r a moment.

"What rubbish! He hasn't seen her for eight or ten years."

"Since her marriage." Val shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, Val,
but I cannot see Hyde staying on at Wanhope out of cousinly
affection for Bernard Clowes. It must be a beastly uncomfortable
house to stay in. Nicely run and all that, and they do you very
well, but Bernard is distinctly an acquired taste. Oh, my dear
chap!" as Val's silence stiffened, "no one suggests that Laura's
ever looked at the fellow! But facts are facts, and Hyde is--
Hyde. I'm not a bit surprised to hear he has Jew blood in him,"
Rowsley continued, warming to the discussion: he was a much
keener judge of character that the tolerant and easy-going Val.
"That accounts for the arty strain in him. Yvonne says he's a
thorough musician, and Jack told me Lord Grantchester took to him
because he knew such a lot about pictures. Well, so he ought!
He's a Londoner. What does he know of the country? Only what
you pick up at a big country-house party or a big shoot! He's
not the sort of chap to stay on at Wanhope for the pleasure of
cheering up across-grained br--a fellow like Bernard. Yes, he's
talking of staying on indefinitely: is going to send to town for
one of his confounded cars. . . . And what other woman is there
in Chilmark that he'd walk across the road to look at?"

"I'm not sure you're fair to him."

Rowsley turned up to his brother an amused, rather sweet smile.
"Val, you'd pray for the devil?"

"Oh, Hyde isn't a devil! I came pretty close to him ten years
ago. He has a streak of generosity in him: no one knows that
better than I do, for I'm in his debt. What? Oh! no, not in
money matters: is that likely? But he's capable of . . .
magnanimity, one might call it," Stafford fastidiously felt after
precision: "no, he wouldn't pursue Laura; he wouldn't make her
life harder than it is already."

"He might propose to make it easier." Rowsley threw a daisy at a
cockchafer and missed it. "You and I are sons of a parsonage.
We shouldn't run off with a married lady because it would be
against our principles." His thin brown features were twisted
into a faint grimace. Rowsley, like Val, possessed a satirical
sense of humour, and gave it freer play than Val did. "It's so
difficult to shake off early prejudices. When Fowler and I were
at the club the other day, we met a horrid little sweep who waxed
confidential. I said I couldn't make love to a married woma