out, apparently, a regret. He had a sudden, astonishing community of
feeling with the older man; a momentary dislike of St. James,
Versailles, the entire, treacherous, silk mob. A lover at fourteen!
Howat damned such a betrayal with a bitterness whose base lay deeply
buried in sex jealousy.

"I am glad," the other continued, "that you are not susceptible; I
suppose you'll be off hunting in a day or more; Mrs. Winscombe is bright
wine for a young man. Women like her play at sensation, like eating
figs." He thought contemptuously what nonsense was talked in connection
with feminine intuition; it was nothing more than a polite chimera,
like all the other famous morals and inhibitions supposed to serve and
direct mankind.

He wondered once more about his mother, what the course of her life had
been--happily occupied, filled, or merely self-contained, hiding much in
a deep, even flow? Her head was turned away from him, and he could see
the girlish profile, the astonishing illusion of youth renewed. Howat
wanted to ask her how she had experienced, well--love, since there was
no other word. It had come to her quickly, he knew; her affair with
Gilbert Penny had been headlong, or else it would not have been at all;
yet he felt she had not been the victim of such a tyranny as mastered
himself. But, perhaps, after all, secretly, every one was--just
animal-like. He repudiated this firmly, at once. He himself had felt
that he was not entirely animal.

"The girls," Isabel Penny said, "will be gallopading now. Myrtle has a
new dress, her father gave it to her, an apricot mantua."

"He's really idiotic about Myrtle," Howat declared irritably. His mother
glanced swiftly at him. She made no comment. "Now Caroline! It's
Caroline who ought to marry David Forsythe."

"Such things must fall out as they will."

God, that was true enough, terribly true! He rose and strode into the
farther darkness of the drawing room, returning to the fireplace,
marching away again. He saw the white glimmer of Ludowika's arms; he
had a vision of her tying the broad ribbon about her rounded, silken
knee. "... a man now," his mother's voice was distant, blurred.
"Responsibilities; your father--" He had heard this before without being
moved; but suddenly the words had a new actuality; he was a man now,
that was to say he stood finally, irrevocably, alone, beyond assistance,
advice. He had never heeded them; he had gone a high-handed, independent
way, but t