could make the outlook anything but unpromising.  If he had not had such diabolical luck in his few investments he could have lived his own life.  As it was, old Vanderpoel would possibly condescend to make him some insufficient allowance because Rosalie would wish that it might be done, and he would be expected to drag out to the end the kind of life a man pensioned by his wife’s relatives inevitably does.  If he attempted to live in the country he should blow out his brains.  When his depression was at its worst, he saw himself aging and shabby, rambling about from one cheap Continental town to another, blackballed by good clubs, cold-shouldered even by the Teresitas, cut off from society by his limited means and the stories his wife’s friends would spread.  He ground his teeth when he thought of Betty.  Her splendid vitality had done something to life for him—­had given it savour.  When he had come upon her in the avenue his blood had stirred, even though it had been maliciously, and there had been spice in his very resentment of her presence.  And she would go away.  He would not be likely to see her again if his wife broke with him; she would be swept out of his days.  It was hideous to think of, and his rage would overpower him and his nerves go to pieces again.

“What are you going to do?” he broke forth suddenly one evening, when he found himself temporarily alone with her.  “You are going to do something.  I see it in your eyes.”

He had been for some time watching her from behind his newspaper, while she, with an unread book upon her lap, had, in fact, been thinking deeply and putting to herself serious questions.

Her answer made him stir rather uncomfortably.

“I am going to write to my father to ask him to come to England.”

So this was what she had been preparing to spring upon him.  He laughed insolently.

“To ask him to come here?”

“With your permission.”

“With mine?  Does an American father-in-law wait for permission?”

“Is there any practical reason why you should prefer that he should not come?”

He left his seat and walked over to her.

“Yes.  Your sending for him is a declaration of war.”

“It need not be so.  Why should it?”

“In this case I happen to be aware that it is.  The choice is your own, I suppose,” with ready bravado, “that you and he are prepared to face the consequences.  But is Rosalie, and is your mother?”

“My father is a business man and will know what can be done.  He will know what is worth doing,” she answered, without noticing his question.  “But,” she added the words slowly, “I have been making up my mind—­before I write to him—­to say something to you—­to ask you a question.”

He made a mock sentimental gesture.

“To ask me to spare my wife, to ’remember that she is the mother of my child’?”

She passed over that also.