"I can. I don't mind roughing it. I could live on a hundred a year--or less, if I don't marry." "Well, I don't mean you to try. You needn't bother about what you can live on and what you can't live on. It was all settled last night. Your mother and I talked it over. We don't want you to go into the business. We don't want you to take work from Mr. Stephen. We want you to be absolutely free to do your own work, under the best possible conditions, whether it pays or not. Nothing in the world matters to us but your happiness. You're to have a hundred and fifty a year when you're living at home and two hundred and fifty when you're living abroad. I suppose you'll want to go abroad sometimes. I can't give you a bigger allowance, because I have to help Nicky--" Michael covered his face with his hands. "Oh--don't, Daddy. You do make me feel a rotten beast." "We should feel rottener beasts," said Frances, "if we stood in your way." "Then," said Michael (he was still incredulous), "you do care?" "Of course we care," said Anthony. "I don't mean for me--for _it_?" "My dear Mick," said Frances, "we care for It almost as much as we care for you. We're sorry about Germany though. Germany was one of your father's bad jokes." "Germany--a joke?" "Did you take it seriously? Oh, you silly Michael!" "But," said Michael, "how about Daddy's idea? He loved it." "I loved it," said Anthony, "but I've given it up." They knew that this was defeat, for Michael was top-dog. And it was also victory. They had lost Nicholas, or thought they had lost Nicholas, by opposing him. But Michael and Michael's affection they would have always. Besides, Anthony hadn't given up his idea. He had only transferred it--to his youngest son, John. XV It was five weeks since Nicholas's wedding-day and Desmond had quarrelled with him three times. First, because he had taken a flat in Aubrey Walk, with a studio inside it, instead of a house in Campden Hill Square with a studio outside it in the garden. Then, because he had refused to go into his father's business. Last of all, because of Captain Drayton and the Moving Fortress. Nicky had said that his father, who was paying his rent, couldn't afford the house with the studio in the garden; and Desmond said Nicky's father could afford it perfectly well if he liked. He said he had refused to go into his father's business for reasons which didn't concern her. Desmond pointed out that the consequences of his refusal were likely to concern her very much indeed. As for Captain Drayton and the Moving Fortress, nobody but a supreme idiot would have done what Nicky did. But Nicky absolutely refused to discuss what he had done. Nobody but a cad and a rotter would have done anything else. In the matter of the Moving Fortress what had happened was this.