During their honeymoon in Paris--a honeymoon which was curiously and
painfully unlike what Godfrey had supposed his honeymoon would and must
be--he saw in a paper a notice of Katty Fenton's engagement. Though not
given to impulsively generous actions, he went out and bought for Katty,
in the Rue de la Paix, a jewelled pendant Laura had just refused to
allow him to buy for her. In return he had received what had seemed at
the time a delightful letter of thanks, to which was the following
postscript, "There's no harm in my saying _now_, that you, dear Godfrey,
were my first love! I've always wanted you to know that. I've always
been afraid that you only thought me a sad little flirt."
The confession, and the shrewd thrust, which was so much truer than he
thought Katty knew, moved him, and he had told himself sorely that
Katty's husband at any rate would be a very lucky fellow.
Then once more he had forgotten Katty till one day, years later, "Mrs.
Winslow" had suddenly been shown into his private room at the Bank.
Looking, as he had at once become aware, even prettier and more
attractive than when he had last seen her, she had said quietly, "I'm in
great trouble, Godfrey, and I've come down from London to consult you
about it. Your father and mine were friends" (a rather exaggerated
statement that--but Pavely was in no mood to cavil), "and I don't know
who else to go to."
Shortly and simply she had described the dreadful existence she had led
since her marriage--then, suddenly, she had rolled up her right sleeve
and shown the livid bruises made by Bob Winslow the night before, in a
fit of drunken anger, on the slender, soft, white arm.
Unwontedly moved, the more so that this now unfamiliar Katty seemed to
make no excessive demand either on his pity or on his emotions, Godfrey
Pavely had thrown himself into the complicated, unsavoury business, and
very soon his old-new friend had brought him to advise her in the sense
she wished. But it was Laura who had suggested that poor Mrs. Winslow
should come and stay with them during the divorce proceedings, and while
she had been at Lawford Chase, Katty had avoided, rather than sought
out, the master of the house.
In the matter of Rosedean the banker had behaved in what he himself
considered a very handsome manner. Not only had he let the house to
Katty for about a third of what he could have got for it in the open
market, but he had allowed her a hundred pounds for "doing it up." He
believed himself to have also suggested the arrangement by which she
obtained the free services, for a certain number of half-days each week,
of a very intelligent Scotch under-gardener who was in his employ.
He had never had reason to regret his kindness. On the contrary, he and
Katty had become, as time went on, closer and closer friends, and more
and more had he come to miss her during her frequent absences from home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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