‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ thought Winifred.  ‘Jolyon had style.’

“It is a coil,” she said.  “What will father say?

“Mustn’t be told,” said Soames.  “The war’ll soon be over now, you’d better let Val take to farming out there.”

It was tantamount to saying that his nephew was lost.

“I haven’t told Monty,” Winifred murmured desolately.

The case was reached before noon next day, and was over in little more than half an hour.  Soames—­pale, spruce, sad-eyed in the witness-box—­had suffered so much beforehand that he took it all like one dead.  The moment the decree nisi was pronounced he left the Courts of Justice.

Four hours until he became public property!  ‘Solicitor’s divorce suit!’ A surly, dogged anger replaced that dead feeling within him.  ’Damn them all!’ he thought; ’I won’t run away.  I’ll act as if nothing had happened.’  And in the sweltering heat of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill he walked all the way to his City Club, lunched, and went back to his office.  He worked there stolidly throughout the afternoon.

On his way out he saw that his clerks knew, and answered their involuntary glances with a look so sardonic that they were immediately withdrawn.  In front of St. Paul’s, he stopped to buy the most gentlemanly of the evening papers.  Yes! there he was!  ’Well-known solicitor’s divorce.  Cousin co-respondent.  Damages given to the blind’—­so, they had got that in!  At every other face, he thought:  ’I wonder if you know!’ And suddenly he felt queer, as if something were racing round in his head.

What was this?  He was letting it get hold of him!  He mustn’t!  He would be ill.  He mustn’t think!  He would get down to the river and row about, and fish.  ‘I’m not going to be laid up,’ he thought.

It flashed across him that he had something of importance to do before he went out of town.  Madame Lamotte!  He must explain the Law.  Another six months before he was really free!  Only he did not want to see Annette!  And he passed his hand over the top of his head—­it was very hot.

He branched off through Covent Garden.  On this sultry day of late July the garbage-tainted air of the old market offended him, and Soho seemed more than ever the disenchanted home of rapscallionism.  Alone, the Restaurant Bretagne, neat, daintily painted, with its blue tubs and the dwarf trees therein, retained an aloof and Frenchified self-respect.  It was the slack hour, and pale trim waitresses were preparing the little tables for dinner.  Soames went through into the private part.  To his discomfiture Annette answered his knock.  She, too, looked pale and dragged down by the heat.

“You are quite a stranger,” she said languidly.

Soames smiled.

“I haven’t wished to be; I’ve been busy.”

“Where’s your mother, Annette?  I’ve got some news for her.”

“Mother is not in.”