes, if you like," he laughed. "Or be a sport," he preferred to put it. "Stay on, stand by. It will be perfectly ripping of her, you know."
But the Duchess had no sympathy for the other woman. Her eyes fixed themselves on the trees before her, and as a shot rang out in the distance she said abruptly: "Why, that might be Cecil, mightn't it? Does he shoot birds on your premises?"
Bulstrode wondered very much for what reason she was habited in street dress and furs, whether she had planned to leave The Dials or had intended going up to see her husband.
"Forgive me," he said, "if I seem to be shockingly in a hurry, but I must have a look at the time, for as it happens, even in this far-off place, I have an engagement."
Impulsively putting out her hand the Duchess exclaimed: "I can't ever, ever thank you."
"Oh, after your divorce——"
But she cried out so against his words that he hastened: "You want me to think then that you do not believe...."
"Believe!" she ardently repeated, "Oh, I don't know what I believe or think," and he saw that the poor thing spoke the truth. "It's I who am as unstable as the sea, I who am the derelict."
He contradicted her gently: "My dear, you're only trying to solve alone a problem which it takes two to answer. When you see Westboro' you will know."