ful this is!' Cecilia thought. 'I never expected him to feel
it, and yet I can do nothing!' Hastily she asked: "Would it do if you
had Thyme to copy for you? I'm sure she'd love to come."

"She is my grand-daughter," Mr. Stone said simply. "It would not be the
same."

Cecilia could think of nothing now to say but: "Would you like to wash
your hands, dear?"

"Yes," said Mr. Stone.

"Then will you go up to Stephen's dressing-room for hot water, or will
you wash them in the lavatory?"

"In the lavatory," said Mr. Stone. "I shall be freer there."

When he had gone Cecilia thought: 'Oh dear, how shall I get through the
evening? Poor darling, he is so single-minded!'

At the sounding of the dinner-gong they all assembled--Thyme from her
bedroom with cheeks and eyes still pink, Stephen with veiled inquiry in
his glance, Mr. Stone from freedom in the lavatory--and sat down,
screened, but so very little, from each other by sprays of white lilac.
Looking round her table, Cecilia felt rather like one watching a
dew-belled cobweb, most delicate of all things in the world, menaced by
the tongue of a browsing cow.

Both soup and fish had been achieved, however, before a word was spoken.
It was Stephen who, after taking a mouthful of dry sherry, broke the
silence.

"How are you getting on with your book, sir?"

Cecilia heard that question with something like dismay. It was so bald;
for, however inconvenient Mr. Stone's absorption in his manuscript might
be, her delicacy told her how precious beyond life itself that book was
to him. To her relief, however, her father was eating spinach.

"You must be getting near the end, I should think," proceeded Stephen.

Cecilia spoke hastily: "Isn't this white lilac lovely, Dad?"

Mr. Stone looked up.

"It is not white; it is really pink. The test is simple." He paused
with his eyes fixed on the lilac.

'Ah!' thought Cecilia, 'now, if I can only keep him on natural science he
used to be so interesting.'

"All flowers are one!" said Mr. Stone. His voice had changed.

'Oh!' thought Cecilia, 'he is gone!'

"They have but a single soul. In those days men divided, and subdivided
them, oblivious of the one pale spirit which underlay those seemingly
separate forms."

Cecilia's glance passed swiftly from the manservant to Stephen.

She saw one of her husband's eyes rise visibly. Stephen did so hate one
thing to be confounded with another.

"Oh, come, sir," she heard