CHAPTER TEN VINDICATION
| "Casilda: | But it's so undignified—it's so degrading! A Grandee of Spain turned into a public company! Such a thing was never heard of! |
| Duke: | My child, the Duke of Plaza-Toro does not follow fashions—he leads them." |
| W. S. Gilbert: "The Gondoliers." |
At the beginning of June Jack received a letter in a well-known hand-writing from a familiar address.
"Pump Court, Temple, E. C.
"Have you ever done your duty by the University of Oxford? I mean, have you ever taken your M. A.? I haven't, though I ought to have years ago, and I'm sure you haven't, either. What do you think about going up next Degree Day? I'll find out when it is and order rooms and pack your suit-case and take it to Paddington and buy a ticket and generally nursemaid you, as I used to do in the days before you were a social success. I never see you nowadays either on the Winchester train or in London; they say that you have deserted your various clubs for the gilded saloons of Mayfair. Let me know what's happened to you. Ever yours,
Eric Lane."
Jack welcomed the diversion and wrote an enthusiastic acceptance. For some months he had been too much occupied with Barbara to spare regrets for Eric, but he was sorry to feel that they were drifting apart. And the invitation gave him an excuse for spending a long week-end out of London. Since the Ross House ball he had held no communication with Barbara; since his unburdening of soul to Jim Loring he had avoided every one who might ask him why he was in hiding or report to her that he had been tracked down. Lady Knightrider tried once or twice to secure him for dinner, but after a few failures she accepted his plea of private work. And very soon the inquisitive had other food for their curiosity. Arden concentrated his attention on a possible match between Loring and Miss Hunter-Oakleigh; Summertown threw needful light on a newly discovered intrigue between Mrs. Welman and Sir Deryk Lancing; and Deganway confined his energies to scandalous speculation about a motor tour which Sir Adolf Erckmann was conducting in South Europe with his sister, young Webster, Sonia Dainton and others of less stable reputation.
"Delighted to come" Jack wrote to Eric. "Let me know the day and the train; everything else I leave to you. It's ages since I saw you."
However far the gossip had spread, it was unlikely to have reached Pump Court. But, if he felt secure from impertinent questions, Jack would have paid a high price to meet any one who could give him tidings of Barbara. Until six months before, he had been content with his own company, but the daily close intimacy had set up an itch for confidences. He wanted to know how she was and what she was doing, whether she was missing him. In three weeks there had been no sign of capitulation. And he depended for news of her on chance paragraphs in the illustrated papers. Eric entered the train at Paddington with the current number of the Catch, containing a full-page photograph of her in eastern dress. There was also an Albert Hall group in which she figured with half a dozen of the very people who were not good enough for her. It was disappointing, and others were disappointed too.
"I've no news for you, but I've been thinking over this business a good deal," Loring had written two days earlier. "I can promise you a very friendly reception from the family, if and when you do adjust your differences with Barbara. My aunt, Kathleen Knightrider, is in despair; she says you were the only person who ever had any influence over Babs. Now that you've disappeared, she's picking up with all the old lot. Crawleigh's afraid to protest, because he doesn't want to precipitate a row. She comes of age in a few weeks, and then no one can stop her...."