of hers to mock at him, not
openly, but in continual little ways, had grown. As for Fleur, the War
had resolved the vexed problem whether or not she should go to school.
She was better away from her mother in her war mood, from the chance of
air-raids, and the impetus to do extravagant things; so he had placed
her in a seminary as far West as had seemed to him compatible with
excellence, and had missed her horribly. Fleur! He had never regretted
the somewhat outlandish name by which at her birth he had decided so
suddenly to call her--marked concession though it had been to the
French. Fleur! A pretty name--a pretty child! But restless--too
restless; and wilful! Knowing her power too over her father! Soames
often reflected on the mistake it was to dote on his daughter. To get
old and dote! Sixty-five! He was getting on; but he didn't feel it,
for, fortunately perhaps, considering Annette's youth and good looks,
his second marriage had turned out a cool affair. He had known but one
real passion in his life--for that first wife of his--Irene. Yes, and
that fellow, his Cousin Jolyon, who had gone off with her, was looking
very shaky, they said. No wonder, at seventy-two, after twenty years of
a third marriage!

Soames paused a moment in his march to lean over the railings of the
Row. A suitable spot for reminiscence, half-way between that house in
Park Lane which had seen his birth and his parents' deaths, and the
little house in Montpellier Square where thirty-five years ago he had
enjoyed his first edition of matrimony. Now, after twenty years of his
second edition, that old tragedy seemed to him like a previous
existence--which had ended when Fleur was born in place of the son he
had hoped for. For many years he had ceased regretting, even vaguely,
the son who had not been born; Fleur filled the bill in his heart.
After all, she bore his name; and he was not looking forward at all to
the time when she would change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of such a
calamity, it was seasoned by the vague feeling that he could make her
rich enough to purchase perhaps and extinguish the name of the fellow
who married her--why not, since, as it seemed, women were equal to men
nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced that they were not, passed his
curved hand over his face vigorously, till it reached the comfort of
his chin. Thanks to abstemious habits, he had not grown fat and flabby;
his nose was pale and thin, his grey moustache cl