He shot a quick glance at her.

‘Of course there are–well–details.’

‘I ought to know everything, don’t you think, if I am to help?’

He looked at her strangely.

‘What makes you think I want you to help?’

She was a little astonished.

‘My dear Richard, I’m your wife.’

He smiled suddenly, the old, attractive, carefree smile.

‘So you are, Theo. And a very good-looking wife, too. I never could stand ugly women.’

He began walking up and down the room, as was his custom when something was worrying him.

‘I won’t deny you’re right in a way,’ he said presently. ‘There is something.’

He broke off.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s so damned hard to explain things of this kind to women. They get hold of the wrong end of the stick–fancy a thing is–well, what it isn’t.’

Theo said nothing.

‘You see,’ went on Richard, ‘the law’s one thing, and right and wrong are quite another. I may do a thing that’s perfectly right and honest, but the law wouldn’t take the same view of it. Nine times out of ten, everything pans out all right, and the tenth time you–well, hit a snag.’

Theo began to understand. She thought to herself: ‘Why am I not surprised? Did I always know, deep down, that he wasn’t straight?’

Richard went on talking. He explained himself at unnecessary lengths. Theo was content for him to cloak the actual details of the affair in this mantle of verbosity. The matter concerned a large tract of South African property. Exactly what Richard had done, she was not concerned to know. Morally, he assured her, everything was fair and above board; legally–well, there it was; no getting away from the fact, he had rendered himself liable to criminal prosecution.

He kept shooting quick glances at his wife as he talked. He was nervous and uncomfortable. And still he excused himself and tried to explain away that which a child might have seen in its naked truth. Then finally in a burst of justification, he broke down. Perhaps Theo’s eyes, momentarily scornful, had something to do with it. He sank down in a chair by the fireplace, his head in his hands.

‘There it is, Theo,’ he said brokenly, ‘What are you going to do about it?’

She came over to him with scarcely a moment’s pause and, kneeling down by the chair, put her face against his.

‘What can be done, Richard? What can we do?’

He caught her to him.

‘You mean it? You’ll stick to me?’

‘Of course. My dear, of course.’

He said, moved to sincerity in spite of himself: ‘I’m a thief, Theo. That’s what it means, shorn of fine language–just a thief.’

‘Then I’m a thief ’s wife, Richard. We’ll sink or swim together.’