They went back to the picture gallery looking on the gardens, and Michael gazed long at the portrait of his grandfather in the blue frock coat.
“Am I so like him?” he said with a sort of sob.
“Very like.”
He sat down and hid his face in his hands.
“Poor soul,” he said. “Poor soul. He’s up against it. Do you know I had almost forgotten we had ‘won the war’ as he called it. There have been so many worse conflicts since that act of supreme German folly and wickedness.”
“Not what he would call wars,” said Serena. “He only means battles with soldiers in uniforms, and trenches and guns.”
“How on earth are we to break to him that his wife is dead, and that I am his son, and that he is eighty years of age, and that Jack is his grandson.”
“It must come to him gradually.”
“In the meanwhile I shall take off these vile clothes and get back into my own. Serena, what can a made-up tie be, and why is it wrong?”