Dodo hesitated.
"You are sure you aren't thinking of anyone in my case—of Jack, for instance?" she suddenly said.
Mrs. Vivian did not answer for a moment. Then she said,—
"Dodo, I am going to be very frank with you. He is an instance—in a way. I don't mean to suppose for a moment that Chesterford is jealous of him, in fact, I know he can't be—it isn't in him; but he is a good instance of the sort of thing that makes you tend to neglect your husband."
"But you don't think he is an instance in particular?" demanded Dodo. "I don't mean to bind myself in any way, but I simply want to know."
Mrs. Vivian went straight to the point:
"That is a question which you can only decide for yourself," she said. "I cannot pretend to judge."
Dodo smiled.
"Then I will decide for myself," she said. "You see, Jack is never dull. I daresay you may think him so, but I don't. He always manages to amuse me, and, on the whole, the more I am amused the less bored I get in the intervals. He tides me over the difficult places. I allow they are difficult."
"Ah, that is exactly what you mustn't allow," said Mrs. Vivian. "You don't seem to realise any possible deficiency in yourself."
"Oh, yes, I do," said Dodo, as if she was announcing the most commonplace fact in the world. "I know I am deficient. I don't appreciate devotion, I don't appreciate the quality that makes one gaze and gaze, as it says in the hymn. It is rather frog-like that gazing; what do you call it—batrachian. Now, Maud is batrachian. I daresay it is a very high quality, but I don't quite live up to it. There are, of course, heaps of excellent things one doesn't live up to, like the accounts of the Stock Exchange in the Times. I fully understand that the steadiness of stockings makes a difference to somebody, only it doesn't make any difference to me."
"Dodo, you are incorrigible," said Mrs. Vivian, laughing in spite of herself. "I give you up—only, do the best you can. I believe, in the main, you agree with me. And now I must be off. You said Lord Chesterford wished to see me. I suppose he is downstairs."
"I think I shall come too," said Dodo.
So they went down together. Lord Chesterford was in his study.
"Do you know what Mrs. Vivian has been saying to me?" remarked Dodo placidly, as she laid her hand on his shoulder. "She has been telling me I do not love you enough—isn't she ridiculous?"
Mrs. Vivian for the moment was nonplussed, but she recovered herself quickly.
"Dodo is very naughty to-day," she said. "She misconstrues everything I say."
"I don't think it's likely you said that," said he, capturing Dodo's hand, "because it isn't true."
"I am certainly de trop," murmured Mrs. Vivian, turning to go.
Dodo's hand lay unresistingly in his.
"She has been so good and brave," said Lord Chesterford to Mrs. Vivian, "she makes me feel ashamed."
Mrs. Vivian felt an immense admiration for him.
"I said you deserved a very great deal," she said, putting out her hand to him. "I must go, my carriage has been waiting an hour."
He retained Dodo's hand, and they saw her to the door.
The footman met them in the hall.
"Mr. Broxton wants to know whether you can see him, my lady," he said to Dodo.
"Would you like to see Jack?" she asked Chesterford.
"I would rather you told him you can't," he said.
"Of course I will," she answered. She turned to the footman. "Say I am engaged, but he may come again to-morrow and I will see him. You don't mind my seeing him, do you, Chesterford?"
"No, no, dear," he said.
Dodo and Chesterford turned back to the drawing-room. Jack was on the steps.
"I thought you were engaged at this hour," Mrs. Vivian said to him.
"So I was," he answered. "Dodo asked me to come and see her."
Volume II
And far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea, I saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. And my guide said to me, 'Some call the sea "Falsehood," and that boat "Truth," and others call the sea "Truth," and the boat "Falsehood;" and, for my part, I think that one is right as the other.'—The Professor of Ignorance.
Chapter Eleven
It was just three weeks after the baby's death, and Dodo was sitting in her room about eleven o'clock in the morning, yawning dismally over a novel, but she was conscious of a certain relief, a sense of effort suspended. Late the evening before, Lord Chesterford had consulted her about some business down at Harchester, and Dodo, in a moment of inspiration, had said that it must be done by someone on the spot, that an agent was not to be trusted, and that if Chesterford liked she would go. This, of course, led to his offering to go himself, and would Dodo come with him? Dodo had replied that she was quite willing to go, but that there was no need of both of them making a tiresome journey on an infernally hot day. Chesterford had felt, rather wistfully, that he would not mind the journey if Dodo was with him, but he had learned lately not to say such things. Dodo was apt to treat them as nonsense. "My coming with you wouldn't make it any cooler, or less insufferably dusty," she would have said. The result was that Chesterford went, and Dodo was left alone' in London, with a distinct sense of relief and relaxation.
Dodo's next move was to send a note to Jack, saying that he was going to come and lunch with her. She was not conscious of any sense of deception in this, but she had seen that Chesterford had not cared to see anybody since the baby's death, except Mrs. Vivian, whereas she longed to be in the midst of people again. So, whenever opportunities occurred, she had been in the habit of seeing what she could of her friends, but was very careful not to bore her husband with them. She was quite alive to the truth of Mrs. Vivian's remarks.
But though Dodo felt a great relief in her husband's absence, she was more than ever conscious of the unutterable stupidity of spending, day after day doing nothing. It was something even to keep it up with Chesterford, but now there was nothing to do—nothing. Still, Jack, was coming to lunch, and perhaps she might get through a few hours that way. Chesterford had said Be would be back that night late or next morning.
The footman came in bearing a card. "Jack already," thought Dodo, with wonder. But it was not Jack. Dodo looked at it and pondered a moment. "Tell Lady Bretton I will see her," she said.
A few moments afterwards Lady Bretton rustled into the room. Dodo had always thought her rather like a barmaid, and
