IV

The garden was certainly wonderful. The modern house, although it

had a well-designed south elevation, in which effective use had been

made of mullioned oriel windows corbelled out from the first floor,

was less successful inside--if the architect's intention had been to

give the impression of age and dignity. The decoration and arrangement

conveyed the effect of a really first-class hotel rather than that of

an Elizabethan Manor, or even of a gentleman's country-house. This may

have been due to the fact that it had been built in the late 'seventies

of the last century, a bad period for country-house architecture; or

it may have been a result of the exercise of old Mr Kenyon's domestic

taste in furniture arrangement.

No such indictment could be brought against the garden. It was unique

in its variety--full of contrasts and surprises; a place to explore,

and to get lost in, but more particularly a place that had a dozen

settings from which the seeker might choose a mood.

Arthur, finding new cause for astonishment and rapture at every turn,

was enthusiastic in his expressions of admiration. After French

battlefields, base hospitals, and Peckham, this garden seemed to him a

true fairyland.

Even the melancholy Hubert became a trifle more cheerful.

"Yes, it is pretty good, isn't it?" he agreed. "'Course it has been

worked at, day and night almost, you might say, for forty years."

"What happened to it during the war?" Arthur asked.

"Four of our gardeners were over age," Hubert said, "and we got boys

to work under them. At first, that is. We had some wounded Tommies

afterwards."

"You weren't in it yourself?" Arthur asked.

Hubert coloured faintly. "No, my grandfather got me a job in a

Government office," he said. "I wanted to join up, but he wouldn't let

me. I'm sort of steward to this place, you know. There are a couple of

farms and so on to look after. Not that I have much to do. However,

what I mean is that my grandfather made a tremendous point of keeping

me out of the Army, and it was rather difficult for me to disobey him

right out. He's--he's not altogether easy to handle."

"Bit of an autocrat in his way?" Arthur suggested.

Hubert looked uneasy. "In a way, yes," he agreed; and Arthur inferred

that a tactful change of subject was advisable.

"Have you got names for all these different parts of the garden?" he

asked, choosing the most obvious topic.

Hubert did not appear to have heard the question. He was frowning and

fidgeting; he had the look of a weak man trying to make an important

decision.

"You don't know him, do you?" he said. "What I mean is, you've never

been here since you came as a boy, and you've never kept in with us or

anything?"

"No, he's to all intents and purposes an utter stranger to me," Arthur

agreed.

"Just come down to have a look at us, then?" Hubert continued, with a

feeble affectation of sprightliness.

"Well, you and my aunt are about the only relations I've got," Arthur

replied. "And as Aunt Hannah wrote out of the blue, as it were, and

invited me to come down, I was glad of the opportunity."

"Oh! yes, exactly," Hubert said. "I can understand that all right."

Arthur was aware again of that sense of irritation that had come to

him when he had been trying to talk to Miss Kenyon. He felt as if his

cousin, in another manner, was also opposing him, was in some way

suspicious and inimical.

"Well what is it you don't understand?" he asked curtly.

Hubert smiled, with the placatory air of a dog that has been

threatened. He was standing with his feet crossed and rocked slowly

from one to the other as he spoke.

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing, I was just wondering if you wanted the

old man's influence for anything, get you a job as medical attendant to

anyone or something of that sort."

"Good Lord, no," Arthur returned brusquely. "Never entered my head for

a moment. Didn't I tell you that I thought of going out to Canada for a

year or two?"

So that was why these Kenyons had been unfriendly. They believed

that he had come down there cadging for influence. He grew warm at

the thought of that implication, and raised his voice slightly as he

continued:--

"Pretty rotten aspersion to make that, wasn't it, Hubert? After Aunt

Hannah had written and invited me to come down?"

"Don't see anything rotten in it. Natural enough," Hubert replied,

still rocking gently and looking down at his crossed ankles.

"However--sorry. There's no need to get excited about it." He looked up

and added: "Here's Eleanor. You haven't met her yet."

