“My dear child—­”

He got up vehemently, as if his idea was to take her in his arms and stifle her outbreak that way.  But something in her eyes, cold, unready, yet aware of him, repelled him.

He thought:  “It’s too soon.  She’s all rigid.  She isn’t alive yet.  That’s not what she wired for.”  He thought:  “I wish people wouldn’t send their children to Newnham.  It retards their development by ten years.”

And she thought:  “No.  I mustn’t let him do that.  For then he won’t be able to go back on me when I tell him my opinions.  It would be simply trapping him.  Supposing—­supposing—­”

She did not know that that instinctive renunciation was her answer to the question.  Her honour would come first.

“Of course.  Of course you had to.”

“What would you do about it if you were Daddy?”

“I should send them all to blazes.”

“No, but really do?”

“I should do nothing.  I should leave it.  You’ll find that before very long there’ll be letters of apology and restitution.”

“Will you come down to the office with me and tell Daddy that?”

“Yes, if you’ll come to tea with me somewhere afterwards.”

(He really couldn’t be expected to do all this for nothing.)

She sent her mother to him while she put on her hat and coat.  When she came down Frances was happy again.

“You see, Mummy, I was right, after all.”

“You always were right, darling, all the time.”

For the life of her she couldn’t help giving that little flick at her infallible daughter.

“She is right—­most of the time,” said Drayton.  His eyes covered and protected her.

Anthony was in his office, sitting before the open doors of the cabinet where he kept his samples of rare and valuable woods.  The polished slabs were laid before him on the table in rows, as he had arranged them to show to a customer:  wine-coloured mahogany, and golden satinwood; ebony black as jet; tulip-wood mottled like fine tortoiseshell; coromandel wood, striped black and white like the coat of a civet cat; ghostly basswood, shining white on dead white; woods of clouded grain, and woods of shining grain, grain that showed like the slanting, splintered lines of hewn stone, like moss, like the veins of flowers, the fringes of birds’ feathers, the striping and dappling of beasts; woods of exquisite grain where the life of the tree drew its own image in its own heart; woods whose surface was tender to the touch like a fine tissue; and sweet-smelling sandalwood and camphor-wood and cedar.

Anthony loved his shining, polished slabs of wood.  If a man must have a business, let it be timber.  Timber was a clean and fine and noble thing.  He had brought the working of his business to such a pitch of smooth perfection that his two elder sons, Michael and Nicholas, could catch up with it easily and take it in their stride.