are
funny." He was silent, but resumed abruptly:

"She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and there
we were." Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and, afraid that he had
said something painful, he hurried on: "When my little sweet marries, I
hope she'll find someone who knows what women feel. I shan't be here to
see it, but there's too much topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don't want
her to pitch up against that." And, aware that he had made bad worse, he
added: "That dog will scratch."

A silence followed. Of what was she thinking, this pretty creature whose
life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet was made for love?
Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would find another mate--not so
disorderly as that young fellow who had got himself run over. Ah! but
her husband?

"Does Soames never trouble you?" he asked.

She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly. For all her
softness there was something irreconcilable about her. And a glimpse of
light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain
which, belonging to early Victorian civilisation--so much older than
this of his old age--had never thought about such primitive things.

"That's a comfort," he said. "You can see the Grand Stand to-day. Shall
we take a turn round?"

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer walls
peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through the stables,
the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds, the rosery, the
summer-house, he conducted her--even into the kitchen garden to see the
tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop out of their pods with
her finger, and lick up from the palm of her little brown hand. Many
delightful things he showed her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar
danced ahead, or came to them at intervals for attention. It was one of
the happiest afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was
glad to sit down in the music room and let her give him tea. A special
little friend of Holly's had come in--a fair child with short hair like
a boy's. And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the
stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged for Chopin. She played
studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood
at the foot of the piano their dark and golden heads bent forward,
listening. Old Jolyon watched.

"Let's see you dance, you two!"

Shyly, with a false start, they began.