That turned the balance successfully in the suffragette’s favour. “You are wrong,” said Mrs. Rust. “Marriage is an idiotic institution. It must have been invented by a man, I feel sure. It is like using ropes where only a silken thread is necessary.” “O Lor’,” said Courtesy. Mrs. Paul Rust decided to reach the truth by interrogating the gardener. She always tried to approach a mystery by the high-road, rightly considering that the high-road is the most untrodden way in these tortuous days. “Come here,” she called to the gardener, when Courtesy disappeared to see if her patient was asleep. “Is that young woman who foolishly jumped into the sea—your wife?” she asked. The gardener had resisted hours of siege on the subject. He was tired. Besides he instinctively understood Mrs. Rust. “In some ways she is,” he replied, after rather a blank pause. “Good,” said Mrs. Rust. “Is that young man who owns a little red hotel in the woods in Hampshire your son?” asked the gardener, suddenly face to face with an opportunity. “In some ways he is,” replied Mrs. Rust inevitably, without a smile. The gardener became more and more inspired. “Because if you are his mother, I am his friend, and you may be interested to know that I put your point of view clearly before him when I met him last. He told me that you were unwilling to treat his hotel as an investment, and I said, ‘Why should she?’ I said, ‘You may take it from me that she won’t.’” “Then you had no business to take my intentions for granted,” retorted Mrs. Rust. “What the dickens did you mean by it?” “I told him ...” continued the gardener, almost suffocating in the grasp of his own cleverness, “that obviously you could take no notice of so vague a scheme. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred, I said, would do as you were doing.” “You had better have minded your own business,” interrupted Mrs. Rust wrathfully. “And you had better mind it now. I shall do exactly what I like with my money, no matter what the other ninety-nine women would do.” “I was afraid you would be annoyed by my speaking like this,” said the gardener humbly. “It is only natural.” “Stuff and nonsense. Do you know that the priest is shocked by his suspicions about you and your suffragette?” “I don’t mind,” said the gardener. “Being a priest, I suppose he is paid to be shocked sometimes. I don’t object to being his butt.” “Good,” said Mrs. Rust. “Then you don’t continue to assert that she is your wife.” “I can’t be bothered to continue to assert it,” said the gardener. “Good,” said Mrs. Rust. The gardener felt that the reward of the successfully unscrupulous rogue was within his reach. Lying in a good cause is a lovely exercise. The warm feeling of duty begun surged over him. He had justified his presence on board the _Caribbeania_, he had been true to Samuel Rust. The suffragette was not drowned. The blue sea was all round him. There was little else to be desired.