She stopped with a little catch in her voice. Her hand fastened on his sleeve; their heads were very close together and her hair almost brushed his cheek.

He really was an awful brute, but at the same time it was rather nice—that she should care so much. It would be terrible for her when he told her what was in his mind. She might even get very ill—he had read of broken hearts often enough; and she was extraordinarily nice just now—he didn't want to hurt her. But still a fellow must think of his career, his future, and that sort of thing.

Mrs. Feverel entered—ponderous, solemn, dressed in a black silk that trails behind her in funereal folds. Her hands were clammy to the touch and her voice was a deep bass. She said very little, but sat down silently by the window, forming, as she always did, a dark and extremely solid background. Robin hated and feared her. There was something sinister in her silence—something ominous in her perpetual black. He had never heard her laugh.

Dahlia was laughing now. "I'm a selfish brute, Bobby," she said, "to bother you with my silly little complaints when we want to be cheerful. We'll have a good time this evening, won't we? We'll sing some of those Rubinstein's duets after dinner, and I've got a new song that I've been learning especially for you. And then there's your father; I do want to hear all about him so much—he must be so interesting, coming from New Zealand. Mother and I saw a gentleman in the town this morning that we thought must be him. Tall and brown, with a light brown moustache and a dark blue suit. It must be splendid to have a father again after twenty years without him."

Her voice dropped a little, as though to refer gently to her own fatherless condition.

Mrs. Feverel, a dark shadow in the window, sighed heavily.

"Oh! the Governor!" said Robin, a little irritably. "No! It's rather difficult—he doesn't seem to know what to do and say. I suppose it's being in New Zealand so long! It makes it rather difficult for me."

He spoke as one suffering under an unjust accusation. It was bad luck, and he wondered vaguely why Dahlia had been so interested; why should she care, unless, and the idea struck him with horror, she already regarded him as a prospective father-in-law?

Dinner was announced by the grimy little maid. Robin took the dark figure of Mrs. Feverel on his arm and made some hesitating remark about the weather—but he had the curious and unpleasant sensation of her seeing through him most thoroughly and clearly. He felt ridiculously like a captive, and his doubts as to his immediate escape increased. The gaudy drawing-room, the dingy stairs, the gas hissing in the hall, had been, in all conscience, depressing enough, but now this heavy, mute, ominous woman, trailing her black robes so funereally behind her, seemed, to his excited fancy, some implacable Frankenstein created by his own thrice-cursed folly.

The dinner was not a success. The food was bad, but that Robin had expected. As he faced the depression of it, he was more than ever determined to end it, conclusively, that evening, but Mrs. Feverel's gloom and Dahlia's little attempts at coquettish gaiety frightened him. The conversation, supported mainly by Dahlia, fell into terrible lapses, and the attempts to start it again had the unhappy air of desperate remedies doomed to failure. Dahlia's pathetic glances failed of their intent. Robin was too deeply engaged in his own gloomy reflections to notice them, but her eyes filled with tears, and at last her efforts ceased and a horrible, gloomy silence fell like a choking fog upon them.

"Will you smoke, Robin?" she said, when at last the dessert, in the shape of some melancholy oranges and one very attenuated banana, was on the table. "Egyptian or Turkish—or will you have a pipe?"

He took a cigarette clumsily from the box and his fingers trembled as he lit first hers and then his own—he was so terribly afraid of cutting a ridiculous figure. He sat down again and beat a tattoo on the tablecloth. Mrs. Feverel, with some grimly muttered excuse, left the room. She watched him a moment from the other side of the table and then she came over to him. She bent over his chair, leaning her hands on his shoulders.

"Robin, what is it?" she said. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," he said gloomily. "It's all right——"

"Oh! do you suppose I haven't seen?" She bent closer to him and pressed her cheek against his. "Robin, old boy—you're not getting tired of me? You're tired or cross to-night—I don't know. I've been very patient all this time—waiting for you—hoping that you would come—longing for you—and you never came—all these many weeks. Then I thought that, perhaps, you were too busy or were afraid of people talking—but, at last, there was to be to-night; and I've looked forward to it—oh! so much!—and now you're like this!"

She was nearly crying, and there was that miserable little catch in her voice. He did feel an awful cad—he hadn't thought that she would really care so much as this; but still it had to be done some time, and this seemed a very good opportunity.

He cleared his throat, and, beating the carpet with his foot, tried to speak with dignity as well as feeling—but he only succeeded in being patronising.

"You know," he said quickly, and without daring to look at her, "one's had time to think. I don't mean that I'm sorry it's all been as it has—we've had a ripping time—but I'm not sure—one can't be certain—that it's best for it to go on—quite like this. You see, old girl, it's so damned serious. Of course my people have ideas about my marrying—of course the Trojans have always had to be careful. People expect it of them——"

He stopped for a moment.

"You mean that I'm not good enough?"

She had stepped back from his chair and was standing with her back to the wall. He got up from his chair and turned round and faced her, leaning with his hands on the table. But he could not face her for long; his eyes dropped before the fury in hers.

"No, no, Dahlia—how stupid of you!—of course it's not that. It's really rather unkind of you to make it harder for me. It's difficult enough to explain. You're good enough for any one, but I'm not quite sure, dear, whether we'd be quite the people to marry! We'd be splendid friends, of course—we'll always be that—but we're both very young, and, after all, it's rather hard for one to know. It was splendid at Cambridge, but I don't think we quite realised——"

"You mean you didn't," she broke in quickly. "I know well enough. Some one's been speaking to you, Robin."

"No—nobody." He looked at her fiercely. She had hurt his pride. "As if I'd be weak enough to let that make any difference. No one has said a word—only——"

"Only—you've been thinking that we're not quite good enough for you—that we'd soil your Trojan carpets and chairs—that we'd stain your Trojan relations. I—I know—I——"

And then she broke down altogether. She was kneeling by the table with her head in her arms, sobbing as though her heart would break.

"Oh, I say, Dahlia, don't! I can't bear to see you cry—it will be all right, old girl, to-morrow—it will really—and then you will see that it was wiser. You will thank me for speaking about it. Of course we'll always be good friends. I——"

"Robin, you don't mean it. You can't!" She had risen from her knees and now stood by him, timidly, with one hand on his arm. "You have forgotten all those splendid times at Cambridge. Don't you remember that evening on the Backs? Just you and I alone when there was that man singing on the other side of the water, when you said that we would be like that always—together. Oh, Robin dear, it can't have been all nothing to you."

She looked very charming with her eyes a little wet and her hair a little dishevelled. But his resolution must not weaken—now that he had progressed so far, he must not go back. But he put his arm round her.

"Really, old girl, it is better—for both of us. We can wait. Perhaps in a few years' time it will seem different again. We can think about it then. I don't want to seem selfish, but you must think about me a little. You must see how hard it has been for me to say this, and that it has only been with the greatest difficulty that I've been strong enough. Believe me, dear, it is harder for me than it is for you—much harder."

He was really getting on very well. He had had no idea that he would do it so nicely. Poor girl! it was hard luck—perhaps he had led her to expect rather too much—those letters of his had been rather too warm, a little indiscreet. But no doubt she would marry some excellent man of her own class—in a few years she would look back and wonder how she had ever had the fortune to know so intimately a man of Robin's rank! Meanwhile, the scene had better end as soon as possible.

She had let him keep his arm round her waist, and now she suddenly leant back and looked up in his face.

"Robin, darling," she whispered, "you can't mean it—not that we should part like this. Why, think of the times that we have had—the splendid, glorious times—and all that we're going to have. Think of all that you've said to me, over and over again——"

She crept closer to him. "You love me really, dear, all the same. It's only that some one's been talking to you and telling you that it's foolish. But that mustn't make any difference. We're strong enough to face all the world. You know that you said you were in the summer, and I'm sure that you are now. Wait till to-morrow, dear, and you'll see it all differently."

"I tell you nobody's been talking," he said, drawing his arm away. "Besides, if they did, it wouldn't make any difference. No, Dahlia, it's got to stop. We're too young to know, and besides, it would be absurd anyway. I know it's bad luck on you. Perhaps I said rather too much in the summer. But of course we'll always be good friends. I know you'll see it as I do in a little time. We've both been indiscreet, and it's better to draw back now than later—really it is."

"Do you mean it, Robin?"

She stood facing him with her hands clenched; her face was white and her eyes were blazing with fury.

"Yes, of course," he said. "I think it's time this ended——"

"Not before I've told you what I think of you," she cried. "You're a thief and a coward—you've stolen a girl's love and then you're afraid to face the world—you're afraid of what people will say. If you don't love me, you're tied to me, over and over again. You've made me promises—you made me love you—and now when your summer amusement is over you fling me aside—you and your fine relations! Oh! you gentlemen! It would be a good thing for the world if we were rid of the whole lot of you! You coward! You coward!"

