"He," Tietjens said, "has got a French woman near Euston station. He's lived with her for over fifteen years, of afternoons, when there were no race meetings. She'll never let him marry and she's past the child-bearing stage. So there's no one else. . . ." Sylvia said: "You mean that I may bring the child up as a Catholic." Tietjens said: "A _Roman_ Catholic. . . . You'll teach him, please, to use that term before myself if I ever see him again. . . ." Sylvia said: "Oh, I thank God that he has softened your heart. This will take the curse off this house." Tietjens shook his head: "I think not," he said, "off you, perhaps. Off Groby very likely. It was, perhaps, time that there should be a Papist owner of Groby again. You've read Spelden on sacrilege about Groby? . . ." She said: "Yes! The first Tietjens who came over with Dutch William, the swine, was pretty bad to the Papist owners. . . ." "He was a tough Dutchman," Tietjens said, "but let us get on! There's enough time, but not too much. . . . I've got this man to see." "Who is he?" Sylvia asked. Tietjens was collecting his thoughts. "My dear!" he said. "You'll permit me to call you 'my dear'? We're old enemies enough and we're talking about the future of our child." Sylvia said: "You said 'our' child, not 'the' child. . . ." Tietjens said with a great deal of concern: "You will forgive me for bringing it up. You might prefer to think he was Drake's child. He can't be. It would be outside the course of nature. . . . I'm as poor as I am because . . . forgive me . . . I've spent a great deal of money on tracing the movements of you and Drake before our marriage. And if it's a relief to you to know . . ." "It _is_," Sylvia said. "I . . . I've always been too beastly shy to put the matter before a specialist, or even before mother. . . . And we women are so ignorant. . . ." Tietjens said: "I know . . . I know you were too shy even to think about it yourself, hard." He went into months and days; then he continued: "But it would have made no difference: a child born in wedlock is by law the father's, and if a man who's a gentleman suffers the begetting of his child he must, in decency, take the consequences: the woman and the child must come before the man, be he who he may. And worse-begotten children than ours have inherited statelier names. And I loved the little beggar with all my heart and with all my soul from the first minute I saw him. That may be the secret clue, or it may be sheer sentimentality. . . . So I fought your influence because it was Papist, while I was a whole man. But I'm not a whole man any more, and the evil eye that is on me might transfer itself to him." He stopped and said: "For I must to the greenwood go. Alone a banished man. . . . But have him well protected against the evil eye. . . ."