They had been standing in a little cloister of formal garden, shut in

by a sturdy box hedge, pierced only by two openings at the opposite

corners, and Arthur's back had been presented to the opening through

which they had entered. He turned with a touch of impatience at

the indication of Hubert's introduction, to meet this new Kenyon

connection--the orphan who acted as secretary to her grandfather. He

was not predisposed in her favour. Hubert had put a new idea into his

head by accusing him of cadging for influence. Was it not probable that

all these descendants of the old man were, in some sense, at least,

trying to "keep in" with him, trying to win his special favour for

their own ends?

But at his first sight of her, Arthur saw that Eleanor was different

from the others. There was something alive and individual about her,

she had not that effect of a slight staleness which the other members

of the family seemed to convey.

"This is Arthur Woodroffe," Hubert said, completing the introduction.

She gave Arthur her hand, regarding him, he thought, with a strangely

intent look of anxiety.

"I heard you quarrelling as I came," she said. "Rather soon, isn't it?"

She had a pleasant voice, with a musical, soothing tone; the voice of a

woman who would make a good nurse, Arthur thought.

"I don't know that we'd got as far as a quarrel," he said. "I confess

that my new-found cousin, Hubert, annoyed me rather."

Hubert raised his eyebrows. He had not moved when Eleanor joined them,

and still stood in that uneasy looking pose of his. "Can't imagine

why," he said. "Only asked him if he wanted grandfather's influence to

get a job anywhere."

Eleanor frowned faintly and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh! my good

Hubert, how unoriginal of you," she said.

Arthur was faintly perplexed by the adjective. "As a matter of fact,"

he said, "I was just telling Hubert that what I want to do is to go out

to Canada."

Eleanor's expression perceptibly brightened. She might have been the

recipient of good news. "How splendid," she said warmly, "to go to a

new and _free_ country like that."

Arthur accepted that statement as a true expression of feeling. There

had been a warmth, an air of admiring congratulation in her tone, that

enchanted him after the chilliness of his reception in the drawing-room.

"It would be rather a jolly adventure," he said. "I've got enough money

for my passage, and outfit, and all that, and I don't suppose I should

have any difficulty in getting a post of some kind out there."

She was about to reply when Hubert unhitched himself and remarking that

he had something to do before dinner, wandered aimlessly away in the

direction of the lower garden.

For a moment the thread of the conversation was broken. Both Arthur and

Eleanor were watching the departing figure of their cousin, and, as

often happens when a third person leaves a group, the other two were

aware of an impulse to speak of him.

"Poor old Hubert," Eleanor murmured in an undertone. "There's probably

nothing in the world he would like better than to go to Canada."

Arthur was surprised. He had already made some sort of estimate of

his cousin's character, and sized him up roughly as a "feeble sort of

rotter."

"Well, then, why doesn't he?" he asked.

"I shouldn't be surprised if he did," Eleanor replied, looking

thoughtfully across the formal garden. "However, I dare say he'll tell

you about it himself when he knows you a little better. You're--you're

rather _new_ to us just at present. We're so secluded here. We don't

very often see people from the outside."

Arthur marked that repetition of his aunt's phrase with a slight

sense of uneasiness. "Queer thing to say," he remarked. "Why from the

'outside'? Aunt Hannah used the same expression at tea. Sounds rather

as if you were all confined in a prison or an asylum."

Eleanor blushed and bit her lip. "Yes, it's a stupid phrase," she said

quickly. "I didn't mean it the least in that way. Only we are so--what

shall I say?--so self-sufficient. We've everything we want, nearly;

and--oh! never mind. Is this as much of the garden as you've seen?" She

led him across the little quadrangular enclosure as she continued: "I

should like to show you my favourite place, if you haven't been there

yet. It's just a little lower down, on the terrace, overlooking the

stream and the lake. And I want you to tell me about Canada. You're

a full-fledged doctor, aren't you? Aunt Hannah said you wrote from

Peckham. Were you practising there?"

As they made their way to the terrace she had indicated, Arthur told

her something of his work in Peckham and of his reasons for wishing to

leave it. He expected sympathy from her, but he found none.

"I dare say it was dirty," was her comment--his insistence on that

aspect had demanded a reply--"but it was work, real work. You _were_

doing some good in the world."

