Michael covered his face with his hands.

“Oh—­don’t, Daddy.  You do make me feel a rotten beast.”

“We should feel rottener beasts,” said Frances, “if we stood in your way.”

“Then,” said Michael (he was still incredulous), “you do care?”

“Of course we care,” said Anthony.

“I don’t mean for me—­for it?”

“My dear Mick,” said Frances, “we care for It almost as much as we care for you.  We’re sorry about Germany though.  Germany was one of your father’s bad jokes.”

“Germany—­a joke?”

“Did you take it seriously?  Oh, you silly Michael!”

“But,” said Michael, “how about Daddy’s idea?  He loved it.”

“I loved it,” said Anthony, “but I’ve given it up.”

They knew that this was defeat, for Michael was top-dog.  And it was also victory.

They had lost Nicholas, or thought they had lost Nicholas, by opposing him.  But Michael and Michael’s affection they would have always.

Besides, Anthony hadn’t given up his idea.  He had only transferred it—­to his youngest son, John.

XV

It was five weeks since Nicholas’s wedding-day and Desmond had quarrelled with him three times.

First, because he had taken a flat in Aubrey Walk, with a studio inside it, instead of a house in Campden Hill Square with a studio outside it in the garden.

Then, because he had refused to go into his father’s business.

Last of all, because of Captain Drayton and the Moving Fortress.

Nicky had said that his father, who was paying his rent, couldn’t afford the house with the studio in the garden; and Desmond said Nicky’s father could afford it perfectly well if he liked.  He said he had refused to go into his father’s business for reasons which didn’t concern her.  Desmond pointed out that the consequences of his refusal were likely to concern her very much indeed.  As for Captain Drayton and the Moving Fortress, nobody but a supreme idiot would have done what Nicky did.

But Nicky absolutely refused to discuss what he had done.  Nobody but a cad and a rotter would have done anything else.

In the matter of the Moving Fortress what had happened was this.

The last of the drawings was not finished until Desmond had settled down in the flat in Aubrey Walk.  You couldn’t hurry Desmond.  Nicky hadn’t even waited to sign his name in the margins before he had packed the plans in his dispatch box and taken them to the works, and thence, hidden under a pile of Morss estimates, to Eltham.  He couldn’t rest till he had shown them to Frank Drayton.  He could hardly wait till they had dined, and till Drayton, who thought he was on the track of a new and horrible explosive, had told him as much as he could about it.

Nicky gave his whole mind to Drayton’s new explosive in the hope that, when his turn came, Drayton would do as much for him.