By this time young Walter Blake had not only clearly determined what he wanted and meant to do, he had also convinced himself of his wisdom and courage in wanting and meaning to do it. He was not blind, he declared, to the disagreeable and distressing incidents. There were painful features. There would be a scandal, and there would be an awkward and uncomfortable period—a provisional period before life settled down on its new and true lines. That was inevitable, since this case—the case of himself and Sibylla—was exceptional, whereas laws and customs were made for the ordinary cases. He did not condemn the laws and customs wholesale, but he was capable of seeing when a case was exceptional, and he had the wisdom and the courage to act on what he perceived. He even admitted that very few cases were really exceptional, and took the more credit for perceiving that this one really was. He did not take Grantley into account at all, neither what he was nor what he might do. Grantley seemed to him negligible. He confined his consideration to Sibylla and himself—and the exceptional nature of the case was obvious. He was a prey to his ready emotions and to his facile exaltation. Desires masqueraded as reasons, and untempered impulses wore the decent cloak of a high resolve. If he could have put the case like that to himself, it might not have seemed so plainly exceptional.

He was never more convinced of his wisdom and courage than when he listened to Caylesham's conversation. They were racecourse and club acquaintances, and had lunched together at Caylesham's flat on the Sunday on which John Fanshaw went to Lady Harriet's house in order to show her the error of her ways. Blake glowed with virtue as he listened to his friend's earthly views and measured his friend's degraded standards against his own.

"The one duty," said Caylesham, somewhat circumscribing the domain of morality, as his habit was, "is to avoid a row. Don't get the woman into a scrape." From gossiping about Tom Courtland they had drifted into discussing the converse case. "That really sums it all up, you know." It was a chilly day, and he warmed himself luxuriously before the fire. "I don't set myself up as a pattern to the youth, but I've never done that, anyhow."

Virtuous Blake would have liked to rehearse to him all the evil things he had done—the meanness, the hypocrisy, the degradation he had caused and shared; but it is not possible to speak quite so plainly to one's friends.

"Yes, that's the gospel," he said sarcastically. "Avoid a row. Nothing else matters, does it?"

"Nothing else matters in the end, I mean," smiled Caylesham, good-naturedly conscious of the sarcasm and rather amused at it. "As long as there's no row, things settle down again, you see. But if there's a row, see where you're left! Look what you've got on your hands, by Jove! And the women don't want a row either, really, you know. They may talk as if they did—in fact they're rather fond of talking as if they did, and they may think they do sometimes. But when it comes to the point, they don't. And what's more, they don't easily forgive a man who gets them into a row. It means too much to them, too much by a deal, Blake."

"And what does it mean when there's no row?"

"Oh, well, there, of course, in a certain sense you have me," Caylesham admitted with a candid smile. "If you like to take the moral line, you do have me, of course. I was speaking of the world as we know it; and I don't suppose it's ever been particularly different. Not in my time anyhow, I can answer for that."

"You're wrong, Caylesham, wrong all through. If the thing has come to such a point, the only honest thing is to see it through, to face it, to undo the mistake, to put things where they ought to have been from the beginning."

"Capital! And how are you going to do it?"

"There's only one way of doing it."

Caylesham's smile broadened; he pulled his long moustache delicately as he said:

"Bolt?"

Blake nodded sharply.

"Oh, my dear boy!"

He laughed in a gentle comfortable way, and drew his coat right up into the small of his back.

"Oh, my dear boy!" he murmured again.

Nothing could have made Walter Blake feel more virtuous and more courageous.

"The only honest and honourable thing," he insisted—"the only self-respecting thing for both."

"You convert the world to that, and I'll think about it."

"What do I care about the world? It's enough for me to know what I think and feel about it. And I've no shadow of doubt."

His face flushed a little and he spoke rather heatedly.

"I wouldn't interfere with your convictions for the world, and, as I'm a bachelor, I don't mind them." He was looking at Blake rather keenly now, wondering what made the young man take the subject so much to heart. "But if I were you I'd keep them in the theoretical stage, I think."

He laughed again, and turned to light a cigar. Blake was smoking too, one cigarette after another, quickly and nervously. Caylesham looked down on him with a good-humoured smile. He liked young Blake in a half-contemptuous fashion, and would have been sorry to see him make a fool of himself out and out.

"I'm not going to ask you any questions," he said, "though I may have an idea about you in my head. But I'm pretty nearly twenty years older than you, I fancy, and I've knocked about a good bit, and I'll tell you one or two plain truths. When you talk like that, you assume that these things last. Well, in nine cases out of ten, they don't. I don't say that's nice, or amiable, or elevated, or anything else. I didn't make human nature, and I don't particularly admire it. But there it is—in nine cases out of ten, you know. And if you think you know a case that's the tenth——"

This was exactly what Blake was sure he did know.

