Michael had recoiled before the passion in this outburst, and was standing miserable and glum.
‘Symbol,’ he muttered.
‘Symbol! For conduct that’s worth standing for, honesty, humanity, courage, I hope I’d stand; I went through with the war, anyway; but why should I stand for what I look on as dead wood?’
‘It simply mustn’t come out,’ said Michael violently. ‘I loathe the idea of a lot of swabs looking down their noses at you.’
Wilfrid shrugged. ‘I look down my nose at myself, I assure you. Never stifle your instinct, Michael.’
‘But what are you going to do?’
‘What does it matter what I do? Things will be as they will be. Nobody will understand, or side with me if they did understand. Why should they? I don’t even side with myself.’
‘I think lots of people might nowadays.’
‘The sort I wouldn’t be seen dead with. No, I’m outcast.’
‘And Dinny?’
‘I’ll settle that with her.’
Michael took up his hat.
‘If there’s anything I can do, count on me. Good night, old man!’
‘Good night, and thanks!’
Michael was out of the street before any thinking power returned to him. Wilfrid had been caught, as it were, in a snare! One could see how his rebellious contempt for convention and its types had blinded him to the normal view. But one could not dissociate this or that from the general image of an Englishman: betrayal of one feature would be looked on as betrayal of the whole. As for that queer touch of compassion for his would-be executioner, who would see that who didn’t know Wilfrid? The affair was bitter and tragic. The ‘yellow’ label would be stuck on indiscriminately for all eyes to see.
‘Of course,’ thought Michael, ‘he’ll have his supporters – egomaniacs, and Bolshies, and that’ll make him feel worse than ever.’ Nothing was more galling than to be backed up by people you didn’t understand, and who didn’t understand you. And how was support like that going to help Dinny, more detached from it even than Wilfrid? The whole thing was –!
And with that blunt reflection he crossed Bond Street and went down Hay Hill into Berkeley Square. If he did not see his father before he went home, he would not sleep.
At Mount Street his mother and father were receiving a special pale negus, warranted to cause slumber, from the hands of Blore.
‘Catherine?’ said Lady Mont: ‘Measles?’
‘No, Mother; I want to have a talk with Dad.’
‘About that young man – changin’ his religion. He always gave me a pain – defyin’ the lightnin’, and that.’
Michael stared. ‘It is about Wilfrid.’
‘Em,’ said Sir Lawrence, ‘this is dead private. Well, Michael?’
‘The story’s true; he doesn’t and won’t deny it. Dinny knows.’
‘What story?’ asked Lady Mont.
‘He recanted to some fanatical Arabs on pain of death.’
‘What a bore!’
Michael thought swiftly: ‘My God! If only everyone would take that view!’
‘D’you mean, then,’ said Sir Lawrence, gravely, ‘that I’ve got to tell Yule there’s no defence?’
Michael nodded.
‘But if so, dear boy, it won’t stop there.’
‘No, but he’s reckless.’
‘The lightnin’,’ said Lady Mont, suddenly.
‘Exactly, Mother. He’s written a poem on it, and a jolly good one it is. He’s sending it in a new volume to his publisher tomorrow. But, Dad, at any rate, get Yule and Jack Muskham to keep their mouths shut. After all, what business is it of theirs?’
Sir Lawrence shrugged the thin shoulders which at seventy-two were only beginning to suggest age.
‘There are two questions, Michael, and so far as I can see they’re quite separate. The first is how to muzzle club gossip. The second concerns Dinny and her people. You say Dinny knows; but her people don’t, except ourselves; and as she didn’t tell us, she won’t tell them. Now that’s not fair. And it’s not wise,’ he went on without waiting for an answer, ‘because this thing’s dead certain to come out later, and they’d never forgive Desert for marrying her without letting them know. I wouldn’t myself, it’s too serious.’
‘Agitatin’,’ murmured Lady Mont. ‘Ask Adrian.’
‘Better Hilary,’ said Sir Lawrence.
Michael broke in: ‘That second question, Dad, seems to me entirely up to Dinny. She must be told that the story’s in the wind, then either she or Wilfrid will let her people know.’