ssed them softly, clingingly, over his hair,
forehead, eyes, traced the sharp cheek-bones down to his jaw, round by
the hard chin up to his lips, over the straight bone of his nose,
lingering, back, to his eyes again.

"Now, if I go blind, I shall know you. Give me one kiss, Derek. You MUST
be tired."

Buried in the old dark house that kiss lasted long; then, tiptoeing--she
in front--pausing at every creak, holding breath, they stole up to their
rooms. And the clock struck--Three!

CHAPTER XVI

Felix (nothing if not modern) had succumbed already to the feeling that
youth ruled the roost. Whatever his misgivings, his and Flora's sense of
loss, Nedda must be given a free hand! Derek gave no outward show of his
condition, and but for his little daughter's happy serenity Felix would
have thought as she had thought that first night. He had a feeling that
his nephew rather despised one so soaked in mildness and reputation as
Felix Freeland; and he got on better with Sheila, not because she was
milder, but because she was devoid of that scornful tang which clung
about her brother. No! Sheila was not mild. Rich-colored, downright of
speech, with her mane of short hair, she was a no less startling
companion. The smile of Felix had never been more whimsically employed
than during that ten-day visit. The evening John Freeland came to dinner
was the highwater mark of his alarmed amusement. Mr. Cuthcott, also
bidden, at Nedda's instigation, seemed to take a mischievous delight in
drawing out those two young people in face of their official uncle. The
pleasure of the dinner to Felix--and it was not too great--was in
watching Nedda's face. She hardly spoke, but how she listened! Nor did
Derek say much, but what he did say had a queer, sarcastic twinge about
it.

"An unpleasant young man," was John's comment afterward. "How the deuce
did he ever come to be Tod's son? Sheila, of course, is one of these
hot-headed young women that make themselves a nuisance nowadays, but
she's intelligible. By the way, that fellow Cuthcott's a queer chap!"

One subject of conversation at dinner had been the morality of
revolutionary violence. And the saying that had really upset John had
been Derek's: "Conflagration first--morality afterward!" He had looked
at his nephew from under brows which a constant need for rejecting
petitions to the Home Office had drawn permanently down and in toward the
nose, and made no answer.