s something about Lord Dennis which people did not resist; his power
lay in a dry ironic suavity which could not but persuade people that
impoliteness was altogether too new and raw a thing to be indulged in.

The two sat side by side on the roots of trees. At first they talked a
little of birds, and then were dumb, so dumb that the invisible creatures
of the woods consulted together audibly. Lord Dennis broke that silence.

"This place," he said, "always reminds me of Mark Twain's writings--can't
tell why, unless it's the ever-greenness. I like the evergreen
philosophers, Twain and Meredith. There's no salvation except through
courage, though I never could stomach the 'strong man'--captain of his
soul, Henley and Nietzsche and that sort--goes against the grain with me.
What do you say, Eustace?"

"They meant well," answered Miltoun, "but they protested too much."

Lord Dennis moved his head in assent.

"To be captain of your soul!" continued Miltoun in a bitter voice; "it's
a pretty phrase!"

"Pretty enough," murmured Lord Dennis.

Miltoun looked at him.

"And suitable to you," he said.

"No, my dear," Lord Dennis answered dryly, "a long way off that, thank
God!"

His eyes were fixed intently on the place where a large trout had risen
in the stillest toffee-coloured pool. He knew that fellow, a
half-pounder at least, and his thoughts began flighting round the top of
his head, hovering over the various merits of the flies. His fingers
itched too, but he made no movement, and the ash-tree under which he sat
let its leaves tremble, as though in sympathy.

"See that hawk?" said Miltoun.

At a height more than level with the tops of the hills a buzzard hawk was
stationary in the blue directly over them. Inspired by curiosity at
their stillness, he was looking down to see whether they were edible; the
upcurved ends of his great wings flirted just once to show that he was
part of the living glory of the air--a symbol of freedom to men and
fishes.

Lord Dennis looked at his great-nephew. The boy--for what else was
thirty to seventy-six?--was taking it hard, whatever it might be, taking
it very hard! He was that sort--ran till he dropped. The worst kind to
help--the sort that made for trouble--that let things gnaw at them! And
there flashed before the old man's mind the image of Prometheus devoured
by the eagle. It was his favourite tragedy, which he still read
periodically, in the Greek, helping him