They had reached the terrace now, and from where they stood they

overlooked a croquet lawn--flush and smooth as a green carpet--bounded

on its further side by the row of wych elms and the stream. Beyond,

they could see the falling slope of the garden down to the shrubberies

that hid the wall; but from this point there was no vista of the rich

Sussex landscape without.

Arthur sighed. "I had had six years of it," he said, "and I had a sort

of feeling that I wanted to--to recover my youth for a bit. I wanted to

try something of this sort for a change."

"Of _this_ sort?" she repeated on a note of perplexity.

"I suppose it's impossible for you to realise what it means to me,"

he replied. "You've had it always. You think just because this is

what you're used to and perhaps tired of, that it's very splendid and

exhilarating to work in the slums. If you had had my experience, you'd

understand that to me this garden seems a sort of Paradise. You can't

appreciate the attractions of this sort of life unless you come in, as

I do--from the outside."

She was obviously troubled by that outburst. "And how long do you think

you could stand being shut in here?" she asked, after a pause.

"At this moment, it seems to me that I could stand quite a lot of it,"

Arthur said.

He knew that he was not saying the things she wanted him to say. He

could feel her longing to hear him disparage the delights of Hartling

and enlarge upon those of what she had called "real work." But her

very urgency made it impossible for him to respond in his present

mood. Also, he was aware of a curious desire to contradict her, even

to hurt her. It was, as he put it to himself, all very well for her

to talk about things she knew nothing about. He looked at her with a

new criticism, and her youth and freshness seemed almost an offence.

The whiteness of her hands, the spotlessness of her pale gray linen

dress, the clearness of her complexion and of her blue eyes, even the

lines of her firm, well-nourished young figure were all effects of the

protected life she had lived. It was not for her to find fault with him

for wanting some share of the luxury that to the Kenyons had become

commonplace.

"You surely don't mean that you would care to stay--to _live_ here?"

she was saying.

The little bark of laughter with which he replied held a note of

derision.

"Does it seem so extraordinary," he said, "that after five years of

dirt and disease and unmentionable minor tortures, a man should hanker

after a little cleanliness and comfort?"

She shook her head. "No, no, of course not," she said. "I didn't in the

least mean that. I'd like you to have a rest. You've earned it. It's

just that ... this sort of thing can't go on always. You wouldn't like,

would you, to stay here indefinitely, even if you could?"

He knew that he was being a trifle perverse as he answered that. "Too

good to be true," he said.

She looked at him again with that look of earnest inquiry with which

she had first greeted him. "If you really think that ..." she began,

and then stopped abruptly. "We ought to be getting back," she went on

in another tone. "Dinner is at eight. We shall only have half an hour

to dress. You'll see my grandfather this evening. He sent you a message

and I came out to give it to you, but.... However, he told me to ask

you if you couldn't stay on for a day or two; whether you need go back

to town on Monday? I'll tell him what you've said. Do you mind if I go

on? I have one or two things to see to before dinner."

Before he had time to answer, she was running back towards the house.

She ran lightly and gracefully, with the ease and vigour of an active

girl of twenty.

Arthur following, kept her in sight as long as he could.

"Rather a 'ripper,'" was the comment that came first to his mind. It

was followed by the determination to stay at Hartling as long as they

could put up with him--or he with them. In his thought of "them" he was

picturing the "crowd" he had met at tea-time.

Dressing for dinner was a delightful experience. Eleanor, whether

deliberately or not, had made a mistake in the time, and when Arthur

had found his room with the help of the butler, he had a full

thirty-five minutes in which to dress.

The first five of them were spent in a blissful revel in his

surroundings. He had a bathroom all to himself--a perfect bathroom with

white walls above a tiled dado of pale green that curved round smoothly

at its base to form a tiled floor of the same colour. The bath and

lavatory basin were of white porcelain with nickel-silver taps, and

the ample bossy towel rails heated by hot water, were also of nickel

silver.

And his bedroom was so bright and exquisitely clean. It was done in

the modern style with simple effective furniture almost devoid of

mouldings. The motive of the colour scheme was an unobtrusive blue,

taken up in the carpet, the faintly patterned wallpaper and the linen

curtains at the window. And from the window itself, the approach to

which was not encumbered by furniture, he could look out above the

shrubberies and the wall and catch glimpses between the trees of the

great swelling lines of Sussex, of the immense background and setting

of this jewelled Hartling garden.

