When they were well out of sight he locked up his toys in his cabinet, left the appointment at five to Mr. Vereker, and went home to tell Frances about the letters he had written to Cambridge and the plans that had been made for Nicky’s future.

“He’ll choose Germany,” Anthony said.  “But that can’t be helped.”

Frances agreed that they could hardly have hit upon a better plan.

So the affair of Nicky and “Booster’s” wife was as if it had never been.  And for that they thanked the blessed common sense and sanity of Captain Drayton.

And yet Anthony’s idea was wrecked by “Booster’s” wife.  It had come too late.  Anthony had overlooked the fact that his son had seventeen hours’ start of him.  He was unaware of the existence of Nicky’s own idea; and he had not allowed for the stiff logic of his position.

When he drove down in his car to St. John’s Wood to fetch Nicky, he found that he had left that afternoon for Chelsea, where, Vera told him, he had taken rooms.

She gave him the address.  It had no significance for Anthony.

Nicky refused to be fetched back from his rooms in Chelsea.  For he had not left his father’s house in a huff; he had left it in his wisdom, to avoid the embarrassment of an incredible position.  His position, as he pointed out to his father, had not changed.  He was as big a blackguard to-day as he was yesterday; the only difference was, that to-morrow or the next day he would be a self-supporting blackguard.

He wouldn’t listen to his father’s plan.  It was a beautiful plan, but it would only mean spending more money on him.  He’d be pretty good, he thought, at looking after machinery.  He was going to try for a job as a chauffeur or foreman mechanic.  He thought he knew where he could get one; but supposing he couldn’t get it, if his father cared to take him on at the works for a bit he’d come like a shot; but he couldn’t stay there, because it wouldn’t be good enough.

He was absolutely serious, and absolutely firm in the logic of his position.  For he argued that, if he allowed himself to be taken back as though nothing had happened, this, more than anything he could well think of, would be giving Peggy away.

He sent his love to his mother and Dorothy, and promised to come out and dine with them as soon as he had got his job.

So Anthony drove back without him.  But as he drove he smiled.  And Frances smiled, too, when he told her.

“There he is, the young monkey, and there he’ll stay.  It’s magnificent, but of course he’s an ass.”

“If you can’t be an ass at twenty,” said Frances, “when can you be?”

They said it was so like Nicky.  For all he knew to the contrary his career was ruined; but he didn’t care.  You couldn’t make any impression on him.  They wondered if anybody ever would.

Dorothy wondered too.

“What sort of rooms has he got, Anthony?” said Frances.