He was taken aback by her fury.

"I say—Dahlia—" he stammered, "it's unfair——"

"Oh! yes!" she broke in, "unfair, of course, to you! but nothing to me—nothing to me that you stole my love—robbed me of it like a common thief—pretended to love me, promised to marry me, and now—now—Oh! unfair! yes, always for the man, never for the girl—she doesn't count! She doesn't matter at all. Break her heart and fling it away and nobody minds—it's as good as a play!"

She burst into tears, and stood with her head in her hands, sobbing as though her heart would break. It was a most distressing scene!

"Really, really, Dahlia," said Robin, feeling extremely uncomfortable (it was such a very good thing, he thought, that none of his friends could see him), "it's no use your taking it like this. I had better go—we can't do any good by talking about it now. To-morrow, when we can look at it calmly, it will seem different."

He moved to the door, but she made another attempt and put her hand timidly on his arm to stop him.

"No, no, Robin, I didn't mean what I said—not like that. I didn't know what I was saying. Oh, I love you, dear, I love you! I can't let you go like that. You don't know what it means to me. You are taking everything from me—when you rob a girl of her love, of her heart, you leave her nothing. If you go now, I don't care what happens to me—death—or worse, That's how you make a bad woman, Robin. Taking her love from her and then letting her go. You are taking her soul!"

But he placed her gently aside. "Nonsense, Dahlia," he said. "You are excited to-night. You exaggerate. You will meet a man much worthier than myself, and then you will see that I was right."

He opened the door and was gone.

She sat down at the table. She heard him open and shut the hall door, and then his steps echoed down the street, and at last there was silence. She sat at the table with her head bent, her eyes gazing at the oranges and the bananas. The house was perfectly silent, and her very heart seemed to have ceased to beat. Of course she did not realise it; it seemed to her still as though he would come back in a moment and put his arms round her and tell her that it was all a game—just to see if she had really cared. But the silence of the street and the house was terrible. It choked her, and she pulled at her frock to loosen the tightness about her throat. It was cruel of him to have gone away like that—but of course he would come back. Only why was that cold misery at her heart? Why did she feel as if some one had placed a hand on her and drawn all her life away, and left her with no emotion or feeling—only a dull, blank, despair, like a cold fog through which no sun shone?

For she was beginning to realise it slowly. He had gone away, after telling her, brutally, frankly, that he was tired of her—that he had, indeed, never really cared for her. That was it—he had never cared for her—all those things that he had promised in the summer had been false, words without any meaning. All that idyll had been hollow, a sham, and she had made it the centre of her world.

She got up from the table and swayed a little as she stood. She pressed her hands against her forehead as though she would drive into her brain the fact that there would be no one now—no one at all—it was all a lie, a lie, a lie!

The door opened softly and Mrs. Feverel stole in. "Dahlia—what has he done?"

She looked at her as though she could not see her.

"Oh, nothing," she said slowly. "He did nothing. Only it's all over—there is not going to be any more."

And then, as though the full realisation of it had only just been borne in upon her, she sat down at the table again and burst into passionate crying.

Mrs. Feverel watched her. "I knew it was coming, my dear—weeks ago. You know I told you, only you wouldn't listen. Lord! it was plain enough. He'd only been playing the same game as all the rest of them."

Dahlia dried her eyes fiercely. "I'm a fool to make so much of it," she said. "I wasn't good enough—he said—not good enough. His people wouldn't like it and the rest—Oh! I've been a fool, a fool!"

Her mood changed to anger again. Even now she did not grasp it fully, but he had insulted her. He had flung back in her face all that she had given him. Injured pride was at work now, and for a moment she hated him so that she could have killed him gladly had he been there. But it was no good—she could not think about it clearly; she was tired, terribly tired.

"I'm tired to death, mother," she said. "I can't think to-night."

She stumbled a little as she turned to the door.

"At least," said Mrs. Feverel, "there are the letters."

But Dahlia had scarcely heard.

"The letters?" she said.

"That he wrote in the summer. You have them safe enough?"

But the girl did not reply. She only climbed heavily up the dark stairs.



CHAPTER IV

Clare Trojan was having her breakfast in her own room. It was ten o'clock, and a glorious September morning, and the sparrows were twittering on the terrace outside as though they considered it highly improper for any one to have breakfast between four walls when Nature had provided such a splendid feast on the lawn.

Clare was reading a violent article in the National Review concerning the inadequacy of our present solution of the housing problem; but it did not interest her.

If the world had only been one large Trojan family there would have been no problem. The trouble was that there were Greeks. She did dimly realise their existence, but the very thought of them terrified her. Troy must be defended, and there were moments when Clare was afraid that its defenders were few; but she blinded herself to the dangers of attack. "There are no Greeks, there are no Greeks." Clare stood alone on the Trojan walls and defied that world of superstition and pagan creeds. With the armour of tradition and an implicit belief in the watchword of all true Trojan leaders, "Qui dort garde," she warded the sacred hearths; but there were moments when her eyes were opened and signs were revealed to her of another world—something in which Troy could have no place; and then she was afraid.

She was considering Harry, his coming, and his probable bearing on present conditions, and she knew that once again the Trojan walls were in danger. It seemed to her, as she sat there, cruelly unfair that the son of the House, the man who in a little while would stand before the world as the head of the Trojan tradition, should be the chief instrument in the attempted destruction of the same. She had not liked Harry in the old days. She had always, even as a girl, a very stern idea of the dignity of the House. Harry had never fulfilled this idea, had never even attempted to. He had been wild, careless, undisciplined, accompanying strange uncouth persons on strange uncouth adventures; he had been almost a byword in the place. No, she had not liked him; she had almost hated him at one time. And then after he had gone away she had deliberately forgotten him; she had erased his name from the fair sheet of the Trojan record, and had hoped that the House would never more be burdened by his undisciplined history. Then she had heard that there was a son and heir, and her one thought had been of capture, deliverance of the new son of the House from his father's influence. She was not deliberately cruel in her determination; she saw that the separation must hurt the father, but she herself was ready to make sacrifice for the good of the House and she expected the same self-denial in others. Harry made no difficulties. New Zealand was no place for a lonely widower to bring up his boy, and Robin was sent home. From that moment he was the centre of Clare's world; much self-denial can make a woman good, only maternity can make her divine. To bring the boy up for the House, to tutor him in all the little and big things that a Trojan must know and do, to fit him to take his place at the head of the family on a later day; all these things she laboured for, day and night without ceasing, and without divided interests. She loved the boy, too, passionately, with more than a mother's love, and now she looked back over what had been her life-work with pride and satisfaction. She had tried to forget Harry. She hoped, although she never dared to face the thought in her heart, that he would die there, away in that foreign country, without coming back to them again. Robin was hers now; she had educated him, loved him, scolded him—he was all hers, she would brook no division. Then, when she had heard that Harry was to come home, it had been at first more than she could bear. She had burst into wild incoherent protests; she had prayed that an accident might happen to him and that he might never reach home. And then the Trojan pride and restraint had come to her aid. She was ashamed, bewildered, that she could have sunk to such depths; she prepared to meet him calmly and quietly; she even hoped that, perhaps, he might be so changed that she would welcome him. And, after all, he would in a little time be head of the House. Robin, too, was strongly under her influence, and it was unlikely that he would leave her for a man whom he had never known, for whom he could not possibly care.

It was this older claim of hers with regard to Robin that did, she felt, so obviously strengthen her position, and now that Harry had really returned, she thought that her fears need not trouble her much longer—he did all the things that Robin disliked most. His boisterousness, heartiness, and good-fellowship, dislike of everyday conventionality, would all, she knew, count against him with Robin. She had seen him shrink on several occasions, and each time she had been triumphantly glad. For she was frightened, terribly frightened. Harry was threatening to take from her the one great thing around which her life was centred; if he robbed her of Robin he robbed her of everything, and she must fight to keep him. That it would come to a duel between them she had long foreseen, she had governed for so long that she would not easily yield her place now; but she had not known that she would feel as she did about Robin, she had not known that she would be jealous—jealous of every look and word and motion. She had never known what jealousy was before, but now in the silence of the golden, sunlit room, with only the twittering of the birds on the lawn to disturb her thoughts, she faced the facts honestly without shrinking, and she knew that she hated her brother. Oh! why couldn't he go back again to his sheep-shearing! Why had he come to disturb them! It was not his environment, it was not his life at all! She felt that they could never lead again that same quiet, ordered existence; like a gale of wind he had burst their doors and broken their windows, and now the house was open, desolate, to the world.

