A sealed letter in the handwriting of Mr. Polteed remained unopened in Soames’ pocket throughout two hours of sustained attention to the affairs of the New Colliery Company, which, declining almost from the moment of old Jolyon’s retirement from the Chairmanship, had lately run down so fast that there was now nothing for it but a “winding-up.” He took the letter out to lunch at his City Club, sacred to him for the meals he had eaten there with his father in the early seventies, when James used to like him to come and see for himself the nature of his future life.

Here in a remote corner before a plate of roast mutton and mashed potato, he read: