More deadly than the atmosphere during a fight is that when it is over. You ‘keep on thinking of better answers,’ and you feel that life is not worth living. The primary law of existence having been followed to its logical and — win or lose — unsatisfying conclusion, the sand is out of your dolly, you loll and droop. Such were the sensations of Dinny, who had but understudied. Unable to feel that she could be of any real help, she fell back on pigs, and had been for a good week in this posture when she received a letter headed:

“Kingson Cuthcott & Forsyte,

“Old Jewry.

“May 17th, 1932.

“MY DEAR MISS CHARWELL —

“I write to tell you that we have succeeded in coming to an arrangement by which the costs of the action will be met without making any call upon either Mr. Croom or your sister. I shall be grateful if you could take an opportunity of relieving their minds and also your father’s mind in the matter.

“Believe me, my dear Miss Charwell,

“Very faithfully yours,

“ROGER FORSYTE.”

Reaching her on a really warm morning, to sound of mowing machine and to scent of grass, it would have ‘intrigued’ her if she had not detested the word. She turned from the window and said:

“The lawyers say we need none of us worry any more about those costs, dad; they’ve come to an arrangement.”

“How?”

“They don’t say, but they want your mind relieved.”

“I don’t understand lawyers,” muttered the General, “but if they say it’s all right, I’m very glad. I’ve been worrying.”

“Yes, dear. Coffee?”

But she resumed her meditations on that cryptic letter. Did something in Jerry Corven’s conduct force him to agree to this ‘arrangement’? Was there not someone called ‘The King’s Proctor’ who could stop decrees being granted? Or — what?

Abandoning her first idea of driving over to Tony Croom because of the questions he might ask, she wrote to him and to Clare instead. The more, however, she pondered over the wording of the solicitor’s letter, the more convinced she became that she must see ‘very young’ Roger. There was that at the back of her mind which refused quietus. She, therefore, arranged to see him at a teashop near the British Museum on his way homeward from the City, and went there direct from her train. The place was an ‘artifact,’ designed, so far as a Regency edifice could be, to reproduce such a ‘coffee house’ as Boswell and Johnson might have frequented. Its floor was not sanded, but looked as if it should be. There were no long clay pipes, but there were long cardboard cigarette-holders. The furniture was wooden, the light dim. No record having been discovered of what the ‘staff’ should look like, they looked sea-green. Prints of old coaching inns were hung on walls panelled by the Tottenham Court Road. Quite a few patrons were drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. None of them used the long cardboard holders. ‘Very young’ Roger, limping slightly, and with his customary air of not being quite what he ought to be, uncovered his sandyish head and smiled above his chin.

“China or Indian?” said Dinny.

“Whatever you’re having.”

“Then two coffees, please, and muffins.”

“Muffins! This IS a treat, dear papa. Those are quite good old copper bed-warmers, Miss Cherrell. I wonder if they’d sell them.”

“Do you collect?”

“Pick things up. No use having a Queen Anne house unless you can do something for it.”

“Does your wife sympathise?”

“No, she’s all for the T.C.R............