She went up to her father's room, as was her custom every morning after breakfast. He was lying at his open window, watching, with those strange, restless eyes of his, the great expanse of sea and sky stretching before him. His room was full of light and air. Its white walls and ceiling, great bowls of some of the last of the summer's roses, made it seem young and vigorous and alive. It was almost a shock to see that huddled, dying old man with his bent head and trembling hands—but his eyes were young, and his heart.

As she looked at him, she wondered why she had never really cared for him. At first she had been afraid; then, as she grew older and a passionate love for and pride in the family as a conservative and ancient institution developed in her, that fear became respect, and she looked up to her father from a distance, admiring his reserve and pride but never loving him; and now that respect had become pity, and above all a great longing that he might live for many, many years, securing the household gods from shame and tending the fire on the Trojan hearth. For at the moment of his death would come the crisis—the question of the new rule. At one time it had seemed certain that Robin would be king, with herself a very vigilant queen-regent. But now that was all changed. Harry had come home, and it was into his hands that the power would fall.

She had often wondered that she knew her father so little. He had always been difficult to understand; a man of two moods strongly opposed—strangely taciturn for days together, and then brilliantly conversational, amusing, and a splendid companion. She had never known which of these attitudes was the real one, and now that he was old she had abandoned all hope of ever answering the question. His moods were more strongly contrasted than ever. He often passed quickly from one to the other. If she had only known which was the real one; she felt at times that his garrulity was a blind—that he watched her almost satirically whilst he talked. She feared his silences terribly, and she used often to feel that a moment was approaching when he would reveal to her definitely and finally some plot that he had during those many watchful years been forming. She knew that he had never let her see his heart—he had never taken her into his confidence. She had tried to establish some more intimate relationship, but she had failed; and now, for many years, she had left it at that.

But she wanted to know what he thought of Harry. She had waited for a sign, but he had given none; and although she had watched him carefully she had discovered nothing. He had not mentioned his son—a stranger might have thought that he had not noticed him. But Clare knew him too well to doubt that he had come to some definite conclusion in the matter.

She bustled cheerfully about the room, humming a little tune and talking to him, lightly and with no apparent purpose. He watched the gulls fly past the open window, his eyes rested on a golden flash of sun that struck some shining roof in the Cove, but his mind was back in the early days when he had played his game with the best and had seen the bright side of the world.

"He was a rake, Jack Crayle"—he seemed scarcely conscious that Clare was in the room—"a rake but a good heart, and an amusing fellow too. I remember meeting old Rendle and Hawdon Sallust—Hawdon of the eighties, you know—not the old man—he kept at home—all three of them at White's, Rendle and Sallust and Crayle; Jack bet Rendle he wouldn't stop the next man he met in the street and claim him as an old friend and bring him in—and, by Jove, he took it and brought him in, too—sort of tramp chap he was, too—dirty, untidy fellow—but Rendle was game serious—by Gad, he was. Said he was an old friend that had fallen on evil times—gave him a drink and won the bet—'63 that was—the year Bailey won that polo match against old Tom Radley—all the town was talking of it. By Gad, he could ride, Bailey could. Why——"

"It's time for your medicine, father," said Clare, breaking ruthlessly in upon the reminiscences.

"Eh, dear, yes," he said, looking at her curiously. "You're never late, Clare, always up to time. Yes, yes, well, well; in '63 that was. I remember it like yesterday—old Tom—particular friend he was of mine then, although we broke afterwards—my fault too, probably, about a horse it was. I——"

But Clare gave him his medicine, first tying a napkin round his neck lest she should spill the drops. He looked at her, smiling, over the napkin.

"You were always a girl for method," he said again; "not like Harry."

She looked at him quickly, but could guess nothing; she was suddenly frightened, as she so often was when he laughed like that. She always expected that some announcement would follow. It was almost as if he had threatened her.

"Harry?" she said. "No. But he is very like he used to be in some ways. It is nice to have him back again—but—well, he will find Pendragon rather different from Auckland, I'm afraid."

Sir Jeremy said nothing. He lay there without moving; Clare untied the napkin, and put back the medicine, and wheeled the chair into a sunnier part of the room and away from the window.

"You must get on with Harry, Clare," he said suddenly, sharply.

"Why, yes," she answered, laughing a little uneasily. "Of course we get on. Only his way of looking at things was always a little different—even, perhaps, a little difficult to understand"; and then, after a little pause, "I am stupid, I know. It was always hard for me to see like other people."

But he was not listening to her. He was smiling at the sun, and the birds on the lawn, and the flashing gold of the distant sand.

"No, you never saw like Harry," he said at last. "You want to be old to understand," and he would say no more.

He talked to her no more that morning, and she was vaguely uneasy. What was he thinking about Harry, and how did his opinion influence the situation?

She fancied that she saw signs of rebellion. For many years he had allowed her to do what she would, and although she had sometimes wondered whether he was quite as passive as she had fancied, she had had no fear of any disturbance. Now there was something vaguely menacing in his very silences. And, in some undefined way, the pleasure that he took in the cries of birds, the plunge and chatter of the sea as it rose and fell on the southern shore, the glint of the sun on the gold and green distances of rock and moor was alarming. She herself did not understand those things; indeed, she scarcely saw them, and was inclined to despise any one who loved any unpractical beauty, anything that was not at least traditional. And now this was a bond between her father and Harry. They had both loved wild, uncivilised things, and it was this very trait in their character that had made division between them before. But now what had been in those early years the cause of trouble was their common ground of sympathy.

They shared some secret of which she knew nothing, and she was afraid lest Robin should learn it too.

She went about her housekeeping duties that morning with an uneasy mind. The discipline below stairs was excellent because she was feared. It was not that she was hasty-tempered or unjust; indeed the cook, who had been there for many years, said that she had never seen Miss Clare angry, and her justice was a thing to marvel at. She always gave people their due, and exactly their due; she never over-praised or blamed, and that was why people said that she was cold; it was also, incidentally, responsible for her excellent discipline.

She was, as Sir Jeremy had said, a woman of amazing method. But the attitude of her actual household helped her; they were all, by education and environment, Trojans. Whatever they had been before they entered service at "The Flutes"—Radicals, Socialists, Dissenters, or Tones—at the moment of passing the threshold they were transformed into Trojans. Other things fell from them like a mantle, and in their serious devotion to traditional Conservatism they were examples of the true spirit of Feudalism. Beldam, the butler, had long ago graduated as Professor in the system. Coming as page-boy in earlier years, he had acquired the by no means easy art of Trojan diplomacy. It was now his duty to overhaul, as it were, every servant that passed the gates; an overhauling, moreover, done seriously and with much searching of the heart. Were you a Trojan? That is, do you consider that you are exceptionally fortunate in being chosen to perform menial but necessary duties in the Trojan household? Will you spend the rest of your days, not only in performing your duties worthily, but also in preaching to a blind and misguided world the doctrine of Trojan perfection and superiority? If the answer were honestly affirmative, you were accepted; otherwise, you were expelled with a fortnight's wages and eternal contempt.

Even the scullerymaid was not spared, but had to pass an examination in rites and rituals so severe that one unfortunate, Annie Grace Marks, after Beldam had spoken to her severely for half-an-hour, burst out with an impetuous, "Thank Gawd, she was a Marks, which was as good as the High and Mighty any day of the week, and better, for there wasn't no pride in the Marks and never 'ad been."

She received her dismissal that same evening.

But the case of Annie Marks was an isolated one. Rebellion was very occasional, and, for the most, the servants stayed at "The Flutes"—partly because the pay was good, and partly because the very reiteration of Trojan supremacy gave them a feeling of elevation very pleasant to their pride. In accordance with all true feudal law, you lost your own sense of birth and ancestry and became in a moment a Trojan; for Smith, Jones, and Robinson this was very comforting.

So Clare had very little trouble, and this morning she was able to finish her duties speedily, and devote her whole attention to the crisis that threatened the family.

She decided to see Garrett, and made her way to his room. He was writing, and seemed disturbed by her entry. He had been working for some years on a book to be entitled, "Our Aristocracy: its Threatened Supremacy." He was still engaged on the preliminary chapter, "Some aspects of historical aristocracy," and it had developed into a somewhat minute account of Trojan past history. He had no expectations of ever concluding the work, but it gave him a pleasant sense of importance and seemed in some vague way to be of value to the Trojan family.

He was always happy when at work, although he effected very little; but, after all, the great stylists always worked slowly. His style was, it is true, somewhat commonplace; but his rather minute output allowed him to rank, in his own estimation, with Pater and Omar Khayyam, and disdain the voluminous facility of Thackeray and Dickens. He was, he felt, one of the "precious" writers, and so long as no one saw his work he was able both to comfort himself and to impress others with the illusion.

