before him reassuringly.  Not a marrying man!  No, no!  Anger replaced that momentary scare.  ’He had better not come my way,’ he thought.  The mongrel represented—–!  But what did Prosper Profond represent?  Nothing that mattered surely.  And yet something real enough in the world—­unmorality let off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl!  That expression Annette had caught from him:  “Je m’en fiche!” A fatalistic chap!  A continental—­a cosmopolitan—­a product of the age!  If there were condemnation more complete, Soames felt that he did not know it.

The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into some distance of their own.  One of them uttered a little hiss, wagged its tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam away.  The other followed.  Their white bodies, their stately necks, passed out of his sight, and he went toward the house.

Annette was in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, and he thought as he went up-stairs ‘Handsome is as handsome does.’  Handsome!  Except for remarks about the curtains in the drawing-room, and the storm, there was practically no conversation during a meal distinguished by exactitude of quantity and perfection of quality.  Soames drank nothing.  He followed her into the drawing-room afterward, and found her smoking a cigarette on the sofa between the two French windows.  She was leaning back, almost upright, in a low black frock, with her knees crossed and her blue eyes half-closed; grey-blue smoke issued from her red, rather full lips, a fillet bound her chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk stockings, and shoes with very high heels showing off her instep.  A fine piece in any room!  Soames, who held that torn letter in a hand thrust deep into the side-pocket of his dinner-jacket, said: 

“I’m going to shut the window; the damp’s lifting in.”

He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the cream-panelled wall close by.

What was she thinking of?  He had never understood a woman in his life—­except Fleur—­and Fleur not always!  His heart beat fast.  But if he meant to do it, now was the moment.  Turning from the David Cox, he took out the torn letter.

“I’ve had this.”

Her eyes widened, stared at him, and hardened.

Soames handed her the letter.

“It’s torn, but you can read it.”  And he turned back to the David Cox—­a sea-piece, of good tone—­but without movement enough.  ’I wonder what that chap’s doing at this moment?’ he thought.  ‘I’ll astonish him yet.’  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annette holding the letter rigidly; her eyes moved from side to side under her darkened lashes and frowning darkened eyes.  She dropped the letter, gave a little shiver, smiled, and said: 

“Dirrty!”

“I quite agree,” said Soames; “degrading.  Is it true?”

A tooth fastened on her red lower lip.  “And what if it were?”