He leaned out and sniffed the sweetness of the evening air. Twenty-four

hours ago, he had been in the midst of London foulness, irritable

with the grit and dust of a hot evening in late May. Now he had this

freshness and sweetness to savour and delight in. The contrast was that

between Hell and Heaven. Already his skin felt cleaner.

With a sudden whoop of joy he came back into the room and began to

strip himself. He would have a bath at once, and another when he came

to bed. Lovely hot water, nice soap, and splendid warm towels. Ripping

house! Would he stay as long as he could? Wouldn't he rather! He would

stay altogether if he had the chance. Lord, what fools these people

were downstairs, not to know when they were well off.

He was putting on his dinner jacket as the second gong sounded, and he

tore down the stairs just in time to join the straggling procession

that was crossing the hall. They had not waited for him.

He caught his uncle looking at him with a smile, and ranged himself

beside him.

"Feel pretty young, what?" his uncle said with a chuckle.

"Fairly fresh," Arthur agreed. "Jolly place, this."

"Yes, fine place," his uncle admitted.

Arthur, remembering that his uncle was the eldest son, and would

probably inherit the property, decided that he was a person to be

propitiated. Also, he seemed, on the whole, to be less inimical than

the others.

When they reached the dining-room, Arthur had his first sight of the

founder and head of the House of Kenyon.

He was already seated at the far end of the long, narrow table, and as

the family went to their places he watched them with a calm paternal

smile of satisfaction. Then, almost by chance it seemed, his glance

rested on the new-comer, and his expression changed to one of more

vivid interest. He made a slight inclination of the head in Arthur's

direction, and turning to his daughter-in-law said in a clear, thin

voice:--

"Hannah! Bring Arthur Woodroffe up and introduce him to me."

He called it an introduction, but there was, Arthur thought, a dignity

about the formal request that gave the function almost the air of a

presentation.

But here, at least, was no sign of that aloofness which had marked

his reception by the rest of the family. The old man was gracious and

friendly.

"Eleanor gave me your message," he said. "I'm so glad that you will be

able to stay with us for a few days. We must have a talk. I want to

hear something of your experiences in the war. But not to-night." His

smile had again that gentle, paternal quality as he concluded with a

nod of dismissal. "You must indulge the humours of a very old man, and

let me choose my own time."

Arthur went back to his place at the other end of the table, with a

faint sense of awe.

Mr Kenyon was certainly a wonderful old man. Arthur's mind reverted

continually to that thought in the fairly long intervals between

the snatches of polite conversation he held with Miss Kenyon, who

was on his right at the foot of the table, or with his pretty but

uninteresting Cousin Elizabeth on his other side. Hubert, who was

immediately opposite, was plunged in a melancholy silence.

But in what, precisely, the wonder of Mr Kenyon lay, Arthur was a

little uncertain. His appearance was certainly striking. He had

abundant white hair, not dead white like his eldest daughter's, but

with the smooth sheen like the gloss of a pearl, and with something

too of an old pearl's cream in the colour. His eyes were a pale blue,

with a hint of brilliance that was lacking in his daughter, who greatly

resembled him in many ways. But the queer thing that Arthur presently

disentangled from his analysis was that the old man, in spite of his

alertness and vigour, looked his age; looked, indeed, as if he might

have been any age. His skin was not so much lined as crinkled. There

were no deep furrows in his face, but the skin had the appearance of a

piece of paper that had been crushed into a tight ball and then partly

smoothed out. He seemed to have arrived at a stage in which he might

remain indefinitely. He had achieved a physical type of the old man. He

might very well look precisely as he did now, in ten, twenty, or fifty

years' time.

Yet, when all the effect of his appearance had been allowed for, there

remained a cause for wonder about him that had not been explained.

He was so amazingly self-confident and serene. With all his air of

gentleness and affection, he had some quality of supremacy.

Two things Arthur noted in the course of dinner, that gave him still

further material for reflection. The first, in so far as its immediate

consequences were concerned, he could not understand.

The older generation at the further end of the table had been talking

about Italy, and Arthur's uncle had apparently come to life and began

an enthusiastic account of the beauties of a North Italian spring.

