“Madam, they shall see their uncle,” Lucas answered.  At any rate his agreeable voice had not coarsened.  He turned to George:  “What d’you think of it, George?”

“My boy, I’m proud of you,” said George.  In his tennis-flannels he felt like one who has arrived at an evening party in morning-dress.  And indeed he was proud of Lucas.  Something profound and ingenuous in him rose into his eyes and caused them to shine.

Lucas related his adventures with the tailor and other purveyors, and explained that he had to ‘join his regiment’ the next day, but would be able to remain in London for the present.  George questioned him about his business affairs.

“No difficulty about that whatever!” said Lucas lightly.  “The old firm will carry on as usual; Enwright and Orgreave will have to manage it between them; and of course they wouldn’t dream of trying to cut off the spondulicks.  Not that I should let that stop me if they did.”

“Yes, it’s all very well for you to talk like that!” said Lois, with a swift change of tone.  “You’ve got partners to do your work for you, and you’ve got money....  Have you written to mother, Laurencine?”

George objected to his wife making excuses.  His gaze faltered.

“Of course, darling!” Laurencine answered eagerly, agreeing with her sister’s differentiation between George and Everard.  “No, not yet.  But I’m going to to-night.  Everard, we ought to be off.”

“I’ve got a taxi outside,” said Lucas.

“A taxi?” she repeated in a disappointed tone.  And then, as an afterthought:  “Well, I have to call at Debenham’s.”

The fact was that Laurencine wanted to be seen walking with her military officer in some well-frequented thoroughfare.  They lived at Hampstead.

Lois rang the bell.

“Ask nurse to bring the children down, please—­at once,” she told the parlourmaid.

“So this is the new tea-gown, if I mistake not!” observed Lucas in the pause. “Tres chic!  I suppose Laurencine’s told you all about the chauffeur being run off with against his will by a passionate virgin. I couldn’t start the car this morning myself.”

“You never could start a car by yourself, my boy,” said George.  “What’s this about the passionate virgin?”

V

George woke up in the middle of the night.  Lois slept calmly; he could just hear her soft breathing.  He thought of all the occupied bedrooms, of the health of children, the incalculable quality in wives, the touchy stupidity of nurses and servants.  The mere human weight of the household oppressed him terribly.  And he thought of the adamant of landlords, the shifty rapacity of tradesmen, the incompetence of clerks, the mere pompous foolishness of Government departments, the arrogance of Jew patrons, and the terrifying complexity of problems of architecture on a large scale.