“I’m proud of him. My God, I am!” he said to Marcelle. “My childish faith is justified. I take back all I’ve said this last year. He’s a marvel, and I’m glad I’m his son.” He saw perhaps, at this stage, more of Marcelle than of Edna. For Marcelle, shortly after her lunch with Baltazar on the day of Godfrey’s river idyll, had broken down in health and left Churton Towers. The strain of three years’ incessant work had ended in collapse. She was ordered three months’ rest. After a weary fortnight alone in the Cornish country, she had come to London, in spite of medical advice, and shared the Bayswater flat of a friend, a working woman, engaged at the Admiralty. Chance, perhaps a little bit of design, for the motives that determine a woman’s decision are often sadly confused; had thus brought her within easy walking distance of Sussex Gardens and of what the strange man to whose fortunes destiny seemed to link her, and whom uncontrollable fears and forces restrained her from marrying, loved to call the House of Baltazar. Of course, in his headstrong way, he had vehemently put the house at her disposal. He would fix up a suite of apartments for her where she could live, her own mistress, just as she chose. Godfrey, Quong Ho and servants could go to the devil. They could pig it anywhere about the house they liked. They would all agree on the paramount question of her comfort and happiness. “In God’s name, why not?” he cried with a large gesture. “What are you afraid of? Me? Mrs. Grundy? What?” But Marcelle shook her head, smiling and stubborn, and would have none of it. As a concession she agreed to run round whenever she heard through the telephone that she was wanted. Baltazar grinned and foretold a life of peripatetic discomfort. “I’ll risk that,” she said. Thus it happened that Marcelle was in and out of the house at all seasons, Godfrey clamouring for her as much as his father. Under vow of secrecy he confided to her his love affair. At first she professed deep disapprobation. He should remember her first suspicions and grave warnings. A married woman! No good could come of such an entanglement, no matter how guiltless and romantic. As delicately as he could he reminded her that she herself had cherished a romantic attachment to a married man. She had, further, avowed her readiness to run off with him. Edna and he were no whit worse than the impeccable Marcelle and his revered father. Whereupon, doting rather foolishly on the young man, she yielded, listened to the varied developments of his adventure, and gave sympathy or moral advice, according to the exigencies of the occasion.