ad passed through during the
War, and the more considerable anxiety he had since undergone in the
Peace, had produced psychological consequences in a tenacious nature.
He had, mentally, so frequently experienced ruin, that he had ceased to
believe in its material probability. Paying away four thousand a year
in income and super-tax, one could not very well be worse off! A
fortune of a quarter of a million, encumbered only by a wife and one
daughter, and very diversely invested, afforded substantial guarantee
even against that "wildcat notion"--a levy on capital. And as to
confiscation of war profits, he was entirely in favor of it, for he had
none, and "serve the beggars right!" The price of pictures, moreover,
had, if anything, gone up, and he had done better with his collection
since the War began than ever before. Air-raids, also, had acted
beneficially on a spirit congenitally cautious, and hardened a
character already dogged. To be in danger of being entirely dispersed
inclined one to be less apprehensive of the more partial dispersions
involved in levies and taxation, while the habit of condemning the
impudence of the Germans had led naturally to condemning that of Labor,
if not openly at least in the sanctuary of his soul.

He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare, for Fleur was to meet
him at the Gallery at four o'clock, and it was as yet but half past
two. It was good for him to walk--his liver was a little constricted
and his nerves rather on edge. His wife was always out when she was in
Town, and his daughter WOULD flibberty-gibbet all over the place like
most young women since the War. Still, he must be thankful that she had
been too young to do anything in that War itself. Not, of course, that
he had not supported the War from its inception, with all his soul, but
between that and supporting it with the bodies of his wife and
daughter, there had been a gap fixed by something old-fashioned within
him which abhorred emotional extravagance. He had, for instance,
strongly objected to Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 only
thirty-five, going to her native France, her "chere patrie" as, under
the stimulus of war, she had begun to call it, to nurse her "braves
poilus," forsooth! Ruining her health and her looks! As if she were
really a nurse! He had put a stopper on it. Let her do needlework for
them at home, or knit! She had not gone, therefore, and had never been
quite the same woman since. A bad tendency