mere existence of Gerald Scales was a menace to her.  But it was the simple impact of the blow that affected her supremely, beyond ulterior things.  One might have pictured fate as a cowardly brute who had struck this ageing woman full in the face, a felling blow, which however had not felled her.  She staggered, but she stuck on her legs.  It seemed a shame—­one of those crude, spectacular shames which make the blood boil—­that the gallant, defenceless creature should be so maltreated by the bully, destiny.

“Oh, Sophia!” Constance moaned.  “What trouble is this?”

Sophia’s lip curled with a disgusted air.  Under that she hid her suffering.

She had not seen him for thirty-six years.  He must be over seventy years of age, and he had turned up again like a bad penny, doubtless a disgrace!  What had he been doing in those thirty-six years?  He was an old, enfeebled man now!  He must be a pretty sight!  And he lay at Manchester, not two hours away!

Whatever feelings were in Sophia’s heart, tenderness was not among them.  As she collected her wits from the stroke, she was principally aware of the sentiment of fear.  She recoiled from the future.

“What shall you do?” Constance asked.  Constance was weeping.

Sophia tapped her foot, glancing out of the window.

“Shall you go to see him?” Constance continued.

“Of course,” said Sophia.  “I must!”

She hated the thought of going to see him.  She flinched from it.  She felt herself under no moral obligation to go.  Why should she go?  Gerald was nothing to her, and had no claim on her of any kind.  This she honestly believed.  And yet she knew that she must go to him.  She knew it to be impossible that she should not go.

“Now?” demanded Constance.

Sophia nodded.

“What about the trains? ...  Oh, you poor dear!” The mere idea of the journey to Manchester put Constance out of her wits, seeming a business of unparalleled complexity and difficulty.

“Would you like me to come with you?”

“Oh no!  I must go by myself.”

Constance was relieved by this.  They could not have left the servant in the house alone, and the idea of shutting up the house without notice or preparation presented itself to Constance as too fantastic.

By a common instinct they both descended to the parlour.

“Now, what about a time-table?  What about a time-table?” Constance mumbled on the stairs.  She wiped her eyes resolutely.  “I wonder whatever in this world has brought him at last to that Mr. Boldero’s in Deansgate?” she asked the walls.

As they came into the parlour, a great motor-car drove up before the door, and when the pulsations of its engine had died away, Dick Povey hobbled from the driver’s seat to the pavement.  In an instant he was hammering at the door in his lively style.  There was no avoiding him.  The door had to be opened.  Sophia opened it.  Dick Povey was over forty, but he looked considerably younger.  Despite his lameness, and the fact that his lameness tended to induce corpulence, he had a dashing air, and his face, with its short, light moustache, was boyish.  He seemed to be always upon some joyous adventure.