‘Grampians.’

‘Yes, I thought so.’ And she continued to gaze, with the expression of someone who would say, I am not quite such a fool as you think, but I will be patient with you as my mind is on higher things.

She might be all right in emergencies, thought Archie, but how Hew endured six years of uneventful ideal marriage with such a woman passed his comprehension. Six years of it, then Hew went off. No man could have left his wife more considerately, getting himself parachuted into occupied France and not till after the Liberation sending her evidence for a divorce. But all she did with the evidence was to grab 209at Hew’s address and pester him with Martin. Martin must not be allowed to feel himself unwanted, Martin must not be deprived of a father, etc. Hew was an ass to give in to her. Martin had almost forgotten him, and if Hew had held out a little longer he would have got over his craving for the boy. As it was, Hew went off to Clovie Shaws, and lived with the Baxters, a bachelor for eleven months in the year and a father during the other month. It was no way for a healthy normal man to live. For that matter, Veronica was a healthy normal woman, and couldn’t have found living like a widow much fun. Now, however, she was a widow in fact.

Catching his speculative glance, she said like a Mother Confessor, ‘Well, Archie? What is it?’

‘Now that Hew’s dead—now that you needn’t have any more of those feelings about marriage being indissoluble, and whom God has joined, and all that sort of thing—do you suppose you’ll marry again, Veronica? Would you like to, I mean?’

She coloured. It was not a blush, nothing so impulsive. It was a slow gratified pink, blooming like a rose among her white draperies. Good God! She’d got her eye on someone already!

‘I have my Martin, Archie.’

But it had taken her two telegraph posts to remember that she had her Martin. No wonder she’s dressed up like a bride for her husband’s funeral, thought Archie. The whited sepulchre! Probably the next one will be some Bishop or other, and she’ll marry him in pink. When this natural effervescence of dislike had blown off, a residual Archie 210with more compunction thought, Poor wretch! She’s been keeping herself waiting all these years.