n his father and
himself when he was young, and the lateness of his union o with Irene.

From where he sat he could see a cluster of apple-trees in blossom.
Nothing in Nature moved him so much as fruit-trees in blossom; and his
heart ached suddenly because he might never see them flower again.
Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die while his heart was still
young enough to love beauty! Blackbirds sang recklessly in the
shrubbery, swallows were flying high, the leaves above him glistened; and
over the fields was every imaginable tint of early foliage, burnished by
the level sunlight, away to where the distant "smoke-bush" blue was
trailed along the horizon. Irene's flowers in their narrow beds had
startling individuality that evening, little deep assertions of gay life.
Only Chinese and Japanese painters, and perhaps Leonardo, had known how
to get that startling little ego into each painted flower, and bird, and
beast--the ego, yet the sense of species, the universality of life as
well. They were the fellows! 'I've made nothing that will live!' thought
Jolyon; 'I've been an amateur--a mere lover, not a creator. Still, I
shall leave Jon behind me when I go.' What luck that the boy had not
been caught by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been killed,
like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the Transvaal. Jon would do
something some day--if the Age didn't spoil him--an imaginative chap!
His whim to take up farming was but a bit of sentiment, and about as
likely to last. And just then he saw them coming up the field: Irene and
the boy; walking from the station, with their arms linked. And getting
up, he strolled down through the new rose garden to meet them....

Irene came into his room that night and sat down by the window. She sat
there without speaking till he said:

"What is it, my love?"

"We had an encounter to-day."

"With whom?"

"Soames."

Soames! He had kept that name out of his thoughts these last two years;
conscious that it was bad for him. And, now, his heart moved in a
disconcerting manner, as if it had side-slipped within his chest.

Irene went on quietly:

"He and his daughter were in the Gallery, and afterward at the
confectioner's where we had tea."

Jolyon went over and put his hand on her shoulder.

"How did he look?"

"Grey; but otherwise much the same."

"And the daughter?"

"Pretty. At least, Jon thought so."

Jolyon's heart side-slipped again. His wi