, my dear; he need
never know."

"No."

He could not follow her thought. Then she said:

"Gratian condemns Cyril. Don't let her. I won't have him badly thought
of. It was my doing. I wanted to make sure of him."

George answered stoutly:

"Gracie's upset, of course, but she'll soon be all right. You mustn't
let it come between you. The thing you've got to keep steadily before
you is that life's a huge wide adaptable thing. Look at all these
people! There's hardly one of them who hasn't got now, or hasn't had,
some personal difficulty or trouble before them as big as yours almost;
bigger perhaps. And here they are as lively as fleas. That's what makes
the fascination of life--the jolly irony of it all. It would do you good
to have a turn in France, and see yourself in proportion to the whole."
He felt her fingers suddenly slip under his arm, and went on with greater
confidence:

"Life's going to be the important thing in the future, Nollie; not
comfort and cloistered virtue and security; but living, and pressure to
the square inch. Do you twig? All the old hard-and-fast traditions and
drags on life are in the melting-pot. Death's boiling their bones, and
they'll make excellent stock for the new soup. When you prune and dock
things, the sap flows quicker. Regrets and repinings and repressions are
going out of fashion; we shall have no time or use for them in the
future. You're going to make life--well, that's something to be thankful
for, anyway. You've kept Cyril Morland alive. And--well, you know,
we've all been born; some of us properly, and some improperly, and there
isn't a ha'porth of difference in the value of the article, or the
trouble of bringing it into the world. The cheerier you are the better
your child will be, and that's all you've got to think about. You
needn't begin to trouble at all for another couple of months, at least;
after that, just let us know where you'd like to go, and I'll arrange it
somehow."

She looked round at him, and under that young, clear, brooding gaze he
had the sudden uncomfortable feeling of having spoken like a charlatan.
Had he really touched the heart of the matter? What good were his
generalities to this young, fastidiously nurtured girl, brought up to
tell the truth, by a father so old-fashioned and devoted, whom she loved?
It was George's nature, too, to despise words; and the conditions of his
life these last two years had given him a sort of