Two more wakeful early mornings had screwed him to the pitch of bringing his doubts to a head and knowing where he stood in the matter of the P.P.R.S.; and this sudden reminder that he was spending money here, there and everywhere, when there was a possibility, however remote, of financial liability somewhere else, sharpened the edge of a nerve already stropped by misgivings. Neglecting the lift and walking slowly up the two flights of stairs, he ‘went over’ his fellow-directors for the fifteenth time. Old Lord Fontenoy was there for his name, of course; seldom attended, and was what they called ‘a dud’ – h’m! – nowadays; the chairman, Sir Luke Sharman, seemed always to be occupied in not being taken for a Jew. His nose was straight, but his eyelids gave cause for doubt. His surname was impeccable, but his Christian dubious; his voice was reassuringly roughened, but his clothes had a suspicious tendency towards gloss. Altogether a man who, though shrewd, could not be trusted – Soames felt – to be giving his whole mind to other business. As for ‘Old Mont’ – what was the good of a ninth baronet on a Board? Guy Meyricke, King’s Counsel, last of the three who had been ‘together’, was a good man in court, no doubt, but with no time for business and no real sense of it! Remained that converted Quaker, old Cuthbert Mothergill – whose family name had been a by-word for successful integrity throughout the last century, so that people still put Mothergills on to boards almost mechanically – rather deaf, nice clean old chap, and quite bland, but nothing more. A perfectly honest lot, no doubt, but perfunctory. None of them really giving their minds to the thing! In Elderson’s pocket, too, except perhaps Sharman, and he on the wobble. And Elderson himself – clever chap, bit of an artist, perhaps; managing director from the start, with everything at his finger-tips! Yes! That was the mischief! Prestige of superior knowledge, and years of success – they all kow-towed to him, and no wonder! Trouble with a man like that was that if he once admitted to having made a mistake he destroyed the legend of his infallibility. Soames had enough infallibility of his own to realize how powerful was its impetus towards admitting nothing. Ten months ago, when he had come on to the Board, everything had seemed in full sail; exchanges had reached bottom, so they all thought – the ‘reassurance of foreign contracts’ policy, which Elderson had initiated about a year before, had seemed, with rising exchanges, perhaps the brightest feather in the cap of possibility. And now, a twelvemonth later, Soames suspected darkly that they did not know where they were – and the general meeting only six weeks off! Probably not even Elderson knew; or, if he did, he was keeping knowledge which ought to belong to the whole directorate severely to himself.

He entered the board-room without a smile. All there – even Lord Fontenoy and ‘Old Mont’ – given up his spinneys, had he! Soames took his seat at the end on the fireside. Staring at Elderson, he saw, with sudden clearness, the strength of the fellow’s position; and, with equal clearness, the weakness of the P.P.R.S. With this rising and falling currency, they could never know exactly their liability – they were just gambling. Listening to the minutes and other routine business, with his chin clasped in his hand, he let his eyes move from face to face – old Mothergill, Elderson, Mont opposite; Sharman at the head; Fontenoy, Meyricke, back to himself – decisive board of the year. He could not, must not, be placed in any dubious position! At his first general meeting on this concern, he must not face the shareholders without knowing exactly where he stood. He looked again at Elderson – sweetish face, bald head rather like Julius Caesar’s, nothing to suggest irregularity or excessive optimism – in fact, somewhat resembling that of old Uncle Nicholas Forsyte, whose affairs had been such an example to the last generation but one. The managing director having completed his exposition, Soames directed his gaze at the pink face of dosey old Mothergill, and said:

‘I’m not satisfied that these accounts disclose our true position. I want the Board adjourned to this day week, Mr Chairman, and during the week I want every member of the Board furnished with exact details of the foreign contract commitments which do not mature during the present financial year. I notice that those are lumped under a general estimate of liability. I am not satisfied with that. They ought to be separately treated.’ Shifting his gaze past Elderson to the face of ‘Old Mont’, he went on: ‘Unless there’s a material change for the better on the Continent, which I don’t anticipate (quite the contrary), I fully expect those commitments will put us in Queer Street next year.’

The scraping of feet, shifting of legs, clearing of throats which accompany a slight sense of outrage greeted the words ‘Queer Street’; and a sort of satisfaction swelled in Soames; he had rattled their complacency, made them feel a touch of the misgiving from which he himself was suffering.

‘We have always treated our commitments under one general estimate, Mr Forsyte.’

Plausible chap!

‘And to my mind wrongly. This foreign contract business is a new policy. For all I can tell, instead of paying a dividend, we ought to be setting this year’s profits against a certain loss next year.’

Again that scrape and rustle.

‘My dear sir, absurd!’

The bulldog in Soames snuffled.

‘So you say!’ he said. ‘Am I to have those details?’

‘The Board can have what details it likes, of course. But permit me to remark on the general question that it can only be a matter of estimate. A conservative basis has always been adopted.’

‘That is a matter of opinion,’ said Soames; ‘and in my view it should be the Board’s opinion after very careful discussion of the actual figures.’

‘Old Mont’ was speaking.

‘My dear Forsyte, to go into every contract would take us a week, and then get us no further; we can but average it out.’

‘What we have not got in these accounts,’ said Soames, ‘is the relative proportion of foreign risk to home risk – in the present state of things a vital matter.’

The Chairman spoke.

‘There will be no difficulty about that, I imagine, Elderson! But in any case, Mr Forsyte, we should hardly be justified in penalizing the present year for the sake of eventualities which we hope will not arise.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Soames. ‘We are here to decide policy according to our common sense, and we must have the fullest opportunity of exercising it.