Meanwhile Moor Park, though spiritually less troubled than Clyst Fullerford, failed egregiously in presenting a united front to its domestic troubles. Hector, returning thither from a lonely holiday in Scotland, found Rear-Admiral Billy in quarter-deck mood, and the Rev. Adrian--invited for obvious reasons to dine without his Margery--uncomfortably silent through an interminable meal.

Purposely the admiral had staved off discussion of the matter at heart until the mastodontic dining-table should be cleared of its food. Now--the port decanter being in its third circulation--he drew back his chair from the board, screwed a cigar firmly between his bearded lips, and began:

"Well, Hector, you've had a couple of months to make up your mind. What are you going to do about Alie?"

The K.C. looked straight into his father's unjovial eyes and retorted:

"As I told you before I left, sir"--"sir" between the admiral and his sons always betokened trouble,--"I'm not going to do anything."

"Dog-in-the-manger, eh?" rumbled the old man to his beard.

"You can take it that way if you like, sir."

"Pretty rough on your wife, ain't it? Adrian thinks----"

"Adrian is not his brother's keeper."

There intervened a considerable silence, during which the parson scrutinized the lawyer. "Hector's nature," pondered the Rev. Adrian, "has not altered much since he was a boy. He's a reticent fellow, is Hector. Sullen, too. Resents any one interfering in his affairs--even if it's for his own good."

But the parson could see that, in outward appearance, Hector had altered. He looked less corpulent, less certain of himself, more inclined to bluster. His sandy hair had thinned nearly to baldness.

"I haven't the slightest wish to interfere"--Adrian, except in his episcopalian wife's presence, was a very human being,--"but really it does seem to me that your duty is either to use every means in your power to get your wife back, or else to set her free. You can't play the matrimonial Micawber."

"I tell you," the K.C. fidgeted in his chair, "I don't want your advice. This is my own affair and nobody else's."

"That be sugared for a tale." The admiral unscrewed his cigar from his mouth, and waved it fiercely before his eldest son's eyes. "That be sugared for a tale, Hector. A man's marriage concerns his whole family. I was talking to Simeon only the other day, and he said it was perfectly impossible for any one in your position----"

"I've heard that argument before," said Aliette's legal owner, "and I can't say that it appeals to me. I fail to see why Uncle Simeon or his wife should presume to pass judgment on what I choose or don't choose to do." He made a movement to break off the discussion, refrained, and continued. "Since you have reopened the subject, sir, I think it would be as well if I explained my views once and for all. My views are that I fail to see any reason why I should take my wife back, or any obligation to set her free to marry her lover. What he and she did, they did with their eyes open. Let them abide by the consequences."

"But, blast it all!" broke in the admiral, "a fellow must behave like a gentleman."

"I refuse to admit that a man must behave like a gentleman to a wife who forgets to behave herself like a lady." The lawyer reached for the cigar-box, and kindled a weed.

"Come, come, Hector." The parson, who had seen life, put his professional prejudices on one side. "It really isn't as bad as that. Mind you, I'm not making any excuses for Aliette. But, even admitting that she's behaved badly to you, does that furnish you with any justification for behaving badly to her?"

"And mind you, my boy," the father elaborated his younger son's argument, "people aren't like they used to be about this sort of thing. There's deuced little prejudice against divorce these days. We must go with the times. We must go with the times. God knows I'm an intolerant old devil; but, thank God, I can still take a broad-minded view where the sex is concerned."

"It's easy enough for you to be broad-minded, sir," interpolated the K.C.; "she's not your wife."

"Fond of her still, eh?" rambled the old man shrewdly. Hector Brunton kept silence, but his eyes showed that the shot had gone home.

"You've asked her to return to you, I suppose?" said the Rev. Adrian, pouncing on this new hare like a religious beagle.

"Certainly not." The coincidence of the two ideas exasperated Hector. For two months he had been hardening himself to meet this very ordeal; and already, curse it! he felt himself growing soft. Dimly the voice of conscience told him that his father and brother were in the right. Socially he recognized that he was taking up an impossible position. Nevertheless, as an individual, he intended sticking to that position. All the obstinacy, all the weakness in him combined to reject the obvious solution. Why the devil should he divorce Aliette? He still wanted Aliette--wanted her physically--craved for her with a desire so overpowering that, at times, it drove him almost mad.

"Quite apart from your wife's reputation, you know," the admiral returned to his oratorial quarter-deck, "you've got to consider your own. People don't look too kindly on a man who allows his missus to live openly with some one else. And then, both you and he being in the same profession! Take it from me, my boy, it won't do you any good."

"It won't do him any good," said Hector viciously. "If I've any influence with the benchers, I'll get the fellow disbarred before the year's out; and if I can't get him disbarred at least I'll take"--he snarled--"other steps."

At the snarl, Adrian lost his temper.

"I've been trying to talk to you like a brother, Hector," he rapped out, "not like a parson. If you came to me as a parson, I should be bound to tell you that your attitude isn't Christian at all. It's--damn it!--it's Hebraic. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."

The elder brother turned on his junior.

"Christianity," he sneered. "Is that your Christianity? Free love!"

The junior fidgeted with his white collar.

"We'll leave my Christianity out of the discussion, if you please."

The admiral, also a little hot under the shirt, intervened again.

"Christianity or no Christianity, I maintain that you're putting yourself in the wrong. Alie's a decent enough little woman. She's always played the game with you. Even when she ran away with this fellow, she told you about it before she went. She did tell you, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"I told her she could go if she wanted to."

"You didn't try to restrain her?"

"No. I didn't."

"Why not? If you felt so strongly about her going off as you pretend to now, why didn't you lock her up in her bedroom? Why didn't you go and see this man Cavendish--knock his head off?"

Infuriated, Hector rose to his feet.

"I have no wish to be disrespectful, sir," he said to his father, "but my decision is final. I refuse to discuss this matter a minute longer." And to his brother, "As for you, Adrian, I'll thank you not to interfere." Then he moved from the table, swung open the door, and clumped heavily upstairs to his bedroom.

Left alone, the rear-admiral turned to his younger son.

"How's the new baby, Adrian?"

"Getting on splendidly, father."

"Good." The bearded lips chewed at their cigar for a full minute. "A pity Hector's wife didn't have any kids."

"A great pity, father."