“Gawd!” said Michael. “I do think it’s the limit of vacuity. What’s its attraction?”

“Vacuity, my dear. This is a vacuous age—didn’t you know?”

“Is there no limit?”

“A limit,” said Fleur, “is what you can’t go beyond; one can always become more vacuous.”

The words were nothing, for, after all, cynicism was in fashion, but the tone made Michael shiver; he felt in it a personal ring. Did she, then, feel her life so vacuous; and, if so, why?

“They say,” said Fleur, “there’s another American dance coming, called ‘The White Beam,’ that’s got even less in it.”

“Not possible,” muttered Michael; “for congenital idiocy this’ll never be surpassed. Look at those two!”

The two in question were wobbling towards them with their knees flexed as if their souls had slipped down into them; their eyes regarded Fleur and Michael with no more expression than could have been found in four first-class marbles. A strange earnestness radiated from them below the waist, but above that line they seemed to have passed away. The music stopped, and each of the seven couples stopped also and began to clap their hands, holding them low, as though afraid of disturbing the vacuity attained above.

“I refuse to believe it,” said Michael, suddenly.

“What?”

“That this represents our Age—no beauty, no joy, no skill, not even devil—just look a fool and wobble your knees.”

“You can’t do it, you see.”

“D’you mean you can?”

“Of course,” said Fleur; “one must keep up with things.”

“Well, for the land’s sake, don’t let me see you.”

At this moment the seven couples stopped clapping their hands—the band had broken into a tune to which the knee could not be flexed. Michael and Fleur began to dance. They danced together, two fox-trots and a waltz, then left.

“After all,” said Fleur, in the taxi, “dancing makes you forget yourself. That was the beauty of the canteen. Find me another job, Michael; I can bring Kit back in about a week.”

“How about joint secretaryship with me of our Slum Conversion Fund? You’d be invaluable to get up balls, bazaars, and matinees.”

“I wouldn’t mind. I suppose they’re worth converting.”

“Well, I think so. You don’t know Hilary; I must get him and Aunt May to lunch; after that you can judge for yourself.”

He slipped his hand under her bare arm, and added: “Fleur, you’re not quite tired of me, are you?”

The tone of his voice, humble and a little anxious, touched her, and she pressed his hand with her arm.

“I should never be tired of you, Michael.”

“You mean you’d never have a feeling so definite towards me.”

It was exactly what she had meant, and she hastened to deny it.

“No, dear boy; I mean I know a good thing, and even a good person, when I’ve got it.”

Michael sighed, and, taking up her hand, put it to his lips.

“I wish,” cried Fleur, “one wasn’t so complex. You’re lucky to be single-hearted. It’s the greatest gift. Only, don’t ever become serious, Michael. That’d be a misfortune.”

“No, after all, comedy’s the real thing.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Fleur, as the taxi stopped. “Delicious night!”

And Michael, having paid the driver, looked at her lighted up in the open doorway. Delicious night! Yes—for him.

The announcement by Michael on the following Monday that Fleur would be bringing Kit home the next morning, caused Soames to say:

“I’d like to have a look at that part of the world. I’ll take the car down this afternoon and drive them up tomorrow. Don’t say anything to Fleur. I’ll let her know when I get down to Nettlefold. There’s an hotel there, I’m told.”

“Quite a good one,” said Michael. “But it’ll be full for Goodwood.”

“I’ll telephone. They must find a room for me.”

He did, and they found for him a room which somebody else lost. He started about five—Riggs having informed him that it was a two-and-a-half hours’ drive. The day had been somewhat English in character, but by the time he reached Dorking had become fine enough to enjoy. He had seen little of the England that lay beyond the straight line between his river home and Westminster, for many years; and this late afternoon, less preoccupied than usual, he was able to give it a somewhat detached consideration. It was certainly a variegated and bumpy land, incorrigibly green and unlike India, Canada, and Japan. They said it had been jungle, heath and marsh not fifteen hundred years ago. What would it be fifteen hundred years hence? Jungle, heath and marsh again, or one large suburb—who could say? He had read somewhere that people would live underground, and come up to take the air in their flying machines on Sundays. He thought it was unlikely. The English would still want their windows down and a thorough draught, and so far as he could see, it would always be stuffy to play with a ball underground, and impossible to play with a ball up in the air. Those fellows who wrote prophetic articles and books, were always forgetting that people had passions. He would make a bet that the passions of the English in 3400 A.D. would still be: playing golf, cursing the weather, sitting in draughts, and revising the prayer-book.

And that reminded him that old Gradman was getting very old; he must look out for somebody who could take his place. There was nothing to do in the family trusts now—the only essential was perfect honesty. And where was he going to find it? Even if there was some about, it could only be tested by prolonged experiment. Must be a youngish man, too, because he himself couldn’t last very much longer. And, moving at forty miles an hour along the road to Billingshurst, he recalled being fetched by old Gradman at six miles an hour from Paddington Station to Park Lane in a growler with wet straw on the floor—over sixty years ago—when old Gradman himself was only a boy of twenty, trying to grow side-whiskers and writing round-hand all day. “Five Oaks” on a signpost; he couldn’t see the oaks! What a pace that chap Riggs was going! One of these days he would bring the whole thing to grief, and be sorry for it. But it was somehow infra dig. to pull him up for speed when there wasn’t a woman in the car; and Soames sat the stiller, with a slightly contemptuous expression as a kind of insurance against his own sensations. Through Pulborough, down a twisting hill, across a little bridge, a little river, into a different kind of country—something new to him—flat meadows all along, that would be marsh in the winter, he would wager, with large, dark red cattle, and black-and-white, and strawberry roan cattle; and over away to the south, high rising downs of a singularly cool green, as if they were white inside. Chalk—out-cropping here and there, and sheep up on those downs, no doubt—his father had always sworn by Southdown mutton. A very pretty light, a silvery look, a nice prospect altogether, that made you feel thinner at once and lighter in the head! So this was the sort of country his nephew had got hold of, and that young fellow Jon Forsyte. Well! It might have been worse—very individual; he didn’t remember anything just like it. And a sort of grudging fairness, latent in Soames’ nature, applauded slightly. How that chap Riggs was banging the car up this hill—the deuce of a hill, too, past chalk-pits and gravel-pits, and grassy down and dipping spurs of covert, past the lodge of a park, into a great beech-wood. Very pretty—very still—no life but trees, spreading trees, very cool, very green! Past a monstrous great church thing, now, and a lot of high walls and towers—Arundel Castle, he supposed; huge, great place; would look better, no doubt, the further you got from it; then over another river and up another hill, banging along into this Nettlefold and the hotel, and the sea in front of you!

Soames got out.

“What time’s dinner?”