And now Roger was gone.

He didn't know--couldn't tell! The family was breaking up.

Soames would know how much his uncle had left.
Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames' uncle not as his own brother.
Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot in a vanishing world.
Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but he had no one to leave his money to.

There it was! He didn't know! And there was that fellow Chamberlain! For James' political principles had been fixed between '70 and '85 when 'that rascally Radical' had been the chief thorn in the side of property and he distrusted him to this day in spite of his conversion; he would get the country into a mess and make money go down before he had done with it.

A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames?
He had gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from him.