e him! He cared so
much for Fleur that he would have no further scandal. If only he could
get at that anonymous letter-writer, he would teach him not to meddle and
stir up mud at the bottom of water which he wished should remain
stagnant!... A distant flash, a low rumble, and large drops of rain
spattered on the thatch above him. He remained indifferent, tracing a
pattern with his finger on the dusty surface of a little rustic table.
Fleur's future! 'I want fair sailing for her,' he thought. 'Nothing else
matters at my time of life.' A lonely business--life! What you had you
never could keep to yourself! As you warned one off, you let another in.
One could make sure of nothing! He reached up and pulled a red rambler
rose from a cluster which blocked the window. Flowers grew and
dropped--Nature was a queer thing! The thunder rumbled and crashed,
travelling east along a river, the paling flashes flicked his eyes; the
poplar tops showed sharp and dense against the sky, a heavy shower
rustled and rattled and veiled in the little house wherein he sat,
indifferent, thinking.

When the storm was over, he left his retreat and went down the wet path
to the river bank.

Two swans had come, sheltering in among the reeds. He knew the birds
well, and stood watching the dignity in the curve of those white necks
and formidable snake-like heads. 'Not dignified--what I have to do!' he
thought. And yet it must be tackled, lest worse befell. Annette must be
back by now from wherever she had gone, for it was nearly dinner-time,
and as the moment for seeing her approached, the difficulty of knowing
what to say and how to say it had increased. A new and scaring thought
occurred to him. Suppose she wanted her liberty to marry this fellow!
Well, if she did, she couldn't have it. He had not married her for that.
The image of Prosper Profond dawdled before him reassuringly. Not a
marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced that momentary scare. 'He had
better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel represented---! But
what did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing that mattered surely. And
yet something real enough in the world--unmorality let off its chain,
disillusionment on the prowl! That expression Annette had caught from
him: "Je m'en fiche!" A fatalistic chap! A continental--a
cosmopolitan--a product of the age! If there were condemnation more
complete, Soames felt that he did not know it.

The swans had turned their