He was talking, Arthur thought, surprisingly well. He had evidently

the eyes of an artist for colour. Moreover, there was an emotional

undertone in his descriptions that made them peculiarly vivid.

And then old Mr Kenyon, who had been listening with a kind, approving

smile, said gently:--

"I have often wondered, Joe, why you don't live in Italy. I feel that,

in many ways, you would be more at home there than here."

It seemed such a friendly, fatherly speech, but the effect of it was as

if his son had been brutally reproved. He coloured slightly, hung his

head, and went on with his dinner in an embarrassed silence. He had the

look of a man who was thoroughly cowed. His sister, Mrs Turner, who was

sitting on his right, also looked rather embarrassed.

The second observation was of another kind.

The entrée had just been removed when Arthur became aware of a curious

hush that had fallen upon the room. The service throughout had been

quiet, unostentatiously efficient, but now the butler and his two

attendant parlour-maids were moving about on tip-toe, and every sound

of conversation had ceased.

Instinctively Arthur looked up the table at Mr Kenyon.

He was leaning back in his chair, his hands clasping the arms, his eyes

were wide open, but stared unseeingly down the room. He looked like a

man in a trance; it flashed into Arthur's mind that he looked like a

dreaming god.

The servants were standing now by the sideboard, doing nothing. And for

perhaps a couple of minutes the progress of the dinner was suspended.

Every one sat in silence and waited until the dreaming god smiled and

leaned forward again in his chair. He came back to his world with no

sign of disturbance or shock. He was to all appearances unaware of the

interval that had passed. And immediately, with a quiet inevitableness

the subdued sounds of footsteps and low conversation crept back into

the room.

Arthur remembered the remark of the chauffeur who had driven him from

the station. What was it he had said? "It's as if he were sound asleep

with his eyes wide open." That explanation did not satisfy Arthur's

feeling for physiological probability. He wondered if it might be a

case of _petit mal_, minor epilepsy?

He looked round the table and thought that he could detect a general

air of demure resignation in the bowed faces around him. Ninety-one!

They were all remembering that the old man was ninety-one. Anything

might happen at that age!

He glanced across the table again and saw that Eleanor was watching

him. He smiled at her, but the smile with which she answered him had

no warmth in it. It was nothing but a polite response.

How jolly she looked in that soft white dress!

He returned to the enjoyment of his dinner, which seemed to him to

be the best he had ever eaten. It was a simple dinner: soup, entrée,

a saddle of mutton, sweet, savory, and dessert; but it was perfectly

cooked and served. The clear soup had had wine in it, and a flavour

that was at once delicate and strong; the entrée had had just that

touch of piquancy that gave one an appetite for the joint. And the

saddle was a joint to remember, so firm and tender, its richness

nicely mitigated by the new potatoes and green peas that accompanied

it. Arthur had a palate and could appreciate these good things. Also,

although he had had a limited experience of wine, he knew that the

claret was no ordinary vintage. It had an aroma like fruit. At dessert

there were magnificent strawberries. Arthur found a justification for

the theory that such things as new peas, potatoes, and strawberries

taste better in the third week of May than at the end of June. It

was, he decided, because they brought a foretaste of summer, and the

anticipation has always some exquisite flavour that is lacking in the

present reality. He was pleased with this conceit and tried it on Miss

Kenyon.

She regarded him thoughtfully. "It may be true when one is under

forty," she said. "After that, one prefers to live in the present."

He was emboldened by the claret to press the old psychological truism

to its conclusion. "And later still there comes a time, I believe, when

one lives chiefly in the past," he hazarded.

"It may come to some people," Miss Kenyon said, and glanced at her

father down the length of the table. She had an unimpeded sight of him

above the low silver dishes of fruit, that with their reflection in the

rich dark mirror of the polished mahogany were an ample decoration.

Arthur had not enough courage to name the exception she so obviously

had in her mind.

Over the dessert and the coffee and cigarettes that followed before

Miss Kenyon rose from the table, Arthur at last discovered a subject

for discussion with his cousin Elizabeth. She was, it seemed, an expert

croquet player, and wanted to play in tournaments. She grew quite

animated in her talk of the game, although her technicalities were

beyond his knowledge.

