"I suppose," said Julia, eying him across the Empire desk of her work-room, "that you, as Ronnie's best friend, are very much in his confidence?" "How do you mean?" prevaricated the big red lawyer. "About his financial affairs?" He laughed, tapping the document between them. "Ronald isn't the sort of chap who'd borrow on his--er--expectations." "I was not referring to his financial affairs," retorted Julia stiffly. "If you, as my son's best friend, and as the son of my own legal adviser, do not understand the matter to which I allude, the conversation need go no further." Jimmy looked at his client, and noticed--for the first time since entering the little box of a room--how she had aged, how ill, how ill at ease, how unhappy she appeared. Jimmy, the man rather than the solicitor, was feeling very far from happy himself; and unhappiness, being a completely new experience, keyed him to unusual sympathy. "We're in the same boat," he thought. "Poor old lady! I wonder how much she knows. Ronnie had no right to run away with H. B.'s wife. The harm it's done already! His mother looks quite broken up about it. And I--I can't marry Mollie." "Mrs. Cavendish," he said, "I don't pretend to be as fond of your son as you are. I'm rather a selfish chap, I'm afraid. But if there's anything, any affair in which I can be of assistance to you--you've only to ask me." She asked him, pointblank: "Do you know my son's where-abouts?" He answered, "No. I didn't even know that he'd gone away, till his clerk told me." Julia hesitated. "I'm speaking to you in absolute confidence?" "Of course." "Then please tell me: Have you heard any--any rumors?" Jimmy chewed the cud for ten full seconds before replying: "You mean--about a certain lady?" "I mean precisely that." "So far, none." Now it was Jimmy's turn to hesitate. "But, speaking entirely in confidence, there are bound to be rumors--if he stays away much longer." "You know nothing for certain then?" "Officially--nothing." The solicitor inspected his finger nails. "But I'm afraid that, unofficially, I know a good deal." "Including the name of the lady?" "Including the name of the lady!" Julia's heart sank. Wilberforce could not be alone in his knowledge of the truth. And that meant--publicity! "Tell me, Mr. Wilberforce," she went on, "before we go any further: Is a barrister who has been co-respondent in a divorce case disbarred from further practice?" "So she knows everything," thought Jimmy, and discarded finesse. "On that point I can reassure you. Even if the petitioner were himself a barrister, it would make no difference." "You made inquiries then?" "Yes." "May I ask why?" Julia's manner stiffened again. The conversation was unutterably distasteful: but she had been alone with her thoughts so long that even the most distasteful of conversations seemed preferable to further silence.