After spending over an hour in a barber’s chair having his face steamed and massaged in an endeavour to remove the traces of that awful night, Heberdon took train up to Marchmont as to a refuge. Wild horses could not have kept him from Marchmont that day.
How reassuring was the sight of the Pallisers’ big, old Mackinaw car at the station, with its correct, but not too correct, chauffeur, and Ida, cool and supercilious, in her corner of the rear seat. He never so nearly loved her as at that moment. The spreading, homely country house further comforted him; how good to feel that he belonged there; that he was one of such an eminently secure and domesticated herd! Surely, while he kept a tight grip on them he could never descend into the maelstrom!
Luncheon brought the usual family house pa
