Yes, there’d been a divorce. Silver had behaved very decently. He’d let her bring it against him, to save her. But there were some queer stories going about. They didn’t get round to Marston, because he was so mixed up with her people; and if they had he wouldn’t have believed them. He’d made up his mind he’d marry Pauline the first minute he’d seen her. She was handsome; the hard, black, white and vermilion kind, with a little aristocratic nose and a lascivious mouth.
It was, as he had meant it to be, nothing but physical infatuation on both sides. No question of Pauline’s taking Rosamund’s place.
Marston had a big case on at the time.
They were in such a hurry that they couldn’t wait till it was over; and as it kept him in London they agreed to put off their honeymoon till the autumn, and he took her straight to his own house in Curzon Street.
This, he admitted afterwards, was the part he hated. The Curzon Street house was associated with Rosamund; especially their bedroom—Rosamund’s bedroom—and his library. The library was the room Rosamund liked best, because it was his room. She had her place in the corner by the hearth, and they were always alone there together in the evenings when his work was done, and when it wasn’t done she would still sit with him, keeping quiet in her corner with a book.
Luckily for Marston, at the first sight of the library Pauline took a dislike to it.
I can hear her. “Br-rr-rh! There’s something beastly about this room, Edward. I can’t think how you can sit in it.”
And Edward, a little caustic:
“You needn’t, if you don’t like it.”
“I certainly shan’t.”