ke a splendid
soldier; he's just the figure for it. We shall all be proud of him."

"What had young Jolly Forsyte to do with it? Why did you go together?"
pursued Soames, uncannily relentless. "I thought you weren't friendly
with him?"

"I'm not," mumbled Val, "but I wasn't going to be beaten by him." He
saw his uncle look at him quite differently, as if approving. His
grandfather was nodding too, his grandmother tossing her head. They all
approved of his not being beaten by that cousin of his. There must be
a reason! Val was dimly conscious of some disturbing point outside his
range of vision; as it might be, the unlocated centre of a cyclone. And,
staring at his uncle's face, he had a quite unaccountable vision of a
woman with dark eyes, gold hair, and a white neck, who smelt nice, and
had pretty silken clothes which he had liked feeling when he was quite
small. By Jove, yes! Aunt Irene! She used to kiss him, and he had bitten
her arm once, playfully, because he liked it--so soft. His grandfather
was speaking:

"What's his father doing?"

"He's away in Paris," Val said, staring at the very queer expression on
his uncle's face, like--like that of a snarling dog.

"Artists!" said James. The word coming from the very bottom of his soul,
broke up the dinner.

Opposite his mother in the cab going home, Val tasted the after-fruits
of heroism, like medlars over-ripe.

She only said, indeed, that he must go to his tailor's at once and have
his uniform properly made, and not just put up with what they gave him.
But he could feel that she was very much upset. It was on his lips to
console her with the spoken thought that he would be out of the way of
that beastly divorce, but the presence of Imogen, and the knowledge
that his mother would not be out of the way, restrained him. He felt
aggrieved that she did not seem more proud of him. When Imogen had gone
to bed, he risked the emotional.

"I'm awfully sorry to have to leave you, Mother."

"Well, I must make the best of it. We must try and get you a commission
as soon as we can; then you won't have to rough it so. Do you know any
drill, Val?"

"Not a scrap."

"I hope they won't worry you much. I must take you about to get the
things to-morrow. Good-night; kiss me."

With that kiss, soft and hot, between his eyes, and those words, 'I hope
they won't worry you much,' in his ears, he sat down to a cigarette,
before a dying fire. The heat was out of him--the glow of