“Yes.  I don’t mind.  Rosamund will be asleep, I think.  She goes to bed early now.”

“When will it be?”

“Very soon, I suppose; perhaps in ten days or so.”

Daventry was silent.  He wanted and meant to talk about his own affairs, but he hesitated to begin.  Something in the night was making him feel very small and very great.  Dion gave him a lead by saying: 

“D’you mind my asking you something about the Clarke case?”

“Anything you like.  I’ll answer if I may.”

“Do you believe Mrs. Clarke to be guilty or innocent?”

“Oh, innocent!” exclaimed Daventry, with unusual warmth.

“And does Bruce Evelin?”

“I believe so.  I assume so.”

“I noticed that, while I was listening to you both, he never expressed any opinion, or gave any hint of what his opinion was on the point.”

“I feel sure he thinks her innocent,” said Daventry, still almost with heat.  “Not that it much matters,” he added, in a less prejudiced voice.  “The point is, we must prove her to be innocent whether she is nor not.  I happen to feel positive she is.  She isn’t the least the siren type of woman, though men like her.”

“What type is she?”

“The intellectual type.  Not a blue-stocking!  God forbid!  I couldn’t defend a blue-stocking.  But she’s a woman full of taste, who cares immensely for fine and beautiful things, for things that appeal to the eye and the mind.  In that way, perhaps, she’s almost a sensualist.  But, in any other way!  I want you to know her.  She’s a very interesting woman.  Esme Darlington says her perceptions are exquisite.  Mrs. Chetwinde’s backing her up for all she’s worth.”

“Then she believes her to be innocent too, of course.”

“Of course.  Come with me to Mrs. Chetwinde’s next Sunday afternoon.  She’ll be there.”

“On a night like this, doesn’t a divorce case seem preposterous?”

“Well, you have the tongue of the flatterer!”—­he looked up—­“But perhaps it does, even when it’s Mrs. Clarke’s.”

“Are you in love with Mrs. Clarke?”

“Deeply, because she’s my first client in a cause celebre.”

“Have you forgotten her book again?”

“Her book?  ‘The Kasidah’?  I’ve got it here.”

He tapped the capacious side pocket of his coat.

“You saw it then?” he added.

“Beattie had it when I went upstairs.”

“I wonder what she made of it,” Daventry said, with softness in his voice.  “Don’t ever let Rosamund see it, by the way.  It’s anything rather than Christian.  Mrs. Clarke gets hold of everything, dives into everything.  She’s got an unresting mind.”

They had come to the edge of the Serpentine, on which there lay an ethereal film of baby ice almost like frosted gauze.  The leafless trees, with their decoration of filigree, suggested the North and its peculiar romance—­nature trailing away into the mighty white solitudes where the Pole star reigns over fields of ice.