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The inflexion of Lady Ingleton's voice at that moment made Dion think of Mrs. Chetwinde. Once or twice Mrs. Chetwinde's voice had sounded almost exactly like that when she had spoken of Mrs. Clarke. "Especially people who are innocent," he said. "Naturally, as Cynthia was. Beadon Clarke made a terrible mistake, poor fellow."
He avoided going to places where he thought he might meet her: to Esme Darlington's, to Mrs. Chetwinde's, to one or two other houses which she frequented; he even gave up visiting Jenkins's gymnasium because he knew she continued to go there regularly with Jimmy Clarke, whom, since the divorce case, with his father's consent, she had taken away from school and given to the care of a tutor.
His remembrance of her tragedy made him feel that hers was the one house into which he could enter that night. As he walked into the drawing-room he recollected walking into Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room, full of interest in the woman who was in sanctuary, but who was soon to be delivered up, stripped by a man of the law's horrible allegations, to the gaping crowd.
"I know how frank and sincere you always are, Dion," she said gently. "I try to be. You remember that party at Mrs. Chetwinde's where you sang? You met Mrs. Clarke that night." "Of course I remember. We had quite an interesting talk." "She's clever. Lord Brayfield was there, too, that night, a fair man. "I saw him. He wasn't introduced to me." "Brayfield was shot in the war. Did you know it?"
"However," Daventry concluded, "there's something fine about her persistence; and of course a guilty woman would never dare to go back, even after an acquittal." "No," said Dion, thinking of the way his hand had been held in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room. "I suppose not." "I wonder when Rosamund will get to know her," said Daventry, with perhaps a slightly conscious carelessness.
Chetwinde's drawing-room, till the moment, just past, when he had said to her, "You are free." And he knew that from the first moment when she had seen him she had made up her mind that some day he should be her lover.
"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?"
"You remember several months ago the tragedy of a man called Dion Leith, who fought in the South African War, came home and almost immediately after his return killed his only son by mistake out shooting?" "Yes. You knew him, I think you said. He was married to that beautiful Rosamund Everard who used to sing. I heard her once at Tippie Chetwinde's.
Clarke was innocent, but, as he looked into Rosamund's honest brown eyes, he thought that Mrs. Clarke must have been singularly imprudent. He remembered how she had held his hand in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room. Wisdom and unwisdom; he compared them: the one was a builder up, the other a destroyer of beauty the beauty that is in every completely sane and perfectly poised life.
Chetwinde's drawing-room on this Sunday afternoon, of something poignant almost, though lightly veiled with the sparkling gossamer which serves to conceal undue angularities, something which just hinted at tragedy confronted with courage, at the attempted stab and the raised shield of affection. Here Mrs. Clarke was in sanctuary. He glanced towards her again with a deepening interest.
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