"One grows a beard and goes to live in Kensington. Mrs. Wylton is making the mistake of trying to brazen things out. 'You may cut me,' she says, 'but ye canna brek me manly sperrit.' Consequently in every place where she can be certain of attracting a crowd, Mrs. Wylton is to be found in the front row of the stalls, very pretty, very quiet and so unobtrusively dressed that you're almost tempted to damn her as respectable."
He lit a cigarette and I took occasion to remind him that we had not yet come in sight of the Seraph.
Culling took up the parable.
"Is she alone?" he asked in a husky whisper. "Sir, she is not! Who took her to dinner last night at Dieudonné's, the night before at the Savoy, the night before that at the Carlton? Who has been seen with her at the Duke of York's, the Haymarket, the St. James'?"
"Who rides with her every summer morning in the Park?" cut in Gartside. "It is our Seraph. Our foolish Seraph, and we lay at your door the blame for his demoralisation. Seriously, Toby, somebody ought to speak the word in season. He's getting talked about, and that sort of flying in the face of public opinion doesn't do one damn's worth of good. The woman's got to have her gruel and take her time over it. She'll only put people's backs up by going on as she's doing at present. Mind you, I'm sorry for her," he went on more gently. "In her place I'd have done precisely the same thing, and I'd have done it years ago. But I should have had the sense to recognise I'd got to face the consequences."
I wondered for a short two seconds if it would be of the slightest avail to proclaim my belief in Elsie Wylton's innocence. A glance at Culling and Gartside convinced me of the futility.
"Where's the Seraph now?" I asked.
"With her. Any money you like. She lives with her sister in Chester Square; you'll find him there."
I sent a boy off to telephone to Adelphi Terrace. Until his return with the announcement that the Seraph was still away from home, Gartside suggested the lines on which I was to admonish the young offender.