"Yes, what then?" he asked defiantly.

"Well," answered Caylesham slowly, "you be jolly sure first before you act on that impression. You be jolly well sure first—that's all." He paused and laughed. "That's not moral advice, or I wouldn't set up to give it. But it's a prudential consideration."

"And if you are sure?"

"Sure for both, I mean, you know."

"Yes, sure for both."

"Well, then you're in such a bad way that you'd better pack up and go to the Himalayas or somewhere like that without an hour's delay, because nothing else'll save you, you know."

Blake laughed rather contemptuously.

"After all, there have been cases——"

"Perhaps—but I don't like such long odds."

"Well, we've had your gospel. Now let's hear how it's worked in your case. Are you satisfied with that, Caylesham?"

He spoke with a sneer that did not escape Caylesham's notice. It drew another smile from him.

"That's a home question—I didn't question you as straight as that. Well, I'll tell you. I won't pretend to feel what I don't feel; I'll tell you as truly as I can." He paused a moment. "I've had lots of fun," he went on. "I've always had plenty of money; I've never had any work to do; and I took my fun—lots of it. I didn't expect to get it for nothing, and I haven't got it for nothing. Sometimes I got it cheap, and sometimes, one way and another, it mounted to a very stiff figure. But I didn't shirk settling day; and if there are any more settling days, I won't shirk them if I can help it. I don't think I've got anything to complain about." He put his cigar back into his mouth. "No, I don't think I have," he ended, twisting the cigar between his teeth.

What a contempt for him young Blake had! Was ever man so ignorant of his true self? Was ever man so sunk in degradation and so utterly unconscious of it? Caylesham could look back on a life spent as his had been—could look back from the middle-age to which he had now come, and find nothing much amiss with it! Blake surveyed his grovelling form from high pedestals of courage and of wisdom—absolutely of virtue pure and undefiled.

"Nothing very ideal about that!"

"Good Lord, no! You wanted the truth, didn't you?"

"Well, I suppose I thought like that once—I was contented with that once."

"You certainly used to give the impression of bearing up under it," smiled Caylesham. "But things are changed now, are they?"

"Yes, thank God! Imagine going on like that all your life!"

Caylesham threw himself into a chair with a hearty laugh.

"Now we've gone just as far as we can with discretion," he declared.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Blake rather angrily.

"Well, I'm not an idiot, am I, as well as a moral deformity?"

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Yes, but I know what you've been talking about, Blake. I know it all except one thing—and that I don't propose to ask."

Blake rose with a sulky air and tossed away the end of his cigarette.

"And what's that?"

"The lady's name, my boy," said Caylesham placidly.

This talk was fuel to Blake's flame. It showed him the alternative—the only alternative. (He forgot that suggestion about the Himalayas, which did not, perhaps, deserve to be forgotten.) And the alternative was hideous to him now—hideous in its loss of all nobility, of all the ideal, in its cynically open-eyed acceptance of what was low and base. He would have come to that but for Sibylla. But for him, even Sibylla—Sibylla mated to Grantley—might have come to it also. It was from such a fate as this that they must rescue one another. One wise decision, one courageous stroke, and the thing was done. Very emotional, very exalted, he contrasted with the life Caylesham had led the life he and Sibylla were to lead. Could any man hesitate? With a new impetus and with louder self-applause he turned to his task of persuading Sibylla to the decisive step.

Part of the work was accomplished. Sibylla had cast Grantley out of her heart; she disclaimed and denied both her love and her obligation to him. The harder part remained: that had been half done in her vigil by the baby's cot. But it was ever in danger of being undone again. A cry from the boy's lips, the trustful clinging of his arms from day to day, fought against Blake. Only in those gusts of unnatural feeling, those spasms of repugnance born of her misery, was she in heart away from the child. On these Blake could not rely, nor did he seek to, since to speak of them brought her to instant remorse; but, left to be brooded over in silence, they might help him yet. He trusted his old weapons more—his need of her love and her need to give it. Caylesham's life gave him a new instance and added strength to his argument. He told her of the man, though not the man's name, sketching the life and the state of mind it brought a man to.

"That was my life till you came," he said. "That was what was waiting for me. Am I to go back to that?"

He could attack her on another side too.

