'I don't feel a bit inclined to go out,' he thought.

'I wonder if mother will stand fizz for my last night!' With 'fizz' and recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.
When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his Uncle Soames.

They stopped talking when he came in; then his uncle said: "He'd better be told." At those words, which meant something about his father, of course, Val's first thought was of Holly.

Was it anything beastly?
His mother began speaking.
"Your father," she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, "your father, my dear boy, has--is not at Newmarket; he's on his way to South America.
He--he's left us." Val looked from her to Soames.

Left them! Was he sorry?
Was he fond of his father?
It seemed to him that he did not know.