ooking
like a dead man, his long thin face pale with fatigue, his eyelids a
dull grey, his mouth tightly closed as though in a grim determination
to pursue some battle. And at the sight of him thus worn out and beaten
Martin's affection flooded his heart. He stood opposite his father
looking at him and loving him more deeply than he had ever done before.

"I will take him away from all this," was his thought, "these Thurstons
and all--out of all this ... We'll go off abroad somewhere. And I'll
make him fat and happy."

Then his father suddenly woke up, with a start and a cry: "Where am I?"
... Then he suddenly saw Martin. "Martin," he said, smiling.

Martin smiled back and then began at once: "Father, this isn't true
about Thurston, is it?"

He saw, as he had often done before, that his father had to call
himself up from some world of vision before he could realise even his
surroundings. Martin he recognised intuitively with the recognition of
the spirit, but he seemed to take in the details of the room slowly,
one by one, as though blinded by the light.

"Ah--I've been dreaming," he said, still smiling at Martin helplessly
and almost timidly. "I'm so tired these days--suddenly--I usen't to be
..." He put his hand to his forehead, then laid it on Martin's knee,
and the strength and warmth of that seemed suddenly to fill him with
vigour.

"You're never tired, are you?" he asked as a child might ask an elder.

"Very seldom," answered Martin, "I say, father, what is all this about
Thurston?"

"Thurston ... Why, what's he been doing?"

"He says he's engaged to Amy." The disgust of the idea made Martin's
words, against his will, sharp and angry.

"Does he? ... Yes, I remember. He spoke to me about it."

"Of course it's simply his infernal cheek ..."

Mr. Warlock sighed. "I don't know, I'm sure. Amy seemed to wish it."

Martin felt then more strongly than before the Something that drove
him. It said to him: "Now, then ... here's a thing for you to make a
row about--a big row. And then you can go off with Maggie." But, on the
other hand, there was Something that said: "Don't hurt him. Don't hurt
him. You may regret it all your life if ..."

If what? He didn't know. He was always threatened with regretting
things all his life. The blow was always going to fall. And that
pleasant very British phrase came back to him, "He would put his foot
down"--however--he was very angry--very angry.

He burst out: "Oh, but