tar, which came out as
he rode into Padwick's livery stables in the purlieus of Sloane Square.
He got off and stretched himself luxuriously, for he had ridden some
twenty-five good miles. The Dartie within him made him chaffer for
five minutes with young Padwick concerning the favourite for the
Cambridgeshire; then with the words, "Put the gee down to my account,"
he walked away, a little wide at the knees, and flipping his boots with
his knotty little cane. 'I don't feel a bit inclined to go out,' he
thought. 'I wonder if mother will stand fizz for my last night!' With
'fizz' and recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.

When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother
scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his Uncle
Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his uncle said:

"He'd better be told."

At those words, which meant something about his father, of course, Val's
first thought was of Holly. Was it anything beastly? His mother began
speaking.

"Your father," she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while her
fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, "your father, my
dear boy, has--is not at Newmarket; he's on his way to South America.
He--he's left us."

Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he fond of
his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then, suddenly--as at
a whiff of gardenias and cigars--his heart twitched within him, and
he was sorry. One's father belonged to one, could not go off in this
fashion--it was not done! Nor had he always been the 'bounder' of the
Pandemonium promenade. There were precious memories of tailors' shops
and horses, tips at school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.

"But why?" he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he had
asked. The mask of his mother's face was all disturbed; and he burst
out:

"All right, Mother, don't tell me! Only, what does it mean?"

"A divorce, Val, I'm afraid."

Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his uncle--that
uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a guarantee against the
consequences of having a father, even against the Dartie blood in his
own veins. The flat-checked visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.

"It won't be public, will it?"

So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued to the
unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public Press.

"Can't it be don