"Oh, if it's an insult to speak the simple truth, I'm _quite_ out of it.

I never could call spades agricultural instruments: and I can't start new habits at my time of life. I don't deny you've made a good thing out of your pictures. But no one in their senses _could_ call your marriage an act of wisdom."

Nevil winced visibly. "I married for the only defensible reason," he said, in a low controlled voice. "And events have more than justified me."

"Possibly--so far as _you're_ concerned. But you can't get over the fact that--even if Roy marries the best blood of England--his son may revert to type. Dr Simons tells me----"

"_Will_ you hold your tongue!" Nevil blazed out, in a white fury. "I'll thank you _not_ to discuss my affairs--or Roy's--with your d.a.m.ned Doctor. And the subject's barred between us--as you're very well aware."

She blenched at the force and fire of his unexpected onslaught, never dreaming how deeply her thrust had gone home.

"Goodness knows it's as painful for me as it is for you----"

"I didn't say it was painful. I said it was barred."

"Well, you goad me into it, with your unspeakable folly; too much under Lil's thumb to check Roy, even for his own good. For heaven's sake, Nevil, put your foot down firmly, for once, and reverse your crazy decision."

He gave her a long, direct look. "Sorry to disappoint, after all the trouble you've taken," he said in a level tone, "but I've already told you the matter's settled. My foot is down on that as firmly as even _you_ could wish."

"You _mean_ it?" she gasped, too incredulous for wrath.

"I mean it."

"Yet you see the danger?"

"I see the danger."

The fact that he would not condescend to lie to her eased a little her bitter sense of defeat.

She rose awkwardly--all of a piece.

"Then I have no more to say. I wash my hands of you all. Until you come to your senses, I don't cross this threshold again."

In spite of the threadbare phrases, genuine pain vibrated in her tone.

"Don't rant, old thing. You know you'll never keep it up," Nevil urged more gently than he had spoken yet.

But anger still dominated pain.

"When _I_ say a thing, I mean it," she retorted stiffly, "as you will find to your cost." Without troubling to answer, he lunged for the door handle; but she waved him aside. "All humbug--playing at politeness--when you've spurned my advice."

"As you please." He stood back for her to pa.s.s. "Sorry it's upset you so. But we'll see you here again--when you've got over it."

"The _boy_ would have got over it in no time," she flung back at him from the threshold. "Mark my words, disaster will come of it. Then perhaps you'll admit I was right."

He felt no call to argue that point. She was gone.... And she had carefully refrained from slamming the door. Somehow that trifling act of restraint impressed him with a sense of finality oddly lacking in her dramatic a.s.severation.

He stood a few moments staring at the polished oak panels. Then he turned back and sat down in the chair she had occupied; and all the inner tension of the last hour went suddenly, completely to pieces....

It was the penalty of his artist nature, this sharp nervous reaction from strain; and with it came crowding back all the insidious doubts and anxieties that even Lilamani's wisdom had not entirely charmed away. He felt torn at the moment between anger with Roy for causing all this pother; and anger with Jane, who, for all her lack of tenderness and tact, was right--up to a point. It was just Family Herald heroics about "not crossing the threshold." At least--rather to his surprise--he found himself half hoping it was. Roy and Lilamani could frankly detest her--and there an end. Nevil--in spite of unforgiveable interludes--was liable to be tripped up by the fact that, after all, she was his sister; and her aggression was proof that, in her own queer fashion, she loved him. Half the trouble was that the love of each for the other took precisely the form that other could least appreciate or understand: no uncommon dilemma in family life. At all events, he had achieved his declaration of independence. And he had not failed to evoke the "deuce of a row."

With a sigh of smothered exasperation, he leaned forward and hid his face in his hands....

The door opened softly. He started and looked up. It was Roy--in flannels and blazer, his dark hair slightly ruffled: considered dispa.s.sionately (and Nevil believed he so considered him) a singularly individual and attractive figure of youth.

