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and will come upon the scene?) The Colonel reacts immediately as the open-handed host which he is by
nature. He offers drinks. He goes to get them. You are all sitting outside the window. His wife arrives -
there is the inevitable scene - which he knows is being overheard. He comes out. It might have been
glossed over by a good pretence - Boyd Carrington could have done it well. (He has a certain amount of
worldly wisdom and a tactful manner - though otherwise he is one of the most pompous and boring
individuals that I have ever come across! Just the sort of man you would admire!) You yourself could
have acquitted yourself not too badly. But Norton rushes into speech, heavily, fatuously, underlining tact
until it screams to heaven and makes things much worse. He babbles of bridge (more recalled
humiliations), talks aimlessly of shooting accidents. And prompt on his cue, just as Norton intended,
that old woolly-headed ass Boyd Carrington comes out with his story of an Irish batman who shot his
brother - a story, Hastings, that Norton told to Boyd Carrington, knowing quite well that the old fool
would bring it out as his own whenever suitably prompted. You see, the supreme suggestion will not
come from Norton. Mon Dieu, non!
It is all set, then. The cumulative effect. The breaking point. Affronted in his instincts as a host - shamed
before his fellow men, writhing under the knowledge that they are quite convinced he has not got the
guts to do anything but submit meekly to bullying - and then the key words of escape. The rook rifle,
accidents - man who shot his brother - and suddenly, bobbing up, his wife's head... "Quite safe - an
accident... I'll show them... I'll show her... damn her! I wish she was dead... She shall be dead!"
He did not kill her, Hastings. Myself, I think that, even as he fired, instinctively he missed because he
wanted to miss. And afterwards - afterwards the evil spell was broken. She was his wife, the woman he
loved in spite of everything.
One of Norton's crimes that did not quite come off.
Ah, but his next attempt! Do you realize, Hastings, that it was you who came next? Throw your mind
back - recall everything. You, my honest, kindly Hastings! He found every weak spot in your mind -
yes, and every decent and conscientious one, too.
Allerton is the type of man you instinctively dislike and fear. He is the type of man that you think ought
to be abolished. And everything you heard about him and thought about him was true. Norton tells you
a certain story about him - an entirely true story as far as the facts go. (Though actually the girl
concerned was a neurotic type and came of poor stock.)
It appeals to your conventional and somewhat old-fashioned instincts. This man is the villain, the
seducer, the man who ruins girls and drives them to suicide! Norton induces Boyd Carrington to tackle
you also. You are impelled to "speak to Judith." Judith, as could be predicted, immediately responds by
saying she will do as she chooses with her life. That makes you believe the worst.
See now the different steps on which Norton plays. Your love for your child. The intense old-fashioned
sense of responsibility that a man like you feels for his children. The slight self-importance of your
nature. "I must do something. It all depends on me." Your feeling of helplessness owing to the lack of
your wife's wise judgment. Your loyalty - I must not fail her. And, on the baser side, your vanity -
through association with me you have learned all the tricks of the trade! And lastly, that inner feeling
which most men have about their daughters - a father's unreasoning jealousy and dislike for the man
who takes his daughter away from him. Norton played, Hastings, like a virtuoso on all these tunes. And
you responded.
You accept things too easily at their face value. You always have done. You accepted quite easily the
fact that it was Judith to whom Allerton was talking in the summerhouse. Yet you did not see her, you
did not even hear her speak. And incredibly, even the next morning, you still thought it was Judith. You
rejoiced because she had "changed her mind."
But if you had taken the trouble to examine the facts, you would have discovered at once that there had
never been any question of Judith going up to London that day! And you failed to make another most
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