Well, I expected a row, but I didn't
expect it would be as bad as this!" And once more he was completely
puzzled and baffled by the enigma of his father.

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FOUR.

He did not hold the key, and even had he held it he was too young, too
inexperienced, to have used it. As with gathering passion the eyes of
Darius assaulted the window-pane, Darius had a painful intense vision of
that miracle, his own career. Edwin's grand misfortune was that he was
blind to the miracle. Edwin had never seen the little boy in the
Bastille. But Darius saw him always, the infant who had begun life at a
rope's-end. Every hour of Darius's present existence was really an
astounding marvel to Darius. He could not read the newspaper without
thinking how wonderful it was that he should be able to read the
newspaper. And it was wonderful! It was wonderful that he had three
different suits of clothes, none of them with a single hole. It was
wonderful that he had three children, all with complete outfits of good
clothes. It was wonderful that he never had to think twice about buying
coal, and that he could have more food than he needed. It was wonderful
that he was not living in a two-roomed cottage. He never came into his
house by the side entrance without feeling proud that the door gave on
to a preliminary passage and not direct into a living-room; he would
never lose the idea that a lobby, however narrow, was the great
distinguishing mark of wealth. It was wonderful that he had a piano,
and that his girls could play it and could sing. It was wonderful that
he had paid twenty-eight shillings a term for his son's schooling, in
addition to book-money. Twenty-eight shillings a term! And once a
penny a week was considered enough, and twopence generous! Through
sheer splendid wilful pride he had kept his son at school till the lad
was sixteen, going on seventeen! Seventeen, not seven! He had had the
sort of pride in his son that a man may have in an idle, elegant, and
absurdly expensive woman. It even tickled him to hear his son called
`Master Edwin,' and then `Mister Edwin'; just as the fine ceremonious
manners of his sister-in-law Mrs Hamps tickled him. His marriage!
With all its inevitable disillusions it had been wonderful, incredible.
He looked back on it as a miracle. For he had married far above him,
and had proved equal to the enormously difficult sit