Page:The Better Sort (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1903).djvu/110

THE BETTER SORT apart," he said, "mortally hated the idea of doing anything so pleasant for me as to divorce me. But I've reason to believe she has now changed her mind. She'd like to get clear."

I waited a moment. "For a man?"

"Oh, such a jolly good one! Remson Sturch."

I wondered. "Do you call him good?"

"Good for her. If she only can be got to be—which it oughtn't to be difficult to make her—fool enough to marry him, he'll give her the real size of his foot, and I shall be avenged in a manner positively ideal."

"Then will she institute proceedings?"

"She can't, as things stand. She has nothing to go upon. I've been," said poor Brivet, "I positively have, so blameless." I thought of Mrs. Cavenham, and, though I said nothing, he went on after an instant as if he knew it. "They can't put a finger. I've been so d—d particular."

I hesitated. "And your idea is now not to be particular any more?"

"Oh, about her," he eagerly replied, "always!" On which I laughed out and he coloured. "But my idea is nevertheless, at present," he went on, "to pave the way; that is, I mean, if I can keep the person you're thinking of so totally out of it that not a breath in the whole business can possibly touch her."

"I see," I reflected. "She isn't willing?"

He stared. "To be compromised? Why the devil should she be?"

"Why shouldn't she—for you? Doesn't she love you?"

"Yes, and it's because she does, dearly, that I don't feel the right way to repay her is by spattering her over."

"Yet if she stands," I argued, "straight in the splash!" 98