Howat gave Caroline the vigorous stamp of his brotherly approval.  “She understands a lot, for a girl,” he admitted.  “Of course Myrtle’s a particular peach, but I’d never go to her if a buckle—­” he stopped abruptly as Myrtle appeared at David’s side.  “Isn’t he industrious?” she said indifferently.  “You’d never guess how father’s at him.  Have you heard, Howat—­Mrs. Winscombe will be here perhaps a month.  It’s a wonder you haven’t gone away, you are so frightfully annoyed by people.  Last night you were with her over an hour on the lawn.  I could see that father thought it queer; but I explained to him that court women never thought of little things like, well, husbands.”

Howat gazed at her coldly, for the first time conscious that he actually disliked Myrtle.  He made up his mind, definitely, to assist Caroline as far as possible.  She was absurd, criticizing Mrs. Winscombe.  “Where,” he demanded, “did you get all that about courts?  And your sudden, tender interest in husbands?  That’s new, too.  You’re not thinking of one for yourself, are you?  He’d never see you down in the morning.”

A bright, angry colour flooded her cheeks.  “You are as coarse as possible,” she declared.  “I’m sure I wish you’d stay away altogether from Myrtle Forge; you’ve never been anything but a bother.”  She left abruptly.  “Sweet disposition.”  Howat grinned.  “You are seeing family life as it’s actually lived.”  Later his thoughts returned to what she had said about Ludowika Winscombe; he recalled the latter’s speech, seated on the doorstep; some stuff about a premonition.  Myrtle had suggested that he was interested in her.  What ridiculous nonsense!  If his father said anything on that score the other would discover that he was no longer a boy.  Besides, such insinuations were a breach of hospitality.  How Mrs. Winscombe would laugh at them if she suspected Myrtle’s cheap folly.

She had asked him to call her Ludowika.  He decided that he would; really he couldn’t get out of it now.  It would do no harm.  Ludowika!  It was a nice name; undoubtedly Polish.  He thought again about what she had said of Polish forests, the dissatisfaction that had followed her for so many years.  A lover at fourteen.  A surprising sentence formed of itself in his brain.—­She had never had a chance.  That pasty court life had spoiled her.  It had no significance for himself; he was simply revolving a slightly melancholy fact.

Felix Winscombe was a sere figure, yet he was extraordinarily full of a polished virility, rapier-like.  Howat could see the dark, satirical face shadowed by the elaborate wig, the rigid figure in precise, foppish dress.  He heard Winscombe’s slightly harsh, dominant voice.  His position in England was, he knew, secure, high.  Ludowika had been very sensible in marrying him.  That was the way, Howat Penny told himself, that marriage should be consummated.  He would never marry.  David Schwar appeared with a sheaf of papers, which he himself proceeded to docket, and Howat left the counting room.