Percy waited on and on, minute after minute, half-hour after half-hour, reading the morning papers, staring with apparent deep interest at the pictures in the weekly journals--rather depressing foreshortened snapshots of society at racecourses. These people, caught unawares, seemed to be all feet and parasols, or smiles and muffs. Then, feeling rather exhausted, he ordered a drink, and forgot it, and smoked a cigarette. When he saw anyone he knew, he put on an absent-minded air, and avoided the friend's eye. He looked at his watch as if in sudden anxiety, and found that it was half-past one. This was the time he was to meet his little brother at Prince's. He made inquiries and found that Nigel was expected to lunch at the club. It was horrible! He could not leave the boy at the restaurant waiting for him, and he was not up to the mark either, at the moment, for seeing Nigel Hillier; he felt as if the top of his head had been smashed in. Yet his common-sense and reasoning power gradually prevailed over his emotion. And as he sat there, Percy changed his mind. * * * * * At first he had thought it would be cowardly to her to attack his wife on the subject; it was the man with whom he should quarrel. And now it seemed to him different. His point of view altered. It seemed only fair now to give Bertha herself a chance of explaining matters. Thinking of her fresh, frank expression that morning, and looking back, he began to have, by some sort of second sight, a vision of his own stupid injustice. No! he must have been wrong! Nigel may have been a scoundrel, or--anything--but it couldn't be Bertha's fault. She may have been imprudent, out of pure innocence; that was all. He got up, and now he decided to take his brother out to lunch, and then go back and talk to Bertha. * * * * * During the noisy, crowded lunch at Prince's, which entertained the boy so much that there was no necessity for the elder brother to talk, Percy came to a firm decision. He would never tell Bertha anything at all about the anonymous letters. He would tell her that he had seen her this morning at the gallery--as if by accident; but he would frankly admit a jealousy, even a suspicion of Nigel. He would ask Bertha in so many words not to see Nigel again. If she would agree to this, and if she were as affectionate as formerly, what did the rest matter? The letters must have been slanders; who _could_ have written them? But, after all, what did it matter? If Bertha consented to do as he asked, they were untrue, and that was everything. He and Bertha would drop Hillier, and he would put the whole horrible business behind him; he would wipe it out, and forget it. The mere thought of such joy made him tremble ... it seemed too glorious to be real, and as they approached the house again he began to believe in it.