Now it happened that a little while before, Michael, always on the look out for a good investment, had bought a block of garages near Stanhope Place.
By letting off those he did not want he found that he could get their own for nothing.
There were a number of rooms over.
He divided them into two small flats, one for their chauffeur and one which he proposed to let.
This was still vacant and Julia suggested to Tom that he should take it.
It would be wonderful.
She could slip along and see him for an hour when he got back from the office; sometimes she could drop in after the theatre and no one would be any the wiser.
They would be free there.
She talked to him of the fun they would have furnishing it; she was sure they had lots of things in their house that they did not want, and by storing them he would be doing them a kindness.
The rest they would buy together.
He was tempted by the idea of having a flat of his own, but it was out of the question; the rent, though small, was beyond his means.
Julia knew that.
She knew also that if she offered to pay it herself he would indignantly refuse.
But she had a notion that during that idle, luxurious fortnight by the river she would be able to overcome his scruples.
She saw how much the idea tempted him, and she had little doubt that she could devise some means to persuade him that by falling in with her proposal he was really doing her a service.
‘People don’t want reasons to do what they’d like to,’ she reflected. ‘They want excuses.’
Julia looked forward to Tom’s visit to Taplow with excitement.
It would be lovely to go on the river with him in the morning and in the afternoon sit about the garden with him.
With Roger in the house she was determined that there should be no nonsense between her and Tom; decency forbade.
But it would be heaven to spend nearly all day with him.
When she had matin?es he could amuse himself with Roger.
But things did not turn out at all as she expected.
It had never occurred to her that Roger and Tom would take a great fancy to one another.
There were five years between them and she thought, or would have if she had thought about it at all, that Tom would look upon Roger as a hobbledehoy, quite nice of course, but whom you treated as such, who fetched and carried for you and whom you told to go and play when you did not want to be bothered with him.
Roger was seventeen.
He was a nice-looking boy, with reddish hair and blue eyes, but that was the best you could say of him.
He had neither his mother’s vivacity and changing expression nor his father’s beauty of feature.
Julia was somewhat disappointed in him.
As a child when she had been so constantly photographed with him he was lovely.
He was rather stolid now and he had a serious look.
Really when you came to examine him his only good features were his teeth and his hair.
Julia was very fond of him, but she could not but find him a trifle dull.
When she was alone with him the time hung somewhat heavily on her hands.
She exhibited a lively interest in the things she supposed must interest him, cricket and such like, but he did not seem to have much to say about them.
She was afraid he was not very intelligent.
‘Of course he’s young,’ she said hopefully. ‘Perhaps he’ll improve as he grows older.’
From the time that he first went to his preparatory school she had seen little of him.
During the holidays she was always acting at night and he went out with his father or with a boy friend, and on Sundays he and his father played golf together.
If she happened to be lunching out it often happened that she did not see him for two or three days together except for a few minutes in the morning when he came to her room.
It was a pity he could not always have remained a sweetly pretty little boy who could play in her room without disturbing her and be photographed, smiling into the camera, with his arm round her neck.
She went down to see him at Eton occasionally and had tea with him.
It flattered her that there were several photographs of her in his room.
She was conscious that when she went to Eton it created quite a little excitement, and Mr Brackenbridge, in whose house he was, made a point of being very polite to her.
When the half ended Michael and Julia had already moved to Taplow and Roger came straight there.
Julia kissed him emotionally.
He was not so much excited at getting home as she had expected him to be.
He was rather casual.
He seemed suddenly to have grown very sophisticated.
He told Julia at once that he desired to leave Eton at Christmas, he thought he had got everything out of it that he could, and he wanted to go to Vienna for a few months and learn German before going up to Cambridge.
Michael had wished him to go into the army, but this he had set his face against.