Stephen turned.

"My dear child," he answered in his special voice, which, like champagne, seemed to have been dried by artifice, "you don't want to reopen the whole thing?"

"But I can see he really is upset about it; he's looking so awfully white and thin."

"He ought to give up that bathing in the Serpentine. At his age it's monstrous. And surely any other girl will do just as well?"

"He seems to set store by reading to her specially."

Stephen shrugged his shoulders. It had happened to him on one occasion to be present when Mr. Stone was declaiming some pages of his ma.n.u.script. He had never forgotten the discomfort of the experience.

"That crazy stuff," as he had called it to Cecilia afterwards, had remained on his mind, heavy and damp, like a cold linseed poultice. His wife's father was a crank, and perhaps even a little more than a crank, a wee bit "touched"--that she couldn't help, poor girl; but any allusion to his cranky produce gave Stephen pain. Nor had he forgotten his experience at dinner.

"He seems to have grown fond of her," murmured Cecilia.

"But it's absurd at his time of life!"

"Perhaps that makes him feel it more; people do miss things when they are old!"

Stephen slid the drawer back into its socket. There was dry decision in that gesture.

"Look here! Let's exercise a little common sense; it's been sacrificed to sentiment all through this wretched business. One wants to be kind, of course; but one's got to draw the line."

"Ah!" said Cecilia; "where?"

"The thing," went on Stephen, "has been a mistake from first to last.

It's all very well up to a certain point, but after that it becomes destructive of all comfort. It doesn't do to let these people come into personal contact with you. There are the proper channels for that sort of thing."

Cecilia's eyes were lowered, as though she did not dare to let him see her thoughts.

"It seems so horrid," she said; "and father is not like other people."

"He is not," said Stephen dryly; "we had a pretty good instance of that this evening. But Hilary and your sister are. There's something most distasteful to me, too, about Thyme's going about slumming. You see what she's been let in for this afternoon. The notion of that baby being killed through the man's treatment of his wife, and that, no doubt, arising from the girl's leaving them, is most repulsive!"

To these words Cecilia answered with a sound almost like a gasp. "I hadn't thought of that. Then we're responsible; it was we who advised Hilary to make her change her lodging."

Stephen stared; he regretted sincerely that his legal habit of mind had made him put the case so clearly.

"I can't imagine," he said, almost violently, "what possesses everybody!

We--responsible! Good gracious! Because we gave Hilary some sound advice! What next?"

Cecilia turned to the empty hearth.

"Thyme has been telling me about that poor little thing. It seems so dreadful, and I can't get rid of the feeling that we're--we're all mixed up with it!"

"Mixed up with what?"

"I don't know; it's just a feeling like--like being haunted."

Stephen took her quietly by the arm.

"My dear old girl," he said, "I'd no idea that you were run down like this. To-morrow's Thursday, and I can get away at three. We'll motor down to Richmond, and have a round or two!"

Cecilia quivered; for a moment it seemed that she was about to burst out crying. Stephen stroked her shoulder steadily. Cecilia must have felt his dread; she struggled loyally with her emotion.

"That will be very jolly," she said at last.

Stephen drew a deep breath.

"And don't you worry, dear," he said, "about your dad; he'll have forgotten the whole thing in a day or two; he's far too wrapped up in his book. Now trot along to bed; I'll be up directly."

Before going out Cecilia looked back at him. How wonderful was that look, which Stephen did not--perhaps intentionally--see. Mocking, almost hating, and yet thanking him for having refused to let her be emotional and yield herself up for once to what she felt, showing him too how clearly she saw through his own masculine refusal to be made to feel, and how she half-admired it--all this was in that look, and more. Then she went out.

Stephen glanced quickly at the door, and, pursing up his lips, frowned.

He threw the window open, and inhaled the night air.

'If I don't look out,' he thought, 'I shall be having her mixed up with this. I was an a.s.s ever to have spoken to old Hilary. I ought to have ignored the matter altogether. It's a lesson not to meddle with people in those places. I hope to G.o.d she'll be herself tomorrow!'

Outside, under the soft black foliage of the Square, beneath the slim sickle of the moon, two cats were hunting after happiness; their savage cries of pa.s.sion rang in the blossom-scented air like a cry of dark humanity in the jungle of dim streets. Stephen, with a shiver of disgust, for his nerves were on edge, shut the window with a slam.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HILARY HEARS THE CUCKOO SING

It was not left to Cecilia alone to remark how very white Mr. Stone looked in these days.

The wild force which every year visits the world, driving with its soft violence snowy clouds and their dark shadows, breaking through all crusts and sheaths, covering the earth in a fierce embrace; the wild force which turns form to form, and with its million leapings, swift as the flight of swallows and the arrow-darts of the rain, hurries everything on to sweet mingling--this great, wild force of universal life, so-called the Spring, had come to Mr. Stone, like new wine to some old bottle. And Hilary, to whom it had come, too, watching him every morning setting forth with a rough towel across his arm, wondered whether the old man would not this time leave his spirit swimming in the chill waters of the Serpentine--so near that spirit seemed to breaking through its fragile sh.e.l.l.

Four days had gone by since the interview at which he had sent away the little model, and life in his household--that quiet backwater choked with lilies--seemed to have resumed the tranquillity enjoyed before this intrusion of rude life. The paper whiteness of Mr. Stone was the only patent evidence that anything disturbing had occurred--that and certain feelings about which the strictest silence was preserved.

On the morning of the fifth day, seeing the old man stumble on the level flagstones of the garden, Hilary finished dressing hastily, and followed. He overtook him walking forward feebly beneath the candelabra of flowering chestnut-trees, with a hail-shower striking white on his high shoulders; and, placing himself alongside, without greeting--for forms were all one to Mr. Stone--he said:

"Surely you don't mean to bathe during a hail storm, sir! Make an exception this once. You're not looking quite yourself."

Mr. Stone shook his head; then, evidently following out a thought which Hilary had interrupted, he remarked:

"The sentiment that men call honour is of doubtful value. I have not as yet succeeded in relating it to universal brotherhood."

"How is that, sir?"

"In so far," said Mr. Stone, "as it consists in fidelity to principle, one might a.s.sume it worthy of conjunction. The difficulty arises when we consider the nature of the principle .... There is a family of young thrushes in the garden. If one of them finds a worm, I notice that his devotion to that principle of self-preservation which prevails in all low forms of life forbids his sharing it with any of the other little thrushes."

Mr. Stone had fixed his eyes on distance.

"So it is, I fear," he said, "with 'honour.' In those days men looked on women as thrushes look on worms."

He paused, evidently searching for a word; and Hilary, with a faint smile, said: