Chapter Six
A t the moment when Rex Fortescue had been drinking his last cup of tea, Lance Fortescue and his wife had beensitting under the trees on the Champs Elysées watching the people walking past.
“It’s all very well to say ‘describe him,’ Pat. I’m a rotten hand at descriptions. What do you want to know? TheGuvnor’s a bit of an old crook¹, you know. But you won’t mind that? You must be used to that more or less.”
“Oh, yes,” said Pat. “Yes—as you say—I’m acclimatized.”
She tried to keep a certain forlornness out of her voice. Perhaps, she reflected, the whole world was really crooked—or was it just that she herself had been unfortunate?
She was a tall, long-legged girl, not beautiful but with a charm that was made-up of vitality² and a warm-heartedpersonality. She moved well, and had lovely gleaming chestnut³ brown hair. Perhaps from a long association withhorses, she had acquired the look of a thoroughbred filly.
Crookedness⁴ in the racing⁵ world she knew about—now, it seemed, she was to encounter crookedness in thefinancial world. Though for all that, it seemed that her father-in-law, whom she had not yet met, was, as far as the lawwas concerned, a pillar of rectitude. All these people who went about boasting of “smart work” were the same—technically they always managed to be within the law. Yet it seemed to her that her Lance, whom she loved, and whohad admittedly strayed outside the ringed fence in earlier days, had an honesty that these successful practitioners⁶ of thecrooked lacked.
“I don’t mean,” said Lance, “that he’s a swindler—not anything like that. But he knows how to put over a fastone.”
“Sometimes,” said Pat, “I feel I hate people who put over fast ones.” She added: “You’re fond of him.” It was astatement, not a question.
Lance considered it for a moment, and then said in a surprised kind of voice:
“Do you know, darling, I believe I am.”

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