“Frankly, no. I admit I’m biassed, however—at least I trust I’m not a cad, unable to acknowledge a deficiency when shown.”
“Or to administer the remedy, providing that remedy is proved innocuous?”
“Yes; I trust that also.”
“Very well, we’ll return to ‘justifiable’ qualified. 204 It will make things easier perhaps. You don’t wonder how I happen to know about your trouble?”
“There could be only one explanation.”
“Thank you. That simplifies matters also.” A halt; then the fundamental question direct: “Will you trust me to help you, trust me unqualifiedly?”
“Yes,” no hesitation, no amplification, just that single word, “yes.”
Darley Roberts remained for a moment quite still.
“Thank you, again,” he said. “I have had few compliments in my life, and that is one.” Again he sat quite still, all but the great hands, the only feature of him that ever showed restlessness or rebellion. “To begin with,” he resumed suddenly, “I am a lawyer, not a preacher. My business is with marriage the contract, not marriage the sacrament. Sentiment has no place in law. Contracts are promises to deliver certain tangible considerations; otherwise there would be none. Again contracts are specified or implied; but morally equally binding, equally inviolable. In the eye of the law when you married Margery Cooper you contracted, by implication, to deliver certain 205 considerations, chief among them one purely psychological—happiness. By implication you did this. Is it not so?”
“Yes, by implication.”