Kenneth Marshall applied a match to his pipe. Between puffs he said:
"Yes - there's something in that.
I suppose Arlena and Linda aren't very good for each other. Not the right thing for a girl perhaps.
It's a bit worrying."
Rosamund said: "I like Linda - very much.
There's something - fine about her."
Kenneth said: "She's like her mother.
She takes things hard like Ruth did."
Rosamund said: "Then don't you think - really - that you ought to get rid of Arlena?"
"Fix up a divorce?"
"Yes.
People are doing that all the time."
Kenneth Marshall said with sudden vehemence: "Yes, and that's just what I hate." "Hate?"
She was startled.
"Yes.
Sort of attitude to life there is nowadays.
If you take on a thing and don't like it, then you get yourself out of it as quick as possible!
Dash it all, there's got to be such a thing as good faith.
If you marry a woman and engage yourself to look after her, well, it's up to you to do it.
It's your show.
You've taken it on.
I'm sick of quick marriage and easy divorce.
Arlena's my wife, that's all there is to it."
Rosamund leaned forward. She said in a low voice:
"So it's like that with you? 'Till death do us part'?"
Kenneth Marshall nodded his head. He said: "That's just it."
Rosamund said:
"I see."
Mr Horace Blatt, returning to Leathercombe Bay down a narrow twisting lane, nearly ran down Mrs Redfern at a corner.
As she flattened herself into the hedge, Mr Blatt brought his Sunbeam to a halt by applying the brakes vigorously.
"Hullo-ullo-ullo," said Mr Blatt cheerfully.
He was a large man with a red face and a fringe of reddish hair round a shining bald spot.
It was Mr Blatt's apparent ambition to be the life and soul of any place he happened to be in.
The Jolly Roger Hotel, in his opinion, given somewhat loudly, needed brightening up.
He was puzzled at the way people seemed to melt and disappear when he himself arrived on the scene.
"Nearly made you into strawberry jam, didn't I?" said Mr Blatt gaily.
Christine Redfern said: "Yes, you did."
"Jump in," said Mr Blatt.
"Oh, thanks I think I'll walk."
"Nonsense," said Mr Blatt.
"What's a car for?"
Yielding to necessity Christine Redfern got in. Mr Blatt restarted the engine which had stopped owing to the suddenness with which he had previously pulled up.
Mr Blatt inquired: "And what are you doing walking about all alone?
That's all wrong, a nice-looking girl like you."
Christine said hurriedly: "Oh! I like being alone."
Mr Blatt gave her a terrific dig with his elbow, nearly sending the car into the hedge at the same time.
"Girls always say that," he said. "They don't mean it.
You know, that place, the Jolly Roger, wants a bit of livening up. Nothing jolly about it. No life in it. Of course there's a good amount of duds staying there.
A lot of kids, to begin with, and a lot of old fogeys too.
There's that old Anglo-Indian bore and that athletic parson and those yapping Americans and that foreigner with the moustache makes me laugh that moustache of his!