James Wilberforce did not gossip; nevertheless, within a week of the flight for paradise, rumor--the amazing omniscient rumor of London--began to weave, spider-like, her intangible filaments. As yet, rumor was unconfirmed: only a vague web of talk, spun from boudoir to drawing-room, from drawing-room to club, from club to Fleet Street, from Fleet Street to the Griffin.

And in the center of the web, watching it a-weave, sat Aliette's husband.

More than once, friends, those maddeningly tactful friends of the successful, touched on rumor; but none of them, not even Hector's father, succeeded in extracting a syllable. "My wife," said Hector Brunton, K.C, to his friends, "has not been feeling very well lately. I've sent her out of town for a bit of a holiday."

At first the mere mention of Aliette's name enraged him; aroused in him a cruelty so melodramatic, so virulent that, for a full three days, he went in fear of becoming a murderer. He knew that he could find "the guilty pair" easily enough: Cavendish's clerk--Aliette's brief note told him--would give his solicitors their address. But even without Cavendish's clerk it would be simple to trace them. You couldn't lug a twelve-stone dog round the London railway termini without attracting the attention of at least half a hundred involuntary private detectives!

Somehow (comedy and tragedy blend strangely in the heart of a man!) the idea of Ponto's accompanying his wife's elopement seemed in Brunton's eyes the culminating insult, a last intolerable outrage on the domestic decencies. He, Hector, had given Aliette that dog; and, though he hated the beast himself, he grudged it to Cavendish. To his enraged mind, the dog turned symbol of his betrayal. He had been betrayed by a dishonest woman. If Aliette had possessed any sense of honesty, she would have left Ponto behind: as she had left all his other gifts--the pearl necklace, the jeweled wrist-watch, the gray ostrich-feather fan.

Then, hot on the heels of rage, came remorse--remorse, not for his cruelty, not for his infidelities, but only for the crass stupidity with which he believed himself to have handled the situation. He might have known the woman better than to attempt bluff. He ought to have pleaded with her. Or locked her in her bedroom. On no account ought he to have gone down to the courts next morning. Why hadn't he telephoned Mollie to return that very night? Why hadn't he wired to Clyst Fullerford for Aliette's mother?

Self-pity succeeded. He pictured himself the injured husband; and, his heart softening towards Aliette, vowed "that seducer Cavendish should suffer."

But Cavendish's sufferings did not suffice his imagination. Why should Cavendish alone suffer? Why should either the woman or the man get off scotfree? Why shouldn't both of them be made to suffer--damnably--as damnably as he himself was suffering?

For, surely as love made paradise of Chilworth Cove, so surely did lust fashion hell at Lancaster Gate.

From this hell in which--as Brunton imagined--the loss of a woman, and not the loss of his own self-esteem furnished the flame, Brunton's only escape was work; and into work he flung himself, as a scalded child into cold water, only to find the agony redoubled on emergence. For though his work--eight, ten, and sometimes sixteen hours a day of the tensest mental concentration--did momentarily banish introspection; always, his work concluded, came the Furies.

In the night, they came--like evil old women--lashing him, sleepless, from room to room of that huge silent house, mocking him, mocking him. "Only wait," mocked the Furies. "She'll come back. Perhaps she's on her way home at this very moment. She'll soon tire of Cavendish--of Cavendish."

Brunton tried to scream back at them (he knew, even before they showed him his face in the mirror of his dressing-room, that the scream could not pass his lips), "I wouldn't have her back. I wouldn't, I tell you--I wouldn't. She's a loose woman. An adulteress."

"Oh, yes, you would," answered the Furies. "Oh, yes, you would. If she came into this house now--if she rang the front door-bell--listen! listen hard! didn't you hear a bell, Brunton?--if she offered herself to you, you'd take her. It's three years, Brunton. Three years since you went into that room. Think of her, Brunton. Think of her--her hair unbound--her arms open to receive--Cavendish!"

And by day, when the evil old women slept, men mocked at him--voicelessly. All men--so it seemed to him--knew his shame. All men! Lennard and the chauffeur, so smooth-faced, so efficient, grinning behind smug hands: the acquaintances at his clubs: his co-barristers, lunching either side of him at Middle Temple Hall: his subservient clerk: his respectful clients--all these knew him for the deserted bull, for the male incapable of authority, for the public cuckold. Even the impassive pseudo-friendly judges who gave him his verdicts were wise to his cuckoldry.

Curiously enough, in all that month of June, Brunton never lost a case. Possible defeats, probable compromises, doubtful prosecution, or still more doubtful defense--every legal battle he fought ended in sweeping victory. Treasury briefs, consultations, and demands for his "opinion" avalanched on his chambers in King's Bench Walk. Fleet Street echoed and reËchoed his name; till it appeared as though the herd, the damned hypocritical herd who fawned openly on his public success so that they might gloat the more on his secret failure, twitted him in very malice with the prospects of a knighthood, of a judgeship, of a safe seat at the next election.

More and more, as the days went by, he saw himself as the deserted bull; and, so seeing, swore that he would teach the whole herd a lesson. The herd had its rules, its shibboleths; but he was above all rules, above all shibboleths. Let the herd murmur if it dared. His wife and her lover could rot in the mire they had pashed for themselves. The lone bull would not even deign to horn their flanks.

So, arrogance and cruelty in his secret heart; lash-marks of the Furies red across his secret loins; feigning himself unhurt, uncaring; feigning himself ignorant; feigning even solicitude for the health of his absent wife, Hector Brunton went his conquering conquered way.

CHAPTER XIII