rk! The young woman's arm
touched his unconsciously; there was a scent of musk and mignonette. Val
looked round the corner of his lashes. Perhaps she was young, after all.
Her foot trod on his; she begged his pardon. He said:

"Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn't it?"

"Oh, I'm tired of it; aren't you?"

Young Val smiled--his wide, rather charming smile. Beyond that he did
not go--not yet convinced. The Forsyte in him stood out for greater
certainty. And on the stage the ballet whirled its kaleidoscope of
snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and violet and seemed
suddenly to freeze into a stilly spangled pyramid. Applause broke out,
and it was over! Maroon curtains had cut it off. The semi-circle of men
and women round the barrier broke up, the young woman's arm pressed his.
A little way off disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink
carnation; Val stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking
towards it. Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm. The one in
the centre wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a dark moustache;
he reeled a little as he walked. Crum's voice said slow and level: "Look
at that bounder, he's screwed!" Val turned to look. The 'bounder' had
disengaged his arm, and was pointing straight at them. Crum's voice,
level as ever, said:

"He seems to know you!" The 'bounder' spoke:

"H'llo!" he said. "You f'llows, look! There's my young rascal of a son!"

Val saw. It was his father! He could have sunk into the crimson carpet.
It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his father
was 'screwed'; it was Crum's word 'bounder,' which, as by heavenly
revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true. Yes, his father
looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his pink carnation, and
his square, self-assertive walk. And without a word he ducked behind the
young woman and slipped out of the Promenade. He heard the word, "Val!"
behind him, and ran down deep-carpeted steps past the 'chuckersout,'
into the Square.

To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest experience
a young man can go through. It seemed to Val, hurrying away, that his
career had ended before it had begun. How could he go up to Oxford now
amongst all those chaps, those splendid friends of Crum's, who would
know that his father was a 'bounder'! And suddenly he hated Crum. Who
the devil was Crum, to say that? If Crum had been beside him at that
moment, he would certainly have