dily into that corner, answered:

"Nothing, my boy. He's quite friendly. He only wants to be with you for
a little."

"But I can't do anything for him."

"He knows that."

"I wish he wouldn't, Mother. I can't be more sorry than I have been."

Kirsteen's face quivered.

"My dear, it will go quite soon. Love Nedda! See! She wants you!"

Derek answered in the same quiet voice:

"Yes, Nedda is the comfort. Mother, I want to go away--away out of
England--right away."

Nedda rushed and flung her arms round him.

"I, too, Derek; I, too!"

That evening Felix came out to the old 'fly,' waiting to take him from
Joyfields to Becket. What a sky! All over its pale blue a far-up wind
had drifted long, rosy clouds, and through one of them the half-moon
peered, of a cheese-green hue; and, framed and barred by the elm-trees,
like some roseate, stained-glass window, the sunset blazed. In a corner
of the orchard a little bonfire had been lighted, and round it he could
see the three small Trysts dropping armfuls of leaves and pointing at the
flames leaping out of the smoulder. There, too, was Tod's big figure,
motionless, and his dog sitting on its haunches, with head poked forward,
staring at those red tongues of flame. Kirsteen had come with him to the
wicket gate. He held her hand long in his own and pressed it hard. And
while that blue figure, turned to the sunset, was still visible, he
screwed himself back to look.

They had been in painful conclave, as it seemed to Felix, all day, coming
to the decision that those two young things should have their wish,
marry, and go out to New Zealand. The ranch of Cousin Alick Morton (son
of that brother of Frances Freeland, who, absorbed in horses, had
wandered to Australia and died in falling from them) had extended a
welcome to Derek. Those two would have a voyage of happiness--see
together the red sunsets in the Mediterranean, Pompeii, and the dark ants
of men swarming in endless band up and down with their coal-sacks at Port
Said; smell the cinnamon gardens of Colombo; sit up on deck at night and
watch the stars. . . . Who could grudge it them? Out there youth and
energy would run unchecked. For here youth had been beaten!

On and on the old 'fly' rumbled between the shadowy fields. 'The world
is changing, Felix--changing!' Was that defeat of youth, then, nothing?
Under the crust of authority and wealth, culture and philosophy--was the
world really changing