"And will you lead the sort of life that man has made women live? Is that fit for you? You can see what it would do to you. You would get like what he's like. You would come down to his level. First you'd share his lies and his intrigues, perforce, while you hated them. Gradually you'd get to hate them less and less: they'd become normal, habitual, easy; they'd become natural. At last you'd see little harm in them. The only harm or hurt at last would be discovery, and you'd get cunning in avoiding that. Think of you and me living that life—aye, till each of us loathed the other as well as loathing ourselves. Is that what you mean?"

"Not that, anyhow not that," she said in a low voice, her eyes wide open and fixed questioningly on him.

"If not that and not the other, what then? Am I to go away?" But he put Caylesham's alternative in no sincerity. He put it to her only that she might thrust it away. If she did not, he would spurn it himself. "And where should I go? Back to where I came from—back to that life?"

She could not tell him to go away, nor to go back to that life. She sat silent, picturing what his life and what her own life would be through all the years, the lifelong years, when even the boy's love would be bitterness, and she could have a friend in nobody because of the great sad secret which would govern all her life.

"I can't tell you. I can't decide to-day."

Again and again she had told him that, fighting against the final and the irrevocable.

But Blake was urgent now, wrought up to an effort, very full of his theories and his aspirations, full too of a rude natural impatience which he called by many alien names, deceiving his very soul that he might have his heart's desire, and have it without let or hindrance. He launched his last argument, a last cruel argument, whose cruelty seemed justice to a mind absorbed in its own selfishness. But she had eyes for no form of selfishness save Grantley's. To ask all did not seem selfishness to her; it was asking nothing or too little that she banned.

"You've gone too far," he told her. "You can't turn back now. Look what you've done to me since you came into my life. Think what you've taught me to hope and believe—how you've let me count on you. You've no right to think of the difficulties or the distress now. You ought to have thought of all that long ago."

It was true, terribly true, that she ought to have thought of all that before. Was it true that she had lost the right to arrest her steps and the power to turn back?

"You're committed to it. You're bound by more than honour, by more than love. You'll be untrue to everybody in turn if you falter now."

It was a clever plea to urge on a distracted mind. Where decision is too difficult, there lies desperate comfort in being convinced that it is already taken, that facts have shaped it, and previous actions irrevocably committed the harassed heart.

"You've made my love for you my whole life. You knew you were doing it. You did it with full knowledge of what it meant. I say you can't draw back now."

He had worked himself up to a pitch of high excitement. There was nothing wanting in his manner to enforce his words. His case was very exceptional indeed to him; and so it seemed to her—believing in his love because of the love she had herself to give, yearning to satisfy the hunger she had caused, to make happy the life which depended utterly on her for joy.

The long fight, first against Grantley, latterly against herself, had worn and almost broken her. She had no power left for a great struggle against her lover now. Her weariness served his argument well. It cried out to her to throw herself into the arms which were so eagerly ready for her. One way or the other anyhow the battle must be ended, or surely it would make an end of her.

But where was an end if she stayed with Grantley? That life was all struggle, and must be so long as it endured. Who could find rest on a flinty wall?

She was between that monstrous image she had made of her husband, and the shape which Blake presented to her as himself—far more alluring, not a whit less false. But for the falseness of either she had no eyes.

"I want your promise to-day," he said. "Your promise I know you will keep."

He had become quiet now. There was an air of grave purpose about him. The excitement and ardour had done their work with her; this succeeding mood, or manner (for he had lost all distinction between what he felt and what he made himself seem to feel), had its place, and was well calculated to complete his victory.

"I will send you my answer to-night," she said.

"It means all that I am—everything in the world to me. Remember that."

And he urged her no more, leaving with her these simple sincere-sounding words to plead for him.

That was what the answer meant to him. What would it mean to Grantley Imason? She asked herself that as she sat silent opposite to him at dinner. It chanced that they were alone, though of late she had schemed to avoid that. And to-night she could not speak to him, could say nothing at all, though his raised brows and satirical glance challenged her. Things might be uncomfortable, but why lose either your tongue or your manners, Grantley seemed to ask. You might have a grievance (Oh, real or imaginary, as you please!) against your husband, but why not converse on topics of the day with the gentleman at the other end of the table? He seemed to be able to do his part without any effort, without any difficulty to avoid open war, and yet never to commit himself to any proposition for peace. All through the years, thought Sibylla, he would go on suavely discussing the topics of the day, while life went by, and love and joy and all fair things withered from the face of the earth.

The servants disappeared, and Grantley's talk became less for public purposes.

"I wonder how old John has got on with Harriet Courtland!" he said in an amused way. "He was uncommonly plucky to face her. But, upon my word, the best thing from some points of view would be for him to fail. At least it would be the best if old Tom wasn't such a fool. But as soon as Tom sees a chance of getting rid of one woman, he saddles himself with another."

