been jostled off the pavement. His own
father--his own! A choke came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands
down deep into his overcoat pockets. Damn Crum! He conceived the wild
idea of running back and fending his father, taking him by the arm and
walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up at once and
pursued his way down Piccadilly. A young woman planted herself before
him. "Not so angry, darling!" He shied, dodged her, and suddenly became
quite cool. If Crum ever said a word, he would jolly well punch his
head, and there would be an end of it. He walked a hundred yards or
more, contented with that thought, then lost its comfort utterly. It
wasn't simple like that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent
came down who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow
afterwards. It was one of those things nothing could remove. Why had
his mother married his father, if he was a 'bounder'? It was bitterly
unfair--jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a 'bounder' for father.
The worst of it was that now Crum had spoken the word, he realised that
he had long 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 aft