“I’ve got to see.⁠ ⁠…” began Val, but something in her face stopped him. “I say,” he said, “you don’t mean.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, I have to go to the Court this morning.” Already!⁠—that damned business which he had almost succeeded in forgetting, since nobody ever mentioned it. In self-commiseration he stood picking little bits of skin off his fingers. Then noticing that his mother’s lips were all awry, he said impulsively: “All right, mother; I’ll come. The brutes!” What brutes he did not know, but the expression exactly summed up their joint feeling, and restored a measure of equanimity.