“It’s all right, Mother; no good fussing.”

“I don’t see,” said Emily, looking at Soames, “why Winifred shouldn’t tell him that she’ll prosecute him if he doesn’t keep off the premises.  He took her pearls; and if he’s not brought them back, that’s quite enough.”

Winifred smiled.  They would all plunge about with suggestions of this and that, but she knew already what she would be doing, and that was—­nothing.  The feeling that, after all, she had won a sort of victory, retained her property, was every moment gaining ground in her.  No! if she wanted to punish him, she could do it at home without the world knowing.

“Well,” said Emily, “come into the dining-room comfortably—­you must stay and have dinner with us.  Leave it to me to tell your father.”  And, as Winifred moved towards the door, she turned out the light.  Not till then did they see the disaster in the corridor.

There, attracted by light from a room never lighted, James was standing with his duncoloured camel-hair shawl folded about him, so that his arms were not free and his silvered head looked cut off from his fashionably trousered legs as if by an expanse of desert.  He stood, inimitably stork-like, with an expression as if he saw before him a frog too large to swallow.

“What’s all this?” he said.  “Tell your father?  You never tell me anything.”

The moment found Emily without reply.  It was Winifred who went up to him, and, laying one hand on each of his swathed, helpless arms, said: 

“Monty’s not gone bankrupt, Father.  He’s only come back.”

They all three expected something serious to happen, and were glad she had kept that grip of his arms, but they did not know the depth of root in that shadowy old Forsyte.  Something wry occurred about his shaven mouth and chin, something scratchy between those long silvery whiskers.  Then he said with a sort of dignity:  “He’ll be the death of me.  I knew how it would be.”

“You mustn’t worry, Father,” said Winifred calmly.  “I mean to make him behave.”

“Ah!” said James.  “Here, take this thing off, I’m hot.”  They unwound the shawl.  He turned, and walked firmly to the dining-room.

“I don’t want any soup,” he said to Warmson, and sat down in his chair.  They all sat down too, Winifred still in her hat, while Warmson laid the fourth place.  When he left the room, James said:  “What’s he brought back?”

“Nothing, Father.”

James concentrated his eyes on his own image in a tablespoon.  “Divorce!” he muttered; “rubbish!  What was I about?  I ought to have paid him an allowance to stay out of England.  Soames you go and propose it to him.”

It seemed so right and simple a suggestion that even Winifred was surprised when she said:  “No, I’ll keep him now he’s back; he must just behave—­that’s all.”

They all looked at her.  It had always been known that Winifred had pluck.