"The world won't believe that," I said.
"Elsie's going to make it."
I shook my head.
"She can't. Would you?"
"Most certainly. So will you when you've met her. You knew the father well? She's her father's own daughter."
The gospel of Jasper Davenant was simple and sound. Never pull a horse, never forge a cheque, never get involved in the meshes of married women. Apart from that, nothing mattered: though to be his true disciple, you must never lose your head, never lose your temper, never be afraid of man or woman, brute or devil. He was the North American Indian of chivalrous romance, transplanted to Cumberland with little loss of essential characteristics.
"I look forward to meeting them both," I said as we parted at Buckingham Gate. "Seven o'clock? I'll try not to be late."
Walking on alone through Sloane Square, something set me thinking of my boast to Philip Roden. Within three hours I was apparently going to meet one woman whose name was mixed up with the most prominent cause célèbre of the year, and another who was a cause célèbre in herself—the redoubtable Miss Joyce Davenant of the Militant Suffrage Union. That my introduction should come from the peace-loving, nerve-ridden Aintree, was in accordance with the best ironical traditions of life. I was not surprised then: I should have still less reason to be surprised now. In the last six months he has placed me under obligations which I shall never be able to meet: in all probability he expects no repayment; the active side of his unhappy, fatalistic temperament is seen in his passionate desire to make life less barren and melancholy for others. Tom Wilding can testify to this at the bézique table: Elsie and Joyce and I can endorse the testimony in a hundred ways and half a hundred places.
As I turned into Pont Street a private car was drawn up by the kerb opposite my brother's house. I dawdled for a few steps while a pretty, brown-eyed, black-haired girl said good-bye to a friend at the door and drove away. It was no more than a glimpse that I caught, but the smiling, small-featured face attracted me. I wondered who she was, and who was the girl with auburn hair who persisted in standing on my brother's top step long after the car was out of sight, instead of retiring indoors and leaving me an unembarrassed entry.
I pretended not to see her as I mounted the steps, but the pretence was torn away when I heard her addressing me as "Uncle Simon."