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'You will divorce?'

Christopher had answered:

'No! No one but a blackguard would ever submit a woman to the ordeal of divorce.'

Mr Tietjens had suggested that, and after an interval had asked:

'You will permit her to divorce you?'

He had answered:

'If she wishes it. There's the child to be considered.' Mr Tietjens said:

'You will get her settlement transferred to the child?' Christopher answered:

'If it can be done without friction.'

Mr Tietjens had commented only:

'Ah!' Some minutes later he had said:

'Your mother's very well.' Then: 'That motor-plough didn't answer,' and then: 'I shall be dining at the club.' Christopher said:

'May I bring Macmaster in, sir? You said you would put him up.'

Mr Tietjens answered:

'Yes, do. Old General ffolliot will be there. He'll second him. He'd better make his acquaintance.' He had gone away.

Tietjens considered that his relationship with his father was an almost perfect one. They were like two men in the club--the only club; thinking so alike that there was no need to talk. His father had spent a great deal of time abroad before succeeding to the estate. When, over the moors, he went into the industrial town that he owned, he drove always in a coach-and-four. Tobacco smoke had never been known inside Groby Hall: Mr Tietjens had twelve pipes filled every morning by his head gardener and placed in rose bushes down the drive. These he smoked during the day. He farmed a good deal of his own land; had sat for Holdernesse from 1876 to 1881, and had not presented himself for election after the redistribution of seats; he was patron of eleven livings; rode to hounds every now and then, and shot fairly regularly. He had three other sons and two daughters, and was now sixty-one.