led before him reassuringly. Not
a marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced that momentary scare. 'He had
better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel represented--! Ah!
what did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing that mattered surely. And
yet something real enough in the world--unmorality let off its chain,
disillusionment on the prowl! That expression Annette had caught from
him: "Je m'en fiche!" A fatalistic chap! A Continental--a
cosmopolitan--a product of the age! If there were condemnation more
complete, Soames felt that he did not know it.

The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into some
distance of their own. One of them uttered a little hiss, wagged its
tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam away. The other
followed. Their white bodies, their stately necks, passed out of his
sight, and he went towards the house.

Annette was in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, and he thought as
he went up-stairs: 'Handsome is as handsome does.' Handsome! Except for
remarks about the curtains in the drawing-room, and the storm, there
was practically no conversation during a meal distinguished by
exactitude of quantity and perfection of quality. Soames drank nothing.
He followed her into the drawing-room afterwards, and found her smoking
a cigarette on the sofa between the two French windows. She was leaning
back, almost upright, in a low black frock, with her knees crossed and
her blue eyes half closed; grey-blue smoke issued from her red, rather
full lips, a fillet bound her chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk
stockings, and shoes with very high heels showing off her instep. A
fine piece in any room! Soames, who held that torn letter in a hand
thrust deep into the side-pocket of his dinner-jacket, said:

"I'm going to shut the window; the damp's lifting in."

He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the cream-panelled
wall close by.

What was she thinking of? He had never understood a woman in his
life--except Fleur--and Fleur not always! His heart beat fast. But if
he meant to do it, now was the moment. Turning from the David Cox, he
took out the torn letter.

"I've had this."

Her eyes widened, stared at him, and hardened.

Soames handed her the letter.

"It's torn, but you can read it." And he turned back to the David
Cox--a seapiece, of good tone but without movement enough. 'I wonder
what that chap's doing at this moment?' he thought. 'I'll astonish him
y