At the look in his father's face, he hesitated, wrinkling his brows in a way that recalled his mother.

"Anything wrong, Daddums? I'm fearfully sorry. I came for a book. Is it"--still further hesitation--"Aunt Jane?"

"Why? Have you seen her?" Nevil asked sharply.

"Yes. Was it a meteoric visitation? As I came up the path, she was getting into her car.--And she cut me dead!" He seemed more amused than impressed. Then the truth dawned on him. "Dad--_have_ you been telling her? _Is_ she 'as frantic as a skit'?"

Their favourite Hardy quotation moved Nevil to a smile. "She's angry--naturally--because she wasn't consulted," he said (a happy idea).

"And--well, she doesn't understand."

"'Course she doesn't. Can she ever?" retorted impertinent youth. "She lacks the supreme faculty--imagination." Which was disrespectful, but unanswerable.

Nevil had long ago recognised the futility of rebuke in the matter of "Aunt Jane"; and it was a relief to find the boy took it that way. So he smiled, merely--or fancied he did. But Roy was quick-sighted; and his first impression had dismayed him.

No hesitation now. He came forward and laid a hand on his father's shoulder. "Dads, don't get worrying over me--out there," he said with shy tenderness that was balm after the lacerating scene Nevil had just pa.s.sed through. "That'll be all right. Mother explained--beautifully."

But louder than Roy's comfortable a.s.surance sounded within him the parting threat of Jane: "Disaster will come of it. _Then_ perhaps you'll admit I was right." It shook the foundations of courage. He simply could not stand up to the conjunction of disaster--and Roy. With an effort he freed himself of the insidious thing,--and just then, to his immense surprise, Roy stooped and kissed the top of his head.

"Confound Aunt Jane! She's been bludgeoning you. And you _are_ worrying.

You mustn't--I tell you. Bad for your work. Look here"--a portentous pause. "Shall I chuck it--for the present, anyhow?"

The parental att.i.tude of the modern child has its touching aspect. Nevil looked up to see if Roy were chaffing; and there smote him the queer illusion (rarer now, but not extinct) of looking into his own eyes.

Roy had spoken on impulse--a n.o.ble impulse. But he patently meant what he said, this boy stigmatised by Jane as "all in the clouds," and needing a "tight hand." Here was one of those "whimsical and perilous moments of daily life" that pa.s.s in a breath; light as thistledown, heavy with complex issues. To Nevil it seemed as if the G.o.ds, with ironical gesture, handed him the wish of his heart, saying: "It is yours--if you are fool enough to take it." Stress of thought so warred in him that he came to himself with a fear of having hurt the boy by ungracious silence.

The pause, in fact, had been so brief that Roy had only just become aware that his cherished dream was actually trembling in the balance--when Nevil stood up and faced him, flatly defying Jane and Olympian irony.

"My dear old boy, you shall _not_ chuck it," he said with smiling decision. "I've never believed in the older generation being a drag on the wheel. And now it's my turn, I must play up. What's life worth without a spice of risk? I took my own--a big one--family or no----"

He broke off--and Roy filled the gap. "You mean--marrying Mother?"

"Yes--just that," he admitted frankly. "The greatest bit of luck in my life. She shared the risk--a bigger one for her. And I'm d.a.m.ned if we'll cheat you of yours. There's a hidden key somewhere that most of us have to find. Yours may be in India--who knows?"

He spoke rapidly, as if anxious to convince himself no less than the boy. And he had his reward.

"Dad--you're simply stunning--you two," Roy said quietly, but with clear conviction.

At that moment the purring of the gong vibrated through the house, and he slipped a hand through his father's arm. "That reminds me--I'm _starving_ hungry! If they're still out, let's be bold, and propitiate the teapot on our own!"

Lady Roscoe was, after all, a benefactor in her own despite. Her meteoric visitation had drawn these two closer together than they had been since schoolroom days.