Gwen appeared uninterested in the point of honour. "I wonder," she said, "whether he thought telling me of it this way would prevent my building too much on it, and being disappointed. That would be so exactly like Dr. Merridew."
"I think," said Adrian deliberately, "that I appreciate the position. Septimius Severus figures in it as a bust, or as an indirect way of describing a circumstance; preferably the latter, I should say, for it must be most uncomfortable to be a bust. As an Emperor he is inadmissible. I remember the incident—but I suspect it was only a dream." His voice fell into real seriousness as he said this; then went back to mock seriousness, after a pause. "However, I am bound to say that 'inexcusable dishonesty' is a strong expression. I should suggest 'pliable conscience,' always keeping in view the motive of ... Yes, Pelides dear, but I have at present nothing for you in the form of cake or sugar. Explain yourself somehow, to the best of your ability." For Achilles had suddenly placed an outstretched paw, impressively, on the speaker's knee.
"I see what it was," said Gwen. "You said 'pliable conscience'—just now."
"He thought he was the first syllable. Never mind him! I want you to tell me about Septimius Severus. He's what I came about. What was it that happened, exactly?" Thereupon Adrian gave the experience which the story knows already, in greater detail.
In the middle, a casual housekeeper was fain to speak to Miss Torrens, for a minute. Who therefore left the room and became a voice, housekeeping, in the distance.
Then Gwen made Adrian tell the story again, cross-examining him as one cross-examines obduracy in the hope of admissions that will at least countenance a belief in the truth that we want to be true. If Adrian had seen his way to a concession that would have made matters pleasant, he would have jumped at the chance of making it. But false hope was so much worse than false despair. Better, surely, a spurious growth of the latter, with disillusionment to come, than a stinted instalment of the former with a chance of real despair ahead. Adrian took the view that Sir Coupland was really a weak, good-natured chap who had wanted Gwen to have every excuse for hope that could be constructed, even with unsound materials; but who also wanted the responsibilities of the jerry-builder to rest on other shoulders than his own. Gwen discredited this view of the great surgeon's character in her inner consciousness, but hardly had courage to raise her voice against it, because of the danger of fostering false hopes in her lover's mind. Nevertheless she could not be off fanning a little flame of comfort to warm her heart, from the conviction that so responsible an F.R.C.S. would never have gone out of his way to show her the letter if he had not thought there was some chance, however small, of a break in the cloud.
After Sir Coupland's letter and its subject had been allowed to lapse, Gwen said:—"So now you see what I came for, and that's all about it. What do you think I did, dearest, yesterday as soon as I had seen my old lady comfortably settled? She was dreadfully tired, you know. But she was very plucky and wouldn't admit it."
"Who the dickens is your old lady?"
"Don't be impatient. I'll tell you all in good time. First I want to tell you where I went yesterday afternoon. I went across the garden through the rose-forest ... you know?—what you said must be a rose-forest to smell like that...."