“Excuse me, sir,” Evan said, getting up. “I can’t listen to any abuse of Mrs. Vachell. I am sorry Evangeline has sunk to that last resort of slandering her best friend to achieve her end.”
“Evangeline didn’t slander her, my dear boy,” said Cyril. “She was full of her praises because of the magnificent plan she had devised for deceiving you. I arrived home unexpectedly a few days ago and met Evangeline’s box on the doorstep. The plan was that Cleopatra was to beguile you at one end of the deck while Evangeline nipped off down the gangway and home. They had a plan all thought out about her ministering to a sick friend in a distant cabin so that you wouldn’t look for her until you were well out at sea. Ivor was to join her here then, and after that I don’t think they had any clear idea, but they were reckoning on your finding it cheaper to stay where you were and storm at them on paper.”
Evan’s face looked hard and worn, but he showed no other sign of disappointment. “I think I had better go now and ask Mrs. Vachell if it is true,” he said. “You know I have only just come from her, and we made an arrangement that Ivor should stay with her for two or three months and then go to some ladies whom my mother knew in Cornwall; they keep a small school for very young children whose parents are abroad.”
“Did Chips know of that further arrangement?” asked Cyril.
“Not unless Mrs. Vachell told her.”
“Why not? What sort of a fellow do you think you are, making plans with another woman behind your wife’s back as to what you will do with your son while she is away?”
“It was the only way,” said Evan again.
“The only way to land yourself in the devil of a mess. Upon my word, Evan, it’s a pretty beastly sort of thing to do. If it got round to the mess you’d find yourself up against a devilish hard proposition.”
“Yes, I know,” said Evan. “It was cowardice. I hate hurting a woman if it can be avoided.”
“Funny how people deny themselves in little ways,” Cyril said reflectively. “There you say you hate hurting a woman, and you go a long way round to find a plan that must hurt her more than anything you could have chosen. Evangeline told me that Mrs. Vachell hates lying more than anything, and she——”