It was said vaguely in Pendragon that "Garrett Trojan was a clever fellow—was writing a book—said to be brilliant, of great promise—no, he hadn't seen it, but——" etc.

So Garrett looked at his sister a little resentfully.

"I hope it's important, Clare," he said, "because—well, you know, the morning's one's time for work, and once one gets off the track it's difficult to get back; not that I've done much, you know, only half a page—but this kind of thing can't move quickly."

"I'm sorry, Garrie," she answered, "but you've got to talk to me. There are things about which I want your advice."

She did not really want it; she had decided on her line of conduct, and nothing that he could say would alter her decision—but it flattered him, and she needed his help.

"Well, of course," he said, pushing his chair back and coming to the fire, "if it's anything I can do— What is it, Clare? Household or something in the town?"

"Oh, nothing," she laughed at him. "Don't be worried, Garrie; I know it's horrid to disturb you, and there's really nothing—only—well, after all, there is only us, isn't there? for acting together I mean—and I want to know what line you're going on."

"Oh! about Harry?" He looked at her sharply for a moment. "You know that I object to lines, Clare. They are dangerous things." He implied that he was above them. "Of course there are times when it is necessary to—well, to be decisive; but at present it seems to me that we must wait for the situation to develop—it will, of course."

"I knew that you would say that," she said impatiently. "But it won't do; the situation has developed. You always preferred to look on—it is, as you say, less dangerous; but here I must have your help. Harry has been back a week; he is, for you and me, unchanged. The situation, as far as we go, is the same as it was twenty years ago. He is not one of us, he never was, and, to do him justice, never pretended to be. We, or at any rate I, imagined that he would be different now, after all that time. He is exactly the same." She paused.

"Well?" he said. "All that for granted, it's true enough. What's the trouble?"

"Things aren't the same though, now. There is father, and Robin. Father has taken to Harry strongly. He told me so just now. And for Robin——"

"Scarcely captivated," said Garrett drily. "Have you seen them together? Hardly domestic——"

Then he looked at her again and laughed. "And that pleases you, Clare."

"Of course," she answered him firmly. "There is no good in hedging. He is no brother of ours, Garrett. He is, what is more important still, no Trojan, and after all family counts for something. We don't like him, Garrett. Why be sentimental about it? He will follow father—and it will be soon—apres, le deluge. For ourselves, it does not matter. It is hard, of course, but we have had our time, and there are other things and places. It is about Robin. I cannot bear to think what it would mean if he were alone here with Harry, after all these years."

"He would not stay."

"You think that?" Clare said eagerly. "It is so hard to know. He is still only a boy. Of course Harry shocks him now, shocks everything—his sense of decency, his culture, his pride—but that will wear off; he will get used to it—and then——"

It had been inevitable that the discussion should come, and Garrett had been waiting. He had no intention of going to find her, he would wait until she came to him, but he had been anxious to know her opinion. For himself the possibility of Harry's return had never presented itself. After all those years he would surely remain where he was. In yielding his son he had seemed to abandon all claim to any rights of inheritance, and Garrett had thought of him as one comfortably dead. He had contemplated his own ultimate succession with the pleasurable certainty that it was absolutely the right thing. In his love for a rather superficial tradition he was a perfect Trojan, and might be relied on to continue existing conditions without any attempt at radical changes. Clare, too, would be of great use.

But in a moment what had been, in his mind, certainty was changed into impossibility; instead of a certain successor he had become some one whose very existence was imperilled—his existence, that is, on the only terms that were in the least comfortable. Everything that made life worth living was threatened. Not that his brother would turn him out; he granted Harry the very un-Trojan virtues of generosity and affection for humanity in general—a rather foolish, gregarious open-handedness opposed obviously to all decent economy. But Harry would keep him—and the very thought stirred Garrett to a degree of anger that his sluggish nature seldom permitted him. Kept! and by Harry! Harry the outlaw! Harry the rebel! Harry the Greek! Garrett scarcely loved his brother when he thought of it.

But it was necessary that some line of action should be adopted, and he was glad that Clare had taken the first step.

"You don't think," he said doubtfully, "that he could be induced to go back?"

"What!" cried Clare, "after these years and the way he has waited! Why, remember that first evening! He will never leave this again. He has been dreaming about it too long!"

"I don't know," said Garrett. "He'll be at loggerheads with the town very soon. He has been saying curious things to a good many people. He objects to all improvement and says so. The place will soon be too hot for him."

But Clare shook her head. "No," she said. "He will soon find out about things—and then, in a little, when he takes father's place, what people think odd and unpleasant now will be original and strong. Besides, he would never go, whatever might happen, because of Robin."

"Ah, yes, there is Robin. It will be curious to watch developments there. Randal comes to-day, doesn't he?"

"Yes, this afternoon. A most delightful boy. I'm afraid that he may find Harry tiresome."

"We must wait," Garrett said finally; "in a week's time we shall see better. But, Clare, don't be rash. There is father—and, besides, it will scarcely help Robin."

"Oh! no melodrama," she said, laughing and moving towards the door. "Only, we understand each other, Garrie. Things won't do as they are—or, as they promise to be."

Garrett returned, with a sigh of relief, to his papers.

For Harry the week had been a series of bitter disappointments. He woke gradually from his dreams and saw that everything was changed. He was in a new world and he was out of place. Those dreams had been coloured, fantastically, beautifully. In the white pebbles, the golden sand, the curling grey smoke of the Cove, he had formed pictures that had lightened many dreary and lonely hours in Auckland. He was to come back; away from that huge unwieldy life in which comfort had no place and rest was impossible, back to all the old things, the wonderful glorious things that meant home and tradition and, above all, love. He was a sentimentalist, he knew that now. It had not been so in those old days; the life had been too adventurous and exciting, and he had despised the quiet comforts of a stay-at-home existence. But now he knew its value; he would come home and take his place as head of the family, as father, as citizen—he had learnt his lesson, and at last it was time for the reward.

But now that he had come home he found that the lesson was not learnt, or, perhaps, that the learning had been wasted; he must begin all over again. Garrett and Clare had not changed; they had made no advances and had shown him quite plainly, in the courteous Trojan fashion, that they considered his presence an intrusion, that they had no place in their ranks that he could fill. He was, he saw it plainly, no more in line with them than he had been twenty years before. Indeed, matters were worse. There was no possibility of agreement—they were poles apart.

With the town, too, he was an "outsider." The men at the Club thought him a bore—a person of strange enthusiasms and alarming heresies. By the ladies he was considered rough: as Mrs. le Terry had put it to Miss Ponsonby, he was a kind of too terrible bushranger without the romance! He was gauche, he knew, and he hated the tea-parties. They talked about things of which he knew nothing; he was too sincere to cover his convictions with the fatuous chatter that passed, in Fallacy Street society, for brilliant wit. That it was fatuous he was convinced, but his conviction made matters no easier for him.

But his attitude to the town had been, it must be confessed, from the very first a challenge. He had expected things that were not there; he had thought that his dreams were realities, and when he had demanded golden colours and had been shown stuff of sombre grey, there had been wild rebellion and impatient discontent with the world. He had thought Pendragon amazing in its utter disregard of the things that were to him necessities, but he had forgotten that he himself despised so completely things that were to Pendragon essentials. He had asked for beauty and they had given him an Esplanade; he had searched for romance and had discovered the new hotel; he dreamed of the sand and blue water of the Cove and had awaked to find the place despised and contemned—a site for future boarding-houses.

The town had thought him at first entertaining; they had made allowances for a certain rather picturesque absurdity consequent on backwoods and the friendship of Maories—men had laughed at the Club and detailed Harry Trojan's latest with added circumstances and incident, and for a while this was amusing. But his vehemence knew no pause, and he stated his disgust at the practical spirit of the new Pendragon with what seemed to the choice spirits at the Club effrontery. They smiled and then they sneered, and at last they left him alone.

So Harry found himself, at the end of the first week after his return, alone in Pendragon.

He had not, perhaps, cared for their rejection. He had come, like Gottwalt in Flegejahre, "loving every dog, and wishing that every dog should love him"—but he had seen, at once, that his way must be apart from theirs, and in that knowledge he had tried to find the comfort of a minority certain of its own strength and disdainful of common opinion. He had marvelled at their narrow vision and was unaware that his own point of view was equally narrow.

And, after all, there was Robin. Robin and he would defy Pendragon and laugh at its stupid little theories and short-sighted plans. And then, slowly, irresistibly, he had seen that he was alone—that Robin was on the side of Pendragon. He refused to admit it even now, and told himself again and again that the boy was naturally a little awkward at first—careless perhaps—certainly constrained. But gradually a wall had been built up between them; they were greater strangers now than they had been on that first evening of the return. Ah! how he had tried! He had thought that, perhaps, the boy hated sentiment and he had held himself back, watching eagerly for any sign of affection, ready humbly to take part in anything, to help in any difficulty, to laugh, to sympathise, to take his place as he had been waiting to do for so many years.

