“I didn’t feel like telling him.”

“Feel? Don’t you see what a position you’ve put yourself in? Here you are, running to a young man’s bedside, without your husband’s knowledge.”

“Yes, darling; but he was terribly ill.”

“I dare say,” said Soames; “so are lots of people.”

“Besides, he was over head and ears in love with HER.”

“D’you think he’s going to admit that, even if we could call him?”

Fleur was silent, thinking of Francis Wilmot’s face.

“Oh! I don’t know,” she said at last. “How horrid it all is!”

“Of course it’s horrid,” said Soames. “Have you had a quarrel with Michael?”

“No; not a quarrel. Only he doesn’t tell ME things.”

“What things?”

“How should I know, dear?”

Soames grunted. “Would he have minded your going?”

“Of course not. He’d have minded if I hadn’t. He likes that boy.”

“Well, then,” said Soames, “either you or he, or both, will have to tell a lie, and say that he did know. I shall go up and talk to him. Thank goodness we can prove the illness. If I catch anybody coming down here after you—!”

He went up the following afternoon. Parliament being in recess, he sought the ‘Hotch–Potch’ Club. He did not like a place always connected in his mind with his dead cousin, that fellow young Jolyon, and said to Michael at once: “Can we go somewhere else?”

“Yes, sir; where would you like?”

“To your place, if you can put me up for the night. I want to have a talk with you.”

Michael looked at him askance.

“Now,” said Soames, after dinner, “what’s this about Fleur—she says you don’t tell her things?”

Michael gazed into his glass of port.

“Well, sir,” he said slowly, “I’d be only too glad to, of course, but I don’t think they really interest her. She doesn’t feel that public things matter.”

“Public! I meant private.”

“There aren’t any private things. Do you mean that she thinks there are?”

Soames dropped his scrutiny.

“I don’t know—she said ‘things.’”

“Well, you can put that out of your head, and hers.”

“H’m! Anyway, the result’s been that she’s been visiting that young American with pneumonia at the Cosmopolis Hotel, without letting you know. It’s a mercy she hasn’t picked it up.”

“Francis Wilmot?”

“Yes. He’s out of the wood, now. That’s not the point. She’s been shadowed.”

“Good God!” said Michael.

“Exactly! This is what comes of not talking to your wife. Wives are funny—they don’t like it.”

Michael grinned.

“Put yourself in my place, sir. It’s my profession, now, to fuss about the state of the Country, and all that; and you know how it is—one gets keen. But to Fleur, it’s all a stunt. I quite understand that; but, you see, the keener I get, the more I’m afraid of boring her, and the less I feel I can talk to her about it. In a sort of way she’s jealous.”

Soames rubbed his chin. The state of the Country was a curious kind of co-respondent. He himself was often worried by the state of the Country, but as a source of division between husband and wife it seemed to him cold-blooded; he had known other sources in his time!

“Well, you mustn’t let it go on,” he said. “It’s trivial.”

Michael got up.

“Trivial! Well, sir, I don’t know, but it seems to me very much the sort of thing that happened when the war came. Men had to leave their wives then.”

“Wives put up with that,” said Soames, “the Country was in danger.”

“Isn’t it in danger now?”

With his inveterate distrust of words, it seemed to Soames almost indecent for a young man to talk like that. Michael was a politician, of course; but politicians were there to keep the Country quiet, not to go raising scares and talking through their hats.

“When you’ve lived a little longer,” he said, “you’ll know that there’s always something to fuss about if you like to fuss. There’s nothing in it really; the pound’s going up. Besides, it doesn’t matter what you tell Fleur, so long as you tell her something.”

“She’s intelligent, sir,” said Michael.

Soames was taken aback. He could not deny the fact, and answered:

“Well, national affairs are too remote; you can’t expect a woman to be interested in them.”

“Quite a lot of women are.”

“Blue-stockings.”

“No, sir; they nearly all wear ‘nude.’”

“H’m! Those! As to interest in national affairs—put a tax on stockings, and see what happens!”

Michael grinned.

“I’ll suggest it, sir.”

“If you expect,” said Soames, “that people—women or not—are going to put themselves out of the way for any scheme like this—this Foggartism of yours, you’ll be very much disappointed.”

“So everybody tells me. It’s just because I don’t like cold water at home as well as abroad, that I’ve given up worrying Fleur.”

“Well, if you take my advice, you’ll take up something practical—the state of the traffic, or penny postage. Drop pessimism; people who talk at large like that, never get trusted in this country. In any case you’ll have to say you knew about her visits to that young man.”

“Certainly, sir, wife and husband are one. But you don’t really mean to let them make a circus of it in Court?”

Soames was silent. He did not MEAN them to; but what if they did?

“I can’t tell,” he said, at last. “The fellow’s a Scotchman. What did you go hitting him on the nose for?”

“He gave me a thick ear first. I know it was an excellent opportunity for turning the other cheek, but I didn’t think of it in time.”

“You must have called him something.”

“Only a dirty dog. As you know, he suggested a low motive for my speech.”

Soames stared. In his opinion this young man was taking himself much too seriously.

“Your speech! You’ve got to get it out of your mind,” he said, “that anything you can say or do will make any difference.”

“Then what’s the good of my being in Parliament?”

“Well, you’re in the same boat with everybody else. The Country’s like a tree; you can keep it in order, but you can’t go taking it up by the roots to look at them.”

Michael looked at him, impressed.

“In public matters,” said Soames, “the thing is to keep a level head, and do no more than you’re obliged.”

“And what’s to govern one’s view of necessity?”

“Common-sense. One can’t have everything.”

And rising, he began scrutinising the Goya.

“Are you going to buy another Goya, sir?”

“No; if I buy any more pictures, I shall go back to the English School.”

“Patriotism?”

Soames gave him a sharp look.

“There’s no patriotism,” he said, “in fussing. And another thing you’ve got to remember is that foreigners like to hear that we’ve got troubles. It doesn’t do to discuss our affairs out loud.”

Michael took these sayings to bed with him. He remembered, when he came out of the war, thinking: ‘If there’s another war, nothing will induce me to go.’ But now, if one were to come, he knew he WOULD be going again. So Old Forsyte thought he was just ‘fussing’! Was he? Was Foggartism a phlizz? Ought he to come to heel, and take up the state of the traffic? Was everything unreal? Surely not his love for Fleur? Anyway he felt hungry for her lying there. And Wilfrid back, too! To risk his happiness with her for the sake of—what? Punch had taken a snap at him this week, grinning and groping at a surrounding fog. Old England, like Old Forsyte, had no use for theories. Self-conscious national efforts were just pomposity. Pompous! He? The thought was terribly disturbing. He got out of bed and went to the window. Foggy! In fog all were shadows; and he the merest shadow of them all, an unpractical politician, taking things to heart! One! Two! Big Ben! How many hearts had he turned to water! How many dreams spoiled, with his measured resonance! Line up with the top-dressers, and leave the Country to suck its silver spoon!