"Two teas," he said; "and two of those nougat things."

But no sooner was his body seated than his soul sprang up. Those
three--those three were coming in! He heard Irene say something to
her boy, and his answer:

"Oh! no, Mum; this place is all right. My stunt." And the three
sat down.

At that moment, most awkward of his existence, crowded with ghosts
and shadows from his past, in presence of the only two women he
had ever loved--his divorced wife and his daughter by her
successor--Soames was not so much afraid of THEM as of his cousin
June. She might make a scene--she might introduce those two
children--she was capable of anything. He bit too hastily at the
nougat, and it stuck to his plate. Working at it with his finger,
he glanced at Fleur. She was masticating dreamily, but her eyes
were on the boy. The Forsyte in him said: "Think, feel, and you're
done for!" And he wiggled his finger desperately. Plate! Did
Jolyon wear a plate? Did that woman wear a plate? Time had been
when he had seen her wearing nothing! That was something, anyway,
which had never been stolen from him. And she knew it, though she
might sit there calm and self-possessed, as if she had never been
his wife. An acid humor stirred in his Forsyte blood; a subtle
pain divided by hair's-breadth from pleasure. If only June did not
suddenly bring her hornets about his ears! The boy was talking.

"Of course, Auntie June,"--so he called his half-sister "Auntie,"
did he?--well, she must be fifty, if she was a day!--"it's jolly