"Could he have got rid of Lady Harriet?"

"They might have arranged a separation. As it is, there'll be an open row, I'm afraid."

"Still if it puts an end to what's intolerable——?" she suggested, as she watched him drinking his coffee and smoking his cigarette with his delicate satisfaction in all things that were good.

"A very unpleasant way out," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Would you have endured what Mr. Courtland couldn't?"

He smiled across at her; the sarcastic note was strong in his voice as he asked:

"Do you think me an impatient man? Do you think I've no power of enduring what I don't like, Sibylla?"

She flushed a little under his look.

"It's true," he went on, "that I endure vulgarity worst of all; and Harriet Courtland's tantrums are very vulgar, as all tantrums are."

"Only tantrums? Aren't all emotions, all feelings, rather vulgar, Grantley?"

He thought a smile answer enough for that. It is no good arguing against absurd insinuations, or trying to show them up. Let them alone; in time they will die of their own absurdity.

"Grantley, would you rather I went away? Don't you find life unendurable like this?"

"I don't find it pleasant," he smiled; "but I would certainly rather you didn't go away. If you want a change for a few weeks, I'll endeavour to resign myself."

"I mean, go away altogether."

"No, no, I'm sure you don't mean anything so—— Forgive me, Sibylla, but now and then your suggestions are hard to describe with perfect courtesy."

She looked at him in a wondering way, but made no answer; and he too was silent for a minute.

"I think it would be a good thing," he went on, "if you and Frank betook yourselves to Milldean for a few weeks. I'm so busy that I can see very little of you here, and country air is good for nerves."

"Very well, we'll go in a day or two. You'll stay here?"

"Yes, I must. I'll try to get down now and then, and bring some cheerful people with me. Blake will come sometimes, I daresay. Jeremy won't till he's rich and famous, I'm afraid."

In spite of herself, it flashed across her that he was making her path very easy. And she wondered at the way he spoke of Blake, at his utter absence of suspicion. Her conscience moved a little at this.

"Yes, I'm sure you'll be better at Milldean," he went on; "and—and try to think things over while you're there."

It was his old attitude. He had nothing to think over—that task was all for her. The old resentment overcame her momentary shame at deceiving him.

"Are they so pleasant that I want to think them over?"

"I think you know what I mean; and in this connection I don't appreciate repartee for its own sake," said Grantley wearily, but with a polite smile.

A sudden impulse came upon her. She leant across towards him and said:

"Grantley, have you seen Frank to-day?"

"No, I haven't to-day."

"I generally go and sit by him for a little while at this time when I'm free. Did you know that?"

"I gathered it," said Grantley.

"You've never come with me, nor offered to."

"I'm not encouraged to volunteer things in my relations with you, Sibylla."

"Will you come with me now?" she asked.

She herself could not tell under what impulse she spoke—whether it were in hope that at the last he might change, in the hope of convincing herself that he would never change. She watched him very intently, as though much hung on the answer that he gave.

Grantley seemed to weigh his answer too, looking at his wife with searching eyes. There was a patch of red on his cheeks. Evidently what she had said stirred him, and his composure was maintained only by an effort. At last he spoke:

"I'm sorry not to do anything you ask or wish, but as matters are, I will not come and see Frank with you."

"Why not?" she asked in a quick half-whisper.

His eyes were very sombre as he answered her.

"When you remember that you're my wife, I'll remember that you're the mother of my son. Till then you are an honoured and welcome guest in this house or in any house of mine."

Their eyes met; both were defiant, neither showed a hint of yielding. Sibylla drew in her breath in a long inhalation.

"Very well, I understand," she said.

He rose from his chair.

"You're going upstairs now?" he suggested, as though about to open the door.

"I'm going, but I'm not going upstairs to-night," she answered as she rose. "I shall go and write a letter or two instead."

He bowed politely as she passed out of the room. Then he sat down at the table again and rested his head on both his hands. It took long—it took a very long while. She was hard to subdue. Hard it was too to subdue himself—to be always courteous, never more than permissibly ironical, to wait for his victory. Yet not a doubt crossed his mind that he was on the right track, that he must succeed in the end, that plain reason and good sense must win the day. But the fight was very long. His face looked haggard in the light as he sat alone by the table and told himself to persevere.

And Sibylla, confirmed in her despair, bitterly resentful of the terms he had proposed, seeing the hopelessness of her life, fearing to look on the face of her child lest the pain should rend her too pitilessly, sat down and wrote her answer to Walter Blake. The answer was the promise he had asked.

The images had done their work—hers of him and his of her—and young Blake's fancy picture of himself.