Soames gave her another look. What had she picked up? Had her Aunt
Winifred, or Imogen, or Val Dartie and his wife, been talking?
Every breath of the old scandal had been carefully kept from her
at home, and Winifred warned many times that he wouldn't have a
whisper of it reach her for the world. So far as she ought to
know, he had never been married before. But her dark eyes, whose
southern glint and clearness often almost frightened him, met his
with perfect innocence.

"Well," he said, "your grandfather and his brother had a quarrel.
The two families don't know each other."

"How romantic!"

'Now, what does she mean by that?' he thought. The word was to him
extravagant and dangerous--it was as if she had said: "How jolly!"

"And they'll continue not to know each other," he added, but
instantly regretted the challenge in those words. Fleur was
smiling. In this age, when young people prided themselves on going
their own ways and paying no attention to any sort of decent
prejudice, he had said the very thing to excite her wilfulness.
Then, recollecting the expression on Irene's face, he breathed
again.

"What sort of a quarrel?" he heard Fleur say.

"About a house. It's ancient history for you. Your grandfather
died the day you were born. He was ninety."