ed and face the dark, with
Bruce Grierson's letter under his pillow, licking out at his temples
like a tongue of flame. But he had not taken the letter away all night
long. "Let it burn," he had said. "Let it find out who's stronger, me or
it. That's my way." All night long he had made plans, with his face set
toward the dark. When he got to the dining room that morning he went to
the window and stood there waiting for Sally, revolving one of the
night's plans in his head, deciding with how much force to project it,
how to hit the mark patly with it. "For I won't have him here at my
house again," Madeira was telling himself there at the window. "God! I
_can't_ have him here." He caught at the vest pocket above his heart.
His teeth were chattering. His daughter, with the roses in her arms,
entered the room just then.

As long as she lived Sally Madeira never forgot the way the dining room
looked that morning, as she came into it from the Garden of Dreams: the
dull green wall spaces, broken by some of her beloved cool etchings, and
by great walnut panels that deepened and toned and strengthened the
room beautifully; the old walnut side-board that had been her mother's
mother's; in the centre of the room the heavy round table, unlaid,
snowy, waiting for her effective interference; Madeira, her big handsome
father, idling by the window, his fine physical maturity cut out
strongly against the light, his deep chest, his great height, his wide,
well-featured face, his good clothes, the adaptability with which he
wore them; and on beyond Madeira, outside the window, the satin green
foliage of the pet magnolia tree. It was all finely satisfying. She had
tried her hardest to kiss the foolish gladness out of her eyes and voice
into the roses in her hands, but things grew so increasingly pleasant
that all her endeavour went for nothing. As soon as her father saw her
and heard her, he said:

"Well, Honey-love, are you as happy as _that_?"

She put her roses into an old blue bowl and went over to him, and he sat
down in one of the big chairs by the window and drew her to his knee.
Then they fell into a caressing habit of theirs, he with both arms about
her body, she with both arms about his neck, half-choking him with
tenderness, rumpling his thick hair with the tip of her chin. She
looked as much mother as child like that.

"What a big girl you are, Pet!"

"I have a big excuse for it, Dad."

"But your mother, now, was little,