air-raids, and the impetus to do extravagant things; so he had
placed her in a seminary as far West as had seemed to him
compatible with excellence, and had missed her horribly. Fleur! He
had never regretted the somewhat outlandish name by which at her
birth he had decided so suddenly to call her--marked concession
though it had been to the French. Fleur! A pretty name--a pretty
child! But restless--too restless; and wilful! Knowing her power
too over her father! Soames often reflected on the mistake it was
to dote on his daughter. To get old and dote! Sixty-five! He was
getting on; but he didn't feel it, for, fortunately perhaps,
considering Annette's youth and good looks, his second marriage
had turned out a cool affair. He had known but one real passion in
his life--for that first wife of his--Irene. Yes, and that
fellow, his Cousin Jolyon, who had gone off with her, was looking
very shaky, they said. No wonder, at seventy-two, after twenty
years of a third marriage!

Soames paused a moment in his march to lean over the railings of
the Row. A suitable spot for reminiscence, half-way between that
house in Park Lane which had seen his birth and his parents'
deaths, and the little house in Montpellier Square where thirty-
five years ago he had enjoyed his first edition of matrimony. Now,
after twenty years of his second edition, that old tragedy seemed
to him like a previous existence--which had ended when Fleur was
born in place of the son he had hoped for. For many years he had
ceased regretting, even vaguely, the son who had not been born;
Fleur filled the bill in his heart. After all, she bore his name;
and he was not looking forward at all to the time when she would
change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of such a calamity, it was
seasoned by the vague feeling that he could make her rich enough