at
you're excited about it. Sit down here and pretend to be a bit tired.
They may come and say lunch is ready any moment.'

'Dick, I never felt so good in my life! I should like to go about the
streets and give sovereigns to everybody I met.'

Richard laughed loudly.

'Well, well, there's better ways than that. I've been giving a good many
sovereigns for a long time now. I'm only sorry you weren't here when we
opened the Hall.'

'But you haven't told me why you sent for me now.'

'All right, we've got to have a long talk presently. It isn't all as
jolly as you think, but I can't help that.'

'Why, what can be wrong, Dick?'

'Never mind; it'll all come out in time.'

Alice came back upon certain reflections which had occupied her earlier
in the morning; they kept her busy through luncheon. Whilst she ate,
Richard observed her closely; on the whole he could not perceive a great
difference between her manners and Adela's. Difference there was, but in
details to which Mutimer was not very sensitive. He kept up talk
about the works for the most part, and described certain difficulties
concerning rights of way which had of late arisen in the vicinity of the
industrial settlement.

'I think you shall come and sit with me in the library,' he said as they
rose from table. And he gave orders that coffee should be served to them
in that room.

The library did not as yet quite justify its name. There was only one
bookcase, and not more than fifty volumes stood on its shelves. But a
large writing-table was well covered with papers. There were no pictures
on the walls, a lack which was noticeable throughout the house. The
effect was a certain severity; there was no air of home in the spacious
chambers; the walls seemed to frown upon their master, the hearths were
cold to him as to an intruding alien. Perhaps Alice felt something of
this; on entering the library she shivered a little, and went to warm
her hands at the fire.

'Sit in this deep chair,' said her brother. 'I'll have a cigarette.
How's mother?'

'Well, she hasn't been quite herself,' Alice replied, gazing into the
fire. 'She can't get to feel at home, that's the truth of it. She goes.
very often to the old house.'

'Goes very often to the old house, does she?'

He repeated the words mechanically, watching smoke that issued from his
lips. 'Suppose she'll get all right in time.'

When the coffee arrived a decanter of cognac accompanied it. Richard had
go