"Mind you," Tietjens continued his own speech, "it's perfectly proper. That's the way patronage _is_ distributed in this country; it's the way it should be. The only clean way. Mrs. Duchemin backs Macmaster because he's a first-class fellow for his job. And _she_ is an influence over the geniuses because she's a first-class person for hers. . . . She represents the higher, nicer morality for really nice Scots. Before long she will be getting tickets stopped from being sent to people for the Academy soirées. She already does it for the Royal Bounty dinners. A little later, when Macmaster is knighted for bashing the French in the eye, she'll have a tiny share in auguster assemblies. . . . Those people have to ask _somebody_ for advice. Well, one day you'll want to present some débutante. And you won't get a ticket. . . ." "Then I'm glad," Sylvia exclaimed, "that I wrote to Brownie's uncle about the woman. I was a little sorry this morning because, from what Glorvina told me, you're in such a devil of a hole. . . ." "Who's Brownie's uncle?" Tietjens asked. "Lord . . . Lord . . . The banker! I know Brownie's in his uncle's bank." "Port Scatho!" Sylvia said. "I wish you wouldn't act forgetting people's names. You overdo it." Tietjens' face went a shade whiter. . . . "Port Scatho," he said, "is the chairman of the Inn Billeting Committees, of course. And you wrote to him? . . ." "I'm sorry," Sylvia said. "I mean I'm sorry I said that about your forgetting. . . . I wrote to him and said that as a resident of the Inn I objected to your mistress--he knows the relationship, of course!--creeping in every Friday under a heavy veil and creeping out every Saturday at four in the morning." "Lord Port Scatho knows about my relationship," Tietjens began. "He saw her in your arms in the train," Sylvia said. "It upset Brownie so much he offered to shut down your overdraft and return any cheques you had out marked R.D." "To please you?" Tietjens asked. "_Do_ bankers do that sort of thing? It's a new light on British society. . . ." "I suppose bankers try to please their women friends, like other men," Sylvia said. "I told him very emphatically it wouldn't please me. . . But . . ." She hesitated: "I wouldn't give him a chance to get back on you. I don't want to interfere in your affairs. But Brownie doesn't like you. . . ." "He wants you to divorce me and marry him?" Tietjens asked. "How did you know?" Sylvia asked indifferently. "I let him give me lunch now and then because it's convenient to have him manage my affairs, you being away. . . . But of course he hates you for being in the army. All the men who aren't hate all the men that are. And, of course, when there's a woman between them the men who aren't do all they can to do the others in. When they're bankers they have a pretty good pull. . . ." "I suppose they have," Tietjens said, vaguely; "of course they would have. . . ."