"I'll teach you, if you like," she said. "It'll be jolly to have some

one new to play with. None of the others are any good really."

"I expect I'd pick it up pretty quickly," Arthur replied with a touch

of pique. "I'm fairly good at those sort of games, billiards, and golf,

and so on, you know."

Elizabeth smiled the condescending smile of the expert. "It's chiefly a

matter of constant practice, of course," she said. "I generally put in

a couple of hours every day."

In his heart Arthur thought that croquet was rather a piffling game,

and had an inner conviction that he would very soon be able to give his

cousin a good match. He made an appointment with her to take his first

lesson the next morning. The Kenyons were not Sabbatarians. "No one

goes to church, hardly, except mother," Elizabeth told him.

Later he discovered another example of expertise in the family. Old Mr

Kenyon did not accompany his family to the drawing-room, and after a

few aimless minutes, in the course of which most of the family settled

themselves down to the same occupations that had engaged them after

tea, Mr Turner came across the room and asked if he would "care for a

game of billiards."

Arthur assented with enthusiasm. He rather fancied himself as a

billiard player, and in any case there was nothing else to do.

Presently he might get up a flirtation with Elizabeth, but the

beginning of that could very well wait until the croquet lesson. She

had looked up at him and smiled as he was leaving the drawing-room, and

he had returned the smile and waved his hand.

Eleanor, presumably, was with her grandfather.

His evening's billiards served him as an object-lesson, in how the game

ought to be played. After the first game, Turner gave him two hundred

start in three hundred up; a handicap that produced a fairly close

finish.

Turner admitted that he kept himself in practice. "Nothing much else to

do," he explained, "except get licked by Elizabeth at croquet."

"And what's your game?" Arthur asked Hubert, who had strolled in while

they were playing and had been marking for them.

"Play golf a bit," Hubert said. "There's quite a decent course about a

mile from here. I go over most days. Give you a game any time you like."

"Well, I didn't bring any clubs down," Arthur replied. "Had no practice

to speak of, you see, in the last six years, but I used to be rather

keen."

"Hubert is hot stuff," Turner commented. "Plus two, isn't it, now,

Hubert?"

"Three, since I won the last medal," was his nephew's reply.

"Good Lord! Why that's Amateur Championship form," Arthur exclaimed.

"Oh! hardly that!" Hubert thought. He appeared to be quite indifferent

to Arthur's admiration.

When he was alone in his delightful bedroom, Arthur made a reflective

audit of his day's experience. The balance he arrived at was that he

would thoroughly enjoy his visit to Hartling.

Miss Kenyon was rather a dragon--a cold, practical woman, probably

a very good manager, was his estimate of her--and none of them had

been particularly cordial to him, although old Turner had relaxed to

a certain extent when they were playing billiards. But there were

overwhelming compensations to set against this small discouragement.

He looked round his bedroom and drew a deep breath of contentment, then

went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. The window was open

and he drew back the curtain and leaned out. What a comfort it was not

to be overlooked, to know that there was nothing out there but the

sweetness and serenity of the night! It gave him a sense of freedom and

cleanliness, of being in touch with Nature.

But when he was in his bath his thoughts turned back to less æsthetic

compensations. The great and essential question of what he was going

to _do_ at Hartling, had been solved for him. There would be games, a

succession of games of various kinds, to be played with skill against

opponents from whom he would be learning all the time. (That old chap

Turner was a fair nailer at billiards! He played all his shots with

"drag" like a professional!) He would not, of course, be able to

improve his own game appreciably in three or four days, but with luck

he might be asked to stay a week. He would accept like a bird if they

did ask him.... He must try to entertain the old man when that promised

talk came off. He was evidently the boss still, in spite of his age.

The invitation to stay had come straight from him. He was an impressive

old fellow too, with a remarkable air of dignity and what one spoke of

vaguely as "personality." He gave you the feeling that he would get

his own way about things.... His eldest son did not take after him.

Rather a sloppy chap, Uncle Joe. His tie had been all round his neck

by the end of dinner. Funny the way he had shut up about Italy. He was

probably only a gasser, and did not in the least want to live there. He

would certainly let the property down when he came into it, unless he

had some one to look after it for him.

