“Your father,” she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, “your father, my dear boy, has⁠—is not at Newmarket; he’s on his way to South America. He⁠—he’s left us.”

Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then, suddenly⁠—as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars⁠—his heart twitched within him, and he was sorry. One’s father belonged to one, could not go off in this fashion⁠—it was not done! Nor had he always been the “bounder” of the Pandemonium promenade. There were precious memories of tailors’ shops and horses, tips at school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.

“But why?” he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he had asked. The mask of his mother’s face was all disturbed; and he burst out:

“All right, Mother, don’t tell me! Only, what does it mean?”

“A divorce, Val, I’m afraid.”