"You mean you accept the inheritance?" asked Nicholas eagerly. His eagerness was almost too blatant.

"I will accept it," replied Antony dispa.s.sionately, "and will see justice done to your tenants. It will not be inc.u.mbent on me to make personal use of your money."

Nicholas let that pa.s.s.

"And for the present?" he asked.

"Concerning the matter of the contract," said Antony stiffly, "I would point out to you that I undertook to work for you for a year as Michael Field, gardener. Well, I will abide by that contract, and prolong it if necessary." He did not say till the day of Nicholas's death. But Nicholas understood his meaning.

"I trust you consider that I am now treating you fairly," said Antony still stiffly, and after a slight pause.

Nicholas bowed his head.

"Fairly, yes," he said in an odd, almost pathetic voice, "but hardly--shall we call it--as a friend."

Antony looked suddenly amazed.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

"I wanted you to help me to get even with Curtis," he replied regretfully. His tone was somewhat reminiscent of a rueful schoolboy.

Despite himself Antony smiled.

"I ordered him to come here at three o'clock," went on Nicholas, glancing at the clock which wanted only five minutes of the hour. "I wanted to give him his _conge_, and introduce him to the new agent at the same moment. He believes firmly in my demise, by the way, which would certainly have added zest to the business. And now--well, it will be a pretty flat sort of compromise, that's all."

Antony laughed aloud. For the life of him he could not help it. And then, as he laughed, he realized in a sudden flash, almost as Trix had realized, the odd pathos, the utter loneliness which could find interest in the mad business he--Nicholas--had invented.

Suddenly Antony spoke.

"You may as well carry out your original programme," he said, and almost good-humouredly annoyed at his own swift change of mood.

The library door opened.

"Mr. Spencer Curtis," announced Jessop on a note of solemn gloom.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRIFLES

It was not till a good many hours later that the anticlimax of the recent situation struck Trix. Excitement had prevented her from realizing it at first. In the excitement of what the thing stood for, she had overlooked the utter triviality of the thing itself. When, later, the two separated themselves in a measure, and she looked at the thing as apart from what it indicated, the ludicrousness of it struck her with astounding force.

Nicholas Danver would give a tea-party.

And it was this, this small commonplace statement, which had kept the d.u.c.h.essa, Miss Tibb.u.t.t, Doctor Hilary, and herself in solemn and amazed confabulation for at least two hours. It was infinitely more amazing even than the whole story of the past months, and Trix had given that in fairly detailed fashion, avoiding the d.u.c.h.essa's eyes, however, whenever she mentioned Antony's name. Yes; it was what the tiny fact stood for that had astounded them; though now, with the fact in a measure separated from its meaning, Trix saw the almost absurdity of it.

Fifteen years of a living death to terminate in a tea-party!

It was an anticlimax which made her almost hysterical to contemplate. She felt that the affair ought to have wound up in some great movement, in some dignified action or fine speech, and it had descended to the merely ludicrous, or what, in view of those fifteen years, appeared the merely ludicrous. And she had been the instigator of it, and Doctor Hilary had called it a miracle. Which it truly was.

And yet, banishing the ludicrous from her mind, it was so entirely simple. There was not the faintest blare of trumpets, not a whisper even of an announcing voice, merely the fact that a solitary man would once more welcome friends beneath his roof.

The only real touch of excitement about the business would be when Antony Gray learnt the news, and he and the d.u.c.h.essa met. And yet even that somehow lost its significance before the absorbing yet quiet fact of Nicholas's own resurrection.

"He is looking forward to it like a child," Trix had said.

And Miss Tibb.u.t.t had suddenly taken off her spectacles and wiped them.

"It's an odd little thing to feel choky about," she had said with a shaky laugh.

Presently she had left the room. A few moments later Doctor Hilary had also taken his leave. Trix and the d.u.c.h.essa had been left alone. Suddenly the d.u.c.h.essa had looked across at Trix.

"What made you do it?" she had asked.

Trix understood the question, and the colour had rushed to her face.

"What made you do it?" the d.u.c.h.essa had repeated.

"For you," Trix had replied in a very small voice.

"You guessed?" the d.u.c.h.essa had asked quietly.

Trix nodded. It _had_ been largely guesswork. There was no need, at the moment at all events, to speak of Miss Tibb.u.t.t's share in the matter.

That was for Tibby herself to do if she wished.

The d.u.c.h.essa had got up from her chair. She had gone quietly over to Trix and kissed her. Then she, too, had left the room.

Trix stared thoughtfully into the fire. Its light was playing on the silver-backed brushes on her dressing-table, gleaming on the edges of gilt frames, and throwing her shadow big and dancing on the wall behind her. The curtains were undrawn, and without the trees stood ghostly and bare against the pale grey sky. There was the dead silence in the atmosphere which tells of frost.

It was just that,--the oddness of little things, and their immense importance in life, and simply because of the influence they have on the human soul. It was this that made the fact of Nicholas Danver giving a tea-party of such extraordinary importance, though, viewed apart from its meaning, it was the most trivial and commonplace thing in the world.

Trix got up from her chair, and went over to the window.

Not a twig of the bare trees was stirring. The earth lay quiet in the grip of the frost king; a faint pink light still lingered in the western sky. She looked at the rustic seat and the table beneath the lime trees.

How amazingly long ago the day seemed when she had sat there with Pia, and heard the little tale of wounded pride. How amazingly long ago that very morning seemed, when she had seen the sunlight flood her window-pane with ruby jewels. Even her interview with Father Dormer seemed to belong to another life. It had been another Trix, and not she herself who had propounded her difficulty to him, a difficulty so astoundingly simple of solution.

She heaved a little sigh of intense satisfaction, and then she caught sight of a figure crossing the gra.s.s.

The d.u.c.h.essa had come out of the house and was going towards the garden gate.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

A FOOTSTEP ON THE PATH