requently experienced ruin, that he had ceased to
believe in its material probability. Paying away four thousand a year in
income and super tax, one could not very well be worse off! A fortune of
a quarter of a million, encumbered only by a wife and one daughter, and
very diversely invested, afforded substantial guarantee even against that
"wildcat notion" a levy on capital. And as to confiscation of war
profits, he was entirely in favour of it, for he had none, and "serve the
beggars right!" The price of pictures, moreover, had, if anything, gone
up, and he had done better with his collection since the War began than
ever before. Air-raids, also, had acted beneficially on a spirit
congenitally cautious, and hardened a character already dogged. To be in
danger of being entirely dispersed inclined one to be less apprehensive
of the more partial dispersions involved in levies and taxation, while
the habit of condemning the impudence of the Germans had led naturally to
condemning that of Labour, if not openly at least in the sanctuary of his
soul.

He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare, for Fleur was to meet him
at the Gallery at four o'clock, and it was as yet but half-past two. It
was good for him to walk--his liver was a little constricted, and his
nerves rather on edge. His wife was always out when she was in Town, and
his daughter would flibberty-gibbet all over the place like most young
women since the War. Still, he must be thankful that she had been too
young to do anything in that War itself. Not, of course, that he had not
supported the War from its inception, with all his soul, but between that
and supporting it with the bodies of his wife and daughter, there had
been a gap fixed by something old-fashioned within him which abhorred
emotional extravagance. He had, for instance, strongly objected to
Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 only thirty-four, going to her native
France, her "chere patrie" as, under the stimulus of war, she had begun
to call it, to nurse her "braves poilus," forsooth! Ruining her health
and her looks! As if she were really a nurse! He had put a stopper on
it. Let her do needlework for them at home, or knit! She had not gone,
therefore, and had never been quite the same woman since. A bad tendency
of hers to mock at him, not openly, but in continual little ways, had
grown. As for Fleur, the War had resolved the vexed problem whether or
not she should go to school.