ort of thing the Court would pitch on. He seemed to
hear the Judge's voice say: "You took this seriously! Seriously enough
to write him as you did? Do you think he meant it?" Never mind! The fact
was clear that Dartie had sailed and had not returned. Annexed also was
his cabled answer: "Impossible return. Dartie." Soames shook his head.
If the whole thing were not disposed of within the next few months the
fellow would turn up again like a bad penny. It saved a thousand a year
at least to get rid of him, besides all the worry to Winifred and his
father. 'I must stiffen Dreamer's back,' he thought; 'we must push it
on.'

Winifred, who had adopted a kind of half-mourning which became her fair
hair and tall figure very well, arrived in James' barouche drawn by
James' pair. Soames had not seen it in the City since his father retired
from business five years ago, and its incongruity gave him a shock.
'Times are changing,' he thought; 'one doesn't know what'll go next!'
Top hats even were scarcer. He enquired after Val. Val, said Winifred,
wrote that he was going to play polo next term. She thought he was in a
very good set. She added with fashionably disguised anxiety: "Will there
be much publicity about my affair, Soames? Must it be in the papers?
It's so bad for him, and the girls."

With his own calamity all raw within him, Soames answered:

"The papers are a pushing lot; it's very difficult to keep things out.
They pretend to be guarding the public's morals, and they corrupt them
with their beastly reports. But we haven't got to that yet. We're
only seeing Dreamer to-day on the restitution question. Of course he
understands that it's to lead to a divorce; but you must seem genuinely
anxious to get Dartie back--you might practice that attitude to-day."

Winifred sighed.

"Oh! What a clown Monty's been!" she said.

Soames gave her a sharp look. It was clear to him that she could not
take her Dartie seriously, and would go back on the whole thing if given
half a chance. His own instinct had been firm in this matter from the
first. To save a little scandal now would only bring on his sister and
her children real disgrace and perhaps ruin later on if Dartie were
allowed to hang on to them, going down-hill and spending the money James
would leave his daughter. Though it was all tied up, that fellow would
milk the settlements somehow, and make his family pay through the
nose to keep him out of bankruptcy or even perhaps g