But Robin had made no advances, showed no sign. He had almost repulsed him—had at least been absolutely indifferent. They had had a walk together, and Harry had tried his best—but the attempt had been obvious, and at last there had come a terrible silence; they had walked back through the streets of Pendragon without a word.

Everything that Harry had said had been unfortunate. He had praised the Cove enthusiastically, and Robin had been contemptuous. He had never heard of Pater and had confounded Ibsen with Jerome K. Jerome. He had praised cricket and met with no reply. Twice he had seen Robin's mouth curl contemptuously, and it had cut him to the heart.

Poor Harry! he was very lonely. During the last two days he had been down in the Cove; he had found his way into the little inn and got in touch with some of the fishermen. But they scarcely solaced his loneliness. He had met Mary Bethel on the downs, and for a moment they had talked. There was no stiffness there; she had looked at him simply as a friend, with no hostility, and he had been grateful.

At last he had begun to look forward to the coming of Robin's friend, Randal. He was, evidently, a person to whom Robin looked up with great admiration. Perhaps he would form in some way a link, would understand the difficulties of both, and would help them. Harry waited, eagerly, and formed a picture of Randal in his mind that gave him much encouragement.

He was in his room now; it was half-past four, and the carriage had just passed up the drive. He looked anxiously at his ties and hesitated between light green, brown, and black. He had learnt the importance of these things in his son's eyes. He was going next week to London to buy clothes; meanwhile he must not offend their sense of decency, and he hesitated in front of his tie-box like a girl before her first dance. The green was terribly light. It was a good tie, but perhaps not quite the thing. Nothing seemed to go properly with his blue suit—the brown was dull and uninteresting—it lacked character; any one might have worn it, and he flung it back almost scornfully into the box. The black was really best, but how dismal! He seemed to see all his miserable loneliness and disappointment in its dark, sombre colour. No, that would never do! He must be bright, amusing, cheerful—anything but dull and dismal. So he put on the green again, and went down to the drawing-room. Randal was a young man of twenty-four—dark, tall, and slight, with a rather weary look in the eyes, as of one who had discovered the hollow mockery of the world and wondered at the pleasures of simple people. He was perfectly dressed, and had arrived, after much thought and a University education, at that excellent result when everything is right, as it were, by accident—as though no thought had been taken at all. As soon as a man appears to have laboured for effect, then he is badly dressed. Randal was good-looking. He had very dark eyes and thin, rather curling lips, and hair brushed straight back from his forehead.

The room was in twilight. It was Clare's morning-room, chosen because it was cosy and favoured intimacy. She was fond of Randal and liked to mother him; she also respected his opinions. The windows looked over the sea and the blinds were not drawn. The twilight, like a floating veil, hovered over sea and land; the last faint colours of the sunset, gold and rose and grey, trembled over the town.

Harry was introduced. Randal smiled, but his hand was limp; Harry felt a little ashamed of his own hearty grasp and wished that he had been less effusive. Randal's suit was dark blue and he wore a black tie; Harry became suddenly conscious of his daring green and, taking his tea, went and sat in the window and watched the town. The first white colours of the young moon, slipping from the rosy-grey cloud, touched faintly the towers of the ruined church on the moor; he fancied that he could just see the four stones shining darkly grey against the horizon, but it was difficult to tell in that mysterious half-light. Robin was sitting under the lamp by the door. The light caught his hair, but his face was in shadow. Harry watched him eagerly, hungrily. Oh! how he loved him, his son!

Randal was discussing some people with whom he had been staying—a little languidly and without any very active interest. "Rather a nice girl, though," he said. "Only such a dreadful mother. Young Page-Rellison would have had a shot, I do believe, if it hadn't been for the mother—wore a wig and talked Cockney, and fairly grabbed the shekels in bridge."

"And what about the book?" Clare asked.

"Oh! going on," said Randal. "I showed Cressel a chapter the other day—you know the New Argus man; and he was very nice about it. Of course, some of the older men won't like it, you know. It fairly goes for their methods, and I flatter myself hits them pretty hard once or twice. You know, Miss Trojan, it's the young school you've got to look to nowadays; it's no use going back to those mid-Victorians—all very well for the schoolroom—cause and effect and all that kind of thing—but we must look ahead—be modern and you will be progressive, Miss Trojan."

"That's just what I'm always saying, Mr. Randal," said Clare, smiling. "We're fighting a regular battle over it down here, but I think we will win the day."

Randal turned to Harry. "And you, sir," he said, "are with us, too?"

Harry laughed. He knew that Robin was looking at him. "I have been away," he said, "and perhaps I have been a little surprised at the strides that things have made. Twenty years is a long time, and I was romantic and perhaps foolish enough to expect that Pendragon would be very much the same when I came back. It has changed greatly, and I am a little disappointed."

Clare looked up. "My brother has lost touch a little, Mr. Randal," she said, "and I don't think quite sees what is good for the place—indeed, necessary. At any rate, he scarcely thinks with us."

"With us." There was emphasis on the word. That meant Robin too. Randal glanced at him for a moment and then he turned to Robin—father and son! A swift drawing of contrasts, perhaps with an inevitable conclusion in favour of his own kind. It was suddenly as though the elder man was shut out of the conversation; they had, in a moment, forgotten his very presence. He sat in the dusk by the window, his head in his hands, and terrible loneliness at his heart; it hurt as he had never known before that anything could hurt. He had never known that he was sensitive; in Auckland it had not been so. He had never felt things then, and had a little despised people that had minded. But there had been ever, in the back of his mind, the thought of those days that were coming when, with his son at his side, he could face all things. Well, now he had his son—there, with him in the room. The irony of it made him clench his hands, there in the dark, whilst they talked in the lighted room behind him.

"Oh! King's is going to pot," Randal was saying. "I was down in the Mays and they were actually running with the boats—they seemed quite keen on going up. The decent men seem to have all gone."

Robin was paying very little attention. He was looking worried, and Clare watched him a little anxiously. "I hope you will be able to stay with us some days, Mr. Randal," she said. "There are several new people in Pendragon whom I should like you to meet."

Randal was charmed. He would love to stop, but he must get back to London almost immediately. He was going over to Germany next week and there were many arrangements to be made.

"Germany!" It was Robin who spoke, but the voice was not his usual one. It was alive, vibrating, startling. "Germany! By Jove! Randal—are you really going?"

"Why, of course," a little wearily; "I have been before, you know. Rather a bore, but the Rainers—you remember them, Miss Trojan—are going over to the Beethoven Festival at Bonn and are keen on my going with them. I wasn't especially anxious, but one must do these things, you know."

"Robin was there a year ago—Germany, I mean—and loved it. Didn't you, Robin?"

"Germany? It was Paradise, Heaven—what you will. Ruegen, the Harz, Heidelberg, Worms——" He stopped and his voice broke. "I'm a little absurd about it still," he said, as though in apology for such unnecessary enthusiasm.

"Oh! you're young, Robin," said Randal, laughing. "When you've seen as much as I have you'll be blase. Not that one ought to be, but Germany—well, it hardly lasts, I think. Ruegen—why, it rained and there were mists round the Studenkammer, and how those people eat at the Jagdschloss! Heidelberg! picture postcards and shocking hotels—Oh! No, Robin, you'll see all that later. I wish you were going instead of me, though."

Harry had looked up at the sound of Robin's voice. It had been a new note. There had been an eagerness, an enthusiasm, that meant life and something genuine.

Hope that had been slowly dying revived again. If Robin really cared for Germany like that, then they had something in common. With that spark a fire might be kindled. A red-gold haze as of fire burnt in the night sky, over the town. Stars danced overhead, a little wind, beating fitfully at the window, seemed to carry the light of the moon in its tempestuous track, blowing it lightly in silver mists and clouds over the moor. The Wise Men were there, strong and dark and sombre, watching over the lighted town and listening patiently to the ripple and murmur and life of the sea at their feet. In the little inn at the Cove men were sitting over the roaring fire, telling tales—strange, weird stories of a life that these others did not know. Harry had heard them when he was a boy—those stories—and he had felt the spell and the magic. There had been life in them and romance.

Perhaps they were there again to-night, just as they had been twenty years before. The stars called to him, the lighted town, the dusky, softly breathing sea, the loneliness of the moor. He must get out and away. He must have sympathy and warmth and friendship; he had come back to his own people with open arms and they had no place for him. His own son had repulsed him. But Cornwall, the country of his dreams, the mother of his faith, the guardian of his honour, was there—the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He would search for her and would find her—even though it were on the red-brick floor of the tavern in the Cove.

