mes looked at her intently.

"Yes--if you want to know--and much good it did me." He moved away,
along by the hot-water pipes. Fleur tiptoed silently after him.

"Tell me about it, Father!"

Soames became very still.

"What should you want to know about such things, at your age?"

"Is she alive?"

He nodded.

"And married?"

"Yes."

"It's Jon Forsyte's mother, isn't it? And she was your wife first."

It was said in a flash of intuition. Surely his opposition came from
his anxiety that she should not know of that old wound to his pride.
But she was startled. To see some one so old and calm wince as if
struck, to hear so sharp a note of pain in his voice!

"Who told you that? If your aunt--! I can't bear the affair talked of."

"But, darling," said Fleur, softly, "it's so long ago."

"Long ago or not, I--"

Fleur stood stroking his arm.

"I've tried to forget," he said suddenly; "I don't wish to be
reminded." And then, as if venting some long and secret irritation, he
added: "In these days people don't understand. Grand passion, indeed!
No one knows what it is."

"I do," said Fleur, almost in a whisper.

Soames, who had turned his back on her, spun round.

"What are you talking of--a child like you!"

"Perhaps I've inherited it, Father."

"What?"

"For her son, you see."

He was pale as a sheet, and she knew that she was as bad. They stood
staring at each other in the steamy heat, redolent of the mushy scent
of earth, of potted geranium, and of vines coming along fast.

"This is crazy," said Soames at last, between dry lips.

Scarcely moving her own, she murmured:

"Don't be angry, Father. I can't help it."

But she could see he wasn't angry; only scared, deeply scared.

"I thought that foolishness," he stammered, "was all forgotten."

"Oh, no! It's ten times what it was."

Soames kicked at the hot-water pipe. The hapless movement touched her,
who had no fear of her father--none.

"Dearest!" she said: "What must be, must, you know."

"Must!" repeated Soames. "You don't know what you're talking of. Has
that boy been told?"

The blood rushed into her cheeks.

"Not yet."

He had turned from her again, and, with one shoulder a little raised,
stood staring fixedly at a joint in the pipes.

"It's most distasteful to me," he said suddenly; "nothing could be more
so. Son of that fellow--It's--it's--perverse!"

She had noted, almost unconsciously, that he did not say "son of that
wo