"I don't know what'll become of you
if you go on like this."

Imogen was patting his shoulder, his uncle looking at him sidelong; only
his mother sat unmoving, till, affected by her stillness, Val said:

"It's all right, you know; we shall soon have them on the run. I only
hope I shall come in for something."

He felt elated, sorry, tremendously important all at once. This would
show Uncle Soames, and all the Forsytes, how to be sportsmen. He had
certainly done something heroic and exceptional in giving his age as
twenty-one.

Emily's voice brought him back to earth.

"You mustn't have a second glass, James. Warmson!"

"Won't they be astonished at Timothy's!" burst out Imogen. "I'd give
anything to see their faces. Do you have a sword, Val, or only a
popgun?"

"What made you?"

His uncle's voice produced a slight chill in the pit of Val's stomach.
Made him? How answer that? He was grateful for his grandmother's
comfortable:

"Well, I think it's very plucky of Val. I'm sure he'll make a splendid
soldier; he's just the figure for it. We shall all be proud of him."

"What had young Jolly Forsyte to do with it? Why did you go together?"
pursued Soames, uncannily relentless. "I thought you weren't friendly
with him?"

"I'm not," mumbled Val, "but I wasn't going to be beaten by him." He saw
his uncle look at him quite differently, as if approving. His grandfather
was nodding too, his grandmother tossing her head. They all approved of
his not being beaten by that cousin of his. There must be a reason! Val
was dimly conscious of some disturbing point outside his range of vision;
as it might be, the unlocated centre of a cyclone. And, staring at his
uncle's face, he had a quite unaccountable vision of a woman with dark
eyes, gold hair, and a white neck, who smelt nice, and had pretty silken
clothes which he had liked feeling when he was quite small. By Jove,
yes! Aunt Irene! She used to kiss him, and he had bitten her arm once,
playfully, because he liked it--so soft. His grandfather was speaking:

"What's his father doing?"

"He's away in Paris," Val said, staring at the very queer expression on
his uncle's face, like--like that of a snarling dog.

"Artists!" said James. The word coming from the very bottom of his soul,
broke up the dinner.

Opposite his mother in the cab going home, Val tasted the after-fruits of
heroism, like medlars over-ripe.

She only said, indeed, that he must go to h