nifred shouldn't
tell him that she'll prosecute him if he doesn't keep off the premises.
He took her pearls; and if he's not brought them back, that's quite
enough."

Winifred smiled. They would all plunge about with suggestions of
this and that, but she knew already what she would be doing, and
that was--nothing. The feeling that, after all, she had won a sort of
victory, retained her property, was every moment gaining ground in her.
No! if she wanted to punish him, she could do it at home without the
world knowing.

"Well," said Emily, "come into the dining-room comfortably--you must
stay and have dinner with us. Leave it to me to tell your father." And,
as Winifred moved towards the door, she turned out the light. Not till
then did they see the disaster in the corridor.

There, attracted by light from a room never lighted, James was standing
with his duncoloured camel-hair shawl folded about him, so that his arms
were not free and his silvered head looked cut off from his fashionably
trousered legs as if by an expanse of desert. He stood, inimitably
stork-like, with an expression as if he saw before him a frog too large
to swallow.

"What's all this?" he said. "Tell your father? You never tell me
anything."

The moment found Emily without reply. It was Winifred who went up to
him, and, laying one hand on each of his swathed, helpless arms, said:

"Monty's not gone bankrupt, Father. He's only come back."

They all three expected something serious to happen, and were glad she
had kept that grip of his arms, but they did not know the depth of root
in that shadowy old Forsyte. Something wry occurred about his shaven
mouth and chin, something scratchy between those long silvery whiskers.
Then he said with a sort of dignity: "He'll be the death of me. I knew
how it would be."

"You mustn't worry, Father," said Winifred calmly. "I mean to make him
behave."

"Ah!" said James. "Here, take this thing off, I'm hot." They unwound the
shawl. He turned, and walked firmly to the dining-room.

"I don't want any soup," he said to Warmson, and sat down in his chair.
They all sat down too, Winifred still in her hat, while Warmson laid
the fourth place. When he left the room, James said: "What's he brought
back?"

"Nothing, Father."

James concentrated his eyes on his own image in a tablespoon. "Divorce!"
he muttered; "rubbish! What was I about? I ought to have paid him an
allowance to stay out of England. Soames you go