Just the sort of thing the Court would pitch on.He seemed to hear the Judge's voice say:"You took this seriously!Seriously enough to write him as you did?Do you think he meant it?"Never mind!
The fact was clear that Dartie had sailed and had not returned.
Annexed also was his cabled answer:"Impossible return.Dartie."Soames shook his head.If the whole thing were not disposed of within the next few months the fellow would turn up again like a bad penny.It saved a thousand a year at least to get rid of him,besides all the worry to Winifred and his father.'I must stiffen Dreamer's back,'he thought;'we must push it on.'
Winifred,who had adopted a kind of half-mourning which became her fair hair and tall figure very well,arrived in James'barouche drawn by James'pair.Soames had not seen it in the City since his father retired from business five years ago,and its incongruity gave him a shock.'Times are changing,'he thought;'one doesn't know what'll go next!'Top hats even were scarcer.He enquired after Val.Val,said Winifred,wrote that he was going to play polo next term.She thought he was in a very good set.She added with fashionably disguised anxiety:"Will there be much publicity about my affair,Soames?Must it be in the papers?It's so bad for him,and the girls."With his own calamity all raw within him,Soames answered:
"The papers are a pushing lot;it's very difficult to keep things out.They pretend to be guarding the public's morals,and they corrupt them with their beastly reports.But we haven't got to that yet.We're only seeing Dreamer to-day on the restitution question.Of course he understands that it's to lead to a divorce;but you must seem genuinely anxious to get Dartie back--you might practice that attitude to-day."Winifred sighed.
"Oh!What a clown Monty's been!"she said.