Charles.”

“Fine—just a bit loose in front.  Chet must be putting on weight.”

“I’ll have a talk with Mr. Masters sometime today.  He has your old measurements, but it might be safer to have him visit you again.”

“Much safer, I’m sure.  You think I’ve changed a lot, Sheldon?”

“Not in appearance, sir.  You look very fit.”

“And yet there IS a difference?”

“In your manner, perhaps.  But that’s natural.  It’s a nervous strain one can well understand after all you’ve been through.”

“I’d understand it better if I knew what I HAVE been through.  But never mind that.  Time for breakfast.”

He walked across the courtyard, entering the house from the terrace.  No one had yet appeared; the usual new-lit fire was burning, the usual blue flames distilling a whiff of methylated spirit from under the copper dishes.  The Morning Post and Times on the little table.  A cat on the hearthrug—a new cat, who looked up indifferently and then resumed a comprehensive toilet.  Wilson was standing by the dishes, trying hard to behave as if the return of a long-lost son were one of the ordinary events of an English household.

“Good morning, Mr. Charles.”

“Morning, Wilson.”

“What can I get you, sir?  Some kedgeree—or ham and eggs—kipper—

kidneys—“

“Suppose I have a look.”

He eased a little of his embarrassment by the act of serving himself.  He knew Wilson must be staring at him all the time.  As he carried his plate back to the table he said:  “Well, it’s good to be back.”  It was a remark without meaning—a tribute to a convention that did not perfectly fit, like Chetwynd’s clothes, but would do for the time being.

“Yes, indeed, sir.  Very glad to see you again.”

“Thanks.”  And he opened The Times, the dry and crinkly pages engaging another memory.  “You still warm the paper in front of the fire, Wilson?”

“Yes, sir.  I always had to when Mr. Rainier used to come down— it’s got to be a sort of habit, I suppose.”

“Queer how one always associates big things with little things.  I get the whole picture of my childhood from the smell of toasted printer’s ink.”

“Yes, sir.”

He ate his ham and eggs, scanning the inside news page.  Trouble in Europe—the usual Balkan mix-up.  Trouble in Ireland, and that was usual too—British officers assassinated.  Not much of a paper after the holiday—never was.  The usual chatty leader about Christmas, full of Latin quotations and schoolmasterly facetiousness—dear old Times.  A long letter from somebody advocating simplified spelling—

God, were they still at that?  Now that the war was over, it seemed both reassuring and somehow disappointing that England had picked up so many old threads and was weaving them into the same pattern.

Then Chetwynd, eldest of the brothers, began the procession.

“Hello, old chap, how are you?”

(What a thing to say!  But still, what else?)

(Miss Ponsonby, his old governess, had once adjured him:  When people say “How are you?” the correct answer is “How are YOU?”  If you tell them how you are, you show yourself a person of inferior breeding. . . .  “But suppose, Miss Ponsonby,” he had once asked, “you really WANT to know how somebody else is, mustn’t they ever tell you?”)

However, he answered:  “Hello, Chet.  How are YOU?”

“Want you to meet my wife, Lydia. . . .  Lydia . . . this is Charlie.”

An oversized good-looking woman with small, rather hostile eyes.

And then Julia, plumper than when he had seen her last, but still the same leathery scarecrow—red-complexioned, full of stiff outdoor heartiness.

“Hel-LO, Charles!  Sheldon told us ALL about it, and it’s just too

wonderful.  I can’t TELL you how—“

But then, as he kissed her, the fire went out like a damp match and they neither of them knew what to say to each other.  He and Chet almost collided in their eagerness to serve her with food; Chet beat him to it; he slipped back into his chair.

“Kidneys, Julia?”

“Only scrambled eggs, please, Chet.”

“Not even a little piece of bacon?”

“No, really, Chet.”

“Any news of Father this morning?”

“I saw one of the nurses as I came down—she said he’d had a fairly good night and was about the same.”

“Oh, good. . . .  Quite sure about the bacon, Julia?”

“Quite sure.”

“Charles, what about you while I’m here?  You don’t seem to have much on your plate.”

“Nothing more for me, thanks.”

“Well, must be my turn then, and I don’t mind admitting I’m hungry.  Thrilling events always take me that way. . . .  Too bad Father’s ill—we’d have had a party or something to celebrate.”

“I’m sorry he’s ill, but not for that reason, I assure you.”

“No?  Well . . .”  Chet came to the table with his plate, having deliberately delayed at the sideboard till he heard the voices of others approaching.  Now he looked up as if in surprise.  “Morning, George. . . .  Morning, Bridget. . . .”

George, a nervous smile on his plump moustached face; Bridget, the youngest of the family, sweet and shy, always ready to smile if you looked at her or she thought you were likely to look at her.  George’s wife Vera, and Julia’s husband . . . an introduction necessary here—“Charles, this is Dick Fontwell”—“Ahdedoo, ahdedoo”—a tall, long-nosed fellow who threw all his embarrassment into a fierce handshake.

Breakfast at Stourton was a hard meal at the best of times, only mitigated by ramparts of newspapers and unwritten permission to be as morose as one wished.  But this morning they all felt that such normal behaviour must be reversed—everybody had to talk and go on talking.  Charles guessed that they were all feeling as uncomfortable as he, with the additional drawback of having had less sleep.  During the interchange of meaningless remarks about the weather, the news in the paper, Christmas, and so on, he meditated a little speech which he presently made to them when Wilson had left to bring in more coffee.

He began, clearing his throat to secure an audience:  “Er .