He turned round and found that the room was empty. They had forgotten him and left him—without a word. The light of the lamp caught the silver of the tea-things, and flashed and sparkled like a flame.

Harry Trojan softly opened the door, passed into the dim twilight of the hall, picked up his hat, and stepped into the garden.



CHAPTER V

As he felt the crunch of the gravel beneath his feet he was possessed with the spirit of adventure. The dark house behind him had been holding him captive. It had held him against his will, imprisoning him, tormenting him, and the tortures that he had endured were many and severe. He had not known that he could have felt it so much—that absolute rejection of him by everything in which he had trusted; but he would mind these things no longer—he would even try not to mind Robin! That would be hard, and as he thought of it even now for a moment tears had filled his eyes. That, however, was cowardice. He must fling away the hopes of twenty years and start afresh, with the knowledge won of his experience and the strength that he had snatched from his wounds.

And after all a man was a fool to mope and whine when that wind from the sea was beating in his ears and the sea scents of clover and poppies and salt stinging foam were brought to his nostrils, and the trees rustled like the beating of birds' wings in the velvety star-lighted sky.

A garden was wonderful at night—a place of strange silences and yet stranger sound: trees darkly guarding mysterious paths that ran into caverns of darkness; the scents of flowers rising from damp earth heavy with dew; flowers that were weary with the dust and noise of the day and slept gently, gratefully, with their heads drooping to the soil, their petals closed by the tender hands of the spirits of the garden. The night-sounds were strangely musical. Cries that were discordant in the day mingled now with the running of distant water, the last notes of some bird before it slept, the measured harmony of a far-away bell, the gentle rustle of some arrival in the thickets; the voice that could not be heard in the noisy chatter of the day rose softly now in a little song of the night and the dark trees and the silver firelight of the stars.

And it was all very romantic, of course. Harry Trojan had flung his cares behind him and stepped over the soft turf of the lawns, a free adventurer. It was not really very late, and there was an hour before dinner; but he was not sure that he minded about that—they would be glad to dine without him. There crossed his mind the memory of a night in New Zealand. He had been walking down to the harbour in Auckland, and the moon had shone in the crooked water-side streets, its white, cold light crossed with dark black shadows of roofs and gables. Suddenly a woman's voice called for help across the silence, and he had turned and listened. It had called again, and, thinking that he might help some one in distress, he had burst a dark, silent door, stumbled up crooked wooden stairs, and entered an empty room. As he passed the door there was a sound of skirts, and a door at the other end of the room had closed. There was no one there, only a candle guttering on the table, the remains of a meal, a woman's hat on the back of a chair; he had waited for some time in silence, he had called and asked if there was any one there, he had tried the farther door and found it shut—and so, cursing himself for a fool, he had passed down into the street again and the episode had ended. There was really nothing in it—nothing at all; but it was the atmosphere, the atmosphere of romantic adventure shot suddenly across a rather drab and colourless existence, and he had liked to dwell on the possibilities of the affair and ask himself about it. Who was the woman, and why had she cried out? Why was there no one in the room? And why had no one answered him?

He did not know and really he did not care, and, indeed, it was better that the affair should be left in vague and incomplete outline. It was probably commonplace enough, had one only known, and sordid too, perhaps. But to-night was just such a night as that other. He would go to the Cove and find his romance where he had left it twenty years ago. It was the hour in Pendragon when shops are closing and young men and maidens walk out. There were a great many people in the street; girls with white, tired faces, young men with bright ties and a self-assertive air—a type of person new to Pendragon since Harry's day. The young man who served you respectfully, almost timidly, behind the counter was now self-assertive, taking the middle of the street with a flourish of his cane. Fragments of conversation came to Harry's ears—

"Mother being out I thought as 'ow I might venture—not but what she'd kick up a rare old fuss——"

"So I told 'er it weren't no business of 'ers and the sooner she caught on to the idea the better for all parties, seein' as 'ow——"

"Well, I never did! and you told 'im that, did yer? I always said you'd some pluck if you really wanted to——"

A gramophone from an open window up the street shrieked the alluring refrain of "She's a different girl again," and a man who had established himself at the corner under the protecting glare of two hissing gas-jets urged on the company present an immediate acceptance of his stupendous offer. "Gold watches for 'alf a crown—positively for one evening in order to clear—all above board. Solid gold and cheap at a sovereign."

The plunge into the cool depths of the winding little path that led down to the Cove was delicious. Oh! the contrast of it! The noise and ugly self-assertion of the town, flinging its gas-jets against the moon and covering the roll of the sea with the shriek of the gramophone. He crossed through the turnstile at the bend of the road and passed up the hill that led to the Cove. At a bend the view of the sea came to him, the white moonlight lying, a path of dancing shining silver, on the grey sweep of the sea. A wind was blowing, turning the grey into sudden points of white—like ghostly hands rising for a moment suddenly from immensity and then sinking silently again, their prayers unanswered.

As he passed up the hill he was aware of something pattering beside him; at first it was a little uncanny in that dim, uncertain light, and he stopped and bent down to the road. It was a dog, a fox-terrier of a kind, dirty, and even in that light most obviously a mongrel. But it jumped up at him and put its paws on his knee.

"Well, company's company," he said with a laugh. "I don't know where you've sprung from, but we'll travel together for a bit." The dog ran up the hill, and for a moment stood out against the moon—a shaggy, disreputable dog with a humorous stump of a tail. He stood there with one ear flapping back and the other cocked up—a most ridiculous figure.

Harry laughed again and the dog barked; they walked down the hill together.

The Cove was dark, but from behind shuttered windows lamps twinkled mysteriously, and the red glow from the inn flung a circle of light down the little cobbled street. The beat of the sea came solemnly like the tramp of invisible armies from the distance. There was no other sound save the tremble of the wind in the trees.

Harry pushed open the door of the inn and entered, followed by the dog. The place was the same; nothing had been changed. There was the old wooden gallery where the fiddle had played such merry tunes. The rough uneven floor had the same holes, the same hills and dales. The great settle by the fire was marked, as in former years, with mysterious crosses and initials cut by jack-knives in olden days. The two lamps shone in their accustomed places—one over the fire, another by the window. The door leading to the bar was half open, and in the distance voices could be heard, but the room itself seemed to be empty.

A great fire leapt in the fireplace and the gold light of it danced on the red-brick floor. The peculiar scent as of tobacco and ale and the salt of the sea, and, faintly, the breath of mignonette and geraniums, struck out the long intervals since Harry had been there before. Twenty years ago he had breathed the same air; and now he was back there again and nothing was changed. The dog had run to the fire and sat in front of it now, wagging his stump of a tail, his ear cocked. Harry laughed and sat down in the settle; the burden of the last week was flung off and he was a free man.

A long, lean man with a straggling beard stood in the doorway and watched him; then he came forward. "Mr. Harry," he said, and held out his hand.

Harry started up. "I'm sorry," he said, stammering, "I don't remember."

"We were wonderin'," said the long, thin man slowly, "when you was comin' down. Not that you'd remember faces—that's not to be expected—especially in foreign parts which is confusing and difficult for a man—but I'm Bill Tregarvis what have had you out fishin' many's the time—not that you'd remember faces," he said again, looking a little timidly at him.

But he did! Harry remembered him perfectly! Bill Tregarvis! Why, of course—many was the time they had seen life together—he had had a wife and two boys.

Harry wrung his hand and laughed.

"Remember, Bill! Why, of course! It was only for a moment. I had got the face all right but not the name. Yes, I have, as a matter of fact, come before, but there were things that have made it difficult at first, and of course there was a lot to do up there. But it's good to be down here! The other place is changed; I had been a bit disappointed, but here it is just the same—the same old lights and smells and sea, and the same old friends——"

"Yer think that?" Tregarvis looked at him. "Because we'd been fearing that all your travelling and sight-seeing might have harmed you—that you'd be thinking a bit like the folk up-along with their cars and gas and filth. Aye, it's a changed world up there, Mr. Harry; but down-along there's no difference. It's the sea keeps us steady."

And then they talked about the old adventurous days when Harry had been eighteen and the world had been a very wonderful place: the herring fishing, the bathing, the adventures on the moor, the tales at night by candlelight, the fun of it all. The room began to fill, and one after another men came forward and claimed friendship on the score of old days and perils shared. They received him quite simply—he was "Mr. Harry," but still one of themselves, taking his place with them, telling tales and hearing them in return.

There were nine or ten of them, and a wild company they made, crowding round the fire, with the flames leaping and flinging gigantic shadows on the walls. The landlord, a short, ruddy-faced man with white hair and a merry twinkle of the eye, was one of the best men that Harry had ever known.

