he
cottage, singing rapturously of love and youth--so that presently, the
while she worked, Flamby began to sing, too.

IX

It was late on the following afternoon when the solicitors left Hatton
Towers, and Paul, who detested business of every description, heaved a
great sigh of relief as he watched the dust resettle in the fir avenue
behind the car which was to bear the two legal gentlemen to the station.
The adviser of the late Sir Jacques had urged him to keep up Hatton
Towers, "in the interests of the county," even if he lived there only
occasionally, and his own solicitor seemed to agree with his colleague
that it would be a pity to sell so fine a property. A yearning for
solitude and meditation was strong upon Paul, and taking a stout ash
stick he went out on to the terrace at the rear of the house, crossed
the lawns and made his way down to the winding path which always, now,
he associated with Don.

An hour's walk brought him to the brink of the hilly crescent which
holds the heathland of the county as a giant claw grasping a platter.
Below him lay mile upon mile of England, the emerald meadows sharply
outlined by their hedges, cornfields pale patches of gold, roofs of
farms deep specks of grateful red, and the roads blending the whole into
an intricate pattern like that of some vast Persian carpet. Upon its
lighter tones the heat created a mirage of running water.

Human activity was represented by faint wisps of smoke, and by specks
which one might only determine to be men by dint of close scrutiny,
until a train crept out from the tunnel away to the left and crossed the
prospect like a hurried caterpillar, leaving little balls of woolly
vapour to float away idly upon the tideless air. A tang of the heather
rose even to that height, and mingled its scent with the perfume of the
many wildflowers cloaking the hillside. The humming of bees and odd
chirping of grasshoppers spoke the language of summer, and remotely
below childish voices and laughter joined in the gladness.

Paul began to descend the slope. In the joyous beauty of English summer
there was something at variance with his theme, and he found himself
farther than ever from the task which he had taken up. Almost he was
tempted to revise his estimate of the worth of things worldly and of
the value of traditional beliefs. His imagination lingered delightedly
over a tiny hamlet nestling about a Norman church as the brood about the
mother. He pictur