The cab was passing villas now, going a great pace. “Fifteen miles an hour, I should think!” he mused; “this’ll take people out of town to live!” and he thought of its bearing on the portions of London owned by his father⁠—he himself had never taken to that form of investment, the gambler in him having all the outlet needed in his pictures. And the cab sped on, down the hill past Wimbledon Common. This interview! Surely a man of fifty-two with grown-up children, and hung on the line, would not be reckless. “He won’t want to disgrace the family,” he thought; “he was as fond of his father as I am of mine, and they were brothers. That woman brings destruction⁠—what is it in her? I’ve never known.” The cab branched off, along the side of a wood, and he heard a late cuckoo calling, almost the first he had heard that year. He was now almost opposite the site he had originally chosen for his house, and which had been so unceremoniously rejected by Bosinney in favour of his own choice. He began passing his handkerchief over his face and hands, taking deep breaths to give him steadiness. “Keep one’s head,” he thought, “keep one’s head!”