s would buy.

The two were regular cronies for about a couple of months--that is to
say, between the payment of the preliminary deposit and the signing of
the contract for building the house. But, the contract signed, their
relations were once more troubled. Orgreave had nothing to fear, then,
and besides, he was using his diplomacy elsewhere. The house went up to
an accompaniment of scenes in which only the proprietor was irate.
Osmond Orgreave could not be ruffled; he could not be deprived of his
air of having done a favour to Darius Clayhanger; his social and moral
superiority, his real aloofness, remained absolutely unimpaired. The
clear image of him as a fine gentleman was never dulled nor distorted
even in the mind of Darius. Nevertheless Darius `hated the sight' of
the house ere the house was roofed in. But this did not diminish his
pride in the house. He wished he had never `set eyes on' Osmond
Orgreave. Yes! But the little boy from the Bastille was immensely
content at the consequences of having set eyes on Osmond Orgreave. The
little boy from the Bastille was achieving the supreme peak of
greatness--he was about to live away from business. Soon he would be
`going down to business' of a morning. Soon he would be receiving two
separate demand-notes for rates. Soon he would be on a plane with the
vainest earthenware manufacturer of them all. Ages ago he had got as
far as a house with a lobby to it. Now, it would be a matter of two
establishments. Beneath all his discontents, moodiness, temper, and
biliousness, lay this profound satisfaction of the little boy from the
Bastille.

Moreover, in any case, he would have been obliged to do something
heroic, if only to find the room more and more imperiously demanded by
his printing business.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THREE.

On the Saturday afternoon of Janet Orgreave's visit to the shop, Edwin
went up to Bleakridge to inspect the house, and in particular the
coloured `lights' in the upper squares of the drawing-room and
dining-room windows. He had a key to the unpainted front door, and
having climbed over various obstacles and ascended an inclined bending
plank, he entered and stood in the square hall of the deserted, damp,
and inchoate structure.

The house was his father's only in name. In emotional fact it was
Edwin's house, because he alone was capable of possessing it by enjoying
it. To Da