Staunton shifted uneasily on his feet, and endeavoured feverishly to regain his self-control. Of course, the whole thing was farcical and Gilbertian; at the same time, just at the moment it appeared remarkably real. And he couldn’t make up his mind how to take this large, imperturbable man.
"I told my husband, Jimmy," said Delia, speaking for the first time, "that we were in love with one another—and that you’d asked me to go away with you."
With intense amusement Hugh watched Staunton’s jaw drop, though his wife, still staring in front of her, noticed nothing.
"Most kind of you," remarked Hugh, affably, and Delia looked at him quickly. "Most flattering. But my wife apparently decided that it wouldn’t be quite fair to me—so she waited till I came home. And now I’m on trial—so to speak."
Staunton sat down in a chair; his legs felt strangely weak.
"The trouble is," continued Hugh, "that circumstances have arisen only to-night which prevent me standing on trial. I found a letter waiting for me at my club which necessitates my return to the East at once—probably for a year."
"By Jove—really!" Staunton sat up; the situation looked a little brighter.
"Going East at once?" Delia was staring at him puzzled.
"I’m afraid I must," returned her husband. "And so it makes things a little awkward, doesn’t it? You see, Mr. Staunton, my wife’s proposal was this. If after a few weeks of my presence she still found that she preferred you to me, she was going to tell me so straight out. Then—since, as I think you will agree, a woman must always be a man’s first consideration—I would have effaced myself, gone through the necessary formalities to allow her to divorce me, and left her free to marry you. If, on the other hand, she had found that after all she could not return your devotion—well, we should then have gone on as we are. Perhaps not exactly the Church’s idea of morality—but for all that, very fair. Don’t you agree?"
Staunton nodded; speech was beyond his power.
"Now," continued Hugh, lighting a cigarette, "this sudden necessity for me to go East has upset her plan. I can’t wait for those few weeks of test, and so we are confronted with a difficulty. I feel that it is not fair to keep her from you for a year or possibly longer; on the other hand, I feel that it is rather hard luck on me to relinquish her without a struggle. You said, Mr. Staunton? Sorry; I thought you spoke." He flicked the ash off his cigarette, and, crossing the room, he opened a bureau on the other side. "And so I’ve evolved a plan," he remarked, coming back again with a pack of cards in his hand. "A time-honoured method of settling things where there are two alternatives, and one which I suggest can be used with advantage here. We will each cut a card, Mr. Staunton. If I win, Delia comes East with me—on the clear understanding, my dear, that you may leave me at any moment and return to Mr. Staunton. I wouldn’t like you to think for an instant that I am proposing to deprive you of your absolute free will whichever way the cards go. If I lose, on the other hand, I go East alone, and the necessary information to enable you to institute divorce proceedings will be sent you as soon as possible."