g known subconsciously that his father was not 'the clean
potato.' It was the beastliest thing that had ever happened to
him--beastliest thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And,
down-hearted as he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let
himself in with a smuggled latch-key. In the dining-room his plover's
eggs were set invitingly, with some cut bread and butter, and a little
whisky at the bottom of a decanter--just enough, as Winifred had
thought, for him to feel himself a man. It made him sick to look at
them, and he went upstairs.

Winifred heard him pass, and thought: 'The dear boy's in. Thank
goodness! If he takes after his father I don't know what I shall do!
But he won't he's like me. Dear Val!'

CHAPTER III

SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS

When Soames entered his sister's little Louis Quinze drawing-room, with
its small balcony, always flowered with hanging geraniums in the summer,
and now with pots of Lilium Auratum, he was struck by the immutability of
human affairs. It looked just the same as on his first visit to the
newly married Darties twenty-one years ago. He had chosen the furniture
himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever been able
to change the room's atmosphere. Yes, he had founded his sister well,
and she had wanted it. Indeed, it said a great deal for Winifred that
after all this time with Dartie she remained well-founded. From the
first Soames had nosed out Dartie's nature from underneath the
plausibility, savoir faire, and good looks which had dazzled Winifred,
her mother, and even James, to the extent of permitting the fellow to
marry his daughter without bringing anything but shares of no value into
settlement.

Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at her Buhl
bureau with a letter in her hand. She rose and came towards him. Tall
as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well tailored, something in her
face disturbed Soames. She crumpled the letter in her hand, but seemed
to change her mind and held it out to him. He was her lawyer as well as
her brother.

Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:

'You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving country
to-morrow. It's played out. I'm tired of being insulted by you. You've
brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can stand it. I shall not
ask you for anything again. Good-bye. I took the photograph of the two
girls. Give t