It might have been wrong, quite easily could have been false a thousand times, but it was knowledge to her, sure, fateful, undeniable knowledge; and from that day her instinct was keyed to find its proof.  The cancerous disease of jealousy had dropped its first seed in the blood of her, and the vulturous growth began to spread its lean, clutching fingers about her heart.

“My sister’s not hitting it off with her husband,” Traill told her, that afternoon as they drove back to London.

“Is that what she was telling you when I went upstairs to take off my hat?” asked Sally.

“Yes.”

“That was why you kissed her?”

“Exactly; did you see me kissing her?”

“Yes, when I came into the room.”

“Yes; well, that’s it.  I always thought Durlacher was a fool,” he added meditatively.  “Used to tell her so before she married him.  What in the name of God can you expect of a guardsman?  He’s one of those men who just lives through life—­taking all, giving nothing.  I doubt if the rotting of his body will be manure for the earth when he dies.  He’d sell it if it were.”

Sally closed her eyes, then opened them suddenly to study his face.  Such stray phrases as these that fell from his lips always kept the knowledge in her mind of how hard he was.

“Has he been unkind to her?” she hazarded.  She forced a spurious interest to please him.

“She says not—­but then—­she doesn’t know.  It’s perhaps as well that she doesn’t.  My experience of divorce leads me to see that it’s a dog’s game; mountains are made out of molehills to weight the case one way or another, and he could probably retaliate with a lot of half-truths, quite unprovable; but the mere mentioning of them in the courts would leave a stain on her.  No, it’s perhaps as well that she doesn’t know as much as I do.  She just thinks they don’t get on and a patch can settle a thing like that.  Lord!  The number of people nowadays who pull along all right, with marriage lines that are unrecognizable from their original condition because of the patches here and the patches there—­why, they’re legion!”

“Are you going to do anything about it?” she asked.

“Me?  Oh, I suppose I shall have to be a sort of go-between.  She’s my sister, and as far as I can see, she’s pretty miserable.”

On this account, then, began his first visits to Sloane Street.  There, the actors in this little play went through their parts—­well trained, well rehearsed.  There was never a note of the prompter’s voice to reach the ears of Traill from the wings.  He listened quietly, sympathetically to her tardy admission of the state of affairs.  Three times he went to Sloane Street in the afternoon before he was placed in possession of all the subtle details and never once did he meet Durlacher.  Durlacher, himself, was always away.  It must be admitted that Traill was interested in these intricate details.  They gave him insight into the vagaries, the pitfalls and the fallacies of the life with which he had to deal in the divorce courts.  Undoubtedly they were of service to him; undoubtedly, moreover, blood is thicker than water, and he thought, he imagined, that he would be able to save his sister from an impending crisis.