It had been from the beginning of things a Trojan dictum that the revealing of emotion was the worst of gaucheries--Clare, Garrett, and Robin himself had been schooled in this matter from their respective cradles; and now the lesson must be put into practice.

For Robin, of course, it was no revelation at all, but he dared not look at his aunt; he understood a little what it must mean to her. To those that watched her, however, nothing was revealed. She stood by the fire, her hands at her side, her head slightly turned towards her brother.

"Might I ask," she said quietly, "the name of the fortunate lady?"

"Miss Bethel!"

"Miss Bethel!" Garrett sprang to his feet. "Harry, you must be joking! You can't mean it! Not the daughter of Bethel at the Point--the madman!--the----"

"Please, Garrett," said Harry, "remember that she has promised to be my wife. I am sorry, Clare----"

He turned round to his sister.

But she had said nothing. She pulled a chair from the table and sat down, quietly, without obvious emotion.

"It is a little unexpected," she said. "But really if we had considered things it was obvious enough. It is all of a piece. Robin tried for Breach of Promise, the Bethels in the house before father has been buried for three days--the policy and traditions of the last three hundred years upset in three weeks."

"Of course," said Harry, "I could scarcely expect you to welcome the change. You do not know Miss Bethel. I am afraid you are a little prejudiced against her. And, indeed, please--please, believe me that it has been my very last wish to go counter in any way to your own plans. But it has seemed almost unavoidable; we have found that one thing after another has arisen about which we could not agree. Is it too late now to reconsider the position? Couldn't we pull together from this moment?"

But she interrupted him. "Come, Harry," she said, "whatever we are, let us avoid hypocrisy. You have beaten me at every point and I must retire. I have seen in three weeks everything that I had cared for and loved destroyed. You come back a stranger, and without knowing or caring for the proper dignity of the House, you have done what you pleased. Finally, you are bringing a woman into the House whose parents are beggars, whose social position makes her unworthy of such a marriage. You cannot expect me to love you for it. From this moment we cease to exist for each other. I hope that I may never see you again or hear from you. I shall not indulge in heroics or melodrama, but I will never forgive you. I suppose that the house at Norfolk is at my disposal?"

"Certainly," he answered. Then he turned to his brother. "I hope, Garrett," he said, "that you do not feel as strongly about the matter as Clare. I should be very glad if you found it possible to remain."

That gentleman was in a difficult position; he changed colour and tried to avoid his sister's eyes. After a rapid survey of the position, he had come to the conclusion that he would not be nearly as comfortable in Norfolk--he could not write his book as easily, and the house had scarcely the same position of importance. He had grown fond of the place. Harry, after all, was not a bad chap--he seemed very anxious to be pleasant; and even Mary Bethel mightn't turn out so badly.

"You see, Clare," he said slowly, "there is the book--and--well, on the whole, I think it would be almost better if I remained; it is not, of course, that----"

Clare's lip curled scornfully.

"I understand, Garrett, you could scarcely be expected to leave such comforts for so slight a reason. And you, Robin?"

She held the chair with her hand as she spoke. The fury at her heart was such that she could scarcely breathe; she was quite calm, but she had a mad desire to seize Harry as he sat there at the table and strangle him with her hands. And Garrett!--the contemptible coward!

But if only Robin would come with her, then the rest mattered little.

After all, it had only been a fortnight ago when he had stood at her side and rejected his father. The scene now was parallel--her voice grew soft and trembled a little as she spoke to him.

"Robin, dear, what will you do? Will you come with me?"

For a moment father and son looked at each other, then Robin answered--

"I shall be very glad to come and stay sometimes, Aunt Clare--often--whenever you care to have me. But I think that I must stay here. I have been talking to father and I am going up to London to try, I think, for the Diplomatic. We thought----"

But the "we" was too much for her.

"I congratulate you," she said, turning to Harry. "You have done a great deal in three weeks. It looks," she said, looking round the room, "almost like a conspiracy. I----" Then she suddenly broke down.

She bent down over Robin and caught his head between her hands--

"Robin--Robin dear--you must come, you must, dear. I brought you up--I have loved you--always--always. You can't leave me now, old boy, after all that I have done--all, everything. Why, he has done nothing--he----"

She kissed him again and again, and caught his hands: "Robin, I love you--you--only in all the world; you are all that I have got----"

But he put her hands gently aside. "Please--please--Aunt Clare, I am dreadfully sorry----"

And then her pride returned to her. She walked to the door with her head high.

"I will go to the Darcy's in London until that other house is ready. I will go to-morrow----"

She opened the door, but Harry sprang up--

"Please, Clare--don't go like that. Think over it--perhaps to-morrow----"

"Oh, let me go," she answered wearily; "I'm tired."

She walked up the stairs to her room. She could scarcely see--Robin had denied her!

She shut the door of her bedroom behind her and fell at the foot of her bed, her face buried in her hands. Then at last she burst into a storm of tears--

"Robin! Robin!" she cried.

CHAPTER XVI

It was Christmas Eve and the Cove lay buried in snow. The sea was grey like steel, and made no sound as it ebbed and flowed up the little creek. The sky was grey and snowflakes fell lazily, idly, as though half afraid to let themselves go; a tiny orange moon glittered over the chimneys of "The Bended Thumb."

Harry came out of the Inn and stood for a moment to turn up the collar of his coat. The perfect stillness of the scene pleased him; the world was like the breathless moment before some great event: the opening of Pandora's box, the leaping of armed men from the belly of the wooden horse, the flashing of Excalibur over the mere, the birth of some little child.

He sighed as he pa.s.sed down the street. He had read in his morning paper that the Cove was doomed. The word had gone forth, the Town Council had decided; the Cove was to be pulled down and a street of lodging-houses was to take its place. Pendragon would be no longer a place of contrasts; it would be all of a piece, a completely popular watering-place.

The vision of its pa.s.sing hurt him--so much must go with it; and gradually he saw the beauty and the superst.i.tion and the wonder being driven from the world--the Old World--and a hard Iron and Steel Materialism relentlessly taking its place.

But he himself had changed; the place had had its influence on him, and he was beginning to see the beauty of these improvements, these manufactures, these hard straight lines and gaunt ugly squares.

Progress? Progress? Inevitable?--yes! Useful?--why, yes, too! But beautiful?--Well, perhaps ... he did not know.

At the top of the hill he turned and saluted the cold grey sky and sea and moor. The Four Stones were in harmony to-day: white, and pearl-grey, with hints of purple in their shadows--oh beautiful and mysterious world!

He went into the Bethels' to call for Mary. Bethel appeared for a moment at the door of his study and shouted--

"Hullo! Harry, my boy! Frightfully busy cataloguing! Going out for a run in a minute!"--the door closed.

His daughter's engagement seemed to have made little difference to him.

He was pleased, of course, but Harry wondered sometimes whether he realised it at all.

Not so Mrs. Bethel. Arrayed in gorgeous colours, she was blissfully happy. She was at the head of the stairs now.

"Just a minute, Harry--Mary's nearly ready. Oh! my dear, you haven't been out in that thin waistcoat ... but you'll catch your death--just a minute, my dear, and let me get something warmer? Oh do! Now you're an obstinate, bad man! Yes, a bad, bad man"--but at this moment arrived Mary, and they said good-bye and were away.

During the few weeks that they had been together there had been no cloud. Pendragon had talked, but they had not listened to it; they had been perfectly, ideally happy. They seemed to have known each other completely so long ago--not only their virtues but their faults and failures.