He was a man whose modesty was only equalled by his charity; a man of great humour, wide knowledge of the most varied subjects, and above all a passionate faith in the country of his birth, Cornwall. He was, like most Cornishmen, superstitious, but his belief in Nature as a wise and beneficent mother, stern but never unjust, controlled his will and justified his actions. In those early days Harry had worshipped him with that whole-hearted adoration bestowed at times by young hero-worshippers on those that have travelled a little way along the path and have learnt their lesson wisely. Tony Newsome's influence had done more for Harry in those early years than he had realised, but he knew now what he owed to him as he sat by his side and recalled those other days. They had written once or twice, but Tony was no correspondent and hated to have a pen between his fingers.

"Drive a horse, pull a boat, shoot a gun, mind a net—but God help me if I write," he had said. Not that he objected to books; he had read a good deal and cared for it—but "God's air in the day and a merry fire at night leaves little room for pen and ink" was his justification.

He treated Harry now as his boy of twenty years ago, and laughed at him and scolded him as of old. He did not question him very closely on the incidents of those twenty years, and indeed, with them all, Harry noticed that there was very little curiosity as to those other countries. They welcomed him quietly, simply. They were glad that he was there again, sitting with them, taking his place naturally and easily—and again the twenty years seemed as nothing.

He sat with the dog at his feet. Newsome's hand was on his knee, and every once and again he gave a smothered chuckle. "I knew you'd come back, Mr. Harry," he said. "I just waited. Once the sea has got hold of you it doesn't loosen its grip so quick. I knew you'd come back."

They told wild stories as they had been telling them for many years at the same hour in the same place—strange things seen at sea, the lights and mists of the moor, survivals of smuggling days and fights on the beach under the moon; and it always was the sea. They might leave it for a moment perhaps, but they came back to it—the terror of it, the joy of it, the cruelty of it; the mistress that held them chained, that called their children and would not be denied, the god that they served.

They spoke of her softly with lowered voices and a strange reverence. They had learnt her moods and her dangers; they knew that she could caress them, and then, of a sudden, strike them down—but they loved her.

And she had claimed Harry again. Everything for which he had been longing during that past week had come to him at last; their friendship, their faith in an old god, and above all that sense of a great adventure, for the spirit of which he had so diligently been searching. "Up-along" life was an affair of measured rules and things foreseen. "Down-along" it was a game of unending surprises and a gossamer web shot with the golden light of romance. High-falutin perhaps, but to Harry, as he sat before the fire with the strange dog and those ten wild men, words and pictures came too speedily to admit of a sense of the absurd.

An old man, with a long white beard and a shaking hand, knew strange tales of the moor. When the mists creep up and blot out the land, then the four grey stones take life and are the giants of old, and strange sacrifices are grimly performed. Talse Carlyon had seen things late on a moonlit night with the mists swimming white and silvery-grey over the moor. He had lost his way and had met a man of mighty size who had led him by the hand. There had been spirits about, and at the foot of the grey stone a pool of blood—he had never been the same man since.

"There are spirits and spirits," said the old man solemnly, "and there 'm some good and some bad, for the proper edification of us mortals, and, for my part, it's not for the like of us to meddle."

He stroked his beard—a very gloomy old man with a blind eye. Harry remembered that he had had a wife twenty years before, so he inquired about her.

"Dead," said the old man fiercely, "dead—and, thank God, she went out like a candle."

He muttered this so fiercely that Harry said no more, and the white beard shone in the light of the fire, and his blind eye opened and shut like a box, and his wrinkled hand shook on his knee. The fishing had been bad of late, and here again they spoke as if some personal power had been at work. There were few there who had not lost some one during the years that they had served her, and the memory of what this had been and the foreshadowing of the dangerous future hung over them in the room. Songs were sung, jokes were made, but they were the songs and laughter of men on guard, with the enemy to be encountered, perhaps, in the morning.

Harry sat in his corner of the great seat, watching the leaping of the flames, his hand on Newsome's shoulder, listening to the murmuring voices at his side. He scarcely knew whether he were awake or sleeping; their laughter came to him dimly, and it seemed that he was alone there with only Newsome by his side and the dog sleeping at his feet. The tobacco smoke hung in grey-blue wreaths above his head and the gold light of the two lamps shone mistily, without shape or form. Perhaps it was really a dream. The old man with the white beard and the blind eye was sleeping, his head on his breast. A man with a vacant expression was telling a tale, heavily, slowly, gazing at the fire. The others were not listening—or at any rate not obviously so. They, too, gazed at the fire—it had, as it were, become personal and mesmerised the room. Perhaps it was a dream. He would wake and find himself at "The Flutes." There would be Clare and Garrett and—Robin! He would put all that away now; he would forget it for a moment, at least. He had failed them; they had not wanted him and had told him so,—but here they had known him and loved him; they had welcomed him back as though there had been no intervening space of years. They at least had known what life was. They had not played with it, like those others. They had not surrounded themselves with barricades of artificiality, and glanced through distorting mirrors at their own exaggerated reflection; they had seen life simply, fearlessly, accepting their peril like men and enjoying their fate with the greatness of soul that simplicity had given them. They were not like those others; those on the hill had invaded the sea with noisy clamour, had greeted her familiarly and offered her bathing-machines and boarding-houses; these others had reverenced her and learnt to know her, alone on the downs in the first grey of the dawn, or secretly, when the breakers had rolled in over the sand, carrying with them the red and gold of some gorgeous sunset.

He contrasted them in his mind—the Trojans and the Greeks. He turned round a little in his seat and listened to the story: "It were a man—a strange man with horns and hoofs, so he said—and a merry, deceiving eye; but he couldn't see him clear because of the mist that hung there, with the moon pushing through like a candle, he said. The man was laughing to himself and playing with leaves that danced at his feet under the wind. It can't have been far from the town, because Joe heard St. Elmo's bell ringin' and he could hear the sea quite plain. He ..."

The voice seemed to trail off again into the distance; Harry's thoughts were with his future. What was he to do? It seemed to him that his crisis had come and was now facing him. Should he stay or should he flee? Why should he not escape—away into the country, where he could live his life without fear, where there would be no contempt, no hampering family traditions? Should he stay and wait while Robin learnt to hate him? At the thought his face grew white and he clenched his hands. Robin ... Robin ... Robin ... it always came back to that—and there seemed no answer. That dream of love between father and son, the dream that he had cherished for twenty years, was shattered, and the bubble had burst....

"So Joe said he didn't know but he thought it was to the left and down through the Cove—to the old church he meant; and the man laughed and danced with the leaves through the mist; and once Joe thought he was gone, and there he was back again, laughin'."

No, he would face it. He would take his place as he had intended—he would show them of what stuff he was made—and Robin would see, at last. The boy was young, it would of course take time——

The door of the inn opened and some one came in. The lamps flared in the wind, and there was a cry from the fireplace. "Mr. Bethel! Well, I'm right glad!"

Harry started. Bethel—that had been the name of his friend—the girl who had come to tea. The new-comer was a large man, over six feet in height, and correspondingly broad. His head was bare, and his hair was a little long and curly. His eyes were blue and twinkled, and his face was pleasantly humorous and, in the mouth and chin, strong and determined. He wore a grey flannel suit with a flannel collar, and he was smoking a pipe of great size. Newsome, starting to his feet, went forward to meet him. Bethel came to the fire and talked to them all; there was obviously a free companionship between them that told of long acquaintance. He was introduced to Harry.

"I've heard of you, Mr. Trojan," he said, "and have been expecting to meet you. I think that we have interests in common—at least an affection for Cornwall."

Harry liked him. He looked at him frankly between the eyes—there was no hesitation or disguise; there had been no barrier or division; and Harry was grateful.

Bethel sat down by the fire, and a discussion followed about matters of which Harry knew nothing. There was talk of the fishing prospects, which were bad; a gloom fell upon them all, and they cursed the new Pendragon—the race had grown too fast for them and competition was too keen. But Harry noticed that they did not yet seem to have heard of the proposed destruction of the Cove. Then he got up to go. They asked him to come again, and he promised that he would. Bethel rose too.

"If you don't object, Mr. Trojan," he said, "I'll make one with you. I had only looked in for a moment and had never intended to stay. I was on my way back to the town."

They went out into the street together, and Harry shivered for a moment as the wind from the sea met them.

"Ah, that's good," Bethel said; "your fires are well enough, but that wind is worth a bag of gold."

They walked for a little in silence, and then Harry said: "Those are a fine lot of men. They know what life really is."

