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James, brooding in a small chair from which his knees ran uphill, shifted his feet uneasily, and put one of them down on the cat, which had unwisely taken refuge from old Jolyon beside him.

“Here, you’ve got a cat here,” he said in an injured voice, withdrawing his foot nervously as he felt it squeezing into the soft, furry body.

“Several,” said old Jolyon, looking at one face and another; “I trod on one just now.”

A silence followed.

Then Mrs. Small, twisting her fingers and gazing round with “pathetic calm”, asked: “And how is dear June?”

A twinkle of humour shot through the sternness of old Jolyon’s eyes. Extraordinary old woman, Juley! No one quite like her for saying the wrong thing!

“Bad!” he said; “London don’t agree with her—too many people about, too much clatter and chatter by half.” He laid emphasis on the words, and again looked James in the face.

Nobody spoke.

A feeling of its being too dangerous to take a step in any direction, or hazard any remark, had fallen on them all. Something of the sense of the impending, that comes over the spectator of a Greek tragedy, had entered that upholstered room, filled with those white-haired, frock-coated old men, and fashionably attired women, who were all of the same blood, between all of whom existed an unseizable resemblance.