Val very restive about the whole thing.
He felt that Val was the real heart of the matter to Winifred, who
certainly loved him beyond her other children. The boy could spoke the
wheel of this divorce yet if he set his mind to it. And Soames was very
careful to keep the proximity of the preliminary proceedings from his
nephew's ears. He did more. He asked him to dine at the Remove, and over
Val's cigar introduced the subject which he knew to be nearest to his
heart.

"I hear," he said, "that you want to play polo up at Oxford."

Val became less recumbent in his chair.

"Rather!" he said.

"Well," continued Soames, "that's a very expensive business. Your
grandfather isn't likely to consent to it unless he can make sure that
he's not got any other drain on him." And he paused to see whether the
boy understood his meaning.

Val's thick dark lashes concealed his eyes, but a slight grimace
appeared on his wide mouth, and he muttered:

"I suppose you mean my Dad!"

"Yes," said Soames; "I'm afraid it depends on whether he continues to be
a drag or not;" and said no more, letting the boy dream it over.

But Val was also dreaming in those days of a silver-roan palfrey and a
girl riding it. Though Crum was in town and an introduction to Cynthia
Dark to be had for the asking, Val did not ask; indeed, he shunned Crum
and lived a life strange even to himself, except in so far as accounts
with tailor and livery stable were concerned. To his mother, his
sisters, his young brother, he seemed to spend this Vacation in 'seeing
fellows,' and his evenings sleepily at home. They could not propose
anything in daylight that did not meet with the one response: "Sorry;
I've got to see a fellow"; and he was put to extraordinary shifts to get
in and out of the house unobserved in riding clothes; until, being made
a member of the Goat's Club, he was able to transport them there, where
he could change unregarded and slip off on his hack to Richmond Park. He
kept his growing sentiment religiously to himself. Not for a world
would he breathe to the 'fellows,' whom he was not 'seeing,' anything so
ridiculous from the point of view of their creed and his. But he could
not help its destroying his other appetites. It was coming between him
and the legitimate pleasures of youth at last on its own in a way which
must, he knew, make him a milksop in the eyes of Crum. All he cared
for was to dress in his last-created riding togs, and steal away to t