Bethel laughed. "I know what you feel about them. You are glad that there's no change. Twenty years has made little difference there. It is twenty years, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Harry. "One thinks that it is nothing until one comes back, and then one thinks that it's more than it really is."

"Yes, you're disappointed," Bethel said. "I know. Pendragon has become popular, and to your mind that has destroyed its beauty—or, at any rate, some of it."

"Well, I hate it," Harry said fiercely, "all this noise and show. Why couldn't they have left Pendragon alone? I don't hate it for big places that are, as it were, in the line of march. I suppose that they must move with the day. That is inevitable. But Pendragon! Why—when I was a boy, it was simply a little town by the sea. No one thought about it or worried about it: it was a place wonderfully quiet and simple. It was too quiet for me then; I should worship it now. But I have come back and it has no room for me."

"I haven't known it as long as you," Bethel answered, "but I confess that the very charm of it lies in its contrast. It is invasion, if you like, but for that very reason exciting—two forces at work and a battle in progress."

"With no doubt as to the ultimate victory," said Harry gloomily. "Yes, I see what you mean by the contrast. But I cannot stand there and see them dispassionately—you see I am bound up with so much of it. Those men to-night were my friends when I was a boy. Newsome is the best man that I have ever known, and there is the place; I love every stone of it, and they would pull it down."

They had left the Cove and were pressing up a steep path to the moor. The moon was struggling through a bank of clouds; the wind was whistling over their heads.

Bethel suddenly stopped and turned towards Harry. "Mr. Trojan," he said, "I'm going to be impulsive and perhaps imprudent. There's nothing an Englishman fears so much as impulse, and he is terribly ashamed of imprudence. But, after all, there is no time to waste, and if you think me impertinent you have only to say so, and the matter ends."

Harry laughed. "I am delighted," he began, but the other stopped him.

"No, wait a moment. You don't know. I'm afraid you'll think that I'm absurd—most people will tell you that I am worse. I want you to try to be a friend of mine, at any rate to give me a chance. I scarcely know you—you don't know me at all—but; one goes on first impressions, and I believe that you would understand a little better than most of these people here—for one thing you have gone farther and seen more——"

There was a little pause. Harry was surprised. Here was what he had been wanting—friendship; a week ago he would have seized it with both hands; now he was a little distrustful; a week ago it would have been natural, delightful; now it was unusual, even a little absurd.

"I should be very glad," he said gravely. "I—scarcely——"

"Oh," Bethel broke in, "we shall come together naturally—there's no fear of that. I could see at once that you know the mysteries of this place just as I do. Those others here are blind. I've been waiting for some one who would understand. But I don't want you to listen to those other people about me; they will tell you a good deal—and most of it's true. I don't blame 'em, but I'm curiously anxious for you not to think with them. It's ridiculous, I know, when I had never seen you before. If you only knew how long I'd been waiting—to talk to some one—about—all this."

He waved his hand and they stopped. They were standing on the moor. Above their head mighty grey clouds were driving like fleets before the wind, and the moon, a cold, lifeless thing, a moon of chiselled marble, appeared, and then, as though frightened at the wild flight of the clouds, vanished. The sea, pearl grey, lay like mist on the horizon, and its voice was gentle and tired, as though it were slowly dying into sleep. They were near the Four Stones—gaunt, grey, and old. The dog had followed Harry from the inn and now ran, a white shadow, in front of him.

"Let me tell you," Bethel said, "about myself. You know I was born in London—the son of a doctor with a very considerable practice. I received an excellent education, Rugby and Cambridge, and was trained for the law. I was, I believe, a rather ordinary person with a rather more than ordinary power of concentration, and I got on. I built up a business and was extremely and very conventionally happy. I married and we had a little girl. And then, one summer, we came down to Cornwall for our holiday. It was St. Ives. I remember that first morning as though it were yesterday. It was grey with the sea flinging great breakers. There was a smell of clover and cornflowers in the air, and great sheets of flaming poppies in the cornfields. But there was more than that. It was Cornwall, something magical, and that strange sense of old history and customs that you get nowhere else in quite the same way. Ah! but why analyse it?—you know as well as I do what I mean. A new man was born in me that day. I had been sociable and fond of little quite ordinary pleasures that came my way, now I wanted to be alone. Their conversation worried me; it seemed to be pointless and concerned with things that did not matter at all. I had done things like other men—now it was all to no purpose. I used to lie for hours on the cliffs watching the sea. I was often out all day, and I met all sorts of people, tramps, wasters, vagabonds, and they seemed the only people worth talking to. I met some strange fellows but excellent company—and they knew, all of them, the things that I knew; they had been out all night and seen the moon and the stars change and the first light of the dawn, and the little breeze that comes in those early hours from the sea, bringing the winds of other countries with it. And they were merry, they had a philosophy—they knew Cornwall and believed in her.

"Well—the holiday came to an end, and I had to go back! London. My God! After that I struggled—I went to my work every day with the sound of that sea in my ears and the vision of those moors always there with me. And the freedom! If you have tasted that once, if you have ever got really close so that you can hear strange voices and see beauties of which you had never dreamt, well, you will never get back to your old routine again. I don't care how strong you are—you can't do it, man. Once she's got hold of you, nothing counts. That was eighteen years ago. I kept my work for a year, but it was killing me. I got ill—I nearly died; once I ran away at night and tried to get to the sea. But I came back—there were my wife and girl. We had a little money, and I gave it all up and we came to live down here. I have done nothing since; rather shameful, isn't it, for a strong man? They have thought that here; they think that I am a waster—by their lights I am. But the things I have learnt! I didn't know what living was until I came here! I knew nothing, I did nothing, I was a dead man. What do I care for their thoughts of me! They are in the dark!"

He had spoken eagerly, almost breathlessly. He was defending his position, and Harry knew that he had been waiting for years to say these things to some one of his own kind who would understand. And he understood only too well! Had he not himself that very evening been tempted to escape, to flee his duty? He had resisted, but the temptation had been very strong—that very voice of Cornwall of which Bethel had spoken—and if it were to return he did not know what answer he might give. But he was not thinking of Bethel; his thoughts were with the wife and daughter. That poor pathetic little woman—and the girl——

"And your wife and daughter?" he said. "What of them?"

"They are happy," Bethel said eagerly. "They are indeed. I don't see them very often, but they have their own interests—and friends. My wife and I never had very much in common—Ah! you're going to scold," he said, laughing, "and say just what all these other horrid people say. But I know. I grant it you all. I'm a waster—through and through; it's damnably selfish—worst of all, in this energetic and pushing age, it's idle. Oh! I know and I'm sorry—but, do you know, I'm not ashamed. I can't see it seriously. I wouldn't harm a fly. Why can't they let me alone? At least I am happy."

They had reached the outskirts of the town by this time and Bethel stopped before a little dark house with red shutters and a tiny strip of garden.

"Here we are!" said he. "This is my place. Come in and smoke! It must be past your dinner hour up at 'The Flutes.' Come and have something with me."

Harry laughed. "They have already ceased wondering at my erratic habits," he said. "New Zealand is a bad place for method."

He followed Bethel in. It was a tiny hall, and on entering he stumbled over an umbrella-stand that lounged forward in a rickety position. Bethel apologised. "We're in a bit of a mess," he said. "In fact, to tell the truth, we always are!" He hung his coat in the hall and led the way into the dining-room. Mrs. Bethel and her daughter came forward. The little woman was amazing in a dress of bright red silk and an absurd little yellow lace cap. Only half the table was laid; for the rest a shabby green cloth, spotted with ink, formed a background for an incoherent litter of papers and needlework. The walls were lined with books and there were some piled on the floor.

A cold shoulder of mutton, baked potatoes in their skins, a melancholy glass dish containing celery, and a salad bowl startlingly empty, lay waiting on the table.

"Anne," said Bethel, "I've brought a guest—up with the family port and let's be festive."

His great body seemed to fill the room, and he brought with him the breath of the sea and the wind. He began to carve the mutton like Siegfried making battle with Fafner, and indeed again and again during the evening he reminded Harry of Siegfried's impetuous humour and rejoicing animal spirits.

Mrs. Bethel was delighted. Her little eyes twinkled with excitement, her yellow cap was pushed awry, and her hands trembled with pleasure. It was obvious that a visitor was an unusual event. Miss Bethel had said very little, but she had given Harry that same smile that he had seen before. She busied herself now with the salad, and he watched her white fingers shine under the lamplight and the white curve of her neck as she bent over the bowl. She was dressed in some dark stuff—quite simple and unassuming, but he thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful.

He said very little, but he was quietly happy. Bethel did not talk very much; he was eating furiously—not greedily, but with great pleasure and satisfaction. Mrs. Bethel talked continuously. Her eyes shone and her cap bobbed on her head like a live thing.