Arthur had a contempt for slackness. His opinion of his cousin had

gone up a hundred per cent. since he had learnt that Hubert's handicap

was "plus three." That was a form of efficiency. Melancholy-looking

devil, though. They were all a bit on that side for some reason or

another; looked depressed and bored, as if they were tired of waiting

for something ... except Eleanor. She was different from the others.

Different, but not necessarily nicer. There was a touch of the

schoolmistress about her. She wanted to do what she thought were the

right things.

Elizabeth might be amusing when one got to know her better.

V

Arthur saw very little of Eleanor and old Mr Kenyon in the course of

the next few days. They had lunch and dinner with the family, and once

or twice he caught sight of them in the garden while he was playing

croquet with Elizabeth; but on none of these occasions did he find an

opportunity of speaking to either of them. Meanwhile, he was improving

his acquaintance with the other members of the party permanently

assembled at Hartling; although further than that he was unable to

go. He had revised his first impression of them as being definitely

inimical, but they remained acquaintances.

His uncle and Mr Turner had come nearest to passing beyond the

limitations of polite intercourse; and the latter had shown an interest

in Arthur's plans for the future; had, indeed, discussed with him the

prospects of getting an appointment in Canada, and promised him two

or three introductions. But the point at which he and all the others

had drawn back, had been the returning of any sort of confidence. They

offered none, and put him off if he attempted any question. They left

him with the impression of some important reserve behind all their

treatment of him. It was as if they all shared some secret that he

could never know. When he was with them he could never forget that he

was an outsider, not one of the family.

He had even been aware of that reserve as a check upon the development

of his flirtation with Elizabeth. She at once encouraged him and kept

him at a distance. She might have been a princess of the blood,

amusing herself with a member of the nobility whom she might know but

could never marry. He had been definitely piqued by that attitude in

his own first cousin, and had tried to break down her defence, to claim

her as an equal and a contemporary. So far, however, that attempt had

been a failure. She had not apparently resented his overtures, but

they had not advanced his intimacy with her. There was some invisible

barrier always between them, a barrier that seemed to be essential and

permanent.

He was sorry because he believed that he was ready to fall in love with

her if she would let him. She was certainly pretty in a general sort

of way, with brown eyes, rather dark hair, and a fair skin that had

freckled over the bridge of her snub nose. And her mastery of the game

of croquet had been a revelation to him. He had realised on that first

Sunday morning how scientific a game croquet could be, played on that

perfect lawn. She was as much his superior, hopelessly beyond rivalry

in her own game as Charles Turner or Hubert were in theirs. Her tennis

was fairly good, too; quite as good as his own, but she complained that

she got no practice. Hubert played, but none of the others, except

Eleanor, who seldom had any time for games.

Arthur was taking a lesson from Mr Turner in the billiard-room at a

quarter to seven on Tuesday evening when Eleanor came in to him with a

message.

She waited while her uncle played his shot and then turning to Arthur

said:--

"Would you mind dressing early to-night, Mr Woodroffe? My grandfather

thought he might find a chance of talking to you before dinner."

"Ah! yes, of course," Arthur agreed. "I'll go now." He could have no

doubt that this was a command. Turner had put down his cue as if he had

been prepared for some such development as this, and took no further

interest in the game. Nevertheless there must have been still something

that he did not know, for he looked at Eleanor with raised eyebrows,

plainly hinting a question the nature of which she, presumably, could

guess; although the slight shrug of her shoulders with which she

replied intimated that she did not, as yet, know the answer.

Arthur pondered that exchange of signals as he dressed. He had begun

to wonder whether he might not find an explanation of various things

that had puzzled him at Hartling; in the desire of the Kenyons to

conceal a family secret. Was it not possible that the head of the house

was slightly insane? If that were so, everything could be accounted

for: their references to people coming in "from the outside"; their

half-suspicious reception of himself; the separation of the old

man from the family-life except at lunch and dinner; the constant

attendance of Eleanor.... Arthur was inclined to believe that he had

guessed the riddle, and resolved to be very observant during the coming

interview.

