e with your instructions, we beg to inform you that we
personally served the respondent and co-respondent in this suit to-day,
at Richmond, and Robin Hill, respectively.

"Faithfully yours,

"LINKMAN AND LAVER."

For some minutes Soames stared at that note. Ever since he had given
those instructions he had been tempted to annul them. It was so
scandalous, such a general disgrace! The evidence, too, what he had
heard of it, had never seemed to him conclusive; somehow, he believed
less and less that those two had gone all lengths. But this, of course,
would drive them to it; and he suffered from the thought. That fellow to
have her love, where he had failed! Was it too late? Now that they had
been brought up sharp by service of this petition, had he not a lever
with which he could force them apart? 'But if I don't act at once,' he
thought, 'it will be too late, now they've had this thing. I'll go and
see him; I'll go down!'

And, sick with nervous anxiety, he sent out for one of the 'new-fangled'
motor-cabs. It might take a long time to run that fellow to ground, and
Goodness knew what decision they might come to after such a shock! 'If
I were a theatrical ass,' he thought, 'I suppose I should be taking a
horse-whip or a pistol or something!' He took instead a bundle of papers
in the case of 'Magentie versus Wake,' intending to read them on the way
down. He did not even open them, but sat quite still, jolted and jarred,
unconscious of the draught down the back of his neck, or the smell of
petrol. He must be guided by the fellow's attitude; the great thing was
to keep his head!

London had already begun to disgorge its workers as he neared Putney
Bridge; the ant-heap was on the move outwards. What a lot of ants, all
with a living to get, holding on by their eyelids in the great scramble!
Perhaps for the first time in his life Soames thought: 'I could let go
if I liked! Nothing could touch me; I could snap my fingers, live as I
wished--enjoy myself!' No! One could not live as he had and just drop
it all--settle down in Capua, to spend the money and reputation he had
made. A man's life was what he possessed and sought to possess. Only
fools thought otherwise--fools, and socialists, and libertines!

The cab was passing villas now, going a great pace. 'Fifteen miles an
hour, I should think!' he mused; 'this'll take people out of town to
live!' and he thought of its bearing on the portions of London owned by
his father