“I cannot fault your young friend’s logic,” he said cheerfully. “But the political art uses negotiation and compromise rather than logic. The question is not whether the British Empire makes sense, but whether men can live together in it. That’s the thing. I am still hopeful that we can, and I trust you will be too.”

It was in a happier mood that James walked back from the Strand to Piccadilly. Turning up into Mayfair and arriving at the house, he was let in by the butler, who informed him that his wife had a lady visitor, and that they were in the small drawing room. Ascending the stairs, James came to the drawing-room door, and was just about to let himself in when he heard his wife’s voice.

“I can scarcely bear it. Every day under this roof has become a torture.”

“It cannot be so bad,” he heard the visitor say gently.

“It is. I am trapped in a marriage with a colonial. A colonial who wants to drag me to his cursed colony. I tremble that if we go there he might want to stay.”

“Stay in America, when he has the chance to live in London? I cannot think it.”

“You do not know him. You cannot imagine what he’s like.”

“You told me that as a husband he is …”

“Oh, I do not complain of his manhood. For a time I even loved him, I think. But now … I cannot bear his touch.”

“These things are not so uncommon in a marriage. They may pass.”

“They will not. Oh, how could I have been such a fool, to trap myself with him? And all because of his cursed child.”

“Do not say such things, Vanessa. Does he know your feelings?”

“He? The colonial? Know? He knows nothing.”

James turned silently from the door. He knows now, he thought grimly. Going downstairs, he told the butler that there was no need to mention to his wife that he had been there, because he had just remembered that he had an errand to run. He did not return for over an hour.

In the year that followed, James went about his business as usual. He watched carefully for signs from his wife—either of the loathing she had concealed, or of any improvement in her feelings toward him. He could detect neither. Knowing her feelings kept him, for the most part, from her bed, and she made no complaint of this. Occasionally she gave indications that she expected his attentions, and as she was an attractive woman, and he a vigorous man, he was able to satisfy her when she wished. For the rest, he patronized a certain discreet establishment in Mayfair where the girls were reputed to be clean. And truth to tell, he sometimes wondered if he would even keep up the miserable pretense of his marriage, if it were not for little Weston.