etch her."

"I shall do nothing of the sort."

"Well, if you think it's wise to give her her head to that extent--a
woman with Jane's temperament----"

"What do you know about her temperament?"

Sophy shifted her ground. "I know, and you know the effect he has on
her, and the influence; and if you leave her to him--if you leave them
to themselves, down there--for weeks like that--you'll have nobody but
yourself to thank if----"

He cut her short.

"I have nobody but myself to thank. She shall please herself about
coming back. It she didn't come--I couldn't blame her."

Sophy was speechless. Of all the attitudes that any Brodrick could take
she had not expected this.

"We have made things too hard for her----" he said.

"We?"

"You and I--all of us. We've not seen what was in her."

Sophy repressed her opinion that they very probably would see now. As
there was no use arguing with him in his present mood (she could see
_that_), she left him.

Brodrick heard her motor hooting down Roehampton Lane. She was going to
dine at Henry's. Presently all the family would be in possession of the
situation, of Jane's conduct and his attitude. And there was Gertrude
Collett. He understood now that she suspected.

Gertrude had come back into her place.

He picked up some papers and took them to the safe which stood in
another corner of the room behind his writing-table. He wanted to get
away from Gertrude, to be alone with his secret and concealed, without
betraying his desire for solitude, for concealment. He knelt down by the
safe and busied himself there quite a long time. He said to himself, "It
couldn't happen. She was always honest with me. But if it did I
couldn't wonder. The wonder is why she married me."

He rose to his feet, saying to himself again, "It couldn't happen."

With that slight readjusting movement the two men in him became one, so
that when the reasoning man reached slowly his conclusion he formulated
it thus: "It couldn't happen. If it did, it wouldn't happen this way.
He" (even to himself he could not say "they") "would have managed
better, or worse." At last his intellect, the lazy, powerful beast, was
roused and dealt masterfully with the situation.

He had to pass the fireplace to get back to his seat, which Gertrude
guarded. As he passed he caught sight of his own face in the glass over
the chimney-piece, a face with inflamed eyes and a forehead frowning and
overcast, and cheeks flushed