Wyndham looked up decisively.
"I wouldn't repeat that to him, if my life depended on it."
"No, no. Of course not. You can make things clear without saying too much. Beastly unpleasant job, and I'm sorry to be forcing it on you. But you must know that you're the only chap in the Regiment who could dream of speaking two words to Desmond on such a delicate subject."
Paul acknowledged the statement with a wry smile under his moustache.
"I doubt if he will stand it, even from me; and I'd a deal sooner wring Kresney's neck. But I'll do the best I can, and take my chance of the consequences to myself."
Thus reassured, Olliver departed, and Wyndham, watching him go, wondered what he intended to say.
There are few things more distasteful to a well-bred man than the necessity of speaking to a friend, however intimate, on the subject of his wife's conduct or character; because there are few things a man respects more intimately than his fellow-man's reserve. Wyndham knew, moreover, that the real sting of his communication would lie less in the facts themselves than in Mrs Desmond's probable concealment of them; and his natural kindliness prompted him to a passing pity for Evelyn, who, in all likelihood, had not yet penetrated beyond the outer shell of her husband's strongly marked character.
The only means of tempering the wind to the shorn lamb lay in speaking first to Honor; and on that idea Wyndham unconditionally turned his back. Mrs Desmond had brought this thing upon herself. She must face the consequences as best she might.
But on entering the study, the words he had come to say were checked upon his lips.