"I see! You didn't avenge it, and it rankles. Poor Father! You let
me have a go!"

It was really like lying in the dark with a mosquito hovering
above his face. Such pertinacity in Fleur was new to him, and, as
they reached the hotel, he said grimly:

"I did my best. And that's enough about these people. I'm going up
till dinner."

"I shall sit here."

With a parting look at her extended in a chair--a look half-
resentful, half-adoring--Soames moved into the lift and was
transported to their suite on the fourth floor. He stood by the
window of the sitting-room which gave view over Hyde Park, and
drummed a finger on its pane. His feelings were confused, tetchy,
troubled. The throb of that old wound, scarred over by Time and
new interests, was mingled with displeasure and anxiety, and a
slight pain in his chest where that nougat stuff had disagreed.
Had Annette come in? Not that she was any good to him in such a
difficulty. Whenever she had questioned him about his first
marriage, he had always shut her up; she knew nothing of it, save
that it had been the great passion of his life, and his marriage
with herself but domestic makeshift. She had always kept the
grudge of that up her sleeve, as it were, and used it
commercially. He listened. A sound--the vague murmur of a woman's
movements--was coming through the door. She was in. He tapped.