woman at least; I wouldn't rob her of her
little: fifty-nine or sixty next September, fifteenth of the month! with
the constitution of a broken drug-bottle, poor soul! She hears everything
from Jarniman: he catches wind of everything. All foreseen, Fenellan,
foreseen. I have made my stand at Lakelands, and there's my flag till
it's hauled down over Victor Radnor. London kills Nataly as well as
Fredi--and me: that is--I can use the words to you--I get back to primal
innocence in the country. We all three have the feeling. You're a man to
understand. My beasts, and the wild flowers, hedge-banks, and stars.
Fredi's poetess will tell you. Quiet waters reflecting. I should feel it
in Paris as well, though they have nightingales in their Bois. It's the
rustic I want to bathe me; and I had the feeling at school, biting at
Horace. Well, this is my Sabine Farm, rather on a larger scale, for the
sake of friends. Come, and pure air, water from the springs, walks and
rides in lanes, high sand-lanes; Nataly loves them; Fredi worships the
old roots of trees: she calls them the faces of those weedy sandy lanes.
And the two dear souls on their own estate, Fenellan! And their poultry,
cows, cream. And a certain influence one has in the country socially. I
make my stand on a home--not empty punctilio.'

Mr. Fenellan repeated, in a pause, 'Punctilio,' and not emphatically.

'Don't bawl the word,' said Mr. Radnor, at the drum of whose ears it rang
and sang. 'Here in the City the woman's harmless; and here,' he struck
his breast. 'But she can shoot and hit another through me. Ah, the
witch!--poor wretch! poor soul! Only, she's malignant. I could swear! But
Colney 's right for once in something he says about oaths--"dropping
empty buckets," or something.'

'"Empty buckets to haul up impotent demons, whom we have to pay as
heavily as the ready devil himself,"' Mr. Fenellan supplied the phrase.
'Only, the moment old Colney moralizes, he's what the critics call
sententious. We've all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us.'

'Come, Fenellan, I don't think . . .'

'Oh, yes, but it's true of me too.'

'You reserve it for your enemies.'

'I 'd like to distract it a bit from the biggest of 'em.' He pointed
finger at the region of the heart.

'Here we have Skepsey,' said Mr. Radnor, observing the rapid approach of
a lean small figure, that in about the time of a straight-aimed javelin's
cast, shot from the doorway to the table.

CHAPTE