prehend the rare quality of their
outlines and chalky radiance; to go up there by the ravine-like lane and
wander along toward Chanctonbury or Amberley, was still a delight which
she hardly attempted to share with Val, whose admiration of Nature was
confused by a Forsyte's instinct for getting something out of it, such as
the condition of the turf for his horses' exercise.

Driving the Ford home with a certain humouring, smoothness, she promised
herself that the first use she would make of Jon would be to take him up
there, and show him "the view" under this May-day sky.

She was looking forward to her young half-brother with a motherliness not
exhausted by Val. A three-day visit to Robin Hill, soon after their
arrival home, had yielded no sight of him--he was still at school; so
that her recollection, like Val's, was of a little sunny-haired boy,
striped blue and yellow, down by the pond.

Those three days at Robin Hill had been exciting, sad, embarrassing.
Memories of her dead brother, memories of Val's courtship; the ageing of
her father, not seen for twenty years, something funereal in his ironic
gentleness which did not escape one who had much subtle instinct; above
all, the presence of her stepmother, whom she could still vaguely
remember as the "lady in grey" of days when she was little and
grandfather alive and Mademoiselle Beauce so cross because that intruder
gave her music lessons--all these confused and tantalised a spirit which
had longed to find Robin Hill untroubled. But Holly was adept at keeping
things to herself, and all had seemed to go quite well.

Her father had kissed her when she left him, with lips which she was sure
had trembled.

"Well, my dear," he said, "the War hasn't changed Robin Hill, has it? If
only you could have brought Jolly back with you! I say, can you stand
this spiritualistic racket? When the oak-tree dies, it dies, I'm
afraid."

From the warmth of her embrace he probably divined that he had let the
cat out of the bag, for he rode off at once on irony.

"Spiritualism--queer word, when the more they manifest the more they
prove that they've got hold of matter."

"How?" said Holly.

"Why! Look at their photographs of auric presences. You must have
something material for light and shade to fall on before you can take a
photograph. No, it'll end in our calling all matter spirit, or all
spirit matter--I don't know which."

"But don't you believe in survival, Dad?"