He was tying his bow when some one knocked at his bedroom door. He

guessed that it was Eleanor come to fetch him, and snatching at his

waistcoat, called out, "One minute! I won't be a moment." But when

he opened the door a few seconds later, he was amazed to find old Mr

Kenyon himself standing outside.

"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realise ..." Arthur began.

The old man waved aside his apology. "I quite understand," he said.

"Naturally you were not expecting me. May I come in?"

"Oh! please. Yes, do," Arthur responded. He felt embarrassed by this

strange mark of favour. He had pictured the promised interview as

likely to be something of a function. Was it possible that the old man

had temporarily escaped from his keeper?

Mr Kenyon had seated himself in a little chintz-covered arm-chair and

appeared quite at his ease.

"We shall be quieter here," he said with a smile. "Smoke if you want

to. I haven't smoked now for fifty years, but I don't at all dislike

it."

Arthur took advantage of this indulgence with a faint smile at the

whimsical reflection that the old man had abandoned the habit of

smoking more than twenty years before Arthur himself had been born. Mr

Kenyon apparently read the young man's thought, for he went on:--

"Yes, there is a long gap between you and me, Woodroffe. I was born

in the reign of George the Fourth. And I have no doubt that you find

it a little difficulty to realise that I still keep in touch with

present-day affairs."

Arthur, with his new suspicion fresh in his mind, was watching the old

man with a more or less informed eye, and although he could find at

present no least confirmation of his theory, he thought there would be

no harm in attempting a leading question.

"Do you really, sir?" he commented. "You mean that you can still take a

pleasure in reading about modern life, and hearing about it?"

"And in living it," Mr Kenyon said, with his gentle smile. "You must

not suppose that I keep myself shut in here. I often go to town in the

car. More often, in fact, than any other member of the family."

"You must have a perfectly marvellous constitution, sir," Arthur said.

Mr Kenyon slightly shrugged his shoulders. "It seems a commonplace to

me," he returned. "Perhaps because I have always had it. I have never

been ill. But I did not come here to talk about myself. I am more

interested in you. I want you to tell me something of your experiences

in the war; and then...." He broke off suddenly. His keen blue eyes

were intently watching Arthur's face.

"And then, sir?" Arthur prompted him.

Mr Kenyon's expression of watchfulness relaxed. "And then," he said

graciously, "something of what you intend to do in the future."

Arthur would have preferred to take the second point first. He had

already abandoned his theory of insanity. And it had come to him with

an exhilarating sense of certainty that Mr Kenyon intended to "do

something for him." When the old man had concluded his sentence, he had

worn the benign, generous air of patron.

"Well, you see, sir, I joined up in August, '14," Arthur began, meaning

to get the history done with as quickly as possible; but Mr Kenyon

pulled him up before he had gone very far with the brief outline he had

intended to draw of the main facts of his experience.

"Then you saw service in the trenches?" he put in, and when Arthur

admitted that he had, began to pose some very shrewd questions as to

the effect that terrible experience might have on a young man's nerves

and temperament.

"But you, yourself, came through without any permanent disaffection?"

he continued, after Arthur had let himself go a little on the pathology

of war-shock.

"Absolutely, as far as one can judge, sir," Arthur replied.

Mr Kenyon nodded. "I believe it is true, is it not," he asked, "that

the really normal man was not subject to these nerve troubles?"

"As far as we know, sir," Arthur replied. "It's the general theory that

in the bad cases of psychoneurosis, there was always a predisposition

before the man went out."

He would have gone on with a youthful pride in his knowledge to

elaborate the theory, but Mr Kenyon switched him off by saying, with a

change of tone that suddenly quickened Arthur's interest:--

"You are, now, a fully qualified medical man, I understand?"

"Oh! yes, fully qualified," Arthur said promptly.

Mr Kenyon nodded, and then rose and began to walk slowly up and down

the room. He had a silver-headed, ebony stick with him, but he hardly

leaned upon it, his back was not bowed, and his step was perfectly

firm. His figure and general activity might have been that of a man of

sixty.

Arthur watched him with admiration. It was almost incredible to him

that the old man could be ninety-one. And it crossed his mind that

his uncle might have to wait many years yet before he came into the

property.