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"She gave me a kiss." With mortification Winifred saw his dark sardonic face relaxed. 'Yes! she thought, 'he cares for her, not for me a bit. Dartie's eyes were moving from side to side. "Does she know about me?" he said. It flashed through Winifred that here was the weapon she needed. He minded their knowing! "No. Val knows. The others don't; they only know you went away."
Despite the comfortable efforts of Emily, Winifred's composure, Imogen's enquiring friendliness, Dartie's showing-off, and James' solicitude about her food, it was not, Soames felt, a successful lunch for his bride. He took her away very soon. "That Monsieur Dartie," said Annette in the cab, "je n'aime pas ce type-la!" "No, by George!" said Soames.
Montague was Dartie's second and better known name his first being Moses; for he was nothing if not a man of the world. Her plan met with more opposition from Providence than so benevolent a scheme deserved. In the first place young Flippard wrote: 'DEAR Mrs. 'Awfully sorry. Engaged two deep. 'Yours, It was late to send into the by-ways and hedges to remedy this misfortune.
Winifred was due at four o'clock; he was to take her down to a conference in the Temple with Dreamer Q.C., and waiting for her he re-read the letter he had caused her to write the day of Dartie's departure, requiring him to return. "I have received your letter with the news that you have left me for ever and are on your way to Buenos Aires. It has naturally been a great shock.
He had employed Polteed's agency several times in the routine of his profession, even quite lately over Dartie's case, but he had never thought it possible to employ them to watch his own wife. It was too insulting to himself! He slept over that project and his wounded pride or rather, kept vigil. Only while shaving did he suddenly remember that she called herself by her maiden name of Heron.
Where was Soames? Why didn't he come in?... His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to drink, and saw his son standing there looking at him. A little sigh of relief escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he said: "There you are! Dartie's gone to Buenos Aires." Soames nodded. "That's all right," he said; "good riddance." A wave of assuagement passed over James' brain. Soames knew.
There are moments of disillusionment in the lives of men from which the sensitive recorder shrinks. Suffice it to say that the good thing fell down. Sleeve-links finished in the ruck. Dartie's shirt was lost. Between the passing of these things and the day when Soames turned his face towards Green Street, what had not happened!
Indeed, that celebrated animal, owned as he was by a pillar of the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands against him, had not even started. The forty-eight hours that followed his scratching were among the darkest in Dartie's life. Visions of James haunted him day and night. Black thoughts about Soames mingled with the faintest hopes.
Winifred was due at four o'clock; he was to take her down to a conference in the Temple with Dreamer Q.C., and waiting for her he re-read the letter he had caused her to write the day of Dartie's departure, requiring him to return. "I have received your letter with the news that you have left me for ever and are on your way to Buenos Aires. It has naturally been a great shock.
Annexed to the copy of that letter was the original of Dartie's drunken scrawl from the Iseeum Club. Soames could have wished it had not been so manifestly penned in liquor. Just the sort of thing the Court would pitch on. He seemed to hear the Judge's voice say: "You took this seriously! Seriously enough to write him as you did? Do you think he meant it?" Never mind!
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