And soon enough they did know.

To be sure no details could be disentangled from the discreet ambiguities of the Master and the Professor.  But Michael’s letter was more explicit.  Nicky had been sent down because old “Booster” had got it into his head that Nicky had been making love to “Booster’s” wife when she didn’t want to be made love to, and nothing could get it out of “Booster’s” head.

Michael was bound to stand up for his brother, and it was clear to Anthony that so grave a charge could hardly have been brought without some reason.  The tone of the letters, especially the Professor’s, was extraordinarily restrained.  That was what made the thing stand out in its sheer awfulness.  The Professor, although, according to Michael, he conceived himself to be profoundly injured, wrote sorrowfully, in consideration of Nicky’s youth.

There was one redeeming circumstance, the Master and the Professor both laid stress on it:  Anthony’s son had not attempted to deny it.

“There must,” Frances said wildly, “be some terrible mistake.”

But Nicky cut the ground from under the theory of the terrible mistake by continuing in his refusal to deny it.

“What sort of woman,” said Anthony, “is the Professor’s wife?”

“Oh, awfully decent,” said Nicky.

“You had no encouragement, then, no provocation?”

“She’s awfully fascinating,” said Nicky.

Then Frances had another thought.  It seemed to her that Nicky was evading.

“Are you sure you’re not screening somebody else?”

“Screening somebody else?  Do you mean some other fellow?”

“Yes.  I’m not asking you to give the name, Nicky.”

“I swear I’m not.  Why should I be?  I can’t think why you’re all making such a fuss about it.  I don’t mean poor old ‘Booster.’  He’s got some cause, if you like.”

“But what was it you did—­really did, Nicky?”

“You’ve read the letters, Mother.”

Nicky’s adolescence seemed to die and pass from him there and then; and she saw a stubborn, hard virility that frightened and repelled her, forcing her to believe that it might have really happened.

To Frances the awfulness of it was beyond belief.  And the pathos of her belief in Nicky was unbearable to Anthony.  There were the letters.

“I think, dear,” Anthony said, “you’d better leave us.”

“Mayn’t I stay?” It was as if she thought that by staying she could bring Nicky’s youth back to life again.

“No,” said Anthony.

She went, and Nicky opened the door for her.  His hard, tight man’s face looked at her as if it had been she who had sinned and he who suffered, intolerably, for her sin.  The click of the door as he shut it stabbed her.

“It’s a damnable business, father.  We’d better not talk about it.”

But Anthony would talk about it.  And when he had done talking all that Nicky had to say was:  “You know as well as I do that these things happen.”