rs. Dartie had knowledge of the facts. Dreamer
did it very nicely--he's got a fatherly touch about um!"

Soames nodded.

"And I compliment ye, Mrs. Dartie," went on Mr. Bellby; "ye've a natural
gift for giving evidence. Steady as a rock."

Here the, waiter arrived with three plates balanced on one arm, and the
remark: "I 'urried up the pudden, sir. You'll find plenty o' lark in it
to-day."

Mr. Bellby applauded his forethought with a dip of his nose. But Soames
and Winifred looked with dismay at their light lunch of gravified brown
masses, touching them gingerly with their forks in the hope of
distinguishing the bodies of the tasty little song-givers. Having begun,
however, they found they were hungrier than they thought, and finished
the lot, with a glass of port apiece. Conversation turned on the war.
Soames thought Ladysmith would fall, and it might last a year. Bellby
thought it would be over by the summer. Both agreed that they wanted
more men. There was nothing for it but complete victory, since it was
now a question of prestige. Winifred brought things back to more solid
ground by saying that she did not want the divorce suit to come on till
after the summer holidays had begun at Oxford, then the boys would have
forgotten about it before Val had to go up again; the London season too
would be over. The lawyers reassured her, an interval of six months was
necessary--after that the earlier the better. People were now beginning
to come in, and they parted--Soames to the city, Bellby to his chambers,
Winifred in a hansom to Park Lane to let her mother know how she had
fared. The issue had been so satisfactory on the whole that it was
considered advisable to tell James, who never failed to say day after day
that he didn't know about Winifred's affair, he couldn't tell. As his
sands ran out; the importance of mundane matters became increasingly
grave to him, as if he were feeling: 'I must make the most of it, and
worry well; I shall soon have nothing to worry about.'

He received the report grudgingly. It was a new-fangled way of going
about things, and he didn't know! But he gave Winifred a cheque, saying:

"I expect you'll have a lot of expense. That's a new hat you've got on.
Why doesn't Val come and see us?"

Winifred promised to bring him to dinner soon. And, going home, she
sought her bedroom where she could be alone. Now that her husband had
been ordered back into her custody with a view